“‘Humanity is the antithesis of knowledge. Humans are self-destructive creatures at heart. A single individual may work toward glory and advancement, yet the masses prance regression and ignorance as virtues. Institutions are the merchants of progress, not arbiters. Profit! Ideology! The entire global hegemon is run by these superficialities, stomping on the hands and skulls of those who shed blood and tears for the next stage of civilization. In this current world, there is no hope for scientific breakthroughs—as today, I finally realized, wisdom is a farce.’”

  “I think I remember that passage,” Morgan said as Sophos led us deeper into the facility. “It was your manifesto, wasn’t it?”

  Sophos slowed down and tried to flick Morgan’s forehead, but he deftly avoided her fingers. She pouted. “I’d rather not have you sully my reputation further in front of my student.” (Chie blushed.) “But yes, I wrote that drivel while working as an Ain in Binah. I’d been disillusioned by the world and the Society for quite some time, yet do you know what really pushed me off the edge?”

  I knew the answer: “When your team leader stole your research and framed you for plagiarism and other crimes.”

  Sophos snapped her fingers. “Someone has read my biography! Yes, after having my position revoked, I wrote a scathing essay about the diseases plaguing society at the time. It was so heated, so controversial, that even Master Alzahrani would be impressed. Ha, as if. My essay reached the ears of no one except the sorrow in my heart. I was an abandoned prodigy much like the others. Used then thrown away.”

  She stopped the group in front of a blank, lifeless door. There wasn’t a sign enlightening us to the room’s purpose, nor could we hear anything through the walls. In fact, the door had no visible doorknob or keypad. It was little better than a straight sheet of metal.

  “Yet a foolish magician had reclaimed the lost prodigy. That’s where Sophia diverges. She never clasped Phenomena’s hand, and so her destiny would be a tragic one.”

  “This must be the strange presence I’ve felt…” Rei laid a hand on the door. “Why would you keep her here?”

  Morgan nodded, glaring through the darkness of his hood. “Let me say this politely, Sophos: this is beyond stupid even by your metrics. Regardless if ‘Sophia’ hasn’t blown the door wide open, you’re potentially inviting the Mother—!”

  “Firstly, she's not in the facility. Secondly, she’s our solution,” Sophos firmly stated. “Yesterday, we invented a device that will capture her ‘essence’ to put things plainly. Using her essence, then, we’ll attract the Mother like ants to pheromones.”

  “Then why haven’t you used it yet?” Aiden asked the obvious.

  Sophos didn’t immediately answer.

  Rei quietly said, “You want Sophia to live as long as possible.”

  “Heh.” The genius took her glasses off and cleaned the lenses. “Q-Quite astute, young man. I suppose my heart has once again gotten in the way of what’s necessary.”

  I felt a mixture of reactions go through the team, mainly frustration and sympathy. Any rational person—hell, anyone with common sense—knew to dispatch breachers as soon as possible. Sophia was “alive” for four days at this point. Anything could’ve happened! To prolong her inevitable demise was cruel to “herself” and the city. Some of us, though, didn’t let cold logic dictate their thinking. Seeing your past self put your entire life into perspective: your mistakes, your emotions, your obstacles, and everything you did in response.

  Once you framed your life as a chain of cause and effect, you could pick out a single, defining event that changed everything.

  Sophos popped her glasses back on, her fingers trembling. “Don’t worry, I won’t prolong her ‘life’ any longer. Though, I won’t let everyone rush inside; that’ll be a party. Instead…” She surveyed the team. “Conqueror, Chie, would you please accompany me?”

  Me and Chie? I get Chie, but why me? I—actually, I shouldn’t ask that question anymore. Sophos probably had a good reason to invite me, and while an Alternate was on the other side of the door, she knew Sophia wouldn’t hurt either of us. I hoped, anyway.

  Morgan, Leo, and Aiden made their disagreement obvious by either grumbling or glowering. However, they weren’t in a position to disagree with a Guild Master. This was her house, her Alternate, her plan. We simply had to trust her.

  “I’m glad we all agree,” Sophos said sarcastically but without her usual tone. “It won’t take long. You can either wait here or return to your quarters. Ask any of my subordinates, they’ll lead you.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Wait it is, then. Come on, children, let’s not dilly-dally any further.”

  Chie and I broke off from the group and joined Sophos at the door. Sophos waved her hand and revealed a hidden locking mechanism of sorts: a small, multi-layered magical formation. She spun some circles and tapped a few symbols, and everything “clicked” into place. The formation glowed, and Sophos was forcibly teleported inside the room.

  Another teleport, huh?

  I let Chie take the lead on this one. She laid a hand on the formation and was stolen from the hallway. After that was my turn. The teleport was painless, far less taxing on my body than the chain-teleport I’d taken to get here.

  When my shoes scratched against a worn carpet, I smelled lavender candles, ink, and old books. A gentle warmth hugged my shoulders like a bright fireplace in the middle of an Arctic winter. My body naturally relaxed, and despite my better judgment, I let tension and stress melt from my overworked muscles.

  I stood in a sectioned-off area of the mysterious room. Blank doors, like the one we’d just entered, surrounded me. Over each door was a sign: “Wisdom Guild HQ,” “Phenomena,” “Facility Galilei,” and so on. I entered from “Facility Hubble.” Looks like she was right. This room didn’t exist in the facility; rather, the facility had a “portal” that led to Sophos’s sacred space.

  Her personal library and study.

  I explored.

  From floor to ceiling, wall to wall, were massive darkwood bookshelves tightly packed with weathered books, tomes, and even ancient scrolls. I didn’t spot any ladders, but with magic, you didn’t need any. At least a hundred books levitated outside their homes, likely acting as Sophos’s reading list (which only grew exponentially larger). Even with the absurd storage space, she felt the need to stuff books at every corner in messy piles and towers.

  I dragged a finger over one of the covers, reading a long and verbose title. Underneath was a book in French, and beside it was another book but in Spanish. A testament to her endless curiosity and ambition, I guess.

  I rounded the partition that divided the portal room from the main study. Turns out, the warmth I’d felt earlier did come from a fireplace and a pretty one at that. A couple large lounge-chairs, antique and luxurious, flanked the fire which burned a crisp red-and-orange behind clear glass. Books cozied underneath the chairs’ arms.

  At the far end of the study, Sophos somehow brought in a grand table that was a little shorter than the width of the room. I’d comment about the fine wood and the worn condition if every surface area wasn’t covered by additional books, papers, and other instruments. A few chairs were tucked underneath, and several were off on the sides acting as “temporary” storage for more junk. That had to be her personal “desk.”

  Well, it wasn’t “hers” anymore.

  For the past few days, Sophos’s study belonged to the bashful girl who had a thick “collar” of pixels around her neck. Actually, her whole body was pixelated except for her head. The pixelation varied in intensity. Her extremities, for example, you could count the pixels; for her torso, you had to squint to see them. Despite that, she seemingly walked around and behaved like any normal human. Any normal, shy human.

  Sophia was the opposite of the Genius of Stars. Sophos was arrogant, full-of-herself, frustrating, but Sophia was just a girl. She’s just a girl, who hasn’t been taking care of herself. When was the last time she’d eaten something nutritious? Or slept on a proper bed? Her hair was so thin, her body was a stick, and her skin was paler than white. Did the Phenomena Society drive her to this point? For what?

  Even in her state, she spoke calmly with Chie and Sophos. Her head sometimes tilted low, she had trouble with making eye contact, but she was talking. Speaking of improper eye contact, she spotted me and I heard her breath hitch from where I stood.

  Sophos softly clapped. “There you are. I’m glad you figured out the mechanism.”

  Sophia visibly gulped. “Erm… I-I—”

  “Don’t worry. That brute might look intimidating—well, he is intimidating—he’s harmless, I assure you,” Sophos said as I joined them. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

  Sophos and Sophia were the same person, yet the latter seemed so small up close. She was almost like a child, weaker than one probably. I could easily dispatch her even in my current state, but… “Alex,” I found myself saying. “Conqueror, that’s my codename.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “S-Sophia, but you already knew that, uhm…” Sophia shakily extended a hand, staring at the pixels rather than me.

  I reached out, hesitated as the pixels on her hand moved, but I took it. Her hand didn’t feel normal for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t the pixels; it was how small and fragile her hand was. She couldn’t hold a thick textbook for more than a few minutes.

  Sophia quickly retracted her hand and held it close to her chest. She nodded hard. “It’s good to meet you, mhm. I, uh, Sophos has told me a lot about you, Conqueror. About, well, everything. It’s… I-I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “No need. To me and the rest of the team, it’s just another job that needs doing.”

  “R-Right, yes, of course…” Sophia looked at her true self. “Uhm, I don’t want to be a bother, but Morgan Weyer didn’t come?”

  “He wouldn’t take kindly to your being here,” answered Sophos. “I apologize. I knew you wanted to pick the brain of Master Alzahrani’s most foolish student.”

  Sophia’s drained eyes sunk to the floor. “It’s alright—I shouldn’t have asked—I’m sorry, really. It’s even more silly of me to ask.”

  Yeah, if the facts weren’t literally staring at me in the face, I wouldn’t believe it if you said Sophos and Sophia were the same person. At the same time, would I really be surprised? I heard the Society broke down their Ains like this: destroy their self-esteem and remold them into obedient researchers.

  “So…” but I wanted to cheer her up a little, “Is Master Alzahrani all that cracked up to be? I’m not that knowledgeable when it comes to the Society.”

  “Of course he is!” Sophia raised her voice, a dash of familiar fire in her eyes. “Master Alzahrani is one of the greatest cosmologists of my time, even yours! He is—uhm, was—Phenomena’s most trusted Keter. He was working on a way to travel between Worldlines! I—” She stopped, and the small fire was extinguished quick. “I guess he wasn’t successful, seeing as he completely disappeared in your present day.”

  Maybe I wasn't as good at conversations as I thought.

  “Morgan’s looking for him,” Chie suddenly spoke up. “Elaine too. They’re doing everything to find Master Alzahrani.”

  Elaine, must be Morgan's friend who was off in Korea to pursue novel-writing and not paper-writing.

  The reassurance, and the little white lie, didn't reach Sophia. “It doesn’t matter. This…” Sophia motioned to the entire study. “This is more than enough.”

  “I would hope so.” Sophos plucked a book off the grand table and flipped through the pages. She smiled at the small annotations then set the book back. “Over the course of decades, I collected everything. It has the wisdom of old and knowledge of today from the stratosphere to Antarctica. This is one of my proudest achievements. Another is standing right there.”

  Chie blushed, shifting her feet out of embarrassment.

  Sophia quietly laughed; it sounded nothing like her real self.

  “Why don’t you show Sophia some of your [Yokais]?” asked Sophos, but she wasn’t asking.

  “O-Okay…” Above Chie’s shoulder, she summoned one of her [Yokai] drones. I wasn’t an expert in Japanese mythology, so don’t ask me what it did. Sophia wasn’t an expert either, so the girls had lots to talk about.

  They seemed excited, albeit nervous, to engage in their mutual passion together.

  “So…” I said as Sophos filtered to my side, “...are you going to explain why you brought me here?”

  Sophos wagged her finger at me like a disapproving grandma. “Don’t assume I have a complex reason for everything. I wanted you to meet her, that’s all. You’re more…receptive than some of your teammates.”

  I asked, “That’s why you brought Chie too?”

  “Obviously. I don’t know what I was thinking: letting my student meet my younger self. It’s embarrassing, but…” We watched as the conversation grew louder in excitement. “A teacher has to indulge herself once in a while.”

  Sophos hugged herself, and despite her words, the look on her face wasn’t one of happiness.

  “Seeing Sophia doesn’t bring up the happiest memories, right?” I said, the euphemism in my question obvious.

  “Do you know why I took Chie as my most recent student? It’s been three, almost four years since she came under my wing—pun completely intended.” Sophos forced a chuckle. “It’s because I found her crying over her failed drone and the first of her would-be [Yokais], [Temari], in an attempt to convince Rector that she can work for Angels.”

  I said nothing.

  “The poor girl was a clueless recluse. Our first conversation wasn’t much of one; she couldn’t complete a single sentence without stuttering, and she thought my eyes were on her scandals. She bookended everything with ‘I’m sorry, Sophos!’ and ‘I apologize, ma’am!’. Despite her dramatics, Chie had ambition and a will.”

  So that’s why. It’s… It’s not because Chie had impressed her. All this time, I thought Chie was an engineering prodigy who invented something so wild that Sophos had to take her in. But...

  “Why, what are you thinking about again, Conqueror?” she asked tensely, noticing my staring.

  “Nothing,” I told her, pulling my muscles together to smile. “You both came a long way since then.”

  “Oh, stop. You shouldn’t flatter your elders like that.” This time, Sophos’s chuckle was genuine. “I’m proud of Chie. I really, truly am…”

  My small praise quickly ran out of gas, and gloom stole the joy in her eyes, reminding her of what had to be done. For the Genius of Stars, her expression was uncharacteristic, as though she had shed that [Title] and allowed her vulnerable heart to shine through. I saw the resemblance, now, between her and the Alternate.

  The vulnerable girl was one and the same.

  Chie did her best to prolong the conversation by using another [Yokai], but Sophia was clocked out.

  She had noticed her better self.

  Sophos turned away and tried to hide her face, but the shoe was now on the other foot.

  Sophia approached us and met her eyes. “It’s time for me to die, isn’t it?”

  “No—! I…” Sophos was at a loss for words, shamefully looking at the carpet like there were eyes within the threads. “I’m sorry. I thought you would have more time, but—”

  “There’s no reason to apologize." Sophia looked down at her pixelated hands then clenched them. "I’m not meant to exist. You’re just…correcting a mistake that should’ve never been made.”

  Sophos found enough courage to look at the small girl in her distorted, pixelated eyes. “Calling yourself a ‘mistake,’ that’s…annoyingly like you. I hate it.”

  The girl unflinchingly looked back. “Do you remember our dream, Sophos?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “‘The stars have been there before us and they will last far beyond us. We may never reach them, and our dreamless eyes will only catch the sight of our own destruction before the greatest cosmic glory. We are to live in darkness for most of our little lives, praying for the next sunrise until the inevitable sundeath.’ That’s what we wrote in our final letter to the world.”

  Sophia gazed at the ceiling.

  I… I never noticed until now, but the ceiling was a perfect replica of the night sky. It appeared seemingly boundless, stretching into the far infinities of the cosmos. Within the blanket of darkness were scattered constellations, colorful nebulas, and diamond-like stars.

  Sophia reached up and grabbed at the impossibly distant artifacts, framing them between the gaps of her fingers. “We believed we were destined to pierce the veil and break into the stars, but this awful world killed our fantasies. Yet you thought otherwise, Sophos! You created this for us.”

  “I…” Sophos briefly shut her eyes. “I wanted you to see the stars one last time.”

  “And I remembered why I fell in love with the cosmos.”

  “I wanted to fatten your brilliant brain with ideas of today.”

  “I spent all my waking hours here, seeing how much you’ve accomplished.”

  “I didn’t want you to leave this world as disheartened as you arrived.”

  “How can I, when you rebuilt our dream and so much more?”

  Sophos struggled to speak; she had a thousand words lodged inside her throat, but she couldn’t say a single one.

  Instead, Sophia spoke in her place, “My true self shouldn't frown so much. She’s the one who will uncover the universe’s secrets after all. Any more frowns and she’ll actually look her age.”

  “You…” Sophos conceded her defeat with a small, pained laugh. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. A beautiful genius shouldn’t concern herself over her past—no matter how pathetic her younger self was. There is only the bright future, hiding the answers for all of our questions. What else is there to do but unearth them?”

  “Then do it.” Sophia pressed a hand against the center of her chest. “Destroy me to reach the truth.”

  To reach the truth of the Alternates and the Mother, what else could Sophos do but fulfill her promise? In her palm, a strange mechanical device appeared. It was a peculiar crossover between a dagger and a syringe. The “needle” was more like a blade, and the “barrel” was more like a steel tube. Through a small window on the barrel, I saw magical glyphs etched within the inner-walls. The solution to our problem, invented by Sophos herself, looked slapped-together and unpolished, but it seemed functional. It's all we could ask for.

  Sophos tightly gripped the handle with two hands. “...When I met Phenomena that night, he told me to sob. He said that I must sing my sorrow toward the ignorant and hateful world. ‘You must expel contempt from your heart to embrace love again. Love is what separates geniuses and madmen.’”

  “He must’ve been a wise teacher.” Sophia dropped her hand and laid herself bare; there wasn’t a hint of regret in her unnatural, yet pure eyes.

  “Yes.” With shaking hands, Sophos pressed the device’s tip against the girl's heart. “He’s the wisest of us all.”

  “No.” Sophia held the genius’s hands. “It has always been you.”

  The needle plunged deeply.

  Unlike the other Alternates, who had withered into the air and left no trace behind, Sophia was funneled into the barrel. Through the window, the chamber was immediately filled by a dense, pixelated gas of sorts. Could the device handle cargo like that? Would “Sophia” last long enough that we could use her? Would this idea even work? Admittedly, I wasn’t asking those questions right away.

  Chie and I were more worried about the woman trying not to cry in front of two of her juniors.

  Without a word, Chie embraced her teacher.

  I decided to head back to Facility Hubble by myself, giving them the time they need.

  [Event Commission “To the Stars” has been completed]

  [You have been paid 25,000ssp]

  Event Commission: To the Stars

  Pay: 25,000ssp

  Description: “The reason why stars are so bright is because our world is so dark,” as I often told myself. Ignorance is a plague on humanity. Many are hellbent on refusing science and logic, and many more are selfish demons who are willing to crush others for their own gain. Yet, this sounds ridiculous coming from a failed Phenom. That’s why you’re here, Sophos. You’re different from that hopeless girl, because you will explore and create and thrive—all from the heart and mind of a genius with love.