With Niles now in tow, the four of them exited the bar. Val held a hand over his eyes as they left its dim interior, the outside brightness contrasting heavily with what his eyes had adjusted to.

"Now that that's out of the way," Note said while turning to look at him, "it's time we took care of that checkup."

He nodded reluctantly, remembering their agreement from earlier. "Right."

Niles looked between the two of them with a quizzical expression. "Checkup?"

Val faced him and gestured to himself. "I've been having some ... odd experiences, as of late. She thinks I should have myself looked at."

The kugraw noticed his hesitation. "Odd in what way?"

Val shrugged uncomfortably, but decided there was no harm in telling him. "Sometimes, I hear voices. Voices that aren't mine. And then I have these dreams, and ... well, I don't really know how to describe them. Hallucinations? Visions? They're not really something I imagine most doctors are familiar with."

Niles scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Not most doctors, no ... but I might know one who'd be able to help with that."

Note spun around. "You do?"

He nodded. "Keep in mind, she's a bit ... unusual."

"Unusual how?"

"She's always had a fascination for studying things no one else cares about, looking for connections and patterns that no one else sees, that sort of thing. Some call her unbalanced, but I prefer to say ... eccentric." He shrugged. "Can't guarantee anything, but something like this sounds like it'd be right up her alley."

"Hang on," Ten cut in, stepping forward and glaring at him. "What's the catch?"

Niles flashed her a toothy smile. "How much did you say was waiting for me if I took this job? Three times what you paid already?"

She crossed her arms and leaned back. "That's right."

"Make it three and a half, and I'll take you all to see her. Or you can take your chances with another doctor."

Ten looked over at Note and Val for their input. He held his hands up to absolve himself of a vote, he didn't particularly care one way or the other. Note, on the other hand, nodded in agreement.

With a sigh, the irva looked back at Niles. "Alright, you've got a deal. But you're not getting anything until this is all said and done."

The freelancer made a happy clicking noise with his mouth. "Wouldn't have it any other way. C'mon, she's not far from here."

Val glanced around. "Which way?"

Niles took one finger, and pointed at the floor.

"Down."

Val stared down, reaffirmed that the floor was still made of solid metal, then looked back up at Niles. "Uh ... what?"

The kugraw seemed amused by his reaction. "You really don't know a lot about the Mercantile, do you? Well, you're about to see what makes this place tick."

Accommodating hundreds of thousands of people aboard a space-station was no easy task. Waste and resource management were real needs that were maintained through a great many programs and teams available for use. But perhaps one of the greatest and most dire threats to the Mercantile's well-being came from the sheer amount of carbon dioxide being produced aboard.

Most races in Spectra shared a reliance on oxygen for their respiratory needs. That wasn't the issue—the problem was that so many people in one place tended to result in large-scale production of carbon dioxide, all of it simply from breathing. And too much CO2 instead of oxygen would mean that the station's occupants would slowly suffocate themselves to death.

Thus, the Mercantile's hull had been constructed with an enormous gap between the exterior and the interior, a hollow shell. Within that shell were tunnels, maintenance shafts, and ventilation ducts that ran for miles in every direction, all for the purpose of upkeep for the CO2 scrubbers installed inside. The massive machines took in the carbon dioxide, processed it, released oxygen back into the ship's circulation, and ejected the waste gases out into space. Thus, this section of the ship had come to be dubbed the Scrubs.

Even the poorest and most crime-ridden districts on the Mercantile were a step above the Scrubs. The living conditions down here were horrendous, mostly due to the fact that no one was supposed to be living here in the first place—there were catwalks and scaffoldings where a misstep would often mean certain death via falling into the abyss below, there were shafts where a wrong turn might mean finding yourself face-to-face with the spinning blade of a fan, and then there were other dangers lurking unseen in the dark in the form of desperate muggers and thieves who might do anything if they thought it'd benefit them in even the least rational way.

It was through the Scrubs that they now traveled, Niles leading the other three through wet passages and dimly lit corridors.

"So," Ten called towards the front, "your friend—she lives down here?"

"Like I said," Niles answered back, "she's ... different. She doesn't mind it as much down here as others do. Likes the quiet."

Ten took a disgusted look around. "Yeah, I can really see the appeal."

"I didn't say it was her dream home, just that she doesn't have as big of a problem with it. I'm sure she'd love to get out of this place, but nobody comes down here unless they've got nowhere else to go." He shrugged sarcastically. "As it turns out, the only place outcasts are welcome is among other outcasts. Who would have guessed?"

"When did people start thinking, 'Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's live here!' in the first place?" Val asked, watching his step as he lifted a foot over an exposed pipe. "It's not exactly inviting."

"I think it was when the Red Wave was at its most lethal," Niles mused.

"The Red Wave?"

Ten looked at Val. "It was the worst plague that the galaxy's ever seen. Left red marks that looked like waves on the skin, hence the name. Killed a lot of people, decimated the populations of entire worlds. From what I learned growing up, the Exodeists finally managed to eradicate it about two-hundred years ago."

"Right," Niles confirmed. "In any case, it was a dark time in history. Once you had the Wave, it was nearly always fatal, and it was highly contagious. People were killing each other over the fear of being infected, and some of the less fortunate folks were blamed for helping spread it. To keep from being slaughtered, a good lot of them made their way down here into the Scrubs—and here we are, two centuries later."

"It's not still down here, is it? The Red Wave?"

"Like we said, the Exodeists eradicated it. Anyone who was infected back then was either cured or left to die. Not a chance of it being around anymore." Niles looked around at the poor conditions. "Doesn't mean you can't catch something else, though. Let's keep moving."

Val was all too happy to comply. The sooner they were out of this place, the better. To his horror, he was fairly sure he'd spotted a corpse's arm lying half in the shadows on the floor—

His horror quickly became utter terror as that arm came to life and grabbed his ankle. He shouted and kicked out with no other thought than to dislodge the hand attached to him. Niles saw what was happening and drew a silvery pistol from a holster at his side. "Let go unless you want to lose that arm!"

Immediately, the hand complied. As the light attached to Niles' pistol shined on its target, Val saw that it wasn't a disembodied limb, but an entire irva laying in the dark. Their dark blue skin was mottled with dirt and grime, and they wore nothing but rags for clothing. To his shock, he saw that the irva's lower arms were missing, reduced to just nubs near their base. He looked over at Ten, her reaction to the discovery one of repulsion ... and familiarity.

"P-Please," they begged hoarsely, "it's so c-cold down h-here ..."

"Not our problem," Niles growled firmly. "Now, I'm telling you—back off!"

The irva didn't say anything else, but glared at Niles reproachfully. Now that Val had recovered from his near-panic attack, he was beginning to feel a bit more sympathetic towards the beggar. It was awfully cold and wet, but he didn't know what he could do for the man.

Note saw his pained expression, looked at the irva, and let out a reluctant sigh. "Oh, to hell with it." Stepping forward, she shed the Nox jacket from her body, and handed it over to the beggar. His eyes went wide with surprise as he tentatively reached forward, accepted her gift and clutched it tightly against his chest as though fearful she might change her mind.

"Th ... T-Thank you!" he stammered, smiling at the synthoid. Wrapping himself comfortably in the coat, he scooted back into the shadows and said no more.

Niles watched the exchange with a raised brow, then rolled his eyes as he turned around. "Damn scrubbies ..."

The group set off again, and Val glanced at Note off to the side. She caught him staring at her with a smile on his face, and shrugged nonchalantly.

"What? Just because I'm made of metal doesn't mean I don't have any soft spots," she said defensively, facing forward again. "I really did like that jacket, though ..."

Despite her words, her tone was warm, and Val was sure that she was glad she'd done what she did.

"This is the place," Niles called to them from the front. Focusing his attention back on the kugraw, he saw the mercenary standing next to a makeshift door that had apparently been constructed from scrap and spare materials. Niles rapped hard on it a few times to make his presence known. Immediately after the fact, a sudden crash of what sounded like glass and metal could be heard from behind it.

"Damn it! Whoever's there, you have exactly three and a half seconds to tell me what you want before I come out there and—"

"Quix, it's me. Relax."

The muffled voice from within paused. "Niles?"

"That's right," he confirmed. An audible groan could be heard from behind the door.

"What trouble have you gotten yourself into now? More bolt-holes you need me to patch?"

"Actually, my visit's a bit more charitable this time," Niles said, turning around to look at the rest of the group. "Got some people here who could use your help."

"What? Since when are you 'charitable'?"

"Since it became profitable," Niles muttered. "Look, this kid's got something screwy going on with his head, and I thought—"

"Screwy? What do you mean by that?"

Niles chuckled at the tone in her voice. Where there had previously been suspicion and a bit of frustration, there was now curiosity and intrigue. "Oh, you know—hearing mysterious voices, strange visions, that sort of thing. He can explain better than I can, but he can't do that from out here."

He took another look at Val and grinned as he sealed the deal. "Oh, and did I mention that he's an undocumented alien?"

After another few seconds, the voice finally gave in with an excited squeal. "Oh—alright! Fine, come in! Let me see what all of this is about."

A green light flashed on the door, and whatever locking mechanism held it in place was released as the door opened slightly inward. Beckoning the rest of them forward, Niles adjusted his body and sidled through the narrow entryway.

Following his example, the rest of them squeezed through the opening one at a time until they found themselves in a room more spacious than most of what they'd seen down in the Scrubs. Still not much more than a large closet, but at least there was enough space to actually walk around in it. A table had been placed in the center, one with dozens of papers and pieces of scrap metal atop it.

Val looked over to his right and saw a mess on the floor, some kind of broken instrument with bits of glass surrounding it, likely what Niles' friend had dropped when he'd spooked her.

"I'll be there in a moment!" called the voice again from somewhere beyond a doorway that led to an adjacent room. Niles and Note leaned against the table comfortably, but Ten seemed a bit uneasy. Val nudged her shoulder to get her attention.

"You alright?"

She glanced at him and nodded hastily. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine."

He furrowed his brow. "You sure?"

For a moment, it seemed like she was going to brush him off again—then, her shoulders sagged and she let out a deep sigh. "It's just ... that man back there ..."

"You saw that too?" Val asked quietly. He knew she was referring to the missing arms.

She nodded. "I've seen it a few times before. Makes me sick every time I do."

"Hang on, you've seen that before?"

She crossed her arms and stared down at the floor. "It's an archaic practice my people still hold onto from the days before the ascensions—they call it 'cleaving'. When an irva is disgraced or held in contempt, their lower arms are cut off and the stumps are cauterized. Usually happens after political duels, or if someone commits a crime against the Empire itself, like treason."

"Do your arms ever grow back afterwards?" Val asked lamely. Ten stared at him as though he'd just said that he wanted to hand himself over to the Cell.

"No. Our arms do not grow back," she answered through narrowed eyes.

He gulped, and bowed his head apologetically. "Right, sorry. That sounds awful."

"It is," she agreed, and shuddered involuntarily. "It's nothing short of barbaric."

"You really are one of a kind," Niles remarked from off to the side, drawing both of their attentions to him. He leaned against the table lazily, one elbow atop it and a hand under his chin. "Never met an irva who spat on the Irvagaleni name so openly as you do."

"That's funny, coming from a kugraw mercenary," she countered. "Kind of hypocritical for a race that prides themselves on being peacekeepers, don't you think?"

He grunted. "Different ways to keep the peace. Sometimes, diplomacy's the best solution. Other times, you gotta kill dangerous people. Both help."

"I guess that's one way to look at it," she admitted begrudgingly.

He shrugged. "Way I see it, I'd rather be a merc than one of the politicians scurrying off with their quills tucked tight at the slightest sign of conflict. At least my actions have quick results."

"Yes, yes, because I haven't heard you moan about your people's government a hundred times already," came their host's voice again, and all of their heads turned towards the adjacent room. After a moment, their host finally stepped into the room and revealed themselves.

It was another insect-like metallic creature, almost identical to the one Val had seen on the tram. Like it, she stood on four segmented legs that connected to her main body, a sleek torso with two surgical looking arms and a tapered head. The front of her face was round and smooth with a hexagonal grid of lights illuminated upon its surface. Different segments of the hexagons flickered on or off, forming the lights into 'eyes' and a small 'mouth' that smiled at them.

"Hello! I am Hopes Quixotically. Sorry about my earlier disposition, I don't get a lot of visitors—always nice when I do, though!" She spoke in an enthusiastic tone, almost giddy in fact. Maneuvering herself around, she walked up the wall and across the ceiling like a spider until she was hanging upside-down in front of Val. "Ooh, aren't you just fascinating? It's been a while since an undocumented race was encountered. Bipedal like most sapient species, but plantigrade legs ... no major fur except for a concentrated amount on the top of the head, very intriguing!"

She began running one of her hands through his hair to analyze it while he stood there awkwardly, a bit too unsure of what was happening to move. "Warm-blooded, a very common feature ... so many fingers, though! Your grip strength would be just as efficient without your second digit."

"Uh," he replied dumbly, looking over towards Niles for help. The kugraw just laughed.

"You'll have to excuse her, she's an exodeist," he crowed. "This is as polite of a greeting as you're gonna get."

"Sorry!" the exodeist quickly said, realizing her mistake. Climbing back down from the ceiling, she bowed apologetically. "Like he said, we're big on scientific curiosity—social mannerisms, not so much."

"What'd you say your name was?" Note asked, stepping around the table and over the broken mess on the floor.

"Hopes Quixotically," she answered brightly, "though you're free to call me 'Quix' as Niles does."

"What kind of a name is that?"

"My proper designation within the Exodeist Collective is actually 'Platform four-zero-zero-seven-nine of the lesser tertiary annex'," she clarified. "To distinguish individual runtimes for the convenience of other races, however, each of us is given a description according to our most predictable outputs to varying input stimuli."

Val blinked a few times. "Yeah, okay. Quix it is."

"And what about you?" she asked, continuing to peer at him with interest. "I don't believe I caught your name."

"I'm Val," he replied, "and this is Note and Ten."

Quix diverted her focus to his companions, and Note caught her eye. "A synthoid?"

She clambered over the table, her legs sending pieces of scrap rolling off of its surface. When she stood in front of the synthoid, she held her arm out and the hand on its end collapsed into itself, reforming into some kind of scanning tool. "A synthoid with a chassis modeled after the same body structure as the undocumented alien ... intriguing. Very intriguing." The scanner beeped twice to notify her of something, and Quix looked to see what was the matter.

"And not only that ... but she's emitting traces of null energy?"

"I'm still not entirely familiar with what null energy is, exactly," Val remarked. "Just that it's apparently important."

"Null energy is a constant universal force," Quix explained patiently, continuing to scan Note. "Whereas dark energy makes up the majority of the physical universe as we know it, null energy is what constitutes null-space, the gap between the seams of physical reality. With null energy, we're able to achieve faster-than-light travel, connect any two points in space with Tears, and a hell of a lot more." She rubbed the side of her head out of consternation. "What I don't get is why it's coming from you."

Note looked just as confused—then an idea seemed to come to her. Holding up her left forearm, Val watched as a piece of it slid sideways to reveal that same open space inside her arm he'd seen earlier. Reaching in with her other hand, she pulled out the small, damaged matrix that Val had given her.

Quix stared at it silently. Her expression was almost impossible to read, given that it was just a collection of glowing lights. But if Val had to take a guess, he'd say that the exodeist was very interested in what she was seeing.

Quix gestured for the human and synthoid to enter the adjacent room. "I'm ... going to need to run some tests."