Searching For Andromeda 20 Worry

"This feels nostalgic for some reason," says Anna. "But I don't know the reason why I feel nostalgia . . . does that make sense?"

"Sort of," Ephraim answers as he saunters inside the laboratory. "It's really cold right here . . ."

As Ephraim walks inside the laboratory, he catches a whiff of formalin. From his spectacles, he sees the entirety of the premise. There are laboratory apparatuses, few he could name (test tube racks, Erlenmeyer flasks, beaker, syringes, and some microscope); residing in the lab were objects and equipment he was barely familiar with. They were similar to the Sci-fi movies he sees on Television. It was like a scene from a movie.

Anna walks athwart the room, eyeing everything with sheer fascination.

"This is amazing," says Anna. "They feel familiar, but they're really new to me now."

"New to you now?"

"Yep, they're not on my data anymore, thanks to my botched system," Anna mutters. "But I store the data of these things, credits to Google,"

"So . . . you search things up? Internally? Or something?"

Anna nods. "I'm saving up their data, like their uses and description. But of course, I don't want to waste memory with some trivial things such as these broken pipettes here," she says. "Anyway—think of it as something like keeping some files. You don't necessarily throw what you don't need for now . . . you archive them in a zip file so they won't consume s.p.a.ce. I save them and archive 'em."

Ephraim saunters towards Anna and stands beside her. He eyes the Petri dishes. Some were empty, and some were broken. There are also some which contained green ooze.

Thick, green ooze.

"What's this?" Ephraim asks as he stares closely to the slime-like ent.i.ty residing in the petri dish. "Can you examine that for me, Anna?"

Anna nods and stares closely at the green substance. Her eyes gleamed with radiant, cyan light as she examines the odd component closely. Her eyes fixated to the ooze as she gathered data.

". . . oh," she says. "What an odd thing. It's a composition of . . . hexavalent chromium, cyanide, trichloroethylene, and some other metals . . ."

"Hmm . . ." Ephraim stares at the ooze. "Is it toxic?"

"Can be," Anna answers. She then strolls to another corner of the room, staring at the entire s.p.a.ce with curiosity. There were gla.s.s-made cabinets plastered against the wall and other bizarre laboratory equipment. She also notices some thermal cycler and PCR machines (if her information serves right).

Ephraim leaves the green ooze on the petri dish. "How weird. How come it didn't vaporize?"

"I think it's s.h.i.+elded with a lipid layer. I'm not exactly sure," says Anna. "Answers aren't very clear when I don't have the access to a piece of higher information,"

"Access to higher information?" Ephraim asks.

"Cla.s.sified information." She says. "I'm a fragment. I don't have the means to hack through some system. I can only rely on Mr. Google,"

"That reminds me . . ." Ephraim starts. "How did you gain access to information, social media, et cetera? Does the laboratory have a net?"

"Well, it's quite easy." Says Anna. "Frequency,"

"Frequency?" Ephraim repeats, and then his eyes lit up as he soon understood. "I see,"

"Right, right, quite fast on the uptake, huh?" Anna grins. "So yes, I s.n.a.t.c.h some frequency to get in touch with the world outside."

"Are there waves or signals underground?"

"An archetypal 900-megahertz radio will propel signals down a tunnel very efficiently, but these high-frequency transmissions will not travel through the earth." She says. "However, that's why the 'house' existed. So we can get radio waves and microwaves. It's complicated to explain in simple means, but there's that,"

Ephraim nods. "I completely understand. In short, there's a device above the lab, located in the 'house,' that is able to synthesize these waves."

"Correct," Anna says. "And with that, I was able to s.n.a.t.c.h up Wifi. It's pretty convenient. Anyhow, I stuck up only the critical information and important data in my memory. Other than that I'm pretty much full of memes, and of course, now I got the chip for security! Which means a lot, by the way."

"Hmm . . . then, since you have the critical information at hand . . ." Ephraim fixes his gaze towards Anna. Their eyes met as he flashes a smile.

". . . then maybe, you have the answers to ANDROMEDA?" He says. "To the facility. To the research. To everything else?"

Silence.

Ephraim and Anna eyed each other intently for a moment.

Until a snort followed.

"Pft," Anna stifled her laughter. "Aren't you listening to anything I just said earlier? I'm not 'me' yet. I'm simply a fragment of the real 'me'. I'm not able to answer your queries, let alone know what such top-secret research would be."

Ephraim was still smiling.

". . . you don't believe me?" Anna asks.

"I find it odd. I'm not sure about how all of these technologies that seemed like they existed in 2050," says Ephraim. "But you are a Hologram created by engineer and scientists whom, I think, has the utmost access to what happened here in this lab. You said you stored critical information."

"I did," Anna answers as her eyes followed Ephraim who ambled to the corners of the room, scrutinizing the s.p.a.ces and objects he was fascinated with.

"What are your critical information?" He asks. "Are they the research, the lab, or something?"

". . ."

"Anna?"

". . . I can't . . . tell," she answers.

"Why?" Ephraim asks as he turns towards her with bemus.e.m.e.nt laced all over his face.

Silence.

Ephraim then smiles.

"Okay," he says after a brief moment of silence. "I won't ask anything about it."

"R-really?" Anna asks.

"Really." Ephraim flashed his usual smile. "Anyway, can you give me a hint about the crew you were talking about before? You said the Messier something botched your configuration. I didn't quite catch that. Can you elaborate on some details for me?"

"Messier 31," Anna answers. "The Andromeda Galaxy crew. . . and . . ."

Ephraim tilted his head. "And?"

"And Messier 33 . . ." Anna sighs, as she glances at the gla.s.s cabinet, with her grave expression looking back at her.

". . . the Triangulum Galaxy crew—

—the ones who botched my system." She says and then faces Ephraim.

"I won't go to any detail because I don't remember," she says. "But I do know this . . ."

Ephraim looks at her intently.

"M33 crew . . ." She says. "Is the reason why M31 failed the task."

"What do you mean?" Ephraim asks.

"I don't remember," Anna says, as she pouted. "Don't ask me anymore. I feel like I don't even wanna remember why."

"Okay," Ephraim replies simply.

Ephraim then finds himself looking at the broken beeper.

And then it occurred to him.

An overwhelming feeling of enthrallment as well as worry. He was here in the laboratory. Alone. His team members may be buried underneath the fallen concrete—no, he shouldn't think like this—nonetheless, Ephraim paused for a moment.

He couldn't really shake off the thought. Berthold and the others, where were they right now? Hiroaki had gone off again—but at least Ephraim was certain he was alive.

But the other team members.

Berthold . . . Esmeralda . . . Samuel.

What happened to them?

It was a strong earthquake enough to shatter the grounds into smithereens, making both him and Hiroaki plunge into the waterfalls underneath the 'house'. It was THAT strong. The other team members could either have fallen to the falls as well—or caught into the falling concrete and dwindling pillars.

The magnitude and intensity of the earthquake made him think of the possibilities.

Possibilities of death.

He wanted to shake his thoughts off. The HR would be here any minute now. His team would be alive and well. He didn't have to worry. He had to focus on the task at hand.

"Ephraim?"

Ephraim blinked, snapping back to reality. It was Anna who spoke.

"Are you okay?"

Ephraim tried to flash his typical smile.

But he failed to do so.

"Are you alright?" Anna asks, tilting her head. "I called your name for like, five times until you responded."

". . . is that so?" was all Ephraim could say.

"Something is eating upon you, I could feel it," Anna exclaims. "Is it the lab? Is it too cold? Are you disappointed in my answers?"

"It's not that . . ." Ephraim answers. "There was an earthquake earlier. That's why I'm here,"

"I'm aware," Anna replies.

"My team," Ephraim mutters, as he clenched his fist. "I . . . don't know what happened to them. All of us got separated amidst the upheaval. I can't . . . I can't even contact them right now."

"Maybe I can?" Asks Anna. "You know, I sort of have the ability to breach frequencies and radio waves—"

"The HR is not for hacking, and besides, I don't even know their IP. I don't think you can breach UHE's top-tier system . . . so you can't be able to directly transfer message to them . . ." He says. "Can you?"

"Well, I can't hack since my configuration's been botched. I only have access to the security of the laboratory," says Anna. "Is there anything I could do to help?"

"I presume you can't fix tangible objects?" Ephraim asks, pertaining to his broken beeper. "If this beeper is fixed, then I may be able to contact them . . ."

"Nope, I don't think I can fix something that doesn't belong to the lab . . ." Anna sighs as she sees Ephraim's dejected face. "I'm sorry, Ephraim,��

Ephraim smiles. "It's okay."

Anna stares at him worriedly. "Are you sure?"

He sighs and then flashes a small smile. "I suppose I can't do anything but to inspect the lab . . ." He exclaims. "I have to trust my team members. I know all of them will survive."

"Surely. They will!" Anna says. "D-don't worry! All we have to do inspect the lab, right? And then by doing that, you won't come empty-handed! B-but I don't mean it like you're expecting them to be d-dead or anything . . . okay? I—"

"Anna," Ephraim smiles. "It's okay. I just have to trust everything to fate. This was inevitable. I can't do anything but search for answers right now." He pauses. "Am I . . ."

"Yes?"

Ephraim smiles, brus.h.i.+ng off his thought. "Nothing. Should we continue the search?"