[you're lying, Nai.] Lying to himself, and lying to Zash. He loved Rem, too. He's trying to, to, to pretend it was okay. It wasn't. [why, Nai? why...?]

"You have to be wondering what she's hiding, too."

"But we could just ask. We shouldn't be here."

He doesn't know what it is about this room but it just—feels—awful. It's in theory just a research lab, but...

Yeah. But.

He taps away at the console because he knows they can find something here, he just knows it, and...

...he doesn't have the passcode. Damnit, he knew they were hiding something, but—

Zash does. Have the passcode, that is.

...oh. Of course he does. Charmed the pants off the humans and...

...thank you, Zash.

[love you, little brother]

Okay, classified projects, one by one until...

"Project Code: Type-T," he says aloud. The first page is... a file on him. Name and height and weight and date of birth and... "Category: Independent Plant."

And another page on Zash, identical except for the picture and the name.

But Zash spots the little triangle over Nai's shoulder. "There's another page...?"

"Name: Tesla." Born fifty years before the twins. Also an Independent Plant. "Status: Frozen."

When he inputs the command to access the evidence file, the lighting in the room turns red and various floor panels in the middle of the room get detached and start going up, revealing numerous glass tanks underneath.

And inside them...

...what is...

...that's a torso.

That's a head.

Those are. Eyes.

The door to the lab opens and a woman runs in, looking panicked. "—Zash! Nai! Zash, what happened to Nai, why is he—" And then she notices Tesla's body. "Oh my God." She immediately runs to the twins to try to shield them from the sight.

Zash wraps his arms around her and hugs her tight and shuts his eyes tighter, no no no no this isn't happening this isn't happening that didn't happen but he can hear her he can hear her waking up and she's in pain she's in so much pain—

And Nai is just... sitting there. Unresponsive. Staring at the vats and not moving a muscle, not reacting, barely even breathing.

Barely even thinking.

When Zash wakes up, he is not lying on the sand, and he is not dead.

He's handcuffed, though, and while he's on something that could be considered a bed, it's a bit makeshift. And... there are people arguing.

"He's just a kid, Brad!"

"Oh, yeah, because we had a ton of those on the ships. Oh wait! No there weren't. Whatever is going on with this kid is against every single regulation in the book, at least, and all of the ships failing at once? Probably hostile action. So yeah, I want to question him instead of cooing over how he's small and cute and just a kid, he probably knows something about what happened!"

"I'm not against questioning him, but have some damned empathy! How bad are we if we find a kid who's near death and just immediately start shaking him down for everything he knows??"

The boy stirs and pulls his knees in to his chest to hug them.

"Better than being dead because we got blindsided by another hostile --"