Whenever the ship touched down on Artemis station, Vivi couldn’t help but feel like she was stepping foot on enemy ground. 

The majority of people didn’t hate her, she’d been assassinated on Aphrodite, and she’d gotten the virus in her head on another craft, so the biggest dangers hadn’t ever been on Artemis. 

Still, years of growing up with histories of their wars, being forced to go into hiding for a year because there’d been a threat to her life when she’d been twelve, had instilled a fear of Artemis that she couldn’t shake. 

Even if this was the place she’d gotten her life back. 

Immediately, she could feel the way her head picked up on different signals. She could even feel the lab in the distance. It wasn’t a sharp pain, but a dull one that kept rising. 

People were smiling when she climbed out of the ship. Four masked women followed her. One of them was Haseul, but Hyunjin had spent the greater part of two days trying to perfect her gait to match it. If they were scanning for that, or Haseul’s prosthetic fingers, they wouldn’t find either. Haseul had been responsible for that, having specific gloves to block the signals, as well as being able to turn off whatever connected her brain to those fingers. 

There were a series of greetings with everyone who’d been considered to matter the most. They’d all volunteered (or bought their way in). This would let them show their face, make their names known, and maybe even start to become her acquaintances. Only time would tell. 

Vivi finally managed to get to the last person, probably here purely for the intention of starting a trade deal, before she was greeted by a masked face she already knew. The gait wasn’t familiar, but the barely concealed excitement and careful fiddling with her belt was definitely a giveaway. 

Her head was pounding. She’d gotten Haseul to disable everything that linked her to something. There were still sensors in her mind and they were still almost overwhelmed with what was on the station. Still, the pain was bearable. 

And it proved Haseul had gotten enough of an understanding to make those changes without making anything worse. 

“Queen Viian.” The girl bowed. Her helmet was purple and the visor silver. Her voice had been pitched down too. “I’ll be showing you to your accommodations.” Yerim still spoke in a way that let you know she was smiling. 

Vivi nodded, fighting her own smile. “Thank you.”

The five of them followed. Others in the station looked down from other floors or the windows. 

Vivi smiled at them, but didn’t wave. On Artemis, waving was almost as bad as announcing that ‘the queen had arrived’. While most didn’t passionately hate her, they certainly didn’t like her. 

“Enjoyable trip?” Yerim asked. 

Vivi almost told her she didn’t have to speak while they were outside, but she knew she was probably having fun with it. 

“Very,” she said. “Is the helmet getting a bit stuffy?”

“I wanted to just wear a mask,” Yerim muttered. “But they wouldn’t let me.” She tapped the back of her helmet. “I had a hair change. Apparently,” Vivi could practically hear the eye-roll, “it stands out too much. On a station of fugitives and maniacs.”

“And I’m certainly not talking to a maniac, am I?” Vivi asked. 

She tipped her head. “Of course not, Your Highest of Majesties.” 

They were led to one of the many tunnel systems. After a few hundred metres, they reached a wall with one of the many little shuttles to better navigate Artemis station. 

Yerim tapped on a part of the wall with a rhythm of a song from many years ago. It wasn’t exactly in the middle, in a corner, or even the bottom. It was one that could only be found at random, but even then the rhythm was unique enough not to get by accident.

The wall slid back, before moving to the side. 

Yerim ushered them into the room that followed, the light of her helmet turning on. There were boxes, their contents ranging from weapons, empty fuel cells, to stocks of food and liquor. Anyone who found it would think they’d just found someone’s cache. They probably wouldn’t look much further. 

“I’ve been in places like this before,” Haseul said quietly. “I know about most of them too.” 

“Not this one,” Hyunjin said, a bit of pride in her voice. She’d taken off her helmet. 

Yerim moved one box with a Minatozaki label to the side. She pressed again on the section of wall. 

A portion of the ground behind her slid away, revealing a keypad. After the code was typed in, a mechanical lock appeared. It had seven numbers. 

A hacker could take the keypad, but the lock was another failsafe. 

The next wall revealed a door that needed a key. 

“Paranoid?” Haseul asked. She still wore her helmet. 

“Thorough,” Vivi replied.

Once the door opened, the room was bathed in a gentle orange glow. 

“Nice.” Haseul smiled. “It’s good you didn’t slack off with this.”

“Those two designed it,” Vivi said, nodding Hyunjin and Heejin’s way.  

“Before or after?” 

“We always wanted there to be a place secure enough for all of us,” Heejin said. “And then we had to turn most of it into a lab.” 

“Common area’s still nice,” Yerim rolled her neck over her shoulders, “and their old rooms are pretty comfortable.” Then she reached for her helmet. “Can I take this off now?” 

“Wait until the guest’s done it,” Yeojin said. “She could’ve been switched out.”

Haseul snorted. “These’re top of the line suits. Who’d have been able to get the hardware and right identification in time for that?”

“You probably know them,” Heejin threw back. “So it’s possible.” 

“You just heard me talk,” she said slowly. “And yeah, I know them.” She took her helmet off, shaking her hair out of her face when she did. “Next?” She raised a brow at Yerim. 

A soft laugh, before she took off her own helmet. With her hair in a tight bun, she would’ve looked older were it not for the wild purple colour she’d donned. 

“I like it,” Vivi said. “But it does stand out. Even among the criminals and eccentric scientists.” 

“Lucky I’m one of the best then.” Yerim grinned. Then she turned to Haseul. “Hi! It’s an honour to have you.” She walked over, a spring in each step, before holding out a hand with a broad grin. “Choerry.” 

“Should I also use a fake name?” Haseul shook her hand. 

“I mean,” she giggled, “you could, but we all know who you are. I’m a huge fan too, so that doesn’t really work.” 

“A fan?” Haseul repeated. “I was a scientist, not a celebrity.” 

“I read your works four times each, and I’m the one who rebuilt and upgraded your second-to-last machine.” She shrugged. “Plus I helped Vivi with about three quarters of her brain.” 

Haseul’s eyes were popping out of her head. 

Vivi had to laugh. She didn’t even cover . Her teachers would’ve scolded her for hours for that. 

She kept laughing. 

_____

Even with the chorus of laughter in the background, Haseul couldn’t help but stare. 

This girl couldn’t have been more than twenty-five and she’d done something Haseul could’ve only dreamed of making. And if she’d been there for the accident, then she’d been even younger than this. 

“I had help, of course,” Choerry added. “They funnelled the right research to me, I had the right tools, and then even more tools when I changed some things up, plus,” her eyes were practically sparkling, “your stuff wasn’t all that bad of an addition either. Wouldn’t have got even half of the stuff we did without it.” She turned to Vivi. “Can she already come in? Please?” 

The queen was still smiling widely. It looked like the one she’d had on for the crowd, but her eyes actually lit up. “The other two are fine with it?”

“We won’t be getting any more work done otherwise.” Choerry bound over to a door at the far end and opened it. “Come on. This’s where the biggest secret of our lives started.” Her smile widened even more. Somehow. 

Haseul wondered then if Vivi alluding to Choerry being a maniac was true. Her excitement was blinding. What she’d apparently managed to do here was almost overwhelming. 

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Vivi said, lightly squeezing her arm. “None of you will be missed much. They prefer when I don’t have a lot of guards.” She then nodded to Yeojin. “Alright for a few rounds around the station? I think they’d still give you a discount for parts.” 

Yeojin grinned. “It’ll make that hell worth it.”

“Good luck!” Choerry called from the door. “And bring me back some pens. The ones you always get.”

Yeojin nodded once, a slightly softer smile appearing. “Sure.”

And then the two were leaving. Haseul was both surprised and a bit disappointed. She should’ve known that Vivi couldn’t just disappear for hours on end, especially on Artemis. 

Haseul crossed the common room. She recognised an old game console. It might’ve been the tenth of its kind. Fast, but it lacked most of the AR features. Even its VR was clunky, but apparently people liked what games they could still play. 

There were a few other doors. Probably going to the sleeping areas? She wondered if she’d be able to explore, or if they’d keep her to certain rooms. 

Choerry opened the door and disappeared into the room. 

Haseul tried to keep her own excitement from coming up. With all the notes she’d read, she didn’t really know what to expect—her bets were equally placed on it being a lab from the stuff of nightmares, or an absolute paradise. 

What she found was somewhere in between. 

The lab was filled with the perfect lighting. Nothing looked broken and the tech was probably of the best quality she’d ever seen, but there was so much of it. She recognised an old-school PCR machine, because Jinsoul was still a fan of the old gen-tech. It was simpler apparently, but Haseul knew that Jinsoul just liked to keep things from being completely automated. They had that in common at least. 

A few of the workbenches looked clean, but others had papers all across their surface, joined by pipettes or half filled beakers. She even saw a half-built sea slug. This was definitely Jinsoul’s lab.

Choerry skipped over to the machines shoved off to the side. “Meet Hypnos One, Six and Seven” 

“Seven tries?” Haseul looked at them. There weren’t any others that looked like them. 

Choerry patted a box. “I recycled two, three, four and five to make the last two, but kept my first one.” She grinned. “It .” 

Haseul chuckled. “Are you saying the original ?”

Choerry’s eyes widened. “Of course not! It was the foundation. If you hadn’t done any of that, we’d have been—”

“Don’t worry,” she winked, “I know how important I was. For all of this.” 

Choerry laughed and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, six and seven have some unique functions, so we decided to keep both around.” Her smile was fond as she looked at them. 

It might’ve been too soon, but Haseul was starting love this girl. If she’d tried and tried again to perfect the machine, managing to get the tech to replicate Vivi’s mind, Haseul wondered if there’d be time to have a look at this girl’s research. Or just to talk to her about what she was planning. 

“Seventy-five percent of her brain, huh? Did you take the lead for it too?” 

Somehow, Choerry’s eyes lit up even more. “I mean, I knew what we needed, but we had to get other people for the specifics. I got the synthetic nerves over on the north, there’s this great lab. And then—“

“Everything we can tell you about later,” a new voice said. It was new, but Haseul recognised it. The way you knew a voice from presentations. 

It was attached to someone whose face might’ve been on the networks a few times for the whole ‘smart, but hot’ trend that came up with each new conference. Haseul had been featured twice. She’d been embarrassingly proud of that. She’d almost regretted removing those posts because no one in Eden had believed she’d ever been on it. 

Jungeun Kim was a biochemist. A really hot one at that. 

And an Aphroditan through and through. Northern too, so she’d gotten involved with politics early on. 

“Morning.” Jungeun’s lips curled into a smirk that was almost annoying with how attractive it was. “Do I call you Jo, Miss, or Doc?” 

“Haseul,” she held a hand out, “is it Kim, Miss or Doctor?” 

The smirk softened slightly. “Jungeun.” She took her hand and shook it. “It’s good to finally meet you. I managed to push myself through your work, so thanks for making sure your writing wasn’t dry as all hell.” 

Haseul laughed. “Yours isn’t all that bad either.” She tapped the case of papers. “I’m guessing yours is the nicest writing here? If it is, congratulations on helping to create a semi-functional immune system.” 

“Hey,” Jinsoul strode over now, “do I have to remind you that your writing’s absolutely terrible?” She grabbed Haseul’s hand and shook it firmly. “I’ve got a piranha with rollers ready if any of that’s ruined.” She nodded at the case. 

Jinsoul was another who’d featured on those lists. They were all right, because the woman was almost too stunning, except her looks hid a person Haseul was half convinced was mad. The occasional threats of cybernetic aquatic creatures didn’t help. Her dark hair was also close to being frizzy and her glasses painfully close to being crooked. 

“I might’ve torn off the pictures of the queen,” Heejin said. She shoved a few papers into Jinsoul’s hand. “You should’ve taken these off before passing them on.” 

Jinsoul stared at them. “You wanted her to see everything. Everything includes the state Vivi was in after,” she looked pained, “after what happened.” 

“The descriptions were enough!” Heejin glared at her. Then she looked at Jungeun and Choerry. “Didn’t one of you see that?” 

Jungeun shook her head. “Must’ve missed it.”

“You told me not to keep them in,” Jinsoul said then. 

Jungeun deflated slightly, but the exchange didn’t fail to make Haseul smile. Aphrodite had a blame culture, same as Saturn. Jungeun taking the blame, even for something as small as this, was a good sign. 

“It’s fine,” Heejin sighed, “but the next time we’re revealing top secret information, I don’t want any more people seeing how bad that was.” She grimaced. “I don’t want to see it again either.”

Neither does the queen, Haseul thought. Even if the exact memory of the explosion wasn’t there, just living through the aftermath, having to learn that you’d been rebuilt—seeing your broken body was as far as a comfort as you could get. 

“Anyway,” Hyunjin cleared , “Haseul’s been working on another machine.”

“We have the tests ready,” Jinsoul said. She looked to Haseul, a determined look to her. She still had an earnestness that hadn’t faded even after years of working this job. 

It’s probably why she was chosen for this and basically made head of the team. They had someone who wouldn’t give up. 

“I’ll be ready by the end of the week,” Haseul said. “But I can give you the plans for a prototype.” 

Choerry clapped her hands. “Perfect! I’ll get straight to it.” 

Haseul didn’t miss the fond looks on both Jungeun and Jinsoul’s faces. Even if Jungeun put her expression back into something indifferent in the next moment. 

“I’ll show you where you’re working.” Jungeun’s eyes went to one of the messier tables and then back to Jinsoul. Her brow rose ever so slightly. 

Jinsoul shrank away, lips forming a pout. “Fine, fine.” She started gathering the papers into a pile and putting them in the corner. 

When Jungeun walked past her, Jinsoul just barely caught her hand, linking one finger with hers before letting go. 

Haseul was torn between gagging and saying something that would’ve definitely brought the wrath of an Aphroditan down on her. She chose just following Jungeun to the workspace. 

“We’ve got a bit of free space, because other opportunities have been coming up for the team.” Jungeun pointed at the workbench. It had its own tablet and a stack of papers, probably for notes that wouldn’t be allowed to leave this lab. 

“You’re allowed to be on other projects? Just like that?” 

She gave her a look. “No one can ever say anything, otherwise they’d be hunted down and dealt with.” She shrugged. “But of course they can keep their actual jobs.” 

“They can use some of what we learn here.” Jinsoul was sitting on one of the tables now, despite the rest of the lab still being pretty messy. “But we’re in charge of deciding what they’re allowed to use.” She didn’t look happy about what she’d just said. 

“Most of them have to backtrack,” Jungeun said. “We made up timelines for some of the hypotheses.”

So that the leaps in research were subtle. It was also a way of controlling how that field advanced. Another potential failsafe?

“Some,” Haseul repeated. “You can just say all, I kept up with some of your work on the side.” 

Jungeun narrowed her eyes. It was more than a little intimidating. Haseul wondered if there were classes just for that on Aphrodite. 

“Don’t worry,” Choerry slung an arm around Jungeun’s shoulders, “just say she’s a control freak and that’s that.” 

Surprisingly, Jungeun didn’t even look irritated. She just elbowed Choerry in the ribs, before she kept talking. “Did you actually manage to read everything? Or do we need to explain something? Or did you have any questions?” 

“Can I ask them over dinner?” 

Jungeun’s brow rose. “You’re in hiding and that’s your question?” 

Haseul glanced at Jinsoul, only to see she was jotting something down in her notebook. When she looked up, she smiled softly at Jungeun, either oblivious to what was being said or extremely confident in what she had. 

“I’m a little busy,” Jungeun smirked, “but I can fit you in somewhere between getting a virus out of a queen’s head and solving whatever other problem it is you’ve got.” 

Haseul’s brow shot up. “What?” 

“Work on your poker face,” she chided. “That could’ve just been a lucky guess.” 

Haseul rounded on Hyunjin and Heejin. “What did you tell tell them?”

“First,” Jinsoul hopped off the table, “you wouldn’t have been reading Jungie’s notes if you weren’t trying to learn beyond Vivi’s brain.”  She smiled lightly. “Either that or you were really interested.” Then she went over to her. “And there was an index, so if you’d just gone for the interesting stuff then—”

“Wait a second,” Jungeun frowned, “you’re saying—” 

“Jungie?” Haseul repeated. 

“Don’t push it,” Jungeun said, now wearing a smile. It was scarier than a frown. “I have just as much control over the piranha as Jinsoul does.” 

“He likes you.” Jinsoul leaned into her side. “That’s not you controlling him.” 

Jungeun’s lip twitched. 

“I’m not sure if that was the point,” Haseul said, chuckling. “But I’ll believe you.” 

“So who’s it for?” Jinsoul asked. “Lover? Sister? Best friend? Person you didn’t mean to almost kill?” 

“Option number three,” Haseul tried not to look disturbed, “and what makes you think I’d ever do the last one?” 

“You work for Eden,” Jungeun said. “Avoiding collateral damage isn’t always a strong suit, but you try.” 

Haseul wondered if she’d ever tell Sooyoung about that. Maybe she’d suggest putting out a few pictures from Jungeun’s academy. She can’t have always looked like that. 

“It’s someone who’s being kept alive by more tech than any of those cyborg animals of yours,” Haseul said. “And I linked her mind to our ship to keep all the information there, but we don’t know how to save her body any better than just keeping her alive.”

Both of their expressions shifted. Jungeun’s went from smug to sympathetic. Jinsoul’s was thoughtful. 

“We can work with that,” Jinsoul muttered. “We’ve worked with a lot less too.” She opened her notepad, flicking back. “Is this allowed?” she called across the room. 

Hyunjin and Heejin looked up at the same time. They both gave a thumbs up. Then Hyunjin tossed a paper aeroplane their way. 

Jungeun caught it, opened it, before showing it to Jinsoul. They were quiet while they read it, leaving Haseul to wonder if keeping massive secrets from the galaxy was some incredible bonding experience. 

“Wow!” Jinsoul grinned. “How’d you get in Her Majesty’s good graces like that?” 

Jungeun folded the paper and put it in her pocket. Haseul was tempted to steal it later just to see what it said. 

Jungeun winked at her. Try it, that said. 

Haseul wondered if she’d just end up losing her fingers. Again. Or worse. There was no telling what courses the Aphroditans ended up going through. She’d had enough surprises with Sooyoung, even more with Chaewon. Artermisians weren’t much better. She’d seen a lot of that with Hyejoo and Jiwoo. 

“I’m trying to heal her head?” 

Jinsoul shook her head. “Then you’d have just seen our notes, and not all of them,” she said. “And she’d never have brought you here either.” She sat down. “She’s letting us help you and the one you’re trying to save like we did for her.”

It took a few seconds for that to sink in. 

“What?” Haseul’s voice sounded like a squeak. 

Surprisingly, no one laughed at that. 

“We’ll help you,” Jungeun said. “After Vivi’s alright, we’ll see what we can do for your friend.”

Haseul looked for any flicker of a lie there. She looked for doubt in Hyunjin and Heejin. She looked for unease in Jinsoul, because she was the worst at hiding that kind of thing. 

There was nothing. 

Was that all it took? A note from the queen to say she could be trusted? She might’ve known Jinsoul before, but not enough to be someone she’d trust like she would Choerry or Jungeun. Even if Choerry had followed her work, what’d happened later didn’t give her any good reason to expect the best from her. 

And Jungeun had practically no reason to trust her. Even less because of the connection to Eden.

“Why?” 

“You’re probably the good kind of fugitive,” Choerry replied. “Plus you’re either so threatened by what’d happen if you spilled any secrets, or you actually believe they shouldn’t be said.” She hadn’t even read the note. 

“If you’re an absolutely terrible person, then we probably won’t get all that involved,” Jinsoul shrugged, “but if you give us as much information about what her condition is, Jungeun and I can start planning.” 

“And we’ll work on the brain you’ll transfer things to,” Choerry said. “I can show her how to make the hardware, right?” She looked to the two. When they nodded, she grinned. “You’ll love it.”

Haseul was starting to get emotional. This wasn’t the trust you got with friends, but something else. Since she’d left Earth, she hadn’t been trusted by people who’d just heard about who she was. 

As she saw Jinsoul grab a new piece of paper and start to sketch something, while Jungeun sat beside her, murmuring something that sounded a lot like a list of what they’d need to order, she had to smile. 

And Vivi trusted these people, enough to have secrets that people would pay any price for and continue to further what they knew and could do. She trusted them enough to help someone none of them really knew, to save someone none of them actually knew. 

_____

Author's Note

Not sure when I'll next be updating. Life is pretty busy, both this week and next week. Still, I wanted to get something out in the mean time, as well as finally introduce oec.

I don't think I'll be that detailed about what they'll actually be doing, but I'll try to keep things making some sort of sense. My brain tends to be a little fried from my lectures, so while I'll try to maintain that, it probably won't be in huge amounts. 

I hope you're all doing well! This story is an absolute blast and if you're enjoying it, that makes it all the better. Do let me know what you think! 

See you next chapter. 

Twt: hblake44

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