66 Aya Andersson - Extra Chapter - Part 2 (1/2)

”Aya,” called Mommy.

I trotted to her side.

Both of us had gone into the underground factory the next morning. Mommy wanted to check something out so that was why we were there.

My plain, red dress was not enough to help me withstood the cold. Mommy wore her lab coat as usual. My hand ran over the strands of dark hair that covered my face. I had not realized sooner before, but my hair grew until it reached my shoulder. I did not like it.

She strolled past a sliding gla.s.s door and I followed from behind.

That particular room was at the most left side of the factory, where countless research data and a.n.a.lysis were being kept and studied each day.

Mountains of doc.u.ments were lying at a spot just a floor upstairs, where the floor was see-through gla.s.s. A few scientists were rummaging through it painstakingly.

The floor below was where Mommy and I were at. Computer monitors lined up in rows across the room. Supercomputers were propped up at my left side, taking over almost half of the room.

A giant monitor over our head displayed a bunch of data and graphs about the Aegis Users.

I blinked a few times as the brightly lit, white room was a bit too much for my eyes.

Mommy stopped in front of a large gla.s.s window that spanned over the entire right wall of the room. Behind it, an enormous, cylindrical tank filled with green liquid beeped a few times. There were four more similar tanks at the far back.

Mommy narrowed her eyes at the tank in front shadowing the others.

”Alicia! Glad to see you're doing well!” shouted a man.

I looked at him and lowered my head.

If I was not mistaken, he was one of the Acting Heads of Scientists just like Mommy and Daddy.

His lavender perfume was too strong for me so I covered my nose. His blond hair was combed back while his green eyes flickered when he saw me. He adjusted his lab coat when his feet halted in front of Mommy.

From my spot, he looked a little bit shorter than Mommy, about a few inches. And since Mommy was 167 cm, that guy appeared to be quite short.

”Klaus,” said Mommy.

He put up a smile for me before s.h.i.+fting his eyes back to Mommy.

”I see you have quite an interest in her,” he said as his finger pointed towards the woman in the liquid tank.

”Not really. It's just that it has been a long time since I actually cared to look at Ama. I can only guess there's nothing to report about when it comes to her.”

”It's still the same as you can see. There's not much we've gained the past few years you've gone. And I expect the same thing for a few years from now on,” said Klaus. ”I thought about it time to time and I felt like I want to give up. She's stubborn.”

Mommy directed her eyes back at the woman in the liquid tank. ”What's new?”

Klaus sighed. ”We got a response from her about a year ago.”

Mommy's eyes widened as she looked back at Klaus. ”What kind?”

”The usual thing, you know. That new Aegis User, Ava, isn't it? Ama seems to have already connected with her. There has been a delay, unlike the previous Aegis Users. Usually, it took only a few months for Ama to do. But in Ava's case, it took a few years. We've never seen anything like it,” explained Klaus.

”Hmm. Don't you suppose it's because Ava is . . . you know what I'm saying,” said Mommy.

”Perhaps,” said Klaus. ”There's that possibility. But the others concluded that it's because Ava is on the other side of the planet when she discovered Aegis. Am I right?”

”Yeah. That's correct. Unlike the others, Ava's the only who's not in Sweden for the longest time. As for Caesar's case, it also took a few months, since he's in this HQ all the time back then.”

Klaus nodded. ”Our a.n.a.lysis only detects subtle traces of Ava inside Amaltheia. Her brain wave still does not change at all, even when it happened.”

Mommy caressed her forehead and glanced at Ama. ”It doesn't make sense. Amaltheia is the first Aegis User . . . and also our first failure. She did not die, but succ.u.mbed to a long sleep.”

”Oh, what's her Aegis, Mommy?” I asked.