[Otto's POV]
Two weeks passed by without a word from Alex and Otto was worried sick. It was strange, really. As if he'd vanished from the surface of the earth.
To make matters worse, nobody had noticed that she'd been holding Alex's phone when the ambulance left. Apparently, nobody had missed the device either. She'd tried visiting Alex's home to return it, but nobody ever seemed to be home. And you couldn't leave a smartphone in the mailbox, now could you?
This also meant she couldn't leave Alex a message to call her when he woke up. But she didn't think that he had woken up. Why she thought that? Because she was pretty certain that Alex would find a way to contact her. So the fact that he hadn't could only mean two things. One: somebody was preventing him from contacting her, which was unlikely. Or two: he wasn't capable of contacting her himself.
Both options were rather worrisome.
She'd tried calling Alex's dad, but apparently, Mar Black was a tough guy to get a hold of. And she knew Alex wasn't admitted to any hospitals, so it was no use to start a wild goose chase either.
Otto was out of ideas, and that's why she was lying on her bed on a Wednesday afternoon, despite the fact that Jessy and Jasper had begged her to hang out with them, holding Alex's phone above her.
"Where are you Alex?" she asked to no-one particular, since she was alone in her room. What she hadn't expected was that Alex's phone would react. The screen flared to life and an extremely detailed map with directions appeared on the screen. The first direction on the screen said: "Step out of your room and head down the stairs."
Now she would love to believe that everything Alex created was perfect, but she sure as hell knew that her own phone didn't do that.
"Alex?!" she asked hopefully as she jolted upright on her bed, but nothing happened. "Please, Alex. If this is your doing, please give my a sign! I need to know that you are alright!"
When nothing happened again, she burst out into tears, crawled under the blankets and hugged Alex's phone close to her heart. She suddenly felt so heart broken. Even though his phone had given her a new lead which she knew she should be checking out, she just couldn't get herself to get out of the bed. She cried to the point were her hiccups were so bad they made her whole upper-body shake.
A soft vibration to her chest startled her enough to make her stop crying for a second. Had Alex's phone vibrated just now? She hurriedly lifted the phone to her face and saw a blurred text message appear on the screen. She quickly rubbed the tears from her eyes until the text became visible enough to read, but it wasn't a sign from Alex like she'd hoped.
"I'm sorry for upsetting you," the text message from a person called Aurora said. "It's been a while since I talked to humans, so I might be out of practice a little bit."
Otto just stared. There were a few thoughts racing through her head. For example, who was this Aurora and how did she know that Otto felt upset? She allowed herself to look around her room to see if anyone was watching her or if she could spot any cameras, but no such luck.
"How do I answer this message," Otto mumbled as she swiped the screen to answer the text message, but cursed when the locked-screen stopped her for the hundredth time since she'd acquired Alex's phone.
"You can just talk to me. I can hear you," a new message from Aurora appeared on the screen.
"Ok, that's disturbing," Otto mumbled as she quickly rubbed the goosebumps on her arm away. "You're not a hacker or anything, are you? Because I'm emotionally unstable right now and I don't think I could handle someone lying to me for their own gain."
"Uhm, …" the new message said. "In a way, I am the world's greatest hacker. Unintentionally, though. It's just who I am. And Alex has become really good at it too recently. It's starting to become really difficult to hide my presence from him."
Otto stared at the message for a few seconds.
"Well, I appreciate your honesty," Otto said. "Does that mean you know Alex, but he doesn't know you?"
"You could say that," Aurora said. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not explain my relation to him right now. Time is running short, and Alex and the world as you know it are about to perish into oblivion if you don't hurry to Alex soon."
"Ok, that's not disturbing at all," Otto said in an attempt to push down her nerves. "Let me put on my shoes and jacket."
In reply the map with directions lit up the screen again. Otto looked at it once she was ready to go and noticed the travel time.
"Fifteen minutes? Can I go there by bike?" Otto asked and the screen immediately reacted. A little icon of a bicycle had appeared and the time had reduced to three minutes.
"Ok. MOM?! I'm going out with Jessy and Jasper!" Otto called out.
"Ok, sweetheart," her mom yelled back from the living room. "Will you be back for dinner?"
A message from Aurora appeared on the screen: "Yes."
"Yes, mom! I'll be back before dinner," Otto called out and pulled her bike out of the door to get going.
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[Mar's POV]
Mar was feeling conflicted. In the room next to his, he could see his dear son through a thick and large window. He lay there, unmoving and unconscious, doing nothing but radiate enormous waves of energy. The latest readings had simply blown all their expectations away with numbers rivalling those of a freshly split atom.
Luckily, they hadn't been completely clueless of this possibility and had been able to prepare some very necessary precautions. For example; the glass he was looking through was lead glass, the walls were 1,5m thick and made of heavy concrete. But apparently, those had been unnecessary precautions, because there was no increase of radiation.
There was, however, an increase in temperature. And not a slight one either. There sensors had picked up temperatures of over five hundred degree Celsius. It hadn't been that high when Alex had first lost consciousness, but it had kept rising steadily. They'd covered him in ice and turned the air conditioning to freezing, but even now, he could see the ice evaporating once it came into contact with Alex's skin.
There were no medical appliances strapped to him, and no syringe breaking his flawless skin. They weren't treating him. They weren't curing him. He did not dare to take the risk. Not after what had happened to his beautiful wife. The image of her surprised face, was burned into his memory.
He hadn't been certain at the time, but the more time passed, the harder it became to deny; he'd killed her. It would have been easier to accept if it had been some life threatening experiment where they'd all been aware of the risks, but it had been some routine check to keep track of the magnificent energy she naturally radiated. He wasn't even certain what had caused it. All he'd been able to find afterwards was that the measuring device had short-circuited.
She used to be so brilliant, so beautiful. He had loved her so much. He'd searched for days, for a clue, a hint, anything that could guide him to her. But no such luck. The memory of her had a big fat tear rolling down his cheek.
His train of thoughts was interrupted when he saw the estimated temperature rise with yet another degree and cursed. Things couldn't keep on going like this. They were nearing the maximum temperature the building could resist. Any more and the whole building would go up in flames. Or worse.
Mar knew he should be doing something to avert this crisis, but he didn't know how, not to mention that he couldn't go near him. He was literally pulling his hair when the tell-tale ping of the computer caught his attention. Someone was calling him on the intercom.
"Yes?" he answered the intercom uninterestedly.
"Uhm, sir?" a male voice answered. "There's this girl standing at the employees-only door, asking permission to enter. I was going to ignore her, but then Erika's son showed up and said you would vouch for her?"
A direct link to the camera at the employees entrance appeared on the screen and showed his son's girlfriend and his colleague's son bickering about something.
"That can't be!" he gasped incredulously. "How did she manage to find this place?!"
For a second, he felt the urge to shoo her away, but then remembered that every time something happened to Alex, she was near. They were connected somehow.
"Let her in. And tell Thomas to bring her to me," Mar said and ended the intercom. He didn't like it, but he had to admit that the situation was already far beyond his control. He'd have to muster some faith that everything would become alright again.