“I’ve seen my fair share of stuff on the field. Plenty of clan atrocities, prisoners getting decapitated, and more broken families than I can count. That’s what you get with the job description though. Still, what I saw didn’t make sense to me. We’re pinned down, S-Drive is running at near meltdown, and I’ve got my camera out, ready to roll my last video. Then, this kid, gone through absolute hell - lost his family to Paradise and had S-Jumped all the way from New Paris to get a taste of revenge, goes into the middle of the battlefield. Next thing I see, he starts dodging the bullets as he walked towards the enemy. No, not like that movie. It was all natural, like he could see what he needed to or something, just knew where to move to dodge the bullets. We finally got control of the ship and made a beeline back to CCH space. No idea what the hell that kid pulled. Never seen anything like it. Far as I know, the Out-Han Alliance picked him up a while back.” – Lila Morgan, War Journalist for Glass Tip Productions, 2261. Retrieved from ‘Combat Training or Something Else?’ from ‘Bullets Per Minute’ military magazine.

  An icy chill was in the air around the Nucleus facility the morning Elias had the urge for something greasy, thickening and hot. A few weeks had passed since his first ‘human handshake’, as the Cambiar would nickname it, with Chel-Lin and he had settled into something of a routine. They’d spend the day trying to work on both of their cover projects before giving into the excitement of fiddling more with the now exposed Schr?dinger-Drive. By night, the pair would usually make up some excuse about research or recreation to return to either of their rooms before they would let their newly developed habit of interspecies experimentation take over.

  It wasn’t Elias’ fault the alien had an unyielding hunger for handsome scientists in their early twenties with great looks and even greater egos. Such a shame he was the only one who fit the bill to help her ‘unwind’. Real pity. For someone who put up the impression of being pious, the things that came from her translator were awfully filthy. He didn’t even realise how many ways there were to make euphemisms about not pulling out until Chel-Lin began referring to him as ‘the ice cream dispenser’ the last time he tried.

  Clear violations of Barald’s will notwithstanding, Elias felt he was doing pretty good. However, he had yet to have a proper chat with the other researchers in Nucleus Two since the first checkpoint, and felt a little visit was in order. When he found both of their labs empty, he followed the sounds of chatter and cutlery to the mess hall. The wide-open space was clearly meant to fit the potential residents of every dorm room of Nucleus Two at the same time. Due to its staffing being at less than one percent of its maximum operating limit, dozens of empty tables and hundreds of spare chairs left collecting dust in the great hall. Were the Tylas planning on having more workers in the future, or was it all some sort of gaseous dick measuring contest? Wait, did the Tylas even have dicks? Elias still hadn’t asked how the hell the aliens actually procreated, and perhaps he still didn’t want to know – Chel-Lin probably wouldn’t let him pull out either way.

  Regardless, the view of Madison and Bernard being the only occupants in the centre of the chamber, their white lab coats almost blending into the plastic seats behind them, only added to the vastness of the space. The only other source of noise from within the room, aside from the scientists, was a television on a distant wall playing some cooking show. A portly man with an Italian accent was describing the best way to cook some pasta dish alongside his tall dark-skinned Cambiar wife. A lanky alien baby hung from the man’s chest in a papoose, a pacifier stuffed onto the end of its snaking tongue-tentacle-thing. Infant Cambiar were both cute and horrifying in a way, the latter aspect only added by how quickly they grew up. Elias tore his gaze from the chef onscreen and walked over to the duo.

  “Can I take a seat?” Elias asked, pushing his glasses up. “There’s not many spare.”

  “Ah, Scratchy,” Bernard said, smiling. “It’s been a hot minute. You hungry? I’ve got a spare food voucher for the Auto-Chef with your name on it if you agree to take my place in one of EXCAL’s gaming sessions.”

  “Hello Elias!” Madison cut in. “You could even get a full English breakfast with that voucher. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  She quickly mouthed a desperate ‘please’. It seemed someone wanted some more time alone with Dr Warnick. Well, that or perhaps Bernard really wasn’t a fan of SigilPlane. Either way, it did little to dissuade the notion of something salacious going on between the two scientists. Were Elias and Kurt’s predictions about a possible unprofessional meeting between the two a reality?

  “I’m already helping him out as is, but a few extra sessions with the robo-dude wouldn’t hurt. Much.”

  Elias tried to look as aloof as possible at the prospect of more hours of staring at the pixelated graphics and doing mindless actions over and over. It wouldn’t be so bad if the character EXCAL had made him use, often as some sort of scapegoat for arbitrary in-game activities or quests, didn’t look so bland and weak compared to the CAI’s glorious knight with impractical looking armour.

  “You’re the best!” Bernard said with a relieved smile as he passed a plastic token over to the younger scientist.

  Returning with a plate full all the best edibles GaltCorp could provide, including sausages, beans, hash browns and even some surprisingly plump tomato slices, Elias took a seat opposite his colleagues.

  “So, I heard you two kept each up all night after the first checkpoint,” Elias mumbled through a mouth of toast and brown sauce.

  “Yep!” Madison said. “Bernard’s focus may be on biology, but his outlook on my project really helped with future scaling and expansion. He even put in a good word with Rannos to let me use a spare lab for the later stages of my testing.”

  “Uh huh. Sure”.

  “Well, I can’t take all the credit,” Bernard said. “We had a great chat about all the fun people we meet in this line of work. Did you know Madison saw Rexia Zeentach a few years back? The Out-Han politician, tall, slim and without all the cynicism that the suits of the CCH have. Have you ever met someone from the Out-Han? Or maybe even someone from Heaven’s Doctrine, since I heard a few have tried to join the corporations since the start of the civil war?”

  “No?” Elias said uncertain. Wait, hold on. They didn’t sound like they were lying about not having a tumble under the covers, but did they seriously just have a friendly chat. “But, wait, let me get this straight - all you guys did that night was chat? Nothing… special?”

  “I mean, yeah?” Bernard shrugged. “Well, we first started in the rec room with Kurt, but once we opened up all this fancy wine I got in a hamper back on Titanlock, he just went way too hard at the drinks. Next thing we know, he’s trying to booty call some Cambiar he knows and stumbles away into the night. Said something about thanking god for a ‘Bessie’, as well as her tits.”

  “Yeah, that was funny. But I can’t think of anything else. Is something wrong Elias?” Madison tilted her head for just a second before her eyes widened in realisation. “Ha ha ha! Oh, you think- me and Bernard had-“

  Bernard chuckled lightly to himself, shaking his head. “Oh no, no, no. Elias, I forget you’re still a kid. Regardless of whether you’re a scientist or soldier or whatever – someone your age is going to have sex on the mind, I suppose.”

  Elias tried flinging up some excuses: Bernard wasn’t that much older! And… and… the rumours of those two getting busy sounded legit from Kurt, who was clearly a reliable source considering he was drunk out of his mind. Oh, wait. And-

  Yeah, ok. Maybe he had been a bit presumptive. Damnit it! This was Chel-Lin’s fault. She was the one who had changed him into a sex-pest. Elias had no such thoughts prior to meeting that insufferable Tylas! The next time Chel-Lin called him a corrupting force in bed, he would turn it back on her.

  Bernard wiped a tear from his eyes, still laughing. “No, me and Madison are just friends. Thanks for the laugh, though.” He sighed. “But what about you and Dr Daksira? I hear you share a lab. Nothing else going on in there?”

  Oh shit.

  Elias immediately locked his jaw, and stared straight into the man’s eyes. Bernard’s Echorist necklace hung around his neck, swaying slightly like some sort of hypnotist’s watch. This was the most important moment of Elias’ life. He could not falter here – admission of having relations with Chel-Lin would be the last crack in his exterior persona before the porcelain fa?ade crumbled for good. All he had to do was look serious enough and to dissuade the notion that he, a young, pent-up scientist had gotten close to the alien partner he had spent the past few months getting friendly to in a restricted environment under high stress. There was no way that was possible.

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  And so, mentally locked in like a fighter pilot engaging a swarm of Paradise ships, Elias thinned his gaze, slowly raised a single brow and he jutted his jaw forward in determination.

  “Chel-Lin? The jellyfish?” Elias lied through his fucking teeth. “You think I would go for her?”

  The two older scientists looked at one another then back to him. Elias’ scratched lenses were a frail barrier under the stress of intense scrutiny from their unrelenting gaze. Weighty seconds thundered by, the hum of Nucleus’ ambiance the only reminder that sand still flowed through the hourglass of time.

  Then, thank god, Madison giggled. “Sorry, just kidding! Bernard, you are such a tease! Sorry Elias, I’m sure he didn’t mean to wind you up. You two are cute, but in a childish, almost playful sort of way. How do they say it in that one clan language, the one that Chrome Mecha is natively in? A… ‘tsundere’ sort of way?”

  “Yeah, that’s it!” Bernard snapped a finger gun at Madison. “It’s like they don’t actually hate each other, but like to pretend to. Sorry kid, we know you don’t want to bang the floating manta ray alien. Still a funny idea though – I could see it happening. On the inter-sys, of course.”

  Huh. That worked. Nice. Elias just smiled as he sipped his cup of coffee, feeling as though he had just gotten away with murder. Or alien sex. Practically the same thing, really.

  “I have to say thank you, Elias.” Madison said after taking a bite of her croissant.

  “What for?”

  “The advice about not giving too much away about the syraline stuff to the IGS committee. They already had a few brows raised at the fake figures I gave them, and I’m pretty sure that creepy Tylas in the back would have had a fit if I told them the truth.”

  Bernard raised an eyebrow, clearly not fully aware of the situation, and he chose to ignore it as he turned back to his food.

  “Well, if there’s one good thing my dad taught me,” Madison continued. “It was that sometimes you have to lie a little to eventually tell the truth.”

  That seemed like a rather apt piece of advice considering the little white lie he had just told. Technically, he didn’t say he wasn’t with Chel-Lin. It was just a small lie of omission. Still, just seeing how things had gotten to their current situation, Elias felt required to ask a little more about his two associates personal lives; everyone came from somewhere.

  Elias cleared his throat, “I wanted to ask you two something. How the hell did either of you wind up here, in Tylas territory, as part of potentially one of the most important scientific conferences in recent history?”

  “Oh, I mean, I got a superliner with Tripwire of all people to get me most of the way here. I had finished another tour, way too many S-Jumps, so…” Bernard shrugged.

  Before Madison could give her own account of bland FTL travel, Elias stopped her. “No, what I mean, guys, is how the hell did you two end up at the top of your fields? Like, where you came from and all that. I’m not much of a secret; EXCAL and Lucian weren’t exactly wrong I was helped by being a Savage. But what about you two?”

  Bernard gaped his mouth open and closed like a fish for a few moments before gesturing to Dr Dallas.

  “The floor’s all yours,” he said.

  “Gee, thanks,” Madison rolled her eyes. “So, where to begin? I did most of my work at Titanlock, but I was actually born on a colony world. You wouldn’t know its name.”

  “Try me.” Elias felt pretty confident in his exogeography, Kantor having drilled in the importance of knowing all of GaltCorp’s holdings since a young age.

  “It has a lot of nicknames, but the original owners called it IGL729 Production Facility.”

  “That’s a bit of a mouthful.” It was only after Elias considered the name itself that the cogs in his mind began to turn. “Wait a second, that name… Was it a…?”

  Madison nodded. “Yep. It used to be under Paradise control. H&H managed to pry it from their grubby mitts a few decades back, and thankfully they don’t seem to care about getting it back. Yet, at least. You can probably imagine how most of it looked – lots of dark mountains of pure, black metal, near-infinite sprawling tunnels and factories running deep into the earth. The areas that Paradise ran looked like something out of a cosmic horror story, with some dark god controlling its servants in an evil hellscape. I actually grew up on a settlement bordering Paradise’s leftovers, but it was always there, a black mound in the distance.”

  “No shit? Was there anyone left from the original occupation?”

  “Not many. Most were… recycled by their Praecursori before the higher ups left. Utilitarian as always, even for something as valuable as life. That is, if you can even call what was left of the workers there ‘alive’. Most simply shuffled about like zombies. When they came to my hometown’s gates, they tried taking apart the walls to feed their long dead factories. My family and friends always saw Paradise’s leftovers as a dark omen; something not to be spoken of or dealt with. I saw otherwise. Though their methods will always be wrong, I had heard rumours of the intricacy of their work. They could field ships and soldiers and weapons on scale that still unbelievable, even to the Doctrine. It was after I saw one of them dragging a piece of scrap metal back to their dark mountain of metal that I knew I had to see what being hidden there.”

  “And you looked?” Elias asked.

  “That I did.” Madison gave a wan smile. “It was nearly impossible to access through the main entrance, as it had collapsed. Following one of the starving workers back, I found a small tunnel, barely the width of this tray.” She held up the rectangle of metal her plate sat on, its dimensions barely large enough to encompass Madison’s shoulders. “But fit I did. And what I saw was unforgettable.”

  “Let me guess – the ruins of a once beautiful production line, torn apart by a war that shouldn’t have happened, right?”

  “The opposite, actually. Whatever Henry and Huell did to take the planet, they must’ve kept the bombardment to a minimum. Inside, all the factories and conveyor lines were intact, just unpowered. I spent a whole day following each of the logistical pathways until I reached an assembly line for one of their guns – a recoilless railgun of some kind. Seeing all the hundreds of little pieces fitting together to make something far more important than combination of its parts was inspiring.”

  “And what happened when you came out of the factory?”

  “Oh, my family were so pissed. Totally worth it though! After that, I went to college, learnt my stuff, and simply followed my dream. And yet, after all this time, I’m not sure if I’ve managed to get across the wonder I felt at that moment when I crawled into that open space of machinery all around me – perfection frozen in time in a crystal of black metal and silicon belts.”

  Elias let the moment soak in. He could now understand why Madison felt the need to overexplain her work to others – he doubted anyone else from her upbringing wanted to hear more of the dark past of their homeworld. Now, she was making up for lost time. In some ways, Elias could relate. Instead of releasing the pent-up urge to divulge his knowledge through ranting, however, he was more than comfortable with just being the most insufferable prick around. After all, who else would act in such a rude way unless they had the prowess to back it up? No one but him.

  Bernard had sat in quiet contemplation as he heard Madison’s story, nodding occasionally. When her tale reached its thematic climax, Elias noticed the rock-star scientist lightly holding his Echorist amulet between two fingers. intrigued, Elias felt it was only right to see if his other colleague was up for a trip down memory lane.

  “How about you, Bernard? Got a story behind that necklace of yours? They say every Echorist is born from the shell of a far more boring person – that the person before and after finding their faith are nearly unrecognisable. Is that the case for you?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact…” Bernard took a breath to likely begin some long exposition about his current situation, before he let out a croaking gasp. His eyes widened and flinched, as if he had been struck in the arm. He looked down for a moment before standing quickly and moving to leave.

  “Another time, perhaps,” Dr Warnick said shortly, a hand tightly gripping the other into a ball.

  Elias and Madison sat as he shuffled off, too stunned to speak. As the automatic doors of the mess hall slide close, Elias wasted no time before asking the pertinent question.

  “Ok, what the fuck was that?” Elias asked.

  Madison sighed, “I have no clue. You saw it before, right?”

  “I think I’ve seen it a few times. Some illness or something?”

  “I wish I knew. Last time I tried asking, he got all defensive. Maybe it’s something he can’t fix, but can’t accept either?”

  “Hmm,” Elias tapped his chin with a finger. “I can’t say for certain, but I hope that he realises that he has to open up sooner or later – that sort of thing can only drag you down.”

  “Didn’t expect something so philosophical from you this early in the morning, Elias.” Madison laughed. “Maybe if you used your brain for more deep thinking like that instead of picking on Dr Daksira, you could be done with the IGS already.”

  “Maybe!” Elias said. “Either way, I think it’s best we let EXCAL know about Bernard, but give him some time. If it gets worse, I’m sure he’ll let us help.”

  Madison didn’t seem so certain, but agreed to the plan nonetheless. She stood to leave, but just as she turned, bob-cut swaying about, she turned back. Her foot tapped against the tile floor, echoing about the empty space.

  “Say, Elias, I’ve got something I wanted to run by you. Are you still using that, totally not illicitly provided, spare S-Drive I gave you?”

  “Maybe? Depends on what you need.” Elias folded his arms.

  “I’ve got a possible… suggestion for you. Something that might help my work. Are you up for some experimentation? I promise there’s only a minor risk of explosion or accidental S-Jump. Interested?”

  Ooh, that was a mean bait she had laid. Likely highly illegal, potentially dangerous, and cutting-edge experimentation? It had all the hallmarks of a test that would probably go wrong and blow the whole system up, or even worse. Whatever she had planned had doubtlessly never been attempted before, and if she was needing Elias, it might not even be possible in theory.

  It was for all these reasons that he flashed a smirk.

  “Was the pope a catholic? When do we start?”