Eva watched as Hera hooked a plug to both the contraption and HoloPad. Information glowed on screen: command prompts, device information, and data transfers. Hera scrolled through it all, her mind consumed with concentration.

Eva wheeled backwards and spun around. She found Soal staring at her and Hera, her eyebrows and lips tucked in contemplation. Eva wheeled over.

"What's up, Soal?" Eva asked.

"You two - Hera and you - are the weirdest siblings. I've never had such drama, like that, displayed between my brother, two sisters, and I."

Eva just smiled, even though the remark hurt. "You've met our mother and father right?"

"Yeah. I worked with them for over nineteen years! None of them were that pleasant, your mother especially. No offense."

"None taken. When Hera and I were growing up, we both despised our mother. our father was there, but was such a workaholic, that he never bothered with us. All he ever said to us was: respect your mother, good morning, and good night. That's it. Only those three things. Hera, the youngest, eventually finding that our mother was hard hearted, and dad rarely around, began to confide in me. We would tell each other everything and communicate by text or Holo if we weren't home all the time. For instance, we spent a lot of time cellularly communicating when I was serving in the spacecraft for all that time."

"Wow. You guys are really close. What do you think made her break down like that earlier today," Soal asked in a whisper.

"I don't know," Eva responded.

Little did both Eva and Soal know that Hera could hear them, even when they were speaking in the softest of whispers. She knew the answer to Soal's question. She knew why she'd finally broken down in front of Eva.

» » » »

Hera - that is what she'll accept being called know- looked on as code scrolled down the screen and Data transfers loaded their soft colored, green bars. Hera pinched at the HoloPad screen, pulled up a command prompt, and started imputing a code for automatic cancellation of all data transfers and download the coded script.

Hera sat the HoloPad down. Her hands settled on her lap as she watched the working screen and zoned out to twenty-one years ago. The earth had split, she got promoted to Ground 2 leader, blah, blah, blah. She sat in her new-old office chair, behind the beautiful wooden desk. her hands clutched a Holo, and several texts were written on screen. She had been texting her sister again, but there was no reply to any of them. Giving up, she buried the Holo in the depths of her pocket.

She tried and tried to reach Eva every day. Eventually, those days spanned into weeks and bled into months. There was no text or face chat. Suddenly, Hera was struck with a horrible, painful, realization. "What if..." she caught herself one day.

After trying to reach her sister after a few more weeks, she began to believe what she feared, and the blood inside of her heart began to dry up and crumble. Her heart itself formed a cold, thick slab of stone around it's pumping exterior. That day, in short, her heart hardened. The name Hera meant nothing to her anymore. She refused to go by it, and asked that she be called by her middle name, Lumina. That was how Ground 2 knew their leader, and that was how it stayed for all those years.

As you can see, when Hera fought with Eva today, she felt a crack in that stone exterior sheltering her still beating heart. She knew that fresh, warm blood had filled her heart and formed that crack after seeing her sister sneak into her apartment back on Ground 2. The crack finally met its match when it came in contact with the explosive anger that Hera felt towards Eva. That feeling of dejection spilled out of her in a masked form of emotion. Then, her heart finally free of its solid cage, let herself break down, and soften. Her want to be called Hera, returned.

Her sister freed Hera from her Ground 2 self, returning it to its soft, Earthen self.