Butterflies of the Dark Star

14 (REVISED)

Music curled from their small, personal radio between their two workstations, but she found herself unable to work in their new, tight-lipped environment. Across from her, his legs resting against hers underneath the attached desks, Neo pressed his cheek into his palm as the data on his terminal reflected into the nebulous greys. Nova tipped and switched her angle to grab his attention, but it was bottomless into deep space. Even when heavy footsteps patrolled down their hall outside their door, Neo gave no hint of reaction. His hint of activity was him spinning his pen between his fingers over and over with dexterous skill to strike envy, though less so when he chewed on the end without breaking eye contact with nothing.

Nova snapped her fingers upwards, causing him to blink with a short hum.

"Thinking hard over there?" she mused.

His brow crinkled and he put the pen down. "And here I am not being able to remember what I was just thinking about." His smile dug into his cheeks. "Sorry, I was prepping, but then I got sidetracked looking at some reports of the D.S Butterfly's last communications with the I.A.R."

Nova directed the conversation further. "Prepping for?"

The top of his I-Pen clicked multiple times before he gave her an answer. "Considering the situation, they're holding several briefings in each of the substations. I'm responsible for the Internship briefing in our sector. Just to talk about what's going on, what's going to happen moving forward, what we're doing to solve the issue," he said, unperturbed at the thought of presenting in front of multiple people, some they knew and some they had yet to meet. "So, I'm trying to piece together how to keep the commotion to a minimum so central command can figure this out."

Nova glanced out the window. Gaseous tendrils slicked across the outer carapace of the space station. It wound itself around the tramlines and spiralled into the towers. "Do they know what happened?" His lack of response made her grab his hand to squeeze it for his attention. "Did they check the reactor cores? What do they think?"

Neo frowned. "What we do know is that when we brought in the anomaly something sent out some sort of broadcast signal. It might've been the D.S Butterfly, but..." His lips folded inward with a small shake of his head. "Whatever it is, the main directive hasn't changed."

Her hand slipped off his fingers. "What?"

"The directive of the B.H Supernova," he said, the greys cooling into sub-zero temperatures. "We are to find the D.S Butterfly — and the contents of their research blackbox."

"Don't they want to find a way out?"

"I'm sure they do," Neo insisted. "But we're stranded, so might as well collect what we can while we're here. Our systems are self-sustaining as long as Habitation continues to run." He returned to his datascroll to write.

Nova pinched her chin when Neo returned to his work, then mumbled, "What if it has something to do with the initial landing sequence...?" It sparkled in her mind, but more than anything she needed closure — and certainty whereas Neo settled for unknown answers. "Neo, this is going to sound a little out there, but I need to see who got killed by my droid. I need to confirm the damage wasn't done by machinery or a botched emergency landing sequence." Out of her chair, she tried to formulate a plan.

He barely lifted his head, but his eyes widened in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

"I need to see the body."

There was never, in the time she knew Neo, she had known him to balk at anything. Only questions. Only answers. He raised his head further into his furrowed brow of shock. "Okay, so..." He got out of his chair to stand in front of her. "You definitely don't want or need to do that, ever, in my opinion." Nova folded her arms, but let him say his piece. "Look, if there's something more you need to know you can ask me. I saw it." His lips folded and parted in confusion. "Nova, I told you it wasn't your fault — you were there when I explained the autopsy report to Miss Zynaia. You don't need to see that."