One hour earlier...

"Insufficient liquid: unable to process."

The microwave popped open just as Ten was pouring a bottle of preserved egg whites into a steel frying pan.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he muttered, leaving the eggs to sizzle on the stove as he walked over to the microwave and inspected the message on its digital display. "What do you want? My entire water ration for the day?"

"Insufficient liquid: unable to process," the housebot repeated in monotone. If he didn't know better, Ten would think it was being smug.

"Fine then. Be like that." Ten sighed loudly as he pulled a container made of stiff, recycled paper out of the microwave and set it down on the counter. He crouched down and squinted to make sure that the water level above his nutritional powder lined up with the fill line on the container. As far as he could tell, it did.

"There's definitely enough water in there," Ten said as he walked the container over to the sink and turned on the faucet. "I measure stuff in nanograms on a daily basis. You've never measured anything in your life. And yet, thanks to the asymmetric power structure created by the fact that you control my ability to eat, I'm forced to oblige you. Says a lot about the way our galaxy works, doesn't it?"

"I am sorry. Your question is beyond the scope of my programming."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course it is," Ten rolled his eyes, more at himself than at the Housebot. He glanced back down at his food, now covered in way more water than necessary, and scanned the tiny number carved into the rim of the bowl. Day 161. It had been over five months since they'd sealed him into the Module. No wonder he was entering the 'discussing political theory with a bot' stage of isolation. They'd been careful to provide him with a year's food supply, a water recycling system, and everything else it took to physically support him, but he was beginning to wonder if that was all he needed. The negative effects of total isolation on the human mind were well-documented - so much so that the World Council banned it on Earth as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately for Ten, he'd never even been to Earth.

"Here you are. Make me some soggy porridge, will you?"

Ten slid his food back into the microwave only to have his nostrils assaulted by the smell of something burning.

The eggs!

"Oh, crap!" he exclaimed under his breath, grabbing the handle of his skillet and pulling it off the stove. He dug into the omelet with his spatula only to see that the bottom was charred a pitiful black.

The silence in the kitchen as Ten scraped the remains of his omelet off the frying pan felt odd, though it took him a moment to figure out why. He wasn't used to being able to make a mistake without immediate criticism. In some ways, being stuck underground with only a stubborn housebot to keep him company was preferable to his life back home. On Xenon, Ten could do nothing right. If he came to dinner, he was too socially awkward and made the investors uncomfortable. If he didn't, he was a spoiled brat who couldn't be bothered to care about the family business. He had no skills to support his kingdom or the company, and when he tried to prove otherwise, he was a crazy lab rat who wasted his family's money on fruitless experiments.

Not anymore.

Xenon was about to see just how wrong they had been about Tenzar Borin. He was going to save the person he cared about most, and possibly all of extrasolar society itself.

The thought of Rey drew Ten's attention to the long, white hallway that stretched from the living room all the way down to her door. The worst part about being alone in the Module was that he wasn't actually alone. For the first few weeks, he was at her bedside for hours each day. He held her hand, brushed her hair, and read aloud from her favorite books. Halfway through Lord of the Flies, he asked her about the many flavors of power depicted in the novel and which one she wanted to exercise as queen. He imagined her laughing and giving him a vague, diplomatic response about how it wasn't that simple, but she didn't. She just lay there on her back with the threadbare sheets pulled up to her chest and her dark hair spread around her face like a halo, and Ten realized how stupid he was being. Her brain had been without oxygen for several minutes. The Rey he once knew was never going to wake up.

As useless as he knew it was, he couldn't stop himself from thinking back to their last conversation the morning before the Montanlasts' fateful carriage ride through the streets of Argon City.

"Check the scopes!" Rey ordered, her eyes set on the flashdrive plugged into the lab's mainframe.

Download in progress: 60%...63%

"The intruders are only two clicks out, Your Highness," the guardbot replied over the loudspeaker.

Download in progress: 67%... 68%

"We'll never get the entire sequence downloaded in time." Ten could feel the tension in Rey's muscles when he placed his hand on her shoulder. "We have to destroy this place and take the escape route right now. If they find us here, together..."

"We don't need the entire thing." Rey pulled the flashdrive out of the computer and handed it to Ten. "You keep this. It's three fourths of the sequence. I memorized the last quarter."

"But if you prepared for this... why not memorize the whole thing?" Ten frowned.

"DNA is fascinating. I can understand why you wanted to make it the focus of your research," Rey smiled. Ten felt his heart flutter. No one else ever talked about his research as anything other than a fool's errand. Unless they were looking to take advantage of it, of course, like the Earthen soldiers now less than 2 clicks from their position. "This sequence could be our salvation, but change a couple of base pairs-"

"-and it could damn us all to hell." Ten finished her sentence with a solemn nod.

"No one person deserves that kind of power." Rey said as she pulled out a handful of explosive charges from her satchel and began placing them around the mainframe.

"By no one... you actually mean no one, don't you?" A new bout of understanding dawned in Ten's eyes. "You're not going to let anyone have the whole sequence. Not even the Circle."

"They're not the saints you think they are, Ten." Rey furrowed her brow. "They have their own agenda for the galaxy and there's no guarantee they won't use the sequence for evil."

"Nothing in galactic politics is ever guaranteed. That doesn't mean we bury what could be the most important scientific advancement since interstellar travel!" Ten reached for the nearest keyboard, but Rey grabbed his hands before he could reach it.

"Listen to me." She pulled him closer, pressing her thumbs into his palms. "Burying your work is the last thing I want to do. You are a genius, Ten. The people around you are ill-equipped to see that, but that doesn't make it any less true. Someday, humanity is going to know your name, but not before someone decides to use your creation as a weapon. I need to make sure no one can do that... not Earth, not Argon, not Xenon, and not even the Circle."

"You're taking my redemption. My recognition. My chance to prove my family wrong. You have no right!" Ten tried to express indignation, but his words were hollow. He felt disappointed - betrayed, even - but he couldn't really be angry. Not at her.

"No." Rey pressed a button on her watch to activate the countdown on her explosives. "I'm just one of the few people who's seen what this sequence can do - who understands how huge this is. If I know you at all, you're not doing this work for recognition. You're doing it because it's important, which is exactly why it needs to be protected."

Ten's frustration instantly gave way to guilt. As always, Rey saw him for something better than he actually was. She didn't know it, but he was doing this for the recognition. He was doing this so he could march into High Borin Hall and make the King of Xenon and his court sorry for ever doubting him. But how could he tell her that in words she would believe?

"Security feeds show the intruders exiting their transports. If you intend to escape, you must do so at once," the guardbot announced.

Rey dropped to her hands and knees and pulled out the loose wall panel that hid the lab's secret exit. "Come on!" She crawled into the tunnel before motioning for Ten to follow her.

"Wait." Ten joined Rey at the entrance to the tunnel. "The Circle is never going to stop looking for the sequence. We can't afford to have both fragments in the same place. That means..."

"I know." Rey turned around and squeezed Ten's hand. Over the years, she'd gotten better at hiding her sadness, but he could always see the truth behind her eyes.

"We're never going to see each other again, are we?" Ten whispered solemnly.

"Never is a very strong word," Rey said with the conviction of someone who could see past the fog of conflict into a nebulous better future.

The lab door rattled as the detonator beeped loudly, beginning its thirty-second countdown.

"In the name of the World Council, open this door right now or we will force entry!" came a muffled voice from outside the lab.

"In the name of the World Council," Rey repeated mockingly. "As if those homeworld elitists have any authority out here."

"That's Earth for you. They think just because that's where humanity's story began, that's where it has to end."

The detonator began counting down from fifteen, marking each passing second with a harsh beep, and Ten strung the flashdrive onto the chain around his neck along with his chaida. Instinctually, it made sense to wear the two most important physical objects in his possession close to his chest. Crawling into the tunnel after Rey, he pulled the wall panel back into place. Now in total darkness, he somehow found it easier to express what was on his mind.

"Rey, I... this is the last time we're going to get to talk, at least for a while, and there's something I really need you to know." The timing was all wrong, but Ten had already waited six years for it to be right. He was tired of losing everything in life just because he was too scared to ask for it, just like he was too scared to contradict Rey's plan for his sequence.

The tunnel's emergency lights flickered on to reveal a troubled look on Rey's face. For a moment, Ten wondered whether he'd made a grave mistake.

"I do know. I've always known," she smiled sadly. "If things were different - if we had more time..."

"Yeah. It was stupid of me to say that now."

Ten fully expected her to agree with him, but instead, she leaned forward to plant a chaste kiss on his lips. "It's never stupid to say how you really feel. It's only ever brave."

Brave. Now that was a word that had never, ever been used to describe Tenzar Borin. He scrambled through the tunnel after Rey, his warm hands feverishly gripping the cold stone beneath him. He barely felt the aftershocks running through the ground as his life's work blew to pieces behind him. The Circle would never take him back and he would probably never run a research study again, but he hadn't felt this optimistic in years.

If only he knew how quickly his new hope would be ripped away from him.

Ten instinctively rubbed the flashdrive hanging underneath his shirt to make sure it was still there, as he did several times a day. The useless half-sequence it contained was the only proof that his masterwork had ever existed.

Ten looked up at the microwave to check whether his porridge was done, only to see that it hadn't even started cooking.

"Stupid robot. What's the matter with you now?" he huffed in frustration. The moment the words left his mouth, he felt weirdly self-conscious talking to the housebot, as if some part of him knew he was no longer alone. He turned around and there she was, wearing her usual neutral expression and drab Argonese clothes. It was Rey, and yet it wasn't. His breath caught in his throat, freezing him in the moment, but it didn't take him long to realize that she wasn't having the same overwhelming emotional reaction to their reunion.

Right. She had no recollection of their friendship or their kiss. But he did, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to make her remember. So he forced a smile and said the most normal Ten thing he could muster.

"I should've known. If anyone could disable one of those fancy new Thorn bots, it would be you."