We marched through the Firefly's silver hall. I remembered the day we came here to rescue Helix. A day of near-death and betrayal, like so many others. A day of me against the world, as usual.

Layla and Tesla stepped through the door to the cockpit. I waited in the silver hall.

As did Kira. She looked at me from the corners of her eyes, her mouth drawn into a straight line and her teeth on her lip.

"I'm just tired," I said.

"Hey," she said. "Sorry if I said something wrong. I'm really sorry for your loss."

I shook my head. "It's not because of Helix. It's because of that prisoner I brought. You remember that blonde woman we saw next to Ay?"

Her posture stiffened. "How could I not?"

"Right, that woman who attacked you, almost killed you, got you abducted, buried you alive. I know her. She's my prisoner and she's called Iris. She was a former co-worker of mine and was responsible for my abduction, too."

Kira closed her eyes, took a breath, and then opened them again.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said.

"You know I don't need your pity."

"I know. I'm just as tired as you. I also just want to go home."

I rummaged in my pocket and pulled out Kira's singularity stone. I threw it away like one might throw away a foul egg. Kira missed it and it hit the wall instead, bouncing off like a ping pong ball. She picked it up when it rolled before her feet.

"Was it that useless?" she asked, inspecting the stone in her hand.

"Your stone was fine!" I snapped. "Saved my life! It isn't the problem. Iris is! I saw her on that planet I got sent to. She was that ally Ay spoke of."

"Oh." She looked at the ground. "Did she-"

"Yes, she did that. She also almost killed me."

Kira put her glove off and put the singularity stone back to where it belonged. It felt bad to take my anger out at her. She didn't deserve this. I would have died had her stone not healed Tesla. But on the other hand, where was she when I needed her most? When was anyone ever on my side? 

"The worst part is, I used to trust her," I said. "Back on Earth, everyone treated me poorly. Everyone. Except for my family. Everyone at school, everyone at work, you name it. Only Iris didn't. She was somewhat rude, but I thought she just was that way to everyone. She seemed to care for me, showed me a way to improve my situation. Even on that planet, she still seemed like a friend."

"What happened then?"

I faced the ground. "I recognized she was the worst type of person anyone could imagine. A sociopath and proud of it and probably responsible for even more suffering than Ay."

Tears gathered in my eyes. I needed to bring it. Verbalize the reason my life was such a cruel joke from the beginning to the end. 

"Why?" I asked. "Why is that? Why is everyone against me? Tell me, Kira, tell me! You should know the answer best!"

Kira frowned. "You haven't forgiven me for what happened last time, have you? Last time we stood in this hall side-by-side, or so you thought."

I shook my head. "I know. It's long ago and I should just get over this. You betrayed me, and then we went back to our ship. I listened to your sob story and you said a few nice words to me in that station."

"And I regret I couldn't do more."

I suppressed the tears just a little longer. My inner volcano simmered. I was sure I was going to suffer another meltdown sooner or later and that for the first time in forever in front of another human being.

"But you aren't the problem here," I said. "These things just keep happening. Why should I even go home? How can I even be sure my parents love me? How can I-"

I had just enough time to stop my sentence before Kira tackled me and threw her arms around my chest. I staggered back a few steps, but thanks to my modifications and my boots' advanced anchoring, I didn't topple over. Normally, I hated being touched, regardless of whether a stranger or a family member did it. It always felt like a violation of my personal space. Only this time, it didn't, even though I could hardly breathe.

"I think you need a hug," Kira said.

I put an arm around her neck. "This is very likely."

I considered freeing myself, but even without her using the stone, I felt too calmed to even try.

"I know how you feel," she said. "On that planet with the red plants, I was so sure I'd die alone. I felt so bad for hurting Layla, but then I did the same to you, only worse."

We were silent for a while.

"But this won't happen again," she said. "You were the first to do help me in my need. I wasn't even there when Iris came."

"It's not your fault," I said. "Ay didn't want us together."

"Then he can go to hell. If he shoots a beam at you, I'll take it. If he puts a land mine in your chest, I'll rip it out and close the wound."

I couldn't think of a response.

"Are you guys done?" Layla asked. "Hope I'm not, ahem, interrupting something."

We parted and, as if nothing happened, faced walls at the opposite ends of the room.

Then, we went into the cockpit and all my thoughts now focused on it instead. As it turned out, it didn't look too different from the Dragonfly's. It also had a dome-shaped roof hanging overhead and an enormous playground for machines, panels, and computers below. Unlike the Dragonfly, it had seats though. Well, one seat before the control panel for Layla to sit on, but a seat was a seat.

"Didn't have the time for more," she said. "Sorry."

I, Tesla, and Kira stood behind her, looking at the vast controls before us. Above all the buttons hung a screen with the stars and a navy blue screen without an obvious function. It reminded me of a computer in standby mode.

"By the way, sorry that I couldn't help on the station," Layla said. "I wasn't prepared for the whole 'reunion show' thing yet. Didn't have the right robots."

Under her panel, an adorable R2D2-inspired robot rolled forth. That little blue bin wore a "BFF" sign on its trunk. At first, I thought it was just for Kira, but then the little robot came to me and handed me a small flower. This time, I could even pick it up without a net to trap me.

"Thanks," I said.

Even Tesla got one, though I doubt they understood the cultural significance flowers had to humans.

The door to the outside dissolved. It let a purple spider in which carried a bound and gagged Iris on its back. She had regained her consciousness, but not her usual playful demeanor. Instead, she looked like she wanted to bite somebody. Her glare reminded me of a muzzled bulldog. Despite all her struggling and wriggling, none of the robot's nanotech ribbons budged an inch. Not that I had much sympathy.

A new door dissolved and the robot carried her there. I didn't see much of the room, but enough to know that it was a white and sterile one. There were no toys or anything in there. Only her, the robot, and a lot of time for her to think about what she had done.

"She's gonna relax in the medical bay," Layla said. "Anyway, I owe you a story. A long, long time ago-"

"By which you mean a few hours," Kira said.

"A long, long few hours ago, Mustafa left his Lil' asteroid," Layla corrected herself. "His precog calculated when Iris would transmit the data, but unfortunately for him, it's not a wizard. So, he came too early and got in a fight with Fountainhead's bodyguard ship. Being grounded like I was, I watched everything from my ship's monitors. I never thought we could survive. But with his precog, he dodged most attacks and killed that goddamned monster ship in the end. I left out a sigh of relief when I learned this. As much as I wanted him to die, I wanted to survive myself. However, as it turned out, his precog suffered from burnout. All this processing power for predictions made it overheat. Neutrino beams left his ship damaged. I thought I'd die for real, Kira thought we'd die. I said my prayers, I said I was sorry for all the terrible things I did. I apologized to Kira, I apologized to those aliens, I apologized to you," she pointed at me. "I hoped for a miracle to happen and well, it did."

She pointed at the blue screen.

"It suddenly started glowing in neon colors. Through my singularity stone, it spoke to me. It said I was ready now and that it would help. I think you remember back when I followed you guys and the door suddenly closed."

"I remember how I first thought it was a malfunction," Kira said, even though I was sure she knew the rest of the story already.

"Oh, no, it wasn't. It was the furthest from an accident possible. Someone was controlling this ship. I think Mustafa told you about its backstory. I think he told you of these adventurers that found the tesseract before everything went to hell. Well, these guys are still alive. Just before their deaths, they uploaded their brains into the ship's computers. They pretended to be dormant all the time so that the Plague couldn't bump them off. They decided to wait for the right moment, the moment I turned against Mustafa, too. They hacked into Mustafa's ship and helped me get out of his hangar bay. I escaped while he was distracted. He still hasn't caught me."

I paid attention to the acceleration. Three-point six gees. She didn't seriously think we could escape him that way, did she? Maybe this wasn't necessary if we were going for the confrontation.

"Has he sent some of the ships under his command after you?" I asked.

"They won't help him," Layla said. "My pals here didn't just hack his hangar bay, but also his files. Soon, everyone on your friends' moon will know that he was responsible for their crisis. Many nearby commanders already do. Mustafa will need his fleet just to defend himself. Or whatever remains of it after Fountainhead's bodyguard killed 'em all. The final battle will be just us and him."

"And his precog?"

"Still exhausted, if we're lucky."

Tesla stood in a corner, their arms curled around their segments. They had done enough for this whole mission.

Scanning Layla's cockpit, I failed to find anything resembling the 3D displays I was used from the Dragonfly.

"Where are we right now?" I asked.

"Still behind that planet," Layla said. "Can't localize Mustafa so well, y'know. I'm gonna fly to that satellite-asteroid-whatever thing. See for yourself."

Finally, the 3D display I've been asking for appeared over her control panel. With all the other ships depleted, the screen display was surprisingly empty. It only contained Draugr, the Firefly, and the spheroid asteroid-like body that was the satellite. The satellite's diameter measured less than a tenth of Draugr's, making it smaller than even the smallest dwarf planets. Helix told me it had no known purpose other than protecting ships from neutron star radiation. Its smooth surface suggested it might have been a space station, although we couldn't scan its interior and it lacked obvious entry points. We remained far enough for it to be a mere dot on our camera screen.

Suddenly, another ship entered out 3D displays. Through a long-range camera, we caught a glowing dot moving closer to us without discernable exhaust trails.

"What type of ship is that?" I asked.

"None at all," Layla explained. "It's the Cipher. Or rather, its container."

"So, the ship is invisible?" Kira asked.

Layla shook her head. "These aliens are smaller than rice grains and so are their spaceships. They fly with gravity or something and are made from what you find if you live in a neutrino star.

"Fun fact: The Cipher's made of monopolium. That's what I refuel my ship with and what makes up our singularity stones. It's a ridiculously dense form of matter made of magnetic monopoles. Wanna know how dense it is?"

"Why not?" I said. "I'm always interested in such stuff."

"If you took our singularity stones out of their crystal magnet cases," she said, "they'd be smaller than a nanometer and still weigh one or two pounds. The Cipher weighs several thousand tons and it's still too small for the naked eye. That big glowing ball is just its magnetic case."

So, the Cipher was a singularity stone on steroids.

Kira blinked a few times. I hope nothing we discussed just went over her head.

"Why would anyone want to build a computer so small?" she asked.

"Don't know," Layla said. "Guess monopolium's very energy-rich 'cause of that density."

There were several theoretical limits, like the Bekenstein bound or the Bremermann's Limit, on how big a computer could be, but most of our computers don't even come close to approaching it. If our brains made full usage of their theoretical information storage capacity, we could store a septillion times more bits of information than we currently do. With monopolium, Fountainhead likely created computers as fast and capable as was physically possible.

If your brain went dizzy from reaching the above, don't worry. It just goes to show how far we humans are from comprehending the singularity stones or the Cipher.

"Okay," Kira said, "I'm not a computer scientist. Could you just ... tell us what the Cipher does and what Mustafa can do once he has it?"

"Best case scenario, it can just crack passwords for him," Layla said. "Worst case scenario, it makes him out-right omnipotent. If he can unlock its full potential, he might solve any computer science problem in existence. Do you know what computer science can describe? Everything. From the orbits of the planets to our behavior, he could predict anything. He'd attain endless knowledge and thus endless power. He'd have a singularity stone with no restraints. I don't wanna know what that tesseract alien could do with the Cipher."

I stared at the camera screen. The glowing dot had grown, but without knowledge of the camera's range, this didn't tell me much by itself.

"When will we destroy it?" I said.

"Can't do it on my own," Layla answered. "Don't know how to destroy monopolium. That's why I tasked the former Firefly crew with creating a good enough signal to tell these aliens to destroy it. All we need to do is watch out for Mustafa."

The screen switched to show the satellite in whose shadow we dwelled as well as the Cipher approaching it from the distance.

"Recordings in real-time," Layla said.

Tesla's and Layla's eyes were every bit as focused on the screen as mine. Kira watched it through her fingers.

"Did we make a hundred percent sure that Mustafa isn't hiding anywhere?" she asked.

"You can't hide in space," Layla said. "Well, technically, he can, but I could detect that. He's neither before nor behind that satellite."

Now that they mentioned it, I couldn't look at the screen anymore either. I preferred the 3D displays. They felt more reliable. They didn't leave out what my eyes couldn't see. Near the display's center were two blinking dots - the satellite and the Firefly. From above, the blinking dot that was the Cipher came closer to us. And closer. And closer.

I turned my eyes away from the screen. Instead, I looked at the door to the medical bay.

"Where do you want to go?" Kira asked me.

"I want to talk to Iris," I said. "Layla, could you un-gag her?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "She's a good liar and knows how to read people. Having her talk is dangerous, but if you think you can handle her, go ahead."

The door to the bay dissolved.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and then stepped through the door. As with most nanotech-based rooms, minimalism dominated the white medical bay. A translucent yellow nanotech wall cut the room in two. On one side, we had a white chair, a VR cable, and an autodoc. On the other side, we had Iris lying on a bank and a spider-bot next to her as a guard. As Layla promised, she had her mouth and eyes open.

"Hey," Iris said, "sorry for losing my temper on that planet."

"You call that losing your temper?" I asked. "I don't know if you noticed, but you killed someone and almost killed me! You tortured me so hard, I couldn't even stand anymore if not for my stone. You're the most evil, smug, petty, sadistic, and despicable monster I've ever encountered. Cherub, Mustafa, and Graves are nothing compared to you!"

Iris stared at the wall, unbothered by my tantrum. "Why so angry?"

I needed air after that rant of mine.

"I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a clinical sociopath. I didn't care for that alien." She twirled her hair in her fingers like it was a moustache. "I'm pretty sure that's not even the worst I've done. For the record, I started that beef between Layla and Kira. When Layla woke up in that ship, I used my stone to change my face to look more like Kira's, although it took some time. Then, I figured out her psychological weak spots and said just the right things to make her angry. I-"

"I don't think I need to know the rest," I said.

Truth to be told, it did surprise me a bit, but by that time, I just wanted to be done.

She grinned. "Tell me why you're here. You don't have endless time, unlike me."

"Tell me what Ay's singularity stone does! You said you wanted chaos for chaos' sake. You can't have chaos if Mustafa succeeds in his assimilation plan!"

Iris sighed. "I have no idea what I want, to be honest. I come up with ideas on the spot.

"When I asked if you'd rather save your friend or the world, I wasn't messing around with you. Well, I wasn't just messing around with you, but you know what I mean. I wanted to know how you'd choose. I admit I should've given more time to think. We were for survival, after all."

"Why did you want to get me to think? You said you don't care for anything."

Iris laughed. "It's because you're kinda like me. We're both freaks."

"I'm nothing like you," I whispered.

"Could you speak up, please? I'm afraid I don't hear you."

"I'M NOTHING LIKE YOU!"

I whipped around, worried that Layla and Kira might have heard me and asked what was going on.

"Ah, very good," Iris said. "I don't think I've ever heard you speak up like that. How does that feel? Doesn't it feel good? So much repressed emotion. Emotion that you repressed because you felt awkward and didn't know how to express it."

"Get to the point!"

She smiled. "Oh, sure. When I said we're similar, it's because we reject the arbitrary rules society has made up. You reject them because you don't understand them and I because I do. What we call morality is just emotion. When you give a beggar money, do you do this for the beggar or because you feel bad for him? Are you reducing his suffering or yours?"

"I said, get to the point!"

Her smile ceased. "The point is that you must understand what it means to be human. Your singularity stone made you stronger and faster, but it didn't change your brain. You're still a naked savannah ape that dances to the puppet strings of your brain chemicals. I want you to realize that this isn't bad. You felt anger at me and sorrow at your comrade. I think you even gave them a funeral, judging from your expression."

I nodded, even though I'm sure she didn't need that to know she was right.

"I'd have never given anyone a funeral," she said. "I want you to never forget what you felt when they died. Ever since I saw you first at the restaurant, you kept to yourself. Even with my stone, you were hard to read. With all you've seen in this universe, you should realize what true apathy looks like and that you're more human than you thought. At least compared to me."

I balled my twitching fingers into a fist. "So, that's why you had my abduction arranged? To teach me a lesson?"

"Well, I told you I make up ideas on the spot and I get bored quickly, so, yeah. You need to realize your place in the universe. You need to realize that you can't conquer it as a human, but that you must become a god."

"A god? You mean, like, what Ay wants to become?"

"Yes, precisely that. If he is ready to reject his humanity to get what he wants, so much you. But you can only do this after having accepted it first."

"And after you finally tell me what his bloody stone does!"

Iris rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, no need to think about what I said or anything. Mustafa's singularity stone can copy the functions of others. If he kills someone and that someone has a stone-"

"Hate to interrupt you," Layla said from the cockpit, "but Mustafa's ship is here! It was in the satellite!"