Malik was sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. She was trying to decide what to do while also actively avoiding the Keeper who was in one of the upper levels doing whatever the guy did all day. 

Today had been such a useless day. She supposed there had been a use in evaluating Sigma and seeing if she was up to the task, but since the answer to that had been a resounding no, well, it was hard to call today a win.

She sipped her coffee, glorious, glorious coffee. The entire day she had been craving a cup. Or ten. 

She should have brought a thermos. Next time she'd bring a thermos.

She wondered how the other three were doing. She was debating on checking up on them since Nari would be asleep for a while yet (they always slept a lot in the beginning), but she knew it would be near impossible to find the others in that world. Besides it was night for them, too, if they were lucky they'd found a place to sleep. She did find it worrying that they hadn't come back to the Spire for the night. Hopefully that was because they'd found Pi, and not because they were in trouble.

She traced the little kangaroo on her mug. It was tourist trash, this mug, with a big cartoon kangaroo and a map of Australia on it. She vaguely remembered getting it with her mom at a stand by the beach when she was little. Someone had thought it was silly to buy a tourist mug since they were Australian, but Malik couldn't remember who had thought so. Had it been her or her mom? 

She took another sip of her coffee and checked her watch. 4:45 in the morning. Even if she was confident that she could find the other three in their world, she really didn't want to leave Sigma alone in the Spire. If she woke up and Malik wasn't there there was no telling what she would do. Malik was sure Sigma would end up doing something stupid. So waiting until Sigma woke up it was.

Malik really wasn't good at waiting, she was so impatient. Sitting here doing nothing was the worst, but what else was there to do? Aside from talking to the Keeper and Malik definitely wasn't up for that right now. He'd ask how their run went and she'd have to tell him that Sigma wasn't qualified to be a Seeker and he'd just tell her to deal with it herself. Just find a solution Malik. Don't bother me about these little things Malik. I have much better things to do than listen to your complaints Malik.

She leaned her chin on her hand and halfheartedly stirred her coffee with the other. She couldn't even check out the nex portal, that's how little she trusted leaving Sigma alone her. Honestly the day had been so tiring she almost felt like sleeping. Almost.

More coffee might help.

She tried rubbing the exhaustion out of her eye. Stupid. Now she was going to have to redo her eyeliner.

She drained the last of her coffee, put the coffee perculator on the fire to make more, and walked toward her room.

Sigma's door was ajar.

That meant nothing, she could've just left her door ajar to sleep.

Except Malik had walked past it before. It hadn't been ajar earlier.

She could've woken up and opened it a little. This was totally possible. An ajar door didn't have to mean the worst.

Malik opened the door and looked inside. No Sigma.

Well .

She reacted immediately. First she threw open all the bedroom doors. They were all empty. Then she checked the bathroom. Empty. She yelled Sigma's name throughout the Spire. No response. She grabbed her scarf from her room and ran toward the portal they'd used this morning. She dashed through.

She immediately got blasted by the hot and sandy wind and tied the scarf around her face. The only light came from the moon and stars and the ominous glow of the enemy camp in the distance. Malik threw caution in the wind and slid down the same pipe that Sigma had used before. 

The glow was still visible from the ground, it was honestly hard to miss. She set out at a run. She had better find Sigma at that camp. She had better not find Sigma at that camp. She was going to kill Sigma.

She slowed down just before she got to the camp and waited, ignoring the sound of her thumping heart and listening for voices within the camp. There were none. Either the agents were asleep or they hadn't returned yet. Or there was only one lookout present with nobody to talk to. She had to be careful. 

She remembered the time Iain had become too curious about a camp. Malik had remained outside the wall, convinced that he was needlessly wasting his time. The camp had been empty and Iain was so sure they'd hit the jackpot. Maybe they'd find something, anything, to hold over the agents or at least to explain why they were out to get them and how they knew about them to begin with. Iain's mistake was that he didn't account for their teleportation devices. The agents just appeared in the camp and, three against one, Iain hadn't stood a chance. It was all Malik had been able to do to get back in one piece, she'd been too late to do anything to help.

That wasn't going to happen this time. 

She quickly scanned what she could see of the camp. The lamps were mostly pointed inwards which was good for her, it made her harder to see as long as she stuck to the shadows and didn't just walk through the front gate. The wall was just a lightweight and thin fence, really, and she had to pull herself up with her arms and keep herself liften long enough to look over. Thankfully she was strong enough to hold herself in position long enough to see Sigma walking straight through the middle of the camp. 

Many a profanity bubbled up in Malik's thoughts.

She scanned the rest of the camp and saw no toher signs of life so she pulled herself over the wall and dropped down on the other side. "Are you insane?" she hissed at Sigma. "Do you want to die?"

Sigma looked surprised to see her but gathered herself and glared right back. "You were too scared to do anything so I took the initiative," she said.

"You ran into an enemy camp without thinking, without knowing anything about said enemy, and without taking any kind of precautions. For 's sake you were strolling right through the center of it! Did you even check if anyone's asleep in the tents?!"

Sigma jutted out her chin. "Yes I did."

"Let me guess, by ripping it open and waking whoever would have been inside?"

Sigma's hesitation was all the answer Malik needed.

"Dammit Sigma do you have any regard for your own life?"

"I'm not afraid to die," Sigma said.

"Die for what?" Malik snapped. "Not for the cause, you hardly even know what we're doing. did you even know what to look for, coming here? What kind of information would help us? Do you even understand what being a Seeker entails?!" Malik ran a hand through her hair in frustration. Her gestures were getting more and more agitated the angrier she got. And she was angry.  "I'm not afraid to die for the cause. You just have a death wish!"

"I do not!" Sigma said but her face showed doubt.

"You're actively out to get yourself killed, do you know what happens when you get killed, Sigma? Did you stop and think about that?" Malik challenged, her voice raising to a yell. "I have to go out and rip someone else from their happy little life. Just because you didn't feel like living anymore. Is that what you want?! You want to push this onto someone else instead?!"

" you!" Sigma yelled back. "You don't know anything about me or my life! I never wanted to be a part of your stupid Seekers!"

"God, how selfish can you be? It's okay as long as it's not you? Is that it? You disgust me." Malik knew she was being cruel but she couldn't stop. "And for the record, I might not know about your life before this, but I know everything about the life you're leading now. You're never getting your old one back, Sigma, so square up and get over yourself."

"That's easy for you to say, do you even have any emotions?! It's been a day since you ripped me from my life. A single day. And you expect me to just bounce into this new life?!" Sigma yelled.

"I did!" Malik yelled back.

"Newsflash, I'm not you! I'm not some emotionless robot who just follows orders!"

"No, you're a reckless idiot who runs into hostile territory without any idea what awaits you! Is that any better?!" Malik took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "If you want to mope and cry about your past life then do it at the Spire. Don't bring that baggage with you and make reckless decisions, putting everyone in danger."

"Right, I'll just become a hermit in the Spire until I get rid of those inconvenient emotions will I? That's your solution?" Sigma said. "Well joke's on you," she continued when Malik didn't reply. "I did find something interesting."

"I don't care, I don't want to hear it. We're leaving."

"To hell we are!" Sigma turned around and stalked toward the big central tent, throwing the flap open.

Malik kicked over a crate in frustration, its contents spilling all over the floor. What was wrong with this girl?! She took a breath and counted to ten before following Sigma into the tent. It didn't help much.

Sigma stood over an array of paper maps strewn over a big black table. There was a big worklight balanced on the table that she must have hauled in from outside. 

"Couldn't get the lights to work I see," Malik said, eyebrows raised, pointed at the ceiling of the tent.

"Not the point," Sigma said waving it away. Malik noticed it wasn't the actual maps that Sigma was looking at. As she got closer she could see that the table was a big screen and on it was what looked like a chart of sorts. She didn't really understand it.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure," Sigma said. "Doesn't look like anything I've seen before but I noticed that some of the numbers on here-" she pointed at the connected dots on the screen, each labeled with numbers and letters. "Correspond to those there-" she nodded to the paper maps which actually looked like maps. Malik grabbed one and scanned it. There was indeed a label on the corner and peering at the chart on the screen there was a corresponding dot. The paper map didn't look complete, it was definitely a draft, but also unmistakably a map.

"I think they're different worlds," Sigma said. 

Malik tossed the paper map aside. "It doesn't matter. None of this is of any use to us."

"They're charting different worlds," Sigma said. "That means that they're not just after us."

"So? It doesn't negate the fact that they are definitely out to kill is," Malik argued. "And they can get back at any time, do you understand that? They just teleport in, we wouldn't even hear anything. We have to get out before that happens."

"I want to look around more," Sigma said. "How do they go between worlds?"

"Teleport," Malik repeated, patience wearing thin. "They've got a little machine or something I think. So we really have to get out of here."

"What if we can find one?" Sigma said.

"We have portals, we don't need one." 

"No but we could try to- try to find something-" Sigma was floundering, running out of reasons to stay. "Find a way to mess with their teleporting, or their communcations home?"

"Our best defense is an office," Malik stubbornly maintained. "We find Pi and save the worlds. Then we never have to deal with them again."

"And how well has that worked out so far?" Sigma snapped. "You've been going at it for how long?"

"2 years," Malik admitted.

"And you still haven't found one girl and brought her back to the Spire."

Malik glared back. "We always run into these guys, it's like they know where we're going to be beforehand." Sigma was starting to sound like Iain and she didn't like it one bit. "Okay, I don't care what you do but I'm getting out of here." 

"Fine, go," Sigma said. "I didn't want you here to begin with."

"Fine," Malik snapped. She turned to leave right when the sound of feet hitting the ground was heard outside. There was a crash and swearing as whoever returned must have dropped onto the crate Malik had kicked over.

Malik instantly motioned for Sigma to turn off the light but sigma was staring in the direction of the tent's entrance with wide eyes. "For 's sake-" Malik grapped the light from the table and, not finding the off button immediately, smashed it on the corner of the table. It took her two tries before the glass shattered and another to smash the bulb as well.

She returned to the flap and peered out.

There he was. Kiro, the , and his lackeys. Of course it had to be him, who else? Kai was on the floor, he must have landed on the supplies that had spilled out of the box and the sound of the crushed equipment had masked Malik's smashing of the light. 

She looked around the tent. There were mostly computers and some more maps and storage. There was no other exit than the front flap and that wasn't an option. Sigma was still in shock, staring at the flap. "Sigma snap out of it," Malik snapped as softly as she could without whispering. Whispers actually carried more than speaking softly did. "Watch them."  Her order seemed to carry enough authority to snap Sigma out of it and for once she actually listened, peering out to watch the s.

Okay how were they going to get out? Malik went to the other side of the tent and checked the connection of the wall to the floor. It was solid, the tent made out of sturdy canvas and solidly connected on all sides. She reached for her backpack to grab her knife- she'd left it in the Spire, she'd been in too much of a hurry chasing Sigma. She scanned the room. Shards of glass littered the floor, some as long as 20cm.

The glass!

She grabbed a map, folded it a few times, and wrapped it around the longest and sharpest shard. Then she returned to the back of the tent. She put one hand on the canvas to steady it and stabbed the shart into the canvas. Nothing happened. She did it again, aiming for the same spot. A slight disturbance. She did it again. And again. And again. There! The shard went through the canvas! She started sawing at the canvas. It was awkward, the improvised glass knife had hardly any grip, she had to hold it with two hands and brace herself with a foot against the canvas wall, sawing with all her might. 

"Hurry," Sigma whispered. Malik really wished she wouldn't whisper.

Malik managed to get a vertical slit that was just about big enough for them to weasel out of. She put the shard against the side of the slit to make another horizontal cut, something that was even harder without grip.

"They're coming!" Sigma whispered way too loudly.

Malik was going to hurl so many 'I told you so's at Sigma when they got back to the Spire. So many.  "It's done, come on," she said, using her hands to rip the fabric as far as she could get it while Sigma hurried over. Malik heard footsteps getting closer, time was running out. She all but pushed Sigma through the gap and hoisted herself after.

Sigma pushed off to run in the direction of the gate but Malik managed to grab her arm and stop her. "Perimiter wall. Around the tents," she snapped and pushed Sigma in the direction of the smaller sleeping tents. This girl was way too much effort to keep alive.

Malik creeped softly past the sleeping tents surrounding the central one they'd just come from. If only she'd be able to get to the perimiter wall unseen, she'd push Sigma over and follow and then they'd be out. She kept Sigma in front of her, pushing the other girl when she hesitated and keeping her moving. Malik could feel her frantic energy and her instinct to run and really hoped that Sigma could keep herself in check.

The sound of a zipper was heard and Malik swore. She hurred the last two steps and ducked behind a tent, pulling Sigma back so roughly the girl lost her footing and fell on the ground.

"Kiro!" A figure yelled as it emerged from the tent directly to their right. In the light Malik could see a boy probably their age. She'd never seen him before.

"You didn't. Check. All. The tents?!" She hissed at Sigma through clenched teeth.

"I must have forgotten that one," Sigma returned, chin stubbornly held high.

Malik chained a list of swears that would make a sailor proud.

~*~

"Kiro! Kiro there's someone here!" Myungjun came stumbling out of his tent, fear in his eyes.

"I know," Kiro said calmly. "Hana and Kai are on it." Or they had been until Myungjun just blew their cover.

Kiro was a little on edge, to say the least. He'd had a fruitless day in world 135KF and then when he got back the camp was a mess. Someone had obviously been snooping around, it would have been obvious even without the crate of spare electronic parts littering the floor. It would have been amusing to see Kai floored were it not for the implications of their compromised temp camp.

He suspected it was the nomads of this world who had decided to take a look around while they were out. They would have to be dealt with. Hana and Kai had been sneaking around the vandalised command tent to flush the intruders out but now whoever it was knew that they knew thanks to MJ.

Still he was glad Myungjun was alright, he'd worried about that. "Good job hiding while they were in the camp," Kiro said. That should passify some of the intern's anxiety.

"That's not all," Myungjun said. Kiro noticed just how shaken up the boy was. "I heard some of the things they were saying -they were rather loud about it," he mumbled.

"Out with it MJ," Kiro said.

"I-I could understand them," MJ said. "Kiro I could understand what they were saying. Something about Seekers and one of them yelled at the other - how is that possible? They didn't sound like they were agents like us. But that's crazy and impossible, right?"

Kiro froze. That was unexpected. "There are no other agents scheduled to use this camp," Kiro said slowly, mind racing. "We set it up just for us. You must have been mistaken. Perhaps the language of this world sounds similar to ours?" The explanation was weak but Kiro was stuck between giving Myungjun enough information to stop any suspicion taking root or getting to Hana and Kai for modified instructions. If he seemed too anxious to be off then MJ would be even more suspicious. His biggest chance to stem MJ's curiosity was to make him doubt himself. "Are you sure you heard it right or were you imagining you understood the language? That can happen when you don't understand something and you're scared. MJ it's okay to be scared."

MJ knitted his brows and looked doubtful. Good.

"You acted well in the face of danger," Kiro went on with a smile and a reassuring hand on MJ's shoulder. "Stay here while we take care of the intruder." He turned to go but changed his mind. "Better yet, go back into your tent just in case, so you don't get in the way."

There that would have to do. He wasn't sure what he'd do if they managed to catch this Seeker but he would figure that out. Perhaps he could send MJ away before they moved the Seeker to the homeworld? That would have to come later, first he had to find Hana and Kai. It was time to catch Zhu her Seeker.

~*~

Malik ducked behind the next tent. The wall was so close but she had to find a spot in the shadows or all Kai and Hana had to do was shoot at them. She could see a patch in shadows ahead, she just had to get there unseen. She'd drag Sigma over the wall if she had to but they were getting out of this.

She motioned for Sigma to wait while she crossed from the back of one tent to the other. Then she checked around the corner - and stared straight into Kai's ugly face.

He grinned and jumped at her. She managed to ground herself just in time and ducked, grabbing his waist and flipping him over onto his back. Then she kicked him in the ribs for good measure - petty but satisfying - and grabbed Sigma, pushing her in front. "Run!"

Sigma climsily ran forward. She got to the other gap between tents before being Hana jumped in and grabbed her arm, bending it behind her back with enough force to make her cry out in pain.

. .

Malik was caught between leaving Sigma or not. She glanced toward the wall and back to Sigma, caught between a rock and a hard place. She ran toward the wall-

"Don't even think about it." Kiro, ing Kiro, said with a disgustingly satisfied smirk on his disgusting face. Kai was up pointing a gun at her. Of course Kiro wouldn't even point his own gun, the .  

Kai winced, he wasn't standing all the way upright. Malik took some satisfaction in his pain, she'd gotten him good with that flip and kick.

"Welcome to our camp," Kiro said, smirk still in place. Malik took a moment to mourn the fact that less than an hour ago she'd been at the Spire drinking delicious coffee and not having a gun pointed at her.

She glanced at the perimeter wall and back at Kai. She knew the had good aim, had she hurt him enough to throw off that aim? She grit her teeth, probably not. Should she risk it?

She slowly raised her hands. "Looks like you got me," she said, her mind still trying to find any way out of this mess. She could barely handle Hana one on one, there was no way she could take all three of them even without the liability of Sigma. Goddammitt why hadn't Sigma just listened?! 

The only way out of this with any chance of success was without Sigma, that much was clear.

Kiro motioned to Kai. "Hand the gun to Hana and tie Malik up."

"With pleasure," Kai said.

There was a loud CRASH as a guy appeared out of nowhere behind Kiro and crashed into the box Malik had kicked over earlier. He looked up with eyes wide with panic and looked over the scene. "Kiro!"

Kiro looked confused. "Who are you?"

Sigma froze, still in Hana's grasp. Hana and Kai looked unfocused, attention momentarily off Malik.

She sprung into action. Malik barelled into Kai who lost his balanced and fell onto the ground. She slammed down her hand on his arm and he dropped the gun, crying out. With her other hand she caught it and turned it on Kai while she slowly got up. Then she shifted her aim and pointed the gun at Kiro instead.

"Go ahead, do us all a favour," Kai said warily, rubbing his arm.

It was Kiro's turn to raise his hands. He did not look happy at the turn of events. Good. Let him be annoyed. Her finger twitched on the trigger. She wanted to, oh god she wanted to.

"Let go of her," She said instead to Hana, not taking her eyes off Kiro.

Hana looked to Kiro  and he nodded reluctantly. She let go of Sigma.

Sigma rubbed her arms and joined Malik, looking very shaken.

"Come on Malik," Kiro said. "What are you going to do? Shoot me? Kai and Hana will be on you before you can figure out how to reload."

"At least you'd be dead," Malik snapped.

"If you can aim well enough," Kiro said. "How many times have you fired a gun, Malik? Are you willing to risk your life on that? Are you willing to die for a shot that may or may not work? Not the most efficient way to deal with your enemies. But who are we kidding? We both know you won't pull the trigger."

"You wanna bet, ?!" Malik's finger remained on the trigger, inviting her to just pull. Just wipe that smirk off his face.

"You don't have what it takes to murder someone in cold blood," Kiro continued. "You know it and I know it. This is pointless."

On either side of her Kai and Hana inched closer.

"Don't move, either of you," Malik said.

She saw the guy in the back shift. "Sigma keep and eye on the one behind us."

Sigma looked at the guy for the first time. "Jonghwa!" She yelled.

Oh for the love of . She saw Hana and Kai ready to pounce and decided to move first. She shot at the ground in front of Hana, who jumped back. "Run you idiot!" She yelled and pushed Sigma, tossing the gun to the side.  She hoisted herself over the perimeter wall and pulled Sigma after her. 

As soon as Sigma hit the ground Malik hoisted her up and started running toward the portal, pulling Sigma behind her. 

~*~

"Should we go after them?" Hana asked.

"Don't bother," Kiro said. "You won't catch up. Besides they could shift back to the root world at any time." He turned to the agent who had dropped in unnanounced. "Care to explain yourself?" Kiro was not happy with the turn of events. He could have finally had Malik today, he almost had her dammit.

The guy got his bearings. He looked shaken to the core, hair mussed and clothes dirty. "I-I'm Jota," he said. "Part of the yuan team- or. I was."

"You went out for your first shifts today?"

Jota nodded. "I've had one hell of a first day on the job," he said bitterly and sat down hard on one of the still upright crates. 

"Where is the rest of your team?" Kiro asked. He'd been aware of a new team being assembled. They must have been doing the test shifts when something went sideways. Most accidents happened during a team's test shift. The shifters were still dangerous and difficult pieces of technology, ever unpredictable.

"A malfunction with the shifters," Jota said. He was white as a sheet. "The science officer, Suzy, she's-" he faltered then gathered himself. "She's- she's dead. I don't know about the team lead, there were no-" he took a shaky breath. "There were no identifiable parts of him."

Kiro nodded. That happened sometimes. The Organic ExtraUniversal Qunatum Shift Generators, just called O-shifters for convenience's sake, were still in beta and accidents happened. Moving organic molecules through the jump zone was infinitely more dangerous than moving inanimate ones, you couldn't afford to lose too many atoms as a living being after all. Sometimes there were parts that didn't stay, well, attached. Their own team's previous science officer, Todd, had ended up a similar mess after working with them for years. One day he had shifted and simply not made it in one piece. MJ, his replacement, had been his intern at the time. Kiro shuddered. Not a picture he liked to revisit.

"Kai go get him some water," Kiro commanded.

Kai was still cradling his side. "I'm hurt," he complained. "Make Hana do it."

"Kai. Now." Kiro said. He hadn't forgotten what Kai had said to Malik. Kai grumbled more but fetched Jota some water anyway. Jota gulped it down and it seemed to help a little.

"I shifted again when I saw the- what was left of Suzy. I saw Seekers there. And- and Pi but she was dead."

Kiro was paying full attention now. More Seekers? Malik had been alone for a while but it looked like they had trained up a new team. Perhaps they had taken this long to finish their training? "Elaborate, please."

"I'm not entirely sure they were Seekers but they looked totally different from the others in the room. There was a dead girl on the floor who definitely looked like a Pi, and some other bodies. I didn't stay long. They saw me. I came straight here." He took another breath. "Thankfully they'd told us your location in case anything happened and we'd programmed the coordinates into our shifters."

As the head of the program, it would be Kiro they sought out when something went wrong. "When did you get to the world with the Pi?"

"When I saw- when I saw Suzy- I panicked and accidentally pressed the emergency shift, you know the one that calculates a safe jump for you?"

Kiro nodded. He knew the one. It was unreliable and took a lot of processing power and often you wouldn't know where you had landed. It simply took you to the nearest safe coordinates, but because of the amount of power it took it was a one-way ticket at least until the shifter cooled down. "How come your shifter didn't overheat?"

"It did," Jota said. He looked at the shifter in his hand, it was gently smoking. "I shouldn't have shifted again so soon, I think it might be fried."

Kiro nodded. "You were lucky to get here at all, and in one piece. Never use an overheating shifter." Jota had been ridiculously lucky. Likely the onle reason he was here at all was that the world was a very short shift away. "What was the world you shifted to? Do you remember?"

"World 854EF."

Kiro thought for a moment. He hadn't been to that world personally but another team had. He also remembered they had had a runin with Malik. That team had marked that world's Pi taken care of. He'd have to have a chat with them later about their definition of taken care of. By the sound of it their incompetence had almost cost them everything.

But this did afford them a new opportunity.

"We'll get you back home soon," Kiro told Jota. "Stay here with our science officer but do not mention anything about Pi or the Seekers. Hana, Kai, prepare for another mission. We've got some Seekers to catch."

author's note

Malik and Sigma aren't having a great time either. This is a bad day to be a Seeker. So first look at Kiro's crew in action, and we also find out the identity of the mysterious shifter last chapter. Seems like their past continues to catch up to the Seekers ohoho.

Anyway hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and last C: 

Next chapter we find what the hell is happening with Namsun, and how are Seungchae and Jian going to get out of this mess. And will they have a run in with Kiro or will they manage to avoid them? Stay tuned on the next episode of the Spire.