Three weeks had now passed. Twenty-one days since he had passed out on the walkway. In that time, the language of these people, which he had simply referred to as "their language," had become deeply ingrained in his mind. He was not entirely fluent in it yet, but he could speak in it, and most importantly, think in it.
He sat at a table in a cafe, the sun warm on his neck. The facts, as he knew them, were that he wasn't dreaming. He wasn't on Earth, and his mother, as he knew her, had gone completely missing. He scratched his head. Across the table from him, Kira and Kemota waited. Four guards stood at a perimeter around the café.
Kira snapped her fingers, bringing his gaze back to hers. "I am here," Umino said.
"Good," said Kemota. He placed a tablet on the table, and a holographic star chart opened up above it. "You have the tools to answer our questions. Now, what was your origin point?"
Umino sighed, the sound itself now shaped by the alien grammar. "I have said it already. My city. My mother. No memory of the journey. I woke up in the white room."
"Before the room," Kira pressed with a softer tone than Kemota's. "The transition?"
"I had...a feeling of falling, silence, and then light."
Kemota's expression was now one of profound disdain. He slammed his fist on the table, temporarily disrupting the star chart. "Bullshit." He manipulated the image, the chart zoomed to a specific solar system. A red trajectory line showed up, a perfect vector from the outer darkness to the world of Almaran. "This is a recorded fact, Umino. For two years, an anomalous object drifted. A biological signature, a single coherent life sign, drifted in the void between planets. No ship. No pod. No suit. Just you. A body, reading as alive, in a hard vacuum. Then it, you, activated. You altered the course. You survived atmospheric entry and carved a trench through the sky gardens and cratered the stone in the plaza, directly in the center of the damn city. You were found naked, unconscious, and without a single scorch mark on your body."
"I-," before Umino could even attempt to explain, Kemota continued. "I don't want to hear the same story for the third time. You are a being of unknown origin and intent. Hell, we still don't even know what you are. Out of the hundreds of thousands of species in the stars, you aren't one of them. So, what are you, and why did you come here?"
Umino stared, not at the star chart, but through it now. The "feeling of falling" was no longer abstract. It was a memory of two years in the airless, freezing dark. Of his body, somehow, enduring it. Of becoming a living projectile aimed at the heart of a city. He looked at his own hands, turning them over. They looked normal. They felt normal. Was he normal…?
Kira's voice cut through his spiraling mind. "Listen. Every scan we have run defies known biology. Your cellular structure is...familiar, yet it operates on principles we cannot understand. You breathe our air. You eat our food. But you also survived an environment that annihilates almost all forms of life. That makes you, Umino, the single greatest puzzle this world has ever encountered.
Umino met Kemota's furious gaze, his own voice hollow. "You are asking me what I am," he said slowly, "But you have seen my body survive what yours cannot. You have the data, and I only have a feeling of falling. So, you tell me. What does your science say I am?"
The crimson strands of Kemota's hair began to stir. At their tips, tiny, wisping embers of crimson fire began to glow and detach, floating upward like sparks from a forge. The heat radiating from them distorted the air above his shoulder.
"Science," Kemota hissed, "says you are an abnormality. Now, I will ask you one last time. What are you, and why did you come?" His hand, resting on the table, began to glow a vibrant, dangerous red. The skin at his knuckles seemed to ripple, the bones subtly shifting, his fingers elongating and hardening into sharp talons. They scored faint, smoking lines into the table's surface.
Kira shot to her feet, her chair scraping on the stone. "Kemota, what do you think you're about to do?!"
"Calm down, you act like I'm going to kill or something. I'm just upset. Reasonably so, 'cause this idiot doesn't know anything." The talons retracted, the glow in his hand dying out. The embers in his hair deflated and winked into nothingness. He let out a long, heavy sigh, the terrifying aura dissipating as quickly as it had come. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, his expression shifting from one of rage to one of profound and weary frustration.
"This is looking quite intense. Mind if I join in?"
All heads turned around. The guards who had been standing watch dropped into bows or salutes. A man stood at the entrance to the patio. He was tall, dressed in a tunic similar to Umino's. His hair was a close-cropped gray, and his face was calm. He did not look old, but he carried an age of authority in his posture. A pin was fastened over his chest. A miniature galaxy with five highlighted areas.
"Kira, Kemota, good day to you both." He said while nodding towards the two of them. "Although, you, Kemota, this isn't what I expected from you. I heard you all the way from outside. Your fervor is noted, but your methods at this time are counterproductive.
He stopped before their table, and pulled out an empty chair. He sat down, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. "So, this is our mystery guest?" He said while gesturing towards Umino.
"Yes, Kaelith," Kira said, giving a nod. "Umino Daichi. A boy who claims to have come from a planet called Earth."
Umino looked Kaelith up and down, unsure of how to react to him.
Kaelith chuckled, "Relax. You've had a rougher few weeks than most." What I came here to say was…" Kaelith glanced at the still-smoking gouges on the table from Kemota's talons. "Getting a little heated over the debrief, were we?"
"He has no answers," Kemota grumbled. His earlier fury had now cooled to a simmer.
"He might not have the ones you want," Kaelith corrected him. He looked back at Umino, taking a deep breath. "Let me be clear. You're an Anomaly. My friends here," he said as he gestured to Kira and Kemota, "are right to be concerned. You exist where you should not, and that alone makes you something that we cannot simply ignore. Entire systems have collapsed because of less."
He leaned forward slightly. "But between you and me? I've seen a lot of threats, Armadas, Plagues. You don't really feel like one of those. You just feel like a guy who took a really, really wrong turn."
Umino finally found his voice. "...I don't mean to be a problem."
"And I believe you," Kaelith said with a shrug. "But belief isn't policy, Umino. The fact is, you're here. And you're…unique. That means we have to go through the motions, run the tests, and ask the annoying questions. It's necessary that we do so."
"So…what happens to me?" Umino asked.
"For now? You'll keep on learning, and we'll keep studying you. You'll be moved to some more comfortable quarters in the Enclave. It'll be less 'science and interrogation,' and more of a 'guest suite'. You'll have access to our archives and our culture. Consider it…an extended, but involuntary cultural exchange program. The goal here isn't to lock you up. It's to understand you. And hopefully, for you to understand us. Hell, maybe you'll even find a place here where you can belong."
Kaelith stood up and smoothed out his tunic. "Kira here will handle the transition to your new quarters…and Kemota, please try not to damage any more furniture. Next time, it'll come directly out of your paycheck." He gave an appraising look at Umino. "Welcome to Almaran, Umino Daichi."
With a final nod, Kaelith turned around and strolled away, blending back into the city's flow as easily as he appeared.
"...just who was that?" Umino asked.
"That man is Kaelith. He is the System Representative for this part of the galaxy. He is the leader for over ten dozen planets, including this one, Almaran," responded Kira. "I'm surprised he was here. Maybe he was taking a break from work."
Kemota sighed. "He definitely only came here to see Umino. He has no other reason to skip out on his duties."
"Well," Kira said, "You heard him. Let's get you moved."