Early 2019, in an undisclosed location

It’s horrible. This stupidity, this whatever-it-is -- he doesn’t like it’s escalation.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, having quite a few other matters to attend to with the rest, but as the years (these stupid, limited human concepts of time) went by, it intensified. And it drove him mad, madder than he could ever have been.

Whoever he had been, or whatever he had been back on the mother planet, he had felt the Counterpart. It was impossible not to; such was the structure of life. But the Counterpart had existed equally to him, always within mental reach but never stepping out of bounds. It worked. But here? Here on this forsaken piece of rock the humans called Earth? No. Here, the Counterpart’s thoughts and emotions flood him, insult him, mock him. It, especially, bothers him. The Counterpart’s connection is too acute, too interruptive, and it only bolsters his own belief in his cause.

“Pointless,” he says into the silent darkness of his room. “Utterly pointless. There’s nothing to salvage on this hunk of stone.” He punctuates his words with a vehemence he hopes the Counterpart will feel.

If he concentrates, he thinks he can feel the splitting headache the Counterpart experiences at the intensity of his anger. A wicked, satisfied smile spreads slowly across his features.

A bang on his door jars his thoughts, and his anger -- fueled by the connection to the Counterpart -- flares. Bright blinding light floods the space, seeps out from the small circular window on the door and from the gap above the floor below, but he has no problem seeing. He never has.  But he does wonder what poor human sap -- part of this military thing -- had the audacity and misfortune to interrupt him today. He doesn’t need to guess, though, when the door swings open and his Leader steps in, gaze unimpressed and utterly annoyed.

He scoffs, flopping back onto his bed. “What do you want?” he scowls, but the Leader is having none of it.

“Get up, Baëkhyun. You’ve been ‘recovering from headaches’ in here for far too long; it’s time to get some tests taken at the infirmary. Can’t have you wasting away in here like you can’t contribute to our objectives.”

He glares at the shock of red hair on the Leader’s head, a contemptuous glance that doesn’t get him any type of response. What, his mischief isn’t even worth scolding today? The Leader must be in the foulest of moods if so.

“Whatever, Süho,” he leaps off his bed and expertly whips his jacket over his shoulder, leaving the Leader behind in his wake.

---------------------------------------------------------

Early 2019, Seogwipo City, Jeju

Sunlight streams in through the kitchen window -- a welcome source of natural warmth on a wintry January day in Jeju. The rough pills of an old dishcloth rub against your fingers as you dry dishes. Baekhyun sits somewhere behind you on the floor, helping to peel some winter tangerines for an after-dinner dessert.

The stillness of the moment forces you to stop and reflect on your new life here, how you got here, and how far both you and Baekhyun have come: you, developing from a meek and worried ethicist to a capable provider, teacher, and lover -- Baekhyun, from a mute, supernatural foreigner into the force of personality that daily sweeps you off your feet. You smile at him then, all the while massaging the moisture from a rice bowl. Baekhyun looks startled.

“What’s that for?” He asks, a soft smile gracing his own plush lips.

“No reason,” you reply, placing the bowl into the cabinet and retrieving the next item to dry. “I’m just -- dare I say it -- happy. It’s an odd thought, to think we would have ended up here. I wouldn’t have imagined it on the day of the fire, nor would I have imagined this when I first started working at the lab.”

He scoffs a bit at that. It’s a cheerful release of air, but a scoff nonetheless. “I never thought I’d end up crash-landing on another planet and learning about the emotional depth, the capacity, of the local ruling species.”

“Are you calling humans dumb?” You retort, flicking water at him.

“No,” he says suspiciously. “Just… surprising. And not as limited as I’d expected -- in fact, far from it.”

You shoot him your best glare, and Baekhyun giggles.

“It’s a good thing,” he follows up. “I promise.”

He holds your gaze then, even and confident, but as the seconds go by you feel the warmth and love intensify. You cough awkwardly, suddenly feeling shy -- mock-rolling your eyes at his sappy expression, you return to your ministrations and turn towards the sink. The chuckle that sounds behind you brings a hidden smile to your lips. A loud yelp of anguish shocks you, making you drop the dish you’re holding in surprise. It clatters to the ground, a piercing sound emanating from the crash site as the plate cracks into jagged pieces.

You immediately rush to the direction of the noise: Baekhyun. You don’t take notice of the shards of ceramic littering your path, and you crumple to the floor beside him in concern.

He holds his face in his hands, fingers pressing aggressively into his temples, and you hear him give out a gasp of pain. Baekhyun’s breathing is erratic, but you can tell he’s trying his best to even out his intake and calm his racing heart.

“What is it, what happened?” You cry, pressing your palms against his cheeks and forcing him to turn towards you so you can see if he’s injured.

He continues to gasp for air, heaving for breath as his eyes draw up to meet yours. He gulps as he calms down. One hand leaves his temple and presses to his chest as he shakily gathers his bearings.

“Remember what I told you about my planet’s balance?”

You nod, trying to recollect memories of his planet’s structure and cyclical structure for maintaining harmony. “I think so,” you reply honestly. “At least, it’s a very shaky ‘think.’”

Baekhyun’s eyes dart back and forth, not focusing on anything tangible but certainly on every thought whirling through his mind. “I’m worried,” he says at last. “Back home, the balance was kept by our infrastructure. There were certain things I could always feel, always be aware of, but always be sure that they would not upset the status quo. But I felt something now, something reminiscent of that counterbalance from my planet -- but it’s reckless. It’s wild, powerful. And it’s angry.”

You give him a puzzled look, before pulling your hands into your lap so your fingers can worry at the edge of your apron. “Okay,” you begin slowly, smoothing out the fabric’s wrinkles in an effort to concentrate and calm your energy. “What is it?”

It seems to you an obvious question. He’s only waxed lyrical, abstract, about his previous home until now. This is the first time he’s said anything concrete -- there’s a noun, an object that worries him, not a vague philosophical concept.

For some reason your mind drifts to the scrap of paper in the safe beneath the floorboards. An icy spike of fear shoots through your spine -- a sensation you’ve not felt in three years since the escape. Baekhyun sits up then -- abrupt, with spine ramrod-straight -- and his clear gaze bores into yours. It’s like he can sense the sudden trepidation currently infiltrating your nervous system. He straightens, so he can take your fingers and lace them into his.

“Hey,” he breathes, lips by your ear as he presses himself into you to hold you close. Your gaze falls to that spot in the floorboards. “Hey, hey.”

You squirm, feeling the moisture from your dish-wet hands seeping into the warmth of his skin, but Baekhyun doesn’t waver. He squeezes your hand more firmly, a reminder for you to bring your head back to the present.

“It’s scary, I know,” he sighs. “The peace we’ve enjoyed for a few years now -- it’s helped me almost forget where I’ve come from and how we arrived in this situation to begin with. But whatever this is, I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon. Okay? We’ll be alright.”

You pull back, brows furrowed in concern. “Will we? Three years ago, you were being hunted down by forces we don’t know about. Baekhyun, whoever they are, they want to kill you and the others. And we’re completely in the dark, isolated, with no way of knowing how the rest are.”
 

“But we do know,” Baekhyun insists. “I can feel the others at the periphery of my consciousness -- they’re alive.”

Silence falls as you formulate your response. It comes quickly, but the words… The words are difficult to breathe life to. You worry that they carry more omen than promise.

“Alive, maybe…” You trail off, voice struggling to be heard. “But are they alive and well?”

Baekhyun’s face doesn’t change, but his gaze burns more intensely into yours. Heartbeats pass, a cricket chirps somewhere in the yard outside, and Baekhyun’s even breathing fills the air.

“I hope so,” he says at last. “I hope so.”

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June 2016, Hongdae, Seoul

Specimen #61 wanders around the streets of Hongdae, eyes taking in everything and processing as much input he can. It’s been about a week or so since he was taken from his tank and into a fiery mess -- he remembers feeling the edges of a rage that wasn’t unfamiliar but certainly unexpected -- it felt like his counterpart, he thinks, but isn’t his true counterpart somewhere on the home planet and not here on Earth?

His eyes flick up to the markings that grace every surface around him. Must be the local’s language, in written form. He’s learned to recognize some symbols, but he’s yet to figure out what sounds each symbol matches up with. But he knows he has a good ear, and he’s been able to pick up some things and file them away just by wandering.

Chanyeol, he thinks, is probably a name he can use. The little scientist at the lab that kept checking on his tank would refer to him that way, so he hopes and prays it’s a name and not some weird, primitive descriptor. He doesn’t put anything past the local beings on this planet.

The past week has been a wild one. save for some flimsy coverup he’d been wearing, he noticed through observation that he would need more structured garments to mimic those of the beings around him. Thankfully, his anatomical appearance seems similar to the local beings’ -- something that works in his favor.

He’s tested the limits of his morality in the past week, feeling guilty for behavior that he would classify (on the home planet) as stealing. When his body complained for nourishment a day after the loud flying device dropped him off nearby, he lay in wait and pilfered morsels from unsuspecting local beings when they looked away from the food they had spread out over a blanket on the grass. When he realized he was getting odd stares from local beings for his attire, he breezily intercepted the transfer of seemingly used garments from the back of a big boxy vehicle into what Chanyeol assumes is some sort of storefront.

He’ll pay everyone back later, if he ever figures out how to live like a local and blend in with the … humans, he thinks they’re called.

But his decisions seem to pay off when his stomach stops screaming and the others stop staring. And it’s a series of these strategic decisions that lead him to this area -- one where the attire of the other beings matches his most. He’d spent a day or so wandering around parts of town that looked more like the modern, giant buildings back on the home planet -- but he wasn’t wearing the infinite layers of black, precisely cut fabric that so many of the people there had been donning.

No, here, people mill about with a wide array of visual variety and much baggier, more colorful clothes. Some have glass lenses perched on their faces, and after some time, Chanyeol acquires these as well. Soon he realizes that the other beings have been exchanging little slips and metal circles for food -- so humans are capable of currency systems as well. But the problem is generating and receiving currency; Chanyeol isn’t local and doesn’t know how the humans do it. So he continues stealing (borrowing, he tells himself) little tidbits to keep his hunger at least marginally in check.

One day in this livelier part of the city, he hears something that touches his ears and his soul. Ambling off towards the source of the noise, Chanyeol sees a human making these noises into some sort of device attached to a pole. The human holds an oblong, uniquely shaped piece of wood, and it reminds Chanyeol of some of his leisure devices back home. 

He’s always loved music, he has, but he’s surprised to find that he likes the human equivalent as well. He sits on a ledge of  raised stone nearby, enjoying the human’s performance, but his spine snaps to attention when he notices that other humans are tossing their currency into the open instrument case in front of the human making the pleasant sounds.

He tilts his head. He could do that, maybe.

After some time, the human -- female, he thinks -- pauses and sits on a mess of wires and fabric behind them. The human picks up a vessel and drinks from it. Chanyeol, thirsty himself, his lips, then boldly approaches the human. He’s not sure how he’ll communicate, but he figures he can get by with some gestures he’s observed over the past week.

He points at the wooden device that reminds him of some instruments back home, waving his hands again to try to explain that he’d like to try making sounds from it. The human gestures back, saying some things that he files away for later when he gets a better grasp of their language.

---------

“Sure, go ahead,” the busker says, puzzled at this hipster-looking mute who keeps gesturing at her guitar. “You can play it, I’m on a break anyway!”

She smiles encouragingly, and he seems to understand. She shrugs, grateful to have someone to fill the silence in the absence of her own music. What she doesn’t expect is how natural the dude is. He doesn’t sing, probably because he’s mute, but his fingers seem to expertly know how to make music. The tunes aren’t familiar, and they change constantly. She wonders if he’s composing on-the-spot. The busker watches the man curiously, keeping an eye on the way he emotes as he plays. A small crowd forms -- much faster than any of hers have formed -- and people enthusiastically throw money into her guitar case. 

This guy… is magical, she thinks.

When he finishes, the crowd applauds and dissipates. She scurries up to her case, impressed by how much money he made, but it’s not hers. She counts the bills and presses them flat before handing him the stack.

“Here,” she says. “You earned this. That was… that was amazing.”

The man’s eyes widen, and he bows profusely as he accepts the stack of notes from her. Then his eyes flick towards the street food stand nearby. He his lips, a motion that isn’t lost to her.

“Ah, are you hungry?”

Somehow he seems to understand this, and nods eagerly again.

“Mm. I guess it’s hard to order food if you’re mute,” she muses. “Here, I’ll help you.”

She packs up her guitar and microphone stand, then takes the hipster mute by the elbow and leads him towards the stand. It’s while she walks with him that she realizes just how gigantic the man is -- he’s super tall and wildly handsome, and she’s not sure what kind of day she’s having to have encountered such a strange person.

“One, please,” she tells the vendor after watching where the man’s eyeline zeroes in. She points at the ddeokbokki and gives the man a thumbs-up. “Good choice. Ddeokbokki is my favorite, too.”

The man can barely tear his eyes from the scoops of rice cake and sauce that the ahjumma pours into a little tray, but he does, and opens his mouth.

“Duk bo kee,” the man tentatively says, as if tasting the word on his mouth to begin with.

The busker gives him a look of surprise. “You can speak?” Well, sort of -- he didn’t quite say ddeokbokki correctly. But he seems to understand everything else she says. What’s his deal?

The vendor hands him the tray and the busker helps the man select the correct amount of change to give the vendor. The busker bows, thanking the ahjumma with a quick “kamsahamnida,” and the man copies the motion and sound. The two walk away, the man immediately popping a rice cake into his mouth before howling in pain at the temperature of the food.

“Hey!” The busker scolds. “You have to blow on it a bit, see? It’s so hot!” She grabs his hand with forked half-a-rice-cake on it and tiptoes up to show him. Her lips pucker into a little ‘o’ as she blows on his food before pushing his hand towards his face. “Have you never had ddeokbokki before?”

The man shakes his head, a puppylike expression of injury on his face.

The busker can only laugh, a light and airy sound of happiness. “You’re weird,” she tells him as she shakes her head. “But I like it.”

------------

Chanyeol watches the woman carefully, finding that he quite enjoys the sounds of joy she’s making. He stabs another piece from the tray in his hand, this time taking care to blow on it gently while his eyes look to hers for approval that he’s doing this right.

The woman nods, and Chanyeol takes a huge bite.

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Early July 2016, S.M. Research Facility #52

The license plate-less Jeep inches forward on the uneven terrain, headlights off and path forward illuminated only by the flashlight held by the sole non-driving passenger.

Both occupants of the Jeep are tense, the driver’s tiny hands gripping the wheel as if her life depended on it. She shouldn’t be here. Neither should he. They should be heading up the recovery effort at the Temporary Facility #1485, not investigating the old location. If they were to be caught… their boss, who forbade them from interfering with the ‘official’ investigation, would have their heads. But for weeks now, BoA’s been sneaking back to try to put together the pieces of the raid on Facility #52. And Key, ever the loyalist, is by her side -- his own sense of alarm propelling him towards the search for truth.

“Official investigation, my ,” BoA grumbles as the Jeep lurches along. “This place has been abandoned every single time we’ve snuck back to visit. Nobody’s patrolling it or even looking into the raid.”

Key’s lips are pulled into a grim line as he nods in agreement (and from the jerky motion of the vehicle).

“Kill the big flashlight. Small ones only from here on out.”

“Yup,” Key replies, dutifully turning off the flashlight as BoA parks by the entrance. Opening the glove compartment, he picks out two handheld lights and passes BoA one before hopping out of the Jeep and flipping the hood of his black sweater over his head. BoA does the same, the hoodie gigantic on her tiny frame, but they need the cover of darkness and black clothing. Their eyes meet. BoA nods once, a sharp movement  of preparation, and they head towards the side entrance to the long stairwell at S.M. Research Facility #52.

----------------------

Key steps ahead of BoA, kneeling to take the crowbar out of his backpack. A small pat on his shoulder forces him to look up before he tries to pry open the severely burned containment hall doors.

“Face mask,” BoA says simply, handing him a fresh one from the depths of her pocket. She unwraps her own next and loops the strings over her ears. She blinks, frowning at the sudden warmth in front of her face from the suppressed vapors of her breath, then reaches up to adjust the metal strip in the mask’s nose bridge to fit her face better.

“Thanks,” Key replies, then quickly dons the mask.

He grasps the crowbar, forces as much as of the metal as he can between the disfigured doors, and puts his back into it. One door slides back with a horrific groan that pierces their ears and echoes through the hallway.

BoA winces, then crouches. She goes on high alert, waiting patiently to see if any unexpected company perk up at the noise. A few moments of dusty silence pass as the sound dissipates. But the coast remains clear. Key picks up his backpack to take out an analog disposable camera, then slides through the crack in the doors. He pulls over right after entering, finger scrolling on the camera wheel in order to get the film to click into place as BoA effortlessly squeezes herself into the containment hall.

It’s quiet, eerily so -- their footsteps make soft whispering noises in the layer of ash that covers the floor. The hall looks completely different from the pristine whites and shiny silvers that once held their research. Now it looks demented, cursed -- singe marks and disfigured piles of metal and plastic forming odd stalagmites where the tanks once stood.

They separate, BoA taking out her own camera, and wordlessly snap photos as they quietly inspect the piles of blackened, burnt sludge.

“Noonim,” Key whispers after some minutes of carefully stalking by the clones’ row of tanks. “Come here.”

BoA carefully trudges over, adjusting her mask when it slides a bit out of place. There’ll be no ash in her lungs today.

As she draws close, Key points his flashlight at the molten tank he stands by. This one in particular has a very odd damage pattern -- the flames appear to have burst out from the inside rather than taking over the tank from one side and eating through it.

The light catches a still-intact marking. #61 -- Chanyeol’s clone’s tank.

BoA looks up at Key curiously, but he shakes his head and points the flashlight at the tank’s sealing pressure gauge.

She gasps audibly, and the sound lightly echoes off of the c