Out of the Shell

11 - Time Snap

December 7, 2404
04:10

"No, no, that can't be right, I..." Vena stuttered. "How?"

I wasn't sure how to respond to Vena's puzzled expression, but I was just as confused as she was. Remembering it like it was only yesterday, I was pulled out of the water on this day and on this hour. There I was, standing right in front of M-263.

"I broke it," Vena continued. "I broke time. We're done for. It's over." She started shaking and hyperventilating.

"Hey, stop!" I grabbed her. "Stop!"

She stopped and looked at me.

"You've worked so hard to get here. We can't give up now."

Vena's breathing slowed, and I released her from my grip. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Let's get this over with," I said.

"Alright," Vena took a deep breath. "First, we have to wait until your Alternis is separated from M-263. That way, we can go to Ixus and attempt to regulate the time continuum."

"Alternis?" I asked. "What's that?"

"It's Latin for 'alternate.' In Ixus, it means it's a clone of you that is created when a time snap occurs, which is very rare. We're just unlucky enough for it to happen."

I nodded my head. "Ah, okay. Should we just wait here? I don't know how long it will take me to move."

"In that case," Vena held her hands out in front of her. "Let's get ourselves situated." Her hands started to turn dark red, then a flame grew on her palms. She moved closer to me to keep me warm.

"How do you do that?" I asked, looking into the large flames that were generated by her hands.

"There's a series of capacitors in my hands. I can warm them up to over two hundred degrees Celsius, causing the capacitors to overheat and explode into flames."

"Doesn't that destroy the capacitors?"

"Kind of. When they explode, they regenerate when exposed to cooler temperatures. The outer layer of my palms is protected with a very fine layer of hard rock, causing me to feel almost no pain."

I nodded my head and put my chin on my hand, looking at Vena's flaming hands. "There's so much I don't know about you."

She smiled and looked up at me. "There's a lot I want you to know, such as what my purpose is. As you already know, I was created by the Institute many years ago to be used as a test subject. Around this time, they were just releasing the first identification microchip. Since they were unstable units, they were unaware that the IDM can immediately learn and develop human behavior. They called me X-003. I was the third test subject out of five that were created."

"Who were the other four?" I asked.

"X-001 is our leader. He named himself Nym. Javi is X-002, my right-hand man. X-003 is me, of course. Javi named me after the creator of Ixus. Her name was Victoria, which means Vena in Ixum, which can also translate to 'victory.' X-004 is Liri, which means 'song' in Ixum. She is one of our most important members in the X branch. Liri is mute and cannot speak. Her IDM was severely damaged while it was being made, which means she has several mental issues and cannot talk, but she is very intelligent. Last but not least, X-005, also known as Celeiri, which means 'star' in Ixus. He is the one who provides us our uniforms and voice modifiers, so we can keep our identity hidden if we ever need to do something on Earth."