The storm was at its peak outside, and more and more leaks were revealed in room 5 of the Pearl Motel.

“Test subjects: Binary twins,” reread Malin, stunned.

She put a hand on her forehead and held the files tightly with the other. She couldn’t believe what she had just learned. What kind of twisted mind had been able to come up with something so horrendous! She nearly plopped on the bed to wait for her head to stop spinning around, but she didn’t and laid her leg against the bed’s apex instead.

“According to this, you would be…”

“The Binary-R,” Juzo replied, looking at her with a storm as wild as the one outside hidden behind the serenity in his eyes.

“But… What about those proteins? Have you ever…?” Words stumbled in her mouth. “What if we go to Alps Town? Let’s check the place where they abandoned you and—”

Gently, Juzo took the files from her hands.

“It’d be a waste of time,” he said. “Those people have long since died.”

Malin looked up as if suddenly something had struck her; her light blue eyes wide open.

“Hey,” she said, “didn’t you think this could be a red herring to catch you and your group of Rowdy Ones? Maybe they discovered Rigel has contact with you, and they planned this to get you out of hiding.”

“Malin,” he interrupted her. “No one is really all that interested in me to go this far.”

Malin gave a step back. Yes, Juzo was right.

“What are you gonna do now?” she asked. Then she looked at him disguised as an imperialist soldier, and she knew. “Oh, no. Please, tell me you don’t…”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going into Bellatrix barracks.”

“You know the road is sown with retinal scanners, don’t you?”

“I’ll pass them all.” Juzo was determined. “I’ve got it all set up.”

Officer Liza Grant was sitting in front of her huge monitor, a glass rectangle where data, coordinates, and images appeared drawn with lines of light. A little earlier, she’d gone for a cup of coffee, and every now and then, she’d had a sip.

Even though the storm outside was flogging the region, there, in the depths of the Bellatrix barracks, things predicted a quiet night. And it seemed the other officers she shared the room with seemed to hold that same impression. Even commander Dubhe looked relaxed, sitting in his chair, behind her.

The control room was at peace, with its dim lights on and the glare of the screens reflecting on the operators.

Liza took a sip of her coffee, but a drop slipped off her lips and drew a tiny black spot on her uniform’s lapel. Fortunately, her suit was of a dark green tone, and the stain was almost unnoticeable. Likewise, she covered it with a lock of her long brown hair. That was when she saw her partner leaning her head as if something was bothering her. It was the second time Liza saw her doing that in less than a minute.

“Something wrong?” she asked, whispering; she didn’t want to break the calm.

Claudia Hosse, the officer who occupied the position on her right, looked back at her with a funny gesture.

“I don’t know,” she said and pointed to the readings on her screen. “My instruments registered an electrical surge in the fuse box eight. It should have been fixed automatically, activating box nine, but nothing. And now, the delta sector of the outer antenna circuit is not responding.”

“Perhaps the storm is causing some interference,” ventured Liza Grant, and Claudia responded with the same gesture as before.

“What’s the matter?” the voice of the commander sounded behind them.

Claudia Hosse turned to his commander.

“The delta sector of the outer antenna circuit has stopped working, sir,” she said, knowing her words would remove the veil of tranquility they were having. “The radar in the delta sector is idle.”

Two beeps sounded.

“What?” the commander asked.

“Now, neither the alpha nor the gamma sector is responding, sir,” Claudia said and gulped.

Commander Dubhe stood up; his arms behind his back. He was a man in his fifties who wore an olive-green uniform with elegance: a frock coat buttoned from the neck to the waist, trousers, and shiny leather shoes. On his chest, he had the Imperial Army shield in the form of a medal.

“Officer Hosse, contact Technical Support to repair the malfunction, immediately,” he ordered. “I don’t want any surprises.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dubhe returned to his command chair.

No one suspected that the dim lights of the room would soon become intermittent red lights, and the yells and alarms would supplant serenity.

They were only a few minutes away from falling under the worst attack they’d ever received.

The storm was an unwanted guest demanding to get in, banging on the motel room door, as the wind searched for small holes to sneak in, howling through the window slits. The smell of moisture had clogged the vanilla freshener.

“I’ll enter the Bellatrix base,” Juzo said. “I must get into the Totem’s second hardware.”

Malin held up her hands, calling a truce, no longer trying to persuade him to give up his plan. Objecting to Juzo was useless; it would be an even greater waste of time than trying to reason with the furniture or with the old wrecked car that was dying in the shed outside.

“And what will you do with what you find on that machine?”

“I’ll go to Proxima to find my brother.”

Malin threw a “Huh?” in disbelief. She hadn’t expected such a straight answer.

“Why would you?” she asked. “To reunite with a twin brother that you didn’t even remember having? Since when did you activate your brotherly sentimentality chip?”

“Uri O22 has as much right to know about the project as I do.”

“What kind of right are you talking about, Juzo? The right to drive him mad? Let him live his life in peace. Do you know the impact this will have on his life? Assuming he believes you, that is.”

“What choice do I have, Malin? Cross my arms and pretend this project never existed?”

“Why not? Those who planned it had become the wallpaper of their own lab, five years ago!” Malin pointed out. “Infiltrating Bellatrix is a risky task, not to mention leaving the continent, and for what?” She took a breath, and more calmly, said, “I know it must mean a huge deal for you to have learned of this, I know. But why keep digging into something that’s already been forgotten?”

“Because you don’t build a project like that and forget about it,” Juzo said. “My twin and I are potential living weapons, and I won’t wait for one of those androids or any surviving member of The Order to decide to make use of us.”

“Juzo, you can end up causing what you’re just trying to avoid.”

“Not if I get ahead of them, now that no one knows I’m aware of the project.” Juzo put the files in his backpack. “Bellatrix is not far from here. I’m leaving now.”

“How will you cross the ocean?” she asked, her arms akimbo. “They won’t sell you a plane ticket just because you’re wearing a nice uniform, y’know?”

“In Bellatrix there is an Auriga.”

Damn it! Malin protested. Does he have an answer for everything?

“I know that entering a Lavra Geyser is far from being a pleasant experience,” she said then, with the absurd illusion her partner would rethink his actions. Her heart was beating hard.

“Malin, I’ll go. Like it or not.”

“I know.” She squeezed her lips. There was a lot to think about and little time to act. It was clear he wouldn’t ask her, so it had to be her who say it, “I’ll go with you.”

Juzo stopped, giving her a conflicted and somewhat tender look. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

Malin grabbed him by the hands.

“Juzo, if you asked me to come here, it’s because you want me to go with you.”

“It’ll be dangerous,” he warned her. “What will you do if the imperialists catch us while we’re getting there?”

She shrugged.

“I’ll tell them I regretted having defected,” she said with a smile, “and that you’re my offering to them to be accepted back into service.”

But that slight, pleasant moment was suddenly over when a beep sounded. Someone was calling Juzo’s cell.

“Tell me it’s the motel manager telling you the buffet is open,” she said, any silly joke was better than the truth. That phone number was confidential and few knew about it, a call there meant trouble.

Juzo took his phone out of his pocket. The yellow glowing on the screen announced the call was coming through seven-frequency; Rigel must have reactivated it to communicate with him. Upon answering the call and setting the speaker on, the detective colonel’s voice seemed to jump up from the device.

“Where are you?”

“On my way,” he said.

“The android took the bait!” Rigel interrupted him. “We received the report. A hostile Cyclops attempts to break into Bellatrix.”

Juzo felt an overwhelming heat from head to toe.

“We’ve lost communication with the base,” the detective added. “I tried to contact the task force that was after Broga in the South Canyon, but couldn’t reach them either.”

The call ended.

Juzo and Malin exchanged glances.

Driven by an adrenaline rush, Juzo carried his backpack on his shoulder. He stopped for a moment to caress Malin on the cheek as a farewell, perhaps because something told him he would no longer have time to share an intimate gesture alone with her; then he left the room. The door of that little dump knocked against the wall, dragged by the icy wind coming from outside.

Malin looked out the threshold, saw Juzo running under the storm, heading for the road, and she went after him. She wouldn’t leave him at a time like this, no matter how much her instincts told her they were making a mistake.

“I left my motorcycle hidden among those trees!” he pointed it out.

“In this weather, it’ll be safer to go in my car!” she shouted so that her voice could pierce through the bustle of the storm. “Let’s go!”