Take Me to the Sky | BTS+

The DNA Dilemma

"Oh, Joonie.... You should have waited for my help."

Chim sighed and shook his head slowly as he stood in the entryway to Noon Mool's control room. His glittering silver jacket flickered with hints of red and green lights, reflecting the warning signals that were flashing angrily therein.

"OUCH!"

Joon popped his white-haired head up from behind a curved control panel desk and got to his feet. He was sucking on an injured thumb and squinting his eyes in discomfort.

Chim's narrow eyes glanced over to the largest of a series of transparent monitor screens hanging about the room. Red and green lines were twitching across the clear surface like a radio picking up static.

Chim walked across the expansive control room, down one layer of control panels, then down a step onto another, and then down a final step to where Joon stood. Chim took in the otherwise empty control room with his hands on his hips, noticing half-pushed-in chairs, someones bag of crisps lying open next to their personal monitor screen, and even a pair of shoes someone had left near the doorway at random.

The overhead light flickered a moment, and Joon's hands found his forehead. He groaned.

"You sent everyone on a lunch break?" Chimin asked.

"Yes."

"So they wouldn't see you fail miserably at doing your own IT work?" Chim couldn't hide the laugh in his voice.

"Yes."

Oh, the sound of defeat. Chim beamed as he bent underneath the table and and proceeded to rearrange a few wires that Joon had definitely crossed. When he peaked over the control table to check the results of his handiwork, the monitor screens were completely clear. No flickering lights or static-filled screens.

"Show off," Joon grumbled.

Chimin folded his arms and gave a self-satisfied shrug.

Joon sat into a cushy chair and started tapping his right handed fingers onto a small, unmarked sensor pad the size of his palm.

A series of blueprints appeared on the main display monitor. Joon flicked his hand once, twice, three times against the pad—and then three of the top blueprints each shot to their own individual screens within the room, magnified.

On a fourth screen, there was a diagram displaying different percentages in a circular chart. The title read Mysterium Inventory Check. Two-thirds of the diagram were marked out in grey, with the remaining third glistening an aqua blue to represent that portion of inventory that still remained.

Like the oil of Earth, Mysterium was an essential element to life in Era. It was that substance that fueled and enabled the energy in distinct items of magical-technology, like Jin's rune pen. It was a highly precious commodity, and one that was essential in sustaining the people of Noon Mool well.

All known Mysterium reserves in the galaxy had already been claimed by specific fortresses. Noon Mool, unfortunately, was not one of them. This meant that it was always their highest priority import to obtain.

Noon Mool had bolstered itself as a formidable fortress through it's mastery of military maneuvers, defense systems, and amicable diplomacy--not through leveraging it's Mysterium reserves, like some other fortresses had done.

"So Chim, I've run the numbers at least a hundred times," Joon explained, his arms folded now as he leaned back into his chair. "Last week's Mysterium shipment definitely came in. It also definitely isn't in our reserves vault."

Chim's eyes were now piercing and focused as he studied the screens, his toe tapping as he thought.

Joon went on, "Obviously Yoongi and Hoseok are behind this. The Mysterium was in the cargo bay, waiting to be unloaded and stored the day that those two went rogue, so they had to have taken it." Joon's hands gripped the back of his neck and massaged the tension there as he went on, "But the cases had their security seals still intact. I know that for a fact, because I didn't touch them yet.  And there's no way that just anyone could have moved them without the cases self-destructing... because the security seals only disarm in response to my DNA!"

Somewhere during Joon's speech, Chim's tapping toe froze.

"How could this happen, Chim? You gotta know."

Silence.

"Chimin?"

Chim's face was solid dread. "I...I'm sorry, but I know how they stole the cargo."

"How?"

"Because...I had just upgraded the security systems last week. I reprogramed the Mysterium cases to respond to Yoongi's DNA as well as yours. I did it because he asked me to, before the shuttle accident... before things got weird. He kept complaining about inefficiency. He had the stats and everything. And it was Yoongi, so obviously I didn't...I didn't even hesitate, I just did what he asked. I upgraded the security cartridges myself."

"WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU CONSULT ME FIRST?!"

"Because I didn't think it was necessary! At the time it...it wasn't. Because we were still all on the same side...." Chim heaved a heavy sigh, his nostrils flaring as he felt the tug of tears trying to work their way up out of him.

Joon sighed too, his voice and shoulders heavy with disappointment, but he stood up and slapped a comforting hand on Chim's shoulder anyway.

Chim went on, his voice cracking, "I just never would have thought that...we would be betrayed...by some of our very best friends...."

Then the floodgates burst. Chim's chest heaved through his tears as he held his golden head of hair in his hands.

Joon leaned in and patted Chim's shoulder over and over.

"None of us could have foreseen any of this, Chiminie. The accident. That Hoseok and Yoongi could ever betray us like this. ...No one could have known it would happen this way. It's not your fault."

There was a flicker of light and a zing of sound from the control panel in front of Chim. On the second screen, a BLIP of black color swallowed up the blueprint that showed there, and in it's place a tiny video played across the glass. The camera angle was low, so that the face on the screen appeared to have a larger nose and a broader chin than they did in real life, but the audio quality was clear as day.

"Jungkook reporting! Hey! Chiminie, I followed the coordinates you drew up. You were right, there was a weird gravitational pull around one of these smaller Crux galaxy stars. My readings from the air look promising, so I'm going in for a landing to see what natural goodies await. Wish me luck! Jungkook out." His boyish face beamed down at the screen as his hand reached forward, flicked a switch, and then the video message BLIPPED off of the screen, the blueprint coming back into focus once again.

Chim's face shifted dramatically from grief to joy. He leapt into the air, then hugged Joon excitedly while bouncing up and down slightly, as leader Joon stood still as a statue with his face fixed with confusion.

"Uh...."

"Joonie, we may have just hit the jackpot!"