Celestial Bodies

[CHAPTER 7] - ANDROMEDA : FLORENCE WOLFE

The story of Andromeda is known as a tragic tale, one of a girl too beautiful for her own good. Her parents could not stop bragging about their little girl's perfect features, so much so that their boasts angered the Gods. To quench the Gods' anger, the little girl's parents were given the choice between their kingdom, or their daughter. It was only Andromeda's sacrifice that kept a wicked sea monster at bay. A sacrifice she never needed to make, had her parents been humble.

If it wasn't clear, Andromeda is me. The parents are, well, they are my dead parents, and the bragging is their genius. It has angered the cosmos, which demands a sacrifice.

"Marco. Explain this." I slam the file Gal printed off onto his desk, shaking the various golden ornaments that were littered sporadically across it. It was as steam if itself was streaming from my brow, the whole ordeal getting the better of me. To find that headed on one of my parents' private reports on dark matter was the phrase that the kidnappers had used... It seemed hardly a coincidence. Furthermore, I found it difficult to believe that the majority stakeholder in the Wolfe Centre didn't know about this. Were my parents working with these criminals? Was Marco?

Arcturus stood as rigid as stone by my side, unable to meet Marco's stern gaze.

"Flo, you need to calm down." He spoke the words, though no authority bled through them. It was a plead. This only angered me further, and I demanded the truth. It was all I could rely on, apparently.

After a few quiet moments of processing, my stoic mentor began to crumble, the immense guilt at seeing him like this, let alone causing it, already consuming me.

"Dark matter project. The one where Aurelia became tainted. The one that created the foundation for the Celestial Nexus Reader." Jogging his memory with newfound revelations, I held my stance over the desk that separated us. His cheeks were flushed a burgundy so dark I thought he would pass out.

"Flo, you must understand..." His words only relit the fire in the pit of my stomach.

"I must understand what exacly, Marco? That you let my parents work with their killers?!"

"Please don't do this to me." His face dropped. In that moment, I thought I had broken him. There was no going back after this.

A piercing screech ripped through the staling air, yet it was not enough to tear the tension between Marco and I. Arcturus stretched his collar, finding focus on the small ceiling lamp that flashed scarlet. My fury faltered as I was plunged into my nightmare. I was back in the Wolfe Centre, the kidnappers frothing at the mouth to take my life, canines gnarled, dripping with the blood of Aurelia. I was next. Panic paralysed me, and as Marco and Arcturus rushed me out of his office, the facility around me drowned out.

A stretched woman of peculiar facial features approached us, my sagging body held by my mentor and his agent. She reported to Marco, ignoring Arcturus and I as if we were mere inconveniences. Judging by her slick coal uniform and numerous badges stitched into her sleeve, I assumed her to be Marco's chief of security. She seemed scared.

"We are in a 18053 lockdown, class C. Breach in observatory. Requesting permission to evacuate the lab techs through residential suites' route. A force has been assembled to meet the threat, heading there now." In binary-like efficiency, various commands, requests, and keywords were rattled off to Marco, no doubt processing in his brain like code into a terminal. He worked to make sense of it, and then spoke a shaky answer, granting her request. We continued, hobbling to his private suite, where the most advance lockdown measures would be in place.