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Hershey's mouth invaded Beta's ear's personal space, speaking slowly. "Why are people staring at us?" the boy whispered, a drip of water landing on Beta's shoulder from Hershey's hair.

The Perna shrugged, an exaggeration in his shoulder's movements. "I mean there's a slight chance it's because we're carrying around space suits in the middle of Vung Tau, Vietnam, our eyes look maddening, and you have bloody horns."

Sucking his teeth, Hershey leaned away. "I see your point."

"Speaking of which, can't you like..." Matrix made a motion with his hands like a fish hopping into a fish bowl. Hershey was confused at first, but soon caught his drift. "Oh! Right." With a little, or a lot, of effort, Hershey's bone-like horns made a quick popping sound before they sunk into his skull. Beta looked up at Hershey's head, watching as the skin folded and then came back to cover up the insertion point.

Once they were all the way in and after a few Vietnamese in bikinis had run off, Hershey winced. "I have a wicked headache right now."

"Ooh, wicked," Beta emphasized the word. "You might've been spending a little too much time with me, mate."

Matrix cracked a smile, feeling a joke arise. "GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!" he hollered, receiving many, many stares in return.

Beta cleared his throat. "That was inappropriate."

They walked alongside the beach—their shoes off and their space suits spilling out of their bags—and avoided anyone and everyone that looked like they could arrest them. Despite the haul of summer tourists, the beachgoers weren't so pleased to see them walking around, somehow able to sense they were off. Nevertheless, they enjoyed themselves, trying their best to ignore the odd ones out. Hershey had dropped dead in the sand to make a sand castle, and Beta at one point ran off because he saw a crab. Matrix had been asked to take numerous photos as he waited for the other two to stop messing around. He also watched a father and daughter throw around a frisbee, subtly wishing that having fun was the only reason he was back on Earth.

He knew it wasn't.

Beta found it strange how they could live so peacefully knowing that they were sooner or later going to die, which was a new perspective he had gotten from his experience on Plato.

"How did they do it?"

Beta and Matrix looked over at Hershey who looked back at them. "How'd they get all of us to Plato without raising any concern from the humans?"

Matrix turned to Beta and Beta turned back, gesturing for him to explain. Matrix's eyebrows rose. "What, you think they taught me that?"

As unbelievable as the Plato education appeared to be, the Perna made it his duty to teach them more. "The Extraction Point. It's how the bodies get over to Plato. It wasn't easy, know that much. Cremated or not, as long as there isn't any acid involved they come over all right." Beta paused and pondered. "...Sometimes.

"Basically, it takes the remains and replicates it the same way it was left. They take the original and leave the copy." Beta hit Matrix gently on the shoulder. "That's what Plato's been sending up for you Staks to eat, just copies of real ones. The real body gets dematerialized and transfers to Plato, coated in a liquid that's invisible to the human eye." He paused. "But it doesn't always work out. The body starts repairing itself once it leaves the exosphere, and I'm sure you know about the lasers."

Hershey's eyebrows scrunched as he looked at Beta. "I've been dead for like a year."

"Right, sorry," Beta tried to refocus. "The things the governments put up to destroy the big pieces of space junk from falling into orbit. They, um, sort of tend to fry up a lot of the dead bodies passing through. They just get re-thrown into transit, although it does disrupt the whole 'blind to the human eye' thing."