Zaira. She was here. Alive! In the flesh. Not dead.

But how?

Eniola recognized Zaira, but there was a world of several differences between the girl in front of her and the version they saw in the video.

She had woven her curly ringlets of hair into thick, long dreadlocks tied into a messy bun on her head. Her vibrant brown skin looked faded and almost had a grey undertone. Her cheeks were high but also looked hollow and sunken. And when she stood up nervously, her clothes hung loosely off her bird-like and skinny body, like maybe even a simple gust of wind might send her tumbling over.

“It’s you,” Eniola stuttered. “You’re Zaira.” So, Eniola was right. Azira was an anagram of Zaira. Eniola celebrated her silent mental victory.

“I’ve concluded that you have all found my message because, without that, you would not be here,” Zaira said. She kept her gaze on the floor as she continued to rock back and forth on the chair. “I am alive. Me. Zaira.”

“Hi,” Theo said nervously. “We’re Rogue.”

“I’ve studied you,” she admitted, looking up for a split second, showing her eyes, carrying shadows underneath them. “You guys are Rogue. Rogue. Rogue. Rogue. Rogue.”

“So, you’re Azira,” Jay said.

“My name is Zaira,” she corrected. “I couldn’t risk myself like that. I had to be anonymous, but I knew if you were smart enough to weaken Paradox, you could find me.”

“So, what about the dreams?” Lucia asked as she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “That is super creepy.”

“I had to be anonymous,” she repeated slowly. “I couldn’t risk myself like that.”

“So, it was your fault?” Lucia sighed in relief. “What happened?”

“I used a device to send simulation atoms to all of your temporal lobes to process them into a dream,” Zaira explained. “It wasn’t actually a dream. It had the same makeup as a virtual parlour, but I did it in a way that it would look like a dream.”

Jay’s eyes widened. “So, you can infiltrate dreams like that?”

“I’ve never done it and I don’t think I want to do it again,” Zaira explained, keeping the same tone. “If it didn’t work, I could’ve possibly given you all permanent brain damage that would severely deter your cognitive ability.”

Eniola’s eyes widened. So that could’ve happened if Zaira failed? A computer. A device could infiltrate people’s dreams and plant messages into them. Eniola was sure she and Jay watched an old movie like that some time ago.

Zaira examined them for a long time. “Don’t be afraid. It was very unlikely.”

Eniola sighed for a bit, but it still scared her.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Lucia began, annoyance coating her voice. “What the hell are we doing here? And what is Enigma?”

Zaira looked down at her neck before she pulled a smooth black pendant to the surface. “This is the computer. It’s the same one Paradox has. When both computers are combined, they create one huge supercomputer called Enigma.”

“What does Enigma do?” Eniola asked.

“Enigma was the last part of my plan,” Zaira said, tapping her foot on the ground. “I was busy making these two computers so that I could combine them to create Enigma. Enigma was supposed to be a self-sufficient AI that would eliminate governments and borders and laws and world problems and replace them with an equal universal system.”

“How?” Eniola asked.

“You would have to activate it, and then it would become self-serving. You could never destroy it,” Zaira explained. “It would begin infiltrating governments before taking power.”

It sounded cool. No human errors in government. However, many things could go wrong with something like that. And Zaira made it all on her own?

“So that’s Enigma?” Jay asked.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “This is one half. But Keone has the other one. But don’t worry. As long as he only has one half, he cannot make Enigma.”

“Could he though?” Theo asked.

“I’m sure he can’t,” Zaira confirmed. “He could do many things, but he cannot make Enigma.”

“How did he even get his hands on it?” Iris asked.

“Let me tell you. It’s an endless story,” Zaira sighed. “I would tell you to sit, but the floor is absolutely disgusting. So just stand comfortably for now.”

“So,” Zaira began, keeping her eye contact with the floor. She didn’t seem to look at them at all. “I began creating Enigma when I started going to Stanford as an astrophysics major. Anyway, I saw the world as a terrible place. People doing bad things, and being people, and just all-around pity. I hated it. What I didn’t hate was astrophysics and learning about the boundaries of space, time, and reality. I had two of these passions, so I combined them. I vowed to make or do something astronomical that could change the current reality of the world.”

“Now we have Enigma,” she continued. “I created it with some classmates. I hacked into my university’s financial database and took some funds out to create an underground lab.”

So that’s what Keone had threatened her for. It was impressive how she put this all together herself. That also made her dangerous.

“We met a girl named Fatima when we went to your lab,” Jay mentioned.

Zaira looked up, but not at anyone. She immediately stood up. “You saw Fatima?”

“Yeah,” Iris said. “She gassed us before tying us up and interrogating us. Nice girl.”

“Fatima is the type of person to act before she thinks,” Zaira defended, with a small smile on her face. “We were great friends. More than friends, but that’s not your business.”

“So then, what happened?” Eniola asked.

“I created the atoms and kept them secret for a long time,” Zaira explained. “Then Keone somehow found out about the lab I kept so secretly underground. He threatened me.”

Eniola thought back to the video clip Vanessa showed them. Theo continued, “He wanted to use them to unite the world under SCOPE and then you disagreed and then he said no. Then he became Paradox.”

“Right!” Zaira exclaimed, still in a monotonous tone. “Anyway, he ended up stealing the computer because someone in my lab sold me out. My lab mate ended up getting killed for information. It was a shame. They were really smart.”

She explained it so casually that it stunned Eniola. “Then I overheard plans that Keone wanted to kill me to get to the other computer, so I did what any other person would do and let it happen.”

Eniola exchanged confused glances with her friends. Yup, they were confused.

“What do you mean?” Iris asked.

“I faked my death using the synthetic atoms,” Zaira explained. “I mirrored myself, then had my likeness walk right into his trap. After that, I went on the run and escaped. It’s a coincidence we were both in Seoul at the same time.”

“Wow,” Jay sighed. “That’s a lot.”

It was. Zaira had been waiting for them for a year. It felt like the balance of nature was off seeing someone who’s technically supposed to be dead, not actually be dead.

“It is,” Zaira breathed. “Those are the most words I’ve spoken to anyone since my fake death. Aside from the stray cats that hang around here.”

“Then what do we do?” Eniola asked. “Keone doesn’t play SCOPE anymore, so he’s not going to be in games like that. We need to take him down from the outside, which is something we can’t do.”

“Wrong,” Zaira told her. “We can do it, but we just need a plan. You guys could beat him the last time, and with me helping you, we have a chance. You and I are going to need all the help we can get, which is why we need to work with each other.”

“Do you expect us to come into this neighbourhood every time we need to talk?” Jay shuddered. “It’s so sketchy. I feel like we’re going to get jumped.”

Zaira shuffled things on her cluttered desk before pulling something out. It’s the same chip her one-time message was on. “This is an old communications chip. These were on phones before they infiltrated the air with electricity. No one uses these anymore, and the only people communicating through them are cyborgs who usually have room for multiple chips.”

Everyone turned to Iris in one swift motion.

“I was already going to do it. No need to have all your eyes on me,” Iris said defensively. Zaira handed Iris the chip.

“I don’t think anyone can track this, so guard this with your life,” Zaira said, before pushing it down into her cybernetic palm.

“What do we do now?” Lucia asked.

“I’ll be talking to you guys soon to make a plan, but you’ve already spent enough time here,” Zaira said, running a hand through her dreadlocks. “Get away from Tokjin and don’t come back here again. You already stand out. You need to continue living life as normal. I’m not going to leave for reasons you guys already know.”

“We will,” Theo agreed.

“Great,” Zaira agreed. “Try to survive on your way back.”