"It's been three days, Marvin. Where in the blazing sun could he have gone?"

Aiya was upset. For a good reason too. Derek was missing, and no one, not even the staff, seemed to know where he had gone.

Marvin had been missing himself, but Aiya had expected that after seeing his eyes light up like a kid at an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet.

Marvin had finally left the engineering wing of the mountain facility to grace everyone with his presence. However, all he could talk about was the cool little gadget that he had obtained from the doctors. Oblivious to Aiya's mood or the look on her face Marvin had went on to discuss his progress on his latest invention.

She had finally cut him off mid-sentence, utterly exasperated with his self-absorption.

Marvin lifted his head from his plate of food, where he had been alternating between speaking excitedly and shovelling in vast mouthfuls of some potato pie.

He blinked at her a few times like a deer in headlights, and Aiya groaned. He had no clue. Once Marvin started a project, you might as well pretend he had left the planet. Aiya pitied the woman who he ended up with.

"What?"

Marvin's pupils narrowed as he slowed down his propeller brain and focused on Aiya. She could almost see the shift in his thinking physically transforming him as he went from his discovery and creation mode to being in the present.

"What do you mean Derek is missing?"

Aiya lifted an eyebrow at the stupid question and just looked at him for a moment, letting his brain finish switching gears. Finally, she answered.

"Derek hasn't been seen in this facility in three days. Apparently, there was some kind of incident with a few lab techs and Inta. If you are willing to believe the doctors, Derek has just run away scared after this incident."

Aiya watched as Marvin's eyes went wide with shock. Gently placing his fork on the table, he sat back in his chair.

"How is that even possible? There are cameras on every exit and at the corner of every hallway. How the hell was he not caught on camera exiting the mountain? If that's even what happened."

"That's what makes the whole thing even weirder, brother. Wherever Derek had wandered off to supposedly doesn't have cameras. My gut says the story is crap. But I have no way to find out the truth. Guards follow everywhere."

Marvin scratched at his ear. Aiya noticed he needed a trim. His hair was officially long enough it was starting to tickle the inside of his ear as it curled gently near the ends.

Reaching out, she tried to move the stray strands behind his ear for him. A flash of Marvin and Derek as young kids struck her in the chest. Derek had taught her how to braid his thick curly hair when he'd been young before opting to let it go wild.

Where in the world was the man?

Aiya couldn't help but feel like it was partly her fault. They needed to talk. Everything had changed, and she kept seeing his face after their hands had touched.

She hadn't been able to control her own reaction to all the feelings she had felt from him and knew she had caused him great pain by letting him see her own emotions.

"Fuck." Aiya cursed out loud, running a hand over her face.

Marvin placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Aiya," she looked up to see his gentle eyes looking at her with worry and grief, but also with the bottomless well of kindness and love her brother seemed to have for all his friends and family, "it's not your fault. Derek needed to sort some things out. I had kind of expected him to be distant for a while. But missing completely is definitely not something he would do. At least not without telling me."

"Exactly! He would never leave you like that. The doctors claim Inta is in a medical ward recovering from some kind of 'episode,' but I call bullshit on that too. Sardini says that the doctors have never kept her mother overnight before. However, Sardini doesn't seem worried either. Not that I can ever really tell what she is thinking. If I am honest, man, that kid scares me."

Marvin started laughing at her. Aiya frowned at her brother.

"What's so funny? The kid has supernatural powers or something."

Marvin's laugh grew louder, and a genuine stomach-clenching belly laugh made tears trickle down his cheek.

"Hahaha. Aiya, have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Marvin kept laughing at her as he slapped her hard on the back a few times as if she, too, was laughing. She wasn't. Scowling at him, her eyes narrowed.

But before she could reply, an image of Derek's shocked face crossed her mind once more. She had strange powers of her own now. She sighed. Her brother was right. Who was she to judge?

It did make her stop and think, though. If Sardini, a cute angelic looking child who always seemed to smile even when she had no reason to, could scare Aiya, how did Aiya's new look and powers make everyone else feel?

"Marvin, am I scary to the team? Like a freak to them?"

Marvin's laugh instantly disappeared. Shaking his head, he looked at his sister for a long moment. The silence between them felt thick, and Aiya realized she was holding her breath as chest pains started to prickle through her torso.

"I can't answer for the others, Aiya. A lot is going on. Maybe you do scare them. But if you do, the monsters coming to destroy our world are far scarier. Or the fact there may not be a world soon. Maybe that's the best you can hope for, for now, until everyone gets used to the new you. They are too distracted by the pending doom to be scared of you right now."

Aiya couldn't help the sad sigh that escaped her lips. That was Marvin for you. He wouldn't lie or bend the truth to make you feel better, but somehow he always spoke the truth with a kindness that made it less painful to hear. He was right, after all.

"Do I scare you?" Aiya hated how small her voice sounded. But she already felt like she had lost one little brother. She would die a little inside if she lost two. Especially Marvin.

Marvin suddenly stood. He held out his hand to her, and without thinking, she took it. He pulled her up to her feet quickly and wrapped her in a giant bear hug.

"Never!" Marvin whispered his answer fiercely as he crushed her to his chest. Aiya couldn't help the smile or the few tears leaking from her tightly closed eyes.

When had her little brother become her big brother? The man was huge.

For that matter, when was the last time they had hugged? Aiya couldn't remember. He smelled like home. Gear oil, smoke from a soldering iron, gunpowder and a hint of fresh laundry. It was the smell of her brother and all she had ever known as home since the world had changed forever.

***

Marvin watched his sister walk down the hall to the gym. She had excused herself after he'd let her go saying she needed to burn off her frustration.

He understood. Derek was missing, and she felt like her hands were being held behind her back. She had no way to solve the mystery and ensure Derek was okay. Marvin knew Aiya had always loved Derek like another brother. He had never dared to talk to his friend about it though.

If he had, would Derek still be here? Or would he still have gone missing?

"Fuck."

"Mom says that's a bad word."

The tiny voice from his left, just below his elbow, almost made Marvin jump out of his skin. How in the world had Sardini come to stand beside him so silently?

Aiya was right, Sardini was a little scary, yet Marvin found he couldn't be scared of her. Somehow she felt right to him. Like meeting an old friend after years of being apart or finding that three-quarter-inch combination wrench, you had used so much the metal seemed to have formed to your grip.

Ok, maybe the last comparison wasn't something everyone would understand, but the point was she felt familiar and comforting even though they had just met, and she was a half-pint compared to him.

"She's right." Marvin couldn't help the crooked smile. Leave it to a kid to come and save you from your thoughts. Her timing was incredible.

"You are worried about Derek, aren't you?"

"I am. How about you? Worried about your mom?"

"No. Not really." Sardini gave a half-shrug. "She is with your friend. She will keep him safe."

She gave him a wide smile, but Marvin couldn't understand what she had just said.

"Why haven't you told Aiya, or Errend, this? Do you know where they are?"

"Nope." Sardini suddenly giggled.

"You look like a confused, overgrown teddy bear." She giggled one more time before her face became grave.

"Marvin, your sister is too upset. If I told her what I knew, she would do something foolish. You needed to be the person I told first. She will listen to you. She likes Errend more than she even realizes, but she wouldn't listen to him as she would you. I told Errend my mom was ok. He accepted it even though I knew he wanted to ask me more. It just..."

Sardini trailed off, her face twisting with emotions far beyond her years as her head dropped to examine her bare toes. Finally, she shrugged again and looked back up at him, saying, "It just had to be you. And it had to be when you were out of your invention trance."

Still not quite understanding but having no choice but to accept the girl's words, Marvin asked, "Will you tell me all you know, Sardini? And most importantly, is there anyway we can help Derek and your mom?"

Sardini nodded and did exactly that. They sat back down at the cafeteria table Aiya and Marvin had been occupying, and she talked not leaving anything out. Sardini even told Marvin about how she had felt Derek's emotions, how she had followed him, why she had waited down the hall and where she knew her mother had told him to go.

Marvin took it all in and wondered what they had been doing to Inta to make Derek act so irrationally. Whatever it had been, it must have been terrible. Derek could be impulsive, but when it counted, the man knew how to be cautious and make intelligent choices. No one survived in a world of monsters if they didn't learn how to use their heads.

"Do you think we should go to the tunnels and look for them?"

"No. It's a bad idea. I got Nick to erase the video of them leaving, but I doubt he'd do it a second time for me. I had to sneak him ice cream to get him to help me."

"Who's Nick?"

"He's a friend. He works the cameras and security locks most of the time. He's a 'technologically savvy badass marine' in his words."

Marvin quirked an eyebrow at his little friend.

"Isn't badass a bad word?"

Sardini grinned at him.

"I never said you shouldn't say bad words, just that you had said one."

Marvin laughed. He couldn't help it.

"Ok sassy pants. What do we then?"

"First, I think you should finish eating. Then we should play chess. We can talk while we play."

Sardini smiled big and bright at him, and the look in her eyes seemed too knowing and ancient. The contrast it provided against her biological age was a little overwhelming to Marvin.

However, his stomach growls confirmed she had a point. He needed to eat more food. Then they could figure things out.