A shudder ran down Victor's spine.

A boy? Describe him.

He's medium build. Slim but muscular. Intense eyes. Charming. Everyone's freaking out about him, but I think there's something weird about him.

Dixon. This was how he was staying hidden on the ship. He had come from the relay station to the girl's side. If he had framed Victor himself, that meant he knew a way from the girl's to the boy's side.

Listen to me carefully, Raja. Mark is dangerous. Don't go anywhere near him.

What aren't you telling me?

Victor thought carefully. Rajia was obviously the curious type. Was there anything he could say that would stop her from making a mistake that would land her on Dixon's radar? Maybe he should tell her the truth? No. If she knew he was a killer there was too great a chance that she would try to warn her friends. Word would spread. Dixon would find out. Rajia would mysteriously die or disappear. It had all happened before on the boy's side.

It has to do with why he was put into suspension, doesn't it?

Rajia was already getting too close.

Rajia. Listen to me carefully. You're all safe as long as no one threatens him. It's too complicated to explain here. Will you trust me?

....Alright Victor. I trust you. We've made some progress with that reactor data, but we're out of time. I'll tell you next time.

The text box closed.

Victor returned to the Information Room. The others were sitting around the console.

"Any luck?" he asked as he sat next to Fumio and peeked at his holo panel.

"It's not looking good, Vic." Lucas said.

Fumio sighed. "We believe that we have isolated the code that was manipulated, but we can't tell in what way or how to change it back."

On Fumio's screen were six three by three grids. Each grid had letters and numbers on it.

"It might be some sort of simple encryption. So far, all we can see is that the numbers '019' appear together on every grid. That's it. We might be able to destroy the footage by scrambling the numbers, but the damage is probably done. I doubt we're the only ones to see that vid," Lucas said, yawning.

"This might be a dead end, then. Anyway, thanks for trying," Victor said. They'd gone through enough trouble on his account.

"Are you sure?" Fumio asked.

"Yeah."

That night, when Victor entered the dorms, no one talked to him or looked at him. The anger from earlier had died down into broken morale and sadness. Hardly anyone talked.

When Victor fell asleep, he was haunted by strange dreams. There was one dream, similar to the one he'd had with Alex in it, where he was running from alien forms and hiding in an otherwise empty Nexus. In another dream a pulsing light approached his bed. It spoke to him in a chiming voice, but as if from far away and disrupted by static.

"Vance..... first called Victor," it said, pulsing as it spoke. "Your home approaches the yawning mouth," *static* "We can speak to you, though we cannot help you." *static*. The dream began to fade away. It was harder and harder to hear the chiming voice. "....too close....fear...torn apart...."

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Victor woke, a cold sweat sticking to his forehead. He got out of bed and headed straight for the shower, the dream already fading from his mind. After class he sat in the Information Room and anxiously perused the star charts he'd been building from the vids of the surrounding stars. He anxiously waited for 2100 hours station time. He wanted to hear what Rajia had to say about the reactor, sure, but he also wanted to check in to make sure people were still alive.

When the time came Victor nearly jumped over the cushioned chair in the main room and entered Information Room 5.

Rajia? Are you there?, he entered into the already open text box.

Rajia is indisposed at the moment. I saw to that. Hello, Victor. I've missed you.

Victor thought about leaving the console then and there. If this was Dixon then all he wanted was to taunt Victor as much as possible. The best thing to do was not give him the satisfaction. Maybe if he believed that Victor didn't care, he wouldn't harm anyone on the girl's side.

But he just couldn't help himself.

Dixon, he typed. It was more of a declaration than a question. The response confirmed Victor's worst fears.

Alive and present, despite all your efforts.

The cursor blinked on the next line for several moments. Nothing that Victor could write would possibly effect this conversation for the better. Dixon had the upper hand. he was willing to kill, do anything, to get what he wanted. Victor still didn't exactly understand what that was.

Speechless? I understand. Sorry about Roger. I needed him to test out the station response to forceful measures. We go back, but he is quite useless. I've got some hard decisions to make, Victor. I want you to help me make them, since we're friends. That girl, Najar, is a little too clever for my tastes. Then again, that Storm girl.... You know, the blonde? She's pretty defiant. Too many leadership qualities, you know? One of them's got to disappear at the least. So I don't have problems later on. Will you be a pal and choose for me? I'd hate to off both of them. You have until this time tomorrow. Take care, Vic. Tell those clever friends of yours I'll be seeing them soon.

Then the cursor skipped a line.

You should have killed me when you had the chance, Victor.

The text box disappeared.

Victor kicked his chair back in a rage, slammed his fist into the wall, and screamed. It had been a long time since he'd lost control like that, but Dixon always found a way to get to you.

A rumble shook the station as Victor regained his composure. By the time he left Information Room 5 it was impossible to tell what had just happened. He walked over to the holo table, where Miguel, Fumio, and Lucas were gathered at the usual place. They stopped talking when they saw Victor.

"We've got to find out how to get to the girl's side," Victor said.