Well, it's been longer than normal since I lasted updated. I have finished it however, and I'll have stuff to explain in the Author's Note.

I do not claim intellectual property rights of Arknights. This project is just for fun.

Things pertaining to the real world shouldn't be taken as absolute fact, even if they are.

Thank you for your continued support, and enjoy chapter 8.

"Evan, what's this word here?" Skyfire asked as she pushed the book over to him while holding her hand on the word that was confusing her. When he looked at it, his entire thought process and facial expression shifted to one of either confusion or worry.

"That would be Ethical."

"I can read that, but what does it mean?" Skyfire asked with some annoyance clear in her tone.

After that, Evan just stared at the book as if he were looking at the earth below the entirety of Rhodes Island for a good several minutes, tapping the table. Right before Skyfire was about to interrupt his thoughts out of impatience, he spoke.

"Think of it as consideration. Consideration of how an action affects the environment, the people involved in it, and perhaps how to make it better suited to not harm either. Perhaps certain mining techniques harm the environment and therefore the people who live in that environment. It could also be if a position of power was abusing its power on the people who can't do anything about it."

Skyfire gave him a funny look, and when he returned it with a raised eyebrow of his own, she spilled her thoughts.

"I know we have nothing like that here. I'll be honest, I never thought once about how my research might affect others in such a manner. Does everyone in your world consider Ethical procedures?"

"No, but it helps to try," he explained as he flipped through another page of his own text. Suddenly, the sound of something hitting the table drew his attention. Looking up, Evan saw a familiar set of black polygonal horns to his side. "Well hello Ifrit."

"Hey," Ifrit mumbled as she opened up her book and shoved a paper to Evan's side. "Can you help me with this?"

"Sure, let me take a look at it."

The other member of the table looked curiously at the situation that had just unfolded before her. It was well known among Rhodes Island how Ifrit behaved. Easy to anger, distrustful of adults, and rather mischievous in a destructive way. Skyfire had no clue how, but she was watching a child with such a description taking advice from Evan on her homework. Not only that, but he was avoiding telling her the answers.

"That makes sense…" Ifrit mumbled to herself as she solved the problem. She then went back to doing her homework in the spot she had just sat down. Skyfire turned her head to Evan who had a rather pleased smile on his face as he stared at the child before going back to his own book. She decided to do the same and the routine continued as normal.

Weedy's eyes scrunched in concentration at what she was looking at. Days ago, Evan had given her a request and a book. It involved a funny contraption he called a 'combustion engine' which was rather fascinating. It was a little similar to the Originium Dynamos commonplace across Terra. What was odd to her was the fuel source, a strange hydrocarbon chemical. As of right now, she could not make heads or tails of it which was bothering her a lot. As she stared at the book and her own notes, she failed to notice a large figure standing behind her with their arms crossed and a hand on their chin.

"Perhaps that could be synthesized with the assistance of some microorganisms," a voice sounded from behind Weedy. The small bio-engineer whipped her head around with eyes wide with surprise and fright, knocking down her writing utensils in the process. "Ah, sorry for startling you."

The victim took several deep breaths as their offender bent down to pick up their utensils. Once Weedy composed herself, she glared at the Vouivre and chastised, "Saria, have you ever considered breaking your habit of lurking like that? It makes people nervous."

"Apologies, a work habit I developed as former Security Director of Rhine Lab," Saria apologized with little change in her expression beyond her brows becoming less intensely arched. "What are you working on? I've never seen anything like this before."

"Evan asked me to synthesize a biofuel for this contraption referred to as a 'combustion engine'."

"Closure's new intern?" Saria asked with a raised brow as she leaned in and examined Weedy's notes further. "I must say, this is certainly fascinating, but it seems to be lacking something..."

"Originium? None of Evan's knowledge from texts to his own includes knowledge on it, but he knows what he's talking about on almost anything but. He knows how to generate power without it too."

At this, Saria's gaze turned to nothing. All the while, her mind rushed as she thought about the man she met the other day. It seemed to explain some things like Skyfire's episode and Silence's urgency to get her away from him. Her focus sifted more into her own mind as she thought about the excitement around the Medical Department recently. Could Evan's presence be a result of this? It wasn't out of the question.

"Saria."

Silence was more aggressive about getting her out of the Medical Department when she was treating Evan, and now she knew why.

"Saria…"

Evan was the anomaly that had the department in a frenzy. He was the one with an impossible blood originium level of zero. Saria's eyes narrowed and brow furrowed as she looked at the ground. What was going on?

"Saria!" Weedy's voice screamed. The vouivre's head whipped to the small Ægir who was trying to get her attention frantically. Weedy's adorable pouting face stared at her with hostile intent, but she looked like a child. In her professionalism, Saria didn't smile and merely coughed into her hand. Her eyes locked with Weedy and the Bio-engineer finally had the chance to say what she wanted.

"You said this fuel could be made with microorganisms?"

"Yes, structurally, it's almost like a chain of continuing methane. It would be relatively simple with an arts unit to convert it. Similar to making carbon bricks surprisingly."

"In other words, ferment something, collect the methane, and process it into this fuel?"

Saria gave a firm nod and a brief 'correct' which led to Weedy scribbling down in her notes. Then something clicked. As she looked at the book which contained the structure of the material, she then looked closely at the diagrams of the chemical she was going to make and then went back to Saria.

"Do you understand this?"

"Yes, my old mentor who taught me what I know pioneered the idea of chemical structure. This is very similar to some of his work," the former Rhine Labs Security Director mused as she looked at the book. "You said Evan Carvey was in possession of this book?"

"Whoa, amazing! I do say we can make a pretty good team," Closure excitedly celebrated as the mechanical whirring of an engine filled the room. Attached to the engine was a simple alternating current generator which fed into a basic circuit to power a light bulb. "To think, Terra's first originium-free power generator. Now if we can make the fuel reliably, we'd have a monopoly on an entirely new market. Oh, all the LMD flowing in…"

Closure began drooling at the thought of the money they could make with the patent, and Evan just stared at his boss with a somewhat disappointed look. He then looked back to the small generator and turned it off.

"Why'd ya do that?" Closure asked curiously.

"This type of power doesn't come without downsides of its own. In an enclosed space, some of the combustion produces Carbon Monoxide which is toxic."

"I see, so you can only use this in a well ventilated room or outdoors…" Closure noted to herself. "I thought you said this method was very common in your world. How do you avoid the poisoning?"

"Catalytic converters and filters, you just turn the monoxide into something inert or less toxic."

"Really? Normally we use arts filters to scrub and change dangerous byproducts. So your world is using regular non-arts chemistry for these things?" Closure remarked as she started dismantling the engine. "I'll see what design kinks I can work out, and find me something about this catalytic converter if you would. Take your lunch break early."

With no ceremony at all, Evan simply left the workshop office and began making his way to the cafeteria. If he had stayed, he would have heard an annoyed grunt from Closure at his continued silence before she realized he was gone. That small tidbit aside, nothing was being missed. A curious thought did pop into his head as he walked though. It had been more than a week since he last saw Grani, and that worried him a little.

Upon entering the cafeteria, he queued himself in line and waited. One thing he had noticed among his time at Rhodes Island was how sugar was treated. Being an American, Evan was used to grotesque amounts of sugar in his food. Everything at Rhodes Island, and, as he learned, Terra at large treated sugar as a scarce resource. The closest answer Evan had gotten was that it was a pain to acquire 'valid sources' of sugar. He had to wonder if this world had corn or sugarcane with how scarce the sweet granules were made out to be.

After sitting down, Evan began to scarf down his food out of habit. The only time he ever took time with his meals was when he was with others. Talking and eating were somewhat mutually exclusive for him.

"Good day, Evan," a familiar voice properly greeted as a tray was set down on the other side of the table. Evan looked up to see four horns popping out of a head of long white hair and took a gulp of what was in his mouth.

"Hello Saria," he replied while setting down the silverware. "How's your day today?"

"I just finished running some synthesis tests in the Medical Department," Saria replied as she cut up a small piece of her meal and put it in her mouth.

"Synthesis tests?"

Saria finished her small piece swiftly before opening her eyes and looking at him curiously before responding. "Synthesis tests are incredibly common in all industries. Using arts and arts machinery to synthesize materials is necessary. So long as the raw materials are present, a finished product could be made by using arts to re-arrange the materials."

"So you can use arts to just rearrange atomic bonds however you wish? That sounds like cheating," Evan commented. At that, Saria, who had been sawing her food as Evan spoke, stopped her fork just short of her mouth and lowered it.

"Did I say something weird again?" Evan thought to himself.

Saria nearly had a full flashback as she remembered where she last heard that term. It had been years since then, and she felt compelled to know more about Evan suddenly as memories of her mentor filled her head. Looking at Evan more closely, she finally noticed one peculiar thing: he had no defining racial features. No ears, no tail, no horns, no wings, no scales, nothing on him pointed to any known race on Terra.

"Evan," Saria started, looking at him intensely as she leaned in and hushed her voice. "Who are you? I've only ever heard the phrase 'atomic bond' from my mentor, and he was a man of many mysteries. Two big ones were his place of origin and race, but I could tell his extraordinary knowledge was involved in the former."

"I knew it!" Evan screamed in his head. "I'm not the only one."

For the first time, he felt some hope glimmer since coming to this world. He was not the only victim, and maybe that meant his situation wasn't a freak accident. If it was deliberate, was it possible to send him back? These thoughts began flowing through his head as he looked at the table with his brain working harder than ever. Saria watched this with fascination then decided to ask a question.

"Do you by chance know who I'm talking about?" Saria inquired with a scant hint of her own hope present in her voice.

"Likely not, tons of professionals in that field where I come from. Could be anyone really, so I don't think it would matter. I myself am a nobody, just a poor sod with an undergrad transported to another world before I could even start my career, much less my graduate degree. How much do you know about Atomic Theory anyway?"

"Not much. No one truly understood him when he talked about it, but he did have a lot of interesting things to say about chemistry as a whole when he did that. Most wrote him off on those ideas, but he did introduce a way to measure substances with very high accuracy. I could tell he was holding back a lot of knowledge too."

That was interesting to hear. So far, Evan understood that most forms of conflict technology involved rather fantastical elements on Terra. Swords and melee weapons still being in wide use was a sign, and he had yet to see a single gun so far.

Before Evan could formulate a response, however, a large clang of something hitting the floor drew both their attention. Behind Evan a small sarkaz girl he knew well by now was staring wide eyed in his direction, her tray having long ago hit the floor. She stared, eyes watering slightly as she stared at them.

"Ifrit?" Evan asked as he turned around and started to get up from his seat. "Are you alright?"

Ifrit didn't say a word, instead she stared straight past him. After a couple moments which dragged on for an eternity, she said one word.

"Saria…?"

IIfrit began walking, when an arm grabbed her by her collar and pulled her in.

"Ifrit, no!" Silence yelled as she pulled the small girl close. This, however, prompted Ifrit to start flailing. "Ifrit, it's ok. I'm here!" Silence said while trying to hug her closer to protect her.

"Let me go!" Ifrit screamed. Evan watched silently as a single tear began to roll down the poor girl's cheek. "Let me see her! Saria!"

"You can't! Ifrit plea-"

"I said. Let go of me!" Ifrit shouted with rage as flames spit out from random points on her body. Silence obeyed, stunned as she looked at the flames that could have easily burned her. Immediately, Ifrit ran forward, nearly tripping on her tray as she ran to the table and set her knees on the seat, leaning over to look at Saria whose head was tilted at the table, eyes closed tightly. "Saria, it's really you!"

Tears began puddling on the table as she repeated Saria's name, trying to call out to her. It kept going on, and snot even started dripping down Ifrit's face as she desperately tried to get the Vouivre's attention.

"Ifrit," Saria finally spoke. Ifrit's expression shifted and she sucked her snot in. Her eyes lit up and a wide, happy smile graced her face as she stared hopefully at the woman she had been crying to. "I'm sorry."

Saria's figure grew taller, and shrinked into the distance until it finally left behind a door. Ifrit stayed in her position, looking with wide, reddened eyes for a good long while. Silence finally mustered up the will to walk up and put a hand on Ifrit's shoulder.

"Come on, let's get you another lunch," Silence quietly spoke. Ifrit nodded, wordlessly following Silence toward the counter.

After consuming one more item on the tray, Evan stared into space for a while before chugging his drink and dumping the remainder of his lunch into the garbage and leaving. How the hell could he even eat after witnessing that? His appetite was gone. That night, he didn't even bother going to the library and opted to stay in his room, hoping to avoid any more awkward situations.

Surprisingly, while he was drawing rough schematics for his next idea to show Closure, someone knocked on his door. Once the door opened, he saw no one outside. At least, not until he looked down. Standing at the door was Ifrit with a blanket and pillows, looking sadly at the floor. No words were said as he let her in and closed the door. After that, he prepared to walk back to his desk.

"She knew…" Ifrit choked out from her pillow. Evan stopped in his tracks and looked back at the small Sarkaz. "She didn't say it, but I could tell. She knew Saria was here, all along. I always wanted to see her since that day. I always wanted to thank her, but Silence wouldn't let me. She knew I wanted to too, she kept me away from her! I trusted her, I thought she'd be different from all those white coats!"

As Ifrit ranted on into her pillow, sobs leaked out and Evan kneeled down to eye level, listening.

"All those adults from Rhine Lab, they all used me, lied to me, hurt me! The only two who didn't were Silence and Saria. Why...why did Silence have to do that too."

Ifrit sobbed harder after that last sentence. If she wanted to say more, it was drowned out by tears. Evan said nothing, and wrapped his arms around her. She was surprisingly warm, like a radiator in a winter basement. Her sobs weakened and paused after that. Slowly, she calmed down. Once Evan couldn't hear anymore sobs, he patted her back.

"We adults can really suck, can't we," he muttered with a hint of sarcasm. Ifrit nodded in agreement along with an affirmative hum. "Why'd you bring a pillow here?"

"I don't want to sleep with Silence and Ptilopsis, so I came here."

Evan released her and looked her in the eyes as she looked at her pillow.

"I'll see if there's a futon, and you can stay here. Whenever you're ready, we can talk about it. If you feel like it tomorrow, we'll ask Silence to let you see Saria."

The child devil wiped her eyes and sniffled, "Ok" before sitting down on the bed. While she did, Evan took his communication device which was oddly similar to a smartphone outside after telling Ifrit he would get a futon. He dialed Silence's number which she had given him since he started working with Ifrit. Evan looked down his left to the hallway, a small note sat on his roommate's door.

"Is she with you?"

"Yeah, can you bring a futon over? She wants to sleep in my room."

Silence lurked on the line for a while before a response was formulated by the former Rhine Lab doctor.

"I'm sorry, you shouldn't-"

"You're welcome," Evan kindly cut off. After that a small chuckle was heard on the other end.

"You're truly too kind, Ptilopsis should arrive shortly. When should I expect to see her again?"

He thought about it for a little bit. Then he decided to answer.

"Before I answer that, can you elaborate on something? You don't trust Saria, yet it seems she and you are the only people Ifrit truly trusts. Ifrit said she wanted to thank Saria, do you know why?"

It took a couple minutes, but during that time dead silence dominated. Finally, a breath released. Silence responded first with, "I'm sorry...for involving you in this. I hope you can understand that I cannot give a perfect answer."

"Non-disclosure agreement, I know, but what can you say? Can you just tell me the part of why you don't trust Saria around Ifrit?"

"I-" Silence tried to argue, but cut herself off and gave a small composure cough. "Very well. I myself was not involved in the experiment that started it. Saria and Ifrit were in that experiment from start to finish. Ifrit was...hurt from that experiment, and…" chokes and half sobs were sounded from the other line before Silence continued. "I saw Saria...carry Ifrit out from the burning facility. Her oripathy had clearly worsened, and she had to be injected with emergency stabilizers or she could have… All I could focus on was keeping her stable. Saria was the Head of Defense, and she never allowed dangerous experiments. That day, she failed her own oaths. In doing so, she also failed Ifrit. That's why I will never let her near Ifrit again. She's been through enough."

The response from Evan was quick and to the point, he asked, "Have you ever asked either for their side of the story?"

If he was in person, Evan would have seen Silence's eyes open wider than grapefruit. Her mouth was hanging agape in some form of shock or awe as though she had a breakthrough. That expression would have told him the answer he needed. Instead, he observed an empty hall with his environment quiet.

"My only thoughts are to keep Ifrit safe from those who would use her. She deserves a normal life after all she's been through."

A sour expression formed as Evan scrunched up his face.

"I'm not an expert in psychology, but it seems to me Ifrit would gain a lot of closure and peace from being able to speak with Saria. Speaking of Saria, she's not even a Rhine Lab employee anymore. It sounds to me like you're dismissing Ifrit's thoughts and feelings, which is never good for a child."

"Are you lecturing me on childcare Mr. Carvey?"

"You know what, yes I am. As a brother who had to help raise siblings as a parent figure and help them through grief, I believe I know what I'm talking about. You're not thinking of Ifrit, you're avoiding your own trauma."

Quiet once again took hold, and anyone who might be listening could tell that the tension was so thin it would take so much as a breath from the other to send either off the edge. Thankfully, footsteps drew Evan's attention to Ptilopsis along with an employee he couldn't see behind the mattress being carried.

"Ptilopsis is here, good-bye."

Evan hung up immediately, not bothering to consider how his actions might be viewed and turned his attention to the other owl.

"It appears you are upset. How may Ptilopsis be of assistance?"

"I want to know where Saria is tomorrow."

Ok, ok, this and the next chapter will be the LAST of the Rhine Lab drama between Saria and Silence. After that, a trip to Columbia may be in order once Evan and Closure finalize their project. No matter what, the important part of science is to share the achievements after all. Also, it isn't as though this stuff will replace Originium entirely. I imagine it'd be waaay to easy to just edit atomic bonds with magic, so methane magically transmuted to gasoline/diesel it is.

The reason for my extended siesta has to do with something I've struggled for a year and a half which finally ended. At the end of January into the beginning of February, my mom got diagnosed with metastatic cancer. Some was found in her liver, which meant our options weren't good. We were optimistic about treatments, but she never responded well to the good ones. So, on July 17th I watched her pass. Due to her age, being younger than some, we couldn't admit her to a nursing home or a hospital stay because insurance didn't want to pay for it as though nobody under 65 gets sick and dies. Yeah, hospice care went on in my house, and I had to do some of the care.

I've had about 18 months to grapple with the thought, so I'm doing fairly well now. Condolences are welcome, but know I've heard them hundreds of times over by now. I've started my fall semester, and in person too. Thank the spaghetti monster, I'm FINALLY back on campus. Some healthy stress as I return to a more normal lifestyle should help a lot in my writing. Chapter 9 is in the works, and the first scene is done.

Speaking of the first scene, we finally get to see Dokutah. Haven't given a name for him yet, but it's more of a foreshadowing scene. Ultimately, the events described in it will lead to Chernobog's fall. I kind of realized Chernobog and Chernobyl might be connected in name. Heh, a disaster caused by negligence and human error are a theme in both events. I have a piece of literature I could read on Chernobyl, but from what I have read it was hardly the reactor's fault it exploded. Maybe I'll sneak that in later in the story.

Anyways, thank you all for reading, and it's good to be back to a somewhat normal life, even if I have one less person to enjoy it with.