Music curled from their small, personal radio between their two workstations, but she found herself unable to work in their new, tight-lipped environment. Across from her, his legs resting against hers underneath the attached desks, Neo pressed his cheek into his palm as the data on his terminal reflected into the nebulous greys. Nova tipped and switched her angle to grab his attention, but it was bottomless into deep space. Even when heavy footsteps patrolled down their hall outside their door, Neo gave no hint of reaction. His hint of activity was him spinning his pen between his fingers over and over with dexterous skill to strike envy, though less so when he chewed on the end without breaking eye contact with nothing.

Nova snapped her fingers upwards, causing him to blink with a short hum.

"Thinking hard over there?" she mused.

His brow crinkled and he put the pen down. "And here I am not being able to remember what I was just thinking about." His smile dug into his cheeks. "Sorry, I was prepping, but then I got sidetracked looking at some reports of the D.S Butterfly's last communications with the I.A.R."

Nova directed the conversation further. "Prepping for?"

The top of his I-Pen clicked multiple times before he gave her an answer. "Considering the situation, they're holding several briefings in each of the substations. I'm responsible for the Internship briefing in our sector. Just to talk about what's going on, what's going to happen moving forward, what we're doing to solve the issue," he said, unperturbed at the thought of presenting in front of multiple people, some they knew and some they had yet to meet. "So, I'm trying to piece together how to keep the commotion to a minimum so central command can figure this out."

Nova glanced out the window. Gaseous tendrils slicked across the outer carapace of the space station. It wound itself around the tramlines and spiralled into the towers. "Do they know what happened?" His lack of response made her grab his hand to squeeze it for his attention. "Did they check the reactor cores? What do they think?"

Neo frowned. "What we do know is that when we brought in the anomaly something sent out some sort of broadcast signal. It might've been the D.S Butterfly, but..." His lips folded inward with a small shake of his head. "Whatever it is, the main directive hasn't changed."

Her hand slipped off his fingers. "What?"

"The directive of the B.H Supernova," he said, the greys cooling into sub-zero temperatures. "We are to find the D.S Butterfly — and the contents of their research blackbox."

"Don't they want to find a way out?"

"I'm sure they do," Neo insisted. "But we're stranded, so might as well collect what we can while we're here. Our systems are self-sustaining as long as Habitation continues to run." He returned to his datascroll to write.

Nova pinched her chin when Neo returned to his work, then mumbled, "What if it has something to do with the initial landing sequence...?" It sparkled in her mind, but more than anything she needed closure — and certainty whereas Neo settled for unknown answers. "Neo, this is going to sound a little out there, but I need to see who got killed by my droid. I need to confirm the damage wasn't done by machinery or a botched emergency landing sequence." Out of her chair, she tried to formulate a plan.

He barely lifted his head, but his eyes widened in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

"I need to see the body."

There was never, in the time she knew Neo, she had known him to balk at anything. Only questions. Only answers. He raised his head further into his furrowed brow of shock. "Okay, so..." He got out of his chair to stand in front of her. "You definitely don't want or need to do that, ever, in my opinion." Nova folded her arms, but let him say his piece. "Look, if there's something more you need to know you can ask me. I saw it." His lips folded and parted in confusion. "Nova, I told you it wasn't your fault — you were there when I explained the autopsy report to Miss Zynaia. You don't need to see that."

"Do you think I can't handle it?" Nova prodded with her words, where Neo never bent to anything else. "Neo, I took safety courses. I've seen horror story videos of when things go wrong in this sort of environment—"

"That's different," he said with an edge of desperation. "Behind a screen, it's easier to detach yourself, just a little." He brought his two fingers again to emphasize his point. "Nova, I know you don't want to take my word for it, I know you're the type who needs to see the causation, correlation, and consequences for yourself but—" He threw his hands into his hair and walked past her. "No, you don't need to do that."

"I do, for myself," she argued when he tore his fingers through his hair. "Neo, I can take it. I need to see it for myself. I haven't been able to rest wondering if maybe I made a mistake." She drove her own fingers between her collarbone. "I just—I won't ask for your help, I can figure something out, and it's not that I don't believe you." It's myself I don't believe in. Neo refused to face her, opting instead to have a staredown with the wall as he dropped his hands to his sides. "I won't take a deep look at it, don't think I'd even be allowed close to it, but—" Her words fell off her lips to scatter into stardust when Neo tilted his head at an angle, as if trying to listen to something far away. "I just need to take a look and confirm it wasn't..." My human error. "I need some answers that no one seems to want to give me."

His head straightened out and it lowered. The station clock ticked over the door to her truth. A silent sigh scrunched his shoulders, but before she acted on her instinctive sense of wanting an actionable answer, he said, "I have to go back to the Annex for some research materials." He sorted through his coat. "Izerva told me something that I wanted to take a deeper dive into, but..." A remorseful huff left his nose and he held out his datascroll and an infopod to her without turning to her. "I need a copy of the autopsy to match with the data we found with the anomaly to see if there are any likenesses to other anomalous accidents and if they found the offending object which killed them." Neo shifted on his heel and kept his gaze locked on his feet. "That should get you access into the morgue. I hope it gives you the answers you need."

Nova clipped them onto her toolbelt and grabbed onto Neo, who frowned at her. "Thank you, Neo. This means a lot to me."

He sucked in his lips and never tore the grey nebula out of space. "I don't think you should thank me," he mumbled with a shake of his head. "But I see this means a lot to you, so, I'll meet you back here if you have further questions about the anomaly." He left the touch of her hands to rush out of the room without another word of support.

Alarms rang out in the distance, in the back of her mind in crimson red. Doubt and uncertainty choked her throat as she held out Neo's datascroll and infopod for data retrieval. He gave her both an excuse and a question of his own. Neo, I'm sorry. Swallowed by determination to see through the consequences of her error, she stomped out of the room and out of the Internship Bay. Most of her fellow students were delegated solely into the eastern sector until such a time they figured out a way out of the Ushavex Nebula. Very few left their rooms or the cafeteria, gathered in groups as a flimsy, comforting shield, but she had work to do. Neo's datascroll close at hand, she took the eastern tram to the attached Medtower in the central sector. Walls went sterile white when the tram rolled into the station, guided along by faint lights dug into the roof, she followed the map to the closest reception into the morgue. Her fear chewed on her mind as she made a small approach for the barricaded front counter, where two individuals in grey scrubs sat with holobooks in hand.

"Um." Her words tangled in her throat when both stared at her. "I've come on behalf of Neo Teimea." She pushed the datascroll and infopod through the barrier, where the one with a book in their hands took it instead to look it over. "He needs a copy of the autopsy report of the fatality from the accident for further research."

"Why didn't he come down himself?" the one without the book asked.

"He is currently doing sensitive research for the space station and couldn't retrieve the report himself," she tried to stifle her biting edge beneath a cold exterior. "I offered since I am off-duty."

Stars, how does Neo do this?

One moved their eyes with the rolling of their chair as they checked over the datascroll and infopod. "It looks good, but give me a mo'." Out of their chair, they went through the door behind the desk, disappearing through the decontamination field. Anxious knives sliced into her temples with a jagged edge of heat, and she rubbed the centralising of nervousness over her brow. Awkward silence expanded throughout the reception area, and she swallowed when the nurse returned with a nod. "Okay, if you'll follow me...?"

"Miss Spacyn. Engineering Division." Nova followed her through the main bulkhead. It slid open with a misty hiss into another decontamination area, and she waited for it to clunk and spray the air with detoxifying particles. It hung in the air, slipped over her skin and into her lungs to purify her straight to her blood. Given the all clear, the nurse took her straight into the corridor. Instruments beeped along the walls, directing doctors and patients both into different sectors of the main emergency level. Onto the lift of the Medtower, Nova brushed circles along her temples when the pressure spiked, and a strange sense of foreboding tickled her throat. The Nurse slipped their keycard into the slot above the buttons, clicking the lower numbers.

I'll feel better when I see it for myself.

It was her final opportunity for closure when no one wanted to give her a straight answer, but Neo's hesitant expression haunted her when the lift brought her down into the bowels of the Medtower; from the maintenance areas and then the morgue. Knives swept straight to her jaw, and the blast of cold shuddered deep along her skin to raise it into gooseflesh. It sharpened into a gamma burst over her skull when the lift opened with another ghostly hiss to direct them into another decontamination unit.

"This way, please," the nurse said with a wave of their hand.

Nova followed, obedient, but her curiosity battled with nervousness. It tapped a painful knuckle against her skull to match her foosteps when a doctor met them halfway through the main doors into the temperature controls.

"Is this who requested the report?" the doctor asked, and Nova took a peek at the tag on their pocket. Dr. Terral. Nova held her knuckle against her bursting temple when they headed to the computer, and the cold did nothing to comfort the heat in her heart. Another heartbeat pounded in her ears and refused to match her own. Lost in arrhythmic time, she held her hand out when Dr. Terral held the infopod to her. "This should have everything we've found during the autopsy — including any detected anomalous levels—"

It shook.

Both Dr. Terral and the nurse eyed the roof. "Stars, what next?" Dr. Terral grumbled. "Before you know it, anomalies are going to run rampant. Hold a moment, Miss."

Nova drove her teeth deeper into her jaw when it intensified into both temples with another tremble. Lights flickered and the frozen mist stilled at her feet. Cursing herself for not bringing a jacket, she waited for Dr. Terral and the nurse to go investigate the noise before drawing close to the observation window into the examination area. Lockers lifted around the walls to hold bodies, with panels to denote their use. A small relief that all were empty for the time being, but it left the body in the center on the table.

Another check on Dr. Terral and the nurse when the station trembled once more and the lights flickered to send the mist into an abyssal blue shade. Both headed outside the door, so she took her chance to slip inside. Unease brought the cooling mist over her brow.

I just need to take a closer look...

Her hand was all that steadied her on the frame of the bulkhead when the station groaned. Numbers of red fluttered across the locker panels, a subtle glitch in the system as she came closer to the beating heart of the station — to the loss of life she caused.

In the isolation, she stole a glance at her consequences.

Shadows pulsed red.

It layered over a lie and truth.

It was Neo.

Old blood crusted his clothes, a hole left open in his heart.

It screamed a reverberating echo across her temples, but the dissonant orchestra drowned out her voice with a deep, spatial roar. Death sank his cheeks in and stole the colour from his lips. He wore his lab coat, his pride and his life poured into the divots.

An alarm rang out, and cries joined the screams.

Her skull cracked with the pressure cooker in her chest, and she shut her eyes tight with her tears, taking a step between the cold and the heat death of the universe. It shook and scrambled her brains as she raised both hands to her temples, resisting the urge to scream and draw attention to her disobedience. Crimson pulsed in her eyes, and she rushed back to the temperature control room with the infopod in hand.

No...

The heartbeat trembled against her chest as she stumbled out of the control room with a hesitant wave to Dr. Terral and the nurse.

No.

Shadows formed teeth at the edge of her view when she rushed into the lift, pressing the button to go back to the main level and retreat from her imagination. Tendrils of bloody red crawled through the vents, but she held onto her head and tried not to scream when another burst of gamma rays slammed into her temples. It cracked bone as the pain swept through her body, and she stumbled through the flickering lights of Emerg. Too many hands touched along her shoulders, and the alarms continued. Maws of the black hole followed in her peripheral, slicing through metal in slow motion, where time stopped on the event horizon.

Stars, stars, I'm losing it.

His life dripped onto a cruel, metal table, nothing more than a sack of meat to investigate the truth of his demise.

He's my best friend! He's not a sack of meat you can just... cut into!

Rage roared, but she stumbled onto the tram and smacked her hand against the panel for eastern command. It rocked, boiling in the nebulous, rainbow tendrils of the Ushavex nebula. It sizzled smoke in her view, but when she fell onto the eastern tram station, she caught herself and her breath. No!

Her dread forced her to flee.

It watered down the colours in her view, the emptiness vast in the living area, where no one dared leave. As she swung around the corner in her rush, she slammed into another body, caked with blood. Her hands found their shoulders and she drove her fingertips into their bones, to feel the warmth of life. It rang in her ears as she bit down on a sob as the frozen mist followed on her heels. One more push out of their comforting support, she raced back into her room, fearing what waited for her inside.

No Neo.

"Nova."

He was behind her.

Nova held her breath and turned, half-expecting the body to have followed her from the morgue.

Neo held his hands close to his chest with a wide-eyed expression, full of light.

Bile rose into her throat, and she hugged him. "I'm sorry I didn't take your word for it..."

You're alive, I'm just sleep-deprived... or worse, getting Space Sickness... Stars...

"Nova, what happened?" Neo frowned when she shoved the infopod into his hand. Nova shook her head and stumbled to his chair. "Okay. Okay." Neo shuffled for her to steady her elbow. "Nova—"

"It looked like you."

Neo jolted.

Nova kept her hand against her mouth. "It was you." His silence exploded the dam in her eyes, and she tore her fingers through her scalp. "I'm losing it," she rasped and tried to catch each breath. "Stars, what if I'm getting Space Sick? That's going to completely mess up my Internship and—" Her arms wound around his middle and she buried deep into stability when he rested his hands on her back. "I'm so sorry."

"Well..." Neo rubbed her shoulders. "I'm not dead, I'm here and not over there." He shuffled in place. "I... actually haven't been over there since I picked up the first report..."

And yet...

The universe left a hole in his heart.

"You are here," Nova tore the words out of her cracked throat. "Talk to me, please?"

Anything to keep me here, at this moment, where time continues, and doesn't stop.

Its teeth filled her peripherals, on the hunt for stars to swallow.