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Nathan stood in an almost empty room with two chairs, staring outside a large window. In his view was a clearing filled with craters, flames, and piles of bricks, wood, and sand. The time portal was gone. All that was left of the 1008th district was rubble. Men and women in black cloaks and black masks that only covered their noses and mouths stood in groups around the site, each of them with different weapons: swords, guns, katanas, etc.
Reporters and journalists could be seen across the site barred by the men and women in black cloaks. There were tents on one side with ambulances parked around them; men and women dressed in medical clothes ran around beneath them attending to the injured. Though the 1008th district's building was the only one that collapsed, it wasn't the only one that was affected; the shockwave from the explosion had a wide range, and a lot of people were hurt.
Hovering in the clouds above them was a huge spaceship peeking out of the clouds.
Clank!
The sound of a door opening brought Nathan back from his thoughts.
"Mr. Nathan?"
Nathan turned around slowly with a frown on his face. In front of him was a tall man in a black suit; he had jet black hair and dark skin. He had one hand in his pocket, and he was looking at the time on the wristwatch on his other arm, which held a black envelope. Behind him was a figure in a dark cloak and a black mask. It was the same one the other guards outside were wearing. Even as the figure's body was completely covered by the cloak, Nathan could tell it was a woman.
"Captain Nathan." Nathan corrected.
"Oh... I feel like you don't like me already, Mr... Captain Nathan." The dark-skinned man said.
Nathan remained silent.
"Well, I didn't come here to be liked. You can call me Noah. I would ask you have a sit but..." He paused. "That's a high degree of damage you got there. Do you know the cause?"
"The time portal," Nathan replied flatly.
"I know it was the time portal. We shut it down, didn't we? I meant the cause of the time portal," Noah asked as he watched Nathan silently.
Nathan stood silent for a few seconds as Lukas's face appeared in his head. "No, we do not know the cause" he replied.
Noah looked at Nathan for a while.
"Ok"
Opening the black envelope with him, he pulled out a few stacks of paper. "According to your report, you had 258 staffs excluding the action team. And they are all accounted for." After a moment of silence, he continued. "You see, this is funny because you seem to be missing a staff. This guy doesn't appear in your records. No employee records, nothing. Yet according to your other employees' testimonies and footage we managed to get from the cameras in 'your' building, he worked here for..." He took a glance at the papers in front of him. "Eight years — he worked for eight years. No pay." Noah paused, letting his words sink in. "One... Mr. Lukas, if I'm not wrong."
Nathan stood silently staring at the tall man in front of him; after a few seconds, he said.
"Who is he?"
Noah blinked, clearly surprised by the question.
"I should be asking you that question, Mr Nathan. Who is he, and why did you let him work here?"
"He is connected to the time portal, isn't he?"
"Mr. Natha—"
"He is the reason you came here in the first place, isn't he. Considering the time we sent the beyond-scale situation SOS, there is no way you would have gotten here at the time you did. Which means you were already on your way here. And a Cluster-class spaceship? The tower sent a Cluster-class ship with its complete crew just for an unauthorized time portal breach?" Nathan said, pointing at the giant spaceship hovering in the clouds.
"I kept wondering why the tower would send a recruitment message to someone like Luke; it was impossible. He was a good detective, yes, but that was not enough for a cosmic organization like the tower to notice him. This planet's grade is 1 Star. Barely enough to count as a district, and he got a recruitment letter. Also, it's obvious you didn't question my men about Luke. How do I know? Every one of them knew him as Luke; you called him Lukas." Nathan walked towards the dark-skinned man.
"The way he was trying to leave the moment he saw your spaceship, as if avoiding you... You're hunting him."
Nathan stopped a few steps away from Noah. "Who is he?"
Silence descended on the room.
Noah stared directly at Nathan.
"I've filed reports to the district office for eleven years, Mr Noah," Nathan said. "I know what the Tower is. What I don't know is why it wants a washed-up nobody like Luke badly enough to send someone like you all the way out to a rock like this."
Noah slowly walked to the glass window. His entire demeanour seemed to have changed. Unlike his previous relax temperament his presence now pressed down on Nathan.
I knew it, this wasn't some low-level enforcer. Nathan thought.
"Captain Nathan, your files say you're over five hundred years old. I'm guessing you know better than most the story of how the current universal era came to be. The great civilization forced the universe into co-habitation. After that... they disappeared. Now-a-days you hardly see wars caused by racial distinction anymore. Before they disappeared, the records tell us they gave the universe knowledge, they improved technology. Travelling from planets to planets is as easy as taking a train. Did they finally leave thinking they solved all the problems in the world? No. They knew one or two crooks would still show up here and there so they built the 'Tower'. A cosmic Organization. A security body that encompasses the entire universe. A body so large some members will never know each other exist until they die. We are the last safe keep that civilization left to monitor the cosmos, we're like an immune system.
You ever think about what an immune system actually does?" Noah said.
"Nobody elects it. No cell votes on what counts as a threat. It doesn't ask the lung's permission before it goes in — it goes wherever the infection goes, because the alternative is a body that dies respecting borders." He tapped the black envelope once, like punctuation.
"The Tower is just like an immune system but for the world, the cosmos at large. Police protect the city; solders protect the country. Tower enforcers? we protect the universe as a whole. You're a phoenix, I'm sure you know the kind of powers existing in the cosmos. The threats beyond the stratosphere of your planet. I've seen a human cut open the sky. I've seen beings big enough to eat planets. Tell me... what's stopping these guys from rampaging? What's keeping these guys in check?" Noah turned and walked towards Nathan., standing right Infront of him.
"Tell me now CAPTAIN? WHY SHOULD AN ORGANISATION LIKE THAT ANSWER TO YOU? Seems like we have enough on our plates now don't you think?" The emphasis on the captain heightened the tension in the room.
The silence was suffocating. Nobody moved.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have questioned someone above my authority." Nathan finally relaxed.
Whoosh!
The pressure in the room vanished like it had never being there.
Noah sighed, His demeanour shifting back to his previous carefree one.
"It's aright, Nathan. From what we gathered, you and Lukas were petty close. I understand how agitated you must be... That's just me though, try that with any other enforcer and they'll probably take your head off. Noah moved away from Nathan.
"The tower is a very large organization. In order to keep things simple and not complicated. That is why we have different divisions and ranks. If people don't stay in their levels and keep challenging the hierarchy, things would fall apart. You're just a district captain Nathan. Do what district captains do."
"Lukas..." Nathan said slowly.
"Yes?"
"You said the tower is like an immune system. So, Luke... he's some kind of disease? And a cosmic one at that? One that requires a whole cluster space ship to cure. That is kind of hard to believe."
Noah let the silence sit for a second before he spoke.
"Here's the part they don't put in the reports you file, Nathan. An immune system doesn't always know the difference between an infection and something that just touched one. It reacts to contact, not intent." His gaze lifted to meet Nathan's. "Your friend touched something on the other side of a door that isn't supposed to exist. Whether he meant to or not stopped mattering the second it happened. That's more information than your level Nathan. Stay put, someone would come and get everything you have about Lukas"
Noah returned the papers to the black envelope and then turned around to leave.
Nathan clenched his fist...
" I know what that creature is."
Noah's head snapped back to Nathan, the entire room seemed to have gone a few degrees colder. Nathan flinched as he involuntarily took a step backwards. Noah's facial expression was still neutral, but Nathan felt it. His bestial instinct as a phoenix screamed, telling him that the man in front of him was dangerous.
"Void entities. That's what they are. Beings from Oblivion. I know a bit about it. There's only one way a portal can cross from Oblivion — a medium. Something or someone that has been tainted by the void. Someone or something that has stared into the abyss."
Noah's gaze remained on him. Despite the heavy pressure, Nathan continued.
"When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."
Nathan's breath was the only thing sounding in the room as everywhere grew silent. "Luke... Lukas... He's the medium. He has seen the abyss... hasn't he?"
"I know you don't care about us, compared to the others we're just a little district in one corner of the vast universe. We're country bumpkins who don't know the depth and width of the world, but if you want information, you have to give information. I'm the one who knows the most about Luke in the 1008th district, and about everything he has done in the past eight years, so if you ever want to find him, you better be ready to talk to me."
Noah remained silent, looking at Nathan with a piercing gaze.
Ring! Ring!!
The pressure in the room vanished immediately.
Noah pulled out a phone from his pocket, answering his call.
"..."
"Yes. I understand."
Noah put down his phone and looked at Nathan a sigh escaping his lip.
"Come with me."
Nathan raised a brow at Noah. Turning around, Noah stole a glance at him and spoke.
"Congratulations, country bumpkin. You're getting promoted."
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