Reality

An anxiety-inducing long wait followed the latest destruction of his poor portal gun. He was stuck without a door, forced into a restless stillness that made him feel he was no longer living. He believed himself stuck in a stasis, but every sweep the sun made over the sky assured him that he was in motion, growing further and further from his love. In his dreams, he was always too late. Ben had lived out his entire lifetime, withered, and died while Rex was not there to witness any of it.

In his worst nightmares, the only signs Ben ever existed were the strangers who remembered his name and cold monuments left behind – poor stone imitations that could never capture his likeness.

He couldn't let that happen.

Impatient, Rex dogged his brother's steps at Providence's research facility, loitered wherever Caesar took his breaks – however rare those were – and made himself a general nuisance. He didn't notice how unbearable he was becoming.

"Fussy," was all Caesar said, looking up from his work after his attempts at ignoring Rex had failed. The elder brother had been tasked by White Knight to develop a type of fuel that would last longer and burn cleaner. It seemed impossible. It probably was. Rex's restlessness was not making the job easier.

"What?" Puzzled, Rex blinked at him slowly.

"You are being very fussy," He decided, pushing his goggles up out of his face with the clean part of his thick rubber gloves; the material was stained with chemicals he did not want on his skin. "Just like when you were really little… I completely forgot how irritating you are when you are like that."

"Hey!"

"Irritating and completely uncute," He added. "Maybe when you were three, but as a grown man? It is just unpleasant…"

Rex's dark brows pulled together in a scowl. " Screw you. I just wanted to know when you would be done with the portal gun! You could have just told me it wasn't ready."

"Didn't I give that to you weeks ago?" It was Caesar's turn to be confused.

Rex fumed. "I told you. It broke. You don't listen."

"It is not that I wasn't paying attention. I was." A pause. Then sheepishly, Caesar smiled: "Maybe with half of my ear. Sometimes, you just say the same things over and over—"

"I have to repeat myself. You never listen."

"-and I get used to blocking you out. That's not what matters. My point is that you are not asking to borrow another stapler, mijo."

Rex huffed. "No duh."

"No," Caesar set down his beakers and pulled off his black rubber gloves. "Not 'no duh.' I do not think you are understanding what you are demanding. You are not asking me to replace a simple stapler that you keep breaking. Do you see how wasteful you are being? I expected the transporter to be better cared for. "

Creating new doorways through the fabric of reality was not an easy feat. Rex's eyes fell to the floor, hiding the shame on his face. He shrugged wordlessly, feeling suddenly guilty. But Caesar didn't understand. He couldn't possibly. He never had someone worth crossing worlds for.

"You wouldn't get it," Rex continued stubbornly. "You've never loved anyone."

"What does that have to do with your carelessness…? Are you alright?" The non sequitur made him question if Rex was even thinking clearly. He had the tendency to close his mind to reason when he was emotional. After much practice — the only way he could maintain a clear head for studies — this was less common now than when he had been a hotheaded teenager, but at heart, he was still the same boy.

"Just fine." He responded flatly, leaning up against the work desk with discomfort. "I didn't mean to destroy your stupid gun. It's not like I wanted to. That weird dark road… Can you even call it a road?"

"It's a trans dimensional plane."

"Whatever the fuck it is. It's creepy. I keep running into things."

"Things?" Caesar perked up with interest. It was too bad that Rex was terrible at articulating himself. He wished his brother could say more than things, stuff, or crap. "I did not see any things when I traveled with you. Can you be a little more descriptive?"

"I don't know how. I don't know what they are."

Cryptic.

"Perhaps you should limit your little voyages," He advised his brother, a kind smile on his face. "They're not really of importance to anything you are doing right now with Doctor Holiday. I am telling you this because you are half-right: I do not have much love for very many things or people. But you are my brother, so I am reminding you, con todo mi amor, not to become so distracted with irrelevant side work that you forget what you are responsible for. It happens to me, you know. Obsession. Wanting to only satisfy your private curiosities. That is fine, but I have struggled my whole life to learn how to prioritize some investigations over other ones."

"I haven't been conducting investigations," Rex confessed. He had no reason to, but he felt guilty upon revealing his true motivations. It would feel like a lie by another name if his brother continued believing his trans dimensional expeditions were due to scholarly curiosity. "I've been visiting Ben Tennyson's world."

Caesar's expression changed, his understanding smile vanishing. He was unreadable now. "Ben Tennyson…?"

"Remember, around eleven years ago, when the Alpha nanite ripped a hole through space-time? There was a boy who came with it..."

"The alien who helped you defeat it," Caesar nodded, still eerily blank-faced. "I remember. I didn't know that was his name."

"He was my friend."

Suddenly, Rex's earlier proclamations about love started making horrific sense.

"You've been using the transporter to simply visit a friend…"

To fault him would be hypocritical. After all, Caesar had developed similar transporters as a method of disposing of hazardous waste like the Alpha nanite. Such frivolous, idiotic use of something so powerful. But technology existed to serve; their mamá y papá thought so, too. Originally, they developed nanites with the intent of fixing important issues but also hoped they could be used for human convenience.

"There is nothing wrong with using the transporter for visiting a friend," Caesar settled on. "Only that you keep breaking it. They are not easy to construct."

Rex continued to look guilty. "That thing I mentioned before. The one I keep running into… That's what broke your gun."

It was hard to form an opinion on this entity Rex kept not describing. The ambiguity of his account through the trans dimensional plane didn't give Caesar a clue. During his brief journeys with Rex, when he had first developed the gun, he'd not seen anything at all. He believed Rex, though.

"Did it only want the gun?" He wondered. "Oddly specific…"

Rex swallowed thickly. "Pretty much. It destroyed the gun, and it told me never to come back."

If there was some entity warning Rex against trespassing, it was probably for good reason. He wanted to tell Rex to heed its warning, but again, he would be hypocritical. Playing god, trespassing through the unknown, was in their job description.

"I always know it's there, but it won't let me see. I can feel when it's coming. When I'm walking through the portal, everything becomes… fucky, but when I try looking at it, like really looking, I can't somehow. It hurts. It's some kind of… monster."

Caesar laughed, charmed by his innocence. "Rex, there is no such thing, but as I said, you should start limiting your use of the gun. Perhaps this is a symptom of interdimensional travel, a sickness caused by space-time."
Rex scowled. "You think I'm making it all up then?"

"Not at all. I believe you, but you are being vague. This is not enough information to form a conclusion, but a monster? No… I don't think that's right." Caesar mused, scratching his head. "Oh, well, you will have to take a break regardless. It will be a while before I can repair the portal gun."

"How long?"

"I don't know, but not right now. I have to finish my work," Caesar put his goggles on again. "My suggestion is for you to do the same. Do not forget about your responsibilities to Doctor Holiday either. She has done a kindness for you by letting you assist her."

It was true. Rex kept forgetting to live his own life. Sometimes, it didn't feel like he was alive at all. Not until he returned to Ben. Even now, the reminder of his duties did not motivate him to hurry to Holiday's laboratory.

It didn't help that he was often forced to swallow his boredom, drumming his fingers along the edges of Holiday's lab table, not even pretending to be interested. Of course, he had always enjoyed helping people. But this was a new, different way to help, and it wasn't as fun anymore. Maybe that was for the best – certainly better for the world – just not for his thirst for adventure. Was it selfish? Partially. But he had protesters cursing his name every-other-day in agreement. For some, the world from before the cure was a much better place, nanite-infested hellscape and all.

In his most private, deepest thoughts, he sometimes believed them. This was not something he would share to those whose lives were improved by the cure and an EVO-free world. How could he look Holiday in the eye, the woman who lost her sister for a very long time, and say something so repulsive? Or, White Knight, who was finally free from being locked in a lonely room for years on end…

But then all of that good would turn sour when he thought about EVOs like Bobo, the first real friend he had concrete memories of – not the dreamlike haze with which he began recollecting figures from his boyhood. Real memories that he could almost touch. In the dark, lonely closet of a room that Providence had kept him in when he was thirteen, who had sat up with him during the night when he couldn't sleep?

The cure had ripped away Bobo's humanity. It had killed his personhood. The cure had killed him.

Since he remained the only person in the world with functioning nanites, he began using them in the way that his parents had initially envisioned: to help the world. This new help required of him was for bioresearch and medical purposes. It took a long while for him to devise the proper mental blueprints. The only way he could create machines was through understanding. Under Holiday's careful guidance, he developed new tools that propelled her research – their research. His latest machines were used to help her analyze the properties of different viruses or bacteria and to come up with new cures for diseases. Providence was mainly a research facility, their military funding having been cut little-by-little throughout the years. Rarely were his abilities used to create weaponry anymore, the looming threat of mutants now gone.

"Rex," Dr. Holiday looked up from her clipboard, pursing her lips in visible disapproval.

"I know!" Rex scrambled to shut the door behind him. "Sorry, sorry, I know I've been slacking… Caesar already lectured me."

Her brows rose. "You just know it's bad when he, of all people, is criticizing your poor behavior."

He sat up beside Holiday's laboratory table, pulling up a chair. Outstretching his palm, he assembled one of his builds, a round flat disc that opened up to help Holiday catalog samples. It somewhat hurt, not that he disclosed that information. The nanites collected data, storing it somewhere forgotten in his brain until he needed to access it again. In this way, he felt a little like a machine, but the migraine that resulted from the process reminded him he was human.

He didn't mind the headache this time. So focused on their work, he forgot himself and the longing he felt. The incompleteness. Holiday missed having him around, pointing out that they were more efficient as a team. She didn't bother him with questions about where he had been disappearing off to, but Rex knew that she knew something was up. He was thankful she was respecting his privacy. He didn't feel like thinking about it anymore or the creeping dread of time would begin to eat at him again.

"White Knight reminded me to let you know about the charity benefit Providence is hosting to raise money." Holiday mentioned when they were wrapping up for lunch. "He's aware you've been having attendance issues."

Rex sniffed defensively, pulled down his sleeve, and disassembled his machine. "He acts like it's life or death whether I'm here or not."

"I wouldn't get on his bad side for this one," She said lightly.

"Or what? He'll fire me?"

"Hey, what's with the attitude lately?" She pressed finally. "Everything alright?"

Rex slumped over the lab table, resting his chin on his palm. Peering up at her reluctantly, he confessed, "I've just been… so bored lately. I guess I didn't notice it when I was in university because I was so busy studying, but I feel… obsolete. Useless."

"You've done a lot of good work, Rex!" Holiday disagreed. "Without you, we never would have come up with cures for horrific diseases that were once believed to be fatal. You're incredibly important."

"Yeah," Rex agreed without enthusiasm, biting his tongue before he could bring up those who would disagree or say something insensitive like but it's not the same as fighting monsters.

Maybe that was another reason he liked walking the mysterious, interdimensional corridor – aside from the fact that a handsome green-eyed hero was on the other side of the door. The threat that lurked there, just outside Rex's home world, was awfully exciting.

"I'll be at the charity thing," He promised, a discontent frown on his face. He didn't want to imagine the stuffy suits and the small-talk he wouldn't have been able to keep up with. "I didn't even know White Knight was the party-type."

"It's not a party. We need funding, and he knows how to secure that. After working for the Consortium for so long, he should have experience making deals."

Rex stared. "So, a party for shady businessmen? He better not get us in trouble with any more Consortium-types. I don't need to start watching my back because we owe money to the mafia or something."

Holiday laughed. "No, I don't think it'll be anything like that. The only guests coming are going to be more… academic than corporate minded."

"So, nerds?"

"Careful," She reached up to stroke his hair affectionately. "You're among the nerd-class now. You could start applying for grant money, too, you know? To fund our research. It couldn't hurt. It might get White Knight off your back for your attendance."

"I'm not good at writing essays." Rex leaned into her touch. "What would I say? Give me money?"

"Yes, that's the most important aspect of writing grant proposals. I'll help you with your writing as soon as you start looking into agencies and programs."

Rex released a tired groan and buried his face into his arms on the table. They spent part of their lunch break discussing future funding prospects and what they could dedicate their time to at work. For the latter half of his break, Rex parted ways with her and went to the mess hall to eat lunch. The dining area had a ghostly quality to it now that soldiers weren't around to fill it with life. No squeak of boots or Providence agents squabbling over random topics. Aside from the scrape of plastic forks from the few guards who remained as security, only his own shoes echoed in the empty room.