“I can say for completely certain that had the nuclear stockpiles of Earth not been contaminated shortly following the founding of Heaven’s Doctrine, humanity would be little more than smeared shadows across the walls of our cities. In some ways, all of mankind owes their lives to the Urad-235 bacteria, mindless as it was in eating into worldwide atomic arsenals from China to Russia to the USA. Still, the chances of such a bizarre mutation appearing does pique many questions about the nature of fate. The mere idea that humanity would have never reached the stars had it not been for an organism so small and insignificant is a terrifying one. How many other ‘insignificancies’ have changed history forever?” – Albert Driver, Historian of the Combined Neutral States, 2133. Retrieved from a historical lecture series at Silver Domain University, Titanlock.

  Elias was at home the second he stepped into the spacious lab; the familiar chilled air scented with fresh isopropyl alcohol smothering his senses pleasantly. Gods, it was good to be back in the familiar environment after so long. After his previous project, a simple matter regarding the development of accurate S-Drive warping of non-living cargo across multiple star systems with the precision of a few millimetres, he had been forced to wait whilst the preliminary information about his new assignment came in. Kantor, his father, had put him on standby whilst the executive brokered the younger Savage’s position in Tylas space. Between the numerous S-Jumps, each one wringing out stranger dreams than the one before, Elias’ mind had been stirring with ferocious ideas.

  Though he had been forced to temper his brain, the uncertainty of what the Tylas would offer or provide being a major factor in what he would be able to work on, he had still been spending whatever time he had to himself devising potential theorems to test out. Running a hand across a silvery countertop, dust free and lacking the faint scratch marks of a used lab, Elias breathed a deep sigh. If only Uncle Samson could see him now. His first port of call was to check the unfamiliar looking devices, clearly not made for human hands, to see what advancements the Tylas had made when it came to measurement instruments.

  Before he could even fully take in a strange, handless glass tubule, larger than his entire body and constrained to a transparent cabinet, the door behind him swung open. Figuring it was likely a cleaner or maintenance worker doing some last checks, he absentmindedly nodded over his shoulder. It was only when he did a double take to realize that Chel-Lin had floated in and froze in place that his mind actually comprehended the situation.

  “You?!” she hissed, theremin-like voice a high pitch squeal. “What are you doing in my lab?”

  “Your laboratory?” Elias said. “I’ll have you know you’re currently spreading your Tylas… vapours around my work space – the workspace laid out as per my assignment contract.”

  Elias stomped over to the black and gold floating creature, which had slowly drifted into the middle of the room to confront him, as he flicked out his comm device. Elias’ had been so alarmed that he had forgotten to adopt his false posture when facing the alien. Pulling up the confirmation message regarding his laboratory on the screen of his comm-device, he showed it to the alien.

  “Right there,” Elias jabbed the screen. “Do you need your eyes checked, or do all of your kind have such bad eyesight?”

  The Tylas slitted her eyes at him, mantle opening up. Elias fought the urge to lean away the creature, its form growing wider and more imposing as if rearing to attack. The motion resembled that of a marine predator opening up its jaw before stinging its target. Before he could make any evasive movements, a thin appendage not unlike a trailing bolt of cloth, separated from its main body. With delicacy, it reached up to a thin rubber band strapped around its equivalent of a torso to detach a sharp, boxy device. Up close, and not by his own choice, Elias could see the texture of the Tylas’ skin – closer to a bolt of cloth or velvet than that of flesh, lacking pores or hairs. In some ways the bundle of purple clothes around her neck were not to dissimilar to her surface in smoothness.

  After releasing the small machine from the band, she began wrapping and holding the spikey mechanism up within the razor thin tendril for a few moments. Once the alien had spent enough time fondling the strange mechanism, Chel-Lin let it go. Instead of dropping to the ground, the device instead hovered in place between the two of them before splitting apart, a pinprick of light lazily bouncing from the separated fragments that drifted in the air. The dots of light grew faster and faster, until a formed image, flicking and difficult to make out, was produced. It appeared to show a document worded the exact same way as the one Elias’ had received, albeit translated from the Tylas’ language of squiggles and curves.

  With a strap tracing a line of the holographic document, she read it aloud, “Burning Scribe Chel-Lin Daksira, we are proud to announce your working location as Laboratory Epsilon Twelve. Clear as night.”

  Bullshit, there was no way she was meant to be in here, not a chance.

  “Well, there’s obviously been a mistake here, balloon,” Elias said, folding his hands behind his back. “Your people have gotten whatever lab you’re meant to get your dirty little… ribbon… things on mixed up with mine.”

  “The sheer audacity of your very presence here disgusts me, mammal. This is obviously my lab, as indicated by the far superior Tylas equipment. It would be best if you just found another spot for you to ruin with your sweat and other fluids before you contaminate this area more than you have already.

  “I’m afraid that both of your messages are correct, Dr Savage and Scribe Daksira,” A voice interjected, echoing across the wide space.

  Elias and Chel-Lin both turned to the entrance of the laboratory. Sauntering through the doorway was Lucian, arms folded across his chest.

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  “There is no mix up, you see. The two of you are purposely assigned to the same work space.”

  “No, wait, hold on,” Elias said walking away from the Tylas who had floated closer to him that he had initially realised. “That can’t be right, Mr Valentari. There’s plenty of unused labs around here; I passed a dozen at least on the way here. Why not spread us out? Why put us together when there’s clearly been… disagreements so far.”

  “The primitive simian does have a point,” Chel-Lin admitted, staring at the ground. “Ah, no offense, Mr Valentari. I am sure not all members of your species are as impudent as this specimen.”

  She turned to look towards Elias. He didn’t stoop to give her a reaction. Likewise, if suited executive had taken insult from Chel-Lin’s words, he didn’t seem to show it.

  “Apologies for being so blunt, but simply put – you two deserve one another,” Lucian said.

  Elias gawped at the words, blinking, before he looked at Chel-Lin. He didn’t understand the subtleties of Tylas expressions, but even he could understand the look of confusion, followed by disgust from her slitted eyes.

  “Uh, what?” Elias said.

  “Apologies, that came out wrong. What I meant to say is, frankly, you two are the best we have to offer. Both of you have more meaningful papers and studies under your belts than some institutions will ever hope to write. For this whole event to succeed, we need both of you to work together, or to at least look like it. It’s no coincidence that both the son of Kantor Savage and the daughter of Kar-Trine Daksira are now in the same team – the same team with the very eye-catching Dr. Bernard Warnick, the practical Dr Madison Dallas and a one-of-a-kind CAI. If we want to show off the possibilities of our two species combined, the IGS needs to at least see some basic evidence of cooperation. So, as much as you may hate it, it would look best for the two of you to at least share the same laboratory.”

  Who the hell was Kar-Trine? Likely some famous Tylas asshole, which must be where his daughter got her attitude from. Shaking his head, Elias adopted his fa?ade and hobbled over to Lucian by the midpoint of the room.

  “If it’s just a matter of documentation, can’t we just have one of us assigned here whilst the other works elsewhere?”

  “That would be the case, if we didn’t have optics to uphold. We will need to see ongoing evidence of work in the same lab shared between the two of you, and I don’t exactly think the effort of carting your gear between labs for every photoshoot is worthwhile, do you?”

  “So, there’s no alternative?” Elias said. “That’s it? We share the same lab or we don’t get to work at all?”

  “For the sake of the IGS, I suppose so.” Lucian scratched as his facial implants.

  “Hmm… We have to share the space, but do our projects themselves need to mix?” Chel-Lin asked. A good question, Elias had to admit.

  “I mean, not technically – the contract from GaltCorp just highlighted the requirement of a mixed laboratory, not the studies themselves. I would imagine it would otherwise impossible to not at least try to function together so-“

  Before Lucian could finish, Elias had walked over to the traditional blackboard he insisted having prior to his arrival, and swiped the chalk stick up. As both the man and the Tylas watched, he cantered himself in the middle of the laboratory and drew a line straight across the width of the room. The white trail started at a wall-mounted cabinet, traced over a counter top, and finished at the double door, right at the astragal. Striding to the opposite half of the lab to Chel-Lin, pulled up a stool and glared over his scratched glasses.

  “From here on, xeno, this is my half of the room,” Elias said. “You don’t come over here for any reason. You need to talk to me? Leave a note on the border. Your experiment is going out of control because you fudged the numbers and need another pair of hands? Tough shit. If either of us are going to get anything done, that’s the rules. Got that?”

  A silence filled the air for a few seconds. Lucian sighed deeply as he looked between the two scientists before looking towards the chalk line. Then, Chel-Lin casually drifted to the same relative position on her side of the lab and began placing more of the tools strapped to her inner body onto a table.

  “Fine,” her translator whined. “I can work with that, monkey, so long as you agree to the same terms. You need to use a cathpithar macrostic analyser? You can work that out on your own. And when your work comes to a complete halt, and you cry for help, you will find none from me. Understood?”

  “Oh please, if anyone will need help it will be your limbless self, propane tank.”

  Ok, even Elias had to admit it to himself – the varied insults were getting harder to come up with on the fly. He decided he would need to study some more Tylas sociology and biology to produce better offenses from then on.

  Lucian clicked his tongue before turning to leave. “Fine, fine. If this is how you want it to be, then bicker like children all you like. But when the cameras come in for their promotional visits, I expect you to at least try to act the part of looking like coworkers. Aside from that, do your best not to kill each other with your work?”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Elias said with a mock salute. “I can deal with the news. Would hardly be the first time. Now, can I get my initial preparation underway? I’ve spent enough time already dealing with… her.”

  Chel-Lin gave once last look towards her new lab partner before casually floating away, already starting to inspect her new space, checking on tools and calibrating instruments. She had the right idea. Hand pressed to the door, Lucian gave one last look towards Elias before leaving. For a second, he thought he heard a derisive scoff from the executive, but to his ears it almost sounded like a chuckle.

  Well, that was the problem of the shared lab space sorted, mostly. Rising from the chair, Elias cast his eyes over the entirely of his area. Far larger than any of his previous teams would have needed, it was ginormous, even when split in half. Elias estimated it would take him at least half a minute to reach the ‘border’, as he had decided on titling it, from his end of the room by walking. That, alongside the sheer number of tools he still had to work with, left him more than enough resources to work around the, now floating, Tylas. She was ignoring his presence entirely, instead making use of the absurd height of the room to reach another row of cabinets and raised workbench suspended a dozen meters in the air. Elias considered that such a thing would have shattered many OSHA laws back in CCH space, but he had never let silly things such as ‘safety’ and ‘legality’ get in the way of his work before.

  Stifling a snigger to himself, Elias was happy to start working. There had been a tense knot of lethargy growing tight within him since he had left Titanlock and he was eager to finally unwrap it. However, before he could even open a notebook, a loud rattling sound took his attention.

  In one last surge of effort into interaction with him, Chel-Lin had pushed the other blackboard from her half of the lab across the line of their border, a trailing mass of thin tendrils already retreating into her body before he could even get a good look. Elias considered giving a sarcastic thanks, but the alien had already moved away.

  Silence filled the room that Elias realised his plan of a secret project would now be a lot harder to carry out with one constant witness. Considering his options, Elias found the simplest solution would work the best. No matter what species, there would always be something a person would value.

  And thus the real question was left – what exactly could you bribe a Tylas to keep silent with?