Maya stood in front of her dead father, tears falling down her cheeks. He looked peaceful, laying there. His expression made him look rather relaxed and she almost hoped he would wake up, if not for his missing lower half. It didn’t take an expert to understand how he had died. No one survived being cut in half, at least not for long.

The worst part was that she had already known he was dead, but now that she had confirmation? She couldn’t help herself. The tears kept falling. As long as there had been a chance, even if he was most probably dead, it was still possible. Not anymore. The loss hit her harder than she thought it would, she had thought she was prepared for this eventuality.

They never should have let him go on his own. She should have asked to come with him, insisted on it. But of course she hadn’t. She had been content in their home, waiting for him and helping in the house and with the garden. Happy in her ignorance. It made her realize she had made a mistake when leaving. She should have forced her brother to come with her.

Sadly it was too late. A trip back would take too long now that she was here, and she still had things to do. He had been killed, but by who, and why? She had a lead already with his research, which seemed to be the reason why. She wasn’t sure where to start exactly, but she knew it had something to do with magic acting up. It seemed to be actively covered up by someone rather influential.

Of course she had several possible theories, but without proper data it was guesswork at best and she hated that. Her father would have said something about that. What was it again? Guess work is where facts die. She really missed him. She hated that he was gone. And for what reason? Trying to understand what was going on? He had been a genius like few others, and his life had been snuffed out simply for figuring something out?

There was the possibility that there was another reason that had landed him in trouble, but knowing him, she doubted it. He was a very focused person. If he was investigating something, she doubted he would have been doing much else. So there was no reason to believe it wasn’t related. She felt the pit in her stomach slowly change from a cold despair, to something more animated. Was this what normal people called hatred?

Simmering in the feeling of injustice and unfairness, her tears soon stopped only to be replaced by a deep frown. She was angry. Angry at so many different things, the world, the mysterious people who had done this and lastly angry at herself. There was no good reason for it, she knew it wasn’t logical. Realistically, she wouldn’t have been able to change anything. But the emotion stayed, and instead of focusing on herself, she thought about these evil men that had killed her father. That had deprived this world of her light.

Who they were wouldn’t matter once she found them out. And find them she would. Having stood still for a rather long while now, she finally felt like it was time to move. At least now she knew, as much as it hurt, and she would avenge him.

Heading out without a word, the morgue person didn’t stop her as she simply left without a word. She roamed the streets a bit, still in her head. She knew the library probably had records of local news and such that she could look through, but she didn’t want to ask anyone for directions and walked around aimlessly, hoping to stumble upon it.

Her mood soured as she went through it all in her head over and over again. Trying to make her emotions logical while she also knew they were not. But why did she feel so much guilt? It wasn’t her fault. It was theirs, whoever did this. And they would pay. But it was hard to project her anger at something unknown. Turning into some dubious looking streets, she knew the library probably wasn’t that way, but she was suddenly curious. And who knew, it might even be a shortcut to the library.

As if. Even she knew that was an obvious lie. The library was certainly not in that direction. The streets went from animated and not that dirty to outright desolate. There were barely any magical illusions in front of some decrepit shops, with detritus just lying around or simply so old it was part of the street. People looked dirty and gave her looks, telling her in no uncertain terms that she did not fit in.

With her curiosity piqued, she wondered, if this was just a street away from the main street, what would she find if she continued, just for a bit longer? It wasn’t like she felt in any danger. Despite her looks she had been built to be superior to flesh. Faster, better and stronger. She didn’t have muscles to limit herself. Only the mana spent truly mattered, and of course if the material she was made of could handle the stress. And the enchantments too.

Which meant she had limitations, but they were far above what a normal person could hope to get out of their body, even with good training. What she had was basically like skills, ingrained in her. It could be compared to some advantages some races had. Like dwarfs that were more compact, and also sturdier than their taller cousins. Of course, they all fell short of her father’s masterpiece.

Sadly she didn’t have the skills to truly match her fathers genius, but it was something she wanted to work on, to live up to the potential he had put in her, that her brother also saw in her. She knew she wasn’t worthy yet, and maybe never would be. But for her father she wanted to try. She wanted to give it her all.

So why was she losing time in some back alleys? Of course she could have lied to anyone that asked that question, but what use was there in lying to yourself? She knew very well why she had taken this road, even if she didn’t want to admit it. She had been hoping for violence. To take out her frustration on some scum. She had read enough books to know how it was supposed to go.

But to her dismay, no one bothered her. They looked at her funny, but didn’t try to mug her or do anything. She saw a group of three sitting on some stairs leading up to what must be apartments. She walked past them, almost hoping for them to move. But she had no such luck, and she knew she was wasting time. There was no meaning in senseless violence. She knew that she was stalling. Perhaps afraid to get on the task. Afraid that she wouldn’t manage on her own.

A nagging little voice that she hated, because it was her own voice, kept doubting, questioning. She had always had it, but it had never bothered her before. Of course she had some doubts here and there. But today it was especially loud. It had always been her flaw. She knew her body was perfect, but she? Herself? What was she without her father to guide her? How could she live up to his standards? To the standards of a man who had created life.

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Looking up from the ground she had been looking at while in thought, she took in the even more miserable surroundings. Haphazard tents desperately clinging to decrepit buildings lined the streets and people looked even more miserable. She could barely believe how bad some of them had it. She had seen slums in some movies before, but it was never quite like this. There was an undertone of complete apathy, like they had no strength to even get up from where they were sitting. Some even sat in what she thought was garbage.

She needed to find her way back. She couldn’t comprehend it. Why didn’t they clean? Why didn’t they do something to make it better? But she knew why, she could see it in their eyes. They had given up. Surviving perhaps, but without the energy needed to truly start clawing their way back to a better life. A life they all probably thought was pure fantasy. Hopeless. That was the true difference with movies. The pure emotion was so thick she could almost taste it. It resonated somewhat with herself, how hopeless it was to figure out what her father had died for.

She shook her head. No. Today had been a hard day, but she couldn’t give up. Not yet, not so easily. But first she really had to get out of here. She started walking faster, with purpose. She thought she was backtracking correctly, but the streets all looked the same to her with all the trash. It was hard to tell them apart. Finally, she decided that maybe she should ask someone. An old man sitting on some trash looked up as she approached.

“Excuse me, how do I go back to the main streets from here?” She asked in a patient and soothing voice. The man didn’t even respond and simply pointed to one of the streets. Following it, she soon heard and saw cleaner streets. Illusions in front of shops, dangling their best products in front of you and showing off what they could do. She sighed in relief.

No more losing time, it was time to go to the library. She had to find out what had happened here. Her father had been investigating, and she would follow in his footsteps. It would only be a matter of time before she understood what had transpired here, or they would come after her as well. Except she would be ready. Somewhat. Hopefully.

******************

Maya soon found herself in front of the library, after having actually asked some people, and turned a few wrong corners. Apparently she wasn’t the best with directions, which was something she didn’t like. Honestly, her memory was good, just the way some people explained simply wasn’t clear.

The building was rather unadorned compared to the others around it. No illusions of books floating around and telling everyone the treasure trove this actually was. No, it was a rather plain building. They didn’t even have any ornaments or anything. It was clear this place was here only because it had to.

Walking through the front door, she came inside to see rows upon rows of books. So so many compared to home. It was beautiful. She had thought their collection was large. It was nothing compared to this one. Of course she had known that libraries had a lot of books. But it was something else to see it in person.

She could still remember the first book her father had given her. She felt a pang in her chest at the cherished memory. It would never again be. He was gone forever, at least in her life. Of course she knew he would reincarnate like all souls, but he, as he had been, her father, was lost forever. She tried to shake the miserable feeling aside in order to do what she came for, but it was harder said than done.

Maya took a walk around, trying to focus on something else, taking in the rows upon rows of books. She didn’t feel as exuberant as she had a second ago, and feared she couldn’t go back. But it was still amazing. The clerk had looked at her as she had come in and ignored her as she went around, admiring everything. They used preservation enchantments so the books wouldn’t take damage, which she approved of. The vast majority of the books were fiction. The second most common books were magical theory books and lastly system theory with various lists of known skills and classes.

She knew the most famous one from each category, but there were so many more. However, she wasn’t here to read for pleasure, and she hadn’t found the local newspaper archives. So she walked back to the clerk and asked about it. The clerk pointed her in the right direction while barely looking up from her book.

Maya walked over to where it was supposed to be only to be greeted by chaos. It seemed she wasn’t the only one looking into the archives. Five persons were currently talking loudly and going through newspapers that were all over the place. She stood there for a second, unsure of what to do when one of them, a teenager, turned to her.

“Hello, do you need to look through the archives too?” He asked. It took her a second to take all the chaos in before she answered.

“Yes, if that is possible.” She said as she looked at the table with all of the older newspapers strewn about.

“Are you looking for specific dates?” He asked sheepishly as he scratched his head.

“No, just looking into something.” She tried to stay vague. Moving towards an empty table, she took the most recents weeks to go through, only to find that these apes had put back the wrong newspapers in the section. She looked back over towards their table and frowned.

A huge Karkaris was deep into scanning a newspaper, while a Skraa was doing the same on his shoulder. A woman slapped a man’s hand as he tried to take her newspaper and they started arguing while the teenager looked at her and smiled, clearly embarrassed. Getting back up, she went over there to ask for the dates she needed.

“Do you have the most recent newspapers? Up to three weeks back perhaps?” She asked and they turned to her.

“We put them all back already, they are right there.” The man with tacky yellow glasses told her in a snappy voice.

“I already looked, those aren’t the right dates.” She said, almost saying more, as irritation flared its ugly head at these savages. The group turned towards the man.

“What? I put them back where you told me to!” He defended himself.

“I’m sorry miss. We’ll check if we don’t have them in our… pile.” The karkaris said gently.

“Are you looking for anything specific? We have already gone through them so maybe we can help?” He added as he started checking the dates while throwing the ones too old at random. How in space did he think he would find them like that? He was probably checking the same ones more than once.

“I’d rather not say, and can I?” She pointed to the unorganized stack in front of her.

“Uh, sure, feel free.” The blue brute said.

She simply had to organize this mess or she would never find what she was looking for. Also, didn’t they have any respect for the library?

Gently shooing them away from the table, she started making piles for each month, neatly organizing things. It would be useful to her too as she might have to go back a lot more, to see if something similar had happened in the past, or even on other stations. These were mostly local news, but some were system wide newspapers that reported about all the happenings, even if it mostly was about Dust.

It ended up taking her a bit longer than she had thought, but the newspapers were all neatly ordered into piles that were sorted by date. She looked up to see the group of five staring at her.

What? Hadn’t they ever seen someone organize something?