He walked away from the operating room when his sensors detected something hidden under one of the corridor doors; something that escaped the human eye and had escaped the drive of the military to put even the smallest crap into their pockets.

He crouched down and with a magnetic pulsation drew the object toward his hand.

It was a little silvery piece. The missing piece that completed the puzzle of the break-in into his lab; what he knew he’d find the moment he entered there; the explanation of why he learned about Brun’s awakening thanks to a mysterious dream and not through the channels he himself had established.

It was the cheek of a metal face, of a Cyclops’ face. From a real Cyclops android. And he didn’t need scans to know who it belonged to. On the chrome surface of the piece, there was a stroke made with black paint: the android’s drawn mustaches.

“Bruce…” he called him, and once again, memories drove him back.

“See? That’s better,” Clemente had said one bright morning at breakfast and turned to Broga with an ear-to-ear grin on his face and a black marker in his hand.

One of the female doctors from the team that was present in the room saw what he had just done, and she couldn’t contain the laughter.

Sitting on a surgical table, with a cup of coffee in his hand, Broga looked up.

“What have you done to my Cyclops?” he asked and took a sip.

Clemente pointed at the android—who had stood still while getting a cartoonish mustache on his face—and said:

“Giving some personality to the poor guy. I even thought about asking André to reprogram his language patterns; give him an accent, maybe. Or—Well, I always wanted to have a butler.”

Clemente’s smile, as radiant as his hair and white skin, faded at the end of that memory. Contrasting with that morning’s brightness, now in the dark, Broga dropped the found piece, returning it to the floor.

The android 4547.BRUCE, or what little was left of him, was a statement that everything that had been there now was gone into oblivion.

“I’m disappointed.” Suddenly, a woman’s hoarse voice cut off the whistling of the wind. “It was very irresponsible of you to have left an android alone here as a housekeeper.”

Alerted, Broga stood up. Something moved up ahead, where darkness erased the last stretch of the corridor.

Even with the advanced sensors of his helmet, he struggled to identify who was there; a strange interference prevented him to do so. He switched the light spectra in his visor, but even with the infrared filter, he had problems. It was as if the person who was talking to him didn’t emit any heat, as if it were a holographic projection; and yet, according to his sonar, there was actually someone there. The night-vision filter was best suited for his purpose.

It was hard to find her at first, but gradually, he was able to spot the woman.

She seemed to blur in the darkness. Her eyes and her smile, crowned with her hair that formed some kind of white veil, were the only things that stood out in that dark picture.

She was an Eddanic, for sure. And those people meant only one thing: trouble.

Broga felt the air stale. Had the woman changed anything in the environment? Or were his own nerves betraying him?

“When they found little Broga’s body in the snow, a few miles from the North Pole lab,” she said, “no one doubted the original Binary-C had died of hypothermia. I myself was present when the doctors dissected your corpse to see what they could profit from. You were so frozen; it took them hours to remove the blanket you were wrapped in. What could have happened for you to be here today, I don’t know; I must congratulate you, though. For years you knew how to deceive a group of people who had never imagined they could be deceived.”

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am not who—”

“Please,” she interrupted him. “I can see your face through that huge red eye. Enough damage you’ve already done to make me waste my time now.”

Broga kept quiet. It was no use fooling around now; the Eddanic woman had already seen through his lie.

She slid her hand across the tiles on the wall and looked around.

“Did you know that, years ago, a child’s skeleton was found in the cave up here?” she said. “I just found out. You must have powerful friends to have such a story reduced to a simple rumor.”

“How did you find this place?” Broga asked.

“Our pet picked up your brother’s scent and showed us his whereabouts.”

Brun’s whereabouts? Had Brun returned under the wing of The Order? And what pet was she talking about? A way to refer to a snitch, perhaps. Someone he knew? One of the survivors of his scientific team, maybe. Though only three people had come out alive from the operating-room accident: Manson, André, and the old Steven, who had passed away a short time later. Manson and André now worked for his benefactor, Sebastian, and neither of them would dare open their mouths knowing the risks they would face if they did. Moreover, it would have been impossible for the woman to find those two without first going through Sebastian himself.

Well, his questions would go unanswered for the time being.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“To make you a deal,” she replied.

“I decline it.”

“You haven’t heard it yet.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Don’t worry,” the woman said; “you and your brother have lost your charm for us. Now, we’re only worried about what was inside the Totem and what your brother might do with it if he finds it.”

Good. One question answered: Brun wasn’t with them. Although now, with the woman’s affirmation, Broga had another concern.

“And who says he didn’t take it by now?”

The woman shook her head.

“Because when we saw him for the last time, this morning,” she said, “he didn’t have white flames with him, he was just dragging a piece of outer space like chewing gum stuck to his foot. And then, he got away.”

Broga clicked his tongue.

“Brun doesn’t even have a clue of what the Primary Plasma is or what it is for,” he said.

“I know,” she nodded. “When your brother was still in our care, before you came and screwed everything up, I used to visit him in his nursery-room. We communicated; y’know? In our own way,” she told him. “I know Brun doesn’t know what the Primary Plasma is for, but there’s a force within him that does. And I think the fenced area on the surface is proof enough that that force knows which buttons to push when it needs him to do something.”

Broga kept quiet once again. How well did The Order know about that mysterious force, that deadly galactic nebula? Totem’s log 0038 talked about the dangers that interventions in the brain of a Binary could cause, but didn’t present specific scenarios.

The woman smiled. She apparently perceived his doubts, even without seeing his face. Perhaps she detected the slight change in his heart rate; people like her were peculiar beings, after all. Although the small dot of red light had not been lit on his helmet’s inner display, which meant that, according to his sensors, there were no significant levels of Red radiation in the environment to confirm that she was using her powers. Then, how?

“If the force you’ve mentioned would have wanted Brun to do something with the Plasma, it would have done it by now,” he said.

“That force has already proven to be unpredictable,” she said, picked up the piece of the destroyed android’s face from the floor, glanced at it, and threw it again. “Do you want to wait and see what the next thing it will incite Brun to do?”

Silence returned to the hallway for an instant.

“What’s your offer, woman?”

She sighed, annoyed and, at the same time, discouraged.

“You’re the only one who can handle your brother by now,” she said. “Help us keep him at bay in case we stumble on him, while we recover the Plasma’s last dose. In return, we’ll get him back to normal.”

Broga snorted with such sarcasm that contrasted with his emotionless mask. “You people must be terrified of him to humiliate yourselves by offering me a deal like that,” he pointed out, but the woman dismissed the comment.

“When the circle of the project closes,” she elaborated on her proposal; “the gates of a new world will finally reopen for us. In that world, little Brun will have the life you wanted for him, but failed miserably to give him. Think. Brun will become a living myth, even bigger than my people are already.”

Broga snorted again, and this time even louder.

“You’re one of those call Warders, aren’t you?” he said. “You and the likes of you are not living myths, only links; genetic rarities that have survived the passing of generations.”

“Staying as pure as in the beginning deserves all the credit one can afford,” she assured him.

“As much as one can be awarded for being born white or with black hair,” he retorted.

“Let me remind you that you were born thanks to links like me,” she noted. “I wouldn’t downplay such a significant legacy. Thanks to that, The Order is willing to forget the damage you’ve caused, the years you’ve cost the enterprise. All is forgiven.”

“After what they did, Wardress, it is they who should ask me for forgiveness.”

The woman’s gaze shone like a cat’s eyes at night.

“Look, as much as I don’t give a damn about history,” she said, “you know that, to my people, you and your brother will always be the enemy; you will always be a living reminder of the hard times my people had to endure. With all that is offered to you, you should consider yourself lucky.”

Broga paused with thousands of equations and possible results spinning in his head. The deal became tempting, but he needed more.

“Who assures me that this is not a trick to use the Plasma with me later?” he asked.

The woman stepped forward. “Your mistrust is charming.”

Broga took a step back. “My mistrust is reasonable.”

She began to walk, circling him like a predator testing the temper of another wild animal.

“I’ve already made it clear,” she said and ran her long fingers over the cold mask. “We have lost interest in you, at least in that aspect. The same candidate from a decade ago is ready to receive the treatment, waiting for us on the other side of the ocean. As soon as we have the Plasma in our hands, the plan will resume.”

Once again, Broga kept quiet.

“Well?” The Wardress crossed her arms. “What do you say?”