"How to get to the other side of Nexus? It's impossible," Fumio said.

Lucas nodded. "We tried it in secret a few months after we came out of suspension on the station. It even got one of our friends sent to the box."

"Dixon is on the other side. If we don't get there by tomorrow, he's going to kill somebody." Victor hadn't shouted it, but he'd said it just a bit louder than was prudent. A few students nearby started whispering to each other. He ignored them. "There has to be a way. If Dixon pulled that stunt at the memorial, then he has to have a way from one side of Nexus to the other."

"I hate to poke holes in your space suit," said Miguel, "but last I checked it was you waving for the camera."

Neither Fumio nor Lucas defended him. Victor had to remind himself that he was the only person that knew for certain that he wasn't responsible. The others believed him, but there was still room for doubt. The vid was pretty damning, after all.

"Fine. I'll find it myself," Victor said. He didn't blame them, really. It was just that he didn't have time to convince them. They would solve the encryption and restore the vid or they wouldn't. He needed to investigate on his own until that time. Where should he start?

If Dixon was on board, Roger was likely to know a lot about it. Victor doubted Dixon trusted Roger enough to tell him about his secret way from one side of the ship to the other, but that didn't mean Roger hadn't picked up on clues, unknowingly or not. But Victor felt like it would be better to start with some basic facts, first. It would make Roger easier to soften up.

The question was, who else could help him? Who would have their ear to the ground and know about everything going on inside Nexus? Then Victor spotted Bracias. The two boys locked eyes, and Bracias ran in the opposite direction.

Victor chased after him, dodging students and ignoring automated warnings from the hall drones. Bracias dodged into a set of the dorm rooms. When Victor caught up, he couldn't see the other boy, anywhere.

"I know you're here, Bracias. You can come out, or I can find you."

Bracias stood from behind a bed and walked to the aisle between them.

"What do you want, Vance? I thought we were done."

It was true that he had gotten Bracias to lure Roger off the path a bit during his exile to the vents. Though Victor bore no ill will toward Bracias, he didn't particularly like him, either. And he certainly wasn't done with him.

"Bracias, I need some information."

"You gonna beat it out of me?" he asked. He seemed genuinely curious.

"No."

"Alright. Do you have something to give me in return?"

Victor shrugged. "That depends on the answer you give me. Do you know of any way to the other side of the station?"

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Bracias' brow furrowed. "Not from within the ship. Only if you left out of the airlock, went to the other side, and had someone open the airlock for you."

Victor shook his head. "That wouldn't work. It's too far, the air pack's don't last that long, certainly not for a return trip if there was no one to let you in. For that to be possible...." Victor's eyes glazed over as he began to consider other possibilities. "That'll be all Bracias. Thanks."

Victor left for the Information Room. It felt like he was spending a lot of his time there, neglecting his club responsibilities and the training arenas. When he arrived Lucas, Fumio, and Miguel had already left. He sat at a holo table alone, pulled up a panel, and used the command prompt to make a simple dive. He'd seen Fumio and Lucas do it a few times now, and had no trouble perusing the surface level files that organized the Nexus' non-secret components. He found the outer systems area and began looking through the sub folders for anything suspicious.

After scrolling past what felt like hundreds of folders, he finally came upon one labeled "External Auxiliary Systems". Inside he saw various monitor and vid folders, many of them encrypted or locked. Then he spotted one that read: Auxiliary Module. It seemed suspiciously vague, so he looked inside.

There were many systems settings files, but Victor opened the one labeled "Change State". A tabbed window opened, and in the main part was listed two labeled input boxes: Side:, which currently had the value 'A', and ETA:, which currently had the value 00:00:00.

Lucas and Fumio had exercised extreme caution when diving, but Victor had neither the time nor patience for it at the moment. He entered 'C' into the Side: text box to see what would happen. An error popped up: 'Warning: Side Invalid'. Victor input 'B' and attempted to apply the settings, but he got another warning: 'Invalid ETA'.

Victor shrugged and input 00:20:00. Who knew what going too fast would do? Twenty minutes sounded good for whatever this was. When he activated the data this time, it was accepted. After a few moments a vid popped up with a view of an area of the external part of Nexus near one of the airlocks. A panel was opening. Out flipped a bubble-like glass compartment attached to a steel rod that went into the ship. Victor now realized that a long, metallic streak that went along the side of the station wasn't some odd decoration or an accident of design. It was a track.

Another pop-up appeared: 'Transport bubble leaving in 00:20:00". It began to tick down minutes.

There might not even be time to tell anyone. He needed to get himself into a spacesuit and into that bubble. It was time to go to the girl's side of the ship and confront Dixon once and for all.