After almost two weeks of staying with him, Alvin figured out a couple things about Jude.

First was that he was terrible at sleeping like a normal person. He spent a vast amount of time hunched over his desk, researching, studying, or tinkering with prototypes sent over from the lab. This would continue into the wee hours of the morning, when Jude would finally take note of the time and toddle off to bed.

More than once Alvin had woken from his light sleep to a distinct thunk and he'd look up to see a book, device, or Jude's own head dropped upon the desk. The first few times Alvin had gotten up to tell him to go lay down, but after the fifth he had given up; Jude would go on his own eventually.

To make matters worse, Jude was not a morning person. Alvin always woke with ample time to shower, shave, style his hair, and dress for the day. Jude, however, would sleep past his alarms (all three of them) and continually beg for "five more minutes" until Alvin threatened to flip the mattress with him still on it. How this kid managed to not get kicked out of class for being late was completely beyond him.

The second thing he noted was just how abhorrent his diet was. Jude claimed to know how to cook, and to be actually skilled at it, and yet his pantry was barren and his fridge lacking much beyond canned coffee and instant meals. The only time he seemed to eat anything proper was when his friend Leia came knocking, carrying bags of takeout and chattering excitedly about the latest news around town.

That was the third thing; his best friend Leia. From what he had gathered, or rather what he had been told by the subject herself, Leia and Jude had grown up in the same town back in Rieze Maxia. She had introduced herself straight away, offering a hand to shake and taking note of his contact information, just so she could check up on things. She was a bright, cheerful girl, but a bit pushy. The two of them tended to bicker like siblings and more often than not it would end with Leia pouting for a few moments before changing the subject, completely forgetting why they were arguing in the first place.

Yet, in spite of their quarrels, they were obviously close. Alvin would venture a guess that she was one of the few friends he had, and likely the only one in the city.

And there was the fourth; Jude was, inexcusably, a recluse. He was intelligent, gifted even, but since Alvin had come to stay with him he had not asked to go anywhere, meet anyone, or even leave the apartment outside of attending classes. Jude was sixteen, yet his life focus was so far off from what a typical boy his age should have that Alvin was beginning to wonder if all geniuses were this stunted.

Had he always been like this? Or was this a new development, a characteristic gained after the incident? He thought to ask Leia about it, but figured it was information he didn't really need to know. Less going out meant less work, and a slimmer chance that anything would happen.

It also meant he was incredibly bored.

Alvin wasn't the type to sit idly all day; all his previous jobs involved a level of danger, of physical prowess and constant vigilance. But this gig… Aside from the incident at the school, Alvin's days had been filled with bad television dramas and trashy fashion magazines. These could only capture his attention for so long, and so Alvin began trying to talk to Jude, seeking a cure for the monotony of sitting on the couch all day.

"So what were you and Haus researching anyway?"

At his desk across the room, Jude paused in his thoughtful scribbles to look over his shoulder at Alvin. "You don't know?"

Alvin gave a half-hearted shrug, "I don't subscribe to scientific journals. Enlighten me."

Jude seemed to give up on his work for the time being and turned his chair to face Alvin proper. "We were researching a way to make spyrixes safer."

Spyrix, the machines used to power a vast majority of the technology used in Elympios. Up until the open border, it had been completely unheard of in Rieze Maxia, which only served to confuse Alvin further. "What do you mean?"

"You know how spyrixes work, right?"

Alvin shook his head. Jude sighed.

"Basically, spyrixes consume the energy of spirits. Once that power is gone, the spirit dies, just like any other creature. Because of this process, spirits have been gradually dying out in Elympios, affecting the climate and causing the wildlife to gradually die out along with the spirits."

Alvin vaguely recalled hearing about this in the paper; the discovery of the existence of spirits and their connection to the recent shortage of energy was a shock to many Elympions, who had gone their entire lives without knowing such fanciful things existed. It was the primary cause of the recent energy price hike, and the main driver for the open border treaties with Rieze Maxia.

"In Rieze Maxia," Jude continued, "Most of the population possesses what's called a mana lobe, which allows us to give up a bit of our own energy in exchange for borrowing the power of the spirits. It's nearly a completely green cycle when it comes to conservation, and our society has grown without the use of spyrixes."

"So you intend to apply this to spyrixes?" Alvin inquired, somehow more interested in the subject now that Jude was explaining it instead of simply being a headline for a propaganda poster.

Jude nodded with a slight grin, "Elympions don't have mana lobes, and spirit channeling obviously can't be utilized for things like medical devices and GHS's, so we're trying to figure a way to combine the two theories without bringing harm to spirits."

"Without harming spirits… That's a mighty pragmatic goal there, Jude." A joke, one that Jude seemed to take far too seriously.

"It's important!" he countered, nearly hopping up out of his seat. Alvin could not help but wonder how many times Jude had had to defend his views on this matter, and just who was giving him such grief in the first place. "You've seen the effects of spyrix use. If all the spirits die, the land withers, lakes dry up, food becomes scarce, and illness runs rampant! I have to find a way to make these machines work without hurting anyone, before Rieze Maxia starts to look like Elympios…"

So that was it. It wasn't just because of some benevolent desire to help Elympions, it was also because the same would eventually happen to his own world, too. The kid had fire, that was fore sure, and Alvin couldn't help the smile that crept across his face as Jude spoke passionately about his goals. Seeing him get all sparkly-eyed about it almost brought a laugh to his lips, but he refrained. No need to make Jude feel like the butt of a joke.

Almost like he was half expecting to be belittled for his convictions, Jude turned around in his chair and began hastily writing again, as if the conversation had renewed his vigor in his research.

A glance at the clock above the television noted that it was past noon, and neither of them had eaten more than toast and coffee for breakfast. Alvin stood and headed for the kitchen, hoping to dig up something he could claim as sustenance for the two of them.

After going through what remained of the pantry, Alvin laid out his findings on the laminated countertop; a bag of crisps, a bottle of cayenne pepper, half a tin of instant coffee, and an expired can of soup. Nothing that could even be remotely considered a meal. When was the last time Jude had gone grocery shopping? Perhaps he was the type to just pick up meals on his way home; he was living alone, after all.

"Jeez, no wonder you're so small… You don't get any nutrition at all, do you?" Alvin quipped, a laugh in his voice.

Jude didn't even bother turning around, "Har, har, funny. If you're hungry, go to the store or something."

Alvin rounded the kitchen counter and stood behind Jude's chair, bracing both hands against the wooden back, "No good, Judy. We gotta stick together, remember?"

"I'm busy, Alvin," he stated flatly, barely acknowledging the man hovering over him, "And don't call me Judy."

The guard waved his hand flippantly, "Take a break. You've been at it all day. Besides, isn't today your day off?"

"I'm studying."

"Jude," Alvin braced a hand against the desk, leaning into Jude's field of vision, "You need to eat."

Finally Jude's pencil stilled and he sighed, his eyes rising up to his bodyguards with a vague hint of disdain in his gaze. "Fine… Let's just be quick, okay?"

"As quick as a bullet."

Jude visibly shuddered at the analogy.

The open air market in Trigleph was close to Jude's apartment. It stocked fresh fish, fruits, vegetables, meats; anything one could wish for when it came to a home-cooked meal. It was often crowded with locals, making it difficult to navigate at times, but it was the best place to get food without having to trek all the way to Marksburg.

Alvin led Jude through the throng of shoppers in search of something quick they could fix up for their lunch. So far, they had come across a stall selling dried bricks of what they were told was mabo curry. "Just add water and boil!" the merchant had said. Somehow Alvin wasn't entirely convinced that was all it took to make the famous Rieze Maxian dish.

"It needs vegetables," Jude had mentioned after eyeing the brown packet. "And rice. They sell at some at the stall down the way."

The fifth thing; in spite of the lack of supplies in his kitchen, Jude was apparently a decent cook. He cited his time living in Leronde, where he would play house with Leia and learn to cook alongside her father. The craft was perfected in the most unusual ways when he moved to Fennmont, where he mastered the art of cooking with instant ingredients and fire-spirit powered hot plates.

Alvin allowed Jude to lead the way, the boy clinging to his side like a magnet. It was then that Alvin noticed something amiss; not with the people around them, but with Jude. His eyes were constantly darting around his surroundings, as if surveying each and every person for any potential threat. Alvin noted the slight tremble to his hands as he picked through the pile of carrots and potatoes at the market stall, the way he stood almost too erect and refused to meet the merchant's gaze when he spoke.

All at once Alvin realized just how little they had been outside since coming to stay with him. They had ventured to and from the school once, and not again since the accident at the chem lab.

Jude was terrified, and Alvin was kicking himself for not realizing sooner.

He slung an arm around the shivering boy's shoulder and leaned closer to his face, "Here, let's pick up some onion, too." He suggested, plucking the white vegetable from the pile of produce, "You Rieze Maxians are partial to spicy foods, right? We can put that cayenne back at the apartment in it as well."

Jude almost smiled as he nodded, the shaking in his small frame ceasing altogether.

After two weeks and much time arguing, Jude was allowed back into Helioborg.

He was ecstatic, a clear spring in his step as he marched down the dirt trail leading from Trigleph to the military outpost. It was almost strange to see someone so excited about returning to work, but then again, Alvin's job wasn't exactly his passion. Jude's obviously was.

Once they arrived, Jude signed in at the gate and headed inside, stopping to talk animatedly to one of the patients who waved him down. It brought a bit of a smile to Alvin's face to see the boy so upbeat for once; the past few weeks had been rough on Jude, and this was just another step towards recovery.

But once they reached the elevator, Alvin was barred from entry.

"What do you mean I can't come up with him?" Alvin confronted the guard, convinced he couldn't see properly with the ridiculous helmet he was required to wear.

"Sorry, sir. Authorized personnel only on the upper floor."

Alvin scowled at the soldier, "I have to be authorized!" he insisted, "I've been hired to watch the kid!"

"Alvin…" Jude stepped over to him, his hands raised in the defensive, "It… It's fine. It's a secured area, so I should be okay, right?"

You don't know that… Alvin thought, but saw no reason to alarm Jude needlessly. He growled in the general direction of the soldier and crossed his arms, "Go straight to the lab. I'll be up there in a bit."

"But sir!" the soldier protested, but before he could go into another speech about authorization, Alvin turned on him again, "Get Bakur down here. He'll give you the authorization."

The soldier visibly tensed before radioing to his commander for clarification. Alvin took this time to give a more relaxed smile to Jude, "Go on, I'll catch up."

Jude nodded silently before shuffling into the elevator, leaving Alvin behind.

What a nuisance.

"Sir," the soldier was on his back again and Alvin had to actively resist the urge to knock his stupid helmet off his head, "You need to wait outside for my commanding officer to arrive."

Alvin quirked a brow, "And just how long is that going to take?"

"He is en route from Marksburg."

"Marksburg, huh." Alvin sighed, scrubbing his hands against his face. No need to make a scene, he'd just have to leave for now.

Or so he wanted the soldier to believe.

No sooner did he exit the gate was he running down the corridors once again, surveying the outside of the base. That's one thing he never understood about Helioborg and its design; so many footholds, so many freestanding cables. It would be so easy to break into, even more so for someone who had been trained to do so. It was all too easy to scale the exterior of the first and second floors, and even easier to find an unlocked door on one of the terraces.

Ten flights of stairs later, Alvin had managed to make his way unnoticed to the hall labeled Spyrix Research and Development. Obviously, he was in the right place, but which of the doors had Jude, and which held certain ejection from the base and possibly his job? He lucked out, it would seem, when he overheard a familiar voice from down the hall.

"Have they tracked down the data that Professor Haus collected?"

It was Jude, obviously. He could recognize his Rieze Maxian inflections easily. But the second voice also proved recognizable, if only vaguely. Alvin crept closer to the door, sticking to the wall to avoid being spotted.

"Not so far. We're waiting for his family to finish clearing his estate. He refused to put a lot of his personal research on the computers here. Apparently he didn't trust them. I think he carried a disc on his person that had a lot of it."

"That sounds like Professor Haus. Still, it's strange that it's taking them so long." A pause, a slight sizzle of electricity against metal, "Did they… Did they find it when they recovered his…"

"No, he didn't have anything important, apparently. He probably hid it somewhere, knowing him."

Professor Haus's research… He had found the right door, but…

"Sir?"

So engrossed in his eavesdropping, Alvin hadn't even notice the click of heels approaching. Before him stood a woman with dark hair and glasses, dressed in the business casualwear so stereotypical of the Helioborg scientists.

"What are you doing here?" Then she gasped, taking a half step back, "You're not here to trouble Dr. Mathis, are you?"

"Whoa, whoa, hold on. I'm not here to trouble him…" His hand slid towards the keypad, hoping to open the door long enough for him to make his escape into the lab and leave the woman behind before she could make a stink.

Too late. She grabbed for his arm, tugging it away from the keypad in a vain attempt to stop him,."Sir, you can't go in there! Please leave!" she shouted, surely catching the attention of every guard on the floor. Alvin yanked his arm away, managing to smack his elbow against the keypad at just the right angle, the door sliding open behind him.

"Dr. Balan! Dr. Mathis! Help!" she shouted as Alvin made a break for the lab, running straight for Jude. But before he could get there, another person blocked his path and he was forced to stop short to avoid colliding with him

"Alfred? What are you doing here?" The source of the familiar voice suddenly became apparent as Alvin stared blankly at the man smirking at him, arms crossed. Suddenly it made sense why Haus and Jude had ended up setting up shop in Helioborg.

"Balan…" Alvin breathed, his stress level suddenly shooting through the roof, and not entirely for the reason one would expect.

The older man smirked and planted a hand on his hips, "Surprised to see me? It has been quite a while since you stopped by."

"Balan, do you know Alvin?" Jude, of course, was ever the observant one. Alvin groaned inwardly, wishing he had waited for the commander to arrive just so he could avoid the awkward reunion.

He crossed his arms, expression less-than-pleased, "Yes, regrettably. He's my cousin."

And then, to make matters worse, Balan started to laugh. Not just a chuckle, but a knee-slapping guffaw. "Oh, this is rich! So the bodyguard Jude was assigned was you, Alfred? What a small world!" His attention turned to Jude, almost completely unable to stop laughing, "Hey, Jude, you remember the little cousin I was talking about that cried whenever he had a stomachache?"

"Balan, I swear to Maxwell…"

Jude snorted, a hand quickly coming up to cover his mouth, "You're joking! The Alfred you keep talking about is Alvin?"

Alvin buried his face in his hand, sighing morosely. "Spare me, please."

He couldn't escape, not when Balan continued to laugh and began telling more embarrassing stories about their shared childhood. Balan was family, and someone who had stuck by him even with the ongoing feud surrounding them, but more than once Alvin was tempted to toss the crippled man out into the hall just to spare himself the embarrassment.

Yet in the end, he couldn't do it, and the reason being was the laughter they brought Jude. Even if it was at his expense, it was… strangely nice to see the boy actually smiling and laughing.

And somehow, that made the humiliation worth it.

Surprisingly, Balan left the lab at a decent hour. He had implored Jude to do the same, and Jude had agreed, yet somehow it was nearly one in the morning and Jude was still tinkering away at his worktable.

At that point, Alvin had taken up the couch, keeping himself occupied with the discarded magazines, courtesy of the very apologetic researcher Mary that had tried to bar his entry earlier in the day. She, too, had left the building, leaving just him and Jude in the lab. It was almost eerie to be hanging out in the military base with no one in sight; Alvin was fairly certain most of the guards had left for the evening, or had taken up posts outside. Were they even aware he was up there? The commander hadn't found him, so he assumed that his access to the upper floors was still very much unauthorized.

Oh well, I'll sort it in the morning.

Alvin tossed the well-read magazine onto the floor before sitting up, stretching languidly upon the worn couch before seeking out Jude in the dim light. As expected, the boy genius was still at his desk, head nodding to the side, a soldering iron in one hand, a roll of filament in another. Alvin's eyes rolled as he stood, plucking the tool from Jude's hand and turning it off. "Did Balan ever tell you not to deal with dangerous tools while you're impaired?"

"I'm not impaired. I'm just repairing." Jude protest, rubbing his eyes as he blindly reached for the misplaced soldering iron.

Alvin set it aside, reaching to turn Jude's chair and hoist him up. "C'mon, smartass. If you stay up all night working on that thing, you'll become weird and creepy like Balan."

Jude stood almost too easily, swaying slightly before Alvin steadied him, "Balan isn't creepy. He's just… No, that's a lie, he's a little creepy."

The guard snorted at the comment and lead Jude over to the couch. "Right, see my point? Now get some sleep. We have to walk back to Trigleph tomorrow morning so you can shower before class."

Jude made something of a non-committal groan before curling up on the couch, not even bothering to remove his coat or shoes. Alvin wasn't about to wrestle them off him; he merely pulled the knitted blanket from the back of the couch over the sleepy researcher.

For a moment, Alvin just stood, watching, observing Jude. The boy was only sixteen, yet he was already a full-fledged doctor working to better the lives of millions. And yet, even with the degree under his belt, he was still a kid unaware of the world and how it worked. Alvin wished he could live like Jude did; constantly striving to better his work, persevering through ridicule and racism alike for the sake of a common goal. He was naïve, yet knowing this, he continued on the path he believed in, and people believed in him.

He envied him.

Alvin's phone buzzed in his pocket, and a glance at the display brought a scowl to his face. He stepped out of the lab and into the empty hall, the sound of his steps echoing among the faint hum of the emergency lights.

A number was dialed and after only a brief pause, the line connected.

"Report." A stern voice, one he knew well, but wish he hadn't.

"Yeah, I've got it under control."

"And his progress?"

"He hasn't found anything… It looks like the data wasn't on him or with-"

"Are you certain? He's unaware?"

"No, J-" Alvin almost slipped, "The target knows nothing. He's having to start again…"

"And you know what needs to be done if he finds anything."

"I'm well aware, but…"

"Good. Tomorrow, a group of radicals intend to start a disturbance in the square in Trigleph. Make sure you and the boy are there."

"What? " Another attack? "You're shi- Is that really necessary?"

"It is imperative that he trusts you entirely, Alfred, lest he never reveal if he knows anything. If you cannot handle at least this, then I'll be forced to terminate him and bring in a new researcher. Is that clear?"

A harsh ultimatum indeed. Alvin pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, "…Yes. Send the coordinates so I can prepare…"

"Good. I expect a report afterwards on his condition."

"…Understood, Uncle."

The phone was snapped closed and Alvin had to resist the urge to throw it against a wall.