A shot in the dark
A piece of the Moon is missing. While this is kind of a big deal, the public has not been informed of this because nobody knows where it went. This has made a lot of people really worried.
NASA took it very seriously, as did the people who fund it. This is the reason why, a little over a month after it happened, one of the satellites orbiting the Moon has been assigned to monitor this particular spot on a daily basis.
Vesta waits for the satellite to disappear over the horizon before landing on the Moon. She's wearing her usual outfit, consisting of an orange tube top and orange jeans.
Her bare feet touch the lunar soil, inside the giant crater which formed when Noriko accidentally teleported part of the Moon above New York City.
She takes a moment to enjoy the view: she's always loved the beautiful silence of the Moon.
"I really miss flying here just to get a tan, vacations were easier before they invented the telescope…there's just no privacy anymore. Oh well, back to work" she thinks.
The crater is currently lighted by the Sun, which means the temperature is enough to boil water but not nearly enough to bother the goddess of the hearth.
Vesta looks very carefully at her shadow: something is growing on the ground, no longer sterilized by the heat of the Sun. Something green.
"Amazing…the Many is still alive. Noriko vaporized her before teleporting us back! She must've left behind…what, a couple of cells maybe? A couple of molecules!?"
Vesta's thoughts are interrupted when the green goo quickly forms a human hand, that tries to catch her ankle. Vesta steps back, disgusted, and the heat of the sun kills the hand leaving behind only the smallest amount of cells.
"Good Gaea, is there anything that can stop this thing from replicating!?" she wonders, waiting.
Without a shadow, the Many can't seem to be able to move again. Then Vesta understand what happened: the Many recreates its body each night, probably more than one body, and is killed again every time the Sun rises. There isn't a mountain or a crater or even just a rock for miles, so the Many has died something like forty times already.
Taking it back to Earth is probably a bad idea, but there doesn't seem to be another way. Vesta gently grabs the green blob and holds it in her hand, setting it on fire.
"So far so good, it's not returning to human form yet. Let's hope this works" she thinks, flying back to Earth.
If Vesta cared about these things, she would wonder how she's able to create fire in a vacuum…but she's too busy wondering if a goddess can pray for a desperate plan.
Null Tower, New York City
The board of directors looks at Bob Null like he's from another planet. Not only he's the only one not wearing a tie here, he doesn't even know what the board does.
<"Where is your daughter?">
The man who repeated the question is Mark Stewart, the Chief Operating Officer of Null Technologies, looks like the polar opposite of Bob Null.
Bob is in his mid-thirties, has an head full of hair and not a care in the world. Mark is in his mid-fifties, no hair to speak of, only slightly balanced by a nicely kept goatee, and looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He looks around, noticing the board of directors is looking at him. They're visibly scared.
<...>
There's a full ten seconds of silence. He then addresses the board:
On the top floor
The round-shaped rock called the Heart of the Universe is still sitting on the pedestal, hooked up to dozens of wires.
Quantum and Vesta look at each other. Her right hand, which holds the last cells of the Many, is on fire. His left hand is now made of lightning.
Vesta and Quantum look at him, puzzled either by his actions or by the jacket's horrible shade of green.
The Heart starts glowing blue. It's very faint, but it's there.
There's a blue flash of light, bright enough to fill the entire room.
When Bob Null open his eyes, Quantum and Vesta have vanished. Together with the horrible green jacket.
Tokyo, Tanaka Mansion
Leiko has fallen asleep on her extremely expensive chair, surrounded by laptops and holographic screens. She doesn't like to depend on her daughter's technology, but has to admit it's far more comfortable than laptops or tablets. She strives to look like a towering figure of power over her employees, but it does take a lot of work to be the head of Scion Corporation.
The sound of her cellphone ringing awakens her. It takes a while to recognize the sound: nobody calls Leiko Tanaka. She is the one giving the orders.
She looks at the phone, puzzled and half-asleep: she can't recognize the number.
That English voice is like an electric shock. She hasn't heard it in fifteen years.
Despite accentuating that "your", Leiko has regained her composure. Judging from his voice, however, Bob Null is simply furious.
Bob Null hangs up the phone, another thing that's never happened to Leiko Tanaka.
She doesn't care. She has everything under control. She always does.