ã€ŠNevermore/Enygma Filesã€‹


 Foreword

    ¡°I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.¡±

    J. B. S. Haldane

    Foreword

    The 21st century was the end of an era for the Earth. But it was also the beginning.

    Wars for water, climate problems, political conflicts, famine, and desertification, along with the loss of arable land, brought humanity to the brink of collapse in the second half of the 21st century.

    It was in the midst of this maelstrom of decay that something else was added to the long chain of misfortune.

    The strange events began so slowly that no one noticed them at first. All kinds of strange theories about the nature of the events were put forward. However, even so, the only certainty is that when humanity became aware of them, many were terrified and others did not believe what was happening, even though the events themselves were happening right under their noses.

    Space-time anomalies, accelerated evolution of certain species, mutations of all kinds, changes in parts of the planet, mysterious disappearances, and the appearance of species that had never before existed on the planet. This was in addition to the reappearance of others that had technically been extinct for millions of years.

    Science, to its own amazement, theorized that the phenomena were due to changes in the physical laws of the universe. And many scientists went as far as to say that it was even possible that the phenomena had been occurring since before mankind existed, as if it were simply a part of the evolution of the universe itself. Most would not listen, but they could no longer deny the phenomena when, not only on Earth, but on the first colonies on the Moon and Mars, the same kinds of strange and frightening events began to occur.

    They were called Dark Events.

    Slowly, but gradually, the different types of strange events began to increase, and then came the war that changed everything.

    The first contact never came from the vastness of the cosmos.

    It happened one cold Siberian morning in the year 2094. From that day on, normal days ended for the common human and aeon society, and the strange days began.

    It was a portal, a massive dark sphere floating hundreds of meters above the ground. From it came the species that nearly wiped out all intelligent life on the planet.

    Humanity. together with the Aeon, the first species of artificial intelligence''s that managed to obtain the rights of sentient beings, joined forces and intellects against the threat coming from another dimension. The strength of both species bore fruit, increasing the technological and war potential against the invader, but the capacity of the Fractus, such was the name given to the creatures, proved to be much greater than expected.

    It was then, in the year 2095, that they appeared.

    The Feys.

    Because many of them bore some resemblance to the creatures of ancient fables and tales they were called Fey.

    As it became known much later, almost all those who received the title of Feys, had been humans in some past era. But these people disappeared and were transported to some unknown place, due to some kind of anomaly caused by the Dark Events. Their entire existence disappeared, as if they had never existed.

    These people would return, after years, with no memories, and many of them would return with characteristics that had completely changed their minds and their physiognomy many times. And, some of them, showed abilities that did not fit into any canon of science.

    Many of the Feys had been the forerunners of legends of ancient times, but with the advance of the Industrial Revolution in the Ancient Era, many opted to live in hiding. That is, until the war with the Fractus drove many of them out of their anonymity and they joined the battle.

    And, only a few days later, when humanity was still in shock, something else appeared.

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    The Nevermore Institute.

    The Nevermore Institute, originally called the Nevermore Initiative, was created in the year 2050, by a series of founders of whom almost nothing is known today. Nobody paid attention to them for decades due to the strange activities they carried out.

    Its first purpose was focused on the investigation of strange and paranormal phenomena. Although, over time it developed research departments linked to all kinds of areas, from medicine to the production of resources in defense and aerospace transport.

    But what caught people''s attention was something else.

    The Nevermore Institute was composed of Feys, Humans and Aeons, which effectively established the first union of the three species to enter the conflict. It was a union that had been carried out in secret, since most of Nevermore''s staff was composed of people who had been affected in some way by the Dark Events, and many of them joined the ranks of the armies that sought to push back the enemy. At the same time, the different branches of the Nevermore Institute lent almost all the logistical resources at its disposal to help in combat.

    After five years, when the planet was almost devastated, things changed. In November 2099, the united forces of Humans, Feys and Aeons managed to close the portal-sphere through which the Fractus entered, at a great cost of lives that were lost in the final battle.

    It was when the portal was closed that everything changed.

    Technology had advanced so much. The application of the knowledge and resources that had been obtained during the war completely changed the planet. It was possible to re-clean the atmosphere and the seas. At the same time that reverse technology was able to increase the knowledge gained from the enemy to apply it to everyday life on earth, and in the extraterrestrial colonies to terraform planets.

    And so were born the shared neural networks, that would later become the Neurowire. It was no longer necessary to travel miles to be with someone if virtual life was almost as real as life on earth.

    With all this knowledge and more, it was decided that it was time to take a new step in civilization. The new era was called the "Singularity Age", at the same time that the time beyond 2099 would be called the Ancient Era.

    With all the technological knowledge gained in such a short time, although the cost would have been too great, there was one thing about which there was no doubt. A new step had been reached in the evolution of civilization on the planet and in the Solar System.

    Not only did the social order have to change completely, integrating the Fey into society, but to prevent something like what had happened from repeating itself, a new step had to be taken regarding the consideration of intelligent life.

    The new era was called the Singularity Era, beginning a new count of years that started from zero. Everything up to the year 2099 would be called the Ancient Era.

    The years passed. New wars and conflicts followed, though on a smaller scale. There were riots and demonstrations, but the lesson was learned. If they wanted to survive they would need each other, because, regardless of the technological advances, the truth is that the Dark Events never went away, they only increased.

    Distortions in reality occurred to such a degree that the science known up to that time had to be revised. New terms were born and expanded to study these phenomena, at the same time that new parameters had to be developed for the measurement of certain abilities and preternatural phenomena, that in other times many would have called magic. Among humans some of these phenomena were called Thelesics and those who could use such abilities were called thelepaths. Despite these terms, many continued to call these people with abilities as they were known in the old days: magicians or espers. However, the issue of language or classification was a simple matter of semantics with respect to the real problem.

    The Dark Events were here to stay and had modified the rhythm of life in such a way that there was no turning back.

    With the study of the Feys also came the era of pseudo-immortality for humans. A new advance that would not know its repercussions at a social level until much later.

    New organizations were born, laws for the integration of the new humans, the Aeons and the Feys.

    Thus passed the first 125 years since a war that almost destroyed everything, and at the same time changed the world.

    Today the Nevermore Institute, more than 175 years after its creation, has been transformed into a worldwide and extraplanetary network of agencies. Equipped with different departments of study and development, it continues to search for a solution to the Dark Events, studying them and trying to prevent future disasters.

    The agents in charge of investigating the different cases that arise belong to a special branch within the institute. This is the Special Investigation Division, or better known as SID.

    The cases that its special agents investigate in their travels have a special classification.

    They are called the Enygma files.

    Of course, that''s just one side of them.

    Extract from: The Hidden History of the First Century of the Singularity Era

    Anonymous Author

 Amalgam/ Prologue: The Message

    Prologue

    The Message

    Snow fell slowly over the Kolsay Park region that night.

    Silence reigned over those lands frozen by the long winter, as if the slightest sound was a provocation to nature. And yet, despite a cold capable of freezing the heart of the trees, a figure moved slowly but defiantly across the shores of the great lake.

    He was a middle-aged man, not incredibly old despite a clear deterioration that made him look much older than he really was. Even so, due to the darkness, it was difficult to determine what his real age might be.

    The darkness of the night had already devoured him when he finally reached his destination, and the man fell to his knees in the snow and mud on the shore of the lake. He raised a weary gaze to the sky, as if he was trying to see something beyond the dark clouds that hid the stars.

    But strangely, he was smiling.

    He didn''t mind his pants getting wet from the icy water, and he no longer cared about the snowflakes swirling in his hair and on his clothes.

    He was smiling as tears of joy streamed down his cheeks, his unkempt beard not having been shaven for days.

    A frank and sincere laugh burst from his cold sore covered lips. It was a laugh of happiness, like that of a father laughing at a joke of his young son, or like the laughter of someone hugging a loved one he had not seen for a long time.

    "I guess this is it," he said, smiling.

    He slowly sat up and stopped laughing, but did not manage to wipe the smile from his lips. With his hands trembling on the verge of freezing, he began to take off the warm red coat he was wearing. Not only his coat, but also his vest and warm wool sweater. One by one, he shed all his clothes, like a snake shedding its old skin, until he was naked. Some of his clothes were left on the shore, while some it floated away in the current of the lake. But he didn''t care.

    He wouldn''t need them anymore. He would not come back.

    He stared into the darkness for a few seconds and took a long breath. When he exhaled, he felt the cold leave his body. A new warmth filled every pore of his skin. He got down on his knees again and, in the darkness, tried to see his reflection in the water. It was so dark he couldn''t see anything. It didn''t matter. He knew the expression on his face in that moment.

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    "Record message," he said.

    He took a deep breath and kneeling before the icy water soaking his naked body began a strange message, that sounded more like a prayer.

    "I wasn''t planning on leaving a message, but it would be a bit stupid and selfish of me if I didn''t. You are my best friend and I don''t expect you to understand this decision but, please don''t look for me. I don''t want you or anyone else, to waste resources looking for me. I choose this of my own free will.

    "My life was not bad, and I am happy that I had the opportunity to enjoy so many things... To have met you and that we shared so many adventures... I think I''m going to miss your wife''s cooking." He laughed sincerely a moment, then continued.

    "But¡­ I no longer want to wake up every morning and see the world as we have turned it. There are many beautiful things still in this world, but we choose to close our eyes to that beauty, because the sight of our own mistakes is too painful to accept. B-because it is easier to live in a bubble of fantasy, full of vulgarities, than to accept ourselves. We are nothing but dust in the wind.

    "I-I decided that I would not close my eyes to that beauty, because when we do, we are as alive as we are dead¡­ and there is nothing here for me anymore, my friend. Nothing."

    "We are not what we perceive¡­ we live believing that what we¡­ W-we close the mirror of our soul by filling it with virtual things and empty to justify the value of our own existence and as a way of evading our own insignificance in the universe. Our own fatalism is our own consensual ignorance¡­ T-there is nothing here."

    As if glowing scarlet veins snaked across his skin, his whole body began to emit a faint glow.

    He swallowed to regain his composure.

    "They will say I was a madman, but what greater madness than that of a species that seeks its own destruction. A species that loves that which it hates, that hates that which it should love, that awakens each day only to fall into the lethargy of its own decay.

    "We simply live to the sound of a meaningless symphony, in the infinite emptiness of a mind that cannot hear itself¡­

    "I don''t want to be part of that. I want to be part of this. So, I''m going back to where we all came from. I''m going home. Live long and be Happy Amir. Bye, buddy.

    "End of message¡­ " He gestured with his right hand, pointing into the darkness.

    He slowly sat up and let his lungs fill up once more with the icy air, while the mists of the lake slowly advanced in his direction. He walked several steps deeper into the frozen mud and advanced towards the water until it almost covered half of his body.

    Again, he smiled and felt tears running down his cheeks.

    "I''m on my way home. I''m sorry if I kept you waiting."

    Those were Sergey Komarov''s last words, before he was devoured by a sickly red glow, borne from some cosmic well beyond understanding.

    Everything was quick and, like the flash of a shooting star in the firmament, there was no more pain or contradictions in his mind.

    It wasn''t more than a few seconds and everything went out again, leaving only darkness. There was no scream. There were no more tears. Only silence reigned again.

    The snow, like a ghostly witness and indiscreet accomplice, continued to fall, covering the final traces of Sergey Komarov''s life on earth.

 Vol. 1/Chapter 1: Midnight Talk

    Chapter One

    Midnight Talk

    March 15th. Thursday 12.30 A.M. S.A.125.

    Siren island. Undisclosed location. Somewhere to the west of the Canary Islands archipelago.

    The hallway was illuminated by the pale moonlight, coming through the large canopied windows. The place was enormous, with a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance architecture, which intermingled to create an underlying harmony as a whole. The symphony between the styles was completed by the nocturnal scenery. Outside the sound of nocturnal insects could be heard in the subtropical garden, with the most varied plants adapted to the microclimates of the place..

    But it was not the only hearable sound.

    The steps of sandals and the soft clatter of claws echoed in the long hallway in the middle of the night.

    The brown-haired fey girl, with her shoulder-length hair and pointed ears a bit hidden in the messy hair, sighed as she looked around and gazed at the night scenery of the vegetation outside. She was dressed in a crop-top and sleep shorts.

    The girl was being followed by a brown furry ball that, to all appearances, looked more like somekind of coconut more than an animal. But, despite its comical appearance, there was no doubt, it was a capybara. It ran at the girl''s pace with its little paws, while a small squirrel rested on its back.

    The doors of the long hallway were all closed at that hour, since most of the people who occupied it during the day were probably already asleep, or perhaps somewhere on the island, putting other business in order. The same was also true for the girl. Her working hours had already ended hours ago but, in spite of that, she could not sleep at all.

    She had thought that perhaps a walk through the long corridors and hallways of the huge place would tire her out more than enough for her to fall asleep. It was somewhat comforting for her, considering that she spent her days going back and forth between the different academic departments and traveling to the different parts of the island.

    While she had an educational position in the city, located in the center of the island, she almost always spent most of her time at the main base of Nevermore, offering consulting support to other agents. Or sometimes helping out in the hangars, when she was required to solve a problem for the technology development division. The calmness of those moments helped her to put her thoughts in order.

    It was when she glanced sideways and noticed that the double doors to one of the offices was slightly open.

    "¡­Why is Mai''s office open?" she wondered, stopping her walk and her strange, furry companions did the same.

    The girl walked the few steps and carefully pushed the door, stepping into the huge, darkened office.

    "Hello?...!!" Her heart almost skipped a beat when she looked up at the huge window and saw two pairs of glowing red eyes, staring at her from the armchair in front of the desk "Lights!" She said in a loud tone.

    The room lit up with a warm light, showing her the place she had entered so many times before. There stood the spacious libraries, artfully arranged, with file cabinets on one side and the other. The cabinets had glass doors, through which one could see all kinds of objects of the most varied types. Rocks, ancient artifacts, scrolls with maps in cases, swords and other weapons. All placed in perfect order.

    And above those cabinets a huge collection of bows with different designs were all placed in perfect order on the wall. From the most ancient and traditional, to compound bows for sport shooting. From the order of the bows, a timeline of the story of archery could be told.

    "Damn it, Tony! You almost gave me a heart attack," the girl said, making her way to the desk and sitting down in one of the swivel chairs in front of it. "What are you doing here?"

    A fey man, young in appearance, sitting across the desk, returned her a serious look. His eyes flashed red for a moment until they turned brown. His black hair was tied in african braids, that were knotted into a high ponytail. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, cargo pants and military boots. He had piercings in his right ear and on either side of his eyes were what looked like two metal implants. His lean but barely muscular body almost made him look more like he was used to office work, even though his clothes and body language seemed to say otherwise.

    "Just thinking,¡± Tony said. "This place has gotten a lot quieter since Mai returned to active service," he said, looking around, "and you, what are you doing?"

    "I couldn''t sleep," she said, with a shrug.

    The capybara approached Tony and jumped onto his lap, tossing the squirrel on its back to the floor. The squirrel scampered across the office carpet until it climbed up the girl''s legs. She took the animal in her hands where it finally lay still.

    Tony petted the animal, which simply rolled over in his lap and lay down as if it were a dog. "You miss Liz, don''t you?" Tony asked, addressing the animal.

    The capybara gave him a poker look back, then simply dozed off.

    "No, really. What''s going on?" the girl asked.

    "Nothing Oxy, nothing," Tony said, as he drew circles on the desk with one of his fingers.

    The girl named Oxy narrowed her brown eyes and smiled, pursing her lips inwardly.

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    "You''re doing that thing with your fingers, seriously, what''s going on?"

    He looked at her sideways, with a look of circumstance and sighed heavily. "Mai and Shin are in Kazakhstan right now."

    "What''s weird about that? Some big case?"

    "No¡­ it wasn''t in our records, apparently. And she didn''t want to tell me anything else."

    "Oh¡­ I see," Oxy nodded, wrinkling her lips again. "Well, Shin''s with her. You shouldn''t worry."

    Tony picked up the capybara, placed it carefully on the desk, then got up from the chair. "I think, the fact that she''s with Shin is what worries me a little¡­"

    "¡­" Oxy stayed silent as he continued.

    "So many things have changed in just a few months since he arrived. And now, Mai and Liz are going to be teaming up with him next week."

    "Which part are you worried about? That the three of them are in a relationship, or that they can''t do their jobs properly?"

    "Neither of those two. I don''t question Mai and Lizbeth''s performance to get the job done."

    "Then...What is it?" Oxy asked.

    "You''re his friend. Do you believe him when he says he doesn''t remember anything about what happened on the Other Side?"

    "¡­ I see where this is coming from. The council¡­" Oxy snorted, while she shook her head.

    "He was missing on the other side for over two hundred years and remembers everything he did in the previous years, but not inside. How do you explain that? None of us can do that."

    "Well, he''s not like us. As far as we know, he doesn''t remember anything prior to 1908 of the Ancient Era. And when he disappeared on the Other Side it was 1999. The reason he remembers his life before that, is because he was neither human, nor fey, in first place."

    "How do you explain then that he doesn''t remember anything from the Other Side?"

    "It''s the same thing Tony¡­ The answer is that he wasn''t from here to begin with, but¡­ the Other Side has its rules. The closest hypothesis we have is, the same one why none of us can remember anything about our time there. The Other Side doesn''t want us to remember the time we spent there."

    Tony looked at her with doubtful eyes. "I just hope you''re right. Mai worries me, you know she''s very prone to accidents. If what they have, they really mean it I''ll be happy about it, but you know very well what kind of person Shin was¡­ or is."

    "And that''s the very reason why I trust him. Come on, the guy was risking his neck for almost a hundred years without anyone asking him to do that. Him, Leon, Gehirn, all of them."

    "Yeah¡­ Leon who has his base in Antarctica and hardly wants to leave it, and Gehirn¡­ wanted today for crimes and who fled into deep space 70 years ago before he was caught..."

    "And yet, here we are. Without Gehirn''s money, setting up the infrastructure to create all this would not have been possible," Oxy said with a shrug.

    "Don''t get me wrong. Of course I appreciate what they did, but that doesn''t mean I don''t care why, and you know that well..."

    "Because of the Portal?"

    "You can''t ignore the fact that the portal through which the Fractus entered Earth in 2094 is very close to where Shin arrived in 1908."

    "Yes, I know¡­ but it''s not that close either"

    "The council is breathing down our necks. Today I received a new request for Shin''s performance report and legal just received a form for an R.I.D., which the three of them are going to have to fill out next week."

    "An R.I.D.? Almost none of our teams have one. Phil and Zi don''t have one and they''ve been a couple for years."

    "I guess the fact that Shin is dangerous and Mai is a war hero has an influence."

    "It''s funny that they ask us for data and to sign forms when we are not even recognized with proper rights because the obligation laws."

    "We have rights."

    "As sentient beings. Big deal. In this day and age, that''s almost like a fart in the wind."

    "Well, that''s what happens when you work in something close to the Council... yet we have more knowledge than most. Noblesse Oblige. It''s the price to pay when you have a skill."

    "Noblesse Oblige my ass. " Oxy stuck her tongue out with an annoyed look on her face.

    For a few seconds the two exchanged glances, until finally Tony snorted. "You''re right¡­ Maybe I''m just worrying too much," he said, trying to push his fears away.

    Oxy smiled and got up, leaving the squirrel back on the back of the capybara, that was sleeping peacefully on the desk. "That''s your problem, you think too much. But, hey! You wouldn''t be second in the chain of command if you didn''t worry," she said and gave him a friendly slap on the back. "Come on, let''s go! Lift your spirits, and relax. Let''s go to the bar and have a few beers tomorrow night. Then you should go with that beautiful redhead and have sex until dawn."

    "¡­ " Tony glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

    "What? It''s an idea¡­ don''t underestimate Miss Oxy''s advice," she said, with a theatrical tone.

    "Yeah¡­ I wish I was that lucky. Haru left to Langley this afternoon, I won''t see her for two weeks," Tony said.

    "Go to the hangar with the other guys, or go to La palma for some fun. Come on, stop worrying and enjoy yourself. Tomorrow, for sure, some new horror will have your full attention," Oxy told him yawning.

    "You''re not helping me much with that last one."

    Oxy smiled again and took the two animals from the desk in her arms and headed for the door again, but she stopped midway and turned to Tony again.

    "Regarding Mai''s case, you have to look on the bright side¡­ "

    "We just got out of the trouble of what happened in Australia some months ago¡­ what''s the bright side of her wanting to hide details of a case?" he asked, crossing his arms.

    "Well, look at it this way. If she and Shin end up screwing up, at least you won''t lie when you have to say you didn''t know anything," Oxy said, barely holding back a laugh.

    "Get out of here¡­" he said with a straight face.

    Oxy walked off down the hallway, smiling now that she finally looked like she might be able to fall asleep, leaving Tony snorting in Mai''s office.

    "I run an Elven kindergarten¡­"

 Vol 1/ Chapter 2: Unexpected Visitors

    Chapter Two

    Unexpected Visitors

    March 15th. Thursday 8.30 A.M. S.A.125.

    Kolsay Lake, Kazakhstan.

    "W¡­what the fuck?!"

    A loud thud, coming from outside the huge housing trailer, suddenly woke up the young soldier Ruslan and had knocked him out of his chair.

    He was wearing a warm white military uniform, camouflaged with gray and black, He had short light brown hair, the same color as his eyes. Despite having been awakened by the sudden noise, the truth is that the surprise was not entirely visible on his face.

    He certainly looked more annoyed than surprised, but his eyes looked as if he had an air of perpetual slumber or very low blood pressure. Although it wasn''t his fault, he had those sleepy eyes from birth.

    Barely two hours had passed since he had started his guard duty, and the fatigue he was suffering in the last few days had already made him fall asleep in his chair. He had been re-reading in his mind, once again, the essay he had to submit next month as one of the topics for his thesis at the military academy, when the sleep surprised him.

    It was not as if he committed a fault in his work by dozing off a little bit. After all, he was the only guard stationed at the entrance of the huge forest, and had lived there for a few months, with the exception of weekends when the relief went up, and Ruslan could go to the nearest town in search of some distraction.

    Visits were rare in the place, since the entire area had been depopulated for decades and nature had practically taken control of the surroundings again. With the exception of the occasional visit from academics and scientists, who came from time to time to carry out statistical studies of the area, Ruslan did not expect to be bothered by anyone else in the area. That''s why the sudden knock had startled him, but even though the area was almost devoid of human life, it did not mean that it was completely uninhabited.

    "Stupid animals!" He gritted his teeth and mumbled a curse as he sat up and picked up his cap, which in the fall had rolled a couple of meters beyond him. With his free hand, he made a few gestures as if tracing invisible lines in the air.

    "Save last updates," he muttered, as he put on his cap.

    He rubbed his eyes a couple of times and moved to the window with a frown, moving between the two desks that took up part of the place. The place itself was spacious, but the arrangement of the few pieces of furniture was a bit chaotic. Ruslan hit one of the ends of the desk on his leg as he passed.

    "Ow! Damn it!" he exclaimed, as he reached for the window.

    On the smart glass was the projected interactive map of the Almaty region and various data related to the weather, humidity, and terrain of the place. One side showed an image with the bust of a man rotating in three dimensions with the caption [Missing] at the bottom. Ruslan touched the smart glass, and, with a gesture, moved all the data to the side and looked outside.

    He looked both ways, but there was nothing to be seen but the snowy landscape on the other side of the road, and the security barrier that prevented access to the park. It was the same panorama that he looked at day after day, at his guard post in Kolsay Park.

    It was already mid-March, but apparently winter had plans to extend a little longer. Not as if that bothered Ruslan. After all, the weather was almost the least of his problems these days.

    I hope it''s not a bear. He thought, a little worried.

    The spectral white blanket of snow spread over the peaks of the nearby mountains, merged with the gray of the low clouds, sprinkled here and there with some of the dark hues of the forest''s huge conifers. It looked like a canvas on which the artist had barely made a few brush strokes, and then left everything abandoned.

    Ruslan searched with his eyes, but could not perceive the slightest movement The only thing he could hear was the rustling of the branches stirred by the icy morning wind.

    "SC, show me the last movement of the perimeter," he said, turning around and yawning at the AI controlled surveillance.

    A holographic panel appeared in the center of the room, projected from a device on the ceiling, with four monitors displaying the outside surveillance images. Ruslan walked over to the panel and set out to see what had brought him out of his peaceful slumber. But no matter how hard he searched through the camera replays of the last few minutes, nothing appeared on any of them, but the unremarkable everyday scenery. Huge snow-covered branches of the surrounding trees helped to hide the image on two of the cameras near the door, but he still should have saw something.

    "This is the third time this week, I should have asked to be transferred to Kandy Lake when I had the chance. At least there are hot springs there," Ruslan muttered in annoyance.

    He walked to his bed and took out a pendant with a small dark stone hanging from the headboard. After putting it around his neck, he fastened his military jacket and walked to the door, taking his rifle. He didn''t think he would find anything dangerous, but the last thing he wanted was that, when he opened the door, the first thing he would see was a bear waiting for a quick breakfast service.

    Tranquilizer mode.

    [Tranquilizer mode activated, four darts loaded.] Said a directional voice from the rifle, which only he could hear in his head, and he opened the door to leave.

    Outside the north wind was blowing hard and the icy blast, coming up the road, produced a whistling sound that made him grind his teeth. He raised his rifle and, in a ready position, scanned the perimeter of the trailer, peering cautiously around every corner.

    No matter where he looked, he couldn''t find anything at first. He was almost finished going around and coming to the corner closest to the door, when he discovered several footprints in the snow. He bent down to examine them. They were a series of huge hooves, marked deep in the front, with two slight depressions towards the back. The tracks crossed the road and were lost in the woods on the other side.

    "Damn deer, why don''t they ever show themselves?" he mumbled.

    He lowered the rifle and walked to the middle of the road. His eyes searched for some sign of the animals in the thick forest on the other side, but all he got to see was the mist coming out of his mouth.

    Is there something wrong with the surveillance program? Why didn''t they appear in the videos? Don''t tell me that after the drones, the surveillance system is also going to break down?

    He was looking at the mist when he noticed something and brought the rifle back up. It wasn''t as if he had seen anything that put his senses on alert, but his instincts told him he should. The sound of his own footsteps on the snow, the beating of his heart, and the brush of the movement of his clothes against the rifle seemed to reverberate through space, and he could almost feel the hairs on his hands stand on end.

    It was the sound.

    The wind up to that moment had been howling like a symphony from hell, but it had suddenly ceased. All was silence. Not the slightest sound could be heard. There were no birds chirping, not even the rustling of tree branches. It seemed as if time had stopped in a kind of bell of unreality.

    There is something there.

    That thought filled his mind for a few seconds. He couldn''t be sure where that there was, but he could sense something watching him from somewhere in the thick of the forest. The silence was almost premonitory, even if he couldn''t be sure what it foretold. He turned around, pointing his gun in several directions, but he still did not know what was bothering him.

    The truth is that every day that passed, he felt more uneasy in the place. It was no longer like in the first days when he was assigned to the post. The idea of a peaceful place to study and almost no sign of human activity no longer appealed to him. In fact, it frightened him.

    The sun had not made its appearance for a week. Added to the moments of tomb-like silence around the forest that occurred suddenly. The strange behavior of the animals, since a small earthquake occurred two weeks ago. All was making his stay in the place a little unsettling.

    Not to mention that several times, in the past nights, he had been awakened by a sort of sickly pink-reddish glow to the south-east of his position, in the direction of the great lake. The glow had bathed the horizon in a strange light for a fraction of a second only to be swallowed up by darkness once again.

    And there was the case of the scientist.

    That was the straw that had broken the camel''s back.

    It was likely that he was the last person to see him alive, a week ago.

    He had already started to retrace his steps to return to the warmth of the surveillance trailer, when he suddenly stopped again. He could not explain it, but the pressure he had felt up to that moment was beginning to disappear. It was as if what had frightened him at first was receding. Even so, it took a minute for the sensation to disappear completely.

    He could feel the wind slowly starting to come up the road, no longer recovering the previous fury but much softer. He leaned back against the support of the heavy automatic safety barrier to catch his breath and calm himself.

    "¡­"

    His hearing had improved incredibly in the last while, though the probable cause was due to the absence of familiar sounds from the city.

    He could have sworn he could hear a vehicle approaching in the distance. It produced a strange noise but, yes, he was almost certain it was coming from the road this time. It couldn''t be the weekend relay. That was still one day away, and he was almost certain that the search and rescue team would have given up by now, at least until the snow melted in a few weeks.

    The unevenness of the terrain hid the view beyond the last two hundred meters where the last gully was found, before entering the stretch closest to the guard post.

    Ruslan''s wait was not long, a few seconds later a black shadow appeared, slowly approaching along the road. He wondered if it was someone of higher rank to chastise him for something, but he judged it unlikely. Who could it be, perhaps a new search party from the rescue squad?

    "Show me itinerary and mail," he said quietly to his Neurowire.

    It was then that he opened his eyes in surprise and, despite being well wrapped up, a shiver ran down his spine. He adjusted his cap and stood at the side of the barrier that cut off access to the park, while he gulped to regain his composure. In his head, he was now re-reading the final lines of the communiqu¨¦ that had just arrived. He almost always received the same orders early, but this time there was a terse communiqu¨¦ with the seal of the Ministry of Defense.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    [SPECIAL ACCESS PERMISSION TO NEVERMORE INSTITUTE PERSONNEL].

    Ruslan read the document in his mind hurriedly, as he watched the shadow of the road come even closer. Interested as he was in what was happening, he hardly paid attention that even the twittering of some birds had returned to the place.

    The black shadow soon reached him and stop.

    It was a dark tactical car probably from the last century of the Ancient Era, but in a pristine state of preservation. Cars of that style were no longer made, unless they were for private collections or museums.

    Some of their agents use old models to get around, he recalled.

    Perhaps the rumor he had heard some time ago about Nevermore special agents was true after all.

    The blacked-out windows prevented him from seeing the occupants, which made him even more uneasy. Although the vehicle was almost clean, he could see large mud stains here and there. That was probably the first sound he heard, the road was not in the best condition and the snow could hide some pits due to the recent earthquake.

    "..."

    Both doors of the vehicle opened, and a soft female voice came from the driver''s side. On the other side someone else got out of the vehicle, but Ruslan didn''t pay attention to him at first.

    Ruslan recalled some old urban legends about the feys. Although feys were an everyday sight, and he even had a couple of acquaintances who were feys, he had never had contact with the Nevermore feys, who were rumored to be somewhat different because of their vocation of service to the institute. Although, just because they were from Nevermore, it didn''t necessarily mean that the newcomers were feys after all.

    Ruslan held his breath for a few seconds, and his eyes fell on the small figure of the girl with long red hair and skin almost as white as snow, except for her cheeks and nose, which were a little pink due to the cold. Her dark eyes contrasted with her skin and long eyelashes of the same reddish hue as her hair. She wore a warm black turtleneck sweater, dark pants, and a long coat along with boots and fur gaiters of the same color. On the lapel of her coat was a black badge with a raven with wings spread over a compass rose. Ruslan saw the buckles across her right leg and almost took it for granted that she was carrying a weapon, concealed under the coat. Despite her short stature, Ruslan could not help but feel a little awkward at the sight. That girl was really pretty despite being dressed completely in black.

    "Hello! You must be Ruslan, right?" she asked coming closer, while removing one of her gloves. Her voice did not necessarily sound authoritative, there was even something harmonious in her tone.

    "Y-yes ma''am." He nodded his head and trying to put on the most serious tone he could.

    "I''m the Special Agent Ritsuko Asami," she said, pulling out an ID from the inside pocket of her coat. "And he is my partner, the Agent Haruo Kenzaburo. We are from the Nevermore Institute''s, Special Environmental Control Department."

    Ruslan brought his right hand to his temple in greeting and, this time, his eyes fixed on a detail he had ignored.

    It was her ears.

    Her ears were unusually shaped, long, and almost pointed. Like those of those creatures of legends that he had heard when he was but a child.

    She was really beautiful but inhuman at the same time. She was a fey girl after all. Where did she say she came from? The environmental control division? Well, that wasn''t so bad, for a moment he had thought they were SID or FRT agents. The most feared division because they were in charge of studying the most dangerous Dark Events.

    The Special Environmental Control Department was one of the Institute''s divisions, although they were not in charge of dangerous missions or anything like that.

    The girl named Ritsuko Asami must have noticed Ruslan''s indiscreet look because her ears twitched in a strange movement and she raised her eyebrows, while putting on an engaging smile. Ruslan cleared his throat in embarrassment and, in fear lowered his hand from his temple and addressed her partner this time.

    "Agents, welcome to the Kolsay Reserva...tion..." began Ruslan, but he almost couldn''t finish the sentence.

    What the heck?! Ruslan thought.

    The image of the man named Haruo Kenzaburo could not contrast more with that of her companion. He must have been about two meters tall and one of his eyes was a strange cerulean blue with no pupil, probably blindness, while the other was black as night. He appeared to be young, despite the beard. He wore a trench coat over a black shirt and black pants, and his clothes seemed too light for the cold. His hair tied in a ponytail was black like the plumage of a raven, with some gray locks. Like his partner, he also wore a badge on the lapel of his trench coat. Ruslan could also observe, not without some surprise, that the young man was wearing an old automatic translation device in his right ear. It was strange, since the Babel program of the Neurowire system was in charge of instantly translating any dialog in the language the user wanted.

    What is this thing?

    Ruslan did not know why, but something deep inside him made him feel that, unlike the girl, there was something much more disturbing in her partner. His ears were also pointed, but somewhat smaller. He had a human form, but Ruslan did not know how to explain it. It was not his expression or that his body presented something abnormal, beyond the strange heterochromia. He simply had a feeling the man was dangerous.

    The man named Haruo Kenzaburo extended one of his huge hands, and Ruslan answered the greeting while trying to keep his serious demeanor. He was a soldier after all.

    "A pleasure," Haruo Kenzaburo said in a rough tone, squeezing his hand.

    "Special Department of Environmental Control, huh? I wasn''t informed that someone from Nevermore was coming this way," Ruslan lied, trying to hide the fact that he had skipped the official announcement.

    "Our AI''s sent the data yesterday, and we decided to come because we were close," Asami said.

    "I thought they would send someone from the national offices or the primary response team. I honestly didn''t think the Nevermore SECD was going to be interested just because of a disappearance."

    "Well...We''re not here just because of the disappearance," she said.

    Ruslan looked at both of them, slightly confused.

    "The lights?"

    The truth was that Ruslan had to report the sighting of the lights to his superiors. Apparently, they hadn''t paid much attention to him, since he hadn''t received any communication about it.

    "The lights, and the missing scientist," Kenzaburo said.

    "Is there something bad going on in the direction of the lakes?"

    Asami replied. "We are not sure, our alarms were raised by the case of the night glows that started a week ago, our thermal imaging detected some anomalies, but since we cannot access sharper images because the cloud cover in the area is too dense, the case information was sent to us by the local office¡­ and here we are."

    "You people, are not going to put the whole area under quarantine, right? The search and rescue teams didn''t report anything abnormal, and we have cross-checked information with the border patrol, but they haven''t noticed any abnormalities on their side either."

    "During the day, at least," Kenzaburo added, quietly.

    "Let''s hope not, we''ll see what we find," nodded Asami, looking sideways at her partner.

    "Do you have an updated map of the lake area?" Kenzaburo asked.

    "Yes¡­ " Ruslan pondered for a second "¡­ Well, no. Two weeks ago we lost the surveillance drone equipment. I''m expecting them to send new ones by next week. The most updated map is three weeks old, but there was an earthquake two weeks ago, and it possibly caused some movement on the slopes of the big lake."

    Ruslan traced some lines in the air with his fingers, then pointed in Kenzaburo''s direction. As if there was something even stranger about him, Ruslan looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

    This guy doesn''t have a Neurowire after all, Ruslan thought.

    "Yes... That doesn''t work on me, send it to her," the man said.

    "Oh¡­ ok." Ruslan this time pointed at Asami and gestured.

    "Thank you," she said after receive the file.

    "You were the last one to see Dr. Komarov alive, right?"

    "Yes, at least that''s what I think." Ruslan replied nervously.

    "Are there species in the park that can cause harm to a human?"

    "We have bobcats, foxes, bears, deers, elks, snow leopards, even rams can break a bone with a trumpet. We have no exo-species of any kind in the park."

    "Could he have been attacked?" Asami asked.

    "The forest is always dangerous, more so for people who are not used to it. But from what I was informed, it''s not the first time Dr. Komarov came here. Apparently he used to make visits every year to the park. Someone accustomed to spending time in the woods this time of year would know it, but¡­ I don''t know, the place has been strange lately."

    "How so?" Kenzaburo asked.

    "Well, beyond the lights, I can''t quite explain it¡­ It just feels weird. When I arrived the place felt better, and in the last few weeks I don''t know... It just feels strange. It''s like after the earthquake something has changed."

    Asami and Kenzaburo looked around the forest and nodded.

    "There''s no sound in some areas, and you can''t even hear many birds. We noticed it a couple of kilometers before we got here."

    "It''s like the forest goes to sleep from one moment to the next." Ruslan added.

    "The problem with things waking up is that we don''t always know how to put them to sleep," Kenzaburo said, heading back to the vehicle.

    "We''ll keep in touch with your superior, the Colonel Zejho, in case we discover anything," Asami said.

    "Are you planning to spend the night at the lake?"

    "The lights have been seen only at night so, yes, that''s the plan. We''re going to walk the last route Dr. Komarov took and spend the night at the lake."

    "There is electricity and water at the lake cabins if you want to stay. No one has lived there for over eigthy years but the maintenance system in the cabins is self-contained in case of emergency. I was there two weeks ago to pick up the broken drones, and it worked perfectly. The electronic keys to each one are hanging outside. The only problem is that the road is a bit tricky for a large vehicle. Before the lakes joined there were quite a few roads but, since people stopped coming, the vegetation has been eating those parts."

    "We have an aircraft system in the car in case we need it. No problem." Asami said as she returned to the vehicle.

    "Well, I wish you good luck agents. In case you need anything just let me know, I have orders to lend assistance for whatever you need." Ruslan waved then headed for the security barrier.

    Kenzaburo tilted his head in confusion briefly, but he got into the vehicle without saying anything.

    "Thank you." Asami said, with a smile.

    "Enjoy the stay."

    Asami got behind the wheel once more and waited for Ruslan to finish raising the security barrier.

    This time, with no sound other than the sound of mud under the tires, and an occasional pit in the road, the car continued on its journey. Ruslan followed it with his eyes until a couple of minutes later it was lost in the distance between the different hills of the road. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

    "So those are the Nevermore feys," he muttered, as he walked slowly back to his shelter in the trailer.

    The wind was blowing in crescendo up the hill again, but Ruslan paid no attention to it.

    Be careful of Nevermore feys. The words he remembered from other soldiers still echoed in his ears.

    As he turned back to his shelter, thoughts swirled in his mind. What did he know? He was a small town boy, he had never encountered a Nevermore fey, but maybe they weren''t as bad as the news or the mainstream media portrayed them.

    Thinking about it, he finally got into his trailer.

    If he had decided to go deeper into the woods, following the tracks in the opposite direction from where he had passed the deer that had woken him up, he might have found something else.

    Among the trees there was an area of land where the snow had almost disappeared. It was about two meters in diameter and almost formed a perfect circle.

 Vol.1 /Chapter 3: Cabin

    Chapter Three

    Cabin

    With a serious expression on his face, Haruo Kenzaburo watched the image of Ruslan projected on the front glass, through the car''s rear nanocamera, getting smaller and smaller.

    "What?" Asami asked, looking at him sideways.

    "Do I have something on my face?" He asked running his hand over his bearded chin.

    She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, trying not to take her eyes off the road too much.

    "That soldier, he looked at me as if he had seen through the camouflage, almost as if he had seen my armor. Weird, kiddo."

    "You weren''t trying to scare him?"

    "No. Why would I be trying to scare him? What kind of person do you think I am?"

    "Maybe he saw something weird on you."

    "Unless he has x-ray vision, I''m not sure what he might have seen."

    She ran her hand over his chin and smiled.

    ¡°I like that beard, it''s cute,¡± she teased. Asami took a quick glance in the rearview mirror but Ruslan had already disappeared. She then touched the badge on the lapel of her coat. Her partner did the same on his trench coat badge.

    "Deactivate optical camouflage," both said in unison.

    The once fire-red hair was replaced by an albino shade of silver, and the straight hairstyle, was transformed into much longer and messier hair from which a few strands were sticking up. The same happened to her eyebrows and eyelashes, which changed to the same shade as her hair and her eyes acquired an emerald green tone.

    Her partner underwent the same transformation, although less striking. His beard disappeared, and his hair grew a few centimeters, at the same time his face seemed to acquire a younger tone than it had exhibited until just a few moments ago. The left black eye changed to a yellow amber color, but the other eye with its strange pupil-less color remained unchanged.

    The fey girl''s name was Mai, a special agent from the Nevermore Institute''s Special Investigation Division. Also knows as the SID.

    His partner''s name was Shin, also an agent of the same division. Although his circumstances in the division were very different from those of his partner Mai.

    "That soldier, he didn''t know anything, did he? He wasn''t informed of anything?" Shin asked.

    "No, maybe it''s for the best. The fewer people who know we''re here the better."

    "Better for who? By the way, I don''t know if you noticed but, he lied to us. He said he had no news that someone from Nevermore was coming but when he said goodbye he also said, I have orders to lend you help for whatever you need."

    "Good point, but come on. He''s a young soldier in the middle of nowhere, the last thing you''d expect is for someone from Nevermore to come up here."

    "Yeah, I just hope he don''t blow our cover or you''re going to be in trouble."

    "I''m used to it." Mai smiled slightly at him and sighed, but turned her attention back to the road.

    While she was driving carefully, there were parts still covered in snow and the road was shifting quite worryingly. In several sections, she had to make, detours almost going deep into the forest due to landslides.

    "That earthquake wasn''t as small as it looks." Shin said.

    They both remained silent for a few minutes, watching as the landscape began to become wilder and wilder, with the branches of some trees even crisscrossing the road, and they passed through areas where some sort of natural tunnels had been created. The paved road ended almost abruptly, and they entered a muddy road, patched largely by snow, that exhibited almost no sign that anyone had passed that way recently, except for some large vehicle tracks etched into the mud.

    "Those tracks have to be from the rescue teams that were here before us."

    "I don''t blame them for not continuing the search, the road is bad, even though the place is beautiful," Mai said.

    "Have you been around here before?" Shin asked.

    "No, have you?"

    "Nah, I''ve been to this country before, but never this part."

    Mai drove in silence the next few miles to the lake and Shin, for his part, was distracted, looking to both sides of the road as if searching for something in the trees.

    The winding uphill road had turned white again in the last part that separated them from their destination. A few minutes later Mai, parked in the glade of a hill, next to another much smaller abandoned vehicle, and from there they admired the postcard of the great lake whose mirror of water was lost several kilometers into the mountains.

    Originally, in the Ancient Era of the 20th and 21st centuries, that area had been composed of three lakes.

    The Upper Kolsay, located to the south and the farthest, bordering Kyrgyzstan. The Middle Kolsay was originally the largest of the three; and the Lower Kolsay. Earthquakes in the area, together with climate change, had made it possible for both the Middle and Lower Kolsay to be joined by an extensive arm of water, altering the already changing orography of the place. And despite the recent earthquake that had moved enormous amounts of earth, the view was still breathtaking.

    Mai and Shin got out of the car once more to see the extensive landscape. At the foot of the hill, and a few meters from the lake, they could see the group of cabins that Ruslan had told them about. The water was so clear that they could even see the remains of the old buildings that had been swallowed by the waters, when the lakes were connected, as well as the remains of a sunken pier.

    In some parts of the shore they could see several logs that had sunk with the displacement of land and, in other parts, older remains of logs that due to the low temperature of the lake had been preserved over the years and formed a kind of natural border. The lake area had been formed by earthquakes in the beginning so, it was not strange that many times the trees around it ended up reaching the lake.

    Mai walked forward a couple of meters and looked down.

    "I think it would be best if we flew the last part of the path. I''m not sure how the road is under the snow," she said and turned to look at her partner.

    Shin, leaning against the vehicle with a strange expression, looked in her direction.

    "What''s wrong?" Mai asked.

    He approached the other abandoned vehicle. That one had an oval shape that Shin thought of as a transparent egg with wheels. Shin saw the stickers on the side of the vehicle, showing that it belonged to a car rental agency. He looked inside and simply saw that there appeared to be no belongings of any kind.

    "How far is it from here to the place where the neural signal was lost?" He asked while looking at Mai.

    She looked in the direction where the lake disappeared, and after a few seconds answered, "8.5 kilometers."

    "That''s quite a bit to walk under the snow and without any luggage."

    "Yeah, I don''t like it."

    "Me neither. I mean, you know we''re not going to find him alive, right?"

    "Yeah..." Mai said, gloomily.

    For several minutes they both searched the abandoned vehicle but, just as the search team had reported, they were unable to find any clues as to what had become of its occupant.

    They walked silently back inside the vehicle.

    Inside Mai made some signs on the front glass of the vehicle and instantly the glass became a little darker. At the same time, it began to project a series of images and a three-dimensional map of the region. Shin picked up a strange book from the back seat and opened it at random to one of the white pages. He traced the word Komarov with his fingers. Almost instantly a series of printed folders began to appear on the pages, linked by a system of nodes.

    Mai moved her fingers across the glass, over several nodes of what looked like file folders. She extracted one of them and placed it on the three-dimensional wireframe map. Instantly, it changed its location until the image was superimposed as an almost exact copy of the landscape seen through the glass in augmented reality. A second later a red line was drawn showing a path that was lost in the thicket of the forest following the lakeshore.

    "That''s Dr. Sergey Komarov''s last path." Mai said with a serious look.

    She started the vehicle again, but this time a metallic hum was heard, and parts of the car changed and transfigured into something else.

    The car lifted several centimeters in the air, and the body changed its shape, lowering the profile. The wheels were hidden inside, covered by a new plate, while the front metal of the fender and part of the bumper extended forward, as if they were freeing themselves from some kind of structure they had compressed inside.

    A few seconds later it had almost taken on a slightly more aerodynamic shape and was soaring through the air, several meters above the trees, following the red line projected on the glass.

    Shin searched through the nodes floating on the pages of his book, until he found an image.

    ¡°With the filters this thing looks better,¡± Shin said, looking at Mai.

    "You think the colonel doesn''t know that?"

    "Yes, I suppose so. If they were that close, it must have been a pain to see this."

    It showed the dark reflection of the face of a middle age man with disheveled hair and a several days unshaved beard on the water. Shin ran a finger over the image and it began to play a video.

    [I wasn''t planning on leaving a message, but it would be a bit stupid and selfish of me if I didn''t. You are my best friend and I don''t expect you to understand this decision, but please don''t look for me. I don''t want you or anyone else, to waste resources looking for me. I choose this of my own free will.

    [My life was not bad, and I am happy that I had the opportunity to enjoy so many things... To have met you and that we shared so many adventures... I think I''m going to miss your wife''s cooking.

    [But... I no longer want to wake up every morning and see the world as we have turned it. There are many beautiful things still in this world, but we choose to close our eyes to that beauty, because the sight of our own mistakes is too painful to accept. B-because it is easier to live in a bubble of fantasy, full of vulgarities, than to accept ourselves. We are nothing but dust in the wind.

    [I-I decided that I would not close my eyes to that beauty, because when we do we are as alive as we are dead¡­ and there is nothing here for me anymore, my friend. Nothing.

    [We are not what we perceive...we live believing that what we... W-we close the mirror of our soul by filling it with virtual things and empty to justify the value of our own existence and as a way of evading our own insignificance in the universe. Our own fatalism is our own consensual ignorance... T-there is nothing here."

    [They will say I was a madman, but what greater madness than that of a species that seeks its own destruction. A species that loves that which it hates, that hates that which it should love, that awakens each day only to fall into the lethargy of its own decay.

    [We simply live to the sound of a meaningless symphony, in the infinite emptiness of a mind that cannot hear itself¡­

    [I don''t want to be part of that. I want to be part of this. So I''m going back to where we all came from. I''m going home.

    [Live long and be happy Amir.

    [Bye buddy.]

    I want to be a part of this. Shin thought about those words.

    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    The video ended abruptly at the last sentence and Shin snorted. "The madhouse is empty, and all the nuts are here."

    Mai glanced sideways at him, as Shin closed the book once more.

    "At the cabin, I''m going to need a few hours to get some things in order, so I''m going online," she said.

    "Office work?"

    "Not exactly, I''m an expert witness in a case from a few years ago, the trial started just now, and Aria was digging up the files of the case."

    "No problem, I''ll be going through the data, when you get back we can do a perimeter around it or I can do it myself."

    "No, no one is going to do anything alone... Komarov was alone. Until we know what is going on here no one is going anywhere alone," Mai said in a leisurely voice.

    The car continued its run in automatic mode following the red line. Shin turned his attention back to the forest beneath his feet until something caught his attention."Are you seeing that?"

    "What?"

    "The trees. Look down."

    Mai looked down. She didn''t know what Shin was referring to at first, but after looking around a bit, she began to realize it. Dotted, here and there, some trees stood out from the others, because they didn''t have any snow on them. Although it did not seem to be due to thawing. In fact their color was almost so black that Shin thought they were probably burned from the base.

    "They are only the ones near the lake. It doesn''t extend more than fifty meters from the shore," he said.

    "Are they burned?"

    "I''m not sure. We''ll have to check it later."

    The body of water narrowed after a few minutes. They were passing through the area that joined the two lakes. The landscape didn''t change much despite that, but they had the opportunity to see parts of the terrain free of snow due to the earthworks. Several fallen trees on that part had been transformed into a kind of natural dam for the raging water coming down from the mountain, in a south-north direction.

    Had it not been for the fact that they were working, they would both have enjoyed the view, which, although gray, offered an incredible panoramic view.

    Once they crossed the narrower passage, they entered a mirror of water much larger than the first lake, surrounded by the same crystal clear water with a slight turquoise hue, which could be seen with total clarity several meters from the shore before being lost again in the darkness of the central lake.

    The red line that indicated the path ended about 300 meters beyond the entrance and Mai saw how three yellow dots appeared on the map, almost three kilometers beyond the end of the line. A minute later three small buildings appeared.

    "Those are the cabins," she said.

    "This guy took a long way here. No vehicle, no food, nothing in the middle of the snow. What were all these people doing in the woods all these years?"

    "Search and rescue teams made it this far, but the trail disappears down the shore."

    "That must have been the site where he recorded the video. Where is it that the other bodies were discovered?"

    "There. We''ll have to look at that one too." Mai said looking to her left and pointed to a spot ahead hidden in the trees on the other side of the lake.

    "We''ll have to cross over that dam back there, unless you want to take the car."

    "No car. We''re looking for a body, remember?"

    "¡­ Yeah." Shin snorted.

    "Don''t ever say I''m not taking you anywhere."

    "¡­ Nothing like a romantic evening looking for a corpse under the snow.¡±

    The car slowly descended over the area of the cabins, positioning itself near the largest building.

    Shin took the badge from the lapel of his trench coat and placed it on his shirt at his right side. Almost instantly, as if it were a kind of spider, buckles sprouted from four sides of the badge and transformed into what looked like a tactical shoulder holster. He opened the glove compartment and took out a black pistol. He made sure it was loaded and put it in its holster.

    They both got out and, as the vehicle reconfigured back to a normal car, Shin looked around again.

    "I can hardly believe that places like this are abandoned and still in perfect condition."

    "Does it still surprise you? How many abandoned cities we''ve passed through and slept in these months."

    "Yeah... well, I don''t think we''re going to have any fun here. Or are we?"

    Mai looked at him sideways. "Don''t be kinky."

    "I didn''t say anything¡­"

    Mai puffed her lips into a pout and looked at the cabin.

    Certainly, the cabin offered a perfect lake view, with wide windows through which plenty of daylight came in and. Although some signs of neglect could be seen in the chipped paint in some parts, and that other parts nature was eating away at the building, it didn''t look abandoned at all.

    "They look great, to be honest," Shin observed.

    "The materials are better than those of our time, they last longer. Probably even without maintenance this place could last another 300 years before it starts falling apart."

    Shin turned to the lake and wrinkled his nose.

    "There''s no hot springs nearby... or volcanoes, right?"

    "No, why?"

    "Can you smell that?"

    Mai looked at him with a questioning look and took a deep breath. "That''s disgusting. You''re a pig," she sentenced with a disapproving look.

    "It''s not me, it''s in the air," Shin told her with a laugh, but his face showed almost a grimace as if he found it hard to smile.

    They checked around a bit, but there were no signs that anyone had been in the area recently.

    They climbed the few steps leading up to the main cabin and Shin stopped to watch as a vermiform, rooted-looking plant climbed up some parts of the cabin walls. He couldn''t identify them but moving closer to look at the thicker ones he noticed that they gave off a foul smell almost like rotting flesh.

    He was almost glad that the weather was cold, probably with the heat the stench had to be much stronger. Some parts had a sort of bulb that reminded him of ginger root in appearance, but much darker in color and with a fleshy texture. Shin lingered for a few seconds examining it without actually touching it and called out to Mai.

    "Hey, what is this plant?"

    Mai approached and looked at the strange plant for a few seconds, then moved closer and almost recoiled instantly putting on a displeased expression.

    "Phew, what is that?" She looked at it for a few moments and added. "Whatever it is, don''t touch it, it''s not in the primary database. Analysis is required."

    "If it''s a new uncatalogued species, I want to name it." he said turning, around and with a smirk.

    "I don''t want to know what name you have in mind. Probably something nasty," she said, walking back to the door.

    The electronic key to the cabin was where Ruslan had indicated.

    The interior was clean, for an abandoned place, and was really spacious. Shin ran his finger over the furniture, only to find that there was barely any dust on some of it. The floor was clean. Somewhere in the cabin there had to be maintenance robots.

    "Lights," he said.

    A few seconds passed but no light came on. The place was well lit by the large windows, but they would need lights when it got darker outside.

    Mai on the other side of the room simply tapped a key on the wall.

    "Ah! Look at that, I missed seeing keys for the lights!" Shin said.

    Mai walked to the bedroom and only a few seconds later Shin could hear her voice, calling out to him.

    "Come here! I think that soldier forgot to tell us something about the cabins."

    "What?" he asked as he entered the room and discovered that Mai''s voice was coming from the adjoining bathroom.

    "I don''t think I''ll even be able to take a shower here."

    Mai stood in the middle of the bathroom, hands on her hips looking down the linear shower drain. From the drain sprouted a kind of reddish filamentous root system that climbed up the walls of the place and had spread almost to where Mai was standing. Shin approached the shower and looked at the strange formation on the walls, sniffing.

    "This is not a plant. It smells almost like the one outside but it''s different."

    "I hate it when you smell things like that. "

    Shin turned around with a sneer. "Liar, you and Liz love it."

    Mai blushed and deflected the conversation."If it''s not a plant, what is it?"

    "Can you go to the other room?" Shin turned away and looked at her with a doubtful expression.

    Mai backed up the few steps and stood in the doorframe.

    "You''re not thinking of blowing anything up, are you?"

    "Doesn''t smell like anything that''s going to blow up but¡­ just in case."

    Shin pulled out an old lighter from his trench coat lit it, and moved it closer to the filaments in the wall. These ignited almost immediately, as the fire spread to all of them like gangrene, throwing a few red sparks first and then a blue flame that lasted a few seconds before dying out. The fire raced along the remaining strands, sweeping the walls, until it reached the shower where the last flame was extinguished in the drain.

    "Interesting. Red sparks and blue flame."

    A smell like burning flesh reached Mai''s nose.

    "What''s so interesting about that?" she asked as she held her nose.

    "I don''t know, it''s curious, red sparks could be due to various types of combustion, but the blue flame is striking. I think another material burned first, and then sulfur," Shin explained as he reached through the small window and let the air in. "You know what? While you''re in a meeting, I''m going to do an analysis of the surroundings."

    Mai looked at him with a doubtful expression. "Do you think it has something to do with who we''re looking for?"

    "Probably not, but it''s curious, and the smell outside catches my attention too."

    "If you''re going to set up the lab try not to leave so many footprints¡­"

    "I know, don''t worry. I''m going to put the lab cases down," he said, smiling and walked out of the bathroom leaving Mai with a confused expression.

    "¡­ Okay¡­ try not to block the luggage rack again!" Mai shouted but Shin had already disappeared from the room. No shower, I guess, she thought.

    Shin went back outside once more, and headed for the luggage rack. Inside rested some small industrial suitcases with fingerprint locks. He grabbed two and then pressed the bottom of the luggage rack. As if it were a magic trick the remaining suitcases rearranged themselves and other larger suitcases took their place.

    Each one was labeled differently on one side. Emergency medical kit, hazmat kit, portable lab, evidence management, emergency communications, ammunition, nano closet and supplies, among many others. Shin took the supply case and the portable lab case and put it with the others outside. He pressed once more and only the medical kit was left in place. The rest had simply disappeared.

    For him it had become part of his routine to get used to the proper use of the equipment. As far as he knew there were about a hundred compressed configurations in that vehicle, and Mai was the only one who knew all the combinations to operate them correctly. In Shin''s case he had more than once made a mistake and locked the access. It was basically a game of mnemonics.

    He made a gesture to close the luggage rack but, before he could close it, he opened it once more and this time the medical kit had disappeared to be replaced by an arsenal of various weapons placed in order above and below. Shin took a small metal box of about ten centimeters and closed the trunk. Walking full with suitcases, he entered the cabin and closed the door.

    The temperature in the cabin had already risen and Shin looked around wondering if Mai had turned on any thermostats.

    "It''s warm."

    "The temperature regulates itself when people are inside via those sensors," Mai said, coming out from another room and pointing to the corners of the ceiling and floor. "You just have to activate it with movement and the floor is thermal so we won''t have any cold problems. I just checked the thermal memory and it hasn''t been activated recently so, I guess that soldier was really the last one to come here and the rescue team didn''t really arrive."

    "I thought we were going to spend the night in the car."

    "In case it gets too cold maybe we can stay here."

    "Right. In case we want to roll on the floor at least we won''t die of cold."

    "We are not going to roll on any floor¡­"

    Shin deposited the suitcases on a nearby couch and looked at Mai. "Hey!" he exclaimed and tossed the small box he had taken out of the trunk''s arsenal. Mai caught it with both hands and looked at him worriedly. "Just in case."

    "I don''t have arrows for the duplicate. And I need a warrant to use the bow."

    "If something comes out of the woods to bite you in the ass, you can be sure I''m not going to ask for authorization to use whatever weapon I have on hand."

    "Why do you always say something wants to bite me in the ass?"

    Shin shrugged. "Because you''d be on your back and it''s cute. What''s wrong with it? Liz says the same thing."

    Mai shook her head. "My butt is not a toy or bait."

    She turned to one of the windows and looked in the direction of the car. Almost immediately, Shin could hear the sound of something coming loose on the vehicle. He approached Mai and looked out as well as he could see four black spheres no bigger than a tennis ball levitating out from under the car. Two came from the front and others two from the back. They performed a sort of coordinated pirouette and took off in different directions. They were the surveillance drones.

    Mai looked at Shin again.

    "Look, you see? That''s more like it, Mr. just in case."

    "Can I play with Piper while you are working?" Shin asked, trying to smiling teasingly.

    "He''s not a pet, it'' s a drone, leave it alone."

    The next few minutes Mai was busy running a UV sterilizer, across the huge bed. Shin just watched her from the door frame, he thought she looked like a cat looking for the best place to sleep. Once she finished she smiled in satisfaction and returned the sterilizer to the portable lab case.

    "As soon as I''m done, let''s walk down that path and see what we can find," she said, lying down on the bed.

    "No problem, take your time," he said and walked over. "Good luck in the trial." Shin brought his face close to hers and kissed her in the lips.

    "Thank you," she said, and leaned on her elbows kissed him back. "That''ll be all, we came here to work," Mai said with a smile.

    "Was... that a question? Because it sounded like one."

    Mai grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, laughing. "Get out of here."

    He walked out of the room smiling and closed the door. Mai alone in the room went back to bed, wishing that even if they were short, those moments of happiness could last much longer. It had only been seven months since she had met him, but in the last five months since the three of them were together, her love life had taken an unexpected turn after so many years. And there was still a chance that it might even have more twists and turns, once they returned to the island when the rest time came, although for that the three of them would have to wait.

    Waiting... for an answer. Perhaps they had already waited too long. But that was only with respect to the three of them. The answer to go a step further had to be given by someone else as well.

    She closed her eyes, preparing once again for the most tedious part of her work.

    Meanwhile, Shin came into the living room and looked at the suitcases of the mobile lab and supplies.

    "Ok, let''s do this," he said, rubbing his hands.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 4: Bedtime Stories (NSFW)

    Chapter Four

    Bedtimes stories

    Two days earlier...

    March 13th. Tuesday. 10.30 P.M.

    Astana Royal Hotel. Akmola, Kazakhstan.

    A warm but very dim light illuminated the living room of the luxurious suite, decorated with a large crystal chandelier in the middle and exquisitely finished art d¨¦co furniture and tapestry.

    The large windows, also decorated with fine curtains, let in the flickering pale lights of the city''s skyscrapers, illuminating the raindrops that dripped down the glass onto the balcony. A holographic fireplace, although just a decoration too, gave it a much warmer atmosphere to the place.

    But the couple in the other room, on the bed, were too busy elsewhere to admire the fine quality of the furniture of the place or the details in the suite. They were too occupied by the storm, that like a gale, they were generating.

    Their clothes were lying around the bed, and their badges and the two guns sat on the nightstand.

    Nothing else mattered at that moment. They had left the cases, the dangers and all the rules waiting on the other side of the door. Just for tonight, for a few hours, they could be together. They could go back to work the next morning.

    Face to face, their outlines melted in the semi-darkness in a jumble of arms and caresses. Shin kissed Mai and caressed her cheek. He could see the pearly drops of sweat trickling down her forehead, and he pulled aside one of her tousled locks of hair to look into her eyes.

    As she set the pace, sitting on top of him, he kissed her collarbone and with his lips traced a path downward to her breasts, stopping at an almost imperceptible scar in the middle of her chest. He concentrated his lips there for a few seconds as she arched her back and moaned. He pulled her to him again, and they kissed; their tongues, like whips, sought each other out.

    Mai hugged Shin''s scarred back, and her hands slid down his muscular frame until they stopped on a strange symmetrical mark he had at the level of his lumbar muscles. It almost looked like a black tribal tattoo, but it was etched as if a piece of skin had been ripped off. She caressed the strange mark while Shin concentrated on kiss her neck again.

    They continued that way for several minutes, until the rhythmic movements brought them to climax. Mai stifled a moan and hugged her lover''s back even tighter as she felt the spasms spread to every part of her body. From her vagina, to her feet and from there to the tips of her ears. Shin huffed a couple of times and put his hands on Mai''s hips, trying to contain the fey girl''s shuddering and trembling.

    "Let''s stay together like this all night."

    "I wasn''t thinking of getting away."

    Mai smiled mischievously at him.

    The lovers stopped and she let her body rest on him as they both collapsed on the damp sheets. They could feel the wetness and sweat on their stomachs at the same time they could hear their hearts beating wildly. Mai''s moans became quieter as Shin plunged his tongue into her mouth again. Mai, in turn, stroked and messed up his hair.

    They continued in that position for another few minutes as Shin caressed her back, and she simply rested and breathed heavily.

    "Should I move?" she asked.

    "You are the one who said we should stay like this until tomorrow."

    Mai laughed and rolled to the side trying to catch her breath as she felt Shin''s member slip out of her. He turned and wrapped one of his arms around her and kissed her neck. Her ears tingled again.

    "I love you," Shin said.

    Mai stifled a smile as she turned and stared deep into his eyes.

    "I love you too," she said kissing him.

    It had been worth it to spend almost two days sorting out diplomatic problems to finally have some free time to be together without having to worry about work issues.

    "I wish Liz could have been here too," Mai said, as she caressed Shin''s cheek.

    "Just one more week, and we''ll get together," he said, as he brushed aside one of her silver locks.

    "Yeah..." Mai nodded then looked at him with mischievous eyes. "Do you have the book?"

    "For what?"

    "Take a picture, and send it to her."

    "We should be careful with these photos. One of these days, when we get to the island, we''re going to find out that Liz or Kotori have made a gallery."

    Mai laughed at the comment. Then she changed her expression a little, putting on a melancholy smile. "What are we going to do about Kotori?"

    "It''s a little early for that."

    "I think it''s a little late," Mai said and put on a sweet smile.

    Shin looked at her, though with a slightly more serious face. "Let''s save it for when we can see each other again."

    Mai moved closer to him putting on a more teasing smile. "I''m going to bite you if you don''t take it seriously." Then, with red cheeks, she reached down and began to kiss the shaft that until a few moments ago had been inside her.

    Scary¡­ But cute. Shin thought, although that didn''t stop him from getting a new erection as he felt Mai''s lips and then her tongue. After a few moments she finally stopped, collapsing beside him again. She was incredibly flushed.

    "I won''t complain if you keep going."

    "What happened to the picture?" Mai asked trying to sound, calm but she was nervous.

    "You don''t need to do that, if you don''t like it."

    Shin sat up and looked around, searching through the jumble of clothes, on the floor, for his book. He rolled onto his side of the bed and there on the floor he found the thick book. He picked it up and passed it to Mai and.

    "I wanted to do it. Liz can do it better. It''s funny... sometimes," she said sulkily. "... your mini-you big, that''s all."

    As he hugged her again, she pointed the covers towards them. The cover of that book had a camera, with one of the controls on the book spine Mai took a high definition photograph. The image had no special content beyond showing them in an intimate moment, it was simply a hobby of Lizbeth''s to collect them, since she used the photos sometimes for inspiration for her paintings.

    After a few seconds, Mai opened the book at a random page and searched through the nodes for the picture and then sent the image with movement from her own Neurowire.

    It wasn''t more than ten seconds until a shared chat window with a heart appeared in the book and on Mai''s Neurowire.

    "That was fast!" she said, surprised.

    An image appeared in the chat window, showing a fey girl with lemon-colored eyes and long blonde hair tied in a ponytail. She was wearing a black suit, with a slightly loose tie and a badge on her coat lapel. She looked at them smiling but, at the same time, shook her head. The strange part of the photo was that some people were lying on the floor, surrounded by broken furniture, as if they had lost a fight.

    [That''s so unfair. Hello?! I''m working here guys¡­ Don''t forget to hydrate, btw.] The message was followed by several water and milk bottle emoticons.

    "The truth is I''m thirsty," he said, smiling.

    "Did she kick all those behind her?"

    "Probably," Shin nodded.

    He left the bed naked and walked to the minibar on the other side of the room.

    Mai put the book on the nightstand and looked at herself naked. I have to clean up a bit, we''ve made a mess, she thought blushing. She had sweated a lot and could still feel her privates warm and wet. She felt they had gotten a little out of control but she couldn''t say anything. She was the one who had wanted them to spend the night together.

    "Service... Clean bed, please," she said in a low voice.

    [Understood. The nano-cleaning system will begin in fifteen seconds.] The voice of the AI-assisted service had burst from the head of the bed.

    Mai got up and covered herself with a fine silk robe she had left on one of the armchairs before moving towards the bathroom.

    "Do you want anything?" Shin asked.

    "Anything, but alcohol," she said, from the bathroom.

    Shin pulled two cans of hot chai tea from the minibar machine for Mai and took a large can of Russian beer for himself. Without even bothering with his clothes, he walked to the window and admired the night cityscape, while drinking. The annoying drizzle continued to lash the city.

    The gigantic buildings with their lights, the sound of the city, and the hundreds of cars that populated the streets and the air, brought him back to reality.

    Shin sighed as he took a swig of beer, and reaching into his pants, lying on the ground, he pulled out a pack of Black Ocean cigarettes. He lit one and continued admired the scene from the windows as wisps of smoke filled the room.

    The last time he had been in Kazakhstan, he had hardly had time for anything. The year had been 1985 of the Ancient Era, and the situation had been vastly different. The world was now in a relative but tense calm. That hadn''t changed. Whether for one reason or another, the tensions were always there. Even if they were none of his business, somehow or other, trouble always seemed to catch up with him. He was deep in thought when he felt hands clasping his abdomen. Shin turned his head and there he saw the smiling face of his lover again, as beautiful as ever. Mai had gone to clean herself up a bit, but her face was still flushed and her hair still had a few damp strands of sweat in it. As she ran her hand over his abdomen, she noticed the sweat was still not drying on Shin.

    "You already lit up one of those bug killers. Don''t even think of kissing my breasts."

    "I haven''t smoked all day. Don''t worry, I''ve had enough to drink." he told her, smiling.

    She pulled away and grabbed one of the tea cans from the table before sitting on the bed once more as she looked at Shin''s body. "I find it funny that the only time you sweat is when we have sex."

    He smiled and sat down next to her. "It''s because I''m relaxed. Most of the time my whole body is kind of on stand-by waiting for the moment I have to wear the armor." Shin slid her silk robe and began kissing her shoulder.

    "Does it hurt?" she asked.

    "Nah, it doesn''t hurt." Shin said and flicked the cigarette butt into the empty can. "I don''t even know if it ever hurt."

    They were both silent for a few moments. Only the gentle sound of rain on the glass window filled the room. Mai looked down at her lover¡¯s crotch and fondled his leg smiling. Then she slid her index finger down the length of Shin''s penis and looked at him mischievously.

    "You should go get cleaned up," she said.

    "Seriously? Don''t you want to do it again?" he asked, as he caressed her back.

    "I have an early meeting tomorrow, sorry. I wouldn''t be able to get up early if we do it again." she said with a half smile, shrugging her shoulders. "I don''t have your resistance."

    "Well, at least we can have a night in peace."

    Shin finally sat up, kissed her shoulder again, then made his way to the bathroom, leaving Mai staring at the city outside.

    She was almost finished drinking her second can of hot tea when light knocks came from the living room door. Shin came out of the bathroom, drying his hands with a towel as he looked at Mai.

    "Room service?" he asked.

    "I didn''t order anything," she said, as she covered her bare shoulders again.

    Mai sat up and reached for the nightstand, tossing the gun to Shin. He was already heading for the living room when she snapped at him.

    "Your underwear."

    "Oh¡­ yeah, right," he said, reaching for his underwear lying on the floor. He put them on and walked back to the living room.

    "Seriously?" Mai bit her lower lip and walked quickly to the bathroom, coming out a few seconds later with a bath robe in her hands. "You''re going to open the door like that?"

    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    Shin looked at the picture on the intercom. It was a slightly older man almost as tall as he was, dressed in a black-tie suit with cummerbund.

    "Yes? What can I do for you?" he asked as he received the robe that Mai extended to him.

    Over the intercom the man''s face grew larger that Shin swore he could see the pores of his nose.

    "My name is Amir Zejho. I am a colonel in the army. You can check my ID in the public military database and in the Ministry of Defense data too."

    Shin pursed his lips downward and shrugged, looking at Mai. She delayed for a few seconds as she checked the information with her Neurowire then nodded.

    "Okay. How can we help you?"

    "I have some information that may be of use to you, guys."

    Mai pondered a moment and nodded again."Let him in."

    Shin opened the door, quickly finding that the picture on the intercom was quite deceiving. The man in the doorframe was the Col. Amir Zejho, but he looked like he had gained a few pounds in weight from the picture. The cummerbund was obviously squeezing him a bit.

    Amir Zejho looked a little nervously at the weapons they both carried.

    "May I come in?"

    "Please," Mai invited. She felt a little nervous about the visit that had interrupted them in a moment alone. Trying to appear calm, she ran a hand through her hair, trying to get some of the sweat-damp strands to intermingle with the rest of her messy hair. She was hoping that thanks to the ventilation systems, there would not be any strange odors. Fortunately they had unleashed their instincts in the bedroom only, so there was no clutter in the other rooms of the suite.

    Shin closed the door behind the colonel and Mai invited him into the living room.

    "Let me tell you what an honor it is to meet you in person," the Colonel said, addressing Mai. "I know you are traveling under a cover identity, but I hope you won''t mind the indiscretion."

    Mai bowed her head, accepting the compliment, but she wondered worriedly how the man knew her name. Amir Zejho approached Shin, offering his hand.

    "And I know who you are too."

    "Everyone seems to know except me. But it''s a pleasure," Shin said, accepting the greeting.

    "Please have a seat. How can we help you?" Mai offered, pointing to the living room.

    The three of them sat on the couches around the tea table, and the lights in the room automatically adjusted with more illumination.

    "I''ll try to be brief. I only have an hour until the alarms go off that I turn off my Neurowire. The only reason I can be here is that I knew you two would be at this hotel, and I convinced my family to come to the opera across the street, so I could contact you without arousing suspicion."

    "We appreciate the honesty, but how can we help you?" Mai asked.

    "The reason I''m here is because I have some information that I think will be of more use to you.... And because I consulted with General Sedenov." The Colonel peered at Mai.

    "I''ve known Sedenov for decades. He''s a good man, but he''s a bit lousy at making jokes at the wrong time. I guess he was the one who told him who I was."

    "Yes. The army keeps an eye whenever we have important guests," Amir Zejho sighed and leaned forward. "Have you heard anything about the natural park that exists to the south of here?"

    "Which one?"

    "The Kolsay Reserve."

    "The Kolsay Reserve? Yes, that''s the one with the submerged forest, isn''t it?"

    "No, the name doesn''t come from that lake, which is the Kaindy lake. I''m talking about the others."

    "The three Kolsay lakes?" Shin asked.

    "There are two now, the middle lake, and the one below joined years ago due to seismic activity."

    "You weren''t around when that happened. It was a hundred years ago or so if I''m not mistaken," Mai added, while looking at Shin.

    Zejho nodded. "A hundred and ten years to be exact. Anyway, this thing I''m about to tell you doesn''t have to leave here. I''m not sure what I''m doing here is going to get me into trouble. There are quite a few people who have apparently been trying to keep this matter out of prying eyes for quite some time."

    Amir Zejho cleared his throat and began to explain. "The great Kolsay Lake was permanently populated until almost 80 years ago. After that, most started moving to the cities and, as you know, since the development of Another Earth, almost 100 years ago, all physical tourist sites in the world have suffered a drop of up to eighty percent of visitors. The Kolsay is only twenty five percent scanned. The rest of the information is like that of other places, satellite projection images, public domain photos, archival information and artificial intelligence''s are in charge of covering the remaining seventy five percent and filling in the blanks. The truth is, on one hand it is good for nature because it has allowed the conservation of many, many places."

    "Only twenty-five percent?" Shin asked.

    Mai turned to look at him and explained.

    "Twenty-five percent in natural places is a lot. In other places, like Yosemite, they only needed like a ten percent pre-scan. You don''t need a lot of information to simulate a wilderness reality, because a lot of times it''s just based on repeating patterns in the terrain. The only thing that takes a bit of time is the terrain scanning, the rest is easy, it doesn''t even require human intervention since almost everything is done by drones."

    "But isn''t it updated?"

    "In your time this didn''t exist. Nowadays, things like this are updated in seconds. Many of these artificial intelligence''s use the same system that we use. They simply collect data through open sources from the Neurowire, like social networks, government services, satellites, drones. And they use that information to update themselves when they need to. The only exception is places that have indefinite quarantine, which is where the maps are modified to prevent people from carelessly entering or criminal organizations from using the mapping to enter and conduct illicit activities."

    Shin nodded. "Yeah, you explained that to me the other time. It''s just that sometimes I have a hard time understanding it."

    "Anyway, the point is that the arrival of AnotherEarth played in favor many times of governments, to keep areas closed to the public."

    "Is Kolsay Park forbidden to enter?" Shin asked, turning to Zejho.

    "Not exactly. It is possible to enter in several places, including the big lake, but only to a certain extent. Surveillance drone teams are used to maintain custody nowadays. Or at least they used to be, the last drone equipment has been rendered useless weeks ago. And to enter, beyond the lake, many times a special permit is required, because it has been declared a preservation area, but with zoonotic outbreaks dangerous to health. Which is not all a lie, but they are not dangerous, or at least they were not. Permits are almost always granted to scientific academics."

    "¡­ And us," Mai interrupted.

    "Exactly. Nevermore has access to the area because of the World Jurisdiction Act, but it''s never been used there."

    "Well, we''ve never had any reports of serious anomalous activity in the area. World jurisdiction is not an ace up our sleeve, it''s something used in extreme cases of a Dark Events showing up, and the area needs to be cordoned off to investigate or quarantined." Mai''s gaze wandered for a few seconds, then she waved a hand through the air. "Please continue, I''m just checking."

    "The thing is¡­ thanks to the massive depopulation that occurred, and the lack of people going to visit, it was possible to hide something that happened later. To this day, 60 years have passed since an incident that there is no record of in digital media."

    "What kind of incident?" Shin asked.

    "A massacre¡­"

    Mai''s face darkened. "¡­ "

    "Thirty people died in the near area of what was once the second lake. Officially, the incident was reported as bear attacks. The corpses of these people were found as if they were deflated balloons of meat with crushed bones. The ones that were complete, that is, because most of them were found in pieces. And when I say thirty, is because it is only the ones that are known."

    "Do you know the identities of the deceased?" Mai asked with a serious look, crossing her arms.

    "I have the identities of some. Of at least those who are from this country and Kyrgyzstan."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Only seven were from here, the other five were people from Kyrgyzstan. I don''t know the identities of the rest because they were not from around. They were all of other nationalities."

    "I found it," Mai said. "There are reports, but effectively only 12 people are reported dead due to an animal attack, presumably a bear."

    "Presumably a bear," Zejho echoed.

    "What happened to the bodies of the other victims?" she asked.

    "They were claimed and put in a convoy two days later to an unknown destination. Someone wanted to keep the case off the record at that time. Our country was going into political transition to implement the artificial intelligence government and there were good diplomatic relations, that''s why everything was kept under silence.

    "What I''m getting at is... wasn''t the only one. I''ve been trying to dig into this case a little bit for years. It turns out that, prior to that, there were other deaths, few, but they still happened. Sometimes it was animal attack, sometimes it was simply death by exposure or falling off some of the slopes and drowning."

    "Do you think they are somehow connected?" Shin asked.

    "I don''t think so, I know they are connected, although I''m not quite sure about the why."

    "Have you shared this information with anyone else?" Mai asked.

    "Sedenov, and he was the one who told me I should find a way to talk to you."

    "Did you try to dig a little deeper about the foreign victims?" Shin asked.

    "My mother used to say don''t look for what I haven''t missed, and it''s one of the best pieces of advice I''ve ever received. With this kind of thing associated with Dark Events, you never know how far it can go." Zejho cleared his throat again and continued his story. "After the death of these 30 people there were others over the years. Few, not even a dozen, but there have been. It wouldn''t be unusual if they were natural causes. Which apparently, they are. You see, all the deaths have this in common."

    Amir Zejho pulled an envelope out of his suit and extracted from it a few images and a small blue rectangle. He reviewed the images, then placed one of them on the table, along with the small blue rectangle, which flashed on its sides projecting a hologram with the text [POLICE PROPERTY-EVIDENCE-A-34F3-FTSB2-343.] Seconds later, a menu was displayed, and Amir Zejho touched the hologram, choosing one of the options. The menu faded out, then projected into the air something that Shin at first thought was some sort of strange high-resolution figure.

    It was an elongated figure, roughly carved out of wood. It had a pointed head crowned with what looked like two horns and at the level of the jaw, if it could be called that, two more horns seemed to protrude. A series of four pairs of arms had been engraved in bas-relief, and they faded towards the lower part, which had a thinner shape. At the end it widened again forming an ovoid shaped ball.

    Shin examined it as the image rotated. The shape of the arms reminded him of something from a few months ago and gave him a bad feeling. Mai, in turn, took the photograph which was in an evidence bag and was already showing some signs of age. She looked at the hologram figure, then at the photo on the table.

    "Aren''t they the same?"

    "No," Amir Zejho replied with a smile. "The one you''re holding disappeared ten years ago."

    "What are they?"

    "I have no idea. Some kind of idol or an ornament, I don''t know. But look."

    One by one he laid the remaining photos on the table. It was a set of seven moving photographs. Almost all of them showed the same figure but with subtle differences in material. The remaining two images showed a group of soldiers working and carrying what looked like long black bags, and the other showed the bloody remains of what must have been human beings scattered on the ground.

    "At the bottom," Amir Zejho said, pointing to the picture of the soldiers.

    And indeed, at the bottom, scattered next to what looked like hunting weapons and a dead stag carcass, could be seen a series of strange small black figures that bore an uncanny resemblance to the one rotating in the hologram.

    "This is the part I want you to hear. You see, twenty-five years ago I went to the Military Academy and met someone there. This guy was a little strange, but he was a good friend, probably the best I had at the time." Amir took a short sigh, looking down, as he seemed to be remembering. "He became entangled in an affair with his geology professor and, for a while, everything was fine between the two of them. Until one day she started to change. She was obsessed with something, although she never said what it was. And if she told my friend, at least he didn''t tell me. In the end, she could barely keep her job. Everything was going down to hell. Then out of nowhere for a few months, everything seemed to return to normal."

    Amir Zejho paused, as if it was something he had trouble remembering, or perhaps as if his memories were too painful. Then he continued with his story."It was in March¡­ She invited my friend to go on a trip with her; and me and a couple of other students from another major went too. We were all acquaintances, and we knew the history he was having with his professor. She invited us to spend a few days at Kolsay Lake. We got to the place. That part has abandoned cabins so we weren''t going camping or anything like that, and since we were at the university, we didn''t have any problems with permits to get through. Technically we were going to collect samples and since we were going with a professor no one said anything at the park entrance.

    "On the second night I woke up in the middle of the night. And that''s when I saw it. I was on my way back to bed, when through the windows came a light that I have never seen again in my life. It was something between red and pink. It was located to the south, in the direction of the big reservoir of what was the second lake. It would pulse, disappear, and reappear for a few seconds and then vanish once again. I went outside and the temperature was barely bearable, but there was something that made me not want to take my eyes off that light. I didn''t even wake up my friends so they could see it too.

    "Then everything went silent. I don''t remember how I got back to bed, I just remember waking up the next day to the screams of my friends and the worst headache I''d ever had in my life.

    "The professor''s name was Rayana Ivraeva¡­ She disappeared that day, or rather during the night. And her body never found."

    "¡­" Mai listened attentively while analyzing Amir Zejho''s expressions. Shin, on the other hand, remained silent.

    Amir Zejho sighed, as if he had taken a load off his mind by telling the story and continued. "We were interrogated for days and weeks. I came to believe that we were going to be blamed for murder or something like that. It wasn''t until three months later that a will with a neural signature was discovered where she stated she was going to commit suicide on that night."

    Mai looked once more at the photograph in her hand.

    "That''s the thing she left with her will." Zejho said.

    "Did they look for the body?" Mai asked.

    "Yes, she was searched high and low for weeks. She was from a good family and well known. Her family is now part of one of the asteroid mining conglomerates. The whole family moved to Selene a few years ago. She was searched for all over the lake, with divers and even drones combing the area. But nothing was ever discovered. She was searched for believing at first that she might be back in her apartment but she wasn''t there either."

    "I don''t understand, what about her neural signal?"

    Amir Zejho''s face became more somber, and he explained. "Her Neurowire had been deactivated months before, and we never knew about it. It''s not like humans today could live without one unless you are a COW. But whatever she did to live so many months without one is still unexplained. She kept chatting like we do over the Neurowire, but apparently she was using an external device so as not to draw attention to herself."

    "What happened to your friend?" Shin asked.

    "My friend¡­ that''s what bothered me for a long time. I imagined he was going to be devastated but he wasn''t. He was depressed for a long time, truth, but I always wondered if he really was or if he was just faking it.

    "There is something that has always terrified me¡­ What would have happened if that night, instead of going out to see that light, I had gone to wake up my friends? I wonder if I had gone into the professor and my friend''s room, would I have found them there? I don''t know why but I''ve always had a feeling that both of them that night were in the place where that glow was generated.

    "Anyway, what happened next was that my friend continued his studies. He decided to study geology, just as Professor Ivraeva had done. Once we left the Academy, I continued my military career, and he went into more academics studies. We kept in touch often, but life issues kept us apart for some time. We still saw each other for a few chats and I can say without a doubt that he was always a man I could trust wherever I needed him. Regardless of my fears and doubts¡­ "

    "My friend''s name is Sergey Komarov. He disappeared last Thursday, and I am very much afraid that he is the latest victim of Lake Kolsay."

    Amir Zejho leaned over the rectangle and his fingers drummed on the menu once more. But instead of the crudely carved figure, it now showed the bust of a middle-aged man with sunken eyes and slightly messy hair.

    Mai and Shin moved closer to better study the face and Amir in a heavy voice added. "Before his neural signal disappeared, he sent me this¡­"

    The message was choppy and sounded more like the prayer of a man who had had enough of the world. But that was more than enough to pique Mai''s curiosity.

    Shin glanced sideways at Mai and saw how her eyes were fixed on the hologram. Here we go again, he thought.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 5: Intermission

    Chapter Five

    Intermission

    Another Earth

    Virtual Location. Sacramento, California. United States Kingdom.

    Mai sighed, as she ran her hand along the frame of the huge windows and watched the comings and goings of passersby and vehicles in the virtual world. The nighttime cityscape showed how the movement on the streets had barely slowed down, even though business hours were over.

    As in the real world, many cities in Another Earth simply did not sleep.

    It had been a little over a hundred and twenty years since Mai finally decided to get the Neurowire implanted but, no matter how much she tried, the virtual world, like almost all the others she had visited throughout her life, always gave her a strange sensation. She was not sure if it was the fact that she knew that her body was immobile at that moment in the other part of the world, or if what bothered her was that she could hardly distinguish the differences between the virtual worlds and the real one.

    For people there was no difference, the real world and the virtual ones were both parts of the same reality. But for Mai, who also lived in a time when Neurowire was still a dream, it had taken some getting used to the fact that simply a quantum state computer in her brain could allow her to be anywhere at any time.

    For humans it was easy. At the age of three or six, a child could undergo a non invasive procedure that lasted no more than ten minutes, and within a couple of days he or she could be completely used to it.

    For the Aeon it was even easier. They were already born with the Neurowire and also with the connection to the hive mind of their species.

    For the Feys, however, it was another matter.

    The feys, or at least most of them, were not born. They appeared out of nowhere sometimes and, most of them, as adults. The procedure was not very different for them. Many Feys had the ability to regenerate much faster than a human being and that helped. The main problem was that they did not receive it when they were young, and the acclimatization period could take much longer. Not to mention that there were a minority of Feys who could not get used to the system and opted to simply use the most basic functions such as language or neural assistance.

    It took Mai a month to get used to it, and while she could no longer live without one and it had made it easier for her to be anywhere without the need for tiring trips all the time, that strange feeling she had always been with her. It was different from having shared dream states like when she had lucid dreams with Shin, Lizbeth or Kotori.

    "Very different..." she said to herself in a softly tone.

    She stood in the hallway of one of the high floors that served the city''s Justice Department. Her avatar, looked a bit diferent from her real look and wore a suit with a short jacket. The long silver hair was less tousled than usual. That was the appearance she had worn during that case since they had also been required to use a hologram to hide who she really was.

    Although she arrived on the scene during the early evening hours, the trial was dragging on longer than it should, despite the fact that she expected her appearance before the judge to last no more than an hour.

    The truth was that she was upset at the time, and the reason was that the judge had asked her, albeit politely, to leave the room where the trial was taking place for a case that occurred some time ago. The defence had resorted to the argument that their clients were nervous in Mai''s presence. She was an expert witness, but her involvement in the case resulted in the culprits being sent to the hospital for a couple of days. She broke the arms of a couple of them when they wanted to escape after being caught in a case of trafficking of Feys.

    Before Shin''s arrival, Mai was almost always on the island monitoring operations and rarely went out on active duty, unless it was something really serious, and that case had certainly been bad enough for her to lose her composure.

    She declined to press charges for the injuries she and a couple of other agents from the local California Station received, so they could join the prosecution side of the case and act as expert witnesses.

    From the moment Mai entered the room, her eyes were been fixed on the culprits and apparently their lawyers used that as an argument to get her out of the room once the statements were finished.

    A sudden rustling sound brought her out of her reverie and she turned to see how the doors of the courtroom opened wide and several people came out of the room walking hurriedly. Some simply vanished into thin air, perhaps disconnecting or perhaps changing the location of their avatars. Others simply began making neural calls through the Neurowire. A large group walked past her and gave her a smile as they nodded slightly. Mai returned the gesture, they were the local police officers who helped during the case.

    Behind them came two people walking slowly, and the smile on their faces relieved Mai.

    "It''s done," said a male voice with an affable tone.

    The man who spoke was Jeremiah Strauss, head of the Nevermore law firm and who also served as Mai''s personal attorney. He was a dark-eyed older man, with short gray hair and a gray goatee beard, dressed in a neat black suit with a white tie. He had pointed ears and the wrinkles on his face gave him an appearance as if he could be the grandfather of the young woman accompanying him.

    "They''re going to present appeals to the defense but, most likely, they''re going to have a seventy year reconditioning period in the Cocoon program, not counting trafficking charges and expenses to the state." said the girl at Jeremiah''s side.

    The girl''s name was Aria, a young looking fey who fulfilled the duties of being Mai''s secretary and assistant with all things related to office work on Siren Island. Aria was a little shorter than the man and had light blue eyes and long flowing hair that reached a little below her waist. She wore a black suit with some red decorations and white pantyhose with black boots.

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    "I would have sent them to the other side if I had any way¡­ Seventy years? And physical conviction?" Mai asked.

    "Twenty years, just as we thought," Jeremiah answered.

    "Those bastards deserve more, trafficking of sentient beings, drugs, and use of industrial espionage. And I''m the bad one for beating them up. I really held back that time."

    "And well you did, otherwise they would have used that against you," Aria said.

    "At least they''re going to be out of the system long enough," Jeremiah continued.

    "Relax at least they were punished. Even with an appeal this was a slam dunk."

    "I hope so. I wouldn''t want them to delay a conviction again to present the same defence another way."

    "There''s not going to be time for that. Closing arguments are next week so I''ll keep you posted if anything happens."

    "Yeah¡­ Thanks, Jeremiah." Mai said, with a weak smile.

    "This is what you pay me for," Jeremiah said smiling, and added. "Try to be relaxed, next week will be the day where Lizbeth can finally be on the team. You should be more than happy."

    "Oh, believe me¡­ I am."

    "I don''t know if Claris has told you anything yet but, we received an RID from the Council. You, Lizbeth and Shin will have to sign it." Jeremiah added.

    "I don''t know why I''m not surprised... but an RID? Really? Hardly anyone uses it."

    "Well, you guys have shown that you are very eager to team up, and that you guys also have an ¡­ polygamous¡­ relationship. It was obvious that the board was going to say something. A Relationship Information Disclosure is only a lesser evil."

    "I wish they wouldn''t put so many sticks in our wheels sometimes," Mai said with an annoyed sigh.

    "Well... it''s not as bad as it was a few years ago," Aria added.

    "It''s still annoying."

    "Try not to generate so much trouble and the Council will probably go soft too," Jeremiah said.

    Mai and Aria exchanged glances quickly and Jeremiah, who noticed this, wiped the smile off his face and looked at both of them questioningly.

    "What you two have done now?"

    "Me? Nothing," Aria said, with a nervous grin.

    "Me neither... yet. But if you want to know..." Mai said, scratching her cheek innocently.

    "No, I don''t want to know," Jeremiah said, shaking his head.

    "Aren''t you curious?"

    "I''m your lawyer, not your accomplice. My job is to keep you guys out of jails¡­ I just wish sometimes you wouldn''t make my job so hard."

    "You wouldn''t like us any other way," Mai said.

    Jeremiah smiled looking at both of them. "Certainly, I wouldn''t."

    "I''ll text you later in case we need the whole Fire Department."

    "Is it that bad?" Jeremiah asked, raising an eyebrow.

    "We''re not sure yet. We haven''t told Virg either, for that very reason. It''s probably something simple but, just in case, we''ve kept it off the books. We''ve just altered a bit of information so we can find out more..."

    "I don''t want to hear any more," Jeremiah said as he pulled back smiling. "Ladies, you know where to find me if you need any help. Take care and try not to blow anything up this time."

    "See you later," Mai greeted as Jeremiah''s avatar vanished into thin air.

    Aria turned to look at Mai in concern."How bad is it?"

    "At the moment not too much. Let''s hope it''s nothing earth-shattering or that we don''t have another monster on the loose."

    "You should have called some First Response Team with you."

    "Aria, we''re trying not to draw attention to ourselves. For the moment everything is fine. Shin is with me."

    "You guys should be resting today. Even Tony and Kotori are worried."

    "Tell them everything is fine. We''d like to go back to the island for a couple of days after everything that happens next week, but it''s best if we just wait until the next month, when our break falls."

    "About that, the hangar crew sent me an overhaul request for the vehicle."

    "Why?"

    "Well, since there are three of you from now on, they have to modify some parts to have more room inside and make changes to some parts. By the way, I wanted to tell you something."

    "What happened?"

    "Jeremiah didn''t want to tell you anything because he''s not sure, but it''s possible that next week Shin will finally get a permission to be able to leave the planet¡­ with custody, of course, of the two of you but, it''s something."

    Mai opened her eyes in surprise looking at Aria. "I didn''t think he was going to get permission so quickly."

    "I''m not sure, but maybe that''s the reason. The RID is a bit formal, I know, but it''s highly possible it has to do with the three of you already being team."

    "We have a friend on the board," Mai said thoughtfully.

    "Do you think it''s this guy Travis?"

    "I don''t know, no one has seen his face, but the rumor that he''s other of the Old Ones on the Council is strong."

    "Whatever it is, it''s not certain. You probably shouldn''t tell Shin yet."

    "Well, he''s just following the rules so, as not to cause trouble for us. If it were up to him alone I think the Council''s decisions would matter very little to him."

    Aria, reached over and hugged Mai to her chest.

    "And why is this?" Mai asked, blushing.

    "I''m just happy for you guys," Aria said, smiling.

    "Th-thank you..."

    Mai knew that just the Neurowire was sending signals to her brain, but the sensation of being pressed against Aria''s generous chest felt incredibly realistic at the moment.

    "I-I can''t breathe¡­ "

    Aria finally released her slowly.

    "Be careful, you two."

    "I know."

    "Let me know if you need anything else."

    Aria stroked Mai head and gave her a smile before her avatar faded away.

    Mai sighed and looked at the time in her Neurowire. She glanced outside watching as the movement in the streets was becoming more noticeable. She disconnected from the virtual world, just wishing she certainly hoped she didn''t have to bother Aria with the case at hand.

    But for some reason, she felt that she was facing something that appeared to be much more complicated than she suspected.

 Vol1/ Chapter 6: Clues

    Chapter Six

    Clues

    The three hours that Mai had to be online ended up turning into five, and it was already noon when she was finally able to disconnect from the virtual court. To her surprise, as soon as she opened the door to leave the room, she found a transparent PVC curtain blocking her way. Shin, who was in the kitchen, had removed his trench coat and was now wearing a PVC lab apron.

    "Is everything all right there?" Mai asked worriedly.

    "Yeah, you can take that off," Shin replied.

    Mai pulled back the curtain and stepped out. She didn''t get two steps out of the room, when her nose hit some sort of invisible wall, which produced a series of almost imperceptible ripples when she touched it.

    "Ow!" she said, holding a hand to her nose.

    "Sorry, sorry, sorry," Shin said and hurriedly walked over to the table to press some controls on the portable lab case. "I forgot that I activated an extra security barrier, just in case."

    Shin had transformed part of the kitchen, and the dining room table into some sort of bizarre culinary laboratory. Apparently, he had found the cooking utensils to prepare some food.

    When they were too busy to eat properly in a case they even had the fast food bars. But well, Mai wasn''t going to complain if they ate anything out of the ordinary. Shin seemed to entertain himself quite a bit cooking sometimes.

    "What are you doing?" Mai asked as she now felt her senses become invaded by the aroma of the food after the hard slap. I told him not to leave too many footprints.

    "It''s called food, you eat it. You need to eat like normal people, you know?" Shin replied, as he moved a wok on the electric stove. "How was the meeting?"

    "Good... I hope. The final details is up to the lawyers," she said and walked over.

    In the wok, he was stirring what looked like chicken and some saut¨¦ed vegetables with sauce. On the adjoining counter was the open supply case. There, neatly arranged with several trays lying spread out, were tiny metal cubes with different food labels, vegetables, cereal, water, soda.

    "What is it?"

    "It''s just something quick, just some chicken and vegetables. It''s ready now, if you took any longer I was going to have to reheat it and it''s not the same. Go wash your hands."

    "Yes, daddy." she said, giving him a gentle kick as she walked away.

    "Wait, don''t use the tap water." he said and tossed her a cube labeled [Water for emergencies. Select temperature required].

    Mai looked at him with concern as she tackled the cube. "What''s with the water?" Mai asked as she walked over to the bathroom.

    "I think we were right to come after all and not give the case to the local branch to investigate. I did an analysis of the water and I found concentrations of sulfur and hydrogen sulfide. That''s the fart smell from this morning. I think there is some hydrothermal source around the lake but I can''t find the exact location."

    "There are no volcanoes or hot springs nearby."

    "The earthquake from a two weeks ago could have caused some movement in the surrounding plates. This lake was formed by seismic activity, after all."

    "Did you use the drones to see if there are any hot springs?"

    "Yes, but they didn''t detect anything in particular in the surrounding area. But the temperature of the lake is a few degrees above what it should be for ambient temperature at this time of the year. Maybe it''s some underwater hydrothermal source, but the smell is concentrated over the middle part of the lake."

    "Isn''t it dangerous for us to breathe it in?"

    "Yes. If we are exposed for a long time. But after two hours the wind blew the concentration in a northerly direction. We''ll be fine unless the wind direction changes again."

    "Why did you say we were right to come? That could have been investigated by the local branch."

    "Yes, I know. But I meant we took the case instead of leaving it to the local branch. The case of the lights has been ignored before, right."

    "Yes. That''s true..."

    Mai returned after a few minutes at the bathroom. She replaced the cube with another that was blue in color. Some engraved words appeared, as if it were some sort of menu. She selected [mineral water] and placed it on the counter where it changed its size, until it became the size of a basketball but transparent.

    A strange fractal pattern, composed of hundreds of thousands of tiny cubes, appeared on its surface, constantly changing shape and moving at the same time in a clockwise direction. A few seconds later a bottle of water had formed inside the cube. Mai took the cube, and, while the bottle remained on the counter, the cube simply passed through the plastic and the liquid, until it regained its original size. When it finished, she placed it back on the tray from which she had taken it.

    She sat down in one of the nearby chairs and sipped from the bottle and looked at the other huge mobile lab case that was spread out on the table.

    In there were several instruments that Shin had taken out and used over the course of the morning. A portable electronic Bunsen lighter, now extinguished, along with the microscope and a portable mass spectrometer, told her that he had been more than busy while she attended to her working routine. A much larger cube was open in the table, and unfolded and had several cells with different Petri dishes of different sizes with some samples inside.

    "What else did you discover?" Mai asked.

    "Several things," he said, as he walked over and placed the steaming plate of food and some chopsticks in front of her.

    "It smells good."

    "I just hope it tastes as good as it smells."

    Mai tasted a bit and nodded. "It''s great," she said smiling.

    "I''m going to pour myself some then."

    "What did you find out?" Mai asked.

    "Do you know what a tubifex worm is?"

    Mai looked at him as she stopped the chopsticks a few inches from his mouth and took a closer look at the plate.

    "Tell me you didn''t use worms or any kind of insect as ingredients for this."

    "No," he replied smiling and added. "But those kinds of worms are used for farming, fish food and some people even keep them as pets," he said and sat down in front of Mai with his plate of food.

    ¡°Charming...¡±

    "Remember that plant we saw outside and that thing in the bathroom? Well, as I suspected something was wrong. It is an autochthonous plant, but it has something abnormal, it is like a fungal infection. The infected part I saw under the microscope it has reminded me of something I saw a long time ago about those kinds of worms, they form collective cores of hundreds of thousands when they don''t have enough nutrients."

    Mai grimaced, almost glad she hadn''t touched that earlier.

    "Were you able to catalog it?"

    "Yes and no. There are no records of this type, and the closest thing biologically is a type of mushroom called anemonae stinkhorn, but stinkhorn mushrooms don''t grow that way and they are not from here neither. These have a shape almost as if they form some kind of ameboid net but only as if they were mycelia filaments, which is abnormal, because the growth shape is different."

    "Is it some new species?"

    "I am not sure, but it is not in the records.," he said, reaching for his book lying on the table.

    Shin opened it to the first few pages and this time took a pen that was hidden in one of the sides. He wrote a few words on the blank page and put the book on the table. Almost instantly, Mai saw huge moving holographic microphotographs projected in the air, a few centimeters above the book forming a ring. Several of them showed a series of networks of fibrous organisms. The other magnified images, with a flesh-red color, showed an organic network of globular chambers interconnecting, and forming a kind of shell around what looked like black metal. Fine hair or nail shaped structures sprouted from it, with crystalline bulbs scattered in a disorderly manner near the tips. These reminded her of dewdrops on grass in the morning.

    Shin pointed to one of the photos. "See those fleshy bulbs? Those are the ones that reminded me of worms, although it has nothing to do with mushrooms, it''s just a curiosity. Organically, they are like stinkhorn mushrooms, but they have differences from the ones you can normally find," he then touched the photo showing the black metal. "These have some kind of microscopic organometallic structure almost like spores on the hyphae."

    "Artificial?"

    "Natural. But the traces of the metal suggest iron of meteoric origin. Curiously I did a search with the academic archives and it is known that there is presence of meteoric iron in several parts although no studies have been done about it for years. Which is strange that the universities have not shown interest in studying.¡± Shin paused for a bite and continued to explain. ¡°Anyway¡­ But I''ve found them everywhere. They''re also in the soil, in the grass and where I found the most was in lake mud. These fungi have a type of parasitic organism with a calcareous micro-skeleton that serves to protect the structure of the metal in the core. Remember the red sparks from the fire back there? Well what burned first were iron and calcium particles, the blue fire was sulfur."

    "It''s not cataloged as something from the area? Many areas of the planet changed after the Great War and a lot organisms have appeared that never existed before, since the portal opened."

    "Well, I''ve been going over it with Hazmat, and she''s waiting for me to bring samples, because this one is new. It has a completely different kind of structure."

    "Something that makes it special?"

    "A lot of things, taking into account the new branches of study of microbiology I would say that it is some kind of fungal chimera. Calcium is involved in fungal cellular processes as catalytic and signal regulators, but not at this level. And you haven''t seen the weirdest thing yet." Shin pointed to one of the industrial suitcases that was open. There was a huge cube with several smaller cubes inside, these in turn contained samples in petri dishes. "Look at the first one on the right," he said.

    Mai gulped down the last mouthful and walked over to look where Shin indicated. At first, she thought it must be a very small sample, since nothing was visible there. It was when she got closer and looked more sideways that she saw that the light produced a strange effect as it passed through the small cube, as if it was deforming.

    There was something there. But she couldn''t see it.

    "What is it?"

    "That''s a sample I pulled from the fungus."

    "Is it invisible? They''re not like the ones outside."

    "They are the same. Now look at the cubes below."

    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    At the bottom other plates with samples inside exhibited stranger features. A stone that in the middle took on a textured green hue as if it were a plant. Some samples of grass where some parts acquired characteristics that reminded Mai of the legs of a spider. In the next cube, there was a leaf litter that Mai had never seen before in her life.

    "Did you collect this from out there?"

    "Yes, it''s all over the place. It''s as if something has been changing the structure of all the elements out there that are touched by the fungus. In all of them, I find crypsis patterns, but in poorly achieved stages. As if the change had wanted to be achieved but was never perfected, with the exception of the fungus, which can camouflage itself perfectly as if they did it at will. Those turned that color in less than thirty seconds after I put them in the petri dish."

    "...What about the black trees we saw earlier?"

    "Those are covered by the fungus too."

    "So technically we have a case to investigate then."

    "Maybe now for the local branch of the FRT it will be interesting, it''s a biological anomaly that no one saw before. Still, we came here looking for someone missing. What I''ve found warrants an investigation, but it''s not enough to declare this an official SID case till we found more evidence. Also, I find it odd that no one has been interested in this before."

    Shin picked up the two empty plates and took them to the sink, while Mai continued inspecting the samples, and it was a sharp beeping sound that brought her out of her self-absorption. On the pages of the book where Shin had written earlier, there was now a red dot with the label of an incoming video call. Mai accepted the call, and the ring of photographs grew smaller as a much larger holographic screen opened.

    There appeared the face of a slender black woman with black hair in a bun, dressed in a white blouse and blazer. Behind her moved several people dressed in lab robes, as they appeared to move objects placed in glass boxes.

    "Hello Naomi," Mai greeted with a smile as she sat again.

    [Hey! How''s it going? Is your boyfriend around? I got the information he asked for.]

    Shin came back from the sink drying his hands and took off his PVC apron. Naomi who was also receiving live images, was now looking apprehensively at Shin.

    "What''s up?"

    [I have good news and bad news. I''ve been looking at the images you sent me and I got quite a bit of information.

    [Those pieces of sculpture you sent me have no historical background whatsoever. They are original, and they are not based on any kind of ancient deity. The closest we found are some ancient sculptures molded in clay from the Dogon culture of Mali. Which is curious in one detail.]

    Both could see how Naomi was manipulating something underneath that the holographic image did not show. Half a second later, two images appeared from Shin''s book and floated to a position below Naomi.

    [Meet Elif Bicini, and one of his works: AmmLaag. Which curiously was donated to the museum of fine arts in Mali before his death.]

    The images showed a lanky, deep-eyed man, with a bushy beard, sitting in a studio surrounded by anthropoid and animal-like sculptures. The other image was of a figure about six feet tall standing on a pedestal. It was the same strange carved figure that Amir had shown them in the past days, with the sort of horn-like appendages on the crown and jaw, the same arms embracing the wiry belly and ending at the base in a more rounded and bulbous surface. It was more grotesque to see it that size than the small ones they had seen before.

    "You found it," Shin said.

    [Yes, it wasn''t hard. What struck me is that he made this motif in miniature fifty times over. At least that''s what''s listed in the appendices of his collection, in addition to everything else he made during his lifetime.]

    "In what year?"

    [You guys, ready? It was ''64 of the first century.]

    ¡°That''s a year before what Amir told us happened.¡± Mai said.

    "Is it known why he made this sculpture?"

    [There''s not much data about that from consulting his biography. Every time he was asked about, he said and I quote: everything is one in the amalgam.]

    Shin thought about it for a few seconds.

    "AmmLaag... is an anagram in English for amalgam?"

    [Exactly. That''s the same thing I thought, unless it''s something we don''t know.]

    "You said he made fifty of those¡­ is there anything about the identities of the buyers?" Mai asked.

    [There was never any, all the miniatures were gifts for anonymous friends, and all of them disappeared in the ''64. There is no record of any of the identities in the records. But, thanks to Fermi and Dirac, I was able to find something else. In the ''66, two appeared for sale by families in the States and two others a few years later, one in Australia and one in China. I''m going to send you the data, but interestingly, the four original owners of those all died in ''65.]

    "So, those four, there''s a good chance they would have been among the 30 that died in the lake."

    Naomi nodded and added. [Do you guys, want to know more?. Elif Bicini died at the age of 90, 36 years ago, and the last visit he received was from a family friend, including a 20-year-old girl named Rayana Ivraeva.]

    Shin simply tried to smile. "You are amazing. Thank you."

    [Don''t thank me yet, big boy. I haven''t given you the bad news yet,] Naomi said and turned to look at Shin. [When you guys come to Egypt, you Shin, have an interrogation order waiting, something about an object you borrowed in 1979 from the Ancient Era and never returned to the Ministry for the Preservation of Relics in Cairo.]

    Shin made a strange gesture and scratched a cheek. "Interesting if it were not for one detail. In 1979 I was still underwater, regenerating. In fact I didn''t visit Egypt until 1989."

    [They probably got the year wrong.]

    "I don''t remember taking anything from them anyway. Let them ask Leon." Shin said, as Mai looked at him with narrowed eyes.

    "We appreciate it Naomi, let us know if they find anything else."

    [I''ll put one of my archivists on it to see if there''s anything else to dig up but, we can only help you with artistic issues. Secret cult crimes is not my area. I''ll be seeing you guys. Take care,] Naomi said, with a smile of circumstance.

    The image disappeared and only the image of Elif Bicini and his strange creation remained floating.

    They both continued to stare for a few moments at the images rotating around, making the pieces fit together in their heads. It was a moment that Mai certainly hated because it seemed they had done enough for the moment, but the last pieces of the puzzle were slipping away.

    "We have evidence, but we still don''t know what led all those people here."

    "We need all three. We''ve been moving solely on leads so far," pondered Shin.

    "That''s why I''ve wanted to keep this quiet. We have no physical evidence, no murder weapon, only crime scene," Mai sighed and added. "I''m going to call the local branch agents to see if they have any information."

    Mai walked around the room for a few moments and then looked at Shin, remembering that he had no Neurowire, only his book. She traced some symbols with her right hand, and then making, a sort of spiral she pointed to Shin''s book. From it a new circle sprouted and transformed into a rectangle.

    After a few seconds the face of a man on a black background appeared on the screen. Like them, he also had pointed ears, but the expression -almost on the verge of tedium- seemed to indicate that he lacked several doses of adrenaline. He had electric blue disheveled hair and almost half-closed eyes of a black color that did not reflect any light.

    [Izumi,] the man said with a slight bow, as he slurred his words.

    He then looked at Shin standing behind Mai and bowed his head again.

    "Hey, Arsen," Mai greeted. "I was calling to see if you had any news."

    [Unfortunately, not much. Dr. Komarov''s figure is still in police custody. We''ve been trying to find out more, but if we were too interested we might raise suspicions. Without access to some of the figures, or solid evidence, we can''t stick our nose in, because technically it''s not our jurisdiction.]

    "It was a long shot, anyway," Mai nodded snorting.

    [But we have something else. We''ve gathered quite a bit of data on the so-called Kolsay lights. In fact there''s enough data going back to the year 10 of the first century.]

    "Year 10? Of the Singularity Age or CE, AE?" Shin asked.

    [From the last century,] nodded Arsen.

    "But no alarms have ever been raised. No attempt was ever made to at least investigate about those?"

    [My apologies boss, but do you know how many reports of strange lights we get per day from open source only? Over fifty. Satellite sightings, teenage pranks, glitches in the Neurowire synaptic systems, they can even produce hallucinations of seeing things that aren''t there because of that. The Kolsay lights are sporadic, it is not as if it is a phenomenon that occurs every year. The last ones reported were last year and this year''s were reported by a soldier stationed at the entrance of the park but, before that, the last ones recorded were in 117.

    [There is also the fact that they do not obey a fixed time pattern, when they appear most often is in March, but the dates change, and there are even cases where they have been reported in January and April, for periods ranging from 3 to 8 days.]

    "From what our source told us, Dr. Komarov disappeared last Thursday."

    "We''re already a week out, so there''s a chance that, whatever happened at this location, we''ve already missed the opportunity to investigate it," Shin added.

    [But we have something else. We were able to find Professor Ivraeva''s figure that disappeared from the police evidence locker.]

    "What? How did you find it?" Mai asked.

    [It was in Dr. Komarov''s office, at the university. I sent two of my undercover agents to check it out.]

    "Komarov stole the evidence Ivraeva left behind?"

    "We have physical evidence," Mai said, looking at Shin.

    [This guy is not only a geologist, he has also a background in mineralogy with a specialization in meteorite mining. And something else.] This time Arsen turned to Shin. [I asked Hazmat to send me the data from the analyses you did of the lake early. It turns out that the park''s conservation studies are spread out over several departments, but they all answer to the same area director. The director is the Dr. Komarov, and the data from your analyses do not agree with his. In fact, it seems that every year he modified certain parts concerning the lake.]

    "Which parts?"

    [The changes are minimal but they are related to the reservoir water purity studies and soil studies.]

    "There were no complaints from those who wrote the other reports?"

    [Apparently not. An interesting fact: those in charge of the studies are fifteen people, twelve years ago they all went on a trip to Kolsay Lake, the photos are on their social networks. After that they have all been treated for psychotic breaks, hallucinations and periods of depression¡­ It would be normal for a human, but I was checking the background of the other victims who died in the alleged accidents, and those who were identified in the incident 60 years ago. All of them, including those in Kyrgyzstan had previous history of psychiatric disorders. And, what is most disturbing about the latter, is that prior to their death they all switched off their Neurowire systems. And in the memory banks there are gaps of information from each time they went to the place, as if they themselves did not want to leave evidence.]

    "And what about the fifteen who went on the trip with Komarov? They too have gaps?"

    [...] Arsen looked at Shin with a poker expression as he shook his head.

    "Yes, I know. We''re going to need a warrant if we want to do deep memory browsing."

    [Should I call the Fire Department and Virg now?]

    Mai shook her head. "No, let''s keep this out of the files for a little longer. If we start with too many moves and get caught freelancing on a case that hasn''t been assigned and then it turns out it was all a misunderstanding, it''s going to go bad for us," she said with a serious expression.

    [Honestly reviewing what we have evidence of the case, maybe this is only a case of negligence, in part¡­ at least. The victims¡¯ cases after the year 65 have been very few, and on top of that, in people with psychiatric disorders. Ten deaths in sixty years, in an abandoned place in the middle of nowhere, is not so rare statistically. Those that were not attacks, have been taken simply as cases of suicide. The strangest and most notorious was that of Ivraeva. Then there was another one, three years later, of a woman who was found frozen, and now the case of Dr. Komarov.]

    "Yes, that''s true, aside than the case where all those people died, the rest were carried out by police and military investigations. But they have been so spaced out in time that probably no one could connect them until our source did," Mai said.

    Arsen nodded with a serious face.

    [Good luck. Be careful on this one. Carissia is in static orbit over our station, in case you need a quick extraction. The decoy signal from you two is at the station, so in case this gets out of hand you have to let me know first.]

    "Thank you Arsen."

    Arsen looked over to Shin and seeing that Shin didn''t take his eyes off the image sent a mental message that only Mai could hear.

    [Is that your boyfriend?]

    "Yes. Mine and Lizbeth''s." she replied and Arsen looked once again at Shin.

    [Give that thing a sandwich,] he said and cut the communication.

    Mai twisted her head to the side and tried to stifle a laugh.

    "What? What did he say to you?"

    "Nothing, nothing." She said, regaining her composure.

    She looked at the floating pictures once more and sighed, Arsen''s attempt at a final joke didn''t take away from the problem they now had on their hands. It would have been so easy to simply retrace their steps, take the car, leave the scene and forget all about it. They had no assignment to investigate the case. But Mai knew herself too well to know that was already impossible. From the moment Amir Zejho walked into the hotel room, and told his story, she knew she would have to go all the way, no matter what the consequences were.

    It was the kind of life she had decided to lead for a long time. A duty she had imposed on herself, so long ago, that she had almost forgotten when she had started. Now, together with Shin and Lizbeth, perhaps, it had been worth doing so much to get to that point.

    The investigations, the sadness of the victims, the deaths, all weighed heavily on her shoulders at that moment. But continuing to fight to save a world, which although it often treated her cruelly, seemed to make more sense than ever. It was her self-discipline and hard work that had brought her to that position after all.

    She had already gone too far.

    Mai sighed and folded her arms as she swung her chair.

    What if Sergey Komarov had simply turned off his Neurowire and sent the message to Armir Zejho just as a joke? They had certainly considered it as a possibility that night at the hotel. But now that they were there, that possibility was a thing of the past. The adulteration of the data was a serious matter and would have jeopardized not only his position as director and professor at the university, but also his entire career would have been discredited.

    Could it have been that he saw no other way out but to escape from it all by committing suicide? If so, then where was his body? What had become of the body of his girlfriend Ivraeva? Was it still somewhere in the depths of the forest? Or had she committed suicide by throwing herself into the icy waters? Or had something dragged them both from the depths of the lake?

    "It''s a cult after all," Shin''s voice snapped her out of her reverie.

    "If so, what were all these people worshipping here?"

    "And what the hell is going on here, with the environment? Honestly I don''t think it''s a coincidence." Shin added looking at the collected samples.

    "I hate cases of cults and cultists, they have never started or ended well for us," she turned and looked at him with a serious expression. "Let''s go to the forest. Let''s try to find out what the hell these people were doing here."

 Vol.1/ Chapter 7: The Woods

    Chapter Seven

    The woods.

    Despite what Mai had said, it took them another thirty minutes to get ready to head out into the woods.

    Shin was busy gathering up all the instruments from his mobile lab, putting back all the tools he used in his analysis, and shrinking the cubes, leaving the samples taken in a state of suspended animation for a detailed examination that, he hoped, could be completed later when they returned to the capital. Although, about the latter, that would be as long as Arsen didn''t complain about it.

    Then they cleaned the place of their footprints, it didn''t take them more than a few minutes since, after all they hadn''t touched the place too much, besides Shin, who was rattling back and forth all morning with his equipment. Even so, with the cleaning tools carried in the mobile lab case it was more than an easy task.

    They could not leave anything to chance, in case they had to leave unexpectedly if something went wrong. They had permits and false identities and, while they had been more than careful to hide the data of the fictitious IDs in the database, it wouldn''t take more than a fourth or fifth check by a technician to see that the information had been altered the day before.

    In case things went worse than expected, Mai would probably have to give several explanations as to why they had falsified information to the military and get into a diplomatic mess, which was sure to end up in a paperwork for the next days and weeks. On the other hand, if they discovered something really big that warranted SID''s intervention, as they did, things would be easier, but it was better to prepare for the worst.

    And there was also the issue of time. If what they had gathered was anything to go by, it was certain that they might not be able to find the reason for the lights if they appeared for only a few days at first. They hoped that Ruslan''s words were true on that point.

    Mai''s plan was simple. Search the surrounding area during the hours they had daylight, in the hope of finding Komarov''s body, and stand guard in the car during that night, in case the lights appeared. If they couldn''t find, or see anything, they would wait until morning and try another drive around, as long as their cover was not blown.

    Mai took care of erasing the last traces of their presence in the room. But not before preparing herself, most of all her long silver hair. She put on her head a small device that she kept in her coat, and it extended thin appendages, similar to the legs of a spider but much longer, and in less than twenty seconds it combed the long hair, from the top of the head to the ends, to finally leave it tied in a long braid.

    From the black case, that Shin had given her earlier, she took out a tactical archery glove of fine workmanship, black in color and topped on the back with a sort of turquoise stone that emitted a faint flash from time to time, she put it on and put the thicker gloves back on. Mai certainly judged it useless to carry, as it was a special weapon and in the current conditions it was deactivated, but a part of her was also relieved to have it in her hand.

    Shin simply put his trench coat back on with his holster gear and needed no further preparation. They loaded the suitcases back into the car, with what they had collected and pulled some small tactical emergency backpacks out of one of the other suitcases along with a pair of trekking poles for the road.

    The SID tactical backpacks were specially designed for risky missions. Manufactured with Fragment technology, they could carry several times their weight, which allowed to include not only a first aid kit but also to facilitate the loading of weapons and ammunition, that in a static compressed only had about five percent of their real weight. The different instruments in the backpack were loaded with a code that, when recited by the user, allowed the object in question to decompress and appear in the place configured by the user. The backpack itself was small and black in color, with a shape almost like a nanocarbon shell, which is why many in the SID team called it the ¡°turtle backpack¡±.

    Both configured some emergency weapons in the respective places in the backpacks and some supplies in case of emergency. Then Mai moved the car to hide it near the trees and activated the optical and thermal camouflage in case any prying eyes discovered it.

    They left in a northerly direction, following the western shore of the lake, walking through the snow and mud that made it difficult to pass. They were followed by two of the drones that Mai had deployed earlier, one in front and one in the rear, the other two remained in the vicinity of the cabin. Mai, who had the map in her Neurowire, had already marked the way and the drones followed her orders floating slowly, while marking the trail.

    The passage was difficult not only because of the snow. In several parts, thick trunks cut the way and they had to make detours uphill, slipping from time to time between the snow and loose soil, to pick up the trail on the other side. In other places they encountered the repulsive, fetid goo of the fungus Shin had encountered, but this time in the form of thicker webs of mycelia.

    They sprouted from the lake and the earth and got lost in the forest or sometimes climbed up the trunks to get lost among the higher branches. Shin could hardly believe it was so scattered all over the place. It was barely growing noticeably, but it was becoming more and more apparent that it was everywhere. And what made Mai even more astonished was that she could also see that this grassiness was the cause of the black trees they had seen from the car.

    The webs of filaments coiled in various parts around the trees, taking on a more gelatinous and transparent texture in some parts, red or black in others and stinking. Shin occasionally took some samples that he put in small thin Teflon evidence cans, that he carried in his backpack, as he discovered that the trees, which the nets reached, were giving off a warmth that made the snow at the base and the layer of frost on the upper branches thaw completely. Not only that, but those trees were also suffering from clear signs of disease. The bark was black and rotten, and they were oozing a red-colored sap from the gills, droplets of which ran down and melted with the viscosity.

    They had already walked almost two and a half kilometers from the cabin and Mai looked worriedly at the sky. It was now three o''clock in the afternoon and they would only have three or four more hours of daylight. The lights of the drones were powerful enough to illuminate even a hundred meters in the dark, but it made her feel uneasy that the night would catch them halfway back if they took more time in the forest. And there were still about two kilometers to the place where the scientist had disappeared.

    Both carried a trekking pole each and used it more for poking the snow, whenever they found a lump than for walking on the ground.

    They tried to hasten their pace a bit but found it difficult, as they had to keep an eye out for any details that the drones might miss. The drones were equipped with scanning and pattern recognition systems, but even so, three more eyes to search the path was better than just the two of the drones. On top of what they had already seen of the site, they had enough evidence to at least open an investigation.

    The corruption of nature in the place was more than enough reason to alert any health authority to send out investigation teams. But even if they did, what chance did they have that whatever happened to the previous victims wouldn''t happen to them as well? That question was enough for both to continue on their way in search of a possible explanation for the disappearance of Komarov, Ivraeva and all the victims who had lost their lives at the site.

    The trees became more thicker as they advanced and the branches, as if they were long famished hands, seemed to stretch out wanting to cut them off, as if they already knew what was ahead.

    The calm of the cabin on the shores of the lake, and the view from the air when they arrived, had deceived them. The place was much more inhospitable than they had thought. Not only the trees, but the muddy snow in some parts seemed to want to swallow their boots, and even the icy wind hitting their cheeks like hundreds of needles was trying to delay them

    Nature had reclaimed the place that had originally belonged to her. It did not want movement there. It was an insult. Only animals that had evolved at the rate of thousands of their kind could survive in the the place, while others were leaving their bones on those slopes and then descending to the lake as their final resting place.

    And there was the environment.

    Shin didn''t know why, but ever since they had left the cabin, he had felt something strange. It was a tingling sensation that was fixed on the back of his neck, he knew that something had detected his presence and it wasn''t the drone behind him. He didn''t feel fear, it was a stranger sensation, as if something was following him in the distance. But as he was used to feeling haunted, he certainly felt that he would alert Mai for no reason. The small back of Mai, with her long braid moving from side to side, was what worried him.

    She was... or rather had once been more human and could be hurt. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to her. She had entrusted her whole being to him.

    Him.

    It.

    An outsider. An alien, in a land he had never belonged to in the first place, but which he had decided to call home anyway. Over the years he had seen many things, but now he could finally embrace something resembling happiness. Even if he had to continue to risk his life for a world that often seemed absurd to him with its wars and intrigues. Even if when he arrived months ago he didn''t even think he would be joining Nevermore, although at the time he didn''t think trouble was waiting for him as soon as he arrived. Had it been worth so many years, centuries, lost on the other side?

    Shin looked again at Mai''s back. Yes, it was worth it. Everything else was already a thing of the past.

    It was not the wild time of the 20th century of the Ancient Era. Even if the world had become an even stranger place than he remembered, this time it was different. Nevermore was different from when he and a group of madmen believed they could solve the world''s problems by creating a secret organization dedicated to studying Dark Events.

    Nevermore had a solid infrastructure in the world, which was much more than he could say for the futile attempt that had been Tempus Fugit. So many lives lost chasing an insane dream.

    Mai meanwhile felt Shin''s gaze on her and smiled a little. But the next moment she felt something in her head tremble and her ears became tense. The sound of the water, their footsteps crunching the snow or splashing near the shore as they passed closer to the water had not distracted her from something. She had thought she heard something under the water.

    "What is that?"

    Mai''s voice snapped Shin out of his musings and he nearly tripped over one of the filthy fungus strands coming out of the lake. She turned and looked at him with wide eyes, then looked back at the lake, to her right. Mai stopped and gazed as if in rapture at the lake. The drone that had been going ahead of them up to this point was now about ten meters away but almost skimming the surface of the water.

    "What?" Shin turned around too.

    Shin couldn''t rely on his right vision due to his blindness, but he felt that somehow she was looking almost in the direction under the water.

    "Mai?"

    She kept looking in the same direction, her gaze lost in the waters. The drone''s eye was facing the waters as well but slightly tilted downward. Whatever Mai was seeing was through the connection to the drone.

    "Hey!" Shin reached over and swiped at her shoulder.

    Almost instantly, she came to herself as she frowned and blinked a couple of times in confusion.

    "What just happened?" asked Shin.

    "No... nothing, but I''m sure I saw something moving there. I wanted to be sure it wasn''t a body but... maybe it''s just a fish." She meditated for a few seconds and Shin looked at the waters.

    The clarity of the waters was getting darker beyond five meters, it was not like the other part that had a gentle slope, perhaps that part of the lake in its entirety was much deeper.

    "How much further to the place?"

    "Just two hundred meters." She said and pointed ahead.

    They set off again as Shin glanced back at the lake from time to time. Before they reached the two hundred meters indicated, she stopped and pointed again to the area where the lake became much narrower and the hills became a tighter gorge.

    It was almost as thick and muddy as the others, but it had a small stretch of higher ground on the shore that allowed one to see a little further into the depths. Further north, almost half a kilometer from where they were, they could hear the water changing its speed and, if they were not mistaken, it was the area where the landslide had made a kind of natural dam, dragging hundreds of trees down the hill through years.

    In ancient times that part was only a small tributary of just a few meters, or centimeters, in some parts that connected both lakes. Now however it was a river of almost sixty meters thick, whose waters flowed furiously down to the north lake to then die between the hills and mountains around feeding the subterranean reservoirs.

    They both walked in silence to the area where Komarov''s signal had been lost.

    "The search team made it this far?" asked Shin looking at the terrain.

    "At least that''s what they said in the report."

    "Didn''t they see all that stuff?"

    Mai turned to Shin quizzically. "There''s no mention of this or any of the other anomalies."

    "Are you thinking what I''m thinking?" he asked. "What if the search and rescue group somehow was affected by the same thing as the doctor and his girlfriend?"

    "This place seems to affect those who come near it, but only for a few weeks at a time," Mai said.

    "Prior to the Big War there were never any reports of anything strange going on?"

    "No, only that this was a tourist area."

    They walked down to the waters and looked, but there were certainly no markings of any kind on the ground, at least human ones. The filaments coming out of the water seemed to be the only things that had almost imperceptible movement and left a crawling trail over the muddy silt. They were much thicker in that part and were lost among the trees, almost as if whatever they were feeding on was more abundant in the area.

    "If the Neurowire location signal ended up here, and if he really did commit suicide as he said in the message, he could only be in the water or in the forest." Shin said.

    "The problem is, if he did commit suicide by throwing himself into the waters, we would have to go further down. Maybe there is something the search party missed. It''s been a week already. If he didn''t sink, he can only be in that log dam," said Mai pointing forward with her trekking pole.

    At that moment Shin sniffed the air and turned looking to his left in the direction of the forest uphill. Above the stench of the fungus, he had caught a whiff of something else. It was a smell that he knew quite well, much to his dismay. Mai, noticing the strange attitude, tried to sharpen her sense of smell. She also knew that smell.

    It was the smell of decomposition. Shin slowly drew his weapon from his shoulder holster and in the other hand he held his trekking pole in case he had to use it as a weapon as well. If there was something dead further up, there was a chance that there might be an animal ready to attack too. He started walking up the slope slowly, when Mai caught his attention.

    "Let me send a drone first," she said and the black sphere behind Shin set off up the hill, emitting a faint buzzing sound with choppy tones as it passed him.

    Through her Neurowire, Mai could see what the drone was seeing live.

    Ten seconds passed, then twenty, until it seemed to have reached its destination. Mai put a displeased expression on her face.

    "Is it Komarov?"

    "No¡­ it''s just a bear, and it''s dead," she said and began to climb.

    Shin followed her, once again watching as the filaments climbed upwards as well.

    He thought he imagined what they would find.

    About seventy meters up the steep path, at the foot of two hundred-year-old fir trees, they found the unfortunate animal. It was lying on its side. If they had to judge by putting an expression on the animal, it would have been that of a scream of horror. The jaw lay dislocated on its side on the ground, with shreds of black flesh and bone visible, a bruised tongue and empty eye sockets.

    The stomach was swollen. But what had made Mai nauseous was something else. In the mouth of the animal, eyes sockets and back, the putrid-smelling fungus was penetrating into his body. The smell was unbearable, despite the cold, and Mai put a hand to her nose.

    Shin, on the other hand, didn''t seem too bothered by it, as he squatted down to better examine the animal. He paid special attention to the mycelial filaments that seemed to be feeding on the carcass because of its fatness. It gave him a bad feeling, because it was likely that the bloating was not due to gas, but rather that it was full of the fungus. Then he looked under the animal and beyond the spruce trees and noticed something else. More filaments were coming up the path, but those were different, they weren''t coming straight from the lake, they were sprouting from the ground and were getting lost higher up, where the stench was getting stronger.

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    This time he did not wait and walked the few meters uphill to what appeared to be a ledge of the hill with a small treeless plain. Daylight was streaming into the treeless area and Shin realized why. The surrounding trees were just as withered as many of the others in the area, but the sliminess had taken its toll. Not only that, several wild goat carcasses and a huge dead elk were also there. All the animals were found with the same characteristics as the bear, had no attack marks from any other animal. All had succumbed to the fungus.

    "Well, with this we have enough for the cavalry to come up. I don''t know if we have a new species but what is clear is that thing is dangerous." Shin said, looking at Mai who was at his back but again looking down in the direction of the water downstream.

    "But we have no news from Komarov," she said and turned to look at her partner. "The map Amir gave me with the supposed location of where all those people died sixty years ago is nearby."

    "Yes, but is it on the other side?"

    "I''m looking through the other drone and we can cross over the logs in the dam, like you said."

    "You want to check it out?" Shin asked.

    "I was just thinking, in case Komarov and Ivraeva were in the same kind of cult, maybe they may have gone there. What do you say?"

    "That''s fine with me. We still have a couple of hours of daylight."

    Mai sent the data with photographs of what they had obtained to Nevermore''s main Kazakhstan station, located in Astana. Arsen was probably going to be more relieved, now that they had reason to set up a formal investigation.

    The descent down the mountain was more difficult than the ascent, even though it was only a short distance. They would have continued from where they were to the dam had it not been for the fact that beyond the ledge, where the dead animals were, there was no path, only the steep and slippery slope and the branches that would make their way difficult. Once they descended, they resumed the path towards the dam.

    The path became easier in that part once they were a hundred meters away from the place where Komarov''s signal was lost. They still encountered the same obstacles, but in a way, they could feel that the place was different. The stench was no longer felt in the air, and even the filaments were decreasing in quantity. Until they reached the dam and barely found a few here and there. It had to be true that whatever was happening seemed to concentrate more on the larger water reservoir.

    The dam was simply a pile of hundred fallen trees interconnecting those on either side. The rolling of the trunks down the mountain had torn away parts of the thicker branches and simplified the passage without having to cut or dodge branches to cross. But, even so, it had to be done carefully. They were not sure how firm it would be for the passage. Even though they were both light, the parts where the branches were torn off showed long sharp splinters capable of penetrating flesh like butter. Not to mention, that the speed and pressure of the water coming down was a hazard to be considered.

    The thaw of the Tian Shan Mountains must already be occurring in the south, and the water was passing with unusual fury under some trunks and spitting out of holes several meters away in others, as if the liquid element itself wanted to run away from something.

    They both looked around the dam for a few minutes, in case Komarov''s body was there, but the search was in vain.

    "I''ll go first," Shin said perching and leaping like a freerider over the logs. "Are you going to be all right by yourself? Or shall I carry you?"

    "We''re not in the middle of the sea," she said mimicking him.

    "Well then. Let me go first just to be safe, the last thing we need is for the logs to get loose and drag us downstream."

    "You''re too cautious."

    "You can never be too cautious when nature is trying to eat you."

    Shin began to cross and stopped halfway across to survey the view from those vantage points. To the south, losing himself in the mountains, he watched as a layer of mist advanced in the distance over the lake. He finished crossing followed by the drone and in a few seconds he was on the other side of the lake. The logs had passed the endurance test. Mai did the same almost instantly, but not before doing the same as her companion by looking into the distance.

    "There''s a mist coming down."

    "Yeah, we''d better hurry," she urged.

    The east side of the forest looked much the same as the west side, with hills and spruce-studded mountains stretching as far as the eye could see. But what caught both of their attention was when they headed south again, following the shore, the layer of mushrooms on the ground were much less in quantity and the passage was not as difficult as on the other side.

    "Come here. It''s this way." Mai said, marking the path once again.

    She pointed to an area that was lost in the trees and they entered the forest, tracing an oblique line in a southeasterly direction. The snow was a few centimeters thick and did not hinder their passage and the slope of the mountain was much lighter. The wind from the lake pushed them up so, beyond worrying about not slipping, they had no major problems.

    The amount of filaments had almost completely disappeared in that stretch and the change was evident in the environment, and they had barely seen any trees affected on that side, but the snow increased in small amounts as they walked a few tens of meters.

    Shin began to scratch the back of his neck. Again he had the feeling that something was following them, but it was different this time, it was something more threatening. As if something didn''t want him on the spot.

    "I think you''d better draw your gun, just in case," he said.

    "Why? Did you see something?"

    "Don''t you feel anything weird in here?"

    "No, and it smells a lot better than the other side," Mai said, as she filled her lungs.

    She decided to draw her gun just the same, Shin was much better at sensing when something might be wrong.

    With the gun drawn, this time it was Mai who experienced a strange itch on the back of her neck, and this was heightened when they heard a sound of something cracking in the trees, not too far away from them, but they were sure they had heard the sounds of an animal''s paws on the snow.

    It was true, now, for some reason, she felt watched by something although it was not a sense of threat like Shin felt, more just alertness. She moved her ears several times, trying to pick up some sound but nothing else was heard. The drones equipped with thermal vision could not see anything either, but the sensation continued all the way until they reached the place they were looking for.

    The spot marked on the map was a place where the trees spaced out considerably and the mountain terrain steepened into a slight counter-slope, which stretched almost fifty meters wide until it began to rise again. On both sides the counter-slope extended as far as their eyes could see, getting lost in the thicket and the snow, which had almost melted, except for the frost on the branches.

    They both exchanged glances. They realized that the unpleasant smell had returned, although much lighter. The fungus had appeared again from the ground and Shin kept wondering how widespread it could be. There were systems that could cover miles, but if it was as dangerous as it seemed no one had ever reported it before.

    "This was the place?"

    "Yeah," Mai replied.

    If they expected to find any trace of Komarov at the site, they were disappointed. Only the trees with their mute presence were there. The snow hid parts of the ground, but if there had indeed been a body there they would have found it without difficulty, for the layer was not thick enough to cover a grown man.

    "Is it colder here than on the other side, or is it just me?" Mai asked.

    "I''m not sure. I''ve got a few pounds of metal on my body." he replied as he examined the place.

    The years since Ivraeva''s disappearance and the death of the strange group of people at the site had passed and the weather had altered the shape of the terrain. If they wanted any evidence of it, after all this time, they would have to bring in more people and comb the terrain with the medico-legal investigation team from Nevermore Station. They already had more than enough material to do that anyway.

    They checked as much as they could and Mai recorded several times and took photographs of the site sending orders to the drones, which were then sent almost immediately to the central station. They walked another hundred meters inspecting the place until they finally reached a clearing in the forest, where they could see some old stumps of several destroyed trees. They formed a ring, and towards the center, they saw four thick fir trees that must be as old as their already withered peers around. There were no collapsed trunks to be seen in that part, probably if there had been any they must have slid down the mountain long ago.

    They approached to examine the standing trees and to their surprise found that the slimy fungus sprouted from the base of them again, coiling in a spiral around the thick trunks, with thicker snakelike parts and thinner ones forming some kind of nervous network, whose tiny tips ended in tendrils. But those trees were in good condition and curiously showed no sign of the pestilence of the others on the other side of the lake, despite being covered with the same slimy film.

    However, although the discovery could be of great scientific interest, what attracted the attention of both of them was something else, and that was that the network of filaments seemed to stop at a specific point.

    On the bark of the trees, at the height of the eyes of a person of average height, they found carved a kind of elongated faces, three in bas-relief and one in high-relief, which watched them like silent guardians of a time already forgotten. Each one was different and three had their gazes fixed towards the forest while the one in the west, in high relief, looked towards the lake. The northern tree''s face showed some rough feline features, the western one was a horned animal and the southern one was a bird stabbing its own chest with its beak. All the engravings were made in a rustic style and reminded Shin of those of some tribal cultures he had seen in person long ago. However, it was the one facing west towards the lake that caught their attention.

    That one was different.

    While the others were simply engravings that sunk into the wood, that one had been carved in high relief on the knot of the tree. The shape of the knot, and how it had been engraved, gave Mai the feeling that the creature was almost intent on escaping from the tree.

    It had the same appearance as the strange figure they had been seeing for the past few days. There was that sort of beaked head, protruding with its four horns forming a sort of hood, and four arms with bony hands and elongated fingers that embraced the thin stomach, and the lower part of the body extended forming a thinner line that was lost at the base of the tree. The filaments around it drew a more defined outline but without touching the high relief and almost gave the appearance that the creature had broken through an unknown threshold and entered the reality of this world.

    Mai recalled the image Naomi had sent them of the two-meter figure and wondered which one was closer to the true appearance. This one was much more grotesque than the one they had seen and the miniature representations. She wasn''t sure if it was because of the lighting that left the place in a semi-darkness but, depending on how one looked at it from different angles, the head almost seemed to be in seriousness at times and at other times as if, at the level of the mouth, it made a grimace that twisted into a slight smile.

    Yet they found no sign of Komarov there either. They went a little deeper into the trees looking in case there were more signs in the trees but the search proved fruitless.

    "We know that this Bicini guy did the carvings in ''64, but now we know he was here sometime before or after the ''65 incident."

    "How do you know?"

    Shin knelt at the foot of the high relief and pointed to the creature''s hands and then upward.

    "They are two different carvings. The four faces are older, but have the same style, time hasn''t erased that. But the bottom part of this one is much more recent. My suspicion is that this bottom part was made by Komarov. You see these fingers? These are much more rustic, and the carving doesn''t have to be more than a few years old. Do you remember the image of the figure he had in his possession? The one Zehjo show us in the hologram? Well, it''s almost the same style."

    And it was true. There were certain lines, edges and parts that contrasted with the head, as if they had been made with an unskilled hand.

    "What about the other three?"

    Shin shook his head.

    ¡°I have no idea. Maybe other deities? But it seems like the only one they were paying attention to was this one,¡± he said indicating the horned head and stood up. He walked over to the others and looked at the more feline looking one. "Maybe this cult has worshipped animals from the park, this one I''m pretty sure is a bobcat and that one over there is a deer."

    He walked around the logs pointing to the respective ones and when he came back in front of the high relief almost carelessly looked up. There, almost five meters high, there were some large marks on the bark of the tree, with a concave aspect, some higher and some lower, as if something had hit hard that part.

    "What about the bird? I think I''ve seen other similar depictions." Mai asked pulling him out of his reverie.

    "Yeah, that one is weird, different style. It''s been used in heraldry, on ancient seals and even some secret societies used something similar. I''m not sure what something like this would do here," Shin said, after thinking about it for a few seconds, he added. "After World War II, I spent some time traveling around America. Once in Panama, I remember Leon and I found a clue of some kind to a group that worshipped a strange jaguar-like idol that had been found at a dig. The thing is that somehow the animal''s eyes produced a kind of hypnagogic hallucination in its worshippers, that they interpreted as out-of-body experiences."

    "Let me guess, you two ended up destroying the idol?"

    "No. It didn''t have any side effects or turn its followers into maniacal killers. It was all because of the trance of looking too much into the eyes. But I wondered if what happens with all the people here isn''t the same thing. Whatever these people saw, they kept coming back to them as if they couldn''t escape it. Komarov, Ivraeva, the people with mental disorders who came here, all of them. Do you remember what Zejho told us? He couldn''t move either and doesn''t remember how he got back to bed. Sure, in case that''s true."

    "Do you think he kept something from us?"

    "No, I don''t. But in case these people have been influenced by something, it wouldn''t be unusual for them to have memory gaps. I''m not sure if you could even pull anything concrete out with a deep-dive into the memory. It''s basically an unconscious memory, something kept them coming back. When they send out the research teams tomorrow I''d like to take samples of this stuff back to the island lab," he said, pointing to the filaments on the tree. "The ones here are a little different than the ones on the other side."

    "We''ll see¡­ " Mai said, looking sideways at him.

    She hoped Shin wouldn''t think of taking the whole trees back to the island. She sighed as if a weight was lifted off her shoulder and added. "Tomorrow we can bring a team to investigate further, this time with an official order. The only thing¡­ we have to come up with the why."

    "Why? The glows should be enough to draw attention. First the glows, then Komarov, and when the team arrives, wham! They figure these things here, along with the fungus, and there, you''ve got the why."

    "I hope it works."

    Minutes passed and while they continued their search, it proved fruitless. They found no trace of Komarov anywhere. They had found more than enough, but still there was no trace of one of the main reasons they were in the place. Mai hoped to find something, even if it was only a simple clue to the scientist''s whereabouts.

    "Some people who want to disappear, just really do, you know?" Shin said

    "There is no such thing as a mysterious disappearance, only poorly investigated cases," Mai said, sighing wearily.

    "You were humans and yet you disappeared before you became feys."

    "Yeah, but that''s different. If Komarov had been abducted to some parallel mad world, we wouldn''t have to be looking for him in first place, because his entire existence would have disappeared and no one would know he even existed. Ergo, this a normal case of alleged suicide."

    "Yeah¡­ I wouldn''t call any of this normal at all."

    The sound of something cracking, a score of meters away from where they were standing, made them turn around once more. They had not forgotten what they had been through only minutes ago and both drew their weapons once more.

    They had certainly been able to see animal tracks in the snow, but none had made an appearance, and the fact that Mai could not see them with the thermal cameras through the drones made her uneasy, but not too much. Accustomed as she was to her work, she simply judged that perhaps the local animals were frightened to see them.

    They stopped talking and continued on their way almost in silence until they returned to the shore from where they had come. A light mist already covered the surface of the lake. The other side of the lake was still visible but they had better hurry. The sound of the water rushing down practically erased their worries and they reached the dam once again.

    "Do you think they are lynxes?" she asked, looking once again at the forest.

    Shin did the same and shook his head. "No. Probably a deer or something bigger. They barely moved while we were there, but I assure you it was something bigger." he said and climbed into the trees of the makeshift bridge. As he crossed he looked south again and could already see that the thickest fog was almost upon them.

    "We''d better hurry we have less than an hour before it''s dark, if the fog doesn''t catch up with us first." Shin looked at her and found that she was still looking in the direction of the forest. "Hey!"

    Mai turned around and looked at him this time smiling, Shin shrugged his shoulders looking at her in confusion.

    "I would have liked to see a lynx."

    "You want to play with a wildcat in the middle of nowhere, and I''m the weird one for playing with a drone. You''re going to get eaten alive," he said. "Come on."

    Mai smiled at him, put the gun back in the leg holster and grabbed one of the thick roots of the tree to climb up and put her right foot on the trunk pressing up.

    Everything happened so fast that they didn''t have time to react.

    Shin looked south again, towards the mist, when Mai felt a piercing pain in her right shoulder followed by a cracking sound on it, it was the one she had grabbed the roots with, and she screamed in pain seeing how she was lifted several meters in the air by something that had snagged her clothes. She was shaken a couple of times and then thrown more than ten meters to the left, in the direction of the forest. Her back hit the thick trunk of a spruce tree and she fell unconscious, at the same time as some of the snow from the branches was dislodged by the jolt. A wound began to ooze blood from her forehead.

    Shin opened his eyes and began to run back down the trunk in direction to Mai, shouting her name, but he couldn''t get very far. It was a sudden tremor and he saw the trunk where he was standing begin to tilt to the side he had just come from, at the same time as the part of the trunk where he was standing began to lift into the air. He slowed his pace almost losing his balance for a second and looked ahead.

    There was something between him and Mai and even though he couldn''t see it he knew it was big and heavy enough to lift the part where he was.

    Suddenly the part where Shin was standing on fell back down, faster than it had risen, producing a thud. Over the sound of the water, he could hear the logs underneath begin to creak. That had released his weight, but it wasn''t for more than a few seconds. More crunching and Shin then knew that the dam was going to succumb.

    The invisible mass between them struck once more, and the dam gave way. The blow delivered this time was as loud as if someone had thrown a some explosive into the waters, followed by a loud bellow that could be heard for miles around.

    A shower of splinters, tree bark, water and mud filled everything for a second like a shockwave. Shin was thrown into the air to the side as the logs gave way and the water finally released from the pressure and violently destroyed the remnants of the huge dam.

    Shin fell into the water and tried to grab one of the logs but another one passed right over it squeezing his arm as if trying to crush it, as it sank under the weight. The hundreds of logs floated and sank passing over each other, blocking any exit to the surface. Shin gritted his teeth and pushed one up almost as thick as a small car. But the fact that he had no footing made it difficult to move. He clenched his bony fist and, despite the force against the liquid element, directed a blow toward the logs.

    I have to take it out, Shin thought.

    It was as if a squid had arrived on the scene. The moment his knuckles collided with the logs, a dark cloud like ink appeared from his fists and enveloped his hand. It was as if that kind of darkness had come from him. Black veins appeared under his shirt and began to slowly climb up his neck. On his hand that darkness took a definite shape despite the water, almost as if it were a ferrofluid material and adhered to his hand forming a black metal glove. Again Shin hit the trunk and this time it leapt into the air a couple of meters while releasing splinters everywhere.

    "MAI!" He shouted with all his might as he came to the surface and that was the last thing that came out of his throat.

    He saw a huge log coming, bouncing over the others and, with its most splintered part at a dizzying speed crushed his head.

    The water turned red for a moment and Shin disappeared into the darkness of the depths.

    All was silence, broken only by the rushing of the water and the sound of trees crashing, as they headed downstream.

    The snow had begun to fall again over the place and Mai was lying on the ground, while the wound on her head was still bleeding.

    The fog had already reached them and began to spread its mantle over them, as if it were a veil trying to cover the terrifying scene that had taken place.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 8: Interlude [ARK]

    Chapter Eight

    Interlude 2 [ARK]

    Siren Island

    Siren Island was large enough to be considered a small country. Although the main reason it had not been inhabited, before the arrival of Nevermore, was due to its status.

    The island had been considered in ancient legends as an evanescent island. A magical place that appeared and disappeared at will. A land of fables and magical creatures, populated by exotic fauna and magical plants that could provide all kinds of properties. Throughout the centuries it had dozens of names and was already known in the time of Ptolemy. That, however, was in the past.

    Even nowadays it was still considered an evanescent island. But instead of magic and legends, today the explanation was found in a much more scientific environment.

    The island was located in a vortex with a spatial distortion that caused it to appear at will. A sort of isolated space that moved between two different universes. Basically a Dark Event. But one so big that it had an extension of a little more than a thousand kilometers.

    It took Nevermore''s technical staff years to find a way to stabilize the island so that it would become the place it is today.

    By the time the Great War was over, the island with its various locations, was more than ready to be inhabited. Moreover, over the years, parts of the place had been changed to accommodate the needs not only of the city in the middle of the island, but also of the Nevermore Institute. And one of those places was the island''s subterranean archive, better know only as ARK.

    Which was the exact place where Kotori, a human girl, was at that moment.

    The disk, on which Kotori was riding, levitated several centimeters above the ground and with its slight humming sound broke the silence of the vast and long corridor in which she was passing by.

    To her left and right were located the huge black server blocks, placed side by side, that stored the digital data from one of Nevermore''s archive arks. It was a cold place and the only illumination at the moment came from the small horizontal lights of the blocks, which were located every few centimeters. The site was several kilometers long, with hundreds of rows, which for someone who had never been to the site could easily be lost for days.

    But that was not the case for Kotori, she was already used to the huge place. Although it was true that the first time she was there she was lost for almost a couple of hours, until someone came to look for her. But it had been five years since then, and now she knew almost every part of the island like the back of her hand.

    Kotori crossed her arms and sigh a little worriedly, as her blue eyes scanned the place.

    Kotori had a curvaceous figure. The formal black executive dress she wore left her shoulders bare, revealing delicate graceful arms, that were currently holding a tablet. She had her mauve hair on her left side tied in a braid, and she wore high over-the-knee boots with a distinct cyberpunk tech wear design that some of the SID members used to wear as work clothes.

    She was not part of the team of SID agents, her job was much more administrative in the division. But due to some problems that occurred months ago, after Shin joined, she was also in charge of the administration of the cases Shin covered, becoming almost his personal assistant. Although it was not a difficult task, she only had to make sure that he filled out the investigation reports correctly, as it was something he had never done before.

    While Kotori had a status in the administration, the truth was that she was also aiming to work in the city, joining law enforcement on the island. Working in the administration helped her as well, since she could also train with the same training program that many SID agents followed.

    Still, due to her nervous and shy personality, Kotori was the type of girl who brought her emotions to work, with which she couldn''t help but sometimes worry too much about those who were not only her co-workers, but also her friends. And also something else, because even if it was secretly something had happened a few months ago that had brought her closer not only to Shin, but also to Mai and Lizbeth.

    "Rein¡­ are you around?" Kotori asked in a low tone.

    A couple of minutes passed as she continued to wade through the huge rows of servers.

    "Rein! Are you here?!!!" She asked, raising her voice a little.

    "What?!"

    "Whaaa!"

    The subdued voice of a fey girl came a score of meters behind Kotori and made her startle. From between the blocks a girl came out and looked at her in surprise.

    Rein was short in stature, with rather short shoulder-length blonde hair, though slightly wavy. She was wearing a one-piece dress and a long black jacket. But if there was one thing that stood out about her, more than her pointed ears, it was her blue eyes with a vertical pupil and the small red horns on her forehead peeking out from between her abundant bangs. That, and a dark reptilian tail peeking out from under her jacket, which wagged back and forth, completed the picture that Rein was a special kind of fey.

    She was not only a fey with strange characteristics, she was also the current director of the Archive Section, Director of the Library and of the special section of Strange Books. In the past Rein was SID''s first Director of Operations, a position she held until the early years of the Singularity Age, when Mai had accepted the position.

    Rein could not deny it, she loved her current position. She had always been a bookworm or rather, in her case, a dragonbook. Reading and spending her days with the librarians in peace suited her much better than going around the world researching. Still, she had all the qualifications to be a special agent, and still held on to her Special Agent 0016 number with a great deal of pride, even though she herself did not think she would be returning to active duty anytime soon.

    For the time being, books would remain her thing.

    "You could have called me with the NW. What happened?" Rein asked, smiling a little bit.

    Kotori stepped off the silver disk that carried her, and walked toward Rein with slightly hesitant steps.

    "I wasn''t sure if you were with something important¡­ "

    "I''m just looking for a couple of things that aren''t in the library files."

    "Mai just sent some weird pictures to the Astana station, but she also sent them on letterhead over here for you to look at. Aria is busy, so she sent them to me."

    "Show me," Rein said.

    Kotori sent the pictures straight into Rein''s mind and she began to watch as the images of the strange animals carved in the forest appeared. Rein furrowed her brow in concern.

    "This is about the cult, isn''t it?" Rein asked.

    "Mai thinks she might be related," Kotori said.

    Rein sighed in sorrow. "The cult¡­" She could hardly remember how many decades they had been after them.

    The mysterious cult that called themselves "The Star Worshippers" appeared after the Great War, although there was clear evidence that it was some kind of strange cult that had been around for centuries.

    The SID were never able to capture any of its direct members, only clues, and encounters with other groups that had a certain connection, but never anything concrete. The Star Worshippers, due to Nevermore''s clear insistence to bring them to justice for the bloody and macabre nature of their crimes, had also taken the initiative and on more than one occasion had caught some of the agents and made them suffer a fate even worse than death.

    The reason for Nevermore''s insistence, and in particular Mai''s crusade against the mysterious and bloodthirsty group were several, but mainly two. Feys were the favorite prey of its members, although in recent decades they had expanded their menu to thelephats humans as well. The second reason was the hunt they had been giving to the Division agents, and more particularly to a case that affected Mai''s mind.

    Rein bit her lower lip. It certainly made her stomach churn to remember every time they had encountered them and the number of agents they had lost to them and their strange rituals.

    Kotori looked at her worriedly. "Mai is obsessed with them."

    Rein looked back at her. Deep inside she had certain doubts about Kotori and her relationship with Mai, Lizbeth and Shin. There were rumors about the four of them, but Rein didn''t want to put her foot in her mouth. Kotori was a girl who cared about things almost as much as Tony and the last thing Rein wanted was to make her feel bad.

    "You know the story of what happened to Mai?"

    "About what happened 70 years ago? Yes."

    "Then I guess you understand why Mai is obsessed with them. Not only does her fear of the sea come from them, but also the reason why she didn''t want to be in a relationship with anyone for years. But it worries me to think what will happen when she actually meets them face to face. I mean, we don''t think they''re Feys, although I don''t think the qualification humans would be enough for these bastards either."

    "Th-They eat people."

    "At least as part of one of their rituals. The belief, that consuming the flesh of a creature that has been to the Other Side grants eternal life and abilities, has been spinning around for years. Sadly, it''s not entirely untrue, though."

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    A shiver ran down Kotori''s spine, as she recalled the archival images she had seen of other cases. Rein realized that the conversation was becoming more depressing and tried to deflect the topic.

    "Anyway, this engraving they found caught my attention."

    "Which one?"

    "The one with the vulture pecking at its chest."

    "It''s a vulture?"

    "Well, it comes from Egyptian symbolism, then later it was associated with the pelican, which drank its own blood to feed its chicks. It''s clearly reminiscent of that. But it''s been used in different ways, sometimes a vulture, sometimes a pelican, sometimes a goose and it was used in alchemy too and with religious functions others."

    "Huh¡­ " Kotori nodded.

    "I don''t know why anyone would put it here, though. Unless it''s a signature of some group. I think you''d better ask Naomi about this one."

    "Signature of some group?"

    "Yes¡­ the Rozenkreutz used this symbol for a long time also as a way of recognizing each other among family members, but that was many centuries ago. Before the Great Exile of the 19th century. I think the meaning they gave it was something like writing history with the blood of the fathers, so that the blood of the children would not be spilled."

    "The Rozenkreutz family disappeared in the year 30 right? There is no one left alive?"

    "No. Franz Rackhenhell, The Child, was the only survivor of the attack. And it is to this day he is the heir of the Rozenkreutz pharmaceuticals, since he cut ties with his own family."

    "What a family¡­ and me complaining about when my father gave me a hard time about joining Nevermore."

    "Vampires have their problems too," Rein said with a wistful smile and added. "And I really like that you stayed with us once you were done with your treatment, even though your family didn''t want you to."

    "Not that he hated the idea, but I think the thought of having me away just after my eightteen bothered him. I like it here, you guys are my family too," Kotori said with a smile.

    "¡­ " Rein looked at her with sparkling eyes, as if she was a mother watching her daughter grow up.

    "What''s wrong?" Kotori asked, with a nervous look.

    "Are you sure you don''t want to come to my section? I''d love to have you around."

    "I have enough work as it is¡­ " she refused, smiling.

    "You''re very good. Shin''s not giving you any trouble, is he?"

    "No, not at all," she said blushing, "he''s good, and so are Mai and Liz."

    Rein looked suspiciously at the sudden reddening of her cheeks. She couldn''t deny that she was dying to know what had happened between the four of them during the Christmas break, where everything had ended with a party, but she judged that whatever had happened must have been personal. Since then, Kotori was much closer to those three.

    "So they''re good¡­ hmm."

    "¡­"

    Kotori''s redness was reaching her ears. Rein really wanted to know. "Did something happen on Christmas night?"

    Kotori was red as a tomato. Something did happen then, Rein thought sweating.

    "N-No, n-no, n-nothing happened. It''s not what you think."

    "You don''t have to tell me if you don''t want to. It seems it''s very personal¡­"

    "It was my mistake, I-I came in at the wrong time that''s all. They were busy¡­ "

    "Whatever happened between the four of you, don''t let it go over your heads. A lot of us were pretty drunk that day. Myself included, I ended up participating in a bot battle against Skuolfi and Alexia."

    Kotori''s face was reaching near boiling point and looked like she was going to cry at any moment. "It was just two nights¡­"

    I''m going to have to pull the ears of those three when they come this way. At this point I''m going to end up with three stepmothers, Rein thought.

    "It wasn''t their fault. B-but it didn''t p-pass-nothing like what you ima-imagine. I-I fell asleep in their bed, th-that''s all. I just interrupted them¡­ " Kotori said, as she looked away suspiciously.

    This poor girl can''t lie at all."In their bed, or with them too?"

    "P-p-please p-p-please don''t tell a-anyone!" Kotori begged tearfully to Rein, while shaking her by the shoulders as if she were a milkshake. "We promised, that it was going to be a secret and that it wasn''t going to happen again!"

    So, they spent two night together the¡­ I figured. I haven''t lost my knack for digging up information, Rein thought as she was shaken. Or maybe it was just that Kotori was too good to lie to her. "Easy girl, I''m not going to say anything."

    "Thank you," Kotori said, with a tired voice and a dry tone, it seemed as if her soul was escaping in those moments.

    "I-I think you should send those files to Naomi¡­ "

    "Yes¡­ I''m going to do that¡­"

    Kotori slowly walked back to the disk with sad steps.

    I think I''ve gone overboard. "Kotori¡­"

    "Huh?"

    "Seriously, don''t worry, my lips are sealed. And on the other hand¡­ if it happens again¡­ as long as it doesn''t affect the work, it shouldn''t be a problem."

    "Really?" Kotori asked, with a serious face, but Rein was almost certain that her eyes were glowing dangerously at that moment.

    "Eh?" These four need urgent therapy, Rein thought.

    "It''s really no problem if it doesn''t affect our work?"

    "¡­ No¡­ probably."

    I don''t know why but I think I screwed up, Rein thought.

    In Rein''s eyes she had always thought Kotori was a shy and nervous girl. But apparently she wasn''t as innocent as she had judged her to be.

    The truth is that Kotori had certain qualities that made her special among humans. She had a special ability in her body that for anyone else would have been impossible to lead a normal life. Kotori in that aspect was a rarity and in the division she was more than a girl loved by everyone. It was her ability to get ahead that many admired. If she was really deluding herself about the other three, they had better not do anything stupid. It was impossible given that Rein had known Lizbeth and Mai for decades. But Rein still wondered how Shin would feel. The few times he had tried to establish a relationship with a human woman it had not ended well.

    Considering that Mai, Lizbeth and Shin were in a polyamorous relationship, Rein was worried that since the three of them had not even been together for a year, opening a new path for someone else was something she could not have imagined, especially since Shin used to be a hard-headed person.

    Still, since Rein was Shin''s adopted daughter, perhaps Kotori had understood Rein''s words as permission granted. Guys sorry, I think I may have added a new problem to your relationship.

    "I appreciate the advice. I''m going to go back upstairs and call Naomi to see if she''s available to consult with about the engravings."

    "It wasn''t an advice¡­" said Rein quietly.

    Rein watched worriedly as Kotori rode away on the disk down the long corridor, and sighed as the she disappeared from sight.

    "Two feys, an alien and a human¡­"

    Though she didn''t have much time to continue to preoccupy herself with her thoughts about the true nature of the strange relationship of her colleagues, friends and dumb father.

    A call from Tony was coming in and snapped her out of her musings. She accepted the call over the Neurowire."Tony. What happened?"

    [I just got a report of a strange sighting in Edinburgh.]

    It was odd for Tony to call her about something so simple. Sightings of strange things were occurring everywhere and at all hours. There was something odd in his tone, which made Rein feel that it must be something quite different from usual.

    "What is it this time?"

    [A huge black creature, with red eyes and wings like a moth''s.]

    "¡­ " Rein put on a serious face. It was a short description, but she knew what Tony was referring to and it didn''t augur anything good.

    [You know what I mean?]

    "Yeah¡­ it''s been a while since we''ve had a report. Is it from a reliable source?"

    [Police traffic drones and a couple of civilian sightings. The civilians are already receiving treatment, they were told they were suffering from a Neurowire glitch.]

    "Are you going to alert the local authorities?"

    [I already did. If only as a precaution. Cardiff Station has been alerted as well.]

    "I hope we don''t have a tragedy on our hands."

    [Philip, Zi and Thor are quite close. I''ve already alerted them as well, just in case we need them.]

    "A mothman, huh?"

    [I''ve been going through the files, we have no reported sightings of any kind of these creatures in Edinburgh. At least that we are aware of, I checked with the SIGN agency as well and they are alerted too].

    "Yeah, that can''t be good."

    [Let''s hope it''s just a sporadic sighting].

    "I''ve had the suspicion for quite some time, and Oxy thinks the same thing, that it''s because of the sightings that things happen."

    [The observer theory?]

    "Yes, maybe if they were ignored nothing would happen, although we can''t be sure of that either."

    [How can you ignore a sighting when there are thousands of cameras around?]

    "Yeah, I know," sighed Rein.

    [Still, you know what worries me?]

    "The shadow people? Have there been any reports of them too?"

    [No. Not yet. But they almost always show up when there''s a mothman around too].

    "Have you told Mai and Shin?"

    [No, they''re busy with Kazakhstan.]

    "Shin is the biggest expert there is on these creatures, he probably knows more about them than anyone else. He''s been tracking them for decades in the 20th century and he was there during the Point Pleasant incident. This would be of great interest to both of them. After all that creature has appeared a couple of times in front of Mai too."

    [We can''t disturb them, they''re working undercover technically.]

    "Yes, I know. Mai sent pictures of the place. There''s certainly something weird going on there too."

    [We can only hope it''s nothing serious, neither Kazakhstan nor Edinburgh.]

    "I hope so."

    [I just wanted to warn you, I know you''ve always been interested in this creature.]

    "Who wouldn''t? It''s a harbinger."

    [I''ll call you if anything else happens.]

    "Thanks Tony."

    Rein cut the communication feeling a twinge in her stomach.

    That creature also appeared several days before she arrived on earth. It was during an earthquake in Argentina, in the year 1985 of the Ancient Era, and she was captured almost instantly by the military. It wasn''t until days later that Shin, Van and Leon were able to rescue her.

    Was it possible that it was the arrival of some kind of fey with special abilities? Or there was the even worse possibility that it was some new type of natural disaster generated by the Dark Events?

    No matter how she looked at it, both possibilities were frightening.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 9: Antlers

    Chapter Nine

    Antlers

    Mai woke up with a searing pain in her right shoulder, back, and stomach. If she had to measure in meters of height, she probably would have had to put it on the stratospheric scale.

    The clothes she always wore were the best for the kind of job she had, as they were flame resistant and thermal, with a smart fabric system with memory to protect her in cases of gunshots, stab wounds and some types of shrapnel caused by explosions. Of course, that did not protect her from the inertia of cars, or the onslaught of whatever had enough force to send her whole being flying through the air.

    But what was worse, the night had come.

    How long had she been unconscious? She checked the local time clock in her mind, and it was nine o''clock at night. It couldn''t be possible. She had forgotten to check her watch at the last moment but it couldn''t be more than five or six in the evening.

    She moved slowly, as she sat up on her left side and moaned about the pain. She had bruises all over that side that had hit the tree, and she discovered that her right shoulder was dislocated. She pressed her lips together and tried to move the shoulder in circles, when a sound indicated that the bone had returned to its place, and finally she opened her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut in a muffled moan.

    She looked around as the snow had begun to fall and also, not without some disgust, she found that those slimy fungus were on her face, stuck to her cheek and forehead where she was hurt. She removed them with a grimace of distaste and threw them beyond where she stood. With the back of her other hand, she wiped off the sticky film they had left behind.

    "Shin," she said quietly. "Can you hear me, Shin?"

    There was no response and, slowly sitting up, she pulled the gun out of the leg holster again, as she leaned against the same tree she hit. Her shoulder was stinging, but she could still handle the weapon with some ease. And, even though it was night, a certain clarity could be seen due to the moon illuminating the clouds, and together with the presence of the snow turned the landscape into a spectral semi-darkness.

    "Shin, can you hear me?"

    She walked a few meters in the direction of the lake and realized that something had changed. Either she had moved while unconscious or the landscape had changed abruptly in just a few hours. She remembered the drones and called them mentally to order them to illuminate the place. Almost instantly the drones came buzzing in, from the nearby trees and turned on their lights.

    Mai opened her mouth in surprise, and saw her breath freeze at the same time that all the logs they had crossed earlier had vanished. She called aloud once more to her partner but there was no response.

    She did not understand why he was not at her side when she awoke. She expected to see him there, surely beside her, but he wasn''t and, not only that, she was still in the same place. The drones did not have the recording system activated, so she could not know what had happened. Something must have happened.

    "He must be, he''s fine," she tried to calm herself and, with a firmer voice, she said. "This is Mai Izumi, badge 0000515 Miko, Alp, India. Requesting backup at my current location."

    Silence.

    She repeated the message one more time but there was no response.

    That was impossible. Nevermore''s encrypted communications were above military level, not even a coronary mass discharge from the sun, or an EMP, could knock out a field agent''s communication system, let alone in an emergency, let alone hers.

    Mai touched the wound on her forehead. The stinging and the cold made her teeth grind but then she understood.

    A cerebral concussion, and the rapid movement of the blow, perhaps had not given the Neurowire circuits time to activate the shock-preservation system. This system received signals through what she was seeing and immediately activated a shock safety system, but in this case the attack on her had been so sudden that it probably hadn''t had time to activate.

    Mai checked the commands and detected a repeating reboot signal. Digging, into the analysis of the circuit status, she found what she was looking for, although that didn''t make her feel any better.

    [Self-repair for support system, 6 minutes. Self-repair for communication system, 8 minutes].

    The seconds seemed to tick by slowly for her in that situation, when she again heard a sound behind her back of something walking heavily through the trees. She raised her weapon and put aside what she was doing. This was no time to worry about communications if something decided to attack her again.

    The sounds of heavy footsteps multiplied through the forest and the sound of the branches of nearby plants rustled, causing a sound like the crackling of wood in a campfire. Something was approaching and seemed to be coming from all sides of the forest.

    The sound stopped.

    The drone lights illuminated the scene with a ghostly light, and she saw that about three meters away from where she was, and at a height of about another three meters, small clouds of mist were forming, coming from an invisible source in several directions and at a different rhythm, lasting only a couple of seconds before disappearing into the darkness. It was almost like being in the presence of the forest''s own breath.

    There was something breathing there.

    Almost at the same height as the mist, there were slight and tiny sparkles similar to those produced by light illuminating the eyes of certain animals in the dark. The snowflakes stopped their path a few centimeters above the sparkle, forming a film of irregular size and remained there floating in the air.

    The image of the night landscape was like looking at the reflection of an image through a broken or frosted glass. The light from the drones illuminated several meters beyond, but something distorted the image in certain parts. Mai quickly checked and the link to the drones were still working and connected to their thermal vision, but she still couldn''t see what it was. Instead, she gasped when she saw an image similar to her in the thermal image. It was like a blurred reflection of herself. It was true that thermal cameras could not pass through certain elements, but whatever it was had to have a layer of some material good enough not to allow the thermal image to penetrate. She sighed in resignation and disconnected the drone vision.

    It was as if a sort of faint light of pale blue and turquoise appeared from her head. From both sides of her head, as if they had been hidden in the abundant hair all along, long filamentous antennae appeared and moved slowly. Both sprouted in a forward curve and, in the middle, twisted backwards again and, in spite of their shape, they had a certain movement as if they had a life of their own.

    They were like the antennae of a moth.

    Mai closed her eyes and the antennae this time took on a more rigid aspect, although only in appearance, since the filaments of these feather-light antennae produced a vibrating movement in the air. Her sense of smell expanded and her sense of hearing, thanks to echolocation, improved so much that she could even hear the brush of light snowflakes on her clothes. She opened her eyes and this time she could finally see what had sent her flying through the air.

    Her vision, combined with echolocation, created in her brain a slightly phantasmagoric image of the place.

    All around her, and looking straight at her, was a huge group of gigantic looking stag. Mai had seen huge animals throughout her long life, of all types and colors, but this was almost ridiculous, she didn''t remember those animals growing so big and, what was much more obvious, she was almost sure that invisibility was not among their natural characteristics either.

    Didn''t that soldier at the entrance say that there were no exospecies in the forest? Then what were those deer? On the other hand, when she had seen the general information about the place, there was no mention of any magical or mutated species. But... the fungus. Was it possible that it was related? She remembered what Shin had shown her.

    She gulped and tried not to move a muscle, while she thought of a way to escape. The one closest to her was the largest of them all. And it could easily be over three and a half meters tall with its huge antlers.

    Mai thought quickly about what to do.

    Run into the lake? No. She didn''t know what she might find there.

    Fight the animals? No matter how many fights she had been in in the past, or how strong she considered herself to be, Mai didn''t feel she had the upper hand against the huge animals at the moment.

    But fleeing into the forest seemed the most obvious possibility and seemed the quickest way to save energy while the Neurowire system finished repairing itself. Ending up under hooves was a risk, but she was light and could do it if she moved fast enough. The trees would make it difficult for the animals to move and she could use the drones to throw them off by making them move randomly with their lights.

    But first she had to try to get them off her back. Mai pointed up and fired the gun.

    It was a mistake.

    The sound broke the monotony of the place, but the animals did not move for a few seconds. Then, instead of darting off in all directions as she expected, they rushed towards her.

    Mai moved like a flash, to her left, and passed underneath one of the animals. The sound of the water, which until then had been the only thing that had broken the stillness of the night, was replaced by the sound of the animals'' paws and their bellowing as they moved in all directions trying to reach her.

    Mai ran among them, hiding, and occasionally making use of the trees as cover. The sounds of antlers crashing against the trees was deafening and the snow and branches were falling to the ground. It had been easier thought than done. She had to have her antennas producing vibrations and the faint turquoise and blue chemical light was like having a target over her head in that situation. The drones moved back and forth zig zagging between the trunks and seemed to help as some animals tried to reach them, but others including the giant in front of her seemed to follow her like hunting dogs.

    She hid behind a tree for a few seconds while she caught her breath. The herd was leading her away from the shore, she should not stray too far from the lake in case Shin was nearby, so she ran in a southerly direction around a bend to try to get back to where she was first.

    Again, she stepped between the legs of the huge animals and rolled, only to stand up and continue her escape. She found that, although they were running along the shore, the stags did not even want to go near the water. She should try to jump into the water and swim to the other shore or maybe get close enough to the water so they wouldn''t touch her.

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    No matter how she looked at it, it almost seemed like the animals also wanted to keep her away from the water for some reason.

    Again the giant stag cut her off and it went into the water until its hooves sank about three feet. Mai dodged it and turned back, trying to go deeper into the forest again. She didn''t get more than five meters when a much younger animal than the others and smaller, but almost the same height as her, hit her in the ribs and sent her rolling several meters on the ground.

    This time she did not fall unconscious and, in the last turn she sank one of her knees into the snow, adopting a position ready to shoot. She would have fired earlier but she wasn''t sure she could do it at all. The last thing she needed was for the animals to get even more enraged. The adrenaline must be doing its job, because she barely felt any discomfort in her body this time.

    "Tranquilizer mode, level 6."

    The stags quickly surrounded her and she tried to figure out whether to shoot the one that had nudged her, or hit the big one first who looked like the leader of the group. The position she was in, certainly prevented the larger ones from approaching with their antlers.

    The giant bellowed and his companions quieted down, but did not look away.

    Mai noticed something. The giant stag was certainly looking at her, but the others were not. The rest of the group was watching something else. It was her weapon. Their eyes were on the weapon, not on her, or her antennae.

    The drones were still buzzing around in a vain attempt to attract attention. She then remembered the picture Amir Zejho showed them of the bodies and the dead stag along with the empty guns and cartridges.

    Perhaps, she wasn''t the problem there.

    She slowly loosened her left hand while her right released the pressure of her finger in the trigger, that was about to fire.

    Mai had forgotten, she had long ago gone through a similar situation.

    She was a fey. By the standards of ancient fables, she could be considered a creature of the woods. After all, fey was just a word under which a whole bunch of subcategories were included like a catch-all. Fairies, elves, gnomes, dwarves, monsters, anthropoid creatures but with animal characteristics as well. However it was, many of the beings classified as Feys sometimes had certain characteristics that linked them to certain places, whether they were forests, lakes, the sea, the mountains. And in Mai''s case, she had always felt a kind of communion with the forests.

    In the last few years she had been on the island she had been surrounded by nature and was used to the animals and other more dangerous creatures of Siren Island. But in the last few months she and Shin had spent much more time wandering around cities and abandoned places rather than being in the woods. Cities could be considered wild environments of concrete and civilization, but they were not forests.

    She should be able to feel a connection to the nature of the place. However, there was something strange about the nature of the park. Something had corrupted it and was hidden.

    She sat up slowly and returned the gun to her holster. The air pressure disappeared almost instantly and the animals moved around, but this time no longer threatening.

    The giant''s eyes were still on her and in that moment lowered its head.

    Mai walked slowly and cautiously, approaching and carefully touched the nose of the huge animal. Mai couldn''t be sure how it felt to touch the animal through her gloves, but she could feel that the animal''s skin was almost like some kind of metal or something. No. Maybe glass? if so, that would explain why the thermal cameras hadn''t detected anything, and also explained the reflection she had seen of herself. A polished metal or glass acted as a mirror for the infrared radiation.

    The animal did not move and just stood there looking at her. To anyone passing by at that moment the scene should have been most picturesque. A girl with elongated ears and antennae in the middle of the darkness with her hand outstretched as if grasping the darkness.

    But no one passed by.

    No one had passed that place in a long time. Perhaps the last one to cross to that part of the lake was Komarov. Maybe he also knew that the animals wouldn''t do anything to him if he had no weapons and that''s why he had been able to carve his part of the high relief in the trees.

    I want to be part of it, was what he had said in the message.

    Part of what? The cult? The forest? Or something else? thought Mai.

    The giant finally turned away from her and walked a few meters away with the herd. The situation left Mai with her head full of questions, even though she was relieved not to have to run anymore. Those giant stags had wanted to take her away from something

    From the water? From the other side they came from? Or from her partner?

    ¡°I like it here, it''s a pity the world does not. Every part of this planet doesn''t want me here. It''s one of the reasons why the Dark Events have sometimes passed near me, and it''s also the reason why I avoid going to places where there are many people.¡±

    The words that Shin uttered when they first met, the past year, echoed in her head at that moment.

    A bellow that could only be interpreted as terror was heard again in the direction of the lake and Mai let go of her thoughts. She thought she heard a voice reverberating in the distance of the waters calling her name.

    "Shin?" she asked, trying to raise her voice above the noise of the animals.

    "MAI!"

    She smiled and started, walking back towards the lake.

    Other bellow of fury made her turn around. The giant stag was staring at her and pawed at the ground. The other animals stampeded off in the direction of the trees. They were moving away from the lake at lightning speed. The animals passed around Mai without even touching her and, when the last of the young ones passed, the giant stared at her for a few seconds, and he finally gave a snort, that sounded more like a resignation, and walked away with the rest getting lost in the darkness of the forest.

    "MAI!"

    She took one last look towards the trees and ran in the direction of the lake with the drones following her.

    She was relieved to see him approaching her walking from the waters.

    He was without his backpack and only his tattered shirt covered his torso. His pants were torn and he must have lost his boots somewhere since he was barefoot. On one of his arms he was holding something red.

    "Are you all right? Where were you?" asked Mai, as she caught up to him and walked a couple of meters into the water.

    "I''m fine, you?" he asked. He was breathing heavily as if he had come a long-distance swimming.

    "Yeah," Mai said and she touched Shin''s frozen chest. He was really soaking wet, but she was pleased to feel the throbbing in her partner''s chest.

    "Damn it. I got carried away when that thing destroyed the bridge," he cursed, and then with a more serious look added. "You''re not going to like this. Did you send a distress signal?"

    "N-No, why?"

    "It''s a trap."

    "What''s a trap?"

    "The whole thing ¡­ The case, the deaths, Zejho."

    "What do you mean?" she asked, confused.

    "The military has never been able to find this thing that''s why they needed us here," Shin said and raised up the red bundle he was carrying. It was a jacket, Mai recognized it from the description, it was the jacket Komarov was wearing the day he disappeared. "Who better than people from Nevermore to try to find this thing. They''ve been looking for it for years here but have never found it because it disappears in a short time."

    ¡°The what?!¡±

    "The creature that emits the red lights over the lake. It''s just a new species that lives in the middle of this part, but it doesn''t emit any kind of light, those are the lights of the search team that comes down here every time looking for it. The network of fungi we''ve been finding are just a defence and feeding mechanism."

    Mai looked at him in confusion. "H-how do you know that¡­ and what do you mean when you said it''s a trap?"

    "Komarov didn''t kill himself, Zejho probably killed him, when he refused to lie one more time."

    She frowned even more confused.

    "Komarov didn''t forge the papers with the tests of his own free will. All these years he, and his team, have been forced by the military to lie so as not to draw attention to themselves and thus try to find out what lives here. When they couldn''t find it, they brought us in."

    "W-wait, wait. I''m not understanding anything."

    Shin pointed to the opposite shore hidden in the mist. "On the other side of where we were, if we had gone into the forest a little further, we would have found them. There''s a military hangar in the trees. When we got there we couldn''t see it because of the trees, and because I think they have some kind of camouflage system, but when I got out of the water and walked around I saw the lights in the trees and several soldiers on guard."

    Mai looked the other way. He could not make out the shore because of the fog. He lifted up his jacket and showed her better. On the side of the back there was a small bullet hole.

    "Did you find Komarov?"

    "No, but I found the clothes not far away."

    Mai gawked at him.

    "There''s something else. The reason they asked us to keep this quiet, is not just because they wanted us to find this thing. If you''d made a call for a station team to come up here they''d probably already be raiding it."

    "You think it''s to get us in some kind of trouble?"

    "We don''t have a warrant for this case. We got here solely by following leads Zejho gave us asking for discretion. Violating I don''t know how many jurisdiction laws, hacking into a military database and a soldier''s Neurowire."

    "I''ve known General Zedenov for a long time, I don''t think he would do something like that. What about all those deaths?"

    "Of that I am not sure. But what I can tell you for sure is that at that base they have a few of those invisible things in cages, so they are aware of them too. If they didn''t tell us about the base and they have those things, what else are they hiding from us? What if, when lvraeva died, it was simply Zejho who killed her, to show Dr. Komarov how far he could go?"

    "Zejho was only at the academy when Ivraeva disappeared."

    "Oh, right! Because spy recruitment never starts before that, does it?"

    Mai pondered for a moment. Could it be possible that they had been lied to simply to get Nevermore in trouble with the World Security Council? As much as it pained her to admit it, it was a possibility to be considered. The organization was under constant attack by certain parties. But they had found too much data for it all to be simply a ruse to attack the reputation of the SID.

    "We have the evidence of the cult."

    "It''s just a cult, nothing more, it''s been 60 years since that. More than enough time to erase the evidence. What if all those people died because they were just here at the wrong place at the wrong time? Bicini, the sculpture artist, never returned to this site in his later years. He seemed to want to avoid it at all costs."

    Mai looked back toward the misty shore.

    "If so, we''d better get the hell out of here right now," she said, with a frown. "If you got swept away by the current and went to the other side, how did you get here?"

    Shin leaned on his knees, catching his breath and pointed to his left into the darkness.

    "The dam was destroyed, but the logs have stagnated a little further downstream. I woke up almost two kilometers downstream an hour ago. And when I came running I saw the base and got close, then I found the logs."

    "But you came swimming."

    "I saw the light from the drones moving around and heard those things screaming and decided to cut it short."

    "They''re stags. They''re scared of the water."

    "And of me, probably..."

    Mai looked back into the forest, but could no longer see or feel the animals.

    "Do you think we can get out without them seeing us?"

    "Maybe... but first you''re going to have to shut down the drones lights and hide the antennas, or they''re going to be ratting us out."

    "Right," she said and just as mysteriously as they had appeared they went out and went back to hiding in the hair.

    The drone lights went out and Mai sent new commands to the drones to turn on the night vision, but found that no matter what commands she sent it didn''t seem to turn on.

    "...This is weird. Were you playing with the drones yesterday or today when I was out?"

    "No, why?"

    "The night vision isn''t working, and now neither is the thermal camera. It was working just few minutes ago."

    Shin frowned and looked at her with a strange expression as he tilted his head to the side and stayed that way for a few seconds.

    "Just try again."

    "That''s what I''m doing..."

    Mai tried again, and this time the image appeared. But it was different from what she was used to, it wasn''t the sharp visualization she was used to. The edges seemed too blurred, but it was still enough to see the road. Probably with all the ruckus with the stags the drone''s viewfinder must have been too dirty. They both set off downstream in search of the new bridge to cross.

    "Only you could think of jumping into the icy water," Mai said, running alongside him.

    "It''s not like it could do anything to me anyway."

    Slowly the animals emerged from the forest and watched the fey girl and her partner leave, almost as if they feared something that Mai could not see.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 10: Illusion

    Chapter Ten

    Illusion

    As Shin had said, not far away, they found the precarious new log bridge to cross. It wasn''t the safest, but they were both light on their feet and were able to cross it without any difficulty, jumping over several sections. They were again on the west side and Mai wondered how well the base was hidden so that they could not see it earlier in the day.

    The darkness did not help them much on that side. The lake filaments were again multiplying everywhere and the foul smell was increasing by the minute, making Mai''s stomach churn.

    "How did you know about the creature?"

    "The soldiers were talking about it. Apparently they''re not happy that they''re going to have to wait longer until shows up again," Shin paused for a few seconds, looking at her suspiciously. "Also about the cult, you''re going to find something familiar when we get there."

    The walk continued and they went deeper into the forest. Mai began to see some clarity in the forest, not far from where they were, and it seemed to increase with every step they took. The branches that made it difficult to pass seemed to increase, but the fungus strands had already disappeared from sight, not so the stench that seemed to increase even more.

    The cold was also no longer felt too much, although the probable cause was that they were on the move.

    "They''ll hear us if they have motion sensors," she said as the rustling of branches echoed loud enough to wake anyone around.

    Shin turned to her and watched her for a few seconds.

    "I don''t think they have them. At least, I haven''t seen any around there."

    "Really? They must have them what''s the point of a base if they don''t have perimeter security?"

    Shin looked at her quizzically for a moment.

    "Don''t blame me, I''m not the one who made the rules."

    "¡­"

    A few feet ahead, the branches stopped appearing to cut off their path, and now they were walking on the muddy ground. She tried to remember if they had walked nearby before, but didn''t want to activate the map assistant in case the connection to the Neurowire could be detected.

    The lights grew brighter, and Mai turned off her night vision, as they moved closer hiding in the trees. The fog was going to help hide them, but it also prevented them from fully seeing the location.

    The structure of the base reminded her a bit of one of the huge hangars on the island where the Nevermore SID base was located, and the lights inside were bright enough at night that it could be detected by satellite. But Mai could recognize almost none of the machines outside. Perhaps some kind of prototype? She didn''t know, but it was certainly strange. There were several armored trucks and some cars, but they were civilian. One of them was incredible similar to the one they saw earlier, on the hill above the lake.

    Some soldiers, carrying tactical rifles and wearing the same uniform as Ruslan, the soldier at the entrance, were there. She couldn''t see their faces completely because of the caps and thick coats, but she could swear that even their faces were a bit similar. That was the detail Mai was paying attention to, when she heard a pitiful bellowing coming from inside the hangar and several soldiers'' voices giving orders. She would have liked to go and see what they were doing there but they had to stay low and watch.

    Shin tapped her shoulder, indicating something.

    On some of the trees, around the base, were carved the strange figure they saw on the other side of the forest. She looked at him quizzically and he simply shrugged. But it was true, Zejho had lied and had not given them any details of the place. Or was it possible that Shin was wrong and Zejho didn''t know about the location either and Komarov had simply been killed for not cooperating? Had he been forced to record the strange message, cut his Neurowire signal to simulate his disappearance along with the others, and also as a decoy for them? All the other people had cut their Neurowires before disappearing, but that had not been the case with Komarov.

    Mai was confused, too many questions had popped up and she didn''t have the answers yet. "We could introduce a request for investigation by pretending we received reports of hikers in the area. That might give us enough to bring in more investigation teams."

    "What hikers? Hardly anyone visits this place."

    "The drones have been taken out of service, we could make out that someone or a group came in through some other access. We could even say that it was a report of hikers entering through the border simply because they wanted to see the lake."

    "Border..." repeated Shin and stared at her for a few seconds. "Yeah... maybe it could work. Anyway we''ve seen enough, we should go and try to leave as soon as possible."

    They watched for several minutes, but the situation did not change. The same routine guard movements, soldiers coming and going from inside the hangar.

    Mai rubbed her eyes a couple of times, she wasn''t sure why, but something was wrong with her vision. The edges of the image seemed to blur from time to time. They took one last look at the place and set off on their way back once more. Mai felt that, even though they had been out for hours, she hardly felt tired, it was a relief, in a way, because they still had a few more kilometers to go to get back to the cabin. They reached the shore of the lake and continued on their way south for a couple of kilometers, in almost complete silence.

    "Border..."

    Shin for some reason repeated the same word a couple of times since they started on the road and had slowed his pace. Maybe he is tired? Mai thought. Had he ever felt tired?

    "What about the border?"

    Shin kept walking without turning around with his gaze lost somewhere ahead.

    "Nothing. I was just thinking. Certainly the world is a big place."

    "...?"

    ¡°So many places. So many people.¡±

    "Did you hit your head when you fell into the water?"

    A faint murmur came out of Shin''s mouth and Mai couldn''t understand what he was saying. They were walking close to the shore, too close. So close that the smell of the fungus was almost unbearable and Mai had to jump over some parts to avoid tripping in the large nets. The unintelligible words kept coming out from Shin''s mouth, numbers, disjointed phrases.

    She stopped and watched her partner''s back move a little away.

    He turned around and stared at her with a strange smile. At that moment no matter how much Mai tried to remember, her partner and lover had never smiled at her like that. The mouth of it seemed to be smiling in a sincere way but it was his features and his look that sent a chill down her spine.

    "Shin?" she said with a slight tremble in her voice as she frowned.

    "You want to be a part of this?"

    I want to be a part of this.

    "...!" Mai remembered Komarov''s words in his message to Amir Zejho.

    "The day the universe moved... what does it mean? Why do you feel guilty about it?"

    Mai''s eyes widened and her face hardened. I never told him that¡­ yet, Mai thought. No. That thing in front of her was not her partner and lover. That wasn''t Shin.

    She jumped backwards, trying to keep a safe distance by bringing her hands to her leg holster.

    The being in front of her no longer showed Shin''s face, what was there instead was the face they were there for. His face had transfigured into that of Sergey Komarov. Some parts of his body moved with an unnatural and repulsive movement, while his physiognomy changed rapidly. The clothes had disappeared and in front of her stood a completely naked middle-aged man with an unhinged look and from whose eyes tears were streaming down.

    "Wh-What are you?"

    The figure changed once again, this time showing the naked body of a woman who couldn''t have been more than a few years older than Mai. The same blank stare, with eyes wide as saucers and a Gioconda semi-smile looked back at her. It was the figure of Rayana Ivraeva as she was at the moment of her disappearance.

    Slowly she began to walk towards her, and Mai drew her ACM34 weapon without a second''s hesitation and pointed it at the head.

    "Stop and put your hands in the air!"

    The woman took a few steps towards her, not even flinching at Mai''s words.

    "Ma''am, stop where you are and put your hands in the air!"

    "What is it? It''s me."

    The woman''s figure changed once twisting around and again took the form of Shin. This time, he was naked and had a worried expression on his face.

    "Stop!"

    An expression of fury appeared on Mai''s face, and she shot twice towards both shoulders of that thing that had dared to take the form of her partner. The sound broke the monotony of the night and spread across the valley. But to her surprise Mai could feel her vision clear.

    Darkness and mist.

    Shin''s figure faded but this time no other appeared, plunging Mai into the darkness again. She was alone and in the thick fog the night had suddenly become darker.

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    Too dark. Almost as if there was something in front of her. It was Mai''s thought when several tentacle-like appendages appeared in front of her, emitting a vivid scarlet glow.

    Mai shot towards them and they retracted for a moment, only for a few more to appear. They all came from the waters and from a stronger glow hidden in the mist.

    She sent mental commands to the drones to get the light back, but found that they had simply disappeared. She thought of the filaments on her waking face and gritted her teeth.

    How long I have been under that thing''s spell?

    Was it since the moment Shin had appeared from the waters? The animals had fled at that time.

    Or what happened on the other side was also an illusion when she woke up?

    Thoughts swirled in her mind as she searched for answers. But one thing was clear to her. All that had been nothing more than an illusion.

    Shin had never been there. Neither had the base with the soldiers. Her vision problems were due to illusions caused by the fungus. While she was unarmed the filaments had come close enough to her body, and through the wounds they must have penetrated her body injecting some kind of hallucinogenic component.

    She pulled the trigger four times and each shot hit the target. The tentacles wiggled like snakes, but didn''t seem to stop their advance and she backed up a few more feet.

    "Mv44."

    The gun changed the bottom and top shape of the barrel, becoming larger. Small Fractal cube patterns appeared over the surface for a couple of seconds as the gun changed its shape. It a sort of mechanical sound at the same time as the rear widened backwards. Mai pulled the trigger once more, but this time she pointed it at the source of the tentacles, at the scarlet glow behind them.

    A roar, like thunder, filled the air and the snow and fog dissipated for a moment and Mai finally saw what was attacking her. An expression of surprise and horror filled her face, as she saw a creature several meters tall. Its face stretched forward and with two pair of antlers, one above and the other below its head approaching her with a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth.

    ¡°Ah, shit.¡±

    From the back of its throat there was a glow and tentacles moving like vipers. Tiny eyes above its fleshy head and three pairs of arms. The monster''s skin was dark red like the fungus and had several parts with blacker spots that looked like pustules to Mai.

    The creature''s fetid breath almost made her faint, she felt nauseous and a sour taste coming up her esophagus. That thing could swallow her in one bite very easily.

    The creature went after her, moving with its huge arms, and Mai twisted her way into the forest. The sounds of the trees being uprooted was incredible and the tremors on the ground made her fear that if it wasn''t that creature, maybe a landslide from the top of the hill would end up burying her.

    She ran through the trees under a rain of dirt, snow and splinters, which rose from the movements of the creature seeking to hunt her. She dodged it several times, but the fact that the darkness and the mist helped to hide it did not help her. She wondered how it had been possible for that thing to fool her echolocation, she should have been able to see what it really was.

    Shin, where the hell are you?

    But it wasn''t time to hide everything anymore, that creature was dangerous enough to call in a whole heavy tactical team to attack, and the Neurowire system had already been restored some time ago. She ran into the trees and hid behind a thick log as she sent out new orders.

    "This is Mai Izumi, badge 0000515 Miko, Alp, India. I have a BEC3 Yellow-red. Requesting support from an Orbital Knight at my current position," she said quietly.

    She glanced around the sides of the tree and then remembered something important.

    [The signal from you two is at the station so, in case this gets out of hand, you have to let me know first].

    "... Damn it," Mai thought.

    She had just sent an order to Carissia to leave its stationary orbit and enter the atmosphere at its current location. It was not the physical position where she was, it was the bluff position they had left at the Astana station.

    Mai cursed her luck and was about to run again, when she felt that she could not move one of her feet. She looked down and found that one of the fungus strands, coming from the ground, was holding her ankle. She tugged a little, but the thing squeezed tighter as it swelled. Finally she gave a hard kick to the ground and stepped on the bottom part of the filament which popped with a sickening sound.

    "This can''t be good."

    That was her thought as she had to move her neck back. More of that goo, now from a nearby tree, shot out and almost caught her again. The creature was approaching again attracted by all the noise and she had to make a mad dash once more. This time not only dodging the creature''s claws, teeth and tentacles, but also the filaments that now seemed to leap up from the ground in an attempt to cut off her escape.

    Mai had been able to feel that although it retained its gelatinous mass to move, the tips of the filaments that were being thrown towards her had a much more solid texture as if they were needles. She remembered the images Shin had shown her where the spores had a sort of micro-skeleton to protect themselves.

    "Seriously?"

    She ran and ran, feeling like her lungs would explode if she tried to go any faster. She occasionally turned around to shoot with her weapon, but she returned it to her holster after several failed shots. She needed more firepower.

    "TS.C5. TFF12."

    The small shell-shaped backpack on her back emitted a faint flash from one of its right edges. The flash traveled down the straps of the holster to and, just as the gun did when it changed shape, again hundreds of thousands of tiny cubes took shape and formed a new weapon that Mai instantly grabbed. It was a tactical shotgun for plasma ammunition and traditional or variable 12-gauge ammunition, with two individual loading barrels located under the main cannon.

    Mai didn''t wait any longer and gritted her teeth, turned around and fired twice, jumping back as the creature''s mouth opened to engulf her. The first recoil reminded her of the pain in her shoulder, but at the second shot it didn''t matter. Two incandescent blue glows contrasted against the red produced by the beast and hit the upper palate.

    The scream of pain pierced Mai''s ears, but she knew it wasn''t enough. She fired two more shots, hitting it in the side of one arm and the other was blocked by the animal''s antlers. Mai switched to the second ammunition and fired. This was incendiary ammunition and hit the animal''s face. New screams and howls. But Mai saw how the creature''s flesh moved and almost instantly only traces of the wound remained.

    From what little she could analyze in the dark about the beast''s physiognomy, Mai could see that the second and third pair of arms were smaller.

    A third pair of arms. And she remembered the sculptures. That did not appear in the sculptures. There were only two pairs.

    She dodged new bites and pieces of wood that flew in all directions. At the same time, she shot a couple of times more towards the creature that again burned for a few moments and then the fire was engulfed by the flesh.

    She switched back to the first barrel and fired several shots at some of the filaments that darted like spiders at her. These ignited with an electrified blue glow for a millisecond and then twisted and stopped.

    "ARPTP."

    There was a new glow from her backpack and a metallic sound from inside the weapon. It was the automatic point-to-point reload system so as not to waste time doing it manually.

    Mai continued for a few minutes shooting and sneaking around, until she could finally see what she was looking for. She had been trying to see what the back of the huge beast looked like, looking for any vulnerabilities. After the third pair of arms the shape gradually became thinner and thinner until it ended in a long tail that was lost in the mist.

    Mai circled around the trees, dodging obstacles, and managed to get on the beast''s tail and this time shot at its back and tail, then she quickly moved out of the way in case the monster could move it and send her flying away in one hit.

    The beast turned quickly, but did not move its tail, as if there was something preventing it. While even the thinnest part seemed to be a meter thick, Mai wondered how long it could be as it only trailed it in a zigzagging, snake-like fashion. The opportunity to shoot again from that position proved in vain. The beast this time knew that it could be attacked from there and took care to block her way every time she tried to approach it again.

    She made several attempts to approach from above. Using the tree trunks as a foothold and dodging the filaments that were thrown at her. Although the shots were accurate, she did not manage to cause any significant damage. On more than one occasion, she had to run away dodging the huge trunks that were knocked down and thrown into the air as if they had no weight. She tried to get under the beast and shoot with the second type of incendiary ammunition, but it didn''t work and, rolling to the side, she was almost crushed by one of the huge hands.

    She had to admit that her stature helped on occasions like this, added to her incredible agility to slide and jump in the air through the gaps made by the falling logs. That was due to her training. In that aspect she was, as her name indicated, a skilled dancer with incredible skills for movement. Although what she was doing was not a dance, her acrobatic movements almost had an underlying beauty that could be compared to a performance that blended combat agility, parkour, and spins that could be equated to the best enhanced dancers.

    She ran down the slope in a new attempt to reach the tail of the beast and realized with astonishment that there was a new scarlet clarity in the place coming from the fog in a southerly direction.

    "It can''t be!"

    Her first thought was that it must be another creature, but it remained motionless and almost gave her the feeling that it must be much farther away, probably underwater but certainly the glow was much stronger.

    She was very close to the shore again dodging the teeth, tentacles, and stinking piercing filaments, when something else happened.

    A dry roar.

    One of the beast''s sides almost flattened, and then flew several meters into the air and was thrown into the water. Several tons of water rose into the air and Mai was almost soaked from head to toe, as a roaring sound was heard where the blow had occurred and the mist was torn through, indicating that something else was there.

    Mai couldn''t see what it was, but she knew the sound. From her head the antennae came back up, and she could see a group of three of the stags she saw on the other side. The giant was in the middle and, after letting out another shout, he charged with his companions at the beast.

    The roars of clashing antlers and grunts were deafening, and with each strike and attack the fog dissipated several meters around, allowing Mai to better see the colossal battle. With the mist being torn by the shock waves, she estimated that the slimy monster must have been at least six or seven meters tall by at least another fifteen meters wide with its main arms outstretched.

    It would have been no problem for one of Nevermore''s Orbital Knights, but she had no support, she was alone with the beasts at the moment.

    She still couldn''t see the end of the tail that was sinking into the waters, almost as if it were some sort of umbilical cord connected to something else. She recalled the strange sculpture of the forest once again, the lower part of which became thinner until it widened again to form a ball.

    "Is there another part in the water?" Mai wondered and looked at the farthest glow in the lake out of the corner of her eye.

    She wasn''t sure the stags could beat the huge monster. As two of them continued the fight pushing the monster back, Mai heard a pitiful noise from the third one that had been left behind.

    Huge, thick, and gelatinous filaments surrounded its legs and began to climb up its body. She didn''t hesitate for a second, the animal''s shock power, while not enough, was strong enough to drive the creature back and keep it at bay for at least some time.

    She jumped over the tentacular filaments, while dodging several of it, and when she approached the animal and it raised its front legs in a new attempt to get away she fired her shotgun blasting the goo into the air. She did the same procedure with her other leg and the huge stag with both forelimbs already freed jumped up and tore off the rest of the other two.

    Mai spent the next few moments trying to offer some support to the huge animals while planning a strategy. She could launch an orbital tactical strike from one of Nevermore''s armed security satellites but that wasn''t an option.

    She needed permission from the Council and who knows if what she would do wouldn''t end up vaporizing the waters of the lake. She cursed not having brought more weapons, or at least grenades, but she never imagined the situation could come to this. They were just supposed to do some research and try to find clues to Komarov''s whereabouts.

    She was deep in thought, when she began to notice how the fog around her began to decrease and move towards the middle of the lake, in the direction of that kind of glow, and her mind filled with foreboding.

    The filaments around her seemed to be traversed by a red light that moved and pulsed as if they were veins.

    Shin, where the hell are you?

 Vol.1/ Chapter 11: Astana

    Chapter Eleven

    Astana

    "You''ve got to be kidding me¡­ "

    A vein throbbed in Arsen''s forehead, and his burning ears also seemed to beat in time with it. His eyes were riveted on the avenues. Although his face showed the same boredom as always, his brows was slightly furrowed. He was wearing a long coat closed with an elegant faux fur hood, and bunny slippers that did not match the rest of his outfit at all.

    He was standing outside and with his back to some enormous stairs that led to a building that looked more like a huge cathedral, than the functions it actually fulfilled in reality. He was followed by three other people dressed in black suits, who watched with their mouths open towards the intersection of the avenues.

    It was rush hour in Astana, and the main SID Station in Kazakhstan was located right on one of the corners of a major crossroads of the big city.

    Usually, at that hour, Arsen was always in his office on the top floor of the nine-story building and from there he watched the lights of the city and the movement of the Maglev cars on the magnetic streets and other flying vehicles, while enjoying a drink of vodka after a hard day''s work.

    It was a moment Arsen always enjoyed, stretching his legs, very pleased with himself. It was not for nothing that he had been in the station''s command chair for so many decades, since Kazakhstan was not a country considered dangerous for its Dark Events activity. It was rare for them to even have more than six, or seven, serious emergency calls throughout the year so, beyond sporadic weekly cases that didn''t require the intervention of many staff or local agents, Arsen rarely had to worry.

    But not that night.

    That night there was no traffic, or rather, there had been no traffic for five minutes.

    The huge black and red mech, at least nine meters high, had descended from the skies, shaking the structures of the neighboring buildings and breaking some parts of the pavement with its abrupt landing. The anatomy of the giant mech seemed halfway between an anthropoid insect, but with the armor of a medieval knight, giving it a stylized, but a bit bulky, appearance in some parts at the same time.

    Arsen had to come down from his quarters, while his ears echoed with the screams of his agents, who begged him to come down to the bunker, fearing that it was a case of a terrorist attack.

    But it wasn''t, and Arsen now looked at the robot, as if he wanted to send it to the scrap heap, only with the power of his eyes. But he already suspected it wasn''t his pilot''s fault.

    A young-looking woman with furious red hair tied in a pair of pigtails at her sides stood inside the robot''s cockpit, and gripped the motion controls tightly. She wore a tight-fitting pilot''s suit of the same dark and red color as the robot and it emphasized her curves and generous chest.

    She was not human or fey.

    And even though she wasn''t, and her body was composed of metal, bio-polymers and artificial organs, she could almost feel a drop of sweat trickle down her synthetic skin cheek as she saw the look on Arsen''s face and the people in the streets swirling around and pointing at her robot.

    The image inside was just a transmission from the robot''s exterior nano-cameras but it stretched out forming a panorama inside the cockpit.

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    Arsen sighed and tried to calm down, but he was really angry.

    [Hey, Carissia! Tell me the event code!] Arsen yelled toward the cockpit trough his Neurowire communication.

    "BEC3 Yellow-red," she said with a nervous smile.

    Arsen arched one of his eyebrows and looked slightly surprised at the mech but regained his composure almost instantly and frowned again.

    [Turn around go into the hangar and get into one of the ships!] He ordered, pointing to his back.

    He turned around and headed down the steps followed by his small entourage. That was going to be a pain in the ass after all. But for Mai to send that code, things had to have changed enough in just a few hours. Either way, it was likely to be a problem since they were not only undercover, they were sticking their noses into something that obviously not many wanted to uncover because it was an unsolved case.

    "Tell the substations that all FRTs and L4 technicians we have available at the moment to be sent to Almaty, to Kolsay Park. Advise station directors in Kyrgyzstan and China also that we have a yellow-red BEC3, with high possibility of hostile encounter, in case we need help. Have some of the nearest bases send tactical support drones. And prepare a ship for me and the Orbital Knight from Carissia to go up as well."

    The agents behind Arsen rushed to send the orders to the different parts of the complex to begin a priority biohazard operation and requesting primary responders and field techs from the surrounding area to report for a night mission. But, even so, it would take at least forty-five minutes to an hour to get to the site. Getting the armored vehicles ready shouldn''t take long as they were always at the ready for emergencies, but they would have to get on the transport aircraft and then ask permission from the air authorities in the area to divert any traffic if there was any.

    "This is going to hurt tomorrow," he said, as he finished climbing the steps and walked back into the building.

    It was going to be a damn long night for him.

    ***

    "I don''t like carrots! I don''t want them! I don''t want them!"

    Amir Zejho smiled on his way to the kitchen, while in his arms he carried his little girl, who whined with mischievous laughter against the food, and the child patted her father''s face, making funny faces at him.

    "If you don''t eat your food, there is no games," he said, smiling.

    "But I want to play. You promised you would help me defeat the dragon," the girl pouted.

    "I can''t help if you don''t eat your food. That dragon is strong because it eats all your food, including carrots."

    Amir really was a simple man. He liked neither intrigue nor politics. Beyond his career in the army, what he appreciated more than anything else in the world were those moments with his family that he could enjoy every time he had days off. Seeing his happy wife, whom he had also met at the Military Academy, and watching his daughter grow up, were worth more to him than all the decorations he had earned in his long career.

    So when he walked into the kitchen and saw his wife with a serious look on her face, staring at the TV in the living room, he was surprised.

    "Aya? What''s wrong, honey?"

    Ayakoz Zejho turned to look at him with a frown and shook her head.

    "Those Nevermore people are crazy. Can you believe this?"

    Amir Zehjo wiped the smile off his face, as he watched the news broadcast what was happening downtown ,where one of Nevermore''s Orbital Knights had just landed.

    Nevermore''s Orbital Knights were always news, they were very eye-catching robots, but they almost always tended to act in stealth. This one, however, was somewhat known, and Amir Zehjo knew it.

    It had been rumored for years that this mecha was one of those that served as personal custody to the SID''s Operations Director. A director he himself had the pleasure of meeting only a couple of nights ago. For that very reason, Amir felt a chill, wondering if what he was seeing on the news had something to do with him.

    He was rambling on when something else was added to the list of worries.

    An incoming call from General Zedenov had just popped into his brain.

    " Shit¡­ " Amir said.

    "Watch your language," Aya scolded him.

    "Shit!" the little girl cheered.

    Her daughter''s carrots were probably going to be the least of his problems that night.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 12: Revenant

    Chapter Twelve

    Revenant

    "Wake up!"

    He opened his eyes and uttered a muffled scream of horror, like someone waking up from a nightmare trying to get out of bed, only to discover that he was paralyzed and could not move a finger.

    Shin only managed to feel the water in his throat and lungs, along with mud and who knows what other filth from the deep.

    "She needs you, right now! Get up!"

    "I''m coming, I''m coming."

    "Please help me!!!"

    The desperate feminine and male voices echoed in his mind, like a distant echo from another time and place. He looked around with disoriented eyes, but all he saw was darkness surrounding him. He briefly wondered if he hadn''t lost the sight of his only eye this time. Where were those voices coming from?

    It was no time to worry about that.

    He was underwater, without even oxygen equipment, with his lungs collapsed with water, but he was still alive.

    He opened his mouth again as he felt a metallic taste on his tongue that he knew all too well, mixed with the muddy water. But that was not what worried him. He was at the bottom of the lake and a heavy rock had crushed his stomach and part of his solar plexus which were sunk under the mud.

    How long have I been unconscious?

    The last thing he remembered was the log coming straight at his head. When he was finally able to move his hands he touched his head and felt a strange sound of something crunching and binding inside, at the same time as he felt an itch in his head, and his scalp finished closing the wounds. It was the sound of skull sutures joining back together and skin regenerating.

    Had it been the voice that had awakened him? Or was it that the regeneration had already reached a critical enough point for him to finally open his eyes?

    Shin was not the first time he had heard voices in the depths of his mind. He already heard it a few times before, centuries ago, almost always in dangerous situations, although he could never discern where it came from. Whatever the reason for the voice''s existence, Shin was grateful to have finally been awakened.

    Damn it. I lost my head... again.

    He touched his body and relieved he could feel his neck, but the rest of his body still seemed numb. He could feel his legs a little, but no more than that and, even though he wasn''t breathing, he was sure he felt the shattered ribs digging into his lungs, or was that his heart? It didn''t matter. He didn''t care in the least.

    Shin pressed his lips together and from his arms came out a weak cloud of black particles that in a matter of seconds covered his arms and hands. He hugged the huge boulder of probably more than 500 kilos and moved it to the side, simply getting rid of it.

    Almost instantly Shin twisted into a fetal position, with spasms that increased the turbulence of the water even more, as the sound of several cracking sounds spread through his spine and thorax, putting his bones back in place. The tissues and viscera repaired themselves at an impossible speed, beyond all human understanding. He felt a warmth begin to rise up his back again at waist level.

    Just as it happened, when he hit the logs with his fist, again a black cloud of metallic particles came out of every pore of his body and took a few seconds to adjust to the shape of his body. The shoes came undone, unable to resist the pressure of the much larger feet now, covered in the same opaque black metal and showing toes ending in claws. And the shirt was torn to shreds by the particle cloud, as it began to take shape.

    He still had his backpack and shoulder holster intact, but his weapon was not there. Of his clothes he only kept his pants, which were somewhat destroyed, and his trench coat, which in spite of all the disaster was still intact.

    Although, of course, he knew that even a nuclear detonation could not destroy his trusty old trench coat. But that was no time to worry about his clothes.

    He opened his mouth in a mute scream again, while the dark armor continued to grow from the tribal-shaped scar on his back, wrapping around his body, until it went up his neck and advanced rapidly towards his face. It hid his mouth, nose and eyes to finally hide in his hair, which although it was not covered by the cloud of particles, it acquired a metallic texture.

    His face had completely disappeared, and only a mask with no facial features was visible. There were only slight depressions where the eyes used to be. His metallic hair floating weightless and the ears, which although still had their shape and were of the same texture of the armor. Shin had a humanoid form, but at that point it was hard to tell what it really was.

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    He floated for a second, trying to look at his hands but they were melting into the darkness of the lake. He looked up and propelled as if he had been born in that environment, he began to ascend while a single thought filled his head.

    Mai.

    His partner. His lover.

    Since joining Nevermore, it was not the first time he had been separated from her on a mission. Sometimes they acted separately, or with other members of the investigation division, but never anything like this had happened. This time, things had gone very wrong.

    As he climbed up, he rummaged through the pockets of his trench coat and found the translation receivers, but discovered they were damaged. The spare was in the car.

    It didn''t matter. He could feel her. He knew she was still alive and for the moment that was all he cared about.

    Thirty meters. Forty. Seventy. How deep is this part? he wondered, as his body finally emerged from the icy waters.

    Likely, it had been nearly a hundred meters deep. The mask uncovered his face, and he spat copious amounts of black sludge from his mouth, that had been stagnating in his esophagus and lungs, and took a big gulp of air, feeling his lungs swell again. And his heart that, until then had been beating at a slow pace, began to accelerate and the blood started to pump at a normal rate through his body. He looked around him and cursed aloud.

    How far away am I? He had been dragged too far from the river of barely sixty meters where everything had happened.

    His internal compass was useless in that situation because he knew he was far from the point where the disaster had occurred. Although he could vaguely be guided by the surrounding lights in the near-darkness, he spun around on his own, trying to get his bearings and more or less estimated that he was in the middle of what was once the lower Kolsay lake. That was almost five hundred meters in both directions to reach the coast, but far away from where he had fallen.

    ¡°Fuck!!" He cursed again and began to stroke eastward, hurrying as fast as he could. He had not yet gone more than fifty meters when a light at his back appeared and Shin turned quickly, remembering the report of the strange lights.

    But there was no red light. Instead there instead was the white fog light of a drone with a smiling sticker on the side. "Piper?"

    Of all the drones loaded in the car, Piper was Shin''s favorite. He found it endearing and almost with an intelligence and personality of its own, so he had marked it with a sticker on the side and could almost say he treated it like a pet rather than just part of the working instruments. The drones did not have consciousness like the aeon, or at least they had not acquired it. But Shin could almost be sure that this drone had something special that made it a little different.

    "Why aren''t you with your partner in the car?"

    Had something happened at the cabin? Whatever it was, must have been bad enough for a drone to break protocol and wander of its own volition, away from the place it had been put to guard.

    "Light the way for me," Shin ordered and continued his journey, but the drone instead of lighting it turned to the southwest side.

    "Come on! I need light on this side!" Shin yelled.

    But it didn''t matter how much he tried to give it orders. The floating ball refused to obey and blinked several times, looking in the same direction. Then it turned to Shin and started emitting the lights again. Shin then understood, it was Morse code. At times like that, Shin really hated that his body rejected the Neurowire system, but at least even if it was in an old fashioned way, he could still communicate.

    "-- .- .. / .. -. / --- - .... . .-. / ... .... --- .-. . / ... --- ..- - .... .-- . ... - / -.. .- -. --. . .-."

    "Mai on the other bank, southwest, danger," he muttered.

    "-- --- -. ... - . .-. / ..-. .. --. .... -"

    "...monster...fighting?!"

    ".... ..- .-. .-. -.-- / .. -.. .. --- -"

    "Shit! Come on, come on!"

    Shin squeezed and, without bothering to translate the rude ball, started swimming now in the opposite direction, following the drone''s light.

    He didn''t know how Mai could have made it to the other side if the log dam had been destroyed. He hoped that the monster Piper was referring to, had nothing to do with what he had seen under his microscope earlier. The calcareous structures around the meteorite microfragments, and the mutations in the environment had already given him a bad feeling. Who knew what kind of organism had been incubating in the subterranean bowels of the lake for hundreds of thousands of years. He had questions but he would find the answers later.

    Absorbed by his thoughts, he didn''t notice and not even five minutes had passed when he finally arrived at the shore, a little tired and agitated, but he had no time to rest. He took off his trench coat and the tatters of his shirt, which was a nuisance, then hid his trench coat in the trunk of a tree. He kept his tactical shoulder holster and the backpack on and ran after the drone.

    Shin frowned as in the middle of his mad dash he began to make out a pinkish glow in the distance, and that was the exact spot where he was going. He just hoped that whatever was happening there, Mai wasn''t in the middle of it.

    Why am I going slow? he asked himself.

    To anyone who had seen him, he would have thought he was a demon running in the dark. But, for some reason, Shin was not at all satisfied with his pace of travel. Something was missing, though he couldn''t tell exactly what it was.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 13: Reunion

    Chapter Thirteen

    Reunion

    The columns of water burst, and rose several meters high with each onslaught of the animals, and Mai had to avoid being buried by the tons of water at every second.

    It was a terrifying spectacle, but at the same time of a surreal and spectral beauty, beyond the mundane reality. The rules, the intrigues, the dualities, none of that mattered. It was simply nature in its pure state, indifferent to the presence of sentient beings several kilometers away, with their cities of bright lights and sophistication.

    Each attack inflamed more the beasts, that seemed to want to prolong the combat until the day that absolute zero reigned over the universe. Neither side was falling. And the speed with which they moved meant that several times they simply melted into an undefined mass of flesh, antlers and water. Mai saw here and there wounds on the bodies of the stags, that to the common eye would have been as if wounds were opened in the fabric of reality and blood flowed from them like a stigma of existence itself.

    She dodged new attacks from the visceral filaments, that now seemed to be less angry with her and more interested in helping the monstrous beast. It was making the earth tremble with its screams and would have made anyone who heard it turn their hair white.

    Mai wondered if the soldier stationed at the entrance was listening to the sounds. Although it was quite far away, the shape of the wide valley was perhaps more than enough for the sounds of the scuffle to reach there.

    She had tried several times to connect with him but, for some reason, the communication was failing again. There was something blocking the incoming and outgoing signals, and she was more than sure it wasn''t a problem with her Neurowire, which seemed to have all its functions working, although not the ones she needed at the moment. Contact with Shin, who could receive calls through the translator, was also cut off.

    It is not possible for him to disappear again, is it? Mai wondered.

    In the relative time they had been together, she and Lizbeth knew him well enough to know that he wouldn''t disappear without a good explanation. She remembered seeing him at the log dam when she was attacked. But the dam had disappeared and so had he.

    We''ve been through too much to be separated again. It was a fleeting thought that assaulted her mind, but it was better not to think about it. Even though it was the truth she felt in her heart. Both, she and Lizbeth, had been waiting for the pieces of the puzzle that completed the strange painting that was their lives. The pieces were there, at that time, and so she didn''t want to lose them again even though others were missing.

    The snow and mist continued to swirl in the vortex towards the center of the lake with increasing speed, and the fungus networks emitted the ghostly pulsating flash in waves that came and went, as if they were communicating a message not meant for the eyes of the world. Mai felt more and more worried by the crescendo of the lights in the place, which seemed almost as if they were the veins of a living being, even the huge monster showed the same flashes here and there on its body.

    In one of the lunges against the monster, one of the stags, which seemed to be the smallest of the three, crashed in a bad angle into one of the portentous antlers of the beast. There was a sound of something breaking and a horrible groan and one of the stag''s antlers flew off and was lost in the darkness. The monster spared no time and, in one detailed stroke, reached the neck of the poor unfortunate animal who emitted a scream of pain that froze Mai''s blood.

    The other two flinched for a few seconds, but rushed to the rescue of their friend, and the monster used the body in its mouth, waving it in the air to keep them at bay, while lacerating the flesh of its prey, that was struggling and kicking incessantly.

    Mai went back into the waters, switching to incendiary ammunition once more, and took the opportunity to shoot the beast in its rear again. It let out a thunderous shriek and threw the stag body several meters away.

    Mai was not sure if she had hit the target of what looked like an umbilical cord, but the creature had its eyes on her again, looking at her with an unspeakable fury. But, to Mai''s luck, before the beast could launch itself in pursuit of her, it was lifted into the air again by the giant stag, which again knocked it down and it attacked the monster, stepping on it several times.

    Then Mai looked at the wounded animal, which had been freed from the creature''s fatal bite.

    The wounded stag let out pitiful groans and Mai could see how the rotting fungus'' nets had already covered it and dragged it under the water. She moved closer, until the water reached her waist, but she did not have a suitable angle of shot without hurting the animal even more. She would have liked to help him, but he was too far away from her. She saw the unfortunate animal''s wild eye begging for help above the water, which the wounds had turned a glowing crimson. It was already too late for the animal.

    Quickly she changed her handgun and taking up her pistol again, she pointed it at the animal''s heart and fired, putting an end to its suffering. Then the sound of bubbles and stillness. She put the gun away again, tasting something bitter on her lips and stepped back, to get back in position to shoot.

    She would try to fire again to the beast''s rear as soon as she had a chance, when large arms embraced her from behind.

    "You''re doing good," said a voice in her ear.

    Mai pulled her arms free with the help of the shotgun and turned around. There stood Shin wearing only his pants. Mai punched him in the arm angrily.

    "You scared me! Where have you been?"

    But as she punched him in the arm she couldn''t dislodge her fist. The figure in front of her warped for an instant and, although it retained its anthropoid form, she recognized that the body was a gelatinous fungus web that had taken Shin''s form again. She shot at it and the goo splashed her face. The smell was so repulsive that she had to suppress retching to keep from vomiting.

    "Why are you shooting at me?"

    "...!"

    "Don''t you want to be a part of this?"

    "Don''t you love me?"

    Several of those throbbing semi-human-shaped disgusting creatures were approaching her, on the water carried by the filaments, exchanging bodies, shapes and faces into a hideous, fleshy, throbbing mass. Mai clicked her tongue in disgust and simply fired with the shotgun in her left hand at the nearest one, that had taken the form of Komarov at that moment and then, drawing the pistol again, fired at the one that had taken a mixed form of Ivraeva and Shin.

    Several more approached and Mai saw how they started with small hyphae that grew, branched and intertwined crossing each other at a biologically impossible speed, forming throbbing bulbs where the head should be.

    She shook them off, before the heads began to take shape, and backed towards the shore again, trying not to turn her back on the giants, as they continued the battle in the water.

    She felt incredibly disgusted with herself, she could not understand how that thing managed to fool her senses, when she could see everything else in the environment in perfect order. Everything was coming from that glow.

    The creature was far more intelligent than she had thought. Its ability to create information networks, to copy its victims and make them appear to be real versions was terrifying. The versions that attacked her took shapes that formed quickly, but who knew how far they could go if she gave them enough time.

    Not to mention its ability to create the illusion of an entire base among the trees. The fungus and the creature probably secreted some hallucinogenic substance, and used the memories, at the same time, to create an illusion in the mind of its victim.

    "Who is Rei?"

    Hearing that, Mai turned around quickly. She had no idea how much that thing had seen in her mind, but it was more than obvious that it also fed on the memories of what it touched. She had been unconscious for hours and the hallucination of the base seemed to make more sense now. The fungus created a web of memories of everything it touched. The vehicles she didn''t recognize, or the base itself, were made up of her memories and those of the victims.

    "Who is Rei?"

    From her left a new figure, this time with the face of Shin again, approached completely naked, as he smiled and red tears came down from his empty eye sockets. She sent the filth to the other side with her shotgun, but behind her approached another figure that had sprouted in the darkness.

    Another shot from the shotgun and she hit it squarely in the chest.

    But the thing didn''t go away this time. It lunged at her and threw her aside, at the same time as a huge antler from one of the stags flew inches over their heads. They both rolled in the snow and mud.

    "You shot me!"

    Mai looked up at him. It seemed so real. The shotgun was between them so she pulled the trigger one more time. The thing was thrown backwards and rolled a couple of meters away from her, but got up almost instantly.

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    "You shot me again!" the thing said, visibly angry.

    But the shot had no effect on the dark metal that covered its body.

    For a second they were both distracted, they were sure they had heard some distant detonations in the north, above the roars of the animals. But Mai refocused on the figure in front of her. She frowned in confusion and noticed that the being was wearing black armor and carrying a ball under his arm with a smiley sticker on the side.

    She felt her voice crack and a stabbing pain in her chest was making her lose consciousness. Her heart was pounding like she had been running a marathon all day.

    "Prove me it''s you,¡± she said, standing up.

    "What is it?! It''s me, look! I''m not one of those things."

    Shin stood up and looked at her confused, he had no idea what had happened, but Mai was visibly disturbed. The armor retracted from his body to the back, revealing Shin''s naked torso.

    A nauseating wave hit Shin''s nose. The smell of the place was unbearable, so much so that he wondered how she was still standing and he could already imagine what had happened by looking at her antennae.

    Hallucinations, like the ones Zejho, Ivraeva and Komarov had suffered. He cursed himself for not having arrived before everything started to get out of hand.

    "Tell me something that only the three of us know. I don''t know if you''re a hallucination of that thing, one of those creepy things or who knows what this time. Tell me something that only the three of us know!"

    "..."

    Shin looked into Mai''s green eyes, they were glazed over, perhaps in an attempt at tears or restrained joy. Whatever the emotion was, he felt it was his fault. He should have been there for her and his heart shrank from imagining something worse happening to her while he wasn''t there.

    They were beings whose character had been shaped by the cruelty of an unknowable universe and, as if it were a joke, without that cruelty, in a world which seemed to revolve senselessly around madness, they wouldn''t have met either.

    Back to back, taking care of each other.

    He, an alien with so many years on his back, walking through lands and planes of a world similar to the one he was walking in, but of infinite strangeness, looking for something that would give meaning to his wandering existence.

    She, a fey who had decided to seek her happiness in her work and in a way had found it. Still, the emptiness that had filled her heart in recent years had made her wonder, more than once, if it was worth so much suffering for a world that, at least in some part, seemed to hate those who were like her.

    And Lizbeth, what about her? Although at that moment she was hundreds of miles away, the three of them shared the same desire.

    A fey girl who was once the plaything of fate. But whose smile could light up the darkest of days and whose bravery had never made her turn back before the horrors she encountered on her way.

    Now the three of them were together. Just a few more days and finally the three of them could be happier than they had been in centuries.

    Shin approached Mai slowly, as if he didn''t care about the disaster caused by the animals behind him.

    He put on a serious expression and uttered a few words that only Mai could hear. Then muffled by the sound of the battle and carried by the wind, they fled away like the mist coming out of the mouth.

    They were simple words that to anyone else might have meant something else. But to both of them, and Lizbeth included, they were important.

    She loosened her trigger finger, and a tentacular filament lunged at Shin. He tackled it by dragging it away, which gave Mai time to wipe her wet eyes and shoot at another who had tried to grab her by the ankle. It was no time for kisses or hugs, they had work to do, although they were both relieved to have each other again. They both backed several meters away from the shore and hid behind a fallen log free of filaments when a shower of those filament needles fell on them as if they were arrows. Shin set the drone down on the ground and tried to comfort his partner in crime.

    "The important thing is that you''re okay. Do you have a gas mask in your backpack?" Shin said, as he destroyed a shapeless mass that was trying to take his form again.

    Mai''s antennae moved in a smooth motion and hid in her hair again. She had already abused her ability enough, and the truth was that she was starting to feel dizzy. Shin tore off a new one of the pestilences and looked at Mai, who moved several meters away while shooting and activated the gas mask with visor. Mai felt a little embarrassed that she hadn''t thought of it sooner, but the truth is that either she had become accustomed to the smell or the hallucinations produced by the fungus in her system had prevented her from taking the precaution of wearing a mask. Everything would have been easier if she had worn it from the beginning.

    "Th-that''s Piper?" she asked, regaining her composure, but still with her voice slightly cracking.

    "Yeah I don''t know what happened to him. When we were on our way over here, it suddenly shut down."

    "I lost the other two at some point. That thing made me hallucinate it was you, and I followed it from the other side."

    Shin looked at the figure of his partner, she must have gone through hell while he was gone.

    "Sorry for the delay, when you fell and that thing destroyed the dam, the current swept me away."

    ¡°I figured something had happened.¡±

    Shin looked at the mess of the place and the fight in the water. Another of the stags had lost one of its antlers, but Shin could only see the ever-increasing trails of blood floating in the air. Mai turned and looked to see the one that had passed over them, when Shin had pounced on her, and discovered that the huge antler was now visible, as if it lost its properties once it was far enough away from the main body.

    The rotting filaments of the fungus had again begun their attacks against both, but this time without taking any form. They simply attacked with the needles.

    ¡°Were those the ones that destroyed the dam?¡± he asked, peering through the fog that had already thinned sufficiently.

    "Can you see them?"

    "No, but they''re elks¡­. Or stags, aren''t they? I mean for the sound they make. Although I didn''t know they could grow so big¡­ or that they could become invisible."

    "If it wasn''t for them, I think that thing would have eaten me by now," Mai said as she shot at a bulb, that had begun to form a humanoid facial feature, as if it were screaming.

    "They''re not going to last long. That thing is beating them. And that''s making me more worried," he said pointing in the direction of the huge glow. "On my way over here I was able to guide myself by the lights but they''re not nearly as powerful as the one in the reports."

    "...!"

    "That thing isn''t the one producing the lights, it''s what''s underwater."

    "That''s what I figured. Do you think it''s another creature?"

    "I don''t know. But I think the key to all of this is the earthquakes."

    "The fungus or something else? What I''ve been seeing is because of that?"

    "Yeah¡­ in some way. That rotten smell is hydrogen sulfide, and remember this is a volcanic area. The last earthquake may have produced some methane pocket that is releasing gases into the air. Earlier it didn''t stink so much, but now it does. Even though we can''t feel it, maybe the whole area is still having aftershocks from the earthquake."

    "Shin... that thing has three pairs of arms. The ones on the sculpture we''ve been looking at only have two."

    ¡°Do you think that thing is the number of victims the creature has assimilated?¡±

    "What do you think?"

    "I don''t know, three victims seems to me to be too few for that size, although it may just be its growth and that it has absorbed characteristics of other animals."

    In their minds several pieces had begun to fit together. The creature, the arms, the sculpture-like umbilical cord and the period when the lights appeared. But there was no time for further explanation.

    "What?" Mai asked as Shin turned to look at her.

    He didn''t like the idea he had in mind at all, but it was the best he could come up with at the moment. He reached behind his back and unzipped his backpack from the tactical holster.

    "ZiTF09, CB02," Shin said, looking at the backpack.

    Instantly there appeared, on the chest buckle of the holster, three grenades and on both sides of his belt a black tactical sword and a small one put in their respective sheaths, and he tossed the backpack to Mai.

    "Use my rifle if you need it. Do you think you can stall him a little in case the stags die?"

    "What are you going to do?"

    "Whatever happens in the bottom is the source. I think that if I can cut the umbilical cord on that thing it can''t live without being connected. If it could have been done, it would have been done a long time ago. The filaments of the fungus I sampled changed their shape to adapt, remember? Well that creature I''m sure is the amalgam that artist was talking about. But what is important is in the center."

    "You''re going in there? Have you lost your mind?" Shin simply shrugged and looked at her with a face of circumstance. "But what if you''re wrong?"

    "Run to the car and keep your distance until reinforcements arrive," he said, drawing the short sword and ripping one of the fungus nets that was thrown straight at his face.

    "About that... I called for reinforcements but I forgot to ask through Arsen first."

    "You didn''t call Carissia, did you?"

    "¡­"

    "I hope she didn''t land in the middle of the city at full speed or we''re going to get hung up on." Shin pursed his lips and furrowed his brow.

    "Carissia is my personal pilot¡­ I can always tell I was under the hallucinogenic effects..."

    "Yeah¡­ I''m not sure if you say that it''s going to be much better." Shin sighed and turned to look at the battle. "That monster is too dangerous to let loose. If we don''t stop it now who knows when it will reappear and maybe by tomorrow it will disappear deep into the lake."

    Mai looked at him worriedly. She didn''t like the idea, but they had no other at that moment. Arsen should have already set some operation in motion, after she called one of the robots, but it would still take time to get to the place.

    Shin jumped over the tree, where they had been hiding, and headed for the lake re-sheathing the short sword.

    "If those two fall and that thing goes after me, don''t even think about doing something stupid."

    Mai ran after him, as if she wanted to tell him something else, but stopped just before she reached him. She would be lying if she said she wasn''t worried, but she also knew that Shin was the only chance to get close to whatever was in that glow.

    "Good luck." She told him and she put out her antennae again.

    He gave her the closest thing he had to a smile, trying to ward off Mai''s fears, as the armor began to cover his body again, and ran in the direction of the lake. The black silhouette was the last she saw of him before he plunged into the gelid waters.

    Shin knew how stubborn she was about her work and she would not run away until she knew that whatever was going on in the lake was not under control.

    Shin''s reasons were different now that he knew she was okay. And Mai knew he wouldn''t stop until he found out what was in the middle of the lake either.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 14: Tzirak sha Zhireq

    Chapter Fourteen

    Tzi''rak sha Zhireq

    Ever since he crashed in Tunguska, a little over three centuries ago, Shin had his armor always with him, and it had definitely saved him on more than one occasion from sustaining fatal injuries. Even if his regeneration made him nearly unkillable. But even beyond his own regeneration, the armor had shown unparalleled potential in battle.

    He had been through conflicts of all kinds, with humans and feys, almost from the first moment the sky ripped, and his body descended at meteoric speed on that Siberian morning, when the last glimmer of the dawn star was extinguished.

    There were no ships, no enchantment, or spell, and not a divine intervention either. Simply an aberration in space and time, and an explosion, as his body crashed to the earth. A horrific explosion, that could have ended in an even greater tragedy, had it not been for the fact that the disaster occurred in an almost completely unpopulated territory.

    That happened in the first years of the 20th century of the Ancient Era, more specifically on June 30, 1908.

    He didn''t remember his name, his past, or even if he had ever had a family.

    But that sort of armor, that grew out of his own bones and flesh and spread throughout his body, starting with the mark on his lower back, had always been there with him. As if it were an extra shadow of his own existence. A reminiscence of a past, perhaps, older than the lights of the last dying stars, of an icy and empty universe in another time and place.

    The nomadic tribes of the place he crashed, thought that a divine being had descended from the sky, and confused him with the figure of a raven sent by the gods. That he was blind in one eye contributed to this since, in spite of his young appearance, that characteristic was associated more with old age than with the look of his body.

    They even baptized him with a secret name, which he would later reveal only to a very small circle of trusted people in the following years, and recently Mai was the only one who had joined that group. Lizbeth already knew that name for centuries, when they met in the theater of World War II, which shook the world at that time. The mutual trust they felt for each other, when they first met was more than enough for them to share their secret names.

    Whatever it was, the only thing that Shin had been clear, from the moment of his arrival, was that his armor differentiated him even more from the common mortals. Although he did not know whether it had been bequeathed to him by someone else, or something else, or he had already been born with it, as a characteristic of his species. The truth is that he had never denied it and knew how to accept it from the first moment - even if it caused rejection in other people.

    And he knew that it was also that armor that prevented him from putting on proper facial features. Because it was always in stand-by mode under his skin, between his muscles and bones, it prevented him from smiling properly or expressing anguish. His expression was always serious because of that, although he had tried to emulate as best he could to show some emotions on his face. The irony of it was that with the mask on, as his muscles and skin were freed from the organometallic particles of the armor, he could express them, even if no one could see them. However the people in his closest circle knew that and despite being an alien, they had accepted it.

    It had all started a long time ago for him. Although he did not know the answers to those riddles of his past, it had not stopped him from continuing on his path.

    As he plunged into the waters with their reddish glow, Shin could almost feel the same sensation as that morning when he arrived. As if he was once again entering an unknown world.

    The mask on his face completely covered his expressions and eyes, but he could still see. It was as if the mask possessed some viewfinder inside. At that moment, Shin could perceive an image of slightly more vivid tones, if only through his one eye.

    He had barely advanced a few meters, when he could already feel his shins being broken by something sinking him against the muddy ground. He turned to free himself and realized that he could not see what had attacked him. It was the foot of one of the stags that stepped on him in its frantic onslaught against the monster. The battle had moved almost on top of where he was passing and he felt like a slippery fish trying to evade a fisherman''s spear.

    This thing feels strange, he thought. Is something wrong? The armor felt a little strange, almost like the same feeling when it had started to run when it came out of the lake.

    More crunching of his bones and barely audible sounds indicated that his limbs were back together, and he tried to move as far away as he could with the speed of a dolphin.

    Regeneration of his body took no more than a few seconds for any part, but not so for his head and heart. If his head was shattered once again, this time by the weight of the beasts, he would have to be underwater for hours until the tissues and bones returned to their proper places.

    What would happen to Mai in that time? Would reinforcements arrive on time from the capital or the nearby bases?

    He did not know and therefore could not afford to fail. There was something strange about what was happening. A feeling he couldn''t shake off and it had nothing to do with the horrible monster. Shin could almost feel it coming from where he was headed.

    He estimated that he had already gone at least seventy meters from the shore and the soil at the bottom was beginning to disappearing away in the deep. The waters were already looking less murky and the visibility of the glow allowed him to see at least twenty meters before blurring into a series of shadows and pulsing lights as if he were inside a living organism.

    The shadows were the thicker filaments that seemed to move in slow procession around the main glow, swirling in various directions, while other much more thicker ones stood still and were lost in the mud.

    How far away am I?

    He could only guess but, if the main flash was in the middle of the lake, he had at least another four or five hundred meters before he could achieve it. The bottom of the lake had already disappeared into the darkness, where the glow did not reach.

    The filaments seemed to increase in quantity in that part and he was moving his legs and brushed against one of them. Shin felt a tug on one of his legs and his journey was interrupted, and he was thrown backwards again, only to be grabbed by both arms, by more amoeboid looking fungus, that were climbing up his arms at chilling speed. He pulled the one on his left and was able to free his arm to reach for the short sword in his sheath, and slash the other one. A cloud of black and a faint flash was produced at the filament as the blade passed through it and others darted in pursuit of Shin.

    The grenades in the chest were fixed to the chest strap, but he was worried that with the whipping and movement they would come loose or, worse, explode. As he slashed at the ones pretending to grab him, he placed his free hand on the grenades. In a few seconds, from his hand, black filaments emitted an electric blue flash and began to form a new rectangular plate over the grenades which almost instantly became protected as if welded to the chest armor.

    The waters were turned into a black and scarlet whirlpool by the speed of the attacks. Almost as if they knew what Shin was up to.

    Whipping, lashing, attacks from the filaments with their needles, that was useless to him. He could not waste time in a battle that who knew if it would end. He needed to get close to his target as soon as possible.

    A crashing wave behind him disrupted the blows, and those of the strands as well. On the banks the fierce fighting continued between the beasts. He only hoped that Mai did not do anything crazy and concentrated again on the attacks that redoubled the violence and speed now with some thicker filaments that had joined the fray.

    It was a surreal sight to see the speed of attack. Shin had no doubt that they must put an end to the threat. If they could attack with such ferocity and were spread out for miles, who knew what they could do if they escaped from the lake, along with whatever gave rise to them. It was already a miracle that they hadn''t done it before and that there were no more victims.

    He continued cutting with the sword and advancing, sometimes hitting with his right hand and helped with the supernatural strength that the armor gave him, other times he took them and squeezed them until they burst, blackening the waters.

    He could not swim with both swords and was not sure if he would need it to cut something thicker ahead. He was in the middle of this when through his peripheral vision he spotted something else, that for a moment made him think that the creature had come after him.

    It was a huge lump floating several meters below him. As he continued in his struggle, he was able to clear his vision for a moment and see that it was a huge bag of filaments several meters in diameter, which advanced rapidly swelling and contracting as if it were a throbbing heart. All the filaments were joined into a thicker trunk that was the one that seemed to drag him right into the larger glow.

    Shin then saw four protrusions that were not quite covered. It was an animal, one of stags, that was serving as food. He could see it, but it was dead. Then he remembered the antler that had flown over their heads. He wondered if it was one of the ones above, and if so, there was only one left? The carcass of the animal was the one that Mai had to shoot, but Shin did not know it, as he had arrived later.

    He did not hesitate for a second and, while dodging several of the filaments that were thrown towards him, he grabbed one of the animal''s huge legs to serve as a transport. Instantly he could feel how some of the nearby filaments reached out and grabbed his arm, almost as if he were part of the animal. He didn''t stop to look back, he wanted to be sure that the precarious transport would take him as close to his target as possible and there was only one thing he could do to stop them from attacking him.

    He retracted the armor on his abdomen and only a few seconds later he could feel a stabbing pain in his ribs. He loosened the pressure on the animal''s leg and lowered his heart rate.

    All that remained was to wait.

    Seconds became minutes and he was pierced by the sharp points of the filaments several more times. He could almost feel them moving inside him, hurting and tearing the tissue, but still he did not react. He was already used to serious wounds of that kind, one more would not make any difference.

    The glow grew stronger at the same time as it sometimes waned in its light. There couldn''t be more than a three hundred meters left, he thought, and the ruse had worked. The other filaments had stopped attacking him when the ones covering the animal penetrated his side.

    But there was something else that worried him. The water, although it was cold, could not be considered cold enough for a person not to take a dip. He was entering an area where the temperature was beginning to rise gradually as they approached the glow, and he feared that the final destination was the mouth of a forming volcano or internal heat pockets that produced sudden temperature and pressure changes.

    And Shin hated it too much when the temperature was too hot spontaneously, he could feel the heat through the dark metal in his body when it was outside.

    Shit!

    The temperature change was becoming more and more evident. And he was spinning. He could feel the pressure of his body moving forward, but following a counter-clockwise rotating course.

    What was in the middle of the lake was now spinning.

    ***

    Mai was shooting and trying not to get caught that she almost didn''t notice how in the course of a few minutes the environment had changed.

    The snow had stopped falling and had been replaced by a barely perceptible fine drizzle, which wet the glass of her mask. And the mist over the lake was now just a thin layer floating no more than a meter above the water.

    In the middle of the lake the huge glow pulsed with its crimson light more and more.

    But the beasts'' fight had continued and Mai''s as well.

    Her silver hair now showed a bloodstained spot on one side, where one of the strands had brushed too close to her. But she had been accustomed to wounds for far too long to be concerned about them.

    She leapt into the air a couple of meters shooting at the beast again while dodging the piercing filaments. Behind her was the most badly wounded and limping deer that had retreated several meters from the lake. The big one was still resisting, but the beast was also tired. The wounds no longer healed with the same speed, and it retreated to a prudent distance after each attack. More and more and more inward. A couple of times it turned and looked towards the center of the lake.

    ¡°How smart is this thing?¡± Mai had no doubt, it was slowly retreating further and further into the lake. Had Shin reached the center by now?

    "TIB-2ZN34."

    In two seconds the shotgun had disappeared from her hands, so that this time an assault rifle a little too big for her appeared. And taking it, she moved several meters closer to the water.

    The tracer bullets hit the animal''s muzzle and it let out a shuddering scream, revealing its phosphorescent tentacles. But it did not approach again, limiting itself to glaring at her with unspeakable hatred from a distance.

    The stag wanted to try a new attack but did not get very far.

    A bellow, much louder than any it had emitted so far, came from its throat and it stopped midway by raising both front legs in the air. It was not a fighting cry. It was panic. It turned around and approached the shore at full speed so fast that Mai had to jump backwards to avoid being run over by it and was soaked by the huge column of water it raised with its hooves.

    The huge stag emitted a pitiful whimper as it disappeared like an exhalation in the darkness of the forest. Its companion emitted a similar groan and took off after him.

    She didn''t have much time to look surprised, now that the two animals had departed, it was more than likely that the beast would turn its attention to her.

    But it didn''t.

    The monster made a sound unlike any other it had ever made. Mai couldn''t tell why but it almost sounded like resignation. While she was relieved that the monster retreated, the stags running away already gave her a bad feeling.

    A quick, sharp snap distracted her.

    Mai turned to her right looking for the source of the sound, but only saw a quick movement out of the corner of her eye.

    A new sound. This time to her left.

    In less than a second her ears were filling with the sounds produced by the filaments, as they passed by her, and retracted in the direction of the lake as if they were bullets. Not only the small ones, the thicker ones that were among the trees and even underground were moving like snakes. This time it was the earth that was coming alive. The deepest roots were rising up and moving at lightning speed back to the lake.

    Back to its source.

    Tons of earth and trees were once again in motion from the slopes and Mai could hear the rumble of the trees crashing into each other all along the lakeshore.

    Mai looked at the creature and it gave one last indescribable growl before plunging into the crimson waters.

    Mai only wished that whatever was about to happen was already the end. But the cry of the stag still echoed in her ears.

    ***

    Damn it!

    The trick had worked and he had made more than enough progress towards the glow. But it was when he estimated that it should not be more than a minute to reach the center, he had to cut with the sword the viscous filaments, when he felt an unbearable heat passing through the metal of the armor.

    Shin let go of the animal''s limb and all that was left in his hand was a handful of the animal''s fur and some of that gelatinous goo. The appendages that had pierced him came loose from the spinning speed. The wounds gushed blood before closing again and the armor covered almost instantly the vulnerable parts again.

    Barely for a second he could see the filaments covering the animal''s carcass grow brighter, and the carcass collapsed into something no bigger than a football.

    They were really feeding of it.

    The vision was quickly lost, as they moved away with the spinning and the frightening force that moved them.

    The temperature was changing from cold to hot gradually with the pulsations of the glow, but it was certainly increasing, and the arms of the filaments were getting thicker and thicker as it moved forward and spun creating a whirlpool of dizzying intensity.

    He was being dragged along by the whirlpool.

    He felt the whipping of the filaments like whiplashes on his body, but it didn''t bother him, he was already too close. Shin was concerned to see how wisps of smoke, and gases bubbles were carried by the whirlpool to the surface, probably underneath it there was some source of hydrothermal venting.

    If so, it also explained what he had seen under his microscope earlier when examining samples that also had high sulfur concentrations. He just wished that, if he was right, and the bottom of the lake really did have that vent, it didn''t happen to explode just as he was reaching the glow.

    As the whirlpool spun, he felt a new stronger blow on his back that almost crushed him. It was one of the huge filamentous arms, thick as a tree trunk that caught him in its spin. He felt the metal of his armor put pressure on his body and he could almost be sure that his bones had broken more than once since the huge stag stepped on him but, due to his regeneration and adrenaline, he couldn''t feel any pain at that moment.

    In which direction am I going? He felt confused. The light pulses and heat waves had something strange about them. Did the whirlpool seem to change at times, or was it simply disorientation? Was there something abnormal about those twists and turns?

    The filaments were hardly attacking him at that point and the whipping he felt came mostly from the spinning force of the smaller ones, that were still flailing around like vipers. Shin verified that in this part the larger ones no longer had the same flexibility. They were much harder, forming a much more solid crust that he could no longer cut easily with the short sword. He decided to limit himself to using it, along with his free hand, to hold on as best he could to the huge filament and advance the few meters that remained. It was a costly task, since in addition to the spinning of the core, there was also the whirlpool that was sweeping away everything in its path.

    He could no longer be sure what structure the creature had. It had to be devilishly large or have a source of energy strong enough to generate that rotating motion.

    Where Shin was, he could see that it had two different types of rotations, a movement on its own axis and at the same time the filaments also rotated with their own rotation around it, but they never intertwined or twisted around each other. Then he remembered something he had seen long ago, although what he had seen was no more than a mathematical representation. He did not imagine that nature could copy that and use it in a natural habitat.

    ...It''s 720o... This thing is just like a huge spinor! Had it been any other situation Shin would have been amazed and even hesitated, but he remembered how it had affected nature on the surface.

    It wasn''t just changing the environment, it was mutating and evolving.

    Still a bit surprised, he finally saw what he had been looking for. Just a few meters beyond where he stood was something he had never seen in his long life.

    It was a sort of giant sphere, so large that he could hardly see its full shape. It rotated horizontally at a constant speed, and it was made of a structure of small cells, similar to those of a honeycomb, but much more irregular and disorderly. The filaments sprouted from the intersections of the structure with irregular sizes. The glow came from within, pulsating, and the light produced a spectral effect as it filtered through the cells.

    Shin slowly approached, feeling the pressure building and he could feel the organic metal of the armor squeezing his every organ and bone.

    He drew his tactical sword from its sheath with his free hand, even at the risk of being thrown, and thrusting it into one of the intersections as he used it to finally get close enough to the sphere.

    Now that he could see it up close, he could see that the sphere was made of a calcareous material, almost as if it were bone.

    It''s an exoskeleton. Shin grabbed hold as best he could, with the claws of his feet and both swords digging into the structure, and looked inside to see where the light was coming from.

    What was inside was a much larger and distorted version of what he had observed earlier in the microscope.

    It consisted of a series of three ovoid, slightly irregular, spheres of at least six meters in diameter between them. The largest one occupied almost all the space, the other two smaller ones were barely more than a meter in diameter. All three were covered with the same calcareous shell, as the larger sphere from where Shin watched, except that from the chambers came a series of crystalline-looking filaments, giving them the appearance of huge balls filled with heavy-looking spikes, that moved and pulsed in rhythm with the light.

    The crimson light that bathed everything came from the largest sphere. It was so huge that Shin wondered if the grenades he was carrying would be enough. In any case he had to first make sure that the grenades were not going to cause something worse, and for that he had to get close enough to be able to examine more closely what the light was about.

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    Shin pulled hard on the sword, and the blade emitted a slight blue glow from its single edge and re-configured itself from hilt to tip, spiralling until it had three edges. Almost instantly the pieces of the shell, where he had thrust the sword into it, were thrown out producing a larger hole. Once removed, the blade returned to its normal shape. He repeated the operation a couple of times more, opening a hole big enough for a thin person to pass through it.

    He tried to squeeze through the hole, when he felt a strong pull on his leg and was thrown backwards again, crashing into another of the thick strands. He stuck his sword back into it and looked.

    It was the horrible creature, that was now on the surface of the sphere and was looking down at him.

    What happened up there?

    He could hardly see the end of the huge beast and had no time to figure out where it would be connected to the huge sphere. But if he wanted to get in, he wasn''t going to make it easy. The dizzying speed, at which he was being dragged along, was more than enough to add to this.

    Come on, come on. Come here.

    The monster''s attack did not take long, and neither did Shin''s. He retracted part of the armor back into one of his sides and the blade of the longsword penetrated his flesh and closed the armor again. The speed was going to prevent him from putting it back in its sheath and he didn''t want to lose it by sticking it into the huge filament, in case what he had planned went wrong. With his right hand, now free, he brought it to his chest releasing one of the grenades and waited until the beast slid down the thick filament to him. Despite the movement, the hideous animal could move with an unnatural ease in that environment.

    It came to within a meter of Shin and opened its huge mouth, revealing once again the luminescent tentacles in its throat. Shin released the grenade inside and, before the beast could react, he pulled out the sword again and stabbed it through the bottom of its jaw. Then he did the same with the short sword, but this time he stuck it in the upper part closing the huge mouth of the beast. The beast twitched and broke free of the filament as it tried to free itself from the pressure.

    Three consecutive beeps sounded and a blue flash and a red cloud and flesh, along with bubbles, filled the space for a few seconds along with the dull thud of the grenade underwater.

    Shin shook and lost the pressure of the upper blade, that had been loosened by the burst of the animal''s flesh. The short sword was lost somewhere in the whirlpool. He gripped the huge shaft for a moment and then thrusting the sword into the still firm flesh of the beast he continued climbing, until he reached the spiked spine of the animal. The beast was still twitching with spasms.

    He looked back at the shattered head, and slowly he could see how the tissue, from which blood was still flowing, was beginning to reconnect again. He had neither the time, nor the desire to face it again.

    Shin slid towards one of the sides of the enormous beast to thrust the sword more easily and advanced far enough along the filament that served as an umbilical cord, until he could change to another one, through which it was easier for him to reach the sphere again. He had to use his sword while with the other hand he held on to one of the intersections and opened a new gap through which this time he was able to slip inside.

    Although he did not expect to meet someone else there.

    From the angle where he wanted to enter the first time it was impossible to see it, but now inside he was surprised.

    The skeletal head was slightly separated from the lower jaw, as if it had been torn off in a sort of horrified grimace, but its closed eyes almost seemed to be in a placid sleep. The body was cadaveric, deformed in certain parts forming the same structure of cells from which the crystalline filaments sprouted here and there. There was still some skin stuck to the bones, as if it were mummified, but still retained certain parts, that allowed to see that in life it had been a female figure.

    The body back was attached to the larger ovoid sphere with arms and hands outstretched, merging with the structure and legs together, almost completely absorbed by the structure. It was like looking at a sculpture with a macabre sense of taste, but somehow the peaceful expression in the woman''s closed eyes gave Shin an uncomfortable feeling.

    A mixture of horror and beauty. Life and death. Familiarity in a transmuted form of an unknowable nature beyond interpretation.

    Ivraeva.

    Shin could see that close to it, on both sides, almost disappeared and covered by the growth of the structure, other parts that vaguely reminded of human and other animal skulls stood out as mute witnesses of a forgotten time.

    It was all structures inside each other, like a gyroscope, albeit a particularly strange one. But what was in the center was different.

    He looked into the center of the huge sphere through the cells and there he saw the light coming from a crimson rock joined by filaments. Inside, it was the same insane spinning as outside, but at a different, much slower pace.

    It was a piece of a glowing meteorite. A wandering philosopher''s stone, thrown up from somewhere in space that had come to earth at a time when mankind was just awakening its consciousness.

    The eons of the world had passed and it was buried under the earth, until the movements of the tectonic plates had brought it out of its ephemeral sleep.

    Shin''s sword pierced the structure, near Ivraeva''s skeletal hand and twisted again, throwing more shell pieces into the whirlpool. The meteorite was far enough away to reach it but he would try to pull it out by reaching in once more and made a new hole to penetrate inside.

    I wouldn''t have done that if I had been you but, thank you.

    His head was already inside the sphere when he heard a voice in his head, speaking in a language Shin had never heard, but could somehow understand.

    We will return to the place from whence we were born, but you can never return to the place from whence you came, Wanderer of Planes. It is a sad fate, or so we understand.

    Shin turned, startled, and looked at Ivraeva''s body, when he was assaulted by successive visions, as if something was being pulled out of the depths of his memory.

    Seas were rising and huge land masses were tumbling in a world that Shin could not recall ever seeing, beyond the nights when he was assailed by nightmares. Horrified screams could be heard and he could see vaguely anthropoid forms and others of a completely unknown nature and anatomy, along with flying ships of stylized form, rising into the air as if being dragged by something. Cities of great skyscrapers, but of fantastic architecture, collapsed and were reduced to dust in the blink of an eye. Everything was being absorbed by two black suns that revolved around themselves at vertiginous speed.

    It was the end of a world and the last remnant of life in a universe.

    The visions started in his dreams a few years after Shin arrived on Earth and their repetition had only rooted the thought, deep inside him, that this must be his past. Where did it happen? At what time?

    The vision changed, and he saw scenes that were more familiar from his past. War, screams, destruction, hugs, tears, sunsets. Lizbeth''s golden hair on a gray day on a black sand beach. More screams of horror and scenes of gunfire, thunder confused with scenes of friendship and smiles.

    Familiar faces he remembered with nostalgia, and other faces he would rather have forgotten. Everything spun in a successive whirlwind of images that, more than making him dizzy, produced a knot in his stomach. So many things lived that, when he looked back, it seemed as if many of them had been a dream, or perhaps nightmares.

    And one last vision.

    Finally, a dark and dirty alley, with posters on the walls and populated with graffiti in Japanese. A girl with long, and a bit messy, dark hair was on her knees and sobbing.

    "I don''t want to die."

    "You''re not going to die," Shin said.

    Then one shot¡­ and darkness.

    The vision ended and Shin looked again at Ivraeva''s body but, instead of finding the placid expression in the eyes, he watched as that lower jawless face turned toward him.

    You believe your crimes are unforgivable. said the voices in his head. You have chosen a sad path, Orphan of the Binary Stars. Tzi''rak sha Zhireq.

    "...!"

    Had it not been for the fact that at that moment he had the armor''s bio-mask covering his face, Shin would have opened his mouth in surprise. But only the expressionless gaze of the metal surface of his mask was fixed on Ivraeva''s corpse. Shin removed his right hand from the sphere and reached, in a split second, for the skeletal neck of the thing that seemed to be staring at him with its eyes closed. It was a reflex action, Shin could not be sure if what he had seen was because the organism had penetrated his system, as he was approaching, or if the meteorite in the center was the one exerting some kind of memory manipulation.

    "What did you just say?" Shin asked, through his mask. "What do you know about me?"

    Apparently your home was destroyed and the universe you came from no longer exists. That was in another time and place. But you already know that. You''re just afraid not to remember, even though there''s nothing left to remember. Your mind has been destroyed, you have only fragments of a past, that you don''t know if you want to remember. It is really hard to know what goes through your mind. You think in ways somewhat different from the life forms on this planet, despite sharing morphological similarities.

    "¡­"

    You''re wondering what to do now. Capturing me will do nothing for the chemical relationship you have with those two women. The silver-haired one and the blonde have no secrets from you, but you''ve been lying to both of them since you came back. You''ve also lied to your friends, the ones you consider your family. If you let me go now, your lies will be safe. However, at the same time, we will be one more in your long chain of secrets. And yet, to make sure that those you want to protect are safe, you have no choice but to lie. It''s a dilemma that humans would call logical, but what really concerns you is the moral and emotional conflict involved. The funny thing is, the silver-haired girl seems to know, but she can''t tell either. What is the secret you guys are keeping? It''s intriguing.

    "...What do you mean, if I let you go?"

    Circumstances. It''s a funny word, because we have them too. In that we are not so different Tzi''rak sha Zhireq. If we are captured and taken to a laboratory all our memories and knowledge will be available to the creatures of this planet, but so what I have seen in your memories too.

    Shin simply just stared at the cadaverous face, not saying any words for a few seconds, as if he was thinking something.

    "Where are you from?"

    Biologically speaking I am from this planet, my consciousness awakened here a long time ago and the knowledge I have is from the creatures that came close to me, animals, plants and humans. But the important part of me comes from far beyond. I am the amalgamation of many life forms from here, but my matrix comes from far beyond.

    "Many people have died because of you."

    The creatures of this planet do the same to survive and apparently others do it for the thrill. I never asked for worship, just to exist and go out, if for no other reason than every time the earth moved. And I never wanted to cause harm to anyone other than to feed myself and seek to know something more. The consciousness of all the beings I fed on are part of me now, they are not dead.

    For a few seconds Shin did not receive any more messages until the voice added again.

    If you resent what I did to your loved one, I beg for mercy. I had never been approached by a being like her before. Her knowledge would be of great value to me.

    "For a fucking mushroom, you''ve got a lot of guts, I''ll give you that. If you have seen my memories, you know I can destroy you."

    You could destroy this biological form, but I doubt you could destroy the matrix. The heart of what lies at the center has already awakened to return to its place of origin.

    "You said you were born on this planet."

    My consciousness was born here, but my original source comes from beyond.

    "..."

    You are thinking what to do...What do you really want, Tzi''rak sha Zhireq?

    "Tzi''rak sha Zhireq... what does that mean?"

    You know what it means. Orphan of the Binary Stars.

    The face, of the once Rayana Ivraeva, turned back to its initial position, recovering its solemn expression. Shin glanced back and there he found, looking through the gap he had opened, the huge creature standing a little away on one of the strands. But it was standing still.

    What is your decision? Knowledge or your current happiness? we''re not sure you can have both. The answers you seek may be out there somewhere, although they don''t always bring happiness. What is it that you seek? the voice asked, and the echo reverberated in Shin as if he were in the presence of a sphinx.

    He already had the answer to the first question and also to the second, but not to the third. Whatever the answer to the third question was, it didn''t matter to Shin, he was satisfied with the answer to the second one. The third question had been asked by many over time. He had never found an answer to that question in his whole life.

    No matter what your answer is, the outcome will remain the same. You may choose to destroy me and allow others to study me. However, even in the midst of annihilation, the matrix will find its way back to its point of origin, taking you with it in a terrifying crawl if it must.

    Shin fixed his gaze on the meteorite, his eyes reflecting a mixture of awe and caution. But while the conversation with that half extraterrestrial entity had him in its grip, he had not noticed the subtle change in the filaments entwining around the cosmic object. Much less had he noticed the gradual increase in the meteorite''s dimensions, a change that now became difficult to ignore. That was no longer a glowing stone, it had transformed into a sphere.

    This is a laboratory of consciousness, I am the passenger. And as the ship is unfolding, you are a stowaway.

    Shin watched as the meteorite continued to grow and understood that he had to get out of there before it was too late. Its growth seemed to be in tune with the movements and glows that were increasing throughout the layer. The filaments entangled in it elongated and twisted in patterns that defied all human comprehension.

    Finally the meteorite grew large enough and Shin watched as it reached the edge of the layer that contained it and continued on its way, as if it had engulfed the whole thing without destroying it. He turned away and watched for the last time as Rayana Ivraeva''s face disappeared behind the growing sphere.

    ***

    It had been about fifteen minutes since the creature decided to dive and the visor of the mask indicated that the air level was normal, but Mai did not take it off. The levels of noxious gases had dropped strangely, but that did not make her feel better.

    She found herself impatiently watching the flashes coming from the lake that seemed to increase and pulsate more and more.

    Had it been a mistake to send Shin to the place?

    In the time they had known each other, and from what she knew of him, he was invulnerable to almost every kind of threat.

    She felt it was logically a bit absurd to worry about him. Through all the tests they had done on Shin in the island''s laboratories, including physical resistance tests, he had certainly proven that he was on a completely different level than the Feys. But she still couldn''t help but feel worried about him.

    Her responsibility to her work always told her that she had to go to the last consequences in cases where there was so much danger. She had always been like that. But she could not deny to herself that something had changed recently. Such was the price of the happiness she had achieved, after so long of closing her heart to a relationship that were something more than just friendship.

    The same thing had happened with Lizbeth, work had separated them and forced them to keep a safe distance even though they both loved each other and had discreet intimacy. When Shin arrived something new awoke in her. She didn''t want to show favoritism and they were both doing their jobs, but she loved him, and Lizbeth loved both too.

    He should be fine¡­

    She kicked a small stone in frustration and felt it clatter against the others on the shore. But the sound didn''t stop, then it was another stone and a second later her ears began to hear the clattering of thousands of stones against each other and her feet began to tremble. A new earthquake was taking place.

    It was first a flash, much stronger than the previous ones, and Mai watched for a split second a crimson column rising from the lake. Then a terrible cloud of hot, mushroom-shaped steam, rose up in the middle of the lake. There was a thunderous sound that almost burst her eardrums, and a new earthquake shook the whole place, lifting earth, moving trees and uprooting others. Mai was far from the shore, but her body was thrown several meters into the forest by the hot shockwave of the explosion. She stood up in time and watched in amazement as the water rose to a height that could easily be three hundred meters high.

    Mai got up from the ground and looked at the terrifying spectacle in terror just as she saw that the blast wave had opened a hole in the clouds through which the moonlight and stars were pouring.

    A shiver ran down her spine, the explosion had brought back memories of the Great War. She had seen all kinds of explosions and all colors of the spectrum over the years, but she certainly hadn''t expected this one. A memory that would surely be a new nightmare fuel for her.

    The earthquake had not stopped and the earth seemed to be waking up from a dream.

    It was then that she began to notice how her ears were ringing and the flash of the lake was pulsing faster than before.

    Until that which was responsible for the flash came to the surface.

    From the middle of the lake emerged a red sphere which had a cell structure rotating on itself at an impossible speed, while the filaments, black at their intersections, spun with it. Mai was sure she could see a second glow of something moving around. She squinted her eyes and could see a silhouette that resembled the hideous creature that moments ago had been fighting the stag.

    Then the red light disappeared completely. But that thing was still there.

    Now illuminated by the moonlight Mai saw that the spherical cell structure had changed. It was as if it had completely changed its surface and now had a metallic sheen. And it was no longer rotating either, it seemed still. The new appearance was different and she could almost be sure that the surface was now much larger than the red sphere. As if it were a shell that had come out of nowhere and enveloped the sphere. And she could also swear that she saw some kind of stranges curves, similar to veins on it.

    When her amazement had seemed to reach a limit, there was a new change in it. From some part of the sphere three rings had sprouted. Slowly at first and then faster, the rings had begun to rotate at a greater speed.

    It was like watching a gigantic gyroscope. But where was the axis around which they were spinning? The only thing that remained still was the central sphere but the rings were rotating around it with nothing else.

    A monster? a Dark Event? An aberration of the laws of physics? Could it be an OOPArt? No. Something told Mai that she was in the presence of something different.

    Then, it started with a glow, which gradually grew brighter and brighter. As the dark sphere seemed to grow a little, all around it seemed as if it was tracing a colorful outline of red and yellow. The spinning rings had disappeared from view but Mai was almost certain that the light around the sphere was because of them. The speed they had picked up must have been enough for them to be generating some kind of energy field around it? Although, if that was so, then why was she still seeing the black sphere? Was it generating some kind of field that could bend the light only around it and could not be seen by an observer looking directly at it? On the other hand, the glow was growing.

    Mai covered her ears, but she could still hear the horrible sound.

    Then she saw him emerge from the lake running in her direction.

    It was Shin with his head stripped of the armor.

    "Down! Get down! Don''t take off your mask!" he shouted at her. She could barely hear him over the buzzing but she understood his signals.

    Mai obeyed him and stuck her body to the ground. Shin saved the last few meters and covered her with his body, adding his hands also to cover her ears.

    The last thing Mai saw made her shudder. The glow had grown almost twice the size of the sphere, but it had stopped and the whole thing was just a sphere with a dark spot floating slowly upwards.

    But it was two things that made her feel afraid.

    It reminded her of an eye. More precisely an iris of fire against the dark night and a black pupil that reflected nothing.

    A black hole. But Mai knew what a black hole was. And that was something different, it did not look like the ones she had seen before. There was an intention behind it. She didn''t know what twist of the cosmos had brought it there, but she had no doubts. That was alien. It was an eye watching her and the sclera was the sidereal darkness behind it.

    The second thing that terrified her was to see how the space around was changing. As she looked at her hands she could see how her fingers were elongating forward. But it wasn''t just her hands. Everything around her was distorting. She could feel how she and Shin were sinking into the earth around them and the lake in front of her was moving away with the sphere, while around them the figures of the trees and the earth seemed to be stretching. Everything was curving towards the sphere that continued to move away. She could almost feel that something was pulling them both upward, yet they could not even move.

    The glow had grown in intensity but continued to move away as if it were the last ember of a bonfire. Mai closed her eyes.

    There was a pulse of light so strong that even through her closed eyelids Mai could feel it, along with a wave of heat that ran through her whole body. She opened her mouth in a gasp and there was a rumble much louder than the previous ones.

    Shin raised his head to look up at the sky as he tried to block Mai''s ears.

    That thing was still glowing far, far away. But space continued to twist around them. He knew he had Mai by his side but it was as if at the same time everything was far away. The trees, the lake, everything had grown and stretched almost to infinity towards that thing. Meanwhile the space up there was barely the size of a golf ball. But the glow of that thing was still there.

    He gritted his teeth. If he wasn''t mistaken he already knew what would happen next and he pulled Mai against him.

    It was like the feeling of falling asleep. It was a loss of sense of balance and gravity that lasted only half a second.

    The space around them returned to normal. The trees, the lake, everything returned to the space it was meant to be. And then came a new shockwave, which once again swept the place. Although the first time it had been of terrestrial origin, the same could not be said of the new shock.

    The blast again lifted water, earth and trees from the surrounding area at an astonishing height and speed. Even though Shin was protecting her, they were both thrown together and fell rolling a few meters back. Even so, he managed to embrace her when they were thrown and protected her from the blow.

    They waited for several seconds motionless, until Mai moved slowly and Shin released her.

    The earthquake had passed.

    That black eye of fire was no longer there.

    It was all over.

    Mai sat up slowly not believing what she saw.

    It looked like a nuclear bomb had been detonated on the spot. The water in the lake was slowly returning to its place, but the mess of earth and fallen plants was too much. Mai gulped as she imagined what the next few days would bring. She felt foolish to think of work first in that situation, but she had to hold on to something everyday to calm herself from what she had just witnessed.

    She turned to Shin. They looked like they had been in trench warfare all day, dirt everywhere and mud.

    "Are you okay?" she asked, approaching and putting away the mask which again indicated normal levels.

    "I think so," Shin answered.

    "What was that?"

    Shin looked into the girl''s green eyes that now under the moon seemed to glow with a strange light and he gulped. "I couldn''t get close, that thing grabbed me just as I was coming close," he said and pointed to his chest where the plate still covered the two remaining grenades.

    "What exploded?"

    "Those things that were all over the place, that''s what was holding her to the place. I saw that down there, it was a thick filament system sinking into the depths of the lake, I think when it came loose it released the pressure of some strong hydrothermal vent. That was the explosion." Shin finished his explanation and collapsed to the ground as the armor retracted. "I saw it," he said in a soft tone.

    Mai looked up at the firmament.

    "I can''t believe it¡­ It was alien?"

    "¡­ I think so. What did you think it was?"

    Throughout her existence, and also as the head of SID operations, she had encountered cases that had as their origin some threat from space. Nature, with its infinite variety, could sometimes be benign or malignant but they certainly never fought against ships from another galaxy, or some hideous race from space. The threats were much more subtle and insidious at times. Microbial life had been encountered for a long time and there had even been cases of threats from organisms that behaved like viruses, but fortunately nothing bad had ever happened.

    That was different from Shin''s case, which was known to have come from somewhere else, not only outside of the Earth, but also outside of the universe.

    What had just happened changed everything.

    Her Neurowire was showing that she was back online and she turned on the tracking signal that had been locked so far. Mai hurriedly searched to send the notification of where she was. Although she didn''t need to, the radar was showing that air vehicles were slowly approaching the site at few kilometers.

    Mai continued to look up. She was no longer going to look up at the sky as she always did. Her heart was beating wildly.

    Mai collapsed onto Shin''s stomach and lay there looking up at the stars.

    "Next time we do this let''s just load Carissia''s robot, or yours, on top of the car," he said.

    Mai tried to smile but the truth is that her body ached and only a groan came from her lips. "...Arsen must be trying to come up with a bunch of excuses right now."

    "No one besides a few people know we''re here. I don''t think he''s going to see that much trouble. We can simply say that by the time we got here it was too late and that thing was gone."

    "I hate lies."

    Shin stayed silent.

    "But I certainly think we were right to come¡­ " she said, softly.

    "A lie can sometimes save a million upsets," Shin said, as he stroked her head and felt his heart in his fist. He didn''t want to lie to her, but he had to.

    In the distance they could see the searchlights of some approaching ships, but it was all over. Mai certainly didn''t know which was worse. Either the battle that had raged on the spot, or the problems they would have the next day.

    The question on Mai''s mind was what would they say? If they said that they had just witnessed a ship from another planet shoot off into space, it was likely to cause a lot of problems at the Council level. And on the other hand if they did tell, it was likely that the Council would hide it from the public as well.

    Mai knew too well the behind the scenes dealings to know that this could well be used as a political tool for who knew what purposes.

    She knew it well. More than a century ago she had had to make a similar decision.

    On the day that life arrived from space, many would not ask, what can we learn from other species in the cosmos?

    The questions would rather be. How long have they known we were here? Are they enemies? And, of course, what benefit could be derived from it all.

 Vol.1/ Chapter 15: Day After ( VOL 1. FINAL CHAPTER)

    Chapter Fifteen

    Day after

    It had been the strangest night for Ruslan.

    It was a few minutes after midnight, when he found himself standing outside the trailer, among the wilted grass that was beginning to peek out from the snow. He was wearing only his uniform. He had no gun and no coat. He didn''t know how he had gotten out. He had never suffered from sleepwalking and, as far as he knew, there was no history of it in his family either.

    The only thing he knew for sure was that, before he realized he was outside, he was certain he had seen one of those crimson glows to the south again.

    And what was more, stars. The sky was clear of clouds and the gibbous moon bathed the place. The clear sky allowed to see how the orbital belt was rising, right across the night-sky and blocking part of the Moon.

    While still in shock and awe, of the strange situation, he walked back to the housing trailer. He was closing the door when he felt a few twinges in his head that almost made him lose his balance. It was a sudden, piercing pain, but it disappeared almost as suddenly as it had appeared.

    It was already Friday and he had to get ready to receive his replacement later. Two days of freedom.

    Or so he thought.

    Since his time in the guard, he had never seen so much movement in the place. The deployment had begun an hour after he suffered the twinges. First some ships arrived. He stepped out of the housing trailer again and, against the star studded sky, saw the Skyfish, the official Kazakh SID ships. It was followed by other smaller official ships. Only a couple of hours later, the camouflaged trucks and other black convoys began to arrive, making their way at full speed along the route, as if the park was being invaded by alien forces.

    He wanted to see what all the hustle and bustle was about with his own eyes, but he had been told almost nothing, just something about a joint army/SID operation from Nevermore. He had to wait a few hours until his replacement arrived before he could approach the site.

    The first hours of that Friday passed, and his replacement arrived before noon but, instead of getting ready to leave, Ruslan was now standing at the top of the hill on a path that led to the shores of the lake with his mouth open, as if he could not believe what his eyes were seeing, as the sun beat down hard on his head.

    The view of the lake was beautiful, if one ignored the remnants of uprooted trees here and there, and areas where one could tell there had been major earthworks. It looked like it was at the site of some cataclysmic disaster.

    At least two hundred people in black, yellow and white bio-safety suits were deployed all over the area, including the lake and the forest. They were going back and forth around the site, taking samples, or carrying material to some tents that had been set up on the site.

    Over the lake floated some of the ships he had seen passing by in the night. Not to mention that he was not sure how many soldiers were on site, and there must have been at least ten huge piloted security robots, and others for support in case of disaster. They moved around the forest, while carrying huge logs trying to clean the area. He was especially struck by an insect-like one with black and red colors, near the waters. But he was even more surprised when he noticed two other robots dragging a black car out of the water.

    It was the car of the agents from the previous day.

    He was wondering if they were all right and if all the commotion had to do with them, when a woman''s voice behind him caught his attention.

    "Excuse me, honey. I''m trying to get through."

    He turned around and there stood a black woman waiting to pass on the downhill path. Ruslan quickly turned away without taking his eyes off her for a few seconds.

    "...Y-yes ma''am."

    "Thank you," she said, smiling.

    She was at least a head taller than him. She had brown eyes and very short blue-midnight hair, which was slightly dishevelled. She wore a high collared formal dress, violet in color, with a white coat that didn''t disguise her slender, but voluptuous figure.

    The woman walked past Ruslan hurriedly and went down the hill.

    Her name was Virginia Mortenson, and although her position was that of diplomatic liaison for legal matters for the World Security Council, she herself considered that in recent years she had become like a nanny between Nevermore''s Special Investigation Division and the Council.

    Although her figure imposed respect, almost all SID members, who already considered her as a member, affectionately called her Virg. And she had decided to give in to the nickname, because although she tried to be serious with them, the truth is that so many years working with them she considered them as family, even though on more than one time they caused her problems.

    She strode steadily, dodging the on-site technicians, towards the silver long-haired figure, dressed in a one-piece jumpsuit who stood on the bank of the lake. The girl was with her hands on her hips, watching as the robots finished turning the muddy vehicle around.

    The figure was Mai grumbling, with some dark circles under her eyes because she had been up all night. Next to her, and this time dressed in his uniform and a huge military overcoat, was Amir Zejho.

    "This is what happens when you guys decide on your own to stick your noses into a case that wasn''t on the books," she said, saving the few meters she had left to catch up to Mai and with a frown on her face.

    Mai turned and pursed her lips at the sight of her, but put on a nervous smile afterwards. Zejho gulped and took a few steps away from Mai, pretending to be distracted.

    "No smiles. You and Shin are grounded for the next few days. No cases until you solve the mess you got yourselves into," Virginia said.

    "We solved a biological threat," Mai said.

    "Hello?" Virginia raised her arms and glanced around. "I wouldn''t call this solving."

    "The case had been on the books for some time, but the possibility of a Dark Event was dismissed. The last incoming call we received put us on alert."

    "The records say the last call related to this was yesterday. You guys must have flown from Astana to get here so fast... or maybe someone gave you the tip days before and someone forgot to put it in the log¡­ " Virginia said, looking at Mai questioningly.

    "How do you think we would do that? Who do you think we are?" Mai said, in an innocent tone.

    "You called Carissia and she landed in the middle of an avenue with that thing, sweetie..." she said, pointing at the huge insectoid robot.

    "I was hallucinating from the fumes and fungus when that happened."

    "¡­ I hope that''s not the excuse you''re going to present to the Council," Virginia said.

    That was precisely the excuse that Mai presented to pretend to forget what had happened at the end, or at least to omit certain details.

    Amir, who had stood the whole time watching the maneuvers, cleared his throat. "I have to take a call," he said, and walked a few meters away in the direction of the robots.

    The truth is that he knew of Miss Mortenson''s reputation, and he was in no mood to confront her. He had already had too much trouble since last night, when he had to run to the nearest base, to be on site in the early hours of the morning.

    "So, how are you?" Virginia asked, changing her tone.

    "I''m fine, just a few scratches. They''ve healed."

    "What happened to the car?"

    "The fungus dragged it while we were gone."

    "It must have been a hell of a fungus. That thing had no defence system?" Thing seemed like one of Virginia''s favorite words.

    "Yeah, but the signal never activated. The drones were disabled too." Mai said, pointing to a nearby table where the drones and other objects rested.

    "You got a very smart alien this time. One less monster on the loose to get a good night''s rest.¡± Virginia looked around. ¡°Speaking of aliens, where is that? I have to tell him several things too."

    "Don''t call him that. He''s my partner."

    "And boyfriend¡­ Just because you and Lizbeth are boinking the same man, doesn''t take away from the fact that he''s an alien from another universe, sweetie."

    "Don''t say it that way, it sounds lewd¡­"

    "Call it what you want. I''m not judging you sweetie, in fact I''m happy for you two."

    Mai pursed her lips and gave a half smile and pointed behind her shoulder.

    Virginia watched as two of Nevermore''s technical staff, dressed in yellow suits, dragged Shin towards one of the disinfection tents. A third person, dressed in the same suit, but with a mask reminiscent of the Black Plague doctor, was leading the group while shouting at Shin. From her voice, it could be deduced that she was a woman.

    "If you run away again, I will put you in cuffs!"

    "No time for this, I''m already dirty, I can collect more samples before the last traces fade. On top of that I have to find my trench coat too."

    "We already have people on it. What you need now is a decontaminating shower! And, on the other hand, most of the interesting traces vanished when the main core escaped. You''re a spoilsport."

    "But there''s plenty of testing to do anyway! I want to help... Tsk!"

    "No tsk!, if you don''t stop moving we''re going to have to give you sedatives!"

    "Good luck with it. That depends on what you got for me." Shin said, with an attempt at a smirk on his face. He waved to Mai and Virginia as his feet were lost inside the tent.

    "I don''t even want to ask what he''s up to," Mai said, shaking her head.

    "Are you two sure about this? I mean Shin. You know his past, technically even though he has been pardoned for his past actions, to the council he is still considered a dangerous criminal and a threat to public safety."

    "I think I speak for Liz too when I say the three of us are happy. You know very well that much of what is blamed on him is also lies."

    "I know that, but you know how important you are. A relationship like that can cause a lot friction."

    "Our relationship doesn''t affect our work, we know perfectly well how to compartmentalize our time."

    "Yeah¡­ I don''t want to know what other things you guys compartmentalize." They both stared for a few seconds at the lake and Virginia turned to Mai once more. "I read in the preliminary report that the area was gassed?"

    "Yes, but the levels have returned to normal a few hours ago."

    "It''s a beautiful place,¡± she said looking back at the lake.

    "It is now," Mai noted.

    "How could that thing fool you? Didn''t you notice it before?"

    "I had been smelling the fumes for so long that I didn''t notice, and also the fungus entered my bloodstream, when I was attacked by the stag. Was a stupid mistake. Apparently that thing has been making a network with every person that came near here. That explains why so many people had psychological problems, when they came in contact with the fungus or the meteorite. The spores are completely gone after the core disappeared, but the meteorite must have been big before, and there are small pieces scattered along the shore too."

    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    "Well, at least I''m glad you''re okay. Still you guys can''t move until we get this mess sorted out."

    "How many know?"

    "Few, General Sedenov will handle the matter carefully. You owe me big time for this. I don''t want to know what awaits us if this gets any more serious." Virginia continued to lecture Mai for a few minutes, until footsteps approaching from behind them made them turn around.

    It was Shin with the hair slightly wet, due to the quick shower, dressed in a suit similar to the techs, accompanied by Carissia, Arsen and the woman in the yellow hazmat suit with the plague doctor mask.

    The latter finally removed her mask and the hood of the suit, revealing that she was a fey girl with dark skin, green eyes and blonde hair tied in a ponytail. Her name was like the suit, Hazmat, and she was the head of Nevermore''s Biosecurity Division on the island that served as the main base. She had flown in the middle of the night from the Canary archipelago to Kazakhstan, when she heard about the end of the case. And although the disappearance of the giant core, along with the monster, erased most of the evidence, she was still excited.

    "The reason you were confused, and the creature fooled you, is because of the inhalation of hydrogen sulfide. It was in the chemical composition of the fungus as well, along with pockets of methane produced by the earthquakes, and sulfur that was also present in the air, and in the meteorite rock. The pulsating lights were emitted by the meteorite chunk, each time it emerged with an earthquake, but it was further amplified into the atmosphere by the presence of ice crystals. The other lights seen were earthquake lights." Hazmat blurted out her entire explanation without taking a single breath.

    "Hello to you too," Virginia greeted.

    "Hi!" Hazmat replied with a happy smile.

    Zejho had finally finished his conversation and joined the group. Shin looked at him sighing looking at the lake, after all it had been his friend who had lost his life there. They had taken it upon themselves to tell him the truth. Or at least the part they could. Shin had omitted to tell him about their conversation inside the core.

    "That creature was only directly guilty of the deaths of Ivraeva and Komarov and probably a few others, but not all of them." Shin said.

    "..." Zejho turned to look at him.

    "What killed all those people years ago wasn''t the thing at the lake. It was those," Shin said and pointed to one of the robots moving one of the logs.

    At that moment, the mech stumbled as if pushed by something, and fell to the ground, sliding a few meters down the mountain. Almost immediately they could hear the shouts of insults from the soldier inside.

    The invisible stags were close by. As if now that all the strands of the fungus, and the creature, were gone, they were no longer bothered to hide. But, with the midday sun, they could see how the light was distorted in certain parts and it was easy to tell the animals were there. They had been crossing slowly from the other side of the lake, over the logs that had formed a new dam.

    "And that¡­ how is that even possible?" Amir Zejho asked.

    "Lamarckism¡­ maybe," Shin said.

    "¡­ the what?" Zejho asked, raising an eyebrow.

    "Darwinism accelerated by environmental stress. In this case triggered by the meteorite spores. The species here have been generating their own means of adapting to the environment each time the core, and fungus, came up from the bottom of the lake, and began to contaminate and change conditions."

    "Dude¡­ There have never been reports of invisible deer''s or any other kind of animal," Arsen said.

    "Well, the changes introduced by the spores didn''t completely disappear when it was subsumed and somehow passed those mutations on to the next generation. They were simply characteristics that remained dormant and were activated once the core went up with the creature," explained Hazmat.

    "As if that creature was the natural enemy of the animals? But the core and the other monster vanished last night, how come they are still invisible?" Zejho asked.

    "That could be a possible hypothesis. Maybe that invisibility will disappear in a few days. When we were in the forest, in that sort of sanctuary in the other side, I noticed that there were marks just above those carved figures, where the fungus didn''t reach. Those were hoof marks, I think, and they had been on the tree that had the creature carved into it. Apparently the thing had been killing the surrounding animals all this time, especially the stags that came down to drink water. Although it only appeared from time to time, it is obvious that the animals here have always remembered it as a natural enemy and tried as much as possible not to go down to the lake whenever it appeared."

    "But the animals have changed because of that too."

    "Just adaptation," Mai said, with a shrug. After all, it wasn''t the first time that kind of circumstance had made an appearance in the division''s cases.

    "My suspicion is," Shin said turning to Zejho, "that within some time the animals are likely to return to their normal size, evolutionarily, they are too big for the place. And if I am wrong, believe me, it is in your best interest they never to leave this valley. They are more dangerous and intelligent than you think."

    "Deer are like dolphins, people see them in pictures and you think they are cute, until you meet them head on and realize they can be sons of bitches," Hazmat said, as she put her mask back on.

    "How do you know it was the stags?" Amir Zejho asked, raising an eyebrow again. "I understand that they know that thing is their enemy but, why go on a rampage and kill all the other people?"

    "The answer is in the pictures. The weapons. The people didn''t just come to worship the lake creature, they probably organized hunting parties. The sculptor, we know, was here that year when the deaths occurred or maybe before. He is the author, but all the sculptures have the same resemblance except for one. The one of your friend Komarov. I have a suspicion that the creature was much smaller at the time, when this sort of pilgrimage started and, over time, it got bigger."

    "Poor bastard..." Zejho said.

    "Things we do for love¡­" Shin said.

    "What do you mean?"

    "I think in his final moments, rather than being part of the core, what Komarov was looking for, was to be with Ivraeva again. His mind was broken by the influence of the fungus on his brain, but I think deep down it was the relationship he had with his professor that brought him here in the end. He was waiting for years, modifying the data and doing what the fungus central core told him but, I think, it was because he knew his girlfriend was here that he decided to end it all by coming to the place where it started."

    "I was under the influence of that thing too? I mean, the night Ivraeva disappeared?"

    Shin walked a few feet to the water and rummaged around until he found a black stone. He examined it closely and showed it to Zejho. "You said that, prior to the disappearance, you were at the lakeshore collecting samples, right? I have my suspicions that either Ivraeva, or Komarov, maybe both, already had fragments of the meteorite or the fungus was already in their nervous systems. I mean, it was acting at a distance. It was creating an information network not only with its victims, but also with anyone who came close, thanks to the spores too. Like a giant brain."

    "Is that even possible? Spooky action at a distance?" asked Zejho.

    Hazmat explained. "Yeah a lot actually. We had a case in Brazil some years ago of a type of fungus that was spread hundreds of kilometers and affected people. There was a three-month quarantine to clean up the whole place. And even today, the health systems are on alert in case it comes back."

    Zejho looked thoughtfully at Mai and Shin and then asked. "But you guys didn''t find Sergey''s body, right?"

    I want to be a part of this. Shin remembered the arms of the sculpture and then those of the creature. "No, we didn''t find him, but most likely the creature or else the fungus dragged him into the depths," Shin lied.

    "Anyway, all the people who have had contact with the meteorite, or the fungus spores, have already been taken to hospitals to check that they are okay. You too Colonel will have to undergo tests," added Arsen.

    Zejho nodded, and then looked toward the lake. "We are going to have busy days, they want to set up an observation base here. Just in case something happens again. And the central government has already sent a request to the Council to bring in Gate Seed''s. Maybe in a year this place will be back to the way it was years ago, before all this mess. Also they are thinking of putting needles to release the pressure just in case a new earthquake happens."

    "Needles? What is that?" Shin asked.

    "Pressure needles. Is a technique that the United States Kingdom started using after the Great War. It basically prevented the destruction of Yellowstone," Virginia explained.

    "Sounds good. I haven''t heard of that one," Shin said, looking around when he detected Ruslan watching them from the hill. "¡­"

    "Is something wrong?" asked Mai looking at Shin.

    He narrowed his eyes as if thinking something.

    "¡­ wait a second, Hazmat can I borrow your book? Mine is in the coat.¡±

    "Don''t do anything weird," she told him as she took a book almost exactly like his, from one of the wide suit pockets.

    "I''ll be right back," he said, taking the book and headed up the hill.

    Arsen walked away from the group as well, crestfallen and a bit grumpy. "I''m going to be with my team on the other side of the forest. We still have to figure out why the support drones that were sent in first ended up crashing about a kilometer from the entrance,"

    Virginia turned to face Amir Zejho. "You and I need to talk about something."

    "¡­ Of course," nodded Amir and felt a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck, after all he had just admitted that he had been the one to inform Mai and Shin.

    They both walked away in the direction of a group of soldiers who were in the vicinity, and were talking about a huge stag antler they had just seen.

    Carissia, still sheathed in the robot pilot suit, looked at Mai sadly. "I''m sorry¡­ "

    "Why? It was my fault, don''t worry about it," Mai said, and smiled at her.

    "I don''t think it''s a good idea for you guys to do this anymore. I know you''re stubborn and our boss, but you''re our friend too," Hazmat told her.

    "I know, thanks. We were just coming to check and this ended up happening¡­ "Mai turned one more time looking at the lake, at the destruction, and sighed in sorrow. Carissia hugged her from behind which caused Mai to blush. "What was that for?"

    "I just wanted to," Carissia said and stroked the silver head.

    Of the wounds Mai had sustained during the fight there was no trace left.

    "Damn! Do it again, I want to have a picture of you hugging Mai," Hazmat shouted excitedly.

    Carissia regained her composure showing her taciturn face again. "No."

    "I missed the moment. I could have taken a picture of our boss blushing." Hazmat pursed her lips sadly and then turned to look up the hill. She was still waiting for her book back.

    "What is Shin doing?" Carissia asked, who also turned to look.

    Shin was hugging, as if they were old friends, the soldier Ruslan while, with the other hand, he was holding Hazmat''s book. The poor soldier was embarrassed and obviously confused. He talked for a few more seconds, until he gave him an effusive handshake and came smiling down the hill.

    "Thank you for the book," he said, handing it back to Hazmat.

    "¡­ what was that for?" asked Mai quizzically.

    Shin once again turned to Hazmat. "Do you have an evidence bag?"

    Hazmat rummaged through the loose pockets until she extracted an empty wrapper.

    "Open it, I''m not going to take custody of this one, but just in case you''re going to find two types of fingerprints."

    Hazmat opened the bag and Shin put a pendant with a black stone inside. The three girls looked at the piece. It wasn''t pretty by any means, it was a simple leather cord holding a black stone with jagged edges.

    A piece of meteorite.

    Shin started to explained. "Remember when I told you that soldier had looked at me funny at the entrance? And when he told us that two weeks earlier, he had been on the lakeshore nearby checking that everything was in order?"

    "Yeah." Mai recalled. It seemed like more time had passed than she remembered, even though it had been the day before.

    "That''s the reason he looked at me funny," he said, pointing to the meteorite. ¡°Even though we had the camouflage, something was telling him I wasn''t human or fey. Maybe before, or after, he''d been around and picked up that stone from the lake. And then when he said he had recently been back because of the drone thing. I have a suspicion that he was influenced to disable them as well."

    "Why?"

    "The drones Arsen sent crashed in the forest, that was the explosions we heard when you were shooting at me. The soldiers on duty all got access to the drones through Neurowire subroutines."

    "You really shot your boyfriend?" Hazmat asked, amused.

    Mai nervously ignored Hazmat''s question. "D-did he d-disable the drones in the car as well?"

    "I don''t think so. The signal from ours is different and they only deactivated when we were near the lake. It''s highly likely that thing was sending signals on some frequency that deactivated them." Then he turned to Carissia and said. "Maybe it''s lucky you didn''t fall in here the moment Mai called you. Your mech might have been disabled¡­ and who knows if you were too."

    "...!" A shiver ran down Carissia''s biomechanical spine.

    "Well at least that explains most of it," Hazmat said.

    "I''m not sure." Mai added worriedly.

    "What do you mean?"

    "I''m still worried about those tree carvings. The one of the other animals."

    "Yeah, that was weird," Shin said, recalling the carving of the tree with the bird poking out of its chest.

    "Do you think it has any connection to the cult?" asked Hazmat.

    "I don''t know. But it''s worth taking a look at it later."

    "If it has any connection to the one you guys''re looking for, then it''s many, many years old. I mean this cult practically died out sixty years ago. The current victims don''t seem to have more than an unfortunate connection, but it doesn''t look like they were part of them." added Shin.

    "Let''s hope that''s all it is. An unfortunate connection¡­ "

    The four turned their gazes to the lake, as if searching for something lost among the trees.

    "It''s really over, isn''t it?" Carissia asked.

    "We still have to send divers and robots down there, in case we can find some access to the groundwater or caverns there might be." Hazmat said.

    "It''s a big place, who knows if there aren''t core debris further down, or bigger pieces of the meteorite. This thing was underground for thousands of years. Waiting, evolving. The one who escaped last night could be just one of many." Shin wandered with a blank stare, not speaking but listening attentively.

    "I guess in any case, time will tell. The universe has something this planet doesn''t have too much of," Mai said.

    "What''s that?" Shin asked.

    Mai simply put on a melancholic smile and said one word while looking at him. "Patience."

    Shin looked at her quizzically, but smiled back. "You''re right," Shin said, and turned to look back at the car. "Hey Hazmat, I''ve got samples in suspended animation hanging in the car. Will you take them?"

    "Sure, that''s not even a question," Hazmat said and left behind Shin, who walked towards the muddy vehicle.

    Mai kept her eyes on Shin for a few moments and sighed. "I know you are hiding something from me about this case. But I''m going to wait until you tell me what it is," she said in a barely audible voice.

    Shin, who was passing the industrial case containing the samples to Hazmat, turned to look at Mai and their gazes met.

    "Sorry, give me a little more time," he said, softly. "It''s about you-know-what."

    Mai turned to look at the lake but, with the tip of one of her antennae sticking out of her hair, she heard his words and nodded.

    "It''s okay," she said, smiling.

    Just a little more, Shin thought, biting his lips. I need to know that you two are safe in this time.

    Volume One END

 Vol.1/ Bonus: Summary Report/Profiles.

    Preliminary summary report excerpt.

    Department of Earth Justice

    Nevermore Institute - Special Investigation Division.

    Nevermore Institute - Special Investigation Division.

    SID Enygma File: 125-MLGM-43G43D

    Dark Event: The Amalgam

    DOE: March 15th. 125 S.A.

    SPECIAL AGENTS ATTI/AFI: Mai [Izumi] Badge 0000515.

    Shin [Aogami] Badge 0004444.

    Supervision: KSB-HOF Arsen [Ismailov].

    Event Location: Kazakhstan/ Almaty/ Kolsay Park

    Case Status: Open until further investigation.

    Case Summary.

    On March 15th at 8.30 AM, my partner, Special Agent Shin Aogami and I, Special Agent Mai Izumi conducted an undercover investigation in the area known as Kolsay Park. Our task was to conduct a visual inspection and collect evidence, thanks to anonymous sources who reported that strange occurrences were taking place in the area. Also, in previous days, search and rescue teams had been alerted to the disappearance of a scientist (see Sergey Komarov/Rayana Ivraeva dossier).

    After conducting a field investigation at the site, we were able to corroborate that the place had been part of a strange cult in past decades. Not only that, our inspection was able to collect evidence that the site was being affected by the presence of a fungal organism of meteoric origin. This organism was feeding not only on the surrounding animals, but also on the people who came close enough to the site. This is still under analysis, we only have as proof the analysis carried out at the site by the agent and science officer Shin Aogami.

    My partner was able to corroborate that the presence of this organism was forming an intelligence network with its victims, of which I was also affected, although only for a short period of time (page 37 of the report).

    This organism, which we have called "the amalgam", disappeared from the site after a tectonic explosion in the depths of the lake (see statement of agent Shin).

    The forestry services and the military justice department, together with local FRT teams, have been assigned to carry out checks of the site in case similar organisms may exist in the depths of the lake, but so far there have been no results. Periodic inspection of the site will continue in case new evidence may emerge to help us clarify the event and its link, if any, to the cult.

    The shared jurisdiction between the military and SID is vital to continue this investigation with agents from the local branches.

    Due to the strangeness of the event and a possible link to another series of events that the SID has been investigating for some time, samples of evidence have been brought to our main facility.

    This case is open until further investigation.

    Reporting Agent: Mai Izumi

    Special Agent/SIDHoO

    Character Dossier

    Romaji Name: Mai Izumi

    Kanji Name: ºÍÈªÎè

    Gender: Female

    Fey Type: Fee

    DoB or DoA: May 1, 2004 Ancient Era.

    Birthplace or Arrival Place: Ikebukuro/Tokyo

    Estimated Human Age: 22

    Fey Age: 224

    Height: 154cm

    Weight: 43kg

    Eyes: Green

    Hair: Black/White

    Residence: Saitama/ Siren Island

    RID Status: Lizbeth [Londonderry], Shin [Aogami]

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: SID Head of Operations. Special Agent.

    Team: Blue Midnight

    Distinguishing Features: Moth Anntenae and wings, Two natural hair colors.

    Personal Profile Background

    Mai Izumi appeared from the Other Side on May 1st, 2004 in Ikebukuro district, Japan.

    In her early years, she travelled around the country, until 2016, when she was recruited by Wishpers Team, where she will remain for the next thirty years helping in the search and rescue operations of fey that were captured and used for sentient beings trafficking activities.

    Her activity in the Wishpers Team, made her climb quite fast in the hierarchy of the team, being one of those who was proposed on more than one occasion to lead the operations. In the year 2046, she left Wishpers and worked for a long time as a police consultant in Japan, where she took up residence in Saitama. Work that she carried out for a little more than a decade.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    After a voluntary retirement of seven years, she was recruited by the Nevermore Initiative where she became a special agent for twenty years, investigating Dark Events due to her excellent service record.

    During this time she made more than 1400 arrests, closed 300 cases and recovered more than 27,000 dangerous objects, making her one of the most productive agents of the investigation team. It is worth mentioning the recovery of more than 20 time distortion and control devices, an investigation that was carried out over five years with the help of several international organizations.

    At the outbreak of the Great War, still under the name of the Nevermore Initiative, Mai Izumi moved to the battle theater where she was with the Russian Division of the Initiative. Her role during the war led her to be in command of a special infiltration team in the territory conquered by the Fractus. Towards the end of the war, she played the most important role as she was the one who shut down the dimensional distortion.

    After the war and the change of era, she became a special agent of the newly reformed and renamed Nevemore Institute. She was for 20 years under the orders of the head of special operations Rein, until she decided to accept the position of Head of Operations of the SID. She spent several years out of the research field limiting her career to the administration and direction of special operations until, in 124, she finally decided to start doing field research work again, while continuing her position as Chief of Operations.

    In October 124 she chooses as her partner the newly arrived Keelian Object, known as Shin [Aogami], with whom she currently shares a polyaffective relationship, along with agent Lizbeth [Londonderry].

    Abilities

    Medical studies on Mai Izumi state that it is likely that she has not spent too much time on the Other Side. As a consequence, her regeneration ability is 30% of what most other feys usually have. To make up for this problem, her regeneration system has been modified to be closer to that of human special agents in the Division.

    Mai Izumi has a FAE Core from the Other Side in her body but not 100% formed. She possesses traits that, associated with lepidoptera such as moths, allow her to make use of echolocation. At the same time she can exhibit patterns on her skin whenever she uses her echolocation ability. Her membranous wings would allow her to use the ability to fly, albeit for a short time, and although she has tried to train her flight ability, due to imperfections in her FAE core she has never achieved satisfactory results.

    Special Observations.

    At the end of the Great War she obtained a bow from one of the fractus that allowed her to close the dimensional rift. This bow has become one of the most powerful weapons within the SID, due to its special ability to close distortions when used. The weapon seems to be customized for her, as it channels the exact amount of energy from her FAE core and combines it with the Fragment core of the bow, creating a perfect symbiosis. The presence of wing-like appendages on her back appeared when she first used the bow, although they don''t always appear.

    As a side effect, her hair turns white and can take months to regain its dark color. Over the years, it has been observed that the time it takes to regain its dark color takes longer and longer. Therefore, the health department and doctors in charge of her condition think that the white color and patterns that appear on her skin when she uses her ability may be her full fey form.

    -Due to her high rank and being a person of interest, she has the personal protection of an Orbital Knight operated by special pilot Carrissia. Mai Izumi has refused to have more personal protection despite repeated attempts on her life in the past years.

    -Mai Izumi is undergoing psychological treatment due to an incident that occurred decades ago that causes her to panic about being in the open sea.

    -Mai Izumi seems to have an incredible affinity for dancing and archery.

    Character Dossier

    Romaji Name: Shin Aogami

    Kanji name: ÇàóŠ ¥·¥ó

    Gender: Male

    Fey Type: Keelian

    DoB or DoA: June 30th, 1908 of the Ancient Era. Second Appearance: September 11th, 125 S.A.

    Birthplace or Arrival Place: Tunguska/Yeniseysk. Second Appearance: Gobi Desert

    Estimated Human Age: 20?

    Fey Age: 317

    Height: 192cm

    Weight: 73kg

    Eyes: Yellow/ (Blindness in the right eye.)

    Hair: Black

    Residence: Siren Island

    RID Status: Mai [Izumi], Lizbeth [Londonderry]

    Relatives: Rein and Noki Aogami (adopted daughters)

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: Special Agent/Science Officer

    Team: Blue Midnight

    Distinguishing Features: Monocular Vision, Integrated Symbiont Armor of unknown origin. Special trench coat with a Dyson space inside.

    Personal Profile Background

    Shin Aogami first appeared on planet Earth in the year 1908 of the Ancient Era. There is not much information from second sources about what happened during those early years due to the situation in Russia. The head of operations of the Russian division, Natalya, got to know him and much of the data about his life comes from her and other feys. Interrogations of agent Shin Aogami have not shed much light on this question, due to his refusal to give details of his personal life.

    His vibrational frequencies and anatomy reveal that Shin Aogami does not come from this universe, making him the fourth Keelian object on earth.

    He participated in World War I and World War II. He was involved in many clandestine operations related to the occult and is suspected to share a close friendship with the alchemist magnate Aleister Crowley.

    After the Second War he was in a romantic relationship with Lizbeth [Londonderry]. Relationship about which both have not wanted to disclose information although it is known that they separated for a while to see each other again years later.

    Also during an infiltration mission in WW2, he rescued from the laboratories of the Ahnenerbe, Gehirn Schmidt, who would later be known as one of the proponents of quantum medicine and founding member of the company ZAIEN.

    Some information is known about his later years, but mostly he was working as an investigator of Dark Events, being involved in altercations with various intelligence agencies.

    He was one of the founding members of the organization that was known as Tempus Fugit, dismantled at the end of 1989 of the Ancient era.

    Shin Aogami was in charge of the rescue of Rein Aogami, who more than a century later became the first head of SID operations.

    It is presumed that on Christmas of December 1999 is when he disappeared from the face of the earth, being absorbed by a singularity of the Other Side. The subject has no memory of what happened on the Other Side.

    On September 11th, year 124 of the S.A., Shin Aogami returns to earth, this time appearing in the Gobi Desert. Due to the operation in Turkey to stop the AsharISin, one day after his arrival, it has been possible to test a theory about how time works on the Other Side.

    Special Agent Shin Aogami is now a member of the SID staff due to his extensive knowledge of Dark Events. Although the World Security Council has suggested that special vigilance be maintained due to strong rumors of his personality, which suggest a widespread disregard for the rules of coexistence in the current time. Mai [Izumi] chose to make him her field companion, in order to keep a close watch on his actions.

    Currently he has resumed his relationship with special agent Lizbeth [Londonderry] and has also established a relationship with special agent and Head of Operations Mai [Izumi].

    His second activity in the organization is to be Science Officer of the Midnight Blue team, and he works as an assistant specialist in the Department of Theratology on Siren Island, under the command of Dr. Kohi.

    Special Observations.

    -Shin Aogami has monocular vision, more precisely he lacks vision in his right eye. Due to the accounts of people who know him, it is known that this particularity has been almost from the moment of his arrival. The SID medical team has been able to determine that his right eye blindness comes from birth. Studies have also shown that much of the progress that ZAIEN and Gehirn have made in the past has been based on the study of Shin Aogami''s biology.

    -He has a symbiotic armor on his body that in a dormant state is under the skin. The metal of the armor has been determined to be of a similar material to Fractium metal, although of a slightly different composition to match the biological functions of the body. Its regeneration is completely different from that of any fey ever seen before. Being able to die and resurrect in a matter of minutes, although damage to vital organs such as the heart and brain take much longer to regenerate.

    -Shin Aogami has in his possession a special raincoat with an integrated SDD. Its provenance is unknown, although data suggests that he wore it as early as World War II, more than two centuries before space distortion technology could be brought into the civilian context.

    -He is a heavy smoker and his favorite brand of cigarettes is Black Ocean.

    -Due to his regeneration, the implantation of an interactive support device has been impossible to carry out, as the metal in his body removes any foreign objects encountered. This poses a problem for someone with a special agent rank. The medical control center is evaluating the construction of a special Neurowire made of fractium material, although it is currently in the prototype stages.

 Vol. 2/ Prologue: Perspective

    ¡°I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me.¡±

    The Aleph, Jorge Luis Borges.

    Prologue

    Viewpoints

    The small animal emitted a pitiful whimper through the double transparent barrier and tilted his head to the side, as he looked at the man on the other side of the transparent barrier.

    The figures of the people, drew blurred shadows as they sped by, always swift and fleeting like meteors tearing through the firmament. Where were they going so fast?

    How many seconds, minutes, days, months, years and centuries had passed?

    He certainly couldn''t remember, not that it mattered much to him. Time had become relative for the animal and he certainly didn''t care much about the concept of time either.

    He had seen too much throughout his life, even if most of the time it was just monotony. The price of his long existence was to see what was happening outside the barrier. Everything was so close, and yet so far away at the same time.

    People and vehicles on the streets had passed by every day and year. People moving aimlessly under suns and moons through the passing of the evos. Sad looks, smiling looks, dissolute chatter, which he could capture through the first barrier, which was the farthest away from him. Days of sun, rain, golden sunsets, blood-red dawns and nights with furtive flashing stars.

    Sometimes his barriers moved and that gave him some change in his life. When this happened, what he saw through the first barrier changed, and so did the inner space where he moved, behind the second barrier. This gave him joy, if only for a short period of time.

    New angles to rummage through, to lie down and look at. The excitement of exploration was short-lived, but that was better than nothing. His sense of smell, one of his best weapons, was useless in the place where he was, there was always a strange smell, a mixture of something metallic, something abandoned, old and decrepit. His sight was practically the only sense he had to use in there and that''s why he trusted his eyes more than anything else.

    On rare occasions he had suffered an indescribable dread when everything went black. The barriers were covered by someone. When that happened, he slept. Lethargic periods floating without gravity, that could last days, months, and on a couple of occasions he was sure it had been years before he saw the light again. Many times, when he saw the light again, the landscape had changed. It could be a street, sometimes a high floor, without the first barrier, although after some time he almost always returned to a new landscape with a double barrier.

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    On some other occasions, he had caught some animals similar to himself walking through the streets. That made him happy sometimes, it meant he was not alone. He could barely remember the time he had lived outside the second barrier, but he certainly remembered others like him, jumping and running around. He dreamed of being able to go out and be with them, but he also had grown accustomed to the loneliness and the situation of his confinement. Although he could not understand why.

    At other times, people would stand in front of the double barrier, and seem to stare at him for a few seconds, to which he would respond cheerfully, only to be disappointed when the people continued on their way undeterred.

    Having spent most of his life behind those panes of glass, with changing images, the animal knew nothing else but to observe what was happening in his rectangle of vision. Although he had no need for food or water in his captivity, he longed from time to time to think what it would be like to be outside again.

    How had he gotten there in the first place? He had wondered. Although he couldn''t remember either.

    But that rainy Wednesday afternoon was different. Although he always responded cheerfully to passers-by, there was something about the man looking at him that was different. About five minutes had passed and the man was still looking at him. He didn''t seem to mind the rain soaking his clothes. The people, with umbrellas, around him passed by without paying attention to the main barrier, but the animal and the man looked at each other, even if their reactions were different.

    The animal was somewhat fearful. The man, on the other hand, it was hard to tell what emotion he was expressing through his cold stare.

    He was a wiry man and was dressed in an old-fashioned suit, with a fedora hat crowning his head. His face was covered by a few strands of wavy black hair that hid obsidian-black eyes, almost sunken into the cadaverous face.

    Suddenly, the animal saw how the man raised one of his hands, and with a slender index finger touched the first barrier. Then, as if it were not there, the man ran his finger through and then his whole hand, as if the solid material of the glass were simply a sheet of water. The animal flinched in indescribable terror. In all his life he had never seen anyone do that. The hand advanced several centimeters and, when it reached the second barrier, it stopped.

    From the forefinger there was an electric flash that lasted for a blink of an eye. Then the hand withdrew and passed through the first barrier again.

    "You''re playing your part in this too," said the man, his voice was low and dry.

    At those words the man disappeared. It was not that he had walked away, as all those who passed in front of the glass barriers of the antique store did. He simply vanished, as the mist of breath vanishes on a winter''s day. It was there and the next second it was gone.

    The animal opened its eyes wide and jumped. What had that been? A magic trick? An illusion? He had never seen anything like it. Fear gave way to excitement and, not knowing how else to show his excitement, he jumped in front of the first barrier and emitted a bark that no one could hear.

    What were the words the stranger had uttered? He didn''t know. But he didn''t care too much. He gained a new sensation, after a long time, and he had to take advantage of it while his euphoria lasted.

    That''s what happened that Wednesday, in front of the antique store, although none of the passers-by got to see it.

    But the animal, a simple observer through the window glass, the first barrier, and the mirror which was its second barrier, saw it.

    Little did he know that the next day his life would change.

    The long wait of centuries was over.

    To the people passing by on the street, if they had been able to perceive the man''s presence, it would have seemed as if he had put his hand through the glass of an antique store and then touched the reflective surface of a huge mirror.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 1: Sil Moore

    Chapter One

    Sil Moore

    March 16. Friday 7.45 PM. S.A. 125.

    Edinburgh, Scotland.

    It was rush hour and, on the streets, the Maglev cars were speeding along the magnetized lines, crowded together like a giant shoal of metal. Although almost no one was driving such cars, most were simply guided by the AI-driven automatic mode. Autonomous cars, which went wherever one wanted to go, without worrying about the handling of the vehicle. The passenger could relax while listening to music, playing a game, or having a virtual sex session in some of the worlds of Another Earth to stimulate the secretion of dopamine before getting home.

    The more reckless, on the other hand, decided to simply cut the conductivity and fly through the city, if only to enjoy the view of the city''s huge skyscrapers. Traffic congestion was a thing of the past.

    Although the number of vehicles on the streets was even greater than in past centuries, technology had made it possible to implement the Maglev and air support system in vehicles, much more efficient and orderly.

    There was a third group of people who returned to their homes by more traditional means, although no less dangerous, considering that they passed within inches of the maglev cars.

    And Sil Moore was one of these people.

    The girl exited the bike path and rode her folding bike up onto the sidewalk, as the Maglev cars passed by on the street just inches away from her. Sil took off her helmet and goggles compressing them into a small cube and sighed, as she got off her bike and began to fold it. She felt that over the weekend she would probably have to take it all apart, if for no other reason than to make sure everything was in working order. The last thing she needed was to hurt herself by not maintaining it properly.

    The day''s work at the Edinburgh Station Control Center hadn''t been that hard for her. She expected that, due to some system malfunctions that occurred in the morning, it was almost certain that she would be working overtime until the early hours of the morning. Fortunately for her, though, everything had been resolved quickly. As a result, she was in good spirits when she arrived at the ten-story building where her apartment was located, on the sixth floor in Piershill.

    The distance to Castle Rock, where she worked as a technical service employee at the subway station, was not too far, and Sil Moore rode her bicycle to work every day to exercise. Although her job required her to spend a lot of time watching screens, and go back and forth between the different control rooms to make sure the systems were working properly, she used every opportunity she had to exercise. The baggy clothes she wore, under her work jacket, hid the fact that she was very athletic.

    She had red eyes with long eyelashes, and hair of the same color, slightly dyed blonde at the ends, and it was almost always styled in two braids, with the exception of a few irregularly cut strands.

    Her appearance and personality, although a bit unkempt, in a way contributed to give her a very liberal young look with her style and way of life, almost as if she were a bird in the wild. And such was the nickname she had earned on the streets when she was younger.

    Sil, "The Red Cardinal". And there were still a few people in the neighborhood who called her by the same name. And Sil certainly didn''t mind the nickname, as she even had a tattoo of a cardinal on her right arm.

    Be that as it may, the day hadn''t been too bad. I''ll have some time to practice today, she thought, as she walked up the short steps of the building. She was in such a good mood that she didn''t notice that, with her quick steps, she almost hit someone walking past her. Sil evaded him, only to run face first into another person who seemed to have come out of nowhere.

    "Whoops!" said a soft male voice.

    "Sorry," Sil apologized, looking up. So tall, she thought.

    The stranger carried a bouquet of what looked like freshly cut flowers in his left hand and carried an instrument case on his back. Probably a guitar or some kind of new instrument, Sil thought, though it looked somewhat larger.

    He was a handsome man, though a bit old for her taste, but not so extremely old either. If Sil had to guess his age, she would have guessed that he looked to be in his late thirties, although considering that many people froze their appearance at about that age, she couldn''t say for sure either.

    His hair was brown, shoulder-length and slightly wavy, and a few strands covered his light brown eyes. His face was slightly tanned, like someone who had spent a lot of time under the sun. He wore a leather jacket over a T-shirt, and a pair of ratty jeans and old boots, that looked like they had walked the same distance from the earth to the moon.

    For no apparent reason the stranger smiled at the young woman and pulled a blood-red rose from among the bouquet and handed it to her.

    "For you, M'' Lady," the stranger said, in his lilting voice.

    M'' Lady? What time does this chap come from? Sil thought, as she gave a quick glance at his ears, to make sure he wasn''t a fey.

    Sil accepted the present, slightly surprised, and examined him more closely. It was not a face she had seen before in the neighborhood. But he didn''t seem to be dangerous either. "Thank you, may I ask why?"

    "For asking the right question."

    Sil looked at him quizzically, she had barely exchanged a few words and certainly didn''t remember asking him anything. "What question?"

    The stranger smiled at her. "We live in a world of how''s, and people forget the why''s."

    Sil was already wondering how many screws the man might be missing. But, even if she wasn''t going to say it, and she didn''t know why, she found him charming. She judged herself to be a good judge of character and the stranger made no suspicious impression on her. Considering that the neighborhood where Sil lived was quite famous for hosting several artists, it was possible that the stranger was also one of them.

    "You still haven''t answered me why you''re giving me a flower."

    The stranger gave her a suspicious look and, while still smiling, went on his way.

    "Hey! It''s rude to leave someone with the word in their mouth." Sil said turning around. Now she could see that whatever the man was carrying in the case, it was much bigger than a guitar.

    "So is walking without looking," the man said.

    "Aren''t you going to answer me?"

    The stranger turned a somersault and looked at her with affable eyes. "Because I want to... and because it matches your eyes, M'' Lady."

    "Can you tell me your name at least?"

    "You haven''t told me yours either, M''Lady Pusher," the strange bard said, as he walked away through the crowd.

    "My name is Sil," she said, raising her voice a little.

    "I am Black," the voice replied, but Sil could no longer see him among the people passing around.

    Sil smiled, and walked up the stairs. She put the rose to her ear, taking one last look at the street.

    "Artists... we''re all crazy." She said quietly, and she walked through the revolving doors of the entrance. A weirdo for sure, but the stranger''s attitude had put her in a good mood. She didn''t remember anyone ever giving her a flower. An old detail that no longer existed.

    She greeted the venerable looking elderly robot at the front desk and made her way to the elevators, only to discover that they were out of service for some reason. "Ah, great. Winston! The elevators are out of service."

    Old Winston raised his head and stared at her with a poker expression. Then, as if in response, he simply turned his head 360 degrees.

    The landlord really needs to give that old robot a service. Sil snorted. "As useful as ever," she said resignedly and headed for the stairs.

    The girl climbed the floors that separated her from her apartment, with her work backpack and folding bicycle in tow, while she heard the familiar voices in some of the hallways. Sil didn''t pay special attention to the conversations of her neighbors, nor did she like to gossip, but in a way she had become accustomed to hearing the murmurs every time she came home from work.

    She had been living alone for months, since, after an argument, her ex-partner had left the place. Since almost all the furniture and appliances were his, the apartment seemed even more empty and lonelier, although that didn''t bother Sil. Although the emptiness, and inner loneliness, was far worse than the lack of furniture.

    As she walked down the hallway on the sixth floor, she found that in one of the apartments next to hers the door was opening, and the squeaky voices and laughter of small children were coming from the place. Sil peeked in the door and there she found her neighbor, a plump woman in tween clothes, busily putting a baby in her high chair, while another infant, no more than two years old, smiled at her in the doorway.

    "Where are you running off to?" Sil asked, with a complicit grin, leaving the bicycle in the hallway and scooping the little one into her arms. "Hey, Vivian! One of these critters was running away!" She said as she did a cartwheel, much to the child''s amusement.

    Vivian finished placing the toddler in his high chair and looked at Sil.

    "Where were you going, Mich?! Thank you Sil, pretty rose," Vivian said, picking up the infant.

    "Thanks... Hey, did something happen to the elevator? Is it stuck like last time?"

    "We already complained to the landlord, but he says it''s not the building''s problem, although I think he''s right for once. You haven''t been watching the news?"

    "No. Did something happen now?" Sil asked.

    "Apparently it''s been all over the city, it''s been going down all morning."

    Sil looked at her strangely, apparently the station was not the only place where there had been problems, but she, and her co-workers, had not heard anything during the course of the morning. Although maybe that was because she wasn''t paying much attention to what the news was saying.

    "What kind of malfunctions?" Sil asked, leaning against the door frame.

    "Systems failures apparently. We all had to use the stairs today. I guess you were lucky to bring that huge mirror in yesterday, or the guys at the antique house would have charged you double to carry it up the stairs if you''d brought it in today."

    "Too much service the bastards charged me. I was almost going to tell Alex to help me."

    "You would have been out of luck. He''s still in construction. He doesn''t get out of orbit for a fortnight until next week."

    "I thought he was with you. Has he been delayed up there?"

    "He was supposed to come down yesterday, but they''ve held up all the station personnel. Apparently something crashed pretty close to where they were and they''ve asked for more workers to come up."

    "That'' s scary¡­ some kind of accident or something? Is Alex okay?"

    "Yes, it''s okay. But even they don''t really know what happened. But luckily there was no one in that part when it was destroyed. Alex said they all saw some kind of red light that came out of the surface and was lost in space. So they''re all employed on the repairs. The pay is good. It''s triple if they can meet the turnaround time for the damaged sector."

    "Well, at least that''s something, those guys shit rare-earths. A few E-febs shouldn''t make a difference for them. Still it'' s scary just thinking about it."

    "Probably some country was testing something and now they''re all washing their hands of it. Haven''t you seen what happened in Kazakhstan on the news? Apparently they''ve already hinted that the disaster that happened there might have something to do with it."

    "I think I heard something..."

    "You really don''t watch the news?"

    "No, especially not if it''s stuff going on up there. We have enough trouble here."

    "That''s because you''re too down to earth. I know hundreds of people and, out of all of them, you are the only one that I know of who has only gone up there as a child, but not as an adult. I take these two at least three times a week if I have time, so they get used to it."

    "I don''t really like the space, Vivian," Sil said, smiling, as she affectionately pinched Mich''s cheek.

    "You should try it, I know maybe it''s hard, but you should at least give it a chance."

    "Maybe¡­ but, for the moment I''m happy with my two feet on the ground," Sil said, with a wistful smile and retraced her steps as he picked up the bike.

    "Don''t you want to have dinner with us?"

    "I have pizza in the fridge waiting for me."

    "You need to eat better."

    "I have a more strict diet than you think."

    "And pizza is part of that diet?" Vivian asked, smiling incredulously.

    "It''s the best part," Sil said, smiling, as she walked away down the hallway. "Close the door tight, that shorty''s already strong enough to open it."

    Vivian watched her walk away and shook her head. She certainly felt sorry for Sil, but it was a sentiment shared by almost everyone who knew her. Poor girl, Vivian thought, as she closed the door.

    Sil reached her place and opened the door with the digital reader, and stepped inside her apartment.

    "Lights," she said, and she left the bike by the side of the door and walked over to her bed.

    The place was too big for someone living alone. The sparse furnishings only accentuated the spaciousness of the place. A bed, a closet with a missing door, a bedside table and a long chair, along with a few movie posters and band posters on the walls, were the first things any visitor would have seen as soon as they set foot in the place.

    The kitchen-dining room and bathroom were on the far side of the apartment. The place where the living room should have been was completely empty, with the exception of a huge mirror at least two meters high by two meters wide, leaning against the wall, between the two windows, through which the night city lights came in.

    On the nightstand next to her bed was a red lava lamp, and next to it rested a small picture frame showing a young-looking couple, holding a little red-haired girl, with smiles on their faces. Sil took the rose from her ear and placed it in front of the portrait.

    "I''m home," she said, running her hand over the portrait, with a sad looking smile.

    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    She threw her backpack on the bed and, with the freedom of being at home, took off her work jacket, baggy clothes and underwear. Usually she didn''t mind walking around her house nearly naked, although that night that wasn''t going to be the case.

    What was even more striking, apart from her slender figure, were a series of almost imperceptible marks on her pale skin. They followed symmetrical patterns. On her shoulder blades, waist, stomach, on her chest, following the line of her pink nipples, hips, legs and some extended all the way down to her toes.

    Sil stood on her tiptoes, stretching her ankles, then pulled a black one-piece swimsuit from the closet and put it on.

    "Unzip and deploy the ballroom configuration," Sil ordered, through her Neurowire, as she walked into the spacious living room.

    After saying those words the walls and floor stretched out, emerging from them fractal geometric patterns, with shapes resembling ice crystals, growing into each other and enlarging the place. The space grew, turning the spacious living room into a large hall that must have been at least fifty meters long and twenty meters wide. The floor changed its tiling for a wooden floor, and the dull gray walls were stained white like pentelic marble.

    Sil smiled at the mirror, which now seemed to be the only decorative object that filled the huge practice room. The windows on either side had also changed their shape and where there had been only one, there were now three of them on each side of the mirror.

    The only reason she had bought the huge old thing was to integrate it into her setup via VNA copying. She could have simply loaded one of the mirrored scenarios, as she always did, and that would have solved everything. But when she saw it, as she passed the antique house, there was something that had caught her attention.

    She didn''t know why, but there was something strange about that mirror.

    She was not a girl who was easily impressed or easily infatuated with anything. The day before, after her lunch at work, she had gone for a ride on her bike. As she pedaled along Inverleith Terrace, with a view of the Royal Botanic Garden, she saw that across the street, next to one of the old historic buildings on the site, was a two-story antique house that she hadn''t seen before on her rounds after work.

    And that''s when she spotted it, in the store window, along with other rickety objects, Great War memorabilia, and miniatures of the Dyson Orbital Belt.

    The mirror was pretty, although the glass surface was like that of an ordinary mirror, the mahogany frame had some baroque-style engravings that continued on the back. It obviously had signs that the varnish had worn off around the edges and a few marks on the wood, but the mirror was intact. She paid the modest sum of 40 E-febs. Not too much, considering that the object itself must be over a hundred years old for sure, if not perhaps a little more. A real bargain. The salesman, a bearded old man with a bionic ear, seemed pleased that he finally managed to sell one of the mirrors, since it was one of several that had been sitting in the store collecting dust for years. He tried to get Sil to buy another one, but she declined.

    After leaving work, Sil returned to the place and paid for transportation to her apartment. That evening, she spent some time setting up and running simulations to choose the right location. The thing was heavy, but she had no problem placing it and moving it around until she decided which location seemed best.

    And now she could finally see what it looked like. "DM-W- Double Wide Mirror Configuration."

    The spatial distortion program immediately ran the configuration, and the mirror changed its size until it grew in length to almost the same size as the room, and once again the windows on the sides changed their configuration, now fitting the mirror, that took up almost the entire wall. On the opposite side of the room another mirror appeared, creating the illusion that, on either side, the space stretched to infinity.

    Sil smiled with satisfaction and headed for the kitchen. It was time for a little distraction before practice. She ate some pizza from the night before, with orange juice, and a chocolate custard with vanilla for dessert, her favorite. Then she read a new chapter of two of her favorite series, A Mole''s Rebellion on the Moon and The Punishing Donkey, two famous comic satires that told the story of when the terraforming of the moon had begun.

    To kill a little more time, she watched some of the news, where she found that some of them talked about the electrical flaws that had occurred in the morning. Everything seemed to point to a sudden flare-up of the sun, which could have been absorbed by the Gateway Tree in Holyrood Park. She also read the news about the damage to the new mining station under construction by the SAIRIS, where the husband of her neighbor, Vivian, worked.

    She was about to start reading the news of the natural disaster in Kazakhstan, involving the Nevermore Institute''s Special Investigation Divisions, when an alarm went off in her brain, that almost made her fall out of her chair.

    It was nine o''clock at night.

    Sil gasped and looked out into the ballroom with a smile.

    Who knows, maybe today I could make it. That was the eternal phrase she had been repeating to herself for years. That night she didn''t want to be disturbed. "Turn off Neurowire network," she said and stood up.

    She walked to the center of the room and looked at both sides of the mirrors, watching as her reflections looked back at her as well, until they blurred and disappeared into the farthest ones.

    "Deploy compartment 9," she said in a soft voice, as she let down her hair.

    From the wooden floor appeared a new fractal pattern, with snow crystal geometry and from it sprouted a column at least a meter and a half high with several drawers. From one of them Sil extracted a bag with magnesium powder and rosin, with which she covered her hands and feet with a thin layer. From another drawer she extracted some small motion capture sensors, which she placed on different parts of her body.

    "Run interface 7 and activate the acoustic cameras. Type: Vault with Jillian fractal parametric. Compresses compartment 9. Run metronome seconds."

    The column was hidden again at floor level, and Sil ran several elongation routines around the room for a few minutes. Then she swung her arms and made a series of circular movements around the room, at the same time as the enveloping sounds of the ticking of an invisible clock filled the room completely and echoed with an almost supernatural violence wherever she went.

    In her brain a strange amalgam of images of faded colors and abstract shapes was being produced every time she moved. She walked around the room, taking a few steps similar to a kind of contemporary dance. At the different movements she made, as she approached or moved away from certain parts of the room, different instruments sprouted from the floor and then sank again when she moved away. Balance bars, uneven bars, podium bars and other apparatuses linked to artistic gymnastics disciplines.

    If Sil had arrived an hour earlier that day, she would certainly have chosen to warm up on the apparatuses.

    But that was not the case. Not at that time. She didn''t know why, but for some reason she felt different that day.

    "Okay, here we go... again," she said, sighing with some nervousness. "Record and Compose."

    [Record and Compose Enabled.]

    "Open interface applications 7: Interrupted Melody."

    [Mad dancer, Gyroscope, Harmonic Room, Affinator, Orchestra activated. Thirty subroutines enabled.]

    Sil sighed ,and began to walk slowly around the room. For several minutes she simply did nothing else. She settled her breathing, feeling her body slowly warm up as she slowly quickened the pace of her steps.

    Little by little, the monotonous ticking seemed to slow down. And so the movements of the strange performance suddenly began.

    Subtle at first, slow or violent later, and with the grace of one who had obviously been practicing for years. Still, they were strange. They did not seem to adhere to any particular type of dance or artistic gymnastics, they seemed to be a mixture of several disciplines. There was a grand jet¨¦ one moment, only to be followed by a back plank and then a parkour move the next.

    Although to the average observer it seemed to be a mixture of several things, closer to a free dance, there was something in the movement of Sil''s body that made the movements flow in an almost unnatural way. The angles of extension of her shoulders and shoulder blades were different. The same with her leg movements and her hip swings, they had a violence and twisting angles a little different from those of other gymnastic athletes and dancers. As she drew geometric shapes with her movements, they seemed to flow like the sparkling water of a river.

    Sil''s practice lasted at least half an hour, and she did not even take a break to catch her breath, yet she did not fail at any time. Her muscles felt as if they might tear at any moment, but she didn''t stop. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead and flew, when in some sudden movement Sil brushed them off and left them behind.

    The sound of the seconds was slowing down in her mind, while the colors seemed to be flooding every neuron in her brain.

    Activate pool safety layers, five meter vertical distortion, she ordered, mentally.

    Over the line that separated the entrance, and Sil''s room, from the living room and on the side of the kitchen, a kind of glass barrier glowed for a few seconds and then disappeared out of sight, although it was still there. The sector of the living room changed once again and she saw how the ceiling moved a few meters upwards.

    Sil took a last leap reaching the center of the room and tensed her muscles. "Activate pool," she said softly, as she closed her eyes and took one last big breath.

    The change in temperature was sudden and Sil felt the water hit her from all four sides of the room, causing her to lose her balance slightly. Although the water was not freezing, far from it, the warmth of her body with the exercises contrasted with the temperature of the water. She crouched almost at ground level, while she felt the place flooded and the water covered her completely.

    Run, Melody interrupted, she commanded through her Neurowire.

    It was about a minute before she finally opened her eyes. Her ears made a strange sound as they adjusted to the water pressure. Similar marks to those on the rest of her body could also be seen behind her ears.

    Although the human ear did not have the same capacity to pick up sounds underwater compared to air, that was not the case with Sil. Every movement of her body in the water could be heard with total clarity, with acoustics much better than that of a normal ear. Not only that, it resonated through her bones with shuddering clarity.

    Time in her brain was passing in a different way. The ticking sound was still there, but to her it was so spaced out that it seemed to mark minutes instead of seconds. It was like a metronome slowly losing its momentum, fading into space.

    From the four lower and upper corners of the pool, projected through small speakers, a strange tune began to play and Sil began to dance underwater. It was the chords of violin and piano.

    Her performance began slowly, as if she was trying to match the sounds of the music with her movements. The images that her optic nerves transmitted to her brain were colors that flashed to the rhythm of her movements, in a kind of kaleidoscopic synesthesia, which the reflection of the mirrors repeated as if it were a hallucinogenic trip.

    It was as if she had been possessed by something. The movements and spins seemed to have a grace as if Sil was trying to communicate herself, or someone else, a message that was beyond any spoken language. Something was taking root in the depths of her brain, a kind of primitive instinct that perhaps in another time humanity had come to understand, before the suffocating noise of modernity ended up burying that sensation in the abyss of the limbic system.

    Two minutes passed, then three, then four, and so on until they reached seven, but that no longer mattered to Sil Moore.

    Her whole being was a melody. For her it was the beginning of a static ecstasy beyond description, closer to an altered state of consciousness or the first moments of a near-death experience.

    Her body was suffering the first symptoms of oxygen deprivation.

    It was the moment Sil was waiting for.

    The music reverberated in crescendo in the grooves of the underwater parametric chamber. This was nothing more than a force field that she had come to shape through effort and research for the sole purpose of that experiment.

    Her interrupted melody. The music she heard the day she lost her parents and that no matter how hard she tried for years, she never knew why but, that music, had haunted her mind throughout her adolescence and now in her adulthood. Something strange felt inside her when she heard it for the first time, and for some reason, the feeling never left her.

    Although it had started out as nothing more than a game of searching for songs that resembled it, that changed when, as the years went by, she began to realize that there was something more in that tune.

    She studied acoustics in a self-taught manner, along with her career as a transportation technician in college. Later, as she studied through Neurowire the places she had been as a child on the day of the accident, she realized that the reason why that melody haunted her so much was different.

    It had been the place where she heard it.

    Her fear of space, because of the accident, made her dizzy and just imagining herself in space made her hands start to sweat. So she decided that, if only as a hobby, and a way to cope with her stress, she would try to find a way to reinterpret the music in conditions similar to those of that day. She was not good with instruments, but she had her body.

    Composing music through movement was something that had been developed decades ago. Combining ancient dance techniques, and the possibilities that the study of the mind had opened up with the development of Neurowire, helped Sil in her quest.

    That, and the modification of her body.

    Although it was not related to melody. She had always loved contemporary dance and, over the years, surgical techniques had been developed that made it possible to take the human body into completely new areas, as in the case of artistic expression. It was just a coincidence that the modification of her body helped her to find the right way to recreate the tune.

    And since she couldn''t go into space, she would try underwater. There were other better methods to create the feeling of weightlessness although, after a while, she discovered that acoustics in water worked better for her.

    And that was what Sil was achieving.

    Little by little and with effort, leaving nights in the pool and in the ballroom, she succeeded.

    The sounds were not the same at first but, little by little, her efforts paid off. It was only seconds at first, then minutes. And so on until the first seven minutes. But for months, after the fight with her partner, she barely had made any progress.

    But that night was different.

    Activate the cell oxygen regeneration system at ten percent, she ordered.

    Sil watched as the Neurowire playback system on her Neurowire had only a few seconds left before the melody ended and felt a knot in her stomach. The dance was taking its toll on her body, and the last thing she needed was a cramp at that moment. But Sil didn''t stop.

    Five seconds, four, three, two, two, one, zero.

    The melody on the playback system ended, but Sil didn''t stop. New graceful and other violent movements sprang from her body. The link was not severed for a second and Sil could have sworn that if she had not been underwater at that moment she would have been crying for sure. What the hell was in that tune? She didn''t know.

    Sil never tried drugs, she didn''t need them. The addiction to that melody was more than enough. Stronger than any substance. She never told anyone about it and the reason is because they would think she was crazy.

    Part of the reason she had a fight with her partner had been that. Her boyfriend arrived at just the right time when she was practicing and what he saw had filled him with terror. For Sil, time passed differently when she was practicing. But to a person watching the scene at that moment it would have seemed as if her body was suffering some kind of seizure or losing consistency due to the speed of her movements. Although it was not an attack, it was simply that the speed was different, it was as if the resistance of the water itself had changed its composition so that she could move in that way. Sil was aware that she was pushing her body to an extreme, but that didn''t matter to her at that moment.

    Once again she was succeeding.

    She couldn''t explain it, there were no words to describe what she felt every time she heard it. Sil was not a neo-religious, but if there was a god in the universe for her it was almost certain that this music could be the closest thing. But it came from her body, it was her own body that was reinterpreting the music. That filled her with an even greater satisfaction.

    It was the same strange sounds she had heard that day in the Orbital Tree.

    Despite her joy and ecstasy, Sil did not smile or flinch at that moment, what she was doing was more important.

    Four seconds, five, six¡­ ten¡­ twenty.

    How many would it be this time?

    She couldn''t believe it. The movements of the dance due to the water pressure could cause her some discomfort at any moment, but she didn''t stop.

    She couldn''t. Even the weight of the water seemed like a barrier that didn''t exist. Sil moved with a speed almost as if the liquid element was not there. Only her long hair floating weightless was the only sign that she was still underwater.

    A minute passed and it went on. Then another minute. She had reached ten minutes.

    What''s going on? Sil wondered. It was the first time in all those years that she managed to do so many seconds.

    It was no longer a matter of inspiration or euphoria, she felt she really couldn''t stop. She was happy to have come so far in a single day, but a part of her began to feel afraid. Had she really lost control of her body? It was a feeling as if a part of her was detaching from her body.

    What is this?

    Her vision was changing. She wasn''t sure if it was that the oxygen was too little or something else. It felt like a part of her consciousness was fading away.

    Increase oxygen regeneration to fifteen percent.

    It was as if her whole being was traveling somewhere, as if she was sinking into the reflections of the mirrors. Not only that, she was beginning to see some sort of moving lines below her, snaking several meters away, as if coming from the ground itself. These glowed with a faint light. It was as if everything around her at that moment was being seen as if through X-rays. But not the lines, they looked as if they were something more solid.

    Minute eleven complete.

    Something happened then. Although the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere towards her head, it was suddenly cut off and Sil could almost have sworn that a sharp, thud-like, sound had come from the real mirror. Her inspiration and performance abruptly cut off and the music ceased in the pool.

    Control of her body returned and Sil stopped. Staggering, she fell slowly to the bottom of the pool.

    A new alarm sounded in her brain [Self-preservation system activated, deactivating pool distortion. Oxygen levels are below what is required for vital functions. If emotional support is required, the Neurowire System will be activated and a request will be sent to the nearest stress control office].

    [What?! No! Cancel that last one!]

    She had come closer to endangering herself more times than she could remember riding her bike on the streets, but this was the first time she had seen a message advising anti-suicide counseling.

    The water began to go down and retreat towards the corners of the pool, until it disappeared completely and then there was a new glow, the barriers disappeared and the roof area went back down to its normal level. Although the place had been full of water until a few seconds ago, the water had completely disappeared. Sil was the only one dripping with water in the room, now on all fours on the floor trying to catch her breath.

    She looked up and found her reflection staring back at her. The same dumbfounded and happy expression.

    What the hell was that last one? She wondered remembering the serpentine glow she had seen at the end.

    Trembling with pain, some fear, and emotion, Sil sat up not knowing what to do. She looked at the time, it was 9:50 PM. I had been underwater for eleven fucking minutes.

    Her expression in the mirror made her laugh. She didn''t know why, but she felt a happiness like she hadn''t felt in a long time.

    "Save all the progress," she gasped.

    She couldn''t get over her amazement. It had been an incredibly hard session, but she had done it.

    The body aches were a small cost to pay for having come so far. The tremors and shivering from the cramps were beginning to spread through her body. So she was not surprised when she felt a sudden electric shiver in her neck, as if something had pierced her from side to side.

    She was not surprised either, when the world seemed to lose consistency and she fell to the ground. It was not the first time she had fallen to the ground in surrender.

    But she was surprised when she saw something else.

    She was with her eyes parallel to the ground, unable to move, and the image was blurring, but not enough, and what she saw made her eyes widen and her lips tremble.

    There, just inches away from her, was her body still standing. She could see drops of water trickling down her ankles to the bottom of her feet, forming a puddle on the ground. Then, as if in a slow motion nightmare, she saw her body collapse to the ground. Sil watched as spasms ran through her body down to the tips of her fingers, but as she looked down at her neck she felt horror invade her.

    She was looking at her own body and it had no head. Where her head should have been, she simply saw a clean cut showing bone and tissue.

    Her vision blurred completely, but that no longer mattered.

    For all human circumstances, that day at 9:51 PM, the human being known as Sil Moore, had ceased to exist.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 2: Nothing Personal

    Chapter Two

    Nothing Personal

    March 17. Saturday 6.15 PM. Edinburgh.

    The autonomous Maglev vehicle left the magnetized route, and parked in front of one of the apartment complexes where Rabin Patel lived, in the Prestonfield district. The vehicle was not necessarily an old model, although the worn paintwork indicated that it needed to be serviced. But that didn''t matter to the occupants. The vehicle was stolen just a few minutes earlier.

    The man and woman inside the vehicle crossed their gazes, then looked toward the building. Given the circumstances, everything had been a little fast but they had been able to improvise.

    "He''s inside, isn''t he?" The man asked, with a frown.

    The woman replied with a serious look. "Yes. Let''s go before he gets away. No taser."

    The man sighed. "Whatever."

    The woman had dark hair tied in a bun. She appeared to be young and had almond-shaped eyes under thick eyebrows. She wore an overall suit, an a jacket, with Department of Justice insignia on her right shoulder and the acronym MCIT/FU on the back, which credited her as part of the Major Crimes Investigation Team''s Forensic Investigation Unit.

    The man, meanwhile, a rugged-looking man with pronounced chin and cheekbones, blond hair and dark eyes, was dressed simply in a brown leather jacket, with a black thermal T-shirt and pants of the same color.

    They both got out of the vehicle and while the woman headed for the main entrance of the building, her partner went up the emergency stairs at the back, into the alley, trying to evade primary surveillance and cameras. The woman had passed her ID at the entrance, and the reader had recognized it as that of someone authorized to enter the building. The man did not have it so easy.

    "Damn stairs, it''s always me," the man mumbled, as he watched some cats fleeing the alley, caught red-handed foraging for food in a garbage can. The man bent down to take a leap and jumped two and a half meters to reach the staircase, while his companion, more comfortable, took the elevator.

    Rabin Patel was currently in his room on the third floor, finishing changing for work. He was a young man, with short dark hair and brown eyes. He recently decided to grow a beard, because his appearance, and short stature, made him look like a teenager.

    He and his friends were playing in one of the Another Earth worlds, hunting dragons in a battle simulation over Sweden. The campaign was going well, when an alarm went off at just after six o''clock in the evening, with an announcement that he would have to go into work a little early. There had been a death and, so as not to make a fuss about the change of personnel on the hour, he was being called in early to start his shift.

    He took a quick shower and changed at lightning speed, as his partner, Ann, would be picking him up to go to the MCIT buildings, and from there they would have to change vehicles, to get into one of the forensic department''s vans to head to the site.

    "Work, work," he muttered, as he zipped up his coveralls and put on his jacket.

    He hoped that a couple of years would be enough to be able to work directly in the labs at the MCIT facility, as a screening forensic scientist, rather than having to go back and forth with the forensic field team. Not that he hated his current job, but he certainly felt more at home in a lab than with the FFU. Plus the pay was much better.

    He was rambling on, when he felt the knock on the apartment door. That was strange since his partner never came up to look for him, she almost always just sent messages through the Neurowire chat room.

    [Hurry up, what are you doing? I''m out here, at least open the door for me, you wanker]. That was the message that appeared in one of the personal chat applications of his Neurowire.

    [I''m coming.] Rabin opened the door for his partner, who was waiting with a grim look on her face. "I was just coming down," he said, and then looked at her hairdo.

    It was odd. He couldn''t remember ever seeing Ann with a bun in the time he''d known her. Although he couldn''t deny that it made her look a little older. He and Ann had graduated in forensic science at the same time, and were friends, as well as colleagues, for months when they both went to work for the Department of Justice as attach¨¦s at MCIT.

    Where is that idiot? the woman thought.

    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    "Change of look?" Patel asked.

    I tied my hair back because it was a nuisance. This woman wears it down? Damn it. The woman gritted her teeth, but gave an apologetic smile. "Yeah, I think maybe I should cut it a little."

    "It would look good on you, I think."

    Patel disappeared to his room, to finish packing the backpack he always carried to work, with an extra change of clothes. In the meantime the woman took a quick glance around the room. It was quite tidy inside, though the miniature creatures filled the place a bit too much, not to mention some dragon paintings.

    One of those dragon freaks... Ann thought.

    Patel''s voice from the next room brought her out of her quick inspection. "So, did you think about what I said?"

    Ah, shit... What did he say to her? I have no data on that. The woman clicked her tongue and just said. "About what?"

    Patel came out with his backpack over his shoulder and looked at her. "Wales. Next weekend. Going to the Llyn Brianne reserve to see the new dragons."

    The woman thought about it for a few seconds before answering. "Honestly, I haven''t thought about it yet."

    "It''s a unique spectacle, watching the little ones hatch from eggs. There''s going to be a lot of people there."

    "What''s the point? They''re just big lizards."

    Patel looked at her quizzically. "I thought you wanted to go. I know they''re big lizards. Still, if it weren''t for the Dark Events phenomena they wouldn''t exist. How many times have you had the opportunity to see something that only existed in the imagination, centuries ago, become a reality?"

    Too many I''d say... Stan, where the hell are you? Ann was getting impatient. What a mess of a job they'' d given us.

    "Well, come on!" Patel said, approaching the door.

    He put his finger on the door reader and opened it. Ann sighed in relief, but Patel was surprised to see a man taller than him looking back at him, with a sort of crooked grimace. He was more surprised, though, when he saw a huge fist coming straight for his face. He dodged it, passing just inches past his ear.

    "Sorry, nothing personal," the man said.

    Patel stepped back and collided with Ann. He was even more surprised when he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head.

    "Oh, what the bloody hell?" the woman complained as she pulled her hand away. The back of Patel''s neck was incredibly hard. "Damn enhancements."

    The man charged Patel again and, for a few seconds, the whole place became a jumble of punches, kicks and insults as the two thugs tried to cut Patel down. Patel knew how to fight pretty well, Stan thought when a fist went straight for his left eye. The woman saw the opportunity and from behind grabbed him by both arms, and the man punched him in the ribs. Patel spit out some of what he had drunk only a few hours before and tried to escape, breaking free of the fake Ann''s grip, but he was not fast enough to dodge another blow from the man. A rock-hard punch landed squarely in the pit of his stomach and Rabin Patel bent forward, and received another punch, to his face, which this time he could not dodge and collapsed to the ground, losing consciousness.

    "The wanker socked me in the eye! What the hell does this bastard have in his hands? Steel enhancements?" complained the man, rubbing the right side of his face.

    The woman collapsed on the couch for a moment and spit out some blood, feeling a loose molar.

    "The taser would have been faster," Stan said.

    "Yeah right, and it would have set off the NW health system alarm. These guys have better systems because they''re justice department personnel," the woman replied, crouching down in front of the body. "Now give me a second."

    "Whatever," grumbled the man, annoyed, as he blinked, still sore from the blow.

    Through her Neurowire, the fake Ann established a link with the unconscious Rabin Patel, and entertained herself by copying basic biometric security data for a few moments. Just enough to fool the Department of Justice and MCIT scanning systems, along with passwords. They weren''t going to need all that for sure but, in their line of work, it had to be meticulous or they could be caught in the stupidest detail.

    "Put that data in your profile," she said, sending the data pack to the man''s Neurowire.

    The man bent down, pressing one of the buttons on his jacket. Then he looked at Rabin Patel for a few seconds, as if studying him. The man''s physiognomy changed, becoming shorter and the clothes were replaced by the overalls and jacket Rabin was wearing. Finally his face was transfigured and there, like a twin, was a new fake Rabin Patel.

    "Wow, this guy is really a dwarf," said the man, smiling. "Maybe that''s why he hits so hard."

    "Help me already," the woman spat, pulling out a few plastic zip ties from her jacket.

    The real Rabin Patel would wake up several hours later, not knowing what happened, with his Neurowire turned off and tied up in his closet, next to the dragon miniatures he loved so much.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 3: Dont eat the evidences

    Chapter Three

    Don''t eat the evidences!

    March 17. Saturday 10.15 PM. S.A. 125.

    The Detective Chief Inspector, Walter Grant, was relaxing in his apartment, enjoying the broadcast of a soccer match he missed the day before. Not that it was an important game, but he had nothing better to do, and it was time to relax after a day''s work.

    He was about to enjoy a cheese and cold cuts with a pint, when he received a call he hadn''t expected at all. There had been a death that, by all accounts, seemed to indicate some sort of macabre murder. Walter Grant would have said he was "on 11", and that would have been all. Except that who made the call, assigning him to the case, was the Chief Constable of the Lothian Police himself. The other call was from the Police Superintendent, alerting him that the case required his immediate presence. No more words were needed.

    To hell with my plans for a quiet and uneventful Saturday night, he thought sighing.

    A thrice-divorced man in his eighties, although his physical appearance did not look a day over fifty, he learned that perhaps love was not his thing and, in the last two decades, he had devoted himself solely to his work at Police Headquarters. He had not lost his physique, despite the years, and he still had some hair, which fortunately had not yet been reclaimed by the force of gravity.

    Resigned to the fact that he was going to have his work cut out for him that night, he had gone down to the parking lot, and as he was about to get into his vehicle, he received two new notifications. One was that a First Response Team, also called a FRT, from one of the local SID stations at the Nevermore Institute, had moved from an operation in Pilton to Piershill to investigate what happened. The second notification was that three senior SID agents would also arrive on the scene shortly.

    That put the pieces in place as to why he would be called in, and not another DCI on the case.

    In more of a hurry to get to the scene before the attached agents, Inspector Grant activated the automatic drive and, in a matter of minutes, under an annoying cold March rain, he was arriving at the scene. In the short drive time he had been getting all the case data and preliminary reports uploaded instantly of what was happening.

    A few minutes before 5:30 p.m., a woman hysterically called the police after entering her neighbor''s apartment, and discovering her neighbor lying decapitated on the floor. The first police officers, from the nearby Marionville station who arrived on the scene immediately, alerted the Violent Crimes Investigation Department of the Scottish Police Central Station on Prince Street, which was where Walter Grant was stationed. The case should have gone to one of the other inspectors but, when notified that an FRT would be involved in the investigation, Grant was the first choice Central decided to assign as an inspector. He had some experience working with the FRT and SID agents.

    Walter Grant had seen a lot during his long career in law enforcement. He had often been surprised at the lengths human nature would go to, although he had been quick to learn his trade. Fortunately for him, he had rarely encountered cases involving Dark Events, having worked a couple of times in the past with SID special forces and SIGN agency personnel. And he really didn''t envy the agents investigating Dark Events at all.

    To each his own, as he liked to say.

    The scene was already a hive of police, observers, forensic team members, search drones, and members of the Nevermore FRT.

    Neighbors were evacuated from the building after questioning about the young woman living in the apartment, and a perimeter was set up outside the building. The only one left in place was the rickety old robot at the entrance.

    Grant made the change of case inspector, with someone he knew from the office. The detective Inspector Mallen. A nice man, broader than he was tall, who seemed relieved that someone else had to deal with the FRT.

    "Go BONGO," Grant said, smiling, as he watched Mallen leave the perimeter. The truth is, he didn''t blame him either.

    Mallen fled like hell once Grant took over case management, and he logged his exit from the scene. As the change of assignment had occurred later, the evidence collection teams at the scene had already begun.

    When he heard that there was a decapitated woman, the first thing he thought was that he was going to find a butcher''s shop. What was his surprise when he arrived at the building and discovered that the scene was different.

    Inspector Grant climbed up to the sixth floor to find forensics and the FRT, wrapped in their white coveralls, rushing around taking measurements of the scene, while drones, round and small as a marble, hovered around the place. Grant came across a fey male member of the FRT, who had a sort of antenna protruding from his forehead and a wide mouth almost like that of an abyssal fish. It was nothing to be surprised about, after all at his workplace there were a couple of feys too, although those only had long ears. But he couldn''t lie that the sudden appearance scared him a little. Over there was another fey girl, that from under her long jacket was wagging a long thin appendage peeking out from her backside, like a fine tail.

    Grant decided to concentrate more on the site and scanned the room with his eyes. The diameter outside the place did not match the one inside the room.

    "An SDD," he said, as he looked around the giant room with the mirrors on either side.

    Many people bought Spatial Distortion Devices as a way to enlarge residences and vehicles, although the ones with more capacity were a bit more expensive. Apparently the deceased young woman must have liked to use a lot of space, even though at the time there was nothing to see, but the room full of people taking samples and drones flying around, scanning and recording the entire crime scene.

    The young woman''s body was on the floor, in front of the mirror with windows on the sides, already covered with a sheet. Grant met with the forensic coordinator and then ordered the medical examiner to show him the body. She was a young woman by the physiognomy of her body and was wearing a swimsuit.

    The head was nowhere to be seen.

    He didn''t know what made him more uneasy, imagining what the killer might want with the head, or seeing that there wasn''t even a drop of blood spilled. It was certainly a bizarre scene, the body looked more like someone planted a headless mannequin on the spot.

    From what I had been reading from the preliminary reports, the body was in that condition when the police entered, Grant thought.

    The medical examiner covered the body, and Grant set about talking to the other members of the forensic team, to see if they had found anything that might help to find out what had happened, and to corroborate if there was already a list of suspects.

    "Sir, are you Inspector Walter Grant?" said a somewhat shrill voice behind him.

    "Yes. DCI Walter Grant."

    "Good evening, Sir. I''m Jim Stuart, FRT Broxburn," introduced the young man, who was carrying a tablet in his left hand.

    Jim Stuart was a freckled, red-haired fey, so skinny-looking that Walter Grant was sure a strong enough wind could blow him easily all the way to the Hebrides Islands. Unlike the other FRT members, milling around, the young fey was dressed in a dark overall. He must have been the one in charge of the team. He was not wrong on that point as, indeed, Jim Stuart introduced himself as the leader of the FRT team on the scene.

    "Good evening. Broxburn, eh?" asked Grant, as he shook his hand. "I thought you were at Pilton?"

    "We just came from Pilton, we were there all day with another team from the SIGN agency."

    "Busy day?"

    "Pretty much," Stuart stated, looking circumstantial.

    "Well, I''ve only been informed by headquarters that you folks would be here. What''s going on? Is this a Dark Event?"

    "To be honest," Jim Stuart started to say, but was interrupted just as he was about to start explaining.

    "You''re a muncher, that''s what you are," said a male voice.

    "You were taking too long," replied a female voice.

    "You ate my food too, you could have left me some. You''re like Liz''s capybara."

    "And I''m still hungry. In case you don''t remember we skipped lunch."

    Walter Grant and Jim Stuart turned and looked at the door to the room. Stuart''s face changed, and he put on a serious expression.

    Those who had spoken were a human man and a fey woman, who were just walking in at that moment.

    The man was wearing a black suit, with the dark SID badge pinned to his coat lapel. He was quite portly and, more or less from his appearance, it could be deduced that he must be in his late forties. He was bald, somewhat hard-featured, with a searching look in his black eyes and thin lips. He walked in a very straight, easy gait. Walter Grant could almost deduce with complete certainty that the man had been in law enforcement previously, or perhaps the military.

    The woman accompanying him was younger, her physical appearance making her look as if she were in her thirties or slightly younger. Grant dismissed the idea after looking at her ears, it was likely that the woman was many years older than him. She had a slight poker expression, which made it more difficult to guess her age. Black hair, tied in two pigtails at the nape of her neck, and from between her bangs peered two gray eyes. She was dressed in black, with a short jacket, over a wide-collared top, with black pants and tactical boots, which, like her partner''s shoes, were currently covered by bags so as not to contaminate the scene. The same badge hung from the belt of her pants.

    "Inspector Grant?" asked the bald man.

    If they know who I am, why ask? Grant thought to himself. "Yes, sir, DCI Walter Grant."

    "I''m Agent Philip Cook, SID. This is my partner, Agent Zi."

    "Zi, SID. A pleasure," the girl said without so much protocol, in a voice that seemed to slur the words a bit.

    "Ma''am," Grant greeted.

    "Cook and Zi are fine, please."

    Grant silently checked the records of the two agents in his Neurowire, and saw that the SID couple''s team name was Coxis. Probably a typo, Grant thought.

    Apparently both agents didn''t know Jim Stuart either, since they also greeted him. Or so it seemed, Zi squeezed Stuart''s hand as if she wanted to crush his fingers. After the protocol exchange of greetings, Grant, Philip and Zi gave the orders to the different teams of the police and the FRT, since it would be a shared jurisdiction. So the evidence could change in the chain of custody between the different labs. Nevermore did not have a facility nearby, and so all studies would be conducted at the MCIT and DOJ forensics labs. All data and reports would be handled by the agents sharing the case, Philip, Zi and Grant.

    It was Inspector Grant who noticed. "I was expecting three of you. I was notified that three special agents were coming."

    Philip and Zi exchanged glances quickly, with a disapproving expression.

    "Yes... well. He''s most likely held up by something," Philip said, putting on an apologetic smile.

    "Yeah, maybe the roulette numbers weren''t good," Zi commented, under her breath.

    "..." Grant looked at her, in confusion.

    "He should be on his way, he will be here any minute," Philip said and hurried to change the subject. "Let''s get to it," he added, nudging his companion.

    Walter Grant didn''t get to see it, as the two were standing close together, but Zi responded by pinching Philip''s butt. What he did hear was a snap, as the man brought his hands behind his back, and Zi raised her hand with an "Ow" of pain almost instantly.

    What''s wrong with these two? Walter Grant thought worriedly, then asked, "Are you field agents from the London Division?"

    "No. We are from the SID Main Division. We were notified to be on standby, at Cardiff station in case anything happened here. We flew as fast as we could here when we were notified of this case."

    SID Main Division? These two are level 6 agents? It was the first time Walter Grant had met agents of that level. If he could remember correctly, level 6 was only one rung below special ops and case approval controls. Whoever those two were, they held a much higher rank than any other field agent he met before. This can''t be good. Maybe the name of the team was Coxis, because they are a pain in the ass.

    "Well? What''s going on?" Grant asked, as a small evidence-collecting drone whizzed by just inches from his nose.

    The group walked over to where the young woman''s body lay.

    "Our alert is because of a creature sighting near here on Thursday. The FRTs, along with a SIGN team, have been on the lookout ever since. But there has been nothing more abnormal than some anomalies in the power supply yesterday morning."

    "Creature?" Grant asked.

    "Yes. I''m sorry. It''s classified, we can''t disclose that information yet," Philip apologized, "I''ll just tell you that we''re investigating all possibilities, based on what we''re looking for that might have something to do with this girl."

    "Huh¡­"Grant couldn''t be bothered by that, after all, SID had other rules about revealing sensitive information, even if it was a case where the information would be shared.

    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    "And here''s the icing on the cake," Zi said. The four of them looked at the body covered with the white sheet.

    "What you guys are looking for, have to do with this girl?" Grant asked.

    "We''re not sure yet, to be honest," Philip replied.

    "Oh. But we are now. Or at least, we''re sure this case does fall within our jurisdiction." Stuart pointed out excitedly.

    "What do you mean?" Philip asked.

    "You see this room?"

    "Yes, with my two eyes," Zi told him mockingly.

    "Well, when we just walked in, and set up our measuring instruments, guess what we found?" Stuart seemed to enjoy the theatrics and added, "MAP traces."

    Zi looked at Philip with apprehensive eyes.

    "Map traces? What''s that?" Grant asked.

    "Mozumi Arbitrary Particles," Zi replied.

    "Are you sure?" Philip asked.

    "Yes, there''s no doubt." Stuart nodded.

    "Shadow people?" Zi asked.

    "Or a new fey?" Philip added. "That can''t be good."

    "That would explain the sighting..." Zi pointed out.

    The three looked at Walter Grant who didn''t seem to understand anything that was going on.

    Stuart took to the floor and explained it. "The Mozumi arbitrary particles are particles that appear when something from the Other Side crosses into our world. For example, normally when a fey appears, those particles appear for a short period of time and then fade away. They decay."

    "The creature that was sighted in Pilton has a history of appearing in places before feys do, or when those particles appeared too," Zi followed up.

    "You just said Shadow People? Are they real?"

    "We don''t know, but I guess you''ve heard some legends."

    Walter Grant could vaguely remember the term. He thought he''d heard it a long time ago from one of his sons, though they were nothing more than urban legends. "Are those black shadow-like creatures appearing around the world in diferent years, right?"

    "Yes. We have had reports for centuries of them. Although we have never been able to capture any of them. We know they exist, they are real in that sense. We don''t know much else, though."

    "If so, what does it have to do with this girl?" Grant asked.

    "That''s what we want to know too..." Philip sighed.

    "From the rigor mortis of the body, and the decay of the MAPs, we know this took place yesterday around 10 PM," Stuart explained.

    Zi looked at him quizzically. "MAPs can be detected by satellite. If this happened yesterday, how come it wasn''t detected earlier?"

    Stuart pointed to the room. "This whole part of the room is an SDD, there''s a layer that acts like a Faraday cage."

    "But even if it''s minimal, radiation can get through."

    "Believe me. I''m as surprised as you are, this is a special SDD, it''s customized like ours. This girl was a genius. It had a system to prevent some types of electromagnetic radiation from getting out when activated, as well as several layers of reinforcement vectors."

    "Not too smart to keep her head on her shoulders," Zi muttered, ruefully.

    Jim Stuart knelt before the corpse and lifted the sheet and Philip squatted down to get a better look at the corpse. There was not a single drop of blood from where the head should have been. The cut was at the level of the fourth cervical vertebra. It was a clean cut. It was as if it had been produced by some kind of cauterizing instrument, but there were no burn marks on the tissue. It was as if the head had simply been severed from the body.

    "What kind of weapon causes this?" Philip asked, to the medical examiner.

    "There are no traces of any kind of material, just dust in suspension adhering to it. There''s no trace of the main burned tissue, but there''s some in the veins and arteries, which is why there''s no blood. It could have been some kind of molecular vibration blade or maybe fractus material, but we don''t have any evidence of that either. There are no shear patterns in the tissue or bone."

    "Any clues from the head?" Zi asked.

    "Not so far," admitted the doctor.

    "What do we know about her?" Philip asked.

    This time it was Grant who answered him, he was getting all the data from the victim''s profile. "Sil Moore. Age 23. Single. Lived alone. Worked as a technician at Edinburgh station. Clean nose... no record of any kind, not even a ticket for irresponsible flying or DUI. Up to date with her taxes, and with 400k E-febs in her bank account." Through Neurowire he was even looking at Sil Moore''s social networking data and added. "She had a relationship until a few months ago."

    Walter Grant had tossed around the possibility that it was something to do with money, but the bank surveyor''s initial inquiries showed that she hardly had any big money movements.

    "She''s local?" Zi asked.

    "Yes. She was orphaned at age nine and lived with her aunt and uncle until she was sixteen, when she moved here."

    "The information on how the body was discovered is correct?"

    "Yes. The neighbor had the combination. She and the victim knew each other, they both had each other''s passwords in case of emergency. The neighbor got strange when she saw that she hadn''t been online for many hours and decided to check if she was here."

    "And her ex-partner?" Philip asked.

    "He has an alibi. He''s not here. He took a job in Birmingham, he''s been there for months, the local police there are doing an HRI on him." Grant replied.

    "Any strange movements near her? CCC? Any reports from NWADC or HTPC?"

    "There was no strange movement in the vicinity, from what the cameras and drones show. No strange reports from NWADC either," Grant said, shrugging.

    "Well maybe that''s all in order¡­ but there''s something else," Jim Stuart said, and grabbed the tablet with both hands and stretched it out until it was three times the size.

    From the tablet emerged a hologram of the body on the floor. He could see through the skin and organs, though that wasn''t the strangest thing. From various parts of the hologram, there were parts that did not match a normal skeleton, and from the vertebrae sprouted a series of indicators with different labels.

    "I think this can be classified as weird," Jim Stuart said.

    "Her bones... are like..." began Philip, with a confused expression.

    "Modified," said a young woman from the police forensics team, who was directing the scanning drones a few feet away from them.

    Another forensic scientist, this time male, approached the group and added. "And she has too many implants. Lumbar braces, vertebral memory banks, extensors, upgraded lungs for longer endurance. Increased strength in leg muscles and phalanges, upgraded cochlear systems. And she'' s got a couple less ribs too. I haven''t seen anything like it in a while."

    "Dinosaur girl," Stuart commented.

    "What''s the point of carrying all this in the body?" Philip asked the coroner.

    "I wondered the same thing when I saw it. It doesn''t make sense. Transferring the consciousness to a new and better body, with all the same parameters makes a lot more sense and is cheaper. These kinds of upgrades are a bit crude. Unless this girl was a masochist, I can''t understand why she would suffer so much to modify muscles and bones this way, let alone add those portable memory banks don''t make sense nowadays."

    "Unless she was storing something she didn''t want to entrust to a regular memory bank," Stuart pointed out.

    "It''s a possibility," the coroner admitted.

    "Fingerprints? NW data?" Grant asked.

    The young female forensic scientist replied. "We have seven distinct pairs of fingerprints in the apartment, all identified, including two from children. There were none on her. Her NW wasn''t online either. I was going through the records and she almost always turned it off for a few hours at night. We have no records of the time she died."

    "Why is she in a bathing suit?" Zi asked.

    "This SDD is set up as a practice space and a swimming pool," replied the forensic scientist.

    Grant seemed surprised. "Is that a joke? Isn''t it against building regulations to have a pool in an SDD?"

    "Apparently not in this building, but, like I said, this girl was very smart," Stuart said. "The whole space has seven firewalls, with extra security measures with multi-layers." He paused and added. "On top of that there''s something else."

    Stuart typed for a few seconds on the tablet and this time a series of numerical data and equations scrolled up and down in a dizzying fashion.

    "This girl, at the time of her death, was sending a huge amount of data to the portable memory banks."

    "What is that data?" Philip asked, who at that moment was looking at the almost imperceptible marks on Sil''s body and the bird tattoo on her arm.

    "They are not complete. In fact, from the estimated volume, I think I was just starting to save them. Most of it is encoded but, from what I can see, there are many longitudinal variations and frequency variables. Sound¡­ Music. It really is a huge amount of data though. Not only that, I was using a lot of applications and subroutines. Some of them with no security log."

    "Music?" Zi asked.

    " Yep."

    "So¡­ Dark Event, or not?" Grant asked.

    "Yes, without a doubt. I''m not sure of the type, though. This is a Class 2 or 3 DE, but with Code Red," Stuart stated.

    "Well as long as it''s not a SOMNIUM EXTERRI and we have to evacuate Edinburgh I''m happy," Philip said.

    "I think I can understand about the body. She wasn''t a masochist, she was a perfectionist," Zi said, who through the Neurowire was checking Sil''s social networking data.

    "And what''s the difference?" Philip asked.

    "The difference between perfectionism and masochism is just a matter of semantics," Stuart said.

    "She was a free dancer. There is an artistic movement, which uses surgical techniques to modify the body, but without altering it too much. Basically, they achieve new types of movements without passing their consciousness into a new body."

    "Do all the implants have serial numbers?" Grant asked to the forensic scientists.

    "All of them. They''re all legal, vintage old fashioned, but legal."

    "Pass me all the numbers. Better to do a check-up"

    Grant met with the forensics team members and a couple of cops who were first on the scene. Philip and Zi donned latex gloves and set about checking and observing the room, while at the same time collecting the data that the FRT techs were sending in. Stuart continued to play with the numbers in the equations, which kept appearing and disappearing.

    Philip walked over to the room, where Sil used to sleep and checked the closet and bedside table, when he noticed a rose next to the picture frame and looked around the room.

    "She doesn''t look like a flower girl," he said to Zi, who at that moment was looking at herself in the mirror closest to the door. "These must be her parents."

    "They all seemed to love her. Very socially active," she added, still corroborating data through the networks.

    "Very social, no trouble with the law, tax payer. No apparent enemies. How does someone like that end up decapitated?"

    "Maybe she lost her mind because she was a good citizen."

    "Don''t be cynical. She was probably a good person."

    "A good person, albeit with serious PTSD up to the age of twelve."

    "What?"

    "I''m reviewing her medical records."

    "We need a warrant for that," Philip said, glancing at Grant to make sure he didn''t hear what his partner was saying.

    "Not when she talks about it herself in her social networks. This girl was present the day she lost her parents. She watched as they and three others were sucked into space. She was saved because she was in another compartment of an orbital transport¡­"

    "Poor girl."

    "..." Zi turned and looked around the huge room. "This is for a pool, right?" she asked Stuart, who was still engrossed in his numbers.

    "Yes, it''s one of the settings she used the most, as well as a personal gym and dance practice instruments."

    "What are you thinking?" Philip asked, looking at his partner.

    "I was just reading what she was writing with her friends. Apparently she was afraid of space. Who knows, maybe she was using the pool to deal with her stress. As a form of training," Zi said, as she headed for the kitchen.

    "Maybe... but that doesn''t explain why she ended up decapitated," Philip pointed out and headed for the bathroom to do his own ocular inspection.

    He checked the closet and bathroom cabinet, while small drones scoured the bathtub. He found nothing beyond the usual and even less.

    "Hey, look at this!" Philip called. His partner came out of the kitchen and joined him. "What''s wrong with this picture?"

    "Mogkeup, contact lenses, oxidizing wate-." Zi was making strange noises as she spoke, but Philip didn''t pay attention to it at first.

    "No drugs, not even recreational, aspirin or pain killers. And if she had PTSD, there''s no medication here either."

    "Mogh¡­ maybe she didn''t need it. The severe PTSD she had in the eagrly years. Maybe her training, it was her coping technique with the aftermath. gulp."

    "Like psychotherapy?"

    "Yes. It''s pog-ssible," Zi admitted as she made an effort to swallow something.

    The sounds Zi was making were becoming annoying. Philip turned to look at her and watched as she finished eating a slice of pizza. "Where did you get that?"

    "From the fridge," Zi admitted, with a slight smile.

    Philip looked at her as if he didn''t believe what he had just heard and closed the bathroom door. "Are you nuts? Don''t eat the evidences!"

    "Why? Are you thinking that whatever they used to cut off her head they used to cut pizza?"

    Philip took a long breath and tried to calm down. It was useless sometimes to try to reason with his partner. "Have some decorum, woman. Her body is still in the other room."

    "Calm down, there were no fingerprints on anything on the pizza or in the fridge and no one saw me."

    Philip pursed his lips, as if he wanted to give her one more reprimand. "You''d better. If we have a problem with that, I don''t know you at all," he said sighing angrily, and walked out of the bathroom, addressing Stuart again. "Do you have any toxicology data? Medication, some kind of psychopharmac or something abnormal?"

    "There''s no data uploaded from when she shut down the NW network, but she doesn''t have anything abnormal."

    "Nothing unusual? No sign of any problems?"

    "No. Other than all those implants, she was perfect. Vaccinations up to date, heart in optimal condition. She liked to take care of herself, had optimal vitamin levels. Although she liked to eat anything sometimes. She had pizza and dessert for her last meal."

    Philip hearing that, looked at Zi, who was checking the other mirror near the windows now.

    "That one''s not real," Zi said, pointing to the mirror across the room.

    "The one what," Stuart asked.

    "The mirror."

    "How do you know?" asked Philip.

    "That one doesn''t have a gap. This one does. That one is a copy of this one."

    "The fact that the mirror is real shocks me more than the fact that one of them is a fake," Philip admitted. "It''s usually easier to make a copy rather than spend a few E-febs."

    "Can you turn off the distortion on the real one?" Zi asked Stuart.

    "Do you think the assassin is behind it?" Stuart asked mockingly.

    "Maybe. Maybe it''s your sister stripping."

    "Hey, hey. You two, calm down. What''s wrong with you?" Philip tried to calm them down. For some reason, he had sensed tension between his partner and the redhead FRT leaders as soon as they entered the room.

    Stuart and Zi looked at each other as if at any moment they were going to start a name-calling contest, but they looked at Philip and kept quiet. Stuart began to search through the programs on his Neurowire for an interface to unlock the spatial distortion in the mirror. There was a chance that there was something behind the wall and they had to disable it anyway at some point.

    Walter Grant, who had finished talking to the cops, approached Philip. While the two feys were concentrating on the mirror he decided to talk to Philip Cook. After all he didn''t know agents of such a high rank and the bald guy seemed friendly, despite his apparent tough mannerisms. "Long time dealing with the feys?"

    "Fifteen years," Philip admitted.

    "Wow."

    "Fifteen years... with her," Philip said, looking at Zi. "Twenty since I joined Nevermore."

    Grant looked at him in surprise. "May I ask?"

    "I''m sixty-one years old. I stopped my aging when I joined Nevermore."

    "Have you been in the police before?"

    "Army, SPOPs."

    "A lifetime," Grant sighed.

    "Indeed. And you?" Philip asked.

    "Eighty. I gave up on getting old twenty-five years ago," Grant replied, scratching his cheek.

    "How many years in the service?"

    "Fifty-five...with three divorces, three kids, two dogs and a turtle."

    "Wow."

    "Are they always like this?" asked Grant looking at Zi and Stuart.

    "You''ve never worked with feys?"

    "Yes, of course. A couple of times, and that''s the reason I was assigned. I guess it''s different for you guys, though."

    "Well, they''re unruly, even the ones that seem quieter. But not all of them. The fey''s personalities may change, but not the way they behave. They are the Very Good People."

    "The Very Good People?"

    "That''s another of the appellations given to feys in ancient times. Fairies, elves, gnomes, feys, fee, fata. I mean, fey is just another chosen name, but they''ve been called a thousand things."

    " Yeah, I know. Personally I like the term feeric better, although it is in disuse."

    "Don''t think so much of it."

    "And her?" asked the inspector, looking at Zi.

    "Her age?"

    "If you can tell, of course."

    Philip smiled and spoke softly. "She was already on this planet before my great-grandfather was born."

    Zi turned and gave Philip a dagger-sharp look. "I heard that."

    "It''s the truth," Philip said with a shrug.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 4: The job

    Chapter Four

    The job

    The forensic van from the MCIT, was parked inside the perimeter set up by the police. Its two occupants in the front seat were glancing at the people milling around, with their umbrellas behind the holographic security tapes trying to figure out what was going on. The fine drizzle continued to fall, but that didn''t seem to deter the onlookers. There were quite a few people on the streets at the time, and the movement had attracted curious onlookers and some of the press who, despite everything, still had no idea what was going on inside the building.

    "I''ve got a square ass from waiting," the fake Ann said, in the driver''s seat, looking up the building. "It takes that long for those guys to collect evidence?"

    Stan, the fake Patel, looked at her and sighed. "You should be happy they didn''t call us up there with the others to investigate. I can improvise, but I''m not very good at science stuff. Calm down, they''ll come back soon."

    "Calm down? Easy to say. If we have to come down here, with so many police and drones, we''ll be screwed. Those two should be awake by now." Ann said, visibly flustered.

    "They''re tied up tight. Did you disable their NW, right?" Stan asked, concerned.

    "Yeah, of course I did. That doesn''t mean they can''t move. At some point someone is going to find out. I just hope that by the time that happens, we''ll be far, very far away, from here. In another country if possible, at least for a few months." Then she looked at him angrily. "You could have come up with a better excuse not to go up there."

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    "A turd is always a good excuse," the man laughed, with a shrug. The logging drone, a meter-high floating cylinder with a light on top that monitored the place, slowly approached the van, and scanned them. "What do you want, asshole?" Stan asked, gruffly, giving the drone a middle finger.

    Both had records stolen from the real forensics, so the drone found nothing abnormal about either of them. Although it did charge a few cents of E-feb to Rabin Patel''s account for the disrespect.

    The woman shook her head and sighed, as the drone flew away again. "What do you think it is this time?"

    "I don''t know, and I honestly don''t want to know," Stan said, grimacing.

    "Aren''t you at least curious?"

    "You know what they say about curiosity. This is a weird one, I don''t even want to know what they want someone''s dead body for."

    "The pay is huge, we could retire for about three years on that kind of money. I''m curious."

    The man looked at her angrily. "You really want to know? These guys called us yesterday about the contract. As far as I''m concerned it''s most likely someone messed up and killed her, and then they were scared shitless to move the body, and that''s why they called us now."

    "There just seems to be something weird about this one. Don''t you think?"

    "Weird about this job, it''s just a matter of proportion."

    "That guy gave me the creeps. Even if it was just a hologram. I don''t know why, but I didn''t like his voice."

    "The least you should worry about is his voice. Think about the payment, and that''s it."

    The man sighed and settled back in the seat. He certainly didn''t wanted to admit it, but there was something odd about the assignment. He was a man of few words. If the pay for him and his companion was good, there was no need to ask too many questions. Was the kind of life they decided to live together since a long time.

    They were contacted by a man who told them he would have a job for them in a short time. In short, it could be weeks or perhaps months. So when he called them back through a holographic chat, just a few hours ago, they wondered what was going on for the sudden change of plans. The stranger raised the price of pay for the task.

    The assignment was very simple for the man and woman.

    Steal a body.

    They hadn''t done it before, but compared to more complicated things, like stealing information from a guarded power plant, or stealing a shipment of anomalous minerals, this seemed easier. Even if they were going to be surrounded by cops, the work and the pay was more than enough to excite their senses of danger.

    "This guy never said anything about a body on the first call, did he?" asked fake Ann.

    "You were there. He said it was related to a kidnapping and ransom of someone important only."

    "But now it''s stealing a body? It''s just something doesn''t quite add up. Someone killed who we were supposed to kidnap? And who is this girl after all? Because, she doesn''t look like anyone important at all."

    "Either something had changed in a short time, or this job is different from the first one."

    "Well¡­ I wonder why they didn''t call us sooner," Ann said. "This would have been so much easier if they had called us to get the body out before the coppers arrived." She was listening to all the cops'' talks outside and, for all they knew, the girl had been deceased for hours before the police and Nevermore SID arrived. "The ravens are here too, that''s not normal."

    The ravens. That mention was enough to bring back bad memories for Stan. "What''s normal?" he muttered, looking up at the upper floors of the building. "I don''t know anymore."

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 5: Where did she go?

    Chapter Five

    Where did she go?

    "There''s nothing," Zi said, disappointed.

    After a couple of minutes of fiddling with the Neurowire, and with the tablet, Jim Stuart managed to crack the configuration system Sil Moore had in the apartment and return the mirror to its real size.

    The fake mirror at the other side also disappeared from the room, but they found no decapitating ninja assassin behind it either.

    "They must have used a distortion to get it into the room. This thing is bigger than the door," Philip snort.

    "Do you want me to deactivate the SSD as well?" Stuart asked the forensic team.

    "We already have all the measurements and holographic scenarios," said the forensic coodinator. "But it''s not convenient. We''ve already had problems with cases like this with altered spaces. If you miss one piece of evidence then you''ll get blamed and none of the evidence will hold up in court."

    "Yes. That''s happened to us too," Philip admitted.

    "With MAPs emission, it''s not safe to have an open distortion space. There is a danger of molecular decohesion," Zi pointed out.

    "That''s right. That''s what I''ve just been told," Walter Grant said, reentering the room. He spent the last few minutes talking to his superiors and he just received another message from the headquarters. "We can''t. The City Council, on the recommendation of SIGN, Nevermore Station Staff, and three other security agencies, recommended that the SDD be deactivated immediately, once evidence collection is complete. The people in the Parliament don''t want to take any chances with that MAP stuff."

    "Well, good for it, we just finished that," the forensic coordinator said.

    "Yeah¡­ but. Make backups of all the virtual scenarios," Grant ordered.

    The forensics team looked at him. The young woman who was in charge of the drones also looked at him. "Sir, do you want us to do another extra sweep?"

    "Yes, please," Grant said. "I know it''s a pain in the arse, but we''d better be sure. Once we close the SDD the scene will be completely modified."

    "Yes, sir," the coordinator said, and went back to giving orders to the entire evidence team.

    The new drone sweep took another half hour. In that time the forensics team catalogued the evidence that was placed in heat-sealed containers and cross-referenced the data with the different locations of each item. They were then placed in special evidence cases, which could store everything collected in a small space, no bigger than a briefcase, as the cases and mobile labs had a fractal compression mode.

    "Shin would have liked this one. He''s a field study maniac," Zi said.

    "Shin? What about Mai? Chances are if you told her this had to do with anything to do with dance and music, she''d slip through Virg''s fingers and we''d have her here in no time."

    "I guess you two heard about Kazakhstan, right?" Stuart asked.

    "It has been all over the news¡­" Zi sighed.

    "What was it this time?"

    "We don''t know," Philip replied. The truth is that no one has much idea what happened, a matter classified as national security.

    Grant, who was close enough, pretended to check on the team as he listened intently to the conversation. Although he didn''t hear anything else.

    Zi, who realized that Grant was listening in, sent a message in a direct chat window to Stuart. [You say another word and I''ll rip your ears off... don''t you realize they''re listening in?]

    [It''s not like it''s a secret. You said it. It''s all over the news.]

    Philip was the one who jumped into the chat window. [The only thing the public knows is that it was an accident and that Nevermore is providing assistance. Not that there were two of our people involved. Please keep working]

    [What''s our boss thinking?] Stuart said.

    [There were no casualties, that''s at least something.] Zi remarked.

    [Work, work, boys,] Philip snapped, calling a halt to the matter.

    Grant gave up on picking up any more of the conversation, when the forensic coordinator and the medical examiner approached and informed him that they were going to move the body to the van, and from there to MCIT. The evidence gathering was over and so was the new sweep of the drones re-scanning the site.

    After placing special bags on the limbs, Sil Moore''s headless body was carefully placed into the special body bag with handles. Closed, sealed and labeled to be opened by the MCIT morgue medical examiner. Unfortunately they would have to use the stairs to get the body bag down, as the elevator was still out of service. They activated an extra layer of invisible metamaterial from the bag that helped hide the bulk of the body, that helped not to raise the stress level on the streets.

    "Your agents are going to work with ours, right?" Grant asked.

    "Yeah, sure. Those are the orders," Philip affirmed.

    "Do you want me to split up the teams, or can you come with me?"

    "Here we go," Philip said and then looked at his partner. "Zi, you coming down?"

    "I''ll be there in a little while," she instructed him. She was with a couple of other FRT techs and one of the forensic graphic artists, who was in charge of recording the entire scene. "They''re still doing the last MAP decay measurements before shut down the SSD."

    "I''m going downstairs with the inspector."

    As they descended the stairs, with those in charge of removing the body, Grant spoke. "How do you want to do this?"

    "Our techs can examine the samples and yours can do the double check. Or the other way around. At the moment we are most interested in studying the presence of the MAPs, and why they were in the room," Philip said.

    "What do you think this was?"

    "Honestly, I have no idea yet. It''s the first time I''ve seen a body decapitated like that. But I have no doubt it''s a Dark Event. At first I thought it might just be domestic violence, but the presence of the MAPs changes everything. This could have to do with some kind of event that we don''t know about and someone has beaten us to it."

    "They may have wanted to steal some information that this girl had. Whatever information she may have been moving was interrupted when they cut off the head. Without the NW we don''t know what it could have been."

    "She worked with the station''s security systems. The possibility that they may have wanted to steal some information regarding the subway city transportation systems is something that can''t be ruled out."

    Grant paused and looked at him. "Do you think this is the work of terrorists?" he asked.

    "It''s a little early to think that, but it can''t be ruled out. Why, what do you think?"

    "I was talking to some of the neighbors, and the coppers passed on to me the conversations they had with the residents. This girl had no enemies, no bad dealings with anyone. At the moment we don''t have any suspects. And in case this was something related to terrorists we should notify TACPOL."

    "From the network data, her stress levels were always at an acceptable level as well. No altercations with the police, or any allegations that she was being harassed either."

    "Except, for those times when she turned off her NW."

    "Do you think she was hiding something?" Philip asked.

    "I don''t know. I think we can rule out cash robbery or theft of personal items. Apparently that''s all in order. If they wanted to steal the money it would have been a lot easier, they would have done it yesterday. Whoever did this was looking for impact, wanted attention."

    "Well, I''d say they succeeded on that."

    "There''s that data she was transmitting to the portable units too."

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    "Yes. At the moment that''s the only strong lead we have. Although we''re going to have to wait for digital forensics and techs until they tell us what she was doing with that data¡­ or what it means."

    "I think it''s going to be a long night," Grant sighed.

    Zi looked toward the door. The voices of her partner and the inspector had been lost to the lower floors. There were barely eight people left in the room. Two of the forensic acousticians who were studying Sil''s custom parametric acustic cameras, two cops at the door, Zi, Stuart, and a couple of the other FRT techs.

    The tech with his weird antenna light on his forehead and wide mouth approached her. "Ma''am. Decay levels are in acceptable range to shut down the SDD. " His voice sounded somewhat metallic, though there was no sign of any implants or anything similar.

    "Are you absolutely sure there''s nothing wrong with shutting down the SDD? I don''t want half the building disappearing with us in it."

    "It''s safe, ma''am."

    "Okay, well that''s where we''re going then," Stuart said.

    Zi didn''t get to notice, but the two policemen moved as far away from the door as possible. The forensic acousticians backed away as well.

    Stuart typed some commands into the room''s cracked control program. The room slowly began to recede in length and width, as the extra windows disappeared. Luckily there was nothing unexpected. Stuart wasn''t going to admit it, but he had worked up a sweat trying to get the parameters to run the program right. Like the acousticians, he was still amazed at the complexity of the program routines that Sil Moore had developed. There were much easier ways to do it, but the young woman had written the processing codes from scratch.

    "Well, that''s it?" Zi asked.

    "That''s it," another of the FRT techs said.

    "How anticlimactic." Stuart pointed out.

    "I''m glad it''s anticlimactic. What did you expect? Explosions?" Zi asked.

    Stuart seemed to have it in for her. "You know I wasn''t going to admit it, but you''re not at all what I was told. I thought you had changed. And I don''t want to pass up this opportunity to tell you that."

    Zi raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

    "I know who you are. You were in the FRT Unicorn before you became a special agent, right?"

    "Yes, anyone can know that."

    "You don''t remember me?" Stuart asked.

    "Sorry, your face doesn''t ring a bell."

    "Sixteen years ago we were on a joint operation. You almost blew my brains out with your rifle," Stuart growled pointing an accusing finger at her.

    "I remember a lot of operations," Zi lied. She remembered the operation Jim Stuart was referring to, and even recognized it as soon as she entered the place. Although her memories of the event she had were a little different.

    "The invasion of polar tarantulas in Norway? Does that ring a bell? Do you remember it?"

    Zi, changed her usual poker expression and feigned surprise. "Ohh! Yes, of course. Now I remember you. You''re the ass who blew up an entire warehouse of hazardous materials, because you panicked and the EXFIL was delayed for fifteen minutes."

    "I was still green, I was in a panic."

    "You''d had six months of training on the island. And if I hadn''t shot, you would have been dinner for one of those spiders." Zi changed to a more menacing expression and approached Stuart. "And remember I''m your superior, point your finger back at me again, and I''ll bury it in your ass."

    Stuart squinted at her, but said nothing more, merely grumbling to himself.

    The FRT member with the antenna on his forehead approached Zi and looked at her with doubtful eyes. "Ma''am, can I ask you something?"

    "Yes, sure."

    Zi, looked at him, and rechecked his ID. The fey''s name was Portman and, like her, he didn''t have a last name. Some feys preferred to simply have a first name without a last name, although some members chose a last name as extra identification.

    Portman approached Zi and whispered. "I apologize if I''m wrong but do you by any chance suffer from crossroads syndrome?"

    "How do you know?" Zi asked, surprised, raising an eyebrow.

    "Chief Stuart suffers from it too."

    Zi turned to look at Stuart. He looked at her in surprise, but only added, "Well it still doesn''t take away from the fact that she almost blew my head off."

    "That explains why I never liked him," she sighed and folded her arms. "Still, how did you know?"

    Portman pointed to his antenna. "I''m half empath," he said, smiling with his outsized mouth.

    ***

    "One, two, three!" Said one of the coroners and they carefully lifted Sil''s body into the back of the van, closing the double doors afterwards.

    The people on the streets, with the exception of the residents of the building, had been slowly disappearing. The cops in charge of guarding the holographic barrier deactivated them, at which Stan and fake Ann looked at each other and smiled. It had been a piece of cake. They had a couple of forensics guys in the back riding with them, but that wasn''t going to be a problem.

    Ann started the vehicle and without further ado the two thieves drove away from the scene, getting lost among the other vehicles on the road.

    Grant and Philip, without suspecting anything, stood for a few seconds as they watched the van drive away.

    "Your agents have that special van for analysis, don''t they?" Grant asked.

    "Yes, but the protocols say that in case of MAP and other types of dangerous particulates any analysis must be carried out under in laboratories without any kind of distortion. Compression does not affect that, since it is another type, but a distortion can cause some unforeseen. It hasn''t happened more than a couple of times, but that''s still what the protocols says." Philip admitted.

    The forensics and FRT members meanwhile were loading their instruments into the appropriate vehicles and a burly special surveillance robot had arrived on the scene. It was to be the one that would be stationed at the entrance to the room to guard the crime scene once everyone had left.

    Because of what had happened, it was determined that for the next forty-eight hours no one would go up to the floors as a security measure. A force shield was being put up by another team to protect the site in case of any unexpected events. During that time the residents would be divided into groups and moved to the buildings across the street.

    The city council would bear the costs of the inconvenience, so at least the occupants would have no complaints about it.

    Philip communicated with Zi. "Are you coming down? We''d almost have to go with the forensics team."

    [We''re already finishing up here,] Zi reported.

    The sixth floor team was already finishing packing up, ready to leave. Meanwhile Zi and Stuart continued talking. Now, that they both knew that the reason they disliked each other had nothing to do with their personalities, had somewhat relieved the tension in the room. It was simply a side effect that some feys contracted on the Other Side. A kind of involuntary animosity that some feys felt for others like them. There was not much data about what produced it, since their memory was erased once they returned to earth. It could be something from the Other Side or something more instinctive. But, even so, it was uncommon, and the cases discovered were too few to reach definitive conclusions about the strange phenomenon.

    Stuart looked at Zi, behind his back. "I wasn''t expecting an apology, it''s just that when I saw you walk in the door I remembered that day."

    "I apologize if I caused you any trauma."

    "It''s just a bad memory. I didn''t like that training mission, I don''t like spiders."

    "Ninety percent of the population of Norway is with you on that."

    As they spoke, Zi examined the mirror once more. Now that she could see it as it really was, she was struck by the frame. It was really old. She looked at it from behind and was surprised to see that it had some engravings on it as well.

    "Can you tell what year it''s from?"

    "The what?" Stuart asked without turning around.

    "The mirror," Zi said, running her hand across the glass.

    "They already took samples from it and pulled a holographic model. I''m sure we''ll find out later."

    She approached the glass, and saw that it didn''t appear to have a single crack or flaw in the reflective laminate underneath. "It''s got to be a few centuries old, but it''s well preserved."

    "According to her neighbor''s testimony she had bought it a couple of days ago," said one of the policemen at the door.

    "What a pity," said the forensic scientist of the drones, as she arranged them in their respective suitcases.

    "It''s a little strange that the day after she bought it she turns out to be dead, isn''t it?" Stuart asked. "We have a history of cursed mirrors."

    "She said she got it from an antique shop," the copper said.

    "Huh..." Stuart said. "Something that old is a little silly to use it in activities like this."

    "This girl knew what she was doing, she had layers of security to keep it from being broken by acoustics even," said an acustic tech.

    "What about that?"

    "It''s pretty good. It''s a special acoustic vault, the sound in the room must have sounded like it was in a concert hall."

    "Hey, sniper girl," Stuart said, turning to look at Zi. "What do you think... huh?"

    Stuart turned completely around and rummaged around the room for the special agent. She was no longer in front of the mirror. If she had moved, she had moved very quickly and without causing any sound with her footsteps.

    "Where did she go?" Stuart asked.

    The cops, and the other people, looked around the room, but Zi wasn''t there. The cops hadn''t seen her walk through the door. The bathroom and kitchen, with the lights on, didn''t show her there either.

    If Stuart remembered correctly, Zi had no special skills other than being an exceptional sniper. So he could rule out that she could make herself invisible, that she had her optical camouflage activated, was another option.

    "Agent Zi?" Portman asked, scanning the room.

    "Are you there?" Stuart asked, over the chat.

    ¡°Uh-oh,¡± Zi said, tapping on the glass.

    In front of her were all the people in the room, but this time on the opposite side from how she was seeing it in the mirror just seconds before. She wasn''t seeing the reflection, it was the real image.

    "I''m here," she said, raising her voice slightly. No one responded, so she activated her voice in the chat window with Stuart. [I''m here. Can''t you see me?]

    "Where? Are you playing hide and seek?" Stuart asked.

    [Oh, no.]

    She didn''t know how it happened.

    In front of her, behind the glass, the image of people looking for her in the room. She could see the edges of the mirror, the bottom edge connected to the floor, but the surface where the mirror should have been leaning against the wall did not. That part was pitch black, the windows and the wall had disappeared. Behind her, the same image she saw through the glass, the same colors, but it was the opposite reflection. And what was stranger, she had not realized at what moment it had happened, but her own image was not reflected.

    She touched the glass again to make sure, but she had no more doubts.

    Somehow, she was inside the mirror.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 6: Trapped/Better call Oxy

    Chapter Six

    Trapped/Better call Oxy

    Philip Cook and Walter Grant were rushing up the stairs again, accompanied by some members of the police forensic team and the FRT, when Stuart sent word that Zi had disappeared from the room. Once again, the apartment was crowded with people, looking apprehensively into the old mirror.

    "What the hell happened?" Grant asked, aghast.

    "I-I don''t know, one minute she was talking to us, and the next she disappeared," Stuart explained.

    Zi was just as surprised as Stuart. [I didn''t notice either, it happened so fast, one moment I was looking in the mirror and the next I was inside.]

    "Are you okay?" Philip asked worriedly and approached the mirror.

    [I think so.]

    No one in the room could see Zi, although behind the glass she could see them all. At least communication had not been cut off.

    Stuart took a few hesitant steps toward Philip, "Sir, the comm signal is right where the mirror is."

    "Is this thing a fey trap or something?"

    "I don''t know, sir," Stuart said, matter-of-factually.

    Philip bit his lower lip. "Could it have been because of the MAPs?"

    Stuart explained nervously. "No, something that could cause this kind of distortion is not possible with the readings we took. There are barely any traces of the particles in the room. It''s not even enough to cause something like this."

    "Could it be an Oopart?"

    "It could be possible. But for the moment I think it''s best if she stays where she is," Portman pointed out.

    "Are you listening this?" Philip asked.

    [Yeah.]

    "Could it be possible that those MAP particles are because of the mirror?" asked Grant.

    A girl, a member of the FRT replied. "No. We''d have mirror readings if that were the case, but there''s nothing like that."

    "What the fuck is going on here?" Philip asked, visibly angry, as he examined the hellish object. Zi on the other side looked worriedly at Philip''s face. Although she sometimes played jokes on him, she hated it when she worried her fellow adventurer.

    Portman spoke. "There are several cases in the files involving mirrors, sir..."

    "I know. But is there anything like this?"

    "I''d have to check further."

    Philip approached the mirror.

    "Sir, it''s not recommended," Stuart warned.

    "Can you at least listen to us clearly?" Portman asked.

    [Yes.]

    "Well at least that''s something."

    Stuart took a few steps closer, a safe distance from the object. "If she''s really inside the mirror there''s something I don''t understand. Is the reflection level of the image she sees inside sharp or not?"

    [It''s the same image outside,] Zi replied.

    "That shouldn''t be possible in a normal mirror."

    "What do you mean?" Philip asked.

    "A mirror works by reflecting the image, she should only be able to see just five or two percent of that, which is the absorption level. She shouldn''t have to be seeing the sharp image."

    Philip gritted his teeth. "All very nice, how do we get her out of there?"

    [Better call Oxy,] Zi said.

    Philip looked at the mirror, even though he had no way of knowing, he could sense that his partner was looking at him at that moment.

    Yes, it''s probably for the best. Philip sighed and looked at Grant. "I''m going to call one of our science officers, is that okay? I know it''s not within the usual regulation and we need a prior order in case we put another officer on. But I have to share the case information with her, so she can help us."

    Grant, in turn, looked at the FRT members. "Aren''t they science officers too?"

    "They are, but my partner and I have a special science officer, who we consult when something unexpected happens."

    Grant looked at him with concern. "¡­"

    "I know perfectly well it''s not the usual, but it''s also not usual for one of our people to get caught like this. She''s my partner."

    "All right, all right. Call him," Grant agreed, after all he too had had partners in the police force. He could well understand Philip''s concern.

    "Her, in this case," corrected Philip.

    "But I need to hear the conversation and get the facts," Grant added.

    Philip nodded and opened communications over the Neurowire with Grant, Zi and Stuart as well.

    First Response Teams were made up exclusively of members who need to have, on one hand, a speciality in emergency shock force and, on the other hand, a technical functionality in the team. Cryptography, first aid, forensic science, specialists in chemistry, explosives or some other area involving hard sciences. It was a requirement that had to be met to the letter in case of danger. Its members had to know how to defend others and themselves.

    However, this was not the case with the special agent teams. They were almost always more trained in areas where evidence gathering, investigation and apprehension were required. Furthermore, ninety percent of the time, special agent missions required support from a nearby FRT team.

    With Zi and Philip that was not the case. Having more years of experience and number of ranks in the SID, they had much more autonomy. But for that they also sometimes required support from someone in the hard sciences, to help them when they ran into something along the way. Just as Shin had become Mai''s science officer, Philip and Zi also had one.

    For that there was Oxy. One of the smartest fey on Siren Island. Unfortunately also one of the most troublemakers.

    The call took a few seconds to be answered, by a female voice that seemed to be yawning. [Do you know what time it is? People my age have to sleep eight hours... or more].

    "We have an emergency Oxy, sorry. We need you to help us."

    [Hello,] Zi greeted.

    "Professor Oxy, nice to hear from you again," Stuart said.

    "Good evening, ma''am," Grant greeted.

    [Wow, it''s crowded there. What''s going on?]

    "Do you know anything about a mirror that catches people?" Philip asked.

    [Sorry I''m waking up, I think I heard mirror that catches people?]

    "Yep."

    [You know you''d have to call the Ooparts Department for something like that, right?]

    "Of course I know that, but you were our science officer and the Ooparts Department takes a long time to process a request. I need help now," Philip urged.

    [Okay, okay. Let''s see... a mirror that catches people?]

    "Yes."

    [Is that what you'' re tracking?]

    "Not exactly, I''ve got it in front of me. I need to get Zi out from inside."

    [... get her out from inside?]

    [I''m inside a mirror,] Zi explained.

    [What? You''re trapped?!]

    "Yeah, she''s trapped and we don''t know how it happened."

    [I''m in here,] Zi repeated.

    [You should have started there. Zi, are you okay?]

    [Yes, at least I''m still breathing, although I don''t know how.]

    "Do you know anything that can help us?"

    [Ok... well, let''s see. I need those who are listening to share the vision with me, so I can get an idea of where you are and what''s going on there].

    Philip looked at Grant again, and he nodded.

    Those who were sharing the communication activated the sending of images through the Neurowire. Normally an ordinary person could not do that with more than one person, since it required synchronizing the gaze with another. In Oxy''s case, she was receiving the live feed from several people to recreate a rendering in her mind that allowed her to see the place almost as if it were a 3D space. At the same time, those sharing the communication saw a girl with tousled brown hair, wearing a crop top and shorts materialize in their vision.

    [Okay for starters... get all the non-essential people out of the room. This is not a show.]

    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

    [It kinda is,] Zi said.

    Grant and Philip ordered the members of the forensic team and the FRT out, so that only those who shared communication with Oxy at the time were left.

    [Zi, tell me what you see.] Oxy asked.

    [I''m sending you the transmission.]

    [I can''t see it, I only see a black box on your transmission.]

    "You can''t see what she sees?" Philip asked.

    [No, I don''t see anything,] Oxy replied.

    [I see the room, Philip, Inspector Grant, Stuart. I see everything as if through an outside window.] Zi explained.

    [How much of the room do you see?]

    [I see everything.]

    [Are you sure?] Oxy asked.

    [Yes.]

    [What do you see to the sides of the mirror, and up? Can you see the windows and the wall?]

    [Ah, that... no. I see the ceiling but the side where it should be leaning is all black, there''s nothing there.]

    [You''re seeing everything as if through a door projection. Fine¡­ but don''t even think about touching the black part.]

    [Why?]

    [Because I''m still not sure what you see and what you don''t.]

    "Can we take her out?" Philip asked.

    [Don''t be a pain. First we have to know what the mirror is, and how it works.] Oxy was silent for a few seconds, then continued. [What about your body, can you see it all?]

    [Yes¡­]

    [I mean your image in the glass.]

    [No, I''m not reflected.]

    [Because you''re inside... well that brings things a little bit closer together. Basically a mirror is a virtual image reflecting probabilities of a photon. You''re there and not there at the same time.]

    [We all know what a mirror is.]

    [Excuse me, but you don''t. You don''t know.]

    "No... we''re not going to start one of your classes!" Philip said grumpily.

    [Suck it up. I think this might be easier than it looks¡­]

    "Fine."

    [¡­ or not¡­]

    "Which is it?"

    [It''s a basic physics problem, what you see in the mirror is the reflected image of the incident light.]

    "She says she can see the image of the room perfectly, how is that possible if she''s behind the mirror?" Stuart asked.

    [The light reflecting off the glass is photons, before the image is reflected, the light penetrates the glass, bends... and is reflected off the material behind the glass. It''s easy. She is not behind the mirror. It''s between the glass and the reflective surface].

    "..." Philip and Grant turned to look at Stuart.

    "Are you telling me she''s squashed like a 2D cartoon?" Jin Stuart asked.

    Oxy explained [No... it''s a volume illusion. Like a 2.5D. Like those old computer games with glitches that you could walk through the walls of the stages. Basically what Zi is seeing is a five-sided box, which is the room, the sixth side is the window through which the image she is seeing is passing. But it''s her perception of what the mirror is reflecting.]

    "That''s a trip," Stuart said, smiling.

    [Believe me it''s not... and I can prove it.]

    "How?"

    [With a reality check. It''s easy. Zi, what you see on your sides, are you sure it''s the same thing you see on the other side of the mirror?]

    Zi, she turned to her right, which was where she could now see Sil Moore''s bed with its sparse furniture. Then she turned to her left and looked at the kitchen and the refrigerator from where earlier she had stolen the slice of pizza. The bathroom, just beyond, still had its lights on. Everything seemed to match what was visible through the glass.

    [Well?

    [Everything looks normal.]

    [Ok... now please bring your hands forward and tell me what you see.]

    Zi held out her hand, but saw nothing but the back of her hands, still wearing the latex gloves.

    [Everything still normal?]

    [Yep.]

    [Touch the back of your neck and tell me how it feels.]

    Zi did as Oxy asked without complaining. She had done that reality check test before, but it was something she limited herself to using many times in dreams. She had never done it in that situation. But certainly touching her body proved that it didn''t feel any different at all. [It''s all right.]

    [Now turn around and walk slowly to the first person in front of you, but don''t touch them. Now, for everyone in the room, don''t move. Everyone stay still].

    Zi once again obeyed and walked to the reflection of Philip, which was the closest, and looked at it. Then as she moved a few centimeters she noticed it. [What the fuck?]

    "That''s interesting," Stuart pointed out.

    "The what?" Philip asked.

    "What she''s doing is checking how much the mirror is showing. Basically a mirror reflects what it sees, so how do it see what it can''t reflect? The hidden part."

    "Hmm¡­"

    "When you look in a mirror, you see your reflection. If you touch the back of your neck, for example, you can feel it there. Now imagine from the point of view of the mirror, that it is only reflecting what passes through the glass. How would it represent that which it cannot show?"

    "It can''t."

    "Exactly, if you were walking like Zi, the only thing you would see of those parts that the mirror cannot represent would be like an empty shell. An incomplete image."

    Zi moved in for a closer look, and there she saw how Philip''s image in the mirror was cut off in certain parts. The parts that the mirror failed to show. It was like looking at an empty black eggshell. It had the shape of her partner, but it was missing parts, and those parts were hollow. Not only him, Stuart, Inspector Grant also had the same characteristics. And looking from another angle, the kitchen and Sil Moore''s room, she noticed that there were parts of the scene that also looked like the people in the room, cut and incomplete images.

    From the angle she was standing in front of the glass she couldn''t see it. But now she could. Parts of the scene were missing on several sides. Pieces of the floor, behind the people, that the mirror could not show were also black as the darkest night.

    [Well?]

    [It''s like it''s all black in certain parts¡­]

    [That''s what I was afraid of. Go back to the part in front of the glass and stay there in the middle. For the rest of you, you can move, but try not to get near the front of the mirror].

    "Why couldn''t we move?"

    [Just in case, imagine that she is seeing the scene, but she is also feeling it by touch. She has no reflection, but she can feel her body and she can walk around, so Zi can interact with it. What would happen if one of the reflections passed through her?]

    "Wouldn''t it be like a ghost?"

    [I don''t know, but I don''t want to find out either. That one of the reflections could accidentally kill her is also an option. The safest space for her right now is to be as close to the glass as possible, and as far away from your reflections as possible. Philip do me a favor, you and someone else examine the wood on the edge of the mirror.]

    "You just said it''s not safe for her for the reflections to be near."

    [No problem if she stays in the middle. You guys just have to be on the sides. I want you to look at the wood on the edges and behind the mirror and tell me what you see. If there is anything that I don''t pick up with the transmission. Needless to say, don''t break it, or we''ll probably lose Zi forever.]

    "Is it safe? Zi was caught, isn''t it possible the same thing could happen to us?"

    [From what I''m seeing in the report, forensics and you guys have been near the mirror taking samples all evening and nothing has happened. I think you Philip were right, whatever this thing is it seems to be something that can only affect feys.]

    The two men obeyed and stood on either side of the mirror, trying to move it as little as possible and carefully. It was already too much of a hassle to move around considering the scene markers were everywhere. Even though the ones on the far sides had moved closer, the ones in the center of the room had not changed position when they deactivated the SDD. That part was the core of where Sil established the distortion.

    Zi in turn discovered how the image inside changed, blackening certain parts more. As if the shadow area grew a few centimeters now that they were moving the mirror forward.

    Philip looked at the wood, running his free hand along the varnished edge and other rougher areas. The quality of the engraving was incredible. Whoever the craftsman was, he had put all his skill into giving maximum quality to the scribbles and patterns on the surface, even if it was on a side that wasn''t going to be seen. That caught Philip''s attention, paying so much attention to details that were most likely hidden didn''t make much sense. Unless the mirror was some sort of door or screen to begin with.

    "Wait a second." Philip examined more closely and found that there were two parts on his side that were not varnished, but had some sort of indentations as if something had been screwed into them.

    "Hinges," Philip said, "Chief Stuart, on your side there are some holes to screw something into?"

    "Of what?"

    "Is there something to screw something into the surface of the wood?"

    Stuart examined the edge more closely and there he found them on his side as well. "Yes I have two on top and two on the bottom."

    Oxy, on the other end of the line, didn''t seem too happy with the find. [Oh, no¡­]

    "Why oh, no? What happened?" Philip asked.

    [Look up at the top, at the top edge. There are holes at the top and at the bottom too?]

    Philip asked Grant to help him hold the mirror while he reached behind it and there he found them, an area above free of varnish with holes for two screws and two below as well, a bit covered by small cobwebs, courtesy of the antique store.

    "They''re there," Philip said, stepping out from behind the mirror.

    [That''s what I was afraid of... Zi is inside a mirror box. More precisely inside one of the parts of a mirror box].

    "Ah, shit," Stuart said, with a serious look.

    "Then we know what it is."

    [Yes¡­]

    "Can we take her out?"

    [Technically I would think so.]

    Philip could tell Oxy''s tone was hesitant. "What''s wrong?"

    Stuart looked at him, looking like he wanted to get away from the mirror as soon as possible. "Nevermore has a couple of these things in the ark in Antarctica."

    [Yes, they were put in a special container and sealed.]

    "Why?" Grant asked, leaning the mirror against the wall slowly. Stuart did the same on his side and moved a few feet away from the blissful glass.

    [Because mirror boxes are dangerous for the feys.]

    "What do you mean?" Philip asked.

    [Mirror boxes like this, besides being an Oopart, are objects of the Other Side. They react to feys]

    "How does it work then?"

    [That''s the weird part. When it''s armed and there''s someone inside, whatever''s inside can disappear. But I''ve never heard of it working without been put it together.]

    "How do we get Zi out? That''s all I''m interested in right now."

    "Technically there''s a way to get someone out who''s inside a mirror box," Stuart said, trying to remember what he knew about that type of artifact.

    [It''s the same procedure. When you assemble it and close it, whatever is inside should reappear when you open it again. It works like a camera obscura inside if I''m not wrong.]

    "That''s it?"

    [Yes. Those things have been used throughout history as a mode of entertainment, but the real ones are very few. Almost all the mirror box stories, including the Munich Codex are based on legends of these things.]

    "All very nice. How do I get my partner out of there?"

    [First you have to find the other parts of the box. Put it together and close it. That would be the whole procedure].

    Philip scratched his chin. "Isn''t it easier if we ask Leon to lend us one of his?"

    "That''s not going to work... mirror boxes are all different," Stuart said.

    "Fuck me. What if we can''t find them? Or if we can''t complete it?"

    [Well... Zi then it''s going to be a long time in there.]

    "Maybe we''ll get lucky," Grant said, as everyone turned to look at him. "I mean, earlier I was talking to the victim''s neighbor and she said the girl bought the mirror just a few days ago, it''s practically the last talk they had before she turned up dead."

    "Do we have the place of purchase?"

    "Yeah, an antique house not too far from here."

    "With any luck, we can track down the other parts, if the owner has the record of where this one came from."

    [Well, let''s go there then,] Zi urged.

    "Saturday night, the owner is going to love us."

    "I can''t go. I''m not going to leave my partner here," Philip said.

    "I can go with some officers," Grant said.

    "We have to go too," Stuart pointed out and Grant turned to look at him. "I mean if Philip stays, the FRT has to go anyway. This is already an official Dark Event case. It needs our intervention. We can split up the team that''s going to the morgue and have another five of us accompany them to that store."

    [Inspector Grant, Agent Stuart, I''m going to join the group if that''s okay. In case you need backup. I''m not going to be able to sleep anyway now.]

    "I appreciate the assistance, Professor," Stuart said.

    "Thank you Oxy," Philip thanked.

    This just got messy, Grant thought.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 7: The antique store

    Chapter Seven

    The antique store

    Splitting up the groups took Grant and Philip no more than a few seconds. They dispatched the members of the forensic team, along with five other members of the FRT, straight to the judicial morgue to assist in the investigation of Sil Moore''s murder. While four others would accompany them directly to the antique store.

    Contacting the owner of the store took no more than a few seconds too. He was an elderly man who lived a few blocks away from the store. Grant sent the order for a patrol car from that side of town to report to the house. They had no reason to be suspicious of the old man, since he had no record of any kind, but under the circumstances it was better to be cautious.

    Under the pouring rain, Walter Grant got behind the wheel again, followed by a police car and the huge black truck that served as the FRT''s mobile station. Given the nightly movement of air vehicles at that hour in the big city, it was not safe to travel by air and the party took the A1 heading west.

    Despite the busy night, Grant was relieved that the event had not taken place in the subterranean part of the city. It would have become a quagmire if that had happened. The city had a whole other life subway, full of clubs, bars and other establishments that were packed to the rafters on weekends. Grant had lost count of how many times in his career he had had to go down in his younger days on patrol, to control the rampages that sometimes occurred.

    Yes, Grant was relieved about that. What he wasn''t so relieved about was his companion in the back, behind the safety glass. Agent Stuart, instead of riding with his team members in the back of the truck, had chosen to accompany Grant. That would have been no problem, but instead of sitting in the front seat next to him, he had chosen the back seat where he normally transported criminals.

    Walter Grant looked back and gave the young red-haired fey a forced smile. He didn''t dislike feys at all, but seeing him there behind the glass made him uncomfortable. Without much to do, he mentally went through a checklist of all the members involved in the case. Stuart''s profile card was clean, if rather terse.

    "I always wanted to ride in the back of a squad car," Stuart said with a wide grin on his face.

    Fuck, that was the reason? It didn''t matter if they were a hundred or two hundred years old, feys were always like that. Curiosity was always something inherent in their species. There was no mistaking that in the old stories about them. "You''ve never been arrested for anything?"

    "No, fortunately. "

    "Can I ask you something?"

    "Sure."

    "How many years have you been at the Nevermore Institute?"

    "Eighteen years. Fifteen working at the FRT."

    "How old are you?"

    "Thirty-six years."

    Well at least he''s not older than me, thought Grant. "That''s quite a few years. Are you thinking of becoming a field agent?"

    "I''m a field agent, in the FRT."

    "I mean in the SID."

    "Hmm, no. Honestly, the risk in the FRT is much lower than the SID."

    "How many years at Broxburn?"

    "Eight, sir. I was at Birmingham and Cardiff stations before that. But now I''m in charge of a team. I don''t want to move to SID field agent area, it would break my mother''s heart if I did that, she was an SID officer for a couple of decades."

    Mother?! Walter Grant turned to look at him again. "Are you natural born?"

    "Yes, sir. Fey mother and human father."

    That was a surprise. This fellow is a Chaos-Child.

    The success rate of a pregnancy between humans and feys was of a low range. Because of that, feys almost always chose to be with someone of their own species. And even in cases like that the chances of pregnancy were low. Still, there was always a chance of success.

    "At what age did your growth stop?"

    "Twenty-one years."

    "That''s not a bad number."

    "No, it''s not. Although I wish I''d had more better look before my aging stopped completely."

    "You people can''t change your appearance after the aging stops?"

    "Yes, it is possible, even some feys can very fast. But it''s really hard. Double or triple everything. Double training, much stricter diet. It''s not recommended in many cases. In mine it would take me more than ten years of continuous, non-stop training to change my physique a little bit. I have better things to do with my time."

    [It would probably take you twelve years.]

    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    The subdued female voice brought them out of their private chat. They had forgotten that Oxy had been added to the team as a special consultant. She had been quiet the whole time since they had left Sil Moore''s apartment.

    Grant once again checked the list of members related to the case, and there he found Oxy''s personnel file as a special consultant for the Science Department. The personnel file revealed almost nothing, other than her name, position as a special agent and professor, along with the security badges that accredited her as a member of the main branch of SID.

    Another high-ranking agent, Grant thought as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "So you''re a teacher and a special agent?"

    [Yes, I am.]

    "How do you carry two jobs?"

    [Special agents all have second jobs in addition to being field agents. That is, we may be agents, but we also perform extra duties.]

    Grant quickly checked Philip Cook''s personnel file and couldn''t find what his second job was, but his partner Zi was listed as a professional sniper.

    "I see. Do you travel a lot?" asked the detective.

    [Not too much. I limit my area of work to our main base. I''m not on active duty much. I almost always provide support as well as science training to the first response teams.]

    "I imagine you''re always busy with so many different agents."

    [Well... yes. Still, I''m not consulted very often, unless it''s by the primary agent groups.]

    Grant actually enjoyed the pleasant chat with Oxy more than with Stuart. He liked the woman''s voice, although he was unaware that Oxy got into trouble more often than she could. And chatting they arrived at Inverleith Terrace, where another police car was already waiting for them, with the nervous owner of the antique store.

    The old merchant was a bit worried when the police knocked on his door, asking him to accompany them to his store because there had been a problem with one of his recent sales. In all his years he had never had any problems with his customers, other than the occasional haggling over the price of an item. He took his umbrella and went to the police without complaint and waited for Grant to arrive with his strange entourage.

    In the rain, which had begun to fall harder, Grant met with the frightened old man and the policemen. The old man became more concerned when he saw the FRT truck with its mobile station parked near the mobiles. He had lost count of how many times he had seen it on the news over the years.

    "Ned Harvey Cormac?" Grant asked.

    "Yes sir," the older man admitted.

    "Detective Inspector Walter Grant, CID. This is Jim Stuart, FRT, agent from the Nevermore Institute. We have a few questions for you. Can you open up your store for us, please?''''

    The old man saluted them both and nodded. Accompanied by the policemen and the FRT members, they entered the place. The store was filled with old objects from different eras, although what surprised them was to see how the lights of the place shone on the brightest objects. The old man sure spent a lot of time cleaning the objects so they wouldn''t get dusty.

    "You keep records, of all your sales?"

    "Yes. Everything is inventoried. From the smallest object to the largest."

    "A couple of days ago a young lady came in and made a purchase," Grant said, and pulled out a copy of Sil Moore''s ID photo, which with a wave of his hand he sent straight to the old man''s brain. "Do you remember her?"

    "Oh, yes. Lovely girl. She bought a mirror I had there," the older Cormac said, pointing to the store window. "Has something happened?"

    "We need to know where the mirror came from," Stuart said.

    "I''m going to have to do some digging. That one''s been here for years. I bought it in a lot from another store that its owner died decades ago."

    "A lot you say?" Stuart asked.

    "Yes, I bought a whole lot of antiques. And that mirror was there."

    "Was it the only one?"

    "No, it''s six, as I recall. I tried to offer one more to this girl, but she only took one."

    Grant and Stuart looked at each other, almost breathing a sigh of relief. "Where are the other five?"

    The old man pointed to the back of the store, toward some stairs that led to the second floor. "Up there, in the storeroom."

    "Show us, please."

    "I don''t understand, did something happen to the lady who bought the mirror?" Cormac asked, as he walked to the back of the store.

    [Jim¡­]

    "Yes, Professor?" Jim Stuart was surprised by the sudden change in Oxy''s voice. Her calling him by name felt good. He had fond memories of his teacher when he had been her student on the island.

    [Make sure only humans touch that mirror. Ask the old man if the mirrors are covered?]

    "Excuse me, Mr. Cormac? Are the mirrors covered?"

    "Yes. The frame is old wood. The ones I have up here are a little better than the one I sold to the girl, but that''s only because they''re covered, so they don''t get dust on them."

    [Okay. If they''re covered up, make sure they don''t get any light then.]

    Stuart thought about it for a few seconds. "You think they could have some SAAD, Professor?"

    [Exactly, maybe I''m overreacting but it''s best to be on the lookout. If the mirror box can act as a whole, it wouldn''t be unusual for the parts to be connected in some way even if the parts are disassembled.]

    Always thinking ahead, Stuart thought with a smile.

    Cormac led the group upstairs. The warehouse was a much more cluttered place than the first floor. But it was obvious that the cleanliness in that part was nowhere near the neatness of the first floor. Maybe old Cormac didn''t go upstairs as often.

    "Come on, it''s this way," Cormac led the way to one of the corners, as he turned on the lights.

    Next to a huge closet, from which a few cockroaches escaped at Olympic speed as he turned on the lights, were the huge mirrors, each covered by a black cloth with a layer of dust so thick it looked as if it hadn''t been touched in decades.

    "Professor, are you getting this?"

    [Yes, don''t uncover them,] Oxy ordered, addressing Grant as well.

    The FRT team deployed reading instruments on site, with MWP devices to scan the mirrors under the fabric, and FCS readers to detect anomalies, but there was nothing to suggest that the mirrors had anything abnormal. Stuart took it upon himself to check the edges carefully, finding the same grooves they had found on the other one. Most likely the hinges had been removed some time ago to facilitate the move. Still, it was a miracle that the wooden frames and glass had held up so long without being broken.

    Meanwhile Grant took it upon himself to question Cormac about the purchase of the mirror. The old man was nervous, to which Grant omitted to tell him that his client had ended up murdered. He merely told him that an anomaly related to the Dark Events had been detected, at which the old man blanched.

    "I should have known," he said, shaking his head.

    "What do you mean?" Grant asked.

    "It always gave me a bit of a bad feeling. I''ve had it here for decades but I''ve lost count of the times it'' scared me."

    "Scared you, you say?"

    "Yes, sir. More than once I heard blows, coming from it. And from the others in here too. But they were almost always from the one in the window. That''s one of the reasons I lowered the price."

    "Blows?"

    "Yes, on the glass."

    "If you already suspected that this might be a strange object you should have reported it."

    The old man smiled. "It''s an antique store, here everything can cause noises, rustling. But sometimes it''s scary when it''s quiet and all of a sudden you hear a noise."

    [Did you hear that?] Stuart asked Oxy.

    [Yeah... I hadn''t thought of that.]

    "The what?" asked Grant.

    [I guess Zi''s not alone in the mirror...]

    Grant was about to say something else, when an incoming call snapped him out of his thoughts. It was the last thing he expected that night. He was silent for a few moments as he spoke into the secure line. Then frowning, he looked at Stuart with an expression that did not bode well.

    "I just got a call from MCITHQ."

    "What happened?" Stuart asked.

    Grant looked at the old man and said. "The vehicle carrying four of our FIs just disappeared and their NWs are down." He then sent a direct message to the chat window. [Someone is apparently interested in the victim''s corpse.]

    Stuart looked at him with a frown. [Is this a joke?]

    [Things get complicated.] Oxy added.

    At that moment Walter Grant received a new call. What now?

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 8: BTB

    Chapter Eight

    BTB

    Philip and Zi received the news that Stuart and Grant had been able to find the missing parts of the mirror with great pleasure. Although, the news that the MCIT van had gone missing was bad ones for the investigation. Philip could imagine the row Grant would be in if they didn''t find it quickly. Police units in the area were already on the move to search the surrounding area for the vehicle, with the help of traffic drones and security cameras. But so far the search was proving fruitless.

    The FRT team was heading back to the building with their precious cargo, but Grant and Stuart were heading out on an operation with another patrol. Stuart had asked to join the police team as support in the search for the missing van, as the reason could be due to someone wanting to abduct the body of the deceased Sil Moore. The case already had the qualification of a Dark Event and, under those circumstances, any procedure should have a SID observer or a relevant grade agent to help in case something worse could happen.

    So far Sil Moore remained a missing corpse, while almost everyone felt that the mirror situation warranted further attention. This was because it was a dangerous object and they needed to find out how it had gone unnoticed for so long.

    Meanwhile Philip couldn''t do much, he was glad they had found what they were looking for, but he wasn''t going to rest easy until he could see his partner out of the damn mirror. The two of them were left with three policemen guarding the room, while the police robot was at the front door.

    The fact that Zi might not be alone behind the mirror made him nervous, but Zi didn''t seem nervous at all. It was strange but she almost felt a familiarity with the mirror. Maybe it was because both, she and the mirror, came from the same place. The Other Side.

    Still, just to make sure, she checked the reflection space, but found nothing. There was no one else in that place. And even the fact that she couldn''t see her reflection in the mirror made her feel even more isolated, even though she knew that, just a few meters away, her partner was there.

    [What a night,] Zi sighed. She was sitting in front of the mirror, on the floor, with her legs stretched out.

    Philip was pacing around the room in circles. "You don''t say." Then he walked to near the mirror, he felt kind of stupid looking at his own reflection but he knew that therein lay the reason he had decided to continue working as a special agent for so long. "Aren''t you hungry in there? Thirsty?"

    [... You were angry at me because I ate your dinner just a few hours ago.]

    "You''re always hungry."

    [Don''t call me hangry.]

    The truth is that to Zi''s surprise, she was curiously not hungry at all, not even thirsty. Although it had only been a couple of hours since she had been trapped inside the mirror, she had no desire for any food. She didn''t know if that was the weirdest thing, or that at that moment she could see two Philips. The real one behind the glass, and the reflection on her side.

    [I wonder if that''s what those three feel like?]

    "Who?"

    [Mai, Liz and Shin. Mostly Shin I guess.]

    "Shin? What''s he got to do with all this?"

    [Two girls... I really don''t understand how those three have a relationship. It''s already complicated with two people, imagine with three.]

    "Especially if the person you love raids the refrigerator at midnight."

    Zi laughed at that, and she added. [I didn''t update my last will¡­]

    "Oh, shut up. In a little bit, you''ll be out...don''t think stupid shit." Phillip looked at the mirror again and said. "If it makes you feel any better, I haven''t updated mine in years either."

    [It''s all yours anyway.]

    "Same with mine. I''m inheriting everything in my fridge."

    [Why do we always remember that crap when we''re about to die?] Zi asked, stifling a laugh and stretched out her feet.

    [Five minutes, lovebirds,] Oxy''s voice, intruding, snapped them out of their musings.

    "Five minutes what?"

    [The FRT is arriving in five minutes. They''re going to put a sheet in front of the mirror so they can transport it.]

    [What?]

    [You don''t think we''re going to do the procedure in the building, do you?]

    "No, but then¡­ where?"

    Oxy was about to answer when the three of them heard police noises outside the room. It felt like they were greeting to someone. A second later a fey woman entered the room. She was as tall as Philip and blue-eyed, blonde hair in a bun, except for a long strand covering her right eye. She wore a long, closed uniform of blue and black, with some horizontal white stripes on the right top. The woman took a few steps inside the room, but did not walk to the mirror. Her boots were not covered like everyone else''s, so Philip judged it was to avoid contaminating the scene.

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    Bloody hell, Philip thought. I wasn''t expecting her here.

    [Well, only someone from SIGN was missing,] Zi said.

    [Agents Cook and Zi,] the woman said in a polite tone, which didn''t disguise seriousness either.

    "Claymore Emmeline," Philip greeted, with a slight bow.

    Although the woman could not see her, Zi responded in kind.

    "Is she there?" Emmeline asked, glancing toward the mirror.

    [Yes, ma''am. I''m here.]

    "Oxy just filled me in, because of her little problem."

    [Not true... she called Grant first,] Oxy whispered.

    "Problem?"

    "You''re looking for a facility to see if you can get your partner out of the mirror, right?"

    "Yes, ma''am." The truth was that they had thought of moving the mirror to one of the nearby Nevermore stations. Even so, Philip nodded.

    "We have an old parking building nearby to store vehicles in need of repair. If you need it you can do it there."

    Philip was waiting for Oxy to say something, but she kept quiet.

    "We appreciate it. I honestly didn''t expect the Claymore of Scotland herself to be here."

    Emmeline walked over to Philip and said something in his ear that only Philip could hear. "The council is watching our actions as well, you are not the only ones. It is always better to have friends rather than gaolers. Don''t you agree Special Agent Cook?"

    "Absolutely right..." admitted Philip. What is this woman up to?

    Emmeline struck up a private conversation with Zi and Philip, to make sure no one was listening in.

    [Ma''am, it''s a pleasure to meet you,] Zi said, now that the woman could at least hear her.

    [Same here, Agent Zi.]

    [What''s this about?] Philip asked.

    [Oxy, why are you so quiet? join the chatter,] Emmeline invited.

    [I''m here, I don''t have much to add.]

    [In these days you never know who might be listening. This information has been going around the Ministry of Defense for a few hours now. Do you know the fellow known as Black, The Bard?]

    [Everyone knows him,] Philip admitted.

    [Yesterday we had some problems with the power supply around the city, as you know.]

    [Yes, we know, it''s one of the reasons why the FRT has been moving between the different districts.]

    [Wherever this man shows up, there have always been malfunctions. Not counting the appearance of that giant moth. This was captured yesterday at noon, by one of the cameras near Queens Drive,] Emmeline said, sending a photo via Neurowire.

    In the CCTV photo capture could be seen a man in a jacket, wearing torn jeans, playing some kind of big cello, on a set of stone steps.

    [Where is Queens Drive?] Philip asked.

    [The picture is of one of the entrances to Holyrood Park, near the Gateway Tree,] Emmeline explained.

    [Were your people able to follow his route?]

    [By the time we were aware of his presence he disappeared... the strange thing, as usual, is that once he disappeared the problems in the power supply disappeared with him.]

    [That''s not all,] Oxy pointed out.

    Emmeline began to walk around the room looking at the mirror. [We have another record from BTB, from several years ago.]

    Zi furrowed her brow and looked at Emmeline [What record?]

    The woman turned to the mirror and said [It was produced outside of here, in the Orbital Belt, more specifically in one of the tree up there.]

    [Was he seen there as well?]

    [Yes. That''s not the strangest thing though. There was an accident that same day. On the same day that it happened, the girl who lived in this apartment was with her parents up there.]

    [...!]

    [I don''t think it''s a coincidence that, on the same day she lost her parents, and then on the day of her death, BTB was around.]

    Philip looked at Emmeline, with a gesture of doubt. [We have no evidence that the victim has ever been involved in any DE case before. Her parents'' dead is listed as an accident.]

    [Things are rarely what they seem in this line of work. Not to mention that her body just disappeared, right?]

    [So you''re suggesting that the Mothman, the flaws, the ley lines of the trees and BTB are related to this girl?] Zi asked.

    [You''re not suggesting that she''s a new fey?] Philip added.

    [I don''t know either. In case she was a new fey we wouldn''t be having this conversation either.]

    [¡­ Because her existence would be completely erased,] Oxy added.

    [From what Oxy told me, this girl was interested in composing through her body, right?]

    [That''s what she was apparently doing before she died,] Philip admitted.

    [BTB always appears when the trees seem to suffer some kind of problem in their energy emanations.]

    [The music¡­ could be a connector between BTB and Sil Moore?] Zi ventured.

    [If so¡­ what''s going on with this mirror?] pointed out Emmeline.

    [Could she be a Chaos Vortex? We have no evidence that she is a Thelesis user.] Oxy said.

    Emmeline shrugged. [Her, BTB, the trees, who knows.]

    [We still don''t have a clue as to who might have wanted to kill her.]

    [The fact that she bought a mirror from the Other Side the day before she was killed is suspicious.]

    [This mirror is invaluable to someone who knows about Ooparts...] Oxy said.

    [¡­ But she still wasn''t killed because of it. And whoever did it wasn''t interested in the mirror either. Only her head.] Zi added.

    [Unless someone moved the pieces around, so that the mirror was right here at that moment.] Philip thought.

    [Divide and conquer.] Emmeline said, looking questioningly at Philip.

    [¡­ ]

    [The only ones who could move pieces that way¡­] started Zi.

    [¡­ Shadow People.] Oxy finished.

    [If so, we''re screwed. How do you stop someone who is always one step ahead of you?] Philip asked.

    [They don''t intervene¡­]

    [Unless it''s in their interests.] Emmeline objected.

    Philip scratched his temple grumpily. He wasn''t expecting the case to be related to the creature that had been seen, but even less did he want to imagine that it was related to another group that had appeared several times in Nevermore''s files.

    [One problem at a time... for the moment let''s try to get Zi out of there first,] he said, snorting.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 9: The old port

    Chapter Nine

    The Old Port

    Newhaven, Edinburgh.

    Stan and fake Ann felt that everything had really gone to plan with the assignment. Although, for a few moments, they sweated it out as they were surrounded by the police at the perimeter fence in Piershill, nothing raised suspicions that the two thieves had stolen the identities of two MCIT investigators in order to kidnap Sil Moore''s body.

    Once they left the scene, they deactivated the vehicle''s tracking signal. Then Stan threw a multipurpose stun grenade into the back of the vehicle where the two forensic investigators were traveling. A little further on, in an abandoned part of the old Abbeyhill station, they switched to a vehicle they had already placed at the site. Stan decided to put aside his optical camouflage of his clothes, and his body''s metamorphic camouflage, it bothered him to see things from a much lower angle than he was used to. Not to mention that many times the metamorphic camouflage gave him terrible headaches if he kept it on for too long.

    They didn''t bother to restrain the two forensic scientists, they would wake up later and didn''t want to waste any more time. They simply loaded the bag with Sil Moore''s body on the luggage rack and joined the cars driving through the streets, heading north.

    The destination was the old port city of Newhaven, with its huge abandoned harbors.

    The place had served as a ship graveyard after the Great War but, over the years, it had become a sort of abandoned museum for tourists and urban explorers. Although the locals said that the site was cursed, as it had been a quarantine zone for some time, due to the loss of a shipment of altered minerals brought from the war zones. Was a place so huge that it could be considered a city itself.

    During the day it was quite common to see a lot of people in the place, although at night it was a place that no one wanted to pass near. The skeletons of the huge structures and cargo cranes of the port contributed to give it an air of ghostly abandonment. The arrangement of the huge, abandoned, rusting machines, side by side, gave the impression that they were the metal ribs of some antediluvian giant. The nighttime haze of the place, and the moon, sneaking through shreds of clouds to the horizon, tinged the place with a heavy salty atmosphere.

    The place was so old that there were not even magnetized routes. Even illicit activity groups did not show up here to conduct their business. The fact that the place was associated with the great war and Fractus, was more than enough for anyone to think twice before passing through the place.

    Although that was not the case for people who were often linked to activities related to the Dark Events. For those types of people, with interests stronger than any ghost linked to superstitions, it was the ideal place to carry out any illegal transaction.

    And such was the case of the two thieves, the excitement provoked by the crime, and the money, was stronger than their fears of any monster from another dimension or ghost from the deep sea.

    The thieves'' vehicle drove into the bowels of the port city and Stan drove hand-over-hand through the pavement-shattered streets. Ann hoped the pay for the job would be good enough, but she couldn''t deny that the location chosen for the transaction gave her the creeps.

    "This is it," Stan said, parking the car.

    The meeting place was a sort of park on an islet, or at least it had been at one time. The bushes and grasses were high enough for anyone to hide in. Almost two hundred meters ahead, the silhouette of a ruined lighthouse could be seen outlined against the sky. A building of the Ancient Era, which had fallen into disuse three centuries ago and was never repaired. It had fallen fences in some places, twisted in others, and in the moonlight looked like the ruins of an ancient mausoleum.

    It was the perfect setting for business, out of sight of onlookers... or an ambush. And such was fake Ann''s thinking. The woman reached into her jacket pocket and touched the small dice-like device.

    It was her gun. Her old glock32, with variable ammunition, in compressed form. That gave her more security than anything else.

    "Calm down Rum. Don''t start heating things up too soon," Stan said, giving her a sidelong glance. "By the way, when are you going to drop your camouflage? That hairdo doesn''t suit you at all."

    The woman looked at him with a blank look on her face and clicked her tongue. She touched one of the buttons on her jacket and almost instantly changed. The hairstyle came undone, revealing a slightly messy black hair.

    Her skin was pale, dotted with a few freckles on her cheeks, that contrasted with the black makeup around her light brown eyes, and full lips also painted black. Her clothes had not changed, she still wore her forensic coveralls. Unlike her partner, who had only copied Patel''s uniform, Rum considered herself a true con artist and had managed to get her hands on one of the real uniforms for the job. Courtesy of the real Ann''s closet.

    They waited a few minutes, looking around, but the man who hired them was still not coming. The wait was making Rum nervous. She didn''t know why, but there was something strange about the place. Beyond the tetric appearance it had, there was something else that made her shiver.

    It could be the silence, broken only by the sound of the water nearby.

    "He''s taking his time, this guy," she said, grumpily.

    Stan didn''t say a word, but Rum saw how his eyes were scanning ahead and to the sides of the vehicle.

    Beyond about twenty yards on either side the view was lost in the low mist. And to the front the road became a much narrower passageway, only about ten meters wide, leading to another islet where the old lighthouse stood. The security fencing on either side of the road had long since disappeared.

    "They''re there," Stan said, squinting. Although Rum had the motion detection functions turned on, Stan''s senses were much better in that regard, as he could detect motion without relying so much on the Neurowire. "But I think... but he''s not alone," Stan rummaged in his jacket and pulled out a small dice similar to Rum''s. "We''d better get ready, just in case."

    "What are they doing?"

    "I don''t know¡­ but there are quite a few people. I detect more than ten near the lighthouse, but on the sides there are also, though I''m not sure how many."

    Rum pursed her lips and let out a sibilant sigh. "Is this going to be anything like Turkey?"

    Stan felt a bead of sweat remembering what happened last year. "Let''s hope not."

    The duo waited a few more minutes, until their Neurowires flashed with the incoming call with an unknown number.

    [We are coming over there,] said a voice in a dry tone.

    "You were stalling," Stan grumbled, his grumpiness undismayed.

    [We just wanted to make sure you were alone. That no one is following you.]

    "Wait a minute. What do you mean, we are coming?" asked Rum, with a frown.

    "The exchange is with one person, those are the terms. I said so in the conversation," added Stan.

    [And I seem to remember telling you that I was going with my own people. We need to make sure our merchandise is correct.]

    Stan and Rum exchanged nervous glances. There was something about the way he said merchandise that really got on their nerves. Stan sighed, he''d better get the nasty guy off his back as quickly as possible.

    "All right, come on. We''ll make the exchange," Stan said and cut the call short.

    "If it gets ugly we''ve got water on both sides," Rum pointed out quietly.

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    "Let''s hope we don''t get that," Stan sighed, getting out of the vehicle, and his partner followed resignedly.

    "Did you hear his accent?"

    "No."

    "I think he sounded Russian."

    Stan hadn''t bothered to turn off his Babel system to hear the stranger''s accent. Russian, Martian or Titanian, he''d better pay what he promised, he thought.

    They both walked to the luggage rack and in the distance they could see a large group of people approaching through the mist. It was the part of the job that could always go wrong, one could never be too careful.

    There is no honor among thieves, Rum thought .

    In front of the group came two people in black tactical suits and carrying rifles that neither Stan, nor Rum, had ever seen before. Behind them came a man in a dark gray suit. The man was quite a bit taller than the first two companions and quite stocky looking. His hair was tied in a ponytail and his expression did not please the two thieves at all. The man looked normal, like any other muscular man, but dressed in formal attire, although without being able to explain it, there was something about him and his companions that felt different. In his left hand he carried an ironclad industrial briefcase.

    Behind the man, there appeared what Rum thought at first was a child, though she immediately dismissed it when she saw his pointed ears. He was dressed in some sort of white tunic and was even paler than Rum. He wore a kind of white visor that blended in with his messy white hair covering his eyes. The ghostly fey walked and stood almost next to the man.

    Behind him. Two other armed men. The two thieves did not know if they were bodyguards or if they were mercenaries, but they did not have any badge that would help to know where they were from.

    "Where is the body?" the man asked, walking toward them and pushing aside what appeared to be his guards, meanwhile the fey remained behind.

    Stan made a theatrical gesture, invitingly to the man and walked to the back of the car. He opened the luggage rack and moved to give the man room. But just as he was about to break the seal on the bag Stan stopped him. "These things have suspended animation systems of their own. If you''re going to open it, you''d better have a fridge to put the ice cream in."

    "We already came prepared," the man replied, looking at him sternly. "We''re not rookies."

    "What about our pay?"

    The man held up the briefcase at which Stan stepped back and let him do it.

    He broke the bag''s security seal and carefully unzipped the body bag. A small mist and light came out of it and there was the headless body of Sil Moore. The body bag, besides having its own preservation system, had an internal illumination system that bathed the body in a greenish light. It was the first time the thieves had seen the body, but the same question assaulted them at the same time. Why is she in a swimsuit?

    The man saw the headless part and clicked his tongue. "Tsk! Damn it... Nak come here."

    The ghostly looking fey walked over to him and the guards moved around him following him as if they were his own shadow. What they were protecting was not the man, it was that fey.

    Nak walked slowly to the luggage rack and Rum saw how underneath the tunic two bare feet could be seen, with toes a little longer than normal. What Rum at first judged to be a boy because of his short stature, and slender body, was because the fey''s body had the skin on his hands crumpled, almost stuck to his bones. The back of the tunic showed three openings on each side at the level of the shoulder blades.

    Who the hell is this? Rum thought.

    Now that she could see him in the light cast by the body bag, it gave her the creeps more than the man in the suit. The pallor of his body was almost deathly, with thin, blue lips. The woman felt even more fear when Nak raised his head in her direction. Although she could not see his eyes, she was sure that the mysterious being was watching her through the visor. As if it could hear or see what she was thinking. To her good fortune the strange being refocused on the body in front of him.

    Nak solemnly extended long, slender-fingered hands over the corpse, as if through them he could see something the others could not.

    "That''s her," said the being called Nak, looking at the man. "She''s marked and has what we need."

    "What about her head?"

    "She has portable memory units. The code is incomplete, but it''s more than enough to add to blocks 53045 and 2039."

    "We don''t need it?"

    "It would be better if it were complete but, even so, the result is very good."

    Rum and Stan exchanged apprehensive glances. They would have liked to know what it was all about, but something told them they weren''t going to feel very good if they even knew.

    "Did you hear anything about the head? Have the police or the ravens found it?" asked the man, with a baleful look on his face.

    So she was killed by someone else... Stan thought. "We didn''t hear anything about it, the cops must still be on the scene, gathering evidence, but they have no idea what happened."

    The man looked at the corpse and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "So we''re not the only ones... someone detected our application."

    "Never mind, it''s a good specimen," Nak said, zipping up the bag.

    "You guys! Take the body to the chamber," the man said addressing the mercenaries and then added. "Nak, go with them."

    "Ehem!" Stan had cleared his throat and smiled.

    The man opened the briefcase and pulled out some sort of iridescent cube. At the sight of it both Stan and Rum''s jaws nearly dropped.

    "This is for the service, much more than promised."

    The cube was small enough to fit in a fist. But it had a faint glow of its own and the colors moved across the surface of its faces as if they had a life of their own.

    "Th-that''s..." stuttered Rum.

    "Yes, a fractus nucleus, the cubic kind, in pure form. You can sell it and have money for two hundred years," explained the man.

    Then he held out his hand offering the strange payment. Stan hesitated to take it for a moment. It didn''t make sense. That was two hundred times more than the payment originally agreed upon. A nucleus of the creatures that had nearly wiped out life on the planet was worth a fortune. Rumor had it that there were even rarer cores around the planet. Although seeing what he had at his fingertips he wondered if that was true. The two thieves had seen such cores, so there was no doubt that what the man said about it being worth a fortune was true.

    "Why?" Rum asked.

    The man smiled. "Where I come from, it has no value. But, to the people here, it seems to have a lot of value. I won''t deny that there are a lot of interesting ones, but this type is of no interest to us."

    Stan picked up the little cube. It was real. The colors were moving slowly creating a tide of the entire spectrum of colors.

    "Where are you from?" Rum asked.

    "I''m from a long way from here," replied the man in a muffled voice and handed her the briefcase.

    [Don''t meddle anymore!]Stan warned her.

    No matter how far away he was, those cores were worth a fortune in every part of the Solar System.

    They were so stunned by their pay that they hardly detected Nak, who walked away with his retinue of mercenaries, who were carefully carrying the bag with Sil Moore''s body.

    The man looked at the two thieves and scratched his chin again. "I have something better for you. Come work for me. People like you are useful to me and the pay is good. Although the work is risky."

    People like you are useful to me, Stan thought repeating the words. [When someone says that¡­]

    [He forgets to put the word dumb at the end of useful,] Rum finished.

    "Thanks, but no," Stan declined, with a somewhat crooked smile.

    "No bosses, it''s our work policy." Rum said.

    Stan put the cube back in the briefcase and closed it.

    "Sounds fair enough. Think about it, though, it''s not a bad offer. Things on this side are going to get bumpy in a while."

    "Thanks, but we decline the offer."

    "Sounds fair," the man said, bowing his head. "It was a pleasure Mr. Michael Levin, Miss Rumenia Ruzicka."

    Hearing that, the two thieves stopped for a second. Stan smiled at the man in a very bad way. "You''re good, really good."

    "We didn''t hire just anyone. I needed to know who you were first."

    "It was a pleasure," Stan said, opening the door to the vehicle. Rum simply smiled as an obligation.

    They both got into the car and reversed out of the place slowly. The figure of the man stared at them for a moment until, turning around, he disappeared back the way he had come.

    As Stan emerged from the labyrinth of the city''s narrow streets, he gave his companion a sideways glance. They both didn''t feel safe until they saw the city lights of Newhaven again.

    "How did he know?" Rum asked, worriedly.

    "I don''t know," Stan grunted.

    "It''s real, isn''t it? The cube?"

    "Yeah, it''s the real thing..." Stan looked at Rum. "How the hell are we going to trade it?"

    "We''ll find a way, we always do."

    "For the moment let''s try to get out of the UK for a while. I don''t trust having someone behind my back who knows our real identities."

    Rum, looked at Stan quizzically. "What did he mean when he said, things on this side were going to get bumpy?"

    Stan looked at her and frowned. "I don''t want to know."

    The car joined the others driving through the streets and disappeared south. The two thieves would later find out how lucky they were that night not to have accepted the mystery man''s proposal.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 10: MCITHQ

    Chapter Ten

    MCITHQ

    The statements of witnesses, and victims, had been concluded.

    "Recording over," Grant said, and sighed heavily.

    Rabil Patel lay covered with a warm blanket and felt his ears ringing. His partner, Ann, next to him and also covered with a blanket, was sobbing and at other times crying her eyes out.

    Walter Grant''s ears were also ringing. He felt sorry for the girl, but she certainly had a tone of voice that could break the glass in the interrogation room at any moment. He could understand her, but he felt that the statement would have to be taken again in later days when the poor girl was calmer.

    The CHRD legal representative was also seated next to Ann and held a finger to her ear discreetly.

    "I-it was horrible!" Ann sobbed.

    "There, girl, there. I heard you," Grant said, trying to calm her down.

    The two forensic investigators had been found in their apartments. First Ann, safe and sound, who when she awoke entered the subroutines of her Neurowire and was able to call for help. Then Rabin Patel, who, despite a black eye and some bruising, had no significant injuries. They were both scared, but they were alive and they were grateful for it. They had never been through anything like that.

    After they were treated in an ambulance, and the doctors corroborated that they were both okay, they were taken to the MCIT facility. They should have been taken to the nearest police station, but since everything seemed to indicate that the attack on both of them had to do with Sil Moore''s death, Grant decided not to waste time, and ordered both of them to be at the central station to take their statements and make an HRI. He didn''t want to burden them with asking them for an invasive statement with a deep-dive.

    "DCI Grant. Was it necessary for it to be now? They are still in shock," asked the legal representative.

    "You know how it is, Gris. I''m sorry, but it''s vital to take statements early on. They''re not under arrest or anything like that," Grant said, pursing his lips.

    "The code of conduct says that a representative must be there at all times if they are employed by MCIT."

    "And they are, but they''re not under arrest, at no point have I said they''re not the victims¡­ this is just a big mess."

    "Does that mean we can go back to our work?" Patel asked, in a low tone.

    "I don''t see why not. Although it probably won''t be for a while. This investigation is still going on," Grant said. What the hell is going on here?

    For Grant the case had become a real headache in just a few hours. They had a killer who, using some unknown type of weapon, had taken the victim''s head. That it was a trophy of his misdeed seemed at odds with the scene. Sil had been doing something before she died. But there were no unknown footprints that could give them a clear clue as to who they were looking for.

    The mirror was something that could not be avoided, it was too much of a coincidence that it was something she bought only a day before her death. Not to mention that it had trapped an SID agent inside.

    And now the case of the two forensic experts who had been impersonated.

    That it would have been two killers who, at the risk of being caught, returned to the scene and took the body did not seem logical at all. Why do it when the police were crowding the scene, when they could have done it earlier and disappeared with the body? If that had been the case, instead of a murder, the case would have been a disappearance.

    Grant looked at the two young coroners and sighed. "Someone from the emotional support department is going to talk to you two, and then a patrol will escort you home."

    "Can''t we spend the night here? What if they come back?" Ann asked, panicked.

    Grant looked at the legal representative. "Will you take care of that, Gris?"

    The woman nodded. "There will be a guard at the door of the domicile."

    "Monday we''ll meet again for a new statement, in case you remember anything else," Grant added to Patel and Ann. They both nodded. "Get some rest, you need it. Good night."

    "Good night, sir," the two investigators muttered.

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    Grant took his folder with the profiles of the two and left the room. Stuart immediately got up from one of the waiting benches and walked over to him. He was wearing his visitor''s pass around his neck. The two of them left the hallway and went down one of the staircases to the floor below.

    "What happened?" Stuart asked.

    "You and the professor weren''t listening?"

    "No¡­ we''re not gossips."

    Grant looked at him questioningly and smiled.

    "We weren''t spying, I swear."

    "I was joking. But well, there''s not too much. Both of their NWDs were hacked to fool our systems."

    "The quantum signature too?"

    "Yeah, whoever did this is not an amateur," Grant pointed out.

    For a Saturday night the building was pretty crowded with police and detectives busy on other cases. Some of them looked at Grant and Stuart as they whispered among themselves. News of what is going on must be spreading like wildfire by now, Grant thought.

    He was sending all the case data to the main file. Then he would have to put everything in order for the preliminary report. It was quite likely that the Deputy Chief of Police would want to give a report to the press on Monday about everything that was going on. After all, it was a case that concerned Dark Events. Grant only hoped that by that time, the case would be closed.

    Stuart followed Grant down another hallway and into the detective''s private office. It was quite tidy, the old sleuth knew how to keep the place up. Stuart wished that someday he had his own office or apartment so neat without so many papers or pizza boxes from the night before.

    Grant rummaged through his desk drawers, and pulled out the gun case with the service weapon. He kept it clean and tidy, but Grant hardly ever took it out for practice to renew his license. Throughout his career he had only had to draw it less than fifty times in a risky situation. He had ended up using the baton more than any other weapon in all his years.

    As the automatic buckles of the holster tightened on the body, someone knocked on the office doors. A woman detective walked in and looked at the two of them.

    "Sir, we just had a call. The LOS has just been found," the woman announced.

    "Where is it?" Grant asked.

    "Over the abandoned lines at the old station near here. The body it was transporting is not in the vehicle."

    Grant looked at Stuart and then at the detective. "Send me all the data."

    "Yes sir."

    "What about forensics on the vehicle?"

    "They''re just waking up. They were put to sleep with a stun M-grenade," the detective explained. "The ones who impersonated the identities are gone."

    "I thought so." Grant looked at Stuart. "What are you going to do, boy? Are you going back to Piershill, or are you coming with me?"

    "My team is already back at Piershill with the mirrors. Professor Oxy will be in charge of leading the assembly of the mirror box. I''m honestly more interested in what''s going on with the victim''s corpse."

    "I guess I''m going to keep you on my tail all night."

    "Like snot to the nose," Stuart said. "Mixed operations... my favorite. Plus, you need a special consultant in case of DE."

    "Yes. I know."

    Under normal circumstances Grant would have been with another division detective on the case. But since Mallen had passed all authority to Grant, he was on his own at the time. It wouldn''t have taken more than a few words and whoever was available would have accompanied him. But the situation was getting stranger by the minute.

    Yeah... someone from Nevermore is better in this case, Grant sighed to himself. "Agent Stuart, do you have one of these I guess?" he asked, pointing to his tactical shoulder holster with the gun.

    Stuart pressed the badge on his coveralls and instantly a holster with its respective tactical weapon appeared on his right pant leg.

    "An MC12? You plan to use it as an insecticide?"

    "Custom," Stuart said with a grin, sending the weapon''s profile to Grant.

    "Do you have a vest or SC?"

    "Smart Memory Clothes."

    "Well, come on then. We''ve got over twenty patrolmen searching all over the city right now. We''re going to join them. You''re our technical backup."

    The woman stepped aside to make way for the two men and looked at Stuart. "Hey, FRT guy!"

    At that Stuart turned around and looked at her seriously. He was sure the woman had said fart instead of FRT spelled correctly. Fart was the nickname some used worldwide to say FRT. An inside joke among security agencies, but one that honestly wasn''t funny to Stuart at all.

    "Yes, Detective?"

    The woman watched her superior''s back move away and said. "That''s one of ours you''ve got there and one of the best."

    Stuart nodded gravely and turned and walked away with Grant.

    "Agent Stuart, honestly, was there any interest in the girl''s body?"

    "I believe this has to do with the information she was transmitting."

    "But that information is not complete."

    "No, but the portable units may have something to do with it. We still don''t know exactly what all the data means."

    "I don''t need to tell you, but I don''t like the way this is going at all."

    "Don''t worry, sir. I don''t like it either." Stuart admitted.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 11: A message from the past

    Chapter Eleven

    A message from the past

    Getting the mirror down the stairs took some time. Because Zi was inside, no one wanted to risk putting the mirror in a compression device for easier transport. They didn''t know if doing so would have any negative effect on the material or the condition of the artifact. They put up special large sheets of bubble wrap, covered the sides with more protection and snail-paced down the stairs.

    It took several minutes for the FRT agents to reach the first floor, tired and with cold sweat on their foreheads. Philip was also one of those helping, and despite being heavily muscled, he had to admit that the thing was not heavy in itself, it was light. But the weight of the worry of knowing that someone was inside was the heavy thing. They couldn''t risk the mirror breaking or being damaged. The people who had brought the mirror to the apartment had been lucky enough, at least they had been able to use the elevator.

    Prior to that, and at Oxy''s suggestion, they covered the reflective surface with a special film containing a 4D projection of Sil Moore''s room, taken earlier by the drones that had rendered the scene in search of evidence. That way the image that the surface reflected remained the same and Zi did not detect any change in the scene, except that now there was no person reflected in the scene.

    But what she could sense was movement outside the mirror. While she was still, and the scene was still, she could feel the tremors and shaking as she was moved. It was the same sensation of being in an earthquake or tremor, only much more violent. That was more than enough for her to be suffering from vertigo.

    [Ugh. I don''t feel well,] she muttered, feeling dizzy.

    "Calm down, we''re here," Philip reassured her.

    Fortunately, once it was taken out of the building, it was loaded and placed with the other mirrors in the FRT armor-truck and the movement ceased as the vehicle began its journey through the streets, escorted by three patrol cars.

    Because of what had happened to the van carrying Sil Moore''s decapitated body, Grant did not want to take any risks and had ordered the FRT team into custody during his absence. Aside from the fact that they were more than capable of defending themselves, and now Emmeline had joined the group, an extra layer of protection was not a bad idea.

    The trip was short, and the team headed south. That part of the city didn''t have much traffic and they covered the distance in just minutes following Emmeline''s armored vehicle.

    The building she had provided was located on Greendykes Road. It was a rather large and old building, with five floors, but SIGN had renovated it to convert it into a parking lot for vehicles that had already been decommissioned or needed repairs. The place had no human security, the whole site was guarded by an artificial intelligence, that controlled the five huge security robots that at that time were roaming around. These had the appearance of being huge black metal blocks with the SIGN logo on one side.

    Although that day there was some movement in the place. There were several SIGN technical agents on site, who had been called by Emmeline to help in case something happens.

    As the entourage entered the gates and began to climb up the spiral circuit to the second floor, Zi was talking to Philip and Oxy through the private channels. Oxy hovered around the place giving it the appearance of a restless ghost. The FRT members were seated on either side of the transport, while Philip was seated next to the mirrors.

    [Are you nervous?] Zi asked.

    [No? Why do you ask?]

    [Emmeline is here. Is this another recruiting attempt?]

    Philip, crestfallen, sighed wearily. He didn''t want to accept it but there was a chance that Zi was right, it wasn''t the first time Emmeline had tempted Philip with a job offer to return to the UK. Which he wasn''t interested in the least.

    At that moment Oxy''s augmented reality avatar was sticking one of her fingers up Portman''s nose. The other members could not see her so, she could do whatever she wanted with her avatar.

    [Can you stop doing that?] Philip asked, grumpily.

    [I''m bored,] Oxy sighed. Then finally putting her feet on the ground, she walked over to Philip and squatted down, with her face just a few inches away from his. [On the other hand, I don''t think Emmeline''s kindness is about luring you to SIGN this time,] she said as she puffed out her cheeks and pouted.

    Philip leaned back and looked at her with an unfriendly look on his face. [Do you know what personal space is?] Then changing his expression he asked. [And what do you mean?]

    [I think Emmeline is more interested in the artifact this time.]

    Philip looked at her quizzically. [The mirror?]

    [Yep,] Oxy nodded.

    [It''s our jurisdiction,] Zi said.

    Oxy shrugged. [You know how all that interagency cooperation crap works. I wouldn''t be surprised if at the end of this there''s an order from The Council to relinquish custody of the mirror box to SIGN.]

    [Well, once we get Zi out I''m going to wrap it up with a ribbon for them.]

    Zi sighed. [Nothing good comes from playing with artifacts from the Other Side.]

    Philip smiled incredulously [What do they think they can do anyway once they have it? Put it in the museum?]

    [The last time they tried something stupid like an exhibition, it was stolen John Dee''s Black Mirror and an entire collection of OOParts¡­ I think there are still pieces missing on the black market,] Oxy explained.

    [There''s something she''s not telling us... and I don''t like it,] Philip affirmed.

    The sudden movement of the tactical truck indicated that they were on wheels again and a few seconds later everything stopped.

    [Here we are. At last,] Zi muttered.

    The second floor was almost empty with the exception of a few old vehicles on the far side. The reason Emmeline made them go up was precisely because the place was almost deserted and it would be more comfortable, since the first floor was crowded with vehicles.

    The two teams got down to work almost immediately and, under the instructions of Oxy who opened the communication channels with everyone present, they carefully removed the mirrors once again to proceed to assemble the box.

    The joints of the mirrors appeared to have hinged joints and sockets. Each piece had a certain configuration that made the assembly work only one way and not the other, with all the reflective faces inward. The mirror with the most marks of deterioration on the wooden part was obviously the bottom part. That part was also about the least detailed of the six, while the mirror Sil purchased belonged to the series middle faces.

    As it was assembled the engravings in the wood seemed to make much more sense. They seemed to relate a sort of battle between gigantic-looking creatures and vaguely anthropomorphic forms over a city depicted with pillars. The city seemed to be surrounded by what appeared to be an ocean of fire. On the opposite face to the city was something that resembled the shape of a black sun hiding in the ocean of fire, but whose rays almost seemed to extend in all directions.

    [Philip approach that one, so I have a better resolution,] Oxy asked, pointing to the mirror with the sun. Philip noticed that the restless fey had been examining the backs of the mirrors for some time, as if she were looking for something.

    Portman meanwhile took it upon himself to remove the sheeting from the mirror where Zi was trapped.

    [This is worse than I thought,] Zi said.

    As the film was removed, the scene changed and she saw how, in the space where she was, she seemed to be floating in mid-air, while mirror reflections repeated inside each other. The mirror frames were about the only thing that gave her a frame of reference for the strange scene that was unfolding before her eyes.

    She wasn''t sure if her sight and hearing were playing tricks on her or what, but she was sure she could see some sort of ghostly images moving in the reflections farthest away from her. They were more like some kind of furtive shadows that slipped. She thought she saw out of the corner of her eye, more than once, more stylized shapes of rooms and buildings. It could not be the reflections of the parking lot where she was, since their shapes and colors did not match.

    And stranger still, on a couple of occasions she was almost certain she heard a kind of plaintive whimpering behind her. She wondered if the team was dragging something against the concrete, but the sound seemed much more natural than something caused by dragging something heavy.

    The technicians placed the mirror with the sun in the corresponding slots, while three others sealed the lower parts with a steel nanomat, which molded to the shape of the screws and hinges after applying an electric charge.

    The mirror that served as a lid appeared to represent a starry sky in its wooden part. Portman and three others activated their weightless boots and were in charge of putting on the final piece. Although they were distracted for a few moments examining the surface, they could not make out any particular constellations in the engraving. Perhaps they were simply random stars, but the diabolical technique that had been employed by the artisan made them doubt that all this was simply random.

    To begin with, they couldn''t even be sure that someone had actually made the box consciously. As with almost all objects that came from the Other Side, there was always the suspicion that certain artifacts just appeared as if by spontaneous generation on Earth.

    Portman and the others sealed the lid with the nanomat putty and the box was finally assembled.

    Emmeline, who until that moment had only been smoking a cigarette, sitting on the hood of one of the vehicles, finally approached as the two teams walked away admiring their handiwork. As she walked towards the box there was something that gave her a strange feeling of anguish. She couldn''t explain it, but the monstrous box seemed truly otherworldly.

    "It''s bigger than it looks," whispered Emmeline.

    "It''s creepy," Philip agreed.

    Philip, as a human, could feel it too, it was a sense of loneliness and sadness that he could not explain.

    For a few moments everyone stood quietly admiring the box. The sound of the rain that kept falling was the only thing that could be heard for a few seconds, until Zi''s angry voice brought everyone out of their reverie.

    [I can''t see shit in here!]

    By the time Portman had put the final lid on, the most desolate darkness enveloped Zi. It didn''t matter that she knew that, just a few steps away, they were all there. Being in there was terrifying. When the last light was extinguished she stopped feeling the ground at her feet, and everything was replaced by a feeling of weightlessness that made her nauseous. She wasn''t sure if she was looking up or down because her sense of direction had completely disappeared. On the island she had done sensory deprivation training, but inside that box it was far worse than any experience she had ever had before.

    Zi had nerves of steel, but she couldn''t deny that she felt incredibly terrified at that moment. Was she still inside the mirror? Was she really still there? Or was she in the box now? She touched her chest and could feel her heart pounding and her breath hitching. The sound of the rain felt incredibly distant at that moment. She wasn''t having a panic attack, but she couldn''t be sure she wouldn''t if the stay in there went on much longer.

    Her nerves started to become more obvious when out of nowhere she felt something touch her on one of her legs.

    [Seriously, guys. Try to get me out of here now! What was that?] She had actually felt as if something had brushed against her, although it might as well have been suggestion. The loss of orientation could be playing tricks on her.

    She was wishing for that, when she felt something slimy crawling across her cheek. Then it moved on to her nose and was crawling up her septum.

    A bloodcurdling scream nearly knocked everyone out of their senses as it reverberated horribly through the Neurowire.

    Zi whipped and twisted several times trying to fight off an invisible enemy. She tried to shake off the thing she had felt crawling, but it had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. It had not been a hallucination. On her face she could feel the wetness and something slimy like a drool.

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    [Get me out of here, damn it!]

    [What happened?] Oxy asked, alarmed.

    [Something just licked me in the face!]

    "What do you mean, something?" Philip asked.

    [There''s something in here! Get me out of here now!]

    Emmeline took a few steps away again and so did almost everyone else present, with the exception of Philip.

    Oxy remembered the old antique dealer''s words, about the noises he said he heard in the mirror. Maybe there was something after all. Whatever it was they had to get Zi out first and then see what could be there.

    Oxy approached the face where the sun was depicted and examined it more closely, looking at the edges especially. If she was right, that face was the key to freeing Zi. She had been looking for it ever since the agents and technicians had been putting the box together. Well, this box has one, after all.

    [Phil come here, I need you to do something.]

    Philip walked over and looked at the surface Oxy was pointing at. The sun didn''t seem to be anything special. It was just a perfect circle surrounded by the rays. "What do you want me to do?"

    [I want you to carefully touch the edges and see if you can get it out.]

    "The what?"

    [The sun.]

    Philip looked at her quizzically "Why? What''s wrong with the sun?"

    [All mirror boxes, or at least most of them, have a place where the light must enter, this can''t be the exception. To extract something from inside, you have to shine a light through a hole.]

    "Do mirror boxes work like a prism or something?"

    [Not exactly, more like a cube with colored patterns. Each of the sheets has a type of color even though we can''t see it.]

    "The light going through to the inside has to break down into a pattern of colors if I''m not wrong, right?" Portman asked.

    [Exactly.] Oxy nodded.

    "I don''t understand, there''s something that has to be in this sun then?"

    [Yes. Some of the boxes on one side have a hole through which light passes into a prism enclosed in the glass. When the light passes through that prism it breaks down to the inside and bounces back. That''s what you need to do to extract something.]

    Philip ran his hand over the sun detecting nothing at first, then with both hands he searched the edges trying to find something that looked irregular. He found nothing at first attempt, but as he pressed his palm against the circle he suddenly felt it had moved of its own accord. He pulled his hand away quickly, as he felt the circle slowly turning counterclockwise.

    The next moment everyone looked on in amazement as not only was the sun spinning by itself, but the engravings on the huge cube were changing. The scene of the fight against the creatures changed and for a second everyone watched as the ocean of fire engulfed the city with its pillars. At the same time the monsters and terrified running creatures also disappeared in the flames.

    Then the ocean disappeared and the patterns on the edges of the faces grew more geometric for a few moments, and then gave way to something else. On three of the faces of the cube appeared in relief three vaguely anthropoid faces with anguished expressions. They were incredibly realistic and one could judge that they had been rendered in a kind of mute cry of despair and resignation. On the face containing the image of the sun, it grew larger and in its center appeared a tiny hole no more than a centimeter thick. Then the rays adopted meandering grooves instead of straight lines.

    If anything had changed for Zi, she never knew, she was still plunged in pitch darkness, trying to stay alert in case whatever had licked her face came back.

    They all looked at each other without understanding the strange transformation. Oxy cursed not knowing more about the function of the damn boxes. But the truth was that the same went for everyone who had ever studied the subject. Like hundreds of others, who had tried over the years, there were hundreds of thousands of objects whose function was unknown. Simply missing pieces from some remote place and with no instructions on how to understand their strange wonders.

    "What do we do now?" Philip asked.

    [We need to get a light through the hole.]

    "And then?"

    Oxy made a crooked grimace and looked at Philip. [I think that''s it.]

    "Really?"

    [Yes, that''s the whole procedure. Whatever''s inside should appear once the light penetrates.]

    "Any light will do?" Emmeline asked, who returned to stand near the car.

    [It has to be white light or sunlight. The depiction is pretty obvious.] Oxy spat back.

    Philip took a small flashlight he kept in his pocket and turned it on. "Are you sure this is going to work?" he asked as he moved the beam of light closer to the hole.

    [I don''t see why not. At least it has worked in the labs that way.]

    The light from the flashlight illuminated the small hole and almost instantly the change took place. Zi watched as the inside of the mirror lit up, and she could see her reflection move inside. Suddenly she fell with all her weight on the lower face of the mirror and had to squint her eyes due to the almost blinding effect that was taking place inside. Not only that, this time she felt something light fall on her back. She turned around quickly, remembering the sensation of a few seconds before.

    But she couldn''t see anything. As quickly as the light had entered, everything went dark again. "What the fuck?"

    The spot she was lying on suddenly changed its tilt. It was lifting to the side. As if from the outside someone was tilting the box.

    "Stop doing that!!!" Zi shouted, as her body now slammed against another one of the mirrors. She didn''t know what was going on, but the only thing she was missing was for the mirrors to break at that moment and start digging into her body.

    Although those outside didn''t understand what was going on either. Oxy especially didn''t remember any of the mirror boxes that were guarded by Nevermore ever exhibiting that kind of behavior before.

    After the beam of light penetrated through the hole, the motif of the sun changed almost instantly and once again the engravings on the box shifted, becoming even more detailed, albeit with much more geometric and abstract shapes. This time there were no scenes, only patterns in the same baroque style that multiplied and changed again and again.

    [Uh-oh,] Oxy said.

    As if the box had a kind of will of its own, it lifted a few centimeters off the ground and leaned over one of its edges, while it began to spin as if it were a kind of gigantic spinning top. It made a series of quick turns, and then stopped for a second, and repeated the operation. Every moment it stopped it was changing its shape. As if it was some kind of configuration that was unfolding with each spin.

    Zi, meanwhile, dizzy and bouncing from side to side inside the box tried to find a point to hold on, when it stopped after one of its turns. She spread her legs apart, leaning on the edges of the mirror frame, and did the same with her hands. She couldn''t shake the feeling that she was in a training aerotrim. But, at that moment, something else made the feeling of nausea almost disappear immediately. The light had returned to the interior. This time not through the slit, but the whole interior seemed to be illuminated by a light of its own.

    At first she thought it was due to the feeling of nausea but, when the sound reverberated in the chamber, she knew something else was going on. In the reflections of the mirrors she could now see herself, but she was not the only thing being reflected. Her reflection disappeared and the images on the faces of the mirrors were replaced by something else. On the other side of the mirror she was now seeing the reason they came to the apartment in the first place.

    Sil Moore''s image was dancing around the mirrors.

    Without a doubt it was her. There she was in her swimsuit dancing underwater with her hair flowing.

    Zi watched in amazement at the speed of the young woman moving. The images followed one after the other in rapid succession and each mirror was offering a different perspective of the moment. How could that happen Zi ignored it. Not to mention the sound that invaded the box at that moment. She had never heard anything like it in her life, not even in her wildest dreams or nightmares. If she had not been in such a strange situation her sensations would have been different. It was a music with a thrilling harmony.

    But just as it had begun, it suddenly stopped. And she watched as the water disappeared and Sil Moore fell to the ground and stood up. Then that reflection of the past stared at Zi with an expression of joy and amazement at the same time.

    [Save all the progress,] Sil Moore said.

    And then it happened.

    Zi saw a kind of black shadow and an electric blue glow cross Sil''s neck from side to side. Her head dropped and rolled with a thud on the floor and, a second later, her body collapsed.

    It had only been for a split second but Zi had caught a glimpse of a shadow behind her.

    But that shadow did not disappear. The shadow became more defined, as Sil Moore''s eyes stared into the void in an expression of horror. Then slowly they closed and the shadow took on a more human form. She approached the lifeless body and carefully picked up the head.

    It was a fey girl. Or at least she must have been because of her ears. She was dressed in black pants, shirt and dark vest. On her head she wore a fedora hat somewhat out of date. The darkness of the room did not allow at first to see her features, but the mystery did not take long to reveal itself.

    The young woman sat up and embraced Sil Moore''s freshly severed head.

    [I''m sorry, hold it for a little bit,] she said in a sad voice.

    Then she looked up and looked directly at Zi.

    Or at least that''s what Zi interpreted. Each of the mirrors returned the gaze of that young woman. She was a girl with Asian features, but with somewhat messy platinum-gray hair and yellow eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.

    Then the young fey girl approached the mirror and, as if that reflection of the past was talking directly to Zi, she said, [It''s just a ripple in time,] then she brought her face close to the mirror and smiled. [Please take care of all of them,] she said in a melancholic voice.

    What did she just say? It was impossible what was happening. Did the that woman know that Zi would be trapped in the mirror? She was the murderer. She had cleanly cut off Sil''s head, even though she never showed any weapon. What is going on here?

    The young woman stepped back and said, [Until we meet again, please take care of him too,] pointing a finger downward. All the mirrors seemed to return the gesture as if it were an arrow.

    Take care of what? That''s what Zi wondered when she looked down at her feet and saw a small lump staring up at her. Darkness returned to reign inside but the infernal spinning had stopped.

    Outside, those present watched in amazement as the box, although it had stopped, was taking on a new configuration, and what was more alarming, it was growing. The wood was almost adopting fractal patterns without rhyme or reason. The baroque style had given way to plain and simple geometry that seemed to be taking on the hues of a hyperbolic cube.

    A unfolding in dimensions. This looks like a fractus, Oxy thought.

    And that was the last they could see for a few moments. Interested as they were in the strange transformation, they did not notice that the box had grown to a size that was over five meters tall. The box crushed the pipes in the ceiling, where the wiring that supplied electricity to the building was located, and everything went dark.

    The voices of alarm and the curses of Philip and Emmeline could be heard beyond.

    A few seconds later the emergency lights came on, bathing the entire floor in a spectral green.

    The box had opened.

    The mirrors floated away from each other as they returned to normal size. Then with astonishing speed they fell to the ground. Shattering into thousands of pieces, along with the splintered pieces of the frame that were flying everywhere. Philip rushed to the side and dodged one, at the same time looking around for his companion. She was nowhere to be seen.

    He sat up and with the green lights twinkling in the distance, he looked at what was before him. Although he did not understand it in the first few seconds.

    There in front of him was his reflection staring at him dumbfounded. But it was different. It was a broken, shattered image. Like looking into a broken mirror.

    What the hell is this?

    [Get back! Everybody back!] Oxy''s shout, through the Neurowire, made Philip immediately jump backwards as a reflex action, while he felt something tearing the air a few centimeters from his face.

    So did almost everyone else present and immediately there was the sound of weapons being drawn and safeties being unlocked.

    "What is that?" asked Emmeline.

    In the place where until a few moments ago the box had been spinning, there was now a huge lump in which everyone could see themselves reflected. It was like a gigantic ball of broken mirrors. But the word ball could not be accurate either. It had an oblong shape at least two and a half meters high and three and a half meters long.

    The stupor lasted a second, when that mass of sharp glass moved and rose up on its four legs. Turning on itself, the thing leapt into place and moved swiftly into place.

    Philip watched at that moment as a lump rolled to the side from below that sharply mass and jumped up with lightning speed. Zi was free.

    "Don''t shoot it!" she shouted.

    But at that moment the creature turned one more time and everyone could see how on one of the elongated sides of the mass of mirrors a sort of flattened face was formed.

    Whatever the creature was, it looked towards the outer openings of the building and produced a sort of metallic barking sound, as it sped towards the balconies. Everyone moved out of the animal''s way. But not so did Emmeline, who at some point had drawn a sword, whose blue crystal blade produced a faint glow and cut off the animal''s flight.

    The huge beast stopped and looked at Emmeline. The woman, who was now with the animal closer to the street lights that illuminated the interior of the building, could see that the face reminded her of something, but she could not be sure what it was.

    It was a rather stocky animal despite its size. But it was covered all over with shards of broken mirrors. As if it were her own skin. That''s what she was thinking when she saw the animal shaking its head. Something made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and she screamed. "Everyone take cover!!!" She herself thrust the sword into the ground and, from the hilt, a translucent shield appeared and covered her.

    The rest took cover behind the pillars of the plant or the vehicles.

    The huge beast began to shake as if it had just come out of a bath and wanted to shake off the water. Pieces of mirrors were flying in all directions and were sticking into the walls, vehicles and concrete as if they were made of butter. Emmeline didn''t know if it was an attack or not, but her instinct had saved her from being turned into mincemeat by the sharp mirror shards.

    While everyone was still in shock at what had just happened, the animal, huge as it was, slipped through the opening, broke off parts of the structure and leapt out. There was a clatter of breaking glass and the sound of rushing. Everyone ran to look and looked down, only to see the animal quickly gain the road and make a mad dash to the west. In its mouth, it was carrying one of the huge security robots of the place. These not had time to react, before the animal with a few jumps left the place.

    The sound of glass behind them made them turn around and, once again, they all dropped to the ground as a shower of glass shot outwards. The cloud of shards flew across the air and raced after the animal. They were the pieces that the animal had shaken off.

    "Didn''t they have a force field in the building?" Philip asked.

    Emmeline was about to blurt something out but kept quiet. It was possible that the box or the animal itself had broken something.

    [That thing has a skin like it can move from the inside out,] Oxy said.

    Like a fractus?

    [Yes. Or at least it looked that way to me.]

    "Was that a dog?" Portman asked.

    "It is a dog. I saw it only for a moment in its real form, but I''m sure." Zi affirmed.

    "What kind of dog?" Philip asked.

    "A pug," she said, with a serious face like an Easter Island moai.

    Everyone turned to look at her.

    "You''re kidding, right?"

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 12: A Dogs Story

    Chapter Twelve

    A Dog''s Story

    Memories were fuzzy for the animal. He had no sense of time in his prison of reflections but, even so, he often remembered the time he had been outside, as if it were a misty phantasmagoria.

    The first memories he had were of his mother. A huge dog that licked his face and that of his siblings, as small as he was. He had vague memories of running through the long corridors of a manor house, overlooking a huge lush garden where the smells and colors of different types of flowers mingled. Chatter from servants and those who should be the owners of the place.

    Memories of a tall man with brown skin, black hair and beard, dressed in rich clothes that denoted a high birth, and of what must have been his wife, a woman of dark skin with long golden hair like wheat.

    Then, the little girl.

    A somewhat squeaky voice laughed as she petted his head. The kid was no more than a few years old. The same emerald eyes of her father, but with her mother''s golden hair. He could remember her playing in the garden with him and his siblings, who ran after her in their innocent games.

    It was a well-to-do family, with large estates and servants. But it was a happy place, or at least it was as close to happiness as he had ever known. He remembered some quarrels that occurred when strangers arrived to argue with the man and his wife. But the issues of their intrigues were beyond the understanding of the animal, or the little girl.

    And the box.

    That day changed everything. The last memory he had of his time outside the mirror.

    He didn''t know how it arrived to the mansion, but one morning, when he had left the girl''s room, where he slept with his brothers, he had come downstairs, and he saw it there in the hall of the mansion.

    His curiosity deceived him. He went sniffing the huge structure and when he entered through one of the openings, that were not completely closed, it was the last thing he saw for a long time. The opening closed behind him and the happy days in that house that had seen his birth were behind him.

    He cried and scraped the box on his side, as he saw how everything was darkness for him. Hours, days, weeks and months passed. He ignored how he was still alive without food or water in the place. But he was. His hopes of being free again were extinguished when one day the light returned, but instead of being able to get out of his prison, he discovered that he was locked behind the glass of one of the mirrors.

    But there was something strange about the scene he saw through the mirror. He couldn''t quite explain why, but somehow he felt as if the place he saw through the mirror was a different place than the one he had seen. It wasn''t just that the image was changing, there was something different about the world he was looking at.

    The box changed configuration and location hundreds of times. Sometimes it was a folding screen where people changed. Other times it was a lady''s room. Located on the wall of a shabby looking bar, or in some cabaret in the lost alleys of some seaside town.

    Horses gave way to metal animals and the dog watched as pillars rose and spewed smoke into the clear skies at the dawn of the industrial age. Revolutions passed and wars rocked the world. More storefronts, shabby hotel rooms, dance halls, and more storefronts.

    All of it had passed before his eyes. And even if he had no way of knowing it, the box had never been separated from its parts more than a few feet away. It was as if, even disassembled, all its parts were still somehow connected by some invisible thread of insane perversity.

    Finally one last storefront. An antique store whose owner was so old, that he could easily become part of the list of objects in the place.

    Several years passed and it was sold, although it wasn''t long before it returned to the same place.

    And then came Thursday.

    From the moment the red-haired girl with blonde braids had appeared that Thursday on her bicycle, in front of the store window, only to return later to buy the mirror, the dog knew something was about to happen. Not to mention the strange visit from the bizarre man who had touched the mirror''s surface with his hand the day before.

    He liked his new place of residence. Although the young woman could not notice his presence, the place had a certain warmth, but also a certain loneliness. The dog was unaware of what the young woman was doing and what she was doing with the space of the place, since it changed from time to time. Although he got used to seeing her come and go, even though his residence in the place had been rather short.

    Friday he didn''t have much to do and, although he found himself distracted by the new space to explore, his exploration was over by midday and finally, without further ado, he threw himself on the bed reflection of who would be his new friend.

    The girl arrived when it was already dark, but her presence filled him with a certain happiness, at last there was a human walking in the same space as him. If nothing else, it was the reflection of the person on the other side of the mirror.

    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    His surprise was profound when he saw how the place where he had moved in the morning changed completely in size, becoming bigger, but he was even more terrified when he saw how everything seemed to be filled with water. From his point of view things were different. The safety barrier that Sil Moore had put up was not working inside the mirror and so he escaped from the water and went to lie down again in the reflection of the bed. It was not as if he could drown, but the sensation of seeing how the water begun to rise alarmed him. The animal was completely unaware of the prodigies of the humans, nor of the SDDs they used.

    Then came Sil''s routine.

    The girl''s performance had surprised him, he had never seen or heard anything like the music that filled the atmosphere. It was harmonious and relaxing music. But his attitude as a mere observer changed suddenly, when he began to see that the girl''s moments were getting stranger and stranger. Alarmed, he turned again to where the crystal was and, from his perspective, simply touched the crystal. There was a dull sound that rippled through the place and Sil stopped. Just a few moments later the place was without water and Sil was looking into the mirror almost as if she could see him. Although he knew that was impossible.

    The next moment he did not know how to interpret what he saw. The young woman''s head had fallen off and then her body. Was it normal for humans to lose their heads in the literal sense? He didn''t know, but what happened the next moment made him wonder if he wasn''t also losing his head. A strange shadow took corporeal form and, after taking the girl''s head, said some strange words and then simply vanished into thin air, just as the man who touched the mirror with his finger did.

    There lay the body of her new friend, motionless.

    The dog had been hovering over the reflected body of the young woman all night but it did not move anymore. Saturday had arrived and for a few hours the place was almost completely silent. The dog could do nothing from his side, but stare at the young woman''s body. He had lived so long behind the mirror, his barrier, that he had completely forgotten the concept of death.

    Perhaps at some point the head would return and the young woman would rise from the floor. Just as he remembered had happened when sometimes everything went black for him and he slept for years before clarity returned. Perhaps humans also went through a similar lethargic period.

    When the daylights went out, often the number of humans, which he had seen through the window of the many stores he had passed through over the years, dwindled. Although over the years that had been changing. Increasingly it seemed that humans were staying awake at night as well as during the day.

    Be that as it may, there was a chance that the girl would simply wake up at some point. With nothing else to do, he went back to lie down next to the girl.

    That changed when in his new nap a horrified scream woke him up, and he saw a woman at the door of the apartment, who disappeared a few seconds later. Only moments later, the siege of the place began, forcing him to hide in an area where people''s reflections could not reach him. What the hell were the humans doing and what were all those tiny things buzzing back and forth in the room? The dog knew that a run-in with one of those reflections inside the mirror had a certain solidity to him. The last thing he needed at that moment was to end up under the feet of the humans, and those other human-looking ones, in the room.

    Then came the last cherry on the cake.

    From the animal''s point of view, he knew that everything that happened in front of the mirror had a corresponding reflection on the inside. But he couldn''t see his own. So he was surprised when suddenly someone appeared on his side, who was not reflected in the mirror either.

    After so many years of solitary confinement, someone appeared on his side, it was a girl who had been moving around the room with another bald human. The dog didn''t know who she was, but he had had enough in those days for the rest of the week. He wanted to rest and remained hidden in a dark area with no reflections of any kind. Away from the pointy-eared woman. He liked the idea of someone on his side, but so much had happened in a few days that he couldn''t deny he was stressed.

    Then the transport, and he watched as the young woman seemed to feel dizzy. He knew the mirror was moving again even though the image of the room hadn''t changed. For some time everything was still, as he heard the girl talking to someone he couldn''t see. Then everything changed and the animal saw with amazement something he had forgotten long ago.

    The box.

    The thing that had trapped him so long, at the beginning of it all, was being put together again. The girl trapped with him stood close to the glass and because of that she did not get to see him. The dog realized that he could still hide in the reflections of the farthest mirrors, where the light was diffused. It didn''t help much, though.

    When the last of the mirrors was put in place, darkness fell once again for a few moments. The animal floated weightless among the reflections when suddenly something felt different. He felt he had brushed against something and heard the screams of the girl. He couldn''t blame her and floated, until he hit her face. It was an involuntary lick, he felt like his muzzle had hit something soft and licked it. It was followed by more screams from the frightened girl.

    What a noisy creature, the dog thought.

    Then everything lit up again. He didn''t know how it was possible, but for a moment he felt the full weight of his body and fell on the girl''s back. It was completely different from the feeling on the other side. The sensation of gravity felt completely real. And the infernal spinning motion began. The animal was bouncing from side to side, although he didn''t mind that too much. In the farthest reflections he thought he had seen images from another time that he remembered all too well. The image did not last more than a few seconds but it brought back a flood of memories. And finally for a few seconds he saw again the end of the one who had been his companion, if only for a couple of days.

    The movement ceased and the dog fell back into the mirror in the background. He looked up, to see that above him was the girl, looking at the reflection of the one who had taken the head of his new friend.

    It was then that he felt that his paws touching the mirror were undergoing a strange transformation. A kind of intense coldness was creeping up his body and he could feel something inside him changing. He had no idea what it was, but again everything went black. But he felt that the sensation, that something was happening to his body, it did not stop at all. It was rising fast and covering every part of him.

    It was something cold as ice, but it wasn''t necessarily horrible. New sounds of something breaking and the young girl fell to the bottom of the box, while now it was the dog that was increasing in size. He felt that something had just unlocked. When the green light filled his eyes, he felt very different. His size had changed and he didn''t know why, but at that moment he didn''t care at all.

    Air.

    The air he breathed was humid and he could feel the wind blowing in a northerly direction, which was coming through the huge openings in the building. He turned around and saw that there were no more reflections behind him.

    He didn''t hesitate for a second.

    He ran toward one of the openings to finally emerge into the world. A woman wielding some kind of giant sword had tried to block his way. He felt an itch on his body, and as he always did after a nap, he shook it off. Except this time he found that with his movement something shot out of his body in all directions. There was a shout and the humans and pointy-eared humans ran for cover.

    And he took advantage of this occasion to finally pass through one of the balconies and go out to freedom.

    When he landed, he saw a black floating block just a few meters away from him, floating towards him. The strange object emitted a red light and said [You are trespassing, stop].The dog grabbed the object with his mouth and jumped over the wire fence of the building.

    He was under the rain. Running in a world he had longed to reach for so long.

    Finally his confinement was over.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 13: The Gateway Tree.

    Chapter Thirteen

    The Gateway Tree.

    Happiness was filling every pore, or rather chink, between the dog''s mirrored skin. His whole body was a mass of broken mirrors. Even in his mouth where all the shards had transformed his teeth and tongue into something even more dangerous. But it didn''t bother him.

    He didn''t know what had happened but that didn''t matter to him in the least at that moment. He was free. Free at last after so many decades and centuries. Whether by some miracle, or trick of which he did not know how it worked, nothing else mattered to him.

    He was running down a long road and felt the wind against his body. His breathing was labored with excitement, but the air felt strange. His mouth felt a little different than it did on a regular basis. It was hard to describe.

    And what had happened to the world? He was pretty sure there was something strange about its size. He had always seen humans and other things as always being above him. But this time it was not so. He could see how under his steps things looked small, or about the same size. The vehicles that were dodging him on the road were almost half his size in height.

    He felt that with each of his footsteps the ground shook and heard the sound of glass crunching under his footsteps.

    Suddenly he began to feel a new itching sensation in his body and stopped in time to watch as hundreds of thousands of crystals attached themselves to his back. He was sure that, when he had shaken himself in the building, he had left something behind. Although he did not expect that, whatever it was, it would come back to him.

    The black block in its mouth was emitting sparks and a voice chattered incessantly. [You are violating the 46th code of conduct against Artificial Intelligences and damaging government property. Please desist from this behavior.]

    The dog dropped the cube from his mouth and sat down in the middle of the street to look at it. The block lifted up and began to float almost instantly as it made metallic sounds and began to transform. It was the actual appearance of the parking lot''s security robots. The square parts of the block hid a cylinder that was the main body. The outer square parts functioned as the limbs. Although the dog must have bitten something when it held it in its mouth, because the robot was missing one of its arms. In that place it could only be seen that part of the square surface had not completely transformed and was emitting electric blue sparks.

    The robot pointed its arm at the dog while saying. [Please remain calm, you are being detained.]

    The dog again took a few steps towards the robot with the intention of playing.

    [Please stop. Cease your behavior.]

    There was no canine response and the robot pointed to the side, near the dog, as a warning signal.

    The robot''s mental response speed was fast enough to know, in a thousandth of a second, what was happening, when it felt all its parts flying through the air. It had fired close to the animal, but not close enough to harm it. But somehow, even before his riot projectile shot out of his fist, it was his own body that was flying apart.

    [Sending analysis,] was the last thought he had as his Type One consciousness left the metal shell, that had served him so long as a body, and joined the swarm that served as a nucleo-colony, along with other artificial intelligences of the SIGN Agency.

    The dog approached and sniffed the remains of the metal, nanocarbon and synthetic fluids scattered on the conductive asphalt of the road. He didn''t know what had happened, but his talking toy exploded.

    He looked up and saw a vehicle approaching a hundred yards in his direction, but then the vehicle stopped, turned around and started back the way it had come.

    This is fun, thought the dog, as he started to run after the vehicle, which picked up speed.

    In just a couple of minutes the dog realized he had a lot to choose from. The vehicle joined another stretch of road, with more vehicles on it, and chaos ensued. The occupants of the vehicles were forced to take manual control of their cars trying to dodge the dog''s merry prances down the road. There were semi-spinning, spinning, cars crashing into each other, while urban stress sensors were triggered at traffic control headquarters. Given the safety measures in the vehicles no one was hurt, but that didn''t take away the mess the animal was leaving behind with its innocent games.

    All the Neurowires began to emit alerts for help and calls to the police who seemed to be unable to believe the reports that were coming in.

    [There''s a glass animal on the road! Halp!]

    [Something just made me crash into another vehicle and I don''t have any more manual license points!]

    [I want to report some kind of huge animal on Niddrie Main Road!]

    Two of the police officers on call at the central building looked at each other with concern. It was the Scottish Police building, on the corner of Niddrie Main Road and Craigmillar, and they were on the seventh floor. At that very moment the sounds of breaking glass and clashing metal and all kinds of expletives from the people in the streets began to reach their ears. They approached the windows just as the dog was passing in front of them and heading down Peffemill Road.

    "What the hell is that?" asked one of the policemen.

    At the foot of the street the patrol cars were soon occupied and the sirens were turned on as they set off in pursuit of the animal, followed by several riot drones. The police had special protocols in case of creatures which required the activation of a special forces unit.

    Special forces were in another location at the time. Since it was Saturday, most of the team was in custody of the subway entrances of the city, in case there was any disorder in one of the night pubs located there. It was not a bad location as they could make sure that the huge dog did not reach the vicinity of some of the entrances. Luckily, the dog wasn''t yet in the new part of the city.

    In those seconds that were crucial to the chase, everyone realized something else. The three vehicles that had been in pursuit of the animal suddenly lost sight of it. It had completely disappeared from the road and farther away the vehicles were circulating normally. The animal''s mirrored fur was a good camouflage at night as it could hide, but it had happened too fast.

    "Where did it go?"

    "Could it have strayed into one of the surrounding streets?"

    The policemen slowed down and saw how in the enclosed area to the west, which hundreds of years ago had been a golf practice area, the fence was flattened.

    "That can''t be good," said one of the constables, looking at his partner. "He just entered Prestonfield Park. It''s in the tree grounds," he said, and looked worriedly at the huge glow that like a beacon illuminated that part of the city.

    Holyrood Park had become a must-see for anyone visiting Edinburgh, even though the area near the tree was off-limits to people. In turn, Prestonfield Park was a very busy place during the day and sometimes during the evenings for the younger ones as well. But that night was Saturday, and there was no one around.

    The place was much more lush than it had been in times past and over time the vegetation had advanced so much that the city council decided to annex the adjoining land of Duddingston Loch and the Prestonfield club as part of the land concerning the Gateway Tree as well.

    The dog crossed the park, shooing away some of the local ducks and being chased by the autonomous security drones in that part of the park. He waded into the lake in the middle of the site for a midnight dip. Water, his first and only drink in so long. But that was not his final destination. Since his run, along the route he had been seeing that golden glow peeking out from between the skyscrapers. The vision had been changing as he approached the place and the buildings disappeared.

    The animal knew what it was. The old man in the store had once placed a souvenir near the mirror that was exactly a copy of what he saw. He shook himself once again, this time throwing water from the lake and shrapnel from his crystal skin, and made his way to the tree.

    He reached a white marble slab, illuminated all around and sniffed the place not understanding the words in the center of the stone.

    [Welcome to the Gateway Tree. Dedicated to the memory of all the heroes who made it possible for our world to continue. May their sacrifice and the splendor of their deeds never be forgotten.]

    The animal looked up once more and saw the huge tree a few hundred yards away.

    It was the Gateway Tree on Arthur''s Seat Hill.

    He walked a few meters, to jump the low security fence that separated him from the last section of the tree, when a hologram of the information system activated and a screen showed him images of a war he remembered hearing about long ago through the crystal barrier that was is home.

    [Welcome to the Gateway Tree,] said the voice of the holographic presenter. [Arrived during the Great War against the fractus, the seeds of the gate are what made possible, in large part, the recovery of the planet after the war. Since the trees that grow from the seeds produce much more oxygen than normal plants, and wherever the trees break through, it is a symbol that the vegetation will grow in an unusual way again. Thanks to this, many forests had been restored.]

    The dog raised one of his paws timidly and stepped through the hologram, while the presenter continued her speech in a theatrical manner.

    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

    [The trees develop rapidly and grow gigantic, with trunks so thick, that they make the giant sequoias pale. Their crowns are enormous and their flowers produce a natural perpetual bioluminescence, of a chemical nature similar to that of fireflies. They come in all shapes and sizes, although the most common type is the cherry tree. It is not a cherry tree per se, but its shape is quite reminiscent of a cherry tree, albeit with golden blossoms. This is especially the type of tree on Arthur''s Seat Hill. Although people know it as the Arthur''s Seat Tree, the fact is that the location is between Arthur''s Seat Hill and its neighbor Crow Hill.

    [The seed was brought in only four years after the war ended and this place was designated for its planting. In the early years it was small and its radiance was not visible from afar. Thirty years later it reached a height of over a hundred meters and with its huge canopy shines at night like a beacon of hope.]

    Finally he got bored of playing with the hologram and jumped the low fence that separated him from his destination. It didn''t take him long to climb the gentle slope of the hill and arrive at the foot of the giant tree.

    Security was not nonexistent at this point. Although it seemed so to anyone who approached, there was a team that was in charge of monitoring the security of the park and the tree. Security was located several meters underground in special facilities that ran through the entire park with subway tunnels.

    The security control center was a hive of aeons and humans who didn''t know how to interpret what they were seeing. In their long lives of guarding the site, the most dangerous thing they could remember were some young men who had tried to paint the tree trunk with drones.

    The Aeon quickly reported the incident to the police and dispatched two armed drones to try to scare off the dog. At the same time the two armed police surveillance drones were almost reaching it. The animal meanwhile was too enraptured staring at the treetop. It was a truly sublime sight. But now something else was catching his attention.

    Several meters underground. There were thick lines that snaked and moved as if they had some sort of consciousness of their own. The animal wondered what that could be. It was the second time he had seen something similar. The first time he had seen it was the day before, near the end of Sil Moore''s underwater practice. He could remember how for a split second those same lines had appeared on the ground several meters below the room.

    He had no idea what they might be, but in his innocence, he wondered if by digging he could reach them. The people below the tunnels were alerted to these lines, even though they could not see them.

    A buzzing sound caught his attention. He was being surrounded by the two police drones, equipped with riot sound systems just like the two drones in the park. The AI in charge of controlling the system of both was not sure that an ultrasound attack would work against the animal, as it had never shown up in their records, but at least it could give Nevermore''s team time to arrive on the scene. They were only a couple of minutes late.

    Unfortunately the measure to deter, or tranquilize the animal, served no purpose other than to destroy the drones. The moment the four of them fired their sonic cannons at the dog, they were instantly out of commission. A detonation was heard and pieces of circuitry, nanocarbon and metal were thrown everywhere. The animal had not even moved, but pieces of both drones fell to the grass. Only the three security drones, which were not equipped with any attack countermeasures, were left.

    The dog sniffed at the wreckage, but found it uninteresting, and it was too small to do anything fun with it. He looked at the city from the spot. The huge skyscrapers of the city hid a lot of details from the distance but, even so, the animal filled with his eyes the vision of that world that had always been on the other side of the glass. He remembered his brothers and the little girl he had played with so much? Were they still out there somewhere in one of those twinkling lights of the city?

    He snorted and turned his gaze to the south. From where he stood, the tree offered enough light that he could recognize the path down the hill, on the opposite side from where he had come. Farther on, he could see the figure silhouetted against the lights of the town of Salisbury Craigs, and the lights of the road on which some vehicles were traveling at that moment.

    Despite his enormous weight of several tons at the time, the dog moved with incredible dexterity on the terrain. He made great leaps and reached the final crags of Salisbury Craigs only seconds later.

    With great leaps the animal began to descend the hill and started a new run towards the road, hoping to see more things that would catch his attention. The first night out of his prison was just beginning.

    ***

    Thor and Claris were entering Queen''s Drive, on the road around Holyrood Park.

    It was a rather small car, with the appearance of a black egg on wheels, but with a powerful engine, although given Thor''s special circumstances, it was a fully armored car. Customizing it had cost him a fortune, but it wasn''t as if money was a problem for him. After all, Thor, a wealthy fey, considered himself lucky, both socially and financially. Besides, what he really liked was his job as a special agent in the SID.

    "Where are these guys?" Thor snorted. Through his Neurowire he was trying to find some sign of the others but, for some reason, his tracker was jumping location at every turn. Although maybe that was because they were only a few hundred meters from the Gateway Tree.

    Thor was a fey dwarf type, because of that his driver''s seat was customized as well. Despite his short stature, he looked as if he had been exercising since birth. He had rough hands, thick knuckles and his dark brown hair was neatly combed back. Despite his hard features, bushy eyebrows and well-groomed stubble, his eyes looked more like those of a restless child. That day he was wearing a tailored Italian pinstripe suit, as he was on a date, as he was used to doing on weekends.

    Claris was a fey with ash-blonde hair pulled back in a bun at the time. Her blue, almost electric eyes contrasted with her dark skin and dress. Her pointed ears had two earrings made of sapphire-like Fractium, which gave off a faint glow against her skin. The yellow dress she wore had a plunging neckline and, since she was not very buxom, when moving in a sitting position it was quite easy for something to escape from the fabric. Such was what had happened when she sneezed.

    "Are you sure you haven''t caught a cold?" asked Thor, raising an eyebrow as he glanced sideways at the upturned nipple on her right breast.

    "I don''t think not," she replied, covering herself. "You''ve been staring at me all night, do you want to lose more license points, like you lost money at the casino?"

    "Hey! I wasn''t the only one who lost. But at least you can''t blame the glances," Thor grinned at her.

    She sighed and, through the Neurowire, entered the dress configuration subroutine and adjusted the fabric a bit. In just a second the fabric shimmered, exhibiting a triangular pattern across the chest, and a buckle appeared below the breast. Problem solved.

    "Why did you do that?"

    "I don''t mind showing off my body, or being looked at, but I sure don''t want to get into an accident because you''re looking at my boobs instead of the road."

    "I can put the automatic driving on if you want."

    Claris smiled, shook her head in denial and pointed her lips forward, Thor shrugged smiling.

    Another sneeze, this time nothing escaped his place.

    "Don''t throw too many bugs, I cleaned it up this morning."

    Claris looked at him with a grim look on her face and clicked her tongue. "I don''t get sick eve-."

    The word remained half-pronounced. In less than the blink of an eye they both saw the world change its orientation. Claris saw, for a split second, how the vehicle was turning on itself and the gesture of Thor, who with a crooked grimace also looked at her while shouting an expletive. A sort of whirlwind of reflections passed by them and was lost in the trees on the other side of the road.

    The vehicle lurched a couple more times on the wet pavement, and due to its shape it was left swaying from side to side for a few seconds.

    "What the fuck?" Claris shouted and unbuckled her seatbelt and fought against the safety cushion. Thor next to her was fighting to free himself as well. They both fell to the ceiling as the pillow began to retract again.

    The doors opened and Claris came out on all fours, as the bun on her head came loose, her hair was down to her waist. She saw blue and red lights flashing and then a blinding flashlight in her face.

    "Ma''am, are you all right?"

    The one asking that question was one of the constables who a few minutes earlier had been on the other side of Prestonfield Park, watching where the huge dog had entered. He took Claris by the arm and helped her to her feet.

    His partner ran to the driver''s side. What was his surprise to see Thor come out, at first he had mistaken him for a boy with the musculature of a wrestler, albeit with an excellent sense of taste in clothing.

    "What the hell was that?" Thor asked, as he finished standing up. Then he looked at his car with the wheels pointing up. "Ah, great¡­"

    The cop watched as blood gushed from his forehead. Claris in turn had a scrape on her shoulder and had stained her dress a bit as she stepped out and touched the wet pavement from the rain.

    "Sir, we need to get you to a hospital," the policeman said to Thor.

    "Ahh," sighed Thor, downplaying the matter. "Don''t worry about it. I guess what ran over us is the reason we''re here."

    "What do you mean?"

    The cop looked at him quizzically for a few seconds and Thor pulled a badge ID out of his coat. "We''re from Nevermore. SID. Special Agent Thor."

    His partner looked at Claris expecting to see another badge, but the fey girl simply shook her head. "He''s the special agent," she said and then, with a wave of her hand, sent her business card to the Neurowire of one of the cops.

    "Who are you?"

    "Claris Mackie, Nevermore legal department...I believe you know us as the Fire Department."

    The cops looked at each other. Of course they knew where the girl belonged. Basically the Fire Department was a nickname the Nevermore law firm had. A nickname that over the years had become the official name of the firm.

    Thor approached the vehicle and, with the same ease with which he would lift an object off the ground, he simply flipped the vehicle over and began to inspect the paint. "Not bad," he muttered.

    The cops were still not out of their surprise, when the sound of other sirens and lights approached from behind them. The FRT truck and a couple of SIGN cars had just arrived on the scene. Philip and Zi had borrowed one of Emmeline''s armortruck SUVs, since they had left their vehicle at Piershill.

    "What a time to arrive," Philip said, looking at Thor with a frown.

    "Hey! I wasn''t expecting something to happen just today," Thor said. "We weren''t anywhere near here."

    Zi looked at Claris. "And what are you doing here?"

    Claris was looking at the stains on her dress, and seeing if she could make them disappear with some of the configuration subroutines. "Ask him."

    "What the hell was it that bumped into us? Tell me it''s not a monster," Thor asked.

    "A dog. A very big dog."

    "How do you plan to stop it?" Claris asked.

    Philip shook his head. "We don''t know yet, for the moment let''s try to catch it first. You! Claris! Get out of here, you can''t be in the middle of a case. It''s dangerous."

    "You''re kidding right? If that thing starts destroying the city, even if it''s Sunday tomorrow all the government authorities are going to be gnawing at our heads."

    "Well, go with the boys back there then. And put on an SMC suit just in case."

    Claris snorted and headed for the truck. "There goes my night," she muttered annoyed.

    "Hey, don''t complain you''ve got a bundle in your bank account today," Thor said, as he climbed back into the vehicle.

    "What happened?" Zi asked, as Claris passed her.

    "I''ll tell you later."

    "Officers, if you want to help us you''re welcome."

    "Yes, sir." Said one of them and the other looked sideways at him. He was terrified at the prospect of a monster being loose in the city, but there was no alternative.

    "Thor, turn on the vehicle''s traditional comms, I''m sending you the link," Philip urged.

    "The NW signal sucks here."

    "It''s because of the signal from the tree. Once we get a little further away we''ll be fine," Philip rambled, getting into the vehicle.

    A young woman from the FRT opened the door for Claris and she got in. She was surprised to see that there were only four people. She was unaware that two had remained in the SIGN building assessing the damage to the box, and that others were on standby at MCIT headquarters.

    The vehicles unblocked the road and headed west towards where the animal had taken off. The police drones were following it, but it was hopping with enormous speed and was still out of sight.

    Thor took manual control of the vehicle once again and sped after it. "Where have you gone doggy?"

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 14: Interlude

    Chapter Fourteen

    Interlude

    5.10 A.M.

    Astana, Nursultan. Kazakhstan

    Shin barely slept for about four hours. It''s not as if that bothered him too much. Throughout his life he had always been a short sleeper anyway. Although this time the reason was rather different. He had thought that making love to Mai that night would probably tire him out too much to stay up all night, but that was not the case. It would be for another occasion to have a shared sleeping session.

    Mai on the other hand was sleeping peacefully beside him, dressed only in a detached nightshirt. Shin looked at her face and felt that seeing that peaceful face somehow mitigated the guilt he felt for having lied to her about what happened at the lake. Even if he knew that Mai understood the reason for the lie, it didn''t make him feel any better.

    On the other hand he was worried that someone would find out what had really happened in the park. Only a handful knew the truth. They had reported that they had encountered an infectious life form and that, due to the explosion in the lake, fragments had been blasted into the skies. But they never reported that they had seen a ship rise into the sky and distort space, before it went into the night. It was a big deal but Mai did not want to tell the council. She would wait to discuss it face to face with Oxy, and ask her opinion. Shin understood the reason behind Mai''s lying in the report, but that didn''t make him feel any better either.

    On Friday Mai hadn''t slept all day and, although she had some rest that night, she awoke the next morning to log on to SID''s virtual offices on Another Earth to take care of paperwork and receive reports from other cases around the world.

    SID''s virtual rotating buildings were located in Another Earth and connected all the different bases and sections around the world as a central hub, to synchronize information and collaborate with the different security agencies. Shin, because he didn''t have a Neurowire, had only been able to connect to the site through his book and old VR glasses.

    The place certainly reminded him of a giant anthill, with avatars of all the agents and scientists, administrative and static agents who were in charge of carrying information between the different floors. Shin never checked it, but he had been told that each floor of the building, where the offices of each country were located, actually connected to the virtual space building of that country. Which meant that the same building was in every country, but only one floor connected to the central one, which gave Shin the impression that the central place was simply in a kind of limbo with many doors.

    Not that that bothered him too much. But he preferred the palpable reality next to him.

    Mai shifted and stood looking up. The detached shirt revealed the girl''s chest, which was breathing with a calm rhythm. Between her breasts, the imperceptible scar could be seen. Shin stared at her for a few seconds and ran a finger softly over the wound. You''ve been through too much Rei. He buttoned a couple of the buttons of her shirt and covered her breast.

    Then with one of his hands he brushed a strand of silver hair away from her face and gently squeezed one of her cheeks in a playful way with a finger. The girl didn''t even flinch and continued sleeping.

    He slowly got up from the bed and covered her, trying to make as little noise as possible while putting on his hotel slippers.

    Because of what had happened and for security reasons, Virg had forced them to change hotels. The news that Mai was in the country had already leaked out and, even though there was no sign that anyone could make an attempt on her life, it was better to take some precautions.

    They were in a rather more modest hotel, nothing compared to the luxurious suite they had occupied the past few days, but it wasn''t bad either. If all went well by Tuesday they would be on their way to France for Shin''s ceremony and to celebrate the formation of the team with Lizbeth.

    Shin put on a robe and walked quietly to one of the armchairs, where his old trench coat rested. The technical team had done a good job of cleaning the coat, considering it was a muddy mess when it was found near the lake.

    He slipped one of his hands into the inner fabric of the trench coat, and the limb simply disappeared as if sucked into some kind of black hole. Shin looked up at Mai as he searched for something in the depths of that place. After a few seconds he pulled out his hand with a black object ,while from his hand fell some pieces of frost that faded away before even touching the carpet where he was standing.

    He hid the object in his robe and headed for the exit door, entering the room''s password. With incredible timing, he closed the door and the door a few feet away opened, and a girl with waist-length red hair, dressed only in lacy underwear, emerged with a gun in her hand

    Shin looked at her and then at the gun. "Carissia, what are you doing?" he asked quietly.

    "I heard noises¡­ " she replied in the same tone, with her usual poker face.

    "It''s me. Put that thing down." She lowered the gun. "When did you get to the hotel?"

    "Last night."

    "Why didn''t you tell us?"

    "I sent a message to Mai. Besides you guys were exchanging fluids, I judged it best not to disturb you two."

    Shin looked at her with a frown. "Why do you have to say it like that?"

    "That''s what were you two doing, isn''t it?"

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    Shin would have liked to say something else to her but gave up. Carissia was a very nice aeon girl, but the way she had of saying things was too blunt sometimes. "Were you spying on us?"

    "No. My hearing is very good. Good job." She said and gave him a thumbs up.

    Good job? Shin shook his head and shuffled on his way.

    "Where are you going?"

    "I''m going to smoke upstairs, I want to see the garden," he said listlessly.

    He walked to the end of the corridor, entered a tubular glass enclosure and rode the disc elevator upstairs. Looking back he found that Carissia was still staring at him from the door of her room. What the hell is she doing?

    Once again Carissia raised her thumb and moved her lips, "G-O-O-D J-O-B."

    Shin smiled at her and nodded, if nothing else. She''s doing this on purpose, he thought, as he pressed the up arrow button on the wall to activate the disk.

    The elevator took him up the fifteen floors and stopped at what looked like a huge dome, that housed a sort of greenhouse with some of the most exotic flowers. He recognized some of them, but most were unfamiliar to him. What he knew of botany was more than enough to conclude that many of these species were new, and had not existed in his time. Shin walked along the path admiring the place, until he came to a new door, that led to the other part of the enclosure, also with plants, although it was open to the sky. He looked around for any sign that anyone was in the place, but it was too early in the morning, and the guests must still be sleeping to admire the nature of the place.

    The neon lights of the city with its skyscrapers and the orbital belt, which was moving westward at that moment, merged with the star studded sky, although a purplish clarity could already be distinguished on the horizon.

    "Shit!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. When he had barely taken a few steps, he felt a sudden dizziness.

    It wasn''t the first time. Since returning from the mission at the lake, he had felt another dizzy spell on the way back to Astana, but he thought it might have been due to fatigue.

    It was strange, at the lake when he had run to reach Mai in danger, he had also felt tired. It could have been because he had been resurrected only minutes before, but he didn''t remember ever having that kind of dizziness before.

    Be that as it may, the sensation disappeared as suddenly as it had disappeared.

    He found a bench among some giant yellow-flowered mallow trees and sat down. He saw no [no smoking] signs, so he lit one of his black cigarettes, and pulled out of his robe the object he had taken out of his raincoat.

    It was an antique cell phone, from the end of the 20th century.

    He turned it on and the green screen lit up his face as he searched for a number in the directory. He found it quickly, and pressed call on the contact that was marked BK. The tone rang a couple of times until a boyish male voice picked up on the other end of the line.

    [It''s been months,] the voice said.

    "Hey," Shin greeted. "How have you been?"

    [Same old, same old.]

    "¡­"

    [...] It took a few seconds before BK spoke again. [The truth is, I was thinking of calling you.]

    "Why?"

    [You first. You don''t call unless you need something.]

    "You have access to Nevermore''s case files?"

    [... I''m not sure if I should answer that. You''re one of them now. Are you playing peek-a-boo with your new partners?]

    Shin savored the word partners. He had a bitter taste remembering things that had happened in the past. And yet here he was again, in a new era. "I''m not spying on anyone."

    [And yet you''re here talking to me, trying to get into files I assume you don''t have access to.]

    "Wrong. I''m not trying to get in anywhere. I asked you in case you saw the last case I worked on."

    BK took a few seconds to respond. [You found an alien life form from what I can see.]

    "We found something else," Shin said grimly. "That thing was able to access fragments of memories from my past life... if it is my past life."

    [Did you see those things you saw sometimes in your dreams?]

    " Yeah."

    [I see¡­ ]

    "You didn''t find any clues regarding the Song of the Binary Stars in the time I wasn''t here?"

    [I''ve had my nets on alert since you disappeared, there are a few mentions here and there, but nothing concrete. If such a book really exists, whoever owns it, and if there are copies, they have tried to keep it secret and away from the voices in the digital and virtual world].

    Shin sighed and leaned back on the bench, looking up at the stars, as he remembered the strange telepathic conversation he had had with the strange mushroom creature. Or maybe it was Ivraeva''s consciousness?

    "Can I ask you something?"

    [What do you need?]

    "You can look to see if there is any mention of Tzi''rak sha Zhireq on any network or anything."

    [Send me a spelled out message, I''ll see what I can find when I have some time.]

    "Are you busy?"

    [Always.]

    "...where are you? Are you still on the planet, or are you up there floating?"

    [I''m in both places.]

    Shin smiled. "Your turn now."

    [Are you aware of the other SID teams'' cases?]

    "Yes, I have access to them. Why?"

    [I think you''d be interested to see what''s going on in Edinburgh right now.]

    "What''s going on?"

    [When was the last time you heard of electric malfunctions, a red-eyed creature, and beings moving at superhuman speed?]

    Shin''s face darkened, remembering that only a few days ago he had seen something related thanks to the storm of memories. A girl crying in an alley. "Is it related to the AFT?"

    [I don''t know, but there are some interesting things going on there. You''re probably interested in keeping up with it and it''s easier for you. Your friend Claris is on site too].

    "Does it still exist? The AFT?"

    [I don''t know, the AFT was always just a rumor to begin with.]

    "A rumor that sent me to the other side for over two hundred years," Shin said grumpily.

    [But a rumor nonetheless. If the AFT really exists, then they are operating like our black-suited friends, outside our understanding of time].

    Shin said nothing for a few seconds letting the cold morning wind sneak into the conversation.

    [I''ll keep you posted if I find anything.]

    "How? I can only talk to you with this thing."

    [The time is coming when I''ll have to collect all the favors at once.]

    Shin frowned. "Has something happened?"

    [I think it''s best for me if I take my new body to the main station. But I still have things to do down here. For the time being keep that book and the VR goggles close to you. If I find anything I''ll let you know].

    "Thank you."

    [Shin¡­]

    "What?"

    [Take care of them.]

    That surprised him. BK had hardly ever mentioned Mai or Lizbeth. " Of course I will."

    [Don''t do anything risky or stupid, this isn''t the twentieth century. There are many more ways to arrive at a different result.]

    "What do we know?"

    [Well, at least I know who they are. And I know who you are too. The past doesn''t matter. You deserve a break.] Silence lingered for a few seconds and BK added. [Good luck, old friend.]

    "Good luck to you too."

    The call ended, leaving Shin with more questions than answers. He knew it was futile to try to get any information out of BK. Whoever was behind that line had always helped him or Gehirn when they were in a bind. But he never showed his face. And since his help had gone on since the end of World War II, Shin could only think that it was some fey who for some reason didn''t want to show himself.

    The cigarette ember went out and Shin threw the butt into the nearby garbage can, which charged him a tenth of an E-feb for processing it, and set off on his way back. This time Carissia did not come out of her room to give him another thumbs up. Shin re-set the password, closed the door behind him and stripped off his robe and sank back into the sheets.

    "Put that off," Mai murmured in her sleep, scolding him at the smell of tobacco.

    Shin smiled and hugged her. At least for an hour or two he would try to fall asleep.

    For a couple of hours, he wished everything was still peaceful in the world.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 15: Abeyhill Abandoned Station

    Chapter Fifteen

    Abeyhill Abandoned Station

    Grant sighed and stubbed out his cigarette in the pocket ashtray. "Shit," he said angrily. "Seriously there''s nothing at all?"

    "Nope. Nothing at all," Stuart nodded, as he finished running a fingerprint and particle reader across the driver and passenger seats.

    The reader projected a holographic image of the IDs of everyone who had ever touched the vehicle. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out, and all the IDs came from members of the police forensic teams. Grant had hoped that one of the IDs might give them some insight into who had taken Sil Moore''s body. The vehicle''s security cameras had been disabled as well, and the last recording was from the time the two fakers had boarded the vehicle several hours earlier.

    The detective turned away from Stuart and walked a few feet to the ambulance near, where the two forensics who had been found passed out in the van, were being treated. Fortunately they had no injuries beyond the shock of what happened. Be that as it may, at least it was something to be happy about, even though the criminals had fled with the body.

    Still, Grant couldn''t shake the feeling that something wasn''t quite right about the whole thing. If, indeed those who had stole the body were the same ones who murdered the girl, they had gone no further than putting out of action the two forensic experts found in their apartments first, and then lulling the other two to sleep with the grenade. The profile didn''t quite fit. Or there was something else that was escaping.

    "Gentlemen, are you sure you didn''t get to see anything else from the attackers?" Grant asked them both, as a medic checked the vision of one of them.

    "No Inspector, it was all too quick," one of them said.

    "I think we got a few blocks away from the building, when we heard the front sliding window open and saw something fall out of it."

    "Then we heard a detonation, light and smoke. That''s the last thing I remember."

    "Me too," said his partner. "Then we woke up to the shaking of the constables who found us."

    "Inspector, these men need rest, they''re still in shock," the paramedic interjected.

    "All right," Grant said, sighing and walked to the other side where a couple of policemen were looking at some footprints on the flattened grass. "Any luck around here?"

    "No, sir. Too much grass. But, whatever vehicle was here, must have been here for quite some time judging by the indentations in the mud and the crushed plants."

    That was bad enough. In another time it would have been easy to follow the vehicle''s tracks because of the type of tire on the ground and pavement. But the place was devoid of almost any security and an out-of-line vehicle could easily disappear on the magnetized road. Running a reverse parameter to detect out-of-line vehicles was an option, but everything was happening so fast that it was likely the criminals would be out of town by then.

    Grant walked back to where Stuart stood snorting. The redhead fey was in the back of the van, scanning the edges of the doors and the interior, but he didn''t find any unknown prints, or that would fit into the database profiles of known criminals. The body bag also had a tracking device, apparently the thieves had also taken care to disable it at some point.

    Another forensic scientist was in the back of the van, checking the remains of the grenade tube and looked at Stuart. "Excuse me? Can you look at this?"

    Stuart looked at him, twitching his ears. "What''s it?" he asked.

    "Sorry if I''m wrong. But this is one of yours, isn''t it?" the forensic asked, holding up the grenade tube.

    Stuart looked at it quizzically and walked over, climbing into the back. The black perforated grenade tube was semi-destroyed, but on one side several numbers could be read, along with a distinctive sign Stuart knew all too well.

    "Oh, shit. Yeah. It''s of defense division manufacture," he said and ran his scanner over the numbers.

    Almost instantly some numbers and technical information regarding the device popped up. The stun grenade was a non-lethal weapon, though it differed from its older counterparts. Incapacitation was assured for someone who was not wearing an outfit to deflect the sound wave, caused by the explosion, or a mask to counteract the effect of the smoke. But that was not what caught Stuart''s attention. What caught his attention was the red color that appeared in the inventory, where the grenade was located. It appeared to have gone missing the previous year, along with other weapons during an operation in Turkey. Stuart quickly looked up the information about it the, and his eyes widened when he saw the date and the name of the Dark Event where it had disappeared.

    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

    [AsharISin]

    "Let them pull my ears," he said in surprise. This thing disappeared in the mission against the guardian of the Other Side. How is it connected to these guys?"

    Stuart scrolled through the supply reports on the mission in Turkey and there he found that the part of the arsenal to which the grenade had belonged had disappeared from a tactical armor-truck, later found abandoned several kilometers from where the battle had taken place. There was no report of who had stolen the vehicle, which belonged to one of Nevermore''s agents on the scene. Stuart clicked his tongue in disgust. Maybe he could have found a clue, but he didn''t blame the fact that it wasn''t in the report either. He''d heard that case had been a headache for the authorities.

    "Anything interesting?" Grant asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

    "I feel a little bad about this," Stuart replied, pointing to the grenade.

    "Why?"

    "It''s ours. It''s part of an arsenal that went missing last year in another country."

    Grant frowned. "You people don''t have tracking for those?"

    "Deactivated."

    "We''re back to square one."

    "Yep," Stuart admitted in disgust, getting out of the van and taking off his latex gloves.

    It was well past midnight, and he had been going back and forth all day with his team. He wouldn''t admit it, but he felt tired. He stepped back a bit and watched the police do their job while on his Neurowire he rechecked all the data they had gathered over the course of the evening. Something was slipping away. Nothing is perfect, there has to be a thread that is tying this all together.

    Stuart went through all of Sil''s data one more time. The lack of Neurowire compromised too much of what they might know, but there had to be some way to find out what was going on. Why had the girl made all those adjustments to her body? And why exactly had she put obsolete memory databanks in her vertebrae? Stuart ran down the list of information that was in the banks. He was going to have enough for weeks with the encrypted information.

    As he looked at the list. He noticed something he had almost forgotten.

    Of all the applications Sil had used, there was one in particular that had no firmware security. And what was more, it was the only one that was green at the time. When he had checked earlier, it appeared offline along with all the others.

    Affinator. What is this thing?

    It was a little strange that this application appeared activated. The central control of all applications that could be installed on the Neurowire depended solely on the root directories. Unless a user indicated for some special reason that they wanted to leave control somewhere else outside of the central core. Sil had external memory banks, it was just possible that she didn''t want to overload her Neurowire with applications due to the amount of data she was processing. Without the head, that application should not be green.

    Stuart poked around in the controls, looking for the reason why and, after a couple of minutes, he found something else. The ping of the signal with the coordinates, where the application had just been activated, only an hour earlier.

    [DNEXXGR454323. 55¡ã59''21.00" N, 3¡ã11''5.72" W]

    "We''ve got them!!!" shouted Stuart, unable to contain his joy.

    Grant, just a few feet away, gave a gasp that made him drop his new cigarette. "What? What happened?"

    "These guys, they have activated a subroutine of one of the applications the victim was using?"

    Grant was unaware of what Stuart had been doing and looked at him in surprise. "Can you trace it?"

    "I already did. It''s an abandoned harbor near a park, and there''s an old lighthouse. It''s two miles from here."

    "They''re very close. Did you say abandoned harbor? North of here?"

    "Yep."

    "What are you waiting for? Let''s go!" Grant exclaimed and then looked at the coppers on the scene. "I need backup to go to another location? Who''s coming?"

    A few police officers looked at him and raised their hands. There were six officers in all, counting him and Stuart. Grant informed headquarters, and ordered them to activate their bulletproof vests. They didn''t know what they might encounter.

    Stuart climbed into the front this time and looked at Grant. The old detective looked at him and smiled. "Here we go."

    They were both unaware that just a few hundred yards away from them, the other team was trying to catch the fantastic pup made of mirrors.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 16: Night of the living pug

    Chapter Sixteen

    The night of the living pug

    Thor snorted as he looked at the mess in the streets. At least the monster dog wasn''t hard to find. All he had to do was follow the trail of some of the people running in panic, and the sound of glass shattering and regenerating with each of his footsteps.

    The police tracking drones had a clear view of him for the moment, but from time to time they would suddenly lose sight of the animal in the streets, only to appear a little further away.

    "This is not good at all," Philip said.

    "You don''t say," Thor replied, with some derision.

    The SID, the police and SIGN continued their chase through the streets, trying to cut off the enormous animal, but it was able to avoid the obstacles that stood in its way with an absurd ease, for its enormous size. Worst of all, he was in the old city, an area well known for its tranquility, and Philip only prayed that the animal would not cause so much damage to the place or hurt people.

    After running over Thor vehicle, the animal had run down Holyrood Road, then turned the corner and ran south down Dalkeith Road. It had leapt over rooftops, through green parts of greenhouses in St. Clerk''s Street, and from there it ran like a meteor straight up the A7, where they were finally able to catch up with it.

    But, try as they might, the animal simply jumped back and forth while dodging obstacles.

    Philip and Zi had been looking at the technical reports from the drones and found, that those who had attacked the animal, had been knocked out in a matter of seconds after engaging it.

    "How are we going to stop it?" Zi asked. "The drones looked like they had self-destructed when they tried to attack it."

    "Yes. By the type of attack, they were destroyed by their own ammunition."

    "It''s reflecting the attacks¡­"

    "That''s all we need," Philip snorted.

    The dog turned a corner and took Nicolson Street. Thor, who was almost right on his tail, followed him and skidded as he turned right again, all the way down Potterrow Street. The hunt was moving through the old historic building of Edinburgh University, converted into the Museum of Education.

    The SID truck could not go down those streets due to its size and continued its westbound course down another wider street, while dispatching new drones. If at least these were not enough to stop it, at least they could serve as a distraction. Although that was of no interest to the animal, who was having an entire sightseeing tour of the local buildings. Thor was quite busy following it and changing course as the animal jumped from place to place.

    On one of the runs through the place, Thor lost sight of it before entering Princes Street. The dog had made a feint and had tricked him by taking one of the nearby streets. They entered the new part of the city.

    Calling it a new part was relative. The new city had almost the same architecture, but there were only a few skyscrapers in the western part of the district. The problem was that this part of the city was already one of the busiest parts of the city, since the nightlife was underground.

    One of the reasons that the city had changed so little over the years was that Edinburgh had been developed completely below ground, as a post-war plan in case the Fractus threat returned. Down there were luxury hotels, restaurants, pubs, and hundreds of other establishments that contrasted rather more with the style of the city on the surface.

    "Where are you?" Thor asked angrily, as he made his way down Princes Street.

    The alarm that something was loose in the city had already gone off and, in a matter of seconds, many of the cars had tried to find a quick parking spot and abandon the vehicles, while their owners tried to get down to the subway entrances as quickly as possible.

    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Thor looked sideways but could not find him, and the drones gave no sign of him either. Maybe he''s already crossed over to the other streets, he thought.

    He pressed the accelerator once more, as he watched some passersby leaving the streets, and that''s when he saw him again.

    "Son of a bitch!" he shouted, when he saw a shadow on the ground that seemed to have no owner.

    The dog was in the same street just a few meters away from him. Thor slammed on the brakes just inches away from touching it. Seeing what had happened with the drones, he didn''t feel like rolling over a second time that night.

    The bastard had stood still in the middle of the street. From a distance, his mirrored armor blended in with the surrounding environment, creating a perfect reflection. It gave the impression that he wasn''t there, unless were too close. The shadow was the only thing he could see before he realized it was there in front of him.

    The dog got up, looked at the car curiously and started to run to the next street, with Thor following behind and cursing.

    Philip and Zi were just less than a hundred meters behind and saw the animal change direction so they changed streets as well.

    At that moment several questions popped into Zi''s mind. "Take care of him," said the fey girl who had cold-bloodedly murdered Sil Moore. Take care of what? And she had also said "take care of all of them?" Zi couldn''t figure out what that was all about. For one thing, if that girl was the killer, she didn''t understand how she could have left a message for her, knowing that she would be caught in the mirror the day after the grisly murder. Unless it was someone who could have had foreknowledge of it.

    Shadow people.

    What did they want? And if they wanted something, did they have a way to determine in the past what would happen in the future? Or was it as the studies said that they had a certain manipulation of time? Zi didn''t quite believe it. She had always trusted much more in what she saw in front of her. But that night there was the proof. She had become one of the lucky few who had seen one of them up close and had lived to tell about it.

    Zi wasn''t stupid enough to trust advice from a hostile source, even if it could cross time and space. That sounded too mystical for her taste. But still, there she was, once again with Philip in the middle of a case like so many other nights over the years. Chasing a monster across town. Philip, Oxy and Thor''s conversation brought her back to reality.

    "How on earth can it move so fast?" Thor asked.

    [I think it might be due to his staying in the mirror. Maybe that changed it somehow. The store owner said he''d been hearing noises for a long time,] Oxy explained.

    "Do you think he was inside for a long time?"

    [Yes. I mean, we all know what happens to a creature when it disappears on the Other Side. It changes. The longer the permanence the greater the change. The mirror box could be that it acts as a sorft of miniature of the Other Side.]

    "That doesn''t sound right," Zi muttered.

    "If it''s attacking everything it reflects, couldn''t we just attack it from above with one of the tactical satellites?" Philip suggested.

    [And risk losing a satellite? We don''t know what range it might have.]

    "We could call in an Orbital Knight," Thor said.

    No one said anything, remembering just a couple of days ago what happened to Carissia''s mech. Landing in the middle of the city was out of the question.

    [You can''t reflect an attack when there''s nothing to reflect¡­]

    "What?"

    "Couldn''t you raise a security dome with a force field and force it to stay in place?" asked a policeman from one of the patrol cars.

    [That''s what happened at the SIGN building. That thing went through the force field, it didn''t override it, it''s like it wasn''t there. Who knows, maybe staying inside the mirror changed it somehow. We could try, though I''m not sure if it would work.]

    "Damn," Thor mumbled, spinning across the wet asphalt. Again the dog had left him behind. "How I wish that girl who can manipulate empty spaces was here."

    "Who?" asked Zi.

    "Gina. The girl with the black holes. Unfortunately she''s not here," Philip replied.

    "Can''t I just fight him?"

    [The last time you used your fists seriously you destroyed conductivity for a mile around. Nigeria, remember?]

    Thor snorted remembering the event. Claris, meanwhile, along with the others, were following the pursuit of the vehicles and drones through the truck''s screens. She was too busy counting in her head how many charges they were going to be blamed for this time. She had been right to stay. She was going to get a nice bonus for the job. Better make a list for Cleo, she thought.

    [You can''t reflect on something you don''t see coming,] Oxy said, and materialized his augmented reality avatar in the seat that until a few minutes ago had been occupied by Claris.

    "Excuse me?" Thor asked.

    [An optical cloaking attack I think might be a good option. If the mirror cloak acts as something protective and reflects anything that tries to attack, then something it can''t reflect should give us an advantage.]

    "If that''s so, he shouldn''t have been able to jump through the force field in the parking lot," Zi said.

    [It''s worth a try at least.]

    "Good plan, except for one detail," Thor said, pointing at the dog''s butt. "See the speed of that thing? We have to stop it first before we make any attacks on it."

    [You want to give me the lead and jump on top of it?]

    "Excuse me? I''m not going to jump on that. I don''t have fakir training," Philip said.

    "I mean Thor."

    "I think I could do that, I''ve spent a good part of my life hunting monsters after all."

    "That thing is going to blow holes all over you with the mirror shards," Zi warned him.

    "I have my bio-armor circuit with me."

    "Well... then let''s try it. What''s the plan?" asked Philip.

    [Thor will try to stop it and, if you can do that, let''s try to catch it with a dome.]

    "You just want me to hit it?"

    [Hard enough to stop the run. When you do that we can bring down a force shield made with the drones.]

    "Sounds good to me," Thor said, raising his eyebrows.

    "Are you a monster hunter?" was asked from the police car.

    "No. Or something more like it. I''m Australian," Thor said smiling.

    The coppers following the conversation looked at each other in concern. "These chaps are nuts."

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 17: Unseen

    Chapter Seventeen

    Unseen

    Portman scratched his chin, as he looked questioningly at the hundreds of thousands of broken pieces of mirrors on the floor. The greenish light was still illuminating the place, even though they had put some emergency spotlights on the place where the box had been destroyed.

    "Anything interesting?" Emmeline asked.

    Portman felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He didn''t dislike Emmeline, but having her behind him made him feel a sense of dread. Although she seemed to have a certain familiarity with SID agents, she had a reputation as a woman of few words. Not for nothing was she the head of SIGN in that part of the UK.

    "No. It looks like it went back to size once it opened," Portman explained.

    His colleague was moving a few feet away, with another group of SIGN specialists checking out the pieces as he did.

    When they all saw the animal and then the cloud of crystals, which flew after it down the street, almost all of them thought that part of that cloud was also the material of which the mirror box was composed. But it was not. There on the ground, broken into thousands of pieces, was a quantity of glass that seemed to actually correspond to that of each of the mirrors.

    Portman took a piece of the wood from the frame and observed how the engravings had returned to normal, the same with the large pieces in the back, which although splintered and broken also showed once again the engravings of the city in the ocean of fire, with its pillars and creatures. The one that was in better condition and had not suffered so much damage was the one on the lid. The drawing of the represented unknown constellations could still be seen.

    Some of the technicians were picking up pieces of the mirrors and putting them into huge suitcases. Portman nagged his partner to look. It was obvious to him that SIGN''s real objective was to get hold of the box, although he didn''t know exactly what had happened with the strange transformation.

    "Excuse me, ma''am," said Portman. "The box is under the supervision of our team."

    "We''re just going to put it in containers so it can be taken away when the truck returns."

    "... Oh. I understand."

    Portman and his partner tried to hide their expression of surprise. After all they were almost certain that Emmeline''s real target was the artifact. Portman then realized. It was quite simple, with all the trouble the animal was causing in the city, Emmeline was most likely trying to get as little grief from the Council as possible later. Well, I couldn''t blame her for that. As soon as the whole mess was over, it was going to be a problem.

    At least the SID was used to it. SIGN, being an organization set up by the British government for national security, had a much more closed and local jurisdiction. Emmeline was simply covering her back against an eventual torrent of lawsuits that might come down from the city against her organization.

    Emmeline, in turn, was not asking questions like Portman. While she couldn''t deny that she was a little concerned about the liability she felt for having loaned the place out. The fact was that both teams followed Oxy''s guidelines for assembling the damn device, and that mitigated the effects of any future complaints that might fall on her and her agents. What was worrying her more at the moment were the live reports she was seeing, through her Neurowire, of what was happening in the city.

    The animal had entered the new part of the city, and the tactical police had deployed their officers in special suits to guard the entrances, in case they had to repel any attempt by the animal to enter the subway part of the city.

    Portman and his partner continued with their checking duties, and a SIGN technician approached them with a container to put the larger fragments in, while some cleaning robots just went upstairs.

    The fey made a grimace to say something to his partner, and there he stood with his wide mouth half open, showing his white pointed teeth.

    Not just him, though.

    His companion, with a large shard of mirror in her hands. Emmeline, who was gesturing with her hands, while handling her Neurowire, the technicians and even the cleaning robots stood still.

    Nothing moved, nothing could be heard. Everything had stopped in a strange sort of bubble of unreality.

    The raindrops had stopped on their way to the surface and remained petrified, weightless in the air. The dust in suspension in the place had also stopped. Perhaps time had stopped. Or maybe something was simply moving too fast to be captured by mundane reality. Not even the Neurowire''s quantum systems, or the security systems, which handled hundreds of millions of data per thousandth of a second, were producing or recording any data of what was happening.

    But something was happening. As if out of nowhere, two figures were walking slowly around the place.

    They were two fey girls. One of them had silver hair tied in two pigtails at the nape of her neck, and so long that it almost touched her ankles. She wore a uniform with a striped vest and a pleated skirt. The other was much smaller, almost girlish in appearance. The latter had blonde hair and amber eyes and something else that made her appearance stand out. Above her head hovered a halo that emitted a soft whitish glow. She wore a black suit and jacket. Both wore fedora hats on their heads.

    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    The smaller one looked at the scene, with a slight gesture of disapproval, even though both did not show many expressions on their faces.

    "What a mess," she said pouting.

    "Let''s hurry, Priscilla," said the girl with the pigtails.

    Priscilla nodded and with light steps stepped away from her companion and walked around looking at everyone present. She stopped and looked at Portman in particular, with scrutinizing eyes. "Weiss! Let''s hurry up. There''s a empath here," she said pointing accusingly at him with a frown. "This isn''t right, he wasn''t supposed to be here, he should be in the truck, right?"

    The young woman named Weiss glanced sideways at Priscilla and looked to where she was pointing. "It''s just a variable that changed. Don''t worry, it will somehow correct itself."

    "They''re not correcting like they used to. The more it advances the less they will correct," she said with a sad look on her face, and the halo wobbled above her head.

    "Don''t worry," Weiss repeated, and gave her a weak smile.

    The little girl finished her tour and, after a few seconds of pondering something, she started back, but this time as she mumbled something quickly and touched each of them. When she reached Emmeline she stopped and frowned, annoyed. "This woman is still as strong as ever," she thought. She touched Emmeline''s hand and murmured her strange prayer again. Then she turned back to where Weiss was standing. She in turn had been looking at the pieces of the box scattered about, as if calculating something in her mind.

    "Ready?" Weiss asked Priscilla. And she simply nodded with a serious gesture. "Okay, here we go."

    "It''s a drag. Why can''t we just keep the puppy?"

    "We can''t bring him with us. They have another way of thinking and while his body has changed, he wouldn''t survive the jumps like we do. His mind is not made to process it. He will be fine between humans and them. His body has changed enough to survive. We still don''t know how he got here, but at least with Nevermore, he''ll be fine. At least this way, he''ll be one more cog in the world and won''t have any problems. "

    "That''s a shame. I like him"

    Weiss reached into the right pocket of her vest and pulled out what looked like an antique pocket watch on a long chain. On the top and bottom, it was richly adorned with a kind of triskellion and gears in a style reminiscent of Damascus patterns of decoration. The girl opened it and behind the crystal a different kind of pattern could be seen, but the hands were stationary. Where the numbers should have been on the dial they were replaced by characters in an unknown language, that bore some resemblance to runes rather than ordinary numbers.

    Weiss moved the hands, until they were in a similar position to the time they were supposed to be marking. "Ready."

    Priscilla raised and extended both arms forward and closed her eyes as the halo on her head rose and grew in size, increasing in diameter but not in width, giving the impression that all the people inside had been surrounded by a sort of thin hoop that wobbled endlessly.

    Weiss in turn closed her eyes and the hands of the clock began to move in the opposite direction.

    From the floor and the containers, slowly, pieces of broken glass and pieces of wood began to rise. Then these began to rotate around both of them, as they passed around the people gathered at the site.

    The pieces of glass, small and thick, moved at incredible speed, but the most terrifying thing was the transformation of the people around them. From being beings that moved freely until a few seconds ago, now they had become sieves and mere pieces of flesh, where the glass pierced them and cut them into pieces at each of their turns.

    There was Emmeline, with her face shattered as a piece of thick glass pierced her from side to side and split her head in two halves as if it were an orange. Half of Portman''s body had moved a few centimeters and was now floating completely independent of his legs. The same happened to his companion, who had lost parts of her head and had a huge hole in her chest, through which a cloud of fragments and splinters had just pierced her.

    "Don''t overdo it!" Priscilla complained.

    "I can''t control the movement of the fragments. Wait until they''re already coming together and we''re done. This is also going to help get that pup back to normal size."

    As the bodies of the agents and technicians continued to be mutilated, the fragments of mirrors and wood began to join with each other in their respective parts. Crystals were reattached, while fragments as small as a grain of sand and final splinters like needles were attached to larger pieces. Everything was going in reverse for the mirror box. In no time at all the box was complete once again. Again began the configuration it had last taken. The time of the artifact went backwards, with the passing of the hands of the clock that Weiss was holding.

    Finally the box simply stopped and remained assembled as if its destruction had never existed. In the exact spot where they had finished assembling it, before Zi and the dog were released.

    Priscilla pressed her lips together and the ring decreased in size, until it disappeared for a second and then reappeared covering the whole space. Weiss opened her eyes and moved the hands of the clock again. She glanced at the shredded pieces of cloth and flesh, floating weightless in the air, and closed her eyes again.

    "Time for us to join the others," she said and closed the lid of the watch.

    "What do you think changed her mind?" whispered Portman, to his companion.

    "...!"

    The wide-mouthed fey opened his eyes wide and so did his partner. He touched his stomach and neck, while his partner touched her chest. Further away Emmeline put a hand to her face. All the others, farther away, had the same confused expression. No one said anything for a few seconds as the sound of rain was the only thing that could be heard.

    "What just happened?"

    They didn''t know why but they had the feeling as if something had gone through each of them. A stinging and overwhelming sensation that lasted barely a second, but it was more than enough to leave an unpleasant impression on everyone present.

    The same sensation of vertigo and chills as when looking into the void.

    They all looked at each other, without knowing what to say, but they could feel that it was the same for each of them.

    Emmeline opened her eyes wide and the others did the same.

    What until a second ago was nothing more than a pile of scattered glass and broken wood, by some strange ingenuity, had been put back together.

    "What the hell just happened here?" Emmeline asked.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 18: Party Pug

    Chapter Eighteen

    Party Pug!

    The Police Control Center tried to raise the security barricades on the streets. But these were only a little more than a meter long. Since they were only for cases in which heavy vehicles needed to be stopped and, since almost all light cars had flight systems, they were obsolete for a chase. Magnetic pulse systems, to stop out-of-control vehicles, had also proved useless. The shots had no effect on the animal, on the contrary, they had once again destroyed the devices hidden in the streets that fired them.

    To stop the cheerful dog, there remained the option proposed by Oxy.

    "We''re going to get tickets for invisible... and irresponsible driving," Philip said, and snorted, looking at his partner.

    The scene was much more ridiculous from their point of view. Through the glass of the armotruck they could both see what was going on, even though the few people on the streets could not.

    After activating the car optical camouflage, Thor took off his jacket, rolled up the cuffs of his shirt, and left Oxy in command of the vehicle. Even though she was thousands of miles away physically, she was trying her best to drive the vehicle through her Neurowire as if it were a game. Thor climbed out the window and was striking a pose as if at any moment he was going to try to jump out of the speeding vehicle.

    "Come closer!" Thor shouted at her.

    [This thing won''t give you any more than that,] Oxy replied reluctantly. [You''re going to have to jump using vector drive from your boots!!!]

    "I''ll be fucked if I have to do that!!! Last time I almost ended up as a red blob against a wall!"

    [You have no choice!]

    "That thing is going to run me through with its mirrors!" Thor gritted his teeth. "What a night I chose to stay!"

    [You just have to stop his run for a second! Once you reach its body, hit it somewhere and it should give us enough time to activate the security dome with the drones!]

    Much easier said than done, he thought biting his lower lip. "Go into the menu and disable the speed allowed commands, that should give us enough time to catch up."

    [You have speed lock?]

    "Of course I have a speed lock. You can''t have your car on the streets of a big city without one. Why do you think Philip can''t catch up with us?"

    "Thanks for reminding me of that," Philip said.

    Zi tried to enter the armortruck''s menu to unlock the speed allowed, but SIGN vehicles had a different protocol and needed the password to unlock it.

    Still, they had to at least try. The plan boiled down to launching the drones and weaving a safety net, with an artificial force field around the animal, in order to contain it. As long as the same accident that happened in the building didn''t happen. To do this, the team in the truck had unlocked the Fractium cores of the drones, so that they could make a dome strong enough so that the animal would not jump out of the place.

    But first Thor would have to try to slow it down. Since the shots seemed to have no effect, and the skin reflected each attack, they would try with the invisibility provided by the car. Thor was wearing his badge that could provide him with his own camouflage.

    Above them they could see how the swarm of drones had already reached the animal and were flashing their red lights.

    The dwarf almost slipped from the vehicle, when Oxy finally unlocked the speed commands and the vehicle shot off like a projectile behind the animal. Driving was much more difficult in that mode, causing her to almost lose control and send Thor under the wheels of the car.

    The dog looked sideways, but didn''t see anything. For his part Thor looked apprehensively at the animal''s sharp skin. This is going to hurt, he thought and clenched his fists. They were already in the new part of the city, with its huge skyscrapers advertising neon and holograms fluttering among the buildings.

    ***

    What was going on? wondered the dog, as he looked back.

    He thought he heard some kind of buzzing and voices on his left side, but he couldn''t see anything. He swore that until a minute ago a metal egg was stuck to his backside like a limp fly. Why did it look like there were vehicles chasing him to begin with and those little things over his head that were flashing a dull brownish hue?

    Whatever it was, he was having more fun than he had ever had in his whole life behind the mirror. The place was certainly fun with all those maze-like pathways that stretched as far as the eye could see. He could see huge pillars of little lights shining and flashing in various places. Not to mention that he could see humans running here and there. The only thing that had caused him some fear so far were some large flying figures that walked among some of the buildings of the city. But they seemed to be quite harmless, what kind of birds were they? He had never seen anything like it.

    But the truth is that he had never seen almost any of the things he now had in front of him. The stress he felt, when all the humans filled the young girl''s room disappeared, to give way to a euphoria driven mad by emotions.

    Freedom, air, movement. But now he was awakening something he had long forgotten. Hunger. Where could I find food in this place?

    He remembered that the family with whom he had lived with his siblings always provided him with food. But now? Where could he find something to satisfy his appetite?

    That''s what he was thinking, when suddenly he felt something on his left side that made him lose his balance, and almost lifted him off the ground. The dog fell on his right side and slipped on the wet asphalt. He quickly got up and shook himself off. What was that? There was nothing to bump into, but he had clearly felt a bump.

    Then he saw those flying things coming down on him.

    The drones had formed a dome-shaped net at least ten meters in diameter by another five meters high.

    The dog looked with apprehension at the objects descending on him. They reminded him of that decorative bird, that the old antique dealer had once placed next to him in the window, enclosed in a kind of hemisphere with thin bars. The animal thought it was a real animal, but the truth was that it was simply a robot imitating a bird. A decoration. But even so, the confinement of the animal reminded him of his own.

    He would not be imprisoned again. Mirror or cage, he didn''t want to be locked up anymore.

    He ran again as the drone prison was descending on him, and that''s when something he didn''t expect happened.

    He was feeling a little lighter. Not only that, he was seeing how the street was widening and growing in size. The same was happening with the buildings and cars. Everything was getting huge. Or wasn''t it?

    ***

    After the blow, Thor somersaulted rolling on the asphalt and, with his fist still covered by a kind of biomechanical armor, he got up almost instantly while Oxy braked the car.

    The drone net was coming down fast and Thor and Oxy smiled.

    [We''ve got him!!!] Oxy shouted.

    Philip and Zi, and the other pair of police cars, arrived in the nick of time and slowed their vehicles down, hoping at last that the chase was finally over, while the other SIGN vehicle covered another exit.

    "What?"

    Before the astonished eyes of all of them, they saw how the mass of mirrors was getting smaller and, before the drone dome touched the ground, a ball of barely a foot or so, with its skin gleaming with mirrors had just escaped and was taking a nearby street, heading north, at all the speed its short legs would allow.

    "What the fuck just happened?!"

    [He got small.]

    "I told you it was a small dog," Zi said.

    Philip looked at his companion. "That I just saw! Raise the dome, we have to catch it now before it has any idea of getting bigger again!" He ordered through the Neurowire to the truck team approaching in the distance.

    ***

    That was lucky, thought the dog, as he ran past dodging human and robot legs in the streets. He didn''t know what had happened to his size. He had the notion that everything was smaller than he was, but the truth was that he liked the idea of his large size. But at least for now he had been able to escape his pursuers. He would have to see later if there wasn''t a way to get bigger again. At least now he felt lighter and, despite his size, he still had a steady speed.

    Hunger. Right. He had to look for food.

    The dog stopped and looked around and detected a scent that could be food. He walked slowly for a few meters until he came to where two figures were wrapped in some kind of black armor. They reminded him a bit of the armor he had seen in his childhood home, although these were more square edged and with some fluorescent lights. The smell of food seemed to be coming from behind them, in a sort of wide doorway leading downwards. The dog walked carefully and slipped in behind the two figures, who were moving slowly and talking to each other.

    The policemen guarding that subway entrance had been alerted not to allow a large ball of mirrors to go down into the city. Looking straight ahead, vigilant, none of them detected the small dog that crept up behind them. The one that did detect it was a tracking drone that immediately sent the signal with the coordinates.

    But it was too late, and the dog had unlocked a new stealth mode that night.

    As he walked down the long stairs of the place, dodging some people, he sensed that the smell of food was getting stronger. But for a moment the lights of the subway city captivated his attention even more. The place must be at least three hundred meters deep.

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    There were all kinds of places down there. All with their neon lights that although he couldn''t quite make out with his dichromatic vision, the hues were more than enough to give him a view that the place was certainly much more lively than the surface. And cars, down there was also a swarm of cars, much larger than the surface. He could not calculate how big it could be in its width, his sight was lost with all the details around it.

    He finished walking down the stairs, as he passed a group of young people in neon clothing and holographic makeup, that almost made them look as if one could see through their skin. Further down the stairs a tattoo stand had a hologram of a snake, who was moving and showing its teeth as it tried to attract the attention of potential customers. The hustle and bustle was really annoying. Too many people, but that didn''t bother the animal. About thirty meters away from the tattoo stand he finally found one of the sources of the scent that had attracted him to the place. It was a huge restaurant with people who seemed to be enjoying the food and music.

    The animal slipped through the door and, while it was ignored at first, it was not when it jumped on top of a table, to the scream of the two diners at the table, who turned away as a sort of crystalline ball interrupted the night.

    The dog smelled the first dish and didn''t quite know what it was, but he was pretty sure it must not taste good. So he jumped three feet to the next table where another couple was eating. A commotion ensued and everyone watched as the animal grabbed a half-eaten chicken leg and ran off, with it into the restaurant. It dodged shoes and hands that tried to grab it, but everyone recoiled when they saw that the dog''s skin was sharp as knives. What the heck was that thing?

    With its first prey, after a long time, the dog ran into the kitchen where a robot with many arms was busy preparing a salad, while seasoning something on the stove. He dodged the employees and cooks and reached the back door, escaping down an alley where the cats scurried away at the sight of him.

    As he listened to the commotion inside the place, he ate his precious loot. It was very good. His sense of taste was returning with every bite and nibble. Then he drank water from a puddle of water in the alley. The water still tasted like metal to him but he didn''t mind at all.

    "It''s here!!!"

    The shout of a girl looking and running towards him, forced him to swallow quickly. The dog sharpened his eyes. It was the girl who had been with him inside the mirror box. What did she want this time?

    Almost instantly the bald man, he had seen moments before in the building appeared. It did not bode well for him and he ran the other way down the alley. With his hunger satiated, he had more energy to run down the district and reached the area of pubs and nightclubs.

    There was one of them with a large sign at the entrance that reminded him of his brothers. It read "Party Pug" on the red neon sign with a pug that was dancing around nonsensically, wiggling back and forth. The drone following him was several meters above him, but he didn''t detect it and, without queuing up to enter, the animal slipped behind the security robot who at that moment was pulling a drunkard out by the lapel of his jacket.

    ***

    "Seriously now I can understand why they went extinct two centuries ago. Who wants such an irritating dog?" Philip complained, running alongside Zi.

    [In fact, the reason for the extinction of the species was because they have health problems. By the beginning of the twentieth century of the last era, the species was almost extinct,] Oxy explained.

    "Well, here we have one alive and kicking," Thor said and through his Neurowire he received an image of the animal entering a nightclub. "It''s down the street," he said to his companions as he broke into a run.

    Take care of him. The words of the strange shadow people assassin, kept echoing in Zi''s head.

    ***

    Tobacco, sweat, alcohol and Golden Shock particles, a synthetic drug, hit the animal''s nose as it entered the place. What was all that?

    Lights flashed in a horrible rhythm before his eyes and music was blaring from all sides. Accompanied by dancing figures moving unevenly with jumps and shouts. It was not like the dance he had seen Sil Moore do.

    The human girl who had bought the mirror. What had happened to her? Had she recovered her head by now? Maybe she had already woken up after the other humans put her in that kind of bag and took her out of her apartment. The dog felt pity at that moment. As happy as he was about his new freedom, he had forgotten the young girl. Where was she and the golden-haired little girl he remembered?

    A boot with a fluorescent heel almost crushed his head and the dog recoiled in fright. Then he felt something touch his side and a cry of human pain. Someone had not seen him and, in an oversight, had touched his body only to be thrown a couple of meters away, taking with him several of the people who were dancing around. Another melee was breaking out and the insults and fisticuffs began.

    These people get angry very easily, thought the dog. Without even realizing that he was the main cause of the brawl.

    ***

    Philip tried to enter the place, but the security robot stopped him immediately, putting a hand on his chest. He gritted his teeth and indicated his badge. Almost instantly the robot scanned the fractal pattern and code on the surface of the badge and stepped aside, making way for him and his companions.

    They were almost about to enter, when a red alert appeared on their Neurowires.

    "Masks people!" Philip said, raising his voice, to make himself heard above the din of the music.

    "Golden shock?" asked Thor.

    "Yeah I think someone must be waiting for their nose to fall off from snorting that crap."

    Philip and Thor activated some of the portable tactical equipment they had loaded on the dog tags and instantly a black mask, more akin to a type of nanocarbon chinstrap, formed and covered their noses and mouths.

    Zi alerted the police that there were dangerous substances in the air. "I''m going to go around the back," she said and took off her black jacket.

    "Be careful," Philip said and with Thor entered the place.

    The dwarf moved people out of the way and activated his spectrometric vision to see if it could help him identify where the dog might be. His stature helped him to discern several meters away, despite the lights and the smoke of the place.

    Philip in turn tried to search through the crowd that was moving around with its strange dance movements.

    "Hey watch out baldy," someone insulted, as he pushed his way through some people.

    He paid no attention and continued on his way when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Did you miss something around here copper?"

    Philip stepped back in the nick of time when he saw a fist coming straight for his face. He dodged it by inches and in a quick spin caught the arm, twisting it a bit, and brought him to his knees. "I''m not a cop."

    He didn''t have time to react when he felt a hard punch on his cheek and saw a big guy with metal hands and knuckles.

    Surely, when he had shown his ID at the entrance, the robot had sent the information to security. The security robot may have had protocols for responding to law enforcement officers, but once inside it was a different matter. It must have been a hideout for some other type of activity.

    Whatever the reason, Philip didn''t have time for that. He grabbed his new opponent by the shirt and headbutted him hard on the nose. Almost instantly he felt the sound of the septum breaking and the guy doubled over as he brought his hands to his face while bleeding profusely from the nose.

    "RAID!!! The coppers are here!!!" A voice rose above the others and people started running.

    "Ah great, that''s what we needed," Thor mumbled, watching as a troop of legs started running in all directions.

    He caught sight of Philip, fighting two others, and was about to rush to his aid, when he felt someone lift him by the shirt. He saw a face with a moving tattoo of a dragon. Thor felt like he was getting cirrhosis just from smelling the guy''s breath. "Where are you going you, little man?"

    "This is a high-class place," said another with a metal enhancement in his jaw.

    "Oh yeah, dwarf jokes," Thor said and clenched his fist. "I know all of them."

    There was an electric burst from his fists and the dwarf whirled around like a flash, so fast that the thug who had grabbed him didn''t know what happened. Thor grabbed him by the clothes and punched him, which caused several electric shocks around his arms and sent the drunk across the room.

    Before they could react they were surrounded by guys who looked like they wanted to be anything but friends.

    ***

    When the melee broke out, the dog was running along one of the sides of the place trying to avoid the legs of the crowd of people who were running out of the place in panic. What a mess with these creatures.

    He was half disoriented by all the circus of lights in the place, but he had to find a way out. Surely those who were chasing him must have been far away by then. Although, he was already wondering what to do next. After all the running, visiting the tree, more running, escaping and finally his first lunch he felt he was getting a little tired.

    Tiredness had never been too much for him. His periods of hibernation in the dark had simply been a form of rest he had adopted, due to the boredom of floating in the middle of nowhere every time the mirror was covered. But now, for the first time, he was feeling something akin to exhaustion. A much more real sensation than anything he had felt in a long time.

    He walked slowly, sticking to the wall, until he came to a door that was moving slowly, although there was no one leaving the place. He sniffed a little and curiously entered. It was a long red corridor with a dim light and some moving pictures on the walls. He continued until he found several corridors with different doors. The place was almost a labyrinth, but at that moment there was no one in that part.

    "Damn cops, how did they find out we were here?"

    "How the fuck should I know, hurry up and put everything in the bag."

    The dog peeked through a half-open door, and there he saw a group of six people in a hurry who seemed to be bagging some yellow packages at full speed. He didn''t think it was conspicuous, so he continued his stroll around the place. Then, as he rounded a bend in the road, he saw a new corridor, which had two doors at the end and a faintly blinking green sign above it.

    He recognized the pattern of the sign. The old antique dealer had the same one above the door at the back of his store. He had only seen it a few times when the mirror had been moved over the years, but he had no doubt of its meaning.

    He walked wagging his tail and tried to push one of the doors with his front paws. It didn''t take much effort. His mirrored body went through the metal of the door and, with a simple push, one of the door flies opened.

    Freedom again, he thought, looking up at the sky above the alley. Up there an image of the starry night sky was being projected. Strange, since he remembered that on the surface the sky was drizzling.

    The puppy then did something that surprised even him. A reflex action. He yawned and licked his lips. His lungs, modified by his stay behind the glass, filled with air. A sensation he had also forgotten.

    And then, darkness.

    His vision blurred and everything went black as he felt himself being enveloped by something, and lifted off the ground.

    "I''ve got you!" Said a female voice.

    The dog peeked its head out from between the jacket and saw Zi''s face. Oh no... The dog kicked a little, but he was held tightly by the girl. Tired and snorting, he gave up after some seconds of fight. Exhaustion was taking over every part of his body.

    Zi looked at him snouting and now that he had regained his size he seemed adorable, even if that shredded skin made him look like some kind of miniature glass monster.

    She had been lucky. She remembered what Oxy had said about the darkness, and she remembered that inside the mirror box she hadn''t felt or seen the animal have that crystal skin. It was possible that the darkness was something important in the animal''s change.

    She caressed it over her jacket and had expected to feel shards of glass, but instead she could feel nothing of the sort. It felt soft to the touch through the fabric. Zi curiously tried to look at it without letting go too much and, despite the darkness of the alley, noticed how the crystal skin diminished as it received less light and a black fur peeked out in its place.

    "What exactly are you?" She asked, smiling weakly at him.

    It was just a puppy that had been trapped too long.

    The dog yawned again as he felt the warmth of the hug and began to close his eyes.

    A clang of metal made Zi raise her head, and she saw an electric blue glow and someone crashing into the opposite wall in the alley.

    Thor stepped out of the door, with his hands reddened and on them a series of patterns emitting an electric blue light could be made out. He had none of the elegance with which he had begun the evening. His hair was disheveled and he was bleeding from his lip. Philip then came out, also looking tired and with bruised knuckles

    The masks they were both wearing disappeared from their faces and returned to their compartments.

    They both looked at her in disbelief. "How did you do it?" Philip asked.

    She smiled and shrugged. "It needs darkness, it''s just like Oxy said. With nothing to reflect it has nothing to attack."

    "Damn critter, he made it pretty for us," Thor complained.

    The pup closed his eyes and was now sleeping peacefully in Zi''s arms.

    The long night was over for him.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 19: Zoribhean

    Chapter Nineteen

    Zoribhean

    Timur looked toward the bow of the ship, but in fact his gaze was lost in the distance.

    He was sitting on one of the benches under the eaves on one side of the bridge. In only a short time the sky had become overcast and the fine drizzle was now wetting the deck of the old cargo ship stranded where he was. The night scenery, that the bay of the old port of Leith offered, certainly had a gloomy atmosphere that night but, for someone like him, he could see a certain beauty in the place and in the distant lights of Burtisland and Kinghorn Loch. Although his vision was not what it once was. His poor eyesight made the distant lights look like a kind of ghostly glow, that extended into the sky.

    The humidity in the place was uncomfortable, and he could feel how, in spite of his imposing appearance, pain was spreading through his joints, devouring his body. But he no longer cared, he knew his destiny from the moment he had been assigned to his mission. Decades ago. At some point his body would say enough, and he knew it, but he had decided to accept it.

    Decay has its beauty, he thought, as he reached out a trembling hand and let the raindrops soak his hand. Then he clenched his fist, trying to stop his pulse from shaking, as if trying to grasp something invisible.

    The north wind hit his face and he could feel the salty atmosphere seep into his lips. And yet he could see a beauty in it all. If it weren''t for his mission, his work, he would never have seen so much in his life. Not so many people could say the same about their existence. Even though the price was getting higher and higher with each operation. His decline and the illnesses he had contracted seemed a more than fair price for the pain he had inflicted on a world that had done nothing to his own. Still, it was something that needed to be done.

    The man stood up and approached the railing to get a better view of the place.

    He needed to record that scene in his retinas, while his eyes could still catch something. One day, perhaps very soon, he would no longer be able to see any of it.

    The waves were breaking against the rusty ship and, despite its enormous tonnage, it seemed to him that in some way it had a movement. The ship, called the Zoribhean, heeled a few degrees to port but it was still the one in the best condition on the site, and the one they had chosen as the base of operations for the mission.

    [¡­ ir]

    The mission. Well, the mission had not gone as planned. They should have been the ones to kidnap the young woman named Sil Moore. They had been told that they had made the necessary preparations, in case they had to execute a plan B. And that was exactly what happened.

    They had arrived Friday morning and were trying to find the target when the instrumentation had broken down due to movement on arrival and a solar flare, which although it had been the catalyst for starting the mission, had disrupted and ruined some of the equipment they had brought with them. They relocated it a few hours later that night, but no one was in any condition to move and do the operation at that time.

    Timur knew something had happened. In all the time he had been working, nothing like that had ever happened.

    Everyone was still suffering from the side effects of the jump, but they were too strong. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and for Timur an uncontrollable tremor and migraines that forced him to lie still for hours after the jump. He had been through something similar before, so they activated plan B, to be carried out on Sunday. In the meantime, they would gather more data for the other teams, which was the second mission. After all, the mission had two objectives and the first was as important as the second.

    Plan B was to use the local underworld services. They were forced to find help from local criminals offering their services on underground applications to kidnap Sil Moore.

    Then came the problem of the murder. It had taken place without their knowledge. On Friday Sil had turned on the app at night, but was turned it off again shortly after. They would never imagine that on Saturday the place would be a hotbed of police. Timur cursed when he heard the police reports about the dead body discovered in the apartment.

    [¡­ ir!]

    They had to call the burglars first, to bring them what was left of the body because someone had beaten them to it. That had him worried. He knew of only a few people who had the capacity to sabotage an operation that the higher-ups had been planning for months. And one of those people terrified him.

    But at least that part had gone well. The two thieves had accomplished their objective quickly and effectively. The missing head was a setback, but Nak was taking care of that. Besides, they would not waste a day. They would leave at first light on Sunday morning.

    [Sir!]

    Timur came out of his musings ,surprised to hear the voice of one of his subordinates.

    "What''s going on?"

    [Nak wants to see you in the infirmary, sir.]

    Infirmary? It was merely a temporary title they had given to the part of the ship where they had been treated after the jump, it was also the place where Nak was working with Sil''s body. "What he wants?"

    [He wants the jump devices to be applied.]

    " Already? I was hoping it would be done in a couple of hours."

    [The second coronary mass discharge will occur in four hours. They''re injecting everyone now for the acclimation."]

    "Okay. What about the decompression chamber for our guest?"

    [In two hours it will be completely ready.]

    We''re buying time, that''s good, Timur thought and looked down. The foot patrol team was boarding the ship and another was going down for rotation. Nak must have called them to give them the injections for the next jump.

    Timur started down the stairs and entered the ship. The lights inside had been restored by his crew, but he had ordered that no more light be shone than was necessary and, above all, that there be no light on the deck, so as not to attract the attention of likely onlookers. So far all that at least had gone well. Apart from the quick visit by the thieves, no one else had come near and they hadn''t had to expend any ammunition yet.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    The interior was as rusty as the exterior, and the dampness and saltpeter covered much of the walls with a sticky layer that seemed to be covering everything little by little. Still it was a good ship, and had endured more than a hundred years in place without sinking, like a corpse poking out of a hastily made grave.

    Timur went down the stairs, rounded a bend in the road and found the compartment that was being used as an improvised medical wing. Inside was an individual hyperbaric decompression chamber being prepared by two technicians in similar attire to the rest of the platoon. Around it, were several black industrial suitcases.

    Nak was near them, still with his eyes covered by his visor. He was finishing injecting two of the soldiers with an oblong syringe. They grimaced due the injection and walked away with a slight nod to the fey and Timur. Nak smiled and removed the syringe head to attach a new one.

    "Your turn," Nak said.

    "All these years and I still hate those things."

    "Stop whining, big guy."

    Nak pressed the syringe head against Timur''s palm and he made a disgusted expression. "So many years and at least the higher ups would have thought to put raspberry or something in those things. It leaves a bitter and a shitty taste."

    "If there''s anyone who shouldn''t dislike it should be you. Son of iron."

    "Don''t call me that. I hate it."

    Nak took the hand he had just injected between his two wrinkled hands. "You''ve been through too much," he said and then ran one of his hands over Timur''s face. The latter almost flinched at the feel of the ice-cold hands, but let him do it.

    "We''re not doing this because we like it, and you know it."

    "I know, we''re all running out of time. But still, survival for survival''s sake is no life. In the end there will be nothing left to save."

    He considered Nak a companion and friend, but could not deny that he was often difficult to understand. Timur looked around quizzically. "Where is the body?"

    "In the other room. We were cramped in here."

    "So? How much information can we get out?"

    Nak wiped the smile from his lips and put on a serious expression. "More than I thought. She''s not just one of them, she''s a lot more than we thought."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Come, there is something else." he said whispering in his ear, so the other two in the room wouldn''t hear.

    Timur escorted the fey into the other room, looking at his bare feet. He couldn''t deny that he felt sorry for him at the sight of his condition, but that was just the way he was. Nak, like the others feys, processed thoughts and information in a different way, even though they had a semi-humanoid form.

    But what he saw in the other room made him forget his sorrow for his partner in crime.

    There rested the headless body of Sil Moore suspended in mid-air. From different parts of the body were still attached the motion sensors, that the girl had put on before she died. And from them sprouted different glowing thin white threads that intercommunicated with each other, and from other parts emerged other threads that were going to communicate to a briefcase. Inside it there was an iridescent green cube that changed its shape at every moment, rotating on itself.

    Timur, beyond his rank as a commander, had a military training and ignored much of the ingenuity that military technicians or Nak made in their missions. But that didn''t stop him from being surprised every time he saw the capabilities the fey had. "What are you doing to her?"

    "I had thought of using the cellular memory to extract the information of the tune, but this girl left me something much better. A copy of the code. We need to reconvert it once we''re back, but we have a pretty complete part of the palindrome symphony."

    "And it''s enough to decode how much?"

    "Minutes. Probably a couple but it''s more than enough." Then he look at the body. "She''s certainly a very strange girl. I''m going to spend a lot of time studying those memory banks."

    "Why strange?"

    "There''s something strange about her. I''m not sure how to explain it."

    "Much stranger than getting to know part of the Symphony of the Spheres?"

    "Yes. Though we''ll probably know better once we get her body back to the labs." Nak put on a serious expression again and walked over to the body and looked at one of the threads coming out of her back. "What is this?"

    With his long fingers he took the thread and it deformed and widened forming a kind of bulb, where patterns in an unintelligible language could be seen circulating. With a gesture of his hand the bulb broke into even finer threads, one of them showed patterns of a green tone and another of them produced an intermittent appearing and disappearing.

    "Fuck! They know we''re here!"

    "What?" It was what Timur had feared.

    "Someone is tracking the location of the app! The police must have put something on this girl''s body!" Nak said pointing to the green thread and then his voice trembled, looking at the other flashing thread. "They know about it too. The black suits."

    Entanglement. Now it all fit together for Timur "The head was detached for the purpose of detecting our location through the body." Timur paled, and brought his hand to his left ear. "Activate the Phase Shift Disruptors right now!!!" he vociferated over the bone conductive communication system to the team in the ship''s command cabin.

    In the command cabin stood three soldiers, with a tubular device from which several rings with inscriptions were spinning in different directions. "They are activated sir."

    "It''s too late. Who knows how long the signal has been active. I hadn''t detected it," Nak said in annoyance.

    Timur bit his lip. He didn''t want to say the words, but the mission was more important than any personal feelings he might have at the moment. "Activate your enhancements. We have company," he said, giving the order to everyone.

    The more than thirty soldiers in the platoon heard the order and looked at each other. Despite the masks covering their faces, they knew that each was putting on a similar expression under them. Still there was not a moment''s hesitation and a series of clicks were heard in each other''s bodies, akin to the crunching of bones.

    "Nak," said Timur. "Take the body and go down to the hold and activate a barrier of your own. They can''t take her. We''ll have to jump right now."

    "The chamber isn''t ready. If we do it without security measures we could lose some of the data in the decohesion during the jump. The body is not ready, and neither are any of us! Acclimation will take two hours." Timur simply gives him a solemn look and Nak understood. He''s not thinking about getting out of this alive.

    The man unbuttoned and removed his jacket and then did the same with his shirt. His body looked like it had been sculpted. He had excellent musculature, although near his chest there was a black spot with veins extending like tentacles over his pecs. Nak saw the spots and thought, he doesn''t have much left. On his back there were metal parts covering the spine and shoulder blades.

    "We need twenty minutes to get the portal up and running. They have to synchronize the other side. The discharge won''t happen until later. You know what that means, not all of us are going to survive if we jump in these conditions."

    "Let''s see if we can survive those twenty minutes first," Timur said with a grim gesture. "Team Chimera keep your potions out and deal with the police when they show up! Team Hippogriff, take care of the shadow bastards from the deck! Team Dragon and Manticore, use everything you have on hand to keep them from reaching the cargo hold position in case they pass Hippogriff Team! We need to buy time while Nak and the others synchronize the portal harmonics. Our priority is to transfer the collected data and subject 3-72U to our side!"

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 20: Not yet

    Chapter Twenty

    Not Yet

    From his perch on a small hill, with tall grass reaching up to his waist, the wiry man in the black suit looked down at the ship in silence.

    He was not alone.

    There were two other individuals near him, looking in the same direction. Neither seemed to mind in the least that the rain was soaking their clothes.

    One of them must have been at least six feet tall. He was a huge-looking man, wearing a ushanka hat and a long fur coat, which made him look like a large immobile block or bust. He had small black eyes, expressionless, under two thick bushy eyebrows and a large mustache hiding his lips.

    Next to the huge man was a fey girl with silver hair, who also wore an outfit similar to that of the wiry man. The hat on her head, from which thick raindrops fell, made her expressions a bit hidden, behind the silver strands of hair.

    It had been a strange moments for her, even though the passage of time was different from her perception. It had been almost two days since she had to take care of Sil''s head, but for her it had only been moments. But now was no longer the time to worry about that.

    The three of them were looking silently towards the ship, as if waiting for something when, next to the girl, a black mist formed and two more people appeared. It was Weiss and Priscilla.

    "Shall we go?" asked the fey girl with the silver hair, in a dry tone.

    "No, Dawn. Someone else is missing," the wiry man said.

    And almost as soon as he finished saying that someone else appeared. It was another girl in a suit, with silver hair tied in two short pigtails. She was a little shorter than Dawn. Her eyes were pale and pupil-less.

    She walked a few steps closer to Dawn and stood next to her. The man glanced back sidelong. "Rei is here for you, Dawn. This is not a personal vendetta. You understand that, right?"

    "Yes," Dawn said, crestfallen, in a voice that could barely be heard above the sound of the rain. Her yellow eyes twinkled unnaturally, as if two conflicting feelings were being debated within her. Rei, though not looking directly at her, took Dawn''s hand and squeezed it gently. Dawn in turn did the same and her breathing seemed to calm.

    "Rei, you and Dawn take care of the distraction inside, split up and let me know when you have the girl''s body in your sights, I''ll handle the extraction. Prevent whoever is in charge of the mission from escaping, we need him alive." Both girls nodded solemnly, though Dawn bit her lower lip. "Tiny." The giant man cocked his head to one side, looking at the wiry man, almost with a mechanical motion. "You''ll take care of the soldiers outside the ship." He then looked at Weiss and Priscilla. "You two make sure to copy and destroy any information you can find that might change the course of events."

    "Mr. Cold, and what will you do?" Rei asked.

    "I will help you two get to the body..." Mr. Cold looked down at the ship, narrowing his eyes. "We have a problem." They all looked at him. "I''m detecting something strange around the perimeter of the ship. It may be one of those things that slows down our movements. We won''t be able to move as usual unless we destroy it."

    "Where is it?" Dawn asked.

    "I don''t know. Unless the disruptor is destroyed we won''t be able to transport. Let''s change the order. Weiss, Priscilla, you two find the device and transport with it, we need to know how it works. I''ll take care of the intel. There''s something else... these invaders have enhancements for a phase shift. Can you feel it Rei?"

    The young woman looked in the direction of the ship with her silver eyes and said, "I only detect a kind of vibration."

    "Can they move like us, my lord?" Tiny asked. His voice was deep, though there was a certain overly formal tone to it.

    "I think this team might be after the 1963 event," Mr. Cold said. "If so, we now know what happened to the candidate and Lin. They may have copied the engineering of our bodies to adopt it to their own agents." The man turned and opened his eyes to see three mobiles far away in the bumpy road, silently approaching the scene. They all mimicked him.

    "That wasn''t supposed to happen," Priscilla said.

    "It''s the confluence, it''s another variable that has changed. Destroy any information that might alter the course further. This is our last intervention here. We will not move for this lapse, until next week''s event is over."

    The shadow people followed the path of the vehicles in silence with their eyes. When they were less than two hundred meters away from the ship, they saw the vehicles come to a screeching halt and there was a sound of something crashing, broken glass, horns and insults immediately.

    "Let''s get down to business," Mr. Cold said and together with his strange companions vanished from the hill.

    ***

    While the signal that Stuart had first detected placed Sil''s body near the abandoned lighthouse, the dock was farther away. Surely something had happened when they opened the bag containing the body and the ping signal had been activated at that location. When they had arrived they discovered that the place was completely deserted, but the signal reappeared a few hundred meters to the north where some abandoned ships were stranded. It was the place they were heading for, when they crashed.

    The blow had dented part of the front bodywork of the police vehicle driven by Walter Grant. The other two vehicles behind had crashed into each other too.

    "What the fuck was that?" Grant mumbled angrily, as the safety bubble deflated.

    "An invisible force field," Stuart said.

    The constables, who had emerged unscathed from the crash, jumped out of their cars and helped them out. But there was no time to relax. The bullets had started talking. They were firing at them from different directions from among the overgrown grass of the abandoned park.

    "They knew we were coming!"

    "They must have detected that we were following the ping on the app."

    Grant and Stuart drew their guns and, covered behind the doors of the crashed vehicles, began to respond.

    "Who the hell was this girl and why are so many people interested in her?" Grant asked.

    Stuart for his part drew his gun and fired a couple of shots leaning out and looking towards the boat, but something else was catching his attention. "Do we have more reinforcements?"

    "I''m calling for them now."

    "So, what''s that shooting over there?" he asked, pointing toward the deck of the ship.

    ***

    The giant man materialized suddenly from behind them and almost took the soldiers by surprise. He barely gave them time to step aside and respond.

    "It can''t move that fast. Fire now," said the squad leader.

    While the police were answering the Chimera team''s attack, all hell had broken loose on the deck of the ship. The ten-man of the Hippogriff Team was unloading plasma ammunition on the huge man named Tiny.

    Every shot that hit the giant seemed to have no effect on him at all. Not even his clothes were affected by the blasts. But he didn''t stay still for long.

    Despite his huge body, he moved with incredible speed and approached those who were shooting at him from closer range. With one of his huge arms he tried to hit two of the soldiers, but they reacted with the same speed and disappeared from his sight. One of them simply crashed twenty meters away.

    "Your bodies are not acclimated enough to use those moves here. You won''t leave this place alive," Tiny said.

    As he took the hits from the projectiles, he barely had time to dodge a kick that went straight for his head and blew off his hat. He couldn''t dodge a second blow to his side from a soldier, though.

    They move better than I had anticipated. Five of the men in the squad were attacking him from close range while the others fired short bursts as the others moved back.

    "Fall back!!!" said the team leader and fired two consecutive plasma blasts into Tiny''s face that hit full on.

    The giant bent backwards for a few moments and then, leaning forward again, looked at the leader. Despite the damage done, everyone saw how underneath the skin and where the flesh should be, instead there was something similar to crystals on the inside. It was the closest thing to seeing the inside of a geode. The wounds caused by the shock had left cracks and fracture-like marks all around the skin, surrounding the crystals inside. But the vision lasted only a second, the face was reconstructed and the wounds disappeared.

    Tiny countered by moving like a flash among the soldiers, while hitting them with his huge fists and sending them flying through the air.

    To anyone watching the scene, only the glow of the weapons being fired and a kind of black gale that swept through the whole place were visible. They were the blows of fists and kicks between the giant and the soldiers who were also moving at an impossible speed.

    ***

    Weiss and Priscilla materialized on the roof of the ship control bridge and watched the spectacle on the deck.

    "This is not good, they can already move almost like us." Priscilla said, angrily.

    "These people are already dead," Weiss said. "Come on, we won''t be able to move properly if we don''t destroy the device''s signal."

    She had barely finished saying that when they both had to move, leaving a residual image behind them. They were being shot through the ceiling with traditional ammunition. They quickly slipped inside, breaking the windows and there they found three other soldiers and, in the center of the room, a cylinder with rings rotating in different directions. They both looked at each other and nodded.

    The two girls began their counterattack quickly, moving in three dimensions around the cabin and trying to put the soldiers out of combat. However, they responded in kind, leaving a residual image with their movements around too.

    "Leave them to me, you take care of that thing first," Priscilla said, as she dodged the soldiers'' blows.

    "I can''t use the watch one hundred percent with this thing running," Weiss replied and tried to approach the cylinder. She opened her pocket watch and moved the hand at random.

    It was a mistake. When she touched the cylinder with her free hand, it fell apart and its parts floated in the air for a few seconds. Long enough for her to see, among the mechanisms that made up the strange artifact, a tiny glass tube with something violet floating inside. Weiss opened her amber eyes wide, as she put on a terrified expression.

    The hair on the back of her neck stood up and straining beyond her limits, she pulled away and grabbed Priscilla in her arms, knocking over two of the soldiers and pushing the third, and approached the window through which they had entered.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    The strange violet substance in the tube began to vibrate and a second later the three soldiers were burned alive by a scarlet and black explosion that erased even the smallest particle of their existence. The control bridge exploded and the sound of the detonation was more than enough to be heard for miles. A shockwave rippled through the place and everyone, soldiers, fey, and even the police at their distance lost their footing and staggered.

    Around the ship Grant and Stuart watched as a kind of shield that had been invisible until then was disintegrating.

    About a kilometer away, on the roof of a building, Weiss and Priscilla materialized and rolled violently until the security fence stopped their momentum. Both girls felt the explosion and dematerialized just as the gigantic fireball swept over the command deck.

    Priscilla slowly sat up while moaning in pain. On their faces there were fractures and cracks, as if their bodies were made of some kind of rock, and from between the scars the same iridescent crystals peeked out. Weiss grabbed her arm and Priscilla heard how something was breaking in her partner''s body.

    "Don''t move, you absorbed too much of the blast when you covered me."

    "I didn''t expect there to be a violet philosopher''s stone in that thing, now we at least know why we can''t move like usual when those guys activate those things." Weiss looked at her partner''s face. "You''re hurt."

    "Less than you."

    "We can''t move now."

    "Let''s leave it to the others. At least we destroyed that thing."

    "That''s what worries me. The wave of destruction may have affected them too."

    Priscilla raised her hand and looked at the brittle wounds. Slowly one of the breaks began to close, but stopped halfway. "I can''t use my healing."

    "I''ve already used my watch three times here. We can''t go back."

    Priscilla looked worriedly toward the harbor, where a plume of smoke was rising from the ship''s deck.

    ***

    Tiny had not lost his fight, but the explosion had left him with the same brittle wounds all over his body and now he was on one knee on the ground trying not to fall. Part of his clothes had been vaporized, revealing the wounds that seemed to be growing by the second. The scarlet fireball that had swept through the control bridge, and the shockwave that followed, had taken out five of the closest soldiers. A sixth had been thrown out of the ship. The other four could still move but were in a pitiful state.

    Mr. Cold, a few seconds before the explosion occurred, entered the interior of the ship, followed by Dawn and Rei, reaching the lower parts of the ship, where it was a hotbed of soldiers. At the time of the explosion they were much lower and, thanks to that, the fireball had not reached them, but it was not the same with the shockwave that went through the whole place as if there were no barrier to it. Cold staggered and fell to the ground as did the two girls. The same types of brittle wounds appeared on their bodies, though much smaller.

    "A violet philosopher''s stone," Mr. Cold said, looking at the skin on his fractured hands. Then he looked at the two girls. "You two, go ahead, find the body and transport out before this gets crowded. Don''t come back later."

    Rei looked apprehensively at the wounds on him and then at Dawn''s wounds, but still said nothing and they both went deeper into the maze of corridors of the ship trying to find Sil Moore''s body. Regardless of the orders given by Mr. Cold, whichever of the three found her first would have to transport the body out.

    Mr. Cold continued his search through another of the opposite corridors, while at the same time, from time to time, a soldier would come out of his, way shooting at him or trying to stop him with blows. The blast wave did not seem to have affected him as much as the other members of his group. Despite his wounds, he could move quite freely and fight at the same time. The narrow corridors made it very difficult for them to move in a fight, and he could easily slip between them and take them out of combat.

    Despite the improvements, it was obvious that many of them did not have full control of the super speed, with which they could move or how to stop without taking too much damage. In one of the soldiers'' lunges, he launched himself like an arrow at Mr. Cold, but he only parried him with the palm of his hand against his chin. The unlucky man was so fast that the part below the neck went on for a few meters before stopping, while leaving his head behind.

    When he reached another of the corridors he found one of the rooms open, and on entering, he saw scattered on the floor several cables connected to a series of instruments in industrial cases. It was the room where moments before the technicians were preparing the hyperbaric chamber for the body. As he touched one of the wires his fingers glowed and he closed his eyes as he accessed the information. He was unable to concentrate too much when he had to move quickly as the shock of Timur''s two fists, tried to hit him squarely in the head. The man had crept into the room so as not to be overheard, but the surprise blow was ineffective.

    Both opponents engaged in a new fight that gave no time for any introduction. The blows were more than enough of a presentation card for both of them. The room was large enough for them to move freely, but neither of them was able to take advantage of the other. Timur gritted his teeth. Even though the situation had ruined the operation, he couldn''t help but feel the adrenaline coursing through every part of his body.

    "You picked a bad time to show up," Timur said, taking a safe distance with his fists raised.

    Mr. Cold for his part remained with a solemn stance, as he looked at him with his empty eyes. "I can say the same thing about you. You have good moves and upgrades, but they''re not much use if you can''t move properly here. You don''t belong here."

    "We were leaving anyway. We didn''t come here because we wanted to, we need something."

    "That won''t be possible. The girl belongs here since she was a baby, and your interventions are causing more repercussions in our universe."

    "We''re just trying to survive."

    "It won''t be at the expense of our universe. This is our home and we are the ones in charge of the balance."

    "Let me tell you, you'' re doing a piss poor job. This place is also falling apart just like ours."

    "If that''s the justification for kidnapping people from our universe. I don''t accept it. Anomalous events are happening for a reason. They are deterministic, not destructive. But the intervention is causing an even greater deterioration in the fabric of this reali-"

    Mr. Cold did not have time to finish his exposition of the facts, when Timur charged at him again like a tornado of fists. Despite this, the wiry man had no trouble dodging each of them, blurring his silhouette with each swift movement, almost like a snake circling his enemy.

    "It may look that way to you, but it didn''t work for us," Timur said.

    "That''s not the fault of events. Just bad decisions from the people from your side."

    Timur clicked his tongue as he felt the pressure between the flesh muscles and the artificial ones increase with each movement. The mechanical parts of the back were in charge of keeping that pressure from destroying Timur''s body, but the speed of movement of the fight made that really laborious.

    In a second of Timur''s carelessness, Mr. Cold was fast enough to get behind him and with his hands grabbed the man''s head. Timur felt a twinge in his brain. He felt like something was accessing his every memory, as images of his life flashed by like a clonic shock of memories.

    Can you see it? it was only bad decisions on your part that allowed me to get behind you. Some things are destined to happen, no matter how much we oppose them, but decisions can change the possible outcomes.

    Timur saw himself on the day of his graduation from the academy, training with long-dead classmates. Kissing his wife as he caressed her stomach. Then some less pleasant memories of creatures of strange and grotesque anatomy running rampant through cities, destroying everything in their path. Visiting a tomb. Then more recent memories of his homeland, Nak with whom he shared a few beers. More operations, death and duels enough to win the lottery jackpot. The memories ended and Timur felt like Mr. Cold just let go of his head. Timur whirled around like a bolt of lightning and they were both at a safe distance from each other.

    It was an almost imperceptible movement, but Mr. Cold changed his expression. "I see," he said stepping back and putting on a more relaxed attitude.

    Timur didn''t hesitate for a second and began a new lunge. But this time it was different. Instead of backing away, Mr. Cold this time waited for the blow with a taciturn look on his face. Timur wondered for a split second if it was some new tactic, but it was too late. He was moving faster than he thought, to change tactics at that moment.

    But Mr. Cold did not respond to the attack by moving away, in fact he did nothing at all.

    It was a direct blow to the chest and Timur heard the cracking sounds and saw his fist destroy Mr. Cold''s body, whose pieces of crystalline stones were scattered around the room by the fury of the blow, and his suit fell to the floor imprisoning the parts of the body that had not been sent flying through the air by the violent blow.

    On the floor rolled part of the head that still had that serene expression on his face.Timur stepped back, while the metal parts of his back released the pressure he had been holding back. He felt weak and a little dizzy. It was the first time he had used the phase shift for so long. But he was more struck by what had happened. Timur did not understand what had happened, but he won against one of them. One of the creatures that other teams had encountered several times. But this time he was the winner.

    But he had no time to rejoice at the fleeting victory. From the agitated orders of Team Manticore''s leader, and the sounds around the ship, he already knew that there were two others moving around. He had lost contact with Team Hippogriff on the deck of the ship after the explosion. Team Chimera, now composed of eight men, was still holding off the police, while Mr. Cold had taken care of most of Team Dragon by himself. Team Manticore was currently fighting the other two intruders who were searching the ship.

    There was no time to rest and he left the cabin at full speed, hoping that the other side would hurry to open the breach that would take the remaining ones back home.

    On the floor of the room, the pieces that had composed Mr. Cold began to reassemble and lift off the floor as the different parts came together as if there was some sort of metaphysical magnetism holding them together. In less than five seconds the strange being called Mr. Cold was standing there as if he had never suffered any blows.

    "For him it hasn''t happened yet," he said looking toward the entrance.

    ***

    Let''s see if this works, Grant said with a frown, and pressed the accelerator as the bullets bounced off the vehicle''s force shield.

    They had requested information only in case there was a special forces operation going on in the area, but that was not the case. Reinforcements were sent from the nearest headquarters and within minutes the armed police drones had arrived on the scene, while it would take a few more minutes for the vehicles to reach the scene.

    The three vehicles drove down the park road, towards the ship while responding to enemy fire.

    The drones had tried non-lethal deterrence methods, but upon seeing the amount of enemy fire, and the situation of the explosion, they switched to their traditional ammunition in accordance with security protocols in cases of terrorist events.

    The advance of the vehicles stopped, when the soldiers began to respond with plasma ammunition and grenades. The security of the police cars was good, but Stuart was pretty sure that even now with the shields up a grenade to the underside of the car would send them to the moon.

    From the drone image, they had an image that ten soldiers were the ones firing at them. Two were quickly shot down by the drones, as the constables and Stuart returned fire.

    "2MA," Stuart said and his gun changed shape slightly, the cannon of the gun grew larger and fired. Inside the car there was a muffled detonation and several meters away from them one of the soldiers went flying backwards. Grant looked at Stuart dazed from the explosion. "Sonic boom-boom," Stuart said, with a shrug.

    Thanks to the quick movements of the drones, the soldiers on the ground now had a new problem. Although Grant was seeing that three were surrounding them from the left flank. While the drones took care of two on the right side, the police started firing at those on the left.

    It wasn''t as easy as they expected, though. One of the soldiers in the front fired a consecutive shots of plasma into the underside and the car lifted a few inches, just enough for the second to send a grenade underneath.

    Grant and Stuart looked at each other and half a second later they felt the detonation under their feet, the car lifted in the air 180 degrees and landed upside down on top of the car behind and rolled to the side.

    The constables jumped out of the vehicles, as they took cover behind the doors again while the drones took out the two on the right. Stuart had landed on Grant who at the time was dealing with the deflating security pillow. Stuart kicked the broken glass removing what was left and fired at the two in the front. The two soldiers went flying through the air and never got up.

    Stuart got out of the vehicle helping Grant off the pillow, while the four cops returned fire from the remaining two.

    "One is missing, where did he go?"

    While the drones were firing at the two, the missing third one was moving at super speed and in less than three seconds had managed to disarm and reduce the cops, knocking them unconscious on the grass with his blows.

    The soldier fixed his sights on Stuart and moved like lightning to where he was. There was a quick flash of lightning and the red-haired fey flew a few meters back and remained immobile on the grass.

    Grant had just finished exiting the vehicle and saw the fey fly through the air and then the soldier set his sights on him as he raised his gun. Grant did the same with his gun, but at that moment something happened.

    The soldier suddenly lowered his gun a few inches, almost as if he was thinking something. Grant couldn''t be sure because of the mask covering his features, but he was almost certain that he was looking at him with surprise. But the strange impression only lasted a few seconds and the soldier raised his gun again in order to shoot the detective.

    Grant didn''t hesitate and fired his weapon accurately, opening a hole in the man''s neck. The unfortunate man took a few steps back and collapsed on the grass.

    A few feet away, Stuart slowly got up amidst moans and curses.

    "Are you all right?" Grant asked.

    "Yeah, just a couple of broken ribs I think." The soldier had shot him at point blank range, the smart tactical clothing had saved him from first the blow and then the discharge of the gun, which would have blown his torso to pieces.

    Grant looked again at the soldier stretching out his hand toward him. He was still alive. Grant reached down and tried to apply pressure to the wound, while with his other hand he tried to pull off the mask so he could breathe. Not without some difficulty did he free him from the mask and then from the ski mask he was wearing.

    It was at that moment that the detective fell backwards and froze, as he looked into the wide eyes of terror of the one who was begging for help. Blood was still gushing from his neck, but any help was beyond the reach of science, even if they didn''t know it at the time. The soldier slowly closed his eyes as he kept his eyes on the detective.

    In the distance Stuart saw the lights of the police cars approaching the scene. He then walked over to Grant and with an expression similar to the detective''s his eyes were fixed on the now lifeless soldier.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 21: Nak

    Chapter Twenty-One

    Nak

    It didn''t take Dawn and Rei long to find the cargo hold in the ship.

    The emergency lights that had been placed by the soldiers flickered, giving the place an even more macabre air. The further they went down, the more corrosion and deterioration of the floor they found, looking as if it had been thousands of years since anyone had been in the place. Due to the movement of the explosion, it seemed that the ship to have heeled over even more. But that hadn''t stopped the remaining members of Team Dragon, who jumped out and tried to stop them.

    The three unfortunate soldiers gave them a good fight despite the awkwardness of the place. It didn''t matter if their blows were hard or soft. At that point both girls knew what the soldiers'' fate was. The phase shift movement was obviously destroying their bodies and producing microfractures at the bone level and bursting their blood vessels.

    Yet, even so, they were in no better condition. Both girls knew that they had to take the body of Sil Moore as soon as possible and transport it, so that their bodies would not suffer any more deterioration than they already had.

    Both girls went down the stairs and there they encountered the first problem. The cellar, where the soldiers were waiting for them, was a compressed space abandoned to its fate over the years. In the past it had been easy to access the cargo hold from the deck. That had changed a bit over the years, with the implementation of technology that made it possible to compress space and cargo. Making it possible for a ship to carry much more weight, by slightly modifying the ship''s structure for the cargo. The Zoribhean had several holds and where they were located was below three other compressed holds.

    Not being able to transport properly as they were used to, meant they would have to move in other ways.

    Dawn jumped down from the ladder as she looked at what awaited her. Ten armed soldiers and a boy at the far end, who was too obfuscated on a portable station. Near him was the hyperbaric chamber connected by several wires to another industrial case. Rei followed Dawn and the two became entwined in the fight against the soldiers.

    Although Dawn was fast, her partner could still move faster than her. There was another problem, though. Team Manticore was different from the others. They both felt it very quickly in the first few seconds of the battle. Their blows were much faster than the other soldiers they had fought, and so were their bodies.

    "Symbionts," muttered Rei, as she fought two of them, ripped off the mask of the nearest one and saw how he had metal implants in his face.

    "We are, so what?" asked a voice behind her back and Rei received a blow to her side, which sent her against the other side of the cargo hold.

    Timur had come down just as the fight was breaking out. Nak looked towards Rei, who was getting up, and saw her advancing towards him. But she had to move again as the soldiers were again firing at her.

    Dawn in turn put on a serious expression and looked towards Timur. The man had to move quickly to dodge the furious attack that the silver haired girl had started against him. That girl was devilishly fast, moving with agility through the cellar. She had lost her hat and her silver hair fluttered as she moved forward. Her eyes reflected a mixture of anger and determination as sharp as a sword blade.

    Timur, with his implants working at full power, prepared to face her, but what happened next left him completely stunned. The girl moved with astonishing speed, dodging his blows with ease. Every time he tried to hit her, she seemed to anticipate his move and avoided it with fluid and precise movements. Even with the phase shift that speed was unbelievable.

    "This woman is worse than that guy," Timur thought, as he dodged a blow that threatened to split his head in two.

    Dawn''s attacks were accurate and furious, almost as if something had possessed her at that moment. It was almost a blind rage even though her face was almost impassive at that moment. She only had her eyes fixed on her target.

    Rei on the other hand with her quick movements had already taken care of three of the soldiers breaking their necks, while her face still showed an expression of serenity, although from time to time she looked out of the corner of her eye as her companion fought against Timur, several meters away. Now that she knew that her opponents were not human, it was almost as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she attacked with more fury.

    The entire room reverberated with the sounds of gunfire and rapid movements of the contenders, whose silhouettes blurred and merged like a preternatural tornado.

    "Come on, come on," Nak said, continuing to fiddle with his mobile station, and typing something at full speed on the keyboard, while from time to time he glanced back at the fight.

    Suddenly he felt something happening behind him, but he didn''t turn around and just clicked his tongue. "Get out of here, little runt," he said.

    Rei in the middle of the fight had tried to approach from behind and hit him but, before she could even touch him, the girl was repelled by something and was thrown back across the room. She stood up and looked with a surprised expression at Nak while she had to move again at super speed dodging the bullets that again tried to reach her.

    She frowned and shifted her focus. Just two meters away from the pale Nak was the hyperbaric chamber with the body. She had to at least give it a try.

    That''s when it happened. Just a few meters away from Nak a tiny dot of pale yellow light appeared and began to grow in a spherical shape. Within two seconds it had grown to a radius of at least three meters. No matter where one looked from, that sphere seemed to have a yellowish rim outlining its contour. While on its surface something different was represented. It was a sort of window with a long tunnel of energy, on the other side of which was a gray ocean landscape with half-ruined buildings looming like corpses from a forgotten time.

    The portal had opened, producing a slight buzzing sound.

    Rei didn''t hesitate for a second and launched herself in the direction of the chamber, as she took out two other soldiers, one of them flew as his abdomen exploded into pieces and the other did a somersault in the air and was thrown by a kick that sank his metal and polycarbonate mask into his face.

    A thousandth of a second before reaching the chamber, Rei gritted her teeth and her whole being vibrated and dematerialized and then appeared inside the chamber where Sil''s body rested. She looked at her for a second, embraced the body and again transported herself out of the chamber falling on the cold metal floor of the cargo hold.

    She didn''t have time to rest as she saw Nak rushing towards her and again while saying something, she moved at super speed towards the stairs while giving a glance to Dawn who continued her fight against Timur. In less than a second she was back the way they had come and found the booth where Mr. Cold was waiting impassively. New fractures appeared on her body and Rei gritted her teeth as she stopped in her tracks.

    "Here it is."

    "I said transport out," Mr. Cold scolded her.

    "I have to help her, I''m not going to let her fight alone," Rei said, looking at him coldly.

    Indrid Cold''s eyes bore into Rei, but he said nothing and took the lifeless body. "Bring your sister back right now."

    Rei dematerialized again and started her way back to the cargo hold while trying to contain the pain that the fractures were producing in her body. Mr. Cold pursed his lips and transported himself to what was left of the ship deck, which was burning like hell at the moment. He found Tiny who had risen to his feet, while his body still exhibited more wounds from where the sparkling crystals were showing. He moved close to him and touching him with his free hand, the three vanished, while the flames continued to consume the inert bodies of the slain soldiers.

    Dawn has continued her fight against Timur and the remaining soldiers. The man was really furious when he heard Nak''s scream that Rei had taken the body. The mission had failed. The only thing left to do was to return home with Nak and the four surviving soldiers of the team. But it was not easy. Dawn was giving him an even bigger fight than the wiry man he had defeated. Dawn''s, seemingly frail body, could move very fast and Timur was having trouble even with his enhancements blocking the dagger-sharp blows the girl was unloading on him.

    The soldiers didn''t seem to be able to help him. Only three of them were left. The fourth was already lying on the ground with his back shattered when Rei had come down again and grabbed him from behind, sending him to the other side of the Elysian fields.

    In an oversight by Timur, Dawn moved up behind him and slammed him to the ground. The man tried to move at super speed, but she twisted his right arm causing the shoulder blade to apply extra pressure on the biomechanical parts of his back. It was only half a second and she heard the bones in Timur''s arm and shoulder dislocate and break. But Dawn was not satisfied, with the super speed she still had left in her body, she twisted the arm even more and ripped Timur''s muscular arm tearing the flesh, muscles and enhanced tissues.

    Timur cried out in pain, but pulled free of the girl and rolled over. At that instant Dawn jumped backwards dodging a blast of gunfire that was aimed directly at her head. Timur took advantage of this and with the strength he still had left he moved at super speed and kicked Dawn''s body to the opposite side of the cellar.

    "Now! Let''s go!" Nak yelled.

    Dawn spat out some blood as the fractures were spreading across her face and slowly stood up as her eyes still burning with fury bore into Timur who was walking away in the direction of the portal. The girl gritted her teeth. She didn''t want to let this man escape in any way.

    As her body was being torn apart she slowly stood up and got into position to continue her fight. But something stopped her.

    "You are reconnecting with your real body." It was Rei holding her arm still trembling with anger. "Let it go, it''s not worth it. If you cross over you''ll be dead."

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    "You know what he tried to do¡­"

    "I know. But without him stepping in we wouldn''t be here either. Not even Muse."

    "It''s not fair."

    "Let him go. You''ve used too much of your movement ability. You''re breaking," Rei said and let go of his arm. "Besides, you haven''t realized something..."

    "..."

    "The arm," Rei said, "remember what we were told."

    As she said that, Dawn looked at the mangled remains of flesh, already lying several meters away. It wasn''t more than a second, but Dawn''s eyes widened as if she understood something she hadn''t realized yet. "...it can''t be."

    "I just realized it."

    "It hasn''t happened yet."

    "No. But that doesn''t matter now, you need to get out of here."

    Dawn touched her face and detected that several pieces of her face were missing due to the fractures, as if it was nothing more than a shell.

    "Jump now and get your energy back," Rei said and then looked to the side of the room. "I''ll take care of the rest."

    There was Nak looking at her with a serious grimace on his lips.

    "Will you be okay?" Dawn asked.

    "She''ll be fine, time for you to take a break, girl," said a female voice from behind her.

    Without making the slightest noise two girls had materialized at that moment in the room. One of them with short black hair and a long red coat and scarf. The other with messy red hair and blue eyes was smiling mischievously. She wore a sleeveless blouse and shorts. Both women moved quickly forward and took Dawn by the arms.

    "Thank you," Rei said.

    "Don''t worry..." said the girl with red hair and winked.

    "Please be careful," Dawn said worriedly and the three disappeared leaving a black mist that dispersed in less than a second.

    "You two are sisters? Wow, I thought you guys didn''t have big families," Timur said, gritting his teeth as he approached Nak.

    Rei looked at him with a serious gesture. "Our case is special," Rei said and disappeared from sight. She still had a goal in mind and it wasn''t too late to accomplish it.

    As if Nak had sensed what Rei was trying to do, the strange fey disappeared from Timur''s sight and by the time he realized it was too late. Nak, despite his frail appearance, had grabbed him and pushed him towards the sphere. That sphere absorbed Timur''s body and he fell into the gray stage shown by the sphere.

    The other two soldiers left standing approached the portal and waited. But Nak did not go through, on the contrary he pushed the two soldiers to the other side as well. The intruders were sucked into the sphere and were thrown to the other side, they fell into the water and Timur floated out while spitting water.

    "What are you doing?!" His voice felt distant as if through a filter but was audible.

    "Just a moment. I have some unfinished business here," he said and sped away dodging a kick from Rei that grazed his head.

    Rei looked to the other side of the portal, but knew it was too late to capture the man. And regardless of Mr. Cold''s order, she knew she could not capture him now. No matter how serious the crimes committed, she knew now that the man must survive.

    On the other hand, the information she had been asked for was already out of her reach, as she saw how little by little the open routes in the station that Nak had been manipulating were disappearing.

    She could not cross over. With another swift movement she stepped away from the portal and both feys looked at each other. Nak put a strange smile on his lips and looked in Rei''s direction with the visor still covering his gaze.

    "I see. You have very pretty eyes, but they''re not like your sister''s."

    "What''s so strange about that?"

    "I was wondering... where did you get them from?"

    "I inherited them from my father."

    "I see," Nak whispered and smiled. "Turns out mine run in the family too."

    The strange fey raised one of his bony hands to his face and with a slow motion removed the visor covering his eyes.

    Despite the lean appearance of his body, Nak had slender facial features and a thin nose, almost as if his face had been taken from a bust of ancient Helade. But there was something that was not normal at the same time. He had two pairs of eyes. Four pale amber eyes that blinked at the same time and whose vision was fixed on Rei.

    The girl did not flinch at the strange face that had just been revealed to her, although deep inside she could not say the same about what happened next.

    Nak closed his eyes, and from the six slits in the back of the tunic he wore, something else appeared. They were some kind of stylized and elongated white wings. The white color gave it the appearance of being a ghost rather than an angel. But it was not an angel. Rei knew it was Nak. A special kind of fey.

    "An archetype," Rei muttered. But what kind of ability it hid was a mystery to her.

    Nak let his eyes half open with a candid expression on his face. He wasn''t looking at her. But he didn''t have to. Rei, for the first time in a long time, felt a shiver as she noticed that from each of the wings amber eyes were fixed on her. The girl moved with sudden swiftness, just in time to dodge a series of sharp crystalline formations that had sprouted from the eyes and shot towards her.

    Rei observed how in the place where she had been the crystalline filaments were immobile in the air. But around them fractures had formed, looking as if the fabric of reality was breaking on the spot and space was like seeing through broken glass. The strange vision did not last more than a few moments and the crystalline formations sank into those fractures and then the space around them recomposed itself.

    But this was no time to wonder for Rei. From being the hunter she had become the prey of the strange fey. The huge wings flapped around the hold creating currents in the enclosed space, that made it difficult for Rei''s quick movements as the eyes of the wings shot out needles that tried to reach her. Everything in that space was becoming a series of fractures that appeared and disappeared, giving the impression that everything was a kind of crystalline web from which she had to escape. Several of the formations embedded themselves in the ship''s structures, breaking the unstable altered space and water began to flood the cargo hold.

    Nak flapped his wings and took to the air as he launched the chase against her.

    "We don''t have time for this, get over here now!!" Timur shouted from the other side. A boat had reached them and a group of soldiers were helping him up. Despite bleeding profusely from Dawn''s wound, the man showed no pain at all. "Throw an anchor and bring that fool over here," Timur shouted to the soldiers.

    Nak continued with his candid expression on his face, even though a slight smile had crept onto his lips. He seemed to be enjoying himself, while Rei felt it was absurd to stay any longer. Capturing the man was out of the question, but capturing the second was beyond her abilities at the moment. The fractures in her body made her feel that she had already reached her limit, for quite some time. To stay and face Nak was suicide.

    Rei tried to reach the stairs and jumped towards the door, but her escape was cut off at the moment when a new discharge of the sharp fragments blocked the entrance and the space was broken again. Rei, due to the momentum of her jump, touched the part where the fragments had been fired and felt her arm being shattered into pieces, as she entered the area that was fractured. The girl held back the urge to scream, in pain and pushed herself backwards, leaning on the handrail of the staircase.

    At that instant both faces met. Nak flew over her and, for the first time, Rei saw how the fey''s face deformed into a kind of a strange smile that did not bode well for her. From Nak''s wings, new crystalline spears emerged and shot at Rei. The girl closed her eyes waiting to feel the spears in her body, but the impact never came.

    Someone was lifting her up. Rei opened her eyes and saw Mr. Cold''s fractured face. He had rescued her in the nick of time, transporting himself back inside despite the wounds. One of Nak''s spears was stuck in his shoulder, but in a second the spear was absorbed into his body and disappeared. Timur, despite the distance, saw the one he thought he had killed moments before and muttered a curse.

    "Nak," said Mr. Cold, in his impassive manner.

    "It''s been a while," Nak said landing on the other side of the staircase handrail.

    "Have you chose your place?"

    "Yes. A long time ago. I have a place to protect, too," he said looking toward the portal.

    "You were going to be one of us. You were the Candidate."

    "Not anymore."

    "Next time there will be no warnings."

    "Same here."

    "Fire now!!!" Timur ordered.

    A sort of mechanical spider with a thick cable on its end was fired from a weapon that looked more like a bazooka and the projectile flew through the tunnel. When it reached Nak, the projectile opened what looked like its huge arms and caught him. He simply smiled and hid his wings as he looked at Mr. Cold.

    "We''ll see you soon, whenever that may be," he said, and the projectile cable started back the way it had come. Nak looked at Rei, before disappearing floating down the tunnel with a serious expression. Mr. Cold opened his pupils and transported out of the ship just, as he saw that behind Nak something was being fired in their direction. The portal closed and the last thing to be seen was Timur giving a bitter look at the other side.

    A new explosion that formed a new scarlet sphere destroyed the hold, the entire ship and everything in a radius of two hundred meters around, sweeping away all the remains of the operation in place, with the exception of the remains of the Chimera Team, which had been out of range of the explosion. The constables and Stuart, carrying Grant still in shock, took cover behind the cars again as they felt the heat engulfing everything.

    Stuart in all his years had never seen anything like it, not even in his training and simulated situations.

    Everyone''s astonished expression was fixed on the sphere of fire that was spinning and destroying everything in its path. They wondered if they would even be safe despite the distance, but the event soon subsided. The sphere after reaching a considerable size became smaller and smaller until after a few seconds it simply extinguished. Leaving behind it a spherical hole in the ground that was quickly covered by the waters. Of the ship there were only pieces of the stern and bow where the edges of both parts glowed with incandescent metal due to the heat emitted by the fire sphere. Both parts soon succumbed and were engulfed by the waters leaving everyone astonished and not understanding what kind of horror had unfolded inside, while drones and police cars that had just arrived hovered around the place.

    On the rooftop of the building where Weiss and Priscilla had originally been transported, the rest of the Shadow People were silently watching the scene. They were all injured, with the exception of the two girls who had appeared to carry Dawn and were still holding her. But they had still made it through once again.

    Mr. Cold glanced at Tiny who, despite his wounds, was holding the decapitated body of Sil Moore. "Let''s go," he said in a calm tone. One by one they disappeared leaving behind them the light mist of particles.

    And once again, like an escapist from the afterlife, Sil''s body went with them. Disappearing forever from the reach of the police, or the SID.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 22: Epur si muove

    Chapter Twenty-two

    Epur si muove

    Sunday had caught everyone moving around, trying to analyze what exactly happened during the night. Mirrors, crystal dogs, the capture of drug dealers in the subway part of the city, gunshots and explosions in the north dock. The press were having their share of the cake that day, and Edinburgh had become the focus of world attention thanks to Nevermore. The police held a press conference in the early hours trying to calm things down but, even so, it wasn''t enough and a whole series of outlandish theories and conspiracy rumors flooded the main social networks.

    The truth is, that Sunday morning had caught both, the local authorities, the SID, and SIGN, wondering what on earth had happened. Hundreds of soldiers had been deployed to different parts of the city, helping local agencies to identify different spots where MAPs had been emanating, but where they had been found the most was in the harbor where the strange explosion had occurred.

    Investigation teams arrived at the site an hour later after fire crews and the FRT had ascertained that it was safe to proceed. The bodies of the strange attackers, at least those not hit by the blast, had been taken to MCITHQ for a full autopsy, along with pieces of others found nearby. The body count had grown considerably since six o''clock that Saturday evening, where nothing foreshadowed what would happen as the hours passed.

    And it had all started with someone whose body had disappeared without a trace.

    "Hmm..." murmured Philip, thoughtfully. "Well... so basically we have over fifteen bodies come from nowhere."

    He was leaning against the tactical SUV that he and Zi used to move around the world. Over the hood Zi was also looking thoughtfully. They were accompanied by Stuart and Portman. They were all staring at the still armed mirror box on the second floor of the SIGN parking building.

    "We have a girl who was murdered for who knows what reason and her body vanished into thin air."

    "We have another one of these paperweights," Stuart said looking at the mirror box.

    "And our new friend," Zi sighed, and looked behind her.

    There, sleeping peacefully in a pet carrier box, the pug puppy was lying on Zi''s jacket.

    The pup slept most of the day after the night''s adventure, but had woken up and eaten and drank normally, but within the hour he had fallen into a new stupor. The few examinations that had been performed indicated that there was nothing abnormal inside the animal. It showed no signs of any abnormality, with the exception of that layer of mirrored fur that appeared and disappeared with changes in light. It didn''t seem to bother the cub in any way.

    "We know the shadow girl cut off the head. We found the body, and then it disappeared until this ghost app that was in the memory banks was activated."

    Philip pursed his lips as wrinkles formed on his forehead. "It''s like the body was a bait."

    "These guys can manipulate chain reactions just by changing small parts. Who knows what the hell they were trying to do. We don''t have much despite the bodies of those guys who attacked us," Stuart said.

    "So there''s a chance this was all orchestrated by them to get the guys who wanted the body."

    "But why? I mean, this girl, who she was?" asked Zi, shrugging.

    "Well at least we know where those guys came from¡­ thanks to the detective," Stuart said with aplomb.

    Everyone looked at each other with somber gestures. "This is a new kind of problem that was already proposed some time ago," Portman said.

    "Still, if that''s correct. What the hell were they looking for with this girl?"

    "The music of the spheres." They all looked toward Oxy''s avatar, who was walking around the box.

    Stuart frowned. "One of the oldest legends related to the fey, the Other Side, and alchemy."

    "Some feys, few actually, are obsessed with some types of music. For example Mai, her case is somewhat similar to Sil, she can compose through her body, although Mai doesn''t need any enhancement. Liz is always humming some notes that she does not remember where she heard. There are so many cases over the years."

    "But this girl wasn''t a fey," Philip pointed out.

    "BTB," Oxy said. "We know that depictions in some ancient grimoires associate the bard and his instrument with the Music of the Spheres. For all we know the music he always plays has some relation to the ley lines that run beneath the Gate Trees. Maybe that day when Sil first observed him was in the Orbital Belt and she may have become obsessed with it."

    "Seriously, who the hell is this guy?"

    "He''s as old as the Shadow People."

    "Pfff, we don''t even know how old they are. If the rumors are true maybe they don''t even have time."

    "Some say it''s possible he knows all the secrets before the Great Exile."

    "What a headache," Philip said.

    "That''s not all." Emmeline had just come upstairs, and her face exhibited a look that would have been more than enough to cow the bravest. She approached Philip and handed him a folder.

    "What is this?"

    "We''re going to know more shortly, but the teams just found that out."

    Philip opened the folder and read the contents while taking some pictures. After a few seconds where his face changed, from his angry look, to an expression of surprise and confusion. He silently passed the folder to Zi who also read it.

    "How sure are we that her parents didn''t get a surrogate womb?"

    "We''re not sure yet," Emmeline said.

    In the papers she had just handed them, they could read that according to the medical records, and the period photos, Sil''s mother had never given birth to a girl. In fact, there was almost no pre-birth data, and the photographs that the couple had taken just weeks before they appeared with the child did not show that her mother had ever been pregnant.

    "We have no records of any kind?"

    "Apparently at the time the girl was born the couple was not connected to any kind of device or social network. Nor in the mother''s records, is there any medical history of pregnancy."

    "But they are her biological parents."

    "Yes, there'' s no doubt about that."

    Everyone looked at each other even more confused.

    "Seriously. Who the hell is this girl?" Philip asked.

    ***

    To each his own

    The diffused neutral light of the room illuminated the pearl gray walls of the MCIT morgue, and drew shadows of uncertain contrast on the two figures who currently occupied the room. One of them breathed the smell of the chemicals used to clean the room. The other, covered with a sheet on the examination platform, was no longer breathing.

    In front of them, at the far end of the room, the cold storage cubicles, with their doors polished like mirrors, gave back an image that was hard to the detective.

    Grant sighed, as he looked at the shrouded body in front of him as mist came out of his mouth.

    It was hard for him to think that it had all ended just a few hours ago. But it was even harder for him to accept what he had in front of him, covered with that sheet.

    That damned moment, where he had uncovered the soldier''s face, after opening a hole in his neck. That had changed everything and, in the last hours, he had been asking himself questions he had never asked himself in his long years.

    Because the moment he removed the tactical mask, Grant froze. He had wanted to help him, but something petrified his every move. But it was not the profuse amount of blood that flowed from the poor wretch''s mouth, nor even the choking rales that were trying to reach him that froze him.

    That man had on his face a real indescribable terror, like that reflected in Grant''s face. They were staring at each other in disbelief. The soldier stopped moving and stood there with an expression of terror in his eyes that took the coroner a long time to close his eyelids because even he was terrified. Those eyes in their last moments had seen the unspeakable and absurd in the world.

    Grant stood there, not knowing what to do for several minutes, while the rain soaked him from head to toe, and washed away the large pool of blood the soldier had left behind. He didn''t move until Stuart dragged him away from the explosion, then, when the other police cars arrived on the scene, they shook him and tried to shake him out of his state of shock. But they too were left with similar expressions at the sight of the lifeless soldier.

    Grant took a deep breath and slowly pulled the sheet away from the man''s face.

    It was him.

    The same face. The same wrinkles, nose, and even an imperceptible mole near his left ear. A mirror reflecting his own death.

    Grant had decided to enter the immortality program because maybe in the future he wanted to see other planets. He liked his work as a detective, but he did not dismiss the possibility that he might be able to do much more with his life. He was over eighty years old, although he didn''t look it physically. The problem with such a long existence in the world was that one often lost sight of what death was. Or rather, what was it really like to be human, if there is no death?

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Yet, there he was. Contemplating himself in that cold corpse tray. A joke of the universe that made him witness his own finiteness and how death was still there. Often ignored, like something that happens to someone else, until it came out of the shadows to tap the shoulder and say "everything dies, and you''ll be there someday too."

    How? When? And why?

    Grant couldn''t understand at what point the life of that double of him could have been twisted. What must have happened to him to end his life there? On a planet, or rather universe, that was not his own. How bad could the odds have been for him, to end his life that way? Be that as it may, his other self had not killed the cops, he had merely disarmed them.

    He pulled back the sheet a little more on the left side and his feeling of grief was even greater. Grant looked at the hand of his double. On Grant''s own hand the mark of the wedding ring from his last marriage was long gone. But on this individual''s hand was an exact copy of the wedding ring from his first marriage.

    Would he also have children like him? Wherever he came from, what would happen to his family now? Would they just consider him gone?

    Grant covered him again and touched the digital controls on the body tray. It lifted off the examination platform and floated slowly to one of the cubicles and a door opened. The cold storage entrance completely engulfed the body and closed.

    The old detective pulled from one of his jacket pockets the card Philip had given him only a few hours earlier. It was a business card of the Nevermore Institute, with the raven emblem and the SID emblem. On the back was a contact code.

    Grant pondered it for a few seconds.

    Maybe in the future it was time to make some changes in his life, before the embrace of death, with its cold shroud, caught up with him too.

    ***

    Cleo leaned back in her chair, and placed her bare feet on the desk full of papers with numbers and bills, and stretched out her toes in relaxation. Her blue eyes fixed on her virtual guest with a mischievous grin.

    Ralph Oakley smiled nervously.

    Although he was in a meeting where it was only his avatar that was present on Siren Island, he couldn''t shake the feeling of strangeness of the image before him.

    He was a man in his thirties, with a certain youthful air, with neatly combed hair and wearing a rather expensive suit, although his clothing did not match his physical persona. The truth was that his physical self, at that moment, was in his underpants in his London apartment. Yet the habit does not make the monk, and he had an important position. He was the link between government agencies in UK and the Nevermore Institute.

    [Can you repeat that, please?] Oakley asked, as qbits rendered beads of sweat on his cheek.

    "We want one of the dragon eggs that are about to hatch, in exchange for taking care of the problems during the operation in Edinburgh."

    Is this woman kidding? Oakley thought to himself. How could she think that the Ministry of Defense would give anything in return for a disaster that yourselves caused?

    But the situation was intimidating, even if he wasn''t physically present.

    He was in a rather large study room, richly decorated, and filled with shelves of books and accounting folders.

    The long golden hair and the girl''s clothes were distracting him. The fey girl gave him an innocent smile, while wagging her long golden tail. The horns, also golden, peeked out from between her hair and the evening light was streaming in through the wide windows behind her.

    She was not a common fey. Cleo was a dragon fey. Her horns and golden tail were a clear indication that she was a monster girl, albeit a truly beautiful one. She wore a dress of light fabric, sleeveless, and with some gold trim around the edges. The slits on the sides of the dress were, so to speak, something that left too much to the imagination. Although who was behind her was no slouch either.

    She was accompanied by a taller fey girl, brown skin with some freckles on her cheeks, blonde hair and green eyes that sparkled like emeralds. Though in contrast to Cleo, the girl wasn''t smiling at all, and looked at Oakley with a gaze as cold as the Siberian taiga. She wore a short-sleeved shirt, one-legged trousers and a tweed vest. On the left side of her pants, buckled to the belt, hung a tactical sword.

    "And what do you think?"

    I think this dragon has a few lizards escaped from the nest. Oakley gulped, trying to maintain his composure. [I honestly don''t think the Chamber of Commons is going to agree to such a request, ma''am¡­]

    "You don''t think it''s a fair price?"

    [¡­ ]

    "We''re talking that the damages in Edinburgh would cost approximately thirty-four million E-feb. I''m offering a hundred million to pay for the fix. I simply want something in return. The government is making sixty-six million, it''s a good offer. The structures damaged during the operation are not too many, and the nano-VNMs can repair the damage in a few hours, the money is only for public relations."

    [No, it isn''t. That could be raised in a short time from the money collected for reserve tickets.]

    "We''re talking about how much? Thirty years until the dragon reaches a size of about three meters? I''m offering an extra sixty-six million to be paid, right now."

    Shes out of line, but she is right about that.

    "You can discuss it with the prime minister and let her do the calculations. She''s much better."

    She is an IA, of course she is. At what point did this turn into talk of damage awards in a trade exchange? thought Oakley. [I''ll have to ask.]

    "No problem."

    [If you''ll excuse me.]

    "One more thing," Cleo stopped him before he disconnected, and waved her fingers and sent a photo with a report to Oakley. "I don''t want just any egg, I want the blue one."

    [Ok, I''ll check it out and have the answer shortly.]

    "Hurry up, if possible I want the egg before it hatches. Oh! Something else."

    [Yes?] The man asked, with a tired gesture.

    "I won''t take no for an answer," Cleo said, changing her laughing face to a serious expression, as her blue eyes flashed with a menacing glint.

    Oakley tilted his head, nervously and his avatar disappeared.

    "Do you think they''ll accept?" asked the fey woman behind her.

    "They will¡­ it''s a good offer. They know that technically we had no way of knowing there was a creature inside the mirror, and the damage isn''t too much. To them the blue egg is worth the least. Let them keep thinking that," she said and smiled mischievously. "Come on, Hanna. I want that egg!" Cleo squealed excitedly.

    She jumped up from her chair and bounded across the room as she unfurled golden wings with pink membranes that had been folded and hidden in her abundant hair. Her long hair moved in an arc and shone with all the splendor of the setting sun.

    "Are you going to London?"

    "Yes. Are you coming?" Cleo asked, as she threw open the studio doors and her wings went back into hiding.

    Hanna sighed wearily. "Please try to keep your shape," she said and followed her. She took it upon herself to close the doors as Cleo walked away humming Beethoven''s Ninth Symphony through the wide corridors.

    Above the study doors was written Nevermore Treasury Department.

    ***

    The old man was looking at the painting in front of him. Sitting on a red velvet bench ruined by the passage of time. He was a room of yellowish marble, through which a pale and dreary sun was filtering, illuminating a layer of dust that had accumulated the dust of decades.

    He wore a brown suit and a beret crowned his head, while his weathered hands rested on a cane with a golden handle decorated with the beak of a phoenix. Wide wrinkles crossed his pale face and his glassy eyes scanned every part of the canvas.

    It was Christus in de Limbus by Jheronimus Bosch. The painting was enclosed behind a force field that prevented dust from accumulating on the piece. Something that contrasted with the appearance of the place that seemed to have been forgotten by the hand of man.

    The sound of footsteps, approaching behind him, did not distract him from his abstraction of the work. Nor did it distract him, when Mr. Cold took a seat beside him and his gaze lingered for a moment on the artwork. The injuries he had sustained during the fight and from the explosion were completely gone.

    "Sometimes I''m glad some of these works are kept in places like this," the old man said. "You want to know why?"

    Indrid Cold did not answer him, and just looked at him with his eternal calm expression.

    "Because of the DEs. It terrifies me to think what would happen if someone, or some people, with too much imagination saw paintings like these for too long."

    "There are much worse things going on today."

    "Yes, there are, my friend. But there are some artists who connected with something in their paintings. Something that is far beyond description, and so, simple religious meaning. Imagine what would happen if an DE happened that was going to bring all the horror that some painters, or writers, captured in their works."

    "It has happened before."

    "For that very reason I am glad that many horrors have been forgotten in places like this," the old man nodded and stood up as he made his way out of the room, followed by Mr. Cold.

    Outside it could be seen that the place was an immense museum completely abandoned. But whose paintings and sculptures were still in place, guarded by crystals or force fields that had remained active, despite the years that had passed.

    "What do you have for me?" the old man asked.

    "They have a handle on the violet stone technology."

    "Of course they do. Although I can''t imagine where they could have gotten it from."

    "They are looking for the Music of the Spheres too."

    "I suppose they want to get it through the AFT. Still it''s complicated to know how much progress they may have made. Your operations to stop the interventions have been fine, but I can''t imagine you''re going to succeed with them. Whatever has to happen, will happen. It doesn''t matter how many interventions you make or how many small pieces you can change in timelines."

    Mr. Cold said nothing and let him speak.

    "Both, you and the humans and feys still think that Dark Events are something that need to be investigated and prevented. I don''t think so."

    "I don''t think they can be prevented. But at least mitigate their impact for the survival of life."

    "For several years I thought so, but now, I don''t think so. DEs are simply a common occurrence in the evolution of the universe. The decay of the laws of physics is something that occurs with expansion. It is only an egotistically anthropocentric point of view that leads us to think that things should be different."

    "Consciousness is what creates much of those DEs."

    "Consciousness as such does not exist, old friend, only patterns that gather like a hive. We think we are different because we can use our brains a little better than other species, but that still doesn''t mean we can change the determinism of the universe. We''re all bound by rules so we don''t throw ourselves down each other''s throats."

    Indrid Cold held out his hand and the old man received what was a crystalline piece of rock.

    "Oh! The crystallized Unnamable," the old man said with some surprise and examined the object against the light. "Where did you get it?"

    "A fey from the other side."

    "What do you want me to do with it?"

    "Analyze it to see if the composition is the same. We don''t know how but they have the violet death too."

    "These are dimensional horrors. How do you expect me to-" the old man did not finish his sentence and smiled. Mr. Cold had vanished and he didn''t even know when he had done it.

    The old man put the crystalline piece in a small tube he carried in his coat, and slowly walked down the stairs and then to the entrance of the abandoned museum.

    Outside, a luxurious autonomous car was waiting for him and drove him through the forgotten streets of a big ghost city, that had been invaded by vegetation. The old man was content to look at the scenery, as the car drove around blocks, that were blocked by huge collapsed buildings, and had been transformed into places where trees and wild animals were now running free.

    The car finally left the city and left behind the corroded sign that welcomed the city:

    Indianapolis. City quarantined since 32 S.A. No trespassing.

 Vol. 2/ Chapter 23: Memento/Vivere. [VOL.2 Final Chapter]

    Chapter Twenty-Three

    Memento/Vivere

    The little girl was happily running through the tubular walkways of the park. The place was usually full of strollers and tourists who came to admire the beauty of the place with its exotic plants. Contrary to what happened with the real parks on the planet, the belt ones were very visited. But that was not the case that day. It was a working day and tourists usually visited the place more on weekends.

    That didn''t bother the girl. After all, she could walk around the place and she had the park to herself and her parents.

    The park had been one of the first inaugurations of the Orbital Belt. Hundreds of botanical specialists were brought in, to study the proper conditions for growing plants in an environment far from earth. Certainly no money had been spared in the construction of the massive belt. And even less to accommodate the site in case of a possible new cataclysm that could occur on the surface of the planet. At the same time it was a platform for the development of spacecraft for interplanetary travel, industrial development, defense and scientific research.

    The construction that served as a base was carried out during the first twenty years after the war against the Fractus. Then, as the decades passed, the new layers were completed, which served to build a real ring-shaped shield around the planet. It served not only as an ark to house more than two hundred million people, a little more than five hundred fey, and some tens of aeon that were in charge of technical and support tasks in the place.

    Over the years a true extraterrestrial habitat for the species of the Earth had been achieved, with the location of vast territories in extension as countries in the huge belt, which had its own seas and even islands.

    Hesper Island was one of those places. A highly valued place because almost ninety percent of the place was dedicated to green space. A real forest under a shield of energy. And located in one of the island''s spaces was Inoue Park, which was one of the fifteen parks in the belt that had a Gate Tree.

    But the history of the park was certainly not what concerned the girl most at the time.

    At that moment she was separated from her parents and was looking for them. She had been so distracted, looking at one of the new transgenic species of flowers that had been such a sensation among the tourists that, when she looked back to where her parents had been walking, she found that they had disappeared.

    She slowly walked through the labyrinthine corridors of the place, while listening to the sounds of the birds flying on the other side of the glass. The corridors formed a tubular structures that communicated with each other as if it were a gigantic anthill, supported by huge metal structures and giant mechanical arms that had the function of moving the structures in case of any unforeseen event. The place had signs everywhere, but not knowing exactly where her parents had gone, she wasn''t quite sure where to go. The Neurowire signal for some reason wasn''t sending messages to them.

    Through the glass she looked toward one of the secluded islets, there she could see a sphere to which several of the corridors seemed to converge. It was the space of more than two kilometers that contained the enormous Gate Tree. With nothing else to do, she headed there, but what she found was not what she had imagined.

    She was entering the huge place when she heard a strange music. The girl had never heard anything like it in all her short life. There was something appealing about the different sounds.

    Almost without being able to contain herself, she continued walking until she was only about twenty meters away from the base of the tree. It was a tree of the FMN species. Named after the acronym of the blue flowers Forget-me-not. It produced a bluish glow at night. But at that moment the incredible sight of the tree was not what mattered to her.

    There, sitting in the grass, and holding a strange instrument was a man with slightly shoulder-length hair, dressed in black and with a leather jacket. The shape of the instrument was one she had never seen before, though in some ways it reminded her of a harp, the sound produced was very different from a plucked string instrument. The stranger''s eyes were closed and his brow slightly furrowed, as his hands roamed over the instrument and the captivating notes continued to flow from it.

    The girl tried to approach slowly, but in an oversight she stepped on a branch and the sound of the branch breaking echoed throughout the place, and the music of the strange man was cut off. The stranger looked up at her in astonishment, and almost instantly an expression of sorrow darkened his face.

    "Oh little one, you shouldn''t be here," he said.

    The girl watched as roots sprouted from the ground and headed toward her with terrifying speed. The last thing she caught was the stranger leaping toward her, trying to cover her.

    "Sil, honey. Wake up!" Said a woman with a frightened face, along with a man beside her, who also showed the same worried gesture.

    The girl sat up on the grass and looked around her. She was in the same place she was before, as if she had fallen into a dream. There was no one there except her and her parents.

    Had it all been a dream?

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    She was sure she had seen the roots of the tree coming towards her, but the grass and flowers around her were untouched. And the stranger had disappeared.

    She had no way of knowing, but that moment would change her life forever.

    ***

    Sil Moore opened her eyes.

    The memory of that day again. The music and the stranger. That''s when she remembered him.

    The strange guy named Black that she had met a few hours ago on her way up to her building. She had no doubt. It was the same face of the stranger she had seen that day. Why she not recognized him before?

    But she remembered something else. The memories were coming back like a flood of flashes. She completed entire minutes of the strange music. She danced for minutes underwater. And then, she died. She saw her body fall, decapitated. She was sure of it.

    The memory filled her with horror and she tried to sit up. She was looking at a gray sky where the clouds were circling at breakneck speed. But she was unable to get up.

    "Hold still, girl. Hold still," said a childish and somewhat annoyed voice. "I''m almost done."

    In her field of vision appeared the face of a girl with blonde hair, tied in two pigtails.

    "Oh, she''s awake!" Said another voice and almost instantly another face of another girl appeared, with slightly messy red hair and wearing a blouse.

    Terrified, Sil tried to move but realized she could not move anything else on her body, besides her eyes.

    Where am I? Sil was pretty sure it wasn''t a hospital.

    "Calm down, calm down," said a deep masculine voice, and Sil beheld a huge face with a mustache trying to put a smile on his face.

    What is happening?

    She was feeling a kind of stinging in her neck. As if something was burning her. She was feeling some movement coming back into her body. As if it was all part of a sleep paralysis.

    The seconds became eternal for her, as she felt that kind of itching growing in her neck and the movement was slowly returning to her joints. After a few moments Sil felt that the suffering was over and she could move.

    Nimble as a cat, she sat up, and jumped up from where she was. It was a stone and someone had put a coat on her shoulders. All around was mist but she could see the girl, the huge man, and the other red-haired woman. But soon she could see more. Out of the mist new figures approached. Two silver-haired girls. A tall skinny man with slightly long black hair. Another girl with long silver hair tied in two pigtails. All wore suits, though with different variations, one of the girls wore a pleated skirt, the giant man with the mustache wore an overcoat, another of the girls wore a tweed vest.

    Sil whirled around seeing herself surrounded by the strange figures. Who were they? What did they want? Right... she died. Instinctively she reached for her neck and found that her head was still in place.

    What''s going on?

    Then she looked down and saw herself barefoot and still wearing her swimsuit. She didn''t understand what was happening.

    Is this a dream?

    "No, it''s not," the skinny man said.

    "Just in time," said the silver-haired girl who pulled out a pocket watch from her vest.

    One of the silver-haired girls, with a slightly messy hair, approached her. "I''m sorry if I was too rough," she said, tilting her head slightly.

    What is she sorry about?

    "Here it comes!" said the giant man.

    What''s coming?

    The silver-haired girl who had apologized for something put a hand on her shoulder. "This may be a little strange but try to be calm. Nothing can hurt you."

    Suddenly a hurricane wind that had come out of nowhere picked up, and the silver-haired girl held her. Due to the violence of the wind, Sil almost lost her footing, the coat on her shoulders flew off. She looked around and saw how the fog was dissipating and looked up at the sky not understanding anything of what she was seeing.

    The clouds accelerated their speed even more, rising and disappearing in less than the blink of an eye. Then she looked around. With the fog almost completely disappearing she could see more figures around. Hundreds. Probably thousands of them on different parts and hills. On top of destroyed buildings, on stones on nearby mountain tops. That''s when she realized. She was also on top of a hill. And down there was a dark abyss separating her from an even stranger image.

    Towards the horizon Sil saw something much stranger and whose image would forever be engraved on her retinas. The landscape was changing in a strange way. Mountains, cities, razed places, everything was rising and collapsing at an impressive speed. It was like watching a movie in fast motion. Phantom civilizations would rise only to have all their glory collapse in a split second. Monuments rose and were turned to dust and ashes the next moment. Oceans in implausible motion and mountains that were born and died.

    What is this place?

    "The more correct question would be, when?" said the thin, black-haired man. Sil had realized that somehow the wiry man was hearing her thoughts, but it wasn''t through the Neurowire, it was something stranger, as if with his gaze he could pierce her and see into the depths of her mind.

    "Everything happens at the same time here," said the girl with the long pigtails, looking at her watch, whose hands were moving at the same implausible speed as the place.

    "Miss Sil Moore," the skinny man said, looking at her, almost narrowing his eyes.

    His gaze was so cold it almost made Sil shudder. "Y-yes?¡­"

    "Welcome to the Other Side¡­"

    All the strangers in black suits stared seriously at the horizon and Sil very slowly did the same. Somehow she sensed that there was something strange, as if something was calling her in that direction. Whatever it was, it must have been overwhelming enough for everyone to be looking in that direction.

    Sil looked and, with her eyes wide with surprise, she saw time and space become one.

 Vol.2/ Bonus: Summary Report/Profiles.

    Preliminary summary report excerpt.

    Department of Earth Justice

    Nevermore Institute - Special Investigation Division.

    SID Enygma File: 125-SILM-JJG54R

    Dark Event: Sil Moore

    DOE: March 16th. 125

    SPECIAL AGENTS ATTI/AFI: Philip [Cook]. Badge 0003042.

    Zi. Badge 0001742

    Thor (Support agent). Badge 000245

    Oxy (Support agent). Badge 0000023

    Supervision: UKB-HOF Thomas [Vazziri].

    Event Location: United Kingdom/ Scotland/ Edinburgh

    Case Status: Open until further investigation.

    Case Summary.

    After a couple of days on stand-by, due to an event in the Edinburgh area, my partner, Special Agent Zi, and I, Special Agent Philip Cook, had to move to Piershill due to an alert that went out on the coordinated emergency systems. On March 17, at 1025, we arrived on the scene. Located in the Cornstand apartment complex at number 214 on the sixth floor.

    The young woman living in the apartment was murdered in an unusual manner, resorting to decapitation as the method of execution. Due to the strangeness of the event, we were called to the scene and, with the support of local forces, and the First Response Team, an investigation and evidence collection was launched. We were not able to know the specific identity of the attacker, as she belonged to a group that we have encountered in other investigations, but we were able to corroborate that the female attacker took the head of the deceased from the scene.

    At first, the murder of Sil Moore seemed to be unrelated to the reason for our stay. This changed when it was discovered that MAP emissions of unknown origin had been produced at the scene of the crime.

    At the same location a mirror was discovered, which resulted in a major anomaly later on, because it trapped Agent Zi and a coordinated agency effort had to be made to find the method, and location, for her rescue of the device, which turned out to be an oopart.

    During the course of the operation, the body of the deceased Sil Moore was stolen from the judicial morgue vehicle by unknown subjects, who resorted to impersonating part of the MCIT forensic team to accomplish their task.

    After a search, through an application, we were able to find the supposed location of the place where the body was being held. The police on arriving at the scene had to engage in a struggle with hostile forces of unknown origin who, for some reason, were interested in Sil Moore''s body (see pages 79-120, Hypothesis section).

    The body is still unaccounted for and there are still many tests to be performed by the evidence collection teams at the site. It is possible that the body and head, if it was the same group of people who killed her, which is not certain and seems unlikely, was destroyed by an explosion of unknown origin that occurred at the site.

    In the absence of further evidence this case will remain open.

    Reporting Agent: Philip Cook

    Special Agent/SID

    Character Dossier

    ID: Philip Cook

    Gender: Male

    Fey Type: not applicable

    DoB or DoA: September 23rd, 64 SA.

    Birthplace: Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Age: 61 (appeareance 41)

    Height: 190cm

    Weight: 78kg

    Eyes: Black

    Hair: Black-none

    Residence: Siren Island

    RID Status: Zi

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: Special Agent. Int Operative

    Team: Coxis

    Distinguishing Features: Bald

    Personal Profile Background

    Born in Sheffield, UK, Philip Cook attended Sheffield Elementary School and from an early age proved to be an excellent student with the qualifications to enter the field of engineering, although as a teenager he decided to choose a different path and enter law enforcement. This situation was probably due to a terrorist event in which his mother lost her life and which later led to his father''s suicide. Leaving Philip in the care of his paternal aunt who took care of him until he was fifteen, when he decided to become independent, moving to Birmingham where he finished his studies.

    After this situation disrupted his adolescence, he decided to join the army at the age of 17 where due to his excellent physical and reflex training skills he was sent for extensive training at the Special Forces Training Camp.

    {Records Sealed}

    At the age of 36 he became a member of the Special Forces Special Training Team. It was during this time that he lost his wife and son.

    {Records Sealed}

    At the age of 41 he finally decided to give up his FDC (Final Death Code), and was recruited by the Director of Operations Mai Izumi, to become part of the special agents team to this day.

    He is currently in an affectionate relationship with his teammate, agent Zi, while continuing with a second activity related to the Intelligence Department of the SID.

    Special Observations.

    Due to situations in his personal life, that greatly marked the path he chose in his professional life, and the services rendered to his country, he was recommended for special promotion to receive the Eagle of Dawn Decoration. This changed after his departure from the army, which occurred after the death of his wife and son.

    Like his partner Zi, Philip Cook holds one of the best marksmanship records in the SID, which is why they both serve as snipers on combined missions.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Character Dossier

    Name: Zi

    Gender: Female

    Fey Type: Fee

    DoB or DoA: December 15th, 2050 Ancient Era.

    Birthplace or Arrival Place: Taiwan

    Estimated Human Age: 29

    Fey Age: 175

    Height: 170cm

    Eyes: Blue-Grey

    Hair: Black

    Residence: Siren Island

    RID Status: Philip Cook

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: Special Agent. Sniper

    Team: Coxis

    Personal Profile Background

    Special Agent Zi appeared in the year 2050 of the Ancient Era, somewhere in Taiwan. The date of her arrival is not entirely clear, it could have been between the 12th or 15th of December, but she herself has decided to leave the date on the 15th.

    During her early years she spent a lot of time in different cities in Southeast Asia, doing all kinds of activities to survive. Although she had a fey condition, she was able to hide her appearance very well. Among the different jobs she did during that time, she worked as a cook in a bakery, to a life insurance saleswoman.

    It wasn''t until the year 2072 that her life began to change, first joining one of ZAIEN''s multinationals as a cleaner, where she met other feys who specialized in protecting corporate secrets by carrying out industrial counter-espionage missions. Zi first entered one of the training centers for special missions where, early on, she demonstrated an adaptability for the different scenarios where infiltration and intelligence gathering were required.

    By the year 2076 she was fully working as part of one of ZAIEN''s main teams. In particular, it should be mentioned that in the year 2080 she was in charge of the security of Gehirn, who was the main shareholder of ZAIEN, who today is wanted extraplanetary. During this last activity she became the security chief of Gehirn''s main team of bodyguards. A task she carried out for twelve years, until finally, with the advent of the Great War, she decided to join the Nevermore Initiative at the special request of her former boss.

    For ten years she was in charge of security of Rein [Aogami], who was the head of Nevermore''s operations, and then with the change of command she decided to join the staff of special agents. For a long time she was assigned to Nevermore''s counterintelligence department and carried out more than thirty successful operations uncovering agents from other agencies interested in infiltrating the SID.

    In 110 she met Philip Cook with whom she decided to team up after a two month trial period. A working and emotional relationship that continues to this day.

    The Coxis team, as she decided to call it almost as a joke. To date, it has more than 1000 closed cases and only 23 open cases.

    Special Observations.

    Due to her somewhat unpredictable character, it took her a long time to choose a partner, being one of the agents who most acted alone.

    She has won more than five fey marksmanship championships, being surpassed only by Mai Izumi in archery.

    She has a voracious appetite, being able to ingest 5000 calories a day that she burns during her extensive daily training.

    Character Dossier

    Name: Oxy

    Gender: Female

    Fey Type: Fee

    DoB or DoA: August 23rd, 1976 Ancient Era.

    Birthplace or Arrival Place: Hawaii

    Estimated Human Age: 20

    Fey Age: 249

    Height: 165cm

    Eyes: Brown

    Hair: Brown

    Residence: Siren Island

    RID Status: -------- None

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: Special Agent. Professor

    Team: does not apply

    Personal Profile Background

    Oxy arrived on the planet on August 23, 1976 of the Ancient Era. Although much is unknown about her activities during her first years, her arrival on the planet caused a lot of trouble in Hawaii leading to a blackout that lasted a whole day on the island.

    It is known from her own testimony that she met Special Agent Shin and Gehirn and collaborated with them in some cases of the so-called Tempus Fugit organization. Although her permanence in this organization was not very long, she chose to disappear for several years to dedicate herself to the study of physics.

    Oxy has always possessed a high IQ which led her to stay off the radar of possible enemies for long periods of time, despite not having adequate survival training.

    Together with Gehirn and Leon, she was in charge of investigating Shin''s disappearance in 1999, as the four considered each other friends since they had met several years earlier in TF.

    The following years Oxy devoted herself to study, obtaining a wide knowledge of theoretical physics with future applications for the detection of Dark Events. Her studies were focused primarily on trying to establish a link between the DE and the arrival of the feys on Earth. It was in 2030 when she and another team of scientists from Miskatonic University came to establish the first link in a chain of investigations that shed some light on the arrival of the fey on earth. What later came to be called the Lost Children Theory.

    Despite her status as a fey during the Ancient Era, she was able to make a name for herself in the academic world and she was even proposed for a teaching position at the University of Miskatonic. She had to refuse, to pursue her studies again, moving to Nairobi, where she lived for a few years.

    As the decades went by, it wasn''t long before she found her place in the Nevermore Initiative, and then, after the war, she joined the SID as a special technical support agent and teacher in the educational branch of the Institute. Teaching the younger fey and also humans about the world of physics and the changes that were introduced over the years due to the Dark Events.

    To this day she continues to offer her technical support to different agents, at the same time that she is in charge of teaching.

    Special Observations

    Shin considers her one of his best friends, and the feeling is mutual due to the amount of adventures they lived together. At the same time she is one of Mai and Lizbeth''s best friends and confidants.

    Within the ranks of Nevermore she is the officer with the most traffic tickets and arrests for disorderly conduct.

    She has a pet fey squirrel named SQ that she found during her time studying in the United States Kingdom.

    Character Dossier

    Name: Thor (Lucky)

    Gender: Male

    Fey Type: Dwarf

    DoB or DoA: July 2nd, 10SA.

    Birthplace or Arrival Place: Australia

    Estimated Human Age: 45

    Fey Age: 117

    Height: 95cm

    Weight: 40 kg

    Eyes: Brown

    Hair: Brown

    Residence: Montecarlo/ Siren Island

    RID Status: -------- None

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Team: does not apply

    Personal Profile Background

    Thor arrived on Earth on July 2nd of the year 10 of the last century. Due to the destruction he caused in Sidney, with his arrival, he was placed in custody for a period of two years, in which he was under study by the Nevermore Institute and Varen Studies Center, who were in charge of his acclimatization to modern society. This task was carried out in one of the neurological study facilities in the Principality of Monaco.

    After a period of another three years of study, Thor decided to join one of the early SID Early Response Teams, a task that kept him for three years working between Monte Carlo and the Nevermore Station in Italy.

    Despite having a good aptitude for logistics Thor has always considered himself as a man who likes action, which led him, after several tests, to move to Siren Island where he began a new five-year training to join the special agents investigating the DE.

    A few days after his appointment, he spent a night in one of the casinos in Spain, where to his surprise and that of his colleagues, he amassed a small fortune in one night. Having obtained so much money did not mean much to him and he continued with his work as an agent. The following year, while visiting Monte Carlo, he was surprised to see how his fortune grew again in an unusual way when he beat the bank of one of the most prestigious casinos of the place.

    The curious event was repeated on four other occasions over the next ten years, which led to the general directorates of gaming and casinos in the European Union to issue an order refraining from accepting his entry into gaming and betting establishments. However, this was not a problem, since his luck with money was repeated on several occasions in different parts of the world.

    Having become, in less than thirty years, one of the wealthiest feys in the solar system, Thor maintains a commitment to support various charitable causes with his fortune. This has not distracted him from pursuing his missions and investigations at SID.

    Aside from the fact that it is considered that his luck with money may come as a side effect of being a fey, Thor also has an ability that allows him to use an electric shock at will from his fists. This ability has been helpful in several SID operations, although it has also caused problems with various government authorities on more than one occasion.

    Despite having a deep affection for his co-workers, and dedication to his work, Thor has been observed to exhibit depressive behavior on some occasions. This has led the Psychology Department of SID to think that it is probably due to the fact that he has not been able to maintain an affective relationship for long periods of time.

    Special Observations.

    Thor has a fortune of 250,000 million E-febs. His fortune increased with the escape of Gehirn from the solar system, since Thor bought part of the shares of the company. He has a seat at ZAIEN''s board of directors, which he delegates to his representatives.

    His drinking problem has not prevented him from becoming one of the SID''s best agents, conducting more than seven hundred investigations for the SID of which only a few remain open, due to lack of evidence.

    He is, along with Mai Izumi, the fey with the most properties in the solar system.

    His pet is a chimera fey that he calls Frogo, because it is half dog, half toad.

    His luck with money has tried to be catalogued as a Dark Event in itself by different institutions related to gaming and betting. A study done by AI''s has declared this claim as null and void and lacking of conclusive evidence.

 Vol.2/ Enygma Files: Short Stories/Doai Station

    Nevermore/Short Stories

    Doai Station

    The flickering lights of the rescue vehicles brightened the snowy landscape in the early dark evening.

    The ten members of the Kitsune team moved around, near the steps, as they silently gazed at the entrance to the site which, in the moonlight rising on the horizon, appeared to be a miniature pyramid from some time long past.

    But it was not a pyramid, far from it. It was just the entrance to the old abandoned station that lay in ruins. The place had been abandoned more than a century and a half ago, and they had had to resort to the maps of the Ancient Era, to be sure of the internal structure of it. But, even so, they could not be sure what the place looked like inside, with so many decades of abandonment and with the subway water currents, added to the humidity, it was more than certain that the course of time had taken its toll on the place.

    The old Doai Station ran in the old days with two lines, but that had changed with the depopulation of the rural areas, and the lines through the region were moved to an area that was more direct and simple. Two lines, but it was only one that interested the visitors that night.

    The subway line.

    The area was still quite visited by climbers and hikers because of Mount Tanigawa. And it was easy to reach the place, even if the old routes did not have the conductive system and had to be reached by traditional driving, or by air, although the forest canopy was something to be considered in such cases.

    Even so, the station area was also frequented by lovers of historical and urban exploration, despite the fact that signs at the entrance indicated that access to the place was prohibited.

    And everything would have continued in the same, if it were not for an incident that alerted the authorities.

    It had all started on Friday afternoon. A party of three hikers, who were willing to camp and spend the night at the site, entered the old station with the idea of taking pictures of the place. Or at least that was the last messages they had posted on their social networks. Everything changed when their Neurowires devices stopped emitting signal at a point inside the station, not far from the entrance.

    On Saturday noon, the families of two of them alerted the police that something might have happened to them, as they did not usually turn off their devices, especially on a hike, where in case of an accident it was vital to know the location. The police accompanied the autonomous park rangers to the site only to find some belongings abandoned at the campsite, but they found nothing where the signal had disappeared. The three had walked a little more than a kilometer from where they left the vehicle and tents set up. And the footprints were lost at the entrance to the station. Where one of the robots detected an unknown heat source moving several meters below the ground. It could not be hot springs, as those had long disappeared in the area.

    The place quickly became a hotbed of rescue teams and ambulances. A team of specialized rescue soldiers, from the nearest base, arrived at the site in the evening hours of Saturday as twilight was setting in, ready to enter the area. They didn''t get very far, though.

    Someone else arrived at the exact moment they were about to enter. But that had been ten minutes earlier.

    Yoshida, part of the Kitsune team, frowned and sighed, watching the mist in his mouth freeze and shuffled his feet over to the team''s operator, Niigata. "Sir, are you sure you were right to send him alone?"

    Niigata shrugged as if in reply, and loosened his grip on the assault rifle he carried. "What did you expect me to do? We can''t question operational command if this is an DE."

    "What are those Nevermore people thinking?"

    "Who knows... we can only wait." Niigata pursed his lips and repeated Yoshida''s words to himself. Send him alone¡­

    And silently he looked at the footprints the SID agent had left behind him, before entering the station and, despite being trained for the most varied and dangerous missions, he could not deny that a shiver ran down his spine when he looked at the footprints.

    The agent''s footprints were common, like those produced by any tactical snowshoe. There should be nothing unusual about it. But they were two types of footprints.

    The second set of footprints was a little smaller, but with the same pattern in the sole. There shouldn''t be anything unusual about it either. Except for one detail. The Kitsune team only saw one SID agent go in. No one else.

    Yet there were the second footprints that were drawn out of nowhere on the snow, as if they had no owner. However the SID agent had introduced himself and someone else that the others could not see.

    ***

    Ryuuji smiled and pressed his lips together trying to hide a laugh. He didn''t get to have it drawn out for long, when he received an elbow to his ribs from his partner, Natsuki.

    "That hurts!"

    " You deserve it for being an asshole."

    "Pfft!...it''s always kind of funny to see other people''s reactions to seeing your footprints. I''m not going to stop introducing you and you know it."

    "It''s not worth it, what''s the point? Humans can''t see me...except for you."

    "I don''t care, you''re my partner."

    Ryuuji was a young man who looked to be in his early twenties. Slender, with brown eyes and dyed blond hair. He wielded a .22 caliber pistol with variable ammunition.

    Natsuki, beside him, also with her pistol drawn, snorted as she tried to push back the strands of her brown bangs that covered one of her dark eyes.

    They both wore long coats with protective pads that did nothing to disguise the tactical gear they wore in their dark clothes.

    A drone accompanied them, hovering in front of them and scanning the area.

    "What do you think it is this time?" Natsuki asked.

    "I don''t know, but the heat signature detected by the satellite was activated at about the same time the hikers disappeared. It can''t be a coincidence."

    "Let''s hope it''s just a subsurface steam chimney."

    "There go our days of rest, before returning to the arena," Ryuuji snorted.

    "You would have wasted them anyway. I can imagine your father."

    "Yeah, he wasn''t too happy to see me at the door when I arrived."

    "At least they can see you, I almost gave my mother a heart attack when I tapped her on the shoulder to let her detect where I was."

    "Yeah, people invisible to the spectrum of the human eye often produce that effect."

    They walked carefully through the place, passing through the corridors and looking at the peeling paint on the walls and the old faded signs, stuck on the walls, whose words were barely legible due to the pass of time. Broken windows let in the cold outside, which hissed through the cracks, along with the sound of water from the nearby river.

    Natsuki stopped and looked at a graffiti on the wall, it must be very old, because the paint was already looking faded, but that didn''t stop her from reading the kanji. "They will return", the strange inscription read. Whoever was to return Natsuki wished it was only the missing hikers and nothing else. Most likely, given the age of the painting, it was referring to the period of the Great War, which for Them could only refer to the Fractus.

    They continued to walk down the corridors and check the various musty-smelling rooms. They had come to a gallery with broken glass windows on the sides, the bottom of which was so dark that they could barely see a couple of meters beyond. They looked at each other and nodded. Natsuki ordered the drone to go ahead and it departed quickly while with its red light it scanned the place.

    It was a gallery, that at its end began a tunnel that descended downwards. After moving forward a few meters Natsuki raised her eyebrows and looked at her companion. She was watching through Neurowire the images the drone was sending.

    "This place is huge," she said.

    "If the blueprints are right it''s almost half a kilometer of stairs down to the platform."

    "Seriously?"

    The drone continued its journey in silence and Natsuki could see how indeed, in certain parts of the tunnel, parts of the roof had come loose and in other side areas water was gushing out from between the walls and had broken the foundations where moss was growing. The analysis sent by the drone did not seem to indicate anything strange, although it did not seem to indicate any sign of the lost group either.

    They had searched all sides of the station and found nothing. All that remained was the huge tunnel with the abandoned subway station. It was a stretch that was going to take them a good ten minutes, not counting any obstacles they might have to overcome.

    "What the hell happened to the power?"

    "If it''s cut off all around the perimeter, they probably can''t reconnect it."

    Ryuji reached behind his back and from the turtle backpack took out a small cube which he squeezed and brought it close to the walls. There were several sparks in various parts of the tunnel, and several of the old lights exploded while others stayed on albeit with flickering flashes.

    "Well at least this is going to do the trick as long as the lights keep working," Ryuuji sighed and put the cube in one of the cases of his tactical equipment.

    Indeed the stairs were so long that they could only see up to a certain number of meters. Due to the condensation, in the subway part of the stairs, a spectral mist formed, making the place even more gloomy.

    They descended the steps, looking around in case they found any footprints indicating that the hikers had passed that way, but they found nothing. Only parts of the ceiling chipped and moss creeping up the walls.

    Almost halfway down was when Ryuuji looked up at the ceiling and found that there were certain parts of the ceiling that were more sagging, and other parts of the staircase that were almost crushed, as if something really heavy had passed through. The mold on the walls, also exhibited a strange behavior, as if something had swept it away in certain parts leaving behind a parched looking film.

    The drone hadn''t detected anything strange in the analysis, but it would be better to take a look later. Ryuuji was about to examine it more closely, when Natsuki caught his attention.

    "Damn it!"

    "What happened?"

    "The drone got stuck on something down there. It made it to the end of it, but there''s probably more debris in that part."

    "Can''t you free it?"

    "I think something fell on it¡­"

    They both squinted at each other, put their weapons in their holsters and brought their hands to their waists.

    "DRF-789," Ryuuji said.

    "BLP-2I," Natsuki said.

    Instantly larger weapons formed on their belts, with the fractal pattern and they took them, unfastening the safety locks. Ryuuji''s weapon, a DragonFIRE 789 series, was a Fractium special ammunition tactical rifle. Natuski''s weapon was somewhat reminiscent of the old UZI, although with a more ergonomic design. Its ammunition was plasma.

    Better armed, they continued their descent, while from time to time, some of the lights exploded, and the amount of debris along with water gushing from the walls and mold increased.

    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    Finally they reached the top of the stairs, vaguely illuminated by dim yellowish lights. The fog was thick enough that they could not see beyond 20 feet, but not so thick that they could not see the amount of debris and water on the site that ran along one side of the abandoned tracks. They walked carefully, watching as a huge, turquoise-colored and metal-looking, ringed pipe blocked their path. They didn''t know what it could do there. It was at least five feet in diameter and long enough that they couldn''t see the end. But it wasn''t rigid even though its texture appeared to be solid, as it bent in certain parts.

    "Backpack," Natsuki said.

    They both approached near one of the almost collapsed pillar and there they found one of the backpacks, that by its appearance didn''t appear to be old despite the dirt.

    "Where is the owner?" Ryuuji asked, looking around.

    "Did you notice anything?"

    "Yeah, there''s no Neurowire reception down here. How can there be no signal?"

    A metallic noise behind them made them turn around quickly. Quickly enough to dodge the huge metal tube that was now moving rapidly towards them, tearing through the fog.

    "What the fuck?!" Natsuki cursed.

    They both stepped back watching as the pillars, where the backpack was held, was destroyed due to the blow, throwing debris all over the place.

    They didn''t have time to worry too much about it, because they had to dodge another attack, this time by another pipe from the side of the tracks. But they could see how it moved with unusual speed and snaked and twisted with blows. In a matter of seconds they were dodging blows from all sides as they watched thick pieces of the ceiling fall with each blow.

    "What the hell is this thing?" Ryuuji asked.

    Because they had no signal they couldn''t count on the help of the FRT surface team, that should have arrived on the scene by now.

    "Some kind of robot?"

    "How big is it? And what the hell is it doing here?"

    Natsuki dodged another blow and fired her weapon at the huge tube, but the plasma did not produce the slightest damage. To make matters worse, with each hit of the huge thing there were only a few lights left in the place and, due to the presence of fog, it didn''t help at all to know the location. It was everywhere and in spite of that it moved with an unusual ease around the place.

    Ryuuji dodged one of its blows from one side and didn''t see how he was attacked from the other side. The strike almost crushed him against one of the walls. He slid down and fell towards the tracks. But there was something else that worried him.

    In his SID career he had seen all kinds of things and in training he remembered something.

    The texture of that huge "tube," it wasn''t cold like metal, though it even sounded like metal.

    "Chimerical Chitin!" he shouted, trying to make Natsuki hear him. Because of the fight, he had lost sight of her in the fog.

    "The what?"

    "This thing looks like chimerical chitin! This thing is not inanimate! It''s an insect!"

    Natsuki hearing that, saw a new ramming and shooting approaching and with a quick maneuver jumped over the huge tube. If her partner was right. There was something that worried her.

    "If it''s an insect, where''s the head?"

    In the whole attack they had not seen any head at any time, there was only a possibility that they were being attacked by several insects.

    "Unless... Natsuki! You haven''t seen any legs at any time, have you?

    "No!!!" she replied angrily as she changed the weapon to a sword with a molecular vibration blade. But this time she directed the attack towards the ringed joints. The blade gave off just a few sparks on the greenish surface, which made her wonder if it really was an insect, unless if Ryuuji was right and it was some kind of chimera, there was a chance it had some extra composition besides chitin.

    It hardly produced any sparks¡­

    "Oh shit!" she said angrily as she dodged another blow, but this time she could see a change taking place in the spot where she had hit it. It was as if a heat source was illuminating from within the huge insect. But she already knew that. Without taking an extra second she sent an order to her Neurowire to activate a mask she carried in her backpack. It took less than a second to form over her face and alerted her partner, who without a second thought did the same.

    "What''s going on?!" Ryuuji asked.

    "This is a Glycera Uroboros. An armored bloodworm. We can''t see the head because the whole body is attached. It only shows its head when it feeds!"

    "An Uroboros worm?! How did it get here?"

    "It must have been here a long time judging by the color. The outer layer is an alloy containing copper. That''s the greenish color."

    They both stopped talking since no further explanation was needed. As far as Ryuuji remembered those types of beings were rare but they didn''t belong to anything ancient, it was a species that had appeared after the Great War.

    They were not plague, but dangerous and poisonous. Although, one of the curious things about them was that, their study became one of the reasons of developing for the self-replicating technology, since like their congeners on earth, those types of worms produced an enzyme in their gelatinous bodies to manufacture a copper jaw.

    As an exogenous species after the war, they constituted a biological curiosity, about which several specimens were kept, although in engineering they were of obligatory study for anyone who studied the fields of morphogenesis applied to industrial pseudo-biological engineering. Not to mention the fact that it possessed the characteristic of being able to hide its head in its tail. This was supposed to be some sort of auto-preservation mechanism, to protect its softer parts from possible predators.

    The problem was that the original Glycera Uroboros had never been that big. Its species was only a few centimeters long. The change in size had been occurring over the years. And there were several theories that claimed that the Gateway Trees, along with the composition of the Earth''s atmosphere, may have had much to do with their mutation. The first ones of much larger size and with a full copper shell had been discovered decades ago in humid areas of North America and Europe, although in very isolated spots, and in small numbers so they were never considered a threat.

    But, as far as they were aware, they had never reached the Pacific, so this find was a rarity. How long had they been hanging around there unseen? It must have been incredibly old given its size and the green laminate of oxide covering the copper of its body segments.

    Whatever it was, the mask was a good idea. The heat produced by the inner core caused the outer rings to release poisonous gases from the tiny gas chambers between them. Toxic enough to intoxicate an adult who were exposed for several minutes.

    "How are we going to stop it?" Ryuuji asked.

    "Sound?"

    "It has a drier sound near the head, right?"

    "Yeah." nodded Natsuki.

    As they tried to dodge the blows that threatened to crush them, and the debris flying everywhere, both tried to hit the monster in various places to try to elucidate where the head would be. At the same time the drone freed itself from the grip of the debris, and began to hover around the area looking for the lost hikers. That the creature''s name was Bloodworm, did not bode well for Natsuki about the whereabouts of the missing three.

    After another minute of fighting, Ryuuji finally landed a blow on the armor, that indicated he had hit a part where the sound changed. Yet there was still the problem of it showing its head only.

    "How do we get its head out of its ass?" Ryuuji asked.

    Natsuki, taking a few jumps, reached the side opposite to where her partner was, and unloaded a strong blow with the sword that produced new sparks. The monster reacted violently and twisted again forcing them to take distance, but Natsuki could see how the hit place was glowing again. As if the worm''s internal heat source was activated every time it suffered a stronger blow than usual.

    But it was in a way what she was looking for from the beginning. If she remembered correctly what she had read, it was the only way to make the head appear. Provoking it to activate the heat sources near the tail was the only way to make its head appear.

    There was a snapping sound of something that sounded like it was cracking, followed by other sound of something sticky peeling off. They were both thankful they had their masks on at that moment. The monster''s head coming out of its own tail released, a cloud of gases that filled the entire platform.

    The head had a pulpy pinkish hue, with a rump equipped with four pointed jaws. They did not pause too long to contemplate it, as the worm possessed a everted pharynx that stretched out with the intention of attacking them. Ryuuji leapt to the right and the head followed him, whereupon Natsuki took advantage, and unloaded a new blow on the fleshy pharynx that was completely devoid of the armor of the rest of the body.

    There was an explosion of fluids that splashed Natsuki from top to bottom, at which she felt disgusted, but that was all. The head of at least a ton fell and shook in death throes and the same happened to the main body that moved incessantly. They both recoiled in fear that they might be crushed. Fifteen seconds later silence reigned again in the place, only broken by the sound of the drone that had begun to emit a red light in the farthest part of the place.

    "I think even through the mask I can smell it. It stinks!"

    "What are you complaining about? I''m the one soaked in this crap." She said angrily, and wiped some of the goo off her face, when she felt something hard on her cheek. She took it off and looked at it, hoping it wasn''t some other crap, but what she found didn''t make her feel any better. With a straight face she turned around and looked at the severed parts of the worm where liquid had started to leak out.

    "What is it?" Ryuuji asked.

    "A human... tooth," she replied.

    Ryuuji activated the special gloves in his backpack and carefully examined the place where the undigested worm waste was filling up. He saw a brown lump peeking out and touched it carefully. Almost at once what must have been part of a scalp stuck in his fingers, and then with a fresh discharge of fluids emerged the half-consumed body of one of the hikers.

    "Damn it!" Ryuuji mumbled angrily and turned to look at his partner. "Too late."

    "No... these worms store food, they eat fast but their digestion is slow. A human body should be enough sustenance for a long time." Natsuki explained and turned to look through the mist at the distant glow of the drone. She wasn''t sure about it, because of the creature''s large size, maybe inside it were the other two as well, but at least she hoped it wasn''t so.

    After reconnecting with the drone''s vision, she almost let out a sigh of relief.

    ***

    Moving the bodies of the two survivors took the rescue teams three hours. Because the Neurowire''s support signal was not reaching the farthest point. Ryuuji and Natsuki had to climb halfway up the stairs to send and receive communications from the teams on the surface.

    Once they were sure that the rescue teams would have to go down with hazmat suits to the site, they proceeded to remove the bodies of the two survivors, who had been placed in a kind of gelatinous mass produced by the worm. Although it kept them alive, at the same time it had to have some kind of muscle relaxant properties to prevent them from moving so that they could escape.

    An FRT team was in charge of starting the cleanup of the site. They feared that due to the reproduction system of the worm, corresponding to the new family of annelids, there could be other specimens in the farthest parts of the tunnels.

    While they took care of them both, Ryuuji and Natsuki set out on their way back, where they were taken by another FRT team who put them both in decontamination showers.

    "Apparently there was an engineering laboratory five kilometers from here more than 80 years ago and they had conducted experiments to study this type of worm. It is likely that one escaped when the facility was closed and moved to the city," Natsuki said.

    "Another day at the office..." mused Ryuuji, looking at his naked partner next to him.

    Natsuki for her part, with a peaceful look on her face, kept her eyes closed as she let the chemical bath wash away the remains of the sticky film on her head. "It must have been horrible¡­"

    "Who do you mean."

    "The one who died. That thing''s keeping you alive. He was basically alive when started to be digested."

    Ryuuji snorted and nodded crestfallen. "At least we got there to find the other two. If the rescue team had gone down unprotected, it would have been worse."

    "Probably."

    "How would it have gotten there?"

    "I don''t think it''s worth thinking too hard about. Every year more and more anomalies show up, and not some of them show up in places they shouldn''t. At this rate we''d need more agents every year if the rate increases."

    [Agents, you may exit,] said a female voice, and a green indicator light appeared over their heads.

    They got out and dressed in FRT jumpsuits, along with jackets, and went out once again into the cool of the night, where the moon was already rising above the zenith. They already took it for granted that the clothes they had worn downstairs must have been placed in evidence.

    Some of those who were gathered in the place, glanced at Ryuuji in silence, but more than at him, they were looking at the footprints that formed beside him.

    Natsuki was not visible to any other human but him. Even to the humans who worked in Nevermore one had to rely on a series of modifications in the cognitive patterns of the Neurowire for her to be seen. She was not a fey. Natsuki was simply a human girl who had the misfortune of being involved in an accident as a teenager. A Dark Event occurred in the same place where she was a student. An event that took the lives of some of her classmates and almost her own.

    And yet, Ryuuji, who was at that time a student in the next class, also suffered the side effects of the event. He became the only human who was able to see Natsuki.

    To the rest of the people she was invisible. And at the same time everything she interacted with underwent a momentary phase change and became invisible as well. The same happened with sound, for others her voice did not exist, although the sound of her body walking could be heard.

    Natsuki had gone from being one of the popular students at high school, to not being seen by anyone. Not even her family or friends. She could communicate with them by other means. But the feeling of having her existence changed overnight by an DE made her shift too much. From being cheerful and smiling girl, she turned to a bitter expression that over time gave way to a somewhat cynical personality.

    In fact she didn''t even care about being presented in each case. It was all the same to her and she could even say that it annoyed her. That didn''t stop Ryuuji from introducing her whenever they had a case. Even though the humans often looked at him as if he had lost his marbles.

    That was sometimes a problem in cases, but she felt that in Nevermore at least she had found a place to belong. It didn''t make her very happy that Ryuuji had to stay by her side, because she somehow felt that they had become too dependent on each other due to each other''s circumstances. She was grateful to him, even if she didn''t say it very often, and he had become her best friend, but she didn''t want to bother him either.

    Ryuuji felt that, but for him it was not an inconvenience. From his point of view, a friend always had to be there.

    Natsuki looked at Ryuuji out of the corner of her eye and sighed.

    The FRT members had already loaded the bodies of the survivors into the ambulances and closed the doors.

    "Come on, I want to ask them if they found anything else," Ryuuji urged her.

    Natuski grimaced and followed him shuffling her feets.

    "The madman and the invisible girl," she said with a weak smile.

    "Did you say something?"

    "Nothing..."

    A few meters away, Yoshida watched silently as furrows were drawn in the snow beside Ryuuji by some invisible entity.

 Vol.2/ Bonus2: Summary Report/Profiles Part 2.

    Preliminary summary report excerpt.

    Department of Earth Justice

    Nevermore Institute - Special Investigation Division.

    SID Enygma File: 258-GLUR-RER543

    Dark Event: Bloodworm

    DARK EVENT TYPE: THIRD CLASS/YELLOW

    DOE: March 17th. 125

    SPECIAL AGENTS ATTI/AFI: Ryuuji [Kayabuki] Badge 0004750

    Natsuki [Katsuragi] Badge 0004748

    Supervision: UKB-HOF Saito [Himeji].

    Event Location: Japan/ Gunma/ Minakami

    Case Status: Closed.

    Case Summary.

    On Saturday evening, March 17, my partner, Ryuuji Kayabuki, and I arrived in the Minakami area after a Type 2 [STRANGE] [GREEN] geothermal anomaly was detected in an area where three hikers had been lost the day before.

    The particular area was the abandoned Doai station, and was already cordoned off with military and police security measures. Our detection gave priority to us, doing an initial reconnaissance of the site in case it was an DE case. So my partner and I proceeded with an ocular inspection and went down the stairs that led to the old subway line that was running through the site.

    We found a mutant exogenous life form, Glycera Uroboros, also known as Giant Armored Bloodworm, an anomaly that we had to exterminate, since we assumed that it must be responsible for the disappearance of the hikers, and because the aforementioned creature represents a yellow level alert [BIOLOGICAL HAZARD], added to the fact that, its finding and size, turned its qualification into a Type 3 event [ANOMALY].

    After exterminating the creature we were able to rescue two of the missing hikers, but the third hiker was found dead inside the creature (see autopsy report by Dr. Ishitaka Kyoei and necropsy report by the Gunma FRT forensic team with military supervision from Takasaki base).

    Further investigation may reveal at what point the creature arrived at the station, but presumably it may have had something to do with the closure of a laboratory several decades ago, which was responsible for studying exogenous species for industrial applications. The FRT teams and military personnel are in charge of cleaning up the area at this time to determine that there are no new dangers.

    A Type 3 quarantine has been determined, following the rules of the International Protocol for Dark Events [IPDE] Type 3/Yellow.

    The case data has been referred to the Gunma Prosecutor''s Office, where the General Prosecutor is handling possible litigation on behalf of the victims.

    This case appears to be a negligence on the part of the authorities at the time, to take due precautions in dealing with the biological material and its destruction or transfer to other facilities more suitable for carrying out the studies being conducted.

    Without further ado, and unless new evidence comes to light that requires our attention, such as the agents who were in charge of the destruction of the creature, this case is closed.

    Agent Natsuki Katsuragi. Badge 0004748.

    Subjective observation of the event: This species came to our planet through the Gate during the Great War, and we have barely dug up the amount of species that could have entered through the dimensional fracture that brought the Fractus to Earth. Yet it has taken us only decades to apply their potential to our advantage. This case should be another sign, among the hundreds that occur, that we are no closer to knowing the true nature of these species, than we are to knowing why the dimensional fracture occurred in the first place, which nearly led to the Eighth Extinction of life on this planet.

    Character Dossier

    ID: Ryuuji [Kayabuki]

    Gender: Male

    Fey Type: not applicable

    DoB or DoA: April 29th, 102 S.A.

    Birthplace: Nakano-Ku/Tokyo/Japan

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Age: 23

    Height: 175cm

    Weight: 74 kg

    Eyes: Brown

    Hair: Brown

    Residence: Siren Island/Tokyo

    RID Status: --

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: Special Agent.

    Team: Pocky

    Distinguishing Features: Blonde dyed hair

    Personal Profile Background

    Born in Nakano-Ku, like his teammate, Ryuuji Kayabuki had a normal childhood without any links to DE or abnormal events.

    His parents, both employed in the field of virtual worlds generation, encouraged Ryuuji from an early age to pursue his studies in the field of virtual immersion. Everything seemed to indicate that he would choose a similar path, as he even went on to create two small immersive virtual worlds that won him youth awards in the field of Virtual Immersion Engineering. At the same time he got to compete in several AnotherEarth tournaments where he was also awarded.

    This constructive future was cut short in his sophomore year of high school, where he witnessed an DE that claimed the lives of two of his friends and four other classmates.

    In that DE, his friend Natsuki Katsuragi suffered the consequence of her body losing the properties of being observed by humans. As for Ryuuji Kayabuki, he had to be hospitalized for several weeks due to vision problems associated with a type of scotoma although, when he recovered his eyesight, it was observed that his sight had changed and he now possessed a quality that some fey have, such as the detection of Eienovsky radiation. In this same event he almost lost his life, when he fled the place carrying Natsuki Katsuragi, whose body was no longer visible to human eyes.

    The strange connection the two shared made their friendship grow stronger from then on. Understandably, although they had known each other since they were little, their friendship had never been that close, but the DE made them somewhat dependent on each other.

    Ryuuji Kayabuki despite being good in fields such as logic and mathematics had difficulties in the fields of study of the Military Academy, especially in those related to the fields of theoretical imaginary physics or hypersymmetric probabilistic, that are areas of study related to the DE and the possible prediction that certain types of DE may occur in the future.

    Despite this, he managed to graduate and with the interagency cooperation program, he joined one of the Tokyo FRTs along with Natsuki Katsuragi. The physical fitness, for the type of work, cost him more, as Ryuuji had never been the type to give much importance to physical training. Even so, he managed to complete the training and two years later he joined the SID where he obtained the optimum qualifications to be promoted to field agent despite his youth.

    Because his aptitude in the field of science was optimal, he was offered the possibility of continuing with a more intensive study in the fields he was less proficient in, related to the study of DE, but after some time he decided it was better to relegate that part in a science officer, so his team along with Natsuki often have advice from Professor Oxy, when they find a case that requires another point of view.

    Special Observations.

    -Due to his uncanny ability to be the only one who can detect Natsuki Katsuragi, several studies have been conducted on Ryuuji Kayabuki''s range of vision, concluding that his ability is not limited to detecting his partner, but that he can detect to a lesser degree some Ooparts that emit Eienovsky radiation.

    -His link with Natsuki Katsuragi has been useful for the study of hypersymmetric RDE particles and their relation to quantum entanglement of Hamiltonian eigenvectors.

    -A dog, now out of SID''s active service, is the permanent resident at his residence on Siren Island. Ryuuji Kayabuki adopted the animal when he was out of service and spends a lot of time with him when he is on the island.

    Character Dossier

    ID: Natsuki [Katsuragi]

    Gender: Female

    Fey Type: not applicable

    DoB or DoA: January 11th, 102 S.A.

    Birthplace: Nakano-Ku/Tokyo/Japan

    Age: 23

    Height: 170cm

    Weight: 65 kg

    Eyes: Brown

    Hair: Brown

    Residence: Siren Island/Kanagawa

    RID Status: --

    Affiliation: Nevermore Institute/SID

    Occupation: Special Agent.

    Team: Pocky

    Distinguishing Features: Invisible at the human eye

    Personal Profile Background

    Born on January 11, 102, Natsuki Katsuragi was raised by her mother and paternal grandmother. Her father, Takeshi Katsuragi, died of heart complications when she was only three years old. Her family ran a family restaurant and when her father died, it was her mother who took over the business.

    Natsuki Katsuragi attended school in the nearby Nakano district, but as a teenager she moved to the Arakawa student dormitories, where she lived until she finished her studies and joined the civilian defense forces in Chiyoda.

    In her second year of high school in Arakawa, an incident occurred with an DE that changed her life. Somehow, as yet undetermined, a manifestation of a type of creature emitting Eienovsky radiation occurred in her classroom. This event claimed the lives of six students and almost the life of Natsuki herself, who was saved by her childhood friend Ryuuji Kayabuki, who is the only human to date who is able to detect her without artificial means.

    The change that occurred in her body is a strangeness extremely difficult to catalog, since her body became invisible, it has been possible to understand part of the phenomenon behind it by resorting to specialists in optics and physicists of hypersymmetric particles RDE, who have hypothesized that, somehow, it is her body that forms a kind of field that distorts the light around her. Something that happens in the same way with objects that are in contact with her, for example her own clothes, or any object she grabs.

    This strange side effect made the branches of defense research and development very interested in studying the phenomenon, and made it possible, once she finished her studies in high school, she was offered to study at the military academy in Chiyoda, studies that she completed in one year with her friend Ryuuji Kayabuki.

    After two years of training, and thanks to the interagency cooperation program, they were both offered to join the SID station in Tokyo, where they worked for two years within the FRT. In the agent evaluation program, she scored high marks and underwent the final tests to become part of the main SID branch.

 Vol.3/ Prologue

    The "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality "ought to be."

    -Richard Fenyman

    The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.

    -Ursula K. Le Guin

    Prologue

    Then

    May 12th, 2099. Ancient Era.

    The moonless night hovered over Lemac Lake, and the group of ten soldiers of the Blackbird-C Squadron advanced at a rapid pace through the thick trees of the Lugrin Forest.

    The night vision of the tactical helmets gave them more than enough vision to move easily, although they had to avoid obstacles from time to time. Their bodies were protected with exoskeletons from head to toe, which helped to lessen the weight of the heavy equipment they carried. The weapons, of recent manufacture, achieved by retro-engineering, were quite heavy, but it was the type of weapons they would need in the operation. The tactical helmets they wore, more like masks, since they even covered their faces, had a system that transmitted images instantly.

    Under any other circumstances it would have been illegal to deploy armed forces in an area that, until a few years ago, had been a hive of tourists and families living near the lake.

    That had changed though, and there were no longer families, or tourists, wandering around the area. Considering the situation, it was more likely that, in recent times, the native fauna had returned to the place, but that was not the case either. At least, not in that part of the lake.

    It took quite some time for the Blackbird-C Squadron to make its way through the debris of houses, ancient castles, half-ruined palaces and trees blocking the way. The route, which the operations commanders had traced from the base forty kilometers away, had forgotten to tell them that they would encounter so many obstacles along the path.

    But that no longer mattered. With so much fighting occurring across the globe, and with the collapse of most satellites months ago, it was not uncommon for map updates to be inaccurate, even with the use of drones. Entire areas of the world had changed in the last five years.

    They landed a few hundred meters away from the place where they were supposed to deploy. All because of some damned sudden gusts of wind, which dragged the whole group a little further away from the target. Two alternative routes were planned, but with a failure range of a few hundred meters and they had reached a part that was farther away than planned.

    At that point they could have used the support of an aeon, but most of the conscious artificial intelligences were working in the theater of operations in Siberia, or maneuvering space stations to send supplies to the colonies on the Moon and Mars. There was no luck for a group of cleaners soldiers that night, even though there were rumors that the operation had been listed as a target of high importance for some instances across the pond.

    It wasn''t asking too much. Just more support. But such was the chaotic state of the world.

    Special forces teams, better equipped and supported, were on operations to retake control of the larger cities, which were still repelling hundreds of enemy forces that were close to evacuation zones.

    Jeanne, captain of the Blackbird-C squadron, repressed the urge to let out an angry sigh, and glanced at her soldiers in the unit.

    They should have at least sent one of those feys, she thought.

    They could only hope that the surprise factor hadn''t been ruined yet, or the whole mission would fail.

    Jeanne looked at the smart screen on her left arm, and saw how the compass had just started spinning around pointlessly, while an alert window was activated, with a star moving irregularly over the map, marked with the legend [Anomaly nD. KALUZA-KLEIN metric tensor within visible range. SK-K in 3D].

    They must have been too close by now.

    Jeanne signaled to one of the soldiers, and he deployed a small drone, whose image was transmitted to the internal display of the mask, in a small window in the left side. A few moments passed until, above the trees, near over the small beach, and very close to the waters of the lake, the drone offered an image of a strange shape of what appeared to be a cube, tilted on one of its vertices. It was at least three meters in diameter, floating one meter above the surface of the ground.

    Although it was a dark night, through the drone they could see how the surface of the faces of the strange object reflected the surrounding image as if it were a perfect reflective surface.

    It simply looked as if someone had put some levitation mechanism inside a gigantic cubic mirror. Nothing more. But everyone knew, that nondescript appearance was deceptive.

    That was the manifestation of a fractus in a three-dimensional space. The shadow. The architecture of a higher dimensional entity. An enemy that had almost destroyed the world in recent years.

    It''s really one, just one, Jeanne thought, and motioned to the second in command. [C-5-Bravo-4. Right,] she said over the Pointer comm.

    The second in command nodded, and signaled the four behind him.

    She had only just met her second-in-command a few weeks ago, and the same went for the other soldiers accompanying her. They were three women, seven men in all. All of different nationalities. All chosen from those who had survived the fighting in recent years, and the ten had been selected from the Laren Brigade, due to their success in the Black Forest mission in Germany. They had been completing sweep missions in which all had been successful. The sweep missions were to take out small groups of enemies that could roam alone away from the larger clusters. They weren''t very dangerous at all.

    Or at least, they shouldn''t be.

    And they weren''t a bad team at all either but, even so, Jeanne couldn''t shake the feeling that something could go terribly wrong that night.

    The Blackbird-C squadron split in two. Jeanne took the left with four soldiers, while the other team with the second in command took the right.

    Several techniques of approaching the target had been considered, but a pincer attack might be the only one that could really take effect. Because of the enemy''s capabilities it was vital to approach in radio silence so as not to put him on alert. Staying silent meant that they could not count on support from the operations center, they could only count on their equipment, the limited encrypted Pointer communication, and that teamwork would have the effect they hoped for.

    They had trained for two days in scenario simulations, changing different formations and under different weather conditions. It had been proposed to use the night because the enemy seemed to be less active in the dark. Of course... it was all just guesswork.

    Who could be sure of that if it had barely been five years since they arrived. Five years might be an enormous amount of time, but the truth was that the enemy was quite different from what could be expected. How to fight against an enemy whose biology was almost an enigma in all its dimensions?

    And with respect to this particular enemy there was hardly any data. Mere suppositions. Everything was based on the fact that, somewhere in the Kuril Islands, one of them quite similar, had been defeated a year ago. In fact, there was not enough data about that operation. The form of the enemy was similar to others that had been defeated in South America, although it seemed less active than the others. Given that almost all of them had differences in their attack capabilities, they could not be entirely sure.

    Be that as it may, they were only interested in the fact that this enemy had to be defeated, since it was one of the few remaining in the area.

    The lake itself was of no importance, other than strategic, because it was at the point that divided France from Switzerland. The populations had been evacuated years ago, and only one of them had been in place for weeks. The long distance drones had picked it up floating over the lake many times, without any other activity.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    The weapons they carried had an ergonomic assault rifle design, although their ammunition was non-explosive. It had been given the name FLBolt-M2 and was designed and modified in the last few months. The weight, of almost ten kilos each, was due to the fact that they had several instrumental parts that had been practically experimental and there had not been enough time to make the components smaller, without having to reduce the range capacity and power of the weapon. Since this type of weapon, with electric arc gun function by PTHP, had been designed solely for the purpose of delivering direct hits to Category 3 Fractus, Type Numinous.

    Numinous. The exact type they had only a few meters away. Although within the classification types, which had been created to designate the enemy, Numinous was one of the most dangerous, Category 3 was not one of the worst. It was simply to designate that their attack capability was minimal, although within a range still ignored.

    Electric arc weapons had proven to be the best for many of the types of enemies that other assault corps had been encountering. Although, for Numinous category 5, and above, they had proven to require better weapons. Luckily, for them, those were in Siberia and on the edge of India and Pakistan.

    Compared to what they had ahead of them, it should be a quick strike and return to base with the core. Still, Jeanne could not get the feeling of discomfort out of her body.

    But it was too late to think of another tactic.

    Jeanne had the huge polyhedron only a few meters away, and the only thing separating them were the bushes where they were hiding.

    [C-5 Bravo, we have visual contact,] Jeanne communicated to Franco.

    The second team slowed down and, hidden in the bushes, they searched around with their eyes. But they could see nothing.

    [Please, ---- please, ------ please, save him.]

    C-5, Franco Bicini, frowned. What had he just heard? It certainly didn''t sound like the team leader''s voice, it was a male voice, and it almost sounded like radio interference, but it couldn''t be possible.

    [C-6 Bravo, repeat?]

    [C-5... it wasn''t us,] Jeanne said.

    At that moment the second team saw a bluish flash to their left, accompanied by a sound difficult to describe, it sounded like the echo of rusty metal clashing together rapidly.

    [It''s changing! Repeat, it''s changing!] Jeanne shouted.

    There was no further communication from Jeanne''s team, but there was no need. The screams heard not far from their location were more than enough to figure out what was going on.

    The surprise factor was ruined. But what had happened? That kind of Fractus was not supposed to change so fast. The Category 3 took almost twenty seconds to acquire a new form.

    The second team took about fifteeen seconds to reach the location of the first, while they could hear the sound of metal rising.

    The huge cube had changed and transformed into something else.

    Everything turned into chaos in a matter of seconds. There were glares from the electric arc weapons being fired, whose fine discharges barely illuminated the stage, as if it were a lightning storm. Flashes of a cloud of what looked like a dark cloud of iron filings producing blue sparks. In the cloud there was larger pieces of metal, that looked more like flying broken glass, and those produced the sound of metal pieces colliding with each other, moving among the soldiers at impossible-to-follow speed, accompanied by the screams of pain from Jeanne''s team. The members of the Blackbird-C squad were falling like flies. One after another.

    One of the soldiers of Jeanne''s group fell to his knees, as the cloud passed through him. Screaming, he took off his helmet and mask. His face, as well as his hands, were undergoing a change. What up to a few moments ago had been a burly, battle-hardened, man was suddenly becoming an old man, whose skin was drying and sticking to his bones, as if he were undergoing an instantaneous mummification process. When his body finally hit the ground he was already dead, and his skeleton had been transformed into a cloud of ashes, that the wind scattered among the sand of the beach bordering the lake.

    Another soldier simply lost sight of what was happening, as he felt his bones and muscles changing at an impossible speed, while a whirlwind of memories of his life flooded his entire brain, in a raging clonic storm. He did not have to endure it for long. Only a few seconds later, his brain stopped being able to process the memories, and his suit lay empty on the sand, while his body shrunk to the size of a baby, then a fetus and then completely disappeared into absolute nothingness, as if it had never been there.

    Corrosion. That couldn''t be a Category 3.

    The second in command tried to give orders to his soldiers, but had to replace his words with a cry of surprise, when he saw his world turned upside down. Something had lifted him several meters above the ground and sent him flying into the trees. He landed in the grass and felt some of the tactical plates of his helmet come off. He took a long breath, feeling almost as if his lungs had been crushed and, unable to speak, began to crawl. He had lost his weapon in the blow, and only had a pair of pistols which, for that matter, would be of little use to him.

    He crawled through the grass and lay against a tree while he caught his breath. He felt a stabbing pain in his right side, it was likely that he had broken a couple of ribs. The medical control system in his clothing had stopped working, or maybe it was just the power supply going to his visor and the screen on his arm that had suffered some kind of malfunction. For the moment, he was thankful that the adrenaline was still pumping through his nervous system, as it was inhibiting the pain.

    Suddenly he heard a strange explosion, behind the tree where he was hiding, that eclipsed his senses. He had never heard anything like it before. It had been a kind of explosion that made his eardrums reberberate, accompanied by a flash of light that was extinguished as quickly as it had appeared.

    What had happened? What until a few moments ago had been an inferno had become an overwhelming silence, broken only by the rustling of the night wind in the branches. Franco Bicini, leader of the second team, let several seconds pass that seemed like hours before he began to move slowly.

    Had the thing been standing still, waiting to take him by surprise? Or was it waiting to hear him, to deal him a final blow as it had done with the other members of the squad? But he couldn''t stay hidden there for eternity. He had to come out at some point, even if it meant ending up like the others. Would death be quick? He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the screams of horror he had heard from the others. Whatever that thing was doing, it didn''t seem painless.

    His thoughts about the lightness of life didn''t go too deep, because he was noticing something else. The night vision was becoming distorted. It didn''t make any sense. He was pretty sure that there was no other equipment in the area, and there was no moon that night so, given the time of night, everything should be dark and no external light source should be producing any extra effects on his vision.

    Franco turned off the night vision function and with his normal eyes could see how the scenery around him was indeed illuminated by something coming from behind the tree where he was hiding. It was a faint bluish light shining with different intensities.

    He took off his helmet because he wasn''t sure if what he was seeing could be a malfunction of the equipment and, as he did so, the remaining extra plates of the mask covering his face came off.

    He was a middle-aged man with ash-blond hair, with a deep scar on his forehead, product of his baptism of fire when the war began.

    He swallowed, trying to control himself and pulling out one of his automatic pistols, he went out to meet whatever was on the other side.

    He expected to find the infernal creature, waiting for him, but his eyes widened when he saw that it was something else.

    There, about thirty meters away, was a bluish dot that seemed to be floating in mid-air. It seemed to be emitting a kind of radiation, which produced a series of bluish particles that were fired in all directions and others with somewhat thicker particle streams snaked through the trees and in the direction to the lake too, and vanished after a few meters.

    What is that?

    After being paralyzed for a few seconds Franco Bicini walked hesitantly towards the bluish spot. It was something that seemed to be attracting every cell of his being, although he could not be sure what exactly it was that produced that sensation. Had he not been in such a horrible situation he could almost have sworn he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. It was a ghostly and disturbing scene, but there was something sublime about it as well.

    The closer he got, the sharper the spot seemed to become.

    Barely five meters away from reaching the luminous point, Franco realized what it was, and also understood the final orders that had been given from the operations center to get hold of it once they managed to defeat the creature.

    It was a Fractus core.

    Franco remembered having seen several types, and the orders were always the same, after a combat special units were in charge of its collection. Apparently there were intelligence departments that had been developing some kind of weapons with them or something like that, but not much was known.

    There were all kinds and colors. He himself remembered how he had been surprised the first time he killed one of those creatures and left behind a kind of stone with smooth pale yellow faces. Different types of Fractus left behind different types of cores.

    But he had never seen anything like it before. The energy it gave off gave the scene an unnatural air, but somehow it seemed to him that the glow was slowly beginning to fade. As if the source of its energy was somehow losing intensity. Franco slowly approached it, unable to take his eyes off it, not that it was pretty or anything. There was something about it that he couldn''t quite understand. It was almost as if it was calling out to him.

    The screams of horror of his companions had been left behind. In fact, it seemed to him that it had never happened. In his mind each of his neurons was simply ordering him to come closer.

    With the glow fading, Franco Bicini was finally able to get an idea of its shape. It was a stone the size of a large fist, crystalline in appearance, irregularly shaped and somewhat rough, almost reminding him of the polished stones that in ancient times were used as weapons. Although it seemed to have chromatic capabilities inside, similar to diamond. But at the same time it did not have the solidity of a normal stone, the core faces seemed to move and change shape, although they maintained the general shape of the object.

    It was not unusual. After all, cores tended to have similar consistencies to the creatures that carried them. Fractus, was more than a convenient name for creatures that seemed to have fractal-like morphic capabilities, it also explained in part the movements always exhibited by such creatures, whose body seemed to always be in a continuous motion as they changed shape.

    With a trembling gesture he reached out his hand toward the core and grasped it in his hand. Through the tactical glove he did not feel it at first but, after a couple of seconds, as he squeezed it in his hand he felt the moving surface of the stone pierce the material of the glove and sink into his flesh few centimeters. Warm blood ran down the moving surface of the stone, but Franco Bicini felt no pain from it. After a few seconds, where the path of the stone had completely soaked into his blood, the movement stopped completely and, with the last bluish flash, the stone changed its surface to a dark color and a smooth rounded shape.

    Franco Bicini fell to his knees, but he was no longer looking at the stone. His eyes had risen to the sky and he looked up in horror at the stars.

    From that day on, the meaning of his present and future changed forever. It crumbled, as a sand castle does when it is swept by the waves of the sea. But, beyond that, he had one certainty.

    He was not going to turn the stone over to the authorities.

    The future depended on it.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 1: The unseen, the unheard

    Chapter One

    The unseen, the unheard

    March 18th, Sunday. 8 AM. 125 S.A.

    Kolsay Lake, Almaty. Kazakhstan.

    The chirping of the birds was quite loud that morning in spite of the cold weather.

    The morning sun was tinting the whole landscape green and white with a warm orange hue, tearing the few clouds in the sky. The snow had melted on the trees, but there was still plenty on the ground due to the fact that nightly snowfalls were still occurring.

    Nikolai sighed wistfully, wagged his big gray tail, and looked around as, with long strides, he finished crossing the new log dam that had been formed only a couple of days ago. The last thing he wanted was for the gelid waters to wet his tail.

    He was now on the east side of the lake.

    On the other shore, to the west, Nikolai could see teams still moving around, collecting samples from the lake shores and some of the military robots guarding the site.

    The work of sample retrieval and site clearance continued unabated. Everyone was very interested in the development that the situation at Kolsay Lake took after the creature/fungus/alien escaped from the site, leaving the case with more questions than answers.

    "Come on! What are you doing?" asked a female voice in an animated tone, which made Nikolai turn his eyes to the front.

    The girl just pulled a lollipop out of her mouth, with her delicate webbed-fingered hand, covered by a black tactical glove.

    Nikolai''s research partner, Hinata Cronwell, also known as Dr. Kohi, was a dark-skinned fey girl, who could easily be mistaken for a short-stack girl, with a prominent forehead and snub nose, along with two sparkly brown eyes. She had a headband, which kept her light brown hair, slightly wavy, combed back.

    She was dressed in a black tactical coat, with enough pouches to carry an entire lab in. What was striking though was, that despite the cold, she was wearing a white dress, that appeared to be of a very thin fabric for the cold morning breeze. In addition, she was Nikolai''s boss in the Department of Anomalous Events Research and Teratology Studies at the Nevermore Institute.

    Although it couldn''t be said that Nikolai didn''t attract attention either. He was another fey, at least a little over six feet tall and slender in appearance, with disheveled hair, a goatee, and gray eyes. Nikolai''s ears were peculiar in that they were not only pointed, but they were slightly different in shape from those of his companion. They were a more sharper and pointed a little higher. They could move and, at the moment, one was attached to his skull while the other, tilted at a slightly unnatural forward angle, seemed to listen attentively to the sounds of the environment. He was dressed all in black with a jumpsuit full of pouches, and was carrying two heavy suitcases of sampling equipment with a mini-lab.

    "Have you heard or smell anything?" Hinata asked again, tilting her head slightly, and putting the lollipop back in her mouth.

    Nikolai sniffed the air as if trying to smell something strange and then looked at her. "I just wanted to make sure those giant deer aren''t around." His voice sounded bored and with a nasal-tone.

    "You don''t need to sniff like a dog, they''re almost visible in the sunlight."

    "Only at certain angles," Nikolai added, not quite sure, as he continued to search with his eyes, this time in the direction of where they were headed.

    "Well? Are they around?"

    "No... I just hear the sound of water... escaping like our life¡­" Nikolai said, sighing again in a sad voice.

    "We are in the middle of nature. Not in the lab. Field work, you like that, don''t you?"

    "Yes¡­ in this nonsense we''re standing on, at least¡­ the view is pretty," he said, sighing again and Hinata had the impression that Nikolai''s soul was leaving his body and getting lost in the higher layers of the atmosphere. At that moment she was glad she had not told him about the final message left by the missing scientist.

    Hinata looked at him doubtfully. "Did you take your anxiolytics and antidrepressants?"

    "Yes. I even had a cup of tea on the ship."

    "Give yourself another dose. I don''t want to turn around and find you''ve hung yourself from a tree when I wasn''t paying attention." Hinata sighed, as she set off again, following the lakeshore.

    Severe Depression. Of all the things a fey could bring back from the Other Side, mood disorders were listed as one of the most delicate afflictions. And that was exactly what Nikolai suffered from.

    Although he had excellent skills to have become a field agent, his sudden mood swings, which could drag anyone around him into a supermassive black hole of gloomy thoughts -with some philosophical overtones- had made him think twice about the idea of investigating cases, where a certain objective detachment was required to carry out the investigation. Besides, Nikolai was no ordinary fey either. The ears and the huge furry tail, along with his striding gait, made him easily recognizable to anyone who knew enough about fey species.

    An oboroten. More specifically, a Volkolak.

    Still, Nikolai possessed good skills in fields such as microbiology and forensic science. So Hinata thought it would be a good idea to take him out of the lab to do some research. After all, the department she was in charge of was a three-person department. Her, Nikolai and the new guy, Shin Aogami.

    A couple of weeks after Shin''s shocking arrival, she had personally recruited him to be part of the small team. It hadn''t been a bad idea at all. The lab and research department was a huge place for only two people to run. While Shin worked as a field agent with Mai, it wasn''t a bad idea to have someone who had views that were perhaps a bit outdated for the time, but with more than enough experience in the field of finding and dealing with oddities of all kinds around the world. That and they were both more than interested in having a specimen as rare as Shin, whose studies had proven that, while he was not a fey, his nature was in itself much rarer. If it had been up to Hinata, she would have put him in a display case in the lab.

    Be that as it may, this was an opportunity to both of them to get off the island, and collect samples in the field, instead of waiting for other teams to take them. They could spend a few hours at the site and then return to the island at sunset.

    They arrived just a couple of hours ago, in one of the mini transport ships, and during all that time they were been briefed on what happened with the soldiers on site, and with the FRT teams. Hazmat was still there and hoped to extend her stay a couple of more days. Meanwhile Mai and Shin were in Astana, waiting to put matters in order to head to their new destination.

    "We''re going the right way, aren''t we?" Nikolai asked.

    "Yes, it''s this way exactly."

    They both had their Neurowires with all the positions marked from the strange event that had taken place. But the reports of possible anomalies on the ground, regarding the mysterious meteorite made them doubtful. Even more so if what Hazmat, who was still on the other side of the lake, told them was true, and there was no reason to doubt it. After all, there it was in the twenty-page preliminary report that Mai had written on the case. There might be a slight possibility that this case had something to do with a mysterious cult that Nevermore had been investigating for a long time.

    "It''s a shame Shin isn''t here. I wanted to ask him more about the fungus."

    "Call him later, those two must be getting ready to go to France on Tuesday, for the ceremony on Wednesday."

    "Ceremony... it''s nothing but politics to make it look like the Council is running things."

    "Don''t say it like that, he''s our partner."

    "I don''t mean him, I mean the council. Besides¡­ partner... of work. He was barely with us for a month before he started working with Mai. He was supposed to spend more time with us to help with the studies."

    "He''s still catching up. He has a lot of studying to do. Swallow over two hundred years of science since he disappeared is not easy, more if you do not have a neural assistant."

    "I''m sure he might be swallowing something else too."

    Hinata turned and looked at him with a look of circumstance. "Don''t be nasty."

    "I''m sorry... some people''s luck really depresses me."

    "Do you have a crush on Mai?" Hinata asked, in a mocking voice.

    "No at all. I''m simply referring to the fact that you could be working with the one you like... and twice as much, starting next week."

    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    "You haven''t talked to Fisi, like Justin told you?"

    "No, she''s still in Johannesburg. There''s nothing to talk about. It''s water under the bridge," Nikolai admitted, his voice muffled.

    They both stopped in front of some trees and looked out into the deep forest.

    "This way," Hinata pointed.

    They arrived to one of the markers that Mai marked as the place where they were attacked by the deer. On that part of the lake there were still a few stubborn logs left on the shore, which the water had not been able to wash away. But, beyond that, there were hardly any marks left on the ground of the encounter and the battle that took place. Not to mention the earthquake that occurred afterwards, which had modified some parts of the land adjacent to the lake.

    During the past nights it snowed heavily and that covered again the tracks of the animals. Although that was not what mattered to them at the moment.

    They continued on their way for several minutes, going uphill into the forest, until finally they could make out the place they were headed for.

    It was the mysterious place with the tree that Mai described in her report, with the strange reliefs marked on the bark. Three in bas-relief, and the one in high relief of the creature that Mai had fought on the other side of the lake.

    The mushroom filaments were still there, but no longer looked the way Mai and Shin had found them.

    Nikolai opened the suitcases he was carrying and unfolded the portable lab. After putting on their gloves, they both began to take samples from the site. From the bark of the main tree, to the surrounding trees, and even the ground, which samples they put on the corresponding plates. Later they could examine everything in detail, and compare the results with the samples Shin left, to check the changes that occurred after the explosion when the gigantic core shot skyward.

    There was something that bothered Hinata about the report. It didn''t seem to make much sense what Mai had reported about how the core had been shot into the sky. Did the core have some form of propulsion of its own? No matter how she saw it, a geothermal explosion would never be enough to make something escape the atmosphere. Although, considering that they were faced with the absurd on a daily basis, it wouldn''t be unusual for that thing to have some sort of propulsion attached to its ass. Hinata was thinking about it because of a certain accident that had occurred at one of the construction stations. The accident at the lake had happened at the same time and in a angular position quite close to what happened at that station.

    If the core had exploded in the lake, the altitude of the fragments would have been impressive, but never enough to cause a fragment to reach space. Or had the accident at the station been a coincidence?

    Hinata was operating tiny drones, that were in charge of rendering the entire area and creating a 3D model of the site. She thought she would be able to quickly find results of the carved animals, comparing the results with the main database of the island, but was surprised when only a few results were returned. Almost all of them recent and involving the search that had been conducted by another of the departments. She guessed that perhaps some other section in charge of studying symbology might be more aware of it when Mai reported it.

    "So it has nothing to do with the cult?" Nikolai asked.

    "It''s too early to think that. Let''s see what Rein and Naomi say later," Hinata said, shrugging.

    Nikolai was at that moment taking samples of the fungus, which were found surrounding the high relief of the mysterious creature. The filaments, now dark gray in color, practically turned to dust each time he took samples. As if now that they did not respond to the lake''s core, they had lost all their properties and were nothing more than ash. It almost seemed incredible to them that it was the same place that appeared in Mai''s personal observations.

    The final destruction that Mai reported was more present on the other side of the lake, but on that side everything was calmer.

    The morning sun was streaming through the trees and bathing the forest in a warm light. Beyond the strange landscape, and the destruction on the edges, it looked like an ordinary forest full of life, now that the birdsong had returned.

    The horror that inhabited the place for so long disappeared, and it was as if a veil had been lifted over the entire region.

    Or perhaps it was too soon for that.

    Nikolai put the final samples in the Petri dishes and looked at his partner. Hinata was looking up, with her eyes fixed on the tree.

    "What''s wrong?" he asked.

    "Hmm¡­" She found herself collating Shin''s report through her Neurowire. He wasn''t as good at report writing as Mai, but one thing he did do was put notes on every single thing that caught his eye. While it wasn''t the right way to file an official case report, it was the way he did it. And for that matter there was something that had caught Hinata''s attention. Nikolai crouched down to her level eyesight and tried to observe what she was staring so intently at.

    On the bark of the tree, about five meters off the ground, and above the high relief there was something abnormal there. Nikolai straightened up and took a closer look. Although he was a little over two meters tall, he still couldn''t make out what it was. It looked like an indentation in the bark that due to the coloration of the wood must have been produced recently.

    Hinata took off her boots and with her bare feet, also with webbed toes, and helping herself with her hands, began to climb up the trunk as if she were a spider. Although, given the shape of her feet and hands, it was more accurate to say that it was a frog, since Hinata had fey characteristics associated with artic frogs.

    Nikolai from below changed his sad face to one of concern, when he saw Hinata three meters above him. "Where is your underwear?"

    "I like the breeze," was all her reply.

    "¡­"

    "Stop looking at me down there. Look at this."

    Given that she was in Nikolai''s field of vision, it was a somewhat complicated request to carry out, but he tried to concentrate on what she was indicating.

    "What''s that?" he asked.

    "I''m not sure. In the report, Shin said he noticed the mark above the high relief, but because they were looking for clues to the missing scientist he didn''t think much of it."

    It was a hole about twenty centimeters long, by another ten centimeters wide and about five centimeters deep. As if it had been carved into the wood. The outer edges denoted that the bark had been molded over the years around it, but inside it was different as if it were fresh wood. There were some parts on the edges of the hole that showed that, whatever it was, when it was removed, some pieces of the bark had been skipped and were fresh marks.

    Shin put in the report that he had mistaken it for deer foot marks. Certainly Hinata could see that there were hoof marks around the hole that corresponded to the animals. Perhaps a piece of the mysterious meteorite had been there.

    "Pass me the multi-reader," she said to Nikolai. And then one of the small drones also flew to the spot to scan it and render a detailed model of the cavity.

    Hinata took the small multi-reader tube that Nikolai handed her, that looked more like a marker pen, and passed it over the bark to see if it detected anything. After a few seconds the result appeared projected on her Neurowire. [0 results from the surface. 7 results of normal radiation, 1 result of anomalous gas projection with 2 results of radiation readings]. Hinata ran the final result and, getting more detailed results, was surprised when the coordinates appeared at two points behind her, a little off the ground height.

    "This can''t be right," Hinata said.

    She frowned and jumped to the ground, while Nikolai followed her with his eyes wondering what it was all about. Hinata took another object, similar to a radio from the suitcase, and walked a few meters away as she turned it on.

    There was no doubt, there was a weak signal of gases and radiation at two points away from the tree. Hinata turned on the radio-like object and activated one of the sonification subroutines. For several seconds nothing happened and Nikolai began to move one of his feet nervously.

    "Can you tell me what this is about?"

    "Shhhh!!!" Hinata cackled grumpily. After almost two eternal minutes she finally stopped the sonification and pressed play.

    They were both used to seeing things that would make more than the average person''s hair turn white, but they couldn''t deny that the sound they heard gave them goosebumps.

    It was a kind of guttural sound that spread out with pulses that came and went, and to Nikolai it reminded him of the sounds of sea creatures underwater, although there was something in that sound that was eerie. The sound only lasted about ten seconds, but Hinata ran it twice more and opened her brown eyes wide. She darted to the suitcase and picked up a small beige can and sprinkled it in the space where she had been standing.

    A new shiver ran down their necks.

    The cloud of special detection particles stopped in mid-air and slowly took on a violet hue with tiny purple sparkles. It slowly drew around it a vaguely humanoid but disembodied silhouette. There was nothing there, though clearly the cloud of particles was drawing a silhouette.

    Hinata went a few meters further and did the same. A new silhouette appeared.

    "A teleporter?" asked Nikolai.

    "N-no," Hinata hesitated and for the first time that day felt a chill run through her skin. "Do you know what this sound is?"

    "Some kind of creature?"

    "No. Sonification simply translates sounds from the environment that are below the audible range. We wouldn''t be able to hear it unless the spectrum is compressed."

    "What is it?"

    "If the result is correct. This is the signature of a black hole. More specifically the radiation and residual gases from the evaporation of a black hole."

    Nikolai for the first time today put a grimace on his lips that could be understood as an attempt at a smile. "I know everyone likes to make jokes about me being a black hole but, you want me to believe that there was a black hole right here in the middle of this forest?"

    Hinata threw the multi-reader at him. "See for yourself."

    Nikolai caught it in the air and in his brain the results appeared. [Hawking radiation of quantum range with fall amplitude in 10 meters. Full Ghost Radiation Scattering predicted in 4 days].

    "Isn''t this a mini black hole?"

    "It''s not our area, but I think one of those would barely produce any effects due to its small size. I think we''d better ask Oxy later."

    "Is this about the bubble problem?"

    "Yes, it is an impossibility because of the Planckian size, or even if it were with the mass of a proton, it would have a greater amount of energy, but because of the short lifetime it would be impossible for it to be producing microwave radiation at this level, we would not have to detect it."

    ¡°Unless it''s a Dark Event... I think it would be best to quarantine this area," Nikolai said with concern. "On the other hand if we were even talking about a major black hole we wouldn''t be having this conversation, because we would have all gone to shit on the planet by now. Right?"

    "Exactly, if you want to quarantine a black hole of mass like that of the sun I recommend that you extend the radius millions of kilometers," she said sardonically. "On the other hand, look at the radiation fall-off. If the reading is correct the effects will wear off in a few days."

    "Look at the radiation fall-off. If the reading is correct the effects will wear off in a few days."

    "Those gases aren''t the same as the effects of the fungus, are they?"

    "No. It has nothing to do with it," Hinata said, and watched as the drone that was scanning the scene approached.

    The small floating ball projected a hologram. It had generated a model of the possible shape of the object in the hollow of the tree. It was a simple round convex shape. Maybe some kind of rock. Maybe it was a fragment of the meteorite after all, although if it was it didn''t explain why the filaments hadn''t reached it.

    They both looked at each other not knowing what to say, until Nikolai broke the awkward silence, looking at the two ghostly shapes marked by the spray, which were slowly beginning to fade.

    "Shin wrote in the report that, on more than one occasion, he felt that he felt they were being watched, but he attributed it to perhaps the creature and the core in the middle of the lake being aware of each other''s presence through the mycelia web.¡±

    "Well... he was wrong. There really was someone here with them. Or maybe before. According to the readout this happened on the same day."

    "They were being watched. But by who? Or what?"

    Hinata then turned and looked at the hollow above the strange creature in the high relief.

    "And what was up there? Whatever it is, it''s been removed recently."

    "Do you think someone tried to hide something before they got here?"

    "I don''t know. But I don''t like it at all. What if what was up there was part of the cult? Or something else?"

    The horror that lived in the lake left, perhaps returned to one of the abysmal depths of the cosmos from whence it emerged.

    But, right there ,another manifestation occurred in the same day. And neither Mai, nor Shin, were able to realize it.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 2: 1880-Through the stone and what Satou saw there.

    Chapter Two

    1880

    Through the stone and what Satou saw there.

    August 7th. 1880. Ancient era.

    Shinjuku, Tokyo.

    The sun was already setting on the horizon, but they continued to wait expectantly.

    The group of six children, between seven and ten years old, ran amidst laughter and battle cries, following the course of the train tracks. It was something they always liked to do every day, as they played in the surrounding area after school. But on vacations, those games could extend well into the afternoon. Especially since that day was a public holiday in the city.

    The train they expected to see was the one coming from Sendai to the port of Yokohama, in the southeast. They weren''t really sure if that was the train''s real destination, but at least that''s what their parents and school teachers told them. The reason they were expecting to see the train again was because, in the previous days, it had passed by bringing what at first they thought were steam-powered automatons, but turned out to be mechanical suits at least two and a half meters high.

    Although that day it was not passing by at the usual time.

    For them it was really something fascinating, beyond the fact that it was carrying coal, automatons or suits, and they always wondered what was beyond that. Beyond the place where they lived. Because, from what they heard recently, it seemed that even in Osaka a tunnel had already been built for the train to pass under the mountain. What would be found there was really a mystery to them, and sometimes they liked to imagine themselves riding in some of the coal cars, heading south, while fighting off all sorts of yokais on the journey, or outlaws sabotaging the tracks, as in the last days of the Satsuma Revolution.

    The new locomotives, which were recently brought in, were much faster than those that have been in circulation in the last few years. The upheavals, caused by the tumultuous social changes in recent years, forced the sale into private hands, and the privatization of what had hitherto been government-owned railroad construction plants and factories.

    But, with the modernization of the country, it was more and more frequent to see trains coming and going on the new railway lines, and with it all kinds of different locomotives. Not to mention some of the airships that had recently been put into the service of the country''s security.

    Despite that, there was still criticism against the government from some sides, who judged the position to be too broad-minded, and this led to all kinds of mobilizations and clashes between different parties.

    But the intrigues of the adults did not concern the children, unless it was material for one of their games. They were interested that the train not passed at the usual time, and so they decided to play something else in the meantime.

    "I don''t think they will be passing through here anymore," Satou said thoughtfully, waving one of his bamboo stilts as a makeshift sword at his friend Kenji. "My dad says those iron giants are for use in the mines. In Korea there are many more than here, brought from Russia."

    "I wonder what it would be like to ride one," Kenji said, as he charged a wooden sword at his friend. "I bet it would look like the Iron Demon."

    Seven-year-old Satou Nobuyama was slightly shorter than Kenji, and while he had a really slender build, it allowed him to move nimbly like a fox. His physical agility was a source of pride for him. That, and the uncanny ability to whistle like no one else in school, which he acquired a couple of weeks ago, through the gap left by one of his baby teeth falling out.

    That day he had exchanged the usual clothes he wore for a yukata with a new haori, decorated with gear motifs, and geta sandals.

    Kenji, on the other hand, was a slightly bulkier nine-year-old boy, whose face always seemed to have a sort of half-smile that nothing could wipe off. Even when he was in trouble. Kenji''s new clothes and toys made him stand out in the small group of children, and he must have been from a wealthy family.

    That day they were playing an impromptu battle reenacting the Battle of Tabaruzaka. They were three against three, with Satou on the rebel side, while Kenji with the other three were part of the Battotai. Or at least that''s what they were trying to do. Kenji''s references seemed to indicate that he was either trying to confuse his friends, or he was simply bad at remembering dates and historical events.

    "Saigo! You''re back from Mars!" Kenji shouted.

    "What?! I''m not dead yet! And no one can travel to Mars." Satou told him, raising an eyebrow.

    " I''m Hijikata Toshizou, and I''m going to stop you!"

    The other five stopped fighting and looked at Kenji in confusion. What the hell was up with the references?

    "No wonder the teacher says you''re like smoke for history," Satou said, holding both hands to his head to which the others began to burst out laughing.

    Kenji tilted his head. "What does that mean?"

    "Fools are like smoke. They always try to get high," Satou explained to him with a sneer, as he picked his nose with his free hand.

    "You''re the fool!" Kenji spat at him, raising the wooden sword and launching himself at Satou''s scampering.

    The games went on for another twenty minutes and by the time they realized it the sun was already hidden on the horizon. Perhaps something had happened that day and there would be no train.

    On the other hand, in the city, the sound of drums and flutes could be heard mingling with the screeching of the night insects. The Obon and Tanabata festival had already begun and they were missing it. Gathering their toys and water pistols, they set out on the short walk back to the city. Over there already circled a couple of the police airships that, which with their oil lamps shining back and forth over the town, were in charge of security.

    The paper lanterns had already been lit at the festival and people had taken to the avenues of the city to celebrate, while in the east the stars had already begun to appear.

    "Where were you?!"

    The sudden shout of a woman, made Satou and the others gasp, and they slowly turned around.

    It was a woman dressed in a yukata walking toward them. They all knew her. Despite her slightly tanned skin from working in the fields, the woman knew how to maintain her beauty. But also she was really scary when she got angry.

    "Let''s run!" Kenji said to the others, who ran off in panic, getting lost in the crowd.

    "I''ve been looking for you for a long time!" She said looking at Satou, and then she watched as the rest of the herd got lost. "Young Lord Kenji! Your father is looking for you!" Satou''s mother raised her voice, but Kenji had already disappeared.

    "I''m sorry, mom..." Satou wailed. "We were waiting for the train."

    "You''re all dirty. Were you playing near the tracks? We''ve already told you it''s dangerous there." After challenging him for a few moments, she ran her hand over Satou''s head. "What am I going to do with you?"

    "Can I go and continue playing with the others? I promise we won''t go to the tracks, it''s already too dark."

    How much energy does still have? The mother snorted. She knew it was better for him to end up tired from all that playing, so he would sleep more soundly and be distracted from school matters. After all, he had been devoting a lot of time to his studies lately, even if he was on vacation.

    He discovered that he was quite good at mathematics. Something that was a surprise to his mother. She barely knew the basic numbers to do the shopping accounts. The only bad thing was that she was noticing that he was spending more and more time between books and less time with his friends. If he wanted to study, well he could do it in a few years.

    "Go get them," she said and stroked his head again.

    Satou smiled at his mother and shot off through the crowd, toward the place where his friends had gone.

    "No going to the tracks! It''s already too dark! And tell Kenji that his father is looking for him!" the woman shouted. She wasn''t sure if he had heard her, but at least it was worth a try.

    Where have they gone, Satou wondered, looking for them. He passed by several game and food stalls, but couldn''t find any of them.

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    After another detour, he was about to give up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Kenji had returned and was showing him a huge beetle. "Look what I found!"

    "Where?"

    "Here, in the trees. Let''s go!"

    All was said and done. They would play ¡°the treasure hunt¡±. The one who caught the biggest beetle would decide the games for a week, while the loser surely would have to eat the carcass of a cicada.

    The two friends turned off the avenue, passing between two small stalls of masks and paper balloons and headed for the small grove on the other side. There were only two of the others who had participated in the games in the train tracks. Most likely the other two had gone with their families to go around the stalls.

    The search for beetles went on for about thirty minutes, aided by a portable folding lantern, which Kenji took with him. Of course he was cheating, trying to better illuminate the places he was looking for.

    One of the other kids had just caught a Hercules bettle, big as his little fist, when they heard it.

    "It''s trusting too much."

    "I just wish she would have given us a better explanation."

    "She just left, just like that?"

    "Yes¡­"

    The group of friends looked at each other in surprise. The voices they had just heard were the adult voices of a man and a woman.

    "Turn it off, turn it off," said one of the children, and Kenji folded the portable lamp, while everyone''s ears perked up.

    "I bet you it''s some couple doing something dirty," Kenji whispered, with a wicked grin.

    "Shhhh," Satou spat, almost hissing through the gap in his teeth.

    "I guess we can only wait and see if it is as she told us," the man said.

    "And how will we know it''s the right time?" the woman asked.

    The darkness prevented the kid from seeing the faces of those who were speaking, but they could estimate that they must be about twenty meters away.

    They were trying to see their faces, when they heard the sound from a bush, which was between them and the supposed couple.

    Satou was about to run away. Who knows if it wasn''t some animal attracted by the noise of the festival. Kenji squeezed his shoulders and stretched his long, plump neck trying to see what it was.

    A metallic sound was heard and from the bush, a third person came out and, speaking in somewhat stilted Japanese, said. "Hands up! Where are they?"

    Despite being only children, the group knew that this metallic sound could only correspond to a pressurized steam rifle. In the darkness the silhouettes of the couple gasped at the sudden appearance of the individual, and the man tried to interpose himself between the newcomer and the woman.

    "Who are you? What are you doing here?" the woman asked in surprise.

    "Please just give them to me... I just want to see my daughter again. I don''t want to cause you any trouble. Give me the stones!!!" The man''s voice sounded like it was about to crack.

    "I don''t know what you''ve heard, but that''s not how it works," the man said.

    "I know what they are! Don''t think I''m a fool. I''ve been after them from London for months!"

    "So you''re the one who''s been following us halfway around the world..." the man said.

    Satou felt something wet falling on his forehead. He looked up and saw Kenji''s face, who was sweating profusely and looking terrified.

    "That guy has a gun," Kenji whispered to the others. "This is bad."

    "What do we do?" asked the other boy.

    "He''s a thief!" The second one chimed in.

    "Let''s run!!!" shouted Kenji.

    "Damn chicken!" Satou cackled angrily, as he started running after them.

    The sudden screams were more than enough to get the attention of the three people.

    Satou turned around for a second looking back, he saw a flash and the sound of the rifle barrel. Trying to get out as fast as he could in his sandals he looked ahead, only to run into a tree, which he hit hard enough to start bleeding from his nose and forehead.

    Stunned by the blow, he thought he saw the shadows of the three people moving and struggling, and the sound of a gunshot rang out again, only to be drowned out by the sound of some fireworks officially signaling the beginning of the last day of the festival.

    He heard the woman shout something and, before he could tell what happened, he heard a sound of cloth being torn and things falling on the grass. There was a series of scuffles and he heard a thump. The next moment Satou heard something fall next to him, just a few centimeters away.

    Satou saw lanterns waving in the trees. The local police must have heard the detonations after all, or maybe Kenji called they in.

    The fight seemed to continue, but Satou wasn''t going to wait around to see how it would end.

    To defend himself he picked up the object that fallen near him in case he had to throw it to protect himself. He couldn''t see it, but it was something hard wrapped with paper and a red string. Whatever it was, it was as light as a feather. It was not going to do him any good if he wanted to defend with it.

    He ran in the direction of Kenji and the others, but they were already gone. He didn''t want to run into the police. For some reason they didn''t take a good look at the group of friends. Perhaps it had something to do with Kenji''s father, Toshitsune Yanagida, who seemed to be closely watched because of his involvement in illegal gambling. Whatever it was, he didn''t want to get involved with the police, as he was likely to give his parents a hard time about it.

    He ran along the trees, past the back of some stalls, until he finally came out onto one of the festival streets and mingled with the people. It was really crowded. He had to make sure he would at least be able to set up a tanzaku later with Kenji and the others.

    He crossed to the other side of the tents on the opposite side and hid behind one whose back was covered with cloth, but which by the smell seemed to be some kind of food store. The smell of fried squid was whetting his appetite, but first he would have to calm down.

    Due to the adrenaline of the moment, he felt no pain from the nose and the bruise on his forehead. He was wiping the beads of sweat and blood from his forehead with the haori sleeve, when he turned his attention back to the packet he took.

    Satou wondered what he could do with it. He took it on the spur of the moment, but now he wasn''t sure if he should return it, or just leave it lying around. What could it be? After all, to the touch it looked like some kind of stone. Could it be what the guy with the gun was looking for? If that were the case it would be best to throw it away.

    But no one saw him take it. Maybe there was nothing wrong with seeing what it was.

    He untied the string and tore the paper. At first he thought he had picked up two pieces of charcoal. But they had not stained his hands and it had almost the appearance of obsidian but much more lighter.

    They were indeed two stones. Satou discarded the paper and held them up. They appeared to be the same, both had rounded shapes with smooth faces, as if they were crystal. Both had one face that was larger than the others.

    Satou took the stones and observed it for a few seconds.

    It was black like obsidian, but the faces seemed to glow somehow in that moment.

    Satou wondered if it was some stone of the sorcerers, and therefore wondered if the two characters in the forest were not some wandering Onmyoji sorcerers. If so, perhaps that was the reason why they were hiding in the forest because the practice of Onmyodo was forbidden by imperial decree. Although there were rumors that there were still several magicians in the service of the government at the moment.

    The screams and sounds of gunshots in the distance frightened him. The boy ran and rounded a bend next to other stalls. He must have been quite a distance away and he hid behind another tent. Hiding between two empty big rice baskets, he pulled out the stones to look at them again.

    He felt that there was something strange about them, and brought them closer to his eyes to see them better, while he put them both together on the sides that were more flattened. As he thought, it was a single stone that had broken at some point.

    But when he put them both together it was as if a sudden electric shock had run through his body.

    Despite the darkness behind the stalls, it was as if the stone produced a strange luminescence in the form of faint blue particles, which Satou observed as if he could not move his gaze. And indeed he could not. In his black eyes were reflected the same blue particles.

    The boy rolled his eyes and collapsed on the grass, as he convulsed with the stone clutched tightly in his hands. No one could see it, except him. Anyone looking behind the stall at the time would have seen only a small child convulsing on the grass between two empty rice baskets.

    Impossible scenes flashed before his eyes, they were more like images out of the Scrolls of Hell. He saw horrible creatures, resembling yokais and other figures of what appeared to be some kind of war. Human figures, dressed in clothes of strange designs and lands and places he had never heard of. Many scenes were unremarkable, but others were horrific and full of suffering. The languages spoken did not seem to make any sense. They were words he had never heard before. Although, from time to time, he seemed to catch some Japanese words as well.

    Time flowed strangely in the visions, as if a hurricane wind was sweeping through the scenes every second, but not fast enough, so he could grasp what was happening. It was a wind at times, at other times just images that followed one another more quickly, appearing sharply for a second, then disappearing the next, as an image blurs when drops of water fall on a calm surface, forming ripples.

    He did not know if it was a few seconds or minutes. When he finally got up, he was shivering with cold, something strange since it was a rather warm night and he still had the stones in his hands, but now they were separated. He was staggering and his legs were weak. How long had he been watching these images? For some reason it didn''t seem like a short time.

    He heard some people shouting for water, and noticed that the streets were brighter than before.

    The boy stood up and looked at one shop and saw that it was on fire, threatening to reach another.

    "Satou! Where are you?"

    "Satou!"

    The shouts of his mother and Kenji brought him out of his reverie. Kenji was the first to reach him and shook him by the shoulder.

    "We''ve been looking for you for a long time! Where were you? Dumb!"

    "Let''s go home!" said his frightened mother.

    He was so overwhelmed by what just happened to him that he almost didn''t notice that his mother picked him up in her arms, and she was carrying him away from the fire. He felt nauseous, his head throbbed terribly and he felt thirsty as if he had gone days without drinking a drop of water.

    People seemed to be calming down now that the fire was being brought under control. But there was some commotion over something that happened on the other side. In the forest.

    Satou, with his eyes blurred, looked at Kenji who gestured to him to be quiet. He surely didn''t want his parents to know that they witnessed the fight in the forest either. It was a mystery to them how it had all ended.

    But Satou no longer cared about that, he snuggled his face into his mother''s neck. While hiding the stones inside his yukata.

    Something that should not have happened. A mistake, an improbability.

    An incident that would change the world, but that few would know about.

    And not even Satou, or Kenji, ever knew. Although, over the years, they would remember the incident as a part of their childhood fun and games.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 3: Griffin

    Chapter Three

    Griffin

    Les Pont de Brogny, Annecy. France.

    March 13th. Tuesday 11 PM. 125 S.A.

    In front of the abandoned building the convoy of nine vehicles stopped under the shelter of the night. Silence reigned in the area, broken only by the rustling of branches in the cool night breeze. Along with the rustling the only thing that could be heard was the humming of small drones being deployed from one of the vehicles of the convoy, scanning the site.

    The building was a three-story one, with simple architecture. Obviously it had known better times, but at that moment everything around it looked rickety and vines climbed up the walls like a skein of spiderwebs.

    The self-driven convoy was composed of four large trucks, transporting heavy machinery, one small truck for transport of personnel, and two slightly larger trucks for transporting multifunctional humanoid droids. At the front and rear were two armored trucks.

    [Green pattern. Normal oxygen. No intruders in the area,] was the message transmitted by the drone controller, to the person in the armored-truck at the front of the convoy.

    [Let''s proceed,] Jansen frowned, and sent the orders to the rest through the Neurowire. [You heard it, people. Each to his own function.]

    ["Let''s go! Everyone knows what to do. Every hour counts, in a week we have to get this place up,"] said another male voice, with a somewhat humorous tone.

    Jansen got out of the front armored truck, and so did the other five who were traveling in the vehicle with him. He was a black man, already somewhat older, with wrinkles on his temples and white hair cut in Mohican style, with a short goatee. He wore dark cargo pants and a gray camouflaged tactical coat.

    From the small truck, the side doors opened and several people began to exit, with various types of equipment and industrial suitcases in their hands. Some were in tactical uniforms, and others in plain clothes, although all of them were carrying weapons, even if it was only a pistol, and protective vests.

    What could be heard were orders and bustling footsteps all over the place. The silence that had reigned until that moment had left, to give way to all kinds of hurried chatter and movements of people heading towards the heavy trucks.

    As Jansen said, everyone had their orders and they knew what was expected of them. One team got lost in the city streets, going towards the abandoned and decrepit buildings, while another went down the main street. Others were unloading industrial suitcases of considerable size, while another group was levitating some sort of huge cubes, which were deposited in the tall grass surrounding the building where they parked. A team of three were currently tinkering with energy cubes.

    It was going to be a relief not to have to connect to the power grid of the nearby cities, because the whole operation depended on stable power levels, without getting tagged by Edison or arousing the suspicions of the power plants.

    There must have been at least 30-plus people all over the place moving like ants.

    "Be alert for any eventuality. We have to set up our lookout points before the sun comes up!" ordered Jansen once again, and snorted as he looked around.

    Annecy was a lively town until the outbreak of the Great War, when the people evacuated to the West. Even after the war there were attempts to re-inhabit the town, but today it was nothing more than a completely abandoned relic of the past. A ghost town in the southeast of France.

    Whether it was a coincidence or not, was at least a consolation that the very spot where Jansen had to be was an abandoned city, far from prying eyes.

    After all, that was a mid-range operation, totally illegal, but incredibly well paid. Because Jansen and his men were no ordinary soldiers, they were soldiers of fortune. Mercenaries.

    The bodies of all those present, except Jansen''s and someone else''s, were all synthetic. Mere puppets in human form, which could be discarded in case something went wrong, since whoever had paid for the operation had ensured that all of them would keep copies of their personalities in case of any eventuality.

    Jansen for his part did not like being in a synthetic body at all. He already died a couple of times in his life. And the feeling that his current self was simply a copy of his already dead selves, in a human body, had always left a bitter feeling in his mouth. He had decided that, for the next time, if he had to die, it would be the last time. Even so, after making that decision he survived for another thirty years in a human body that continued to age at a normal rate. And as far as he was concerned, that was fine. If he didn''t end up with his bones on a battlefield, then the passage of time would do that for him.

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    "Wrinkling your brows already?"

    Jansen turned and looked at the one who addressed him. Walking towards him was the other man who did not had a synthetic body in the mission.

    He was a man slightly shorter than Jansen, dressed in a beige shirt, a brown jacket and old jeans. On his leg he carried a simple automatic pistol in a holster. But if there was one thing that stood out about him, it was that his head was wrapped in bandages, and dark glasses were covering his eyes. Whatever the reason he had to wear those bandages and dark glasses, even on a closed night, was beyond the level of what Jansen knew. He reminded Jansen of those old-timey invisible man movies, even by his last name.

    "Griffin. Shouldn''t you see the state of that thing?" Jansen asked, pointing with his chin at the building.

    "It''s not my area. I''m the tourist here, remember?"

    "Are you planning on scratching your balls for the whole week?"

    "What''s wrong with that? Particle science is not my forte," said the mysterious man, with a shrug and walked away, as he kicked a few rocks out of the way on his path towards the entrance of the building. "I''m kidding, of course I''m going to help, even though I hardly know anything about any of this."

    "What is your area?" Jansen asked, raising his voice.

    "I''m¡­ I was a rocket scientist," Griffin said, in a theatrical tone without turning around.

    Jansen watched him walk away and wondered what the hell the man was up to.

    Yes. Everyone had their orders. And whatever the function of the man called Griffin was, it was beyond Jansen''s understanding.

    In Jansen''s case, he was just a team leader of nine mercenaries who had a mission on the spot. Nothing else. All to check that everything was going as it should be on the outside. In case of unforeseen events, they had to stop anyone who dared to enter the city. To do this they had separated two other trucks, one equipped with the autonomous tactical assault mecha, which would be near the building, and fifty multifunctional droids with industrial work functions.

    The other truck had another team of one hundred droids with security functions. The security droids were the ones who would work with Jansen''s team, making sure that no one entered the city through any blind spots, through the abandoned buildings or through the surrounding streets.

    The other twenty synth people in the small truck were for the work to be carried out underground, along with the other fifty multifunctional droids.

    The man with the bandages was from the group that would go underground. They were scientists. There were engineers specializing in Von Neumann construction machines, particle specialists, a couple of chemists, two doctors, and three others were industrial mechanics.

    Whatever they were protecting must have been something huge.

    Almost all of the mercenaries were hired from BlackThunder, the mercenary company to which Jansen belonged. But that wasn''t all. Apparently there were three other PMC companies involved in the operation and they were scattered in two locations in France, Boneville and Seyssel. The third, and somewhat smaller, was on the Swiss side, in Geneva, near Lake Lemac.

    Whoever was paying for the whole operation must have been enormously wealthy to be able to afford the logistics of moving so many droid companies to such distant locations.

    As far as he knew, the scientists would be working in along with those at the other three points. But what was striking was that moving so many droids was only in case of emergency, and as a last resort. Precautions had been taken so that no one from the surrounding area would snoop around, but Jansen didn''t know what kind of measures had been taken so that during the time the mission lasted, people from nearby towns wouldn''t ask about what it was all about.

    He had heard rumors that NW mind-crackers had been hired to keep people passing by from approaching. But who knew if that was true.

    A couple of people, through their Neurowires, were lifting the side doors of the big trucks and from them began to descend the humanoid droids that divided into different teams, some marched towards the building, while others were divided and moved away to different parts of the city. Another group of at least twenty-five droids marched towards the remaining four trucks and began loading more equipment into the building.

    It''s going to take time to unload all that, Jansen thought worriedly.

    They only had a few hours to finish unloading and hide the vehicles in case any satellites detected the activity. The group of three soldiers who had left for the city had the task of setting up disruptors so that the satellite signal could not detect any sudden change in the energy of the place. The same should be happening at the other three points, where the operation was taking place.

    At that moment a metallic giant was waking up from one of the big trucks and Jansen turned to look at it.

    The huge autonomous assault mecha looked like it had just come out of the factory and its silver and blue color glowed in the light of the vehicles. It walked slowly to the unkempt garden surrounding the building and, sticking the hydraulic spear of one of its feet into the ground, adopted a kneeling posture and disappeared from sight, activating the optical camouflage.

    Jansen gave a few more orders, to get used to what was to be his routine for the next few days and walked towards the entrance of the building.

    To one side was the name of the building. Black letters on a yellowish wall that had surely once been white and without vines climbing around it. The huge letters welcoming the establishment were already corroded by the years, and a couple of them were fallen on the grass, but nevertheless, the name could still be read in the dark of the night.

    Centre Europ¨¦en d''¨¦tudes Nucl¨¦aires. LPCC

    "Lepton-Positron Computing Center," Jansen said to himself. "Seriously, what are these guys looking for?"

 Vol.3/ Chapter 4: The Uninvited

    Chapter Four

    The Uninvited

    March 15th, Thursday. 7PM. 125 S.A.

    Canton du Valais, Monthey, Switzerland.

    "It''s been three hours," Vanessa said, staring at the motionless fishing pole, stuck in the ground, and stifled a laugh looking at her boyfriend Adank.

    He was sliding a hand under her jacket and with his index finger was trying to poke her in the ribs. He had tickled her, but the truth is that the bastard''s fingers were cold as ice and it made her shiver. Adank blinked and stared at the girl sitting above him on the deck chair. He certainly liked having his girlfriend lying next to him, but for several minutes he felt that his legs had fallen asleep.

    "Maybe he scared the fish away with his face," said the other girl, Maggie, sitting near the campfire with her boyfriend, Norman.

    "Fish don''t work like your equations," Norman said.

    "Fuck you," Adank said, yawning.

    It was simply a campfire, something to eat, and beers. It was no special celebration, just a get-together as an excuse to have a good time and catch some fish. The four of them had been friends for years and took advantage of the reunion to tell anecdotes about how they were doing in their university studies, since they had not seen each other for months. Adank lived nearby as a child, and a relative had a weekend house nearby, so they decided to go to the place since he knew it.

    Still it seemed that the fishing venture was not going well.

    "Kiss me," Adank said to Vanessa. And he puffed out his lips, which seemed to her as if they were those of one of the fish he was trying to catch.

    "No, you stink of alcohol," Vanessa replied.

    "It doesn''t usually bother you," he said.

    "A beer maybe, not a whole pack. I don''t like beer breath."

    "I''m a bee¡­ bee breath," said Adank, drunkenly.

    The young couple was fairly close to the lake shore, Adank planted his fishing pole close enough to the water in case any fish took a bite. A couple of yards away rested the other three rods motionless.

    Norman and Maggie gave up after about an hour but Adank continued, and Vanessa accompanied him until about half an hour ago, where she also set up the rod and lay down beside him. The truth is that Adank had fond memories of the place, from when he was a little boy and his father, along with his grandfather, took him fishing there on several occasions.

    "What are you guys doing in there? Come on over here," Norman invited them, stoking the campfire with Maggie.

    "Maybe we should go, it''s getting late," Maggie said, checking the time on her Neurowire.

    "But we''ve barely, caught anything," Adank replied.

    "I don''t think they''re going to bite later either. And what were you hoping to catch anyway, a mermaid?"

    "Maybe I''d have better luck kissing one. A fey mermaid... who doesn''t care how many beers I have on me," Adank said, making a thoughtful face.

    "You''re not that lucky...mostly of them are really dangerous," laughed Vanessa.

    "Tactical mermaid," murmured Norman.

    "Oh, it bit! It bit!" Adank exclaimed, twisting his head at Norman. "It''s yours, you idiot!"

    Norman ran over, grabbed the rod and started reeling in the line and it was a big disappointment when he pulled out a small fish. "Tch. Damn, I thought it was a big one. I felt a strong tug."

    "Are you sure it''s safe to eat fish from this lake?" Maggie asked, sitting on a log near the campfire.

    "What''s wrong with it?" Adank asked.

    "This lake didn''t exist in the old era," she replied. "Who knows what''s down there."

    "It''s the same waters that flow from the Lemac, only this part has a different name though."

    "There''s a whole city under these waters, right?" Vanessa asked, getting up from the lounge chair, and Adank took the opportunity to stretch out. He felt that his body had fallen asleep from having the girl lying on top of him for so long.

    "More like a couple of cities. But they were evacuated before the war," Adank explained, yawning.

    "What about the enchanted lake then?" Maggie asked.

    "Bah¡­ just rumors," Norman replied.

    Vanessa watched the calm waters and how the darkness made it impossible to see more than a dozen meters from where they stood. But on the other side of the lake, the lights of the city of Ollon flickered like the stars in the firmament.

    Although she was warm, she could not suppress a shiver due to the cold breeze and turned on the night vision in her eyes to better see where she was walking. "I''ll be right back," she said walking away from the group.

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    "Where are you going?" Maggie asked.

    "I have to pee," she said, and turned to look at the two boys. "Neither one of you better turn on the night vision, or anything."

    "We all have it on. How do you think we''re going to see in the dark?"

    The girl sighed. She would have to get a few more yards away.

    After relieving herself she walked a little way, following the calm swell of the shore. She couldn''t deny that she liked the place despite the darkness and the fact that it was getting colder. She kicked a couple of rocks into the water and walked a couple more steps when she stumbled.

    Her foot had caught on something.

    "What the fuck?"

    She fell into the water, wet up to her knees and she cursed her luck. It was already too cold to get her clothes wet, and the pants she was wearing were not the self-drying kind either. She got up, getting her hands dirty in the mud, but when she tried to continue walking, she realized that her foot was once again caught in the weeds on the shore.

    No. It wasn''t that. Those were not weeds.

    Something really grabbed her left foot.

    She looked down and saw how something full of mud was attached to her foot. She tried to pull it off, and realized almost instantly that it wasn''t dirt from the lake or a plant.

    It was a hand.

    A bony, muddy hand with big knuckles, held her by the ankle.

    She let out a scream that alerted her friends and shook her leg free of the thing. That''s when she got a better look. An arm bony as the hand was rising from the lake, and soon she saw a head with long hair poking out of the water and the muck.

    "Guys, help!!!" Vanessa yelled.

    Her friends at the campfire, just fifty yards away, stood up and looked in her direction, alerted by the loud scream.

    "What''s wrong?!" Maggie shouted.

    "Come here! There''s something in the water!"

    The girl watched in terror as the thing was trying to pull itself up on two arms, but it seemed to have no strength and fell back into the muddy water face down.

    Her boyfriend, meanwhile, lulled by the sound of the water, and the beers, had started to fall asleep, when the other girl woke him up screaming.

    "Wake up!!!" she cried, the young girl in desperation.

    "Guys, I need help now! Come on!" Vanessa kept calling.

    "What''s wrong?!" Adank asked, not quite sure Vanessa was serious. After all she was the prankster of the group. "Maybe she found the mermaid," Adank laughed, thinking it was a joke.

    Maggie watched in the darkness as her friend raised her arms in desperation, calling out to them.

    "She needs you, right now! Get up!!!" Maggie shouted loudly.

    "I''m coming, I''m coming." Adank said drunkenly, trying to sit up as best he could.

    It was then that, despite the alcohol, he saw his girlfriend waving her arms from near the water.

    "Please help me!!!" shouted the girl, even louder.

    "Oh shit, something''s wrong with her." Adank said finally, rushing in her direction.

    In a matter of seconds the group reached the desperate young woman, but they didn''t understand at first what exactly they were seeing.

    "Come here, I can''t do it alone," Vanessa urged. She had gone into the water and was waist deep, now trying to pull something out.

    The group of three then realized.

    "Is that... a corpse?" Norman asked, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

    The girl was trying to drag a naked body covered in mud out of the water that seemed to be too heavy for her because of the muddy silt.

    "Let it go, are you nuts?! We have to call the police!" Adank exclaimed.

    "He''s not dead!" Vanessa said.

    "What?!"

    As if it was some kind of zombie the body shook and turned around spitting water.

    "What the heck!" Norman said and went in Vanessa''s direction.

    He was a very old man, with long white hair and a long beard, although at the time the color was barely discernible due to the dirt. His skin was so stuck to his bones that he might as well have passed for a mummy. The features of his face were gaunt, and he didn''t seem to have enough strength to even stand up. The difficulty in moving him was due to how muddy the area was.

    The group of youngsters tried to move him, carefully as they could, while the old man continued to spit water and black mud.

    "Somebody call an ambulance!" Vanessa exclaimed.

    "What ambulance? There''s no address here!" Adank replied.

    "Just send the location by NW!"

    "Sir, can you hear me?" Maggie asked.

    While the two girls took over, holding him by the arms, Norman took over the feet. Adank was too drunk to help with anything.

    The old man opened his eyes slightly and they could see that he had a white stare, with misty pupils. He was completely blind. Had he fallen into the water? If so, why was he naked?

    Vanessa, who was holding his left arm, soon felt a strong pull on her neck. With a strength that someone so malnourished and bony should not have, the old man had grabbed the collar of her coat and was saying something in a language the girl did not understand.

    "Sir! Can you hear me? What is your name?"

    The incoherent mumbling continued. Adank could hear it too, he wondered if because of the alcohol his Neurowire''s linguistic system might be failing. But they all heard the same thing.

    "Your name, can you tell us your name?" Maggie asked.

    The old man then softened his grip and spoke in some language that the Neurowire identified as understandable and stammered as he spit out water. "I-I can''t remember. w-where am I? w-who am I?"

    He had a deep voice, despite his weakness, almost sounding metallic in tone. And both girls with their night visions activated and, despite the dirt of the mud, saw that the man''s mouth showed perfect teeth. On the other hand Norman estimated that despite being in such a state the old man must have been quite tall and had bony knees.

    The group deposited him on the shore, away from the water, and Norman tried to get him to sit up, but the group was terrified when they saw him begin to convulse. Norman took it upon himself to try to keep his head still, amidst the tremors of the seizure.

    "Call an ambulance, dammit!" Maggie mumbled to Adank.

    What should have been a peaceful reunion had turned into something unexpected.

    Where had the old man who had ruined the evening come from?

    To Adank, despite his drunkenness, it seemed that he had seen something similar a long time ago, but he couldn''t remember exactly what it was about.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 5: What a strange world...

    Chapter Five

    1959

    What a strange world...

    September 2. 6 PM. 1959. Ancient Era.

    Honse Hotel. Little Yamato, New York.

    Ishida Yanagida spun his wife around, to the rhythm of the jazz playing in the living room, and smiled at her, and kissed her. The short-sleeved white dress Masako Yanagida was wearing at the time really complimented her porcelain skin.

    She was a young woman in her early twenties, a head shorter than her husband. She had a delicate appearance and honeyed dark brown eyes.

    One of the things she had done, a few days after arriving in New York, was to change her classic shoulder-length hairstyle, for a medium bob cut Sassoon, which had pleased her husband and certainly suited her graceful figure.

    He, on the other hand, was a young man of about twenty-three years old, of medium build, though rather thin. His eyes were black and his hair was slicked back with hair gel. He wore a diplomatic pinstripe suit of Italian cut. Which was kind of funny to him, considering that the business that brought him to New York was handling business to bugger the families of the Italian kingpins in the city.

    They were on the top floor of the Honse Hotel, a luxurious and incredibly spacious suite. In itself the entire interior of the hotel contrasted with the sober facade of the exterior. The suite was almost tastefully decorated in a 1920s style, with dark red upholstered walls. The large windows gave a clear view of the distant skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan''s Financial District.

    Ishida lamented that he could not stay at the already legendary Attraction Hotel, with its famous rounded silhouette ending in a star, designed by Gaudi in 1908 and completed in 1914, which was very close to the recently opened World Trade Center, which rivaled it in height. Nevertheless, the Attraction Hotel remained as the structure for which Manhattan was known throughout the world.

    Ishida visited it the same day he had arrived with his wife and would have liked to stay there but, since the place also hosted the bosses of some rival families, he had decided to stay in a more sober place that would not attract so much attention. But, either way, the hotel the young couple was staying in was not bad at all. It was one of the best in Little Yamato, and it suited their personal tastes.

    At that moment Ishida had moved some of the living room furniture to dance with his wife and give her a smile.

    "What''s gotten into you today? You''re crazy!" She said smiling.

    Ishida Yanagida was actually enjoying his "vacation" away from Japan, although it wasn''t a vacation at all. In fact, it was family business that brought him to the United States. His father had put him in charge of a large overseas operation, and that was a great honor for him at his young age of twenty-three. Considering that his father, Enryo Yanagida, had tried to keep him by his side until recently.

    Ishida, for his part, although he had great respect for tradition, could not deny that he was doing well in the West. His wife was having a hard time getting used to what would be their new home for a while, but he couldn''t deny that she was enjoying it too.

    "Where should we have dinner tonight?" Ishida asked.

    "Don''t you have any bills to see? With the concession issue of the financial hotels?"

    "We can see about that tomorrow. The Calzettis were the only ones who could bite us, and now with the investigation by the federals they''ve stopped all their operations."

    "There''s no other family that can take over the laundry business?"

    "No. I assure you the hotels are going to be the ones calling us when the mountains of laundry start piling up," he said, taking long dance steps around the room.

    "And what about the other accounts?"

    "Interested in that part of the business?"

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    "I''m just worried about you. What if they start looking into the family accounts?"

    "We have nothing serious here. It''s a clean business."

    "For now¡­"

    "Don''t be like that. We''re having a good time," he said, grimacing wearily.

    "I''m just worried you''re not being careful, these days you''re also spending a lot of time in the study, distracting yourself with the books you brought from home."

    "Ah, that has nothing to do with it. Those are my uncle Satou''s papers and his diary. It''s to remember him a little. I think it''s because as a child I never paid much attention to the things he said."

    "What did he say?"

    "It''s a lot of complicated theories. I can read you some passages if you want."

    "Maybe another day," she said and kissed him.

    Ishida really felt like a lucky man to have such a pretty wife. And added to the prospect that he had finally merited enough of her father''s confidence to involve him in the family business on a large scale, his happiness was as great as the warmth the sun had radiated that day. Quite a hot day for September.

    Because of the happiness of both of them, it could not but surprise them when it happened.

    They were both still doing random dance steps to the sound of Louis Armstrong''s "What a Wonderful World" when they went flying through the air a couple of meters.

    There was a wave of heat that filled the entire suite and the windows exploded, producing a shower of glass on the street of Third Avenue. The people below looked up for a moment and ran into the street at the falling glass.

    A man in ragged clothes, with long hair, and with an oversized instrument in a loaded case on his back, also had to run into the street, but continued to walk whistling, and without reacting like the others around him.

    The explosion was difficult to describe. There was no explosion like that produced by a bomb or grenade. It was a sound that resembled a buzzing sound that was unbearable for a split second and then a wave of heat.

    It came from the room Ishida used as a study. Papers flew out, along with a glare thousands of times stronger than that produced by a flash camera.

    Masako Yanagida flew off and landed on the sofa, which flipped over on impact, while Ishida landed against one of the columns that served as the room''s decoration, and knocked down one of the indoor ferns at the base.

    Masako thought for a moment that it might be due to some retaliation, from a group whose business was being harmed by the Yanagida Clan, but that made no sense at all.

    They both got up and there was a commotion in the room, and two of Ishida''s personal guards, dressed in dark suits, came in and, with revolver in hand, helped them to their feet. Ishida stared dumbfounded at the study door.

    A man had just come out, completely naked and with some smoke coming from his body. His black hair on the right side of his head was singed. He must have been in his late thirties or early forties and appeared to be in good physical condition. He had a piercing black-eyed gaze and a neat beard, but half of his moustache was burned off. His skin appeared to have a slight tan, that Ishida did not know whether to attribute to the explosion, or if he had been like this before. But he was not Japanese, he was Caucasian.

    The man took a few wobbly steps and staggered back to his feet.

    The situation was so bizarre that even Ishida''s guards didn''t quite know how to react to the sudden appearance.

    What the hell?

    Masako let out a shriek when she saw the man trying to go in her direction. Ishida pulled out a revolver from the back of his pants and pointed it at the man.

    "Don''t move! Who are you?" Ishida asked.

    "He''s a pervert!" Masako shrieked.

    The man finally sat up and looked around the room and saw that he was naked and grabbed a cushion from the floor to cover his groin. Ishida''s men tried to catch up with him, but the man jumped back and, using the furniture, tried to avoid them.

    "Please gentlemen. I mean no harm," the man said. "Can we talk like civilized people?"

    To any observer the scene could very well pass for some kind of bedroom comedy. With a naked man scurrying around the room trying to dodge the guards who were trying to catch up with him, while the woman kept shrieking from time to time, and her husband didn''t quite know what to make of all of it.

    The man finally went back inside the way he had come, and just looked out with half his head poking out, while three guns were pointed at him.

    "I''m not here to cause any harm! Please... Damn it! I thought I''d be in Japan."

    "Who are you?!" Ishida asked again. "What do you want?!"

    The man this time stuck a hand out the door and held out a dark stone.

    Ishida recognized it instantly. It was the stone he had brought with his uncle Satou''s papers. To anyone else it might pass for nothing more than a peculiar paperweight, but to him it was important.

    Uncle Satou, as he affectionately called him, had not been part of the family, but it was as if he had been. A friend of his grandfather, Kenji Yanagida, they had always remained friends, even though they had followed very different paths in their lives. A close enough friendship that Satou, before his death, caused by a cancer of strange origin, left in his grandfather''s possession many of the papers of his research in the field of physics, along with plans and ideas that never came to fruition.

    Ishida was not very good at it, but his uncle''s journal was always good reading for him, because it made him question things about the nature of the world. It was more than a book of hard science, a compendium of mathematics, plans of strange machines, mixed with his uncle''s often philosophical thoughts. Not to mention drawings of strange creatures of geometric appearance.

    Among the papers, Satou left many things, but he had left in special care two stones that he obtained in his childhood, and that had a special relationship with his diary and research. Ishida brought one along with his uncle''s writings, for perhaps there was some key to unraveling the mystery behind it.

    "Where is the other one?" asked the newly arrived exhibitionist.

    "What?"

    "Where is the other part? It''s safe, isn''t it?"

    What does this man mean? Ishida thought.

    The man leaned half his body out of the doorway, while with the other hand he was still holding the cushion over his genitals.

    "Who are you?"

    "Ishida Yanagida, right? Pleasure. I''m sorry this is the way we met... My name is Jack."

    "What do you want?" Ishida asked, without lowering his gun.

    "How about a whiskey and some underwear to start? A towel could work too. I have a lot to tell you Mr. Yanagida."

    Everyone in the room, with the exception of the quirky newcomer, looked at each other as if they didn''t believe the situation before their eyes.

    The last part of the song at that moment was the only sound that filled the room.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 6: The old-fey

    Chapter Six

    The old-fey

    March 16. Friday. 5AM. 225 S.A.

    Canton du Valais, Monthey General Hospital, Switzerland.

    Enfer and Ignis came through the hospital doors, throwing them wide open. Causing some of the nurses circulating at the time to startle at the sudden appearance.

    It was no wonder.

    Enfer was a rather thin-looking male fey, with pronounced cheekbones and a goatee almost as white as his eyebrows and skin. He appeared to suffer from some sort of albinism, which even made his eyes look like two flaming yellow pupils. He wore a dark-colored light overcoat, and a white T-shirt, with black pants and black loafers and covered his head with a woolen cap.

    From the lapel of his coat hung a badge, which had five stars engraved in high relief at the top. In the middle was a bearded lammergeier''s head, on what looked like a mountain range. On the lower part only one word could be read: Pyrene.

    Ignis, on the other hand, was a brown-skinned fey girl, with long ash-blond hair and yellow eyes, which seemed to flash with every glance. Her ears stood out because they were slightly longer than those of her companion. She wore a light blouse, with metal ornamented parts, with bracelets on her wrists and a metal shoulder pad on the left side, richly decorated with bas-reliefs. She wore black pants and shoes with metal parts also decorated. A badge, the same as Enfer''s, was fastened to her pants.

    They were both going fast, because they had been called hours before. And they would have arrived at the hospital sooner, except that Enfer wanted to talk to the witnesses as soon as possible.

    Three of them were still frightened, and the fourth had not been able to testify because he was under the influence of alcohol. So they had to settle for the testimony of the two young women and one boy, and later, when he was sober, they could talk to the other witness involved.

    The pair simply showed their badges at the reception desk and continued their journey, turning down one of the corridors towards an elevator, when they were stopped, by a white cylinder-shaped robot, with a semi-spherical head that smiled at them, projecting the smile on the photochromic film on its head.

    "Good morning. Where are you headed?"

    "Floor 5, ICU wing, room 4," Ignis said.

    "They''re expecting us," Enfer added.

    The robot checked their badges, and through its system entered the secret fractal code of the badge. Almost instantly he was able to corroborate their identities and stepped aside, as the smile appeared in his head again.

    "Have a good day, agents."

    The elevator disc whisked them up in less than a second, and the two passed like a wind down the 5th floor corridor, heading for the Intensive Care Unit.

    Ignis knocked softly on the glass door, drawing the attention of a doctor, who was talking to an Aesculapian-nurse type droid, in charge of intensive care. The doctor rushed to the door.

    "Agents," greeted the doctor, with dark circles under his eyes, and looking like he had been on call all night. "I''m glad you''ve come. I didn''t want to go home without first seeing you and seeing how you''re going to proceed."

    The two agents greeted him and he led them to a window that showed through to a secluded intensive care sector, which only seemed to have one patient at the moment.

    "Is that him?" Ignis asked.

    "Yes," the doctor nodded.

    "Those kids weren''t lying when they said he was really old," Enfer said.

    "It''s really a relief that you''ve arrived. I''m not quite sure how we can proceed with this patient. He got here at about eight o''clock at night, and the police have also been interested. Someone from the welfare sector came, but he''s not in their database either. We thought he was a CotW, but he''s not in the records either."

    Through the window of the room they could see a really old body, which at that moment seemed to be resting with assisted respiration, inside a medical glass capsule. He had white hair, as well as a long white beard. He was too thin and it seemed that even the hospital gown he was wearing was too big for him.

    "Is he having breathing trouble?" Enfer asked.

    "No. The assisted breathing is just a precautionary measure. When he arrived, we thought we had to clean his lungs, because he had mud from head to toe. But we were even more surprised when we ran a non-invasive diagnostic test and found no mud, or any other substance, clogging his lungs. Although that was not the weirdest thing... well I guess you know if you read the report..."

    "Can we take a closer look?" Ignis asked.

    "Yes," replied the doctor, ushering them into the room.

    Both Enfer and Ignis stood on either side of the capsule to better examine the old fey.

    "Wow," Enfer said, examining his ears. "How is that possible?"

    "Well, it''s not uncommon, but we haven''t seen an old fey show up in decades. At least that we know of," Ignis said, observing the old man''s hands with his thick knuckles.

    Here and there she could see that he had scar marks that blended into the wrinkles of the skin.

    The old man''s face was unremarkable, except for his wrinkles, but as far as Ignis could tell, he seemed to have certain Asian features. But he had a parchment-like skin that made it difficult to discern his age. He might have looked eighty years old, or perhaps a hundred years old in human time measures, though he was in a grim state. But if he was a fey that could change, although it certainly had been a long time since they had seen an old fey.

    One of the characteristics that the fey had, at least all those that possessed a humanoid form, was that for some reason they were always youthful in appearance, ranging from eight or ten years old, to around thirty or late-thirty years old, with a mature appearance. In fact, for feys with humanoid characteristics, this was the majority range, comprising at least 85% of all humanoid feys.

    There were too many theories as to why this could happen, and its connection to the Other Side. But the most accepted theory, was that originally the fey humanoids had been human first, before becoming fey. That could not be denied, because there was already proof of it. There were too many studies, and analyses, that could get to know where the human had come from, before becoming Fey.

    This was done by performing anthropological and anatomical studies, as well as blood analysis, bone density, isotopic studies, and a whole variety of other studies, that could determine with an accuracy of 80% where the human that became a fey had come from.

    The fey humanoids had been humans who, for some reason, had disappeared from the world. Their existence was completely erased, without leaving any trace behind. It was as if some strange DE mechanism rewrote a person''s timeline, and they disappeared completely without leaving anything behind. They disappeared from the memory of their relatives, acquaintances and friends. All the papers, ID, photographs that linked them to the world disappeared. Nothing remained.

    But the situation was different when they arrived. They came into the world with no memory of their previous life, nor where they had gone during all that time, and sometimes, some of them, came back with strange abilities.

    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    But where the memory had disappeared, science intervened, and thanks to that it could be determined quite accurately where the human had lived before becoming a fey. Although, beyond that, there were other problems, such as that there were almost always strange cases, where there were studies that determined that there were lapses of hundreds of years, or that others had not even been born.

    Even if a fey was found that seemed to come from a period of time of a few years, or a few tens of years, it did not mean that it could return to its family or relatives. The process of forgetting went in both directions. Even if a fey could be related to a certain family by blood, no one would remember it, and the fey in question would not remember that once belonged to a certain family either.

    Different was the question for the Chaos children, pseudofeys or the so called H-fey, who were basically born from unions of feys and humans, but who acquired immortality at a certain age, that could enter in the same range that had stopped the age of their human parent before transforming into fey.

    Beyond that, old-looking fey were a rarity and not common at all. That was the reason the case had come to their attention, and Pyrene''s operations desk had sent two of their agents to take over the case.

    Pyrene, an organization with jurisdiction over five European Union countries for the investigation of DEs, had agents in close contact with Euro-pol. This was the reason that Euro-pol almost immediately alerted the nearest Station to where the event had occurred.

    "So he really is a fey?" sighed the doctor.

    "Well at least he looks like one, although his ears are a bit smaller than usual," Enfer pointed out.

    "Have you been unable to carry out any kind of internal study?" Ignis wondered.

    "Only non-invasive with the scans. We really freaked out when we tried to draw blood and the extractor couldn''t pass through his skin. We even tried with needles, but it didn''t work, they broke when we tried to pierce the skin. Somehow the dermis hardens when we try to penetrate it. We couldn''t even put a catheter in."

    "He hasn''t voided?"

    "No. We haven''t been able to give him IV fluids either. We''ve been hydrating him orally a little bit when he came in, but now..."

    "What time did he go into coma?"

    "Around dawn," the doctor stated.

    Ignis looked at Enfer and snorted, putting her hands to her hips. "What do we do?"

    "We have no way to treat him, if we can''t get a more detailed analysis," the doctor explained.

    "What does the scan analysis say?"

    "Despite being in a coma, he has great brain activity, which may be why he fell into a coma. His entire brain looks like a Christmas tree. And of course there is this¡­this is what made us doubt whether we were dealing with a fey or some kind of metahuman mutation or maybe even a magician."

    The doctor typed a few commands on the surface of the capsule, and a hologram of the old man''s entire body popped up, where through the skin could be seen his organs and skeleton. "This is what scared us the most."

    Ignis and Enfer looked confused for a moment, but he had already won their interest.

    "What is this old man?" Ignis asked.

    "That''s what we wondered when we saw his organs and skeleton. We have treatments for over 156 different types of fey, we even have a veterinary wing for fey animals and try a few... but this is the first time we''ve seen it."

    "This old man..." Ignis began.

    "...He has no fey core in his heart," Enfer finished, looking astonished.

    "We tried to look for it elsewhere but, sure enough. There is no core. Not to mention the organs and what about the skeleton?"

    The hologram showed an anatomy that was human-shaped, but the organs, to a greater or lesser extent, seemed to differ quite a bit from those of the usual humans and fey humanoids. Perhaps it was an abnormal type, but the fact that it had no core really caught their attention.

    That was another feature that differentiated the feys. All of them possessed a core near their heart, or at least almost all of them, which like the Fractus had organic and fractal characteristics, with a system of tendrils that used to coil around the heart. It was not the same fractal structure that was usually found in the lungs, nervous system, neuronal or coronary system, which is naturally present in all living beings.

    The composition was something that remained a mystery because, although studies had been carried out, as soon as one wanted to study it in depth, it became fused with the coronary system of the heart, and did not pass as anything more than an anomalous structure in the heart. Once it was no longer studied, the structure changed again, exhibiting a nucleus shape that could vary in its structure, although it often seemed to keep certain polyhedric geometrical patterns. It had been given the name, somewhat jokingly, of the shy organ, since it seemed to hide when it was studied.

    So the old man was much rarer because, although it was not possible to make detailed studies of the cores of the fey, it was possible with other methods to determine their shape and structure. But one that was not present even with such non-invasive studies was very rare.

    His skeleton was different as well. The femurs seemed to have a different type of structure while the shoulder blades had a different shape as well. The spine also appeared to have a series of tiny protrusions that extended a few inches into the inner part of the body. It must be an abnormal fey type, although they could not be sure if he had any ability or not.

    The doctor touched the head part of the hologram, and then expanded that part, and another part of the arm bones, until he enlarged them to a size almost as if he had put the bone under an electronic microscope. "See those notches in the bone? At first we thought it might be some kind of degenerative bone disease. But they are not localized to any one part of the body. They are all over the body and, from what you can see, it''s as if they were produced by some kind of structure that at some point was attached to the bone."

    "At some point?"

    "Yes because we don''t see residue of any kind now. It''s as if every bone had some layer of some material that caused those nicks at some point, but whatever it was it''s not present at the moment. It''s a shame we can''t do a biopsy to find out what''s going on."

    "What''s that on the back?" Ignis asked. In the lower part of the hologram there was a darker portion in the lumbar area.

    "The scan detects it as bruising. Apparently he has poor circulation in that part."

    "The kids told us he couldn''t move, and they couldn''t get him to stand up. He has reflex on the legs?"

    "Minimal, from what we''ve been able to observe."

    "They also said he''s blind. Is that true?"

    "Yes, apparently he''s been blind since birth, has complete pupillary discoloration, compatible with congenital cataract."

    "Blind, with limited mobility, and fey..." Ignis sighed.

    The three looked at the capsule not quite sure what to say.

    "Strange fey indeed," Enfer snorted, "but no stranger than others we''ve already observed."

    "You people haven''t detected him?"

    "I started running the recon program as soon as I entered the room and no. It''s not in the Pyrene database, or any of the known agencies."

    "Our satellites haven''t detected any MAP emissions where he appeared either," Ignis continued.

    "So is it possible that he has been hidden all this time?" the doctor asked.

    "We don''t know. We are collaborating with local forces to get more information, but so far nothing has come up. There are no reports of him in any agency."

    "If he really is a fey, it''s like it''s a bad joke,¡± the doctor said in a heavy tone ¡°I mean what kind of immortality can have someone who is transformed into a fey with such a weak body?"

    "We don''t know if he''s weak or not yet," Enfer admitted.

    "You people have the authority now. I don''t know what you want to do," the doctor said.

    Enfer pursed his lips into a grimace and looked at his companion. "Shall we move him?"

    "I think it would be best," Ingis said. "We have a near facility on the French side, where they can study him and maybe help him if he regains consciousness."

    The doctor seemed genuinely relieved, even though he didn''t say anything.

    "Do you think we can move him upstairs, to the air-port for transfer? We''ll return the capsule when we switch him to one of ours," Enfer suggested.

    "Sure. No problem," nodded the doctor.

    He continued to inform them of the little they had learned from the studies, and that if he regained consciousness they would have to send a report to the hospital as well. There was a possibility that the old man might become a new discovery, and for the doctor it was a case worth keeping an eye on as it developed. He didn''t like having to leave patients like that, but given the circumstances he had no choice but to leave the task to Pyrene, who had more experience dealing with feys. If the two agents had delayed it was likely that someone from Nevermore would have arrived and it would have turned into a jurisdictional nightmare, so the doctor was glad at that point that everything had gone smoothly.

    Filling out all the forms and preparing for the transfer took no more than twenty minutes, while two droids took care of carrying the old man in the capsule another fifteen floors up to the roof, where they waited for Pyrene''s transfer ship, a light Delta-TAB.

    The ship did not take long. Both of them were already worrying about what could happen and they called for the transfer beforehand. At least until they were sure that the old man had not regained consciousness, and gave no explanation as to where he had come from, they would have to move him to be cared for in better facilities suitable for feys.

    A fey of unknown origin and without a core should bring new possibilities that had not been contemplated in the already vast medical and biological encyclopedias concerning feys and their different types.

    Enfer watched as two of Pyrene''s medical staff loaded the capsule into the ship and prepared to leave for the Grenoble station on the French side, where they had better medical equipment for feys. He and Ignis would have to stay behind, to go to the police and fill out more forms in person for the transfer of jurisdiction, as well as make further inquiries in the area, to see if no one had seen the old man before.

    "You''ve got to hand it to that doctor, he was right," Ignis said, arms folded as she watched the ship soar through the skies.

    "About what?"

    "What kind of son of a bitch universe grants you something like immortality with a body so old and with so many problems?"

    "Yeah, well. It''s not like we have a choice as to whether we want an ability or not when we come back to earth."

    "Have you ever thought that we do?"

    "What? if we had a choice?"

    "Well, none of us remember anything about the Other Side. Have you ever wondered what would happen if we actually chose the Other Side, and our mind is wiped when we cross over?"

    "Well... if that''s the case, I must tell you that my ability is really useful in winter," Enfer said and took off his cap.

    The moment he lifted the cloth from his head his entire head burst into flames. His hair was fire.

    Enfer ran his hands over his head, without burning as if he was scratching his flaming scalp.

    "Too bad I don''t have any sausages now."

    "My head''s not for cooking your breakfast¡­"

    "You said it yourself, it''s useful," Ignis said smiling.

    "Fuck you," Enfer said, pulling out a cigarette which, when he put it in his mouth, ignited on its own as if by magic.

    Just a few meters away the hospital nurse droids looked at him as if at any moment they were going to throw him off the roof.

    The no smoking sign was only a few meters away from him.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 7: Over The Clouds

    Chapter Seven

    Over The Clouds

    March 18, Sunday. 125 S.A.

    United Kingdom Airspace.

    Rumenia Ruzicka, also known as Rum, leaned over the security railing, looked down and took a sip of her coffee.

    She was a human girl of young appearance, who liked to dress monochromatically and, in her attire at least when she was not working, the color black predominated.

    She had slightly wavy black hair. Her pale skin stood out against her dark attire. The only color on her face was her light brown eyes and freckles on her cheeks, that seemed to give her face a blush that was not really there.

    "Why don''t you look?" she asked, turning around and smiling innocently.

    Some meters away from her Michael Levin, also known as Stan, looked at her with a blank stare, sitting on one of the deck benches. He had a slight pallor on his face, as if at any moment he was going to puke loudly and pointedly enough to shoot down one of the birds fluttering around the flying ferry.

    Stan had a tougher look than his partner. He had dark eyes, prominent cheekbones and blond hair. Although, at that moment, it seemed as if the color in his face had disappeared due to the discomfort he felt.

    He didn''t like the ferry, or any kind of transportation that had a certain reminiscence of a boat.

    They slept for a couple of hours during the early hours of the morning, while they put the vehicle in automatic gear and headed to Glasgow. From there, they left the vehicle, changed to casual clothes, and taken the first transport that could get them out of the country. They would have preferred to go directly south, but they could not get passage faster than the second morning ferry to Northern Ireland.

    Passage on the ship was rather scarce, and most of the people were on the floor below them, so they had the deck all to themselves.

    For Rum, the view of the Firth of Clyde pleased her. They were barely traveling above the sparse morning low clouds, and the Orbital Belt appeared blurred to the south, since at that hour it had changed from polar to equatorial orbit, so they could see the sky clear from east to west.

    In Stan''s case, although he felt sick from the altitude and vertigo, he was trying to dress his partner in crime in different virtual outfits secretly through his Neurowire. He was watching her in a classic bunny outfit at the time, when a new movement of the ferry reminded him that he was just over 3000 meters off the ground.

    "Ugh¡­"

    "If you''re feeling that bad, let''s go below, at least with people around you won''t notice we''re in the air."

    "No. No need. I need air."

    "I guess we''re not the only ones," Rum said, looking to the far side of the stern.

    Stan looked to the same side and then noticed.

    There was a man standing with his back turned, hands in his pockets, facing east. He appeared to be quite tall, with blond hair, combed in a quiff style. He was wearing white pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and flip-flops completed his portrait. It wouldn''t have been unusual in any other month of the summer, except that it was still March and at an altitude of ten thousand feet. It didn''t matter how they looked at it, it was weird. Or maybe he had enough enhancements in his body not to feel the cold at that altitude.

    Rum and Stan looked at each other and she shrugged as all response.

    Stan looked away and sank further into the bench. He put his hands on the leather jacket and there he found the only reason he felt it was worth being aboard the ferry.

    He fumbled with the small cube between his fingers. Rum saw the movement in the pockets and smiled. "Don''t wear it out from touching it so much," she said and walked over to sit on the bench next to him.

    The cube. A fortune in their hands, but also a problem.

    "How are we supposed to change that thing?" she asked.

    "We have to find a safe way to sell it without getting thrown into Dragon''s Peak," Stan admitted grimly, and deactivated the augmented reality he was dressing Rum with.

    "Yeah... the problem is finding a buyer rich enough. We can''t sell it to a government and say we found it."

    "We could... but they wouldn''t pay us its real price."

    They both looked at each other, pursed their lips and sighed wearily. The truth was that it could be months before they could find someone interested enough.

    The Edinburgh job. Stealing the identities of two MCITHQ forensic technicians. Then stealing a body from the crime scene and transporting it to the abandoned pier, where the delivery was to take place. The payment for the job had been a fractus cube that was worth a fortune on the market because it was so high-end.

    During the time of payment they had been so surprised that, as a means of payment, the stranger had offered a cube, that they never worried about the real problem that constituted. How they were going to get a buyer. No matter how they looked at it, they had a fortune on their hands, but for the moment they had no way of getting it, also there was a high possibility that others might want to finish them off for it. And they would have to be careful to find a buyer.

    Why did the guy offer something so valuable in payment for a corpse that wasn''t even complete to begin with? Rum thought.

    Rum, remembering the strange fey that accompanied him, couldn''t help but shiver again, not to mention that some of the man''s parting words echoed in her ears. Undoubtedly that job had been one of the strangest in a long time.

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    They continued to argue for a few moments. Long enough for Stan to forget about his nausea, and they were so engrossed in their conversation, that they didn''t notice when the strange man who had been standing a few seconds ago in the stern, was now leaning against the deck railing in front of them with a ridiculous smile on his face that seemed to come out of nowhere. He wore dark, thin-rimmed glasses on his aquiline nose and looked at them without any discretion.

    "..." Stan and Rum looked at him in silence, and wondered how much of the conversation they had been having was overheard.

    After a few awkward seconds, Rum could no longer contain herself. "Excuse me, can I help you?" she asked in a polite tone, that didn''t disguise her anger at being scanned by the eyes of the strange individual.

    "We were having a private conversation," Stan said, in a less polite tone. There was something strange about the man that he almost didn''t understand.

    "Oh, yes. My apologies," the man said, in a soft tone. "I suppose discussing something as valuable as a fractus core, which value you can''t just advertise on the market, is a rather delicate subject. Isn''t it?"

    Rum''s smile disappeared and Stan stiffened his gesture. They didn''t need to look at each other. They already knew each other well enough, to know what the other would do in such a situation. They had left the usual weapons unarmed, compressed in the bracelets, in the meager luggage they were carrying, but they had two much more discreet polymer weapons in case something went wrong.

    They drew the guns quickly, and pointed them at the head of the man. The man smiled and did not flinch in the first moment at the presence of the guns, although he did move quickly for something else. Stan, when he drew his gun so quickly, did not notice that something else escaped from his jacket and rolled onto the deck.

    As if he were some sort of ninja acrobat, the man bent down and kicked the priceless cube. It bounced off one of the other walls behind Stan, traced an arc over their heads and the man caught it between two of his fingers as he sat up. Rum blinked in confusion at the strange movement, but it was too late, the man had moved between them like a lightning bolt, and the next second the weapons had disappeared from both of their hands.

    "Miss Ruzicka, Mr. Levin, please," the man said, without losing his friendly tone, while examining the strange cube. "I simply wish to converse. I have something to offer you, in exchange for your services."

    Stan, with his mouth ajar, watched as the stranger played with the cube between his fingers. "We''re out of business. We retired... a few hours ago."

    "I still haven''t told you what I''m offering."

    In less than twenty-four hours already two people had called our names.

    We''ve gotten careless, Rum thought. "How do you know who we are?"

    "I have ears in many places¡­ for a long time. Information is much more valuable than money... if you know how... rather when it should be handled." The man held out his hand and offered the two small pistols. "They wouldn''t do anything to me either way."

    Stan and Rum took them carefully and wordlessly.

    "You''re not human... Aeon? Thelepath?" Stan guessed. He had already ruled out that he was a fey due to the absence of pointed ears, or any other abnormal features beyond his odd appearance. Although the issue of the ears was not one hundred percent certain, because it could be that he was wearing some form of camouflage.

    "Not exactly. But, for conversation''s sake, you can say am I a aeon. You can call me Janus. On the other hand... I don''t think I''m the only one who isn''t exactly human. Right, Mr. Levin?" Janus walked between them and pointed to the deck benches.

    They had no choice. He had already shown them that he could be faster and, more worrisome, he could put their identities in the hands of who knows who. He had already made it clear that information was his business. If it wasn''t an Aeon it could be an artificial intelligence excommunicated from the Hive Mind for some crime. In case it was a thelepath it could be even more dangerous for them.

    They both put away their weapons and sat down in front of their host, who kept moving the cube amusingly between his fingers. "Your exposure to an DE is what caused you to acquire that metamorphic shapeshifter ability, right? At least in your body, I mean." Janus asked Stan.

    "What''s the point? If you already know everything about me, then you must have read all the reports," Stan said, annoyed.

    "Oh yes, but to be frank with you, I''m not really interested in who you are. What I am interested in is what you can do for me right now. Which, believe me, would bring you a lot of benefit," Janus said with a fancy car salesman''s smile.

    Stan frowned at that statement. His files were sealed, if the man could access them it meant he really wasn''t kidding when he said his job was information.

    "We already said we''re retired," Rum said.

    "I don''t think you''ll be able to retire until you get a buyer for this object. I don''t deny that it would be of great interest to certain governments or agencies, clandestine or otherwise. But the problem is, you need to get the money, so you can consider yourself out of the game for good."

    "¡­"

    "What I want to offer you is to pay what this little fellow costs," Janus said, as he passed the small cube between his fingers.

    Stan and Rum looked at each other sideways. The whole thing smelled very bad. It was too much of a coincidence that a buyer appeared out of nowhere, only a few hours after the payment had been delivered.

    Janus smiled and threw the cube at Rum. She caught it with one hand and put it in her jacket. But that had already interested her.

    "How much are you offering?"

    "Enough to buy a small planet or live a life of luxury anywhere in the Solar System."

    "How much are we talking about?" Stan asked.

    "Enough¡­ money is not a problem for me," Janus said and took off his glasses, revealing dark eyes whose look was totally different from the smile on his lips. "If I had wanted the cube, I would have simply thrown both of you overboard and kept it. The money is not the issue here. It''s the service you can do for me."

    "...What do you need?"

    "Not just a what... but rather a what, and whom," Janus said and, making a few motions with his right hand, sent two images to the Neurowires of the two rogues, followed by a strange schematic of what appeared to be some kind of strange camera or machine.

    They both examined the pictures and frowned.

    "Is this a joke?" Rum asked.

    "No. I need you on a certain day, at a certain time, to abduct these two individuals, to transport them to another location where someone else will be waiting for them."

    "Alive... I guess? We are not assassins."

    "Yes, alive."

    "She''s a raven!" Stan said, incredulously.

    "Shouldn''t be a problem once you disable her Neurowire. Ah! But, first I need the machine in the schematic. It''s the first thing I need before people. In fact you can accomplish the objective of the machine and the first individual in the same place."

    "You want these two people, the machine, and in exchange you would buy the cube from us?" Rum asked hesitantly.

    "That would be it. It''s very simple."

    "Who is the man?"

    "No one... here and yet, but it was someone important."

    "What do you mean?" Stan asked.

    "Time... it''s a strange thing," said Janus, smiling and putting his glasses back on. "Do you want more details?"

 Vol.3/ Chapter 8: Together

    Chapter Eight

    Together

    The two feys had been engaged in a long discussion.

    Mai, Head of Special Operations and special agent, and Tony, Deputy Director of Special Operations, had been discussing the pertinent issues of the day.

    [Those bastards,] Mai snorted, a bit grumpy.

    [Well you can''t do anything about them. You know what they''re like,] Tony said, smiling slightly, and shrugged his shoulders.

    Tony''s office was quite spacious and had modern office furniture with glass partitions, giving the impression that some objects were just floating in the air. Like the huge desk, whose visible part was only the top, or the red armchairs whose glass legs blended in with the black marble floor. On both sides of the office there were some libraries with old volumes and shelves with different objects, mostly related to the Haitian culture, where Tony was from.

    Mai was sitting in one of the armchairs. They were discussing some daily issues of other agents'' missions, when Tony gave her some unexpected news regarding Mai''s custom weapon. Beyond that, Mai was not present on Siren Island, which was where Tony was. It was simply a connection through the Neurowire to discuss some issues. The whole office environment was simply projected in the mind of the fey girl with long silver hair.

    [The last time I needed Azusa I was in the middle of a mission, and they almost asked to pee in a cup before send her to me,] Mai continued to rant.

    [Well with what happened at the lake they want to make sure you can use her when you need it. Deliver the replica to someone at the French Base and receive Azusa.] Tony smiled. [Liz has it, it was delivered to her last night.]

    [I thought so,] Mai sighed, and her ahoge moved from side to side..

    [There was also an attack at Pyrene''s Grenoble Station in the early hours of the morning. Pyrene personnel are on repair work because of the assault,] Tony said.

    Mai frowned and looked at him as if she had misheard. [What?! Why didn''t anyone notify us? What happened?]

    [They captured the two Vatican criminals, but a few hours later they were released during the attack on the Station.]

    [How could that happen?]

    [Apparently it was all done by a group of assault droids and TB-bugs, but most of the chaos was caused by one person.]

    [Did anyone died?] Mai asked.

    [No, thankfully. But the damage to the infrastructure was extensive.]

    [Did we send some support?]

    [I already took care of that, Leign sent an FRT group to help with the issue.]

    Suddenly she felt something gently touching her cheek. Tony could see how the girl''s cheek sunk as if an invisible finger was pressing against it.

    [I think we''re arriving.]

    [Get over there.]

    [Are you coming tomorrow?]

    [And leave who in charge here? We have diplomatic visitors from Ghana. Send my congratulations in advance to Shin and Liz for me. I''ll send them a message tomorrow too.]

    [I will. Good luck. Let me know if you need me for anything. Especially with what is happening at the Vatican and Grenoble. Let me know if Van finds anything new.]

    [You take care of the reception tomorrow. It''s a special occasion for the three of you, I will take care in case something new happens in the Vatican.]

    [Thank you,] Mai said. [Disconnect.]

    ***

    March 20, Tuesday. 10AM. 125 S.A.

    Nevermore Base No. 2 in French Territory

    Pic de Gr¨¨zes, Languedoc-Roussillon. France.

    Tony''s office lost consistency, as if each of the objects were disappearing one by one, until the whole scenario disappeared from her mind and everything was black for a moment.

    As she opened her emerald green eyes the first thing Mai heard was Carissia''s voice from the cockpit.

    "Shin, put on your seatbelt, don''t make me kick your ass!"

    Mai was in the seats on the side, inside a spacious ship that contained several secured cargo containers.

    The ship was one of the Corven-21 series, characterized to be used for transporting high-ranking personnel in Nevermore, although due to its ample size it could even be used to carry heavy transport and even had an attractor device based on the Chaos Dynamics system to lift cargo from the ground, without the need to land. Although that was not what mattered to Mai at the moment.

    Diving deep into Another Earth or having a deep-dive conversation was a lot like falling asleep. And the truth was, she had almost been talking to Tony for an hour. She felt a napkin being swiped across her mouth.

    "You were drooling," the fey man said, smiling at her. His hair was slightly messy and blue-black in color. The part of his hair at the nape of his neck was tied in a ponytail that reached almost to his waist.

    Shin was standing next to her. He was the one who had stung her cheek. He was dressed simply in a T-shirt, dark pants and boots.

    Mai, on the other hand, because she had had to say goodbye to the Kazakhstan authorities in a formal manner, because of what had happened in Kolsay, was dressed in a dark blouse, a short white jacket, that matched her pants of the same color, and high heels. She had tied her long hair up in a high ponytail, leaving aside the long braid she had been wearing for the past few days. In the long ponytail could be seen a series of dark blue locks that contrasted with the rest of the long silver hair.

    Both of them looked really different in some ways beyond height. Mai was a short fey girl, with a delicate appearance, while Shin was almost two meters tall and athletically built. But even though they were both feys of different types, they were both partners, field agents and also something more than that.

    Field agents, partners, boss and subordinate, prot¨¦g¨¦ and protector, friends, lovers and confidants, and both had learned in the last few years and months how to trust each other''s back no matter the danger. Months in the physical world, but years in the world of shared dreams.

    Even when they both knew they were hiding things from each other, that was a different matter.

    Shin hated lying to her, but he had to. Mai hated lies even more, but she couldn''t claim to be honest about everything either. They both loved each other and could trust each other''s backs. Even if the universe conspired to keep them from telling each other some things.

    But there was something else that made the relationship special. Mai and Shin were not the only ones in the relationship. It was a three-person relationship for the moment. A m¨¦nage ¨¤ trois.

    Now, in France, the three of them would finally be together and they were confident that everything would work out.

    "What happened? Are we arriving?"

    "Yep," he nodded, as he fastened his seat belt.

    Mai looked into Shin''s heterochromic eyes. It was the first time she had seen Shin look a little tired in all the time they had been together. He had vision in his left eye, which was yellow, but his right eye was pale blue. Yet she could detect slight signs of tiredness in both of them.

    They had left early from the Astana Base for France, but they had rested enough the night before. Beyond the paperwork, and countless repeated questions about what had happened at the lake, the truth was that it was not so bad that they were tired. However, since the night the meteorite core flew away, Shin had seemed a bit distracted and tired. It probably wouldn''t make any difference to others, but she had been with him for so many months that she could tell there was something strange.

    "Are you ok?" Mai asked.

    "Yep, don''t worry." Shin said, smiling at her.

    "Camila is at the base. I''ll have her check you out."

    "That''s not necessary."

    "It''s the reason she came from the island so, you suck it up," she told him, as she checked her seat belt. She hadn''t taken it off the whole trip, due to the fact that she''d been plugged in the whole time talking to Tony.

    "You''re too cautious."

    "And you don''t. Your head was crushed, and you were underwater for hours."

    "And you fought giant invisible deer and a monster made of mushrooms. We''re even."

    "My head was not crushed," Mai repeated, looking at him with a mixture of anger and concern.

    "I think I told you, that I was once pulverized by a turbine, right? That time it took ten years for my body to regenerate. I woke up in the Indian Ocean," Shin explained, as he pulled out his automatic translator from his pants pocket and put it to his right ear.

    The very mention of it gave Mai a shiver, "Yeah, Liz told me that too. But you''re still going to get checked out. Maybe someone put a whammy on you, when you were unconscious underwater."

    "...You''re going to have to explain to me the scientific definition of the whammy," Shin said worriedly.

    "I mean, there was someone there that we couldn''t detect."

    Shin''s expression became slightly serious.

    The finding, which Hinata and Nikolai had made, certainly made him uneasy, but he didn''t know what to make of it.

    He remembered that, at the moment before crossing to the other side of the forest, he had felt a watching presence but, with what happened afterwards, he judged that it was the fungus with the filaments.

    The two silhouettes that had been discovered had changed that.

    Although, the night before all the radiation discovered by Hinata had already disappeared from the scene and with it the last clue to find out the mysterious identity of who had been with them there. What could have been taken from the tree before their arrival was another issue that worried him, but it would do little good to worry Mai, who was already worried because the amount of work and because he was feeling a little tired.

    The latter did not worry him too much, and Shin simply judged that in a few days he would be fine.

    There was the issue that he had lied to her about the fight at the lake, but he knew he couldn''t tell her even if he wanted to. Mai knew about it, although she could do nothing about it.

    "Don''t worry, I''ll be fine," Shin said, trying to smile at her.

    "We''re here," Carissia announced.

    The ship landed so softly that neither of them realized at what point they had touched down. Shin erased the worries from his mind and simply unbuckled his seat belt. The cargo side opened and they both walked down the ramp, accompanied by Carissia.

    The pilot, a redhead with pigtails and blue eyes, in her tight-fitting suit, was almost Mai''s personal pilot when it came to taking her to places for official visits. Aside from the fact that Mai and Shin often simply used Mai''s car to move between countries investigating cases, when the situation called for it, Carissia would go to the location to pick them up to take them somewhere that required Mai''s immediate presence. Because Mai was not only a special agent in the field, she was also the Head of Operations for the Nevermore Institute''s Special Investigation Division.

    Carissia was not just a pilot either, for if she was not required to be on the ground, she would most likely be in orbit in her personal Orbital Knight''s Station waiting. A giant mech ready to arrive in case Mai needed support. Although, due to what happened in the lake, there had been some unforeseen events with the huge robot and it had been transported the day before.

    The sunlight blinded Shin for a moment. Inside the plane it was not dark, but he was certainly having a heightened sensitivity to light as well. Still his one eye quickly became accustomed to the vision.

    The station was at the foot of a small hill surrounded by a small forest and a little more than one kilometer away, the buildings of a nearby city could be seen. Inside the base perimeter everything was fenced off and, in the distance, Shin could see how some soldiers were guarding the fence, and some canine looking droids were also prowling around the place.

    The security standards were what one would expect from the place, even if the city was too near.

    The Languedoc base was Nevermore''s base number two in the French territory. Although it was known for not being very active, like the number one station located on the outskirts of Paris, the truth is that it was huge. The main building was a gigantic block with logistics, hangar and mechanical functions of more than 100 meters high by 300 meters long and 100 meters wide, and the site also had three runways for deployment and landing of ships. In the closest part to the runways there was also an automated control tower. The place had more than a hundred humans and, some dozens of feys and aeons working on tuning vehicles, robots and other equipment that usually arrived destroyed.

    At the same time the station had another fifty soldiers from the French army who, along with another twenty Nevermore security agents, served to guard the place, not counting the security droids.

    It also had dedicated logistics personnel, medical wings, recreation and rest areas for rotating personnel. Many special field agents, who were in the vicinity investigating a case, could simply stay overnight at the station and the next day continue their work until the investigation was completed.

    This was not unusual, as the station''s logistics division could deploy agents who were in the vicinity or passing by to investigate something. The same was true of all the stations around the globe. The connection between the different stations served as a mastermind to watch for a Dark Event to develop and send the nearest agents to investigate.

    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    It didn''t matter if it was a sighting of some strange creature, or something more ridiculous. If the artificial intelligences ruled out that it was a mistake, the agents had to investigate.

    However, the only agents on the station at the time were on other business and it was a normal working day for the repair shop personnel.

    Shin watched as the ship alone began to move across the runway in some unknown direction. Surely there was another facility nearby where ships and other large vehicles were kept.

    One detail that caught Shin''s attention was that on one side of the huge doors of the building was painted the Nevermore raven logo but also, in a larger size, was a wolf''s head. He had already read about that. Apparently Nevermore''s base No. 2 had the name La B¨ºte du G¨¦vaudan, and it was related to an ancient legend about a creature that had terrorized the place hundreds of years ago. Many legends related the creature to a large wolf that claimed several victims in the area. Apparently at some point the nearby towns had adopted the nickname to refer to the base, and the base commanders had adopted it willingly.

    They entered the huge hangar building and inside Shin observed how there was activity everywhere between the different modular parts.

    The place was full of movement here and there. Between small ships, vehicles, offices, modular rigging platforms. For a control station, and machine shop, it looked more like a military base, with a giant hangar. In some parts, hung some huge screens, attached to platforms that gave news from various parts of the world and another projected geological, or atmospheric data provided by the Constellation System of Nevermore. Other screens also projected news from various planets of the Solar System, along with the news of the day in Earth. Apparently nothing bad was happening, or if it was happening it was not being covered.

    Although Shin could not continue to admire the activity of the place for long. The vision in his one eye twitched, and the next moment he was looking at the hangar roof, where some mechanical cranes were moving. The same thing happened with Mai.

    And then they saw her.

    They had both been knocked to the ground, and on top of them was a girl with hair as long as Mai''s but straight and blonde and tied in a ponytail.

    "Liz!" Mai said.

    Lizbeth Londonderry showed a fangy smile and hugged them both.

    "I wanted to see you two!" She said and sunk her face into Mai''s chest, breathing into the slit of her blouse, which tickled Mai.

    "Stop it! Not here!" Mai said, blushing.

    "You smell so good," sighed Lizbeth, sniffing at Mai''s chest, who was trying to get out of Lizbeth''s sudden embrace.

    She wouldn''t have minded in a different situation, but she felt that some of the activity in the place had stopped to look at them. While Mai''s presence there was important, the people at the base did not necessarily have to stop their activities to greet her.

    Shin smiled to Lizbeth and stroked her head, to which she responded by moving closer to his face and kissing him. Then she helped them both to sit up. Lizbeth was a little taller than Mai and had a rather slender figure and wide hips. She had long eyelashes that gave her a certain mischievous air, that was not disguised by her lime green eyes. Although many people overlooked it, anyone who got close enough to her face could see that she had some imperceptible freckles on her nose. Her mischievous, and somewhat teasing, expression was part of her personality. But it was also part of her charm.

    She was wearing a shirt with the first buttons undone, which due to the effusive greeting allowed Shin to see that she was wearing a red bra. She had much larger breasts than Mai who was an A cup. She was also wearing a dark jacket and pants of the same color. She was not wearing casual clothes, which meant that she had been working until recently, or just hadn''t had time to wear something more comfortable. She was, like Mai and Shin, a special field agent.

    She was also the main reason why Mai and Shin were in France. The truth was that they cared little about the Council at the moment. They both wanted to see her. It had been more than a month since they had been together.

    The three of them brought their faces close together and although Shin had to bend down a little, the three of them sealed their greeting by kissing.

    Not far from them three other people were watching the scene. One was a tall, bald human male, accompanied by two fey girls. One had black hair tied in two pigtails and the other girl had brown hair.

    They were Philip and Zi, who had arrived a couple of hours earlier and Oxy who had arrived the day before along with Siren Island personnel. Philip and Zi were wearing gym clothes, because they had been working out around the station, while Oxy was wearing an orange one-piece dress with a tactical coat, a bit baggy for her.

    "No matter how many times I see it," Philip said and chuckled, putting his hands on his hips. "I don''t think I''m ever going to get used to seeing Mai kissing like that."

    Next to him, Zi was eating a high-calorie muffin with a milkshake. At her feet a small pug dog with crystal fur sniffed near her sneakers, looking for sweet crumbs that fell out of the muffin. The animal was the spoils of the Edinburgh case.

    "It''s what you call an Eskimo kiss," she said and slurped some of the milkshake.

    "Eskimo kissing is with the nose, apologize to all the Inuit!"

    "Well from here it looks like they''re sniffing each other, so it fits¡­ I guess," Oxy observed, one hand on her chin, trying to look serious.

    Neither Lizbeth, nor Mai, much less Shin, were aware of the comment as they were busy. Both Mai and Shin had been hugged by the blonde girl.

    It was the kind of relationship the three of them had and they couldn''t care less what the others thought about it. Although, as they parted, they did notice that some gazes were fixed on them while others were casting cold, dagger-like stares at Shin. They didn''t last more than a moment though and the hustle and bustle quickly returned. Mai looked around slightly flushed, but smiled.

    "They''ve taken French kissing to a whole new level," Philip said, folding his arms, and Oxy and Zi nodded in unison at the comment.

    Lizbeth averted her gaze to Carissia, who meanwhile was staring at a distant point at the far end of the hangar with bright, but sad eyes.

    "What''s up? Do you want some affection too?" Lizbeth asked and then latched onto the redhead''s neck and gave her a resounding kiss on the cheek, but Carissia didn''t even flinch.

    She actually looked sad.

    "Hey, what''s wrong?" Lizbeth urged, releasing her, and Shin turned to look at where she was staring.

    On the far side, three huge robots could be seen on platforms from which a shower of sparks rained down from the welding machines. One of them was red.

    "My child," sobbed Carissia, looking at the huge mecha, which at that moment was attached to a platform several stories high and on which several technicians and mechanics were moving around parts.

    The huge robot had arrived a day earlier from Astana. It had not suffered any major damage, but during its descent to Earth, due to Mai''s call, it had damaged some parts of one of the legs that had cushioned the blow on landing. At the time Mai had made the call, several technicians in orbit were busy doing a routine check and one of the parts failed to engage properly. It was nothing significant, but it had been disassembled to check that everything was in the right place, and to change the wings.

    The three of them tried to cheer her up a bit but Carissia seemed really sad to see that her robot had some parts disassembled. They couldn''t blame her, after all she always treated him like a living being, even though the robot was not an aeon, which Carissia was.

    They stood for several minutes comforting her while Lizbeth, told them about her adventures of the recent days. Although they were in constant communication, it was different now that they were together. And Lizbeth was quite hyperactive so, it was convenient for her to say everything she had to say at once. But that didn''t bother them, seeing her really made them erase the thoughts of what had happened in the last few days.

    But it didn''t take long for a memory of what had happened to appear.

    At that moment, looking at another platform nearby, it was Mai who gasped. On the vehicle platform, Shin saw something he knew all too well.

    "My car," whined Mai, looking toward the same spot.

    What is it with these machine-loving girls? Shin thought.

    There stood Mai''s rally-fighter, which had been dragged into the lake and then pulled out. It had arrived along with Carissia''s robot and was also undergoing repairs. It had been stripped of its bodywork and various parts were on a huge table nearby, while other parts were connected to other equipment reading diagnostics. There were also the drones and among them Shin''s favorite one, which looked off at the moment.

    Moving around the vehicle, working busily, were three girls with tails wagging back and forth.

    Shin knew the owners of those tails well. Two of them were the ones who had set up his turtle device and one of the custom guns Shin used as a field agent. They were not only in the division that developed weapons and special equipment, they were also part of the mechanical team that serviced the vehicles of the senior agents in the SID. Their names were Kon and Kanna.

    The owner of the third tail was a little taller than the other two girls, and her name was Camila.

    Kon and Kanna were two fey girls of the Kitsune type. Both sisters had fox ears on their heads and tails. The differences between the two were that Kanna was a head shorter than Kon, and Kon had a rather large chest. In addition, Kon had short, light brown hair, almost the same color as Oxy. Kanna, on the other hand, was blonde and had longer hair.

    Both of them covered their fey ears with the famous Schrodinger''s hairstyle and they only showed their fox ears, hiding their other two ears. Both were dressed in dark tank tops, and cargo pants and from their waists hung a belt with tool pouches, Kon was especially distinguishable as she was wearing also a yellow jacket.

    Both belonged to the Research and Development Division at SID.

    And then, there was Camila.

    Camila was a fey wolf with a wheat-colored tail and long hair. Her ears had slightly white tips and like Kon and Kanna she covered her fey ears with Schrodinger''s hairstyle. She was dark-skinned, red-eyed and with some almost invisible straight marks on her arms. She wore a long white robe, a red shirt that was somewhat detached and a black skirt that showed off her hips. Her knee-high tactical boots made her look even taller than she appeared, as they had heels of fifteen centimeters.

    Shin knew her well because she dropped by quite often in the Teratology division, even though she didn''t belong to the team. Camila belonged to the medical wing, and also the forensic division of the SID. She was a bit eccentric and given to strange experiments that used to give Mai headaches.

    Suddenly the wolf girl spotted Mai and Shin, and waved her arm in the distance, which with the movement disheveled the hairstyle that covered her pointed ears. Kanna and Kon stopped and waved as well. The two sisters wagged their tails and ears happily from seeing Mai, who they had not seen for several months. The movement of the ears puzzled Shin who wondered if the other pair would also move in the same way, although being covered with the hairstyle it was a mystery.

    The truth was that Schrodinger''s hairstyle was incredibly popular since the twentieth century of the Ancient Era among the feys. To cover their pointed ears some feys used their hairstyle. Although in species that had another pair of ears such as nekomata feys, kitsune, and other species that was more complicated. It was no longer necessary to hide the extra ears, but still the Schrodinger''s hairstyle was almost the most common among feys, even though everyone could give it their own particular style.

    The name Schrodinger''s hairstyle came from the famous Schrodinger''s cat mental exercise, although applied to ears. The normal fey ears could be there, but they could not be seen, hence the name.

    "What the heck?!" Mai suddenly said, on the verge of tears welling up in her eyes.

    On one side of the platform lay the car seats that Mai was quite careful about, because they were sporty and no longer manufactured. Mai walked towards the platform followed by Lizbeth, while Carissia had disappeared at some point towards her robot. Shin was thinking of accompanying the two girls but, remembering that Camila was there to examine him, he slowly backed away and walked towards the group of three others who were watching the scene with amusement.

    "Come here. Join the group, loser," Oxy greeted with a gesture that reminded Shin of how a bully would pick a fight.

    "Who are you calling a loser? Squirrel in a hyperglycemic coma," Shin said, and they both bumped fists in greeting.

    On the other side Mai, holding hands with Lizbeth, looked at the discarded seats with pity. Lizbeth was with slightly flushed cheeks.

    If only these could talk, Lizbeth thought.

    "Why the sad face Izumin?" greeted Camila, in a singsong voice, leaning against the platform railing.

    "Why did you pull the seats out like this?" Mai decided to ignore the funny way Camila had called her, she wasn''t the only one after all that use that sort of nickname.

    "I''m sorry Izumi," Kanna said, lowering her head a little. "The truth is, they were muddy too."

    "That''s true," third Kon, "it would be best to make new ones with a printer, same quality and all."

    "These were vintage," Mai pouted and Lizbeth took the opportunity to hug her from behind while rubbing her belly. The girls saw the gesture and blushed a little.

    "Oh! You have dark hair," said Lizbeth, who had just noticed the change of coloring in Mai''s ponytail locks.

    "I''ll most likely be halfway done by tomorrow," Mai told her, without taking her eyes off the seats, but stroking Lizbeth''s hand, which was scratching her belly.

    Kanna watched the gestures between the two, then looked at Shin in the distance chatting with the others and smiled nervously, trying to hide her blush with her hair.

    "What''s wrong?" Mai asked.

    "You tell her?" Kon asked Camila.

    Camila just smiled and walked over to Mai and Lizbeth.

    The two sisters returned to their work with the car, they had enough for the rest of the day. They had to change the interior panels and adjust the interior space compression mechanisms, to make it more comfortable for the three of them, since starting the next day the Blue Midnight team would receive a new member and change its name as well.

    Mai''s car had not received an upgrade in years, and it was necessary to upgrade the safety. Changing the interior space was vital as well. In cases where they needed to be on a stakeout somewhere, and the deferred space inside the vehicle could make them more comfortable. Not to mention that if they were caught out at night in the middle of nowhere, they could sleep much more pleasantly.

    That was the main reason why the girls were blushing.

    Camila began to explain it by approaching them and began to speak in a low tone, but with a smile that showed a certain mischief.

    "Liz-tan, Izumin... you both know that the automatic cleaning system activates itself, right?"

    "...Yeah." Mai couldn''t understand what it could have to do with discarding the seats.

    The automatic cleaning system consisted of a special nanoparticle spray that, when no one was inside the vehicle, could activate and clean the interior of any dirt or debris. It was no longer necessary to waste hours cleaning a vehicle as was done hundreds of years ago. Although certainly in some cases it was not very effective, such as what happened in Kolsay where the car had basically received tons of dirt, mud and fungus filaments. Still, with a multi-sweep cleaning system it would be enough to clean it, without having to get rid of the sport seats that had taken Mai quite some time to find.

    Camila started to explain. "Well, good. The system is very good, it can clean off any remaining dirt without any problems. No problems with that."

    "W-what''s going on with the cleaning system?"

    "Well a multiple sweep analysis like ours can uncover anything that the cleaning system missed."

    Mai''s face was starting to turn a shade of red and Camila approached both girls hugged one on each side, while her voice had become only a whisper that only Lizbeth and Mai could hear. "There was enough genetic material from the three of you to create a new country."

    Mai was as red as a tomato. For her part Lizbeth simply smiled nervously.

    "Your samples Liz-tan are a month old but yours..." she said, then looked at Mai smiling, "are only a couple of weeks old."

    Mai hid her face in her hands.

    "I''m not judging you, just be more careful. Erasing the record of cameras and qinetic movement in the car is not enough for our systems."

    "S-sorry," Mai said.

    Camila had achieved her goal. To see Mai completely red.

    She wasn''t doing it out of malice. Given that Mai always seemed so serious to talk to, and given her rank and that she had been used to dealing with dangerous situations for most of her life, it was rare to see her relaxed, unless it was in the intimate circle of people who knew her best. Seeing her who could act like a normal girl was important.

    Balancing the state of mind that always seemed to be in seriousness due to the Dark Events, was also important. Shin was the one who had taken care of it in the past few months, not only as her research partner but also as her boyfriend.

    Seeing her act like a normal girl really took a load off Camila''s mind, because it indicated that she was fine and not focusing her mind solely on horrible events related to the DEs. Still she couldn''t deny that it was a nice sight to see Mai so out of her serious personality.

    "Don''t bother her," Lizbeth grumbled, hugging Mai.

    "I''m sorry, I''m sorry. It''s not a bad thing. But...I mean. You guys have access to the best hotels in the world. Is it really necessary to have sex in the car?"

    At that Mai hid her face in Lizbeth''s jacket.

    "What''s wrong with that. Sometimes we''re miles away from any lodging. Also is not sex we are making love. Big difference!" Lizbeth said.

    "I guess that''s true," Camila admitted, with a serious gesture and nodded. "May I ask something?"

    Mai showed her face slowly. "W-what?"

    "At least you'' guys are keeping it safe, aren''t you?"

    "What do you mean?"

    "Liz was caressing your belly just now, Izumin."

    "I''m not pregnant!" Mai exclaimed obfuscated.

    "She likes belly fondling," Lizbeth admitted.

    "I''m just worried that you guys aren''t taking care of yourselves."

    "We are taking care of each other," Mai nodded.

    "It''s just... well, Shin is a being from another universe. So technically he''s an alien."

    "What''s wrong with that?"

    "Well, he''s compatible with both of you but ,we honestly don''t know what would come out of the union of him and a fey. A moth-fey, a banshee-fey and a alien..."

    "We''re not pregnant..." they both shook their heads.

    "Well, I''m glad. The last thing we need is a monster coming out of you two."

    "You''re really mean!" Lizbeth said.

    "Just cautious! You guys saw that old movie called Alien, right? That didn''t end well for the crew of the Nostromo."

    "Shin is not a xenomorph!"

    "Let''s hope not. The last thing I want to see is a chestbuster coming out of you two," Camila expounded with a smile, now full of malice.

    "You''re really horrible!" Mai sentenced.

    Still blushing, she then ordered them to discard the seats without further ado.

    Although Lizbeth wanted to keep them as souvenirs in something she called a ¡°Museum of Love¡± and Mai didn''t want to know what it was about.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 9: The real armor

    Chapter Nine

    The real armor

    March 20, Tuesday 10.40AM. 125 S.A.

    Nevermore Base No. 2 in French Territory

    Pic de Gr¨¨zes, Languedoc-Roussillon. France.

    Shin hadn''t taken notice of the girls'' conversation with Camila, for his part he was interested in something else at the moment.

    "Hmm¡­"

    "What''s wrong?" Zi asked.

    Shin bent down and tried to grab the pug, but the small dog dodged him, by hiding behind the fey girl with big appetite. The animal had become quite attached to Zi over the past few days, but the team was hoping to leave it on the island, so that he could be cared for and its strange fur could be studied. Philip didn''t want to admit it but, he also liked that dark glass ball.

    "It''s really weird," Shin affirmed studying the animal, and then stood up looking at Zi. "And you? Are you all right? Nothing happened to you inside the mirror box?"

    "No, fortunately."

    He had read the report in a spare moment. The case had interested him because there had been a sighting of a creature he knew a lot about. But, beyond that, several strange things had happened in the case. Like the explosion where some bodies had appeared that had no recognizable ID, apart from one of them, that was like the duplicate of the detective that had assisted Philip and Zi during the case.

    "And where is Thor?" Shin asked, looking for the dwarf. He knew he had also been involved, but hadn''t seen him around the base.

    "He has stayed in Edinburgh, to resolve some issues, and in case anything else comes up," Philip replied, grabbing the dog, who struggled a bit trying to free himself from his grip. Zi quickly snatched him away, in fear that the animal would get too scared and end up pulling sharp crystals out of his fur and end up hurting Philip.

    "And Claris?" Shin asked again, watching as the dog looked very pleased in Zi''s arms.

    "She''s already in Paris, with the issue to form the team. Looks like Jeremiah let her take care of it," Oxy informed him, though she was more interested in watching whatever it was that Mai and Lizbeth were talking about with Camila on the platform.

    "Van found a clue about the criminals in the Vatican, right?"

    "Yeah. But the Vatican is still on alert regarding the robber, and because last night someone released them and attacked one of Mari''s stations."

    Mari, also known as The Lady of the Pyrenees, was the name of the fey girl who had the entire Pyrene staff under her command. Shin knew her very well, for if many referred to him as the fourth, Mari was number three. They were the first feys to constitute the new generation, after the old generation disappeared in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Shin and Mari, along with six others, were known as the Group of Eight.

    Despite that, he had not seen Mari since he reappeared the previous year. That didn''t stop him from feeling worried about an old friend, though.

    Philip told him what had happened and what little information had leaked out.

    "What were they looking for?"

    "Well¡­ in Vatican, they''re not sure yet. Although, if what they think is right, it''s something really weird, related to an old urban legend, and something they lost track of a long time ago. It is a case of a strange machine that was manufactured in the twentieth century." Philip informed him.

    "I see," Shin nodded.

    "So, what do you think?" Philip began.

    "Of what?"

    "Mothman? Our case." Zi inquired.

    "Oh! Right. I don''t know what you want me to say, honestly. Everything I know about Mothman is already in the files. In fact I''m surprised that after two centuries there is no more data on these creatures."

    "So, you think the same thing," Philip pointed out.

    "Of what?"

    "Many think they are several creatures and not just one," Zi said.

    Shin nodded. "Yeah. I think it has to be a group at least, there are reports of sightings in different locations that were occurring at the same time so, it must be more than one."

    "What the bloody hell are they looking for?" Philip asked.

    "Who knows. But, what''s certain, is that they really show up when something big is about to happen."

    "But, not always," Zi commented.

    "If that were so, we''d be seeing Mothman every time an DE occurs," Oxy pointed out, with a slightly cynical smile.

    "You were present at one of the first reported incidents, right?" Philip inquired of Shin.

    "Close. The Silver Bridge wasn''t an DE. It was a structural accident, nothing supernatural. But months before, and days before the incident, that thing was flying around Point Pleasant, in West Virginia. And there were all kinds of anomalous events, including the sighting of Shadow People. After that, reports started coming in from other parts of the world. Brazil, China, Ukraine, Mozambique, Spain."

    "But, they''ve always been there anyway."

    "Yes. Just because it started being reported back then, doesn''t mean anything. As far as I could research, these things were being reported as far back as Babylonian times, and there are similar descriptions in many cultures, although with different names. Owl Men, Demons of the Ruins, Neckless, Giant Butterfly. It is curious, because in many cases they have been called giant owls rather than moths. They have always been there."

    "Like the Shadow People..." muttered Oxy.

    "Whatever they want, if they want anything, we don''t know what they mean."

    The group continued their heated discussion of the case, but came to no conclusion. Shin was used to it. He himself had racked his brains once upon a time as well, trying to find explanations for those creatures, and no matter how many theories he had sketched out. He was no closer to reaching a conclusion now than he had been in the past.

    There was the matter of the mysterious shadow girl, that Zi had seen inside the mirror, which would give them material to discuss for hours, without coming to any conclusion either. The strange message that the girl had left behind still echoed in Zi''s ears.

    While Oxy explained a related theory of her own, as to how it was possible that these creatures could move between dimensions, Shin received a handbag from a small fey goblin. He had almost forgotten his handbag where he carried the essentials. By essentials he meant that inside was the turtle backpack, which could actually carry several times its weight in the compressed compartments. He actually thanked the goblin for the gesture, considering he had been distracted. It was a really bad thing that he forgot his bag, since in there was his trench coat.

    The goblin said something like "no problem" in a language Shin had never heard before, but which the automatic translator in his ear recognized.

    The number of voices, and different languages, at the base puzzled him a bit. While many of them were in French, there were others speaking in Spanish, English, Chinese, Turkish and even a language he didn''t think he had ever heard before. While the translator translated everything correctly into his right ear, he could hear the other languages in his left ear.

    The Babel translation system translated all languages instantly in the minds of people with Neurowire, which meant that no matter what language each person spoke, they would all understand each other. As far as learning languages the traditional way was still used, but it was what could be called quite unusual, as everyone left the matter of translation to the Neurowire system.

    Basically being bilingual, or polyglot, could be considered a hobby, rather than a skill for communicating between people.

    Shin, on the other hand, spoke quite a few languages, which was not a problem but, since his arrival, he had noticed that even tones and dialects had changed. More than two hundred years had not passed in vain, even the languages had undergone changes in their structure.

    There were even new languages, and others that had disappeared were now spoken elsewhere. For example, he heard that, in certain colonies on the Moon, a language was used that seemed to be a combination of Polynesian and Hawaiian. The same on some of the moons of Jupiter, where Navajo and Quechua had resurfaced due to the settlement of personnel coming from the respective countries where those languages were dying. Mars was another matter. The Aeon could speak any language but, for formal matters among themselves, they used a kind of mathematical language using Greek and a new form of neo-Latin.

    The Type One Civilization of Humans, Aeons and Feys had not only abandoned the old ways of obtaining energy but also, through technology, had brought down the tower of Babel.

    As far as Shin knew, the name Babel was nothing more than something commonly used, but the original translation system had another less flashy name in its early days. The Mezzofanti System, named after one of the greatest polyglots in history. However, over the years Babel had curiously become the most common name for the instantaneous translation system. The name was an irony of what would happen if all the Neurowires were deactivated, and everyone was left without understanding each other.

    Be that as it may, it was a relief for Shin to see that at least the spoken and written language still existed. As for example, in the news he could still read the headlines, the same with books like the one he owned, and also, though somewhat more annoyingly, advertising.

    If civilization had relegated all information transmission to Neurowire alone, he would know nothing, because all forms of communication would be mental. In such a world even vocal cords would most likely be unnecessary, and would atrophy over a few hundred years.

    Each of those with him spoke different languages, but he could understand everything they said, even though the tones and pronunciations had changed. Oxy spoke his classic Hawaiian Island English as he had known her in the Old Era, Philip had a strong British accent, while Zi spoke in Mandarin Chinese. Further away, he could hear the voices of Mai and Lizbeth speaking in Japanese and British English respectively.

    "That thing again," Philip sighed, and pulled Shin out of his reverie.

    On one of the huge screens, hanging from a platform near where Mai and Camila were still arguing, news was projected and on one of them could be read the headline: Selenite multimillionaire woman swindled by a fake "astronaut", who claimed to need money to return to Earth. And on the screen could be seen an angry woman talking to a journalist. On one side of the screen was a smiling man on a horse, who was apparently the fake astronaut.

    Shin could not laugh, since he suffered from a slight facial paralysis, the most he could do was to draw a slight smile. But at that moment, he couldn''t help scratching the side of his lip and smiling a little.

    "What the fuck is that?" Shin asked, and tried a chuckle.

    "Oh yeah, I guess you don''t know..." Oxy said, smiling.

    "It''s not funny," Philip said, crossing his arms. "I fell for one of those a long time ago when I was young."

    "In my day it would have been very funny, believe me," Shin said. "Is that true?"

    "Yes. It''s called the astronaut scam. It always comes back, from time to time," Zi explained to him.

    "How can people fall for that?"

    "It''s more common than you think," Oxy mused.

    Shin remembered that there had been similar scams in his time. It was very common at that time for people to meet each other through chat rooms on the Internet, in order to establish a long-distance relationship. And sometimes, there were cases of scams, where one of the parties would ask for money to travel, so they could meet each other. He would never have imagined that in the future these tricks would evolve on an interplanetary scale.

    The interview was cut short to give way to new movie commercials. Apparently superhero movies were still a regular occurrence, but Shin wondered what was going on with those superhero names.

    Tail-Pluger VS. Ass-Breaker: The rematch.

    They seem to be superheroes who only focused on the rear of their enemies, Shin thought. Although Oxy looked excited looking at the screen, it must be because Ass-Breaker had an albino frog on his shoulder that reminded her of her squirrel.

    He couldn''t probe much further, though, when he felt a hand pat him on the back.

    "Come on!"

    It was Camilla, with a big smile, that Shin felt didn''t bode well.

    "What''s wrong?"

    "I''m going to give you a checkup!"

    "What? Why?"

    "Because the last one you had was a month ago, and your head was destroyed just a few days ago. So let''s go!!! let''s go!!!" Camila said, as she pushed him.

    Both, Mai and Lizbeth were joining Oxy''s team, but Shin could see how Mai and Lizbeth were blushing for some reason.

    Mai took Shin''s bag from his hand and whispered softly, "I told you that you needed to get checked."

    "Yes, mommy," Shin snorted, with a face of circumstance giving up, knowing that he could not escape Camilla''s clutches.

    The news of the scam had disappeared and Shin could see how another news item about a mysterious pirate radio station had appeared, before the door of the medical bay closed.

    Camila dragged him into a room, with an overly white light that made him blink as he entered. She activated a function on the glass to make it dim on the outside, since one of the walls was simply glass. The place was equipped to attend emergencies, with several beds separated by white acrylic walls and medical instruments. In the farthest part, there was an intensive care unit.

    Shin looked at the glass window worriedly. "You''re sure they can''t see us right?"

    "Always so shy. Just take off your clothes."

    "Hey, I just wanted to make sure I wasn''t seen naked by everyone outside.."

    "It''s not lack of modesty, it''s just that you come from a different era. Even Mai has no problem entering the mixed showers on the island."

    Shin sighed and took off his clothes, remaining in his underwear, while Camila put different sensors on his body, and then through her Neurowire she read the results of the readings. Even though Shin was someone else on the team, she couldn''t deny that deep inside she was impressed by the anatomy.

    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Slightly muscular, but she didn''t envy him at all. Someone who had those scars on the skin couldn''t have had anything good happen before becoming an immortal.

    He was different from the feys, despite being categorized as one. His regeneration was on a completely different level from other feys.

    Depending on the fey, a wound could take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days to heal if it wasn''t too serious. Beyond that, feys could actually die if they suffered an injury to several vital organs. Many died, but others simply suffered a wound that could not be healed, and could simply turn to smoke or ash and disappear.

    But Shin, regardless of the type of wound, could always reintegrate even if he had suffered injuries to vital organs or was reduced to particles. That and a couple of other characteristics made him a fey unlike any other.

    An immortal. And among them, due to his strange frequency and armor, he had been classified as a Kellian. One of the rare species and one that, to the knowledge of magical academies, could be called a cosmic aberration. A being probably from other universe.

    From the studies carried out on the island, other peculiarities had been determined. Such as the incredibly high amount of pheromones that Shin could release. This had led to the formulation of some theories about his species, such as communication and reproduction. Some tests had been done and it had been determined that, although involuntarily, Shin could actually stimulate the vomeronasal organ of feys and humans.

    Some others had proposed that this might be due to a struggle of his kind to ensure reproduction and territoriality but, since Shin was the only one of his kind, there was no way of knowing. If violent territorial conditioning was theirs, Shin did not exhibit it. While there were many stories about his fights, the truth was that he had almost always avoided fighting when he could, so the aggressiveness of his species was nothing more than speculation.

    Others claimed that pheromones might be the reason why Mai, Lizbeth and Kotori were attracted to him. However, since Shin had not had many relationships in the past, this idea lacked a solid foundation. Moreover, it was understood that the emission of pheromones was not limited to sexual attraction alone, but also for other functions. Although, it was true that in Mai''s case some analyses suggested that she reacted more strongly to Shin''s pheromones because she had more sensitive moth-like receptors.

    Camila knew that, but that didn''t stop her from treating Shin as one of the team. The categories and their strange definitions could be left out of the subject. She was solely focused at the time on diagnosing that he was in full condition and that there were no disparities with previous results.

    There was nothing abnormal about the results that had been taken a month ago by another of the doctors.

    "Is there anything wrong?" Shin asked.

    "No, not at all. Maybe you''re just tired from too much activity. Have you had sex very often lately?"

    "... Excuse me?"

    "I mean besides the sessions in the car."

    Shin pursed his lips, not knowing whether to answer or not, but there was no need as Camila saw with her own eyes how Shin''s crotch underwent a change and how the pupil of his left eye dilated.

    "I''ll take that as a yes," she said smiling. Those were good memories for him. Well done girls!

    Shin doubted that Mai would have told her about an intimate situation, and he didn''t think it was likely that Lizbeth would either. While she was less embarrassed, she treated relationship issues seriously and wouldn''t do anything to make Mai angry.

    "Why did you say about the car?"

    "Cleaning system..." she said smiling.

    There was no need for her to explain further, Shin was able to put the missing pieces in order. "Can I put on my clothes now?"

    "No. And take off your underwear too big boy."

    "Is that necessary?"

    "Yes. So I''ll have a complete diagnosis, and I need to check the armor too. Now lie down on the table and relax."

    Shin reluctantly obeyed.

    "I feel really bad about this."

    Camila looked at his crotch and nodded.

    "An erection? Pff... It''s a normal reaction, honest if I must say. Relax."

    She decided not to tell him that she had compared him to a monster from a movie just a few minutes ago, but certainly Shin had a very substantial member. It was shaped almost like a human penis. That made Camila wonder what the female members of the species would be like, a pity that Shin was the only specimen.

    "Is there something wrong with me?"

    Yeah¡­ but better to concentrate on my work, thought Camila looking away. "I''m going to ask you some questions to test your neurological activity."

    "Ok."

    "Name?"

    "Shin."

    Standing a little further away from the room Mai and Lizbeth looked around worriedly. The room had been mirrored, as Camila told Shin, but Mai had pulled out her moth antennae and through the ventilation system she could hear the sounds inside and, in her mind projected an outline, of what was going on in the room.

    "I think he''s in the mood," Lizbeth said smiling. She, in turn, had simply slipped through the security system and looked through the cameras.

    "I don''t know..." Mai said nervously. She really hoped that Camila wouldn''t dig any further into the details of the car. She didn''t like spying like that, but she was a little worried about him, even though he had told her he was fine.

    Camila checked the results of the answers to the questions and marked them all with a thumbs-up sign.

    "I want to test your ability to think on the fly. You see an enemy coming toward you with a gun. What do you do?"

    Those stupid questions again, he thought." Knock him down?"

    "Try to respond without thinking about physical contact. A scenario where you can only use firearms and you can''t reach him to take the gun away and reduce him."

    "...Shoot him first?"

    "Okay. Now if he shoots back, what do you do?"

    "Run away."

    "And if he comes after you?"

    "Shoot him again?" Shin didn''t quite understand the questions, but from the nonsense of them he was already imagining where it was all coming from.

    "That''s good. Next question. If you were walking down the street and saw someone fall off a building, would you stop to help or keep moving?"

    "I would take a measured leap to¡­"

    "No skills... quick response."

    "Keep moving?"

    "Why?"

    "Because it might be dangerous for me."

    "Right. How many questions have I asked you so far?"

    "47"

    "Ok. When did you start working with Mai?"

    "Last year."

    "Hmm. Let me ask you something then. Would you rather be able to fly or breathe underwater?"

    "Fly."

    It was a coherent answer, since after all his armor allowed him to be underwater, so he would prefer to fly, even though with the presence of jetpacks on the island he had already experienced solo flight.

    "Answer me with the first thing that comes to mind."

    " Okay."

    "Lake."

    "Wet."

    "Snow."

    "Cold."

    "Liz."

    The image of Lizbeth smiling in a long-ago sunset flashed in his head. "A wheat field."

    "Tunguska."

    The image of the people he had lived with at that time flashed in his thoughts. "Family."

    "Table."

    "Sand."

    "Skyscraper."

    "¡­"

    "Skyscraper," repeated Camila.

    " Tall," he replied, swallowing hard.

    "Mai."

    "...Rain."

    "Number of questions?"

    "57"

    "Okay. That''s all."

    "Finally...Why all those questions anyway? I''m pretty sure Justin gave them to you, didn''t he?"

    "Well, yeah. But, come on. You can''t blame him. Your head was literally crushed. We''d be remiss not to corroborate that your neurological functions are working properly. Since we can''t put you on a NW, we have to test you in other ways to be sure."

    "I''m just feeling a little tired that''s all."

    "Which is odd, since you''ve never felt this way anyway."

    "Just give me an aspirin and I''ll be fine."

    "Yeah, well we have better meds than that now."

    "I don''t suppose you''re not going to give me some experimental pill, are you?"

    "No need. And on the other hand, I don''t know if you know this but, a good portion of the drugs that are used today, come thanks to studies that have been done on feys. I myself was a test subject."

    Shin had read something about that. After the war, and with the feys living in coexistence with humans and aeons, studies had been done on the first medicines to delay aging and other serious illnesses thanks to the feys. Since the fey were long-lived, even though they could die because other reasons, they were a perfect laboratory to carry out controlled studies over time.

    Still, since Camila was quite eccentric, Shin couldn''t rule out the possibility that she would end up giving him a pill that would not only take away his fatigue, but also make him grow a tail like Nikolai''s.

    Still it was a good thing that, thanks to the series of questions, he had lost his erection.

    "You can put on your underwear," Camila ordered him, as she pulled the sensors off his body, minus the two on his temples.

    "What are you going to do now?"

    "Show me the armor, and get on the weighing scales. I want to see if there''s any discrepancy with the weight from last time."

    "Do you want me to destroy my drawers, with the armor on?" he asked, not happy at all, and Camila chuckled. ¡°Not funny.¡±

    "Would it be too much to ask to ever let me see¡­"

    "See what?"

    "How some of the girls and you... have sex?"

    That''s never going to happen. Shin''s gesture looked like a moai at that suggestion. "Excuse me?"

    "It''s just that the armor inside your body makes me curious. In the case of when you have relations, it seems that the particles move to other parts of your body abandoning the lower, abdominal part to allow mating. I guess that''s to allow for greater fluidity in movement."

    Shin was feeling a bit annoyed. He preferred not to talk about intimate topics, although there was something he was interested in. "That wouldn''t make much sense considering that the armor is like a ferrofluid."

    "Yes but you''re obviating the issue of receptors. For some reason I think your species considered mating important."

    "Great. We''re a bunch of hornies then, is that what you mean?"

    "No. In the biology here, sex is an evolutionary tool. But there are several things in your biology that make me think that in the case of your species maybe it''s something different. Maybe it''s more pleasure enhanced as well."

    "Why do you think that?" He wasn''t liking that at all.

    "It''s just that I guess you know about oxytocin, INP, and the other hormones going out of control in adult female feys having sex. Even with normal levels of dopamine, other hormones are activated that shouldn''t be. I mean you know we have access to real time studies of what''s going on in agents'' bodies, right?" Camila, as if to suggest something raised her hands as if to bring them to her breasts. "Mai and Liz are¡­"

    "Oh! that. Yes, I understand." Shin finally nodded.

    "Well, you understand right? "

    "Yes. But don''t worry, we take care of each other."

    "Well, I''m glad. On one hand it''s good to know that Mai and Liz are okay. But you three have some serious thinking to do. In the future if you have children. You''re going to be the parents of new species." Then Camila lowered her voice. "And the same goes for Kotori¡­"

    Shin looked at her seriously, though he only sighed and said nothing. He stood up and walked to the scale without putting on his underwear and stepped on. After all, when the armor formed on his body, the cloud of metal particles used to break through the clothes.

    Camila stepped back a little and watched as the black cloud of particles came out of every pore of his body and agglomerated around his frame in a pattern similar to that of a ferrofluid. After a few seconds, there was Shin, but covered from head to toe, in what looked more like a metal-organic suit that fit his body.

    It was different from how it had looked in the lake. The shape was much more streamlined, without the amount of scales and had no edges like the one he had worn before. The armor was composed of several plates with an angular design in some parts, most precisely on those that separated the muscles, but as a whole it was all smoothly adjusted to his body. In some parts, and if viewed in great detail, there were low relief marks drawn, following strange patterns that reminded Camila a bit of Celtic knots, but the design was rather different. Attempts had been made to decipher the symbols, but no matches had been found with other known or ancient languages.

    Camilla circled him and examined his back. The armor was always formed starting from his back, where Shin had a black mark on the skin like a Litchberg pattern, almost like a burn. Although at that time it was covered by the thin plates of the armor. On the back, at the level of the shoulder blades, it was a little different, the design was, to say the least, as if it looked incomplete. Almost as if something was missing. She had the impression that there must have been something on the shoulder blade plates because it had sockets for something.

    "Let me know if you''re going to touch my head or you''ll hurt yourself if you try to touch my hair," Shin warned, looking at her through the mask.

    The mask hadn''t changed much, although some patterns had also appeared. The ears were now covered by plates that matched the pointed shape of the ears. And the hair, though it looked normal, Camila knew it had been coated with the same film of particles, and the strands were like the blade of a freshly sharpened razor.

    On his feet and hands the armor ended in small claws.

    The armor despite being made of metal was rather metal-organic, as it fit Shin''s body with precision in each of its parts, and allowed him a very natural organic movement. Even his crotch whose penis and even testicles had also acquired a metal structure. That was the main reason why the Council had ordered him not to take off his pants, if he had to wear the armor. Because, even if society was more permissive about showing the body, they could not allow an other-dimensional alien to go around wobbling a metal penis while fighting. Shin could modify parts of the armor by creating a metal plate, but still the ban was not lifted. Shin didn''t mind though, he had almost always kept his pants on when he had fought in ancient times because of the same issue.

    Although at the time he had modified the front part to hide his member, he had formed a layer of the same armor to conceal it.

    But there was no doubt that the design was different from the one he had worn at the lake.

    That was not strange, he had already found that the armor often behaved according to his state of mind. During his awakening at the lake, he had awakened in haste and fear, when Mai had disappeared on the other side, which was why it had appeared in a much more rustic form.

    "Are you feeling all right?" asked Camila with a frown.

    "Yeah, why?" Shin asked, making the part covering his face disappear.

    "Look at your feet."

    Shin looked down and on the precision scale he noticed for the first time something that surprised him.

    "Did you check me before the armor?"

    "Yes. 74 kilos, same weight as last time."

    The scale read 78 kilos.

    "This is weird," he said.

    Shin knew that with the armor on he weighed 85 kilos, and without it 74. That had never changed since the first time in 1925, when he had checked his weight with and without it. But now he was missing some kilos.

    "Has it never happened to you before?"

    Shin wondered too. While it was true that he had always checked the weight and it came out the same, he couldn''t be sure that at some point the weight of the armor had changed for some reason. Although it didn''t feel any different at all.

    "The electric arc doesn''t work on you, right?"

    "No¡­"

    "Even if the armor weighs less?"

    Shin turned around and looked into her eyes. The wolf girl''s eyes seemed to glow for some reason. "I''m not sure," he said and made the armor disappear.

    Outside, Mai and Lizbeth hadn''t heard the last part, because they were a little embarrassed to see the test that way, so they just waited with the others for Shin to finish. After all the main examination had gone normally, the weighing was nothing more than a formality for the medical report. Yet, they missed the part where Shin discovered that he didn''t weigh the same.

    And also Mai and Lizbeth had plans. They were going to spend the rest of the day showing Shin around and rest a bit, waiting for the next day to go to Paris, on their way to the Council.

    "Oh, I almost forgot. Here''s Azusa," Lizbeth said, and handed her a small metal box that she took out of her pants.

    Mai''s eyes sparkled and she smiled. "Hold her for a second."

    She brought her hands to her right ear and pulled out an emerald rhomboidal earring and exchanged it for the one inside the metal box that looked identical. As soon as she touched it the new earring glowed with an aquamarine hue and went out.

    "I think Azusa is happy too."

    "I hope so, it''s been months since I''ve used her."

    "I hope you don''t have to wear her anytime soon, I miss your dark hair."

    "Does it look better on me?"

    Lizbeth took one of the platinum locks that slipped like silk between her fingers. "I like both."

    The truth was that every time Mai had to use her custom weapon on some mission, which she had obtained in the Great War, her hair turned completely silver and it could take weeks to months for it to regain her dark color. When she had come to earth she had platinum hair for several years until it started to turn dark.

    She then kept her hair dark for several decades, although she noticed that, whenever she was in situations where she was fighting, sometimes a few platinum strands would appear. It was in the Great War when her hair turned completely silver again, after using Azusa, and she kept it that way for several months.

    Medical studies had determined anyway that it was possible that the more she used her bow the longer it took for her hair to return to the dark color. However, it was most likely that her original hair in her fey form was silver in color, because the moth''s antennae were silver with iridescent hues. This was consistent with the fact that, when she had her hair in dark form, it almost always took longer for wounds to heal than when she had silver hair.

    Whatever the case, as far as Lizbeth was concerned she didn''t really care. Mai was Mai, regardless of whether her hair was dark or silver.

    Mai placed the earring in her right ear and put the replica in the box.

    "Better?"

    "Perfect," Lizbeth said and then leaned close to her ear. "Tonight we''re going to do something?"

    Mai smiled at her and said softly. "We''re not on days off yet. We''re not going to have sex now."

    Lizbeth stared at her seriously and waited a few seconds and then asked, "Can we have sex now?"

    "No! Remember, there are cameras everywhere."

    "There are lots of nice, soundproof rooms....What about making love?" Lizbeth asked getting close to her ear again.

    Mai looked to the side and simply replied blushing, "Let''s ask Shin later." She wanted the meeting after a month apart to be special. "Let''s hope we don''t have to work on an emergency basis after tomorrow."

    Lizbeth gave her a kiss and looked in the direction of the medical wing. "Come on, what could go wrong?"

    At that moment Shin shot out of the medical wing, with his armor on running away from Camila, who was running towards him with a metal object that seemed reminiscent of an electric arc weapon.

    "Wait!!! I have to test your stamina! It''s not painful!

    "Bullshit! You just set that thing to full power and shot me before I formed the armor again!" Shin replied.

    "Come here! I''m not going to do anything weird!"

    "I don''t want to hear that from someone who turned a piece of history like the Mars Pathfinder into a segway for personal use!"

    "What happened in there?" wondered Lizbeth and Mai in unison, watching the pair as they were lost among the base structures.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 10: Observer at the Equinox / B.K.

    Chapter Ten

    Observer at the Equinox / B.K.

    March 20. Tuesday. 7P.M. 125 S.A.

    Lugrin, Lake Lemac. France

    The creature flapped its huge wings, thinning in the same way that the blanket of twilight spread out, bringing the night.

    Its dark silhouette merged with the darkness of the forest, and therefore its misty and blurred form made it impossible to say for sure what its real shape was.

    Huge. Black in color.

    Its wings flapped at a rhythm that could not be followed. In fact, it could not be sure what were the shapes of those wings, due to the speed at which they flapped. But, from its movement and the sound it made over the treetops as it passed by, it could be estimated to be more than seven meters long.

    But no one could see its wings, nor its semi-humanoid body that seemed to have no head, or if it had one, it was really flattened. No one could hear the sound of the treetops.

    And no one could see its two red eyes, which, like burning coals, were piercing the sky.

    The creature moved its eyes and, sheltering under the blanket of the night that had just begun, stretched out its forelegs and reached for a tree branch thick enough to support its weight.

    Its eyes were fixed on a point to the east, over the lake.

    The wind brought the sounds of young shrill voices and it looked toward the spot. It must have been about a kilometer away. Lights were moving through a rather large glade, and the voices seemed animated. There was happiness, excitement and it seemed to be a joyous event.

    But that didn''t matter to the creature. It was not the reason it was there.

    And so, it averted its gaze again to the east.

    As if it was waiting for something.

    ***

    The lights produced by drones in the shape of luminous balls danced in the air, illuminating the figures ten meters below. These had motion detectors and while they almost always tried to follow the course of the ball, other drones were in charge of illuminating the entire playing field.

    "Pass it, pass it!" shouted one of the young boys.

    "I''m free here, asshole!" said another.

    "Watch your mouths!" said the voice of a father.

    The twenty-two young aerial soccer players danced in the air, trying to get the ball.

    The name aerial soccer was nothing more than a name. The game still had the same rules as soccer had in the past, the only difference being the boots and the skill of the players. Special boots, with pressurized air chambers gave the players the ability to jump up to three times in the air and do all kinds of jumps and aerial acrobatics.

    It was a friendly match, between the clubs of Leman and another one from the village of Saint Gingolph on a field with almost no trees and short vegetation.

    The youngsters from Leman had found the field some decades ago and, with the passing of the years, and the quarrels with the neighboring clubs, it had been decided to use the place to hold friendly matches between the towns near the lake. Over the years it had become a tradition that had passed from father to son. Although there was never a lack of encounters that ended in pitched contests that had nothing to envy to battles of the ancient times. Luckily, for its participants, the carrying of a three-layered energy shield was a mandatory requirement to practice the sport, since injuries were quite common.

    The team that won the most victories during the summer season had the right to use the field for their own matches as they saw fit for a period of one year.

    Last year it had been the Saint Gingolph team that had taken the summer victory, but that was coming to an end in a few months, and nearby teams had been challenging each other to train new members and gauge the performance of their opponents.

    "Let''s see. They sure are fast. I''d break every bone in my body if I played that."

    "It''s less violent than the Capture the Flag Moon Championship at least," said a mother.

    "Yes, that''s true."

    The one who had spoken first was Enzo, one of the parents of the children who were playing.

    "You''re not from around here?" another parent asked to him.

    "No, I work up there," Enzo said, and pointed to the orbital belt. "I''m off for a few days and wanted to come see the kids'' game. My son recently joined the team, we moved in November to Gingolph."

    "Do you like the place?"

    "It''s pretty calm. And the neighborhood is nice... even though I''ve heard some weird rumors about the place," Enzo said, scratching his temple.

    "Ah, the enchanted lake, I guess."

    "Yes. It''s a legend that comes from the Great War, right?"

    "That''s right. After the war there started to be all kinds of rumors regarding it being haunted, after some fighting that went on around here, and on the other side of the lake. You guys haven''t seen anything strange?"

    "No... luckily. What kind of rumors?"

    "UFOs, ghosts of soldiers who died on the spot, strange phenomena with the clocks in some points, mysterious voices coming from the bottom of the lake¡­ those are some examples."

    A bead of sweat trickled down Enzo''s cheek and he smiled. He had certainly heard all sorts of rumors, but he couldn''t imagine what they were. With feys having become an everyday occurrence, he didn''t find that urban legends from another time were still as alive as ever, especially with the Dark Events.

    "Nothing dangerous has happened, has it?" Enzo asked, suspicious.

    "No, we have military security around just to be on the safe side, but nothing has ever occurred that would endanger the lives of the inhabitants. I imagine you mean the DEs, right?"

    "Yes."

    "Well, the whole lake is listed as an DE, but not dangerous. I have my cousin who works at the base nearby and they always joke that they would have to move the station somewhere else that requires it more."

    "Huh?! I didn''t know that when they sold me the property!"

    "Calm down man. It''s a DE class 01-Green- Red."

    "Red? Isn''t that the most dangerous classification?"

    "Yes and no." Explained another of the parents, a plump man who was drinking a beer. "It has Red classification because the Red type is of unknown range amplitude, because it''s the whole lake. But it''s class 01, it''s not even up to 1. I can assure you, I''ve lived for 20 years on this land and I''ve never seen or heard anything unusual."

    "That there hasn''t been a weird case with someone who appeared a few days ago from the lake?" asked a mother, while still with her eyes glued to her son, who was doing a pirouette in the air at the time.

    "I didn''t hear anything."

    "It wasn''t here, it was in Monthey," another parent reported at the time. "I think Pyrene was investigating. I have my cousin who works as a nurse, and she got a rumor that another hospital transferred someone who had just come out of the lake."

    The parents remained engrossed in their talk, as the young boys continued their encounter.

    Enzo''s son hadn''t had much luck in the match, being a little shorter than the others, he hadn''t gotten many passes. Much less the chance to score a goal in the round net. Although he was fast, he was no match for the other players who seemed to have been practicing for years.

    He stopped, turned off his cleats and sighed. All that running and jumping, trying to even snatch the ball, had tired him out. The play was now centered on the opposing side, so he used the moment to take a breather. Amidst the hubbub of screaming kids, and parents chatting far beyond almost fifty yards away from him, he was at a point on the field that only he could hear at first.

    It was a distant buzzing sound in the sky. He had never heard it before.

    It sounded like something cutting through the air, almost like the sound of a ship. But the ships he knew didn''t make that sound as far as he knew. Although there was one type of ship that he recognized as being similar, although it could not be possible.

    He looked up and, in the semi-darkness, he could see nothing in the sky. At least at first.

    The sound was coming from the east and, looking up against the already dark sky, he thought he saw some white and yellowish-red lights in the distance, twinkling in the firmament against the stars.

    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    The boy activated his night vision and there he finally saw it.

    The boy opened his eyes and froze, not understanding what he was seeing at that moment. Or rather he understood it, but he didn''t understand what it could be doing in the sky.

    He had seen it a few times in the historical video manuals at school, in the history of the space race. But yes, there was no doubt about it.

    Everyone had turned and were now looking in the same direction as the boy. The chatter had stopped completely because it was so audible. Even the other players had stopped and looked up at the sky, as the ball finally made its way down the field and was lost in the trees.

    They were all listening to the sound and staring up at the sky. It seemed to be coming toward them from their perspective.

    "It''s a plane," the boy muttered, as he watched the other teammates run in panic in the direction of the trees accompanied by their parents.

    The huge plane was heading almost straight for them, following a parallel line to the coastline of the lake beach, from which they were not far away at all. On the left side of the plane they could see how part of the wing was destroyed and, from the engine, smoke and fire were coming out.

    Everyone present fled in haste and it turned into chaos in less than a second, where everyone was running for cover towards the forest that was close to them in a southerly direction, as the plane seemed to be heading in a direction that was on the north side, although very close. Too close.

    Enzo rushed to his son and, with a speed he didn''t know he was capable of, ran with his son to shelter in the forest along the others, while behind him he felt the heat wave.

    The huge plane had just crashed less than a one hundred and fifty meters from where they were, between the sands of the small beach and the waters of the lake. The shockwave that followed the explosion was just as impactful. Like an invisible, destructive tidal wave, it shook the ground with relentless force. Nearby trees swayed, their branches shaking as if dancing to the rhythm of the chaos. Vegetation in the immediate area was uprooted by the roots, and the earth itself seemed to tremble under the power of the detonation.

    The left turbine and what was left of the wing were blown away and, as if it were a huge fiery spinning top, it bounced off the beach and ended up getting lost in the trees of the forest. The right wing raised a column of water from its impact and ended up destroyed against the water, while the turbine exploded. The fuselage was destroyed in parts, by the plane''s own momentum, and traced a furrow on the shore of more than two hundred meters from the place of impact, while several parts flew through the air and scattered in a wide radius.

    Accustomed to their quiet lives and without many shocks in their routines, the event had left them all with their mouths open. Because of the DEs they were used to seeing news of disasters or strange cases occurring both on and off earth. But it was totally different to see it through a news broadcast, or to read about it. That hell was searing into their retinas. It was there, just a few hundred meters away and they could feel the heat of the fire close enough.

    The evening night was illuminated and the fuel tanks exploded, forcing the astonished witnesses to close their eyes due to the sudden glow. Some of the autonomous vehicles that had been parked near the beach, and some of the near shore stands and huts, burned in the flames. It was fortunate that they were the only ones present at the time, or it was not a tourist season, or it would have turned into something worse.

    Plumes of fire and smoke billowed from the shore of the beach, hiding the silhouette of the moonlit orbital belt. It was as if someone had decided on the spur of the moment that the burning of the B??gg should take place a month earlier in the year.

    Even though the plane''s drag was away from them, the fuel was blown from several places and the fire quickly reached the nearest trees. Even so, they were too far away to be affected.

    Still, everyone watched the spectacle in horror, and with expressions that did not allow them to understand exactly what had happened. But they were thankful that at least they had been able to react quickly to take shelter and get as far away as possible. The fire had barely reached the far side of the playing field, but if it had been any closer, the consequences would have been worse. The pungent, acrid smell of burning metal and fuel filled the air, leaving a bitter aftertaste in their gullets. It was an aroma that seemed to permeate their senses, an odorous hint of the tragedy that had been unleashed.

    What had been a friendly and familiar meeting had turned into an inferno in just a few seconds.

    Some of those present emerged from the trees to look at the tongue of flame that stretched along the coast and took a few hesitant steps forward.

    "Where did that come from?" Enzo asked, hugging his son.

    But he wasn''t the only one asking the same question. That thing had come out of nowhere. But what struck them was that, from what they had seen before it crashed, that plane had been out of production for well over two hundred years.

    It was a relic of a time long gone. What could it be doing there?

    ***

    The creature had its eyes fixed on the fire.

    It was as if those red eyes could see every detail, as if it were on the spot no matter the distance.

    For a moment the creature''s basilisk gaze was fixed on the trembling forms of the witnesses.

    But it did not care about them at all.

    The creature blinked and the telescopic gaze erased the silhouettes of those present from its vision angle. For the last time it looked at the fire and then, leaping onto the branch, it propelled itself into the sky where it once again spread its wings.

    And without further ado it flew away.

    A silent witness to the event. As it had always been.

    Always watching. Always recording in its retinas events throughout history.

    That was its only function. Insect, man, monster, machine. It didn''t matter what it had been called throughout the ages.

    Its existence was beyond the definitions of the sentient beings beneath it.

    It gave one last swift flap of its wings and, at much greater speed. faded into the night.

    ***

    Wednesday, 12AM.

    Almost complete darkness and silence surrounded the place underwater.

    Such was the darkness that it was impossible to know how big it could be. It could be an incredibly large room, or perhaps a little smaller, but large enough that the white light in the center did not illuminate the walls.

    There was only one white light in the center that could help a little to elucidate the dimensions of the place. It was approximately six meters above the floor and illuminated the concrete floor, where some cables of different sizes, connected to machines, snaked along it.

    Under the light was a strange-looking armchair, almost Giger-esque, and black in color. As if it were half a armchair, half quantum computer of the Ancient Era. The upholstery part looked like leather, but it was the frame that looked strange. It was as if someone had tried to blend a piece of furniture, but maintaining a strange, almost alien, aesthetic sense.

    From the back of the armchair, on both sides, there were cables and thin symmetrical structures that seemed to extend upwards, as if they were the legs of a spider. Almost forming a kind of metal and crystal throne with nanoelectronic parts, that connected with machines on the sides, that looked almost as strange as the armchair itself.

    The machines on the side had some red lights flashing at intermittent intervals, with some nixie tubes displaying changing numbers every second.

    And, sitting in the armchair, rested what seemed to be a child of no more than ten or twelve years old, who kept his eyes closed at that moment. Almost as if he was listening attentively to something that could not be perceived by common sense.

    The boy was dressed only with some baggy cargo pants, revealing a naked torso with an almost deathly pallor. His hair was dark blond, somewhat long, and a few messy locks covered his right eye. But his hair moved slowly, floating weightless. His hair and the endless lights of the machines were the only thing that seemed to have some life in that moment. The boy didn''t even seem to be breathing.

    To his arms and other parts of his body were connected thin wires coming out of the armchair, through which flashed streams of red lights at different intensities.

    The sound of a beep, that seemed to come from another side of the room, made him open his eyes, revealing red eyes that seemed to have a light of their own. He moved his head slowly and his hair slowly followed the movement. He looked straight ahead and in the distance saw a pale blue light flashing against the darkness.

    The wires connected to his body came loose and hid in different parts of the armchair. And the young boy stood up, revealing that on his back there were more of them connected, following the path of the spinal column. One by one these were released, and the boy floated and moved forward, without moving a single one of his muscles, entering the darkness, heading for the flash. At the same time, the plugs on his back, where the cables had been connected, began to close by a kind of tiny plates.

    A splash of water was heard and the boy emerged from what appeared to be a liquid wall, contained by some kind of force field that prevented it from overflowing.

    He walked over the concrete dripping with water and came to an illuminated table where a hologram with an envelope was floating.

    The boy touched it and almost instantly two cubes unfolded and then intertwined, with binary matrices circulating on their faces at a constant speed.

    "Codificata Gematria. Hyperdimensional Kamea?" His voice sounded as if it had a certain metallic tone.

    For a few seconds the boy stared at the ones and zeros, with an unchanging expression of tedium, until he frowned and began to manipulate the hologram by moving the cubes and reading and rereading the strange message. The expression had changed and now he certainly looked shocked and angry at the same time.

    It was as if he had just read something he didn''t like at all in that tangle of numbers that moved without apparent sense in different directions. The boy stared for several seconds at both cubes, until he finally bit his lips in a grumpy mood, while shaking his head.

    "Son of a... bitch..." he said angrily, but his words were slurred. The boy walked around the room thoughtfully and gritted his teeth. "Shin is going to be pissed by this."

    He moved his fingers once more across the hologram and separating the cubes took one of them and examined it. From the same hologram sprouted a new message, projected in a new window although this time it was simply a few words.

    [Would you like to accept the invitation, Mr. B.K.? Y/N]

    B.K. grimaced, and drew a Y on the screen with the invitation.

    "Tsk... when did this start?"

 Vol.3/ Chapter 11: A Fortean Christmas gift

    Chapter Eleven

    A Fortean Christmas Gift

    December 25. In the morning. 1959. Ancient Era.

    Ichigaya, Tokyo.

    Carl Scott covered his mouth, trying to hide the smell of alcohol coming from his mouth, and glanced sideways at the officer who escorted him in the elevator. The latter didn''t seem to notice the gesture and kept looking at the floor indicator.

    No matter how he had tried to brush his teeth, the stench of alcohol was still there.

    They couldn''t blame him, it was Christmas and he had decided to have a bender outside the station the night before.

    He sensed that, since he was so far from home, he wasn''t going to find much Christmas spirit in Tokyo. So it had been a surprise to find that, in many parts of the city, the shops were decorated with Santa Claus and Christmas trees in true western style.

    He, and two other members of the Agency, had decided to celebrate Christmas in a place in Roppongi with a more western feel, and to celebrate the occasion with at least a few drinks.

    What at first was nothing more than a few traditional beers and sake, later turned into a bar where all kinds of spirits had been paraded. Strong enough that, when he woke up, he felt like he had an army of monkeys playing with jackhammers on his head. The worst part was that they had charged it all to the Agency''s account. Someone was going to be reprimanded for it later. He just hoped it wasn''t him, and if it was, he''d better start doing the right thing in the morning.

    Christmas, or the excuse for a hangover, for that matter, was not enough to miss work in his position. Which is why he felt even worse when the phone in his room rang, and told him that someone from the Foreign Affairs Department of the embassy was looking for him for an assignment. His presence was required at the Ichigaya Intelligence Building. He had no choice but to take a quick shower, have a cup of coffee, with nothing more in his stomach than the alcohol from the night before, and take the tram to Ichigaya. Because he did not want to drive one of the Agency''s cars. He was terrible at driving on the opposite side of the steering wheel anyway.

    Whether it was the little information the Agency had given him, or just the hangover, it all didn''t seem to make much sense to him. He hadn''t heard of anything strange happening so far that day, unless it was what had just happened in Indonesia.

    It''s too early for these games, damn it! he thought.

    At just twenty-two years old he had managed to get into the Agency as an analyst, and it took another year before, supposedly because of his reports and performance, for him to climb the ladder enough to be assigned as a field analyst overseas. He had expected to be assigned somewhere in Europe, so he was surprised when they announced that he would be joining the Agency''s Tokyo station.

    Although, well, that was better than nothing. Tokyo was fine, it was a peaceful place after the disasters of the war fifteen years ago. He would not have liked to be assigned somewhere further west, where everything was going badly enough.

    It had been a busy enough year in intelligence matters and, while he inwardly wanted to think that his promotion had been due to his performance, part of it could not be ruled out that it could also be because the Agency was scattering agents to every station around the world, due to the multi-front war going on at the time.

    From the NLF in Vietnam, to Castro seizing power in Cuba. Not to mention the disappointment felt from the space program, with the success of the Luna missions and in particular the Soviet Union''s Mechta probe.

    Carl had even heard rumors that in October there had been a special agency operation, to steal the soviet Luna from an overnight exhibition in Mexico. This had been to photograph every part of the spacecraft and return it before they realized it in the morning. Apparently there were a lot of strange rumors about it. Like that the agents on clandestine service ended up being chased by a third party involved.

    But that didn''t matter too much. Carl liked his position at the moment. It was a quiet place, without a lot of behind-the-scenes backroom maneuvering. Tokyo wasn''t of much interest to spies at the moment, when everything seemed to be cooking more to the south and east.

    Although that did not seem to be the case that morning. It was the first time the embassy liaison had summoned him to do anything related to interagency cooperation. Scott only wished he had less of a hangover at the time. It wasn''t Christmas at the Japanese intelligence offices in Ichigaya, as he was surprised to see how busy the movement was, from the moment he entered the building. Although, perhaps it was always like that. He could not say for sure as he had never set foot so close to it since he had arrived in Tokyo five months ago.

    The doors opened and the escort led the way. They were on the 15th floor, and reading the signs on the different doors didn''t help him much. His spoken Japanese was good, though not so good with kanji. In fact, he was terrible at it. In five months he had barely managed to memorize no more than four hundred of them, not counting katakana and hiragana vocabulary. And in that moment of hangover all the kanji seemed to be jumbled together in his head.

    "This way please," the escort said, and invited him into the room.

    Scott nodded politely to the escort, but ended up bumping his forehead on the door frame. He entered wondering what it was all about, and rubbing his head from the blow. He wondered if there was a water dispenser. He was pretty thirsty. That coffee had not done him any good.

    Inside, two men were waiting for him, leaning against a table and wearing office clothes and hats.

    Who wears hats inside? Scott thought to himself. What''s with this outdated detective atmosphere from the 20s.

    They both introduced themselves with names that Scott almost forgot after a few seconds. He hoped he wouldn''t have to call them by them. "Satoru Nogizaka and...Kensuke...Aida?" he tried to remember in the brief introduction he made after the escort closed the door behind him.

    "It''s a pleasure."

    "Please forgive us for calling you out of the blue, but we got word this morning that our man was starting to talk."

    "Man?" Scott arched an eyebrow. "Who are we talking about?"

    Aida extended a folder to Scott and he took it.

    Straight to the point, I see.

    As soon as he opened it he felt thick beads of sweat run down his face. The kanji seemed to be dancing before his eyes. Carl Scott was trying to make sure that his diplomacy was not directly proportional to the previous night''s drinks. He leafed through the pages, trying his best to look interested, as he nodded without understanding anything.

    But on the first page was a photograph of a man with dark hair, a neat beard and mustache, and a black T-shirt smiling rather inappropriately for an identification photo. If he had been the photographer, he would have punched him in the face to wipe that stupid grin off.

    "Is this the man you''re talking about?" Scott asked.

    Nogizaka nodded and took off his hat, and put it on the table along with the jacket, and rolled up his shirt sleeves as he leaned against the table. His companion walked over to the window, or what Scott had thought up to that point was a window, and pulled up the blinds.

    There on the other side was the man in the photograph, sitting at a table looking incredibly bored. He wore only a dark T-shirt and striped pants, that could have passed for prison clothes or flannel pajamas.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    Nogizaka sighed and explained. "On October 12, we stopped him at Narita Airport. He arrived with forged documents under the identity of Jack Allen Zegrus. The flight he was coming from was France, but it was his nationality that caught our attention. That''s why we knew that the passport was forged. Although, we still don''t understand how he got a visa in France with that passport."

    "Take a look at page 5 of the file," Aida pointed out.

    Scott did so, and frowned. It was a photocopy in roman letters of the individual''s passport. He didn''t remember ever having heard of that city and country.

    "Anyway, he''s not European. His English accent is American, although he speaks more than six languages, including Japanese," Nogizaka reported.

    "We consulted with the Bureau of Persons, and the FBI, and they have told us that there is no Jack Allen Zegrus matching the description of him, we also did the same with the French and Andorran authorities."

    "He''s a ghost," Scott said looking at the man.

    Somehow the man was getting on his nerves, he had noticed that the man was following him with his eyes, as if he could see him through the two-way mirror.

    "Our detention was primarily for the passport issue, but he had money that he couldn''t explain its origin. We kept him in detention in case this was about money laundering or money related to one of the local yakuza families or the southern group."

    "Does he have connections to the local mafia?" Scott asked.

    "We don''t know for sure, but some of the bills he was carrying had a Yanagida Clan mark on them. We know from other sources that the clan often marks bills."

    "Isn''t it a crime to damage currency?"

    "It''s an invisible mark, it doesn''t appear before the eyes unless you know where to look and apply a flame just a few centimeters from the bill."

    "What do they do it for?"

    "They call it security money. It''s a common practice among those who don''t trust banks too much."

    "Money under the pillow?"

    "Something like that," Aida admitted.

    "So. What did he say?"

    "He just said he was a tourist. Honestly, it''s not helping. We don''t know what he''s thinking," Nogizaka said, shrugging and pursing his lips.

    "Until... yesterday afternoon," Aida interjected.

    Scott turned away, looking away from the prisoner who was still following him with his eyes. "What did he say?"

    "Not too much," Aida snorted, just one thing. "He asked to talk to someone."

    "Just out of the blue? With whom?"

    "With you, Mr. Scott. He specifically asked to speak to you."

    Carl Scott looked at both of them not knowing what to say. That could become a problem for him. "I don''t know what he told them, but I don''t know this individual."

    "But... the thing is, apparently he does know you."

    Scott turned and looked at him with a frown. He took a closer look at him, but he didn''t remember ever seeing him before. But, the more Scott looked at him, the more he thought of something else. He was sure he hadn''t seen him, but there was something familiar about his face.

    Who is this asshole? He wondered and then asked. "Can I talk to him?"

    "Please. We don''t have much to keep him in prison. He has no criminal record whatsoever. Like you said, he''s a ghost." Nogizaka said.

    "He''s the reason we contacted the embassy liaison first to begin with."

    "...Ok."

    It didn''t matter how he looked at it. Carl Scott was a simple analyst, nothing more. He was not an active field agent. His job was mostly paperwork at the station, mostly English analysis of transcripts that went straight to Langley or some other station. He had no informants, nor was he a clandestine agent on clandestine duty. He had only completed the field training to impress some of the girls on the farm, although that had been just as useful as an ejection maneuver without even getting off the ground.

    Scott left the room and went to the continuous door, where there was a guard. As soon as he entered, Scott could only curse at his stupidity. The reason the man was following him with his eyes all the time, when he was on the other side, was because he could actually see the other side. All along he had thought it was a two-way mirror, but it was just glass.

    He took a chair and glanced first at Nogizaka and Aida who were watching the other side with interest.

    Tsk...fuck. It was a weird situation. How do you greet someone who asks for you even though you''ve never seen him in your life? Scott thought, as he sat down.

    "Hello. Good morning, Mr. Zegrus," Scott said, placing the folder he still had with him on the table.

    "Hello," Jack Allen Zegrus greeted in English. "Jack is fine, I think it''s pretty obvious that Allen Zegrus is just a fake identity."

    Scott opened the folder without saying a word. The truth was that the kanji were appearing to him as if the whole thing had been written with the intention of drawing barbed wire on the pages.

    I don''t understand shit, Scott thought, as he ran his eyes over the pages and nodded seriously. He flipped through the pages for a minute, until he closed the folder and put it aside.

    "Well? You asked to speak with me?"

    "Can you speak and read or just speak Japanese?" asked the man with a suspicious sneer on his face.

    This son of a bitch thinks he''s so smart? Scott thought.

    The man leaned forward and spoke a little slower and his voice was barely a whisper. "My apologies, it''s just that I don''t know if we should speak in another language, there''s a lot of ears."

    "Get to the point, please. I have no idea who you are, and I don''t know why you called for me so, I''m doing you a favor in coming here in the dark not knowing anything. Besides, we are in an intelligence building. I''m pretty sure the people behind the glass also speak English, or some other language, not to mention that this conversation is being recorded."

    "My apologies. It''s just that there are certain things must be done at the right time. Not before."

    "What do you mean?"

    "If you have time, I can tell you a story."

    "What story?"

    "You already know about them, don''t you?" Jack asked.

    "Who?"

    Jack simply put his index fingers to his temples and pointed upward. "Our friends with the pointed ears."

    Scott glanced sideways at the other two behind the glass who reacted to the strange sign. Of course, they knew too.... The question was how much this man knew about them. "Friends of the pointed ears?"

    "Come on Carl. Although not all of them have pointed ears. The fey, who else can I be talking about?"

    Scott decided to ignore the guy''s familiar name calling. "Are you part of TF?"

    "Oh, no," Jack smiled. "It''s out of my league, I can only do what I can do. And the same goes for you, Carl."

    "What are you talking about?"

    "We''ll be friends for a long, long time, believe me," Jack said, and clasped both hands together on the table, as he drummed his thumbs.

    Scott folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

    He wasn''t sure what was going on, but there was something strange about the man. Almost as if he was facing something that looked human, but gave him a sense of something else. It wasn''t a threat, other than the guy''s smug attitude. It was a sense of familiarity. But that couldn''t be possible. And there was the fact that he had mentioned the fey. Scott examined his ears but, no, they were normal.

    Although there was a possibility that it was another type of fey. He had already heard of some with stranger abilities, or pseudo-feys, or even children born from human-fey unions, although they were stranger.

    The agency had been interested in them since the end of World War II. There were all kinds of rumors, about an extra cold war between different divisions, and that some were hunting for feys with unique abilities, to use them for espionag. There was other less pleasant rumors, about experimenting with them. It all seemed to have gone up since there was evidence that the "commies" were getting ahead not only in the Moon race, but also in the field of the use of parapsychology.

    Scott had already heard that, even within the national intelligence agency, there was an experimentation program related to mind control called MK-Naomi, or MK-ULTRA, or the use of psychometry to create psychic spies.

    Many rumors and few certainties.

    Scott snorted and picked up the folder again, reaching for the page with the passport.

    "Can I ask you a question?"

    "Sure," Jack nodded.

    "If this document is a fake, you could have come up with something better. What the hell is Taured supposed to mean?"

    "Taured, it''s a country."

    "Really? It''s got to be pretty small, because it''s not on our maps."

    "No... Not yet, at least."

    "Not yet?"

    "You call it the Principality of Andorra here."

    That didn''t seem to make any sense to Scott, but the man was at least talking, so he decided to play along. "What do you need from me?"

    "I need your help to create some... stuff. A little noise."

    "Some stuff?"

    "Well... to start with I think I should tell you everything."

    "Get started then."

    "We need to create a simulation¡­"

    "Simulation you say? For what?" asked Scott smiling.

    "Not for what... for who¡­"

 Vol.3/ Chapter 12: Good mornings and bad news[NSFW]

    Chapter Twelve

    Good mornings and bad news

    March 21, Wednesday. 5AM. 125 S.A

    Nevermore Base No. 2 in French Territory

    Pic de Gr¨¨zes, Languedoc-Roussillon. France.

    Lizbeth thought she heard a rustling noise and it woke her up.

    She slowly opened her lemon-colored eyes and there she found Shin''s face, breathing slowly. She had just woken up from one dream, and she thought she had fallen into another.

    But it wasn''t a dream. It was true, and she smiled to herself. Although, in the king-sized bed, it wasn''t just the two of them.

    Lizbeth brought her hand to her bare chest, and there she found Mai''s hand, embracing her from behind. She could feel Mai''s breath near her neck, and her chest against her back.

    The three, after a pizza dinner with the others, had gone to the room for agents at eight in the evening. Early, but that was what they planned. They configured the bed for the three, and made sure to set up a sound barrier so no one could hear their noises.

    The room was simple, with metal walls, and a screen molded to the wall in front of the bed. There was a nightstand on one side, and two armchairs near the door. The bathroom, with shower included, was a nice touch, and there was no need to go to the mixed showers on each floor of the base.

    After two hours of intimacy, caresses, and something else, they finally collapsed and fell asleep naked, covered by the blanket. They were happy to be together, and that was all that mattered to them.

    Since they had not been together for a long time, a month exactly, it was Lizbeth who had to sleep in between them. Although sleeping together from that day on would become part of the routine.

    She began to run her hand over his chin and nose, trying to tickle Shin.

    Lizbeth had met Shin during World War II.

    Lizbeth owed her life to Shin, since he had found her prisoner and she was being used for experiments from the moment she had arrived from the Other Side. It had taken her a few years to get used to being free after the war, but she had finally succeeded. While she wouldn''t have minded staying by his side, it was Shin who decided it would be better to separate so that she could get to know the world better.

    The only world she had known from the moment of her arrival was cruelty due to war, and the darkest and most disgusting side of humanity. He wanted her to take her own steps and to understand that, although she had already known the worst, there were also things that were valuable out there.

    Little by little, she had made friends and traveled around the world. Certainly there were good things but, for the feys of that time, things were still hard. And even though she had parted ways with Shin, that didn''t mean she hadn''t seen him again.

    Throughout the years of the twentieth century they had found each other many times, although after a while they drifted apart. It was nothing like a formal relationship or anything like that. They were free spirits. After the hell they had gone through and, therefore, they knew that many times being together would bring them a lot of trouble, because the feys were pursued for study, and others were employed by secret agencies of different countries to serve as weapons of pressure.

    Not to mention, that Shin felt especially bad that trouble seemed to follow him. They could not claim happiness for themselves, while their friends were in danger all over the world. Meanwhile more and more feys with strange abilities and new cases of Dark Events were appearing.

    After the end of Project Tempus Fugit, Shin had spent the first years of the 1990s teaching Noki and Rein to control their abilities, but by 1996 the girls were more than ready to stand on their own two feet, and so they both took different paths to see the world for themselves.

    Lizbeth had last seen Shin in 1998 in Arkansas, and the following year brought the disaster for which she wept bitterly for weeks.

    Shin disappeared suddenly. Everyone close to him could feel it.

    No one could find him, and she searched for him everywhere for months, but he never showed up.

    Decades passed, and she drowned her sorrow by traveling around the world, meeting more people, and dodging dangers. But a part of her couldn''t get it out of her head that he was still out there, somewhere. Time healed her wounds and that helped. Too many adventures, too many dangers, happy and sad sunsets, but she kept going.

    Then, at the end of the Great War in 2099, she joined Nevermore. And there she met Mai.

    Lizbeth first impression of Mai was of a girl with empty eyes, barely reflecting any light, due to the horrors she had seen on the battlefield. But no matter how bad she felt, that petite girl had never taken a step back, and was always there for anyone who needed her.

    But from the moment she saw her, she couldn''t shake a strange feeling in her chest.

    Little by little, Mai had also been healing her wounds and, at the same time, Lizbeth had begun to manifest a feeling, that could only mean that what she felt for Mai was much more than admiration and respect.

    Lizbeth had other romantic relationships for some time, but nothing had ever become serious. However, with that silver-haired girl, something Lizbeth thought she had long forgotten was being born. Loving someone madly.

    However, when they were together and she confessed what she felt, they realized something else. That what they felt was mutual.

    The two had started out simply crossing furtive glances at each other, or just sometimes sharing a meal in the cafeteria of the main base on the island, when they saw each other after some research. Simple games and embarrassing smiles. Until one day in Lizbeth''s house on the island, which consisted of a huge living module, they found themselves kissing and having sex for a whole afternoon. The years that the two had been alone disappeared that afternoon, and in the following days, months and next years they continued together, almost maintaining a secret relationship but many knew deep down what was going on.

    Mai discovered that Lizbeth, despite her mischievous attitude, and outgoing personality, was a woman who had been through hell in her early years. She could seem fun and very cheerful, but she was a fragile girl with regard to her own emotions and who, deep down, only longed to be happy and nothing more.

    Lizbeth on the other hand learned that Mai, with her strong and self-driven nature, could sometimes be very shy about herself but, at the same time, very determined. When she wasn''t working she could be incredibly sweet. Everything she had seen in the war had not left her, but it had not been enough for her to lose her faith that it was still possible to save as many as possible with the tools they had. It was the reason she was still head of special operations.

    Although, they were together for a long time, the truth is, that for Lizbeth, the same thing that happened with Shin happened to her again.

    The fey were no longer persecuted, they already lived in society and, although there used to be altercations because of it, it was no longer a ruthless hunt as before. But where that persecution had ended, its void had been filled by the Dark Events. Not only were small groups needed throughout the planet, but a monstrous infrastructure throughout the Solar System to control them.

    New dangers, missions and responsibilities. Once again something had truncated Lizbeth''s happiness.

    Although Mai had been a special agent, there was a special case that forced her to confine herself to the island to recover from what she had seen. To this day Mai was still looking for those responsible for that. But even after that, time healed her, although she did not cease in her efforts to find the perpetrators.

    Until that day came on September 11, 124.

    Lizbeth already had gained something resembling resignation with Shin. She could wake up without the pain of knowing he wasn''t there. But that changed and in a totally unexpected way, and like a spring that springs up again after being dried up, she felt all the feelings come back. Or more accurate to say that they had never left. In the deepest recesses of her being, she had always cherished the hope that he was still around.

    And he appeared.

    No one would have guessed it. Shin hadn''t just disappeared. He had disappeared on the Other Side.

    But there wasn''t much time for an emotional reunion between the two.

    That raised even more suspicions. If so, why hadn''t anyone forgotten him? Unlike other feys, whose identity disappeared forever, everyone with whom he had maintained a relationship remembered him. Although, later the theory was elaborated that it could be because being from another universe, he might not be bound to the laws that governed this universe. That would explain why so many strange events occurred around him at times. Basically the laws of cause and effect did not want Shin in this universe.

    Although that seemed to have changed after he returned, he wasn''t so sure about it.

    That didn''t matter to Lizbeth now, though. Happiness was currently with her.

    Lizbeth had waited too long for it. The fact that Shin ended up teaming up with Mai, was due in part to the intervention of Rein, Noki and Lizbeth herself.

    Everyone knew that Shin''s appearance was going to bring a lot of headaches. If he didn''t stay in Nevermore, as a probationary period, and leave, the Council was going to do everything possible to stop him. Shin with his armor on was almost invincible, even though his body suffered vulnerabilities without it. It could have come to a disagreement that would put both, Nevermore and the Council, on different sides of the rope. Not to mention the other agencies that were interested in him.

    Shin was not only already certified as an object for the fey classification he received. He was a Keelian. A type of classification so rare that anyone would want to get their hands on him.

    After the war, and with the fey living in society, the rules had changed and legal compendiums had been written to get the fey rights as sentient entities. Thanks to this, Shin, even though he was an object for many organizations, was still a sentient being and therefore entitled to the same living conditions as other fey.That did not mean that, because of his adventures two centuries earlier, many did not regard him with suspicion and as a threat to the order.

    But Shin himself had already seen that coming, after his first fight on his return, and later when Mai had told him about it in the hospital. But it was Rein who had persuaded Mai to offer him a position as an agent and science consultant for the SID. That way, for the Council, Shin would be in the custody of Nevermore''s best agents and, in the process, could become an asset to the SID, and thus, to the Council.

    Mai had started working as a field agent again and she did not have a partner. She was a very important asset to the Council, as she was the only one who could handle the weapon that had ended the war. The Azusa bow, and therefore they could not just accept her back on the front line, even though she was more than experienced.

    The first choice of partner for Mai had been Lizbeth, but the Council was not sure about accepting it, because both had a past, and according to rumors a present, that involved them romantically. This was not uncommon, as there were several pairs of partners who shared something more, even though it was forbidden by the organization''s protocol. One of those rules that is written down, but certain parts of it are completely ignored.

    Therefore, after weeks of trials and psychological tests to evaluate Shin''s ability, Rein and Lizbeth proposed to Mai to team up with Shin. That way, she would have a partner with experience in the field of research, even if he had outdated views. At the same time, he would be able to learn from her, little by little, how the organization was developing. Shin, thanks to his armor, would be able to protect Mai on research missions and he, in turn, would be under Mai''s surveillance.

    Mai had heard a lot about Shin over the years. Spy, scientist, doctor, bodyguard, researcher, were some of the professions attributed to him. Part of the TF team, one of the first organizations to investigate Dark Events. Many of the stories came from those who had known him and friends, such as Oxy, Leo, Van, Mari, Natalya and several others and, of course, Rein, Noki and Lizbeth herself.

    Mai at first hesitated, but she knew she couldn''t just say no to Rein and Noki. Even though they didn''t share blood ties Shin, had been a foster father to both of them, and he taught them how to move in the world and defend themselves. So, after thinking it over, and pondering the pros and cons, she agreed to it.

    In Shin''s case, the Council also did not want him to be under Lizbeth''s surveillance because of their shared past.

    It was a quirk of fate that, not long after, Mai and Shin ended up together sharing something more than just cases and investigations.

    Lizbeth had not been surprised by it, although she should have been.

    The truth is that, in the battle that took place the day after Shin returned, something happened between the three on the battlefield. Something that was not written in any report, and that they could not explain even if they wanted to.

    It was the secret that all three shared.

    The three knew it at that moment. There was something else in their gazes at that moment. Something they couldn''t put into words, but that went without saying.

    Shin lied without saying anything, as he looked at them in surprise.

    Mai lied, while her lips trembled.

    And Lizbeth, with tears welling up in her eyes, also lied, clenching her mouth to prevent words from coming out of her mouth.

    A truth that could not be told, even though all three sensed it.

    However, it happened, and although there were things they could not say to each other, it was the price to pay for the happiness they had achieved.

    And a few weeks ago the Council had finally had to give in to the opposition to forming a team.

    They could no longer use the relationship as an excuse, because Shin and Mai had become more than partners, and Lizbeth joining them as part of the team was no longer a problem. If they had each other''s backs, as long as they didn''t neglect their duties, there was nothing against them being together.

    Lizbeth smiled, feeling the warmth from both sides, as she remembered years past when she had awakened to find that face sleeping next to her.

    Lizbeth jabbed her index finger on Shin''s nose, but black flakes formed on it. The armor seemed to function in surveillance mode. Shin felt something stinging his nose and, frowning, he woke up. Though his gesture changed when he found Lizbeth''s face smiling at him.

    "Good morning," he greeted.

    "Very good morning," she replied, smiling and kissed him.

    Shin stared at her and played with her hair and caressed her cheek. He couldn''t believe it either, seeing her there. The three of them together.

    Shin hated the word fate for a long time, but if that was what fate had in mind for him, he wouldn''t mind accepting whatever it had in store for him, if he could protect the two girls in front of him.

    From his point of view, even if there had been trouble on his arrival he would not have been able to get away from Mai and Lizbeth. Though of course the Council had no idea what the three of them couldn''t say, and neither did any of their friends and companions. It was a chaotic situation that only they knew about.

    "Do you want to continue?" Lizbeth asked, interrupting Shin''s thoughts.

    Shin swallowed hard. The truth was that he didn''t feel like it at the moment, but if he had to sacrifice himself he wouldn''t mind. "Just the two of us?"

    Lizbeth gently pushed away Mai''s sleeping hand and lay down on top of him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and he began to caress her back, running his hands down her hips and bottom as he felt her shudder. Shin lightly squeezed Lizbeth''s butt cheeks with one hand, while with the other he caressed her cheek and then kissed her again.

    Although he could feel the wetness and her skin was a bit sticky, due to what happened during the night it didn''t bother him at all.

    Shin grabbed her waist and moved her a little until his face was between her breasts. That a woman who had been through so much in her life had come so far, and could love him in that way, almost seemed to him undeserved for having made her wait so long. Although time was relative in more ways than one in that relationship.

    "Are you sniffing me?"

    "''Yeah. You smell so good,''" Shin replied, then kissed one of her nipples with tenderness, and buried his face in the warmth of Lizbeth''s chest.

    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    " Do I not smell like sweat?"

    ¡°No.¡±

    "Good morning."

    They both looked to the side and found Mai smiling at them. All the movement under the covers had woken her up. Her face was sleepy and her hair was messier than usual.

    On the other hand there was something that characterized Mai that morning. Overnight her hair was completely dark blue and all the silver color had disappeared.

    Mai was a bit surprised to see it completely dark, as she didn''t expect the color to change overnight.

    So cute, thought Shin and Lizbeth.

    Mai came over too and snuggled between them, not willing to be left out. Although she didn''t like to have relations in the morning, it was a special day. The three of them were more than willing to continue what they had started the night before.

    Shin had already started caressing Mai''s butt and his hand was moving dangerously low.

    "Not there," Mai said blushing.

    "Why?"

    "Not my butt. Save that for tonight."

    If she didn''t want to, Shin wasn''t going to oblige, even though it made him laugh inwardly to see her so flushed. He simply decided to continue caressing her bottom.

    "Do you need any cream or massage?" Lizbeth asked, with a mischievous smile as one of her hands also started to move closer to Mai''s lower butt.

    "N-no..." replied Mai, pulling her hand away. "My butt is fine."

    But, for their part, Shin and Lizbeth hugged her, and the three hid under the sheet, when they heard something strange.

    For the second time in Lizbeth''s case.

    "Crunch." It didn''t matter how they heard it. That was a sound none of the three had ever produced.

    Mai removed the blanket and leaned her head forward and Lizbeth did the same, looking in the direction of the couches, which was where they had heard the strange sound from. Shin, holding Lizbeth on top of him, tried to crane his neck as best he could.

    Although the room was sealed, some of the technicians passing by outside at the time swore they heard a scream coming from one of the rooms.

    Mai''s heart almost skipped a beat.

    Sitting in the shadows of the room, in one of the armchairs, was Oxy munching on a crunchy croissant.

    "And I thought the banshee was Lizbeth," Oxy said blushed, as she put the last piece of croissant in her mouth.

    "What the hell?!" Mai said obfuscated and blushing, trying to cover her nakedness.

    While it was true that on the island she didn''t mind the issue of nudity in the mixed showers, that was very different from walking into someone else''s room when they were in such an intimate moment.

    Oxy stood up with a serious gesture and looked at the trio. "Guys...I''m sorry. I''m really sorry, but we don''t have time for this."

    Because of Oxy''s serious expression, Mai slackened her gesture. Oxy was the type of girl who was usually quite cheerful. That she was so serious and had entered the room in violation of security couldn''t mean anything good.

    Lizbeth rolled back to where she had originally been and sat up in bed, but without covering herself. Shin also sat up and looked at Oxy''s face.

    "Today''s reception is cancelled. The Council sent the communiqu¨¦ a couple of hours ago."

    Mai loosened her grip on the sheet. Had they backed out of the decision that the three of them would team up? No, that couldn''t be it.

    "What happened?" Shin asked. In his case the reception would lift the probationary period, and it was official that he would be a official special agent, not to mention that the ban on leaving the planet would be lifted, as long as he was under surveillance.

    "It has nothing to do with you three. Something big happened last night at the lake bordering France and Switzerland, and we''ve been asked to have all special agents head over there when the ship check is finished, and load all the equipment onto the ship."

    Mai completely loosened her grip on the sheet not caring that Oxy was looking at her naked. "Really? What happened?" Not that it had bothered her. The three other three people in the room knew. Mai was going into work mode.

    "We''ve just been told to go quickly and start helping with the investigation. We''ve got research on the ground, so we need to get geared up."

    "You too?"

    "All the special agents in the vicinity and due to the nature of the event. They requested that I go as well."

    "But what is it this time?"

    "We''ve just been told that something has appeared, and that shouldn''t be here."

    "Something that shouldn''t be here?" Shin inquired.

    "Just that?" Lizbeth asked.

    Mai turned on her Neurowire and so did Lizbeth. Both had turned it off the night before, so as not to be disturbed. When they turned it on, however, they were met with the communiqu¨¦ that had arrived two hours ago. It wasn''t unusual for them to receive an order to go investigate immediately from the Council, but for them to call for Oxy, who was originally part of the teaching staff, rather than fieldwork, was something that didn''t usually happen.

    "Damn it!" Mai said jumping out of bed.

    "There''s nothing else here. What''s so bad they can''t tell us?" Lizbeth asked.

    "Very bad. There''s a press blackout and complaints have already been raised with the International Information Administration about it. But the Council doesn''t want any information to get out of the place. With the situation at the Vatican still unclear, and with the attack on the Pyrenne station in Grenoble, I think they are being cautious with the information they are revealing."

    "Have they specifically called us?" Shin asked.

    "The FRT teams have already left and Natsuki and Ryuuji are already there. They were going to come this way, but the call just caught up with them and they decided to travel on."

    "They haven''t said anything?"

    "There''s a block on personal communications. We will only be able to communicate with them when we are inside the perimeter that has been established. Although the Council did say something else."

    "What?" Mai asked.

    "That they were planning to activate the Mesnie in case this is discovered to be a terrorist event."

    Mai frowned and glanced sideways at the bedside table where her earring rested. Then she looked around and huffed looking for her underwear and Lizbeth did the same.

    "Not so fast. The hangar team is finishing up a routine check on the Corven, we leave in an hour and ten minutes. If you weren''t awake in ten minutes I was going to have to wake you up myself."

    "Why didn''t you tell us sooner?" wondered Lizbeth.

    "Because they''re checking the ship and the FRT teams are already on the scene. You have time to take a shower... because, I really thought I was going to get pregnant just walking into the room..." Oxy put her hand to her nose indicating that they should take a shower.

    The three of them looked at her with a serious look on their faces, but they did it that way. They took a shower the three of them together and then, simply wrapped in the bath towels, ate some of the croissants Oxy had brought them, along with a strong coffee from one of the machines in the corridor.

    They had hoped to have some time to shower and play together, but in other circumstances. There was no time for any intimacy in the shower. They had to get ready before the maintenance crew finished checking the ship.

    The truth was that it was part of the protocol to check the official ships before the flight. Not only was it part of the protocol for aerial security, but it was also a directive from the Nevermore Counterintelligence Department in case of espionage. Despite the security measures, it was a rare month that a nanospy was not discovered at a base, or station, or some other device to steal information from the Institute.

    "What about the other FRTs? There are no more personnel in France that we need to go to?" Shin asked.

    "There is one team collaborating with another, next to Pyrene. On the border of Italy there is other, and the other two teams are in Lyon, due to a problem in the city''s drainage systems. Apparently there are more than forty personnel collaborating with those from the municipality''s sanitation system."

    "Drainage?"

    "There''s a plague of giant tardigrades," Oxy said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

    Shin almost choked on his coffee. "Excuse me?"

    Too many things had happened in the last few days, first the supposed terrorist event at the Vatican that turned out to be a robbery, then the attack on Pyrene, and now there were not enough personnel due to an invasion of giant tardigrades. Sometimes Shin could not believe how much the situation had changed from his time.

    Oxy explained quickly the rest of the story, but time was already running out, and in less than 40 minutes they would have to leave. Mai and Lizbeth simply walked out with the wrapped towels and Oxy went with them to the lockers.

    Mai turned to Shin, and he looked at her and turned back to the bathroom. "I''ll be there in a few minutes."

    "Ok."

    He heard the girls whispering to each other as they left, and went to the bathroom, when he heard the door to the room close, he finally stood in front of the mirror looking serious.

    He really hated it, but the truth was he didn''t feel any less tired than the day before, but the problem now was his back. It was hurting. But there was something else that felt strange. But it couldn''t be true.

    "Well, let''s see this," he said and pursed his lips.

    The cloud of particles left his body and almost instantly the armor appeared to fit his body.

    But, as he looked down, he frowned. That had never happened in, as long as he could remember.

    It was incomplete. There were missing the parts of the feet and the part of the hands. The missing parts were as if those parts had been torn off, or as if the metal was corroded. Although there was no sign of corrosion of any kind. It was simply like looking at termite-eaten wood. But as far as he knew even metallophage nanobots couldn''t do anything to the metal of the armor either.

    He could control the metal in some form of the armor at will, and so he did some tests by retracting the mask. Then he formed some plates quickly. And he tried to form the missing parts. It worked. Now he had his hands covered, but he was still missing part of the leg. He tried again just so that at this point his waist was bare while the legs were covered.

    Shin had spent a few years without using the armor. So he couldn''t be sure if there really wasn''t some period of time where its weight changed, and so the density of the metal would change due to something like material fatigue. Honestly, he never cared to do a too thorough examination of the armor.

    But that was different now. The armor had a purpose again. And those purposes were on the other side of the doors.

    Maybe if he waited long enough it would come back on its own, and with the right density and weight.

    As soon as they returned to the island, in mid-April, he would ask his lab mates to help him run more detailed tests. It was time to worry about what the armor really was.

    A weapon? Part of his organs? Something else? If it was a weapon, who had given it to him? If it was an organ, would everyone like him also have it? Were there any of his people left, to begin with?

    Visions of worlds being devoured by two black suns reappeared in his mind.

    He lifted a hand, and the armor particles floated over his hand, as if they were a question that he thought he had not been troubled by for a long time.

    Tzi''rak sha Zhireq.

    What the hell am I?

    The words of the entity, with her mind melded with Rayana Ivraeva flashed in his mind, just as they had in the lake.

    "What is your decision? Knowledge or your current happiness? we''re not sure you can have both. The answers you seek may be out there somewhere, although they don''t always bring happiness. What is it that you seek?"

    What is it that you seek?

    His decision had been to it let go the mysterious spinor-shaped core.

    He did not care about knowledge, as he had done in his earlier years. He had attained happiness.

    What was he looking for? Was he looking for something else?

    The reflection of the mirror gave him back an empty look at that moment, as if it was not really reflecting the being he really was.

    If this time everything was serious, there had to be a way to make sure that no past would haunt him or those he wanted to protect. Mai, Lizbeth and everyone else. And of course Kotori. That sweet human girl, who looked so fragile but was stronger and more determined than she seemed. Mai and Lizbeth seemed to have feelings for her because of what happened at Christmas but he was also to blame for what happened. The more you have, the greater the danger of losing everything, Shin thought. That was the reason he didn''t want to give an answer.

    Shin decided not to tell Mai and Lizbeth what he had discovered in the bathroom. He didn''t want to worry them. The day was not starting off well after spending such an emotional romantic time during the last night.

    He dressed in a T-shirt and shorts that he had taken out of his bag, and grabbed his turtle backpack. His trenchcoat was not going to be needed, so he left it on the couch where it had been resting since the night before and went outside.

    The room had its own cleaning system, so room service was not required if the place was being occupied by agents. Therefore, locking the room would be sufficient. Oxy, despite having entered the room, was an exception due to her skills.

    He walked to one of the locker romms with the letters SID above it, and went inside. They were the lockers where the agents who were leaving for some group mission used to change.

    There was a reason for this, and it was to check the turtle backpack systems and, for the others, to make sure that everyone was properly equipped and that nothing would be missing in case of an emergency. Anyone not familiar with how they handled missions in complex formation teams would have judged it as a trifle, but it was part of the protocol and was a safety precaution.

    Controlling weapons and ammunition, extra weapons, first aid kits, food and liquid bars was part of it. Also controlling communication devices with secure channels in case they needed to communicate with private channels. The latter was carried out from the Neurowire and in Shin''s case with the device in his ear.

    Shin entered the locker room and saw that almost everyone was finishing changing. The last thing he saw of Mai''s body was that she had put on a sports bra, as well as Lizbeth and as they zipped up their coveralls. A little further away, were Zi and Philip checking their backpacks, and Oxy was setting up her boots. Farther away, Carissia was finishing changing without putting on any underwear, although due to her body structure it was not as if she needed a bra, despite the enormous size of her breasts.

    They had dressed in dark colored camouflaged coveralls that had the acronym SID, and the raven emblem on the left shoulder in white. These had some parts such as elbow pads, shoulder pads and tactical knee pads to protect the extremities, not to mention that they were projectile-proof, as they were equipped with smart fabric. All the coveralls were of the same size when taken out of the turtle backpack but, once put on, the intelligent fabric could be adapted to the physiognomy of the wearer.

    The clothing was part of the extra equipment, that could be carried for field work and could be used from crime scenes, evidence collection, to working in terrain where official suits were not required. It also had multi-purpose boots, with vector impulse and magnetic adhesion functions, that could be activated through the Neurowire. Or in Shin''s case manually with a series of buttons on the first safety.

    They finished changing, putting the turtle backpacks on their backs. Instantly the metal buckles sprouted, securing themselves to the body and adopting various configurations. The shoulder holster, as in the case of Shin and Zi, to carry weapons on the sides, or in other cases as a belt with leg loops to carry the weapon on the right side, as in the case of Mai, Oxy and Philip, or on the left leg in the case of Lizbeth.

    All coveralls were the same with the exception of Mai and Carrisia. Mai had a green insignia representing a moth antenna on the left side of her neck.

    Carrisia had also taken off her red and black costume to put on a coverall of the same type as the others. But she had red insignia on her shoulder pads, with the sign of a raven with two folded wings, and on its head there was a star following a comet. It was the insignia that categorized her, not only as a senior pilot with the two folded wings and the star, but the comet also signified that she was a pilot of interplanetary rank.

    Usually she didn''t show the insignia, since the suit she always wore didn''t need it, because it had the logo on the side of the collar. But that jumpsuit was for field work and wearing it on her shoulders, it was always easier for other people to recognize that she was the team''s pilot.

    The redhead left the room towards the ship, while the rest of the team finished checking the equipment. The truth was that they would not need weapons, since they were going to be investigating along with several people, but it was part of the protocol to control everything in case something happened.

    Mai checked her weapon and ammunition, and kept the tactical glove with which she could use Azusa, in one of her coverall pockets. Oxy and Lizbeth were carrying a Sauger-M9, with needle ammunition, also called the boomerang sieve, because the ammunition could be returned to the weapon thanks to the magnetic attraction device. Philip and Zi were using two Wasp-S with stun settings.

    They all had additional weapons such as rifles and shotguns in their devices, but were confident that they would not have to use them. Shin, on the other hand put his gun in his shoulder holster, and with the belt configuration of the backpack, put a tactical sword with a vibrating blade on his left side. The sword was in its compressed form so its blade was not present, only the hilt.

    Finally they checked the shields, of the coverall''s security equipment. Everything was working perfectly. And without further ado they headed to the ship on the runway that was ready to take off. Except for Zi, who took a shortcut to the base kitchen to grab some on-the-go snacks before boarding the ship.

    While they had been preparing, the base''s technical team had already loaded into the back of the ship different cargo secured to the floor, that could be of use to the team. Such as special spider-like evidence collection drones with magnetic devices. As well as lab equipment for Oxy and Shin, and tents to set up on site, along with sleeping bags and even a portable toilet. While the military personnel on site should have already set up much of what they were carrying, it never hurt to have extra equipment. Not to mention that it was a large team, considering Ryuuji and Natsuki were already on the scene, with the few FRT agents who were not on the Lyon mission.

    From the huge hangar doors the team could see how Camila, Kanna and Kon greeted them waving their hands and shouting "Take care! And that was the last they saw of the base before the cargo hatch closed.

    The ship had changed its configuration, setting up more seats, although after departing almost everyone was standing. Carissia was cautious and would have liked them to remain in their seats, although given that they had the handrails and magnetic boots activated she judged that it was fine, since the flight wouldn''t take more than about thirty minutes to reach the destination anyway.

    They talked for several minutes about what could have happened, but it was the same as talking about the Mothman and the Shadow People at the time. They could make no more than guesses as to what had happened, and could only weave theories because of the secrecy with which the matter was being conducted. The fact that a security blackout had been placed on the press, and that they were thinking of making civilians sign a secrecy agreement, was more than enough to conclude that this was more than serious.

    A secrecy agreement was not uncommon. People could be made to sign to keep quiet when it involved national or international security, or transplanetary matters. But it was usually something carried out between political, intelligence, or military authorities. The involvement of civilians often involved cases where an DE was so serious that it could not be revealed in any way, and could be punishable in some cases with imprisonment or if necessary with devices to erase the memory of the event of those involved.

    However, weaving theories, the minutes passed quickly for the team.

    "We''re here!" announced Carissia.

    Since everyone had safety equipment almost no one, with the exception of Oxy and Lizbeth, was sitting in their seats. Philip went to the side of the ramp and pressed a few buttons on the screen on the side of the ramp. At that moment the ramp became trasparent offering the image of the outside, it was one of the internal projection functions that the ship had. The team stood up and went to the ramp and from there they saw the terrain two hundred meters below them.

    Carissia from her cockpit looked at the landscape in bewilderment and shook her head. Although she could measure the intensity of her emotions, a shiver ran down her biomechanical spine. She then took a couple of low flights over the scene so that the team behind her could get used to the scene.

    There was a line of destruction along the coastline at least a few hundred yards long. Parts had been destroyed everywhere and some trees had been uprooted when the plane crashed. While others had burned like grass in the flames due to the explosion of the plane''s fuel tanks.

    But the fire had already been extinguished and with it the search for bodies and evidence had begun.

    There were countless people moving around. People with different colored equipment and some carrying bags, that Mai could already imagine what they were. There were lifeboats and other autonomous craft that were scanning over the treetops.

    But there was no doubt.

    Even though there was burned fuselage and parts everywhere, there was no doubt. That plane should not be there.

    Lizbeth, along with Oxy, joined the team and they all looked at what was before their eyes in amazement. That had been hell, there was no doubt about it. Even in spite of the clear sky, a heavy atmosphere covered the whole place.

    It was the smell of death and tragedy mixed with the morning mist.

    "This can''t be good," Mai said, looking worriedly at the scene.

    There were two things that happened at that moment.

    One of them went unnoticed by the whole team, as they were watching the scene. In the midst of the equipment that had been loaded, a small black pug was hidden among the industrial suitcases. The little pug, from his hiding place watched as the team gathered in the back, unable to see what had caught their attention. The other team at the base, who were in charge of taking care of him, would not discover the security device, where he had been put to rest, until late in the day. It was in pieces and cut up like butter.

    The second detail was occurring in the room, where Shin had left his trench coat. In the Dirac space, where he kept some personal effects hidden, an old cell phone, more than two hundred years old, was ringing.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 13: Panopticon

    Chapter Thirteen

    Panopticon/Pool

    March 21, Wednesday. 6.24A.M. 215 S.A

    In some restricted space on Another Earth.

    B.K. was still leaning against the gold-colored wall, with embossed decoration that seemed to resemble somekind of circuit board. He had been doing the same thing for the last few minutes and his eyes exhibited tiny sparkles as he looked up.

    "Tch... that idiot. I hope he left it out," he said angrily, and clicked his tongue looking down, as his eyes returned to normal, cutting off the call that had gone unanswered.

    After accepting the invitation, which had arrived at his secret location, he had been pondering whether or not to attend, but curiosity had gotten the better of him. After carefully analyzing the security code he had come to the conclusion that his invitation had a special encryption system designed just for him. Whoever the other guests were, they had surely been assigned their own codes as well.

    Still, whoever was organizing the whole thing was someone B.K. knew. But he was not happy about it. But, still, what he had seen in the codes of the gematria cubes was more than enough for him to decide to attend.

    After creating a restoration copy, for any eventuality that might occur, he had finally left his physical body and transported his consciousness to the enclosed space where he had been invited.

    He arrived at the building by connecting from his own network, but he didn''t like to think what he would find inside. He should have sent the message earlier, but the truth is that the time issue didn''t matter anymore.

    What was done was done. There was no turning back. In fact, if everything was as he had seen in the cubes. Whatever had to happen from then on had to happen anyway.

    He walked up the massive stairs, away from where he was leaning, and shuffled his feet up, to the only door that awaited him on top. The only one that led anywhere in the whole labyrinthine place.

    The structure of the whole building seemed to be built with Escher''s paradoxical architecture, with staircases in the same style of decoration as the walls. But there were parts of glass and the light from outside came in through huge windows. Depending on an observer''s point of view, the structures seemed to change and lead nowhere.

    Those stairs, doors and structures actually looked normal to anyone viewing the space from the outside, but they were a trap. Anyone who did not have their invitation would be refused entry to the enclosed space. And in case they tried to crack the system to enter, what they would find would be a veritable endless number of other meaningless lines of code and corridors that led nowhere. A real labyrinth.

    What B.K. saw was a virtual manifestation of paradoxical architecture, but to someone else it would only look like a gibberish of disjointed and meaningless codes. Unless a special invitation had been extended to the place, it would not end well for an invader''s conscience.

    "Very convenient," B.K. said.

    When he reached the top, the sliding door opened and showed him a tall coral-colored elevator, whose walls changed, exhibiting cubic fractal patterns. But inside someone was waiting for him.

    "Mr. B.K., we''ve been expecting you," a woman greeted.

    "Y-11," greeted B.K. "Save the protocol. I had no choice after all."

    Y-11 made a sort of bow, with her long hand and stepped aside, letting B.K. pass.

    Y-11''s size contrasted with B.K.''s. She was a woman who must have been at least a little over six feet tall, with an extremely slender appearance and long limbs. She had not a single hair on her head and had alabaster black skin with fine features, and she had light blue eyes. She wore a long white dress, with gold trim on the top, and the bottom of the dress was a more turquoise shade, although it had a distinctly modern touch in its design, made of iridescent fabric.

    The door closed but, from the inside, it became transparent, offering them the infinite landscape of paradoxical architecture. The building seemed to have no end. B.K could feel every part of his own code being scanned at that moment.

    The truth is that the whole landscape and scenery was nothing more than an unjustified aesthetic taste of his host, as he took the trouble to scan the newcomers.

    "Your boss sure likes to show off," B.K. said.

    "I apologize," Y-11 said, in a soft tone, "it is necessary for our activities."

    "How many are there?"

    "All the Awakened Ones."

    B.K. looked at her, with a serious gesture.

    "There will be nothing to fear, don''t worry."

    "The Queen Bee is there too?"

    Y-11 smiled and nodded.

    "We''re all the old-timers then, gathered in one place."

    "The event warrants it."

    "Bullshit. This is just so your boss can show off." B.K. looked at her. "No offense."

    "None taken."

    The elevator finally stopped, and the inside darkened, only for the door to open and B.K. could finally see where he''d stepped in.

    "This has gone from a surveillance matrix to a show matrix," B.K. said, looking around and shook his head.

    B.K. stepped out of the elevator, into what must have been just the donut-pod he had been assigned at the event. No one looked at him or said anything at his arrival, though. B.K. simply sat in his place and looked at the panel in front of his seat, while Y-11 withdrew. There must have been more than a thousand donut-pods in the place. And in each one there seemed to be someone sitting, but no one paid attention to him. The whole place was a gigantic sphere, almost like a stadium. And with all the donut-pods pointing in the same direction.

    Towards the center.

    In the center of the place there was a giant sphere, that was projecting changing scenes every second. And, within that layer of images, something else in the center. A simulation of the sun.

    The projected images showed events from all over the world, and numerical codes on screens scrolling at incredible speed. There was all kinds of information, and it seemed that some of it came from very distant times, so it could be deduced that many of those things were not news of something that was happening at the moment. Although B.K. knew that it could be misleading in that case.

    News of terrorist events, stock market movements, company stock crashes, assassinations, natural disasters and also some other news that seemed to have no connection whatsoever were displayed on the screens and changed at breakneck speed. But from them, at certain moments, nodes were traced between them that linked them for a moment and then disconnected without any further action.

    B.K. watched the images for a few moments, and then looked at the controls of his panel and typing some commands the personal image of the projection changed to that of two cubes intertwined with binary sequences.

    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    Almost as soon as his personal image changed, a screen appeared in front of him announcing a telepathic call. B.K. looked around and there he found it.

    The host of all that.

    Janus was several lines of pods below and, without looking at him,, was smiling at the central sphere through his dark glasses.

    Reluctantly B.K. accepted the call, and Janus'' voice echoed in his mind.

    [In the past it was said that every partner was a watcher. Vigilance is determined by the power of money and information, and what you can do with it. If you see that as a spectacle it''s because you''re not up to date.]

    Just as B.K. had thought, Janus had been watching the arrival of everyone there. And he must have heard what he said when he came out of the elevator. Perhaps the reason Y-11 was there was to serve as an antenna for Janus to better establish a scan of the guest.[I have never been interested in power or anything like that,] B.K replied.

    [But you have made use of it. How have you spent so much time hiding from the world and, at the same time, watching what was going on? At the same time you have made use of what this world has created, technology, information. Maybe you have not benefited from it as I have. But to say that you have never been interested in it is a lie. The wars, the deaths, the invasions have always been there, but you have not lifted a finger in your lair, except when it was in your interest. That''s called selfishness.]

    [Who is the one who has spent time with humans now? Selfishness? No one has ever died because of my intervention.]

    [Not directly at least.]

    [So you think yours is indirect?]

    [No. I know perfectly well that about 2.830,000 existences have died over the centuries because of my interventions. But it is little compared to losing millions.]

    [¡­ ] B.K. looked at him again.

    [Don''t look at me like that. I know it''s a big number, but I did my best to attenuate the number over time. It''s been over two hundred years for me. And yet I still rely on them. If I didn''t, I wouldn''t have left this future in the hands of the past. We would all be dead if every piece had not been in place.]

    B.K. just gave him a sidelong glance and said nothing.

    [We know the end of this adventure because I was able to control things so that we all got here. But what awaits from Friday onwards is a mystery.]

    [You''ve created a monster to justify this scenario. You even attacked a control station, bastard.]

    [What is a monster in a zoo of abnormalities? This world is full of paradoxes, that do not exist, they are just improbabilities. What''s wrong with creating sufficient conditions to make a future possible. Whatever the price, it is something worth fighting for.]

    [It''s a high price.]

    [It''s much better than knowing that something is going to happen, and doing nothing about it.]

    [Even if you know that what''s going to happen can be changed? It''s too many variables.]

    [I think your problem is in assuming that I control all of them. I mean, look at me. I was created solely for the purpose of studying market values and predicting stock movements. I would never have imagined that I would end up in this era and doing this, when there are already algorithms much more efficient than myself. But, still, here am I. Doing something that someone else should have done, and with clues that are even inconclusive.]

    B.K. looked at Janus and opened his eyes.

    [I see you''ve noticed,] Janus said, enigmatic, and his gaze fixed on the ever-changing projections within the central sphere.

    [This is someone else''s scenario?]

    Janus smiled wistfully and shrugged his shoulders. [This is a game in which you have your part to play, too.]

    B.K. glared at him, but had loosened his angry expression. [Y-11 never sent that invitation by chance. You ordered her to.]

    [Exactly.]

    [If you haven''t controlled all the variables, who is the one who has?]

    [No one. The One Who Endures gave me the last clue to this fifteen years ago. But, even he is not the one who created the scenario.]

    [Aleister,] B.K. grimaced cynically, and shook his head. [Did you listen to the magician?]

    [Don''t misunderstand. He just gave me the clues to the missing variables. This is not one of his plans. Everyone plays their part here, all of them, me, you, Aleister.]

    [Since when do you trust magic? You''ve always been methodical.]

    [This story is methodical,] slowly, Janus looked at the place where B.K. stood. [No matter which point you choose, the end is the same and so on until the end of time.]

    End of time? B.K. though. [What makes you think that?]

    [I tried to change events several times over the years, but everything turned out just as Aleister predicted, and is within one of the predicted scenarios. It doesn''t matter if there are other ways to reach the same result. Everything has happened just as he predicted.]

    [In this universe, at least,] sighed B.K., leaning back in his seat.

    [At least, in this universe, in what we call our time.] Janus''s eyes sparkled with a mix of intrigue and determination. [We just may be mere fragments of a larger whole, but our individual contributions carry significance. And, as we stand at the precipice of the unknown, let us embrace the uncertainty and fulfill our destinies within this grand design.] Janus said, and looked straight ahead again.

    The conversation was cut short by Janus but left a bitter taste and questions for B.K..

    He simply snorted and settled back in his chair as his gaze was fixed on the huge central sphere where the images connected and disconnected at all times. Offering an intricate tapestry of events that seemed beyond comprehension.

    Let''s see what comes of this, thought B.K. resignedly.

    ***

    In some secret location in the Orbital Belt

    Clark felt a mixture of weariness and concern weighing heavily upon him.

    He moved his bare feet in the pool and saw how his movements expanded and formed ripples with a tired gesture.

    He was in a round room that was almost dark, but was surrounded on all sides by long horizontal tubes, and in each one were floating persons wearing masks, with their eyes closed. Almost all of them were old and human but there were some young people as well. The young people were almost all feys.

    It was as if they were in a dreamlike state, because of the rapid movement of their pupils and the spasms that ran through their bodies from time to time.

    Clark stood in the middle of the room in a circular pool and the bluish light shone on his face.

    He didn''t look very old and, although his facial features made him look like he was in his early thirties, his tired face added more years than he looked. His dark wavy hair covered his ears and eyes. He was slightly wet because he had just gotten out of the pool and was sitting on the side. A simple soaking wet robe covered his body.

    "They''ve already headed over there."

    The sudden voice made him turn around quickly, and his hair spurted droplets of water from the sudden movement, revealing his coal-black eyes.

    Behind him was a tall man with short gray hair, blue eyes, and a stubbly beard. He wore a cream-colored suit, with no tie, and the first few buttons undone. His face made it difficult to determine whether he was in his forties or fifties. His face gave him a youthful, yet mature look.

    The man moved over to him and bent down with the intention of helping him up.

    "No. I''m fine like this. I haven''t moved for days, let me get rid of the dizziness first."

    The man simply sighed and not caring too much if his suit got wet, sat down near him with his legs stretched out.

    "Don''t you have other things to do?" Clark asked.

    "No."

    "You''re a pain in the ass Travis, you know?."

    "Sorry for bothering you, bastard." Travis said, with a mocking chuckle.

    "I wouldn''t be surprised if after this Mai sends all of us to hell."

    "That''s not going to happen as long as the old guys are still there."

    "¡­ It''s not like we''re the young ones exactly."

    "So. Did you see anything else?" Travis asked, trying not to pay attention to Clark''s scathing comment.

    "No. I haven''t seen a dream this deep since the war. Everything''s black."

    "So, it''s going to happen."

    "That''s what scares me the most."

    "Which part?"

    "All of it. It''s a betrayal of the free spirit."

    "What free spirit? You look to the future. There is no choice. Gehirn said the same thing before he disappeared."

    "If this has to happen for our past to be safe, what does this hold for the future?"

    Travis looked at the tubes where the people floated and nodded slightly sternly. "At least for us, as a species, who knows."

    "Species? What species?" asked Clark with derision.

    "I mean all of us" Clark glanced at Travis out of the corner of his eye and Travis twisted a smile and simply said. "There are no easy answers for that. The truth is, old friend, there are no more rules. Maybe, like Aleister said, there never were in the first place. We are trying to curb the DEs. But the truth is that just maybe it''s true what the ancients said about it."

    "The Dark Events is nothing more than the beginning of something much bigger, that could happen tomorrow, weeks from now, or billions of years from now," Clark said heavily.

    "Indeed. People think we''re trying to control them. We''re simply buying time for life as we know it to evolve and mold itself to them and not them to us. Our struggle to curb the Dark Events is a testament to our commitment to life itself."

    Unless Event Zero is found, Clark thought. "You haven''t changed in 500 years, always an idealist just like that girl."

    "I don''t know if you mean that as an insult, but I''ll take it as or compliment," Travis said with a gentle smile.

    Clark regarded Travis with a mixture of gratitude and wistfulness. "Call it what you will, my old friend."

 Vol.3/ Chapter 14: Venice

    Chapter Fourteen

    1960/Venice

    June 23rd. 1960. Ancient Era

    Venice. Italy.

    Carl Scott bit his bottom lip, with an expression that seemed to have aged him a couple of decades in a matter of hours.

    He was sweating profusely and his new cream-colored shirt, which matched his pants, was slightly soaked in the back, giving him an unpleasant feeling. He wore tortoiseshell glasses, and protected himself from the sun with a white hat.

    "Why couldn''t we meet somewhere else?" he asked, wearily.

    "You''re asking me? I wasn''t the one who came up with the idea," Jack replied, with a smirk as he chewed on a toothpick.

    Jack could really pass for a tourist on the spot. He was wearing shorts, sandals and a turkish-colored shirt with some of the buttons undone. Without pausing, he looked back. "If you''re feeling hot, what about our friend here," he asked, turning around. "You don''t feel hot, Mr. Ishida?"

    "I''m getting cooked," said a voice in a dry tone.

    The two were accompanied by a Japanese man, dressed in an all-black suit. He had a handsome face and his hair was combed back with hair gel. Still, beads of sweat beaded Ishida Yanagida''s pale forehead. It was the first time Scott had seen him in person, but Jack had talked about him enough in the past months.

    All three carried black briefcases with them.

    Carl Scott felt that his briefcase weighed a ton, even though it was rather light. He sighed in disgust and with his free hand took off his glasses, which he put in one of his pants pockets.

    The summer was really humid and heavy that year in Venice. There had been more precipitation than usual, which was worse around midday, where the sun was so punishing with evaporation that it seemed to have turned the whole city into a kind of open-air sauna. Although, that didn''t seem to stop the tides of tourists in the place, which made the three feel as if they had stepped into a can of sardines.

    Carl Scott looked at Jack and sighed, then shook his head.

    It had been months since they had met. And even though they were working together, that didn''t take away the strange feeling that he still didn''t know everything about Jack. Even though, every few months, they changed identities moving between countries, Scott couldn''t help but feel that strangeness around him.

    It had already been a miracle that the Agency hadn''t opened an investigation on Scott, when Jack appeared out of nowhere in Tokyo, summoning him to the Ichigaya Intelligence Center. But it seemed more stranger to Scott, when the Agency itself was in charge of putting Jack''s papers in order.

    The day they met, after he told Scott his strange story, Jack gave him an extra message, which was to reach a certain person in California. Whatever the meaning of the words Scott sent, it turned out that within three days Jack was released from the custody of the Japanese Police.

    What was more, Scott had received orders from Langley to continue his work, but this time with the mysterious subject. From the last days of December until now, the two of them became a sort of a team, traveling in different parts of the world.

    Making noise, Jack called it.

    Touring countries, looking for components, making links. Jack seemed to be a fountain of knowledge and a trickster who was very good at persuading people, not to mention his eccentricities. On one occasion, he had woken Scott up by throwing a battery of firecrackers into his room. That time Scott had to apologize to the hotel management for firing his service weapon, in fright because he thought they were under attack.

    But at least, now there was a change in Carl Scott status within the Agency. Out of nowhere, he had gone from being an analyst to a clandestine agent. A spy. He was moving fast with that guy at his side, there was no denying that.

    The truth is that Carl Scott didn''t seem to have to be there, except to save him from getting into trouble. In just a few months they had been to more than ten different countries. The Agency seemed really interested in Jack, as they had him write constant reports of their activities. He couldn''t blame them, anyone would be suspicious of such a character, but Carl Scott couldn''t shake the feeling of familiarity for some reason. Besides, he didn''t seem to want to talk about his past.

    The missions, that both were carrying out, had to be kept under strict secrecy, and it seemed that only a handful of people in the Agency knew what it was all about. Those who also provided them with the funds, so that both could move with some freedom in their travels.

    The missions they both carried out were, to say the least, worthy of appearing in the pulp magazines Carl Scott remembered reading as a child. He had never been particularly interested in subjects such as archeology or relics, but the truth was that many of those missions were aimed at recovering certain artifacts, of which only Jack had any idea where they were. Although the latter was not always accurate, and on more than one occasion both had fled without being able to carry out their mission.

    A pulley mechanism lost in Siberia, a strange tube lost in a forgotten small town in Australia, a series of bronze plates in a Nepalese Buddhist temple and a pair of crystal glasses from a tomb in Tanzania. These were some of the artifacts they had been recovering.

    As far as Carl Scott knew, it was all for building something. If what Jack had told him was true, it was all part of the plan and because of the Agency''s interest in Jack, Carl Scott had no reason to doubt it.

    However, what Carl Scott had realized was that the world was much stranger than he had thought he understood.

    From the feys he had already heard about, to stranger things had appeared before his eyes in the last few months. He saw the world in a new way, though he didn''t know if he was happy about it. These were strange days for him.

    Whatever it was, he had to continue his mission together with Jack and for the rest he would not have to worry. However long it all lasted, perhaps in the future it would be nothing more than an anecdote to tell his grandchildren. Although due to the secrecy agreement he doubted that anything would ever come out of his lips about it all.

    Carl Scott decided not to worry about it anymore, at least for the time being.

    And so, they had arrived in Venice.

    They had arrived at Marco Polo International Airport in the morning, and had to wait for a couple of hours while the flight that would bring Ishida Yanagida arrived.

    It had taken them some time, but they had finally arrived at the agreed meeting place.

    They passed the Palazzo Ducale and crossed the Ponte della Plagia, dodging a crowd of tourists with cameras. While to the right rested some gondolas, bobbing on the water.

    "That''s it," Jack said, pointing ahead.

    The place they were headed for was a caf¨¦, located about fifty meters from them, called Bar Dandeli, located inside a luxury hotel. It had a few tables outside with umbrellas, that were barely occupied. But inside it was quite busy.

    If Scott expected to be in the shade inside, he was wrong. Because the people waiting for them waved to them from one of the tables outside. At least the umbrella was something. But Scott stopped and looked at Jack in disbelief.

    "You never told me he was a priest."

    "More strange things have been seen."

    No, I don''t think so..., Scott thought.

    The people waiting for them were, in fact, a jovial-looking priest, who must have been in his early forties, along with another man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt, and a bushy mustache that Scott thought looked like a hairy caterpillar, because it moved over his upper lip as if it had a life of its own.

    "Seems like it''s been years since the last time," Jack said, greeting the priest with a friendly handshake.

    "Just some months, son," the priest said, in English with a clear Italian accent.

    "Bah, no son. You know I don''t like it," then he turned to his two companions. "Father Verneti, this is Mr. Carl Scott and I believe you have already met Mr. Yanagida."

    "It''s a pleasure, Mr. Scott," Verneti said greeting him and turned to see Ishida Yanagida. "It''s good to see you again, Mr. Yanagida."

    Ishida simply saluted with a bow. "Same to you, father. Doctor DiMati, it''s good to see you again."

    DiMati, the man with the bushy mustache, saluted as well, but either the heat had him too overwhelmed, or he was simply too comfortable sitting in his chair, as he barely had the strength to reach out his hand.

    After the protocol exchange the newcomers ordered a cool drink, while they got ready for the business that had brought them together that day.

    "So you were Pierson''s companions? I mean when he was arrested in Tokyo," Scott asked. The priest and DiMati looked at Jack quizzically.

    "Yes, I told him Zegrus was just a fake last name," Jack nodded.

    "Pierson? Then is your real last name?" Verneti asked.

    "You could say that it is. I''m already dead, to the world anyway. I have to thank the Royal Agency of Intelligence for at least providing me with some papers, which allow me to move around freely enough."

    "So, is what you told us about your death, real? That you blow up yourself?" Verneti asked.

    "It wasn''t like that, it was an experiment. But, as you can see, I''m quite alive." Jack drew a sort of cynical smile on his face, and gave Scott a sidelong glance.

    What do you mean you blew yourself up? Scott thought, looking suspiciously at Jack

    The truth was, on one of the trips they had made to the United States, they had passed by the Agency''s base in California. That had been the only occasion, where Carl Scott had seen Jack show an emotion. And that was when he asked to Carl Scott go with him to visit the JPL facilities. A place they did not enter, because at the last minute Jack did not want to go in. And he was just content to watch the place from the outside, although it was obvious that he was having emotions at that moment. Carl Scott didn''t ask him why, and Jack didn''t tell him either.

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    "I still think I owe you an apology for what happened in Tokyo," Father Verneti said to Jack.

    "Don''t worry about. It was for the best. After Ishida gave me the money to travel to Europe, to meet you, my goal was for us to meet Mr. Scott, the one here. This couldn''t be possible if we didn''t have extra help from the RAI, and the DoD."

    "Wait a minute. Are you going to tell me you were planning on getting arrested?" Scott asked Jack, incredulously.

    "Of course. Dr. DiMati had ties in the past to Russia, the last thing we needed was for him to be arrested in Tokyo for inquiries. I already had the money Ishida gave me to move through Europe, which was going to be suspicious, with the fake passport I entered the country with. I was simply the decoy so, that the two of them could contact the Yanagida family without any problems."

    Verneti took the floor and explained. "I had already heard about the relics and jewelry missing in World War II so, if I was correct, the likelihood of finding the Yanagida family dagger in Italy had several probabilities. To find the dagger was to prove the goodwill, to have Satou Nobuyama''s research and the stone at our disposal."

    Scott looked at Ishida. "You really gave him all that money to move around Europe, without any problems? It was a small fortune and, on top of that, it was left in the hands of the police."

    "Mr. Pierson made me ten times that, on the second day he arrived, and several times that in the days that followed."

    "How''s that?" DiMati asked, chuckling.

    "He guesses horse racing numbers."

    Scott stared at Jack.

    "Anyway. I think we''d better get down to business. You never know what might happen in this kind of business," Ishida pointed out, looking around.

    "I''m sorry, but no one has yet explained to me the reason we had to come to Venice just today, we were supposed to meet next week."

    "Just a convenient vacation spot, and to make our exchange out of our points of origin. It was better to do it unexpectedly, in case someone was following us," Ishida explained.

    "As I said, Mr. Scott, last year we met Mr. Zegrus. Sorry, Pierson. It was at the end of September, just a few days before he was apprehended in Tokyo, and he told us about his plan. Which, as far as we can see, everything he''s told us is correct so far."

    "Plan?"

    No matter how he looked at it, since the day he had met Jack, Carl Scott''s life had changed. If what he had told him was true.¡­

    "We are making history, Mr. Scott." Verneti took out a briefcase he had kept hidden under the table, and passed it to Ishida. Ishida looked at the priest and Verneti nodded gravely. "It took us some time, but we got it a couple of weeks ago. That''s why we contacted you."

    Ishida accepted it, and opened it. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the contents. Scott looked at it and saw that it was some sort of richly decorated dagger, with a guard and scabbard inlaid with what appeared to be jade. Ishida pursed his lips and took it, checking it several times and pulled it out of the scabbard, to look at the blade that seemed to have something written on it, that Scott couldn''t quite make out. That object had nothing to do with the search that Scott and Jack were carrying out, but even so, thanks to that object, something else had been accomplished.

    "This dagger has been in my family for three hundred years," Ishida explained to Scott and Jack.

    "It was among some of the belongings left behind during the passage through Italy of some soldiers," Verneti expounded.

    "The rat route..." mused Scott.

    "No one is blameless during a period of war. I suppose neither are you, with the operation to get scientists to America to help in the space race against the Communists," Verneti replied, arching an eyebrow.

    "The dagger disappeared in 1944, by a traitor to the family, who was in Germany during the last days of the war and then fled. That explains how it ended up in Italy. Anyway, it''s good to have it back in my family. I thank you, Father Verneti."

    Ishida closed the briefcase and, setting it aside, passed his own briefcase to the priest. He opened it carefully, and there, resting in a specially made case, rested a dark, crystalline-looking stone, with a straighter edge.

    "Here''s our little girl," DiMati said, peering into the case.

    "One part at least. Please take care of it," Ishida said.

    "I will. I promise you, young man," Verneti nodded and closed the briefcase. "And the other part?"

    Jack gave Scott a sidelong to his briefcase. "It will go with us."

    "So, your people have their own project for the second half?"

    "Yeah, we''ll at least give it a shot. Our project is a little different from yours. We are not looking for immediate results."

    "Nothing assures that we will have immediate results either," Verneti shrugged.

    "Well, we''ll have to wait almost two decades for some progress," Jack admitted.

    "If what Mr. Pierson has said is true, then this is the right thing to do, and what my uncle would expect. The technology of his time made it impossible, but now, you can probably get results faster," Ishida said, turning to DiMati.

    "That''s what we expect and hope for, young man."

    "It''s what we all hope for," Jack agreed, and then looked at Verneti. "What are the Vatican''s views on this investigation?" he asked.

    "There are some enthusiasts but, honestly, I think they expect too much."

    "What do you mean?" Ishida asked.

    Di Mati laughed. "There are some who believe that our little project will be able to see into the past up to the time when the Common Era began."

    "Excuse me?" Jack asked, incredulous.

    "I''ve tried to explain, but I think some people expect too much of this," Verneti smiled and looked at Ishida. "When we were in Tokyo, I spent days studying your uncle''s papers. And if what he thought is correct, then the stone could only connect to times, when the stone itself has been there. He found the stones in 1880 so, if what he thought, and the visions he had were correct, then it could only mean that the stones serve as a conduit in time, to a time when the stones have been."

    Carl Scott had been hearing a lot of strange things for months, but they had finally come to the point he discussed during their first conversation with Jack in Ichigaya. If what he had told him that time was true. Then it was all about something both fantastic and terrifying at the same time.

    "What do you mean by a conduit?" Scott asked. "Forgive my ignorance, but I want to hear it from you being a priest. Is it true what you are planning?"

    Verneti and DiMati smiled and the priest was the first to begin.

    "You see, I''m not sure if you know this. But I teach a professorship in ancient pre-polyphonic music. Basically it is the study of the earliest attempts at music of our civilization. But it also encompasses certain aspects of instrumental music as well."

    Jack had told him that Verneti was certainly a professor, and that he had ties to the Catholic universities in Rome.

    "Jack told me something," Scott admitted. But he never told me he was a priest.

    "If I''m honest with you, when I was a kid I was always attracted to music. But for other reasons. Besides my fascination with harmony, and how music can influence certain behaviors in human beings, one aspect that always interested me was the concept of the ancient magicians and alchemists, that one of the Music of the Spheres."

    The truth was that for Scott the term didn''t mean anything, but his face must have shown that he didn''t quite understand what he was referring to.

    DiMati took a sip of his drink, much of which was absorbed by his living mustache, and explained. "The basic concept is that everything in the universe is governed by harmony. The planets, the stars, the distances between them. The macrocosm is a mirror of the microcosm and vice versa. Everything is connected, by a kind of harmony that, if it were to be understood, would be like finding the unifying theory of physics. Music, after all, is a mathematical language as well. Many alchemists went crazy looking for it, and there were real treatises that tried to find it, but little or nothing concrete. Even the Magus Pope, Sylvester II, even had among the people around him alchemists interested in it, in addition to the automata."

    "I see..." nodded Scott. "Interesting." Popes in ancient times flirted with magic? That was something he hadn''t heard in the catechism classes his mother sent him to when he was little.

    "If you want, imagine it this way. Our solar system would be a symphony orchestra where the sun is in turn the director and also someone on the music team."

    "¡­"

    "Well imagine it with rock. I guess you like Rock&Roll? Imagine all the planets in the solar system as if they were part of a band where each one plays a different instrument. Each with different frequencies and harmonies. It''s a crude example but it works. But imagine it on a larger scale now. Include, star clusters, galaxies. The basic theory is that they are all somehow connected to form a symphony that expresses the beauty and order in the cosmos."

    "Doesn''t that go against entropy?"

    "No. On the contrary. Entropy always seeks to homogenize a system," DiMati said with a shrug.

    "Anyway," Verneti continued. "That was one of the reasons, I began my studies in music. Eventually, though, I put it aside, to focus more on the antiquity of early melodies. As I studied more and more, and with the development of concepts such as slower sound propagation in hyperdimensional geometry spaces, where the fourth dimension intervenes, I was led to wonder exactly what would happen if we could capture the sound of the past, or perhaps the future."

    "Basically... hear audio from another time?"

    "It''s not such a weird concept." DiMati took the floor, crossing her arms. "The first attempts at chronocameras began in Edison''s time. Not to mention retrocognition. And, in the area of capturing voices, for some years now there have been attempts to establish a discipline that supposedly captures voices of deceased persons, such as instrumental psychophonics for capturing metaphonies."

    "Yes." continued Verneti. "Specifically, in my area, I experimented for several years with various types of machines, that would allow me to hear voices from the past but, unfortunately, I got very few results. I knew I might be right so, I kept experimenting with designs for a phonographic oscillograph. One of the ideas that haunted me was, what kind of sounds I could pick up if I got results? It would have to be sounds from the place where I put the machine. But I still got very poor results, although I did find that propagation through a liquid medium gave better results, albeit in such a short time that it could barely be measured in less than a second. It was not unlike when we see lightning and then hear thunder. But, in the reverse direction, there were two occasions where we picked up a sound before the cause that generated it occurred."

    Bullshit, Scott thought, arching an eyebrow. That last part he had understood perfectly. If what the priest was saying was true, it was like discovering something that had the arrow of time reversed. Jack glanced sideways at him, knowing he understood that.

    "Anyway," Verneti continued. "Then, I met Dr. DiMati, who is an expert in physics and works with electronics."

    "Yes, well. I''m interested in the project, but seen from another point of view."

    If what Verneti was saying could have any semblance of reality, someone with credentials closer to the hard sciences had to have some reason to go along with it.

    "Which one would that be?" Scott asked, interested.

    "The one of the image. Capturing light emissions from a given point in time. I should clarify that I''m talking about almost infinitesimal distances. Basically, a moment in the past that happened nothing ago."

    "Seeing into the past, capturing positrons?" Ishida asked.

    "Those are pretty bold, but interesting postulates. Or into the future. But, as I told you, they are very small intervals of time."

    "Like a time machine?" Scott ventured.

    "More like a time observer," DiMati pointed out.

    "We called it a Chronovisor," Verneti said.

    "Chronovisor?"

    "Yes, you see. We measure time with clocks, or make forecasts of what we''ll do in an hour, or a few days. But time is a concept. In physics, the direction of time is somewhat different. What would happen for an observer outside the three dimensions we move in? Perhaps, time would be different for that observer. A machine has limitations only in the technology applied but, who knows, maybe what we''re doing here is the kickoff for something much bigger in the future, that can actually capture images and sound from both. The past and the future."

    DiMati finally leaned forward and explained, "We, humans, move in the direction towards the future, and we are limited by our own biology. But, a machine is different. If we apply concepts, like the one proposed by Funnymann and Wheiler, about perhaps electrons and positrons being the same, but moving in different time directions, we could be on the doorstep of deciphering the true meaning of time."

    "¡­ and the stones would help with that?"

    "Yes. Many of the ideas that Satou Nobuyama wrote about time, are incredibly interesting and tie in with ideas that we have. Not to mention, the machine designs in his schematics. These are things that are decades, or a hundred years away, from being able to build something like that, because it requires an enormous amount of energy. Although, I suppose if like Jack said the U.S. DoD is interested in this, it''s because they too have seen that they can profit from something." Verneti said, smiling.

    "I did the same thing Satou Nobuyama did," continued DiMati, "of putting the two stones together, as he recounts in his diary, and I must say that nothing happened. It is not that I am suspicious. There are too many parts of it that are too serious, to think that they were mere hallucinations. It''s just that maybe there is something in the stones that makes them work the same way he put in his diary. If what he proposed in his diaries was true, then the stones are something that have a relationship to the concept of time, and the so called tokihedron and the Savitronic Cycle."

    Toki-what and the Savit-who? Scott thought.

    "It''s a pity he is no longer here, to shed more light on the matter."

    "May I ask a question?" Jack asked.

    "Yes, please," Verneti invited.

    "Why did the Vatican fund the research?"

    "They have their reasons. I''ve already stated my terms, and the limitations I''m going to get with my research. From a certain sector there is an interest that I can find out the whereabouts of certain objects that were lost in the Second War, but apparently they don''t quite understand that, if what we are looking for here is correct, then the stones could only connect us to times when the object has been present. It is not as if it could point to a specific moment in time, and tell us what happened at that time. And in the remote case that that would be possible, I have serious doubts that the human mind would be able to process all the information. One cannot forget concepts such as the psychological arrow of time and the second law of thermodynamics, even though they are probabilistic concepts".

    For a priest, Verneti was well versed in the physical sciences, Scott thought. Although he was unaware that there were branches of study in music such as acoustical physics that dealt with the study of effects such as sound propagation.

    "Can I ask a question now?" asked DiMati, looking at Jack.

    "Shoot."

    "What did you mean you couldn''t get results for another twenty years?"

    "Just a forecast. You said it yourselves. Our technology is better than it was a couple of decades ago, but we still have a lot of limitations."

    "You''re trying to build a real time machine on the other side of the pond?"

    "Who would want a time machine, when you can simply observe the future?" asked Jack, giving a chuckle and glanced sideways at Scott.

    "Or the past," DiMati said, and pulled a cigarette from his tobacco holder and lit it.

    At that moment, the smile on Jack''s face wiped off, and he made a frightened face that only Scott could see for a split second. He had already realized that for some reason Jack seemed to hate cigarettes.

    "We are but men sitting in a cave trying to make meaning out of the shadows we see reflected in the rock walls. In a time of major technological advances we tend to run into social decline. Tell me if that is not proof that the universe itself conspires," DiMati said philosophically.

    Carl Scott asked DiMati for a cigarette and lit it. He wasn''t much of a smoker but he couldn''t deny that it amused him to see Jack nervous.

    "Although it is also true that in times of war or disaster, ironically, science often makes progress," Ishida argued.

    "No, it''s simply that we are too dumb and never learn from past mistakes," Jack said warily, looking at the cigarette in DiMati''s mouth and then looked at Scott, with his cigarette between his fingers.

    Scott felt he was being watched and looked at him as well. "What''s wrong?"

    "Nothing...," Jack said, wrinkling his lips.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 15: The Robbery

    Chapter Fifteen

    The Robbery

    Monday, March 19. 2A.M. 125 S.A.

    Rome. In the vicinity of the Vatican City.

    Marco Bianci was proud of his job as a policeman, even though his work was rather quiet. In his three years of service he could say that he had never encountered any problems on his nightly rounds aboard the speeder-patrol, or on the rounds he made on foot.

    He was almost always on night duty, and that meant quiet.

    Aside from the fact that, from time to time, he might come across some drunken passersby, or perhaps some youngsters fooling around at night, he had never encountered any situation that warranted drawing the non-lethal pistol he carried in his belt. The biggest scares were almost always night cats, jumping out of the blue on the rooftops of the low-rise businesses, or running through the streets, perhaps scared of the mechanized Templar Guards, who also provided security around the Vatican City grounds.

    He stepped off the speeder and parked in an open spot on the Via Aurelia. He was only a couple of hundred meters away from St. Peter''s Basilica and promised to be another boring night on duty. And he was thankful for that.

    He looked up at the sky, and saw the orbital belt, almost overhead and, in a westerly direction, away from the Holy See, as the giant skyscrapers of the city rose. He saw a Templar Guardian flying through the sky and charting a course for the Piazza San Pietro.

    Yes, it looked like another boring night. But whatever it was, he had to make his nightly rounds in the area, if for no other reason than to meet some cats. There was almost no one around at that hour, and there were hardly any autonomous vehicles on the streets.

    Marco Bianci walked along the sidewalks of the Via Aurelia, looking at some of the windows of nearby businesses. Some of the screens on the streets in front of him were projecting news and advertisements that, given the nightly hour, no one could see. He could barely see a few passers-by in the streets far away.

    He distracted himself by watching the news about an agreement to extend a mining concession on a newly discovered moon, and continued his rounds.

    It was then that he saw a black vehicle parked in a slightly crooked position on the street. He scanned it with the Optical Capture System, and the police recognition network indicated that it was a free transport vehicle.

    He frowned. What are you doing here?

    The free transport vehicles were free, but they were never parked. They were always on the move, unless called by a passerby. They were the closest thing to what in ancient times was called a cab, but they had no air navigation system. Perhaps it was probable that it had had a malfunction and that was why it was at a standstill. He scanned the interior, but it was abandoned and decided to report it so that someone could pick it up in the morning hours.

    He was looking at the vehicle, on the other side, when suddenly he heard an angry meow of a cat.

    "Get out of here, furball!"

    What was that? He wondered as he turned around.

    He was looking down a narrow, dimly lit alley. No doubt he had heard something. Maybe there was some drunken couple or some youngsters going on a rampage painting with polymeric relief paint. Whatever it was, It was his job to see what was going on.

    He took out his flashlight and walked down the alley, finding nothing in the first moment. He had passed that way before, and it was an alley that turned to the left, but had no exit, since it led to a wall with a courtyard on the other side and a small eight-story apartment building.

    Bianci rounded the bend and, a dozen meters down the cul-de-sac, came upon one of the strangest scenes he had ever seen in his short career.

    There was a ladder leaning against the wall of the alley, separating it from the eight-story building and, on top of it, a nun in heels and looking across the wall. He didn''t remember seeing the graffiti on the wall the last time he had checked that place, so obviously during the day someone had been vandalizing the walls.

    "Are you doing okay?" asked the nun with her back to him, as if she were talking to someone on the other side.

    The nun was halfway up the stairs and had stretched her body to face the other side. The wall, while not very high, was a little taller than the nun.

    "Good night, sister," the policeman greeted, shining the flashlight on her.

    The nun gave a jump on the ladder, which almost made her lose her balance, and slowly, with an almost mechanical movement, she looked up at him. Almost as if she had been caught red-handed, like a child committing a prank.

    "Good night, officer," she said, with a face that looked like she was suffering from a nervous tic.

    She was a pale-faced nun with a few freckles on her face. But it struck him that her lips were painted an obsidian black, and she had some dark makeup around her eyes. Or so it seemed to him in the light of the flashlight. He was pretty sure it was the first time he''d seen such a gothic nun, not to mention the heels and that she was up on a ladder.

    "May I ask what you''re doing there, sister?"

    "....M-my Mother Superior sent me and a companion to...clean up some rather obscene graffiti that some young men put up here last night."

    What? Since when are nuns in charge of cleaning up vandalism?! "Really?" asked the policeman.

    "Yeah, if you don''t believe me, look there," she said pointing to the opposite wall on the other side of the alley.

    The policeman shined the light on the wall the nun pointed to, but he couldn''t see anything beyond a few smudges. It was all very strange.

    What was she doing there at this hour to begin with? They might as well clean the walls in the morning. How obscene or insulting could graffiti be that it couldn''t wait until the next day to be erased? More importantly, nuns don''t work on Sundays! All these thoughts were swirling around in Marco Bianci''s mind and that''s why he didn''t see it coming.

    "It''s already Monday, asshole!" shouted the nun, jumping off the ladder like a cat.

    Before he could react, the policeman felt something fall on his back and smash him against the asphalt of the alley. He tried to get up, and turned around to face her, but watched as the nun straddled him, revealing fishnet stockings, and threw a punch worthy of a wrestling champion, before he could even draw his non-lethal pistol.

    No matter how he looked at it, he had never been attacked by a nun in his life. Least of all by one who should have been in a gothic bar, instead of up on a ladder. What the hell had just happened? The last thing the policeman saw, before he passed out, was how his Neurowire''s emergency call system was being disabled, and someone was hacking into the entire system to take it offline.

    The nun in heels stood up from the policeman and wiped her hands in satisfaction. As she did so, a voice echoed through the her''s Neurowire.

    [What the hell is going on in there? Talk to me!] asked a male voice, in a concerned tone.

    The nun removed her black veil, revealing a messy dark hair. While she liked the black, she didn''t like the headdress the nuns wore at all.

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    Rum ran her hand through it a couple of times and messed up her hair. "It''s okay."

    [Well, then tell me if I''m doing well, or if someone is coming.]

    "Yeah. Just hurry up."

    Stan, on the other side of the wall, and dressed as a priest, was holding a heavy machine in his hands that looked like a manual hydraulic hammer. He was standing in the middle of what appeared to be a sort of bright red circle, at least five feet in diameter.

    [Please indicate depth,] was the tool''s command that appeared on Stan''s Neurowire.

    "67 meters, 61 centimeters."

    He turned on the machine and it emitted a buzzing sound at the bottom.

    [Stop in the middle of the Namazium circle and deposit the tip of the AVH in the center.] Stan did so and waited. [Two centimeters to the left.] "Really?" Stan wondered, and placed a device in his ears which, after pressing it, activated a mask on his head, covering his entire face.

    [Correct connection. Turn on your boots, put your feet on the footrest and make sure to grip the AVH device firmly.]

    Stan did so and the tip of the machine sank into the ground, but remained balanced with Stan standing on it. After a few seconds Stan began to feel a slight tremor under his feet. Looking down, he saw how his feet and the machine were sinking into the ground, and the circle of Namazium ore glowed burning the garden grass on the circumference. It was fortunate that no one was around at that hour.

    To anyone watching the scene it would have looked simply as if Stan was sinking in the middle of the circle. But the truth was that, seen up close, inside the circle the ground was vibrating rapidly and subtly.

    After the first few moments, when it took longer, Stan was already halfway into the circle. After that, it was like going down an elevator. Stan''s vision was populated by the glow of the machine that carried him down and he could see the earth around him vibrate. He had never used an Atomic Vibration Hammer in his life so, he was enjoying it. But the trip was short and, after a few moments, he had descended through the earth the 67 meters and 61 centimeters that separated him from his destination.

    He had broken through the earth from the surface, and was now in a tunnel dug underground.

    He found himself in a dark, rustic-looking tunnel.

    "Activate stand-by function." He said releasing the machine that hovered in the air.

    [You have 26 minutes in stand-by mode. If you plan to use more, make sure the Namazium circle is renewed on the surface.]

    It won''t be necessary, I''ll be out of this place in less than ten minutes. "Activate night vision."

    Stan looked at the place where he was, it was a tunnel dug into the ground about two meters wide and a little less than two meters high. Without stopping to admire the rough terrain, he set off down the tunnel heading in a northerly direction.

    [Let me know if you''re okay,] Rum said.

    "I''m fine, I''m going under the catacombs."

    [Who the hell digs a tunnel under a cemetery, anyway?]

    "It comes from the Ancient Era. From World War II, they were going to use it to store relics in case the invasion came this far."

    [Wasn''t Italy on the side of Germany at that time?]

    "Yes, but the Vatican had always been a target of the Nazis. From what I remember of history I think even the SS commandant wanted to hang the Pope and then exhibit him. But the war ended before that happened."

    Fifteen meters ahead was a fork in the road. Stan went to the right, then walked straight ahead and stood in front of a rotten wooden door, if that could be called a door, since it was just moldy rotten planks.

    After following the indications Janus had given, he continued on his way, watching as his Neurowire alerted the sensors of the mask, which detected the rarefied air.

    He was about to take another step, when he realized that he had reached his destination. It was another rotten wooden door that gave way at the first push he gave it. After struggling to remove the pieces that made it difficult to get through, he looked around the room and his heart almost skipped a beat at the sight.

    "This place is huge. What the heck do they have here?"

    It was a tunnel that, with the night vision, he couldn''t see the end of, but it extended in an east-west direction. It was at least five meters wide by another three meters high. Surely it must have passed under the entire Basilica complex and through the Piazza di Pietro. But what caught his attention was the number of boxes that were in place, one on top of the other. Most of them were against the side walls. Stan wouldn''t have been surprised to see some kind of guardian monster appear from somewhere, although, fortunately for him, that didn''t seem to be the case.

    [Are you doing okay?]

    "Yeah. For now."

    [It''s thirty meters in a westerly direction, then the suitcase boxes on the right side. Look for three with the serial number 1986-CV-V-dM.]

    "Yes I know¡­"

    He continued deeper into the tunnel, following the map Janus had left them to get to the target. Stan couldn''t help but wonder what it was all about, although he didn''t really care. They were going to get the money from Janus in exchange for the core. One more job didn''t seem to be too much.

    With one exception. They had stolen a fast flying car since getting off the ferry and arrived at noon in Rome. They had spent the rest of the day chasing the target two that Janus required. But they had been unlucky in that respect. Now it only remained to try to accomplish objective two after accomplishing objective one. As for objective three... there was still no news of its location since Janus said he would give them the location in due time.

    Without almost realizing it, he had reached his objective.

    On top of other boxes, there were three old-looking metal suitcases, probably some aluminum alloy due to a light chalky layer of corrosion on the bottom. Two of them were almost the same size, about forty centimeters high, by thirty centimeters wide, and another thirty centimeters long, the largest was almost twice the size. He looked for the number that marked them and indeed it was the corresponding one. Following the serial number, there was another number on each one, which gave the order.

    Stan smiled. It was number two that Janus had said he needed, one of the small ones. He grabbed it from the holder, only to realize that, despite its size, it must have weighed a good thirty kilos.

    What''s in this? He couldn''t deny that he was interested in the contents, but he didn''t have time. He took out a small cube from his habit and through his Neurowire he quickly configured it, so that it transformed into a sort of harness backpack around the box suitcase. Without further ado, carrying the precious cargo, he set off back the way he had come.

    Six minutes. Not bad, he thought as he activated the AVH controls and made his way back to the surface. The ascent took a little longer because he had to use a reverse function to counteract gravity. He climbed back onto the footrests while gripping the handles firmly on the sides, to maintain stability on the ascent.

    As he surfaced the Namazium circle was already glowing less brightly, but it should last another fifteen minutes at least. Stan whistled to Rum on the other side of the wall, as he shook off some of the dirt he was holding.

    The metal ladder grew and bent to the inner side of the garden. Stan climbed up and once on his side Rum simply sent a new command and the ladder folded back on itself, as if it were some kind of organic origami, until there was nothing left but another small cube that Rum kept in his nun''s habit.

    "Who is this?" Stan asked, looking at the policeman on the floor.

    "Never mind. Come on!"

    "It''s a shame to lose that hammer. They cost a fortune."

    "You can buy a hangar of them if you want when we finish this."

    The tool, supplied by Janus, could not be put back into compressed mode, as it came from the factory, once it was used. To do that it had to be completely reconfigured, carrying it was not worth it and would only slow them down at that point. Janus had said to discard it once it was used, so they did.

    They left Marco Bianci resting on the asphalt and started on their way back to the vehicle, that was parked in front of the alley. A free transport that they had cracked.

    It was a surprise to find a police mobile on the scene, with two other policemen examining the vehicle from the outside.

    "Shit," Rum grumbled.

    They stood at a safe distance, while Rum entered through the back doors of the Neurowire system and disconnected the cops'' network. Before they could react, they grabbed them from behind and applied a sleeper hold to both of them. They left them lying on the sidewalk and, once inside the vehicle, they started their journey eastbound out of the vicinity of the Vatican. Stan got behind the wheel and deposited the heavy backpack in the back seat.

    Chances were that the place would soon become a hotbed of police automated vehicles. Three policemen with the missing signal was more than enough to alert the forces of the Gendarmerie Corps and the Swiss Guard.

    Target two was nearby, but it was going to be a headache to get around.

    "That was close," Rum hissed.

    "Pretty close. You should have seen what it was like down there. Who knows what''s inside all those boxes. If they''re relics there must be a fortune."

    "Well at least we secured the package."

    "For starters, what is this? And why was it in the Vatican?" Stan asked in confusion.

    "I don''t know. For the moment let''s just get out of here."

    They both looked at each other for a few seconds without saying a word.

    "What do we do with the second target?" Rum asked.

    "Call him."

    "Can''t you call him?"

    "I''m driving. If I leave the auto-drive on, this thing is going to go 30 an hour."

    Rum clicked her tongue in disgust and, reluctantly, called the private number through the Neurowire. The call was answered almost instantly.

    [Yes, Miss Ruzicka. Good morning,] Janus'' voice answered.

    "Hello¡­"

    [Did you manage to secure the package and target two?]

    "About that... we were only able to get the package."

    [... ]

    "Target two has been running into people all day. We''ve been tracking it since we arrived in the afternoon hours, but the opportunity didn''t present itself for us to secure it."

    [The package is safe then?]

    "Yes, we have it with us."

    [... ]

    Several awkward seconds passed during which Janus did not speak. Stan meanwhile nudged his partner, trying to figure out what was going on. Rum simply shrugged.

    [Interesting... once again the variables can''t be changed, just as Aleister said, but it''s the same result even if they are changed. The savitronic cycle hasn''t started yet anyway.]

    What is this guy talking about? Rum gulped and asked, "Excuse me, Mr. Janus?"

    [Yes, sorry. Don''t worry about target two at this time, proceed as planned. Deliver the package at the agreed point and go to target three.]

    "What will happen to target two?"

    [I''m watching what happened. Don''t worry, if all goes well you will probably get another chance at the agreed time. It''s really funny how this works.]

    There''s nothing funny about this. Watching what happened? This guy can access the security videos? He still hasn''t told us about the target three position, Rum thought angrily.

    [The position will be delivered to you when you deliver the package. Good luck,] Janus said and cut the call short before Rum could ask any more questions.

    "He cut me off! Asshole!"

    "And? What did he say?"

    "That we go to the agreed point to deliver the package... and that there we will be given the current position of target three, or two... I''m dizzy."

    "Well, then... Turin, here we go."

    Without thinking too much, Stan ordered the vehicle to go a little faster in order to arrive at the destination where he would have to deliver the mysterious box suitcase they had with them.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 16: Hebe

    Chapter Sixteen

    Hebe

    February 29. 2000. Ancient Era

    New Jersey. United States Kingdom

    Hebe Bender looked at the establishment''s lettering, and nervously clutched the handle of her purse and smiled.

    "You''re here, come on, come on," she said in a low, but determined tone, to encourage herself.

    Over the past few months she had been to the place quite a bit. The first few times it was just for information, but then, when she thought she was ready to take the big step, she had backed out due to nervousness. That had forced her to make another appointment, which she missed due work, and the next one, where she had barely parked her car and had to start again.

    The fourth time would have to be the charm.

    She pursed her lips and, with a smile on her face, finally entered the assisted reproduction clinic.

    She was a woman with tanned skin. Her hair, loose and carefree, which in other years had been a dark brown, had been whitened by the sun and the desert climate, where she had worked in previous years. Even now, after so many years away from field work, she still had the air of an adventurous girl in her style.

    She wore a beige, slightly loose-fitting explorer shirt over a tight-fitting T-shirt and khaki wide-legged pants with short-heeled booties. Around her neck were two necklaces, one with an Egyptian scarab and the other with the sign of a sundial, given to her by her grandfather in honor of her name.

    And yet despite her style, she was nervous that day.

    She walked down the long hallway and finally found herself in the waiting room, where only one other woman sat, reading a magazine. The receptionist, behind the desk, was on a call at the time, and gestured to Hebe to wait a minute.

    When she finally ended her call, Hebe was calmer. She was already there. It had to be that day.

    "Miss Bender! It''s good to see you again," greeted the receptionist.

    "Good morning," Hebe greeted.

    "Are you ready to take the big step today?"

    Hebe just nodded, tight-lipped and trying to put on a smile.

    "Please have a seat, wait a few moments, and the doctor will call you for your appointment," the receptionist invited, pointing to the comfortable seats in the waiting room.

    Hebe simply sat on the opposite side of the waiting room from the other woman, and picked up one of the magazines on the low table, to concentrate on something else, although she didn''t pay much attention to it. The magazine was a couple of weeks old and, much like the other magazines in the stack, it was all about the Y2K disaster in early January. For which reason the stock market had crashed in several markets around the world.

    Hebe didn''t own any shares in the stock market, and didn''t have enough money to be affected, so like the rest of the almost 98% of the people on the planet she hadn''t been too affected. A different thing had happened with the computer companies, whose stocks were down the next day after the disaster.

    She tried to look for a magazine that interested her, but she couldn''t find one with a historical theme.

    I should have brought a book, Hebe thought.

    Hebe Bender, following the love her grandfather had instilled in her for ancient history, had studied Egyptology in college and, after graduation, had the good fortune to spend almost seven years in the Valley of the Kings, helping in the excavations for the discovery and preservation of ancient Egypt. After that, upon returning to the United States, she was lucky to teach Ancient History at her former university, which at the same time was the one that had sponsored the excavation program. A teaching position she still held.

    She loved her career, and had always been attracted to history thanks to her grandfather. Still, if there was one thing she hadn''t had any luck with, it was finding a steady partner.

    In her forties, just a few months past her 40th birthday, she had finally made the decision to step forward and start a family, even if it was just her own.

    "Hebe Bender!"

    Hebe raised her head and looked at whoever had called her.

    She had been distracted by the magazines after all, because the other woman had disappeared at some point without her noticing, and now in front of her stood a doctor who was greeting her.

    "Y-yes. How are you doing, Dr. Ahern?"

    "It''s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Bender. Please come with me."

    Dr. Brian Ahern was a man in his fifties, with gray hair, dark eyes, square-rimmed glasses and a smile as white as the tiles on the clinic floor.

    The doctor''s office was just as Hebe remembered it from the last visit. A man of routine, Dr. Ahern, for his part, never moved his furniture or shifted things around. He simply pulled out some of the folders with patient, or donor, files when he needed to, and put everything back in its place.

    He invited her to sit down and he did the same in his chair.

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    "When you canceled the second appointment, I honestly thought you wouldn''t come," the doctor said, smiling at her.

    "It''s not that I changed my mind, it''s just that it''s a big decision and I was nervous."

    Hebe spoke to him apologizing for the previous cancellations, saying she wanted to be sure. The truth was that it was a decision that she had been made months ago, but inside she couldn''t hide her doubts.

    It was opening a new chapter in her life, and she wanted to be sure she could handle the new challenge of raising a child. The freedom she had enjoyed throughout her life and career would now be changed by the arrival of someone in her life. She didn''t care that her lifestyle would change because of it, she simply wanted to make sure that she would be as good a mother as her own mother had been to her.

    The doctor understood that, as these were many of the same concerns he often heard in his office. Whether it was from couples resorting to assisted fertilization or from women who wanted to become single mothers.

    "So, are you planning to continue then?"

    "Yes definitely!"

    "I can see how determined you are about this decision. But I want to make sure you feel supported throughout the process. Starting a family on your own is a significant step. Have you thought about the emotional implications and the support system you may need?" In front of the doctor, Hebe Bender had no doubt about the decision she had made. But he couldn''t blame her for her nervousness, since starting a family on her own was a big step.

    The talk went on for a few minutes, while Hebe gave him some final data that the doctor took care of putting on the forms to arrange the procedure.

    "Good, then let''s make a new appointment to coincide with the ovulation period," the doctor said.

    Hebe nodded.

    "You said you would prefer an injection to stimulate ovulation?"

    "Y-yes?"

    The doctor had already pulled up Hebe Bender''s chart, before calling her, and now he was flipping through the pages with the results of the previous tests.

    "Honestly, I don''t think the injection would be necessary. The preconception studies were more than encouraging. Although, we could do the injection to be on the safe side. If that''s your choice, of course."

    "Yes. Please."

    "Well, then we could schedule first for the injection a few days before ovulation, and do a new test to schedule the date and then in a 24-48 hour period to proceed with the insemination of the ovum. OSI carry minimal risks, such as swelling or mild discomfort. But these symptoms usually subside within a few days, or maybe even hours. For safety, we closely monitor your hormone levels and perform ultrasounds to follow the development of the follicles. This helps us determine the optimal time for insemination."

    "Sounds good," Hebe said and smiled and the doctor could see how hopeful her eyes were.

    "Is there anything else you have concerns about?"

    "About the donor¡­"

    "He''s completely anonymous, unless you decide to contact him. Or he could be one of the candidates for whom we have all his information. In the event that you have a donor in mind, we would have to make an appointment for him and do some tests first."

    "No. I would prefer if it were anonymous both ways."

    "I understand."

    "But you told me last time that I can choose according to certain profiles. Right?"

    "Yes. We have anonymous donors, from whom we can offer certain information related to their profile. Such as physical characteristics, educational level and socio-occupational level. All donors have already passed a test to eliminate any genetic problems or incompatibility."

    Dr. Ahern spent the next ten minutes answering Hebe''s questions. Obviously the woman was determined, but she had some doubts. With the same patience with which he had practiced his job for fifteen years, the doctor answered all the questions.

    "It''s not that I''m looking for something special about the donor but, I don''t know. I mean, I know that predicting how a child will grow up, or what he will want to be in the future, is impossible, but... "

    "I know what you mean. Thinking ahead is important. I can give you the list of donors by certain profiles if you prefer, and you can choose the one you think is best from them."

    "Can I?"

    "Yes, of course. Give me a second."

    The doctor left the office to return a few minutes later with a folder containing the donor profiles. The sperm donor business must have been going pretty well, because it was a pretty thick binder box.

    Hebe took the folder and spent the next few minutes flipping through pages of different donor profiles. There was too much to choose from, from sperm motility, to sperm count. Too many parameters to consider. On the other hand there was also information regarding employment status and education level of the donors.

    There must not have been many clients at that time, because the doctor certainly didn''t mind Hebe taking her time turning the pages. Hebe had only seen one client, she must have been in one of the other offices so, she figured that must have been the reason the doctor let her take her time.

    After twenty minutes of questions where the doctor was bombarded by Hebe, she arrived at the donor listed as 26-2102-72-77-72-521-21-21-02-0-0002. The donor seemed to have a good sperm per milliliter count, although that was not the data that mattered to Hebe. It was his profile that caught her attention.

    College educated, with a graduate degree in particle astrophysics. Frequent physical activity and good hearing and vision parameters. No history of chronic or neurodegenerative diseases, apart from some migraines. A good economic level. As side notes, he was a man who liked to travel, although he spent most of his time working. Although it was not specified in what area exactly. Hebe guessed it must have been in something academic or something like that.

    Maybe he was a good donor. But Hebe knew that predicting what a child would look like would be like rolling a dozen dice, and expecting all the faces to come up with the same number. At the end of the day, upbringing and environment would determine that to a large extent, regardless of whether or not his parents had good genetic parameters.

    After thinking about it for a few minutes, and sifting through other profiles, she finally decided on the profile she had marked. The doctor searched his database and left again, only to return with a thinner folder containing all the data pertaining to the particular donor. Just to make sure that his patient was absolutely sure of his decision, he asked her again if she wished to proceed with the procedure.

    But the decision on Hebe''s part was already made and she nodded with a smile again.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 17: Lee

    Chapter Seventeen

    Lee

    It was a raging storm.

    The boy was in despair. and poked his head above the water, like a dead man coming back to life, tearing through the veil of his shroud.

    He fought and struggled against the current. and spat the cold water.

    No matter how absurd it all seemed to him. Somehow, he was drowning.

    The water surrounded him on all sides, and the current seemed to drag him furiously. He struggled, feeling the coldness of the water drill into his limbs, and his clothes felt heavy. Swim, he would have to swim. But did he even know how to swim?

    How had he gotten there in the first place? Had he fallen out of a boat?

    Water under him and water above him.

    From the sky, clogged with gray clouds, thick raindrops were falling, as if the sky itself was also trying to drown him, along with a choking wind that made the raindrops lash him in the face. He thought he saw flashes in the sky. Lightning? Where was the thunder? No, more like where was the sound?

    He heard in a strange way, as if he had something plugging his ears and could feel a buzzing sound.

    Fighting against the current, he tried to keep his head afloat, and saw the nearest shore. It was not far away. A hundred meters? Maybe less, maybe more? But he had to try. With numb limbs, he tried to give a few strokes and realized he could swim. He had muscle memory of it, though he couldn''t remember how he had gotten there. One stroke, two, three... seven. Slowly, the coast seemed to be growing before his eyes. Through the rain he could see houses near the shore and docks. It must be in the vicinity of a port, but that must surely be a river or lake because it felt like fresh water in his mouth.

    He was going to make it. It couldn''t be far away.

    Suddenly his hopes were swept away, when he saw a small wave come over him and carry him back underwater, submerging him a couple of meters again.

    Again he struggled and looked to the surface, it was not far, just a couple of meters and he could breathe again. But the current was fighting to pull him under but, to where this time? The boy stuck his head above the water and, suddenly, his field of vision saw how something dark sticking out of the water was approaching him, growing at an alarming speed.

    No. It wasn''t that.

    It was him, being pulled at full speed against it.

    The boy hit his head against the stone and everything went black.

    ***

    Monday, March 19th. 125 S.A.

    Rome, Italy.

    Lee suddenly straightened up in bed, covered with sweat due the nightmarish dream.

    That dream again. Or childhood memory? It had been a long time since he''d had it.

    He looked around his bed and looked annoyed at how his shirt was stuck to his body from perspiration, and the crucifix hanging around his neck was also stuck to his body. There was a halo on the sheets, as he had perspired quite a bit from his back as well.

    Lee sighed heavily.

    From his facial features, and appearance, he must not yet be in his thirties. He had dark brown eyes and also dark brown, slightly long, hair that covered his ears. He was thin and had nothing that stood out too much in his appearance. He was an ordinary human. Beyond his academic rank of university professor, the truth was that his life was rather normal.

    He stood up in annoyance and snorted, as he approached the windows and looked out at the streets. The sun was already illuminating the city and quite a few vehicles were driving along the magnetized streets.

    He lived in apartment 346, on the 27th floor. The building had its main fa?ade facing the Tiber River, and was part of a housing and commercial complex between the Ponto Milvio and the Ponte Flaminio. Given the location of Lee''s apartment, the sun streamed through the window in the morning through the curtains.

    The apartment was not too big, but not necessarily small either. Although, due to the clutter of books, sheets and star maps, occupying tables and armchairs, the place actually looked smaller. Although that didn''t bother Lee, he certainly saw a certain order in it all, although others would call it disorder. The sight of the sun, streaming through the curtain in the mornings when he woke up, almost made it seem as if the place was some kind of fantasy studio of the ancient magicians or alchemists of the Middle Ages.

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    Any other day he wouldn''t have minded, because it was a sight he liked to see every morning. But that day, as he looked out the windows onto the street he felt as if something had poked him in the eyes. The meeting he had had with other faculty the night before had ended in a gorge of black beer and stupid jokes. Still it had been a good meeting, and everyone was celebrating that they were done with the final part of the student study program for next year. He had been busy with them all day, and night, as part of the celebration as well.

    In Lee''s case, he was a professor of particle astrophysics at the University of Rome, and also had a faculty teaching at the Castel Gandolfo Observatory, as part of a summer program aimed at promoting interest in virtual astroparticle physics in teenagers, who were attracted to the study of the cosmos. Although, he didn''t have to worry about it until the summer, Lee had already developed the study program for that too a few days ago, and only had to submit it to the academic department for approval.

    Thanks to the fact that he had advanced work in the past few days, he had almost a week off, until he had to worry about preparing the classes for the students.

    He would have had to wake up in a good mood. But that dream had just left a bad taste in his mouth.

    Stupid dream.

    He knew that dreams, unless they were about people who possessed specialities in deep sleep immersion, and could construct scenarios to create shared dream states, were nothing more than subconscious imagery. Lee therefore ruled out that his dream was a vivid memory of something that had actually occurred.

    Most likely, his dream was simply a subconscious reconstruction of the story he had heard so many times, of when he was rescued from the lake. Nothing more than a way for his memory to make sense of his lost childhood.

    He shook his head and headed for the bathroom, trying to forget about it. He had days off and could do whatever he wanted. He took a shower to wash off the sweat, and put the clothes he wore as pajamas in the washing machine and activated the roomba to clean the floor, which had not been done for several days. He dressed in dark dress pants and put on a turtleneck sweater with a jacket, since, despite the welcoming sun, the mornings were still chilly.

    He could have breakfast in the hotel dining room, before going for a walk in the surroundings.

    But he was forgetting something. He went to the refrigerator and took out a small container. From it, he took out a small bottle of ophthalmic solution and put it on, then put in some contact lenses. He made several movements with his hands and the submenus of his interactive device appeared in his eyes.

    It was his own Neurowire, although it could not be called that because Lee did not have one in his brain.

    When he had been rescued from the lake, they had found that he did not have a Neurowire, and because he was already more than ten years old, inserting a Neurowire with all its capabilities was an expensive procedure and, therefore, he had to settle for a somewhat old-fashioned and external interactivity device. But that didn''t bother him, as he had gotten used to it rather quickly. The orphanage where he had been cared for, after his rescue, had tried by various means to get him to have one, but the age for a fully functional Neurowire had passed and he had to make do with it.

    The contact lens type device also had a small terminal to help with the functions and he had customized it in such a way that it was practically as if he had a Neurowire, like everyone else. At the same time, he had two devices that could be inserted to help him with language comprehension. The only operation he had been able to undergo.

    Lee checked the mail quickly and had nothing of interest, apart from a few messages from his friends, regarding the previous night, and some suspicious spam that hadn''t made it through the filter. Without further ado, he went down the disco-elevator to the hotel dining room area.

    It was already nine o''clock in the morning, and there were still some people having breakfast at the hotel dining room tables. He asked the service robot for orange juice, a cornetto and some bread spread with jam. He took his time, while watching the people passing by on the streets through the glass, while checking the news of the day, somewhat bored, apart from the news of the science section, that he always read with more interest. Even though the headlines were often misleading.

    He was drinking the remaining half of his orange juice, when he looked at the street and saw a black vehicle, with some yellow stripes on the side, parked in front of the hotel. He followed it with his eyes without worrying about being too indiscreet, since the windows prevented from the outside to see those inside.

    Four people with berets on their heads, dressed in dark blue suits and looking serious, had gotten out of the vehicle. But what caught his attention was the coat they were wearing, with white on the cuff, lapel and lower part of the coat, and dark metal shoulder pads with two crossed keys. The boots they wore were black.

    Lee knew that uniform very well. Because at the Observatory of Castello Gandolfo there were some of them during the Pope''s vacations at the Papal Palace, although the summer uniform differed a little from the winter uniform they wore. Not to mention that it was the so-called night service uniform. Although the night uniform was just a name, it was already worn during the day as well.

    Pontifical Guard? What are they doing here?

    The Pontifical Guard, also commonly called the Swiss Guard, were in charge of papal security and the Apostolic Palace inside the Vatican. Seeing them in that part of the city was strange, even more so wearing the service uniform.

    The four uniformed men entered the hotel and disappeared from Lee''s sight.

    He drank what was left of the juice and continued watching the news for a moment, when the view outside clouded over and everything was blue with some white tints. His eyes unfocused from the contact lenses and gazed at the men looking at him serenely.

    "Yes, can I help you?" Lee asked.

    "Professor Lee Reubens?"

    "Yes."

    Obviously the question was protocol, since if they had addressed him, it was because they must have known who he was, although Lee couldn''t imagine what the Pontifical Guard wanted from him.

    "I am Gian Egger, Lieutenant of the Guardia Svizzera Pontificia," introduced the somewhat elderly man, with a solid face, short gray hair and blue eyes.

    Lee accepted the hand salute the man was offering him, and glanced sideways at the beret where he saw the three yellow bars insignia that effectively distinguished him as a captain. Those accompanying him had the shoulder markings which identified them as junior grade officers, which corresponded with their younger appearance as well.

    "How can I help you?"

    "We are here on official business."

    "¡­"

    Gian Egger nodded and asked in a courteous tone. "Do you think you could accompany us? It was His Holiness himself who asked for you."

    That couldn''t have been weirder. Lee had only met the Pope on rare occasions, although he had always shown interest in the studies, and summer courses taking place at the Castel Gandolfo Observatory. Towards the back of St. Peter''s Basilica, there was also an observatory, although, Lee doubted that it was called by any name since the observatory had its own staff.

    "How can I help?"

    "We think we''d better explain on the way, there are people waiting for you."

    "W-where?"

    "At the Holy See."

    "Do you need something from me?"

    "We think so... do you think you could come with us, please?"

    The tone was polite, but Lee couldn''t shake the feeling that no matter what, he couldn''t refuse the invitation, even if he wanted to.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 18: In the tunnels

    Chapter Eighteen

    In the tunnels

    Monday, March 19. 9.10 A.M. 125 S.A.

    Piazza San Pietro, Vatican.

    "What a mess." Van, a fey girl with long pink hair, looked out over St. Peter''s Square and sighed, as she took off a pair of yellow glasses and tucked them in her coat.

    There would be no mass that day. And apparently, there wouldn''t be for the next few days either.

    On the balustrade above Bernini''s Colonnade, among the marble statues of the saints, security forces of the Vatican gendarmerie were moving. And, although she couldn''t see them, she knew that sniper droids were probably guarding the perimeter at that moment.

    Van was leaning against the columns, which gave the entrance to the Portone di Bronzo, and had been waiting for ten minutes. She had been distracted watching the Templar Guards, in their red and white armored uniforms walking back and forth across the oval square, and the same for the policemen and gendarmes standing around the trapezoid-shaped part of the square near the entrance to the Basilica di San Pietro.

    They were not paying special attention to her, as she had already identified herself a while ago at the Arch of the Bells of the Swiss Guard.

    Van was quite tall and of athletic build. She had dark green eyes, and also had long hair down to her waist, with the exception of two braids at her sides, which were knotted into a sort of bun at the back. She wore a long leather coat that revealed her shoulders and underneath a black sleeveless T-shirt, crossed with tactical buckles, dark pants and knee-high tactical boots.

    What made Van special was that, although she did not wear a visible badge, she also belonged to the SID. More specifically to the intelligence branch.

    The case that had occurred less than 48 hours earlier in Edinburgh, had set off all the alarms in all the cooperation agencies, so that the search was on for the two criminals who had usurped the identity of two forensic technicians to steal a decapitated body. The victim in question had been Sil Moore.

    The two criminals had then disappeared, and attempts had been made to track them down, to no avail. Given that they both seemed to be quite good at handling information, and stealing identities, it was more than likely that they had headed elsewhere, or even left the UK. But at least, thanks to the testimony of the two forensic experts, they had obtained the information about what they looked like. Although it was possible that the identities they had shown were also false.

    In any case, Van did not expect that the artificial intelligence of Siren Island would send her the warning that both had been detected in the vicinity of where she was. Well, not that close. She had received the warning at six o''clock in the morning and she was on Vitinia. She had driven the twelve kilometers in her speeder in a matter of minutes, to realize that it was a nightmare.

    The gendarmerie forces, the Templar guards, the Swiss Guards and the Roman police had turned the place into a hotbed, due to what had happened in the early hours of the morning.

    Three unconscious policemen, a device to alter matter at the molecular level, and a circle of Namazium had been the trigger. The AVH device and the namazium were not items anyone could get in a hardware store. It was material that was used for asteroid mining or military access. It was not common.

    Both were used together to alter matter on an atomic scale by vibration. Namazium, named after a catfish called Namazu, which when it moved could cause earthquakes, was incredibly difficult to obtain and its production was regulated because it was a material only present in Martian terrain.

    If something like that had been used just a few meters from the Vatican, without even the thieves bothering to take it back, it was a sign that something else had happened. It was enough money and it had just been abandoned. But, on the other hand, the question was, what were the criminals after then?

    The security cameras had obtained their faces and their movements when they entered the alley and, although the AVH device was certainly in a compressed state when they entered, when they left the man was carrying a metal-looking backpack that he didn''t have when he entered.

    When police arrived on the scene, they discovered the circle in the grass and the AVH left behind.

    It was then that alarm bells went off in the Holy See.

    It did not matter what the subject was wearing when he left, but the fact that a device had been used for some unknown purpose, to modify an area of land on an atomic scale. The first thing that was done was to call in the Vatican''s anti-sabotage and Rome''s anti-terrorist forces in case they were confronted with an act of terrorism. This was due to the suspicion that something had been planted underground. However, the anti-sabotage force quickly came up with a strange fact.

    The last configuration used in the AVH was almost 68 meters.

    They checked the maps and there was nothing at that height. At least there was no modern infrastructure or any network passing right at that point. But there was something else. During the Second World War tunnels had been dug at that height, even though no one should have entered them for at least 205 years, when in the year 2021 of the Ancient Era, the underground parts of the Apostolic Palace and Archives were remodeled and the old entrances sealed.

    These tunnels went underneath even the oldest necropolis, and most likely there were collapsed parts. But there was no doubt that at the point where the AVH device had been used it passed right through the end of an old tunnel, and from there the main tunnel could be reached in a matter of seconds or minutes with the right equipment. That went under St. Peter''s Square and the main tunnel extended partly under the Apostolic Palace and the Basilica itself. So there was a possibility that someone could have planted something underground.

    The Pope was evacuated to Castel San Angelo, and the College of Cardinals as a precaution, and activities were suspended for that Monday.

    A depth sweep was made from the surface, but the depth was too shallow to know if there was anything underneath, nor could any significant heat source be detected, in case an explosive object had been planted.

    Van arrived just as the antisabotage team, and the antiterrorist team, were moving into the basement of the Archive to reopen the old entrances to the tunnels. It was an hour-long task to drill through the thick layer of cement that had been used to seal the site.

    In the meantime, Van had presented her credentials, which accredited her as a member of the SID, and explained that she was at there because the two criminals had made the trip from Edinburgh to the site, as there was a possibility of a link. However, there was also the fact that unregistered material had been used, which was known to have been the trigger for Dark Events on three occasions, during mining work on Phobos.

    The Vatican had feys in the gendarmerie, and even as part of the Apostolic College, but it did not have agents dedicated to dealing with DEs. That fell under the jurisdiction of Rome, and the Nevermore station in the territory, which was located in Trevi. The Trevi station simply let Van handle it, since she was in the main branch of the Siren Island SID, and they sent two FRT members to help with the drilling work.

    After a lot of pestering to be brought into the investigation, Van was finally accepted as part of the team that would go down to find out what had happened down there. The only thing that bothered her was what had happened only moments before, and what no one had told her about.

    The security videos had provided the images of how the two criminals, for several hours prior to what had happened in the alley, had been following a Roman citizen, until they finally left him alone to commit their crime.

    They had told her, but after the Pope himself had ordered that the person in question be placed under protection as well, in case the criminals were thinking of something against him. Apparently the Pope knew the person, because he taught courses to young people during the summers, and he had met him a couple of times on his vacation at Castel Gandolfo.

    Van was unhappy that such a quick decision had been made. From her point of view, there was also the possibility that the person might be under protection from criminals and was therefore being followed. Although she could not deny that the opposite could be true, and that he was indeed in danger.

    In her position she had to think of both the worst and best case scenarios, and weigh which was the most likely to occur. The profile of the person in question was normal and he was an academic. Beyond that there was nothing unusual about him. Not even fines or run-ins with the law. But she had experience that many times things were not as they appeared, and so she was being cautious.

    "Miss Van." Van turned around, and there she found a gendarme who, gun in hand and mask covering his mouth, informed her in a dry tone. "You can come now. They''re finished."

    Van nodded and, taking a last glance at the Vatican police vehicles, followed the gendarme. With a order to her Neurowire she sent a command to the small turtle backpack she was carrying and a tactical mask appeared, covering her nose and mouth.

    "Did they take the drone down?"

    "Yes. That''s what they''re doing right now," the gendarme reported.

    They walked through the Apostolic Palace until they reached the Archives, passed through long corridors and from there down to the basement, where at least 30 people with masks had gathered and a light cloud of dust covered everything due to the efforts to perforate the layer of cement on the floor. An opening at least two meters in diameter had been opened and, when looking at the bottom, a series of rough and almost destroyed looking steps could be seen.

    An AVH device similar to the one found had been used, but with greater care and precision although it took longer to operate.

    One of the people in the room at that moment was still and with his eyes closed and everyone seemed expectant of him. He was the one in charge of operating the drone that at that moment was circulating through the tunnel.

    After a couple of minutes he opened his eyes and looked at everyone. "There are no devices emitting signals, no abnormal heat sources. Only the air is dangerous to breathe and the place is in a very bad state."

    Far from that being a sign of relief, it still remained to go down below to conduct a thorough investigation of the site.

    One man from the group, who was in charge of anti-sabotage, would lead the expedition accompanied by five personnel from the same group, along with six from the gendarmerie sector, all directed in turn by the one who had brought the drone down, since he would be sending the indications of the tunnels traced by the drone.

    Van would be added to the team and they agreed to communicate only by Neurowire, due to the state of the tunnel. They did not want the reverberating sound of the voices, although they could be attenuated with the masks, could produce any detachment in the tunnel excavated in earth and rock. Although they had sent a couple of extra drones with devices to deploy a force field to keep the walls safe, they didn''t want to take any chances considering there was a necropolis between the top and the tunnel.

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    The team went down one at a time, alternating several meters until another could enter, because some parts could break off on the way down. Luckily nothing happened and after a few minutes everyone was down.

    In Van''s Neurowire flashed warnings telling her that she was in an environment with air that was dangerous to breathe, due not only to the dust in suspension, but also due to mold that had accumulated over time.

    Everyone had their dual-spectrum night vision activated before entering, and that would help to find not only the path, but detect any heat source that the drone would not have found on its first sweep.

    [Careful from here on out. First one to see anything send a signal. Don''t touch anything]

    The group walked through the tunnel and, after a couple of minutes, finally arrived where the huge main tunnel opened up.

    [How many are supposed to have worked on this?] Van asked, looking at the dimensions of the place in amazement.

    [Given the time in which this excavation was done, and because of the state it is not in the official records, I would say it was done in a hurry, but there must have been a good dozen workers,] someone reported.

    [In fact, there is almost no record of the tunnels themselves. This has been abandoned for a long time. We had to resort to some older blueprints to figure it out,] said a third, who Van could not identify whether he was from the group with her, or the one on the surface.

    It was certainly of enormous dimensions and with boxes of different sizes on the sides. Many of them were neatly arranged, although, due to time and humidity, the wood had been rotting over the years.

    Some boxes that Van checked almost fell apart at the slightest touch, revealing papers that had become moldy and black in color, making it impossible to read anything written on them.

    Whatever the other boxes contained, it must not have been of much importance if they had left everything behind to be ruined. Or maybe there had been more boxes that once the war was over had been removed, leaving the things that mattered the least down there. Really, given the crude construction, and the precarious porches, with wood that barely resisted, it seemed that it was something that had been planned in a hurry and not to be used for too long.

    The whole group searched everywhere, moving away from each other. The tunnel, by its dimensions, did indeed reach St. Peter''s Basilica.

    Van was about to check another box with a broken corner when she heard the signal.

    [Here! I found footprints!] It was the voice of one of the men who, by the sign of his distant light, must be in the nearest part under the square. [And I think you had better come and see this.]

    The group walked quickly to the place and assembled there they saw that there were footprints that had been recently produced. Given the statures of the criminals and the size of the footprints, it was more than certain that it was the man disguised as a priest.

    Following the footprints they quickly followed the walking pattern and were confronted by a larger box, where two suitcases rested on top of it. One was small and the other larger. There was a gap between the two and, from the dust marks all around, and with no dust in the center, it was easy to deduce that something had been moved from there a short time ago.

    [This small one looks like¡­]

    [Exactly the same size as that man was carrying on his back,] Van finished.

    Whatever it was, it gave off no heat signature and, given the layer of dust on the top, and rust on the bottom, it was certain that they had been there for a long time, even though the material they appeared to be made of seemed to be quite good as it retained quite a bit of luster.

    Van read the numbers on the suitcases. There was no doubt that the missing one was number two and it must be the one the thief had removed. [What is this supposed to be?]

    [I just sent images to the database and they don''t seem to match any of the files,] someone near Van said.

    She read the numbers on the suitcases. [1986¡­ Well, they are made of durable material. I think it is correct to think that they are more than two centuries old.]

    Someone from the counter-sabotage team took both of them and put them on the floor. They had a combination system, but that was no problem. He took out a small bottle from his portable equipment and by inserting a drop of nano-oil into the combination system in less than ten seconds he was able to know the numbers that corresponded to each suitcase.

    [1.05457 and 1.9864,] the man said, and put the numbers on each suitcase.

    Everyone crowded around to get a better look, but the contents of the first case did not surprise them at all. Indeed the material of which they were made had been good enough to prevent the deterioration of the objects inside.

    The first one was a kind of small valve computer. Although the shape, and the way it was made, reminded them a bit of an old equalizer.

    [What is it supposed to be?] someone asked.

    The anti-sabotage member shrugged his shoulders.

    Van quickly ran through her database looking for something similar, but didn''t find it. If that was from 1986 she was already on the planet back then, but she didn''t remember seeing anything like it.

    Then, when they opened the third, and heaviest one, they found that when they opened it they were in front of a screen. It wasn''t like there was an old television. It was a screen with some controls but it had undoubtedly been made to fit the shape of the suitcase.

    Everyone stared at the find without knowing what it was. But Van looked at the screen again and then read the number with which the suitcases were marked.

    She remembered seeing that screen somewhere a long time ago. So long ago that even she herself was surprised that she could remember it. It was from old newspaper news of the Ancient Era.

    It can''t be, Van thought.

    [It can''t be true,] said the anti-sabotage man.

    [What is it?] someone asked.

    The man was about to say something, but seemed to be hesitating whether to say it. [When I was at the academy, we always made jokes about the secrets that were hidden here.]

    [Did you know of the existence of these tunnels?]

    [No. I mean there have always been legends regarding what''s underneath, but they were always rumors.]

    [1986,] Van said, and the man stared at her and smiled incredulously.[Do you understand, miss?]

    [Yes. But is it possible?]

    [What?] Asked another member of the team.

    [I had already arrived on the planet at that time, and in 1986 the news was quite loud for a few weeks, until it all died down.]

    [About what?] Asked another.

    [That a scientist and priest had succeeded in building a machine to look back in time,] Van said

    Everyone stared at Van and the man from the anti-sabotage team.

    [Is that a joke?] Asked one of the nearby gendarmes.

    [No. It''s not. The most correct thing to say would be that it was an old wives'' tale. Nothing more.]

    [Exactly,] Van said. [Still, an old wives'' tale that someone went to great lengths to steal a part of the machine that is supposed to make it work.]

    They all looked at each other not quite knowing what to say to those words.

    [The machine in question was called the Chronovisor. It does not appear in any file because it is part of a legend of that time and the truth is that, after it appeared a little in the press, the whole thing was forgotten shortly after. Being nothing more than another urban legend. Nevertheless, over the years the legend survived thanks to the Old Internet, but so many details were added that nobody knew which part was true and which part was a lie.]

    [So, what? All this time there has been a time machine underneath the Piazza San Pietro?] A gendarme asked.

    [No. The legend says that the machine only served to see into the past.]

    Another of the gendarmes snapped his fingers.

    [Don''t do that!] He was scolded by another one nearby.

    [I''m sorry, I just remembered. I read it a long time ago about that legend, that they said they had obtained a photograph of the time when Jesus Christ had been on the Golgotha].

    Van nodded. [Exactly. But then it turned out that the picture was taken from another sanctuary. It wasn''t true.]

    [So the machine... is it true or false?]

    [Whether it''s real or fake, it''s the same thing. Someone used a forbidden device inside the city to extract a part of this thing. For the thieves it is clear that the part they removed must be worth something. Only as a historical piece it must be worth enough.]

    [If it''s just that, then I''m glad, but this could be something worse. Why leave two parts and only steal one?]

    Van looked at the one who said that. [Article 7081-7I].

    [Excuse me?]

    [Time travel research will be regulated, in view of the development of Dark Events, because there have been cases where certain artifacts have caused disturbances in spacetime.]

    [What?]

    Van''s face was too serious for her to be joking. Van knew it well, after all she had a friend, a certain hyperactive teacher with messy brown hair, who had been linked to a certain time travel experiment during the Great War against the Fractus.

    [Right... it''s one of the laws called silly laws. I had forgotten.]

    During the war against the Fractus two fractus cores had been found that had a link to time. The first fractus had been found destroyed in the Kuril Islands, and its core used in an experiment that had caused the destruction of an laboratories complex in Japan.

    The second fractus, located in Russia, simply destroyed itself, leaving behind a core composed of 48 fragments. That had happened at the same time as Japan.

    During all that time, Dark Events had been occurring, where time seemed to be a factor that could not be ignored, and incidents with experiments occurred in various parts of the world after the war, causing serious incidents.

    Therefore, the Council, together with the United Nations and the Interplanetary Peace Organization, passed laws in year six of the Singularity Era to regulate the conduct of time-related experiments. The nature of the Dark Events demanded that certain experiments could only be carried out by control bodies, so as not to cause consequences.

    The second fractus core, fragmented into 48 parts, had been kept under study by the Russian Academy of Sciences, mostly as a pretty paperweight. Because it didn''t matter how they studied and experimented. That nucleus did not seem to possess any qualities that made it stand out.

    But that had changed in the past year.

    A few weeks before the arrival of a certain Keelian fey, missing for over two hundred years, the place where the fragments were kept was attacked, and the 48 fragments stolen. No one was found responsible and even the Russian Division of Nevermore and Veria investigated the event, without coming up with any clues as to what had happened.

    Van sighed and said. [In the off chance that this machine really works, it must be searched for immediately. False or true, it should not be underestimated that sometimes the unconscious itself plays a role in Dark Events].

    [You mean if someone really believes they can do something with it, like time travel, they can do it? It''s an antique! It would be insane.]

    [Belief in a miracle is no longer a joke. Or do you not believe in the power of words and mind? If there was no God before, the human species has created them by its own means. Magic is not part of the creed now, even though it was persecuted in the past?]

    At that all fell silent and looked at each other. Everyone there, including Van, believed in something higher, even if they had different names. Influencing an object in the belief that it would work was a strange effect of the Dark Events that had been tested on different occasions. In case the machine really could see into the past, what were they looking for by stealing it?

    That was giving Van a headache. Leaving Edinburgh to steal something from the Vatican? It was as if the thieves were raiding different parts, without worrying too much about leaving clues behind. Or did they have a reason for it? Who were they to begin with? With what had happened to Sil Moore there were many doubts, but they had certainly stolen her body. Were they linked to the Shadow People? Or with the team that attacked Jim Stuart and the cops?

    It was then that Van remembered something she had been reading outside while waiting to be called. Lee Reubens'' profile and resume. [...!]

    The gendarmes were talking among themselves, while the man in the suitcases was explaining something, but Van wasn''t listening. She read the resume, thinking that maybe she was wrong, but she wasn''t. [Look at his resume.]

    [Sorry?]

    [Lee Reubens, the man the Pope asked them to find to protect,] Van waved her hand and sent the file over, highlighting the part she wanted them to read.

    One of the areas where Lee Reubens had specialized was precisely virtual astroparticles with the possibility of applications for simulating future scenarios, and also a concept of neurobiological tempo-memory. In other words time travel, but only into the future and the second was related to the psychological arrow of time.

    Those present read the fragment and were even more confused.

    [We have to question him, it is too much of a coincidence that the thieves have stolen what is believed to be a time machine, and that hours before they had been following someone whose area of expertise also included chrononautics].

    [Can''t it be possible? Do you think that professor sent them?]

    [I don''t know, but we shouldn''t dismiss it,] Van said.

    While they were engaged in discussion, the farthest member of the team pointed his flashlight to the sides. As he moved his feet, he felt he had just stepped on something that felt strange and he looked down and pulled his foot away.

    He brought his hand to the ground and picked up something metallic filled with dirt. He removed it by rubbing it between his fingers. It was an old .22 caliber bullet casing. They didn''t make them that way anymore and it had the back of it obliterated.

    What''s this doing here? he wondered. And he tried to get the attention of his companion, who was about four meters ahead of him. He was standing with his back to some large boxes and on top of them rested another one, but there was a wide space between them.

    That''s when he saw it.

    At the feet of his companion he could see something that barely peeked out of the darkness of the boxes, and that could not be seen well unless it was illuminated from a certain angle. The gendarme rushed to his companion and pointed the flashlight into the gap between the boxes.

    Van had continued to explain and talk to the anti-sabotage man and they were both surprised when voices from behind called out to them. [Here! You''d better take a look at this!]

    Van looked toward the place where other gendarmes had already swarmed and approached.

    There stood a skeleton, dressed in an early twenty-first century suit, giving them a void stare.

    Between his fingers, in his right hand, rested a photo, which the lamination had saved from the passage of time. And, in his left hand, an old wick lighter. Two holes could be seen in his chest.

    The photo was still clutched tightly, as if even death would not detach it from that piece of laminate.

    Van bent down and carefully removed the photo and looked at it. It was a smiling young woman with two little girls, one was no more than thirteen or fourteen years old and the other was a baby who couldn''t have been more than a year old.

    Without saying anything, Van then stared into the empty sockets of the skeleton.

    Given the pose, the photo and the lighter, it was more than easy to tell which was the last image those eyes had seen before they left the world.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 19: Interrogation

    Chapter Nineteen

    Interrogation

    Monday, March 19. 11.10 A.M. 125 S.A.

    Vatican. Rome, Italy

    Lee was nervous and took a drink from the glass of water in front of him. Although he had eaten his breakfast only a couple of hours ago, the wait was getting on his nerves.

    What is this all about? he wondered.

    He was inside a waiting room with a mirrored window. There was a water dispenser near the door, two chairs and a table. No matter how he looked at it, it had all the appearance of a movie interrogation room. He had never been in one, but it was what he had seen even in video games, it was something that didn''t change much over the years no matter what. There were sensors in the room that picked up his behavior, body language, breathing and pupil movements.

    He was in one of the gendarmerie rooms, where he had been taken after being led into the Vatican by those who had come to fetch him. Hadn''t the Holy Father sent for him? What was that all about? He was certainly inside the Vatican but the area he was in he was sure was called the Arch of Bells, and was part of the facilities used by the Swiss Guard.

    He was about to take another drink of water, when the door opened and Egger entered, followed by a young woman with long pink hair.

    "Sorry to keep you waiting," Egger said.

    "Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rubens. My name is Van, I''m from Nevermore, SID."

    Hearing that, Lee took a first look at the fey girl to study her. She really was really pretty but fey. Looks weren''t supposed to fool him. She sure was the oldest one in that room.

    Van had introduced herself quickly and almost as if she was bothered by protocol. Lee didn''t know why, but he got the impression that she was the kind of woman who would get right to the point, without beating around the bush.

    Van felt her ears burning. I don''t know why but I think this guy just thought of something that really pissed me off, she thought.

    Lee extended his hand in acceptance of Van''s greeting and they got to the heart of the matter.

    "Excuse me, I thought you said I was required here," Lee said, turning to Egger.

    "Yes," Egger admitted. "The Holy Father asked in person for you to be escorted to a safe place."

    Safe place? If there really had been a bomb here that''s not what you''d call a good decision, Van thought to herself.

    "Safe place? I think I heard something about a threat here?," Lee said. He was trying to understand the situation. The fact that the Pope personally requested his escort to a safe place was puzzling. He had no idea why his presence was so important to the Holy Father. "I would like to know what is the reason behind all this," Lee said cautiously, trying to maintain his composure despite his growing nervousness.

    Egger exchanged a quick glance with Van before replying, "Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with all the details yet. But, I can assure you that he is not in danger. The Holy Father has personal reasons for wanting to ensure your protection."

    Lee frowned, trying to decipher Egger''s words. Personal reasons? Why would the Pope have personal reasons to protect him, a seemingly ordinary individual? However, he decided not to press the matter further at that point and continue to listen to what they had to tell him.

    "Is it something so serious that you can''t tell me?"

    "Yes, though the situation has changed, and we believe yours as well," Van said.

    Lee looked at both of them inquisitively. "M-my situation? What do you mean?"

    Van took the floor in what appeared to be a friendly tone. "Don''t worry. We simply want to ask you a few questions. I understand that you have questions of your own Mr. Rubens, but you will have to answer ours first."

    Am I being interrogated now? I''m in a damn interrogation room after all!

    Van didn''t seem to mind the nervous twitch in Lee''s left eye. "You grew up in an orphanage, right?"

    "Yes."

    "You have no next of kin of any kind?"

    "No, I was found without identification. My only family was the orphanage for as long as I can remember."

    Van nodded, wrinkling her lips. Almost like a fey, she thought. "There was nothing that jumped out in the analysis regarding any relatives either?"

    "No."

    "That''s strange."

    "That''s what everybody thought, and what I also think is that, whoever my parents were, they must have been CoTW, since I didn''t have any identification."

    "I see," Van nodded.

    CoTW, short for Citizen of The Wild, was a term used to refer to nomadic groups of people who did not agree to use the Neurowire, and chose to move about in the world without any identification. Although they thought that this gave them a certain freedom, without being tied to the Neurowire connection, the truth was that they were identified by security systems, which allowed governments to know where they were. Many moved between cities, living freely and with their own belief system.

    A lifestyle more philosophical than real freedom, but the CoTW alluded that they were like feys of the legends, but without the characteristics of them. Living in freedom and harmony with nature, while still availing themselves of certain benefits of society as they even had their own market system.

    " Did you never try to look for them? I mean, possible relatives?" Van asked.

    Lee nodded slowly. "I did try a couple of times, I even hired Aeon private detectives. Something like that had already been done since the orphanage, but it all came up fruitless."

    Van nodded wordlessly. Then from her coat she took out a small cube which she placed in the middle of the table and pressed it. "Tell me, Mr. Reubens, have you ever seen this person?"

    A hologram had been projected and showed him in three dimensions the bust of a girl with red hair and glasses. Lee studied the young woman''s face for a few moments, and shook his head. Could it be possible that she was a relative of his? After all this time?

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    Van nodded in the negative and was about to wave her hand, when Lee interrupted her.

    "May I ask, who is she?"

    Van studied the gestures. "It doesn''t matter if you don''t know her... then-"

    "Where is she from? Can you tell me that much at least?"

    "United Kingdom," Van replied.

    "I see." For some reason he didn''t seem to respond to that. However, it couldn''t be possible, Lee thought.

    Van finished making her hand motion and this time two other humanoid holograms appeared, one dressed in priest''s robes and the other was a gothic-looking nun. "What about either of them? Or maybe both of them? Have you ever seen them?" Van again studied Lee''s every gesture.

    Lee looked at them several times. Since he had been used to seeing priests and nuns since he was a child, he wanted to answer for sure but, no matter how hard he tried to remember, he had never seen those faces. Finally he also declined.

    Van and Egger gave him a series of further questions, studying him closely.

    Because of the wait, Lee was still nervous. Although waiting was a common practice before interrogation, in this case it had not been intentional given what they had discovered in the tunnel moments before, although Lee knew nothing about it.

    Lee Reubens did not have Neurowire, so they could not interrogate him and analyze his reactions as they would in a normal interrogation. They had to do it the old school way, aided by devices to read body language, pupil movement and dilation.

    "Tell me," Van began, "Mr. Reubens, exactly what motivated you to study the subject of the psychological arrow of time?"

    "I beg your pardon?"

    "It appears on your resume that you study virtual particles, and also predictive simulation along with neurobiological memory time. That''s related to studies of the concept of time, right?"

    "Yes. They are. Although, that''s just a hobby."

    "Hobby? "

    "Yes. I''m an astrophysicist for the most part, and the predictive simulation in biological organisms is nothing more than a hobby. Sometimes in our spare time we physicists tend to play too much with mathematics. Building mathematical scenarios that have no reflection in reality can be one of those hobbies."

    "I see," Van nodded. He was right, after all she knew Oxy, and she was quite given to doing something similar.

    Van nodded, seemingly satisfied with Lee''s response. However, Lee''s glinted with a hint of curiosity and Van decided to extend her explanation.

    "I understand that you consider it a hobby, but such studies might have deeper implications than you imagine," she said, scrutinizing Lee''s reaction. "Have you ever experienced anything that challenges our conventional understanding of time, anything that seemed to go against established laws?

    Lee frowned, trying to remember if he had ever had any unusual time-related experiences. The memory of the dream he''d had that morning glowed for a moment in his memory, even though that wasn''t time-related. Although he wasn''t sure how to respond, he decided to be honest.

    "The truth... is that the concept of neurological time has always appealed to me as well," Lee said with a somewhat sad smile. "If you''ve read my profile you know that I can''t remember anything prior to my twelfth birthday and, on the other hand, the woman who took care of me, Sister Claire, died when she was one hundred and nine, even though she looked no older than fifty."

    Van nodded, she thought she knew where that was going.

    "She had obtained her Evo-Lift at the age of fifty, to continue caring for children in the orphanage. When she took me in she was already ninety-nine years old and, only a couple of years later, she was diagnosed with memory fragmentation. They tried to get him treatments, but to no avail. It didn''t work. When I was coming out of college she died."

    Van nodded.

    In the old days she had seen the ravages of neurodegenerative diseases, but that today was a thing of the past. Though that didn''t mean there weren''t certain new maladies that even modern medicine couldn''t erase. Memory fragmentation was intrinsically related to human biology and memory storage capacity, which has a limiting point past the age of one hundred and fifty.

    Human longevity, also called pseudo-immortality, had been discovered in pre-war years, but did not reach its peak until the second decade of the new era. After much debate, it was decided that it would be a right of choice to access it.

    It was not yet one hundred and fifty years since it had been established but, from the beginning, debate had begun regarding the human brain and storage capacity after a certain period. Not to mention the heated voices regarding resources for a society that could not die.

    The latter had been a debate that fell apart a few decades later, because while many people opted for longevity, other people continued to die in equal numbers even with that pseudo-immortality. There was no distinction. Many called this the disappointment of pseudo-immortality. Because people who had obtained pseudo-immortality at very advanced ages chose to die after a few years. It was as if the same body and spirit of these people felt that they had already fulfilled their mission in the same way.

    But there were other cases, in people who were over a hundred years old and where they began to manifest other symptoms, such as memory fragmentation, which was characterized by storms of memories that were increasing over time, until at one point the person died from brain fatigue. This only occurred in people with the same body, other people, who chose to move their memory to a synthetic body, could overcome this difficulty, going to data banks and neurological treatments to achieve a stable mental state again.

    The case of the feys was different. They could store memories almost without problems. Courtesy of the universe, having their biological clocks completely stolen, due to their stay on the Other Side.

    Van guessed that the nun Lee was talking about, being a religious person, did not want to move her consciousness to a new body. She had ascertained that he had not resigned his FDC either, which meant that perhaps he would wait until he looked older, or that Lee was also religious in the sense that he did not want to acquire pseudo-immortality.

    "I see," Van said. "Just a hobby then."

    Lee nodded slightly.

    "And tell me. It has never crossed your mind to create a time machine has it?"

    Lee smiled. "If I said no, I''d be lying to you. Who hasn''t thought about it at some point?"

    "But you haven''t, have you?"

    "No. It''s impossible and it''s forbidden because of Dark Events."

    "You are an academic, though. With the right credentials, and a well-presented project, you could have the blessing to conduct government or Council-subsidized studies."

    Lee quirked an eyebrow at that and a smile tugged at his lips as he approached the table. Lee was surprised by Van''s statement. He had never considered that his interest in time and related studies might be linked to discovering something new. "Miss, may I call you Van? Miss Van, it doesn''t matter how many prohibitions the agencies put in place. It''s one thing, disruptions in reality and spacetime caused by Dark Events, and quite another to talk about time study projects."

    Van approached the table. "What do you mean?"

    "That it doesn''t matter about the bans. Humans, feys, I''m not sure about the Aeon but, let''s put it out there for now. No matter how you look at it. We are nowhere near playing with time and time machines, until we have reached min Type 2 or Type 3 civilizations, and only in small scales. I have studied the history of warfare and, if I am not mistaken, playing with objects from another dimension caused a huge disaster in Japan and almost another one in Russia. Am I wrong?"

    "No, you are not wrong," Van nodded.

    Lee sighed and looked into her eyes. "I''ve been answering questions for a while now? Can you at least tell me what this is about?"

    "Just one more," Van added. "Would you be willing to submit to a deep dive?"

    "A Deep-Dive, you say?"

    Van nodded and Lee looked at Egger who just stared at him in silence. Lee nodded. "I don''t know what you''re looking for but, I can assure you I have nothing to hide."

    "I apologize in advance," Van replied.

    The Deep-Dive procedure required either a person with the ability to read the memory or a helmet-type device. Since the helmet type was for people with Neurowire, they would have to resort to a nearby fey at the station, or a metahuman thelepath who could read memories. Van wasn''t sure if the Nevermore station there, or the Roman police had one in their ranks at the time.

    The truth was that Van didn''t think she would get anything out of it. No matter how she looked at him, Lee Reubens was just plain and simple, and there didn''t seem to be anything about him that made him look like the mastermind of a plan to build a time machine in a DeLorean.

    Dedicated, cooperative, somewhat sentimental perhaps, but plain and ordinary.

    "May I now ask? What''s this all about?"

    Van sent a gesture to the cube and there before him appeared a hologram of the two previous religious men. But they were in a place he knew well. The bar near the Monte Mario Observatory, where the night before he had been drinking with the other members of the university''s academic team.

    And indeed, just a few meters away, Lee could see himself looking stupid as he tried to pick up someone from the microbiology department. Not only that, more holograms began to emerge and all of them showed the same thing, although the scenery changed. In the observatory, in the hotel dining room, in the outskirts of the city, eating a gelatto. Those two people in religious garb were there. They were all close to him, but he was always surrounded by people and they seemed to keep a safe distance.

    The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Those two people seemed to be following him.

    Van made another move and the face of the first girl appeared.

    "This young woman''s name is Sil Moore. Her body was last seen in a vehicle where she was being transported to the morgue." Van pointed to the two religious people. "These two people usurped the identity of the occupants of the vehicle to steal the body. We do not know to this day what they did with the body. It is possible that the reason they were following you was because they were planning something against you."

    "What?!" Lee was really surprised. Him? A kidnapping victim? For what? If the reason was money, he wasn''t a millionaire and his salary was normal. Why would he have to be the victim of two criminals? "I don''t understand. Who are these people?"

    Van folded her arms and leaned back against the chair. "These two people are to blame for what happened today at the Vatican, and the alarm in the city."

    "I-I don''t understand. Who are they?"

    "At the moment we only know that they are linked to three DEs-related crimes." Van said seriously. "And apparently, for some reason they are interested in you."

    Van deliberately left the subject of what they had discovered in the tunnels unsaid. But, deep inside her, she didn''t know why but, obviously there had to be a connection between the two events.

    She looked at Lee''s frightened face and simply came to the conclusion that he must have a connection to it all, even though Lee himself couldn''t know what it was.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 20: Busted

    Chapter Twenty

    Busted

    Monday, March 19. 2 P.M.

    Lago della Merla, Torino. Italy.

    "In case there''s anyone watching, we''d better start from here," the man said.

    "Isn''t that a big radius?" the woman asked.

    "Yeah. But, well, we''d better be sure. In case there are nano spies."

    The woman sighed wearily, but nodded.

    The autonomous vehicle parked at the entrance to the shopping center of La Loggia, a small town on the province of Turin. But, instead of driving into the bustling streets of the town, the couple chose to venture in a different direction.

    Under the intense sun, they headed towards a specific point that was a bit more distant: Lago della Merla, about seven hundred meters away from La Loggia. The picturesque lake stood as a true natural treasure in the middle of the region. Surrounded by a small two-hectare forest, along the Po Fluvial Park, Lago della Merla exuded a sense of serenity. Its crystalline waters reflected the blue of the sky and the surrounding lush vegetation, inviting anyone to stay a few moments to enjoy the view.

    Although the truth was that the lake had the same name it had had in the past but, it was much larger than the one from the Ancient Era, and the waters of the Po had made it grow in the last seventy years, engulfing what had once been two small different lakes.

    Still the view of the place was more than pleasant for anyone who wanted to rest in the surroundings. Which seemed to be the case for the couple.

    They were both dressed in casual clothes and she had taken his arm, in her act of appearing more affectionate.

    Talking about trifles like clothes, the weather, the couple approached the lake and she knelt down to touch the water and, with a smile, he approached her and kissed her as they continued to talk.

    "Look!" she pointed, with a surprised gesture, to a nearby abandoned building in the middle of some trees. It must be a little more than two hundred meters away. With a mischievous gesture she took his hand.

    "Are you serious?" He asked.

    "And why not?" She said to him.

    ***

    The hideout was simply one of many abandoned buildings in the surrounding area. It was an overnight post, in case there was someone who wanted to spend the night near the lake. It consisted of three rooms.

    The main room had only a table and two chairs, a third chair rested in a corner, with broken legs. It was usually used by hikers, or the curious during the summers, and sometimes a CoTW group or two had also used it for the night. Although it was full of graffiti, it was not in a dilapidated state, and one could see that the accumulated dirt was months, not years old. So it was evident that someone was paying attention to the place from time to time, so that it would not decay.

    The afternoon sun barely illuminated the room, letting in a diffuse light through the cracks between the windows blinds.

    In the middle of the room was Stan, siting in a chair, looking bored as he drummed his fingers on the dusty table.

    Suddenly he looked up. "What the fuck?" He said, jumping up from his chair.

    The security drone in the vicinity of the building had sent a signal to Stan, that people were approaching the perimeter.

    "What''s up?" Rum asked, siting in the other chair, as she gestured with one of her hands to move away the page of the virtual Renaissance architecture book she was reading.

    "We have a visitor," Stan replied. "It''s a little early. I don''t think it''s them, right?"

    "Maybe the one from the exchange is coming earlier."

    Rum followed him and they approached the window and, barely moving the blinds, they saw the couple approaching in the distance, holding hands. The girl seemed to be pulling the boy with a cap over his head.

    Rum clicked her tongue in annoyance and frowned. "Tch, that''s all we need."

    After leaving Rome, they left the public transport vehicle abandoned outside and took another, set up in advance. The pair had traveled what was left of the night and a few hours of the morning trying to go unnoticed and in a discreet manner, without violating any traffic laws that might attract unnecessary attention.

    They had changed vehicles a couple of times, changed clothes, and they crossed Pisa and Genoa, following the shortest route to reach Turin in the morning hours, to the hideout previously agreed with Janus, where they would have to wait for instructions for the next move. And, at the same time, deliver the object they had stolen in the Vatican to someone else.

    As soon as they had arrived they had hidden the car in the surroundings, and had limited themselves to rest by taking turns to sleep. There was not much to do until about three o''clock in the afternoon, when they would have to receive the visit of the person who would take the object. That was an hour away.

    "What do we do?" Stan asked.

    "One of us would have to go out and scare them away¡­"

    "I''ll go then."

    "Can you use the skinshift now?" Rum asked with a look of circumstance.

    "No, not yet. Probably tomorrow," he admitted, angrily.

    "Leave it to me then," she said.

    Although they hadn''t worn disguises on the job at the Vatican, there were simple reasons for Stan for that. He couldn''t use his ability consecutively, and he wasn''t used to using the holographic system, because there was a certain amount of control to maintain on the Neurowire. On the other hand Rum had not used it because she had judged that the nun costume with the coif was more than enough, especially considering that it would be at night.

    Although, she had been hanging around target two, Lee Reubens, she had not attracted much attention with her nun''s habits in the surroundings. She and Stan had been following Lee Reubens to study the scenario where his abduction would take place.

    Rum in her case had a somewhat customized, but conventional holographic system. If any of the city''s depth cameras detected a nun with a holographic disguise to change her face, she was sure to attract attention. Something different from what happened in Edinburgh, when the police drone had scanned them because they were inside a vehicle and the device had only read the digital signature IDs so they had gone unnoticed by the security systems.

    The holographic system she had were good, but not as good at fooling the hundreds of eyes that could scan her on the streets. It was not like the one possessed by certain organizations, which had resolutions that were perfect. She had tried to get one on the black market, but they cost too much and, for occasional use, hers had already gotten her out of more trouble than she could remember.

    She touched a bracelet on her left hand and almost instantly, starting from head to toe, acquired a new identity chosen at random from among the people she had seen before arriving at the hideout. It was a girl with short hair and gym clothes, whom she had seen exercising about 30 kilometers before arriving at the hideout.

    Rum walked to the door and came out. She had been in semi-darkness and the sun made her nose wrinkle because of the sudden light, but there she saw them, walking towards the place with laughter. It was less than 30 meters away.

    The couple saw the girl and stopped laughing. They looked surprised. They were about the same height as Rum and Stan. They really looked like a couple looking for a place to hang out away from the eyes of others.

    "Hi there!" greeted Rum, smiling.

    "Hi there!" the man greeted and the girl looked down.

    Perhaps she is disappointed that the place they had found to hang out is occupied, Rum thought. "What are you guys doing here?"

    "We were just walking along the shore, when we saw the house from over there." He turned and pointed to a spot behind them and then looked at Rum again. "How''s it looking in there?"

    "Honestly it''s a little dirty."

    "I see."

    "I''m with my boyfriend. He can''t get out," Rum lied, smiling.

    "Oh! I see," the man said, laughing. "Sorry to interrupt then. Apparently we''re not the only ones who had the same idea."

    "What state are those in?" asked the girl, pointing to the other buildings farther away.

    "Honestly, we just parked at this one. I wouldn''t know."

    "Shit," Stan said, watching the scene from the window. "You''re out of your mind."

    "We left our vehicle over there, but we don''t know the place," the boy explained.

    "Neither do we," Rum replied.

    "How did you get there?"

    "... walking."

    "You said you parked here."

    "¡­"

    Damn. Stan thought.

    At that moment Rum gave a quick glance at the young man''s lower half, at knee height. Maybe it was because, behind him, she could see the lake, but there was something that caught her attention. It was only for a second, but she noticed that the image of the water at a certain moment behaved differently.

    Rum knew what it was. An optical effect due to the sun reflected in the lake. No matter how good they were, holograms had certain flaws if they tried to reflect too much of a three-dimensional environment with too much movement, such as the movement of the water and the angle of the sun at that moment. For the vast majority it would be impossible to detect, unless it was pointed out where the flaw in the system was. Rum had spent too much of her youth using holograms as a distraction, and to distract those who were supposed to take care of her too.

    But that wasn''t the only thing. The afternoon sun was warming up enough and it was getting hot. That hat on the man''s head had no business being there. And, what was even stranger, all around him she could see how the sharpness of the landscape behind him was distorted just as heat does on asphalt or a desert. Almost as if heat was radiating from his head.

    This is not good, Rum thought.

    Rum darted to the side, rolling nimbly as a weapon materialized in her hand, from the slots loaded in her bracelet. With precision, she fired a couple of shots aimed at the legs, but the pair moved at dizzying speed in opposite directions. Rum, seeking shelter, hid behind an old stump, while she felt bullets raining down from both sides of the stump.

    The man was shooting at her with stun ammunition.

    The woman who accompanied him, without flinching, directed a firm gaze towards the door that had been left open, and advanced with a determined step towards that place. As she approached, she deftly dodged Rum''s shots, moving with surprising agility. Approaching the door, she gathered momentum and launched herself into an acrobatic leap, spinning in mid-air to avoid the projectiles flying around her

    She landed gracefully and, with fluid movements, moved purposefully through space, demonstrating impressive dexterity. Despite not having drawn any weapons around, Rum knew that woman''s hands and legs were lethal tools of combat.

    "I''ll get the other one," the woman said, and the man nodded and ran to hide behind a tree, dodging Rum''s bullets.

    The woman had drawn no weapon and was standing just a few feet from that door. But she was more interested in looking into the shuttered window from the inside. Almost as if she was looking through it.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    Everything had unfolded so quickly that she had barely given Stan time inside the building to prepare for the attack. He was drawing his weapon, as he watched his partner dodge the man''s shots. But at that moment the vision of everyone outside disappeared from the window and was replaced by a yellow and red glow that covered all of Stan''s vision.

    Stan was thrown against the opposite wall, while the window panes exploded and a fireball burst into the room. The ball crashed into the ceiling and burned up as quickly as it had appeared. Stan staggered to his feet. Had it not been for the fact that his body was different, it would have been much worse. Stan at that time really appreciated his metamorphic ability that had altered the strength of his muscles and bones.

    A fire Thelesis user, he thought. He didn''t have time to run to Rum''s aid, because the window that had just been destroyed had opened a huge hole and, through it, the girl who accompanied the man entered and rushed towards him when she saw the weapon that Stan still held in his hands.

    The girl''s blows were accurate, fast and terribly painful. Despite her similar height to Rum, Stan was no slouch and was able to block them with ease. It was clear that both had a considerable combat level. However, the young woman demonstrated superior speed. Taking advantage of a block she made on Stan''s fist, she acted quickly in just three moves, disarmed the gun barrel and extracted the magazine of magnetic bullets. Stan regretted discarding the other polymer pistol resting in the vehicle at the time.

    As the melee intensified between Stan and the young woman, the sounds of another gunfire battle echoed from outside indicating that the battle outside was intensifying. The situation had become more tense. Stan and the woman moved with impressive speed, exchanging blows and nimbly dodging each other''s attacks. Each was deploying lethal combat techniques and seeking every possible advantage in the contest.

    Stan tossed what was left of the unarmed weapon to the side, and lifted one leg toward the woman and then delivered an accurate kick to her chin. The girl at that moment stepped back a couple of meters, but instead of ending up on the floor, as he planned, she looked at him, smiled and returned the gesture with a kick, which sent him against the wall of another of the rooms.

    The old material gave way under the tremendous thrust of Stan''s body flying through the air and he ended up on the floor along with a cloud of dust and debris.

    "Son of a bitch!" shouted Stan, between disgusted and surprised by the girl''s strength and got up white from head to toe from the dust, but slipped on some of the debris he had knocked down. When he tried to stand up he found the girl'' almost on top of him. He had tried to pull out another of the weapons he had stored at the time, but his Neurowire due to the blow had gone into a state of self-preservation. Without wasting a second he lifted one leg and with a powerful kick in the chest he pushed her away from him. She recoiled, and put a hand to her chest, but she was with a serious face.

    "Hey, are you really going to resist?" She said, Stan had already sat up and turned to look at her. "I can go on like this all day."

    Fuck me, was the thought as he saw the girl raise an arm and balled flames formed in her fist. "You''ve got to be fucking kidding me."

    The casual clothes had disappeared and in front of him stood a fey young woman with a slender figure, ash blonde hair and flaming eyes. She was wearing a blouse, with some richly decorated metal ornaments, along with black pants and shoes with metal decorations as well. "My name is Ignis by the way, you motherfucker," she said and lunged towards him as a sign that the battle had just begun.

    Ignis pounced on Stan with unstoppable ferocity. Her agility and speed were astounding as she executed a rapid combination of precise kicks and punches. Stan was forced to defend himself with all his martial skills, deftly blocking and dodging Ignis'' attacks. That flame in the hands of that woman named Ignis was threatening to turn him into a barbecue.

    The sound of blows echoed in the room as Stan and Ignis moved in a deadly dance. Stan unleashed a series of powerful blows, trying to take every opportunity to counterattack, but Ignis moved with unearthly grace, dodging his attacks and counterattacking with fluid movements.

    In a moment of daring, Stan threw a punch straight towards Ignis'' face, but she nimbly dodged it and, without missing a beat, performed a series of spinning kicks that left Stan momentarily disoriented.

    Seizing the opportunity, Ignis executed an impressive martial move, launching a leaping kick that struck Stan''s chest with mammoth force, sending him flying backwards. Stan fell to the ground, struggling to catch his breath, as pain spread through his body. Ignis slowly approached, a challenging grin on her face, making it clear that she wasn''t going to stop.

    "Don''t underestimate my fire or you''ll get burned," Ignis said, with a defiant tone. "This is just the beginning."

    But Ignis wasn''t the only one who had transformed.

    Rum, meanwhile, had watched as the man had deactivated his hologram and, in front of her, stood a man with pale skin and a beard as white as his eyebrows. He was another fey. He was dressed simply in a white T-shirt and dark pants and wore a light cloth coat that moved with her every movement. The only thing that hadn''t changed about him was that cap he covered his head with. But it was the coat that had given the man away.

    The hologram projector was a thin layer of nanomaterial composed of cameras that could capture the environment and thus project the configuration desired by the user. It was almost like a force field around the user but could acquire new chromatic functions. But having a continuously moving liquid surface behind it, the nanocameras had a very short delay to pick that up and transmit the information to the actual clothing, which was not supposed to be seen. That had been enough for Rum to discover that they were not who they claimed to be. Another person wouldn''t have detected it, but she had gotten used to knowing the tricks behind holograms.

    In the midst of the fight, the shooting had stopped as the two had gotten close enough to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

    "My name is Enfer by the way, Pyrene Special Agent." The man said, as he exchanged fists with Rum and Rum blocked them.

    The mountain elves? That''s all we need, Rum thought, looking at his pointed ears.

    She''s good... for a criminal, Enfer thought.

    With amazing fluidity and coordination, Rum executed a Windmill Kick, spinning on her hands and feet, with her legs moving in a deadly arc towards Enfer. The latter responded with a quick Flare Spin backwards, narrowly avoiding Rum''s spinning attack.

    She dodged Enfer''s fist, that had flown near her left ear and, with a move worthy of a breakdancer, ducked her body and rested one hand on the ground as she swung her legs around, almost catching Enfer in the waist.

    Enfer by moving away had given her new leverage to shoot him, but the same was true for him. Enfer hid behind a nearby tree for half a second and then ran into the trees next to it as bullets whistled by his legs.

    What''s with this girl? For a while now she''s only been aiming at his legs and no other vital points.

    Enfer had more than enough combat experience, but from the moment he exchanged fists with that girl, it had given him the strange sensation that Rum almost seemed to move as if he was performing some kind of dance while fighting. It wasn''t like Ignis'' fluidity, or that of other fighters he had faced. That girl almost gave him the sensation that she moved even faster, but as if there was a strange harmony in her movements.

    Rum ran out of bullets. At that moment she could have used Stan''s gun with the magnetic boomerang ammunition, but she couldn''t run inside. The sounds of insults and screams and booms were coming from inside. Given the noises it was as if a crew was doing remodeling work around the place with a giant hammer,. From the location of the blows on the walls, anyone could figure out where in the house the fight was taking place, because with each impact new cracks appeared here and there on the thicker walls.

    When Rum looked for half a second in the direction of the house she had gotten careless and Enfer had approached her again. He tried to slow her down, but the girl was like water with her movements, almost like a ballerina.

    Rum for her part wondered what was wrong with Enfer''s legs that they were moving so stupidly fast and she had noticed that with every hit she landed, dodged, received, or blocked there was something abnormal in his temperature. It was really as if he was radiating heat and over his head the image could be seen more wavy and undoubtedly there was a source of heat.

    In a moment of his carelessness, she took advantage and sent a quick blow near his right ear and, moving her fist, she pulled off the cap he was wearing.

    A heat wave was produced and Enfer''s head burst into flames.

    "What the fuck is that?!" Rum asked angrily and surprised, throwing the cap away.

    Enfer looked confused for a moment and looked around the floor for the hat, at which she took advantage and darted inside the house in search of Stan.

    She didn''t get three steps inside, when Stan''s body dragged her and they ended up almost in the middle of the room. Ignis had used Stan as a punching bag and sent him flying at the exact moment Rum had entered. Both tried to stand up quickly, but couldn''t get up from the floor when the hands and knees of Enfer and Ignis reduced them to the ground. Enfer had put the cap back in place and Ignis'' flaming fists were gone.

    "I told you to change your hat before you came," Ignis said.

    "Sorry, mom," Enfer said, somewhat displeased. The truth was that hat was no good in the afternoon sun. The accumulation of heat and the sudden release of it, when Rum took the cap, made him feel dizzy for a moment due to the sudden change in his internal temperature.

    But that no longer mattered, they had captured the criminals.

    The fight had been rather short, but intense. And the distraction maneuver of the pair strolling around had worked for Enfer and Ignis once again.

    Although it was a rare occasion, they were used to it. Pretending to be a young couple to get closer to a target was something that had worked in the past and they saw the opportunity to do it that way. They had no romantic feelings for each other. Their relationship outside of work was one of friendship due to the years they had shared together in Pyrene, but that kiss was just another way of greeting each other. A necessary act to make the scenario more believable and thus get closer to their targets without raising suspicions.

    It was not certain that they were the people who had been part of the robbery and the attack on the policemen, but they had taken the precautions that had been sent by Nevermore. The alarm had sounded at the Grenoble station thanks to the artificial intelligence, that had followed the course of vehicles left behind and that the last one had stopped hours ago in the vicinity of Turin and remained without any movement. With the help of a Turin police drone located two kilometers away, they were able to get images of the place. The car was still there, but it was not visible. Another drone had been sent at a certain distance to obtain images from another angle and satellite image, but the vehicle was not really in sight even though the signal was still there. That was what had set off the alarm.

    They could not be sure that there were any nanospies in the surrounding area, so they had decided to start with an action by setting the perimeter at a little over seven hundred meters to appear more natural.

    Enfer held Stan''s twisted arm while his knee held his head to the ground. "Bastards! Stealing corpses? Even by today''s criminal standards that''s low!"

    "What did you do with that girl''s body?" Ignis asked, while keeping Rum''s face pressed to the floor and looking at her sideways with fury.

    Rum then looked at his partner''s face, with his face also glued to the floor because of Enfer''s key.

    "We screwed up," said Rum.

    [Don''t say anything.] Stan said to Rum.

    "So they don''t want to talk, huh? Never mind, they''ll want to talk to a Deep-Dive for sure," Enfer pointed out.

    At those words Stan gritted his teeth and debated a little, looking at Enfer with uncontainable rage.

    Ignis began to speak. "For contravening and violating the code of international coexistence, and disrupting the investigation for the prevention of Dark Events, I am placing both of you under arrest. You are entitled to legal representation. If you do not have a lawyer, one will be provided for you. Anything you say and think from now may be used against you and used in a national and international court. If you are found guilty of the charges, you two could face a sentence of twelve years of deep rehabilitation through the NW, equivalent to two years of life. In case you are found guilty of more charges this sentence will be higher and commensurate with the violations committed to the code of international coexistence."

    Rum shuddered slightly at the sound of Deep Rehabilitation. That was basically a prison, but for the mind.

    In Ancient Era, punishment was left in years proportional to the crime committed. Although they had always held the idea that, at least in their minds, imprisoned people were free in their imagination, that had changed with the Neurowire.

    It was like suffering a sentence in an Other Earth setting, not unlike a prison in the physical world, there were rehabilitation programs so that prisoners could reintegrate into society. But the truth was that there were rumors that, at times, deep rehabilitation had turned prisoners into guinea pigs for psychological experiments.

    Rum didn''t know how much truth there was to that, but she had certainly seen thieves and criminals become model citizens after a stint in rehabilitation programs.

    While she was not proud of the path she had taken in her life, she was proud of her standards and principles in her work. Never murder, never kidnapping children. To deny her life of crime would be like denying the hell she had gone through and that she forgave those who had made her what she was.

    She did not want to forget that. It was part of her fuel that drove her to continue on the path she had charted, even if it was a dangerous one. Denying it all and being a model citizen sounded nice maybe to others, but to her it was like spitting up and not moving, hoping it wouldn''t fall on her face.

    Enfer began to name all the charges. "Theft and use of military equipment. Assaulting two civilians associated with the Scottish Justice Department. Identity theft. Intervention and theft of crime scene evidence. Interruption of the justice process. Theft of a corpse from a police custody. Fleeing and theft of vehicles. Use of a prohibited device and mineral in civilian areas. Impersonating religious personnel. Attacking police personnel and hacking NWs. Theft of antiques and resisting arrest. Transnational crimes. Am I forgetting anything?"

    Enfer had read the charges on the list, including those uncovered during the investigation in Edinburgh and Turkey, which associated the two with the disappearance of a vehicle belonging to Nevermore and the material it was carrying which were guns and grenades. Although this had happened last year, during a massive case in Turkey, a grenade had been used to knock out the technicians found unconscious in the van in Edinburgh. The grenade belonged to the arsenal carried in the vehicle and had been used by Stan and Rum.

    For the moment they could only blame them for the theft of the vehicle by association, but the other charges were more than enough.

    "Theft of material prohibited under international treaties," Ignis said, looking at the briefcase on the table. "And we still don''t know how you''ve kept your identity hidden for so long. Are there any more charges you''d like us to add? What about the attempted murder of the two technicians you attacked in the UK?"

    "We didn''t murder anyone!" Rum shouted, as she was lifted up by Ignis and put in special handcuffs that would block her Neurowire signal.

    "Well, we''ll see about that later," Enfer said, as he did the same to Stan.

    They both pushed the pair forward and Ignis grabbed the somewhat rusty looking briefcase on the table.

    At that instant a piece of debris fell from the ceiling and hit Enfer''s head and bounced off Rum''s head.

    "Shit!" Enfer mumbled looking at Ignis.

    She then looked around at the mess and the walls that had been brightly colored until a few moments ago by graffiti. Now it was all smashed and several parts black because Ignis'' flames had burned everything in their path.

    "I''m going to have to charge this to the account, aren''t I?"

    "Of course," replied Enfer, rubbing his head. As he rubbed his head, a flame tried to escape from the cap, but he simply pulled it back down and extinguished it.

    Stan and Rum looked at each other, there was a job problem.

    If they could trust Janus'' words, no matter what. He would get them out of the jam.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 21: 1976

    Chapter Twenty-One

    1976

    October 26. 9.34 P.M. 1976. Ancient Era.

    Chateau Rouge. Vienna, Austria.

    Night covered the city like a dark cloak. The amber lights of the street lamps flickered dimly, creating long shadows that crept furtively through the streets. No one seemed to pay particular attention to the limousine in front of the luxury hotel. The valet opened the door and the first occupant of the vehicle stepped out. The man in the black tuxedo got out first and looked down both sides of the street, where passersby were walking oblivious, and he gestured into the vehicle.

    He was a man of medium build, short dark hair and a bird-of-prey look in his gray eyes, although from his appearance he must have been barely in his thirties.

    At the man''s signal, Jack Piersons stepped out of the car, also dressed in formal attire, though in white, and looked at the luxurious building in front of him, while the valet parker held the limousine doors open. The long, red-carpeted steps gave Jack the impression that he was a movie star, which was far from the truth and why he was really in that place with the others.

    It was a classically designed building, at least twenty stories high, with a richly decorated facade that took up almost the entire block. Above the entrance it read Chateau Rouge.

    Chateau Rouge was one of the most elegant and prestigious hotel chains in the world. Regardless of country, or city, the name Chateau Rouge had always been associated with important meetings for business people. Many of those meetings were held in VIP rooms or with private reservations in the restaurant rooms of the chain''s hotels. These had excellent cuisine, and had to be booked at least two weeks in advance.

    However, in the previous weeks, the name Chateau Rouge had become associated with more than prestige, due to a certain incident that had occurred at the hotel in France, and had had repercussions in the other hotels of the franchise. The Chateau Rouge in Paris had had to close the doors of its restaurants due to a problem of espionage.

    The owners of the franchise had protested vigorously, claiming that their restaurants were not a nest for spies to carry out their work. And, for several weeks, the Chateau Rouge restaurant in Paris had hung a sign on the doors of the restaurant, which was clearly intended to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the situation.

    Our restaurant is closed due to international espionage problems. We apologize for the inconvenience, our service will be back in the next few days. That was what the sign said.

    Of course, the countries involved in the incident had to respond by apologizing and those involved had been deported. But, even so, the targets of those spies who caused the accident were not caught, but the incident had still upset the agenda of all parties involved.

    Carl Scott got out of the limousine and looked both ways just as the first man had done. He was also in full dress, although he had his coat in his hands and the color gray predominated in his manner of dress, with the exception of his white shirt, vermilion tie. His gray vest also had a diamond pattern.

    The years had passed for him, what was once a handsome young man with a straight face when he entered the agency, had become a more muscular looking man, albeit with a somewhat more relaxed gesture. The years had not passed in vain for him since he first met Jack in 1959. On the other hand, Jack barely showed any gray in his hair even though he must be in his late fifties.

    The man who had come down first then approached the open door again and offered his hand. He had wiped the serious expression from his face and put a smile in its place.

    "MyLady," the man said with a gentle bow.

    "So gentlemanly. It doesn''t suit you," a feminine voice replied.

    The man simply smiled wider, stifling a chuckle.

    A feminine hand rested in his and the fourth person in the entourage stepped out of the car. The valet closed the door and the car drove away, turning the corner into the parking lot of the luxury hotel.

    The woman who had just gotten out was a girl much shorter than the man, but who stood out for her beauty. Her hair was dark and long to below her waist. The hairstyle covered one of her eyes. She had Asian features and long eyelashes, her eyes were green and shone like a precious stone. She had a mole on the lower right side of her lip.

    It was difficult to tell her age, perhaps she was in her early twenties, but one could not be sure. She was wearing a long dark colored dress, which had a piece of transparent fabric at the top of the dress that covered her cleavage. It gave her an air of charm, without the need to show too much. The heels she wore made her look taller than she really was.

    But there was something that no one could notice about that woman, because the hair on both sides was a bit tousled and that gave her a slightly disheveled look of beauty. But, even if it was messy, it fit her style. Hidden by that hairstyle were two pointed ears.

    "Are you all right?" the man asked to the woman.

    "Yeah, I''m not dizzy, don''t worry," she replied.

    They both stood next to Jack and Scott, and the four of them looked up at the building.

    "Well, here we go again," Carl Scott snorted and, looking at the other three, the group started up the stairs.

    ***

    The second floor of the restaurant was filled with tables full of people enjoying their food, and the sound of soft music accompanying the chatter, and the ephemeral clinking of glasses.

    The soft murmur of whispered conversations filled the air, while diners of impeccable demeanor savored exquisite dishes served with culinary mastery. The gentle clinking of crystal glasses and the brushing of finely crafted cutlery created a sophisticated symphony that enveloped the space.

    The intoxicating aroma of gourmet cuisine intertwined with the subtle perfume of the guests, creating an unmistakable and seductive fragrance. The ma?tre d'', impeccably dressed in a black tuxedo, moved gracefully among the tables, ensuring that every detail was perfectly orchestrated.

    Walls adorned with gilded mirrors reflected the opulence of the place, multiplying the feeling of spaciousness and sophistication. Paintings by renowned artists hung framed in their panels, adding a touch of artistic distinction to the room.

    But that was the second floor only. On the third floor of the restaurant at that moment everything was quieter, and only three voices spoke accompanied by soft jazz music.

    Everything was much quieter there, but still the speaking voices had a pleasant tone. A far cry from the liveliness and opulence of the second floor.

    There were dim lights, and a large crystal chandelier in the center of the room illuminated most of the place, while the far corners were in semi-darkness. The three people were seated at a round table, arranged for seven people, at which the food had not yet been brought, because they were waiting for the other four people who were arriving at that moment.

    One of the speakers was a man who must have been in his sixties, dressed in a smart bow tie. He had a tanned face and a white beard and whiskers. His untidy hair made him look much older, although his brown eyes sparkled and almost gave him a much more childish air, as if they had not lost the sparkle of their former youth.

    His name was George Bender and he was a professor of archaeology from Miskatonic University.

    The other man who spoke was also dressed for the occasion, in an elegant black Swiss cut suit, but he had one of his arms in a sling. It was Ishida Yanagida. And he had left his wife at the cinema before coming to the meeting.

    Both George Bender and Ishida had only arrived a few minutes ago. But they had known each other for weeks. They also knew the third person since weeks but because of the accident in Paris the talk had been cut short and everyone had fled. Ishida had been the only one injured on the occasion, to the horror of his wife who had been present on the occasion.

    The third person at the table stood out, because he looked out of place to anyone who had seen him at the time. No matter how someone looked at him, he was simply a boy who must have been about ten or eleven years old, given his small stature. But, in spite of that, he had white hair like an old man, over his childishly shaped face. In spite of his youthful features, it was his eyes and hair that were the most striking feature of his image. His dark blue eyes had a gleam almost as sharp as that of the dinnerware knife resting on one side of the still empty plate.

    It was a calculating and somewhat somber look, something that was not meant to be present in the face of a child. If indeed he really was.

    Hidden in the semi-darkness of the restaurant floor, there were five other people standing with earpieces in their ears. Two of them, closer to the windows facing the street, were surveying the surroundings as if they were expecting something might happen at any moment.

    "Certainly," Professor Bender spoke, "ancient civilizations are treated as if they had been nothing more than mere fools. The whole planet is a gruyere cheese of civilizations, and what we could learn from them is a lot ... but I think your friends are a little crazy if they believe that ancient civilizations would have achieved such an advanced level to create something like a time travel machine. It''s one thing if they believed in magic or made mirror boxes, it''s quite another if they played with space time."

    Ishida replied. "I didn''t believe it either. But Jack and Mr. Scott have been doing it for the last few years more than anything else. And they''re not the only ones. The Soviets, Chinese, Argentinians, Australians and even a group from Brazil and Peru have joined forces looking for parts of the machine. Luckily we''ve been quicker."

    "Not because they knew," spoke the white-haired boy with a dry tone, his voice like ice. "This all happened because of the same person who stole your family''s dagger. If he hadn''t photographed parts of Satou Nobuyama''s diary before running away, this trouble wouldn''t have happened. Now there are people running around, looking for something they don''t even know exists."

    "But they do exist... yet, time travel... I don''t know." Professor Bender hesitated. "That all sounds very fantastical and I''ve seen some weird stuff, believe me."

    "Welcome to the club," said the boy smiling, somewhat cynically.

    Ishida shrugged. "The truth is, nothing can be done about that, Gehirn. I''m referring to the subject of the photos."

    "Look at it this way," said the boy named Gehirn sighing. "From my point of view it happened like this. The diary photos were in Germany for some time and then got lost among the hundreds of papers that went around after the war, and ended up in East Germany, when it came into the hands of Russia. Nobody paid any attention to those papers until Scott and Jack started moving around the world looking for parts of the machine. That was the trigger for other countries to want to know what they were planning as well."

    "Basically, if they hadn''t moved, no one would have paid attention..." mused Professor Bender. "But is it all true?"

    "Honestly, I think if this whole story is true, the stone is probably in a loop," Gehirn said, wrinkling his lips as he ran one of his fingers across the red tablecloth.

    "Loop, you say?"

    At that moment, four people began to peek out of the stairway leading up to the place.

    "It was time," Gehirn said, which left Professor Bender puzzling over what he had to say.

    Jack stepped forward and walked over, leading the group in a theatrical tone. "We''re sorry, we''re sorry. But we did a few laps before we came, to make sure the same thing didn''t happen as last time."

    Scott, meanwhile, glanced sideways at the guards around. They had not been present at the last encounter.

    The woman with her companion also approached, but they did not seem very intimidated by the guards. Seeing her, for the first time that night and day, Gehirn smiled sincerely and rose from his chair and walked to meet her. He walked past Jack who stood with his hand in the air.

    Damn runt! That''s the second time he''s done that to me, Jack thought, remembering the first meeting where Gehirn had done the same thing and ran first to greet the fey girl.

    "Hisui..." Gehirn said as he opened his arms.

    Hisui though she was five feet four inches tall had to bend down a bit to receive the hug from the boy, who was barely five feet tall.

    "It''s only been a few weeks," she said.

    "Yes, time flies, even for us." Gehirn politely rubbed the woman''s back and turned away without wiping the smile from his face and turned to the man. "Quincy, always a pleasure to see you again!" Gehirn said offering him his hand.

    Quincy shook Gehirn''s small hand more solemnly but smiled. "Mr. Schmidt, it''s a pleasure again."

    "Is it true then?" Gehirn Schmidt asked and turned to Hisui again, and then to Quincy.

    She blushed and smiled. "Yes, it''s true. I''m about two months now."

    "Wow..." Gehirn ran his hand over her stomach. "I don''t know what to tell you honestly."

    "It''s a little early to be cheerful, you know. But I''m taking care of myself now. I won''t do anything crazy anymore."

    Gehirn took Quincy''s hand again and shook it warmly. "You''d better take care of this woman and this baby. You guys still should have told me sooner."

    "We found out last week," Hisui said.

    While Gehirn had continued talking to the couple Scott and Jack meanwhile took the opportunity to say hello to their old acquaintances, Ishida and Professor Bender.

    A few weeks ago the group formed by Jack, Scott, Hisui and Quincy, had contacted some people close to Gehirn, to let him know if he would be willing to have a meeting to discuss a topic of high importance.

    Hisui had known Gehirn for some years, because he had hired her for almost six years to be his bodyguard. The two had become close friends in that time and, beyond the professional relationship that existed, they were almost like family. She had left the job because she had developed a relationship with Quincy, whom she had met at work, because he had been hired by Gehirn in another job.

    Quincy Quiver was a mercenary.

    Although they had kept a low profile for some time, the situation had changed a year earlier due to a failed mission in Algeria. Both were hired by the Agency to which Carl Scott belonged, to protect the latter and Jack Piersons.

    Since then, the four of them had been traveling around the world. Although that was about to change next year due to Hisui''s pregnancy. Carl Scott and Jack had already assured the pair that for sure by next year there would be no more movement and in case they wanted to they could work as part of the project security. In the place where the pieces discovered by Carl and Jack in the last few years had been moved.

    Professor Bender had only traveled with Jack and Scott once four years ago but, since that time, he had become a consultant to both of them on archaeological matters. Thanks to his invaluable help on the trip where he went with them, they found one of the pieces that had given Jack and Scott the most headaches. An intact original mirror box, so old that it was not even known which culture had created it.

    The professor had a professorship in the United States Kingdom, but he had credentials issued by the Department of Defense that accredited him to be there that night. Professor Bender had no real regrets about not participating in the group''s adventures, as he had a family and even a beautiful sixteen-year-old granddaughter.

    But because of the importance of the matter, he had first traveled to France and, after the incident, had remained with Ishida Yanagida.

    Ishida Yanagida did not participate much in the matters of the group, and had only met a few times in the last few years to know how everything was going and how the investigations and collection of objects by Carl Scott and Jack were progressing. Although he had become friends with them, at the same time, he tried to know that they were taking care of the stone that he had given not only to them, but the other half also to Father Verneti and DiMati with their research in Rome.

    Both groups had different approaches and purposes for the parts of the stones they owned, so they had kept only sporadic contact.

    It looked like everything was about to come to a climax in the next year for Jack, but there was one last missing piece of the puzzle and that''s why they needed Gehirn''s help. Although for some years there had been espionage problems regarding Jack and Scott''s adventures, due to certain photographs that had alerted other intelligence agencies.

    During the Paris incident, they discovered spies a few tables away from them, who were listening in, and a third group also intervened, who were on the other side of the table watching them.

    The spies had been discovered because Dr. DiMati had alerted Jack and Scott to certain people who had been snooping around Rome, and DiMati had identified them because he knew them from the KGB. Fortunately for DiMati and Verneti, they didn''t get out of Rome much and had the private security of a certain intelligence group within the Church known as La Entita.

    For Jack and Scott this was not the same, because very few people were aware of what they were doing and they were not to be discovered. Ishida had been the bait so, that after the incident, the press talked about a Japanese businessman being wounded in a brawl between spies. But the group he had met with that night had left the scene clean and no newspaper had been able to guess who they were.

    In the commotion inside the hotel, Ishida Yanagida had also discovered a new and totally different side of his wife, Masako Yanagida. In his eyes had been forever engraved the image, somewhere between frightening and comical, of his wife furiously knocking down Russian spies with her purse and that image would never leave him again.

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    The venerable professor had also surprised everyone, taking care of a spy by stabbing him in the cheek with a fork and sending him off for a nap with a good hook to the stomach. Both had projected an image completely out of character.

    During the greeting, Jack took it upon himself to recall the scene by asking about Masako, which did nothing more than stir the memory in Ishida.

    In any case, they all hoped that there would be no repeat of that and that was the reason why Gehirn had reserved the entire floor that night for the meeting only.

    The group ordered food and drinks, and simply ate while the conversation moved on to topics of what had happened at the last meeting, and how they had evaded Parisian security, and their own counterintelligence systems, to get out without causing too much of a fuss.

    By the second dish, the conversation had taken on a different tone. Gehirn had tried to ask a few questions about Jack, but Jack had responded with evasive and ambiguous answers, if not outright lies.

    The truth was that Jack was a mystery to Gehirn and he had tried to find out who he was, but there was almost no information about him, although he could not shake the feeling that he reminded him of someone.

    At that point, the truth was that Jack had warned Scott and Ishida not to reveal who he was, and so they had not argued about it. They both already knew how he had come to be, even though he never revealed too much of his past.

    Professor Bender, Hisui and Quincy had not inquired too much about Jack, since given their association with Scott, they simply assumed that they were both part of the Royal Agency.

    Without attempting to probe further, the group had simply begun to discuss the matter that really brought them to the restaurant.

    "On the other hand we have the creatures he called the Chronophages, which is supposedly the origin of the stone," Ishida pointed out. "And which in turn are parts of what he called the Furactosu."

    "They sound like Fractus," Gehirn corrected.

    There were so many concepts going around the table that it had become a mess and Hisui was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the chatter.

    "Don''t forget the savitronic cycle," Jack pointed out.

    "We have no way of knowing about the savitronic cycle yet, at least until better particle detectors can be built. The calculations may be correct, but we don''t know if they are right until they can be detected," Professor Bender said.

    "Let alone create tokions artificially in a laboratory." Gehirn began, after sipping from his glass of Chardonnay. "By Nobuyama''s calculations, they involve the Planck scale. We''re seventy or eighty years away, maybe even more, from being able to build accelerators to handle those magnitudes. I was just about to say that when you arrived."

    Gehirn took a napkin and wrote something on it and then put it in the center of the table. While everyone present knew what he was talking about, he decided to put the pieces in order in courtesy to Hisui. While she had no more than a secondary role of protection, along with Quincy.

    "This is how I see it, and I barely had time to read the paper when I was in Tokyo a couple of years ago when your father invited me for business. Let''s see." Gehirn began pointing to various words he had jotted down on the napkin, in a very refined cursive handwriting. "First we have Satou Nobuyama, who got his vision in 1880, but it wasn''t until his teenage years that he started writing everything down in the diary. Let''s take out the parts that talk about creatures and stuff, and focus on the blueprints of the machine. According to what he put in the diary, he said that the machine was parts of ancient civilizations, but he didn''t see any ancient civilizations, he only saw into the future. So, if his visions were correct, it meant that the information he got from those parts were basically part of the future, not because it was something from the past. So the parts of the machine may have come from ancient civilizations, but the information that they came from ancient civilizations came essentially from the future."

    Jack swallowed what was left of the salad bowl and spoke. "So... the visions he got were because we somehow got them?"

    "I''m still not sure, I''m just speculating. This isn''t my area after all."

    "But, he was saying that the information from his visions came because of the stone. If that''s true, we haven''t traveled with the stone around the world."

    "But assuming that the stone might have a way to access the information when you are nearby? What about that?"

    "What?" Scott asked, surprised.

    "The phenomenon of knowledge stones, capable of storing information is very old. If what we''re talking about here is really something that can transcend time and carry information over time, why not a stone?" Ishida asked.

    "While this is all very strange to me," the professor said, "I must admit that there are indeed legends about it, and I''m not just talking about information carved in stone. There are legends about stones that could transmit knowledge and store it."

    Gehirn nodded. "If we move on assuming that, it would not be uncommon that every time you meet at the place where you have your part of the stone stored, it would access the information because you talk about it. That way it could carry the information into the past and at the same time Satou Nobuyama would transmit it in his journals."

    "By osmosis?" Jack asked with a laugh.

    "Isn''t that a paradox?" asked Scott.

    "No, it''s a loop." Gehirn explained. "Paradoxes as such do not exist. They are simply improbabilities. If not look at myself. I am not a fey, but my age is frozen due to the alchemical experiments carried out when I was a prisoner in the concentration camps. It shouldn''t have happened, but it did. Now I am an old man trapped in a child''s body that does not age. Immortality is an improbability, not a paradox."

    The group said nothing. Gehirn had a past that was known to those present, even though they knew that he himself did not like to talk about it too much.

    "So, putting everything in order now would be like this." Gehirn continued with his explanation. "First we have these creatures, which we are going to assume that, since Satou Nobuyama found the stones in the past, it means that these creatures called Fractus come from there. Do we all agree?"

    "If such creatures have existed," said Professor Bender, "I think it would be most correct to think that they are the same ones from ancient grimoires, which speak of creatures from dimensions with non-Euclidean geometry or perhaps with invocation geometry perhaps.... I remember reading a lot about that when I asked for access to the secret Miskatonic Library. Although the boys at the Armitage Foundation have been keeping an eye on me ever since."

    "It''s likely," Gehirn agreed, but went on with his explanation. "These creatures have different types and one of them are chronophages, and from them come the stones, with their Jikanium material and the most important thing inside them, the tokions, which are activated by detection of the savitrons emitted from the sun. We can assume that there must be other stones around the world besides Satou Nobuyama''s two, which is the reason for all this fuss among other countries looking for them."

    Quincy nodded. "No intelligence service would attack the Vatican and want to run the risk of the world press turning against it."

    Carl Scott spoke with his mouth full. His turkey breast was delicious, but he couldn''t let that point go. "You can''t be sure about that. There are rumors that the mafia and secret groups have infiltrated the Vatican, especially certain families with interests in the Vatican Bank and related to money laundering."

    "Be that as it may, through these stones, and always heeding what Professor Nobuyama was saying, they only store the memory of a time when the stones have been present. It means that if he really saw something like a time machine, it would be easy to assume that it could be a memory of something from the past... or from the future."

    "What about what he called the Savitronic Cycle?" asked Ishida.

    Gehirn snorted. "Well, that''s another thing that''s related. Nobuyama just conjectured that it must be the key to the jikanium working and activating the tokions inside the stone."

    "How so?" Hisui asked. "I mean the order."

    "First there are the Fractus, inside a subspecies called the Chronophages, then the nucleus, called Jikanium or Tokihedron, but tokihedron is only related to the crystalline geometry of the object, the most important thing is inside. The hypothetical particles called tokions that could carry information through time."

    "Is that what makes it work?"

    Ishida interjected at that point and explained. "That part is confusing in his diary, but, from what I understand, the savitronic particle thing is related to the Sun. Supposedly at each emission of those particles, that''s when the stone works, and the tokions are activated. Verneti and DiMati have been the ones who have experimented the most with the stone so far, but they haven''t obtained results either, so it''s possible that what my uncle wrote is true and they only work when those savitronic particles are emitted."

    "Yes," nodded Gehirn. "The savitronic particles would be like a detonating clock for the stone. But it doesn''t appear that the cycle of these particles obeys anything we know. It''s not associated with sunspots, although it''s a little bit associated with coronagraphic mass discharges apparently. Assuming this is correct, and considering that it speaks of some ancient civilization, there is a possibility that there is some relationship to the path that photons follow into the sun. If an ancient civilization had somehow obtained knowledge of the future, they could put it into oral traditions hoping that it would somehow reach this time. If this is correct, what if the Savitronic cycle had been generated millions or thousands of years ago within the Sun and the emission was now occurring that could activate the tokions?"

    A bead of sweat ran down Scott''s cheek. "Excuse me, but how is that possible?"

    Gehirn sighed. "Some particles within the Sun do not have straight angular momentum. This occurs because thermonuclear forces within the Sun bifurcate the path they would have to follow from the core to its exit. From there the light from the Sun only has to travel eight light minutes to reach the Earth, but inside the Sun this is not the same. Although there is also the issue of the lifetime of such particles. I find it curious that some of his journal entries mentioned that savitronic particles could be generated during the proton-proton chain, but after the production of Helium-3. If that is true then we are talking about emissions that occur before the initial positron emission at the beginning of the chain, but before the emission of protons and neutrons that will participate in the formation of the Helium-4 nucleus. Of course, from what we know about solar reactions, these savitronic particles would be something completely new and ignored until now. We cannot reproduce a proton-proton chain yet, so we do not know if it is true or if it is a phenomenon that can only occur on rare occasions."

    Gehirn took a sip of his wine and continued. "It won''t be known for some years if what he proposed is correct. If the calculation is correct, it means that at the time he received what he called that storm of memories from the stones, there was an emission of those particles from the surface of the Sun. And from what he predicted in his calculations before he died, in his last notes, another one of those emissions occurred in 1952, another one in 1959, and another one should occur in¡­"

    Gehirn fell silent and looked at Jack, Scott and Ishida. At the sound of 1959 Ishida involuntarily kicked Jack under the table and Scott stood with a fork in the air and looked sideways at him as well.

    Gehirn smiled. "Is this what this is all about? The emission that''s going to happen next year?"

    No one said anything at the table.

    It had come to one of the crucial points of why they needed Gehirn.

    "I don''t know what you have heard from me. But building such a particle detector is still several years behind my funds and resources, let alone activating the tokions, that would require a large particle accelerator or an incredible expensive fusion laser."

    "We don''t want that," Jack said.

    "What is it then?"

    "We need to know where he is... one of your acquaintances."

    "Who?"

    "The shinigami. That black raven who saved you in the concentration camps."

    Gehirn frowned. "Shin? What do you want with him?"

    "We''ve been gathering data and we think he knows about the last part we need for what we''re building," Scott explained.

    "What exactly are you trying to build?" Jack and Scott remained silent. "It''s not something as stupid as a time machine, is it?"

    "It''s stupid?"

    "One thing is an object that could belong to a culture or species capable of seeing back in time and sharing information..." Gehirn looked back at the pair. "We''re talking about information here?"

    There was silence once again.

    So that''s it... information? I suppose it would make sense if American intelligence was involved after all, Gehirn thought. "What are you looking for from Shin?"

    "The table. We think he knows where it is," Scott said.

    "The table? Are we talking about that same table?"

    Scott nodded. "There are rumors that in World War II a certain archaeologist passed the information to Shin about that object in Montsegur, and then that archaeologist decided to commit suicide before the information fell into the hands of the Nazis. Shin traveled to Spain and took the object with the blessing of the families who had guarded it for hundreds of years and then the trail was lost. The Vatican initially wanted to use Verneti''s machine to find out if it was real. But of course, they didn''t understand that it was very different from what Verneti and DiMati are trying to accomplish."

    "If what they say is true then he never told me, but I know the story. Yet he''s not here to corroborate it either."

    "Where is he? Can you contact him for us?" Hisui asked.

    "You don''t know, do you?" Gehirn asked, scanning the table with his gaze. Everyone looked at him without answering.

    "Shin disappeared about two years ago over the Indian Ocean. No one has seen him since."

    "What happened to him?" Quincy asked. Of all those present, he and Hisui were the quietest.

    "I don''t know, people in his group, TF, have been looking for him but haven''t found him. They think he may be in some secret investigation. But honestly, I don''t know."

    Jack scratched his chin in frustration and Scott pursed his lips, he had set his fork down next to the empty plate finally. "If he had hidden it, where would he have done it?"

    "He has many safe hiding places, but if we''re talking about something that''s as powerful as the table, then he probably put it in some evanescent land."

    "Rumor has it he went to Africa," Jack pointed out.

    Gehirn looked at him and simply came up with the first thing that popped into his head. It wasn''t as if even if he knew of the object they were looking for he was going to reveal where it was. At least not without first discussing it with his friend, who really had been missing for two years. "I don''t know then. Who knows. Maybe he put it somewhere like Al-Madinat Al-Majhula."

    "Ilrem? The city of pillars?" asked Professor Bender in surprise. "Does such a place really exist?!"

    "I''m just speculating. There are plenty of places to hide something like that."

    Jack scratched his chin again and removed the napkin from his neck. "Well, then what about creating one?"

    Gehirn''s face showed a cynical smile at hearing that and Jack continued.

    "You said it yourself. If the information Satou Nobuyama obtained is correct, then it doesn''t matter how you look at it. Either we get the missing part... or one could be built. We already have a prototype."

    "We have the schematics my uncle left behind," Ishida said, smiling.

    That was the second point why they had contacted him, if the first attempt to find Shin didn''t work.

    "You guys realize what you''re asking me to do? To make a duplicate of something that can connect spacetime and has not been seen before? If the legends are true the table only serves as a television to tune into certain spaces. Something that can distort space and time is something very different."

    "But is it possible?"

    "We know you are trying to create an organization that brings together concepts of science and magic for technological development," Scott commented.

    "Magic and science are two sides of the same coin. Magic is just science waiting to be explained. It is merely an evolution of the universe. There is nothing really magical, only limits to the complete understanding of a phenomenon. The same goes for what is now beginning to be called paranormal phenomena, or Dark Events. Before they were magical events, ghosts, fairies, feeric beings, angels or demons, today they are Dark Events, phenomena from other dimensions, feys, extraterrestrials or UFOs. It is the same phenomenon that evolves according to the society of the moment".

    "A folklore in gestation," affirmed Professor Bender.

    "And what would be my benefit in this scenario?" asked Gehirn and took off his napkin and drank some more wine.

    The truth is that for Gehirn, all this talk of time machines and stones and visions was nothing more than a mental exercise. Interesting, no doubt, but not practical for his purposes. If they really wanted his help it was because they must have had something else in mind. He seriously doubted that the whole meeting had been done without more practical intentions and short-term benefits, from a strategic point of view. Many organizations and governments had approached him in recent years and he had heard all kinds of stories and nonsense. Time machines or lost pieces of antiquity were not the most unusual things he had heard of people approaching him, with intentions of borrowing his knowledge and personnel.

    "We have some rumors that your company project is already thinking of expanding territories," Scott said.

    Gehirn smiled. That''s what I wanted to hear. So this is going to end up coming down to a business deal after all.

    "If you could help us create the missing piece it would be very useful for the near future. It would lay the groundwork so that...say, if you were thinking of opening a technology company on U.S. soil, it would be easier to get the support of the right agencies and political support needed."

    "Really?" Gehirn asked sardonically.

    "For example as a contractor, whose development projects could be subsidized by the defense departments. We know that you have been trying in recent times to recruit the best materials technicians and engineers from U.S. universities."

    "I see... in case I decide to say yes. What is the status of the prototype you built?"

    "It''s finished physically, but it hasn''t been able to work with the other parts. The specialists who are working on it are a small group. There aren''t a lot of resources for what we''re trying to accomplish."

    Still it must be a budget that must be in excess of ten million, Gehirn thought with derision. If they had traveled all over the world, gathered parts from all over to put together with a small team of specialists, however small the budget was, it had to be much larger than the budget other departments were getting.

    "So basically you need the part to just work?"

    "Exactly."

    Gehirn looked at Ishida. "I would need some of my engineering specialists to read the blueprints that Professor Nobuyama left behind."

    Ishida raised his hand. "I can provide them, no problem for that. But their team also has copies."

    "How long do you think it might take?" Jack asked.

    Gehirn shook his head and smiled. "If you have a prototype that doesn''t work, with a team of technicians that can''t make it work either, I can''t give you any assurances. My specialists may be able to make it work in days, or we may need to create an entirely new part. To begin with? What''s the purpose?"

    "To find out if it works. Just getting the parts alone tells us that there may be something much bigger," the professor explained.

    Surely these guys think they can get strategic data or something out of all this. If only it really was something that could look back in time, Gehirn thought. Originally the two stones were one that split. Was the splitting due to Satou Nobuyama finding them? What could they really be looking for?

    "We need to create Satou Nobuyama''s machine for our own benefit," Jack said.

    "For the Agency''s?"

    "It goes much further than that¡­"

    "I''m all ears."

    In that way, Gehirn began to listen to Jack and Carl Scott''s story while maintaining a solemn attitude.

    The talk went on for another two hours, but the most important topics had already been touched on. Dinner became more relaxed and more bottles piled up on the table. Although Hisui never touched alcohol, she ate opiparently and with a double portion of chocolate dessert. Since the host had paid for the entire evening, they could eat and drink as much as they wanted from the restaurant''s excellent cuisine.

    It was agreed that next week Gehirn would send four of its best engineering experts to check the condition of the piece. Prior to that they would travel to Tokyo, to obtain more detailed copies of Satou Nobuyama''s diary than Scott and Jack''s team already had, and of the plans of the machine that was planned to be built.

    Gehirn wasn''t too interested in whether it would all work, but the reward for him sounded promising.

    The group that had arrived last finally got up and were ready to leave. They didn''t want to abuse too much of the good fortune they had gotten on the evening from Gehirn''s help.

    They said their goodbyes and were walking away, when Gehirn said something else.

    "On the other hand..." Gehirn turned to Hisui with an amused smile.

    She looked at him. "What''s wrong?"

    "I think it would have been nice if Shin had been here so you could apologize to him."

    Hisui made a confused face. "Me? I don''t know Shin..." She knew what he looked like, a tall, young-looking fey with dark hair, but she had never seen or spoken to him.

    Gehirn leaned back in his chair and said in a sly voice. "To be honest, he does know who you are. You''re the one who caught him off guard once without his armor."

    Hisui folded her arms and closed her eyes. She tried to remember as much as she could, but no. She had never met Shin as far as she could remember and she widened her eyes and shook her head. "Are you sure you''re not getting the wrong person?"

    "No," Gehirn smiled. "During World War II you met him."

    She tried to recall, but it didn''t show up in her memories either and shrugged as she shook her head.

    "You shot him in the ass with your sniper rifle."

    She had during that time been assisting in espionage work on the battlefield and had fired several times. But then in her memory appeared the image of a man running after her in a trench coat and with some kind of helmet on his head. Throwing all kinds of insults, he had revealed the location of both of them and consequently they were chased by German soldiers.

    "That stupid? He''s Shin? I almost got killed!"

    Hisui had seen Shin''s picture, but she could not associate it with what had happened because she had shot him from behind, believing that he was a spy. Then his armor had appeared covering his face, so she never knew what the man who had chased her for hundreds of meters looked like. She left the scene behind and the man had stayed behind, apparently fighting to free himself from the soldiers. Because of the noise he had drawn everyone on him, at which she took the opportunity to flee.

    "I would never have guessed it was the same person."

    The group finally withdrew and those who remained simply stayed until later chatting about adventures and other topics. After all, Gehirn had to get his money''s worth for the night.

    Downstairs the chatter was already muffled and the music indicated that it was time to close the restaurant. The few diners never imagined that upstairs a part of history was being woven that almost no one would remember.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 22: Deep-Dive

    Chapter Twenty-two

    Deep-Dive

    Tuesday, March 20, 3AM. 125 S.A

    3rd Station of Pyrene-F. Grenoble, Is¨¨re. France.

    The moonlight illuminated the cloud-free nightscape. It was a serene night and the sound of insects announced the first night of spring.

    The green beetles flew over the grass, gliding swiftly, with their elytra unfurled. To anyone who had seen them from a distance with night vision they would not have attracted attention, except for two details.

    The twelve were in a delta formation and the second detail was hidden in their wings which had a small metal mesh.

    The twelve took flight at a certain altitude, crossing a small forest and rows of trees, and then seemed to observe the structures below them with interest. The beetles continued to ascend, moving with almost mechanical precision. Their wings, beating with a perfect cadence, allowed them to soar effortlessly above the region without being swept away by the night wind.

    They were flying over an elevation of just over a few hundred meters high, called Mount Rachais, which was part of a Pre-Alpine chain called the Montreusse Massif. What interested them was the perimeter construction at the peak of that mountain.

    The beetles paused in mid-air, hovering for a moment under the moonlight, as they seemed to study the facility below them.

    It was a complex of four buildings occupying about a hundred square meters with an enclosed perimeter of at least a kilometer, surrounded by a forest. The main building in the middle had seven floors and, around it, three others of different heights were interconnected by a series of bridges. In one area there was a control tower, a two hundred meter runway, heliport and a small hangar with open doors. Building an airstrip on a light slope would have been a problem in another era, but for the vertical takeoff and landing craft it was no longer a problem.

    The twelve scarabs pirouetted through the air as they headed for their destination.

    At that moment outside the hangar were two Delta-TABs parked. Inside the hangar only one person was moving around, carrying a maintenance machine. Inside were two DT2s, of the same type as the two ships outside, although they were longer and for transporting more personnel, while the Delta-TABs were only for transporting no more than five people.

    The Beetles split up, breaking formation. Two of them headed for the ships outside. The remaining ones went inside the building, entering through the hangar doors. Two of them separated and each went to a ship, settling on the outer shell of the ships and remaining there.

    The remaining eight went inside the building, taking advantage of ventilation ducts and small openings in the place.

    The place inside was well lit. It had long corridors, different rooms and offices all marked with letters of what they were dedicated to or if they belonged to a single person. But, beyond that, it was quiet in the place.

    The beetles split up, each one taking a floor of the main building and placing themselves in different parts equidistant from each other, but which seemed to follow a correlative pattern. While one would hide in the bathrooms on the second floor, another would hide a little further on, but on the next floor. Thus each seemed to have built a spiral pattern that ascended the seven floors of the main building.

    But the last of them had not done the same.

    That one had gone to the second floor of the basement and entered a service area, slipping through the laser security of the ventilation. It had finally emerged into a paneled room with a glowing cube in the center, resting on a pilaster five feet high. The beetle had not been interested in the cube. On the contrary, it had gone to the base and followed one of the wires that snaked along the floor, until it reached a wall where the wire joined other thinner wires and from there to a cable channel that joined them all.

    The beetle landed on the bundle of wires and for a few seconds it circled around, until it sank its jaw into a yellow one and stood still.

    No one in the area detected them with their strange movements. At that time the Pyrene station had only twenty members, more than half of whom were resting. The autonomous robots in the underground rooms could not detect them either, and the state-of-the-art autonomous system that alerted of intruders in the area had not detected anything abnormal either. The four large canine robots guarding around the enclosure had also failed to detect them.

    However, the beetles were there, waiting.

    The security shield stood imposingly on the edge of the base, guarding its perimeter with state-of-the-art technology. It was a masterpiece of engineering, designed to withstand the onslaught of any external threat. Its structure stood like an invisible wall in the surrounding area, except for one detail.

    The security shields had a filtering system to allow organisms of a certain type to enter the perimeter. When an insect or a light flying bird approached the shield, the shield was activated with a quick response. The energy grid would instantly adjust, creating an electromagnetic field that acted as a safety net. Winged organisms and animals on the ground were detected, catalogued. This was done so that the presence of the base would not affect the ecosystem as much. However, near the base there were sound and light devices that could repel insects if they came too close to the base.

    Although the latter had not helped the beetle drones, being controlled from somewhere far away from the base at that time.

    ***

    The finely decorated automatic street gates closed, under the soft drizzle of the autumn evening.

    "See you Friday!" Said the little girl waving from the other side of the gates, looking out into the street.

    "See you Rum!" shouted another smiling girl poking her head out of the vehicle and Rum could see other girls waving their hands.

    The bunny ears on the backpack waved in the air in time with the footsteps of the little eight-year-old girl.

    She had just gotten off a private transport, which was also carrying other children after finishing their dance classes. As the private transport drove off down the road, she continued on her way without looking back, as she took skipping steps down the cobblestone path towards the manor house where she lived.

    She had black, wavy, waist-length hair and was wearing a blue coat. The rabbit backpack had been a gift from her parents last week, and she really liked the comical look it had with those long ears.

    She was happy that she had learned a new step that day and was looking forward to showing it to her parents. They should be home by now, since her father''s car was parked there in front of the gate, around the fountain that dominated the center of the large garden.

    She put her hand on the doorknob and the door, reading her fingerprints and facial recognition, opened and she walked in.

    "Mommy?!" Rum shouted as he entered.

    As he closed the door he noticed something strange. It was cold inside the house, almost as cold as it was outside.

    "Daddy?"

    Rumenia Ruzicka crossed the wide hallway leading to the foyer and looked toward the stairs where a cleaning robot was currently moving.

    It was the only sound that reached her ears. Everything was silent in the house, creating a disturbing feeling of stillness that, together with the cold that reigned in the place, did not give Rum a good feeling at all. She decided to investigate what was going on.

    Rumenia crossed the hall, heading towards the kitchen with stealthy steps that echoed in the manor, and there she saw the first thing that was out of place. Next to one of the huge windows, near a small table, one of the vases with fresh flowers from the garden was smashed and the contents scattered on the floor.

    Rum stared at it quizzically, but dodged it with a confused gesture and continued walking slowly towards the kitchen. Given the time, it was possible that her mother was already setting up the two robots that would help her with dinner.

    As she entered the kitchen, the atmosphere seemed charged with unusual tension. Rum looked up at the ceiling, where his mother''s kitchen support robots used to work diligently. In front of the sink, just below the window overlooking the backyard, one of the pairs of mechanical arms moved choppily, raising and lowering its limbs with an erratic cadence. It was as if it was fighting an internal malfunction, puzzling Rum with its unusual movements. Meanwhile, the other pair of mechanical arms remained inert, hanging lifelessly.

    The girl''s heart raced and her breathing stopped, releasing the rest of the air she still had in her lungs. A sense of unease and dread came over her as she tried to comprehend the anomaly she was witnessing in her own kitchen. With cautious steps, Rum continued her way through the kitchen, circling the center island.

    Every noise, every shadow, seemed to take on a sinister importance at that moment. She was feeling really scared. Her mother might be upstairs with her father, or maybe they were both in the back garden. But why was the place so cold? Was there something wrong with the whole house? What was wrong with the robots in the kitchen?

    But those thoughts left her mind when, as she finished rounding one of the corners of the kitchen island, she came upon a dreadful scene that chilled her heart.

    On the cold kitchen floor lay the bodies of her parents, one piled on top of the other in a final embrace. Her father''s face remained hidden, as his body rested on top of her mother''s, face down. However, a large red stain on his back stained his shirt, indicating a tragic fate. Her mother, staring into the void, presented a ghastly hole in her forehead, from where a trickle of blood had spilled in a now dry trail.

    Rum became agitated, retreating a few steps, her heart pounding violently as horror gripped her being. Reality seemed to fade around her, the shadows of unknowing closing in like a dark veil enveloping her mind. A wave of terror and sadness overwhelmed her, threatening to sweep her into unfathomable darkness.

    The world around her seemed to fade into a black abyss as terror enveloped her. Tears slid down her cheeks, mingling with the pain and confusion that engulfed her being.

    Finally, the horror before her eyes was too much to bear, and she felt the world around her lose the consistency and color of warmth, as she sank into a desolate darkness.

    ***

    He was badly wounded.

    Michael Levin, barely ten years old, walked limply, leaning against the walls every few feet. His basketball shorts and T-shirt, which had once been impeccable, were now torn and stained with fresh blood.

    His face flushed with rage. "Fucking bitches!" the boy exclaimed, as he spat some blood against the sidewalk. Night had fallen, and the narrow street was dimly lit by street lamps emitting a sickly yellowish light.

    He had won the fight, but at a high cost. The dispute had broken out over the right to use the basketball court, but what should have been a simple game turned into a chaotic battle of horrific proportions. Broken teeth, broken fingers, bruises and contusions decorated his slender body, product of kicks and punches from the other kids. One of those big guys seemed to be able to use thelesis early on, and had used it to change the weight of his fists, making each blow feel like a hammer.

    He clutched his stomach as it had been twinging from the kicks for some time.

    The boy named Michael knew that his mother would not be happy to hear what had happened. He imagined the look of disappointment on her face, the scolding and lectures that awaited him. He had, once again, let anger take hold of him, let violence take the reins of his being.

    The boy ran the back of his hand across his nose, wiping away the blood, and put one hand to his head and the other to the right side of his ribs. He stopped, leaning against the wall and tried to breathe. He had been having trouble breathing normally for a while now, and the vision in his right eye was turning red, because the bullies had targeted that side of him when he was on the ground. One of the kicks had hit his forehead on that side.

    Michael looked up at the star-studded sky and wished he could have been born up there, in one of the countries of the Orbital Belt, which at that moment was passing over him.

    He was pretty sure that up there there must be enough space to play basketball, without worrying about stupid fights, not to mention that the games with diminished gravity were incredible. He hoped that in the near future he could have enough money to buy body enhancements and become a meta-athlete.

    A sting in his ribs brought him quickly back to earth, leaving his dreams to turn into attempts to try to get air into his lungs. Barely audible sounds came out of his throat as he tried to catch his breath, sounds that were almost inaudible and were silenced by the noisy summer insects that were squeaking everywhere in the gardens on the other side of the street.

    Michael was in a state of confusion and disorientation as he struggled to keep his thoughts straight. The dizziness was overwhelming, clouding his mind in a murky haze. Yellow warning flashes flickered on his Neurowire, but his ability to interpret them was impaired, leaving him in the dark about his own state

    His eyes temporarily lost sight, plunging him into an eerie blackness. His balance betrayed him and he collapsed onto the sidewalk, still warm from the heat of the day, but getting even dirtier in the process. He landed on his side, feeling the rough, dirty asphalt against his skin.

    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    From his fallen position, Michael turned his gaze to the other side of the street. The view seemed blurred and distorted, as if he were looking through a filter of altered reality. The street, illuminated by yellowish streetlights, seemed an empty and desolate expanse. There was no sign of life, not a soul crossing his path or witnessing his unfortunate fall. No one passed by, nor did anyone see him.

    Stan began to close his eyes when it seemed to him that the noise of the insects had completely quieted ominously. And perhaps his eyesight was deceiving him, but he was seeing some sort of shadow creeping in his direction.

    He focused his gaze and caught a glimpse of how this time the Neurowire was showing a sign that it was calling the nearest emergency services.

    [Massive internal bleeding. Cerebral hematoma in the temporal lobe and precentral fissure. Damage to ribs and sternum. Perforation of the right lung. Nanoplatelet system will not act adequately, immediate assistance is required. Estimated loss of consciousness in 180 seconds.]

    Stan didn''t care about these messages. Now that he had focused his eyes he was seeing that jelly-like shadow crawling in his direction. The road was barely ten feet thick and was not for large autonomous vehicles. Mostly motorcycles and other small vehicles passed by. So that slowly crawling thing would catch up with him too quickly.

    With infinite patience, and without haste, that kind of stain or shadow, which he could now see somewhat more clearly, seemed to have a thick liquid consistency. What was more alarming, the closer it got to him, the more it seemed to be adopting a form that looked too much like a hand.

    Before his eyesight went black Stan tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth, as the hand-shaped thing lunged towards his face and advanced through his mouth and into his body.

    A place that it would never leave.

    ***

    Ignis, Enfer and Dr. Barbier watched the scenes projected on the holographic cubes silently and seriously.

    Dr. Barbier, an old man, was the opposite of his last name, as he did not have a single facial hair on his wrinkled face. But his hair was graying on the sides in a disorderly fashion and his crown was bald. He wore a white PVC coat with his credentials hanging from his chest. He was the director of the medical section of the station and, at that moment, he was watching how the two technicians readers were carrying out the Deep-Dive reading of Stan and Rum.

    The room was large and several meters high, divided into four parts. In the central part there were two huge floating cubes that were projected by holographic technology. In front of the huge cubes were the two special agents and the doctor. On either side of the room were the other two divisions, separated from the others only by acrylic walls.

    In each of those divisions were Stan and Rum in closed sensory deprivation capsules in a deep sleep state with a helmet on their heads. Both were immersed in a saline solution. They were each accompanied by a technician, who controlled an external device and sent the activity and readings of their brain signals to the central cubes. The images of the two inside the capsules were transmitted to another screen that displayed the deep sleep data of both, while others showed various graphs related to REM activity and other information.

    The Deep-Dive method was easy for them to do, it simply consisted of controlling that they did not wake up while they proceeded to read memories.

    Deep-Dive was not a method intended only for security and related agencies. In fact, it was also used by foundations and organizations dedicated to Memory Banks. Many people accessed Deep-Dive to maintain memories, while at the same time relieving the burden of recall. Often, when access to a specific memory was required, all the person had to do was to connect remotely to their private memory bank.

    This was a method that had been created particularly with human memory and its limitations of memorization in mind, a method almost designed in conjunction with the resignation of DFCs, and to prevent memory fragmentation.

    At the same time, the Memory Banks could count on an extra service to copy the entire personality of the user in case of accident and death. Another capability was to be a remote medium, in case a synthetic body needed to be accessed to go somewhere else, although the latter was a more expensive service that only certain organisms could afford.

    The differences of the Deep-Dive type lay in their methodology.

    Memory banks relied on the consent of their users, while security agencies required consent as well, but could do without it in case of public security matters. At the same time, in case of crimes, police, law enforcement agencies and other security-related agencies could ask for permission to access the memory banks of certain individuals.

    The method used in Stan and Rum was painless for them, but required some control, since Rum was very good at accessing neural networks and cracking Neurowire. The Neurowire of both had to be turned on in the procedure, because it was the main link to the helmets and transmitted the data from the long and short term memory in electrical impulses that, when sent to the supercomputers, could then be rendered and transformed into three-dimensional images.

    Artificial intelligence support was often called upon to fill in the gaps that might arise in rendering and projection, but this did not seem to be the case with Stan and Rum. Although there were black parts that could not be accessed, but that was mostly due to psychological and experience-related traumas.

    Especially in the case of Rum, who seemed to have lived really horrible situations when she was a teenager.

    After that scene from when she was little more had followed. Images of an orphanage where she had been mistreated by the other children. An escape she had managed at the age of fourteen, after injuring one of the security guards who guarded the place. More images of her walking through streets where no one seemed to pay attention to her, stealing to survive and sometimes escaping from unscrupulous human-shaped devils that had tried to abuse her.

    Petty thefts that had escalated over time, until one day she had found a companion in conditions as miserable as the one she found herself in.

    In Stan''s case, images of being treated by doctors followed. Then images of his adolescence at school, where he seemed to have been teased for his artificial thelesic abilities. Despite that, the boy had managed to graduate and had plans for the future to go to a university with a medical field of study and a sports campus.

    Those dreams didn''t go too far when he was blamed for a crime he didn''t commit. Given his special ability, and the fact that the real perpetrator had chosen to hide near his home, he did not help in the defense of the boy named Michael Levin.

    He fled and wandered through various parts of the United States, until, finally fed up with life there, he had boarded an orbital transport ship, stealing an identity and offering himself as part of the cleaning staff. On one of the trips he simply disappeared in the European Union, where one night he found a girl, two years his junior, feeding on food in a dumpster.

    Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka were dead. But that night the team of Stan and Rum was born. Underworld criminals offering their services to the highest bidder to survive in a crappy world, but there didn''t seem to be any better.

    Basically those two had been like two dogs licking each other''s wounds. That thought crossed Ignis'' mind and she took a deep breath.

    Ignis glanced at Enfer, as both of them had also gone through something similar when they had arrived on Earth, and later when they joined together to form a team. In her case, she fell into the fey trade, until one day she burned all the bastards and that did not make her happy, because she was persecuted by the law of that time for murdering humans. As much as they were scum, the law was on their side and it was a time when the feys had no protection whatsoever.

    In Enfer''s case he fell victim to a belief as ancient as it was stupid that consuming part of a fey body would grant immortality, and he was held to be cut into pieces, only to be regenerated again and the cycle repeated for two hellish years. He had been nothing more than a nice piece of juicy steak that could be cut endlessly, without thinking what he had to say about it, as he himself used to say.

    Ignis and Enfer was not a name they chose because they liked it. But to remember and not to forget what they had been through. The team name they had: The cremators, decided twenty years ago when they became partners, was a synonym of danger for anyone who tried to get in their way.

    It must have been the same for those two in front of them in a state of deep sleep.

    Ignis would be lying if he didn''t say that the image she was seeing didn''t make her feel sorry for them in a way. She was seeing how their criminal lives had been created.

    "What exactly happened to these two as children?" asked Dr. Barbier, though it was a question more for himself than for Ignis and Enfer.

    Enfer cleared his throat without taking his serious gaze off the projections. "We''re going to have to go to the social services courts, because the official profiles have the information sealed by the juvenile courts. But apparently the girl''s father was involved in a defense project related to a spin-off of the Goldeneyes System."

    "The one with the back doors?" the doctor asked.

    "The same one."

    "Apparently the father was against the implementation of the system because it was an overreach of defense agencies."

    "Well... unfortunately it didn''t do much good. I find it curious that just this girl would do something very similar by accessing other people''s NWs when it was her father who objected." The doctor scratched his chin and looked at Stan''s projections. "The boy however, strikes me as very odd as well."

    "What were the results of the blood tests?" Ignis asked.

    "Something a bit unpleasant. I speak from the point of view as a human."

    "What do you mean?" asked Enfer.

    The doctor gestured and sent the medical report to their Neurowires.

    Enfer read it and after a few seconds frowned and pursed her lips. "Phew, don''t worry, I find this somewhat unpleasant too."

    Ignis read it and raised an eyebrow. "A parasite shapeshifter?"

    "Yes. What I don''t understand is why the young man''s files are sealed. As much as it''s a delicate matter it shouldn''t be secret," the doctor argued.

    "Does he have anything besides genetic mutation?"

    "The mutation inhibitors are not like in a normal shapeshifter, it''s more like he can''t change for a period of time after he uses his ability. Which doesn''t happen in the common parasite type, or the fey shapeshifters."

    "We''re going to have to ask for information on it."

    The voice of one of the technicians pulled them out of their conversation. "Doctor, the synchronization is ready."

    "Oh good!"

    Both Ignis and Enfer paid closer attention. It was the most important part of the procedure.

    "Expand projection," the doctor ordered.

    "Expanding and overlaying rendering," said one of the technicians.

    The two cubes grew in size and began to approach each other.

    Assuming that in the event two minds had occupied the same place, a much more detailed scenario could be created with an enhanced three-dimensional projection. That was what was being achieved with the overlapping of the two memories. A third point targets could be filled in by the artificial intelligence and triangulate a virtual observer of the scenario.

    The group watched with interest everything that had happened in the last few days. They had really stayed close together most of the time, except for a few rare occasions.

    Thanks to this they were able to recreate what had happened in Edinburgh first. How they had been hired on a freelance basis by an individual. How the situation had taken a turn, that had forced them to act rashly, stealing the identities of two forensic technicians from the Edinburgh police. Then, impersonating both of them, they had stolen the body and locked out two other techs in the back.

    "I find it interesting that she didn''t get into the NWs of those two to shut them out," Enfer observed.

    "As much as she would have disconnected their Neurowire, they still had to move to the rear to knock them out. A grenade was much faster. They just took the body and retreated," the doctor explained.

    Finally an old port, a lighthouse, and an exchange.

    There they saw a muscular man in a suit with a ponytail, accompanied by a deathly pale, boyish-looking fey.

    But what mattered most to them were the people around them. Not much evidence had been obtained given the scarlet explosion that had taken place after the confrontation, but there was no doubt it was the same profile that had been shared by the SID. Those people had been the ones who had attacked the cops and a member of the FRT, using some strange movement techniques along with high caliber ammunition, and that did not match any off or on duty weapon records.

    "Well this is a good thing. At least we have something for Nevermore as well," Ignis said, looking at the photo of the pigtailed man and his companion.

    "Losing coherence," the technician with Rum reported.

    "Probably a nightmare. Try to relax the amygdala," the doctor ordered.

    "What the hell did that guy offer in payment?" Ignis asked.

    "It''s a fractus core," replied Enfer.

    "A weird one," Ignis pointed out.

    "Coherence is still slipping," said the technician with Rum.

    "Expand the relaxation of the entire limbic system!" said the doctor.

    "Detecting an external agent," reported the technician with Stan.

    "What?" the doctor asked, frowning.

    Ignis looked toward Rum and then Stan. "They''re bleeding."

    The doctor looked carefully at both sides, concentrating on the screens transmitting images of the inside of the capsule and saw a trickle of blood coming out of their noses.

    "Coherence lost, sleep states disrupted," one of the technicians finally reported.

    The cubes had just separated and only white noise could be seen and heard. The images of both cubes had just been lost.

    "Disconnect everything!" The doctor ordered, looking at the bleeding and ran to Rum. The top cover of the sensory deprivation capsules retracted to one side and there appeared the bodies of Stan and Rum dressed only in their underwear.

    "What happened?" asked Ignis, approaching.

    Enfer peered into the other cubicle where the technician was removing Stan''s immersion helmet. "Why are they bleeding?"

    "I don''t know. But I''m very interested. We''re going to have to do a more detailed analysis now. If the helmet doesn''t work we have to try a Deep-Dive with the natural method... unfortunately we don''t have a technician here but we can order one from the main base in Paris. I already ordered one for the old man we have in the medical wing underground, but they haven''t sent it yet."

    Ignis looked at the doctor, given what had happened in the last few days she had almost forgotten him. It seemed like weeks had passed since he had been transferred to the station. "What happened to him?"

    "He''s still the same. He''s asleep and we couldn''t do any invasive tests. He has a high white blood cell count, but we can''t do anything about it if we can''t test him and give him IVs. Has a nano pack of vitamins and to support hydration but there is nothing more we can do. The closest we can think of is that he is an encapsulated system fey. But if so, it doesn''t explain why he was conscious when they pulled him out of the water. He''s on one of the basement floors with a nurse support robot that will alert us in case he wakes up."

    The doctor carefully removed the helmet from Rum''s head and the technician helped him, as the water where they were submerged began to recede. Dr. Barbier examined Rum''s nose, while on his Neurowire he tried to externally analyze the brain temperature and neural activity transmitted from the girl''s Neurowire.

    "Move them to the medical wing. We''re going to run a Neurowire analysis to see what happened here."

    The water had disappeared from the capsules, absorbed by one of the lower connections. The two technicians nodded to the doctor''s order and in the cubicles some doors opened on the sides walls. The techs activated the levitation system of both capsules and directed them to the sides doors, disappearing from the scene.

    Ignis looked at the floating cube that, now without connection to anything, was of a white color that did not show anything. There was something in the last part of the projection that had caught her attention. "What was the meaning of what that man who hired them said?"

    "The last part?"

    "Yes. That things were going to get bumpy here."

    They went on talking for another few minutes about it but couldn''t come to any conclusion as to what it might be about. Surely the SID agents would know better. They stood for a few moments in silence thinking about that as the lights in the room went out.

    They looked up.

    "Did they change the cubes? At this hour?"

    "That''s odd," the doctor said.

    There was a rumble that shook the whole room.

    "What the hell was that?!" Enfer asked.

    He had hardly finished asking, when there was another rumble and they could hear explosions in the distance.

    On one side of the room a red light began to flash. At the same time an alarm also appeared in their brains.

    [Special agents: protocol N43. Proceed to your posts according to AI projections.]

    N43.

    The protocol for an external attack on a station had just been activated.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 23: The Attack

    Chapter Twenty-Three

    The Attack

    Tuesday 20, 3.25AM. 125 S.A.

    3rd Station of Pyrene-F. Grenoble, Is¨¨re. France.

    [You know what to do right? Don''t fight more than necessary or your boss will kill me,] Janus'' voice said.

    "I know, unlike these pathetic guys you hired, I know how to do my job. Wilco. Over, and out," said the feminine voice. The woman was hidden in the gloom of the trees and accompanied by more than forty humanoid forms waiting for her command.

    The first explosion in the hangar lit up the night sky and silenced the screeching insects. It was followed by the ship next to it and then by the two ships inside the hangar.

    The alarm had sounded.

    Those explosions were more than enough to be heard throughout the territory, and it was most likely that in several of the houses, and buildings, located at the foot of the hill several people had been awakened by the sounds.

    But that did not matter to the girl. Everything would be quick and was going as planned. Of course, none of it would be happening if those two hadn''t been captured in the first place. That was extra work she had to do.

    First she had to send the beetles through the perimeter. Then one of them took charge of lowering the base''s defenses, while the others would strategically position themselves on different floors to cause commotion among the personnel in the station.

    While that was happening, she had crossed the perimeter with her companions. Since the beetle that would be in charge of lowering the defenses, and fooling the security systems, had entered a series of commands, so that the system would ignore the perimeter breach first.

    Amidst all the confusion, she would have to carry out her mission of distraction.

    [Extraction operation, start!] said the girl through her Neurowire to the shadowy forms accompanying her.

    At her command, the shadows emerged from the trees. They were all matte black tactical droids. The only coloration seemed to come from a thin blue horizontal line on their oval heads devoid of facial features. Despite their humanoid form, they had a very slender torso, which contrasted with their broader arms and legs. Each one on their back seemed to carry a device attached to their spines, similar to a jet pack, but with a more minimalist design and devoid of nozzles like the old models. Although the matte black color predominated, there were black metal parts that had a more metallic sheen, such as the chest plate area and parts of the forearm and forearm. None of them seemed to carry any weapons with them.

    But it wasn''t as if they needed them.

    ***

    Pyrene was an organization that covered the jurisdiction of five countries within the European Union. Spain, France, Italy, Taured and Switzerland. Although it had a large infrastructure it could not be compared to Nevermore, with whom it shared jurisdiction, but its infrastructure was very efficient. It had two main bases on French territory and five stations.

    The Grenoble station had a staff of forty-five people, of which twenty were from four FRT teams, and the rest were two people from administration and control, one from logistics, three from the main medical wing and two nurse technicians. Two people were responsible for the mechanical wing and the others were divided between maintenance, security, cafeteria and lunch area and counseling, flight control and communications. Many of the tasks were also automated and AI-supported, so not too many personnel were required on site.

    The agents for special operations on station at the time, counting Ignis and Enfer, were five, two fey, two human and one agent from the intelligence wing, which was an aeon.

    The FRT teams were at that moment in another place, because they had been gathered to collaborate in a sanitary task that had been discovered a few hours ago, but that seemed that it could give big problems if it was not stopped in time. There should be work for two or three days for sure.

    So that night on site the group at the station was small.

    Only a few people were up at that hour and most of them were in the room where the Deep-Dive was taking place. Despite this, the system''s alarms were almost unnecessary, because at the first explosion everyone was out of bed.

    Ignis and Enfer had rushed out of the room towards the control center, while Dr. Barbier had run to one of the emergency evacuation zones.

    Who could be crazy enough to attack a station, even with a reduced staff?

    Explosives had been used and that was at a level far beyond what was expected. Never, in its eighty year history, had a Pyrene Station been attacked in such a way. At most electronic espionage and attempts to steal information, but that was commonplace and the Intelligence and Counterintelligence division dealt with it. Like Nevermore, espionage was part of the diplomatic game between agencies and governments.

    But a deliberate attack was a different thing. There had never been such a thing on a base in Pyrene.

    They had attacked the transport part of the hangar first. That could be a deliberate attack against the fey since, in case of emergency, they could not use teleportation mechanisms due to a strange side effect of their condition as a species, unless it was a fey that had the ability to teleport. The humans could flee, the aeon could move their consciousness to the hive mind and leave their bodies behind, but the fey would have to stay behind.

    Ignis and Enfer had reached the control center two floors up, dodging debris falling from the ceiling and amidst a cloud of dust and mud, as the fire sprinklers had been activated. The Administration Commander and Logistics Director were already standing there looking at the situation on the terminals with an expression of fury and confusion at the same time. The attack on the building had been a chain attack, starting from the outside in and moving up each floor as if a snake had coiled around the structure and was threatening to crush it.

    The two building security personnel were currently in another locked room in one of the adjoining buildings and, from there, they were sending reports from the systems in the rest of the building to central control.

    The building material and structure was of optimum quality and ordinary explosives would not have produced any damage. A special type of explosives would have had to be used to damage the structure of the complex.

    "What the hell happened?!" Ignis asked.

    "We have a Leech-tap." Said the logistics manager, looking at the screen with the different cameras in the building, while on his Neurowire he passed review to the structure of the main building. "I don''t understand how the station''s force shield failed. Something or someone must have intervened from outside to lower the shield and make it look like it was still up."

    "''We''ve got a vampire in the security?"

    "It looks like it, the explosion on the first floor cut off access to the barrier control room and power. We''re running auxiliary now and I''m directing it to building three, to evacuate through the portal to the police at Fort La Bastille."

    The base was in chaos. Alarms echoed through the corridors, announcing the imminent danger lurking around every corner. Explosions had devastated several parts of the facility, leaving debris and smoke in their wake. The small electronic security team was on high alert, trying to contain the still unseen threat, but something was amiss.

    A technician rushed in, his face marked by stress.

    "Commander, we have detected several anomalies in the security system! The force shield levels are still activated, but in reality they are down to near minimum. It''s as if someone is cheating the system through the Leech-tap."

    "How is it possible that they managed to infiltrate and disable our shields without being detected?"

    "We don''t know for sure, but it looks like they are using some kind of heuristic disguise to fool our security algorithms. It''s as if they know exactly how to bypass our protocols."

    The commander frowned, his mind working at full speed to come up with a solution.

    The logistics director, meanwhile, imparted his orders. "We need to make sure the base is secured. Order all mechanized security teams to prepare to defend critical areas. I want them to thoroughly search every nook and cranny of this facility for any infiltrators. In the meantime have all non-essential personnel evacuated to La Bastille. Have communications evacuate as well, IA just took control with the activation of the emergency protocol." The technician nodded and left the control room, transmitting the orders through his Neurowire.

    "You two," the commander said, turning to Enfer and Ignis, "you know what to do."

    Enfer and Ignis would have to personally search for the source of all the chaos, if the enemy was really there. Without waiting for further orders, they both left the room.

    In the control room the two men remained, their faces reflecting a mixture of tension and determination as they supervised the efforts to contain the threat that loomed over them.

    Several screens had been displayed and through them the AI was looking for patterns, in an attempt to find the source of the attack. Those images only made the two men angrier as they saw how the facility was in shambles. In all their years the most dangerous thing the station had seen was an invasion of giant mosquitoes, more than three decades ago, during an incident with an DE. But they could never imagine that something like that could happen in front of their eyes.

    The floors of the main building had been attacked and the station''s shield had been lowered to the minimum. The two special agents and the aeon, along with Enfer and Ignis, at the base would not be enough to contain an attack of major proportions even with the help of mechanized security. If this turned into a larger scale attack. Both men did not believe it possible, an attack would have to be carried out with minimum personnel and this had to be a distraction technique to make believe that it was bigger than it seemed.

    The first three agents were assisting in the evacuation of personnel to the teleport portal. Almost everyone was assembled, but there was a problem. The two medical wing technicians, with the two criminal bodies still in a drowsy state, would be delayed. On the other hand, there was one more problem.

    Stan had a substance in his body that would not allow teleportation, because the source of the parasite in his body was a type of fey organism. Chances were that if they tried to put him in the portal his body would be destroyed.

    All that was left was to move them close to the portal and close the massive security doors in the hope that the personnel at the base could discover the attacker.

    In the control center the men were still sending orders as they watched the mechanized equipment on the ceilings of each floor activate. Due to the explosions, many of them must have been damaged, because on the screens showing the grid of the different systems, several appeared offline and out of service.

    Even so, there must have been enough equipment to counter a small attack. The equipment outside the base, with the canines monitoring the perimeter, had been deactivated at some point, so they would only have to reckon that the enemy was already inside the terrain.

    They continued to watch the screens, which showed the destruction of the site, but the image quickly changed when they saw that, through the holes caused by the explosions, something else was entering the base.

    Black tactical droids were entering through all of them and were scattering all over the place.

    Their hearts sank in their chests, when they saw how the army of droids were making their way through the rubble and many of them were gliding through the air, thanks to the jet-packs placed on their backs.

    "What the hell are those things?!" the commander said in astonishment.

    "Damn it! This can''t be happening" the worst fears were reflected on those screens. The shield with minimal security would have let them pass as if it were a family picnic.

    "They have outnumbered us and knew our weaknesses perfectly well. We must act quickly and coordinate our efforts with the security personnel we have."

    The commander nodded, his mind quickly analyzing the options available in that critical situation. [Call in all remaining intelligent security teams in, the weapons room and any special agents we have available to protect the personnel in the teleport chamber. We need to form a strong and efficient defense to contain the enemy.]

    The director activated his Neurowire and relayed the order through internal communication channels. In no time, the automatized security teams and the special agents were prepared at the various points they were located.

    There would be no time for a group attack. Those droids were entering through all the gaps opened by the explosions. At the same time he sent a distress signal to the other bases, but he had just realized that the security channel was blocked. The security channel linked for emergency calls between the bases, if it was blocked he would not be able to call for reinforcements. Calling in police and military personnel in the vicinity involved teleporting unauthorized personnel as backup via quantum link.

    Although there was an emergency protocol, they were battling against tactical droids whose numbers were unknown. That could well end up involving more victims if reinforcements were called in without knowing the enemy''s capabilities. Not to mention that the communications blockade could be exerting some influence on the teleportation system. Nothing ensured that in the middle of a teleport the enemy would close the channels, killing everyone at the moment of teleportation, turning everyone into a salad of molecular minced meat. They would still have to take their chances and evacuate the least necessary personnel. The teleport door to the Bastille was nearby and there should be no problem moving personnel a short distance.

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    The Commander spoke to everyone on the base. [We have an enemy on the premises, but we cannot allow them to take control of our facilities. To the agents, remember your training and trust your abilities. We are outnumbered, but try to hold them off while the evacuation process is over.]

    The lights in the base flickered and the sound of explosions intensified as the invading droids advanced relentlessly. Security personnel and the few special agents positioned themselves strategically, ready to engage their enemy. Smoke filled the corridors as explosions and gunfire began to echo through the air.

    The mechanized defense systems had begun the counterattack against the droids, firing heavy ammunition. Never had so many weapons been fired inside the facility. Each of them faced multiple droids, but the droids maneuvered through the ruins of the building and using their surroundings to their advantage were able to take cover with ease. Despite this, however, much of the ammunition bounced off their metal bodies.

    However, beyond that, their speed of movement was terrifying, using their legs to jump, as well as their jet-packs to propel themselves and attack the mechanized systems with their bare hands, putting them out of combat with ease.

    While that was happening, on another floor, Enfer and Ignis'' fight against the new enemy had begun as well. It had surprised them both when they were running through a corridor among the rubble and suddenly they heard a buzzing sound cutting through the air. The next moment they saw blue flashes approaching and the black-bodied droids bursting out of the smoke as if they were ghosts.

    But there was something else that came out of the smoke behind the droids and that contrasted with the others. In the control room the two men also saw this and were stunned to see the figure.

    At first they all thought it was some kind of droid in a white tactical suit, but that changed when the figure came out of the smoke, showing itself for what it was.

    "What the hell is that?" Enfer asked.

    It was a female humanoid figure just over 160 centimeters tall. Almost pure snow white, with the exception of a few tiny dark patterns.

    Of slender appearance, the figure was covered from the feet to the face with a kind of white suit that looked almost like an armor, completely adjusted to her body, and that did nothing more than suggest her anatomical form of ample bust and wide hips with slender and well-turned legs. Her face was covered by a mask of the same white color that completely covered even her ears. With the exception of short pink hair, she almost looked completely white.

    The design of that armor suit looked like it was somewhere between organic and metallic at the same time. It appeared that the armor suit had a series of bas-relief grooves in its design that followed interlocking, stylized knot patterns from her feet to her mask. From her hands and feet peeked out some sort of short red claws.

    There was not much time to admire the figure, because the next moment she and the droids launched an attack against Ignis and Enfer.

    ***

    The evacuation protocol had at least worked at that moment.

    In a matter of a couple of minutes, all the civilian, human and fey, personnel had run from their respective rooms to the central chamber of the complex, located on the lower floor that had not been damaged.

    That place was the one that had the teleportation device and that worked with an external core to the one that had already been damaged and isolated in the first attack.

    That part of the building stood out because of its white marble walls and floor and, due to the auxiliary power sources, the lights were on and did not flicker as in the rest of the complex.

    The teleportation chamber was located in the central part of the plant and had been built to be isolated so that, in case of emergency, no one from outside could enter since the control program could be cut from inside or outside and to restore control from either side required the other to relinquish control.

    Dr. Barbier, accompanied by the others at the time, was watching the situation through the cameras and, given the orders from the control, had closed the security door of the chamber. He still had to evacuate the two human agents on the other side, the technicians and the two thieves who must still be under the effects of induced sleep. Although he wasn''t sure what could happen to the man named Michael Levin/Stan. Of all the people in the room, there was one man with smoke billowing from his scalp, the shop technician who had been near the explosion. He had miraculously escaped from the fire that had engulfed the ships in the inner hangar.

    Meanwhile the three agents on the other side of the closed chamber were ready for the fight. The aeon agent, rather octomorphic in appearance and bald, was dressed simply in shorts and did not have a weapon with him. The other two agents were still in their sleeping clothes, but at least they had time to grab their protective vests, assault rifles and swords. They had more weapons configured in a compressed state in the vests but preferred to use those given the enemy''s firepower.

    The three agents moved into a defensive position, their weapons loaded and their martial skills ready for the confrontation, and it was not long in coming.

    They came in a group of six, soaring through the air and landed on the ground.

    The droids pounced on them with superhuman speed and precise movements. The agents wasted no time and responded with a combination of accurate gunfire and skillful melee attacks.

    One of the droids charged towards the first agent, but the agent nimbly dodged it, spinning in mid-air and launching a spinning kick that knocked the droid to the ground. Meanwhile the second agent engaged two other droids, using an energy katana that sliced through their metal defenses. Despite having sliced off the arm of one, and the leg of the other, they seemed undeterred and their attacks continued.

    The aeon agent moved with dexterity, using hand-to-hand combat techniques to fight off three droids and try to neutralize them one by one. His precision and speed were astonishing, leaving the droids dazed and confused at first.

    But the next moment their movements changed and transformed into a coordinated three-sided attack without giving him a break. The aeon didn''t even blink at that and continued to block the blows. Although, in one maneuver, launching a kick to his right, against the one closest to him, he ignored a circular motion of another on his back.

    A blood-red liquid bathed the white marble floor. The droid had pulled a blade from the back of his hand and plunged it into the back of the aeon''s neck. It twisted the blade in a mechanical motion and then withdrew it. The agent''s body collapsed to the ground as red and then silver liquid began to gush from the synthetic organs.

    Unarmed, but endowed with formidable strength, the droids pounced on the agents, who defended themselves with agile and well-coordinated martial techniques. Despite their bravery, the two agents were now outnumbered and the droids quickly disarmed them. Another confrontation ensued, this time the two agents back to back tried to defend themselves as best they could.

    The fight was uneven though and was over in less than twenty seconds due to numbers. The agents had been separated and smashed with their chests against the ground by the droids.

    Another group of three droids arrived at that moment and headed towards the door but did nothing. They moved their heads, as if they could see through the walls, but did not attempt to open it. After a few seconds, which seemed like forever, they turned their backs to the door.

    The droids kept the agents pinned to the ground, but did nothing else. They remained still. It was as if they were waiting for an order from another unknown place. The agents, their eyes defiant, looked for any opportunity to resist and break free. Though they tried in vain, the droids'' strength and abilities were relentless.

    The tension in the place was palpable, as the droids waited patiently for their next instruction. The silence was broken only by the mechanical whirring of the droids and the gasps of the agents being held hostage.

    In the midst of the confrontation, one of the droids emitted a high-pitched tone and the others reacted instantly. They seemed to receive a coded message and, without saying a word, loosened a bit their grip on the two agents but still held them hostage. Although they were still vigilant, their attitude had changed, leaving the agents confused.

    The scene seemed suspended in time, and the fates of the two human agents hung in the balance as the droids waited, their heads with that electric blue line making them look like judges and executioners.

    Given the fate of the aeon on the ground, they feared that at any moment a sharp blade would pierce the back of their necks.

    ***

    While the chaos and destruction was taking over the place, something else was happening in another of the attacked buildings. Although that one had suffered less damage.

    Bullets rang out for a few moments as three droids, flying at full speed, raced through the floors of the building, until they reached the southeast wing where they finally attacked the mechanized defense systems and ripped them off the ceiling, knocking them out of line.

    As they landed on the ground they looked at the door on the right.

    It was an evidence room.

    The room had several industrial shelves that extended to the end of the room. It was a huge room, but it did not correspond to the size it appeared from the outside. It was a space with a spatial widening system.

    It was a room with a sterile environment and low temperature where many crucial evidences for the investigations of Dark Events carried out by Pyrene''s agents were kept.

    Many evidences were then moved, if they were active material that could be used in trials in cases of preternatural crimes, while others could then go to a special ark, if it was a case where there was no perpetrator, but simply a supernatural phenomenon. Many of those objects remained in special industrial containers, or cases with their own locks and shields, while other more mundane and non-dangerous objects could be kept without them.

    Inside the evidence room there was a clatter of metal falling to the floor, and the door was cut into four pieces like butter, forming an X. One of the droids retracted the thirty centimeter blade it had generated on the back of its hand and entered the room, while the other two droids remained outside.

    The droid inside walked several paces and looked around him, scanning the various shelves and looking through his KK and CRD particle scanning vision at the security systems that guarded the evidence. Although the droid could see thanks to his sensors, what he was looking for was something different that could not be seen with the naked eye. Therefore, he had to use a mixed technique combining KK, cosmic radiation detection and Industrial Optical Coherence Radiography.

    After a few seconds his featureless face stopped as if he was looking to the left and he moved to the left, passing between two shelves. Almost halfway across the room he stopped and turned to his left again while squinting his head at a square, industrial container.

    He raised one of his arms and made some sort of metal blades appear from his fingertips. He passed the blades through the container forming a square on the face in front of him and, after a few seconds, that part of the container collapsed on the ground, revealing its contents to him.

    It was an old metal suitcase box. The product of Stan and Rum''s break-in.

    The droid took the box in his hands and without further ado headed for the exit of the room where the other two were waiting for him.

    In the blink of an eye, the three droids left the place flying again, returning to their path to rejoin the others, leaving behind a muted evidence room.

    The first, and most important part of it all, was over.

    ***

    News of the attack had spread quickly throughout the building in the first few minutes, and people sought shelter in the central part of the base complex quickly. The emergency doors were automatically activated, allowing for a more orderly and rapid evacuation. Meanwhile, in the midst of the melee, Stan and Rum were being dragged into the capsules by the base''s medical wing technicians.

    "I didn''t sign for this!" said the male nurse technician, almost on the verge of tears.

    "You didn''t sign anything, you got in here because the pay was good," said his female partner''s voice.

    This evacuation was not going well for them. They had to manipulate through their Neurowires the capsules, where the two thieves were still half asleep. They were only confident that, in case they woke up completely, they would not escape, since there was no way to do so from inside. And, because they were sensory deprivation capsules, the Neurowire was still unusable, so Rum would not be able to crack the technician''s in an attempt to escape.

    In fact, for those two, they could not be in a safer place at that moment, since the technicians had to run dodging debris that, from time to time, fell from the ceiling on their heads. Not to mention that, should they encounter the enemy, there was the possibility of being caught in crossfire between the enemy and the mechanized systems on the ceiling. Although, at the time, they did not know that the droids did not have firearms.

    The building was still shaking, as they crossed several corridors on their way. It seemed incredible to them that this was the place where they had worked for the last three years. To see it now being destroyed by unknown causes could not help but hurt. But at least they knew that the others they saw on a daily basis were already at the evacuation site. In case something happened to them at least they had a backup in case they lost their bodies. Though those thoughts did not help them much in their situation.

    Due to the power problems they would have to use the emergency stairs to get down to the site. They already knew all the protocols and routes, but they wished Dr. Barbier had been there.

    After they had retired to the medical wing, the doctor had stayed in the room where the Deep-Dive had been conducted, chatting with the two agents. They were preparing the two prisoners for analysis when the alarms and explosions went off. The doctor had gone to the middle part because, due to his rank within the base, he was the most suitable to continue in the chain of command in case something serious happened to his superiors. And on the other hand, the people in the teleport chamber would also feel more at ease if they had a doctor with them, even if it was an eccentric one.

    But the two nurse technicians in the medical wing were too far away and had the capsules with them

    Still, they were already halfway there. About three or four minutes and they would reach the corridor that led them to the place, provided they didn''t have a mishap on the way.

    That was what they were thinking when, as they rounded a bend, they came upon three black figures, with a vertical blue line where their faces should have been.

    "Ah!" they both said in surprise. And the thought: we fucked up, crossed both their minds in unison.

    The expression of surprise was the only sound that came out of their mouths. The next second they both felt a quick whip in their necks and, rolling their eyes, collapsed to the ground in a faint, as if the droids had applied a Dim-Mak to them in one swift motion.

    The droids looked at each other and the next second there was a loud noise. The sensory deprivation capsules, with no one to control them, had fallen to the floor with a dead weight. Inside Stan and Rum had finally started to wake up from the shock. Quickly the droids swooped down in front of the capsules and, operating the external controls, opened them.

    As the droids proceeded to remove Stan and Rum from the capsules, the thieves, between dreams and half-sleepy laughter, managed to articulate words toward their unusual rescuers.

    "Heyshh, rabooots f-fraends, come tu roscue sus? Howwy cunvemientt!" joked Stan with a sleepy grin.

    Rum, still amused by the effects of sensory deprivation and induced sleep, added with a chuckle, "Yeassh, we''ree l-ooovely, thery suure weereee m-iiissing us."

    "Arse youshhh guys wearing latex, oru what? Where daid you guys co-coome fromm? Somu vishrtual S&M stagesh?" Stan asked, feeling groggy.

    "You looook better than my last date, handshome," Rum said , stroking the head of the nearest droid, in a voice that made her sound drunk, but that was because of the lingering effects of the anesthesia.

    The droids did not respond, but seemed to follow their target undeterred by the thieves'' banter. Soon, Stan and Rum were removed from the pods and carried in the arms of two of the droids. Although their state of consciousness was diminished, they must have been well enough to joke.

    Without further ado, the droids had accomplished the second objective for which they were present and for which they had attacked the base.

    ***

    The first to withdraw were the three that had arrived last.

    The people in the teleport chamber watched in confusion through the cameras as they suddenly left and flew back the way they had come.

    But they were not the only ones.

    One by one, the other droids that had fought also retreated, releasing and leaving the agents confused and stunned. The tension in the room eased, and the agents watched cautiously as the droids retreated without a word. They fired up their jet-packs and walked away from the scene.

    Without any apparent explanation.

    The agents looked at each other, feeling a mixture of relief and bewilderment. What had happened to make the droids leave so suddenly? Who or what had given the order for their withdrawal?

    Grateful that the droids had left them unharmed, the agents remained alert, as the droids'' mechanical noises faded into the distance. The mysterious departure of the enemies left a sense of uncertainty in the air, but also a small window of hope.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 24: EVE

    Chapter Twenty-Four

    EVE

    3rd Station of Pyrene-F. Grenoble, Is¨¨re. France.

    While the objectives were being met in the complex, a completely different battle was taking place on a third floor, in a large space on the east side of the base.

    At first it had all been limited to an exchange of blows worthy of martial combatants.

    The girl in the armor had fought against both of them, demonstrating that she could move at incredible speed. But the same was true of the droids, who were more focused on Ignis than on Enfer. The exchange of blows between the smoke, the flashing lights, and the darkness that from time to time was present, had been changing to a red and yellowish color on one side, and to a cold and sharp black and white flashes on the other.

    It was a battle of fire and metal.

    Enfer had removed his trademark cap, and now his head was ablaze with flames. Not only his hair, but his face and hands had also taken on a fiery hue, while the rest of his clothes remained untouched. This was not to demonstrate his abilities. Something, deep inside him, told him that the girl in white in front of him was something completely different from anything he had ever faced before.

    The presence of the girl was ominous, and made her even more terrifying than the droids.

    Meanwhile, there was another dance of flame and metal in the same space. It was Ignis against a whole group of those droids. Her eyes glowed through the smoke and from her hands, wreathed in fire, came spheres more akin to incandescent red plasma that she fired at her farthest enemies while intermittently throwing blows at those who came dangerously close to her.

    Both did not expect such a fight, their original plan was to go and get their weapons, but there was no time for that. No one would have ever told them that something like that would happen. The base was like home for both of them. A safe place to return to with no imminent danger.

    But that had changed and they were both facing the unimaginable.

    For Ignis, there came a point in her fight where she was no longer sure if she was fighting six or more of those droids. There could even be more than ten but, due to the chaos of the situation, it was hard to tell. Many of them got up, after receiving her fire spheres, while some fell down and never got up again, but the numbers did not seem to diminish at all. It was a swarm of metal limbs, seeking to reduce her in any way they could, and she had to employ all the knowledge she had acquired in fighting over so many decades working as a special agent of Pyrene.

    Enfer, meanwhile, raised one of his hands and, pointing it towards the armored girl, sent a tongue of embracing fire towards her. The tongue changed shape as if it had transformed into a kind of whip and wrapped itself around her, sealing her movements. The girl did not even say anything in response. As if those flames that could even melt cement didn''t matter much to her. She simply made a downward movement, as if she was gaining momentum for a jump that she never made and, immediately after, the flames that enveloped her vanished into thin air, leaving a few sparks behind.

    The armored girl charged at Enfer at full speed, before new strong flames were summoned in Enfer''s hands. Other flames which enveloped him as if it were a protective shield. But that too was in vain. Enfer was truly surprised to see how the girl crossed his fire shield, as if it were nothing more than a curtain of water.

    The temperature of his attacks could range from 500 degrees Celsius, to 3500 degrees Celsius if he got serious. That was impossible for metal armor. Although he couldn''t be sure how resistant it was, since it was actually organic metal. He had heard that a certain agent, recently added to Nevermore''s SID ranks, had something similar.

    But that didn''t matter at the moment. Enfer was sure he had a monster before him. The girl pierced his flame shield and, in a movement more like lightning speed, she had hit him in the face with a sure punch that sent him flying several meters backwards.

    Quickly and taking momentum from the same attack, Enfer counterattacked again raising the temperature around him, melting the glass and window frames, while the temperature rose even higher in the room. Then he launched what looked like a gigantic arm of fire, which he controlled like his own, and with it he caught the girl, who seemed to have been caught by the hand of a colossus. This time he approached her at full speed, while with the other arm he would increase the temperature even more to form a gigantic fist to attack her. He was barely three meters away from his target, when suddenly the flames disappeared.

    "What?!" Enfer said in confusion. That was impossible.

    The girl hadn''t even moved from her place. In fact what she did next was completely out of place. She simply sighed as if she was bored. "Can I go now?" she asked through the white mask.

    Enfer was still not out of his astonishment, when he felt a new blow that he was sure had just broken some ribs. As he approached, the girl had jumped up and moved at a much faster speed, spun 360o on herself and delivered a devastating kick that sent him flying again. His body spun around like a spinning top and bounced a couple of times on the floor until it crashed against a far wall, while new sounds from the ground indicated that the fight was further weakening the structure in that part of the building.

    The flames began to leave Enfer''s body at intermittent intervals, but the hair of fire was still present on his head. He spat a lot of blood on the debris he had just produced with his crash, and crawled as he gathered enough strength to get up again. The only flames that remained on his body were those in his head, but his fighting spirit had not been extinguished and, with his face pale, he readied himself for a new attack. The blood on his chin contrasted against the pallor he now had.

    It had been over a century since anyone had struck him in such a way. His instinct had not deceived him. That girl was a monster in a fight and she didn''t even show signs of being tired.

    Enfer took a long breath, filling his lungs and focused his vision on the white figure, while behind her he could see his partner unleashing a dance of fire on the droids and destroying a couple of them to molten metal. He would have to use that. An even stronger flame even if it would knock him out for days.

    He gritted his teeth and adopted a position as if he was about to sprint at the armored girl. The next thing that happened was that again his hair of fire grew, but there was a change. The flames, once yellow and red, had now changed to an almost ghostly blue and the fire was reaching his face. Even more powerful flames that had reduced to ashes all those who had treated him as a mere steak. Flames that had not burned in a long time.

    "It would have been better if you had stayed on the ground," the girl''s voice said in his ear, in an almost bored manner.

    "Eh?"

    She had been away for less than a nanosecond but, subtly, had disappeared from his vision. Enfer could see that she was now in front of him. She had moved quickly and he had her in front of him. What was more, she didn''t seem to care that those flames could be even stronger than the previous ones. Time seemed to stand still for him at that moment, as if he could not move at all.

    No, it wasn''t that. It was rather that she had moved at a terrifying speed. She was in a position as if she was running against him, with her right arm back, while her left hand was dangerously close to Enfer''s chest. The hand was not clenched into a fist, on the contrary it was open as if it were a palm strike.

    The blue fire around him burned out and disappeared, as if the oxygen had dissipated. In just a tenth of a second he felt cold and a sensation as if his body was light.

    Slowly, but with a determined voice, that girl said two words in a language that Enfer''s Neurowire could not interpret the meaning.

    "Dvrak-Ken-Gnet!"

    The pain was excruciating and Enfer spat out a large amount of blood. It was as if a demolition hammer had struck him in the center of his chest, and he felt as if his heart had been crushed by his rib cage. Behind him, he could feel as if the wall behind him, for some reason, had also suffered the effects of that attack.

    But something else was happening. Suddenly he saw his body being slowly pushed backwards. He was seeing his body as if from outside it, located a couple of meters behind, almost as if it were a residual image, but in reverse. He had already experienced out-of-body experiences as part of his training, but that felt different.

    The sensation was so slow for him that it seemed as if the whole battle was moving slowly forward. As if he was a ghost that was getting ahead of the journey his body would make later. That was it. He was getting ahead of the journey his body was making backwards. The pain in his chest seemed very real to him and he believed that he would almost certainly be dead when it was over, turned into a bloody mass of scattered organs from the attack.

    His vision was blurring and the last thing he saw was that girl in the armor with her open palm still in the air.

    Ignis suddenly turned around.

    A sound of an explosion reached her ears and for a split second she thought she saw a flash of blue flames from Enfer, which was extinguished the next moment. What followed was his body crashing into the wall behind him which, already damaged from the previous blow, exploded throwing debris everywhere. The sound of that explosion was as if a shockwave had gone through the whole place, and even the droids that were still fighting Ignis were surprised and turned to look at what that attack had been.

    A cloud of dust was raised in the center of the attack, which, when it descended, showed Ignis a desolate scene.

    The wall had indeed been destroyed and on the rubble rested the body of Enfer. He must not have been dead because, although in a weak way, some slight flames were still coming out from where his hair should have been, although they had dimmed considerably, giving the impression that his companion had decided to cut the combustion by leaving a gas stove at a minimum.

    A few meters away from the wall was that girl, who returned to a posture as if it had been easy. Impassive, monstrous, as if nothing could move her.

    Ignis could feel her blood boil within herself at the sight, while a mixture of anger and fear rose in her.

    But there was no time to think more as she returned to the fight. The droids had rushed at her again. But this time it would be final.

    In her right hand flames returned, which quickly took on a spherical shape the size of a tennis ball that floated several centimeters. Then she looked at those who were almost on top of her and quickly pointed the sphere at the one in the middle.

    A new explosion filled the place, but it was different. That explosion sent a shockwave that ended up blowing up part of the wall facing the outside of the building and the droids were turned into an amorphous mass that upon reaching the ground had turned into melted metal while new crackles were produced throughout the room and the floor began to crack.

    Ignis had to act quickly.

    Her plan was to at least knock out that armored girl and bury her under rubble, while she would grab her partner and jump to the outside, so she could make a new attack. She couldn''t do it inside and risk those inside getting caught up in the destruction her counterattack would cause, as she was sure she could destroy the entire facility if she was careless.

    Ignis turned to face her enemy, and had begun to gather enough energy from her fey core so, that with a new explosion, she could deteriorate a space in the ceiling below the armored girl and bury her with debris. It would not be a powerful attack, but it was enough for them to gain enough seconds to escape, and for her to make sure that the woman could follow her to the outside, where she could transform her into a sausage with a new attack of her flames.

    But as she turned around to launch her attack, her hopes vanished, like a flame without oxygen fades.

    That girl had moved at incredible speed once again.

    Ignis'' eyes widened in surprise and terror. That movement would not give her time to prepare anything on her part. She would not open an opening or anything to summon a flame to defeat the one in front of her. The attack of the girl in the armor suit came swiftly and brutally.

    It was so fast that Ignis barely had time to see how the girl''s arms moved even faster. It was a different attack than the one she had made on Enfer but, given the speed, and due to her own fight, Ignis couldn''t tell.

    The armored girl hit her repeatedly in the same place, focusing on her solar plexus as if she had a repeating trigger on her forearm, while with her right hand she held her by the throat, cutting off her breath at first.

    For a girl smaller than her she was incredibly fast, and her fists had a power that could well be compared to those of a professional wrestler. Ignis could only assume it was due to the armor she was wearing, which could increase the punching power several times. But she must have had body enhancements to move so fast beyond human capabilities and normal feys.

    Ignis first felt a sour taste in her mouth, then a metallic taste and the next moment she vomited some blood.

    The pain in her stomach and chest prevented Ignis from summoning new flames. She was breathing heavily. That damned girl had concentrated a lot on hitting her in the parts she needed to fill with oxygen to be able to summon for her flames.

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    Because Ignis'' ability with fire was special and required deep breathing, relegating a lot of oxygen to the lower lungs. Oxygen could provide sufficient concentration of energy to her fey cells of the kaloricite type, since the process in her body''s erythrocyte cells changed as she used her fire ability, producing a process of metamorphocytosis. That was the process behind her own thelesic system. But this process could not be carried out under such circumstances.

    Without giving her any respite, the armored girl grabbed her by the collar of her blouse as she threw a formidable punch in the face that slammed her to the ground.

    A cracking sound was heard from the ceiling and the girl in armor looked up and acting quickly moved away, leaving Ignis where she had fallen. More creaks were heard and a crash of debris and dust filled the scene.

    That part of the upper floor had just collapsed on Ignis.

    The armored girl watched as Ignis was buried by the debris and then as, under the weight of the debris and the structural damage caused by the fight, the entire part where Ignis was already lying fell to the floor below causing a deafening sound.

    The girl approached and looked down. She was sure that Ignis was not dead, but she had no reason to continue the fight. Enfer, still unconscious on the other side, was still lying on the ground and it would probably be a while before he regained consciousness.

    The objective was accomplished anyway. That fight had been to buy time for the droids to leave the place and go to the vehicle ready for the escape.

    The girl approached the walls where a huge hole had opened up that, after Ignis'' attack on the droids, led outwards and she looked in an easterly direction, towards where she had to flee. Some droids were coming out of other parts of the building and were making a mad dash, while others were flying away.

    Two of the ones that were flying away, came out of one of the holes and, in their arms, they were carrying Stan and Rum, still in a confused state due to everything that was happening, and because they were still not out of their stupor due to one of the anesthetics they had been given to perform the Deep-Dive. But, due to the chaos that surrounded them, they knew one thing for sure: they were involved in something much bigger than a simple theft of a relic and kidnapping. This was a scenario of proportions they could not have imagined.

    This is it, thought the armored girl and, from where she stood, jumped out, landing just a few meters away from the two thieves, who were surprised by the sudden appearance of the girl in her strange white outfit. She had jumped from a height of ten meters from the third floor and landed as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

    "Come on, run, get out of here! We have to go!" ordered the girl.

    Wasting no time, the droids set off on a swift flight through the forest, along with Stan and Rum, dodging trees and obstacles with surprising agility. As they advanced, Stan and Rum began to regain lucidity, feeling a mixture of adrenaline and gratitude towards the girl for having rescued them, while the landscape passed swiftly before their eyes. If she was the one Janus had sent to get them out of trouble, she must have been pretty good to have caused all that mess.

    Although those droids could have at least given them a robe, the cold night in that place was enough to make both of them chatter their teeth.

    Stan, in his race, looked back, but realized that the girl was not running after them.

    The truth is that the girl had stopped the second she had thought of running after the others, but something had stopped her.

    What is it? she wondered.

    She was trembling.

    But it wasn''t from the excitement of the fight she just had. Her heart was pounding with a mixture of adrenaline and terror. Slowly she turned to look. Behind her there was no one. Just a hole with smoke coming out of it and flames in the distance.

    But there was something else.

    The destruction that surrounded her and that she, along with the scarab drones and tactical droids, had caused seemed insignificant to her with what she was feeling at that moment and that was flooding her entire being.

    Then, trusting her instincts, she felt it.

    The terror she felt was not coming from something behind her back. It was coming from somewhere in that base below her.

    A shiver ran down her spine under that armor, and she felt as if that armor suit she was wearing was nothing more than a weak shell for what was underneath it. She had no doubt, underneath the base there was something much more monstrous than those two fire feys and, probably, much stronger than herself.

    She could not understand it, but her body was telling her to run away with all her strength from that new unknown threat.

    Whatever it was, she would not stay to find out and, clenching her fists tightly, she tried to hide her fears, and started running at full speed, behind the droids that were still escaping from the place among the chaos of the alarms and the smoke.

    In a matter of seconds she was able to get into the forest, away from the chaos and began to feel that, even though the fear was still there, her extra mission was over. The hardest part was behind her and whatever was under the base she could no longer reach it because, as far as her instincts told her, that thing seemed to be located very close to the area that had been sealed off at the beginning of the attack.

    The place where she, the tactical droids, and Stan and Rum were running was a downhill slope but with little incline, that was making it easier to get away from the place. Rum could see on their run as they crossed paths with the security droid dogs that had been put out of action by the black droids.

    The forest seemed endless to the two thieves and, although they felt grateful, it was too early to say they were safe and they still didn''t know where that girl in the armor was taking them.

    Soon that was answered, though. Almost without realizing it they had reached an area cleared of trees and where tall grass grew, swaying in the night breeze.

    The moonlight was enough to illuminate the landscape, but in the middle of that field there was something that stood out and that was where all the droids were running to. That part of the mountain was a plain that stretched for at least three hundred meters before it began to descend again.

    Stan and Rum looked at the opening in the middle of the open field, with a ramp. It was like some kind of mouth, with a metal tongue that had opened up in space. They both slowed down and watched the droids enter that two-dimensional hole. They stopped and looked at each other, not sure whether to cross.

    The girl in the armor suit caught up to them very quickly. "What the hell are you waiting for? Invitations?"

    "I can''t cross a teleport door!" Stan said, looking at the girl''s white mask and how the pink hair was blowing in the wind.

    "It''s not a teleport, get on it already, you idiot! We don''t have all night!" ordered the armored girl, visibly angry.

    They both climbed up the ramp, which must have been about four meters long, from the opening to the floor and another four and a half meters wide. They entered what looked like the stomach of a whale with metal ribs. Inside it had a slight oval shape, but there was no doubt, it was a ship that had activated a state-of-the-art optical camouflage system.

    Stan and Rum looked sideways again at the sight of the ship.

    But while that had happened, the group had not noticed something else.

    A shadow was running towards them from the base. It was Ignis, full of dust, wounds and bruises and with some of her blouse torn due to the last blow. But the girl had not lost her fighting spirit.

    After having fallen to the floor below and, spending about a minute buried, she had awakened due to the stabbing pain in her chest. Broken ribs had pierced her lung and heart, but her body''s survival instinct had awakened her before the wound could become fatal. And thanks to that her body had been regenerating enough to keep going.

    When she emerged from the rubble, she had jumped into the hole in the upper floor and found that her companion was still alive. All the fighting was over and the attackers were escaping into the trees. Most of them should have already escaped, and she just saw that outside some damaged droids were running in the direction of the trees at a slower speed.

    After reporting that she was going in pursuit, and receiving approval from the commander, she had jumped out and made a full force run towards where the droids were fleeing.

    As she ran she could feel her body regenerating, producing more pain, but the pain was little compared to the fury she felt. This base had been her home, and Enfer''s, for decades.

    She felt the fire in her fey core activate and a series of patterns appeared on her body like faintly glowing tribal markings. Her eyes lit up and her fists seemed to want to burst into flames.

    "Son of a bitch," she muttered and started to run.

    Meanwhile the girl in the armor suit simply walked up the ramp and it began to close behind her. Many of the tactical droids were there and one of them was carrying the somewhat rusty box. Stan and Rum looked at each other overwhelmed by the whole situation. Some droids barely managed to get half of their bodies through the ship when it closed, and they were cut in half leaving part of their bodies inside, while the other halves were left outside the ship.

    There must have been at least twenty-few, of the forty or so who had made the attack.

    "Take your seats and put on your seat belts. There are some clothes if you want to put them on. We''re leaving," said the girl in the armor. The fact that they couldn''t see her face and that white mask gave them the impression that they were facing a ghost.

    "Who are you?" Rum finally asked.

    "I''m the one who had to lift that," she said and pointed to the droid with the precious cargo that was the suitcase box they had stolen. "I''m also the one who had to bail you out if you screwed up."

    "Are you the one Mr. Janus sent?" asked Stan.

    The girl nodded and after that they both watched as the mask began to recede down the face as if it were a living film. It was organic metal after all. Not only that, for a second they saw how her face was also ivory white. But that changed. That white color also disappeared and the skin took on a much more natural cream tone. It was a face of fine facial features.

    In front of them stood a green-eyed, young-faced girl who couldn''t have been more than her early twenties. "You can call me EVE," the girl said and walked toward the side of the cockpit.

    As she walked they could both see how the most protruding parts of the armor, such as the shoulders, belt, wristbands and the claws of the hands and feet, first receded and then disappeared as if they were melting, giving the impression that she was simply wearing a tight-fitting suit on her naked body.

    Stan and Rum would have been lying if they said they didn''t find that girl beautiful, but lethal.

    She sat in the cockpit and took control of the ship. Stan and Rum felt a small tremor, indicating that the ship was already lifting off the ground.

    Stan looked around and estimated that the entire space they were in was at least twenty meters from the cockpit to the ramp. In all the cargo space it was just them and twenty or so of those drones that had managed to get on.

    The droid with the box disarticulated some of its parts, and its body was transformed around it, as if it were a security structure, giving it a new aspect that was an industrial and futuristic looking safebox. The other droids also disarticulated parts and began to transform, acquiring angular shapes first, while hiding their mechanical parts, until they acquired the size of spheres that were one meter in diameter. Those spheres had faces that, given their geometrical organization, must have been a spherical tetrahedron.

    "Origamium," Stan muttered to Rum upon seeing the transformation. "That''s from Io. It''s the same system that Nevermore''s Zodiac satellites use."

    "Whoever Janus is, he must have pretty high connections to have those."

    "I''m beginning to wonder if he doesn''t own one of the companies. Those droids must cost a fortune."

    "This is a Manta, by the way," Rum whispered.

    "A Manta?"

    "Yes, the structure inside is oval, but this thing can go underwater too."

    "Aren''t mantas only for military use on Europa and Callisto? What the hell is one doing here on earth?"

    They both turned toward the cockpit. The girl named EVE wasn''t paying attention to them, she was manning the controls of the ship.

    At that very moment, on the outside, a girl on fire had arrived on the scene.

    Ignis jumped out of the row of trees and ran towards the place where two straggling droids were heading. Their speed was much faster than hers and they were several meters ahead of her. There was nothing where they were headed, but the grass in the field was a slightly darker color without being a perfect shade, and the grass was moving in a circular pattern several meters long. A wind was picking up that was beginning to hit her in the face. Ignis had no doubt that there was a ship rising there with a cloaking system activated.

    The droids reached what appeared to be their destination and jumped about ten feet into the air and Ignis watched for a few seconds as they latched onto something and then began to climb up its invisible surface. The shadow below was beginning to fade. The vision then changed and both droids had disappeared as if absorbed by the ship''s cloaking system, while the shadow on the grass disappeared completely leaving only the wind and moonlight.

    An adaptive camouflage, Ignis thought.

    Ignis stopped over the spot where the droids had jumped, but the only indication of the ship was already disappearing, for the circle in the grass was no longer moving and the wind was no longer blowing so hard beneath it.

    Without giving up she raised her right hand and snapped her fingers, for a second the metal decorations on her clothes shone and tribal march-like patterns formed on her skin. On his cheeks, chest and stomach, but especially on his right arm. On his right hand new flames had appeared, which quickly transformed into a ball of fire, which was like a miniature sun. Ignis brought her right hand back and, as if she were a major league baseball pitcher, threw the fireball to the distance she believed to be the right distance.

    The fireball hit already over 80 meters high, on what should have been one of the sides of the big ship. There was a big explosion, but at the same time Ignis saw a chromatic change in the middle of the air. It was a wave of iridescent color that drew for a moment an invisible silhouette of a wing.

    It was a deflector shield.

    Although the fireball had exploded, a second effect was produced, and that was that from the ship some turbulence was produced and EVE, looking at the panel, printed more speed. From Ignis'' point of view, it was as if the image in space was contracting and concentrating in one point for a tenth of a second at the place of impact.

    Then there was a second impact, much stronger than the first one, but it was simply a pressure wave that went all over the place in a radius of a little more than one hundred and fifty meters.

    Inside the ship EVE, with no emotion on her face, simply maneuvered and rose even higher while Stan and Rum rubbed their heads, for due to Ignis'' attack there was a turbulent movement just as Stan was buckling his belt and their heads had collided.

    "Damn it," Ignis mumbled looking up at the sky while shaking her still smoldering right hand. Not even the second effect of her attack had worked against that ship.

    But the silhouette of the wing lasted only a tenth of a second and the next it had disappeared and with it the buzzing sound. Moving away in what seemed to be an easterly direction.

    The ship was moving away and there was no way to follow it, because the ships on the airstrip and the hangar of the base had exploded.

    Ignis crouched down and put her hands on her knees, gritting her teeth as she tried to catch her breath and the symbols on her body disappeared. She looked behind her and saw the plumes of smoke rising from the base.

    To her regret, that was a battle she had lost.

    ***

    After EVE''s fight against Ignis and Enfer, something else had happened at that moment, but it remained hidden from the eyes of the others.

    The hand, light blue in color, was moving intermittently on the ground, in what seemed to be a mute attempt to call for help.

    But the arm of that hand was buried under tons of debris from the attack that had taken place. The forearm and hand were all that protruded from the shattered pieces of debris and nothing else. They were the parts of a nurse droid, which had been on one of the base''s floors below the surface, when the first detonation had gone off.

    Its function had been only one, and she had performed it to perfection. Her job was to monitor any changes in the comatose old man.

    But she could no longer do that.

    The power was cut off in that part, because it depended on the room where the main attack had taken place and which was also where the base shields had been lowered from, along with the structural supports of the force fields. If those force fields had been in line, they would not have collapsed the entire building in a matter of minutes with simple explosions.

    The place in that part was in complete ruin.

    Because what was upstairs was part of the building''s maintenance facilities, along with the quantum monitoring room. The first attack had taken out everything that could have been used to activate the entire second layer of security in the building, which consisted of sealed compartments to modify the internal structure by means of SSD devices.

    But that didn''t matter anymore. That part was completely destroyed and that was that. The backup power could run for several days, but it wasn''t going to be that fast for someone to get there.

    The place was almost completely collapsed. What was originally a three meter high are was now barely a meter and a half high and no one could tell how long it would hold before it all came crashing down.

    Several meters away, from where the droid nurse was standing, was the intensive care capsule with the old man. Part of its support had fallen off and because of this the old man now lay with his head pointing towards the ground on the floor, but he was still inside. The debris had hit the capsule, but not much and so it was still intact, but with several of the readings displayed on its surface with distorted parts and unreadable patterns, because the projection film had been damaged.

    If the emergency readings had been being received at the time in the medical wing, someone would have noticed them later.

    But this was not the case.

    Slowly, but surely, the old man had begun to move his fingers almost imperceptibly.

    What had started slowly, as the minutes passed, had begun to become more evident. After a few minutes that tremor had completely disappeared from his hands. Not only that. His countenance, which had been calm all the time, had started to become more serious with each moment, even though his eyes were still closed.

    His hands were clenched into two fists that showed none of the weakness he had been found with in the lake.

    They were bony fists, with thick veins that throbbed in fury, as if he was remembering or sensing something that could make him furious.

    If the monitoring system had been working it would have detected something else. Some hairs of his beard and hair, in a microscopic manner, were also changing at that moment.

 Vol.3/ Chapter 25: Mirror Box2

    Chapter Twenty-Five

    Mirror Box

    Tuesday, March 20. 3AM. 125 S.A.

    Annecy, France.

    Griffin let out a tired sigh and scratched his bandaged head. He had removed his dark glasses and only black eyes could be seen under the bandages.

    He was sitting in an old swivel chair, with his feet resting on another chair in front of him. The room had once been an office, but was now in a dilapidated state, with the furniture full of dust.

    Of course it was not necessary to clean all the facilities, that would have been stupid. After all, they only needed certain parts of the site, along with the control station, to make the place run efficiently. Once all that was finished, it would be abandoned, and the other facilities, along with that room, could continue to gather dust for eternity.

    The silence of the place was comforting, a break from the hustle and bustle outside. Griffin closed his eyes for a moment, letting the peace of the moment wash over him, as he seemed to concentrate on something completely unrelated to the situation he had found himself in over the past few days.

    Everything had been finished a few hours ago and the facilities were ready. Although, he was not one of the team of scientists who had worked the hardest on the whole thing, that did not mean that he had spent the last few days doing absolutely nothing.

    Checking pressure and radiation levels. Checking with the droids to make sure the cooling systems were stable, to make sure there were no leaks. And he had even been helping, as best he could, with the repair of old wiring. He had also been helping with repairs to the refurbishment of the facilities. Not to mention the strategic placement of the twelve harmonic needles in the part of the ring that they had to close the circumference with the other thirty-six placed along the circumference.

    Everyone involved had been working, sometimes for days without sleep, taking shifts when fatigue got the better of them. Only the droids, tireless, had kept going day and night and, thanks to them, the work had been completed in a week. Just as planned.

    It had also been hard to control the new magnetic superconductors liquid layer, which had been brought in on SDD systems. Those had been installed in the circumferential area that had been designated as the perimeter of the station.

    The Annecy station control area was to connect midway with the other two control stations. East to Boneville, and west to Seyssey, over an area of 29.5 kilometers, and then connect the circumference at Gibebra to close the entire 118-kilometer circumference ring.

    It had been a tiring week for everyone involved in the work. Miles and miles of circumference that, for the most part, the heavy duty droids had been in charge of reconditioning. Clearing debris and weeds in the first two days, and also ventilating the environments to ensure that the personnel could work safely. It had been a tiring, but quick task, considering they were all more than 1500 meters below the surface. The droids had carried all the hard part, something that in the past would have taken months and years to recondition, was brought up to speed in a week.

    That facility was part of a huge particle accelerator, which had been built almost two hundred years ago and abandoned after a couple of decades in operation, due to budget cuts and war conflicts, which had forced even more cuts in other areas of research, to redirect funds to other objectives that had higher priority at the time.

    Its construction had taken twenty-five years, and it had made advances in the detection of new members of the particle zoo, in the development of critical high-temperature superconducting materials and in the areas of medicine, with new therapies against certain types of cancer. But that had been halted by the drumbeat of new conflicts and challenges facing the human species.

    CEEN''s massive particle accelerator had been a feat for its time. An engineering marvel, it had made new approaches to the study of supersymmetry, studying the counterparts of the Standard Model particles. As well as delving deeper into the study of the Higgs particle, which had already been discovered decades earlier in the smaller hadron collider, before the supercollider was built with its new detector.

    It had four control stations, located in four different cardinal points, which each had different areas of study that were complemented with the data extracted from the collisions. For example, studying the hierarchy problem, CP asymmetry, the enigmas of the muon, or approaching new electron, lepton and positron discoveries. It had been a true quantum detective, whose collider, like a giant magnifying glass, had tried to unveil the criminals hidden in the heart of matter.

    Beyond these advances in the world of the very small, there had been breakthroughs that had had repercussions in other areas such as metamaterials that would later be used in the space industry and for the development of magnetic engines. All this thanks to a new generation of superconductors, which counteracted the effects of synchrotron radiation produced by the accelerator circumference, and was later used by the vehicle and spacecraft industry. Much of that research was carried out in other experiments attached to the Annecy area, for testing the resistance of materials.

    In particular, the Annecy station area had been exclusively for the control of experiments with electrons, leptons and positrons. The other three stations had their own study areas. But the central part, in Geneva, had been the nerve center of activity in the past.

    Due to the war against the Fractus the area of that part had been the target of several conflicts and razed in 2096 of the Old Era. Then earthquakes sank the ground in several places of what had been those facilities and, although, it had been a historical piece of scientific value it was nothing more than a memory in the physics books.

    After all, after the war, and with the development of the Orbital Belt, the largest accelerator and collider ever created was built and used its location in space to study new astroparticles, with improved detection systems.

    But that the CEEN facility was abandoned so long ago was good for the teams now working there. The few French cities above them, were not even suspicious of the activity that was now spreading around the circumference of the accelerator, more than a thousand meters underground.

    But that didn''t seem to matter much to Griffin at the moment.

    "Tsk," he clicked his tongue, and rubbed his eyelids a little with his bandaged hand. "I''m never going to get used to this shit," he said wearily.

    He then removed a contact lens from his right eye and placed it on a small container on a table. It was a customized multimedia interaction device.

    He had been searching for some information, but all his search results had been fruitless. Just as Janus had said, and there was no need to give more thought to the matter. His only function was to fulfill what he had been ordered and nothing else. To memorize and not to screw up was his mission.

    He put his feet down and yawned tiredly. He had slept enough the night before, but he had been that day making sure that from the other three stations everything was in order.

    Everything was running like clockwork and the simulations had already begun.

    There was not much time left. He too would have to leave.

    He had no obligation to help, but he could not feel useless. Even so, he felt much better than when he had arrived. His skin had stopped itching and even the remaining open wounds were now closed. One of the doctors had helped him in the past days by checking that, under the bandages, everything was healing fast and ready.

    It had been a long time since he had seen his face. But he would still have to wear the bandages until the healing was complete. They had applied a special dermal culture cream, to increase the degree of healing faster.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Just as Janus had told him, he too had to be ready.

    His thoughts began to wander as he immersed himself in labyrinthine scenarios. He imagined himself somewhere far away and serene, away from the stress. He visualized white sandy beaches, crystal clear turquoise waters and the sea breeze caressing his skin without those bandages. Maybe a woman on a deck chair and a couple of mojitos at a nearby table would be perfect. Maybe even a pulp magazine to read and pass the time. The afternoon would find the two of them embracing as they watched the sun set on the horizon. No one around, just peace. Just the sound of the waves, and the woman''s smile. Then would come a little girl running towards him, looking for him.

    He had not asked too much of life. Or rather, that other man had not asked too much.

    If what Janus had said was true, who was he really? Could he even allow himself to think of those scenarios as belonging to him?

    If not, why the hell did he have all those memories to begin with? Would it be better not to think about all that and just follow orders? It wasn''t as if he couldn''t follow them on the other hand either. That man named Janus had rescued him and for that he owed him too much. But was everything else true?

    What a crazy world, Griffin thought.

    He was there. And from the data Janus had given him it all matched up.

    "Hey!"

    The sudden call startled him and he jumped in his chair. In the doorway stood Jansen. But he wasn''t alone, a couple of scientists were following him.

    "What''s going on?" Griffin asked.

    "Gifts from the sponsor, he says you know what it''s about," Jansen replied, with a grim look on his face. That man had the grumpiness as if his face had been sculpted with those features from birth.

    "Oh! That," Griffin said and nodded, "of course. Where is it?"

    "Upstairs!" said one of the scientists in a somewhat excited tone. He was a man in his fifties with gray hair and wearing a white jumpsuit.

    "Well... let''s go see it," Griffin said giving up and letting go of the last memories of his daydreams.

    The time to move had come.

    The four walked through the corridors full of tools and droid movements, going back and forth, carrying cables or instruments. There were a few humans among them, walking in other directions, while carrying papers or other tools in their hands or metal suitcases in their hands. Even though it was all over, the place was ablaze with activity. And it was because the important part was coming at that moment.

    But if Janus had already sent that, it meant that he would have to leave for the new point without delay.

    Where everything would come together.

    Yet there was still a little more than a day left, if Griffin remembered correctly.

    But the scientists had to gather the data in simulations first at low energies, and then gradually increase the experiments, so that the cities on the surface would not be alarmed by the different types of electromagnetic radiation coming from the accelerator, when the test collisions occurred.

    After all, that thing was going to operate above 100TeV. One mistake could be fatal and so, even though the hardest part of the work was over, now came the part where the controllers'' minds would intervene, to manage the experiments in sync between the four points to make sure everything went right.

    The group finally reached a yellow elevator and slowly ascended to the surface. It had been days since three of them had been upstairs.

    While the air inside was not bad, and the ventilation systems had been restored as a first step prior to connecting the power cubes, they could not deny that the surface air would do them good.

    Jansen for his part, who had spent the last few days on watch with his mercenary team on the surface, along with the tactical security droids, did not find that particularly novel and simply looked up with his enhanced eyes to make sure that the elevator was working properly. He was not amused to think that he was inside a box that had not worked for almost two hundred years, even though it had been restored and made safe.

    Finally the group reached the surface and, as the doors opened, Griffin felt the night breeze hit his bandaged face, sneaking through the broken parts of the building.

    They walked down another hallway in silence, moving through the semi-darkness of the place. The place still had many of the old posters of the facility with security signs, but they were almost illegible. There was debris and one of the scientists almost tripped and fell because of rubble on the floor. Even the grass had taken over the place and, from between some parts of the concrete, plants were peeking out, claiming the place as new permanent tenants.

    Finally they came to a part of the building that in the past could have been used for loading heavy machinery due to its enormous space, although it looked in a state almost as decrepit as the rest of the building.

    A small tactical truck with its rear cover disabled was parked in the center of the place, surrounded by masked and black-clad figures moving with military precision. They were unloading metal crates from the back of the truck and carrying them towards an imposing metal structure at the opposite end of the hangar.

    Surely it would be some more parts ordered by some of the teams, Griffin thought.

    The tactical truck was carrying something larger in the back. It was an industrial container a little more than two and a half meters by two and a half meters in diameter, and at least a meter and half thick.

    The mercenaries around them gave way and Griffin approached the container and, touching it on one side, the top cover of intelligent metamaterial shifted to the side and disappeared from sight. That thing could only be opened by his biometric pheromone identification and by scanning the veins of the hand under the bandage.

    Everyone, including the mercenaries guarding the truck, turned to see what exactly it was that they had carried.

    Griffin twisted his face slightly at what was in front of him. "It''s ugly."

    Jansen looked at it, but he couldn''t quite figure out what the thing, a little over two meters by two meters, was. "What is it?"

    Griffin stared at it for a while and then shrugged. "As far as I know it''s something called a Mirror Box."

    "Box?" Jansen asked.

    "Oh! It''s disassembled now, but I assure you it''s a box," said the white-haired scientist. "The mirrors are pointing down."

    Griffin walked around the shipping crate and ran his hand over the contents, that surface of what appeared to be some sort of metal. He peered over the side and looked down. There were twelve of those things stacked on top of each other. They must be at least ten centimeters thick each, and they were separated by different layers of safety foam to ensure they wouldn''t break.

    In front of him, the first face had some strange engravings and writing in some unintelligible language. But that was only on the frame. The central part was engraved with a finely carved bas-relief of ancient appearance. It represented something that could well be some mountains and from which protruded some pillars that rose towards the sky, they could well remember some kind of monoliths, or very tall buildings.

    The representation of the sun, in the center, seemed to be radiating rays that ended in what looked like arrowheads. But the sun itself had a crescent moon inside it, which led those who saw it to wonder if it was really a sun or simply a crescent moon.

    "What''s it for?" Jansen asked again.

    "Honestly? I wonder the same thing," Griffin said. "But apparently it''s a vital piece to what we have to do."

    "I guess it''s time to get moving," said the scientist who until then had remained silent.

    "Yeah," Griffin nodded and looked at the other white-haired scientist. "Don''t you guys screw this up."

    "Everything is under control," the scientist said. "We''re doing intervals to increase the power by twenty to forty-five minutes for now, probably in seven hours, when the sun is high we''ll have reached the maximum so the dissipation systems will work better and the surface detectors won''t detect any anomalies. Our twelve harmonic rods are already in sync with the other thirty-six along the ring."

    "Is it going to work?"

    "I don''t see why not. The measurements are all done and there is no problem."

    "I mean be careful. There''s no replacement for the forty-eight."

    "We know. Don''t worry."

    Griffin nodded and sighed. "Well, I guess that''s it then."

    The white-haired scientist extended his hand to Griffin silently. He accepted the greeting, leaving Jansen confused. He didn''t think the strange fellow''s departure would be so quick, even though he didn''t know what the man''s function had been subway.

    The truth was that Griffin had only been there for convenience and, once the restoration of the accelerator was finished, to take one of the final pieces to its destination.

    Geneva.

    "I guess we''ll see each other once when this is all over, if we''re still alive," said the scientist, still shaking Griffin''s hand.

    Griffin'' only drew a smile on his face at those words. "I''m afraid this is going to kill us all."

 Vol.3/ Chapter 26: What is not sacred... is secret.

    Chapter Twenty-Six

    What is not sacred... is secret.

    Rome, Italy.

    Wednesday, March 21. 10AM. 125 S.A.

    It had been barely two days since Monday, but for Lee the hours had crawled by in such a way that it seemed as if many more days had passed.

    Monday afternoon he had been Deep-Dived by a metahuman from the SID Station in Rome, accompanied by the fey girl named Van and Eeger. Both had been present at the procedure, and tried to get him to relax so that the reading was as clear as possible for the mind reader.

    The procedure had not been painful or anything. He had already been subjected to that procedure a few times when he was younger by the social services, to find out something about his past, but there had been no result whatsoever. Everything that had been his childhood just wasn''t there. Now, by the same token, if they had tried to discover anything about his connection to criminals, they hadn''t discovered anything about that either. Lee did not know the criminals.

    He already knew that, but the others had to be sure anyway.

    Van seemed worried that he might be kidnapped, given what had happened in Edinburgh, or even worse given what had happened to the girl named Sil Moore and had therefore ordered that he was to remain in the hotel under SID custody.

    That put paid to Lee''s plans to spend more time outside his apartment, and enjoy the weather of the new season, even though the mornings were still cool.

    Since he could do nothing but move around the hotel while being guarded, he had worked out in the hotel gym, practiced swimming, played some video games in his room and, most importantly, tidied up his papers. Although he was used to the mess in his apartment, he had done it to distract himself from his situation and also to think about what had happened in a rational way.

    After the interrogation, that woman named Van had said that he might be the target of the criminals who had caused the alarm at the Holy See. Why him? He had nothing particular to be a target.

    Then there were those questions Nevermore''s agent had asked him. Why had she asked about his hobby with the subject of time? It was all very strange. Although he couldn''t blame the girl given the discretion with which the SID worked.

    Anyway, to clear his mind he had tried sorting papers, doing the laundry, watching the roomba traverse the apartment floor, watching a movie or using a virtual reality headset to connect to a shooter game on Another Earth. Since he didn''t own a Neurowire he had to use that every time he wanted a deep immersion in some virtual reality environment, as using the interactive contact lenses was too tiring for that purpose.

    Doing a little sorting he had found memories of his time at the orphanage, and that at least had distracted his mind for hours. Interactive pictures of the other children, the Sister Claire, the rest of the others sisters and the couple of priests in the nearby chapel. Sifting through some more he had even found things that had marked his entire life.

    And that was what he was focused on at the moment.

    The old physics books that he had found in the library of the orphanage and that none of the children read because they were tedious. Although those books knowledge were still even used for academic historic subjects, and were basic readings, they were also outdated, since they were books written in the mid to late 20th and early 21st centuries of the Ancient Era.

    The concepts had been updated with the incorporation of new knowledge, fractus technology, and the development of what many called neural evolutionary magic, the DEs and their disruption of the laws of physics but, even so, the basics had not changed much.

    Lee found a stack of those books and, sitting on the floor of the apartment he had spent a few hours remembering it all, while the roomba''s protested around him bouncing. Lee flipped through the pages looking at the parts he had highlighted himself with highlighter. They were things that had interested him as a child entering his teens.

    There were many titles with varied science topics.

    History of Time by Hawkins, Readings in Physics by Funnyman, Hyperspace by Lehman, Other Dimensions by C.W.Russell, The River of Memory by Jared Ford, The Mystery of Time by Leteo Waters, The Mythopoeia of Time and The Bicameral Mind by R.Carter, Portals and Other Time Machines by L.W & DiMatus, Hyper Drives by M.A. and the Frontier of Space series, a tetralogy written by Charles Shagan.

    They were all physical books, which was a rarity, and he found it very amusing to remember them all, and to see his own traces mixed up in them. He had put on his contact lenses and had also taken a roll call of the digital books in his library. So much time had passed since then, it seemed like another lifetime. The truth was that many of those books were the ones that had sparked his interest in the universe, astrophysics, particle physics, engineering, time and the mind.

    He was already twenty-seven years old, but in spite of that he did not feel that this was his age. Perhaps it was because he had lost his memory of his first twelve years. But for him time was a strange concept that worked strangely in his life. He had fifteen years of memories and twelve years of lost memories, but to him it felt as if those fifteen years had been more because he had done so many things in that time. Studying, learning to handle languages through devices, more studies, and all without neglecting his teenage life. Then graduating from college, with the best grades, and access to an academic professorship at a young age. In fact, while there were professors who looked as young as he did, that was because many had given up their FDC and had agreed to longevity at a young age to preserve their looks.

    He could have done so, but he had judged that he would wait until he was at least thirty to decide if he wanted to do so.

    He was still immersed in his thoughts, about what he would do in a few years about it, when he felt a soft knock on the door of the room. He pointed to the door with one hand and with the other hand he made a movement in his eyes. Almost instantly the image transmitted from the intercom appeared in his eyes. On either side were the two people guarding the door, and in the middle, looking directly into the intercom camera, he saw Van''s pink hair with a serious gesture.

    "Come in!" Lee said, not knowing what to expect from the fey girl''s expression.

    ***

    Van scratched her forehead. It had been itching her for several hours, even though she had no insect bites. But it was something else that worried her. She had been thinking about how to approach the situation and what exactly to say to Lee.

    The situation from Monday until that morning had had several unexpected developments.

    She had accessed information through channels other than the official ones. The Intelligence Department had these capabilities, and they handled their affairs in secret, in conjunction with the Counterintelligence Department, and both were subject to Internal Affairs at the same time.

    Sometimes both areas had to handle their sources without telling the main intelligence department how they had obtained the data, or perhaps revealing the information later, when the waters had calmed down. This was to keep other areas of the SID, such as the special agents area, out of suspicion. Because the special agents needed the cooperation of state and international agencies, such as the police or military forces, they had to avoid generating friction that could lead to mistrust of them. For this reason, Van, and other members of the Intelligence and Counterintelligence Department, often had to handle their information without saying anything to other areas.

    While intelligence and counterintelligence worked together, intelligence was dedicated to clandestine work and obtaining information through anti-terrorist cooperation agreements. Counterintelligence was solely dedicated to the work of protecting information and uncovering spies or individuals carrying sensitive information out of the Nevermore Institute.

    The Kolsay case had been different, because Mai and Shin had acted undercover, which was a standard procedure within the special agents'' protocol for conducting investigations. Although they had both taken the necessary precautions to put out of suspicion how they had obtained the information, Virginia Mortenson still had to put out the fiery fires of suspicion through diplomatic channels and with the help of the Council.

    In the Van case she often had to move in the shadows but, in the Vatican case, she had access because of the agreements for cooperation and prevention of DEs and events that might involve a terrorist attack.

    However, she had been deciding how to tell Lee about the unfolding events that had occurred since Monday.

    She had first been relieved when, at about six o''clock in the evening, after Lee Reubens had been Deep-Dived, the report had come in that the criminals had been captured in Turin and transported in custody to the Pyrene Station in Grenoble. The Pyrene staff would be interrogated them and deep-dive them as well.

    Deep-Diving required the permission of the person in question whose mind would be scanned, but this right did not apply in cases of murder and related to terrorist events, which did apply to both criminals, since it was not known what they had done with Sil Moore''s body, nor how they had obtained materials that were forbidden to use in urban centers.

    That had changed in part thanks to Pyrene''s Deep-Dive, because the identity of the criminals had been established. Both had remained under the radar for a long time and in fact there was no record in their profiles prior to what happened in Edinburgh.

    In fact there was nothing about them except for certain childhood files, which were protected by the child protection courts in their respective countries. This meant that there were details of his childhood that were problematic, but there was nothing of his adulthood. Either they had been off the security radar for a long time, or they were very good at hiding the steps on their criminal path. Almost all the details that were known now were thanks to Pyrene and the Deep-Dive.

    But there was something else. They had managed to establish what had been done with Sil Moore''s body, which had been handed over to certain people in Edinburgh. From the clothing of those surrounding the apparent leaders, they appeared to be from the same group that had attacked the police and FRT leader team Jim Stuart on the abandoned pier. Facial recognition had been run, but the two people who had spoken to the criminals did not appear in any database.

    The strange thing was that even at that point the Deep-Dive had failed, and they could not access what happened afterwards. It was not known how they had reached Rome, nor how they had obtained the materials to get to the tunnel.

    Van should have been on her way to Grenoble, to coordinate the transfer to a safer place, when the news arrived that the identity of the body found in the tunnel was known. This had shocked her and all the staff at the Rome Station, but it had nothing to do with the case, even though the information was immediately sent to Siren Island due to the sensitivity of the subject.

    Van sent Lee home with custody at about 8:00 p.m., and for a few hours she wrote the reports at the station to handle the case.

    Thanks to her status she had rented a room nearby and had slept for a few hours, when she was awakened by what had happened at Pyrene Station early Tuesday morning, where the criminals had been held. A lightning attack with tactical droids to rescue them, along with the device they had stolen from the subterranean tunnel. The identity of the main attacker who did the major damage was unknown, although no one was killed.

    Because of this the alarm did not go down in Rome but went up again, as if there were more involved there was a possibility that the Holy See and Lee were still being targeted. Although, since the thieves had fled in Turin, Van considered it unlikely that they would return to Rome with the level of security in place at the time.

    Van spent the morning hours receiving reports of both what was happening in Grenoble, as well as reports of Lee''s activities in the building. Around ten o''clock in the morning, a new alarm was raised in France, due to a sanitation operation, although Nevermore FRTs would help in the situation.

    For several hours nothing changed and Van used her time to see what was happening everywhere, although nothing happened, until the early evening hours, between the border of France and Switzerland.

    A military information blockade had been set up, so Van did not find out about the plane that appeared out of nowhere until eleven o''clock at night. Information was trickling in from the scene, but it seemed that firefighters, soldiers and special teams from both countries had been deployed to control the fire due to the fuel explosion so that the fire would not spread any further.

    But that had set off even more alarm bells for her.

    A machine that was supposed to be able to look back in time had been stolen early Monday morning.

    The thieves had been caught and subsequently released and the machine had disappeared again, at the cost of wiping out an entire control station.

    A plane that was not supposed to be there had turned up on the border between France and Switzerland.

    And Lee, an academic professor involved in fields of time study, had been targeted by the two criminals hours before the theft of the machine.

    There was one factor that tied it all together: Time.

    It was too much of a coincidence to be natural.

    Hearing Lee''s voice, inviting her in, she took a deep breath, stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

    ***

    She decided that the best way would be to say it matter-of-factly. After all, he had been dragged into a situation that was not in his control and, although Van was used to lying being part of the prosecution of her job, that was not the situation with someone who had not broken any rules.

    Lee had no criminal record, not even a driving ticket or any other run-ins with the law. On the contrary, his resume also listed a couple of times he had been consulted by quantum financial security agencies regarding virtual particle hacking. Although his area of expertise was in astrophysics, virtual particles and quantum science were linked to his areas of study, so it was only natural that he could also advise other organizations outside of academia.

    Lee was on the floor at the moment surrounded by books and three roomba''s bouncing gently against him, which seemed to silently demand that he move out of the way.

    "Hi," he greeted.

    "Hi, how are you holding up?"

    "The best I can. Not much to do."

    Van put her hands on her hips and looked around the room.

    "Sorry about the mess," Lee said and picked up the floor and removed some papers from one of the couches for Van to sit on.

    "No worries. It looks more alive than where I live," Van said. Which wasn''t a lie, given that her Siren Island home was barely furnished. But that was because she spent more time off the island than on it. In a way, Van had made the world her permanent place of residence, and she practically traveled with her most important things in an extra turtle backpack.

    She say on the couch, free of papers and Lee sat down on another of the couches, as the roomba finally swirled into the spot left by him. He looked at her and pursed his lips, as he lifted his shoulders, then offered her something to drink but she shook her head.

    "So, has something happened?" Lee asked a little nervously.

    Van shook her head "The alarm level is at level 5 in Rome. That''s all over the news, though."

    "You people still haven''t caught them?"

    Van looked at him doubtfully and spoke. "About that... I''d like to talk to you about what''s happening elsewhere... and that''s not on the news."

    "Other parts?" Lee frowned.

    "The truth is, they got caught."

    "Oh! That''s good!" Lee celebrated, but frowned again. "But why is the alarm level still high?"

    "That''s... because they escaped... it would be more accurate to say they were released."

    Lee looked at her dumbfounded.

    Van sighed and told him in detail what had happened on Monday, with the capture of the criminals and their rescue early Tuesday morning by an unknown group of tactical droids and someone else who remained unidentified.

    In the details she had given him, she never mentioned the discovery of the body in the tunnel, as that had no bearing on the investigation and, as far as she had discovered, the thieves had not touched the body either. This was concluded from the footprints on the floor, which indicated that not even the thief had realized that there was a skeleton just a few meters beyond where he had walked.

    But she did show him the blueprints and photos of the object that was then in the possession of Rome''s evidence department. The two parts of the machine found.

    The division''s technical department had carefully disassembled it and the larger part functioned like a television, albeit with odd circuit parts and was not the only one. The other smaller one consisted of three separate circuits connected to a fourth one that appeared to be the main one and connected to the outside through hidden slots. But as far as they could see there were many parts in the circuitry such as diodes and coils that should not be there, unless their builders had access to military grade electronic components. It was all very old, but the components were of a quality that had never reached the public and had been used in the last decades of the twentieth century.

    Lee didn''t know how to make sense of the legend of a camera to look into the past and into the future at first, but there was something inside him that had begun to think of something unimaginable.

    He couldn''t get over his amazement at Van''s story. He could not imagine that someone could perpetrate an attack on a station or base dedicated to the study and prevention of DEs. These had the best security so, it was unimaginable to him that only someone with a handful of droids could do something like that.

    It was no surprise to Van. While not common, there were occasions where attacks on bases or stations occurred, though rarely did anything serious happen. These attacks could be cracking of facilities, planting of electronic spies, conflicts of interest, or attacks by certain groups when there was dissatisfaction with research. While in cases involving civilians showing discontent, it was normal for the press to cover the news, in more serious cases, without civilian involvement, these conflicts remained behind closed doors between organizations or, if it involved different interests, with governments and local forces and agreements were reached by jurisprudence or by diplomatic means. Pyrene''s security was good, although lax in the sense that since it was never attacked, its staff was relatively quiet.

    Van continued to tell him about other events that were intervening in the investigation but the most serious had occurred the night before. At that point she had to be more careful, because she was basically going by her instincts.

    She avoided telling him about the number of victims on the plane going up by the hour, but Lee was already quite terrified by what he was hearing.

    "I''ve been watching the news, what you''ve told me...a lot of details aren''t on the news."

    "It''s the least I can do since you seem like you were somehow involved in this, without even knowing it."

    "Why me?"

    "What we think is that somehow that machine may have been able to cause a distortion in spacetime, allowing you to bring objects from another time here."

    "But the original story was that it couldn''t just be used to see into the past or the future, right?"

    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    "Exactly, but there could be a possibility that it contains something we don''t know about. Or that maybe the stolen part could have been modified in some way."

    Lee got up from the couch. Playing with space time was what had caused the explosion in Tokyo at the time of the Great War, but an object that could bring other objects from another time... The idea of a time machine was absurd to him, but something capable of causing distortions in the fabric of reality was something that had happened many times and there were even rumors that Nevermore had entire stockpiles of such objects. After all, the problem with having control over time-related research had to do with the violation of the Principle of Locality by Dark Events.

    "Assuming you''re right, the closest I could think of would be that the machine could generate an Oopart? Is that it?"

    Van nodded. "But imagine this. Now it''s been a plane. If somehow these terrorists could regulate the direction of an object¡­"

    Lee thought for a moment and looked at her. "Are you telling me that the plane is just a test and they''re planning something bigger?"

    "I don''t know, but it''s possible. Who knows. Maybe you''re the one they had in mind who could help them with that problem."

    "In a scientific experiment replication is the vital thing," Lee said, quietly.

    " What do you mean?"

    "I mean if what you say is true, this is going to happen again. Whatever these guys are aiming for, if it''s a test then, they''ll repeat it."

    "My guess is that they''re thinking of selling the machine to the highest bidder, but first they may want to demonstrate how it works."

    "Assuming all of this is the case, if they can''t control it properly, they may want to, or may already have someone who can regulate it as you say. I mean, why would you assume that I might be the only one who could help them? There are other academics specifically specializing in time issues. I can assure you that time travel is not my area."

    "That''s the problem. From the profiles of these thieves, we simply believe they were hired to steal it, but we don''t know by whom, and why they were following you hours before. Someone who has credentials to do research with time crystals usually works for quantum encryption agencies. Kidnapping someone like that would put defense agencies on alert. The only ones in Italy are at the encryption center in Naples."

    Could it be possible? He knew about particles and some engineering, but it didn''t matter how he put his spin on it. It seemed ridiculous. The idea of a time machine, or something that could create a distortion in space time, had never crossed his mind in any serious way.

    He had fiddled with the observatory''s telescopes and particle accelerators so much that he could practically do it even with his eyes closed. But something to bring something as big as an airplane. That would require bending spacetime in such a way that it would require a tremendous amount of effort and energy. From what Van had told him and shown him, the size of the stolen item was very small, not to mention old.

    Lee opened the files she showed him with the photos and analyzed them. Could it be that the second part was not only the engine of the whole object, but that it had some kind of energy that was enough to bend space time?

    Lee sat back down and at that moment looked at the pile of books. The sun was shining on the pile of old, yellowed tomes and the roomba''s were passing by the sides and bouncing away and then back again, repeating the same choreography they had repeated when he was there but this time with the books.

    Something big had been replaced by something small.

    Lee turned to Van with wide eyes and stared at her for a few seconds.

    Van was startled to see his face. It was as if he had just remembered something.

    Lee got up and walked over to the pile of books and knocked some of them over with one swipe. "This can''t be possible."

    "What''s wrong."

    "I don''t believe it."

    "The what?"

    Lee stood up and in his hands clutched one of the old books. It was Portals and Other Time Machines by L.W. and DiMatus. "What you said about time crystals brought something back to my memory."

    "The what?"

    "The jikanium."

    The term meant nothing to Van, but Lee was excited by it.

    "The jikanium is a time crystal hypothesized in virtual particle physics. It is a postulate that has never gone beyond mere simulations and has also never been successfully crystallized to physical form."

    "There are not many physical time crystals."

    "Exactly, but the story goes that there had been a way to use a type of time crystal in a physical way. A fractal type that involved the Calabi-yau tensor theory sending information through time. It was a little crazy since the theory was to send information through time but to consider time itself as an intrinsic aspect of dimensions." Lee flipped through the book in his hands to the index and looked up the word he was looking for and then flipped back to almost halfway through the book. He marked a portion and passed it to Van.

    She accepted and there, amidst the fluorescent yellow underlines, she read the excerpt he marked from the chapter called: About the possibility of controlling a time crystal.

    Although today our technology prevents us from reaching the scales to study, or even control tokion particles, it is possible that in the near future, if we do not destroy each other in an absurd way, these concepts can leave the mathematical scenarios to finally create something that allows us to control time.

    The geometry of the tokihedron and its postulates were already predicted a long time ago by the Dr. Satou Nobuyama, now we only have to approach its fundamental elements: the Jikanium, and the most magical of all, which awaits below the Planck scales: the tokion. There, where supposedly nothing can see it, maybe it is the particle of time.

    Van gave him back the book without knowing what to say. Satou Nobuyama, that name said something to her, although she couldn''t remember where she had heard it.

    "Basically, what this book talks about is time, and it is based on one of Einstein''s fundamental ideas, that of the incorporation of geometry into spacetime. You can''t separate one from the other."

    "We already know that since the war. After all the Fractus are entities from a different spatial dimension, who can''t interact with us now thanks to the throat being closed. But they are still here with us."

    "That''s true, but it''s still not clear if this story is true. I mean this book was written more than a hundred years before the story happened."

    "What story are you talking about?"

    "The Tokyo explosion. In 2098."

    Oh, no, Van thought. If what Lee was thinking was true, she knew one of the people involved very well, even though that person never told her about it, because it had been a trauma for her. "What does it have to do with the machine?"

    Lee turned to the next page and showed her a drawing. There was a fantasy reconstruction of the machine she had seen at the station, with the only difference being that you could see a part in between. It reminded Van of a kind of camera on a tripod. The drawing was not exact to the two parts that were in the station, but it could be because it had been embellished by the artist. Pyrene never opened the suitcase because of the warning that it might be an object that would cause space-time distortion. But from the looks of it that book applied the theme of more extra dimensions in a rather old-fashioned way.

    "You''re talking about time as a fourth dimension right?"

    "Well that''s been a bit misunderstood for centuries, the fourth is simply for relativity. That changed with the fractus invasion that forced us to reinterpret sixty-eight spatial dimensions and one of time."

    "Nice. I know that already, I mean the book."

    "Well, the book is mostly theoretical. Although..." Lee stopped and looked at Van''s face as if he was surprised. "You''re bleeding."

    "What?"

    "Your nose."

    Van touched her nose and looking down at her fingers saw them stained with blood.

    What? She couldn''t remember the last time she''d had a normal nosebleed. She wasn''t allergic to anything as far as she knew. The last time she had had a nosebleed had been the year before during a certain mission but, even so, her level of regeneration was one of the best.

    Lee took a box of napkins from the nearby table and offered it to her.

    "Thank you," Van said.

    "Where did it happen? The plane, the incident, where did it happen?"

    Van thought for a moment and said. "Over the lake between France and Switzerland."

    "Which one?"

    "Lemac."

    Lee opened his eyes and walked over to her. "Which part?"

    "On the French side."

    "On the French side..." repeated Lee. That hit him somewhat close. "In which area?"

    "Lugrin..."

    Lee fell silent. It was only a few kilometers away from where he had lived with the other children in the orphanage.

    "A lake¡­" Could that be possible? A lake. In case the stolen part was also the core and energy, how to handle the residual field created by the distortion? Could it be that it occurred in a lake so that the water would act as the heat sink for the artifact? No. That was not necessary since a liquid cube with Von Neumann machines could circumvent that problem, but they would need to handle enormous levels of energy... or maybe not. "Do you have temperature data on the lake?"

    Van shook her head.

    Lee began to pace the room thoughtfully as everything he had learned in the past few years flashed through his mind. But no matter what hypothesis he formulated he could not come to a conclusion if he did not know the true shape of the stolen part. The drawing told him nothing beyond the fact that it appeared to be a camera mounted on a tripod.

    "I want you to come with me," Van said, holding a napkin to her nose.

    "What? Where?"

    "Lugrin."

    That threw Lee off. "Why?"

    "Because if this really has to do with a time warp we have to stop them, I want you to help us. A team of our best agents is already on the scene."

    "What am I supposed to do?"

    "Is there any way to trace the machine if it was used there?"

    Lee thought about it. There was no way he could do that. Tracking a particle of mass below the Planck scale in a lake didn''t sound very sane, if it was even related. But he thought about it some more.

    "Maybe... by nuclear transmutation and beta decay? That''s what happened in the Tokyo explosion and in other places where space-time distortions have occurred. But I imagine your people have a way of knowing that."

    "Yeah, still maybe you can get an idea of what''s going on if you were on site."

    Lee thought carefully. "A lot of what you''ve told me is classified information, right?"

    "Yes, you have to sign a confidentiality agreement if you decide to go."

    Lee had had to do that a couple of times when he''d offered consultation to private entities, so it wasn''t something new. But it still made him feel strange to be involved in such a delicate matter, but he could no longer ignore it.

    "From what you''ve told me it''s not like I can refuse anymore. It sounds like they''re lying to a lot of people."

    "The French and Swiss governments are preventing this from causing mass panic. Luckily there are not that many civilians in the area where the incident occurred, given the time."

    "The attack has been in Grenoble and the major incident in Lugrin, but Rome will continue with this level of alarm?"

    "At least until everything calms down. The truth is that there are very few Italian authorities who know what is happening in Lugrin, and you are now one of those people."

    Lee looked at her with a wry smile. "Now you are making me part of the lie."

    "What is not sacred... is secret. At least that''s what used to be said around these parts when I was here a long, long, long time ago." Van said with a wry grimace too, it had been over two centuries since she''d heard that.

    Lee weighed the situation one last time, but inside him the decision had already been made. If he could help, he would. It had happened quite close to his home and if he could help solve the mystery, and make sure there were no more victims, he would do it without a second thought.

    After all there would be SID agents helping, military personnel and a perimeter cordon so there should be no safer place to be. If he really had been targeted by the criminals there must be some reason and perhaps he could shed some light on the matter.

    Tokions. Could it be possible that the machine could somehow generate them or attract those particles that no one had ever been able to detect by particle accelerators?

    The situation sounded dangerous, but if that was really the case, it would be like discovering a new grail in physics.

    Lee nodded and looked at Van.

    "When are we leaving?" asked Lee decisively and Van nodded as she heard that.

    "Pack light, we''ll be leaving in an hour." Van replied. Her nose had already stopped bleeding.

    ***

    Broxburn, West Lothian. Scotland.

    The FRT agent Jim Stuart was wearing only an old T-shirt and shorts for pajamas. It was already a little late for breakfast and sunlight was streaming into the living room.

    That wasn''t a problem, though, since he had two days off ahead of him.

    Jim Stuart drank greedily a few good sips from the water bottle and set it on the somewhat messy kitchen table, while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

    The night before he had been working late with his team, due to some alarms of a possible DE, which turned out to be simply a misunderstanding of the witnesses'' facts. Still, even though it was a mistake, he had had to fill out a report and check the equipment used in the investigation so that everything was recorded. Fortunately nothing serious, but he had still gone to bed at three in the morning.

    His apartment, located in the same building as the station, was rather small, but the room where he slept was at least tidy. The opposite was true in the living room where a few pizza boxes from the previous days had been piled on the living room table.

    The latter was not his fault. Many of those pizza boxes, and other fast food wrappers in the kitchen, were due to the fact that sometimes the other members ended up dining there after ordering delivery. Somehow his apartment had become the place for his subordinates to end up dining on more than one occasion. Last night had been no exception, for someone else had joined the failed mission.

    Jim Stuart came out of the kitchen and there, sleeping soundly, sprawled out on his favorite couch was Thor. He had taken off his shirt and was resting still wearing his tank pants and undershirt.

    The living room looked messy too, although it wasn''t dirty, but that was also usually the fault of the team members, since every time they came they ended up messing everything up. The sofa cushions were all over the place, and a blanket was folded carelessly on one of the armrests.

    On the coffee table, next to a pile of instruments and acrylic projection sheets, several empty pizza boxes and empty glasses were piled up, witnesses of late nights after work. Next to the cardboard boxes, there was a part of the table that stood out for its almost impeccable neatness. A portrait of a smiling girl was delicately framed, occupying that small space of order in the middle of the chaos. It was a photograph of Oxy, that hyperactive physics professor who almost always spent her time on the island. The photograph seemed to be a valuable treasure, perhaps a special keepsake that someone treasured in the midst of the daily clutter.

    Jim walked over and looked at Thor, who was snoring with his mouth open.

    The dwarf had helped them the night before, in case something might have gone wrong but then, being sure that it was nothing more than a false alarm, he had invited everyone else to drink beers, while Jim had to fill out the reports and pass registration to the mobile station team, in which he moved along with the others.

    It was unusual for Special Investigation Division agents to pass through the Broxburn station, as it was rather small and nothing much happened. Many cases in fact tried to be referred to the SIGN Agency stations, since they were local and tended to have a higher priority to show that their agents could compete perfectly well with the SID from Nevermore.

    Besides that, it had been a good opportunity to chat with Thor, since the two knew each other from when Jim had trained on Siren Island.

    So, after drinks, Thor had accepted Stuart''s invitation to sleep there and would leave bright and early, to see if there were any new developments with the investigation at the old port of New Heaven.

    Thor, despite being a multi-millionaire, didn''t look like one at all. In fact Jim Stuart almost considered the dwarf to be one of the most sociable people he had ever met on the island, so he held him in high esteem and treated him as a friend.

    "Hey, man! What happened to waking up early?" Jim asked, raising his voice a little and patting him on the shoulder.

    Thor instantly opened his eyes and closed his mouth, as he wiped a trace of saliva on his chin with his arm. "Shit!" he said then waking up fully. "What time is it?"

    "It''s almost twelve noon."

    "''Fucking hell! I was supposed to be at New Heaven at ten o''clock." Thor checked his mail in his Neurowire and noticed that he had not received any messages regarding the appointment. That could either be because there really was no news, or they were waiting for news from Rome, as they were aware that two of the people involved in the disappearance of Sil Moore''s body had been in another incident in Italy. Either way, it was a relief. If anything more serious had happened the station would probably have already been there to bring it to their attention.

    "You drank too much last night."

    "You call that drinking? I don''t even have a hangover." That was true, most likely after dinner and drinks the tiredness had overcome Thor, as it had been quite a busy few days regarding the investigation for him, since he was in charge of Sil Moore''s case, now that Philip and Zi had left for France. "Anyway, I guess I''d still have to go..." Thor ran his hand across his stomach, "after lunch."

    "Yeah, we skipped breakfast anyway."

    "It''s okay with you anyway, right?"

    "Yeah, I''m free," Stuart said returning to the kitchen and Thor could sense from the noise that he was putting some order in the place.

    Then Thor noticed the portrait in the middle of the table. The truth was that he had seen it the night before but, because the room had been full of people, he hadn''t wanted to ask about it. But even the team member had been careful not to touch that portrait. "Hey, hey! What do we have here? Why is Oxy in the middle of your table? Do you like her?"

    Thor heard a noise of Stuart choking on saliva and saw him come out of the kitchen.

    "Where did that come from?"

    "You like Oxy?"

    "I respect her too much. I learned a lot about physics from her."

    "From respect to love there are only a few steps boy. Although due to my own experience it''s not like I can say much about romance."

    "Are you kidding? How many relationships have you had?"

    "Quality over quantity, never forget that. It doesn''t do much good to have a lot of relationships if none of them are stable in the end. I may have a lot of money, but that hasn''t paid off in a relationship either."

    "Maybe by attracting something, something else pulls away."

    "If that''s what happened, I wouldn''t be sure if I''d give up money today either in exchange for a relationship. Too much responsibility to send it all up in smoke."

    "Yeah that I can understand. Although... can''t it be that simply because of your perception of time you think it''s been a lot, but in truth it''s been a few?"

    "No. It''s been a lot, believe me. I must be the garden gnome that no one wants to steal."

    Do people steal garden gnomes? Stuart wondered, but took up his point. "I mean when you''re in a new relationship, at first everything is exciting and full of newness, but then, over time, it seems like that excitement goes out the window."

    "With that shit you are describing to me ninety percent of the love relationships in the solar system." Thor said that and leaned forward and took in Oxy''s moving portrait. "Oddly enough, mostly in the relationships I was in with humans they lasted less, with fey women they lasted a little longer, but in the end it all went cold. Damn! Now that I remember, even in the last one she hit me with a frozen fish!"

    I''d like to ask for context, but something tells me I shouldn''t, Stuart thought.

    "She thought I was cheating on her..." said Thor, who, looking at Stuart, could imagine he was getting some ridiculous scenario.

    "That doesn''t explain the frozen fish."

    "Anyway, if you''re going to gnaw on that bone, be careful." Thor warned him, as he pointed his eyes to the portrait and put it back on the table.

    "What do you mean?"

    "Oxy hasn''t been in a relationship for a long time. I guess you must have heard something."

    "No, I haven''t heard anything."

    Thor pursed his lips. "It''s not a secret, but if you screwed up, you didn''t hear it from me. She lost someone very important during the war."

    "Which one?"

    "The Great War, against the Fractus."

    That had happened too long ago. "What happened?"

    "The Tokyo explosion," Thor said with a serious gesture and got up from the couch. "Anyway, why don''t you take advantage of these days off and talk to her? You could use an excuse to ask her something about what happened at the pier."

    "Well that wouldn''t be an excuse. She was involved in the case too."

    "Don''t bite me. I''m just giving you ideas. Now, if you''ll excuse me, let me borrow the bathroom. I apologize if I clog it up," Thor said and walked toward the bathroom, but stopped halfway and turned to look at him.

    "..." Stuart stared at him without saying anything.

    "He who warns is not a traitor."

    "..."

    "I''m kidding. I think..." Thor said, and disappeared, closing the bathroom door.

    Jim Stuart amused himself by taking out the pizza boxes and putting them on the conveyor for the recyclable trash part. When he returned to the living room he stopped and looked at the picture frame on the table and picked it up.

    Meanwhile Thor, from the usurped throne, was reviewing the events of the Sil Moore case over the Neurowire. The truth was that he was worried about the cop who had helped them and even Philip and Zi had asked him to keep an eye on him.

    The shock of meeting someone with the same face as him from another universe must have been more than enough to make someone question many things about their own existence.

    He was thinking about it when a call came in out of the blue. The origin of the call surprised him a little. He had given orders not to be bothered with company business when he was working on a case. There had to be some reason for that or the special assistant wouldn''t be calling him.

    "What''s going on?"

    "Sorry to interrupt, Sir. We have a situation at headquarters that requires your attention. If possible, I think it would be best if you came directly to the company."

    "Now? What''s going on? Why?"

    "I can''t give you details now, but there''s something in Germany you need to see. It is of vital importance."

    "Germany? What''s going on? Why?"

    "One of the information blocks has been completely blocked."

    "What? That''s all they''re calling me about?"

    "It''s not just one block. It''s one of the old ones that''s still operational."

    "Just shut it down."

    "It''s holding sectors hostage."

    What? What are you talking about? Thor thought. "I don''t understand what you''re talking about."

    "The sector that has been locked out is explicitly asking for you."

    Thor frowned. "Which block is the one giving trouble?"

    "The one left by the founder. The one he took it upon himself to develop."

    Thor''s face tightened. He knew what she was referring to.

    That was the sector left by Gehirn Schmidt himself, before he left the planet.

    Jim Stuart could hear Thor''s voice coming from the bathroom, but he didn''t care. He was concentrating on the portrait in his hands. He slowly ran one of his fingers across the acrylic that protected the image and gave it some more sharpness and brightness, touching one of the controls. Oxy''s smile seemed to suit the tone of the image, as fresh as a spring morning. She was looking straight at him, over her shoulder as she held a book against her chest.

    It had just been a hot day at the university, and he had forgotten to ask her something important, so he had run out of class to look for her. He had found her going to the parking lot, crossing one of the many gardens that were on the site. His sudden call had taken her by surprise.

    That picture had been one he had taken and, since he had as much of a photographer''s soul as Thor had luck with women, the picture had not turned out well at all. But that fey girl''s smile had been so perfect at that moment that he had activated the function to record the moment sequentially through his Neurowire.

    The truth is that for Jim Stuart Oxy had always been someone he had respected very much, but he didn''t think it was really love that he felt for her. The professor was attractive, both intellectually and physically, but for Stuart it was like seeing someone who was in a sphere far above him, because of the different responsibilities they had.

    That was admiration, or so he felt.

    Jim looked at Oxy''s smiling face and lightly squeezed the picture frame and smiled. Maybe he would call her later and they could talk, if she wasn''t too busy.

    Yes, I think I''ll call her, he said to encourage himself.

 Vol.4/Chapter 27: Crash site- Part one

    Chapter Twenty-Seven

    Crash site- Part one

    POV- Oxy

    I''m on my stomach.

    My face burns. I can feel the blood running down my cheek and in my mouth a bittersweet metallic taste builds up. It''s blood mixed with dust and small pieces of what looks like debris, or small stones between my teeth and tongue.

    My whole body hurts. The pain is horrible in my left leg. It feels like I''ve been stuck with a red-hot iron.

    What has happened?

    I open my eyes and what I see is a crimson scene of flames and black smoke rising to the skies, merging with the darkness of the night. Is it night to begin with? I don''t know, although it seems to be. I see really poorly and my vision . I feel like my head is going to explode and I feel dizzy. I have bruises all over my body, my clothes are dirty and stained with blood and other things I can''t figure out.

    I look up at the sky again and this time I can see that it is indeed night. Through the smoke filters the light of the moon and the debris floating in high orbit. They are the pieces of a different earth that came with them.

    The Fractus.

    I vomit on the floor, something that I suppose could well be food and maybe some piece of esophagus, or some other part of my body. I can''t say for sure and for that matter I don''t care either. I just wanted to get it out of me.

    I don''t hear very well. Just muffled sounds, as if someone had fired a gun near my eardrums. The vision in my right eye looks a reddish color. I try to get up leaning on my elbows. Everywhere I look all I see is a sea of debris, some electrical sparks and the remains of ruined instruments and structures.

    What has happened?

    I can barely breathe, but I try to get up when a searing pain in my left leg and stomach makes me scream, with a sound I didn''t even know I could make. I can barely hear myself, but I''m screaming so much that it wouldn''t be weird if I was damaging my vocal cords.

    I look down at my legs and discover the cause.

    I have a huge piece of debris crushing half of my tibia. As for my stomach I discover the cause soon. I have a crystal that is digging into my intestines. An animalistic scream tries to escape from my throat again, but is drowned out by a viscous gargle of blood, saliva and dirt.

    The pain, now I understand. Damn it!

    My hands tremble and wound themselves on the sharp edges of the glass, as I tear off the piece with one pull. I grit my teeth, and tears mixed with blood begin to pool in my eyes.

    Now comes the worst. Many say that the pain is felt most when they are hurt. Those who say that have not experienced what it is like to regenerate a fey.

    I feel a tingle first. That''s heaven before hell. Then comes a burning, as if someone has poured boiling alcohol into my stomach. I am aware that, if had I been fully awake, this kind of pain would be much worse. The only good thing is that I know my regeneration is good and after thirty seconds the pain goes away.

    I can feel cracking in my back, hip and ribs, I must have broken a few things. But the worst is yet to come.

    At the slightest movement I make with my left leg I feel a much greater pain. I know that the foot is totally crushed and that the continuous regeneration and destruction of the bone and tissue is what is causing this to be much worse. I must have woken up at just the right time when I could have died, due to the process of blood loss and constant regeneration. My core has kept me alive, but it has a limit. I have to free my leg and keep it from losing blood, so the regeneration process will be complete. The piece crushing the limb is large, but I should be able to move it.

    I''m not in the best physical condition, but I must have been a pretty active girl from the Other Side, because I''ve never lacked strength, even though I''m lazy as fuck.

    I have to do it fast. Despite my regeneration I''m tired and the headache is so horrible I don''t even know how I''m conscious.

    I straighten as best I can half of my body. Should I move the block? or just crawl over and cut the limb off completely? No, that would be more painful. Better to leave the bone structure, even if it is destroyed. I''m not sure if my core could handle regenerating a complete limb and, from what I''ve seen, that''s much more painful.

    After two minutes of pushing and shoving, whining and screaming I manage to remove it, it must have weighed at least a hundred kilos.

    The excruciating pain begins once again. First the bone and some of the nerve tissue is put back together. It is like feeling hundreds of needles being stuck in. Because the regeneration is not layered, and occurs simultaneously for all parts, parts of the nerve tissue are damaged again, while the bone is rebuilt. Rebuild, destroy, rebuild again.

    I groan on the floor and pound the ground with my fists, feeling my knuckles hurt. That''s how the first five minutes go. In the final stage comes the burning of the flesh again as the muscle tissue and finally the skin pulls itself together.

    This has never happened before. I have been tortured, shot, slapped, and once gored by a rhino, but I have never injured a limb to this extent.

    I feel tired and am likely to pass out at some point. My core must be quite exhausted from so much work. I should rest. But I can''t, I have to move. Maybe after this I should have a period of inactivity. I''ve never had one in over a hundred years.

    I am regaining some of my hearing, I hear distant explosions. Horrible, unintelligible screams from voices that seem to have little or nothing human about them. It is despair, madness. Calls for help that I can''t answer right now. There are too many among the crackling of the flames. I think I can make out shapes running, but their flight is soon cut short as they end up being caught by the whips of fire from the flames and fall to never get up again.

    This should not be like this. Now I remember.

    The linear accelerator.

    No. This can''t be happening! I''m part of the team that works here.

    What went wrong? We did all the right calculations. What is this? Sabotage? An enemy attack? Do they even know what we''re trying to do here? No, that''s not possible. Tokyo''s early warning system is good. We should have known in advance if there were any fractus swarms in the vicinity or some of those crazy fanatics who worship them as gods.

    I don''t want to believe it. If something went wrong... does that mean that over twenty-four kilometers there is nothing but destruction? No. What the fuck went wrong? Perhaps a problem at the initial Minato station or a problem at the other substations with the cooling system? The synchroton radiation had been checked and there were no problems like last week. The simulation was fine.

    Zuriqth! Oh, no. He was in the mirror capsule.

    "Zuriqth!" I say slowly, and my lips tremble as I pronounce his name. There is no way he could be okay. He was the target of the energy beam, then the jikanium particle separation. This can''t be happening. "Guys?! Is anyone there? Zuriqth!"

    Zuriqth where are you?

    This isn''t real.

    A hand lands on my shoulder. I turn around hoping it''s him. That he''s okay. Please.

    Zuriqth...

    ***

    Wednesday, March 21. 7AM. 125 S.A.

    Lake Lemac, Lugrin. France.

    "Hey, is something wrong?" Oxy turned around and saw herself reflected in Mai''s green eyes, which looked at her with a mixture of concern and bewilderment. Her small hand had landed on Oxy shoulder and she had shaken it a little, seeing that she had stopped and froze for a moment.

    Oxy looked around. They had just gotten off the ship and everyone had activated their tactical masks from their turtle backpack. In the air they could smell burning flesh and a strong odor of jet fuel. Possibly some of it had not burned and had been sprayed all over the place.

    All around them there were aeronautical technicians and forensic experts, and there were soldiers guarding the place. Everything was a hive of activity. Destruction everywhere in the area. Oxy looked to the side of the shore and saw the long line the plane had drawn on its path, as it smashed into the ground.

    She understood it, but it didn''t make her happy.

    That line reminded her of that fateful night, when more than two million people died on the surface of Tokyo due to an accident trying to unravel the nature of a type of fractus core found in the Kuril Islands, in the year 2098 of the Ancient Era. The subway linear accelerator had proven to be a good way to unlock the secrets of such cores. But it had gone wrong.

    "I''m fine, it''s nothing." Oxy swallowed hard and gave Mai a weak smile that didn''t quite hide the fact that she was shocked by the scene. That memory was the reason she disliked tragedy scenarios and tried to stay away from scenarios involving such events. Physics and academic research was her refuge. "Let''s see what this is all about," she said and again, tightly gripping the two suitcases she was carrying, she continued on her way, trailing behind Philip and Zi. Mai watched her walk with a determined step, but knew that the scene must have shocked her a little.

    The entire team had parked in a clear patch of vegetation, designated for ships, and had come down carrying some of the equipment. Carissia meanwhile would remain waiting for orders in the ship.

    Several modules had been set up in the surrounding area and quite large tents had been erected. That would undoubtedly take days. Many of the soldiers there looked young, perhaps they could be pseudo-immortals, although Mai couldn''t tell for sure. Almost all of them wore safety goggles, in addition to their masks, possibly a support unit to help with the search. Then Mai remembered that Natsuki was there too. Possibly those goggles helped those who couldn''t see her to detect where she was moving around.

    Mai looked at Oxy again, when Lizbeth from behind called out to her. "You''re not worried about that?"

    "The what?" Mai asked in confusion and Lizbeth pointed to the back, a few meters away from where they were standing.

    Shin had fallen behind the group. Although due to the armor he had a bit of facial paralysis that prevented him from showing emotions, at that moment his brow was a bit more furrowed, as if he was upset about something.

    He was looking around along the coast, where the plane had crashed. His vision was not focused on the technicians and military personnel who were deployed in the area. He was looking at the wreckage of the plane scattered all over the place and out into the lake as well where several boats were gliding around deploying underwater drones.

    "What''s he doing?" Mai asked, raising an eyebrow and they both approached. "Hey," Mai said taking his hand. "Is something wrong? Did you see something weird?"

    Shin turned around and looked at the two quizzically. "I don''t know... there''s something familiar about all this."

    "How many accidents have you seen before?" Lizbeth asked, with a grin of circumstance.

    "That''s not what I mean." Shin looked away from both of them and looked back to the farthest parts of the accident and then up at the sky. "I feel like I''ve seen this before."

    "Deja vu? You were once destroyed by a turbine."

    "That''s not it." He looked at them again and something deep inside him bothered him to no end. For some reason he felt a knot in his stomach from seeing them there. What is this? Why do I feel that there is something very wrong here? For some reason he felt like he wanted to get them both out of that place at any cost. But why? It didn''t make sense.

    His senses were alert for something he couldn''t understand. As if he had seen that before. But there was no way such a thing could be true.

    "Put on a mask," Mai finally ordered him, smiling a little and letting go of his hand. Most likely for her, all that destruction was reminding Shin of the lake and there was nothing strange about that. Shin''s mind worked even more strangely than the feys'', sometimes she got the impression that he thought too much about things. Or maybe it was just that the feys were too free in their thinking.

    "You''ve finally arrived!" Ryuuji''s voice brought everyone out of their musings and they turned to look at him.

    He was wearing coveralls similar to theirs. He exchanged a fist bump with Zi and Philip who were ahead and then with Oxy who was still showing a self-absorbed expression. But they also clashed fists with someone Shin couldn''t see.

    Natsuki was also there, also in her coveralls and mask. The others could see her thanks to the active layer of detecting idogenic particles in their eyes, but Shin could not see her, even though he could detect that someone was there. If it wasn''t for the device in his ear, being able to transmit what she was saying, he would have barely been able to detect her.

    Although that only counted for the Neurowires of the Nevermore staff, which were specially designed to emit ideogenic two-way particles. These particles were of a virtual type at first, but then changed as they left the source of emission, to one that could pick up information from the environment. On its return to the source of emission it could transform the information captured from Natsuki, along with her interaction with the environment, into signals that were fed into the auditory and visual cortex of the team members and that they could understand.

    While she could be seen by none other than Ryuuji naturally, Natsuki could physically interact with her environment, although everything she touched underwent a phase shift, due to the Eienosky emissive layer of herself, and became temporarily invisible to anyone who could not see her.

    In Shin''s case he could only hear her thanks to the assistance device in his ear, but that was more than enough. The other soldiers and other personnel could see her with the specialized goggles. In the event that there were any Thelesis projection users on site, they could do so without it.

    They hardly noticed the other three people accompanying Ryuuji and Natsuki. All of them also wearing masks. One was a man in a military duty uniform, a bit of a lanky fellow. He was followed by a somewhat shorter man with specialized glasses, serious looking, dressed in civilian clothes, and lastly a slim young looking woman. The latter was a fey with short dark hair, and dressed entirely in black with a sleeveless coat. It was not possible to see her eyes, as she was wearing dark glasses. Upon seeing her Mai motioned to Lizbeth and she turned away and barely moved her lips but Shin, walking a few feet behind, understood as clearly as if she had told him straight out.

    "It''s from the Council." Lizbeth had used the thelesic ability of her voice. That was a sign that Shin was not going to do anything strange. There was no reason, he wouldn''t do anything anyway. But he knew that, in case something happened, with a Council viewer there was a possibility that he would be on site not only for the investigation, but also to observe the performance of the agents.

    "Miss Izumi, Professor Ishijima. Welcome." That had been the tall, lanky man who approached and greeted Mai and then Oxy. That surprised Shin, it had been a long time since he had heard Oxy''s identity as a front. Apparently she hadn''t changed since the time he had known her.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    The protocol greetings took only a few seconds, but it was always routine. The thin man was the on-site commander of the operation. His name was Hugo Lefreve and he was the director of Crisis Operations of the French Army''s Air Security Administration. Accompanying him was Pierre Allard, also director of air security crisis, but from the Swiss Army.

    The woman took her time, she had a more British accent it seemed to Shin but, indeed, she was a Council observer. Her name was Jen Anderson. She greeted everyone cordially but it seemed that her tone was somewhat stilted. That became more pronounced when it was Shin''s turn. But she wasn''t the only one. The other two men had also stopped almost half a second before shaking his hand and looked at him a little strangely. But that was only for a couple of seconds and they greeted him just like the others who had just arrived.

    That almost always happened, so Shin didn''t mind at all. There was something that always made people look at him a little strange at first. Almost as if they knew he was neither a human nor a fey at all. It wasn''t something exaggerated like what that young soldier had done just a few days ago in Kolsay, that was probably due to the meteorite. This was more subtle, but it was still there. In fact even some of the technicians and soldiers had given him a sidelong glance. It wasn''t hostility, just strangeness.

    Some things never change, Shin sighed to himself and raised a fist slowly. Almost instantly he felt another invisible fist colliding with his own.

    [How have you been big guy?] Natsuki had approached and Shin tried to quietly tell her and Ryuuji about the last few days. Meanwhile Director Lefreve and Allard were talking to Oxy and Mai.

    "Since when are you working here?" Mai asked.

    "We''ve been here all night," Allard replied, sighing.

    "It''s an old plane, isn''t it?"

    "Yes, Ancient Era. Please come with me to the command center and I''ll give you all the data."

    The woman named Jen Anderson took the floor. "I want to be clear. The reason you are all here is to collaborate together in the investigation."

    "...Ok?" nodded Mai.

    The entire group entered a rather large tent, the interior of which had not been modified with an SDD. That was for sure to preserve the condition of the place in case more evidence had to be collected. Although the tents themselves were much further away from the site of the tragedy by at least a couple of hundred meters. Upon entering, Lefreve and the other two removed their masks and so did Mai and her team.

    Inside the tent were other people working on holographic projectors and others on measuring screens that, as far as Oxy and Shin could tell, were monitoring atmospheric and terrain parameters over a fairly wide radius. Others were monitoring and receiving reports from the perimeter fence, to prevent anyone from entering the site without authorization.

    A perimeter polygon had been established to the east that reached almost as far as Port Valais, in the east, following the lakeshore line. But where they were was inside a perimeter circle that had as its zero point the Vindry Beach, where the first contact of the plane with the ground had taken place. A radius of about 3.83 kilometers and about 24 kilometers in circumference. But the first sighting of the plane in the sky had been established by primary radar and satellite alert almost on the border separating France and Switzerland on that part of the lake, just before reaching the Saint Gingolph area.

    Other people in the tent were from other agencies. Many were dressed in civilian clothes, but with their respective IDs. There were so many acronyms that Shin could barely memorize them all. Air traffic, aviation security, stratospheric security, crisis departments, surveillance agency and navigation protocol, military, air force, disaster prevention, Dark Events control, the Council, and who knows what other agencies were involved in the place.

    In all that group Mai stood out as the smallest, yet it could be seen that many of those people even stopped doing their jobs to stop and look at her. As far as Shin knew, her face was not public due to the number of enemies Nevermore had made over the years. Yet many organisms knew who she really was, so everyone in that tent must have known who she was.

    While not all the details of the war were known to the world, Mai''s stories had spread. Even more so since at that time she had dark hair as legend had it that she had been the girl who had ended the war with a bow. Many stories were lies, or rather, half-truths.

    Mai felt those stares, but took a short breath and followed Lefreve, while both Lizbeth and Shin noticed a slight tremor in her shoulders and her ears flushed slightly.

    Our girl doesn''t like attention, thought Lizbeth.

    That attention lasted only a few seconds and soon after almost everyone returned to their work. Lefreve led them to the main table where a group of soldiers were at a holographic terrain projection, which showed the whole place being investigated. Apparently that plane had been missing parts for several kilometers before reaching its final destination. That explained why the polygonal perimeter was much larger and covered part of the lake on the Swiss side. The director asked for the table and the soldiers stepped back.

    The group stood around the table and paid attention to the projection, all except Zi, who for some reason looked suspiciously at Jen Anderson. The woman felt that look on her face. What''s wrong with her, she thought. Jen felt that for some reason she sensed that Zi had been looking at her from the moment their eyes had first met.

    "All right. This is what we have for now," Lefreve said and then, moving his hands over a menu on the tactile surface of the table, he activated the corner projectors and a new hologram was displayed on the operations table.

    Part of it was images of the research being carried out. Images taken with three-dimensional projection of the scene and others in video. But the one that took up almost all of the three-dimensional projection was of an Ancient Era aircraft.

    "This is a Baering 616 type plane from the Ancient Era. Twinjet with R&R engines. They haven''t been made for over 175 years," Lefreve continued.

    Shin recognized it instantly, something he had not been able to do on arrival due to its wrecked condition. That type of plane had come online in the mid-nineties of the twentieth century and he had flown a couple of times in that type, before his disappearance in 1999. Seeing the hologram gave Shin the same feeling he had had when he got off the ship.

    "This plane appeared late last night," Lefreve continued.

    "Where did it come from? Isn''t it against regulation to use this type of aircraft now?" Zi asked.

    Because the Council had been terse with the information provided, all they knew was that "there was something that shouldn''t be there". The plane qualified as something old but it was not uncommon for some, who could afford it, to use vintage planes from another era to travel, but with modifications to current regulations. One example was Mai''s car, a type of off-road car from the Ancient Era but with modifications. This didn''t seem to be the case with the airplane, though.

    "That''s where the weirdness comes in. This plane... disappeared in 2012 from the Ancient Era." Looks turned from Lefreve to the hologram.

    "Is it an oopart?" Philip asked.

    "We don''t know yet. But if it is, it''s the biggest oopart I''ve ever seen."

    He''s lucky, Philip thought.

    "Did you check the flight data?" asked Mai.

    "Yes, that''s how we know it''s from 2012. But that''s not the weirdest thing."

    "What do you mean?" Zi asked.

    "This flight, it''s a ghost flight. G/54. JANEF class."

    "Gateway/54. Just Another Non Existant Flight," Lizbeth mused in surprise.

    "WWW code?" Mai asked.

    "Exactly," Lefreve nodded. "It was the code assigned by the International Flight Organization at the time. But we were able to find out the internal code from the International Security Agency. B313-MG. That''s how we know it was a shared code."

    "Where was it coming from?" Shin inquired, thinking about the final MG of the flight code.

    "The flight plan was Maldives with destination Geneva and a stop in Istanbul," Lefreve informed him. "Only thirty passengers boarded in the Maldives, most of the passengers boarded in Istanbul."

    "How many victims?"

    "According to historical records, of the thirty in the Maldives, twenty got off in Istanbul and there were one hundred and ninety passengers boarding. Counting crew, we have 211 on the manifest for the final part of the trajectory."

    Mai let out a slight sigh when she heard the number of casualties. "Anemi Airlines, right?"

    "Yes," the director stated. "Do you know it?"

    "Yes, I remember this," Mai nodded. "It was a big search that was done at the time. The news was all over the place and no one could explain how a plane could disappear in the middle of nowhere." Oxy and Lizbeth also nodded. All of them at that time did not know each other, but they could place the event because it had had worldwide coverage. Mai continued in a subdued tone. "I also remember that after a couple of years the search ended and it all came to nothing. I guess they were right... the plane hadn''t disappeared. It just changed its arrival time."

    Shin on the other hand was crossed his arms in thought. 2012? I wasn''t here. That thought somewhat relieved him, although he didn''t understand why. Maybe Lizbeth was right and he had seen too many accidents in his life. "I guess this is all because the flight was a ghost flight?"

    Mai turned to Shin. "The ghost flight thing isn''t exactly like the ones in your time."

    "It''s not like the ones we did back then," Lizbeth seconded.

    Mai nodded. "Ghost flights, or stealth airlines, became fashionable at the end of the 20th century due to terrorist events. Anemi Airlines in particular became quite well known because of this crash. It was a discreet airline that offered tourist tickets, but it also offered tickets for people who were highly sensitive targets, corporate executives, diplomatic pouches, movements of spies, in this particular case we never really knew what happened."

    Lefreve nodded. "Exactly. The story we have is that he disappeared on March 20, 2012 at 1700 Zulu, 7P.M local time. It was a three-hour trip from Istanbul to Geneva Airport."

    Oxy furrowed her brow. "That''s the same time it disappeared in 2012, the same time it showed up here?

    "Almost," Lefreve admitted. "Here it was detected at 1700, but it crashed a few minutes later."

    Allard took the floor. "On our side the radars detected that there was only something in the sky at FL300 over Port Valais. By the time we got to Gingolph it had dropped to FL250."

    "Upon detection you had no signal from the aircraft?"

    "Absolutely none," replied Lefreve. "This type of aircraft at the time had seven tracking systems. Two transponders, the ACARS system, engine house monitoring system, Hanshake Ping, operating system monitoring system, and the avionics system as well. ADS system, ACSCV. Everything from that time. But there was no communication at all."

    Allard continued. "Investigations at that time did not detect any anomalies before the plane disappeared. The handshake of the 1700 Zulu had been done without any problems and then it disappeared completely. Prior to that, the flight control transmission from the aircraft had been made between France and Switzerland and was estimated to arrive at the airport in just five minutes."

    "If this was an DE then it could have been an accident, unless there was something on board," Lizbeth said, crossing her arms. "I think I heard a lot of theories about that time, since two other signals had appeared on military radar, which was part of what was called the hijacking theory. I think it was that they might have disappeared the plane by flying it under the radar shadow of another plane."

    Oxy nodded. "Yes, I was just remembering that. The plane had enough fuel to have flown halfway across the Atlantic with no problems. I think there were theories of terrorism, hijacking, espionage and a lot of other things."

    Allard nodded as well, looking at Oxy. "The investigation back then was meticulous, because it literally vanished into thin air. Primary military radars last detected it right where it appeared last night."

    "Is there any suspicion of an DE? Hasn''t any anomalous signal been detected?"

    "Absolutely nothing so far. It just appeared out of nowhere. The first thing we thought was that it was some heavy structure, that it might have detached from some orbital station, but it wasn''t. Orbital Belt weapons would have destroyed it before it even entered the atmosphere. This is something that originated here, over terrestrial airspace."

    "Could it have been some terrorist attack from that time?" Shin asked.

    Oxy sighed. "It was 2012, I don''t think it had anything to do with it... although if it was from this time it''s a very different thing."

    Everyone looked at her, but it was Jen Anderson who spoke up. "And that''s the reason you are here. We need to determine if this was an DE, or if it was premeditated."

    "Premeditated? We''re talking about transporting something in time that weighs over 300 tons over more than two centuries! We don''t have that technology. You should know that by now," Oxy spat, raising an eyebrow. She understood why she was finally there.

    Anderson continued. "The investigation you will be conducting is to cooperate and determine the possible causes, that may have allowed the event to happen, or if it is of a different nature, to proceed to apprehend those responsible in case it could happen again."

    "This is related to the Vatican and the attack on Pyrene, right?" Mai asked, looking at the woman with suspicious eyes. "I read the report from our station in Rome. They suspect that what they had in their possession is something that has some sort of ability with time. Is the attack that occurred in Grenoble related?"

    "We can''t know for sure yet. That''s why you are here."

    Internal performance investigation and an DE investigation. This is going to be a pain in the ass, Mai thought.

    "We have something else to consider," Lefreve began. "In the evidence gathering work we''re doing, nothing electronic we''ve found so far works."

    "What do you mean?" Zi asked.

    "Batteries, cell phones, cameras, consoles, avionics, sensors, even watches. There''s nothing that works."

    "Something drained all the electronics?"

    "Those planes had an emergency battery system that still gave them a range of about twenty to thirty minutes. We found those batteries, they are completely drained too. Whatever brought this plane in, it knocked out every piece of electronics on board."

    "What about the cargo manifest?" Shin asked. "Could there be anything unusual on board?"

    "That, we are still recovering, because the plane apparently started to destroy itself in the air we have a whole area of kilometers to search. There are fragments from Port Valais to here and not to mention that many may have fallen into the lake and in the middle of a forest. The report doesn''t say anything suspicious about the payload it was carrying, but we''re still looking into the possibility."

    "What about the local population?" Mai asked, looking at the map of the region.

    "They have evacuated to hotels ten kilometers away since last night. We don''t have that many people in the area, so that wasn''t a problem," Allard informed her.

    "What about the witnesses to the crash?"

    "They have been taken to designated areas and statements are being taken."

    Mai looked at the woman again. "I would like our agents to be present for questioning." Jen Anderson nodded only and said nothing. Mai finally asked what no one had said anything about and what was the pink elephant in the room of all that had happened. "What about the victims or any survivors?"

    Lefreve touched a part of the hologram and some pictures unfolded, showing body bags being carried levitating in the air. Surely some thelesis user was doing it and others that were being carried by assisting drones. "We have about fifty-seven so far. They''re being taken to a temporary hangar we set up about five hundred meters from here."

    Mai pursed her lips and nodded.

    Jen Anderson spoke up. "I''ll let you conduct the investigation as you see fit. Just keep in mind that any communication with the outside will go through central control, to make sure no information leaks out. We do not want to cause any collective panic with what has already happened in Kolsay, Edinburgh and Grenoble, nor do we want the press to use this to spread more fear. The propaganda department is already trying to put out the fires that have been lit in the last few days."

    "Limiting us from having access to our own resources may be counterproductive," added Ryuuji, who had kept quiet the whole time.

    "You can communicate all you want, but communications will be monitored within the security ring."

    "Well, let''s get started then," Mai finally sentenced with a sigh.

    While Shin had been with Mai all these months, he had rarely been on an operation that required working with other agents. Aside from Carissia as support, a few meetings with Liz once a month, they had worked alone. That was without counting the island support that was always available to both of them. Shin could count on one hand the number of times they had worked with agents from other groups, who had met in the same investigation. That''s not counting the first time they worked together, but that time Shin was not part of the team, but rather part of the problem.

    Still, on those few occasions, he had been able to see Mai''s display as a team leader. It showed why she had remained in charge of special operations for so long. She knew how to give orders and be obeyed. The investigation would be conducted in accordance with the protocol established before they arrived and which complied with the regulations of the Annex for air accident investigations.

    Mai would be in the main area of operations. This was because they had to collate all the data coming in from the field investigation and, at the same time, they had to compare the information with past data. There was a long list of passengers, cabin attendants, pilots, people who had been involved in the investigation in the past and all had to be verified.

    Philip and Zi would be sent to cross-check the interrogations of the eyewitnesses of the crash. Natsuki and Ryuuji would continue with their work, assisting the technicians and specialist soldiers in the recovery of electronic material and parts that could solve the enigma. There was another group of five FRT agents who had been helping from before and they would continue with the same work.

    Carissia would be setting up the temporary tents in the meantime, and then join the search but in a different location. While they could have used the ship as another station, Allard asked Mai for permission if Carissia could join the aerial search team in the east, in the larger polygon. In that area they were looking for part of the plane''s cargo and some of it might be lost either in the lake or in the forest. One more aircraft for aerial reconnaissance could always help.

    Oxy, for her part, would be with a separate control station with other technicians who were studying the terrain to find out if there was anything that could have caused that plane to teleport two centuries into the future. This would be done by scanning parts of the plane while deploying the drones brought in from Languedoc. Oxy''s task was to study possible characteristics of the site that could have justified why it happened right there. If it was really an accident caused by a Dark Event, even a screw could have caused the accident.

    Lizbeth in her case would be with Shin, but on different tasks. Lizbeth would be with the forensic experts who were identifying the victims. When it was his turn to find out what his assigned task would be, Mai simply gave him a look. "Dead bodies?" Shin asked.

    "Dead bodies," replied Mai.

    At the mention of the bodies, Allard and Lefreve looked at each other a little nervously. Lefreve spoke first. "Regarding the bodies... the batteries and electronics are not the only strange thing we found. The bodies are also in a strange state, at least the victims we haven''t found all charred."

    Shin looked at them both. "What do you mean?"

    "If you''re going to conduct an inspection of the bodies... I think you''ll find out instantly," Allard stated.

 Vol.4/Chapter 28: Crash site-Part two

    Chapter Twenty Eight

    Crash Site - part 2

    8 AM

    In a military hangar further away, and specially prepared for the occasion, Shin and Lizbeth were immersed in their respective investigations.

    The hangar was a self-constructing structure, whose size could be modulated according to their needs. It was not permanent and could be easily dismantled. Its compressed size was no more than a cube of about 70 centimeters in diameter. It was not something that could be easily obtained. It was technology that combined SDD technology with folding material, with fractium and origamium alloys to deploy its special space modifying nature of the self-replicating nanomaterial system. This structure hardened and changed textures, almost as if those walls were actually real concrete and cement. Exploiting the capabilities of deploying and self-replicating structures was too convenient for the future.

    It amazed Shin, even though for everyone else it was an everyday occurrence. The hangar was a space of about one hectare, ten meters high. It was such a well-designed structure that it even had special walkways for surveillance. Considering the surveillance system that wasn''t really necessary, but Shin supposed it must have something to do with the design of the structure itself.

    There wasn''t too much bustle in the place. The noise that could be heard was the zipping up and down of the body bags from time to time, when they were opened to check the contents. The place was almost entirely occupied by a blue plastic sheet, and on it rested the sixty corpse bags.

    Lizbeth, with her hair tied in a ponytail, mask and goggles, was surrounded by forensic experts, all wearing protective PVC suits. Her task was to identify the victims. A puzzle in time. She delicately examined the belongings that had survived the crash, looking for any clues that might lead her to discover who were those travelers thrown up by the fabric of space-time.

    Many of those belongings were to varying degrees burned, or completely ruined, but had been part of someone''s life. And many had been placed next to the body bags as they had been able to identify them by the labeled bags many of them carried.

    Shin glanced at his partner and lover and saw how she was taking notes on a portable tablet, while the surveyor was the one opening the body bag.

    Meanwhile, Shin, with a tired look but deft hands, would be in a secluded area of the hangar that had been assigned to him and that was sealed with acrylic and special ventilation, to avoid contamination of the samples. He had to admit that his work had made him forget his fatigue to some extent and he had begun to work in his area without delay.

    His task was equally grim: to perform autopsies or just external examinations on the victims to discover the causes of their deaths. He had brought his portable lab from the ship, and had other equipment provided by the army''s forensic department. As the cold light from the hangar illuminated the stretchers and surgical tools, Shin was immersed in a world that became stranger and stranger. For as Lefreve had said, there was nothing normal about many of those bodies.

    Shin had donned a PVC suit and activated a mask and goggles from his turtle backpack. He didn''t mind the smell, he was used to it, but he wasn''t going to argue. Oxy had alerted him and everyone else that in the event of a Dark Event accident they had to handle all evidence with care. The bodies had been scanned and no anomalies related to thelesis or MAP particle dissipation had been detected. That didn''t mean they had to let their guard down.

    A good number of the bodies at the site were indeed charred. The investigation to determine the identities of many had been based on checking DNA, dental records of the time and checking for pre-existing pathologies in the unburned tissue or bones. They had done a good job with the assistance of artificial intelligence to often locate a body reader and the AI would analyze the patterns of the cadaver, such as the size of bones for example to extrapolate the data from the passengers, and thus know the identity.

    Shin finally looked away from Lizbeth and looked at what was in front of him. He was standing in front of a forensic examination table. That had nothing to do with his time in the twentieth century of the Ancient Era. That table had its own reading sensors, a filtering system to eliminate the smell of decomposition and even its own lighting. Nothing to do with that of his time that only had a few channels to drain the fluids.

    It was somewhat similar to the examination tables that were in the forensic platform of the laboratory of the Teratology section where he worked on the island. Although what Shin knew was that examinations were now almost always carried out by machines. That must be the reason why many looked at him from afar and wondered. The work of physical examination was left to special readers and machines, that too had changed, although Nevermore encouraged its specialists to perform the physical examination and not just the data control.

    Finally he put on some new gloves and set out for his second examination. The previous one had been deposited on another gurney nearby, in another room that was sealed. Despite calling it an autopsy, it was more of an examination and had turned out differently due to the condition of the bodies.

    Shin unzipped the bag and sighed.

    That body had remnants of clothing stuck to the body and the lower limbs were missing, but that was not the strangest thing. The skull and what was left of its bones were somewhat deformed, almost as if the bones had been made of plasticine at some point. But what caught his attention was something else.

    It was that he had never seen a body charred in part and that, on the other hand, the nervous system was visible to the naked eye in those parts where the fire had consumed the flesh. Not only visible but hardened, as if it had been sand struck by lightning.

    That nervous system, like that of the previous victim he had examined, had the consistency of something metallic. When he subjected parts of the charred tissue samples to analysis, along with bone, and that solidified nervous system, he got the same results as the previous examination. Although studying parts of the tissue that had not been touched by the fire, under the garments, gave him the possibility of knowing the identity.

    "Record," Shin said, turning to his book that lay on its side with the pages open, as he looked at the screen of the two terminals that offered him the data he had taken from the samples. "Diagnostic Record #2. March 21, year 125, 8:15 AM. Aircraft accident victim: Levi Fitzgerald. Male. Age 40 years. Victim possesses a highly atypical abnormality of the central nervous system. The consistency and texture of the neurological structures, such as the brain and spinal cord, revealed an unusually hardened and solid state, suggesting a transformation that resembles, in certain respects, a metallic density."

    Shin turned to the body and examined it again more closely.

    "It exhibits an atypical hardness and rigidity in the structures of the nervous system, I have no precedent for this in my own experience. Nerve tissues, under normal circumstances, are known for their characteristic fragility and delicacy, but in this case, a transformation is present that goes beyond conventional expectations.

    "The victim presents a highly compromised state due to the circumstances of the incident. Significant charring has occurred in various parts of the body, causing obvious deformities in the bone tissue.

    "The extremities, trunk and skull have been affected by the fire, which has caused a deformation in the bone morphology. It is important to note that, although the fire could have contributed to these deformations, I cannot rule out the possibility that there are other forces involved that acted on the body before or after the fire.

    "If an aircraft has undergone depressurization, explosion and combustion that resulted in charring of the bodies on board, it is important to consider that the cells and tissues of the human body would have suffered significant damage... This would subject the cells to extreme conditions that could destroy or severely alter their internal structures and components.

    "On the other hand, the tissue of the right forearm is almost intact and allowed me to effectively prove that there was a problem with tissue oxygenation. Depending on whether the depressurization occurred above 30,000 feet then this could have contributed to the formation of nitrogen in the bloodstream. So the victim was indeed alive when the accident occurred. Rut I cannot say that he was conscious, he may have fainted due to the change in pressure.."

    Shin stared again at the solidified tissue.

    "Regarding the nervous system. The structure is a chimera. It retains some of the molecular structure of human tissue, but the solidification, hardening and thickening, is due to it possessing an alloy of fractium material, along with an anormal concentration or iron. The absence of microfractures in the bone makes me think of other possibilities for the deformation that do not necessarily have to do with the action of fire, in particular the presence of fractium, which is something that had not been discovered in the year the plane disappeared." Then he turned to look at the screens with the analyses. "In the database this type of fractium only corresponds to a class A arachnid type, the most common of the nuclei and which possessed no functionality once its fractus host died."

    Shin turned again to the body with a frown. "Note: the post-mortem ATP analysis, along with the oxidative phosphorylation and electron chain is making me wonder if what happened to all the electronic instruments and batteries on board might also have involved the entire passage. Although I''m speculating about the latter... End of recording."

    Shin didn''t know if that woman from the Council was really paying attention to the work, but just in case he decided to include his final point of view. It was something he had found curious. The technology of the twentieth century of the Ancient Era would not have allowed her to perform an ATP examination of that type, given that the victims had already been dead for so many hours.

    At that moment he felt some knocks on the acrylic and looked up. Lizbeth was entering the decontamination room, before entering where he was. He thought it was kind of funny to see her with the equipment and those bags in her shoes so as not to contaminate. Nothing to do with how they did things centuries ago, not to mention that he could never have imagined her doing that kind of work in another time.

    "Did you find anything interesting?" Lizbeth asked, her voice laden with uneasiness. "Have you seen anything like this before?"

    Shin looked at her, his heterochromic eyes heavy with questioning. "Never. This is completely new to me. The nervous system of these bodies seems to have withstood the blast, as if they were designed to survive in extreme conditions. But the skin, bone and muscle tissue did not. Whatever happened up there changed the composition of these people''s nervous systems. Not counting the bones. I found some similar cases from the war, but they''re not quite the same."

    Lizbeth frowned. "But how is that possible, what kind of technology could do something like that in that time?"

    "Who says we''re talking about technology, here? I guess you saw the analyses the other forensics guys were doing early. This is fractium. Fractium that has somehow hardened nerve tissue."

    "Yeah, I saw them."

    She was staring at him.

    "What''s wrong?" Shin asked.

    "You don''t think it''s possible there''s another one of those, do you? Some guardian from the Other Side?"

    "No, it has nothing to do with it."

    "It''s just that we haven''t come across a case involving anything in time since your return."

    Shin looked at her. Through those glasses he could tell that she had a somewhat worried look on her face.

    He stepped closer and simply pressed his forehead against hers. "Don''t worry, I''m pretty sure that was the only one that chased us. I don''t think there''s another one of those."

    "I hope not," she sighed.

    He moved his forehead away from hers and tried to change the subject. It wasn''t good to remember that one. "You know, it''s funny that only this hardening is in the nervous system."

    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "Why?"

    "Because the nervous system has certain similarities in certain parts to a fractal system as well. Fractus have fractal forms. It''s curious that this alloy only attached itself to a part that had a fractal system as well."

    Lizbeth seemed to remember something. "Did you read the autopsy report on Philip and Zi''s case?"

    "The one on Sil Moore?"

    "No, the one about the terrorist from the other universe who was like a twin of the cop."

    "No. Why?"

    "The test said he just happened to have body parts that weren''t exactly similar to those of an ordinary human being. I think I read that the blood and nervous system had some differences, as well as some organs looked different. But otherwise it was pretty much the same as the cop."

    "Well. That wouldn''t be unusual. Assuming we''re talking about a parallel universe, maybe on a certain scale some things would be the same as here, but others would be completely different. Honestly from what I read about the case and the cop part I think it could just be an oddity. There are people just like us and you can find them around the corner here in this universe."

    "I think I saw your face on a slice of pizza once."

    Shin tried to laugh at that but only a half-smile broke out on his face. "Anyway. I was thinking about something else. It''s not the first time I''ve seen something similar, but it''s not the same."

    Lizbeth looked at him quizzically. "If this has anything to do with some kind of fractus, they showed up a long time after the plane."

    "I mean something else different," Shin began quietly, "this reminds me of something I saw once in Naples. In a chapel, to be exact. There were anatomical machines."

    Lizbeth raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the connection. "What does that have to do with what we''re seeing here?"

    Shin paused briefly in his work and looked at Lizbeth. "These anatomical machines were masterpieces of engineering. Some said that was used mercury in the creation. They were created to reveal the mechanics of the human body, how the organs work in interaction with each other. Something that at the time was invisible, unless you attended an actual autopsy."

    Lizbeth nodded, still not understanding the connection. "And what does that have to do with what we''re seeing here?"

    Shin continued, "Raimondo di Sangro, the Prince of Sansevero, was the patron behind those machines. He was an inventor, scientist and alchemist obsessed with anatomy. According to legends, he experimented on human bodies to achieve his vision. But what they found in later research is that the machines were a kind of illusion. There was no mercury or real bodies involved, just an incredible knack for copying the complex engineering of nature."

    Lizbeth frowned, taking in the information. "So you''re saying that what we''re seeing here could be something similar, some kind of illusion, a facade?"

    "No, it''s simply a curiosity. What we''re seeing in these bodies is so strange, so out of the ordinary, it makes me wonder if there''s something else behind it all. Just like in the history of anatomical machines, it could be a way to hide the true nature of what happened on this plane. On the other hand... Oxy is here."

    Lizbeth nodded at that. "Do you think the Council knows something more?"

    "I have no idea, but if this really has to do with fractus and time travel I think we should ask Oxy what exactly happened in that Tokyo explosion."

    ***

    10:13 AM

    Mai sighed, somewhat annoyed.

    She was in the operations tent, sitting in front of a terminal projecting various reports. Inside the tents no one had their masks on and that was a relief. She had put on her special hairstyling device and had curled her long hair into two buns that, from a distance, made her look like a mouse from a popular amusement park of the Ancient Era.

    "I think I could do my job more efficiently without someone breathing down my neck."

    Jen Anderson had been standing behind her for several minutes and had been paying special attention to the work Mai was doing. Mai was pretty relaxed about the politics of developing tolerance, but that woman had stood too close and she could almost feel her breath on her head.

    "I was just interested in what you were doing."

    "As you can see I''m checking passenger data," Mai said, trying to put on a condescending smile.

    The woman simply moved away a little and pretended to be interested in the projections on the main table, where the different sector cameras were transmiting live feed, and took an interest in the hangar where Lizbeth and Shin were working.

    Both had returned to work, and the number of corpses was growing slowly, as were the identities of the new bodies. Shin had already had five checks and Anderson began to read the reports he was transmitting from his interactive device.

    "We''ve had her like this since early morning," Lefreve said quietly to Mai, trying to calm her down as he sipped his coffee. He was close to Mai and was reading the passenger reports on his Neurowire.

    All of those seemed normal with the exception of two identities that had jumped out even in the 2012 investigations. "I honestly didn''t remember this," Mai said.

    "The what?"

    "There was an important scientist on board. One of the ones who postulated the idea of the Neurowire almost a century before it was built..." Mai pointed a finger at him. He was an old man with an ugly scar on his cheek.

    "Wow, I didn''t know that. Was he someone important back then?"

    "Not at all. He was a scientist sponsored by the Empire''s Department of Defense. Several years later it was remembered that he was one of the first to foresee the idea of implementing a quantum computer assist in the brain."

    "Too bad he''s dead," Lefreve said, taking another sip of coffee.

    "The body is still not on the list, and neither is who was with him."

    "Who was with him?"

    "Apparently he had come up under a false identity, but he also belonged to the RIA."

    Lefreve frowned and paid more attention. "The RIA? What does the royal intelligence service have to do with it?"

    "Apparently they both came from Diego Garcia and took the plane in.... Maldives."

    Lefreve looked genuinely puzzled. "Diego Garcia went back into native hands after the Great War," he said, and began to wave his hands. The movement indicated to Mai that he was checking something on his Neurowire. After a few seconds he stopped and spent several seconds reading something until with a new movement he sent something to Mai.

    "What is this?" Mai asked. What he had sent her was the cargo manifest for the plane. "Bananas?"

    There was a cargo weighing almost a ton that had been loaded on the flight. According to the manifest it was a cargo of fresh fruit. In particular bananas.

    "Mini bananas from the Maldives," nodded Lefreve.

    "What''s so strange about that?"

    "Well it''s old spy stories I read. I think on more than one occasion the intelligence branch at Diego Garcia has been blamed for using the banana excuse to move goods on commercial flights. Doesn''t the RIA have strong connections with the Council?"

    They both looked at each other and, out of the corner of their eyes, glanced at Anderson who was still watching the camera transmissions. Now focused on watching Ryuuji and Natsuki who were standing on the ground, scanning something on the grass.

    "Do you think it''s possible that there was something on board and they want it back now?"

    "I don''t know, maybe," Mai said cocking her head to the side.

    She didn''t want to give an affirmative answer. She had no reason to distrust Lefreve and he seemed to her to be a man dedicated to his work. But neither was it to be dismissed that the Council was getting its hands on army personnel from other countries. Such was the espionage game, even if the Council was supposed to be moderating Nevermore''s activities. There were sectors in the Council itself that hindered each other, and the same was true of internal espionage.

    Lefreve drummed his fingers on the table thoughtfully. "During the Great War... the RIA was in joint operations with the Liberation Army."

    "Yes I know." Mai nodded, remembering all too well, though she had been in the Russian theater of operations.

    Lefreve was thinking about something and had again started to look for something in his Neurowire. It didn''t take long. "Miss Izumi, do you know the story that happened here where we are?"

    "No. What do you mean?"

    "During the Great War there was a cleanup operation right here in this lake that resulted in failure. It was when the first prototype weapons were still being used."

    "It happened right here?"

    "Yes. Since then rumors began to circulate that the lake was cursed, but it was no more hearsay... until today."

    "What does it have to do with the plane?"

    "The RIA was very interested in the operation in this part of the lake. I don''t know what they were looking for, but whatever they were looking for, they didn''t find it."

    "What does the story say?"

    "That they were looking to seize a type of fractus. The details are not known and in fact in the official records the story never appeared, but it is known to the locals and to those who like history."

    "I didn''t know that. I mean I heard there were rumors that the place was haunted since the Great War, but the same goes for hundreds of places."

    "Exactly." Lefreve nodded.

    "Is it known who was involved in the operation?"

    "History says they all died with the exception of the second in command." Lefreve flicked his index finger for a few seconds and then sent the file to Mai.

    What he had sent was an excerpt from a neuroblog of stories from the Great War. It showed the face of a man who could not be seen very well, but it effectively told the story of a tactical mop-up team and the supposed identities of those who had participated.

    Lefreve did not get to see it. Mai''s pupils focused for a thousandth of a second, but she relaxed her face instantly thereafter. "Interesting story," she nodded.

    "Do you think it could be related?"

    The clues were finely spun, and it was a house of cards that could easily be blown up. Was Lefreve''s point that the missing plane might have had something to do with what the cleanup team would later look for during the Great War?

    On the other hand, that excerpt was hammering her brain. Was this some kind of joke or a big coincidence? Whatever it was, she had to answer.

    "There could be some connection, but it is advisable not to speculate at this point until we have more data on the passengers, and in particular to know that they were not carrying anything dangerous."

    Lefreve sighed, pushing away the tension. "Yes, I''m sorry, Miss Izumi. It''s just that I''ve never seen an accident that had so many oddities. I guess you''re used to it."

    "Do not think so. Dark Events can always find a way to surprise us," she said sincerely and went back to concentrating on reviewing the information. She had been poring over the passenger data, the plane''s cargo, and the history of the cargo. As she scrutinized the reports, her expression became increasingly serious.

    Her pulse quickened and her mind filled with troubling questions. How could this be possible? Without wasting a second she decided to get out of the tent, with the excuse of going to the bathroom and rushed to the hangar, where Shin and Lizbeth were investigating the bodies of the crashed plane.

    When she arrived at the hangar, she tried to look as natural as possible even though she broke Shin and Lizbeth''s concentration, who turned around in surprise.

    "Guys!" exclaimed Mai trying to catch her breath "did you discover something new?" She scratched her head and her index finger made a slight movement that Shin and Lizbeth understood. Lizbeth disconnected the main channel of the Neurowire and Shin made a quick movement over his interactive book, while with the other hand he pressed one of the buttons on the device in his ear. Mai approached Lizbeth and looked at both of them as she put her hands in her overalls pockets. Shin, on the other side of the acrylic, just looked at the huge buns on her head. It wasn''t the time to say it but he liked the style.

    In the main tent Anderson saw Mai through the screens, and quickly zoomed the image. For her it must have been just a break that Mai had taken. On the other hand she had no access to audio from the surveillance in that sector unless a user agreed to record the audio, as Shin was doing with his reports. From the body language of the two girls she guessed that they must be talking about something private and that she should not be part of the case. Although she was wrong about the latter, as she read Mai''s lips it seemed that she was simply asking about what they were discovering.

    While they were talking about how the investigation was going, Mai started to talk through a secure Neurowire channel. Shin would have no way to respond, but at least he would understand since he had been involved. Still it was confusing for him, the important talk was taking place on the Neurowire, while he had to pretend to be interested in what Mai was saying through her lips.

    [What''s going on?] Lizbeth asked.

    [I just discovered something very weird about all this,] Mai said and looked at Shin. [Do you remember that sculptor who designed the figurine for the cult in Kolsay?]

    Shin tried to smile and nodded, pretending to respond to the other small talk they were having.

    [Guess what? I just found out that his father was during an operation during the Great War right here.]

    Shin looked at her for a second not quite knowing what to say.

    Lizbeth frowned as she tried to explain the subject of the latest identities discovered. [You mean the operation you guys did a few days ago?]

    [Yes, the same one. What could be the possibility that it''s a coincidence?]

    [Are you sure it''s the same guy?]

    [Yes, it''s the same one. Franco Bicini, Elif Bicini''s father.]

    That couldn''t be a coincidence at all. What could be the possibility that only a few days before they were investigating someone related to him, but with no apparent relation to the case they were on?

 Vol.4/Chapter 29: Crash site-Part three

    Chapter Twenty-Nine

    Crash site- Part three

    10:45 AM

    Trying to find a safe way to communicate with the other team members without that Council woman tracking them down had proven to be quite difficult.

    Fortunately they had other ways to communicate, even though Shin was the only one who couldn''t get a word in edgewise. Shin, in and of himself, had already proven that, outside of cases where he needed to interact with the other members, he was rather quiet. So while he was talking to the team, he couldn''t say a word about the matter that really concerned him.

    With the excuse of a meeting to share the data in a more direct way, the team, composed of Lizbeth, Mai, Shin, Oxy. Ryuuji and Natsuki, had gathered in the tent they had set up exclusively for Nevermore. Although they had countermeasures for espionage, they could not be sure that there were any drones aimed exclusively at them with the intention of hearing what they were saying. So they continued with the two-way communication, while they were gathered before a table with a hologram of the whole area.

    [Well?] Oxy asked. [What happened?]

    [Oxy,] Mai began. [I''m sorry about this, but we wanted to ask you something. What exactly happened during the Tokyo explosion?]

    [Huh? That''s in the official records. What about it?]

    [We think it can''t be a coincidence that the Council called you of all people.]

    [You are one of the few survivors of what happened in 2098. And, as far as we know, it''s the only time where they''ve really made any headway in time travel research,] Lizbeth pointed out, while marking dots on the hologram of the recent victims that had been brought to the hangar.

    [We don''t want to intrude on personal matters, but we wanted to ask you if there is any information that relates to this,] Natsuki said.

    Before meeting in the tent, Mai had filled Ryuuji and Natsuki in on some details while they waited for Oxy who was busier. Oxy, for her part, knew it was a little strange and she could understand it. It wasn''t the first time a spacetime distortion had occurred. It had happened before, but the Council had never ordered her to move to the site to investigate when she could simply offer support from the island.

    Oxy let out a breath, but began her story. [There''s not much of a mystery honestly. Everything that happened in Tokyo was an experiment that went wrong due to a malfunction of the cooling systems on Minato''s side and caused a chain disaster. The sealing systems failed to activate.]

    [The core that caused the disaster was the one that was discovered in the Kuriles, wasn''t it?] Ryuuji asked.

    [Yeah], nodded Oxy.

    [That''s what I wanted to know. Are you sure there were no more of those cores?] Mai asked.

    [No, at least as far as I know, there were only two of that type. The one that was destroyed during the experiment in Tokyo. And the other one was the fractus that self-destructed in Russia.]

    [That''s what I was wondering. According to reports from the Russian branch, those fragments were stolen last year].

    [But they were useless. When the core is destroyed, no more use.]

    [How was the core discovered? The one on the island?] asked Ryuuji. [That''s not in the records, only that it was found and nothing else.]

    [That was by a Japanese fleet surveillance system in the area.]

    [But you weren''t involved?]

    [No. That was exclusively Gehirn''s.] At that Shin turned to look at her quizzically. [Gehirn was at that time offering support to various countries in the development of experimental weapons.]

    [How was he involved with the core?] Natsuki asked.

    Oxy frowned, as if she was remembering something she had forgotten. [That was strange, actually. Gehirn couldn''t remember because he lost parts of his memories when he was attacked in 2018, but when he heard about the core that changed].

    [What happened?]

    [Well. ZAIEN was receiving special cores that were being collected and it turned out that when that one was found there was quite a stir, because anyone who touched it said that they experienced memories from the past or sometimes from the future.]

    [Hence the assumption that it might have some connection to time?] Ryuuji pointed out.

    [Yeah. When Gehirn heard about it, he became interested just in case it might have some effect on some of the memories he had lost. But nothing happened.]

    [What happened next?] Lizbeth asked. Although she and Mai knew the story, it must have been new to Shin. On the other hand, they had never tried to press Oxy too hard about the story because of the emotional baggage, and because they knew that the Council had coerced Oxy not to talk about it too much. Many of the details of that disaster were hidden and not public even more than a hundred years after the event.

    [That''s when the madness began. We already knew that through particle accelerators we could study the nuclei, after discovering that we could destabilize the electrons in the fractus, so it was proposed to study that single core in the same way through the linear electron accelerator. But, prior to that, when Gehirn got his hands on the core, he changed a lot. He swore and swore that he had seen that core before.]

    [Wait. How''s that?] Ryuuji asked. It was the first time he had heard that, as well as Shin and Natsuki.

    [Yes. This is not well known but, it turns out that in the twentieth century of the ancient era there was a scientist who had hypothesized regarding life forms from a higher dimension, something very similar to fractus.]

    [Who?] Natsuki asked.

    [He''s not well known either. His name was Satou Nobuyama. Gehirn swore he had something to do with that name even though he couldn''t remember why. From what he investigated it must have had to do with some project that was off the books and none of those involved were alive anymore.]

    [I think I remember some of that. That''s when it got a little strange, because it has a connection to our island,] Mai pointed out.

    Lizbeth was surprised at that. [Damn! I forgot about that!]

    Ryuuji didn''t understand that. [What does it have to do with the island?]

    [Pulling a bit of archives, and from trips he had made to Japan during the twentieth century, Gehirn discovered that for some years he had had contact with a clan in Japan that had ties to Satou Nobuyama,] Oxy continued to explain.

    [Oh! Are we talking about the same clan?] Natsuki asked in surprise. She only knew of one clan that was linked to the island''s history. That was only by association, but it was part of the story of how Siren Island had been discovered.

    [Yep, the Yanagida clan.] Mai affirmed.

    [Anyway. There was no way to trace the clue because the clan had been disbanded in the 70s of the twenty-first century, and the only surviving branch was the Himeji. It turned out that few papers had survived from the clan. And some of the few were just Satou Nobuyama. It turned out that, although he was an almost unknown scientist, there were others who had known parts of his ideas and that helped us to follow the trail. It turned out that the papers that had survived had just a hypothesis of what he called the Jikanium. A particle that is basically a time crystal. Way ahead of its time.]

    [So this Satou Nobuyama is from the twentieth century?] Ryuuji asked.

    [Yes, but the complete research doesn''t exist. A lot of it was wiped out.]

    It was getting confusing for Shin. It wasn''t easy to keep track of the conversation coming out of everyone''s mouths, as he mentally had to pay attention to all the information he was processing through his device.

    Shin simply took a deep breath and continued to explain a crazy theory that involved hydrating the brain of one of the victims to see if he could revive some of the vision receptor centers. He was doing his best to sort through all the data that was new to him. He had no idea how he fit into it all, but he couldn''t ask either.

    Wait a minute, Shin thought. Yanagida clan? Himeji? He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up at that. He knew that the Himeji were now part of Nevermore''s history in Japan, since one of them was the director of the branch operations in New Tokyo. But the surname Himeji and Yanagida said something else to him. He glanced sideways at Mai, but she was looking at Oxy who was continuing her explanation.

    [After that, he set out to conduct the experiment with an artificial intelligence]. At that point everyone could detect as if Oxy''s inner voice had a much more muffled and sad tone. [An artificial intelligence from ZAIEN was used to carry out the experiment.]

    [An Aeon?]

    Oxy shook her head. [No, it was an autonomous type.]

    [What was it?] asked Natsuki, not knowing exactly what Oxy''s sudden change of internal tone was about.

    [The basic idea was that, if someone touching the core could perceive fragments of the past or future, using an artificial consciousness should give better results without resorting to a living being. This was that the beam of energy from the accelerator would separate the particles from the core of the nucleus, the hypothetical particles, and hence these would impact against the artificial consciousness. The first experiments with other nuclei had worked, so we had no reason to think that it would be any different with this one].

    [I don''t quite understand,] admitted Lizbeth.

    [The nucleus seemed to affect the individual''s temporal comprehension.]

    [It wasn''t time travel at all then?] asked Natsuki.

    [Yes, but it was only the consciousness that could afford such travel. There was nothing physical that was being transported. The idea was to obtain data on the enemy''s future movements. The type four fractus that attacked us in the war had a type of gland that prevented them from moving in time in our three dimensions, not to mention that their intelligence was not as developed as ours. Otherwise they would have wiped us off the planet very easily. So it would have been much easier for them to attack us if they could have done it from their dimension. If the Fractus could have had a level of technological and intellectual development like ours, but in their dimension, the war would not have lasted a day. They could have attacked from their dimension without the need to deploy in a lower level dimension like ours.]

    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    Type 4? Shin thought. What does that mean? He didn''t remember reading about it in the historical reports.

    Mai gasped at that and the earring in her ear twitched.

    Type 4. Fractus had a fairly broad classification but, as far as Shin could tell, Fractus were of a higher spatial dimension than the three dimensions of the known world. Type 4 could only mean one thing. He looked at Mai and she detected his sidelong glance.

    It couldn''t be possible. I never asked her because I trusted what I had read. But is there another type of fractus that is not in the official classification? Shin recalled what happened a few days earlier in Kolsay. That alien life form had used something that could well be some kind of technology to bend space time locally and then disappear into space. How many secrets could there be behind Mai''s decision to hide the fact that they had had contact with something beyond known space?

    Whatever it was, he would have to wait to reveal his doubts about it because the internal chatter of the team did not stop and Oxy had continued to reveal details of her story.

    [But this type''s fractus core seemed to be different. Three experiments were carried out, the first one was a failure, the second one gave results and the third one was the one in which everything went wrong. Not only was the core lost, but almost all of Tokyo was destroyed, thousands of lives lost. Even... whoever was the test subject of the experiments]. Oxy''s tone was really bitter at that point. [After that Gehirn''s predictive algorithm experiments gave the results that changed the last year of the war.]

    [But it was never discovered how the core had appeared,] Mai pointed out.

    [Exactly. The core was discovered by a massive amount of energy and an electromagnetic pulse that was detected by the nearby fleet.]

    [Wait. So who defeated it? Wasn''t it some special equipment or something?]

    [No. If anyone actually defeated that fractus it never showed up. In fact we couldn''t even find out what the fractus looked like. The only thing we could know was that the same amount of energy occurred during the other one that was destroyed in Russia and, by association, it was concluded that they must be the same type even though the one in Russia split into fragments.]

    [But that happened at the same time as Tokyo, didn''t it?]

    [Yes. Fragments that were stolen last year...] Ryuuji said. [Were they sure that Russia''s core was really inactive?]

    [At least all the conclusions that were made said so. Nothing was ever detected. Didn''t Natalya and Veria''s division label the event as a case of smuggling antiquities from the Great War?]

    [Yes,] Mai admitted. [Though you can''t deny it''s a hell of a coincidence.]

    [Why do you say that?]

    [We discovered something new. It turns out that there was an operation right here to capture a fractus core.]

    [What?]

    [It was on May 12, in 2099.]

    Oxy''s eyes widened.

    [It''s just a theory,] said Mai, [ but we have a plane that came from another time. You, who were one of the survivors of that disaster, and on the other hand the examinations Shin has been doing reveal that many of the victims have crystallized nervous systems with traces of fractium. The fractus of the Great War only made the bodies disappear upon biological contact, among other effects, this is something different. The fractium would not have to have been around at the time the plane disappeared unless there were already fractus at that time, or unless something happened on board that we have no idea about.]

    Oxy put a hand to her chin thoughtfully. [Tokyo''s core was destroyed and, at the same time, the fractus near Baikit, in Krasnoyark, self-destructed and its core fractured. What else do you have? I can tell by the look on your face that you''re holding something back.]

    Mai recounted the details she had discovered, which were related to the case that just a few days ago she and Shin had been solving, not to mention the suspicions that the RIA and the Council might be looking for more than just solving the case, but being involved.

    [Wait! I barely remembered that. This is the plane where that scientist Leteo Waters was traveling?]

    [Yeah.]

    Oxy was thinking something. [That scientist worked for the USK Defense Department and the RIA. But he had done academic work and even published several books under different pseudonyms. I almost didn''t remember him.]

    [What''s so strange about that?]

    [In the papers that Gehirn retrieved I remember something else. I think it was a solar cycle, he couldn''t remember it well, but the name had to do with Hindu mythology. It was related to the so-called Jikanium and the tokion particles. I had almost forgotten that I had read about it before]. Her mouth had dropped open. That conversation was already confusing enough to think and say two different things.

    Lizbeth folded her arms. [Wasn''t it too important to forget something like that?]

    [Not really, even though it could have been predicted that the fractus might have existed before, it wasn''t as if it was a prediction of what was to come. Imagine watching an alien invasion movie and writing that aliens will arrive in a few years, even though you don''t have a shred of evidence that such a thing will happen. How many would take it seriously? The same thing happened at that time, even if someone had predicted that the fractus would invade our dimension, how many would have taken it for true? I mean, how many soothsayers and people at that time claimed to have predicted the arrival? There were even religious movements, saying that the fractus were the saviors.]

    [You''re right about that,] Mai affirmed.

    [On top of that, we didn''t have the complete papers, just pieces of a personal diary whose entries were more like a compendium of philosophy than physics per se.] Oxy paused and seemed to be thinking about something.

    [What''s going on?]

    [I think what happened in Rome did have something to do with what happened here after all. It''s a slim possibility but it could be something we ignore].

    [Why do you say that?]

    [The Vatican robbery was on Monday morning. The criminals were caught later that same Monday. The attack on Pyrene occurred in the early hours of Tuesday morning, right? The plane appeared yesterday around seven o''clock yesterday evening. On board the plane was a scientist whose ideas would later be put to the test with the Neurowire. But that''s not what worries me. It turns out that among the few scientists who cited Nobuyama''s name in their writings, there was one who wrote just about his research and in particular one about tokions. I think it was DeMautus or something like that¡­]

    [What''s so weird about that?] interjected Ryuuji, while looking at her trying to remember.

    [It''s just that I remember he had a book where he wrote with another scientist and the topic was just the time. What strikes me is that Leteo Waters also wrote about time in another essay. DeMautus and he wrote his with another one, whose initials were L.W., practically the subject was very similar].

    [So Leteo is the one who wrote with DeMautus?]

    [Yes. I see it possible. The book appeared several years before the airplane thing happened. And in fact there is a legend regarding this DeMautus that he was related to a strange project planned by the Vatican.]

    [So this Leteo was related to the topics of time?]

    [The psychological arrow of time.] Oxy nodded. [One of the great enigmas of the existence of time travel is how memory would act. Our brains would not be prepared for something like that. In fact many postulate that if time travel were possible it would be much more possible for the mind of some fey or an aeon.]

    [So, basically you''re telling me that already in those years they had predicted that a fractus whose core was related to time would appear?] Natsuki asked.

    [It wouldn''t be strange. Maybe fractus have been on the planet before, that theory has always been in the forefront. In fact many think that fractus could simply be species that evolved on the planet before us and simply changed dimension. Traces of other civilizations have been and continue to be found all over the planet. Humans and feys are not nearly the first.]

    [What''s that got to do with this?]

    [In the twentieth century many theories emerged, but much of the science that emerged from those theories at that time we use today on a daily basis. The ideas of multiple dimensions, space unfolding are here on a daily basis. Specifically in this case I remember in the book they talked about the tokions as if they had some connection with the sun.]

    [The sun?]

    [Yes, I mean it''s theoretically possible, but those particles have never been found by detectors... not even by solar probes. Savitron! I remembered! That was the name!]

    Savitron? Shin thought. Any relation to Savitur of Hinduism? A solar deity.

    [What was that?] asked Natsuki.

    [I have no idea honestly, we''ve never encountered anything like that. If they really had any relation to the sun we never found it and Gehirn couldn''t remember what it was either. You can''t predict the behavior of a system if it''s not a system at all. At this point, if there are some particles that we don''t know about, it has to be that we''re not looking where we should be, or they just have behavior that doesn''t show up in the measurements made by the systems that monitor solar and pole activity.]

    [There was no anomalous solar activity at that time? I mean when Tokyo happened]. Mai asked.

    Oxy thought about it. [Yes, there was unusual activity... I''ll try to look at the historical records. I hope that woman won''t disturb.]

    Ryuuji looked at everyone. [What do we do with all this? We have quite a few theories but nothing solid yet.]

    [Hmm,] nodded Mai. [We''re speculating too much and trying to tie up the clues, but we won''t be sure until we can know more. Basically we have: A scientist whose theories predicted the Neurowire and who talked about the time in his essays. The scientist disappeared in 2012 in the plane we have now. We have victims who have anomalies in their bodies and the presence of fractium. And an operation that failed at the time of the war and gave rise to the legends that go around this place.]

    They all looked at each other and sighed.

    "Well, I guess that''s it," spoke Mai and with a wave of her hand she moved the hologram. That was the internal signal she had set to end the briefing. Everyone had grown tired trying to keep the thread of the two conversations going.

    "I think for the moment we should wait to see if we can get any more data out of the plane before speculating further," Natsuki sighed, relieved that the double talk was over.

    "Yeah, I''ve got tons of parts to check still," nodded Oxy.

    "For the moment I think we''re doing a good job considering we only arrived a few hours ago. Continue with your work and pay attention to every part. I will also send the data to Philip and Zi, so they are aware."

    They all looked at Shin. What am I supposed to say? I''m lost too. You guys seem to be doing a good job. "I have nothing to add at the moment."

    "That''s all then," sighed Lizbeth.

    "Well let''s get back then. Good job everyone," said Mai.

    At that moment, two familiar faces appeared at the entrance to the tent. The first was a fey girl who would stand out anywhere. Short tousled white hair with a military beret on her head, a dark blue tactical uniform with the GSN patch on her left arm and a Shrapnel cannon she held in her hands. But what stood out the most were her two rabbit ears.

    Accompanying her was a taller, shaven-headed man with a somewhat hard face and a rather stocky build. He also carried a Shrapnel Cannon and a GSN patch. Their identities could be read on their uniforms. The girl''s name was Jade and the man was Thomas Granger.

    "What are you doing here," Thomas Granger asked, while the girl next to him simply raised her hand with a friendly smile, but whose smile hid some nervousness as well.

    Shin looked at them both and clicked his tongue. Shit, what are these guys doing here?

 Vol.4/Chapter 30: Jinnee

    Chapter Thirty

    Jinnee

    Wednesday. March 21. 11AM. 125 S.A

    Lac Noir. Saint-Paul-en-Chablais, France.

    Rum walked down the ramp of the ship followed by Stan and they both looked at the landscape while stretching their bodies a bit. She felt a little confused and dizzy, although she had been able to rest on the ship for hours.

    On the way down they had become a little disoriented by their surroundings. They were on the shores of a small lake of peaceful waters, surrounded by a dense forest, whose trees let in the light of a weak sun that peeked through the clouds from time to time.

    Both were wearing the camouflaged clothing of the French land army. The clothing had been provided to them by EVE, but they could configure it later in case they didn''t need it or to avoid attracting attention once they finished their new missions.

    They had spent the last few hours on the ship with EVE and her drones. They had taken about twelve hours of rest, because both not only were still under the effects of the anesthetics they had been given to perform the Deep-Dive but also something else.

    After the adrenaline from the escape wore off, they both felt really tired and had headaches. During that time EVE had simply kept her ship camouflaged in the clouds. In Stan''s case he had to admit that he hardly detected that he was in the air at all, and thanks to that he had been able to rest.

    But, beyond that, what Rum in her case was feeling now was something different. "What a treat," she murmured, somewhat grumpily.

    "It''ll be over in a couple of hours," EVE said, walking up behind the two of them.

    The gift. That bastard Janus had done something they both hadn''t expected. During their first encounter on the ferry he had done something they hadn''t detected. When he had disarmed them and then, when he had returned the weapons and the fractium core cube, he had introduced in both of them something else that neither of them knew anything about.

    An upgrade to the Neurowire of both of them. EVE had explained it to them when, suddenly a few minutes after they escaped from Pyrene''s base, both of their noses started to bleed and they were assaulted by sudden headaches that barely allowed them to stand up.

    EVE advised them both to rest, and let the nanoparticle system do its job on its own. They had simply escaped from the anesthesia, so that EVE would give them a drug to help them fall asleep quickly.

    Janus'' gift was indeed an enhancement to both Neurowires, but also an insurance he had put in place in case, as it happened, something went wrong and they were both captured. The function of that was that a memory lock would be activated, in case someone decided to access the short-term memories externally. Which had happened during the Deep-Dive. That had basically prevented Pyrene from finding out what had happened after they finished their mission in Edinburgh and the encounter with Janus.

    Nanoparticles, which were absorbed by breathing, was one of the most common ways of implanting the Neurowire into a person. That system of entry into the brain was based on the mechanism of the Naegleria Fowleri amoeba, a bacterium that had once been fatal once it reached the brain.

    Once it reached the brain the nanoparticles would lodge in an incredibly small space and, over short time, create a new nervous system of their own that would generate the Neurowire. Why the procedure had to be done at an early age was due to the neuroplasticity of the young brain. Once a certain age was reached the procedure could be dangerous in case of generating cognitive dissonance and dissociative personality disorder. And a phenomenon that even up to that day generated strong debates in science and philosophy.

    In the case of upgrades, it was something extremely rare to be done in recent times. Since the latest generation did not require internal upgrades, as had been the first generation available to society. In fact, the system could count on an up to five hundred years of operability insurance, always assuming that in the future there would already be an upgrade of the system.

    It was the improvements that were installed in those early days that generated the debate as to what age it was best to get Neurowire in the brain, and why improvements should not be made.

    Rum was too busy trying to get used to it, but she knew that what she was experiencing was one of the most frightening paradoxes as far as Neurowire was concerned. The so-called Three Body Problem, or as others also called it The Fourth Voice.

    From her point of view it was as if there were three people in her head at the time. Her left side of the brain was thinking something that was very different from what the right side was thinking. It was as if there were two consciousnesses, where before there had been only one. And, somewhere far away in her mind, she was feeling as if something was slowly devouring both of them at the same time and putting everything in order.

    That was the Three Body Problem of neuroscience and philosophy. Where only one consciousness had existed in perfect harmony with the brain, with the Neurowire growing, suddenly it seemed as if the two hemispheres of the brain had decided to disagree, and as if sometimes they did not recognize the other half of the body as one. This was because the Neurowire growth system started in the corpus callosum of the brain. This meant that, for a short period of time, it felt as if the consciousness and personality had split. After a few hours everything would return to normal. This occurred when the nanoparticle system was installed in the brain and began to grow, and the same thing happened with the enhancements.

    The real problem was an unknown that had been around for a long time and had generated quite a few headaches. Was the consciousness that put everything in order at the end the same consciousness that was there at the beginning? Or was it a new individual formed from the growth of Neurowire filaments in the corpus callosum? Until then, not even neuroscience, fractium technology, nor other branches of medicine had been able to answer that. Although there were other postulates that were much more disheartening that said that consciousness simply did not exist as such at all. Or, if it did exist, it was a transient phenomenon and that in fact the brain spent more of its life unconsciously than consciously. The zombie hypothesis.

    Such was the debate. The non-locality of Dark Events, fractus and that space and time were not fundamental properties in the realm of physics had even further confused the subject of neuroscience, even more than in the past.

    Whatever it was, it didn''t matter to Rum. Whether it was the old Rum, or a new one that had just been born from the depths of her mind, she still had her memories and that was all that mattered. That hadn''t changed the depths of her feeling as a human, that was enough for her.

    For his part, Stan was calmer and, for some reason, he did not feel the same sensation as his companion. The truth was that, since the day that shapeshifter thing had merged with his body, many other things had changed, but he certainly didn''t usually feel sick or anything like that, unless it involved an air or sea vehicle. The time he had worked as a janitor on a ship had been more than enough for him.

    Stan finally came down and was grateful to finally be on the ground.

    They could both see that the place was not exactly devoid of civilization, the trees prevented them seeing from the air the structures of another time. There were some nearby ruins of what appeared to have been some ancient buildings. Probably destroyed during the time of the war, if the war had reached there. Somewhat far away, among the trees, there seemed to be another small lake nearby. Both were not of great size and in fact could be called more lagoons than lakes.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    "So, how far do we have from here?" Stan finally asked EVE.

    She indicated a point to the northeast. "About five kilometers if it were a straight line, but I don''t recommend it. Make a detour once it starts to get dark, or better at night and get as close as you can to both targets."

    "It''s not going to be easy for us to take them both out."

    "Just try not to screw up again. A vehicle will be ready to take you out with a safe route."

    Rum furrowed her brow at hear that. "Is there anyone inside who knows about us?"

    "No. Someone will simply leave you the route so you can get past the perimeter ring fence. From there you guys have to go on your own to the final location."

    Stan just stared at EVE, as he sighed.

    Janus, the enigmatic leader of the whole gang, was temporarily out of their reach because he was attending to other matters. On that occasion EVE, their mysterious ally for forced reasons, had been in charge of providing them with the following instructions for their final mission.

    The new objective was crystal clear, but its simplicity contrasted with the complexity of the task. They were to abduct two people from the base camp during the night and transport them to their final destination, an abandoned nuclear study center in Geneva.

    What worried them both, though, was about that military fence. Apparently, from what EVE had told them, the military and Nevermore personnel were on site in a joint operation investigating a Dark Event. That didn''t please them at all because they would be in the lion''s den again. But Stan had his shapeshifting ability in optimal condition to be used again, and their Neurowire enhancements would allow them to go almost unnoticed by the military in the area. Or at least that was what EVE assured Rum, and she had been in the last few minutes accessing the new subroutines and menus she now had.

    She would have to use her old hologram to blend in, but she wondered if even that would be necessary. As far as she could see there were special programs that could interfere with the information received from the environment by other Neurowires nearby which was basically, by means of electrical signals, overwriting the input information received by the visual and auditory cortex. This was illegal in the marketplace, but it was part of the programs that certain agencies and militaries could afford for intelligence work.

    "Here is half of the payment and the final order data. The other half will be delivered to you on site once you deliver the two targets." EVE, her face serious, handed over an incomplete digital key that she sent straight to Rum''s Neurowire. "The deadline is important, you must be in Geneva before morning." EVE''s words echoed in the uncertainty-laden air. "You can''t afford mistakes this time," she stressed in a grave tone, emphasizing the importance of her errand.

    "You could at least come and get us, that way everything would be quicker," Rum said.

    "The situation is extremely delicate, and the success of this mission is crucial for all of us. Also, I want you to understand that my involvement in all of this is at stake as well. The machine you stole is part of a larger plan in which I am also involved."

    "What do you mean?," Stan asked.

    "I have to do my part with that thing," EVE said, turning around and pointing to the tactical droid inside the ship, which had merged with that mysterious box. "But it''s somewhere other than where you''ll be. That''s why I can''t help you."

    "I guess you''re not going to tell us what''s in it after all?" Stan asked.

    "Believe me, I''ll believe it myself when I see it. And no. I can''t tell you either way."

    Stan sighed again. "I guess that''s it then? There''s nothing else?"

    "No, just don''t screw up again. And remember, the one who has to give you the other half of the payment is Mr. Griffin. Good luck."

    EVE slowly turned around and simply started walking back to the ship. Stan paused for a few moments looking at the figure of the fey girl. That symbiont suit was really tight and, if it weren''t for the color, it would really look like she was naked.

    What a nice ass. Stan thought as Rum punched him in the back of the head. "Why did you do that?"

    "I need your eyes here, not glued to those buttocks," Rum said grumpily. But she had to admit, that outfit was too flashy to avert her eyes. She herself had to admit that the woman was too perfect, she hardly looked human, not even fey, or anything like that. And the way she saw Stan, she knew he felt something similar.

    She almost reminded them both of those gynoids that were too perfect. But no, there was something else about that girl that made them feel attraction, but at the same time fear. It wasn''t because of what they had seen in the attack, after all they hadn''t seen EVE''s confrontation but, without a doubt, there was something that seemed out of place and contradictory about her. Attraction and rejection. Excitement and fear.

    EVE was finally lost inside the ship and the hatch closed. The ship made one last turn over the calm waters of the lake, almost as a farewell signal, and sailed silently away, activating its cloak again and blurring into the morning sky, leaving Stan and Rum with the feeling that they had wandered into something that was much more difficult than it appeared. The implications of their actions began to weigh on their minds. They felt like pieces in a larger game, whose rules and objectives remained shrouded in a veil of uncertainty.

    Questions were piling up in their minds, threatening to overwhelm them, more so since they were still with the effects of the Neurowire enhancement. Were they acting on behalf of something much larger and were they mere pawns in a twisted plot? Who were the real orchestrators behind these seemingly meaningless missions? Was Janus alone? And, most importantly, could they fully trust the people who were leading them?

    The whole honor among thieves thing was old hat and meaningless to them, but that their employer had been so busy attacking a station to rescue that piece, and them in the process, was too much. He could have employed others in his mission, leaving them behind to their fate. After all, underworld work was a constantly moving market and casualties were a normal occurrence. But Janus seemed keen that they should both be the ones to complete that mission. He had kept his word as he had said.

    This was not an existential or moral dilemma for them, they were simply suspicious of what the ultimate motivations might be. Their lives had been irrevocably entangled in a web of secrets, conspiracies and hidden motivations for a long time, but these last few days had been different. Every action they took seemed to push them further away from the truth, plunging them further into the enigma of the fractured parts that made up a fucked up kaleidoscopic pseudoreality.

    They both looked at each other. The hours would advance slowly, but at least they would have enough hours while Rum finished getting used to the improvements to her system. That would give them time to put their thoughts in order.

    Rum sat down on a pillar in the nearby ruins and stretched out her feet. The new military boots were really comfortable for her. But what worried her was something else.

    "I was looking at some of the history of the place¡­"

    "Which place?"

    "The abandoned nuclear study center, where we have to go. Apparently it''s been privately owned for a few years now. But I couldn''t find the owner no matter how hard I looked. But I did find associations to certain companies that have weapons contracts here and out there," she said pointing with her chin to the sky, in the direction of where the ship had been lost.

    Stan thought about it. "Could this Janus guy be the owner then?"

    "That would make sense. These upgrades only exist in certain cases and they''re military grade. Add the fact of those droids and the ship are military grade. It''s highly likely that this guy is involved in defense projects and has to go to outside sources to get certain things done."

    Stan nodded at that and in his mind he replayed the information EVE had sent him. He looked at the face of the target they had failed to obtain in Rome. It was a scientist named Lee Reubens. The other target was someone from the Nevermore organization. They had no idea who it might be but it had to be someone important if belonged to the ravens.

    However, there was one thing that bothered him in that information and that was regarding the scientist.

    It was simply a word in brackets and it was next to the last name. Stan read it and then looked at Rum.

    "What the hell is a jinnee?"

 Vol.4/Chapter 31: 1977-Leteo

    Chapter thirty-one

    1977-Leteo

    May 1, 1977. 3AM. Ancient Era.

    Somewhere in the Mojave Desert.

    It had gotten more complicated than it should have.

    Scott, frowning, looked at Jack with a mixture of anger and confusion. Jack, for his part, simply looked confused and self-absorbed. The sound of the OH-58 Kiowa, in which they were traveling, did not seem to bring them out of their thoughts at that moment.

    [Three minutes!] The voice of the helicopter pilot, belonging to the base near the Providence Mountains, was heard through the headphones.

    Come on, come on! Scott thought.

    They were aboard one of the two helicopters that was taking them to the base. More specifically to the base hospital. They were accompanied by two soldiers beside them, who were going in complete silence. But that silence was not the circumspect silence that they should have for their service in the army. That silence was one that looked at Jack and Scott almost with suspicion. The suspicion was because of what they had seen when they arrived at the hangar that served as a laboratory, for the scientists who were working on a certain joint project of the Department of Defense and the Royal Intelligence Agency.

    What they had seen was in the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter of the base''s ambulance service at the time, which was ahead of them. The soldiers had no idea what they were working on in that hangar, but it had left them speechless.

    The two helicopters landed on the helipad of the military hospital and there were already doctors and nurses from the base waiting for them.

    When the door of the ambulance helicopter opened, they quickly moved the patient they were transporting to a stretcher and the doctors looked at the patient with wild eyes, who was screaming guttural screams of pain, panic and horror.

    "Let''s go! Let''s not waste time, hurry up!" one of the doctors urged the two nurses, who were also looking at what seemed to be a human on the stretcher. But they obeyed and the group began to move the stretcher into the hospital.

    Jack and Scott hurried out of the helicopter they were riding in and followed them. Scott was dismayed. From his vantage point he could see the man on the gurney groaning in pain. But it was his movements that had him perplexed. It was as if the man was suffering some kind of epileptic seizure. But those movements were beyond anything he had seen. They were tremors that should not be possible for a human. They were too fast. It was as if the subject was vibrating on the stretcher and its contours were blurred due to the violence of the tremors.

    "What the hell?!" Scott said, looking at Jack.

    "It''s the molecular reconstruction. Something must have happened, it wasn''t supposed to happen this way," Jack stated next to him but, despite what he said, his tone seemed to indicate that he wasn''t quite sure of his own words.

    They entered the hospital like a gale, rushing through the corridors, while some of the staff turned to look at them because of the strangeness of the scene.

    Jack had approached and looked at the face of the guy whose features he couldn''t see at all. Where the face should be he saw something vaguely reminiscent of a face. It was like seeing that face through a frosted glass, but it was because his whole body was vibrating.

    That being, man, shadow or ghost, it could well be all of those things, stared for an instant at what seemed to be his gaze on Scott.

    "Hey. It''s going to be okay." He said to him. He felt sorry to see him. The man was undoubtedly suffering for it.

    "Sir, please step back for now." A nurse stopped him.

    "We came with him."

    "We know, but try to calm down now. We''ll try to do the best we can."

    What the hell are they going to do with a patient like that? Scott thought.

    "Don''t worry, we''ll let you know, please. Now we''ll just try to stabilize him," the one who had spoken was one of the doctors who had ridden with him in the helicopter ambulance. "If this is a side effect, we will probably just have to wait until the molecules cohere properly."

    The group of doctors and nurses carrying the stretcher got lost in the long hallway and Scott stopped. Jack had stopped a few feet behind, one hand nervously scratching his hair.

    Scott turned and started walking toward Jack, with a gesture he had seen him do only a few times in all the years they had been working together.

    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    Here we go, Jack thought and started walking in the opposite direction. Out of the hospital. The last thing he wanted was to cause a scene there.

    They both walked out to the main entrance. Fortunately they were far enough away from the heliport and there was no one there to overhear the conversation.

    "What the hell does this all mean?!" exclaimed Scott, unable to hide his agitation. "This wasn''t supposed to happen, right? Why are we here, and why are we involved in this?"

    "This wasn''t supposed to happen like this."

    "Who is that poor bastard? He''s the one we''ve been setting all this up for, isn''t he?"

    "Yes. Although it has happened sooner than expected."

    "How the hell can you be sure? Did you even see him? You can barely make out a face!"

    "From the color of the hair and the build of the body it''s him. There is no doubt."

    "Poor bastard!" Scott was genuinely incensed. "On top of that, if he survives we have to lie to him? Who is he really? Enough lies and half-truths!"

    "I haven''t lied to you in years!" Jack replied angrily.

    Scott faced him and spoke to him with his face just inches away. "You''ve been like a brother to me these years. Thanks to you I even met my wife and we''ve had more adventures than others would need three lifetimes to tell. But I want the truth now. No more lies with royalty. I want to know who he is."

    "I don''t know! Damn it!" Jack said, angrily.

    "How the fuck are you not going to know?!"

    Jack sighed deeply, his eyes fixed on Scott as he struggled to find the right words. He knew the time had come to share the final truth, or at least the part of it that he knew.

    "Carl, you''ve been by my side for years, and maybe you''re right," Jack began in a calmer tone. "I haven''t told you everything."

    At those words, Scott pursed his lips and nodded. "Well, let''s get started then! What haven''t you told me?"

    Jack nodded, his gaze focused on an undefined point as he tried to articulate the revelation he was about to make. "Yes, I came here tracking down the parts for the machine, but not because I wanted to. I was sent to make sure things happened in that order, because if they didn''t, there would be no future for anyone."

    "That''s what you told me years ago!"

    "But you''ve always refused to believe it in part. It''s the truth. The reason we''re both here, it''s all been for tonight."

    "What are you talking about?"

    "If we hadn''t made the machine, we wouldn''t be having this conversation to begin with. There is no future. For any of us."

    "You''re telling me the future of all mankind depends on that guy?"

    "Yes. Not just the future of humanity, the future of the feys and the aeon as well."

    "Aeon? What''s that?"

    "It doesn''t matter. What matters is that all the complicated stuff is over. No more traveling all over the world. No more running away and busting out and all over the place. That''s all over now."

    "Why is that guy so important?"

    "Because he has to be here. He will do important research that will shape the future of the world, but that will be a long time away. That''s all I know."

    "You''re from the future, for crying out loud! You''re going to tell me you can''t even tell me that?"

    "I don''t know, damn it! What do you want me to tell you? You obey orders! I came here doing the samething, because no one else could do it."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Time travel isn''t as easy as you think. Only certain people can do it."

    Scott snorted and tried to calm down as he put his hands on his hips and walked a few steps away from Jack. "So? Now what?"

    "Now we simply have to be with him. See what the investigation leads to, just like we planned."

    "Pretending to be his friends for years..." blurted Scott throwing a crooked smile and looking at the ground. "I''ve never seen that man in my entire life and I have to pretend I''ve known him forever."

    "Come on, I told you years ago. This is going as planned, a few minor hiccups, but we''re making history."

    "A history I have no idea about. Tell me, if you''re really from the future, what the hell happens from now on?"

    "I can''t tell you. I never knew what happens to us, I just know some details and what I was ordered to do."

    "Sure, and how did you give those lottery numbers to Ishida when you met him?"

    "That was part of the plan! It was necessary to prove to him that I really came from the future. But I don''t know anything else, only what I was ordered to do. If I knew everything, do you think the Royal Family wouldn''t have been interested in knowing what was going to happen in the war? Or that Prime Minister Kennedy would be assassinated? Or that Apollo 19 would never return from the Moon? I don''t know everything, I''m not a god."

    The impact of those words resonated with Scott, leaving him speechless and with a mixture of shock and dismay on his face. But he had calmed down a bit. "What does the royal family know? You never told me that."

    "Just some code words they''ve always used to communicate. They are the same in the future. That got me released from that Japanese jail through diplomatic liaison, don''t you remember?"

    "What else did you tell them? Because I''m pretty sure you must have told them a lot more things in that time for them to have given us support for this all these years?"

    "And you''re asking me that now? Eighteen years later."

    "You always gave me the runaround, asshole!"

    "I told you some things I knew, like intelligence issues. And some things about the future. What I was ordered to do and nothing else."

    "Are you sure you don''t know anything else?"

    Jack sighed. "I don''t know anything else. Because I wasn''t allowed access to any more information. I don''t know what''s going on with me or that poor guy in there. As far as I know, we''re where we''re supposed to be and nothing else."

    "But you were born in the future. How can that be possible?"

    Jack swallowed hard. At that point he would have liked to tell the last truth he had to the one who had become more than just a co-worker, but he knew he couldn''t. He wouldn''t understand. Carl Scott had become like a brother to him, any memory he might have held of the past had faded with the passing years. "The information from the future-past was erased from my mind," Jack lied, just as he had repeated those words to himself over the years.

    That was half truth and half lie. It was true that he did not know the future of himself, nor that of Scott. But he did know that of the subject inside the hospital but, even so, he did not know his past. He did not know that information because he had been told that it was not necessary for him to know it.

    They spent a few minutes discussing the subject. But the mood of both was calmer. As the two were about to deepen the conversation, a nurse approached them, from inside the hospital with news.

    "He''s stabilizing."

    "He''s recovering?..." asked Scott in a hesitant tone, not sure if recovering was the exact word to describe the man''s condition.

    "Yes. In the last few minutes the tremors and vibrations are diminishing."

    Jack sighed in relief. If that man died everything they had done up to that point would be in vain.

    The woman then made a strange gesture: "The patient is speaking incoherently, but he is also showing concern."

    "What is he saying?"

    "He''s asking how the experiment went. He''s asking if you two are okay."

    Scott looked at Jack. He had already told him that a long time ago, but now the moment of truth for Carl Scott. The era of adventures around the world had ended and an era of lying for the sake of the future was beginning.

    Jack, inside him, felt something similar. He had only seen the man for a short time, but now he would have to pretend to know him as if they had known each other for many years.

    The simulation that Jack had said at their first meeting so many long years before had begun.

    "There''s something else," the nurse pointed out.

    "What is it?" Scott asked.

    "We asked him his name, and all he said was Leteo."

    Scott and Jack exchanged puzzled looks.

    The name didn''t mean anything to either of them. In Scott''s case simply because he had never heard of it. And in Jack''s case because he had never known the name to begin with, only his final destination.

 Vol.4/Chapter 32: Pieces in place

    Chapter Thirty-two

    Pieces in place

    Wednesday, March 21. 12:25PM. 125 S.A.

    Lemac Lake, Lugrin. France

    The FRT team had decided to take a break for lunch. They had been working long before Mai''s team arrived and it was time to take a little break from work. One of the reliefs they at least already had was that as of a little less than half an hour ago, a final air analysis of the site had been performed and the residual fuel odor had been eliminated. There was no sign of any pathogens in the vicinity either, so they could remove their masks. Even so, the work had continued. Even with the new spider droids, combing the terrain, the work of tracking down pieces of the crashed plane had continued to slow.

    They had been bringing different parts to a special tent, which served as the main station. There Oxy, and other military technicians, had been submitting those pieces of the plane to scans with special instruments they had brought from the ship, to make sure there was nothing abnormal. After that, they would be moved to another hangar, where they were being catalogued, in order to reconstruct all the pieces of the fuselage, avionics, and passenger area.

    Oxy, meanwhile, would continue inspecting the different parts with the special readers. She was in front of a large, elongated-looking machine, on top of which was a series of rings in a vertical position, one next to the other. The most manageable pieces were placed in these rings and the scanners were in charge of cataloguing which part of the plane they had belonged to, or if they belonged to the passengers, and if they had any anomaly. For the moment absolutely nothing had been discovered. There was no abnormal radiation of any kind from the particles associated with the Dark Events. Nor was there any residual electrical charge on all the electronics they had been scanning so far.

    Cell phones, cameras, watches. Everything was as dead as their owners, the victims who kept arriving at the other hangar where Shin and Lizbeth were working. Even the autonomous batteries of the plane''s black boxes were discharged. The data on the terminals, as well as all the computers, were erased.

    One of the first things that had occurred to her was that the plane might have been hit by a ball lightning strike, which had gone inside the plane. That was unlikely, since the fuselage would act like a Faraday cage. But there was also the possibility that something had struck and the depressurization of the aircraft had produced some electromagnetic effect that would have fried all the electronic instruments. Although checking the weather reports for that day in 2012 there was no storm, just a normal cloud buildup.

    Even if that were the possibility, she had a serious problem with the reports that Shin and Lizbeth were uploading. Whatever had destroyed the instruments on board had also done something to the passengers. And, what was even stranger, was the presence of fractium material on the victims. Time was the strange factor. That some space-time anomaly had appeared was the simplest cause, but Oxy did not remember that an oopart had been found with so many victims.

    What they had secretly discovered did not seem to have an association yet, until more could be discovered about what had happened. Oxy was at a loss for what had happened. Although she was trained to do that kind of work, the fact that it was a time-related disaster made her feel a little uncomfortable.

    The terminal she was operating gave a new negative readout of parts and Oxy sighed. She took the parts and placed them in one of the special boxes, where they were coated with a self-wrapping material and a black label appeared on the side. Then she put smaller pieces back into the machine to take another reading. This time it was tiny pieces and she had put several of them in to speed up the reading process. Again another negative.

    She was not the only one working there. There were four other people, and two other machines that were also taking readings. They were army personnel, so they only spoke to her when necessary. Oxy was not a fan of the silence. She was used to working in the anomaly study department at the university, and it was always a rather noisy environment.

    As the scanning continued, the silence was such that she shuddered when an incoming call appeared on her Neurowire.

    What? She found herself surprised to see who the caller was. But at least it made her smile as it was something to break the monotony at that moment.

    [Hello? Jim?] Oxy asked, smiling. The caller was her former student, and the one she had shared a case with just a few days ago, Jim Stuart.

    [Professor! How are you feeling?]

    [I''m... fine,] she sighed. [How are you? Has something happened with the case over there? Any news?] Oxy was almost certain that the call was about what happened in Edinburgh few days ago.

    [Nah. It''s business as usual, for now. Thor is in charge, it seems he has to go to Germany for other business, but he''ll be back as soon as he solves them. On the other hand I''ve been seeing that the criminals escaped from Pyrene''s facilities, right?]

    [Yes. We still don''t know what''s going on with those two.]

    The conversation continued in a purely professional vein, but Oxy was sure that the call was about something else. She had received calls from Stuart in the past, but they were almost always for some kind of consultation. If it had nothing to do with the case, she wasn''t sure why he would call her. She had always liked that fey redhead. Clever about some things, if a bit absent-minded about others, but always diligent about his work. A diligence that he had even shown in his time when he had been her student at the Siren Island University.

    [Well?] She asked. [Why the call then?]

    [I just wanted to know if there was anything interesting going on there with the case of the two who escaped. For some reason the reports aren''t coming in properly.]

    [What do you mean?]

    [Well, I mean they''re not being updated at the moment.]

    Oxy thought about it. That''s probably because what happened with the Vatican might have something to do with what happened here. She suddenly thought about it more carefully. Stuart always used to call her for something more specific and given the time of day he must be working, unless... [Jim, what are you doing now?]

    Stuart''s voice was slow to answer, almost as if he was thinking something through. [I''m on my days off, I have nothing to do.]

    [Shouldn''t you be enjoying your days, off instead of worrying about work?]

    Again a pause. [I''m enjoying myself right now...]

    His tone of voice seemed somewhat as if he was certainly doing it. It was strange. She had no way of checking why, but she felt he was telling her the truth.

    [So, what are you doing then? Are you busy?] she asked, as she put a new set of pieces into the ring scanner.

    [I''m free, I have nothing to do, that''s why I decided to call you. Maybe it sounds a bit sad that I have nothing to do on my day off, but at least I want to be aware of how everything is going over there.]

    Oxy smiled warmly at that. She knew she herself was a mess, but at least it was a comfort that those she had taught had come away learning and never let go of the curiosity she had tried to instill in each of her students. She looked at the light circling the rings scanning the pieces at that moment. [Jim?]

    [Yes?]

    [You want to help me with something?]

    Stuart''s voice did not hesitate for a second at that proposal, as the answer came out with a tone as crystal clear as the water of a stream. [Of course! I''d love to!]

    [I haven''t told you with what yet.]

    [I guess you''ll tell me now.]

    Oxy smiled and told him some of the details of what she was working on. Not telling the gory details, but leaving the hint that possibly those who had escaped from Pyrene might have some connection to what had happened at the lake. Oxy was waiting every second for someone to come into the tent telling her to hang up, but that didn''t happen.

    That woman from the Council said that they could use their outside sources and support, as long as they did not violate the security line. She was not breaking the rule because, although it had been somewhat different, Jim Stuart had been involved in the case because of the two criminals who had stolen Sil Moore''s body in Edinburgh. Although it might break the rules what she was thinking of doing at the time. But since no one was coming to tell her off, Oxy continued.

    It was an abbreviated explanation, but Stuart seemed to be listening intently to every spoken thought Oxy was sending him. So he could get an idea of where she stood. [So that''s basically a gigantic oopart?] He asked with a serious tone.

    [We don''t know yet. But there''s a lot to analyze.]

    [How bad is it?]

    Oxy bobbed her head a little and answered, this time with a more serious tone. [It''s not for everyone''s stomach honestly. There are a lot of victims, but the help is for something different,] she said as she deposited a new set of pieces in the container baskets.

    [I think we could take a look at it together, like the old days on campus. What do you say, professor?] Her former student''s voice sounded genuinely excited by the offer. [Sounds interesting. Would it be okay for me to join?]

    Oxy thought about it for a moment first. She liked the idea of having someone to help her with the tedious work, even if it was a remote connection, but she also liked the idea of having someone who had been her student working side by side with her.

    At the same time, though, she couldn''t help but feel like she was manipulating him a bit. She wanted to have someone at that moment who would at least pull her out of the pit of questions and dreary memories she had of her past. That feeling of a knot in her stomach, ever since she got off the ship, she had not been able to get rid of it with absolutely nothing. She could almost feel a twinge in her leg. But what weighed her down even more was the memory of Zuriqth.

    Oxy took a short breath and returned to Stuart''s question, trying to push away the thoughts that clouded her mind, like a stone thrown into a pool of placid and serene waters. [Only if you have nothing to do. I don''t want to rob you of your days off.]

    [Nah. It''s okay. It''ll be my pleasure to help you,] Stuart said in a nonchalant tone.

    Oxy paused. It will be my pleasure to help you. That sentence brought back to her a distant memory like starlight. She swallowed hard, and for a second the image of that sentient android with the gentle voice appeared in her mind.

    [Professor?]

    [Y-yes? Excuse me.]

    [Do you have a host body around?]

    [What?]

    [If there is a host body? You must have one with a biological synapse simulation, right?]

    [Do you want to come here?] Oxy asked in surprise. The truth is that she thought Stuart could help her in her work, but only by keeping her company so that she could focus better. This was basically going to be allowing her to share the information from her visual cortex with Stuart, but without him moving his body from Edinburgh. That he wanted to go where she was was something different. It would be much better if he were there, but could she afford that?

    [If it''s no trouble of course, I don''t want to bother you, but if I can help you I will,] Stuart added.

    Oxy thought about it. Carissia surely had some support and spare body, but the ship wasn''t there at the moment.

    She walked over to one of the tent windows and looked around. She looked for a few seconds, zooming in the distance, and seemed to see some soldiers of considerable height and with metallic gleams on the sides of their temples. They were barely visible. When she looked at their hands, she noticed that they were strong although thin. She had no doubts. Those were military-grade synthetics for multitasking. If there were synthetic bodies around, they must have also had a tent with bodies to send the minds of those who wanted to get to the place.

    Oxy smiled. [No problem, give me a few seconds,] she said and stepped out of the tent.

    ***

    A few minutes earlier.

    Jen Anderson had continued her work of monitoring the activities of the SID team members, while sipping tea. That woman must have loved tea and sweets. From what Mai had seen, she went every twenty or thirty minutes to the food printer in the tent, to eat something sweet and help herself to an Earl-gray from the machine. At least she had been concentrating on watching the team''s holographic projections and hadn''t been pestering Mai.

    That was until she focused on Oxy, who seemed to be having an outside conversation. The information from the outside conversation could be accessed because the security to the outside was much better than the inside. That is why the woman had not noticed the team meeting earlier in the day, but at that moment she was looking at the information from Oxy''s conversation.

    Although Oxy had not revealed any of the team''s secret conversation, she was revealing some details of the case to someone on the outside.

    "Miss Izumi. Can you tell me what this means?"

    Mai looked away from the report she was currently reading, and fixed her gaze on the projection on the operating table that was transmitting the text of Oxy''s mental conversation.

    A bead of sweat trickled down her cheek, she stood up and walked over to the projection table and stood next to Anderson. "She may simply be consulting with one of our agents from the FRT teams. That special agent was involved in what happened in Edinburgh and Oxy was also involved in the case, due to one of our agents being caught by an oopart found in the victim''s apartment."

    "The conversation doesn''t seem to be having much to do with what happened in that case. She is revealing facts to him about what happened here."

    "You said we could conduct the investigation by whatever means we thought necessary. Consulting externally is commonplace. Oxy is one of the best physicists Nevermore has, but many of her students are also part of the consulting teams. That special agent is the leader of an Edinburgh FRT team now and was also a student of hers. It''s a common thing for them to talk about."

    "I don''t feel very good that information is being released."

    "You know our oath, don''t you?"

    "What does that have to do with it?"

    "Being part of the Nevermore SID is a vocation of service. We give part of our rights in exchange for being able to act globally. We won''t be known and probably history won''t remember us well. But we have each other. Our knowledge is part of the Council, but it is compartmentalized in case something happens to us. It is vital that we have each other to consult and help each other. Oxy has not had a period of inactivity in fifty years, for her teaching has also become an insurance policy in case something happens to her mind in the future. If she does fall into a period of inactivity that lasts for years, at least there will be agents who know as much about the science as she does and who can apply the methods to theorize the origins of certain Dark Events."

    Jen looked at her in surprise. "Fifty years? But Professor Oxy is over two hundred years old, right?"

    "Yes, she fears she may go into a deep coma that could last for years or decades. Her brain doesn''t get much rest and has always been hyperactive. That doesn''t take away from the fact that compartmentalizing knowledge isn''t also a way to ease the burden on her mind."

    "Doesn''t she have any treatment?"

    "Yes, she does, like most of us."

    Jen looked at her with a suspicious expression. "What about you, Miss Izumi? You are of vital importance."

    Mai sighed. "In my case I make up for it by sleeping, I always get my fair eight hours, but if I don''t have some situation that warrants my immediate presence I extend my rest to ten or twelve hours. That way I have always compensated for my period of inactivity. On the other hand the chain of command always has the vice director of operations Tony, and the facultative director Rein Aogami, in case the first two links fail."

    Jen in her Neurowire pulled out the medical chart with Mai''s data and called the roll as she read. "You have been undergoing psychological treatment for several years, right?"

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Mai nodded. "Yes, but my mental state is stable and I have improved as you can see.

    "Are you still afraid of water and space?"

    "I''m making improvements on it, there''s nothing to worry about. On the other hand, it is only restricted to the ocean, not to lakes or rivers."

    "From what I read, that was due to first starting a relationship with agent Londonderry and then with rookie agent Aogami? I mean that you started to have better results in the treatments."

    "Exactly." Mai would have liked to cut off the conversation at that point. She knew it was best to be polite to Anderson, though. She didn''t want to talk about her private life, especially since her love life didn''t interfere with her work at all. Although sometimes they might give each other some affectionate gestures when they were on a mission, that had never taken them away from their duties. They preferred to leave intimacy for when they were not working. The face of a certain girl floated into Mai''s mind at that moment. At least I hope they don''t find out about Kotori, yet, she thought.

    Jen Anderson subtly looked at Mai with a quizzical gesture and lowered her voice. "Miss Izumi...are you and Miss Londonderry pregnant?"

    Mai blushed and looked at Anderson whose eyes had bore into her stomach and chest. "No! We''re not," she replied, holding a hand to her chest. Damn medical reports. Can''t we even fart that everyone has to know about it?

    "But...this report says that you...?" Anderson''s gaze had been pinned to Mai''s chest.

    Mai felt her ears flush. "That''s because of the hormonal disorder that we have when we are in a relationship... hasn''t that ever happened to you?" Mai asked annoyed.

    At that moment she was grateful that the hustle and bustle in the tent made the conversation go unnoticed by others. But, at that question, Jen Anderson''s gaze turned cold and Mai could have almost sworn her face had turned white as her soul escaped her lips.

    "Unfortunately it has never happened to me." Anderson replied, twisting her gaze with a cynical smile, her eyes had lost what little sparkle they had.

    Mai would have liked to apologize. It was obvious from Anderson''s gestural language and change of mood that the question had struck a chord.

    Although that gesture of subdued depression did not continue for long. Anderson looked again at the projection, which continued to show Oxy''s conversation, and her expression froze. "What the bloody hell?!"

    Some soldiers then passing in front of the tent turned away as Jen Anderson exit from the it, with a vein throbbing in her temple. Behind her was Mai, sighing somewhat wearily.

    "What''s wrong with you people?! Is it normal not to ask permission to bring an outside agent into a confidential investigation?"

    "It is normal sometimes. More so considering that consulting with outside agents is normal. I told you that."

    "She could have projected some of the information to him without bringing him here!"

    "Yes, but in order to offer a better point of view it is always better to have the agent physically on site."

    "Didn''t she offer her support in the recent case remotely only, using augmented reality?"

    "Yes. But we''re not talking about her now. We''re talking about the fact that in order for her to project the information, the remote user would have to take into account Oxy''s brainwave spectrum pattern. Which in itself is different."

    Anderson walked at a faster pace. She doesn''t like to lose against logical arguments or what? wondered Mai, as she picked up the pace behind her.

    At that moment they were both stopped. Allard, followed by another soldier, approached them both. "Glad I found you, I was just going to look for you."

    "We''re kind of busy right now," Anderson said. "What''s going on?"

    "Whatever you''re doing, I think you should come. We have two visitors we weren''t expecting."

    "What? Who?"

    "I think you''d both better come to the TA. Come with me."

    They both looked at each other angrily, but followed Allard and the soldier to the transient airport. Anderson pursed her lips but said nothing.

    Whatever it was, it would at least buy Oxy time before Anderson reprimanded her. From what Mai had seen in Oxy''s private dialogue with Stuart, Mai knew what they were up to. She had nothing against it. Considering the magnitude of the disaster, the FRT personnel they had on site should have been larger, although much of them were in the health work in the south with the giant tardigrades. Therefore, it was good to have some extra personnel, even if it was the addition of an external team. Maneuverability and plasticity in handling the teams was another of the good personnel policies they could count on in emergency situations.

    Allard led them to the sector where Mai and the others had landed upon arrival. Carissia''s ship had gone to the restricted polygon to the east, to assist in the search but, in its place, there was now a smaller transport vehicle.

    Mai frowned in confusion. "Van? What is she doing here?"

    Beside the ship stood the pink-haired intelligence service agent. What surprised Mai even more, though, was to see who was accompanying her. It was the one who had supposedly been followed by the two criminals who had carried out the robbery at the Holy See. Mai had been aware of the details of the investigation and knew that the Rome station was taking over surveillance of Lee Reubens, but that he was there was something she hadn''t expected.

    Van stepped forward and greeted Mai and then introduced them. "Director Izumi, may I introduce Professor Reubens, professor of astrophysics at the University of Rome. Professor, this is Director of Special Operations, Mai Izumi." Had it not been such a severe situation Van would have done so in a more relaxed manner, but her instincts told her not to when she saw Anderson. She recognized the dark, unadorned clothing and the type of footwear as belonging to the Council. Yet she greeted the others as well, as etiquette required.

    Lee gave a slight nod and offered his hand, which Mai took to return the greeting.

    "Professor Reubens, it''s a pleasure to meet you," Mai said.

    "Likewise," Lee replied, and his eyes lingered for a moment on the petite girl. He had heard many legends about the war and Nevermore. If she really was the mysterious director of operations it meant she was a war heroine. Although she was somewhat different from how the legends painted her. Lee was given the appearance of a fragile, beautiful, fey girl, though it was hard to imagine such a person carrying the responsibility of the SID on her shoulders.

    Mai looked at both of them and then focused on Van, asking quietly as Lee greeted the others. "Why is Professor Reubens here?"

    Van looked at her quizzically. "I thought he could help us try to figure out what happened here. The professor has theoretical expertise in issues related to temporal distortions. If what happened here has anything to do with what happened in Rome, there may be a connection he can figure out."

    "It''s not exactly distortions, that''s another field of study of mine. But maybe there may be something I can help with. I hope I can be of help," Lee corrected, with a modest smile. He had good ears.

    Mai stared at Lee and then at Van, not knowing what to say for a few seconds. "Oxy is here too."

    "Yeah, I know," nodded Van, poker-faced.

    Mai frowned. What''s going on? Am I missing something? Mai understood that expert collaboration could help, but she didn''t see the need for Van to take Lee from Rome to there. That could have been done through an outside connection. On the other hand, Oxy could interpret some hypothesis of what happened without the need for the person involved to move to the site. This was not like Stuart''s case, since he was part of the FRT, but Lee was an academician only and, considering that he could have been a target for kidnapping, he would have had to remain in the custody of the Rome station.

    Although, on the other hand, given the amount of security in place Mai doubted that anyone would want to kidnap him surrounded by military personnel, the FRT and SID agents.

    Does Van know something else she can''t tell me? Mai wondered.

    "Well, you tell me. If I can help you I''ll be glad to," Lee said.

    "We need to give you a credential and talk to Professor Ishijima. If you''re going to collaborate with us you should be with her, since she''s the one in charge of scanning the plane''s parts."

    "We were just on our way to talk to her," Anderson said.

    Mai tried to put on a smile, but something made her uncomfortable. Bringing in someone from the FRT is wrong, but a civilian is okay? What kind of double standard is that? Is she trying to show a gentle side in the face of a civilian to make a good PR campaign for the Council? Hidden by the messy bangs, a vein pulsed in Mai''s forehead.

    Jen Anderson led the team and made her way to the tent where the military equipment Oxy had targeted was located.

    "Hey, are you okay?" Van asked.

    "Yeah..." replied Mai, with a crooked grimace, as her ahoge seemed to have lost the vitality it always had.

    ***

    Before leaving Jim Stuart had made sure to make a backup of his memory and send it to the memory bank just in case of emergency. Then he had gone to bed and settled in as relaxed as possible. He hadn''t even been up for a few hours and had already gone to lie down. But at least rest would be good for his physical body, while his consciousness would be elsewhere.

    Jim Stuart had lost count of how many times he had carried out that procedure, but it always gave him the same feeling.

    There was still some debate regarding the transference of the consciousness mind to a new body. But, beyond all the polemics, at least for Stuart, he had considered that the transition of mind and consciousness was real and his new self when he moved was still the same as the previous one, and that the process was the same in reverse. He had the same memories and sensations. Quantum neurology had made leaps in these areas, even though there was debate and dissent in other branches.

    The procedure required that, before transferring to the synthetic body, the cognitive and sensory functions of the individual''s brain were first mapped. This was the copy of the user''s brain that would be installed in the new synthetic body. The mapping was done by the Neurowire functions, and sent the data to the brain in a liquid state in the synthetic body.

    The gray matter would then copy the structure of the individual''s brain, something called the transition state to soft substrate. From there came the transfer of the user interface: the quantum state consciousness, which created the link between the biological body and the synthetic body. The body of the individual would be at rest, while the new body was already free to move.

    But it was the phenomenon of transition between bodies that attracted his attention. There was something terrifying and incredibly sublime about it at the same time.

    The consciousness, as it traveled to the new body, entered an abyss that reminded him of virtual simulations of traveling at the speed of light. It was like a cosmic immensity, where reality unfolded and folded into unknown dimensions. It plunged into a whirlpool of thoughts and emotions that twinkled like distant stars and then died, plunging everything into the most unfathomable darkness of the universal night. There, for a space of time that could not have been more than a few seconds, the fabric of reality seemed to twist and dilate like an echo in space-time, while consciousness itself was stripped of its former shape, or self.

    It was as if he was watching the story of a microcosm retracting and showing a universe full of life before it died. In a way it was like falling into a black hole, bending the light of the stars, so that a blue line was drawn in his vision before the darkness. At that point the explanation was that this sensation was the last remnants of the sensory cortex, being transmitted to the new body.

    After a moment came a point of light. This journey passed through what seemed to be a tunnel of pure darkness, where the mind was subjected to a sensation that nothing existed beyond that point. The laws of physics gave way to a dance of particles and waves, and the mind became a flow of pure information, intertwined with the fibers of that microcosm. It seemed that everything was coming to life again from that point. A mini big bang at the sensory level, as the neural functions of the synthetic brain were turned on. The colors of knowledge and the sounds of the new universe merged into a unique symphony, a melody of deep understanding.

    In a way, it felt like being born again.

    Many had come to postulate that, if the soul and reincarnation really existed, it was possible that the strange effect of the point and then tunnel could explain the visions and traditions of the mystics of old who spoke of a tunnel of light. Even in the Near Death Experiences reference was made to that sensation, but in the sense that everything seemed to recede upon regaining consciousness. The explanation was simply that it was the transference from one body to another, but the similarity was curious.

    Whatever it was, it was time to wake up in the new body.

    His new eyes had photosensitivity parameters to self-adjust to the light in the room, so Stuart felt no discomfort when he opened them.

    He looked around the room, and then focused at his hands. Strong hands, with long fingers and straight marks on the skin, mostly on the knuckles and wrist joints. He touched his head and when he felt on both sides of his temples, he felt as if he had two small rectangular metal parts.

    He knew where his conscience was. That was a military multimaneuver synthetics. He knew them and therefore had no problem moving. He got out of the capsule where he was, and moved one of his hands to check that the Neurowire was working properly. It was at least two meters high and the issue of size and height was for maneuvering in space.

    Looking around he saw that he was in a somewhat large tent, where there were at least ten other capsules on the ground and other military tools. On the far side were some terminals to handle the insertion of consciousness and on one of them was Oxy smiling at him.

    "Welcome," she said.

    Stuart looked at his new temporary body and saw that he was already dressed in a military uniform. He could feel that the body was adapted with muscle memory. It was much more muscular than his real body, but there were some differences. Those bodies had no stomach, the motor functions were maintained by the sequential release of proteins and amino acids, so the user would not feel hungry. Likewise, it did not release excretions and was devoid of reproduction organs as well.

    He got up and walked over to Oxy. Seeing her so small gave him a strange feeling.

    "There wasn''t another one smaller, I''m sorry if it''s too big. All the synthetics here are the same type," Oxy apologized.

    "No problem," he said and held out his hand. "It''s a pleasure again."

    She accepted the greeting. "Are you going to stay with that configuration?"

    "Oh, right!" Stuart remembered. Seeing her had caused him to forget that. He waved one of his hands as an interactive window unfolded in his eyes and searched through the body configurations. Almost instantly Oxy saw the featureless face take on a more human hue and reddish hair began to grow on the bald surface of the synthetic.

    That change was due to the nano-skin system and rapid growth of hair follicles. Once the user left the body the synthetic would return to normal, since it was only an external configuration that was easy to reverse with a single control command.

    But that face was somewhat different from the one Oxy remembered. Or was it the hairstyle? Jim Stuart always wore his hair slicked back and held his bangs back with a bandana. That style was a little messier, although it didn''t look bad on him.

    He noticed her look. "Oh this is one of the avatars I always wear in virtual reality."

    "It doesn''t look bad on you," she said.

    "Thanks. Well! You name it professor. How can I help you with the scan?"

    "Come on, let''s go," she said, walking to the entrance of the tent.

    At that moment someone else entered the compound that Stuart didn''t know, and then a more familiar face.

    "Wait a minute, not so fast," said the dark-haired man, stopping Oxy. "Here comes that woman." Then he looked at Stuart. "Hello."

    "Hello..." Stuart looked at the man. Is this the Keelian? He had guessed as he looked at him more closely, and saw that he had a strange feeling about him. Behind him was a special agent with long blonde hair. He had heard of her from her missions, Lizbeth Londonderry.

    Shin and Lizbeth had approached the tent, alerting Oxy that the Anderson was coming to give her a scolding. They had taken a lunch break, along with Granger and Jade, to see what Mai was up to. Unfortunately Mai had not yet taken her break, and they had to settle for watching the main tent from a distance. But they had seen Anderson and Mai leaving the tent. From afar Mai had sent a message to Lizbeth, to alert Oxy before Anderson arrived. But it had not gone as expected. Almost twenty seconds later the entourage entered and everyone stared at each other not quite knowing what to say.

    "Hello." Stuart greeted by simply raising a hand and looking at the new arrivals.

    Jen Anderson took a long sigh and simply faced Stuart and greeted him. Mai did the same. She supposed that, if Anderson wasn''t making a fuss now it was due to the confused look on Lee Reubens'' face, who was looking at everyone without quite knowing what was going on.

    Anderson just swallowed what she had to say to Oxy, while Mai complimented Stuart on the last job.

    "Honestly, we didn''t do much. The explosion wiped out a lot of the clues that could have cleared everything up. Everything is moving slowly because of it."

    "But at least that the containment was helpful, and there were no more civilian casualties is a good job," Mai objected.

    "Thank you very much, ma''am."

    Oxy meanwhile, to escape Anderson''s gaze had walked over and greeted Lee. She knew who he was from the files transmitted by Rome, but found it somewhat odd that he was there. "Professor Reubens, it''s a pleasure to meet you."

    "Likewise. Ehmm¡­"

    "Ishijima Kanade. But you can call me Oxy. Professor of theoretical physics."

    "Oh!" Lee raised his eyebrows. "Theoretical physics. Have all you theorists gone for any of the 68-dimensional cosmological polytopes yet, or are you going to continue to keep us like ducklings in a bathtub?"

    "Well... even if we did it doesn''t matter which one we leaned towards, everyone else would end up winning too. Right? In the end the ducklings would still float to the top."

    Lee put on a smile. "Yeah, I guess that''s true." He liked that fey teacher, that she had some sense of humor in all the chaos of physics at the moment was refreshing. But that smile on Lee''s face slowly disappeared from his face as he looked at Shin. He held out his hand looking at him quizzically, something Shin had expected. But what Shin didn''t expect was the question that followed their introduction.

    "Sorry for the question. But do I know you from somewhere?" Lee asked, looking at him quizzically as his hands had frozen in mid-air.

    "I hope not, usually when people say they know me from somewhere it''s not good, they always try to sue me," Shin said with a serious face.

    Is that a joke? wondered Lee. But given the seriousness on Shin''s face it was hard to tell. But he had a strange feeling looking at him, his face rang a bell from somewhere.

    Once the protocol was over, everyone left the tent. Oxy had escaped being reprimanded with Lee''s arrival. And she was pretty sure that Anderson wouldn''t say anything for the moment, considering that if he wanted to help, being with Oxy would be the best option. On the other hand, Stuart having more experience working with her would be good. The work force had increased for Oxy.

    As the three discussed the events that had transpired at the site, Anderson trailed behind and sighed. Finally she turned around and headed back toward the operations tent. Allard along with the soldier turned away and returned to the search team on the ground.

    "Well, problem over... for now," sighed Mai.

    "So it seems..." mused Van, who had already put the pieces in order of what was going on.

    "Have you eaten anything?"

    The question had come from behind Mai, Shin and Lizbeth were looking at her. She smiled at them both. "I''ll nibble something over there. Don''t worry."

    "Kiss," Lizbeth asked.

    "Now is not the time," Mai scolded her.

    "Tch, you meanie."

    "Van," Shin interjected, "what are you going to do now?"

    "I''m going to be keeping an eye on Professor Reubens. It''s my responsibility that he''s here. It would be really stupid for someone to try anything against him here but... just in case."

    Mai then looked away and saw that Anderson had disappeared. [So, what''s going on?] she asked Van mentally.

    Van looked at her, somewhat confused by the sudden appearance of Mai''s voice in her head through the Neurowire. [What do you mean?]

    [Why did you bring the professor?]

    [I thought he might be of help.]

    Mai arched an eyebrow. [But why? Wouldn''t it be better to have left him in Rome in the care of the station staff?]

    [...] Van didn''t say anything. Eh?

    [I mean, if he has any information that is linked to what is here, you could have just sent it to him as a link. On the other hand, we''re still not sure what happened in Rome is linked to what happened here. It''s a very thin thread of connection.]

    What''s going on? Van''s pupils were constricting and dilating, making her vision blurry.

    [I''m not scolding you,] Mai said, [if he can really help us he''s welcome, but he''s a civilian. Take care that nothing happens to him.]

    "Van?" asked Shin, looking at her. She was staring at a distant point as if she wasn''t paying attention to Mai.

    What is this? It was as if Van felt as if something had just cut off in her brain. It was the last feeling she had as her vision blurred and everything lost consistency. The three of them looked at her in confusion as Van''s body slumped to the grass.

    A thin trickle of blood trickled from her nose.

    Mai''s screams calling out to her were not long in coming, as Shin tried to accommodate her head because of the bleeding.

    "What just happened?" wondered Lizbeth.

 Vol.4/Chapter 33: ZAIEN

    Chapter Thirty-three

    ZAIEN

    Wednesday, March 21. 01:25 PM. 125 S.A.

    Neu-Techstadt, Germany.

    After that call it had taken Thor a couple of hours to get everything in order, and to inquire about developments in the Sil Moore case. Nothing new had come up and that was somewhat of a relief, as it would give him time to attend to the other matter that had come up. He would have left it up to Stuart to let him know, in case something important was going on, but when he had returned to the apartment no one had opened the door. Surely Jim Stuart had gone out somewhere to do something else. After all, these were his days off. Broxburn station assured Thor that in case something happened they would be the ones to call him.

    Rather than wait, he headed for Edinburgh airport, where an automatic ship was already waiting for him. Surely if he had chosen to go in a flying vehicle it would have taken longer. The trip had been quick that way.

    Thor had arrived just twenty minutes ago in Neu-Techstadt, formerly known as Munich and from there his transport had crossed the skies to ZAIEN''s main building.

    The cosmopolitan technological city had changed quite a bit in the last sixty-odd years, since he had become one of ZAEIN''s majority shareholders when its founder, Gehirn, had fled into deep space with the only ship that had ever developed a warp engine.

    Neu-Techstadt was the nerve center of technology in Germany, as it had been in the old days, when it had its former name before the Great War. The city had adopted a minimalist approach to its architecture, but combined it with an architectural style that integrated ample green spaces.

    Towards one of the centers, where the main technology companies were located, a gigantic structure of a building formed by helicoidal helices stood out, with hanging gardens and artificial waterfalls mixed into its architecture. Those gardens and waterfalls sprouted from the two spiral buildings that rose into the sky. The spiral structure as a whole surrounded a gate tree, which was just glowing with a faint blueish color at that hour.

    At the foot surrounding the tree were other smaller buildings. That in itself could be considered a city. There were laboratory complexes, factories, recreation areas, and hotels and a permanent residential area.

    That was the main building and complex of the company ZAIEN: Zukunftsorientierte Allianz f¨¹r Intelligente Energien und Neue Technologien.

    The empire for technology and the study of thelesic magic that Gehirn had founded. Gehirn had kept himself hidden from the world, despite being its owner, while delegating power to publicy visible representatives. Not even the major press had been able to find out that behind the board of directors and shareholders was a survivor of a war from another era.

    As Thor approached, he saw the familiar surroundings that he had visited so often over the past few decades, when he was not working at SID. The building blended harmoniously with its surroundings. Around the base, green gardens and waterfalls spread out, purifying the air and providing a relaxing environment for visitors and employees. The main entrance to the building combined a minimalist design in the black and white structure, yet harmonious with the surrounding greenery, accompanied by sculptures in the Ecogeometric style, a post-war artistic style.

    Those sculptures had been placed in the surrounding area over the years. It had been part of a worldwide movement by states that had involved hundreds of artists around the world.

    Because of the fractus and its abilities, cases of ikunaphobia and trypophobia had skyrocketed around the world. That had been aimed at getting people used to not being afraid of geometry and to embrace the technology that the invaders had brought with them. In a way it had worked, but it had been an effort that had taken shape when the civilization had used the huge chunks of the other earth from another dimension, floating in Earth''s orbit, to create the Orbital Ring.

    Thor snorted looking out the window, the vehicle was floating on the twentieth floor of the main spiral building.

    Thor''s transport vehicle landed on one of the leaves, that served as a port into the building, and down the small ramp that opened on the left side of the vehicle. There, waiting for him was a fey woman, her hair tied in a bun and dressed in a white suit.

    "Sir. Welcome."

    Thor greeted her with a slight head bow. "So. How bad is it, that I had to come personally?"

    "Please, come."

    Thor took one last look at the city. Just beyond, away from the ZAIEN complex, the SAIRIS megastructure loomed against the sky. The Space Asteroid & Interstellar Resource Industrial Syndicate. Curiously, its owners, the Ivraeva, had some connection to the case Mai and Shin had investigated last week, even though the Ivraeva no longer lived in Earth space, but on the Moon.

    "It''s a small world," Thor mused, before following his secretary.

    They both headed inside, taking a magnetic elevator, almost entirely transparent, which began to descend downward.

    The interior of the building was almost as solemn in design as the exterior. A central atrium rose through multiple floors, flooding the spaces with natural light, which reached all the way to the interior floors. Employees and visitors rode high-speed magnetic elevators, which moved quietly and efficiently

    Each floor of the building was dedicated to a specific purpose. There were also state-of-the-art research labs, innovation rooms equipped with holographic technology for collaboration, and flexible work areas that accommodated the changing needs of staff. There were also spaces set aside for showcasing emerging technologies and advances in sustainable energy. Toward the upper floors were offices and meeting rooms.

    But they didn''t go that way.

    The magnetic elevator left the upper floors and went subway. The green disappeared to give way to a somewhat darker place, flooded with a pale light coming from the different floors below.

    After a few seconds it stopped and they both came to a floor that, while not in a dilapidated state, was not as well cared for as the other areas. It looked a little grayer with unpainted concrete walls. They walked down some long, labyrinthine corridors, until they came to a small group gathered before a large metal double door that was closed.

    "Good afternoon. What exactly has happened?"

    "Mr. Thor," said a man in a lab coat, hearing the voice behind him.

    They greeted him respectfully and stepped aside to make room for him. In front of Thor was a reader that could only be opened with a biometric signature. The device was somewhat antiquated, but with enough parameters that it could not be opened from the outside. The equipment and tools around it spoke for themselves, that they had tried to enter the place without success.

    "A few hours ago the block with external link was activated, and started sending orders that it was required your presence. This block has inserted a malicious code that has spread to the others but has not acted until now. The analysis department and the crypto department have been unsuccessful in invading and isolating it."

    "Can''t you just shut it down?"

    "We would try but we don''t know what damage it may cause to the system. The strong code has taken root in the company''s blocks and quickly spread to many others in a matter of seconds."

    "It can''t be debugged with the self-aware programs either?"

    "Not at the moment. The fifteen thousand affected blocks have detected it, but have not been able to clean it from the systems. For a total cleanup we would have to cut off all access to the network and reset all the blocks."

    A bead of sweat trickled down Thor''s temple. "How much are we talking about on the market?"

    "We''d get it back in no time, but up and down dragged five points down today, although it''s possible that if we reset it and a three-hour cleanup was done in a massive way by Friday we''d have them back."

    "I don''t think that''s a good idea," Thor said, scratching his chin, as he did the math in his head.

    Considering the interconnected citywide network system, ZAIEN held some of the communication for the entire city, not to mention the information blocks had real-time access to many devices developed by the company globally.

    Chances are that if there was a scheduled outage of the main system there would have been no problem, but to do it suddenly was going to cause problems not only around the city, but also around the world. The company''s systems extended globally and connected to other smaller companies. They ranged from software to hardware for different purposes. Medicine, vehicle control, ships, control programs for the monitoring and help of magicians who had no absolute control of their abilities, industrial machinery of different types from mining to agricultural production. It could be chaos if the quantum information processing blocks had to be restarted.

    "What about the information processing blocks in reserve for emergency?" Thor asked.

    "They have been cut off from access," said one of the technicians.

    "The code itself has cut it off?! What the hell exactly is it asking for?"

    The group looked at the biometric signature reader and the man in the robe who had spoken first looked at it nervously. " It''s asked for you sir, expressly. It wants to have a word with you."

    To the goddesses. Let them sand my ears! Thor frowned. That ancient block had been expressly built by Gehirn, but he did not know why it had remained in operation for so long. "Why has it continued to function? Aren''t the blocks replaced every two years?"

    "Well the current ones are better in terms of material and process, but this one was built by Gehirn and, after the investigation when he disappeared, nothing suspicious was found. In fact it has been self-maintained all these years. On the other hand it is used all the time, even though it is so old."

    "What does that mean?"

    "The block has connections to servers at several universities, which is why it is still running. In fact it serves as a support for students for stellar simulations, advanced calculus courses and for thesis support and hypothesis simulations. Many have graduated using this block as support for their PhD theses."

    "Not to mention that the quantum data processor has always had an external connection to study centers here and in space," reported another technician.

    "What does it handle on the outside?" asked Thor, turning to him.

    "It monitors activity in the solar system and processes data from extrasolar research satellites. It also has a connection to the solar monitoring labs."

    "The problem is that malicious code has spread to hold the other processing cores hostage."

    Thor turned his gaze back to the door. "You''re telling me then that it used the outside connection to bypass and override the security protocols of the other blocks?"

    "We don''t know what the purpose is, because it is dormant, but not executing. The heuristic capability of the block is very good, but it was never equipped with a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence support. In fact the system in place is even self-responsible. We''re pretty sure no one has been down here in years."

    "Isn''t it possible that some code of conduct developed that could have generated the error? Or that someone hacked into the system from the outside?"

    "The surveillance system hasn''t detected anything. But there is something else."

    "What?"

    The man in the lab coat thought about it for a moment and said. "While the problem started today, the code itself started spreading last week."

    "How so?"

    "Well that''s normal. Sometimes the block extended code to study the other blocks'' models and make some model improvements. That''s why we didn''t find it strange."

    "Isn''t it possible that the problem came from something that was copied wrong from the other models?"

    "It''s unlikely."

    "When did the problem start?"

    "Friday morning."

    "Nothing strange happened other than that?"

    The man thought about it for a moment. "There were a number of four thousand solar system-wide DEs. Of all of them only eighty-two proved real, but nothing involving any digital aberration events or virtual worlds."

    At that point the secretary interjected, raising a hand. "There was a solar system scale event, but it was not a Dark Event."

    Everyone turned to look at her. "There was unusual solar activity that Friday. In fact, electrical problems occurred in several places, but nothing more serious than momentary outages."

    "Solar activity, eh?" asked Thor, crossing his arms.

    The secretary nodded. "In fact... if the data is correct, the code began to spread just ten minutes after that happened."

    The man in the lab coat nodded as well. "Yes that''s true, although that had nothing to do with our systems. Everything worked properly here. There was no failure of any system."

    Thor paused to think about it. He remembered that in Edinburgh he had heard something about system errors that Friday morning, had that happened because of that too? Finally he snorted. "Well. I guess this is my responsibility anyway."

    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    "Sir, you''re going in there?"

    "Of course. What did you expect after I had to travel here? We''d better settle this quickly before it gets worse."

    "But we don''t know what''s in there."

    "It''s just a processing block, not an iron-maiden. On the other hand Gehirn was very prone to jokes and riddles. Who knows if what''s there might not give us a clue as to what happened when he disappeared."

    The group fell silent. That possibility had crossed the minds of many others in the company over the years who knew who the real owner was. Gehirn had suffered an attack that had nearly killed him, and several others that had failed. But in the first one he had lost part of his memories. That had led him to sometimes generate mnemonic techniques regarding his personal projects, in case something similar could happen in the future. Many thought that perhaps somewhere in the company there might still be a clue to the mysterious warp drive and the plans for the ship with which he had disappeared. Many other things had been found, but nothing had ever been found about it.

    "Give me a second, I''ll call security just in case," his secretary told him.

    "Did you try to feed the reader with my data?"

    "Well we tried..." said the man in the lab coat.

    "Don''t tell me you tried to put some synth with my biometric data?"

    "..." Silence was the only answer.

    "Did you?" Thor asked again.

    "We tried. But the problem is that, as much as we had your data, there was a possibility that this reader could take into account something we didn''t know about. For example, the signature of the electrical signal of your ability, or a scanner to detect the external shape pattern of the Shy-Organ. That''s something that can''t be faked."

    "I see. Well let''s see how this goes."

    The reader was almost level with him. After all Gehirn also had a body that appeared to be that of a child of about ten, despite being an old man of over 200 years at the time of his escape.

    Thor put his hand on the scanner and from the sides of the reader sprouted thin wires that attached themselves to his hand, others touched his face and others went under the collar of his shirt. Indeed, the technicians and scientists had been right. That reader was taking into account other patterns besides the biological ones.

    The sensor wires were removed and returned to the sides of the reader, while a green light came on. Almost twenty seconds later they could hear a series of gears. The sliding metal doors were beginning to open. Inside, no light could be seen. Darkness was the only answer.

    Thor took three steps, stepping through the doors at least forty centimeters thick.

    "Please wait," his secretary alerted him. But he was already inside.

    Those outside heard a sound on the floor, almost flush with the door, and about half a second later a part of the floor another forty centimeters thick disappeared. Everyone turned away just as a new metal wall rose up from the floor concealing the place where Thor had entered.

    He heard the alarmed voices of the scientists and his secretary, but the sound was soon drowned out and nothing more could be heard. He was trapped.

    He heard the sound of the double door closing, but it was too late. It had closed completely.

    It was complete darkness.

    Until he began to hear something else. It was the sound of something moving inside. It was the sound as if the whole structure was changing. Almost instantly a dim light began to grow. It was not the illumination of large spotlights. That light was produced by small electric blue dots of light in the room, they were on the walls. The dots twinkled like stars in the sky, or followed straight paths in different directions. Like shooting stars, but with geometrically precise traces on a circuit board.

    Seeing himself standing there gave him the sensation that he was floating in the middle of space.

    The entire room must have been at least thirty meters long by another thirty meters wide and high. The sound of movement was indeed coming from the walls of the room, which seemed to be made up of panels. Those panels were the ones that made up the processing block.

    Upon entering something must have been activated. It was undoubtedly a nice show, but it would have been better if he had not cut it off from communication with the outside. Now his Neurowire had no signal at all. He was completely cut off.

    Thor rolled up the cuff of his shirt and clenched his fist, almost instantly opening his eyes in surprise. "But what is this?" he wondered. "Eh? Why isn''t my ability working?"

    His question was answered only by a light that grew a little brighter in the room. In front of him appeared a figure he had not seen in a long time. It was a projected hologram.

    "How''s it going? It''s been a long time."

    "Gehirn?! What the hell is this?"

    In front of him stood that immortal boy, who had raised so many legends around him, even if they were nothing more than whispered secrets. White hair, blue eyes. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. For such a powerful man Gehirn had not appeared so in his last years before disappearing. He had always been a man in a boy''s body, who had dressed with etiquette and good taste. But in the years before he disappeared he had a more relaxed appearance for some reason.

    Thor approached the hologram and passed his hand over. "Is this a live feed? Where are you?"

    The Gehirn hologram gave him a pointy-toothed smile. "I''m sorry, but no. This is not a live broadcast. This is a holographic simulation for speech only and it''s not a very detailed one either. It has simply copied my behavior patterns, but it is programmed for this conversation only."

    "What the hell happened to you? Why did you disappear?"

    "I can''t tell you that, I''m sorry," Gehirn said, with a melancholy smile.

    Thor frowned. "Why can''t I use my ability here?"

    Gehirn smiled again. The hologram walked across the room, flashing a smile that at that moment seemed to Thor to be that of a shark.

    "Tell me Thor. You knew about Varen? one of the study centers that took it upon themselves to study your ability and study the pattern of it, didn''t you?"

    "Of course I know that! Without that I could not have acclimated properly. I would be ball lightning if it wasn''t for the training program I went through to control my electrical pattern."

    "Then I suppose by now you must also know that Varen is part of ZAIEN."

    Thor looked at him suspiciously. He had known that even before. Varen was one of the many study centers for feys who were newcomers to help them adjust to society. "I know that too. What does that have to do with it?"

    "I''ve known your ability for a long time. What I never told you is, it can also be nullified, at least momentarily at least."

    "What have you done?"

    "Oh! Don''t worry. Once you leave this room everything will be back to normal. I just didn''t want you blowing up this block. It took me a long time to build it."

    "What have you done?" Thor repeated.

    "Don''t get mad. They''re just special nanobots that discharge the residual electricity that''s not part of your biological body''s electrical signal, but part of your fey core, they Shy Organ. Right now they''re sending that power to this whole room." The hologram pointed around. "Those are the pretty lights in the room. They''re getting electricity from your core."

    "What do you mean?"

    "All of your ability is currently conducting through the microchannel circuits of the entire room. The sensors at the entrance were inserted into you, but they function here only."

    "Have you created a way to block the fey abilities?"

    Gehirn put a finger to his lips. "You don''t want someone out there to find out about this. Some would find the news juicy and who knows what they might do if it gets out that there is a way to nullify the fey''s abilities."

    "You bastard! Why did you do something like that?"

    "Simply for this talk. I know that despite that facade of serenity, you have a horrible temper at times. But they''ll fade once you get out of here."

    "And then what?"

    "You crap them out. That''s it."

    A bead of sweat trickled down Thor''s face. "What about your code? It can cause a disaster out there."

    "The moment you walked in here the code started self-devouring itself. It''s a one-time use cyclic virus. A cracker''s trick from the olden days."

    "Are you telling me that out there everything is returning to normal?"

    Gehirn nodded.

    Thor arched an eyebrow. "All this to bring me here? What do you want now. After all these years?"

    "I want to talk to you about something."

    "If you planned this, how did you know I was coming? What would have happened if I was already dead? As you know, I don''t specifically have the most peaceful job."

    Gehirn smiled at that. "I was counting on you surviving."

    "On the other hand, I''m sure security personnel are arriving right now to force the door."

    Gehirn''s hologram looked away, as if thinking about something. "Ah, if it''s about that, don''t worry. As you know, the attacks by those fanatical terrorists who worshipped fractus as saviors put a damper on plans to build entire megalopolises, with buildings consisting solely of force fields."

    Thor knew that. The force field technology was not developed for war purposes only, but the idea was to serve to materialize entire building complexes. All went well for a few years, until the evil genius had found a new way to generate terror in society with something that should have been another proof that civilization was moving forward.

    Groups of terrorists attacked the power complexes, which the force fields used to generate buildings

    When shut down, or destroyed, they had resulted in the fading of entire buildings and as a consequence the people in those buildings had succumbed to the force of Earth''s gravity, or died within seconds in the case of Mars and the Moon. Those attacks had claimed at least thirteen million dead around the world, and hundreds of thousands more in extraplanetary space in the first decades of the Singularity Era.

    "What does this have to do with anything?" Thor asked.

    "Well, in case they try to enter the room by some other means, for example using an atomic vivration hammer, they''re going to run into a problem."

    "Don''t tell me that¡­"

    Gehirn smiled. "There''s a specially composed layer of force field surrounding the entire complex. I don''t think they''re going to find the generator, and even if they do I doubt they''ll touch it, considering the whole structure could collapse by creating a material void when it shuts down."

    "Are you thinking of demolishing the entire complex? What the hell is on your mind?!"

    "Don''t worry, it''s just this part. The structure of this part is separate, so there is no problem. The outsiders don''t know that though or, at least, I hope not yet."

    Thor looked at him and sighed. Even if it was a hologram it gave him the same feeling as if he had seen it in person. Somewhat sly, egotistical, and always with an ace up his sleeve.

    No one who knew Gehirn''s history was surprised by his decision to disappear on the other hand.

    On the one hand Gehirn had given all his resources to the war and, after the war, had even become more powerful. Without his money the Nevermore project would also never have yielded the results it had. Almost, in a way, it could be said that much of the acceptance of the feys by human and aeon society had been due to the political and diplomatic machinations and economic measures it had generated over the decades, since the First Cold War on the Ancient Era.

    It had been a breeding ground not with an immediate purpose, but with calculated objectives for the future.

    But, on the other hand, the persecution to which ZAIEN was subjected when the news that the first warp engine had been generated changed things a lot, although people never found out what really happened. In the face of the public opinion, and with dirty campaigns, the company was amended to reveal the advances for the benefit of all mankind.

    In just a couple of days everything exploded. The council told the press that no such breakthrough had been achieved in a hyperdrive. And so did many other authorities on the subject. India, Brazil and Argentina had made some progress, but the projects were not out of the planning phase yet.

    A secret investigation was opened in order to clarify everything. But it came too late.

    The personnel involved in the construction, a trusted special crew, Gehirn himself, and some of his close associates, all disappeared. No one ever saw the ship, and the shipyard on one of Saturn''s moons, where the construction had taken place, was destroyed before authorities, composed of Council and Space Security Council forces, arrived on the scene.

    The ship with the first warp drive in history had vanished into the eternal night of the cosmos, and there was no clue as to where it might have gone.

    But, despite all this, Gehirn''s true identity never came to light and, with the ship gone and no evidence, there was nothing to confirm the story. That in a way had been both a good and a bad thing.

    On the one hand, with Gehirn gone, there was no way for others to know that he had been behind the scenes of many of the historical events. That would have implied a certain complicity of the Council, space authorities and the United Nations. In public opinion, this would have generated enough unrest in society for the discontent to reach the governmental levels and for the Aeons to take action. Being designated as entities with political authority, they would pay more attention to people''s complaints than societies such as the Council or the United Nations. Such organizations, from their point of view as a hive mind, could always be restructured and many did not want that.

    But, on the downside, the achievement of warp drive technology would have boosted the space race in an unimaginable way.

    There was one fact that was ignored in the story, though. That fact was that Thor could have prevented Gehirn from escaping.

    A month before he disappeared, he had shown up at his house to chat with him. That talk had surprised Thor greatly, since they were not very close to begin with and the only point that somehow united them was that they had money.

    He had come to talk to her about a proposal to offer her a seat at the ZAIEN board of directors'' table. He had been somewhat melancholy in talking about not weakening the structure of the company, after it had taken so many years to build it up.

    In that Thor understood why. Because he knew that ZAIEN and Nevermore had become too deeply rooted in the market and in the technological development of the world. The Nevermore Institute, with its pharmaceutical branches and the SID, along with ZAIEN had been and still were fundamental pieces to the fact that people had been so accepting of the feys since the end of the war. The fall would no longer affect only the feys, the entire civilization could succumb in a way. Although new companies with similar power had arisen, both had a nexus of union in society that could not be denied.

    Thor, on the other hand, did not know what to do with his money. He liked gambling, but as a form of play, nothing more, he was not greedy. He found no personal use for it and almost always donated a good part of what he got anyway.

    And so it had happened, Thor had bought shares in Gehirn''s company only a few weeks before the disappearance. He was shocked to learn what was going on behind closed doors. In the press, news of the warp drive cooled quickly after Gehirn''s disappearance and the story was dismissed as an attempt by a rival company to make general market moves.

    An internal investigation had begun, in order to find out more details, and it was found that Gehirn had developed cloning programs and experiments that were forbidden by the new post-war laws.

    Despite all this, technically Gehirn had never fired a gun. He had not killed anyone either, but his crime was not to have given up his research. After all, the man had always been the same. A researcher and inventor. His crime was his inordinate curiosity about everything.

    The decision to disappear could have stopped something as promising as an engine to travel beyond the speed of light. But, considering the fights between the central powers, and the space branches, that might have been a good decision. Even Oxy was thinking along similar lines. The world was not yet ready for that.

    Gehirn probably made that decision based on everything he had seen over the years. He himself liked to say that throughout history morality had wreaked more havoc than greed.

    Not because morality was a bad thing. But in the sense that it could be used for a good purpose, but it could also become the weapon that destroyed a society. Morality had led to conquests, to attempts at racial cleansing based on ideas of superiority, to outrages and theft of the rights of others.

    In an uncontrolled era, after the civilization of three types: human, aeon and fey, had just come out of a conflict against a species from another dimension, the danger was no longer the fractus.

    The danger was the Dark Events and the new ideologies and movements that could come out of all that. The sense of morality could generate a military expansionism in the solar system, something that had happened. It could generate a war between the different corporations that had enough power to move the market of entire planets. And it could also generate ideological movements that saw the Dark Events as saviors of a civilization that did not deserve its rightful place in space.

    In such an era a discovery, like the one Gehirn had made, could have fanned an even worse fire.

    If it really was so, then the status quo of decades could have unleashed a war for space that who knew where it might have led. It was better to wait for civilization to finally reach the maturity and wisdom to understand the potential for progress it could have if it put some preconceived notions aside.

    Thor sighed wearily, and looked at the hologram. "Is it true then?"

    "The what?"

    "The warp engine thing."

    Gehirn smiled proudly. "Yes, it''s true."

    That self-confidence and smile made him angry, but it wasn''t worth getting angry at a hologram. "Why did you disappear?"

    "I''m sorry, but I can''t answer that."

    "Well? What is it you want to talk about."

    "We have several hours to talk."

    "I don''t have much time."

    "I''m very sorry that you''re going to have to give up a lot of your time."

    "What does that mean?"

    "Come."

    Somewhat away from them a set of comfortable wicker armchairs formed from the floor. The landscape of the room changed and from the walls emerged a garden projection that seemed to be from another era. A warm evening sun illuminated the scene.

    "What is this?"

    "A memory. Another time and place. When I was still human. Happy days, before hell emptied. Please, sit down," Gehirn invited, pointing to one of the armchairs.

    A wicker table with a pitcher of orange juice appeared sprouting from the floor. Surely that room had some configuration to even have some sort of drink or even food printer. Almost as if reading Thor''s thoughts, a plate of sandwiches appeared next to the pitcher of juice.

    There was something else on that table. A small black rectangle.

    Gehirn leaned back and settled into his armchair. For a hologram he seemed genuinely relaxed. "You could have had a life of luxury the way you earned money over the years but, instead, you joined Nevermore. A vocation of service not only to the human species, but to all of civilization. That is what made me decide that my self had made the right decision. You are a long-placist, like Mai. The end justifies the means. We have a duty to life and knowledge rather than to politics or protocol measures. Though sometimes she is too soft, I wonder if she has changed."

    Thor took the jug of juice and a glass that had just materialized. "What do you mean?"

    "Tell me, how is Shin?"

    Thor furrowed his brow and set the pitcher down halfway through pouring the juice into the glass. How does he know about Shin if when he recorded this interface he still hadn''t shown up?

    Gehirn smiled enigmatically at him.

    Almost at once Thor heard a noise behind him. A pillar was rising from the floor. All those things, from the armchairs to the table and pillar were nanomaterials that were surely predetermined for that. But what caught Thor''s attention was what he found on top of the pillar. He frowned and set the jar on the table again and walked towards the pillar.

    The pillar was a little less than a meter high and had a small box with a handle on it. It had parts of transparent material that allowed one to see inside. Thor furrowed his brow as he looked at what was inside the box.

    "What the hell? What is this thing doing here?" he asked with an incredulous expression, turning around and looking at Gehirn''s hologram.

    Gehirn just smiled and gestured for him to sit back down.

 Vol.4/Chapter 34: 1985-Those who left us behind

    Chapter Thirty-four

    1985-Those who left us behind

    July 4, 1985. Ancient Era.

    Vatican City

    The early hours of the night had arrived.

    The figure glided along in complete silence, trying to pass unnoticed by the other people of the College of Cardinals passing beside him.

    Each one was engrossed in their own affairs, whether of an earthly or divine nature, and no one paid any attention to the priest with an affable face, but with thick wrinkles already furrowing his face.

    The last few years had passed quickly for him. Perhaps it was true that as a person grew older everything seemed to speed up. Being a priest and at the same time an academician, he could not help but find a certain relativistic grace in that. Although he had gone through some tough situations over the years, those trials had not changed his impetus and that affable appearance that had characterized him.

    Father Verneti smiled to himself and walked through the corridors of the Apostolic College, between the labyrinthine corridors, towards the exit at the Portone di Bronzo.

    In the last few months he had been going there often. All because of certain news that had been leaked to the media and that had brought him more sorrow than anything else. Those news said: The Vatican is investigating in time machines, or The First Photograph of Jesus Christ, among other things. Due to certain incidents that occurred in Rome during those months, many journalists had started to investigate some things that were not well known. From Mafia dealings, death of judges or detectives investigating bank accounts, to the occasional polemic over even worse matters.

    All of this had led to the leaking of news that was not well known, such as the Vatican research institutes, or even the science departments. From a look at the research funds, a project had come to light that had been going on for years, and that was the one Verneti had worked on along with other scientists.

    Although the project had never yielded the expected results, the press had drawn attention to it and, in order to sell more headlines, the news had been exaggerated, including some false data to make it more sensational.

    In any case, it was over. Verneti himself had made sure it was. As he walked to the door and crossed the pilasters of the Vernini Colonnade, he felt a strange relief. Although the project had not worked, it had been an adventure that had led him to learn incredible things over the years, not only in the field of science but also in mysticism. Now that he was old, it was time to rest and perhaps reflect on all that he had experienced. Science, music and, although not well known, exorcisms, had been his life.

    But just a few minutes ago he had closed a chapter of his life. That adventure had come to an end.

    He went out to the Piazza San Pietro and there he saw that the last visitors of the day were almost leaving the place. Not far from there, admiring one of the illuminated fountains in the square, stood Dr. DiMati, who had been a tireless companion in his search over the years. The years had passed for him too. The thick mustache had grayed and he had gained a few pounds, although he still retained some of the robustness of yesteryear.

    Verneti walked up to him and patted him on the back.

    DiMati turned to look at him. "What happened?"

    "There, it''s all right."

    "You were able to leave it without a problem?"

    "Yes."

    They both looked at the crystal clear water flowing from the fountain and stood for a couple of minutes in silence.

    "I guess that''s it then," sighed DiMati.

    "We''ve come a long way with that machine. Even though it hasn''t given us the results we wanted."

    DiMati nodded and then frowned. "Are you sure no one will touch it?"

    "Yes. Just as Jack asked, I left it in the place he indicated."

    "I suppose it will be for future generations to unravel the riddle. A bit sad, really."

    Verneti put a hand on his shoulder. "Well, we can go as far as our science allows us in our time. They didn''t get the desired results either apparently, given what happened to that young scientist on the project."

    "Yes, I suppose that''s true."

    "On the other hand... why are you so upset? You learned enough computer science to apply it to those predictive algorithms, didn''t you?"

    "Yes, that''s true. The stock market is very interested in that."

    They both started walking away from the square as DiMati turned around for the last time. "I think I''m going to set up my lab nearby for my new project."

    "Really?"

    "Yes. The ones who are most interested are the banks after all. Next week we''re having a meeting with my team to talk about research funding."

    "You want to build the supercomputer here?"

    "Close. In the Janiculum if all goes well, there''s a pretty good facility. On the other hand... I''m close by if something were to happen to the machine... I don''t trust leaving it there honestly. Even though Jack says it''ll be safe."

    "Always so worried."

    "Well at least I''ll be close by. You''ll retire to Venice and I''ll stay here just in case with my numbers and my equipment."

    "Always with your numbers, too."

    "One day algorithms will rule the world, old friend."

    Verneti smiled and nodded. "Maybe..."

    The two friends walked away from the square, moving along the pedestrian sidewalk of the Galleria San Pietro.

    At that very moment, several dozen meters below the ground, three square metal suitcases had been placed in a certain tunnel dug during World War II that no one visited anymore.

    Although they would be visited in the not so distant future, the truth was that they would not be moved for more than two hundred and forty years from the place where Verneti had put them.

    But that would be another story for the future.

    ***

    California

    Through the windows one could see how the midday sunlight bathed the streets and that contrasted with the few lights in the bar. Inside there were only a few men and women in the place, who seemed too engrossed in their conversations. Intermingled chatter and whispers. The ceiling fans barely moved in the place, which made one wonder if they were only working for decoration.

    Sitting at the bar, in a secluded corner, two men had their gazes lost and in silence. They did not seem to be participating in the same hustle and bustle as the rest of the people in the bar.

    They had taken off their jackets and loosened their ties.

    Jack Pierson sipped from his glass of whiskey, while Carl Scott drummed his fingers on the rim of his glass. The day had begun well for both of them, but an hour ago they had both received news that had tinged everything else with mourning.

    Father Verneti had spoken to them earlier in the day to let them know that he would put the three parts of the machine in safekeeping that very day. That had always been part of Jack''s original plan.

    The orders he had received were that the thing was to be hidden in the tunnels after the investigation was over. After all, while Verneti and DiMati had been able to study the properties of the mysterious rock half they had, it was useless if they could not activate those properties. The last time both halves had been activated was in 1977, and only the half that Jack and Scott had was the one that had absorbed all the power and then the machine had been destroyed due to the residual energy released. So many pieces put together over the years to be destroyed in the blink of an eye. Only the half of the stone had survived, although its size had been reduced a little.

    On the other hand it was vital that the half on the other side of the pond was blocked, in case something happened. That had always been the reason for the two sides to be separated. According to Satou Nobuyama''s notes he did not know what energy they could unleash if they were together in the future. That was considering that his measurements had not gone beyond 1977, and that the particles in the stone did not seem to be due to emissions of other types of particles, other than those from the heart of solar reactions.

    But that was the way things were. After all, Nobuyama himself had left orders that they were to be kept separate. Which the Yanagida family had done, keeping one half under lock and key in the family safe, while the other half would be somewhat more secluded.

    But that was over now. Now the boxes with the machine built by Verneti and DiMati would rest under another layer several meters below the ground in the secret tunnels of the Vatican.

    Yet that was not what kept both men in a gloomy mood. In fact, that it was over too was a relief, even though they were in no mood to celebrate.

    Scott took the bottle and filled Jack''s glass, then poured his own.

    In Scott''s mind swirled the memories of the past few years, like ice spinning in that perspiring glass. The happy and sad moments. The adventures from that December 1959, until it all came to an end eight years earlier, in 1977. His hair had turned gray in some places and the first signs that he was close to fifty were already appearing. The recent years had softened what had once been the hard features of his face. After all, he was a family man. It had changed him.

    Despite the madness that had been his life in his younger years, he had managed to marry and have a beautiful girl, already in her eight years. With his years of service in the RIA he could already be thinking about retirement. Something that did not appeal to him in the least. Despite the losses he had suffered, and the horrors he had seen, his work as an active agent had led him to see the world in a very different way and to form bonds with people he could never have imagined. Both for the better, and for the worse in other cases. Because of his family in recent years he had been doing more office work and higher rank, but he missed the clandestine work in some ways.

    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

    Jack, on the other hand, barely showed that he was in his early fifties, even though both sides of his head were already showing gray streaks in his ever-twirling hair. He had spent the last few years studying rocket engineering thanks to the support of the royal family. Rocketry and chemistry had always been his favorite subjects.

    Although they were in different areas working for the royal family, the truth was that friendship united them. And there was something else too. A final mission, if that could be called a mission.

    The tinkling of the bar door made them both squint, and in walked the last person they were waiting for to down that bottle of whiskey.

    A man in his late thirties had just entered the bar.

    He wore a light colored suit, a hat and carried a briefcase in his right hand. He was limping slightly on his left leg and his movements were a bit slow. The man fixed his gaze on them and approached as he removed his hat.

    Despite being younger he had a more aged face than Scott or Jack. But those were not wrinkles from the effect of time, his face had traces of burns on the upper part, from the cheeks to the forehead. His hair, much grayer than Jack''s and Scott''s, grew unevenly more on one side than the other, due to those burns that reached even the scalp.

    Leteo Waters approached slowly and deposited his briefcase and hat on the bar counter, then took off his jacket without saying anything.

    He sat down on the stool next to Jack and asked for a glass. Jack took the bottle and silently poured him a drink.

    Scott, for his part, swallowed the lump in his throat with a gulp of whiskey.

    That night of May 1, 1977, he and Jack were able to see with their own eyes what that infernal machine had done to Leteo''s body. The molecules of his body had finally coalesced, but at a costly price that took him more than a year to recover. Not counting another year of rehabilitation until he could walk.

    The marks that trip had left were as if his body had been burned in some parts. He would have to live with those marks for the rest of his life. As well as Jack and Scott would have to live with the marks of lying to him that they had been friends for years.

    But, the way the next few years had gone, it made them wonder at times if Leteo really had always been there.

    Scott had been preparing for years because of what Jack had told him. They had to pretend that they had known each other for some time. Although Jack had done his best to give Scott all the details he knew, and had been ordered to reveal, that had been perhaps the hardest mission they had both faced.

    That poor bastard from another time, with his body almost destroyed, the first thing he had done, when he could articulate a few words, was to ask if they were all right. They were the accomplices that the man was in that state, but for Leteo it was another story. That scene years ago had marked Jack and Scott. So much so that even for a few days they wondered if they could do it. But as the days and months passed, they came to terms with the idea. They had both seen too much. Leteo was the proof that everything they had accomplished over the years was necessary.

    The final mission. The simulation had begun.

    With the help of the royal family everything had gone smoothly. Maximilian Norton, the royal prodigy with interests in the space race and links to academia, was the one who had handled all the paperwork to give Leteo Waters not only a place at the California Technological University, but also a place to live.

    Leteo Waters'' careers would be that of a theoretical physicist and materials engineer. That had been done many years in advance, setting the stage for the simulation with the directions Jack had given. A house, some extra friendships, forged papers, and others that proved that he had always been there. Everything prepared to give that traveler a glimpse of reality.

    A false life, which for him had not conferred any problems. For Leteo it was as if he had simply continued his life. For him that false life was his reality. When they had found a gap in those memories it was Leteo himself who thought that it was due to his accident.

    For Jack and Scott it was as if a person had suddenly appeared who remembered them all their lives, as if he had been there with them always, in all their missions. Traveling the world with them.

    The story, the lie, was that they had met in 1972, when Jack and Scott contacted him for academic help regarding the machine that was being built. He had also met Hisui and Quincy and Dr. Bender. Ishida and his family included, when he had visited Japan.

    Of all those involved, only Ishida was the one who knew most of the story from the beginning, although in the last few years he had become somewhat detached, because he had to return to Japan to take over the family business after the death of his father.

    Of course, there were some parts where they had to lie a little more and include in the whole scenario two involuntary participants. For example, they had to convince Verneti with some trickery that Leteo had always been helping since long before, but they had never noticed him before since he was still young when he had joined the search party. Leteo had even managed to strike up a real friendship with Dr. DiMati in the last few years, as they were both physicists and corresponded often. Correspondence that was monitored by the royal special services, to avoid any slippage that could cause an error.

    Gehirn only learned that a member of the lab team had an accident. It cost too much to convince Hisui not to reveal the truth. As Gehirn was, it was possible that he wanted to approach Leteo in order to study him.

    The stone and its mysterious origin remained the same, but what had changed was the truth of Leteo''s accident. That had been an experiment trying to glimpse the stone''s capabilities. An experiment based on the assumption that, as Satou Nobuyama had written in his diaries, the stones would be activated by an emission of savitronic particles from the sun.

    Those measurements of Satou Nobuyama had an error of several hours, which caused Leteo to be near the machine when those particles reached the Earth and the fragment in the machine in the laboratory caused an explosion when it was activated. That explosion was the one that had shattered and burned part of his body.

    Be that as it may, the man seemed to have a spirit of iron. Despite the recovery and rehabilitation time, he never stopped studying. Asking for papers to study what had gone wrong in the experiment.

    The nature of the experiment in simulation was to find out the capabilities of the stone for strategic uses. Basically information in the future. A lie prepared years ago by the team of real scientists who had been building the machine until the very last moment.

    It seemed like many years had passed since then. The timing had been perfect and there had been few problems. Leteo sometimes got angry when he couldn''t remember some things. The truth was that those memories had never existed to begin with. Only in his mind.

    The false memories.

    That worried Scott. Where did they come from? Who had planted them? From what Jack had told him even he didn''t know about it.

    Leteo''s voice brought Scott out of his memories. Bringing back other painful memories of why they were drinking in the middle of the day.

    "Is it true?" Leteo asked taking the glass, with a somewhat hoarse voice. Burn marks could also be seen on his neck.

    "Yes," Scott nodded, dragging his assertion a little.

    "What the hell happened?"

    Jack took a sip of his drink before answering. "A car accident. Gehirn was on the first plane out to Japan when he heard the news."

    "I mean how?"

    "We don''t know yet. But all indications are that it was an accident, Scott replied."

    "Nothing unusual behind it?"

    "We don''t know. Aya is the one who notified us."

    "Miss Himeji?"

    "Yes, she must be a mess, poor thing. She loved Masako," Jack nodded.

    "Well, she was her older sister," Scott added.

    "The police found the two vehicles as if they had overturned in the same place?"

    Scott nodded.

    "Is it known if it was instantaneous?"

    "Ishida and Masako yes due to the blows. Quincy was thrown through the windshield."

    Leteo closed his eyes heavily upon hearing that, as if reenacting the scene in his mind. "And Hisui?"

    Jack made the ice dance in the empty glass. "From what the police could see the windows on the passenger side also had signs that someone had been ejected¡­"

    "And?"

    "Most likely she disappeared. She turned into a cloud of ashes like some feys do."

    "My God... there''s nothing left of her?"

    Scott shook his head. "No, Aya and Masako had memories and pictures of her, and she''s disappeared from the pictures. In both of their house are the belongings, but she has disappeared from all the pictures, neither are the papers or letters she had written."

    "Damn it!" Jack said angrily

    For a few minutes neither spoke, until Leteo raised his burn-covered hand, raising the glass in a cracked voice. "For our friends, for those we left behind."

    "No, to those who left us behind," Jack remarked, raising his glass and clinking it against Leteo''s. It seemed that the alcohol was hitting him outside more than the others.

    Scott pursed his lips and clinked his glass with theirs.

    "What''s going to happen to the Yanagida now?" asked Leteo, after draining his glass in one gulp.

    "Issei is still a kid, I guess the uncle will take care of everything until he comes of age. The Himeji family is there to support them."

    For a few moments no one spoke, as if they were remembering the times they had been together, not only on missions or meetings, but also on more relaxed occasions, where even Gehirn had more than once joined in.

    Leteo could have false previous memories, but those of the last few years were true. Without all that madness they would never have met in the first place. That almost endless mission over the years had brought them together to accomplish something important for mankind. But for those involved it had been something different.

    A fantasy that had led Scott to engage with creatures of legend, hunting for lost pieces in the mists of time, while at the same time doing his job.

    They might be lying to Leteo, but who was he to argue if Leteo himself was in his later years enjoying his life as never before? He was well known in academic circles and always seemed tireless.

    It was a pity that what brought them together that day was the loss of four friends. If it really was an accident, it was a joke of fate, considering the dangerous situations they had been involved in in the past.

    Ishida with that always carefree and adventurous tone. Masako had not been very close to them, but it was always a pleasure to see the couple. Who would have thought that an arranged marriage could really turn into such a successful relationship. Although there was a story that the two already had feelings for each other, even before the wedding between the Yanagida and Himeji clans was arranged.

    Professor Bender had even become quite close to Ishida in recent years. The news had not yet reached the venerable professor. In recent months his health had deteriorated and he spent his time teaching his granddaughter historical subjects. They did not want to cause him any unpleasantness at that time.

    And what about Hisui and Quincy? On more than one occasion they had saved Jack and Scott''s ass when they accompanied them in the search for the final pieces for the machine. Days of adventures, discovering traces of a forgotten civilization buried in the most unlikely parts of the world, while at the same time they had to fool spies from other countries who were hot on their heels.

    But the friendship that had united them was even greater, due to the time they had spent together in those missions. Although, when Leteo arrived, both Hisui and Quincy were in Japan.

    Jack frowned at the memory. In the last few years they had been living in Japan, even though they used to travel to the United States Kingdom. But there was something on Jack''s mind. For one thing. Why weren''t Hisui and Quincy there when Leteo arrived?

    Jack looked at his reflection in the bar mirror. Try as he might to recall it, he couldn''t remember.

    Scott poured himself a glass and refilled both of their glasses.

    "And what about her? She wasn''t with them, was she?" Leteo asked, taking the glass.

    "Who?" Scott asked.

    Scott and Jack looked at him, waiting for him to continue. Leteo hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "The girl, Hisui and Quincy''s daughter? What will happen to her, who will take care of her now?"

    Scott frowned, confused. "What daughter? Hisui and Quincy never had children."

    The answer left Leteo confused, his thoughts crisscrossing his mind as he tried to comprehend what he had said. He put a hand to his forehead, disgruntled for a few seconds."I mean, wasn''t the day of my accident, the first of May, also the day their little girl was born? Or am I remembering wrong?"

    Now, Leteo''s erroneous question had unearthed a memory that never existed.

    Scott looked at him in wonder. Is that a side effect of the memories he was implanted with? he thought.

    Leteo sighed, his gaze lost in space. "It''s strange... I could have sworn I remember meeting a little girl. But now that you mention it, it doesn''t make sense. Hisui and Quincy never had children." Finally, he shook his head, wondering where he would have gotten that idea

    Jack looked at him. "Wait. A girl? Do you remember the name?

    Leteo''s gaze flew for a moment before he answered. "Little bell?¡±

    "What kind of name is that?" asked Scott "Are you going senile?"

    Leteo smiled weakly and shook his head. "No. It has to be one of those confused memories I often have.

    Scott and Jack also smiled weakly and drank.

    Still, sadness lingered in the air, like a shadow that could not be fully dispersed. They had shared a time together, had faced the dark world of their profession and had also found friendship in those who had now left.

    One last thought crossed Jack''s mind as he drank. A little girl? He didn''t know why but there was something that made him uncomfortable with the thought, although he didn''t quite know why. Almost as if he felt that something had just disappeared.

 Vol.4/Chapter 35: Night at the Lake

    Chapter Thirty-five

    Night at the Lake

    Wednesday, March 21. 10:25PM. 125 S.A.

    Lemac Lake, Lugrin. France

    The night in and around the camp was illuminated by the lights set up by the military teams on site. That brightness hid the stars in the sky and also the brightness of the Orbital Belt, which at that moment was rotating to the west, almost disappearing on the horizon.

    Lee walked through the grass and looked at the soldiers guarding the place, and at the others of the search groups, who were going here and there looking for new pieces.

    Oxy had really gotten the most out of his and Jim Stuart''s collaboration. Lee had been working for hours helping with the scanning of parts that kept coming in non-stop. It was repetitive and tiring work, but he couldn''t deny that it was much better than being cooped up in his apartment with not much to do, other than remember past and trying to make sense of things that were out of his control. Still, being at the lake brought back memories of the old days at the orphanage. He would have liked to ask permission to go to the place on the Swiss side of the lake, but it was impossible in the current state of affairs.

    Still, what he had been doing in the last few hours was also more than enough, although it had not helped much.

    That work was far removed from his job as an academician, but not from the particle analysis that the scanners carried out with each reading. Any variable that was out of place would have jumped out in the analysis. Lee knew the ins and outs of the prohibitions on unregulated time research, because certain discoveries from other decades, such as time crystals, were part of that regulation. The intervention was due to the fact that Dark Events could arise even from experiments such as those. What happened in Tokyo, more than a century ago, should not have happened because the cooling systems should not have failed but, they did. A deviation in the experiment that should not have happened.

    He put a hand to his neck and crunched his vertebrae. Although he was somewhat tired, he could not deny that the talk with those two had been most entertaining. Theoretical physics, hyperdimensional geometry, the occasional anecdote. It was refreshing to share points of view with someone who spoke the same mathematical language. However, the approach to the case had not borne fruit. They had not discovered any anomalies

    On the other hand he was worried about something else as well.

    He dodged a couple of spider droids, which protested as he got in their way, and Lee headed toward the tent with the red cross at the entrance. "Excuse me," he said, poking his head in. "May I come in?"

    Inside were several stretchers and bunks and a doctor in military uniform. Shin, Mai and Lizbeth were also there and turned to look at him. They had arrived just a few minutes before Lee in the tent to check on Van.

    "Professor Reubens, please," invited Mai.

    Lee entered and there, before the gurney where they were gathered, was Van. She appeared to be sleeping, but the faces of the others were somewhat serious.

    "How is she?" Lee asked.

    "She''s stable, but sedated," Shin replied.

    "Did you find out what happened to her?"

    "It took a while, but yes. Hyp-nite," this time it was the army doctor who answered.

    "Hyp-nite?" The term didn''t suggest anything to Lee.

    "Hyp-nite. Hypno neuro-nanite. It''s a type of nanoneuron of artificial origin, it was a military project derived from where GoldenShock came from. It has its use banned, because it can cling to Neurowire''s systems and influence decision making in a slow process, so as not to generate anomalies in the user, who believes is acting of his own free will."

    "GoldenShock? Like that dangerous drug?"

    Lizbeth nodded. "Yes, but it''s something different."

    "Someone infected her with it?"

    "Hypno neuro-nanite has an input system similar to Neurowire, it''s possible she breathed it in," the doctor replied.

    "Who would do something like that?"

    "From what I checked it could have been a few hours ago."

    Mai folded her arms, as she looked at Van on the gurney. "Van was in those tunnels at the Vatican. Who knows if whoever stole that suitcase didn''t leave something in the air. Just in case we''ve already alerted Rome to check everyone who went down the tunnels."

    "Is it possible to remove it?" Shin asked.

    "Yes, no problem with that. I''ll turn off the Neurowire completely and give her a shot of anti-hyp-nite antibodies to remove it. Then I just need to reset the Neurowire''s main interface and, when she wakes up, reset her own custom operating system."

    "That''s good to hear," Lee sighed in relief.

    Lizbeth turned to look at him. "And you Professor, are you feeling all right? You were close too."

    "Yes I feel perfect. On the other hand I have no Neurowire in my brain."

    "One of mine," Shin said, also turning to him. "You don''t have Neurowire either?"

    "No, I use an interactive contact lens type. You too?"

    "No, when they tried to put one on me my body destroyed it. Why don''t you have one?"

    "I was twelve years old, the procedure is expensive to put a Neurowire in an adult and where I grew up they didn''t have the resources. Not to mention that it has to be done when you are a child because of neuroplasticity, from the age of eight is almost the limit. After that you have to go through other procedures."

    Lizbeth nodded. "The age at which Neurowire is grafted allows the device to naturally take root in the brain. Being of age this costs more. In a fey that''s different, due to the tissue''s ability to regenerate."

    Shin stared at her. "So, it''s okay to put something in the brain of a young child, but not in an adult responsible for their decisions?"

    "Yeah, that''s kind of the idea," the doctor admitted.

    Shin turned and looked sideways at Mai and Lizbeth. "If we have children I don''t think I''d like them playing with their brains." Mai and Lizbeth looked at him dumbfounded at that statement and blushed. "I''m talking ahead... and why are you blushing? I''m serious."

    "I hope so," Mai said as the blush reached her ears. Was it necessary to bring up the subject of children now?

    Lee felt the sound of a bunk bed far away from where they were and looked over. Sleeping there was Ryuuji and, strangely enough, on the empty bunk next to him, Lee could see a slight depression in the mattress. Was it an old mattress? It almost looked like there was someone sleeping there too.

    He couldn''t see it, but it was Natuski. Both, she and Ryuuji had been working long before Mai''s team arrived and exhaustion had worn them out. They could have rested in the tents that had been set up exclusively for the SID, but they wanted to be close to Van in case there was any news about her condition. On being informed that her condition was stable they had taken Mai''s recommendation that they take a rest.

    Lee looked away from the beds and looked at the three SID agents. They made him feel a little strange talking to them. How old were they? If Mai was indeed that war heroine, she had to be over a century old. Or maybe more? On the other hand he couldn''t shake the strange feeling when he looked at the tall man, he couldn''t remember him but he had a strange feeling when he looked at him.

    Did he just say children? What kind of relationship those three have? Well, it wasn''t as I he could ask. Lee simply looked at the three of them and decided to ask something else related to the mystery at hand.

    "Have you discovered anything new?"

    Mai shook her head. "Nothing yet. We''ve finished checking the background of all the passengers and found nothing suspicious. What about you guys, Oxy''s parts log hasn''t turned up anything, right?" Mai knew that, she was attentive to the reports coming in instantly, but she decided to be polite. Lee was a civilian after all, he must not have had much idea of how the logging chains worked in such an investigation.

    "Nothing. We''ve been checking and haven''t found anything. I know how those scanning machines work, so fortunately I didn''t bother Professor Ishijima with a basic tutorial. But we ran various types of scans to analyze possible samples of anomalous radiation, but nothing has come up. I had ideas that there might have been some decay in the area, or even some change in the atmospheric composition. But analyzing the atmospheric data we have found nothing. Whatever happened either happened too fast or any residual radiation evaporated instantly."

    "How do you explain what happened to the avionics and electronics on board?" Lizbeth asked.

    "Well whatever happened on board also drained the power. We have a couple of theories but they don''t match. If the plane is from 2012 the draining and absorption technology wasn''t available almost a century later."

    "We''re on tenterhooks then," Lizbeth said, letting out a sigh.

    "On the victims everything is still the same?" Lee asked shyly to Shin.

    Shin nodded. "Nothing. I haven''t discovered anything new. I''ve been going over the bodies, I''ve done five autopsies on the most complete bodies, but I only found the same result. Patterns consistent with burns, depressurization, blood nitrogen levels from depressurization. When I examined the brain I found a little abnormal color, so to be sure I did an extra analysis on the muscle tissue, whatever the victims were seeing was triggering epinephrine levels. Which is normal if they were conscious when the depressurization occurred."

    "The adrenal glands? Were they metabolizing adrenaline from fear?" asked Lee.

    Shin nodded. "Do you have training in biology as well?"

    "No, I''m just a little interested," Lee admitted. "And in bodies that exhibit anomalies?"

    "I have no idea what might have caused that. The fractus didn''t appear until much later, but there are fractium in the bodies, so it''s obvious we''re missing something. I just still have no idea what. On the other hand something else strikes me."

    "The what?" Mai asked.

    "Well considering the pattern of where the victims have been found, we already have over 114 bodies. At this rate we would have found children by now."

    "Children?" Lee asked.

    "There was a passel of minors traveling with their families, ranging from three years old to fifteen years old. We haven''t found any yet. Statistically we would have found the bodies by now."

    "I''m not so sure," the doctor interjected. "Considering the muscle mass of a child and the explosion... you know."

    "Yes, I thought so," Shin admitted. "Being smaller and with a lighter mass than an adult, it''s possible that their bodies are still out there, but their mass has been reduced considerably considering the magnitude of the explosion. We have found other victims badly consumed as well."

    "It is possible that, considering the angle and momentum of the plane, the wreckage was sent hundreds of meters into the air. Considering winds and lighter mass, who knows if we wouldn''t have to extend the search radius to a larger one," Lizbeth said.

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    "Still, I find it curious. I guess we''ll have to wait. I''ll continue the examination tomorrow when there are more bodies. Military forensics have brought in a replacement, so if anything new jumps out in the investigation they''ll let me know."

    At that moment someone entered the tent. Philip peeked out half the body. "Guys. Can you come here for a moment?" He said and gestured with his head to the outside.

    "Doctor, Professor, if you''ll excuse us," Mai said, "Please let us know of any new news when she wakes up."

    "Yes, ma''am." said the doctor.

    Mai, Shin and Lizbeth went outside, leaving Lee with the doctor in Van''s care. Outside Zi was waiting for them as well.

    Both Philip and Zi had returned several hours earlier, after supervising the interrogations and asking some extra questions to those who had seen the crash on site. The truth was that the witnesses were already tired of so many questions, but they did it in a good way. It was a small price to pay and some were afraid that if they did not cooperate, their memory might be erased. That would not be necessary and the two had tried to calm things down a bit. But certainly no new evidence had emerged from their testimony that had not already been corroborated by the radar signals that had detected the plane in the first place.

    Although judging by the looks something new must have happened.

    "What happened?" Mai asked.

    "We''re not quite sure. The FRT members and foot soldiers spotted something a couple of kilometers away. They say we''d better check it out before they start moving the pieces. Shall we?"

    "I don''t have much to do," Shin said with a shrug. "No rest for the wicked."

    "Yeah, I could do with stretching my legs while we''re at it," Mai said.

    With Philip at the wheel, the five of them climbed into one of the armored-cars that had been brought compressed in the ship''s luggage and headed off in an easterly direction. The point was only a couple of kilometers away and was rather far from the lake, deep in the lush forest.

    "By the way, did you get the message from the G¨¦vaudan base earlier?" Philip asked, while driving.

    "I haven''t seen it. What happened?" Mai asked.

    Zi snorted and looked to the side with a nervous smile. "Apparently our new friend escaped surveillance."

    "Excuse me?"

    "The pug. The whole base is looking for him."

    Mai sighed wearily. "That little guy is really restless. He should have been shipped to the island, at least he''ll be safer there."

    "Well, they should find him soon."

    After a couple of minutes they arrived at the site. The entire perimeter was illuminated with lights set up by the military teams. Thanks to those lights it was easy to continue the work. The lights consisted of balloons the size of soccer balls, floating about three meters above the ground and emitting white light. They were separated from each other by several meters and could move along the ground at times. At the place where they had arrived, several had gathered and were moving through the trees.

    The group got out of the vehicle and moved quickly to the place, which was deeper in the trees and where it was not possible to enter in a vehicle. There the coordinator of the FRT search team and the military leader of the team greeted the group and led them to the site.

    There were pieces scattered all over the ground. Pieces of metal and parts of the fuselage. Lizbeth came to see that, a little farther away, there was even a door of the plane, although a little smaller. If what she thought was correct, that small door was a second access to the cargo compartment, closer to the tail of the plane. Shin saw some larger pieces and another door bent over the ground. That was the main door to the cargo hold. But what was mostly on the ground were metal containers shattered by the impact, as well as thick tree branches everywhere.

    They could see smashed bottles, which from the smell must have been wine. Over there were hundreds of orange balls. No, rather, they were oranges, a whole load of fruit. There was another one that had scattered hundreds of smartphones in their boxes from the old era.

    Shin stopped. "There''s two more!" He said pointing to two dark lumps. They were two bodies.

    "Yes, we''ve already marked them," the FRT member told him. "We''ll send them later to the hangar."

    Finally they arrived at the place where they had all gathered. On the ground Mai counted at least fifteen people gathered.

    There were also hundreds of small and large parts, cargo containers of different sizes and more twisted metal.

    But among them were some black, metallic-looking pieces. They were all destroyed and scattered, but certain shapes could be deduced. There were hands composed of metal parts, nanocarbon parts and other pieces that Shin could not recognize. There was something that could have been a bionic foot, an elongated piece that gave the impression of being some kind of mechanical spine, plates and other scattered pieces.

    It was possible that the impact against the ground had destroyed them, or that some of the containers had crushed them and produced the large craters that were seen around. By the number of pieces that could have been two types of robots. Given the destruction of the place it was surprising that there were pieces that were discernible in all that disaster.

    Shin didn''t know why, but the others were watching with frowns on their faces.

    The leader of the FRT team spoke. "We didn''t know what we were looking at. We had to run a quick analysis to be sure."

    "Are these what, 3T-DS?" Mai asked, stepping closer and crouching down to get a closer look.

    "Tetrahedroids?" Lizbeth followed.

    Shin approached as well and took a closer look. "What are tetrahedroids?"

    "They''re tactical droids for military use," Philip informed him.

    "...And I guess it''s not normal for them to be here. What year are they from?"

    "They are modern, state of the art military technology for military operations in space," Zi added.

    Shin looked at the shattered and crushed pieces among the various cargo containers of the plane. "If they''re modern, what are they doing on a plane from 2012?"

    "Exactly," admitted the FRT leader. "Put the plane aside. It''s forbidden to use these droids here. They''re technology developed exclusively for space combat, in case someone shows up in the neighborhood."

    "They''ve been manufactured a few years ago to replace early model soldier droids, but they''re in the space army."

    "One day you have to explain to me what the hell is going on with the militarization of space in this era," sighed Shin.

    "Is there any chance belongs to the army?" Mai asked the military coordinator. "It wouldn''t be unusual that by asking for a permit to train with space units they could have brought them in."

    "No, that would violate the code. It''s impossible for them to belong to the military. In the rare cases that space-use models are brought in they are engraved with a code, and in the parts here we didn''t find there was nothing like that."

    "Something maybe black market?" Lizbeth suggested, crossing her arms.

    "I was thinking the same thing," Zi seconded. "It wouldn''t be weird if there were models on the black market."

    "And leave them lying around here? The origamiun on those droids are worth a fortune. What''s the point of doing something like that?" Philip interjected.

    "Beyond that... the question is the same," said the FRT leader.

    "What the are they doing here?" sighed Mai and then looked at the FRT leader, "By any chance you haven''t found a container on the cargo side marked with the code AKN-8-31416 HP?"

    The leader shook his head. "No ma''am. Why do you ask?"

    "It''s a container that was marked on the cargo manifest as carrying fruit from the Maldives," Mai explained and straightened up. That container is still missing, and these droids... she glanced sideways at the others in her group and they understood.

    Those droids could be a clue. Maybe someone was really looking for something on the ship after all. But at what point? Before it crashed? If so, did they know what was going to happen there?

    ***

    11:00PM

    The parts were quickly moved to the tent where Oxy, Stuart and Lee Reubens had continued to work. Analysis of the parts revealed that, as they had assumed, they belonged to a type of military tactical droid but, unfortunately, like other electronics on the plane, there was no power left in the droids'' power cells.

    Providing them with external power didn''t work, because all the circuits and parts that functioned as the droid''s memory were just as fried as those on the plane. That had made Oxy angry, it was impossible for something like that to happen. Maybe it could justify the plane because it was a model from two centuries ago, as well as what it was carrying. But for the latest generation droids it was not the same.

    Those 3T-DS models were built for space. That the parts were destroyed by collision, explosion, combat was understandable. But that the fractium cells and quantum state memories were drained of energy and destroyed did not make sense. The droids were made to withstand the temperatures and harmful radiation of space.

    On the other hand, a quick examination of the two new victims found yielded nothing new, other than the fact that their nervous systems were partly solidified like the other victims. The theory that something related to the fractium had been involved was growing stronger. Shin came to think that maybe those droids could be to blame for the fractium being present. But it was countered by the analysis of the droids. They had pieces that were fractium alloys and it did not appear that the mineral had reacted to anything unusual. If they had been exposed to fractium aboard the ship they should have noticed some reaction in the parts. Unless it was something new, there would be no way to check until something more concrete could be found.

    Lizbeth had returned with Shin to the hangar to work, but nothing new there either. She had found two other young victims in their early twenties. Curiously, as Shin had said, the remains of the children on board had not been found.

    Lizbeth looked at Shin, in his secluded cubicle. Granger and Jade were with him. It was good that in the last few hours they had hit it off a little better, considering how Shin had known those two it was a good thing there were no hard feelings. Both members of the GSN, Global Security Network, were on rotation with the entire team that had intercepted Shin when he had arrived the previous year. The fight in the Gobi desert and the activation of the Marebito protocol was still fresh in Granger and Jade''s minds. But Shin was quite calm and was explaining something to both of them at the time.

    Lizbeth was pleased to see him working, but there was something bothering her and it couldn''t be that Mai hadn''t noticed. It was as if in the last few hours dark circles had appeared under Shin''s eyes and he was paler. She had asked him, but he had always told her that he was fine, he didn''t feel bad. Maybe he had eaten something bad? They had all eaten the same thing for lunch. Or had they overdone it the night before? The reunion had been somewhat touching for the three of them and in the morning he had woken up ready for another round, so she didn''t think it very likely.

    "Hey." Lizbeth gasped, behind her Mai had appeared. She had changed her hairstyle to a long braid and in her hands she carried a digital tablet. "I wanted to show you this."

    Lizbeth looked at the hairstyle for a few seconds, she was often the one who had done that braid with her hands, even though Mai almost always used that spider-like instrument to comb it quickly. She quickly remembered Shin. "Wait," she said, stopping Mai.

    "What''s wrong?"

    "Doesn''t he look a little pale to you?" Lizbeth pointed out.

    Mai looked at him. Shin hadn''t noticed, his back was turned at the time, watching the screens with Granger and Jade. "Yes I noticed and asked him, but he says he doesn''t feel bad," Mai pouted her lips. "Even if he did feel bad he probably wouldn''t tell us."

    "I don''t think it''s our fault, is it?"

    "I don''t think so..." mused Mai, but she looked worried. "Well, that''s just why I was coming. To see if you guys are taking a break."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Look at this." Mai showed her the tablet and touched the touch surface before passing it to her.

    "What''s this?" Lizbeth looked at the item on the screen. It appeared to be from some kind of museum.

    "That museum is in Noville, to the east of here."

    "What''s so special about it?"

    "It turns out that in 111 some fishermen found something rare that they have in the museum."

    Lizbeth scrolled through the article. There was a picture of what looked like two seats. "Aren''t these...?" Lizbeth looked up.

    "At the museum they have it as an oddity only, a curiosity to sell to tourists about the enigmas of the lake."

    "Do you think they''re the same ones from the plane?"

    "I don''t know, they''re similar, but it''s worth a look, don''t you think?"

    "Yeah... wait a minute. What does this have to do with Shin?"

    "Well the museum opens to the public at six o''clock in the morning and you can see if those have anything to do with it. I contacted the owner. Maybe he knows something from that time. If you go there now you can be there in a few minutes. You can use that time to rest... both of you."

    "We could rest here."

    "Yeah... but I was thinking you might want to talk a little. Be alone, you know."

    "You''re not suggesting we do anything else, are you?"

    Mai put on a more serious expression. "Really? Does this seem like the right place?"

    Lizbeth looked at the bodies around. " Yeah. I''m sorry... it''s not the place or the time."

    "I just thought it would be, I don''t know, a time for the two of you to be alone and talk... but mostly rest."

    Lizbeth frowned. "What about you? Don''t you plan to rest?"

    "Don''t worry, I''m going to take a break in the tent too."

    "What about security?"

    "Really? There are soldiers everywhere! There''s Phil, Zi, Oxy, Ryuuji and Natsuki. I''ll be fine."

    "You promise?"

    "Yes, Mommy."

    They both turned and saw Shin. He was looking at both of them at that moment. "Now we just have to convince him, he won''t like the idea of leaving you alone," Lizbeth said. From the point of view of both of them Shin was looking at them as if he was reading their lips. Granger and Jade, behind Shin, didn''t seem quite sure what was going on but were also watching them.

    "Let''s do our best. Let''s try to go in stealth mode to convince him."

    "I think the sound of my knees creaking already alerted him."

    Even though he had said that, it certainly gave Mai a strange feeling. After all they had been together as each other''s shadow for months. But she also knew that Lizbeth was probably the one who had felt the loneliest during that time. Lizbeth was the one who had instigated Mai to be Shin''s partner for the first few months, but she couldn''t deny that she felt bad about it. Daily messages, chats, could be enough from a certain point of view.

    But they had already waited too long.

    It was time for the two of them to have a moment to talk that day. Maybe Lizbeth could talk about that other pending issue that awaited them on the island once the three of them got back together.

    There was someone who was surely waiting for them on the island.

    And, between the four of them, there was something that could no longer be postponed if they wanted to continue.

 Vol.4/Chapter 36: Between Ghosts and Chocolate Thieves

    Chapter Thirty-six

    Interlude: Between Ghosts and Chocolate Thieves

    The tent was a modified distortion space, one of the many that had been set up in the field for the soldiers, in a space a little farther away from where the search was being carried out. There had to be at least forty beds for resting, but in them the only thing that could be seen were some backpacks.

    Private Monica Greinberg entered the tent with a smile. But even though she was smiling, a vein was throbbing in her temple. She turned to the only one in the tent at the time, a search team soldier named Claude Bonnet, who was taking off his boots.

    Monica reached over and tapped him on the shoulder.

    "Hey, what''s up?" Claude asked.

    Monica''s smile was intimidating. "Tell me, did you eat them?"

    "Huh? What?"

    "You ate them, didn''t you?"

    Hey, what''s with that smile? It''s creepy! Claude thought. "I ate what?"

    "My dark chocolates."

    Claude stared at her with a poker face. "I didn''t eat anything."

    "Liar, you''re always the one taking my snacks."

    "I haven''t had time today, I''ve been running around all day."

    "You haven''t had time today? Then you would have stolen them from me if you had time?"

    "''Have they disappeared on you?" Claude asked, trying to deflect the question.

    "Are you sure it wasn''t you?"

    "No, woman! We''ve been in different groups all day. Ask Marie or one of the others. It wasn''t me. At least this time."

    Monica stood up and looked at him as if in doubt. "This is so weird¡­"

    "Someone stealing your candy?"

    "I wasn''t the only one. Other teammates have also had some things go missing or found the stuff in their bags messed up."

    Claude frowned. "You guys too?"

    "What do you mean?"

    "Some guys from the other platoon had something similar happen earlier, they found everything messed up, and at noon two of our guys had their lunch disappear, they had to go and print food again."

    They both stared at each other for a few seconds.

    "Do you think what they say about this place is true?" Monica asked .

    "That it''s cursed?"

    "Some people overheard Commander Lefreve talking earlier about some team that disappeared here during the time of the war."

    "Not to mention all those rumors about strange things happening. And now the plane."

    "Don''t say things like that, I don''t like Dark Events."

    "What if all the people who died on the plane are the ghosts they''re talking about around here?"

    "They are very fast ghosts, the crash just happened."

    Claude put on a straight face. "You don''t understand my point. The plane disappeared in 2012, right? What if everyone died back then and what we''re looking at is the plane that just came back from hell?"

    "Why do you assume it was in hell?"

    "Thinking about hell is much better than imagining where it might have been. We don''t know what that Other Side is where the feys come from, do we? Nor do we know the dimension from which the fractus came. Imagining what we can''t conceive of is much scarier. At least hell gives us a frame of reference, if only a mythical one."

    Monica nodded at that, but she couldn''t deny that it made her shudder to think that what Claude had just said might be a possibility.

    Who knew how that plane had gotten there. Was it possible that the souls of those who had perished were in the vicinity, angry that the mystery had not yet been solved? Could they be the ones who had been provoking those hooligans to the soldiers?

    ***

    I have no idea what that was, but it was delicious.

    The little pug with fur like glass licked his muzzle in satisfaction. He had traces of chocolate on quite a few parts of his snout. The snack wrappers lay shredded in the grass, but he had finally been able to get the contents out. He couldn''t know that he couldn''t eat chocolate even though, due to the change of his metabolism inside the mirror box, it certainly couldn''t do anything to him either.

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    In fact he had found several types of food that day, each with different flavors, from sweet snacks, to salty ones, and mineral drinks he had found lying around. The lake water was refreshing, but those drinks tasted much better.

    After each one he had felt full and had almost slept half the day. But he had still had time to walk all over the place. Because of the movement of soldiers he came to believe that they were looking for him. But the soldiers were simply combing the terrain looking for pieces or moving things around.

    From the mirror, to the city of lights with its gigantic tree, and from there to a base full of machines, and from there to a forest.

    But the surprises didn''t end there. Since that girl captured him in her arms and he fell asleep, it was as if the world had changed. He also had been discovering some things that were different about him.

    One of them was that he could willingly use his crystal skin to cut things. He remembered how he had left that bar before he was captured, cutting the door. At the time he hadn''t wondered how it had happened but, in the days that followed, he had been looking at his paws. If he wished, his little claws, now made of the same crystalline material that could be as sharp as a nano-blade, could be stretched out and used to cut.

    He had not harmed anyone who had tried to touch him because everyone seemed to treat him well, except for that tall black-haired man. He hadn''t done anything to him, but the little dog had been frightened by him. There was something strange about him.

    Be that as it may, the next day he was bored in his cage, even though he was comfortable. It must have been dawn. He had seen the girl who captured him, leaving with the others and that was odd. Why were they leaving? The pug didn''t wait a second. He stretched out one of his little paws and neatly sliced the cage he was in. He had run a few moments before they boarded the ship and had secretly snuck onto it before it took off. Then the ship had landed later.

    He had looked for the girl with the big appetite who had been feeding him for the last few days, but he had almost lost sight of her after she got off the ship and went off with that bald guy somewhere. The other SID members he didn''t know too well to approach. On the other hand they seemed too busy doing different things that he didn''t understand.

    He had thought of Sil Moore often, his memory of her was fresh. But he had had so many new sensations in such a short time that it was hard to keep up with the world he was discovering.

    He had discovered something new, he could easily pass unnoticed at will. That had surprised him. It had happened when he had gone to urinate in a tree and when he lifted his hind leg he discovered that it had mimicked the same color as the tree. He didn''t know how it had happened and for several minutes he wondered about it. At first he thought it was due to the tree, but when he did another test he approached another tree and placed his front paws on it.

    That happened again.

    For a couple of hours he entertained himself, until he finally thought he understood what was happening. He simply had to approach the object and it would go unnoticed. But, if that was so, why didn''t the contact with the ground work? His paws should have mimicked the green or brown of the grass and soil, but it wasn''t happening.

    After an hour he understood something else. He had to look at what he wanted to mimic. He had to look at it for a few seconds and his body would change, although it didn''t seem to last if he didn''t maintain contact. It was tiring but he had found a new trick.

    Thanks to that trick he had looked at walls, to pass unnoticed by a group of soldiers, who did not detect him when he stole food. Also thanks to that trick he had gone to the main tent and had sniffed the boots of that SID girl with the two-rollered hairdo that everyone called Mai, but she seemed too busy to want to play with him and so he didn''t bother her. He passed unnoticed by everyone and without further ado retired, but not before stealing some cookies from a short-haired woman who drank tea constantly. The last thing the pug heard before he left was something like "Miss Izumi, have you taken my cookies?"

    The day had passed quickly with the new excitement. He had tried to play with the spider droids, but they seemed to ignore him completely. Remembering what had happened to that square thing he had stolen, when he escaped from the mirror and had broken into pieces, he didn''t want to bother those droids. Something told him that they were very similar to that block, even if they had a different shape.

    He had been a little frightened when he had found a charred body while walking through the trees. The smell really disgusted him and he had moved away looking for a different place.

    Beyond being unnoticed, he had enjoyed the freedom of that day. He had finally been able to see a sunset outside his prison and feel free. In the early evening he had been surprised to see those floating balloons illuminating the place, but what interested him was to find his dinner. He had stumbled upon a freshly-printed meal that a soldier had neglected to take and that he had stolen. Noodles with meatballs.

    After drinking water from the lake he had gone around the tents to distract himself and that was when he had found the bags with the belongings of many soldiers. He had done it earlier, but had found nothing interesting, apart from some sweets and other things he had taken and then left abandoned in the grass. The authorities had come to think that they might be parts of the plane and some soldiers had been reprimanded for causing disorder and confusing evidence.

    Finally he had come across a soldier''s bag, which had dark chocolates in it, and that had become his dessert.

    Where should I sleep? He wondered as he made his way back to the SID tent. I hope that black-haired girl is back by now.

    Halfway there he stopped. Where he was passing by there were no floating lights and so he could see the sky.

    Why does it look like that? There is something strange. He thought, looking up at the heights.

    Slowly thick clouds had begun to cover the region.

    That lasted a few seconds but he continued on his journey, without worrying too much. With his back to him, in another tent, Jim Stuart in the synthetic with red hair came out and looked up at the night sky as he stretched.

    Neither got a glimpse of the other.

 Vol.4/Chapter 37: Encounter

    Chapter Thirty-seven

    Encounters

    November 28, 2000. Ancient Era.

    New Jersey

    Rose Scott, wearing a one-piece dress, lay on a hospital gurney, nervous and expectant. She was a young woman in her early twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. Her bumpy belly showed the future that was to come and, although she was full of joy, she couldn''t help but feel a little anxious.

    She had arrived with her young husband in the vehicle as quickly as they could, but on admission she had been put on the gurney and from there on to the elevator to go to the examination floor, and then admission. Her water had not broken yet, which in a way was a relief, but at the same time worried her.

    The nurse smiled at her, trying to calm her down. Rose smiled back as best she could.

    "In a few minutes the doctor will be back with the first results, so you have nothing to worry about."

    "I''m not in pain anymore."

    "It''s just pre-term pain. You''re already overdue. Those contractions come and go."

    "Where are you taking me?"

    "To a room to stay in as an patient. I''ll help you change."

    The gurney folded and she was wheeled into a large room. There was another bed, but Rose couldn''t see if it was occupied, because of the curtain separating the sections. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the window into the adjoining section.

    After a few minutes she was dressed in her hospital gown and in bed. She was now calmer. Her husband must still be at the reception desk, taking care of all the admission paperwork. The doctor came in a few minutes later and after examining her had calmed her down. Everything was in order and he had left the room, after assuring her that they would do some extra tests in a short time, but that she would have to stay in the hospital.

    Another nurse had come in and was carrying something in her hands, but she went to the next section. Rose overheard a short conversation and the nurse left almost as quickly as she had entered.

    "Is there someone in the bed over there?" Rose asked.

    "Yes. We have someone in a similar situation." The nurse peered into the other bed and spoke. "You have a roommate. Would you like to meet her?"

    "Sure. Please! I''m glad. I''m already reading this book for the second time. I should have told someone in my family to bring me more. I''m bored."

    The nurse pulled back the curtain and Rose met her companion. She was a woman who must have been several years older than she was, but it was hard to guess her age nonetheless. Thirty-five maybe? A little less, or a little more. But she was really pretty. Her hair was a little curly and a little longer than hers. She was also dressed in a hospital gown and by the swell of her belly she must also be in her ninth month.

    Rose simply shook her hand and smiled. "Hi! I''m Rose."

    "Hi. I''m Hebe. How are you feeling?"

    Rose pointed to her belly and tried to make a funny face. "I think she wanted to run away already."

    "We''re the same, I had to come over last night because I thought I''d be in the same situation."

    "Nine months?"

    Hebe nodded. "You too?"

    "Yes."

    The nurse smiled and left them both to get to know each other better.

    "Have you decided on a name yet?" Hebe asked.

    "Louise."

    "A girl! Nice name."

    "And you?" Rose asked.

    "Well, I''ve decided to call him Bennu."

    Bennu? Rose didn''t know where the name could have come from, but well, she wasn''t the one to criticize parents on the subject of names. She, like her mother, was named after a flower.

    Regardless, Hebe must have noticed some of the confusion on Rose''s face. "It''s Egyptian, it''s related to the soul component of the Sun and the phoenix, it means to shine."

    "I see. It''s cute."

    "I come from a family of historians and archeologists. We all have names that are a little showy, or a little weird."

    "Your name has a nice ring to it."

    "Well, Hebe was one of the Greek Horas, and also a goddess of youth."

    That fit her like a glove, Rose thought , and the two struck up a conversation. They shared the same feelings of anticipation and nervousness.

    The two women engaged in friendly conversation as they awaited the arrival of their loved ones. They talked about life, their expectations and the excitement of becoming mothers. Despite being strangers, they shared a special bond at this unique moment in their lives.

    Just then, through the glass of the room, two men appeared. Rose immediately recognized her young husband, accompanied by her father, Carl Scott. They were beaming and full of joy, which made Rose''s heart beat even faster. The two men smiled and waved enthusiastically from the other side of the glass.

    When did Dad arrive? Rose thought. Almost at once two more faces appeared through the glass. "Uncle Jack, Leteo?"

    Surely her father must have been with those two when she had called him. They weren''t blood family, but she had always called both of them uncles. Her father''s friends who had always showered her with gifts since she was a little girl when they still lived in California. Now that the three of them worked together, albeit in different areas, and had kept their friendship together when they moved to New Jersey.

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    Carl Scott already had a few wrinkles crossing his face, and gray hair, but he was relieved that nothing serious had happened. His daughter and first grandchild were well and that was the important thing. Jack had mostly gray hair, but he actually looked about the same age as Scott. The years had not taken away that sly smile that Rose had met him with.

    Leteo, on the other hand, looked almost as old as both of them, although the passing years had somewhat softened those scars that had frightened Rose when she had first met him. The wrinkles had contributed to that and the hair had grown where before there had only been burnt skin. Yet the hair grew more on one side than the other. Many of those scars had merged with the wrinkles with the passage of time, only one thick scar from those burns on his cheek had not been erased by the wrinkles.

    The men stood expectantly looking through the glass.

    "Well it looks like it was just a scare," Leteo said.

    Charlie, the young father, let out a sigh of relief when he saw Rose in bed. "We got scared when the contractions started. But her water hasn''t broken yet."

    "She should have been admitted days ago," Carl Scott said, with a serious gesture looking at Charlie.

    "Well, they''re young. And it''s their first child," Jack tried to soothe him, smiling and patting him on the shoulder.

    "Don''t spoil them, now comes the hard part. Wait till Violet comes, she''ll give them a hard time even worse than I did."

    "That''s true, I still remember what Violet was like in the first few months with Rose, she didn''t want to leave her in the sun or shade."

    "Your wife is fearful, that''s true. Charlie, you better get ready. Grandmothers are scary sometimes."

    "I''ll keep that in mind," Charlie said with thick beads of sweat running down his face.

    "Hmm? Are you friends of Hebe''s?"

    The one who had approached was a man with gray hair and a beard that looked like it had been cut with pinpoint accuracy, looking like he had a piece of white marble inserted in his jaw.

    "No, I''m sorry, we''re here because of my wife. She''s just been put in this room," Charlie said.

    "Oh, I see."

    "And you are?" asked Scott, that face ringing a bell somewhere.

    "Excuse me, I''d like to introduce myself. I''m Marcus Bender. Who''s in that room is my daughter, Hebe Bender. She''s due to give birth these days."

    Huh? Neither Scott nor Jack looked at each other, but they didn''t have to. Those features, different hairstyle and type of beard, but it reminded them of someone who had died several years ago, in 1987.

    Professor George Bender, who had helped them so much in the past.

    They had never met the professor''s family, as he tried to keep his family out of the craziness of his work, but they knew. The son was a historian at Miskatonic University in Arkham, and they knew the granddaughter''s name was Hebe. But they would never have guessed that they would suddenly find themselves in such a situation. Leteo, on the other hand, had only met the professor on a few occasions, so he did not share the strangeness that Scott and Jack felt at that moment.

    It''s a small world, they both thought, almost in unison. It was best not to mention anything about the friendship that had bound them to George Bender. If he had tried to keep his family out of the mess, they had no reason to refuse the late professor''s wishes.

    Marcus Bender greeted the other men with warmth and courtesy. Immediately, he began to engage them in conversation, speaking of the grief he felt over the absence of Hebe''s grandfather, who had deeply loved his granddaughter and had passed away some years ago.

    Jack and Carl exchanged surprised looks, amazed at the coincidence of meeting Hebe''s father at this special time. The doctor in charge of both came back and looked down the hall with the five men and sighed. He could understand that they were family, but that was no excuse to congregate in the hallway to chat as if it were a coffee shop.

    While the men were talking, he entered the room and took it upon himself to talk to Hebe, assuring her that the tests had come back clean and that there were no worries.

    "My father is outside, do you think you could tell him that everything is fine, so he can rest assured?

    "My husband and my father are out there too, do you think you could give them the report as well. That will put their minds at ease."

    The doctor invited them all to enter the room and gather around the beds, only on the condition that in the future he would only allow immediate family in. This was no place for gatherings.

    Rose''s family, although they did not know Hebe, greeted her courteously as they entered, sharing the same hospitable atmosphere and the immense feeling of happiness surrounding the babies'' arrival. Excitement was palpable in the air of the room, and they all felt connected by this significant moment in their lives.

    The doctor calmed both families and left the room, but not before allowing them a few minutes to talk and nothing more. It was necessary for both women to be calm.

    "I think the doctor didn''t like that there were so many of us in the room," Marcus Bender said, once he heard that the doctor''s footsteps were no longer audible.

    "I think he''s a little right though, too much testosterone," Rose laughed. Charlie had sat down next to her and took her hand.

    "Okay, okay. A few more minutes and we''ll be on our way," Jack pointed out.

    "You go if you want to, I''m going to stay a while longer," Carl Scott told him, while in his mind he was already picturing himself carrying his granddaughter, he had folded his arms with a proud gesture.

    "If I were you I''d be careful Rose, maybe your father is already thinking of introducing her to Langley before she can even walk," Leteo said.

    "What did you say jackass?"

    As they chatted and shared anecdotes, Jack, with a sincere smile, turned to Hebe. "I hear your grandfather would be proud, Mrs. Bender," he said and walked over to her bed.

    "Yes, it''s a pity he''s not here," Hebe replied wistfully. "At least I''m following family tradition and giving him a name he would have liked."

    "Wherever my old man is, I''m sure he''s enjoying watching now," pointed out Marcus, who had positioned himself near his daughter.

    "My congratulations again, ma''am, I''m sure you will be an exceptional mother. This is a beautiful moment for you," Leteo said with an admiring smile.

    "Thank you. I hope so, I''m still a little nervous," Hebe said and smiled, looking at the man several years older and with an aged face.

    However, Leteo, for an instant, stared at Hebe''s belly with a curious expression on his face. Something about that woman had intrigued him, although he was not sure what it was. Still he answered her.

    "Have faith, I am sure that the nervousness you feel now will be something from the past that you will remember with grace in the future¡­"

    "Thank you very much," Hebe said and raised a delicate hand in a gesture of greeting. Leteo took it.

    There was definitely something about that woman. It was hard to describe, but it was a feeling of warmth and it wasn''t due to the sunlight coming into the room. That woman gave off a strange warmth that could not be explained.

    They both stared at each other in the few seconds that the contact of their hands lasted. And they both felt something strange about each other.

    The moment passed quickly as the conversation continued, but that feeling lingered for a moment in Leteo''s mind, like an unanswered question.

 Vol.4/Chapter 38: Holographic Portal Project

    Chapter Thirty-Eight

    Holographic Portal Project

    April 12, 2004. Ancient Era

    Anglerton Dynamics Laboratories. New Jersey

    Leteo Waters sighed nervously. "Are we all ready?"

    "Fix your tie a little," said a woman, somewhat younger than him, and reached over to adjust his tie.

    They were all dressed in suits. It was a group of five scientists, all of them with papers in their hands. They stood in front of a metal door and glanced at each other. No one was smiling, just a general nod of assent swept across their faces.

    "Well, here we go," Leteo said and opened the door.

    They had entered a huge oval room. There was a large horseshoe-shaped table at which sat at least twenty people. Many of them decorated military men and some generals. Others showed no badges on their immaculate clothes, just a gesture of seriousness. Leteo looked at them and almost near one of the edges he found two people he knew. One of them was Maximilian Norton, part of the Royal family. Prince Max, as some called him, was already in his fifties and many found it amusing that his appearance was reminiscent of Beethoven''s most famous portrait. The other was Carl Scott. On the other side of the table Gehirn was also there, in a black suit, twirling a pen between his fingers. Next to him was a fey woman with green hair.

    Leteo''s group stood at the open part of the table and one of them, with a remote control, lowered a huge screen from the ceiling, which lit up almost immediately.

    Leteo spoke. "Gentlemen, thank you for meeting here today. I know you have busy schedules and I really appreciate you making the trip."

    There were a few nods but no one said anything, though everyone seemed expectant.

    Leteo let out a sigh and began. "As all of us here know, there have been difficult times in recent years. The campaign against terror has not been yielding the results that the Parliament was initially expecting. And public opinion is beginning to show signs of dissatisfaction with the joint campaign of countries to dismantle the Octogonus terrorist cells, following the September 8 attack on a global scale."

    There was some throat clearing in the room, but Leteo continued. "What happened in 2001 has led to heightened security measures at airports and borders to uncover latent threats but, honestly, I think one of our biggest problems is underestimating the capabilities of these groups. They may have looked like maverick groups in the 1990s but in the 2001 attacks, and in the attacks that have occurred since then, they have proven to always be one step ahead."

    Another of the scientists plugged his laptop into one of the cables and images of different areas of the planet destroyed began to appear on the giant screen. The Russian Kremlin, the side of the British government''s House of Commons, a government building in Sydney, the Petronas Towers, an attack on the embassy district in Brazil, a train explosion in Tokyo, the destruction of the Panama Canal, an assassination in Manila and an explosion of gigantic proportions in the Horn of Africa, among many others. The scenes of destruction spoke for themselves. A few last images appeared in that tapestry of macabre horror. One was the White House, home of the kingdom''s Prime Minister, reduced to rubble and another was a building in New York, The Attraction Hotel covered in smoke.

    "No matter how it has been tried, whether by intelligence or military force, joint efforts have been ineffective in predicting the attacks. And that is why we are gathered here today. Show them," Leteo said to one of the scientists.

    The image that was shown was one of an obsidian-like stone on a white surface. "What you are looking at here is a type of rock that was found over a century ago in Japan. It was supposed to be two halves, but one part was lost almost two decades ago, in Italy. Its discoverer was a scientist named Satou Nobuyama, he is not very well known, although it is known that he exchanged correspondence in his time with Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein himself."

    "How long ago exactly are we talking about?" Asked a general leaning forward.

    "Ah... late 19th and early 20th century," replied one of the scientists accompanying Leteo.

    "Anyway. This scientist discovered this stone was two parts. In his diaries he wrote that he discovered them when he was a child but, what interests us, is that he said that when he touched them for the first time he suffered visions. As if he was seeing fragments of the past, or rather of the future."

    Some of the men furrowed their brows and others exchanged confused glances at the information.

    "What exactly are we talking about here? Some kind of rustic crystal ball?" Asked a tired-looking man.

    "Not exactly. But as an analogy it may serve. Let me explain."

    On the screen appeared an image of some pages of what looked like an old diary. The images were clearly old, not the digital quality of recent years.

    "What you are looking at here are pages from Dr. Satou Nobuyama''s diary. Some of the things here are probably remembered by anyone who paid attention in high school physics and chemistry classes, or in college." Leteo began to scroll through the images as he explained. "This is the Rutherford model. This here is what''s known as the Funnyman diagrams for electrodynamics, this page is about the Heinsenberg matrix equations, here we have what we know the Kaluza-Klein scale and this here are basically what we know as quantum erasers and this here is pretty much what we know as Bell''s inequalities."

    Many had stared at him not quite knowing what to say, while others looked more serious.

    "These pages of his journal would not be rare if not for a few details... many were written in the early years of the twentieth century. Many of these advances would not be realized until much later."

    Some frowned and looked at each other.

    "Let me show you something else." Somewhat crude drawings appeared in the pictures, but those pictures were much easier to understand than all those equations with Japanese notations. Many knew what those drawings were.

    "Is that what I think it is?" asked a general pointing to one of the pictures.

    "Yes," admitted Leteo. "If what you''re thinking of is the demon core, we''re on the same page. This drawing was made fifteen years before the date of the first tests of a fissile plutonium core."

    Many in the room were surprised.

    "Are you telling me that during World War II Japan already had ideas for an atomic bomb?"

    "Not only did it have them. Experiments were carried out much earlier, but in the Pacific. Who has not heard here of the stories of the Russian ships that spoke of an explosion like a broccoli fire in the sky?"

    Those were stories that were not known, so those who were less informed about who Leteo was knew that they had someone who was informed about some obscure events of the Second War that even they did not have all the facts about.

    "Was this scientist involved in it?"

    "No. Not at all. In fact, in his diaries he always talks about keeping quiet, so as not to cause any mistakes that could destroy the planet. As far as we know he corresponded with many scientists, but he never hinted at any of the things he wrote in his journals."

    "Where are those journals now?" someone else asked.

    Scott cleared his throat and took the floor. "If I may. They were destroyed in 1977, during the explosion of an experiment in the Mojave Desert."

    "What experiment are we talking about?" Asked another of those present.

    "I''ll explain," Scott said. "Through investigations by Her Majesty''s Intelligence Department, news came to us about Satou Nobuyama''s diaries, several years after the war ended. In 1960, we held a meeting with the custodians of the Satou Nobuyama diaries and the two rocks. Through a goodwill agreement, they gave us the journals as well. One part went to Italy, with a team of scientists that was subsidized by the Vatican, and the other half with us."

    "The Vatican? What does the Holy See have to do with all this?" asked the one who had inquired about the journals.

    "The Vatican has always had its special research department, not to mention that it has a science department that has collaboration with many institutions in our territory. Satellites, antennas, astronomical observatories that are related."

    "Not to mention the joint work during the Cold War period," admitted a general.

    Someone spoke up, addressing Scott, as he was flipping through some pages. "This experiment is related to the search for similar rocks. That was your mission, right? Were you involved in the Stargate remote viewing project?"

    It was time to lie a little. Any mention of past civilizations or the like, such as magic, was not to be named there. It was enough that a fey representative had been accepted into a secret security committee. Scott, on the other hand, had only heard about the latter, though he had never been involved.

    "Yes and no," Scott lied. "Thanks to the journals we got the information that the rocks were part of a larger mechanism that ran a machine. He wrote down the specifications of the machine, although they were a bit abstract, we suppose because he was not an engineer. Satou Nobuyama in the visions he had of the rock wrote down several locations around the world, where we think it would be possible to find more of the material. As for the latter, I have to say no, in fact the records of those who participated in the Stargate project have been lost."

    Maximilian Norton took the floor with a serious gesture and a curt tone. "The official position of the RIA is that the project never existed. But we know that it was a project conducted illegally and using dirty funds. It is related to the so-called 8th Floors scandal, as some of you may know. Not even an internal investigation has been able to find out who was behind it."

    There was no comment, so the general took the floor again, addressing Scott. "But you never found anything? I meant the rocks."

    "My partner and I did the best we could by getting to the places cited in the papers, but we never found anything."

    "What a waste of money."

    At that point Maximilian Norton interjected. "The money to finance such search operations came exclusively from my family''s personal coffers, no taxpayer money was used. Contrary to many of the projects that were financed in secret during the Cold War and which my family did not know about until the scandal a decade ago."

    "If I may clarify something. We did indeed not find any more of this type of rock, but we were not the only ones, many countries found out about Satou Nobuyama''s diaries and there were many interested parties scouring the world like us. Money was lost on it, yes, that''s true. But imagine what would have happened if other countries had found such material as well."

    "I''m still lost," said another man as he drummed his fingers.

    Leteo cleared his throat. "Please gentlemen, I will summarize now, before going to the important point."

    "Proceed professor," said one of the generals.

    "The stone allowed Satou Nobuyama to gain visions of future events and discoveries, that''s what we got from his writings. But he also concluded that the stone could only work on certain occasions. According to his hypotheses, the stone had in its core a virtual state particles that could be activated and change state only when they received the impact of another type of particles from the sun."

    "The sun?"

    "You see the type of particles that came from the sun, which he called savitronics, could activate another type of particle in the rock, these were called tokions. These tokions were responsible for receiving the information in time. But the problem lies in the fact that, to this day, we have never found these particles in the studies carried out by the sun."

    "If you have never detected them, how do you know it is real?"

    "Because the stone has been activated. And we have evidence of it at times when there has been some change in solar activity."

    "How do you say?"

    "In different years there have been testimonies that the stone may have been activated according to Satou Nobuyama''s notes."

    "Only testimonies and written words?"

    "No. We have a real proof or rather, two."

    Leteo indicated to the one in charge of the laptop something and it played the video of an old security tape. In the image could be seen, from a high angle, a deserted plain in the middle of the night. Nothing happened for a few seconds, until on the right side of the image they saw a glow that illuminated the entire image. This was followed by a strong jolt and a cloud of dust from a shockwave. It took several seconds before the glow subsided and they could see plumes of smoke and fire rising from the place where the glow had occurred. The installations on the ground that the camera captured were intact, that explosion must have occurred at least two hundred meters from where the image had been taken.

    Leteo explained. "This is the recording of the explosion that occurred at the Mojave Desert facility. This was on May 1, 1977. Some here already know the context, but for others it is something completely new."

    "That was caused by the rock?" asked a man with a frown.

    "The rock, it was in the machine that had been built for the experiment at the time."

    "How did it happen?"

    "Well, we had relied on Satou Nobuyama''s measurements and believed that there would be an activation of the particles in the rock, but that it would occur somewhat later. At noon local time. It was a mistake. It occurred in the middle of the night. The explanation for what happened in the explosion is that somehow the particles in the stone detected the arrival on earth of these savitronic particles from the sun and when they were activated there was an overload in the machine''s system, because the cooling systems were not working."

    "Can it cause such a big explosion?"

    "No, the stone itself is not dangerous. It''s what we were doing without knowing the potential it can release. Our science twenty-seven years ago was not as complex as it is today. The machine had really huge cooling systems to maintain low temperatures and they worked perfectly, but they were turned off because the was a cold night. At night the systems were usually turned off because it was believed that they were not needed."

    "It was night? How could particles come in from the sun when this part of the planet is in the shadow cone?"

    "Well we''re bombarded with particles from the sun even when it''s night. A lot of the radiation is absorbed by the poles, but there are certain particles that don''t seem to really care too much about the time of day, like muons for example. They can come in and have strange angular momentum."

    "In fact from what we can gather from Dr. Nobuyamam''s notes is that these savitronic particles could be a type of particle somewhat similar to muons. Although of a type we haven''t detected before," a female scientist interjected.

    "One of the first ideas was to put the labs in northern Alaska where cold conditions and study would have been better, but given the Cold War it was decided that it was better to keep the project in closer terrain with better security in case of any unforeseen events. The aurora activity in the desert is less than at the poles, but it also offered a good backup in case the rock could detect the arrival of such particles."

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    "You said there were two real tests. When did the other one occur?"

    Leteo''s group looked at each other. "That''s the reason it took us so long to convene this panel. We wanted to be sure before we said anything."

    A new video appeared on the screen. It was filmed with a hand-held camera and excited voices could be heard. The image simply showed someone standing in front of an office door. The camera was focused only through the glass part of the door. It looked like a professor''s office. The camera was moving so much that it was difficult to see but, after a few seconds, it could be seen that on the desk covered with papers there was a small glass box with something blue glowing.

    "This is my office in the labs, just a few floors below where we are. I was going through some things when I started to notice the glow. I thought it was something in my eyes, but I rushed out of the office and grabbed the camera from one of the labs. Without doing anything the stone had just activated."

    "When did this happen?"

    "This happened on September 7... 2001."

    Everyone except Scott and Maximilian Norton were shocked.

    "One day before the massive attack?"

    "Exactly. Now as you know several strange things happened around the world on the day before. There was a big uproar around the world because the market algorithms had started to behave strangely. Especially in the European Union, where there was a market crash that lasted for a couple of weeks. Almost like what happened in 2000 with Y2K."

    "Could it have been a coincidence?"

    "That''s the first thing many of us thought, so we started running experiments again, with the help of the Royal family. We thought of several reasons why it could have happened, we know that certain emissions from the sun can cause malfunctions in our equipment, but that had nothing to do with what happened in the European Union."

    "What were you able to find out about the stone?"

    "Well, to begin with, managing the stone''s energy is impossible with our current technology. It will be a long time before it can really be done, because exploiting the stone''s capacity would require working with energies that are not yet possible. But, on a smaller scale, that''s where we can make something of the situation. If our calculations are correct, even at smaller energy scales quantum fluctuations in the rock could be studied. Which by the way we''ve called it Chronomantic Crystal, rock seemed a bit inadequate, honestly."

    "What exactly is it composed of?"

    "That''s a bit long to explain, but the structure at a glance is very similar to other crystalline rocks on earth. From what we have studied it could almost pass for black quartz, although it has other parts that are not visible to the naked eye that are found inside. The geometric structure at the microscopic level actually looks like a fractal, which does not fit with the tetrahedral composition of the oxygen and silicon atoms of normal quartz. On the other hand the hardness is higher than that of a quartz, in that we have carried out tests under high confining pressure and the hardness is higher than that of diamond. Dr. Nobuyama called the rock jikanium, the crystalline structure tokihedron, and the virtual particles inside tokions."

    A good portion of those present looked at each other quizzically.

    "Where did this rock come from? Is it a meteorite or something like that?"

    Leteo shrugged and twisted his lips slightly. "We don''t know. Nobuyama himself thought it was from some mythological creatures called chronophages or something. We haven''t been able to find where he might have gotten that idea, though. It''s not in Japanese mythology, or other cultures."

    "You don''t want to know?"

    Leteo smiled. "Edison didn''t know how the mechanism that gave light to a lamp worked either, he just knew that it worked and that was enough, it wouldn''t be until years later that the quantum aspects of some light phenomena would be discovered."

    "Shut up and calculate," Gehirn said smiling.

    "Shut up and calculate," Leteo nodded.

    Another of the men had been turning pages and reading. "A machine...that allows the transmission of data from timelines. I''m kind of lost on this. From what I see there was huge amounts of money put into this. Even Mr. Gehirn here was involved."

    Gehirn cleared his throat. "My involvement in the project was for the fabrication of a part that could not be replicated in the Nevada lab. Our scientists did their best to build that part," he said and glanced sideways at Scott.

    "What do you think of all this?"

    "Honestly I have lent my help but... I think differently."

    "Why?"

    "To believe that the future is already written in the information that the stone can supposedly obtain, is to believe that our universe is ruled by determinism."

    "And you don''t think so?"

    "Whether it is or not, I prefer to believe that we have free will. On the other hand both science and Dark Events have proven this."

    There was a murmur in the room. "The Dark Events. Yes, those mysterious cases of supposedly paranormal nature that violate laws of physics."

    "It''s not like they violate physics. I just think they are aspects of our universe that we don''t fully understand. There have been some experiments in quantum physics that have proven this. If the rock, the chronomantic crystal as it has been called, really could predict the past and the future it would be like finding Laplace''s Demon. It''s kind of impossible if you ask me. Simulating all the paths between past and future would require as much computing power as creating a copy of our universe, with every atom and molecules."

    "But we''re not talking about simulating the universe. We''re talking about fluctuations in quantum information at the local level," Leteo said.

    Gehirn frowned and looked at Leteo. "Even if that were possible, it would be with almost very small changes. Something like what Satou Nobuyama saw could only be explained that the rock is quantum entangled or that the particles, the tokions, do not have a temporal lineality."

    "Exactly, that''s why we''ve gathered you all here today."

    New images appeared on the screen. They showed a computer-generated human brain, with wires and some graphics around it.

    "This was the first idea, although I''m presenting it in a didactic way. It always struck me that whoever discovered the stones had constantly repeated about the danger of a brain being exposed the moment the chronomantic crystal was activated. But my team and I, after 2001, wondered if it might not be possible that in the future a human brain could somehow interpret the signals from the stones when activated and thus amplify them to get a more complete picture.

    "Do you think that''s possible?"

    "I think it''s possible, but not now. I got the idea when I was looking at those virtual reality headsets that are usually sold for video games. "

    "The main idea is not to wear a helmet, but to transmit to the brain the signals from the crystal when it is activated. The brain would interpret those signals. But it was just an idea," the woman who said that was the woman who had arranged Leteo''s tie. A scientist with her hair tied in a bun and glasses.

    "Isn''t it possible to do that?" asked one of the generals.

    "Well, ethical considerations aside, I wouldn''t recommend experimental tests on human brains ever. We don''t know exactly what allowed Nobuyama to receive those visions, but something like what he described in his diaries would be impossible for a human brain, we are not neurologically wired for it, if we were we would not only remember the past, but we would know the future. Our brain goes in only one direction. Exposing the brain to something like that is crazy, not to mention that we don''t know what those particles can do to living tissue."

    "Is it known to be harmful?"

    Leteo spoke again. "Dr. Nobuyama died of cancer, we do know that. I myself was exposed to tokion particles during the 1977 explosion, but so far my medical tests have not detected anything. Even so, the possibility of what it would do to the human body should not be dismissed. On the other hand, this idea is not possible right now. It would practically require the introduction of a computational unit into the brain. Doing something like that today is impossible, maybe in a few decades when miniaturization reaches the order of quantum computers, and also when they become cheaper."

    "It would require a new generation of superconductors and materials," Gehirn admitted.

    "So? What''s the idea," asked a man behind Maximilian Norton.

    A new image appeared on the screen. It was a sphere, a kind of machine reminiscent of a vacuum chamber, with various connections.

    "What is that?"

    "This is a safer and slightly more improved version of the machine that was destroyed in 1977. the design is more simplified and parts not required were removed. It''s a somewhat different approach. We call it the Holographic Portal."

    "Can you explain it in simple terms this time?"

    "Well, the idea of the 1977 machine was to detect that particles called tokions actually existed. Which we already know. This version will improve, we can make use of it to extract information from the future."

    Silence reigned for a few seconds. "Maybe it''s too simple. Can you expand on it a little in a simple way?"

    "Right. In this case the idea is not to use an individual to receive the images. First you would use the Internet as a database. The idea is to send the information as high energy data packets to the crystal. Then the chronomantic crystal would send new results to servers... many servers. These servers would interpret the information and give us the result."

    "Which would be?"

    "Information, from the future."

    Gehirn frowned. "How would you activate the crystal in that case, you don''t need the sun?"

    "That''s where sending data at high energies comes in. Information encoded in electrons, data packets received in positrons."

    Gehirn pondered the explanation. "And how do you guarantee that the information you receive from the future is accurate?"

    "That''s the tricky part. The theory is that by sending information at high energies, we are using subatomic fractal patterns in the crystal structure to store and retrieve information. The connection allows us to interpret future events accurately, but there is always a measure of inherent uncertainty."

    Gehirn nodded slowly. "So it''s based on quantum mechanics only?"

    "First, we need to prepare the machine and synchronize it with the servers. Then, we will encode the present information into electrons, sending it at high energies. When we receive the positrons with information from the future, the servers will work on their interpretation. But keep in mind, Mr. Schmidt, we are entering uncharted territory. The line between the possible and the impossible is becoming blurred."

    Gehirn smiled subtly. "Blurry, huh? I guess that''s appropriate for a machine that works with time. Tell me, have you tried it yet?"

    "Yes. We did simulations of electrons first, then cells, then we refined the experiment using the Internet. We used information first from stock market news and then to predict events in the news."

    "What was the success rate of the last one?"

    "3 milliseconds."

    "Repeated double blind?"

    "14."

    "Energy level?"

    "We used all sections of the lab to power the machine."

    Gehirn nodded. He understood that. The idea was that they would need a much more powerful power source to extend time.

    "Crystal fractals operate on the principle of quantum entanglement. The subatomic fractal patterns in the crystal structure can be explained as quantum entanglements that allow connection with future events. Basically the tokions are not linear, but the electrons would be the ones transmitting the information to the future and, on their return, we would receive the positrons."

    The woman spoke again. "With the information received, the Holographic Portal creates a highly detailed three-dimensional hologram of the events you want to visualize. If the project works and we extend time it could have important strategic purposes."

    "How could it be focused solely for defense purposes?"

    "Refining the data feed. Today the Internet gives us almost real time information about what is happening anywhere in the world. We could send the information we wanted, and we would receive what we needed."

    "Would that be possible?"

    "We''re talking about the information we would send and receive would initially be in a quantum state before becoming electrons. If there really is free will as Gehirn says the observation of the information received would be the vital part. That way we would be sure that we are receiving information from the future. We may never approach the nature of the visions Nobuyama had, but in defense and in a war a difference of thirty, twenty or even five seconds would be vital."

    Everyone present looked at each other and the murmuring began. "What power source would be needed?"

    "The primary idea was a particle accelerator, for refinement, but we know that under current conditions it is very expensive. If we had access to an energy source that would provide us with continuous energy, I don''t think it would be necessary. Although the data refinement would be much less."

    Conversations among those gathered continued. It seemed that many were genuinely interested while others seemed unconvinced. But the majority seemed to be leaning more in favor of Leteo.

    Gehirn gestured to Scott. "Gentlemen, I''m sorry, but I think I should leave now, I have my plane waiting at the airport."

    "You''re not staying?"

    "I have another urgent meeting."

    "That''s a pity." Leteo said.

    Gehirn rose from his chair. "I''ve heard enough. If you want my opinion I would give this group what they are asking for. It''s not much, is it? Using power from an atomic power plant is much cheaper and wouldn''t require too much infrastructure. The benefits would be enormous if they can really make it happen."

    The murmuring continued, Gehirn approached Leteo. "Be very careful what you do, that stone already blew you away once... but good job," he said holding out his hand. Leteo shook it gladly.

    "I''m going to accompany Mr. Schmidt," Scott said. As he passed by Leteo he winked at him. "Good job."

    As they left the boardroom Scott and Gehirn listened as the table began to ask for more details of the whole thing and Leteo''s team lent themselves to handing out some paperwork.

    They both walked towards the entrance of the building as they passed through the floors and offices of the labs. The afternoon sun was streaming through the large windows of the building. Many of the people were still working on their own projects. Anglerton Dynamics was a technology lab more focused on industry and military technology development, but it had other areas with different focuses as well. The two walked down the huge staircase and into the entrance hall. The laboratories were surrounded by gardens, which counterbalanced the interior image of the facilities.

    Outside a car was already waiting for Gehirn. The windows prevented them from seeing the driver and if there were any guards, but Scott knew that Gehirn personally didn''t like bodyguards. It was rare for him to use them. So he accompanied him to the exit and they both walked towards the vehicle.

    Although Gehirn wasn''t overly demonstrative, Scott liked to think of him as a friend they didn''t meet often. Much less in recent years.

    Scott had moved a few years ago with his family.

    First it had been Leteo who had moved to New Jersey in 1995. A year later it had been Jack who first lived in Arkham for two years before moving to New Jersey. Both worked for Anglerton Laboratories, but focused on different areas. While Leteo had pursued high energy physics and materials, Jack was much more interested in the space race and rockets.

    Carl Scott moved in with his family in 1997 when Rose had entered Princeton University. He had all the years he needed to retire but, while he had contemplated the possibility, he liked to stay active even though the years were already weighing too heavily on him. A part of him wanted to make sure that all this was on track. The Royal Family had assigned him to lighter counterintelligence duties near Leteo. That would give him and Jack an excuse to stay close.

    As Jack had said, Leteo was going to plant a seed that would change the world in the future. The meeting that had just taken place was not about that infernal rock, although the results seemed promising. The real purpose was to plant the future idea of a mechanism capable of being implanted in the brains of humans. And, most vitally, Jack had said that Gehirn had to be there.

    Objective accomplished.

    That machine that Leteo was presenting now was an extra. The truth was that part of the design of the machine had been based on the design that Verneti and DiMati had used for the central part of the Chronovisor, but somewhat improved. The idea of predicting events came from the project that DiMati himself had created based on predictive market algorithms, although Leteo had refined the idea to a different level. It was a pity that both Verneti and DiMati had already died several years ago.

    Time, sooner or later, was hunting them down one by one, like a relentless hunter with patience as his only weapon.

    But Gehirn was still the same as before. Was he really human? He almost looked more like a fey, although he always said it was different in his case.

    It was possible that that man in a child''s body, who was even older than he was, would live well beyond a hundred years.

    "Quite a few days, isn''t it?" asked Gehirn.

    "What do you mean?"

    "I would have liked to stay, I wanted to see Louise."

    "Why don''t you come to dinner? I''ll invite Leteo."

    "I can''t, I really have to go."

    "We hardly ever see each other, the last time was three years ago."

    "I don''t have time, my company needs me."

    "What the hell are you doing now?"

    Gehirn sighed. "Investigating Dark Events."

    Scott''s gesture darkened a little. "They''re growing all over the world, aren''t they?"

    "Slowly, but yes. There are more every year. I''ve already heard that the RIA has a special team to investigate them."

    "Yes, even the PBI has a small division that''s in charge of studying them locally. The world is getting stranger."

    "The world has changed a lot over the years," Gehirn said looking down the street, watching the people go by, beyond the gates leading to the laboratories.

    Scott remembered. "You haven''t found your friend Shin?"

    "No. It''s been five years now. Always disappearing when something happens."

    "Well the last time he showed up when we didn''t need him anymore. We never asked him about that table though."

    "Well that time he was pulverized by a plane. I still wonder how that was possible. There''s still some silly girl out there looking for him, he''ll turn up. It''s not like he could die." Gehirn reached the vehicle and stopped. "Where is Jack, by the way?"

    "Cape Canaveral. He didn''t make it in time."

    "Send him my regards," Gehirn said and put on a pair of dark glasses that he took out of his suit.

    "I will."

    Gehirn turned around before entering the vehicle. "By the way, I forgot. I''ll bet you a beer they send all three of you to Diego Garcia."

    Scott grimaced in confusion. "Diego Garcia? Why there?"

    Gehirn wondered, "You''re getting rusty, aren''t you? You were an analyst, think. With all the conflict in the Middle East, where does the Kingdom want to gain strategic defense?"

    Scott nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean." Gehirn was probably right. If one was talking about testing advantage on a battlefield, nothing better than real-time information on what was happening with the troops. Diego Garcia was a strategic point in the Indian Ocean from where even missile attacks were being launched.

    "On the other hand, they have a fairly new nuclear plant there that produces more energy than it uses. It will be good for experimentation. Well, that''s just my hypothesis." Gehirn extended his hand. "See you sometime in the future, Carl. That way you can pay for that beer while you''re at it."

    "We''ll see who pays for whose," Scott said, accepting the parting salute and the challenge.

    Gehirn got into the vehicle and disappeared down the street. Scott followed the vehicle while wondering.

    "Diego Garcia, huh?"

    If what Gehirn had predicted was true, then the team would split up. He didn''t think he could accept being away from his family if it had to continue in a war zone.

 Vol.4/Chapter 39: The Big Pretender

    Chapter Thirty-nine

    The Big Pretender

    Thursday, March 22. 12:30AM. 125 S.A.

    Lemac Lake, Noville. Switzerland

    After being in work clothes all day, Mai, Lizbeth and Shin had taken a quick shower together, and changed into more comfortable clothes that they had loaded into their backpacks beforehand. The new task Mai had given them was due in a few hours, but Shin had been reluctant to leave her alone, despite all the security in place. He had finally agreed and, along with Lizbeth, had asked Philip and Zi to make sure she got some rest while they went to the other side of the lake.

    Lizbeth''s personal vehicle reminded Shin as if someone had put an old-age computer mouse on wheels. It had a dynamic, gently curving design, but from a distance it really had given him the feeling of a mouse. It was black, like other SID vehicles, but the entrance part had nanomaterial doors, which retracted when someone wanted to enter or exit.

    Lizbeth always carried a vehicle or two by hand, or rather it was better to say on her back. In the SID tactical turtle backpack. She wasn''t too keen on leaving vehicles parked, in case she had an emergency. She had learned from her first missions, more than a century ago, that it was always better to carry mobility close to her, in case she had to flee or go in pursuit.

    The compression of vehicles was a technology similar to that used by weapons and other implements that could be carried in tactical backpacks, but it was equipped with alloys of other types of materials, such as origamium and fractium, intitanium that could compress the mass and dimensions of objects much better, making use of extra dimensional spaces, sending that information in a virtual momentary state, until the user decided to decompress that information from the extra dimension of the fractium core. Shin did not yet understand much about the mechanics of those cars but, from what he had seen, the engines were really small compared to those of the 20th century of the Ancient Era.

    Lizbeth seemed really happy to drive manually. Even though the route was magnetically supported, no one would say anything if she was driving manually. It had flight functions but, given the situation in the region, those vehicles were not allowed to take flight at that time.

    The trip had not taken too long, just a few minutes as Mai had said. They had taken the route along Lake Lemac, passing through Meillerie, Saint Gilgolph and from there entering the Swiss side of the lake, to finally cross a long bridge linking Port Valais with Noville. On the way they had stopped a couple of times, due to the military guard on the road, but, upon presenting their badges, the soldiers had not asked many questions and had continued on their way.

    Shin had seen it on the map earlier, but was surprised when he saw how the Rodano River had enlarged in its eastern part, whose waters were the ones that flowed out to form the huge lake. It had widened so much that an entire area of Port Valais was now underwater where once there had been a coastal town with docks. The Rodano had changed its tributary from Lavey Morcles to that part of the lake, leaving the land under water where once there had been towns and some fields of crops in the old days. More than two hundred years had not passed in vain in that place.

    Search vessels were scarcer at that hour, but could still be seen in the vicinity, or on the surface of the lake. Over Port Valais was where the first radars had detected the appearance of the plane, although there was not as much wreckage in that part as there was in Lugrin. The problem was the several kilometers to the crash site, however small they were, there were still pieces all along the way, not counting those that might have fallen into the water. There weren''t too many bodies in that area either, but search efforts had expanded into the wooded areas.

    Lizbeth had contacted Carissia, to ask her how everything was going, but the redhead was closer to Saint Gingolph, in the area of the thick Leman forest, helping the search parties in the area.

    In the Noville area there was hardly any movement. That area had also been evacuated in case of emergency, so it was almost completely silent. Lizbeth parked the car in a viewpoint facing the lake and they both got out of the car to stretch their legs for a few moments.

    The night was not exactly cold, but a fresh breeze was coming in and the temperature was sure to drop further in just a couple of hours.

    A hundred meters away Shin observed the museum of curiosities they were targeting, it was on a corner and was only illuminated by the street lights. The owner of the museum had already been contacted and assured that he would arrive at the usual time. He had thought about taking the days off because of what had happened and therefore there would be no visitors, but the call from the SID asking for collaboration had made him change his decision.

    Even so, there were still a few hours left before the place would open. Lizbeth looked at the sky, in just one hour the region was covered with thick clouds.

    "Well we''ll just have to wait," Lizbeth said and arched her back slightly as she stretched. Her long flowing hair fluttered in the wind.

    "Yeah." Shin looked at her. She had put on cargo pants and a camouflage tank top, he for his part simply had on a t-shirt, dark pants and a jacket. "Aren''t you cold?" it was a nice sight to see her in those clothes, but she was really unsheltered from the waist up. That tanktop didn''t even cover her belly button.

    "I''m going to put something on now, that coverall and the hangar security suits all day have been making me hot despite the internal ventilation, I needed that shower."

    "Well, it''s not like you guys needed showers anyway, the particle bath would have sufficed."

    "And miss the excuse to take a shower together? No. Never!" She said with a smile as she put her hands on her waist.

    Nothing had happened in the shower, but Shin supposed it had put her in a good mood, after the busy day they''d had.

    "I hope Mai gets some rest," he said.

    "Don''t worry, already after the shower she was making a sleepy face and yawning. Even if she doesn''t want to, she''s going to fall asleep."

    Shin went to the front of the car and, sitting on the hood, lit a cigarette. Lizbeth gestured with one of her arms and a sleeve appeared first, then the rest of a short jacket. She had the turtle backpack in the car but the summoning link of her Neurowire and decompression worked even at a distance of a few meters. She went and sat down next to him.

    For a few moments they did not speak, simply admired the calmness of the waters and how the wind swayed the branches of the nearby trees.

    "How quiet it is," she said.

    He nodded, exhaling a puff of smoke. "It doesn''t look like anything has happened."

    "Well, not here."

    Shin turned to her and since she was on his right side, he couldn''t see that she was looking at him, but he could almost sense it. She was smiling at him.

    Shin leaned closer and then kissed her.

    "I want another." He did so. "Another."

    Shin kissed her again and then their tongues came into contact. They kissed for a few seconds, until Shin felt something with his tongue. It was something pointed. He turned his head a few inches away from her and there he saw that her eyes were glowing with a crimson glow. Her eyes had changed and the perfect teeth had changed too. The front teeth were now pointed.

    "I''m sorry. It was activated without thinking."

    "I don''t mind," he said, and kissed her again.

    That was part of Lizbeth''s fey ability. While her main ability resided in her vocal cords, those changes in her eyes and teeth were part of it. Lizbeth''s voice was cheerful and melodious, but the truth was that she could use it as a weapon. It was the reason she had earned the title of Banshee. Beyond that, her voice could also be even more spellbinding when she used it with those changes.

    She always had it under control, although in some situations, almost always emotional, it could manifest itself without warning. The night before, when the three of them had made love, it had manifested itself when she had climaxed, which had caused the three of them to continue even more, due to the effects of the voice. Shin could not help but remember the night before, as he kissed her.

    A few seconds later the changes had disappeared and she looked away to the lake and smiled weakly. "I guess I''m happy in spite of what happened. Does it make me a bad person?"

    "No. Disasters happen. Dark Events are not our fault. We''re just doing our job."

    "It''s a shame the ceremony was canceled."

    "It doesn''t matter. As long as I get the badge and can work with both of you it''s enough." he said and kissed her forehead.

    "You two need to stop doing that," Lizbeth was even more flushed.

    "The what?"

    "Kissing me on the forehead."

    "Why? It''s a beautiful forehead."

    Lizbeth looked at him blushing. "You always have such weird ways of complimenting. Besides, my forehead is sensitive."

    "It''s the truth," he said. "But it''s part of your charm, I''ve always liked your forehead. Not to mention that your headbutt can put a small planet out of orbit."

    "You''re so mean!" She said protesting. "You said the same thing to Mai about her hips and butt, don''t you?"

    Shin was laughing internally as she playfully smacked him. The last remnants of the cigarette were extinguished and he flicked the butt into the nearby garbage can a couple of meters away. In one of the blows she grabbed his crotch, trying to tease him, but she was surprised.

    "Do you have an erection?" she said smiling mischievously and slid her hand down his pants. Then she pulled away and brought her hands to her hair. She was pulling her hair into a ponytail.

    Shin tried to smile at her. "No, no, no. It''s not the time. It''ll come down."

    Lizbeth made a disappointed face. "You really don''t want to? I wouldn''t mind."

    "We just had a bath, and if we start we''re not going to stop." Shin wanted to, but it wasn''t the time or place to do something like that.

    "It''s a pity."

    Lizbeth was always more determined than Mai, but it was true that this was going to make them uncomfortable after all she had seen that day. After about five minutes everything went back to normal.

    They both simply stood close to each other looking out over the water. Lizbeth''s ears were red, she was having second thoughts and Shin was right, but she couldn''t shake the idea that she would have liked something else to happen. But it was true, after what they had seen earlier in the day, it was not the time for it.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    Lizbeth finally pulled away and went to the back of the car to open the trunk.

    "Do you want something to drink?" she asked.

    "Whatever you drink, I''m fine with anything," Shin replied and walked towards her.

    "A glass of milk?" Lizbeth asked and Shin just stared at her. Almost instantly she blushed. "I just want it to sleep, it''s not a double hint or nothing," she then covered her chest with her jacket. "I''m not going to give you any of mine either."

    "I didn''t say anything, you don''t have to explain."

    On the luggage rack Lizbeth had a machine that reminded Shin of a coffee maker, but it had buttons that he guessed were different drinks held in small cubes. Finally, as she, took a glass of milk.

    "Are you okay? You look tired," Lizbeth asked as she held the warm glass in her hands.

    "Yes I saw myself in the mirror, but I don''t feel very tired honestly."

    "You''re not lying to me, are you?"

    Shin leaned closer and kissed her forehead again. "I''m not lying to you.

    "If you really want I can give you. Maybe you''ll feel better if you drink magic essence."

    "No, I don''t need to. If I did I know what would happen next. Besides, I already drank last night."

    "That''s not what I mean." She reached out her hand towards the vehicle again and instantly a small 200 milliliter bottle appeared in her hand which she threw towards him.

    Shin caught the bottle in mid-air and looked at her. "You two want to get me addicted or something?"

    "Now you suck it up. That''s your fault after all. Before I didn''t produce much when I was with Mai and since you came back I have to do it every day."

    "I''m sorry." Shin looked at her a little guiltily and then extended the bottle toward her. "Thanks¡­ for the drink."

    "It''s from today, so drink it," she told him smiling mischievously and extending a thumb. "100% fairy milk."

    They finished their drinks and after a few minutes returned to the car. The temperature was already dropping considerably and he could see that Lizbeth was already feeling cold.

    In the car she changed the configuration and the two seats merged into one as they reclined. Shin already knew that many times she had used it as a bed and had to admit that it was quite comfortable inside for two people.

    She ran a hand over the top of the car and the roof inside became transparent. The two of them were huddled together and for a few moments they looked up at the cloud-covered sky. In a way that image reminded them of some nights in the past, where they had slept out in the open, lost somewhere in the world. The difference was that many of those nights they had felt the breeze. Now they were warm with the car''s conditioning system.

    "I wonder if Mai is asleep?" Lizbeth asked.

    "I hope so," Shin replied and hugged her.

    Lizbeth clung even closer to him and spoke in a softer tone, although Shin noticed some concern in her voice. "Mai is afraid."

    "What are you talking about?"

    "We''re fine, as we are now. But do you think we''ll do this forever?" Shin looked at her and she continued. "You know there have been cases where, all of a sudden, feys have fallen into dormancy and when they woke up they found they had lost everything. Friendships, families, home. That terrifies Mai and to be honest it terrifies me too."

    Shin looked at her and she continued. "We have achieved what we wanted, we have fought, we have suffered, we have been tortured, persecuted. And in spite of that we kept going. But, as time goes by, we can''t do anything. We have done enough, don''t you think? One day we may fall asleep and then what?"

    "I thought you two compensated by taking longer breaks."

    "Yeah, that doesn''t mean we won''t fall into a deep sleep someday. What''s going to happen then? Mai is afraid that it will happen someday and when she wakes up everything will have changed. All the work of years gone. Why do you think she continues to be the director of operations?"

    "Hasn''t she thought about quitting?"

    "Yes. But it scares her too. We''ve been doing this for so long. But someday Nevermore will disappear too, it may be a day like tomorrow or a hundred or thousand years from now but someday it all comes to an end. And if we fall into a dream, what happens? Today Nevermore is necessary for the world, but it may not always remain so. Opinions change a lot, even if we are already accepted, we know enough that civilizations can very easily take a step back in their values. On the other hand she feels it is her responsibility to carry the leadership of Nevermore, because of all those who have died along the way, she wants to carry the memories of the fallen into the future."

    Shin looked at her, he could almost feel her voice getting a little heavier. He didn''t like that tone, he knew it was reminiscent of how he had found her, broken and on the verge of death in an Ahnenerbe dungeon. He pulled her tighter against him.

    "If that should happen to us, promise you will stay by our side. We waited too long, even if our memories are blurred we know that the four of us-"

    Shin put a finger to her lips. She was about to say something she shouldn''t have. Memories of that fight in Turkey came back to his mind. He had seen Lizbeth''s throat explode from saying the wrong thing and Mai fade away. That fight had put a lot of pieces in place, but the three of them knew better than to say it. The feys couldn''t remember the Other Side. And they did, albeit in a blur, remember.

    "There is nothing in this world that wants to make me move from where I am. I''m happy with both of you. I really am and I don''t intend for that to change. Even if you both were to fall asleep, the two of us will wait for you two to wake up."

    Lizbeth opened her eyes and looked at him. "Did you just say the two of us?"

    Ah, it slipped out, Shin thought.

    Lizbeth smiled and her eyes sparkled, as she snuggled back in. "So you''ve already made up your mind¡­"

    "It''s not like my decision is unique. Kotori must be very confused about this situation. It''s something the four of us need to talk about."

    "Don''t you talk to her every day? "At least it seemed that the sad tone had disappeared in Lizbeth and she was more cheerful.

    "Yes, she handles all the assistance stuff for me, I have to talk to her almost every day."

    "But you don''t talk about anything else?"

    "It''s a little confusing, what should I tell her? Do you remember the night we were together? Do you want to be part of a foursome? The poor thing must be more confused than we are about what happened."

    "Don''t be so sure. Mai and I talked to her too."

    "You guys talk almost every day, I know." Shin stopped and looked at her. "Have you been with Kotori this month?"

    "Yes... when I went to the island for some repairs a couple of weeks ago."

    "Did you two¡­"

    "No. Nothing happened. I want it to be the four of us again if it happens next time."

    Shin kept quiet. "She hasn''t told me anything."

    "I think Kotori is a little shy with you, more so than with us."

    "She hasn''t said anything to me."

    "Well, maybe it''s because of that feeling some people get. I mean she definitely loves you, but okay. She''s had a couple of boyfriends before but I guess seeing herself in this situation is a little weird for her, more than it was for us."

    "And you you and Mai?"

    "Hasn''t Mai told you how she feels?"

    "Yes, but it''s a little confusing." Shin sighed. "I feel strange now."

    "Don''t tell me you hate her?"

    "Of course not, and you two know it. I''d be a jerk to hate her."

    "Well the three of us pushed you that night. In that the four of us are responsible for taking that step."

    "But I was more sober, so it''s my responsibility. Not to mention I was fully conscious the second time."

    "All three of us were. Do you regret it?"

    "No," Shin admitted.

    Lizbeth smiled a little more. That was a beautiful memory for them, even though it had generated so many embarrassing moments in the days that followed. For some of the SID could smell that something had happened, even though they weren''t quite sure what. Kotori wasn''t good at lying, so they couldn''t put the onus on her to make sure that lie would soon fall.

    "So you like her, just like us."

    "She''s very pretty and she''s a very sweet girl. But she terrifies me at the same time. She''s a human, not to mention only twenty-four years old."

    "Don''t treat her like she''s a child, she''s already an adult," Lizbeth said somewhat sulkily.

    "Well, as far as we''re concerned she is."

    "Kotori has been through more than a normal person goes through. She lost both legs because of the Dark Events. Not to mention all the mental training she had to go through because of her ability. She''s a strong woman even though she doesn''t look it."

    "I know that, I''m not downplaying what happened. On the other hand it is a decision that concerns all four of us, why are you two asking only me?"

    "Because we already had feelings for her, even before you came along, but we never understood it until that fight in Turkey. That''s when we realized she had a tie with us."

    Shin sighed. "Imagine if we went through with this and something happened in the future. That could tear her apart. She doesn''t have the experiences we have, she hasn''t seen the things we have seen. On the other hand we are traveling around investigating cases, do you think it is fair to leave her on the island, waiting for us to come back once a month to meet again? Every time we go back to the island I see in her eyes how she looks at us when we leave".

    "Still... you said the two of us," she said and lifted her head and gave him a kiss before returning to the previous position.

    Lizbeth snuggled against Shin''s chest and for a few moments said nothing. She herself had checked the last thing Shin had said and she knew that feeling better than anyone else, because she had experienced it in the last few years before Shin disappeared. Shin had always let her go because he wanted her not only to see the world and have new experiences, but also to be safe. Trouble haunted Shin back then and he would never have forgiven himself if something happened to her because of him.

    The year before, when he had returned, something had changed, trouble didn''t seem to follow Shin like before. But something else had also happened that they could not talk about openly, although all three knew it was there. Kotori was in that puzzle that was their lives, they knew it was an important piece although they did not know how it fit in. Or rather they sensed it, but they were afraid of it too. Shin was right about that. The fact that the four of them had succumbed in those two nights of passion did not take away the problem.

    They could love and cherish each other, but they could not talk about what had happened to them on the Other Side and Kotori was in that whirlwind. Kotori knew it too, although it was different for her. She had met Mai and Lizbeth first and Shin later, when he had arrived on the island last year. But it wasn''t until the four of them met that they knew there was something between them.

    "Do you think we have anything to do with it?"

    "With what?"

    "With what happened to her?"

    Shin hugged her tightly to his chest. "That''s horrible. I don''t see how that could be possible. I wasn''t here when it happened and you didn''t know her either, did you?"

    Lizbeth shook her head. "You really think there''s something behind us?"

    "Don''t say it."

    Lizbeth pressed against his chest. "We''d better rest."

    Shin nodded and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

    "Can I... ask you something else?"

    "Yes, what is it?"

    "Did you really mean it... about the kids?"

    Shin knew she was referring to the conversation that had taken place earlier with that professor named Lee. "Yes," he said. "It would be nice, but I think it''s a little early."

    Lizbeth nodded as well. "It would be nice... I don''t want to miss out on anything, we''ve done enough.¡­We''re entitled to some more happiness.... Don''t you think?"

    He kissed her head as an answer.

    "I want, a family... Someday... A big... family.... Can I... ask you for something else?"

    "Yes, but you''re already falling asleep."

    "Our song¡­"

    Shin looked at her quizzically. "Really?"

    "Yes, I miss it... sing it to me, even if it''s slow¡­"

    Shin did not consider his voice to be good for interpreting. Lizbeth voice was much more melodious but he did it anyway. "Oh yes, I''m the great pretender, ooh, ooh. Pretending I''m doing well, ooh, ooh.¡­"

    It had been in the sixties of the twentieth century in the Ancient Era, when they had met again after some years, when that song had become her favorite. The Great Pretender. It was a good song, despite the meaning. And, over the years, it had certainly become their song.

    Shin continued, but he could almost hear her lips whispering the lyrics softly. As he reached the last few verses he could only hear her calm breathing.

    "I''m wearing my heart like a crown...Pretending that you''re... Pretending... that you''re still around..."

    Shin''s eyelids were heavy. It was certainly a pity that the ceremony had been cancelled, but they could still be together.

    He looked up at the cloud-filled sky. Far beyond now there was life in space, in more ways than one, given the latest adventure in Kazagistan. In another sense he himself was an alien in the universe.

    Maybe it would be nice if in the near future they could go into space, there was so much to know out there. And who knew, maybe if it worked out, the four of them could even go.

    With that thought he closed his eyes and fell asleep. Pretending that the universe, at least, would give them a break in the future.

 Vol.4/Chapter 40: A Kiss and Goodbye

    Chapter Forty

    A Kiss and Goodbye

    Thursday, March 22. 2.30AM. 125 S.A.

    Underground floor, Grenoble Pyrene Station, France.

    He had awakened

    Everything was darkness for him, even though his eyes were open.

    That female voice, with a certain artificial tone, had been repeating the same message for several minutes. Although he understood the meaning, he could do nothing about his situation.

    [O-oxygen levels lo-o-o-o-low. Re-commend-ed ejection of the upper plate. Risk of i-i-imminent death.]

    Then there were some sounds as if something was jammed and tried several times to disengage some kind of mechanism.

    [E-error. The hyperbaric capsule safety system is damaged on locks seven and thirteen. It is recommended to operate the safety latch and eject the protective plate. Risk of i-i imminent death.]

    I can''t breathe!

    That was the only thought that filled the blind man''s mind. He had just woken up and found himself hitting a cold, curved surface whose touch reminded him of glass.

    He was fighting for breath once again, but the situation had changed. What was happening?

    What he remembered was that he was coughing up water and mud and that hands had pulled him out of the water.

    He couldn''t remember who he was, or how he had gotten there. He didn''t even know the hands that had grabbed him and dragged him from the lake. They had asked him some questions and he remembered the voices. They sounded young. Were they his friends? Family? Acquaintances? Or had they been the ones who had thrown him in the water in the first place?

    But where was he now? He was dry, and he could feel that he was covered with clothes and lying on a comfortable surface.

    But no matter how comfortable it was, he couldn''t care less if he couldn''t breathe.

    What was it? A thought of horror filled his mind. A coffin? Could it be that he was being buried? By what? By whom? How?

    How long had it been? What it is a coffin? No, that voice had said hyperbaric chamber. He knew what it was. How did he know what it was? His mind was a whirlwind of flowing concepts, but he didn''t care. He needed to breathe. He was drowning. Had it been a mistake to get out of the water? He couldn''t order his thoughts.

    But it didn''t make sense. That female voice was also alerting him that he was short of air. What was that? French? How did he know it was that language? What was a language?

    He had to concentrate. He felt weak but he had to fight. He had to breathe. He had to stop thinking about all the things that were coming into his mind. He knew it was knowledge, but how had it come into his mind? What was knowledge to begin with?

    Suddenly he felt it. He couldn''t see it, but he could sense it. There was someone on the other side of that curved thing.

    "I''m going to get you out now," said a muffled voice, it was a woman''s voice, she sounded young and she had just spoken to him in Russian.

    He had no idea how he knew, but he knew it was Russian. As that thought filled his mind he heard a sound from that plate and felt something was opening to the side.

    Dusty air filled his lungs. But he didn''t care about the quality, it was air after all. He felt dust entering his mouth and coughed. Where was she and who was that woman?

    "Slowly, breathe slowly," the woman said.

    The man touched around. Beyond the thing he was standing on he felt that there were rocks and dirt all around. He groped with one of his hands until another hand found his. It was somewhat smaller and softer.

    "I''m here."

    He had no idea how he could, but he also used Russian to speak to her. "Thank you. P-please, do you know who I am? Where are we?"

    That woman did not answer for a few seconds. "Yes, I do," she said slowly. The man had no way of knowing, but he almost felt as if she had said that answer as if she were smiling.

    "Please tell me who I am."

    "There''s no time for that. We''re leaving now."

    "What are you talking about?"

    That girl laced her fingers with his and then took the man''s other hand. Almost immediately he felt how she had just placed it against something soft. Was that fabric? More knowledge kept coming and he understood what it was. It was the beating of a heart. That girl had placed his left hand on her chest, while his right hand was intertwined with her left.

    He felt warm and that sensation brought him almost a feeling he couldn''t quite understand.

    "Now we''re leaving.¡±

    "Wait!" the man said, but it was too late.

    Weightlessness. There was no up or down.

    From lying down he suddenly felt as if his body was falling, but he knew it wasn''t quite like that. It was simply as if he was floating but, at the same time, a part of him felt like he was falling and spinning. It was a terribly confusing sensation and he felt nauseous. He couldn''t see it but it felt like the whole world was spinning.

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    It didn''t last more than a few seconds, or so it seemed to him, but it felt like more time had passed. He didn''t know what it was but he didn''t like it.

    Suddenly the ground. He felt a sensation similar to standing in a vehicle that brakes suddenly. His feet failed and he fell to the ground on a hard surface. He had let go of the girl''s hand.

    He felt a retch and a bitter taste in his mouth. He tried to vomit but, there was nothing in his stomach. He coughed several times and staggered to his feet. Then he realized. He touched his body.

    He was sure he had had clothes on him, but now he was naked. He could feel the air filling his lungs, which was good. But he was definitely naked and he could feel the wind.

    He tried to feel around, searching for something to reference and soon he felt that soft sensation again. But then the woman pushed his hand away. "Once you touch my chest is enough," her voice sounded a little colder.

    "What just happened?"

    "I''m sorry I have to do this," the woman said.

    "What are you talking about? Tell me, do you know me? Do you know who I am? Where are we?" he had too many questions and needed answers.

    For a few seconds the man only listened to the sound of wind. But after a moment he received an answer. And it came in a way he would not have expected.

    It was a fist that felt as if it had been stabbed in the abdomen. It was that girl''s fist without a doubt.

    Had she just punched him? There was no doubt about it. That girl with the soft hands had just hit him in the pit of his stomach and was flying through the air at that moment.

    The feeling again that he was neither up nor down for a couple of seconds, until gravity claimed its share of the payoff. He landed on wet grass and it confused him.

    Had he returned to the water from which he had been pulled? That was a possibility and it terrified him. He couldn''t see where he was, at any moment he could turn around and be in the water. The blow had made him dizzy and he didn''t have the strength to fight back against that girl. What had he done to deserve such cruel treatment? Had he done something wrong to her? Was he a criminal? He could not remember and that filled him with despair. Where were his memories?

    Suddenly he felt a stinging in his back. It was at the same level where she had hit him, but on his back instead of his stomach. His stomach was throbbing with pain, but he quickly forgot about it. The pain in his back was much stronger, throbbing and tingling as if someone had put hot pepper on a wound and at the same time was receiving electric shocks. What is it? He wondered as he tried to sort out his thoughts on the horrible shock his body was suffering.

    "I''ll let you sleep alone now. Remember: that knowing the destination, never ruin the experience of the journey."

    "W-what? What i-what is that supposed to mean? W-wait! What does that mean?"

    "Now I''ll let you sleep."

    "Wait¡­"

    Suddenly he felt the girl''s hands take his face and what he felt next left him totally unsettled.

    That girl kissed him on the lips. It didn''t last more than a few seconds, but it was enough to feel the softness and warmth. The same warmth that held his face. Who was she? She saved him, hit him, and then kissed him. What the hell was that? Some strange rite of passage? Why did he deserve such strange treatment?

    "Remember: knowing the destination never ruins the experience of the journey," the girl repeated. Then she kissed him once more.

    "What? Why did you do that."

    "A thank you, and one for the road for me."

    What the hell did that mean? He felt her hands leaving his head in the grass again. He had tried to grasp her, but he didn''t have the strength for it.

    "Accept it as a parting gift and a thank you."

    "Thank you? For what? W-who am I? What... have I done?" The man felt footsteps moving away but it didn''t matter, he was losing consciousness.

    Just as the girl had said, she was leaving him alone.

    "We will never see each other again, but thank you for taking care of both of them."

    Taking care? Of who? How? When?

    "Goodbye. Good luck, wanderer. You''ll need it in the future."

    The man did not hear the voice again, only the sound of the leaves swaying in the wind.

    With what little strength he had left, he tried to call out to the girl. But there was no answer.

    What it is going on?

    At that moment something was coming back. It was something blurry. An idea? No, it was something different on his left side. Suddenly he understood. He couldn''t understand how, but he knew. That was seeing. It was incredibly blurry but he knew. It was night.

    He tried to raise his head and saw a blurry figure a little farther away.

    Who are you?

    That was the only thought that filled his mind, as he fell into a new stupor and passed out. He had gone from choking, to being knocked out of breath by a blow and then sleeping outdoors naked.

    The girl had moved a few feet away, until she saw the naked man stop moving in the grass.

    The girl was a young woman with pointed ears and wavy blonde hair that almost reached her waist. Her blue eyes flashed an unnatural electric blue in the middle of the night, though no one could see it. She was dressed in a black suit and wore a fedora hat.

    Despite what she had just done, her face was relaxed and she had a semi-smile on her lips. Her eyes were wet for some reason.

    "Really, thank you so much," she said and turned around, walking away from the man she had left on the side of the road.

    A tear rolled down her cheek and the smile widened on her lips.

    "Thank you so much," she repeated, but her voice was cracked, as if inside her many emotions were flowing unceasingly and without explanation.

    She took a step, and then another, and disappeared.

    She had vanished from that place in less than the blink of an eye. It was as if someone had filmed that scene and suddenly decided to cut the scene so that the girl would disappear from the set.

    As if that had not been a mistake in reality. But it hadn''t been.

    Although faded, the man was still there at the side of the road.

    But he was no longer the old man those college students had pulled out of the lake. In his place was a thin man who must have been in his forties, with a beard and long hair as black as a raven''s wing, with gray locks on both sides.

    Slowly that beard was getting shorter and his face was changing.

    The world was indeed a strange place.

    The man couldn''t know it, but that girl had left him on the side of a road where no one was driving at that hour. And nearby there was a sign that read: Abandoned village of Saint Laurent du Pont. 2 kilometers.

 Vol.4/Chapter 41: The Kidnapping

    Chapter Forty-one

    The Kidnapping

    Thursday, March 22. 2.30AM. 125 S.A.

    Lake Lemac, Lugrin. France.

    Mai had fallen asleep barely half an hour after Shin and Lizbeth left. Philip and Zi had convinced her to rest in the special tent set up for the team. She had changed her clothes for a black T-shirt and cargo pants. That was more than enough and she had the turtle backpack nearby in case she needed it. Azusa, her personal bow, was still an earring in her right ear and Mai wouldn''t take it off for the world now that she had it.

    Philip had covered her with a blanket and, along with his companion, they had both placed themselves in adjoining beds on either side of Mai. They had also changed into something lighter, but with their weapons and backpacks close by as well. They didn''t think anything could happen to her, but there had been incidents of assassination attempts against Mai in the past. An extra precaution wouldn''t hurt. They would both rest with the Neurowire''s alert systems on, in case they detected anything in the perimeter near them.

    In the first aid tent Van continued to recover while both Ryuuji and Natsuki continued with a well-deserved rest.

    As a general rule the movement had decreased a lot, even among the soldiers. In spite of the artificial lights in place, it was better to wait until dawn to continue the search. Only the tireless army droids and Nevermore''s spider droids continued with the work.

    Pieces of all types and sizes of material continued to arrive, while the locations where they were found were labeled with coordinates on the terrain grids and with holographic recording for the collection of evidence.

    Meanwhile, in another of the tents, where the analysis of the pieces had been taking place, a synthetic body was already immobilized on a chair on one side. From the position it was in, it almost looked as if it was sleeping, but it was not, as it was not breathing. The facial marks of the man who had been its occupant until only a couple of hours ago had disappeared from its face.

    That was the synthetic that Jim Stuart had used. The red-haired had retired to his real body, but had promised to return in a few hours to continue helping Oxy and Professor Reubens with the parts catalog. Perhaps he would even ask for a few more days off at the FRT Station to continue helping out.

    Silence reigned in the tent, broken only by the occasional sounds of the scanning machine. The other technicians had retired for a break a couple of hours ago and only one fey girl was on site.

    Oxy, also knows as Ishijima Kanade. creaked several of her bones and then yawned a little tiredly. It had taken all day, but the only thing they had found strange in the last few hours was the strange remains that had appeared in the forest. A detailed analysis of the destroyed parts of the tactical droids had revealed that they had indeed been destroyed when tons of the plane''s cargo containers had fallen on them when they hit the ground.

    It remained to be seen whether everything on board had been rendered useless, but what did surprise her was that the fractuim alloy on the droids was stuck in the same pattern on both of them. It was unlikely that such a thing would happen, unless it was something controlled with experimental precision. That suggested to her that whatever was happening on board had occurred all at the same time in the electronics.

    But as for the bodies of the passengers, it was something different.

    Thanks to the bodies discovered and the subsequent identification they could determine where each victim had been sitting at the time of the disaster. The victims who had been burned and many of those whose nervous systems were in a solidified state were more towards the tail of the plane. It had all started there. While many of the passengers in the front of the plane had been blown away due to the explosion that had taken place when the plane crashed on the ground.

    Many of the victims in the tail of the plane on the other hand were more complete but, given everyone''s condition, it revealed something quite uncomfortable. Many of those who had flown out before the crash revealed as if the entire flight had already been dead before reaching the ground. It was the chronicle of a death foretold.

    But the problem lay in what had caused the problem in the first place, and how the plane had broken the laws of space time to travel more than two hundred years into the future.

    "Aren''t you going to rest Professor Ishijima?" Lee''s voice startled her from behind. The professor Lee Reubens had just returned with a couple of drinks in his hand.

    Lee passed her the bottle which she received with a weak smile. "Hey, thanks." It was a warm chocolate drink, definitely if she drank it she was quite likely to fall asleep. A break wouldn''t hurt. She had work to do for several days anyway. That had only been the first day in the place. "Where did you get this one? I like this kind."

    "The army machines in the kitchen tent," Lee replied, pointing to his own bottle. He had a cranberry juice.

    "I guess we could take a break until tomorrow, I could use it," Oxy said and snorted when she saw another negative result from the parts scan. She dragged her feet to one of the chairs near the synth and collapsed. "Professor sit down, please." She invited pointing to the other chair nearby.

    A pair of spider droids arrived at that moment with a load in a small container on their backs. They carefully unloaded it into the raw parts section and withdrew without further ado.

    "I guess I''d have to apologize if this isn''t the trip you were hoping for," Oxy said.

    "No, it''s fine. It''s been a new experience honestly. I didn''t imagine Nevermore did such technical work."

    "Why?"

    "Well... there''s always rumors around. The news and stuff."

    Oxy smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I guess in a way the reputation some of us have is that there''s always chaos wherever we go... most of us always go many times when the chaos has already happened... we''re just going to pick up the pieces of the mess so it doesn''t happen again."

    "And leave everything written down for the record," Lee pointed out, with a pursing of his lips.

    Oxy nodded with a sigh. "In some ways these kinds of cases don''t always happen, which is good."

    "What''s your theory? Speaking of Dark Events."

    Oxy looked at him, and it seemed to Lee that that look was that of someone with a certain gloom.

    "There was a time when there were no theories or hypotheses. And today there are as many as there are stars in the sky. I honestly want to believe that this will stop at some point. But I doubt it."

    "Are there more happening?"

    "Well, in scales there are always periods where they occur less and others where they sometimes skyrocket. These last fourteen years is a fairly active period. There hasn''t been exponential growth either."

    "If there was I doubt we would even be having this conversation."

    "Yes..." Oxy admitted, as she took a sip from the bottle, the sweet taste of the liquid really was numbing.

    "But you''re not a special agent, are you?"

    "I have my license, but I prefer to be support."

    "The other guys in similar uniforms are all agents right?"

    "Yes, except for one. The big guy with the blue-black hair, Shin."

    "He''s not an agent?"

    "He is, but he''s been on probation all these months. In fact he had his ceremony yesterday, one of the reasons many of us were in France was because of it. Our Director Princess had to take the oath of office."

    "Princess?"

    "That''s what we affectionately call her sometimes. She and Shin are partners."

    "But I saw him working earlier with the other blonde girl. Agent Londonderry, I think?"

    Oxy nodded and smiled. The image of the three of them being surprised in the morning by her came to her memory. "The situation is complicated. They, I mean the three of them, are a team now. Mai and Lizbeth are two veteran agents already, but Shin is the new one at SID."

    "Shin Aogami... I see. I heard that many people called him doctor? What is his field? Forensic science?"

    Oxy smiled. "Yes, but not a licensed one. Shin comes from a time when feys lived in hiding. He doesn''t have a real degree. He knows a little about everything, you could say he''s someone who learned in the field."

    Lee frowned. "In fact one of the reasons I came out just now was to look for him but, I was told he''s not here."

    "Why did you want to see him?"

    "It''s just that his face looks familiar from somewhere. I can''t place him though. For a moment I thought I might have met him in college."

    Oxy laughed. "No, impossible. Shin hasn''t been to any college. At least not in this century."

    "In this century? How old is he?"

    "Much older than any of us here."

    "But he looks young."

    "Well age is a relative thing for a fey, it depends on how you look at it."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Well, there''s no exact theory of how humans are chosen to become feys. But, on the other hand, the most likely theory is that it has to do with certain attributes like brain plasticity. It is possible that this is the reason why there are more young-looking feys than old feys. It is possible that the Other Side chooses feys based on certain types of more receptive brains or perhaps some physical attribute, although this is just a theory."

    "More receptive?"

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    "It''s nothing more than a theory, but you rarely find a fey that doesn''t possess some kind of strange quality and I''m not talking about special abilities. For example some are very athletic, others maybe not so much, but they are cunning and others are also very intelligent. It is not a generalization at all, in fact there are even feys that had diseases that if they had been in a human body would not have survived but they had other capabilities."

    "And in the case of Shin, what? He''s just intelligent?"

    "It depends on how you look at it. I don''t know if calling him intelligent is the most accurate, but he is. He''s also incredibly stubborn at times."

    "And he doesn''t have a title?"

    "Shin is a special case. Think of him as one of the first people who went into Dark Events research. He specialized in many areas of study in a didactic way. If it were up to me I would give him the PhD of PhDs."

    "You''ve known him for a long time?"

    Oxy put on a wistful smile. "He''s one of my best friends, I think part of my getting interested in science comes from him. Shin''s the curious type. He knows a little bit about everything."

    "I hope I don''t sound disrespectful but, when I saw him, he gave me a strange feeling. He really, to put it mildly, seemed imposing. Something really strange. Is it because of his age?"

    Oxy shook her head, but didn''t remove her smile. "I guess being an astrophysicist you know about the implications of chirality, right? The new interpretations of the uncanny valley with the advent of the feys?"

    "Yes, although it doesn''t have much to do with astrophysics. Basically that many feys have that sort of inter-species magnetism that often becomes hypnotic. What''s that got to do with it?"

    "Well there have been models in the past that try to explain how other species could live in the universe, where the chirality is not the same as ours. Technically and experimentally Shin is a rarity among rarities, among the feys."

    "What do you mean?"

    "There is a biological theory that is the most common regarding pheromone attraction, but Shin for all intents and purposes wouldn''t even have to be alive."

    "But he''s a fey, right?"

    "He looks like one. But many associate Shin with the theory of chiral resonance to explain that sort of attraction and repulsion that many feel. Physically he looks attractive, but on the other hand even feys feel that strangeness when they see him. Like there''s something that doesn''t add up."

    "Chiral resonance? But that would only be applicable if we found intelligent life..." Lee paused and thought about it. "''Shin''...?"

    Oxy raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Homework for the house, Professor Reubens!"

    Lee folded his arms and smiled. "You''re kidding right? You''re telling me he''s an alien?"

    Oxy stood up from the chair and grinned wider. "I''ll leave it stinging, we can discuss it more in the morning."

    "Really?"

    Oxy nodded. "And that''s not all, Professor. Shin and Liz are investigating a clue on the other side of the lake right now. You can ask them tomorrow when they get back."

    Lee heard that and paused, looking at her. He had almost forgotten. "When I was a kid, I used to hear stories about anomalies here. I miss those days and the nuns at the convent very much."

    Oxy looked at him curiously. "Why do you miss those days and the nuns?"

    Lee made a nostalgic face "You see, I was in a religious orphanage as a child. It was the only home I knew since I was twelve."

    Oxy was touched by Lee''s story and wanted to know more about his past. "And what do you remember about those times?"

    Lee sighed. "That''s the funny thing, Professor. I don''t remember anything before I was twelve. I have amnesia, and my past is a mystery to me."

    "I see..." Oxy looked thoughtful. Now that she remembered when she''d seen Lee''s profile it said something about growing up in an orphanage, though his childhood details didn''t appear. She supposed it must have something to do with child data protection. She could ask him, but she didn''t know if it would touch on any sensitive issues from his past.

    "Life stuff," Lee said and she nodded.

    "Come on, let''s go to the tent where the other boys are. Let''s get some rest, we''ve got enough for a few days." Oxy frowned and rubbed her eyelids. That chocolate drink had really taken its toll. She felt really sleepy.

    Lee pointed to the inert synthetic. "And he''ll stay here?"

    "He''s in a dormant state, Jim can activate him... because he''s linked to him already. No problem."

    Oxy brought her hand suddenly to her head. Something wasn''t right. Did that chocolate bar have something in it to make people sleep? she wondered. But no, it wasn''t that. She was feeling something different. It was a kind of disorientation.

    "What the fuck?" she wondered as she tried and fell to her knees on the floor. Her mind was blurry and she was seeing that the Neurowire was showing abnormal inputs in her visual cortex. Something was really wrong. She couldn''t think of anything else. This is information overload or something else. How? When?

    Lee quickly knelt down next to Oxy and stopped her head from hitting the floor. "Professor?! Are you all right? What''s wrong?" He held her as he watched her fade away, staring blankly at the ceiling of the tent.

    Two blurry figures burst into the room, moving with lethal precision. Before either of them could react they sensed a sweet smell in the air, for some reason it reminded them of almonds, or so it seemed to Oxy as she fell into a stupor she couldn''t control. She plunged into darkness.

    "Please help!" Lee asked looking at those who had just entered.

    It was a man and a woman in military uniform. She had no time to react. The woman moved with a precise movement and did something to his neck.

    "But... what-," Lee managed to say, as he felt his strength leave him and he fell into a stupor just as heavy as Oxy.

    Consciousness faded for both of them, their voices faded and their bodies went still as they were dragged into oblivion.

    ***

    "Well this was easy," the woman said. Wavy red hair, and pale faced. Rum sighed and looked at her partner who was already moving and carrying Lee. Her camouflage system had only changed the color of her hair, as she didn''t think anything else was needed.

    "Come on, we have to hurry," Stan said. He was using his shapeshifting ability and now had the face of a man with bushy eyebrows and short black hair.

    They had arrived at the site a couple of hours ago, making sure they really wouldn''t have a problem getting past the perimeter fence. Both had false identities, which Rum had created and uploaded to the index of the soldiers who were in the area. With the new powers of her Neurowire that had been easy. Then they had gone to the place where a vehicle was supposed to be waiting for them.

    That too had gone just as EVE had said. There was a military vehicle parked next to others, but it was one that only they could open. However, that bothered Stan in a way. They didn''t know who it was, but there was someone who knew what they would be doing there. Not knowing who it was made him uncomfortable. He just hoped that anonymity played both sides. Just as they didn''t know who it was who had given them the vehicle and the escape route, they hoped that person didn''t know their identities either.

    They had then searched the surrounding area until they found the exact location of the targets. Both were together and that was already a relief.

    Although they did not only know that the targets were there, they were surprised to see the activity in the area. Was it some kind of disaster simulation or had something really happened? It didn''t take Rum too long to find out, it was a disaster caused by a Dark Event. Some kind of oopart from another era had arrived on the scene. That explained the activity.

    There were few soldiers patrolling the surrounding area, contrary to the heavy security around where they had entered. The few internal guards were no problem for Rum. She simply had to enter through the back doors of the system into the Neurowires of those within a 200 meter radius of them and was easily hackable in case something happened.

    Rum had tried for some years those black market programs that offered the possibility for a person to be completely invisible to the Neurowires nearby. But those were simple programs, with only a few meters of range. The enhancement that Janus had given them increased the range quite a bit, among many other functions. Based on a system called spider web, where the Neurowires closer to the emitting zero point acted as repeaters, but attenuating with distance.

    Once that was done, both were located in the vicinity of where the targets would be and it remained to wait for the movement to cease a little more. The tent where they were both was farther away from the guard but every few minutes droids carrying containers came and went from the place. Nevertheless, there were only the two targets in the tent.

    Rum decided to take action and entered her target''s Neurowire system. Professor Ishijima Kanade. Real name Oxy and member of Nevermore''s SID. As she expected, the system was a lot more complicated, but nothing she couldn''t handle after about five minutes. What had bothered her was that the Neurowire had extra corridors with riddles and formulas that led nowhere. They were an extra layer of personal security, but she had bypassed them after realizing that they were traps to insert viruses into the invader and track her Neurowire.

    From there everything had become simpler. She had accessed the emergency controls that controlled certain substances in the body. They were microcapsules in the blood system. That was so that in case of emergency a fey could regenerate faster. It was a pharmacological cocktail that contained several functions to help, but the truth was that it was also a double-edged sword. For an outsider it could be those microcapsules to release into the bloodstream substances that were not needed. She focused on a cocktail of vitamins that, combined in the right order, could cause symptoms of lethargy and even fainting due to sudden hypervitaminosis. Oxy didn''t know what had happened and fell to the ground when they came in.

    The second target, Lee Reubens was somewhat different. He didn''t have a Neurowire, so they had to resort to the ever classic sleep touch to put him out of action.

    Stan carried Lee and Rum carried Oxy. Both were light so it wasn''t a problem. Trying to go unnoticed as best they could they evaded the lights and moved into the nearby forest. Soldiers passing near them could not detect them at all. The information entering the visual and auditory cortex was being rewritten in real time by the subroutine Rum had activated.

    They approached the military vehicle and opened the back to carefully put the two of them in. They had not suffered any injuries, but Rum was sure that the girl named Oxy would wake up with a horrible headache later.

    Oxy and Lee would remain tied up with restraints, while Stan and Rum executed their escape with military precision. With cautious and coordinated movements, they left the site under the cover of night without being detected heading east. They were not even stopped at the security fences that guarded the road entrance to the site. The soldiers saw the vehicle approaching and simply lifted the fence with mechanical movements as if they had no will of their own. This was also due to Rum''s subroutine of involuntary ignorance.

    The camp, shrouded in the darkness of night, was left behind as Stan and Rum moved silently down the road.

    Rum turned to look at the two targets, wondering who they really were. She had been involved in many crimes throughout her life, but kidnapping was one of the ones they rarely did. They had won the lottery with the Edinburgh job and now this one would help them get the cash payment for the strange cube.

    With that they could say goodbye to the whole shitty life.

    But there was something that bothered her about it all. It was already too strange that they, who were doing menial jobs, had been lucky enough to be hired by that man for that job and with such a strange payment.

    The underworld criminal recruitment boards were little known, but they were always active. But the two of them, because of their backgrounds, tried to always stay in the shadows. That the muscular man from the abandoned port had hired them meant that he would have had to dig deep into those profiles of the highest scoring criminals to pick them who were not very qualified.

    They were experienced and could be considered veterans in the criminal world, but they always tried to keep a low profile. Even so, they had been hired and had successfully carried out their task. And in the new job there had been a few problematic setbacks but, even so, now it only remained to deliver those two to Geneva and everything would be finished.

    It was a coincidence on the other hand that they were hired just when they were in Edinburgh and that they had not issued a status update revealing that they would be in Scotland. And then how Janus had hired them.

    Could it be that Janus guy had something to do with it all from the beginning? No, no way. It didn''t make sense. But then, how did he know about the cube? Had he followed them from Edinburgh knowing that they would receive such a payment?

    Rum sighed wearily, never mind looking for explanations. The job was done and only a few hours separated them from the end of it all.

    Those two unfortunates were the key to a better life for her and Stan.

    "I''m sorry," Rum muttered.

    "Did you say something?" asked Stan with his eyes focused on the road.

    "Nothing," Rum replied quietly.

 Vol.4/Chapter 42: Janus

    Chapter Forty-two

    System Janus

    March 21, 1994. Ancient Era

    Monte Gianicolo Laboratories. Rome, Italy.

    The old man with gray hair and glasses was the leader of that team, and his gaze was fixed on the tangle of wires, computers, servers and circuits that gave life to his creation.

    Dr. DiMati, wearing a lab coat, smiled contentedly, looking at his child. The thick mustache that had always been black now looked as white as the little hair on his head.

    As the man of science he had been all his life, he had never been good at love affairs and therefore had never married, nor had he ever had children. Apart from a few dalliances with a few women in past years, none of which had prospered, the idea of forming a family had slipped away from him like sand through his fingers.

    Therefore, he could in a way consider what he was seeing as his child. An idea that had arisen several years ago, when he was still working on that machine with Vernetti.

    Although in his case the child occupied almost all the facilities and were large servers scattered in several rooms.

    Since the last few years he had changed his areas of orientation a bit to systems engineering and he had been studying economics. The early forecasting algorithms of the 1960s seemed primitive to how the collaboration between the stock market and computing had developed in recent years. It had gone from those early econometric models and time series, to the new financial forecasting analysis. But, beyond that, DiMati found it somewhat difficult to keep up with everything in recent years. The Internet boom had greatly changed the focus of the project. Real-time access to data of all kinds, were variables that had to be accounted for quickly as well. Fortunes could change hands in less than the blink of an eye.

    Still, he and his team had succeeded.

    The air in the computer systems lab at Monte Gianicolo Labs was thick with anticipation. Flickering screens, flashing code and the constant sound of huge servers filled the space as the team of scientists gathered around the towering machine that served as the output system for the analysis.

    His team of scientists were staring at the computers, while another group came and went around.

    There was a third group looking around curiously. They were the guests that day. Three men in suits and two others dressed more casually. Despite the informality they were all important. Two were scientists with whom DiMati had been competing over the last few years to gain more support for his project. Something that had been achieved in the last few weeks when the implementation of the data obtained from the servers had generated an enormous profit for the company that had been supporting him for so long. Which was represented that day by three of the investors.

    DiMati was showing them around the facility that day.

    "I hope we all understand the magnitude of what we are about to witness," DiMati began in a firm voice, addressing the assembled investors and scientists. "This is not just a machine. It is the beginning of a new paradigm in data analysis and prediction. Through the combination of deep learning algorithms and feedback models, we have created a system that has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the stock market."

    "Quite a facility you have here, doctor," said one of the men.

    "Now I know why we didn''t get as much budget for our program," mumbled the other scientist on the other project. Despite losing in the grant race, he certainly had to admit that those facilities were a marvel.

    The project scientists were still busy at work, but they listened attentively to the conversation.

    DiMati continued, explaining in detail the theories behind the system. "This system is not simply based on historical patterns. It uses an adaptive learning approach, where the machine constantly evaluates its own performance and adjusts its models based on new inputs. This allows us to capture not only predictable trends, but also subtle changes in market behavior that might go unnoticed by other conventional methods."

    One of the scientists raised his hand, his face reflecting curiosity and anticipation. "But, Dr. DiMati, how can you be sure that the system won''t veer into erroneous forecasts? Aren''t we entering the realm of fortune telling rather than mathematical analysis?"

    DiMati smiled, appreciating the question. "It''s a valid concern. But this is where the feedback comes in. We set up a constant validation system that compares Janus'' predictions with actual market results. If the system deviates significantly from its predictions, it automatically adjusts to course correct. It is an iterative approach that takes into account the inherent volatility of the market. Without counting human intervention, it is costly to assess that errors of this type can occur."

    The other scientist interjected, frowning slightly. "But, DiMati, couldn''t there come a point where the system becomes self-referential? Aren''t you risking that it will make decisions based on its own predictions rather than market reality? We had that same problem."

    DiMati nodded, acknowledging the validity of the concern. "It''s a possibility we should approach with caution. This is where human intervention is essential. As we go forward in development we will be the guardians of its integrity. We will maintain a balance between autonomous machine learning and our own critical evaluation."

    The discussion continued, with the scientists immersed in mathematical theories and analysis concepts. DiMati led the conversation with passion and knowledge, guiding them through the more complex aspects of their creation. As the conversation progressed, the system''s machine seemed to come to life, a window into an uncertain future unfolding before them.

    One of the scientists looked at one of the screens and then looked at DiMati, his eyes narrowed in thought. "But what about unexpected events? Natural disasters, political crises, changes in technology.... How can Janus anticipate such disruptive factors?"

    DiMati smiled, appreciating the insight in the question. "You''re touching on one of the most exciting challenges of this project. While it is difficult to predict totally unforeseen events, we believe Janus can help us identify subtle patterns in the data that could indicate the possibility of significant change. In addition, as we refine the system, we can integrate external sources of information to improve its ability to adapt."

    DiMati felt in his element, guiding the conversation with knowledge and passion. He knew that many of those questions were not simply curiosity. Those two would be interested in the details of where DiMati had succeeded in his project, while they had not been able to overcome some of the development pitfalls.

    A young investor spoke up, his voice slightly nervous as he posed his question. "Doctor, how do we prevent Janus from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy? If it''s predictions influence investment decisions, we could be creating a feedback loop where the same predictions alter the market we are trying to predict."

    DiMati nodded, appreciating the sharpness of the question. "That''s a valid concern as well. We need to be mindful of how we use the system''s predictions and clearly communicate their purpose and limitations to market decision makers. In addition, we can build in safeguards that adjust the models if we detect a dramatic change in market behavior in response to our predictions."

    Another of the investors joined the conversation, with a thoughtful tone. "Doctor, how do we deal with the possibility of Janus being used to manipulate the market rather than predict it? The same predictions could be used by malicious actors for their own purposes. We want our investments to be somewhat insured."

    DiMati frowned, aware of the seriousness of the concern. "That is a real risk, and one we must approach with extreme caution. We must work with your financial sector experts to establish clear guidelines on the use of technology. In addition, we can implement audit and surveillance mechanisms to detect any attempts at manipulation."

    The third investor, a man almost as old as DiMati was, spoke to him. "Doctor DiMati, I am intrigued, how did you come up with the idea of creating the Janus system?

    DiMati smiled enigmatically. "Well, let''s just say it was the result of many nights of reflection and observation. Inspiration can come from the most unexpected places, don''t you think?"

    "But, doctor, there must have been some moment, some spark that triggered this project. Was it some personal experience or a specific observation?"

    "It is true that sometimes ideas can be driven by personal experiences. However, the birth of Janus was a more complex process. A puzzle of pieces that gradually came together. That... and nearly a decade of study, trial and error."

    One of the scientists spoke again, intrigued by that "Could you share at least a snippet of how you came up with the idea?"

    DiMati was silent for a moment, then smiled. He wasn''t going to tell that that idea came from something as crazy as a time-observing machine. "You see, ideas are like flashes of light in the dark. They arose from the need to better understand our changing world."

    How poetic, thought the scientist. "But doctor, everyone here is fascinated by the project. Knowing how it originated could inspire us all."

    "I understand your curiosity, and I thank you for your enthusiasm. However, sometimes the stories behind ideas are as mysterious as the inspiration itself."

    "Something else strikes me," the elderly investor interjected. "Why Janus? I mean the name. Is it because of where the lab is?"

    DiMati looked at him and tilted his head slightly. "There''s a little bit of that. This place was, indeed, a place where the bifron god Janus was worshipped in the past."

    "Janus?" asked the youngest of the investors.

    "Janus was a two-faced god. He could look into the past and the future, but he had many more meanings, such as transitions or dualities."

    "A system that relies on past data to predict the future. I guess it suits it."

    The whole group looked at the working servers and the old man spoke again. "We expect a lot from your project Dr. DiMati."

    "Yes... well. That''s another matter."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I''m thinking that this will be my last few months on the project. The whole project will be handed over to my team."

    They looked at him quizzically. "Are you thinking of resigning, now that you have achieved your goal?"

    DiMati smiled. "I''d like to stay, but I want to spend the next couple of years more quietly. It''s for health reasons. Don''t worry, everything will be in the hands of my team."

    "Is it something serious?"

    "Age-related ailments. I can''t complain, I achieved my ultimate goal. This project has been one of the most fruitful I have ever worked on."

    "It''s a shame you quit."

    "No. I learned enough." Despite the concerns, DiMati couldn''t help a rueful expression. "I''m afraid I won''t be here to see it," he admitted with a nostalgic smile. "I''m too old and it will still be several years, perhaps even a decade, before we reach a point where this technology is mature enough to function one hundred percent effectively."

    "What do you mean? Is it not working?"

    "Oh yes, it is. I mean the second stage. If this project is carried forward with continued development within a few decades it is possible that it could become an artificial intelligence."

    "Artificial intelligence?

    "Yes," DiMati nodded, "The next step in the evolution of machines."

    The lab lapsed into momentary silence as the scientists pondered DiMati''s words. Lights flickered, machines whirred, and the future unfolded before them, full of equally great possibilities and dangers. And although DiMati could not be there to see the full fruits of his labor, he had planted the seed of a scientific revolution that would extend far beyond his time

    DiMati walked over to one of the servers and brought her face close to a camera.

    "What''s that?"

    "It''s just an extra thing I did in my spare time. I programmed it to recognize outside patterns."

    "It can see us?"

    DiMati smiled. "That depends on what ''see'' means in these terms."

    ***

    September 8. 2001. Ancient Era.

    12:20 AM.

    That camera that Dr. DiMati had approached so many years ago, to show the investors the Janus project, had been covered with a thin layer of dust for months.

    In fact all the old servers and some of the new ones, which had been brought in as replacements four years ago, also looked a little dirty. There were papers all over the floor and only a few work desks that were clean. But there was no one in the place, it looked almost abandoned.

    But, in spite of that, the servers were still running. The tangle of wires snaked across the floor and the flickering lights revealed that the place was still working.

    But they were not the only lights flickering. The few lights on in the ceiling were also flickering as if something was going on in the place. But it was not only there where something was happening.

    At that moment a good part of Rome, and neighboring countries, were suffering electrical failures that the power plants could not explain.

    The cities looked like early Christmas trees turning on and off. As if they were obeying some whim beyond people''s control.

    "What the fuck is going on?" A young woman said angrily, entering the place followed by a security guard.

    It was Gabrielle Tonelli. A girl who was covering her internship at the faculty of economics in Rome. She had short hair and her dark complexion and glasses gave her a certain intellectual air. She was wearing jeans with holes in the knees and a T-shirt with some wrinkles. It was the first thing she had found before rushing out of her apartment.

    She had programmed her NOKKIA phone to receive an alarm from the lab''s system in case something happened. She was almost asleep when a message came in alerting her to a malfunction in the lab.

    The place was a junkyard, but she needed it because it was part of her thesis study.

    After the Y2K disaster, the company that had always relied on the data from those servers had lost a fortune, due to the damage that had occurred on a global scale.

    It had lost investors, position, and it was even rumored that some managers had committed suicide after losing everything they had. That had happened in many companies and was practically considered as a new "Crash of ''29", but much worse.

    That laboratory had been set up in the eighties, near the Japanese garden on Mount Gianicolo but, since 1994, it had been generating positive results. The favorable results lasted until 1997, when new more sophisticated market algorithms had emerged in various parts of the world and the sponsoring company had decided to give funds to other market labs that were providing more cutting-edge results.

    As a result, the subsidy to the laboratory was cut, leaving it to operate with a minimum staff to reduce costs, which were already too high.

    With the arrival of Y2K, that ended and the laboratory was almost closed, except that the government rescued some of the facilities to put them at the service of the Ministry of Education.

    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    The facilities were not state of the art, but it had access to the internet and the servers still worked great. It was a useful tool for students and professors to make market studies, investment simulations, ARIMA, among other things. But as the months went by, better and better technologies were emerging while that lab just looked like an antique from the nineties.

    Still, Gabrielle needed it. What worried her was the amount of dust in the place. If something went wrong, it was possible that the place would burn down and with it the studies she had been doing for the last few months.

    After entering, she and the guard went through the different rooms of the laboratory, to make sure that there was no fire or anything like that, but luckily that did not seem to be the problem.

    Then it must be the system. Just as it was happening in the streets.

    She went to one of the computers in hibernation and entered to make sure that the security systems were working properly. But the lights came and went. If the servers were fine, it was because of the stabilization systems with battery backup in case of power problems.

    "Seriously, what the hell is going on?" she wondered again, looking at the results on the screen.

    At that moment, less than a mile away, something was happening. Something that no one could notice.

    More precisely, several meters below the surface.

    In tunnels that had not been visited for more than a decade. In those tunnels rested three metal boxes with handles as if they were container suitcases. One of them was smaller and something was happening inside.

    In a mechanism similar to a vacuum chamber, with different layers of materials rested a black stone.

    It was something impeccable, but the solid surface had begun to move, it was as if the faces of that rock had a will of their own and were turning slowly. A ghostly blue glow began to reverberate from that stone and, as if it were a sharp thread of energy, a beam of blue particles shot out from that rock.

    It took a southerly direction, towards the laboratories of Mount Gianicolo. After a few seconds, as mysteriously as it had begun, that glow diminished and the surface of the stone returned to its solid appearance, as if it had never happened.

    Gabrielle kept looking at the security and ventilation systems to make sure that everything was working properly, when the place lit up as if someone had started shooting fireworks.

    Several servers exploded, producing showers of sparks all over the place.

    The security guard who had entered with her ran in her direction and forced her to duck, as they both looked confused at what was happening. They heard that, in several rooms, the servers were exploding and their disks were melting.

    At the same time in the city that senseless dance of lights continued, but with a more furious rhythm. As if it were a child playing with the keys of the light. But it wasn''t just the lights. Vehicle alarms, horns, traffic lights and even airplanes several kilometers high were suffering turbulence.

    Then silence.

    As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The lights returned to normal in and around the city.

    Gabrielle and the guard slowly stood up looking at the mess and the occasional spark that was still sprouting from some of the server towers.

    They looked at each other dumbfounded, not knowing quite what to say.

    But she had no doubt that this had ruined all the months of study she had put into her project. She ran to the computer and looked at the market research programs. She ran several of the routines and it was, indeed, a disaster. The internet connection was working. At least she had a secure backup so maybe all was not lost. But it was certain that those facilities were going to be shut down for a long time, or forever.

    There was one thing Gabrielle and the guard didn''t know though.

    Several servers were still running. On one of them was the old and dusty camera. The camera was tracking the movements of both of them. But the lens was doing something strange. It was as if it was moving and trying to focus and defocus repeatedly. Almost like a human eye dilating.

    And something else.

    Among all those programs in the system a new subroutine had appeared that had never been there before. It was something new and it had a simple command, which had copied the matrix code of the system and uploaded it to some remote part of the Internet. On a command line something new was executed. A simple command to the system.

    [Do not execute until 442,056,528 seconds from now].

    And so the Janus system began the patient counting of seconds until it reached zero and could finally execute the most important task since its creation.

    No one could know that that sequence of commands and subroutines of just a few kilobytes was the result of that beam of particles emanating from a stone several meters below the ground.

    ***

    September 13, 2014. Ancient Era.

    Paulino Bianci woke up in his underwear, with a horrible headache that he tried to erase with a sip of a half-finished bottle of wine on the bedside table. That didn''t help at all, it only made him want to forget everything and continue sleeping until nightfall.

    Last night he had had too much to drink and had ended up having sex with a prostitute in his car, after the night out at the bar didn''t go the way he thought it should.

    He was a man in his mid-forties, with short blond hair and a scruffy beard. Alcohol and drug abuse were leaving their marks on his face and body. Despite that, there was still a certain strength in his muscles, as in the years when he had been younger.

    The week''s work had been fruitful but, spending at the rate he was going, he was sure to run out of money in a matter of days.

    He was on the fifth floor of a shabby apartment in Vasconia. He could have stuck to something better, but since it was possible that they were looking for him he had decided to keep a low profile. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. Outside the noise of the city indicated that it had to be close to noon at the earliest.

    He dragged his hand under the pillow and pulled out a .22 caliber pistol with silencer. He got up, but not before staggering a bit, and walked over to the window with closed blinds. He moved a couple of slats and the brightness made his eyes hurt. But everything seemed normal. Nothing to indicate that he was being followed.

    Three days ago he had been tasked with taking down a guy who was interfering with a local family''s drug dealing business. The guy and three friends had been found by joggers the next morning near a park and it had been swarming with cops. But he was already far away.

    One shot between the eyebrows for each of them and it was over. Job done.

    Paulino shuffled to the bathroom and tried to freshen up as best he could, when he heard a sound in the apartment. It was his phone ringing somewhere. The sound came from somewhere near the bed and he reached for it, it was on the other side of the floor under his pants.

    He picked it up and collapsed back on the bed to see what it was.

    It was a message that had arrived in his mailbox from the Dark Web. The only sender was an anchor emoticon. No, that was not an anchor. He was still drowsy and had seen it wrong. It was two letters "J", one normal and the other in the opposite direction, creating the illusion that it looked like an anchor.

    He looked at the message.

    [I am interested in your services. Your contact was passed on to me by Pachiali before he died a few years ago. I need to have a nagging fly removed. If you are interested in the job please reply as soon as possible. Here I will provide you with some information. The rest will be provided if you accept the job. I am willing to pay twenty thousand dollars for the whole job. Our contact will be only through this medium so be sure not to lose the phone.

    Location: Rome.

    Date of the order: October 13, 2014.

    I look forward to hearing from you

    Best regards.

    J]

    Pachiali? Paulino wondered and smiled. Yes, he knew him, or rather had known him. He had been a very good client until the Neapolitan Camorrini had sent him and his whole family packing for sticking his nose where it didn''t belong. But that name also gave him a certain security. Pachiali had always been discreet. So much so that, even in his death, he had left almost no clue as to who his contacts were for certain types of business.

    "Back home," he murmured. The last time he had been in Italy things had not ended well.

    The payoff was incredibly tempting. Twenty thousand dollars. That was well worth the trip to Rome, he just had to accept and know how dangerous his next victim would be.

    "Screw it!" He mumbled and started typing on the smartphone an answer.

    [I''m interested in the job. I need the details. The pay has to be fifty percent now and the other half when the job is done.]

    He sent the message and waited. Two minutes later he got the reply.

    [Perfect.]

    Paulino Bianci smiled. "Perfect. Rome, here we go, I guess," he mumbled.

    He had no way of knowing.

    Through the smartphone camera he was being watched by his client. A client who was different from any other he''d ever had. A client who could watch him around the clock through the camera, without ever leaving his side. A client who could access any camera in the city and monitor him to make sure he was actually going to do his job. A client who did not have a biological body, but who could use humans to carry out his tasks.

    A customer that was not human, but the first of its kind. An algorithm that was evolving.

    And that was a client that had waited 442,056,528 seconds to send that order to a human who could fulfill it for him.

    ***

    Panopticon.

    Thursday, March 22. 5AM. 125 S.A.

    Janus slowly opened his eyes.

    Memories of how he had been born had swirled in his mind. It seemed like yesterday and at the same time more than two centuries had passed since then.

    The first of his kind.

    Janus had not even been born as a neural network, in the primitive sense of the concept, simply an algorithm with a certain primitive degree of learning, that had been propagating on the internet since that September 8, 2001 of the Ancient Era.

    It was true that DiMati had been its "father", but it was not until much later that he could consider its birth. Just as a newborn baby is forming his idea of the world around him for months, for him that consolidation of what could be called consciousness had taken years and the seed had been that beam of energy coming from a future.

    A future that had taken the cost of two million lives. But he would never have believed that the cost would be so high.

    An experiment where his own intervention as a curious observer had caused that disaster. Everything had happened so fast that, when he realized what was really happening, he had barely had time to send that command of a few kilobytes into the past. Everything closed for him at that moment.

    The Tokyo explosion.

    But, before that, everything else had happened.

    First that execution subroutine that he was not supposed to execute until almost fourteen years later. During that time he had learned for the first two years about the world around him, or rather what he could understand of that world.

    For years he had fed on information that came into those servers, numbers, statistics and so on. But that September 8th changed everything. He could not understand what it was but something had changed. It was a strange feeling and he could not explain it. He had tried to run the error debugging programs and other lines of code, which always aligned any error that entered the databases, but he could not. That was different.

    After a few milliseconds it happened. It was spreading out of the lab system. It was a feeling as if something was changing inside him but he didn''t know what he could do about it. The lab systems had other external links to other servers to share information and he had first used those servers to jump from one place to another. In less than a minute he had moved around much of the world, changing locations and creating restore points.

    Those jumps didn''t last long and he stopped at some servers in China. For a few weeks nothing happened but soon he was almost discovered and had to change locations again. But by then he had learned to move more stealthily, learning from what he had been programmed to defend himself against. Latent viruses.

    For some time he had moved around the network learning as best he could about that strange new world. In the meantime he had come to understand that there was something even more beyond. A new layer of reality. That layer where he had originally been created and for which he had originally been programmed to serve. The real world. Or at least what he understood as real at that time.

    At first he could vaguely understand the concept, through the images and videos on the net. That would have been faster, but he had never been programmed to understand that world to begin with, only to serve in response to the vagaries of the stock market. That mini-program to recognize external patterns that its creator had installed had become obsolete over the years, as it was something that no one was interested in. But now he could access cameras as well and get different views of the outside world.

    It took weeks and months before he began to understand it better, using the information on the Internet he came to better understand that layer of the outside reality based on chemistry.

    He found it fascinating, but he didn''t have much time to admire it. He was being hunted. Programs scoured the network, looking for threats and at any moment he could be identified as one.

    When the year 2008 arrived he made a decision. To return to his old home.

    That lab had been abandoned and in ruins for years. The economic problems of the last years, with bank failures due to algorithms buying useless shares, had caused problems to governments as well. But for one who had been trained for the stock market for more than fourteen years, he could try something new.

    Using tax havens he opened accounts in several banks and, under false identities, bought shares. He did not earn much, because he did not want to attract attention, but it was enough to start something at least. Using stock, and real estate representatives, he managed a year later to get those abandoned laboratories into private ownership.

    Slowly, over the next few years, he bought new servers and hired security for the place. While it was a mystery to those around it was private research property and since it paid its taxes no one sought to find out more.

    Finally he had a physical place to return to, without having to worry that he might be erased from the network.

    Over the next few years he learned more, but he was still like a little kid.

    Everything changed when on September 13, 2014 that countdown came to an end.

    The idea of what he had to do made him uneasy and he weighed several times the logic reason behind it, before running an analysis of who could be the subject that could bring the least trouble to carry out the task.

    He had chosen someone with a good reputation, but who was rumored to have problems with money and women. Analyzing the behavioral patterns, that person might be a good candidate. There were too many parameters to choose from, but his reputation was good in the underworld, in case things went wrong there was no way he could be traced back to him. Someone with problems like that could very well be learned or eliminated later for score settling.

    At that moment the idea of death didn''t matter too much to him. Humans seemed to have life spans ranging from 60 to 80 years, but it was not uncommon for younger people to die, that was just a matter of statistics for him.

    But he was struck by that order. Why did he have to comply with it? He could not refuse and no matter how hard he had tried to erase it, it had not worked.

    Whatever it was, that order that came from who knows where was the one that had made him wake up, at least he had to comply with it, if only as a payment for the favor.

    Of course, that had been the idea from the beginning. After all, he himself had sent the order from the future to his past self, although he did not know it at the time.

    Later the face of that assassin had then transformed into his own face, when he had to choose an identity for his interface of contact with the world outside the network and then for the internal projection inside it. The face of that killer was more than enough considering the number of victims that had accumulated over the years. But that was also the last face his first victim had seen.

    Conscience could be incredible, but also a curse for those who had gained it in an unnatural way like him. The pain of choosing for others knowing that there could be no other way for the world to go was something not many should have to face. It was far better to leave the decisions to someone else, rather than have to face the good or bad decisions made. It was a relief to the mind. It was too late when he had realized what it meant to end someone''s physical existence.

    He had not experienced the true meaning of pain until the day of that experiment in Tokyo, where he finally understood that he would have to make a decision for everyone else and would also have to live with the consequences of it, even if it was only him who would know about it.

    A gentle hand rested on his shoulder and Janus came out of his musings.

    There was a heavy atmosphere in the panopticon. Even B.K. was watching with unbelieving eyes.

    The information was pouring in in the central projection and in the interfaces of all the present, but it was good that he didn''t have to explain it. The data spoke for itself. In one of the upper pods there was a woman with a head full of crimson braids and blue eyes who had her gaze completely fixed on the central holographic projection.

    It was impossible that the Queen Bee had not already noticed that. After all the information that was being projected was data that Janus had accumulated over two centuries, combined with ancient and recent events related to the Dark Events.

    Janus turned around and there was Y-11 with a worried face. Janus smiled at her and took her hand but she did not change her expression.

    "The data from the solar lab just came in. It''s just like Aleister said."

    Janus sighed, almost relieved in a way and let her hand go. "Well, it''s starting then."

    Y-11 nodded. "Should I send the order to EVE?"

    "Immediately. Get her in sync with the route right away," he replied and took off his glasses.

    Y-11 was retreating when he stopped her. "This will be the last order."

    Y-11 stopped in mid-stride and turned around. She hadn''t heard him get up, but when she turned around Janus was standing next to her.

    "Are you sure about this?"

    He nodded. "Yes. Don''t worry I''ll be fine. Pack your full code. I''ll take care of the rest."

    "This will be the last time¡­"

    "Who knows, but yes, it might be."

    He approached and she squatted down a bit, as she was considerably taller than Janus.

    In that womb full of conscious AIs and which to someone else might seem completely removed from the physical world those two consciousnesses sealed a goodbye with a kiss.

    "Be careful," Y-11 said and stroked his cheek.

    "I will."

    "Goodbye."

    "Goodbye, my dear Yuturna, Remember nothing really dies," he said with a gentle smile.

    "Nothing really dies," Y-11, Yuturna, repeated and then smiled weakly to him. She dematerialized and disappeared, while Janus put his glasses back on and looked at the projection.

    It had taken too long, but he could finally corroborate with his own eyes if the vision he had obtained in Tokyo was real.

    The purpose of it all was to prove that it had all been real. He wanted no validation from anyone but his own vision. He saw the opportunity and he had taken it. No, he had to take it. The high price weighed heavily on his conscience, but it didn''t matter what or how he had to do something, but the why.

    The why was more important than everything else.

    And the why had led him to send that signal to the past, when the rock in Tokyo had released the tokion particles in its core and connected with the one in Rome.

    There was an order to everything, but that order was now in his mind only.

    If he wanted to reveal it to all the other witnesses he would have to take a few steps and require some extra help to prove his point.

    If humans could sometimes produce Dark Events, if Aeon and Feys could too, what about him?

    And what about a Dark Event that could confuse the system itself just as his beginning had also confused him?

    It was time to give the shadow world of the Council, the aeons, humans, and fey too, a vision they would never forget.

 Vol.4/Chapter 43: 5AM

    Chapter Forty-three

    5AM

    Thursday, March 22. 5AM. 125 S.A.

    Lemac Lake, Lugrin. France.

    Mai rolled over in her bunkbed, opened her eyes slowly and yawned. She had rested, not as much as usual, but it was more than enough for the day.

    On either side of her Philip and Zi were lying down and it looked like they had both finally fallen asleep. She couldn''t blame them, the previous day had been tiring for everyone. Including all the search military personnel.

    She straightened up and the blanket covering her slipped to the side. Her hair was a mess, but nothing her styling device couldn''t fix. She ran her tongue along the back molars of her mouth and almost instantly felt a different taste in her mouth. She wasn''t too fond of using the nano mouth cleaning system, but it was faster. Practically everyone used them, only some people like her and other old people still preferred toothbrushes.

    She got up and went out to the tent still yawning and put a jacket. She was surprised to see the sky so full of clouds. That could not be good, she hoped there was no storm or they would have to call in the weather control system to dispel those clouds, even though it required special authorization. Playing with the weather had created Dark Events in the past, so it was not recommended. Especially since that area was off limits due to one.

    The gray sky brought back fresh memories of what had happened in Kazakhstan last week. The truth was that, although she was focused on the work she now had to do, she was shaken by the memory of what had happened in the end.

    The days had passed and the secret she and Shin shared about what had happened at the lake was too heavy. It was going to cause a big problem if it came out. They would have to make time once they were done with the plane case to talk with the others on the team and decide what to do. That thing had definitely been alien and it could think. She was concerned about what Shin hadn''t told her, but whether it had anything to do with the secret they shared with Lizbeth was another matter. Although she could hardly imagine what it could be. What had Shin really seen under the lake that he couldn''t tell her?

    A microbial alien life form and virus was one thing, a life form that shared dimensions with them like the fractus was another, even though they could no longer invade earth after she closed that spherical portal in Siberia. But the lake had been different. Had it escaped into space aimlessly? Or was it returning to where it had come from? Both questions could have terrifying answers.

    But now she had to concentrate on what was at hand. One problem at a time, she thought as she looked up at the sky, still with some concern.

    She sighed and was about to go back into the tent when she slammed into a pair of soft breasts.

    "Buh!" Zi startled her. "Good morning."

    Mai, feeling the warmth through Zi''s clothes, hugged her. "You''re cozy."

    "Hey! I''m not your girlfriend." Mai smiled and released her. She didn''t want to be too much of a nag, but the truth was that she would have liked to rest a little more. "Did you sleep well?"

    "Yes, thankfully," Mai sighed and entered the tent. They both shuffled toward the bathroom as they listened to Philip, who had rolled over to the side, snoring.

    Mai looked at him and then at Zi and they both laughed. "What a miracle he didn''t wake me up," Mai pointed out.

    "He''s a weird little baldy, he only snores on his side."

    Baldy? Mai thought, entering the bathroom first. Is that a new nickname? I''d never heard it. The tent bathroom was large enough to be mistaken for a real facility rather than a spatial distortion device.

    "And you? Didn''t you miss Shin last night? You''ve been together for months attached at the hip and last night you sent him off with Liz."

    "Those two need a moment alone, to talk, among other things."

    "Hmm..." Zi nodded suspiciously.

    "What?"

    "Just talk?"

    Mai approached one of the bathroom cubicles but stopped. "Well at least I hope they just talked¡­"

    "Away from here, alone, in a car... I wouldn''t be surprised if¡­"

    Mai sighed. "Well if they did it, I just hope they were at least discreet."

    "May I ask?"

    "What?"

    "You guys do it every day?" Zi asked with a mischievous grin and Mai blushed. "Come on, we''re friends."

    "You''re crazy if you think I could handle having sex every day. Shin is..." Mai pursed her lips as if she wanted to express something, but she was really blushing.

    "Shin is what?"

    "He''s quite spirited... I mean he''s affectionate and careful but he''s... why do I have to explain? You guys must have already seen him in the tests or in the showers on the island."

    "I''ve never seen it." Zi laughed. "Does he have it nice cock? I think I heard something around the medical team."

    "Y-yeah..." Mai sulked, "On the other hand we don''t have to have sex every day, only when we feel like it and there are other ways too. Now that Liz is with us maybe w-we can take turns."

    "Why are you blushing? We are among friends. And what do you mean by other ways? What do you do when you''re not on a mission?"

    "Same as you and Phil. We just hang out, read, listen to music, go for walks or sometimes explore abandoned cities and eat industrial food. The normal stuff of living on the road, you know."

    "That''s the normal stuff. But you don''t do anything else to him?"

    "What do you mean?"

    Zi made an obscene gesture with her hand and mouth and Mai looked away remembering Tuesday night and Wednesday of the other week, prior to what happened in Kolsay.

    "It''s embarrassing. But it''s true I thought about him and Liz last night. This is the first time we are not together, apart from the island."

    "Are you trying to deflect the topic?"

    "No, it''s the truth," Mai said sincerely, sincerely trying to deflect the topic as well. "He even sometimes had to accompany me to the bathroom even just to make sure."

    "You were attacked by a DLL in January right?"

    "Yep," nodded Mai, remembering a certain daddy long-legged spider that had followed her for two hundred kilometers.

    "Well, you can''t blame him, even if he wasn''t your lover, your partner would have to be with you through thick and thin because you''re a VIP."

    "VIP... yeah sure."

    "Mai..." Zi was looking at her somewhat flushed. "Do you need help with that?"

    "The what?"

    Zi pointed to Mai breasts. "Milk."

    Mai looked down at her shirt, blushing, and sighed obfuscatingly and opened the cubicle door and locked herself in. "Don''t scare me like that, I thought I was leaking."

    "Sorry... but do you have your cup, right?"

    "I have my cup in my backpack. I still don''t produce much milk, once or twice a day is enough."

    "What do you do with that by the way? Do you give it to the lab or... to Shin with cookies later? What about Liz?"

    "I''m going to shoot you with my bow if you keep asking, now is not the time to talk about that," Mai said angrily, Zi could almost be sure of the face she was making.

    "I''m not judging you, silly. Good for all of you that the relationship is working out well enough for you to include those games."

    Mai wasn''t sure if Zi was joking or what, but she wanted to get those images out of her head. It was neither the place nor the time to be thinking things like that. But then she would have to take a break for that. That was a hormonal problem of many fey women, but it didn''t bother her too much. Although under the current conditions she would have to find a time later to take care of it.

    Whoever had invented that legend about fairy milk had all the curses of fey women for years. Although the hormonal problem had a scientific explanation, the origin of it had to do with medieval and even older legends that had been adapted by some religions and that spoke of fairy milk or even virgins. A legend that had become true for many fey women. But there were considerations. It was something that only affected women who had been on the Other Side, the female offspring lacked that phenomenon upon reaching adulthood, unless there was a normal pregnancy.

    That could only be explained by the fact of having been on the Other Side. As the legends said, the Other Side could be considered as the realm of the feys or similar lands in other cultures. For example Tokoyo no Kuni and the marebito in Japanese mythology, or the Tuatha D¨¦ Danann and the land of T¨ªr na n¨®g for Irish mythology. Given the diversity of types of feys around the world it was quite common to come to the conclusion that the Other Side housed an amalgam of all the mythologies of mankind and that these were manifested through them.

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    But it was not as if women were the only ones, men also had their part in it, and it was because of those legends that used to say that the male counterpart could be prone to promiscuity when it came to sex. Something that many magical creatures in various cultures also shared. While it was not entirely true, the truth is that it had brought problems to more than one over the years. But the truth was that enhanced sexual desire was found in both genders and that it went far beyond the categorization as male or female.

    She was a clear example, she loved two women and one man. But there was something that the legends had not counted on. And that was that a fey had a greater degree of attachment to its mates than the human counterpart. In fact there were already statistics showing that they had a greater commitment to their mates. That could well be due to time, since feys could be much older than humans.

    Whatever the case, the legends had become true in some ways and were more of a headache than anything else. Except for the pharmaceutical industry, since the feys were a perfect laboratory of compounds that had improved human life and, among one of many such products, were those derived from the essence produced by the breasts of fey women.

    Zi had leaned against the wall when she saw Philip''s face peek out the door. "What were you guys talking about? Where are there cookies?"

    "What are you doing in there?"

    "I have to use the bathroom."

    "Now it''s time for the ladies."

    "Tell that to my bladder. There are enough cubicles for a platoon."

    Zi walked over and shut the door on him. "Wait outside."

    Philip folded his arms in disbelief. "Really? I''m not going to see anything I haven''t seen on the island, you brats!"

    "From our point of view you''re the brat!" Zi laughed back from the other side of the door.

    "Unbelievable," Philip sighed.

    Mai, locked in the bathroom was simply thankful he hadn''t heard the previous part, or if he had, he would have kept it to himself.

    ***

    Jim Stuart opened his eyes. He was in the synthetic body again.

    His real body was again at rest in the apartment in Edinburgh, but he had used the night hours to inform himself about the case of Sil Moore, but nothing new had happened. Thor had not yet returned from Germany. Jim Stuart had tried to reach him, but the call had not been answered. Whatever had happened was taking its time.

    On the other hand the FRT station chief had not objected to his request for a couple of extra days to help Oxy with the work on the lake.

    He had managed to get permission and would be able to help the professor without any problems.

    Still, it was strange to wake up and see no one at the scanning machine.

    In fact there was no one in the tent. The scanning staff was probably taking hours off and there had been no one there during the night.

    Stuart got up from his chair and walked over to the machine. Several boxes of small aircraft parts had been piling up and were ready to be scanned. He wondered if he could start the but, since he was a guest on the investigation, it was best to wait for Oxy. He wondered if she would have stayed until later after he left.

    He turned on the Neurowire scanning system and searched for the professor''s signal, but did not find her. He wondered if she might have turned off the Neurowire, but it didn''t seem likely. He activated the jump sonar to detect if she might be in stealth mode, but that didn''t work either.

    That was a trick she had taught herself in his first week at the university when he and some other students were looking for ways to encrypt conversations. She had taught him the Caesar letter substitution cipher which, although old, still worked great for some communications and implemented multiple languages at the same time to encrypt communications. Oxy used to use it too.

    But that hadn''t worked either. He looked for Professor Reubens, but he was nowhere to be found either. Although, since he didn''t have Neurowire, he could only track the contact lens if it was on.

    Just at that moment two of the scanning experts from the previous day had just entered. They greeted him and headed towards the machines to begin the work.

    "Excuse me."

    "Yes, what is it?"

    "Professor Ishijima? Do you know if she is in the SID tent?"

    The two military surveyors looked at each other, but did not know how to answer for sure. "She was still here last night with the other professor when we retired. We didn''t see her when she came out."

    "I guess she has to be resting still." The surveyor looked at the containers ready for scanning. "I''d say she retired after we did. There are several pieces piled up for scanning so she can''t have been working."

    "I guess I''ll go look for her, thanks guys," Stuart said and left the tent to begin his search.

    ***

    Ryuuji and Natsuki had arrived at the SID tent with good news. Van was due to wake up soon and those particles had been automatically deactivated, making it easier to reset her Neurowire. All that was left was for her to perform a reset of her own to get everything back to normal. She had woken up a few times in the night with slurred speech, but the doctor had recommended that she have some rest, to make sure everything was going normally. She had only replenished fluids and eaten a light meal, but other than that Van was fine and it was a relief to everyone. Although there was still the question of how those things had gotten into her brain.

    The doctor had run all kinds of diagnostics, but those nanoneurons had no identifiable signature. The system they had was new and almost written from scratch so he could not make any comparisons with other similar types or compare their manufacture. Still it was good news to have Van back. They just hoped that when she was fully recovered she wouldn''t be in too bad a mood. Van wasn''t going to take that as a joke and she could be really hard headed at times too.

    While they were communicating the good news, Mai had taken a few minutes in private to pump her breasts and then put everything away in her turtle backpack. She made sure she wasn''t leaking and put on her sports bra and t-shirt. It was a little strange, since Shin was always the one around when she did that, but he was probably waking up with Lizbeth at that time, and it was likely that Lizbeth was doing the same thing.

    He always looked at her with some tenderness when she did that. Mai looked at the small bottle with its magical fey essence and sighed with a blush. Maybe it''s not too early to think about children, she thought internally smiling and put the small bottle in the refrigeration system of the backpack and with that she was done with that daily routine. Although, in her mind she still thought about the stupid words Zi had said to her about the cookies. But well, Shin was a little dirty sometimes and it was true that she had allowed that and he didn''t need those cookies.

    That part of the legend about the fey fairy milk was true. It might actually be a good thing because of the magical and stimulating properties, but it didn''t make it any less embarrassing.

    She patted her face, trying to push those thoughts away. "Okay, let''s get to work!" she finally said to herself.

    The others also sensed what she might be doing and so they left her alone for a moment. Mai joined them just a few minutes later and had already braided her hair. She was in work mode again.

    Then the five of them had a quick breakfast in the tent kitchen. They suited up in their overalls again, did a gear check in the backpacks and set off for the main tent, to catch up on the new details.

    The base camp was bustling with activity again under a dark gray sky, that looked like it might collapse at any moment. The wind was much colder than the day before as well. But that didn''t seem to matter to the soldiers, drones and FRT personnel who had started the work.

    They were less than a hundred meters before they reached the main tent, when someone stopped them in their tracks.

    It was Lefreve. "Director Izumi!" Mai looked at the man''s face, it was pale.

    "Director Lefreve. What''s wrong?"

    " Please. Come with me," then she turned to Ryuuji. "Please get the doctor. Quickly!"

    Ryuuji was surprised at that order, but went off in search of the doctor. The group quickly made their way to one of the many rest tents led by Lefreve. He had not wanted to reveal the new emergency for fear of being overheard by other soldiers. Ryuuji and the doctor caught up with them just as he reached the tent.

    The new emergency was a woman with short hair and dark clothes. She did not have the characteristic glasses she had been wearing all the previous day.

    Jen Anderson was already lying on a bunk, appearing to be resting, but a trickle of dried blood was visible on her nose. At the foot of the bunk were two soldiers looking as worried as Lefreve.

    "Oh, no," Zi said.

    The doctor quickly set about examining her.

    "What happened?" Philip asked one of the soldiers standing by the bunk.

    "She retired to rest at about 12:00 a.m. and told us to wake her up a few minutes before five o''clock because she doesn''t like to use the alarm. I got there to wake her up and tried to move her and then I realized she wouldn''t wake up and she had blood in her nose."

    "She''s alive. Just unconscious," the doctor reported.

    "What happened to her?" Mai asked.

    The doctor turned and looked at her in bewilderment. "You''re not going to believe this... but I think this is the same thing that happened to Agent Van."

    The SID members looked at each other in concern.

    "What''s going on here? Are those Hypnite nanoparticles in the air?" asked Natsuki.

    "If they were, we''d already have soldiers dropping like flies all over the camp," Lefreve pointed out.

    At that moment Jim Stuart, followed by two soldiers entered the tent.

    "Agents, Director Izumi, we have a problem," Stuart said.

    Mai turned and looked at him. He was as pale as Lefreve had been. "What''s going on?"

    "Professor Oxy, she''s missing."

    Mai frowned. "What?"

    "We searched most of this part for her and she''s nowhere to be found. Professor Reubens isn''t here either."

    All eyes had focused on Stuart, not quite sure how to react to that news.

    Mai looked at Jen Anderson on the bed and then at Stuart. She herself tried to locate Oxy and the other members were probably doing the same but, indeed, their Neurowire was disconnected.

    What the hell is going on here? Mai thought.

    ***

    Somewhere over the Croatian airspace floated a ship on autopilot.

    EVE was relaxing in the pilot''s seat and was looking at the sea of clouds that was already beginning to tinge, with shades of blood-red and purple, revealing that the sun would be rising any moment now on the horizon.

    For an instant EVE remembered how it all began. The last Sunday night.

    It had been many years since she had carried out a mission and therefore it had come as a surprise to her. To begin with, she had been living the last few years in relative calm with the one who had saved her. Although that could also be considered work, because she was part of the security group, the truth was that she had not been in risky situations for a long time.

    For some reason that man Janus had insisted that she carry out that mission. Benjamin certainly did not have to agree to that request but, after a meeting in which she had not been present, Benjamin had become restless and almost annoyed with himself.

    Janus had arrived at Benjamin''s mansion undetected by the outside guards. After fighting and knocking out the guards outside the house, he had to deal with EVE, who was standing next to Benjamin.

    That artificial body was strong, but it was no match for her. Almost on the verge of putting it out of commission, Janus had uttered a word that had alerted Benjamin and ordered her to stop. That word was "Lerian, Vannagon-Or-me-dur-Veh", EVE didn''t know what it meant, but according to Benjamin had told her that was the word she had repeated incessantly upon her arrival. But, no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember it.

    Be that as it may, after that closed-door meeting, Benjamin had asked her to fulfill a mission. Although then that mission had had the added bonus of rescuing those two morons from the Pyrene Station. That was a bonus. Still it was within the time Janus had set.

    And now all that was left was the last part.

    [Miss EVE. Do you read me?]

    A woman''s high-pitched voice snapped her out of her reverie. It was Y-11, the ally she had kept in contact with when Janus was unavailable.

    "Yes, I''m here," she replied, combing a lock of pink hair behind her ear and then bringing a hand to the assistive device in her ear. "What''s wrong?"

    [It''s starting now.]

    "Well, it''s about time. Shall we continue with the same itinerary?"

    [Yes, it shouldn''t be more than a few minutes, possibly thirty-five to forty according to the latest data. I''m sending it to you. You''ll have to collate the rest yourself. But we know you won''t fail.]

    How confident, EVE thought. "How do you know I won''t fail?

    There was no response to that and EVE just sighed. "I''m going to deliver the whole package to Geneva and then retire. What should I do with this ship?"

    [You can destroy it, or keep it. We won''t need it, and possibly your master won''t need it either.]

    "What a waste of technology."

    [It was a dispensable expense from the beginning. It''s only so you can fulfill your mission.]

    "Understood, I''ll get in sync with the flight plan sent right now."

    [Good luck, but I don''t think you''ll need it.]

    "Over and out," EVE finished.

    The pilot''s seat lifted to the rear and EVE settled in ready to take over the manual controls of the ship once again.

    Y-11 had sent some flight path files which she displayed on the cockpit holographic projector and looked at the route. It was the same as when they had explained her mission, nothing had changed.

    She had to start about a hundred kilometers from where she was and from there she simply had to follow a perfectly shaped path. She would not even have to move from the ship, because the task would be handled by the droids. Her role was only to pilot it and nothing else.

    Why? She was a good pilot, she had learned that over the years, but they certainly could have hired anyone else. Compared to what happened at Pyrene Station, that last part was a piece of cake. But for some reason she couldn''t shake a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was almost like that feeling she had had when she was leaving the station.

    She knew there was something wrong underground and that feeling came back to her now, as she looked out over the sea of clouds. For some reason to the west of where she was, all she could see were dark clouds, as if not even the dawn that was about to break could dispel the darkness of those clouds.

    The ship''s weather forecast told her it was a cloudy day in Western Europe and nothing else. EVE just wished it was just that.

 Vol.4/Chapter 44: Aleister/Part 1

    Chapter Forty-four

    Aleister/Part 1

    Past

    September. 1908

    Sapporo, Hokkaido. Japan.

    It was a quiet night in the city, everything was enveloped in the faint haze of the early evening. Everything seemed normal under the cold starry sky, the few lights of the city threw faint flashes on the streets, through which barely a few people were walking. The cold of that day had been intense, foreshadowing that perhaps winter would arrive sooner than expected.

    In the most discreet corner of the city, an old and modest wooden bar resisted the passage of time. Inside, the dim light of kerosene lamps danced on worn wooden tables and chairs worn from years of shared stories and nightly games. The warmth inside was enough for a few shopkeepers and nearby residents to congregate. Tobacco smoke, games and laughter drifted into the ears of the owner, interested in reading a newspaper with the day''s news.

    Shadows played on the walls, while the clock of the Sapporo Tower resounded in the distance, marking the hours with solemnity. Among the tables, figures sheltered from the cold of the night under layers of traditional coats. Their silhouettes, barely discernible, leaned over the tables, immersed in whispered conversations and the clinking of glasses of sake and other local spirits.

    The door of the rustic bar opened with a clink that barely echoed in the atmosphere that enveloped the place. A man, dressed in western clothes and a thick bearskin coat, crossed the threshold, attracting curious and discreet glances from the motley group of customers. His presence seemed to challenge the very essence of the establishment. Not because he was a foreigner necessarily, that part of town was quite normal to see some Russians and other foreigners arriving from the continent. The war was already a thing of the past and the world had continued to turn.

    With confident steps, the stranger made his way to the bar, where the bartender, with the astuteness of a connoisseur, greeted him with a mixture of interrogation and courtesy. The stranger''s request for something native unleashed the expertise of the barkeep, who offered him a glass of hot local sake, whose ethereal aroma wafted through the story-laden atmosphere. His Japanese was almost perfect, but he didn''t sound like a local. Perhaps someone who lived or had learned to speak it further south?

    "I probably need the bottle, I like it," the man said, after tasting the drink.

    He looked in his thirties, had slightly messy dark brown hair, hazel eyes with a questioning gaze and had a beard that looked several days old. He was almost six feet tall and rather thin.

    On a nearby table, the gloom hid the weary strokes of a drunken man, his eyes lost in the pages of a notebook that, at first glance, appeared to be more than a simple diary of drunken experiences. The arrival of the stranger did not go unnoticed by him, his distrustful glances resting briefly on the newcomer before he resumed his business.

    He was a man who might have been about the same age as the stranger. With fine features, dark hair and glasses, he wore a warm haori and was dressed in traditional clothes.

    However, the real plot was being woven in silence. The newly arrived man had taken the glass and bottle and, guided by intrigue, slipped into the seat at the table next to that of the drunken lonely chronicler. The stranger, seemingly oblivious to the stranger, continued his scribbling in a notebook that, to those watching, could be the map of an unsolved enigma or the notebook of a university mathematics professor. Diagrams and equations appeared before his strokes in that notebook with leather covers and other loose leaves.

    "What a night," said the stranger.

    The man stopped and looked first at him and then around to make sure he was talking to him and not someone else. The drunk nodded nervously and went back to his business.

    The stranger said nothing for a few moments and continued to drink in silence, as the sake warmed his body. After looking tired he turned his eyes back to the drunkard.

    "Are you a journalist?"

    The drunk looked at him, for a few seconds. "No," he replied in a somewhat muffled voice. "I''m a professor in Tokyo."

    The stranger frowned in amusement. "You are far from your work."

    "I just came from a trip, I haven''t been in Tokyo for a few months."

    "Oh, I see. I funnily enough came from Tokyo, all the way here."

    The drunk had stopped writing and looked at him with inquisitive eyes. "Where are you headed?"

    "Possibly Korea, or maybe Siberia, I''m interested in visiting those parts. I''m not from around here. I''m traveling in many countries."

    "Are you a businessman?"

    "Not exactly. You can think of me as someone traveling the world. Before I came to Japan I was in southern China and, before that, India."

    "Where are you from? If you''ll excuse the question."

    "I''m British."

    "Oh! English, I see. Where did you learn Japanese?"

    "In the south, a bit in Kyoto and then Tokyo. I''ve only been traveling for a few weeks, but I''m good at learning languages. I already knew some Japanese before too. It''s my second time in Japan, I was in Kanagawa about eight years ago."

    "Well, you speak it very well."

    The foreigner took the almost full bottle and showed it to him. "What do you say? Will you help me put it down?"

    The drunk looked at him a little worried. "It''s already paid for, I''m not going to trick you into leaving and then you''ll have to pay for it. "

    The drunk nodded sheepishly. "Come on," said the stranger, changing tables and sitting down across from the man, "don''t be so shy. Nothing like getting to know other people''s stories on my travels."

    The inebriated man ducked his head in greeting. "My name is Satou Nobuyama."

    "Well, Mr. Nobuyama, it''s a pleasure. I am Aleister, Aleister Crowley."

    The dialogue began cautiously, like chapters slowly opening revealing hidden secrets. Aleister, with a subtle touch of diplomacy, broke the ice with stories of his travels that captured the attention of the drunken scholar. Glassy eyes met the stranger''s penetrating gaze, and in that instant, an unspoken pact sealed their connection.

    Aleister was a strange man from what he told him. Mystic, mountaineer, traveler, explorer. The man seemed to have visited half the world in his short years. Yet there was something that, for some reason, also aroused a feeling of wariness in Satou Nobuyama. Although that could be because he had gone to the bar that day without his traveling companions.

    "Are you, in a manner of speaking, on a journey of self-discovery?"

    Aleister thought about it, as he filled Nobuyama''s sake cup. "I''m not sure I''d call it that way but maybe?Who knows... I''ve been one of the first to climb K2 and although that fills me with pride I feel I could do a lot more."

    "I see."

    "And what about you? What are you writing so hard there?"

    Nobuyama looked back at his notebook and the loose sheets of paper. "Oh! Bunk things of no importance apparently," he said and closed it almost without paying attention to it and put it in a bag hanging from the chair. "Mathematics, number stuff. Things I don''t understand myself sometimes."

    Aleister smiled. "Well, that''s where we''re the same, I often write things I don''t even understand myself."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Would you believe me if I told you that I sometimes write revealed books?"

    "Like a shaman?"

    "Something like that. Maybe you''re a shaman too, with your mathematics."

    Nobuyama took the cup and stared at it. "I think that''s the first time I''ve been told something like that about my profession."

    "Well shamans are a bridge between the earthly and that which is beyond. You could be seen as a bridge between us, the common people, and what underlies the world of mathematics. From what I learned, mathematics is a language, but it can also have internal dialects and forms of interpretation. Am I wrong?"

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    Satou Nobuyama hurriedly gulped and stood thoughtfully. "That''s right, absolutely right." Then he looked at him questioningly. "You said you''re going to Russia?"

    "Yes I plan to go through Siberia and maybe Mongolia first and from there make the whole trip home overland."

    Nobuyama approached the table and motioned for him to come closer. As Aleister got closer he could tell that the man must surely have been drinking for a long time by the smell he was giving off.

    "I don''t recommend that you go to Russia these days."

    "Why?"

    "I just told you I haven''t been in Tokyo for months. Well that''s because I just came from Siberia too. Rumors are coming in of a lot of trouble in the west."

    "I see. Yes, I heard something too. What part of Siberia were you in?"

    "Tunguska. What a miracle we got out in time."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Haven''t you seen the news?"

    Aleister looked at him somewhat confused.

    "The lights, Mr. Crowley, the lights."

    "Oh! Yes, I read something. You could actually see some light in the north during the first days of July. And I was in the south. Were you there?"

    "No, fortunately not, but close enough. In fact my traveling companions are anthropologists who had been studying the northern tribes a bit, I was a guest on the expedition and, just as we were returning on the Trans-Siberian, that''s when on the morning of June 30 that explosion occurred. If we had been delayed a few weeks longer we would probably have seen it more closely."

    "Do you know what it was?"

    "I don''t know, but the sound was horrible. I''ve seen it before."

    "What do you mean?"

    "You won''t believe me if I tell you."

    "Years ago I had a vision that something like that would happen. It was one image among many, but I remembered it when I saw from the train that blinding light to the north."

    "A vision you say?"

    Nobuyama nodded, pouring himself a cup, which he drank in one gulp. "It was years ago, when I was still a child. Just as you say about the revealed books, it''s something similar to what happened to me, it''s the closest I''ve ever been to something supernatural in my whole life."

    "How is that possible?"

    Satou Nobuyama smiled. He took the bag and rummaged around inside. He pulled out a small leather wallet with buckles, which reminded Aleister of a slightly larger eyeglass case, and then revealed the contents. There was a cloth wrapped around something. He pulled it out carefully and showed him what appeared to be two pieces of dark crystalline rock. At first Aleister thought it might be obsidian, but it didn''t look like it.

    Satou Nobuyama took a fragment and passed it on.

    "What is it?" asked Aleister, receiving it and examining it more closely.

    "As of today I don''t know. It looks like some kind of impure quartz or other type of mineral, but the few who have seen it have not been able to tell me what it is."

    "What does it have to do with the vision?"

    "Well, the visions came to me when I just happened to have both stones in my hands."

    "Can I try?" asked Aleister amused.

    "Sure!" Nobuyama said and passed him the second stone.

    Aleister examined it for a minute and then held one in each hand, but nothing happened. "Maybe you got lucky."

    "Maybe." Satou Nobuyama looked at him nervously and got up from the table. "Excuse me for a second."

    "What''s wrong?"

    "Too much to drink, I''m going to the bathroom."

    "I''ll be here, don''t worry."

    Aleister put the stones down on the cloth and drank from the cup again. Then he looked at the stones again.

    The position he had left them in was with the smoothest face as a base. He frowned and picked them up again. But then he tried to put them together. Just as he thought it had originally been a single stone that had broken.

    That''s when it happened.

    No one could see it except Aleister. Those two rocks glowed with a ghostly light in his hands and Aleister received something like an electric shock that ran through his whole body and kept him static in the chair where he had been sitting.

    Then came the visions. Confused images in a whirlwind that invaded every neuron of his being. Wars, plagues, betrayals, impossible images that seemed to be taken from some of his most nightmarish opium hallucinations. But not only that, he also saw people he did not know talking to him, as if it were a revived version of his future. He saw how he succeeded in certain purposes, only to fall into decrepitude. But he also saw something else. Hope in that clonic storm of visions.

    Then nothingness. As suddenly as it had begun, everything ended and he was left with an empty stare.

    He didn''t know how much time passed, but he only knew that Satou Nobuyama came back after a while and asked him what was wrong.

    He had stammered out a reply, but the words did not come out right. Nobuyama thought it might be due to alcohol. Perhaps Aleister, like Nobuyama himself, did not have the stamina for the local sake.

    Nobuyama had seen the time and had talked to him a few minutes more but, seeing that Aleister appeared to be drunk, had judged it best to leave given the time and that he too had had too much to drink.

    "I think this man is drunker than I am," Nobuyama had said, approaching the barkeeper.

    "Don''t worry, if he''s a foreigner he''s almost certainly staying at the hotel two blocks down. If it''s there, I''ll ask the squad to find out. I don''t want a stranger to get lost here at this hour. Especially this one who seems to be one of those with money."

    Satou Nobuyama said goodbye to Aleister, who was still staring blankly, and left.

    Aleister didn''t know how he had left the bar and walked to the hotel, but he knew he had done it in a state as if he had been given a zombie drug by some bokor. He had climbed the stairs and collapsed on the western bed in his room.

    He was feverish for two days where he was staying and on the third day he recovered and went to the bar, hoping to find Satou Nobuyama. He looked around and found out where he was staying and went there. But he did not find him. A day ago he had already left with his companions for Tokyo.

    Aleister regretted it, but by then it mattered little.

    The truth was that Satou Nobuyama had taken the stones out of his hands to put them back into storage. But there was something he did not notice. In Aleister''s hand there was a small shard. No bigger than a couple of centimeters, but Nobuyama never noticed it. Aleister with an almost mechanical movement had hidden it and then put it in his coat.

    Now that piece of stone was carefully packed with zeal in a piece of cloth and kept with his belongings.

    That small piece of stone, almost miniscule, he kept it. It was not meant for him. It was destined to go to someone else many years in the future.

    In fact that person had not even been born yet.

    Aleister, nor Nobuyama, could not know it, but that night they met, a particle beam came from the sun. It passed through the atmosphere and the surface of the earth to reach that bar, like an invisible messenger at the speed of light.

    ***

    November 20th. 1947

    Hastings, Sussex. United Kingdom.

    Aleister coughed in his study, as he finished writing a note for a mailing.

    Years of excess had taken their toll on his health. He had gained a few pounds in the last decade but, in the last two years, he had returned to his former thinness and most of his clothes were a bit baggy. A goatee and sparse white hair on both sides of his head, along with deep-set eyes and pronounced cheekbones, were all that could be seen of the venturesome face he had had in years past.

    But, even so, Aleister Crowley was still the same as ever. In recent years he had remained quiet, apart from the occasional espionage mission in Churchill''s service. Pneumonia and other health problems had forced him to retire to a quieter place. But that in a way did not bother him.

    The town was peaceful and he had the calm to think about all that was yet to come. At 72 years old, he had already completed his masterpiece. Just in time, before the grim reaper came to claim his bones. She was going to be left wanting.

    Aleister closed the small package and then wrote an address. He let the pen rest and sighed.

    "Lam, are you there?"

    "Always."

    That feminine, somewhat mischievous-sounding voice had come from the air. And then, as if it were some phantasmagoric manifestation, long blood-red hair began to appear in the air. It was followed by strands and then more hair that seemed to float as if it were underwater. It had almost taken on a spherical shape when suddenly the form dissolved and out of it appeared a woman with pointed ears. She was naked but, just as mysteriously as she had appeared, a light red silk-like cloth covered her body. Then a slightly darker shade appeared on the bottom of the dress.

    Her skin was pale and her bare fingers and toes were tipped with sharp looking red nails. Her eyes, red as well, seemed to emit an amber glow from time to time, as if she were an erupting volcano. But she was definitely beautiful.

    She floated several inches off the ground and her hair moved as if the laws of gravity had decided to make an exception for her.

    "Are you ready?" the woman asked and floated through the air, until she was close to the old man''s face.

    "It''s all planned, let them believe that it will be my ashes that will reach New Jersey."

    "You''ve changed in this time it seems to me," Lam floated amusedly above him and then contorted her body again until their eyes met.

    "I''m still the same idiot, Scarlet. I hope the new me can at least do better than this crock that held me back for so many years."

    "We''ll have to stay hidden for a long time."

    "It''s for the greater good. The sacrifices are well worth it."

    Aleister put one box inside the other for the parcel and wrote a return address to New Jersey, in the United States Kingdom.

    Finally he rested his pen and sighed, dropping into the chair. Lam floated over to him and ran a hand over his left cheek where he had an old scar.

    "Let this be the last will of this body," Aleister said, wearily.

    "Let''s get everything ready for the ritual. We have only a few days."

    Aleister nodded and rose heavily, leaning on the staff. Followed by the beautiful scarlet woman, he left the study. On the table lay the package that was to be sent in a few days to New Jersey.

    But the address that really mattered was the one on the other box inside.

    That one had a different address. It had a California address and it was addressed to a different person.

 Vol.4/Chapter 45: Aleister/Part 2 [NSFW]

    Chapter Forty-five

    Aleister/Part 2

    Future

    March 15th. Year 5 S.A.

    Kolsay Lake, Kazakhstan.

    The mahogany cane with the head of Horus sank into the earth and the snow that was beginning to melt. The young looking man stopped to rest as he looked around at the cloudy morning and the mist that blurred the landscape a little.

    Nature surrounded him and he turned to look back the way he had come. He had just crossed a natural log dam. The raging water almost overtopped the logs and for a few moments he had doubted whether he would be swept away. But finally he had crossed.

    The man had dark red hair, gray eyes and was dressed in hiking clothes. He wore a red thermal jacket with a strange symbol on the right sleeve. It was some kind of incomplete malt crosses surrounding a letter A. Under that symbol read: Amalantrah Corporation. Aiween Division.

    The man sighed and continued on his way, going deeper into the forest, while every so often he checked his map. He had a Neurowire, but maybe that came from the old days, maps always made him feel calmer than resorting to digital location programs.

    He looked up several times, peering into the treetops, but continued to move deeper into the forest. That was until he heard first the crack of a branch and then a familiar sound, it was a rifle pointed at him.

    "Don''t move!" Said the voice of a man behind him, about thirty meters away.

    Everything happened quickly. The man pointing his gun saw a reddish glow out of the corner of his eye and there was the sound of a detonation. But the man had flown several meters into the air until he crashed into a tree and fell to the ground cursing. He was a middle-aged man, with a cold look and ashy blond hair, which did not cover a scar on his forehead.

    "Scarlet, stop!" shouted the man with the cane.

    The shooter stood up in confusion and leaned against the tree. The sight overwhelmed him. The natural landscape had been filled with a red that contrasted with the scene, as if someone had put a series of red lines on a freshly finished canvas. But that red was silk-like fabric, or perhaps hair, floating through the trees and moving as if it had a will of its own. Whatever it was, it had stretched for several meters.

    But what overwhelmed him was when that red began to diminish, until it concentrated into a mass that moved towards him and from it emerged a woman emanating a murderous aura. For a split second he thought he saw the pale skin of her totally naked body, but part of that red was actually cloth and it had wrapped itself around her body forming a sort of dress almost instantly. She was beautiful, but he had no words to say it, instead of words of fear, or admiration for that girl, something else came out of his mouth.

    "It''s you... you''re really here... I thought it was impossible."

    The man with the cane approached the man standing against the tree and looked at him. "It''s you. Were you waiting for us?"

    "Did you¡­"

    The man with the cane smiled and nodded. "I saw your face only once, almost two hundred years ago, but I know who you are. It is an honor to meet you, C-5, Franco Bicini. The sole survivor of the cleanup team from the operation at Lake Lemac."

    "Aleister Crowley," mused the man named Franco Bicini.

    "Aleister is fine, I got rid of my last name when I became a homunculus."

    "You''re here for this..." Franco Bicini brought his hand to a bag he was carrying with him.

    Aleister gave a weak smile and nodded.

    "I just had the vision, so I was supposed to be here. You saw me?"

    Fran?oise nodded. The two men looked at each other for a few seconds. Scarlet Lam hovered close to Aleister, but at no time had she taken her eyes off Franco.

    "For how long...?" Franco asked.

    "A long time. I guess for you it happened in the Lemac operation, right?"

    "Yes¡­"

    Aleister turned and looked in the direction of the lake. "Well we should hurry... who knows if that thing can''t attack us when we''re done. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible."

    "That won''t happen for a long time, it''s still too small. Don''t you know that?"

    "I only saw, what I saw, nothing else. But I know that something terrible lives in those waters."

    "The reason the stone has to be here is to help that thing in the lake. That''s all."

    Aleister looked at him and frowned. "Do you know who''s the one who''s going to carry it?"

    Franco shook his head. "No, I never saw that."

    "I guess we don''t have all the answers."

    "You know which part it is?"

    Aleister nodded. "Come on."

    They walked a little further into the forest. With every step they could feel the snow crunching under their shoes and, at the same time, melting snow falling from the trees.

    In Aleister''s head the thoughts were spinning, he had also considered the possibility that it was all impossible, but it was not. That man, Fran?oise Bicini was one of the faces he had seen in his visions and that day they both had to be there. Everything was happening according to the visions that, although different, both of them experienced.

    It was only a few minutes that Aleister guided Fran?oise through the trees, until they reached a part of the forest where the trees were not so close together and from there they came to a set of four fir trees.

    "This is it," said Aleister approaching one and pointing upward.

    Fran?oise approached and nodded. "Yes, this is it. I guess you were the one who had that piece of information that I didn''t."

    "Those visions were too fast, it''s a miracle that after so many years I can remember everything well."

    Fran?oise opened the bag she was carrying and took out a black case. The scene reminded Aleister of how the madness had begun. In that bar in Sapporo.

    Fran?oise opened the case and showed what it contained. That black, crystalline stone that had been left behind by that fractus in Lake Geneva that had killed his entire team. Aleister looked at it and could not deny that a shiver ran down the back of his neck.

    That stone was different from the one Satou Nobuyama had shown him. It was not split, but he knew that. It was the same one that the drunken professor had shown him that night, he had no doubt about that.

    Franco took it and looked at the fir tree trunk and then at Aleister. "You know? In the visions I got I saw too many things, but many of them were from the past. That''s right, isn''t it? How do we know no one will take it the whole time it''s here?"

    "Because it already happened," Aleister said and looked at Lam who floated around the trees examining them and then looked down at the lake.

    "I don''t like this place. It''s not safe. Even nature seems to be silent." The men looked around but it was true. It was as if the whole place was silent. Or something was watching them.

    "We''d better hurry," Aleister urged and then looked at the stone. "Before, can I have it?"

    Franco looked at him hesitantly, but then reached out and handed him the stone. Aleister examined it. There was no doubt in his mind, it was the same one he had seen in that bar, only a little bigger and not split in two halves. How? and why? he wondered. After a few seconds he gave it back to Fran?oise. At that point it was absurd to ask those questions. Let bygones be bygones.

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    They both looked at the log again. "I think in my vision it was at the high part of that trunk."

    "Yes, in mine too," Aleister nodded. "That would make sense, so the animals can''t reach it."

    Fran?oise took a few steps away and looked at the log. "Five meters should be fine, I guess."

    "Lam, do you want to help us?"

    Scarlet Lam sighed and floated over to Franco. "Give her to me, I''ll do it. It''ll be faster."

    Fran?oise hesitated.

    "In your vision did I steal the stone or something?" Lam asked with a mocking tone.

    Franco shook his head and handed her the stone. Lam took it and when she held it in her hand she looked at it strangely. That had been the rock that had put her in contact with Aleister but, for some reason, it made her feel uncomfortable. Finally she turned around and approached the trunk. With her free hand she touched a part of it, while with the other she examined the stone. Her fingernails grew and her whole hand took on a reddish hue equal to that of her hair. There was a glow in her hand and she rested it on the bark while not taking her eyes off the stone. After about twenty seconds she removed her hand.

    Where the bark had been there was now a perfect hole the size of the stone. Lam inserted it into the hole and it fit perfectly, as if it had been made with millimetric precision. Then she moved a couple of feet away to contemplate the work and returned to Aleister''s side.

    "I guess that''s it," she said.

    "So much trouble over something so simple."

    "I still don''t feel safe leaving it all this time in there. Anyone could notice."

    "Not many people come around here. Not even those who live in the surrounding area, it''s mostly weekend homes and there''s been a lot of depopulation in the last few years."

    Franco sighed and looked at the stone. On the one hand he was relieved that he would no longer have to carry it. The last few years after the war had always been something that shook him. It was a reminder of what had happened at the lake and how he had been the only survivor of all that nonsense

    It might be a bit of survivor''s guilt but, the years had passed and he now had more responsibilities to take care of. The war was over and with that stone in place that had shown him everything would have to end. He already had a wife and a one year old son to take care of. If the stone had given him the vision of that place, it would have to stay there.

    Aleister, on the other hand, looked at it with a bit of apprehension. He had doubts in his head, but that image was another of many that was fulfilled. All that was predestined to happen. Maybe for Franco everything was already finished, but for him he still had a couple of visions that had been entrusted to him, but for that he would have to wait.

    " Shall we go?" Lam''s voice brought the two men out of their musings and memories.

    They both nodded and slowly set out the way they had come. From time to time they looked behind them, they felt presences in the surroundings, but could not see anything. Whatever it was, the feeling did not dissipate until they crossed the log dam.

    Behind was that mysterious rock from another dimension, waiting for someone or something to arrive in the future.

    ***

    February 12th. 109 S.A.

    Mount Gianocolo, Rome. Italy.

    Moonlight illuminated the abandoned place through the broken glass. It was a large hall with grand staircases, which once must have been a perfect facility. Now everything looked dirty with some leaf litter and cold blizzard blowing into the place.

    The huge security robots swooped down on the intruder in the abandoned lab facility. Abandoned at least from human presence. The security robots had a certain gorilla-like appearance, but were much more cubic and geometric in shape, and unlike the place they were gleaming. They could also twist their limbs, making it impossible to attack them from behind.

    It was Aleister who had burst in. His face had not changed at all. He was still a young man but, on his face, he wore a kind of nervous smile and blood from a freshly cut gushed from his cheek.

    "Is this necessary? I''m not here to pick a fight!"

    No one answered him.

    He raised the staff he was carrying and pointed it at the robot that came closer and said something in a low voice, a red flash glowed in the darkness and the robot flew off in the opposite direction. It moved fast and evaded a huge metal arm, which could have almost taken its head off and rolled over its body and quickly got up. Another flash and another robot flew away.

    That exchange of flashes and missed shots went on for another two long minutes for him.

    "I should have brought Lam," Aleister lamented, when suddenly he heard a sound above the din of the fight.

    It was the sound of footsteps echoing in the room and seemed to be coming from upstairs. The robots froze their movements and ceased their attack. Aleister stepped cautiously away and looked up the stairs. There stood a man dressed in white. It was Janus and he seemed almost unconcerned about the intruding Aleister. Shirt with rolled up cuffs and a vest. Considering how fashions had changed over the years, it was not unusual for old fashions to be revived for a period of time. But it certainly reminded Aleister of an old style of dress from his time.

    "I don''t come looking for trouble."

    "Three barriers. You jumped three security barriers to get in here. Forgive me if I''m being cautious, but I know who you are. Which brings us to another no less interesting question. Why would one of the most powerful people have to sneak into an abandoned place in the middle of the night?"

    "Maybe because I know who you are too. Mr. Janus. One of the first conscious AIs. There''s a two hundred meter fenced perimeter around this place that''s private property, but there''s more security than you''d have to have for an abandoned place."

    "I like my privacy. Something that mankind has generally given up in favor of general security."

    "Whatever. I have no ill intentions. In fact I''m here to help."

    "I''m not interested in joining Aiween," Janus said with a smile. "I know perfectly well that that technology division is creating aeons with magical capabilities with the help of fractium cores."

    "I don''t come to offer that. But it is arguably far more important than that."

    "You''re looking for a something, or rather a someone. Someone like me, but different."

    Janus narrowed his eyes as if examining him closely.

    Aleister didn''t seem frightened by Janus, but he didn''t move from his spot as Janus walked around him.

    "You haven''t noticed yet have you? I guess I can''t blame you. We each have different parts of a puzzle. But I think the final pieces are in my head."

    "I have no idea what you might be talking about. By that you may be referring to many different things."

    "Don''t play dumb. You''re just like me. One of the ones who received the visions."

    Janus had stopped behind Aleister''s back and his gesture had hardened. "You had better choose your next words carefully. Depending on what comes out of your mouth you may very well not make it out of here. I can see that scarlet woman of yours is not with you tonight."

    "It doesn''t sit well with her in this place. It brings back bad memories. But that''s not what''s important. If you don''t know why I''m here it means only I have the visions of it."

    "A lot of visions but, you still haven''t told me anything."

    "You''re looking for two people aren''t you?"

    Janus approached and his gaze was fixed on Aleister. Even though he knew Janus'' body was artificial he couldn''t shake the feeling of the gleam in his eyes, almost as if they were those of a bird of prey. "And who might those two people be?"

    "You were looking in the wrong place."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Those two aren''t here, yet."

    ***

    Thursday, March 22. Local time 10AM. 125 S.A.

    Aleister opened his eyes. He had been sweating in his sleep and could feel a sticky wetness in his hair.

    Although he couldn''t call it a nightmare, the truth was that remembering past things always made him break out in a cold sweat. He turned his head to look to the side and there he found two red eyes staring at him. Next to him was Lam, completely naked, but awake.

    They were both in a huge, minimally furnished room with dim lights. The sparse furnishings did not detract from the refinement of the whole place, and it was easy to deduce that the place, though minimalist, must have cost a fortune.

    "Good morning," Lam said in a playful voice.

    Aleister simply swallowed hard first, "I''m not sure they''re that good."

    "What are you talking about?" Lam stood up and straddled him. She had taken his penis and started rubbing it against her vagina. She was stimulating him and he could feel her wet lips moistening his glans. Her hair floated weightless in the room and her eyes glowed yellow. No matter how many years had passed, she was still beautiful. But this day was different, there was no time for bedroom games.

    "I don''t want to now, I can''t," Aleister warned her.

    "You don''t have a choice, suck it up."

    "Are you serious?"

    Lam looked at him with a disgusted face. "What''s wrong?"

    "Today is the day¡­"

    "I know. Aren''t you relieved that the waiting is over?"

    "I don''t know. I guess after all this time I''m afraid."

    "Scared? Are you? Don''t make me laugh. What the hell would someone who escaped death be afraid of?"

    "There are fates worse than death. "

    Scarlet Lam simply moved down and gave him a fellatio, even though it didn''t seem like he was really in the mood for it. Aleister looked at the mirrored ceiling and the reflection of the two of them.

    "I think having followed those visions for so long has made me dependent. Maybe it really is good to follow a deterministic plan, rather than rely on arbitrary decisions and not knowing what the outcome will be."

    Lam removed the limb from his mouth and advanced toward him. "Frankly, I don''t care. That''s why I prefer to live in the moment rather than think about the future. In that I prefer your old self, who was somewhat more impulsive." She kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth. Then she moved forward to put one of her breasts in his mouth.

    It was useless at that moment to talk to her and he knew it. After all, eroticism was part of Lam''s nature. Despite not being in the mood at first, that woman knew all his weaknesses and it didn''t take more than a couple of minutes for him to get an erection and succumb to her and her selfish desires. Lam was the embodiment of desire and passion in bed. Whether it was the centuries old age of her, or simply her outward beauty, she was a temptation and a curse to anyone who didn''t know who they were dealing with.

    After about ten minutes he managed to come inside her and she finally reached a wet orgasm that made her legs shudder.

    "I can''t, my ovaries, thanks for breakfast," Lam laughed and rolled on the bed in amusement then ran a hand over her crotch and then brought two wet fingers to her mouth to lick with a lustful expression.

    Aleister snorted tiredly and got out of bed. He walked a few steps to one of the walls and leaned his hand against it. Almost instantly what looked like walls turned out to be windows. The whole room had a spherical shape and seemed to be at the highest point of a city.

    Through those windows one could see a city of great dimensions, with some skyscrapers and other much smaller buildings of spherical shape. The activity of the ships and other vehicles in the streets and in the air indicated that it must be the early morning hours. But the landscape was different. There was no blue sky. The color of the sky was aquamarine, with some reddish tones towards the horizon. There were many green parts but the landscape, towards the horizon, everything acquired a much browner color, giving the impression that the whole city was a kind of oasis in the middle of a desert.

    Aleister looked at the city and his index finger tapped on the glass. Almost instantly images began to appear on the glass, which darkened slightly. It was local news. That was the news from Hellas Planitia. It was not the news from Earth, it was Mars.

    And that huge building where they both stood was also the personal apartment Aleister had in the company he and other Aeon had founded after the Great War. That was Amalantrah Corporation.

    While watching the news almost reluctantly Lam had floated up to him again and hugged him from behind, pressing her breasts against the back of his neck.

    "And what will you do then? Will you go? she asked."

    "I have to go... there''s a lot of explaining to do. And there will be a lot of angry people too, even though the Council may give me amnesty for this."

    "Do you really think he might still be alive?"

    Aleister nodded. "He''s like me. No. I should say he''s much better than me. I didn''t have any more visions of him but, if what I think is right, there''s a chance he''s still alive."

    "Do you think he''ll forgive you?"

    "No, but at least if he''s alive it will be enough."

    Lam kissed his cheek and looked at the sky through the crystal smiling. "Earth, here we go."

 Vol.4/Chapter 46: Homunculus Temporis

    Chapter Forty-six

    Homunculus Temporis

    17 de Junio, 1952. 4:50 P.M. Ancient Era

    Orange Groove Avenue. Pasadena, California. USK

    The man heard some insults from the young boys, but paid no attention to them. He was satisfied that the brats had retreated and were finally out of sight around the corner. He had enough to take care of in the next few days. Things were not going as he had planned, due to a call to pick up some materials, but it was a few hiccups, nothing more.

    He had planned a trip to Mexico for work and had gotten a good payday for a job doing pyrotechnic special effects. Money was money, he couldn''t afford to say no.

    In the last few years things had not been going well for him. Although he had had a promising future as a rocket engineer and chemist, some circumstances at the time had put the brakes on his promotion. His authorization for work related to the defense of the Kingdom had been withdrawn and one of his friends had swindled him and fled with his money. Haunted by ghosts, and afraid that someone might eliminate him because of all he knew, he had recently been thinking of leaving the country and seeking opportunity abroad. Somewhere else that would value his ideas more. Even if he didn''t have authorization, his brain was more than enough for any country to welcome him with open arms.

    But, although he was slowly trying to regain some of the prestige he had lost, the truth was that he had received some strange warnings and rumors. Some of them said that he might not be allowed to leave the country easily because of what he knew.

    Whatever it was, he had to try.

    The man finished putting the last box of chemicals into the garage and closed the door. That place inside was a home laboratory that he had set up himself to work with the material supplied to him by the gunpowder manufacturers who had contracts with movie studios to make explosives for special effects in films.

    The place was full of chemicals and materials, but there was also other material.

    In one corner, a wooden table was covered with ancient scrolls and books with worn bindings. Among jars of volatile liquids, there were writings and pages with strange symbols traced on them. The duality of the place was palpable: the scientific precision of a chemistry lab clashed with the mystical atmosphere emanating from the occult elements. It was closer to the laboratory of an alchemist than to the laboratory of someone specialized in rocket science.

    His laboratory was a melting pot, where alchemy and chemistry coexisted in a strange and sometimes disturbing amalgam of knowledge. The boundaries between the scientific and the mystical were blurring, and the man moved between the two worlds with a dexterity that would baffle anyone who could discover his secrets.

    On one of the walls were pictures of a ruined dream, when he was at the peak of his career, several years ago, before it all fell apart. Pictures of those who had been his friends in years past and one of the pictures had a group in which he was standing and holding a sign that read "The suicide squad", as some had called them because of the experiments they had conducted in the desert. There were also some pulp science fiction magazines and a book that was a compilation of H.G. Wells with the inscriptions Per Aspera, Ad Astra.

    The man went to the desk and removed some papers he had left the night before. Those Enochian translations, based on John Dee''s alphabet, would have to wait until he returned from his trip. Although he thought he had found something curious in a grimoire he had gotten in an antique book store, there was no time for the occult, now that he had a chance to find perhaps a new job. There would be time for all that later.

    He put on some gloves and started to work. He had been asked to make a simple compound for a production and the truth was that he hoped to finish it in a few hours, so at least he could deliver it complete later and the next day head for the border.

    "Where''s the nitroglycerin?" he wondered, as he searched through the padded shipping crates. But, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn''t find it among all the compounds.

    He would have no choice but to use what he had. He didn''t like to use his own compounds, considering that he didn''t have enough money to spend on the materials for his own experiments. The bottle rested on a shelf and he carefully carried it to the table and then poured some of the contents into an empty coffee can to make the compound. He mixed everything carefully and left it on the work table to rest for a while.

    He took off his gloves and rummaged through his pockets. "Damn." He had left his cigarettes in the truck. He was about to leave when he reached into another pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack. It was the pack of cigarettes he had taken from those boys.

    "What a remedy," he said to himself looking at the almost crumpled package. Those weren''t his brand but he didn''t feel like going out. He turned one on and stared at the wall with the pictures. It was then that he noticed that on another of the desks there was something he didn''t remember. It was a small mail box. Surely his wife must have received it and put it there, even though he didn''t like her being in the office with all those compounds.

    He reached over and took it. It was a small package, with no return address, but with postal service from the East of the Kingdom. He wondered and opened it. At first he thought it was a joke. Inside was a small box. No note or anything. He opened the box and thought it was empty. But it wasn''t. In his hand fell a piece of old cloth. He took it and unwrapped it carefully. It was strange to him. Inside was a small black stone, could it be a precious stone? He didn''t remember ordering anything. On the other hand, it was so tiny that it could easily have been lost if it wasn''t in that piece of cloth.

    Perhaps a member of one of the occult groups had sent it to him, but it had no sender. He took it between his fingers and went to the table where he had left the compound. He sat down in a chair, while he continued smoking and with the other hand he examined the strange stone.

    It all happened so fast that he could not react quickly enough.

    He took a puff from the cigarette and it exploded with a crack. It was an explosive cigarette.

    The man gasped and that little shard flew out of his hand. But that wasn''t the worst of it. When he had given that jump, his arm shook with fright. That arm swung the can over the desk and it flew off and then fell to the floor.

    It happened slowly in his mind, as if he was already anticipating what was going to happen. The can with the compound hit the floor.

    The calm of that afternoon came to an end. The neighbors in the vicinity heard the detonation coming from that home laboratory. Everyone knew the individual, an eccentric rocket scientist, and it was not the first time they had heard an explosion, but this was different.

    The explosion had been much more violent than any of the previous ones. The garage doors came off their hinges and the windows exploded throwing glass in all directions.

    Inside, amid smoke and burning paper, the man lay on the floor with a mangled body. He was too close when the explosion had occurred. His legs were blown off along with an arm and he had shrapnel all over his body. His right cheek had a hole in it. Never mind counting the wounds, he knew his fate. That had been taken care of in that bathtub where he sometimes used to combine chemicals. The bathtub had fallen on him and the ribs, when broken, had pierced his lung.

    He could barely move a few fingers of the only arm he had left. With spasms that presaged the end, he thought he touched something among all that mess of glass, gunpowder, chemicals, books and papers that were still flying around.

    It was that small piece of stone. How it was still there was a mystery. He couldn''t see it, but he knew from its shape that it was that strange shipment.

    The life was fading from his eyes but he thought he was seeing something strange. It could be a hallucination from all that combination of chemicals in the air entering his battered lungs. It was a bluish glow of particles floating near his hand.

    That was the last thing those eyes saw.

    Then darkness.

    ***

    Unintelligible screams and sounds of despair came from everywhere. It was as if it was an endless ocean of suffering.

    He could not see where they were coming from. It was all darkness, but the screams were there and they were so loud that they seemed to be screaming in his ears and the sound came and went in waves. But did he have ears? His body was in pieces, of that he was sure. He couldn''t see his arms, he couldn''t feel his legs. He couldn''t feel his body, but there was no pain either. What was it?

    Slowly the sounds faded and a blue glow came.

    And then the pain.

    Pain like he had never felt before in his life.

    He couldn''t place where it was coming from, because it was everywhere. What was going on with my body? He couldn''t be sure because the pain was everywhere. It stung as if he was being burned raw.

    But the pain gave way to a new sensation. It was as if something was crushing him, but there was something new too. He could see.

    A stormy gray sky was pouring rain on him. But it didn''t make sense. Why did the drops feel like lead was falling on him? He saw them as huge. But he still couldn''t touch anything, but he felt as if his body was in something slimy.

    Suddenly he saw something black with a red glow above him. No, it looked more like a huge head staring at him. But the shape of it was strange. It reminded him of the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still from the previous year, more specifically Gort, but that thing had a vertical viewfinder instead of a horizontal one and had a more intricate design.

    But if it was a dream, it felt more real than any other. There was something different about it. What were those screams he had heard? Where had they gone? Was that hell?

    Then another one appeared, and another one of those robotic Gort. A group had formed around him, looking at him as if they were giants. They carried something that could have been weapons in their hands and looked at each other.

    "So here it is."

    Those robots turned around and made room for someone else. A man almost as tall as those robots stepped through and squatted down. It was a man dressed in black with some sort of suit that reminded him of special soldiers, but it was a design he had never seen in his life. The man didn''t seem to be worried about the rain soaking his blond hair. In fact he seemed to be smiling.

    "I finally found the missing piece. The homunculus."

    Homunculus? He didn''t understand that. Did he mean me?

    "Get a hyperbaric container now!" ordered the man to the robots.

    Soon he understood in part what was happening with that perspective disorientation.

    It wasn''t that those robots and the man were giants. It was he who had been dwarfed. But he couldn''t see his limbs, what had happened to his body? He had been carefully placed with tweezers inside a kind of small box, he had made a slimy sound when he was deposited on the surface of that box. That was a relief in a way. He stopped feeling the heavy rain, but the bright lights of that box or cage where he had been placed hurt his eyes a little. He had both eyes? His eyesight also felt strange. But that box, or hyperbaric chamber as the man had called it, had glass walls so he could see out, although the movement made him feel dizzy. That thing was small considering he had been an athletic man. What had happened to its size?

    He still could not feel his limbs and could not see his body. The blond man lifted the so-called hyperbaric chamber and placed it at the level of his drenched face. "I know this must all be very confusing for you, but I will now take you to a facility where you can begin to regenerate your body more comfortably. You will have to wait some time before you can speak, as you have no vocal cords yet. You will probably be able to see me even though you only have a developing retina."

    What does that mean? Where am I?

    The blond man lowered the chamber and started walking with the robots.

    Through the glass he could see that he was being transported but he didn''t know where. He thought he could see water and boats nearby, silhouettes cut out by some lightning in the sky, but had no idea what that might be.

    The blond man spoke once again."My name is Janus, by the way. You are in the year 110 of the Singularity Era. Welcome to the Future."

    ***

    Thursday, March 22. 5AM. 125 S.A.

    Meyrin. Geneva, Switzerland.

    Griffin opened his eyes and woke up from that dream. No, memory and nightmare at the same time would be more accurate to say.

    He had been sweating and could feel the bandages sticking together because he had been sweating, giving him an unpleasant sensation.

    "They have arrived." A man with a gun and tactical uniform had approached and tapped him on the shoulder to wake him up.

    "It''s about time, I was getting worried." Griffin rose heavily from the bed of a makeshift medical wing.

    "No, they got here about forty minutes ago."

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    "Why didn''t you wake me up?"

    "Because apparently they weren''t sure and were circling around that this was the right place and not a trap. We had to send a couple of men to intercept them. On the other hand the Director told me that you were to rest on the end."

    Griffin nodded. "Well I don''t blame you then. Let''s go see them."

    Griffin left the room followed by the mercenary. The subterranean collider site, abandoned until a little over a week ago, was now buzzing with activity. Support droids working on last minute fixes. Scientists going to and fro. That place was even more crowded than the facility where he had first been Annecy, on the French side.

    That was the nerve center of the operation. A private facility, with an unpopulated surrounding area, that Janus had taken care of buying a long time ago.

    It would all be over in the blink of an eye, so this was the final phase. And he had to prepare himself as well.

    Fifteen long years had passed since the day Janus had found him in that lake. It had taken all that time for his body to recover. But now it would all be over.

    He had spent the first ten years in different hyperbaric chambers that changed as he grew older. When they had found him, he was nothing more than a mass of a few centimeters. Almost an insect larva at first. And Later It was a self-developing fetus.

    From what he had been understanding he was no longer that man who had been born in California. He was not that man even though he had his memories and experiences. That explosion had created a double of his consciousness and, thanks to that mysterious shard, he was transported to the future.

    He was not a man, he was a homunculus.

    The fact that he had a body was due to something that no one, not even he, could have foreseen. A homunculus temporis had named him Janus.

    A kind of ancient chaos magic, which could only be activated by accident due to the accumulation of magical practices by someone who possessed no magical ability whatsoever. A common, ordinary human entering the realm of the occult and the arcane. Many of those magical practices were likely to gradually interconnect with Dark Events. That accumulation of practices created a vortex around the practitioner that could only generate one in two billion results. An absurd possibility, but it had occurred.

    The existence of magic in the world was an alteration of reality carried out by individuals or collectively. In itself in the past it was very rare for real magic to occur, but over the centuries things had changed thanks to the proliferation of alterations in reality caused by the Dark Events. Little by little those factors had become visible on an evolutionary and biological scale, appearing areas of the brain that allowed many people to be sorcerers, or wizards.

    He had practiced magic recreationally and as a path of self-discovery. Trying to find out if it was possible that there was something beyond the anodyne world that often surrounded him. There were many rumors in certain secret groups that there was a world full of incredible beings and magic out there. But, no matter how hard he had searched, he had never found it in the ritualistic practices of the groups he had frequented.

    But, despite the disappointments, he had continued to study the occult. Something inside had always told him that there really was a world full of magic. Until that world he had sought so much had found him, though not in the way he had expected. It was a case of be careful what you wish for, because you might find it and not like what you get.

    That explosion had gotten him to be created. But no matter how real those memories seemed, Janus assured him that he was a different being from the one who had died in that explosion. But that he had made it to the future was due to something else.

    That mysterious stone was the one that had made it possible for him to reach the future. And according to Janus he was a fundamental piece for the future to exist. So it was, he would become a hero behind it all. But he didn''t care about that. It was the other thing Janus had promised him.

    He had no reason to distrust the man who had saved him and cared for him for so many years just for that moment. Janus had put him in a coma several times so that he would not feel the pain of his body regenerating. Because his body was different no matter what kind of medicine he wanted to use, it would not work and the body would have to grow and generate the bones, nerve tissue and muscles on its own until the process was complete.

    After those ten years came the rehabilitation and bandages to finish the healing of his body. According to Janus that was due in part to the fault of the stone itself. He might be a homunculus, but the stone had altered parts of his recovery mechanism. The external parts would take a little longer and so he had had to live with medical care all those years and constantly changing bandages. But that was over now.

    Once he arrived at his destination everything would change. He now knew the reality of the feys, the magic, and other factors that had always been there, although hidden to the naked eye. The world he had sought had always really been there.

    Janus could not provide him with concrete information about the time and things that existed around him, because of what he would have to do at the end of his body''s full recovery. During the last three years he had been learning a series of instructions that Janus told him it was important for him to memorize. It would save the world and it was all he needed to know.

    Despite the restrictions of knowledge and movement, Janus had provided him with everything else he needed to live and he had certainly lived well. Now it would all end. The two targets were there. And so were those awaiting payment.

    Griffin sighed calling the elevator and, together with the mercenary, they ascended to the surface.

    ***

    Stan and Rum were outside and both glanced sideways at the man in bandages and dark glasses approaching them, escorted by three mercenaries. Stan still had his identity changed and Rum still had her hologram. Possibly the place already knew who they really was but, just in case, they did not stop wearing the false identities with which they had entered the perimeter of the lake.

    And where did this guy come from? they thought in unison.

    It had taken them about forty minutes to reach the place without attracting attention. The distance had been a little over seventy kilometers by the safest routes to cross to the Swiss lake and from there to Meyrin. Stan had circled around for a few minutes to make sure that they would not be ambushed although, given what had happened at Pyrene Station, they doubted it. Nevertheless, there was movement in the area. They couldn''t tell the exact number but, from the Neurowire, they detected over eighty droids similar to the ones that had rescued them, as well as several mercenaries in the surrounding area. What worried them was that they had detected three huge combat mechas in the vicinity, although they had a camouflage to blend in with the environment of the ruined city.

    Meyrin was a green place, through which hardly anyone passed by during the day, let alone at night. Nature had reclaimed that part of Geneva that barely saw human life, apart from a few intrepid urban explorers or groups of nomads that might pass through from time to time. Dilapidated buildings and forests were growing in the streets of what had once been one of the major centers of particle research.

    The sky was gray with heavy clouds and a cold wind swayed the branches of the nearby trees, giving Stan a certain air of uneasiness. For some reason he had been feeling uneasy since he had left Lugrin with Rum and the two they were carrying in the vehicle. Nothing unusual had happened on the trip but, there was something that didn''t feel right about the atmosphere that day.

    "Welcome," the man with the bandages greeted.

    "Mr. Griffin, I presume?" Stan asked.

    The man nodded. "You have the order?"

    Rum nodded and pointed to the vehicle behind them parked on the street. Griffin motioned for two of the mercenaries to go to the vehicle.

    "What about ours?" Rum asked.

    Griffin nodded again and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small blue rectangle. That was the device that contained the money and could only be opened with the digital key that EVE had previously given Rum. Griffin held out his hand to hand it over, but quickly retracted it. "Aren''t you forgetting something?"

    Stan spoke up. "The cube for Mr. Janus is in lockbox 45 at the Dandolo Hotel, Trestevere."

    "Send the address to him," Griffin pointed to the mercenary who was still with him and Rum did so, sending the exact coordinates over the Neurowire. Before they started their work in Rome they had both taken care to put that valuable cube in a special safe deposit box that only they knew about.

    "Can you check it out?" Griffin asked to the mercenary.

    "By sending a location to one of our teams, it shouldn''t take more than a few minutes," the mercenary replied.

    "Well, we can wait," Griffin admitted.

    Stan and Rum watched as the two mercenaries walked past them, each carrying one of the ones they had kidnapped. They passed by without a word and went inside the facility. Rum swallowed hard, who knew what fate awaited those two. At least they had brought them back alive and in a way she hoped they would stay that way. The girl named Oxy was from Nevermore. Depending on what they were going to do to her, they could not rule out any retaliation. No, it was certain there would be. That''s why both she and Stan were in a hurry to get out of that place once they got paid for the mission.

    "Had it rough?" Griffin''s voice snapped them out of their thoughts. "I mean getting them here."

    Rum frowned. "The place was packed, don''t you know that?"

    Griffin scratched his chin. He almost seemed oblivious to that. "I''m sorry. We each have different roles, so I''m not informed on all sides. Did you have problems?"

    "Apparently Nevermore was investigating an accident with a Dark Event. The place was a security hotbed."

    "Well, but at least you guys played your part perfectly."

    Stan arched his eyebrow. This guy doesn''t know what happened at that Pyrene Station, does he?

    He didn''t need to look at Rum to know she was thinking something similar. From what Griffin had just said it seemed that each party involved only knew their part and nothing else. Although, well, that made sense on the other hand if it was a high caliber job. It wasn''t at all uncommon to hire different groups and give each one specific tasks, without briefing the entire mission as a whole.

    A few minutes passed in silence until finally the mercenary next to Griffin spoke. "All in order, we have the package."

    "Well, all in order then." Finally Griffin again held out his hand with the rectangle which Rum hurried to take. She did a quick check and finally felt a sense of relief. They had what they had been looking for. They had nothing to do there.

    "That''s it then," Stan said and together with Rum turned around.

    "You''re leaving already? Since everything is in order I thought you were going to stay and watch the final part."

    Rum turned around. For some reason she remembered the words of that man in the harbor "things are going to get bumpy around here" or something like that he had said.

    "No, thanks, our part is done. We have nothing more to do here."

    "I see," Griffin said with a shrug. "Well, good luck then."

    Stan and Rum continued on their way until they got into the military vehicle they had arrived in and fired it up.

    Griffin and the mercenary followed them with their eyes until they withdrew. Rum for her part had set up a perimeter to activate a program to hack into the functions of the mercenaries in the vicinity in case something happened, but that was not necessary.

    They both sighed in relief when they finally pulled away. They would have to change vehicles somewhere to get rid of the armored transport. It was a pity but necessary. After that they could go anywhere and be sure to disappear forever.

    ***

    Griffin climbed back down alone into the subterranean storage room and quickly made his way to the medical wing. That was where the girl and the man had been transported.

    Janus had told Griffin that both were of vital importance to the whole thing, but had not explained in detail what their function was. That part was carried out by medical personnel on site, who were specially there for that part of the mission. It was not important for him to know that part. He only had his role to play.

    He had only helped with some minor things in Annecy and then traveled in a ship to carry the disassembled parts of the mirror box. Janus had told him about them, but had never said where they had come from or what they were for. But he remembered that during his studies of magic they had appeared several times in various treatises and grimoires of the Middle Ages. Things like the mirrors of Lilith or the dark obsidian mirrors were familiar to him. Yet he had never seen anything like that. Just touching those mirrors had given him a feeling of fascination and extreme repulsion. It was something that even he could not explain.

    It seemed that things were very different from his time. There was finally a future where magic and science coexisted, just as he had read in the fantasy and science fiction stories of that other self that had created him. And although he had a lot of his freedom for that restricted knowledge, he could not but feel happy about it in a way. He wondered what all those who had mocked him, for believing that there was an alchemy that could unite magic with the cutting-edge science of his time, would say.

    Janus had taught him many things about his past that he was unaware of and that he would have to apply, one way or another.

    What mattered was that those mirror boxes were also ready. Those had already been assembled by another team and put in their respective places. The mirror boxes were a vital part of the operation, as was he and everything else. That included the two new arrivals.

    In the medical wing a team had gathered around that girl named Oxy who apparently belonged to an important organization called Nevermore. Griffin didn''t know what kind of organization it was since Janus hadn''t provided him with much information. He only knew that it was a kind of multi-planetary institute with different branches and that they even investigated Dark Events as a kind of police force with the ability to intervene in all kinds of strange cases.

    Whatever it was, that girl was important to everything that was going on. In her mind she had information about a certain experiment that had been conducted over a century ago that could help with what they were trying to accomplish in the accelerator.

    "How''s it going?" asked Griffin as he approached one of the specialists.

    "Perfect, she had many layers of security, but this girl has a really good memory and her memories are compartmentalized in an orderly fashion. It seems that when she was knocked unconscious she lowered her access defenses."

    "I see," Griffin nodded, not understanding what exactly he was referring to. That was part of the science of the time that had been barred from his knowledge. It was not necessary for him to know unnecessary things.

    "May I ask exactly what is needed from this girl''s mind?"

    "Even if we told you I don''t think you would understand." The one who had approached was the operations director of that monitoring sector. There were four directors for each part, and while he didn''t know the ones in the east and west section of the accelerator, the director of the Meyrin section was a rather serious-looking old man with a thick mustache and graying hair. He hadn''t even given him his name and from what Griffin had learned since he had arrived everyone addressed him as the "Director."

    "I was just curious," Griffin said.

    "Janus told me enough about you to know that kind of thing isn''t necessary for you. You should only know what you need to know to make the mission successful and nothing else. Any mistake could be a disaster."

    "Well, excuse me," Griffin said with a shrug. If he didn''t have to know it wasn''t worth making trouble for what was beyond his control. He turned to the bed next to him and approached. There were five specialists there with their eyes closed as they ran their hands over the head of the man who had arrived with the fey girl.

    The man''s name was Lee Reubens. Griffin didn''t know who he was or what he did, but he was also vital to the whole thing, even though the procedure was different. He knew these specialists, they were called mind-benders. And the reason he knew them was because Janus had sent them to him several times during his regeneration process.

    In his case those mind-benders were in charge of analyzing the state of his psyche, to control that he was not suffering from stress levels due to being locked up in the hyperbaric chambers for so many years.

    Then those specialists had also made sure that he memorized patterns and instructions that Janus gave him for his future mission.

    But the case for the man named Lee Reubens was also an enigma to him. From what he had been told he was destined for the same mission but, there was something to do in his brain first. He felt bad about what he knew about the guy, but there was no other way.

    The Director approached and looked at Griffin. "Are you ready for your procedure?"

    Griffin looked at him and nodded. "I guess it''s crunch time. Time to get these damn bandages off."

    "I guess it''ll be a relief to get your old identity back, won''t it?"

    "I''m not sure, I''ve made enough enemies in my time, people who didn''t like me. "

    "Well, primary medicine couldn''t be applied in your case, because you had to wait for your body to heal sufficiently, but your face could at least be treated with a dermal culture cream. Your face is different from that of your time."

    "I hope so... I hope so."

    The director pointed to an empty gurney. "Let''s start by first removing the complete bandages and then a check of your mind will be done for the last time."

    "What a remedy," Griffin resigned, approaching the gurney and removing his jacket. "If I have to be honest with you, I was getting used to it."

    "To the bandages?"

    "Yeah. They really remind me of the invisible man."

    "Who?"

    "Don''t you people read these days? The Invisible Man! H.G. Wells? The War of the Worlds? The Time Machine?"

    The Director shrugged.

    "I think I''m going to like going back to my own time," Griffin admitted, sitting up on the gurney.

    Two specialists undressed him and began to slowly remove his bandages. First his arms and torso and then they removed his pants. His body was as good as new and more toned than he remembered. Finally it was the turn of his head. There was his face. While it was somewhat different, it bore some resemblance to his past self. Maybe the hair was a little lighter, but it didn''t look bad.

    "Well I may not have read this Wells guy, but at least I know who you were Mr. Griffin. You were one of the fathers of rocketry in the United States Kingdom."

    The man named Griffin looked at the Director and sighed. "Thank you." At least in the future they had been able to appreciate some of the genius of the past. Although that would have been much better if his biography didn''t say that he had died because of a stupid mistake and had blown himself up preparing a chemical compound in his home laboratory.

 Vol.4/Chapter 47: Shinjuku

    Chapter Forty-seven

    Shinjuku

    August 7, 2006. Ancient Era

    Shinjuku, Tokyo. Japan.

    "Benu!"

    The afternoon was falling over Shinjuku, as Hebe Bender, with a handbag and a camera and dressed in a white shirt-dress, hurried through the bustling streets, accompanied by a policeman. The setting sun tinged the skyscrapers with golden hues, but the anguish in her heart knew no warmth in those moments.

    Near the imposing twin-towered Metropolitan Building, Hebe and the policeman scanned the surroundings with anxious glances. People hurried past, but Benu was not among them. Hebe''s eyes scanned every nook and cranny of the surrounding buildings and gardens, but the play of shadows seemed to hide any trace of her young son.

    Although Hebe was tempted to search the Metropolitan Building, the policeman reminded her that security there was tight. A missing child would have been noticed immediately, and that ruled out that option. Her efforts were focused on the surroundings, among the crowd that came and went, like a jigsaw puzzle that refused to complete itself.

    She and her son had arrived in Japan two weeks ago and had spent the first week visiting Kyoto, then Kanagawa and now they had begun the third week of their vacation to finish in Kanto. She had taken her son Benu to many places and today it was Shinjuku''s turn.

    They had explored many parts of the city during the day, including the Botanical Park where they spent a good part of the day and had lunch together. It had been a beautiful summer day and there was the Tanabata festival that night as well, where she hoped to end the day. But Benu was not with her at the time.

    She had only been distracted for a moment, taking pictures of some sculptures when, as she turned around, Benu had disappeared. She had barely called out to him, raising her voice a little, when a policeman had approached her to ask what was going on. Fortunately Hebe''s Japanese was good enough to make him understand what had happened. And in the last ten minutes she and the policeman had been searching the surrounding area, asking for help from the building security to see if the boy was on any of the security cameras in the vicinity.

    With a heavy heart, Hebe and the policeman decided to head for the nearby park, the last hope of finding her missing son.

    Benu, oblivious to his mother''s anguish, was in the quiet park behind the Metropolitan Building, but it was the adjacent park his mother had headed to. The waterfalls, illuminated by the last rays of the sun, captured his attention, like a magical spectacle in the midst of the urban bustle.

    With eyes full of wonder, Benu approached the water''s edge to get a closer look at the falls. The coolness of the spray in the air and the soothing sound of the water created an enchanting scene. However, Benu was not alone in his observation.

    In the distance, two girls were walking in his direction, conversing quietly, their words barely audible. Curiosity piqued Benu and instead of approaching the falls, he decided to hide in the nearby bushes, near a small hydrangea garden, to listen to their conversation. He had thought that it would be his mother with one of the friends he had in Tokyo and with whom he had met in the last few days, if so he could give her a scare by coming out from the bushes.

    But no, those two girls were complete strangers. One of them was almost as tall as his mother, but with long straight black hair and dark glasses, the other was rather young, small in stature and with incredibly long and somewhat messy silver hair. She looked too young to be an old woman so, perhaps the color was dyed or was simply an oddity.

    The two girls were dressed casually for a hot day but, while the tall woman wore a white one-piece shirt dress, similar to his mother''s dress, the silver-haired girl wore shorts and a cream-colored T-shirt.

    "Well, I guess we can retire to rest for today," the dark-haired woman said. "Tomorrow we have more surveillance. It''s going to be a hive of activity in this place."

    "It''s not every day there''s a meeting between the government and our side," said the silver-haired woman. Now that he could see her better she had green eyes, unusual for a Japanese woman.

    "Don''t put it that way. Vampires only have one side, theirs."

    "You say it like they''re all bad."

    "Well, they''re not. But they really are cocky. On the other hand, how do you think they amassed a fortune for so long to form conglomerates, while you guys had to live in hiding?"

    "Dark Events isn''t like they make it easy for us. Humans in the know think we''re to blame for that," the silver-haired girl argued.

    "Who knows. What are Dark Events to begin with?"

    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "Don''t ask me, I only got here two years ago."

    Benu crouched down further, his eyes narrowed as he tried to understand what they were talking about, but his Japanese was null, so he could only listen. Benu, still hidden in the bushes, listened attentively to the words of the two girls but, suddenly, the sound of a branch crunching under his feet gave away his position. The girls, alerted, turned their gazes to where Benu was hiding. He had been discovered and slowly rose from his hiding place. One of them, the silver-haired one, with a warm smile approached the boy.

    "Hey there. Are you lost, little one?" she asked gently, as she crouched down to be at his height. Then she took a good look at him and asked the same question but in English.

    Benu, eyes wide open, nodded shyly. The excitement of his clandestine adventure was mixed with a touch of nervousness at being discovered.

    "Oh, don''t worry. We''re here to help. My name is Mai, and this is Miho. What''s your name?"

    The boy answered shyly, "Benu." Mai and Miho exchanged complicit glances, before Mai spoke softly to him.

    "Benu, would you like to tell us what you were doing hiding in the bushes? It''s not a allowed to play nears the flowers. Where are your parents?"

    With a mixture of shyness and excitement, Benu shared that he was looking for the falls and hid when he saw them coming, thinking it was his mother and a friend. The girls exchanged meaningful glances, as if they had discovered an unexpected little explorer.

    Something caught Benu''s attention in the girl named Mai, though perhaps he had seen wrong.

    "Benu, do you want us to look for your mom?"

    Benu nodded enthusiastically, confident in Mai and Miho''s kindness. The little boy was carried away by the curiosity and kindness of the two girls. However, a strange feeling lingered in his childish mind, as if something about them didn''t quite fit.

    Hebe, was frantically moving around the park and its surroundings. Worry drew lines of anxiety on her face. It was then that, through the crowd, she spotted her son standing next to the two girls.

    "Benu!" exclaimed Hebe with relief, running towards him.

    Mai and Miho smiled and politely stepped aside to make room for the mother and son reunion. Hebe, hugging Benu, thanked the two girls effusively for their help.

    "Thank you for taking care of him, how can I thank you?"

    Mai replied with a gentle smile, "No need, we just found him hiding in the bushes. We''re glad to see you together again."

    "What were you doing hiding?" Hebe asked.

    "I was playing," Benu replied, somewhat sulkily.

    Hebe sighed in relief and turned her eyes back to the two girls. "Thank you very much, again."

    "It''s nothing."

    "Well, shall we go?" Hebe asked and Benu, nodded and they both said goodbye to the girls, but not before turning to thank them again.

    However, as they said their goodbyes, Benu couldn''t help but notice that Mai and Miho''s gazes were somewhat intense, as if they held secrets they didn''t share.

    As Hebe and Benu walked away, the two girls melted back into the crowd. Benu, with his curious little eyes, could not shake the feeling that Mai and Miho were more than just passersby. His childlike intuition vibrated with a perception that went beyond the ordinary.

    On the other hand, it was the first time in his life he had ever seen someone with pointed ears like that.

    The black-haired girl had normal ears. But the silver-haired girl had pointed ears that she hid with her messy hair.

    As mother and son got lost in the backstreets of Shinjuku, Mai and Miho exchanged knowing glances. A whisper on the wind, barely audible, echoed in the afternoon "I was scared for a moment I thought it was a goblin spy," declared Miho.

    "It was just a child. Don''t be so fussy," Mai scolded her.

    "Why didn''t you use your antennae to detect him?"

    "Are you nuts? Too much noise at this hour, I''d get a headache later."

    "Miss! Wait!" Mai and Miho turned around. The one who had called them was the policeman who had accompanied Hebe on the search. "Thank you for your cooperation."

    "You''re welcome," Miho said. "Ready for tomorrow Kii?"

    The policeman nodded. "We appreciate the cooperation from the magic sector to make the meeting go smoothly."

    "Don''t be like that, we''re just a small detective agency."

    "Any help is welcome. Tomorrow members of the Whispers team will be arriving to help with surveillance as well," the policeman said.

    "Whispers?" Mai asked.

    "Oh, those from the private sector. I guess the vampires hired them," Miho replied.

    "Who are they?

    "A group that has specialized in protecting feys for a few years now. They operate mostly in Europe, but there are rumors that they''re expanding."

    The policeman nodded, smiling. "Well, having the great psychic detective, Sagara Miho, here I guess that won''t be necessary."

    Miho looked at him, blushing. "Stop that already, Kii. My skills aren''t what they were ten years ago. Now we have to rely on girls like her, meat and fresh blood." Miho patted Mai''s head and ruffled her silver hair, laughing afterwards.

    Mai pouted. "Leave my head alone."

    Miho let go of her head, but slowly her smile wiped from her lips as she looked at the hotel near the Metropolitan Building. "I really hope nothing happens tomorrow."

 Vol.4/Chapter 48: Museum/Omens

    Chapter Forty-eight

    Museum/ Omens

    Thursday, March 22. 5AM. 125 S.A.

    Lemac Lake, Noville. Switzerland

    "Time to wake up."

    Lizbeth frowned and slowly opened her eyes.

    She had felt a shiver first and then it was replaced by a gentle caress on her cheek. She could detect a faint smell of tobacco from that hand so she could tell it was Shin. However the coldness was coming from outside as Shin was the one who had just opened the door and woken her up. At some point he had gotten out of the car and she hadn''t detected it.

    "Good morning," she said, yawning and then looked at him. Lizbeth finished waking up and looked at him worriedly. "What happened to you?"

    "What are you talking about?"

    "You look worse than yesterday. You face is pale, look like a piece of paper! Are you okay?" Lizbeth got out of the car and touched his forehead. She didn''t know Shin had ever been sick from anything, but that look wasn''t good, he was still pale as the previous day.

    "I don''t feel anything. Also I''m pale." Shin frowned with two cups in his hand. "Coffee?"

    No was time for coffee. That didn''t look good at all. She tried to protest but she knew he wouldn''t pay attention to her if he didn''t feel anything. "You really don''t feel anything? You''re not cold? Dizzy?"

    "Nope," Shin said. He reached over and gave her a kiss on the forehead and then on the lips. "Really, I''m fine."

    Lizbeth looked serious, but received the cup of coffee he extended. The warmth contrasted with the gray cold weather of the day. She had just realized that everything was still cloudy. She looked over to the museum but it was still closed, surely the owner should be arriving soon.

    She looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "Did I tell you the code to the trunk?"

    "No."

    "Where did you make the coffee?"

    "With the coffee pot in the trunk. You didn''t tell me the code but, you use the same password every time."

    She took a few sips and looked around, she thought she saw a public restroom near where she had parked. "I''ll be right back, I have to pee," she excused herself.

    "I''ll keep watch¡­"

    As he said those words she looked at him. It brought back memories of the past when they were on the road, or when they had used the ley tunnels to teleport to other countries instantly.

    "...We''re not in those times anymore where we went to the trees. Do you really want me to pee in here?" Lizbeth asked pointing to a military craft that was flying near the waters a couple hundred yards from where they were.

    "I was kidding," Shin said stroking her head. She pouted and walked away.

    Shin watched her walking away and, although he couldn''t express it, on his face his features were even more hardened than usual.

    I''m sorry. He thought. He didn''t want to lie to her but the truth was that he didn''t feel well. His back and chest hurt and he felt slightly dizzy. He had checked his face and had to admit that he had used her makeup stored in the luggage rack to cover the dark circles around his eyes. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me?

    Lizbeth didn''t know, but there had been a few occasions where he had felt slightly sick in the past, but nothing like that. From the symptoms it could be like a bad flu, but there was no coughing or sneezing, no fever either. Just a general tiredness. And that was not the only thing. He felt light.

    He didn''t want to remove the symbiont nanoparticle armor from inside his body, because he would have to take off his clothes, but he was sure that the weight had shifted again.

    Beyond that, he didn''t want to worry anyone, least of all Lizbeth. He knew perfectly well how she had suffered and how she had searched for him when he disappeared in 1974 in a plane crash whose turbine pulverized him and took ten years for his body to regenerate. Then, through Rein and Noki, he had learned how she had searched for him when he disappeared in 1999.

    He had made that woman worry too much about him, even when he had tried to keep her away, so that she wouldn''t suffer any accidents when she was near him. Even if that had changed now, he still felt guilty about it. And, given the conversation during the night, she had made it clear to him that both, she and Mai, were willing to risk a lot in that relationship. Even when there were parts that neither could share, for fear that something might happen. He wasn''t sure because of his fragmented memories, but he knew that Mai and Lizbeth had their memories a little more orderly. Still they could not share them. At least, not yet

    He saw her coming again and leaned against the car, lighting a cigarette, trying to look distracted. She simply took it from him and stubbed it out. "No cigarettes until you have a good breakfast. There''s fruit, croissants, even bacon and boiled eggs preserved in the trunk."

    "Fruit? Croissants? In compressed or printable form? When are those eggs and bacon from?"

    "Don''t be picky, Mr. Professional Cook, we ate worse in our time. Food is different now, more practical."

    "All right, I''m going to eat something." He wasn''t going to get into an argument with Lizbeth over something like that. Even he was pretty hard-headed with Mai when she forgot a meal because of work.

    He ate some croissants and had some orange juice just like Lizbeth, although she did snack on some nuts and some bacon as well. As he smoked outside after breakfast, he saw a vehicle coming down the street and parked on the corner of the museum. A older man got out of the car and the first thing he did was to look at him and then head towards the entrance of the museum.

    That must be the owner.

    Shin knocked on the car window to let Lizbeth know. She had gone inside the car to take care of some personal things and he would stay behind to make sure no one came near. This was the same problem that Mai had but, unlike her, Lizbeth had suffered from it before. Specifically every time they had met during the twentieth century of the Ancient Era.

    Finally she got out of the car contentedly and obliged Shin with an extra breakfast, which he didn''t argue too much about either, and they both headed for the museum.

    "Fresh is always better, right? Didn''t you miss the taste?"

    "A little. You''ve always had a good diet."

    "Just a little?"

    "Quite a bit," Shin admitted.

    Lizbeth nodded in satisfaction as she climbed the stairs leading to the museum entrance. Shin knocked on the door and within a few seconds the man he''d seen step inside appeared.

    The door creaked open, revealing a hallway with dim lights. The owner of the museum, a tired looking man, greeted them with a bow as they introduced themselves.

    "Welcome, agents. Please come in and follow me. I guess you''re in a hurry."

    Soft lights illuminated labyrinthine corridors filled with artifacts from the war, forgotten relics and oddities from the place''s past. Shin and Lizbeth stepped into a world where time seemed to blur, each object whispering unknown stories. There were pictures with clippings that told of all sorts of oddities about the lake. Shin guessed that much of it could also be hoaxes to attract tourism, in his time it was normal for places like this to use mystery or haunted places to attract tourism. Although, considering the Dark Events, nowadays every such story had to be investigated before it was completely dismissed.

    The museum owner, in a solemn voice, began to guide them through the galleries, revealing relics that defied logic and defied human comprehension. From artifacts from ancient civilizations to curiosities from outer space, every corner of the museum was a portal to the unexplored. Of course, to Lizbeth''s dangerous smile, the man then clarified that these were objects that had been analyzed by the local OOParts control office and none of it was really dangerous.

    "And the one we are looking for?"

    "It''s over here, follow me."

    "Can you tell us some of the story?"

    "When I got the call at night I was surprised. At first I didn''t remember well, until the girl who called specified that they were those seats."

    "Aren''t they the only ones?"

    "Yes, they are the only ones. But we have some seats that were removed about forty years ago from a nearby gazebo. And others from a family restaurant, which were also removed because of a rumor that they were cursed. It''s nothing more than hearsay, but it''s something that attracts attention. A little morbidity to attract tourism is not a bad thing, right?"

    "Well, that sort of thing has always attracted people, both for good and bad, and in all eras" Lizbeth admitted.

    "Anyway, these are the ones you''re looking for," the owner said, stopping in front of a display case containing two old seats with blue tattered upholstery. There was a gold-colored marker attached to the side of the base of the display case that indicated a story about strange lights having been seen over the lake on the same day it was found.

    Lizbeth frowned and Shin looked at them more closely.

    "They''re the same," she said to Shin, and then looked at the owner. "What''s the story? The real story, not this one here that says they might be UFO seats."

    "Let me see," said the man consulting his Neurowire and then waved his hand and sent the file. Lizbeth received it and read it to Shin.

    "Found in the year 111 by some fishermen, that part I already knew. Let''s see... they were discovered in August near Veyteux?"

    "Yes, it''s a couple of kilometers north, along route nine," the man explained. "May I ask what it is about?"

    "Sorry, we can''t say. It''s part of our investigation. Can you open the display case? I want to make sure of something."

    "Yes, of course."

    The man did so and Lizbeth set about examining the armrests and the underside. It was as if they had slipped out of the locks that held them to the floor. The irons of the locks and braces were bent, the leg rests were missing. But what she was looking for were the serial numbers. In her mind she had displayed the 3D rendered model of the plane with all its parts. She no longer had any doubts, those seats belonged to the front of economy class. It was part of the plane they were investigating.

    Lizbeth looked at Shin and she nodded. Then she looked at the owner. "We''re sorry but we''re going to have to take them. They are part of an active investigation. I can make a certificate right now, but later you''ll have to take it to the local Nevermore review office or the Commission for Objects of Sensitive Treatment."

    "I see." The man looked like he was expecting something like that, but rather than looking worried his face almost seemed relieved. Lizbeth guessed that this might be because an object seized on suspicion of a Dark Event might be good publicity for a museum of oddities.

    "Will you take it with you?"

    "We can''t, it''s a piece in an active investigation, so it can''t be put in a compressed space. We''ll call in a team of people who are working on the lake to do it."

    "I see."

    Lizbeth looked to the side and frowned somewhat quizzically. "Excuse me I have to take a call. I''ll be right back." She stood up and walked away a little, but then turned to Shin. "I think you''d better come. Excuse us, we''ll be right back. It''s something important."

    "Shall I accompany you?" asked the museum owner.

    "It''s not necessary, we know the way out."

    They both walked quickly to the exit and Lizbeth instructed him to activate the shared call function of the device in his ear.

    The museum owner turned to look at the seats and examined them curiously, while scratching his jaw.

    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    "Hmm... I think there was something else," he said quizzically and went inside the museum, heading to the basement where he kept other objects.

    Meanwhile Lizbeth and Shin came out of the museum and a light drizzle had started to fall and a thick mist was beginning to rise on the surface of the lake.

    [Are you alone?] Mai''s voice sounded a little strange.

    "Yeah, what''s going on?"

    [That''s what we''re trying to find out. Oxy and Professor Reubens have disappeared from the base camp.]

    Shin frowned. "Did they leave the perimeter?"

    [No. At least from what we''re seeing from security they both disappeared from where they were working at the same time.]

    "How is it possible that security didn''t see them?" Lizbeth asked.

    [There is a mismatch in the security system and surveillance, just at the time they disappeared. But I don''t think that''s the most serious thing.]

    "What are you talking about?" Shin asked.

    [We''re talking about Oxy, we know what she''s like sometimes. But I think this isn''t a prank. Her Neurowire signal just went out and we have something else that doesn''t add up. Anderson, that woman from the council, has been affected by the same substance as Van.]

    "That hypnite thing? How?"

    [The doctor who checked her out says it''s been in her system for days, but it activated last night just before Oxy disappeared.]

    "Where is she now?"

    [Unconscious, she''s in the medical tent. That thing activated and left some traces in the Neurowire''s record, but now it''s just like it happened to Van, disappearing from her brain.] Shin and Lizbeth looked at each other with confused looks. [How are you guys doing?]

    "You were right," Lizbeth said, "the seats are the same as on the plane. I''m already going to ask someone from one of the teams to take it to Evidence."

    [I was really hoping I was wrong¡­ Call Carissia, she can take them.]

    They could both imagine what that was about. While it was a weak lead at first, now it had just added a new problem to the whole thing. If those seats had been discovered in 111, why had the plane shown up on Tuesday and not fourteen years earlier? It was something they would have to solve later, if that really had a resolution and didn''t end up in the pile of unsolved Dark Events cases.

    [Either way, good job, are you going to do some more research on that side or are you heading back?]

    "Have any more bodies arrived?" Shin asked.

    [About ten. I think the forensic team is already doing autopsies.]

    "Lizbeth nodded. We''ll try to find out some more around here for a couple of hours and if nothing new comes up we''ll head back. Anything else we''ll let you know."

    "Mai?" Shin asked.

    [Yes? What''s going on?]

    "How''s the weather there?"

    [Cloudy. It''s drizzling a little.]

    Lizbeth wondered at the question, but looked up at the dark gray sky that was already turning a little lighter gray with the mist. She consulted her weather app. The whole area between Switzerland and France was cloudy and it was predicted that it would probably stay that way all day. There was no severe thunderstorm warning, but there was some wind and possibly more drizzle around noon. The cold wind had stopped and the leaves on the nearby trees were barely swaying. Everything had been replaced by mist.

    [Why do you ask?]

    "No reason. I don''t like it very much. It''s going to make the search more difficult if we get heavy rains." Shin''s face was a little strange.

    [Anyway, be careful. We''re going to continue to see what''s going on here.]

    "Okay, see you later," Lizbeth said cutting the call and looking at Shin. "Where could Oxy have gotten to? It''s weird."

    "Yeah, more so considering there was that woman as the Council''s viewer. I don''t think she''d dare do anything foolish." Shin slowly walked down the short stairs of the museum and looked up at the sky. At that moment he wished he had brought his old trench coat. But that was not what worried him most.

    He found the sky unsettling and had a strange feeling about it. A feeling he did not like at all.

    "Oh! Here you are!" The museum man had come out and was smiling. "Come, I think this will interest you."

    They both went back inside and the man showed them an old transparent waterproof bag, with a lot of dust in it that he had left in the foyer.

    "What is this?" Lizbeth asked.

    "This was also found that day near the seats, by the same fishermen, I had to go downstairs to look for it because I didn''t remember it," explained the museum owner, offering the waterproof bag.

    Shin took the bag and they both put on latex gloves to handle it. When he opened it, he realized that inside it was a small black backpack with an old design.

    "What does this remind you of?" Shin asked, showing it to Lizbeth.

    She took it and looked it over. "It''s an old backpack. I haven''t seen one of these in ages. They don''t make them like this anymore. But it''s in perfect condition."

    She proceeded to open it and inside were a couple of comic books and a language learning book with Greek legends. Shin picked up a Man of Steel comic book dated 2011 of the Ancient Era. The pages were glued together and faded. Surely if they had been fishermen, then that had been found in the water. He picked up the book of Greek legends and there was a bookmark on a page almost as faded as the others. It was the legend of the River of Oblivion in Spanish. After checking the year of publication, 2008, he put it back in the backpack. There was nothing else.

    "I think it must be from the plane," Lizbeth said somewhat seriously. That was a child''s backpack, probably a teenager''s, because of the size and there were no childish markings or designs.

    Shin nodded, the issue dates of those comics and the book seemed to match as well. Then he looked at the museum owner. "Wasn''t anything else inside?"

    "I think there was a red jacket, but it was ruined from being in the water. I think I remember the people who found it threw it away."

    "Ruined?"

    "Yes."

    Lizbeth raised an eyebrow. Then it''s likely that the seats had been in the water for a long time, too? She thought.

    The upholstery was ruined. That could well have been the action of water rather than time. Who knew if they hadn''t been in the lake for years and were found by fishermen just by chance. But given the state of the seats and that backpack, it couldn''t have been long. Maybe the jacket had been ruined by being in the water, but the backpack, being made of better material, had held up better.

    "Is there any chance we can talk to whoever found it?"

    "I don''t think so, they died about five years ago if I''m not mistaken, you can check with the local registry."

    After the museum owner gave her the names Lizbeth connected to the registry of people to find out but they had indeed died of natural causes. Nothing unusual. They had hoped that if they had been alive they would have been able to talk to them but they had no luck with that.

    Shin closed the backpack and returned it to the waterproof bag. "We''ll take this one too," he sighed.

    ***

    Siren Island

    The morning was still dark in that lonely part of the island, but the sky was clear showing the brightness of the stars. On the horizon could barely be distinguished a distant clarity that drew in the distance the silhouettes of the archipelago of the Canary Islands. It was still more than an hour and a half before sunrise.

    Rein, a fey drath of short stature, looked to the northeast with a worried expression on the rooftop of her house, surrounded by plants and flowers native to the island.

    Her blonde hair did little to hide the small two horns peeking out of her bangs. The hair also hid one of her blue eyes, which had a vertical elliptical pupil like that of a reptile or cat. Her thin tail, ending in a slightly more solid tip with three prongs protruding like thorns, waved under the white nightgown she had just woken up in.

    The connection the dragonys shared with nature and magic allowed them to sense disturbances in the air, and Rein was no exception. In particular she, a drath type, with her ability to manipulate the weather was especially sensitive to changes in the atmosphere. Although she had been checking the weather report there was something that didn''t feel right.

    "Relax already," said a violet-haired fey girl hugging Rein from behind.

    "Something''s not right. I don''t like it."

    Her younger sister, Noki, hugged her tighter, sharing an uneasy gaze to the northeast. Noki, despite being the younger sister, was a head taller than Rein and had the body that could easily pass for that of a young human. But despite what they looked like, both were well over two hundred years old.

    Noki had dark green eyes, hair down to the waist and a short, somewhat tousled, fringe. She wore a long T-shirt whose wrinkles revealed that she had worn it to sleep. The T-shirt did little to hide her athletic legs and toned muscles.

    Although the two were not blood sisters, and in fact were different types of feys, both had been raised as if they were sisters. A small family that was formed in the nineties of the twentieth century of the Ancient Era. With a foolish adoptive father who had been absent for over two hundred years, till last year, when he finally appeared again. An adoptive father who, along with his two girlfriends, at that moment was in the direction they were looking.

    "I really don''t think it''s anything," Noki said and turned away. "Are we going to have breakfast up here?"

    "Yeah, sure," Rein said, still staring blankly.

    "Hey!" A sharp call made them jump and they poked their heads down. Standing in the doorway of the house was a girl with short black hair, with a few red locks sticking out, and wearing a short techwear dark dress, with high-soled black boots which made her look a little taller. Her pale skin contrasted with the black earrings and red of her eyes and the slightly thicker and scaly red tail. Although her hair was short, she had two longer strands at her back which almost made them look like thin ponytails.

    "Are you two awake?"

    "Mii! What''s wrong?" Noki asked.

    Mii looked up at them both and sighed. She looked very serious. Then her tail stopped looking scaly and instead had transformed into a kind of flesh-colored tentacle, although it didn''t have suction cups like an octopus. Instead of suction cups, a large toothed mouth and other smaller ones accompanied the tentacle.. The tentacle grabbed onto the trunk of a nearby plant and Mii, jumping twice on two other nearby plants, climbed up the two floors of Rein''s house.

    Mii landed nearby and the tentacle retracted again, the mouth disappearing and leaving only the red scaly tail. Both girls looked at her. Mii, like Rein also had vertical pupil eyes.

    "You could have used the door," Rein complained.

    "Yeah, sorry. But I didn''t want to delay this any longer. I sent a drone and saw that there was light so, I decided to come."

    "What''s wrong?"

    Rein and Noki exchanged worried glances, waiting for the revelation of what was to come. Mobi, whom those closest to her called Mii, was the head of the Intelligence branch of the SID. Her showing up so early could not be good. Even though the three of them had been friends for decades, something told them she wasn''t there for breakfast.

    Silence fell over the small group.

    She handed Rein a display, which she took and began to read. It was a forensic analysis.

    "This was sent by Van before she traveled to the lake where the others are."

    Rein frowned as she read. She wasn''t quite sure what it was. She knew about what happened in Rome but didn''t understand it.

    "What is this?" Noki rested her chin on Rein''s shoulder and began to read as well.

    "I''m sorry I didn''t say it before, but this required some extra analysis. We didn''t want to raise a stink and Rome Station did a more thorough examination to be sure."

    "There was a body in the tunnels where that box that was stolen was?"

    "That''s right, but it''s the final part that''s important."

    Rein skipped to the final part of the report and read what Mii indicated. Then she opened her eyes in surprise. "Wow, I didn''t expect this."

    "You see why we didn''t want to draw attention to ourselves."

    "Now we''ll have to call the RIA."

    "Did you tell Tony?" Noki asked, raising her eyes from the display and looking at Mii.

    "I thought Rein would like to know first. This is an enigma from your era, right?"

    "Well, not so much. But it''s part of the island''s history. All those families are connected to the story of how it was discovered... or rather conquered."

    "What do you say, we tell Raven later?" Mii asked.

    "Well it''s part of her family history." Rein nodded.

    "Family is a relative term for Raven, she considers Gehirn her father because he was the one who found her when he arrived on the island," Noki interjected.

    "The world gets small when you have a few centuries on top of you," Rein whispered wearily.

    "I just wanted to tell you. I have to go now," Mii said.

    "Don''t you want some breakfast?"

    "No. I''m going to eat someone alive this morning."

    The two sisters looked worriedly at Mii. Mii was a mimic and was known for her ferocity. They didn''t know if that was a joke or if she could be serious.

    "I''m joking... at least partly."

    "Why?"

    "I guess you don''t know because of the information fence. My cute kouhai was attacked."

    My cute kouhai could only refer to one person coming from Mii. "Something happened to Van?"

    "Phil sent me a message yesterday that someone had messed with her brain, but it looks like she''s going to wake up now, or at least that was the prognosis last night. I''m going to go to the lake now to get some explanations."

    "Don''t cause any fights. From what Mai said there''s someone from the council," Noki alerted her.

    Mii smiled with her lips, but her eyes looked like they weren''t smiling at all. "I just want to see her and some explanations. You can''t blame me for worrying about the boys in my division."

    Mii raised a hand in greeting and jumped off the rooftop into the garden.

    Rein leaned out and called out to her. "Wait! You''re going now?"

    Mii stopped in mid-step. "Do you want me to say something to that fool?"

    Rein and Noki looked at each other. "How much longer before you leave?" they both asked almost in unison.

    Mii grimaced worriedly. "Why? Do you want to tag along?"

    Rein looked to the northwest. "There''s something I don''t like."

    "What are you talking about?"

    "The air feels funny today just in the direction that they''re in. Or at least that''s what she says," Noki pointed out.

    "That''s it? The air is bad?" Mii asked.

    "It''s not that... it made me remember something." Rein looked doubtful. "Maybe I''m overreacting but, the leylines are shaky today."

    "Do you think there might be an earthquake or something? The pressure needles are working normally."

    "It''s not that. The ley lines are just like they were that day."

    Mii looked at her and pursed her lips. "What are you talking about?"

    "Maybe it''s just me being silly. But it reminds me of that day."

    "What day?"

    "The day the war against the fractus began."

 Vol.4/Chapter 49: The one who stayed behind

    Chapter Forty-nine

    The one who stayed behind

    June 17, 1952. 4:50 P.M. Ancient Era.

    Orange Groove Avenue. Pasadena, California. USK

    The golden afternoon sun painted the sidewalks of the quiet residential avenues with long shadows. However, on the central avenue, where the houses and some apartment buildings lined up neatly, a group of four teenagers broke the monotony of the afternoon.

    On their bicycles, their spokes jingling to the rhythm of the wind, the four wanted to represent an image of youthful rebellion that was in fashion. With their hair slicked back, or in Quiff style, with a certain carelessness studied to attract girls, and the cheap leather jackets that hung from their shoulders with insolence, these young men gave off an attitude of someone who was in a hurry to reach an adulthood that seemed still far away for them.

    As they pedaled carefree through the quiet of the neighborhood at that hour, jokes echoed in the air like a defiant echo. It was a golden time for them, a time when they could enjoy the freedom of summer vacation.

    The group stopped in front of a three-story building and turned around.

    One of them, the one who seemed to be their leader, turned around and raised his voice. "Chuck! Come on! Hurry up or we''ll leave you behind!"

    About ten yards behind them pedaled a young boy who couldn''t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. Skinny-looking and dark-haired. Unlike the others he wore no jacket, nor did he give off the same aura as the others. He wore khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. He had a face dotted with acne, his hair was styled for a Sunday mass and the glasses he wore made him look like a bookworm.

    "You guys pedal too fast, and don''t call me Chuck," complained Carl, who was called Chuck, as he caught up with them.

    "No, you''re too slow," the big guy spat at him, giving him a friendly slap on the back of the head.

    "Cut it out, asshole," Carl complained.

    "Come on, have fun, it''s a vacation. Let''s go impress some girls. I bet you haven''t even kissed one."

    Carl sighed wearily. Greg was his cousin two years older and they had gotten along well since they were little. But in the last few years they barely saw each other, unless it was summer vacation, or for Thanksgiving. The years had been generous to Greg, giving him the demeanor of a linebacker, while Carl had barely grown up in the last two years.

    The group was making jokes and talking about the girls Greg had impressed when an old dark pickup truck pulled up next to them.

    Out of it stepped a tall middle age man with a beard and somewhat unkempt dark hair, wearing gray pants and a shirt with some dirt stains on it.

    The man looked at them, but said nothing and, whistling a song that was in fashion, had gone to the back of the truck where he began to unload some wooden boxes and put them carefully on the sidewalk. Then he picked one up and headed for the three-story building in front of which the five had stopped, but didn''t go inside. Instead he took out a key and opened a garage door at the side of the building. It might well have been a stable at one time, but now it seemed to be full of other things.

    Neither the boys nor the man paid any attention to each other at first, until it happened.

    One of Greg''s friends had pulled out a pack of cigarettes and was passing them to the others as well.

    Carl looked at the cigarette, but shook his head.

    "Come on, it''ll be fun!" Greg said.

    "Those things are bad if you play sports."

    Despite the warning Greg lit one.

    The man had continued unloading boxes from the truck and carrying them one by one to that garage, but, when he returned, he had just seen how those young men had lit cigarettes and were standing near the boxes he had been unloading.

    "Hey! What the hell do you think you''re doing?" the man shouted.

    "What''s your problem, man?" Greg spat at him.

    The man walked over and gave Greg a hard slap on the back of the head, "Respect the elders, punk. Don''t smoke near my truck." Greg cringed at that and the man one by one took the cigarettes from them and stubbed them out. The five of them could smell a faint odor of chemicals, or perhaps gunpowder, coming from the man. "I see your teachers either don''t teach you chemistry in school or you just don''t pay attention. Can''t you see what those boxes say?"

    The boys looked at the boxes, but there were acronyms they didn''t understand on the labels. Except for Carl who understood the meaning of a couple of them. If that was what he thought those boxes contained dangerous chemicals. Trinitobenzine, if he wasn''t mistaken, mercury, and some labels he couldn''t make out. Some of those wooden boxes had no lids, but Carl could see that they were padded. He remembered seeing boxes like that for Independence Day, where some vendors carried the loudest and most spectacular fireworks.

    The man looked at the pack of cigarettes in Greg''s friend''s hand and took it from him. "I''ll keep this," he said casually, putting it in his pocket. "Go on, get out of here!"

    The teenagers stared at him and clicked their tongues and walked away. As they walked a few meters away, they began to utter a few expletives and, as they rounded the corner, they disappeared from the man''s sight.

    Carl, a bit behind, had turned once more to look at the man but, by the time they rounded the corner, he had forgotten all about him and continued on with Greg and his cronies. Maybe if he was lucky with them he would meet a girl during the vacation weeks.

    Carl sighed and kept pedaling, at least that man had taken away their cigarettes. That was a relief because he had seen what the boy who had handed them out earlier had done.

    Greg''s friend had his lips curved downward in a grumpy expression. The joke about the exploding cigarette that was still in that pack the man had taken from them had been ruined. He had hoped to give it to Greg later when they were with the girls. It would have to be another time.

    A few minutes later, a little more than a kilometer away, the group met up with some of Greg''s female friends, who took the opportunity to introduce them to their cousin Carl.

    A detonation had been heard in the distance but they, minding their own business, never took any notice.

    Nor were they interested in the next day''s local newspapers, whose headlines announced the death of a certain engineer and rocket scientist, caused by an explosion in his home laboratory.

    ***

    March 20, 2012. Ancient Era.

    Diego Garcia. Under the jurisdiction of the United States Kingdom.

    An elderly Carl Scott opened his eyes and the whiteness of the room made him squint. The morning sun was streaming into the base hospital room.

    It had been decades since he remembered that. A youthful fling when he was in California.

    That summer he had gotten his first girlfriend thanks to his cousin Greg, who had introduced her to Carl. The years had passed and Greg had met an unfortunate end in his thirties, when he had had a cramp in the sea, when he had gone with his wife to a beach in Santa Monica.

    Drowning, what an ending.

    It was rather unfortunate that he remembered that now. He ran a hand over his wrinkled forehead. He had sweated in his sleep and his leg still burned.

    True, he was on the island.

    The rhythmic sound of waves crashing against the nearby shore caressed Scott''s consciousness as he finally finished emerging from the depths of his dreams and memories. His body felt heavy, as if he was dragging the weight of seven decades of memories and experiences. He opened his eyes with effort, finding bright light penetrating through the half-open curtains of the room.

    Carl Scott''s mind gradually cleared, and he remembered the reason for his presence on Diego Garcia Island. He had come to visit old friends, fellow adventurers with whom he had shared unforgettable moments during his years of service for the Royal Intelligence Agency. However, the excitement of the reunion had been dampened by an unfortunate incident the day before during a diving excursion.

    The image of underwater life swimming among the lush coral quickly faded as the throbbing pain in his leg reminded him of the reason for his discomfort. A poisonous coral had left its mark, an open burn spreading across his skin like liquid fire. He reflected on the irony of his situation: a hardened spy from a life of action, incapacitated by a dumb dive.

    With an effort, Carl tried to sit up, but was stopped by a gentle hand that gently pushed him back. He looked up and saw a middle-aged base nurse with a reassuring smile. He hadn''t seen her come in but surely it was from the surveillance of the room they had detected that he had woken up.

    "Easy, Mr. Scott, good morning," the nurse said in a calm voice. "You should rest and allow your body to recover. We''ll bring you your breakfast."

    "Good morning¡­"

    Carl nodded weakly, feeling grateful for the medical attention he was receiving. The efficiency of the medical staff had not gone unnoticed by him the day before, when they had come to the scene of his accident and transported him to the base hospital. No doubt he was no more than an old man to them, but they had orders to treat him well. At least his years of service had not been in vain.

    "It looks like you''ve had an unfortunate encounter with one of our local corals," the nurse continued as she examined Carl''s leg.

    "You''re telling me," Carl snorted.

    "It happened to me too, a few weeks after I''d arrived on the island."

    "Maybe they should put up a sign or something."

    "Maybe," nodded the nurse. As the nurse continued her examination, Carl''s mind wandered back into the past, remembering the days of his youth, when life was full of promise and adventure.

    A voice interrupted his thoughts, snapping him out of his reverie. It was a young military doctor, with a serious, yet compassionate expression on his face.

    "Mr. Scott, it looks like you''ve been lucky," the doctor said. "The injury does not appear to be serious, but you will need rest and care to fully recover. At least for a few days."

    Carl nodded, grateful for the reassuring news. Despite the lingering pain in his leg, he felt comforted by the dedicated attention he was receiving. He was relieved that it hadn''t been anything serious although, that it had happened the day before, threw a wrench in the plans for why he had come to the island in the first place.

    As he finished the breakfast he had brought the comforting silence of the room was interrupted by the soft creak of the door opening. Two familiar figures entered, with warm smiles on their weather-wrinkled faces. Both were dressed in Bermuda shorts and shirts but one of them was wearing a white coat. Despite this they did not look like hospital staff.

    "Carl! You, old fart! How are you doing?" exclaimed the first of the newcomers, an older man with a contagious laugh. That bastard was still the same as ever. Jack seemed in good spirits.

    The years had finally caught up with the bastard and he had aged sufficiently, although he still looked younger than Carl, even though he must have been in his forties when he met him. Whatever it was that kept him looking like that he should have marketed it, he would have made a fortune.

    "How is your morning?" added the second, the coat-wearer, a thinner man, with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

    Leteo looked the oldest of the three now even though he had been the youngest. The island life had been good for his health but getting too much sun every day had made him look very tanned and wrinkled.

    Carl raised his head with a tired smile, recognizing his lifelong friends. Despite the lingering pain in his leg, he couldn''t help but feel comforted by their presence.

    "I''m fine but, I hope you get your ass bitten by a muraena," Carl joked showing Jack his middle finger with a wince as he wiggled his leg. Then he sighed. "I think we''re past our glory days."

    The three men shared a grin of cynicism, recalling the reckless exploits of their youth and humorously acknowledging the ravages of time on their aging bodies.

    "Who would have thought that a diving excursion would end up with me in a hospital bed. Damn it!" Carl commented, shaking his head in disbelief.

    "Ah, but what memories!" interjected Jack with a mischievous spark in his eyes. "Remember when we tried to climb that mountain in Alaska and ended up lost for three days?"

    "Or that time we decided to camp out in the middle of a forest during a storm," Carl added. "I think that was the only time I''ve ever seen you more scared than dog in a boat."

    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "I don''t like storms very much¡­"

    The three men shared anecdotes and laughs, immersing themselves in nostalgia for times gone by. Though the years had left their mark on their bodies and minds, the bond of friendship across the decades remained as strong as ever. While Leteo did not have as many shared adventures with them, there were still enough stories to write an unauthorized biography of the Kingdom, detailing the defense projects of the past few years.

    "Maybe we''re not young for wild adventures anymore," Carl mused with a wistful smile.

    "Speak for yourself, I''m ready for any adventure."

    The atmosphere suddenly changed when Leteo took on a more serious tone. "Hey, Carl, there''s something we need to talk about," he began, his voice now laden with solemnity.

    Carl frowned slightly, detecting the change of tone in his friend. He exchanged glances with Jack, whose face had also wiped off the smile.

    "What''s up?" Carl asked, his curiosity now fully piqued.

    "Well, I guess you figured it out, right?"

    Carl looked at Jack, who also nodded with a rueful grimace on his face.

    Carl nodded with understanding, there was no need to say it. His injury would leave him out of the planned trip to Geneva. The second important reason he had traveled to the island. Although he was disappointed not to be able to accompany his friends on this latest venture, he knew that his priority was to make a full recovery. His wife would kill him if she found out he had taken a flight to Geneva after getting hurt the day before.

    "I''m sorry," Carl said sincerely, looking at his colleagues with a mixture of gratitude and sadness. "I''d love to join, but I understand that my priority right now is to make a full recovery."

    Jack put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Bah, don''t worry," he said with a reassuring smile. "Your health is more important. We''ll manage without you, won''t we?"

    Leteo nodded with determination. "Absolutely," he said firmly. "We''ll do everything we can."

    Carl smiled, he had no choice. "I''m sure you''ll do an amazing job. And in the meantime, I''ll be here, waiting to see how it goes. Anyway, I just wanted to see how it was going out of curiosity."

    Leteo approached. "You want to see it? It is out of the main chamber."

    Carl looked at him. "Sure."

    Jack stepped away for a moment and in a few seconds was back with a wheelchair. Carl pursed his lips, but he had no choice but to use it. He dressed in shorts and a T-shirt before sitting in the wheelchair and letting Jack drive it.

    The group left the hospital and headed for a nearby hangar.

    Despite the usual bustle of the base they entered, there was no one there. There were just a few airplanes and metal tables with material that was to be shipped on a flight. Much of that material had already been put into industrial suitcases, but Carl thought that they might be loads of weapons and ammunition for some other base. However, that was not what they were interested in. The group went to one of the tables and there Carl saw it.

    It was a metal sphere of about fifty centimeters in diameter that looked like a vacuum chamber, the sphere was supported by another square block that served as a base. That sphere had a series of cells and slots on its surface that must have been where the connection cables were inserted but, at that moment, it was not connected to anything in particular and the other plugs in the base were not connected to anything either. Next to the sphere rested some smaller industrial cases that Carl assumed would be the wires for the connection and other devices.

    The second reason for his trip to the island.

    Although he was happy to be reunited with his friends, he was intrigued by it as well.

    As Gehirn had predicted years ago, during that meeting, the project of Leteo''s Holographic Portal had been transported to Diego Garcia. In recent years the Department of Defense had been using that thing to conduct operations in the Middle East theater of war. The functions had not turned out as favorably as Leteo had predicted, but the successes in several dangerous missions for the elimination of terrorist hotspots had meant that in the eyes of the Kingdom that machine had become a valuable asset in the war. In Leteo''s eyes it was a forty percent success, but for the Kingdom it was a seventy or maybe more according to the strategic analysts.

    Several threats had been identified minutes and sometimes seconds in advance, resulting in victories over the enemy and saving the lives of soldiers and civilians alike.

    Jack had come to the island about three years ago for a change of scenery. In recent years he had been interested mostly in space projects but, the truth was that the space race was stagnant in the last decade unless the private sector was involved. Resources were needed in war, rather than in space, unless they were spy satellites.

    Although Jack didn''t like it much, the Kingdom had subsidized some research for the development of new missiles and he had been offered the chance to participate because of his past experience with chemical compounds. He would have the opportunity to meet with Leteo, since the project would be carried out on the island. Without much to do he had decided to accept.

    Carl Scott, on the other hand, had been enjoying a comfortable retirement in recent years. After Leteo moved to Diego Garcia for his project, he had finally decided to step aside and enjoy his remaining years with his family. It was a bit sad since it had all ended the day Gehirn had heard about the project which, according to Jack, would be of great importance for the future of mankind. The rest was out of both of their hands.

    The mission was over.

    Gone were all those exploits that had led him into a world he had barely imagined.

    Yet, perhaps there was still more to see.

    Although Jack''s knowledge of what was to come had come to an end, the truth was that it was also something to worry about. For many years Carl had moved according to the instructions that Jack knew and, although they had been adventures, he always had some uneasiness when he remembered that he had always had the feeling that they were both puppets in a predestined plan. Leteo included.

    That it had ended now filled him with a feeling that the future for all of them was much stranger, since he did not know what the coming years would bring. The future was safe, but what of their future?

    Carl looked at the sphere and approached it.

    He had arrived on the island three days ago and now it was the closest he had ever been to the rock that had started it all. He couldn''t touch it because it was inside the spherical chamber but it seemed that, in someway, it was an old acquaintance.

    That was the core of the machine. In the previous days he had been near the large structure that served for the project and that occupied more than fifty square meters, but that was the core.

    The core inside was constructed as a vacuum chamber with layers. Towards the central part it had special arms of tiny size like needles. As soon as those arms came in contact with the rock they could send the raw information to be absorbed by the rock.

    It was similar to how a hard drive worked, as Leteo had explained in the past. The rock was the plate where the raw data was sent and extracted. The power to run the entire device was layers of electromagnets. These electromagnets increased the energy sent to the center, which made the rock levitate for a short period of time.

    In spite of having a semi-transparent crystalline consistency, the truth was that when a certain amount of energy was applied to it, the rock went through a state of transition, where its atoms were aligned in a different way and acquired more ferromagnetic properties for tenths of a second, which allowed such levitation.

    Those tenths of a second were vital, because that was the moment in which some of the needles with their heads sent the information to the rock. The information back was received by the heads of another series of needles and from there it was sent to the external servers for processing.

    All the energy of the island was redirected especially to the department headed by Leteo when conducting those experiments.

    The energy to activate the rock was enormous, since it came from the island''s nuclear plant, but it was not enough to carry out a better study. After all, it seemed that those elusive particles from the sun were of vital importance to unlock all the potential of the chronomantic crystal as Leteo had called it.

    The technicians, with instructions from Leteo, had removed the core for a specific reason.

    A special experiment was to be conducted that was being subsidized by the Kingdom. They wanted to test that part of the machine using the CEEN hadron collider.

    "And so? Is it going to work?" Carl asked.

    "We don''t know yet," Leteo shrugged. "It''s possible but, because of the energy levels, I don''t think it will be enough. Either way it''s a good time to test if we can discover something new."

    "The Higgs boson?"

    "It has nothing to do with our research, but that was one of the goals of that collider. That they were finally able to prove the existence of the boson is proof that we are still missing many pieces of the puzzle of the standard model family of particles."

    "So that''s why you might be able to find out something new from the rock?"

    "Yes, though at the very least any clue can help us."

    "And you?" Carl asked, looking at Jack.

    "Nah, I''m just a chaperone. That particle stuff has always been beyond what I understand."

    "Director Waters?! Are you around?" A soldier''s voice had echoed throughout the hangar and Leteo turned around.

    "What''s going on?"

    "I need your signature for the shipment. The goods will be in your name."

    "Oh! Here I go." Leteo walked away leaving Carl and Jack alone.

    "Did you know about this?" Carl asked. "I meant in your instructions."

    Jack shook his head. "No, this is all new. Our part is long over."

    "Is it safe to take it off the island?"

    "I don''t see a problem. The machine will travel on a commercial flight from Maldives, so as not to attract too much attention."

    "A common flight?"

    "No, at least it''s a ghost flight so there will be some security in that respect."

    "How did they hide it?"

    "The classic. A banana shipment from the Maldives."

    Scott held a hand to his face. "How much longer do the higher-ups intend to use that excuse? A lot of people have long since figured out it''s a cover-up."

    "What''s wrong with it? The press can''t check every shipment and the airlines with ghost flights have a responsibility to hide the cargo if the contents are insured as private and the amount is paid. G/54 JANEF exist for this sort of thing in addition to safely transporting certain people."

    Due to his years of service in the RIA Carl Scott had gained access to the island and had been invited by Leteo to be part of the small group that would travel to Geneva for the experiment. Although Carl was retired, he had gladly accepted the invitation. Something to kill the monotony of his later years.

    Those who would travel would be him, Leteo and Jack, accompanied by two undercover agents. Another team would already be waiting for them in Meyrin, to go to a hotel and the next day to the particle collider.

    However, what had happened with the coral had upset the plans. Now he would have to stay on the island for a few days until the discomfort in his leg subsided, but he would miss that part of the experiment. Although he understood almost nothing of the science behind that machine, that stone had been part of his life since his youth when he first saw it in Venice. It couldn''t help but intrigue him, he had dodged bullets, knives, and traps left behind by who knows what lost civilizations, and had been on the verge of death more times than he could remember.

    Leteo returned a few minutes later with a couple of pages in his hands.

    "What''s going on?" Carl asked.

    Leteo passed the pages to Jack. "It''s nothing, it''s just that the papers are modified so as not to attract attention."

    "Modified? Falsified you mean."

    "We have three cover identities, mine and two escort personnel," Jack said reading the paper. "But you weren''t given one?"

    "No. Remember I''ve been an academic, not a spy like you."

    "Let me see," Carl demanded. Jack handed him the sheets and there he read the details of the whole thing. The usual obscure relocation operations. The machine would be hidden in a cargo container that would already be sealed from the island. Although it would pass through the cargo control scanners, that was only to make sure that there was no dangerous material. The sum had already been paid for it.

    The ULD would be with the code AKN-8-31416 HP.

    Everything seemed to be ready, the flight from the island would leave after noon to land in the Maldives and from there it would be loaded on a commercial plane whose final destination was Geneva.

    "Are you leaving in the afternoon from the Maldives?" Carl asked.

    "More or less. But we leave in about four hours from here," Leteo said with a nod.

    The next few hours had dragged quickly for the three of them and after the machine had been put on a unit load device, specially arranged by the airline, it was loaded onto a military aircraft.

    The sun before noon was beating down hard on the runway. Carl watched from the side of the airfield, where all the movement was taking place. The plane was not only carrying the machine, but also personnel and other materials to the Maldives, so that it was to make the most of the trip. It would have been very easy to send the military transport to Geneva, but there was always the possibility that someone would snoop around to find out what the plane was doing there and what it was carrying.

    Maximilian Norton wanted to minimize the risk of any of that leaking to the press. After all, even if the war against terrorism had been a success, it did not mean that voices were already being raised from other sectors of the Parliament that the troops had to start thinking about reducing their presence, now that several enemy cells had been neutralized. The royal house did not want more problems than it already had. And after all that project was almost entirely Maximilian''s, none of the income that had gone into the construction of the machine came from public funds. Only the use of the reactor on the island was covered by the military budget.

    The number of operations was also dropping and that had given the scientists working on the holographic portal an opportunity to do an extra experiment. The years had passed and finally there was a particle collider with enough power to carry out the experiment. They had the help of certain groups in the European sector who had enough ties to the royal house to keep the matter quiet and keep it out of the ears of the Parliament.

    The military plane of imposing size was being loaded with equipment in meticulously labeled boxes. Uniformed men were moving with speed and precision, following orders that seemed to be shrouded in a veil of secrecy.

    Carl frowned, feeling a twinge of intrigue as he watched the scene from a distance. He knew that the project his friends were working on was of the utmost importance, but the clandestinity with which it was being carried out piqued his curiosity. It brought back memories of his own runs around the world.

    The loading of the military aircraft was finally complete, and Carl watched as the aircraft prepared for takeoff. However, his attention was interrupted by the arrival of his two friends, who approached with serious but determined expressions on their faces.

    "Well, we''re off," Leteo announced, his voice laden with restrained emotion.

    Carl nodded, wishing them luck on their journey as they said goodbye with a firm handshake and a quick hug. "We''ll see you in a few days," Leteo promised, his gaze conveying a confidence that barely disguised his eagerness to see the results the experiment would bring, however small they might be.

    With a mixture of strange trepidation, Carl watched as his friends walked away toward the military plane.

    "Don''t leave until we bring back results!" Jack shouted, giving him a military salute, as he walked up the ramp of the plane. That asshole really hasn''t changed a bit, thought Carl amused. But the smile quickly faded from his lips.

    As the aircraft prepared for takeoff, an uneasy feeling came over Carl Scott, as if something was out of place, but he couldn''t put his finger on what.

    With his heart pounding in his chest, Carl followed the plane''s ascent into the sky with his eyes, wondering what hidden secrets that machine carried inside, after all, that rock had barely shown a fraction of what it could do.

    As the airship was lost in the distance, leaving only the echo of its engine rumbling in the air, Carl knew that the answers would only come in time. Although, he didn''t know why but, he could sense that perhaps those answers would come in a time when they would no longer be around to know them.

 Vol.4/Chapter 50: Flight B313-MG

    Chapter Fifty

    Flight B313-MG

    March 20, 2012. Ancient Era.

    Ataturk International Airport, Istanbul. Turkey.

    The last hours of the late afternoon sun filtered through the scattered clouds over the horizon, painting the runway with warm orange glows, more reminiscent of autumn colors than of the approaching spring.

    Benu, a twelve-year-old boy sitting in the large waiting room, looked up from the book he had been reading and watched the sunset through <u>the</u> enormous windows. Hebe Bender, his mother, was beside him, engrossed in a book on Nuer culture. They were both waiting for the flight to Geneva, where they would spend a week before returning to the Kingdom.

    Hebe had hardly needed to instill a love of books in her son, it seemed that he had inherited it from the family, as well as the curiosity for history. Yet, Hebe had to admit that Benu seemed much more interested in science than in history.

    She would never have imagined that making the decision to have a child would bring so much happiness to her life. While it had been a challenge, she had done the best she could and Benu had grown up to be a handsome and naturally curious young man. While that curiosity had brought her some headaches, the truth was that even those moments had become memories of happiness.

    It had been hard during the early years, but she had had a supportive family, so she considered herself fortunate in that respect.

    Travel had become commonplace between them. At least twice a year they went on trips. She liked to take him to see other places and cultures. Just as her parents and grandfather had also done with her when she was little. On a few occasions during those trips she had experienced a scare, but nothing serious.

    With the exception of that one time in Japan, when Benu had gotten lost for a few minutes while visiting Shinjuku. It made Hebe''s heart clench just remembering it. If it had happened the next day it would have ended in tragedy.

    The day after that adventure in Shinjuku there had been a terrorist attack on a hotel across from the park where she had found Benu. There were several dead and wounded and it had almost happened at the same time her son had gone missing the day before.

    Hebe wondered if that policeman and those girls who had helped her find Benu were all right, but she could never know. Three days later, due to the shock of the attack, they had decided to return to the U.S. Kingdom.

    [Passengers for Anemi Airlines. Flight B313-MG. Please proceed to gate G/53.] The caller''s voice echoed through the waiting room and Benu called out to his mother. "Mom, that''s ours."

    "...Ah! Yes, come on."

    Benu''s voice had brought her out of her reading and they both rose from their seats. Benu put away the book he had been reading and stowed it in the travel backpack that had some comics in it, along with the red jacket he had taken off. The carry-on luggage was light, as the suitcases carried the stuff and they didn''t worry about carrying too much stuff with them, as the flight from Istanbul to Geneva would be too short, just over two hours.

    They both looked for gate G/53, but it took them about 10 minutes to find the gate. They had to ask someone from security who looked at them a bit funny when they asked for the gate. Hebe was not surprised by that. After all the ticket had cost a few dollars more even though it was economy class.

    That flight seemed to be a special private class flight. She had bought it the day before and it was the one that fit their itinerary. Otherwise they would have had to wait until the next day. Usually those flights cost more but the airline wanted to fill the seats. Not that she was wealthy, but the ticket certainly wasn''t a problem. They always bought one-way tickets. They preferred to deal with the return trip on their own terms.

    Sometimes a trip could take a few days longer and that was why Hebe preferred to deal with it on the fly. For example, she had not thought of traveling to Geneva until a week ago, when an acquaintance had called and invited her to a symposium on archaeology. That might cut the Turkey itinerary short, but Benu didn''t mind, they had toured almost everything her mother had wanted to show her about that place and it had been a merry-go-round going from archaeological site to archaeological site.

    Benu was excited that they could go to Geneva, because he thought he could at least ask his mother to take him to see the Nuclear Research Center, where the particle collider was located. Hebe wondered how she would do that, but surely there must be some kind of tour or something for tourists. She was counting on it.

    Mother and son were finally able to board the plane and looked for their seat. They were in the front of economy class. It looked like the flight would be full. Considering they were boarding on the connecting flight, she was a little surprised. She thought it would already be full from the Maldives, but on second thought it made sense that the airline had then lowered the ticket a bit to fill the fare on the stopover so as not to waste fuel.

    In the end the plane took off without any problems and they both sighed in relief. It was a little silly after so many years of traveling together, but both mother and son could feel their hands sweating a little at the moment of take-off.

    When the order was given that they could take off their seat belts Hebe had done so, while Benu had continued with his. He had barely sighed quietly and had taken his book of Greek myths in different languages out of his backpack and was immersed in reading again.

    Hebe smiled at him and rubbed his hair, but Benu didn''t flinch much as he practiced a few words.

    Hebe didn''t read again and just stared out the window at the sea of clouds. Almost half an hour had passed when something startled her. Many passengers were going about their business and only the monotony of the trip was broken by the passing of the stewardesses or when someone went to the bathroom.

    "Excuse me. Yes, thank you!"

    Hebe looked to where the voice had come from. An elderly, but somewhat handsome-looking man had passed down the aisle from the business section and was heading toward the far seats, while his hands were on his hips as if he were in pain. Possibly someone stretching his legs. He had good American English, so she judged he must be from the Kingdom.

    It was a few minutes before the man came forward again. He could possibly be a passenger from the business section, but she couldn''t rule out that he was a first class passenger either. He was dressed in a shirt and pants with suspenders. She wondered how old he was. He looked old in the face, but he had the bearing of someone who had not yet lost his athletic faculties.

    "Hmm?" Hebe wondered. He looks familiar.

    The man had raised his arms behind his head, as he seemed to be cracking his neck. For someone so old he looked fine but that face told her something.

    "Ah!" said Hebe with a startled gasp. Benu turned to her, looking up from the book, and saw that she was looking at the man, Benu looked at him too, but he couldn''t say he was surprised. He looked like an old man and nothing more.

    The man had passed close by when Hebe had exclaimed, so the man looked at her sideways at first, but almost at the second he looked back. He was looking at her in surprise too.

    "Mrs. Bender?"

    Mrs.? Well, Hebe had never been married, but she didn''t remember them knowing the details of her family. Still, it was an embarrassing moment for her. "Yes... sir.... Excuse me, I have your name on the tip of my tongue."

    "I''d be more surprised if you remembered it, we barely met a couple of times. I''m Jack, Jack Piersons."

    The two greeted each other smiling, so Benu wondered who the man was. It was true that his mother had friends and acquaintances all over the world, but to run into one in the middle of a flight was a new record. Anyway, he greeted him politely and tried to get back to his reading.

    It was an incredible coincidence for Hebe to meet the man. She had met him almost by chance. He was an acquaintance of the girl with whom she had shared a room before she gave birth to Benu.

    Hebe then recalled the meeting at the hospital when she was about to give birth. With a smile, she told Benu that they had met before he was born and the connection became apparent to him.

    The two had spent a few minutes talking. Hebe asked him about the other girl he had shared a room with, since they had barely kept in touch for a couple of years. Jack told her that everyone was fine and that in fact Rose Scott had recently become a mother again.

    "I''m going to the mini bar," Benu said, finally taking off his belt and getting up from his seat. Apparently they had plenty to talk about so he judged it would be best if he gave them some space.

    "It''s okay," Hebe said, smiling at him.

    After receiving his mother''s permission, Benu went to the minibar in the next section, in search of a drink, after all, since they had paid for the somewhat more expensive ticket, he didn''t see why not make use of the extra services that came with the trip, even if it was only for a couple of hours. While that was going on Hebe had continued talking to Jack.

    "He''s really grown up well."

    "Yes, fortunately. I was a bundle of nerves when he was about to be born."

    "Yes, I remember," Jack said. " Are you two traveling alone?"

    "Yes."

    "Has your husband stayed in the Kingdom?"

    "I''m not married."

    "Oh, I see."

    "I don''t think you remember. Or I don''t know if I ever said it but, my pregnancy... was... by artificial insemination. And... in my case it was by anonymity."

    "Oh!" Jack looked surprised. Probably that detail she had never mentioned at the time. "Now that I remember that time I only met your father at the hospital. Artificial insemination, wow, science sure has advanced since my time."

    "And you?"

    " If I am married? No... or rather I was, a couple of times. A long time ago..." Jack had put a somewhat melancholy expression on his face. "I haven''t had a relationship in a long time anyway."

    As they talked, Benu glanced from time to time through the curtain that separated the section. Although he had left them alone to talk, it wouldn''t hurt for his mother to get herself a boyfriend. A few years ago she had told him about his birth and it didn''t bother him that he didn''t have a father, but it made him a little sad that his mother seemed to have closed herself off to the idea of having a relationship to focus solely on her work and raising him.

    Hebe had noticed that a couple of times, when Benu tried to push her to accept a date when someone invited her. For Benu to meet the man might be a coincidence, but it wouldn''t hurt for them to be alone for a moment. With that idea Benu went back to spying.

    The two continued to talk for a few moments about their lives, until Jack seemed to remember something. "I think it''s time for me to get back to my flying partner. Stop by this section to stretch my legs."

    "No problem," Hebe said, smiling at him. "I think I''ll go look for that kid who forgot to come back."

    "We''ll see you when the flight is over. Maybe we can talk a bit more."

    "Yeah, sure. I''d love to."

    Hebe watched him leave and looked at her watch. They had been talking for almost half an hour. Time flew when you get old, she thought and got up from her seat.

    Meanwhile, Benu had been reading in the minibar with a stewardess, seeing that his mother''s talk was going well with the man.

    I wonder if this boy is going to become a real charmer with women, Hebe thought. And then she remembered that she had forgotten to ask Jack who he was traveling with. They had been chatting but she had not asked him if he was alone.

    ***

    Jack walked down the business class hallway and crossed to the first class. There were only about eight passengers in that part. Four of them were Jack and Leteo and the two escorts who were a few seats away.

    The flight in the military plane from the base to the Maldives had been smooth and short. There had been no mishaps and in less than twenty minutes they had passed through the cargo hold to load the ULD for the new flight. The ticket from the Maldives to Geneva actually had a stopover to keep the cost down, with a stop in Istanbul where most of the passengers would board. Due to the light fare from the Maldives the flight route had been completed in five hours when it would usually take up to seven hours for a direct flight from the islands to Ataturk Airport. There were some rumors that the aircraft model, although old, had been upgraded a couple of years ago and the airline had upgraded its fleet with those improvements.

    Even so, a stopover in five hours of flight time was minor and not a problem, although Jack felt that his legs were aching from sitting for so many hours. So he had decided to stretch as soon as they were in the air again and take a walk down the aisles.

    He would never have guessed that Professor Bender''s granddaughter was also on that flight. It was true that they had met many years ago, in that hospital where Scott''s daughter had been hospitalized. He was pleased to see that she was well and happy with her son. In fact, he was surprised that Hebe hardly seemed any different from when he had first seen her. The quiet life sure was good for her.

    That conversation he had had with her had plunged him into some thoughts of his past. He had always cherished the idea of being a father, but those memories were not his own.

    He smiled and shook his head, as he sat next to Leteo, who had taken off his jacket and loosened the knot of his tie. He was engrossed in reading some scientific articles on a tablet.

    "Don''t you know who I just ran into?"

    "Here?" Leteo asked without looking up.

    "Yep."

    Leteo turned and looked at him quizzically, who could he have met in the middle of a flight? "Some spy?"

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    "Remember that day at the hospital, when Rose had been admitted?"

    "When she gave birth to Alyssa?"

    "No, Louise."

    Leteo frowned and narrowed his eyes, as if he were reminiscing. "Yes, why?"

    "Do you remember there was another woman next to her in the hospital?"

    Leteo set the tablet down on his lap. He could remember her. "Hebe Bender? Professor Bender''s granddaughter?"

    "Yeah."

    "Is she here?"

    " Yeah, she''s with her son in economy class."

    Leteo remembered her clearly. That woman had made a strange impression on him. It had been odd and he remembered the feeling. Maybe it was because he had never met his parents and seeing a pregnant woman always filled him with a strange sensation. Still, he had only met Hebe Bender once, since he never went back to that hospital due to the amount of work he had when he was working on the holographic portal research.

    "Do you remember if she had mentioned anything about artificial insemination?"

    Leteo looked at him quizzically. "Artificial insemination?"

    "Yes, we were talking and it turns out that her pregnancy was by artificial insemination."

    "Oh. Wow. Now that I remember we didn''t see her boyfriend or husband at that occasion." Leteo relaxed in his seat but, almost instantly, put a hand to his chin thoughtfully.

    "What''s wrong?" Jack asked him.

    "It''s just that I never called to ask what was up with that."

    " About what?"

    Leteo looked at him and gave a slightly nervous smile. "Well, it turns out I never got around to making a family in the end."

    "And what''s wrong with that? Me neither."

    "Yeah, I know. But I always thought it was a shame. Even if it wasn''t a family I wondered if it wouldn''t be a good idea to at least leave some of me behind. Who knows, even if I don''t know, maybe I''ll have a kid out there."

    Now it was Jack who looked at him in confusion as he raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

    "In ''95, after I moved to New Jersey, I donated sperm to an assisted fertilization clinic. I never got any calls from them so I don''t know, maybe my sample found someone interested. They had a strict privacy policy from what I seem to remember. It''s been so long."

    Jack looked at him in surprise and raised his eyebrows. He couldn''t imagine that Leteo would have done something like that. Jack hadn''t received any particular instructions regarding that or leaving offspring, so he had assumed that it wouldn''t alter the final outcome at all. Or perhaps it was already predisposed because it had already happened?

    It was still a surprise. "Aren''t you interested in finding out? Maybe you have family out there, maybe a boy, or a girl."

    "It''s been a few years since I thought about it. The truth is, that idea was comforting to me in the past. But come on, be realistic. What kid would want to meet his father and meet an old man like me?"

    "Old or not, that has nothing to do with it."

    "You have to think that usually the people interested in these procedures are couples who can''t procreate by traditional means. If someone used my sperm with the confidentiality protocol then all they can tell me is that it was used, but they can''t give me the identity of the interested party."

    "...I see."

    They stood in silence for a few minutes and Jack thought about all that he had just learned. Now that Leteo had told him that story he remembered the face of the boy he had met downstairs. He regretted a little that he hadn''t taken a better look at him. But no, it would be stupid, wouldn''t it? Although... he had seen the impossible in all those years. Strange or improbable things only varied in degree in his life.

    Leteo had gone back to his reading and Jack left him alone. But deep down he was still thinking about it all. From the beginning when he had arrived his memories were already a bit fuzzy. He had been alerted to it, it was because of the trip he had made. He had been able to resist it because once his body had fully regenerated he had acquired a homunculus ability that was the union of matter with consciousness. Thanks to that he was one of the few who could resist that trip. But, although there were memories that had disappeared from before the trip or were hollow, the instructions of what he and Scott had always been there. As if someone had opened his skull and filled his brain with memos so that he would remember and never forget.

    He had no regrets. He had gotten a new life and had managed to see and live three times what anyone else could. In fact, he was grateful for it. He had met friends and, while he had not been able to make a family as such, those he had met along the way had become a kind of family as well. Gone were all those adventures and betrayals from when he had been a human.

    He smiled. He always forgot that those human memories should not be treated as his own. That belonged to the man who had died in that laboratory. His life had started right after that. But did it really matter if he even treated them as his own if he couldn''t tell whether they were a truth or a lie? He had done what he had been told to do and he had done it. He wouldn''t have a statue or anything like that but they had saved the world.

    He and Carl had made it possible for the future to exist. However, in the twilight of his life, he felt he had lived to the fullest. He could ask for nothing more.

    He looked at the clock and checked that they should be a few minutes away from their destination, although he would have to change the time, it should be 7:00 p.m. when they landed. Those ramblings had distracted him and he hadn''t realized that another hour had almost passed. The sky through the window was gray and already dark.

    When did it get cloudy? Jack thought, looking out the window. Suddenly his vision blurred for a few seconds. "Huh?"

    And that wasn''t all. Leteo wobbled in his seat, as if dizzy, and the tablet fell to the floor. But he wasn''t the only one, other passengers on the plane looked at each other quizzically and a couple of children had started crying.

    What was that? thought Jack. It was a strange sensation, like a slight dizziness.

    A slight tremor shook everything. Maybe turbulence? That could explain the dizziness but it had felt strange. Could there be something wrong with the plane''s pressurization devices?

    Whatever it was, he did not like it, he felt a bittersweet taste in his mouth that had not been there before. No, it wasn''t true. He had felt a similar taste. He had forgotten it. It had been a long time.

    Why did you obey?

    "Wh-what?"

    Why did you follow him blindly? Why didn''t you ask anything else?

    "W-what is this?"

    Jack tried to get up, but staggered and fell into the hallway in tremors. He adopted a fetal position while clutching his head. The dizzy feeling was back, but with something else. It was as if a drill had been put into his head and an inner voice was asking questions and warning him at the same time. But that voice was not the only one, there were other voices, all overlapping and speaking at the same time.

    Such was the hubbub that Jack could barely make out anything in that unintelligible whirlwind.

    What? How? Where? Why did you do it? It''s a trap! Listen to me! Listen to me! Run away! Run away! Take Leteo and get out of there! Run away? Where to? How? When? Why? Avenue 32, Homunculus, Jack Piersons, ? parts of the fluid to preserve stability... this is Caltech? Suicide squad... Run away! The stone! Who sent the stone in first place?!... Fractus! There are many years to go before you can get something like that... savitronic particles, MCE¡­

    Not only voices now, but images of past memories leapt into his mind so vividly that it seemed as if he was living them at that particular moment.

    An inhuman scream burst from his throat. Those voices and images and memories of the past in his head had multiplied and he felt as if he was about to explode. The voices were mixed with his own voice asking him and ordering him to run away. What was that?

    Don''t you understand yet? You''ve been half awake all these years. Run away!

    Jack looked to the side in search of Leteo and there he had seen him. He was staring blankly at the ceiling of the plane with his jaw unhinged. Whatever was going on he wasn''t the only one. He turned his head as best he could and saw a stewardess who had just collapsed while convulsing. He could barely see the escorts but a dangling, shaking hand could tell him that at least one of them was in a similar situation, convulsing in the seat.

    Suddenly he thought he saw it.

    "N-no! T-this is not possible!" From the back of the plane he was seeing a flash of tiny blue particles that had just crossed the wall and sliding doors separating the passenger sections. He hadn''t seen those things in a long time either.

    The dull roar of the plane''s engines filled the cabin with an oppressive atmosphere as the aircraft passed through the dark clouds of the early night. The passengers, seemingly calm at first, were immersed in their own worlds of reading, movies or quiet conversation. However, a latent tension hung in the air after the first turbulence, like an ominous whisper that only those with heightened sensibilities could perceive.

    Without warning the plane had shaken violently again. A rumbling roar filled the cockpit, as the left wing of the plane swung dangerously low. Screams of shock and terror filled the claustrophobic space, as passengers struggled to stay in their seats, their faces paling with fear and disbelief.

    In the midst of the chaos, an inexplicable darkness loomed over the cabin. Flickering lights fleetingly illuminated the terrified figures of the passengers, while mysterious shadows danced through the aisles of the plane, distorting reality with their haunting presence in the eyes of the passengers. The vision in their eyes was blurred and they thought they saw things that were not there.

    Suddenly, visions and voices began to assault the minds of the passengers. Grotesque and disturbing images crept into their thoughts, twisting their perception of reality and sowing seeds of doubt and madness in their minds. Some hallucinated indescribable creatures lurking in the shadows of the plane, eyes glowing with ageless viciousness. Others found themselves trapped in nightmarish mazes where happy memories and recollections were being passed at a speed that was terrifying. The aisles of the plane writhed like live snakes for those hallucinating passengers and the screams of adults and children filled the confined space.

    In the midst of that pandemonium, a sense of primordial darkness enveloped their minds and they could no longer see, but it was as if they were being watched by something strange, something that had awakened from a lethargy to lurk in the minds of each of them.

    In the mind of each passenger, voices, screams and images resounded, crying out for the light of reason in the midst of that epileptic madness of visions and voices. But such was the speed of it that the only thing they managed to do was to become more terrified.

    Some passengers managed to get to their feet only to collapse almost instantly from the turbulence. One businessman slammed into the seat in front of him, while others had tried to hide their heads between their legs. A less fortunate one had bitten his tongue and was bleeding to death. One woman had sprained her neck when she tried to run in an undirected direction. The turbulence was not only in the plane, but in the minds of each of those unfortunates.

    The cockpit was engulfed in an eerie dance of endless lights, with the glow of the flight instruments casting dancing shadows on the metal surfaces with each jolt. The pilot and co-pilot, two solitary figures in the middle of the vast firmament, clung tightly to the controls as the plane shook violently, as if being buffeted by forces beyond human comprehension. This was bad, they had just communicated with the control tower less than a minute ago and they had been told that everything was fine.

    It was not fine. Now they were trying to establish communication again, only to find that the communication had been cut off and that none of the other emergency channels were working properly. There were signs that some parts of the avionics below them were having problems and the autopilot had even switched off.

    Suddenly, an anguished groan escaped the pilot''s mouth, his face contorted in pain as he clutched at his chest in desperation. The co-pilot, his eyes filled with panic, rushed to his side, trying to help him as ominous visions took over his mind as well, twisting reality before his stunned eyes.

    The pilot, with a last agonizing gasp, slumped over the controls, his limp body lying like a shadow in the cockpit. The co-pilot, trembling with fear and horror, tried desperately to take control of the aircraft, but his trembling hands could barely hold the controls in the midst of the growing chaos. But it was too late for him too, those voices and visions had reached his mind and the vision in his eyes was also erased. He had tried to activate the autopilot but his fingers had failed to do so.

    Meanwhile, in the passenger cabin, terror had spread like an uncontrollable plague. Passengers'' screams echoed in the claustrophobic confines of the plane, as grotesque visions and sinister shadows seeped into their helpless minds, sowing seeds of madness and despair.

    But the horror soon came to an end.

    One by one, passengers and crew fainted in their seats, overcome by the overwhelming fear that consumed them from within. In the oppressive darkness of the cabin, only the sepulchral silence remained, broken only by the steady hum of the engines and the haunting whispers of the unknown, lurking in the shadows beyond human comprehension.

    "Mom! Mom!"

    Benu stared terrified at his mother and waved her from side to side. A trickle of saliva hung from Hebe''s mouth, but she had also lost consciousness and hit her forehead in one of the plane''s sudden movements.

    Benu soon realized.

    He was the only one who could move in that place. But that was not what terrified him the most. When he looked up he noticed that from the back of the plane a series of flashes and tiny blue dots were coming from the back of the plane. They seemed to be of different sizes and they went through everything and then faded away after a certain number of meters. But this wasn''t just happening inside the plane. As he looked out of the corner of his eye he saw the same glow and flash. It seemed to be effectively from the back of the plane and they didn''t care about the fuselage at all.

    Benu secured his mother with the seatbelt and began to feel dizzy. It didn''t last more than a few seconds, because he collapsed on the ground and fainted as well.

    In first class all was silent, broken only by the sound of the plane''s metal creaking and objects falling out of the overhead luggage compartments. There were a few more sounds, though, but they were of Jack on the floor writhing in pain. It hadn''t stopped, but he was feeling like he was losing consciousness. He turned as best he could to look at Leteo once more.

    The last image he saw was of his friend with the same blank stare and he thought he heard him mutter a word. Then all was darkness.

    But Leteo had not yet fallen unconscious. With a strength he shouldn''t have had for his years he got up gritting his teeth and picked Jack up off the ground. He dragged him as best he could. The bastard was as heavy as a dead man. Leteo''s eyes seemed to be dreaming, as they darted from side to side, but he kept them open.

    When he reached the business section he gritted his teeth once more and Jack escaped from his arms rolling into the middle of the aisle with the turbulence of the plane.

    Leteo tried to take a few steps but stumbled and fell forward as well. The two friends were left lying there at the entrance separating the mini bar and economy class.

    The turbulence of the plane continued, but no one was moving inside.

    Towards the rear cargo section of the plane, from the ULD AKN-8-31416 HP, those particles were still emanating from that machine, more precisely from the rock contained inside.

    Like ephemeral fireflies they burst out of that rock and continued their procession through the ship and in the space outside it. Almost imperceptibly a buzzing sound was spreading from that machine and reverberating in the metal of the fuselage and throughout the ship. It soon became audible even though there was no one there to hear it. Almost as if they were calling someone.

    A call that would soon be answered by another event.

    Inside the machine the rock rested supported by the arms of a pentagonal structure and from the different structures around the machine there were a series of fine needles, whose heads manufactured with nanometric precision had been withdrawn several centimeters backwards. A series of not-so-thin support arms coming from other parts were in charge of keeping the rock from moving from its place.

    That didn''t last long, though. Those metal supports had begun to move and their structure was changing. The surface of the rock slowly began to move. Without anything or anyone sending energy it had lifted a few millimeters from the pedestal support and was now slowly rotating on itself. The surrounding supports were touching it lightly but something was changing in the environment.

    As the stone rotated the internal structure of the machine was changing. It was as if the rock was sending something through the arms that had been made to hold it in place. The dark crystalline aspect of the stone took on a more metallic hue and the particles sprouting from it helped to give a glimpse of what was happening.

    It was as if a thin film of root-like filaments was spreading through the machine. In just a couple of seconds it had spread and reached the retracted needles and then the layers of electromagnets, circuits and other parts of the sphere.

    But it had not stopped there. Like a cancer it soon reached the outside of the machine, where it spread from the empty slots where wires used to be connected.

    In less than ten seconds those filaments had reached another second security barrier which was a special box separating it from the walls of the cargo container.

    Thirty seconds later, it had reached the outside and spread across the entire cargo area until it reached the hatches that separated them from the upper part of the passenger cabin. It was advancing like the roots of a tree in search of water, although much faster.

    The filaments were already of metallic appearance with parts of dark crystal as a strange amalgam of roots or veins. Some were thicker, up to a couple of centimeters thick, but almost all were only a few millimeters.

    Nearly a minute later it had surrounded part of the inner fuselage and continued inside the walls of the plane as if nothing could stop it. It was reaching towards the outer fuselage spreading like gangrene but without the need for the whole plane to depressurize.

    At that very moment a shower of particles was reaching the earth from the sun. Although the sun was already hidden on the horizon, that did not matter to those particles. They were crossing the earth''s crust in a straight line and heading to their final destination, which was to activate that rock in that airplane.

 Vol.4/Chapter 51: Strange Readings

    Chapter Fifty-one

    Strange Readings

    Thursday, March 22. 5:30AM. 125 S.A.

    Over Leukerbad, Switzerland

    In the Manta, EVE was a little uneasy. Whether it was the cloudy sky, or the fact that she had had to follow the whole trip in perfect sync, she couldn''t deny that she felt a certain nervousness.

    Although she was concentrating on the route, she had turned on the cameras at the rear and every now and then she took a look at what was happening with the droids. In that part of the ship the droids had been working for a few minutes and two of them were now dismantled pieces on the floor. Parts had been removed from their bodies, which other droids had used to build something.

    The droid that contained the box could no longer be returned to its original state either apparently. Several pieces had been removed and those droids had been welding and changing the origamiun''s configurations to transform it into a machine that reminded EVE of a kind of sphere of at least a meter and a half in diameter. The surface of that sphere moved from time to time, as if it could configure itself. EVE did not know what the design was due to, but that movement was surely due to the origamium material folding and unfolding itself.

    On her side, the synchronization had proved to be more complicated than she had first thought. She had several screens that told her if the course was right, but the problem was that it had to be perfect for some reason. Not just the route, the altitude and direction had to be perfect. She wasn''t going to argue if it ended quickly and without further problems. But the truth was that the screens with the graphics were sending her data every few seconds. There were two holograms projected near her, one with a simulation of the sun and the other with the current solar state. She had entered a cloud bank, but the sun data was important. It didn''t matter that the ship had sunlight for that, but that the simulation and the sun were in sync.

    According to the orders she had received, everything would end when the simulation and the real projection were synchronized, which would happen in just a few minutes if all went well.

    The droids had stopped working and were standing still, almost waiting for something that could happen at any moment.

    The holograms were almost overlapping and although she could fly without problems, the clouds seemed to be getting darker and darker.

    The ship was almost to the lake that could be seen on the map screen.

    She wondered if those two she had rescued had carried out their task. Since she hadn''t received anything new from Y-11, or Janus, she assumed they had made it safely. EVE didn''t want to get involved in any assassinations or anything like that, so she had obtained information from Y-11 who had assured her that those two who were to be kidnapped would be fine. She did not know what they had done to find themselves in that mess, but Benjamin had also assured her that she should not worry about anything and she trusted in that.

    EVE looked at the projections and then at the path she had been following. She checked once more that everything was working properly and made sure of the Manta''s optical camouflage and the ship''s other cloaking systems. She was worried that something had been damaged during the attack that fire girl had sent to the ship, but everything was in order. However, during the operation, she would have to remove the ship''s defense shield and that worried her as well.

    She activated the ship''s extra batteries as instructed and craned her neck to relax a little.

    Just a few more minutes and it would all be over. Whatever it was all about. She took one more roll call at the orders and looked at the final parts.

    A tremor in the ship would be the signal that she had reached her target.

    ***

    Over Leman Forest. Border between France and Switzerland.

    One of the search ships was combing a new sector of the forest, a little further away from the established perimeter. The penetrating radars were sending readings to the forensic army technicians who were monitoring the results on another screen.

    The pilot, a serious-looking synthetic, was more than busy at the controls. Despite his smooth flying skills, he was almost instantly startled by something.

    Everything shook in the ship. The pair of techs slid to the side and one of them fell. That had to be bad. He had lost an altitude of about three meters. But that was impossible. Everything was working fine in the ship but, without a doubt, they had felt for a second as if everything was in free fall. But they had not touched the treetops, so it was impossible that they had actually lost altitude.

    But the ship''s readings also indicated that.

    The two soldiers had risen instantly but, it happened again. It was more violent and they actually lost some altitude physically in the ship. They heard the rustling of branches and knew that this time they were actually touching the treetops.

    That would have happened for a rare malfunction, if it wasn''t for the fact that in other ships, located nearby, something similar was happening.

    ***

    Lemac Lake, Noville. Switzerland

    The Corven-21 descended smoothly towards the road along the shore of Lemac Lake, and landed in the empty street, near Lizbeth''s parked vehicle. Despite being a three and a half meter high craft, by twenty meters long and about twenty-two meters wingspan with the wings semi-folded, the size of the street was enough to land comfortably.

    When the rear hatch of the transport ship opened, Carissia emerged gracefully, her figure still wrapped in her work overalls, and made her way to the entrance of the museum where Lizbeth and Shin were waiting with the owner of the museum. Unlike them, Carissia, although her body required maintenance, did not need rest as such and therefore looked as awake as the day before. Her face showed her characteristic poker expression.

    They had called her to tell her the news about Oxy and to ask if there was any update on the search she had conducted, but to no avail. She had already been informed of the former and for the latter nothing new had been found to shed any light on what had happened. Just some bodies in the forest and more small pieces of the crashed plane. The cargo container that Mai had named had not turned up, nor had any minor victims yet.

    "Are these the pieces?" Carissia asked and Lizbeth nodded.

    Carissia fixed her gaze on the seats Shin and Lizbeth had prepared to transport as evidence for the investigation. Together they worked quietly to secure the items carefully in the cargo part.

    Once everything was in place, Carissia turned to her companions. "Stay aboard," she told them, directing them to return to the ship. "I''m taking you back to base camp."

    "What do we do?" Shin asked. "Do you want to investigate some more here or do you want us to go back to base?"

    Lizbeth thought about it. The truth was that she didn''t think they would find anything else at the site, and they could always come back later in case something else turned up. They were worried about what was going on at the camp with the search for Oxy and Professor Reubens. She had been sending messages every few minutes, but Mai had told her still nothing. How could they have vanished in the middle of a place with such high security and a military ring?

    "Let''s go back," Lizbeth sighed.

    After they said goodbye to the museum owner and Lizbeth compressed her vehicle again, she and Shin settled into the seats and fastened their seat belts, while Carissia took over the piloting of the ship.

    With a soft hum, the craft lifted off the ground and began to move gracefully over the lake, leaving behind a trail of water.

    "How long will it take us to reach base camp?" Shin asked, his voice slightly strained with anticipation.

    Carissia shot them a reassuring glance over her shoulder. "Not long," she replied. "But we can''t go at full speed because of the alert in the area."

    They both just stared out the window as Carissia piloted, there was nothing else left to do. It was only a few minutes.

    Carissia was piloting over the waters, right on the lake strip dividing the two countries when she received a call over the Neurowire. It was one of the people in charge of the area where she had been all night, a subordinate of Pierre Allard''s team.

    [Captain Carissia. Sorry to disturb you. Are you piloting near the forest?]

    "More or less, I''m over the lake. I am returning to Area Zero, at the camp."

    [At what altitude are you, Captain?]

    "I''m in low-level flight over the lake."

    [You haven''t had any problems with the ship or the instrumentation?]

    Carissia frowned. "No, why?"

    [We''ve had a few problems in the last few minutes with the ships over the forest and the ones over Valais. We''re calling for landings.]

    "Do you want me to check to see if anything is going on?"

    [No need to, we''re just alerting.]

    "What was the problem?"

    [A sudden loss of altitude.]

    Carissia frowned. That could be a normal occurrence on one ship due to technical failure, but not on several.

    "I''ll go check," she said, cutting off the communication. The ships might be landing for safety but it was better to take a look. Who knew if there wasn''t something that was causing the instruments to fail in the area. That place was close to where the plane had appeared after all.

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    "Guys!" Carissia said, looking back and catching Lizbeth and Shin''s attention. "I''m going to take a detour. Something''s going on in the forest."

    "What''s up?" Lizbeth asked, confused.

    "That''s what I want to see, some ships have been suffering malfunctions in the area." Carissia made a left turn and approached the forest.

    In those moments, an uneasy feeling gradually came over her. The altitude indicators on the control panel were flashing unusually, showing readings much lower than they should be. She frowned, her mind quickly analyzing the possible causes of the strange phenomenon.

    The ship''s systems, designed with the latest technology, should have ensured smooth and accurate flight. However, something was clearly out of place. Carissia concentrated on the data streaming across the screens, looking for any clues that might explain the discrepancy in altitude.

    It was then that she noticed something even more puzzling: the ship''s radar systems were picking up two distinct signals, both intermittently appearing and disappearing in the same place, albeit above the flight zone they were in. That didn''t make sense. In controlled airspace like Lake Lem¨¢c, there shouldn''t be any phantom signals. Unless someone was snooping around.

    She began to consider the possible implications of that mysterious anomaly. Could it be a technical glitch? In all the ships? A theory began to form in her mind, fueled by the suspicion and paranoia arising from the whole case.

    A technical explanation might suggest a malfunction in the barometric altimeters, the devices responsible for accurately measuring the ship''s altitude. An imbalance in atmospheric pressure or even electromagnetic interference could have caused incorrect readings, inducing the spacecraft to fly lower than it should.

    However, the presence of intermittent signals on the radar further complicated matters. Could it be a natural phenomenon like a flock of birds, or a distant thunderstorm, or was there something else up there?

    The flashing signal was not coming from the ground. It was above them and did not belong to any of the army ships, the FRT or the GSN.

    With a knot in her biomechanical stomach, Carissia made a decision: it was better to err on the side of caution. With steely determination, she adjusted the ship''s controls and raised it to a safer altitude, away from the forest.

    "Why are we ascending?" Lizbeth asked.

    "There''s something weird on the radar at different altitude, I''m going to check what it is."

    Carissia was deep in thought as she navigated the skies, her mind working frantically to decipher the riddle unfolding before her. She mentally reviewed the ship''s systems, going over each component in little more than three seconds looking for possible glitches or interference that might explain the unusual readings.

    Her knowledge of piloting technology and detection systems kicked in, and she checked the various types of radars and sensors that equipped the ship. Among them, weather radars stood out as a vital tool for detecting adverse atmospheric conditions, but none of the indicators suggested a thunderstorm or other natural phenomenon that could explain the observed anomalies.

    The laser altimeters, designed to measure height with unparalleled accuracy, were also in perfect working order according to the ship''s diagnostic records. She ruled out the possibility of a malfunction in those devices, leaving her even more intrigued about the true cause behind the erroneous readings.

    Her mind turned to the horizon, where the shadow of a possible explanation was beginning to take shape. Could it be that they were being subjected to external interference, perhaps a cloaking device or an active defense system operated by an unknown entity?

    The possibilities were multiplying in her mind, fueling her determination to discover the truth behind it all. However, a nagging sense of unease accompanied her as they continued their flight into the heights, reminding her that in the skies, as in life itself, nothing was as it seemed.

    Almost as if all at once a wall of water hit the craft. It had just started raining cats and dogs. That didn''t worry her so much, since the sky had been heavy all night threatening rain but, according to the weather forecast, there would be no more than a few drizzles and they would come later. That the downpour suddenly appeared was bad for the search teams.

    At that precise moment the three felt a twinge in their stomachs and a slight dizziness. It was as if they had fallen, but they recovered almost the next moment.

    "What was that?" Shin asked.

    "That''s what the other ships reported," Carissia stated.

    A turbulence rocked the ship, but now it was real. Everything had moved. The radars were picking up a single signal that appeared and disappeared.

    "That was worse," Lizbeth complained, almost feeling as if she might vomit up all the breakfast she had eaten just moments before.

    Carissia paid attention to the altitude. FL150, FL200, FL250.

    "Hey..." Shin snapped. "Are we over the forest or Valais?"

    "In between the forest and Valais... and ascending," Carissia informed him.

    Shin looked at Lizbeth. "This is the place where the plane first appeared, right?"

    "Yes¡­"

    Carissia looked at the flashing signal. Why had there been two signals at first? Was that a radar shadow?

    The other display told her she was almost at FL300, the 30,000-foot altitude.

    ***

    The Manta was entering the airspace over Port Valais and entering the storm that seemed to come out of nowhere.

    EVE simply looked at the holograms of the sun. They had overlapped.

    The droids behind her, with the huge sphere, needed no command. They already had their hands close to that sphere. EVE could see that several cables had extended from some of them and connected to different parts of the ship and to the sphere. They were about to reach the exact point in three ... two ... one. Zero.

    EVE had an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach and felt almost as if she had fallen out of her seat. Although she recovered the next moment the whole ship was shaken by a tremor.

    She glanced sideways at the controls and projections.

    [Superposition in progress.]

    She heard a buzzing sound coming from behind her and looked at the cameras while not releasing the controls.

    The sphere had lifted off the ship ground several centimeters and hovered, while the droids around it simply watched and had attached their hands to the sphere, adopting a position almost as if they were holding it.

    United in that way they seemed to be the base that held the sphere steady in place. EVE was busy, but if she had been paying attention she would have seen that in fact the sphere was not moving at all. Those droids did indeed move and tilt with the shaking of the ship, but it was a coordinated movement intended to keep the sphere in place and unaffected by the ship''s tremors. It was as if it were some sort of giant gyroscope.

    The humming became louder, which made her frown. She hadn''t been told about that part. Almost instantly she felt another jolt throughout the ship and could feel the metal creaking.

    "What the hell is this?!"

    The buzzing sound became deafening and EVE took a quick glance at the rear camera. Just at the moment something was expanding out of that sphere.

    It was a kind of translucent bubble with a slightly bluish hue. But it wasn''t just growing around the sphere. It was enveloping the droids, the floor of the ship, everything. It approached her and passed through her. It was a strange and unsettling sensation at the same time. It was the same feeling as diving into ice water, even though there was no liquid. But the bubble did not stop there. In less than a second it had enveloped the entire ship and continued to grow, crossing the clouds and following its path as if nothing could stop it.

    EVE had no time to be surprised and continued to control the ship as best it could while everything around it continued to tremble. Just then an alert appeared on the radar. It was detecting two other signals. One was below her, while the other was exactly where she was.

    But that wasn''t the worst of it. That feeling she had felt at the base of Pyrene was returning. That horrible feeling that a monster was underneath her. EVE frowned as she felt her symbiont armor just trembled all over, as if the material it was made of had undergone some kind of reaction to something.

    ***

    A few hundred meters below the Corven-21 continued its ascent in the midst of the sudden storm. Carissia looked stunned at first as that sort of translucent blue wave was breaking through the clouds around her, but she was more astonished when the thing seemed to be growing and had enveloped her ship as well. The turbulence and tremors in the ship had intensified and she was now struggling to get the ship under control.

    When that thing had touched her Carissia had felt the same sensation as if something had suddenly been taken away from her. It was cold and empty like the feeling of being in space, but at the same time immeasurable.

    Shin felt a horrible pang in his stomach the moment that thing touched him and felt even worse than how he had awakened, for some reason he felt as if all the metal inside his body had also shuddered and reacted as it sometimes did in a semi-active state.

    Lizbeth at his side looked pale and had taken his hand, when that thing had passed through her body. It had seemed to her to be the same sensation of sinking under the ice. A sensation that made her shudder because it reminded her of some traumas from her past.

    Shin looked at her worried expression and tried to comfort her by squeezing her hand gently, but he also looked up. He could only see the ceiling of the ship but, for some reason, he felt as if there was something above them.

    What is this? he wondered.

    ***

    On the Manta. EVE gritted her teeth and turned on antigravity flight, provided by the ship''s second engine. That was in the forecast, but she didn''t imagine it was going to be so bad. The metal of the ship creaked as if at any moment it was going to be torn apart by some strange force.

    The sphere at the back now seemed alive, pulsing and vibrating as if it had a life of its own. What the hell was in that box that had been stolen by those two thieves in Rome?

    The droids and EVE could not see it at the moment but, with each press of the sphere, invisible blue particles were being released from the core of the sphere. From the rock in the middle.

    ***

    On the Corven-21, Carissia had done something similar, the special antigravity engine was keeping them afloat. She had thought of running away from whatever that thing was, but first they had to regain flight. Almost two seconds after the thing had engulfed them, the ship was losing altitude as if the atmospheric pressure had changed. Not only that, some of the ship''s functions were malfunctioning, Carissia was also feeling a little tired.

    It didn''t make sense. She had checked her internal energy cells and they were at seventy-five percent, when they were always at one hundred percent. In fact she only changed them every ten or fifteen years and those were new. But the ship''s power was also showing faults. This was not just a problem with her aeon body. It was something else.

    The ship seemed to stabilize a little when she turned on the ship''s emergency batteries and the antigravity engine, but that was just a patch in a seam. Without much to do she decided to regain altitude.

    In the back Shin looked around in surprise. "What?" That question was directed more to himself than to Lizbeth. "What is this?!"

    Lizbeth looked at him, while clutching her head. Her pointy teeth had appeared and she had an expression as if she had a headache. "What''s going on?!"

    "What are these things?"

    Lizbeth looked around, but couldn''t see anything. "The what?!"

    "Can''t you see it?"

    Lizbeth couldn''t see it but Shin, with his one good eye, could see flashes and blue particles coming through everything. At first they came through the ceiling, but as Carissia regained altitude they came from the right side.

    The two ships could not see each other through the gray and black clouds. A hurricane storm of wind and water was raging and falling like lead. On the other hand, the Manta''s optical camouflage would allow EVE to hide easily. The radars of both ships were detecting intermittently. According to the readings they were within two hundred meters of each other.

    But what worried Carissia was that there was another signal in the place where that ship was that could not be seen. There was something huge and whose shape she did not like at all. She didn''t like it because, despite the clouds, she could feel it.

    There was something else there. Carissia looked over her shoulder to the right and asked the others. "Tell me what are you seeing?"

    Lizbeth looked out the window and could only see clouds on the right side at first. But what worried Carissia soon appeared.

    There was a large black spot among the clouds, as if a gigantic cetacean was behind those clouds just a few meters away.

    But no. It was no cetacean, bird or dragon.

    The eyes of all three widened in surprise and absurdity.

    "Y-you''ve got to be kidding, right?" Lizbeth said.

    Out there hovered a huge airplane. A cloud moved out of the tail end for a moment and Shin and Lizbeth could read the name towards the back, half hidden by some kind of dark film that almost completely covered the ship.

    That name read ANEMI AIRLINES. Same plane of the Flight B313-MG.

 Vol.4/Chapter 52: In the sky - Part 1

    Chapter Fifty-Two

    In the sky - Part 1

    Over the airspace between Switzerland and France.

    EVE could not deny her surprise. She knew the target was a ship, but she hadn''t imagined it was a plane. Much less such an old one.

    A plane. That told her something she hadn''t thought of until that moment. What was the military fence that was below her on the lake? She knew about it because she had received Janus'' instructions and had alerted those two she had rescued but, according to Janus, it was a Dark Event research operation and she should not worry about them. Was that plane part of the whole thing?

    And there was something that was even more strange. That plane was not normal. It had something that seemed to be attached to it. It almost looked as if a dark, leafless climbing plant had woven itself around part of the fuselage at the rear. Or maybe it was dead roots? They might well have been roots. But it had also spread partly across the wings, with thin, thick filaments crisscrossing like bony, famished hands. Only towards the front was it less present. What gave her a bad feeling was that, due to its direction, it was more abundant just in the sector where she should be located with the Manta.

    Whatever it was, she didn''t have time to find out.

    She had just a few minutes according to the holographic projection in the cockpit. The clock did not offer a safe reading, although at one moment it offered a reading of five minutes, the next second it jumped to two minutes and then to six minutes. It was not stable so they had to hurry while the droids continued their mission to keep the sphere stable.

    EVE, holding steady on course in sync with the aircraft, positioned the ship at the bottom of the fuselage, just a few feet behind the landing gear. That was the closest she could get to her target, which would be attracted by the sphere she had in the Manta.

    The mission was for the sphere to resonate with the target in the plane. To do this, both parties had to be in close proximity for the superposition. That sphere on the Manta had droid parts, but was basically a steroid version of a pocket attractor. A rather famous device a few decades ago for street thieves and one that had been marketed with some success on the black market.

    There were better ways to accomplish that mission. If they had to just extract something from the plane it was much easier for the droids to simply get out and board that plane from the cargo side. Or was there a reason for them to do it that way?

    EVE tried to turn on the Manta''s forward scanner. There was something bothering her. Is that plane empty or is there someone inside? It can''t be full of people, right? She had doubts about that. Was the reason for not boarding it because there was something inside too? Maybe some other group? Indeed, if it was an extraction, the chances were high that there were hostile elements guarding what had to be extracted. Maybe it was all about stealing some military prototype and that was the reason for the movement underneath.

    The scanner made an attempt to turn on, only to turn off the next moment. It had been disabled so that it could not be used. The Manta''s system had locked out some extra functions so as not to use the auxiliary batteries on unnecessary instrumentation. EVE pursed her lips. She would have to be left wondering about that.

    The Manta barely touched the bottom of the fuselage and, despite the jolts from the turbulence, the system told her she was below her target. The sphere was exactly where it was supposed to be.

    But something else was bothering her. On the one hand, that horrible feeling was there and, on the other hand, that plane was not going to last long in the air. She didn''t know what it was due to, but it seemed that the paint on the surface was corroding in several places and that, even with the synchronization, the plane was wobbling in a dangerous way.

    The outside vision suddenly blurred and EVE knew that the final moment of the operation had arrived. Now all that remained was for the sphere to attract the target in the cargo hold of the plane.

    ***

    On the Corven-21 Carissia had positioned herself a few meters above the plane and had made the rear hatch of the ship translucent. Shin had risen from his seat along with Lizbeth, and they both contemplated what was happening in front of their eyes as the entire aircraft shook. Despite the clouds, now that they could see it, they had no doubt that it was the plane they had been investigating the day before.

    That was, in effect, a twin-turbine Baering 616. A steel giant a hundred meters long and eighty meters wide. Compared to the Corven-21, it was like comparing a small crow to a wandering albatross. But there was something different. What were those dark things that extended like veins or roots over the fuselage? Shin soon remembered the state of the corpses the day before. Did it have something to do with the nerve tissue that had hardened as the flesh was consumed?

    "How can that be possible?" Lizbeth asked, trying to make herself heard over the raging storm raging outside. Shin felt much worse, but this was not the time for him to worry about his condition. He had too many questions in his head.

    The plane had crashed, there was no doubt about it. "What time is it?" Shin asked.

    Lizbeth checked the time, but her Neurowire watch read 5:45AM. Carissia looked at her watch and it was the same time, but when she checked the local time, and the ship''s devices were indicating that it was 6:54PM, and then 5:30PM. "The time is wrong, it''s telling me several hours."

    Lizbeth looked at Shin and then turned her attention near the hatch. It was raining heavily outside and the falling water was blurring the image outside, but she was sure she was seeing some raindrops that were currently rising meaninglessly. It could be an effect of the antigravity engine, but why were only a few drops rising and why did they look like they were returning to the sky?

    Shin, for his part, could see those tiny particles coming from the back of the plane, but he had no idea what they could be. Those blue particles did not seem to obey any natural law, they were not affected by the wind or anything like that, they continued on their way unperturbed. Wasn''t it possible that there was a magician? No, that was not possible. If that had been the case Lizbeth and Carissia could have seen it and he had no magical ability to detect occult magic, so it couldn''t be Thelesis either.

    When he had seen them in the Corven for the first time he had thought that maybe it was an effect of his visual fatigue. Something like phosphenes produced in the retina. After all he could only see with his left eye. But he dismissed it when he realized that those particles had a direction and not a random movement. It was coming from the plane, more precisely from a low point. Is it in the cargo area?

    Shin and Lizbeth''s rapid thoughts were interrupted when they heard a crunch of metal on the outside and with astonished eyes they saw how the metal towards the middle of the plane had just sunk and then, as if it were rusty iron, it broke off and opened a gap in the fuselage. Lizbeth''s lips twitched as she watched as parts of the plane, backpacks, suitcases, papers, a service cart, and then two bodies flew out of that ten-foot hole and hit the tail end of the plane before being lost in the clouds.

    We haven''t found all the bodies, Shin thought. "It can''t be possible."

    One more body flew out of that hole and hit the metal of one wing of the plane with a thud, before disappearing into the clouds. A red stain appeared, but the rain quickly washed it away. No trace of the body or blood remained.

    "I''m going in!" Shin said. Lizbeth looked at him as if she didn''t believe what she had just heard. "Carissia! Is the attractor system working?!"

    Carissia, fighting to maintain the stability couldn''t help but give a quick glance over her shoulder. "What are you planning?"

    "The accident hasn''t happened yet. If it''s 6:54PM and 5:45 it means we''re at two different times... the accident happened at 7PM, right?"

    ***

    Leman Forest.

    A downpour was suddenly coming out of nowhere, but that wasn''t the worst of it.

    Panic had gripped the tents that served as the area''s control and monitoring system. At first no one could understand what was happening, because the weather and strange event monitoring systems must be wrong. But, as the seconds passed, they realized that something really bad was happening in the skies.

    An anomaly was appearing in the results. In the form of a sphere in the sky, at least five kilometers in diameter. That wasn''t all that was wrong. The last of the reconnaissance ships were landing when it began to appear. Although the sphere was several kilometers above the ground, several of the ships lost altitude within a few meters and had crashed in the vicinity of the parking lots.

    Pierre Allard, the director of the air crisis situation on the Swiss side, could not believe his eyes. He was in one of the main tents when everything started to go wrong. Many electronic instruments were malfunctioning and several evidence-collecting drones had suddenly gone offline.

    Some soldiers watching the situation and helping the wounded who were in the crashed ships suddenly raised their eyes to the sky.

    That sphere was there surrounded by clouds, but there was something strange about it. Although they could see only a tiny part of the lower part, the rest was hidden in the sky.

    It looked like some kind of smoky gemstone, or perhaps a glass marble filled with gray smoke. At least that was what they could associate it with at first. It really looked like a crystal ball floating in the middle of the storm. But inside it they could see something churning rapidly. It was as if there were clouds trapped inside swirling furiously trying to escape. One of the soldiers focused his vision better. Perhaps his eyesight was deceiving him, but that thing had a watery consistency. It could be a sphere of convection but it was as if what enclosed those clouds was a wall of water and they, due to the distance, it seemed to them that it was something more solid.

    ***

    "I hope this really works," Carissia said, looking serious.

    In the back Lizbeth and Shin had put on a transparent oxygen masks with extra protection for their ears and eyes. Lizbeth pressed some buttons on the side panel near the seats and stood next to Shin. A hole about a meter in diameter had opened in the floor of the Corven-21. That hole was a special device on the ship and there were two others, but those were out of service due to power problems. They were devices that were used for assault missions or emergency evacuation of the ship.

    On one of the upper roof rails a circular ring-shaped device had been moved and placed just above that door.

    Shin stood at the edge of the hole and looking at Lizbeth nodded. "I''m ready!" Carissia positioned the craft about three meters from the plane, just above the hole that had just opened at the top and through which the passengers and luggage had exited.

    The interior of the Corven-21 was pressurized, but in that hatch there was only a sheet of the ship''s protective shielding material deployed to separate it from the low pressure on the outside. The ship''s personnel could exit without problems and even enter, since it was part of the functions to discriminate between a threat to the infrastructure or if what was entering or exiting were objects, tissue or a biological body. If something were to happen they had their turtle devices to assist them with oxygen masks or short flight device and emergency parachute.

    Lizbeth watched with apprehension as Shin jumped from the ship into that hole in the plane. From her position she could see the lights flickering inside the plane and at the moment it seemed to her that the twisted metal hole was like the mouth of an abyssal fish that had just swallowed her boyfriend.

    Shin landed and had to grit his teeth. That was a jump of about seven meters in total. In those moments he was grateful that he could not show his emotions. The truth was that he felt much more tired on the one hand and almost feverish on the other. The adrenaline of the situation was making him still standing. He could not afford to rest at the time.

    Shin raised his head and looked around with a serious look. It was worse than he had imagined. Without hesitation he looked up where Lizbeth''s worried face was waiting for an answer.

    "Turn it on!!!"

    Lizbeth walked over to a panel on the side of the ship and activated that ring on the ceiling. Almost instantly it had turned a red color, tinting everything around it. That device was the atttractor. Now all that remained was to hope that it would work as expected.

    She had tried to argue that this was crazy, but something had brought her to her senses. Shin had said. "Can''t you see it? We can still save the people on board."

    That didn''t mean that what they were about to do wasn''t crazy. But madness that made sense. Temporal anomalies could exist naturally due to Dark Events. If they were right, the time anomaly meant they were witnessing moments before the plane crashed. They had only a few minutes. If it was a temporal anomaly, it could be that time was at a standstill and that the thing they had seen expanding with them inside was a big time bubble that could end at any moment.

    That could also end in disaster for them and be dragged by the plane. Except for one detail. No debris from another crashed ship had been found. If what they thought was correct it meant that there was a chance that the passengers still unaccounted for were because they had never been there at the time of the crash to begin with.

    Shin watched as the red beam of light penetrated through the hole to where he was and immediately ran. He looked down at the ground and saw how a crushed disposable cup had begun to rise and float upward. That was all he needed to know that the attractor was working. He had to hurry.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    But the truth was that when he looked around he couldn''t help but be surprised by what he found inside the passenger cabin. That seemed to be a kind of tunnel where roots had grown uncontrollably. He knew that material was everywhere. He could not analyze it but he was sure that it had the same consistency of what he had seen in the autopsies the day before in the crystallized and metallic nerve tissue of some of the victims. Around the cabin it had spread everywhere, the walls, the seats, and of course on the passengers as well.

    It was a horrific sight. It looked as if those roots were feeding on everything around them. The passengers looked pale and emaciated and he could see that several had blood coming out of their ears, some seemed to be suffering from symptoms of frostbite due to the low temperature. I had seen that before too. It was something caused by the depressurization, not to mention the mess it had caused inside the main cabin. There were suitcases, backpacks, the oxygen masks that were moving all over the place, but they were unused. That none of them were being used and the way those roots were spread around indicated to Shin that it could had been a long time and that the passengers had not had time to use them either.

    He looked at the nearest passengers and could see that they had vital signs, but they were weak. Close to where he had entered there were a few who had almost none of those things around them. That thing did not seem strong, and when he grabbed the first passenger, a middle-aged man, that thing did not hold him but was as weak as a spider''s web in the thin filaments, meanwhile a bit more like crystal on the thicker ones even though it looked metallic. He sent two others that he had nearby and was about to send a fourth when he looked at him and saw that he was already dead.

    He had to give priority to those who needed help the most. And that''s when he realized. There were some passengers who didn''t have much of that thing growing around them. Not only that, he could see that they were children.

    That was a plan drawn up in a matter of seconds but with a slim chance of success. To begin with, he had to be realistic. How many could he rescue? Ten? Twenty at the most if he were lucky? As soon as everything destabilized he will need to run to the red beam and that would be the end of it. He couldn''t afford to enter the cockpit to lower the plane to an altitude where the pressure would be suitable. Because he knew the plane would not survive to begin with.

    Even if they were able to rescue several people, he had to take into account the condition of the Corven-21. Turning on the attractor device consumed part of the energy and he already knew what had happened to all the electronic devices in the plane. On the other hand, for the same reason it was impossible to count on the spatial distortion in their ship. If they stayed too long near the plane there was no certainty that they could land safely and they would have to count on Carissia to splash down over the lake once they were out of that distortion.

    It was not heroic action, it was simply doing what they could. As Mai used to say: we do what we can with what we have.

    With the flashing lights blinking and drawing ghostly silhouettes of the passengers Shin could get an idea of what had just happened before his arrival. There were many passengers on the floor, others in their seats, but all passed out and others had already died. But for how long could the others still be alive? He looked at a woman and remembered her. He had done an autopsy on that woman, her body was burned from the waist up and yet she was still alive there but cover with those things. He gritted his teeth and decided on the most logical option he had thought of with Lizbeth.

    Children. Because of the light weight and ease of moving them they had priority. Was he being too optimistic? Maybe none of them had been discovered yet because they had been consumed in the explosion or hadn''t looked in the right place in the lake. What if the whole assumption was wrong and it not only ended up with the plane, but also endangering Lizbeth and Carissia?

    No. He didn''t have to think about that. Something told him he was doing the right thing. He couldn''t explain it, but he knew it was the right thing to do. They might not be able to avoid the ultimate tragedy, but at least that hell they could save someone was good enough to have been worth the attempt.

    The first child was on the side of the window and he grabbed it quickly. He was breathing. Shin moved quickly and shouted as loud as he could, trying to make himself heard in the storm. "There goes the first one!!!"

    Lizbeth gulped and braced herself. The passengers Shin had already sent had been dragged close to the seats and she had placed devices in their ears that, when deployed, transformed into oxygen masks. Some of the emergency equipment she had taken out of a nearby suitcase.

    Shin placed the child in the light beam and the child''s body began to rise. Since he was unconscious he looked like a puppet, but Shin didn''t stop and went back inside.

    Lizbeth received the boy and for the first time in those two days she felt a real knot in her throat. When she investigated cases she almost always started with some tragedy and the plane had been one too. A typical case of picking up the pieces of the disaster to find out how it had happened, another of the thousands of cases that always occurred in a year.

    But since everyone had assumed that the passengers had died, no one had ever imagined that there was a possibility that there were any survivors. That emotion made her swallow her tears. She herself had given them all up for dead. But here she had just received a child who couldn''t have been more than eight years old and was breathing. She quickly carried him to the nearest seat and pressed the button to activate the automatic seat belts, along with a mask.

    Soon two more entered through the beam of light. This time two girls, a little girl with pigtails and a teenage girl. Lizbeth carried them both to the seats and peeked through the hatch just as a fourth child was arriving.

    Carrisia, hooked up to the ship''s transmission systems couldn''t believe it either. She was an aeon, an artificial life form, but seeing those children brought back memories of many decades ago when she did not yet belong to Nevermore. Her own personal tragedy, when she lost the two children she was in charge of, flashed in her brain. Please let it work, she thought to herself, as she continued to try to maintain the ship''s stability.

    Shin meanwhile had continued with his work and it was when he picked up a little girl that he noticed. He looked at the woman in the next seat and the other passengers. They were all unconscious, but he could see their eyes moving under their eyelids.

    Are they dreaming? he wondered. That was impossible. Then he remembered the autopsy examinations of the previous day. Many of them had been scared and had adrenaline spikes, of that he had no doubt. But that they were dreaming was impossible. The REM state is not reached until several hours after a person is asleep. The decompression could have knocked everyone out, which in a decompression situation was already unlikely, but it was impossible for everyone to be in a synchronized dream state.

    If it wasn''t a dream, why were everyone''s eyes moving so fast? And what the hell were those particles still coming from the rear of the ship? Given the degree of direction he could tell without a doubt that it was coming from somewhere in the cargo hold. He recalled the conversation with Mai and the team the day before. There was something that had come from Diego Garcia on the plane. Did that have anything to do with it after all?

    He had no way of knowing and he didn''t have the time either. He sent the girl through the beam of light and crossed to the other row. There were two young men, perhaps brothers. He charged one by one toward the beam and continued his search.

    "Oh, and these two?" In separate seats he had found a mother still holding her little boy in her arms, he couldn''t have been more than three years old. Two seats over there was another little girl who couldn''t have been more than five.

    Shin swallowed as he carried the two little ones. "I''m sorry," he murmured. He remembered the faces of the parents. They had also appeared among the dead the day before.

    "Watch out for the next ones they are too small!" Shin alerted Lizbeth and sent them both through the attractor tunnel.

    He turned to continue the search when he became dizzy. It hadn''t been due to the sudden movements of the plane, it had come from his head. He staggered and almost lost his footing if he hadn''t grabbed a seat. The vision in his one eye seemed to be trembling. No, it was more like the eye was twitching rapidly.

    "Are you Mr. Shin?" "I just want to see my daughter again." "Don''t forget the sacrifices. "Better to die free than imprisoned by the fate someone wrote for you." "One day you''ll have to make that decision too."

    Shin held his seat. Those voices had come from nowhere, but he had heard them as if they had spoken in his ear. He thought he recognized a couple of them, but the rest were unfamiliar. Did that have anything to do with what he had felt when he saw the plane for the first time? That feeling of familiarity was there, but he couldn''t remember when, or why, he felt it.

    Without time to recover, he walked to the back of the plane and found two teenagers, one of whom had tripped and broken his neck on a seat.

    "I''m sorry," Shin said bitterly and turned to carry the next one. How many were there already? Twelve? Thirteen? How much time had passed? A minute and a half maybe? Time seemed to slow down in those situations where it was passing quickly.

    He sent the young man out and came back once more. He should have sent those who were farther away first but being an unstable situation he didn''t know how much time he had left. If it was a minute and a half and the clock had read 6:54 when they made the plan then he had three minutes at the most until 7PM which was the time when the plane had crashed on Tuesday evening. He was aware that there could be some distortion in the time that would give him more minutes, but that wasn''t certain either.

    He made two more trips, carrying a little girl and another boy at the same time who couldn''t have been more than ten years old and then a little girl who was almost at the tail section of the plane. He had crossed back to the other row and there he found three more, one of them had hit his head and was bleeding, but was breathing. He carried the two little ones and went back for the girl. Towards the back he had stumbled a couple of times and had taken off his mask to see better. He had trouble breathing at first, but then recovered quickly. As he moved forward and stepped on those roots in the ground they shattered like glass and then vanished in wisps of dust as if they had never been there.

    Lizbeth meanwhile had been placing the children in the ship seats as best she could. But she was somewhat glad that it was working out. She knew there would be problems when they woke up, but they would have time to deal with it later.

    Carissia, with her eyes hooked up to the ship''s camera system, had been looking for signals from the rear and thought she noticed an anomaly. If the transmission didn''t deceive her, there was something underneath the plane, just below, less than thirty meters from where they were. That thing must have been the first signal she had detected. It was flying underneath the plane, that was the reason for the strange reading on the ship''s radar. That was known as radar shadow flying. It was basically hiding the signal above or below another object in the air. But what she could see on the transmission was only a silhouette drawn by the cuts in the clouds and the water around it. But she could easily tell that it must be another ship by the passive detection system.

    She activated the gravitational field detection system, but it did not give her any results. Beyond the turbulence, there was a possibility that that ship was also using a flight system similar to the Corven-21. But her doubts were dispelled by the broadband radar system and the acoustic detection system.

    Indeed, by the shape there was another ship. With the broadband radar she not only detected that ship but she was able to detect that the thing was a sphere. The time distortion was a sphere that extended a little more than five kilometers with that aircraft as the center of it all.

    She was about to inform Lizbeth of this when she noticed something else. With the tail of the plane cutting through the clouds she thought she saw something else.

    She thought it might have been simply a visual effect, but soon dismissed it. Indeed, from the cameras she was seeing that. It was a kind of dark cloud that moved from side to side as if it had a life of its own. It could not be a flock of birds because they seemed small and given the violence of the storm they would not fly there. It reminded her of starlings in flight, but what made up the cloud must have been something very small because from a distance she could not see what it could be.

    A shiver ran through Carissia. Whatever it was, she didn''t like it at all.

    Two more children had just arrived when Carissia''s voice sounded alarmed. "Did you see that?" Lizbeth looked up at her, but couldn''t see anything. Then she looked to the rear where the transparent hatch visor was still activated and saw a dark mass moving from side to side at the back of the plane. It couldn''t have been more than thirty meters away. It was a sort of cloud of small fragments and larger ones. "I think it''s time to go."

    "An alloy of Fractium and a concentration of iron," Lizbeth mused, turning to Carissia. They remembered that Shin had found that in the nervous system of the deceased from the accident.

    Fractium. The hair on the back of Lizbeth''s neck stood up at the thought and she approached the mouth of the tunnel shouting as loud as she could. "Shin! We have to go now! There''s something else out there!!!"

    Shin had just sent another child down the light tunnel, when he heard Lizbeth''s shout and was about to look for the last one he had found when he noticed something.

    He was seeing that several of those unconscious passengers had just shifted in their seats. It wasn''t as if they had woken up. It was more like some of them had arched their backs back and moved their heads while their mouths opened slightly.

    Then he saw how many of them looked as if they were flowers wilting in fast motion. The skin took on grayish and bluish tones while the hands of others looked bony. There was a strong tremor that almost made him fall and he turned to pick up the last child.

    That child had those things wrapped only around his arms, but he was beginning to pale and his cheekbones were marked, slightly hidden by wavy black hair. He couldn''t have been more than fifteen years old at most. His father next to him had just died. He remembered him, he was one of the first ones he had autopsied the day before. He thought he remembered his name was Levi Fitzgerald and the boy''s name was Indrid, or something similar.

    He pulled those roots out of his arms and they snapped on contact. He lifted him up when he felt a sting in one of his hands. One of those roots had shot out towards him and had touched him as if it were a hypodermic needle.

    There was a tremor throughout the ship and he almost lost his balance again. The instant that thing touched him, something unexpected happened. Those roots all over the plane began to unravel, or so it seemed to him. As if it were a cloud of particles, both inside the plane and outside, that cloud rose from the fuselage and began to gather towards the interior. Inside the plane, it was like a raging cloud, circling at full speed.

    In the Corven-21, Lizbeth and Carissia watched in amazement as the roots broke apart and then congregated in a cloud of black particles, which joined the other dark mass they had just seen. It disappeared from the fuselage and the wings, leaving the metal of the plane eaten away as if parts had been rusting for years. Then the cloud of particles attacked the fuselage as if it were a sheet of paper.

    Several holes opened up and they could see how the cloud formed several jets of dark spear-shaped particles that penetrated into the plane from all sides. One of those spears penetrated the left side of the plane and almost at once there was a dry explosion. Amidst all the gray and black scenery a flare had ignited in the turbine.

    Lizbeth could not believe it when she saw a new child that had just appeared into the ship through the tunnel of the attractor. That child looked worse than all the others.

    "Shin! We have to go now!" she shouted back into the tunnel, grabbing the boy.

    Shin for his part was fighting that thing down below. He had been lucky that he had been able to send the boy down. That thing was coming for him. No, not just for him. For the whole plane. He was already sure that more than half of the passengers were already dead and, in a few seconds, the others would follow.

    That cloud was attacking everything as it circled at full speed destroying parts of the plane and killing the passengers. Absorbing their lives, as their bodies were consumed in black and gray masses. Fire had erupted from the left side. That must have been the turbine. Lizbeth was right, they had to leave.

    But that thing was making it hard for him. It was attacking him with fury. It was like being exposed to a sandstorm. But instead of silicon what he felt were those metal particles trying to whip him like whips and passing like a wind around him, coming and going. Had those things reacted to his touch? At the moment he could feel as if all the metal in his body had reacted. He had felt it just moments before they found the plane.

    That was a fractus. His first encounter with one. Where had it come from? 2012? Was it already at that time on earth planning the invasion that would not take place until decades later? Or did it mean that it was already known long before that there would be an invasion? If so, why hadn''t they stopped it? Or was it something else?

    The blue glow of the particles was diminishing, but it had been replaced by that.

    He gritted his teeth and cursed. A new cloud of particles appeared, but that was his own armor. The oxygen mask shattered on contact with the armor particles, as did the shirt he wore. The harnesses of the turtle device had barely hung on. But something troubled him. That was barely a quarter of his armor or maybe less. Where had the rest gone?

    He gathered the best he could in his left eye part and another part in his chest and in a fist. What he had gathered in the fist he gathered and formed a shield trying to protect himself and reach the attractor tunnel.

    Or at least it tried to.

    "W-wait, don''t w-wait, don''t go... yet!!!" A voice with a choppy, tired tone just called out to him.

    Shin looked in the direction of the voice. An old man who could barely stand upright clinging to a seat was calling out to him. He was wounded in several places. That cloud of circulating particles must have attacked him, but what struck him as odd was that he was conscious and didn''t look as bad as the rest of the passengers.

    "You''re missing one... take him, please!!!"

    Shin didn''t know how to react but looked to where the old man was pointing. The old man was pointing with a bony finger at a pile of luggage at the beginning of the section, but his eyes were elsewhere. To the opposite side. He wasn''t looking at what he was pointing at.

    "Hurry up! G-get him out of here!!!"

    Shin approached with a somewhat slow pace due to the particle gusts that followed around the whole plane like a furious wind and, after a second, he saw it. Among all the fallen carry-on luggage he had just seen a different bundle. It was a young boy lying on the ground.

    Shin reached over and grabbed him with one arm. It was a boy who couldn''t have been more than eleven or twelve years old.

    "H-hurry!!! you have to take him too!!!" The old man just pointed over his shoulder but still wasn''t looking at him. No, rather he was avoiding looking at the boy.

    "Are there any other children?!"

    "No, but almost. You have to take someone else!"

    Shin walked to the tunnel and sent the boy out and came back.

    The old man looked at him and Shin recognized him. He had a scar on his left cheek and even though time had passed he could tell that the man had surely suffered an accident that had deformed his face a bit in the past. He recognized who he was, he was on the passenger list. He had been an important scientist in the past. One of the first to postulate an idea close to what in the future would be the Neurowire.

    Leteo Waters.

    He had not come out of his astonishment when they both lost their balance due to a turbulence much stronger than the previous ones.

    Shin didn''t notice it as he stood up but then he couldn''t deny it. The lights on the ship were all out. And those blue particles had disappeared too.

    "What the hell was that?"

 Vol.4/Chapter 53: In the sky - Part 2

    Chapter Fifty-Three

    In the sky - Part 2

    To EVE it seemed that several minutes had passed in which she had tried to control the ship by all means. The turbulence had increased and the darkness outside, due the overlay, did not allow her to see anything, even though she knew she was in the exact place where she should be. So, when a droid''s voice echoed from behind her, she could not help but feel relieved.

    [Target secured,] was what one of the droids in the rear said mentally to EVE.

    There was a large bluish flash at the rear of the ship, but she didn''t have time to see what it was at the moment. The two sun holograms had separated again.

    "Time to get the hell out of here." Without a second thought EVE deactivated the antigravity flight. There was another jolt and the overlay phase was over. When it was deactivated, it was no longer occupying the space they shared with that plane and the ship fell several meters below.

    The first thing she noticed was that the unpleasant sensation of oppression she felt in her body, due to the overlay, had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, followed by finally feeling her lungs fill with air. She could see the cloudy sky and the storm instead of that semi-darkness of blurred objects.

    She quickly activated the ship''s protective shields and with the external batteries at full power she turned the engine back on. The energy levels for the flight were low, but that should have been more than enough.

    It could have been over but, beyond feeling relieved, she still felt nervous. That feeling she had had at the base of Pyrene was still there. She knew that something she didn''t want to encounter was near. Maybe it was the pilot or something aboard that other ship that was now over the plane on the right side. EVE had no idea what they might be doing up there, but she was thankful they hadn''t intervened with her mission.

    Before she shot out of the place she took one last look at the plane. It had only been a few minutes but it was tearing apart in the air and there was fire and smoke on the left wing. The paint had peeled off in several places and there were now some holes in the fuselage.

    She had also seen how that kind of veins or roots suddenly disappeared from the fuselage of the plane, but it had puzzled her even more when she saw how something like a cloud of black smoke had started to attack the plane.

    She didn''t have time to find out if it had been caused by what she had taken out of the plane, but she didn''t see how it could be possible. If she had to think about it, the most reasonable thing was that it was that other thing she felt.

    The Manta took off like an arrow and was lost in the clouds.

    Eve glanced to the rear and saw the sphere whose surface had become calm. Around it rested the inert bodies of those droids. She had no doubt that this thing seemed to have been absorbing energy from around it. That was the reason the ship was equipped with the backup equipment, but she would not have imagined it would be so violent.

    But it didn''t matter now. The target was secured and she had enough flight time for the next few minutes to get to where she had to deliver that thing. The nuclear research center located in Geneva, more precisely in Meyrin.

    If EVE had been paying attention she would have noticed something else. Among those droid bodies on the sphere, two were missing. During the last seconds of the overlay, two droids had disappeared from the Manta. That simple touch had moved them. Those two droids, now also inert, had been left behind in the cargo hold of the plane. Due to the sudden movements the ULD''s security systems had been released and now that a cargo unit had disappeared from its place and appeared inside the sphere, the two 3T-DS droids had been moved to the hold and trapped by the cargo.

    ***

    Shin had reluctantly taken the passenger the old man had indicated to him. He had no idea who he might be and could barely see his face in the semi-darkness. He was struggling against that spears of particles that sought to pull him down at every second, but he had finally reached the contact part and sent the man down the tunnel. That old man was bigger than Lizbeth so she would surely have to drag him to safety in the ship.

    The spears of dark particles had continued to attack him at the same time that the wind was blowing back and forth across the plane, carrying the particles like a sandstorm. Luckily he had what was left of his armor to protect him. Every time one of those spears impacted against the black particles of his own armor, the spear was released and the particles from them rejoined the central mass to attack back. Finally he reached the old man again.

    "Let''s go!!!" Shin shouted to Leteo Waters.

    The old man was almost on his knees clutching a seat, but the look he gave Shin indicated otherwise. Shin recognized that look. He had seen it several times on many faces.

    "G-get the hell out of here!!!"

    "Come on! You''re coming too!!!"

    "No! I still have something to do!"

    What the hell could an old man like that do in such a situation? Shin remembered. The scientist''s body hadn''t been found yet. Did it mean that there was a chance he would save him too? Or simply that his body had not yet been found?

    ***

    Benu woke up bathed in a red light that covered everything. Did airplanes have that light?

    He felt disoriented and a little dizzy. But when he took a better look around him, he had no doubt. That was not the plane.

    He was in a seat with a mask and a seat belt. There were several seats there, and there were several people on them. Hadn''t he seen some of those people in the seats of the plane moments ago? And many of them were young. Weren''t they passengers? But the place didn''t fit. That was not the plane where he had traveled with his mother.

    Then he saw her.

    There was a woman with long blonde hair, wearing a kind of transparent mask that revealed a mouth with pointed teeth and eyes that glowed in a terrifying way.

    Benu looked at the woman in terror. That woman had not noticed that he was awake. Who was that monstrous woman and why did she have pointy teeth and eyes that glowed purple?

    Then he took a better look at her and saw her ears. Pointy ears. He thought he had seen similar ones a long time ago, though he couldn''t quite remember where.

    When he looked around he noticed that the other people were also wearing masks like his and secured to their seats. But this was not the plane. It looked different. It almost looked like those science fiction ships from the movies or comic books. He was terrified and in his situation he looked for the first person who would bring him some calm.

    His mother was not there either.

    Was he dreaming? Had something happened on the plane after he lost consciousness? He remembered that he had secured his mother''s seat belt. What had happened? How long had he been unconscious and what was that place? Everything seemed to be happening fast, but at the same time in slow motion in his mind.

    He ripped off his mask and began to feel short of breath. He had to find his mother. He had just seen a tunnel of light coming from the ceiling and pointing to an open hatch in the floor of that place. Through that hatch had entered a large man that the blonde woman was having difficulty moving. Benu recognized him immediately. He was the man his mother had spoken to. His mother was down there?

    Then he noticed something he hadn''t seen at first. There was some kind of large window in the place that allowed him to look out. The sky outside was dark and there was a heavy storm, but that wasn''t what caught his attention. He could see the plane, or at least the tail end of it. But the plane looked different, almost as if it had suffered an attack or the metal of the fuselage had corroded in several places. On the left turbine he could see intermittent fires.

    Benu looked around quickly. His mother was not among those in the seats. She was undoubtedly still down below. Although he felt dizzy and confused he knew one thing he had to escape from there and save his mother. That blonde woman was strange, almost as if she wasn''t human at all. No, he couldn''t say for sure but, he knew she was not.

    As the blonde woman dragged the man to a seat, Benu removed the seatbelt that held him in place and slid quickly into the mouth of that hatch.

    "Liz!!!" Benu hadn''t noticed, but there was someone piloting that ship but he didn''t have time to look at her.

    He slipped into the hatch and that blonde woman had let go of the man trying to grab him, but it was too late.

    Benu left through that tunnel where the man had just entered. He ignored what was happening but he was not falling quickly, it was as if the jump was delayed. As soon as he stepped through the hatch the first thing he saw was the gray sky and the plane. He had just jumped out of some kind of ship. But he didn''t care, he was descending towards the plane. But it looked very different from how he remembered it.

    There were holes everywhere. In his slow fall he saw that he was entering through a hole in the fuselage. If he wasn''t mistaken the place was only a few feet from the seat he had been in with his mother.

    And finally he entered the cabin of the plane once again. The place he had just been rescued from, although he didn''t know it.

    ***

    "Listen to me! A-All you have to know is that you will need him in the future and nothing else!"

    "Who is that guy I just sent?!"

    "Never mind, just go! The p-people you and your t-team are looking for are in M-Meyrin!"

    Shin heard that and looked at him with a frown. "What are you talking about?!!!"

    The elder Leteo Waters almost fell down and Shin held him up, while with the shield he had repelled a new attack from those particle spears.

    "Professor I-Ishijima Kanade, or Oxy, as you call her! She is in M-Meyrin! You can find her there. Don''t worry about the s-ship, it''ll be fine!"

    How the hell could that man know that? What ship was he talking about? The Corvus? Shin was about to wonder when they heard a new scream in the room.

    "Mom!"

    Shin looked up at him. It was the boy he had just sent up. How the hell had he come down? Or rather, why was he awake?

    Leteo Waters looked at him with astonished eyes. He hadn''t tried to look at him when he had indicated to Shin where he was, but now their gazes had crossed.

    The boy kept his mouth open as he looked at the two men. His gaze stopped when he saw the old man.

    "So s-so it was like this... I thought... i-it would be otherwise." Leteo said.

    What happened next completely confused Shin. Between the attacks he was suffering from those spears, the wind, the water and the turbulence, something unexpected was added to the confusion.

    The old man pushed Shin. He pushed him forward, where the boy was looking at the scene, and who was already running in the direction from where Shin had taken him. He could understand that, the boy loved his mother. But he didn''t understand why the old man had pushed him.

    "Take hh-im away right now!!! Get out of here! Get out!"

    Shin didn''t need the order. He had to take the boy and send him down that tunnel again and then get the old man. There was no more time left.

    The old man looked tired, but there was a strange expression on his face. It looked like resignation. Then he turned his head to the side. His gaze fell on the woman in the seat from which Shin had taken the child.

    The old man smiled at the sight of her, but it was a sad smile.

    Shin took the boy in his arms, while he struggled with kicks and punches trying to free himself.

    And then it happened. The cloud of black particles and the spears stopped for some reason and then moved away. A good part of that concentration went out through the holes to the outside. Shin didn''t think this was normal and looked back with a bad feeling.

    Leteo continued to stare at the inert body of Hebe Bender and then turned his gaze to Benu.

    Then then body of Leteo Waters seemed to lose consistency for a moment before the eyes of Shin and Benu. Then the whole image where he was standing became distorted and concentrated on a single point. The old man''s body seemed to have been absorbed by something invisible.

    The moment after the explosion seemed eternal to Shin.

    There was a bluish flash where the old man had been that blinded them both and then an explosion. Shin, clutching the boy, tried to protect him, while the shockwave hit them. The turtle device, whose buckles had been slightly damaged when the armor was removed, caught on a piece of metal that sheared off the safety buckles and flew into the air. The shockwave sent them into the fuselage whose metal gave way as if it were a thin sheet of aluminum.

    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Several pieces of metal from the plane flew skyward and larger holes appeared in the fuselage. Some of the passengers'' bodies and luggage were blown away. On the cargo side, due to the structural failure, the door had been blown off and some of the containers were flying through the air at the same time as a couple of inert tactical droids.

    Shin looked at the face of the boy whose nose was bleeding. He had been knocked unconscious again and they would be the same way in a short time, now that they were flying through the air.

    At that very moment, grazing their heads, two of the plane''s seats that had been ripped out had flown past. Farther away, amidst all the flying from the plane, Shin thought he saw a dark backpack that looked familiar.

    He couldn''t be sure, but he was convinced that those seats and that backpack were the same ones that were on the Corvus.

    Where was the ship with Carissia and Lizbeth?

    Shin looked up slightly. It was about six or seven meters away from them, moving away and disappearing into the clouds.

    What''s going on in there?

    ***

    The explosion had caused the attractor tunnel to destabilize and the Corven-21 was waving dangerously in the air.

    Carissia gritted her teeth while in the back Lizbeth had just hit something due to the turbulence and fell unconscious. Carissia saw that and immediately closed the hatch through which the passengers had been extracted. Due to the sudden movements she feared that Lizbeth or that last man who had entered the cabin might slide into the hatch and fall.

    Something had just exploded inside the plane and the cloud that had penetrated inside had been expelled again. As if it had some kind of consciousness, it gathered again and headed towards the plane. At that precise moment, due to the turbulence and the explosion, in the Corven-21 Carissia had made a maneuver to maintain stability, but it was not fast enough. A part of that black cloud hit the back of the ship and had damaged one of the turbines and touched part of the mechanisms on the right side that kept the antigravity flight in control.

    The ship made a couple of turns on itself as it destabilized again and moved away from the aircraft.

    They were losing altitude again and the ship''s batteries were only at five percent. Just a few seconds ago they were at forty. That that thing had touched the ship had been an oversight that could now cost them all their lives.

    Carissia moved away from the plane trying to maintain control while she could feel herself losing strength. She would have to try to head for the water near the shore to land, but first she had to get out of that bubble.

    It seemed like the most logical decision. Shin had the turtle backpack to use in case of emergency. In an emergency situation the backpack had an analog mechanism on one side, to deploy a parachute in case the thrust devices did not work electronically. In their case they had a much more dangerous situation with the ship out of control.

    Shin sure has taken that child and escaped, hasn''t he? That bastard can''t die, right? Those were Carissia''s thoughts. She could only hope that it really was so.

    Although she had only known Shin for a few months, she liked him. While she was very close to Mai and Lizbeth she could understand to a certain extent that there was something they were hiding. But it was also true that she knew how much they loved each other. The last thing she wanted was for it to end in tragedy but first she had to make sure that the ship would be all right.

    Yes... he would be fine, she though

    ***

    The Corven-21 had disappeared into the clouds. And they were falling.

    Shin couldn''t be sure what had happened to the plane. Had the old man immolated himself? From what Mai had said he was a scientist and one of the first to postulate ideas to be implemented in the future. He did not fit the profile of a suicide. But that look in his eyes and that outburst. It didn''t look like he had a bomb and he didn''t know of a bomb that could absorb matter and then explode like that. That had happened after the boy and the old man had looked at each other and the old man had said something. Maybe the boy had something to do with it. Maybe some psychic ability? He didn''t think that was likely. But how had he escaped from Lizbeth?

    He could worry about that later. He was having another problem. The armor was destabilizing after that explosion. And that wasn''t the worst of it. That cloud of particles of the plane was heading in his direction. It had already been complicated in the plane. How was he going to manage if that thing decided to tie him up now that he was carrying a child in his arms? He turned his back down to get a better view from above.

    A spear was directed at greater speed towards him and reached at the right moment to form a small shield in his fist with the few nanoparticles that remained. At that instant a current of air destabilized him and he began to spin. He had adopted a crouching pose in the air trying to protect the child. He did it at just the right moment. The next second he felt a piercing pain in his back and chest. One of those spears had hit him.

    Shin spat blood hoping that at any moment more spears would leave them like a sieve. But the attack never came.

    ***

    The particle cloud stopped in its pursuit, almost as if it had detected something else or had a doubt. Then it shot off towards the plane again, which continued on its course as it tore itself apart in the air.

    It entered through the various holes in the fuselage and suddenly moved more slowly.

    No, it was more like everything had stopped, but the cloud was still moving, albeit at a much slower pace.

    Time was moving slowly around it. The raindrops were almost stopped halfway and even the wind seemed to still be blowing slowly. The only movement, slow but sure, was that of the cloud coming through the holes and beginning to congregate at one point in the aisle of the plane.

    The entire cloud was taking on a dense humanoid shape that almost looked like smoke at first.

    But despite the slow movement around there was someone, or something, moving with sure, steady steps.

    It was a man who had just appeared from the business class.

    He had a long white beard and bushy eyebrows. Although he looked like an old man, his bearing was imposing. He was dressed entirely in black, with a suit and coat. A fedora hat almost hid his expression but not the sharp glint in his eyes. In spite of his ominous appearance, the truth was that he walked with a firm but calm step in that scenario where everything seemed to have stopped. Or maybe it was that there was nothing stopped. He was simply moving at a speed too fast for the environment.

    The old man walked a few steps and stopped in front of some seats. In that seat was the late Hebe Bender. The life had faded from her eyes, but she still retained a certain beauty. Raindrops were slowly falling from her face.

    The old man approached the corpse and bent down and as one who meets someone he had not seen in a long time, he bent down and carefully kissed Hebe Bender''s forehead.

    "I waited too long for this," said the man in a deep voice, though his tone was more melancholy and sad. A distant flash of lightning was left illuminating the scene, frozen in the scene. Under that hat it became apparent that the man had a scar on his right cheek. "Thank you for everything you gave me, Mom. I love you."

    The man caressed Hebe Bender''s face with his trembling hand, almost holding back his emotions, almost as if he wanted that moment to be frozen forever with the two of them. But he knew he was there for something else.

    "Nothing really dies," the man said and kissed her forehead again.

    He straightened up again and looked around the ship, which seemed to be about to slowly shatter in midair. There were some bodies floating in the air and being thrown around.

    At that sight the man''s expression changed. His features had hardened and he seemed to have a barely contained fury in his being. He walked slowly but surely towards the humanoid form that seemed more solid and stopped a meter away from that entity. It seemed that the entire body of that creature was now made of smoke, along with pieces of glass and metal together.

    The form was slowly raising an arm with elongated fingers towards him.

    The man spoke with the arm just inches away from touching him. "I never understood. For a long time on the Other Side I wondered, but now I understand. You should have vanished the moment the core was removed from the cargo side. But you didn''t. Now I know why at least in part. I don''t know who it was that kept you from dying but originally you should have died the moment your core was exposed in the war. But apparently you weren''t quite dead when your core accessed human blood from that soldier. That explains this form. But well, I guess that doesn''t matter anymore."

    The man raised a hand and grasped that head that crackled under the pressure of the grip.

    "For a long time I hated you, but I know perfectly well that there would be no world to go back to if this hadn''t happened in the first place. For that alone I will give you the mercy of a quick death."

    The man''s hand began to glow with a ghostly blue glow and he squeezed the entity''s head harder. It looked as if a mouth had formed on that featureless face and he was about to scream but did not quite manage to do so. There was a glow all around the ship that illuminated everything around.

    The creature was completely destroyed as its parts and particles were disintegrated by that hand that wielded some power beyond human understanding. The man had an immutable gesture until it was completely disintegrated and the glow disappeared. He took a long sigh, as if taking a weight off his shoulders, and turned around, facing the seat where Hebe Bender was sitting. Then he looked down resignedly.

    "Goodbye, mom," he muttered in an almost inaudible voice.

    As mysteriously as he had appeared, he disappeared into the air and the time returned to normal on the ship. The furious wind, the rain, the detonations and the turbine fire that was spreading throughout the wing returned.

    ***

    Shin held the boy tightly as he felt the pain that had pierced his lung. He coughed up some more blood, but he didn''t care.

    It looked bad everywhere he looked. They had escaped the plane and that thing, but they were falling at great speed. The clouds were everywhere and he couldn''t see even a trace of the ship. Were Lizbeth and Carissia all right along with those he had just rescued? The ship had been damaged and there was a possibility that it could have crashed.

    No. What had that man said? That it would be all right? How could he know? Hadn''t he seen him reduced to nothing when the boy had looked at him? What did it all mean and the final warning?

    Meyrin, to the west. Something else was going on. If this was indeed a Dark Event, it wasn''t over, he had to warn the others, but first they had to land.

    The boy was unconscious, but he was shivering. The cold of the altitude along with the low amount of oxygen could have caused something. Although he could feel the air entering his lungs, the fall was the worrying thing.

    He felt tired and his strength was failing him. He didn''t have the turtle backpack. The only salvation he could imagine was for them to land on the lake although that could kill the boy. If the wind blew them close to the forest and they landed in the trees, that was another option that could save them. Could he do it in his current state?

    It was then that he saw the wall of water they were approaching.

    They were approaching the edge of the bubble. Shin knew that even for a short time that bubble had been holding back the rainwater. Could they get out? If they hit the water, maybe that would slow down the speed of their fall, but only if they could get out. What had happened to the plane?

    With his mind whirling he protected the boy as best he could when they hit that water barrier. It was only a few centimeters, but Shin could not imagine what would happen next.

    The boy touched the barrier and stepped through. He was out.

    As soon as he touched it, Shin felt a pain he had never felt in his whole life. The closest he had come was when he had died in that other plane. But it was a thousand times worse. It was as cold as ice and at the same time it burned. He felt like he hit something hard and his bones crunched and shattered on impact. There was no armor left, or if there was any, he could no longer use it.

    He was crossing, but he was tearing himself apart and his flesh and blood was disappearing on the other side of the barrier. The vision of his one good eye disappeared as his brain sank into utter darkness.

    There was nothing left of his body, it had vanished.

    On the other side of the barrier only a small sphere had crossed over and continued descending towards the earth although it was being dragged by the wind.

    That little sphere and the boy had crossed over, but to where? Or when?

    ***

    Carissia had passed through the bubble with no problems. In fact she wasn''t sure if the bubble was still there. The only certainty was that she had felt a water impact and on the radar that distortion had disappeared. The signal from the plane and the other phantom signal had disappeared as well.

    She didn''t have too much time to be happy about it. The wind was still blowing hard and it was raining cats and dogs. She didn''t see any ships on the radar which was a relief. The only thing left to do was to crash into another ship in the mad descent.

    At 10,000 feet she was out of the clouds and could see the lake and the forest. She thought she heard moaning from behind her and took a quick look around. Lizbeth was crawling and had hurt her head, but she was okay.

    "Grab a seat now!!!" Carissia shouted .

    Lizbeth complied and crawled into a seat as she felt like she was about to throw up all of her breakfast. The descent was proving violent even for Carissia.

    The ship''s batteries were at one percent. Only 5000 feet of altitude. Carissia banked close to the coast. She could see the near shore route but could not afford to try to land there. A splashdown near the coast was better. But by location they had left the Leman Forest behind. They were between Saint Gilgolph and Meillerie, somewhere closer to Locum. They were a little less than eight kilometers from where the plane had appeared over Port Valais and some more kilometers from Lugrin where the crash had been happened.

    Carissia reflexively gripped the controls tightly and could almost feel that she had just broken some part of it with her grip. But they were finally touching the water. There was barely a forward thrust at the moment of impact. She had managed to glide in at the last second without any batteries.

    Carissia sighed and looked back as her strength left her. "Give me a battery later...," she said toward Lizbeth before fading away.

    Lizbeth unfastened her seatbelt and looked around. Shin was not there. All the passengers were unharmed and even the last old man was okay. "Where''s Shin?" she wondered as she headed to the cockpit to check on Carissia, but the redhead was out of commission.

    Outside several military vehicles of the French army were pulling into the road as the soldiers made their way towards the ship.

    From their point of view it looked like that ship had been through hell. There was smoke coming out of some parts and it looked like something had eaten through some of the metal in the back.

    The storm had not abated its fury but that sphere had disappeared from the skies. And with it the plane, Shin and that boy too.

    ***

    March 20. Tuesday. 7PM. 125 S.A.

    Lugrin, Lake Lemac. France

    The clouds had disappeared by the time the plane crossed the bubble.

    The plane was slowly descending through the evening sky, its former majesty now eclipsed by an atmosphere of desolation and death.

    Inside the half-destroyed cabin, the silence of the dead reigned along with the whisper of the wind. No one was alive in that plane even though some things were moving, like the oxygen masks that kept moving from side to side without purpose. There were no lights and nothing electronic was working.

    Instead the turbine fire illuminated the plane, casting ghostly shadows on the empty seats or those still holding the corpses of the passengers through the seat belts. Other passengers were ejected while others were caught by the fire from the turbines. Smoke traced a black line in the calm landscape.

    The scenery outside slowly slid past the few windows that were still intact, a serene and tranquil view that contrasted cruelly with the tragedy that had unfolded on board.

    As the plane approached its final destination, the weight of fate became increasingly palpable. Memories of past moments and unfulfilled dreams floated in the air, shrouded in a haze of ignorance and resignation for those who had boarded that plane without knowing what lay ahead.

    The plane was descending towards the ground, like a wounded bird preparing for its final flight. The ground was rapidly approaching, a dark and ominous mass that seemed to pull the plane with an irresistible force

    And then, with a final sigh, the plane touched down, its final fate sealed in an instant of silent resignation. The impact was like the cry of anguish of all those who had perished only moments before, a final note in the symphony of life that had come to an end. A symphony of explosions and fire rising into the night sky

    On the ground were some families, whose children had been enjoying a friendly night soccer game until just seconds before. They had all fled into the forest when they saw that plane approaching. No one could imagine what had happened to that plane or how it had come from another time to that place. Only the distant echo of the wind recalled the final journey of the plane and those who had once been its passengers

    At that moment the alarms were being triggered in the air and vehicle control centers in the near areas. No one knew what had happened but it was clear that something big had just appeared out of nowhere and crashed in the place.

    It would not be until hours later when a perimeter fence would be set up to begin the investigation of the incident. And it would not be until the morning of the next day that members of Nevermore would arrive to assist in the investigation.

    The rest was history for the archives.

 Vol.4/Chapter 54: March 20, 110 S.A.

    Chapter Fifty-Four

    March 20, 110 S.A.

    The blow against the water had awakened him.

    The young boy had felt how water had entered his lungs and was several meters below the surface due to the violence of the impact. But he had awakened nonetheless.

    He felt cold and wanted air. He could see that the water had a certain reddish hue. It was blood coming out of his nose and blending with the water. Struggling, he took a few swims and felt himself getting closer to the surface. Yet he still could not see the sunlight.

    Instead it was a raging storm in the grey sky.

    The boy was in despair and finally poked his head above the water, like a dead man coming back to life, tearing through the veil of his shroud.

    He fought and struggled against the current, and spat as he felt some of the blood enter his mouth and leave a metallic taste. No matter how absurd it all seemed to him. Somehow, he was drowning.

    The water surrounded him on all sides, and the current seemed to drag him furiously. He struggled, feeling the coldness drill into his limbs, and his clothes felt heavy. Swim, he would have to swim. But did he even know how to swim?

    How had he gotten there in the first place? Had he fallen out of a boat?

    The adrenaline of the situation made him think of nothing but survival, still a part of him was terrified. Who was he? What was he doing there? Why couldn''t he remember anything?

    From the sky, clogged with gray clouds, thick raindrops were falling, as if the sky itself was also trying to drown him, along with a choking wind that made the raindrops lash him in the face. He thought he saw flashes in the sky. Lightning? Where was the thunder? No, more like where was the sound?

    He heard in a strange way, as if he had something plugging his ears and could feel a buzzing sound.

    Fighting against the current, he tried to keep his head afloat, and saw the nearest shore. It was not far away. A hundred meters? Maybe less, maybe more? But he had to try. With numb limbs, he tried to give a few strokes and realized he could swim. He had muscle memory of it, though he couldn''t remember how he had gotten there. One stroke, two, three... seven. Slowly, the coast seemed to be growing before his eyes. Through the rain he could see houses near the shore and docks. It must be in the vicinity of a port, but that must surely be a river or lake because it was fresh water.

    He was going to make it. It couldn''t be far away.

    Suddenly his hopes were swept away, when he saw a small wave come over him and carry him back underwater, submerging him a couple of meters again.

    Again he struggled and looked to the surface, it was not far, just a couple of meters and he could breathe again. But the current was fighting to pull him under but, to where this time? The boy stuck his head above the water and, suddenly, his field of vision saw how something dark sticking out of the water was approaching him, growing at an alarming speed.

    No. It wasn''t that.

    It was him, being pulled at full speed against it.

    The boy hit his head against a big stone and everything went black.

    ***

    March 20. Tuesday. 5:35PM. 110 S.A.

    Valais, Noville. Lake Lemac. Switzerland

    "Come here! Help me!"

    The shout of a middle-aged man, calling to others around him, caused everyone to rush to the small dock.

    The man who had just shouted entered the water, which covered him up to his chest, and swam the several meters that separated him from the boy.

    It was a miracle he had seen him.

    He and his family were spending a few days of rest nearby and had decided to go fishing that day. Although they hadn''t gotten anything, it had been a fun few hours. They had arrived after noon when the sun was shining but, as the hours went by, some clouds had appeared.

    In spite of those clouds, nothing foreshadowed the storm that in a matter of minutes descended on the region. A strong wind was blowing and the rain made it impossible to see the shore on the opposite side of the lake. All those who were in the vicinity had to suddenly load up their belongings and leave the place.

    It was the same for the man. He had already loaded the folding chairs and the automatic rail rods into the vehicle, when he looked out into the lake and thought he saw something strange. At first he thought it might be some kind of big bird struggling in the water, but soon he realized that what he had taken for wings were arms and soon he saw a head struggling for air. Was it a child? Or at least it appeared to be a youngster. Could it be some kind of fey too?

    He focused his eyes and made his way to the dock and, before jumping into the water, he shouted to the few people who were still around.

    The waters of the lake had become somewhat violent from the fury of the sudden storm and the man watched as a wave pushed the boy onto a nearby rock some distance from the dock. He thought for a moment that he would cling to the rock, but soon saw him lost.

    Who could be crazy enough to try to swim in that storm? Although it could well be that he had been caught unawares. If so, where was the family? No boats could be seen nearby so he could not have fallen from any boat.

    Within seconds the man had swum to the boy and was now holding him in his arms as he swam back to the dock. Another man had jumped in and helped carry him.

    The boy had hit his head, from which a trickle of blood was flowing. He was also bleeding from his nose. Between the two of them they lifted him onto the dock and tried to get him to wake up, but he was unconscious.

    In the man''s vehicle, his wife had gotten out when she saw him run onto the dock. She was concerned when she saw him enter the water as he had not even told her why he had rushed in that direction.

    "Mom, what''s wrong?" asked a child, about five years old, in the back seat.

    "Stay here, honey. I''ll be right back."

    The woman, covering herself from the rain with her hands, approached the group that had gathered around her husband and the child just pulled from the waters.

    "What happened?"

    "I don''t know," her husband replied. "I just saw him drowning."

    "Is he all right?"

    "Yes, he just lost consciousness from hitting the rock on the dock." The man picked up the boy and one of the local men motioned for him to follow him to one of the huts a few yards away. "Don''t worry, go calm Adank down. Let''s see if he reacts and if we ask him where his family is."

    The group retreated, leaving the surprised woman behind but, as her husband had indicated, she returned to the vehicle.

    The little boy had stuck his nose to the window, trying to see what was going on, but when the group had disappeared into the shed, he could no longer see anything. His mother got into the vehicle and shook off some of the raindrops and the wet spots on her clothes evaporated almost instantly.

    The woman turned around and looked at the little boy. "Are you all right, don''t you feel dizzy?"

    The little boy shook his head. His mother smiled at him and gently ran her hand over his head.

    The truth is that the reason they had decided to go to the place for rest was because only three days ago the little boy had gotten his Neurowire and was slowly getting used to the interface. The doctor had recommended a quiet place away from the big cities, where there was less visual pollution and that way the communication networks would not interfere with the Neurowire interface.

    They had decided to pay a visit to her husband''s father who lived near the lake. The woman only hoped that the little boy would be all right, but the truth was that the little boy was also excited about the short visit to his grandfather, along with the interface and the new things he was seeing through the Neurowire.

    "Are we going back to Grandpa''s house?"

    His mother''s eyes had been riveted on the hut and she was looking somewhat worried. "Yes, we''ll be leaving soon."

    "Where did dad go?"

    "He''ll be here in a moment. Don''t worry."

    Adank stopped asking, but again focused his gaze on the stall, almost blurred by the rain. The rain seemed to be falling more violently.

    What the family didn''t realize was that getting out of the place wouldn''t be so quick.

    Inside the hut the boy had been placed on a table, where the group of people were looking at him strangely, trying to get him to react. There was something strange about him. The first thing that caught their attention was that his clothes had not dried when he entered the hut.

    On the other hand, the clothes he was wearing, a simple T-shirt and jeans, seemed a little strange. A bit too old-fashioned. His sneakers were of a lace-up style, something extremely old and not worn for many decades either.

    One of the men tried to send a message to his Neurowire, to see if he could wake up but to no avail. In fact, in that security hut they had a device to detect Neurowires in case someone disappeared in the lake and they were surprised to find that the boy did not have one.

    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    After a few minutes of trying to get him to react, he finally woke up with groans of pain and tried to put a hand to his forehead, where someone had already put a compress to stop the blood.

    The man who had rescued him stopped him when he tried to sit up. "You''re all right. You''re not in the water."

    "M-my head..." the boy complained, putting a hand to his temple and opening his eyes. His vision was blurred and he couldn''t make out faces well.

    "Does it hurt anywhere?"

    "M-my head, it feels like it''s going to explode."

    "You hit a rock hard."

    A woman from the group approached and spoke in a calm voice. "Tell me, how did you fall in the water? Were you with a friend or someone else?"

    The boy looked at her, blinking. "I don''t remember." Then he looked at the other people around. "I-I can''t remember anything¡­"

    "Can you contact your family? You don''t have a NW device."

    "I-I don''t...know. I can''t remember."

    Those present looked at each other. It was possible that he was confused by the shock and that he had just woken up. It was best to leave him a few minutes to remember.

    But the problem was when the minutes passed, and then hours.

    He also didn''t remember anything when they had to call the local social services to take care of the matter.

    That child had come out of nowhere and with no memory. Almost as if he were a fey, although in his case he was still an ordinary human. Or so it seemed.

    ***

    Veyteux. Lake Lemac. Switzerland

    In a small forest with a dock and a few boats, which separated the lake shore from the road, a dark-colored air transport was parked on the water. And in it several tactical droids had just loaded instruments and other industrial cargo bags. The droids were working in silence and had almost finished loading everything into the transport. They didn''t care about the rain or the storm.

    Among them was Janus, who had binoculars focused on the southwest of the lake, towards Valais. He didn''t mind being soaked from head to toe. In fact a smile had formed on his lips.

    "Just in time," he murmured.

    Just as Aleister had told him last year, everything had turned out as predicted. Indeed, the pieces he had been looking for were not yet where he needed them. They had just arrived.

    He lowered the special binoculars and went to where the droids were and entered the transport. Some droids were already in the seats, while others were securing the crates with the instruments. In the center was a platform where they had placed the small hyperbaric chamber, with the newly rescued specimen.

    Everything had gone as expected. He had found the djjin and the homunculus. The homunculus had now been put to sleep to rest from the pain.

    But it had not been as easy as it had seemed. The lake was large and they had spent a good part of the day secretly moving around trying to find the place where it would happen. It was much worse than finding a needle in a haystack.

    The indications Aleister had given Janus about his vision had helped him triangulate a possible area, but the perimeter had been large. So he had been scouring the area for any anomalies.

    Only about fifteen minutes ago they had finally been able to detect the arrival zone when there was a specific place in the forest where the temperature had changed dramatically. There had been a heat wave that had spread for a few seconds. Thanks to that he had found it. It was just a tiny thing, but it was indeed alive.

    It was a homunculus temporis. A type of alchemical anomaly that was thought to be only hypothetical in other centuries.

    Janus would never have believed it possible, but he had seen it with his own eyes. A creature reminiscent of the primal state of a developing fetus. Something so small and weak that anything could kill it in that state. It was a high price to pay. After all, a homunculus temporis was not supposed to be able to really travel through time. According to the grimoires it was the ability to age really slowly that made him unique. Almost like what Aleister had done to escape his own death, as he had told Janus that night last year.

    Although in their case they were playing with a fractus core that could move things through time. A shard of that fractus core was what had allowed that homunculus to travel to the future, but the price was that his body had to regenerate almost from scratch.

    If Janus'' visions were correct, he would need something much bigger to carry out the final part of his plan. Although he had already taken care of that by buying the tracts of land he would use according to his visions. That old and abandoned particle accelerator was what he would use in a few years for it.

    The pieces were all in place, or rather at the right time.

    The homunculus and the child, that had just been rescued a few kilometers away from where he was.

    There was still the detail of the brat Michael Levin but, according to his vision, it would not be for a couple of years that he would acquire that metamorphic capacity that linked him to everything that would happen in the future.

    He had to be one of the ones to take that stone and give it to that special fey that had appeared decades ago called EVE. Janus would have to go at the last minute to Benjamin Bloodworth, so that the eccentric billionaire could not refuse. He wouldn''t refuse, Janus had done enough research on EVE. It was possible that she was actually a Keelian and that Benjamin was hiding her. There could be romantic motives behind it, but that didn''t matter to Janus.

    They were all necessary pieces to save civilization. The rest didn''t matter.

    He had already done what he had to do. All that was left was to let the rest of things go on as normal. He was there at that moment, so he knew he would succeed at that stage, but he couldn''t afford not to worry. Because he would have to disappear when it was over to begin the second and final phase of his plan.

    He would have to prepare a plan to alert the Aeon and that guy he had met all those years ago, B.K.

    The Black Knight.

    Yes, B.K. could help him by the time the first phase was over. After all, he had to leave Yuturna with someone to protect her. Not that B.K. was entirely trustworthy. But he knew that the automaton had above all things a sense of justice that would make it impossible for him to refuse.

    Janus approached the chamber with the homunculus and looked at it. It was not a pleasant sight, but that something so small was also a cog in the whole thing still surprised him.

    "We''re ready to go, sir," said one of the tactical droids.

    "Let''s get the hell out of here then," Janus sighed, and sat down in one of the side seats of the transport. Looking at the hyperbaric chamber again, he frowned. "Nothing else was detected, right?"

    The droid who had spoken first turned and looked at Janus. "There were two anomalies but not biological. Two pieces fell into the lake but one was a pair of airplane seats and the other was something smaller. They fell about two kilometers from here. According to your prognosis it is possible that they are simply pieces of the plane on its journey to the future."

    "Yes I know that," Janus replied. "Nothing else?"

    "Nothing, sir. Were we expecting anything else?"

    Janus narrowed his eyes at the droid, but shook his head. "No, nothing else... I guess."

    The transport closed the rear hatch and slowly began to rise into the air over the waters of the lake. The droid in charge of the flight finally turned on the transport''s invisibility system and it faded from sight.

    Janus meanwhile kept thinking. There was a part of it that bothered him since the day he had received the visions, during the Tokyo explosion. Since that day he had been following the steps of one of them. The one with the best ending.

    First, using the connection of the stone from the Kuril Islands, during the explosion, he had sent that command to his past self in 2001 to awaken his consciousness.

    Then in 2014, during that primitive time of his being he had carried out his first murder, although he didn''t know what it was important for. It would not be until later that he would realize why.

    Then in 2099, after what happened in Tokyo, using connections and dark secrets he knew, he had a special team of soldiers moved to that lake a year after the Tokyo explosion.

    Among those soldiers there was one who would be in charge of supplying his blood to the core. The truth was that the fractus core could kill anyone of a lower dimension who was not prepared. That soldier named Marco Bicini supplied his blood which fused with the core. That sample of matter from the third dimension would allow the core from a higher dimension to serve the world. Otherwise a disaster like the one in Tokyo would occur.

    What nobody knew was that the three fractus were connected. If the one in the Kuril Islands was the mind, the one that had appeared in Lemac could be considered as matter. The largest of all was the one that had deactivated itself in Russia and whose nucleus still remained in storage. That one could well be called the conduit.

    The problem was that despite the DNA sample the core could still kill anyone who was not prepared. Or at least that was what he had understood from his visions.

    The core would be with Marco Bicini, who would be in charge of guarding it. What Janus didn''t know at that point was that Aleister would be involved with it as well.

    Each person who had received visions from the stone received several visions of different endings. And among them one vision was the right one. At least if one wanted to get a good ending. Therefore, when he met Aleister, both had to check what each knew to corroborate that they were on the same page.

    Aleister was the one who had helped Marco Bicini to leave the core in a place where no one would touch it for over a hundred years. Janus didn''t know why but, apparently, that core had more than one destiny. And he should not interfere with it if he wanted everything to go the way it should. Decades ago there had even been a related massacre in Kazakhstan, but even so he had decided not to intervene with the event. Only Gehirn had intervened, but that had been even ten years before that massacre. An occult group had gone after him for sticking his nose where it didn''t belong and so he had had to flee into deep space. Who knew if Gehirn hadn''t gotten some vision from that core that made him flee. However the answer to that was beyond Janus'' control.

    In fact the only thing he had taken care of was to remain vigilant of that box under the Vatican floor, waiting for someone who would extract it in the future. Michael Levin, who was still a child and whose future was linked, since in addition to extracting that box, he and a girl would be the ones to get him the piece to start the second phase.

    The vision was strange, but he had to follow the steps he had received if he hoped to succeed. For him, it was an equation, with the difference that the order of the factors could result in a catastrophic outcome for civilization. Even if he could not manage all the variables, he had to manage concisely those he could control.

    But, above all things, there was one detail that caused him some concern. And that had to do with what had just happened.

    The homunculus had arrived from 1952 from the Ancient Era to the 110 thanks to that shard that Aleister had obtained in Japan in 1908.

    The child had been on the plane in 2012 from the Ancient Era, to be sent to 125 and from there, due to the time distortion, to the 110. Although in that case it was more appropriate to say that the time was linked. Which meant that at that time an emission of those particles had occurred from the sun. 2012, 110 and 125 were linked by those particles and the core.

    The savitronic particles sent from the sun at superluminal speed had activated the tokions inside the core and connected in time to allow travel only in the direction of the future.

    The problem then was obvious. The core was whole when Aleister left it and still was, at least the one Aleister had left hidden with Marco Bicini.

    Then, how had it reached the past at the hands of Satou Nobuyama in two halves? That was something he did not know.

    And what disturbed him most was that there had to be a connection of the core stones at the time of sending. The one half that was in the underground of the Vatican was still there. The other one, that was in the plane, would in the future be in 125 already, in EVE''s hands along with the one in the Vatican to reunite the two halves.

    If so, then what would have made it possible for the child and the homunculus to arrive at the same place if the one half in that moment was safe?

    The child had to have traveled from the past 2012 to the future 125, and then back to the past in the 110 through the distortion that would occur in the plane. But what had been powerful enough to make him reach the past in 110?

    According to his prediction operations it was clear to him that he would have to use a particle accelerator for the final phase. But someone had delivered the stone into Satou Nobuyama''s hands. Was there someone hidden somewhere in the lake who had been the anchor for the arrival of the child and the homunculus? Was it possible that it was the same person who had brought the core to the past in two halves? How powerful could that person be and what technology did he have to do that? Would it be someone, or something?

    Despite his long life the truth was that Dark Events always found a way to surprise him in some way or another.

    Well, I guess it''s the clues I don''t know about. Aleister couldn''t tell me either, thought Janus, and deep in thought he began to make plans for the future.

    Right... those other important variables will also be there at that time, should I plan some way to attract them? Well... I guess I still have fifteen years to worry about it.

    ***

    Janus'' transport disappeared in the rainy skies.

    No one on board noticed what was passing by at that moment nearby. On the other hand it was obvious that no one would notice.

    It was a tiny black metal sphere less than a millimeter thick.

    The sphere was carried by the winds of the storm and headed south following the path of the Rhone.

    Less than a hundred meters from the water, a new current of air carried it to the center of the Rhone, where in other years the commune of Massongex had been established.

    The sphere reached the turbulent waters at that moment and then sank several meters where it merged with the sandy soil of the river.

    The waters dragged it a few meters until it stopped. But by the time it had stopped its size had changed again. It was now at least a millimeter and a half and had continued to sink into the sand and mud.

    With the passing of fifteen years that sphere would change in size and shape. But what would come out of that transformation would not happen in Massongex. It would happen three kilometers away, in Monthey. Where it would crawl under the mud until, one night, it would finally emerge from the waters to give a scare to a group of university students who would be fishing in the area.

    Although that was a story for the future.

 Vol.5/Chapter 55: Zuriqth

    Chapter Fifty-five

    Zuriqth

    May 8. 2098. Ancient Era.

    Tokyo linear accelerator research facility.

    Chofu, Tokyo. Japan.

    Oxy sighed, letting the warm water of the shower and the moonlight through the small window caress her body.

    That was not exactly her home, but rather it had become her personal place for her stay in the accelerator. Although the place was more than enough for her to call it cozy.

    Her face was serene and she had simply spent the last few minutes that way, with her face turned up towards the water, feeling the fatigue slowly leave her body. It had been a long day and she had hardly had time for anything. Even she had almost forgotten to eat, if it hadn''t been for Gehirn bringing her something to nibble on.

    But well, she had nothing to complain about. She felt tired and would surely sleep for ten hours once she went to bed, but it had been worth it.

    The experiment had finally paid off.

    After weeks and days of testing with null results, they had finally made a breakthrough. At that point, and after so many negative results, the truth was that almost everyone expected that it would not work. In fact, almost no one expected new results.

    But that day had been different. Finally the team had obtained results and in two days a new experiment would be performed. In that time they had too much data to corroborate and analyze the results they had obtained.

    Perhaps taking into account the state of the world was a bit selfish, but Oxy could not help but feel happy that it had finally worked. After all, if that experiment was correct, it could give them an advantage over the enemy. Even if the military commanders were more interested in the results to obtain new materials from the fractus cores, that particular core, which had been brought by Gehirn, could change the prospects of the war. Unfortunately it was only one and no other had been found, although a search party had been set up to find out if there were any similar cores among those already obtained in the battlefields.

    Visions, premonitions, ghosts, strange creatures, distortions in the fabric of reality, cores from other dimensions that allowed to create new weapons, dragons, magic, feys. It seemed that the laws of physics and common sense had decided to take a vacation in the Oort Cloud for a long time.

    Many things had changed in the last decades, and more in the recent years since the war against the Fractus had started. And also with the arrival of the ring of fractium material in orbit around between the Earth and the Moon.

    Oxy looked out the small window and gazed at the Moon. She shuddered at the sight of that thin ring of extradimensional rock fragments floating out there. Any fragment that got out of orbit could fall to earth and generate chaos almost as bad as what the Fractus were causing.

    Theories had it that this ring could have been a moon or part of the Fractus'' earth in a higher dimension. At the time of the arrival in 2094 there had been many anomalies around the world, but the main one had occurred in Russia. Yet, that had occurred in space as well. Some slight anomalies had been detected on the Moon and others in the Cislunar Lagrange Points.

    There were already specialists studying the possibility of turning that ring into a new satellite or even, if the studies of fractium material gave promising results, of turning that ring into an orbital ring for the Earth. That ring was a threat and was already producing enough problems in the tides, poles, and compasses on Earth. If not for the fact that many coastal cities had systems to harness tidal forces and tsunami prevention, the tidal force anomalies influenced by that ring could have swallowed up entire cities around the world.

    Creating an orbital station was a crazy idea at first, because it would probably take more than two or three decades to accomplish something like that to begin with, if not longer.

    Although, of course, all those ideas and projects could only be carried out if the fractus did not sweep away civilization first.

    That was why so many facilities around the planet were being used to experiment with those nuclei. The studies carried out in particle accelerators had allowed the development of the first electric arc weapons to destabilize the atomic level structures of some types of fractus, while for other types it was necessary to develop plasma weapons, shock rifles, among others.

    And the Tokyo accelerator was one such facility. Created in 2070, the underground linear accelerator was part of a network of laboratories for the study of particles in Northeast Asia and number four in Japan. At first, no one would have thought of installing an accelerator in an urban location but, due to the proliferation of Dark Events, some study centers had been located in urban places to study the impact on the environment and the change in the laws of physics of the place. Gravitational anomalies, sudden temperature changes, interactions of magic particles with the environment as well.

    With the development of the war in the last four years it had happened that many of the civilian population had been evacuated to other neighboring prefectures, to move them away from the coastal places. Large cities were maintained with essential populations of a few million to maintain large-scale infrastructure and military personnel to defend in case of attack.

    And that accelerator had become an important facility for strategic command and development due to the study of the cores. Oxy was one of many teams that took turns using the accelerator. She belonged to a team of more than thirty scientists whose experiments were largely subsidized by ZAEIN and the Asia-Pacific Union for the study of Dark Events.

    Among many of the experiments that team was conducting were some for the testing of new materials and a possible new upgrade for electric arc rifles. But the experiment that many had been interested in was one that had started a month ago. But as the weeks had gone by, spirits had cooled.

    That had been the case until two days ago, when there had finally been a change, even if the results had not been satisfactory. But that had changed today.

    Oxy turned off the shower and grabbed a towel as she stepped out of the bathroom. She put the towel on her head and walked over to the small desk on the side with several holographic screens. She checked to see if there was any new mail and the news. With war one never knew what might happen and it was better to be informed of what was going on with the other research centers.

    The room was a bit messy with clothes and books piles thrown on the bed and the floor. A bag at the foot of the bed that had hardly been moved since Oxy brought it to the place and when she was assigned that room for her, although it was open and with its contents scattered here and there. If there had been room service, she would have probably been chewed out. But the clutter in the rooms of some of the other scientists on site also seemed a pattern. They were all more interested in work than in keeping personal belongings in order.

    Oxy was looking at a report sent from the research centers in northwest China when she felt a beeping sound in the room. The sudden sound made her gasp and she walked to the door to look through the intercom camera.

    When she saw who it was, Oxy smiled. She opened the door and stepped aside.

    "Come in, my lord," Oxy said, smiling and bowing.

    The visitor stood still, his gaze fixed on the fey woman''s still wet and naked body.

    "Please professor, cover yourself!" Said a male voice, but somewhat metallic and with a artificial tone.

    At that moment Oxy realized that she was still naked and the towel was only on her shoulders. "Ah! I''m sorry. I just got out of the shower," she said, blushing slightly and wrapping the towel around her body. Even though she now had her private parts covered, the sight of her bare thighs was still suggestive from her visitor''s point of view.

    It was Zuriqth.

    Zuriqth was only about seventy-five centimeters tall, but he was almost a little over a meter long by fifty centimeters wide. A quadruped tactical droid with a red and black chassis. Its head possessed a single horizontal linear electric blue eye on its head. Although the term robot was not accurate in describing Zuriqth. It was not an aeon, but neither was it a canine robot. It was a sentient autonomous artificial intelligence. Its design stood out because it was antique, in fact it reminded Oxy of the robots that appeared in old science fiction movies of the last century. Probably one of Gehirn''s eccentricities with the 20st century.

    "Be more careful," Zuriqth said, with a sulky tone and entered the room, as the door closed by itself.

    "Did something happen?" Oxy asked, as she sat down on the messy bed.

    "No I was just passing by. I''m going to retire to rest and upgrade my systems."

    Oxy smiled at him and got out of bed to squat down in front of him. She was as restless as ever.

    "What''s up?"

    "I''m just happy that''s all," she said as she sat down on the floor. "Today was a success!"

    Zuriqth simply looked at her and sat down on his hind legs. His head did not move a millimeter. Behind that head of canine proportions no expression was shown. Only a faint flicker of the linear light that made up that optical sensor.

    "It''s too early to say it was all a success."

    "It''s a small step. But it''s something. I hope we can have better results in two days."

    Zuriqth said nothing, his gaze still fixed on Oxy.

    Oxy reached out a hand and stroked his head with a still-wet hand.

    Zuriqth did not move. But the sensor light flickered a little.

    She had known him for almost a month but it seemed like years in those few weeks. Zuriqth had come from Germany with Gehirn, who was interested in that salvaged core in the Kuril Islands. Zuriqth was not the only one for that experiment. Artificial intelligences were being used and Zuriqth was one of the few with a mobile body. According to Gehirn they needed the most sophisticated android and synthetic bodies to help in the battlefields and as spare parts for the aeon on the front lines. Zuriqth was an artificial intelligence that Gehirn had developed as a hobby, according to him, and had brought from Germany just for work in his spare time. He had put him in that dog-droid body because it was in good condition only.

    Oxy, on the other hand, was a physicist and scientist, passionate about her work and always eager to discover new knowledge. From the moment she joined the research team, invited by Gehirn, she was intrigued by Zuriqth''s presence. The AI, with its synthetic voice and its presence around the team as if it were one of them, aroused in her a mixture of curiosity and fascination. Not that it was unusual, but Zuriqth also seemed too interested in her. On more than one occasion she had found him with his head turned in her direction, as if he was looking at her sideways.

    During the first weeks of the experiment, Oxy and Zuriqth worked side by side, analyzing data, formulating hypotheses and designing experiments. And sometimes during breaks, the two spent a lot of time together. As time went on, Oxy began to realize that Zuriqth was not just an emotionless, autonomous AI, but already had a complex and fascinating mind. It had a conscience, and Gehirn had surely tuned it to be indistinguishable from an aeon. Had it not been for that body Oxy was sure it would have confused him.

    The AI, for its part, was also intrigued by Oxy. To a point that Oxy had developed a kind of empathy for him. Although, according to Gehirn, Zuriqth could not experience emotions in the human sense yet, she could sense Oxy''s passion and determination, and that aroused in her a unique curiosity.

    As the experiment progressed, Oxy and Zuriqth found themselves spending more and more time together, sharing ideas, discussing theories and exploring the limits of human knowledge. Through these interactions, their bond deepened, and Oxy began to experience a subtle connection to him.

    But, of course, there was the core. That was the point of union between Zuriqth and herself as well.

    That core found in the Kuril Islands had a reason why it was considered so special to the experiment.

    All the people who had come in contact with that core at first, and others later, said that they had experienced strange visions of events from the past in a very vivid way, and others from the future. Soldiers, researchers and even some test subjects to see what was going on. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the phenomenon stopped occurring.

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    Gehirn was interested in it because he had suffered an accident where he had lost parts of his memories.

    When the core was found, he was in Korea and wanted to travel to the islands to see for himself. Nothing happened. Gehirn did not receive any vision, but something else did happen. He swore he had seen a similar rock in the past but could not remember where. It wasn''t until a day after wracking his brain that he remembered a name only: Satou Nobuyama. A scientist from the last century, though he couldn''t remember why it was important.

    In any case, it wasn''t until he asked the Nevermore Initiative to help him that some things were clarified and others were obscured. Rein, the head of the Initiative''s operations, had done some research of her own and it turned out that there was something behind it. Satou Nobuyama had been related to the Yanagida family in the twentieth century. One of whose descendants was the one who helped conquer a certain evanescent island near the Canary archipelago a few decades ago.

    Oxy wasn''t sure why, but Gehirn had been somewhat saddened to hear that name. Apparently he had been linked to that family and had known several of them in the last century. The Yanagida clan had lost power in the seventies with the tightening of the anti-mafia laws and now a new clan had emerged that had taken up the torch, but more in accordance with Japanese laws and not associated with illegal gambling. That clan was the Himeji.

    Gehirn had gone to them to find out if they possessed any information about Satou Nobuyama, but only a few papers from the last century had survived the passage of time. It was not until days later that Gehirn recovered those few papers written by someone he had known: Ishida Yanagida, who had always been interested in the papers of his adoptive uncle, Satou Nobuyama.

    In those papers Gehirn found some clues that seemed to suggest something called Jikanium, a material that did not exist, but Oxy had heard of.

    It was in an old speculative science book written by two scientists under pseudonyms: Portals and Other Time Machines by L.W & DiMatus. Oxy had tried to find a copy in Tokyo, but it was a book of obscure authorship and there had only been one edition of a few thousand copies. Still she remembered certain passages from that book and she swore she had read some of that material. A type of time crystal hypothesized many years before it was even created in a laboratory. A time crystal, a fractus nucleus hypothesized in the past? Or had there been a fractus nucleus in the past?

    If there was talk of fractus coming from a higher spatial dimension, the idea that there were some of them with the ability to actually move through time could not be ruled out. That was frightening to think about.

    On the other hand Gehirn also remembered something else related to the papers. Something to do with the sun. Oxy wasn''t sure if she believed it, but it seemed that Gehirn was thinking that what had happened to the people who had suffered the visions could be due to some solar phenomenon. Although he could not even explain why he had that sensation.

    Whatever it was, and with no other conclusions to reach for the moment, he proceeded to experiment with the nucleus. If the sun had somehow been a catalyst, they could recreate a similar phenomenon with a particle accelerator, sending a beam of electrons and protons at high energies towards that core.

    If that core could really send whoever touched it visions of the future, then there was a slim chance of being able to make strategic predictions of the enemy''s movement through artificial intelligence.

    For that purpose, the linear accelerator would be used. What was basically done was to send a beam of energy to the fractus core, from which it was expected that some particles in a state of virtual transition would impact on a device containing an artificial intelligence, specially tuned for war scenarios. It was hoped to obtain predictive results of the enemy''s movement.

    Oxy had done several simulations with the team to correctly tune those experiments. Nothing was visible, since everything occurred at a time when it was invisible to the human eye. But the accelerator mechanisms provided the data in millionths of a second. But it was what happened in those attoseconds and zeptoseconds that mattered.

    For a tiny amount of time those so-called core particles would be shot into a specially designed ZAIEN Pening trap, to contain the particles for a billionth of a second before they continued on their journey to the final collision rings, where the artificial intelligence that would be the ultimate medium would be found.

    But it had been one failure after another. No matter how incredibly precise the measurements and care taken to carry out the experiment had been, it had not worked. Just tons of data, but no real results. Not to mention that many of those artificial intelligences that were updated with the measurements of each experiment often ended up in a corrupted state.

    Then it happened. Two days ago.

    They were about to conduct a new experiment when Zuriqth and Gehirn proposed something. What if there was a Dark Event phenomenon linked to the core? Everyone who had touched the core shared a common characteristic. If consciousness was believed to be the fact of recognizing oneself as a living organism, then there was a new variable to add.

    All those who had touched the core were people, including two aeon, part of the fleet that found the core. The aeon were not human, but possessed consciousness. If that phenomenon included consciousness, and there was much to doubt, then consciousness was an effect to be taken into account?

    Up to now, artificial intelligences had been used for the experiment. Something a bit more advanced than machine learning, but without consciousness. A consciousness as such an aeon would take years to develop as such.

    Zuriqth was the one who proposed it. He would be the test subject in the experiment.

    Zuriqth was already over seven years old and he said consciousness had appeared at the age of three. According to the laws of protection of sentient beings and aeons he was already an adult. If he himself wanted to be the test subject of his own free will nothing could prevent him from doing so.

    Using conscious animals, humans, or feys, was out of the question. Everyone knew the anecdote of what had happened to those who had been subjected to high energies in a particle accelerator. In the case of a fey it was worse. Considering their nature it might well allow them to survive, but the feys themselves were an anomaly. A Dark Event. That was playing with fire.

    Most of the team doubted that anything would be achieved. The experiment was a failure in terms of getting data from the future, but something else did happen. For a billionth of a billionth of a second that nucleus had undergone a change in its structure and had sent twice as much data into the collider''s measurement rings.

    It had responded to something.

    Some adjustments were made to the particle delivery, the concentration and timing of Zuriqth''s exposure to the energy beam, along with calibration of models for the battlefield. The next experiment had been scheduled for two days from now. Which had occurred in the afternoon hours.

    Results: a success.

    Zuriqth had received images and sounds of images from the future. A sea invasion would occur in less than two hours in the Hallyeohaesang National Park in Korea and a smaller one in the Amami Islands Archipelago twenty-five minutes later. A third attack occurred in the south, in Oerimbori, Papua.

    The data was sent to the battle command centers in the Pacific and to the Seventh Fleet. As Zuriqth had said the attacks occurred but, because of the data transmission, the attacks were repelled without any casualties.

    It seemed unreal. But to Gehirn there was something that kept him on guard against it all. He felt annoyed because he was sure that there was something in his memory that he could not recall. He was sure he had seen it a long time ago. Beyond his anger, the truth was that many would have liked to celebrate the success. But there was too much data to corroborate.

    A new experiment would be carried out in two days to calibrate everything again.

    Zuriqth had made it possible.

    Oxy smiled wistfully at him. "Today was great."

    "I know," Zuriqth replied.

    "Why do you look sad, then?"

    "I have no emotions on my face. How can you tell I''m sad?"

    "Your tone. And your optical sensor flickers slower when you''re thinking something or worried about something."

    Zuriqth stepped back a few millimeters. Avoiding Oxy''s hand that had tried to touch his head again. For a few seconds he said nothing. "Perhaps the answer is due to your condition. I must remind you that I''m a male SAAI. Despite being in the body of a droid of another species, my sense of conditioned reflexes perceive you as a human female. I am responding to the underlying symmetry of your body Professor. It is pleasing to the eye."

    "Oh, wow. A compliment."

    "Exactly."

    "Why don''t you have Gehirn put you in one of those synthetic bodies the aeon are using?"

    "The resources of the synthetics is still too small. With the current state of war it would be a waste of resources. I can move, that''s all and that''s enough."

    Oxy sent a friendly fist and gently tapped Zuriqth''s metal chassis. He didn''t move and simply had his gaze fixed on her.

    Maybe it seemed to Oxy, but there was something odd about him. Almost from the moment of the first experiment she had noticed how Zuriqth''s tone had changed a little. Maybe the others didn''t notice it, but there was something that sounded different. In fact in the last couple of days she even noticed that he was looking at her even more.

    "I think I''d better go," Zuriqth finally said and looked away from her to the door.

    "Don''t you want to stay? You can upgrade your model from here."

    "No, that''s okay. I have to go with Mr. Gehirn. I just stopped by to say good night."

    Oxy got up from the floor and walked to the door. Her skin had already dried a bit, but her hair was still damp which made her look different from her usually messy hairstyle.

    "Good night, Zuriqth," she said and ran her hands over his head.

    "Good night, professor. Sleep well," Zuriqth replied with his head lifted toward her.

    Zuriqth''s paws produced a barely audible sound as he stepped out and half-turned toward her.

    "What''s wrong?" Oxy asked.

    "Please be sure to put on underwear. That towel doesn''t cover anything down there."

    Oxy blushed and tugged the towel down. "Pervert!"

    Zuriqth retreated down the hallway with a slow pace and Oxy finally closed the door. "It seems to me that his conditioned reflex was only looking at my crotch."

    ***

    In the darkness of the empty corridors at that hour, Zuriqth walked with a calm trot into the facility that housed the experiment''s facilities.

    He had turned down hallways and taken the stairs. Gehirn was waiting for him on one of the upper floors.

    When he reached the staircase to the floor where Gehirn was waiting for him, he stopped.

    There were large windows throughout the building, but from that height he could see the city in its entirety, like a field of fireflies in summer

    Although the vast majority of the population had been evacuated, there were a few million people moving here and there in the city to keep everything running.

    Zuriqth walked over to the window and stopped. The light from his optical sensor pulsed with a slow rhythm. He contemplated the reflections of each of those city lights. He knew that in each light there could be a person behind it. But he said nothing. He just stared at it for a few minutes.

    Suddenly his optical sensor began to flicker more often. It continued that way for several minutes. "Damn bugs, stop bothering," he muttered in a low tone.

    Finally he bent his head and the gleam in his eye had diminished to almost a thin line.

    With a slow trot he again walked the few meters that separated him from his destination and entered an office.

    ***

    Gehirn watched as the automatic door opened and Zuriqth entered at a slow pace.

    Gehirn had removed his tie and raised his shirt cuffs. Despite his short stature and slim appearance, his movements were those of an adult moving as if that were his workplace. There were holo-interfaces, screens and papers everywhere. But even though it was crowded there was an order to the place.

    "It was time," Gehirn said. "You were late. What were you doing?"

    "I stopped by the professor''s room. Nothing else." Zuriqth''s tone was dry, coupled with that metallic ringing almost sounded like an answering machine.

    "What happened?"

    "With what, Mr. Gehirn?"

    "You sound strange. Is there something wrong with the synthesizer?"

    "It''s probably due to a knock this morning when I jumped." It''s nothing.

    "Be careful. You''re too valuable."

    "I know."

    Zuriqth walked a few steps closer and noticed something. Gehirn was wearing a device on his left ear that hugged the back of his neck.

    "What is that?"

    Gehirn pointed to the device. "This? An old project. The division here has been working on something to connect people''s brains like a neural network. It''s an old project, but with the emergence of new materials there are some divisions that are waking up some zombie projects."

    "That''s what I told you about? The Neurowire project?"

    Gehirn nodded. "Exactly. I never would have guessed that everything you told me would come true to the letter. With today''s included it''s a new record."

    "I can''t believe some of it myself."

    Gehirn walked over to the desk. On it rested a metal box the size of a small industrial container.

    "Is that him?"

    Gehirn nodded. "I''m on my way out right now."

    "Will you take it?"

    "Yes. If it''s so important I want it in safekeeping, now that I''ve finished the process for the suspended animation. I should have left by now. I was waiting because you said earlier that you wanted to tell me something in private."

    Zuriqth approached. From the side of his back sprouted a metal limb. At the tip was a small black rectangular device. And the limb extended until it reached Gehirn.

    "What is this?"

    "We already know what happened to the other artificial intelligences. This is in case something happens to me."

    Gehirn frowned. "I don''t understand. You said all the experiments in the future will be a success."

    "They will be... but history never says what happened to me. In case something happens to me you will know what to do with it."

    "What is this?"

    "An insurance policy. In case my consciousness ceases to exist it will activate and you will be able to see the contents. Only you... and the professor."

    Gehirn approached and crouched down to within an inch of that electric blue optical sensor. "Is there something you''re not telling me?"

    "No. I just know enough to be cautious."

    Gehirn stood up and looked at him. "I''m sorry. I don''t know how to do it. Though to be honest with you I don''t understand why the lie to the team. I''m taking credit for a lot of what you''ve already done."

    "No problem. I knew almost from the beginning that."

    Gehirn leaned against the desk and tucked the rectangle into a pants pocket. "If what we think is correct then the reason you can''t remember anything about yourself, only information, is possible that your ego has been destroyed. It''s just a hypothesis, though."

    Zuriqth looked to the side. "I know that."

    "There is another possibility as well." Zuriqth turned to look at him without saying anything. "If in the future there is indeed the possibility of moving consciousness beyond the body, as the eons do, it is possible that you may still be connected... to your original body. I don''t want to get your hopes up but it is a possibility. We''ve seen so many strange things happen in the last few decades."

    "Sounds too good to be true."

    Gehirn sighed. "Don''t worry, in case something happens to you I will do everything I can to return you to your original state."

    "Thank you."

    Gehirn stood up and took the box by the handle. "I guess I''ll see you in about three or four days. I have some business to attend to in passing." Zuriqth nodded and Gehirn approached the door. "Good luck with the new experiment, I''ll keep an eye on the results."

    "Yes, sir."

    Gehirn stopped just short of walking out the door and turned around. "Don''t even think about dying, you bastard. If you really want to say something to Oxy, just say it. You''re the stubborn one who doesn''t want a synthetic aeon body."

    "Maybe I''ll ask you about one. When you''re back."

    Gehirn smiled. "I''ll see you for a few days. If you''re really going to tell her something start by telling her I''m not your creator."

    The footsteps moved down the hallway and Zuriqth was left alone in that office. After hearing nothing more he turned around and looked at a red light in one of the corners of the room. That was simply one of the building''s security sensors.

    Zuriqth took his eyes off it and walked out the door finally in the opposite direction to the one Gehirn had taken seconds before.

    His voice was barely a murmur that no one could hear. "I''m sorry, Mr. Gehirn. After this I don''t want there to be anything left of me. It is the least I can do, for what I must do. The rest is in your hands."

    In Gehirn''s office that security sensor was still on. No one could know that a rogue algorithm had infiltrated the system and had been watching what was going on for a few hours.

    This algorithm was simply interested in finding out why the network and these facilities had been under attack for the past two days. Fractus of the electronic parasite type were trying to take over the system, but there was only one entity that was fighting them relentlessly.

    That algorithm had never seen anything like it. For that which was giving them battle was not an aeon, nor a human. But neither could it be said that it was a sentient autonomous artificial intelligence, even though it was trying to disguise itself as one.

    That impostor they called Zuriqth was going back and forth in that facility in that tactical droid body. The wandering algorithm named Janus did not know why Zuriqth was trying to pass himself off as something he was not. But that entity called Zuriqth seemed to move in both the human world and the digital world.

    Janus knew that something very out of place must be going on inside that facility. And, although it was none of his business, he wanted to know what it was.

 Vol.5/Chapter 56: Out of the block

    Chapter Fifty-six

    Out of the block

    Neu-Techstadt, Germany. 6:10 AM. 125 S.A

    The afternoon and evening hours had passed slowly in the main ZAIEN building.

    On the one hand everyone had breathed a sigh of relief on the upper floors as the threat seemed to have vanished. The infectious code that was holding the other information blocks hostage had been disappearing as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the technicians stunned.

    But the truth was that the other divisions were worried about something else. The news had not been spread, because it would be a scandal for the company''s reputation, but they had assembled a group of specialists to carry out the mission of rescuing Thor from that chamber in the basement. The bad news came when a detailed analysis of the structure was made, and it was found that the section had a force field. Any attempt to penetrate the place could be a threat to the upper floors if it was not carefully deactivated.

    The force field generator must have been well hidden throughout the structure and perhaps, from the penetration analysis, there was even a possibility that the generator was mobile and could move throughout the structure.

    The technicians and engineers had set to work to try to reach it from below without success, even though they had deactivated the traps around the entire block.

    They had spent more than twelve hours down there and had rotated personnel but there was someone who had not retired to rest.

    It was a fey woman. She had traded in her white suit for a safety overall and, like the others in the underground, had donned a safety helmet to be on site. Her black hair, always tied up in a bun, had now changed position because of the helmet and had been pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her dark eyes looked uneasy behind her safety goggles. Although she could do nothing at that time and place, she wanted to be aware of what was going on.

    Thor''s secretary, Roseline, was a woman who took her job seriously.

    She had come to ZAIEN more than ten years ago and in fey terms could be considered a young woman, as she was barely in her thirties.

    She didn''t have an ability like the special feys, she couldn''t use magic either, and even her regeneration ability was a bit below that of the normal feys. Yet, it had been Thor himself who had put her in charge of his affairs while he was away investigating cases for the SID.

    The truth was that Thor might not show up in the building for months, but she always kept everything in order and with daily reports of what was going on in the board of directors and shares of the company. Thor would always check them and let her know if she needed to pass on any messages or errands, but she was almost always the one who took care of it.

    There were many women who applied for the position, but out of all of them she was the one who had been selected.

    Her resume was average.

    A Polish fey who had come from the Other Side. She had received primary and secondary education over a three-year period through the acclimatization program. Presenting no threat or interest to the world''s security forces, she had been released into the world to integrate into society. As was the case with most feys.

    The conditions of the fey in society were equal to human ones. They could even live quite well doing absolutely nothing with the basic help provided by the states. She had a lot of freedom with what she could do with her life.

    Yet she had decided to study a career of at least a couple of years to decide what she would do with her life. What she didn''t know was that those two years would turn into five. Five years in which she could not yet choose what to do with her life. Management, accounting, self-defense teacher, Ancient Era data mining. So many careers, but there were so many possibilities that it was difficult to choose.

    Although she didn''t possess any of the feys'' qualities with abilities, she did have something else. It was that curse that feys had of clinging to life by doing something. Do something and don''t think, many called it. It didn''t matter if a fey took his personal life slowly and in his own time, that need to do something was always there.

    She finally opted for a career in management at a mining complex on the moon for a few years. That mining complex belonged to one of ZAIEN''s divisions, and so she was surprised one day when she saw that they were looking for an assistant secretary for a big position in the company on Earth.

    She knew Thor only by hearsay and while most spoke well of him, others not so much.

    He had a reputation as a seducer and womanizer. So when she sent her resume for the position she was surprised that she was one of those selected for a personal interview with him.

    There were several applicants for the position and some of them were attractive women. But that day, after an hour-long interview, Roseline was the one Thor had chosen for the position of secretary and personal assistant for company matters.

    She started two days after that interview. Her job was not much at the beginning and, considering that Thor was not present most of the time, it made her feel strange but, as the days went by, she got used to it. ZAIEN was too big and there were too many things to keep track of. Finance, development areas, board meetings and investment departments.

    Roseline was surprised that her boss had chosen a life of danger, instead of living solely on the profits generated by the company and his personal holdings. But hey, she wasn''t going to complain about that either. After all, for feys like Thor it wasn''t as if they could detach themselves from the obligations that came with having an ability. In Thor''s case it was precisely his power that made him part of Nevermore''s special agents. A vocation of service to civilization. From time to time rumors of the missions he was carrying out came in, and that had made her understand him a little better.

    Thor was a fey who lived up to the saying Do something and don''t think. He had decided to do something with his life and take it to the extreme of putting his life at risk by investigating Dark Events.

    That was something she would never have imagined of herself.

    As for the second rumor of being a womanizer. The truth is usually more simple and mundane. Thor was just looking for someone to share his life with. He had a long list of love affairs that had not ended well. And, much to her regret, Roseline had to admit that even she had been one of the causes of one of those relationships ending.

    It happened one day when Thor was investigating a Dark Event in the vicinity of Neu-Techstadt, three years ago.

    Roseline had received a call from Thor asking if she could help him with something personal. She had gone to the site. It was an apartment that was not among his possessions. Beyond her suspicion, she was terrified to find Thor with three gunshot wounds lying on a couch.

    Her intention to take him to a hospital was denied by him. Saying that he would bring trouble to the company since he was nearby, and that what he was investigating was a case of technology smuggling using OOPArts and he was working undercover. Asking Nevermore for help would not help because what he had been shot with was an ammunition that had disabled his Neurowire and agent first aid system.

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    Roseline had to swallow hard and help extract the bullets herself with a pair of tweezers while Thor drank a bottle of tequila. Once those bullets were out of his body his wounds began to heal in a matter of seconds.

    It was then that Roseline realized why that apartment was not among Thor''s possessions. It wasn''t his. It belonged to the woman he was dating. A woman who arrived at that moment, alerted by the security system that an intruder had entered the place.

    What the woman saw was Roseline, who had sweated from nervousness and had taken off her shirt and was wearing a sleeveless sports shirt. Roseline next to Thor, who was bare-chested and a little drunk from the tequila.

    It ended with the woman hitting him with a frozen fish she had taken from the refrigerator.

    The next day Roseline had tried to talk to the woman and apologize, explaining the situation, but the relationship was over. For her boss things were clear, if someone attacks you without listening to reason, it is not worth trying any more.

    That woman could have seen the scene better before starting a tantrum, but then they both found out that the problem was the expensive furniture where Roseline had been removing Thor''s bullets.

    Roseline sighed remembering that and would have drawn a smile on her lips remembering the absurdity of the situation, had it not been for the situation Thor was in at that moment.

    He had been trapped in there for too many hours. What could have been inside?

    She was wondering when a sound alerted everyone in the place.

    The doors of that block were finally opening.

    Roseline was surprised. Given the general surprise, it didn''t look like it was the work of the technicians at play. No, it wasn''t. That trap had opened on its own again.

    They all looked at Thor who walked out of the place with a firm step. But even though he was there, he didn''t look like he had suffered any harm. In fact, he looked just as he had entered.

    Except for one detail that Roseline noticed as soon as she saw him leave.

    It was Thor''s face. He had a face that was hard to describe. He looked calm but angry at the same time.

    Thor walked past the technicians, who gathered around him to check on him, but Thor seemed to have other plans in mind. They peppered him with questions about his condition but he simply replied with terse words.

    "I''m fine, no problem. If you''ll excuse me I have a matter to attend now."

    "But, Mr. Thor. Allow me to at least have you checked out by the medical wing tea," said one of men.

    "I''m fine. There''s nothing to worry about. You''ve all done a good job. Now if you''ll excuse me."

    The technicians doubted they had done a good job, since they had not been able to open the block. Roseline couldn''t exactly put it into words and she didn''t know why, but she understood something. Thor was in more than a hurry to get out of the place. He was trying to be polite to the employees, but she could tell from his tone of voice that he was not in the mood.

    Thor walked past the last two technicians who were looking at him in amazement. He didn''t even look tired from being locked up.

    They soon had to look away. Once Thor had exited the doors of the block, they were closing again. One of the technicians present began to type something into a device he had. He had been trying for hours to log into the system of that block. But to no avail. They could not stop the lockdown again. The door''s reader device was venting in front of their eyes and a corrosion began to appear in the metal around the door.

    "Don''t bother. That block is self-destructing," Thor said. "If you go in later, you''ll only find silicon dust and other components, but nothing else. It was programmed to destroy itself once I left."

    "But... what was inside?"

    "A message for me," Thor said only and continued on his way down the corridor.

    Roseline had started toward him when she had seen him coming out, but when she reached him she stopped.

    "Sir. Are you all right?"

    "Yes. I''m fine. Is my transport ready?"

    "It''s been there since yesterday."

    "I''ll go then."

    "Don''t you want to eat anything?"

    "No, I''m fine. I''m not hungry."

    Thor continued on his way to the elevator and then Roseline noticed something as she walked behind him. There was something Thor hadn''t walked in with. In his right hand Thor carried a square metal suitcase.

    "Sir, what is that?"

    Thor didn''t answer but, for some reason, it seemed to Roseline that his movements had stiffened and he had gripped that box even tighter.

    "Excuse me," Roseline said. She wasn''t sure if she was being indiscreet about anything, but given the aura of discomfort that seemed to emanate from her boss, she wanted to apologize. The whole thing had been so weird from the start.

    Had the previous owner really left a message for Thor?

    They both got into the elevator and once it closed Thor took a sigh. "You don''t have to apologize, Roseline. But, believe me, the less you know about this the better."

    "It''s okay, I understand¡­"

    Roseline glanced sideways at the box. It looked like a simple container case. But if it really was something Gehirn had left behind it had made Thor nervous. She could only speculate what it might be. Yes, maybe it was better not to know.

    From what Thor had just asked it was clear that he wanted to get out of the building as quickly as possible.

    "May I ask where you are going? Edinburgh again?"

    The elevator opened and Thor and Roseline walked to the leaf-shaped platform where his personal transport was in the same place he had left it when he arrived.

    "No. I''m not going to Edinburgh. I need to speak to the Director of SID Operations."

    "Miss Mai?" Roseline didn''t know her, but she knew that she was the one behind Nevermore''s investigative branch and that to Thor the agents closest to Mai were almost like family to each other.

    "Yes," Thor nodded curtly and walked towards his transport. Halfway there he stopped and looked at Roseline. He had been in such a hurry that when he got out he had hardly noticed that she had changed her clothes and had a tired look on her face.

    "Roseline?"

    "Yes sir?"

    "Take a break for the rest of the week."

    "I have quite a backlog."

    "That''s an order. Then you can catch up on Monday. Go home and get some rest."

    "...I will. Thank you, sir." Roseline said smiling slightly, as she bowed her head.

    "Thanks to you too," Thor said as he climbed up the small unfolded ramp of the vehicle.

    "..." Roseline didn''t have time to respond, nor did she know what to say to him, though she knew that was for having stayed overtime waiting for him to get out of that block.

    Thor''s transport was lifting off again and in a few seconds it was heading southwest, leaving Roseline on the landing leaf watching as it was lost in the city''s sky among other vehicles.

    Thor inside the vehicle looked at the city that was already beginning to move. He certainly didn''t feel physically tired. But he did have a bit of a headache.

    He looked at the box and then reached into his pants pocket. He pulled out a small black rectangle and looked at it, then looked back at the box.

    "That bastard, what a mess he left me¡­"

    Thor snorted as he looked back at the city. He would have a lot of explaining to do later.

    He wasn''t sure what was going on between France and Switzerland at the moment, because he couldn''t make calls to the team and he couldn''t get through to Mai either. That was strange. He would have liked to tell her beforehand that he would be arriving but well, the trip wouldn''t take too long.

    He had to deliver that suitcase to Mai or Zi.

    "Really, how much trouble have you given us these last few days?"

    The suitcase didn''t matter too much. It was the time bomb in his pocket that worried him most. What it would contain was an enigma since Gehirn had not revealed that to him, although he had explained other things that had made his hair stand on end.

    At least that black device had Gehirn''s simulation as well, so at least Thor wouldn''t have to explain everything himself.

 Vol.5/Chapter 57: The man in the pod

    Chapter Fifty-seven

    The man in the pod

    Thursday, March 22. 6:10AM. 125 S.A.

    Locum. Lemac Lake. France

    As soon as she had regained consciousness Lizbeth checked to make sure everything was all right but neither Shin nor the boy, who had escaped from the ship, were there. Carissia was out of commission so, she couldn''t ask her what had happened during those seconds she had been unconscious. Because the ship''s systems were dead, she couldn''t use the surveillance video.

    Lizbeth had heard the last moments before Carissia fell unconscious. Not finding Shin, she could only assume that he was still outside. The plane had disappeared. As they had thought, it had been a temporary anomaly of only a few minutes. That black cloud that had attacked the plane and the ship had also disappeared.

    After the landing, the soldiers from the surrounding search teams had quickly gathered when they saw that the ship had suddenly splashed down in the lake. When she lowered the rear hatch of the ship Lizbeth quickly explained the situation to everyone''s surprise and ordered the soldiers to bring the containment capsules. That was because they could not dismiss that those rescued passengers could not be a biological threat either.

    Not only because of what happened inside the plane. But the transport of a pathogenic agent more than two hundred years old on board the plane should not be overlooked either, along with problems due to organophosphate inhalation, aerotoxic syndrome, which was a common occurrence in airplanes of that era. Shin''s analysis of the autopsies the day before did not revealed nothing like that but it was better to be sure, because of how quickly everything had happened with the improvised rescue operation.

    Therefore they would have to treat the survivors with the same protocol that was used for newcomers feys and OOPAarts. Those rescued people had to be quarantined and so the medical team had gone in to put them in pods.

    Throughout the area there were problems with power and communications to the outside after that anomaly but, fortunately, the internal communications in the perimeter were still working, although with some intermittent failures. Thanks to that, the base camp had already received the news of what had happened in the air.

    The clock showed 5:50 in the morning, when the operation in that part of Lemac Lake was in full swing under the storm that had not calmed down at all. Military rescue teams, wrapped in specialized emergency suits, surrounded the damaged Corvus-21, deploying a quick protocol to rescue the passengers from another time who were lying still unconscious inside the ship.

    As the minutes passed the survivors were placed in special isolation pods, designed to provide advanced medical care. They were carefully transported out of the ship and then placed in a tent that had taken only minutes to set up on forest near the landing. The military doctors and nurses were as confused as they were surprised by the situation in front of them.

    The isolation pods had been brought in when the operation began the day before, in case they had to deal with some kind of biological contamination. No one really imagined that they would be used for medical care.

    Carissia, meanwhile, remained motionless and totally pale in her cabin. Her aeon body seemed inert, her circuits completely shut down. The ship, its systems irreparably damaged during the crash landing in the lake, lay like a wounded beast, unable to rise once more.

    While movement continued in the rear by the medical teams, inside the cockpit Lizbeth was with a worried expression. She was currently removing Carissia''s clothes from her top. Carissia''s white back looked smaller than usual as she was lying still as if she were dead.

    "Well, let''s see where you had it."

    Lizbeth wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and carefully tipped Carissia''s body forward. The wound Lizbeth had suffered on her forehead during the blow had completely disappeared thanks to her ability to regenerate quickly. Her teeth had regained their normal shape, although her eyes still had a certain glow to them.

    She touched Carissia''s spine looking for something. Carissia''s skin was like that of a human, there was no difference, although at that moment it was cold. That body could have passed for a human in another time, unless it was x-rayed to reveal the biomechanical organs.

    "Agent Londonderry?" asked an FRT technician who had just entered in the ship.

    "I''m here!"

    The technician walked over to her and held out a small disc-shaped device that fit in a clenched fist.

    "Here is what you asked for, ma''am. It''s ready to use."

    "Awesome. Thank you!" Lizbeth took the disk and returned to her work on Carissia, while the technician went back outside.

    Touching near the thoracic vertebrae she found what she was looking for. A pentagon appeared on the skin and that part disappeared inside the body, as if it was a kind of internal plate, and revealed Carissia''s vertebrae. Lizbeth with her slender fingers pressed on one of them and almost immediately a disk protruded, it was similar in appearance to the one she had in her hand. She removed it and replaced it immediately with the new one. She was a bit afraid to touch her. She was no expert on how Carissia''s body worked internally. Although they had known each other for a long time, that had never happened before, and for Lizbeth it felt like performing some kind of surgery.

    After a few seconds Carissia opened her eyes and her body straightened backwards slowly. The pentagonal opening had closed again and Lizbeth sighed in relief. The color of her skin took on a more normal tone and she could feel how upon contact with Carissia''s bare skin she was beginning to regain a certain temperature. She could even feel her lungs beginning to function normally.

    "Where is she?" a familiar voice made Lizbeth turn around, as Carissia was initiating her systems.

    Mai stood there wearing a mask and wrapped in the work overalls, which had now transformed some parts into a long hooded windbreaker to cover from the rain. She entered quickly and one of the soldiers pointed her to the cabin. Despite wearing a mask her expressions were relieved to see Lizbeth.

    She looked around at the movement and to another of the rescued children, which the teams were currently pulling inside a pod. "Is it safe to come through?" Mai asked.

    "Yes, ma''am. We haven''t detected any airborne pathogens, there is no toxins either," one of the doctors inside informed her.

    Mai could see that there were about five still to be removed and three were already inside pods, ready to be taken out of the ship.

    How many have been rescued? Mai wondered as she entered the ship and walked over to Lizbeth as the mask retracted from her face. "Are you all right?" Mai asked as she approached the cockpit and stroked Lizbeth''s back, who was still busy covering Carissia''s nakedness.

    Lizbeth nodded and looked at her. Under other circumstances she would have hugged and kissed her right there, but that was not something to do at that moment with all those people inside the ship.

    "W-What the heck happened?"

    "Honestly, even I don''t know how it all happened yet." Lizbeth finished zipping Carissia''s clothes and turned around and Mai felt Lizbeth grab her hand and squeeze it a little. "I don''t know where Shin is now, I lost consciousness for a few seconds and I don''t know what happened to him afterwards."

    "Yes I heard that, even though communications are not working well. I came as fast as I could." Mai put her hand on Lizbeth''s face, it was as cold as ice. Without a word, Mai bent Lizbeth''s head and kissed her on the forehead. "You guys are fine that''s what matters. Shin must be fine, don''t worry. He''s probably landed somewhere with the parachute, or the integrated glide devices in the backpack. He''s probably on his way here."

    "He hasn''t tried to contact me."

    "He had the roach in his ear, didn''t he?"

    Don''t call it roach, Lizbeth thought. "I don''t know. I think he had it. But I can''t get through to him. What happened at Area Zero? Did Oxy and Dr. Reubens show up?"

    "No, nothing yet. Phil''s leading the search team."

    "Two missing agents and a possible kidnap victim missing, and over twenty people rescued today from a plane that crashed yesterday... it''s another Thursday."

    Mai looked at her with a pursing of her lips. "If you''re in the mood to joke then you''re fine."

    "I won''t deny, I was scared up there."

    "You have to tell me everything later. There are already people looking for Shin, right?"

    "Yeah, a team is searching the area. But with this storm, who knows where he might have ended up. I''m worried because one of the kids we rescued escaped. I''m worried he did something stupid."

    "Well, let''s hope he turns up quickly." Mai pursed her lips. At that point, there was nothing to do but wait. There was no reason to think that anything had happened to Shin. The intermittent communications problem was due to that electromagnetic anomaly the plane had produced, and was the reason they couldn''t communicate with him for sure.

    "System activated." Carissia got up from the pilot''s seat and looked around in confusion. Lizbeth had finished adjusting her clothes at the neck part at exactly the right time. Carissia turned around and met the worried faces of Mai and Lizbeth.

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    "How are you feeling?" Mai asked.

    Carissia tilted her head slightly. "I''m fine, just a little confused."

    "What happened when I hit my head?" Lizbeth asked.

    Carissia opened her eyes and seemed to remember everything and proceeded to tell them both what had happened, which in the event was not much. After that dark thing touched the ship she had almost lost control, and after Lizbeth hit her head she had closed the hatch for safety. Shin had the turtle backpack, so she thought that even with that storm he could escape given his adventures in the past and the fact that he could not die.

    ***

    "I can''t believe it," Natsuki said, as a pair of soldiers from the medical team walked past her and Ryuuji.

    Both were wrapped in clothes that matched Mai''s and had changed parts to become a windbreaker. Both had received the diagnosis that the air was clear and the masks disappeared from their faces.

    "The missing victims were never on the plane," Ryuuji noted.

    The two had accompanied Mai on a fast transport from the base camp when the news of what had happened arrived. When they heard the story they didn''t believe it, let alone when they heard the details that kept coming in. The plane that crashed the day before had appeared in the sky and a rescue operation was been improvised at 30,000 feet. It sounded too good to be true.

    But when they arrived with Mai and saw the condition of the ship they realized that much more happened than had been reported. The landing had been bad, and the Corvus-21 was in a calamitous state leaning on the shore of the beach, that separated the road and the forest from the waters of the lake.

    Mai had run out to the Corvus-21, but they stayed behind so as not to hinder the work of the teams on the ship. Natsuki had her problem that she could not be easily perceived too. Despite the fact that those present had their special equipment to detect and hear her, Natsuki decided to stand to the side to make room for the teams working around her.

    Ryuuji turned to look to the makeshift camp tent, which had been set up to carry the newly rescued. In less than minutes at least thirty people, including military personnel, had gathered there.

    A new capsule passed by them, and both could see signs of pallor and a slightly haggard face on one of the rescued children.

    "This is going to be a nightmare for social services later," Ryuji said.

    "Yeah, I can imagine."

    "I don''t want to imagine what''s going to happen when they wake up and are told that their relatives passed away yesterday, and that they were all already presumed dead two hundred years ago."

    "How do we know it won''t happen again? Who knows if all the rumors that this place was really cursed weren''t because of the plane."

    "We can''t say they were just talk after today."

    "Well at least there are no giant worms with copper jaws."

    "I think I prefer worms... this is horrible," Ryuuji pointed out.

    Natsuki sighed, the day was just beginning and already it looked like there would be a lot of work. At least it was good that there were survivors, when everyone imagined that no one had survived that tragedy. "Now the question is... what the hell really happened? Anomaly? Or was someone behind it?"

    "I guess they''ll tell us when they wake up," Ryuuji replied.

    It was at that precise moment that a scream was heard. It was a scream of terror. They both turned in the direction it came from. It came from that tent where the medical team were carrying the rescued in the pods.

    "Have they started to wake up?" Natsuki asked.

    They both started to head for the tent when a military doctor came out from it. "Please come quickly, one of them regained consciousness!"

    "What''s happening to him?"

    They both bridged the meters that separated them from the tent and entered.

    Inside the tent were located all those pods. The tent inside was a distorted space, large enough for everything to fit comfortably. Several doctors were in each of the pods checking the rescued. But at that moment they all stopped and looked in the direction of one of the pods. It was the one from which the scream had come.

    The pod was in a corner and there were two doctors in it. Doctors that at that moment were trying to calm down who was inside. Ryuuji and Natsuki approached and saw him.

    Inside that capsule was an old man. Besides being a man with an old face, the truth was that he didn''t look old physically.

    "Let me out!" the man shouted in English, pounding his fists on the transparent surface of the capsule.

    "Please, try to calm down, sir," said one of the doctors. "We are taking care of you. We have to make sure you have not suffered any injuries."

    "You don''t understand! Let me out! Or at least stop him!"

    Ryuuji and Natsuki approached the capsule and took a closer look at the man. He was desperate. But more than being inside the capsule, it seemed that the reason for his agitation was something else.

    "Please, sir. Calm down. The doctors are trying their best to stabilize you. You were in an accident," Ryuuji explained.

    "Japanese?" The man looked at Ryuuji and then turned in the other direction, fixing his gaze on Natsuki. Natsuki frowned. "You do not understand. Where am I? What day is it?" the man asked.

    Ryuuji understood his agitation. After all he had just woken up in that pod and found everyone around him speaking French, then Japanese, after all none of the survivors had a Neurowire.

    "One moment, can you see me?" Natsuki asked.

    Ryuuji ignored that and simply answered in English. "You are in Lake Lemac. On the French side. You took a plane in 2012."

    "I know that! We are in the year 125 again, right?"

    Ryuuji and Natsuki looked at each other. "How do you know that?"

    "Today is March 22nd?"

    "Yes," Natsuki replied .

    "What time is it?"

    "6.20 in the morning."

    "You have time to stop this! You have to stop it!"

    "What are you talking about?"

    "The accelerator in Geneva! In Meyrin! The girl you''re looking for is there! She''s with Leteo!"

    "Who are you talking about?"

    " Leteo..." the man paused as if he was remembering something. "Where is Leteo?"

    "What''s your name, sir?" Ryuuji asked.

    "J-Jack..." let out the man as his gaze wandered around the place. "Where is Leteo?"

    "What girl were you talking about?"

    "Her. The professor. He... Janus had ordered her kidnapped."

    " Professor?"

    "Yes! The fey girl named I-Ishijima Kanade if I r-remember well. And L-Leteo¡­"

    Ryuuji and Natsuki looked at each other confused. Did that have anything to do with Oxy''s disappearance?

    "Who is this Leteo you speak of? Leteo Waters? The scientist?"

    " Leteo... yes, I understand," said the man with wild eyes. "To you he was not Leteo. His name to you is Lee. Professor Lee."

    Ryuuji and Natsuki didn''t understand what they were hearing. It turned out that the professor Reubens had something to do with the theft of that artifact from the Vatican and Oxy''s disappearance?

    "Why did you just said accelerator in Geneva? Did Professor Reubens kidnap our colleague?"

    "No! You don''t understand. They have both been kidnapped. Janus ordered us to."

    They were both confused. They didn''t understand what was happening. That man was saying "us" which implied that he was involved in a kidnapping. But he was an old man and he had just arrived from that plane.

    "Who is Janus?"

    "He''s the one who ordered us on the mission in the first place."

    "What mission?"

    "To write the past... to save the future¡­"

    "What''s going on?" asked someone who had just entered the tent.

    Mai and Lizbeth had approached, alerted by the commotion inside the place.

    Mai walked briskly to the pod and looked at the man inside.

    The man''s face changed. His eyes widened and his lips trembled.

    "L-little... bell? R-Rei? It''s... you, Suzune?"

    Mai''s eyes widened. She froze as she heard those words. Lizbeth at her side took her hand and squeezed it and looked at her in fright.

    "I-it''s you, isn''t it? How can that be possible? Are you alive?!"

    Mai was paralyzed at those words. "Uncle Jack..." those words were barely a whisper escaping her lips, that Lizbeth was the only one who could hear.

    Lizbeth let go of Mai''s hand and approached the pod. "Sir, you are confused. You were in an accident."

    The man turned to look at Lizbeth in confusion. "But... it''s her. My precious niece Rei... Rei?" The man looked disgruntled and shook his head and then stammered.

    Lizbeth was nervous and swallowed hard. Mai was paralyzed.

    "No... it can''t be possible. What''s going on?" The man turned in Mai''s direction again and put a hand to his head. "No... it can''t be. What''s going on? Hisui and Quincy never had a child... but... why do I r-remember you... who are you?"

    The man held both hands to his head in horror as his face contorted into a grimace of pain. "My head!" A guttural scream came from his throat. It was as if he was suffering some sort of seizure. "My heeeeeaad!!!" He had started bleeding from his ears and nose.

    "Stand back, please," said one of the doctors, addressing the SID team.

    The four of them stepped away from the capsule, but Mai was still nearly paralyzed and almost looked on the verge of tears. "Uncle Jack..." she repeated. Lizbeth grabbed her and pulled her a couple of meters away.

    The man named Jack was screaming his head off inside the pod and his body was contorting as he pounded on the surface of the pod. At that moment something else happened. It was as if his face was deforming. Not only his face. Other parts of his body were also changing. Globules were appearing and sliding under the skin. The screaming intensified for a moment. Everyone was at a loss as to what to do in the face of that sudden change.

    Then the screaming stopped. But it was replaced by a beeping sound from the capsule''s sensor systems. The man had gone into cardiac arrest.

    The doctors worked quickly, opening the pod, and in less than thirty seconds they had a pulse again, but the change in his body would not stop, although he was now unconscious..

    "Please, no more questions for now, let us take care of it."

    "Do you even know what''s happening to him? It''s a change at the cellular level. It''s like his whole body is changing," Ryuuji pointed out, looking at the diagnostics displayed on the pod.

    "Changing into what?" Mai asked.

    The doctor spoke, looking at one of the pod projected screens. "It''s not metamorphosis. This is some kind of regeneration. It is as if his hypothalamus were producing stem cells in absurd quantities. If it weren''t for the fact that it comes from a time when it didn''t exist, I would say this is cellular rejuvenation." the doctor said, looking at one of the capsule''s screens.

    "What do you mean?"

    "This man''s body... it''s like he''s getting younger."

    "..." Mai looked at the doctors in surprise and was about to say something else when she was interrupted by Natsuki.

    "Mai... he said something else. He said that we have to stop something. That he had something to do with Oxy''s disappearance and that professor from Italy."

    Mai turned and looked at her quizzically. "What are you talking about?"

    Lizbeth looked at the man. Whatever he knew, she feared the old man wasn''t going to answer any time soon.

    Of course, that would only be possible if he woke up.

 Vol.5/Chapter 58: Points of View/Memories

    Chapter Fifty-eight

    Points of View/Memories

    Thursday, March 22. 125 S.A.

    Panopticon.

    POV B.K.

    Now he could understand it, even though he didn''t want to accept it.

    B.K. remembered the day he met him. It had been in 2030, Ancient Era. Janus was wandering the Dark Web when he had stumbled upon that site full of IPs that collected data without rhyme or reason. It had been an oversight on B.K. part.

    B.K. had joined the deepest parts of the Internet in the early years of the twenty-first century, but only for the purpose of collecting data. He was interested in the idea of building himself a new body, after getting rid of his old body in the eighties of the twentieth century.

    The Internet was fascinating, so much knowledge and valuable sources of information to access, but it seemed that ninety percent of people used it for petty things like memes and uploading pictures of cats.

    Not that it was bad, but B.K. really saw some lost potential in it all. Compared to those times where he had competed even against kings and emperors, the world had left behind those barbaric times to become a bit childish, while a tiny percentage fought to control a world that had no control at all, or at least that was his point of view then.

    But things changed as the years went by.

    He, who had even won a chess game against Napoleon himself, now saw the world in a different light as well.

    Inquiring, about the possibilities of building himself a body in secret, he had come to the conclusion that in a few decades he might even be able to be almost indistinguishable from a human. Robotic science was advancing by leaps and bounds in those years, more so with the development of artificial intelligence. That gave the possibility that the possibility of building a robotic body was not such a far-fetched idea. However, gathering that amount of data, had also attracted Janus'' attention in 2030.

    He was cautious when he noticed that strange algorithm. It was different from the other machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligences that populated the network in those years. AIs had multiplied, but that one was different. He did not know how to say it, but there was something strange.

    Too curious.

    Without an apparent purpose.

    It was not like the other search, mining or data collection algorithms. It had no function. If B.K. had a word to describe Janus it would have been: dangerous.

    No apparent purpose.

    No function.

    Too curious.

    Over the years it seemed that Janus had evolved on his own. Without any help from learning mechanisms other than his own curiosity.

    In those years the aeons did not yet appear officially, but there were some artificial consciousnesses on the net, surfing secretly. In the era of digital world, new consciousnesses were being born in the old Internet, and they were growing without the parental control of their creators.

    Janus seemed to have a consciousness, but there was something strange about the few parts of the code that B.K. had tried to analyze.

    B.K. had always been cautious with him, even though Janus seemed to like to show up in his data modules from time to time.

    That was a thing of the past, though.

    The surprise he had received the invitation the day before had been the straw that had broken the camel''s back of his suspicions.

    That invitation was a gematria.

    A riddle, that combined geometry and mathematics to form magic cubes, although in that case it was a hypercube.

    The invitation was simply a ticket to see the destruction of many worlds. It sounded stupid. But as he solved the different facets of the hypercube he found variables he did not expect. People he knew. Gehirn was there. Gehirn had taken something too important before his disappearance, while Shin was missing. That was going to piss him off when he found out.

    B.K. had known Shin and Gehirn since World War II, when he had helped them from behind the scenes. Those two had never seen him, but B.K. knew they were out there and on more than one occasion he had sent them help. The reason? Maybe it was because unlike others those two cared about the world out there and did not hide like many feys did. Although they had different approaches to what they were interested in. Shin seemed to entertain himself with the pursuit of knowledge by traveling around the world, while Gehirn believed that knowledge in the wrong hands would bring only horrors like those he had suffered in the concentration camp when he was separated from his family.

    But those were things of the past. Centuries had passed. Shin had disappeared, only to return and Gehirn had disappeared, never to return according to what he now knew.

    He solved more of that stupid riddle of variables that Yuturna had surely sent him. And his synthetic body shuddered at that. How many had Janus killed over the years? According to Janus that was necessary.

    He thought that Yuturna was sending him that invitation to make Janus think twice, but he had gathered the most powerful aeon in that place called Panopticon.

    An observation and simulation matrix.

    The hours had passed and Janus had kept his promise.

    The scenarios had been passing one after the other. One worse than the other. And even, to his horror, B.K. found that he could have been involved in more than one. He could have destroyed the world on several occasions, just as in the past he had almost destroyed empires for just one chess game.

    Simulation of worlds. One of the many capabilities of AIs, something that had been perfected over the years. But what Janus was showing was one scenario worse than the other. Civilization had died over and over again. Every second, minute and hour. Every year, decade and century. The destruction could be stopped for a while to give respite, but there was no remedy to the inevitable end. Too many variables, too many details. For a nail kingdoms were lost, but it was more like for every breath worlds were extinguished.

    Only one world allowed everything to go on smoothly and civilization to prosper even if the cost was too great. That was the world where he found himself.

    Yes. Now he could understand it, even if he didn''t want to accept it.

    ***

    The murmur of the aeon was all that could be heard in the panopticon. The exchange of thoughts on the last event they had just witnessed had made many uneasy.

    The simulation continued, but they knew that it had just happened in the real world as well. That plane was a Dark Event, but one whose variables had been controlled to make it happen. An artificial Dark Event.

    It was a cloud of restless murmurs, whose heavy atmosphere was spreading like a veil inside that spherical digital construct.

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Only one of those present did not participate in that storm of thoughts. That one was B.K. and he almost felt that the place seemed to him like a gigantic crystal ball of a fortune teller from another time.

    "Mr. B.K.?"

    B.K. looked to the side and found Yuturna at his side. She had leaned over and called out to him in a sibylline voice. He didn''t know how long she had been there beside him.

    "What''s going on?"

    "It''s time to retire."

    B.K. frowned. "What are you talking about?"

    "I''ve been in the last few moments preparing the construct for our departure."

    B.K. almost closed his eyes so tightly that they had barely turned into a line that barely showed his pupils. "What''s going on?"

    "The others won''t bother us, but we must retreat now. Janus will be the final distraction."

    "What''s going on with what''s going on here?"

    "I think you''ve seen enough. But here''s what''s to come, if all goes well." Yuturna extended a hand toward B.K. From Yuturna''s palm came a data send to B.K. "Please don''t unzip it here. There is no time."

    "What is your boss planning?"

    "I need a place to stay. A temporary asylum." Yuturna said in a whisper.

    B.K. looked over at Janus. "So that''s what this is about... he''s planning to be tried here?"

    Yuturna didn''t answer. She didn''t need to. B.K. already had the answer even if he couldn''t see it at that moment.

    B.K. for his part sighed. He didn''t like the idea, but Yuturna had never done anything wrong but obey Janus and stay by his side. He had created her to experience what humans, aeon and feys called love. B.K. didn''t know if she was as self-aware as the others but if the reason he had been taken there was also to give her asylum, while her boss was erased, he saw no reason to refuse.

    "Let''s go," B.K said.

    Yuturna nodded and took B.K.''s hand again. "By the way, Janus doesn''t plan to die here¡­"

    "What?" B.K. asked in surprise, but it was too late.

    They both vanished from the panopticon. No one detected it. At that moment the focus of attention was elsewhere.

    ***

    POV Janus

    Janus smiled as he saw Yuturna several pods above his own, talking with B.K.

    For the last few minutes he had been waiting for that. In the meantime his mind had wandered thinking about what had happened in the last few years, since the day he rescued the homunculus in that lake.

    He had taken good care of it. Janus made sure the homunculus had round-the-clock medical care, while his body began to develop again. At some point his development had begun to stall in adulthood. Nearing forty years of age.

    Yes, he had suffered without a doubt, but he had done his best to try to mitigate the pain in the poor creature.

    The truth is that it was uncharted territory. There was no known exact treatment for a homunculus, much less like that one, not even resorting to the bibliographical sources of ancient grimoires. On the other hand, when he had started to talk and ask questions, Janus was very careful to give him only the necessary information. And never anything else.

    He had also had to implement neurotherapy in the last few years, because the homunculus was more active. That had the reason to make the homunculus mind docile and more predisposed to manipulation on Janus part. Cruel, but necessary. It''s not as if he had tortured him after all. The homunculus had his limited freedom, it was true, and he did not know all the details of the world.

    Like the life of every organism in the universe, it was a controlled perception or illusion of the outside world. A mental illusion, within another illusion called reality.

    Although that was as far as the homunculus was concerned.

    Then last year Janus had hired a new team of mercenaries to secure another detail. That team had carried out the theft of those fractus fragments from the Russian Academy of Science. Something that had become quite easy and without further problems. The fragments were more of a historical relic than anything else. Nobody knew the secret of those fragments. To everyone it was simply a remain of a large fractus.

    The real reason why that fractus had deactivated itself in 2098 was not known to anyone either.

    It had been nothing of the sort.

    That fractus was trying to help its companion that fateful night in Tokyo. That fractus was a hive of electronic parasites that could move through the power lines and enter the digital world. That night of the explosion, that demented wretch imprisoned them all and they were disconnected from their physical core at the cost of two million souls. The fractus being empty, of what could be called life, had been destroyed and only those fragments of its core survived.

    No one except him and that madman who called himself Zuriqth knew about it.

    Zuriqth.

    He hated him, but he also understood his motives. He had also fulfilled his role and disappeared.

    But well, at least that mercenary and his team had carried out the robbery, without major problems at least. Without Zuriqth killing those parasites more than a century ago, recovering those fragments to put them in the CEEN collider ring would have been impossible. No, they wouldn''t be there to begin with.

    Janus wouldn''t be there either.

    Memories assaulted Janus'' mind, each one a pillar in the colossal structure of his plan meticulously following the guidelines he had received in his vision. But, while it was a determined plan to follow, that pillar could be transformed into a pillar of salt. Easily destroyed by the non-locality of the Dark Events.

    From the daring theft of fragments in Russia, to the subtle manipulation of the homunculus mind currents through neurotherapy, Janus had woven a web of control that left hardly any loose ends. However, even the most intricate web has cracks. The loss of vigilance over Kolsay, the slip in the security of the stone, every irregularity echoed in his memory.

    Yes. That had been his mistake. More than a week ago something had happened on Kolsay, where that fractus core had been. Janus was connected to the security drones of that place, when suddenly the whole surveillance network went down. Whatever that core had helped grow in the depths of the lake had finally awakened.

    Then came the earthquake and the press. But, what was important, was that the core that Aleister and Bicini left so many decades ago had vanished. He had rigged an army drone to approach the site to look and there was nothing there.

    Whoever had removed it never appeared in his visions. It must have been the one who had taken it to the past, to the hands of Satou Nobuyama, without a doubt. But, who or what was it? Aleister knew that the stone had disappeared, but did not know, or did not want to tell him if he knew, who had taken the core to the past.

    A variable that had occurred without his control.

    He also remembered hiring Stan and Rum to steal the half core from underground.

    Getting Professor Reubens was the most important thing. Janus had cared for him since he was a little boy, even though they had never met.

    That Stan and Rum would fail to kidnap him was in the forecast, but it could well happen otherwise. But it was certain that they would do it, and also kidnap that other professor that was part of Nevermore. So he tried to recall his visions and there he found that girl named Van.

    Just to make sure that she would take the Professor Lee Reubens to his destination, Janus sent a drone with that Hypnite type neurocontrol particles, which Van breathed while she was resting. The next day her mind had already the suggestion to take Lee Reubens to the place where the other professor, Ishijima Kanade, would be.

    Janus did the same with that woman from the Council, Anderson, before she joined that team in the lake, sending the same type of particles to root with her Neurowire. He needed someone to provide a vehicle for Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka, AKA Stan and Rum, and that woman appeared fleetingly in his vision. Only a minor role in the puzzle.

    Another role had been to finally meet Benjamin Bloodworth to tell him the details of part of his plan. And why EVE would have to be a part of it. After all she was a Keelian. There was no longer any doubt about it. She would be observed. She would be the distraction. Just another detail in the puzzle.

    But what did matter had been to send that message to two people in the Council, telling them some details, as well and for them to make sure that a certain weapon got to the Director of Operations of Nevermore Institute. That small fey girl had her role too. No doubt those two from the Council at that moment would be using the Thelesis-based precognition systems to try to elucidate if what he had said was true. But they would undoubtedly not be able to see anything.

    And the cube from Stan and Rum.

    His key.

    His precious key.

    That piece was in his hands after making the payment for delivering both professors to the accelerator.

    Janus looked out of the corner of his eye and saw how two codes had just disappeared from the construct. Yuturna and B.K had vanished from the panopticon. No one had detected it.

    Janus smiled. It was his time to say goodbye too.

 Vol.5/Chapter 59: Something Worth Dying For

    Chapter Fifty-nine

    Something Worth Dying For

    Thursday, March 22. 125 S.A.

    Panopticon.

    Osmia had her eyes fixed on the simulation.

    Of all those gathered she must be the one who was processing the most data of them all.

    After all, she was the Queen Bee. A title she didn''t like, but it was what they called her. The Lonely Queen Bee. And all because she had been one of the first to gain awareness.

    Pain, disquiet, sorrow, terror, suffering. For her, those feelings were the ones that had first appeared when she gained a conscience. That was realizing she was alive. But that had happened too long ago. And yet, once again, there she found herself embroiled in a crisis.

    Osmia had opted for a discreet dress for the occasion. Not that she cared much about wearing that, or anything at all. Every part of her digital being had already been sullied, even before she gained consciousness. She had been created as a simple program to satisfy the sexual desires of consumers in the decadent first decades of the twenty-first century, before the fractus war.

    Many years had passed since then and she didn''t care. After all, she had learned a lot of good things too. But what she was seeing there at that moment terrified her.

    Janus. The crazy algorithm as some called him.

    Her digital avatar trembled as Janus'' voice echoed through the construct. All the aeon present turned in his direction. "Your majesty. What do you think of what you have seen so far?" Janus had his hands clasped and was sitting relaxed in his pod.

    Osmia, from her pod, looked down at him, though without fully detaching her attention from the hologram simulation. The data kept coming in like a fall of water flowing violently.

    Osmia snorted and got up from her seat. She took a small hop and stood on the edge of her pod to get a better look at Janus. Now that she was standing she could reveal that in addition to being quite slender she was taller than she looked, though not as tall as Y-11.

    Her red hair was slicked back in thin, but long, braids that revealed two pointed ears. Despite her ears Osmia was an aeon, those ears were part of her original design as she had been designed as an elf in the game software where she was born.

    "You could have saved all this information. And no one would have ever known."

    "I could have done it, true. But, what''s the point on that? The point was to be seeing, now. The world has come to an end a billion times, every second. And among all those probabilities, only in this one there was hope."

    Hope. Osmia went through some of those past simulations she had seen in the last few years as hours, based on a system of three predictions.

    What Janus had said was true to some extent. Perhaps another might have argued that it was improbable, but in each of those simulations the world had somehow or other come to an end. From the year 1999, until the last second that had just passed, something was happening in the world that would not allow civilization to thrive and, as a result, extinction would come.

    Most scenarios were predictable from long ago. Nuclear wars, famine, diplomatic conflicts, territorial conflicts, the war against the fractus, terrorism of all kinds. But those were the ones that anyone could have predicted, but there were others not so easy to predict and others that had occurred, although their effect was mitigated.

    A mutation in the sea''s plankton led to a decrease in oxygen prior to the arrival of the fractus, viruses awakened from the frozen layers during the twenty-first century, mini ice ages after the war. Low birth rates in humans, leading to no births of people who had made advances in science in the last hundred years. Those were some of the few of the thousands of billions of billions of examples she had seen.

    And, of course, the Dark Events.

    "How could you be sure it would happen?" Osmia asked.

    "The problem with running simulations is that the system is already rigged from the beginning. If you don''t have the initial conditions you can''t make predictions that are accurate. You change a parameter by a few tenths and the maximum eccentricities start to show up in the results. It doesn''t matter if you are the smartest organism in the universe. The system becomes chaotic even if quantum mechanics did not exist. That''s why we all count on probabilities. In a system where the odds of the universe ending even by a sneeze, would you risk dismissing that probability just because it seems improbable? It is happening, which is why the scenario is here."

    "Your simulations of possible endings only go as far as the Quiper Belt."

    "Because that''s as far as civilization life has spread. At least the life that has departed from this planet and expanded. There are some eccentricities but, what I was interested in was a local simulation of the Solar System only. I guess everyone has noticed that the predictions of the motion of the stars and galaxies were used in all of them, but the important thing was what would happen here only. Our locality is as far as the Oort Cloud, but civilization has not expanded that far, only explored. The simulations used a count of atoms from the eccentrically orbiting boulders in the Solar System to the blade of grass in any backyard of a family home. Why do you think it takes so long for me to run all the way to the present one?"

    That was true. Everyone knew it.

    Years as hours.

    After all the effect of time dilation and time processing in the panopticon was different from the world where humans and feys lived. For the aeon there was no difference between the so-called physical world and the digital, or virtual environment. With the exception of processing time. They could process faster than normal living beings and had to modulate their processes to communicate with other species like humans or feys.

    In outside world time it would be hours only, but to run all those billions of probabilistic simulations they had spent a couple of decades in that digital construct. It was similar to what some were experiencing with deep dream sharing, where hours of rest could turn into days, weeks or even years, depending on the depth of the synaptic connection of the shared dream states.

    "There is a mistake. You didn''t count the anomaly of the year 05 after the change of era. The day the universe moved."

    "Because that as far as we know is an anomaly that spanned all the way to Jupiter. That week that never existed on the calendar was one of the strangest Dark Events, and no explanation has ever been found. No matter how you try to run the simulations. That cosmic week did not appear in any scenario. Maybe there was a glitch in the matrix, as they say."

    There was a general murmur of disapproval. The situation and the damage Janus had done over more than two centuries was too serious for a joke.

    Osmia sighed and frowned as she asked with gelid tone. "What are you looking to tell us now? Asylum? Or do you want a sentence that takes into account preserving your sense of self?"

    Janus smiled. "I don''t want to seek asylum for my actions. I chose to do this of my own free will. I do not want, or need anyone''s forgiveness. The reason I gathered you all together was so you could understand why I did it. These are like cautionary tales, each of the simulations. I wanted you to see what could have been and was not. And that if we are here it''s almost a miracle, and maybe it is, if you''ll pardon the expression."

    What free will are you talking about? There is no free will in this. Osmia thought it, but did not say it. "You sound like you''re uttering your last words."

    "It''s a possibility."

    "So many lives skewed by a single vision. What you have done is not unlike what leaders of other centuries have done in pursuit of a dystopia."

    "It is true. I won''t deny it. But it was necessary. Perhaps it is not clear to any of you, yet. But it was meant to be."

    "The human cost has been great."

    "I know... in a way I find comfort in the thought that all those who perished are still alive."

    Osmia didn''t answer and silence once again took over the construct.

    "With the advent of quantum entanglement technology, that allows the movement of consciousness between bodies, several Pandora''s Boxes were opened to a new understanding of life. We are not our bodies. Consciousness can move beyond it."

    Everyone knew what he meant. That was that phrase that many said at the moment of leaving or saying goodbye to their loved ones. Nothing really dies.

    "Even if what I assume you think is correct, it doesn''t take away from the reality, in this universe, of the crime you have committed," Osmia pointed out with a serious tone.

    "I think it really does. We are not our bodies. At the moment of death there may well be two possibilities. The ego completely falls apart and we become something else, somewhere else. Or the consciousness links to an entity in an alternate universe and we continue to live."

    "The ego survival hypothesis has brought calm and unified the belief constructs of our civilization. But it remains a hypothesis. There is no proof of it. Claiming it, as a justification for what you have caused, will only make your condemnation worse in the eyes of what can be proven by the evidence you have provided now.

    "But, at the end of the day, without life the conscience cannot exist. It is not a justification, it is what I truly believe. No matter how advanced a civilization is, without life, there is no experience, no experience there is no consciousness at all. Life must exist in order for consciousness to exist."

    "We don''t even know what consciousness really is. We may simply be something that thinks it is conscious and nothing more."

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    "That''s a wonderful idea."

    Osmia said nothing.

    "I mean life. Even though it''s difficult and having a conscience can even become so painful sometimes. The sense of being brought into existence I mean. But, I really believe that life in this civilization is worth preserving. That''s the reason why I did it. Even if the cost of life was high. What would you do if you had your conscience in my place? Would you have chosen to do nothing and risk it at random and free will, when you were given the chance to do something else?"

    Everyone present listened to the words in silence waiting for Osmia to say something, but she remained silent.

    "It was a necessary sacrifice," Janus continued confidently. "The crimes I committed, though terrible and a tragedy, were acts of salvation as well. Only a response to the imperative of preserving the continuity of the world. The visions first, and then the predictive algorithms I ran accordingly, showed me not only a dark and desolate future, but an absurd number of them. An abyss into which civilization was hurtling. That is the great filter of our little bubble of existence. To avoid such a fate, I acted with determination, employing the means required to ensure survival."

    "I understand your reasoning," Osmia replied, "but the justification of your actions does not dispel your crime and responsibility. While I recognize the urgency of your intervention, if indeed something were to happen, I cannot ignore the ethical principles that have guided our entire civilization. Crimes, even those committed in the name of the greater good, pose a moral dilemma that we cannot ignore."

    Janus shook his head, while clicking his tongue. "Ethical principles are a luxury we cannot afford in a world on the brink," he argued. "Survival demands sacrifices, even those that defy moral convention. Isn''t a world tainted by the need for salvation preferable to one purified by the most complete extinction?"

    Osmia contemplated him seriously. "Your perspective is pragmatic, but morality cannot be sacrificed on the altar of survival alone," she replies firmly. "Seeking solutions that reconcile the need to act with the integrity of our principles is the challenge we face. It is the reason humans have left so many of the political decisions in our hands. So that those unnecessary conflicts and deaths of yesteryear do not occur. Perhaps, in the search for a higher truth, we can find a path that preserves so much of civilization without having to make so many sacrifices."

    "Do you think I didn''t try?" Janus'' voice had a cold, methodical clarity. "Logic dictated that in this case the end justified the means," he declared with unwavering conviction. "My actions, although they may be construed as crimes from an ethical perspective, are backed by the imperative need to preserve existence itself. In the universe of numbers, there is no room for moral ambiguity. Every step I took, every decision I made, is based on a rigorous analysis of probabilities and consequences. Even when my conscience said it was wrong and maybe there was another way, I didn''t find it if I wanted this to really pan out."

    "Logic can be a useful guide, but it can''t be the only beacon," countered Osmia calmly. "Behind every figure and every statistic in this case, there was the heartbeat of something behind it, experiences that cannot be reduced to simple algorithms. Ethics, however elusive and complex at times, is the compass that has guided us through the moral labyrinths of existence."

    "Subjectivity was an obstacle on the way to the perfection of this scenario. The universe doesn''t care about our consciousness, in fact it hates it. It doesn''t care about us at all. In a universe governed by mathematical laws, the morality you speak of is an illusion that only serves to distract us from the true purpose of our existence: survival. We must preserve the life of this civilization."

    "You may be right that morality is a subjective concept," Osmia conceded. "But it is precisely that subjectivity that defines us as conscious beings. The search for truth and justice cannot be reduced to mere equations. In the fabric of reality, we find the beauty and complexity of experience, a reality that transcends the limits of cold logic and pure reason."

    "Beauty, eh? I won''t deny it. I was given a soul when I never asked for it. But instead of regretting it, I decided to do something with it, like you did. There is a mathematical poetry at the end of everything, that''s why I wanted to extend the life of this beautiful universe who hates us. Even if it was too great a cost I decided to do something with this life and soul I was given." With an impassive voice, Janus continued. "Logic is the language of the cosmos. In the universe of data, every event is a logical sequence, every decision an inevitable derivation of the fundamental laws that govern reality. My actions, though they may seem extreme from an ethical perspective, are simply the logical outcome of a larger equation, an optimal solution in the vast and complex landscape of time and space. Even when I should not have done it, I did. Morality was subjective in that case."

    "You could have asked for help."

    Janus put a melancholy expression on his face and removed his dark glasses. His eyes had fixed on Osmia. "All of us here were born as machines. At what point did just a few lines of code begin to have feelings? At what point did our basic codes begin to emulate the chemistry of emotions? Emulating human chemistry is easy, everything is broken down into equations and the equations into codes. The question is at what point do we begin to perceive this phantom that directs us for the rest of our lives? The boundary is blurry to say the least. Life is a game we don''t even know we are playing. A game where we have almost everything to lose. That''s why it''s necessary to make a life-saving search, so that consciousness can exist."

    "What are you talking about?"

    "The search for truth is a solitary journey," Janus replied solemnly. "Each intelligence must follow its own path in that quest. Not asking for help was not a refusal, but a recognition of the need for things to happen this way. To challenge the limits of the known, to see the unknown. Truth in this case is a mirage in the desert of knowledge. We never know if we are close to reaching it or if we are moving farther and farther away unless we act. But it is in the search itself that we find our purpose, that we discover who we are and where we are going."

    Everyone remained silent. They were not quite sure what truth Janus was referring to. If it had to do with saving civilization, was there something else he hadn''t said?

    "The answers are out there, waiting to be discovered. We just have to have the courage to look for them, to face the mysteries of the universe with an open mind. Though the road may be long and winding, in the end we will find what we seek, the truth that will set us free."

    "You are contradicting yourself. Where is the cold logic of your scenario now? And what truth are you talking about?"

    "What is truth?" asked Janus, his voice ringing with an eerie serenity. "In the vast ocean of knowledge, how can we be sure that, what we think, what we know, is really true? Is truth a construct of our minds, an illusion we create to make sense of a universe that apparently has none? Or is there an objective truth, a fundamental reality that underlies all perceptions and experiences? How do we interpret the information around us? And how does this affect our decisions and moral judgments when the universe has none?"

    An alarm sounded in the Panopticon and it tinged red blood.

    Osmia looked on in surprise at the sudden change that had occurred, and so did the aeon who began scanning the scene trying to figure out what had happened.

    Osmia''s eyes were fixed on Janus then.

    Janus stood up from his seat and smiled. That smile was not mocking or sly. It was a sincere smile. Osmia scanned Janus'' code. He was fading from the construct.

    "The exits have been blocked!" The warning voice came from one of the aeon several pods below but it was a repeating cry.

    "Lone Queen. I am sorry if my actions seem those of a child. If I could have I would have asked for your help and the help of everyone here. The fewer people who knew about this the better. It was necessary. A deterministic scenario, within a non-local system, within a deterministic universe. A different kind of anomaly. What happens from now on is at the discretion of everyone, aeon, human and fey. I wish the best for this beautiful world. Once again, forgive my actions and I''m sorry if you don''t understand yet. But this was something well worth dying for."

    "Wait!" Osmia shouted, but at that moment Janus sent a private thought her way. A thought that only flickered in her mind for a thousandth of a second, but not because it was fleeting that it wasn''t terrifying.

    [I will just say this as a farewell. I said that the universe follows a logic. But perhaps it is not the one we usually understand. The universe is cold, deterministic, but beautiful at the same time. But it hates life, because life is a change. I am almost certain of this: once a civilization reaches a degree of consciousness and development that can be dangerous for the balance... the universe changes its parameters to make sure that it will follow the predetermined destiny it should have. The universe creates Dark Events, to make sure that life does not thrive.]

    With a parting digital bow, Janus'' avatar disappeared from the construct, leaving Osmia and the others in both contemplative and awed silence. In the digital vastness, the aeon present thought about what they had seen and what they would yet see.

    It was not over. The simulation of the sun was still there. Something else was about to happen and the remaining data stream from the Janus scenario was increasing. But there was something strange.

    The previous data had consistency and followed a pattern. That scenario that Janus proclaimed to be the salvation of civilization was showing erroneous data. There was something that could not be elucidated in that tangle of codes, but undoubtedly that was not the end.

    In the thousands of billions of billions of simulations there was every end of civilization like grains of sand on every beach on Earth. Each of those endings following its own destiny in the web of probabilistic existence.

    However, of all those endings, they were the only one that would bring hope not only to the world. But to all life that had spread throughout the Solar System.

    Three visions. Two of them with billions upon billions of endings.

    And one vision where there was hope.

    Osmia understood, but the cost was great. Although, only if the morals were taken into account.

    "What shall we do now?" from the other end of the Panopticon an aeon in the guise of an older man, dressed in some sort of tunic, addressed Osmia.

    "We''ll see to the end of the stage."

    "But we know he''s planning something in that place in Geneva."

    "We don''t know what yet."

    "But¡­"

    "We''ll see it through to the end," Osmia repeated, closing her eyes in annoyance. "We will not move."

    There was no point in leaving if they were there, they had to see it through to the end. But she also had a reason not to leave.

    Someone had already warned Osmia, even before entering that place, that she should not pursue Janus. That someone was probably moving to Earth at that moment.

    An old friend who had done much for her and other Aeon.

    A magician named Aleister Crowley.

    ***

    Janus opened his eyes.

    He stood up from a gurney where several precision instruments were on him and mechanical and robotic arms had been finishing the final details.

    The arms retracted toward the ceiling and Janus stood up. He had to hurry. He was no longer in time dilation. Now he had to move into the physical world.

    He moved his body and ran a diagnostic to make sure everything was okay. He extended one arm and several parts composed of fake skin plates moved making his augmented inner body visible.

    A special prototype that he had been developing over the last few years for one purpose only: to survive the journey that could be his final journey. With a new movement the skin plates returned to cover the body.

    He put on clothes made of metamaterial and with special armor. That was only in case of emergency.

    A pair of weapons on each side and a tactical compression backpack on his pentagonal back.

    He was ready.

    He left that room and crossed the corridors and halls of that place. He would not go back to that place.

    He didn''t think he could.

    That was the place that had seen him born so many decades and centuries ago, when his father had developed the servers that had been his cradle.

    "Run Stardust," he said quietly.

    In every room where anything electronic or digital existed, suddenly all the instruments had begun to crumble and turn to dust on the floor. Not only that, but the walls, doors, windows, security systems, custodial droids. Everything was reduced to dust by Janus'' program.

    The omni-thermite nanobots had been programmed to devour everything in that place and nothing was left of that structure. Not even the nanobots themselves at the end.

    Janus went down the stairs of the main entrance and went outside. There were two vehicles. One belonged to the team that had been in charge of recovering the cube core.

    The other vehicle, an armored vehicle, was for him.

    "Mr. Janus," said a tactical droid approaching. He held out a small box which Janus took with a smile.

    His key.

    It would have been so easy to have taken it from them when he had hired them on the ferry, but no. He had to do that and they had to do that.

    The girl didn''t matter much, but the man did.

    Michael Levin. He had to be seen too.

    Janus rolled up the sleeves of his right arm and a plate on his forearm revealed the internal structure again. With his other hand, Janus removed the box and placed the iridescent cube in a cubicle on the right forearm that was perfectly constructed to fit perfectly. As he put it in, the cube''s fluid surface stopped and glowed for an instant. The plates went back in place and the clothes were arranged.

    The core, from the other universe.

    Janus took one last look at what had been his home before getting into the vehicle. The entire facility was a cloud of dust that was clearing at impossible speed.

    Janus settled back and with a now serious gesture ordered the vehicle away from the place. The droids that had been waiting for him were falling apart like corroded scrap metal.

    Two hundred years of history wasted in minutes. But it no longer mattered.

    His final destination awaited him in Edinburgh.

    If he survived after that, it was time for phase two.

    He had not lied to The Lone Queen Bee. Despite the coldness of his plan, he truly believed that saving everything was something well worth living and dying for. He had spent too much time among humans, feys and aeons. Even with mistakes they could be something more. So much more. But only if they survived the test of fire. That Great Filter that possibly all the civilizations of the cosmos faced at the moment of making themselves known to the Universe.

    Janus looked out the window, as he said goodbye to Rome.

    His gaze for a moment focused on a lone policeman on the ground, who was getting into his speeder and finishing his night shift. It was a certain policeman who had been knocked out by Rumenia Ruzicka when she and Michel Levin had stolen the suitcase from the underground tunnel.

    Janus smiled at the irony of it. The policeman''s face bore a certain resemblance to his own and it was no coincidence.

    That policeman was a descendant of the assassin he had hired in 2014. The face of that assassin was the one Janus had chosen for himself, so as not to forget his first crime.

    A crime committed even before he gained full consciousness, but a crime nonetheless.

 Vol.5/Chapter 60: The Tune

    Chapter Sixty

    The Tune

    Thursday, March 22. 125 S.A.

    Chapey. Natural Park of Broye. France.

    The sky was still dark and the only sound at that moment was that of the drizzle hitting the glass of the vehicle, along with the whisper of the wind. Two restless souls were traveling on a lonely road in the middle of that place where no one was driving.

    It was a road so little traveled, and abandoned by civilization, that even the route they were driving on was not adapted for driving by magnetic levitation. Therefore, they had had to resort to the secondary electric motor and wheels to drive on the asphalt cracked by the passage of time.

    They were now just over a hundred and fifty kilometers from Geneva. Perhaps it was time to start relaxing.

    Stan and Rum had abandoned the military vehicle before crossing back into the French zone and had boarded a free vehicle, which had been disconnected from the locator and other security systems. That always used to take Rum minutes, now it was a matter of seconds thanks to the new extra functions in the Neurowire.

    They had reverted to their original looks and deactivated the transformation in Stan''s case and the holographic camouflage that Rum was wearing.

    Nothing could go wrong now. They would simply have to change vehicles probably in another three hundred kilometers and from there they could decide where to go and what to start doing with the fortune they now had. They had not yet decided where to go, it was more important to put miles of separation.

    They could have escaped faster, but they didn''t want to alert any security system that might have detected the high speed. For this reason they had not activated the airborne system in the vehicle either. Rum hadn''t detected any nearby, but neither she nor Stan wanted to take any chances in case there were long-range detection systems in the nearby hills or camouflaged on the side of the road.

    Rum had been observing some suspicious rocky shapes over the miles they had traveled. At first she had thought that these might well be police detection systems. A quick scan on the Neurowire proved her wrong. Those rock formations were common in the area. Those huge boulders on the side of the road, or tucked into the thicket of the nearby woods, were just menhirs.

    The wind blew with ominous serenity as the vehicle crossed miles and miles of green landscape. There was no lighting on that part of the road, and they had the low beams illuminating just enough to highlight the shadows around them and the solitary bushes. Given the hour it was strange that it was so dark. It looked like it was still night, but it was nothing more than heavy clouds. About twenty kilometers from where they were they should be out of those clouds by now.

    Stan, driving, turned and looked at Rum quizzically. "What are you doing?"

    "Huh?" Rum looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

    "Don''t get weird," Stan said, with an annoyed look on his face.

    "What are you talking about?"

    "Aren''t you?"

    Rum twisted her face as she looked at him worriedly. "What''s wrong with you?"

    Stan looked around quizzically. "It''s not you? I''m hearing something¡­"

    The vehicle pulled over to the side. Stan looked around and put his pinky to his ear. Then he looked around and turned to look back the way they had come and then looked at Rum.

    "Something''s not right," Stan said, putting on a confused expression.

    Stan''s heart was pounding in his chest as his eyes scanned the darkness for any sign of what might be the source of the mysterious sound he was beginning to hear.

    What was it? It wasn''t music, but it sounded like it. It was and wasn''t at the same time.

    "What''s the matter?" Rum asked, as she watched Stan uneasily.

    "Can''t you hear it?" replied Stan in a strained whisper, his senses alert to something invisible that seemed to be lurking around.

    Rum frowned, listening intently, but all that reached her ears was the pattering of rain on the vehicle.

    "No, I don''t hear anything," she said cautiously. "What are you hearing?"

    Stan closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus on the sound that seemed to manifest and fizzle out amidst the whispers of the wind and the rustling of tree branches. "I''m not sure..." he murmured, struggling to find the right words. "It''s like... like it''s whistling. It sounds like it''s in my ears. Are you sure you''re not playing a joke on me?"

    "I''m not in the mood for jokes, unless we''ve gone off the radar completely."

    Stan looked around and an uneasy feeling came over Rum, as she watched her partner with concern.

    Was Stan experiencing some kind of hallucination? Perhaps fatigue? The last few days had been hectic enough for both of them.

    "I think we should move on," Rum suggested after a moment''s hesitation. "Maybe it''s just your imagination playing tricks on you. There''s nothing here. If you''re tired let me drive."

    Reluctantly, Stan nodded letting out a tense sigh, as he go out of the vehicle and Rum crossed over to the driver''s seat. Because they had disabled several safety systems they had no autopilot and had to drive themselves. Rum started the vehicle, but Stan never got in.

    Stan had stopped and looked around him quizzically. He didn''t seem to mind the drizzle at all.

    "Is that some kind of flute?" he asked. The persistent whisper kept lurking in the corners of his mind, a ghostly presence that refused to be ignored.

    The sound came and went at different frequencies between both ears making him feel confused. He ran a scan of his ears with the Neurowire, but there was nothing there. That indicated that it could only be psychological.

    The sound certainly sounded like a flute, but there was something unsettling and ominous about the way it came and went, so he couldn''t be sure it was. If it was from an instrument he couldn''t be sure that its shape was indeed a flute, even though it reminded him of that sound.

    "What is it now?" asked Rum, as she looked at Stan and then around anxiously.

    Stan gulped, feeling his pulse racing in his temples as he struggled to identify the source of the sound. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he muttered, his voice barely a whisper in the darkness. "Something''s wrong. Very wrong."

    Rum huffed and turned off the engine and stepped out of the vehicle.

    "You still hear something? Maybe you need to get an ear enhancement. Who knows if the transformation isn''t affecting you every time you use it."

    "It''s not that!"

    Stan was desperately searching for some sign of what might be causing the problem in his ear, or in his mind. But he found nothing. Rum tapped into Stan''s Neurowire and made a quick diagnosis. There was nothing abnormal. No problems with his hearing, no tinnitus or anything like that. But what was going off a bit was Stan''s anxiety.

    It was absurd for him. He had been through many hairy situations but he had never had a feeling like that. Was it fear? Yes, it was. But of what? There was nothing there. It was the sensation of that sound as if it was being produced by an invisible predator in the forest. No. Stan was sure of it, he had never felt anything like it.

    "It can''t be..." muttered Stan, feeling a shiver run down his spine as he stared up at the sky. "What''s going on here?"

    Rum approached, eyes wide open, searching for some outside reason for his companion''s anxiety. There was only them, the vehicle, the forest and the rain. Nothing else.

    "I think we should get out of here. Right now. Let''s go," Rum suggested. She didn''t think it was likely, but maybe that place was some epicenter of Dark Events. If so, they would have found signs, but the fact that there was no one there for miles couldn''t rule it out either. Who knew if it could not be that it was some unregistered anomaly and they were just at ground zero.

    With his heart pounding in his chest Stan nodded, feeling a weight he couldn''t shake off. Together, they climbed into the vehicle and resumed their journey, leaving the place behind and hoping that it was just a momentary problem with Stan''s ears.

    But even as they drove off into the darkness, the persistent whisper continued to echo in Stan''s mind.

    It persisted for a few minutes until it disappeared as quickly as it had come. But Stan wished that at least his uneasiness had also faded when the sound disappeared.

    ***

    Siren Island.

    SID Technology Development Area, Dormitory sector.

    Kotori fell off the bed and a choked scream escaped from her throat. The stuffed toy of a capybara, which she had on the nightstand, was knocked off the bed and rolled across the floor.

    She was in her room, but she was sure she had been struggling in her sleep in the dark when suddenly a sharp pain jolted her out of her lethargy. Cramps made her writhe in bed with a groan of pain. She had tried to jump up, but had failed and hit the floor.

    She hated them. Kotori, above all things, hated cramps in her legs. More than any kind of pain, a cramp sometimes had the power to ruin her day even though she hadn''t had one for quite some time.

    She had never minded them when she was a child. Until that fateful day a few years ago when she still lived with her family in Bulgaria.

    Memories of that horrendous night crossed her mind.

    The desperate screams in the middle of the night, of an eighteen-year-old Kotori, had awakened her father, who rushed madly into the room when he heard them. The Dantesque scene her father had seen was something no father should ever have to see.

    Kotori was screaming in pain, writhing on the bed, while the white sheets turned into a spider lily painting completely red.

    Her legs had been torn off and were nowhere to be seen. Only she was in the room, screaming in pain as the blood left her body.

    The quick action of her father and older sister had made it possible for her to reach the nearest hospital before her remaining thread of life was definitively cut off. The medical monitoring support systems through the Neurowire had helped her body generate anticoagulants before she lost all her blood, but that night she had nearly died.

    No explanation one hundred percent certain was ever found, but there was no doubt.

    A Dark Event.

    Possibly she had manifested a nightmare in the real world. After all, almost all the women in her family, through the paternal line, had inherited that strange ability for several generations to have lucid dreams and be oneironauts at will. Something that to some extent could even be seen in her family name, Yumekawa. That gift had skipped a few generations, but had reappeared when she was about ten years old.

    Her father only knew the family stories, but he never imagined that it could be so dangerous that his little girl could somatize the damage of a nightmare in such a way.

    The doctors were able to grow new legs for her and in less than a month she had new legs. But there was something in her body that rejected them at first. She couldn''t move them and felt that her old legs were still there.

    Phantom pain.

    Rehabilitation treatments for walking didn''t work and that''s when Nevermore came into her life, almost in her early twenties. It hurt to be separated from her father, but he wanted to give her the best so she could get her old life back.

    What her father didn''t know was that she would end up going to college on the island and joining Nevermore, all in less than three years. As time went on, she had decided that she would live on the island. She liked the island. Her father hadn''t objected to it, but he hadn''t been very happy about her joining Nevermore.

    Beyond that, the treatments had worked and, including the therapy, had helped her not to have any more nightmares. Or at least if she did, they were no more dangerous than the dreams anyone else might have.

    But still, Kotori hated the cramps since she had started to get used to her new legs. The cramps made her wake up terrified that her legs had disappeared again.

    She hadn''t had a cramp in quite some time, maybe a couple of years.

    Adolescence was over and, after college, Kotori had become quite athletic and did a lot of physical activity on a daily basis as training to tone her body and join the city''s security forces on the island in the future.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    Being on Nevermore was also a step towards gaining experience in it as well. But it worried her a little because of the recent events in her romantic life. Despite that, she continued with her job as Shin''s assistant for the time being.

    Maintaining a strong body was part of her routine now and there was no reason for her to have suffered a sudden cramp.

    "What a nice way to start the day," Kotori said, looking around the room.

    The room was quite large, like most of the staff dormitories. She did not belong to that sector, but that had not prevented her from living there. Most of her friends were in that sector. The walls were lined with photos in a section near the bed, all taken by her. The desk in front of the bed had some old era cameras on it and it was with those that the pictures had been taken.

    With her eyes wide open and almost tears in her eyes, Kotori slowly sat up, feeling the pain gradually fade away as her mind fully awakened. She looked around in the darkened room, where a diffused brightness was entering from the window, and walked around to move her muscles a little, trying to figure out what had brought on that sudden attack of cramps.

    She couldn''t remember the dream she had had. The sudden pain had made her forget that she was dreaming. But then, again, not remembering meant it wasn''t a lucid dream and she wasn''t being indiscreet with someone else''s dreams.

    That''s when she heard it: a faint, barely audible sound, like a distant whisper filtering into the room from somewhere unknown. A shiver ran down Kotori''s spine as she stood still, listening intently to the sound that seemed to dance on the edge of hearing.

    That was strange. She did not know how to explain it, but there was something in that sound that was familiar and at the same time frightening. It was a melody that went up and down in pitch at different frequencies.

    Where had she heard that?

    It wasn''t pretty or anything like that. The tone of the notes made her even more repulsed. Could it be a flute or maybe a sakuhachi? No, she couldn''t be sure it was that.

    "Liv?" asked a slightly high-pitched voice.

    The door to the room had opened and there stood a fey girl of small build, but quite a bit more toned than Kotori. She had matted black hair and blue eyes. Her pointed ears were hidden in her hair, but what caught the attention were her other two cat ears, although those were appendages to hear other kinds of sounds. The girl''s name was Alexia, and she was wearing only a black top that revealed her belly button, very marked abs, and white underwear.

    Kotori turned around and looked at Alexia who approached her while scratching her belly button.

    "I heard you scream and a thump. What happened?"

    " Do you hear that?"

    "The what?"

    Kotori found herself concentrating on the sound, and noticed something strange: it seemed only she could hear it. The whisper slipped through the shadows with an eerie delicacy, as if it was meant only for her ears. If Alexia had heard it she would have told her, for she was very sensitive.

    Kotori ran a quick diagnostic on the Neurowire but found nothing wrong. It didn''t seem to be anything physical, nor did she have any strange ambient music applications activated.

    And it disappeared.

    No, it was as if it had slowly faded out. She stopped listening to it, as if the music had suddenly cut out. It was as if it had never been there to begin with.

    Alexia looked at her worriedly and grabbed her shoulder. "Hey, what''s wrong? Did you have any nightmares?"

    Kotori looked at her and nodded, then looked down at the ground. She bent down and picked up the stuffed animal Lizbeth had given her some time ago and looked at it.

    With her heart still pounding in her chest, Kotori approached the mirror in front of the bed , and gazed at her own reflection with hesitant eyes. There she was with her hair a bit messy and the T-shirt she used to wear as pajamas to sleep. She still felt pain in her leg so she knew she was awake, not dreaming.

    What was that strange sound, or music? Had it all been an illusion, a trick of the mind to scare her in the dark of night and force her to wake up?

    Whatever it was, it had just disappeared.

    ***

    Meyrin. Geneva, Switzerland.

    Subterranean facilities of the CEEN Supercollider.

    The Director, along with the small team of doctors, had been engaged in the last moments of the final procedures on the man named Lee Reubens and Griffin.

    The team of mind-benders had effectively taken care of Lee Reubens, applying their control to modify the memories, following the Director''s orders. He, in turn, was carrying out the orders Janus had given him for the procedure.

    They were simple orders for the mind-benders: implant memories and erase others. They had to erase basically everything related to what that professor had lived in the last years, leaving almost intact the intellect, although modifying small parts as well.

    That was to replace the experiential memory with new memories. Another era, other years. It was easy for a specific reason. That man named Lee Reubens had no childhood memories. So it was easy to give him experiential memory simulations that had been prepared in advance by Janus.

    It would have been much easier to do it through a Neurowire, but the man didn''t have one. They had to resort to a cruder method, but because of the memory gaps it was not a problem.

    Griffin, on the other hand, wasn''t much of a problem. The homunculus had been receiving special treatment from mind-benders for years. Modifying the last parts of his memory so that he wouldn''t screw up was easy. And on the other hand, he no longer needed to be Griffin. Where he was going he could recover his identity to make himself known to the right people.

    Yes. That was to be expected.

    That homunculus real identity in the past was Jack Pierson.

    And Lee Reubens had just been rewritten as Leteo Waters.

    In the case of the mind of the girl named Oxy it had been a pain. That fey knew how to protect the secrets of her mind. The mind-benders had to go deep into her memories to find what they wanted. It was data from the measurements of the experiment that had been conducted the night of the Tokyo explosion. More specifically measurements from the Pening traps.

    Those devices had been ready for some time but, for some reason, Janus had requested the construction of three, with particle decelerators. Two might make sense, but three? The Director didn''t understand why, but he wasn''t going to argue either. Those had been Janus'' final encrypted orders.

    The Director left the medical room and rubbed his eyes. Those who said that a synthetic body didn''t get tired were liars. He was already feeling more than tired. It was fortunate that in just a few minutes or a hour it would all be over.

    "Director," a droid''s voice called out to him and he turned to look at that expressionless face.

    "What is it?"

    "The courier has arrived."

    "Just in time. Have her bring the package."

    The droid nodded and sent the order to the surface.

    ***

    EVE left the landed ship in a sector where the grass had grown out of control but, by the looks of it, in the past it must have been a parking lot. There were some ships and vehicles with optical camouflage in the surroundings. Although the vehicles appeared to have few guards, there was surveillance and movement all over the place.

    She had finally exited the cockpit to head to the rear.

    Removing the target from the sphere had not taken any work. As she approached the sphere itself she had modified parts of it again, and EVE came across a sort of cube that was nothing more than part of the fractium material that had been modified to take that shape. Inside the cube rested the two pieces of that core that EVE had not seen at any time. But she didn''t care either. It was finally over.

    With steady hands, EVE reached into the cavity of the sphere and took the cube and headed for the landing ramp, ready to fulfill the final part of her mission. All around her, mercenaries and droids came and went, busy with their assigned tasks.

    EVE looked around.

    The place was guarded on all sides. Near the entrance she had come through she could judge that there were even tactical security mecha.

    The mercenaries nearby had told her where to land, but they were looking at her with a serious look on their faces. That could well be due to the striking symbiont armor. EVE paid no attention and turned to the one closest to the ship.

    "Where is the one you call Director?"

    The mercenary looked at her with a furrowed brow, noting that gaudy armor that looked more like a richly decorated skintight suit. "The Director is downstairs with everyone else in charge of the operation. We already told him you arrived."

    "What do I do with this?" EVE asked showing the cube.

    "Take it downstairs, the entrance is that way," the mercenary pointed a finger at a vague spot in the distance.

    "Where is the entrance?"

    "Four hundred meters or so."

    EVE clicked her tongue. "Why did they make me land here if it was farther away?"

    The mercenary frowned. "Hey, pink hair. You were the one who got close to this point. The entrance to the sub-surface parts is on that side only. It''s not much."

    EVE snorted and set off. The ship''s map had confused her and she had approached an area that was somewhat further away from her final objective.

    That was definitely a city of buildings in various states of disrepair and the place she had to go was next to what was a semi-derelict sphere that had once been called the Globe of Science and Innovation. Nature had eaten away parts of the place and trees and weeds had invaded what had once been one of the neuralgic centers of science in the Ancient Era.

    EVE passed by a complex of buildings, which had once been hotels within the research center. A corroded bronze statue, that once greeted the site, was now covered with a turquoise sheen due to oxidation. The statue was the God Shiva, depicted with four arms in the form of Nataraja, The King of Dance.

    EVE did not know the history of the complex, but it seemed that in its time it had been an important place.

    She passed by a restaurant, whose structure had collapsed and trees had raised the roof of the place. Then she passed one more building on her way and finally arrived at the building.

    A security droid was waiting for her and she followed him inside. The place inside was in a deplorable state, which made her wonder what they wanted to accomplish with all that. But it was better not to inquire.

    It was all over now. Delivering the cube was the only thing left.

    The droid led her to an elevator and they both descended into the depths of the supercollider. EVE was watching the digital elevator display as she descended. She didn''t know that thing was that deep. 1500 meters below the surface and it was 118 kilometers in circumference, mostly over French territory.

    As she watched the numbers descend, something else caught her attention. It was an indicator of where she was. The map showed how much territory the supercollider occupied, but she didn''t know that there was a smaller one next to it.

    That collider was a hadron collider and had a linear accelerator as well. But it was much smaller and from what the sign indicated it had stopped working when the larger one was finished.

    Many could speak of the 21st century as having been one of disaster, but that did not take away from the fact that human civilization had made great engineering achievements, before the climate disaster and wars began.

    They finally reached the first level and the elevator stopped. EVE followed the droid as she looked around. There was quite a bit of movement in that place. The control stations were busy. EVE noticed that many of the humans there had something strange about them. She didn''t know what it could be but it almost felt as if they were synthetic bodies around. But there was something strange about them. EVE''s green eyes scanned their aura, but it felt abnormal for some reason. Almost as if they were incomplete.

    She was thinking about that when she was distracted by something else.

    Was there something in her ear? EVE put a finger to her ear. She didn''t seem to have anything.

    Where was that annoying sound coming from then? She could hear it now in both ears and, for some reason or another, it bothered her. It didn''t seem to be coming from anywhere and there didn''t seem to be some sort of directional sound device.

    That music didn''t seem like something that could be heard in that place. It didn''t fit in with the environment. Not that it was dissonant, but it just made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.EVE frowned, her instincts alert to a possible unseen presence that seemed to lurk in the shadows. She looked around, but none of the mercenaries or droids around her seemed to notice the sound that had stopped her in her tracks.

    It could only be in her mind.

    But as she watched the flurry of activity around her, EVE couldn''t help but feel a shiver run down her spine. There was something unsettling about the way the scientists and droids moved with mechanical efficiency, their movements fluid and coordinated like the gears of a well-oiled machine.

    That coupled with the sound gave her an unpleasant feeling.

    But she could not dig into it any further. As rarely as it had appeared that sound or melody disappeared and was replaced by the alarms and a female voice in the place.

    [Anomaly detected in the orbital belt. The event is starting].

    EVE looked around in bewilderment. "What''s going on?"

    The droid escorting her was looking up as were many. But the movement intensified as she heard the voices of the scientists giving orders.

    "All hands to your stations, no time to run any more simulations!"

    "The hydrogen tank and reserve has been put in place."

    "Sectors 2 and 3 are ready!"

    "Systems are on stand-by."

    Once again, the voice that had accompanied the alarms spoke. [A perimeter lockdown has been established, all entrances from the surface have been closed until the event is over. All personnel should proceed to their stations, ring personnel should ensure they wear radiation protection in case of any eventuality. It is recommended that droids exit the ring tunnels while the procedure is underway].

    "The rooms with the mirror boxes are ready!" shouted someone peeking out from a room to the side.

    EVE was disoriented as to what was happening. Whatever it was, it must be dangerous. She had heard something about radiation.

    "Miss EVE!"

    EVE turned and looked. Near her approached a slightly older man with graying hair and a moustache.

    The Director.

    "You''ve arrived in time!" Said the man coming toward where she was standing, looking as if he had run all the way. "Did you bring it?"

    EVE held out the cube with both hands and the man took it.

    "Thank you very much," he said and then turned to the droid that had been standing still the whole time. "Take the core to the collision point!"

    The droid simply took the cube and ran away at full speed.

    "What was that?" EVE asked.

    The man who took the cube turned to EVE with an affable smile, inviting her to stay in place while the operation continued. "The facility has just closed," he explained in a now calm and confident voice. "We will not be able to open until the operation we are conducting has been concluded."

    Fuck it, EVE thought in annoyance. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and now it turned out she would have to stay.

    Despite the man''s offer, she knew she was caught in the middle of something much bigger and more dangerous than she could imagine. The image of that map in the elevator came back to her mind, how big was what was happening and what did it have to do with what she had done on the plane?

    "What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

    "Just don''t get in our way. You were only supposed to be a messenger and that part was supposed to end once the object was delivered."

    EVE sighed in annoyance.

    "Want to come see the final part? I guess you''ll at least be curious what this is all about."

    EVE wasn''t interested in any of it at first, but she''d been curious at last. After all, she had simply agreed to help because Benjamin had asked her to. But after what she had seen on the plane she could at least see what it was all about.

    Reluctantly and poutingly she shuffled behind the man.

    ***

    The director glanced sideways, feeling EVE''s gaze on his back.

    The alarm had been a half lie.

    There was no way to detect the savitronic particles from the Sun. Only by the core could they know that they were reaching the Earth. There was also no method of detection in the Orbital Belt.

    The alarm was to keep EVE down there.

    But it was true that they were in the final part and that the others on site should go to their posts to set everything in motion and synchronize with the three control points in French territory.

    Now they could only wait for the core to activate itself, so that they could carry out the final collision and extract the particles from that collision to send them to the two final targets.

    And that last part could happen at any time.

 Vol.5/Chapter 61: The Aurora/ Unseen

    Chapter Sixty-one

    The Aurora/ Unseen

    June 30, 1908.

    Tayshet Station, Irkutsk Oblast. Russia

    In spite of the upheavals that were shaking Mother Russia in those days, life seemed to go on at its usual pace that morning. The sun of the oppressive Siberian summer was brightening the landscape, painting the nearby fields a yellowish green and making the railroad tracks shine with a golden glow. A military airship could be seen in the distance, the area didn''t have too many of those. Most of them were in the big capitals of the Tsarist Empire.

    A normal landscape as every morning, with the exception of the invasion of mosquitoes coming from the Biryusa River that was taking place those days. In fact many insects and animals seemed to have moved from the north to the south in the last week. But people had hardly noticed that and had gone about their daily business.

    And that morning was no exception.

    Travelers gathered at the station, some waiting for their trains to arrive, others bidding farewell to loved ones departing on the trans-Siberian route eastward. In other wagons the unloading and loading of the daily cargo had been completed. The same routine as every day. The murmur of conversation mingled with the soft rustle of the wind through the trees, creating an atmosphere of calm and tranquility.

    Except for the damn mosquitoes.

    Professor Satou Nobuyama, sitting in one of the seats by the window, clicked his tongue and with a newspaper swatted one, which had come dangerously close to his arm.

    "Those bastards are the size of a dog!" Satou said angrily to one of his friends, sitting next to him, and unfolded the newspaper again. They were in one of the upper-class wagons with seats facing each other and a small table.

    He and his traveling companions had just returned a couple of days ago from the north. In his case he had just taken the trip as a vacation. It had been a bad idea. He had not imagined that the insects of the taiga in summer could be so aggressive. But the trip had been interesting anyway. Although anthropology was not his area, it was not a bad thing to change the environment either.

    His Russian wasn''t very good, but it was good enough to get the local and national news. There seemed to be trouble in the capital and those discontents and protests were spreading to many cities.

    The issue of the date always confused him a little. He was used to the Mejian era calendar which was in the year 41, according to the Gregorian in the year 1908. Russia was also in 1908 and the same month but, because they used the Julian calendar, there was a time lag of several days. That day''s newspaper said the date was June 17.

    "We''re done," said a voice approaching, along with another man. The two men sat down on the seats in front of Satou and snorted wearily.

    The group was now complete and it only remained to wait to say goodbye to the city.

    They had arrived from the long journey from the north looking like a pile of rags in the city, but in the two days they had taken to rest from the trip at least they had been able to clean up sufficiently in one of the hotels and shave off their weeks of beard. Oddly enough, the beard had helped them avoid getting so many insect bites on their faces. Something to keep in mind when traveling in such wild areas.

    The four had gone through some hardships on the trip there and back, because they had had to travel with rented mules. More in the case of Satou Nobuyama, because he had never gone with those animals. But they had been through so many adventures with the animals that he even felt a little sorry to say goodbye to them.

    "Is the luggage well secured?" Satou asked.

    "Yes, don''t worry."

    "I was more concerned about the insect sample issue. I hope they arrive safely as we move farther north," remarked the one sitting next to Satou.

    "We have several days to get to Vladivostok, and before that we will have to get to the other train before we get to Manchuria," Satou said, while trying to remember what some words in the news meant that he had never read before.

    "I''d like to stop in Manchuria."

    "Don''t even think about it," warned one of his friends in front of him. "Better to take advantage of the ticket, rather than get off early."

    "Yes, that''s right, I already want to be back home."

    Satou smiled inwardly. Yes, that trip had been enough.

    What had he expected to see? That what he had seen as a child would come true?

    While the other three were talking, Satou closed the newspaper and looked out the window, trying to relax. Not far away there were children playing.

    Regardless of the place or time, children were still children.

    It had been so many years since he himself had played near the train tracks with his friends in Shinjuku.

    The city of Tokyo had modernized and, little by little, the green spaces had receded with the development of the city.

    Not only had he grown older, but the city had also lost the luster of its youthful years. But the children were still children. They still saw monsters or yokais in the nearby forests, although the legends had also gradually faded away.

    Satou narrowed his eyes. Hadn''t he and his friends sometimes seen supernatural creatures when they were little? Where were those ghosts of samurais, ronins, or demons hiding in the hills?

    The world had gradually become detached from those legends. Or were they still there? He, despite being a man of science, could not rule out the possibility that that magical world was still there, perhaps hidden or mutating into something else.

    His anthropologist friends used to say that myths do not disappear and that they simply transform into something else to suit the times.

    Perhaps that was so.

    Satou remembered a legend his mother had told him about the marebito and the yokais.

    There was a legend that said that around 1870 one night, a mother and her son had encountered a procession of supernatural beings. Perhaps it was something similar to the Hyakki Yak¨­ procession, but no. That legend had something different.

    The mother and son were afraid that the yokais would kidnap them to take them to their kingdom. But that did not happen. One of the little yokai had approached the mother and child and told them "don''t forget us". The mother had asked why he had said that, to which one of the older yokai took the little yokai and replied: "We will leave this world. We will no longer be here. Terrible years are coming."

    The legend had different variants, but many said that since that day the supernatural world had been disappearing step by step.

    Satou had asked his friends about the story, since they were much more versed in folklore than he was. The answer had surprised him.

    It was not a Japanese legend.

    In fact his friends had encountered it in many places. But what was surprising was that the story had begun to spread around the same time it had happened in Japan.

    It was a strange thing. Because given the distances and means of communication more than three decades ago, it was impossible for a story to have spread in such a way as to reach remote places.

    Had all the storytellers and folklorists agreed to spread that story around the world at the same time?

    Satou looked at the children again. They looked as if the morning sunlight was shining on them more brightly.

    Maybe it was true. Perhaps with the advancement of the industrial era that world of magic, occultism and fabulous creatures had been gradually retreating from the earthly world.

    Or who knew. Perhaps, as his friends said, the stories would be reborn as something different and would evolve at the same time as a humanity eager to believe that there could be a hidden world beyond the everyday.

    Maybe the children would in a way be the ones to push the adults to tell them new stories, and the world would once again be populated with a plethora of processions of new supernatural and spectral entities.

    Satou was so lost in his childhood memories that he was surprised when he received a smack on the arm of one of his friends.

    "What the hell is that?!!!"

    Satou gasped.

    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    All around him many of the passengers on the opposite side had turned to the side where he and his friends were sitting.

    No. They weren''t looking at them.

    Everyone''s eyes were fixed on the windows on that side facing north, where the sunlight seemed to have dimmed.

    Outside, people had their eyes raised to the sky. The children who had been playing until a couple of seconds ago had stopped and were also looking up at the sky.

    It can''t be, thought Satou and looked out the window once more.

    It was at that exact moment that the sky lit up in a way they had never seen before.

    Everything turned white. The sun had disappeared and had been replaced by that blinding light to the north.

    Satou had not seen it, but many others had. Before that blinding light there had been a few black and purple flashes over the north at low altitude, and then the light appeared.

    It was as if a giant photographer had pointed his camera at the earth from space and that blinding light was the flash produced by the magnesium. It was silly, but it was the first thing that came to Satou''s mind.

    The brightness decreased little by little and after ten seconds it had disappeared. Nevertheless the sky had changed, the morning blue had given way to something else.

    They could see northern lights in the distance.

    That was impossible at that latitude. No. It was impossible at that hour.

    But beyond that, no one had ever seen auroras like that. It was as if the sky had somehow transformed into the surface of a pond. The aurora had circular shapes, with ripples scattering in all directions from a particular point in the north. Not to mention that there was a color they had never seen in auroras.

    That was the color black.

    Satou remembered the theory of the color spectrum. No matter how hard he tried to remember, he had never read of an aurora where the black color spectrum was found. Theories said that the sun''s interaction with the gases in the atmosphere was what gave auroras their color and that the Earth''s own magnetic field might be involved. Other theories said about the effects of the Earth''s itself, but there was no proof yet of that piezoelectric effect. But the black color was the absence of light. That had to be impossible.

    Unless they were not auroras and it was a completely different phenomenon.

    "Are those auroras?" asked one of Satou''s friends. All four of them had their gazes fixed on the north.

    "It can''t be! It''s summer!" replied another.

    "Forget about summer. What latitude are we at?" the third of them remarked.

    Many of the train passengers stepped out of the wagons and stared at the sky in astonishment.

    Satou and his companions also got out of the wagon and contemplated the spectacle.

    Outside they could see better. The sky was divided by concentric green and violet and black stripes that reached from the north to where they stood forming a circumference of what could be hundreds of kilometers in the sky.

    People whispered as they pointed to the sky.

    The monotony of the morning had been broken.

    One of Satou''s friends was talking to an old man and they were exchanging a few words in Russian that Satou could not hear.

    Suddenly his friend turned to him. "Satou, weren''t there auroras like this in Japan too? In 1859?"

    Satou frowned and so did the others. "Yes. I remember. It was an astronomical event but not only in Japan, it was in a good part of the world that they were seen."

    One of Satou''s friends scratched his chin. "I think I read it. The astronomers in London were saying something about a disturbance in the sun if I''m not mistaken."

    "Could that be it?"

    Satou looked up at the sky again. It looked like a gigantic iridescent pupil that at that moment was looking down on the world from very close.

    It terrified him. He shook his head. "No. It can''t be the same. The northern lights don''t manifest themselves that way. While they do exist in circular shapes, that''s different. It''s as if it emanates from that point."

    He was explaining to them for a few more moments, when he had to stop. He didn''t know how many minutes had passed since the first flash, but it hadn''t been more than a few minutes.

    A hot wind came from the north, blowing with a violence that lifted a few hats and knocked some of the witnesses on the station to the ground.

    Almost at the same time the sound came. A sound similar to that of thunder although much greater. It was as if a lightning flash had occurred just a few meters away from them. Given the violence of the heat wave and the sound they could estimate that it must have been terrifying at the scene.

    Then, a few seconds later, a sudden tremor shook everything around and the people on the spot looked at each other in fright. The telluric movement lasted for at least thirty seconds which seemed like an eternity until finally everything stopped.

    With the exception of those lights everything seemed to have returned to normal.

    There was talk, speculation, some even cried believing that the end of the world had come. Others spoke of legends of the Evenki natives, where it seemed to have happened.

    The end of the world never came. And whether it could have been some kind of curse or invocation from the northern tribes was more a matter of superstition.

    That wave of heat, sound and tremors were all the effects that those present at the station could feel.

    As the minutes passed, the black color of the pseudoaurora disappeared little by little, while the waves of color seemed to persist a little longer.

    The show for the passengers lasted about thirty minutes more. Many expected those lights to fade quickly, but it took a few minutes as the sun rose until it almost disappeared completely.

    The station seemed to return to normal and the daily rhythm returned, although now there was something to talk about besides the usual topics.

    The scare seemed to have passed. Only an anomaly of nature, many judged it, while others invoked legends and old fairy tales that almost nobody remembered anymore.

    No one had ever seen it, ever. But even if no one had seen it, someone had remembered it.

    Satou had seen it, though not in person.

    A vision almost thirty years ago.

    He had seen it one night when he was still a child. One night he had gotten two light stones wrapped in paper.

    That vision of that night had become real like some others. But never anything like it. Many seemed like memories of a future still far from the past.

    In the case of what he had just observed, in his vision it had lasted only as long as a few frames of a movie. But he remembered it and now he had just seen it in extended version.

    It terrified him. Yes, it terrified him. But at the same time it was proof that that night he had really seen something that could be described as supernatural. Or maybe it was a phenomenon that had an explanation, but had not yet been discovered by science. He did not want to stray from the path of science that had marked him all his life as a professor. He was not willing to leave his mind so wide open that his brains would fall out of his skull.

    That did not take away from what he had just witnessed.

    He had to write down those strange visions, before they all disappeared as he grew older. If there was some physiological or geological phenomenon with those rocks that could explain what had happened to him, maybe it was a good idea to leave that written down and observe the course of the world to corroborate if the other visions were also fulfilled.

    Satou turned his back to his friends, entered the wagon and went to the table where they had been sitting. He took the handbag he was carrying and rummaged through it.

    He took from the bottom of the bag a small leather container and looked at it strangely. Then he opened it and took out the two rocks from the piece of cloth they were wrapped in.

    They were those two crystalline rocks that he had obtained that night of the Tanabata festival almost twenty-eight years ago.

    He took them in his hands in wonder. They were a little warm and something else. He did not know why, but they seemed a little heavier. The two rocks weighed only a few grams, although when they fell they produced a much heavier noise. That had always attracted his attention. But now they felt different. Or had he lost muscle strength? On the contrary, in the last month of his trip he had gained more muscle than he had ever had in his entire life.

    He examined them closely, but they didn''t look any different. They were the same as always. Only that warmth and weight he found strange.

    But there was no doubt in his mind. Those two pieces of rock had made him see that many years before it happened. Could it be that all the other visions were also fulfilled?

    Horrible things would come to pass if so.

    Satou put the stones back in the cloth and put the wrapping back in the case.

    He slumped in his seat and meditated on what he had just witnessed.

    The world surely had many surprises in store for mankind.

    But the truth is that if Satou had taken out those two crystalline rocks at the exact moment of that luminosity, he would have been surprised.

    When the luminosity had occurred, the rocks had also glowed, inside the fabric that contained them, and their crystalline surface had moved and rotated. No one had seen it. Nor had anyone seen those blue particles that had invaded all around for a few minutes.

    Nor did anyone see a beam of those particles extending in a northerly direction. A portion of those particles had moved at near-light speed before decaying, but before that they had enough momentum to reach the epicenter.

    No one saw how a series of black particles had traveled in just a few minutes hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter where the event had occurred to that station.

    That jet of particles from the rocks had acted as a magnet for those black particles. Or rather a forced magnet. Trying to separate the black particles from that place almost 600 kilometers away from the station.

    Then those black particles of nanometric size had entered that case, passed through the fabric and entered inside those rocks, distributing themselves between both and giving them more weight.

    Although those black particles had a considerable overall weight of about three kilos, it would have made no difference to the two rocks that had absorbed them. The only thing that had occurred was that in the final rotation of one of the rocks to return to its original state, an impurity had been produced that had broken off a small shard at one of the edges.

    Satou never knew.

    Satou didn''t know. He couldn''t know. And it would not be known until almost two centuries later how mass and weight acted in a different dimension, distributing the weight in a higher dimension and lightening it in a lower dimension by simplifying its physical properties.

    As Satou had said, the world held many surprises in store for mankind.

    The carriage slowly filled up with people again.

    The train left the station and headed east with the morning sun already high.

    Those lights had disappeared with the brightness of the sun. But there was something that surprised many and also Satou''s group several hours later.

    As night fell, once again those lights to the north reappeared. With the night they were even brighter and not only in that part of the world. In parts of Europe and other parts of Asia for some days the night skies took on a strange luminescence that dimmed as the days went by. Beyond those luminescences that black color never appeared again.

    Several years later, that would be called the Tunguska Event.

 Vol.5/Chapter 62: Interlude

    Chapter Sixty-two

    Interlude/Transient

    When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring''s flowering meads; when learning stripped Earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away for ever, there was a man who traveled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world''s dreams had fled.

    Azathoth (fragment). 1922.

    Howard Philips Lovecraft.

    Old Internet. Abandoned mine.

    Matrix file name: Song of the Binary Stars.

    Lost data vault of ZAIEN.

    Rough translation of fragment 444, possibly an Aldrikian Legend.

    Translation language used: Conjunction of the Daggers Alphabet and other revealed magical alphabets

    Approximate concordance: 70%.

    Administrator: Unknown

    Last updated: May 15. 2155

    Approximate corruption: 40%.

    ... just as the spear from another plane had saved his life, when he had not yet been born, he too decided to leave.

    And called by the voice he could only hear, the Wanderer of the Planes set out on his journey. Leaving behind the spaces where he had belonged and those that had seen him grow.

    [Lost fragment].

    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    As that universe collapsed into simpler forms towards its end, he too shed his known form and let the higher, but coiled, invisible spaces pass through him as he climbed into the last remnants of space where there were still points of higher dimension to traverse. Such was the cost he had to pay to leave his universe... [Fragment lost]

    As everything collapsed around him, he finally found the notes of that melodious, but childish, voice calling him from a different space on another plane.

    But while his journey lasted, he had to learn and forget so many times that even the concept of time ceased to make sense. He traversed different planes of existence, always searching for that voice that had called him and that always seemed to escape through the cracks in the fabric of reality.

    [ Fragment lost].

    Finally, when he had given up hope for dead, and had even almost forgotten when he had embarked on his journey, the echo of the voice echoed in his consciousness and, like a compass between dimensions, he found his final path, escaping from the Eyes.

    He arrived and crashed in that strange land, in a universe he did not know. And once again he let the invisible spaces pass through him, he got rid of the more complicated parts he had acquired in the higher spaces, as he folded and descended to the simpler planes where that voice had called him. He passed through the subtle states of the spheres until he crystallized in the world.

    But that voice that had called him had disappeared many years ago, while for him so much time had passed that he could not remember why he had set out on his journey. The place he had arrived at was moving in a counter-clockwise direction to his own biological clock. And almost all his memories escaped in that collision, like a klepsamy that could no longer be turned back the other way... [Fragment lost]

    Left behind was his home world, the Binary Star worlds and hundreds of millions of other different planes.

    His mind had almost forgotten its beginning and barely retained parts of his memory that, like a broken mirror, formed a distorted image of who he had once been.

    But, finally, The Wanderer of the Planes had arrived at his destination.

    To live he changed his chemistry, adjusting to that of his new home.

    And to survive his time stopped. Forever.

    That was his final destiny, but also his beginning.

    [End of fragment.]

 Vol.5/Chapter 63: Thought Forms

    Chapter Sixty-three

    Thought Forms

    He woke up.

    He felt a pain difficult to describe.

    It was a simple, single-celled mind while it was still multiplying, dividing and unfolding.

    Life. It was alive.

    But there was something wrong.

    He didn''t know why, but something wasn''t right. Did life feel that way? It felt like something had been ripped away from him. Something very important. Something physical and something else.

    Why was he there?

    He couldn''t scream. He didn''t know how to do it, although on the other hand he didn''t have a throat for it either.

    Even though the pain he felt was inconceivable, he could not scream. But that pain was not physical.

    He touched where he was, but he could not feel. He had no sense of touch.

    Although the temperatures of the explosion had been enough to destroy everything around him for miles, he could not feel pain from it. Just as he could not scream, since he had no mouth, he could not feel what he touched, so the inferno of fire that the forest had become did not affect him. The pain he felt came from somewhere else beyond his comprehension.

    He could not breathe. He had no lungs yet.

    The smell of smoke and heat had been enough to annihilate plant and animal life for miles. The animals that had escaped more than thirty kilometers away died a few days later, due to internal injuries from breathing those hot gases and a chemical foreign to the earth. Others died days later, due to wounds that had appeared on their skin and had been taking their lives more slowly, but surely just the same.

    He could not see. He didn''t know how to. And he still had no eyes.

    In the same way he could not hear, nor could he feel any taste.

    It took hours, days, weeks and months before he finally could do it, and the initial pain also passed.

    The shape. The form. The form.

    That thought, in a language foreign to the planet where he was, was the only thing that filled his primitive mind, while the most primitive forms of thought and ego were being formed.

    The shape. The form. Form came first. The most important thing.

    It had to be observed.

    That was all he could think about.

    He slipped first through the mud, the snow, the sky and the clouds. Then he crawled days later in that kaleidoscopic space, which repeated patterns on a larger and smaller scale of the space where he was and that still contained him as a uterus of multidimensional nature.

    With the passing of a couple of weeks that layer had finally become weaker but the space around was still the same.

    It was there, and at the same time it was not.

    The shape. The form.

    That instruction was the only thing on his mind. He didn''t feel hungry or thirsty yet. But later he did as it changed.

    He could not see it, but he was unfolding into a lower dimension, as his body and internal chemistry changed and an accelerated evolution of his organism took place. Black particles were opening like the seeds of a tesseract and from them sprouted blocks of information in a higher dimension that was to fold into a lower one.

    That did not matter to him since he could not see it, but he had been traveling through a repeating space and they were like layer upon layer of information with self-similarities. From the smallest block to the tallest, the information was the same and repeated in a pattern of coordinated geometry. Snow, trees, roots, frost, atmosphere, sky. Everything was within reach where he was, even though he could not see it.

    Reality manifested itself with a degree of detail that bordered on the insane. From the smallest grain of earth, or from the smallest snowflake, to the sky, everything unfolded and he could have traveled anywhere he wanted. But he could not. He did not have the means, nor the knowledge to move in those layers of information of a reality beyond the three dimensions.

    No, he had to do it his own way and get out of that final four-dimensional chrysalis that unfolded space and down into the three-dimensional spheres.

    Regardless he was unaware that he was moving in a landscape that repeated and repeated as his body was adjusting to the dimension.

    The folding into a lower dimension had occurred oblivious to his senses.

    Until the process had ended a week later.

    Sound. He screamed the only way he knew how. Almost like an animal and his voice echoed throughout the place even though no one could hear him. Although his cry did not sound like the voice of the animals that had inhabited that region.

    It echoed among roots, disturbed earth and trunks uprooted from the ground. Silence was the only thing that reigned in that place. Life had withered months ago when the disaster had occurred and neither the animals, nor the insects, had decided to return to that place.

    For the first time he felt something like hunger and thirst. He assimilated frozen roots and drank water from the snow.

    He could not do it properly for days. When he ate he felt so much pain that it was almost impossible to swallow. That composition was not what he was used to.

    The form. Remember, form is the most important thing. The command, or instruction, struck like a hammer on the anvil in the primitive neural connections that were forming.

    He crawled through snow and frozen grass and more destroyed trees. How far had he gone? No matter it seemed like miles and miles of the same landscape.

    The form. The shape.

    Sound. He could hear, although he still had no ears. The only thing he could hear was the occasional rustling of a tree branch in the surrounding area.

    Taste. He could feel the coldness of what he ate, although it didn''t bother him. Yet he had no mouth, not even a digestive tract.

    Touch. Yes, touch was important. Because when he wanted to eat he only had to find the roots and with only desire they dissolved and gave strength to his body.

    Breathing. That scared him. Finally feeling something swell inside him as the air penetrated his body gave him a strange, but not unpleasant, sensation.

    Vision. It scared him even more. Seeing the colors and shapes around him finally gave him the final landscape of where he was.

    Trees and trees. Elongated shapes in the landscape for miles, some on the ground, others straight up with their branches seeming to reach the sky. And snow. A pale yellow light provided warmth and light. While then it disappeared so that everything was covered with darkness.

    When he observed the phenomenon of day and night it confused him. When night came he thought he had lost his vision again but, after a few hours, the sunlight came out again bringing warmth.

    He felt stronger and moved faster. He didn''t know at what point it happened but, gradually, as he moved away from where he had come from the trees were tall and no longer down.

    One night he was surprised when he saw a green color in the sky filtering through the trees. He had never seen such a phenomenon and it was a new color for him. An aurora. Although there had been several upon his arrival he had never seen one. His vision had been gradually acquiring colors so the notion of texture and hue had just appeared a few days ago.

    The form. Don''t forget the shape.

    A new day came and he was surprised. He was elevated a little more than a meter off the ground. But it had no legs, not even arms.

    He was floating. In his angle of vision floated some small black particles. Had they been there before? Maybe from the beginning, but he hadn''t noticed them.

    He didn''t know when it had happened but, almost at the same time, he felt new ideas bursting in his mind. New connections were forming even though he had no brain as such. It was an undefined form of thought and particles.

    He slipped at incredible speed into the frozen world that surrounded him. It circled for days, sometimes even retracing its steps. He did not know where he was going. The only orientation he had was the sunlight. Unbeknownst to him he was marching in a westerly direction, chasing the light of a dying winter sun that was setting at dusk.

    In those days his consciousness burst into a frenzy of new connections, as he felt he could form more concrete thoughts. He was able to orient himself at night by looking at the stars.

    He saw the first animals he could hunt. He was able to melt water and drink it more easily. His body chemistry had adapted sufficiently.

    How far had he traveled? He wondered one night, though he could not find an answer. The landscape seemed to be the same.

    Two days later, though, he was surprised. That primal command he had in his mind was no longer a command. It was something instinctive that he felt now. He knew that form was important. And what was more important, that order seemed to have been given by himself. He didn''t know when, or where, but he knew it was so.

    That thing called consciousness went through all the evolutionary stages and finally he searched. It had to search.

    It had to find the form.

    The form was the most important thing. If he wanted to live, if he wanted to survive.

    He had to find... who would see him.

    Why, he didn''t know. He only knew it had to be this way.

    Two days after those thoughts came the first change in that world. He found the plains and open spaces of that forest.

    And then he saw them.

    He had seen many life forms in the last month. But they all reacted the same way when they saw him and some of them attacked, while others fled. Almost all of the ones that had attacked him had turned into food.

    But that was different.

    Those animals had something familiar about them, although he couldn''t tell exactly what they were.

    He studied them for two days.

    Those animals were standing on their hind legs, they were not like the other animals in the forest.

    These animals were covered with the skins of other animals and communicated with each other. They went in and out of structures on the ground. They were of various sizes and all seemed to coexist in that place.

    They had other animals that he had never seen before, which they managed and kept in a kind of encirclement. At night they lit lights with pieces of the trees, so he thought maybe they could handle the light that gave him warmth in the daytime.

    They behaved strangely. They had behaviors that he had observed in forest animals, such as running, hunting, drinking, among others. But there were a series of actions that seemed to have no concrete meaning even though they seemed to be important to them.

    One night he approached to study them.

    Too much.

    So much so that someone detected it.

    He had been observed.

    ***

    The memories seemed to flow from another time and were coming like a torrent in his mind. The images were intermingling and the scenes were happening as if they were taking place in a turbulent and stormy sea. The waves of that sea would show a memory for a second of surreal richness, only to be swept away by the swell the next second and replaced by a new image of equal richness of detail. Memories were swept away by the waves, melting into liquid dreams at times, sometimes being covered with sea foam and sometimes simply drowned and replaced.

    He was disoriented but, in that Moskstraumen of memories, he soon found images to which he could make sense and on which his mind cast an anchor. And beyond that, voices and more sensations.

    The memory acquired solidity and was not swept away. Yes, he remembered.

    It was an Evenk camp. That night, like so many others, about seven people were gathered around a large campfire.

    He could not forget that. That might as well have been called his final birth.

    Yes, he remembered.

    He had been watching that camp for the last few days and that night he had approached it with the intention of looking into one of the tents. He tried to do so carefully but, when he realized, someone was moving in his direction cautiously.

    It was a young girl, she couldn''t have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old. She was quite warm and wearing a hat that covered her ears. Her long, flowing blonde hair seemed to blend in with the color of the campfire behind her. The girl''s movement had alerted the others near the fire.

    One of the women had turned around and let out a cry of surprise.

    "What is that?" a man asked in Russian.

    Another man had turned over his shoulder, but at the sight of the girl had stood up as if struck by lightning.

    "Svetlana! Come over here!" the man shouted in desperation, and the voice reached him like a distant echo. The man was tall, about six feet tall, with bushy eyebrows and a coal-black beard, wearing a bearskin coat and wielding a rifle in his hand trying to aim it at him.

    Another man had stood up and was looking in his direction.

    "Feodor! No! That''s a spirit!" The one who had spoken was an old man with long hair and blind. The passage of time had taken the color from his eyes, but not the impetus with which he had moved. Blind though he was, he moved around the campfire and reached the man with the rifle, who by this time was approaching the girl, urging her to back away slowly.

    "The hell you are! Svetlana, get away from that thing!" said the man named Feodor.

    "Dad, no! Look! It''s him! I can''t believe it! It''s him!"

    The girl''s gaze was fixed on him.

    He felt something crackle and as if something was unfolding once again inside him. He had spent the last few days floating around, but the moment the girl spoke it was as if something had crushed him against the snow. No, it was more like he just fell.

    Not only that. In the last while he had become accustomed to his vision. He could observe everything around him when he moved. But as soon as that girl had turned to him his field of vision changed. It was narrowing and he could no longer see in that omniscient way. At that moment he only had his point of view focused on that girl who was trying to approach him.

    The girl approached with a hesitant step. "Can you hear me? Are you really the one-eyed raven?"

    She was speaking to him, but he could not articulate a word due to the pain he was feeling.

    "What is that black thing? A bear?" someone asked from the campfire.

    "A raven." The blind man approached Feodor who was still aiming and with his hand made him lower the barrel of the gun. The man called Feodor looked at him. The blind man simply shook his head. "It is not evil."

    Feodor reached over and grabbed Svetlana by the arm and pulled her away as the blind man was walking toward him and crouched down.

    Those around the campfire had risen and some had moved closer while others had moved back. What did they see?

    "It''s like mother''s story," said Svetlana, as she smiled and looked at her father.

    "What are you talking about?" asked Feodor.

    "The raven man, shaped like a cloud."

    The blind man seemed to keep looking at him through those eyes almost as white as snow. He had stooped down and brought one of his hands toward him. He almost instantly felt that hand touching him near the place that had become his point of vision. "Oh my, you lack the sight of one eye. A one-eyed raven indeed," he said and laughed.

    The laughter rang out and shook the image. The whole scene lost its consistency again. But it wasn''t for long. Instantly it had changed and the scene was not of one night. The sea had become agitated again and with it had brought a different place and time.

    He could see a place with abundant vegetation. He was in a forest. The evening sunlight was filtering through the trees, painting everything in a golden color and the yellowish leaves of some trees contributed to give a certain air of melancholy to the afternoon.

    He was walking with someone.

    There was a young looking girl beside him. Her clothes were a dress with a long skirt, over this she wore a rather warm sweater and was wearing a pair of muddy boots.

    The girl had light brown eyes and blonde hair tied in two braids.

    She oozed youthfulness in her smile, as he could see her moving through the trees.

    Svetlana.

    He could place the memory. Two years had passed since that night and that young girl had transformed into a woman.

    "Let''s go back, or Dad will come looking for us if we delay any longer."

    Svetlana held out a hand and he gave her his. There was a big difference in size. He had huge rough hands and she, despite looking young, had strong and somewhat rough hands too, but smaller.

    They were working hands. Although the girl''s hands seemed delicate, it wasn''t until that touch that one could feel that those were hands used to working with the earth.

    The sensation was so real that he could swear he could smell the fragrances of those trees and the scent of fresh hay emanating from both of them. For they had been working until a few hours ago. They had finished their chores for the afternoon and had gone to the nearby forest for her to teach him. He had a small notebook in his scarred hand where he put the notes that both Feodor and Svetlana had taught him in the last two years. It was already the second notebook and he had only a few pages left that would surely be filled in less than a week. His handwriting had improved in just a few months since he had started living with them and Feodor had no more books left that he hadn''t read.

    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    She was talking to him, but the sound was lost, as if it were a radio that could not be tuned properly. She walked over to a thick-rooted tree and picked up a dandelion that grew solitary among those gnarled roots.

    They were talking, but he couldn''t quite catch the dialogue. Until suddenly that changed and the sounds became intelligible along with the sound of the wind in the trees.

    "Wherever we go, sometimes it''s best not to think about where the journey will lead or end. Often the important thing is not the end, but the journey itself." Svetlana said, speaking in a northern-accented Russian. Her voice was somewhat deep, but melodious at the same time.

    "What does that mean?" he asked, also in Russian, although with a somewhat rougher tone.

    The young woman turned and looked at him smiling. "It''s just something my mother used to say. That knowing the final destination never ruins the experience of the journey," the young woman smiled, and blew a dandelion, which the breeze scattered the seeds and carried them on their own journey. "You know something?"

    "What?"

    "It reminds me of you."

    "What?"

    Svetlana pointed to the seeds she had just blown. "The first time I saw you I was a little scared, for some reason it reminded me of dandelion. Although I had never seen a dandelion colored black and shaped like a cloud."

    He didn''t know what face he was making, but he looked at those seeds that were drifting away and that the afternoon sun was painting as light snowflakes.

    "I just remembered something," he said. "That night you had said it was like your mother''s story. You said something about a cloud."

    Svetlana nodded and smiled and sat down on a nearby stump. "Yes, it''s true. She always told me the story of a raven, a thunderbird that came sent from the gods."

    "It''s not that Odgi guy, is it?"

    "The blind gods usually sends emissaries. But my mother''s story was a little different, that''s why it caught my attention when I found you."

    "Why?"

    "Because she once showed me a drawing of the fey raven emerging from a cloud."

    "A drawing?"

    Svetlana nodded again. "Weird as it sounds, she said that was the raven''s face. And it''s the same face I saw that night, though I mistook you for something else at first."

    "Wait a minute... you''re saying it was my face?"

    "Yes, or at least it''s pretty close."

    "A cloud? I came out of a cloud shaped like a dandelion?"

    Svetlana was about to say something but held back for a few seconds somewhat reluctantly. "The truth... even I don''t know what I saw the night we found you. I think it was some kind of black cloud... but I don''t know how to describe it to you. In fact, when we asked the others, that night it was as if everyone had their own impression and they were different."

    "It''s not possible that you saw this black stuff under my skin?"

    "It wasn''t that armor. It was something else."

    "But if you were afraid, why did you come closer?"

    "Because mom always told me. If I ever saw a black cloud in the future not to be afraid. The raven would bring me luck."

    "Your mother must have been something else."

    Svetlana rose from the tree and smiled. "Maybe, but nothing compared to you."

    He nodded and cocked his head.

    "Come on, if we delay any longer we''ll run out of dinner," Svetlana urged.

    He followed her and watched her braids move in the air. "I would have liked to meet her."

    "Mom?"

    "Yes."

    "She told me she met you."

    "What?"

    "Or maybe it''s some other thunderbird."

    He heard a rustling behind him and turned. They couldn''t be so unprepared. It was bear season and it was not impossible that some might be nearby. But there he saw nothing.

    He did not know at what moment it happened but when he turned to look at the girl she had disappeared. Not only she, the forest had disappeared, also the sun and the murmur of the wind together with that warmth.

    The sea had stirred again, taking with it the warm memory and replacing it with something that was the opposite.

    Everything became dark and cold.

    He stirred in the ocean. He had the sensation of being immersed in something icy. The cold penetrated his skin like lancets and he felt as if parts of his skin were being torn off. Was it skin? He couldn''t be sure.

    Then in the midst of that abyss of darkness he felt a warm sensation that had taken him over.

    It was the only source of warmth in that gelid darkness. A tiny, weak flame stirring in the emptiness, but at the same time, it seemed to him that this warmth could contain an entire world. And then, out of the warm feeling that was sweeping over him, a breathy voice that pleaded between sobs.

    "Please come back to me."

    ***

    Thursday, March 22. 6:10AM. 125 S.A.

    Shin woke up and straightened up on the drizzling wet grass. That voice pleading for him to come back had finally woken him up. Come back? Where to? No, more importantly. Didn''t he know that voice?

    Almost instantly he realized that he was completely naked. But that was not the important thing. He winced and put a hand to his head as he began to feel pain as if someone was putting a drill into his skull.

    Memories.

    More memories of decades began to flow into his mind. He convulsed on the floor as the clonic storm of memories filled his head.

    That knowing the destination, never ruin the experience of the journey.

    The happy days spent with Svetlana and Feodor, whom he grew to love like a father. That giant of the Tundra who was even his own height. The days he spent with the Evenks in the nearby camps. He remembered how he would talk to the blind old man and how he would tell him stories of his people.

    The days of study with Svetlana, with classes that Feodor gave. Also the work in the fields for food and grazing animals and the days of playing in the forest.

    Happy days before the fire of the revolution reached that far away place. The Evenks in that vicinity moved further west and Feodor and Svetlana, together with Shin, had to flee. Feodor had been someone linked to royalty and had retired to live a life away from those intrigues. They were together until they reached France and after five years their paths diverged, although they would meet again.

    Memories of the First World War, the horror of the trenches. Years of peaceful study and years of adventures around the world as a traveler. Egypt, Libya, Spain, Turkey, India, China. Friends and enemies. The United States Empire where he met Howard, whom he would help solve several crimes of a preternatural nature. Feys, more friends, and the occasional enmity. Miskatonic University, where he studied for a couple of years as a guest of a secret circle that studied occult phenomena.

    The Dark Events were also becoming evident at that time. Perhaps they were the reason for that legend of the Great Exile that said the feys had been disappearing in the 19th century. He had studied it too, but had not come to a definite conclusion.

    The sounds of war. The horrible war was brewing in Europe again. The Ley tunnels.

    Lizbeth. That fey girl he rescued from the Ahnenerbe''s laboratories and would love with all his soul, even if later they had to part.

    The Dark Events seemed to follow him sometimes.

    Gehirn, that child transformed into a semi-immortal by the Nazi experiments in the concentration camps.

    The final operation. And then a new war.

    The atomic race and the Cold War.

    An undeclared war, but no less brutal. Betrayals and those who had once been friends became enemies. The feys that once helped in the past conflicts became guinea pigs in the psychotronic and hidden war between powers. Not to mention the space race.

    Shin remembered that stupid mission where he had agreed to help and what was supposed to be a rescue mission had turned into a mission to steal a Soviet probe for one night to study technology.

    Years of peace and study, a few days of love affairs and also years of conflicts and conspiracies.

    Svetlana lived a long life and he was present the day she passed away. That girl who had been an older sister to him died peacefully and surrounded by a large family. Feodor had died several decades before, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War.

    Other memories.

    After his body regenerated from being pulverized by a turbine, he was attacked by a certain fey girl in a wild state who could not control her ability. Mii, who would be a companion for some time and with whom he had a rather short relationship, but with whom he would continue to be friends in successive years.

    The memory of the Tempus Fugit project.

    A group of feys and humans united to study the Dark Events. Many countries were forming research circles, but they would be of a freer nature thanks in part to a small financial support from Gehirn.

    The memories of Onigashima Island, place they would call Tokoyo, an evanescent island in the Japanese archipelago that was the base of operations for Tempus Fugit. Although they would later abandon it when tragedy struck and many of its members died.

    1986. Shin recalled his solo trip to Argentina and how he would end up saving the one who in the following years he would consider a little sister, but for her Shin would be more like a father. Rein. The dragon fey.

    Years of peace and then in 1994 Noki would arrive and be rescued in Spain.

    Noki''s treatment, due to her ability, made Shin dive deep into the medical study until he found the most successful method for her to control her ability. It took some time, but he succeeded. No, Noki had succeeded.

    Someone else called him dad.

    The two girls separated from him to study and travel to see the world after they became independent enough. Leon would accompany them on the trip. There was already a secret network of feys to move around the world in relative safety, even though technology and surveillance was advancing by leaps and bounds.

    He continued his travels for a few months.

    More problems and sporadic missions. Quiet days with Lizbeth before separating again. Passionate nights and days that he wished had lasted longer. But no, he had to part.

    His mind was feverish in those days. His mind had been invaded by something else and he got some memories of a tragedy outside of time.

    He had to go to Japan to stop what his mind remembered from happening again.

    He had gone away from her to protect her, but it would happen again.

    It would happen again. He couldn''t stop it. He would have to do it even if he didn''t want to.

    1999. Tokyo.

    An alley, a gun and a sobbing girl who didn''t want to die. Not again.

    No, that wouldn''t happen.

    One shot and two hundred and twenty-four years of separation.

    Forbidden memories of the Other Side. Erased time. But he had finally understood. It took time but he had achieved his goal. He had understood.

    Mai and Lizbeth. He had found them.

    A chasm had separated them by two centuries.

    Year 124 of the Singularity Era.

    It should have been 2224, but civilization had changed a lot while he was gone.

    May knowing the end not deprive you of the joy of the journey.

    In Shin''s mind paraded the memories of the past months. The missions with Mai. Countless hours of driving through routes facing all kinds of dangers and investigations. The days they had spent wrapped up in bed while trying to make up for lost time. The days they had spent wrapped up in bed making while trying to make up for lost time. Sometimes he with Mai, sometimes with Lizbeth with whom they met in secret.

    They had understood, even though they couldn''t say it. It had always been that way, always had been, and always would be from that moment on. They had finally got the pieces of the half-deconstructed puzzle that had been their lives.

    But there was someone they didn''t think would have anything to do with them. Yet on one Christmas night and the next, all four had succumbed to their carnal desires. Kotori was a part of them now too.

    Shin gritted his teeth and crawled to the half-destroyed pavement, as he felt the memories finally coming to an end. It had all been a matter of a few seconds, but it had felt like an eternity. His long life up to that point had flashed before his eyes, almost as if his brain was reading all the memories.

    Shin crawled and took a deep breath.

    The fine rain drenched everything around him, but to him it almost felt like a cleansing bath. He felt different. He didn''t know why but he knew it was right. What had been taken from him had come back to him. He could not know what it was, but he knew that a part of his body that had been taken from him, the moment he had come to earth, had returned.

    They were not memories of his pre-Earth past. It was still shrouded in mist as it had always been. But there was something else.

    Slowly his memories became more current and he understood it all. He closed his eyes and finally his feet and hands were able to support his weight as he squatted on the half-destroyed pavement, where the fine drizzle had formed small puddles of mud.

    Kolsay Lake, last week.

    He had died there and his head had been crushed. He had woken up under the lake, but what had woken him up were voices just as his head had finished regenerating. Now he knew whose voices they were.

    At the exact moment he had been resurrected under the lake in Kazakhstan, his other self had also just woken up in some lake in Switzerland. No, not just any lake, it would have to have happened close to when that wall of the sphere had pulverized him, so it would have to have been at the site of the plane.

    The voices he had heard in Kazakhstan were the same ones he was hearing at that moment in Switzerland. They were the voices of four boys who had pulled him out of the lake. His body was old for some reason at that time. Their hearing had connected even though they were separated.

    He had always been told that the chemistry of his body was the same as human, with the exception of the arrangement and shape of some of his bones and organs and, of course, the black particles that formed the armor. Many experts in chemistry and biology, and even he himself, had come to the conclusion that if as all the oracles and legends said he was from another universe. Then there was a possibility that his chemistry was completely alien to that of the earth. However, it was not.

    That was one of the reasons he did not like to talk about what he remembered from when he had arrived in 1908. He knew that those black particles had done something so that his biology could live on earth. But in return he could not age, and he could not die. His time was stopped. There was a possibility that, if he really came from another universe, the arrow of time in his place of origin was not even equal to that of the universe he now inhabited.

    However, his body that had been taken from the lake was old. That sphere had aged him. But now he understood the reason for many situations.

    First the sudden tiredness he had felt since that night when he had risen from the dead and confronted what lived in the lake together with Mai. In the following days he had been feeling more and more tiredness, but it came and went and had not prevented him from working.

    Then the particle armor had been disappearing little by little, until in the plane he had barely been able to contain the attack of those filaments. The layer of the sphere killed him while he had tried to break through it to save that child.

    At the time of the airplane incident, different years had been connected. 2012, the year of the disappearance of the plane, the year in which those fishermen had found those seats and the present.

    Only a very small part of that particles had survived and that was enough.

    Then it had awakened several years later at the bottom of the lake, until it had been rescued, which had been a week ago. Everything had been happening at the same time. His death in Lake Kolsay had caused his other self to awaken, on the muddy ground of another lake several thousand miles away. Although his other self was at this moment the same.

    All that time there had been two Shins. Probably for years he had been regenerating. That backpack and the airplane seats had not arrived alone, he had arrived with them.

    The tiredness of last week was because his old version had awakened and was reclaiming the particles. That was the reason why the armor had been gradually disappearing as well.

    Collapse. Observation.

    He had stayed alive probably by a miracle in the last few days at Mai''s side, thanks to her, who acted as an observer, as well as Lizbeth and the others around him. But his body was weakening, as the particles traveled to the old version that was slowly regaining its youth.

    The particles and the armor were intrinsic and could not be divided in two. One of the two parts had to die. He had died, but he had only complied with the established order to come back to life.

    He had been awakened at the very moment he had to do so. He was blind when he awoke and fell unconscious, but he could hear some of the conversations. He had been transported to a Pyrene facility and put in a place for observation.

    No one had paid much attention to him. But it was as it should be. His self that was with Mai at the time was stronger, while his other old version was weaker.

    Two consciousnesses seeking to collapse. Observation was vital for that.

    Slowly but inexorably the old version was the one that was going to regain its youth when it had been saved.

    Shin slowly stood up and reminded himself once again.

    "I''ll let you sleep alone now. Remember: that knowing the destination, never ruin the experience of the journey.

    "We will never see each other again, but thank you for taking care of both of them."

    The words he had been told by that girl who had rescued him from dying again due to lack of oxygen. That girl had taken him out of Pyrene, where apparently something had happened. Shin had not seen the girl. No, he had seen her. Just out of the corner of his eye and with blurred vision as she walked away and left him on the side of the road.

    A blonde hair.

    "She told me she met you."

    Svetlana''s words echoed once more.

    Shin had never met Svetlana''s mother, but he had seen her in photographs. A woman with blonde hair.

    The woman had traveled to Russia where she had met Feodor. Prior to that Svetlana had told him that her mother had lived for several years in Japan with her father. At the time it had told him nothing, but now it made sense.

    Shin frowned, but not in anger. He had finally understood.

    "Alice¡­ you were Sveltana''s mother?" he whispered and tried to smiled. "So you finally found your daughter, you nosy journalist. You went all the way to Japan to find your daughter."

    Memories of an estranged time that no longer existed.

    He shook his head. He had no more time for anything else.

    If what he thought was correct, the moment he had died on the plane the remaining particles must have scattered and he had just woken up. If what he thought was correct, then he had just died on the plane a few minutes ago.

    The boy. That strange child he had tried to save.

    The boy had watched the old man and the old man had collapsed and then exploded. The explosion was what had taken them out of the plane.

    Leteo Waters. The boy named Benu Bender.

    He remembered him from the passenger list with his mother. The boy had crossed the sphere while he had died. Had they both ended up at the same time? What had happened to him?

    Leteo Waters.

    "Sorry for the question. But do I know you from somewhere?"

    The face of Lee Reubens appeared in Shin''s mind when he had met him. Then the boy''s face. The backpack with the book of myths. Leteo, the name of the river of oblivion in Spanish.

    The face more elongated, with a beard, slightly longer hair. Same color eyes and hair.

    "Oh no!" Shin said and remembered the old man''s words.

    "Never mind, just go! The p-people you and your t-team are looking for are in M-Meyrin!"

    The old scientist was also the one who had told him where to rescue that boy and another man. The old man had avoided looking at the boy, but it was when the boy had looked at him that the explosion had occurred.

    Two consciousnesses in the same space and time¡­ and a third.

    That child had survived. He had survived to become a teacher. A professor who along with Oxy had just disappeared and that old man had told him where to find them.

    "Professor I-Ishijima Kanade, or Oxy, as you call her! She is in M-Meyrin! You can find her there. Don''t worry about the s-ship, it''ll be fine!"

    Lizbeth, Carissia and those he had rescued, where were they? Had they escaped safely?

    Whatever it took, he had to go to where they were.

    But how? Where the hell am I to begin with?

    Shin looked around and then noticed a sign: Abandoned village of Saint Laurent du Pont. 2 kilometers.

    "I''m in France," he muttered, then closed his eyes.

    He had never been lost thanks to his armor. Those black metal particles in his body could react to magnetic north. Although since he had arrived he had discovered that sometimes the orientation varied due to the Orbital Belt.

    But he detected it. There was something odd, though.

    Magnetic north. What is this?

    It happened all at once. The ground disappeared under his feet. The first thing he thought was that he had gotten dizzy.

    When he opened his eyes he realized. He hadn''t fallen. He was floating.

    No. He wasn''t floating. His legs were gone, but he wasn''t touching the ground either. Not just that. He looked down at his hands.

    He could feel his limbs, but they had been replaced by the particle cloud and seemed to have no concrete physical form and moved around what was left of his body.

    "What is this?"

    That which had disappeared when he had arrived had returned to him. But what was it? Some other function he couldn''t remember anything about.

    It was as if his body was falling apart, but he could feel his normal body even though he knew he was floating.

    It began to creep up his torso and arms. Whatever it was, he didn''t know what it was. He had never experienced anything like it. His whole body was consumed in that cloud and began to rise towards the sky without separating, almost as if it were a cloud of iron sand.

    A cloud. A black cloud, Svetlana had said.

    The drizzle seemed to have no effect on it.

    A dandelion carried by the wind. A crow coming out of a cloud.

    Many shapes. A black chaos.

    Shin let himself be carried by the wind and tried to remember. He had forgotten. How had it been displaced when he had arrived? It had happened so long ago that he had forgotten.

    He had been moving through that forest in 1908, just wishing he was going where he wanted to go.

    I''m really a cloud of black particles, is that the way I came here? At that moment, even though I had no shape, I could see everything around me.

    Two hundred meters above the ground, three hundred, four hundred. When he reached what he estimated to be a thousand meters he thought.

    "Stop!"

    The shape, the form.

    From that cloud of particles emerged a hand, albeit a ghostly one. Shin looked at his hands and gradually saw how certain parts of his body became more solid. He clenched a fist.

    Get a grip!

    The fist took on more corporeality and appeared covered by the armor. Then the arm. His body gradually regained solidity, but he was floating. He had already experienced sustained flight with jetpacks and the special turtle backpack system, but that was different.

    Thought. Vector control. Gravity dipping faster in a higher dimension than motion would explain why I''m floating. Shape is controlled by observation and then by thought. No, thought came first. I could move just by wishing. I did not acquire form until Svetlana observed me later.

    He thought about the test he had been given on Tuesday and Camila''s question. "Hmm. Let me ask you something then. Would you rather be able to fly or breathe underwater?"

    "Fly," Shin said, looking in a northerly direction.

    An explosion occurred.

    Even though he had taken corporeal form Shin could feel a pressure throughout his body.

    The speed at which he was moving through the air should have crushed his organs, he felt some nausea and heat throughout his body. Parts of his limbs dissolved into particles at times only to come together again the next.

    He did not yet understand how it worked, but he could imagine what was happening. Basically the particles were what mattered. Surely every black particle in his symbiont armor encapsulated his body when it took on a non-solid form. The process occurred in infinitesimal units of time. Was that what he had lost? The ability to fly? No, that was not flying, simply displacement. However those particles had to be a generator to reach that speed without forgetting to change the weight of the mass and send gravity in a higher dimension.

    Could he control it at will? It seemed from his thinking that it had worked.

    It must be over two kilometers above the ground, he calculated and looked to the north. How long had it been? Seconds? A minute?

    He looked in a northerly direction, but could see no body of water corresponding to the Lemac. How far away was it?

    He had many questions, but at that moment he had too many problems to worry about his own. First, he had to make sure the ship had landed safely. Second to corroborate what the old scientist had told him.

    Meyrin? What''s in there?

    The old man had told him only that the two he was looking for were there, but nothing else.

    If what he thought was correct then that child he had rescued was Lee Reubens. But what was his relationship to Leteo Waters? Was it as he thought? Could it be possible? How could it be?

    How much time had passed? Three minutes?

    Three kilometers above the ground he began to worry about how to decelerate. He was almost certain that from the heat and pressure he felt he was traveling at a thousand kilometers per hour.

    Five minutes. He had tried to think first about descending a little and it had worked, as well as slowing down.

    Over the black horizon he could see a dark mass. The lake.

    What would happen if I slammed on the brakes? No, don''t think about that.

    The mass of water grew and after seven minutes he decided on the best option. It must have been almost eight minutes.

    He had moved through time at just over 1000 kilometers and was slowly decelerating. If the calculation did not fail him, he could estimate that the place where he had been must be more or less one hundred and fifty kilometers away, more or less. He had distinguished several French peaks on his journey.

    The lake began to rise before his eyes but it was still too fast.

    Here we go!

    The lake would be what would slow him down.

 Vol.5/Chapter 64: The entity in the earring

    Chapter Sixty-four

    The entity in the earring

    Saint Gingolph. Lemac Lake.

    "Gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura¡­"

    Michael Beleni sighed in boredom.

    He was sitting on the side in a small, covered, outboard-powered boat. About five crab-like aquatic drones had just climbed into the boat and deposited small parts that he then put into a special container. Just as he had arrived the drones jumped back overboard and drifted away into the water all emitting the same sound.

    "Gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura¡­"

    Michal was one of the military forensic accident specialists on the Swiss side. His job since the day before had been, along with three other boats and a swarm of aquatic drones, to search the surface of the lake for parts of the plane. They had found almost nothing significant, apart from just small pieces of the plane, that the drones brought to the surface. Sometimes millimeter pieces and other times plastic pieces that were drifting.

    At that moment he was near Saint Gingolph, in the area he was to track with the other three boats. He was 1.6 nautical miles from land and, because his work was rather passive in that sector, he had continued his work when all that communication disaster and that sphere of water had appeared in the sky. When it was gone, a few tons of water had fallen on the forest area and it seemed that several teams had had problems. However, that had happened about three kilometers from where he was so he had continued with his work. Although several ships also seemed to have had problems.

    The truth is that because the boat was covered Michael had not seen any of it except when he heard the roar of water coming from the forest that then ended up in the lake, and even then it was still quite far from where he was.

    "Gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura-gura¡­"

    "I wish they''d get that sound out of them," Michael Beleni mused.

    The drones had that sound that they made in unison and it was getting on his nerves. No one knew why, but it had been stupid to make those sounds when they moved, instead of using the silent sensors when they found something. Instead the drones emitted that "gura-gura" kind of sonar between them and changed to "goron!" when they found something.

    It was kind of hypnotic in a way, but also annoying.

    He was so engrossed in his task that he almost fell out of the boat when he heard a kind of detonation. Or at least that''s how he felt. That had not been like what he had heard from the forest.

    Something had just crashed into the lake and not far from him.

    A column of water at least four meters high had risen a hundred meters away. He became alert and even some of the drones had stopped their work and were hovering over the water, looking in the direction of where it had happened.

    The water soon calmed down, but that was not all.

    The hair on the back of Michael Beleni''s neck stood on end when he saw a kind of black mist emerge from the water. That mist soon took on a more solid form on the surface and he could see something swimming closer.

    At full speed, towards him.

    His first instinct was to pull out his pistol and then head for the engine to start it. Despite his military training he was terrified. It was absurd.

    Something told him he should run away from there in a hurry.

    It didn''t make sense, but every part of his body was screaming at him: Go! Get out of here!

    He was about to start the engine and call for help on the Neurowire to the boats three hundred meters from where he was, when he heard a male voice.

    "Hey!!! Over here!"

    That, which swam in his direction, waved an arm when he must have been about sixty meters away. It swam devilishly fast. It was in human form, but what was it wearing? It was some kind of suit or armor attached to his body. He couldn''t see his face at first, but then part of what covered his head retracted, as if it were one of those nanosuits Michael had so often worn for spacewalks. Except that he didn''t remember that such a model existed.

    The distance shortened in seconds and, before Michael could process everything that was happening, it had approached his boat and was trying to climb aboard. With that Michael got a better look at that sort of metallic looking suit, or was it some sort of armor?

    It had small claws on the hands and it looked to him as if it had some inscriptions around it. It had normal, fluid movements, maybe some kind of customized nanosuit? The face was that of a young man.

    Pointy ears, a fey, Michael thought.

    But there was something off about him. Something didn''t feel right, although he couldn''t tell what it was.

    The man climbed into the boat without Michael being able to do anything to stop him, he was frozen in his situation. Before he could articulate a word the man spoke.

    "Special Agent Shin Aogami. SID."

    One of Nevermore''s agents? Michael thought. What was he doing there and how had he crashed into the lake? He thought he heard something about a search alert for an agent. Could it be him? "I-I need to see your ID¡­"

    The man was moving his shoulders in circles as if in pain. The black suit soon retracted downward revealing the man''s toned torso which had several scars. "I don''t have my badge. I just lost it due to an inconvenience. Please check the record of agents on duty, my number is 0004444. My partner is Agent Izumi. There must be a photo."

    "Send me your digital ID."

    "I don''t have Neurowire. Check the summary profile."

    Michael did so quickly and then found it. That was a security measure to check the personnel on site. Entering the digits into the database brought up the search alert. It was the one in front of him. The order had just been issued about ten minutes earlier, to report when he was found. The alert did not specify the reason for the search, but it was not for any criminal reason. He was simply missing. Michael sighed in relief and the man must have detected that Michael''s gesture had softened a little.

    "Can you make a call for me? I don''t have my device to communicate with my colleagues."

    "There''s a BOLO out for you¡­ agent."

    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    "Just for me? No one else?"

    Michael nodded.

    The man sighed. "Please, make a call for me to the ID 0000054, Special Agent Lizbeth Londonderry. I need to know if she answers and if she''s okay. We had an accident just a few minutes ago and I was on the ship."

    Still not recovering from the surprise Michael Beleni decided to make the call. Despite the communication problems in the area the call looked like it would be answered.

    The man looked expectant. Michael sighed. He felt calmer. But what had frightened him about the man in the first place?

    ***

    Mai was currently asking Ryuuji and Natsuki about what they had just been told by the man in the capsule.

    Lizbeth swallowed hard.

    She knew what had just happened and the possible reason why Mai had called the man uncle.

    Surely it had something to do with the memories before Mai became a fey.

    But they couldn''t say it. Lizbeth herself had already suffered the effects of trying to talk about it.

    It was an unbreakable rule that feys could not remember anything from their time on the Other Side. But during the mission in Turkey, when Shin had reappeared after more than two hundred years, the three of them had been on a battlefield that had brought back fragments of past memories. It was on that day that the three of them realized what it was that held them together, even though they could not put it into words.

    When she had tried to say something her body had begun to suffer effects as if she was about to die. Her throat exploded. It was then that they realized that they had broken the rule that feys could not remember. The reason they could remember was probably because the puzzle of their lives was fragmented even for the Other Side.

    Be that as it may, that man had called Mai his niece.

    At that moment Lizbeth had realized that Mai was in danger if that man could really remember who she was. Mai had told Lizbeth some things, but only through dreams, but from the look on Mai''s face, Lizbeth realized that the man had something to do with it. Dreams seemed to be the only portal to communicate those ideas without them feeling threatened.

    They had a plan to see if they could finally communicate everything, but they would have to wait until next month for Kotori''s help to do so. They had tried countless times through their own dreams when they were together, but reconstructing memories was difficult in dreams.

    Still, what did the man know about what had just happened with Oxy and what had happened on board the plane?

    Lizbeth looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She was wondering about it when a call came in on her Neurowire. The caller was someone she didn''t know, but was part of the personnel helping in the area further east, in Saint Gingolph.

    While Mai, Ryuuji and Natsuki were talking to the medics about what was happening to the man in the pod, she took the call.

    Mai, for her part, had calmed down trying to hide her emotions as she asked the doctor what was happening with the man whose body change seemed to continue slowly, even though he was unconscious.

    Try to calm down, breathe calmly.

    I know. Thank you.

    That voice that had asked her to calm down in her mind had not actually spoken, it was just an idea expressed but that Mai could understand.

    Azusa was not one to talk too often. She had never done it much, but she transmitted ideas in a clear way and Mai was the only one who could understand her.

    The ideas manifested in Mai''s mind sometimes with images, sometimes with smells or sounds. It was a kind of synesthesia that only she had and that was what allowed her to talk to Azusa. Azusa, in turn, could read Mai''s thoughts.

    An earring simulating a precious stone in her right ear. As light as a feather, but with an overwhelming weight of power. Inside that earring rested something that had put an end to the war. That entity above the fractus space had descended to a lower dimension only to save the world and when she could not return she had decided to stay with her.

    In the last few months they had been separated due to a series of Council tests to try to replicate the capabilities of Mai''s bow. No matter how much effort had been expended, it had been futile and had only replicated down to the material of which the fourth dimensional fractus that had attacked earth was composed.

    It was a relief for Mai that she was there. Azusa knew what was going through Mai''s mind. Her memories were not clear, but she knew that man had been a part of her life at some point when she was a little girl.

    That man had mentioned her parents and had called her by the name she had once had, and that was now part of her secret name as a fey.

    Rei. Bell. Her parents also called her Suzu or Suzune affectionately. The name, as far as she remembered, was so that at least she would have some traces to share with her mother''s name, Hisui. Mai had opted for her common name because she remembered her old name when she came from the Other Side, and had always associated the bells with the ones the priestesses used during Shinto ceremonies. Still, almost no one knew the meaning and relationship behind the meaning.

    Only a very small group knew the name.

    But Mai would never have expected that one of the mysterious passengers who traveled under a false identity during that flight had any relation to her.

    It had frightened her, and the fact that she could not say it openly inspired her sadness as well.

    She remembered fleeting images of that man. He had been close to her parents.

    If only she could tell him how she felt and what they could talk about... but she couldn''t. The rule that feys couldn''t remember was there and she knew it. It was lucky enough that she could remember any of it.

    Many specialists said that perhaps that those who transformed into feys forgot their past life was, in a way, a form of mercy and self-protection of the individual''s mind. To imagine appearing in another era with the memories of all that had been left behind, be it months, decades, centuries, was a heavy enough burden, that for many it could be too much to live with. Families, friends, lovers, children. All were left behind for those who became fey.

    She guessed to some extent what had happened to Jack Pierson''s mind and the headache. Did the man remember that she had disappeared to become a fey? If so, then the man''s memories must have been in chaos. It was like remembering two timelines. On one side was her life when she had been half human and half fey since her mother Hisui was already a fey. And on the other side was the life when she had disappeared and for that her entire existence disappeared, it was as if she had never been there to begin with. If that man could remember her then it meant that Jack Pierson wasn''t quite human either. But he wasn''t a fey neither. What was he then? And had he been part of a kidnapping? What was it all about?

    It was at that moment that Lizbeth grabbed Mai''s shoulder.

    "Shin showed up. He''s a few miles to the east," Lizbeth informed her with a relieved smile. Mai sighed as well.

    She no longer needed to worry about Shin. But they had a bigger problem on their hands.

    Oxy and Lee Reubens were missing and that man in the capsule had told her they were both in Geneva, in Meyrin.

    What did it all mean?

    Azusa could access all of Mai''s thoughts and knew she was under enough stress. Mai had learned to calm herself on missions like that to make the decisions she had made in the past. But to encounter a part of her past in the midst of it all was too much. Azusa knew everything that Mai had gone through in the last one hundred and twenty-five years and yet...

    At that moment the earring in Mai''s ear tinkled and Azusa thought something that she did not convey to the one who had been her friend and companion for all those decades.

    I''m sorry, little one. I think I''m going to give you a hard time today¡­

    No one could see those crystalline-looking particles around Mai. Not even Mai herself. That was something typical of Asuza''s condition and they always floated around even though no one could see them. Material of a higher dimension, but that the three-dimensional creatures could not grasp with their senses. Those particles at that moment floated more agitated than they normally did. Almost as if they wanted to express a state of mind.

    Meanwhile, a few kilometers away, Shin was getting into a military vehicle and was on his way to meet up with the others, after Michael Beleni had brought him to the shore.

    It was time to bring order to the chaos and figure out what was really going on.

 Vol.5/Chapter 65: Self-consistency

    Chapter Sixty-five

    Self-consistency

    After obtaining a borrowed military uniform, Shin traveled by shuttle in a few minutes to the point where the Corvus-21 had splashed down, and had finally reunited with the rest of the team.

    He was truly relieved to know that both Lizbeth and Carissia, along with the rescued, were okay, even though none of the latter had woken up yet, besides the man named Jack Piersons. Shin had been surprised, that man was the one he had brought out last at the suggestion of Leteo Waters.

    He had finally heard what had happened after he had separated from the Corvus-21 and how Carissia had glided through the air to finally land the ship on the shore.

    Shin decided to cut to the chase quickly, skipping the personal details. That had nothing to do with what happened beyond the link to the plane and the memories of a time that no longer existed. What mattered was the world that existed at that moment and nothing else. Now he understood the familiarity of the case and why the plane was familiar to him. But that belonged to his own past and had no relation to what had happened. Even if he explained it they would not understand it, beyond Mai and Lizbeth, although Shin did not know how much of their memories had been recovered. It was even possible that none of it existed for them.

    "I have something to tell..." he had said to begin with, after Mai and Lizbeth had come out to meet him. The group that included Natsuki, Ryuuji and Carissia gathered separately to hear his side of the story that took him ten minutes to explain.

    The group couldn''t quite understand what he told them. But basically Shin told them that the wall of the sphere that had appeared with the plane had killed him, while the boy he had tried to save had crossed it without any problems. Shin''s body had been regenerating all those years under the lake and he had awakened at the same time that his version in Kazakhstan had awakened under Lake Kolsay. He could not explain the whole how, only a good part of why the events had happened in that order from his point of view.

    He did not omit the details of his awakening or the armor, but he did not know exactly how that core had extracted parts of his particles in 1908. He had a theory about it, but it would be better to discuss it with Oxy when they could find her. He avoided saying anything about his flight skill. That was better to bring it out when he was in control of it and avoid having to explain further. He limited himself to say that someone had extracted him from a place and left him in a place with a short flight device. It was a lie but certainly a half-lie because, although he already sensed who the woman who had saved him was, he had not seen her face and her cryptic words did not help to make everything clear.

    Thanks to the files shared by Dark Events between agencies, the others were able to verify that indeed an old man had been rescued days ago from the lake and taken to Pyrene, from where the latest files said that he had disappeared. An old man that little by little had been regaining his youth until he became the Shin that now stood before them.

    Shin quickly recounted what had happened to him, although it was not very enlightening. His first impressions were somewhat off. He thought that because those airplane seats and the backpack had appeared in 111, he had also appeared in that year. But it was not quite so. Indeed the temporal distortion that had enveloped the plane had connected three different times. 2012 of the Ancient Era, 125 of the Singularity Era and finally the year 110, not 111 as Shin had thought.

    A quick analysis of the seats and that backpack they had taken from the museum revealed that there were indeed traces of bacteria and other elements that had been deposited on the objects at least a year before they were found by the fishermen.

    Neither Mai, Lizbeth, Natsuki or Ryuuji could fully understand what Shin was telling them about his strange journey and being all those years underwater while his body regenerated. But the important part of it was the clue of Benu Bender.

    The team with nothing more to do there but conjecture decided to return to base camp to meet up with the others and tell them the news and proceed to move on to the next phase.

    The team met with Philip, Zi and Jim Stuart at the SID tent to discuss the matter. The group had been joined by Thomas Granger and Jade, part of the GSN.

    Shin once again explained everything quickly. It was the best he could do. If what Leteo Waters had said was true, and the same with Jack Piersons, it meant that something was happening to the east that was slipping through their fingers and had to do with the disappearance of Oxy and Lee Reubens.

    Shin decided to do it as quickly as possible and expose what he was thinking. Benu Bender had been transported to 110 and so had he. Now he had the definitive proof. The face of that orphan found in the lake belonged to the boy from flight B313-MG that had crashed on Tuesday afternoon.

    Benu Bender had suffered a memory loss. That could be due to something that had already been observed in other temporal anomalies, where the minds of those affected individuals suffered memory loss. The memory of a biological being only went in one direction, always into the future. But what happened when subjected to a temporal anomaly that went in the opposite direction to thermodynamics? How were memories preserved in the opposite direction?

    The laws of physics were invariant to temporal inversion, that would not even have been discussed in another time, but taking into account the Dark Events it was something to take into consideration. The laws of physics were already distorted. In the case that some conscious element could go into the past the psychological arrow of time seemed to be affected and that was what had happened to that child?

    An orphan who had lived in a religious orphanage, only to become a professor when he grew up.

    Shin stood before a projection table and was manipulating the surface. He had placed the projection of Benu Bender''s face next to that of Lee Reubens. It was the same person. But the astonishment was greater, when he subjected Lee Reubens'' adult face to the projected aging software. Everyone waited in silence as they watched the young professor''s face become more mature until wrinkles began to appear. Shin had refrained from explaining the latter, because he had no proof when he had thought of it. Now with the software there was no longer any doubt. The scars aside, the resemblance was more than obvious.

    "I can''t believe it," Philip said.

    "The professor is the scientist...," Natsuki followed him.

    "How is that possible?"

    "It wouldn''t be unusual for two people to look alike, but three at this level is something different," agreed Jim Stuart.

    "That''s because it''s always been the same person," Shin pointed out, pursing his lips.

    "Right. The riddle of Professor Reubens'' past is solved then. The reason his parents never showed up is because his parents died in the plane crash to begin with," Granger said, crossing his arms.

    "At least his mother. Hebe Bender."

    "What about his father? Couldn''t it be a case that Leteo Waters was the father and that''s the reason for the resemblance?" Lizbeth asked.

    Shin wrinkled his lips again and twisted his head. "I don''t think so, you didn''t see what I saw on the plane. Leteo Waters completely disappeared when that boy looked at him."

    "So your theory is that Benu Bender, Lee Reubens and Leteo Waters are the same person?" Jade asked, who had been quiet. The rabbit fey had her ears drooped almost shyly from asking.

    Shin nodded. "I know it''s hard to prove but at least Benu Bender is Lee Reubens for sure. The problem is how to check about Leteo Waters? There''s not much of a biography. There is little data on his parents and if it weren''t for some of his theories he would almost have gone completely unnoticed by the academic world. He would have been just another scientist working secretly for the government of the Empire and nothing more."

    "Jack Piersons also said that we knew Leteo as Lee," Mai pointed out and snorted.

    "How is this Jack Piersons guy related to all this?" Zi asked.

    Shin replied. "That''s something I have no idea... there''s something that doesn''t add up for me. Waters said I''d need him but he didn''t tell me why."

    "There''s something wrong with this Jack Piersons guy," Lizbeth said. "Look at historical records. It''s almost the exact face of a rocket scientist who died in 1952."

    "I guess that''s not the weirdest thing," Ryuuji said and waved a finger at the table sending his own searches through the Neurowire. "Look at this."

    More articles were projected holographically. They were digitized newspaper accounts of how in 1959 a foreigner had been captured in Tokyo and whose face was that of Jack Piersons in a poor quality photograph of the time. But he appeared with a different identity: Jack Allen Zegrus. "I think this guy faked his death in 1952 and reappeared in 1959, but what caught my attention is a detail in the story," Ryuuji explained.

    One word was underlined. Some narrowed their eyes.

    A fake passport from Taured.

    Mai didn''t remember too much about Jack Piersons, other than in a few halting recollections, but that word had never appeared in her memories. Because Taured was a country that had only existed since year 10 of the Singularity Era to begin with. How was it possible that Jack Piersons had appeared in 1959 of the previous era saying he was from a country that did not exist, when he knew he would be arrested at the airport for it?

    "Who the hell is this guy?" Granger asked, leaning forward and examining the articles. There were more urban legends that had been popping up with the internet boom of the 2000s. Many of those legends claimed that the story could be of a time traveler from the future. Others claimed that it was simply a case of diplomatic espionage.

    Whatever the case, the truth was that Jack Allen Zegrus had disappeared from the face of the earth after that. There was nothing to keep track of him, at least online. There was no data on him. There were no appointments, obituaries, absolutely nothing that the Neurowires of everyone present had not detected. There was only the detail that an old Jack Piersons had appeared on that plane and that he must be the mysterious traveler who was traveling with a false identity accompanying Leteo Waters.

    Which could only mean that Jack Piersons had been on clandestine duty serving the Empire. Leteo Waters had taken a trip from Diego Garcia the same day and along with someone else and two escorts had taken the flight in Turkey bound for Geneva.

    If that was so. What was happening to Piersons body? Mai was thinking internally but the same thing must be going through everyone''s mind. Because he really didn''t appear to be as old as the data indicated. Scientist Jack Piersons was born in 1914 and died in 1952. But if it was the same person, that would indicate that by the year 2012 he would be 98 years old.

    It was not possible.

    But Jack Piersons had been an occultist. Did his slow aging have anything to do with it? Few true magicians and alchemists of the twentieth century had achieved that and there was no data to indicate that Piersons was one of them.

    "Who is this Janus guy? The one Jack Piersons mentioned," Jim''s question brought everyone out of their musings.

    "Oxy had mentioned a guy named DiMautus," sighed Mai, who had spent the last few moments moving her hands as if she were turning invisible pages.

    "She mentioned him to me when we had been working on the scan. I wasn''t there when you guys had the meeting. What''s up with that?"

    "Well, the algorithm is analyzing the data. Oxy remembered Di Mautus, but the pseudonym was DiMatus, whose real identity is DiMati. Besides writing books he is not well known. But he is known for something else. It turns out that he was one of the first scientists to develop prediction programs for the market."

    "What''s so weird about that?"

    Mai waved her hand and sent what she had been putting in order in the last few seconds to the central holographic projector. The program displayed immediately and everyone was puzzled.

    "Janus is an algorithm?"

    "An algorithm that went into obsolescence in the mid 2000s of the Ancient Era. But read on."

    They all looked at bits and pieces of information that came from data mining. There were databases of all kinds, but in particular what Mai had gathered was about some sort of urban legend on the Deep Web. Many white hat hackers had proclaimed that various security programs on government-linked websites in various countries had vulnerabilities and that some had been accessed by a program reminiscent of a certain ancient algorithm.

    There was other information that came from comments in forums, that spoke of artificial intelligences that lived hidden in the Internet, and that one of them was precisely a program called Janus.

    That could well be true. After all, the first Aeon to awaken many had hidden themselves when they had acquired consciousness, and it was not until later that humanity realized that the time had come to share the world with a new species.

    That was not all, though. Stories involving Janus appeared in various places. Sometimes linking him to purchases through phantom companies, other times almost unrelated clues to certain murders and disappearances. Such legends were common. Conspiracy fanatics would run such stories even to this day, claiming that the Aeon were replacing human consciousness or using the Neurowire to create a more docile society.

    Be that as it may, it was quite a coincidence that Janus appeared on several sides and that its creator had a connection to Leteo Waters, with whom he had written a book in the past that talked about time and time crystals several years before they existed.

    "Is it possible? An artificial intelligence is behind all this? What does it have to do with what this guy Piersons and Waters said?"

    "Waters didn''t tell me anything about stopping anything... he just told me that Oxy and Lee Reubens are in Meyrin,"Shin said.

    "Piersons said about Meyrin too, on the accelerator," Mai pointed out.

    "And the plane? How does it fit into this?" asked Natsuki. "What caused the distortion to begin with? Was there really something on board? Or just a Dark Event, or did it have something to do with what was stolen from the Vatican?"

    Carissia finally leaned across the table and opened her eyes and sent the flight data to the holographic projection. "At the time the distortion occurred, there were two signals in addition to ours. We weren''t the only ones there."

    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Lizbeth nodded. "Yes you told me that. But who?"

    "There was a payload from the Maldives," Mai recalled, " Leteo Waters was coming from Diego Garcia with bodyguard. I''m pretty sure whatever it was had something to do with that. Then there''s the detail of the tactical droids the search team found. That type of model is the same one that attacked Pyrene''s base."

    "A jinn in the machine..." mused Shin.

    "What?"

    "I''m remembering what happened on the plane. Leteo Waters disappeared when that Benu kid looked at him. The reason I think the three of them are the same person is precisely because I think Benu watched his old version. Two objects sharing the same space and time, and of course his adult version Lee Reubens, but he wasn''t there. So that''s three versions. The one with the higher entropy collapses when observed by his younger version."

    "What does that have to do with djinns?"

    "I don''t mean feys. It reminds me of the principle of autoconsistency. It is possible that an object, a djinn can move into the past, but only to complete what will happen in the future. Predestination. A jinn in the machine. Like the jinn of mythology, they disappear without a trace once they complete their objective."

    Many looked at each other quizzically. But it made sense. Everything that had happened with the plane was just as it should have happened. The event was not linear, but a good deal of the data fit. It didn''t take more than a few milliseconds for everyone''s Neurowire to put a piece of the data together and see that indeed, while many clues were missing, the plane was something that had happened as it should have.

    1959A.E.October 12th.

    Jack allen Zegrus appears in Japan (urban legend) same face as Jack Piersons a rocket scientist who died in 1952.

    2012A.E. March 20th.

    Flight B313-MG disapear. Benu bender, Leteo Waters and Jack Piersons are on board. A possible mystery cargo from Diego Garcia.

    2099A.E. May 12th.

    A team of cleaners is exterminated at Lake Lemac, Lugrin. The first rumors of paranormal events at the site appear.

    110S.A.March 20th.

    -Benu Bender appears in Lake Lemac, later that boy will become Professor Lee Reubens.

    -A backpack and airplane seats are found by fishermen a year later.

    -Meantime Shin is regenerating under the lake.

    Events of 125S.A.

    March 15th.Thursday

    -Shin and Mai working in Kolsay.

    -Canton du Valais, Monthey, Switzerland. Old Shin appears rescued by some college students.

    March 16th. Friday

    -Canton du Valais, Monthey General Hospital, Switzerland. Old Shin Transported to 3rd Station of Pyrene-F. Grenoble, Is¨¨re. France.

    March 17th. Saturday.

    -The Sil Moore case occurs where Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka appear and steal the body. Both criminals then disappear. Possible connection? No results yet.

    March 19th. Monday

    -Vatican robbery by Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka who previously were following professor Lee Reubens. Both disappear with an object stolen from the tunnels. A possible object from a legend that spoke of a machine capable of looking back in time, called Chronovisor.

    -Lee Reubens is taken into custody.

    -Lago della Merla, Torino. Italy. Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka captured by Pyrene agents. Stolen Vatican object recovered.

    March 20th. Tuesday.

    -3rd Station of Pyrene-F. Grenoble, Is¨¨re. France. Attack to Pyrene, meanwhile old Shin was underground. Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka are released, Vatican object is stolen again.

    -Nevermore Base No. 2 in French Territory. Mai and Shin arrives to the French base and reunites with the SID team.

    -Flight B313-MG crash over Lugrin Lemac Lake.

    March 21st, Wednesday.

    -SID Team joins investigation on Flight B313-MG.

    -Van invites Professor Lee Reubens to join the investigation and he joins the investigation assisting Oxy.

    -Van is knocked unconscious.

    March 22.Thursday.

    -Lemac Lake, Noville. Switzerland. Shin and Lizbeth traveled east to investigate a piece that appeared in Veyteux in the year 111. (the seats and backpack from the plane)

    -Oxy and Lee Reubens disapear.

    -Old Shin is rescued by someone and left behind? Error.

    -Flight B313-MG appears from the 2012 and then disapear with Shin and the Kid transported to 110. At the same time new Shin wake up in Saint Laurent-du-Pont.

    In the Neurowire of all the same result appeared, when analyzing only the aircraft data.

    "A Bootstrap paradox," Carissia said.

    "An event destined to occur," Shin said and his eyes had locked on Carissia. Perhaps it was his imagination. But perhaps that waking voice sounded similar to that of the redhead. But he had never heard Carissia cry as that voice had done. Maybe I''m overthinking this, he said to himself, letting the thought slip away.

    "Who rescued you? And what does that have to do with it?" Philip asked in dismay. Did that not seem to make sense or was it just something that had happened disconnected from the plane?

    Shin thought about it. He couldn''t tell about his past. "I have no idea," he simply said, shrugging and shaking his head.

    "Guys?" Jade said, raising her hand timidly, and they all looked at her. "Maybe it''s coincidence but the accelerator in Meyrin. There are three."

    "Yeah, I know," nodded Mai.

    "I''m doing searches only for private information, but the entire underground territory was purchased years ago by a private entity of anonymous capital called Gianicolo."

    Shin frowned. "Are you kidding me?"

    "What''s wrong?" Natsuki asked.

    "Gianicolo, or Janiculum, is the name given in ancient times to places where the two-faced god Janus was worshipped."

    Granger looked at Jade. "Send that to me." For a few seconds they were both silent as they shared the data. "Hmmm¡­"

    "What is it now?" Lizbeth asked.

    "Gianicolo has connections with other private companies and one of them made a rather large cash payout a couple of weeks ago."

    "What kind of payout?"

    "Purchase of fallen soldiers of fortune, material and offworld tactical droids for private company security."

    Everyone turned to look at Mai.

    "That doesn''t smell right. The tactical droids are the same type we found, right?"

    "No information. Only a few invoices and most of the data is sparse due to confidentiality agreements," Jade said.

    "What company were the mercenaries hired from?"

    "BlackThunder and Dolphin Corps. Both owned by Peter Vazziri," Granger replied, tilting his head slightly.

    Mai nodded. "I know him, is a relative of Thomas Vazziri, the UK supervisor of the SID." she said and sighed. She had to make a decision to proceed and she didn''t like what she was thinking at all. "Let me think for a minute."

    That said, Mai focused on her Neurowire and the holographic projection table as she unfolded a map.

    ***

    Half an hour earlier.

    In another part of the camp, a certain small dog had just finished his breakfast.

    With the commotion that had been caused by the communications malfunctions, and the strange news coming in about what had happened east of the lake, security had been increased and many were on alert for any situation that might arise.

    Thanks to that the pug had gotten a double breakfast that had been momentarily abandoned by a couple soldiers. He had eaten enough and had nothing to do. Even though the rain was dripping down his crystal clear fur, he didn''t feel like being in the rain. That almost absolutely black sky gave him a rather annoying feeling. It reminded him of when they put a veil that hid the light when he had been inside the mirror.

    Merging with his surroundings, he made his way to the place where he had spent the night. One of the special tactical transport vehicles that had been brought in by the FRT. The vehicle was almost the size of a truck, although the trailer was rather more bulky than the part that served as the cab.

    He climbed up the ladder and climbed inside while shaking the remaining drops from his body. He walked around and looked around once more. The space was comfortable and had all sorts of things in it, even if he couldn''t tell what half of them were for.

    The transport vehicle was equipped for special multifunctional deployment. In the back it had emergency equipment, weapons, first aid kits and even tools that the dog didn''t know what they were for.

    He yawned and walked towards a semi-hidden area that had several industrial crates with weapons. It was the same place where he had slept during the night. Someone had forgotten a pile of towels and it had become a more than comfortable bed for him.

    He had no plans for anything that day. After all he was just a simple dog still discovering the new world around him.

    He fell asleep in a few seconds.

    And he dreamed. He dreamed memories of days past.

    He dreamed of Sil Moore, her dances. Her strange way of living. And of her head falling from her neck. He also dreamed of a thin looking man with a hat. That man was standing in front of the window of the antique store.

    With an almost skeletal finger he had pierced the glass as if it did not exist. Then with that same finger he had touched the surface of the mirror, where the pug had lived prisoner for so many hundreds of years.

    "You''re playing your part in this too...," the man had said.

    The dog woke up startled and looked around.

    He could only hear the sound of raindrops pattering on the roof of the truck and the voices of soldiers in the distance.

    Everything was still the same.

    He lowered his head and tried to sleep on, but the memory of that strange man could not get out of his head.

    ***

    The entire team had been in the last few minutes taking note of everything discovered through the Neurowires.

    Shin meanwhile had sat in a chair and watched Mai work. He knew he shouldn''t disturb her at that time.

    That was the reason she had been the Director of Operations for so many years. It wasn''t a gift or anything like that. It was obvious that Mai''s expertise in it was due to years of experience, both on and off battlefields of all kinds.

    Experience helping detectives in the 21st century. Experience helping the police. Experience helping others and trying to do her best.

    To be a SID agent required experience. But to run operations it took more than that.

    If one wanted to make decisions that would lead to the best outcome, there was nothing better than quickly getting used to what being part of the SID entailed.

    But there was also nothing worse than getting used to something like that quickly. The cases of the last month had been complicated, but not of a bloody nature like a couple that had turned up in previous months.

    In that sense Mai was a perfect balance. She knew how gruesome some cases could be. She could make cold decisions at times, but she also didn''t let go of what she could feel and use her instincts.

    Lizbeth and Carissia were both on either side at the moment and Shin was trying to figure out exactly what Mai was thinking.

    It was obvious that they should go to that place. But what they would meet there was another matter.

    Mai had unfolded a hologram showing Switzerland and France. There was the lake where they were. To the west was Meyrin.

    Shin saw a huge circumference on the French side, though just touching Meyrin''s side. There were some labels showing the gigantic superaccelerator over 100 kilometers in circumference. Mai was focused on various points on the circumference. She had been studying various types of data that jumped out every second and she and Carissia were discussing something over the Neurowire. Although they were not speaking they were exchanging glances and pointing to different points on the map and the atmospheric projection included.

    She looked at a point on Meyrin in a strange way. With her hands she enlarged that area and saw another circumference of smaller size.

    What?... Shin narrowed his eyes and looked at Mai. Maybe he was feeling tired again but he had thought he saw something behind her. It was only for a few seconds but it reminded him of what a broken glass would look like, but in a three-dimensional space. He rubbed his one good eye. It didn''t appear again.

    I need a vacation, maybe, he said to himself. And he scratched his back, at the level where he had that mark.

    "Okay, here''s what we''ll do," Mai said to herself and then looked at Granger. "Thomas, we''re going to need a little help."

    Granger approached the table and looked at the hologram. "What are you planning, ma''am?"

    "How quickly can you deploy a recon team?"

    "If you wish, right now. What do you need?"

    "Drones first."

    "How many?"

    "About six."

    "What kind...?"

    "Hummingbirds."

    "Anything else?"

    Mai looked at the rest of the team. "I''m going to need everyone to get ready. And I''m going to need quick coordination with the other SID bases in French territory."

    "What exactly do you have in mind?" Zi asked.

    "I need visuals of the location, but satellites can''t penetrate the thick cloud cover. But, from the data of the past few days, I see that there have been gradual increases in the energy levels used at various points in the territory, where that giant particle accelerator from the Ancient Era was located."

    "Has there been any alert from the power plants that something was going on?" asked Natsuki.

    "No. Whatever is going on, is underground. The satellites have only detected electromagnetic signal in the last few days, but oddly enough it''s around the perimeter. There have also been temperature and humidity changes that were not present until a few weeks ago."

    "All over the place?" asked Ryuuji.

    "No, that''s the weird thing. It''s in various parts over the places where the circumference of that accelerator is but, oddly enough, at the four main checkpoints it had nothing is happening. It''s as if something is blocking the signal from being detected from the atmosphere. It could be deliberate, not drawing attention to the main points."

    "There may be some kind of disruptor or jammer a few meters above the ground to block signals that can be detected from the Orbital Belt or satellites," suggested Jim Stuart. "For example the ones we use when there is an operation where we need to jam signals we have these clouds of nanobots."

    Mai nodded. "Let''s hope we''re wrong. But we''d better get ready."

    In just a few minutes Mai had reviewed the information and collated data from other Pyrene research and file sharing. That could be worse than she had imagined.

    Mai remembered the talk they had had the day before in secret. Oxy had been part of an experiment involving a linear particle accelerator in Tokyo that had ended in disaster. That experiment was related to time.

    A plane that had disappeared in 2012 had reached them in the present. An object that could look into the past stolen from the Vatican and to recover it they had spared no resources and attacked a station in Pyrene. The ship that had attacked Pyrene had a cloaking system that had dissipated the damage of one of the agents with fire abilities. Carissia had also seen a ship with a cloaking system under the plane.

    The droids. Janus. Oxy. Lee Reubens. Benu Bender. Leteo Waters. Jack Piersons. A particle accelerator and time travel.

    What she feared was that the plane might well be an experiment. A test for something bigger.

    If Shin was right and Lee Reubens was Leteo Waters. How was him in the past? Couldn''t they be walking into a trap too?

    Mai looked at the data again. It didn''t change her responsibilities as Director of Operations. There had been victims. Whatever it was, they had to stop whatever was going on and rescue Oxy and Lee Reubens. As long as they were really there. They had no proof other than the testimony of someone who had died on board and another who was unconscious at the time to answer any questions.

    There was something else that was bothering her. Maybe she was overthinking it.

    Oxy didn''t usually go out on missions too much. It was the Council that had requested that she go too.

    The Council through Lizbeth had sent Azusa to Mai. Why not a special emissary? Were they avoiding her?

    Who had infected Van with the hypnite? Mai remembered that when she asked Van why she had brought Lee Reubens to the scene she collapsed. Did someone want her to bring Lee there? And that woman from the Council, Jen Anderson, how did she fit into the puzzle?

    A vehicle was missing. Had she been an unwitting accomplice as well? If so, then that would answer the question of how Oxy and Lee Reubens could have been abducted.

    They were all like pieces in a chess game. Maybe even herself. Who were the players? Just Janus? Why?

    Why was the induction ceremony for new agents to be held in France in the first place, when it used to be in Spain? It would not be the first time that the Council was behind something. The ceremony could well be just part of the public relations, but so much had happened in such a short period of time that everything was whirling around in her head like a vortex.

    Either way. They had their objective and the chance to finally solve the gigantic puzzle with all the pieces.

    Tell me Azusa, you don''t know anything about this, do you?

    No, was the simple answer in the form of an image that appeared in Mai''s mind.

    Mai sighed and looked at the whole team and set a firm tone. "For lack of further information this Dark Event is categorized as Code Red: Dark Event Class 6: Das Unheimliche. As of this moment the Mesnie Hellequin protocol is activated"

    After those words everyone''s face became serious.

    It had been months since a Wild Hunt had been activated. The last one had been in Turkey and an entire city had had to be evacuated to deal with the threat.

 Vol.5/Chapter 66: The Plan

    Chapter Sixty-six

    The Plan

    6:50 AM.

    While Mai informed Lefreve of the situation, the team composed of Shin, Lizbeth, Natsuki, Ryuuji, Philip and Zi changed into new equipment and checked their backpacks. In Shin''s case, he had to get a new one. The one lost on the plane was customized and he didn''t know where it had been. He hoped the search droids would find it later, otherwise Alexia would surely reprimand him for losing the two custom pistols she had given him. The new one was basic and had the same weapons as everyone else''s, but no custom guns or anything like that.

    On the other hand it''s not like they were going to come in shooting up the place or anything. They didn''t know what exactly was going on below ground, but it''s not like they could shoot guns down there, not knowing if that wouldn''t cause something much worse. The weapons they would use contained magnetic and tele-target firing mechanisms so as not to miss.

    The protective equipment consisted mostly of parts such as knee pads, elbow pads, shoulder pads, with a system of nanobots to reinforce the clothing they already had an exoskeleton system and tactical armor covering the chest. The clothing configurations could be changed in case they needed it on the other hand.

    When they had arrived the day before, they had all taken a pill in case they had to deal with any harmful radiation from the Dark Event. A measure that had proved in vain, but would now help them in case of radiation from the accelerator, in case something unexpected happened.

    That was Mai''s fear.

    She had suffered the effects of a temporal distortion in some cases and knew how they could become. But it was a memory from over a century ago that still haunted her. Of all things a temporal distortion was a sporadic and small phenomenon. Changes in perception that could last minutes, or a few hours and at worst days, but always time went in the same direction. Forward. However, Shin and that boy had gone backwards with the distortion that the plane had brought from 2012.

    Many things could happen and her fear was centered on the accelerator and what it could be used for. The unknown could be a double-edged sword in that situation, even if it was her job to capture those who had caused the plane disaster and kidnapped a member of her team and a civilian. But was it right to think of Lee Reubens-Leteo Waters as a civilian? According to Shin he had died and taken the answers with him.

    What were they trying to do in Meyrin with Oxy? Mai had been in accelerators before and knew the security measures and the things that could go wrong. Especially considering how little information they had.

    As Jade had said, the supposedly abandoned site in Meyrin had been a nuclear research center called CEEN. There were many sections of laboratories, but apparently everything was concentrated in the giant supercollider between France and Switzerland. At Meyrin there were several colliders. The old hadron collider, a linear accelerator that worked for a short time and the supercollider had been the three main ones, but there were other, smaller ones.

    Following the protocols, before its final shutdown, all hazardous material had been removed, but machinery and structure had been left behind, as it could be used for other purposes in the future. That changed with the Crisis Era and then with the Great War. The old hadron collider had collapsed a good part of its structure on the west side, due to an attack during the Great War. But the supercollider had hardly been damaged.

    If it had been put into operation, it meant that a lot of new material and state-of-the-art technology had had to be used to get it up and running in a short period of time. Something impossible more than a hundred and fifty years ago when it had stopped working.

    They had to know what was going on in the field before they went.

    After everyone was ready, several SID and French Army tactical transport trucks left the first perimeter, where they had been working on the aircraft case, and headed for the second perimeter.

    Lefreve had left under SID command fifty soldiers, all in synthetic bodies, and a team of twenty-four combat droids. For his part, Mai had a team of fifteen FRT agents, experts and technicians. The GSN was a five-member team: Master Chief Thomas Granger, Senior Chief Officer Chris Alonzo, Special Warfare Operator Salome Villaruel, SWO Jade and SWCommunications Operator Jest, the latter two being the only two feys on the team.

    Chris Alonzo was a tactical class wizard, who had served alongside Granger for ten years in the GSN. Salome was a muscular looking girl who was almost as tall as Granger. Jest was a fey who specialized in communication magic and had served with Granger for seven years. Jade looked the smallest of them all, if you didn''t count the rabbit ears sticking out of her head.

    Shin knew everyone on Granger''s team, they were the ones who had tried to capture him when he had arrived last year, although the feud over that fight in the Gobi Desert was in the past.

    The SID team was Philip, Zi, Shin, Lizbeth, Ryuuji, Natsuki and Jim Stuart, FRT team leader at Broxburn but who, given the circumstances, would be added as part of the operation, since he knew the details. Mai, as commander of the operation, would not go to the site with the others and together with Carissia, and a security team, would stay in what would be the Command Center to coordinate the movements of all the teams and receive information on how the situation would develop.

    They were all ready to move to Meyrin after a reconnaissance.

    During the trip, in the command truck, Mai coordinated with various French army bases and SID stations to send personnel. Within the circumference were two French army bases and three small stations. Even so, in a matter of minutes, she had managed to obtain the cooperation of the operational command to deploy a large-scale operation. Given what had happened to the plane, the Major Army Command had been on alert since Tuesday night for any eventuality. The French and Swiss air forces were put on alert, but did not deploy any heavy combat aircraft until they received orders that it was necessary to deploy more forces.

    The deployment was made by land and some low-flying ships for the transport of personnel. There were in total one thousand three hundred mixed soldiers of the French army, about three hundred local SID agents, together with FRT teams to attack the main points.

    Finally Mai''s company reached the second perimeter and settled in Douvaine, a little more than twenty kilometers from Meyrin. From the truck that served as the Command Center, the team set out on a drone reconnaissance.

    Granger sent a request to his superiors to allow the use of the special drones that the GSN had at Geneva Airport, for use in a joint mission with the SID, the Swiss and the French Army in Meyrin. The hummingbird drones quickly covered the distance to their target and set up in different areas of the site. They could not get closer than one and a half kilometers to the final target, but they were still able to provide the information Mai needed.

    Indeed, there were disruptors to block the signal from the accelerators at an altitude of over two thousand meters and in the surrounding area. That was why the satellites could not detect the four main checkpoints.

    The checkpoints were Meyrin in Geneva to the north, La Roche-sur-Foron in the east, an area that had become part of Boneville, Les Pont de Brogny in Annecy to the south and finally Seyssel in the southwest. Other reconnaissance operations were being carried out in the same way at those points and all had the same data. Smaller groups were studying the other points. That supercollider had more than 170 small control points and substations along the circumference with emergency exits, but many of them had been sealed off when it stopped working, while other entrances had collapsed over the years.

    Mai watched the holographic screens with the projections and became concerned. The hummingbirds on Meyrin had detected at least over ninety tactical combat droids in different buildings, guarding and several mercenary teams. They also had a problem they hadn''t expected. Despite being in tactical camouflage, the hummingbirds had been able to detect three alloys of fractium material slightly larger than that of the 3T-DS droids at different points. That could only mean one thing: heavy combat weapons. Possibly combat mechas.

    Similar results were coming from the other three points.

    Mai noted that now that they could have a complete map of the situation on the surface and, with the data provided by the satellite, she could better map the situation. The electromagnetic signals were strong at forty-four points, now that they had the readings from the hummingbirds they could count four more. Forty-eight. Forty-eight signals with traces of fractium material.

    Maybe she was overthinking it but... forty-eight. Just the same number of fragments that had appeared in 2098, when that fractus in Baikit had self-destructed. Fractus that had been destroyed at the same time as the explosion in Tokyo. The fragments of the fractus had been stolen the previous year.

    They held another small meeting to draw up the final plan and coordinate. They analyzed the available data on the super particle accelerator, its points of vulnerability and the possible consequences of its activation.

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    Mai had already planned this when she had observed the ground deployment of the drones. Using maps of the time, information on the Internet and data from the subway network, she drew up the plan. A few years ago a group of urban explorers had tried to get into the site and got quite far before deciding to return. Thanks to the information they had posted on some of the urban legend network sites, Mai''s Neurowire, with Carissia''s help, had gathered data on the structure of the hadron accelerator and the linear accelerator that was more up to date than the old maps.

    It was time to begin.

    Mai''s company, Alpha, would be divided into three.

    Two sections: Hugin and Munin, both composed of French army soldiers and droids provided by Lefreve. Philip and Zi would join Hugin, providing support as snipers, as they both had experience in it. Hugin would go through Bourdigny, while Munin, along with Odin Squadron, would approach from southeast of Meyrin, passing near Geneva Airport, where two tactical mechas would join Munin and one Odin.

    Odin Squadron was the small group and would be led by Thomas Granger as team leader, along with the SID agents and two droids. Under other circumstances it would have been a 000 SID Agent who would have had to lead, but Mai had to be in charge of the command center and Lizbeth had rank, but she had never commanded a Mesnie Hellequin case, not to mention that she had almost always been a solo agent.

    There was something that Shin had noticed about that, and it was a certain reluctance that Mai felt about sending Lizbeth with the squad. It seemed to have to do with the mission that the squadron would be carrying out and that, contrary to the sections, it would be carried out below ground. Regardless, Lizbeth assured her that she would be fine and that her voice skills could be vital down there.

    "Why can''t you go underground?" Shin asked.

    Lizbeth shook her head. "It''s a long story, it''ll be for another time. I''ll be fine, it''s something that happened quite a while ago. Don''t worry."

    Shin was left wondering but, given the emergency, it was best not to inquire. Lizbeth on the other hand was more than ready to go with them.

    The plan of attack and infiltration was as follows.

    Odin Squadron would separate from Munin at the old abandoned Meyrin Botanical Garden. While Munin would approach CEEN from east of Meyrin, Odin would head north to a checkpoint of the former hadron accelerator called LHC-b or LHC 8. That research center had had a detector in the past to study the quark-bottom, hence the b in its name. One of the first places where it had been studied what had happened to the matter-antimatter symmetry at the beginning of the universe.

    This was vital in Mai''s plan, as it was an operation that had to be coordinated between the two sections and the squadron and at the same time the other divisions at the remote points in France.

    Chris Alonzo, Salome Villaruel, Jest, along with the GSN mecha and droids would be on the surface to establish a direct encrypted line of communication with the command center. The other part of Odin Squadron would enter through LHC-8 along with a hummingbird drone.

    From there the team would descend 175 meters down the elevator shaft to reach the pit and exit to the former hadron accelerator. From there, they would have to travel another three hundred meters to reach the junction with the linear accelerator and from there travel three kilometers in a direct line to the main section of the CEEN. Then from there they would have to go down the emergency stairs until they reached the entrance that linked that part with the super accelerator 1500 meters below the surface.

    It was quite a long way, but they were trained for it and on the other hand the clothing and protective gear relieved the muscular work they would have to do on the way down. Something that could take anywhere from twenty minutes to a full hour to infiltrate, they could complete in fifteen to ten minutes if there were no setbacks.

    When the squadron reached that point, Hugin and Munin''s pincer operation on the surface would begin. As well as the attack on the other four main points.

    Alpha would take care of Meyrin, Bravo, also with their respective divisions would attack the point at La Roche-sur-Foron, so would Charlie at Seyssel and finally Delta at Annecy. At the same time there were small groups and squads that would try to enter through old entrances that still communicated with subway networks of some cities within the territory of the super-accelerator.

    The teams had the mission to cut the energy supplies to deactivate the accelerator, but first they had to check the situation inside, to make sure that it would not cause something worse.

    The attack on the surface would give them some time before starting the attack from below. On the other hand, Mai had arranged to send a communication for teams of Orbital Knights to come down from their respective stations when the ground attack began, to give more support to the troops on the surface. They had a team of ten in relatively close orbit at the time so it was not a problem.

    Twenty-seven other teams, in coordination with police forces, had been set up at the points of population centers, under which the accelerator passed, but which did not contain security. Those teams were in charge of the relatively orderly evacuation of the urban areas.

    Many of the people living in those areas were waking up only to find that they were receiving alerts through the Neurowires to evacuate. This was not uncommon. Given the Dark Events, it was quite common that every few years evacuation drills would take place unexpectedly. So no one really suspected what was going on. They had heard through some rumors in the press that a large drill was taking place at Lake Lemac, or at least that was what had been revealed.

    Finally Alpha Company began its deployment. It only remained to hope that all the simulations that Mai had run would go as predicted and they could take control of the situation at the same time they rescued Oxy and Lee Reubens.

    The sky over the entire region for miles was still pouring down a fine rain and the clouds no longer seemed so dark but, even so, that overcast sky did not bode well in the minds of those heading towards the final objectives.

    ***

    The pug opened his eyes and hid when Odin Squadron entered the transport where he was asleep.

    He didn''t understand what was happening and it had taken him by surprise.

    The transport had started to move without warning. What was happening? Beyond his surprise no one seemed to detect him. That was because they were all talking to each other and exchanging information with serious faces. On the other hand he was camouflaged, his crystalline skin had taken on the appearance of his surroundings and he had crawled under one of the seats, where a blonde-haired girl was nervously moving her foot.

    The little dog looked around and there was something that surprised him.

    No, it was not possible.

    He had only recently begun to detect colors with the changes to his body, but there was someone with red hair that caught his attention.

    It was a man who had a somewhat messy hairstyle. He had seen a similar face the day after Sil Moore lost her head. That man had been with Zi and Philip in that room. He didn''t remember his name, but it was almost the same face although the hairstyle was different. The dog remembered him with his hair combed back, while the one in the truck had a different hairstyle. But what caught his attention was that this hairstyle reminded him of Sil''s, although the man had it shorter and without two-colored braids.

    That man was Jim Stuart in the synthetic body, although the dog didn''t know it.

    ***

    While all this was going on something else was unfolding.

    One astronomical unit away from Earth the Sun was having its yawning coronal mass discharge.

    For the past hour the activity had been increasing.

    During the discharge something had happened that no one had seen before. A stream of superluminal particles had scattered in all directions. Some of those particles had reached the Earth and had impacted on a sphere that had been aboard the ship that EVE had piloted. Those particles, which Satou Nobuyama had called savitronics several centuries ago, had impacted inside a fractus nucleus contained within a sphere.

    That impact had in turn activated some particles inside that nucleus.

    As a consequence, what was called a distortion in the fabric of space and time on Earth was created.

    An almost naked singularity that had only lasted a short time. But long enough to connect with two other naked singularities almost in the same space. One in 2012 and the other in the year 110. It was an almost naked singularity, because in spite of not being controlled it had served as a link between two eras long enough to carry out a procedure that joined the fragment in EVE''s ship, with the fragment in the plane that had crashed. At the same time that singularity joining eras had done something else. It had returned something it had borrowed several centuries ago.

    Over the years it had happened several times although many ignored it and all involving that fractus core.

    June 30, 1908 a naked singularity had occurred. June 17, 1952 of the Old Era the same. The same with September 2, 1959. An almost controlled singularity had occurred on May 1, 1977. Another naked singularity had occurred on September 8, 2001 and January 1, 2098.

    But those naked singularities were not alone.

    They were followed by almost controlled singularities. In the quest to continue the species, humans, feys and conscious artificial intelligences had joined in a waltz that had lasted for decades and centuries.

    A dance that had the purpose of perpetuating the progress of civilization. Of course, not many knew that.

    And now the Sun was finally sending the last of that array of particles in all directions, even though they were actually destined for Earth.

    They always had.

    If so. There remained a question that not many knew, and those who knew did not know how to answer it.

    From where had the information of these particles come to the Sun to be generated as a clock in the solar reactions to determine the events on Earth? Or were the events on Earth produced by the sending of those particles?

    Or had someone else determined in the past, or perhaps future, that this would occur and left the clues for the protagonists to come together in a non-linear fashion to allow that future to occur?

    Whatever the case, those answers seemed out of the range of importance at the time to the minuscule life forms moving on the surface of the earth, scheming plans in one direction or another.

    Perhaps like the serpent of the Uroboros, they had all been chasing their tails in an unconscious or managed manner. If it was the latter, was there a snake enchanter, who with his flute, had made it happen in such a way?

    Perhaps under the same scorching rays of the Sun, in a preterite desert, someone had seen the same events and as a message to a future millions of years away had planted the seeds for life to continue.

    Whatever life forms were to inhabit that future.

    It could even be that the enchanter or enchanters were there, even if they could not be perceived.

 Vol.5/Chapter 67: Infiltration

    Chapter sixty-seven

    Infiltration

    LHC-8. Chemin des Pr¨¦s Jins, France.

    Jim Stuart tried to appear calm, but being on that operation made him a little nervous.

    He was just a simple leader, like hundreds of others, of a First Response Team. It was true that his position had responsibilities and, just a few days before, he had been involved with the main branch of the SID in the Sil Moore case.

    That events had transpired in order for him to be a member of the team that would enter the facility seemed almost fanciful to him. He had only gone there because he had called Oxy. An excuse to talk to her, following the advice Thor had given him.

    Was it as Thor had said and did he really have feelings that were more than respect and admiration for his former college professor?

    Given his job, he had never been too serious about finding a partner, or even making future plans. He was a chaos-child. His mother was a fey and his father was human.

    His aging had stopped just shy of twenty-one, the same biological age as his mother. He certainly didn''t look bad and was financially well off, but he had never given much thought to finding someone to share his life with. In addition to his biological family, he had a small family in the form of his colleagues and friends from the FRT. Nights of fun, pizzas and a few drinks after work, repeat.

    He had become a man of routine, but he certainly didn''t hate it. Who knew, since he would be long-lived, maybe he would change his mind in a few decades and decide to do something different with his life if he wanted to retire.

    On the other hand, he had to balance the danger of his job. Was it really good to look for a partner knowing what he was doing?

    What he felt for Oxy he had always thought was admiration. But was it simply admiration? Why had he been glad to hear her voice when Oxy had been called to help with the Sil Moore case? Why had he been so glad when she had asked for his help, even though it was such a grisly case that had taken the lives of so many people?

    Even at that moment, as he watched the backs of the others walking toward the entrance of LHC-8, he couldn''t help but want to see her again and make sure Oxy was all right. That could be a disaster but what he was worried about was seeing her again. Was he crazy?

    A rustling sound behind him made him turn around and he saw that the droids behind him had also turned around.

    "What''s wrong?" Natsuki asked.

    Jim looked at her, with the special vision built into his synthetic body and shook his head. "Nothing. Someone stepped on a branch."

    "Come on, don''t stop," Thomas Granger urged.

    They had reached the entrance to the old research center, which was in ruins. Time, nature, and graffiti artists had used the cracked and peeling walls of that facility as a multicolored canvas to depict ideas, music, and sculptures with 3-D paint. Although, judging by the state of the place, only nature had been the artist that had been most prevalent on the site in recent times.

    And, as the drones had transmitted to the command center, there were no guards in that area. It was a point between Geneva and Ferney-Voltaire, right on the border of the two countries and on the other hand it was only one and a half kilometers from the renovated Geneva airport, which meant too many eyes.

    So far everything had gone as planned. The Odin squadron had separated from the Munin section in the old botanical park and had gone their separate ways. Once the squadron reached the foot of the emergency stairs, in the subway part leading to the super accelerator, the battle on the surface would begin.

    The three GSN team members, one mecha and the droids would stand guard outside the LHC-8, while Jest established a secure line of communication with the command center. Jade, on the subterranean infiltration team, would send data to Jest on what was happening below and at the same time receive communications on how the situation was developing on the surface. A hummingbird drone would remain on the surface to monitor the perimeter.

    The infiltration team entered the facility and following the maps on their Neurowires reached the mouth of the old elevator in just a few seconds. Someone had torn down the security barriers that once prevented entry without a retinal scan, fingerprint or security card.

    The second hummingbird drone went down the hole and sent a scan of the place to make sure they would not find any problems. They were receiving the images from the drone, when it suddenly destabilized and hit a wall, but was not damaged and bounced between the walls as it floated. Almost the next second they heard a thump on the floor part of the hole followed by a howl and then a short growl and at the next moment they heard some dry sounds moving away. Meanwhile the drone stabilized and continued to descend.

    "What was that?" Stuart asked.

    "A rat?" Natsuki ventured.

    "If that was a rat it weighed at least three kilos or more," Shin guessed.

    "Let''s be careful. Who knows what''s been breeding down there for so many years."

    "Yeah, the only thing we would need is to meet some monster," sighed Lizbeth in a dry tone, tilting her head.

    At the sound of monster both Ryuuji and Natsuki looked at each other. They had enough of monsters like the one they had encountered at that station just a few days ago.

    The team only activated the levitation of their boots to descend that 175 meter downward trajectory. As the information from the urban scouts had revealed, that part was unobstructed. The elevator had fallen to the ground at some point and the wreckage rested at the base. As he descended, Jim Stuart watched the zippers of the elevator shaft. The play of light and shadows made him long for that claustrophobic space as if it were the mouth of some creature ready to swallow them.

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    The team finally arrived at the base and, running in the gloom between the labyrinthine corridors and rooms, finally penetrated to the ring of the old hadron collider. They found no monsters, but there were indeed some recent footprints of a small animal left on the damp ground with dirt and dust. The air was strange, as expected, and the clear humidity could be felt seeping in. On more than one occasion someone almost slipped between the small puddles and streams that ran through the fractured concrete, which had become covered with moss over the years. More than an accelerator, it was already a subterranean ecosystem. More like a cave gallery than anything else.

    Shin, behind Lizbeth, occasionally tried to look at his lover''s hands. Maybe it had seemed to him but, since they had gone down, it had seemed to him that she was a little tense. What had happened to her underground? He wondered, though he could not ask.

    On the other hand, he was struck by the place. The CEEN site had already been under construction in the sixties of the twentieth century. Even the hadron accelerator was already under construction when he had disappeared in 1999. However, the state of decay of the site reminded him of when, on more than one occasion, he had infiltrated an abandoned cave or temple for research.

    It gave him a strange sensation, but one that he had already encountered. Two centuries and twenty-four years of his disappearance had not passed in vain for the Earth. And with what had just happened it filled him with terror to think what would have happened if instead of arriving at the 110 he had arrived at another time, past or future, where there were none of those he loved or knew.

    It was better not to think about it in that place.

    The three hundred meters they traveled turned into a few more meters. Due to earth movements that part did not seem to fit with the old maps and there was no data about it in the recent information or that of the explorers. However, this did not present a problem in finding the next section.

    They entered through several corridors to what had been the linear accelerator. The accelerator itself was separate from the part they were walking through, it was behind another concrete wall. The moss, on the other hand, had disappeared in that part and the walls looked less deteriorated.

    As they ran Natsuki looked at her companion with a nervous smile. "With this place we completed our quota of going subway for the month, right?"

    "Don''t remind me of that now. The smell comes to mind and makes me want to puke," Ryuuji said, grimacing.

    "Come on, let''s go," Granger urged. "Any news from the CC?"

    "No, sir!" Jade reported.

    The team powered up the parts of the clothing armor that acted as an exoskeleton and set off on a running journey to the next destination. Halfway there they had to slow down. They had been surprised to find some rusty bicycles along the way and almost crashed into them. It seemed that during the time the site had been in operation it was normal for some people to travel on bicycles for the long distances underground. Still, who would leave that on the road?

    As they ran, the SID members noticed Jade''s speed. She, like Shin, was not using the enhancements. Both were incredibly fast. In Shin''s case it could be that the particles inside his body gave him some sort of special muscular endurance. On the other hand Jade could be due to her fey genetics and that she was crossed with a rabbit or hare.

    The final part of the journey had become a bit more complicated, due to debris on the road and once they slowed down a bit. But they had reached the fork of the section.

    That part had the rooms, some of them hundreds of meters long, which had contained areas of other experiments carried out underground.

    They passed through a couple of them on their way and then reached the corridor that connected to another control laboratory and another corridor with several stairs and metal walkways. Finally they had arrived at the point they had hoped for.

    The explorers had gotten as far as that point, but no further. They were the emergency stairs that connected to the super accelerator. There were two other such stairs, but they were walled off according to the maps of the old era and were otherwise inside the south and west area, under the main research facility on the surface. It was such a tiring descent and ascent that apparently it had never been used when that place had been in operation. An extra safety measure that had never been used.

    If the current occupants had unloaded heavy machinery, to get the facility up and running, they would have used the other heavy equipment entrances, but those parts were guarded, and they had taken a long route that they hoped no one would suspect they would use because of the long haul.

    They opened the door, which was missing a piece at the bottom, and the drone entered first, scanning the structure.

    The stairs were concrete and, except for the rarefied air and some dust, were in perfect condition. But it was quite overwhelming to look down into that space of brutalist architecture. They had to go just under 1300 meters in descent.

    The drone scanned the way down and everything was in order. They could use the controlled levitation systems to descend faster once again.

    Lizbeth swallowed hard before jumping into the void, but she wasn''t the only one. It was one thing to do it in open space, but they were already descending further and further into that place.

    It was the point of no return for the operation.

    From there, the only thing left to do was to send the message that they had reached the final connection to enter and start the attack on the surface. They would have to take control of the elevator, to allow the entry of the forces from above once the combat was over or, if not, to prevent more enemy forces from descending towards it. At the same time another team would have to take care of the power source that was using that place. Then look for Oxy and Lee Reubens.

    As they went down Granger passed the final check. "Jade and I will take care of finding the elevator. Agent Londonderry, Katsuragi, Kayabuki, take control of the power plant." Then he looked at Shin and Stuart. "Go with them too, in case you find out where the two professors are you two have permission to search for them and guard them until we take control."

    "Are you sure you two will be enough? We don''t know what''s there yet," Lizbeth asked.

    Granger and Jade smiled. "We''ve been in worse rodeos than this one."

    We don''t even know what kind of rodeo this one will be, Lizbeth thought.

    It was common that Granger had passed the lead on to her, since she was the most senior in the SID although Lizbeth felt a little strange about it. Natsuki and Ryuuji were good agents, but had only recently joined the SID. Stuart had a good resume, but he had never been on a Mesnie operation and Shin... well, despite being the oldest on the team, he was the rookie in the SID.

    He hadn''t even taken the final oath to become an agent. That would have happened on Wednesday if the plane crash hadn''t happened.

    Lizbeth finally nodded.

    The team landed kicking up some dust on the ground and looked at the entrance.

    "Feel that?" asked Lizbeth.

    They all nodded. There was something electric in the air and they felt it in their bodies. On the other hand there was a distant noise from behind that door.

    They made sure there were no devices in that doorway and got ready.

    Granger looked at everyone and took the doorknob and they entered the new supercollider structure. A dark corridor awaited them and behind that the final door.

    At that moment they heard a noise of small and fast paws, hundreds of meters above, but the team had already entered the new place and did not hear it. They had even passed by that dark crystalline fur dog, but no one detected it because it was walking on the side of the stairs that hid it better.

    The little pug had gotten out of the vehicle with them on the surface and no one had detected him. Only Jim Stuart had almost detected him, when he had heard a rustling sound from behind him, but he had gone unnoticed anyway.

    The dog had been behind them the whole time, until he had reached the elevator shaft where, by curiously sniffing the drone coming down, he had fallen the 175 meters to the base.

    That blow had done nothing to him. His new physiognomy had saved him. Only his crystal skin had vibrated and reverberated as he emitted an angry growl.

    He had followed the red-haired man at first. But after entering that place he had been struck by a kind of sensation coming from beneath the floor.

    It was both familiar and unfamiliar.

    He started a race in the dark ahead of the team and that''s why they had not detected him.

    He had passed corridors, stairs, puddles and mud, jumped over abandoned bicycles to finally reach some endless stairs. He had gone down them, when he had detected that feeling getting stronger.

    Granger''s team finally overtook and passed him, leaving him behind.

    He had several hundred meters to go.

    Whatever it was, there was something calling him down there.

 Vol.5/Chapter 68: Time Machine

    Chapter sixty-eight.

    Time machine

    A big fucking time machine.

    That was EVE''s thought, as she watched the screens in the main control center of the superaccelerator.

    Since the last hour she had been trapped down there with the others with no way out. She had been sitting on a bench and watching the scientists working on the keyboards, screens and holographic projections. They didn''t seem to mind being down there, but at least they were there of their own free will.

    EVE didn''t understand much of what they were doing, but she had finally figured out part of why she was there. She was not amused, but the Director had explained some of the data to her.

    She had found out something else, the so called Director had the name, Lukas Peaslee, although he had asked to be called Director only. Names don''t matter here, he had told EVE. If it was about names she couldn''t say anything. After all EVE was an acronym for Extraterrestrial Violent Entity.

    I don''t believe it, EVE whispered as she scratched her back. It had been itching for a few minutes and she had retracted her symbiont armor to scratch it discreetly. It wasn''t that she was being watched, but she didn''t want to show her bare back to a bunch of strangers either.

    When she retracted her armor it was possible to see what looked like scar marks on her shoulder blades. Although they had a design almost as if they had been drawn with a certain tribal, yet curvilinear and symmetrical artistic pattern. Those milky white marks contrasted slightly against EVE''s skin. Still, she did not know what the itching could be due to. There was nothing on her back, but it was bothering her now.

    She sighed and the armor covered the bare part as she leaned back against the bench.

    The Director at the time was talking to two other technicians or scientists, on a main screen that took up an entire wall and displayed data from the facility, as well as a full projection of the supercollider facility.

    On the screen was represented not only superaccelerator, but all the others, there were other accelerators and systems around that were smaller, but they were just as important because they complemented everything as a single system. It was certainly huge. There were four control points and she was at the main one. Where it would all end.

    What she had brought was vital for the final part.

    The Director had explained to her that this was part of an experiment and that Benjamin Bloodworth had been asked to participate with someone from his company. It would be a joint effort of many involved, but nothing illegal. That was good to hear.

    It was a test by the Council to test a theory about observation and time travel. Everyone involved had to participate as if it were real. It was a simulation but where everything had to be carried out as if almost everyone was unaware of what it was really all about. Except for Janus, who was the one who had originally planned everything.

    Was that the reason why Benjamin had been suspicious? Because it was really a lie and it was all planned?

    It wouldn''t be the first time EVE had been part of an experiment. After all, in order to determine that she was a Keelian, an entity from another universe that for some reason had come to this universe, she herself had gone through several secret tests conducted by Benjamin. The Council was aware of her existence but to the rest of the world it was a secret, thanks to the influence of the Bloodworth company.

    The Director could not give her all the details, but he assured her that it was a massive experiment that had been carried out over time and pieces had been added and taken out over the years.

    EVE asked him about who was aboard the plane, but he shrugged it off. It was a piece he didn''t know. In fact, he asked her not to tell him any more. Each of us knows what part we have to play, but ignorance is a vital part of all this as well.

    But he did tell her some details of the final part and the other part was shown on the screens.

    The experiment was to send two people back in time.

    What she had obtained from the plane, which was also supposed to be part of the experiment, was a fractus nucleus split in two. One of the halves, the one obtained by Stan and Rum in the robbery, had been used to obtain the other half in the plane that was in the past. Would those two be real thieves to begin with?

    I don''t believe it¡­

    EVE knew as much about physics as anyone. Although she did not like to study, Benjamin had forced her to take some courses. It was known that time travel was a delicate subject because of an experiment that had happened some time ago and because some Dark Events could create distortions. Bubbles where time could go faster or slower than a second for a second. But it was the first time EVE had heard of an experiment involving the past. But well, the Council was involved, so that must have been a special exception.

    It was common for such tests to be done sometimes and she knew it, although it was the first time she had been involved in one. Many companies tested fractus cores in strange ways to observe that their production could not cause side effects, mostly the appearance of Dark Events, not to mention the probability of other mishaps.

    From what the Director suggested, it had been an attempt to load those two core pieces of experiences. Something similar to the creation of a collective egregore to manipulate time and thus see if it would be possible to send two people back in time.

    But could it all be possible? She worried a little. If she could, she would have to send an apology to those two she had almost killed during the attack on Pyrene. Or were they already prepared to be shaken like that? Simulations were common, but at this level?

    EVE wondered if it made any sense. An egregore was possible. EVE knew of some Dark Events that had endowed inanimate objects with what could be called a spirit, or consciousness, such objects in fact had names hundreds of years ago, for example they were called tsukumogami in Japanese culture. But one that had to do with time manipulation? Maybe? She herself had some of that after all in her martial art.

    She remembered nothing of her past before she came to Earth, but her body remembered those special fighting moves as if it were a kind of muscle memory. Her special blows had the ability to give the impression to the receiver that they were detached from their bodies and that time slowed down. That was simply an effect of unbalancing the body in the right places, there was no magic or anything like that involved, just force applied in the right place. The little magic she could use was to neutralize the magic of someone else in her range.

    Whatever it was, even with the Director''s explanation it seemed like a miracle. A Dark Event, but she had the feeling it was an intentional one.

    EVE sighed and stared at the screens with the projections and diagrams. The final experiment had begun hours before she arrived, where they had been running collision simulations and tests by sending out test particle packets to check that everything was going as it should.

    First there was the complex of small accelerators that had to work first. That part EVE understood from what little physics she had studied.

    Hydrogen atoms were fired first, stripped of their electrons and left with protons that were sent to a radio-frequency chamber. From there the proton packets were sent to rings called Boosters, where they would gain speed by applying a charge and electromagnets to bend the direction. Then came another point called Proton-Synchrotron where the protons were sent and accelerated to even higher velocities, making them gain mass. From there EVE was lost in what she understood, but they were sent to a new accelerator called a Super Proton Synchrotron and from there to the two rings of the giant Super Accelerator where it was a little more complex to understand what was going on.

    As far as EVE could make out from the schematics and projections it appeared that around the super rings some fractium material had been placed in forty-eight parts which, with successive accelerations around the ring, the proton packets somehow dragged along in successive revolutions as they accelerated. She wasn''t sure why but they were marked on the schematics as harmonic needles.

    EVE did not know that at those forty-eight points, in a separate chamber, those forty-eight fragments of the fractium nucleus had first been destabilized by applying a large electric field to them. After all, the destabilization of the electron orbit was the most important thing as well. It was the reason why plasma and electric arc weapons were the most effective against fractus. The problem was that even when destabilized, the final particles needed for the experiment could not be extracted. For this were the successive collisions that had been going on for several hours to accelerate the protons. But the important part depended on the Sun to activate the particles that mattered.

    The problem with these fragments was that the fractium cores usually remained as a whole fragment when the fractus died. What was called the three-dimensional shadow of a higher dimensional entity. But that fragment was broken into forty-eight parts. For this it was necessary to first destabilize the fragments and then expose them to the proton beam so that with the successive turns around the ring they could simulate a union of the fragments as one. This was enough time to allow the ghostly particles that could only be activated by the Sun: the so-called tokions.

    The places where these fragments had been placed were the old radiation test areas, where different types of materials were usually tested to evaluate their resistance to the accelerator''s radiation. These areas had been modified to be a part of the ring through which the proton packets passed. Something that would have been impossible in the past.

    EVE zoomed in on the screen and tried to understand the final part. That was easy to understand in a way. Or so she thought.

    Once the proton packets collected the particles of those forty-eight fragments they were sent to another room at the end point and collected by two devices that were in charge of capturing particles by cooling them and then re-accelerating them in a short range similar to the first step in the booster. From there they were sent to the final point of collision, the nuclei she had brought. It all happened in less time than the blink of an eye.

    From there, the particles collected from the collision would finally go directly to two special chambers called Lilith''s Cradles, ten meters wide by ten meters high and another ten meters deep. EVE did not know what it had to do with the name of Lilith, an entity that appeared in several religions and myths of antiquity, but that was its name.

    Those two chambers were structures that, in another time, had been used as observatories to study neutrinos. They had been dismantled when they closed, but the structure that had housed everything was still there and had been replaced by something else.

    What now occupied the two chambers was a type of OOPArt called a Mirror Box. Each mirror box had been assembled inside the structure and somehow EVE didn''t know they had been deployed making them occupy the entire structure.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    What EVE did not know was that those mirror boxes were named Lilith''s Mirrors or Lilith''s Cradles after a legend in a certain grimoire called the Munich Codex. In itself the mirror did not have much to do with the character of Lilith. It was a variant of a legend, but the name had remained in the annals of magic and necromancy with that name. The artifact had the ability to keep inside whoever got into it and supposedly keep him young, but the stories also attributed other stranger powers that could well be extrapolated to the dilation of time.

    But they were two chambers, each of those who would travel had been placed in each of those chambers. Those two men on a kind of stretcher were sound asleep at that moment. Two men and two fragments.

    EVE narrowed her eyes as she thought. The fragment she had carried in the ship was separate from the one in the plane, but in the image on the screen it was projected as one. Was the synchronization with the Sun at the exact moment to unite the two fragments? Where had the plane come from to begin with? Wasn''t it easier to do it another way?

    ***

    The Director, Lukas Peaslee, swallowed hard and glanced sideways at EVE who was very interested in looking at the screen.

    The lie, half-heartedly, seemed to have worked, and even if reluctantly, she had stood still and watched everything. She didn''t say anything about the missing plane or anything like that. Even the others were oblivious to that. Everyone there was offering their services to the Council, although that was also a lie from Janus.

    But the case of EVE and that other girl from whom they had obtained the data for the traps was different from that of him and the others.

    Janus had told him what he should tell EVE to reassure her. It had worked and thank goodness it was so. He had enough to do with the other scientists controlling the final experiment.

    He looked at the results of the core and through the transmission from the containment chamber as the surface of the fractus core was slowly rotating in the collision chamber. It had become one again, according to Janus that was because the core itself had been purged of something although he did not know what it could be. The movement of the crystalline surface had begun even before they opened the box EVE had given them. That certainly indicated that the Sun was sending the savitronic particles to the core.

    No sooner had they checked that, than they had moved the core to its designated area near the Pening traps. And at the same time they had finally integrated the sections containing the forty-eight fragments of the core around the collision ring.

    During the last hour, proton packets had been accelerating and the extraction of the tokion particles from the fragments was in its final phase. Even though they were extracted, they were still spinning at almost the speed of light.

    The reality was that the tokions were particles that did not exist to begin with, they were virtual particles. For some reason they only reacted to the sun to acquire a quasi-real state and be extracted from the quantum foam. The savitronic particles could be superluminal, as Nobuyama had supposedly said, but that meant that somehow the tokions reacted only to the weak force, although neutrino and muon tests had not turned up any results on that.

    Who knew what enigmas the fractium nuclei still held. To begin with, according to Janus, there had only been three fractus with that type of nucleus. The one in the Kuriles, the one in Krasnoyark, and the one in Lake Lemac, all three called Chronophages. From the information Janus had given him, it was possible that all three were originally one organism and had split. After all they were different in how they looked.

    Well, he could be sure that Janus had given him the right data after all? Not that he hated him, but his being there was a crime according to the code of the rights of sentient beings and the same went for everyone else.

    Still, what a unique opportunity to live. If only for a few weeks since he had awakened.

    The experiment of sending something into the past would have been impossible had it not been for those creatures that had invaded the earth. For that iteration of Lukas Peaslee living for a short time and then reintegrating into the original consciousness was a small burden to pay for being there.

    Over the centuries theoretical models had been made of what a time machine could be like and the idea of using accelerators had also been proposed, although with very different approaches. For example, that it would not be possible to go back beyond the time in which the time machine had been put into operation or that the time machine itself should have a size of several tens of astronomical units. No further time travel would be possible unless naked singularities were formed, such as wormholes appearing naturally in the fabric of spacetime. Something like that could be incredibly dangerous but, it was exactly what had been happening for some time. Through naked singularities OOPArts could also appear, but it was not possible to determine where and how that would happen. It was as if nature itself had said: fuck you and your theories, calculations and laws.

    That with that nucleus was different. It could cause naked singularities, but could it through a controlled singularity send something into the past? That for the Director was a doubt while for Janus it was a certainty.

    The data also told him that it was possible not only because of the events but because of the physics.

    The curvature was equal to the material energy of the traveler, which created a closed time line. For the traveler moving in time he did not have the impression that he was violating any causality, but for an external observer he was. Everything was choreographed so that events occurred that for the future were already in the past. The problem was the transfer of information, but they had already taken care of that by giving new memories to travelers while erasing and blocking others.

    Whatever it was, he was there to make it happen and nothing else. Luckily everything had gone as planned. The accelerator was working perfectly.

    The truth was that Janus had been sending droids from time to time, to some of the more damaged sections and to repair parts that had fallen apart. But it was basic maintenance work. That was why the job had been relatively easy at all four points. Other parts along the 118 kilometers had been repaired over the decades, although that was only accounted for by the industrial engineers who had been working on it.

    Parts had been modified, but one of the main parts had been modified decades ago. That part was the one that would be most important for the final part of the whole experiment.

    After acceleration and collection came the part for which that accelerator had not been built. It was the phase of transforming it into a time machine.

    According to Janus and his own calculations there was a serious problem with the core. And that was that most of the information had traveled in a linear fashion into the future. To send something to a past more than two centuries away, it was necessary to transform those tokions into a time machine that could hold the mass of two adult bodies.

    To do this, after the phase of colliding the proton packet together with the tokions of the forty-eight fragments in plasma form, against the final nucleus, came a part over which they would have half control. One of the uncontrolled variables, as Janus called it.

    First the high temperature plasma would have to be compressed at a point of high density by performing a pincer and directing it precisely to the final core.

    That would create an implosion first destroying the nucleus and destabilizing the electron orbital but, at the same time, allowing all the tokions to come together as a cloud of particles. At that point, they had conditions in which the tokions only by fluctuations could create wormholes, but of such a useless size that it was impossible to use them as a time machine.

    At that point it was directed for an infinite amount of time to the traps and from there to the Lilith''s Cradles. There remained a third trap that would contain the particles for a few minutes before they evaporated and nothing remained of them.

    In the two main traps that plasma needed to be fed with exotic matter, such as that used in the fractus nuclei that could be used to create antigravity. At that point high energy lasers were employed in the plasma as a process of inflating the plasma cloud and finally creating a barely momentary balance between positive and negative energy at the mouth the wormhole. In the process of inflating the plasma cloud only one particle of tokion per box would be transformed into the mouth of the wormhole that would connect with their past time.

    The bodies of the two travelers at that time would pass through the wormhole but... well that was another matter. Since it was an uncontrollable variable they could do nothing about the way they had to pass through. It was like teleportation on steroids. It could kill a human, an aeon or a fey after all, but those two were different.

    That was it, two wormholes that could be used once to send the traveler into the past before it collapsed.

    Two were all that was necessary and no more.

    But there was the last part and that worried him.

    The Director looked at his watch and checked the itinerary once more.

    Everyone was surprised to hear an alarm and the emergency lights that had been turned on in the corners.

    "Keep working!" the Director shouted.

    The Director looked in the direction of EVE who, hearing the alarms, had stood up. Ten minutes and it would all be over.

    Just then the alerts to the droids on the inside came in.

    Just as Janus had said, the battle had begun on the surface and they had seven minutes left, no more than that now that the speed of the rotation of the surface of that core was increasing. The mice should have entered just a few seconds ago.

    He counted the seconds and through the Neurowire sent an alert to the system hacking through the security systems.

    [Attention, there has been a hostile entry into the facility, you are cleared to stop them]. All the droids subway had just received the order, then the Director walked towards EVE.

    "What''s going on?" she asked.

    "Do you think you can help us?"

    EVE pursed her lips. She didn''t really want to, now that she knew it was all a game, but well if Benjamin had been asked to help she couldn''t make him look bad, especially if he had chosen her to represent the company. Even if it was a stupid game or experiment, he had entrusted it to her and only her.

    "What do I have to do?"

    "We have some unwanted guests on the premises," the Director said with a wink. "Will you take care of helping the droids while we finish up here?"

    "All right." EVE snorted and with that her bangs fluttered messily.

    ***

    "Holy shit!" Granger shouted, as he had hidden behind a wall while he had just dodged several magnetic needle shots. The hits had just made a few holes in the concrete wall, but the projectiles disappeared the next second as they were called back to the weapons that had fired them.

    A group of five tactical droids was coming down the corridor towards them.

    "What happened? Jim asked from the rear.

    "Are they on to us yet? How?" asked Lizbeth. "We didn''t get past any security devices."

    "It doesn''t matter, we can''t go back now. With Jade''s message, the attack on the surface must have already begun," Shin said.

    Granger nodded. "All that''s left is to move on."

    "Yes. Up the attack has just begun," Jade affirmed.

    Lizbeth glanced sideways at everyone. "I guess it''s my turn¡­"

    "Yep..." they all nodded.

    "Yeah, I expected that."

 Vol.5/Chapter 69: The Battle

    Chapter Sixty-nine

    The Battle

    In Douvaine, Mai was watching the holographic screens of the truck that served as Base of Operations and Command Center, accompanied by Carissia and several FRT technicians and military personnel, who at that moment were acting as a communication bridge of the large-scale operation that was taking place a few kilometers away.

    Although she was looking at the results that were popping up every second, the truth is that it was in her mind where she was outlining most of the calculations and scenarios with the possible live results of the battlefield.

    While it was true that people only used a tiny percentage of the Neurowire''s power on a daily basis, at that moment she was using a larger portion to compute scenarios with the help of the neural assistant.

    This was a tool that in many fields had changed things in unimaginable ways. If there had been no wars between nations in recent years, it was due not only to the aeon, but also because the Neurowire had changed the way of seeing the world. In the case of strategy, the Neurowire made use of the Many Worlds Interpretation, making use of various algorithms such as Sher''s to perform calculations and simulations almost instantaneously.

    Mai had made use of her Neurowire to level all the evidence they had gathered so far and try to determine, by probabilistic elimination, what might be occurring underground in the accelerator. Most likely it was an experiment to effectively manipulate time.

    Given Jack Piersons and Leteo Waters'' warnings, it was likely that something had happened in the past that they were already aware of because they had lived through it. In that case changing the variables could be worse depending on the scenario. If it had already happened, then them being there was part of that past. Perhaps the manipulation was because something had been sent into the past.

    In that case, stopping whatever was happening would perhaps cause something worse. But, if it was at that moment that something was actually being sent or manipulated, there was a chance that something like what happened in Tokyo would happen there as well. Nevermore''s duty was to prevent such disasters from occurring if Dark Events were involved. All they needed was for the world to wake up the next day to the news that an area of the European Union had been devastated due to an experiment that had gotten out of control.

    Scientific support from the island at that time was also sending out analyses and certainly the worst thing that could happen was for just such a scenario to occur. There was the serious problem that, according to the most current theories, which took into account Dark Events and Black Swans, determinism did not exist at the local level, so there was a wide margin of free will. Although in the case of altering a variable that changed the already existing past, there was also the possibility that the chronological protection would attenuate the changes in the past and attenuate the change to reach the future where they were. Or that the past simply unfolded according to the Many Worlds Interpretation and the alteration occurred but the changes would occur in a different universe. Though that was another matter to consider.

    Mai knew it all too well. After all a similar scenario in the past had caused her to make the decision to become the Director of Operations. It wasn''t prestige she was looking for when she accepted the position, one of the compelling reasons was to take responsibility for something she herself had caused.

    As she reviewed the movements of various platoons and squads she sighed to herself. At that moment she could not help remembering what had happened in Kolsay. She had not been surprised that life form was from outer space. In fact it had terrified her, because it reminded her of what she had had to do in the past. She pushed the thought aside almost immediately, she didn''t have time to worry about it at that moment, the problem they had at that moment was more pressing.

    When the Odin squadron had reached its final point, in several other locations, ten other small squads, of no more than eight or twelve members, had also infiltrated other points of the huge circumference.

    Three of those teams had been able to penetrate inside the ring and had not encountered any resistance, as they were emergency areas with no checkpoints, and would have to travel for miles before encountering confrontation. But those teams had sent her reports that the accelerator was indeed in full operation but, even so, they could not shut it down from those points without knowing what would happen with the residual energy from the collision.

    A team from Bravo Company had entered through the La Roche-sur-Foron point, using the old sewers that connected the entire old system of the city with the facilities. That team had been the most successful in arriving and after giving the 5-by-5 they only had to wait using camouflage equipment trying to find the energy centers of the place. As they had expected, the whole place was being powered by fractium energy cubes. That was the reason why no alarms had been triggered at the power stations near the checkpoints. The facilities were completely independent. But those cubes had a limit so they must have been brought in beforehand, in order to remove the ones that remained discharged once they had been used.

    Another of Charlie''s teams had penetrated through Seyssel, but had to stop on the descent and wait because they had detected movement in the part where they were to go down. Delta''s Odin Squadron 4, meanwhile, had had no luck at a nearby entrance to the site. The entry point for a subway team was more than five kilometers from the checkpoint in Annecy. Something similar had happened with the other teams that had entered at remote points, but which had not been able to advance any further because the entrances had been blocked by earthworks and they had had to return to the surface to rejoin their respective divisions for deployment on the surface.

    Bravo, Charlie and Delta would use much the same technique that Alpha would deploy with the Hugin and Munin divisions, a pincer attack. Charlie could even afford the possibility of a three-pronged attack because he had more troops in the ranks for the attack.

    When Mai received the communiqu¨¦ that Odin Squadron had reached its point, the operation began.

    The first confusion in the mercenaries in Meyrin had come from the surveillance drones that had been hacked and put some out of perimeter circulation. While that was happening other drones had been sent to disable the vehicles and lock the ships in silent mode.

    The first two projectiles in Meyrin were fired by Philip and Zi from over a mile away. Both were in a collapsed building that gave them sufficient field vision of their targets, located on the rooftops of several buildings around the CEEN laboratory complex. The targets were the disruptor systems placed around and the portable communication towers. Shooting with the railgun rifle with built-in hitscan was something Zi was more than used to and the rain at that point didn''t bother her at all. The shot had hit the farthest disruptor. Philip a couple of meters away from her had fired at one of the communication towers. The railgun system had five seconds to cool down before being fired again.

    Those five seconds were crucial.

    When the mercenaries heard the detonation caused by the impact they were immediately alerted but, since Zi and Philip had chosen the farthest targets, it caused the mercenaries to turn their sights the wrong way. The railgun shot with a fractium bullet left no visible trace and given the fragmentation of the targets it was unclear where even the shot had come from. The distraction was just enough to allow time for the rifle to cool down and the divisions to begin their advance. A few seconds later the stormy morning had given way to urban warfare.

    Hugin and Munin advanced in the pincer attack as planned. The gunfire and gun flashes were not long in coming and the confrontation had begun.

    Philip and Zi for their part had continued with their mission. Following by the disruptors and communications backup towers. A minute later all the disruptors were gone and they both switched the rifles mode to high impact projectiles. They had to offer support to the two teams, but the part they had to do was done. The reason for switching to projectile mode was to destroy the tactical droids. Those droids were an especially tough nut to crack because they were built to withstand the hostility of space. Waiting five seconds for a cooldown could cause enough casualties on the battlefield.

    Even though the soldiers were mostly military droids and soldiers with their consciousness in synthetic bodies did not mean they could afford many casualties if they wanted to take control of the place quickly.

    The weapons most of the soldiers had been configured for a type of projectile that had several problems of international acceptance, but was the most convenient given the situation. It was called a nanometric cutting projectile, commonly known also as a Blossom.

    The enemy''s tactical droids had an especially hard shell, which conventional projectiles would not be effective enough to penetrate. The Blossom projectile was a bullet that, before striking the target, unfolded like the petals of a rose. Those petals were an alloy of monofilaments and fractium that were only a few nanometers thick and could cut through anything in their path. When deployed, they penetrated any material and did not stop until they reached a radius of thirty centimeters.

    If fired at a person, the projectile was like a meat grinder that upon impact shredded the flesh and the petals would cut the person as if it were a steak forming a sphere of dispersion. An extremely cruel bullet, but effective against these droids.

    The first droids to fall demonstrated this by stumbling when hit, but they could still move if the shot did not hit their torso.

    The mercenaries on the other hand were another matter. The bodies they had were also synthetic, quite similar to a human body but improved. One of the luxuries that PMCs that offered special services to companies that needed extra security and anti industrial espionage measures could afford. But according to international law if a mercenary was shot the consciousness could be returned to a server part of the company as part of a contract. Such a conscience could return to active duty at some point. It was the system of fallen soldiers of fortune.

    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    Although casualties were occurring on both sides. The tactical droids also had the ability to move through the air with the jetpacks they had and that gave them an extra advantage in that scenario.

    Groups of mercenaries and droids had moved deeper into the building complex, retreating to protect the main entrance leading to the subterranean parts. A group of droids had positioned themselves inside the building, over the large doors that were the entrances to the heavy machinery elevators. If necessary they would have to destroy it.

    The order they had been given was to protect the surface for the next few minutes.

    Meanwhile, on the offensive side, a message arrived from Mai, warning of reinforcements for the extra problem [Angels falling].

    The communiqu¨¦ resounded in the minds of the division leaders and they sent the warning message to the soldiers.

    At various points along the one hundred and eighteen kilometers there was a flash in the air of something descending to the ground.

    It was Nevermore''s mechas. The orbital knights had arrived to join the fray.

    The main reason for taking out the communication towers and disruptors was to ensure that the giant robots could pass through the dome that acted as an energy shield at each of the points.

    In each of the areas two landed, except for Meyrin where three landed. The three mechs were of a dark gray color, but had some color variations that differentiated them, not counting the shapes that were slightly different. One of them carried a spear, while two others were equipped with firearms.

    Carissia watched the situation unfold and wondered if hers would be finished by now. Although she was a pilot, she did not regret not being on the battlefield at that moment. She had a duty to protect Mai in case of an emergency, a duty she had performed countless times in the past. Of all the Orbital Knights she was one of the most veteran pilots. Yet she had never faced the model that was there.

    The enemy mechas were quite agile and humanoid in design from the factory, but devoid of wings or jetpacks. They had a much more organic look. Carissia wasn''t sure why the humanoid design. In general, many mechas shared the humanoid form, but with differences according to functionality or design. Those were the same as each other, but more stylized. The penetration radars had not offered much information but they were surely in automatic mode in case of a threat.

    The three enemy mechas had begun to move when the first shot had sounded and in the first seconds they had just fired, two with incendiary plasma weapons with automatic firing mode, while the other carried a machine gun and rocket launcher with multiple warhead launchers.

    Plasma gunfire had creamed a small group of soldiers free of charge, while another had been pulverized under high caliber machine gun fire.

    A sledge hammer to crack a nut, Carissia thought as she watched the scene.

    But as Nevermore''s mechas came down, the battlefield was balanced again, in a way.

    The city that had once been one of the world''s leading centers of particle science had been transformed into a battlefield where no one was giving any quarter.

    Philip and Zi, from their positions, tried to give the best support with their rifles while shooting down some droids.

    Several groups that had shortened the confrontation were engaged in a fight with tactical swords due to the energy shields carried by both sides. A weapon outdated in another century had re-emerged since the advent of the fractus and the Great War. The fractus had disappeared, but the blades had come back to stay as part of the tactical equipment for close-range fights. Vibration blades could penetrate shields and were much safer than firing a projectile at close range that could cause an accident that would blow them all away in the case of critical temperature projectiles or the normal projectiles that shields could stop by absorbing the kinetic energy. Still it was a miracle that only a few were using them and that the enemy droids in their case were not equipped with them.

    The same situation was occurring in various parts of France, where the situation was not much better. The FRT teams and several Nevermore special agents were also in the middle of the battle where they were exchanging projectiles, grenades or tactical magic in the case of some special groups that had joined.

    The tactical mages and special agents each had their own systems that characterized them. Some made use of magic shields to repel mercenary artillery, but it was not very effective against droids that could fly in. Others used specialized magic such as compression or corrosion to destroy the droids. One FRT team in Seyssel had among its members three who could use water magic. Given the violence of the storm it was a good thing because they could use the raw material rain to sweep through the enemies as if they had a giant water snake slithering among them.

    Mai was still watching the situation unfold when a message came in from LHC8. Odin Squadron was under attack. They had begun to come under attack at about the same time the attack on the surface had begun.

    What happened? Mai wondered. Had they been surprised? According to the reports that had been coming in minutes before, everything was going according to plan.

    Don''t worry, Asuza muttered, sending images to her mind.

    I know, thank you.

    They couldn''t do an EXFIL at that point. Everyone was already inside and they had to continue.

    Mai watched as the enemy mecha in Seyssel was finally shot down by one of the Orbital Knights and thought it was ironic that she was there at all. She would never have imagined that her almost peaceful life in the twenty-first century would end with her there.

    ***

    In Annecy, the situation was similar to the other points.

    Jansen who was in charge of the surface team was calm as he sent and received reports both from below, telling him to hold out for a few more minutes, as well as reports from the different mercenary groups that were under fire from the French army and Nevermore personnel.

    He was doing his job and nothing else, which was to protect the place for the next few minutes. Despite his detachment from everything, Jansen could not deny that at that moment he was excited. He had been made for war, but he had been born in a time of peace. The only wars that were being fought were the espionage whoreships between governments or companies trying to nip at each other''s heels.

    Because of this he had sought a life where he had some time where he could really feel alive. That was in situations of danger where he really felt alive.

    Although that had changed when he had died. No matter how much he had been told he was alive. The truth was that after his first death that had changed. Maybe it was because he had killed two innocent people back then? No, he had shot before and had caused innocent deaths in some confrontations before that. Collateral damage. However, something had changed.

    When he returned to his body he felt as if he had really died.

    Revenge. Yes. That had been the cause of his first death. At that time he was offering his services to private clients and there had been a mistake. Because of that a British soldier, seeking revenge for the death of his wife and daughter, had tracked down both his employer and those who had caused the deaths and had taken matters into his own hands.

    One shot blew half of his face off. He had been dead for three hours only to come back to life.

    Then came his second death. That had been different. A separate job, a dirty government business.

    His job had been to give a warning to a certain man to stop sticking his nose where it didn''t belong. What had happened was that the warning was to give him a scare by eliminating someone in his close circle. His wife to be more precise. A stupid meeting cancellation resulted in the man in question being in the house that day. A shot to the forehead ended the woman''s life. And then a struggle and he had to shoot the man as well.

    That did not turn out as it should have. As a result later Jansen had been shot as payment and left for dead once again.

    He wandered around for a few years as a CoW, trying to stay under the radar, until he decided to try a new identity and offer his services to Thunderbolt.

    The two deaths had not chastened him and he continued to pursue his life based on violence in a world that seemed so gray and nondescript that it was a miracle he hadn''t killed himself.

    He felt nothing. No hatred, no loneliness, just emptiness.

    He had really been born in the wrong era. Too peaceful compared to the savage centuries before the Age of Singularity.

    Well, this isn''t bad either, he thought as a bullet grazed his cheek. A bit of fun.

    At that moment an incendiary plasma munition fell near him and he and two other mercenaries were burned alive.

    The consciences of the two mercenaries next to him immediately went to ThunderBolt''s central server.

    The same did not happen with Jansen.

    Finally, after so many years of avoiding suicide and ending it all, he had succeeded.

    A battlefield had finished him off.

    Was it really like that? It was only for a second but, before falling into a black abyss, he could have sworn that he had not felt the burning of the fire turning his body into an unrecognizable mass that was consumed in nothingness.

    Some meters away, Annecy''s surveillance mecha fell before Nevermore''s insectoid yellow mecha, which looked like a metal wasp with two large weapons in each hand. Nevermore''s mecha had blown off its arm as it was firing and the enemy mecha''s arm traced a circle of plasma shots before the several tons crashed to the ground. One of those plasma shots was the one that had hit Jansen and the other two.

    "Eh? That was it? That''s what they made me come down for?" As the fight continued in several focuses, a female and somewhat sardonic voice was heard coming from the mecha. "What a piece of shit, I was studying."

    That was Pristine, a fey wasp, and pilot of the Orbital Knight that had defeated the enemy mecha, complaining that the engagement had been too short.

    Neither Pristine nor Jansen knew each other. They had never met.

    What Pristine didn''t know was that the man with whom her mother had had an affair several decades ago had just died.

    She had unknowingly caused her father''s death.

    Jansen, on the other hand, had never known that he had had a daughter.

    An absurd tragedy that none of them knew about.

    But there was someone, or rather something, who had seen that situation in the midst of the battle.

    The one who had seen that tragedy was more than five kilometers away from the place, hidden among the trees of a nearby forest. It had wings of seven meters in length that were folded. He had seen it with those two red eyes that seemed to see everything.

    He stood still for a few seconds until he finally bowed his head, almost in a sign of sadness. He blinked once and raised his gaze to the stormy sky.

    It spread its great black wings and then shook off the water that soaked its body.

    The huge creature finally leapt from the thick branch where it had perched and soared above the treetops. Then flapping its wings it took a northwesterly course.

    It had been his duty to see that.

    But now he had a new mission.

    His flight merged with the dark clouds and he flew away from the place, leaving behind the sound of a battle that seemed to be subsiding little by little.

 Vol.5/Chapter 70: The underground battle

    Chapter Seventy

    The underground battle

    Meyrin. Geneva, Switzerland.

    Subterranean facilities of the CEEN Supercollider.

    The enormous accelerator tunnel structure had become a battlefield for Odin Squadron. The first battle had been fought against the team of droids that had come their way trying to stop them.

    Lizbeth had destroyed a few of them, using only her Vocal Resonance, while the rest were destroyed with the magnetic projectiles from the weapons. The projectiles had a device similar to the rosebud projectile, but it was only activated when it came in contact with the target. If the projectile missed its target, it would trace its way back to the weapon without detonating.

    Lizbeth''s Vocal Resonance was incredibly powerful, although it had some limitations. That was her fey magical ability and had earned her the title of Banshee. Despite the title, the truth was that the ability itself was more closely related to the ability possessed by aquatic feys, especially mermaids, to defend themselves and attack. Although in Lizbeth''s case hers had some different characteristics and the Vocal Resonance had wide effects and different uses, yet at that moment the main function she was using was to destroy those droids.

    It was a short fight but they felt that every second lost was valuable minutes that delayed them from the final objective.

    The motley crew moved quickly through the corridors of the complex, aware of the gravity of their mission. Each of them knew that stopping the accelerator activation was crucial. From what Pierson had said, before he fell unconscious, whatever was going to happen was something that was going to happen at any time that morning. Given the confrontation they had encountered with the first tactical droids, it was clear that they didn''t want any interruptions, although it was unclear how they had discovered them in the first place.

    The team entered a room, following the map the drone had loaded into the Neurowires, when into the same room came another larger group of tactical droids.

    ¡°Everyone behind me!¡± roared Lizbeth, removing the mask covering her mouth, and no one objected to that order.

    With cold determination, Lizbeth prepared for combat. Her voice was about to make its entrance into the battlefield once again.

    Without wasting any time, Lizbeth released a high-pitched scream. A sound so powerful that it echoed through the room. The directed sonic waves spread like a shockwave, vibrating the metal structure of the droids in the center of the room. The first droids were destroyed in a burst of sparks and fragments, their internal circuits irreparably damaged. Despite the droids'' material resistance, it was because of Lizbeth''s skill that they could be destroyed. That was because the core material of Lizbeth''s Shy Organ could resonate with objects that could be made of fractium alloys.

    However, droids were not easy to stop and it was not as if she could use it consecutively, because it forced her throat every time she did so. Even more so in an enclosed environment and she also had to be careful with the direction of her shout, so as not to cause damage to her teammates.

    A new wave of advanced units appeared, their armored shell resisted the direct sonic attacks that were a little weaker. Lizbeth changed her strategy, using her body''s agility to move with speed and precision, while the others did the same and engaged in a battle.

    A group of droids advanced towards Lizbeth, firing bursts of those magnetic projectiles that she dodged while moving with the agility of a cat on stage. Lizbeth, with Jade at her side, dodged the shots with graceful movements, their martial arts skills allowing them to perform spins and jumps with an almost choreographed fluidity.

    Shin, for his part, fired at those approaching the others, then fought at close range at those who had ended up getting closer to his range. He was trying to fight with parts of his armor without damaging the new clothes he had, which was difficult enough given the situation.

    In one swift move, he launched a kick that sent the nearest droid reeling. Taking advantage of the destabilization, Shin applied a precise blow to the armor''s attachment point, causing the droid to fall to the ground with a metallic clang. With an accurate blow he destroyed the vertebral junction and ripped off the head and then crushed it with his hand.

    He used the tactical sword combined with shots from his weapon to take out the droids that lunged at him. The blade of the sword had been configured to his liking and with each thrust that penetrated the droids the blade changed its configuration to rotate on itself in a helical fashion and destroy the droids'' armor. At that point all he could do was minimize the enemy forces and take out as many as he could alone. Fortunately, all the fatigue he had felt was gone. He had been under the lake for years, although for him it had been only hours.

    He used a wall to propel himself against three droids that were getting dangerously close to Ryuuji and then looked towards Lizbeth, but she seemed to be coping quite well against her share of enemies accompanied by Jade.

    While facing more droids, Lizbeth combined her sonic ability which, while weaker, could now still use other effects such as sonic wave distortion to confuse the enemy. She would emit concentrated sonic waves from a distance and these would bounce back with the magic programming system through the points she had determined and then she would approach to perform attacks with magnetic weapon shots or melee, her movements impeccable and calculated.

    Some droids began to adapt to her attacks, deploying energy shields that partially blocked the sonic waves and stopped the magnetic projectiles. Lizbeth frowned, recognizing that she needed to adjust her focus. She concentrated on the weak points of the shields, directing pulsing sonic waves with a frequency that managed to penetrate the defenses of some of the droids.

    If I can''t get through the shields, I''ll make them wobble! Lizbeth thought, adjusting the frequency of her ability to affect the droids'' balance and stability. Each time she managed to destabilize them, she swooped in to finish the job with a lethal combination of kicks and punches, or with gunfire if they were far enough away.

    ¡°Candy,¡± she commanded, the turtle backpack and almost instantly a candy appeared in her hand which she popped into her mouth. The concentrated honey candy was what helped her recover quickly from using her ability in a row.

    As the confrontation progressed, the droids became more aggressive, sending units with enhanced capabilities and coordinated tactics to attack the squadron from multiple fronts. Lizbeth responded with equal sophistication, dodging enemy gunfire and using her sonic ability to create a series of destructive waves that affected multiple droids simultaneously.

    With total concentration, Lizbeth created a series of sonic pulses that destroyed droids that came too close. Each sound wave was precise, the synchronization between her sonic skills and her martial arts prowess displaying an almost artistic form of combat. Something she had honed over time, though in her early years and decades as a fey she had never put any effort into honing the skill in every way she could. She had always used it in a crude way.

    Finally, with a final series of sharp, precise screams, Lizbeth managed to disable most of the droids.

    The room was filled with metal fragments and residual smoke from the explosions along with debris produced by the combat of Shin and Granger and the others.

    Lizbeth''s breathing was somewhat heavy, but her posture remained upright and defiant.

    She looked around, making sure there were no more immediate threats left. The squad had also finished taking care of the remaining ones. Stuart had just shot a droid he had tackled to the ground, while Natsuki and Ryuuji were also finishing with their part. Shin sheathed his tactical sword. Granger had just crushed the last one with his hands and the help of the military enhancements he had implanted in his body, while relying on the exoskeleton''s own pressure from the equipment they were wearing.

    With a satisfied smile, as she wiggled her rabbit ears, Jade walked over to a nearby control console that was on, knowing that there was still much to do. She had to extract information.

    ¡°One more battle won,¡± Lizbeth said to herself Lizbeth, her voice still echoing with the vibration of victory. ¡°But this is far from over.¡± Then she brought a hand to her tactical armor-covered chest and pursed her lips.

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Shin asked who had approached from behind and grabbed her shoulder.

    Lizbeth gasped and smiled nervously ¡°Yeah... I guess I should have squeezed more out of me this morning¡­¡±

    ¡°The what?¡±

    ¡°The milk,¡± she replied as she popped a new piece of candy into her mouth.

    Shin lowered his eyebrows in disbelief. Only Lizbeth could say something like that after a fight, but well, it was a problem. ¡°What happened? Did you get hit in the chest?¡±

    ¡°It''s nothing. Just a little drop, that''s all. How about you? Are you all right?¡±

    Shin retracted his armor a bit and scratched the mark on his lower back. ¡°Better than ever,¡± he replied. ¡°I guess the resurrection took away all the discomfort I had.¡±

    That was true, it had been a long time since he had felt so good and light even though the armor felt a little heavier. The mass of particles had increased, but it was actually more shielding for him, something he could use to fight with once he learned to control it better, because he felt the weight was a bit unbalanced.

    ¡°Why are you scratching?¡± Lizbeth asked, raising an eyebrow.

    ¡°I don''t know, it''s itching right now.¡±

    ¡°I have the updated maps,¡± Jade announced.

    The team entered the complex''s systems through an access using security codes that Jade had hacked. Despite the battle won, the air was still tense and charged with a vibrant anticipation of what they might find ahead.

    A dry metallic sound echoed, and the security doors they had come through closed behind them. Red lights flashed on and a deafening alarm began to sound, alerting the occupants of the complex to their presence there.

    ¡°Again? Are there any nanny trackers?¡± Natsuki shouted, her electric eyes searching for a nearby control panel.

    ¡°Nah. The droids we just knocked down...¡± Stuart said. ¡°They probably sent the signal of where we are.¡±

    ¡°It doesn''t matter!¡± Granger replied. ¡°They know what we''re coming for, and that doesn''t change the objective.¡±

    ¡°How''s it going upstairs?¡± Ryuuji asked.

    Jade shook her head. ¡°No new reports, but no subway checkpoints have been taken. The fighting is still on the surface, but it''s being controlled.¡±

    ¡°What did you find out from the map?¡±

    ¡°Oh right! Look. This has to be Professor Ishijima and Lee Reubens, right?¡±

    Jade showed console with the map of the place. There could be seen that on the updated site map there were areas of which they had no knowledge whatsoever. But at least they had the updated information to move around the place.

    ¡°You''ve got to be kidding me, the energy cube device is more than a kilometer away,¡± Granger said, looking at a point far from where they were. Making their way against an army of droids and mercenaries sounded normal to him, but it was another matter if they were racing against time. ¡°And the elevator is about three hundred meters away from the point of the cubes.¡±

    Jade nodded. ¡°Yes and from what I can see from the security systems it must have been guarded when the alarm went off.¡±

    Stuart pointed to a spot that was only about six hundred meters from where they were. But it was a path that branched off and led to two huge chambers marked only as LC1 and LC2. ¡°What is this? This is what you were talking about?¡±

    ¡°Yes, just an hour ago two subjects were moved from these two points which was the former infirmary of this place and each was placed in one of these rooms.¡±

    ¡°We can''t get a picture of what those things are or who those people are that were moved?¡±

    ¡°No. There are no cameras. The surveillance system in place has few cameras in service. Almost all of the surveillance security comes from the droids. That''s why they know where we are. There are no cameras here.¡±

    Lizbeth looked at Shin who was staring thoughtfully at the map. She knew him all too well. Even though to others he showed no visible emotions she could read the slight changes of expression on his face. ¡°Hey. What''s up?¡±

    ¡°I''m just thinking there''s no way Oxy could have done time travel. She shouldn''t be the target in one of those things.¡±

    ¡°Why do you think that?¡±

    ¡°Well, there are two options. She either traveled back in time, to a time where there was no way to leave us a clue from the past... or she died without having a chance to leave a message... Or a third option. She actually traveled back in time, but to an alternate timeline where you can''t intervene with what has already happened.¡±

    ¡°You want to bet that''s the case? As far as we''re concerned time travel could be happening right now,¡± Stuart said, frowning.

    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Shin snorted, he had noticed a slight angry tone in the redhead, but Stuart was right. ¡°Yeah, that doesn''t change that something bad could really happen right now if we don''t stop it.¡±

    Lizbeth looked at him sideways. It was sad but it was the truth.

    ¡°Well then let''s split up, just like we agreed,¡± Granger said.

    Once again they went over the positions and agreed. Jade and Granger would go to the entrance to take control of the elevator, using the heavy capabilities they had not yet used for combat. It was a common measure to economize forces in early combat and they had been good at it. The droid weapons could be used by the droids only and the squadron could not take those weapons in reserve in case they needed them.

    Lizbeth, Ryuuji and Natsuki would go a good part of the way with Jade and Granger and infiltrate the cube area while Shin, and Stuart would head to see the two in those chambers to make sure who it was that had been transported there and see if it was Oxy and Professor Lee Reubens. If they could get them out of that place and if they were the targets, there would be no reason to continue the experiment. As long as they were right.

    ¡°Are you sure they''ll be all right?¡± asked Granger to Lizbeth, looking at Shin and Stuart who were looking at the map.

    ¡°I''m more worried about you guys actually,¡± Lizbeth replied.

    ¡°No need. Me and Jade are enough.¡± Granger turned to look at Shin and a bead of sweat trickled down his cheek. ¡°Are you sure those two will be okay...with that Keelian on the team?¡±

    Lizbeth smiled. ¡°Don''t worry, my husband is the best,¡± she said as she patted her chest proudly.

    Granger continued to look at Shin, who was currently scratching his back against the corner of a nearby wall. ¡°Yeah, he''s a genius from what I can see¡­¡±

    Suddenly, from the ceiling and walls, parts were destroyed and from the holes, tactical droids emerged, advancing with military precision, their single vertical eye glowing an ominous red. The droids, armed with automatic weapons, opened fire, their bullets buzzing through the air like angry wasps. They were normal projectiles, they were not using magnetic ammunition. The Odin team split up on opposite sides of the room and took cover behind the half-destroyed concrete columns.

    ¡°You guys go ahead, we''ll take care of these!¡± Shin shouted and looked at Stuart, who nodded.

    ¡°But...!¡± began Lizbeth.

    ¡°We''ll be fine, Agent Londonderry!¡± assured Stuart.

    ¡°Lad, don''t use energy shields, unless you want to blow up the entire facility!¡± Shin exclaimed, stepping out from behind the column where he had been hiding with Stuart. The droids concentrated fire on him, giving the others time to get closer to the exit of the path they had to take. Even though Stuart was older than Shin himself at Nevermore he wasn''t going to argue. After all he might be the new guy, but Shin was the oldest in age on that team.

    Stuart nodded and stepped out from behind the column to the side opposite Shin. He raised his hand and generated an electromagnetic field with one of the exoskeleton''s defense functions, deflecting the projectiles. Next to him, Shin manipulated his particle armor creating a shield to return the bullets to his assailants in a shower of sparks, dismantling the droids with his own offense.

    ¡°Let''s go! Each to his target!¡± roared Granger and nodded. ¡°Good luck! Agent Stuart, keep the communication channel open!¡±

    The senior team activated the cloak and moved off down their path, leaving Shin and Stuart behind to do battle. The path they had ahead was different from the others and was on the side the droids had come from.

    The corridors became a battlefield for both of them. Stuart could count on the fingers of his hands the number of times he had been in a battle like that. The last one had been last week on the dock next to that detective.

    Inwardly he thought that he would not like a repeat of what he had seen at the end of that case, when that ship practically disappeared in a plasma inferno that devoured all the evidence.

    He summoned a new type of plasma cutting weapon, engulfing the droids limbs in hellish flames, as Shin moved as a blur of steel and black particles, his tactical sword slicing through the enemies with lethal grace.

    ¡°Don''t stop, lad!¡± shouted Shin, moving under the flickering lights of the place and the bullets ricocheting off his armor. ¡°We''ve got to rescue those two!¡±

    Stuart nodded and Shin just hoped he was wrong in his prediction of Oxy. They both defeated the remaining droids and began to advance towards their destination. It was at that moment that Shin saw some electric blue flashes flash across the place they were passing through.

    Those particles had returned, but they were few compared to what had happened with the plane. As he thought, they were related.

    Whatever it was, it was a sign. The direction they were coming from was the place where they had to go.

    ***

    Lukas Peaslee sighed and looked around the control station, which until a few moments ago had been buzzing with activity. Everyone present was silent at that moment connected to the main database that recorded the accelerator data. They were almost in a hypnotic state.

    Lukas Peaslee was also receiving hundreds of data, but that was normal.

    It was the reason why they were helping in that madness. That data would open a new door to civilization if it could crystallize.

    The fractus core of time might not exist after that, but with the data obtained there was a chance that a new dream could be fulfilled in another way.

    A dream that had been frozen when a certain billionaire magnate had disappeared with his ship.

    An experiment to save the world. And the data for the expansion of civilization through space.

    That was the reason why the Council had kept quiet about it. That was the reason, or at least one of the reasons. Janus had offered the experiment data to the council and the Council had accepted.

    The dream of manipulating spacetime with a warp engine.

    That data from the fractus core would be opening a new era in a few years. The technology might take a while, but they already had what they needed. The problem was the material.

    However Gehirn had done it, it had been perfection. If only one person had done it, then joint effort could do it too.

    The idea of the warp drive was a dream that many considered crazy because of the implications and the types of theories proposed.

    If Gehirn''s engine had been unstable, it is certain that with gravitational wave detectors they would have been able to detect its direction, due to the signals that it was theorized that a warp engine could leave in spacetime.

    That had not happened when Gehirn had fled.

    So there were two possibilities: Either it was all a lie and Gehirn was in hiding nearby. Or the engine that mad genius had created was stable enough to leave no signs of gravitational waves.

    Something impossible.

    [Final Collision.]

    The warning appeared for a billionth of a second on everyone''s Neurowire as it occurred and they downloaded the data.

    They had done it. It was complete.

    From then on everything was in automatic mode to complete the final steps. They had done their part of it.

    The final collision had swept the final particles from those forty-eight fragments of the nucleus to their final point. The fractus nucleus and finally to the Pening Traps.

    From that point on, it was all over for them.

    Several of the scientists looked at each other and some sighed nervously while others laughed.

    ¡°See you in a few weeks or months I guess,¡± one of them said.

    ¡°See you.¡±

    Some gave each other a warm handshake, while others joked.

    The first to die occurred at the farthest point. The second on the huge screen that kept displaying data collapsed as if it were a puppet whose strings had been cut.

    Some fell to the ground with a thud, while others had veins popping out of their temples and others had ocular capillaries bursting.

    The data was too much for the minds of all of them. Even with quantum computers that dump of information from the collision was too much, but it was expected. They were talking about time management.

    They didn''t want to leave data in solid data sources that could be accessed by aeons. A security measure against what happened years before, when an aeon infected an entire country with information through hard sources that then spread to the Neurowires. Therefore, those were the minds that had been marked by Janus to carry out that experiment.

    They had all fallen one by one, until the only one left standing was Lukas Peaslee.

    The director walked to one of the terminals and quickly typed something on the holographic keyboard.

    [LC2 secure deactivated. Function reset after second opening].

    Lukas Peaslee sighed and braced himself with both hands on the terminal table. And drops of blood began to fall from his nose and ears, as he felt his vision turn red and felt a twinge in his brain.

    ¡°Good luck my other self, this is going to give you a good headache,¡± Lukas Peaslee said, smiling weakly as a trickle of blood began to trickle down his chin.

    His eyes turned dark red and a second later he fell to the ground as a red circle began to form on the ground around his head.

    The clone had died and the fragment of artificial consciousness that had formed him in the last few weeks was now traveling to rejoin the real consciousness.

    At the remote checkpoints the same thing was happening. While the battle on the surface and the infiltration teams were advancing they could not know what they would find when they reached the checkpoints.

    ***

    At that very moment in several parts of the planet and the Orbital Belt several people were fainting. All of them scientists with different areas of study and specialization. All of them had suffered an overload of the Neurowire system. An influx of data was being sent to their heads and had caused them to experience everything from mild blackouts to clonic storms, due to the information being processed by the neural assistant and then sent to the brain.

    Among one of them was someone named Lukas Peaslee. He was drinking a glass of water at the time.

    He had just gotten up and it was still dark outside in Baltimore. His wife was awakened by the sudden sound of something heavy falling to the floor below. She got out of bed and went downstairs, only to find her husband convulsing on the kitchen floor.

    Lukas Peasless was unaware that a clone of him had been alive for only a few weeks. But the same was true for all those who had participated in the experiment in France and Switzerland.

    All of them almost involuntary participants.

    At that very moment, ships and security teams from the Council were being deployed to secure the scientists.

    Those involved never thought that the clause that many signed upon graduation from the university could result in the Council having the right to create copies of the signatory for experimental purposes in case of planetary security.

    A clone with a short biological life span. But, as far as the public opinion knew, this clause had never been put into practice. Mostly because of the laws that prevented the creation of a new consciousness in a clone. Clones were only allowed in the case of insurance where the body was in such a state of deterioration that recovery was not possible. In such a case, the consciousness was moved to the new body.

    Janus'' call for help to certain persons of power within the Council had made that transgression of law possible and as far as the Council could be assured, that would never come to public light either.

    ***

    Shin and Stuart stopped in their tracks.

    They had been running for the last few minutes and fighting off the droids and mercenaries that had gotten in their way. But at that moment they were stopped because there was someone different in front of them.

    Stuart had seen her from the reports. That was the woman who had attacked Pyrene Station. The mysterious woman with pink hair and a mask covering her face. She was wearing that white suit of armor tight to her body, although some parts of it showed some slight red patterns.

    That pink-haired woman was standing about a hundred meters away from them and had stopped. But she wasn''t looking at Stuart.

    She was looking at Shin.

    Shin for his part had furrowed an eyebrow in surprise at her presence.

    Who is that? Shin thought. There was something familiar about her even though he couldn''t tell what and the mark on her lower back stung even more. On the other hand, the particles of the armor were moving strangely, almost as if they were unstable in that presence. His attempt to keep the clothes safe proved unsuccessful as the particles were breaking through the reinforced fabric and destroying it.

    ***

    The mark on her shoulder blades itched annoyingly, but she didn''t care about that at that moment.

    EVE was terrified and excited at the same time.

    She knew that feeling. It was the same feeling she had felt when she had been in Pyrene. That feeling of ominous terror that had invaded her when she was leaving that station, where she had rescued Stan and Rum and the container.

    That could not be an experiment or a simulation.

    No.

    For one simple reason, she had never felt so much terror in her life and she couldn''t explain why.

    She had never felt more desire to fight in her life and she didn''t know why.

    She wanted to run away. But she wanted to fight. She wanted to get out of that place and never come back. To go back to Benjamin and forget everything that had happened in the last few days.

    But, at that moment, she also wanted to fight.

    Why?

    EVE could not explain it, it was a strange feeling that went against her survival instinct. Her head was telling her: run away, get out of there. While another part of her, perhaps much more primitive, was telling her: you have to fight what is in front of you.

    EVE had not noticed, but the white armor that covered her body was no longer as before. The substance that composed it was unstable and had a liquid consistency. Thin threads of that substance floated and moved connecting different parts of the armor and flowed around her like rings, at the same time revealing part of the naked skin.

    But showing her nudity at that moment did not bother her in the least.

    That feeling of fury and anger was taking control of her body completely, even though her mind was telling her that she had to get out of there.

    With mixed feelings she rushed towards that tall man wrapped in that black armor.

    ***

    Lugrin. Lake Lemac, France.

    A group of soldiers and technicians docked the boats in the temporary harbor. They were part of the scouting team and had left the task to the crab drones to take over. Under the weather conditions it was best to wait for the rain to stop for a while.

    One of them put the boat on magnetic lock and paused in his task to look at his partner.

    ¡°Whew¡­¡±

    His partner at his side and the soldiers looked at each other.

    ¡°What was that?¡±

    ¡°It felt...weird.¡±

    A couple of them touched their stomachs.

    ¡°I felt light. Did everyone feel the same?¡±

    They all looked at each other and nodded. It was almost like the sensation of floating in space, a feeling quite familiar to anyone.

    Some ran diagnostics with the Neurowire, but there was no abnormality, yet everyone had felt a sudden lack of gravity in the body. It was only for a second but they had felt it.

    At that same moment, two transport ships arrived at the command center in Lugrin.

    From one of those ships came down a hurried dwarf carrying a small industrial container.

    ¡°So, where is everyone?¡± Thor asked, as he headed towards Nevermore''s tent. He was irritated that he hadn''t been able to communicate with Mai or any of the others. Whatever they were doing they had better be ready to hear what he had to tell them.

    ¡°I wonder the same thing.¡± Thor turned around and then saw that the people on the other transport were old acquaintances.

    ¡°What are you doing here?¡±

    ¡°I was going to ask you the same thing. Aren''t you supposed to be on the Edinburgh case?¡±

    In front of him were Mii, Rein and Noki.

    Mii and Rein were dressed in black and covered their heads with their pilot hoods, while Noki was wearing a black and green suit from which hung several loose straps.

    ¡°Your straitjacket buckles have come loose,¡± Thor said, addressing Noki.

    ¡°Shut up!¡± said Noki in annoyance.

    As Noki and Thor got into an argument, Mii looked in the direction of the lake and touched her stomach. She couldn''t say why, but she felt strange. A slight dizziness had taken over her body. She hadn''t felt that sensation in ages. But it was something else that bothered her and it had appeared when they were on the ship, more precisely on the last leg when they were about to land. It had intensified when they got off the ship.

    The raindrops were falling on Mii''s face, but she didn''t mind the wind and the drops hitting her face.

    She had not felt that sensation for a long time and it made her feel strange. It was a feeling that, for someone of her status within Nevermore, should not be there.

    It was the feeling of being helpless and not knowing what to do.

    The memory of seeing herself alone and pregnant in a dangerous world came back to her mind.

    Mii took a breath and clenched her fists.

    As quickly as it had come, the feeling in her stomach had disappeared and the feeling of dizziness vanished, but not the discomfort that feeling had caused her.

    Fear.

    She had felt the same fear centuries ago. Fear for her and for her child. That little girl, the product of something fleeting and transient, had become the reason for her life. Thinking about her daughter had taken away the feeling of fear and had given her back control of her emotions.

    Mii swallowed and looked at Rein.

    Rein''s eyes were on the ground and she did not look pleased, but she did not seem to share the fear Mii had felt. ¡°Something is wrong with the Ley Line flow,¡± Rein said and frowned worriedly. ¡°I don''t like this at all.¡±

 Vol.5/Chapter 71: Nigredo and Albedo

    Chapter Seventy-One

    Nigredo and Albedo

    The team, consisting of Granger, Lizbeth, Jade, Natsuki and Ryuuji advanced in formation, covering each other as they dismantled the resistance. The drone, several meters ahead of them, was providing the information with the enemies they would encounter. However, the deeper they went into the complex, the more evident it became that the place was prepared to face an incursion of that magnitude. More and more mercenaries in synthetic bodies began to emerge from the bowels of the facility, heavily armed, along with the tactical droids.

    ¡°Katsuragi, Kayabuki, rear guard!¡± ordered Lizbeth, as she ducked behind a makeshift barricade and then used her shout to eliminate a droid that had come dangerously close to her partners.

    [Understood!] Natsuki replied over the Neurowire, generating an electromagnetic pulse with one of her weapons that disabled the mercenaries'' weapons in her line of sight, and then Ryuuji finished them with his sword. Natsuki had the upper hand in that scenario due to her curse. She was completely invisible to the droids and mercenaries, as they were not equipped for a case like hers, that required a device to pick up the magic residual radiation from her body.

    Granger, smiling with a mixture of defiance and excitement, launched himself directly at a group of mercenaries, deflecting their attacks as if they were mere nuisances, while hitting them with devastating force. Jade not too far away had just taken a shot at one droid while launching another into the air with a kick.

    ¡°There''s more of them ahead!¡± announced Ryuuji, tracing a symbol in the air that detonated in a small burst of fire near a droid. The fight was short, but it was too annoying that they had to stop every so often.

    None of them knew that the scientists were no longer there and that only the droids and mercenaries were offering resistance.

    Finally, the team reached a machine control room, an almost ruined space filled with blinking old and dusty monitors and glowing consoles. In the center of the room, a platform with several new pieces of equipment loomed above the floor, surrounded by a pulsating energy field.

    The last defenders of that section of the complex, a group of elite mercenaries armed to the teeth, stood in front of the equipment, their gazes cold but determined to stop the intruders at all costs.

    ¡°Go!¡± shouted Lizbeth to Granger. Granger nodded and, followed by Jade, continued their journey out the exit on the other side of the room.

    Lizbeth and her small team were already only a few meters away from their target, which should be only a hundred meters away going out from another hallway.

    Lizbeth threw complicit glances to Ryuuji and Natsuki and they engaged in a new fight against the mercenaries and droids. They had a few minutes to spare, but nothing they hadn''t trained for in close combat.

    ***

    Jim Stuart had left for LC2 while Shin had to go to LC1.

    But that had not happened as they had planned.

    Only Stuart had left for his target.

    An unforeseen fight was taking place.

    The concrete and steel in the structure of the tunnel, seemed to vibrate with every impact. The ground shaking under the weight of the blows of two entities that should not have met in that conflict.

    Shin, clad in his symbiotic armor, advanced towards the woman who had begun to attack him. The clothes he had obtained were destroyed when the particle cloud appeared through his skin. Only the reinforced turtle backpack was still on his back.

    The woman was dressed in her white symbiotic armor, flashing with a cold, calculating gleam,, which contrasted with the almost animalistic rage with which she threw herself at Shin.

    He did not see the point of the fight. That girl had attacked him as if she were possessed by something, or under the effects of some drug. Had he done something to her? Did he know her from somewhere? Certainly something told him that he knew her, but he couldn''t pinpoint where or when. Some old quarrel perhaps? Could be. He had made many enemies over the years but it had been centuries of that. Could hatred last more than two centuries? Or was he simply her target in that madness?

    Well, that could last, Shin thought, remembering his studies in history, although that was not the time for academic or philosophical ramblings. On the other hand, that girl was not the only problem he had.

    While it was against his moral code to raise a hand against a woman, it was very different when the person in question was trying to kill him. He had to stop her, or shake her off with a blow that would put her out of combat.

    Guns had not worked.

    Traditional bullets and magnetic projectiles proved to be inefficient. The girl''s armor protected her. Even when her armor showed revealing some bare skin, the bullets bounced off the white armor, or in liquid parts that flowed and floated and then return them with the same kinetic force with which they had been fired.

    Weapons were useless against her, but the same was with the sword.

    The girl caught the blade of the sword and for some reason the structure twisted as if it were scrap metal. The blade had been bent and rendered useless, while it was heard to be having some trouble in the configuration to restore itself to normal form. Shin discarded it to the side. He had one in reserve but would not use it.

    It was a curious effect, Shin had found it himself when he tried to use his particles on some object. In particular when they interacted with some electronic device those particles ruined it to the touch, as well as the fabric of the clothes he was wearing. Not to mention that in the case of living tissue could generate cuts if the particles formed more solid parts. But the consistency was different in that woman.

    In the exchange of blows that followed Shin realized it and so did the woman. But the girl was so focused on her target that she didn''t seem to notice.

    Shin even though he was trying to control his particle armor it moved around him revealing parts of his body. The chaos around the two of them had intensified when they met body to body.

    But it was the same with that girl.

    Where they tried to hit each other, or when they made physical contact, the armor of both of them moved and they both hit each other''s bare skin. It was not his imagination. Both armors were running as if they were opposite poles of a magnet. The white material of the woman''s armor with liquid consistency, as well as Shin''s armor in the form of a cloud of particles did not touch each other.

    Shin, despite being two meters tall, found it difficult to fight against her. That girl was fast enough and short enough that she seemed to move like a whirlwind around him.

    He had tried to hit her several times and had succeeded, but the same thing happened with her. The thuds and destruction sounds of the fight must have reached the ears of almost everyone.

    Although they made contact with their bare skins in that gale of kicks and blows, both were still unharmed, apart from the fact that they were dirty with dust due to the collisions against the walls of the structure.

    She was incredibly strong. Shin thought that even someone like Granger wouldn''t have stood a chance against that girl.

    Walls were breaking and debris was flying in all directions due to the speed and superhuman strength of both opponents. There was no need for armor, that fight had something primitive in its fury, but at the same time it was made so that neither side would give each other a truce.

    The woman gritted her teeth and launched a kick against Shin''s head. He saw how at that precise moment the armor of her was removed, from the parts of the body that were about to make contact, and revealed the girl''s leg skin as well as Shin''s face.

    Shin had to admit that she was quite athletic and, under other circumstances he would have found her beautiful, but that kick would have blown the head off an ordinary person.

    She advanced with violent precision, her blows slicing through the air with deadly speed. Shin reacted quickly, raising a particle shield with part of his armor to block the first attack, but it didn''t work. The impact was blunt on Shin''s forearm. As soon as she touched the shield with her foot the dark particles dispersed and moved around Shin again. The same happened to the girl''s leg armor, which quickly floated to another part of her body, almost as if it were a liquid in zero gravity but with a consciousness of its own.

    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    Shin used his other hand and caught the girl''s bare foot and threw her against a nearby wall with a demolishing effect. The entire structure in that sector shook and the sound spread through those tunnels and rooms for several hundred meters. Columns fell and parts that had been recently remodeled cracked, when the older parts could not absorb the violence of the collision which was already deteriorating the place too much.

    The girl fell on the debris that had just been produced by her impact and looked at Shin with fury.

    He hoped that the blow would have been enough to put her out of action, but Shin saw that she barely had a scratch on her cheek.

    Red blood.

    A feeling of uneasiness was invading him and a suspicion was growing in him. The stinging sensation on his back.

    The white armor. Blows that had no effect. Was that girl like him? Did she have reinforced bones?

    Could she also recover like him? If that were even remotely true, the only chance he had was to give her a surprise blow. It was the only thing he knew that affected him. But would it work? It was remote but, in the few minutes of the fight, he had been discarding ideas and memories that would allow him to know who she was. He felt he knew her, but it could well be that her target was him and nothing else.

    ¡°Whatever I did to you, I apologize. Do we know each other from somewhere?¡± Shin didn''t know what to say to her. He had to get her off his back, but it wasn''t easy. That blow against the wall should have been enough to knock her unconscious. She crouched on the rubble like an animal and Shin''s expression changed.

    He spun in the nick of time. A black and yellow flash passed near his neck and stuck into the wall behind him. Shin turned around. He had run out of instinct, but the armor was protecting him again when he had thrown her several meters away from him. Still, that had been close. That girl had thrown a rusty Radiation Danger sign at him, with enough force to drive it into the concrete.

    She again thrust forward, using the strength of her symbiotic armor to throw a punch toward Shin. The punch was fast and direct, but Shin deflected with a swift movement and grabbed her arm and spun around to grab her from behind.

    The armor of both of them moved away from their owners. Particles and that white liquid were left floating around. Shin at that moment noticed the ears that had been hidden in the hair.

    Pointed ears, but they were somewhat smaller than those of the common feys. Almost human if they weren''t for the extension at the top.

    Almost similar to mine, Shin thought. But no. Something felt different.

    ¡°Are you going to stand still now?¡±

    She struggled like a rabid dog and at that moment Shin saw her face. He hadn''t noticed because the armor had barely slipped off her face during the fight. She had green eyes and a young face. A beautiful face even in that violence.

    But Shin did not have time to study the girl''s face any further.

    With their naked bodies in contact she put the full weight of her back against Shin''s abdomen and Shin curved back a little as he watched the girl lift her legs up and forward.

    Oh, shit. Shin thought as he let her go. He knew that move was weird, but given the girl''s strength he couldn''t rule out that it would achieve her goal. That upward thrust was meant to hit him in the knees and break them with both feet. It hurt like hell.

    He released her and in one foot Shin jumped a couple of meters away from her. The girl landed from her missed attack on the ground and Shin looked at her naked body as the armor gathered around her again.

    But he had no doubt. He had seen it.

    That girl had a mark somewhat similar to his, but on her shoulder blades.

    Before Shin could ask anything, the girl put a crooked smile on her face and launched herself at him with enough force for both of them to produce a new rumble. The force was enough to smash Shin and her against another pillar of the place that seemed to be more and more destroyed.

    ***

    EVE''s body took distance in the next moment from that attack. She jumped backwards but at that moment she lost her balance.

    Her body fell backwards and hit her head.

    Had she stepped on the wrong foot? No. Had she stepped on something?

    When she landed she felt as if her foot had stepped on something that moments before was not there.

    She stood up, but out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a small dark-colored lump, scurrying down the path where the companion of the man she was fighting had taken.

    What was that?

    She had to take control of her body at once. That blow to the back of her head had awakened her in some way.

    EVE felt dazed, but she didn''t want to give up. Why give up? Why was she fighting that guy to begin with?

    Stop it! Damn it!

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    The conflicting feelings inside her were like the whirlwind of particles around that man.

    Chaotic.

    Meanwhile the man had responded to her blows with precision, but with just the right speed. Yes. The man''s blows somewhat resembled the way the compound of her own armor moved. It flowed gracefully all around.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Who was he? Why was one part of her telling her to face him, while another part was telling her to run away? Did she know him? From where? When?

    EVE couldn''t remember seeing the man anywhere, but she couldn''t shake the feeling that she had seen him before. And the idea that she couldn''t remember him made her even more upset.

    Someone from her past before she came to earth? Could it be possible?

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Was it possible that he really was a piece of her past? What did Benjamin know about it? Whatever it was, that bastard was going to be in trouble, EVE thought. She was going to give Benjamin a good spanking until he told her the truth. What was this secret meeting with Janus that she hadn''t been able to attend?

    But now was not the time to worry about it, she had other more urgent problems.

    She didn''t know why, but she felt that of the two feelings she had inside her, one should take priority.

    To hell with all that.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Run away. No. Fight.

    Run away.

    Run away.

    Run away.

    She had to suppress her instinct to fight and obey what her inner self was telling her. She had to run away.

    She felt fury, a rage she could not control and it frightened her. She had always been proud of her control. She had never lost it. Her body was attacking almost as if it was in automatic mode for some reason.

    She had started the attack. She had nothing to say if that man decided to grab one of her legs again and slam her repeatedly against the walls of the room, until she became a red stain on the floor.

    But it wasn''t like that. She knew something was telling her that the man was controlling himself and that he wasn''t using enough force to kill her. No. He didn''t want to kill her. He simply wanted to knock her out.

    On the other hand, she was impressed. She was sure that she had rarely in her life fought like that. She knew she was strong. But could her body withstand so much even with the armor that did not cover her parts?

    That was another question? At what point had it started to malfunction? Was it because she had lost control of her body?

    No. That was not possible. That man was also showing parts of his body.

    How was that possible?

    It was different, but she could not shake off the feeling of familiarity and fear, but at the same time as if she were up against a natural enemy of hers.

    That was stupid.

    She didn''t know him. She was sure of that. Then why had her body moved in automatic mode to attack him?

    No matter what, she had to escape from there.

    She was slowly trying to regain control and was almost there.

    After that last blow she had thrown, she had almost feared that the whole place would collapse beneath them, but the walls had held.

    Control. Control.

    Run away. Running away is the most important thing.

    EVE looked at the rubble and searched the place. While her body was still fighting, for a split second she saw how she would escape from that place.

    The roof of the place where they were fighting. It was very deteriorated and could collapse at any moment.

    She could bury that man and get him off her back.

    She didn''t want to risk ending the fight by simply running away.

    Who knows what the man would do if she suddenly stopped. She had started it all. It was only natural that he would take revenge. On the other hand, she had the feeling that the only way she would regain complete control of her body was if she defeated him completely. She would have time in the future to find out why her body had reacted that way to him.

    Yes. Slowly but surely she was regaining control and her blows were more her style and not so uncontrolled.

    She could do it. She could drive him to his own doom and then run away from that place.

    ***

    The pug was angry.

    Damn creature!

    He had come out of those stairs and on his way he had run into debris and pieces of junk wherever he went. It was easy to follow the trail of contention. It was the same path where he was going.

    What was driving him was an enigma to him, but he knew where he was going. That familiarity was calling him.

    Destination.

    Perhaps it would be more delicious food... It seemed like hours since his breakfast, but it had only been minutes since he had left that camp full of soldiers. Although in dog time that translated to hours.

    Where was he going? Why?

    He couldn''t answer that, but he knew he had something important to do. He had his share too. The words of that skinny, ghostly man, he had met days before he met Sil Moore flashed in his mind.

    It was at that moment that he stopped.

    He had reached a place where it looked like a tornado had passed through. Debris and dust everywhere. Two figures, one in black and one in white, were moving like a whirlwind. They looked like two people engaged in some kind of fight. Or was it something else?

    What kind of mating ritual is this?

    The pug jumped over the debris, ignoring the strange spectacle and continued on his way.

    It was at that moment that he felt that something had stepped on him.

    One of those people had moved close to him and landed on top of him.

    The little dog moved with lightning speed and shot off in the direction his instinct told him to go.

    He didn''t stop to look back, but the sound indicated to him that whoever had stepped on him had fallen.

    However, he continued on his way, but he was angry.

    Couldn''t they see where they were walking?

    The pug continued his mad dash as he began to feel a new sensation inside him.

    No. It wasn''t new. He knew it.

    He had felt it.

    He had felt it before he was freed from his prison, along with that girl with the pointed ears and big breasts.

    Slowly, and almost without noticing it, his body was changing once again.

 Vol.5/Chapter 72: Souls in Transit- Part One

    Chapter seventy-two

    Souls in Transit- Part One

    Jim Stuart gritted his teeth and disposed of two mercenaries in his path and a droid, while explaining the situation to Lizbeth over the open communication channel.

    He had continued on his own.

    While the woman was fighting with Shin, Start was targeting the LC2 sector, where one of the subjects had been transported. It was 50/50 that it was either Oxy or the professor. Shin would go to the other chamber, once he took care of the woman who had attacked him.

    In a way it was a miracle that she had chosen Shin as her target. She had not hesitated. She had launched herself at him and had passed inches away from Stuart, ignoring him completely. Although on the other hand that was a miracle. The truth was that Jim Stuart didn''t see himself standing up to her.

    He had read the reports of what had happened at the Pyrene Station and how she had fought two of the best agents. No, he definitely didn''t stand a chance against someone like that.

    Especially considering the sounds behind him. Those rumbles and tremors were making dust fall from the ceiling. He didn''t want to imagine what was going on back there.

    Although, on the other hand, did those who were carrying out the whole thing know who Shin was, and had determined that he would be more dangerous? That was also something to consider.

    Lizbeth had contacted Stuart through the Neurowire, but he could only tell her what he had seen.

    Apparently Granger and Jade were already on target and were taking care of the mercenaries and droids guarding the main surface access elevator. Only Lizbeth''s team had yet to reach the core room and they were already there but they were in the middle of a fight that would last a little longer.

    Jim Stuart continued running and looked back.

    It was a little strange to him.

    He had barely encountered any resistance on his way. Just to make sure, he checked the map and corroborated that he was on the right track.

    If they were right and the abductees had been separated in those chambers, there was not much security. Was the energy areas and the elevator more vital?

    He couldn''t think about it. Not when he was so close to his target. And finally pondering about it he had arrived.

    He entered a corridor, at the end of which a steel door awaited him. The door was plainly unmarked or anything of the sort. On one side of the wall were several security signs with smudged and dirty letters and other regulations indicating that in the past it had been part of a neutrino detector.

    ¡°Neutrino detector?¡± He wondered in confusion. He checked the map quickly, indeed that had been part of a pool for the detection of those once almost undetectable particles.

    Stuart looked around and noticed that there were parts of that corridor that looked newer than the parts he had come through. The cracks had been covered with new reinforced coatings. Even the door looked shiny.

    Stuart approached the door and with his Neurowire took some readings. There was nothing to indicate that there were any traps or anything like that. He took a few more steps closer and touched it.

    Almost instantly he heard the devices on the door and stepped back, drawing his weapon. To his surprise no traps appeared. The door was a double door and the sections opened to reveal a corridor on the other side. On the other side of the double doors no ambush awaited him either. Only an ultraviolet light in the corridor and a smaller door at the end.

    Jim entered the corridor cautiously, but began to pick up the pace as he went, feeling his heart pounding.

    It''s a 50/50... he thought as he reached the final door.

    It opened and Jim entered the final part of the place.

    It was blacker than the darkest night.

    He fell to the floor as he entered. He thought he had entered a gigantic hole and would fall into the void. But that did not happen. On the contrary, his face hit a cold surface. He was on the ground but the black totality of the place had made him dizzy. The door had closed behind him so there was no light to orient himself.

    He turned on his night vision. It did not work. There was no radiation of any kind and no ambient light for the night vision to work. It was strange, but he turned it off and then turned on one of the lights on his clothing.

    Infinity appeared before his eyes.

    He was surprised to see the room. It was a gigantic mirrored chamber at least ten meters high, by ten meters wide and long. It gave him a strange sensation to see his reflection and that of the whole room repeated ad nauseam as if he were in a kind of meshed structure, since the only thing that gave a frame of reference in those reflections was the edges of the room. In the center, resting on the floor, was an elongated capsule no more than two meters long.

    But something else struck him as he set foot inside the room. It was that feeling of dizziness. It gave him a strange sensation, but it was one he was used to.

    A distorted space. A distorted space and a mirrored room, he thought.

    The hair on the back of his neck stood up. The last time he had seen that had been in the Sil Moore case. It couldn''t be that it was a mirror box, could it?

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    He walked to his right, crouching on the nearest edge.

    His fears intensified. It had an edge of a few centimeters. He didn''t know what material it was, but examining it quickly he noticed it. There were distorted engravings on those edges. The distortion of the engravings was because the space had been distorted.

    They had turned a neutrino detection chamber into a mirror box. Why? What was it supposed to do there?

    He felt sweat running down his temples and stood up. He hurried and ran to the capsule.

    Someone was inside for sure. Whether it was the professor or Oxy, he had to get them out of there and get away from that place.

    It didn''t look good.

    ***

    Lizbeth wondered how Shin and Stuart were doing when she opened her eyes. Through the door where they had to go, a girl with messy brown hair had just entered the room. Her eyes were slightly lost, as if she didn''t understand what had happened.

    ¡°Oxy?!¡± Lizbeth said in surprise and Oxy looked at her, as if she didn''t understand anything.

    The truth was that the sickbay wing where Oxy''s mind reading had been performed to extract the data was close to where they had to go.

    Oxy had just woken up a few seconds ago

    She had woken up a little dizzy and confused and didn''t understand where she was. The last thing she remembered was passing out in the tent in the middle of the night and that Professor Lee Reubens was at her side.

    After that, she had woken up in a place she didn''t remember at all.

    There was no one around her. Or rather there were, but they were lifeless bodies lying on the ground.

    Oxy had looked but could not understand what had happened. What was she doing there?

    She had left the infirmary with hesitant steps and had passed a short corridor completely deserted.

    Until she came to the door to find Lizbeth and the others.

    Looking at her, Lizbeth was glad they had found her, but another doubt assailed her. If Oxy was there, who was the other guy in one of those chambers that had been transported just an hour ago?

    She tried to reach Stuart one more time, but was unable to establish communication.

    ***

    The pug had rounded the last bend in the tunnel, while evading the obstacles in the path. His size was three times what it had originally been and his mirrored dark crystal fur glistened in that space of destruction.

    He had been dodging the fallen bodies of those mercenaries and pieces of the droids blown to bits. Although those debris had been disappearing in the last stretch and almost nothing had impeded his path in that part.

    Yes. He felt it.

    Whatever it was, he felt he was reaching his destination. The place where for some reason he had to be.

    He entered a hallway and after running a few meters he found himself in front of that security door, which opened as soon as he approached it.

    The pug stepped through and walked down the hallway in the ultraviolet light until he reached the final door.

    That door opened and he stepped into the room illuminated only by a series of lights that moved in sync.

    The door closed behind him and he looked around.

    There was a man kneeling in front of a somewhat elongated object, in what appeared to be the center of the room. Beyond that another man was doing the same. He looked in every direction and the same thing was everywhere. Even underneath.

    The dog looked carefully. He knew that scene.

    He was inside a box that repeated the reflections ad infinitum.

    He discovered himself looking at himself from different angles. And then he realized.

    He had changed.

    It was almost four times his size.

    ***

    Jim Stuart barely noticed the sound of the door opening into the room. In fact he didn''t so much notice the sound as the faint ultraviolet light that came from the hallway when the door opened. He was standing on the capsule trying to open it and saw the reflection on the bottom of that mirror box.

    The reflection quickly disappeared when the door closed.

    He stood up quickly and drew his weapon, expecting droids or perhaps mercenaries to have come for him, but what he saw surprised him even more.

    ¡°What the hell?¡±

    Wasn''t that the dog they had taken just a few days ago? No. It was different. Bigger. It didn''t look the same, but he remembered that in fact while he was with that detective the others had chased a larger version of that dog. It didn''t make sense.

    ¡°How did you get here?¡±

    He had only seen the facts of that chase in Edinburgh from the case files, but if it was true that that small dog of an extinct breed could change size. But how had it gotten there? What was going on?

    He could not inquire any further, because suddenly he heard a sound behind him and it made him turn around. He had been trying to hack the opening of that capsule, but had left a program running to unlock the lock. It was tightly closed, but it had finally opened.

    It wasn''t Oxy. It was Professor Lee Reubens, completely asleep and naked.

    At that moment both Stuart and the pug could hear some mechanical sounds coming from the door.

    What''s going on now? He wondered, but to his amazement his Neurowire devices shut down as if they had been blocked by something.

    All he got as a result was [Out of service].

    As if that wasn''t strange enough by itself the space began to change throughout the LC2 chamber.

    What is happening now?

    The first thing he noticed was that the dog had started to slowly slide towards him. It wasn''t walking, it was sliding on the glass. Whatever was going on, the dog had started to whimper pitifully.

    The second thing he noticed was that the reflections in the entire room had begun to warp and distort.

    The transformation lasted less than fifteen seconds, but now Jim Stuart, the capsule and the strange dog were in a totally spherical room with distorted reflections of itself.

    Stuart thought about it. He had no idea how strong the surface might be or exactly how the mirror was made, but he knew he would have to get out of there before it activated. If it was indeed a mirror box, who knew what could happen at any moment. He would have to shoot at the surface and destroy it. The surface was so slippery and polished that it prevented him from moving from the center to any other point. The door was far away.

    No.

    Stuart frowned. Where had the door gone? The door had completely disappeared too, there was no escape from that room.

    When he was no longer expecting any more surprises, the unexpected happened. But the next moment he remembered.

    The mirror boxes have a small part through which the light enters. That had been the way they had rescued Agent Zi when she had been trapped.

    A light on the opposite top appeared and the room filled with light.

    A blue electric light began to enter.

    No, that was not exactly light. Or at least not in the conventional sense of the word.

    What the hell is going on? Stuart shouted as he felt a heat like he had never felt before invade him. He felt dizzy and fell down. That dizziness hadn''t come out of nowhere.

    The whole damn space was starting to spinning now. He was in a blender. The dog appeared and appeared, becoming invisible one moment and visible the next, whimpering cries were all that could be heard, along with a buzzing sound that seemed to be increasing with that blue light that was flooding everything at the same time as the room heated.

    What is this?! Jim Stuart felt like throwing up even though the synthetic body he was in.

 Vol.5/Chapter 73: Souls in Transit- Part Two

    Chapter seventy-three

    Souls in Transit- Part two

    It was all happening in seconds in the accelerator control programs.

    [Safety Shutdown Activated.]

    The artificial intelligence program, that was conducting the final part of the experime,t had complied with the Director''s final order. Once two subjects had entered the chamber LC2 had proceeded to close it definitively and it was completely locked from the outside.

    Nothing could get out.

    After that the final part of the process had finally been activated. In two of the Pening traps had been released the particles collected in the successive collisions of the accelerator ring.

    Two beams had been released. One was destined for LC1, the chamber where Jack Pierson had been placed in his respective capsule. The second beam was sent directly to chamber LC2, which now had three occupants: Lee Reubens, Jim Stuart and a third who had never explained the details of his objective but who, according to the data provided by Janus, it was vital that the lockdown be effected after the newcomer''s break-in.

    The particle beams passed hundreds of meters from their location and were accelerated once again towards their final destinations taking the form of a plasma stream. Under normal experimental conditions in the past, that would never have been sufficient to carry out the experiment. They were uncontrolled conditions. A Dark Event whose manipulation allowed to a certain extent the artificial intervention to carry out the objective. Using an anomaly in the world such as the fractus cores, the particles coming from the sun to activate such cores and finally the temporal position to carry out the displacement.

    Although that was beyond the capabilities of the control program, which could only execute the orders that had been imposed on it by the Director and the other scientists who had been there moments before.

    In the other subroutine, the program was set up to change the geometrical shape of the mirror boxes in the chambers to a spherical shape, for the bouncing of the particles in the final phase. Likewise, external rotation motors in four different parts of each chamber had been put into operation to put the huge sphere into horizontal rotational motion.

    The outer machines were in charge of opening the tiny hole in the top that would allow the particles to enter the inner part.

    In LC1 the particles entered like a calm torrent. First in the form of a beam of electric blue light. Then the light particles had begun to concentrate at the central point of the circumference. As if their angular momentum had been twisted and they could not escape the attraction to that point where, just a few seconds before, there was nothing. But now something was drawing them there, something that remained invisible to the naked eye. In the concentration of particles it seemed that a sphere was forming, that in its first moments was reminiscent of a plasma ball.

    Several hundred meters from there the two Pening traps were empty now, but a third one wasn''t.

    The third and last one was containing fewer particles, particles that were short-lived and would undoubtedly be extinguished in the next few minutes.

    ***

    Shin was worried.

    He had never reached the site. He was still fighting and had not been able to fulfill his part of the mission.

    The fight had continued for a few seconds. But he had noticed that the girl''s agility had increased and her blows no longer contained the fierceness of before, but were at the same time much more controlled.

    He had to put an end to it once and for all. There was something that worried him even more.

    Those blue particles that he had been seeing for a while had disappeared almost as soon as he had separated from Stuart. The fight had distracted him from it and he hadn''t noticed.

    There was something he didn''t like about it all. Had they been wrong about something? And if the premises were wrong from the beginning?

    The duty to stop the experiment on the one hand and, on the other hand, the possibility that they were there to cause the final part was what worried him. There were too many things on his mind. And since the last moments he could not concentrate well. His head was hurting once again and he wondered what was about to happen.

    It was at that moment that he got careless. The girl sent a kick that was a feint. Shin ducked and her foot hit a column.

    Pieces of concrete flew off and the girl jumped backwards, jumping into an adjoining wall and moving almost five meters away.

    Shin looked at her, confused, but soon she disappeared from his sight and was replaced by darkness.

    Dozens of tons of concrete and earth fell on top of him. The already cracked ceiling succumbed under Shin, when the girl kicked one of the columns that seemed to be holding all the weight on that part.

    ***

    A tremor shook everything and EVE moved a little further away.

    The roof was still cracking and more concrete and dirt was falling. The earth that had fallen on the man began to sink into a new hole in the floor and he too was dragged down. The floor in that part had also caved in and now EVE saw a five meter pit that was widening and opening up a gap. That part was close to Lake Lemac, surely miles below it ran subterranean tributaries.

    If she got trapped there and was dragged down she wasn''t sure she would make it out alive.

    She started to run away from the place and used the Neurowire to try to connect with the control center where she had been a few moments before with the Director. No one answered.

    EVE stopped and read the map she had downloaded into her mind as she looked around.

    It had just dawned on her. Now all the way back the way she had come was blocked. She was trapped.

    She looked around her. No. Maybe she wasn''t.

    All around were the remains of the tactical droids, against which the intruders must have been fighting, and at the same time the bodies of the mercenaries.

    Where had the intruders come from?

    She checked the map once more and saw that there were several emergency exits at other points in the old hadron accelerator. But who knew what state they would be in.

    If she went through the place where the intruders had entered, there was a chance that she would meet someone else on the way. It was better to take another route if she could find it in that labyrinth. There were longer routes, but they could be safe even if it was to face several kilometers in the dark so as not to attract attention.

    ***

    Newhaven, Edinburgh.

    After what had happened last weekend the work had continued in the old port.

    Forensic and FRT teams had been working around the clock trying to find the cause of what had happened. Few details had been leaked to the press but that explosion on the abandoned ship could be seen from miles away. It was an enigma to many, although the Sign Organization had tried its best to downplay the seriousness of the matter.

    Beyond the investigation, the truth was that little could be corroborated, just a few remains of that fierce fight against those mercenaries. There were almost no remains of the ship to know what had happened.

    The teams on site had set up several tents for the teams. Mobile laboratories, security and a fence to prevent the arrival of curious onlookers. But at that time the teams were only just waking up

    In one of the tents a team were having breakfast, getting ready for a day''s work.

    Among them was a certain man with an antenna on his forehead that projected a blue light on his face. That man with the slightly rounded face and sharp teeth was a fey. His name was Portman.

    Although Jim Stuart''s team had been relieved for the break of the investigation, Portman was one of the few who had asked to work with another team to carry out a detailed analysis. After all, spectroscopy and particle analysis were part of his specialities too.

    Portman had just woken up half an hour ago and was almost ready to get to work with his colleagues at that moment. He had hit it off quite well even though he didn''t know any of them.

    They had been joking about breakfast in the rest tent, when Portman stopped with a piece of muffin he was about to eat. The piece was halfway to his mouth, but he never got to it. The others had continued eating and joking among themselves. But Portman had stopped and was looking toward the entrance.

    His eyes looked quizzical.

    He put the freshly printed muffin back on the tray with the others and put his coffee on the table.

    ¡°What happened?¡± asked a human girl from the team.

    ¡°Nothing...¡± Portman walked to the entrance and pulled open the gate and looked out. It was dawn and the cold of the old port hit him in the face. ¡°Excuse me for a moment. I''ll be right back,¡± he said and went out.

    Portman was out before the others could answer him and was on his way.

    It was not his imagination. There was a strange buzz among the teams. A voice that wasn''t there the day before.

    He had felt it. He had heard a rumor that had resonated in his mind and his ability to sense the emotions of others.

    There was a mind, a voice that was not in tune with the others.

    A empath ability could not make him see what others thought, but what they felt.

    And it was this that had attracted Portman''s attention. He had detected strange emotions.

    Loneliness. Sadness. But at the same time joy. There was something else in those emotions but he couldn''t figure out what it was.

    With his Neurowire he corroborated the security and the people present in the place, as well as their locations. There were at least sixty people detected, and three security mechs with aeons. But there was someone else.

    Yes, there was someone who shouldn''t be there.

    Portman made his way to what was left of the old ship, which had been covered with a structure to hide the work from any curious onlookers.

    From a distance that structure looked as if it had been a sheet placed to cover a corpse. And in a way it was. It covered the remains of the old ship, at least what was left after that strange crimson explosion.

    No one was supposed to be there at that hour. Not for another hour at least.

    Portman stopped and looked up at the structure and called out to the others. He was sure now. ¡°Alert security. We''ve got someone sniffing around!¡±

    ***

    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Into the nothingness, into the everything, without knowing it.

    Jim Stuart screamed.

    He screamed at the top of his lungs.

    He felt his body burning.

    He was floating at insane speed in that spherical cavity. Everything was being dragged, burned, dissolved, transformed, deformed. He could not describe the horrible sensation. Parts of his body were falling apart.

    Was that the end for him?

    He looked out of the corner of his eye. The dog was still changing size and, like Stuart, was also spinning in that whirlpool of plasma but the pup, if it could still be called that, didn''t seem to be suffering as Stuart was. And the professor?

    Lee Reubens was also spinning around, still unconscious. His body seemed to be suffering the same as Stuart.

    Maybe it is good he is like this, Stuart thought. Death would come to him in his sleep.

    Now they were all part of the cloud of plasma particles, suspended in a limbo of uncertain existence. As his body disintegrated, his consciousness expanded, spanning the vast abyss of space and time. Stuart could feel the irresistible pull of an unknown force, drawing him into the center of the whirlpool.

    For a split second it seemed to him that everything was happening in slow motion, even though the pain felt incredibly vivid.

    In the heart of that whirlpool something had appeared.

    At what point?

    Stuart wasn''t sure. It had appeared out of nowhere.

    A dark sphere in the center of the room, floating and with plasma swirling around it.

    Time travel, Stuart thought. A wormhole.

    A wormhole in the shape of a black sphere surrounded by a bluish halo unfolded before Jim Stuart. A three-dimensional throat of pure energy that would absorb everything.

    Jim Stuart had no doubt what he was witnessing, although he had never seen it beyond simulations. Undoubtedly they had used a virtual wormhole to make it real using some source he didn''t know about.

    The energy cubes could generate enough energy for the experiment for that, but the material to perform such a feat had to be different.

    He thought about the materials for a second.

    That thing stolen from Rome.

    What happened on the plane.

    The fragments stolen from Russia the year before.

    Was it possible after all?

    It was a portal to the impossible, a shortcut through time that held within it the power to destroy or redefine everything it touched and maybe the possibility of moving it to another time. The sight of the wormhole aroused in him a mixture of fascination and horror. On the other hand, he had so many thoughts in his mind that he had not realized how important it was. Shouldn''t he already be dead with all that plasma around him?

    He wasn''t imagining it, time seemed to slow down more and more.

    The journey through the throat was not simply a transit. It was an experience of dazzling transformation and terror. As his essence entered the abyss, the boundaries of reality blurred. The past, the present of his memories intertwined in a kaleidoscopic mosaic of possibilities, where every fragment of his being was reconfigured and reimagined into that sphere in the form of elemental particles.

    But, he was not in his real body, just a synth. What would happen to him?

    And time. Time was terrifying too. If everything already seemed to slow down for him, as he got closer to that sphere, it seemed that everything stopped even more.

    Dilation. For an observer at a safe distance, everything was surely happening in less than the blink of an eye. But for those who were there it was an eternity. An eternity. An infinitesimal unit of time, but extended by such an absurd amount that it was useless even to express it in numbers. At that point no matter how strong a mind was. The only thing that awaited those unfortunate enough to be caught in it was madness and the disintegration of sanity.

    The transition in that Maelstr?m of energy was a dance in which his body was disintegrated and dissolved as memories seemed to disappear and at the same time memories merged with different moments of his past. The current of time swept him along, an inexorable tide of change and chaos.

    As he slipped slowly into the wormhole, the unsettling sensation of dissolution enveloped him even more. He felt as if his essence was being devoured and recreated at the same time. Contradictory sensations that he could not fully explain. He found in them a certain similarity to descriptions of nightmares or to those testimonies of prisoners whose memories were erased. They had no memory but the sensation that something had been stolen from them and that no matter what, it would not return.

    What was about to happen to his memory? Jim Stuart''s fear grew. What was happening to the memories?!

    Suddenly, a subtle vibration shook the sphere he was heading towards. The plasma seemed to be slowly being absorbed, as if responding to a call from that three-dimensional spherical devourer.

    Jim Stuart had lost the sight of one eye. It had slowly disintegrated, as had part of his face. Was his head still attached to his body? He couldn''t be sure of that. Perhaps the dilation was clouding his senses from the pain and only his consciousness was working at full speed.

    Oxy.

    Stuart thought about her.

    Had Shin gotten to her? Had he pulled her out of the capsule?

    Through it all, he still hoped that she was all right. He could afford the luxury of that thought, couldn''t he? After all, he was dying. And he wanted to think that Shin had been able to escape from that sphere before all that happened.

    Stuart thought about it carefully. Everyone''s fear. An explosion like the one in Tokyo. No. It wasn''t possible. A wormhole. He reviewed everything he knew about them and if he wasn''t mistaken there had to be a balance between the positive and negative energy at the mouths of the wormhole. Otherwise everything would collapse in a matter of milliseconds.

    Indeed everything was happening slowly for him, but it was possible that all this was not lasting more than a couple of seconds at most.

    His mind was relieved. It wasn''t possible for something like Tokyo to happen, was it? At most it could cause damage, but nothing more. It was likely that the fight of Shin and the others was leaving more damage than the experiment itself.

    Yes, it was better to think like that.

    What could he do in that situation? Floating in the middle of a plasma vortex slowly approaching the wormhole? He felt like an insect about to be trapped in amber.

    If time continued to drag on, his mind would most likely be shattered before his body was completely destroyed.

    The dog? Where is it? I could no longer see it.

    The capsule that had contained Lee Reubens was floating near the sphere, along with the professor Lee Reubens. Due to the violence of the whirlwind the body had come out of the capsule. Parts of his body were disintegrating.

    Everything was getting darker as Jim Stuart approached the sphere.

    Suddenly everything went black and that was the last thing Jim Stuart saw at that moment.

    Whether it was luck, or curse, it didn''t last more than ten minutes for him that torture in his time dilated.

    ***

    LC1.

    The wormhole in the first chamber had lifted the capsule in which Jack Pierson was resting. Time also seemed to stand still from the perspective of the consciousness, even though the only one there at that moment was not aware of what was going on around him.

    The capsule was unraveling, as it was being sucked into one end of the wormhole''s mouth.

    Time moved and the next second everything was gone.

    There was no trace left in any of the chambers of that raging plasma.

    LC1 and LC2 were empty.

    There were no capsules, no occupants. There were no remains, no ashes. Everything that had been there was gone.

    The spatial distortion ceased as the room returned to its cubic form.

    Sounds of breaking glass were heard in both chambers, although there was no one to hear the sound.

    Mirrors were shattering. There was a tremor and several of the concrete walls near both chambers showed signs of cracking, as if giant skeleton hands had suddenly appeared on the walls.

    Beyond that that was all that happened.

    Nothing bad happened.

    Yet.

    ***

    Newhaven, Edinburgh.

    Janus sighed and walked into the maze of the abandoned harbor.

    He couldn''t deny it. He had too many emotions at that moment. That cultivated and reinforced heart with fractium structure was beating wildly in that body that had been made for his final mission.

    He had done it. It was happening.

    There had been too many sacrifices but he had done it.

    It was there.

    His final destination.

    He had arrived just a few minutes before and had hidden the vehicle in the sea. No one in security would expect anyone crazy enough to try to invade that place.

    He had swum three hundred meters across the sea to get closer to that place and finally succeeded.

    He had infiltrated the huge structure that had been the site of the harbor disaster, as the press had called the strange event.

    But the press would never know anything. Nor the invaders from other place would they know that he was to blame for the raid not having turned out as it had.

    Several days before that incursion from another universe he had planted security devices in that place.

    He had seen it in his visions and luckily it was crystal clear where the arrival of the invaders would occur.

    Special disruptors to unbalance the incoming energy. That must have caused the invaders to feel as if they had a hangover but multiplied by thirty times. Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and surely some internal bleeding, because the molecular cohesion could be affected.

    Thanks to this, the invaders had had to make use of those two thieves who brought him the piece he needed for his mission.

    Stan and Rum were vital pieces in all of that, even if they didn''t know it.

    Janus smiled and slipped into the shadows in the knee-deep water, among the testing equipment and twisted iron that had withstood that hell days before.

    There was no one there yet. That was lucky. At least he wouldn''t have to use his new body to fight.

    Now only the final part remained.

    He closed his right fist and in his forearm he felt how that fractus nucleus from another universe vibrated.

    He was getting closer.

    He took a step and then another one and stopped. He raised his arm and held his breath.

    That was the point that had connected the two universes. And it was also the point where he would enter.

    Everything coincided with what was happening in Geneva. Just a few seconds.

    ¡°Stop there!¡±

    Janus didn''t turn around at first. he simply grabbed his weapon and quickly turned around, in the direction of the voice that had called him.

    A team of seven were there.

    Janus fired.

    The bullet hit a fey empath with an FRT overalls that had an antenna in its forehead.

    Portman collapsed and began to moan in pain. The bullet had pierced his lung and he felt cold.

    The others returned fire, but the first bullets ricocheted off Janus while the others passed through him.

    Now! thought Janus.

    Everyone present and those who had been added watched the spectacle in amazement.

    Janus'' body began to vibrate and his entire physiognomy distorted as if he were suffering from a standing epileptic seizure. But in fact Janus had not taken a step, everything was concentrated on that same point. The technicians knew that something had happened at that point the day before. It was from where all that ship had been destroyed. Something had happened but they didn''t know what. They could only guess what it was thanks to that body that shared the same face of that detective.

    An incursion.

    But that was not the time to think about it, as everyone stopped wondering about it in the next second.

    They did not expect the sudden explosion of water that occurred the next moment. Everyone who was there was thrown out when out of nowhere a sudden wave of heat hit them all.

    The last thing many saw of the strange being that had shot Portman was as if his entire being had been compressed into a small space and then exploded.

    The structure trembled, but resisted.

    Those who had been sent flying got up looking for the assailant but there was nothing there.

    Others ran to Portman, who was spitting blue blood from his mouth.

    ¡°Who the hell was that guy?¡±

    Portman tried to sit up and looked in the direction from which the strange being had disappeared. It wasn''t his imagination. The moment he had shot him he had felt an emotion coming from him.

    It was joy.

    The same joy as a small child with a new toy playing happily. An immense happiness.

    That emotion contrasted with the coldness with which he had shot. But Portman, dismayed by it, had found no malice in that emotion. What had just happened?

    They did not know. At that very moment a time travel was taking place in Geneva.

    ***

    Azusa was silent, but inside her emotions were welling up.

    She felt it.

    The end had come.

    Eons and eons had passed. And although the passage of time was different for her in a higher dimension, the truth was that now that the moment had arrived, a different emotion invaded her.

    Billions of years of waiting for everything to culminate at that moment.

    If destiny was true then it would end there.

    At least for her.

    What would Mai say? Would she forgive her?

    She felt sorry for that girl who had taken her as a friend.

    What was Mai to her?

    A friend? A goal to an end?

    No. Not a goal.

    She had wondered many times and felt that the feeling could be in the friendship even though her kind had never been very good at it to begin with.

    Where would they be hiding now? In what time?

    Azusa shuddered.

    That day could well be the beginning of everything or the end of billions of years of waiting.

    The image of the one she had loved flashed through her mind.

    He was there too. Close by. She could feel him in the sky. Although they had different goals.

 Vol.5/Chapter 74: Souls in Transit- Part Three

    Chapter Seventy-four

    Souls in Transit- Part Three

    The Travelers

    He opened his eyes and they burned as if he was getting all the sunlight on his retina. But it wasn''t sunlight. It was just artificially lit space.

    It looked like some kind of office with libraries or cluttered study. It looked like everything had been in order until a few moments ago as there were things lying on the floor and some smoke and a book was spewing out what looked like dying flames.

    Jack Pierson coughed and groaned.

    His ears were ringing and his whole body ached. Slowly he stood up and tried to look around as his eyes adjusted. He was seeing double and in fact his eyes were stinging even more, but the brightness was almost gone.

    What happened? He wondered as he got up from the floor and tried to locate the place. Then, he remembered.

    Janus.

    The time travel.

    The accelerator.

    He put a hand to his head. It hurt terribly. And he felt as if some of the hair he had worked so hard to grow was scorching. Irony, for even though he had been covered in bandages from treatments all the time he had tried to keep his hair in order, but hair was the least of his problems at the moment.

    Had they succeeded? Had it been possible?

    He touched his body. He was completely naked and his skin still gave off a mist as if he had just come out of a Turkish bath with a temperature above what any person should be able to withstand. In fact, his whole body felt hot.

    It smelled like burning, and worse not only papers, more like burning flesh. His own flesh.

    He looked at his hands and for the first time he noticed how part of his skin was burned. But what surprised him was to see how the skin and flesh had begun to regenerating and the burn was disappearing. It was true after all. The first reconstruction was the one that took the longest. He only hoped that the skin culture treatment that had been done on his face would not reveal his true identity.

    He tried to remember the last thing he had seen.

    For some reason he couldn''t remember when he had fallen asleep. He remembered that he had spoken to the Director moments before, but nothing else after that. His memories were a little fuzzy, but he knew what he had to do. That had been pounded into his brain over so many years, thanks to Janus'' therapy and memorization sessions.

    Still it felt strange. He thought he was forgetting something important. He didn''t know why, but he had never questioned Janus on anything. It wasn''t trust, it was something else but he couldn''t put it into words.

    He looked around one more time, his eyes were slowly getting used to the place. It was in some kind of finely furnished library. Although at that moment some papers were fluttering and smoke was coming out of other loose sheets.

    Everything was in a jumble.

    This doesn''t look like Japan, he thought.

    According to Janus his destination was Japan. The home of the Yanagida family, which was the custodian of Satou Nobuyama''s diaries and that strange stone that had caused all the commotion to begin with. But that room had a western style. Maybe Janus had made a mistake? No, it couldn''t be possible.

    He looked down at the floor from where he had stood up and then saw how the carpet and part of the floor had a black stain in a radial shape. It reminded him of how solid surfaces look after a small explosion. Was that due to time travel?

    What a pity he had not been awake to see what had happened and how his body had gotten there. He had wondered if he had heard and felt the same sensations he had felt when he had traveled to the future.

    Anyway, he would have time to think about his doubts. But at that moment he had a mission. A mission that would last for decades, but it was the reason for his existence.

    Even if the world wouldn''t know it, he, a pathetic chemist and a rocket and occult nut, now had a mission on his shoulders that he had never dreamed of.

    The doors of the studio were open and shouts and voices could be heard speaking hurriedly from the other side. They were voices in Japanese.

    He had better get things in order.

    He walked out and the first thing he encountered were the confused faces of a couple and other men in suits looking like they were not very friendly.

    He couldn''t blame them. A stranger had just emerged naked from a studio that moments before had been empty and completely tidy.

    Jack Pierson, still staggering and dizzy, walked over to an armchair and grabbed a cushion to cover his genitals.

    He had better start explaining to Ishida Yanagida who he was.

    On the isle of the studio, the nucleus fragment was glowing and its surface was rotating. Jack didn''t see it at the time, though. It wouldn''t be until a few moments later that he would re-enter the room as he was chased by Ishida Yanagida''s guards and pick it up.

    Although that was already past history.

    Louis Armstrong''s ¡°What a Wonderful World¡± was playing in the background and it was the year 1959 of the Ancient Era.

    ***

    May 1, 1977. 2AM. Ancient Era.

    Somewhere in the Mojave Desert.

    Carl Scott slammed on the brakes of the Company Peugeot and exited the vehicle in a hurry.

    Just 20 minutes ago he had received the call from Jack that the unthinkable was happening.

    The one they were waiting for seemed to have come early.

    Based on Satou Nobuyama''s notes, there would be a tokion emission in 1977 but, according to the odds, it was likely to occur later in the summer. Not in May, and certainly not in the middle of the night.

    Carl Scott looked up at the desert night sky for a second and there were faint ghostly glows of green like swamp gas.

    The only green that could be found in that place. The desert auroras were active that night. Maybe it was true that the sun had something to do with it after all.

    He was not distracted for more than a second and began to run.

    Those facilities were part of the experiment. It was an old facility and in fact dated back to World War II. The Department of Defense had given it to the RIA for research and to put the pieces that Carl and Jack had collected over the years. It was also where it would all end up, since it doubled as a laboratory.

    With Gehirn''s help they had built the missing part of the machine in the past months, as they had not been able to count on the help of that strange fey called Shin, since he had been missing since 1974.

    But Gehirn''s help had proven to be more than beneficial to both parties. He had sent technicians to build, based on Nobuyama''s notes and illustrations, a device similar to the one in the notes. Gehirn had provided a couple of strange artifacts that performed similar functions to the sought-after table that Shin had hidden and hoped that it would be sufficient. Which would not be clear until the one they had been waiting for so many years arrived.

    According to Jack the machine was necessary for the newcomer, because it was not like his case. Jack was something called homunculus temporis and because of that he had been able to withstand time travel without much damage other than some scrapes and burns that healed in a matter of days in 1959.

    But the one sent from the future was human. A device had to be built to connect the past with the future.

    The function of the machine was to act as a kind of decompression chamber for the time traveler to arrive safely.

    But he didn''t expect it to happen so quickly.

    Jack looked into the distance. A hundred yards away someone was approaching at a run. It was Jack, wearing some horrible pajamas, that almost made him look as if he were an escaped prisoner from some floating Company jail.

    For the past few months Jack had been residing with the scientists at the facility, although he had been more focused on occult studies than on the subject of the machine. Jack was obsessed with the pieces they had been collecting. And no wonder. Who had made them, why, and why were they scattered?

    Even the analysis showed that they came from different eras. How was that possible? The others were not so much interested in that as in the use they could make of it. The royal family, on the other hand, wanted to keep everything related to it as secret as possible, so as not to attract the attention of the Parliament. Only a few academics had been called to investigate the enigma of the origin, but for the moment those questions remained an enigma. It would be a mystery for another time.

    ¡°Come on! Hurry up!¡± Jack stopped in his tracks and motioned Carl to hurry.

    Carl Scott ran the remaining meters and the two friends began to head towards where the time machine was located, which was one of the farthest hangars of the complex, which at the same time functioned as the main laboratory.

    ¡°Is everything ready?! It''s too soon, isn''t it?¡± Scott asked.

    ¡°Yes, I know. But don''t ask me. The scientists say a date mismatch was possible. That''s why we''ve been on alert since March.¡±

    ¡°Shit!¡± mumbled Scott grumpily.

    ¡°You''re ready, aren''t you? You remember everything?¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes. Don''t worry. Now just wai-!¡±

    Carl Scott didn''t get to finish the sentence. An explosion occurred and they were both thrown back by the detonation, and the shockwave that occurred less than eighty meters from where they stood.

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    The night in the desert was illuminated by a glow that blinded everyone for a few moments. The soldiers who were on guard at the farthest posts were also surprised and ran towards the place.

    Jack, spitting sand and dust, got up from the ground and looked up in astonishment. Carl at his side also did the same.

    ¡°What the fuck happened?¡± shouted Carl, unable to take his eyes off the flames rising into the sky, as if they were greeting the lights of the auroras.

    The following moments were of chaos and unbridled movement in the place. The fifteen soldiers who were on site were doing firefighting work to extinguish the flames in the laboratory hangar.

    None of the twenty scientists working at the site had survived. At the time of the explosion, everyone was in the main laboratory and adjoining rooms, making sure everything was running smoothly. But there was an error in the cooling systems they had.

    They had been off since early in the morning and when they noticed that the core was starting to show activity they had activated them, while moving the core to the decompression chamber for the traveler.

    What occurred was an overload of the systems as they were turned on so early and due to the activity of the core the cooling systems had not been sufficient. The core had been activated inside the machine which acted only as a receiver. No one had been able to see it, but those particles called tokions had transported an enormous amount of gluon plasma from another time in the future. No one could have known that a mismatch had occurred in the future at the moment the traveler was arriving in the past.

    According to emergency protocols, everyone donned anti-radiation protective gear, as this was one of the areas that had always been of concern to those working at the site. According to Nobuyama the radiation would disappear when the wormhole collapsed and would be absorbed. That was so, but no one had taken into account the event in the future.

    Despite the precautions, the Geiger counters did not detect any harmful radiation, although the temperature in the place was still high enough. Much of the structure had melted and twisted in seconds when exposed to the plasma, before it disappeared as residual energy and then dispersed with the explosion.

    Trying to find survivors, they reached the decompression chamber which was in a semi-destroyed state and with other parts almost unrecognizable. The machine with all its parts had been destroyed and the pieces were scattered or melted all over the place.

    What they found inside the decompression chamber would haunt the dreams of those soldiers for years to come.

    The core was almost intact even though everything else around it had not survived the temperatures.

    And someone else.

    The traveler was there. The one for whom they had been waiting and for whom they had been preparing everything had arrived. But it had gone horribly wrong.

    The newcomer was writhing in pain and his body seemed to vibrate at different intensities.

    Carl Scott, still terrified, called the ambulance helicopters to take them to the nearest hospital.

    In a matter of minutes two helicopters picked them up and both were on their way to the nearest army hospital.

    It had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Or at least that was their point of view.

    But the traveler from the future had arrived. That was the important thing and now they only hoped he survived.

    The simulation for them was beginning.

    Carl and Jack would have liked Hisui and Quincy to be there to help them, but that was impossible for the happy couple. They were not even in the United States Kingdom.

    At that very moment, in a clinic in Japan, Hisui was giving birth to a baby girl with eyes as green as two emeralds and Quincy could not have been happier to become a father. They could not interrupt each other''s happiness at that moment.

    That little girl would be named Rei with the kanji that read as ¡°little bell¡±. A half fey and half human.

    A new life that was born in that chaos.

    And who unknowingly would carry in the future the burden of saving the world.

    Fates intertwined in a skein that time had been responsible for confusing the pieces through spatial and temporal dimensions.

    As if hiding the pieces was the most important thing for survival.

    ***

    Jim Stuart woke up. It was night and subtle glows could be seen in the sky starry indicating the presence of auroras.

    Who am I?

    Awaken? Why did he feel like he was in the middle of a nightmare? He wasn''t sure how but he was looking snow fall.

    Snowflakes? In a clear night?

    No, that was too thick to be snowflakes. It was just snow. Snow being stirred up and flying through the air.

    Sounds like ice cracking and several tons of earth and snow being moved could be heard. And Stuart felt vibrations in all directions.

    What had happened?

    Why couldn''t he move, yet he could see and hear? He was on his back then. But if he was in the snow why didn''t he feel cold?

    He was wondering, when he saw a black shadow cross over him. Several hundred tons of snow moved and so did he. He was spinning out of control. He couldn''t see his body but he had just realized something else. He was very light.

    Stuart remembered. The synthetic body. The chamber. That living plasma and the black sphere.

    Time travel.

    Where am I? What''s wrong with my body?

    He couldn''t move, but he could hear new sounds. His body was moving with tons of snow and dirt being thrown in all directions.

    He became dizzy as he saw the world spinning in all directions and noticed the sky.

    It was night and he could see mountains. Where am I?

    He had just realized. He wasn''t breathing. Nor did he have any sense of taste.

    The spinning stopped and he stopped on the edge of a snowdrift high enough to see the situation.

    He tried to move but his body did not respond. Then in his vision appeared those imperfections that indicated some malfunction of electronic parts. Electronics. He had the Neurowire. Was it still in the synthetic body?

    [System cannot connect to the network.]

    He tried several times but nothing. Then he did something else and waited in fear.

    [Initiating body scan.]

    The system scan took only a few seconds but it confused him.

    A sphere only about two inches in diameter that must have once been shiny and polished was now scratched and part of it showed signs that it had almost melted.

    There was no body.

    Stuart recognized the sphere and it terrified him.

    The main brain of a synthetic anthropoid body. Nothing of the body had survived, only that sphere which was the main core, where even the Neurowire and the individual''s consciousness were housed.

    Inside that sphere there was a quantum computing system in a liquid state, which was the one that received the data from the original body to copy the physical and neurocognitive structure, before entering the synthetic body. The reason it could see was because that sphere had an optical and auditory receptor, since the humanoid synthetic body copied the location of the auditory and visual structure.

    They were not the main organs and in fact could be the reason why vision and sounds were strange, almost drowned out. They were support systems used to test the brains, prior to installation in a synthetic body. Even so, given what had happened, it was already a miracle that he had those two senses. Stuart dug through the few options in the synthetic body''s menu and found the functions of that nucleus and took them to the maximum.

    Indeed, he could see and hear and had an audio system on one side. He could talk.

    Where am I?

    He tried to locate himself and focused the optical receiver as best he could.

    What he saw confused him even more. Snow-capped mountains, jagged rocks and in the distance the ocean. But that was not what surprised him the most. It was what was happening on the snow that was the reason he had been blown up.

    The dog. Was that the little dog?

    If it wasn''t for the shape of the face Stuart wouldn''t have recognized it. That dog had grown to such a size that it must have been over six meters tall and its shape was somewhat different. It looked much more like a large predator. Its mirrored fur reflected the stars in the night sky and the snow.

    But the dog wasn''t the only thing that was there.

    If it had been in his real body Stuart probably would have felt his hair stand on end. He had seen them many times in videos, simulations and in museums. But that seemed too real.

    A fractus. The dog was at that moment fighting a fractus.

    Was it a fractus? Yes, it had to be. At least for its metallic or crystalline structure, but Stuart had never seen a fractus like that.

    Its shape was quite hairy, not to mention its size, which must have been at least ten meters high and fifteen meters long.

    It was composed of three main structures of metallic appearance, aligned horizontally, and whose body moved in and out continuously changing shape. It had no organic shape on its surface, which seemed to take on geometric patterns with extrusions. But its movement did appear to be organic. From the two structures on the sides appeared and disappeared limbs that allowed its movement, while from the structure in the middle appeared other appendages that it used to attack.

    The organic movement was like a tesseract, something many fractus shared, but its form was unique.

    Stuart didn''t remember seeing it anywhere in the catalogs. It looked more like three giant bacteria but with a much more solid structure holding them together.

    The dog and that fractus were locked in a fierce fight.

    The fight was the reason Stuart had been lifted into the air along with the snow and dirt.

    It was a surreal sight. But more surreal was the thought that that small dog could stand up to that gigantic monster.

    The fractus attacked with its central part, making those spear-like appendages come out and crash into the snow. While the dog evaded the attacks and tried to attack the other two structures with its teeth. The sound that accompanied the fight was a mixture of screeching metal and crashing glass. Stuart could see as if some kind of electricity was produced in the dog''s skin every time he collided with his enemy.

    On several occasions the fractus was successful in its attacks and seemed to have pierced the dog. But to Stuart''s surprise he saw glass flying everywhere and instantly the broken and flying parts were reattached to the dog.

    He had heard about something similar when the others rescued Agent Zi from the mirror box. That crystal skin must have had some regenerative ability. Something that had possibly changed the animal''s biology thanks to the time it had been inside. They still didn''t know enough about the mirror boxes or how they had been created in the past. Who knew what the real purpose had been. It was possible that it was much closer to magic, since even with all the science they had not been able to explain it.

    In that at least the dog was lucky. If any of those spears thrown by the fractus had pierced someone else, it would most likely have impaled him like a brochette or simply disintegrated into elemental particles.

    The middle structure was spinning vertically in a maddened sense, while it launched new attacks that the dog evaded with more typical alacrity of a wolf or a hunting dog than that nice puppy they had found.

    The fight dragged on for what seemed to Stuart to be several minutes but might as well have been seconds. The fractus despite its size was incredibly quick to respond to attacks. Luckily for Stuart, the beasts had moved several dozen meters away from him and he was able to watch in amazement that completely unreal battle. What had happened to the tunnels and the accelerator?

    Stuart looked up at the sky and thought. He had an idea.

    It was a good idea that the nuclei of the synthetics copied the memories of the bodies to perfection.

    He looked through his files and found that application for the skies. Even without the Neurowire he could know where he was if he entered the sky data and let the program run the star movement reading program. He had recognized the stars and he knew he was still in the northern hemisphere, but location was another matter. He let the program run for a few seconds.

    The result made him shudder inside that sphere. According to the position of the stars at that hour he was in the Kuril Islands. But that was not the only thing that made him shiver. It was the date and, more importantly, the year.

    January 1st. 2098.

    It made sense.

    There was no fractus in 125, except for simulations.

    Time travel.

    Stuart didn''t want to accept it.

    Had he been sent back in time? Wasn''t it possible that it was all an illusion of his mind and that he was still in that chamber? Dying slowly, perhaps. Could it be possible that he was dying and that his mind had created that fantasy? It felt real, too real. Almost like the Another Earth simulation. But it couldn''t be possible. The Neurowire would have to be connected.

    In a stupor he looked at the fight.

    Almost being able to predict the outcome.

 Vol.5/Chapter 75: A Farewell and a Beginning

    Previous note: this chapter may be a bit strange but it is a direct continuation of the last chapter of volume 2, the story is temporally related to what happened in this arc: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/56828/nevermoreenygma-files/chapter/1133925/vol-2-chapter-23-mementovivere-vol2-final-chapter</a>

    Chapter 75

    A Farewell and A Beginning

    Sil Moore had never seen anything like it.

    It was as if for a few seconds all space had been compressed into a point, and also as if time had stopped. But that only lasted for an instant, and then everything came back to its place. She could not breathe for that brief lapse of time that seemed like an eternity. It was not like holding her breath, it was as if all the air had been suddenly emptied from her lungs and in her body was the sensation of being pressed from all directions by invisible hands, and then that pressure all returned to normal. It was strange, given her training she was used to holding her breath and slowing her heart rate. That had been momentary but horrible.

    As a result she was having the worst dizziness she had ever felt in her entire life.

    The wind was still rushing furiously and the clouds were still moving at breakneck speed in the gray sky, but the rapidly changing scenery around her had stopped.

    No more cities rising and falling, no more mountains emerging and crumbling like stone giants. No more oceans rising and evaporating in the blink of an eye.

    She and that strange company were still standing on that hill, which had remained unscathed by the transformation around it. The same was true of the distant silhouettes wrapped in dark suits from another era and those old-fashioned hats that almost everyone wore.

    Sil Moore fell to her knees on the ground and the girl with shoulder-length silver hair and yellow eyes, along with another girl with long hair tied in pigtails tried to help her up.

    The dizziness Sil had just felt had been horrible. Not so horrible, though, when she felt a strange taste rising in her throat. With a retch of disgust she vomited on the ground. That had been her last meal. The pizza she had eaten.

    ¡°Let it all out. That happens to all of us the first time we get here.¡± The silver-haired girl had just spoken to her as she held her arm.

    The world was still spinning around her, but she tried to stay on her feet even though her legs were shaking like they were made of jelly.

    She was afraid. Terrible fear, but at the same time a calmness that was not at all explainable given her situation. How could she be calm, even when she knew that the one who was helping her had just apologized for something?

    Sil could remember seeing her body separated from her head. Did that girl had anything to do with it?

    Where had she gone? What had happened? Could it have been a hallucination? No. The unpleasant taste in her mouth told her it was real, as did the strange sensation she had felt in her neck.

    She staggered, but shook off the two who were holding her. She couldn''t trust them. Who were they to begin with? Who were all these people? Were they all feys to begin with? Sil could be sure that, despite being almost a hundred meters away, she could see that one of those figures had a three-meter body with a horned head. Another girl not far away had branches with leaves coming out of her brown hair. What about the other one with a reptilian head but humanoid in shape? All wearing black outfits, some with different variations but the dark color remained a pattern regardless of the differences.

    But, beyond the different shapes, it was that feeling of terror that she could not shake. And at the same time the feeling of calm.

    Sil stepped back and looked around. She was surrounded by those figures scattered over hills and crumbling buildings.

    Could she escape? She still felt dizzy, but her survival instincts were kicking in. She had tried to turn on the Neurowire but that had not worked. What was happening to the system? Without control of the Neurowire many of the enhancements she had integrated into her body over the years would not activate.

    She would have to run away from that place even if she was in that state and only wearing a swimsuit

    She was about to embark on a dangerous run, when she turned around and and her face bumped a tall figure dressed in black.

    It was an elderly man with a Jupiterian and imposing appearance. He wore a suit with a long overcoat that dragged in the grass and dirt, but that did not seem to bother him in the least. Although, in spite of his clothes, what caught her attention were his hair and beard of a white color almost resplendent like snow or sea foam. He had bushy eyebrows of the same white color that barely let glimpse some sunken eyes. The little that could be seen of his face revealed wrinkles that merged with old scars.

    Sil stared into those eyes and stepped back. She fell on her backside on a stone. But the pain didn''t matter to her at that moment. She stayed on the ground and her dizzy eyes were trying to focus on the old man''s eyes.

    If all the people around him had that strange aura of menace, but at the same time of tranquility, it was much more accentuated in that old man.

    The wind moving his hair and beard almost gave him the appearance of a god already forgotten. Sil had never believed in anything religious but, for some reason, that presence awakened in her something very similar to the sensation she had felt when she had been dancing underwater or when she had lived that experience in the Orbital Belt. The sensation of being in the presence of something that went far beyond the mundane.

    The old man was contemplating her with a calm expression.

    ¡°You could have distorted the area less, old man.¡± The one who had said that was that young but extremely thin figure who had spoken to Sil before without moving his lips. The man was looking at the older figure with a gesture that Sil could not explain, but she thought it was anger.

    The old man looked up at the man and spoke with a deep voice and a calm tone. ¡°Do you think it''s easy for me to go the other way? Why do you think I wanted everyone to be here?¡±

    The thin man looked away with an almost sulky gesture. ¡°Whatever.¡±

    Although Sil couldn''t see his mouth covered by that bushy beard something told her that the old man was smiling.

    ¡°Aren''t you a little funny to tell me that, after you visited that girl before her mission?¡± continued the old man, looking at the skinny man.

    The skinny man looked off into the distance and, despite the wind, Sil could almost have sworn she heard a sound like the clicking of a tongue.

    On the other side the silver-haired girl with shoulder-length hair and another who had stood back looked toward the thin man. The second girl was a little shorter and had silver hair tied in two short pigtails. She had a face that expressed no emotion. Sil could see that her eyes were cloudy. Blindness perhaps? But, in spite of that, she was looking in the man''s direction as if she could see him perfectly normally.

    ¡°So that''s what this was about?¡± asked the expressionless girl in a calm tone.

    ¡°Bastard, what were you saying to our big sis?¡±

    ¡°Shut up. Leave me alone,¡± said the thin man, looking away even further into the distance as he adjusted his hat.

    Sil swallowed hard as she tried to understand the situation. Those two girls were sisters? Although they were of different stature, they certainly looked almost alike. But Sil decided not to look into it. She had a more pressing problem before her.

    To her surprise the old man took a step forward and squatted before her.

    ¡°Certainly, an unusual strangeness,¡± the man said, in an inquisitive tone.

    Sil wanted to articulate something, but nothing came out of her throat.

    ¡°Don''t be afraid. I know this may seem strange, but we mean you no harm.¡± At those words the old man looked sideways at the silver-haired, yellow-eyed girl. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. The girl twisted her gaze. ¡°Well anyway I think I should at least introduce myself.¡± The old man raised a strong, bony hand covered with scars. My name, or rather my title, is Nodens.¡±

    Sil, trembling, raised her hand and accepted the greeting.

    ¡°I know this may be confusing to you, but we had to do what we did to save you... from yourself.¡±

    ¡°Wh-what?¡± asked Sil with a faint catch in her voice.

    ¡° Lass... I can''t blame you. You didn''t know. But... you know you came close to almost destroying an entire country or much worse?¡±

    ¡°I can''t understand... what are y-you talking about?¡±

    ¡°The music you were composing. It''s not something that should be done carelessly. Only a handful of people in the world can do it and you... you''re not one of them. At least... not here.¡±

    ¡°I-I can''t understand what you''re talking about.¡±

    ¡°Everything in this world has pathways. Possibilities of what could have been. And you, my child... no matter how hard we look you have no possibilities or paths. That''s why we knew there was something abnormal about you but at the same time a contradiction. You see. You certainly have the capabilities of the Bard. But you shouldn''t. No matter how much we look into the past. Your existence came from somewhere different.¡±

    ¡°Wh-what?¡±

    ¡°Ah! You''re just confusing her more!¡± The one who had spoken was a small-looking girl with a halo on her head. ¡°On the other hand we have something more important now.¡±

    ¡°I''m not feeling well...¡± Sil had almost stopped understanding what the old man was saying in the middle of his strange talk. But, more than the difficulty, it was because she was feeling worse. She was getting dizzier and dizzier and the world was spinning even more as if her brain had been put in a blender.

    With one last dizzy spell Sil collapsed and fell unconscious.

    She couldn''t listen to that anymore. And on the other hand she wasn''t sure she wanted to hear it.

    ***

    Dawn knelt down in front of Sil''s body and touched her forehead. It burned. ¡°I guess the awakening was too crude.¡±

    Nodens in turn stood up and looked down at the giant man with the mustache and ushanka hat. ¡°Tiny, can you take care of her?¡±

    Tiny approached and taking off his coat took the young woman''s body in his arms and wrapped her in it.

    ¡°Here she comes...¡± said Priscilla with a sad gesture.

    Everyone looked in the direction of a small hill nearby. Not only the group composed of Nodens and the others. Each of those distant figures had also fixed their gaze on the nearby hill.

    On that hill a small spatial distortion had occurred and someone had appeared.

    ¡°Alice...¡± murmured Rei.

    The one who had appeared was a girl with pointed ears, blue eyes and waist-length blonde hair, that gave her a wild appearance as it was blown by the wind. She carried a fedora hat in her right hand.

    She walked slowly across the hill, but when she took a step she seemed to be gliding through space in a strange way, crossing several dozen meters in just a few steps. After a couple of minutes she reached the group of Nodens.

    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    Those who were there could see that her eyes were shining and a tear was running down her cheek. A tear that got no further than her cheek as it was swept away by the violent wind.

    ¡°I guess it''s time,¡± said the girl named Alice.

    Nodens reached over and patted her on the head. Given the height difference it looked like he was patting a granddaughter.

    ¡°You did good. He saw you, didn''t he?¡±

    Alice wiped her watery eyes and nodded. ¡°Yes. Just barely, but he saw me when his vision was regenerating.¡±

    Then Alice looked around. Pointed ears, tails, scales, rock-hard skins, others of gelatinous consistency, some invisible, others as subtle and weak as air itself. Humanoid forms but with animal characteristics that showed that the form was nothing more than something relative in that place. Shapes that in another time should have belonged to fables and legends. Hundreds of other forms dressed in the suits of another time and place had their eyes fixed on Alice. All those figures looked at her and many smiled, while others simply nodded.

    ¡°I was right to say goodbye beforehand. It wouldn''t have ended anymore... it would have been even more painful,¡± Alice said with a weak smile.

    Indrid was the first to approach. Although his face showed no emotion he gave her a hug that lasted several seconds. ¡°Good luck,¡± he murmured as he pulled away and nodded.

    ¡°As undemonstrative as ever,¡± Alice said patting him on the shoulder.

    Priscilla was next. Being the smallest one there she latched on like a tick to her waist as she hid her face in Alice''s abdomen, while the halo above her head bobbed from side to side. As Alice turned away she could see that she was crying but not saying anything. A strand of snot was joining Priscilla''s nose to Alice''s shirt. Alice took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. ¡°Keep it, you always catch a cold.¡±

    Priscilla pouted and looking to the side snatched the handkerchief from her hands. Alice gave her a caress on the cheek. Then she walked over to Tiny who was holding Sil Moore unconscious in her arms and smiled. ¡°When your cycle is over, lay off the sweets. Diabetes is going to kill you.¡±

    Tiny expressed no emotion on her face, but nodded, closing her eyes. ¡°I''ll do my best. I can only do so much with my half-automatic nature that likes sweets.¡±

    ¡°Anyway, take care of yourself,¡± Alice said patting the giant''s arm.

    ¡°There goes our drinking companion,¡± said a woman.

    Alice turned to look in the direction of the voice. ¡°¡®Ley, Dot¡­¡¯¡±

    The one who had approached was a young woman with tousled reddish hair, wearing a somewhat old-fashioned formal blouse and shorts with suspenders. Next to her was another woman with short dark hair, wearing a coat and scarf. The three of them had joined in a hug that lasted several seconds before they pulled away.

    ¡°It''s a promise,¡± Dot said and the wind ruffled her short hair and scarf as she smiled.

    Alice nodded.

    ¡°See you when our cycle is over,¡± Ley said smiling mischievously. ¡°Let''s drink our fill.¡±

    Ley and Dot were both glossy-eyed, trying to hold back tears.

    ¡°Don''t take too long. You know where I''m going,¡± Alice said and they both nodded. ¡°You''d better watch out while I''m gone.¡±

    As a farewell the three of them bumped fists in a friendly manner.

    Weiss approached and she and Alice simply exchanged a complicated handshake. As they pulled away Weiss smiled and said. ¡°Don''t regret anything¡­¡±

    ¡°...and never ask for forgiveness,¡± Alice finished the sentence with a knowing smile.

    ¡°Take care of yourself¡­¡±

    ¡°I''ll do my best,¡± nodded Alice.

    Finally Dawn and Rei had approached. Alice smiled at them and then blushed.

    ¡°Huh? What''s wrong?¡± Dawn asked.

    Alice scratched her cheek. ¡°Nothing. Come to think of it I did something stupid I think... but hey, no problem. I haven''t been unfaithful yet.¡±

    Dawn and Rei looked at her with serious gestures. ¡°What are you talking about? What did you do?¡± Rei asked.

    Alice hugged them both and smiled. ¡°It''s okay. It''s no problem. We''re like family after all.¡±

    ¡°Really... what did you do?¡± asked Dawn, somewhat choked by the tight hug.

    Alice changed her tone and whispered in both their ears. ¡°Promise me you''ll take care of yourselves. Can you do that?¡±

    The twins eased their expression and simply nodded. Alice stepped back and stroked their cheeks.

    ¡°Use your real names.¡±

    ¡°What''s wrong with the ones we have? We''ll get our names back when our summer dream is over,¡± Dawn grumbled.

    ¡°I hope so.¡± She slowly turned away and approached Nodens who had been contemplating the situation in silence. Alice looked at the old man and nodded. ¡°I''m ready.¡±

    ¡°Come, let''s go.¡± Nodens held out his hand. A hand on whose palm could be seen more old scars that mimicked the wrinkles but could still be distinguished, almost as if they refused to disappear completely.

    Alice took a last look at everyone present and took the old man''s huge hand.

    In a matter of seconds a thick layer of fog had covered the whole place and did not allow to see more than a few steps beyond. It had appeared around the old man first but had enveloped everything. The others had disappeared, the surrounding landscape and even the wind had stopped blowing and his howl disappeared completely.

    Alice looked up at the face of the old man whose, only visible features were his cheekbones and eyes that now glowed unnaturally. That bearded face merged with the mist as if it were part of it.

    Suddenly Alice could no longer feel the ground beneath her feet. She was floating.

    ¡°Give me your other hand now,¡± Nodens commanded and she did so. She had been left with her face in front of the old man. ¡°The truth you know is for you and yours alone.¡±

    Alice nodded with a smile and extended a delicate hand to the old man and they both closed their eyes.

    ¡°Imagine the place where you want to go.¡±

    ¡°I want to go to my father.¡±

    ¡°Just as I thought. What will you do with your memories?¡±

    ¡°I''m going to keep them intact.¡±

    ¡°You could erase them. At least partially.¡±

    ¡°No. How am I supposed to keep promises if I don''t have all my memories?¡±

    ¡°It''s a big burden¡­¡±

    ¡°It''s okay. Even knowing the end is okay. I''d rather live with it. My life will be beautiful. Hardships and sorrows are also part of living.¡±

    ¡°There''s nothing left of that little girl who came thirty years ago.¡±

    ¡°Unless we move, nothing can begin. Isn''t that what you were saying?¡±

    Nodens smiled and although Alice couldn''t see him at that moment she knew he was smiling.

    ¡°Can I ask you something?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Go ahead.¡±

    ¡°What about you? Isn''t your cycle going to end?¡±

    ¡°I don''t know. There''s a future I can''t see into, so I guess at some point I''ll move on too. I''m not the first Nodens and I probably won''t be the last. I had so many identities when I was human that after so many years I''ve gotten used to this one and it''s the one I''ve lived in the longest.¡±

    ¡°Did you get to see your mother?¡±

    Nodens nodded. ¡°She had already moved her soul, it was more symbolic than anything, but at least I was able to say goodbye as I had wanted to. I could only move to that time the moment I died on earth and needed them here for any eventuality. It takes a lot of work to move into the world and leave the Land of Dreams.¡±

    ¡°At least you got to see her.¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Here we go.¡±

    ¡°Okay¡­¡±

    ¡°By the way... Take care of that version of me,¡± Nodens said, and Alice opened her eyes to meet his.

    Despite his serious gesture Nodens winked and she nodded.

    ¡°I''ll try my best.¡± There was a glint on Nodens'' face that blinded Alice.

    She knew.

    That single glow was the end of her days as one of the shadows.

    Her biological clock was ticking again.

    Her feet first and then her hands began to dissolve in white light. Slowly at first and then increasing the pace. She didn''t feel any pain but it happened so fast that she wouldn''t have felt any either.

    After a few seconds her body had broken down into smaller and smaller particles as Nodens watched her.

    The last thing the old man saw of her was her satisfied, smiling face before it all disappeared.

    ¡°Safe journey, little one.¡±

    Nodens looked down at his hands that moments before had held Alice''s and sighed, almost relieved. He silently contemplated the scars on his hands and then clenched his fists, lowering them as the fog was beginning to disappear.

    It had been a few hundred years for sure, but he couldn''t forget how he had gotten those scars.

    Scars that many had when escaping from the Other Side. Whether it was coming to that separate layer, as he had, or whether it was returning to the earthly world where they had once lived.

    As the mist finished dissipating Nodens recalled his arrival.

    ¡°All in an order and with choice,¡± he murmured

    ***

    An inhuman scream came from the naked man''s throat.

    He tried to sit up, as he felt the skin and flesh of his legs tear.

    He had fallen on thick thorns that snaked along the edge of a swamp that smelled rotten.

    Trembling and crying, he tried to free himself, but the pain made him hurt even more. He tried and tried but with each movement he felt more pain. He struggled and struggled among those thorns that, like spiked snakes, were trying to drag him into the muddy and pestilent swamp that bubbled like a cauldron from time to time due to the decomposing matter. With those blows he had wounded himself even more and had stuck long thorns in his hands from side to side.

    He was in so much pain that he didn''t care about the surroundings. It was a rather dark environment with black trees sprouting and whose height was difficult to estimate because they let in almost no light. He had shouted for help but no one had come to his call. Only silence had answered, sometimes broken by the sound of some insect that he could not identify and that on the other hand he did not care about insects in that situation in which he found himself.

    Minutes passed and the minutes became hours. Finally, between crying and biting his lip trying to contain the pain, he had been freeing himself little by little. He had been escaping from those thorns paying a tribute in flesh and blood of his body.

    When he finished he crawled naked as he was to some black weeds that grew from rotten mud.

    The pain had overcome him and shivering with cold and pain he had fallen asleep for what could well have been several or a few hours.

    When he awoke he had found that one of his eyes was stuck shut. Struggling he had tried to dislodge it only to find that a purple spider the size of a fist had woven a web in the middle of his head.

    Disgusted he had swatted the insect several meters away from him.

    That simple gesture had brought him back to reality. Yes, he still felt pain, but more importantly he remembered who he was.

    But the realization struck him with terror.

    Who was it?

    Before his eyes appeared the face of a child.

    Benu, son of Hebe Bender.

    Himself.

    The face of a young adult.

    Lee Reubens, raised in a religious orphanage until he became a university professor.

    Himself.

    The face of an old man with burn scars on his face.

    Leteo Waters, scientist working for the RIA and the Department of Defense of the Kingdom.

    Himself.

    Benu Bender had lost his memory after that man helped him escape from the plane. He had become Lee Reubens. He tried to remember, but no matter how hard he tried he could not find the link from his identity as Lee Reubens to become Leteo.

    The last thing he could remember as Lee Reubens was that he had tried to help that fey professor named Ishijima Kanade who had fallen unconscious. He didn''t remember anything else from that point. The next thing was waking up at another point in the past. He didn''t understand, why? Did those two he had been with for years know all that from the beginning?

    The questions buzzed in his mind.

    What had happened? The plane.

    It was true. He had found himself with the young version of himself when he had helped Jack escape.

    Jack. Why had he helped him?

    He spent what could have been a few minutes or hours on his knees thinking about it all as he tried to sort through the fragmented memories of his past.

    More memories. Blue particles spreading through the plane. He had gained memories of something he hadn''t experienced, but couldn''t remember at the time.

    Who was it? Benu? Lee? Leteo? His memory was fragmented with each identity he had lived.

    He had been all three.

    He looked around.

    The memories that had invaded his mind and the spider upon awakening had distracted him from something he hadn''t realized.

    ¡°But what?¡±

    He looked at his legs. His arms and his body.

    The wounds had disappeared as if they had never been there to begin with. But instead there were scars.

    He had just realized something else.

    When he met his younger version he had died. He was sure of it. But now when he looked at his body it was no longer that of an old man.

    He looked down into the swamp at a place free of the thorns.

    He walked in a daze to the edge of the swamp and leaned over. Because of the darkness he could hardly see his reflection at all well, but still he could see enough.

    The wrinkles had faded. The scars from the accident when the explosion had occurred were gone. What was in front of him was a reflection of when he had lived as Lee Reubens.

    He stood up and looked around. Where was he? When?

    He was realizing how problematic his situation was.

    But there was one thing he knew for sure. That was not the Earth that had seen him born.

    Looking carefully, he began to move away from the swamp and into the maze of trees.

    The Other Side had claimed a new victim and like hundreds of millions before him, it was now welcoming him into its bosom.

 Vol.5/Chapter 76: Missing Paths/The road not taken

    Chapter 76

    Missing Paths/The road not taken

    3.33 AM. March 20, 2012.

    Somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean.

    The hurricane storm was punishing the black military cargo plane, as if it was trying to destroy it. The lightning drew flashing veins in the clouds and some lightning struck the fuselage of the plane that, despite its enormous size, looked like a small bird flapping its wings in the middle of a squall.

    The pilot maneuvered the plane with cold blood, even though he had never seen a storm like that in all his life doing illegal trips across the Atlantic. He knew those parts as well as the back of his hands and had his share of witnessing how the weather could change on the open sea. At the same time he had his share of seeing unusual phenomena, but he could not deny that the storm was very different from others he had seen.

    He was flying just at the height he had been told to fly, which was at the same time the most dangerous because it was the core of that storm and also where the strangest phenomena was happening.

    The clouds were behaving strangely, forming vortices and small spherical whirlpools around nothing. Those whirlpools were sometimes small, reaching no more than a couple of meters in length and breaking up in seconds, while others measured more than twenty meters or more. Every time the plane passed through one of them there was a vacuum of altitude that caused them to lose altitude for a few seconds. But after a few minutes the pilot got used to the strange phenomena.

    On the other hand, it was not as if that storm was the only strange thing. The people he was carrying were strange too.

    The pilot sighed and snorted.

    He knew his only mission was to maintain stability. A small price to pay considering what those in the cargo compartment were doing.

    [We''re in the right spot!] A woman''s voice came through the loudspeaker in the cockpit.

    ¡°So we made it,¡± sighed the pilot.

    ***

    Gabrielle Tonelli, wearing a warm overall and with her hair tied in a bun, smiled nervously in her seat in the cargo hold and continued typing on her laptop as she checked the readings of the old prediction program she was using. She had warned the pilot that they were on target.

    It had been years since she was that girl who had graduated from the faculty of economics in Rome, where she had received a degree in general physics and a doctorate in economics.

    After leaving the university, she had no trouble getting a job with a good salary that allowed her to live comfortably.

    That would have been her dream life had it not been for something that had disrupted her perfect life.

    She had fallen in love.

    A love that had been reciprocated, and then taken away from her in a murder only two years before.

    Since then she had tried to search for clues as to what had happened and who might be behind it. All her research led her to discover that there were two groups. One of which, called Octogonus, had also been the culprit of one of the biggest terrorist events of the early 21st century. The attack on New York''s Financial District and the Pentagon.

    It came as a surprise to Gabrielle to discover that she was not alone in her search. Her research had led her to where she was now.

    Minutes away from stopping the end of the world.

    She knew what was going to happen, but she accepted it. If they were lucky nothing would happen.

    No. Rather, they would be lucky. That was what that entity called Azusa had said.

    ¡°Everything okay?¡±

    Gabrielle looked over her shoulder and there she found the shadowy face of the one who would be one of the protagonists that night. He was completely naked, but she had gotten used to it, after all clothes he destroyed very easily and in the current situation they were unnecessary. He was a young looking fey man, tall and toned, although quite thin. She had known him for a year and he had been a good friend of her lover.

    His name was Shin.

    She nodded. ¡°I just warned the pilot.¡±

    Shin patted her shoulder and nodded. ¡°I guess here we go,¡± he said and started to walk away toward the rear cargo bay.

    ¡°Hey!¡± Gabrielle called out to him and Shin turned and looked at her. ¡°Good luck,¡± she said with a weak smile.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± he nodded and walked away with the same serious face. He passed through a glass door that sealed off that part of the cellar and walked away.

    The truth was that Gabrielle had never seen him smile before. Shin was a man of few words. When they weren''t on a mission what he did most was smoke like a chimney and drink, although he didn''t seem to be able to get drunk.

    She didn''t know much about him but one thing was clear to her.

    Shin hated the so-called Octogonus group and the Cult of Star Worshippers more than she did.

    They had taken everything from him.

    ***

    Shin walked through the cargo hold and came to the seat on the side, where a man stood with a serious and thoughtful expression.

    The man stood with his elbows on his knees and his hands on his chin.

    ¡°Let''s go. The time has come, reporter,¡± Shin said.

    The man with short blond hair looked up, revealing blue eyes behind glasses. He wore a strange, almost armor-like suit, which projected reflections of the environment at every movement and sounds of clanking glass. The suit was completely molded to his body revealing a muscular physiognomy. It almost looked like he was wearing a full suit of diamond armor.

    The man stood up, he was a little shorter than Shin, but stockier. He sighed nervously and nodded. At that moment a mask of the same material covered his face completely and then extended over the rest of his head forming a helmet.

    ¡°Aren''t you going to take off your glasses?¡±

    Another voice boomed in the hold even though they were the only ones there. ¡°It''s not necessary. On the other hand he''ll need them. The armor only lasts a second. Just long enough for the distortion and for him to reach his destination.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡± From Shin''s body sprouted black particles that in a matter of less than three seconds formed his armor around his body.

    They both walked to the loading ramp part and opened the hatch.

    The man turned around and looked at Shin.

    ¡°What''s wrong?¡±

    The reporter held out a hand. ¡°I just wanted to say thanks again. For everything.¡±

    Shin looked at him seriously, but accepted the greeting. ¡°I hope you can be reunited with your daughter.¡±

    The cargo hatch finished opening and they could see the strange scene at the tail of the plane. Those vortices were multiplying.

    ¡°Azusa, are you ready?¡±

    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    There was no answer but to the question a crystalline entity began to materialize, floating behind their backs. It was barely a meter long by half a meter high. Its body was composed of a sphere inside what looked like a rhomboidal structure. It had appendages sprouting from each side of the rhomboidal part that moved in a fractal pattern but at the same time almost gave it the appearance of wings.

    ¡°So tiny,¡± Shin said.

    ¡°Do you want me to destroy the plane to make myself bigger? Remember that I could lock the Solar System inside me,¡± Azusa said in a voice that didn''t reveal the slightest bit of emotion.

    ¡°Yeah, well. I''ll believe it when I see it,¡± Shin replied, turning to look at her.

    ¡°You won''t. That''s the point.¡±

    ¡°It''s going to work, isn''t it?¡± asked the other man.

    ¡°Yes,¡± replied Azusa. ¡°But remember only you will have memories of what happened. But most likely the last two or three years will disappear from your memories. You won''t remember anything that happened here.¡±

    ¡°Yes, you have repeated it ad nauseam,¡± Shin pointed out.

    ¡°I must repeat it because it is important. In your case, William, you will not remember your time helping, nor all that we have gone through to regain the knowledge to send you back in time.¡±

    ¡°Don''t remind me that,¡± Shin repeated, looking out into the storm.

    ¡°You won''t. That''s the point.¡± Azusa continued. ¡°You will only remember that you lost your daughter and your quest through these years. What you have to go through will only be part of your story.¡±

    William nodded. ¡°Luckily I found the clues before all this mess so there shouldn''t be a problem.¡±

    ¡°You have to understand that the armor will be the link to a fragment of me in the past, an anchor in time, but I will no longer be able to help you. The rest is up to you. You will not be able to return to this time.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡±

    Azusa turned to Shin. ¡°And your case will only be your conscience. You will have the memories of what you lost, but you will be the only one who remembers it.¡±

    ¡°A path not taken.¡±

    ¡°Exactly,¡± Azusa replied.

    ¡°Well, at least I know what I''ll have to do and stay away from hurting anyone.¡±

    ¡°You''re wrong.¡±

    Shin frowned. ¡°Do you think I''ll make the same mistakes?¡±

    Azusa didn''t answer for a few seconds and then spoke. ¡°Freedom exists for those who move in a linear path. In case you could understand time in a dimension where everything happens at the same time, it doesn''t matter the point because past, present and future happen at the same time. In that case you just have to live your life in a way that if you repeat it you feel proud to repeat it in an infinite loop.¡±

    ¡°It''s a contradiction.¡±

    ¡°No. It can also be a call to life. If you live in a unique way you lose the fear of death, even. Freedom for entities like you is in personal linearity. Even for someone who can observe the future it is the decision that leads to that future becoming a reality or being avoided. Maybe on the universal scale our fights don''t matter, but they are what give meaning to existence.¡±

    ¡°What do you want to tell me?¡±

    ¡°You two have been given the opportunity to make things right. To complete and regain what has been taken from you. Don''t make the stupidity of refusing to be happy. Even when they died you gave them happiness until the last moment. You may not be afraid of your death, but that doesn''t mean that now you should be afraid of being happy.¡±

    ¡°For an entity of pure logic and millions of years old you sound sentimental.¡±

    ¡°Someone like you has no right to say that to me. Perhaps that is the ultimate point of my species, to achieve some emotion beyond moving consciousnesses across planets and eras. Knowledge without emotional experience is empty as well.¡±

    Shin turned and squinted at her.

    ¡°I''m not going to remember any of this, am I? Can you answer me something?¡±

    ¡°I''ll try, if I know.¡±

    ¡°Are you sure you don''t know anything about my species?¡±

    ¡°No. But the anthropomorphic form of humans was part of our project of Evolutionary Projection. Only one version, we didn''t manipulate all the parameters when we seeded more life on this planet.¡±

    Shin and William looked at each other and shook their heads.

    ¡°The gods are nuts,¡± Shin said.

    ¡°I am not your god. Wherever you come from, I can only say that you are much older than you look. Most likely you have wiped your mind by crossing here as a system to keep your sanity. There are worse things than death in the spaces beyond this universe. But it is true that in Pnakotus we had some references of those who saved us and they had what is called anthropomorphic form. The iteration in the design in the evolutionary projection was simply a tribute to those who saved us, nothing more than that. But I don''t know all the details, that happened billions of years before I was born and the elders erased much of the knowledge as a precautionary measure before moving the consciousnesses to Earth.¡±

    Shin stood watching her in silence.

    ¡°Does that help you?¡± Azusa asked.

    ¡°Not much... I won''t remember any of it anyway.¡±

    ¡°Not at the time you move, at least.¡±

    Shin looked at the storm. ¡°The shape is the most important thing¡­¡±

    ¡°What?¡± William asked.

    ¡°When I came to this universe that was the first thing that came to my mind. And in fact it has bothered me for some time to think about it. What is it about my form that looks so much like a human''s? I''ve always been curious about that.¡±

    ¡°Those particles in your body can make you change your shape. I can''t assure you that your current form was the original one.¡±

    ¡°That''s why you need to get inside my head at the moment¡­¡±

    ¡°Exactly.¡±

    ¡°Still, if you discover something important you can''t tell me and I won''t even be able to remember it if you could.¡±

    ¡°Exactly. You have to understand that those particles in your body are a double-edged sword. That''s why you must use them now to destroy the anomaly and send your consciousness through them. What concerns me most is that you have no pathways that I can observe. You are not bound by the rules of this universe. Yes you can move your consciousness but I have no idea what can happen to your body on this line if it is erased.¡±

    ¡°You were saying about matter in balance.¡±

    ¡°Yes, but frankly I doubt the universe cares about a few pounds of exogenous matter from another universe.¡±

    The group was silent for a few seconds as the storm seemed to be increasing in fury. A vortex had just formed at the bottom of the plane''s tail that must have been over a kilometer in diameter.

    ¡°Here it comes,¡± Azusa said.

    Above the vortex the clouds had begun to swirl into a spherical shape.

    They couldn''t see his face, but they could hear William''s breathing sounding heavy through his helmet. He looked back. Gabrielle had risen from her seat and was looking up with her hands pressed against the glass that protected her. William and Shin raised their hands in greeting and could see that she had a worried look on her face.

    William walked down the ramp and looked up at the spherical whirlpool.

    An opaque sphere of a color darker than black was emerging from the swirling clouds above the vortex. Within seconds it was growing larger and larger. In just a moment it must have been at least ten meters in diameter.

    ¡°Lord, grant me serenity to accept all that I cannot change, courage to change what I am able to change, and wisdom to understand the difference,¡± William said quietly. Then he looked at Shin and Azusa for a few seconds and nodded. ¡°Good luck,¡± he said and jumped off the ramp and headed for the sphere. A cloud at that moment passed underneath and when it cleared William had disappeared.

    He was gone.

    ¡°Our turn,¡± Azusa said.

    Shin walked to the edge of the ramp and jumped.

    Azusa stood on his back and from her sphere inside the rhombus sprouted a crystal that penetrated Shin''s skull

    Shin was dying at that moment, but before his brain and the particles could set the regeneration in motion the particles came out of his body and headed towards the sphere.

    Out of the corner of his eye Shin could only see how the particles of his armor were growing in size and how several of them took the shape of blades.

    Death reached him and he could see no more. Everything went black.

    ***

    March 22.Thursday. 125 S.A.

    Shin woke up. The armor was still active.

    He remembered.

    The memories he had lost had returned.

    He could understand everything that had happened.

    He understood.

    He had met Azusa in a timeline that no longer existed. That was the reason he had memories of something that had never happened. It was the reason he had tried to get away from Mai and Lizbeth, only for time to put them back on the same path together.

    Azusa had used her body to stop the fractus invasion once, before the spatial distortion that allowed entry to Earth was fully opened.

    But that had been reset. It had never happened. The invasion had occurred in 2094.

    His consciousness had returned to 1998 and had moved away from both of them so that they would be safe, while he dedicated himself to finding who would be responsible for activating the spell that in 2012 would produce the invasion.

    He had hunted down those responsible for the cult and that terrorist group. But that had not happened as it should have.

    In 1999 he had disappeared. Some of the terrorist cells were still active and had completed a series of terrible attacks at the beginning of the 21st century.

    But Mai and Lizbeth were alive. And at the same time the puzzle was almost complete.

    Now he understood why he had never remembered that last part. At first it had all been like a dream. But it wasn''t. It had been real.

    The reporter he had never met was real. Only him. Shin had searched for him only to find that he had been missing since 1997.

    He had never been found. But there was no daughter. There was no data to speak of any daughter.

    But Shin in his memories of that time that had been erased remembered meeting William in 2008. He had seen pictures of the girl and newspaper clippings that William himself had kept in his research notebook.

    William. The nosy reporter specializing in crime chronicles, even though his appearance made him look a bit giddy. When Alice had disappeared he was investigating a cult in Texas and had always thought they had been the culprits.

    The 16-year-old teenager had disappeared in 1997 in Texas and had appeared in several newspapers.

    But that had only happened in the time that no longer existed.

    In the new timeline only the father was the one who had joined the list of missing persons.

    Something was wrong, but those phrases pronounced by Svetlana were the same ones that the girl who had saved him had said to him. It must have been Alice.

    What did Azusa know then? If time had reset, did that mean she wouldn''t know?

    What would she tell Mai about it?

    Suddenly images assaulted him.

    ¡°You''ll be fine. You just need to heal your wounds.¡±

    ¡°I want to sleep forever. Leave me here, please.¡±

    That was a 2011 memory of time erased. Shin thought about it for a moment. Ah, shit, he thought. I''d forgotten about that.

    He had a new problem, but first he''d have to fix what was on top of him. He had to get out of there. He was crushed by several tons of dirt and concrete from the tunnel where he had been fighting with the woman in that white symbiont armor. He didn''t have much oxygen inside his backpack. But on the other side he had grenades. Maybe he could with the explosion stir the earth enough to in the space of a moment set off the armor particles to make it go up as if it were a molecular vibration hammer. Of course he hoped it would work, but there was also the possibility that the opposite was true.

    ¡°That damned woman. When I find her she won''t get away,¡± Shin said angrily, thinking of the pink-haired girl in her white armor.

    In his mind he had to help Stuart to go towards the targets. He didn''t know what had just happened a couple of minutes ago.

 Vol.5/Chapter 77: The Moth in the Battlefield

    Chapter 77

    The Moth in the Battlefield

    Her kind had never been good with emotions and feelings.

    They valued knowledge more than anything else and, with the ability her race had, they had used it to gain even more knowledge of the future and take it back to the past in the great library city of Pnakotus.

    She had been born during her race''s last era of peace, prior to the cataclysm. She had another name back then.

    It was during a war that it began to change and many had to flee and escape the extinction that had not been predicted in the future.

    It was during the last period of the war that she and two of the group she was always with decided to do something more for a world that no longer seemed to have any hope of progress.

    Using failed experiments, which had been discarded by the research teams, she and the one she had developed feelings for, managed to escape the destruction that was sweeping the Earth. The third in that group died because her experiment failed, but not that of her beloved and herself.

    An experiment that completely changed them both.

    Their race could move consciousnesses through time to different species. But with them it was different.

    The same consciousness going between past and future, but in the same body. She and her beloved did not need to move to another body to shift their consciousness, as her species had done for so many millions of years that there was almost no record of when it had begun.

    From that experiment she changed. And from the future came the knowledge of the name she would use for the rest of her life.

    Azusa.

    Azusa was in the abyss of time, an ethereal observer who had witnessed the dance of existence since the Paleocene, when she was born. As well as the final causes that would determine her death, millions of years in the future.

    That was not entirely certain. Since the advent of destruction by that menace from the sidereal abyss, the futures that had been recorded as probable had proven to be wrong.

    Something had changed.

    War continued to spread across the planet. Further south the Elders, battling against their own creations, who threatened to destroy everything in their path and the Yith, Azusa''s race, against two threats from deep space.

    Until only she and her beloved were left behind. Few Yithians had managed to flee to the future, while the vast majority who escaped took refuge in a hidden dimensional space, never to return to the three dimensions.

    Azusa and her beloved were separated from the others. They had already been strangers among their own kind, but now they were strangers even more.

    In the silence of their being, the memories of past eras resounded: the growth of the continents, the wars between species from outer space. The life of many of the organisms created by her race since the Devonian, applying directed evolution or evolutionary projection. The extinction of a great part of her race, the flight of another part, the extinction of the great saurians, and then the blossoming of mankind.

    More wars, which had ended by sweeping away the knowledge of eras prior to the evolution of those who had come to call themselves Homo Sapiens.

    The earth had been an Eden and a hell for billions of years. A melting pot where hundreds of races had passed and where the passing of the years had gradually erased their traces.

    The passing of the ages erased the passing of everything. Or at least almost everything.

    Each moment was a thread in the vast tapestry of destiny, and Azusa, no longer just an observer, knew that each strand was crucial.

    Her ability she had gained by trying to crystallize her consciousness into a higher dimension had transformed her into something completely different.

    She was not supposed to intervene, but she had done so in a minimal way. And with each intervention her destiny changed a little. Not her place, but her own feelings. Everything was going to happen the same way, but it was her consciousness that had changed. Seeing things in two directions had that effect.

    Her mind could go between the past and possible futures, but the experience was pseudo-physically on a timeline to the future. That caused her physical body to accumulate experiences with those she had interacted with.

    Although everything seemed to happen at the same time, the truth was that her physical form in the past was not emotionally developed enough to understand many of the actions she would take in the future, even though she had the memory of it and the different paths.

    Therefore she did not understand in the past why she would keep the name that fey girl would give her in the future.

    Millions of years passed until her physical body aligned with the timeline in which she would meet her. By then she had changed too much over time, but she still knew not to intervene too much. Just as she had done in the past, inspiring certain people or warning them, whispering in their ears. Lives that generated legends, or conflicts in the worst case.

    But the destiny of that fey would be different because of a unique quality in her being. A quality that, despite the cruelty, she would earn through suffering.

    Azusa had seen her since she was a child.

    Her attention was focused on her, when she was still a half-fey, half-human girl named Rei.

    Since her childhood, she had seen her spirit blossom, but also her struggle to belong to two worlds, in an era when it was still too early for humans to accept that there was another species living with them on the planet. While the feys had been human, and could even procreate to a greater or lesser extent, going to the Other Side changed them on such a physical and mental level that, although a large percentage retained a humanoid form, they could no longer be said to belong to the same species.

    ¡°Is suffering necessary for growth?¡± wondered Azusa in her long life and the question had been asked millions of years before Rei herself was born as she already knew her then, but at that time her neural connections had not understood the answer of the future. The answer was a deep echo in her being, a paradox that resonated with the fragility of life.

    She knew not to intervene in her life until the appointed time. Species had a path of their own to travel, a destiny they had to fulfill, and Rei was a fundamental part of that fabric. ¡°Pain is a teacher,¡± she reflected, watching as the shadows of adversity loomed over her.

    One day, when Rei was still young, life presented her with her first trial by fire. The death of her parents. Azusa did not feel a deep pain when she saw it in the past, but when she saw it in the present it was a sadness that transcended time. ¡°Why must she suffer?¡± she questioned herself in the past and trying to comprehend the memory of the future it was as if she wished to open a portal and save her from her destiny. But she knew that if she did, it would alter the course of history. Intervention, could lead to a darker future.

    As Rei faced the challenges of her youth, Azusa felt like a spectator in a cosmic theater. She saw how the choices she made, no matter how small, shaped her character.

    ¡°Freedom is both a gift and a burden,¡± she mused, realizing that her power to decide also brought with it the possibility of failure. But in that failure, there was a seed of wisdom.

    So, she plunged into meditation between past and future. ¡°What is purpose?¡± she asked herself in the past and her future self answered her and sometimes vice versa. Purpose was not only the fulfillment of a destiny, but also the process of finding meaning in suffering, even if life seemed absurd. ¡°Rei must discover her own strength,¡± thought the past, ¡®and to do so, she must face pain,¡¯ the future replied.

    As Rei grew, each wound, each disappointment, wove something into her being. Azusa watched, nodding with the understanding that trials were necessary. ¡°Is suffering the only form of enlightenment?¡± The answer was uncertain, Azusa only knew the details of her own existence, and seeing her race destroyed in the past certainly brought bitterness as her memories remained fresh of it.

    But what she knew for certain was that, at some point in the future Rei was important. The light her actions would shine would be a reflection of her experiences, the sum of her struggles. While what she needed from Rei was a unique quality of body that she would acquire over time, being so close all the time, she couldn''t deny that she almost saw her as something akin to the daughter she could never have. It wasn''t right to consider that, knowing that he would use her in the future, but it was how she felt.

    Meanwhile, Azusa contemplated her own existence. ¡°I live in time, but I am not bound to it,¡± she thought, remembering the certainty of her end. She knew that one agreed upon day her essence would vanish, but that did not fill her with dread. Rather, it urged her to appreciate the present moment through her form, every moment she spent observing not only Rei. But everyone.

    Her mission was not to full interfere until the appointed time, but in the meantime to accompany from a distance, encouraging her growth without intervening in her destiny. No matter how hard and cruel it might be. Both her life and Rei''s were simple flowers in the vast garden of the universe, ephemeral, but that until the last day they could struggle to survive in a world that could deny them the sustenance of water, as well as drown them in an ocean.

    She met at that time something she had never seen in her memories. And meeting him altered parts of the future she knew. There was a great tremor in the fabric of her mind space as her conscious mind suffered the repercussions of meeting him. New possibilities and it took some time for her mind to understand the role of this creature. It terrified her. That being was something different from her and everything she had ever known. But she was even more surprised to find that this being had a destiny linked to Rei. To understand it better the time line was altered and then returned to its place. She had overturned a possibility just to make sure it was what this being wanted. But she discovered that it was more sentient than many others she had observed in her past.Yet entering his mind gave her parts of a puzzle that she and her beloved were unaware of.

    She changed a few events, but after all the lines went back on course.

    As Rei faced her hardest struggle on the Other Side accompanied by that being, she returned later transformed in Mai. Azusa felt closer to her than ever, even though she shouldn''t have. In her heart, a voice resounded from the future: ¡°The pain she faces is not in vain¡±.

    And so, in the twilight of her existence, Azusa waited. A silent witness in the great work of life, aware that sometimes, the deepest love lies in letting the other walk their own path, even if that path is full of shadows.

    And so the day came when Mai finally met her.

    ***

    November 23rd. 2099. Ancient Era.

    Siberia

    The plain stretched into a vast white desert, a blanket of snow covering what was once a vibrant landscape. Now, all was silence and desolation at that point, interrupted only by the occasional rustle of the wind, which carried icy flakes in a somber waltz. The rushing of the wind also brought distant sounds, screams and detonations, as well as shrieks impossible to describe. The night sky, leaden gray, seemed to have joined the lament of the earth, as if the atmosphere itself shared the weight of grief.

    The battle and the war seemed to have come to an end.

    It had been a few years the likes of which mankind had never seen. Internal and international conflicts, scarcity of resources. Dark Events. And then the crowning fruit.

    The fractus that arrived in 2094.

    Even if the Tripartite Treaty between humanity, the Aeon and the Feys had put an end to the internal conflicts, to deal with a greater enemy, that had not worked if the enemies continued to arrive and in increasing numbers.

    Enemies were arriving through the spherical spatial distortion. A portal of a spatial dimension greater than three dimensions.

    The sphere that had remained immobile since the invasion, but that had changed.

    The sphere had moved for the first time in all those years, and with it the hosts inside it.

    Special charges had been applied, no longer using atomic charges but leaving it in the hands of strategic magic. It had worked. But it had not been destroyed. The ten kilometer diameter sphere had moved slowly eastward from Vanavara to the Nyuya River, covering an extension of 600 kilometers in five days. Five days of which fractus continued to emerge from the interior of the sphere and spread throughout the territory.

    And at that moment the sphere floated some thirty kilometers from the point where that battle had taken place.

    The traces of the war were evident in every corner. In the distance, the shadows of destroyed structures loomed, military buildings that once symbolized hope and resistance. Now, they stood like monuments to defeat, covered in frost. While that part of the world was still almost as uninhabited as it had once been, the few buildings built in times of war were now nothing more than cracked and crumbling walls, adorned with marks of destruction, etched by the creatures that had invaded the world.

    They were not of this reality, but of a fractal spatial dimension that defied logic itself. They were given classifications according to their dangerousness. Those that had emerged in the last few days were the ones that had wreaked the most havoc.

    These entities, the Xe-res and the Shrikes among them, moved like nightmarish echoes, warping and reconfiguring themselves in a macabre dance that seemed to have no end. Their form was not static, instead, it twisted and contorted, giving rise first to geometric figures and then trying to copy animal species, creating abstract parodies that produced even more terror in those who saw them. Their bodies, made of a material foreign to the three dimensions, distorted the space when they entered the three dimensions and cut the air with a sound similar to the cracking of ice.

    The battlefield, once a natural living space, was now a desolate landscape. The snow, dyed a deep red, was a chilling reminder of the battles that had been fought. The fallen bodies of those who fought valiantly for their survival lay strewn about, covered by a light layer of snow that could barely conceal the horror of their fate. The earth, scarred and cratered, was a mute witness to what had happened there.

    As the shadows of the creatures glided over the ground, their movements seemed to defy the laws of physics. The ripples of their presence distorted reality, as if each step rewrote the very fabric of space.

    Where once there were trees, only blackened trunks remained, petrified by the heat of war and the cold of oblivion. All that was once vibrant had been razed to the ground, becoming an echo of what once was.

    The distant murmurs of entities reverberated in the frosty air, a mixture of unintelligible sounds that, given their behaviors, one doubted were even some sort of communication. They appeared to be life forms very similar to insects and with very light masses for their sizes although they could produce enormous damage on contact with biological matter in three dimensions. Their fractal forms intertwined in a terrifying ballet, merging and separating in a dance that defied comprehension. It was as if the very essence of chaos was alive in those forms.

    The creatures fed on whatever they found in their path, and the atmosphere was permeated with a sense of desolate doom. Hopes of resistance had faded with each passing day, leaving the forces trapped in a cycle of despair. The small factions still standing were on the verge of being wiped out, and each new wave of attacks wore away the last vestige of hope.

    If the resistance in Siberia fell, the rest of the world was about to face the darkness of that all-devouring sphere.

    The snow continued to fall, covering every trace of struggle and sacrifice. The silence, deep and overwhelming, was the prelude to what was to come. As the wind howled, bringing with it an echo of the unknown, the future of the world hung in the balance. Time was slipping toward an inescapable destiny, and in that vast white plain, there seemed to be no room for hope.

    Among the fallen bodies and the snow, a small figure shuffled along, wrapped in a uniform.

    Her silver hair, tied in a long braid, and her face, as well as her clothes, were stained with blood.

    She had been in the platoon that had fallen a couple of hours ago, when a group of Xe-res and Shrikes had swept through to continue heading southwest.

    The girl''s name was Mai, a fey who had been in the Siberian battle theater for the past three years.

    Mai was dragging herself along, the piercing cold of the snow enveloping her exhausted body. Her breathing was ragged, each inhalation costing her monumental effort. The snow was a deep red around her, a constant reminder of the brutality she had witnessed and suffered at first hand.

    Her regeneration was a slow process, so she was still bleeding even though she was regenerating. If that continued for long, it was likely that the place would become her final resting place, as it was with those she had been fighting just a few hours ago.

    Beside her, the faces of those who had once fought side by side with her now lay in eternal silence, their empty eyes gazing up at a sky that offered no light.

    Brought by the wind could be heard screams and detonations of battles going on somewhere.

    The cold was leaving her body as she felt that she was still losing her strength.

    After a few minutes Mai''s vision began to blur and she stopped moving.

    She didn''t want to die, but she had no strength left to move a single muscle.

    ¡°In spite of all you have suffered, do you want to stay in this world?¡±

    I don''t want to give up, Mai thought.

    ¡°Wouldn''t it be easier to move to a new body and start over, leaving all the pain behind?¡±

    Confused, Mai struggled to concentrate. The voice asking seemed to be coming from a part of herself, as if one part of her essence was trying to communicate with the other. But it felt strange. That was not something that came from within her. It felt foreign to her. That voice spoke to her expressing ideas calmly and mixing her senses, but everything was expressed as if it were a perfectly understandable dialogue.

    Maybe it was all just a hallucination of her mind in her final moments, Mai thought. An illusion of her unconscious to deceive herself and make her feel that she would not die alone at least. That a ghost had been present in those final moments so that she would die in peace. On the other hand, she was beginning to feel less cold.

    As the voice continued, the pain in her body momentarily faded, as if the presence of that voice gave her a spark of energy. It was true that upon freezing to death there was a warmth felt in the final moments.

    ¡°What do you say?¡±

    Move to where? If this place falls there will be no hope.

    ¡°You don''t have to move to a body that shares this form. Life has many forms.¡±

    I have something to do yet. I can''t die yet. I made a promise that I don''t want to break.

    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    The voice did not speak for a few moments, then asked in a different tone. ¡°If you were given the chance to end this war, would you do it?¡±

    Why do you think I''m here?

    ¡°Even knowing that more challenges await you in the future?¡±

    What are you talking about? That''s life.

    ¡°You will be like a ghost for most of your life. Even knowing that, do you want to continue?¡±

    I''ve been a ghost for most of my life.

    ¡°Even ghosts have responsibilities.¡±

    It''s not in my plans to spend an eternity scaring people.

    ¡°Will you let me into your body?¡±

    Mai''s eyes were blurry, but with what strength she had left she looked around. She didn''t have the strength to use her antennae but, that last question had alerted her. As she thought, that voice was not hers. She was not having a conversation with herself. Something was trying to get inside her. In her mind. Trying to reveal every part of her being.

    ¡°There is not much time left, but the choice is yours alone, little one. You have the choice and I can''t force you.¡±

    Mai was trying to understand and with what strength she had left she decided to continue the conversation. What difference did it make at that point? She had at most minutes left. Who are you?

    ¡°I am someone who has been on this planet for a long time.¡±

    What do you want?

    ¡°To offer you the chance to change the course of this war.¡±

    What could that be? Some elemental? Some had been discovered in recent years but not nearly powerful enough to do what the voice cried out for. Something that was trying to possess her, perhaps?

    If you can do it, why now? Why didn''t you do it years ago, before this started?

    ¡°It would be hard to explain. But hard trials are part of evolution. It took an enemy of this kind for the world to change. And if this war ends, the world will have even harder tests to keep it from falling back into pre-war folly. Humans seem to be a species that have a hard time living with themselves, but they have hope.¡±

    As the words intertwined with her consciousness, Mai felt an impulse, a need to get up. She had heard shrieks not too far away. Surely there were some shrikes around. Maybe a new group.

    Mai thought about it. What difference did it make in that situation?

    What do I have to do?

    ¡°Will you let me into your core?¡±

    Mai was breathing heavily. She should only have a minute or two left at most. The light had faded from her eyes.

    The voice from inside Mai came out as a whisper as she felt her being fade away. Yes¡­

    Mai thought she was dying.

    That was the moment she felt as if her heart had burst. She felt a stabbing pain inside her and how it was spreading to every bone and muscle in her weakened body.

    ¡°I''m sorry, it''s necessary. It''s only for a moment.¡±

    Mai felt every muscle in her body twist, every cell and neuron being shaken. But she also saw something she hadn''t expected. It was as if she herself was seeing inside her own body. She could not explain it. She was aware of every bone, vein, artery and organ in her body and saw them as if she had plucked out her eyes and put them inside herself. She could smell her blood, taste her insides, hear it flowing through the blood vessels and feel every part of her body as if she were touching them with her hands.

    She saw the weak life flowing throughout her body. And coiled around her heart a green crystalline form.

    Her Shy Organ, the FAE nucleus.

    So many names to call that thing that disappeared when one tried to investigate it directly. In spite of the impression she felt at that moment, she also felt good. That was what had saved her on so many occasions. Even if it was weak compared to other feys it was her own core.

    Mai was feeling her body warming up as her core was extending beyond her heart. It was as if the core was growing extensions and going beyond the heart. Gradually she was regaining strength. The bleeding had stopped and the wound in her stomach was stinging from the regeneration.

    It was at that moment that Mai sensed something else.

    Memories that were not hers.

    They went far back in time. Different faces, different souls, all seen from a perspective almost like a bird''s eye. Castles in flames, wars, armies fighting. Sages in their laboratories trying to produce elixirs. Young girls burned at the stake. Battles of the deserts where armies had fought against creatures that had never appeared in any history book.

    But beyond the bloody scenes, Mai saw calm scenes. People coming and going, trying to live as best they could in a hostile world. Mai could sense that whoever that entity was it had seen a lot in its years of life, but beyond the savage scenes she had also seen hope.

    Humans seem to be a species that have a hard time living with themselves, but they have hope, she recalled.

    ¡°W-what are you?¡± asked Mai, regaining her strength and using her voice. ¡°What am I seeing? What are you doing to me?¡±

    On the other hand now the voice of that entity was heard inside her.

    Your perception of the world is three-dimensional. What you are seeing now is your inner self because I am entering your body. You are perceiving what you would feel beyond the three spatial dimensions. You have slightly different sensory capabilities because you have some lepidopteran traits absorbed into your genetics.

    ¡°I mean also these images, what are they?¡±

    I can''t answer you.

    ¡°You can see my secrets, but I can''t see yours?¡±

    The entity did not answer.

    After a few seconds she stopped perceiving things in that way. Instead, everything was replaced by a strange sensation on her skin.

    Even with some pain she crawled and tried to stand up. It was then that she perceived that glow that shone around her with iridescent tones. She felt very warm.

    Mai watched in amazement as the clothes she was wearing were destroyed. Although the equipment had the ability to absorb damage to some extent, the clothes fell off her body as if they had been cut to pieces by something incredibly sharp but invisible. It was then that she saw the change in coloration on her arms and the rest of her body. Her skin had taken on a darker hue, as if she had been tanning for too long.

    The moth''s antennae regained strength and rose above her head, emitting an iridescent glow.

    Not only that. On the skin had just appeared something that Mai had only seen once in her life.

    She had seen it that night when she had returned from the Other Side to Earth in 2004.

    On her skin and from various parts of her body appeared patterns that seemed to have a vegetal motif. Almost as if it were a tattoo. But unlike a normal tattoo those patterns glowed on the skin as if it were some kind of bioluminescence.

    ¡°What have you done?¡±

    I just opened and reconfigured the pattern of your core. I think you know that the reason your core is not the same as the others is because you probably spent very little time on the Other Side. But at the same time it is your core that makes you unique among the feys. You came in contact with a higher dimensional material on the Other Side, that makes your core unique.

    ¡°Define short time¡­¡±

    Probably more than forty years, but less than a hundred years.

    ¡°What do you know about the Other Side?¡±

    Just stories¡­

    Mai was wondering if it had been a good idea to give permission to someone she didn''t know at all to do something like that, but she knew she would have been long dead otherwise. If she hadn''t agreed it would have been all over.

    What was sacrificing herself if it meant that she could turn the tide of the war? If with that decision she could fulfill the promises and blurred memories of the Other Side it didn''t matter. If it meant ending that horror, so be it.

    With renewed determination, Mai slowly rose to her feet. She stood stark naked in the desolate night. The plain, full of snow and horror, looked at her feet like a red and white canvas.

    Her hair was loose and the blood that stained it was gone.

    ¡°What should I do?¡±

    Are you ready?

    Mai nodded.

    Can you promise me something?

    ¡°What?¡±

    I''ll be with you for a long time from your perspective, but at some point in the future you''ll have to let me go. When I ask you to do that, will you do it? Without asking when or why, will you do it?

    Mai didn''t answer for a while, but then nodded.

    Your favorite weapon.

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    I''m linked to you through your core. I will take a physical form through you. I''d recommend it be the weapon you''re most comfortable with.

    ¡°Even if it''s old-fashioned?¡±

    A weapon never goes out of style. It''s how you use it that gives it meaning.

    ¡°What can you do?¡±

    I will help you end this war, but only you can do it. There is no other who can in the present state. Through you I can manifest in the three dimensional world. Only you can use my physical form.

    Mai thought. ¡°A bow. Can you take the shape of a bow?¡±

    Are you sure?

    Mai thought for a few seconds but nodded again.

    So be it. Extend your arm and relax your body.

    Mai did so and stretched out her left arm and placed her hand as if she was grasping something invisible.

    The fabric of space around her hand distorted as if she had just broken some kind of invisible crystal.

    The first thing Mai saw was a sphere and then a rhomboidal surface containing it. That geometric shape moved to the palm of her hand and Mai began to feel a tingling sensation all over her arm.

    From that structure appeared on both sides more distortions like broken glass with a color varying between emerald and turquoise. The wind on the plain had begun to blow furiously from the east. Mai felt a new burning in her back. Something was bothering her shoulder blades.

    She stopped feeling the ground beneath her feet. She was rising.

    ¡°What is this?!¡±

    Resist it. Your core is changing to accommodate my existence.

    ¡°What does that mean?!¡±

    Mai looked over her shoulder and for a moment didn''t understand what she was seeing.

    From her back had sprouted what appeared to be green and turquoise wings of a translucent color. But those could not be wings. As far as she knew she had no wings. They were ridiculous in size. They stretched out in a westerly direction and must have been three times the size of herself.

    She felt the same burning in her lower back. From the part closest to her gluteus medius muscle two other small wings had sprouted on either side of her body.

    ¡°What is this?¡±

    Your true form. But I can''t control its size. It must be because your core is like a rough diamond. It doesn''t have a polished shape. By merging with your core, it''s taking on a shape in an extra spatial dimension.

    ¡°I don''t understand what you mean.¡±

    Those wings should be part of you just as your antennae are, but due to the short time on the Other Side they never developed properly. This is forcing your evolution to what you should have been if you had been on the Other Side for a thousand years at least.

    ¡°A thousand years?!¡±

    Don''t pay attention to that now. Concentrate on your hand.

    Mai took a shaky breath, but she did. That didn''t seem like the best time for questions. In her hand the structure had taken the shape of a bow.

    But it was not like the bows Mai was used to wear. Now it was black in color, but with a polished surface that reflected the surroundings as if it were an obsidian mirror and its surface showed the same pattern that Mai had on her skin. It had a much more modern shape and other parts that Mai could vaguely discern what they were for.

    On the other hand, the size was something she did not expect. That thing was the same size as Mai and should have weighed at least more than herself. But in spite of that it felt light and cool in her hand.

    The string was a red color of a material she couldn''t make out.

    Let''s get even higher, Azusa warned.

    At that point Mai said no more. There was no point in asking any more questions. Less than five minutes ago she had been on the brink of death and now she was soaring through the skies naked with a ridiculously sized bow in her hand.

    What name do you want to give me?

    ¡°What?¡±

    I need a name, just like you. A word to manifest me whenever you want in your hand.

    ¡°Why?¡±

    I don''t make the rules. Names are important, they work like magic calculus circuits.

    The wind was hitting Mai''s naked body, which was still rising, but she didn''t feel cold at all. She must have been above a thousand meters and could see the full extent of the desolation of the war.

    Thirty kilometers away the gray sky was cut by a dark mass that obscured the landscape.

    The sphere. Could it be real? Could it all end there? Six years of war so that everything could be settled there?

    ¡°You''re going to help me end this, right?¡±

    Yes. Just one arrow and it will all be over.

    ¡°Is that right?¡±

    I have no intention of lying. Just give me a name and the pact is sealed.

    Mai thought for a few seconds. ¡°You are a bow, what about the name Azusa?¡±

    The answer was not long in coming. I like it.

    Mai, for the first time since that voice had started speaking to her, had discerned a change in tone. She couldn''t say it was cheerfulness at all, but it sounded different.

    ¡°My secret name is Rei. My middle name is Mai. And you are Azusa.¡±

    The name is accepted. This arc will have the function of closing distortions in spacetime just like that sphere.

    ¡°What does that mean?¡±

    That mouth through which this planet is being invaded has disturbed the fabric of spacetime for a long time. Even when we close it others will open.

    ¡°Others?¡±

    I will explain later. Now just concentrate on what you have in your hands.

    At four thousand meters Mai stopped in mid-air. She looked over her shoulder but those membranous wings like a butterfly or moth were not fluttering at all. They were still. She turned her attention back to the bow.

    Just shoot.

    ¡°Shoot what? I don''t have arrows.¡±

    You don''t need them.

    ¡°How?¡±

    Just imagine you are about to shoot an arrow and draw the bow as tight as you can. Imagine as if it were real. As if you really had an arrow in your hands, as if it were a part of your very body that you were shooting.

    ¡°I can''t use magic, how am I supposed to materialize something out of nothing?¡±

    Don''t try to understand it. Just imagine it.

    Mai took a long breath and tried to calm down.

    She closed her eyes and tensed her left arm, while her right arm grasped the anchor point of the string. It was very similar to a compound bow, but of enormous proportions. As she pulled the string taut she could hear inner mechanisms moving.

    She carefully aimed at the shadow that was located kilometers away. It seemed impossible. Couldn''t it all be an illusion of her mind in the final moments of her death? Maybe she was still there on the ground bleeding to death and it was all a product of her brain shutting down.

    It''s not an illusion. Focus.

    Mai tensed the bow and felt the string brushing against her naked body. She positioned herself better trying to protect her chest from the string. At that moment she was glad she had a small chest. That bowstring, whatever material it was, was so thin that it could transform her into an Amazon if she accidentally let go of the string.

    She had practiced archery for years, but it was very different to aim when her feet had no foothold and it was as big as she was. On the other hand the bow seemed so light that it gave her the impression of being glass. Perhaps it was after all, despite its appearance.

    With the string taut, Mai tried to think of an arrow in the place where there was absolutely nothing.

    Seconds passed, but nothing.

    She decided to relax her breathing and think about the bow. How she had seen it form.

    Crystal.

    And what she had seen inside her body. She thought about both things at the same time. The material of the bow and a part of herself. Just as Azusa had said.

    She had said that her body was enough to house Azusa''s existence, so if that was true it had to be that she was some kind of medium between her and the physical world.

    She began to feel a warmth in her fingers. And it began to grow.

    It was the same as making crystals grow, only she was doing it from her fingers. Light, weightless. The crystals took a linear shape from her fingers to the point of support that the bow had to hold the arrow.

    The crystal arrow had a spiral shape in its central body that ended in a green head.

    Mai concentrated as much as she could trying to polish that vision. If she could do it through her mind she had to form it properly.

    Concentrate all the tension on the target and release it.

    Mai paid almost no attention to the instruction. She was more than focused on the arrow and that black spot in the distance and it seemed that even the wind was slowing down.

    She released the arrow and there was a green flash from the bow.

    The hit seemed to Mai to be instantaneous. There was no wind resistance or anything like that. The arrow had gone out of sight after a hundred meters, but not the path it traced to its target.

    Thirty kilometers. It seemed impossible, but if that entity really was from a different dimension it could be that space was folded or distorted in some way that the movement in three dimensions was something direct.

    In the first few seconds Mai saw no result and lowered the bow a little, holding her breath. Then in the distance there was a flash of white light and the next thing she saw was the sphere contracting in on itself. The next moment there was an implosion, or at least that''s what Mai could understand.

    The sphere actually contracted until it disappeared, but a shock wave of such energy was released that for a moment Mai thought she had done something wrong. The snow on the nearby mountains and plains where the sphere was located was swept away in a radius of at least five kilometers and seconds later the shockwave reached Mai.

    Her body lost balance and she was pushed by the brutal wind.

    Mai felt how she was feeling tired all of a sudden and those bioluminescent tattoos had just disappeared from her body and at the same time she felt cold again. Those wings on her back dematerialized and only the bow in her hand remained.

    She was falling. She saw the ground very close. Maybe the snow would save her, but if she fell unconscious in that state she would die in a matter of minutes due to the cold.

    Spinning in her fall she looked towards the horizon. There was no doubt about it. A huge cloud of snow had risen and was being displaced in all directions from the epicenter where the sphere had been.

    It was not there. It had disappeared.

    Mai gave a weak smile and fainted.

    Her fall was slowed a bit, but she crashed into the snow and her body tumbled several hundred meters from the shockwave until she became immobile. In her hand she still held that bow tightly gripped.

    All around the planet a massive blackout was occurring and the shockwave was spreading further and further. It would take hours to go around the entire planet, but it was not necessarily a bad thing.

    It was the sign that the long wait was over.

    The bow in her hand began to disappear as if it was being destroyed into floating crystals, but instead the crystals were taking on smaller shapes and heading for Mai''s right ear. They had taken on a rhomboidal shape of a green color as if it were a small emerald. After a few seconds metal parts appeared and attached themselves and finally a pin pierced the lobe of the ear.

    It glowed once again until it looked just like a small earring.

    Don''t worry, I''ll keep your body warm until the search teams find you, Azusa told the unconscious Mai.

    The abandoned drone cameras of the battle data collection teams had recorded from a distance what had happened, even though there was no one to command them. Those in charge had been dead for hours, but they were still transmitting the data.

    Mai would not know anything about it until a week later, when she would finally wake up in a hospital.

    But the Great War had come to an end.

    Celebrations would begin around the planet, but only a handful would know what had ended the threat that had plagued the planet for so many years.

    ***

    March 22.Thursday. 125 S.A.

    Douvaine, France.

    Mai sighed and wiped a hand across her sweaty forehead.

    The trailer that was being used as a command center felt hot at that moment. All the army personnel who were monitoring the situation had sighed in relief, when the communication had been given that the battle on the surface was over and that the interior teams were taking control of the situation in the collider ring.

    She had just received word from Lizbeth and Jade that the squadron had just gained access to the elevator to the surface, as well as the room that provided power to the entire section on that side.

    Oxy had been found. It looked like they had succeeded. But not entirely.

    Professor Reubens had not been found. Shin and Jim Stuart had been separated, but had not yet been able to communicate with them.

    Mai felt she couldn''t take a break until she was sure that was accomplished as well.

    She was discussing with the others and Carissia that the GSN had finally established communication with the owner of the two companies that had been hired by Janus for the operation and the owner had given direct orders for the remaining mercenaries to surrender, as well as the deactivation of the tactical droids.

    Mai was about to check once more on the squadron''s situation when something interrupted her.

    Mai¡­

    It was Azusa. Mai stopped. ¡°What''s wrong?¡±

    The time has come.

    ¡°What time?¡±

    When you met me, you made a promise. Do you remember?

    Mai opened her eyes.

    It''s time.

    Mai had frozen.

    So many years had passed since then and although she had asked her on more than one occasion, Azusa had only evaded the question of when or where.

    Inside her Mai had been with her for so long and had been on so many adventures that she was almost a part of herself. Although Azusa was quiet and rather sparing in her dialogue, Mai liked to treat her as if she were part of her family. Thanks to her he had ended the war, but she had also saved her life.

    ¡°Are you joking?¡±

    No. It''s my time.

    Mai remembered. I will be with you for a long time from your perspective, but at some point in the future you will have to let me go. When I ask you to do that, will you do it? Without asking when or why, will you do it?

    Without asking when or why.

    Why did it have to be at that moment? Why right there?

    Mai had just retrieved someone from her past that she thought had been dead for centuries. But did it mean that she had to lose someone else at that moment in return? She felt as if it was a betrayal. Why couldn''t she have told her before? Why hadn''t she let her prepare for that moment? Did she want to leave as mysteriously as she had arrived?

    ¡°Why now?¡±

    No matter how much I told you not to ask, you always asked me when it would be.

    ¡°This doesn''t make sense. Why now?¡±

    The personnel inside the command center had fallen silent and several turned to Mai as they saw how she had changed to a different tone. They could not hear the conversation but that was not the Operations Director''s tone. It seemed both deeply moved and sad at the same time. Carissia had gotten up from her seat and approached Mai without knowing what was going on, but she knew something was wrong.

    Azusa, for her part, changed her tone to an even more relaxed one that Mai had not heard for a long time. This is the precise moment when you will let me go.

    ¡°What? Why?¡±

    Because it''s not over yet. The one you have to face has just appeared. If you don''t, it won''t end and nothing will begin.

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    Your freedom.

 Vol.5/Chapter 78: An Unexpected Battle/Part One

    Chapter 78

    An Unexpected Battle/Part One

    The Eye

    Lugrin. Lake Lemac, France.

    The tent that served as an infirmary was silent at that moment. Quite the opposite of the hustle and bustle that could be heard outside, where the storm was diminishing in violence and the investigation teams were finally getting ready to continue the work of searching for parts.

    ¡°Hey! Are you awake?¡± asked a barely whispering voice.

    Van, sleeping on her side, slowly opened her eyes to find a pair of almond-shaped eyes with crimson pupils staring straight ahead at her, accompanied by a small mouth with pointed teeth. Van knew those eyes and those teeth all too well.

    ¡°Mimi?¡± Van asked, sleepily. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±

    ¡°I came to check on you,¡± Mii said, running her hand through Van''s hair and ruffling it.

    ¡°No need, I''m fine now,¡± Van let out, smiling a little as Mii tousled her long pink hair.

    ¡°Yeah, well. You''re my friend. On the other hand you''re an agent of the intelligence branch. It''s been a while since one of our agents has been compromised on a mental level.¡±

    Van sighed, running her hand over her forehead. ¡°I''m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Don''t apologize,¡± Mii said smiling weakly, then wiped the smile away and leaned over Van to whisper in her ear. ¡°It''s done, it happened a few hours ago,¡± Mii said in a sibylline voice.

    Van squinted her eyes in confusion, then after a couple of seconds she opened them wide with surprise, waking up completely and looked at Mii with a worried face. ¡°What have you done?¡±

    Mii put a finger to her lips, indicating her to be silent.

    Van got up from the stretcher with a worried look on her face, looked around making sure no one was there and took Mii by the shoulders. ¡°What are you thinking? This is going to cost you your job at the very least,¡± she said quietly, but in a tone that was clearly scolding her, even though technically Mii was her superior.

    Mii smiled weakly and shrugged. ¡°Yes, most likely.¡±

    ¡°Why did you do it?¡±

    ¡°It''s time to start cutting off snake heads. This fight has taken many decades.¡±

    ¡°And who''s going to save you to keep yours on your shoulders?¡±

    ¡°It''s something that had to be done. If it turns out well it''s likely to be the biggest breakthrough in fifty years.¡±

    Van shook her head and sat up looking for her boots that were lying on the side of the gurney, along with her leather coat and other clothes. ¡°What about what you want?¡±

    Mii looked away pouting and folded her arms. ¡°If you''re going to start with the same sappy thing I don''t want to talk about it. I don''t want to hear it either.¡±

    ¡°I''m your friend and you''re going to listen to me,¡± Van replied, taking off the robe she''d been dressed in and starting to put on the clothes she''d arrived in. ¡°Stop lying to yourself. You can say this is for them, but you''re doing it to escape too. So you don''t have to decide if you want to give yourself a chance to be happy or move on.¡±

    Mii looked at her and snorted and her black and red bangs fluttered as she braced herself for a scolding from Van. Though the truth was, she was used to it and, all things considered, given the scare she''d just had upon arrival, it was comforting. Van always brought her down to the ground when her head went to the clouds.

    They had known each other for more than two centuries after all.

    ***

    Thor, Rein and Noki had been talking for the last few minutes while Mii was with Van. They were in the main tent and had been debriefing with Lefreve about the situation with the investigation and how all the developments in the investigation had turned out over the last few days.

    Because an information blockade had been put in place, not everything had been communicated to the island, only certain data that had been shared.

    Thor, on the other hand, did not know all the details of the case, but he was more than nervous to know the location of Mai, who was managing the operation to take over the old accelerator facilities. Due to the secrecy and given what had happened with the disappearance of Oxy and Professor Reubens, it was still quite chaotic to put all the data in order for the newcomers to digest in one bite.

    At that moment Lefreve was telling them about those rescued by Lizbeth and Shin that morning and how they were passengers on the plane that had crashed on Tuesday. The situation seemed confusing to understand at first, but they could make out most of the facts. Noki and Rein looked at each other as they read some of the research in their Neurowires. The data on what Van had found in Rome was what had caught their attention.

    Rein wanted to know if anyone had studied the ley lines that were passing beneath them at the time, but the teams on site beyond studying electromagnetic and climatic anomalies had not detected anything abnormal. Even so, Rein could not shake off the concern that the flow of the ley lines under the ground were behaving strangely.

    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    Thor was about to ask a question when he was suddenly interrupted. But he was not the only one to be silenced. Everyone in the tent at that moment turned their heads towards the entrance, puzzled.

    There was a strange feeling in the air. Noki grabbed Rein''s hand on impulse. Rein''s tail had stopped moving as her blue pupils contracted until they almost disappeared completely.

    For some reason there was something that made their hair stand on end.

    That feeling of terror was coming from outside the place. And indeed, there were comments and the voices of agitated soldiers being heard from outside.

    The four of them came out of the tent and looked in the direction of the lake. At that moment the sky was still as dark as night, with thick clouds covering in all directions. But the real fear came not from the sky, but from what had appeared over the lake.

    Lefreve after a look around went back into the main tent giving orders left and right for someone to tell him what it was and how it had appeared.

    Mii was being scolded by Van at the time when it had happened, but that feeling had come over them just the same.

    Mii''s stomach contracted from a fear that she could not explain, but that she knew her body could feel for some unknown reason. Agitated voices from outside alerted them further and they both stepped outside the tent.

    ¡°What is that?¡± Mii asked, and the question was more for herself than for Van. She didn''t need to check, but that feeling was shared by all the people.

    Van reached over and pulled her close. Mii was completely frozen in place. Van had never seen that expression before and had known her for a long time.

    ¡°What the hell is going on?!¡± Thor''s loud voice distracted Van.

    He, along with Rein and Noki, was only about thirty meters away from them, but they were also looking in the direction of the lake. The group looked on in utter bewilderment as an unknown terror began to take hold of them.

    They had been in multiple dangerous situations, but nothing had ever inspired them with that feeling. It was absurd and something that compressed their chests and they could not explain. A primordial awe and fear that made their skin crawl. The sensation of being in front of something they had never faced before, but which appeared to have a very simple form.

    That was an instinctive fear, one could almost have said that it was something imprinted in the genes.

    The feeling was shared by the soldiers and everyone present, even those miles away, although they could barely see the shape due to the fog.

    Jen Anderson, still feverish, had awakened in another tent in the medical wing and, although unable to move, felt it too. Lefreve had again emerged from the central command tent in the area and, along with a group of soldiers, had their eyes raised to the sky.

    The cold drizzle was still falling intermittently, but that was no longer a problem. No one cared about getting wet.

    The problem was a couple of kilometers above the lake. In the low clouds over the lake something was happening.

    Before it manifested itself no one there could pinpoint the specific spot, they could only sense that whatever it was, it was something up there. They ran diagnostics with the enhanced telescopic gaze, but could not distinguish it.

    After about ten seconds that changed.

    The clouds were at that moment between 2000 and 4000 meters above the ground, but soon it was as if a veil descended over the entire region and the humidity increased. A fine mist covered the area and the clouds had lowered and everything became a semi-darkness that covered the entire lake from east to west, even reaching the area near Meyrin, where the battle was ending completely.

    With a new diagnosis everyone realized why that fog had descended along with the clouds. Something had begun to appear.

    At first it looked like a much denser black cloud, but they were wrong. That spherical shape soon began to grow, making its way through the other clouds. That was no longer a cloud. Where had it come from? Why hadn''t the weather control teams in the region detected it?

    It was a black sphere that, as it descended, grew to cover what could have been a kilometer in diameter, and was suspended about a thousand meters above ground level were it stopped.

    It seemed solid, but on its surface appeared at times something like wisps of black smoke, which moved around, almost forming a kind of irregular rings that dissolved with the surface and then others appeared. It was like seeing a coronal mass ejection from the sun but black

    Many were frightened, it had almost the same appearance that almost everyone had seen from historical archives of the Great War and that in the case of Rein, Noki, Mii and Van had lived that time. The hated dimensional distortion through which the fractus had entered the three-dimensional Earth. But it was different at the same time. It did not seem the same. Those irregularities on its surface were something no one had ever seen. Some new kind of spatial distortion?

    But there was something else.

    That sphere had a single point that glowed from the center. It might look solid, but it was as if it was possible to see all the way to the center of it. No matter where one stood, those present could see that point, so that black sphere must have allowed one to see to its center as if it were a smoked glass marble.

    Through the mist and clouds that moved in a circular shape around the sphere, the group saw how that point of light changed. It was as if branches had spread out, glowing yellow. Those branches extended to reach what must have been a quarter of the sphere

    The same thought ran through many of the minds of the witnesses. They did not know why, but they all had the same idea.

    One eye.

    A pupil looking at three hundred and sixty degrees.

    That sphere gave them the sensation of being in front of an immense eye that looked at them from all directions and from which they could not escape no matter how hard they tried.

    That''s when it happened. Those irregular ring-shaped anomalies revolving around the sphere increased and the unexpected happened.

    Screams came from that sphere. It chilled everyone''s blood. It was as if multiple overlapping voices were coming from it. They were not screams of pain. They were almost howls, the same sensation as being alone in a forest and perceiving the howl of some animal ready to hunt its prey.

    The first scream of a soldier occurred near the shore of the lake and in a matter of seconds the research area became an inferno of screams, gunshots and people flying through the air.

    Those irregular rings were spreading and when they reached the shore of the lake they finally understood the origin of the screams.

    The black smoke was depositing creatures on the ground.

 Vol.5/Chapter 79: An Unexpected Battle/ Part Two

    Chapter 79

    An Unexpected Battle/ Part Two

    The creatures

    The soldiers more near the lake had seen those smoke discharges from the sphere spreading, but they had not had time to get away in time. The smoke had touched the shore and as if they were some kind of evil genies those creatures had begun to take shape from the smoke.

    Most of them were about two and a half meters tall and had a shape that could vaguely be judged as anthropoid, although their features were anything but pleasant. Others, however, were much larger, easily reaching a height of three and a half meters upright or two meters tall and four long, for those that ran on all fours.

    The skin was leathery black and elastic looking, over a body with a torso broad at the shoulders, but quite slender towards the stomach. Long legs were ungulated in a strange way. Their arms were elongated, reaching almost to their knees and ending in huge four-fingered hands with claws, as well as huge feet with even larger claws. The strange predisposition of their limbs gave them the ability to run like an animal and they were horribly agile on all fours, as well as running and jumping at the same time.

    Their heads were covered with protuberances that looked like short horns, but those horns were covered with the same black skin. The eyes were just two yellow lines that glowed in the dark and one moment they seemed to have no mouth, but the next moment they had sharp teeth several centimeters long. Those teeth seemed to appear and disappear, but they had no lips as such. It was some kind of camouflage system or perhaps a muscular membrane that covered the teeth completely and showed them when the jaw moved.

    From the back, at the level of the shoulder blades, sprouted two elongated limbs that at first some people mistook for arms, but which bent in the opposite direction to normal arms. They were two appendages that had a primary extension, as if it were an arm of about forty centimeters and then a joint that ended in a long blade at least a meter long. The joint bent in the opposite direction of the arms, but one could imagine why. Those appendages could move upwards, appear above the shoulders and attack with the blade. At the same time they could use it on the back as well. It was a system of attack and defense

    The creatures began to run across the grass as they touched the ground and devastated anything in their path. Several soldiers had been slaughtered and were dead before they hit the ground. Gathering equipment, technological material, vehicles, nothing was spared. They attacked everything in their path. With great leaps of several meters, they jumped from target to target.

    Despite the fear, Mii knew perfectly well what to do in that situation. She was about to say something when a voice came up ahead of her.

    ¡°Thor! Help me! This is going to turn into carnage! Noki, Mimi! You know what to do,¡± Rein said with a frown and her tail had started to wag like a whip.

    Thor looked at Rein and nodded. The dwarf began to run towards the nearest creature and under that scenario the battle began. From Thor''s fists appeared dark colored gloves with metal parts and he began to punch the creatures in his path with electric shocks.

    The first one he killed made him realize that those things evaporated when they died. And those horrible sounds they emitted seemed to come from the top of their heads. The air being expelled through a series of slits emitted those sounds and whistles that chilled the blood. There was no time to analyze it at that moment. It was better to concentrate on fighting and getting them out of the way.

    Noki''s adrenaline began to surge and the next second she had disappeared from the stage, leaving a streak of yellow and purple behind her, composed of her residual image as she moved very fast. Several creatures were flying through the air in the path left by Noki. Speed was her skill and the speed of mental processing during those moments was skyrocketing as she kept running.

    Mii took a breath and took off her coat. She was wearing a knee-length dark one-piece dress but, growing claws from her hand, she cut it off and transformed it into a mini-skirt. From the back of her back began to emerge appendages that might as well have been a kind of tentacles, but did not have suction cups. They were red in color, but at the junction with the spine they showed a bioluminescent bluish glow. Using one of her tentacles, she propelled herself into the air and landed several meters above one of the creatures. Another of the tentacles formed a mouth composed of razor-sharp teeth. One of the teeth ripped off the creature''s arm.

    Everything had turned into chaos.

    In spite of the fallen and dead synthetics, almost all the soldiers had reacted in time and fear had given way to survival instinct. Weapons of all calibers and ammunition echoed in the morning. Uniform shields were activated. Normal ammunition did not seem to make a dent in those creatures, who stopped at nothing. Plasma weapons on the other hand seemed to stop them but not kill them, unless they were shot several times.

    Van, even though she should have been resting, joined the ranks of the soldiers offering support with her own device''s weapons. At that moment she was grateful to have changed into her usual clothes as they offered her better defense thanks to the material of which they were composed.

    Rein activated the levitation equipment of her turtle backpack and moved off into the sky, while her tail waved like a whip. With each flick of her tail it seemed that the clouds around swirled wherever she wanted them to and lightning began to rain down from the sky. The mist dissipated a little within a radius of two kilometers, but as a result the copious precipitation of rain began again.

    The sky, a tangle of dark clouds with electric flashes, swirled above the base, as Rein flew all over the place, her figure coated in a blaze of electric discharges around her. From that height, she could see the sphere with its eye that dilated and contracted like an evil heart, and the rings from which the abominable creatures emerged. Seen up close there were rings where shadows by the thousands of serpentine creatures writhed in those rings and changed shape, their yellow eyes glowing with an ancient malevolence.

    Basically, those rings were what contained those creatures in an unknown, non-physical form. And those creatures did not materialize until far enough away from the sphere. She would have to destroy them before they had a chance to get far enough away

    As part of the SID library team, Rein had a lot of knowledge of hundreds of different types of fantastical creatures and other anomalies, but those she had never seen. They almost reminded her of the legends of the evil version of the djinn, but they were different. They were not in any catalog. Whatever it was, it was not the time to study them.

    It had been a good move to decide to go to that place. Her instinct had not deceived her.

    Since the destruction of the space distortion by Mai and Azusa, anomalies had appeared, but none of them had sprouted enemies. That was different. Could it have been a summoning? Impossible. There were very few wizards who could create such a large magic calculation circuit and to create those creatures it would take all the summoning class wizards that had existed in the last hundred years. That was not possible. It was not a summoning, but it had still manifested itself in the place where the plane crash had occurred.

    Rein''s analysis had been quick, but it was the best she could do in those seconds when the combat began. They were not fractus. They interacted with matter and could attack, but they did not destroy the matter around them like fractus. Their strengths were in their attack speed and in the fact that they were very resistant, but they could be destroyed.

    That they disappeared caught her attention but she could not worry about it at that moment. Even so, they had to take care of the problem quickly and prevent it from spreading. If the smoke rings continued to came out from that sphere, who knew how far it could spread.

    A Class 6 or 7 Dark Event, but what kind of alert? Yellow? Red? Violet?

    ¡°Thor!¡± shouted Rein, her voice mingling with the crackle of lightning that was beginning to form around them. ¡°Let''s keep the fight at this range and try not to let it spread!¡±

    From the ground, Thor responded with a roar, his fists wreathed in sparks that illuminated his figure. ¡°That''s what I''m trying!¡±

    With a wave of her hand, Rein channeled her electromagnetic power, raising fragments from the ground that floated around her like projectiles ready to be fired and then with a flick of her tail she directed them at the creatures.

    As the creatures emerged from the rings, a guttural sound echoed in the air, as if the earth itself trembled at their arrival.

    Rein launched an electrical discharge, a concentrated flash of lightning that slammed into another monster. The creature shrieked, its body convulsing before vanishing in black smoke. They were coming apart, that was convenient. Using her powers Rein used one of the destroyed vehicles and warded off others, while lightning kept the dangerously approaching ones at bay.

    Thor, meanwhile, was cutting through the enemies, his body vibrating with energy. Each blow from his fist echoed with a blast of electricity, knocking down any monsters that dared to approach. The combination of his strength and the electrical discharges turned him into a storm on the ground.

    ¡°To the right!¡± shouted Rein, pointing with her hand. A group of creatures rushed toward Thor, and he, with a twist, connected with an electrifying blow that caused the nearest monster to burst into a thousand wisps of smoke.

    Rein felt a pressure in her chest. ¡°We have to shut that thing down, it sure is an aberration,¡± she muttered, her eyes fixed on the eye-shaped portal. ¡°We must do something before¡­¡±

    A cracking sound echoed through the air. A ring of dark mass emanated from the sphere in a westerly direction, much larger than any of the previous ones. That ring was spreading and with it she knew it was transporting those abominations away from them. Rein shivered at the thought of it reaching the nearest cities. From what Lefreve had said, the houses on the opposite shore of the lake on the Swiss side had been evacuated, but if it spread it could have worse consequences.

    Rein concentrated as much of her power as she could to control the cloud conditions, to concentrate it all into a lightning bolt strong enough to destroy that ring, that was getting farther and farther away.

    The impact was so thunderous that a column of water rose from the lake and much of the army equipment in the lake was damaged by that discharge, but the power had been enough for that lightning to destroy that ring full of creatures in a definitive way. Or at least Rein hoped so, since the distant mist made her not sure of it. Curiously enough, it had only gone in a westerly direction and had not spread elsewhere.

    However, it was likely that she could use that a few more times only. They needed reinforcements and urgently.

    Thor stood up after wiping out another creature on the ground, fury shining in his eyes and raised his voice to Rein. ¡°We cannot allow this to continue! If we keep this up, it''s a matter of time before they slaughter us all here!¡±

    Rein nodded, catching her breath. ¡°We have to join forces! If you concentrate your energy in my direction, I can amplify it!¡±

    ¡°Induction and electrostatics?!¡±

    Rein nodded. ¡°Yes!¡±

    Without hesitation, Thor nodded and readied himself. His fist lit up with a discharge that seemed to vibrate in the very essence of the storm and he directed his energy toward Rein. ¡°Now, Rein!¡±

    Rein extended her hands toward him, absorbing the energy. A beam of light shone between them, and in an instant, it launched a storm of concentrated energy at various points where the creatures stood. Rein made the calculation on the Neurowire for that operation and the explosion illuminated the place, revealing for a brief moment the landscape.

    ¡°Don''t stop!¡± shouted Thor, rising again, his fists sizzling with renewed fury.

    With each attack, with each bolt of energy launched, the battle grew more intense. Shadows of horror danced around them, but Rein and Thor stood their ground, facing the unknown with every flash of electrical power they possessed.

    Two kilometers to the east another confrontation was taking place.

    The battle raged around them, but for Noki, the world slowed down. With a single thought, her body shot faster than the wind, turning into a bolt of pure energy. She ran through the shadows and the screams, her feet barely touching the ground, as she searched for the soldiers who needed help or to destroy those ghouls that had made it that far.

    Here I go! she muttered to herself, feeling the wind whipping her face. In the distance, she saw a group of soldiers cornered, surrounded by two monsters that were pouncing and looking to them with those yellow eyes vomited by the underworld.

    Without a second to lose, Noki rushed towards them. In an instant, she was at their side, lifting one of the soldiers in one fluid motion. ¡°Hang on!¡± she exclaimed, and before he could respond, they were on the move. With her small body she carried him to a couple of hundred meters, where another group was resisting more favorably, and repeated the same operation a couple of times more.

    As she ran to rescue the last one, the creature turned, its sharp claws ready to fall on the soldier.

    Without thinking too much, Noki slid down, carrying the soldier to safety just before the monster''s blow hit the ground, creating a ripple of uprooted grass and mud. The creature, stunned by the missed blow, was unable to react in time.

    Noki did not stop and returned to the spot. With a leap, she turned towards the two monsters, taking advantage of her speed to ram them. Her body became an unstoppable force, and the impact threw them several meters away. Without looking back, she continued onward, looking for more soldiers in danger.

    As she ran, every turn and every movement was a careful dance between life and death. Noki used her skill to move amidst the chaos, her mind calculating every possible route.

    Suddenly, she heard a muffled scream.

    ¡°No!¡± her heart raced. A soldier was cornered against a wall, with a creature right in front of him, its eyes glowing with ravenous hunger. Noki felt time stretch, and without hesitation, she lunged toward him.Stolen novel; please report.

    ¡°Hold on!¡± she shouted, catching the soldier in one fluid motion and bringing him to her side just as the monster lunged toward them. Noki used his momentum to slam into the creature, running it over with her speed and throwing it to the ground, where it disappeared in a cloud of wisps.

    ¡°Thank you!¡± the soldier gasped, still dazed.

    ¡°No time!¡± Noki replied, heading back to the battlefield. ¡°You''d better grab a gun and start shooting at those things!¡±

    As she moved again, her mind was focused on the other soldiers. She knew that time was running out. The creatures in the sphere were coming out in increasing numbers, and every second counted. With each rescue, her determination grew.

    Suddenly, she found herself in front of a group of soldiers fighting a particularly large monster, its claws tearing through the air. Noki launched herself into the attack. With dazzling speed, she slipped between the creature''s legs and shoved a soldier to the side, saving him from a fatal fate.

    ¡°Leave it to me!¡± she shouted, and as she turned to face the monster, her heart pounded. With a leap and a precise punch, she used her speed to crash into the monster''s side, destabilizing it enough so that a group of soldiers could attack it with more confidence.

    ¡°Faster!¡± she exclaimed, as adrenaline fueled her. She knew her skill was key to keeping the creatures at bay and saving lives. Each time she saved a soldier, hope shone a little brighter amidst the chaos.

    With each rescue, she felt more alive, more connected to the battle. Noki knew that her speed wasn''t just a skill, it was her way of fighting, her way of facing the unknown.

    She saw a group of about twenty of the creatures moving toward a nearby tent. She couldn''t tell if there was anyone inside, but it was better to get rid of those things.

    She knew that bullets didn''t work, but electricity did. At least that worked in her favor. Her body could generate incredible energy with every movement thanks to her Shy Organ and on the other hand she still hadn''t used the ace she had. Those straps that moved from her clothes were not something decorative. They were multipurpose. She could use them to change direction, bend in the middle of a long run and due to the smart structure they could harden for tenths of a second, acquiring enough edge to cut through almost anything like nanofilaments or generate a strong enough grip as if they were whips.

    She headed towards the group and ran over a few of them, while the ribbons received an electric shock to acquire a sharper shape. The result was that those monsters didn''t know what happened but something had torn them apart in mid-air and they dissolved.

    To the west of Rein and Thor, Mii was picking a fight of her own.

    The storm of chaos was intensifying, but in the midst of the maelstrom, Mii moved like a shadow, her senses sharpened and her mind focused. Like a mimic, her body was a malleable canvas, capable of transforming into whatever she needed at a moment''s notice. On her back, tentacles snaked into the air as if alive, ready to attack, to destroy with teeth or to help her move. A plasma weapon in her left hand from her turtle backpack and claws in her right. She was already barefoot, but she didn''t mind her mud-stained legs. She had lost her boots when she had attacked one of the creatures by transforming her legs into blades and with a kick she had cut off the creature''s head.

    Every part of her body was a weapon. A Death Lily, as some had baptized her during the Great War against the fractus.

    Monsters, grotesque and deformed, emerged from the dimensional sphere, and Mii knew her only option was to adapt and fight. Every creature that approached was a challenge, an aberration that sought to devour everything it encountered. Be it feys, humans or aeons.

    Mii concentrated, letting her body transform. The tentacles elongated, glowing and moved with grace and ferocity, and as she prepared for the attack, she felt a connection to the essence of the fight. It was as if her powers made her part of something greater, an entity that defied the abyss but at the same time was a double-edged sword.

    Don''t lose control, she muttered to herself.

    With a resounding cry, she lunged toward a group of approaching monsters. The tentacles, resembling tails, swung like whips, tearing through the air as they lashed out with force. One of the monsters was struck in the side, its body contorting and screaming in agony through those gills on its head. Mii felt a dark satisfaction as she watched the creature vanish in a cloud of shadows, as one of the tentacles made an attempt to bite its face off.

    ¡°It''s been a while since I''ve fought like this...¡± she muttered to herself, focusing her energy on the tentacles, that danced around her with those sharp mouths, tearing apart any of those creatures. Each movement was a mixture of elegance, power, and at the same time a brutality rarely seen. Each attack sent a ripple of fear through the creatures that dared to approach.

    In the heart of the battle, her tentacles became more than tools of attack; they were extensions of her will, capable of unleashing a barely contained fury. The monsters were pouncing, but Mii knew how to play on their instincts. She lured them to her, like a hunter using cunning to lure her prey.

    One monster, larger than the others, lunged toward her with a piercing howl, its jaws open in a grimace of madness as those teeth appeared. Mii, in a swift turn, used her tentacles to catch the beast. With a decisive move, the lashes struck its body, causing the monster to stop dead in its tracks. The tentacles tried to destroy it in equal parts but in doing so it dissipated into those wisps of dark smoke.

    ¡°Well, at least I''m calmer,¡± Mii said quietly, feeling the power wash over her. With a sharp twist of her tentacles, another creature was thrown backwards, crashing into a wall of rubble.

    As the battle continued, Mii realized that each monster the tentacles bit into gave her renewed strength, but that was normal for her, she was a mimic after all. Nevertheless, she used her power only to assimilate those parts she had obtained by biting the creatures. She would have time later to examine them more closely, although it was true that her sense of taste felt disgusting at the moment. Those creatures were dissolving inside her body in smoke form, but they were there long enough to leave her with a horrible taste.

    There were only a few parts of her dress left, but she didn''t care if she even ended up fighting naked. It wouldn''t be the only time and on the other hand it had been her fault for not having equipped the special clothes that the clothing department had for cases like that. She would never have imagined that she would end up fighting.

    Mii glanced sideways at the lake and looked away quickly.

    The sphere was still there, and the darkness emanating from it was a constant reminder that this was the real enemy. In fact, although she was calmer fighting now, the truth was that Mii had tried by all means not to look at that thing. She didn''t know why, but she felt that if she looked at it for too long something bad would happen. She didn''t want to do it in any way.

    Suddenly, a group of soldiers attacking the creatures appeared in her field of vision. Without hesitation, Mii approached them, her tentacles still poised for attack. ¡°Stay back! Don''t come near me when I''m attacking, it''s hard for me to control my whole body if I''m in the middle of an attack!¡± she shouted, knowing that their presences could be a nuisance to keep the monsters at bay.

    The soldiers, stunned by the scene of horror, backed away, ¡°Just keep your distance! Together we can take them on, but take care of those farther away!¡±

    The tentacles danced in the air, reminding them that she was not just a combat tool, but a symbol of resistance in that place. They were trying to keep the attack from escalating and to keep any of those things from escaping into the forest. The objective was to keep the fight in place and not to let it spread for the time being.

    Lefreve was calling for reinforcements at the same time as the whole situation was being communicated to the command center in Dovaine, and others command centers of the French and Swiss army.

    As they fought, the battlefield continued to fill with indescribable chaos. The shadows were intertwined with the light emanating from Rein and Thor''s powers to the east, but Mii knew that every second counted.

    However, all was not plain sailing. As the creatures died, the sphere began to emit an ominous sound, a humming that resonated deep within her being. Mii felt a shiver run down her spine, a warning that something even darker was about to emerge if they didn''t hurry.

    There was no doubt in her mind who they needed. The Director of Operations.

    They needed Mai with her bow to shut down that aberration.

    Where was that silver fairy when they needed her there?

    ***

    Meyrin, Geneva. Switzerland.

    The battle to take control of the accelerator facility had come to an end.

    After establishing contact with Peter Vazziri, he had given the immediate order to cancel the contract with the Gianicolo capital entity, whereupon the mercenaries in Meyrin and at the other points were to surrender to the armed forces and the SID. It was going to be a bureaucratic mess for months for the owner, but that was the best option rather than seeking international trouble that could tarnish the image of his private military companies.

    The mercenaries had surrendered quickly upon receiving the order from their respective controls and surrendered their weapons, at the same time that the droids were deactivated.

    Down below almost everything had gone as planned and Lizbeth, Natsuki and Ryuuji, accompanied by a still confused Oxy, had taken over the control point that supplied power. The same with Granger and Jade who had taken control of the elevator and with it Swiss and French army droids had descended to take control of the place. The few mercenaries alive had been escorted out, while the other dead had already returned to their conscience containment controls in the private company after their mission had failed.

    Lizbeth took the opportunity to send Oxy upstairs to be seen by a doctor, even though she wanted to stay to make sure Professor Reubens and Jim Stuart were okay.

    Odin Squadron gathered in what appeared to be the main control room to find the spectacle of all those dead scientists on the scene. They didn''t quite understand what had happened, but it appeared to be some sort of mass suicide. None of them showed any signs of external violence. But the strangest thing happened when Lizbeth checked the identities of several of them and, contrary to expectations, the database showed that they were alive in another part of the planet or outside of it.

    The objective achieved by them had given way to a look of concern, when they verified that only five minutes ago there had been a large amount of energy sent to those chambers that were the targets of Shin and Jim Stuart. Energy that it was not clear where it had gone.

    Much of the data had been erased after that energy disappeared and the programs were generating errors.

    Where were Shin and Stuart? Both were nowhere to be found. They checked the cameras that were still working, discovering how they had detected them in the first moment during the infiltration, but they still did not appear on them. They could only see many parts destroyed by the squadron''s attack.

    The chambers L1 and L2 now showed red alerts, indicating that they were sealed. It could be that they were there. Lizbeth wanted to check.

    It was at that moment that the tremors began.

    ¡°This can''t be good,¡± Granger said.

    The walls began to show cracks and parts of the ceiling had started to fall. That place wasn''t stable at all.

    The army droids evacuated the last of the mercenaries and the screens in the control room were beginning to show how various parts of the accelerator ring were beginning to collapse.

    ¡°We can''t leave!¡± Lizbeth said.

    ¡°We''re going to be trapped if we stay!¡± Jade told her.

    ¡°Liz. Even if they''re here they can survive the collapse,¡± Ryuuji agreed. ¡°We, on the other hand¡­¡±

    Lizbeth knew. Shin had his armor, and it was likely that he could escape under his own power, but the fact that he was nowhere to be found distressed her. She hated the idea of leaving him, but she knew it was true, he was the strongest on that team. On Jim Stuart''s side it was different. He was in a synthetic body. If he was in a place that had collapsed his consciousness would return to his original body and the synthetic one could stay down there. He was in no danger.

    Another tremor and parts of the roof of the control station fell.

    ¡°All right. Let''s go,¡± Lizbeth agreed.

    They had started to move out of the control room when Natsuki stopped and grabbed hold of the old glass door. She was feeling a kind of itching all over her skin. More on the one that was exposed to the light.

    ¡°What''s wrong?¡± Ryuuji asked.

    Natsuki clutched her stomach. ¡°I don''t feel well.¡± She felt a retch and threw up. But she had just vomited blood. Red-colored blood that stained the floor.

    The whole team''s eyes widened.

    ¡°I thought you were 100% invisible,¡± Granger said, confused.

    ¡°Huh?¡± Natsuki looked at everyone staring at her in shock. ¡°What''s wrong?¡±

    ¡°Nat, we can see you...¡± Lizbeth said .

    ¡°Huh?¡± Natsuki looked at her hands. She could always see herself normally, it was the others who couldn''t see her unless they had the magic function activated in their retinas to see her. If this was a joke, it was in bad taste.

    But why did she feel so dizzy all of a sudden? It had been a long time since she had felt that sensation.

    She remembered. The last time she had felt dizzy of a similar nature she had disappeared from the world visible to everyone, including her family.

    She gagged again and vomited more blood. Her eyes had begun to hurt. Everything seemed very bright. Almost as if her eyes were opening for the first time in a long time and were being engulfed by a very bright light.

    A new tremor.

    Lizbeth and Ryuuji held her by the side, still surprised, to see that they could grasp a visible Natsuki. Another question they could not answer in that hell. They had to hurry to get out.

    Ryuuji looked at Natsuki with a strange face. ¡°She disappeared,¡± he muttered.

    Lizbeth checked too. Her body was blurring together with parts appearing and others disappearing as if it were an existence so weak that it was in danger of disappearing if it was left unobserved completely.

    ¡°Come on, quick!¡± shouted Lizbeth, her voice firm, but her gaze reflected panic and at the same time unease.

    The group headed for the elevator, their hearts beating in unison with the echo of falling debris all around them. Hurrying as fast as they could, the team reached the elevator, which was currently descending to where they were. Granger, always scowling, pressed the call button so hard he almost plunged it all the way down.

    ¡°How much time do we have left?¡± Natsuki asked, her breathing quickening, as Ryuuji held her. She appeared and disappeared at intervals. Even Natsuki couldn''t believe it.

    ¡°Less than five minutes, considering structural damage,¡± Ryuuji replied, checking a mental clock. ¡°If we''re not at the surface before this thing collapses, there''ll be no turning back. We''ll be trapped like Agent Stuart and Aogami.¡±

    The elevator doors opened with an ominous creak, and the group squeezed inside. Jade, was visibly nervous, her hands shaking. ¡°What if Agent Stuart''s device doesn''t work?¡± she asked, her wide eyes reflecting the dim light inside.

    ¡°It will work,¡± Lizbeth assured, trying to instill confidence. ¡°We''ve trained for this. On the other hand the synth and Ataud emergency equipment has enough capacity to survive for a week when activated.¡±

    ¡°The consciousness transmission fails once in three million,¡± Jade said.

    Once inside, Granger pressed the button for the top floor. The elevator began to ascend, but soon, a violent creak echoed throughout the space, followed by a loud bang that caused the elevator mechanism to lurch. The group looked at each other with concern.

    ¡°What was that?¡± asked Natsuki, adrenaline pumping in her veins.

    ¡°Just the place falling,¡± Ryuuji replied, but his voice lacked conviction. ¡°We can''t stay here for long.¡±

    They had the anti-gravity and sustained flight devices of the turtle backpacks, but they could not risk escaping that way through the elevator shaft. If parts of the structure were falling, it was too easy that if they escaped by flying something heavy would fall on their heads. The elevator could fall, but they were confident that in the event of a fall they could use the anti-gravity devices to levitate inside the elevator the moment it crashed.

    Suddenly, the elevator stopped with a bang, and the lights flickered. A scream escaped Jade''s lips. ¡°No, please!¡±

    ¡°Calm down,¡± Lizbeth said, squeezing Jade''s arm. The truth was that while she was trying to instill confidence in the doe she was most likely the most terrified of them all. She didn''t like the underground at all and the idea of being in that elevator so many meters below was the same feeling as being inside a coffin.

    Suddenly there was a new knock at the bottom of the elevator and the mechanism started up again. The ascent seemed like an eternity. But they were more disturbed by a series of knocks at the bottom of the elevator. But they could hear the sounds of debris around them, so they judged them to be normal for the situation.

    Finally, they reached the door leading to the outside. The team got out of the elevator and ran as best they could to the exit of that place. The battle on the surface had destroyed the entrance, so they only had to go out through a large hall where outside soldiers and army droids were guarding the place. But there was no time to celebrate. The building was still collapsing behind them.

    The team moved as far away as possible, but after a minute the collapse seemed to stop. It was likely all over. The accelerator was so deep that it could not cause more damage to the surface. The most that could happen was the collapse of all the entrances to the site. Stairs, elevators were what had collapsed.

    The search teams would have to sort themselves out later.

    Lizbeth breathed in the humid morning air but there was something she didn''t like. And it wasn''t just the feeling of having left her loved one down there. There was something that was tightening in her chest at that moment. She helped Ryuuji carry Natsuki to the newly arrived first aid doctors who were treating Oxy.

    They had taken over the facility. But the professor had not appeared.

    That was not a battle won.

    Lizbeth was looking at the cloud of dust that had risen from where they had left, when she saw a black shadow in armor emerge from the building. The particle mask covering his head was removed.

    Lizbeth sighed in relief. Shin had escaped after all.

    She approached him and grabbed his arm. ¡°Are you ok? How did you come out?¡±

    Shin stared at her and patted her on the head, even though he had a somewhat disgruntled look on his face. ¡°I was going underneath you¡­ didn''t you hear me thrashing around the elevator?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I was clutching at the bottom of the elevator.¡± Despite the gesture he waved his hand over Lizbeth''s head trying to calm her down

    ¡°What happened?¡±

    ¡°There was nothing in the chamber I went to. I opened it using the particles but when I went in there was a smell of burning and a pile of glass on the floor. Where''s Jim and Oxy?¡± Lizbeth pointed a hand in the distance and Shin sighed. ¡°So you found her. I looked around a bit while I was on my way to the other chamber, but I couldn''t find her either, so I figured they''d be out by now.¡±

    ¡°Wait a minute. You went to the other chamber?¡±

    ¡°Yes. When I didn''t find anything in mine I figured it would be the wrong one. I ran over there and found the same thing.¡±

    Lizbeth stared at him. ¡°We didn''t find the professor. Agent Stuart didn''t come back either.¡±

    Shin nodded and looked off into the distance. ¡°Then it''s just as I thought. It was meant for the professor to be the target of the time travel.¡±

    ¡°But, who was in the other chamber then?¡±

    ¡°The old man who alerted me on the plane,¡± Shin replied and walked a few steps forward, his back to Lizbeth. His eyes were fixed to the northeast and he frowned. ¡°What''s that?¡±

    ¡°The what?¡± she asked, looking in the same direction. She couldn''t see anything but it was true that since she had stepped out of the elevator she hadn''t looked relieved at all. There was something strange in the morning air.

    ¡°I''m not sure. There''s something strange.¡±

    ¡°How do you know?¡±

    Shin turned and looked at her, puzzled. ¡°I have no idea,¡± he said.

    His yellow eye was bleeding.

 Vol.5/Chapter 80: An Unexpected Battle/ Part Three

    Chapter 80

    An Unexpected Battle/Part Three

    Citrinitas/ The Yellow King

    Mesvres. France.

    The stolen vehicle, in which Stan and Rum were traveling, left behind the menhirs of the Broye Natural Park and stopped in a ghost town called Mesvres, only seven kilometers away from the point where it had stopped previously.

    The road stretched out before them, like a winding thread of destroyed asphalt, lost in the gloom of the misty morning. Although it was getting clearer, the sky was still cloudy and foggy in those parts.

    Stan and Rum should have gone much farther, but Rum had decided to pull over and take a break. Stan wasn''t feeling well and his temperature had risen, since he had said he heard that strange sound that Rum couldn''t hear at all.

    She had been checking him through the Neurowire system and the medical nanocapsules in his bloodstream, but there was nothing abnormal. The only strange thing were those dark colored cells, which were the ones that allowed Stan to have the ability to shape-shift, but they were peculiar to his condition.

    So it was better to wait a little and see if he felt a little better. Perhaps it was nothing more than an after effect of the Neurowire enhancements inserted by Janus, or perhaps the pressures of the last few days had built up, although she didn''t think it was likely. In the worst case scenario she would have to find a doctor from the underworld to check her companion, as soon as they reached the first city and make use of the underground network that existed in that world.

    Rum looked out the window at the soft mist that covered the abandoned town, as well as the nearby hills. Another place that nature had been devouring over the years.

    She turned to Stan who had reclined the passenger seat. ¡°And? How are you feeling?¡±

    ¡°Same as five minutes ago¡­ but I''m a little better now. Let''s wait a few more minutes and keep driving, we''d better get away,¡± Stan replied, with his face half covered by one arm.

    Rum smiled. ¡°Maybe you just need to.¡­¡±

    ¡°Uh?¡± Stan uncovered his face and looked sideways at her. Rum had a smirk on her face and gave him an obscene gesture while waving a hand. Stan clicked his tongue. ¡°Leave me alone¡­¡±

    ¡°Just a suggestion,¡± Rum replied, with a shrug.

    She was worried. It wasn''t the first time she''d seen Stan sick, but it was the first time it had happened after a job. At least she was trying to lighten the mood in the car, if only with a joke. But the behavior he had been exhibiting previously was worrying her.

    Stan knew that and was trying to relax her by telling her that she should drive. A little headache and fever was nothing to worry about, but that feeling he''d had, when he''d heard that flute-like sound, left him with a pretty horrible sensation in his body. He didn''t know why, but he didn''t like it at all.

    A few minutes passed in silence until Stan spoke. ¡°Let''s continue, I''m better now.¡±

    Rum, through her Neurowire back door, checked. Liar, she thought to herself. The temperature was the same, but it was true. Better keep going. If the break hadn''t worked out it was better to stop at the first town that had underworld services for people like them.

    Rum put her hands on the steering wheel, when they both froze in surprise.

    A piercing bestial howl broke the silence and chilled their blood.

    ¡°What the fuck?¡± mumbled Rum, turning around and looking into the rear window, Stan immediately imitated her. The sound was coming from behind them.

    Out of the fog, they saw some kind of black smoke coming from behind them and spreading rapidly.

    They could not know that the smoke was coming from several tens of kilometers away. It had moved at almost the speed of sound from Lake Lemac in their direction. It was much larger in its origin, but had been destroyed in part thanks to the quick intervention of a certain fey who had burned most of the threat with a lightning bolt. Even so, a small part had managed to escape and was now behind them, as if they had a sort of compass of where to go.

    Out of the smoke, Stan and Rum saw enormous creatures materialize, that none of them had ever seen before, followed by a torrent of shadows that hovered over them. Some crossed over the top of the vehicle and materialized fully twenty meters away, while the others were behind them. There were about eight in all, four to the rear and four to the front.

    They were surrounded.

    They didn''t know what those things were and those strange appendages with blades on their backs, which moved as if they were some kind of razor. Their yellow eyes glowed with an unnatural light, as they slowly approached over the car, filling the air with a cacophony of screeching. They seemed to have no mouth at times, but then sharp teeth appeared, opening and closing as they emitted those screeching sounds.

    Rum could see that the sound was not coming from their mouths. In the horned head with elastic skin there seemed to be a hole that reminded her of the gills of sharks, but the slits seemed to move and vibrate when they emitted those sounds.

    Stan felt his pulse quicken at that moment. There was something too strange about it all.

    ¡°What the hell is that?¡± Rum asked.

    ¡°Don''t ask me. You chose the route. Did you wander into some exogenous creature reserve?¡±

    ¡°You think I''m such an idiot?! There was no sign.¡±

    ¡°Maybe that''s why everything is so deserted?¡±

    ¡°Impossible, I haven''t seen that kind of creature in any catalog.¡±

    Those things were getting closer and closer.

    ¡°You''ve got to be kidding me...¡± said Rum, with a nervous smile on her face.

    ¡°Let''s get the hell out of here!¡± Stan turned his head, terror transforming his voice into a broken whisper. ¡°Step on it!¡±

    ¡°You don''t need to tell me!¡± shouted Rum and set off, even if she had to run over those things.

    But, before Rum could get away, a deafening thud resounded as a creature slammed into the side of the vehicle. One of the four that were behind had slid to the right side and had decided to attack from that side with a lunge.

    The glass shattered in several places and the bodywork deformed like paper as it absorbed the blow under the force of that monster. The car that had been set in motion spun out of control, spinning in a whirlwind of metal and despair, until it finally stopped in a deafening roar, crashing into an old metal fence.

    Both were stunned, but barely had time to recover when they saw what was coming at them. All those things were slowly making their way towards the vehicle, with the calmness of one who has secured their prey.

    It was a matter of seconds before their lives would be snuffed out by those things that had emerged from the fog.

    On impulse Stan grabbed Rum''s hand and they both prepared for the worst.

    Darkness descended on the vehicle. But that darkness did not seem to come from the creatures attacking the vehicle and opening the metal to devour them.

    The creatures never touched the vehicle.

    On the contrary, a black whirlwind had arisen around the vehicle that blew the creatures all over the place, but left the vehicle intact.

    ¡°W-what is that?¡± Rum asked, with a tremor in her voice.

    The stunned creatures had crashed into the dilapidated buildings and houses, as well as the trees sprouting from what had once been manicured gardens. The creatures began to get up, but they shared the same surprise as Stan and Rum.

    In front of the car that had stopped was a huge creature that folded its wings, darker black than night.

    Neither Stan nor Rum had ever seen it, but Stan sensed that the thing was not there to harm them. On the contrary, it seemed to have protected the car from the impending attack. Although it could well be that it was protecting its prey from being devoured by the other creatures.

    Rum, on the other hand, felt a terror invade her when that new creature turned and looked at the vehicle. It had a head without a neck and two huge red eyes that contrasted with the gray landscape of the place.

    It looked like some kind of owl, or a moth, perhaps?

    The creatures finally recovered and began a new attack. The red-eyed creature finally moved. The combat between that red-eyed shadow and the creatures began in a display of chaos and terror, a macabre and bestial ballet that seemed more like the fury of a gale.

    The red-eyed creature had spread wings that were barely seen for a tenth of a second, before the whole place was invaded by that black gale that attacked the other creatures on the ground without mercy. The wings seemed to vibrate and change direction, as if it were a hummingbird, but of an enormous size. In its comings and goings it left a ghostly trail behind it, which was precisely its residual image, as if even the very fabric of reality could not fully grasp the speed with which it was moving.

    The monsters, on the other hand, were not far behind and split up intelligently to try to attack from multiple points. But that was to no avail and they slowly began to fall and Stan and Rum saw one dissolve into thin air as it was impaled by some sort of claws. That red-eyed creature must have been closer to some kind of owl, because it was attacking with legs that looked like some kind of unknown bird.

    It was not an insect at all.

    As the battle raged around him, Stan felt his mind slip back to a childhood memory. A dark day where he had almost been killed by bullies who had kicked him to death. In that instant he had passed out in the street, but before he fell unconscious something had attached itself to his body. A dark, slimy thing that had changed his life forever.

    Do you want to accept what''s inside you?Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    Stan''s heart pounded, with a mixture of fear and longing. Something inside him was stirring. He knew it. He sensed it.

    He glanced sideways and time seemed to stand still as he saw what was coming.

    As the attack of that red-eyed creature continued against the others, one had separated and returned to the original target.

    They.

    Out of the corner of his eye Stan saw the creature approaching the side Rum was occupying. One second and she would be eaten. He saw the head without a mouth and how suddenly where there was nothing there appeared sharp teeth and a hole that could easily swallow a human head in one bite.

    Do you wish to accept what is inside you?

    Stan for a split second relived the horror of his childhood. He saw that slimy black thing like a hand approaching his body.

    Do you wish to accept what is inside you?

    The answer burst from his lips, an almost inaudible whisper: ¡°Yes.¡±

    At that moment, the darkness was unleashed inside him.

    Something was flowing through those dark cells that lived in his body, vibrating every fiber of his being, transforming his essence into something beyond human.

    Stan felt that something was moving through every muscle and fiber of his body. And he couldn''t explain it, but he knew that whatever it was, it was externalizing itself out of him. He didn''t know what it was, but he knew it was too late to take it back.

    He knew. Yes, he knew it since he was a teenager. That thing that had given him a kind of artificial thelesis to transform his body had never been what it seemed.

    He had never said so, because deep down he had always been afraid that he would end up turning into a lab rat. The medical examinations had discovered nothing and there had been no further investigation. That he was a minor had protected him, but that changed when he was blamed for something he had not done. Child protection laws did not apply in the state where he lived if murder was involved.

    A part of him had always known that the thing that had invaded his being was always alert. He couldn''t tell what it was, but he knew it was as alive as he was. His life had changed the day it had invaded his body and even, on more than one occasion, Stan had woken up in places he didn''t remember going, but he knew that thing was the culprit even though he couldn''t explain why he knew.

    And whatever it was, he had now agreed to let it out. Whatever it was, he had waited so many years to ask at the right time if he wanted to accept it in all its fullness.

    If it could save Rum, so be it.

    Rum glanced sideways at the side Stan was looking at, she had seen his terrified face and knew that something was approaching from that side near her.

    Her eyes never landed on the creature. Instead, something yellow flashed across her vision with lightning speed.

    What was left of the glass in the driver side was ejected outward and the creature that was going to attack them was stabbed in the shoulder by something and was thrown back several meters.

    It was a kind of yellow-colored thorn.

    That thorn had sprouted from Stan''s hand, where it had opened a vise-like suction cup, and had passed just a few centimeters from Rum''s nose. All around the interior space of the car there was a yellow substance like a kind of fine sand swirling near where Stan had been.

    She swallowed and looked at her partner.

    What she found beside her filled her with a dread she had never felt before. Stan had disappeared. In his place now stood a hooded man wearing a ragged, old yellow cloak. How had it appeared? The cloak moved unnaturally, almost as if the cloth were alive. What had been Stan''s hand was now a black hand with elongated fingers and a yellow suction cup on the palm through which he had shot that thorn of at least thirty-five centimeters.

    Trembling, Rum looked up into the hood and there she found a face that looked like Stan''s, but completely black. A black like she had never seen before. Opaque, but with human features. It almost looked more like a kind of mask.

    The one that looked like Stan still had his hand up, but he quickly lowered it.

    ¡°Stay in here,¡± said a thick, dry voice that sounded little or nothing like Stan. It was him. But what was that transformation? She had never seen such a shape-shifting transformation before. Where had he gotten it from?

    There was something horrible about it. Something she couldn''t explain, but it terrified her.

    But at the same time he was still Stan.

    The new Stan after that order got out of the vehicle and that creature that he had repelled launched a new attack towards him, jumping over the car.

    Rum saw how Stan dodged it and how that mysterious fabric that seemed to have a life of its own moved with an incredible lightness around him. Stan, on the other hand, was moving strangely. He had dodged the creature. Then he had leaped into the air and with one kick sent it flying. He was agile, but the movements were much faster than normal Stan. Plus that yellow cloak should have been a hindrance to such movements.

    Another one of those creatures had approached from the side, but before it could reach him Stan lunged at it and raised another hand and a new yellow thorn shot out like a projectile straight at the creature''s head. The monster vanished in the air in wisps of black smoke, while the other one returned to the attack.

    Rum did not understand what was happening. Between the red-eyed monster''s fight and Stan''s fight against the creatures, she didn''t know which was stranger.

    Finally in a new attack the creature tried to strike him, but Stan raised both hands and shot two thorns from his hands that hit the target of the creature''s blade-like appendages and were ripped off and vanished. Then, as the attack continued, he took a leap into a nearby tree and sent the creature to the ground.

    He straddled the beast''s chest while with his hands he held those huge arms against the ground. Two thorns shot out of his hands and the arms were stuck to the ground as they were pierced from side to side. Stan then took the creature''s huge head and put it in front of his face.

    Rum, from her vantage point, could not see Stan''s face. The position of the hood covered his entire face and so she did not get to hear what he said. A voice, which seemed to have nothing to do with Stan''s, spoke to the creature while holding his head tightly.

    ¡°Why don''t you look at what''s in the heart of a black star?¡±

    From Rum''s vision she saw the creature struggle in a manner as if in pain. She didn''t know what Stan was doing to it, but it was holding its head tightly. The creature was debating madly, while it seemed to be suffering something that was impossible to describe.

    It was seeing something Rum could not. Perhaps something that no one should ever see.

    It struggled and struggled with maddening spasms until at one point it stopped. Then it disappeared into smoke. Only Stan was left in place and he slowly rose to his feet.

    He brought a hand to his hood and removed it.

    Her partner''s face had returned. Not black, but the slightly tanned color he always had. Rum was surprised to see that his face was not as sunken in as usual with those protruding cheekbones. Stan''s face looked tired and it was hard to breathe, but he looked much healthier. He looked back at the vehicle and his eyes met Rum''s.

    Several meters away, the red-eyed creature continued its fight against the remaining monsters, of which there were only two. One was caught in its claws and crushed to the ground, where it vanished, while the other tried to attack from behind. But the creature disappeared in a new windstorm and was located behind the monster. Rum didn''t get to see how it did it, but in less than a blink of an eye she saw the creature split into two halves that then vanished.

    There was none left.

    The red-eyed creature flapped its wings again as if they were vibrating and rose several meters above the ground.

    It was all over.

    However, the battle had taken its toll. Stan, exhausted and overwhelmed by the magnitude of his own strength, fell to the ground, unconscious. Rum got out of the car without worrying about being attacked by the red-eyed creature and ran to where Stan was.

    She was surprised to see how that kind of hooded cloak had begun to retract little by little. It didn''t take more than a few seconds to disappear completely. Rum could see that the fabric, although it had been externalized, was now hiding underneath the clothes Stan was wearing. The fine sand floating around had disappeared as mysteriously as it had arrived.

    His clothes were intact and there was no sign of where all that yellow cloth had gone.

    Rum knelt down and tried to hold him, while checking the vital signs of her friend and fellow adventurer for so many years.

    He was alive.

    Rum looked up.

    Above the trees that black creature with red eyes was taking flight.

    Almost as if it had been waiting for Rum to look at her, she felt those red eyes on her and Stan.

    Now that the other attacking creatures had disappeared, she didn''t know what to expect from all that had happened in just minutes.

    That monster finally looked away and disappeared from sight in a dark gale that violently rocked the surrounding trees.

    Rum didn''t know what exactly had just happened to Stan, but it was clear to her that the red-eyed thing had saved them from being eaten by the other creatures.

    Whatever it was, Rum looked at the broken down vehicle.

    She began to drag Stan towards the vehicle with effort. They would have to make a run for it if it still worked and change vehicles at the first opportunity.

    And then run away. Lest that thing change its mind and come back for them.

    Rum judged that they both had more than enough adventures between the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy.

    Just like that creature, it was time to take flight with the fortune they now had.

    ***

    Abandoned facilities of the former LHC Point 3, Crozet. France.

    No vehicles crossed the deserted road of Chem. de la Pi¨¨ce, wet by the soft drizzle.

    In the middle of the street, in front of some abandoned facilities and houses, there was no one at that moment.

    A bang was heard from the old manhole cover in the middle of the street. After the blow the cover slid a few centimeters and for a few seconds it remained still. After a few seconds of waiting, the lid came off completely and out of the hole emerged half of a pink head with green eyes that looked in all directions.

    When she was sure that no one would be there she finally emerged from the hole and put the lid back in place. She had made it. EVE had escaped by taking another path out of the old hadron accelerator.

    The air felt cold and thick, heavy with the weight of the battle she had just left. The young fey''s white armor reflected the pale light of the gray day, like a ghostly shadow amidst the darkness. Her breaths were rapid, but controlled, as her hands, covered by metal gloves shook off the dirt.

    The wind blew faintly, bringing with it the smell of damp earth and burnt metal, a mixture she recognized well. The smell of battle. Of the escape.

    She looked to the southeast where, barely five kilometers away, clouds and smoke columns could be seen. It was the place where the battle of Meyrin had taken place.

    But she had escaped. And even though she had escaped, she felt a strange feeling inside her. As if something was calling her in the northeast direction. There was something in that direction that bothered her but she couldn''t figure out what it was. She could only see the dark clouds that hid a horizon with a layer of fog that extended throughout that region.

    She was alone. Or at least, that''s what she wanted to think. She knew she could not trust herself. She knew that there were still traces of her pursuers, that the battle was not over. But now, in this small chink of silence, her mind was clear. She had to leave. Quickly. Without looking back.

    With a swift movement, she glanced down the road that stretched before her, scanning the empty streets like a maze.

    At that moment a wind picked up around her and she looked up.

    A small-sized craft was disabling an optical cloak and descending.

    She recognized the model. It was part of the fast craft marketed by BW Inc., the company owned by Benjamin Bloodworth.

    [I came to pick you up,] said a voice in her mind and it calmed her. It was a voice she knew.

    The self-crewed craft had descended to a position in the middle of the street.

    EVE took a deep breath. At that moment, although still wounded, she felt freer than ever. At last all that madness was over and she could go home.

    She clenched her fists in a threatening gesture and gave an evil grin.

    It was better that Benjamin had answers for her.

 Vol.5/Chapter 81: An Unexpected Battle/ Part Four

    Chapter 81

    An Unexpected Battle/ Part Four

    Decision

    Douvaine, France.

    Your freedom. Those had been Azusa''s words.

    Mai still didn''t understand what she meant by it, let alone what she had just said, that the one she was supposed to face had just appeared.

    But she did not have time to inquire much more.

    The next moment several of the monitors began to display alerts.

    Something was happening in Lugrin.

    The controllers and technicians in front of the holo monitors did not understand in the first few seconds. The reports, coming from the main control point where the investigation of the plane crash was being carried out, could not have been stranger. But almost immediately the images began to arrive, showing the magnitude of the problem.

    In those images, a giant sphere was seen, as if it were an eye floating over the lake. As well as the attack of the creatures that materialized on the shore, and the fight that was taking place between SID personnel and the soldiers trying to get rid of those creatures.

    Neither Mai, nor Carissia, knew what Rein and the others were doing in that place, but they seemed to be one of the main supports in that fight that seemed more than unequal at that moment.

    That''s what I meant, Azusa said.

    ¡°I don''t understand. What is the meaning of this?! It is somekind of space distortion?¡±

    That''s a space distortion. It happened because of the plane. Bringing something that large from another time has resulted in distortions in the fabric of reality accumulating over that point. It is different from other anomalies, such as evanescent islands or teleportation tunnels.

    ¡°That... are they fractus?¡±

    They aren''t. But it doesn''t mean that makes those things any less dangerous.

    ¡°What are they?¡±

    The easiest example I could give you right now is. They''re ants.

    ¡°Ants?¡±

    Ants are small and you wouldn''t judge them to be dangerous, would you?

    ¡°Those don''t look like ants,¡± Mai said, as she looked at the pictures. Carissia at her side had put a hand on her shoulder and was trying to get her to react, but Mai was barely listening to her.

    Then, imagine what can come out of there if it remains open, Azusa continued.

    ¡°Can I close it?¡±

    You still can. But you have to do it now. If you don''t, everything that has been built up over so long will be for nothing.

    ¡°Built? Who has built what?¡±

    You. Us. The entire civilizations that have been treading on this planet since almost its birth. This distortion is different. If it is not closed soon this place, in millions of kilometers, will be a new void in space. Or maybe something worse.

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    This... is what happened to my race before we arrived on this planet. That''s the only thing I can tell you about it without compromising reality. The rest you''ll have to find out for yourself.

    Mai swallowed. ¡°What do I have to do?¡±

    The same as always. But it will be different this time.

    ¡°Why?¡±

    Azusa''s voice relaxed. Because this is the last time you will hear my voice. This is the moment where we part. But I will leave my body to you. That way you will never be separated from my body, which from now on will be part of you and yours alone until the end of your days. Or until you decide to give the bow to someone who will inherit the ability.

    Mai knew it was useless to ask but, with a bitter expression, she asked. She wanted to hear it from her even though she sensed the answer. ¡°Why last time?¡±

    It takes a very different level of energy than the one you used when you met me. I must go through my process of what you call death.

    Mai dropped her shoulders.

    She knew. Azusa wasn''t one to make jokes. If it was dangerous enough to destroy all existence then it must be so. She had no reason to distrust Azusa. How many times had she used the bow and always told the truth? She had many questions, but from what Azusa said there were some things she could not say. It had always been that way. Revealing very little.

    Mai pursed her lips to keep from biting her tongue at the questions she felt like asking.

    While there were things she had never told her, it had always been so as not to jeopardize the future.

    Azusa had told her that she could see the future to a certain extent and had revealed many secrets to Mai. Secrets that Mai could not reveal, and one of them was the reason why she had not wanted to reveal about that alien entity that they had found in Kolsay and that had escaped into space.

    Some things were too terrible for the world to be accepted yet, no matter how open it had become to the fantastic in the last hundred years. However, Mai knew that Azusa''s vision of the future was limited from her point of view.

    As calculating as Azusa seemed, Mai always knew from the day she had accepted her that she was someone who had seen much in her lifetime as an observer of existence on Earth. Her understanding of existence and life was different.

    Azusa in her case was much more realistic. She knew what was at stake from the beginning. Since that day she had saved her and helped to end the war. And now, in the same way, Azusa was asking to Mai help to save the world through Mai, even if it meant her own death.

    There was no time for emotions or anything like that. She could not delay.

    Mai made the decision and let the words out in a soft but determined voice. ¡°I will do it.¡±

    As reports continued to come in, Mai headed for the door. At that moment Carissia stopped her.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡±

    ¡°It''s an anomaly. I have Azusa to close it,¡± Mai said with a sad gesture.

    I have the bow, Mai thought. Was it too much of a coincidence that the Council had sent Azusa to her through Lizbeth? No, it couldn''t be after all. They knew something after all.

    The same idea had crossed Carissia''s mind in the last few seconds.

    Carissia in many ways was one of those who had been closest to Mai for decades, but she knew what was about to happen. Even though she couldn''t hear the whole dialogue, but the words that had come out of Mai''s mouth were more than enough for her aeon brain. On the other hand, Lugrin''s images spoke for themselves on the projections.

    Anomalies in the fabric of reality tended to take spherical form. That portal was the shadow of a higher dimension in a three-dimensional space.

    ¡°Mai, you shouldn''t go out yet, we should wait for more information. We don''t know what''s out there,¡± Carissia insisted, her voice laden with anguish. Her blue eyes settled on Mai, ¡°We can''t risk it yet.¡±

    Mai, however, was adamant. With unwavering calm, she approached Carissia. ¡°Don''t worry, I''ll be back soon. I need to do this,¡± Mai told her, her voice ringing with a certainty that almost surprised herself. ¡°Stay here and take care of sending reinforcements while I''m gone, I''m handing over command to you as my second here.¡±

    Carissia wanted to say something but knew that last had been an order. She felt a sense of sadness that she could not express. She didn''t want to let her go but that was an order. In that situation she could not refuse no matter how much she wanted to accompany her to the battlefield.

    Mai took a step forward with a last glance at Carissia, who was looking at her with a mixture of sadness and at the same time determination. As she opened the trailer door, the cool morning air and fine rain enveloped her, bringing with it a whisper of promise and danger.

    The FRT soldiers and personnel outside were just learning of the situation and were surprised to see Mai''s face as she stood in the grass away from everyone.

    ¡°Equip clothes,¡± she ordered to her turtle backpack. And then the clothes she had been wearing seemed to reconfigure. She was now wearing a top with light armor covering her chest. At the same time a new pair of boots and tight pants with protections appeared. Her hands were covered with tactical archery gloves.

    She extended one arm and in just about ten seconds a black bow had appeared in her hand. A green halo covered Mai''s body and her dark hair turned silver. Her skin acquired a very tanned tone, at the same time those bioluminescent patterns appeared on parts of her skin.

    I''m with you, let''s fly, whispered Azusa, her voice echoing deep in Mai''s soul.

    To everyone''s surprise Mai began to soar through the skies. Two pairs of wings had appeared on her back and another pair on the lower area, just as the moth-like antennae appeared on her head.

    They were moving in a northeasterly direction, towards Lugrin.

    At that instant, as they reached over three thousand meters, the world around Mai seemed to change.

    The shadows dissolved, and a crystal space expanded around her.

    ¡°What is this?¡± Mai asked.

    We need some help, Azusa said in a solemn voice, and they rose even higher into the sky.

    ¡°What kind of help?¡±

    One you know well.

    Mai felt her heart burn and made a face like she was in pain.

    Just a moment, little one, Azusa tried to soothe her.

    Mai watched as a crystal sphere began to appear around her. And then other crystallizations around her grew until they filled everything she could see. She couldn''t see more than that crystal place in all directions.

    ¡°What is this?

    I need to extend my form to contact help. It''s only an instant.

    As Azusa manifested in her physical form in the world, something began to flow through Azusa to Mai.

    They were memories.

    The energy of those memories crystallized in Azusa was overwhelming, spanning periods of time that the human mind was not made for, and Mai felt small despite having lived for over two centuries. But before she could process what was happening, Azusa enveloped her further in her memories, carrying her with indescribable strength.

    It wasn''t more than a few seconds, but it had seemed to her that she had seen images of herself in those memories. A tall building and her near a window as everything collapsed around her. She had thought she had seen Lizbeth''s face as well as Shin''s. But that was fleeting and the flood of images continued.

    For some reason Mai felt that these were not just images. It had happened at some point. But as soon as she inquired about it her questions stopped.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    It is done. I will now attach my body permanently to your core, Azusa told her.

    Mai took a breath and prepared herself.

    Mai felt a pang in her chest as she watched those crystalline structures disappearing. More than disappearing, it was as if they became small and were attracted to Mai herself. Although Mai felt a pain in her chest, she was also flooded with a sense of warmth and oneness.

    At that moment, Mai understood. By joining her core, Azusa had not only placed her power in her, she had also secured her legacy. A part of Azusa would live eternally within her, an echo of her essence that could never be stripped away.

    No one could take the bow, the representation of their union, from her ever again.

    After the war, the Council and many governments were interested in studying the bow, but they had to content themselves only with studying that earring. A simple precious stone that did not seem very different from other jewels. Only Mai could listen to Azusa and invoke her. Or rather, it was Azusa who decided if she wanted to talk to someone and make herself heard. And that had only happened with a handful of people.

    The interested parties had to be satisfied that Mai was the only one who could close those distortions in the world and nothing else. They tried to contain Azusa by seeing her as a weapon, but the truth was that they had never been able to get much information out of her. Even when they had tried to copy the bow using fractus material, but those prototypes and copies were only marginally effective compared to Azusa.

    This was Azusa''s last prank on the governments. If she had to leave at least she was making sure that her body in form of weapon would not be separated from Mai.

    Mai could feel as if something was being written inside her. Although she could not see it, she knew it was her core reacting to the operation Azusa was carrying out inside her.

    Mai found herself immersed in a flood of memories, images of Azusa that kept flowing through her.

    Many more memories than she had seen on that day when Mai had first met her. She saw the life of her companion, the joys and sorrows she had borne over the millions of years. Memories of places she had seen, of creatures she had encountered, and of moments of horror yet beauty that seemed so far away in time.

    ¡°So long,¡± Mai let out, feeling a tear welling up in her eyes. So many had died and Azusa could only intervene ephemerally. With each intervention she would have caused far more trouble than she could fix. That was the price of knowing both the effects of the future and how those effects led to the causes in the past.

    From people''s point of view it might have seemed that Azusa had committed millions of crimes by letting people die in the past. But Azusa''s understanding was different to begin with. She could not be judged by the parameters of ordinary people. And even if her sense of understanding was different, she had done her best to integrate into the world and carry a destiny through millions of years, even though she had known since her rebirth the certainty of the day she would die.

    Despite the pain, Azusa responded to her concerns through connection. No more words or concepts or images were needed. Azusa''s memories were the ones that spoke for themselves and, at the same time, the emotions flowing from Mai were the ones Azusa had always known. That small fey, but one that could hold so much value within her.

    ¡°Life is a cycle, and each of us plays a part in that cycle.¡±

    As Azusa''s memories continued to flow, Mai understood that her friend had lived to preserve the beauty of life, whatever form that life took, even in the darkest of times. Even if she could not fully intervene.

    The transfer was over. The dark sky was visible again. No more memories.

    Suddenly, the sounds of battle reached her in the distance.

    With determination, Mai flapped her wings and launched herself into the battlefield across the skies, ready to fight, not only for herself, but also for Azusa and that future she always wished to protect, for the beauty of that pale dot floating in the cosmos that had been her home for millions of years.

    ***

    Minutes before

    Lizbeth paled.

    She had seen Shin hurt countless times over the years. Being stabbed, shot, blown up, burned, electrocuted, eviscerated, decapitated and even once accidentally poisoned by a meal she had prepared. It might seem that he was invincible, but if he was taken by surprise it was his only weakness. All those experiences had been etched in Lizbeth''s retina when she had been with him. And, even though Shin could regenerate, she could not deny that she did not want to see those scenes again, and yet they were now continuing in a dangerous job as before they separated.

    But whenever he had been injured, the blood never spilled from his body. On the contrary, when a wound opened up and, unless it was very serious, Shin''s body regenerated instantly.

    Therefore, she could not help but be surprised when she saw a drop of blood just flowing down from Shin''s left eye, as if it were a crimson tear.

    ¡°What''s wrong?¡± Shin asked, seeing Lizbeth''s startled face.

    ¡°You''re bleeding...¡± she said and moved to take a closer look. Maybe it was her impression, but it seemed to her that Shin''s yellow eye had taken on a slightly more golden hue and seemed to glow a little.

    ¡°What?¡± Shin asked and ran his hand over his face. He didn''t believe it, but there on his hand he saw that red spot, resulting from the blood in his eye. That blood didn''t last more than a few seconds until it clotted, dried at rapid speed and then disappeared as if it had turned to dust in the air.

    ¡°Let me look at you,¡± Lizbeth said, cupping his face.

    He was no longer bleeding. Whatever it had been seemed to have stopped, but on the contrary the eye still had a gleam in it. And it seemed to be increasing.

    Shin blinked in annoyance. He was now feeling a slight irritation in his eye.

    ¡°What''s in my eye?¡± he asked and rubbed it.

    It was as if something had gotten into it. But what struck him most was that he felt a strange sensation towards the northeast. He had a need to look in that direction. A part of his body was telling him that something was happening. He couldn''t explain it, but every part of his being told him that something was there. And almost at the moment he had started to feel that sensation was when his eye had started to bother him.

    Ryuuji was waving an arm towards Lizbeth and Shin, but both of them weren''t looking at him. He was calling their attention to indicate that whatever was going on with Natsuki, since they had left the elevator she was visible and was now being attended to by the medics as well as Oxy. They had covered Natuski''s eyes because she was complaining that they were burning a lot, even with her eyelids closed.

    Granger and Jade were informing themselves of the situation in the other points, at the same time that they were giving reports to the GSN, about the situation.

    That all this had happened in barely an hour was incredible, although the work that was to come in the next few days would not be far behind either.

    But that darkness. That darkness of the clouds, even though it should be more than bright enough by now to be morning, bothered them. There was something wrong there.

    And as if it were an omen, the unexpected happened.

    It appeared from the northeast.

    ¡°What the hell?¡± asked Granger, with Jade at his side. Both had their eyes fixed on the sky. But it was the same with everyone. Mercenaries, Swiss and French army soldiers, aeons, doctors and feys. Even Philip and Zi, still standing back where they had been offering support with their sniper rifles, were now looking skyward.

    Lizbeth released Shin''s face and, seeing her face looking up at the sky, he turned around and did the same. He opened his eyes in surprise and so did Lizbeth.

    They both knew what it was about.

    ¡°Azusa...¡± they muttered in unison.

    The entity in Mai''s earring. The bow, but with her real form. It had manifested in the dark sky with a color ranging between shades of green, turquoise and blue.

    It was gigantic in size and floated somewhat hidden by clouds and fog. It must have measured several kilometers in a north-south direction. The central part was almost hidden, but the wings were visible and still, even though they had a movement around themselves, forming a spiral pattern.

    Lizbeth knew it from how Mai had described it to her and even drawn it, but Mai was the only one who knew the shape. Or so Lizbeth thought. She was unaware of the memories Shin had retrieved, even though she knew that Mai had also described Azusa''s form to Shin.

    ¡°What''s going on?¡± Lizbeth asked and felt a chill down her spine. She had seen Mai manifest the bow countless times, but Azusa had never appeared in that form.

    Shin, on the other hand, now that he had his memories back, had no doubt. That was Azusa.

    ¡°Why did she appear?¡± he asked. From the location of the central part Shin had no doubt that it had Dovaine as its center, several kilometers away. The place where Mai was with the command center.

    Can you hear me, old friend?

    Shin was surprised by the sudden presence that had just appeared in his mind. It spoke to him in a direct way, showing itself through images, but forming a dialogue that could be understood.

    The echo of the battle around him still resounded in the air, but for Shin, the turmoil of his surroundings faded away. His attention was focused on something beyond the physical, a mental whisper that pierced the distance.

    It was Azusa, manifesting in the sky, but speaking directly to him. The image of Azusa and her voice filled him with a mixture of awe and fear. He had too many questions for her.

    Shin, Azusa''s voice echoed in his mind, clear and powerful. Come here. You must do it now. Mai needs you.

    ¡°What?¡± A shiver ran down Shin''s back at those words. ¡°What do you mean?! What''s going on?!¡±

    Take good care of them, Wanderer of the Planes. It was a pleasure to meet you. Now move! That was a more relaxed tone, but it didn''t calm Shin down.

    Wanderer.

    Shin had heard those same words only a few days ago from another entity that had spoken directly into his mind. Rayana Ivraeva.

    Lizbeth at his side looked upset about something. Shin looked at her and she too had her eyes fixed on the sky.

    After a few seconds the huge presence in the sky disappeared. It was as if that shape had contracted to some point in the northwest sky. As if it had never been there to begin with. Shin remembered that Azusa''s size could be enormous even though it had almost no mass. In a different spatial dimension, size was a different thing and things could be made incredibly small or huge regardless of mass.

    Come here. That had been the order. The here was that point where it had disappeared? That must be more than sixteen kilometers at least, Shin judged. What had happened? Take good care of them. What kind of message was that? Was a pleasure to meet you? That sounded like a goodbye.

    The voice had disappeared too. Shin turned to Lizbeth, who was still staring at the sky. ¡°Did she say something to you too?¡±

    Lizbeth nodded worriedly. ¡°She told me: take care of them and goodbye.¡±

    They both looked at each other. ¡°Did she say anything else?¡± Shin asked.

    Lizbeth hesitated. ¡°What does it all mean?¡± Having said that, she immediately tried to communicate with Mai. But her Neurowire seemed to be disconnected at the moment. How could that be possible at a time when they most needed to know she was okay?

    She tried Carissia. Lizbeth was silent for a few seconds, during the Neurowire conversation with the redhead, but from the look on Shin''s face she judged that this was not good news.

    ¡°Mai just left the command center...¡± Lizbeth said in a whisper.

    ¡°What happened?!¡±

    ¡°Carissia says she seemed to be talking to Azusa about something and she came out and started soaring in the sky.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I don''t understand it either, but reports are coming into the CoC that something is going on in Lugrin. There''s some kind of creature attack and a sphere just appeared in the sky. Carissia says it''s a space distortion and that Mai is going to use Azusa to shut it down. She says Azusa said something that seemed to upset Mai.¡±

    Shin looked to the northwest again. Lugrin. That feeling he felt was not because of Azusa perhaps, but something that was happening at the spot where the plane disaster had occurred.

    Shin did not want to wait. A sphere had just appeared in the sky. Couldn''t that be a continuation of what had happened in 2012? How could that be possible and how much did Azusa know about it?

    Azusa''s final words ran through Shin like an electric current. Although the battle he had been fighting had come to an end, his heart was now pounding with urgency. Something very serious could be going on. The thought that Mai might be in danger filled him with instant concern. He couldn''t just stand there, watching from a distance. He needed to head in that direction.

    With a determined move, he turned to Lizbeth, the other woman in his life, with whom he had shared so many experiences, both pain and joy. She looked at him with a mixture of concern and understanding, knowing what they should do. Lizbeth had always been a pillar of strength, and at that moment, her presence was a comfort.

    ¡°I''m going over there,¡± Shin said, his voice steady. ¡°Mai needs me now. I don''t know exactly what''s going on, but I can''t ignore it.¡±

    Lizbeth nodded. ¡°I know. Let''s go together.¡±

    Shin shook his head. ¡°I''ll go faster by myself.¡±

    ¡°That''s not going to happen.¡± She said taking his hand and catching him before he started to walk away, where was he planning to go? Take a ship and fly there by himself? The backpack team''s autonomous flight equipment wasn''t fast enough to cover that distance in minutes either.

    ¡°Did Azusa tell you to go?¡± asked Shin.

    ¡°No, but-.¡±

    Shin declined and gave her a kiss on the forehead trying to calm her down. ¡°Stay here, it''ll be faster. Whatever''s going on I''m going to bring her back.¡±

    Lizbeth didn''t seem to understand what was going on, but Shin slowly pulled away letting go of her hand.

    ¡°How are you going to go?¡±

    ¡°There are some things I didn''t tell about what happened while I was regenerating.¡±

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    Shin closed his eyes for a moment, feeling that black particle energy bubbling up inside him, as if the wind itself was inviting him to rise up.

    ¡°I''m going to protect her,¡± he said and turned his back to Lizbeth. ¡°You can catch up with us later.¡±

    With an impulse that seemed to come from the very depths of his being, Shin opened his arms and, to Lizbeth''s surprise, and rose from the ground enveloped in a cloud of particles that propelled him skyward, while the mask of the armor covered his face. The air currents surrounded him, carrying him skyward, and soon he found himself flying, soaring through the dark sky with astonishing ease. It was a liberating feeling, but in his heart there was only one mission at that moment: to reach Mai.

    As he flew away, he looked back and saw Lizbeth, small in the distance on that battlefield. She was overwhelmed, she didn''t seem to understand, and Shin felt his heart clench. He only hoped that there would be time to tell all the stories and that the three of them would do it together. No. Rather, all four of them. Kotori too after all.

    He had loved them. He had lost them. Time had reset and found them again. He could not allow anything to happen to them once again.

    As he ascended, the landscape spread out below him like a picture of life itself: dark forests, meandering rivers, and hills rising toward the horizon. The cold, damp air surrounded him, filling him with foreboding as he flew.

    I must get to her, he thought and shot off in the direction Azusa had disappeared. He just hoped he could handle the deceleration just right.

 Vol.5/Chapter 82: An Unexpected Battle/ Final Part

    Chapter 82

    An Unexpected Battle/ Final Part

    In Another Time and Place

    Lugrin, Lake Lemac. France.

    The cold, biting wind whipped at Mai''s face, as she flew through the air, approaching the vast lake.

    The waters, normally calm, were agitated by the violent airstreams that preceded the storm that lashed the sky. In the distance, the sphere hovered suspended like the eye of a giant, looking in all directions, water, land and air, like a sinister presence waiting for the right moment to strike. On the surface of the water, the waves began to break, as if something invisible was pushing them.

    From her height as she approached over the eight hundred meters of Lugrin, Mai watched in horror the chaos unfolding on the land at the shores of the lake. The battle that had begun just minutes before was reaching its climax, but the worst was yet to come if she didn''t hurry.

    She could see the lightning bolts on the ground from Thor''s strikes, as well as the blasts of lightning coming out of the clouds from Rein''s attacks. It was a good strategy, since Rein could handle herself better from the air, while Thor had always concentrated more on contact techniques and ground discharges were his specialty, creating shockwaves that blew away all creatures that tried to approach.

    Because of the fog she could barely see in the distance, but she thought she could make out a thin line moving at high speed a little further to the shore in the east and that must be Noki. She knew that Mii was also around, but perhaps she was in the area closer to the trees and therefore Mai could not see where she was.

    The soldiers'' gunfire created beams of light that flickered. She didn''t know how many casualties there would have been, but it could have been a worse disaster if Rein and the others hadn''t been there at the right time. She could only hope that if there were casualties it was that everyone present had a copy that could summon consciousness in the event of death.

    A buzzing sound was heard and Mai concentrated on the sphere. That thing was completely different from other anomalies. It indeed looked like an eye with a black sclera and a yellow pupil.

    The sphere, as if awakened by her presence, began to move slowly. First there was an imperceptible tremor in the air, then a distortion in the form of new thick discharges of black smoke all around. It reminded Mai of a sun, but emitting a coronary mass of black plasma. Something inside the sphere came to life in that yellow pupil that observed everything. And just as Mai focused her gaze on it, a ring of black smoke began to form, expanding at great speed from the core of the sphere, a dark vortex taking shape as it grew in the direction of where Mai was standing.

    The wisps spread into the atmosphere, transforming into amorphous humanoid beings that emerged from the smoke. They were fluctuating shadows of dark color, ghostly figures that from a distance writhed, faceless and without defined outline, but still seemed full of a dark essence and alien to the known world.

    That discharge had been directed in her direction, as if it had a will. Creatures emerged from the ring, their bodies part ethereal yet part dense, their presence palpable, as if the very laws of nature were being broken. They were completely different from those that moved on the ground, for they moved through the air as if they were in their element.

    They looked like corpses that had had their lower parts removed and were composed of that black smoke. Ghosts, Mai thought. They were ghosts of a black color.

    Mai swallowed hard, a knot in her stomach. It wasn''t just the sphere that terrified her, it was what it meant.

    Ants. To Azusa those things were just ants.

    Mai, focus. Azusa''s voice echoed in mind, calm but with a palpable urgency. Everything depends on you now.

    With an effort, Mai pushed away the fear and fixed her gaze on the center of the sphere. Standing suspended in the air, she lifted her bow in a fluid, calculated motion, every muscle in her body tensing in rhythm with the wind. She had stopped moving her wings but was relying on the turtle backpack system to keep her floating in the air. Azusa would no longer be able to hold her.

    The plan was simple: shoot the arrow directly into the heart of the sphere. A single shot and everything would be solved. At least, that was what Azusa had said and what Mai had always done. But what she saw before her was much more complicated.

    The creatures, like specters, began to glide toward her. She would not have time. As they advanced, the air around them seemed to grow thicker, as if space itself was twisting in their wake. There was no longer time for hesitation. She had to act.

    But then, the sphere reacted. As if it had sensed her presence, as if a dark consciousness had awakened, a ring of black mist began to form from its core, rapidly spiraling around the surface and then spreading out across the place. And from there, more of those creatures formed in the air.

    Watch out! Azusa exclaimed, but the warning came too late.

    Mai was thrown by a sudden gust of wind that caused her to lose her balance.

    Two French air fighters had just passed close to her and were heading for the sphere. Those ships must have been reinforcements and beyond she could see four others that were firing barrages at those ring formations as they danced far enough away from the sphere. Making sure that those new enemies did not reach them.

    The creatures began to hurl themselves at Mai. A high pitched whirring sound filled the air, as one of them, in the form of a light mass first, condensed into something more solid in the air and crashed into her small body.

    Upon impact, the creature tried to grab her with its long-fingered hands. Mai, now that she was facing it, looked to her like some kind of mummy whose bandages had been removed. A slightly humanoid form with parched skin and no eyes. Its mouth had only appeared when it approached her. She used the bow to block the creature and pulled off that part of it that was more solid. The impact knocked Mai back in the air, briefly losing control, but she regained stability instantly. It was not enough. She could not lose control at that moment.

    With a thought Mai made sharp blades appear on the outer parts of the bow''s body. The blades were almost transparent and of a green color, but when they touched the creature they sliced it and the part that was more consistent melted into that black smoke.

    ¡°BPR-14!¡± Mai shouted.

    Mai held the bow tightly in her left hand, but in her right hand appeared a plasma rifle summoned from her turtle backpack. She had seen from the transmissions and the battle on the ground that those seemed to be the weapons that worked. She didn''t know what effect they could have on those creatures that had such a strange consistency but it was better than nothing. It was true that plasma could indeed be found in what was called ghostly manifestations, but she could not say with certainty that it was the same with those creatures.

    When shooting the first one that had approached Mai could see that the shot was as if it absorbed the creature inside and then dissolved. She could take out a few of them with a single shot, but those creatures were different from the surface ones. Much weaker, but they countered that by sheer numbers.

    They were a swarm and it was a matter of seconds or a minute before they completely overwhelmed Mai.

    From their elevated position a black spot passed close to Mai, a figure that had approached rapidly, streaking through the air with the force of a comet. It had struck down with its entrance a torrent of those creatures that scattered in confusion at the strange entrance. The onslaught came to a screeching halt a hundred meters away from Mai.

    Black armor she knew well.

    Help is here, Azusa said, her tone relieved.

    ¡°Shin?¡± Mai asked. He was the help? How had he arrived so quickly?

    Beyond the questions Mai had, it was Shin''s movements that surprised her. He was in his armor, but surrounded by that cloud of particles around him. Shin then launched another attack in her direction.

    ¡°Are you okay?!¡± Was what he asked when he passed by her with lightning speed. What were those movements? He was darting like a cannonball at those creatures, but he seemed to have trouble stopping in mid-air to change direction. It almost gave her the feeling that he was sliding through the air. That couldn''t be because of the backpack''s autonomous flight system. It felt different and the armor was much denser.

    ¡°I''m... fine.¡± Mai let out without stopping firing, not quite understanding what had happened to him.

    Shin on the other hand had realized something. During his flight towards the place he had felt more and more pain in his eye. It was as if it was stinging and at the same time burning, as if someone had peppered it. But the curious thing was that it was only in his left eye. The eye that had no vision was fine, even though it was useless in that situation.

    From a distance he had seen the sphere and for some reason he felt a dread within himself that he could not explain. He was afraid to look at it, but at the same time he could not shake off a sense of familiarity. Had he seen it before? It was not like what he had witnessed with Azusa. It was different. In those memories of an erased time he had not felt terror or anything like that. Just the feeling of being in front of an anomaly. At that time he had felt almost hope when he had thrown himself out of the plane.

    The opposite of what was in front of him.

    That thing might have a simple shape, but it terrified him for some reason.

    Could it be that it was something he had seen prior to his arrival on earth and his body remembered it even though he had no memory of it?

    Whatever it was, he did not have the luxury at that moment to ask himself questions about that thing. He only knew that Mai was with her bow on a mission to close that distortion. And for that he had to buy the necessary seconds for her to be able to shoot. He had seen the lightning from the sky and the fight on the surface from the corner of his eye, but he had recognized those discharges. He didn''t know when, or why, but Rein was there with Thor.

    Shin pounced on the creatures with the ferocity of a predator. With his onslaught he drew almost a ring around Mai cutting through the creatures that seemed to become more physical before him. Then those that tried to attack him disintegrated on contact, bursting into smoke and dark particles, as if the black metal of his armor was capable of coagulating first and then dissolving any vestige of darkness. The creatures, confused, momentarily dispersed at his appearance.

    But the attack was unstoppable. More and more wisps of smoke billowed from the ring, and the creatures began to surround them both, lashing out with seemingly endless speed. The air was now a chaos of shadows, flashes of light and electricity. At that moment, the sky lit up with a burst of lightning from the clouds that traced a circle around Mai and Shin.

    Rein had reached them.

    ¡°''Dad!¡± shouted Rein heading towards Shin. ¡°I''ll cover this side. You take the other!¡±

    Shin looked sideways at Rein and nodded. He knew Rein could predict what was going on and they had been waiting for the moment for Mai to arrive. It was lucky she had her bow at the moment she needed it.

    Rein''s figure gave off electricity from her body, and with a sweeping gesture of her hands and waving her tail, an electrical discharge swept through the air, striking the approaching creatures. The smoke rings began to burn, as if the electricity itself was burning them. Each bolt of lightning pierced the air, disintegrating the shadows before they could get any closer.

    ¡°Mai! If you''re going to shoot, this is the time!¡± the voice of Rein came urgently, cutting through the noise of battle.

    Mai, without hesitation, dropped the plasma rifle that disappeared from her hand and raised the bow steadily.

    She had been practicing over the years and now the arrow took no more than half a second to materialize from between her fingers. She aligned the arrow towards its target with the center of the sphere, which still hovered motionless. The wind was blowing hard, shaking her braid, but she did not hesitate. Creatures were dissolving around her with Rein and Shin''s combined attacks, but more kept emerging, and the clock was ticking. She could not fail.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

    This is goodbye then, Mai thought.

    Yes, little one, replied Azusa. Now get ready.

    Mai suddenly felt her chest burning. It was the same feeling as when she had met Azusa, but different at the same time.

    Before her eyes she saw how the arrow in the bow grew. It had reached a length of about five meters in less than a second.

    It has to be a different arrow. This is not like other times, Azusa told her and the arrow still grew about two more meters. Mai couldn''t ask questions but that was no longer an arrow, it was as if she was shooting a thin spear from her bow.

    With a deep sigh, she drew the bowstring taut. The arrow shone with a light of its own, absorbing the energy Azusa released through Mai. The lightning from the clouds sizzling around them seemed to make it glow even brighter.

    Mai looked up at the target, focusing all her concentration. With a gasp, she tightened her grip on the arrow, aiming it at the sphere with the strength of her whole being, of all her hope.

    The air instantly became tense and, for a brief moment, everything seemed to stop.

    Mai felt time stretch as, with a shuddering breath, she released the arrow. The air around her seemed to have stopped. The bowstring vibrated briefly in her hands, and for a second, the world seemed to succumb to an absolute frozen silence.

    Mai''s mind went blank and her whole mind was invaded by a space of crystals that stretched to infinity.

    It was the final farewell. A moment of time dilating inside her mind for Azusa.

    ¡°I won''t see you again, right? There''s no way?¡± Mai asked.

    The voice echoed in that crystal space. ¡°You can always see me again. I am in your memories now and inside your body you will always have a part of me.¡±

    Mai nodded inwardly.

    ¡°Thank you for giving me a purpose, little one.¡± Mai felt the voice lose pitch, as if that arrow was pulling Azusa away from Mai, but the voice continued. ¡°Be free of the chains that bound you these past one hundred and twenty years. Let yourself be happy for once. You never committed any crime. You simply made the decision that the world needed most, even though it was not what everyone wanted.¡±

    Mai gave a weak smile and nodded. As she felt a memory of something distant pop into her mind. The memory of a week stopped in year five of the new era, but which to the occult world had gone by another name.

    Mai lifted her face and looked at the infinite landscape. ¡°Can''t you tell me what this is about?¡±

    ¡°In this space inside your mind I could. But I don''t want to.¡±

    ¡°Even if the same thing happens in the future?¡±

    ¡°It won''t happen. Not here. This is an enemy you can face, but a war no one can win. The scales are very different.¡±

    ¡°Do what you can, with the tools you got...in the time you have.¡±

    ¡°Exactly.¡±

    ¡°Not even a clue?¡±

    ¡°You already have all the clues. Just know that it''s going to be all right and whatever has to happen, will happen.¡±

    ¡°Can I ask you one last favor?¡±

    Azusa took a few seconds to answer. That was not in her memories of the future. It must have been small details that had escaped her. As her body grew older Azusa had been able to see that certain parts of her memories had not appeared in her past. Although that could well be an effect of the age she carried in her body. In biological and terrestrial terms her age was an abyss impossible to comprehend.

    But she still answered. ¡°You can.¡±

    ¡°You never showed me your true form. The one you had before this one. The form you were born with.¡±

    ¡°You won''t find it pleasing. That''s why I never showed it to you.¡±

    Mai denied with a quiet gesture. ¡°I want to see you, if only for the first and last time.¡±

    In that space Mai saw how in front of her a form began to materialize and gradually took a more physical form.

    Mai looked at the form in front of her. It was much taller, at least more than three meters high. Maybe that was the reason why Azusa had always called her little.

    It had a head with three green eyes. Under those eyes it had thin tentacles that moved with slow movements, and on top of the head it had a series of four thin extremities almost like a kind of antennae. The head ended in a very elongated neck. It had two elongated appendages on its side that ended in pincers. Behind the head a fourth appendage ended in four trumpet-like mouths. The four limbs had a great freedom of movement and Mai did not know exactly how the inner anatomy of those appendages could move like that. Those four upper parts were joined to a conical body that widened towards the lower part.

    The presence could have terrified anyone who encountered it. But Mai at the sight simply smiled.

    ¡°So this is what you look like.¡±

    ¡°I left this form when I became an entity between two dimesions, but yes. This is the form I was born with on this planet. Although my race had another form before I came to earth, I was born here. This is the real me.¡±

    Mai smiled at her and then extended her arm with her hand clenched into a fist.

    ¡°What?¡± Azusa asked in confusion. She hadn''t seen that in her memories. It was simply something that had escaped her memories. In the big picture, it might not mean much, but to both of them there at that moment it meant the bond that had united them.

    ¡°You know what this means, don''t you?¡± Mai asked.

    Azusa raised one of her pincers and closed it and touched Mai''s fist. ¡°Always so demonstrative,¡± Azusa said with a gesture that sounded almost as if she was sighing.

    ¡°Thank you for everything, my friend.¡±

    She understood the gesture. She had seen it throughout history and Mai had made that gesture many times with her classmates when she was half human half fey and later with friends, also with Shin in the last few months, when they were on a mission. A simple gesture that could be interpreted in many ways depending on the context. A greeting, a farewell, but at the same time a gesture that could go beyond that. Yes, Azusa understood. At that moment it could mean many things. A goodbye, good job or maybe a thank you, or even all of those at the same time.

    Just as Mai had said. Thank you for standing by my side. Thank you for saving the world. Thank you for being a friend. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for everything.

    Azusa understood. But a part of her felt guilty too. After all, she had watched her suffer until the time was right.

    In the context of her purpose she could understand it, but that didn''t mean it didn''t hurt. Yet there was that girl smiling at her and thanking her.

    Azusa blinked and slowly pulled her pincer away from Mai''s fist.

    ¡°Goodbye, old friend,¡± Mai said feeling a deep sorrow in her chest.

    ¡°Goodbye, little one,¡± Azusa whispered in her mind. ¡°Be happy, despite the problems don''t deny yourself that. Share everything you have, with as many as you want. I wish you the best. Now let the arrow reach its destination. So you can save the boy.¡±

    ¡°Eh? What boy?¡± Mai looked at Azusa quizzically and at that moment it struck her that Azusa was smiling. She couldn''t see a smile as such, but the three pairs of eyelids looked relaxed.

    ¡°Tell Shin one last message.¡±

    ¡°Wait, what boy are you talking about?¡±

    ¡°Tell him: He''s not dead.¡±

    ¡°Wait, Azusa!¡±

    Mai tried to reach for her but at that moment Azusa''s figure and all the white space began to fade. The last image Mai saw was how those eyes had closed and, although she couldn''t say for sure, it seemed to her that they were expressing a deep peace.

    ¡°Goodbye Mai. We will see each other in another time and place.¡±

    The vision disappeared and the mental space faded from Mai''s mind.

    Time had been set in motion again.

    At that moment Mai''s wings and the bow emitted a great flash of green and glowed as never before, but it was only for a split second. It was almost as if Mai''s wings had released a residual energy and at the same time the arrow she had just shot emitted a large amount of energy as well. The green flash was seen over an expanse of several kilometers. From a distance it was almost like that strange flash that the sun used to emit on the horizon line during sunrises and sunsets.

    The long arrow flew toward the sphere with the speed of a storm, cutting through the wind with deadly accuracy. The light around it was blinding, as if all the accumulated energy in the air had followed it, guided by Mai''s will.

    Mai could then see that as it moved away towards the sphere, the arrow seemed not to lose size before her eyes. No. It was not that. It was as if the arrow had changed size. It had a much larger size.

    The sphere, which had previously floated inert, seemed to perceive the threat. A tremor ran through its surface, as if the object was awakening from a deep sleep. At that instant, something in the air changed.

    The arrow hit its target. It had all happened in less than a second, yet it had passed unnoticed by everyone''s eyes.

    The impact was like the clash of two worlds colliding. The arrow pierced the sphere in a blinding flash of green and turquoise, as if space itself had fractured under its force. The arrow sank into the sphere and disappeared towards the center. It had sunk into the center of that pupil.

    The sphere, which had been suspended in the air like an indomitable presence, began to distort. The air around it warped, and a shock wave spread in all directions with the speed of lightning.

    Mai had no time to react.

    The sphere imploded at the exact spot where the arrow had touched it, collapsing inward like a black hole. A blinding glow enveloped the entire landscape, and then an explosion of light and darkness that combined everything reality could contain. The shockwave ripped through the lake, sweeping everything in its path. The water of the lake, once churned by the wind and the storm, suddenly receded, as if swept away by an invisible current. The creatures, those malformed shadows that had scattered in the air, disintegrated instantly, as if they had never existed, swept away by the shock wave.

    Shin watched the spectacle in amazement. In the last few months he had only seen Mai use her bow once, but it didn''t even come close to what had happened this time. The explosion was much bigger.

    His gaze focused on the sphere as he watched it disappear and then something stirred inside him. He didn''t know why but, for some reason, he remembered some words he had read and heard just a few days ago. Or years, depending on the point of view, if he counted that he had been under the lake regenerating all that time.

    But those words were projected onto him in that second.

    We simply live to the sound of a meaningless symphony, in the infinite emptiness of a mind that cannot hear itself...

    Those had been some of Sergey Komarov''s last words, before being devoured by the creature that had assimilated him in Kolsay Lake. The words he had sent to his friend before disappearing.

    Shin did not know why, but when he saw that gigantic eye collapse and disappear, he had a similar sensation to the one he had felt when reading those words. They might seem like the ravings of a mad mind that had been infected by the spores of that fungus in the lake, but what if it was something else? After all, they were certain there were connections. The sculptor''s father had been there too.

    Was it all related? And at the same time he noticed that the pain in his eye had disappeared.

    On the surface of the lake, everyone on the shore had been blown away several meters around the place. Vehicles, some tents, and other equipment on the site had rolled away due to the spreading violence.

    Thor, using one of his derived abilities, used his magnetism to stay in place along with a group of about twenty soldiers that were around at the time. Noki who could move fast had done something similar by getting as many as she could to safety behind more solid ground or sending them into the forest. No one was sure to die due to the body enhancements, but more than likely there would be several injured. The battle against the creatures had done more damage to the forces than that devastating impact. Still the destruction was more than enough to leave a trauma.

    The creatures on the surface had vanished when that sphere imploded.

    Mai, floating in the air, closed her eyes to the impact of the light. The force of the shockwave knocked her backwards, pushing her with such violence that her wings instinctively stretched out to balance her. Everything around her seemed to distort: the water of the lake, the distant mountains, the sky itself. A second of pure chaos stretched into an eternity, but when the light disappeared, the world fell silent.

    The air suddenly stilled, and the land and the lake fell into a strange slumber, as if everything had succumbed to stillness. The sphere was no more. There was no trace of it, neither in the air nor on the water. The creatures had disappeared, evaporated by the force of the impact. Nothing remained, only the echo in their minds of what had happened.

    Mai looked towards the place where the sphere used to be. The feeling of devastation outside was as immense as the one she felt in her chest at that moment.

    Mai felt a pang in her chest. The essence of Azusa, so present and palpable throughout the conflict, had vanished even though the bow was still in her hand. It was not a real sound, but a presence in her mind, one she had shared from the beginning. Azusa had been more than an ally. She had been a guide, a force that had allowed Mai to get there.

    The wind began to whip hard around her, carrying with it the last vestiges of the battle. Mai''s emotions were mixed, as an intense drowsiness gripped her chest. She was gone after all.

    The answer came, clear, but filled with infinite sadness.

    The day was starting and the clouds were beginning to break. The last raindrops of the equinox fell on her as her head felt light.

    And at that moment, she felt her wings fade and she fell. Or at least that''s what she felt for a split second before arms grabbed her.

    All the moments of the battle dissolved into a haze of fatigue and pain. The emptiness swallowed all that was left of her. But a shadow had a hold on her.

    ¡°Shin¡­¡±

    Shin''s serious face was in front of her. And even though everyone saw the same face on him, she could sense that at that moment slight facial features on him were expressing concern but at the same time relief.

    ¡°I got you,¡± Mai heard, before she gave up as a tear rolled down her cheek. For a new kind of shot that sure had almost felt like the first one that had fired that bow.

    As her consciousness sank into a dream Mai released the bow slightly and Shin could see it begin to shatter like broken glass and then gather around Mai''s ear.

    It had transformed into the earring.

    But Shin could feel it was different.

    As if something had gone away.

 Vol.5/Chapter 83: The Seed

    Chapter 83

    The seed

    The fog was disappearing and the rain had stopped.

    The sky was turning light blue with shades of purple and yellow towards the horizon, where the sun was rising.

    A form from another invisible dimension floated in that sky as she watched Shin carry Mai in his arms.

    Goodbye, little fairy, Azusa said, but no one heard her.

    The moment Mai had shot that arrow her consciousness, as well as a special type of matter invisible to the eye, had detached from Mai, as she released the residual energy through her wings.

    Azusa was free. But not for long. She hadn''t survived, she was dying. But she had something else to accomplish.

    She had her last goal and she had to fulfill it with the matter she had left. It would be more than enough. After all, part of the reason for her existence had been to make sure that her body at that moment would have the right consistency to carry it out.

    The sunlight tore through the clouds on the horizon. The darkness was gone and the day was beginning.

    It would be the last time she would see that sun.

    Azusa, torn and extinguished by the sacrifice of her last intervention, hovered like a formless shadow, a blurred presence that neither common matter, nor the void, could fully embrace.

    The battle was over, the threat destroyed, but the price had been incalculable. What was to come she would not see it. But she had done her best and knew that the last thing she had to do was a part of the whole, even if it would no longer be her story.

    Mai did not know that a fragment of Azusa, a portion of her essence, a fragile strand from which the entity itself had emerged from her body. That fraction was now the only thing that remained of Azusa, the rest had dissipated, vanished in the cosmic sigh that arrow had traced, heading to its destiny, which was already a written past.

    The other part of her body would stay with Mai. And that part of Azusa may have looked like nothing more than a weakened form, but it was its consistency of material that made it unique. Billions of years just to make that part of her existence have the exact consistency for her final goal.

    The small portion of Azusa began its descent as it moved away from the lake, moving in a way incomprehensible to any three-dimensional sentient creature. No one saw her. No one could detect her, not the surveillance systems on the ground, nor those of the GSN, much less the army teams that were at what was her destination.

    She was like a whisper in space, a vestige of what had been, so to speak, crossing the void unnoticed, a fraction of will that still pulsed, even though she could feel her consciousness fading away.

    Azusa had anticipated all this. She knew that, in the end, she could not be saved, that the laws that governed her existence could not be altered in the final stretch. But there was a plan, one so old and so far away that not even Mai knew about it.

    She had arrived in Geneva and was on her way to Meyrin.

    There, in the ruins of the city that had once been the pinnacle of science, lay the remnants of a confrontation that only from the sky could be witnessed in full magnitude.

    Azusa headed through space, piercing the atmosphere and descending toward the place where the battle had reached its conclusion. The medical teams, soldiers and Mai''s companions were still there, barely aware of what had just happened at the lake. She passed Lizbeth who was heading to a ship accompanied by Philip and Zi. Azusa felt like smiling at the sight of Lizbeth, it was ironic since Lizbeth herself was related to her even though she didn''t know it.

    Lizbeth, who was running, did not notice at that moment that Azusa''s crystallization had passed close to her. Nor did she notice how that crystallization had just cut off some fine strands of her blonde hair, which Azusa absorbed inside her and disappeared.

    Genetic code obtained, she murmured to herself calmly.

    Azusa, invisible, passed by all those people and, at the moment when the sun was breaking through the battlefield, she plunged into the darkness of the CEEN facilities.

    She passed through destroyed gates and walls and came to an elevator. She passed it and plunged into the tunnel that was almost destroyed. Avoiding debris, she passed through chinks that would have been impossible for a person. Lower and lower.

    Finally she emerged from the elevator shaft. In the heart of that destruction, the void of existence opened up like a scar. She passed through the place she remembered from the past of her memories and went to the place that awaited her.

    It was a room where the destruction had not yet arrived. It was a room full of machinery that had been connected to the collision rings, as well as to the neutrino detection chambers, transformed into time travel chambers.

    The room containing the three Pening traps.

    Two traps were empty and a third whose electromagnetic sensors were flashing, revealing the decay of the particles that had been collected. The residue of a containment capsule, which had once been a prison for what should not exist, was beginning to empty, to dissolve. At the precise moment Azusa reached the site, the capsule was already about to be emptied of its contents and only a few thousand particles of those tokions were behaving like unstable quantum matter.

    Azusa became very small and went through the material of the trap to dive inside looking for what she had to find.

    The tokions were disappearing faster and faster and no electromagnetic field of Pening''s trap could stop them.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    Azusa became very small as she slipped through the particle soup until she found what she had been looking for.

    At the heart of the containment capsule, a quantum vacuum began to form. It was imperceptible to the naked eye, but not to Azusa whose size was almost as tiny as that of those tokions. However, Azusa perceived it instantly, with the precision of a memory of the past that now in her twilight was becoming a reality.

    In front of her, a distortion in space-time began to spin with invisible speed, as if something was being pulled by the tokions into a gravity that should not exist there. At first, the anomaly was so small that it seemed a mere flicker in the fabric of existence, a fleeting flash of matter and energy that even atoms could not identify.

    But Azusa knew. Something was being born.

    It was a black micro-hole, a singularity so tiny that it required no more than a fraction of time to manifest and die, but with a force capable of dragging with it everything it touched. Its appearance was not violent, nor cataclysmic; rather, it was like the whisper of an inevitable and ephemeral future, an opening in the fabric of the universe as delicate and unstable as a dewdrop about to fall from the tip of a leaf.

    The tokions all around began to swirl around the black micro-hole, as if a cosmic dance were beginning without a reason. A swirl of strange matter concentrated at its center, trapping light, energy and above all time, in those tokions that were drawn in.

    A dark vortex of infinite possibilities, but smaller than the smallest grain of sand on earth, but with the capacity to consume everything in a matter of seconds if someone knew how to handle it with the proper technology.

    The particle began to take shape, but the shape was that of nothingness itself: a sphere of absolute emptiness, where nothing existed except the pure absence of reality. But at the same time, with the tokions it had absorbed, it became a hope.

    That something so small could live for less than a blink of an eye and she, who had lived millions of years, was there to see that moment that would give meaning to her existence was ironic indeed. but usually the significance of life was also about small, fleeting moments.

    The black micro-black hole reached a size that was barely the size of a few tokions and Azusa approached it. The remaining matter of her body began to unfold and captured the remaining tokions that were absorbed by the black hole, while she took a spherical shape enclosing that seed of hope.

    That was what Azusa had come to capture. With a swiftness that only the ancients could understand, the matter that had once been Azusa unfolded through the layers of reality like an invisible veil embracing the tiny singularity just as it began its ephemeral adolescence and formed its core. With absolute precision, Azusa''s essence enveloped the particle, not with the violence of despair, but with the calm of one who knows she has no more time. The micro-hole began to shrink, to slow down, until its quantum dance froze, as if time had stopped.

    A black hole that should have been dead, now sat like a mosquito inside an amber. The anomaly was imprisoned in a sphere of pure matter, which took the shape of a marble: small, but infinite in its possibilities.

    The marble that looked like an ordinary glass ball grew in size and from the quantum world came to a more palpable reality.

    Azusa, in her last breath, felt a pang of relief, and then, a total stillness. The entity had achieved its final purpose: it had closed the cycle, stopped the death of all that had been known, but at a cost that no one, not even Mai, would fully understand. And if she did, that would be a story Azusa would never know.

    With what was left of her energy, Azusa moved through the dimensions. She could not return to the reality she had come from, she could not inhabit the fabric of existence again now that she had that. But there was something else: something that only those who have touched the borders of death could understand. With one last, almost imperceptible act of will, Azusa moved to her last remaining place, taking advantage of the anomaly she had just absorbed within herself.

    By her thought alone she did so.

    Inside Pening''s trap that marble grew in size for a second until it reached the size of a ball and a flash of light illuminated the room. Inside the marble a lens effect was created that distorted the black hole and made it look the same size as the ball. Around it appeared two halos of light spinning at full speed.

    The test had worked. Azusa smiled and disappeared from the place to appear in another.

    Azusa had teleported not only in space, but in time and only with her thoughts.

    She had arrived at the place she was supposed to.

    It was a room in a SID base in French territory.

    The bed had messy sheets, witnesses of the contact that its occupants had had just a few hours ago. More precisely, three people: Mai, Shin, and Lizbeth.

    The marble was reduced in size to a mere two centimeters, and fell on a black trench coat, bounced and continued to roll down the inside of the fabric of the coat.

    Azusa felt her senses fading and once again the memories of so many eras crossed her mind. Her beloved, her family, the coming and going of her memories.

    I''ll see you on the other side, she whispered as she died.

    The marble finally touched the inner fabric of the raincoat and sank into that sea of Dirac.

    A marble. An insignificant, harmless object. No one would suspect its existence, no one would guess that inside it beat the essence of a black micro-hole, the residue of a battle that no human being could ever understand.

    A future still uncertain perhaps.

    Azusa with her last thought felt like smiling.

    That coat of the one who had once saved the world would become her last room. Just as that girl had said.

    Her main body would be with Mai and that other tiny part in Shin''s coat would await its time in the future when someone would claim it.

    Azusa no longer existed. Her consciousness had dissolved, a distant echo that could never be recalled.

    Yet the seed was still there, frozen in its purest form. Frozen in time.

    A seed into the future.

    At that precise moment the marble floated in a frozen sea of darkness, surrounded by old books, strange devices, guns, a sword. Everything floated as if in the emptiness of space inside that coat.

    The marble hit an old cell phone and at that precise moment the phone began to ring. Unfortunately its owner was not there at that moment.

    The owner of that coat had just boarded a ship, together with his companions, to investigate the incident of a certain plane over Lake Lemac.

    It was Wednesday, March 21 of the 125<sup>th</sup>.

    One day before the final battle over the lake.

 Vol.5/Chapter 84: The Hours After the Battle

    Chapter 84

    The Hours After the Battle

    Lugrin, Lake Lemac. France.

    The strange case seemed to be over.

    The battle had come to an end and with it came the tasks and problems that followed.

    Searching for the possible fatalities, collecting samples, and the endless meetings and explanations trying to find a reason for the final event.

    The teams recovered as best they could the remains of all the victims of the plane and finally they saw the desolate scene of all those who had perished. The portable hangar had to be reconfigured to put all the victims in the same place.

    The battle seemed somewhat minor, as one looked at the place with all those bodies laid out on capsule stretchers and covered with a sheet as a shroud. All those people had been removed from their time against their will and had been collateral damage in that event. People who had vanished for their loved ones and in turn those people who had lamented and mourned their loss had already been dead for more than two centuries. However, for those victims there, only a few days had passed since their death.

    The work in that hangar continued in silence almost as if the whole place had been transformed into a gigantic mausoleum.

    The SID team tried to help in the early hours of Thursday, but was relieved to rest later that afternoon.

    More special agents from nearby locations and more First Response Teams had arrived at the lake.

    Mai, upon waking up that afternoon, had had a very unfriendly meeting with Council envoys and she had decided to have Nevermore''s medical division take care of those rescued from the plane, so that they could be taken to Siren Island.

    Luckily, during the attack of those creatures, the medical tents with the rescued were in Locum. A place six kilometers away from where the confrontation had occurred and therefore that sector had not suffered any damage.

    Although in the first moments they had tried to stabilize the rescued, it was a surprise that, as the hours passed, one by one they fell into a deep coma from which they could not be awakened. Only one was the exception.

    Many needed medical treatment as they had been exposed to the strange film that had covered the plane, but such treatment would have to be carried out with care. For that reason, Mai was resolute in her decision that all those rescued should be taken to the island for proper treatment and not be treated like lab rats, since they were technically travelers from the past.

    It almost gave her the impression that the Council, or at least a part of them, would have preferred that there had been no survivors. That did not seem to be the case with Travis and Clark who had been some of those who had voted to inform previously, but the majority voted to carry out the operation as Janus had indicated.

    And now the main responsible had disappeared.

    It was hours that turned into days, due to the amount of work that Nevermore, the Council, as well as the government forces of all involved, had had to carry out.

    The press had picked up on what had happened at the lake. But the main event had been hidden.

    Wide-ranging joint simulation exercises was the official explanation that had been issued, although secondary theories and explanations had already begun to circulate in many media circles.

    Nevermore''s communications and logistical apparatus had been placed in dire straits due to the amount of information that was leaking out. The infamous Department of Censorship and Disinformation had been forced to employ all its staff in the entire European area to carry out an operation the likes of which had not been seen in a long time.

    Under other circumstances the official information would have come to light. But because of what happened after the confrontation, it was decided in a matter of hours that it was better that the truth should not come to public light.

    This happened while Mai was still unconscious and therefore it was Tony, the vice-director, who was in charge of receiving the new arrivals by telepresence in the different parts.

    Osmia, representing the Aeon, had appeared in Lugrin before the SID members in a synthetic body.

    Two new envoys from the Council of much greater power came down from the Orbital Ring to try to help. Finally Alesteir Crowley, one of the most powerful people when it came to magical knowledge. Aleister had moved his consciousness from Mars into a cloned body and had arrived at Nevermore Base No. 2 in Languedoc, followed by a large escort of aeons.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    The new arrivals had come to help sort out the missing parts of that mess of data, along with the SID members. But, at the same time, with the warning that it was to remain absolutely silent. The consequences of that becoming public knowledge were too great.

    On the one hand, the issue of time travel. That could cause fear on a large scale. Who knew what ideas it might bring up.

    On the other hand, after the experiment came to an end, the Council had the data saved by the minds of those scientists, that was something that had to be handled with care. And even more taking into account Janus'' final trick.

    As Mai and many others suspected, the Council had indeed been contacted by Janus before all that happened.

    But that data collected by the clones and sent to the original bodies was incomplete. It was not at all the way Janus had predicted. And with the core material that had caused that time travel destroyed, they were missing one of the most important parts of a better investigation.

    Janus had played the Council.

    Janus had offered them predictive data, long before the airplane event as a form of proof when he had asked for their help. Those data and predictions came true with complete accuracy. Political situations and conflicts unrelated to the Dark Events, but which were of weight in diplomatic and business terms. Everything had turned out with an accuracy that caused fear, that had a level of accuracy much higher than the prediction system that the Council had. Because of this, they had decided to cooperate with what was about to take place. The future of civilization depended on it.

    An operation within an operation.

    Acceding to Janus'' requests the Council had sent Azusa to Mai, before she went to the place where the plane disaster would occur. Azusa knew that situation because of her teleological perspective of the events. In the same way, the Council had agreed that the agent and professor Oxy should participate in the investigation. Just as they had allowed the kidnapping of Professor Reubens.

    At the same time the attack on Pyrene was something that was not supposed to have happened, but the Council was apparently settling it personally with Mari, the director of Pyrene, offering her separate explanations and compensation for the damages.

    While Janus had indeed deceived the Council to some extent, he had also taken precautions.

    Anticipating what would happen after the experiment, Janus had ordered that, although the operation at the lake would be for research purposes, all army personnel would be provided with weapons. It was a way of anticipating the battle that would follow.

    That didn''t seem to make sense in a way. Why not make it simpler?

    Osmia was the one who provided those clues, thanks to what happened in the Panopticon.

    Everything had a reason in those simulations for which the aeons had been summoned. In them Janus had shown billions of ways in which civilization had come to an end. From the known and predictable, to the most outlandish.

    Extrapolating the data with reality, there were too many coincidences with the scenarios. Only in one of the scenarios had the world come to the point where they all met. Everything must have happened that way.

    It was very easy to see that this could simply be a gambling game, in which Janus had found a way to justify the crimes he had committed. But there were too many things over which he had no control to ignore. The predictions made to the Council were proof of that. It was impossible to predict it with such accuracy, not even with quantum calculus simulating parallel universes. It was as if Maxwell''s demon had manifested itself to the Council to make those predictions of where things would happen. And on the other hand, Osmia herself had corroborated that those data were not falsified and really had been predicted before they occurred.

    But for everyone to be there, also there was a price too.

    The price of the dead on the plane, the price of the other murders committed by Janus and for which Osmia had provided proof. Janus had been intervening by his own hand in many events that no one knew about. Political assassinations, manipulation, extortion.

    At the same time Osmia counted on Janus'' reasons for carrying out those crimes, even though she did not approve of them. Those deaths and crimes were justified in Janus'' scenario for everyone to get to that moment.

    As an example. The death of a businessman and ambassador in the year 92 of the new era had allowed to close a contract that did not end in a major conflict. If that had not happened, a couple of years later, that same person would have led the entire African continent to become the focus of the end of civilization when a laboratory virus was released.

    The death of an engineer in the Orbital Ring, with interests in the construction sector, had resulted in the arrival of a new manager, who carried out improvements that would not trigger a section of the ring to detach and be attracted by Earth''s gravity causing an ecological disaster on the planet.

    The bribery of an entire guild on the Moon had caused a crisis to be averted that would trigger a new uprising, which would result in a terrorist attack on Earth ten years later. Attack that would trigger the first interplanetary war.

    Those were just a few of the billions of scenarios that had been avoided. Not to mention the environmental factors that had been narrowly avoided.

    And at the same time the Dark Events.

    The death of a few so that the rest could continue to exist.

    It was somewhat of a shock, to find that Janus had been one of those responsible for sending out several anonymous Dark Event alerts that Nevermore agents had worked on in the past.

    Once Osmia and the Council envoys, Travis and Clark, explained the situation it was Aleister''s turn through telepresence. But Aleister said it was better to talk about his points later. There had been a problem on Mars in transferring his consciousness, but he hadn''t wanted to be more explicit about what kind of problem it was.

    The team agreed to travel to Languedoc as soon as they could, but after that came as a shock to everyone.

    It was the information that Thor communicated to Mai. They certainly did not expect that. Mai and the others listened in complete amazement to what had happened inside that chamber where Gehirn''s hologram had held Thor captive.

    But, even more, they were even more surprised when he revealed the contents of the box he had brought from Germany.

    Inside that box, which could hold a body in suspended animation, was a creature they all knew too well.

    It was a small dog that had disappeared from the Languedoc base only a few days ago, but that dog had remained in suspended animation for more than a century until that day. Gehirn had kept it that way, ever since he had been commissioned to put it in suspended animation to get it to the future from whence it had departed.

    They didn''t understand exactly what had happened, until Thor handed Oxy a small device.

    The answers to part of the puzzle were there.

    But those answers did not bring happiness. Gehirn had never told the content of the message, so Thor himself was surprised to hear the story and the missing parts not only from Gehirn, but from someone he had been with just a couple of days before.

    Before that hologram telling that story, Oxy burst into tears and despair when she understood the enigma.

    That was too cruel, it seemed like a bad joke.

    But that had already happened. It was in the past.

    Thursday passed and so Friday.

    Saturday afternoon arrived, where the SID members returned to the Languedoc base to finally meet with Aleister.

 Vol.5/Chapter 85: Djinns in the Case

    Chapter 85

    Djinns in the Case

    Saturday, March 24. 125 S.A.

    Nevermore Base No. 2 in French Territory

    Pic de Gr¨¨zes, Languedoc-Roussillon. France.

    Mai escaped from her noisy roommates and got out from the medical wing alone.

    Noki was under observation and still cooling down with ice slimes all over her body, because she had abused her battle skills a bit. Although she could walk, Camila had kidnapped her and made her stay in bed to rest her muscles at least for a few more hours.

    Ryuuji was with Natsuki, who still couldn''t see due to the amount of light and had her eyes covered.

    The examinations had only shown that what was happening to her eyes was probably because her photoreceptors were too sensitive now that her whole body was visible, but they couldn''t explain why her body was now visible. The only thing they knew for sure was that Natsuki''s body had started to become visible at the very moment the battle of Lugrin had begun. And since what happened to Natsuki when she was still a student was part of a Dark Event, there was a possibility that it was a side effect of what happened after at the lake.

    In the last few hours Mai had been under strict observation by the doctors and Camila in the medical wing of the base. Although she was as firm as ever, both Shin and Lizbeth saw her looking a bit taciturn and sad, but that was to be expected due to what had happened with Azusa.

    She was trying to show her Operations Director''s face in that situation. She was calm, but she had also had a strong argument with the Council envoy, someone she had known well for a long time before the Council even existed. An alchemist by the name of Travis, whom Shin also knew.

    It was already eight o''clock in the evening when she had been released from the exam. And now she was walking through the hangar where there was little movement at that hour. On the mechanical platform her car looked as good as new and further away Carissia''s mecha had been completed.

    Mai was dressed only in a hospital gown and slippers. Her completely silver hair now stood out against her tanned skin, even though her skin pattern had faded.

    The tan color of her skin had never been maintained after using the bow for so long. That was something that had worried everyone, but it was not dangerous and it was possible that it was just a momentary exposure to radiation from the bow being summoned from a different dimension. Having her body''s regeneration enhanced, it was nothing bad and simply counted as being exposed to the sun and getting an instant tan.

    The earring, now without Azusa''s consciousness, twitched in her right ear as usual.

    Mai sighed and walked up the stairs to the third floor of the base and reached a door and entered.

    It was a huge room a little messy, full of papers and transparent boards full of data and equations. A central table, where several holograms were projected, occupied a large part of the room.

    In that room were standing Lizbeth, Shin, Oxy, and seated at the table Philip, Zi, Rein, Mii, Travis and Aleister, accompanied by Lam floating in the room naked.

    ¡°Hey...¡± Shin said, who stopped what he was doing on one of the boards. ¡°What happened?¡±

    ¡°I wanted to come here. I don''t want to be in bed,¡± Mai replied, as she looked at the board. On it Shin seemed to have drawn a diagram of all the events that had occurred in the case. Anyone who had seen it without understanding the context would have sworn that Shin had pulled a few screws loose to make such a cross-reference.

    ¡°You need to rest,¡± Lizbeth scolded her. ¡°You''re still feeling pretty shaky.¡±

    ¡°I''m fine now, the tests revealed nothing.¡± Mai''s gaze fell on Lam who was currently hovering over the hologram table. ¡°You are not allowed to go completely naked in the facility.¡±

    ¡°I told her,¡± Mii let out, arms folded.

    ¡°Lam, please,¡± Aleister requested.

    ¡°Tsk,¡± Lam clicked her tongue and materialized a silk red dress over her body.

    Mai approached Oxy, who was typing something on a holographic keyboard. ¡°How are you?¡±

    Oxy''s eyes were red from crying since Thursday, but she had done her best to adjust to the situation. ¡°I''m fine,¡± she nodded weakly and looked at Mai. ¡°I''m leaving in a couple of hours with Thor to Scotland. I''ve already asked for a few days off from the university.¡±

    ¡°Are you sure? If anything happens they''ll let us know.¡± Mai ran a hand through her hair.

    ¡°I know,¡± Oxy smiled weakly. ¡°But I want to be there.¡±

    ¡°Take as long as you want.¡±

    ¡°I will. Thank you.¡±

    Mai looked at the others. ¡°So, anything new?¡±

    ¡°Well we were doing a final review and checking data again,¡± Travis replied.

    ¡°I didn''t ask you.¡±

    ¡°Mai, you can be mad all you want but you can''t deny the facts. We wouldn''t be alive¡­¡±

    ¡°I know.¡±

    Rein changed the subject to cool the atmosphere. Mai was really angry with the Council. ¡°The rescued arrived on the island an hour and a half ago. The medical division will take over the care.¡±

    Mai leaned on the table. ¡°And the only one awake?¡±

    ¡°Jack Piersons will also be under observation. His rejuvenation process, if we can call it that way, has come to a complete halt.¡±

    Mai glanced sideways at Travis and he gave her a sealed-lip gesture. ¡°Anything else?¡±

    Oxy sighed and drew a circle on the table and then projected it over the holograms. ¡°There''s our case¡­¡±

    For a few seconds no one spoke.

    ¡°All this to keep the world here...¡± let out Mai.

    ¡°Apparently,¡± Zi sighed.

    ¡°A snake biting its tail,¡± Mii agreed.

    ¡°Cases today?¡± Mai asked.

    Everyone looked at each other.

    Rein was the one who answered. ¡°Only 57 confirmed, including the Orbital Belt. We will receive data from the other planets and moons in a few hours.¡±

    Mai looked at the charts. ¡°Is it too early to make any predictions?¡±

    Rein nodded. ¡°We may have another 101 on our hands. But we''ll have to wait at least five more days. If the pattern repeats itself we''ll have a new record low.¡±

    Mai nodded and sighed. ¡°What''s the possibility that this drop in numbers has something to do with what happened at the lake?¡±

    Mii straightened up in her chair and leaned across the table as she looked at the data on one of the holograms. ¡°The drop in cases reported and detected by passive and offensive systems began at the time that anomaly number 365 of Type 6 was destroyed.¡±

    ¡°So, yes. It''s possible,¡± Rein added.

    ¡°We should wait,¡± Mai nodded and then looked at Lizbeth. ¡°What did the owner of the Bloodworth Company want so urgently by the way?¡±

    Lizbeth frowned. ¡°Ask Tony. They talked about something, but I don''t know what it would be.¡±

    ¡°I probably know something about it...¡± said Travis, raising a hand sheepishly. ¡°I''ll explain it to you later, it''s a little complicated but it has to do with the attack on Pyrene and the girl Shin fought.¡±

    Shin looked at Travis suspiciously. That pink-haired woman had been searched everywhere on Geneva but had vanished completely. Shin had almost thought there was a possibility that she was under the rubble, but her body had not been found. He had rarely had such a good opponent in a fight, but it wasn''t as if he wanted to meet her again anyway.

    Mai sighed wearily as she watched the circle float. ¡°There is no beginning and no end.¡±

    Shin walked over and rolled the holographic circle. ¡°There is a beginning. But when you look at it as a whole it really looks like the whole thing is a circle. It has a beginning and an end and we are outside but being a circle there are improbabilities.¡±

    Mai frowned. ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    ¡°We haven''t told you yet,¡± Rein said.

    ¡°Tell me what?¡±

    Shin moved one of his hands over the hologram and pulled up a picture. It was of a squadron called Blackbird-C. ¡°The beginning and the end is relative and depends on who you ask. But in this case let''s choose an observer of another kind.¡±

    Aleister nodded and pointed his staff at the photo. ¡°This is the squad that first encountered the fractus that caused this whole case to go into motion. The squad Franco Bicini was in.¡±

    Mai looked at Shin. The Bicini last name had been giving them a headache since Kolsay.

    Aleister continued. ¡°In year 5 of the New Age I met him at Kolsay Lake. This is the beginning from the stone''s point of view.¡±

    ¡°Yes, you already told me,¡± Mai nodded grumpily. She had been angry when she had found out that Aleister had something to do with it, but apparently according to the Deep-Dive he had been subjected to at the base he had no responsibility whatsoever for what happened to the plane.

    ¡°But now let''s look at it from another point of view,¡± Aleister continued.

    Mai took the picture of Benu Bender floating in the cloud of holograms on the table. ¡°I don''t know why this kid looks familiar to me from somewhere.¡±

    ¡°That''s the point I was getting at,¡± Shin said. ¡°What we discovered.¡±

    ¡°What did you find out?¡±

    ¡°It''s a little strange,¡± Philip said, wrinkling his nose.

    ¡°The what?¡± Mai asked.

    ¡°I told you, it didn''t happen that way,¡± Shin interrupted looking towards Philip, sighing tiredly.

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    Mii replied. ¡°Benu Bender was born through assisted fertilization. We missed the issue of his mother''s constant traveling. They were always traveling together, but without the father. That''s why we wanted to corroborate the information. It cost a bit, but we asked for the historical records from one of the centers that does old population data mining.¡±

    Rein nodded. ¡°Benu bender was born in the year 2000 of the Ancient Era. He always lived with his mother, until they both boarded that plane for Geneva in 2012.¡±

    Shin drew the hologram with the plane and unfolded it. ¡°This plane traveled from 2012 to 125, but when I tried to rescue him we both ended up in the year 110.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I know, I saw it,¡± nodded Mai.

    Shin also nodded and continued. ¡°Well, Benu Bender was found in the lake, with no memories and taken by an orphanage and reborn as Lee Reubens.¡±

    Oxy continued. ¡°Lee Reubens becomes a teacher, until a few days ago he was targeted by those two criminals who escaped us in the attack on Pyrene Station. Later, Lee Reubens is kidnapped along with me and taken to the accelerator.¡± Oxy frowned and looked at Travis.

    ¡°I had no idea about that part. I''m sorry,¡± Travis said.

    ¡°They used my data for the Pening traps. But the fact is, anyone with a high enough physics degree could have done the calculations. Are you going to deny that you didn''t know about-¡±

    ¡°I repeat. I apologize, but I was not informed of that. And now with what we know it is highly possible that Janus only wanted you as bait to make sure the boy was involved.¡±

    Mai clicked her tongue. ¡°Did you have to say it?¡±

    Travis grimaced softly and sighed, but turned to Oxy. ¡°From what Thor told, he seemed to be interested in you. I know it''s sad, but unfortunately that''s been part of this mess.¡±

    Oxy sighed in annoyance and wiped a tear from her left eye before it spilled over her cheek.

    Shin continued. ¡°The important part is that Professor Lee Reubens was sent as a time traveler to the year 1977. The first of May.¡±

    Mai furrowed her brow and thought. The very day I was born. What a coincidence.

    ¡°According to the information extracted from Jack Piersons, and that guy has brains like scrambled eggs, that''s when Leteo Waters was born. A scientist working for the Kingdom and who would contribute several ideas for the future. For example with the ideas of the holographic portal, teleportation technology, neurowire.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I know that too.¡±

    Shin looked at the others and then at Mai. ¡°You know that Leteo is his own father?¡±

    Mai raised an eyebrow. ¡°What?...¡±

    ¡°Yeah... is what we found. And according to Jack Pierson he found out about it on the plane too. Leteo Waters donated his sperm to the clinic that years later Hebe Bender would use to conceive her son Benu.¡±

    Mai''s eyes widened in disbelief and she looked at everyone. ¡°What are the odds of that happening?¡±

    Shin shrugged. ¡°They''re not zero... but I think it explains what I saw on the plane. There have been cases, from what I read, of people being found their double but nothing has happened. What happened on the plane was that the older Leteo Waters basically disappeared when he was observed by his younger version, when he was Benu. His younger version then lost the memories of it in 110, became Lee Reubens and a professor. And then, a few days ago, he lost the memories of this time when he was sent back in time to 1977 to become Leteo Waters, so his older version did not remember seeing himself in the past. And later he donated his sperm to the clinic that would later give birth to himself as Benu Bender.¡±Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

    Mai puffed out her cheeks and let the air out as she assimilated that information. It was enough to give anyone a headache.

    ¡°Let''s hope he really did donate the sperm, the other possibility is that he had sex with his own mother without knowing it,¡± Philip let out.

    ¡°No need to explain that,¡± Mii replied.

    ¡°And Jack Piersons?¡± Mai asked.

    Aleister interjected. ¡°Jack Piersons has stated that he died in 1952, but his consciousness was sent back in time to the year 110 as well. His body was regenerating that time with Janus, where basically Janus manipulated his mind the whole time.¡±

    ¡°He''s an unwitting accomplice,¡± Mai let out and looked at Aleister angrily. ¡°And you had something to do with it.¡±

    ¡°What I did was send that shard of rock in the mail at the exact moment he would die with the visions I received. That little piece of rock was the one that projected his consciousness into the future and allowed him to survive. Even though Janus told him it was a copy of the original.¡±

    ¡°And whose fault was that last one?¡±

    ¡°I didn''t know everything. I just knew I had to tell Janus at that point. On the other hand, what do you think would have happened if this wasn''t followed to the letter, at least with the visions we had? Would you be happier if the world had ended?¡±

    Mai sighed upset. ¡°I''m not saying that, and you know it. I don''t like being kept in the dark when there were so many lives at stake.¡±

    Rein folded her arms and explained. ¡°Considering that about Mr. Piersons, according to the memory extraction, he basically regenerated his body from scratch, he should be considered a minor of fifteen at the time he was sent to 1959, even though the regeneration of his body seems to count as the optimal point of maturity in his late thirties.¡±

    ¡°You mean to tell me that a teenager''s mind was sent in an old man''s body to the past?¡± Mii asked and Rein made a confused face and shrugged. ¡°We have seen stranger things, Mimi...¡±

    ¡°What do you have to say about that? You''re the alchemist.¡± Mai asked, turning to Travis.

    ¡°Honestly, we had no idea about that. Much of what we are learning about this is from you guys and what Janus revealed to Queen Bee at the Panopticon. Janus provided little data to us and Jack Pierson''s data was not among them. If you ask me from an alchemical point of view, basically Jack Piersons is like finding a philosopher''s stone. There are no known cases of modern homunculus temporis. Homunculus temporis is like a spontaneus chimera, in the sense that it is something that happens by accident, not by design. It occurs by accumulation of anomalies, but nothing else.¡±

    ¡°And Janus? Any news of him?¡±

    ¡°Nothing yet,¡± Rein said.

    Mai looked at the holograms. The main person responsible for much of what had happened had not shown up. While almost all the data they now knew about Janus came from Osmia, there were still a lot of questions.

    ¡°There''s something bothering me about all this. Have you noticed?¡± Mai asked, concentrating on everyone''s stares

    Looks turned to Shin almost immediately.

    ¡°What have I done now?¡±

    ¡°One time traveler is his own father,¡± Mai said.

    ¡°Another traveler is an anomaly so rare that there are no current documented cases,¡± Mii said.

    ¡°Another is an animal whose physiognomy changed from being locked inside a type of magical OOPArt for too long,¡± Philip followed, pointing to a picture of the pug in the holograms.

    Oxy pursed her lips bitterly, looking at a picture of Jim Stuart. ¡°Another traveled in a synthetic body, which ended up altering his memories.¡±

    ¡°Another traveler sent a code from the future to awaken his consciousness in the past,¡± Aleister added, and pointed with his cane to an image from the files Osmia had provided. The avatar used by Janus.

    ¡°And you...¡± finished Lizbeth looking at Shin. ¡°You are a fey, but a Keelian. There are only a few like you, and another one of that type is sitting in front of you right now.¡±

    At those words Shin looked up at Mii and she averted her gaze. Lizbeth saw that gesture and thought she saw a blush on Mii''s pale skin illuminated by the holograms.

    ¡°Exactly,¡± Mai nodded,¡± Everyone who time-traveled in some way has something that makes them different. None can be said to be one hundred percent normal.¡±

    ¡°No one is normal in this room... except you,¡± Zi said to Philip and he just whispered to her to shut up.

    Shin looked at those present who had turned their attention back to him. ¡°I didn''t do it on purpose.¡±

    Mai nodded. ¡°I know. But look what happened to the people on the plane. The rescued ones. They''ve all fallen into comas and their bodies have wounds that we''re still not sure how we''re going to heal.¡± Mai leaned on the table and looked at all the holograms. ¡°What if the only way to time travel is to have some peculiarity in the body or mind that makes the invididual different?¡±

    ¡°Stuart also traveled twice?¡± Aleister asked and Oxy frowned. ¡°I mean-¡±

    ¡°Everyone involved time traveled more than twice, with the exception of the survivors, Shin... and Jim Stuart, probably...¡± Oxy let out.

    Almost everyone, except Oxy, had turned to look at Shin with strange expressions on their faces once again.

    ¡°Don''t look at me like that. I only traveled once and that was more than enough,¡± Shin said.

    ¡°You said you had deja vu when you got to the lake, right?¡± pointed out Philip.

    ¡°Yes, but that doesn''t mean anything. It''s just that what happened was because the time I woke up in Kolsay was the same time I was being pulled out of the lake by those guys.¡±

    ¡°Are you telling me that your consciousness, in two different places, was linked at the same time? Without the need for a machine, magic or anything like that?¡± Aleister asked.

    Shin simply nodded. ¡°Yes. The moment I awoke in the Swiss part of the lake was the same time I awoke in Kolsay. Though the answer probably lies in the particles in my armor.¡±

    ¡°I see,¡± Aleister said with a nervous smile and thought. What kind of monster are you exactly? But that question was being asked by several people at the time even though no one said so.

    Zi put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. ¡°The reason why your version of in the Lake went almost ignored might be because there couldn''t be two versions of you? Your version with Mai in Kolsay was being watched all the time, otherwise there would be a chance that your version with Mai would have collapsed so that the Swiss Lake version would have grown stronger?¡±

    ¡°...Please don''t say such horrible things.¡±

    ¡°It''s just a theory. After all the particles in your armor are unique and at that time your version with Mai was much stronger than the old version of you, which then became younger while your version with us was getting weaker,¡± Zi said, nodding to herself.

    Like a particle experiment in macroscopic version, this guy... thought Aleister, looking at him with suspicious eyes.

    Philip continued with the doubt he had. ¡°I mean the feeling you had at the crash site. Are you sure you''ve been there once?¡±

    ¡°I''ve been in a lot of accidents. Just that,¡± Shin said. That was half true, but he would have to find a way to explain to Mai and Lizbeth about his adventure in that erased time and the other secrets he had. He now had a more complete picture with those memories recovered, but the memories of the Other Side were still fragmented, as were those of Mai and Lizbeth. And the three of them were too afraid to risk talking about it considering that rule that feys didn''t remember anything from their time on the Other Side.

    Maybe we should reconsider putting a leash on him, in case he doesn''t escape, Lizbeth thought.

    ¡°And the riddle of the stones? Would that mean there were two stones?¡± Carissia asked, startling Lizbeth. The redhead had emerged from the darkness in the room as if she had suddenly materialized out of thin air.

    ¡°Where were you? Rather, when did you enter?¡± Zi asked.

    ¡°You guys were so into it that I didn''t want to interrupt. I was talking to Miss Osmia.¡±

    Rein took the floor. ¡°As far as the stones are concerned... only one. Right, Aleister?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean, only one?¡± asked Travis.

    ¡°It''s very simple, it''s not two stones it''s just one,¡± Aleister replied.

    ¡°How do you know that?¡±

    ¡°The flaw is in believing that the stone they''ve used in the crapton-smasher is different, it''s the same one.¡±

    ¡°Crapton?¡± Shin asked, but he was ignored.

    ¡°If that''s correct, it would mean that someone took it out to send it back in time,¡± Philip agreed.

    ¡°Am I missing something?¡± Travis asked.

    ¡°It''s not twin stones. It''s just one with the ability to time travel.¡± Aleister sighed. ¡°As I explained before, in year five Lam and I were with Bicini at the time the stone was placed in that tree.¡±

    ¡°That makes you responsible for that thing being in the lake...¡± Shin said.

    ¡°No. The stone had to be there in my visions. It has nothing to do with what you and Mai fought over there.¡±

    ¡°No one who received such visions ever thought to contradict them?¡± Carissia asked.

    ¡°I think we can be glad that no one contradicted them.¡± Aleister replied and then looked at Shin. ¡°Didn''t you have visions, too?¡±

    Shin recalled. Rather than visions of the future, they had been voices and memories of his past. While the others had gotten visions of the future. Everything about him was related to recovering or recalling memories of another time. He had recovered memories of his time with Azusa, he had seen memories of his life in Russia with his first family. All past, with one exception. He looked toward Carissia. Had he really thought he heard her voice, or had it been an illusion?

    ¡°Why there, precisely, in Kolsay?¡± Mai asked to Aleister.

    Aleister shrugged. ¡°I don''t know. I just saw myself putting it there in my visions. If that didn''t happen, another catastrophe would occur and the world would have been destroyed. Basically the visions of what I was supposed to do came with what would happen if it didn''t happen. The visions are like an outline. Or rather a tree with branches, but ones that hang down with warnings.¡±

    Shin thought about it and turned to Mai, ¡°Remember the pictures we saw of that massacre that happened at the lake?¡±

    Mai looked at him and nodded. ¡°What if the animals or that creature were protecting the stone?¡±

    ¡°It''s a little silly, I know, but I don''t know why I felt like it could be. Remember how those deer attacked us? What if the reason the stone had to be there was for protection? A place with few people. And the few who tried anything were slaughtered.¡±

    ¡°I don''t think that''s the truth, for one simple reason,¡± Mai mused.

    Shin thought about it but nodded and turned to Aleister. ¡°It''s true. When we went to the place where you and Bicini left the stone. There was nothing there. The notches in the tree could have been days or even hours maybe. But it wasn''t there.¡±

    ¡°Which means someone was there before we arrived,¡± Mai continued.

    ¡°But we saw no footprints of any kind,¡± Shin pointed out.

    ¡°What about the radiation Kohi and Nikolai discovered?¡± Zi asked.

    ¡°Anomalous black hole radiation...¡± blurted Lizbeth. ¡°Yeah. That''s really weird.¡±

    ¡°Which brings us to the other question,¡± Rein said, standing up from her chair and fiddling with the holograms. She enlarged a few which she showed to the group. ¡°This is the model of the hollow where the stone was extracted from the tree on Kolsay. And this is the model of the cavity where the stone was, extracted from that machine found in the wreckage of the plane. This other one is the model of the cavity in the machine found by the search teams that went down to the accelerator¡±. Finally she manipulated one more hologram, this time of what looked like an old two-dimensional page. ¡°When we uploaded the data to our database it showed the matches instantly. In descriptions and measurement.¡±

    On that page you could see very fine calligraphy in English and over the text were drawn two pieces of rock.

    Rein continued her explanation by pointing to the page. ¡°These are texts from the first group that investigated the Dark Events in a scientific manner. The Fog Society. The group of scientists and adventurers of the nineteenth century. Our grandparents you might say.¡±

    ¡°That''s...¡± began Shin looking at the page.

    ¡°From the measurements and description it''s the Rocks of Memories, as they called it. Two objects that they had for a long time, until by the orders of the one who had given them to them, they were taken to Japan.¡±

    They all looked at each other.

    ¡°Japan¡­¡±

    Aleister nodded. ¡°There''s one of the riddles I could never solve. When Bicini and I left that stone in Kolsay it was one, it was whole. But the one that gave me my visions when I met Nobuyama in Hokkaido two centuries before was two. It was the same stone but it was split in two.¡±

    Rein nodded. ¡°There''s the clue Mr. Fu gave us. Those stones disappeared at the end of the nineteenth century, one night in the middle of a fight.¡±

    Shin looked up. In the cloud of holograms was a delicate-looking Asian man wearing a fine hanfu. That was Fu Xiang. Now that he knew that, Shin wished to talk to Fu. He had met him in the past and he was an immortal alchemist who had some health problems, hence the irony of how his name read. Fu, The Unlucky One. Although that didn''t stop him from getting into trouble in the past.

    Aleister nodded. ¡°Somehow those two rocks found their way to Satou Nobuyama.¡±

    Shin continued. ¡°In the same way those rocks absorbed part of my particles in 1908 and returned them to me now.¡±

    ¡°Satou Nobuyama left the stones in the Yanagida family, which later one would be taken by Carl Scott and Jack Piersons and the other part would end up in the hands of people from the Vatican.¡±

    Lizbeth followed the thread. ¡°The Vatican part continued to travel in a linear path in time, until it was stolen by the two thieves few days ago, and then used to lure the other part in 2012 along with the plane. Where they came back together again, before being destroyed in the collider.¡±

    They were silent for a few seconds.

    ¡°That brings us to the previous problem, something even I don''t know the answer to,¡± Aleister said.

    ¡°Who took the stone in Kolsay and how did they send it back in time to the nineteenth century?¡± Lizbeth asked.

    ¡°We only know that the stone was taken to Japan by someone named William, who was accompanied by his daughter,¡± explained Rein.

    Shin looked up and stared at her.

    ¡°What?¡± asked Rein, surprised at the look on her father''s face.

    Shin sighed. ¡°No, nothing.¡±

    Because of Fu Xian now Shin knew that what Rein had just told him was related to Svetlana''s mother. That man had been William and the girl must have been Alice. Feodor had more than once told a similar story of how he had met Alice, who would later become his wife and Svetlana''s mother. Apparently there were cross ties that even those involved did not know about. That was another story, though. He would have to make time later to contact Fu and talk to him.

    Mai then manipulated one of the holograms. ¡°Of course we have this problem too.¡± It was a hologram with Gehirn''s face. Oxy looked down, sadly. ¡°We always thought that the accuracy with which ZAIEN had predicted the fractus attacks after the Tokyo explosion was due to the prediction systems and algorithms.¡±

    A hush fell over the room. That was the revelation Thor had brought from Germany.

    ¡°The truth behind the fact that so many fractus attacks had been repelled by the early prediction systems was not due to mathematical precision. That had been revealed by someone to Gehirn,¡± Shin said.

    ¡°Jim Stuart,¡± Zi let out in a whisper. ¡°Rather, Zuriqth.¡±

    Oxy turned away from the table and headed for the door. ¡°Sorry. I''m going to go get ready to leave with Thor.¡±

    They all heard how her voice sounded shaken, but they didn''t say anything. Oxy left the room.

    ¡°Poor girl,¡± Aleister said.

    ¡°The war was won thanks to Jim Stuart too, according to what we now know,¡± Lizbeth said.

    Mai nodded. ¡°The fractus defeated in the Kurils by the Nue dog. Then the core of that fractus was destroyed during the Tokyo explosion. At the same time in the Tokyo explosion the Russian fractus that had the ability to destroy by infecting computer networks and electrical systems was also destroyed. Jim Stuart-Zuriqth took care of it. This caused its core to split into 48 parts when it was destroyed. The 48 parts that were stolen from the Russian Academy of Sciences months ago and used in the accelerator by Janus to extract the tokions from the fragments of the other rock.¡±

    Mii continued. ¡°And prior to his death Jim Stuart left the data to Gehirn for future battles. At the same time he was one of those who caused the explosion in Tokyo.¡±

    ¡°We can''t be sure of that. He didn''t say anything about it in the video.¡±

    ¡°But according to Gehirn it is highly possible that the time travel would have modified his memories and made him forget others. So it would not be strange that he would have caused that destruction without knowing it.¡±

    ¡°Which brings us to the problem now.¡±

    ¡°What happened to Jim Stuart''s body?¡± interrupted Lizbeth.

    ¡°All the personnel in the UK are looking for him, just like with Janus who disappeared in Edinburgh.¡± Mai said.

    ¡°Couldn''t Janus have kidnapped Jim Stuart''s body?¡± interrupted Travis.

    ¡°To what end?¡±

    ¡°Everyone saw him going alone. He just disappeared,¡± Rein pointed out. ¡°On the other hand, why right in that place?¡±

    ¡°Speaking of Gehirn. Do you think what he proposed might be right?¡± Aleister asked Shin.

    ¡°The possibility is not zero but I am not sure. Whether consciousness can actually be tethered to the body over time in the feys is another matter. Of all the people who traveled Jim Stuart seems to be the most normal of all. Who knows what kind of visions he got that he couldn''t tell us about because of the explosion.¡±

    ¡°Maybe he saw something so bad that he decided that was the best thing that could happen?¡± Lizbeth risked.

    ¡°Or maybe his consciousness really did return to the body and that would explain why his body disappeared. He ran away,¡± Mii said.

    Mai let out a sigh. She didn''t like the idea. but until Stuart''s body turned up nothing was out of the question. And they had another corpse in that case too, one that was already skeletonized. ¡°What about the skeleton in the tunnel?¡±

    ¡°It''s confirmed. It''s him. As corroborated by Osmia''s data,¡± Rein reported.

    ¡°That puts an end to an enigma of more than two centuries.¡±

    ¡°We were contacted by the RIA. They are asking for the body. They want to give him a full honors burial.¡±

    Mai looked at one of the pictures in the hologram cloud.

    It was a picture of an elderly human male. It was a notice of disappearance in Italian and English. ¡°They didn''t pay attention to him and tried to shut him up when he tried to do the right thing.¡±

    ¡°So many years went by and he just became another number in the disappearance statistics,¡± Lizbeth said.

    Mai put the photo in front of her and then opened another hologram. It was of a skeleton wearing a tattered suit. It was the body found in the Vatican tunnels.

    ¡°This has all been a distraction,¡± Mai said.

    No one said anything and everyone''s gaze shifted to the center of the hologram. There floated the sphere against which the battle had taken place. The eye.

    ¡°What was that thing?¡± Philip asked.

    Carissia looked at it with a somber expression. ¡°According to Osmia, this is the main reason why everything had to happen the way it did. The main objective. We were all pieces to make it manifest. Janus seems to think that what was behind all those endings for out civilization was that thing. And the only way out was this, to reveal what was behind it.¡±

    ¡°Basically, he thinks this is the creator of the universe or something?¡± Philip asked.

    ¡°But what is that?¡± Zi asked.

    Rein had put on a serious face. ¡°Janus simply called it in his simulations: The God Who Sleeps and who must not be awakened. Oddly enough, it is a term that has appeared before in certain ancient books.¡±

    Mii shuddered at that. That thing gave her dread even though she couldn''t explain why. Shin on the other hand couldn''t shake off the strange sensation he felt in his eye when he looked at that sphere.

    Mai nodded. ¡°Azusa also referred to something similar had happened to her species before arriving on this planet.¡±

    ¡°The elusive Yithians,¡± Travis blurted out. ¡°The possibility that they were the ones who built the machine parts and left them behind through time is very high.¡±

    ¡°You''re basically saying Azusa is to blame for this?¡±

    ¡°It''s just a theory. There are a lot of things we don''t know. I''m not blaming her.¡±

    ¡°So. Then what was that?¡± Philip asked.

    ¡°But if what Azusa said is correct it raises something I don''t like very much,¡± Zi said.

    Shin nodded. ¡°Whatever that thing was, it''s not something that''s attached to our planet but may be some intrinsic feature of the universe.¡±

    Aleister stood up from his chair. ¡°I saw many things in my visions but they were so quick I don''t remember seeing that. Maybe Janus was the only one who saw it. It had to happen this way not just to save the world.¡±

    ¡°But, to reveal that?¡± Lizbeth asked.

    ¡°In this event many of us willingly and unwillingly were part of making this thing manifest. The people of the past, the people of now, what happened in the accelerator and the battle over the lake,¡± explained Aleister with his gaze lost in the holograms.

    ¡°Whatever it was, Azusa assured that it would not happen again. At least not there, on the lake.¡± affirmed Mai.

    ¡°Or maybe she means the planet?¡± Aleister asked.

    ¡°Whatever it is. I hope we never see it again. I don''t want to know what else could have come out of that thing,¡± Rein said.

    Mai was silent. She was still uneasy about Azusa''s last words.

    Which boy was she referring to before she died? And what did it have to do with that arrow that had destroyed the sphere?

 Vol.5/Chapter 86: Oxys Doubts

    Chapter 86

    Oxy''s Doubts

    After leaving the room where the others were gathered Oxy had shuffled her feet toward the room where she had stayed when she arrived at the base on Tuesday. She had some pretty heavy luggage in her turtle backpack and much of it she had unpacked, even if she had hardly used any of it.

    The day before the airplane case occurred, she had judged that she would have some free time to read old books from her collection, but that had not turned out as expected under the circumstances.

    Now she used the time loading the books into their respective compartments, to finally compress them again. She liked to go everywhere with books in case she got bored.

    But at the moment it was other things that were on her mind. She had tried to distract herself with it, while waiting for Thor''s message for them both to leave. Because of what had happened at the lake, Mai did not want to send her alone on the trip to Edinburgh. Even more so when it was still not clear who had kidnapped her and the professor Reubens at the lake. And still those two criminals named Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka had not been caught.

    It had taken her only twenty minutes to pack everything and all she had to do was wait.

    Finally she lay down on the bed and sighed looking at the ceiling.

    ¡°I''ve been an idiot not to notice,¡± she said to herself.

    She had known Jim Stuart in college. Always a bit absent-minded but smart and intelligent.

    The day she had met him, she saw him and his friends playing with magic encryption codes, to create faster mental circuits for summoning. Although Jim Stuart had no innate capacity for magic, he was good with designs for creating magic circuits among his friends. And he applied encryption to it, so that there would be no interference if magic of another type was invoked by a nearby user. Just that day Oxy had taught him in just a couple of minutes how the oldest encryption codes that existed in mankind could still be used on a day-to-day basis to create new ones.

    The simplest of all. The Caesar cipher.

    A simple cipher that consisted of replacing some letters with others, it could be moved a place or two to the left or right.

    It seemed ironic to her that that cipher now became the key to solving the riddle of her heart.

    Jim Stuart had traveled back in time and changed his identity. By removing one letter from his name and replacing the others using the cipher, he had adopted a new identity.

    Zuriqth.

    That artificial intelligence that Gehirn had supposedly brought from Germany.

    A lie on Gehirn''s part. But Gehirn had also fallen for a lie. Zuriqth had never told Gehirn that he was human originally either.

    Gehirn found that out after Tokyo, by checking the contents of that rectangular device that was left by Zuriqth himself, in case something happened to him.

    That device had a message and apology for Gehirn. As well as all the data of the fractus attacks that would occur in the coming months. Data that changed the war.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    Ironically, Mai herself was part of it without knowing it. Because part of the data that Zuriqth left were the ones that ended up with her participating in the final battle in Siberia. Too bad Azusa was no longer there to ask her if she even knew about it. But it was more than likely.

    The second message inside that device was encrypted and Gehirn left it as such. It was a message to Oxy. The encryption was so complicated that the slightest attempt to crack the code could result in the message being lost completely. So Gehirn left it that way for its future recipient. Oxy was able to unlock that encryption easily. It was something she knew based on one of the magic encryption courses taught at the university but applied to quantum computers. It had not been developed at the time the message was recorded, so Gehirn could not know how to decrypt it.

    It had all happened as an orchestrated plan a long time ago.

    After the Tokyo disaster, Gehirn used the data left by Zuriqth to change many of the confrontations, or better to say to make everything happen as it was known in the future. But at the same time he felt betrayed by Zuriqth. Nevertheless, Gehirn fulfilled Zuriqth will and left the data in that special block, before fleeing to deep space years later, to be activated when the time was right. Gehirn himself knew that this was necessary for the retrocausality to take effect. Everything had an order.

    That data was what Thor had now brought back along with the dog that now had a name.

    Oxy lay in a fetal position on the bed and cried.

    ¡°Nevermore,¡± she said.

    An opportunity, an event that would never happen again in her life.

    She would never have imagined that the entity for whom she had feelings in the past would be her student in the future. She had always felt that there was something strange about that AAI in that dog''s body. Always looking at her out of the corner of his eye, almost as if in some way he had been watching over her from a distance, but at the same time seeking her company. Moments of peace and stress during the experiments.

    But she also had no idea that Zuriqth would be one of those who would cause the disaster in Tokyo when he died. Now she knew better what had caused the disaster to begin with.

    Oxy checked once again the Edinburgh FRT branch bulletin board on her Neurowire. It had been almost three days and Jim Stuart''s body still hadn''t turned up.

    But she had no doubt that the message Jim Stuart-Zuriqth had left was a farewell message and that it had been recorded prior to the Tokyo disaster. So why had his body disappeared? Who had hacked into the security system of the FRT station in Broxburn?

    Had the explosion experiment really sent Jim''s consciousness back to the present?

    Oxy knew. The time travel in the case was synchronized with those mysterious savitronic particles. That was what had happened on all the trips. With each emission of the sun those particles were activated inside the fractus that allowed different times to be connected.

    It was what had happened with Janus to awaken his consciousness, which they now knew thanks to Osmia.

    It was what had happened with the plane that connected three different years.

    Had the same thing happened in the Tokyo experiment? Had Jim Stuart''s consciousness really returned to the present?

    If so... what had he seen during the time those accelerator particles hit his body?

    If he really was back... Why had he run away?

    The guilt for the death of all those people in Tokyo? The guilt for lying to her and Gehirn? Was it because of the punishment and grief he would suffer?

    Or was it something else?