Disclaimer: Okie, I don't own anything in this story except that characters Mae, Mark, the unknown dude (the one Sheryl Talks to), Sheryl, Candie, Amy and Kaci.

Summary of last chapter:

Mae, the new Vector employee was seriously injured in the Encephalon dive.

Chapter 2: The beginning of the end?

"Do you think we were to hard for her on her first day?" Chief Winnicot asked the other KOS-MOS project workers.

"I think she deserved it, being injured in the Dive. That's so pathetic! She could of just healed herself or something!" Sheryl yelled.

"Sheryl! There was no time for Miss Takakashii to heal herself! As soon as KOS-MOS used her special weaponry, Mark was diving through to get her out! If she stayed in there any longer, we would have a dead girl on our hands!" Chief Winnicot was red in the face, and everyone could tell Sheryl was going to get it.

"But she said she dived before in training!" Sheryl protested.

"Has she dived before with KOS-MOS, or any other life threatening being? No!" Shion put her arm on Kevin's shoulder, to tell him to stop.

"Fighting wont get us anywhere!" Shion said.

"Shion, your right." Kevin stepped away from Sheryl.

"Im sorry to say, but because of your actions, Im going to have to assign you research duty in the other lab." Sheryl gasped.

"NOW!" She muttered some cuss words, left, and as soon as the door swished closed, everyone cheered.

"Chief! Chief! Chief! Who is our man? Kevin is! WOOOOT!" Chief Winnicot waved them off. Everyone stopped when the door opened to reveal Mae.

"Hey," she muttered. She looked around and a sigh of relief waved over her as she saw that Sheryl wasn't there.

"How is your arm?" Mark rushed up to Mae and examined her arm.

"The Realian said that my arm had 3rd degree burns and such. The nanomachines shot healed my arm, but it feels different."

"It looks like a Realians arm," Fredric said. Mae raised one eyebrow.

"A realian arm? I assure you that this is my arm!"

"I think they said someone by the name of Wilhelm payed for the operation, and about the whole Realian thing, im not sure." Everyone gasped.

"Sir Wilhelm?" Shion yelled. Everyone began to talk among themselves while Mae moved her fingers to make sure they were working correctly. She sighed.

"I never knew it was going to end up like this," she whispered.

"It would be over 10000,00000 Gs just to even think about having that kind of surgery!" Fredric yelled.

"I don't think that's even a number," Shion protested.

"Who cares what they did as long as she's okay?" Mark asked frustrated. Mae heard him and blushed.

"Okay, we need to work on KOS-MOS today. Everyone to their stations!" Chief Winnicot yelled. Mae walked sheepishly up to him.

"I don't have a station," she whispered. Chief Winnicot led her over to a station right next to KOS-MOS, where he would usually sit.

"I have to run some errands. I need you to watch over KOS-MOS' mainframe. It is the most important of all. Shion right behind you is watching to, just in case. If anything goes wrong, Shion should be able to help you." Chief Winnicot ran out.

Kevin and Wilhelm

Kevin ran into the U.M.N room and opened a connection with Wilhelm.

"Nice to see you again Kevin," Wilhelm said with his infamous suave voice.

"Good to see you again to." Kevin replied.

"How is Miss Takakashii doing with her new arm? It should be working superbly." Kevin shook his head.

"What? A new arm? She said it was her old one!" Wilhelm grinned.

"You will understand soon enough. Now, do you remember the plan?" He asked. Kevin nodded.

"It wont be long before the new one awakens, then the other one will. I hope it turns out according to the 'Compass of Order."

"Is it safe to talk about this on the U.M.N?" Kevin asked.

"I would hope so. Until next time." Wilhelm closed the connection and Kevin sighed.

"Why does he act so, cryptic?"

Back with Mae (Mae's point of view)

I hope it was okay to lie about diving all the time in training. I just took a course on it in High School, that's all really. I wonder where Chief Winnicot went. I want to go see KOS-MOS. Oh poo, I need to stop talking to myself in my head. I looked at the screen one more time and got up to go look at KOS-MOS.

"Is it possible to take the bindings off?" I asked. Shion nodded.

"Today we need to do some tests to make sure. And I need to do some more programming on her mainframe, here move over," Shion went over to my- I mean Chief Winnicot's terminal and she typed something in.

"I added you to the list of Vector Employees. I don't know why the Director hadn't already." Shion sighed and I chuckled.

"Is it important to add me on that list?" Shion nodded.

"Her objective is to protect Vector Employees!" I nodded.

"Ive been meaning to ask you a question about your arm." Shion said. I nodded.

"Did it hurt, I mean having them renew dead cells and tissues that were burnt off." I shook my head.

"No, I was sedated so I didn't feel anything. The only new thing I feel is that it feels, stronger in a way." Shion gave me an uncertain look, took out her connection gear, and typed something in it. The bindings on KOS-MOS' bed opened and revealed steam. I gasped as I saw this, unknown thing in the pod.

"That's not what she looked like in the Encephalon! She had the same hair, but she was wearing blue!" Shion looked at me strangely.

"It showed her on our monitor like that." I shrugged it off and I admired her amazing beauty, and craftsman ship.

"Kevin is the only one who knows every little thing about KOS-MOS. I don't even know half of what he knows." I was beginning to feel strange things about KOS-MOS that I didn't feel before when I joined this project. I was scared of working on her, as if something bad was going to happen. I shook off this notation and went back to work on debugging her system. While I was I was in the middle of working, I heard a loud crash of thunder and the lights went out. I looked down at KOS-MOS and I was sure I saw something glow!

"Whoa, it must be a bad storm to take out our 13 generators!" Fredric stated. Candie and Amy started to cry.

"We don't like no storms!" I leaned over to Shion and said, "Just make sure they don't put any of their vocabulary in KOS-MOS," and she burst out laughing. It felt good just sitting there in the dark, laughing with my new friends. We started telling ancient old ghost stories when I got to a part where the monster comes into the room and Chief Winnicot rushed in and made us all scream, even the guys.

"Im sorry I took so long!" He rushed over to a chair and fell down into it.

"Kevin! Are you okay? Did you run all the way here? Your to old for that!" With that comment from Shion, everyone died laughing. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't breath. The lights came back on, and a small, "Aww!" escaped my lips.

"You opened KOS-MOS' bed without me?" Chief Winnicot asked surprised. Shion nodded.

"We had a scheduled maintence today."

"I know Shion! Nevertheless, your not supposed to use that for anything Shion, I thought you knew that!" Kevins face was red and Shion looked like she was going to cry.

"Its was my fault!" I yelled. "I wanted to see KOS-MOS!" He looked at me, then at Shion.

"Im so sorry Shion for yelling at you." She smiled and they hugged.

"Should I push myself away from her so she wont be torn to pieces when I die soon? All for Wilhelm…"