Niko was allowed to take a break in his chamber after the meeting. The events of the last two days were weighing heavily on him. He rummaged through his bag, pulling out his possessions one by one. Among them was a small, worn bottle cap - a relic from the past. A reminder of his hard-won sobriety, his persistence and his tenacity. The metal felt cool and smooth against his skin, spiked with rough, sharp edges. With a sigh, Niko placed the bottle cap carefully on the nightstand. Shortly after, he fell asleep.

He saw himself from a bird’s eye view and was forced to watch unknown people threatening and then chasing him. They went through dark hallways where he couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly, they were in an open field until he reached an abandoned house.

He had endured a lot during his youth, so he was not easily scared. But during the chase, he felt hopeless, like he couldn’t escape.

He barricaded himself inside, only to hear glass breaking next to his head. They were coming after him.

Niko woke up with a muffled scream, the recurring dream of the chase haunting him. He had only managed to sleep for a couple of hours.

Sluggishly, he got up and looked at himself in the mirror, then glanced around his room, taking in his surroundings. It was simply furnished, like one you would find in a remote hotel. The clock showed five a.m. A single bed, a working desk with a chair, and a bathroom. SPA really did not live up to its name. Apparently, the people here were supposed to have no other distractions.

Niko checked his phone. Two new messages, one from Ryan and the other from his mom. He would answer them later. For now, he prioritized a shower.

Later that morning, Niko sat alone in the bustling canteen, poring over the stack of documents he had received. He savored a much-needed breakfast and coffee, but his mind was lost in the hundreds of pages detailing the project, images, and readings.

As he took a sip of his coffee, Agent Najjar joined him at the table. “Good morning, Professor. Getting familiar with our alien guest?”

Niko looked up and smiled. “Trying to. This project is a lot to take in. And please, call me Niko—everyone does.”

“Tell me about it. It’s Priya,” she said, giving him her hand. “The Egg is a beast—seventy centimeters tall and over five hundred kilograms. Its surface is so smooth that gathering samples is nearly impossible.”

Niko nodded. “I read about the boron capsule. It must have been quite a challenge to separate the two components.”

“It was,” Priya said, grabbing a chair and sitting down. “But I’m not an expert on this. Kuryakov’s team works every morning on technical diagnostics—voltage tests, resistance tests, you name it. So far, no significant breakthroughs, though. It’s frustrating.”

“And who else is working on this?”

“We also have Professor Stevenson, a biologist. She is trying to find any biological material left by the aliens. But everyone knows the likelihood of finding any biological material is slim, given the Egg’s journey through Earth’s atmosphere and the extreme temperatures it endured.” She counted on her fingers. “Then we have the people whom you met already—Alessandro Lopez, who handles all IT infrastructure; General Marsha Meyer as the liaison with the military and potential investors; and lastly, me. I coordinate communication with representatives from countries of the Western Bloc.”

“Well, I do hope I can be of some assistance to all of you, then,” Niko said nervously.

“I hope so, too,” Priya replied. “I will have to leave now. Ready for your shift with Edmundsson?”

“Yeah, I’m curious to see how things go this afternoon,” Niko said.

“Just don’t let him get to you,” she said with a chuckle. “He’s intense, but he knows his stuff.”

Niko smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Speaking of which, I should head over there. Don’t want to be late on my first day.”

Just after leaving the canteen, Niko met Kuryakov in the hallway. “Professor Kuryakov, anything new you could find out today?”

“Please, call me Anatoly—I’m not that much older than you. At least, I don’t feel like it. Did you have a good first night's sleep? Enjoy it, as your might not find much sleep in the future.” Kuryakov was excited and talking too fast, his Eastern European accent making him sometimes difficult to understand. “Regarding the progress, so far, we don’t have much to say. The structure of the capsule is somewhat similar to what we would have been able to build for our most advanced rockets. However, the materials, and possibly electronics, are much more advanced. It took us several days just to disassemble the Egg from it. But, of course, having to do all the work through those bloody robots isn’t making it easier. We are still not able to connect our devices to their software, if there is any. In fact, we can’t even tell you how this thing flew all the way here.”

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“So, does that mean they are much more technologically advanced than us? That’s a scary thought.”

“Not only that, but keep in mind that this capsule is a glimpse of the past of their technology, like the light we see coming from the sun. So, if we assume that the capsule needed several hundred years to arrive, it’s safe to say they are an even much more advanced society today.”

“If they haven’t nuked themselves back to the Stone Age, that is,” Lopez said, coming unexpectedly from behind them. It was amazing that, for such a heavy man, he moved as silently as a cat.

“What do you mean by that?” Niko asked.

“Have you heard about Iosif Shklovsky?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“He was Russia’s greatest radio astronomer and, over fifty years ago, already cited possible crises that lie in wait for a developing civilization, any one of which may well prove fatal,” Lopez said.

“There are at least five,” he continued, counting on his chubby fingers. “One, self-destruction as a result of a thermonuclear catastrophe or some other discovery with unpredictable consequences; two, genetic danger; three, overproduction of information; four, the restricted capacity of the individual’s brain, which can lead to excessive specialization with consequent degeneration; and five, a crisis precipitated by the creation of artificially intelligent beings, like in the Terminator.”

“So, there are basically a lot of ways to kill each other.”

“And the aliens have probably even more ways to kill us. Well, you know, since we are probably mere ants in their eyes,” Lopez concluded.

“I think that’s enough, Lopez,” Kuryakov jumped in. Turning to Niko, he said, “I’m sure Edmundsson is waiting for you.”

“Well, that was inspiring, thank you. I will be on the way there now,” Niko said, tipping an imaginary hat to both then left, feeling somewhat shaken.

It took him some time to find his way, as the whole area proved to be a maze. Having arrived in the facility where they kept the Egg, he looked for Edmundsson until he saw him standing at a table, surrounded by several coworkers, all focused on a large screen on the wall.

Edmundsson was tall, blond, with shortly trimmed hair, a high forehead, and a narrow, tanned face. For a sixty-plus-year-old, he was still fairly good-looking.

As if he had eyes in the back of his head, he turned around and smiled at Niko, his signature broad smirk with teeth that were almost too white.

“Ah, Nicholas, welcome to the team.”

Three things immediately bothered Niko: first, his name wasn’t Nicholas; second, Edmundsson bloody well knew that; and third, addressing him by his first name in front of everybody was a sign of disrespect.

Maybe I’m oversensitive, though, he thought to himself and forced a smile.

“Good day, Thomas. Thank you so much.” Niko took his hand and held his gaze.

“Let me have Ms. Zhang and Mr. Noah here brief you on the latest details on our work so far. Please, join us afterward.” He pointed at a young woman, who signaled Niko to follow her.

That Edmundsson would let one of his youngest workers show Niko around instead of doing it himself, who was his peer, bothered him. But Niko went with it and was happy to see that Ms. Zhang and Mr. Noah were professional, competent, and certainly much friendlier than Edmundsson himself.

It turned out that Dr. Zhang was an alumna of STU in Singapore, so they were able to chitchat while touring the rooms.

The facilities were highly modern and included an isolated high-pressure chamber where the Egg itself was kept, a large lab dedicated only to the capsule, an imaging facility, several working stations for different teams, and offices for the team leads. There was also Lopez’s computer and communication unit in the adjacent building, which were left out of the tour.

He found out from Dr. Zhang that most of the equipment had actually been brought in just the week before. If you needed anything else, it would arrive the next day.

The facilities were fortunately large enough to accommodate the newest equipment, even though they had been built during the final years of the last century and had been mostly unused after the SETI project had been abandoned. The Western Bloc, led by the US, was the main sponsor of the new base since they had found not only the first alien signal but also recovered the probe. It was a truly global effort, and Niko started to feel something like pride to have been chosen, or “abducted,” to work on it. In the end, he was shown the current findings on the Egg’s properties and further study plans by Edmundsson.

They returned to Edmundsson’s office, where Niko entered alone and found him sitting at his desk.

“So, what do you think?” Edmundsson asked immediately.

“It’s amazing,” Niko said in all honesty. “Great work in such a short time.”

“If there’s money, there is a way, as I say.” Edmundsson smiled. “And what’s your opinion of the Egg?”

“I agree with you on most points. According to the images, it does indeed look like nanodevices, with a diameter of only a few nanometers. Some of them seem to be a little bit larger, though. It’s certainly smaller than anything we could build. A mystery is surely how they interact with each other.”

“Agreed. We will have several tests in the next couple days to assess their interaction pattern. Of course, we are speaking of batteries to test wireless communication, magnetic fields, etc. What do you think of their material?”

“Well, hard to say because of the size, but its MRI properties do place it as some hard, non-conductive metal, which has at least one superficial layer with a smooth surface. Since the Egg and the capsule are made mostly out of boron, it would be plausible that the nanodevices are, too. Maybe boron is an abundant metal on their home planet. Of course, when we open it, we will be able to tell much more about its properties and function.”

“Very good, Nicholas,” Edmundsson said in a sarcastic undertone.

“So? When do we do it?” Niko asked impatiently.

“When what?”

“When do we open the Egg?”

Edmundsson sneered. “As soon as we figure out how to, Professor.”

“This is going to be a longer assignment, isn’t it?” Niko sighed.