— Rio —
Keep your distance. Don't approach him. Ignore his wounds.
His orders were simple; still, Jackal's office was so silent and everything was so still inside it, that when his gaze crossed Toni's, Rio almost ignored them and barged in to take care of him.
Sissy was working on her gem grinder to the left, and Modraniht jotted down notes on a plexiglass board. Fortunately for Rio, before he could step inside, Jackal sighed and took a loud step into his field of view. Rio froze and reeled back, his eyes widened and his heart racing. He hugged the briefcase in his arms and pressed his back harder against the wall.
With a hum, Jackal stopped in front of the three massive plexiglass boards filled to the brim with notes and diagrams written in rushed calligraphy. She tilted her head this way and that, then let out another sigh and continued walking. Rio peeked through the door's dirty, narrow glass window.
"What are you trying to say, exactly?" She stopped and pivoted around to face Modraniht. "What do their genes have to do with all this? All I want is to understand why Léon's powers feel so wildly different from Antônio's and see if we can draw some conclusions from that."
Before answering, Modraniht put the lid of his pen back on and took a deep breath. "Do you know where power traces come from, Connie?"
Rio almost liked to see his team working. Jackal had always been a great boss, an even better colleague, and in the beginning, Rio loved being beside such an interested and inquisitive mind. Still, as the months, then years passed, something about her changed.
Jackal rolled her eyes like a teen listening to their strict parent. "Of course I do, Yule. Power traces come from the ancient derelicts that reappeared when the polar ice caps melted; the bacteria changed our DNA and caused all this." She outstretched her arms as if to show her surroundings; Rio thought that maybe she was showing herself too—and everything she had done...
Which, considering everything Rio had seen in their six years working together, was a lot.
Modraniht nodded. "You also know that the first thing that happened when we started to change was—"
"Yes. The personality enhancement. Then the stress, the steep increase in production of mood stabilizers, the pharmaceutical cold war, yeah yeah yeah." She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as if to say, is that all? "Your salary comes from that money, you know. Thank my father for that."
"Right. Maybe I will," Modraniht said in a strained voice. "What I'm saying is that, ultimately, the frozen derelicts not only changed our DNA. When they interacted and eventually merged with our genes, they were also changed by them, which explains the different power traces. These powers aren't given by chance; they're an expression of how our genetic code was written and, at the same time, they respond to very complex colonial patterns."
"Wait." Jackal perked up. "So our powers can... somehow communicate with each other? Like... like intuitive communication? Body Language, all that shit?"
"I wouldn't go as far as calling it communication," Sissy said in a distracted tone. She flipped a few switches and pressed a couple of buttons in the grinder's panel. "They must use it mainly to establish some sort of stability. Like limiting the number of cosmic trace wielders, for instance. Nature is always trying to achieve balance, after all."
"Balance is overrated." Jackal huffed.
Sissy scoffed; Modraniht shook his head.
"As I was saying, if there's anything that could make such a drastic difference in how the cosmic trace behaved during your"—Modraniht's voice hardened—"compulsory testing, it's got to be the gene variations and how they affect power traces."
Rio lowered his gaze. Once, long ago, Iara had said something about the different groups of cosmic trace wielders, right? What was it again? Something about how they can use their powers?
"So what you mean is that... not even the same power traces are entirely equal," Jackal said in a low voice.
Modraniht nodded and got up from his chair. "Which is understandable, considering not two DNA sequences are the same. Like our personality, though, I suspect that only around 40% of the differences between power traces is determined by our genes." He offered Jackal a plastipaper folder; his chubby fingers opened and closed at his side as if he tried to calm down.
"Hum. Interesting for sure, Doctor." Jackal fitted a hand into her pocket and nodded while skimming over his notes. With a sigh, she tossed the folder on the desk. "How does that help us find a way to stabilize our serum?"
"Well." Sissy stepped away from the gem grinder and lifted a test tube against the light. The purple powder inside it glimmered. "We can start by synthesizing a new batch of it. Here, you'll need this."
"Thank you, Sissy." Jackal held the tube and slipped it into her pocket. "If nothing else, whether this works or not, at least I'll have Caetano out of my hair. Continue, Doctor."
"Well," Modraniht said. "30 years is not enough to fully understand our powers, but, as a molecular biologist, I believe the answer for what you want is microscopic and right in front of our eyes, Connie. You tried to understand how cosmic trace wielders control the flow of cosmic energy and, ultimately, Life Force itself. But you're not taking into consideration—"
Jackal's eyes widened as she faced the plexiglass again. "That every cosmic trace wielder has a specialty, because not even their power is the same among themselves."
Oh, Rio was sure now. Iara definitely had said something about the flow of cosmic energy. Something about how Toni treated his powers and how Rafaela used to do it.
"Correct, Connie," Modraniht murmured, gesturing towards one of the graphs on the plexiglass. "What's more, these... pocket dimensions have a close relationship with what you saw happening with Antônio."
"Any idea of what kind of relationship we're dealing with here?" Jackal furrowed her brows. "Sissy?"
She hummed and sat down on her stool again. Sissy shrugged. "Rio is much closer to these wielders than I am, and I only learned about it cause we shared a lab..."
Upon hearing his name, Rio's breathing hitched; something cold swirled inside him.
Jackal straightened her back, bristling like an animal caught in a trap. She angled her head to the side and waited. Her ears were turned to the door; her eyes were hidden behind a curtain of dark hair.
Shit. Had she heard him? Rio covered his mouth with a hand, trying to control the wild ins and outs of air.
Jackal wasn't the same anymore. Despite looking and acting like the same brilliant botanist he had once known, she was now more feral than ever. There was a duality to her; something dangerous that lurked beneath her sharpened teeth, right below the thick layer of intelligence and curiosity. Rio had never seen her like this before.
Since the disaster in Toni's undimension, Jackal felt colder than ever. He didn't know what she would do if she discovered him. Please do not discover him.
"J? Are you okay?" Sissy said.
Rio swallowed. Hard.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, Jackal's shoulders relaxed. "Yeah. Just thought I heard a little rat."
"I'm sure this place has many."
Thank Goddess for Sissy. Rio rested his head against the door, letting out a deep breath.
Jackal walked up to the chair Toni was sitting on and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "But Rio isn't. Okay, I mean. He's getting too attached to Antônio, and he clearly has strong feelings for his himbo."
He had what?
Rio furrowed his brows and his thumb met the cold band around his ring finger. Well, for a starter, Phillip wasn't a himbo, he was just rude to most people. Secondly, the feelings Rio had for Phillip were never that strong. Thirdly, Rio wasn't attached to Toni. Antônio McCockay was in need of medical assistance, and nurse Gregorio Gatdula was the only help he could have. That was the end of it.
"Gregorio is becoming a liability I can't have right now," Jackal continued. "Not when I'm about to lose my family a second time."
Sissy clicked her tongue. She was a hard and bulky woman, but the way she looked at Jackal right now was nothing but soft and kind. Sissy caressed Jackal's arm in a motherly fashion and shared a tight-lipped smile with her. They whispered something—maybe promises that everything would be okay and that yes, they would find a way to stabilize the serum—and by the end of it, Sissy placed her large hands on her waist and stepped away.
"You know... Rio is also a valuable member of the team, J. He's been working on those cell cultures and learning how the wielders behave for so long that—" Sissy glanced up towards Jackal and paused.
Until moments before, Rio could see the office; right now, his breathing fogged up the glass as if the temperature inside had dropped by half. Cracking noises came from the heavy metal door to Jackal's office, and the corners of the window pane whitened.
Inside, whatever Sissy had seen in Jackal's face, it was enough to make her pale; gone were the softness and kindness in her face. Sissy cleared her throat and schooled her scared expression.
"W-well," she continued. "In my opinion, uh... you said you saw the lab rat's power trace getting mixed with his Life Force and being sucked by the walls in his own undimension. And something similar happened to Léon. Right?"
"Yeah." Jackal clasped her hands at her back. Her expression softened. "After that, he was back to being this perfectly lifeless ragdoll."
Sissy nodded. "Well, this is by no means my area, but one of the laws of physics and chemistry, Gregorio's specialty, is the law of conservation of mass." She hummed and avoided Jackal's gaze. "So yeah, maybe... the lab rat's power trace was being absorbed by his undimension as an attempt to preserve it or to... pfft. I don't know, create something new? What I mean to say is... maybe cosmic trace wielders have their own pool of essential chemical elements. You know—as if they had their own world, and that's why the sickness didn't seem to cause much trouble for Léon."
"That... makes sense." Jackal nodded and propped her chin on the palm of her hand. "A mini planet Earth, with its own ecosystem, in one single being, almost like the pocket dimension the Doctor described."
"Exactly." Modraniht took a careful step to the side, to put himself between Sissy and Jackal. "Maybe that's why the cosmic trace can interact with the world in such a unique way—the wielders are not really part of it; they just coexist in the same place, using their own chemical elements to bring anything into existence."
Rio's eyes widened.
He remembered it now. Before their fight against The Mayor, Iara had told them about the two groups of cosmic trace wielders. The first group controls the flow of cosmic trace and returns it later. The second chooses to steal cosmic energy. When they steal enough, their connection with the flow is severed, and the only way to continue using their powers is by stealing it from other people—like Toni had been doing for years. But if Sissy, Jackal, and Modraniht's theory was correct; if the cosmic energy wasn't lost, but stored, then the answer for what Jackal wanted was indeed right before her eyes.
More precisely, it was inside Toni's undimension, keeping him alive.
And Rio couldn't let Jackal realize that. Toni was his patient, and Rio would find a way to help him, no matter what happened.
His breathing quickened. Rio reached for the doorknob and stopped. He shut his eyes, let out a trembling breath, and quivered. The silence in the office was so intense, Rio thought he could hear the cockroaches running through the air ducts above. He swallowed hard; his other hand tightened around his briefcase handle.
When he opened the door, Jackal's back was turned to him. Rio couldn't see it from here, but he knew that Toni's expression would be as blank as before. After Léon, Rob, and the others left Toni's undimension, he had been very quiet, his face pale, his eyes sunken, and his lips curled downward as if lost in whatever damning thoughts still occupied his head. He had degraded to his previous state of unresponsiveness.
Jackal peeked over her shoulder to look at Rio and smiled as if proud of his disobedience. She stooped and supported her hands on her knees to level her eyes with Toni's. From where he stood, Rio could only see her back; her strong frame blocked most of his view of Toni.
"What do you think about all this, Antônio?" Jackal reached forward. Still at the door, Rio couldn't see what she was doing.
"Jackal, what the fuck?" Sissy asked.
"He's talking to me," Jackal said. Something grew bright in front of her, casting a cold light on her surroundings.
"What do you think, Toni? How should I handle this problem?" Jackal paused as if listening. "Oh. Is that so?" Another pause. "Ah. I see what you mean. It definitely makes sense."
Modraniht took a step forward. "Jackal, this is childish. Not to say disrespectful; stop it."
Jackal angled her head to look at Modraniht, then focused on Toni again. "What was that, Antônio? You're saying I should tell the serum to fuck off? And that the Doctor should be less of a pain in our asses?"
"Jackal—"
Sissy placed a hand on Modraniht's arm, silencing him. "Let her be, Yule. It's useless to talk to her when she's like this."
Rio grew uncomfortable. Something tightened in his chest as he took a step into the office and to his right. Something cold dropped to the lower part of his stomach.
"Exactly, Sissy. Thank you." Jackal faced Toni again. She held his jaw, a thumb positioned right under his lower lip while the marks in her wrist shone again. "Continue, Antônio." And with a smirk, she moved Toni's jaw, opening and closing his mouth to pretend he was talking.
Toni's eyes welled up.
This time, as if he had really said something, Jackal frowned and straightened her back. If a moment ago she sported cruel enjoyment, now her expression twisted and scrunched up in pain. Jackal stared at her wrist and her knees lost strength. Modraniht and Sissy held her arms before she could hit the ground.
Silence stretched as Jackal glanced at Rio, then looked at Sissy, Modraniht, and finally Toni.
"What happened, Connie?" Modraniht asked.
Those words awakened him. Rio ran to Jackal and checked her pulse, her eyes, her temperature. Then, he repeated the process with Toni.
Slowly, Jackal got up. When she spoke, her voice sounded heavier and deeper than before—almost as if there was more than one person speaking.
"I know what we have to do." She took in a deep breath, but it wasn't enough to wash away the anger in her words. "Bring me Léon. It's time to cure this world, once and for all."
***
Hello, lovesomes! Thank you so much for reading this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please don't forget to vote.
This one goes a lot deeper in the "sci" part of this sci-fi hahaha. I tried my best to keep it interesting, but I'd love to know your opinion about it. If you think it needs a little more working to be clear or if it's a little boring at times, please let me know. ;)
And guess what! We're getting closer to the end of the book. X: I can't wait to tell you how this one ends. I'm SO excited to share the next chapters with you! çoç
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A huge kiss to you all. And Yeah, since this chapter was a little late, you can expect another chapter this Sunday! ;D
Much love,
Ligia