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Chapter 116: VOLUME\'S 2 PROLOGUE - PART 1

At least not by someone with a beating heart.

She shot a disdainful glance to her side. A teen was lying on an operating table, the left side of her head wide open, while a 12-inch automaton was performing--an improvised--surgery on her. Another human-sized robot stood still, confined to a corner without making a single sound.

The woman checked the hour on her watch. Her left wrist was also sporting two white wristbands with the Alvearium logo on them. Ten minutes had already passed since the operation had started.

She let out a loud snicker, wishing someone could ask her what was on her mind. But out of the other three, one was too sedated to pay her any attention, another was busy performing surgery, and the third was deactivated, its white head pointing at the wall in front of it.

"Status," she asked aloud.

"Her condition is stable," the small automaton replied in a barely audible electronic voice. "Nine minutes remaining. Approximately."

Great... the woman wearing a lab coat thought bitterly while cursing her luck for the 300th damn time. \'Why have things turned out that way?\' That\'s the question that refused to let go.

Everything was sailing smoothly, bloody smoothly! That was until five hours ago when she decided to check the current log of passengers of The Neo Pinta. She even questioned herself why she was doing it. She was not the kind of person to second guess, and yet, she logged into her account and looked for a specific name.

And what she found disgusted her.

Never, in her thirty-six years of life, had she felt that sick... That angry... That BLOODY livid. She couldn\'t believe it. She jumped out of her chair, prompting it to fall backward, and started going in circles inside her room, all while shaking her head until it hurt like a bitch. "This is impossible! No way in hell this happened! I refuse to believe it! No fucking way!"

She even returned to her desk and started smashing the keyboard until the majority of the keys were sent flying. Fortunately, the computer screen was still intact and kept displaying an internal report:

Incident Report - Brooke Reynolds

Summary: At 03:03 am on February 17, personnel were dispatched by VICTORIA to check on Brooke Reynolds after his security wristband failed to transmit vital signs. Upon investigation, Brooke Reynolds\' lifeless body was discovered in the boys\' bathroom located in aisle 2, hallway C. The cause of death was identified as asphyxiation by his own belt. The incident is currently classified as an apparent suicide, and no suspects have been identified. Further investigation is underway.

Of course, it was fucking suicide! There\'s no reason to target Brooke in a 24/7 monitored facility like that! He was the perfect nobody! A perfect no one! Goddammit, Brooke! Oh, I\'d give anything to have him in front of me for at least one minute and ask him: \'What the bloody hell broke you? What\'s your genius reason to do something as stupid as taking your own--?!\'

The woman interrupted her line of thought while chuckling. Wait... \'What broke you?\' Ha! \'What BROKE you, Brooke?\'

She couldn\'t help but burst out laughing. This has been the most stressful day of my life,

The failure named Brooke Reynolds made her recall the other subject. The one that--theoretically--had succeeded.

As the small automaton surgeon finished its work, the woman revisited a memory from three days ago. The memory of the last conversation she would ever have with her last disciple.

It happened through a video phone call. The last call the Tandem designated to board the Santa María could make before parting to space.

As the encrypted signal connected them, she expected to see his disappointed expression and gloomy attitude just like the last time they met... She was even prepared to hear his complaints one more time if that helped him calm down and board that damn ship. But moments later, what she found instead was a wide smile on his lips and a glimmer in his eyes that could only mean one thing: He met someone... Huh.

He never mentioned it, but she could tell. There was no longer a trace of apathy in his voice, nor resentment against Alvearium\'s board of directors. Only a peace that he could find only by hanging out with others his age.

The only thought running through her mind during that call was: \'He really resembles his father... What a pity.\'

"How are you feeling lately?" she finally asked once he shut up for a moment. "How\'s the migraine?"

"Long gone!" Her disciple beamed, knocking the left side of his head. "I can\'t even remember when was the last time I had one."

"Good," she said, smiling mildly as she extinguished her cigarette. "That means your body has finally adapted and healed."

He nodded and looked down, his mouth locked in a grimace. She already knew what he would say next.

"All thanks to you, teacher..."

She shrugged. "Why? I wasn\'t the one holding the scalpel."

"You know what I mean," he continued, looking at the camera. "If you hadn\'t adopted us, things would\'ve gone quite differently. For the worse. I\'m sure."

\'Adopted\', she thought. Is that how you see it?

"Don\'t mention it," she replied dryly.

The young man turned emotional immediately and began speaking in a broken voice, "E-Even though I couldn\'t make it as part of the ship\'s working crew--the mere fact that I could become a passenger--it\'s all thanks to you!"

"I\'m not as cool as you make it sound," she murmured, averting her eyes. "I\'m a failure too, remember? I couldn\'t save her. If only you could board that ship alongside Alison..."

Her gaze returned to the video call, catching the exact moment his whole persona faltered.

"I..." he muttered, head down. "I also wish she could accompany me."

"In another life, perhaps. In another reality... In another timeline. But in this one, survive for her, okay?"

"I will."

She half-smiled for a brief moment. "Look at the timer. The call is almost done. This is goodbye then. Just one last thing." The woman then took a moment of silence, waiting for him to lock eyes with hers. Though more than a hundred miles separated them, both felt they were chatting in the same room. Even if only for a couple of seconds. "Go, and fulfill my dream in my stead, kid."

The young man gave her a funny look. "S-Sure. But you\'ve never talked to me about it. What is it?"

"You\'ll find out one day." She smirked.

Before he could bicker about it, the call got automatically disconnected, showing only the Alvearium Enterprise logo spinning.

Yes, she thought, watching the white ceiling above. No pressure...

"The operation has been a success, ma\'am," the little automaton said, its metal appendages looking bloodied.

The woman got closer and crouched to take a better look. An almost undetectable scar crossed the top left side of the teen\'s head.

"This girl will be subjected to a physical scan before getting plugged. Would that machine detect anything?"

"I presume the scan will be superficial," the automaton replied, while changing the tools attached to its arms. "It will probably only check for her heart rate and blood pressure initially. By the time the scanner detects this new cauterization, it\'ll be too late."

"I fucking hope so," the woman muttered, picking a strand of hair out of the girl\'s head. She then reached out to grab a nearby briefcase where hair extensions were waiting inside. She offered the original strand of hair to a small compartment that quickly snatched it, and the extensions began changing their hue and shape before her eyes. When the process was finished, she took the resulting product with extreme care. "Here. Do it."

The automaton accepted the freshly fake, curly brunette hair and began injecting it into the girl\'s scalp, patching and hiding any evidence of a recent surgery. With the help of scissors, the woman finally cut the excess fake hair until it matched the real length.

"We\'re done."

"Understood," the automaton said, becoming rigid like a toy. "It was a pleasure serving you."

The woman pulled out a spray can and two cylinders reminiscent of pens from a backpack before putting the little robot inside it.

"Whatever," she said quietly, placing the backpack along with the briefcase in a corner of the room. She then sprayed them, and the luggage began to chemically dissolve until only an unrecognizable paste of melted metal remained. She used an empty box to hide that waste and turned toward the operating table.

"Now," she whispered, holding the cylinder with a red painted mark on it and stuck it against the girl\'s neck. With the push of a button, she injected something into her veins that caused an instantaneous reaction.

The girl sprang violently, gasping, eyes wide open. She almost fell off the table, but the woman held her by the shoulders.

"It\'s okay, it\'s okay. We\'ve finished. Everything went smoothly."

"Did it?" the girl asked, squinting, as she watched the woman deactivate one of the bracelets on her left wrist. "Shouldn\'t you have done that the exact moment I woke up?"

"There\'s a five-second window between updates," the woman replied, mustering her patience. "Check if yours is online again."

The girl snickered and did as she was told, verifying that hers had a little green dot turned on. "All good."

"Get up and go then," the woman said gruffly as she pulled out a cigarette, but the girl kept staring at her, frowning. "What is it now?"

"Aren\'t you going to share with me what you did to fix the problem? Why couldn\'t I upload the data to my node? Did you install a faulty Neuro-Sync on me?" After finishing talking, the eighteen-year-old winced in apparent pain, closing her eyes and tilting her head to her left side.

The woman in front of her sighed. "I think you already know why. Your body is incompatible with the Sync."

"Bullshit," the girl said, grimacing. She then jumped out of the operating table and stretched out her hand forward. "Give it to me. I\'ll show you."

"Now? There\'s still one hour left. Why don\'t you rest a--?"

"You\'ve already fixed the issue, haven\'t you?! Besides, shouldn\'t you make sure I can be the fucking host before it\'s too late? Or what? Do you still want to leave your precious dream on chance?"

Without taking her eyes off the teen for a single moment, the woman pulled out a pink video game pocket console from her coat and handed it over. The girl snatched it, turned it on, stared at its screen for a moment, and then held it aloft against her left ear.

Although the woman\'s expression looked calm and indifferent, she was secretly holding her breath.

Stupid brat. Do you think I still have the time to prepare another host? Don\'t be ridiculous.

The woman raised her cigarette, her hand slightly shaking, and took a deep puff.

After 15 long, excruciating seconds, the girl threw the pocket device at the woman\'s feet. "There! It worked. A perfect upload!"

Yes, it worked. Even if her body does its best to get rid of the thing and it\'s only functional for 24 hours, that\'ll do.

As the girl turned around and walked toward the automaton, standing still in a corner, the woman caught a glimpse of her tilting her head again.

"Before you do that, tell me something first," the woman started, giving the last puff. "You were the last one to talk to Brooke, weren\'t you? Don\'t you have something to inform me? Did you notice something strange about his behavior?"

"Who the fuck knows," the girl replied, showing her teeth with a grimace. "Nothing worth mentioning. He was never good at small talk anyway. So..."

"Oh, I see! So he decided to \'run away\' at the last minute, huh? Or were you too stupid to notice any sign of hesitation during his last days?"

The teenager\'s cheeks turned bright red. "Hey, don\'t take it out on me! I came here, didn\'t I?! I could\'ve said, \'screw that bitch\', but I didn\'t! I even let your stupid electronic dildo mess with my head to save your sorry ass! So don\'t mess with me!"

The woman exhaled smoke in the teen\'s direction. "This is the last time we\'ll ever talk..."

"Thank god!"

"So be honest with me one final time. Did you kill him?"

The teen\'s tense posture seemed to relax in the blink of an eye. She tilted her head to the left, as if she was enduring an annoying buzz inside her ear, and formed a mild smile on her lips. "What are you saying? That I was so jealous of him for being the trigger, that I brought him to a secluded place and choked him to death? And with his own belt?! HA! You\'re too imaginative, teacher, as always!"

The woman clenched her teeth. She could picture the crime perfectly: A scene starring this teen seducing Brooke into a false sense of security before strangling him. She then tried to connect her Neuro-Sync with Brooke\'s and failed, so she had no other choice but to retrieve the code.

The woman reached down to grab the pink video game console and sighed. Meanwhile, the teen reached out to the automaton\'s nape from where she disconnected a small white device that she then threw in the woman\'s direction. After the adult caught it and hid it from view, the service robot came back to life in an instant and turned around, focusing primarily on the teen.

"All done, Miss Harper. You seem to be in full health," the service robot said.

"Yes!" the teen beamed. "It\'s a good thing that it was only a slight dizziness. Well, if you excuse me..."

"Wait," the woman said aloud, pulling out a small cylinder with a blue mark on it. "This is for your migraine."

The teen looked at it with disgust. "I don\'t need it."

"I\'m afraid I have to insist too, Ms. Harper," the automaton added, stepping forward. "Take the medication that Doctor Shields is offering you, please."

"Or what, I won\'t be able to leave?" the teen said, sneering. But one last glance into her teacher\'s eyes made her look away. "Fine."

The woman proceeded with the injection and, with a smile, said, "You\'re good to go, Ms. Harper. And I salute you, Tandem. May you and your generation reach the stars."

"For humanity\'s sake, huh?" the teen snickered before getting out of there.

"Anything else I can do for you, Doctor Shields?" the automaton asked, scanning the room.

"No. I\'ll clean. I\'m sure Victoria needs you more than I."

With a slight bow proper of a refined butler, the automaton exited the room too. The woman did as well after waiting a minute inside and locking the door.

All done... Without any more eventualities, I hope, she thought, dragging her feet all the way to her room.

The hallways of aisle A were quieter since all of her working colleagues were somewhere else, doing their final best so that humanity\'s second spaceship could be launched without issue.

She took a shower in complete silence, no classical music this time in the background. Then, after drying her hair, she decided to wear civilian clothes: A green plaid shirt, Chelsea boots, and denim jeans. Now, one last thing.

She grabbed her old lab coat and spread it over her working desk, then used her melting spray and applied it all over it. The cloth dissolved with ease, and the chemical continued its reaction until breaking the desk in half. Her computer died too from the falling, but that was okay.

My job here is done, anyways.