It was dark in the tower. It was Lev’s fault. He’d turned off all the lights in the foyer before dusk had fallen, betting no one would notice the building was unlocked. Now, moonlight streamed through the wall of glass from the courtyard outside. He didn’t mind the dark. It masked him. At first, the waiting had been almost relaxing. Now? He was antsy. Kara and Teorin should have been here by now.

  Lev exhaled slowly and lifted his watch just enough to catch the faint screen glow. Over thirty minutes late. Not good. And outside? Too many people.

  They weren’t just walking. They were searching. Flashlights cut across the buildings, lingering in dark recesses. Lev had spent the last hour watching people and then silhouettes sweep through the courtyard. Last night, he’d gone for a run after dusk. Campus had been empty. Tonight? Not even close.

  Something was wrong. He’d considered going out to find Kara, but where would he even start? What if he missed her? So he waited.

  A fresh pair of silhouettes crossed the courtyard. Lev tensed because these were different. No light of their own. Lit only by moonlight. And they weren’t walking. They were running.

  Lev pushed off the wall, staying low. The two figures veered toward the entrance, and he pressed into the shadows. A cloud slid over the moon, plunging the world into near-total darkness. Lev clenched his jaw. Perfect. Now he couldn’t see a thing.

  The creak of a door. Footsteps. Then the cloud shifted again, revealing two figures. The second figure lingered at the door, scanning the courtyard before slipping in after.

  Silence.

  Then, “Do you think anyone saw us?”

  Kara.

  Lev exhaled, sharp and sudden.

  The second figure whirled. Hands up, ready to fight.

  “Don’t shoot,” Lev said, stepping into the dim light. “It’s just me.”

  “Lev!” Kara gasped, stumbling toward him. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  Teorin dropped his hands, and Kara’s shadow bobbed for a moment before she fell into him. An immediate sense of relief, of home, filled him as Lev steadied her. He just held her, just for a second. Then they retreated back into the darkness away from the windows. Teorin followed, hovering a few feet away.

  “Sorry. The goal wasn’t to scare you,” Lev said.

  “I’m just glad that you’re here,” Kara said, leaning into him again.

  Lev grinned despite himself. “The feeling is mutual. What happened? I thought you’d been abducted or something.”

  Kara was silent for a few moments before replying, but he could feel how tense her shoulders were. Finally, she said, “We ran into some problems. There’s a lot of people wandering around out there.”

  Vague. Too vague. She was hiding something.

  “I noticed,” Lev said, letting it go. For now.

  Kara exhaled. “We holed up in a classroom for a while. Waited for things to die down. Then we ran for it.”

  That explained the heavy breathing. It was calmer now. He could feel it against the arm she was clinging to.

  Teorin’s voice came from the dark. “The stairs—do they go to the roof?”

  Lev didn’t need to see the gesture. The bottom of the stairs glowed softly red in the darkness, lined with an emergency light strip. “Yeah. Twelve floors, then one more to the roof. There’s an elevator too. Inner ring is burstproof.”

  “Right,” Teorin murmured. “Straight ahead?”

  Lev squinted at Teorin’s silhouette. He was moving in the right direction. “Yeah. Keep walking, and you’ll hit the burstdoor.”

  “Why do you need to get to the roof?” Kara asked.

  “Because that’s where Jeron said he would meet us,” Teorin said.

  “Well, I hope he beat me here,” Lev said. “Because no one has come through here, but I didn’t check the roof. I did wander around quite a bit when I first got here, though. The first two floors are empty.”

  Teorin’s silhouette froze, then moved toward the burstdoor. The movement put him within range of the glowing emergency lights from the stairs, and he turned back to them lit with an eerie red light. “Are you two coming?”

  He felt Kara’s hair tickle his arm as she shook her head. “I’ll be up in a minute. I need to talk with Lev.”

  Teorin didn’t move, and Kara added, “Alone.”

  Teorin stayed frozen. Maybe he thought they were trying to abandon him or something. For all Lev knew, that was Kara’s plan. He waited to see what Teorin would do, but after a few moments Teorin just shrugged and said, “Be careful.”

  It seemed to be odd advice for this conversation, but Kara just nodded.

  Teorin continued on, and the burstdoor slid to the side as he approached. Lev flinched at the blinding light from the lit antechamber. It was one of those rotating ones with a small circular room on the inside, so the inner parts of the tower were never exposed. Teorin stepped in and gave them one last look before the door slid around.

  Lev shifted, tilting his head towards Kara’s face would be. His night vision was all messed up now. “Okay. What was that about? Because that was…” Lev couldn’t decide on a word. It had been sort of creepy, actually.

  Kara didn’t reply for a moment, but her hands tightened on his arm. Maybe she was trying to decipher what had just happened too.

  “I’m not totally sure,” Kara finally said. “It might have been a warning about sharing some of the stuff that he’s told me. That or he thinks we’re going to leave. Or maybe it was just an awkward comment. It’s hard to say.”

  Lovely. Their one ally in this was either threatening them or was just an awkward conversationalist. “Right. On that note, what is the plan? Should we leave?” Lev asked.

  “Good question,” Kara said.

  Wonderful. That was not a good response coming from Kara. “You don’t have a plan.”

  She pulled away.

  Lev let out a sound of protest as cool air rushed against his side.

  “Look, I was distracted,” Kara’s voice said, echoing from the darkness. “Teorin has a plan. Supposedly, Jeron is up there. I haven’t really gotten a satisfactory response on what will happen if I go with them. So, no I don’t exactly have a plan.”

  “You got distracted? Someone tried to kill you today, and you were too distracted to decide what to do about it?”

  “I had other things to worry about!” Kara said defensively. She moved towards the stairs where the red glow illuminated her features faintly.

  Lev followed. “Like?”

  “Like those papers that Teorin brought,” Kara said firmly. “They’re important, and right now I need access to the net.”

  Of course. Leave it to Kara to be more concerned about the papers that were centuries old than her own immediate safety. “Fine Miss I-don’t-care-about-my-safety, shall we go find a comm station then? Why exactly do you desperately need net access?”

  “I need to look something up.” She was already moving toward the burstdoor, fading into the darkness past the stair lights. “Also, what do you think of Teorin?”

  “Uh, I’ve talked to him for like five minutes,” Lev said, following. “Not a great basis for trust. But after the way he acted a second ago? Yeah, not sold.”

  The burstdoor opened again. Light spilled through, blinding him. He stepped into the antechamber with Kara as the door rotated, the opening sliding into place in front of them.

  Kara didn’t wait. She was already speedwalking down the hall.

  At least now Lev could read her expressions. He jogged ahead, spun on his heel, and walked backward in front of her. “Again, why do we need net access?”

  “There’s a plant that I need to look up.”

  A plant? Great.

  Lev decided to ignore that, for now. He needed answers about Teorin. “So, do you trust Teorin?”

  Kara frowned. “I want to, but I can’t. There’s too much going on. I feel like I got dropped into a room where I’m supposed to know things, but I don’t.”

  “Wow. To feel normal for once, huh?” Lev said, turning forward again as they hit an intersection. It looked like this hall led to the tech labs.

  Kara glared at him. “You’re one to talk. You’re a Memoran just as much as I am.”

  She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t match her, but he could still run circles around most people when it came to normal memory. “True, but I pretend to be normalish.”

  “Normalish? A, that’s not a real word, and B, you have played on almost every sports team at the University. I’m pretty sure that is the opposite of normalish.”

  “I meant information-wise. I pretend to only know what other people know.”

  Kara’s eyes drilled into him. “Key word being pretend.”

  Lev sighed. “Maybe. Still not the point. Can we get back to Teorin?”

  Kara frowned but nodded. They’d reached a room filled with net terminals. She headed straight for the closest one and started tapping away. A plant site popped up, and she began scrolling through a series of questions.

  Lev ignored that. “So, why exactly is it that you don’t trust Teorin?”

  Kara drummed her fingers against the console, eyes flicking away from the screen. She seemed stuck on a question about colors, but she finally looked at him. “It’s complicated. Teorin’s been helpful, and I don’t think he has bad intentions. I just don’t think he’s telling the whole truth. Or maybe he doesn’t know it himself. A lot of what he said is just… I don’t know. On a scale of one to conspiracy theory, it’s off the charts.”

  “What exactly did he propose?”

  Kara pursed her lips and backtracked a few questions in her plant quiz. “Basically, he thinks we can’t release the document because some secret group is trying to stop anyone from getting off planet. He thinks if someone else translates it first, they’ll destroy whatever is hidden.”

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  Yeah. That sounded pretty crazy. Kara clearly thought it sounded crazy too, but something was holding her back from saying it outright. Lev was all for avoiding crazy people, but he’d humor her. She thought better out loud, and right now, Kara was hardly paying attention to the conversation.

  Lev was fine arguing Novem’s side for now, even if he was firmly in the we-should-leave camp. “Why are Teorin’s claims so unbelievable?” Lev asked.

  Kara looked up from the console, surprised, but then her face shifted to thoughtful. She stopped flipping through questions on the screen. “I guess because I’ve never heard of someone being against leaving. The Keepers believe that staying will lead to transcendence, but they’re not anti-departure. More… pro-Aralin. Getting off-planet just means more pilgrims.”

  “So?”

  Kara tapped her fingers on the console. “Do you remember the Kanata?”

  “Uh, vaguely?”

  She turned back to the console as a plant image flashed across the screen, then flipped back through the questions. “They were extremists. Believed the bursts were some ancient defense system guarding a hidden treasure.”

  “Ah. The treasure people. They’re my favorite.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t even remember their name.”

  Lev grinned back. “But I love pirate treasure. That theory’s basically an adventure story.”

  “You’re basically living in one now,” Kara muttered.

  Lev didn’t argue. Because it was true, and actually living it? Less fun.

  Kara returned to her plant quiz—adjusting answers, resubmitting, rerunning results.

  “So… conspiracy theories?” Lev said, shifting his weight.

  Kara gave him a look. “The Kanata thought the treasure was guarded by some kind of mythical god. Finding it would destroy the planet. Think Keepers, but times ten. Still, they never actually advocated against leaving, just searching.”

  She’d stopped scrolling and was studying a strange, orange, spindly plant with weird flowers. “And then there’s politicians like Kovain—”

  Lev cut in. “Kara, if you expect me to know Kovain’s stances, I don’t.”

  Kara didn’t expect everyone to know everything, but she often expected him to know what she was talking about, even when it was out of his wheelhouse. She turned to him, exasperated. “Mercy, Lev! How do you manage to absolutely and completely ignore politics?”

  He wanted to roll his eyes. She could ignore life-or-death situations, but he had to memorize every politician’s stance? “Politics rarely win sporting events.”

  “Still—”

  “I know he’s an extremist, and I can guess where you’re going. He’s an isolationist, right? Happy to stay here?” Lev shrugged. “I think I get the point. No citation list needed. Even the extremists—past or present—aren’t trying to keep people here. They’re not against leaving. Just… not in a hurry. Right?”

  Kara looked up, head tilted. “Exactly.”

  “But that still doesn’t rule out someone wanting us to stay.”

  Kara sighed, frustration creeping into her voice. “But why? Who would even want that?”

  And that was the real problem. The unspoken subtext.

  Kara wanted off this planet so badly, she couldn’t imagine someone trying to keep others here. She’d spent her whole life dreaming of the stars, listing the places she’d go if she ever had the chance. It was why she studied languages in the first place. Why she’d chosen translation. For her, leaving wasn’t just a goal. It was the whole point.

  Truth be told, Lev couldn’t think of a good reason to keep everyone here either. But if this was all coming from a secret group? Then maybe they had secret motives. It was possible, but they were starting to pile assumptions onto assumptions here. It was all pretty farfetched.

  “Well,” Lev said, “I agree that a secret group trying to keep us grounded seems unlikely. Aside from the conspiracy-theory vibe of Novem’s explanation, do you have any other reasons not to trust them?”

  Kara was running a search now, flipping between images of that orange, spindly plant and cross-referencing it with a map. “Yeah. They don’t seem big on sharing,” she said. “I found some pretty serious stuff in those pages, but the most important thing is… one of the pages had a picture of a human.”

  She paused, glancing at him like she was waiting for a reaction.

  Lev blinked. “Forgive me for my ignorance, O Great Professor. But why is that suspicious?”

  Kara glared. “This is serious, Lev.”

  “Sorry,” Lev said. “Real question though.”

  “Have you ever heard of humans here? Before us. Before the Atalanta?”

  Lev thought for a second. He pulled a wooden pencil from his pocket and tossed it, catching it again on reflex. “No. I guess not. I mean… it’s interesting. Maybe the species that terraformed Aralin knew humans or whatever—”

  Kara cut him off. “They didn’t just know humans. They were here. On Aralin. And according to the text, being here changed them. They developed affinities: pulsing, luminance, maybe both. It’s not totally clear, but that makes two separate groups of humans who came here and developed powers.”

  Right. That was a big deal. It meant whatever had triggered those changes had existed here for centuries, maybe since the planet was terraformed. And it had happened twice.

  “Okay,” Lev said. “I get why that’s important.”

  “Good. Because the figure in the text? It’s a picture. Of a human. And there’s a clear visual illustration, some kind of wave manipulation around them. Even without knowing any Aralini, someone looking at those pages would notice that. And Novem scanned everything. Someone saw it.”

  She paused, fingers drumming against the console. “And yet, not a word. No press release. No academic announcement. Nothing.”

  Lev pocketed the pencil he’d been absently flipping. That was... troubling. If they were hiding something that big, what else were they hiding? “How long have they had the pages?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Jeron didn’t say.”

  “So maybe they’re just being careful, verifying the discovery first?”

  “Maybe,” Kara admitted. “But Jeron didn’t mention anything about it. And sure, he got interrupted, building on fire and all, but Teorin definitely didn’t know. His reaction was too raw.”

  “So you think they’re not planning to announce it at all.”

  “I don’t know what they’re planning,” Kara said. “But I do know this: I’m sitting on something massive, and they haven’t said a word. If they’re keeping this quiet… what happens if I decide not to? How far would they go to keep it secret?”

  Lev felt the pencil snap in his hand. He hadn’t even realized he’d pulled it out again. He stared at the broken pieces for a second, then dropped them into his pocket and leaned back against the wall.

  “Are you saying… you think they’d hurt you? Maybe kill you? To keep this under wraps?” He hated how steady his voice sounded when his brain felt like screaming.

  Kara didn’t answer right away. Her hands stayed planted on the console, knuckles white. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She drew in a shaky breath. “But someone burned down my building, Lev. This isn’t some minor discovery. Someone’s treating it like a threat, and Novem seems reasonable now, but what happens if I say the wrong thing? What if I cross a line and suddenly I’m a liability?”

  She turned to him, voice quiet. “You said most people already think I’m dead. What if that just… becomes true? What if someone decides to make sure it is?”

  Lev’s voice was quiet. “I know you’re not dead.”

  “You’re here with me,” Kara said. “They could make you disappear too. Not assassination, maybe, but detention, house arrest, isolation. Just enough to keep us quiet until they finish whatever they’re working on.”

  Lev stood straighter. “Then the answer’s obvious. We leave. Go to the authorities. Or vanish. Whatever it takes.”

  “No,” Kara said adamantly.

  “No?” Lev stared at her. “You just listed all the reasons we can’t trust Novem. Why would you stay?”

  “Because they have the pages.” Her voice softened, but her eyes stayed hard. “I didn’t just find a picture of a human. There’s more. A lot more.”

  She gestured to the screen. “The author wrote about a hidden, underground lab. A sample library. And this plant? It was found near the entrance.”

  Lev blinked at the spindly, orange-leaved image glowing on the monitor.

  “It might be rare,” Kara continued, “only grows in certain areas. If I’ve got the right plant—which I think I do, Aralensis virida—it’s a clue. A way to track the lab down.”

  She hesitated, then added, “There was a sketch in the pages, but it’s not exactly a color photo. And I’m not a botanist. This is barely my area.”

  Bursts. Lev slid down the wall until he was sitting, knees bent, arms draped across them.

  A lab.

  That was huge. As far as he knew, they hadn’t found any intact scientific equipment. Not like this.

  “That’s…” Lev rubbed his temples with his palms. “I get it. Even I know that’s a big deal, but is it worth risking your life over? You already found the information about the lab.”

  Kara was already shaking her head. “I’m not even a third of the way through everything. There could be more, so much more. Based on the words the computer flagged, I’m almost certain there is.”

  Lev stared at his shoes. She wasn’t going to leave. Not with those pages in play. Crazy, maybe, but to Kara, sharing that information was a duty. There had to be another way to make this work.

  “Lev?” Kara asked, concern creeping into her voice.

  He looked up. “Fine. So we steal the document. Or just make a copy. That solves the problem, right? You translate it on your terms, and Novem doesn’t control the information.”

  Kara blinked. “But that’s…”

  “Illegal?” Lev offered. “We’re already halfway into illegal territory, and I’d rather break a few rules than get locked up, or worse. Plus… I can’t get locked up. Not if you’re not there with me. I’d—” His voice caught. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “I know,” Kara said softly.

  Then she was on the floor too, leaning into him. Her warmth echoed into his limbs, calming everything.

  “I guess it seems silly to worry about it being illegal right now, huh?” she whispered.

  He gripped the hand on his shoulder. “Kind of.”

  He looked at her. She gently pulled her hand away, standing so that she could pace. That more than anything told him how seriously she was taking this. Pacing only happened when she was really worried.

  “I don’t like it,” Kara said eventually. “But given everything… it might actually be the most reasonable option.”

  “Good,” Lev said. “Not without its problems though. Novem’s massive. One of the biggest companies on the planet. And if the Clans are involved, too? That’s a lot of people to be running from. Government. Clans. Possibly angry historians.” He shrugged. “Still. I like a challenge.”

  Kara paled, then started pacing faster. “That’s not even all of it. Teorin’s not just going to let us walk away with the pages, even if we only plan to copy them.” She hesitated. “And what if Jeron’s up there? He’s a temporal, Lev. I don’t know his exact skill set, but if he can practically freeze us in place, getting the pages is going to be really tricky.” She paused, fingers tapping her leg. “And you’re right.”

  Lev grinned. “I usually am.”

  She shot him a glare. “We can’t go to the authorities. Novem is basically a government entity. Reporting them would be like reporting ourselves. We could disappear, but hiding?” She gestured between them. “We don’t exactly have a ton of experience there.”

  Valid. As much as Lev liked to think of himself as a master strategist, he had zero experience being on the run, and he was very recognizable, which wasn’t exactly great for laying low.

  Lev shifted, resting his arm on a propped knee. “We could try hiding in the woods. I’ve got a bunch of backpacking gear.”

  “And Jeron?” Kara asked flatly.

  Lev just shook his head. Temporals were tricky. There were so few of them, and their abilities varied wildly. He didn’t have a plan for dealing with Jeron. Yet.

  “I’m not leaving without those pages,” Kara said firmly.

  Of course not. “Maybe we could trick Jeron somehow,” Lev muttered, running a hand through his hair. “We don’t even know if he’s up there.”

  “What if we just go along with them for now?” Kara offered. “Wait for the right opportunity.”

  He didn’t like that idea. If they went any farther, they would probably be entering Novem’s territory. Right now, they had the home ground advantage. “I think that’s dangerous. It’s now, or we live with Novem calling the shots.”

  “So what’s your plan then?” Kara asked.

  “I think our best shot is for me to distract Teorin. You grab the backpack, get it to the scanner, and copy the pages. If Jeron’s there too… it’ll be harder, but not impossible.”

  Kara resumed pacing, mulling it over. “It could work. There’s a scanner on the top floor for annotated star charts. It’s high capacity, should only take thirty seconds or so to scan the whole stack.”

  She paused, then spun to face him. “Maybe I should distract Teorin. You’re faster than I am.”

  Lev shook his head. “He doesn’t know me. He probably doesn’t trust me. He’ll keep a closer watch on me than you.”

  Plus, Lev wanted to give Teorin a piece of his mind for dragging Kara into this in the first place.

  Kara considered, then nodded. “Fine. We can try it, but I’m not leaving without those pages. If Jeron’s up there and anything goes wrong, we abort and wait for another opening.”

  “And getting out after we’ve got them?” Lev asked.

  Kara exhaled sharply. “I don’t know yet. We may have to improvise. If Jeron’s up there, I doubt he’ll let us walk out. If it’s just Teorin, we might have a chance.”

  Lev didn’t like it, but he could live with it. He looked up at her. “You’re sure about this? Because if you’re not absolutely sure, we should leave. Now.”

  Kara hesitated, then sank down beside him. “I’ve got to stick this one through, Lev.”

  Lev closed his eyes, resigning himself to the fact that they were about to throw themselves into heaps of trouble and danger. “And if Jeron says you have to go alone?” He couldn’t help the slight edge of desperation that bled into his voice.

  Kara shifted closer. Her warmth seeping into his side as her familiar weight pressed against him. “I’m not going with them alone. I’ll tell them we’re a packaged deal. I don’t trust them enough to go by myself.”

  Strong words. But would they even have a choice? Lev wasn’t sure. And Kara was desperate to read those pages.

  He couldn’t help one last try. “Staying is bordering on crazy. You know that, right?”

  Kara looked down at her shoes. “I know,” she said softly.

  They were doing this then, whatever this was. Either running off with a copy of a stolen ancient document, or whatever Novem determined it should look like. Lev didn’t push. Kara already looked strung tight. He could see it in the tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes wouldn’t quite focus. She was committed, but she knew the risks.

  She needed to breathe. To laugh. The next few hours were going to be tense, no matter what. “You’ve really done it this time, big sister. You realize you just turned the whole world on its head? I thought I was the gymnast.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Because I’m upside down?”

  Kara groaned. “Seriously? Terrible metaphor.”

  “Is not!” Lev said in mock offense. “It’s exquisite and unique.”

  Kara’s lips twitched.

  He was so close. He leaned in conspiratorially. “I’d say it flips expectations on their head.”

  Kara groaned louder. “Stop.”

  “What? I stuck that landing!”

  That got her. She snorted. “Alright. No more puns. I’m begging.”

  Lev smirked. “You’re just mad because I cartwheeled into that wordplay like a pro.”

  She smacked him.

  “Wow. Violence against my person now?”

  “Lev!”

  He chuckled. “Feel better?”

  She huffed. “Slightly, but this is serious.”

  “Agreed,” Lev said, rising to his feet and offering a hand. “But stressing won’t fix it. One step at a time.”

  They still had more to plan, but time was ticking. Teorin was probably already getting suspicious, and they needed to scope out the top floor before things got more complicated. They could walk and talk.

  “Do we have to go now?” Kara asked with a sigh.

  Lev chuckled. “No sense in waiting. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I lost it after you forced me into so many adventures as a child,” Kara grumbled, but she accepted his hand and stood.

  Lev laughed. “Ladies first.” He gave an exaggerated bow, hands sweeping toward the door.

  Kara snorted and slipped out into the hallway. Lev flipped the lights off and followed.

  Arc 2: Echoes of the Past, where everything shifts. In addition, you may see a BONUS drop this weekend. Read it if desired.

  [Lev] What? May interest? It's literally about like love and hatred. Is that not Marcus' whole deal? Seems very applicable.

  [Archivist] Which is why I allowed it here. Regardless, they can determine their own interests.

  [Lev] Fine, but seems entertaining to me.