“Blood and guts. Steel and electrons. What’s the difference? Each part is still ‘you’. Meat and metal, they’re one and the same. If you so clearly deny its purpose in the modern world, look around you – see how many more people are getting subdermal plating, eye implants, tendon reinforcements, artificial digestive systems, enhanced neural lining. It’s all there. Why worry? The future is dark, and we must be ready. Death will strike, but we will strike first. Fathers, mothers, for the sake of your children, I ask of you to disregard your weakness for a brighter future. On wings of wax and feathers, we must discard our past to ascend higher. Don’t reject yourself. Be free, little one. Be free. The truth will give you liberty.” – Wulcin Nakoyama, Ex-Dragon Guard Chief, 2262. Context unknown, requires further examination. Name does not appear on internal register. How did this get in our system? Some sort of error? Sayner, look into this, please.

  Chel-Lin Daksira, unworthy of her family name, was lower than the most worthless strata of the Heralds. Lower than a human, lower than the slime at the bottom of Kraesa’s waste disposal. Dragging herself through the halls of Nucleus Two, she didn’t want to be anywhere, to be anything. She was alone, in every sense of the word. Night had fallen on Kral-Thul as the group returned back to the facility, dispersing to their regular spots. Savage had thankfully given her some unearned respite from his usual verbal jabs, especially considering how thoroughly she had overpowered his attempts at superiority. Perhaps she deserved the woes he had inflicted upon her so far. Chel-Lin considered returning to her living quarters, but found meditation nor distraction through entertainment a futile endeavour. In fact, staring at her bland room would only bring on further thoughts of her worthlessness.

  As a Tylas, she was a true disgrace. By joining the humans in their trip today, she had not only affected her own reputation within the spires of Urestior, but those of her father and her father’s political allies as well. Chel-Lin knew it was not her team members’ fault; the shame laid with her. A look into the laboratory only brought on further disgust at herself. Before arrival, she was certain that she would crack the mysteries behind the inexplicable nature of the human Schr?dinger-Drive, no matter what. Her cover project of an alternative QIS stabilizing liquid in the form of gel-like beads that surrounded the user would have given her access to the device itself, whilst producing results that wouldn’t ‘rock the boat’ as Mr Valentari had put it. But where had she gotten to so far? Nowhere. She had repeatedly procrastinated with the request for the required materials from Dr Rannos for fear that she would draw further attention to herself.

  And that had led her to the human room for food preparation and consumption. Though there was a vast food hall closer to the centre of the wing, she was soothed by the smaller space of the kitchen closer to the laboratories. The break room was obviously not designed with full meal preparation in mind; the lack of appliances and ventilation made that clear. No, this was meant as a stopping point for the humans to eat before returning to work.

  Returning to work… The idea made Chel-Lin feel agitated. How could she face her father again after that conversation? The one hope that had driven her to continuously aim for success over and over was the faint light in the darkness that would have been her mother’s return. It was no secret that Kar-Tine, her father, and her mother’s brief communion resulting in herself was purely for political reasons. However, despite how pointless the dream had been, she wished over and over, night after night, that her mother would come to see her. And when she did, Chel-Lin would make her proud – not just as the child of a Daksira, but by her own successes.

  But the dream was dead. Gone to the wind. The only path her father had left for her was to abandon all hope of the Interspecies Galactic Symposium succeeding, to give in to the apathy of a mock display of science for Lucian, and to return to Kar-Trine’s control once more. Why had life cast her fortunes in such a vile way? To give her everything she could have wanted, even if it was just for a moment, before taking them away.

  Perhaps it was best to abandon the endeavour whilst ahead. To bow out of the IGS, to let her team take the lead, would be the most honourable thing she could hope for. If only she could find the stre-

  “Ah, hello jellyfish. Good to see you,” Elias said, entering the room with his usual hunched form. Hands in his pockets, scratched lens hiding his clear, icy eyes, and wavy golden hair cascading across his face. Barald save her, she detested the way he acted feeble just for the sake of annoying those around him.

  She was in no mood to see him. In the early days, the cold tension between the two had been high strung, but manageable. Chel-Lin may not have expected the best from humanity, but Elias had truly tested her patience early on. And yet, barely a few weeks into the project, the two had cut that tension down to a warm bickering. Now, all she could see in his usual smirk was a sign of all the failures she had mounted so far. Instead of responding, she just lowered her head to the table she had slumped over, scarves spread out across the vinyl tablecloth.

  The insufferable ape sauntered further into the kitchen, stopping at a glass device filled with dark brown liquid. Activating it and placing a mug underneath, he turned to look at Chel-Lin.

  “So, how are you doing? After all that, you know, ‘Daddy Kar-Trine told me off, boo hoo’ conversation you had?”

  What? That bastard! That complete and utter bastard! Chel-Lin flared her mantle, misery shifted into anger, rising upwards and approaching over the son-of-a-low-stratum-whore.

  “You eavesdropped on me?” Her translator buzzed with fury. “When I was in private?”

  How dare she think that the lower lifeform was ever good enough to work with. As hypocritical as it was, the idea to animalistically strangle the hairy ape was at the forefront of her mind. Not only was she at her lowest, her spirits utterly crushed, but the beast she once considered something almost close to a friend, the first friend she would have ever had, had intruded on her privacy. Now, he was prepared to belittle and demean her. No, she would make the first move against the infuriating, uncaring, waste of space of a man. Regardless of how it made her look, how uncivilized it was, rage had filled her core. She had nothing left to give to the world.

  However, before she could even move an inch, the machine Elias had been waiting for clicked, depositing its liquid load into the mug. If he was worried about the change in her demeanour, his expression didn’t show it. Straightening his posture and sweeping his hair from his face, giving a far more presentable look, he cleared his throat.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I was four when my father found me doing mathematical derivatives in my colouring book,” he said.

  What on Kraesa was he going on about? Colouring books?

  “Nobody could make sense of what I was doing until my father’s assistant figured out what the hell I was doodling. Couse, I didn’t even know numbers at the time, but had the process down. Even had my own little gibberish algebraic language.”

  He took a sip of the drink and immediately screwed his face in disgust.

  “Jesus that’s terrible, almost tastes like gasoline. Anyways, my mother was already dead by that point, so my dad had all the authority to send me to a special education centre. Believe me, they didn’t take it any easier on me for being the youngest kid there. Hell, I think they pushed me to my absolute limits because they saw a little shit doing ten times the work others could.”

  Chel-Lin didn’t say a word, but kept her outer cape flared. She focused her eyes on his. Elias was looking off into an invisible distance, some million miles away with a faint smile on his lips.

  “It was absolutely hell – I didn’t see the outside of that place until I was ten. Dad saw me twice in there, once to say I wasn’t doing good enough, and the second time to put me to work with GaltCorp.” Despite his previous reaction, he went for another sip of the coffee, only resulting in a mild grimace that time. “I was eleven when I got my dual bachelor degrees. Went straight into my postgrads right after, no time to waste. Soon as I got my first PhD, father took me to work in the best of the best Galant Corporation labs there were.”

  “Savage, what exactly are you trying to say?” Chel-Lin said, an edge of irritation creeping in.

  “The point is, Daksi- no, Chel-Lin. The point is, is that I went through something not quite so different than you, based on what I picked up earlier.”

  “So? You want to rub it in my face? Prove to me that you are the better one? Well congratulations. You win.”

  “No,” Elias stated firmly. He leant away from the counter, placing the mug down, and walked towards her until he was face to face with her. She only then noticed that she had floated downwards to match his height until they were at eye level.

  “I’m trying to say I know what it feels like – the pressure and the burden of those above you. When they keep going on and on about you’re not doing good enough, but the failure would be on them if you stumbled. The look in their eyes, whenever they see you, that makes you feel lower than dirt. I’ve gone through it all, Chel-Lin. I’m not mocking you - I’m sympathising with you. Maybe I’m in no position to talk, as just a dumb animal from another part of the galaxy, but I want to try at least. And you know what? Trying is the best thing I can do. Hell, it’s the only thing I can do. It’s better to try and fail than to never attempt something at all. Does that sound a bit stupid? Yes, no doubt. But that is that idea one I can accept? Of course.”

  Silence took the room for a moment. Chel-Lin soaked in his words. She didn’t see the annoying alien she had been forced to work with over the past few weeks, loudly playing with his documents or dropping his chalk. She saw a man who was once a scared boy, doing his best despite it all.

  “I think there’s something you’re wrong about, Savage,” she eventually said.

  “Oh? And what might that be?”

  “There’s plenty more stupidity in you than just your outlook. Look at the way you dress for example.”

  Elias looked down at his tatty clothes and ridiculously damaged glasses. With a chuckle, he took them off to inspect them. He breathed on the lens and rubbed them with his shirt, as if that would remove the deep scratches on them.

  “Yes, I suppose so. Guess that makes me a well and proper dumbass then, doesn’t it? But even so, I’m happy with being the best dumbass around.”

  Chel-Lin felt the warmth of something resembling happiness fill her. She wasn’t exactly the most joyful of Barald’s Heralds at that moment, but the talk had helped. Even… No, especially if Elias was a dumbass.

  “The most important thing, Chel-Lin, is that you’re doing what you do for a reason that is important to yourself. Not for Lucian or Rannos, not for this stupid conference to succeed, and definitely not for your father. If you are happy with your work, then nothing else matters.”

  “Hmm. But what if things go poorly? What if my father and his allies are dragged down because of my actions?”

  “Chel-Lin, believe me, if a bunch of politicians have their careers go down the drain because of one scientist tangentially related to them, then that’s on them. They’re either bad at diversifying their efforts and have put all their eggs in one basket, or have such little faith in their own skills that they’re relying on others anyways. If they fail, Daksira, it won’t be because of you, alright? Some people can’t help but fail.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “What, you think all I can do is fail?”

  “Wha- no! Sorry, what I meant to say is, have others been brought down because of you?”

  “Kind of. I’ve messed up in the past, I’ll admit that. Not usually because of my work, but the things I did outside of it. Admittedly, most of it was to piss off my father, but that’s neither here nor there. And sure, the first time those things did happen, I felt the world was about to crumble. But… it didn’t and life went on. At most, people shrugged and kept doing what people do best.”

  “What might that be?” Chel-Lin asked.

  “Looking out for numero uno. If people are always going to be looking out for themselves, you should try it too. Of course, when things go wrong for humans, we also rely on getting drunk, screaming, crying, and trying to copulate with the nearest thing to them. Not necessarily in that order.”

  A laugh slipped from Chel-Lin at the mental image of a city full of humans freaking out. Hearing someone else motivate her, stupid as was coming from Savage, did help. It was as if the weight that had been building on her shoulders had been alleviated, if only a bit.

  “And hey, look at it this way – either the IGS goes well and you will have a place back in the CCH with little old me, or it’s going to go up in flames, and daddy dearest will be proud of you, and you’ll have a spot with him. Honestly, it’s a win, win for you.”

  Chel-Lin appraised Elias for a moment. “Savage, was that an invitation back home with you? And before we’ve even finished a project together? I’ll have you know I am a devout follower of Barald, practically one of your nuns! Taking me home before finishing our first research project – you lecherous beast!” She let out a giggle.

  Elias laughed along. “Yeah, well, bite me. Guess that’s the primate in me coming out. Brash and dumb as usual. But seriously, are you feeling better?”

  “Yes, I think so. I didn’t think that would have been possible right now, but I suppose I needed a bit of help from my favourite, lab coat-wearing monkey. Thank you… Elias.”

  “What for? I just wanted some coffee.” He seemed to make a move towards the coffee machine before halting his movement. Upon closer inspection, he looked at the flaccid label placed onto the device’s chassis - ‘Mr Caffeine’. Considering the apparent quality of the drink, GaltCorp must have picked it up from a junk seller. Elias turned away from the device.

  “So no, don’t thank me. If want to thank the one who gave me the pep talks when I was in a situation like yours, then thank my Uncle Samson.”

  Elias began to walk out. As he passed, he cautiously rested a hand on the shoulder of her cape. Initially, he flinched as she reactively started absorbing the thermal energy within his digits, but quickly stopped herself. His hand relaxing, he looked down at her as he gave a light pet.

  “Things will get better. I promise. If I can do anything to help, let me know. Goodnight, Chel-Lin.” He walked away.

  He was halfway through the door, humming a tune she didn’t recognise, when Chel-Lin spoke up.

  “Elias, wait!” she cried out. He raised an eyebrow. “Can I meet this Samson at the IGS? Is he coming?”

  Elias’ expression fell. “I wish… but no. He’s gone. For good. He’s with the stars.”

  And with that, her scruffy scientist partner was gone, disappearing into the night.