The day moved forward like any other.
Except it wasn't—not for Jenkins.
For over an hour, he had done little more than pace the confines of his living room, his thoughts endlessly circling the changes unfolding within his own body. Every so often, his eyes would sharpen with sudden realization, only for him to grunt in frustration when the thought led nowhere.
Eventually, he exhaled a long, weary sigh and dropped into his chair. Lightly slapping both cheeks, he forced himself to refocus.
There was no point dwelling on what he couldn't yet explain.
His gaze settled on the vial containing Dylan's blood, resting beside the microscope amid the scattered laboratory equipment covering the table.
Work first. Answers later.
He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and reached for the blood sample.
Bzzz.
A faint vibration interrupted him, followed by a soft chime that echoed through the quiet room.
Jenkins paused.
The sound had come from the drawer.
With a quiet sigh, he peeled the gloves back off, set them neatly on the table, and pulled the drawer open.
Inside lay Yve's tablet.
Its display pulsed with a gentle vibration before a soft chime echoed through the room once more. An unfamiliar icon glowed faintly on the screen—a stylized galaxy encircled by a thin crimson ring, quietly indicating a new notification.
Jenkins picked it up, studying the icon in silence. His thumb hovered over the display.
It wasn't his.
Yve had only entrusted it to him for scientific work. She had never given him permission to explore its contents, and doing so felt... inappropriate.
Then another thought crept in.
She hadn't forbidden it, either. She'd never once told him what he could or couldn't access.
His curiosity urged him to investigate.
His conscience advised otherwise.
The two wrestled briefly inside his mind before he let out a quiet sigh. "...No," he murmured to himself. "It's not mine."
He lowered the tablet toward the drawer.
Bzzz.
It vibrated again.
Jenkins closed his eyes. "...Oh, for heaven's sake." He looked down at the glowing icon for a long moment before finally giving in. "I'm merely checking the notification," he reasoned aloud, as though defending the decision to an invisible ethics committee.
He tapped the galaxy-shaped icon.
The tablet emitted a soft pulse.
A three-dimensional hologram blossomed into existence above the display, projecting a breathtaking miniature of the Milky Way. Thousands of stars shimmered in the darkness, each glowing with varying intensity. Some pulsed softly. Others remained dim, while a handful flickered with a faint crimson halo.
Jenkins stared in silence. "...Good Lord..."
Thin lines of flowing Aelthivar script materialized around the galaxy, accompanied by symbols he couldn't begin to decipher.
"...Right."
With practiced familiarity, he navigated to the settings menu and switched the interface language from Aelthivar to English.
The symbols dissolved and new labels faded into view across the hologram.
For a long moment, Jenkins simply stared.
The Milky Way floated above his hands like a living model of the galaxy itself. Countless stars shimmered throughout the hologram, linked together by delicate streams of light that constantly shifted as information coursed through the network.
Almost absentmindedly, he reached toward one of the spiral arms and spread two fingers apart.
The hologram responded instantly. The galaxy expanded. Star systems separated from one another, each accompanied by names, symbols, and strings of alphanumeric designations he couldn't begin to decipher.
He zoomed in further.
Entire sectors unfolded before him, then individual star systems, each branching into planets, orbital installations, and what appeared to be countless points of interest. It reminded him uncannily of navigating a map of Earth—from continents, to countries, to cities, and finally individual streets.
Except...
None of it resembled Earth.
Strange symbols replaced familiar place names. Some locations bore elegant Aelthivar script. Others were identified only by numerical designations or combinations of characters unlike anything humanity had ever devised.
Jenkins felt his pulse quicken. "God..."
He was holding an interactive map of the Milky Way.
The realization lingered only briefly before he remembered why he'd opened the application in the first place.
Reluctantly, he collapsed the countless layers of information until the galaxy filled the space above the tablet once more.
His eyes swept across the hologram.
There. A tiny crimson point pulsed gently among the sea of stars.
He selected it.
The hologram smoothly magnified the surrounding region before three names appeared beside the system.
One of them blinked softly.
Jenkins tapped it.
Rather than disappearing, the hologram folded inward, collapsing neatly into the tablet's display until it resembled an ordinary handheld device once again.
A conversation window opened.
The profile image was little more than a black void, dominated by a single unblinking eye that seemed to stare directly back at him.
NULL//04.
Beneath the name, two unread messages waited.
The first transmission expanded.
Another lead identified.
Location attached.
Galactic Coordinates:
Sector: Orion Spur
Reference: Sol System
l: 0°
b: 0°
Distance from Galactic Center: ~26,700 light-years
Jenkins frowned, but before he could dwell on it, the second transmission unfolded beneath the first.
System Scan Report
Aura Persistence:89%
He never left EA003, Yve.
His brow furrowed. He instinctively scrolled upward, hoping to uncover the earlier conversation for context.
Nothing.
The previous entries remained blurred behind an encrypted overlay, each line replaced by indecipherable symbols that refused to yield no matter where he pressed.
"...Encrypted," he muttered.
He leaned back in thought, trying to make sense of what little he'd seen. But none of it meant anything to him.
Another mystery.
He quietly filed it away alongside the countless unanswered questions already occupying his mind.
There was little point dwelling on it. Speculation without evidence accomplished nothing. If he wanted answers, it would be far more productive to ask Yve directly than to waste hours constructing theories.
Besides...
Yve had always been an enigma.
One more mystery hardly changed that.
Jenkins closed the conversation, powered the tablet down, and carefully returned it to the drawer. He slipped the latex gloves back over his hands before pulling the blood vial closer.
"One mystery at a time," he murmured.
~~~
Ysa stared at Yve in complete disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me!" Her voice ricocheted through the ARC's command deck. "You had Maira erase their memories..." Her voice rose another octave. "...without their consent?"
Yve lowered her head. "...Yes."
"Why?" Ysa demanded. "Why would you do that?"
"So they wouldn't be tied to me if I ever got caught."
Silence.
Duncan slowly rubbed a hand over his face. "...The blows just keep coming." He looked at Yve. "What other laws have you broken?"
"Just those."
"Just?" Ysa exclaimed, throwing both hands into the air. "For goodness' sake, Yve!" She dragged a frustrated hand down her face before staring at her sister in utter disbelief. "You can't seriously be this reckless. I refuse to believe you're this reckless."
"It wasn't reckless," Yve answered quietly. "It was carefully calculated."
"For them, maybe." Ysa stepped closer. "But what about you?"
Yve met her eyes. "They're my friends."
"And I'm your sister!" Ysa shot back. "Did you ever stop to think what this would do to us? To our family? To the people who care about you?"
"What was I supposed to do?" Yve's composure finally cracked. "I didn't have time. There wasn't another choice."
"Yes, there was." Ysa's answer came without hesitation. "You let him die."
The command deck fell silent.
"He's human, Yve," she continued, her voice quieter now, but no less firm. "Humans die every single day. That's their biology. That's the course of their lives."
"What kind of friend would I be," Yve asked, "if I turned my back knowing I could save him?"
"You couldn't." Ysa shook her head. "What happened wasn't certainty. It was a gamble. A gamble against fate. A miracle if you want to call it that."
She pointed toward Yve.
"Did you even think about what you've done to him? He'll never be the same again. He'll spend the rest of his life trying to figure out who he is."
Yve didn't flinch. "Isn't that what everyone does?"
Ysa frowned.
"We spend our lives searching for who we are... finding our purpose... trying to become someone we're proud of."
"My heavens..." Ysa whispered, closing her eyes. "There is no arguing with you." She looked back at her sister. "You still don't understand the gravity of what you've done."
"Yes, I do." Yve's voice was barely above a whisper. "I'm just as scared as you are." A pause. "But it's done. Nothing I do will change it now." She swallowed. "And I don't regret saving him."
Duncan sighed. "I agree with Ysa."
Both sisters looked toward him.
"I don't think you've fully grasped the weight of the crime you've committed."
Before Yve could answer, a calm mechanical voice filled the deck.
"Land surface approaching. Estimated arrival: two minutes."
All three instinctively turned toward the forward displays.
The ocean floor was slowly giving way to ascending terrain.
After a long silence, they looked back at one another.
Yve spoke first. "Whatever happens to me..." Her gaze shifted between the two of them. "...stay out of it."
Ysa stared at her, frustration slowly giving way to something far more painful. "I don't understand you." She shook her head. "I don't understand why you're so willing to throw your future away for someone whose entire life will be nothing more than a blink compared to yours."
Yve's answer came immediately. "You keep calling him 'just a human.'" She stepped forward. "Life is life, Ysa." Another step. "Life." A final one. "Is life."
A pause.
"I'm tired of hearing this old galactic nonsense from you."
"Nonsense?" Ysa laughed in disbelief. "It's the accord." She spread her arms. "The very accord that ended centuries of interference." Her eyes locked onto Yve's. "We do not interfere with humanity. Ever."
A long silence settled between them.
The words hung in the air.
Ysa turned away before Yve could answer.
The cabin door hissed open. Without another word, she walked through it, letting it slide shut behind her.
The silence she left behind was somehow louder than the argument itself.
~~~
Using a pipette, Jenkins drew a small sample of Dylan's blood and deposited a single drop onto a clean glass slide. He gently lowered a coverslip over the specimen before placing it beneath the microscope's objective lens.
Taking a slow breath, he adjusted the focus.
It was time to find out what, exactly, was happening inside Dylan Pierce.
Jenkins lowered his eye to the microscope and carefully adjusted the coarse focus before fine-tuning the image with small, practiced turns of the adjustment knob.
The blurred crimson smear gradually resolved into a microscopic landscape of blood cells suspended in plasma.
Erythrocytes drifted naturally past one another, their familiar biconcave shapes intact, while scattered leukocytes and platelets appeared perfectly healthy.
He slowly swept the slide from one end to the other, scrutinizing every section with the patience of someone who had spent years searching for abnormalities invisible to everyone else.
To his disappointment, he found none.
Leaning back, Jenkins reached for his notebook and began jotting down his observations in neat, methodical handwriting.
Cellular morphology within normal limits.
No visible abnormalities.
Cell distribution appears consistent.
No evidence of structural degradation.
He paused, tapping the end of his pen lightly against the page.
At the cellular level, Dylan's blood was remarkably... ordinary.
And that was precisely what bothered him.
Every physical change Dylan had undergone over the past several days suggested that something extraordinary was happening inside his body, yet the blood beneath the microscope offered no obvious explanation.
He glanced toward the vial resting beside the microscope.
Something had caught his attention earlier while drawing the sample.
He remembered noticing it only briefly before dismissing it as a trick of the light. Now that same feeling had returned, quietly tugging at the back of his mind.
Jenkins picked up the vial and slowly rotated it between his fingers, watching the blood cling to the inner wall before settling back into place. He tilted it at another angle, studying the way the liquid reflected the room around him.
Still nothing.
With a thoughtful frown, he absentmindedly raised the vial toward the window, allowing the afternoon sunlight to pass through the dark red sample.
His eyes widened ever so slightly. "...So I wasn't imagining it."
For only an instant, the blood shimmered with an impossibly faint cyan-white luminescence. The glow was so subtle that most people would've dismissed it as nothing more than a trick of the light, but Jenkins had spent decades training himself to notice details others overlooked.
He watched it again, gently rotating the vial through the beam of sunlight until the glow briefly reappeared before vanishing once more.
Setting the vial back onto the table, Jenkins carefully lifted the microscope with both hands and carried it to the opposite end of the workbench where sunlight poured through the window.
Jenkins lowered his eye to the microscope once more and waited.
Seconds passed.
Then...
A faint bluish-white pulse flickered across the field of view, vanishing almost before his mind had time to register it.
Jenkins stiffened. "...What the hell was that?" He leaned closer, refusing to blink.
Twenty-eight seconds...
Twenty-nine...
Then it happened again.
His fingers instinctively reached for the adjustment knob, twisting it until it reached its mechanical limit.
"...Damn it." He sat back with an irritated sigh. "If only I had a Zeiss LSM 980 confocal microscope..." he muttered under his breath.
Instead, all he had was an aging optical microscope salvaged from an abandoned clinic. It simply wasn't built to resolve structures that small.
Jenkins closed his eyes and took a slow, steady breath.
Focus.
Yve's voice echoed faintly in his memory.
Don't fight it. Let your eyes adjust.
He relaxed.
The unfamiliar muscles around his eyes responded instinctively.
When he opened them again, the world appeared subtly different. His pupils had narrowed into thin, predatory slits, and the colors around him seemed richer, more vibrant than before.
He lowered his gaze back to the eyepiece.
Immediately, the image sharpened beyond what the microscope alone should have been capable of revealing.
"...Interesting..."
Each blood cell remained perfectly ordinary in shape.
No structural abnormalities, no foreign bodies, no cellular deformation. Nothing that should have produced the luminescence he'd just observed.
He counted silently. "One... Two... Three..."
Thirty seconds.
The pulse returned.
Jenkins immediately swept the microscope across the slide.
Nothing.
Only healthy blood cells drifting through plasma.
His pulse quickened and he adjusted the focus.
Still nothing.
He shifted the slide.
Again, nothing.
Whatever had produced the pulse had disappeared before he could isolate its source.
After several more minutes of careful observation, he reluctantly leaned back and reached for his notebook.
Transient luminescent event observed.
Approximate interval: 30 ± 2 seconds.
Source undetermined.
Origin unknown.
Jenkins stared at the final sentence for a long moment before underlining the last two words.
Origin unknown.