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<11/01/149,566 {Avion 148} - 07:02 | Corral Position, Genosis, Altiri Sector Space>

At long last, I've come too far to quit now. I have Reed in my sights, in my presence, and myself on his mind. All who are purged get to make a daring choice on the very first day; whether to have us leave or have us stay, a choice usually made permanent. I can't worry about the risks any longer. I have to tell him everything, everything there is to know about my world, my past, and me, and also to let him know that I've long since cared about every little moment he has been through.

"Okay..." Reed released a soft whisper of air, slowly inching to the opened bus doors, waiting to be the last student to get on. "Fine. I'll listen to what you have to say. Just tell me what to do first about attracting less attention, cause it's not working out so far." Even as he said this, Reed's visual attention kept zipping to and away some of the other kids at the bus stop, who were somewhat holding similar suspicion of him, as if they might hear his whispers.

"Just remember to talk with your mind for now." This isn't going to be easy for either of us. Reed already doesn't believe I even exist, and the details of my world are so alien to him, this may only make it much worse, but I have to try. It's also important that I try to prevent him from attracting unusual attention to himself right now; the others cannot know of us. "And there, take that empty seat." With the connection so much stronger now, I could easily see the details through his eyes, even determine the exact point of focus in his center of vision. It was a little strange at first given the quality difference, on top of the fact that he seemed to have better visual quality focus on objects further away than objects closer to his face.

"Project your voice and your thoughts loudly in your mind. They have to be loud enough in dynamic volume for me to hear them. I can't visually see anything that you specifically imagine or daydream, but I can hear what you think, if you give those thoughts enough juice." There were some exceptions to my words, but the ability to share day dreams and memories isn't something I think will happen today. All things considered, the connection isn't that powerful this time, and it would be too much to explain for now.

Understood.

He learns quickly. "Good." I can't tell how nervous he is right now, or if his calm demeanor is as real as it looks. It was difficult enough trying to keep everything else off my mind right now, all so that I can keep my attention locked entirely through his senses, to phase out my world entirely so that I'm only living through his. I could only imagine what kind of shock me must be in though. To his perspective, all of this should be impossible... He isn't saying anything either, after so many seconds. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Hey, I got one question off the top. You can see so clearly through my eyes. So why can't I see like that through yours? Even earlier, your world never came into full opacity."

"That transparency effect is part of my view too, but I can view only your world if I shut my eyes. It won't help you out though. It has to do with connection strength, psionic properties, and shared load variations." I have to be sparse on the details for now, since there is just too much to get into. Right now, the connection strength is moderate. If it becomes much stronger, vigorously strong anyway, then Reed could one day see through my eyes and into my world as easily as he would have breathing, but today isn't that day.

"What is all of that supposed to mean?"

"One question at a time please. I beg of you."

"Fine!" he grumbled. "How about you start from the beginning then? I heard you mention earlier that you watched over me and several other people. Meaning, I wasn't the only person in your scopes? Still, I thought telepathy only works on a purged individual."

At last, I saw an opening to speak from the very beginning of what has happened. Reed was one of four people I watched over, until it all narrowed down on him. "You're confusing telepathy with clairvoyance."

"Okay, what is clairvoyance?"

"Patiently, I will tell you everything you need to know, okay? I know you don't believe that I exist, but I'll answer anything you ask."

"We've got some time before we reach school, so start with clairvoyance. Tell me everything."

"Clairvoyance is different from telepathy. It allows us to watch other people from a third person aerial view no matter what they are up to, from any range, and without their knowledge of being watched. It has many limitations, but most of every Altiri has the ability to use long-range clairvoyance all day long. When it comes to telepathy, we can actually talk to other Altiri without a purge, automatically in fact. Altiri are born with those powers."

"So that's what that clair-thingy is?" As cute as it was to see Reed fail to get the name right, I could tell he was trying his best, his mind in deep thought even as he spoke back to me. From this moment, he began to calm down, as did I, hearing his soothing voice echo throughout my mind.

"Clairvoyance," I corrected. "Like any other psionic sensation, it can be used on any location, regardless of the distance or what might be in the way of an imaginary path between both nodes. That and telepathy are also instantaneous forms of data transmission with no delay or lag... If I wanted to, I could easily watch over someone with a near-aerial view, acquiring all of the visual and acoustical sensations of their immediate environment. It can allow us to build up a best-fit 3-D environmental map of conscious data from their stimuli."

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Chapter Theme Shift: Mol ~ Connect.Ohm (9980)

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"Sure... Keep going."

It doesn't sound like he understands half of what I'm saying. I'm going to have to make this even easier for anyone to understand... "The thing is, any Altiri can use clairvoyance on any location. And that means, despite how far away we are, no matter what galactic distance we start from—"

"You can use this clairvoyant spy thing to watch the people of Earth... Doesn't that mean that the Altiri know our entire human history?"

I can see why he would think that. "More or less. We discovered AC— Er, I mean, Earth, approximately thirteen thousand years ago, and began more surveillance about two thousand years after, so we didn't capture the beginning of human history entirely."

I had to patiently wait in between some of what I said, as I knew he would need time to process some of it. Talking about the past however brought up some more thoughts I kept suppressed earlier, about how I felt that day we discovered Earth, the shock all of us felt, followed by the gut-wrenching feeling we shared when we first learned about the heathens there. "Wait a minute. Back up a bit. What were you going to say just then before cutting yourself off?"

"Oh that? It's just the scientific name we've given to your celestial object. Earth has the designation ACS414. That then puts the moon at ACS415, and so on." I'm still used to calling Earth - ACS414, but I'm still more amazed that the term 'Earth' has existed and stuck for so long.

"Cool..." "Actually, it's not cool. Why am I even listening to my deluded self?"

"You promised you would hear me out." At least I know where he still stands on all of this.

"Fine."

"You really think you could have just made up every little detail about this on the spot?" It was still tough trying to convince him I exist, for I was finally beginning to put myself in his shoes, trying to imagine how I would feel if I was never aware of aliens for such a long time, only to be hit upside the head with the truth so suddenly, and in such a way where nobody else can corroborate our existence.

"I apparently had a year, didn't I?"

"Maybe. But it seems that even that long wasn't enough to teach you everything." I have no means to get him to understand that the purge did not do its job entirely; either that or he has a very short memory. The aspect of the purge making him hold slightly positive opinions of us defiantly did not work, and it seems much of the information specific to us is missing as well.

"I don't get it. Is this purge signal supposed to be teaching me things?"

"Yes. The methods are random and come in different variations. For example, most of what you learned about the Altiri prior to you and I connecting to each other today probably happened within your dreams, though other methods exist too. The performance of a purge signal gradually injects information and data related to our experiences, including my own emotions about most important moments of my life."

"If only school were that easy." It was getting harder to behave my mind with how often he keeps making those random remarks. "Hold on a sec. If that wasn't really you in my dream, that means the you here right now really is the first time we've met at all? Also, I only learned what fragments I did at random. Not all of it made a lot of sense, and I don't remember other parts of it."

He should have realized before now that I'm the real deal, though I am curious to know what image he had of me in his dreams. I can't focus on that though, since this only proves that I was right. "That's what I meant earlier about something not being right. When I spoke to you this morning, even though I've known you a lot longer, this was my first time speaking to you for real. Whatever you saw in a dream was part of the influence from the purge itself, which explains why you would have dreamt about me and my sisters; that much was expected at least. But I swear, the purge signal must have been slowed down or impaired when summer rolled in. You should have already learned a lot more; that's how it normally works anyway."

"Can that even happen, a purge signal failing I mean? What even is a purge signal anyway?"

Why won't he let me finish speaking?! It took everything in me not to show him any anger, but I couldn't help stomp my feet a little in response. "If you would stop interrupting me, you would find out!"

"Sooooooory!" Reed held more sarcasm in his apology than any seriousness, but I had to calm myself first. "Continue then."

"Anyway, the Altiri Aggressor Groups—"

"See, there you go again, using terms I don't understand."

He really can't just wait for me to speak! "Fine! I'll just define everything for you." If he wants to ask about everything, I'll explain everything, even if it makes him sound like an idiot.

I mean, it is what I asked.

I heard that, but I'm not going to let on that I heard him. I can't tell if I'm being thrown off purely by my desperation to convince him I exist, or if it's something else about his attitude that keeps agitating me; for now I must ignore it. "Aggressor Groups are code names that we used for specialized orbital fleets. Each fleet consists of a small team of capital ships in outer space for the defense of the planet, who all serve in the Altiri military."

"You have an Altiri military? Man. Must be a tough world out there in Genosis." See what I mean? He just keeps tossing around random assumptions before I can get a word in. It isn't me, right? I know I'm not the only one noticing this.

"As I was saying, our aggressor groups each took their own separate locations to use long range clairvoyance, all for the purpose of finding intelligent alien life. We also hoped to use it to find special resources we may need one day, even though the ACS system was known to be too far for resources."

"So how did that work out?"

I'm talking to him right now, yet he's asking the question? Maybe he meant from a global perspective within our history. "Unfortunately, we soon learned that our clairvoyant abilities won't work on inanimate objects, dead people, or creatures without enough sensory intelligence to send us that information in echo return data. Our abilities can only affect living creatures, particularly those with a minimum level of psionic capabilities and variant dynamic thought processes."

"Eventually, you found ACS414, right?"

At last, he was finally getting with the program, even though he took some time in between his responses. "I personally can't take credit for finding Earth; that was left up to the Royal Scryers. Still, it was a moment that gave wonder to our entire world. There is something you have to understand Reed. To your perspective, someone like me and the other Altiri are considered aliens to Earth and all life around it. But from our perspective, the way we were examining the human race for the first time, we knew that all of you were aliens to our world too. In a weird manner of context, I can call you the alien, if I'm comparing you to my world." Who is really the alien here? Us Altiri, or the human race? Does it even matter at this point?

"Okay, fair point. But while we are doing comparisons, which one of us would be more superior to the other?"

"Which do you think?" I know he has been missing some purge information, but the answer should be obvious by now. Anyone would assume we are the dominant species... Why isn't he saying anything? Has Reed already figured out the dark rule to telepathy, the rule that implies thoughts can be hidden when not projected with enough energy? I knew about the rule too well, which is why I tried asking myself the question just loudly enough to see if he would address it. Still, it is a bit annoying if he has figured it out already. I can tell his moments of silence are of him thinking, but if that's true, I should be hearing a lot more from him than I do now. "I don't like admitting this, but Altiri people appear to be better adapted to our own bodies, and especially adapted to severe cold environments."

"So you don't like the heat then? Now that you mentioned it, it is rather cold outside today, more than usual."

"You really have no idea Reed." I wish that humans could be a bit stronger, strong enough to be born with telepathy on their own, just like us, so that we wouldn't need the purge in the first place. It would be so much easier than having to rely on so many conditions. "As for heat, we physically cannot handle it. Our bodies can only handle the lower ranges of temperatures. Once we stand in air heated to above sixty degrees, our bodies begin to struggle surviving, while our internal organs begin to liquefy. We die a quick and painful death." It almost happened to me and Junko once, that time when some critical equipment failed, preventing our A/C system from working properly. Heat is deadly to us, and thinking about it makes us squirm.

"But now I'm getting off topic. Going back to our tracking abilities, information was stills scarce. We weren't able to track every single person during that era, especially back then. Most of the tribes tried to live in very warm places. It isn't just our bodies that suffer from the heat Reed. Our own psionic signaling falls apart from heat interference too. Since psionics requires two nodes for targeting, if the human we want to watch is in a warm area, even if we are in a cold area, any ability we throw at them including a purge would never get through. In a way, it produces many dark spots on your planet, places we can't get our eyes on, and places that we can only see during the cold seasons..." I'm just going to have to accept that I won't be able to hear every one of his thoughts, but it is only fair, since I can do the same on my terms. "Each aggressor group that tracked a human chose different targets at a time. Most never followed the entire life span of a particular individual. There was freedom and variance to use our ability on everyone, since it didn't harm or change anything."

"Wait. If the Altiri have been purging humans for that long—"

"We haven't." My immediate correction made him sink down in his seat, which was an interesting reaction I didn't expect from him. Was he excited to almost prove us right just now? Is he only upset with me because he thinks I'm not real, or is it because of my very own intrusion? "Observing is one thing. Purging is something else entirely. It involves a complicated process for an entire aggressor group, working together to send a very powerful telepathic signal to the selected host body. Very few groups ever use this ability."

"... People like me?"

"People like you," I confirmed. Poor Reed; if only someone nearby him had also been purged, we could try and bring them together, despite how tight the queen guards those secrets. In any case, he deserves to know who purged him, since it was a team effort. "Cy-Stars."

"Cy-what now?"

"Cy-Stars," I repeated, keeping every one of my sisters in thought as I spoke. "That is the team name to my aggressor group. I'm in the military too, in a leading position. I am the leader of that unit, Lumina."

"Cy-Stars..." His pondering made me wonder if that name was something he could faintly remember, but his silence told another story, confirming what I already knew about the purge being slightly messed up. I'm very lucky that his purge only got messed up enough to skip out on phase five, and not phase seven, or else I wouldn't be talking to him at all right now.

"Right. Only aggressor group leaders are allowed to be the sender nodes of the purge, even though the process requires everyone's help. So, even though my sisters all pitched in, only you and I can hear each other's voice like this."

She mentioned before that purging was a one-time deal. Unless I got that wrong, doesn't that mean that all of her sisters would pay the same price without the same reward? If that is how it works, that's kind of sad.

This was the one time I could hear his passive thoughts meant to evade my ears, but hearing his valid assumption only reminded me again how much my sisters lost in the process. Their loss will be in vain, if I don't get this right. At least he understands that all of us had to sacrifice together. "Yes it is. Sadly that is how it goes. But still, I could just as easily drag Junko into this room and have her speak directly to me. If she did that, you would hear her through my ears, and it would therefore project in your mind that way, but it may not sound the same or echo like my thoughts will."

"Okay. That much I get."

"The purge is a very powerful signal. It needs to be in order to achieve what other abilities cannot. Humans by default don't have psionic abilities, so we can't just open a telepathic link with them at will, but the purge changes all of that. We can use it to literally train the human brain how to better use and conserve mental energy to make more room for transmitting psionic energy waves."

"What are psionic energy waves?"

"It's the same kind of energy that you and I are exchanging right now, because of our telepathic connection. Without the purge signal that we sent to you, I could never speak to you right now." There are so many classes on the properties of psionic energy waves alone in our world, inspired by Altiri scientist Herios as her research reluctantly merged with the interests of our queen. Despite this, we still don't know everything.

"But... But that means that the purge signal changed me too."

"You probably experienced emotions that were not exactly your own. I'm afraid the purge easily manipulates the mentality of those who are selected, at least for the duration that the purge remains active. I'm not really a fan of this effect, but it is somehow necessary."

"So you're saying I'm not the same Reed anymore?"

"No, you got it wrong." I wanted to warn him that his assumption here was false, that while the purge did alter his entire personality during its active state, it didn't make any permanent changes. However, before my words could even register for him, his vocal outburst latched unwanted attention from the others nearby.

"Dude? What are you talking to?" "He on some shit!"

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Reed bounced his forehead against the soft seat in front of him repeatedly, synchronizing his frustration to his personal self-insults. It wasn't anything I expected coming from someone as quiet and docile as him. "J—just ignore that," he reported to the random teenager. Is there a briefcase I can slam my face into somewhere?

"I'm not even going to warn you how awkward you're being right now."

"Oh, this is my fault somehow? You're the one who started this!"

It doesn't matter if I started this or not. Reed has what it takes to behave normally; he's quiet so often that it should come easy to him, the invisible person that most people ignore far too often. "You're the same Reed you have always been. We have already proven that these personality changes and emotional remapping are absolutely temporary. The effects of the purge die off quickly after the purge's completion, its seventh phase, which for you started this morning."

"So you're saying, for the last year, ever since August 11, 2009, I have not been myself at all?"

"Well, yes and no. That's not entirely accurate. You've been plenty yourself, but during that time, weird things started happening to you. The process of the purge is never instant, and neither is its data transmission for knowledge of us and the Altiri. It introduces all of these processes gradually over time, cycling between several phases, all while introducing new and rerouting other neurotransmitters to the Cora Sector of the brain. The Cora is pretty much our psionic center, located near the brain stem at the rear-side central core... Based on what should have happened, you would have slowly started to sense things around you that most ordinary people were not able to. All of that was the start of your psionic powers coming alive, like flipping a switch."

Out of nowhere, Reed stood up from his seat, digging his nails into the leather in front of him, and I could feel his upset so strongly. At first I assumed he was angry at me, angry that I was trying to convince him of my existence without success. Instead, he let me know where his true distress was coming from. "Tell me something, Altiri. All of that longing I felt for the sky for no apparent reason was a result of some thing, not thoughts I came up with on my own?"

Is that really what bothers him? "My guess is that your feeling towards the stars was part of a strong sense that we Altiri were out there. The purge would have only given you the initial fragment data that the Altiri exist, and on a planet that isn't anywhere near Earth, but not in a logical manner which would make any sense. The results from that can trigger mental obsession over anything related to this fragment data."

"And what about the lucid dreams?"

"Sit down!" The bus driver from up front told Reed off before anyone else could, and he was forced to sit himself down, though I could tell he wasn't calm anymore.

"We received several rumored reports from other aggressor groups that claimed their purged targets cycled through lucid dreams frequently. It's uncommon though, which is kind of cool. However, now that the purge cycle has already completed on you, it will likely never happen again."

"Lumina? Did you know what I would dream of? My lucid dreams had you and your sisters inside. I got to see what you looked like from the dream itself. I got to talk to you, fight against you, and see the inside of your ship, half of it anyway. Did you know that was going to happen to me from the effects of the purge?"

Not exactly. It's rare for lucid dreams to happen from a purge at all, but not impossible... Now I wish I knew what it was like. "What you saw in those dreams, no matter how real it looked was only simulation. And I don't know what you did in those dreams. I have no way of processing something that happened inside your own mind while asleep, let alone before the purge was finished in the first place. Therefore, I don't know what happened inside of them. I can only guess that information about us on some level was revealed, as the purge intends to do just that - to all targets touched by its signal. However, I've just learned that the learning cycle from a purge can be incomplete, proving to only serve a secondary function..." Did the scryers get it wrong this time? They guaranteed me that phase five of the purge was absolute, but this all proves otherwise.

"But I saw everyone and their faces so clearly! I could feel the cold and snow on my skin! How could a learning process be that precise?" He really went through such an immersive experience? I've heard rumor before that living a lucid dream is a lot like experiencing a whole alternate reality, rather than a dream. Still, I have to put my curiosity aside for now.

"The purge was never specifically intended to teach its target hosts information about the people who send it, but that is the main side effect. It's not just the Altiri you learn about Reed. The purge contains fragmented information about myself and all of my sisters who took part in your purge. Since we know each other so well, me and my sisters all have a solid memory of what we look like, a memory that would have leaked into that purge signal. My purge, my thoughts, my personality, my emotional tastes, all of it can affect you."

"Earlier, I heard you say that the purge was experimental... Is this some kind of experiment?"

"No, not really. Obviously, the very first purge was an experiment. We didn't know what would happen, so we relied on data collection back then. Still, only a tiny handful of humans have been purged before, all throughout human history. So, even now, not everything is really known about the purge. There are bound to be things that happen that we do not foresee, and it can happen for several possible reasons."

"Uhm... Might it explain..." In what I've never seen before, Reed went mute on me, not because he was frustrated or upset, but from something else, from some unusual shame he didn't know how to express... But that can't be right.

"Explain what?" Did something abnormal happen from the purge that isn't in our records?

"Well... You know!" I really don't know Reed... I'm going to just sit quietly until he tells me.

"The girly thing." He really sounded embarrassed just from that phrasing alone, but it bewildered me without any further context.

The girly thing... What girly thing? Does he mean— "Oh!" The revelation made me gasp aloud, even though I still didn't believe it at first. I think I've put together what he was going on about, though nothing in our lessons ever mentioned this... All knowledge about the purge has no data on the effects of purging male humans, since that isn't supposed to ever happen in the first place.

"I guess that was coming from you too? All I could think about sometimes was pretending to be a girl; that I wanted to be so badly. Thanks to that, I developed a feminine side. Was that from the purge as well?"

"It is..." I could only feel bad for him at this moment. On one hand, I didn't even know that was a thing that could happen. I felt bad knowing that of all of the behavior alterations to his personality during the purge, suddenly becoming feminine was one of the effects. On the other hand, I was instantly confused, since I'm not exactly like a cliché feminine girl myself. I mean, I've never behaved like that in my life, not as far back as I could remember. Was it coming from one of my sisters instead?

Oh, wait, I'm forgetting about that factor Saint mentioned, about the fact that such personality alterations can even come from moments in how we used to be, rather than how we are now, so it could really have come from any one of us... Except for me; I'm too cool for glitter and sparkles... Alright, which one of my sisters used to be a cheerleader?!

"I'm so sorry! I didn't even think that could happen in the first place. I guess since I'm the host, and you aren't a girl like me, something like this was bound to happen. It must have come from one of my sisters." I'm not taking direct blame for this.

"What about that hatred? Anytime I am around any males, I feel obligated to chop their fucking heads off! Uh, see? I still feel that way just a little. Was that sensation your doing as well?"

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

This time I can't deny it, as this sensation is shared between me and every last one of my sisters, especially Hurma. Actually, every Altiri is this way. Heathens are responsible for the death of a million of us, so they deserve every last bit of it. I didn't know this would also transfer through a purge though. "I'm afraid it was. I know for sure that the purge is responsible for those two developments."

"Okay, this is getting weird!"

"Needless to say, you are the very first male human to ever be purged. All twenty three other purged subjects were female, up until this point." I'm amazed that I haven't been locked in a cellar over this. The Altiri at large are not happy about this moment; it's the opposite of an achievement for everyone else.

"So the rest were all girls then?" he asked confused.

"Let's sweat the heavy stuff later... Reed? I should have said this a lot sooner, but I'm really sorry if all of this messed everything up with your friends earlier. Now that I think about it, I do feel a lot of responsibility for that. It really is my fault." I've been so wrapped up in wanting to ensure Reed wasn't influenced by any negative behaviors during the purge, that I forgot to consider that the purge itself might also mess up his entire ability to behave normally in front of others. Who knows what social damage this might have done to him? In hindsight, he still hasn't changed, which is good, but is what I did really okay?

"Well... No... I mean..." Already bashful, he seemed to accept my apology without saying so... All this did was make me think about him so much more, the proof that he really is a good guy, even if he wants to hide it. I've always known from the moment I laid eyes on him... Wait, his awkwardness isn't because of the lingering feminist feelings, right?

"What? Don't tell me you're still feeling girly right now! I mean, I am a female, so that's why it happened in the first place. But that strong sensation to be as feminine as possible should fade within a couple more days, as will your montrum to the sky and outer space."

"Montrum?"

"Montrum."

"..."

Why the silence? He must know that term by now at least... He must...! He doesn't?! "Oh come on! You humans haven't figured that one out either?" Even if my own purge didn't get that through, how is Montrum a word left out of the English dictionary?

I had no choice but to explain it, since his continued silence meant I had no ground to stand on acting as though he does understand most things. "Montrum has a meaning similar to a repetitive pattern of thoughts, or more like an obsession towards a subject matter, usually an ideal or a non-living object. The montrum itself might be personal, but it simply happens when your thoughts are deeply focused on something. It's a mental behavior with a specific feeling really, the kind that can be obsessive and addicting."

"Montrum is how I felt, so..."

"And your sudden hatred towards men, that feeling of wanting to stab them in the eye with a fork every time one passes you by, that is also coming from me." I can only hope he understands why I feel this way, that he doesn't hate me for our hostility against heathens.

"Jesus Lumina! What happened? Killer tendencies towards men? Wait a minute... I'm a man!"

"It's an incredibly long story. I'd rather share the important details first, in the proper order." He knows nothing of our history, about Legasso, about the reason why heathens are The Unity's greatest enemy. I wonder if he even knows what a heathen really is.

"There's a proper order to this?!"

He has me there. I don't know why I thought this would all go so differently. I somehow got it into my head that Reed would so easily accept our presence and our link. I didn't think he would oppose our existence so strongly, and to also deny the pull of the montrum he should have held for us. Instead of being amazed to learn there are other aliens out there, he's scared, either of us or the thought of him losing his own mind. I don't know where to start anymore, so I've been playing this by ear instead. "Honestly, I'm making up this order as I go."

"What is this, your first purge? Or is this armature hour?"

Must he be so rude about us? I have to wonder if he is this way towards me because of what he thinks I am, or if I may already be too late. "You still don't get it, do you?" Sending a purge is an extremely power-demanding process. It requires at least seven different people helping the leader of the sending node during that process to have it send properly."

"So what happens to those who have less than seven people?"

His question reminded me of what happened to Aldriah so long ago. Anyone knows that purging without enough people is always fatal. "If attempted without the proper numbers of consecutive assistance, and if done without the proper hydration levels, every person attempting to send or amplify this purge signal not only fail, but they would die right there on the spot. Their death would occur from running out of biological energy while damaging their Cora Sector beyond repair."

"That sounds harsh." I can't tell if his tone is one without a care in the world, if it he simply doesn't understand the implications.

"Even for those of us who successfully send a purge, it takes out so much of our energy that all involved have to rest, and are rendered powerless for the next two days. That's not even the worst bit of it."

"It sounds like you really put everything on the line just for this one purge."

He really has no idea what we've all sacrificed... I won't tell him about our condition with the queen though. The last thing I want is for Reed to warm up to us out of sympathetic misplaced guilt. Despite what others think, I'm not doing this to keep myself out of trouble with the law. I'm only doing this for Reed. "There are permanent side effects to sending a purge too, side effects that I got to find out firsthand. It happens to all of us who take part in a purge, but I can no longer use my long-range clairvoyance on anyone. Short-range clairvoyance still works for us, but I can't find out anything with that ability directed at Earth anymore. It hasn't worked for me since last year. It won't ever return to us again."

"So that means you can't spy on the Earth anymore." Reed returned his gaze to the outdoors again from the view of the window, pondering the specifics of what he has learned so far. "I feel violated you know."

At the moment, I could care less. Privacy violations will always happen with clairvoyance; it's just how it works. "It also permanently disables our ability to send another purge ever again."

"I did want to clarify about that. You're saying that you only get one purge, one human target to train telepathy to? And once that chance is spent, you are forever stuck with that one target for the rest of your life?"

"Correct. As you might have guessed, the loss of ability extends to anyone who assisted in sending the purge, amplifying its signal. So, even though you and I are the only ones talking to each other, all of my sisters will never be able to send a purge or use long-range clairvoyance for the rest of their lives either."

For ten seconds, Reed was dead silent, though I was getting better at detecting when he was deep into thought, despite being unable to read those thoughts. The little tells and signs he used to have are still with him now. "Are you beginning to understand why we Altiri are not so trigger happy to just go purging people left and right? There can only be one purge per aggressor group, and I am the chosen leader for Cy-Star, a decision that can never be undone." Sure, it would be easy to prove our existence to the humans if a higher number of people were purged in the same vicinity, but after what we've been through, no aggressor group can be asked to give that up.

"How important was I for this mission of yours? Why was it so important to put yourself through that much just for my sake?" Funny; he's beginning to sound like some of my sisters.

"You are worth more than you realize. Not everyone is like you Reed. There are a lot of flawed people in the world, some of which say or do terrible things, or are incapable of understanding basic qualities of an enriching life. Finding even one human worth purging is a miracle in itself. But you're a good person, even when most around you are not the same. You're insightful where others are oblivious..." I held my tongue, torn between what I wanted to say and what I needed to say. I want him to know that I'm always going to be here for him, but he doesn't want me around, so I don't know how he'll take it. Why is it so hard to speak everything I want to now?

"There are lots of good people in the world too. I may be somewhat unique, but not on such a huge scale."

"The number is not really as high as you would think." No human knows this, because no human travels the world and lives long enough to see all the bad and all the good. Evil outnumbers good intensions now more than ever. I have seen too much with my clairvoyance, so I know for certain that I am right. There are hidden gems on Earth, but they are too few and far between. Plus, it isn't only about being a good person, but also having a receptive heart. Even then, so many more start out just fine, only to shape shift into others around them to fit a social need ignored for too long, the very thing I feared Reed would go through. "People change, usually during their first few years of school because of how horrible they are treated. You of all people know what that can feel like, and you know how chaotic any social life can be when you aren't like other people."

Reed hesitated for too long, failing to rebuttal my claim, and it's because we both knew the truth. I've seen his struggles. He wasn't bullied in school, but he wasn't given any care or attention either, which can be just as damaging. He knows what it's like to feel alone, and I've known that feeling too in my life. That is the reason why I've purged him, why I'm here with him now. "I started to worry that you would follow that same pattern, to change the kind of person you are deep down just so that you could fit in better. My sole purpose and reason of purging you was to prevent that from happening."

It took him a while again to speak, though his caution of thought soothed my nerves a little, since I knew he was at least listening to me on this. "You picked a strange reason to purge somebody." For Lumina, this must be tougher than I previously considered. I mean, you end up wasting this one-time only purge on me just to make sure I don't change. And at the same time, I can think of you as nothing more than a hallucination...

Every part of me wanted to scream my feelings into him, to prove to him that I'm not a hallucination, to prove that I'm not wasting my time, but I don't think that will help me this time. I didn't interrupt his chain of thought, nor did I let on that I could hear them just yet. Still, she is a rather interesting hallucination. "I'm honestly having a really hard time keeping up with all of this."

"That's not surprising. I'm betting on the hopes that I made the right decision. People aren't purged often."

"But surely I'm not the first, right?"

"Nope. The reality is, about one to two subjects are purged every century or so, since the beginning discovery of humanity. The Altiri became very selective on targets once we realized the costs of sending a purge. For everyone else, our mission was only to watch and observe, never to interfere."

"Because if you interfere, there are consequences, right?"

Smart and perceptive. All of us knew there would be consequences to pay, even put on those who only stuck to clairvoyance, the pain we felt for others we couldn't talk to. There are consequences for either choice we make, even if all we do is nothing, and so I've made my peace with my choices.

"If we get attached to a single individual, and then end up purging that person, it changes both of our lives forever." Reed... Even if you never speak to me again, please remember our conversation. Please remember the reason why I reached out to you, so that you can still save yourself from this wretched world of doom.

"But at the end of the day – for me, my life will remain unchanged."

How much I wanted to protest! Why now must he be so stubborn? Is a friend from space just too much for him to accept, when he has no friends at all? Why does he fight this so much? I wanted to ask him these questions, but again, I quickly realized that my only choice to get him on our side is to simply reveal to him every truth there is to know. "To put things into perspective for you, there are only about 1,000 Altiri Aggressor Groups. That's about five thousand or so capital class mark space ships, with two pilots per ship, leading to about ten thousand of us in space. If all of us were to purge at the same time, our maximum target number would be only about 1,000 humans."

"So you live in those space ships when you are in the military instead of the planet down below?"

"That's our job. Our entire fleet is responsible for the total orbital defense designed to repel any potential space invaders." It sounded so cool when The Unity first formed, but now it's nothing but a cringe slogan. There aren't any other space aliens out here besides us and humans, and we're already too far apart to reach each other anyway. The defense has become nothing more than a life style now.

"So," he implied with blatant curiosity, "did you ever wind up getting invaded?"

"No, nothing has ever happened like that. I'm glad that our world is safe from outside harm, but it really does make life up here really boring."

"Boredom, or war... I suppose that could be tough, but then now would be my chance to ask what alien entertainment is like."

"You must have missed the punch line earlier," I reminded. "We don't offer any electronic entertainment such as radio-based television or video games. Even so, those of us stuck up here are taught easily how to invoke long-range clairvoyance. Ever since 11,000 years ago, we've had an interesting source of entertainment through such a powerful scope. Watching over specific individuals can bring about all kinds of stories and emotional moments for all of us."

"Just like one big reality TV show, except in this case, none of us are really actors."

"Stop joking around!" Must he really make light of everything important? Sure, some of the aggressor groups might see it that way, but humans are not toys for us to laugh at. They're real people just like us, some of them so horrible that they are animals, but others who are true to their soul. Our collective purge wasn't for nothing, and neither was our surveillance, much less raw entertainment. We may have used our powers out of boredom, but it doesn't mean we didn't feel anything each time we did.

"As I was saying earlier, each aggressor group has an average of ten people in each team. The minimum number to send a purge together is seven people, but nine or ten is preferred since it reduces other risks it puts on us. Even so, that severely limits the number of people we could purge at maximum."

"What's the count so far?"

"The cumulative number so far is barely above twenty. You happen to be the most recent, number twenty-four."

"So that means..." Reed stopped himself briefly, for reason I knew not of. "Right, most of them would already be dead by now." Ah, so he was trying to see how many were still alive.

"Yes. I know where you were going with this, and there is something interesting about the purge rates. Lately, the rate of purging humans has skyrocketed for this specific century. Right now as we speak, you and ten other humans who have been purged are still currently alive today. That also means that ten other aggressor groups have been busy. And as much as I would like to, I can't say who they are or where they are, not the targets or the aggressor groups that are part of it."

"Now isn't the time to slap me with the top secret cliché Lumina. Don't you realize that by revealing just one of their identities, I can find them, compare notes, and prove to both us what is real and what isn't real?"

I know that. Everyone knows that. It is the reason why the queen shrouds so much of our communications into mystery, and the reason none of us are allowed to know which aggressor group is part of a purge, even though our reckless actions have made the Cy-Starts the exception to the rule. "It's not that I know something and can't tell you Reed. The problem is, we really don't know any of their identities. All we know for certain are that ten other females have already been purged in the last twenty years."

Reed suddenly stood up, looking alive and alert. "So find out then! Damn Lumina! This could have been your one chance to prove to me that your world is real, and you blew it!"

He really wants to find them that badly? I guess it's because they could be the proof he would want if they did all come together... "I know, but it isn't my fault!" I get it Reed, I really do, but this isn't something I have control over. "In the Altiri military, communication between other aggressor groups is strictly forbidden, even telepathic communication. Those are the rules set in place by the Altiri Queen. She set that rule in place to shield the identity of those who are purged from other aggressor groups. It means your personal identity is safe from everyone else." Of course now, I have to wonder if this rule is really worthwhile. Seems to be more of a hindrance than a support.

"Well maybe I don't want my personal identity to be safe from everyone else!"

"I don't follow your logic." If everyone knew who Reed was and knew of our new secret, many would be after him!

Reed calmed himself down and sat again, elaborating what he meant. "I get it, really I do. But just imagine what it would be like if I could find the other ten, even find just one of them. Our shared knowledge of the Altiri would be something incredible! I just know I could be friends with someone like that. And what's more, wouldn't the clairvoyance of other aggressor groups be able to snoop on the details anyway? What if another group finds me and determines that I was purged by Cy-Star?"

"It is possible for other aggressor groups to do that, but they wouldn't have any leads to go on. Don't forget that the aggressor groups that already took part in a purge don't have long-range clairvoyance to their own name, so they wouldn't be able to directly assist their human subjects with that either." He's right though. For all we know, many could already be watching the two of us. The queen will shut that down where she can, but the Royal Scryers are also doing the same, under her own rule.

"Okay, so just bend the rules a little... Or is your queen the kind of person who is more like; 'Off with their heads!'"

"You're not funny." Folding my arms in disapproval, I still didn't fault him for thinking that based on what cartoons he might have seen. I wouldn't have personally held my great queen with any high regard after what happened, because I was so certain I and my sisters would spend life in a cellar; in fact we still might face such punishment. But that isn't what happened. The queen, doing something she has never done before, gave all of us a second chance to make things right, a chance to prove that we had a very good reason for our purge, and even though I don't always agree with the queen on everything, it has to count for something.

"Eh, worth a shot."

"You seem surprising calm for someone learning all about a real alien civilization." I imagined something more dramatic and different, maybe a panic attack or a few freak-outs. Is he really this humble even in this situation?

"The mistake is, you're the only one who thinks all of this is real. In truth, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about it in the first place. I mean, what if it is all real? Would my reaction and mood really be any different, or would montrum take over my mind like before and turn me into a mindless puppet? Whatever the case, I did promise to hear out your entire story."

"Right..." Never mind that montrums don't control the mind that strongly, and they are natural, not set in by any particular person. His freak out much earlier was only a result in believing he lost his mind, not because of the subject matter to learn about the Altiri in the first place. Most humans who hear about stuff like this panic a little more, or refuse to remain calm about it. More to the point, he seems more capable of handling massive amounts of information at once than expected. "I don't know what exactly made this generation of humans so popular for purging season. But one thing to remember is that the reasons for purges are always personal."

"Personal...? You must really want to be friends with me more than ever..."

"I do Reed. I want the both of us to be friends, really I do."

"Or, maybe I really have gone insane from the lack of friends I've had for the past month. Maybe I invented someone like you just so that I wouldn't become crazy. If that is true, look where it got me so far. I never expected far out stories like this to emerge from a false person."

It doesn't seem to matter what I say, to convey how much I want to be by his side helping him be better. He thinks I'm an illusion. The only way to get through to him now is by explaining everything else first before asking anything of him. Because despite what the purge did do to him, he is missing so much of the other elements of knowledge that should have come with it. The adaptation process would have been easier if I had that to start with, but that isn't an option here. "Anyway, that purge inside of you might have given you weird sensations in the past, and it might still continue for a short while, but they will all dial away soon." I have no choice. I have to put aside my own feelings and show him everything there is to know first, so that he has all the context to work with.

"Does that strange rage attack I had at my dad's house also have anything to do with the purge?"

"What strange rage attack? Did something happen to you or your dad?" I've studied the purge long enough to know that this can't be part of the purge, unless his rage was a result of hatred for heathens, but I get the feeling this is something else.

"No. I mean, my rage wasn't directed at any specific person, but just anything and everything around me. It wasn't the normal 'I got upset' kind of thing... I really don't know how to describe it properly."

"I won't say that is normal. It certainly hasn't happened before with anyone else we purged..." A strange out of control rage attack? Saint never mentioned it was a possibility, but then this purge has its differences, such as... Oh no! What if the purge did more to him than what was foretold? What if there are bigger side effects for different people? Are the effects different because he is male? He is the first male we've ever purged...

"Why is that by the way?" His question only now made me realize that some of my own worrying thoughts were escaping into the echo of our minds, so I'm sure he heard plenty about that. "Do Altiri people really hate all men? I mean, what do you do with the men in your society?"

"Uhm..." How is a good way to tell him that we have no men in our world? Talk about an error with the purge. He should have known about this for sure... I don't want him to think we murdered a bunch of men to have things this way, even though we did have to rid the world of one. Will Reed really understand the significance of it all?

"What is it?"

"Well..." There isn't an easy way to explain this in a manner that he would find plausible, but there is no other way to push this off any longer. He must know this truth too. "I'm guessing this was another thing the purge never did get to show you. For the record, there are no Altiri males in our society. Every last Altiri person is biologically female."

"Oh shit! You really do hate all men!" Reed began to panic again, tensing his arms and cowering to the window.

He isn't entirely wrong on a technicality. However, it has nothing to do with the randomness in why we were all born this way. I never understood it to this very day, why all of us Altiri are female, with exception to Legasso. He must be getting the wrong idea thinking we had more and destroyed them all... If there were to be more, after what Legasso did, we would have wiped them all out, but that isn't what happened. "No. Please... I mean well... Just shut up for a second and I can explain it!" I didn't mean to suddenly shout, but Reed's restless movements were too agitating for me to concentrate. Luckily he took the hint.

"Altiri women. How do you think they are born in a world without men?"

How are they born...? I jumped to the conclusion that the Altiri women just killed all of their men. But what if there are no men in their society because there were never any to begin with? Is something like that even possible?

"Your second assumption is the correct one. It's all in our biology. Altiri women only birth more Altiri women."

"But then how do all of you reproduce? Without a sexual experience—"

"It isn't sexual," I swiftly corrected. Though it took us too long to learn this, humans reproduce in ways we Altiri never have. It isn't actually known if sexual reproduction is something we could carry out if the opportunity were present, but that isn't important right now. "Parthenogenesis."

"Huh?"

"It's a process in which Altiri adults become pregnant without any sexual intercourse. Some people have talked about it on Earth, but they are not totally correct about such a process birthing clones. Nobody here comes out as a clone of their mother. That could have more to do with our genetics, but I'm not the absolute expert on that subject."

"You mean, it just happens?"

"Yes," I answered while folding my arms in a stretch. "Always at that same age, one hundred eight."

"One hundred eight?! How old—" Reed cut himself off, unable to ask the question without undergoing a mental reset. "How old are you Lumina?"

It figures he would get hung up on that detail. My sisters warned me of this earlier, about humans making a big deal about age where it involves many aspects. "I can tell you my age, but only if you promise not to freak out."

"You know I can't promise that. You've freaked me out ten times on this bus ride alone."

That figures. All I could do was inhale with such a loud sign, trying to calm my beating heart. "Three thousand six hundred and sixteen years, and they are mostly comparable to Earth years."

"Holy smokes!" Predictably, Reed already began to panic and freak out, standing up again while making such a crazy face about the news, his mind replaying the number on repeat. "Three thousand six hundred and sixteen years old?"

"Don't you dare call me an old hag!" I could risk going vocal with my voice, since all Altiri know about this, and I used that moment to warn him to never consider insulting me. I may have lived such a long time, but today has proved I have so much left to learn.

"Three thousand six hundred sixteen..." Is he just going to keep repeating that like it will help? Lumina... How long have you been alive? How does it feel to live countless days without ever experiencing death once? I didn't bother correcting some of his misassumptions, since this was already enough of a shock, but his silent question made me think on it more...

How does it feel? I don't know how it feels. I've learned so much that I thought I would one day know everything. However, our long term memory isn't as good as I would prefer it to be. There's always so much extra time, I have to find more to do, often is it boring and mind numbing. On top of that, I have died and come back to life with the resurrection technology many times before; all Cy-Stars have. In fact, the queen is the only living Altiri who has never once needed to use the machine.

"Three thousand six hundred sixteen..."

I'm technically much older than that, but we all reset out age counter when we are revived, despite not biologically aging downward or losing much of our memory. This simply means it has been three thousand six hundred sixteen since I was last killed. Something about his judgment on me was more embarrassing than I wanted to be, and for reason which made no sense. All I could do was hug my own arms against the cold steel wall I was leaning on. "Well... Yeah. Now you know." We both kept silent thinking about it, mostly myself wondering if he would be terrified or disgusted.

"Lumina? Go stand in front of your mirror."

Eh? My mirror? Oh, he must want to see what I look like for my age... Well, here we go. I gently pushed myself off the wall, already in sight of the small mirror we keep in the main room. My environment told me that Junko must have been in the cockpit this whole time with calibration duty... Why does getting near that mirror feel so nerve-wracking right now?

I couldn't help feeling this way, though it made no sense as to why. I've seen him so often, but I guess, outside of the dream he had, Reed has never actually seen myself in the flesh, and that mirror will allow him to, through my eyes. Despite my hesitations, I did as I was asked, until I was right in front of the mirror, looking down at my feet to give us both some time to prepare ourselves. "I'm ready when you are." I knew it was a lie. I never one thought that humans looked too strange or ugly, but humans more often judge others on appearance, and so who knows how he might see me? I look so different from a human that it is obvious to any visual sight that I am an Altiri. Some other part of me didn't want him to see, to never know the answer to how he might look at me.

"Good. Hold still."

"Wha— but?" What does he mean hold still? By now, my eyes already drifted up to the reflection of myself, but I knew Reed could not see anything just yet. Despite the connection allowing him to see through my eyes, it is much harder for Reed to do so, since he is the weaker node in a more limited version of telepathy. Normally, I would have to do this for him, boosting the connection and altering the concentration of the load so that he can see through to my world in an average connection.

I finally realized what he meant, what Reed was trying to do. He wouldn't be able to though. This is only the first connection, and it's all too new to him to make the load shifting trick work. However, as I gave it a few more seconds, both our perspective visions suddenly flashed and overlapped on each other, causing me to wince back once I knew what was happening, despite how impossible it was.

Before I knew it, Reed really was seeing through my eyes, and the power of the connection was altered from no input of my own! Impossible! Could the purge have prepared him that well? Is he so adamant on seeing my physical body that he can perform something he isn't ready for?

Of course, only now did I realize I was being examined from head to torso. The moment made my eyes bounce around just a little, as it was impossible for me to suddenly concentrate! He's really looking at me, at every part of me to see what I look like in this small mirror... And there isn't a way I can stop it, aside from looking away. I kept my gaze to the reflection though, certain I owed this much to him after everything I've done... What will he think of me? Will he call me an ugly creature, a pale ghost, a mess of wire and vein? Why is he still so quiet after so long? Say something Reed!

"I can't believe it. You don't look a day older than eighteen."

"Uh—" His answer sure enough caught me off guard. He really thinks I'm that young? No wait, humans at age eighteen look much older than Altiri do at that age. It's still not a compliment, or is it? I don't know what to make of that Reed! "That was nice of you to say, I guess. Of course, I know you mean eighteen by human standards of comparisons."

"Do Altiri people even age?"

"Not the same way humans do. That's the reason my appearance is the way it is. If I were actually eighteen years old, I would look like a little kid. Our age gap starts climbing very fast, but exponentially slows down over time. Over here, an infant can grow up to be three years old but appear to be six. But then, between the appearance age of fifteen and sixteen, the real time frame between that is about two hundred years, and so on. That's how it goes if you scale by comparative human appearance alone."

"For all that time living, for all of that time going through life, and yet you look so young, like you are really eighteen, maybe nineteen..." And still so pretty...

"What?" I jumped unexpectedly. Pretty? He thinks I of all people look good? I... I... I don't know what to say. No matter how I tried, I couldn't calm down anymore. My heart was already beating harder than before, and it was suddenly impossible to speak at all... Why do I feel this way? Pretty... That's what he said.

"Eh," Reed gripped the seat tightly, suddenly going as quiet as I did, while the both of us just stood there in awkward silence, until he finally unleashed the volley of his own embarrassment. "What did I tell you about reading my thoughts?"

"Shut up! Nobody is reading your thoughts, weirdo!" Before I could reply, some random kid across the aisle addressed Reed, who again forgot to channel his voice into telepathy.

It should have been obvious by now that our thoughts can sometimes be shared without us knowing, if we apply just enough power to them during a link. Something came over me just then, an amazing affirmation from what Reed just told me, mixed with the silliness of his own reaction and being caught by another. I couldn't help but to point at Reed and laugh, this time his mistake to cute and innocent. "What do you think you and I have been doing this whole time? Exchanging notes?" I was barely able to speak in between my soft laughing fit, but it was so amazing I could finally feel this way. "I did warn you three times already."

"I'm too embarrassed to be on this bus with you. I hope to god nobody here knows me."

"Haha! You're so funny sometimes." Reed was blushing like a tomato right now, and for the first time, I felt so much better because of it.

"My humiliation is not for your amusement."

"When you do it to yourself, I have no choice but to make it my entertainment."

"Let's change the subject... I guess this means all of you have world peace, and no one ever gets sick?"

"Never-ever. It's too cold here for most germs to thrive and spread, and our immune systems can handle anything, not that there is much here to handle. Altiri people are very kind to everyone. We don't go around killing other people or stealing what they have. Nobody picks fights just for the fun of it, and it's so peaceful here that we don't have a term in our language that means the same thing as crime. We only learned of that word from your world."

"Must be nice... How cold is it in your world for bacteria to not survive?"

"Well right now, me and my sisters are on our ships. It's much warmer on the ships that it is naturally on our home planet. Our ships have to run a special closed-cycle compression system so that the breathable air in all of the rooms are as cold as possible, even though the difference is quite severe. Using the air conditioning units we have here, the air runs at -70 degrees Nixus."

"Wait... Nixus?"

"It's a bit different, but the unit of measure is still very close to the temperature system of Fahrenheit." It was a strange thing to see the humans come up with Fahrenheit, since it runs so closely to our own measurements, though he Nixus conversion formula is more of a strange parabola that has the highest difference at sixty degrees, based entirely off our ability to survive and also how psionics behaves in different temperature zones.

"Okay, so then it isn't exactly the same when converted, but it's still close to -70 Fahrenheit? That's still really cold!"

He's only saying that because humans can't seem to handle extreme heat or extreme cold. Some even think sixty is freezing, which is ridiculous! "It might sound cold, but keep in mind that the surface of Karnak is -360 degrees Nixus. That's -301 in Fahrenheit since you don't have the conversion formula yet."

"How do you even live with that temperature?!"

"Oh, it's awesome! That feeling of fresh cool air on my skin, it can't compare to being cooped up here. It feels amazing! I really miss it sometimes." It's how we are. The colder the air is on us, the better we feel. I'm sure there must be some limitation, but we have yet to reach it.

"You all need that cold just to survive. But doesn't the air freeze at that temperature?"

"Surprisingly, no. The air might be thinner, but we can breathe it just fine. Most of what we breathe in is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, but there are other elements in our air too, different from the air you breathe on earth." Come to think of it, maybe air is supposed to freeze in that environment, depending on which elements are comprised in the atmosphere. Does the air freeze like that on Earth and not on Karnak?

"I figured that much..." Reed seemed to be so hung up on this detail, for reasons I didn't know why. "Tell me again what happens to you if you walk into the heat."

"It isn't pretty. Any temperature above fifty becomes toxic to our bodies. A temperature of above sixty has fatal effects within just a few seconds. Our lungs are usually the first to stop working. It doesn't usually get warm anywhere out here, never on Karnak. But on these space ships, even though space itself has an absence of heat, some of the internal components of our capital ships can produce heat both inside and outside the ship within certain areas, especially during a rare accident."

"Damn. That means you could never live here."

Is he forgetting about the Antarctic zone? The Earth would be hostile to us in many areas, but not in all of the zones. "On top of that, all psionic transmissions work the same way. Our ability to project signals works much better in the cold – to an area of affect in a 1 mile radius. Understand what that means. If it suddenly warms up outside in your area, our communication will be cut off automatically, no matter how much either of us want it to stay. If that happens, there won't be a thing either one of us could do about it."

"That's interesting. So the heat can disrupt psionic communication. It probably isn't just telepathy either, but something that would mess with any form of psionic power coming from a person acting as a node... Whoa! I'm starting to sound like you now!"

It doesn't surprise me that Reed would start picking up our language more than before, but I am still amazed to see he is keeping up so well and quick.

"In time Reed, I think that will happen more often. The more you learn from me, the smarter you will become."

"How intelligent are you, compared to me at least?"

"I would have to assume I'm far more intelligent than you when it comes to the stuff I already know. However, I'm going to let you decide that for yourself."

"Okay...?"

Where should I go from here? I have to keep him engaged on the subject of everything, so that he fully understands what kind of person I am. Maybe, he'll trust me if he knows more. "Want to know more about the benefits of having an Altiri body?"

"You're really just trying to make me jealous, aren't you?" Maybe just a little. I was about to tease him about it some more, when I suddenly heard lots of noise around him. "Oh. It's time to get off the bus. Sorry Lumina, but this is where school starts."

So his school is right here? I'm glad I was able to follow him to it. Since this is Reed's first time in middle school, I really would not have known where to look to ever find him again without directly tracking the movements of the bus, disregarding the fact that I can't use clairvoyance anymore to check. Even so, I've never seen the inside of a school with such clarity and detail, up close and personal. Hiding my excitement to the fact was already impossible. "Awesome! I get to see what the inside of your middle school is like!"

With instant disdain, Reed shut down the suggestion faster than he's ever done anything before. "Out of the question! I'm doing this solo. No weirdness for the rest of the day." He picked up his own backpack, standing up just as the bus door was swinging open, letting in the fresh air mixed with scents I would never be able to detect.

However, I wasn't giving up without a fight. Besides, he has a promise to keep to me too. "But you promised you would hear me out until the day's end!"

"How much more is there for you to tell exactly? I think I can paint a picture already."

"You can't possibly learn it all in one full day Reed. There's loads more to tell. And it's not just about my world. I want you to tell me more about your world too!"

"Don't you know everything already?"

Why would he think that? I still don't know everything there is to know in human culture, and I'm already learning so many new things from this very telepathic connection alone, mostly from what I can see in the others around him, through Reed's senses. Unlike him, I've been paying attention today. "There are things about Earth that I don't know, things that clairvoyance cannot teach us. I've never seen your middle school before either. When we decided to purge you, it happened on the day close to your first day of attendance. But because of our purge, none of us could track you within the school using clairvoyance anymore. I only ever recall seeing you in Ovlar and Bereaton Elementary school." This isn't good enough. I need him to trust me more, but how...? "Besides, if you don't keep your end of the deal, I'll just distract you on purpose."

"You wouldn't!"

"You think I wouldn't? Did you forget that you don't know how to shut down a connection on your own just yet? I won't just leave so easily." I'm not giving up yet. I know I said I would make sure Reed doesn't stand out, but people learning about us wouldn't matter anyway if he cuts us off at the end of the day. I'm going to get him to hear me out, or else annoy him until he does.

"Look, Lumina. There isn't much more for either of us to learn here. I'm already understanding how telepathy works enough. We share not only thoughts, but sensory details too. I can already imagine how this must look from your angle, seeing through my eyes, hearing through my ears, and—"

I was about to shut him up, refusing to accept his ignorance just as Reed was exiting from the bus. Instead, the kid took a tumble to the pavement, and next thing I knew, the blast to my chest took over everything else I was feeling, so much that I instantly lost sight of his visuals and was pushed to the floor in agonizing pain! "IIiiiieeeee! That hurts me too you idiot!" Ouch! I didn't think that was still possible. Why does falling to the floor hurt so much?! In all the times I've ever tripped to ground here, it's never been half as painful as this! Are humans really this weak? Are their skins made out of jelly?

"Stop yelling! I'm sorry!" Reed was in the depths of pain too, but he put on a brave show in front of the others, who were rudely pointing and laughing at his misstep. I could tell he wanted to scream and chant every curse word in the book, though he resisted against all odds. "How do you think my ribs feel? It's not as if you actually take the physical damage..." Does it matter if I take the damage or not? I still feel every intense physical sensation he does from this connection. It was bad enough to have to go through it once. "Right? Right?!"

Shut up already Reed! "I guess this proves I'm the more intelligent one after all."

Reed stood up aggressively, turning around and up to the sky, eye on me. "Yeah? Well you can go shove that intelligence up your ass!"

What did he just say to me?!

"Wha— Reed?" Before I could unleash a mallet of insults on him, the both of us became aware of the girl who walked up to Reed, confused from his insane chant, which I didn't bother to defend, since he deserved it. "Were you just talking to someone from the bus?"

"No, no, and no!" Reed didn't shout or yell, but his words were firm. The way he spoke to this girl made me suspicious that she was someone he already knew.

"Huh?" The girl was totally confused, and I kept quiet to watch what would happen.

"No, I do not want to sit with you and Malica today. No, I do not want to sit next to Maddison and your other weird friends who don't care whether I'm left out of the group anyway. And no, I'm not going to give you a different answer about how I'm doing."

The girl then tsked her tongue before walking away, clearly upset, as Reed continued to dust himself off. "Whatever then."

"Huh. That was actually kind of rude... Did something happen?" I was sure something happened, but I'm the newest student at this school now. I knew already that Reed would be in grade seven instead of grade six, where middle school begins in grade six. The thing is, we purged Reed shortly before he would have started grade six, which is why I've known nothing about his middle school life since that time. He has had an entire school year to make things happen by himself, all of which are details I know nothing about. Unlike before, he clearly knows some people... So why the hostility then?

"Lumina? This isn't going to work. I can't keep you in my head like this and focus on my classes at the same time. I won't even be able to hide your presence either. I can project my thoughts quietly if I get used to it, but I can't control the expressions I might make without thinking about it."

"Don't make a big deal out of it. Since when did you care about what others thought of you anyway?" I knew already that he did care; everybody cares about what others think about them, to an extent at least. Reed's best strength is that he only weighs the values that are important; character above appearance and morality above popularity. Even so, I know that some of those other things dig into us, just a bit. Maybe all he needs right now is the right encouragement. "You've got this! All you have to do is remember to talk to me with your mind and not with your mouth. The others won't even pay you any attention, I promise that."

With my promise made, Reed slowly walked towards the side entrance of the school where others were going into, as I impatiently awaited to see the inside of an actual school with so much added detail, detail that clairvoyance leaves out too much. I know I have my own mission to worry about, but I just can't help but get all excited inside! Onward march Reed!