E00 reached out to the Transcendents. “Bring them back! Bring my crew back!”

“I can not bring them back,” Memory Bliss replied. “They’ll awake all by themselves the moment they accept their past. Don’t worry, E00. I’ve placed them in the moments of their greatest happiness.”

“The people I know aren’t happy.” E00 refrained from screaming inside the other’s mind. He didn’t want to show how much this affected him. “That means something destroyed their happiness one way or another. If they get to have their hearts and minds broken all over again, that’s punishment, torture, not a gift of gratitude.”

“This is the only way they can ever attain an Apex.”

"Transcendence isn’t everything." E00 was too vehement about it, but he couldn’t help it. "I agree with Tejeda. It’s boring, and sometimes one forgets what it truly means to be alive."

“We transcended life!” Memory Bliss responded with his own shout inside E00’s mind. “We are beyond here and now. I wonder how you managed to Transcend.”

“I’ll say it one more time. Bring them back!”

“And I’ll give you the same response. I can’t. Nobody can unless they conquer their anxieties.”

E00 left the Transcendents and returned his consciousness into the mortal realm.

C1313 was still trying to figure out what had happened to her friends in the hangar bay.

"C1313, I'm relieved you're still here. Do you see the wire that is attached to the drone and where it leads?"

She moved her teal gaze along the thread up to a workbench next to the now petrified Hanga. “Yes, I can.”

"A black button is located near to the mechanism of the pulley. If you feel intimidated by the Transcendents in any manner, or if you believe they will hurt our friends, press that button. It consumes all of the energy contained within the drone."

“Are you willing to kill your own kind?” a voice asked coming from the light silhouette.

"I guess Tejeda's distrust has stuck with me. And you shall all stay inside the drone until I say otherwise." A tide of amber light poured in from the vents and pushed the white light inside the drone. Then it encased the small containment chamber in it. As the amber light left and retreated inside the vents, a spherical grid remained, caging the drone.

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“That weakened me,” E00 said through the speakers. “I need you to stay here and watch them for me. I’ll be in and out of their minds, trying to bring them back. It might not work, but I have to try. Or else they might remain there forever. I’ll start with Shayla or Hanga.”

“Why not Tejeda?” C1313 asked.

"He's the one who put us in this position in the first place, so he should be punished the most. He’ll be the last one. Shayla can take command in his stead, and we need Hanga for the drone or other problems that may arise. So they take priority."

E00 avoided the real reason why he didn’t want to dive inside Tejeda’s mind. His captain had prohibited E00 from reading his mind, and what he was about to do was disobedience. He could only think of one reason for wanting to please his captain so much. E00 didn’t want to barge in; he wanted to be let inside as a friend.

Everyone gave away happy vibes, except Tejeda. He was angry, so angry that E00 didn’t have to reach out at all. The fury came rushing out to him. Gnashing his teeth and pressing his eyes shut, Tejeda was a mask of madness. His eyebrows furrowed, almost united in the middle.

Our energy being couldn't leave him like that while he messed around in the brains of others. As a result, he pulled tendrils into Tejeda's mind and tracked his rage. The captain's thoughts battled back, but E00 continued, squeezing through holes and weak spots. Every mind had them, even Tejeda's.

E00 had delved farther than he had intended into Tejeda's psyche, which did not bode well for his promise. His mind resembled the shifting dunes in a desert. The highest peak in one second could turn into a bottomless pit in the next.

Something blurred his vision, but he smelled blood. Even though he hadn’t any smell receptors or, as a matter of fact, any other senses, E00 was able to feel everything through the mind of the others around him.

Tejeda's memories that the Transcendent had sent him into weren't good. But why couldn't he see anything? Suddenly, two stars glowing purple appeared in the dark sky in front of him, as if he was flying in the void of space.

“Stop meddling with my mind,” Tejeda’s voice yelled. “I’ll get out of this on my own.”

In awe, E00 went out. Tejeda knew what had happened to him and that he was living a memory. Even though he struggled, he still didn’t want E00 to see beyond a certain point. But was Memory Bliss right? Was Tejeda on the brink of Bio Transcendence? The mind looked more like a Psionic Transcendence to E00. Reaching 2 Apexes? Was that even possible?

Seeing no point in dwelling over this any further, E00 immediately jumped inside Shayla’s mind, hoping this would be easier. She was a more stable, grounded individual. But something strange lurked inside her mind. Her brain waves changed as if her mind wasn’t the one E00 knew.

Shayla's consciousness regressed into an earlier form, the one she had as a child. E00 realized this only when he saw a young girl with black hair and dark green eyes, no older than 8 years old. How could he persuade a child that she had to battle her way out of a memory?

The younger version of Shayla wore a luxurious dress fit for royalty. When she withdrew a dagger from the folds of her garment, her hand steadied over the handle's swirl of pristine white and ebony, refined and glossy.

Who the void was she before being an outcast?