

### Another Theory of the Universe

### Supernova

Copyright 2019 Cristiana Voinea

Published by Cristiana Voinea at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Epilogue

About the Author

Connect with the Author

Chapter I

Summer didn't start for Hamsika only with a long list of exams passed with the highest grades, but also with the astrophysics scholarship she worked so hard for, which brought along an internship at Royce Robotics; the company that mainly sponsored the tech equipment of the university and various educational programs.

She would have loved to visit her family, since another year passed without seeing them, other than the video calls, but circumstances made it impossible for the moment. She promised herself she'd go during the next winter break, but until then was a long while to wait and lots of things waiting to be done.

The internship program came as a surprise. It was brought to her attention that one of the teachers spoke to Lucien Royce himself, since most of the science teachers had research contributions at Royce Robotics, and after hearing of her black holes project, he decided to offer her an opportunity; only the best got hired there, and this was a chance to get noticed, and perhaps after studies to jump into the field, since the company decided recently to focus beyond Earth as well.

But while the girl was busy with getting ready to jump from the studies straight into the research labs, Ryan had quit his job as janitor at the university under the pressure of the teacher that brought him and Hamsika to work together. However, despite the insistences of the older man, the boy still didn't accept to get into studies yet, but agreed on joining some courses once in a while, since the afternoons were now more permissive with the second job gone. He had infinite knowledge to share after all, but even if one might consider it selfishness, he thought it was best to give out to the world he was living in just a small portion of it. The humans were not prepared for such a jump yet; technological progress came fast within the last hundred years naturally, but any boost might have caused a chaos. Time will know better when their greater periods would come, unless wars would bring them to ashes once again; he thought to himself often. The temptation of sharing more and more was big with Hamsika at his side, being continuously feed with her incredible curiosity and power of understanding.

His general feeling of repulsion towards humanity after witnessing the second World War, changed drastically with the accident and amnesia that brought him back to Earth. Meeting Hamsika had of course been the main element in the equation. It all kept his mind connected to his memories, even if they lied rather asleep deep inside his head. The rediscovery of his true nature truly felt like a twist, but did not change anything, except the fact that he was now able to leave anytime, anywhere he wanted, without any sort of boundaries, unless another worm hole accident occurred. If anything, it did point out to him once more the limitations of the human body; how fragile and temporary was everything regarding them. It did not affect him directly, but everything around him, including the girl he grew fond of. Time was passing for everyone, including her, which brought to him sometimes, late at night, dark thoughts, of the unavoidable situations he would have to face eventually. The thought gave him the coldest shivers, even in the hottest of the summer days. He pondered often whether it would've been better or not to leave when he first ascended through the atmosphere, after the car accident. He could have avoided dealing with the inevitable outcome, cowering away, back into his loneliness through space and time, until the end of it all. But a bunch of chemicals struck him harder than others at the moment of his choice, and return seemed to be the only possible outcome.

"Ryan!" A sudden call of his name and a sharp poke with the nail in his ribs jolted him awake from his thoughts and opened his eyes to Hamsika, who was looking at least displeased.

"Have you heard anything in the last couple of minutes? Or should I say more than just a couple of?" Her eyebrows furrowed as she pressed on, demanding and highly annoyed with his attitude.

"No." He laughed it off, which only made her let out a low frustrated sound as she watched him pushing himself up on the elbows to look at her. The boy knew she had gotten used to his way of being, but he drifted off the track more than reasonably sometimes.

"What's with you, lately? Are my talks not interesting enough? I am sorry it's not all a science babble and I actually try to have a life aside from it all."

"It's not that."

"Then?"

"Must be the heat, or something in the air. Takes my mind off things so easily." He reached and brushed behind her ear a strand of hair covering her face.

"Please, Ryan... We're not even meeting that often to bore you with such. But if you don't want to hear them at all, I will only report you whatever will happen from tomorrow on at Royce's."

"Report?" He snorted with a laugh. "Look, you can tell me whatever, and you know that. It's just... All on me. It's not you, okay?"

"Fix it."

"I'll try."

"Like your waking up schedule?" She gave him a tired look. "I, myself, heard your colleagues complaining of it already countless times. I can't imagine how often you did."

"Speaking of them... Cole's leaving soon. He got admitted at engineering."

"So glad to hear! But honestly, I already feel bad for Alice. Maybe then you will try harder to show up when you're needed."

Ryan only threw her an apologetic look, both knowing it wouldn't happen, no matter how hard he'd try. Hopefully Cole would be replaced by someone, this if Tim would allow his hand to pay one more person, apart from the remaining two of them, or let his business be ruined by the boy's pair of left hands and Alice's impossible capability to keep it up for almost three people.

"So, what about earlier? Which I didn't hear..." He chuckled, getting his nose pinched playfully by the girl in return.

"I was asking you what attitude you think would be best around there? What if I meet Royce himself? I heard from students, that have parents working there, he can be impossible to deal with, while some teachers that met him or worked with him, in his student years or after, praised him for the brilliance of his mind. But I am no teacher or parent of some student; I am just a student. I have no idea what I will be doing there anyway, aside from probably carry some papers... I actually don't expect much."

She closed her quick, breathless rant with a small sigh. Ryan had not dealt much with difficult people at his jobs before, since the school one rarely had him meet anyone else than a secretary or some teachers, while at Tim's the only thing he had trouble with was the old man's temper, but it wasn't much of a hassle anyway since he mostly stood inside his office.

"I don't know how much they expect you to know or do, but it may be best to ask tomorrow. I suppose you will have some sort of papers to sign, in which maybe you have some attributions written."

"All I got right now is the invitation on the email."

"I am sure you will do great." He smiled fondly, and she felt blood still rushing up to her cheeks, even if she was used to the sight. His smile would be her weakness forever on.

"How much I hope you're right. I really don't wanna screw this up." She whined silently, her fingers playing together, nervously. The boy placed a hand over hers and their eyes met. No other words were needed to sustain the certainty in his gaze, to which she only nodded. He was always the brightest and only light that could penetrate the darkest of her thoughts and fears.

The next day came after a nearly sleepless night. Hamsika busied her brain with eventual scenarios and possible reactions she'd be supposed to have and others that would be horrible to occur. Being alone in the dorm room for the summer vacation was a bit of a relief, even if she missed sometimes her talks with Anna. Her roommate left for her family's house, until the next study year began. She would've done the same if it wasn't for the unexpected internship and Ryan. She missed her family, but him being a part of her life now, would have surely made her return faster than the beginning of school.

She found herself in the need of taking a taxi, since the science center was nearby the city and getting to it by buses would've been rather tedious. The Royce Robotics research base was at least two times bigger than the university campus, and offered to the people working there from cafeteria to apartments, in a nearby constructed assemble. Being hired there was both an honor, since it was among the biggest and most important tech developers in the world, and a lifechanging experience, because one would have to nearly put its own existence on the tray for science. They demanded lots from their employees and had the highest standards in all.

As soon as the taxi reached the gates, a small drone left its charging post and hovered to the window level, asking for identification. Hamsika gave her name and purpose, and they got directed towards the tallest glass building, bearing the company's name, as soon as the gates opened. She heard of the place as of being filled with robotic technology and AI coordinated buildings and vehicles, but she was still highly impressed by it all.

After leaving the car, she got greeted by a sharp dressed woman, in a black attire, smiling and holding a tablet.

"Welcome, miss Acharya. I hope your trip lacked unpleasant events. Please, follow me."

She motioned her hand towards the building entrance and they both walked the given way. The girl only let out a small salute and smiled shily, still absorbed by everything surrounding her. She didn't expect being picked up like this, but the information must have reached this fast. If only the school secretaries would've welcomed students the same way, she thought to herself, remembering how she nearly got lost while trying to find her way during the first day at the university, when even sleeping was an issue, since she had no idea of where everything was placed in the campus, which included the dorm.

"Before receiving your gear and claiming your working desk, we will make a small virtual tour of Royce Robotics."

"But... Wasn't there supposed to be an interview? I mean, that's what I understood from the invitation."

"Mister Royce unfortunately has his schedule full and might not be able to see you today, but he left word for you to get used to the place in the meanwhile."

The woman's red lipstick lips split in a flashing smile again, making the entire protocol feel too high end for the girl's tastes, but if that was what it took to achieve her goals, she was willing to endure it. Ryan's words popped inside her mind for a brief moment, remembering why he didn't want to find himself in such a place, considering it all cold and passion draining. And yet, perhaps he'd enjoy whatever was beneath the corporate surface. She only nodded to the explanation as a response and followed the woman into what seemed to be a long hallway, with a sliding door that closed behind them as they stepped inside. The light started to dim down and holograms began to spring from floor and ceiling, filling the space with a virtual, animated map of the company's surroundings.

"Royce Robotics was founded fifty years ago, by Thomas Royce, the father of our current company's owner, Lucien Royce, and began by producing computer controlled equipment for assembling factories. Later on, the company started working on medical equipment, mostly prosthetics, which are still being developed today, leading the market in sales and technological advancement." The woman walked on, with Hamsika following at a safe distance between the holographic projections of the buildings starting to raise all around, as the timeline moved on.

"The company is now involved in more than just the industrial robotics or the prosthetics field that brought it to its high level, developing various AI equipped machines, such as drones, cars, intelligent house systems, and most recent, space exploration units, the subject which I believe interests you the most."

She stopped for a moment, turning to face the girl, pointing to her side at a circular looking building.

"The space research facility is located in the latest constructed buildings, and has a satellite monitoring area, a particle accelerator and many more that you will discover in the following weeks, during your internship. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to interrupt me."

"All clear!" She answered faster than anticipated, nearly screaming it out with enthusiasm.

"Very well, then. Let's proceed to the final destination."

The lights went on again and the blue shaded holograms faded slowly. Hamsika looked behind and saw the door they entered through being at quite a distance now, while a new one opened before them, right into an elevator, that led them straight to the underground parking, where a car awaited them. She thought at first that a car was too pretentious, and she could've walked without a problem, but only after they reached the destination, she realized that it would've been too much of a walk, filled most probably with an awkward talk or utter silence. The space research facility was the furthest away from the entrance and it was much bigger than she anticipated from the virtual map.

"A colleague will pick you from here, since I am only allowed to get you this far." The lady smiled politely and gracefully motioned towards a man wearing a white robe heading their way. "It was a pleasure to meet you, miss Acharya and I hope you will enjoy your experience at Royce Robotics."

"Thank you for the tour!"

Hamsika returned the smile and watched her head back towards the car, while she waited to be picked up from the hallway entrance. The man in white robe they spotted earlier was now standing next to her, wearing a more natural smile, and an instant feel of belonging hitting the girl's guts. He was one of her kind, passionate about science, not a forced protocol employee.

"Welcome to Royce Robotics. My name's Todd and I will be your guide for the following days, ready to help you pick a path to follow in our various research fields." His smile grew as he spoke, genuinely imbued with passion for whatever was behind the main security gates.

"Hamsika Acharya, pleased to meet you and glad to be here!" She shook hands with him, feeling her entire body vibrate with enthusiasm. There was so much information to take in, and despite the fact that she felt a slight pressure at picking a subject of interest being mentioned, she was still looking forward to it all as eagerly.

He handed her the paper bag he was carrying, before heading anywhere else.

"Inside you will find your access card, that will let you pass the security gates within the building, a tablet with lots of useful apps and other information, which I will let you explore a bit later, and a robe alike mine..." He paused to point at his own branded clothing. "Which I will ask you to put on. You may leave your jacket over there."

He turned the slightest and pointed at a long U-shaped hallway filled with lockers. They walked together towards them, and stopped at the one wearing the same number as her identification card. With a hover of the card over the locker, it opened with a beep sound, cracking the door open the slightest, ready to be pulled. She left there her bag and jacket, taking only the phone and the newly received goods. The girl put on her white coat and with a broad smile marked herself as being ready for the next steps.

It must have been well passed lunch hour when they finally finished the light speed tour, that made Hamsika's legs nearly numb, both with the weakness of her hunger and soreness. She was quite sure they covered only half of the building, since they haven't checked all sections in their full depth, but she wasn't prepared for more. Her body needed some energy fuel. It almost screamed for one of those cake slices Ryan was bringing her usually.

"I know this must have been a lot to acknowledge in such a short time, but you will have more time for it all during the following weeks you will spend here. I heard you will be with us for two months, am I right?"

The man asked as they descended to an even lower level, in a fully metal covered elevator.

"That's right, two months. But after all I got to see in the first half of the day, I am afraid won't be enough to even learn my way through it all."

They both laughed at the statement and he gave her an apologetic pat on the arm, assuring her that neither did he know the way everywhere and had to sometimes check the maps within the building. There were always sections switching locations, while others got newly introduced. As soon as they walked outside the elevator, three paths split from the hallway they stood into. The one to the right granted access only to the underground parking, while the other two had led lettered metallic plates on the non-transparent, textured glass doors; one stated Particle Accelerator and the other Project Supernova.

"Unfortunately, I am not sure on which subject mister Royce decided to bring you in, but I threw an eye on your paperwork too and thought that the particle accelerator would be a nice thing to see, though for now we are not developing anything for it." He walked towards the door, lifting his access card, but turning around as he felt the other didn't follow. He saw Hamsika's eyes glued to the door to the left.

"What about Supernova?"

He glanced the door's way for a moment, then back at the girl.

"I am afraid I cannot give details on that. It's a new research project and only few have access to the information." A small smile crossed his lips, but his attention got drifted back towards the Supernova doors as they slid open, a small group of people coming through them, involved in an intense talk that halted as soon as they caught glimpse of the two of them.

"Good afternoon." The man saluted and most of the others replied with the smallest nods, while the last that passed through, having the doors slid closed right behind his back, had their attention entirely. His eyes measured them both from head to toes, hands stuffed in his trousers' pockets.

"You must be the internship student." He narrowed his eyes, his hand pointing at her with a snap of his fingers. "You had an interesting name..."

"Hamsika Acharya, sir." She smiled, and stretched out her hand.

"And you also had an interesting subject..." He smiled, taking out his other hand from his pocket, which revealed itself to be a prosthetic. The cold touch of the shake was however a little bit of a shock, compared to the drop she felt in her guts, when she realized it was Lucien Royce himself, that she was talking to. She felt her cheeks starting to burn and her nervousness choking on her breath, rerolling inside her mind the words she spit out over and over again, analyzing her attitude, hoping she didn't screw it up. She had not expected such a random encounter. The entire night of overthinking did not prepare her for the moment well enough.

"Mister Royce, the elevator is here." One of the women from the group stated as the doors opened, seeing him drawn in the conversation. With his eyes still on Hamsika, he made them a sign to go on, as their hands parted from the shake. He looked back at Todd when the doors slid closed.

"I suppose you were showing her around."

"Yes, sir. The particle accelerator was the last on the list." Hamsika looked at her guide, since she felt his voice shaking with nervousness. She expected people there to be used to the sight already. After all, even if he was the owner of the company, he was still active in the research fields.

"You can head back to your team for now. I will take her from here. I was sure I wouldn't catch you today, but it seems like I was proved wrong." He looked back at the girl, while Todd excused himself out from the discussion, calling back the elevator. The man then pointed a hand towards the particle accelerator door.

"I hope you were given an access card."

"Oh, yes, of course!"

She nearly stumbled in clumsiness while trying to search her pockets for it. She felt her hands shaking at the thought she'd be alone with Royce. The man was in his early thirties, so there wasn't such a big age gap between them, to talk of a generation bridge or anything of the sort, but there was a cold, rigid feeling coming from his side, and for sure it wasn't just the prosthetic hand she shook. She heard rumors about that too itself; some said he lost his arm in an accident, while others, bad mouthed, accused him of being a crazy scientist and having his arm actually cut just for the sake of testing the newest products on himself. He surely didn't look like the latter case and it was sounding absurd from the start, but there was still something unsettling about him, more than his status and reputation in the scientific world.

"You will learn." He motioned her inside once the door opened, noticing the nervousness overwhelming her actions.

"Speaking of learning, sir... Mister Todd told me earlier that it's not sure yet where I will exactly perform my activity these two months, whatever that may be. I don't really have much experience in any field, other than theory and some observations."

She looked at the man walking by her side, hands hidden again in his pockets... Royce nodded interested by her question, keeping the slow walking pace by the particle accelerator, which despite the fact that she was told it was not used for anything in particular at that moment, it seemed to be functioning.

"I am still trying to decide myself. You clearly have nothing to do with any other of the buildings. Your place is here." He glanced at her. "The question is where, precisely." He halted abruptly, making a small turn, waiting for her to stop and face him. "What would you like, Hamsika?"

His eyes studied her closely while waiting for an answer. No wonder he had a questionable reputation. Nobody would enjoy being judged by such a gaze; piercing and intense. She felt even her thoughts pinned into place, her mind seeming to be a void as she tried finding an answer.

"Well, I..."

"I am afraid we can't spawn a worm hole." He chuckled, looking to his side. "Or not for now, at least. But we could dive in a bit deeper to explore those particles you mentioned in your papers. You had there an interesting concept, full of presumptions, since dark matter is still a mystery."

"So, you believe it could be true? Because I heard some being highly skeptical." She pressed her lips together in a rather bitter smile, at the memory of her guiding teacher advising her to change her subject weeks before its end, claiming it to be a science fiction fantasy.

"I have my reasons to. People are always skeptical about the new things. Some show enthusiasm at the potential, but some are simply scared or too tired and outdated to get implied into such."

"Sounds like my teachers."

"You know, I've been studying at the same university as you do. There are some great minds there, I still cross paths with once in a while, but there are also people that shouldn't even mop the floors in the area."

Hamsika had to hold back a smile, remembering Ryan that actually used to wipe floors there, and was actually brighter than many.

"Don't stress about your time here, however. I am sure within this week we will find the perfect place for you." He started walking again, with the girl trailing on his steps, until she reached his side again.

They stopped for a bit behind the glass wall of the control room of the particle accelerator. The man was silent next to her. He gave no explanations, but nor did he ask her to go inside and explore, or forbid her to do so. She didn't dare to ask for it, so she only limited herself to be watching from outside. It was true that not all the screens were lighted up, so the machine must have been somewhat idle, but perhaps there was some maintenance going on. The silence lingered for a while more, until they walked back outside, into the hallway that led to the elevator. As they crossed paths with the other two ways, her attention got drawn again by the door Royce came through. They stopped at the elevator and she watched him pressing the button, waiting patiently, though her curiosity couldn't be contained.

"Mister Todd told me the Supernova project is still something new." She glanced at the door once more, before meeting his eyes. They were already settled on her, as if expecting.

"New, and most important, classified. It was inevitable to bring you to the particle accelerator and miss the sight of this door, but please don't let this information go any higher than this floor." A faint trace of a smile crossed his lips in the bright lights of the elevator that just opened its doors for them. She only nodded at his request and stepped inside. Classified for the eventual competitors hearing of it or because it was more to it, she wondered. Perhaps her time within the company will reveal more. She hoped for it, since the name sounded at least interesting.
Chapter II

Ryan's days were not half as interesting as they used to be just weeks ago. With summer vacation upon the university, most of the students fled back home, and even most of the teachers ceased their business around the campus for the moment. Since a year ago he was just getting used to things, the emptiness of the neighborhood that used to swarm with students, didn't bother him as much back then; but now he missed the talks and even the madness of the rush hours.

"I'm leaving next month." Cole stated somewhere close to the end of the week. They both knew he would leave, but now it all seemed to have a date.

"Visit us sometime or come again next summer." Alice smiled at him over the counter, resting her elbows on the wooden surface.

"Yeah, maybe. Not sure though, since the school is going to be in another city. I'm both nervous and excited about it." He let himself fall on the couch next to Ryan with a thud. "What about you, Junior? Still no plans?" He elbowed the other's arm, looking his side.

The boy shrugged at the question, tired of explaining his reasons for the thousand time. The most he agreed on doing, was to drop by some courses at the professor's insistence. Of course, beyond everything, he couldn't explain his true reason behind it all; mentioning himself being a cosmic being that existed long before Earth was even a prototype of a planet in someone's mind, in another galaxy far away, where other civilizations had just started to evolve. His wandering through the Universe granted him an unimaginable amount of information; he witnessed stars being born and stars dying, civilizations starting, or ending in unfortunate collisions; but it also granted him an empty feeling, a longing he never truly understood; all until he met Hamsika. All the civilizations that he visited before, no matter how advanced or primitive they were, didn't offer him the feeling of belonging. He didn't experience it among humans either during his first visit, but the worm hole that sent him back to Earth, unplanned, with an amnesia, had changed his first impression. Hamsika was the change in fact. She showed him that there was more about humans that met the eye; that their varied characters helped balancing their existence, no matter how extreme it appeared to be sometimes. It was their nature.

"Ryan." Cole insisted, putting a hand on his knee, shaking him outside his thoughts.

"You know I don't want to get any specific studies. Not everyone has to go to university. Someone has to do such jobs too." He pointed a hand at the coffee shop surrounding them. Alice pressed her lips together in a rather bitter smile. She wished for more, but life forced her otherwise. Seeing the boy just dismissing the chances he got offered felt almost painful.

"But it'd be a pity for a mind like yours to get wasted between such jobs." She left the counter, since there was no client to serve, and sat on the armchair facing them.

"Stop making it sound like I'm some sort of genius."

"But aren't you? Come on, man. Face it, how much did you help your girl? I say lots! And I'm telling this only by watching you two meet here once in a while."

"I just helped her organizing her thoughts."

Alice and Cole exchanged looks, none of them planning on accepting such statements. Of course, they didn't think of it as a wrong thing to do, but they truly wanted to see him wishing for more for himself too. The boy pressed his hands against his knees and stood up, heading outside for a fresh breath. He was starting to feel pressure settling within the shop and despised it whenever it happened. He was tired of everyone pushing him a way or another; he only wished they accepted and respected his decision already. He looked down the boulevard, where the students used to come from. He was already missing Hamsika's silhouette entering the crowded shop, even if it was only a week since she started her internship. The abrupt lack of communication gave him an empty void inside his stomach, making his inside jump with concern once in a while. He was hoping everything was fine with the girl, since last time they met, she was concerned about how will it all be.

Ever since his bicycle got destroyed in the car accident, he began saving for another, but if all went well, it'd be the end of summer by the time he will have funds for a new one. This not only forced him for longer walks, but also pressed him to finally try harder to wake up earlier, since it took him about double the time to get at work by foot. However, even if usually he wouldn't mind a walk, a forty minutes march through summer's afternoon sun was least to say a pleasant thing to do. Despite the fact that he wasn't human to the core, he still borrowed most of the surviving mechanisms, which meant sleep, a casual need for food every now and then, and dealing with the chill and warmth of the seasons. He was alright with putting one more piece of clothing on if the cold felt nearly unbearable, but he couldn't strip off for summer, and he was quite sure, that even without any clothes, he would still feel everything burning around him.

When he entered his flat, sweat was dripping down his temples. He pushed off his shoes, nearly stumbling upon his own feet, and stared at the general disorder dominating the apartment. He tried few times to tidy it up, just in case Hamsika would like to drop by ever again, but failed after the first ten minutes, brought down by heat and attracted by the scattered books he found all over, suddenly gaining interest in them all over again.

The boy went straight for the bathroom right after, tossing his clothes into the laundry basket, isolating himself between the walls of the shower cabin, letting cool water pour over him. He took in the first shivers with a sharp inhale, and felt his body relaxing slowly as it got rid of the heat that seemed to be stuck onto his skin. He let his forearm rest against the wall and pressed his forehead against it, closing his eyes as water kept pouring over his head, while his other hand anchored itself at his neck, his elbow hanging lazily. He wondered if the girl would like going out during the weekend. He wasn't supposed to enter the dorm, but he was up for a surprise visit since there was no other way of reaching her, considering that during the week she couldn't make it to the shop and Tim decided to close the place for the weekends during the summer break, since not even during the week wasn't much of an activity anymore.

He never thought he would develop such fondness for any being, but Hamsika managed to catch more than just his attention. She gave him a purpose of staying around; he enjoyed their talks greatly, and missed them just as much in the latter days. She was interesting and pleasant to be around; had an unimaginable thirst for knowledge, and a sometimes annoying stubbornness; things to which he got used to gradually and couldn't see them otherwise now. However, when such thoughts occurred, it was inevitable for the darker ones to stay away for too long. He knew very well how temporary life seemed to be on Earth; perhaps the most temporary of all, if he considered a comparison to the rest of civilized planets he's been onto so far. It made his insides feel like shrinking into an even denser black hole at the thought of her just disappearing one day. He was a traveler and an observer, and never proposed himself anything more. He wandered through space and time ever since he acknowledged his existence according to his currently recovered memories, wondering once in a while if he was alone or if there were more alike himself, disguised as others; if he belonged somewhere, or whether his coming to life was a bless or a curse for his own existence. He frowned at the cascade of thoughts and pressed his forehead against the cold wall, willing to wash it all away from his mind. He wished he could speak it out, but mentioning his true nature was out of discussion. He pondered telling Hamsika about it. There was a chance she'd understand and tolerate whatever was beneath his apparent skin, but there was also a chance she'd be mentally scarred for life, which would be the least he wanted to happen. Perhaps the permanent conflictual nature of humans wasn't the best addition to his being.

Hamsika on the other hand wished she could extend a day with twenty-four more hours, since a regular one wasn't enough anymore for everything. After her first week at Royce Robotics she found herself collapsing on the bed, on Friday evening, melted with summer's heat. Even if the buses the company offered, to take people from the nearby towns and bring them to the research center, were equipped with air conditioning, they still weren't as comfortable as a taxi. However, taking a private ride to work daily, would've been impossible to her budget, so she'd have to deal with random talks, despite the fact that she was dead tired at the end of the day. Unlike the university, where she sometimes had free hours between the courses, to be used as she willed, at the job it was nothing more than the lunchtime and occasional talks with her colleagues.

It seemed all hard to manage after a week of struggle, since the tasks were demanding, even if she was only a student with an internship. She expected to be ignored or left aside, but to her surprise, people accepted her quickly and helped her whenever it was needed. She only saw Royce once from a distance ever since their encounter during the first day, and despite the fact that he seemed interested in her eventual new particle discovery, he got her assigned to gamma ray observations instead. Of course, there was nothing to complain about, since she would've loved to be everywhere at once and study it all. It was any science-based student's dream to be among people who were professionals in the field, sharing same passions, while enhancing their skills with hi-tech equipment.

After a quick dinner, mostly made out of fresh fruits, and a shower, she grabbed a book and climbed onto the bed, feeling sweat threatening to go down her back again. She pulled her hair up in a messy bun, and crossed her legs, letting the book rest open on her lap. Her room was exposed to the side of the building that received most of the sun; there was no air conditioning and her fan was broken ever since last summer, when she stumbled upon it. Pleasurable was the least word to be associated with the feeling she was getting within the four walls, during the hottest months of the year.

When she opened the book, a small note fell out of it. It was a folded paper she used as bookmark, remnant from weeks ago, when she had such written notes all over the place, most of them filled with Ryan's chaotic scribbles. She unfolded it and smiled at the sight. It was actually an older piece, containing ideas from their first meets. It wasn't long until her thoughts drifted to the boy and how there was no way of getting in touch with him. She left the dorm before they even opened the coffee shop and returned hours later after they closed, so it was impossible to catch him there. She had no idea how to return to the apartment she visited only once, and without a phone, there was no way left to reach him. Hamsika pressed her lips together into a thin line with a sigh and folded back the small note, putting it aside on the bed. She wondered if he bothered himself with such thoughts as well, or if she was alone, overanalyzing the situation on all sides, as she usually did. Even if their closeness was more than just an illusion, the girl pondered whenever her thoughts drifted to the two of them as a whole, if there really was something between them, or it has been just a heat of the moment, driven by the circumstances that forced them together; and now, since she couldn't reach him any time soon, she questioned what would become of whatever there was; if he would smile the same next time he'd see her, if he'd still hold her to his chest or brush his forever chapped lips against her hair or skin.

After a short reading session, she felt her eyes closing against her will. All the hours lost in front of a computer or dozens of papers, transferring notes and analyzing new recorded data, had finally put their mark on her. She stuck the improvised bookmark back between the pages, and placed the book on the nightstand, with a stretch of her arm, turning off the lamp and snuggling beneath the thin sheet, letting sleep steal her as soon as her eyes slid closed.

She woke up few times during the night, sometimes because of sounds coming from outside, since the window stayed open, in the hope of some cool air, while other times because the sheets felt like keeping her prisoner, sweat making them stick to her body, to her annoyance. But now, there was something different disturbing her rest, apart from the light forcing her eyelids to open with a frown. A repetitive sound that proved itself to be a knock at the door, had Hamsika nearly fell of her bed on the way to the source of noise. Wondering how early or late it actually was, she rubbed her eyes in the hope of looking less sleepy, and cracked open the door, curious of who it might have been during a Saturday morning.

"I was about to quit and turn around." The boy laughed. "Morning!" His smile brighter than any light she could've witnessed was such a sight to sore, still tired eyes; and yet, still not very welcome at that time.

"Ryan, what are you doing here? How did you get in?"

"Used the back door, like Anna taught me." He made his way in as the girl opened the door wider for him. "And I thought I was the one sleeping until noon."

"It's noon?!" She cut him short, slightly panicked, though she had nothing else waiting to be done during the weekend now that school was off, but old habits seemed to die hard.

"Almost." He chuckled, letting her close the door behind him.

"I can't even recall last time I slept this much."

"That tells a lot... Which brings us to the point: how was your first week?!" He pushed his shoes off, next to hers and left the backpack aside, taking a seat next to her on the disheveled bed.

"Extreme." A yawn threatened to mix with her laugh. "It was really exhausting. They assigned me to gamma ray observations."

"Gamma ray? Well, that's quite a change. We haven't talked much about those..." He added thoughtful, but his mood changed almost instantly to a crazy curiosity. "How do you like it?"

The girl shrugged, trying to fix her hair, which was looking like a bird's nest after a storm.

"Hamsika?" His hand rested over hers, the heat from his skin seeming to transfer and travel all the way up to her face, lighting her cheeks up in a bright shade of red.

"It's not much, other than some calculations and notes, based on results we get few times a day through programs that monitor observations, from various parts of the world. It's not that entertaining yet, but it's really interesting to see the whole process and have access to multiple tools, and be in touch with so many brilliant minds!"

She concluded breathlessly with a smile, looking to the side at him, letting herself lean into his shoulder. The boy moved his arm, wrapping it around her back, pulling her closer, even if the warm air within the room made it feel a bit uncomfortable.

"I'm glad to hear you enjoy yourself." He returned the smile. "I was thinking that we could go out today. There is a temporary exhibit about the human body in motion at the Natural History Museum. Sounds interesting to see."

"I'd love to, but honestly it sounds crowded and I feel like I need more rest until I get used to this schedule."

"Alright... " He nodded, feeling her eyes on him.

"I'm sorry, Ryan."

"It's alright! Really." He looked at her with a smile. "You need anything? I could go and buy."

"I'll manage."

They looked into each other's eyes for a few moments, until the girl drifted her gaze elsewhere, seeming to focus again on her hair, falling on all sides from the messy bun. Ryan wondered if there was anything wrong, other than her obvious tiredness. He even rolled back in his mind their last meet as she stood up from the bed. However, they parted on good terms back then, and other than her concern regarding work there was nothing else left to be considered. He pushed himself up too, with the thought that whatever bothered her, if anything, wasn't on his side.

"Hamsika."

"Hm?" She gave him a side look, her mouth busy with a hair clip as she put her hair together in a more civilized manner.

"You sure are okay? We can talk if you want to."

"I'm just tired, that's all. Woke up few times because of noises or heat and my overall sleep this week was a mess, because of the mainly same reasons." She gave him an apologetic look. "And I wasn't prepared for guests."

"It's not like I mind any mess." He laughed a bit, feeling slowly pushed away. "Perhaps tomorrow?" He grabbed his backpack and unzipped it, taking out a slice of cake he bought on the way, placing it on the desk. The girl looked at it for a moment, then back at him.

"Perhaps."

"Should I come to pick you?"

"Not sure..."

"Well, I have to know. No phone, remember?"

"Stone age, yeah. I remember." She rolled her eyes. "You have to do something about that."

"I know... But I'd rather buy a bike first. The way to work seems so much longer by foot and is killing me in the morning, with the even earlier waking up hour."

"Right. The bike." Her eyebrow twitched the slightest at the thought of the past event, which she still questioned, because the circumstances seemed a bit odd.

"So? Tomorrow?"

"Let's just... Leave it for next week. I can't promise anything for now."

"Okay." He nodded more to self, zipping back the rucksack and throwing it on his shoulder right after.

"Thanks, Ryan." She mumbled as she walked him to the door, parting with him by a kiss on the cheek.

She pressed her back against the door as it closed, and had her hands cover her face with a sigh. Just a night before she wished for the boy to be close, but seeing him in the morning, didn't bring her as much thrill as she expected to feel. She wished for more of him so badly during their study sessions, but after she got a taste of it and saw his head still in the clouds, despite all the help he provided, somehow set her off the course she desired at first. It was as if someone stopped pocking the fire and it was slowly dying, and with the distance they were forced to deal with now, it was even harder to keep it going. Perhaps it was the tiredness and interest for something else, like her new job, eating all her focus at the moment, but despite the attachment she thought she felt for him and for their love shared regarding space, something clicked off.

When he reached again the back entrance of the dorm, sooner than anticipated, Ryan checked his watch and threw a glance at the sky. The museum really sounded like a relief, a place to hide from the sun and enjoy something new, but with Hamsika's refuse, he had to change plans. He didn't want to go alone and preferred to wait a week more, in the hope that she would join.

He would've given anything now for his bike to be back in one piece, ready to take him places. He made few steps and recalled passing by a lake during one of his hikes from last year. He decided not to approach it back then, but would've loved to have his feet in the water now, relaxing on a patch of grass with a book, beneath the shade of a tree. But just when his mind began creating patterns of how long would it take him to get there by foot, his eyes landed on the newly added bicycle rack, filled with bikes ready to be rent from the university campus. However, his enthusiasm was quickly brought down when he approached to check and realized he needed a phone to use an application in order to rent one. He really had to solve this issue too, since life on Earth seemed to be depending lots on the small device.

With a small sigh, he left the rack behind and proceed towards the exit, pulling onto his backpack adjustment belts, fixing it better on his back, even if he was sure there shouldn't be more than five minutes until his T-shirt would become a wet mess. He looked around when he reached the main street again and pondered whether he should head back home and bury his head in a book or fight the sun and make his way to the lake he recalled. He reached with a hand to his back, touching the contents of his rucksack through the fabric to check if there was any book with him. When his fingertips grabbed the hard cover, the decision was taken: the next stop should be outside the city, near that lake, even if that meant a long day ahead of him.

The boy equipped himself with few bottles of water and a bag of juicy peaches from a shop near the city limits, and with the sun burning watchful over his back, left for the small solo adventure. Stopping occasionally under patches of shade beneath trees for a drink, hours passed, while the city was outside the sight, long behind. Few cars slowed down nearby him, asking if he needed a ride, but he smiled and waved them away, wishing to put the slightly enhanced human body to work and test out its limits.

By the time he reached the destination it was already evening. Stars were now lit up well, reflected along with the half moon on the still surface of the lake. He let his backpack slide off his shoulders, on the ground, with a thud, and kneeled on the grass, consuming the remaining water he had left in a bottle, feeling his legs shaking under the long awaited halt. He took out the book and a peach from the backpack after he felt his insides growing steady again, and muttered under his breath when he realized that his small, portable reading lamp was out of batteries; reading under such dim light would've been quite a torture. He tried to focus even so, but quit after not more than two pages, abandoning the book closed near his belongings as he stood up for a stretch.

The boy settled his hands on his lower back, looking relaxed at the silent, soothing surroundings, smiling to himself. It'd have been nice to have Hamsika by his side, but loneliness never bothered him much, since it has been his only friend for longer than one could bother counting. He took a deep breath and felt the cool air finally filling his insides, then looked at his side, down, to the backpack. He had only two peaches left and a bottle of water. Perhaps he will accept a ride back home if anyone stopped again to pick him from the side of the road, but the scent coming from his clothes was at least displeasing. He wouldn't like filling anyone else's space with it. He wrinkled his nose at the smell and pulled his shirt off, letting it lie on the grass, nearby. The boy kicked off his shoes from his feet on his way to the lake and stopped when his toes reached the wet surface, pondering for a moment and then proceeding into taking off his pants too, leaving only the boxers on as he stepped inside the water, letting the chill of the cold touch go up his spine. He felt his feet slowly losing contact with the ground as he took more distance from the shore; he kept on swimming slowly, and turned around for a glance only a while after, to realize he almost reached the middle of the lake.

"Well, that's quite a distance." He chuckled to himself, spinning in place for a moment, admiring the view.

With nothing else, but some birds sounding in the distance, it felt surreal compared to the madness of the city, where it was always someone screaming, an alarm going off or an ambulance passing by. He enjoyed the people there, though; he enjoyed being social and staying in touch with the reality he chose to be part of for a while. However, he appreciated such silent moments with himself too just as much, even if he had lots of them during his existence so far. They were a part of his way of being by now and taking too much distance from his comfort zone started to feel a bit off, though he often wondered if his comfort zone meant a place like home to him, or just an intimacy he was used to, and craved for once in a while. In fact, he never understood what a home truly meant, since on each civilized planet, he encountered various opinions; some said home meant safety, others stability, while humans associated it with love. But love was a complex thing he couldn't define yet. It was a thing about many things; about physical contact, about family, about passions and about caring in general for a thing or another. It could've been one or a mix of these; however, he couldn't put a finger on anything precisely and say, that's love to me. The boy enjoyed many things, but couldn't really consider one he couldn't be living without. Perhaps love was not for him, and it was just a human experience. Love was beyond a bunch of chemicals triggering various senses, it was about ways of thinking and unexplainable feelings.

He let himself fall beneath the water surface at the avalanche of thoughts, closing his eyes as he drowned into the darkness of the lake. Ryan let his body lose itself to a molecular separation process, in which his core reabsorbed all the matter he left falling apart, along with the water surrounding him. A vortex started to form around him as the gravity of his contained black hole core began absorbing its surroundings. The nebula looking structure, surrounding the ring of light around the dark heart, was still shaped in his human form silhouette, though the features were hardly distinguishable now, under the everchanging gas structure. He let himself float back up, carrying along, in a raising vortex, the water alike a tornado above the lake surface. All built up within seconds before departing, moment at which big waves formed beneath the shockwave, brushing the shores, while the forest nearby shook awake at the early blast of the sound barrier breaking in his ascension.

Ryan stopped high enough to see the halo of light coming from where the city lied. He would have to find his way back, and if it wasn't too much of a hustle if he would be spotted anyhow, he would've gone straight back home. But what crossed his mind beyond all the problems he might encounter through such a travel, were his own human issues. He'd have to get inside the house somehow and the keys were back on the shore, in his backpack. He glanced back towards the lake for a moment, then started descending, landing with less of a noise than his departure caused, and looked around as his body started to form back together.

"I didn't foresee this." He let out a tired sigh and glanced towards the shore, seeing some of his belongings still floating on the surface of the water, stolen by the waves just a bit earlier. He took a dive to retrieve whatever he could, even if the book was compromised, as well as a bunch of notes, the peaches and a pencil he failed finding. His clothes were all a soaked mess and it was impossible to leave with them the way they were. He lied everything on the grass and looked at them, running his fingers through the damp curls, thinking of what could make the best option of getting back home.

He spent the next hour lying down on the ground, humming silently a made-up tune, while enjoying the view above. There was a longing for the space beyond Earth's limits, and yet he didn't feel like it was time to leave yet. Something still kept him pinned to the human world, and couldn't tell yet what it exactly caused it, other than Hamsika's presence.

It was bit after midnight when he finally got up, and despite being still wet, he put on the pants and shoes, stuffing his shirt in the backpack along with everything else he managed to saved, making sure once more before leaving, that the keys were included. He let out a small hiss accompanied by a shiver down his spine when the cold cloth of his backpack touched his skin, as he threw it over his shoulder, making his way slowly back to the road. He wasn't sure if he'd have the same luck of meeting cars on the way like earlier, considering that not many would be up to pick someone from the way, in the middle of the night, smelling like a wet dog. If no lucky ride would show up, at least he was pleased he wouldn't have to make his way back through the sun once again.

However, it wasn't long after he left the forest and walked alongside the road, that a grey car slowed down at his side, the window lowering. He walked by its side, looking at the driver who bent over the front seat to speak.

"Hey kid, need a ride-... Wait a minute. Junior?!" The familiar mustache along with a pair of shocked eyes glanced the boy's way.

"Mister Tim!" He smiled at the sight, approaching the window as the car stopped on the side of the road. The door nearly hit him as the man pushed it open from inside, sooner than he anticipated. He stepped aside, but hesitated getting in.

"Come on, now. We don't have all night." The man frowned at the sudden halt.

"I'm all wet... I'm not sure you want your car to smell like a rained dog after." He chuckled, throwing his backpack on the rubber carpet on the floor of the front passenger seat. He heard the man muttering something, then saw him struggling to get out his car, tangling in the seatbelt on his way. He watched him going to the trunk and take outside a blanket, that he soon after threw it over the car, to him.

"Wrap yourself in that and get in." He mumbled as he returned inside the car. Ryan did as he got told, and soon after found himself being driven back to town, by his boss's side. The least he'd expect to meet at such a late hour.

"Are you always such a mess, boy? When will that head of yours come down the clouds? Hm?!" The man poked his temple, making the boy pull himself away with a small laugh.

"Not sure I will ever do that. I quite enjoy myself like that."

Tim only sighed with a disapproving shake of his head at the words, then turned on the radio, letting silence fall between them for a while. Ryan took in the details he could catch glimpse of within the car; despite the fact that he was accusing him of being a mess, the other wasn't doing much of a better job either, with empty cups from the coffee shop all over, some crumbles between the seats and two sunburned, leaf shaped air fresheners abandoned randomly.

The silence broke with a silent hum of a country song coming from Tim's side, that made the boy give him an amused look. The man seemed to enjoy himself, tapping the rhythm on the steering wheel, looking relaxed, unlike his usual grumpy self. Feeling himself being watched, he threw Ryan a quick glance.

"What? Don't you like it?"

"It's fine."

"What are you listening to usually? Some crazy rock bands? Hip hop?" He made some signs with his hands, imitating the music genres, to both of their amusement.

"Nothing, actually."

"Impossible! Never heard a person before that doesn't like music."

"It's not that I don't like it. I just don't have any radio or anything."

"Tv? Phone? You don't have a phone?!" He looked at him almost scandalized, not believing when he saw the boy disagreeing with a shake of his head. Ryan was both tired and amused by people's reactions when he admitted such details.

"This explains why you're never in time at work."

"I do have an alarm clock."

"Then, there's no excuse. As I said, you just have to unstuck your head from wherever it lies."

Ryan chuckled at his remark, and let himself relax under the seatbelt, covered in the soft blanket.

"I like all sorts of music, mostly oldies though. My parents raised me with such and it reminds me of home." Tim added after a while.

"Ever going back there? Home, I mean."

"Quite often lately, actually. My mother is alone for a couple of years, since my father left us for the other side, and she is managing the small farm they busied all their lives with, harder and harder." He sighed deeply, turning the volume lower, as if longing for a moment of silence.

"I see..." Ryan replied only, not sure of what else to add. He wasn't part of such discussions much, since miss Olsen rarely brought in family talks. He enjoyed and appreciated moments alike greatly, though. He considered them a sign of trust from the other; some kind of relief.

"Returning from there now, in fact." He smiled the slightest, then gave a quick look to the other. "What about you, boy? You never took days off to visit home."

"I don't really have a home, sir."

A moment of silence followed and he felt the man shifting at his side, probably pondering whether he jumped into a difficult and sensitive subject for the boy or not.

"Excuse my daring..." He started, his voice low. "But what happened?"

"Nothing." He shrugged. I just, never had a family to go back to."

"I suppose you grew at some orphanage..."

"More or less." He looked outside the window, knowing that the Universe itself and his experiences here and there were in fact the ones that raised him.

"I'm sorry to hear." The man added, gravely and pat the boy's arm through the blanket, comfortingly. "I don't have kids of my own. Perhaps I was too much of a grump all my life to attract someone by my side..." He smiled rather bitterly. "But if you ever need any help, just let me know and I will do what I can."

"It's alright, sir. Thank you." Ryan returned the smile, feeling truly grateful to the small bond they just created.

They lost themselves into talks about music for the rest of the road, Tim telling him details of most of the bands coming up on the radio. He seemed to be quite passionate about it all, an inheritance from his father, as he called it, who had shelves full of vinyl discs.

The man gave him a ride to the very block of flats he lived into, and left him the blanket.

"Thank you again for the ride, sir. And the talks! It was such a pleasure." The boy smiled, leaning over the open door of the car, looking inside at the other.

"Good thing I found you. Otherwise, you'd have been a wreck on Monday morning." They both laughed, Ryan knowing that the job really had nothing to do with it all at that moment, and the man was just mocking him jokingly. "Night, Junior."

"Good night, Mr. Tim." He closed the door and watched the car go before heading inside too, craving for some dry clothes. He had a smile playing on his lips for the rest of the night, until slept stole him, knowing that Tim was in fact an interesting and funny person, beyond the grumpy face he wore at the working place, most of the time.

Chapter III

It was during the third week of the internship, when Hamsika's, by now, monotonous schedule, would be broken by an unexpected turn. She was still stuck on the gamma ray observations, but got promised in a fugitive talk with Royce, when she caught sight of him on the hallway, that in her second, meaning also her last month there, she would be able to pick herself a new field of activity within the research center.

With a handful of papers and her stomach growling with hunger, she proceed to the elevator. It was the end of the day and she couldn't wait to make her way to the dorm, where she'd finally have an undisturbed meal. She enjoyed greatly the company of her co-workers, but she started to miss having some time with herself and her thoughts.

She stepped inside the full metal covered elevator with a bunch of her colleagues, that eventually left her until she reached her final destination: the particle accelerator. They had received quite a lot of impulses lately, and her duty was a bit deviated from gamma rays to other types of radiation waves observations, still within the same department. The girl had no idea of what exactly was the fuss all about, since big part of the information regarding the projects was still classified to her, considering that her time there was too short to allow her being fully informed on the researches. She was only getting assigned tasks, that they were apparently using on a lot more fields she was allowed to know. Of course, she was appreciating every second being there, learning new things, but she would've loved to be involved more into various subjects, at a deeper level.

When she stepped outside the elevator, her attention was drawn again by the door leading to the Supernova project, about which she still heard nothing. People just avoided speaking of it, including those she saw leaving the place with Royce, during her first day. Whenever she saw them crossing paths with others, they fell oddly silent. If the owner of the company himself, asked her to keep it confidential, even though she knew nothing in particular about the project, then it really was something big, but she couldn't help being curious about it.

The girl made her way to her destination, however, and let the access card hover over the locking device. As soon as the doors slid open, the air got filled with a loud humming sound, that disappeared once with Hamsika stepping inside the particle accelerator sector. It seemed that, unlike last time, it ran at full capacity, making even her footsteps on the concrete floor soundless, while her entire body was crossed by a soft vibration from the machine nearby. She walked by the enormous tech filled hallway, until she reached the control room Royce had shown her during the first day. Everyone seemed so focused on their screens and the projections with graphics and schemes above their heads, that nobody noticed her stepping inside the room. She made her way to the desk she was told to deliver the papers to, glancing in the meanwhile at the displays all over the place. Unlike her first time there, now the activity was intense. Perhaps they were testing out something, based on the late data captured.

"Oh, perfect." A man claimed the papers when she reached the desired desk. "I see you got the instructions on the email right." He smiled at her. The scheme he provided with the floor plan was helpful indeed, though it wouldn't have been rocket science to figure it out by a short description.

"Yes, it was helpful indeed." She returned the smile, but her attention drifted quite fast to the surroundings. "You seem pretty busy, unlike last time I visited the place."

"Ah, yes. We are trying to stabilize some radiations."

"Did you manage anything?"

"Not yet, unfortunately. It seems like some more nights of struggle will follow." He let out a tired laugh, though he seemed to be keen on the subject of observation, despite the weariness.

"I wish you only the best with it and fastest results." She bowed her head respectfully and started making her way out, as some seemed to turn their heads towards their conversation.

"Yes. Thank you!" The man raised his voice a little, making sure he was heard and exchanged a small wave with Hamsika before she disappeared behind the automatic door.

She made her way back to the entrance, walking by the side of the muffled roaring of the particle accelerator, that seemed to have bursts of energy once in a while, the vibrations intensifying significantly under her feet. An eventual flaw would've caused a disaster, shattering the building from its very foundations along with everyone and everything inside.

However, right before she reached the door, she saw through the matte glass, a group of people waiting at the elevator, about which she presumed they were from either the underground parking, or the Supernova Project. She waited for them to be gone, not willing to see the faces of those from the other project if it was the case, since they behaved at least odd when it came to visual contact with the others.

The locker beeped as the door slid open at her access card, and she stepped back into the T shaped hallway, heading to the elevator. Her finger reached for the button, but hesitated as she bit her lips thoughtful. The girl glanced around and, to her own shock towards her daring, walked to the forbidden door and tried her luck with her card. She was taken by surprise when the doors slid open, expecting them to be coded and provide access to only a select group of people. Curiosity carried her further down the hallway, hearing the silent hiss of the closing doors. If someone would've asked her what she was doing in there, she was prepared to admit she got lost, which wasn't fully false, since she had no idea where exactly this was leading too. The humming of a powerful generator accompanied her all the way through the dim illuminated passage, covered in dark grey, shiny walls and matte floor tiles, sharing the same tone.

Hamsika glanced over her shoulder before putting her access card over the next door's locking device. With nobody on her steps, ready to kick her outside, she walked deeper into the facility, descending down the stairs showing before her as soon as she went past the door. Her heart jolted violently, up to her throat, when she saw a shadow casted on the floor, which proved itself to be nothing more than a white coat hanged around the corner. It seemed like there was nobody left apart from the security cameras who must have noticed her in long ago. She was only praying that there was nobody there to see her, or that facial recognition was not a thing, though she doubted, just considering the tech swarming within the research center. She made a few steps towards the control board; there was a large wall window before her eyes, but all opaque.

"What's here so secret that people look afraid to talk of..."

She murmured to herself, glancing around, but couldn't understand anything from the statistics continuously modifying. It was only when she positioned herself in front of the main desk that lights automatically switched on, and the windows that were just a mirror moments before, became crystal clear, revealing the contents within the space behind them. An enormous room, she couldn't even catch glimpse of its ceiling without bending herself, unveiled before her eyes. It looked like the core of the particle accelerator, but much more enhanced; led lights flickering all around it, while the middle was pulsating, at an almost threatening looking pace. The center, wrapped in hexagonal pieces that formed a large, enforced sphere, like a cocoon around the pounding core.

"What is this thing even?" She found herself voicing her thoughts out loud. Her eyes lost the gigantic tech piece from the focus for a moment, to look at screens all around her.

"Particles decomposing... Reverse gravitation monitor... Artificially generated cancelations of-" The sound of voices down the hallway interrupted her small observing monologue and a sensation of déjà vu hit her, remembering the time she had to hide in the observatory, when she breeched in just as now. Finding herself a small dark corner to sneak around, that led to the electric panel chamber, served as the best hiding spot she could have, the lights switching off as she stepped away from the center, right before the others walked in.

"Oh! Here it is!" A woman exclaimed, yanking off the hanger the robe that scared Hamsika minutes before.

"You will lose your head one of these days." The other person replied, sounding tired and hopelessly towards the other. The girl rolled her eyes, still hidden around the corner, recalling all the times she had such moments with Ryan and his scattered belongings.

"Come on, I need to be home early today. My wife's birthday present waits at the shop to be picked and it's getting late." The same person as before added, and left, still chatting with the woman that reclaimed her lab coat.

Giving them several minutes, to take enough distance, Hamsika finally let out a long breath, relaxing against the wall nearby. It was the second time within a year her curiosity and need for more information, not provided fairly due to a reason or another, brought her to such dangerous circumstances. Perhaps being caught in the observatory wasn't as bad as getting caught here, since she didn't know the exact consequences, considering many in the building didn't know, or refused to acknowledge the current experiment going on.

After listening once more if there was any other sound other than the generators nearby, she stepped outside the shadows that hid her from the other's sight, and walked back to the central command panel, which lit up once more at her presence. She glanced again at what was behind the secured window wall, then moved her attention back to the monitors. With a moment of hesitation, she took out her phone and snapped in the fastest possible way few shots, not even sure if she got anything right or if it was all a blur, considering the shake of her hands.

Still very curious about it all, and what the enforced core meant or what was it made out of, she walked outside the room, and to her luck, didn't meet anyone else until she reached back the floor she worked on, where most of the people had already left. She checked the hour, and to her shock, she saw that it was nearly eight and a half and the last bus that'd take her back to town left thirty minutes ago.

"Great..." She muttered to herself and after wishing a quick good bye to the remaining ones, she rushed back to the elevator, heading to the ground floor in order to leave.

During the last three weeks, Ryan had seen Hamsika only a few times, but thanks to Tim's unexpectedly generous gesture, he got himself a phone, so they heard each other more often, which really smoothed the rough connection between them. Impressed by his situation, the man had shown up few days later after the surprise trip, with a bag containing a new phone in a box, about which he admitted he never used, since he preferred to stay old school, with the buttons included, while the one he offered to him had been received at a promotion and was only gaining dust on a shelf at home. Tim said he dared to ask Alice for some help and load him some music to listen to in the memory of the phone, which made it be a collective gift in fact.

It was Cole's last day at the coffee shop, so after the usual schedule, they closed the place for a small farewell party, to which even Tim participated. They all gathered money and bought him a personalized cake, that'd fit the engineering profile he decided to study, accompanied by a nicely framed picture of them during the Christmas party.

"I'm gonna miss you all." Cole falsely sobbed, which made everyone cry with laughter, though in truth, he was truly going to miss their company. Despite the fact that it was hard sometimes to keep track of everything, usually during the madness of the rush hours, it was still a fun experience, and apart from Tim's occasional outbursts, the atmosphere was pleasing.

"Drop by if you're ever back in town." Alice smiled, then gave him a hug, as they were all getting ready to leave the place, with night falling upon them.

"It was a pleasure to have you around. Good luck, kid!" Tim gave him a strong shake of hands and a rare encouraging smile. One could tell the man would miss him around. He was quite an uncle figure among them, even if he would never admit it loudly.

"Junior."

"For once. Ryan, please." He chuckled.

"Kiddin', Ryan." Cole laughed too and launched himself at the boy with a brotherly hug. "Take care of yourself and that girl of yours, man. And get used to that phone already. I'm waiting for pictures!" He parted from the hug and pat the other's shoulder. He looked again at all of them, then wiped his eyes, genuinely wet now.

"Never thought this was going to be so hard." He tried laughing it away, but received a group hug before they all headed outside and bid farewell once more, wishing the best of luck to Cole and hoping to catch glimpse of him soon.

Ryan was half through his way home when, the still unusual to him, vibrating phone started to buzz in his pocket. He stopped and searched for it, then took it out to see Hamsika calling.

"Hey! You're done for the week?" He greeted her cheerfully, picking up the pace again.

"Hi, Ryan. Well... Yes. Sort of." She let out a tired laugh.

"Sort of? You plan on sleeping at work or what? It's kind of late, even for you to still be there."

"Yes, about this... Could you come and pick me up? I stayed until losing track of time and the last bus left a while ago."

The boy halted and looked around for a taxi, but none came to his sight.

"You'll have to wait." He eyed a bicycle rack and went towards it, finally glad that he'd be able to use it now that he had a phone.

"Better wait a bit than a whole weekend."

"An hour?"

"An hour..." She sighed at the news.

"I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Just, be safe."

"I'll try."

"Ryan!" She shouted at the phone before he closed, shaking his head rather amused by his attitude.

The boy stopped near the rack and after downloading the application, he scanned a code, making the lock go almost instantly green, unlocking the bicycle. After checking a route on the map and making sure his phone was back in a safe pocket, he hopped on the bike and made his way towards the research center.

By the time Ryan arrived at the destination, Hamsika was already feeling like falling asleep, with an empty stomach, on one of the benches in the park nearby the exit. Only the vibration of her phone took her out the daydreaming she was diving into for a while by now, twisting on all sides what she witnessed back in the laboratory. Not even thoughts of her getting fired would cancel the overthinking; there was something at least peculiar going on there and people were more than just secretive about a classified project; they were afraid. She stood up while checking the message the boy gave her, then proceed to the other side of the gate where he was waiting for her.

"Hamsika!" He exclaimed, but the smiled faded quite fast off his lips. "You look so tired..."

"That's because I am." She sketched the briefest smile back his way. The boy took her backpack and let her mount up on the bicycle frame.

They rode back towards the city quite silent. It was only when she noticed a familiar intersection that she spoke her mind, since her thoughts were still floating other places rather than the present.

"Is this close to your house? I kind of recognize few things from back then."

"It is, but I will take you to the dorm, leave the bike where I took it from and return by foot." He leaned his head a bit to look at her while waiting for a traffic light to go green.

"Would it be too much to ask to stay over tonight? There's something I need to tell you about."

"I don't think the dorm is such a safe place for me. You know, I don't study there, after all." He laughed and picked the pace back up at the green light.

"I was talking about your apartment."

"Oh!" He gasped. It seemed like tiredness caught up on him as well. "Of course. You're always welcome! But I will still have to take this back to a rack, so I'll leave you home alone for a bit."

"I'll manage." She pushed her head closer to his chest for a moment, in a comforting gesture, even if she could fall asleep on spot if she closed her eyes for more than a blink.

"Alright..." He searched his pockets when they stopped in front of his apartment building. He took out the keys and gave them to the girl as soon as she was off the bicycle. "This one is for the entrance, here..." He rolled them on the ring in order. "And this one is from the apartment."

"Which floor was it?"

"Second. The door from the center. Don't you remember?" He looked at her amused, then got ready to leave again, waiting for her eventual reply for a moment.

"If I did, I wouldn't be asking."

"Right." He shook his head, giving a quick look to her tired self before departing. "Sorry for the mess!" He shouted on his way, making her roll her eyes and wonder if there was any change at all.

Hamsika made her way inside the building and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. She looked few times at the doors, making sure she wouldn't be mistaking and let out a relieved sigh when the key twisted flawlessly into the lock. She stepped inside carefully, expecting to hit something on her way, while her hand searched for a light switch. She found the one for the kitchen, but it was okay enough to make her way through the house for that moment. As expected, even with the dim light on, she still nearly stumbled upon a shoe, which she pushed away mumbling under her breath while taking her own off. Her heart halted for a moment, realizing the weight on her shoulders was in fact absent, to recall only moments after that her backpack stayed with him. She should've asked for it, since the boy must have been already a messy sweat. The weight on his back was all he didn't need on his way back home.

With a small sigh at the thought, she searched for the main light switch. As soon as she found it and pressed it on, she gave a better look to the surroundings. It wasn't in fact any different from what she remembered. Books were still abandoned all over the place, few clothes piled up here and there, looking all twisted from the washing machine, while to her shock, the bed, in fact an extended sofa, was all tidied up. She appreciated the unexpected sight with a nod to herself and went further, to the large windows at the desk. She didn't recall as many plants on the sill, but it was a fine addition nonetheless. She glanced at the papers and books scattered on the desk, among which lied lost in the mess various pens and pencils. He really didn't joke when he said he enjoyed multiple science subjects; the random paper filled with notes she picked was loaded with chemistry. For a short moment, her cheeks burned red again, recalling the oxytocin and dopamine talk they had back up on the hill, while stargazing. It seemed unexpected at first, but it was all connected to her mention about anatomy and such passions she had back in the day. Even if he seemed to have his head permanently elsewhere than the present, it appeared that he was in fact listening to it all. She couldn't decide yet if he was doing this on purpose or not, since he seemed genuinely light-headed many times.

The girl let herself fall exhausted on the bed, that seemed to embrace her in its softness. She had her eyes stare at the ceiling for a moment, before letting her lids slid closed, hoping that she won't fall asleep for good by the time he'd be back.

"Hamsika?" The door open and closed with a clanking sound as he stepped inside. He gave her a rather concerned look at first, as she was slowly recovering from the few moments of napping.

"You're back." She mumbled, with a tired smile as she stretched her arms forward, muttering at herself deep in her mind that she managed to do what she didn't intend to.

"I tried to be fast." He let down the weight off his shoulders, and came to sit next to the girl. "You hungry?" He stood up as fast as he sat, to the other's surprise, with a slap on his knees, and made his way to the fridge.

"Oh, wow..." She followed him shortly and exclaimed at the sight when she reached his side, both looking into the refrigerator. "Are you... By any chance, vegetarian?" She glanced at all the fruits and vegetables, without any trace of cooked food or meat.

"No, but summer makes me want to eat fresh things." He stepped away, letting her in front of the opened door as he started to search the cabinets. "I bought some pasta last week, but I don't remember where I put the pack."

"Why am I not surprised?" She shook her head and took out a tomato sauce she found on the fridge door. It was indeed unsealed, so perhaps the pasta wasn't as far.

"There it is!" He exclaimed, taking out the pack and letting the door close.

Unsure of how much the boy knew how to handle anything in the kitchen, including fire that could've turned it all into a mess, Hamsika only asked for what she needed and started to prepare the dinner by herself. She used to enjoy cooking back home, though she was making food a tad more complex than some quick pasta, but if this was all available for the moment, it should do. She lifted herself up on the counter, waiting for the water to boil in order to add the contents. The boy approached and rested his shoulder against the refrigerator's door, looking at her, with curiosity lingering in his eyes.

"You said you wanted to talk. What about?"

The girl leaned to the side to take out the phone from her pocket and searched for the pictures she took back at the laboratory, handing it to the other to check them out.

"What's with these?" He swiped among them few times, sometimes stopping to zoom in, feeling a bit out of context since they seemed to be randomly snapped and some even too blurred to be figured out.

"Remember I told you on a phone call some days ago about some strange things happening and forbidden subjects?"

"Yes...?"

"Well, this is the hottest one around I think, since everybody I saw involved in it, avoid eye contact or talks like the plague. It's as if people know of the things going on, but they choose not to talk about it and it's more than confidentiality. It feels like fear to me."

"Fear?" He gave her a quick look, then stopped on the clearest picture she took, zooming in and actually focusing on the data from the displays. "Why would you call it-" He paused abruptly from his silent speaking, then went again through all the pictures, zooming in focused. He gave a long last glance to the generator behind the glass in the last picture, before pushing the phone back into Hamsika's hands, looking thoughtful.

"Why would I call it what?" She retook the sentence he started after a bit, seeing him not willing to resume the subject anytime soon. She watched him walking to the desk, searching for something, to have him return moments later with a blank paper and a pencil.

"Ryan?" She pressed on as he took back the phone from her, starting to note down data.

"I can't figure things from a sight, I gotta have them written somewhere."

She raised her eyebrows, taken a bit by surprise by the sudden focus. He had times in which he drifted off in thoughts and notes, she saw it often during their studying sessions, but now it felt a bit different. He somehow managed to give her the same vibe as the coworkers, though she missed whatever they were so secretive upon. She jumped off the counter with a slightly frustrated noise, and added the pasta to the boiling water, pushing her arm against his right after, looking down at the notes.

"Well?" She crossed her arms, expectantly, and asked as soon as he straightened up his back, marking that he was done.

"I need to think these things a bit, I wouldn't like to make false presumptions."

"About what? What in the world is going on that I don't know of?!" She exclaimed frustrated, since he was the last one she expected to be so silent about it. Ryan looked at her, as if she was seeking her face for something.

"Did you give them the paperwork we did together?"

"Who?"

"I don't know?! The people there, eventually those working on this."

"Those working on it don't even bother to respond to a salute sometimes." She looked at him in disbelief. "What? You think they claimed my work? This thing was already happening before I even got there. It didn't bloom over the night."

"But did anyone there read those papers?"

"I don't get it. Why does it matter?"

"Because there was some important statement that might be relevant to this."

"Like what? Ryan, what in the world is wrong with you acting like this all of a sudden?!" She had to restrain herself from slapping him back to reality, since he seemed to have some sort of panic growing on him, while obviously restraining information.

"The particles."

"The ones deviated from dark matter?"

"Yes."

"Well, Royce seemed interested in them."

"So, your papers reached someone's hands!"

"Why are you accusing me of it as if it's something bad?! Of course, someone laid eyes on them! The teachers, and whoever selected me for the internship. It was my ticket in!"

The boy closed his eyes for a moment, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Alright, let's calm down."

"Calm down? What the hell is going on?!"

"Hamsika, please..."

"I don't want to hear any pleading. I want answers!"

"I can't answer anything with certainty yet. I don't want to panic both of us for nothing. Let's just calm down, okay?" He finally opened back his eyes, looking into hers.

"Panic? Why panic? What could they possibly be doing that I can't know of?! Simulating worm holes?!"

"Not quite... Though I am not sure which would be less dangerous." He let out a slightly panicked laugh, taking his hands off her shoulders and turning off the stove. She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling even more anger building up on her.

"Which? So, there's another possibility?"

"A presumption."

She raised her eyebrows, rather impatiently, her hands on her hips, waiting.

"Black holes."

"I beg you a pardon?"

"Black holes." He repeated, feeling a stone being lifted off his chest, though the situation didn't change much at all, tension still being nearly palpable.

"I heard that from the first time, but what do you mean?"

He put a hand on her back and motioned her back on the counter, leaning over the data notes.

"Perhaps you didn't have the time to load in the information, but just read the stats. They kind of invert all the properties a black hole has. If this is what they are doing and I am not wrong at a first glance, then they are trying not to let it loose."

"What?"

"The black hole."

"You can't just... Keep it on a leash." She snorted in disbelief, backing off to look at him. He stepped back too, exchanging glances with the girl.

"Exactly. And this is why I panic. If you look even more carefully at the data, things are going quite critical, because the previous collected information, which was listed in a slightly blurred corner, showed different numbers and less violent curves in the graphics."

They looked at each other for a few long moments, silently, until the color in Hamsika's lips started to fade.

"I might have indirectly contributed to our possible extinction."

Ryan let out a laugh.

"Now, your panic goes to the extreme. I am sure there are some protocols to stop the process if anything. Besides, you said it was an on-going process, but your notes, as rough as they are now, could destabilize everything to an even more dangerous level, because I have a feeling, they might be interested in testing out whether those particles exist or not." He propped his hand on the table, thoughtfully. "But even so, those particles should happen only around black holes that existed in a very long time and it'd be impossible to just vacuum a black hole and bring it here."

His insides twisted violently at the last thought. Those particles could have indeed formed only around the oldest black holes. Simulating one wouldn't surely recreate the same properties. However, there was a single chance they could've put their hands on such primordial atoms; a black hole that needed no taming or simulation; one that existed in quite safe conditions, without the need of consuming stars and planets on a daily basis; a contained black hole just like himself. But to his knowledge there were no other, unless they were disguised to look as regular as he did. If so, perhaps he passed by many, or as well by none. He traveled the Universe back and forth, but couldn't be in multiple places at once, and maybe the odds didn't had them cross paths.

Despite the fact that Hamsika kept speaking her mind about the eventual presumptions based on their new ideas the entire evening, he participated to her monologue rather absently, his mind drifting at the thought that maybe he finally found one alike himself, and not anyhow, but being kept captive, in dangerous conditions for both the being and the world itself.

He gave some of his clothes to Hamsika, to sleep into, and they both melted beneath the light bed sheet, with heir bodies, and mostly, their minds, exhausted after the long day.

It took him a moment to realize that the blinding light was not the morning sun, but his eyes trying to adjust themselves to the brightness of the room before him. Ryan stood in front of screens he couldn't read, all looking blurred for some reason, while ahead of him were the windows that revealed the generator Hamsika had shown him earlier. He blinked in confusion and only after looking at his hands, and realizing he left his human form for his natural nebula shaped one, he acknowledged the fact that he was in a lucid dream. It was no strange happening, since he often had such dreams, and given the intense discussions with the girl just hours before, the place he was into was the least complicated to justify.

A strong vibration crossed his entire body, shaking his mind with an indistinguishable noise, like a screech. He backed off as the window before him started to shake violently, threatening to break at any moment. The boy looked around himself, expecting for some reason for Hamsika to be around and perhaps explain something on their way out of there, since safety was out of question in that place, even if it was only a dream. But with no sight of her, his focus drifted back to the source of the madness. The vibration returned, but softer, the screeching sound settling slowly to what appeared to be a call for help. He tried to focus harder and realized the source was the core of the generator itself. It could use the telepathic communication, which could only mean two things: he was right and there was a high chance for an alien alike himself to be trapped inside the core or it was all in his head, hallucinations based on his presumptions.

Ryan stepped closer to the window once again, his hand reaching for the surface, willing to hear more, but as soon as his hand got in contact with the glass, a growing shake started to shatter the place, while he felt like being rooted to the floor, watching the core expanding into a blinding explosion. The next thing he knew was that he woke up gasping for air and drenched in sweat. He gave himself few moments to recover from the shock and looked to his side, where thankfully, Hamsika was still asleep, undisturbed. He made his way off the bed careful enough not to disturb the other and opened the window wider, taking a deep breath, before heading to the bathroom to give his face a cold splash of water. He closed his eyes for a longer moment, trying to recall the dream and any details possible. But with the screens all blurred, the voice just a distant echo, which could've as well been his mind playing tricks, and the image of the laboratory he recalled also from the pictures the girl showed him, there wasn't anything more. He frowned when the explosion moment occurred and opened his eyes to his reflection in the mirror. After a second splash of water on his face, which he didn't bother to dry with a towel, he left the bathroom and headed to the fridge, taking a peach for a late night snack. He ate it silently, resting against the counter, staring through the dim light of the night coming from outside, still thoughtful. He had to get in there, but by Hamsika's stories, it appeared to be quite a secured place. It may have been just a crazy dream, but what if it was otherwise. His recurring worm hole dream turned out to be an actual memory that kept replaying in his head, though this was impossible now, since he was never in that place before. He wiped his hand absently with the back of his hand, then threw away the leftover of his fruit and went back to bed, spending most of his night more awake than asleep.

By the time Hamsika woke up, the boy was preparing breakfast. He smiled at the sight of noticing her standing up slowly, trying to wash away the sleepiness with a brush of her eyes.

"Morning..." She mumbled a salute and looked his way only with an eye partly open.

"Hey, sleepy head! How was your night?" The boy chuckled, placing the cereal bowls on the table along with some freshly washed cherries. She made her way to him lazily and stared at the food.

"Seems like you have more than pasta, fruits and vegetables." She took the cereal box and gave it a shake. "My sleep was the best I got in a while." She made a pause to stretch herself, letting out a relieved noise. "Your bed is comfortable."

"Surely it was my company that made it be so good."

Hamsika only gave him a look and with a playful roll of her eyes made a quick stop at the bathroom. By the time she returned, Ryan was already sitting at the table, waiting for her, busying himself with the cereal box.

"These things contain lots of nasty stuff."

"You sound like you see them first time."

"Well I went to the supermarket just half an hour ago."

"So, your house really was that food empty!" She stated amused, poking his side with her elbow.

"A fruity snack is enough."

"Food, Ryan. Food!" She stuffed a spoonful of cereal in her mouth, giving him a wide-eyed look, to the other's amusement.

"I'm doing just fine." He smiled and started to eat too.

It was only after they finished the meal, when Ryan finally revived the discussion from a night ago, mixing it with his post-dream thoughts.

"That laboratory you mentioned..."

"The generator thing?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?" She raised her eyebrows at him, curious if he figured something, though it was a bit out of the blue, since she missed his late night thoughts.

"You think there's a chance for me to get in?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

She shook her head firmly.

"There has to be a way in."

"Ryan, we don't even know what's going on. I shouldn't have been there in the first place."

"But you were."

"By an incredible luck and I still pray nobody noticed."

"Hamsika, you have to get me in there."

"How? Teleportation? You need an access card and it's weekend."

The girl gave him an apologetic look and pat his back seeing him deflate with disappointment at the news. She kept rubbing his back gently, while trying to think of a solution. He was indeed better at figuring things if he saw them live, instead of just some notes, since they actually had to figure a physical object this time, not some worm hole presumptions.

"There might be a way in."

The boy looked her way with a bit of a delay, awakened from his thoughts as well. He raised his eyebrows, interested.

"I'm all ears."
Chapter IV

Saturday evening caught them at Royce Robotics. The plan Hamsika had sounded least to say crazy, but at that moment no other better option came to either of them. The girl was risking her temporary position and her possible future employment, but if Ryan's presumptions were real, it was as if she'd be sitting on a ticking bomb while working anyway, which was less enjoyable than an eventual ban from the company.

They got inside the building through the underground parking, that luckily was empty, apart from the service self-driving cars, which were there all the time, available around the research center. Ryan remained somewhere close to the entrance that led into the building, right into the hallway that would get them to the Supernova Project itself, while Hamsika went inside, taking the elevator to an upper floor, where she remembered seeing the janitors' lockers. If all went according to plan, she should've left the janitors' place with one of their carts and a uniform for Ryan.

As soon as she left the elevator, at a nearly running pace, she headed towards the desired room, with her heart pounding hard inside her chest. She was almost sure it'd leap out if someone or something popped out, into her way. She never stood this late within the building, and definitely not during the weekend, but there were people that worked even then sometimes, when things had to get done; not to mention the drones and other small robots, that were patrolling the hallways even during the day. They were usually delivering small packages or papers, but the girl never excluded the possibility of them keeping an eye on the employees too, considering Royce's strictness. And if anything went wrong, all the possible recording devices would have been examined, to identify the intruders. However, with the hope that all would go without trouble, she stepped inside the locker room. The light turned on automatically as soon as she stepped inside, making her jump for a slight moment, closing her eyes for a second to gather herself back together. With plenty of uniforms and carts to pick from, the girl let out a relieved sigh and collected everything they needed, making her way back to the elevator as fast as she could.

"That was quick!" Ryan exclaimed when she walked with the cart into the underground parking, sweat running down her temples from both the hurry and nervousness.

"I can't believe we're doing this." She let out the words in a shuddered breath, helping Ryan put the janitor outfit on. After adding the cap on his head, she measured him from head to feet and pulled onto the visor a bit more to make sure his face was covered enough, to the other's amusement.

"Hey, I gotta see where I'm going." He adjusted it the slightest, then pulled onto the cover curtain that usually hid the contents within the cart. Hamsika took them all out before leaving with the cart, hoping that, even in the most uncomfortable position, she'd fit in there hidden until they reached their destination.

"Ryan, I really hope you're right with it all. Even though I don't like the sound of it, part of me is thrilled." She pressed her lips together and hold her breath for a moment, struggling to fit herself in. The boy gave her the most confident and encouraging smile he could before pulling the cover, letting her sink into the darkness of the cart, filled with cleaning substances scents.

When they reached the door, Ryan took out from his pocket the card Hamsika gave him, examining it the slightest before bringing it close to the lock. Their hearts halted until the confirming beeping sound occurred, and the door slid open before them. He heard the girl cheering silently inside the cart, and he shook his head amused as he walked down the hallway, listening carefully to any sound that might have come from nearby them. They couldn't exclude people being present inside the main room, so as soon as they passed the second secured door, they stopped, letting nothing else to be heard other than the sound of their own breathing and the humming of the generator. With a deep inhale, the boy finally pushed the cart forward, ready to face anyone they failed hearing, but to their relief, the lights were off. He gave the hallway they came through a last look before pulling the cover and help Hamsika out. She nearly stumbled onto her four as she struggled to get out in the dimly illuminated room, by the small led lights flickering all around them.

"Are you alright?" Ryan whispered, helping the girl stand up. She only nodded in response and after stretching herself a bit, went straight to the main board, the lights switching on at her presence, just like the first time. While she started to check the displays again, examining them more carefully and taking as many pictures as she could, the boy stepped ahead, stopping at her side, his mouth parted in shock. He didn't really realize how big the machine actually was from the picture he saw on the phone. He gave a quick glance to the stats, trying to compare them inside his head with the data he saw a night before, and just as he presumed, the instability kept growing.

"How come there's nobody here to supervise this. The next thing we'd know if things go wrong, would be time and space starting to bend around us while we'd get absorbed. And by we I don't mean just the two of us..." He muttered low, under his breath, making Hamsika give him a confused look, mixed with panic.

"So, is it really a black hole? Somehow?!"

He leaned over her shoulder and pointed his hand at the main screen.

"They're harvesting energy from it. Part of it goes into the generator to keep the situation stable, but it's stealing so much energy back, that it will soon be out of control. It is trying to maintain its self-stability."

The girl blinked at him in disbelief, her mouth opening and closing a few times, wanting to add something to it all, but everything sounded absurd at that moment. She stared back at the room behind the secured glass wall. Part of her was overexcited, hearing that such a thing was possible, but the other part kept on kicking her harder and harder with rational thoughts. This was unnatural, it wasn't supposed to happen, it was dangerous. What was on everyone's minds? And indeed, why was there nobody supervising it? Perhaps they had a safety system that'd shut down things? But how could a black hole be suddenly shut down anyway? Not even her wildest science fiction dreams ever thought of it. She always imagined how it'd be to produce a black hole, but never thought of how to shut down one.

With thoughts cascading into her mind crazily, she didn't notice Ryan stepped away from her side, falling behind, propping himself against a wall while holding his head into his hands, moaning silently. She rushed to him, letting darkness fall again within the room, with no other lights being switched on other than the automatic one, which turned off with the girl taking distance from the source.

"Ryan? Ryan!" She kept on calling his name, while the boy was drawing himself away from her touch, holding tighter onto his head, which felt like exploding at any moment.

"Ryan, please! Talk to me! Look at me!" She kneeled next to him as he stumbled into his own feet, collapsing on the floor. The radiations that filled the room behind the glass reached him the slightest, altering his structure from inside out, threatening to break his human appearance. Ever since he had the feeling crippling deep into his body, he focused all his energy to maintain the form, but now the voice from the dream invaded the privacy of his thoughts through telepathy and broke his focus. Clearer than within his apparent vision, the voice pleaded for help. He was indeed right: he was not alone.

"Shut it down..." He pleaded nearly in tears.

"What? Ryan, what to shut down?"

"This. Please."

"What, Ryan? The generator?!"

"Everything..."

Without understanding what exactly was going on, but feeling both Ryan's body trembling under her touch, as well as her own, she stood up, nearly stumbling upon her steps as well, pacing around in panic wondering what she was supposed to do. She gave him a quick look, thinking for a moment to drag him out and call for an ambulance, but right when she checked her pocket for her phone, he managed to raise his head and open his eyes to look into hers.

"Hamsika. Shut... Shut it!" He pleaded in a hoarse whisper before have his whole body twitch violently as he tried to hold himself together.

The girl muffled a scream with her hands over her mouth, searching the room desperately for an emergency stop or anything alike, but when her eyes got in contact with the corner around where she hid during her first visit there, she remembered the electric panel door she stood against. She rushed towards it and pulled onto the door few times until it opened. The small room was crowded with cables and boxes which forbid touching with large warning signs. But as her eyes searched desperately for something, she noticed a lever with "Emergency" written beneath it. Without thinking of it twice, she pulled onto it with both of her hands and heard the vibration of the generator reducing slowly, but not stopping entirely.

Hamsika rushed back inside the room to the boy, who seemed to at least have less of a seizure. With a trembling hand she touched his curls covered head, pushing away the cap.

"Ryan, say something. Please." Her voice sounded a bit less than a cry and she felt her heart easing out its crazy pace when their eyes locked and he smiled the slightest, still breathing hard.

On the right side from the main panel, a large red light started to blink as soon as the girl pressed the lever. They noticed it only when Ryan stood back up, making them exchange concerned looks. It was either a maintenance light, indicating a problem, given the action taken, or an emergency signal, which would bring security there within minutes. The boy gave a quick look to the generator, which seemed to still struggle to load and keep the critical levels safe, then back at Hamsika. He knew that if there was one alike him trapped within the core, and stripped off its components, for who knew how long, it was a high chance of it being highly unstable. It seemed like it kept trying to reabsorb everything they kept on harvesting from it, but it was impossible to collect everything back. Ryan could still hear the call for help, less loud ever since the power got partly switched off, sickened by the lack of resources most probably.

"Ryan?" She repeated, her hand touching his, grabbing it gently.

"I know your head must be filled with panic and mind-bending thoughts after this madness, but I need you to bear with one more crazy thing tonight." He tried laughing the news off, even if he could tell her lips went pale even in the dim light.

"We have to leave."

"Not without him."

"Him?" She asked, watching Ryan stepping away, heading towards the window.

"Him who?! Ryan! Where are you going?!" The girl walked his way, but he raised a hand, making her stop for a moment, listening impatiently to what he had to say.

"Please take cover, there might be glass flying." His other hand rested against the window as he spoke.

"Ryan! Don't you dare do anything stupid! That window is secured, you can't break it with your fist!"

She furrowed her eyebrows angrily, resuming her way to him. But only after few steps, she halted again as the other started to dematerialize before her eyes, everything seeming to slow down abruptly. With her eyes widened in shock, she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, as the very process of parting her lips seemed never-ending. The girl felt like floating, watching his entire body undoing itself, along with the clothes, absorbed into the dark core holding the nebula filled body together. She stared into the blue eyes, which had now everchanging irises, through which energy seemed to flow endlessly. Hamsika saw the glass cracking under his touch and before she could even think of reacting, everything returned to its normal pace, the boy leaving with the shattered glass particles after him, making a gravitational spin movement around his body before getting absorbed into what was no more or less than a miniature black hole instead of a pumping heart. She nearly stumbled upon the console when time resumed its normal track and watched everything in disbelief.

Ryan let himself float towards the core of the generator, matter looking like shredding off from his body, as the machine was slowly growing back its insane vibrating rhythm. The lever Hamsika pulled was most probably a temporary solution, which meant that he had minutes, or even worse, seconds, until it picked back up its pace entirely, turning into a threat for the integrity of his structure once more. Of course, it couldn't be compared to what the other experienced within the enclosure, which was why the torture had to end through such a forced way out. The boy turned around towards Hamsika and made her a sign to leave the room, which he had to repeat a few times, since the girl looked totally disconnected from reality, not believing what she was witnessing. He watched her go when she finally gave listen to his desperate signs, then turned around, facing the enforced core. He pressed his hands against the hexagonal panels and felt a weakened force meeting his touch, like a magnet on the other side.

"It must be hard for you now, but I need you to focus your entire energy against my touch. We have to blow this up."

Ryan let his thoughts flow through his mind, hoping for them to reach further. No response came from the other, which worried the boy for a moment, but when he felt the pressure rising against his own, he understood that the message was received and they had to make it happen. The focus and vibrations all around made his matter twist violently around his own core, while both of them kept overcharging the enforced enclosure. The blast caused the whole generator to ignite under the multiple short circuits. The trapped one floated out, ceasing any contact with Ryan other than exchanging grateful glances. The water sprinkle system turned on as soon as the fire started, though both fire and water began to float around the two, turning soon into smoke floating around their bodies, with an insane rotation movement.

He motioned the other to follow him and they descended together back into the control room, both collapsing on the floor, Ryan slowly reconstructing himself, reusing the memory of the particles that vanished minutes before, absorbed and memorized onto the surface of the black hole. But as he slowly pulled himself back together, he saw the other struggling to stabilize himself to a human form. It must have been the high instability he dealt with causing his body not to hold together properly.

"Hey... Hey!" Ryan tried to shake him by the shoulder, which seemed to be more stable that his chest region. The other looked at him, a mix of fear and pleading lingering in his eyes. The boy pressed his lips together concerned, then looked for Hamsika. Perhaps she made her way out, or went to alert the security and emergency service of the madness going on, unable to comprehend anymore what was happening. He took the rescued one in his arms and walked outside, leaving the laboratory to the growing flames and sprinkles, which didn't seem to keep the situation under control. Luckily for them, the fire lowered the security, making all the way free to pass, for evacuation, to the main hall area, since the girl took the access card with herself when she left.

As he made his way through the underground parking they came though, the boy felt the one he carried getting suddenly heavy, which only meant that he finally stabilized his structure. What was less fortunate was the fact that he now lied unconsciously and naked in his arms. The bike was out of discussion, since he couldn't keep everything together with his just two arms and two legs; but as soon as he stepped outside the building, he got yanked by his arm to the side and silenced with a trembling hand. When his eyes sought for the source, he met Hamsika's still desperate face. She gave a glance to the naked body in his arms and raised her eyebrows the slightest, shrugging it off as if nothing should've been surprising anymore.

"No loud noises. There's security all over." Her shaky voice came out low and hoarse as she uncovered his mouth.

"The bike. You can take it and head back home."

"And you?!" She gestured frantically at him and the other.

"I... I don't know." He glanced around, finally worried about the circumstances.

They looked at each other for few moments, before Hamsika spoke her mind again, measuring her words.

"I have no idea what happened tonight and if it wasn't for this guy in your arms, I'd say I just hit my head and saw things. My heart beats so hard I might have a heart attack soon and my brain feels like a mess. I don't even know how I can talk anymore."

"I can explain-."

"Not now." She shushed him almost instantly. "In all the frenzy, I took the bike out from the parking when I came here. I will go back to your apartment, while you do again whatever you did down in the laboratory and join me there with him."

"You'll need the keys..."

She muttered low under her breath and started to search his pockets until she found them. Given the capacity of recreating the matter he had on before decomposing, the keys were safe, just as he left them in the back pocket of his jeans, beneath the janitor outfit she had to unzip in the searching process.

"You should've left this there." She pulled the slightest onto the uniform as she took out the keys, but Ryan gave just an exhausted look in exchange. There was a problem indeed that someone's uniform went missing in all the madness, but it was a part of the issue they'd deal with later.

"I'll be home before you." His lips split in a grin, glad that somehow things stayed safe at least between them, then stepped away, allowing himself to dematerialize once again and depart with the other in his arms within one blink of an eye. Hamsika stared blankly at the spot he stood into, taking in the cracks into the cement he made on departure. She shook her head, closing her eyes for a brief moment, questioning her own mind whether this was a wild dream she'll wake up from anytime soon, or an unbelievable reality she was forced to witness, which included a miracle of science and aliens.

"I just can't even..." She whispered to herself as she picked up the bicycle from the ground and slowly left the place too, careful enough to ride out of any eventual sight, though she was sure everything was already on cameras and if things were to go bananas, they would.

It took her a while, including few stops and detours, to find her way back to Ryan's place, but eventually she caught sight of the familiar neighborhood and went straight to the final destination, forgetting about the melting heat still raising from the streets, hours after the sun was gone, and the tiredness that started to grew on her slowly. She left the bike in a renting rack near a shop and almost ran her way through the intersection and down the street to the apartment building. With sweat running down her temples and on the back of her neck, she desperately searched her pockets until she found the key.

The door opened widely, as she unlocked it, walking in, panting heavily, while seeking with her sight for any presence. She noticed the lights already on ever since she reached the block.

"You didn't have to rush like this!" Ryan hurried to her, looking concerned of her state, but avoided in the last second being slapped away. The girl gave him a rather mad look, and after tossing away her sandals she walked straight to the blanket covered body. She leaned over the other, studying him with narrowed eyes, before turning abruptly to the boy, as he approached.

"Easy!" He chuckled and caught her hands as she stared waving them rather randomly and exhausted at him. "Hamsika!"

"No. No!" She raised her voice to the point of screaming, pulling herself few steps away.

"You." She kept talking, her voice trembling with fear and anger while pointing a finger at the disheveled looking boy.

"Him." She then pointed at the unconscious one, her eyes drifting to him for a moment, then locked back with Ryan's. "Unless you slap me back to reality this instant, I need explanations. I might not understand a damn thing, but I need to hear them." She inhaled sharply, pressing her lids shut, murmuring to herself. "This can't be real. It feels like a stupid dream or a very bad movie. Ryan, please tell me it's a dream."

Her eyes opened back when she felt the weight of his hands pressing gently against her shoulders. His face wore a mix of compassion for her and pleading for understanding. Her hands gripped at his chest, holding tight onto his T-shirt, while her eyes started to get wet as she looked up at him.

"I can't go crazy... Please tell me we weren't there. Tell me we didn't blow up a classified project; millions of dollars of tech. Tell me we didn't let a black hole loose. Tell me how the world didn't end if we did all of that?! Please, Ryan." She buried her face into his chest, her talk becoming muffled with both the cloth and her crying. "I can't even pick the worst part in all of this. We'll end up in jail. I failed my parents; I failed myself. I don't even know what's going on anymore. I don't even know who or what I'm holding onto anymore." Her arms looped around him, the hands still gripping at his T-shirt tightly, as she lost herself into an even louder crying.

Ryan bit his lips troubled, while his hands rubbed the girl's back soothingly. He knew revealing himself in any way won't bring good things. Humans, were among the species in the Universe that didn't came across other alien civilizations, so fear and aggressivity were to be expected, since they mostly pictured the worst outcomes, if anything or anyone outside their planet decided to come in contact. Of course, his sudden reveal didn't mean he would start parading in his natural state, which wouldn't be also the safest to be around, due to his black hole core. Even as contained as it was, it still forced the surroundings to disintegration in order to be absorbed. Maintaining a certain being's shape, no matter the planet he was on, helped him also maintain a balance between his true nature and the projection of another through the substances he gathered through time. All that he was hoping for was that Hamsika would accept the truth beyond his apparent curled hair self, even though the incident at the research facility weighted heavily on his shoulders also.

He gave a look to the still unconscious body lying on his bed, and hoped that, in all the madness, the recordings were affected by the blast and they wouldn't be able to identify exactly what happened. Involving Hamsika in such trouble was not on his list. Freeing one of his kind was also not on the list, as he presumed until that very evening that he was alone in the Universe in his given form. But since it was a classified project, he thought that it would at least not reach public ears. The scientists were already toying with things they merely understood and perhaps it was for the best that the two of them made all take such a turn, because otherwise it could've shaped into something much worse, that could've affected more than an expensive machine. For now, the altered structure of the other alien was stable and it was probably the only good part in all that happened.

"Answer me, Ryan..." She cried silently, taking the boy out from his train of thoughts. He let out a small sigh, shifting the slightest into the hug.

"If anything, it's my fault it all went this way, but even if it sounds crazy, it's for the best."

The girl pushed herself away from his arms, looking scandalized.

"It's for the best?! What's for the best? That my life suddenly turned from great into a failure? That I got dragged into this madness? Manipulated by some alien being?!"

"But I didn't manipulate you... I wanted to help. I felt something was off and not going the right way ever since you showed me those pictures." The boy tried to reason, though he knew how insane it all was.

"Oh, Ryan. The savior!" She slapped her hands loudly against her thighs, her voice trembling with both anger and sobbing. "The Earth would be doomed without you. Should we start a religion? Or perhaps you want a crown and a throne above us all?"

"Hey, now... Wait a bit." He chuckled at her remark, knowing how this was also a possible ridiculous outcome for his reveal. "In as long as I remember myself existing, I never revealed my nature to anyone, anywhere in this Universe, just to avoid such trouble."

"Then why did you do it now? Why didn't you just let us die?!"

"Because-" He started, frowning the slightest, throwing a quick look to the other boy. "Because we happened to be there in time to stop this sudden ending from happening and because I finally found someone alike myself. I didn't do it out of pity or to play smart. I did it because it was the right thing to be done."

Hamsika snorted.

"Just when I thought right and wrong are only etiquettes humans put on things."

"Maybe it is so and you taught me that."

"I'm sorry I did. I virused your perfect being with such nonsense." Her lips pressed together in a false smile for a short moment.

"I am not sorry. I am not sorry for being here, for meeting you or for what we've done tonight. And if anyone decides to do something against you, I will make sure they deal with me first."

The girl rolled her eyes, crossing her arms.

"Look where my knight in shining armor was."

Ryan let his hand slide over his face, silencing a laugh.

"You're impossible to deal with." He muttered more to self.

A sudden shifting noise, coming from neither of them, made both turn to focus on the rescued one who seemed to slowly come back to his senses. The long, dark, slightly wavy hair was hanging loosely over his face, but even so, they could distinguish the piercing blue gaze locking them as he tried to free himself from the warmth of the blanket.

"Hey... Hey!" Ryan said to the other, a smile growing on his lips as he turned his way, approaching slowly, as if he'd get close to a scared animal. Hamsika reached for a brief moment for the other, to stop him from approaching, but brought her hands together, close to her chest, watching the scene with her palms pressed tightly, almost afraid to breathe.

The boy kept his eyes locked with Ryan's and stood up only when he saw the other stopping nearby, the blanket sliding off his body as he did so. Hamsika's lips parted with a gasp and felt all the blood rushing to her face and ears at the sight, turning around on her heels at the speed of light.

"Just give him some clothes, damn it!" She raised her voice, still muffled under her hands, that covered both her mouth and nose, while her eyes closed for a moment, trying to wash away the unexpected memory she just gained.

"Right!" The boy replied, but just as he wanted to head for the closet, the other launched himself at him, knocking him to the ground with a thud, to which Hamsika turned in an instant, not carrying anymore of the exposed body. She let out a loud shriek when she saw the long haired boy raising his fist to launch it into the other's direction with a raging face. But right when she wanted to jump and help, she saw Ryan blocking him, sending him unconscious to his side, on the floor, with a punch.

"Ryan! What have you done?!" She approached in a hurry, checking them both out in panic, starting to hyperventilate as she saw the body lying again numbly.

"I... Uh..." He pushed himself up on his elbows to check on the fallen one. "I thought he could use some more sleep." The boy chuckled and let Hamsika help him up, though she was already lost between a burst of adrenaline and overlapping panic attacks, with her eyes still fixated on the naked figure.

"His lip is bleeding." Her voice came out nearly a whisper.

"He'll live."

The girl reached for her head and tangled her fingers in her hair, still staring at the scene, breathing heavily.

"This is bad. So, so bad."

Ryan covered back the boy with the blanket, not bothering to put him back on the bed, and went for the closet to pick some clothes, while Hamsika kept on murmuring denials of the situation between the sobbing hiccups of a tearless crying. Motioned gently by the other, she eventually walked into the small, open-space kitchen, throwing occasional looks at the one still on the floor at any twitch he'd make.

"Hamsika?" The boy's arm looped over her shoulders, leaning a bit to give her a better look, since shock was still lingering on her features. She took a long moment before she finally replied with a small questioning noise, shaking slightly beneath his arm.

"You need to relax a bit... I know it's much to load in, but please, for your good, try to calm down." He pressed on in a soft, calming voice, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. The girl nodded and with her eyes closed, started to breathe in and out deeply, trying her best to reclaim her both physical and mental strength.

"I don't like this at all, Ryan."

"I know."

"We'll get into trouble."

"Perhaps not."

"What if we do?" She glanced up at him. He looked back and smiled reassuringly, soothing out her tension.

"We'll manage."

"What about him?" She looked the other's way, who just shifted on his other side beneath the cover of the blanket. Ryan turned his focus his way as well, chewing on his cheek thoughtfully. They knew nothing about him apart from his nature, while his attitude seemed rather aggressive, though it was understandable given the things he's been through. He couldn't see the humans torturing him, but surely he caught glimpse of them before he got encapsulated. And how exactly that happened was still a mystery to both Ryan and Hamsika. They didn't know for how long he was there, but the boy had a feeling that it had something to do with the convoy they both witnessed the day he regained his memory, in the car accident. The escorted truck was indeed bearing the Royce Robotics name, and he recalled a weird feeling deep inside when it passed by him, which was most probably the same sort of link they had when he dreamt of the call for help.

"I don't know..."

"You can't let him loose. He seems violent and after whatever happened to him, before and while being into that machine, he must be really keen on hating humans."

"I know, but I can't tie him to myself either."

The girl looked at him with a pleading, yet questioning look, hoping desperately that he actually had a solution beyond his apparent confusion, as he usually did. Ryan pressed his lips together tightly and nodded to himself, giving Hamsika's shoulder a comforting pat.

"I'll see what I can do. I hope he can talk otherwise than telepathy. We can't really use that as humans without some painful inner damage."

"You can use telepathy?" Her face brightened, suddenly curious. The entire alien discovery thing was mind blowing for her, but also infinitely fascinating. She was on the edge ever since she witnessed Ryan losing shape, wanting to ask a million questions, and yet, feeling slightly restrained by a natural fear of the unknown and a moral sense.

"I've only used it once, on a planet with an atmosphere so dense and toxic, that it determined the intelligent species to develop telepathic senses in order to be able to communicate more easily than using signs or such." He watched amused the girl listening to him with lips parted in fascination.

"I must know more."

"I will tell you everything you wish to know, but now you should rest." He smiled, though he promised to himself he'd never do such. However, since the secret was out for her, there was no point in hiding anything anymore. He felt like he could trust her enough, though he knew how changing and questionable the human nature was.

"Again, Ryan... What about him?" She pointed the other boy's way with her chin.

"I'll stay awake. He won't be going anywhere." He walked with her to the bed.

"You think he's in pain?" She looked down at the silhouette beneath the blanket.

"In pain, no. Weakened, yes. They drained a lot of elements from his composition. I feared that we might not be able to avoid the inevitable in the state that he was, but he managed to stabilize himself."

"Inevitable? You mean... A black hole cataclysm?"

The boy nodded and she only stared from him, back at the other in horror. They could've died, along with the rest of the world, absorbed in a black hole, just because some people decided to toy with things beyond their current understanding.

"Will he remain stable?" She asked with fear still lingering in her voice.

"Well, eating, like a normal human, should keep him in this form at least, but he does need a really long trip to recover from it all."

They fell silent for a while, in which Hamsika twisted Ryan's last words on all possible sides, while snuggling closer to him. She wondered what travelling meant exactly to them; how they got there in first place, where were they coming from and what was the purpose of their visit; how long their stay would be and what impact had today's events on the unknown departing time.

"I take it that you're quite stable." The girl finally added silently to the conversation, a more relaxed smile curving her lips, as the train of questioning thoughts regarding the boys' origins took a halt. Ryan shifted at her side, his cheek pressing on top of her head.

"How did you get to that conclusion?" She could tell by the sound of his voice that he was smiling.

"Well, I could count on my fingers how many times I saw you eating."

"Diet maybe?" He chuckled, burying his lips into her hair for a soft kiss. She snorted in reply and closed her eyes, melting in his embrace under both his warmth and summer's heat.

Despite everything that happened during the evening, Hamsika was somewhat at peace with herself. She wasn't sure if they did the right thing, but avoiding a potential cataclysmic event and saving someone from being a caged lab rat, sounded alright for the moment, or at least okay enough to wash away any feeling of guilt. They did destroy, after all, a one of a kind equipment and entered the facility without authorization. Their violation was most probably jail worth, but would those at Royce Robotics send them to be judged if they toyed with things such as black holes, while keeping captive an alien being? Hamsika was quite sure Royce wouldn't risk their worldwide reputation and possibly more than just that.

By the time the morning's sunlight hit the windows, they were both asleep, despite Ryan's promise of staying awake to keep an eye on the rescued one. Only when the loud sound of clinging plates broke the silence, the boy woke up with a jolt and a frown, feeling Hamsika shift in her sleep, still close to his side, but with her head buried in the pillow. His eyes drifted the kitchen's way and inhaled sharply when he realized the other was awake, searching through the refrigerator's contents, dressed in the clothes he picked for him and abandoned on a chair during the evening. He carefully crawled off the bed, not willing to wake up the girl or get the other's attention. He approached slowly, but got noticed midway to the kitchen. The boy analyzed him for a moment, from head to toes, then let the fridge door close, while placing on the counter various fruits and a pack of orange juice, which was almost everything that Ryan had.

"Good morning!" He said on a low tone, trying his luck once more, praying that he won't get attacked again. He got no reply or any other sort of attention, however.

"I see you woke up with a hunger. I don't really have much around." He made few steps closer, entering the small kitchen space. The boy turned to watch him, and unlike a night ago, his position was totally relaxed, his hip against the counter as he chewed on an apple. The piercing blue eyes, alike Ryan's, were buried under the sharp, low brows, matching his angular features; their heights were almost even, but the attitude, even relaxed, seemed to be alike a predator's, in total opposition to the other's usual calm and easy-going mood.

"I'm Ryan, by the way." He stretched his arm the other's way, with a smile plastered on his face. His gesture got analyzed, but his hand was left hanging in the air, as the other didn't bother to shake it. The boy finished the apple and started to stuff his mouth with raspberries from the small bowl he found. Ryan pulled back his arm, stuffing his hands in his pockets, balancing playfully back and forth, on his feet.

"Look, I don't know who put you in there and how anyone managed to do it, but I realize that you've had quite a rough time." He made a small pause as the other's eyebrows furrowed, then continued cautiously. "I understand you might have acted violently last night out of fear. Perhaps you didn't feel the familiar presence, since I am in my human form. I am just like-."

"I know what you are." Ryan got interrupted by the other, which was both a relief and a bit of a shock, to know that he understood everything he got told, but decided to be rude instead, and stay silent.

"That's good news, then!" He smiled pleased, glad that they could finally have a conversation, instead of an awkward monologue. He watched the other approaching, stopping only inches apart from him, which tensioned his body, preparing for an eventual attack.

"We have to go." A raspberry scented whisper came his way.

"What? Where?"

"Off this planet."

"I'm not going anywhere too soon and neither are you."

"You can't hold me here." He frowned deeply, clenching his fists at his sides. "Besides, the humans are dangerous. You saw what they did to me." He whispered through his teeth.

"Look what's the deal. We just met, though I still don't know even your name. You're the only one of my kind I ever got to see and there's no way I am letting you go until we exchange some information. Besides, in your current shape I doubt you can even shift back into something strong enough to burst you outside the atmosphere."

Ryan held position, with a grave expression on, and watched the other analyzing him thoughtfully, weighting the news he just received. He understood the need of the other to free himself from the planet that kept him captive, but on the other hand he also wanted his good and safety, and for that he needed recovery time.

"Fine, we're not leaving." He stepped back, his entire body relaxing again, letting his back fall and rest against the refrigerator's door, with his arms crossed, still eyeing Ryan. "Is this your place?"

"Yes. A bit of a mess, according to Hamsika's standards, but it's my place." He chuckled, looking her way. He felt the other turning his attention towards the sleeping girl too.

"Does she know?"

"What?" Ryan looked at him and only presumed that he talked about their nature.

"About us."

"She found out last night..."

"So, you're wandering disguised like this? Always?"

"It's a long story, but yes, I always use disguises to merge with the rest, no matter the planet I am on."

"A long story? Well, I got some of those too." He grinned interested.

"But, do you have a name?" Ryan insisted, glad that the spirits toned down. It felt off not being able to call the other in any particular way.

"I got many names. I let the others name me whenever I visit a place."

"What did they name you here, then?" He raised his eyebrows, curious.

"If I was conscious when I got here, perhaps I'd know."

A sudden halt occurred in the boy's thoughts, as the potential familiarity in how they reached Earth showed up. He remembered falling through a worm hole, getting spit out of it in the direction of the very planet they were on, and hitting the ground with amnesia.

"How... How did you get here?"

"An explosion." The boy casually replied, with the smallest shrug, adjusting his position while eyeing the fruits for a brief moment.

"Supernova..." Ryan murmured more to self, remembering the name of the project and wondering if it was a coincidence or if they analyzed the trajectory the alien came from.

"What?"

"Supernova. Is what they call an exploding star, since I suppose that's what happened."

"Yeah. Something like that." He watched the other with a bored expression. "Hey, got anything else to eat other than these?" He glanced rather disgusted at the remaining fruits he took out earlier. Ryan got his attention snapped from his thoughts, back to reality. He looked the direction the other pointed and sighed.

"These are the only things I eat. I don't feel the need to consume, but you're weakened, you need much more to keep you at least as you are."

"Where can I get... Much more?" His eyebrows raised questioningly as he pushed himself away from his resting position.

"You're not getting anything. I'll go buy."

"Buy?"

"You have to learn some rules if we want to live safely and peacefully among humans."

"I hate rules." He replied dismissively and passed by the boy, who stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. He peeked behind, annoyed with the sudden halt.

"Please." He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "Please, wait here and don't do anything stupid. I'll be fast."

Ryan grabbed some clothes and after changing, he pulled his shoes on and with a quick sign to the other he left the house, locking the door. The other boy stared at the door closing and rolled his eyes at the sound of the key twisting in the lock. He then grabbed a peach and started to pace around through the house, pushing occasionally with his foot books that nearly tripped him. He stopped by the desk and leaned over, grabbing one of the papers full of Ryan's messy little notes. He frowned at the written contents while biting from the fruit, then threw it randomly over a similar stack of papers and moved on a bit, checking the anatomy and chemistry books open nearby, stuffed with colorful sticky bookmarks. His eyebrows twitched unimpressed, and pressed into his mouth the remaining bits of the fruit, wiping his hand messily over his pants.

It was only when he finished analyzing the desk and the window sill full of plants, that he turned around and his eyes met the disheveled bed, with the girl awake, in the furthest corner of it, watching him with fearful eyes. They looked at each other for what seemed an eternity, time in which the girl hardly took few tensioned breaths, afraid to move or say anything. With his eyes still fixated on hers, he started playing with the sticky kernel of the peach, throwing it in the air, catching it back effortlessly without even giving it a glance, toying with it between his fingers flawlessly. He snorted, fascinated how the girl moved her attention constantly from the kernel to his eyes, and follow his smallest moves, looking like she was ready to jump on the ceiling. With the thought that he could play a prank on her, he pretended to throw himself at her, but before he even approached or start to laugh to dismiss any aggressive intentions, he got hit in the head with her phone, while she jumped off the bed with a shriek, heading towards the kitchen.

"Oh! Ouch!" He frowned, dropping the kernel while taking his hands to his hurting forehead, closing his eyes at the painful contact. He looked the girl's way and to his growing shock saw her holding a frying pan.

"Hold on a sec!" He raised his hands in surrender, one of them still hovering over the hit.

"Get any closer and I'll use it!" She shouted a shaky threat at him, wielding the pan like a tennis racket.

"I was only pretending! Why would you hit me like that?! You wild?!" He waved his hands in the air angrily, and yet on the breach of bursting into laughter.

"Quite a nasty attitude towards your saviors! Last night Ryan, now me! Ungrateful!" She shouted further, gripping tighter at the pan.

"You want me to take a bow or what?!"

Hamsika opened her mouth to add something more to their raging conversation, but both of their attention got caught by the sound of the unlocking door. Ryan walked in with a puzzled look on his face, and his eyebrows raised even higher at the sight of the scene.

"I can hear you from down the street. What in the world is going on?!" He slowly entered and closed the door, watching the two.

"She attacked me!"

"He jumped at me!"

"It was just a joke! You crazy human!" The boy threw her a crazed look, shoving his hair angrily off his face.

"STOP IT!" Ryan raised his voice over their continuous shouting, a deafening silence falling between them suddenly, both frozen under the boy's mildly irritated stare. Hamsika placed the pan down silently, shocked that for the first time she saw the other mad. She never heard him shout before, apart from the panicked pleading from the research facility, and that sent her to shame, since even his high level of tolerance was breeched, under their rather childish attitude.

"Did you bring food?" The boy eyed the bag interested, but made a step back, stumbling into the chair behind him when the other's sight locked with his own. "Okay, I'll wait."

Ryan shook his head disappointed with a sigh and let his forehead lose the crease of the frown as he walked to the counter, to unpack the goods.

It wasn't long after they had breakfast, when Hamsika stood up from the chair with a slap on her thighs, breaking the silence filling the room for a while by then.

"I'll be heading back to the dorm now, celebrating probably my last few hours of freedom, before I will get arrested tomorrow morning for the circus we caused." She pressed her lips together, her eyebrows twitching upwards the slightest, accepting an early defeat.

"I think you're dramatizing a bit too much." Ryan chuckled, standing up too and starting to gather the leftovers from the table.

"Should I remind you what happened? Or perhaps your stardust covered ego doesn't give a damn. You could teleport outside the galaxy with a snap."

"Actually, I can't." He added smiling, but she wiped off any well being state he tried having with an annoyed roll of her eyes, as she made her way to the small hallway, to put her sandals on. The other boy only watched silently, still stuffing cereal in his mouth from the bag, before Ryan passed by, snatching it from his hand.

"It's going to be alright, you'll see. Just let me know how it goes."

"If they won't take away my phone and right to talk."

Ryan only replied with a tired look and a soft disapproving shake of his head. He was already used to how much Hamsika tended to exaggerate situations, and despite the fact that he knew the mess they caused might drag her into trouble, if the cameras caught anything before things started to catch fire, he had reasons to believe nobody would push the limits one way or another, unless they wanted everything exposed to the public eye; which surely wasn't to the company's liking.

The girl slipped away from within his reach before he could lean in for at least a kiss on the cheek, and waved the smallest and fastest good bye Ryan had seen in a long while. He watched her disappear down the stairs, without giving him any other look, then closed the door, twisting the key and putting his back against it, staring down absently as his thoughts drifted places. He was hoping that the event won't affect their relationship in any way, since losing the most precious bond he ever had with someone was not on the list.

"You gonna stay there all day with my cereal bag?" The boy added, finally standing up from the table too, heading Ryan's way. The other only stretched his arm towards him, handing the bag and pushing himself away from the door, feeling worry starting to creep onto his spine.

"Why do you even care this much for a human?" He added, watching Ryan stop at the desk, staring outside the window. "You saw what they did to me. Stripped me off my being; tortured me without remorse, while keeping me captive like some sort of power cell." His nose wrinkled in disgust, while his eyebrows furrowed with hatred. "Is this how you want to end up... Ryan? You think she would hesitate to save her skin? I think not. She'd let them know where we are without a second thought."

"You don't know her." The boy cut it shortly, though he knew the atrocities humans were capable of and giving her too much credit started to sound risky even to his ears.

"I hardly got to meet her at all and she threw her device at me. How you call this?! I say they're savages with access to technology." He pressed on, reaching the other's side, to see him clenching his jaw while staring ahead to the city, gripping the back of the chair tightly.

"And what do you suggest?" Ryan leaned his head to the side, raising his eyebrows slightly while meeting the other's eyes, searching them for an emotion or response beyond any words he might spit out, though he only seemed to shift between hate and impatience.

"Well, I got two plans."

"Plans?" He stared at him in disbelief.

"Yeah. We could have a bit of fun and then leave, or we could just leave." The boy's lips curved in half of a grin, which split even further as the other's eyes narrowed with the incoming doubtful reply.

"I have a feeling that the fun part is only entertaining for you."

"Maybe so. I don't know what you enjoy around here."

"Books."

"Books?"

Ryan grabbed one from the desk, nearly shoving it into the other's face.

"Books."

"Boring." The boy snorted, grabbing it and placing it back on the top of some others.

"Fine, then. If my passions are boring, then let's talk about something more thrilling."

"Oh, you got my attention." He pushed some books and papers aside carelessly and hopped on the desk, crossing his legs, watching the other impatiently.

"Tell me about you."

"What do you wanna know?"

"Everything." Ryan pulled himself the chair he gripped at until then, turned it around and sat himself with his arms rested on its backseat, his chin on top of them, looking up patiently at the other.
Chapter V

Hamsika stared at the ceiling big part of the night, turning on all sides everything that happened ever since Friday evening; and the more she thought of it, the crazier it all seemed, while whenever she tried closing her eyes to grab some sleep, nightmares of the past events replayed in her mind. A thousand ways of facing an eventual interrogatory invaded her thoughts, each with an outcome worse than the other. She had no idea what exactly was known and what not; if people there were aware that they were torturing a being and how they coped with it, since she couldn't deal with the thought. Even though the aftermath must have been catastrophic for the research project, she didn't regret freeing someone.

When the morning came and the alarm started ringing, she was already up, and despite the fact that she slept less than half of her usual hours, she felt widely awake. She jumped off the bed and went for the coldest shower in a while, hoping to fix her brain the slightest, even if she knew she'd probably lose herself again in her thoughts on the way, and if not so, she would surely do it if she'd be questioned about anything.

She was halfway to work, still in the bus, when her phone's screen got suddenly filled with messages. She nearly dropped it as her hands started to tremble with an instant panic, but let out a relieved sigh when she saw only Ryan's encouraging texts. She gave her phone a tired smile and thanked him, before stuffing it into her bag, resuming reading the book she paused from.

The bus stopped at its usual destination, but as soon as she got off, her eyes met an enormous crowd and most of it consisted of familiar faces. Those people must have all worked in the same building as she did, since she spotted few of her colleagues. The girl approached hesitatingly one of them and asked in a low voice, still checking the surroundings for any clue of what exactly was going on.

"Good morning. What's happening here?"

Taken by surprise by the sudden greet, the woman turned Hamsika's way with a mildly annoyed expression.

"Morning. I wish we knew. We're like this for half an hour." She made a small pause, sighing deeply. "Some drones fly around once in a while, announcing that all workers from our building are asked to wait here, at the emergency gathering point."

"Perhaps it's some false alarm again. We had quite a few in the last months, but no actual fire or anything alike happened." Another man jumped in the conversation, putting Hamsika's thoughts about the Supernova project in the line again. Perhaps they weren't false alarms, but the people weren't informed by the actual causes of the alarms because of the confidentiality.

"Yes, perhaps..." She added quite absently, trying to focus on whatever talk the other two had next to her, in the hope of drifting away the nervousness building up on her.

It had to pass about half an hour more before a car stopped nearby the crowd, Royce himself, all alone, getting out of the self-driving vehicle and heading towards the confused people.

"Good morning." He greeted, his eyes glancing around at the annoyed faces, his own sharing an expression alike.

"Good morning, sir! What's happening? Nobody else but some drones halted us here for over an hour!" Someone raised the voice over the salutation murmuring crowd. The man's eyes locked with the speaker's for a moment, then addressed everyone present.

"There has been an incident during the weekend at the particle accelerator. The entire basement level, along with the electric cars in the underground parking burned, as the security system and sprinklers malfunctioned, causing the intervention of the firemen to be delayed due to safety reasons." He raised his hands to halt the buzzing his statement started, then went on. "We are still investigating the cause of this, reason for which we closed the entire building."

"Are our offices affected, sir?" A panicked voice raised from the crowd.

"No. Everything is alright upstairs." His face twitched with the smallest trace of a smile Hamsika ever saw. "Now, I know you are all mad and confused about this Monday morning, but I am asking for a bit more patience. I am taking onto myself any delays caused by this incident and declare the rest of this week free for you all, so we can sort things out in maximum safety. I have communicated this to the HR department." He paused rather abruptly as buzzing started to raise once more, and resumed his speech after it all fell silent again. "You are invited now, however, at the conference hall for a small check." He gave the crowd one more look, and nodded more to himself before getting back inside the car, departing from the location.

"Great." The man at Hamsika's side muttered.

"He only spares us of work during legal holidays. This must have been quite bad." The woman added as they started to walk.

The girl followed the rest, since she had no idea where the conference hall was exactly, even if her mind went places as soon as Royce left. If she wouldn't raise any suspicion, she'd go there in a heartbeat to see the aftermath, but she knew that, for the sake of all possible safety, she was better off away from that place. However, she hoped that she wasn't on the list with those that would spend their time home for a week. She only had two months to spend around, and one was already out. She needed as much time there as possible, in any other department; she needed any excuse to stay within the Royce Robotics buildings and try to gather as much information as possible, since the company seemed to be operating on more fields than met the eye.

As soon as they stepped inside the desired conference hall, they were guided by security guards to few rows, each of them passing through gates alike the ones from the airport.

"This is ridiculous. Are they suspecting us for anything that might have happened there?! Does he forget people actually go home during the weekend?"

"I heard he has an apartment at the last floor of the main office building and he doesn't even leave all weekends."

"He doesn't?!" Hamsika found herself asking rather panicked, thinking that he might have seen all the madness going on from up there during that evening.

"Poor child, doesn't know what the bastard is capable of." The woman chuckled, giving Hamsika a comforting pat on the back.

"I'd like to know." She added rather quickly and glanced at the other, slowly advancing with the rest for the mentioned check.

"This man is looney, everybody working here for more than a year or two knows it. People had fallen off their feet out of exhaustion back in the day because he demanded too much, making the researchers work more than twelve hours straight, with the smallest lunch breaks." The woman lowered her voice even more, as they stepped further. "But he got complaints, people started to leave, so he pondered and is more careful with overworking his employees now. Of course, it's a one of a kind opportunity to be here, considering the tech all around and high investments he does in various research fields; to us is like a heaven, but I'm telling you, the man is crazy. His father was such a better man, with less crazy ideas."

"He's nothing like his father." Someone nearby added. "That man was a bless and left us too soon."

Hamsika knew nothing much of the past of the company, mostly when it came to such insights, but she nodded the slightest, bowing her head in respect. She heard of Lucien Royce many times however, and how much of a genius student he was; even if some of the teachers praised him, while others despised him, calling him a prick. There was surely some truth in all the oddities people mentioned inside the company and outside, but at first sight, as she met him few times, he looked and acted rather decent. She shrugged away the recent news, blaming them on people's nitpicking.

When her turn came, she was asked to give her access badge before passing through the security check gate. Surely, there was nothing out of the ordinary, considering that she had on her regular clothes and her backpack contained the usual things. She thanked the havens for security not being able to see through her thoughts, since they were the only ones full of information, unless they decided to surface through anxiety.

"You are clear to go."

"But my badge." She turned around, looking after the security guard that asked for it earlier.

"We're keeping them for inspection."

She stayed in place few moments more, hesitating to leave, then made her way to the sitting area, where the rest of those that passed the check were. Nobody was questioned or held aside until the end of the examination, but alike herself, everyone was stripped off their access card.

It was only when Royce stepped up on the presentation stage that the continuous murmur from the sitting crowd faded. He pressed onto his ear a small headphone with microphone and after a small tap to check if it was on, started to talk, on his usual, unimpressed tone.

"I would like to thank you for the time and patience you accorded to these matters. We are doing our best to identify all the reasons that caused the incident."

"And our access cards? Will we received them on Monday when we return?"

"We are working on implementing a new access system. The access cards will be discarded, since they seemed to have flaws in their encryption."

"Sir." An older man stood up from within the last rows. The one on the stage directed his attention to him, while some of the rest turned to watch as well. "You keep mentioning incident and flaws in the security system, but what did exactly happen? Should we be worried? Can it occur again?"

Royce looked at him for a few moments, almost visibly picking his words to answer the questions.

"I can assure you it won't happen again. Your work conditions will be perfectly safe."

"Was there anyone injured from the particle accelerator maintenance department?" Someone else raised their voice from the crowd as the other man sat back, a bit disappointed with the ambiguity of the reply he got.

"Up to this moment, we know of no injured people, since nobody showed up to give any details regarding that evening. However, the investigations so far indicated an outside action that contributed to the malfunction of the security system. In shorter terms, someone acted a hazardous risk lever."

He glanced at the crowd, then went on, his tone shifting the slightest into a rather warning one.

"So, to conclude this small check with, I'd like to add that, whoever has information regarding this, is welcome to come and talk. Our main concern is that someone from outside might have come and did this purposely to compromise our property and project, and this couldn't happen without help. And if it's not the case, and someone that actually works here did all of this for a reason or another, more or less purposely, I'd like to inform them that their identity won't be a secret for too long. Technicians are trying now to salvage all that's possible from the recordings, in order to identify the eventual intruder." He paused for a moment, waiting for eventual questions, then bid a quick farewell, accompanied by a thanks, and took off the earphone, leaving the stage, while the security came to direct people towards the exit.

"I think he's hiding something." Hamsika heard people mentioning such in various mixes all the way back to the main entrance. She carried on, walking with the rest silently, waiting to pass the gate. As soon as she saw herself outside the research center, she pulled out her phone, stepping away from the crowd, and with trembling fingers texted Ryan breathlessly.

" _He knows. HE KNOWS."_

It was only when Ryan finished his day at work that he noticed the message from Hamsika. He often forgot that he had a phone and rarely felt it vibrating in his pocket, even if the girl sometimes sent a dozen of texts.

His mind was mostly at the discussion he had a day ago with his newly found brother, as he started to consider him being, counting in their common nature. He found out that the other used to visit planets in his natural state and got welcomed in various ways, from being seen just as a traveler, by those who were used to visit other civilizations as well, to being seen as a god or a bad omen. He appeared to enjoy attention, but the circumstances that brought him to Earth and the people he encountered didn't set him on the brightest course. Ryan did the best he could to explain him that humans were rather difficult to deal with and sometimes hard to understand through their actions or thinking, but they could also be nice and caring, with a rich history and interesting cultures. He tried giving Hamsika as one of the good examples, but the other wasn't the happiest to hear she worked in the place he got trapped into, even though she was the main reason he managed to get out.

He also learned about the boy that he lastly visited some stars close to the Aries constellation, before the supernova occurred, reason for which he decided to stay with the name, since Ryan was already tired of calling him in all sorts whenever he needed his attention. However, the peculiar thing about this being alike himself was the power of absorption. The gravity his core had was much stronger than his own, and the control he seemed to have over it was amazing, but also dangerous. According to his statement, he was used to get close to dying stars once in a while and absorb them right before they went into the supernova phase, granting him an enormous energy. Ryan on the other hand had never even thought of doing such, all that he gathered through time being matter scattered in space, from various remains resulted out of collisions or supernova remnants. It sounded a bit insane even to him, but as it seemed, the forces and phenomena within the Universe could be still new discoveries to him as well. He saw and experienced more than any human could've ever imagined, and yet, it was still so little. He was in fact glad that he finally found a being alike himself, and he was eager to find out more about him and his experiences as time would go on and they would get to know each other better.

" _What does he know? And who is this person that knows?"_ He stopped aside for a moment, to finally write her a reply.

" _Royce."_

" _Royce?"_

" _The owner of Royce Robotics?! Come on, Ryan, please. Be with me!"_

" _You want me to come there?"_ He snorted amused to himself, getting her reference and yet enjoying to fool around a bit, hoping to help her relieve the pressure and stress she faced.

" _NOT LIKE THAT. Forget it."_

" _Hamsika, you should calm down..."_

" _I can't! I am all a tremble and a sweat. I think I'm losing my sanity."_

" _You didn't lose it while witnessing us, I doubt you will now."_ He added a laughing emote from the list. He had a tendency to overuse them as they appeared to him incredibly funny and entertaining. It was perhaps the smallest things in the human's lives that fascinated him the most. The way they shaped their reality was a fascinating thing to observe for an outsider, though it was sad to know that while others prospered and bathed in the newest technologies, others died of hunger; a living paradox.

" _I'm sure that contributed also to my brain getting roasted."_

" _The drama."_

" _Please. Ryan, what should we do?"_

" _Me and Aries have a few ideas, but I am not sure you'd survive some of them."_

" _Normally I'd instantly deny or at least question such things, but consider me in."_ Ryan chuckled at the text and nearly stumbled upon a trash bin while walking. The phone vibrated almost instantly once more. "And Aries? That's... his name? Their name? What are you two even?"

" _You may consider us what we look like being. Never questioned such, since until few days ago I thought I was alone this way. Gender and multiplying were never any of my issues. Not yet that is."_

Now that he mentioned it, he never really considered such matters. He thought of himself as of the lone wolf wandering through the Universe, since he never seemed to belong anywhere or find a match for himself, sharing origins alike, other than the newly discovered Aries. The connection he had with Hamsika was one of a kind and it was beyond just a physical attraction, which he mostly felt given his borrowed human traits, while in his temporary form. She felt like the human nature in a nutshell, minus the awful traits they also possessed, which she didn't bring to the surface so far. Everyone had flaws, but some tried their best to keep them aside or control them, for a better living.

" _Yes, we picked that name for himself after he mentioned being around the constellation recently."_

" _I feel my brain melting just thinking at the distance."_

" _He also has a weakness for dying stars."_

" _What's that supposed to mean?"_

" _He enjoys consuming them before they explode. He was in fact intending to do that, but had a bad timing and end up here somehow, after the explosion happened. I suspect a worm hole in his case too, but I have to investigate a bit."_

" _Wait a bit. What even..."_

" _I'm sure he'd be glad to tell you about it too. He quite enjoys boosting his ego."_

" _Ryan. He eats dying stars?!"_

" _Yeah."_

" _But..."_

" _Yeah, that was my reaction too. I was just as shocked, and trust me I saw much more than you did."_

" _Never doubted. Well, almost never. Until two days ago."_

" _Stop by this weekend. Or perhaps we could go somewhere."_

" _Somewhere?"_

" _A trip."_

" _Speaking of which... They restricted our access to the labs for the whole week. I am free."_

" _Really?"_

" _Yes."_

" _So, you're up for a trip?"_

" _What about your job?"_

" _I'll arrange it with Alice. She can manage alone, now that there are no students."_

" _My brain could really use some fresh air."_

" _Well, let me know what you decide."_

" _By evening?"_

" _Whenever."_

His eyes felt like crossing, with a temporary blindness, for a brief moment as he raised his sight from the phone, meeting the darkness of the inside of his apartment block. Both the sun and the screen have been blinding enough. He blinked few times as he climbed up the stairs and searched his pockets for the keys. However, the usual silence he met whenever he stepped inside his small one room apartment, was not what he expected, knowing that he locked the other in until he was back. The boy's attitude was still a bit questionable, considering that he was pretty unaware of what the normal habits of humans were, not to mention moral rules and laws.

"I don't know what I expected." He stared at the empty house, letting out a long sigh. Ryan's mind got filled with an avalanche of thoughts, wondering how the other would know his way back or if he'd be back at all; where should he search for him and most important, how did he get out with the door locked? The boy cursed under his breath while wishing for the other not to be bossing around somewhere in his natural state, if shifting natures is what helped him out, since the window was the only option left as exit; thing which raised another problem: his stability. How much could he recover himself in two days to be able to perform such things flawlessly.

The boy approached the open window and stared down the street, frowning with the thought.

"Where would he go..."

Hamsika watched the second bus departing full of people, as she still held the phone, pondering whether she should go for Ryan's apartment with a cab, back at the dorm by bus or linger a bit more, and eventually catch some more details of the aftermath. She chewed on her cheek thoughtfully, and after throwing a last glance at the bus, she made her way back inside the research center's yard.

She didn't remember exactly where the HR department was other than knowing it being somewhere within the main tower. She only went there once to sign the contract, but with all her colleagues gone and eventual linked departments out of service for a week, she thought it would be best to ask someone in charge with people and the jobs all around whether she could use her time in another department during the sudden break, or if she was forced to take her days free too, going with Ryan's suggestion.

The sun was shining already hot, despite the fact that it was still quite early. After a ten minute walk, the girl finally found herself in the main building's lobby, feeling sweat running down her skin, beneath the backpack, as she breathed in the cool air of the interior. She made her way to the information counter and asked for directions. To her surprise, at the desk was no drone or touch screen, just a woman smiling as widely and creepily as the one that welcomed her during the first day.

"Good morning. I would like to get to the HR department."

"Good morning! Do you have a request filled?"

"Request...? No. I am an internship student and my field of activity was within the space research facility, which got closed for the rest of the week." The woman started to type something as Hamsika spoke. "I would like to see if I can transfer myself to another department so I won't lose this week." The woman only nodded and kept typing. It was a matter of moments until she found herself being handled the printed paper. She blinked few times, looking at it a bit confused, to realize after it was the request she lacked.

"The HR department is on the fifth floor. The elevators are on both sides." The woman pointed at the two large hallways starting from the reception and going around it. "Can I help you with anything else?"

"No. Thank you!" Hamsika flashed a quick smile and after adjusting her backpack on her shoulder made her way to the elevator. She reached to press the button but remembered how she needed her access card in order to go anywhere with it. The girl clicked her tongue, slightly annoyed by the thought and turned on her heels to go back at the reception and ask for a temporary card or anything alike if possible. But right as she spun around, she nearly bumped into a black suit covered chest.

"My apologies. Sorry!" She added in panic and looked up at the other, who to her shock was no other than Royce himself. Her heart jumped into beating at even a higher rate, praying that her face wasn't looking as her stomach felt; sickened with fear. She apologized once more, breaking eye contact and making her way around the other, but got halted by a call, hearing his shoes against the hard, shiny surface as he turned to look after her.

"Aren't you the student?"

Hamsika closed her eyes for a brief moment and turned around, stopping from her rather sloppy hurry.

"Yes, I'm with the internship."

"Weren't you assigned at the space research?" He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Gamma rays?" His eyebrows flung up, questioning her with a look.

"I still am, sir. But with the place being closed I thought the HR could transfer me elsewhere so I won't lose this week."

"Not eager for a vacation, I see." He smiled, his hands in his pockets. "Come." He turned again, facing the elevator and pressed the button after checking his card. Hamsika watched his back thoughtfully, considering a refuse, but she thought that sooner or later she'd still meet him if anything was up or suspicious. So, it was for the best not to run and add even more tension and awkwardness to the situation.

"Come on!" He called her once more as she didn't move an inch, holding out his prosthetic hand to block the sensors of the elevator doors from closing. She went back to him eventually and walked inside with the other, hoping that her already hyperventilating state wasn't noticeable. She watched him press buttons to a floor upper than her desired one, but didn't dare to open her mouth any further. She heard too many questionable things and the situation was still too uncertain to start making commentaries of any kind. The girl felt the other's eyes on her all the way up and looked around from the random spot she focused on only when the elevator stopped, its doors opening to a large space, filled with light from the glass walls, parting it from the outside. The man motioned her to exit with a polite gesture, and followed shortly after, the elevator closing and departing behind them.

"I thought the HR was at the fifth floor."

"You don't need that. I approve any such change requests anyway."

She felt the chill of the room crawling up her skin. Windows surrounded the place, which mainly consisted of an open space floor, with few doors only to sides, that led to rather small chambers from the looks of it. There were few working tables, filled with scattered tech parts, to the side; a glass desk accompanied by a chair in the center, close to the window wall; and a couch with two armchairs in the other side of the room, with a small table between them. The minimalist styled furniture was assorted with the latest tech, touch screen replacing the surface of the coffee table, while an idle holographic projection spun slowly on the desk. Hamsika felt like stepping into an alternate universe, belonging to the future, since everything look straight out of a sci fi movie. She thought such tech was only a matter of courageous concept, but Royce Robotics seemed to be at least filled with it.

"Hamsika, right?" She jumped the slightest at the sound of her name. Was he remembering it ever since their first meet, or was it something more to it? She looked his way and forced a smile.

"Yes, sir."

"Come, relax." He walked towards the couch as he pointed its way. "Let me serve you a drink. What shall it be? Water? Coffee? Tea? Perhaps something stronger, since you're out of business for a week." He chuckled, giving her a look from the corner of his eye as he headed towards the small bar counter close to the resting area they went for.

"Water should be enough. Thank you."

She put her backpack at her feet as she sat on the couch, eyeing him rather cautiously, suspicious of the whole situation. She watched him taking out from the refrigerator a bottle of water and pour into two glasses, with which he walked back to the table, taking a seat on the armchair in front of her, placing the glass on a coaster close to her.

"Sorry if I sound insistent anyhow, but you said you have to approve department changes yourself. Would you mind doing that for me? I only have a month left here and I would appreciate if I can take the best out of it." She played with her glass, rotating it on the coaster, trying to avoid him as much as possible, even if she felt being watched.

"And what would be the best out of this place for you?"

She heard the armchair creaking and felt his shadow over her as he stood up. The girl finally looked his way and saw the other taking off the blazer, leaving it aside, on the free seat. He rolled up both sleeves, his prosthetic now almost entirely visible, and sat back, looking all relaxed in his chair, despite the freezing cold Hamsika felt, while waiting for her answer. The girl still looked at him as her mind searched for answers. She was still not fully aware of all departments available even if she was around for a month. She would've appreciated a bit of a guidance if anything, but she wasn't sure if he was the right person to ask, even if he said himself, that if it were for a transfer, he'd have to approve it himself, and out of everyone, he must have known best what his workers busied themselves with. He seemed to be involved in more things than a man in his position should; from such management of the people, to research and apparently care for the employees, though people were speaking otherwise of him.

"I am not sure... I would appreciate some suggestions, since you might have noticed my field of activity already." She smiled shily, deciding to push the conversation whichever direction kept her away from the madness and any possible interrogatory regarding it.

"Well, your main interests focus on space and physics, which are both in the building under maintenance. Otherwise, I could offer you a spot in robotics or genetic engineering."

"Genetic engineering?" It sounded appealing enough. She would appreciate any knowledge regarding that, considering the newly discovered alien nature of her friends, that seemed to have lots to do with shapeshifting and genetic level matters.

"Yes, it's a department that started as something linked to the artificial limbs we're developing, for a better and flawless compatibility." He rested his forearms on his knees as he bent forward, giving a look to his prosthetic arm. "But now we are trying to push the boundaries further, towards regeneration."

"Any success?"

"I'm sure you wouldn't be seeing this if it was the case." He motioned his artificial arm a bit her way, with a bitter smile.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-. "

"It's alright." He cut it short and his eyes locked hers again, the light hazel irises staring almost rudely. "So, if you'd like, I can arrange so you can start there tomorrow." He relaxed back in his seat, lacing his fingers over his stomach, his mechanical thumb brushing over the skin of his other hand with a soft motorized sound. Hamsika weighted once more the opportunity she received and the time she'd have with Ryan; it was a difficult choice, since a vacation away from all stress and the city would've been more than welcome. She eventually chose to deny the offer however, thinking that if she'd transfer now, perhaps it'd be odd to ask to be back into the space research facility for the other three weeks. She needed to be back there and find out as much as possible about the Supernova project, or whatever was left of it.

"I think I will pass it though. I'd like to stay with what I came for."

"I could extend your contract with a week if so, since this sudden break would shorten your already little stay. I see you quite enjoy yourself here." He threw a quick look to the camera screens still displayed on the table's surface, to which the girl gulped nervously, paranoid thoughts invading her mind, thinking that it might be more than a random gesture; might be a subtle suggestion of her involvement.

"I appreciate the opportunity I was given at its fullest, though I had no idea of such a partnership with the school. I would've surely applied last year too."

"There's no partnership, other than the tech donations and some teachers I keep seeing for various advices, on fields I don't master."

"Then how did I end up here? Not that I complain..."

He pressed his lips together in a thin line as he pushed himself up from the chair, his eyes parting from the screen as he walked silently towards the window, staring most probably the direction of the building in cause. Hamsika was sure he had view over the entire science center from such a height, and even more considering his access to security cameras.

"I was having a talk with, apparently, one of your examinators. He was a good friend of my father's, they studied together. He told me how much of a daring and passionate student he has, so he got me interested, since not as many are like that nowadays." He walked back towards the table, but stopped behind the armchair, resting his forearms on its back, looking at the girl. "I am still trying to understand some of the ways things work outside Earth, since my main field of activity is in fact robotics, so he offered to help once in a while. He shared gladly your paperwork and it sounded just as promising to me as it did to him."

"And how does my activity on Gamma rays relate to my paperwork?"

"Right now, it doesn't, but you got to experience working with experts in a highly professional and well-equipped medium."

"So... That's all?"

He shrugged casually at her question.

"I thought there'd be more to it. Like something linked to my actual research. Black holes. Worm holes. Dark matter." She stared at him in disbelief. She knew she stepped dangerously close to the red zone of the Supernova project with her suggestions, but was it really all? Just made use of her papers, if anything could be extracted from there, and threw her in a rather random department, just to experience working with others.

"A bit impossible to talk of such now, sadly."

The girl grabbed her backpack and stood up all of a sudden, a frown creasing her forehead and eyebrows. She came at Royce Robotics with an open heart and will to learn and discover more. She found interesting and helpful people and appreciated the opportunity, but the way things shaped now, didn't sound as nicely anymore. She had been used and nobody had the decency to let her know exactly how and why was she there in fact.

"A pity if you ask me. I expected more of this place." She watched Royce raise his eyebrows slightly surprised of her reaction. "Now if you please excuse me, I have a forced vacation to enjoy. Good day, sir." She spun on her feet and made her way to the door, which was in fact the elevator itself, and pressed the button to call it up. However, to her surprise there was no light flashing, no reaction coming from the panel next to the button and only when she saw the card slide, she realized that she had come up thanks to the other's access card. Hamsika closed her eyes for a brief moment, inhaling deeply as she heard the other's footsteps approaching slowly, calmly, as of a spider's on its own web, heading towards the caught, helpless victim.

"You will need this if you want to leave." He took out of his pocket his card, which he slid to the side, revealing a second one against it. The girl recognized the number on it in an instant and a sudden urge to be able to teleport or break through the metal door of the elevator hit her. He chuckled looking at the pass, turning it on both sides to examine.

"A bit of a lucky trickster, this card of yours. No encryption. Free access everywhere. A flaw in the system." He added, staring her coldly into the eye. "A flawless flaw if used well." He extended his arm over her shoulder, brushing her own slightly as he reached to check his own access pass in order to call the elevator. She felt a shiver crossing her body and his cologne taking her breath away like a deadly poison as he withdrawn his arm. He was the second person after Ryan that managed to effortlessly hide whatever clues he had of her situation; but while such a discovery regarding the boy's knowledge of her apparent secrets was comically infuriating, one coming from Royce's side was downright terrifying.

"I hope you will enjoy your vacation, Hamsika." He looked her in the eye before the door slid back closed, taking the girl downstairs.

It was evening by the time Ryan returned home, without any clue where Aries might have disappeared. But just as he pushed the key inside the lock, he realized it was open. He frowned, thinking that with all the things going on, he might have actually forgotten to lock it as he left, but as soon as he stepped inside the house, he saw his brother lying lazily on the couch, tilting his head to the side to watch him enter.

"Where were you? I think I searched all the neighborhood by foot for five hours or so." He hanged the keys after locking the door and pushed his shoes off his feet, somewhere close to the wall. The boy looked at him, then burst into laugh.

"Oh, I wish I saw that."

"Aries!" He gasped rather annoyed, walking to the other.

"I wasn't even outside the building!" He stood up, facing Ryan with a grin still plastered on his face. "The old lady downstairs knocked at the door, saying it's weird to hear you home at noon. Told her through the door that I'm your brother, locked inside and left to starve. She somehow had a key to your apartment, and took me to her place to feed me."

Ryan blinked few times, his eyebrows raising with confusion, unsure whether he should believe the other or not, though Aries couldn't know otherwise about miss Olsen and on top of that, he could go and ask her in person anytime about the event. He nearly forgot that he left a key to his neighbor, just in case something happened to his own.

"You could've left a note!"

"I was too hungry to remember."

"But there was food in the fridge. I bought a bag full of things!"

"Yeah, but some required cooking."

"Really? Fruits? Cereal? Chocolate?"

"All gone."

"You gotta be kidding me." Ryan rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen, opening the fridge and cupboard to check and witness the food being truly gone. He turned around and nearly stumbled upon his brother who soundlessly followed him.

"Told you." He shrugged casually.

"Aries... I understand your appetite, but you have to put yourself some limits."

"What? You gonna starve me? I'll go have the lady feed me, then."

"I buy grocery for her as well. I can't just stay seven days a week at the supermarket because you suck all in." He poked the other's stomach, then walked past him, taking his phone out to check for any eventual missed texts or calls from Hamsika, but ever since she got back at the dorm, mentally exhausted she said nothing else. He let her know through a quick message that his brother was back and well, and asked if she was still up for the trip, since he'd have to let Alice and Tim know before it got too late.

"I want one of those too." He pointed at the phone as Ryan looked at him.

"I'll have to get you one. I'll track you easier."

"Track me?" He snorted amused, hopping on the counter to sit.

"We have to stay together. Hamsika already has problems. They might have discovered we've been there."

"You don't say..."

"She was desperate and if anything goes wrong... Well, more than it did so far, it'll be all my fault. If I knew my dream was real, I could've just blasted my way in, take you out and leave, without dragging her along."

"What dream?"

"I heard you calling for help and saw myself in that room, after she told me of what she thought was going on there." He let himself fall on the couch with a thud, relaxing his head on the backseat, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"That wasn't a dream." The boy jumped off the counter and walked the other's way, looking at him a bit concerned. "Our minds are linked."

"Figured that after." He covered his face with his hands, rubbing onto his eyes gently.

"But-..." Aries frowned, kicking the other's leg, making him look at him confused with the sudden gesture. "Ryan, how did you get here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, literally, how did you get on this planet?"

"I thought I told you. Ended up somehow in a wormhole that launched me here."

"Somehow?!" He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, shoving away with his hand some strands of hair from his face.

"Yeah, somehow. If I knew, I'd let you know. But why the sudden interrogatory?"

"Just... Curiosity."

Ryan shrugged the other's answer away and checked his vibrating phone. Hamsika was alright with leaving anytime, with the condition to be back by Sunday. He agreed and sent back messages to the other too, asking nicely for his first longer leave and excusing himself for the abrupt request, then looked up at the other who seemed to stare through the floor, absently.

"We gotta pack up. We're leaving tomorrow."
Chapter VI

The next morning, not long after the first rays of sun hit the sky, they met at the train station. Hamsika was already there when the two arrived, looking a bit lost and unsure until her eyes settled on the boys.

"So, where are we going again?" She asked after a while, all three sipping from their paper mugs, tea or coffee, while enjoying the still chilly air of the morning.

"Aries found a cabin in the woods, few hours by train from here."

"Few hours?" She asked a bit unsure.

"Three and a half." The other added, taking out of his pocket the messily bend tickets.

"Give me those." Hamsika frowned and grabbed them from the boy, checking them out.

"But this is a small village. Do we know how to get to that cabin? Will someone drive us there?"

"By foot."

"Why so many questions?!" Aries snapped, throwing his hands in the air in an exaggerated gesture.

"Calm down..." Ryan added with a sigh, noticing people around looking at them. "We will get there, one way or another. I have a map on my phone and it shouldn't be more than an hour of walk."

"An hour?! But that's a lot considering that we got luggage too!"

"We'll be fine..." The boy tried to add more confidence to their small group with a smile, hoping to calm down the spirits.

Once their train was announced to be leaving soon, they got in and sought for their seats. After Ryan helped each put their luggage up in the desired space, they made themselves comfortable, the boys stealing the window seats, while Hamsika let herself absorbed in a book. She didn't know much about them, considering the newly found details regarding their nature, but she presumed they'd enjoy the view and experience of travel more by a window than otherwise. She glanced their way once in a while, and buried her nose back in the book with a small smile and a warm heart feeling each time. She considered herself at least lucky to be around them and she had a thousand questions to ask of them and of other places and how actually some things, that humans still struggled with, worked in fact. However, there was a line of privacy she didn't want to cross; she had no idea where it might be or what was even moral around to do around them, if they even cared for such human means. She thought to herself many times that she would ask at some point some things about one or another, but when the time would feel right.

The girl eventually gave up her book after a while, when the view began to get interesting enough, the train starting to get surrounded by mountains. She wondered how long they searched for that cabin and how it actually looked like. But as she thought of such, another question struck her mind: nobody asked her for any money and most probably the stay was already paid, alike the tickets.

"How much do I owe you?" She looked at Ryan, not even considering Aries as a potential payer, since she knew a part of his origins around the place.

"Don't worry about it."

"Ryan..." Her tone low, a silent threat. The boy leaned towards her from his seat.

"I don't use the savings otherwise anyway, so this was a great opportunity."

"But it's unfair."

"You need this. Your brain needs a breather; after the school year, after the madness I'm all guilty for." His voice kept going lower and lower, making his brother stare at them, with his eyebrows raising slowly in question.

"You know, I'm here too."

"Sorry." Ryan pressed his lips in a small smile. "It's not you, I just don't want to disturb around." He glanced at the other people, some of them reading, some browsing their phones, while some looked quite deeply asleep.

"I'll pay for food then."

"Please, Hamsika..." The boy insisted, but Aries jumped even deeper into the conversation once the interesting subject of food was brought up. Given the harvesting process he suffered back at the research facility, his body was drained of many of its components and the hunger became a permanent feeling he had to cope with, even if he required much more than some human fit meals.

"So, when do we eat?"

"I've got some chocolate if you want..." Hamsika pulled her backpack from beneath her seat and started to search under the other's attention, while Ryan let himself fall back in his seat, resting his back against it while getting lost to the surroundings outside the window. Once she found it, she handled the chocolate to the other, who took it enthusiastically, checking out the wrapping with interest before proceeding to open it with eagerness. The girl watched him amused taking a delighted bite out of it, letting out a satisfied humming sound.

It took them over an hour more to reach the first destination, which was the small village Hamsika mentioned once she saw the tickets. The boy took out his phone as soon as they left the train and waited for signal, so the map could adjust to their current position.

"So... We're here." He lowered his phone so everyone could see. "And we have to get... Here!" He kept scrolling to a location marked on the map, somewhere deep through the forest and nearby a lake, without any visible road marked.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Hamsika glanced at them, feeling a bit unsure about the final destination. "Can I see the place?"

Ryan nodded to her request and searched for the reservation, then handed her the phone. The cabin was small and looked quite old, but well kept. It wasn't pretentious, but enough for the three of them. There was indeed nothing surrounding it, but a beautiful meadow, the forest and the lake.

"Doesn't look bad though."

"Hey, we may not be from around here, but we have some expectations from a place too." The boy laughed and switched the phone back to the guiding map.

They stopped at the local supermarket and bought as much food as they could carry, even though they knew it would get heavier with all the distance they had to walk to the cabin. Surely, with Aries's appetite, it wouldn't be enough for all the days, but they agreed on making trips back to the village once the supplies started to grow little on them.

The walk through the forest felt like a reset to Hamsika's brain; the fresh air and the smell of rain, which probably happened during the night, delighted her senses deeply. She was longing for such a breath of nature, considering that ever since she came for studies, her only trips outside the city were quite recent, ever since she met Ryan. The boy really offered her a different perspective upon things; showed her that she could manage everything, including caring for herself and once in a while get a breather. A 24/7 studying was the key to nothing but a burnout, and she refused to accept this earlier.

By the time they reached the cabin it was around noon. The sun was hardly a dim spot behind the clouds, but somehow it didn't feel cold; it felt just right. They were all thankful for leaving the summer's heat within the city. Ryan took out his phone and examined the instructions to retrieve the key, which was somewhere behind the house, in a small metal box closed with a combination lock. Once inside the house, they abandoned their shoes and backpacks on the hallway and went to inspect the rooms. The small living room was paired with the kitchen area, just like Ryan's one room apartment; the only door on the floor led to a tiny bathroom, while the stairs went to the first floor, which was also the attic, where a couch and a double bed shared the space, along with a small wardrobe and a window above their heads.

"Good job on finding this, Aries." Hamsika admitted with a pleased smile on her lips after they all returned downstairs and started to unpack the food.

"Thanks?" He let out a small laugh, giving the girl a quick look before exchanging glances with Ryan, who looked just as satisfied with what they found, despite the fact that it was a bit too isolated from everyone else.

"Should we go check the surroundings? Or is it already too much for a day?" The boy looked at Hamsika, knowing that himself and Aries could still handle a lot more effort. She gave him a small shrug in return, busying herself with arranging some of the food inside the refrigerator.

"Not sure what that means." He chuckled, pressing on, bumping his arm against hers playfully.

"I say we should take it easy. We still got three days left here."

"So, we leave on Saturday?" Aries jumped into the conversation.

"Isn't that for how long you reserved this place?" His brother gave him a peek over the shoulder.

"We got Saturday evening too."

"Oh."

"Well, I need to be back at work on Monday. Internship is calling me, and I don't want to jump from the train in bed and then at work." Hamsika muttered low, recalling the anxiety feelings that seemed to have left her for a while. Returning to Royce Robotics meant probably facing the arrogance of Lucien Royce once again, and die inside, bathing in fear and doubt of what he might be aware of and what might not.

"Why are you even going there? That place is toxic." Aries wrinkled his nose in disgust, resting his palms against the counter while following her with his gaze. He saw her chewing on her thoughts, concern moving her eyes rapidly as she tried to pick the right words.

"I want to find out more."

"I'll tell you more. More than anyone on this planet could, just name it." Their eyes locked, the coldness and seriousness of his blue irises, being at least intimidating to the other. The girl looked at him for a few moments, then walked away with the bread, stuffing it into a cabinet silently.

"She has to finish her time there. She has a contract."

The boy rolled his eyes at Ryan's statement, walking away from the counter and grabbing a chocolate on his way, heading back outside after putting his shoes on. He was lucky enough to fit in his brother's clothes and shoes, so they shared the wardrobe's contents while packing for the trip.

Ryan watched the other disappear behind the slammed door, disapproving the gesture with a small sigh. He pressed a hand softly on Hamsika's back as she closed the cabinet nearby with some food in it. She looked up at him, the sadness that lingered in her features threatened to be brushed away any second by his comforting smile. The boy pulled her in a gentle embrace and kissed the top of her head.

"Don't mind him. He doesn't understand many things going on."

"Is this why you wanted this trip?" He raised his eyebrows as she looked up at him. "You just wanted to take him away from the city, didn't you?"

"We all needed this vacation and since this break showed up in your program, I thought it was a perfect fit. I wanted to go at least during a weekend if anything."

The girl sighed at his statement. Deep inside she agreed with his words, but she also was sure that there was more to it, than just a brain reset.

"I saw so much these days and experienced more danger and panic attacks than I will probably do in the rest of my life, so please, Ryan... Tell me the truth." She looked pleading at him as she insisted, gripping onto his shirt softly. His eyes searched hers as he chose his words. He was aware of the fact that she was ready to accept anything he'd say, but he didn't mean to scare her any way more than she already was.

"I fear for his instability."

"You can't just keep on running with him around the city though. If anything will go wrong with him it will be probably nowhere to hide anyway."

A black hole unleashed was indeed something unavoidable, but he hoped for the other to at least try and stabilize himself more, now that they were out in the wild, far away from the city madness. He still had no idea of how identical in functional matters they were in fact, considering Aries's power of feeding onto dying stars, if it was indeed the truth, and not some false pride he enjoyed parading with.

"I know..." He finally admitted, nearly in a whisper.

"Then, what's the plan, Ryan?" Hey question was followed again by a long moment of silence, her eyes growing wet at the other's uncertainty. The boy seemed to be always improvising solutions on the way for any problems they encountered, but now, he seemed just as lost.

"I have no plan." His hand brushed her shoulder, his lips curving into a smile. "But I will find something. Don't let your head get heavy with such thoughts. These are our problems after all."

"So, you're excluding me now? Pushing me away? Why, Ryan? Because my human ass can't handle such matters?"

"Well, technically..."

She bit her lips with anger, avoiding to add anything more to the conversation and slapped his hand away, storming with heavy steps upstairs, leaving Ryan just stare at the empty place she used to stand into. His focus shifted to the stairs and listened to the sound of silence for a bit. He still wasn't sure about how to handle the situation. He surely didn't want Hamsika to feel excluded anyhow, but considering their situation, she truly couldn't do much. If anything, she helped enough with setting Aries free, but that already dragged a lot of trouble along. He sighed at the mix of thoughts and went to the entrance door, opening it to peek outside. There was no sign of his brother either, and for now, his absence was more worrying than any conflict with the girl. He grabbed the key and after putting his shoes back on, he left the cabin, in the search of the other.

Rain had started again in the meanwhile, but luckily it wasn't more than small droplets falling occasionally through the leaves. The boy stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants as he walked, paying attention to the smallest sounds and possible clues, that may betray his brother's presence or that'd offer him a track at least. Ryan was barely knowing him at all, though the situation didn't seem as equal on the other's side. Their conversations triggered him some unexplainable questions, as if why would Aries be so interested in his past revolving around the time he had been sent through the wormhole to Earth. Of course, it could've been pure curiosity, but the way he stated the problem seemed rather questionable. There seemed to be more depth to it, and no matter how much he turned it on all sides, he couldn't figure it.

He bit the inside of his cheek, still thoughtful, though his senses focused on the surroundings as he kept walking. His attention got snapped from the train of thoughts by the time he reached the lake. There was just a small layer of trees left to the shore, that blocked Ryan's view from the source of noise; a rhythmic water splattering, too loud to be just rain. He made his way towards the place as silently as possible, trying to peek through the trunks.

"Want a small tip? Next time make less noise if you want to stay hidden." Ryan smiled at the now familiar sight; the long haired figure turned his way with a bored expression after throwing one more stone into the lake, that jumped few times on the glossy surface before sinking beneath it.

"I wasn't really hiding. Just wanted some time with myself." He moved a bit to the side of the rock he sat on, making place for the other as well. "How come you left your precious human alone?" He pressed his index finger onto Ryan's chest. Their eyes broke contact as his brother's drifted away to the lake, in the search of an answer.

"She left me actually." He let out a small puffed of air, bitterly amused. "And stop calling her that."

"Well, you seem quite attached."

"We helped each other with many things."

"Yeah? Like what? What could she possibly offer you?"

"A new perspective on their world. She showed me that human nature can be oriented elsewhere than towards greed and conflict, as their history mostly shows."

Aries snorted, throwing another stone in the lake, failing the scheme and sending it straight underwater, which got Ryan's attention back. He stared at the ripples for a moment, then at his brother until their eyes met again. They exchanged glances for a long moment, as if they searched into the depts of each other's core for something.

"Ryan. Just, how long do you intend to stay here?" The sudden change of subject took the questioned one by surprise. He raised his eyebrows and chuckled with a shrug.

"I don't know. It's not like I'm rushing anywhere. Her lifespan compared to mine is just a blink."

"So, you plan on staying until she dies, huh?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I can't tell right now. But why do you keep pressuring me with such questions? After all... You can leave anytime you feel strong enough to boost yourself outside the atmosphere. Perhaps we'll meet again." He gave the other a small smile. He was glad he found someone alike himself, but he couldn't keep him from going. His decisions shouldn't have reflected upon his brother in any way. However, his lips lost their curving soon, as the other looked back rather troubled.

"This is so messed up."

"What? The situation with Hamsika? We'll figure it out... We're two now, they can't grab us as easily." Ryan dismissed it amused. "Honestly I think they were just lucky to have you there for that long. With or without my help, I am quite sure you would've found your way out, though I am not sure how good it'd have been for the surroundings-" He got suddenly halted by the other's hand on the shoulder and his piercing irises.

"I could've been the smallest problem around. Ryan, there's something you miss from the picture. Something big." His brother frowned at the sound of the statement, but hold silent, awaiting more information. "Your amnesia might not be entirely gone, unless parts of your memory have been wiped for good."

"What are you talking about?" His voice was low; he peeked around for a moment, then looked back at his brother. "Aries, what is going on? You're holding something back from me."

"If you'd remember it all, I wouldn't appear to hold anything back from you. You were part of all the things, or most of the things, that you say I keep you away from."

"Does it have anything to do with my arrival here?"

"Yes."

"With yours?"

"Yes."

Ryan looked at Aries for a moment, thoughtful, trying to put together the details. He didn't remember how he got sent through the wormhole, but he presumed his brother had somewhat the same fate, after experiencing the blast of a supernova. But there were still missing elements; For how long was Aries on Earth? How exactly he got caught? Had he been kept contained from the beginning of his time here or did something happen in the meanwhile? He tried, back during their first talk after the rescue, to find out some of the details, but despite the fact that the other kept saying he didn't remember certain things, there was also a feeling that there was more to his story than he chose to admit.

"Could it be that I was affected by the same blast as you were and we arrived here around the same time through the same wormhole?"

Aries's features looked suddenly relieved, but just as he opened his mouth to answer, a loud crack of a branch got their attention. They looked the direction of the noise and saw Hamsika emerging from behind the trees, hugging the unzipped hoodie around herself.

"Thanks for abandoning me there."

Back at Royce Robotics, the situation was far from relaxed, even during late at night. Two days had passed since the beginning of the week, when the facility was announced publicly to the employees as being closed, granting them a forced vacation. Royce wasn't a stranger from sleeping at the office; he used to do that quite often back in the day when he took over the company, trying to adjust to everything and everyone around. He was a perfectionist and so he wanted everything else around to be; a reflection of himself, even though the workers had to suffer many hours of overtime for it. However, now sleep caught him on the sofa before the smart table due to exhaustion, because even though he went home for the night, he hardly could get any sleep. The loss of his experiment and equipment haunted him ever since the event.

A beeping sound jolted him awake and a notification flashed before his eyes on the tablet's surface. He bent over the table and tapped the corner where the alert was, to maximize on the screen a decrypted video he had been waiting for days. The technicians had worked hard to compose the recordings based on stitched remains, as the security system itself had been affected and interrupted a few times. His eyes narrowed as he kept the video on replay, analyzing everything going on. There was a silhouette of a person wandering around and interacting with the consoles; accompanied by what appeared to be an oddity. The second person was no more or less than what the container had in as well. When he got his hands on the contained black hole in the shape of a nebula-alike being, Royce never thought of a scenario where it'd be taken out by something alike. However, it seemed like the alien being had been brought to the source, since nothing had been forced on the way inside the facility, or perhaps the being itself had been working there undercover, plotting for the other's release.

His jaw clenched as he checked out a second video that came in. Despite the fact that it was even shorter than the first one, the newly added content was clearer, showing off a better view of the intruders. However, even if the alien being, disguised in a young man was wearing a janitor's outfit, he didn't appear to be familiar to anyone Royce had seen around, though he hardly met all the workers within the cleaning ranks. But what attracted his attention more was the now familiar silhouette of the other person. It appeared to be a young woman, short in height and with long dark hair. He zoomed in the video and paused it, moving it frame by frame to the clearest view of the other's face. He inhaled sharply as he recognized the facial features of no other than Hamsika. He had suspected her access card, since it had a flaw in the encryption and permitted access everywhere. He did saw the girl indeed panic at some of his remarks, but blamed it all on the crazed situation. His prosthetic arm raised and within the blink of an eye went against the tablet surface, cracking the surface right where the video started to replay again continuously.

"Damn it!"

He screamed at the empty room as he stood up, boiling with rage. He paced around the floor, as his brain tried to find a solution to it. He'd have to bring her back and ask what was with the second alien, how come she got in contact with him, how she found out about the experiment's containment and why would she intervene for someone or something beyond her understanding? Royce even considered her being brainwashed by the other to do all of this, but even so, he had to probe the truth or the least memories she had of the event.

The man stopped and stared down at the buildings surrounding the main tower he was in, his eyes stopping on the closed facility. He thought of asking the special services of investigating her. Letting her go in the current circumstances could've as well meant releasing her. She could've been gone if she felt threatened or suspected anyhow, and judging by her reactions, she wasn't far from either. However, at a deeper chew on the thought, he realized that alerting such services, meant exposing to a wider audience the experiment, which wasn't in truth known or approved by anyone outside Royce Robotics, other than those that worked on it.

However, since he didn't want to make a call for help outside his company, he thought of what he could rely on to lead him to perhaps the source of trouble. If she couldn't be tracked without help from other institutions, the other two could, since during their experiments they had been using certain frequencies that induced the contained one to some sort of coma, keeping it within a safe range of parameters. Of course, there were fluctuations once in a while, as it seemed to learn how to break the pattern of the controlling radiations that got sent its way, but the AI was smart enough to reconfigure. But what no AI or human could do, was to hold the power of two such entities; not at the moment of encounter.

The man took a quick sit at his desk and opened the holographic display, browsing through files. He opened the blueprint of the containment system, which was now mostly gone due to the explosion. He had to make out of it something portable, that could help them place more than just one source of such radiation emitter within the ray of the city. He could use those to identify the location of at least one of the two specimens and eventually contain them. However, mobilizing such equipment around and perhaps within the city was no small deal and they would have to cover it with a fake experiment; not mentioning that an experiment of such proportions couldn't have more than just approximative values and outcomes, which could've affected the citizens, considering that there was no certain way of knowing how the aliens would react.

But before thinking of safety aspects, he had to think of the devices themselves, that would bring along such situations. After opening a software than combined both design and engineering, he dragged in the contents he already had created for the Supernova Project and started to bend his mind around them, trying to figure a solution. This was far too important to be let to escape so easily. It could've been human kind's new era of evolution, that could've finally opened new horizons, beyond Earth, that were more than just a science fiction story.
Chapter VII

They spent most of the time during the past days within the cabin or in its vicinity, not daring to adventure themselves too far into the woods with the pouring rain weather following them closely. Only Ryan had left for the village during their third day to grab some more food for the remaining period of their stay. While Aries didn't seem to care much of him leaving by himself through the heavy rain, Hamsika wasn't as easy to deal with. She insisted on accompanying him until the very last moment, but accepted her situation in the end. She wasn't very fond of Ryan's brother, as he still seemed to be a strange presence, unpredictable and as she suspected, with a thirst for violence. A total opposite from the other.

It was about an hour after Hamsika left the porch, as Ryan disappeared with the raincoat on, through the pouring rain. The girl walked back to the small living room, that shared the same space with the kitchen, after losing focus on reading, upstairs in the bed. She wondered where the forever hungry boy was, since she remembered leaving him on the couch. He seemed to be still staring blankly at the empty fireplace, not moving an inch as she took a seat next to him. Ryan had the tendency to space out quite often as well, but when Aries did it, it felt strange, as if his body was nothing more than a shell while his conscience went places. The girl placed a hand gently on his back, not meaning to startle him, unsure of the reaction she might trigger.

"Aries?" She looked at him and thankfully he responded almost in an instant with a questioning hum, his eyes still looking at the fireplace, but finally with a focus.

"Are you okay? You've been quite silent today and didn't ask for a second breakfast plate." The boy turned his attention to her, the pair of light blue eyes staring into her own as intense as usual. They didn't really get to talk much, but she had gotten used to some of his habits already, like the almost rude staring.

"I'm not okay. Don't think I've ever been on this planet." Even though she asked him about his well-being, she did not actually expect a negative answer; surely not one alike, to which she couldn't respond as precisely, since she couldn't compare Earth to any other place. She knew what he's been through and that the nature of humans wasn't always the friendliest for a foreigner. Even she experienced few such unwelcoming situations when she moved from India for studies.

"I am sorry my planet doesn't make you feel... Welcome." She looked down rather sad. She often questioned if out there was someone else apart from them and now that she knew with certainty that it was so, she felt bad and responsible for how her race treated a visitor. She knew too little about him in general, but she was fully understanding his feelings and felt sorry for pushing him away in the past days too.

"I've been judged and considered various ways on each planet I've been on, otherwise than I really am, but I was never caged. At most, just banished."

"And how would you like to be welcomed?"

He shrugged, looking to his side thoughtfully while playing with his fingers.

"I wish I felt as comfortable as Ryan does. He looks undisturbed, though he questions his stay here ever since he found out of how I was kept."

"He does?" Hamsika's words slipped off her lips faster than she wanted to. Ryan had never mentioned such, even though he seemed a bit absent or distant sometimes, in a more thoughtful manner than his usual daydreaming one she got used to. She raised her eyes as she felt the other looking back at her.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that."

"No, it's okay. I understand that second feelings must kick in after such events."

"But you wish you didn't have to understand."

"Of course, I wish all was fine and that we met you in better circumstances. But reality is not made out of what I wish for."

"I am sorry I broke your perfect balance."

"What do you mean?" She genuinely raised her eyebrows in surprise at the sudden statement.

"I know I shattered some stones in my brother's thoughts with everything that happened lately. I would actually just go, but he wants to linger a bit more and I respect his decision. He helped me with everything and waiting at his side is the least I can do, even if I despise this place." Her heart sank into her stomach and despite the fact that she didn't want to believe she was the center of attention; she knew that Ryan's main reason to stay now was her. She felt like an anchor to their ship and she felt like her selfish chain that connected them would be better off broken.

"Now, don't feel down..." He added and threw an arm over her shoulders, dragging her closer, in a side hug, making the girl jump at the unexpected gesture. "Let's make the best out of our time here." He went on with a smile, to which Hamsika responded with a small one too, even if her mind bathed in guilt of keeping them in a place where they felt unwelcome. The boy suddenly stood up, and slapped his hands together, rubbing them together excited.

"Let's go for a walk!"

"Aries, it's pouring outside."

"We got raincoats, right? Come on!" He left, heading to the hallway to put his shoes on. Hamsika stared at him, lips parted soundlessly as her protests vanished under the other's actions. She stood up and followed him, giving a look to the weather outside.

"You sure about this?"

"Yeah!" He handed her the raincoat with a wide smile, after she put her shoes on too. His enthusiasm felt like his brother's. A contagious energy and a thirst for adventure.

"We have to leave the door unlocked. Ryan doesn't have the key."

"Don't think anyone in the middle of the woods will come. Besides, we won't be that far." He dragged the hood over his head, covering the cap he just put on. The girl only nodded, not even questioning anymore what she was jumping into as they walked outside, letting the warmth of the cabin behind the closed door.

They started walking and headed to the edge of the forest where the lake started. The rain was still pouring as hard, but with the rocky shore, it wasn't too much of a problem; at least not as much mud and puddles were involved. They walked silently, bumping into each other at times; it felt peaceful and good. She looked at him for a brief moment and saw no crease or frown. He was in fact toying with a smile on his lips as he avoided the water gathered here and there, which brought her worried thoughts to a halt, burying them somewhere deep in the favor of the moment. Seeing them both, under various circumstances, made her understand that they were in fact very alike when it came to the energy and enthusiasm, with the exception that Aries sometimes jumped head first into situations that perhaps required more thinking. Apart from the fact that his name was picked due to one of his final destinations before heading towards Earth, the Aries constellation, Hamsika thought that the name had in fact a perfect fit if one were to consider the astrological traits. She always thought of them as of being rather fictional matters, unlike astronomy, but in some cases, alike his, the characteristics seemed to be fitting like a glove.

She watched him taking distance from her to climb up on a bigger rock on the shore, admiring the foggy surroundings with the hands on his hips. It could be almost within the blink of an eye, that he would leave his human form for his natural one and depart the planet. She smiled to herself, thinking of the respect and trust he and Ryan had for each other even if they barely met, considering how many years they had behind. The smallest conflicts they had were only natural in a good flow of understanding and dealing with each other. The boy jumped back on the ground and headed her way.

"I love this place."

"How can you tell when you hardly see it through this rain?" Hamsika chuckled amused at his statement.

"Well. No humans!" He spread his arms, making half of a spin, showing the surroundings.

"Oh, I feel you. I am sometimes tired of being surrounded by others too... But sadly, we can't isolate ourselves."

"I could."

"What about your appetite? I doubt you will start gardening and farming." She held back from bursting into laugh at the thought.

"Well, Ryan can go grab stuff."

"So, you wouldn't be _that_ isolated."

"I said isolate myself from _humans_." He raised a finger, winking.

"What about me?" They picked up the pace again, walking by the lake.

"You're allowed to stay. You don't deserve belonging here either. You seem nicer than the rest."

"Sadly, I can't survive elsewhere."

He pondered thoughtfully, while making his way around some bigger rocks.

"You could. But I am not sure how we'd get you to those places."

"Aries... I am stuck on this planet. I am _not_ like you."

He looked back at her, as if he'd analyze her, then pressed his lips together with a small nod, and walked on silently.

Hamsika felt her shoes starting to soak with water slowly, and frowned at the cold feeling crawling up on her spine with a shiver.

"We should head back. Not sure about you, but my shoes feel like a pool already." She laughed, stopping and looking back the direction they came from. The boy did the same and agreed soundlessly with another nod.

"I hope the weather gets better. I really want to explore this place more."

"I'd love that just as much. I haven't been hiking in so long. I think last time was in elementary school with the class." She smiled at the memory and let herself get lost in the past while walking back, at the boy's side.

When they reached the cabin, it was just as warm and silent, only the radio played silently in the kitchen. She hoped that Ryan was already on his way back, and at the thought she threw a glance between the curtains the direction he went on when he left, but stepped back with a sigh and no sign of the other.

It was only on Friday, their last day before packing and returning to the madness of the city, that the sun smiled on them. Its rays peeked right through the curtains in the morning, waking all up with the best mood that could've been, making them forget for a moment whatever could've awaited them back in town, considering that the Royce Robotics incident didn't vanish into thin air with their leave.

They spent their day walking and taking pictures, trying their best to avoid the muddy paths, since it had been raining for quite a few days. When they stopped for a snack, they were midway to the top of the closest mountain. The lake was barely visible through the trees as the thick forest surrounded them closely from all sides. Hamsika took a seat on a bigger rock nearby while eating an energy bar and started to browse her gallery. She smiled to herself while looking at the pictures they took during their stay, then looked at the two who seemed to be focused on some colorful mushrooms, Ryan explaining to Aries the damage that just one mushroom could do to a human's stomach if ingested. And even so, he had to push the other back from trying one, only because he was more than met the eye. The girl shook her head amused at the sight and let out a small sigh while her eyes focused back on the screen of her phone. She couldn't help but think how much all of this would last. Their presence was at least a bless; the time she spent with Ryan during the past months was probably the best she had in her life with anyone, and also the best that would ever be eventually; while the discovery of their nature was more than just a mind-bending surprise. A true scientific wonder; something beyond the human understanding of the Universe so far. She was still not daring to question them too deeply of their literal insides, since her morals still pulled onto her ear, even if her knowledge craving side wept for it.

By the time the light started to grow dim, while the night began over them, they reached the top. The view, even within the low light was spectacular. The lake reflected the colorful sunset on its still surface, while forests wrapped the rocky shores. Ryan walked to the edge, followed by the other two and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and opening his arms widely, then exhaled with a smile plastered on his face.

"Well, this is rewarding! And the sky is clear! Perfect for some stargazing." He opened back his eyes and glanced up at the sky.

"So, we're sleeping here tonight?" Aries added rather interested by his own proposal.

"It would get a bit too cold. At least for me." Hamsika pressed her lips tightly with disappointment in her voice. "If we had a tent and all the rest for a nice camping, I wouldn't even think twice about staying here over the night."

"We can make a fire and stay until more stars show up." Ryan added, the smile still curving his lips and looked at the surroundings. There were few logs arranged alike benches on the ground, while a small circle of stones with coal remains within lied in the middle; a sign that someone else embraced the same idea he suggested.

"I'll go grab some wood." Aries looked at the other two, then nodded to self, and turned around on his heels, heading back to the forest.

"I should have some matches in my backpack..." Hamsika put down her rucksack and after turning on the flashlight of her phone she started to search through the contents. She remembered putting a pack in, hoping that such an opportunity would show up. She loved camping and still remembered a thing or two from her childhood, when she used to go out in the wilds more often.

"Finally!" She exclaimed pleased while turning off the light and closing her backpack, with the matches in her hand. Surprised by no reaction from the boy, she looked around to find herself alone, though his rucksack was on the ground next to one of the bench logs.

"Ryan?" She stood up while her heart started to pump harder and harder as no reply came.

"Ryan!" She repeated louder, but without any sign.

_That was it_ , she thought. She was now alone on top of a mountain, away from civilization, while most probably the two left. Not only the surroundings but the planet itself. She had been deceived by the beauty of the moment, like a child by a toy, while being left at the kindergarten by the parents. Only that nobody would be back for her as it would be for the kid.

Her entire body jumped in a scare when a branch cracked lower in the valley, but calmed the slightest when she saw Aries emerging from the woods. She partly sighed in relief at the sight, but where could've Ryan be if he didn't return with his brother either?

"Did you see Ryan?" She asked in a panic, though she tried her best to hide her overwhelming feelings.

"What?" The boy asked again as he approached with arms full of wood sticks in various shapes and sizes, his forehead creasing briefly with confusion.

"Ryan. Did he come after you? I was searching for my- "

She got suddenly interrupted by the other's smirk and his chin pointing up in a short gesture. Hamsika looked the direction she got and saw up in the sky the ever-shifting and see-through nebula silhouette floating. She stepped closer, lips parted in awe at the sight and only stopped when she got halted by Aries's hand on the shoulder. He had abandoned the branches nearby the improvised camp and rushed to her when he noticed her stepping closer and closer to the edge, drawn by the sight.

"Hey, keep your feet on the ground." The boy warned her with a chuckle and pulled her by the hand backwards a few steps. He still was not fond of humans in any way, but Hamsika felt like something else. She helped him being taken out from the Royce Robotics, which was quite a thing, considering how others treated him. Not mentioning that she meant something to Ryan; a reason to linger on that very planet. If anything, he was willing to protect her for the sake of his brother.

Hamsika only nodded, her eyes still being locked with the sight above the lake.

"Is that... Relaxing anyhow?" She finally looked at the other. His rather sharp features appeared softened in the low light of the early night.

"Well, like taking off your tight clothes after a long day. But better." He laughed a bit, then turned around and went to fix the wood together for a fire. The girl followed him shortly after, throwing glances once in a while at the mesmerizing silhouette still floating effortlessly.

"Is he going to stay there all night, though?" She added after they finished arranging the branches and managed to light the fire. She respected his time alone, but since she had no idea when they'll catch another moment together like that evening, she would've preferred him down, at ground level. Aries looked back up at his brother and with a roll of his eyes threw his cap on one of the logs, as within the blink of an eye he lost his human shape in the favor of the cosmic one, departing from the ground too with a bit of a trembling shatter beneath the girl's feet.

Hamsika frowned and let out a frustrating noise while seeing the other taking distance from the camp as well, both unreachable now. She was even unsure of what they heard or understood within that shape and prayed that nobody was crazy enough to wander through the woods to see the scene.

The phone started to vibrate on the glass surface of the desk, amplifying the sound to a level high enough to make Royce wake up from his exhaustion induced slumber. Ever since he began planning the devices to reclaim what was taken from his laboratory, he hadn't left the research facility. He kept meeting colleagues from all branches that could help him develop faster a network around the city area, that would generate the radiations needed to identify, weaken and help capture the escaped subject. He knew, that according to the recordings they managed to salvage, there were in fact two specimens, so the power he used on the escaped one had to be at least double to make sure they were weakened enough to be contained and avoid an eventual second catastrophe, in a public place, where nobody could cover it entirely anymore; not silently and blindly from unwanted eyes.

He eventually answered the video call and moved it onto the holographic device, lying back in his seat, drained of energy.

"How did it go?" He looked at the group of scientists that kept working day and night ever since he started developing the plan. They were supposed to run a test at a smaller scale, within the still closed building, where the explosion occurred, where three such newly created devices had been placed to test the communication and synchronization between them.

"The test was successful, but for minimum casualties, we would still have to evacuate the civilians. If anything goes wrong, it could at least save some of them."

"First of all, I want to believe that nothing will go wrong, which should be ensured by you and your group of experts..." He shifted in his seat, though his tired eyes focused the group in the call, coldly and threateningly. "Second... I have already everything approved by the mayor. Tomorrow, at the first hour, the evacuation will start, under an _unknown chemical threat_."

"But sir, we need half as more antennae than we got so far to cover the area you wish."

"Tomorrow evening I want them mounted and functional."

"But- "

"I will have the placement plan done by morning and forwarded to you, so you can handle the rest." He added, then closed the call without any chance of protest from the other side. He knew it was a lot to ask for, but considering the automation within his facilities, he also knew that with some sacrifice, it was possible.

The man slapped his knees and stood up with a small frown. He knew that the rest must have been just as exhausted if not worse, but it was a price he was willing to pay, even if that meant marching straight into the streets, with the madness he had been keeping secret; or so he tried to. He glanced outside the window with a yawn, arching his back in a stretch. He needed the city plans as well as its surroundings to be able to place all his equipment strategically correct, for the best results. He wasn't even sure if the subjects were still within the area, but it was worth a shot. If anything, he would at least test the technology through this whole event, that would aid him further in the search, on a even bigger scale. A conscious being or not, it was something he couldn't let escape, not only for the sake of his company and the losses he had, but because digging deeper into such unknown, yet accessible exotic matters was one of a kind opportunity for mankind itself; a chance to leap further into the technological advancement.

Royce turned back at his desk and opened the map of his research center, picking the drone development building into the front. He grabbed one of the drone models to float before his eyes, in its holographic view, spinning slowly as he analyzed the possibilities. They had an autonomy good enough to reach the city and return, and could also work in synchronized swarms, which was better than trying to reach so late at night for someone to provide him such a city plan, that most probably wasn't even digitalized at the level he needed. He entered the coordinates of the area he needed scanned and after a final check he tapped the release button, letting out nearly a thousand drones to reach the city and cartography it, in all its width and depth.

The man paced around his desk for a moment, then saw the swarm passing by the tower his office was into, on both sides, reuniting in a single wave of leds and buzz as it headed towards the destination. He had to wait for their results in order to start his promised task, so he resumed his nap before the call, to recover at least a part of his energy until the drones returned with the information he needed.

When Aries reached Ryan, still floating above the lake, the boy's irises suddenly focused on the newcomer, with terror readable within them.

" _There is something up there, heading this way."_

" _I know." Their voices echoed multiplied in each other's heads as they spoke telepathically._

" _You knew it all along, didn't you?"_

" _I did."_

Ryan's mad frown was still visible through the barely readable features of his human self. Matter started to swirl visibly and violently within himself, the core's rotation intensifying so much that it started to break the forces that suppressed its power.

" _Calm down..."_ The other asked of him, rather warningly.

Despite the fact that Hamsika couldn't hear them, she could read through their body language that something was off, and even if she didn't know much about the current state of their bodies, she could tell that a conflict wouldn't result into something nice, neither for them or the surroundings, implying at least Earth.

" _You brought this after you!"_

" _No."_

" _You could've warned us!"_

" _I wanted to."_

A frustrated cry, that only Aries heard, escaped Ryan's mind before a burst of energy left his body, sending out a shockwave to the surroundings so powerful it cut off the tops of the trees in its way. The girl had been sent meters away, rolling even further down the hill on the grass. She pushed herself back up before even fully thinking of doing it and with knees still shaking beneath her, she made her way back to the top, where the only lights left were their bodies in the sky, as the fire had been blown away as well. Aries seemed now to have his palms attached to his brother's temples, while the other held onto his wrists. The girl wasn't sure if he was calming down, getting hurt or trying to escape, since he didn't seem to fight the grip much, but looked quite uncomfortable, even if she felt her mind bending around everything that was happening, closing in to the border of insanity.

After the burst of energy, that sent Hamsika down the hill, Aries launched himself at Ryan and caught his head between his palms, forcing in a connection while trying to blend their memories together, in the hope that his brother's will be somewhat restored. It was an event implying the two of them, and Ryan's mind paced between his own point of view and Aries's at a quick, yet random pace, not managing to stabilize himself in his own shoes. They seemed to be arguing about something, clashing in a fight with unimaginable bursts of light and energy, all until everything bathed entirely in a blinding explosion. The last thing he saw was Aries heading his way with a punch that must have triggered something so powerful, that sent him off the course, unconscious, straight into the wormhole that lead him to Earth.

As soon as they disconnected from their shared memories, Ryan leaped backwards and stared his brother's way. So, they have met before, they've been knowing each other and seemed to be having conflicts for some reason, and all the facts did nothing more than confuse and infuriate him. There was so much he couldn't explain; he felt like the memory he recovered after the car accident was in fact only a fraction and that he missed the exact essential; it almost felt like he was stripped off from certain parts of his mind, since he couldn't corelate the events he just saw with anything he could remember. He couldn't even put Aries anywhere in his timeline of existence other than the rescue from Royce Robotics. He let himself descend to the surface of the water and sink in as he readjusted his body to resemble back the human one.

Hamsika nearly threw herself off the top she was onto at the sight of the scene, screaming desperately Ryan's name, while a panic attack started to choke her breath and voice away, while her entire body was shaking uncontrollably. She pushed herself back up from her knees and glanced again at the floating silhouette of Aries before grabbing their belongings and start to slide down the hill, towards the lake, stumbling into branches and tree trunks beneath the cover of the night, as her phone barely helped her with the flashlight.

While praying to whoever was willing to listen, she made her way down about an hour later and collapsed on the shore breathless, throwing aside the luggage she carried all the way, and nearly crawled on her four while stuffing her phone inside the pocket, as she head to the familiar silhouette, lying numbly on the wet pebbles.

"Ryan! Ryan!" She screamed his name as her trembling hands pulled him from his side on his back and checked if he was breathing, even if a human's vital signs may not have been as relevant in such situations. She was still unaware of how much impact taking another being's shape had on them, and how much of that body's properties and weaknesses they were taking along with the morph.

"Ryan..." She cried his name silently again, her cheek nuzzling against his fainted breathing. The boy eventually opened his eyes, widely awake and knocked Hamsika's head as he sat up abruptly. The girl moaned with pain and nearly fell on her back at the impact. He looked around disoriented for a moment, then gave the other a worried look, as she still held her hand over the place their heads collided.

"Hamsika, are you alright?" He grabbed her wrists gently and checked for any wound, but luckily, she was at most just red in the given area. He let out a long sigh of relief at the quite safe sight, then took in the rest of the details, implying her muddy clothes and backpacks thrown nearby.

"What happened...?" He asked with a concerned look lingering in his eyes, as he waited for their gazes to meet. "Hamsika?" He insisted, his tone lower, nearly a whisper.

"I was hoping you'd tell me." She frowned for a moment, then looked at him, starting to finally recover her breath and have her panic attack fade the slightest. He looked at her for a moment, his stare searching deeply into her own, as he chewed on the lip thoughtfully. However, just as he tried to decide how to formulate what he witnessed up in the air, a loud splash jolted both of them, making them stare backwards, in the lake's direction, to see a light growing dim beneath the water surface and have Aries emerging from the depths as he regained his human form as well. The boy started to choke as he took an accidental mouthful of water, and hardly caught back his breath as he touched the shore, panting and staring at the two, one eye closed as his dripping hair lied stuck onto his face.

"We need to talk."

Ryan and Hamsika exchanged glances, unsure if he was meaning both of them or just one, and looked back at the other, mildly confused by his statement.

"Don't just stare at me like that!" He snapped with a frown and straightened himself, walking past them. "You coming?! Or wanna stay here all night long, wet to the bone?" He only stopped at the edge of the forest to give them a quick look before disappearing between the trees, heading back to the cabin. Ryan let out a tired sigh and pushed himself up from the rocky shore, with his palms against the ground. He then helped the girl and took both backpacks on him, his hand shielding Hamsika's back, making gentle contact once in a while, as he tried his best to keep the wetness only to himself.

The way back to the cabin was silent and felt tensioned; if not to Aries, then surely to the other two, who followed him as closely as possible, minding the sounds of the forest in the meanwhile as well. When they finally reached the safe and dry inside of their house, they left their soaked and dirty clothes in the favor of comfortable pajamas, and reunited on the couch downstairs, all still in a deafening silence, each of them waiting for another to start the conversation.

It was the long haired boy that decided to retake the talk from where he left it, before entering the forest. He cleared his throat at first to get the other two's attention and peeked at them through the wet strands of hair, looking mildly intimidating with the shadows casted over his features.

"It's hard to say where to start, really... But I warn you." He pointed a finger at Hamsika. "You're going to be really confused so please keep your questions for later."

The girl only nodded, not daring to question anything anymore at that very moment, lowering her gaze into her scratched palms. The rides she took down the hill, first as she fell, and second after she made her way down to the lake, were not kind on her; she expected within the next days to have her legs and arms covered in bruises of all sizes that'd compete with the scratches she gained from rocks and branches. Though these things were the least she worried of. There was still Royce Robotics lingering deep in her mind, and the newly added situation with her alien friends. She thought of it all to be exciting at first, but the more she dived into their matters, the less she understood what was going on, feeling like all that she learnt of so far was in vain and insignificant compared to the scale of everything else the other two experienced.

"I need you to tell me what you saw up there." His cold eyes turned their focus to Ryan. The latter one ran his fingers through the wet curls, trying to brush them off his forehead, thoughtfully.

"Something really odd. A dark patch in the sky that wasn't there few months ago."

"You mean something's missing?"

"As if something's missing, yes." He glanced back at Aries, who listened to him rather impatiently. "I mean, surely it's a big chunk of the galaxy we're into that's gone!" He blinked a few times, staring at the other in disbelief of his own statement, taking in the insanity of the news he just acknowledged by speaking the words out loud.

"Well, you're not really wrong."

"Which is why there's something _you_ have to add." The boy frowned at the other, putting pressure on the words as he spoke. "You've been asking me things and made statements that suggested you knew more than you let out ever since we got you out the laboratory. If there was something _this_ bad, then why didn't you talk?!" He threw his hands in the air, in an exaggerated gesture.

Aries took in a deep breath and let out a sigh before speaking.

"So, when we connected, up there... I showed you my memories, which you should own as well up to the point in which you fell unconscious."

"Well, I don't, which raises even more questions." Ryan added, but got halted by his brother's hand in the air.

"Yeah, that's something I don't really have an answer for. Perhaps there's still amnesia going on in your head and you'll remember eventually. But! Let me continue." He shifted his position, resting his forearms on his crossed legs. "We were having an argument, because we were supposed to do exactly what you saw happening tonight up there."

The other raised his eyebrows confused and somewhat tired of the blurry situation, while Hamsika was all eyes and ears.

"We were designed to help this chaos happen. We were made to consume unimaginable amounts of matter and help the biggest black holes in the Universe connect through dark matter like a web, ultimately leading to a forced big crunch."

Ryan opened his mouth to question the statement with a frown, but got shushed immediately by his brother and his hand gesture as he went on.

"Our creator, or you may call her _mother,_ does this reset once in a while. And I am not sure if there are others alike us or if there were before us, in another expansion of the Universe, but even so, as I said, we were designed to be weapons of mass destruction as humans may call us." He chuckled at the title. "Of course, this whole thing takes more than the lifespan of some stars, but when the dark matter nodes occur, bam!" He spread his arms to the side as if an explosion happened, making the other two jump the slightest. "Galaxies or parts of them are being devoured and whatever is there will be doomed, unless they can use a quick escape plan."

"Are we in the way of this right now?" Hamsika couldn't hold her mouth closed anymore, her body shaking with both excitement and horror at the news.

"Kind of. Unless, as I said, you find your way out of here, really far away, which I doubt with your current technological advancement pace." Aries gave her a bored, yet apologetic look, then resumed the conversation mainly addressed to Ryan. "As I said, we were having an argument. You weren't okay with wiping off places, that eventually hosted life too, and I just wanted to obey the orders so to say. And from this, we jumped into a fight, that lead into the Supernova that's responsible for your brain damage and our presence here."

"So, you didn't try to consume a dying star."

"I had to find a lie." He shrugged with a laugh. "But I do enjoy such... Specialties."

The boy rolled his eyes at his brother's smug expression.

"Leaving your appetite aside. So, let me get this clear. There's this sort of being that made us happen, that requires help in resetting the Universe once in a while through a crunch. I was not okay with this idea, which sounds just as insane even now to me, so I had a violent argument with you, ending up in a Supernova given our strength and composition."

"You got it perfect. You were always the brightest in the family." He chuckled, looking actually pleased that some of the things were cleared out.

"So, you threw me here through a hit, inside the wormhole and I happened to crash on Earth. But how did you get here? And why?"

"I came after you."

Silence fell between them for a long moment, until Ryan resumed the conversation, almost in a whisper.

"Why? Don't tell me you're trying to convince me to participate to that madness, because I will refuse again."

"On the contrary. I realized just how wrong it all is. I'd rather have it as you wish, a natural order, or disorder, or whatever it may want to be, instead of a designed end!"

"And your point is?" He laid back in his seat, looking at Aries in a tired disbelief.

"None in particular. I just realized her way is wrong and I want to stay with you and say that I'm sorry for the punch." He laughed it off, and pat Ryan's arm, who seemed unimpressed with the statement and gesture.

"Aries, what do you want from me?"

"Forgiveness?" He laughed again, though his brother did not even flinch. "Look, Ryan... I really want nothing from you. I am sorry to hear you lost some of your memory and I honestly feel guilty for it. I should've used my head before my fists back there."

"Such a revelation." He rolled his eyes and stood up, stretching himself.

"So, why in the world were you trapped at Royce's if you could suck in our Solar System for breakfast?" Hamsika spoke her mind out loud again, still trying to comprehend all that she just heard.

"Again, because I didn't use my head."

"Don't tell me you punched something and you got punished, because I don't believe that. We'd be cosmic dust if so." The girl added, crossing her arms as she waited for his reply. Ryan turned his attention back to his brother as well, eyebrows raising the slightest through the still wet curls.

"I didn't, because I knew I had to find Ryan first."

"Oh, so you would've done it otherwise." The girl looked at him a bit scandalized by the statement.

"Well, perhaps not- "

"Speaking of which, how did you know my location exactly? Earth. This town in particular." The boy interrupted him abruptly, narrowing his eyes.

"You're quite an oddball, you know." He paused for a moment and went on at the visible confusion on the other two's faces. "I can _naturally_ , and so can you, detect disturbances and various intensities of the waves all around us. Don't tell me you can't remember how to make use of your own body as well."

"I know, but I thought it all faded with the change of the human structure." He frowned thoughtfully.

"It did, that's why I couldn't jump straight into your apartment. I knew you were around, but there were too many disturbances."

"So, what did you do?"

"I went for the highest source of such anomalies in the area, which didn't happen to be you, as I hoped. It was the Royce Robotics machine."

"The particle accelerator..." Both Ryan and Hamsika whispered more to selves.

"Yeah, that. I tried to communicate with the humans. One fainted after I attempted to connect our minds, so I kept insisting through a primitive sign language to ask for help, because it didn't cross my mind to just shapeshift into something more familiar to them, like a human." He shrugged with a chuckle. "If anything, they had at least some tech that could help, only that it turned against me."

"Okay, all good so far, but how did you managed to get trapped in that container?"

"Well, I lingered around and kept returning, hoping that they put something together, because they seemed to do so. I first thought they're trying to establish a proper way to talk to me, but they were just analyzing my internal structure to be able to generate something that would oppose and restrain the forces within myself."

"They tricked you into this, when you only asked for help." The girl stared at him in shock, and yet it didn't sound as something humans wouldn't do. After all, perhaps they did it out of fear, not fully understanding his message and acknowledging the power within him, but it was equally possible that they intended isolating him from the beginning for tests and experiments, considering the alien presence rather a gold mine for science, than a being, with consciousness.

"To be honest, this sounds like the only truth you've spoken ever since we got you out of there." Ryan stared him down, arms crossed, as a slight trace of tiredness started to envelop his features.

"You think I lied to you?" The boy snapped with a frown almost in an instant.

"You want me to count your lies? Make you a list of the paradoxes you said so far?!"

"I'm trying to help you!" Aries stood up, facing his brother, slapping a hand against his own chest at the statement. "You've lost a big chunk of your memory and you're literally lost in space, taking a break on a random, inhabited planet. I couldn't shout the truth in your face from the start!"

"I don't need your help. Ever since we found you everything went crazy. I've never been more disturbed with myself than now! This is _not_ helping!"

"You've always been this damn stubborn! This is why it all happened. This is why it all started. This is why you are in your current state!"

"Because that's how things work, Aries. We do actions, that have consequences which reflect on us!"

"Boys..." Hamsika tried to intervene, feeling the tension in the air raising. She stood up and walked to them, putting a hand on each of their chests and pushing them apart slightly.

"Mind your business, mortal." Aries stared at her with a menacing look, feeling like he was ready to crack his human shell anytime soon.

"You are just as mortal, only at a different scale." His brother muttered low, his hand giving a comforting rub to the girl's shoulder.

"Compared to their pitiful existence, I'm immortal. A god among them. And so are you. Ryan, stop taking their part and lowering yourself." He dragged the other to face him again as he turned towards Hamsika.

"I'm not taking anyone's part. I am just respecting and protecting life wherever I'd happen to find it. And so should you, if you think you're that high above all."

"I'm nobody's guardian."

"But nobody's master either."

"Even _she_ acknowledged that I could have their Solar System for breakfast." The boy pointed at her in an insignificant way, making Hamsika gasp in frustration with a frown.

"I'm not as stupid as you think. And neither are the rest of _mortals_ , who caged you like an animal. Whose god were you then?" The girl's eyebrow raised with smugness.

The sharpness in his stare, when he met her eyes again, could've killed on spot if it was possible. The iciness of his irises seemed to now burn with anger at her remark, even if he recognized his mistake himself.

"Okay, this is getting too far." Ryan pat his brother's chest, hoping to deflate his ego. "Up to this point, everyone in this room made mistakes."

"What the hell did I do?!" Hamsika snapped angrily at him. "It's you two dragging space problems onto our planet. If not for you, we'd be destroying ourselves sooner or later anyway. We really didn't need extra help."

"Hamsika, please..."

"See? They're worthless and they know it. Let's go, Ryan." He pushed away his brother's hand and headed barefoot towards the door. He threw a look over his shoulder to see the other not moving an inch from the spot.

"Come on, Ryan." He insisted, while Hamsika's eyes shifted from anger to a sudden fear, for their imminent departure. Her gaze paced between the two few times; Aries looking ready to break through the roof and let her planet be, while the other's mind seemed to run all possibilities before his eyes, unable to make a choice.

"We can't leave Hamsika here..." The boy finally spoke his mind, and even if his reply was supposed to come as reassuring, it felt like the toughest stone that ever was in the girl's stomach.

"Fine. We fly her back to town and leave?"

"We can't just do that, Aries. Come here and calm down already." He walked to the kitchen counter, almost mindlessly grabbing from there a chocolate bar to have it thrown his brother's way as he thought of an actual plan, considering all the new variables he learnt that evening, no matter how much truth was within them. He was ready to consider whatever his brother said, with the condition to check as many of his statements as possible. The other caught the chocolate and returned to the couch, collapsing lazily, with a roll of his eyes. He knew he couldn't argue any further with his brother, the only alternative being to leave the planet by himself; idea which he left aside at least for that moment.

Hamsika on the other hand seemed to be shaking from all corners of her body and couldn't put a finger on the thing she was feeling the most. She felt fear, a sudden solitude, and a sense of being purposeless. Most of her ideas and whatever she learnt seemed to cancel themselves just by looking at the two. They could exist in such a complex form, defying laws of physics at their will. It was as if their bodies contained universes of their own, governed by laws of their own, that interacted more or less with the existing and proven ones so far.

The rest of the evening passed quite silent and uneventfully. After the heated discussion, everyone was too lost in their own thoughts, to say anything more. Apart from Aries, who seemed to be keen on eating almost everything that they had left, knowing that the next day they would leave, the rest appeared to be overwhelmed by a thick gloomy fog. While Ryan paced within and around the house, disturbed by all the things he learnt that evening, Hamsika was still battling panic attacks up in their bedroom, coming to her in waves, taking her breath and clearness of her mind away. She kept on asking herself, what will become of her after their departure. Will she find the energy to keep on exploring the new things she found thanks to them? Will she rather keep those things to herself secret from unwanted ears and eyes? Will she be forced to speak out whatever she knew, given the incident back at Royce Robotics, in exchange of her freedom? And most important of all, what would become of her two alien friends? Will they be gone forever, existing only in some recordings and few people's minds? And then, what about the darkness Aries mentioned. Would it be worth being shared further, or had humanity no chance against such cosmic threats?

The girl buried her face in her knees and covered her ears, trying to muffle the cascading questions, while choking onto her tears silently, feeling once again her insignificant scale compared to the rollercoaster she helped pushing down recklessly.

When Ryan had finally decided to put an end to the madness within his thoughts, he climbed up to the bedroom and seated himself aside the crouched girl on the bed. His hand touched her back gently and rubbed it soothingly, making the other sit up and throw herself in his arms, letting her emotions loose.

"It's going to be okay. I'm going to take care of this, with Aries." He whispered low, his lips buried in her hair.

"How, Ryan? Will you put me in a rocket and launch me with you two into space?"

"That's not really what I thought of, but if you insist, we could do that." He chuckled, hoping to raise her mood the slightest. The girl detached her face from his chest and looked up at him with red, teary eyes, then threw a playful fist at his chest, bursting into a helpless laugh.

"You're such a pain sometimes."

"Well then I suppose it's for the best. Nobody misses a pain, right?" He added with a smile, though it felt like stabbing himself with the statement, which reflected the true feeling of it on the girl's face, who was ready to resume her crying.

"Don't even dare to put the problem that way."

"Yeah, my bad. Wasn't a very inspired thing to say."

"Shush, now..." Her words came out almost soundlessly as she pulled him for a kiss. Her arms looped around his back and neck, pressing their bodies so tight together, as if she wished for them to merge into one entity; into something that could share forever on the love for space and the hunger for the truth behind the unknown. There were a thousand issues burning around her, and yet she covered herself in a blanket of ignorance to enjoy their smallest moment alone. She was so mentally exhausted of everything going on, that the sudden touch she launched herself into seemed like a healing fountain, though she knew it would only mend the wounds temporarily.

The two let themselves loose to the fever of the moment, until the surroundings were no more than a mess of pillows, bed sheets and scattered clothes. It was only when Hamsika heard the wood of the stairs creaking that she jumped like burnt, knocking her head into Ryan's on the way, causing them both to let out a small pained noise.

"What's wrong?" The boy looked at her while rubbing his forehead with a frown. He saw her launching herself at the door to twist the key and lock it. The protest came from outside almost in an instant at the noise of the lock.

"Hey! That's my room too!" Aries protested and tried opening the door though he knew it was locked.

"We haven't thought this through."

"We had to? Even this?!" The boy collapsed on his back on the bed, feeling the mattress moving as Hamsika returned.

"For the sake of our privacy. Yes."

He only let out a protesting sound and crawled back next to the girl as soon as she was within the sheets, his lips touching her bare shoulder with the softest kiss, as her hand reached for his disheveled hair, twisting his curls playfully between her fingers. It didn't take them long to hear the unexpected guest leave their door, with his muttering slowly fading as he descended the stairs. There was the couch in the living room he could have used without any issues, so from Hamsika's point of view it wasn't that much of a hustle. She would've panicked harder, be already dressed and in the process of arranging the bed if there was no other option left.

"Ryan, when you will leave, what will you miss the most here? If anything at all?" She looked his way, and even though it was just as painful as hours ago, she started accepting the reality they eventually had to face.

"Could we just not talk about this?" His arm looped tighter around her waist as his head pressed onto her shoulder, not looking up yet.

"Stop trying to shield me from the truth. I understand big part of what is going on. It's just some of the cosmic matters that I am not as aware as I should be of yet, but I will figure them eventually. I gotta make something out of my life after all." She let out a small, yet bitter laugh, because surely, she would've enjoyed more exploring such unknown issues with him, or even both of them, by her side.

The boy tilted his head and looked up at her. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand lovingly and repeated her question.

"So? What will you miss the most if anything at all?"

"Pretty much everything. All my time here taught me something, and unless some amnesia inducing accident hits me again, I will carry you all with me forever on, as my most treasured memories."

The girl pressed her lips in a smile and her eyes got filled with tears again, as she kept on soothing his cheek with gentle touches.

"We, humans, would rather deserve someone more like your brother. Those alike you, who try to make a change into better either last too little around or turn their back to the stubbornness of our kind."

"I end up here by accident and surely wouldn't try to change this world entirely anyhow. I consider myself to be rather an observer, but I think I did manage to shape some changes at a smaller scale, within some's personal worlds." His lips curved in a pleased smile, earning himself a kiss on the forehead from the other. "But if there is anything in particular that I would miss having anywhere I'd go it's this."

"What's _this_?" Her eyebrows raised the slightest, not sure what to pick from his statement, though she was used to his way of talking. It sometimes felt like his answers had more depth, being rather riddles.

"Such close times with you. The way we share thoughts and things we enjoy; the comfortable closeness I feel while around you; and of course, the smallest touches, that before meeting you, I have never experienced before. This type of affectionate care. This feeling of belonging somewhere."

"You know, there were times when I was wondering if this longing for comfort and affection is only reserved for the living beings here, on Earth. Before finding out the truth behind you, I was wondering if there is life as rich and perhaps intelligent as it is on our planet in other places as well, since we never came across anything or anyone else."

"So now you have a pleasing answer for these questions?"

Hamsika looked at him for a bit, before nodding.

"I do, but I also got a million more questions added."

They both laughed at her reply. He knew it would be so. Even he had countless questions about a lot of things he still struggled to understand. Despite the fact that everything in the Universe was composed out of elements known to him, it was still mysterious how each arrangement chose to function, under various forms of life, more or less intelligent.

"I would enjoy telling you as much as I can and explore by your side everything that's out there."

"Well, sadly I am only human and that makes me limited from so many points of view."

"Perhaps I will find a way to do that for you someday and I will return to take you places." He pulled himself up and arranged the pillows at his back, inviting the girl by his side. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she let her head fall and relax on his chest.

"I'm looking forward to that."

He smiled to himself at her reply and placed a kiss on top of her head, letting his cheek rest on the spot right after, until sleep finally stole both of their attention.
Chapter VIII

A general feeling of disoriented panic was the best way to describe the entire Saturday for the citizens that had to be suddenly evacuated, due to a so-called biologic bomb that threatened the city. Everyone was escorted by buses, trains or personal cars outside the town, where the improvised camps awaited.

"I understand this is an imminent danger, Mr. Royce, but was a city evacuation the only solution?"

"Yes." The man replied, though his mind was mostly elsewhere than on the conversation. Tiredness gathered from multiple days of next to no sleep had its word into it all as well, the dark circles beneath his eyes speaking for the lack of his words.

"When will the people be able to return? I hope you find an immediate solution to this." The mayor added, trying to add pressure to the other's desperate measures, but only got a sharp stare in return.

"When I will say so. If you want to risk the lives of so many innocent people, you are open to do so, but I want no blood on my hands and I am sure that neither do you." Royce held the other's man gaze for a few moments, then turned on his heels and walked back to his car, making his way out of the madness.

While the authorities handled the safety of the evacuation, he returned to the main console that supervised the network of antennas, which would help identify and weaken the targets. The engineers from the company worked hard day and night and looked just as tired as Royce himself, most of them surviving just on power naps and quick meals, to have the job done within the given deadline. For the sake of everyone's safety, they all hoped everything was in order and the operation would work just as intended. If something out of the ordinary that wasn't on the papers, in their calculations occurred, their careful planning might have been all in vain.

"When are we safe to perform the first test, sir?"

"In five hours."

Lucien checked his watch, though his impatience spoke otherwise. He would've done it without any other delay if it wasn't for the well-being of the others. However, he wanted casualties of any kind to be kept at the lowest level possible, since he didn't want for the whole situation to reach other's ears, though it might have been already too late to protect anything anymore, as he went out in plain sight with it all. It only took someone with a bit of knowledge into their field to figure that it was nothing about any biological threat, involving air or water pollution. Ever since he took the reins of the company, after his father's death, he tried the best he could to conduct the experiments he and his people came up with, as far as possible from government's eyes, or anyone alike that could force things in a different way than his desired one. While his father was in the late years more of an image of the company, busying himself with diplomatic appearances and partnerships all around the world, he was the opposite; he preferred to stay focused on research and expanding the areas of activity of the company beyond just robotic equipment for both factories and humans, in the form of prosthetics. The loss of his own arm, had motivated him to ascend higher and aim for something better than just a prosthetic, wishing to achieve a seamless merge of nanomachines that would help reconstruct and aid in function the lost part of the body itself. His own robotic arm however stood as a proof that nothing had been successful yet, but he and his team kept getting closer and closer to the goal with each step they took.

It was when the alien being showed up that he changed his focus and left genetic engineering on the second plan. Royce saw in it the ascension of humans into a new era, and even though ethics pulled onto his sleeve at first, he left them all aside and in the name of science sacrificed the well-being of one, for the potential of technological advancement unlock of a whole race. Those which he chose to aid him into capturing, harvesting and analyzing the alien were asked not to speak of the experiment under no circumstance, through a separate signed contract, but even so, not all of them shared his ideal. Some even quit a while after it all began, not managing to bend their morals around the concept.

But while the scientists from the Supernova project were doing everything they could to make it all work according to the plan, Hamsika along with the targeted brothers were in the train station, waiting for the right one to come and take them back home. Just like the girl expected, they were all silent that day. The events from just an evening ago, still lingered on each of their minds, troubling their thoughts with various scenarios. Not even Aries, who suggested their departure and unveiled the madness going on, or at least a part of it, since Ryan presumed there was more to it, looked as relaxed as before, having even his eternal hunger held back by the gloomy mood surrounding them.

When the train arrived, they got inside and searched for their seats, even if it all seemed unusually empty. Ryan helped everyone get their bags up, then joined Hamsika on the bench, claiming the spot next to the window, while Aries sat on their opposite side, staring outside thoughtfully.

"Doesn't compare to the one that brought us here." Ryan finally broke the silence and raised himself a bit over the backseat to look around as the train departed from the station, quite empty.

"Maybe lunch hour is not the best hour for travels." Hamsika shrugged while taking out a book from the backpack.

"I scared them away." Aries chuckled and finally shifted his attention from the window to the two. His brother shook his head in disapproval, while the girl stared at him for a few moments, trying to convince herself that it was no more than an innocent joke. She saw and heard so much ever since they took Aries out from the laboratory, that she was now doubting everything, no matter how extreme it may have sounded.

"So, what's the plan?" He leaned a bit forward, resting his forearms on his knees as his eyes moved from Hamsika to Ryan, who only responded at first with a genuinely confused look, raising his eyebrows in question.

"The plan?"

"I thought you thought of one last night."

"Didn't really had the mood for it."

"Then what in the world did you two do up there that long?! I thought you just didn't want my big mouth objecting around."

The two exchanged a quick glance, and while Hamsika turned the brightest shade of red in the process, Ryan managed to laugh it off with the smallest lie.

"She had to put her thoughts in order a bit, so I stayed to help."

" _Thoughts in order..."_ She thought with a silent snort, remembering that the room and themselves were anything else but order a night ago.

"Oh." Aries exclaimed, quite unimpressed, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. "But the question stands. What are we doing once we're back there?"

"I don't know." Ryan let out a long sigh, since he's been asking himself the same question for a while by then.

"I thought you said you'd be leaving." The girl broke the silence after a bit, looking at both of them, in turns. She saw the boys exchanging glances, while trying to avoid making eye contact with her. "Just promise me you'll say good bye at least." She pressed her lips in a thin line, feeling emotions starting to build up on her.

"We don't want to leave..." Ryan started, but saw his brother giving him an implied look. "... but we will have to eventually. I want to see with my own eyes what's going on out there and if you're really in the path of anything or Aries is just making a fuss."

"It's inevitable." His brother added sharply, a dead cold look in his eyes. "It's only a matter of time. The gamma rays will reach you before anything else and will wipe out life here."

"Aries..." His brother pleaded through gritted teeth, not willing to add more hay on the fire going on in Hamsika's mind and heart.

"It's the truth." He leaned forward again and stared the girl in the eye. "If you are in for the truth, as your science tries to speak and prove, then you must know what you'll face."

"We're not even sure!" The boy snapped, already annoyed with the pressure the other kept putting.

" _You_ are not. I am certain."

"I will have to see, to convince myself."

"And what will you do then, Ryan? Hm? Will you come to tell humanity to live the best of their lives because an imminent death approaches them?"

"Please don't start again." Hamsika wiped the wetness around her eyes with the back of her hand, frowning slightly, not willing to see or hear them arguing again. She pressed her hands on each of their chests, pushing them back in their seats.

"Please." She pleaded silently, on a trembling voice once again, biting onto her lip as she felt the tears finally rolling down her cheeks. "I don't want to part from you two with a fight in my mind." She stood up with a quick move and rushed towards the bathroom, slamming closed the door behind herself, letting the two stare after her a bit, then at each other.

"No more wasting time, Ryan. We have to go." Aries hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes widely open with desperation.

"I know."

"Then why are you even trying to postpone it?! We get her to town, then leave. As simple as that."

"I can't just vanish like that! I have a job and-"

"A job." He snorted with an eyeroll. "I'll kick you off the Earth's surface if I must."

"Why are you even this crazy about it? I say we wait until she returns to work and sees what's up."

"I got a bad feeling about this." He cut it short and held the other's gaze breathlessly for a few moments.

"Fine, Aries. Then, we take Hamsika back home to safety. I will have her tell Alice at the coffee shop a lie about my sudden leave and that's that." He nodded to himself after making the statement and glanced the bathroom's way, still without a sign from the girl. He crossed his arms as he let his mind sink back into his concerning thoughts, while his brother watched him attentively.

"I just hope she will be alright." He finally let out the words silently with a sigh, while his eyes still glanced at the door.

"We could take her along, but not sure if that's possible anyhow." Aries shrugged and waited for his brother's gaze to meet his own.

"You wouldn't care that much." Ryan narrowed his eyes at the other skeptically.

"Well, what's to lose after all? You'd be pleased, she'd be more than entertained... "

"And how would you be?" His eyebrows raised with a question mark. His brother looked at him for a short moment then shrugged his shoulders the slightest, lowering his gaze.

"Fine. I guess?"

"Aries, why do you suddenly have the urge to help me with everything that's possible, after you literally sent me here with a punch loaded with amnesia?" The boy leaned back in the seat waiting for a response. He could recall every word in their discussion from just a night before, and yet he couldn't put his finger on something precisely that came out the other's mouth. He must have finally felt the way Hamsika did around him; clueless even with a huge amount of information.

"Everything is just so wrong... And I am somewhat part of the reason for which it is so."

"You mean the madness out there?" He pointed a finger upwards.

Aries nodded, still glancing elsewhere, feeling guilt creeping back up on his spine.

"Look... Brother." Ryan's voice came out on a soft tone, and he smiled as the other finally looked back at him. He leaned forward and put a hand on Aries's forearm in a reassuring touch. "Let's just leave those things to the past, where they belong, and focus on what's next. I really want to know what's going on exactly and what I've been missing. Perhaps I'll even catch back up with my memories too."

The sound of a door clanking loudly disturbed their small talk. Ryan raised his eyes to see Hamsika returning and only nodded back to his brother when he mouthed breathlessly with a question mark the girl's name. She claimed back her seat as she returned and grabbed her book, burying her nose in it, without even looking at the two.

It was only when an announcement occurred that the three finally shifted in their seats, exchanging nervous looks. The conductor of the train informed everyone with the same destination as their own, that the stop within the town was unavailable due to an unknown cause and a detour had been forced upon them, changing the initial course. Hamsika stood up in an instant and glanced outside.

"We're not far from the city here. We should get off before this takes us somewhere further."

With silent muttering they gathered their belongings and followed by other people, left the train. They watched it depart, then stared at the city in the distance, since the open field ahead offered them a good visibility.

"I wonder what happened." Ryan finally added while adjusting the backpack on his shoulders.

"One way to find out." Aries started to walk, crossing the railway, heading straight towards the field nearby. He stopped as he heard none of the other following him and turned around with a frown. "You coming or not?"

"We should search for a bus or something..." His brother watched the rest of the people heading inside the train station.

"I doubt it will fit all those people. Want to wait until the evening?!" The boy snapped at the suggestion, his eyes shifting from Ryan to Hamsika who was now heading his way.

"Come on, Ryan. One hour of walk won't hurt your legs." She added on a grumpy tone, earning herself a pleased grin from Aries and a roll of eyes from the other, who followed silently in the end.

However, as they were slowly closing in to the city, a murmur of voices kept getting louder and louder with each of their steps. They nearly stumbled upon a vast camping area, swarming with people of all kinds, from children to elders, all looking troubled and lost. The three kept walking through the unexpected settlement and stopped only at its end, where a security guard, wearing the army's brands halted them.

"Please return to your given tent until we instruct you otherwise."

"Sir, this may be a misunderstanding. We are not from the camp; we're actually heading towards the town."

Few people turned their way at Hamsika's remark, awaiting impatiently the man's reply.

"This camp, along with several others nearby, is where the town lies for now. Please sign your names on a list to receive assistance if you haven't yet."

The girl stared in shock at the armed one and felt her body starting to tremble at the news. She had no idea of what exactly was going on, but all that she knew was that all her belongings were across the improvised border.

"Hamsika, come on. Let's see what we can do." She heard Ryan's voice as a distant echo and felt herself being dragged gently by the arm to the side, slowly taking distance from the man and heading back inside the crowd. They kept on walking silently in the search for someone responsible with the order around other than the army's people, until the girl halted, getting the attention of the other two as she spoke, with her eyes staring blankly at the ground.

"I can't..."

"What?" Ryan watched her confused.

"Can't take this anymore..." She felt her knees leaving her and if it wasn't for the boy to hold her by the arm, she would've touched the ground within moments. The tiredness and mental exhaustion finally put their mark on her.

"Hamsika!" She heard her name being desperately called, but the surroundings started to spin around her as she got lifted from the ground in the boy's arms. She closed her eyes, letting all the noise turn into a muffled buzz as they hurried to a less crowded spot.

"Hamsika..." The girl heard her name again as her back touched the soft grass. When her eyes opened, her gaze met Ryan's, who stared back at her concerned. "Are you alright?"

"We have to get back in town." She stood up and caught her forehead between her fingers with a frown as the dizziness caught back up on her. She felt the warmth of a hand supporting her back, steadying her on her feet.

"Turns out we can't right now. First the train, now this. Something bad must have happened in there."

"Terrorists?" The girl added on a low voice, finally looking up at the two. Aries only stared back at her, with a mild crease between his eyebrows, something deeper lingering in his mind other than he let his features speak of.

"Could be." Ryan considered the possibility thoughtfully.

"It's us." The long haired boy finally spoke his mind.

"What?" The other two turned his way with confusion readable on their faces.

"We're the reason behind this."

"How can you even tell? Aries, stop talking non-sense. Not everything is about us." Ryan frowned, already tired of his brother's egocentrism.

"Can't you feel the radiation? It's the same from the laboratory. I've been experiencing it for too long to forget it that easily."

"It's coming in waves." Ryan added after a bit, finally aware of the surroundings beyond human senses. He had been so caught in the madness around and Hamsika's well being that he didn't even flinch at the obvious disturbances.

"But this is crazy?! Aren't these dangerous for the rest of us as well?!"

The girl snapped, her eyes shifting desperately from Aries to Ryan and back again. She never worried of such when she was stuck in the laboratory that exploded with perhaps more radiation than they were experiencing now, but this was a mass exposure. Were people even aware of what was going on? Even if she doubted Royce would let out the truth, she couldn't help but wonder what they had been told when they were asked to leave their houses. None of the two replied her question however, though a deep worry was readable on their features.

It was only when people began to stare at them and slowly take distance, that Hamsika and Ryan jolted at the sudden sight they nearly missed right next to them; Aries's eyes began to glow as he started to raise from the ground, floating soundlessly while a feeling of stomach sickness started to creep into everyone's guts around him as he began to lose his human form in the favor of his celestial one, slowly exposing his core. People stared at him in fear and amazement under the dimming light of sunset; a minimized and contained compact universe swirling before their eyes as the ever-changing nebula structure took place of his former human body.

"Aries!" Ryan's voice, on a rather threatening tone, broke the deafening silence, only disturbed by the low frequency buzz coming from the other's core. He stepped ahead and caught his brother's features before morphing completely.

"This has to end." He added on an echoing voice, which seemed to fade like a vibration within everyone's skulls, and sent all the people around meters back with a shockwave as he departed, his glow fading in the distance, towards the city.

For a short moment, everything seemed to have stopped around them. It took Hamsika a long moment to acknowledge again her loud hyperventilating breathing and Ryan's voice next to her, before everything burst into madness, one risking being stepped over as the crowd appeared to panic all of a sudden, all at a time. The armed men tried their best to calm down the spirits, even though everyone was rushing to their belongings, a desperate murmur and children crying enveloping the fields.

"Our end has come! The faceless one raised from the depths to burn us alive!" An old man screamed his way through the crowd, pushing Hamsika violently out of his way, who fell against a tent nearby with a nearly inaudible scream given the madness surrounding them. Ryan looked desperately around himself as he noticed the girl missing and hurried towards her as he saw her hands reaching his way for help.

"We have to get out of here!" She huffed as she got back up on her feet, the adrenaline pumping through her veins cancelling any incoming panic attack.

"We have to reach Aries." Ryan caught her wrist and made their way outside the crowd, searching for an eventual exit of the camp. With the screaming people running all over the place, he hoped that the armed forces would be less focused on whatever was beyond the temporary fence. He only saw Hamsika nodding vigorously as she fixed the backpack on her shoulders with her free hand as they carefully tried to push their way out, towards the city. Nothing else mattered at that moment, since everyone's lives, on an enormous scale, were at risk.

One of the members of the team supervising the monitoring screens, which sent back to them data gathered from within the city jumped on her feet, knocking off her chair and startling everyone around.

"Something is incoming from the northern part of the city and unless is some military tech that decided to interfere with our own, then we have a track!"

The rest gathered at her remark, all watching the stats breathlessly.

"Someone call Mr. Royce back in!" Another shouted over the murmur that started to grow among them, as stats continued to increase, while the apparent source of radiation approached.

It took a long moment before someone finally decided to part from the curious group and head outside, trying to peek through the darkness. Only a few lights, most of them from the mobile laboratories cars, that made out their research base at that moment, illuminated the surroundings. It was a short shine of light over the prosthetic arm that pointed out the searched man's position. He seemed to argue with someone on the phone, gesticulating wildly with his free hand.

"Mr. Royce..." The man approached carefully, not willing to disturb the call, since he knew how much of a pain the other could be when tensioned. Royce turned with a frowning face, arching an eyebrow at the other.

"We might have something!" He mouthed almost soundlessly and saw the crease disappear from the other's face, as he lowered his phone while closing the call.

As soon as they stepped back inside the desired place, everyone seemed to be panicked for some reason.

"Sir, you have to see this." One of them said at the sight of their superior, and all made way for him to get in the front and check the updated data. The source of disturbance seemed to be sitting in place now, somewhere in the city center, above the main plaza.

"It seems to adjust its frequency to our own, sir. It picked up our signal and came from somewhere nearby the city."

Royce narrowed his eyes with a frown at the news, staring at the flawless transmission between their devices and the target.

"Someone contact the container carrier. It needs to be ready when the specimen is weakened enough." He leaned over the table, one palm resting on its surface as his eyes were still locked with the screen. "Invert the signals, keep them fluctuating each time it tries to sync back with us."

His sides got free as all the people around him split, returning to their seats and proceed into the final steps of what they prepared for. It all seemed to work in theory, but they never considered the subject to fall in synchrony instead of growing weak and confused. Royce remained behind the seat of the woman supervising the main screen, his jaw clenching with impatience as he watched waves on the infographic failing to stay in their desired manner compared to the target.

"Why isn't it working?!" He slammed his prosthetic arm at the woman's side on the desk, making her jolt in surprise along with few other as the pressure inside was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

"I am afraid we can't find a frequency it can't follow, sir..."

Royce let out a loud frustrated noise and made his way outside the monitoring area. The man that called him in the previous time followed him shortly, shouting in panic after him.

"Sir! Perhaps it's best you stay inside. The radiations-."

"Damn the radiations! I will go check out what is going on out there myself!"

"Sir, we could send some drones!" The man insisted, but without success, as he saw the other's silhouette fading into the darkness. The already familiar humming sound of their superior's electric car's engine passed loudly by their improvised base. All they could've done now was to observe the red lights disappearing into the city as they quickly returned their focus on their task, trying to have the surroundings safe for Royce's arrival at the core of the disturbance.

An eerie feeling started to creep on the man's spine as he drove his car to the main plaza through the deserted city. His prosthetic hand locked the wheel tightly in its grab as he shifted gears, rushing through the empty boulevards, while his mind started to go places, imagining various scenarios at the possible encounter he'd have to face. He had a feeling that, whatever was out there, was waiting for his arrival precisely, since he was the source of all the current madness.

As soon as he reached the open space of the plaza, he saw what he mainly expected to; the celestial being floating above the center of the surface; a ghostly sight from the distance, with a permanent glow around its core, radiating through its entire everchanging nebula filled body. The alien shifted its attention at the car joining the scene and turned its way, watching the man getting out of it, somewhere halfway through the plaza. Usually vehicles were forbidden in that area, but with the situation given and nobody to give fines, that was the last thing one would be thinking of in those moments.

Royce watched the silhouette losing altitude, until he nearly touched the ground; the shiny eyes locked with his own. He left the door open and hesitatingly marched towards the target. He knew the moment he saw its signals syncing with their own that there wasn't any more thought regarding a second capture. It had to be a mindless being to fall two times for the same trap, but it was worth a shot. However, if having the alien as his personal lab rat failed, he knew that the second option was to establish what he should've done from the first time: a diplomatic relationship. He regretted at that very moment not paying more attention back in the day to his father, who was all about creating good relations with his potential partners and investors, unlike himself, who rather focused on the company's advancement alone, hidden even from eyes that it shouldn't have been, for the sake of its own good.

"We were afraid that you were gone for good." Royce began to speak, advancing slowly towards the other. "We realized that we started off the wrong foot and wanted to reach you, apologize for the treatment we offered and try to-."

LIES.

A voice like a thousand echoed into Royce's mind and through his every bone, halting him for a moment with a frown.

"I am sure that through talk we could find a way to sort these things out. I apologize on behalf of our race for our rather hostile welcome."

A moment of silence followed the proposal, though the other's attention didn't shift for a second from Royce, its piercing gaze nearly holding him in place physically.

HUMANS... THOUGH AS FRAGILE AS A DRY BRANCH, THEY POSSESS A WILL POWER STRONG ENOUGH TO MOVE A MOUNTAIN FROM ITS PLACE.

A feeling of nausea started to form within the man's guts as the alien kept speaking; a voice like a thousand, inaudible from outside of a functioning mind, racing through his brain, feeling as if it twisted as his insides. The sudden headache, that seemed to have caught his temples into a vise, grew more and more intense as the distance between them shortened. The man moaned in pain when the alien spoke again, each word crossing his brain like a sharp spear.

HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT NOT EVERYTHING THAT MOVES CAN BE BROUGHT DOWN TO YOUR FEET, ISN'T IT? DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND THAT THERE ARE THINGS OUT THERE BEYOND YOUR TERESTRIAL IMAGINATION. BEINGS THAT COULD END YOU WITH A FINGERSNAP, WITHOUT BREAKING A SWEAT.

The alien's hands reached for Royce's head, arching over his being, bending him backwards as his eyes rolled in his eye sockets when the being's fingertips connected to his temples.

LET ME SHOW YOU THE SCALE OF A REAL THREAT.

With a pain that put the stability of his body as a whole at question, the man's mind connected with Aries's, speeding through the Universe, passing through nebulas and exploding supernovas, to reach an eventual end, stripped off light.

THIS VEIL OF DARKNESS IS WHAT YOU WON'T SEE COMING UNTIL IT WILL BE TOO LATE AND IT'S ALL HEADING YOUR WAY. THE FORCE OF IT EXCEEDS ANYTHING YOU'VE LIED YOUR DEVICES ON SO FAR. IT WILL MAKE MILLIONS OF STARS EXPLODE AT ONCE, SENDING INTO ALL DIRECTIONS GAMMA RAYS THAT WILL WIPE OUT LIFE WITHIN THE BLINK OF AN EYE.

With the eyes of mind, Royce stared at what he was given to see, while his body threatened to disintegrate under the unimaginable forces it was exposed to. Tears rolled down his eyes unconsciously, while blood began to drip out from his ears and nose as he was sent back to the ground with a thud, disconnecting from the other's thoughts. His body twitched while aching with stinging pain from all sides; he managed to crawl to his side and lift himself up the slightest on his trembling arms, while eyeing the alien next to him.

"Why..." He nearly coughed out the question. The cold eyes stared back at him patiently. "Why did you show _me_ this? A threat or payback for what we've done to you?"

AN ACT OF MERCY DESPITE ALL YOU'VE DONE TO ME.

"How's our inevitable extinction an act of mercy?!" Royce almost snarled with anger through the still dripping blood, managing to get back up on his feet, trying his best to ignore the excruciating headache he endured as he nearly stood face to face with the other.

BECAUSE IF ANYONE CAN TRY TO SAVE ANYTHING FROM YOUR SPECIES, THEN IT'S YOU. USE WELL WHAT YOU GATHERED.

Aries's eyes snapped off from Royce for the first time and drifted to two running silhouettes, who were none other than Ryan and Hamsika, finally managing to catch up with him.

"Aries!" His brother only managed to scream, almost breathlessly, staring back and forth between the newly found two. "Stop. Whatever. This is. Now. Aries."

WE ARE LEAVING.

Ryan's exhausted look watching him with pleading eyes, thought Aries didn't flinch. The boy put a hand on his chest, still struggling to catch on his breath, before he could even think of focusing on morphing into his celestial form and with a bitter bite of his lips, turned towards Hamsika, who was breathing just as heavily, fighting a dozen of feelings and questions cascading through her mind at that very moment.

NOW, BROTHER. The voice echoed through all of their heads, as the floating silhouette raised higher from the ground, staring expectantly at Ryan.

Then, it was a matter of moments when it all happened, hard to be followed by an eventual outside observer and just as confusing for one directly implied; The boy's body began to lose its human form in the favor of his celestial one and stole the quickest kiss from Hamsika's lips before morphing entirely and joining his brother's side.

SHE IS THE REASON YOU STILL LIVE. MAKE IT WORTH.

Aries's voice echoed once more with a final glance towards Royce, before he departed with a blast, shortly followed by the other; the force of their departure sticking the pavement bricks outside their place and sending back with a shockwave the two witnesses.

But while Royce was still struggling to keep himself into one piece after all he experienced within the last half an hour, Hamsika ignored the throbbing headache, remnant of the telepathic connection, letting herself caught instead in a hysterical cry as her eyes still stared at the sky, where the traces of the two still lingered like a glow through the atmosphere.

It was only when the emergency crew was finally allowed within the city, that the deafening silence broke with the sirens and the girl got lifted from the ground for medical attention, along with Royce; their minds still filled with the unbelievable and yet, feeling all empty and abandoned of hope.

Epilogue

Despite the agonizing pain he still experienced, unable to have a proper dialogue with the medical team within the ambulance, Royce realized that there was no way they could have stopped for a hospital that fast. It was when the door was forcibly open, and his eyes met the army forces that he realized what halted them in fact. He had a feeling that sooner or later he would have to face the consequences for all the masquerade he caused, for the things he had hidden from the secret service eyes, for the power he held back, avoiding being reached by unwanted hands.

"Move him to the tent already." A voice came from outside as he was dragged from the ambulance under the protests of the medics, since he could barely hold up on his feet. The two pulling onto him, pushed him inside a quick-installed military tent nearby, handcuffing him to a chair, as his eyes still struggled to adjust from the bright light inside the emergency vehicle to the dim one within the improvised interrogation room.

"Well, well... Mr. Royce. Seems like you didn't only break the accords and deals we made with your father, but also started doing business behind our backs." The voice he heard earlier sounded much closer now; rough and low. A tall silhouette of a man approached, dressed in military attire, with his chest full of decorations. His wrinkled face bared many scars, visible even under the low lights of the tent.

"You have conducted experiments without authorization, as well as the operation tonight, that end up like a disaster for you, but as a win for us, as it seems." He puffed with a smile, then shifted to a disgusted face, grabbing Royce's head, and raising it to look his way.

Although he was hardly hearing anything from what the other was saying, due to his deep ear injuries, the man's brain felt incapable to focus even if he tried to. All he heard and saw was the vision the alien gave him; a wiped world and a descending darkness that would consume it all. And as far as it concerned the existent tech anyone on the planet possessed, there was no way out of it. His entire life, his efforts and ideas would be nothing but a wipe; a use for nobody, a memory of nobody. All as if it never even were.

"Mr. Royce, are you even listening?!" He found himself being shook and only then had his eyes hardly focused on the silhouette before him. His head felt like falling off his shoulders, while the space around seemed to be shaking and spinning with him just standing there, all engulfed in the deafening pain.

"Call that damn doctor in. We can't even talk to him."

"Yes, sir." A voice nearby replied and with heavy steps, made his way out to get help.

A finger snap awakened him from the painkiller induced numbness he fell into and rolled his eyes around, settling them on the old man he caught glimpse of before. He couldn't tell how little or how much did it pass between the moment he was snatched from the ambulance to the current one, but he was thankful for almost not feeling anything anymore, even if it was just temporary.

"Now that we got you back between us, Mr. Royce, tell me, what's it gonna be? Lifetime jail or a small favor for us?" The man straightened his back and brought his hands together at his back, staring down the other.

"Sir, why don't you want to have the talk after we perform some investigations on him? There might be dangerous internal bleeding-"

"Nobody asked for your opinion." He frowned at the doctor and with a quick head motion towards the exit, he had the woman being dragged out by two of his men.

"It'd be a pity to waste that big brain of yours in a jail." He pulled onto the other's hair, fixating his eyes onto him, making him wrinkle his nose with a faint pain.

"What do you want from me?" Royce finally brought himself to voice out his thoughts, not entertained either by the idea of being trapped for the rest of his life in a cold cell. He felt his head being released from the pull and struggled to keep his gaze still up, on the other. He saw the older man grinning, with dark shadows shaping his rough features.

"Oh, you know. A little help here and there."

The seated man frowned, presuming what the deal implied; the thing he tried avoiding all his years at Royce Robotics after his father passed: cooperating with the army and their permanent dirty war needs. He stared at the arm stretched out his way, waiting for the deal handshake, and felt his own hands being freed from the cuffs. With an unsteady movement, he managed to stand up and give the other the desired shake of hands, marking his accept.

"That's more like it, boy." The old man slapped his shoulder encouragingly with a roaring laugh. "Bring back that medic. Let them take him to the hospital." He watched his soldier leave the tent, then focused back on Royce, who barely held himself up on his feet.

"I will be hearing from you soon." He smirked and exchanged one last glance with the other as he got escorted back to the ambulance.

The end

About the Author

Cristiana Voinea is a concept artist, working in the video games industry. She enjoys creating stories for the characters and worlds she designs in her spare time, which brought her into becoming a self-published author, "Another Theory of the Universe" being the first published title.

Connect with the Author

For more updates on both, the art and writing, check out the links below:

Smashwords author page: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/blacksmiley>

Artstation: <https://www.artstation.com/blacksmiley/albums/1421912>

