A few minutes ago, while Broga was fighting against the Grenadiers, Juzo and Malin went through a narrow passage hidden behind the galleries.

The duct, which was less than a meter wide, was used by technicians and maintenance personnel. Its walls were lined with electronic boards and other equipment that kept Bellatrix alive. Thousands of miles of electrical cables, gas, and refrigeration pipes passed through there.

With the sound of explosions and the hum of thrusters vibrating behind the walls, Juzo and Malin stepped sideways, lighting their way with small flashlights they had removed from a locker, before taking the shortcut. They were careful not to get their feet tangled with bundles of wires on the ground or to hit their heads against the fuse boxes sticking out of the ceiling.

Upon reaching the end of the tunnel, Juzo found a board covered by microchips and switches on the wall, similar to a computer motherboard, but huge. Following the original plan he had drawn up with Rigel, he faced the board—between it and his face was barely eight inches of space—studied it as much as he could with the help of the flashlight, until he found the two tiny keys he was looking for. He lowered the first key, removed a microchip from his pocket, and inserted it into a slot below the second key.

“Good. Alarms off,” Malin whispered. “Now what?”

“Divert transmissions from security cameras three and five in this sector to a remote receiver,” Juzo said. Then he squatted down, opened the vent near his knees, and crawled through. Malin followed him.

They both reached the chamber of Level 5 before their adversary.

The place was a warehouse in the gloom, full of who-knows-how-long dead machines and old tower-shaped computers. There were also several deactivated androids standing in a corner, silent as good boy scouts for the technicians to fix them and the scientists to claim them. Knowing that they would soon have to face one was chilling, so they continued with their mission.

Finding the Totem among those things was the easy part. Because of its size and its silhouette, the machine contrasted with the rest of the things there.

It was exactly how the report photos portrayed it; something like a vertical assemblage of old-fashioned gadgets, consoles, and screens; though now it didn’t have a speck of dust on it. Barring a few rust spots here and there, that computer monstrosity was intact, on the outside at least. Now all that was left to do was find out if there was something else of value inside it.

Just as Rigel had promised, connected to the Totem as if it were the life support equipment of a patient in a coma, was the power supply with which the experts had reactivated it to rescue what was left intact of its matrix memory.

While Juzo focused on activating the Totem, Malin stared into the crystalline eye of the security camera and crossed her fingers that the microchip was doing its job. Then she inspected the room and found what would take them to the other side of the ocean. A dark and minimalist machine. Nothing more than a frame the size of a door, with a control panel that appeared to be made of glass on one side, and an electric generator on the other.

“When you said Auriga, I thought you were talking about the new bracelet-shaped models,” she said; “not about an Auriga Mother nearly half a century old.”

“It’s easier to hack its memory and erase our arrival coordinates than with the bracelets,” Juzo replied.

Malin held up her hands. “As long as this thing spits me out the other side in one piece…” she said. As much as she wasn’t convinced of what they were doing, at that moment, with the military on alert and Broga behind the door, escaping to another continent seemed to be the best option if she wanted to stay alive.

She put aside some old computer terminals, took the wires from the electric generator that were coiled on the floor, and connected them to the Auriga board to buy time. Until a loud burst reached her ears, padded by the concrete walls, along with the cry of a soldier who had surely just fallen into combat, and suddenly what happened on the other side acquired a very different nuance than it had had up to that point for her. A strange pride of belonging had awakened in Malin, an irrepressible desire to confront the android along with his former comrades that seemed to squeeze her neck.

“Damn…” She clenched her fists and scoured the room in search of something that could help her face the coming threat. There was nothing but old junk, and some expired extinguishers hung from the wall, covered in dust.

Kneeling in front of the Totem’s board console, Juzo finished linking the different pieces of the immense machinery. Anxiety had turned into thousands of drops of sweat covering his forehead and running down his hairy cheeks. Malin crossed to his side.

“It would have been nice to wear Grenadier armor now,” she whispered.

He drew a gun from his thigh holster and offered it to her.

“If this makes you feel safer…”

Malin rejected it.

“There’s a hundred like those lying out there, decorating corpses,” she said. “Easy. I’ll be fine.” Then she came up with something. “Hey, if this Cyclops was assigned to guard the project, maybe if you tell him who you are, we could save ourselves—”

“—The bad time?” Juzo finished. “I won’t risk ending up like The Order’s scientists and those students.”

There was a final blow behind the door; then silence, and then the echo of footsteps coming in that direction.

“Whatever you have to do, do it quickly,” she said, and stood in front of the door, waiting for the enemy to enter. She straightened her arms down, tensed her muscles, and stretched her fingers, preparing to draw her own guns; contracted them and sparkling threads of light formed spheres of pure energy in her hands.

Although Malin didn’t like to remember the experience she went through to become a Grenadier, the phrase, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ fitted this situation perfectly. Had it not been for that, she wouldn’t have much to defend herself now, but a pair of bare fists; it was easier to lose a weapon to a blow than to lose your hands. She feared she would need much more than Fotias to face what was coming, though.

Her former comrades were dead on the other side of the wall; she knew it, and that pride of belonging that started boiling inside of her made her hate the android hard. Oddly enough, Malin felt she had not only to defend Juzo but to avenge the soldiers as well.

When the door opened, she ran into Broga and shot one of her Fotias right into his face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “No androids allowed in here.”

Juzo saw the Cyclops in person for the first time, and for a second, he had the illusion the android would recognize him thanks to some advanced type of scanning process or a special sensor, and that the confrontation would end before it began. He lost hope when he saw him enter and walked toward them so steadily, as if they were part of the enemy, despite being damaged and bleeding oil.

Concern was all over his face. His throat was so dry it hurt to gulp. In his mind, that everything went wrong had gone from being a mere possibility to being an unavoidable fact. He didn’t want to let Malin fight alone against Broga, but he had no choice but to go on with the plan. He gave a last glance to the android; he trusted his back to his friend, hoping she wouldn’t share the same fate as the imperial squadron, and he focused on the Totem.

With the power supply running, he got in front of the main console board. Between switches and instruments, there was a big button popping out with the shape of a real-size hand engraved on it. That had to be the control that required the biometric energy reading; the sealed hardware Rigel had spoken about, the one the imperial technicians could not activate. As a matter of logic, he rested his hand on the silhouette and pushed. The button was hard due to the passage of the years, but by forcing it a little, he sank it.

Suddenly, the machine was put into operation, regaining its life with the hum of the internal systems and the processing of the data; a sound Juzo found strangely familiar, as if he had kept it in his memory all his life.

On the button, two laser lines lit up, one red and one white. The red one scanned Juzo’s palm; there was a pause, the laser flickered and then went off. Then the white laser passed; there was a pause, the laser flickered, but this time there was a beep. The white line had just confirmed him as one of those close to the project. And through a hatch, a cylindrical object the size and thickness of a cigar peeked out from the board, inviting Juzo to take it.

The screen next to the command lit up and showed a series of graphical reports. Juzo studied them with as much attention and speed as he could; the bloody combat behind him made him more than uneasy; however, little by little, as the images and data went by, his eyes grew wider and wider, and his breathing became heavier and heavier.

Indeed, there were the answers to the project. All the answers.

Juzo knew the truth. The pumping of his blood hammered his temples. He understood what he must do, and his jaw clenched so much that he gritted his teeth.

He removed the cylindrical object from the hatch and put it in his jacket pocket. He aimed his weapon at the identification button and, with a laser shot, destroyed it along with that entire section of the Totem. Now no one else would have access to that information.

The giant computer was left with a smoking hole in the center.

Juzo looked over his shoulder and saw Malin fighting Broga. His hands trembled, and his eyes got glazed, staring frozen at Broga.

How terrible everything was! Had it not been for what he had just learned…

But he couldn’t go back.

Malin wouldn’t let the android move forward, throwing one energy grenade after another. Seeing the state his enemy was in, she knew that was the only way to keep him out of the Level 5 chamber. And for now, her tactic worked. Broga was just getting blasted and backing off.

Juzo watched them from afar. Making an effort, he got free from that web of distress, fear, and confusion he had gotten tangled at after learning the secrets of the Totem. Rubbing his eyes, he took the blurry veil off of them and concentrated on the desperate combat his friend was fighting to protect him.

He watched Broga, and he knew it would be impossible to have a conversation with him. He had to go on, and if he didn’t do it for himself, he should do it for Malin; an effort like hers could not be wasted.

“Go ahead! Finish your mission!” Malin yelled at him.

So, moving away from the Totem, he went to the Mother Auriga; one of the few that existed.

While he held the gun with one hand, with the other he took out of his pocket the magnetic card Rigel Beta had given him and inserted it into the console’s electronic slot. This time, it was not only the machine that came to life when it started working, but the entire room was filled with sounds and tiny lights. Holographic screens appeared around the artifact, tracing charts and three-dimensional maps that cut the shadows with their fluorescence.

Juzo, who had memorized the exact coordinates of where he wanted to go, entered them into the computer: 1P-09-JN-55. One of the lighting screens showed a red circle that said MAIN SWITCH; he touched it, and the machine, as silent as the operation of its processors, revealed electrodes that began to load the frame with energy, weaving a glowing sheet inside.

Next to the console board was a transparent drawer with ten pairs of objects in it: black chrome rectangles, each with its charger. With the same magnetic card, Juzo accessed the drawer, took three pairs, and put them in his backpack; one for Malin, one for him, and the third he would give to his brother. Then, hoping he was doing the right thing, he pulled the trigger pointed at the drawer, and blew up the remaining pairs so that no one else had access to them. With another microchip, he activated a virus in the central transporter’s computer so that the systems would collapse as soon as he finished using it; that way, he would buy some time.

That was when he heard Malin’s groan, and turning, found Broga hitting her with a strong backhand, then pushing her to the ground like old junk. His breathing quickened; his lungs swelled. That his friend was injured, or worse, dead, filled him with anger. His eyes were on fire. He shot Broga with the gun; one, two, three times. But lasers meant nothing to the enemy, who dissolved light just with backhands. Even so, he kept shooting. Until, finally, Broga took the weapon out of his hand with a magnetic blast, hurling it into the shadows.

Well, if that’s the way it would be…

Juzo’s hands transformed into fists, and like a wild beast, he got close to his opponent.

“Broga, right?”

The android approached him, so close that both faces almost collided with each other.

“Broga,” confirmed the Cyclops.

With adrenaline pushing him from within, Juzo released the energy vibrating in his fists, turning it into masses of lightning, and moving fast, he punched Broga in the stomach area and knocked him back.

Juzo loathed the implants in his wrists and the chemical serum that ran through his veins; they were always his last resort because he considered them a gift from the fascists of the Empire, but facing Broga without them would have been suicide. And if there was one thing that Juzo had learned throughout his twenty-nine years of life, it was to survive, sometimes doing things he didn’t like.

He didn’t wait for Broga to straighten up, and he slammed another flashing hook into him. He was seething with the desire to avenge Malin’s defeat, although his true intention was to get his enemy out of Level 5, and with his blows, he had already pushed him back.

But Broga had not gone so far just to be defeated; not after he had come out victorious from the battle against the Grenadiers, even when he was bleeding oil and his limbs were sparking. With a backhand, he unleashed electric discharges that spread through the air, forming a force field with which he kept Juzo away from him.

“You are better than I thought,” Juzo said, and as Broga was getting ready, he went from here to there, trying to find a gap in that energy barrier where he could sneak in. “But I know, after the Great Fotia and Malin’s attack…”

Juzo took one of the many deactivated Cyclopes that were in a corner and pushed him against Broga. The automaton, dead like a mannequin, came into contact with the force field and his metal face broke into pieces, and his silicone arms melted. Juzo threw another one and then another one. They all ended up shattered on the floor.

And suddenly, a beep came from the Auriga Mother. The machine’s electrodes hid again, leaving the frame covered with a glow. The lights of the crystal panel had changed from yellow to red, and the generator whistled, announcing the revolutions of its generator had reached their peak.

Fifteen Seconds! Juzo startled. The machine would keep the portal open for just fifteen seconds. That was the time he had to grab his friend and cross the space-time barrier.

Malin jumped back to her feet, catching Juzo himself off guard. When Broga spotted her getting back into action, it was late; Malin had dug her arms into the force field, pushing on it from within to dissolve it. She had plunged her fists into the living energy, enduring the punishment of such a discharge, like a thousand needles jabbing her skin, just to achieve her goal. She had to avenge the soldiers, even though she no longer belonged to their side, even though they were technically part of the enemy now. She had to protect Juzo so that he could fulfill his mission.

Malin pushed her power to the extreme, and Broga’s shield exploded in a shower of sparks.

She didn’t wait for his enemy’s response, and loading her hands with energy, she seized him by the arms. She started breaking Broga’s wrists; pieces of solid silicone flew through the air along with metal splinters. However, these arms had a mechanical impulse difficult to overcome; Malin wouldn’t hold him back for long.

“Do it now!” she shouted at Juzo; gods know how much it took her to open her mouth. But she saw her partner standing still, worrying about what might happen to her. “Juzo, go!”

The glow in the Auriga’s frame began to wane. The transistor lights went off along with the holographic screens. The generator’s thermal regulators, which had reached their critical point, descended. One whistle announced the machine would soon plunge into its dream; and Juzo knew that if that happened before he crossed the glow, there would be no way out of there alive.

“What the hell are you waiting for?! Damn it!” Malin was about to fall. “Do it!”

With thousands of fatalistic sensations pounding his heart, Juzo stepped back. He didn’t want to leave Malin; he wasn’t going to lose her. But he looked at the glowing frame and knew it was now or never. They had gone too far. Broga had gone too far.

He watched his friend for the last time and thought about all the things he had always wanted to say to her, but he had always kept them to himself. There was no time to express feelings, only time to act. He took a deep breath and filled himself with courage. He took Malin by the waist and pulled her away from Broga; tossed a Fotia to keep the enemy away from them, grabbed the backpack by the shoulder strap, and closing his eyes, he flung himself into the glow.

Juzo and Malin felt the burning sensation of a violent electrical snap, and a second later, they disappeared feeling nothing.