When Zoe left the room,silence flooded in, a vacuum sucking everything empty.
Skyler bent down, picked up the discarded blueprint, and spread it across the cold metal table. The holo-scroll unfurled with a snap, a flare bursting upward into a detailed 3D projection of Cosmic Tower.
Every door. Every elevator. Every encrypted lock. Even the air vents.
Too complete to be a simple schematic—this was the kind of file that would make Nexacorp's own security choke.
Skyler's brows knitted as his finger traced the digital floors, halting at one point that had… nothing.
"Level 178. It's blank."
"That," Roxy's words cut in from across the table, arms folded, gaze razor-sharp, "is probably the target."
"You see it too?"
"If the project you spoke of is truly important, do you expect it to be printed neatly on this map? Look at the architecture: level 178 sits dead-center, the perfect heart of the tower. Not the flashy upper floors, not the waste systems below."
This woman is terrifyingly smart.
Skyler couldn't help but smirk—half irritated, half impressed. And honestly, the impressive part was winning.
"So… what's next?"
Roxy slipped into drill-instructor mode.
"First, tell me how much you understand about dropping an object into an ergosphere."
Skyler inhaled, reaching for the one paper he remembered skimming on a bathroom holoscreen.
"Uh—the Penrose theory? About stealing rotational energy from a black hole?"
Please don't ask me anything deeper. That's literally the only line I memorized.
She gave a slight nod, a wry smile tugging at her—the look of a teacher hearing her own exam answer parroted back.
"Good. Saves me the trouble of teaching you like a child."
Thanks, Professor Roxy.
Their hands moved nonstop as they talked, assembling a strange contraption—half puzzle box, half retro computer toy. It was an imperfect cube: corners jutting here, shrinking there, all made of Axion Polymer. A material that absorbed energy and transmitted it across every connected surface.
Which came with one teeny problem: if it blew, the whole workshop would go up with all the subtlety of fireworks going off in a gunpowder factory.
Roxy glanced once at the walls—also made of the same polymer—before announcing:
"This is the Penrose Box."
"I get it… so you mean we'll use this to siphon Quanigma's power, right?" Skyler answered automatically—realizing too late he'd mimicked her pronoun style again.
"You are correct. The principle is simple: extract only a sliver of Quanigma's energy. Just enough to boot up the Gate. Think of it as a start button."
Oh, crap—why didn't I think of the most basic thing? A start button!
Skyler groaned, scratching his head in disbelief at himself.
"Of course," Roxy added, flat but heavy as lead, "a sliver of Quanigma energy is still equivalent to a miniature nuclear detonation."
And just like that, the word 'mini' stopped sounding cute.
Does she know more about Quanigma than she's letting on?
—
At the same time—
Zoe sat inside the first-floor "organic" diner, facing Tim, the butler-bot with a tone so polite it could double as a commercial voice-over.
"What's this called again?" Zoe poked something green on her plate.
"That is broc-carrot, milady."
"Broc-carrot?" she echoed.
"Correct. It is a genetically spliced hybrid between broccoli and carrot. Created by Master Skyler's father."
"For real?!" Her face lit up. "Okay, but drop the milady stuff. Just Zoe-Only."
"Understood… Zoe-Only."
She laughed, satisfied, seconds before she could start asking whether relativity theory worked the same way as barbecue sauce.
That's when Skyler and Roxy came up from the lab.
"You two got friendly fast," Skyler muttered, disappointed to see Tim perfectly fine. "We're ready to hit Cosmic Tower."
Zoe shot up with the reflexes of a kid bolting for freedom at the sound of the school bell.
"See ya, Tim! You're fun to talk to. Catch you later!"
"Yes, Zoe. Catch you later~"
Skyler froze. That tone was way too warm.
Wait… you can turn off the 'master mode' on your own? Just you wait, toaster—someday I'll take you apart, piece by piece. Let's see if you still call me 'Master' when your head's sitting three feet from your body.
The trio stepped out into the riot of Cosmic City—human streams in neon tones, cultures colliding on every corner. Nobody cared if you'd fallen out of a wormhole; they were too busy with their own grind. Drones hovered—pet jellyfish with Wi-Fi—juggling everything from corporate meetings to pork-belly livestreams.
"Okay," Skyler said, keeping his voice even. "Zoe, Roxy. Where are you two actually from? You owe me at least that much."
Zoe giggled, eyes sparkling with the manic shine of someone on a gallon-deep syrup high.
"Time-travel is full of wonders, and coming to Cosmic Kitty is sooo heart-warming. Like being hugged by a giant teddy bear! Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, everyone—mwah~"
That… was not an answer. Does she think she's livestreaming right now?
Roxy cut in, flat and unyielding.
"It does not matter where I came from. What matters is what I do to anyone who pesters me too much."
"…Right. Then I guess I didn't ask," Skyler muttered, migraine creeping in.
The Tower wasn't far, but the trip felt long. Zoe stopped every ten steps—from a corner mart to a used hover-scooter lot—bouncing between impulse shopping and bickering with Roxy, whose patience for hyper energy was thinning fast.
"Is that a cosmetics store?!" Zoe squealed, springing forward.
Skyler yanked her arm back just in time. "Closed. You can't just barge in."
"If you think this is a sightseeing trip, leave. Don't waste my time," Roxy snapped.
Zoe shot back, unfazed: "Says the one who lingered at the game shop. I saw you sway your hips at the dance game screen~"
Their stares locked—eye to eye, two rivals on the verge of a street dance-battle.
Skyler groaned and jabbed a finger ahead. "Enough. Look. Cosmic Tower."
The skyline parted to reveal it—piercing clouds, stabbing high as if reaching beyond the atmosphere.
"Whoa… that tall? Do they even have an elevator that goes all the way up? And you've been here before, right?" Zoe asked.
"Not once. I've only watched reviews. I'm an Outer—means I'm not even registered in half the city zones."
But the girls were already transfixed by the lights, leaving him to monologue to himself. Skyler crossed his arms, resigned.
Who else on Earth takes two strangers on a field trip to break into a world government tower—without even eating breakfast first?
And yet, deep inside, he felt a rush. Because after years in this city, this was the closest he'd ever been to touching the heart of the universe.
The Cosmic Tower wasn't just a building. It was humanity's shrine to ambition—tiers of architecture jutting outward—the architectural equivalent of someone duct-taping spaceships together.
The ground floors looked friendly enough: interactive tech zones, VR live-on-the-moon sims, even a research room where you could culture microbes on your own fingernails. (Nobody knew why you'd want to, but hey—it drew lines of tourists anyway.)
The 127th floor housed the Nexus Library—paradise for nerds. Everything from classic Dan Brown thrillers to half-redacted government files (so poorly hidden they might as well be open-source). It was the only place that had ever tempted Skyler to apply for permanent citizenship.
But above the 145th floor? That was Nexacorp territory. Checkpoints stacked in onion layers—biometric scanners powered by energy grids, sleepless drones circling, vultures in the sky. Only those with access sigils got past.
And at the very top—no, it wasn't a sky mall, a robo-dog park, or an ice-cream stand.
It was the High Council. The unseen 'Crown Diamond' members who could rewrite humanity's fate with a single decision.
Good news? They didn't need to go that high… not today.
—
Lobby, Ground Level
At first glance, the entrance was boring: a wide lobby, rotating cams, and guards more interested in cat-dance videos than security feeds.
"We act like we're here on official business," Skyler whispered, eyes darting to a flyer on the wall. "Like… idol auditions. We'll just say we're here to try out."
Good thing Roxy didn't know what an idol was. Otherwise, he'd already be airborne.
The real test wasn't the guards—it was the scanner gate. It mirrored Valentine's device down to the last detail—the same model that had once knocked Skyler to the floor.
"Why hesitate? Want them to drag you out in front of the whole lobby?" Roxy shoved him forward.
Skyler braced for the blackout—
…but nothing.
No sirens, no sparks, no collapse.
Clear.
He exhaled, the shaky relief of a man who'd just survived Russian roulette.
Zoe and Roxy followed—both passed without incident.
Holo-glass panels lit up around them, blasting ads: haute cuisine you wanted to lick off-screen, luxury drinks, and biodroid upgrades worth more than Skyler's lifetime tuition.
"What's that?" Zoe asked, pointing everywhere.
"Ads. All scams. Triple-markup luxury junk."
"And that?"
"Nanotech fashion. The kind that—wait… where'd you go?"
She'd vanished.
Of course—ten meters away, Zoe was already striking a pose at a holo-photo booth with a famous biodroid photographer, her grin made for the spotlight.
"Not the time…" Skyler hissed, dragging her back.
"We need floor 178," he whispered, keeping his back to the cameras.
They walked past Nexacorp's exhibition—shiny demo drones that "never need charging," marketed to people fed up with tangling cords and ready to start arguing with themselves instead.
Or maybe I should just buy one and boot that butler-bot out of the house for good,
Skyler thought, watching Zoe pause with half-curiosity. He leaned in and whispered, "Remember—audition vibe. Don't make a scene."
"Got it. Be chill. Be natural." She said it, a mantra. Which, in Zoe's case, meant 'be natural, the unicorn-wearing-sunglasses edition.'
A guard approached. Skyler flashed the universal pretense-whisper at the two of them. Of course he'd forgotten one tiny truth: 'calm' and 'Zoe' never appear in the same sentence.
"Which department are you visiting?" the security man asked.
"We're here for the Cosmic Kitty idol auditions!" Zoe chirped, all sugar and sparkles.
"I—I'm auditioning too," Roxy said, swallowed by a grin that looked physically painful for her.
The guard stared, then gave the faintest, most bewildered smile, a man trying to process unexpected sunshine. "Good luck. Break a leg," he offered, two fingers raised, and wandered off without another thought.
"Move—now!" Skyler hustled them toward the high-speed lifts.
The mirrored steel doors were the last threshold before 178; beyond them was Nexacorp's sanctum. Past floor 145, it wasn't just security—it was a bureaucratic holy order. No pass, no entry. Lucky for them, Skyler was basically a walking keycard. His glove wasn't fashion—it was a universe-grade hack tool.
Time to show off.
Beep—178, the lift chirped as if Skyler had just tapped the panel. He hadn't moved a finger.
He spun around. Zoe was grinning like a gacha-winner, waving a keycard. "Swiped it from that guard—score! Cool, right?"
Skyler narrowed his eyes. That kid's got slippery fingers…and zero shame.
The elevator blasted upward with all the dignity of a rocket shoved in its pants. When the doors sighed open, the corridor beyond was whisper-white—sterile enough to make your teeth ache.
At the far end: a hulking metal door lined with cams, hidden mechanisms, and biometric scanners lined the door.
A luminescent sign hung above: Special Research Division—Authorized Personnel Only.
"This is it," Skyler breathed, half sprinting, half rolling, already snapping his wrist into hacker posture—classic spy-movie flair.
Roxy followed, cool and composed. She waved one hand—and the door glided open, smooth as though she'd been its password all along. "You really make things harder than they need to be," she tossed over her shoulder, then stepped into the dark.
Skyler froze mid-ooh.
If it's that easy, could you have mentioned it before I did my whole 'Mission: Impossible' warmup?
He stood there, half embarrassed, half relieved—and totally not ready to admit he'd been out-played.
Inside the chamber, muted radiance clashed against a colossal black wall—half construction steel, half deep-sea creature. Its surface gleamed with an artificial gloss, yet the core within shifted and pulsed like living liquid, hypnotic as a museum masterpiece.
Roxy's eyes flickered with something close to excitement… emphasis on close.
"This wall is insanely tall. Can't even see the ceiling," Zoe said—the only one genuinely thrilled.
"This isn't ordinary material. It went through advanced synthesis… it's Quantanium fused with Comet Particles. Durable enough to resist a cosmic-level war. Even special abilities can't scratch it. Do you know tha—"
Yeah… of course, no one was listening.
Roxy checked her nails. Zoe stared at the glowing fixtures. And Skyler was left standing dead-center, delivering lines with all the tragic energy of a lecturer finding out nobody cares—everyone just came for the free snacks.
Perfect. Just perfect. Guess I'm nothing more than another boring guy to them.
The three of them crept along the dark, curving corridor. A faint set of footsteps echoed from the far end. Instinct told them to hide. Problem was—barely enough to shield a forehead.
What strode toward them wasn't human. A metal android, sleek as if ripped straight out of an interstellar war era. Its polished armor gleamed so bright it reflected fear back at its prey. Luminous blue circuits ran across every joint.
"That's a C-11…" Skyler began to whisper an explanation—but froze.
Because Roxy simply stepped out, twisting her wrist, a casual turn of a doorknob. The supposedly deadly machine collapsed, lifeless, like a toddler whining for a bottle.
Another unit approached silently from behind.
Zoe didn't say a word. She leapt forward, vaulting over its head, and mid-air jammed a finger against the switch at the back of its neck. The machine stiffened, drooped, and hung there with all the tragic flair of a heartbroken ex.
Skyler's jaw dropped.
Seriously… are they undercover super-spies or what?
Suddenly, the wall rotated. Gun barrels unfolded from both sides, a mechanical jaw of giant dentures—each tooth primed to spit a hundred rounds a second.
"Security protocol is live," Skyler reported. "Give it a minute and we'll have a whole army swarming—"
"Oh wow, going straight for the overkill setting, huh?" Zoe beamed, way too cheerful for the moment.
Gunfire thundered.
Roxy and Zoe launched into the barrage without hesitation, snapping barrels apart, brittle twigs in their hands.
Skyler stayed back, silent—while one question burned in his mind:
Will there ever be a role left for me at all?
Bullets screamed past his ears, ricocheting off the Quantanium walls. He tried to dodge with style, but the result was nowhere near what he pictured. In the end, he settled for stumbling out of harm's way. Meanwhile, the two girls cleared a path ahead as if this was just their daily warm-up routine after breakfast.
Am I really doomed to just chase after them forever?
Skyler gritted his teeth. The sting of helplessness gnawed at his pride, slow and merciless, the way termites hollow out old wood. Until finally, they reached the towering steel door at the corridor's end.
Alright… with a Quantanium panel this thick, there's no way Roxy can brute-force it open. Which means—my turn.
Skyler dropped to one knee before the control panel, twisting his wrist slowly. The Axion glove lit up, fracturing into a swarm of blue digital butterflies, circling him in anticipation of command.
"Alright, here we go. Time to speedrun this." His fingers blurred through the air—swiping, pulling, spinning, pinching, tapping in rapid succession. Transparent code surged upward in layered streams, forming a towering wall of data around him.
A beat later, he flung his arms wide, then slammed his palms together. The digital butterflies darted inward, merging into a single core of shimmering code—before into geometric particles that rained down in a glittering storm of neon dust.
Click. The unlocking sound was softer than the confidence in his own shout.
"Yes! Nailed it!"
Skyler struck a pose—maybe a bit too dramatic, but for once… just this once, he wanted the girls to see he wasn't just background filler.
— Fwoosh —
The moment the door slid open, an icy gust slammed into their faces with the raw shock of a prizefighter's sucker punch. All three instinctively shielded themselves as smoke poured in, thick and twisting, the kind that felt ripped straight from a nightmare.
Only their footsteps rang against the metal bridge stretching out into a void.
And then—the haze parted, revealing it.
A jet-black polyhedral cube hovered in the air, emerald glyphs crawled over its surface, veins of aetheric fire feeding a pulse—faint, rhythmic, as though something inside was… breathing.
Roxy froze, eyes locked, unblinking.
"Epsilon Firewall…" she whispered.