Lightning wasn't given a chance to open the door to her office, when she heard Amodar behind her.

"Farron, come with me." His voice was sharp and demanding. That wasn't a good sign.

"Yes, sir." When she was following him, bad feelings started to grow in her. She wondered if he found out about her 'cooperation' with Hope. That would be impossible. Believing Hope, they didn't do anything yet so why did Amodar called her. Maybe he found out that she wasn't going to stop 'sticking a nose into not her business'. But how? She was almost sure she wasn't followed by anyone and that day, when they were in the ruins, Fang also seemed to be without her tail. She wondered if keeping in contact with Fang was enough for the intelligence agency to take some actions against her. Then she stiffened and blushed a bit when it occurred to her that someone could see them this morning. The door were closed behind her and she was asked to sit down. Amodar did the same with a long sigh.

"I've had not quite pleasant visit today." That's how it starts... "There was very angry manager of HR section and I had to justify you." That was... surprising. "She told you took so many extra hours this month that it'd be cheaper to employ another person than pay you all of them…" She thought that nothing can surprise her but this one did. There were worst scenarios gathered in her head and the reason happened to be so trivial that she didn't know what to say. "Farron, are you listening?"

"Yes, sir. I'll reduce the amount of them in next month." She said eventually but it didn't seem to be enough.

"Six extra hours for a month. No more." This was quite extreme reduction but she'd have to live through that. Lately she had more 'activities' than usually so maybe it wouldn't be as terrible as she'd have thought a few weeks ago.

"Understood." Her boss still didn't finished.

"And one more issue. Your holiday in arrears. You're taking a leave from now for at least a weak."

"But, sir…" She tried to protest but wasn't given a chance.

"No objections. I didn't want to force you but you left me no choice. Anyway I think it would be good for you. You seem to be stressed up lately."

"That's nothing. I can…"

"No, you can't." His firm answer finished the topic. "So I think you can leave now. I have some work to do. Have a nice vacation and see you next week."

"Thank you, sir. Goodbye."

Lightning went out the room. Indeed there were some positives in the information about her vacation but there was still one thing she had to do. She entered her office quite stealthily, turn her computer on and run the file from her pendrive. Then she heard a knocking and the door opened wide showing the silhouette of her boss.

"Farron! What the hell are you still doing here?!" Right then he was quite furious with her but she saw out of the corner of her eye that the files were still being unpacked. If he finds out now it'll be end of my career… hell, I'll end up in jail… what with Serah… she wouldn't manage alone… and what with Fang… Heat started to built up in her but her face was still her typical calm, cold, unshakable stone. She was well-trained in keeping her composure. There was only one person who could destroy her efforts with a single word, glance or smile…

"I needed to take some things from my office if I'm going to be absent."

"Especially from your computer I see." He looked suspiciously. Luckily he wasn't able to see the screen, which was still crowded with a continuously changing numbers, from the place he was standing.

"I only wanted to…"

"Take your work home." He facepalmed himself. "You're impossible Farron…" She looked down with a mocking guilt. This one worked quite well. She heard some greetings from behind Amodar's back and he turned for a while. Computer screen came back to normal so she took the pendrive and tucked it into her pocket just before commander looked at her again.

"No working home. Rest up. Do something fun! Loosen up a little bit! It'd be good for you." He hesitated for a moment. "Hand me your badge and gun."

"But Sir!" That was a low blow! She protested very vividly but his mind seemed to be made.

"It's for your own good."

"There is no need…" She wasn't going to throw in the sponge but he silenced her with a move of his hand.

"No discussion." Lightning gave up eventually and put her gun and badge on the desk, looking at him angrily but saying nothing more. "And get out of here." They both left a room. Sergeant closed it with a key and started to walk towards exit when heard his voice again. "Don't forget to leave your key in the reception." She bit a lip to contain her snap and said in an icy tone.

"Yes, Sir."

"Have a nice day, Farron." She heard his quiet laugh but decided to ignore it. I can't believe it! He kicked me out!


Fang was sitting on the ground and poking the pile of dirt with a tiny stick. Her face was totally absent-minded and she seemed to not notice anything in her surroundings. Someone stopped in front of her and a sweet voice dragged her back to the ground.

"Fang?" She looked up on the smaller pinkhead and get up on her feet.

"Hi Serah."

"Are you waiting for Lightning?" Serah looked concerned but Fang laughed under her breath.

"I…huh… I don't know." Both of them were rather confused at that moment. They turned towards the cause of louder and louder barking. White fur ball was rushing in their direction waging its tail happily. "Hey ya', big guy!" Fang crouched to pet the puppy what made him even more happy. "Ya' ve grown a bit since last time I saw ya." She wasn't given a chance to play with it anymore because of large grasshopper which caught all puppy's attention. It started to run after the jumping insect but was failing badly in his efforts of caching it.

"Seems like he'll be a great hunter one day." Serah giggled quietly. " And that's truth, he grows extremely fast. I don't know how big he'll be."

"He has big paws, can be pretty big. I didn't expect to see him there again."

"Lightning let him stay. She even gave him a name! I thought she'd never let us have a dog. She can be so surprising sometimes."

"Yeah… so surprisin'." Told Fang looking in the sky with languorous smile. Serah quirked her brow watching her closely.

"Fang… are you okay?"

"Yeah… naah… heh… I don't know." There was a short moment of silence in which brunette gathered her thoughts. "Can I ask ya somethin'?"

"Okaay."

"Lightnin' isn't home. She went to her work about an hour ago, am I right?"

"Yes." Gentle smile appeared on Fang's face. "Why did you ask?" Small pinkhead didn't get the answer but instead another question came.

"Is she… a sleepwalker or somethin' like that?" Serah's brows rose to the roots of her hair. This one was… surprising a lot.

"Noo… That's truth, she doesn't have enough sleep and sometimes looks like a zombie but she is always aware of everything. I wonder how she does it."

"And she doesn't have any mental problems, does she? Like split personality and so on?"

"I don't think so." Serah shake her head with an amusement.

"Maybe you should ask me if you have any further inquiries." The icy cold voice reverberated from behind them. They both broke out into a cold sweat and turned their heads slowly only to meet her angry gaze.

"Hey Light…" Fang started to laugh nervously. "Didn't mother taught you it's rude to eavesdrop?" She told with mocking accusation in her tone but it didn't have the expected effect. Lightning stiffened. Her jaw and fists clenched, her widened eyes were piercing a hole in Fang. Then her gaze jumped to Serah and shifted to more apologizing. Brunette punched herself mentally and started to swear in her head. "I'm sorry… I didn't…"

"Not your fault. You couldn't know." Said Lightning but her voice lacked reassurance… lacked anything. Her eyes were locked on some distant object. Grim silence appeared and none of them dared to break it. No one except Odin who had just run up to greet the sergeant. Or rather to greet the laces of her shoes.

"Odin, stop it! Sit down!" She growled at the playful puppy and that's what he did. Looked up and sat, still waging his tail.

"What?!" Serah's shout startled a bit both women. " I was trying to teach him that for ages! He never listens to me! Always too occupied by playing around. Then you appear out of nowhere say a command once and he suddenly plays obedient, perfect dog. Look at him, he's been sitting still for.. a minute now."

"Serah…. "Fang taped her on a shoulder "I think that gettin' this look once is enough for a life time. Etro! I suppose that's enough for her to say 'drop your guns' and criminals obediently handcuff themselves and get in line to the prison."

"I can deal with criminals…" Light's tone was serious but after a moment one of her lip's corner turned gently up. "It'd be better if the paperwork started to do itself under this look." That was somethin new for Serah. Observing her sister joking about herself with someone... not long after the mention of their parents.

"Nah. It doesn't work like that. The papers won't be scared of bein' frozen but who knows…" Her voice became more tempting. "We can work on the fire in your eyes." Pnkhead's throat went dry on the thought but she caught a glimpse of her sister's grin and knew she had to change the topic at once.

"Anyway, why are you still here? Except of asking my sister stupid questions."

"Hey, the questions weren't stupid. Ya left me quite confused. At first I thought it was only a dream but what was I supposed to think? Your face was the first thing I saw after awakenin'."

"Fang…" Lightning tried to interrupt her, feeling that the conversation heads towards the topic she wouldn't like to discuss in the company of her sister, but it didn't work.

"And then, out of nowhere, ya…"

"Fang!" Unhappily for Serah, the shout managed to stop the flow of words. However all what she heard and the reaction of her slightly blushed sister didn't left a lot of space for her imagination.

"You seem to be really good in doing things out of nowhere, sis." She giggled then and turned with an intention to go back. "I'll leave you two alone."

"No need for that. Fang is very tired after her night shift so she will go to bed now."

"Huh, Sunshine… I didn't think ya would be so fast with that but how could I refuse ya?"

"Stop fooling around. You know what I meant." She rolled her eyes trying to contain her blush from spreading.

"Yeah, I caught the suggestion. I'll go home."

"I have something to do now but call me when you get up."

"Anyway why are you back so early?"

"Tch… They forced me to take a few days off." She looked resentful but the two women started to laugh.

"I should've guessed. That's so like you, sis."

Lightning shrugged and looked at a bored but still sitting Odin. "Come." She indicated the door with her head and started to walk with a proud dog jogging slowly next to her.

"No way!" She heard her sister's whining and smirked to herself making sure to look badass from behind but then Serah said something more. "You're showing off because of Fang!" She stopped for half a second and made the last three steps in hurry. After closing the door behind her, she narrowed her eyes. Being betrayed by her own sister… she would have to remember that. Her glance stopped at Odin who was waiting expectedly.

"Good boy. You deserved some dog cookies."

When Lightning contacted with Hope everything was already finished. She had an access to everything she needed but didn't have a lot of time. Despite Hope's great efforts there was still probability of being detected. Fortunately browsing through the sorted files didn't turned out to be the most difficult task in her life. She found what she was looking for quite quickly but it disappointed her greatly. Full rapport was very brief. Accidental gas explosion was to be the cause of all that mess. There was almost no specific information. Not a word about any Pulsian. The document made it all look like an accident in Sci-Lore Company magazines. No-more, no-less. She couldn't doubt it more. Typical accident wouldn't be classified. Not even a mention of any intelligence business. She tried to look for some more issues with the Sci-Lore Company in the database but found nothing. The whole thing was totally not worth the effort. She disconnected. At least I know who rented the magazines. Browsing the internet was her only option. She didn't remember ever hearing about this company so she didn't have big expectations this time. However the internet surprised her again. It was bursting at the steams with various information. There was a lot of articles in the science magazines. All about their researches, newest discoveries and achievements. It seemed to have very wide range of activity in the field of bio-technology. There was one very important detail which connected all the articles. Almost all of them were from over ten years ago. It looked like the company had been developing rapidly, getting awards and a lot of sponsors, and suddenly stopped in its heyday. There was one article about massive layoffs. Dozens of people were made redundant. The company was to have some financial problems but even an author of the article didn't quite buy that. There was real shitstorm in local media. Massive amount of unfavorable and sometimes hostile comments from both ex-workers and sponsors. After that Sci-Lore almost completely disappeared from press and any public life but didn't stop to exist. It still presented some minor achievements from time to time. With every year company was less and less active until everyone forgot about its existence. However it was still registered as a functioning business entity. That was highly suspicious. Its website wasn't updated for years and the official address, which could be find there, was out-of-date. Ghost company, intelligence, Fang… from Pulse… There was nothing accidental here. She started to be afraid what she could find out.

Gathering all the information took her a few hours but she couldn't find out anything more. She needed Hope's help again. There was no other way than to dig up all their dirt.


Lights in the room were dimmed but it was hard to overlook the wealth which was pouring out from every detail. Every furniture looked like from antique royal collection. Mahogany and crimson seemed to be main theme. In the massive armchair was sitting impatient man. His fingers were tapping on the dark wood when the quiet knocking reverberated through the room and someone came in.

"You are late."

"I'm sorry, sir. I have some valuable information."

"To the point."

"Nabaat's theory wasn't wrong. It seems like coming back to 'normal' life stimulates her episodic memory. I suppose some events from her past can be resembling to the ones she experiences now. It's the cause of high emotional reaction which gives her determination to develop the feeling of familiarity to more conscious recollection. Maybe we didn't messed her medial temporal lobe up as much as we thought. We weren't able to initiate the regeneration in lab conditions but I'm almost sure her organism had already started it and will fix her up eventually. Though it can take time and we have another problem.

"What is it?"

"She is on the path to develop close relationship with some policewoman... Sergeant Lightning Farron. "

"Police snooping around is the last thing we would want. Especially after recent… accident."

"I know. I'm not sure if that's good or not but I found out she took a leave today."

"What is the possibility that we could patch the Pulsian up here?"

"Fifty-fifty."

"We don't want unnecessary risk especially that we have the other one. Take her back."

"Yes, sir."

"If Farron gets in the way, take care of her."