"What do you mean there were no women?"
"Is that your ex's name?" Rui frowned. "You told me about her, right? Laura... who broke up with you via audio message... you told me she smelled like cotton essence and whatever..."
Nunes' eyes widened, his chest rising and falling again.
"Ketlen..." he groaned, his voice choked. "I... damn it, Rui. It's not about Laura or Blizka. It's about Ketlen. She's the one I want. She's the one who wants me. But I..."
The collective reaction was palpable. Nunes felt the pressure of that oppressive silence tighten in his ribcage. The murmuring that had returned quickly died down as soon as he spoke. The environment was immersed in a controlled strangeness; it was evident that everyone there was accustomed to seeing him talking to himself, and this continuous, silent acceptance was much worse than any confrontation. They didn't see him as someone sad or afraid, but as a defect in the starship's tapestry, something broken that kept making noise.
"Nuuunes!" Rui laughed, shaking his shoulder. "That's enough! It was a nightmare, dude…" he whispered, just for him. "Everybody's looking. You set the screaming record. With full-on soap-opera crying!"
"I..." He squeezed his eyes shut, the memories returning painfully. "She told me she hates people calling her crazy and treating her like it. It was her ex who caused that in her. But I hate that too... because of my ex."
"Nuuuunes!" Rui laughed, clapping his hands. "It's over! Stop it..."
"My bad…" Nunes glanced around, taking a deep breath, eyes shutting in frustration. "Sorry, seriously… Did I at least nap an hour?"
"Two full hours," Rui chuckled, but his voice softened. "Wanna wake up now…?"
Nunes observed the faces around him. No one offered a smile or a nod of understanding. They were masks of polished indifference, and he knew that, in the head of each one, they were asking themselves if he had gotten enough sleep. This was the Elias effect: the constant proof of his parallel, inaudible reality. His mind was so used to this dichotomy that the line between what was real and what was the "interference" of Blizka and Rui was beginning to blur.
"L-let's go..." Nunes frowned, removing Rui's hands from his shoulder.
"There's something. And they want your opinion on it, too."
"What thing, man?" He finally stood up, arching his back until it cracked loudly. "Damn it, no peace on this ship? It's always me who has to solve everything for everyone else."
Dozens of crew members gathered around the main consoles. Some with arms crossed, serious, others murmuring inaudible comments.
"You were sleeping like a sedated prince, didn't wanna bother you!" Rui gave him a quick flurry of slaps on the cheek. "Franco's saying some messed-up shit about it being insurgents, and now I'm scared as hell."
"The Insurgents?!" Nunes's eyes widened. "The bastards fighting against us?"
"Exactly, Sleeping Beauty. You know a ton about ship models, so check the data and tell us. Move those legs, let's get in some quick cardio over there."
… He sighed, rubbing his eyes.
"Alright… let's go."
Nunes walked alongside Rui, the whispered gossip swelling.
"What's the other speculation?" Nunes asked, his voice still hoarse.
"It might be an asteroid, but the speed doesn't match. If it were, it would hit that aquatic moon next to our ship, the Elias IIIa, but I don't think that's it."
"How many klicks is this thing moving at?"
"Three point five million," Rui said like he was asking for bread.
Nunes stopped. And, in the same split second, the woman next to him who was whispering with another colleague also stopped, staring at him. The movement was perfectly synchronized, strangely robotic.
"THREE POINT FIVE?!"
… Silence.
The Elias Effect again. His colleague, previously absorbed in her gossip, now had an empty expression on her face, her eyes fixed on Nunes as if he were the source of a low-frequency noise that only she could detect. She didn't even move to resume the conversation.
"Yeah…" Rui glanced around, almost inaudible now with everyone listening. "That's what Franco said…"
"Franco!" Nunes called, loud.
The woman blinked, a single time, and her colleague beside her took a subtle step back, keeping his distance. There was no need to call Franco; he was already paying attention. Everyone was. The silence in the cabin, more than any scream, proved that, in everyone's minds, Nunes had just reacted in a panic to a piece of information he had just invented himself.
"What?" Franco answered.
"What the hell is this?" Nunes laughed, trying to lighten the mood. "Show me the data, come on."
"Alright, sit here…" Franco patted the shoulder of a colleague, who stood and offered the plastic chair.
Nunes thanked him with a nod and sat down on the cold plastic, adjusting his posture.
"Rui said you told him insurgents. That true?"
"Rui?" Franco frowned, but then his eyes widened, as if remembering something. "Oh... right... right. Exactly. The system logged the object at three point five million klicks per hour. ETA five hours."
"…Seventeen point five million klicks out?" Nunes raised a brow, his mind working fast.
"Exactly."
"Klicks…" Nunes tested the word on his tongue, then chuckled. "Why don't you guys just say miles instead of kilometers? Sounds less alien."
Franco smirked without looking up. "Because that's the way the army wants it. Just use it and stop whining."
Nunes leaned closer, lowering his voice in mock theatrics. "WhAaAt the fuuuck is a kilometeeer…?" he whispered, dragging the last word.
Franco ignored him completely.
Nunes exhaled, wiping the back of his hand across his face, as if brushing away the last traces of dried sleep from his nap.
Rui leaned in, resting his hands on Nunes's shoulders.
"And you, big guy?! Would you hook up with an insurgent if you had the chance?"
Nunes took a deep breath.
"What the hell are you talking about, man?" Nunes mumbled, his brow furrowed.
"Yeah, dammit. Now that you're sin—" A cacophony of voices erupted, the syllables tangling into an indecipherable roar. Franco spoke over him. Nunes felt his brain fail to process the double stream of language, as if two radio stations were playing at once.
"Hold on..." Nunes laughed, his gaze shifting between Rui and Franco. "One of you speak first, then the other. You first, Franco."
Franco heard, but did not respond. He just tilted his head, very slowly, like a bird observing a dying insect. His blue eyes narrowed into slits. What Franco saw was not Nunes talking to a friend, but a man alternating his gaze between the wall and his colleague, asking both of them to yield their turn to speak.
"Answer him, Nunes!" Rui poked Nunes on the shoulder.
"What about the central command?" Nunes ignored Rui, turning to Franco. "Do they know about this yet?"
In the corners of the room, the murmuring of other conversations ceased. There wasn't the abrupt stop from before, but rather a slow, gradual sucking of the air. People discreetly turned away; the disbelief on their faces was no longer judgment, but fear. It was the peak of the Valley of the Uncanny—they weren't just watching Nunes have a lapse; they were witnessing a bizarre scene of acute, open delusion.
"We sent a message..." Franco chuckled, his gaze fixed on Nunes. " They said not to worry. Can't be insurgents—only human crew to cross the wormhole so far is us."
"Now answer my question, you blockhead!" Rui gestured with a swift hand movement, and Nunes felt his hair suddenly become ruffled, but without feeling the warmth or pressure of the physical touch.
"CUT IT OUT, DAMN IT!" Nunes pushed Rui away, everyone now silent.
Nunes pushed the air, the nothing, with real force, and the Elias Effect hit the cabin like a shockwave. Franco recoiled slightly in his chair, his hand rising to his own neck in a defensive reflex. The silence that followed wasn't just observational; it was the stunned silence of someone watching a rupture of sanity manifest physically, a vacuum in the corridor where Nunes's violence simply vanished.
"Yell louder… let the neighbors hear!" Rui teased, moving closer again. "And I meant it. Remember that girl, last month?"
"The one I arrested?" Nunes raised a brow.
"Exactly. She was hot. Hot as hell. And she was an insurgent. I just wanted to know that, you know? I think you always wanted to get with one. Talk about being her beck and call. I saw you all... erect with that damn woman!"
"What's the opinion you need from me, Franco?" Nunes ignored him again.
The scent of peppermint now seemed like an anesthetizing fog, allowing Nunes to ignore the silent dread that emanated from every colleague in the room.
"Nunes..." Franco laughed, rubbing the back of his neck as if carefully choosing his words. "No one actually asked for your opinion. You just... stood up and came over. But as long as you know something about ship models..." He opened a screen on the monitor, a kind of 3D model of the distant object. "This looks like a ship. But what about its model? Maybe your inner Rui knows, huh?" Franco stifled a laugh, his voice breaking.
… Nunes focused, narrowing his eyes.
"Would you or wouldn't you?" Rui whispered in his ear, taunting.
"Jesus, man…" Nunes rubbed his temples. "You sound like some sicko! With your cop-and-criminal kink fantasies!"
The colleagues exchanged glances, the only communication being a slow shake of the head. Madness had turned into entertainment.
"But wasn't Laura arrested?" Rui didn't just smile; he gashed his mouth open in a macabre fissure that consumed his face. That wasn't a human smile; it was a living deformity that defied anatomy, a tear too wide, too crude to fit on a normal man's face.
Nunes felt a cold and nauseating shiver run down his spine. Again.
The mood grew heavy like an anvil for a moment.
"Rui…" Nunes growled. "Don't bring her up."
"Alright, alright, Mr. Testosterone," he crossed his arms, pouting. "I'll just watch from here then!"
"P-E-R-F-E-C-T!" Nunes hissed the word, patience gone. "Now let me focus here!"
Franco blinked, slowly. He wondered if Nunes had even heard him before. Nunes's gaze fell again on the hologram that rotated slowly in 360 on the monitor screen.
"Not cops. Our boosters use a different propulsion model." Nunes tapped the screen, circling a section. "And… the core looks off. Like some kind of… irregular pentagon? Not like our vessel."
"Exactly. That's what we thought too," Rui shot back, way too smooth.
Nunes snapped his gaze to him, his eyes narrowed.
"And what's the plan? This smells bad." Nunes continued. "Data purge. Like they wanna test sending a human crew out here and then… eradicate it. No trace."
"People are gearing up," Franco explained. "The ship model shows a docking bay. Compatible with ours. They could dock and just storm in."
"How?! This is space, for Christ's sake. How does a ship moving millions of klicks an hour just show up and INVADE ours?"
"It's simple..." Franco shrugged. "They calculate the time to reach us based on their speed... and it decreases a lot as they get closer. Even though we're also fast. That's it. They slowly attach their ship to ours, right at the docking bay, just like that tense scene where Cooper from Interstellar docks with the ship after the water planet. Except this is real. And the Insurgents are experts at this shit. If it really is them, we're screwed."
"Alright…" Nunes stood. "I'm suiting up too. Vest and all. Tell everyone to stay alert. Seriously."
"Yes, sir!"
Nunes pushed through the curious crowd, heading into another room. Rui trailed behind, a stark contrast to Nunes's towering frame.
"Hey! Big shot, what are you gonna do?"
"Put on a bulletproof vest. Already told the people who needed to know."
"Dude! Slow down, you walk too damn fast!" His breath hitched as he rushed to keep up. "You… really think they're insurgents? Here to kill us? Wipe us out?"
"Exactly. That's exactly what it sounds like."
"And they'd really kill us, big shot? One by one?"
"Don't be stupid. Of course they would! After the government started ordering us to shoot anyone who gave the cops a dirty look, and to kill people just for posting "controversial" shit online, it began controlling the population with an iron fist, you think these guys are just here to hang out?"
"Yeah… kinda like they showed up just to slaughter us, huh?"
"Kinda? Come on. That's literally the whole point, man. The State calls them militias for a reason. Remember the apartment I lived in had like tons of graffiti on the front walls? The assholes had spray-painted nothing but hate against police Officers. Imagine if they had found out I was one? I would have died."
Nunes reached the room, his look already saying what didn't need words: get lost.
"Let me… come in."
"No." Flat.
"Come on, bro! Nobody talks to me except you!"
"Because you never shut up!"
...
"Fine…" Nunes rolled his eyes. And, grudgingly, they went in—the hatch opened with sleek technology.
THUNK! It shut, locking them inside the empty room.
Nunes opened the locker, pulling out a heavy ballistic vest, his face serious.
"So… what if something did happen between you and an insurgent?" Rui teased.
"Jesus Christ…" Nunes chuckled, shaking his head. "Fuck! No. Hell no."
"Not even if… she was hot?"
"Dude, think about it." Nunes strapped the vest tight around his torso. "Why the hell would I hook up with an insurgent? Just because she has a little slit between her legs?! A chick who kills Officers, probably does drugs, I dunno. Probably just a… whore, you know?"
Rui frowned, masking the sting with something professional.
"Uh-huh. Sure."
"And…" Nunes kept going, more at ease now. "As law enforcement, it doesn't add up. We're at war. I'd be her enemy. And you know in war, death doesn't give a damn about gender, right?"
"Of course…" Rui cleared his throat.
"Exactly. Mercy? The only keys I play are on a trigger." He shrugged, testing an AK-47 in his hands, aiming at nothing. "You see a woman on a battlefield, and you feel bad. But she doesn't. She's a target. Death doesn't knock politely. You're just imaging shit!"
"True enough." Rui muttered, too low. "Well, Imagine Dragons—'cause that's what's about to hit your head."
"Imagine Dra—?" Nunes didn't even get to finish.
A single blow to the head.
And everything went black.