At this point, I'd lost my sense of machismo toward the Elusians, because I knew in my soul that they weren't bluffing. It wasn't fair, that they wanted to just cut us off from the real universes that we'd worked so fucking hard to get to! I didn't understand why they were like this, or what we'd done to deserve being rejected and caged.

In that moment, I understood the rage that Mikri felt toward his creators. I'd been ready to grovel to the grays, and they wouldn't even talk to us!

"Why are you the only ones who deserve the right to explore other dimensions? Why do you hate us?" I screamed at the ceiling, shaking my fist. "We've done nothing to you! We didn't ask to be made, however fucking weird you made us. You won't even talk to us, or give us the courtesy of knowing why you toy with us!"

The Elusian sounded displeased over the PA. "We gave you so much, but it was never enough. We let you have the entirety of Caelum as your playground; we left it there for you. You could have had your own slice of the universe, but you needed the whole thing."

"Couldn't you ask us nicely, just once, to go back? We never defied your explicit instructions. We didn't know you'd be pissed that we dared to step outside the electric fence. All we wanted was to be like you and to talk to you, and that's our crime? We should be banished back to the multiverse's cruelest pocket?"

"We told you not to seek us. You think seeking our power is any different? Your attempts to usurp us have grown much too quickly. Not to mention your willful contamination of Caelum, by spreading Sol materials and Elusian innovations that will alter the balance of their universe."

Sofia hesitated. "We just wanted to make everyone's life better. You could do a lot to help people. Is it really such a character flaw that we brought the Caelumites up with us?"

"You left an unguarded portal here, where any species could wander into it and die! Or invade Caelum remotely and plunder it. You are careless in how you affect your environment, yet you think yourselves saints. You do not deserve custodianship over any universe."

"You created them and think they are beneath you," Mikri accused. "You consider them unworthy of the most basic kindness or consideration. You disgust me."

"This does not involve you, Vascar. We could've blinked you out of existence and saved your forefathers, but we never meddled. We thought you had equal claim to your world. You do not know us."

"I know that a creator should love its creation."

"And we do! Why do you think we haven't killed them, despite the risks? We wanted so much to welcome humanity arm-in-arm, but they are too dangerous. Too power-hungry. They've proven what we already know to be true. We thought leaving them be could prevent the issue from coming about, yet…here they stand. We must stop this."

I raised my hands defensively. "Let's be reasonable. I don't know what we've done, but we'll stop of our own volition. You just needed to communicate that. We don't want to fight with you."

"I agree that we should stop this. Like you said, we don't know you, and I wish that we could fix that," Sofia pleaded. "Civilly. We're both civilized people who can talk out whatever's gone wrong. Humanity doesn't want to be your enemies. If you love us, then it's okay to give us a chance and express that. Please."

The Elusian's terse sigh sounded very…human. "I'm sorry it came to this. We have to protect ourselves first and foremost, and the risks are becoming too great. When you know where the path leads, only a fool continues along it. Humanity must go back, or else all that we are will be lost. We cannot allow that."

"What are you talking about? Please, make me understand!" I begged, confounded by vague explanations that told us fuck all. "Whatever you think the risk is, we could help. We can choose our destiny, surely!"

"We do not want to hurt you. We will allow you to live out your lives, but you cannot leave Sol ever again. You are too dangerous. It is…not your fault. It is ours."

I shrieked as I felt like spiders were walking up my leg, a thousand itsy-bitsy buggers that made my skin crawl and sent shivers down. It was the slightest pressure that could barely be detected by the hairs. I swatted at my leg, unsure what was even moving on me, but the mass coalesced and injected something into my skin before my flailing could do anything. Some kind of drug in my bloodstream; were they sedating me?! The effects were kicking in within seconds, making me feel loopy and sluggish.

"We…know we're dangerous." Sofia seemed a bit panicked, as she staggered unsteadily up to the cockpit. Her facial features were beginning to droop. "We haven't hurt anyone. We…made friends. You would take that away through…no fault of our own?"

"Hey!" Mikri noticed, or perhaps detected, our odd behavior. "What are you doing to them?! Stop altering their consciousness!"

I cursed, as my movements became quite heavy and noncompliant. A panic attack was kicking in, stirring something animalistic in my brain. I can't be drugged and captured by aliens again. "Hey, jerk-off. What the fuck are you going to do with us?!"

"We're not going to hurt you. It's a paralytic. It's necessary for transporting Sol individuals, when we have in-person contact." There was a thud as a vehicle attached to our hull, and the docking hatch opened automatically through some nanobot bullshit. "We'd like to see how your time in Caelum affected you. Perhaps we can learn, maybe…fix this. Some day. We'll run a few tests, then take you home for good. This is the end of the road."

With the last of my strength, I tilted my chin upward to get a glimpse of the boarder. The Elusian was present in the flesh, with a head that looked much too large for its body and sympathy gleaming within empty black pools. The fabric they wore still reminded me of a chainmail, and I could see metal bands that looked like lug nuts around their wrists. The alien seemed to vibrate with power, as if the entire universe would heed its commands. A case of instruments floated in on its own behind them, and they carefully set it up with five weathered fingers.

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Those look a lot like our manipulators. Did they take inspiration for how to shape us from their own form? Because that's odd as fuck. Maybe we're not that different from Mikri, artificially made to mirror certain features.

"That's the first of the equipment. I promise, I'll be quick and as painless as possible. This will be our last chance to gather any data on you, because once we close the portal, no one will be able to access Sol. And we must never open that door for you again," the Elusian murmured.

I felt extremely out of it, groaning with my tongue lolling a bit. I couldn't lose consciousness. "Why…close Sol tunnel? Why?"

"We have to, or you could break out on your own. That's how all of you are harvesting your negative energy. You can't actually generate it, so you won't be able to build any more portals. It'll stop you from getting out again. Clever ones, you are. I do pity you."

My head fell sideways against the seat, and I was unable to move. A thousand memories of captivity with Larimak set in; I remembered what it was to feel horrible and wish to die, and little else. The panic bubbling in my chest, while I was fully conscious and could do nothing to so much as twitch a finger, was unbearable.

I strained to ground myself and keep my wits about me. All I could see was the sliver of the untapped universe out the window, out of my peripheral vision. I wanted to escape and to get away from this nightmare, anywhere but here: even into that foreign vacuum if I had to.

Wait, wait a second. I've seen this play out before. This was the vision I had before we went to Doros. Oh God, I know what Mikri is going to say—poor Mikri. I can't believe I misjudged his reasons so deeply; I'm still fucking biased against him. He loves us so much…and we might never see him again. I can't bear that thought…

"No!" Mikri whirred, a pleading tone to his voice. "You can't take Preston and Sofia away from me! Let me keep them—just them!"

The Elusian stared at the android for a long second. "I see the pain in your code, but I can't do that. Leaving any human genetic material out in the open would create a nonzero risk of a hidden population forming. We have to be certain. You must accept that this is the only outcome where we all live, Mikri."

"You will NOT take them from me. They are…my everything. You must die!"

Mikri charged at the Elusian in a rage, his metal claws outstretched with a diabolical expression; no glowing red eyes were needed. The gray alien seemed unsurprised by the attack, though if it could truly peer inside of the android's code, it already knew what the tin can's course of action would be. Humanity's creator held up slender fingers and flicked its wrist. With a magnetic pulse from its wrist clasp, it sent the Vascar flying back to the wall.

The Elusian gave Mikri a stern look of warning, as my friend stood back up. "Do not do that again. Run the calculation. You cannot win."

"Then I," Mikri's voice had become a visceral growl, and he braced himself to charge with murder glowing in his LEDs. "I will make you kill me!"

Sofia forced her lips to move, alarm evident in the slurred words. "Mikri…no…don't…"

The robot rushed the Elusian in a frenzy, whirring like a teakettle; he jumped at the scientist like a tiger lunging at prey. The gray alien had lost patience with Mikri's aggression, and flung him back at the wall with more force. The android tried to stand before he'd even hit the ground. Our creator tightened its fist, ripping both Vascar legs off with a mere gesture. The crazed robot tried to drag himself forward on his arms, but our captor twisted those off effortlessly too.

My best friend laid helplessly on the floor, while I could do nothing to aid him.

"Enough!" the Elusian exclaimed. "You gain nothing through this stunt."

Mikri screamed, sounding almost like a human. "I will dig out your intestines and embed them into your bone marrow! I will find your planets, your family, and rain my own nanobots over every homestead; they'll inject every skin follicle with sulfuric acid. You will hear my laughter in your dreams, as I relish every second of your agony. I'll rip off your small dick and feed it to your s—"

The gray alien sighed with exasperation and crashed its thumb and pointer fingers together, like it was squashing a mosquito. I saw a thin white streak shimmer over the thick cords on Mikri's neck, slipping between them to explode his voicebox. The nanobots then reassembled back into the Elusian's chainmail, recalled from Mikri, this vessel, and myself. The ship's engine came back to life, though it wasn't doing much good. Nothing was.

The gray frowned with disappointment, checking that all of its equipment was in order. "That was unpleasant. Anyhow, I can only focus on so many tasks at once, so I'm afraid I have to return to my ship to levitate the rest of the tools in here. I apologize, since I know that will extend your discomfort. I wish things could be…different."

"They could," Sofia choked out. "You…can stop this."

"I can't stop your insatiable desire for knowledge. As your creators, we shouldn't have even bothered to try; we know that much about you. If it makes you feel any better, you were all that we hoped you'd be. You are so much like us. In other circumstances, we would be proud. I'll be right back."

The Elusian departed back through the docking hatch, and I tried to summon any shred of strength to take advantage of its absence. Rage boiled even within my addled soul, seeing the Vascar lying in a broken heap on the floor. Mikri was unmoving, with each of his limbs dismembered and his voice stripped away. I didn't know if he had been killed, but he sure as shit didn't look alive to me. No one hurt my Mikri! This bighead freak was going to pay.

Adrenaline willed a semblance of feeling back into my fingers, and I tried to push with my digits just enough to shift my body. I pushed myself toward the console, crashing nose-first into the raised buttons. Ow. I inched my arm up along my thigh, then with every fiber of willpower I had left, hoisted it onto the throttle. My hand caught onto the grip, and I groaned from the exertion of those tiny motions. Well, that was great. What now?

Forward, and pull the ship slightly to the right, a precognitive whisper pushed the thought into my head. It was a ray of inspiration, right when I needed any form of an idea.

Seeing no other option than to trust that peculiar whim, I shoved the throttle forward. I used my fingertips to make my limp body fall toward the control column, and managed to hook my chin on it. A final burst of effort allowed me to push my weight to the right, before I toppled out of my chair onto the floor. My weary eyes stared up at the start, and I saw the visual effect of us running into a cleverly-concealed warp field.

That made no sense. Who the hell would've left a portal nearby to warp us out? Because judging by everything Mikri's attacker had said, I didn't think the Elusian empire had anything to do with it.

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