The harsh light of the neon tubes hummed above the men's heads. The room was cold, bare, a makeshift investigation center. Stacks of files, scratched laptops, and open coffee cups lay on the tables. The AAA had sealed off the lab that had been Joschi's last known location. Cameras, sensors, and trace markers were installed everywhere.
amidst all the chaos, Alex stood with his hands in his pockets, his expressionless gaze fixed on the screen in front of him. He hadn't been there long, but already this whole operation seemed like a complete joke.
"This isn't funny, Alex," one of his colleagues said sternly. "We have a lead. This... this could be important."
Alex just snorted and crossed his arms. His gaze never left the monitor, where the recovered video flickered. Dark images. Movement in the shadows. Barely intelligible snatches of audio. A mystery to the others, a challenge to Alex.
"You have to take this seriously," a second colleague chimed in. "If we make the mistake of underestimating this, we—"
Alex raised a hand without taking his eyes off the screen. "Just shut up…" he muttered quietly, barely audibly, almost like a thought escaping him.
His colleagues fell silent in outrage, but he ignored them. His jaw clenched as he rewound the sequence, going through it frame by frame, paying attention to every detail. Every shadow, every movement.
"I need to focus," he muttered, louder this time, regardless of whether anyone heard. His fingers tapped nervously on the tabletop as he froze the frame: a vague silhouette visible for a split second in the camera's flicker.
"There…" he whispered. His eyes narrowed. "There's something. Something we missed."
His colleagues looked at him questioningly, but Alex didn't hear them. At that moment, only he and the video existed.
"Tell me, Alex," murmured one of the men next to him, pointing at the screen, "what are you even trying to analyze? It's obviously an alien. Look at this—dust body, cloak, it's completely clear."
Alex stopped the video with a dry click. The movements on the monitor froze, a grainy image filled with shadows. He slowly turned his head, looking his colleague up and down, so coldly, as if he were already mentally throwing him out of the room.
Then he spoke in a deep, ragged voice:
"Now listen to me very carefully. Stop. Finally. Shut up."
His colleague tried to retort, but Alex was already standing up, stepping closer, so that the view from above practically crushed him.
"All you see is a face, dust, and a coat. But I..." – he pointed back at the screen with two fingers – "...I don't just analyze how they move. I listen. Every single word. Every pause. Every damn syllable."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice now a deep growl:
"Because somewhere in between lies the name. Lukas. And I want to know who that bastard is. And why he's so interesting to them."
Silence in the room. Only the whir of the neon lights and the faint static of the audio track on the monitor.
Alex sat back down, leaning forward, his eyes fixed hard on the screen. "So shut up. I'm working."
The flickering on the monitor continued. Alex's eyes followed every distorted movement, every flickering silhouette. Then a word came. Quiet, barely audible, almost swallowed by the static. But it cut through the room like a knife.
"...timeline..."
Alex's fingers briefly clenched on the edge of the table. Without another word, he pulled his own laptop from his bag, opened it with a metallic click, and connected it to the video device. His colleagues exchanged puzzled glances, but this time they kept quiet.
With stoic calm, Alex worked through the recording. He paused, rewound, and placed markers. Every single frame, every hand movement, every hint of shadow, no matter how small, was isolated. He edited the audio track with cold precision, trimming out the noise, emphasizing every word that carried weight.
Again and again, that one came: "Timeline." Over and over, they emphasized the name "Lukas."
Finally, Alex completed the last sequence, replayed the clip—a distilled nightmare of fragmented words and jerky gestures. He closed the laptop, took a deep breath, and stood up. His gaze briefly scanned the room, then he growled:
"I have everything we need. Movements. Words. Names."
His colleagues waited for an explanation, but Alex grabbed his bag, grabbed his laptop, and marched toward the exit.
"And now," he muttered without turning around, "I'm pissing off to the main lab. If this is real, things are going to get really messed up there."
The door closed behind him. All that remained was the hum of the screens—and a room full of men who realized that Alex was now on the trail.
Alex's footsteps echoed dully through the corridors of the AAA complex. Neon lights reflected on the smooth floor as he silently made the long walk toward the lab. His head was rattling—no voices, no chaos, just his clear line. Timelines... destroyed... and now, perhaps, the last.
Finally, he reached his office-lab. The door closed automatically behind him, the hum of the electronics welcoming him like familiar music. Without further ado, he put down his bag, opened the laptop, and connected it to the central mainframe.
"Loading," he murmured, almost mechanically.
The data flowed into the system, bars and codes scrolled across the screens. Barely a minute later, he had the recording fully up—this time without hiss, without distortion, without any extraneous noise. Crystal clear, as if he himself had been standing there.
He leaned forward, put on the headphones, and listened. The voices were sharp, each word a pinprick in his consciousness. "Timeline... destroyed... last trace... Lukas..."
His gaze hardened. With quick fingers, he began marking the most important sequences, excising every cruAAAl word, logging movement patterns next to them. Meanwhile, he jotted down everything he understood in short, concise notes on a terminal:
Multiple timelines destroyed
This could be the last
Subject "Lukas" = focal point of the beings
Consequence: Annihilation → End of their existence
Alex reread the points, nodded curtly, and saved the file. Without hesitation, he forwarded it to the internal data system—encrypted, marked "Urgent."
A brief loading bar appeared. Then the system confirmed: Upload successful.
Alex took off the headphones, placed them on the table, and stared motionless at the dark screen for a few seconds. Only one sentence swirled in his mind:
If they really mean the final timeline... then we're already at the end.