Chương 202: B4. 8.2 - A Lab Tour

"What is that?" Deen asked, snatching the crystal before Cecilia could come close. Deen raised the crystal to the light. Hints of colors that weren't even on the rainbow sparkled over her hand. For a second, we were all mesmerized. I didn't know the crystal could become some magical prism.

"Give that back." I grabbed the crystal, prying it from Deen's fingers with superstrength. She didn't close her hand fast enough. I handed the crystal to Cecilia, stepping in front of Deen to stop her from retrieving it.

"Is that what I think it is?" Deen had blades in her voice. This crystal was from my hand. I dug it out on the same day that I became an Adumbrae. Another crystal grew to take its place, and this one had been hanging out at my condo since then. I almost forgot about it. Fortunately, I remembered not to leave the crystal for other people to find. Maybe the PCM or the Professor might send people to ransack my place.

I had thought of asking Overdrive to find me a scientist to examine this, but that wasn't happening now, with the gangsters locked up in jail. We now had a scientist—Cecilia, the Risen, the Second-Bodied, the… What other titles could I give her? Quite surprising that Deen immediately recognized the crystal, probably because she had examined my hand a few times. Creepy. I could see why she didn't think it was wise to give Cecilia any part of my body.

The next thing I knew, there could be a baby monster Erind inside one of these vats. However, I badly wanted to know more about what was happening to me. I wasn't a normal Adumbrae, whatever 'normal' meant in that context. How special was I? I had to be, since I was the protagonist.

"You got that right, Deen," I said.

"This is the crystal from… an Adumbrae we killed."

"My test subject?" Cecilia asked, placing the crystal in a complex-looking microwave.

"You killed one of them."

"Not that one," I replied.

"Another Adumbrae we had fought before, not related to the PCM. We were with others who also had Cores. Some mission given by our handlers. I kept the crystal as a souvenir."

"You must tell me more about the organization that embedded those Cores on your chest," said Cecilia.

"I can't assist you blind. Our ultimate goal is to remove your Cores and return your humanity."

"We don't know much about this organization," I truthfully said.

"Let's focus on the crystal."

"You shouldn't have kept that… souvenir," Deen murmured. Cecilia had difficulties typing on yet another console. Her muttered curses told us she was pressing the wrong buttons. A few seconds later, she got things right, and the dish holding the crystal began to rotate, bathed with various lights. A massive monitor wallowed in dense data of stuff I couldn't understand even if I tried. My heart pounded with anticipation. It was time for the reveal that I was super special, as I had always known.

"Are you sure about this, Erind?" Deen grabbed my right wrist, lightly squeezing.

"You can't let her have it."

"Why not? I'm curious about the crystal. I want to learn more about what we're up against, Adumbrae, and whatever sorts of monsters are out there. Don't you?" Deen tightened her grip around my wrist.

"What if she uses that to make her serum?"

"I mean, it's going to save us time hunting for an Adumbrae," I said in a relaxed way, though I wanted to elbow Deen.

"But I hope you don't do anything to it, Cecilia. That's my souvenir. We'll get you different Adumbrae flesh."

"This isn't Adumbrae flesh," said Cecilia in her raspy voice. Folding her arms across her chest, she stared up at the display, chewing her tongue.

"Well, yeah, I guess it's not," I said.

"It's a crystal or something. But it's from an Adumbrae we fought." I also stared at the screen because I didn't want to face Deen. For sure, she was furious. But she understood not to react too much, or else Cecilia would think there was more to this crystal than my story made it seem.

"This isn't a piece of your Core, is it?" Cecilia asked.

"You can tell me the truth, dear. After all, we are allies."

"It's not my Core. Or anybody's Core. It's really from an Adumbrae."

"Dissimilar from that on your blue-haired friend," Cecilia said.

"I believe you that this isn't an artificial Core. A curious structure." Right. Cecilia had captured Myra. It was a given that Cecilia would analyze Myra's Core. We'd have to ask about that later, after we were done with my crystal.

"What's curious about it?" I asked before Deen could protest about Cecilia examining Myra.

"Made of carbon with a hexagonal structure," Cecilia explained.

"Mostly hexagonal, in contrast to the cube-like lattice of diamond's carbon atoms." The display changed to circles and lines in a honeycomb-like grid.

"A curious and beautiful structure, won't you agree? It reminds me of lonsdaleite." I raised a brow.

"Lonsa— What? Are you making up words?"

"Tell us everything," Deen demanded.

"Explain clearly."

"You're asking me to dumb it down?" Cecilia cackled and then violently coughed, sending green spit flying. Wiping her mouth, she continued, "Lonsdaleite… Your simple minds can think of it as a space diamond, a product of ancient collisions of heavenly bodies. Contrast it with diamonds of earth, formed deep within the mantle."

"That crystal came from outer space?" I asked.

"It didn't, if your story is true that this is your trophy from slaying an Adumbrae." Cecilia started typing stuff again.

"Your souvenir only looks like lonsdaleite, not that it is one. Lonsdaleite samples found in meteorites are thinner than human hair—what you have is the size of a pebble. Synthetic carbon allotrope, perhaps?"

"Synthetic," Deen repeated.

"Do you mean scientists can make lonsdaleite?"

"Lesser minds have managed to create thin discs of lonsdaleite," Cecilia said.

"But me, I could make a fat gem to set on a ring, if I wanted to. But I don't see why I'd waste brain power on such an endeavor. Jewelry? I do not care to display social status, for it acknowledges the judgment of those lower than me. Primal instincts to adorn ourselves with trinkets. Anyway, where were we?" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Diamonds…" I said.

"And that lons-something."

"Space diamonds!" Cecilia exclaimed.

"Lonsdaleite. Your souvenir here appears to have the structure of lonsdaleite with some… impossible variations that my computer couldn't unravel."

"It came from an Adumbrae," Deen said.

"Not a surprise it has paranormal properties."

"What's weird about it?" I asked.

"It's better for me to demonstrate." Cecilia took the crystal out of the sci-fi microwave and set it on the operating table. With the press of the button, the operating table raised a small platform in the middle, and boxed the crystal on four sides with transparent, foot-high walls. The robot arms on the ceiling descended, their grabby-grabby ends reforming into drills.

"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Don't destroy—""It won't be destroyed, if my hypothesis is right," Cecilia said, waving her hand at me.

"I'm right, more often than not."

"Except for the time you died," Deen said.

"Lonsdaleite is harder than diamond," Cecilia loudly said, ignoring Deen.

"But not by much. However, there are theoretical models of carbon allotropes that could make lonsdaleite sixty-four percent harder than diamond." The minute whine of the rotating drill filled the room. The arms descended and stabbed the crystal. The table vibrated, and the drill stopped. Another arm with a tiny lens moved closer to the crystal, showing a close-up view on a monitor to the side.

A tiny laser pointed at the crystal as other types of drills exchanged turns, trying to damage the crystal—we all could see they weren't doing anything.

"These are diamond drill bits," Cecilia said.

"Synthetic diamond, made to last longer than a regular diamond. Yet, the surface of your souvenir remains unblemished. Not even micro-abrasions have been detected. I can't tell exactly how hard your souvenir is because I don't have a comparable material. Onto the next test!" The robotic arms transformed into a tiny pile driver. They drove small bolts down at the crystals, making the table shake with each slam. The continuous thudding, never changing its sound or volume, told us that the crystal held.

Cecilia stopped the testing, muttering, "Interesting, interesting." The robotic arms turned to laser pointers again, having a little light show as data flooded the screens.

"It didn't break," I said.

"But that's also expected since it's harder than diamond, right?"

"A little science lesson about the difference between hardness and toughness," Cecilia said, turning to us with a huge smile. Hardness is resistance to scratching. You can scratch a diamond only with another diamond, barring the synthetic stuff. On the other hand, toughness… think of it as the amount of energy a material can absorb before fracturing."

"Basic science taught to kids," Deen said.

"Diamond is very hard but also brittle. Everyone knows that." I jolted.

"You do? Eh, I probably wasn't listening in class. I like biology lessons more." Deen glared at me. A lot of glaring going on in this trip.

"Continue with your explanation, Cecilia. Erind's souvenir is both harder than a diamond and tough enough to withstand the assault of your horrible instruments. I can't begin to imagine the procedures you do here, and I don't want to." Cecilia laughed, "These are standard equipment when operating on the inhuman—regenerating flesh is annoying to deal with, I can say that much without offending your sensibilities. I've thought of upgrading my laboratory when I have the budget, but alas, I died.

But enough about my renovation plans.

"Back to your special souvenir. Hardness and toughness aren't necessarily opposites. Humans, ingenious creatures that we are, have created certain materials like maraging steel, a low-carbon alloy that is both hard and tough. But something this tough and hard is… impossible. Its structure is impossible. That is, when we're talking about physics as humans know it."

"It's a body part of an Adumbrae," Deen said.

"Yeah, it's granted it'll be super weird," I chimed in. Cecilia stopped typing, her fingers poised mid-air.

"Oh… You girls don't know? When an Adumbrae dies, its body loses all of its metaphysical and scientifically inexplicable properties. This is barring a few exceptions related to Purple Blooms."

"Purple Blooms? The Black Spire—" I began to say.

"Is not the exception," said Cecilia.

"The government left the petrified flesh and bone in the ocean, a memorial to the thousands who died, and a too costly trash to move. There's no danger visiting the Black Spire because it is no longer an Adumbrae. Although I advise against ingesting any part of it, as many people do—and people say I'm crazy, when there are those nutjobs out there."

"What about the Devlyosian Sinkhole?" Deen asked. I stiffened for a moment. Dad was the site director of the UN facility studying the Devlyosian Sinkhole for possible perpetual energy applications. He took me there once, a vortex in the Pacific Ocean, located somewhere midway between the Philippines and Hawaii. Wider than three football fields, it continuously sucked in water. It looked pretty scary, and the main reason that little Erind didn't want anything to do with the ocean, even though I was in Hawaii.

"That… is the exception," said Cecilia.

"The sinkhole is the byproduct of the fight between High Overseers and one of the largest Purple Blooms to form after the Adumbrae War. It is not Adumbrae remains, technically, so the general rule holds. But why are we thinking of a phenomenon so far away? You dears have a problem—you didn't kill the Adumbrae from whence you sourced this crystal." Whence. Fancy word.

"I-I just thought we killed it," I hesitantly said.

"It looked pretty dead to me."

"Members of the organization that made our Cores carted away the foul carcass," Deen said, supporting my storytelling activities.

"It didn't regenerate, so we assumed it died. We were wrong."

"We'll find that Adumbrae someday," said Cecilia, "and shed light on the mysteries of this tiny crystal. Isn't it fun to plan for future activities for our alliance?" Tapping more buttons, the robotic arms receded into the ceiling. An odd contraption that looked like a giant microscope descended.

"What mysteries are we talking about here?" I asked, starting to like science stuff.

"I have to confirm an initial reading…" Cecilia tapped her bare foot on the floor as the giant microscope hummed. She chuckled as a new set of data appeared.

"It wasn't an error. Hmmm. Curiouser and curiouser." Deen stared at the monitor, as if she could understand it.

"Don't drag this. Explain it already."

"Present are trace energies given off by Adumbrae," said Cecilia.

"Nothing surprising. After all, this material doesn't conform to reality so long as the source Adumbrae survives. What is surprising is that Core energy is present as well, entwined with Adumbrae energy."

"Core energy?" Deen and I asked simultaneously.

"Core energy!" Cecilia exclaimed with a deranged smile.

"Core energy coexisting with Adumbrae energy instead of obliterating each other." She clapped her bony hands.

"More reason to find this Adumbrae! Such a specimen! How is this possible? We'll obtain the answer only by examining this Adumbrae. Where did you fight it? In La Esperanza? Where was it brought?"

"We don't know any of that," Deen answered, glancing at me.

"I have Core energy," I said, glancing at Deen. She should know that I wouldn't tell Cecilia the truth.

"The crystal must've picked it off."

"Possible but unlikely," Cecilia replied.

"This delicate dance of opposing forces shouldn't happen. Too complicated to explain. You'll have to take my word for it, as with many things in our burgeoning alliance. Suffice to say I have never seen this occurrence before and never thought it possible. But the surprises don't end there." I really am special, I thought. There should've been no doubt about this since I was the plain-looking girl of the cast. The plain ones should be the main character for relatability.

"My instruments cannot accurately peer into the heart of this little souvenir," Cecilia said, pointing at some of the numbers.

"But what's apparent is that the crystal contains a rip in our dimension, similar to a Bridging. As you know, when circumstances are right, an Adumbrae Bridges to our world, and a Complete Manifestation is born. It is a one-time occurrence. This crystal on the other hand appears as if it is constantly Bridging."