"We should wake up the others." I said, finally putting down the newspaper. My head was buzzing with anxious thoughts and energy. The Kaiser no longer cared if the Regulars knew about us. He no longer cared if knowledge of the Veil became common. It would be disastrous. Trying to destroy the Veil, that's one thing. People have been trying to do that on and off throughout most of human history. The other side could easily be one of the most powerful weapons ever known to man, and man didn't create it. That's why it's been such a closely kept secret. If Regulars found out about it...

I shuddered a bit at the thought. We kept quiet about our magic. That was necessary. History has told us what happens to people who use magic. But we kept quiet about the Veil for a different reason all together. Whenever a Regular found out about it, he wanted one of two things. To use it to try and speak to a dead loved one, or to use it as a weapon. The second one was much more common. Countless old kings have used their entire empires to try and gain some semblance of control over the Veil. And we've stopped every single one of them. And people like that still existed. The Kaiser, for example. But recently, with such leaps made in science and technology, a third reason to use the Veil came into existence. To study it.

It was easy to see why. The Veil defied all rational thought or explanation, and flew in the face of how most scientists thought the world worked. It could take you to any place in the world with a thought (and possibly further, but we make a point to not experiment like that. There's no air on Mars.), it was proof of an existence after death. Injuries sustained on our side didn't affect you in the Veil, and injuries in the Veil vanished as soon as you Crossed back. It's been theorized by our scientists that if you Crossed a person over on the brink of death, you could keep them alive in the Veil until you could heal them in our side, but that was still very hypothetical, because it was virtually impossible for a person to Cross over if they were badly injured or close to death. The other side of the Veil was a place for the dead. If you were about to Cross it naturally, the Veil resisted you Crossing artificially.

Long story short, it would be chaos if the Kaiser's carelessness led to the discovery of the Veil. I can think of six world leaders right off the bat who'd love nothing more than to get their hands on it. Religious groups would be in an uproar, the scientific community would be their heads, paranoia would spread as it became common knowledge that you could get from Moscow to NYC in a blink of an eye... And I had no doubt the Kaiser would take complete advantage of that chaos to further his attempts to break down the Veil. Hell, he might even convince some of the more unstable and powerhungry governments to help him!

Rapmon shook me from my thoughts. "No," he said, "Let them sleep." He went back to his computer. He had his thinking cap on, I could see it in his face. He sat down at stared at his screen, silent, pensive, and contemplative. I shook my head, but listened to him, for now. I quietly made myself some more coffee and sat back down at the table, making a point to not look at the newspaper, though this proved more difficult as time stretched on and my anxiety grew.

We sat like that for a while. Still, staring at different points on the wall, Rapmon fidgeting with his notepad and I my coffee cup. It was a little funny. Even though I was wide awake, and the coffee was sending an energetic buzz throughout my whole body, the two of us were surrounded by a heavy, sleepy sort of silence. So much so, that when Jin called Rapmon on his cellphone, it took both of us a couple seconds to realize that he was calling. We took a simultaneous breath, and the heaviness was broken. I stood up to put my mug in the sink, and Rapmon answered the phone.

"Ne?" he asked, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder while he woke up his computer. I rinsed out my coffee mug. "Alright, thank you, Jin-hyung! Could you and Jungkook stop and pick up some groceries? We need rice. And cereal. Thanks!" he hung up and resumed typing frantically at his computer.

"Well?" I asked, sitting back down at the table.

"They just dropped off the bomb and the photos." Rapmon said. "If I can jump on the file quick enough, I might be able to go back and find the old version that's not encrypted!"

"I still think you shouldn't be doing this." I said. "And I want it known that if you get court-martialed, I advised you strongly against it."

"Relax, Kimmy-ah, no one's getting court-martialed." Rapmon said, smiling up at me. "You worry too much. It's okay to break the rules every now and again!"

"Now and again?" I asked. "This is how many times you've tried to hack into Central?"

"First time in Kangdae-ssi's office!" Rapmon protested.

"That's not what I asked." I said with a glare. Rapmon feigned innocence before cutting off any further arguing on my part by putting on his headphones. I rolled my eyes. Pettiness.

I was then faced with the fact that I didn't know what to do. Usually, the first few days after a mission, we had an idea of where we'd be going next, so relaxation and entertainment were a bit easier because we could do the bare minimum of research beforehand. But now there was this thick knot in my chest that refused to go away. I decided, quite rashly, to go to the gym. I was dressed properly in yoga pants and a plain t-shirt and sneakers in a matter of minutes. I debated letting Rapmon know, but the gym wasn't that far. I grabbed my phone, a set of keys, and a gatorade, and I was off.

The streets I