“‘Plah-stik May-nuh-fac-tu-ring Plant.’” Nod enunciates each syllable with deliberate care, his brows knitting together in confusion before he turns to Kyp. “What does that mean?”

  The three of them stand before the decrepit facility, the taxi they commandeered still idling behind them. They had given the driver precise coordinates, expecting to arrive at a secure vault or military base. Instead, they are here.

  Kyp’s eyes sweep over the crumbling structure, its rusted panels and faded signage barely clinging to the fa?ade. “Of course, you me.” he mutters, shooting Nod a pointed look. “The person who also traveled light years with you to be here.” Kyp shoots Nod a stink eye, and Nod wrinkles.

  Nelzux wrinkles his nose at the passive aggression. “Do not nag, Kyp. You are the only one of us who has been here before.”

  “Earth,” Kyp corrects, his gaze shifting between his two companions. “I have been on ‘Earth’ before. Not a building that just so happens to be a Plant.” He gestures broadly at the building as though it might suddenly explain itself.

  A loud blare splits the air. The three of them pivot, watching their taxi driver drum his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. His expression a dangerous mix of irritation and exhaustion.

  “Who’s gonna pay me my money, gents?” His eyes flick between them, fearless despite his obvious disadvantage.

  Nelzux, ever the pragmatist, reaches into his coat and produces a thick wad of stolen human currency—lifted from an unsuspecting passenger on the plane. He tosses it into the driver’s lap without a word.

  The man blinks once at the excess amount, then shifts gears and speeds off in a cloud of dust, his middle finger extended from the window in a final, crude farewell.

  Nod spits in disgust, first in the direction of the taxi, then at the facility. "Humans. Their cruelty knows no bounds. No vegetation deserves this, no matter its wrongdoings." Solemnly, he bows his head to the withering clumps of grass at his feet.

  Nelzux ignores him, retrieving a handheld scanner from his back pocket. The device hums to life, emitting rapid beeps as he swings it toward the building. "The signal is strong here," he announces, eyes gleaming. "I can almost taste the energy."

  Unbeknownst to them, a security camera perched on the far-left wall zooms in, its lens adjusting for clarity.

  The General strides into the dimly lit control center, his sharp gaze sweeping over the multitude of monitors. His officers watch him expectantly, waiting for orders.

  “What’s the problem?” he asks, retrieving a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket.

  A plainclothes officer steps forward, tapping the monitor displaying live footage of the three men outside. "These guys showed up a few minutes ago, sir."

  The General moves closer, adjusting his glasses as he scrutinizes the strangers. "What have they been doing so far?"

  “Nothing, sir. Just standing there talking. The handsomer fellow”— the CSO gestures toward Nelzux “—pulled out some kind of metal detector, but that was it.”

  The General exhales sharply. "Do you think they know what's inside?"

  The officer shrugs. "If they do, they're not acting like it."

  The General nods, his gaze narrowing at the monitor as though willing it to combust.

  Nod bounces impatiently on the balls of his feet, watching Nelzux methodically scan every inch of the Plant’s exterior. Left to his own devices, he would have reduced this human-made abomination to rubble hours ago.

  “Why are we standing here like we require their permission to enter?” he rumbles.

  "Brains before brawn, Nod," Nelzux replies, tucking the scanner back into his pocket. "First, we analyze. Then, we vanquish."

  "They are humans," Nod scoffs. "We don’t need to study them to know how to kill them. Just squeeze till they pop." He raises a fist, knuckles cracking in loud agreement.

  "I agree with Nelzux," Kyp chimes in, and Nod huffs. When was he ever not with Nelzux? "Why would they keep something as powerful as a Xylon Crystal in a… Plant turned building?"

  Nelzux freezes. His brows knit together, his eyes widening in realization before narrowing in sharp offense. Nod watches in mild bewilderment; these are the moments that remind him why he prefers the battlefield—there, you didn’t need to untangle thoughts before gutting an enemy.

  "Unless they have no idea what it is," Nelzux murmurs, his gaze shifting to the approaching uniformed man.

  The guard stops a few feet away, hands resting on his belt. “I don’t mean to bother you fine gentlemen, but this facility is restricted.”

  Nelzux strides forward, meeting him halfway. "By whose orders?"

  "The United States government," the guard replies, shifting on his feet. "So, if you don’t mind exiting the property—" He gestures toward the road they came from.

  Nelzux doesn’t respond. Instead, he turns to Nod and waves a dismissive hand toward the guard.

  Nod grins. "With pleasure."

  The guard tenses, his hand flying to his sidearm. "That’s far enough, sir." He raises his primitive weapon, finger hovering over the trigger.

  “This is for all the plants that have suffered tyranny from your kind.” Nod says solemnly.

  Then, without warning, thick, sinewy tentacles burst from his chest—piercing the guard clean through.

  Gasps ripple through the room. The General wrenches his gaze away from the monitor, jaw tightening in disgust.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  "Lock down the facility—now!" he barks.

  Alarms wail. External steel doors slam down around the building’s perimeter.

  Nelzux smirks, running a palm along the newly deployed steel barricade. "Look at them rally."

  Nod retracts his tentacles from the guard’s corpse, watching in satisfaction as the man crumples to the ground. “Your turn, Nelzux.”

  "Indeed."

  Nelzux lifts his chin. His eyes ignite a brilliant, burning red. Slowly, he levitates, rising above the ground.

  Inside, Chris steps into the hallway, his confusion deepening at the frantic movement around him. Soldiers and scientists scurry past in a panic. He locks his office door behind him and shoves forward, searching for the General.

  He bursts into the control room, nearly colliding with his superior. "Glenn! What the hell is going—"

  His words die in his throat as his eyes land on the monitor.

  The screen flickers, capturing the moment Nelzux releases an energy blast—one that violently shakes the entire building.

  Chris exhales sharply. “Shit.”

  Melted metal drips in thick, sluggish rivulets, the acrid scent of scorched steel thick in the air. Shattered glass crunches beneath their boots, the sound sharp against the distant, flickering hum of failing electricity. Cables, severed and sparking, sway like disemboweled entrails from the ceiling. Somewhere deep within the plant, alarms wail—a mechanical shriek of something already lost.

  “It is quiet.” Kyp observes, and Nod wonders if his friend has gone deaf.

  Nelzux exhales through his nose, unimpressed. “I know. I do not like it.” he scans the ruined corridor, his eyes keen, calculating. “Kyp?”

  Kyp bows in pleasure, his movements fluid, indulgent. “Of course.”

  In the next breath, two more Kyps step free from the original, identical down to the lazy flick of their wrists. Without hesitation, they peel off into the darkness, silent shadows dissolving into the facility’s depths.

  Nelzux watches them go, then turns forward. “Signal when you find it.”

  The true Kyp nods once before vanishing into the rightmost hallway, leaving Nelzux and Nod to advance alone.

  Barely three steps in, a squadron of soldiers floods the corridor, boots hammering against the floor in a precise, mechanical rhythm. Rifles rise as one, black muzzles gleaming under the flickering emergency lights.

  The commanding officer shouts, his voice lost beneath the deafening roar of gunfire. A relentless onslaught, a rain of lead and fire.

  Nod barely reacts.

  The rounds tear into him, into Nelzux—punching through fabric, flesh, bone. The impact rocks them, sending small shudders through their frames, but neither falters.

  Then, just as quickly, the bullets reappear, spat out as if the bodies they struck refuse to be marred. Wounds seal over instantly, skin knitting back together before a single drop of blood can spill.

  The soldiers watch in real-time as their assault proves meaningless, they falter. Their faces twist, their confidence fracturing as the horror sets in.

  One man chokes on a breath. Another stumbles back, his grip tightening around his useless weapon.

  Nelzux sighs, adjusting his sleeves as if this were a mild inconvenience.

  Nod simply grins.

  Kyp moves cautiously, his footsteps nearly silent against the cold floor. Agonizing screams echo from the adjacent hallway, a cacophony of suffering that draws a slow shake of his head. Nod and Nelzux.

  He presses on, undaunted, slipping through the shadows until he turns a corner—and stops dead.

  His reflection stares back at him through transparent glass doors, but it's not his own horror-struck expression that holds him frozen.

  “By the gods…” he breathes, pushing forward, his fingers meeting the barrier as if it might dissolve beneath his touch.

  The raw energy humming from the crystal at the room’s center coils toward the ceiling like an unnatural storm, pulsing in sickening waves.

  Kyp barely registers the sound of a weapon charging until a voice cuts through the tension.

  “Right there's fine.”

  He turns his head, catching sight of a man at the room’s edge. Blood drips from a cut above his brow, trailing down his cheek. The weapon in his hands is unfamiliar, bulkier than standard Midgardian firearms, and though his grip trembles, his eyes hold firm.

  Kyp doesn’t acknowledge the threat, his gaze drawn back to the crystal. “That will not work on me.”

  Chris tilts his head. “Please test me. Let’s find out.”

  For the first time, Kyp truly looks at him. Considers him.

  “I did not come for you, human.”

  Chris scoffs. “I suppose you're here for ‘the Precious’ then?”

  Kyp frowns, clearly missing the reference. “No. I am here for the crystal.”

  Chris exhales sharply, shoulders squaring as his finger tightens over the trigger. The blaster hums to life. “Yeah, well—over my dead body.”

  Kyp remains unfazed. “And it will be so. Over the dead bodies of everyone on this planet if you continue—” His gaze flickers to the grotesque, half-finished experiments lining the room, his expression twisting in something close to disgust. “—whatever it is you are doing.”

  Chris doesn’t waver. “What’s it to you?”

  Kyp straightens, and for a fleeting second, Chris sees something oddly familiar in his expression—Akio’s look. That same infuriating mix of patience and exasperation.

  “That is a Xylon Crystal, the last of its kind. Discontinued across ten galaxies for being extremely unstable. You can imagine our surprise when we discovered one, after nearly three thousand years, here. On Midgard.”

  Chris’s mouth goes dry. Unlike Akio’s lectures, this one leaves a distinctly bad taste.

  “How dangerous is it?”

  Kyp’s voice is grave. “At its current rate, that crystal can wipe out your entire solar system in forty-eight of your Earth hours.”

  Chris lets out a short, humorless laugh, running a hand down his face. “I told those idiots to stop with the probing.”

  He catches Kyp’s puzzled expression out of the corner of his eye but doesn’t bother explaining. The alien was already looking at him like a particularly dense child.

  “So you’re here to retrieve it? Save us?”

  “Yes.” Kyp swallows. Lies. “But Midgard lacks the proper equipment for a successful ejection. We will have to take it off-world.”

  Off-world.

  Chris could work with off-world. Off-world meant away from Earth.

  He exhales, his grip on the gun loosening as he lets it fall to his side. “And if I help you, you’ll leave?”

  Kyp inclines his head. “You have my word as a Nekkarian.” He extends an upturned hand.

  Chris stares into it. Sees nothing.

  Kyp must catch his confusion because he clarifies, “A Nekkarian’s word is his bond. A bond that cannot be broken.”

  Chris nods, understanding the gravity of the gesture. He reaches out, fingers about to clasp the alien’s—

  Thwipp!

  A burst of blue light.

  A sound like flesh sizzling.

  Then blood.

  It blooms from a small, precise wound in Kyp’s chest. His mouth parts slightly, as if caught between surprise and resignation, before his knees buckle, and he crumples forward.

  Chris barely catches him, his own breath stalling as he stares over Kyp’s shoulder—

  To the General standing behind him.

  The man holsters his still-smoking weapon, expression unreadable. “Secure him.”

  Chris glares, hands already pressing against the bleeding wound, trying—failing—to stop the damage. “What the hell have you done?”

  But the General is already gone, leaving Chris alone with an unconscious alien and a decision that suddenly feels far bigger than himself.

  Nelzux, Nod, and the two Kyp copies stand victorious, the air thick with the stench of charred flesh and the sharp tang of spilled blood. Around them, the fallen soldiers lay in heaps, their bodies twisted in the undignified stillness of death.

  Nod prods at a particularly headless corpse, scowling. The fight had been disappointingly brief—the humans barely put up a struggle before crumpling like brittle leaves. He rolls his shoulders, glancing around at the mess.

  Didn’t even get to unsheath his tentacles. What a waste.

  Nelzux exhales, about to speak when—

  A scream.

  Not a human one.

  The two Kyp copies convulse violently, their forms flickering like broken holograms before they collapse into nothingness, their bodies dissolving into the air.

  “Kyp,” Nod says, muscles tensing.

  Both he and Nelzux whirl around just in time to see a lone human stepping toward them, fearlessly—a foolish display of courage that makes Nod grin in anticipation.

  The General.

  The weapon in his grip is sleeker, heavier than the standard Midgardian guns—a more acceptable piece of technology, at least.

  Nod strides forward eagerly, eager for a fight worth his time. Surely, this one would last longer.

  But before he can lunge, Nelzux’s arm snaps out, catching his shoulder in a firm grip.

  “Something is amiss,” Nelzux murmurs, eyes narrowing.

  Nod scowls. He barely has time to complain before the General raises the blaster—

  A sharp pulse of energy—

  Nelzux moves fast. He tears a metal door from its hinges, thrown up as a makeshift shield just as the weapon fires.

  The impact is instantaneous.

  The blast detonates against the door, sending both aliens flying through the newly made opening, their bodies slamming against the ground outside.

  They hit hard.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Nod snarls, scrambling for purchase, grains of sand sticking to his skin as he hauls himself upright. The sunlight is blinding, the heat pulsing around them, but none of it matters.

  Because the human is still standing.

  And he’s coming closer.

  The thrill of battle surges again, and Nod tenses, tentacles unfurling from his back like hungry serpents, poised and waiting.

  This time, he won’t be stopped.

  He lunges—

  And Nelzux stops him again.

  Nod growls, but the grip on him is iron.

  “We must go!” Nelzux hisses.

  “Kyp is still in there!” Nod snaps. Had he hit his head when they fell? Had he forgotten they were supposed to be three?

  Nelzux doesn’t waver. “Now!”

  The urgency in his voice leaves no room for argument.

  With one last snarl of frustration, Nod is wrenched from the battlefield, Nelzux’s grip unrelenting as they launch into the sky.

  Below, the General fires—

  Before the Unwanted Offer …

  Alex stiffens under the synchronized glare of seventy-five judgmental eyes.

  She exhales slowly, lips pulling back into a grin that’s more wolfish than warm—too many teeth, just the right amount of menace. The piece of gum—which coincidentally, was the catalyst for this whole ridiculous ordeal—peeks from the corner of her mouth, daring someone to say something about it.

  The Tour Guide flicks a glance at the electronic tablet in her hands, fingers skating down the list of names until—

  “Alexandria,” she says, with all the warmth of a tax collector.

  Alex barely restrains an eye roll, rearing back as the dramatic overreactions ripple through the group. For Christ’s sake, all she did was chew gum. From the way these people were looking at her, you’d think she’d pissed in a baby’s cereal.

  With exaggerated slowness, she plucks the offending gum from her mouth, makes a grand spectacle of walking it over to the trash can, and drops it in.

  There. Crisis averted.

  She lifts her hands, twirls in place. “I’m unarmed,” she drawls, barely suppressing a smirk when the Tour Guide actually hisses before resuming her monotonous droning.

  Alex lets herself be swept along with the shuffling herd, zoning out. She’s halfway to slipping into true autopilot when she hears a name she really, really didn’t want to hear.

  “… We’re lucky, Mr. Jordan himself just came in!”

  A performative arm sweep.

  Enter: Chris Jordan.

  Dressed like your average suburban dad—khaki shorts, polo tee, and not at all like one of the wealthiest men in America. It’s almost funny. Almost.

  The man embraces the hostess to a smattering of polite applause.

  All except Alex, who is too busy panicking.

  Chris launches into the obligatory “thank you all for coming” spiel, eyes scanning the crowd—Alex is already moving. Slow, measured steps backward, like a deer trying not to spook a predator.

  She bumps into someone. The bellend choosing to make a spectacle of a simple shoulder brush, thus prompting Chris to look her way.

  His words falter, once his gaze locks onto her.

  ~~~

  The Crash.

  Chris gasps awake, sucked into consciousness by a spike of pain.

  His chest is crushed against the steering wheel, breath punched out of him with every shallow inhale. The seatbelt digs into his shoulder, keeping him from tumbling into the black abyss beyond the shattered windshield.

  “… What?” he rasps.

  To his right—Lilian.

  Blood drips from her temple. Her hair dangles toward the roof—no, the ground.

  They’re upside down.

  Chris tries to turn, pain flares white-hot along his ribs. He hisses through his teeth, reaching instinctively for her.

  “Lilian?” His voice is rough, trembling. “Hey, honey?”

  A small, pained whimper. Then—

  “Chris?” Her hands scrabble for purchase, panic setting in. “What happened?”

  He catches her wrists before she can unbuckle her seatbelt.

  “I have a feeling,” he grits out, “that we’re gonna want to keep those on.”

  ~~~

  Reality.

  A polite cough.

  Chris blinks rapidly, shoving the memory back into its box. His pulse hammers, his hands shake uncontrollably and he exhales sharply.

  “We’ve got souvenirs for all of you, after the tour,” he says, clapping his hands together. Abrupt. Awkward.

  The students clap anyway.

  Chris sidesteps a woman desperate for his attention and starts toward the group, eyes scanning—

  He catches that familiar spiky head of hair, its owner oscillating like a caged animal.

  He can tell instantly that she’s about to bolt.

  “I know it’s not part of the tour,” he cuts in, before the Tour Guide can launch into Speech #51, “but what the heck? Why don’t you all come take a look at what we’ve got going on upstairs?”

  Excited murmurs.

  Alex pivots sharply, her entire soul screaming to exit.

  Chris makes a quick gesture, and security guard intercepts.

  Cornered, Alex’s jaw tightens.

  Chris watches her seethe.

  And, for the first time in a while, he feels a genuine smile slide across his face.

  ~~~

  The Crash.

  “Can you move?” Chris asks, forcing his voice steady. His eyes have adjusted to the dark now. He can see the way she’s twisted in her seat.

  “I think my leg is broken,” Lilian sobs.

  Chris tilts his head.

  There—a sound. Faint, distant. A siren.

  Thank God.

  “I think I hear sirens,” he says.

  ~~~

  Reality.

  The students press against the two-way glass, gaping at the glowing, shifting Nexus.

  It doesn’t look like a generator. It doesn’t even look real. It’s a floating sphere of shifting geometric patterns, constantly rearranging itself in impossible configurations. A low hum thrums through the floor, resonating in their bones.

  Chris stands at the front, fingers brushing the glass like a proud father.

  “Behold.” He spreads his arms, all showmanship. “The first ever Zero-Point Energy Nexus. Or, for those of us who hate chewing our words—” he raps his knuckles against the glass, “—The Arc.”

  Alex fights the urge to gag.

  He lets the name hang in the air, soaking in the moment.

  A bespectacled student raises a hand. “What exactly… does it do?”

  Chris grins.

  “It makes the impossible possible.”

  Blank stares.

  He rolls his eyes aggressively, shaking his head in the process. “Everyone always wants the long answer.” He gestures behind him. “The Arc doesn’t generate power like a fusion reactor or a nuclear plant. It doesn’t burn fuel. It doesn’t consume anything.”

  His eyes gleam.

  “It pulls energy from the quantum vacuum—the space between atoms, the fabric of reality itself.”

  A low murmur spreads through the crowd.

  “If it works,” Chris continues, “it means limitless power. No emissions. No waste. No resource wars. The entire world, running on a single energy source that never runs out.”

  A student leans forward. “And if it doesn’t work?”

  Chris’s grin stretches wider.

  “Then, well…” He gestures vaguely. “We’re all screwed in a really interesting way.”

  The murmurs turn to nervous laughter, and four eyes asks again—

  “Is it finished?”

  “Not yet,” Chris admits, deflating slightly. “But we just had a breakthrough that could shave a couple of years off our work.”

  Alex doesn’t care. She shifts impatiently, already calculating the fastest way to the exit. If she moved quickly, she could slip out before anyone noticed. The only obstacle? The security guard. A human meat wall, which mormally, she’d have no problem getting rid of. But with a room full of people? Tricky.

  She inches slowly toward the door—

  “That’s not right.”

  The words slip out before she even realizes she thought them. And every head turns to her.

  Silence.

  Alex closes her eyes. Oh, for f—

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispers, pressing her palms into her face.

  The head technician in the room bristles. “Excuse me?”

  She exhales sharply. No backing out now.

  “The calculations are wrong,” she says flatly.

  Murmurs ripple through the room. One student openly flipping her off. The technician looks seconds away from combusting.

  “This is a third-year class,” he says, voice laced with condescension.

  The tour guide flounders. “Uh—well—”

  Alex doesn’t flinch. “I ran the numbers. They don’t match.”

  The technician snorts. “Oh, you ran the numbers?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your head?”

  “Yes.”

  “In three seconds?”

  “Yes.”

  The room erupts in laughter.

  The technician smirks. “It took a team of physicists eight years to build that equation, and you—what, eyeballed it?”

  Chris, still leaning against the glass, grins.

  Alex tilts her head. Eyes burrowing into the technician's soul. “I know. It’s a wonder you still have your job.”

  The laughter is deafening. She thinks she sees Chris twist away with a too wide smile even.

  The technician’s face goes red. His jaw tightens. “Throw her out.”

  Finally!

  The security guard grabs her arm—

  “Now, wait a minute.” Chris’s voice cuts through the chaos, and the room stills.

  He smirks. “If she says it’s wrong, I’d at least like to hear what she thinks is right.”

  The technician turns on him. “Sir, do you really—”

  “She talks a big game.” Chris shrugs. “Let’s see if she has the brains to match it.”

  He looks at Alex. And she stares right back.

  She hates how incredibly smug he looks at the moment. But she also knows she’s right.

  So she steps forward. “Fine,” she says.

  ~~~

  The Crash.

  Chaos.

  Sirens wail. A smoldering tanker sits at the edge of the bridge. Below, the wreckage of a car dangles over the abyss.

  A cop jogs toward a fireman. “What’s the status? When are we getting them out of there?”

  The fireman rubs the back of his neck. “Truthfully? I don’t know if we can.”

  The cop’s face hardens. “What do you mean?”

  “The car is too far down. No way to climb down and attach a tow cable. If we move too fast, it could fall.”

  “What about an airlift?”

  The fireman shakes his head. “Closest helicopter is six hundred miles out. That thing will fall before it even gets here.”

  They exchange a grim look. Time was running out.

  ~~~

  Reality.

  Chris studies the sheet of paper in his hands. The numbers check out. It’s clean. Flawless.

  But theory is one thing. Application is another.

  He looks at Alex. She’s slouched against a table, looking supremely unimpressed.

  Chris hands the paper to the technician, who snatches it with a sneer. “I’ll have her escorted out.”

  Chris waves a hand. “No, no. Apply it.”

  Silence.

  The entire staff starts spluttering. Chris halts them with one raised finger.

  “Then turn it on.”

  “What?” The head Technician roars.

  ~~~

  The Crash.

  The reporter pats her unruly hair into place, nodding at the cameraman.

  He counts down. “We’re on in 3, 2—”

  She squares her shoulders, slipping into her grave, news-anchor tone.

  “Over 45 minutes since the accident, and help still hasn’t—”

  A flicker. And the streetlights jitter. The camera’s red REC light spasms. The cameraman frowns, giving it a few whacks.

  Above them, helicopter searchlights stutter like dying candles. Engines sputter. One after another, the news choppers peel away, stabilizing only after clearing a certain distance.

  And then—

  Darkness.

  A two-mile blackout swallows the bridge.

  ~~~

  Inside the wreck, Lilian gasps as the dashboard lights blink out. The only illumination coming from the cracked windshield, the eerie glow of distant sirens dimming into eerie blackness as well.

  Above, the rotor noise is gone, and the silence is heavier than the wreckage itself.

  Chris swallows hard, forcing himself to stay calm.

  “Chris… what’s going on?” Lilian’s voice is small and tight with fear.

  He finds her hand, threading his fingers through hers. A silent promise.

  “I don’t know, Lilian.”

  Lilian shrieks long and hard as they start to drop.

  Her grip on his hand tightening so hard it crushes his bones together. Chris barely has time to brace before she abruptly goes limp.

  He jerks his head toward her. “Lilian?”

  She’s out cold.

  His pulse spikes, but he doesn’t get time to process it. A yelp is torn from his throat when he realizes that the car isn't actually dropping—because the car isn’t falling anymore.

  It’s rising.

  Chris' eyes scrunch shut. If this was the end, then by God he was going to go out with dignity.

  His stomach lurches as they’re yanked upward, lifted a solid ten feet like a toy in a claw machine. For one heart-stopping moment, they just hang.

  Then, gravity returns with a vengeance.

  The car plummets, hurtling toward the pavement. Chris barely gets out a strangled yell before—

  His skull snaps forward from the whiplash. Pain lances through the back of his neck, at the abrupt stop.

  Then They don’t crash. They land. A little too hard—nothing compared to the gut-wrenching freefall from before, but upright.

  A long, shuddering breath leaves him, right before the screech of metal tears through the night. His door is ripped clean off, and someone peeks in.

  Chris, still dazed, barely registers anything except—her hair. A short messy tangle, with it's strands pointing every which way. He has to rear back slightly, to prevent a certain wayward strand from poking his eye.

  The girl clocks his wide-eyed stare and visibly winces.

  “...Shit,” she mutters under her breath.

  The streetlight stabilizes, flaring to life.

  Chris instinctively shields his eyes and when he lowers his hand, she’s gone.

  Vanished into the night. He blanches. Was it all a hallucination?

  Before he can decide, the paramedics and police swarm in, dragging him and Lilian from the wreck.

  ~~~

  Reality.

  Chris blinks back the memory, rubbing absently at the phantom ache in his neck. The sensation never did quite leave him—not since that night.

  Alex is slouched at the front of the room, draped over the table like she might just ooze onto the floor if left undisturbed. Every inch of her screams disinterest.

  The disgruntled technician—Jerome marches in, radio clenched tight, eyes hard with focus. “We’re ready, sir.”

  Chris stands. “Perfect.”

  Jerome hesitates, lowering his voice. “Sir, I really wish we would reconsider. There are students here.” His fingers twitch against the radio.

  Chris barely suppresses a smirk. “Of course there are. But Miss—?” He gestures toward Alex, waiting for her to introduce herself.

  She doesn’t.

  The tour guide, chipper and eager to please, supplies it for her. “Alexandria.”

  Alex whips toward her like a predator spotting movement. The woman flinches. Fascinating.

  Chris continues smoothly. “Alexandria over there seems quite sure.” He turns to her. “Or weren’t you?”

  She stretches, languid and unbothered, before flashing him a sharp, wolfish smile. Chris is momentarily convinced it's his turn to be reduced to a puddle.

  “Why don’t you turn it on and find out?” she says, syrup-sweet.

  Chris exhales through his nose, amused. “Very well.” He tilts his head toward Jerome. “She said to turn it on.”

  Jerome’s glare could cut glass. “Turn it on,” he grits into the radio.

  The room stills.

  The Nexus hums to life, hesitating at first—a low, throaty groan before settling into a steady, rising whirr. The lights flicker slightly as the machine stabilizes.

  Chris scans the room. Some students are leaning forward with interest; others look ready to bolt if this thing so much as crackles wrong. If this flops, he thinks, it would be one hell of a PR catastrophe.

  The sound finally smooths out, settling into a faint thrum.

  Chris looks to Jerome. “Well?”

  Jerome swallows and lifts the radio. “Status?”

  A heartbeat. Then—

  “Nexus is stable. Functioning as intended.”

  Jerome exhales like he’s just escaped a firing squad. He turns to Chris, clearly humbled. “It’s stable.”

  Chris lets a slow grin stretch across his face.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announces, sweeping his arms out, “the first functional Zero-Point Energy Nexus.”

  The room erupts.

  Hands shoot up. Some students abandon formality and just shout questions. A few break from the pack, rushing toward the front, overwhelming security.

  Chris drinks in the energy, but something tugs at his instincts.

  He turns, scanning for Alex—She's gone. Again.

  The exit door sways slightly, as if laughing at him.

  Chris exhales through his nose, rubbing the phantom pain at the back of his neck.

  Fascinating.