The Comet

Every time Hagar closed her eyes, she could see the stars, the planets, the solar system. That's how her therapist told her to do when she found herself in overwhelming emotions. She would imagine herself as one heavenly body, moved slowly in its path circling the sun, rotating slowly on its axis. She would watch the dots of stars sprinkled upon the blackness, or the blinding light of the sun, from which she could not turn away unless her uncontrollable rotation relieved her.

She would breathe in and out slowly. She would listen to the silence of the space she created inside her head. She felt that she was getting better at it. Unless…

"Are you finished?" Y-14 voice echoed, and the planets and the stars were blown away. She opened her eyes and found herself back in the APD lab. The humming of the lamps could slowly be heard. She was now back in the real world. She convinced herself that she was calm now. She couldn't be sure, but she could tell herself that.

"What have you found?" she asked her partner.

"The identity of the victim. I've scanned his DNA. We have plenty of that from where it came from," Y-14 joked.

'Is he joking, though?' Hagar sometimes wondered whether or not Y-14's dry sense of humor was actually its effort in crack a joke, or just simply a result of the lack of its understanding of human's minuscule social cues.

"Oh good. George will hound us if we don't come up with any progress tonight," she commented.

Y-14 seemed to stop dead, with its eyes looked at nothing at its lower-left corner, then answered, "yes. He seemed to be very anxious to get to the bottom of this case as soon as possible."

"He should do it himself," she then stopped herself from going too much into a tangent and continued, "so, who is he?"

Y-14's processing. It always paused in place every time that happened. Then he continued moving, "Marco Williams, a former…"

A chill ran through Hagar's back, "wait. Marco who?"

"Williams," Y-14 answered, "a former military officer."

"Adam's foster father…"

Y-14 looked deep into her eyes. Twitch the corner of its mouth in a way that Hagar could only see as patronizing. It then said, "Hagar… there are plenty of Marco Williamses in the world."

It was indeed patronizing her. A comet came around and about to collide with her. She held her breath, told herself that this is silly. This could be another person with the same name.

"Oh my…" Y-14 said.

"What?"

"It was him indeed. His database stated that after he was retired, he took a boy under his care. The boy whose real father turned out to have connections with Callisto."

She closed her eyes. The comet was getting bigger. She snapped them back open, "we should report to George immediately."

The door to their lab behind her hissed open, with the sound of a double beep. She jolted and cursed under her breath. She could feel her anxiety slowly creeping back in. George, Adam, and Y-0 entered the room. Adam was still in his protective suit, drenched. George looked disheveled, with parts of his yellowing white striped shirt dropped outside of his pants. His greying blonde hair was left standing like a bulky antenna, a sign of stress. George often scratched his head when stressed, but didn't bother to flat his hair back. That man was handsome once, but he lost it now. Y-0, who looked exactly like Y-14 except for its tacky corsage, looked composed.

Y-0 immediately pinged Y-14 to not reported anything to George just yet. Y-14 pinged its agreement back then quickly put his palm on Hagar's shoulder, and gave it a little squeeze. At first, she thought that Y-14 felt her anxiety and tried to console her, but to her knowledge, Y-14 was incapable of having empathy. The squeeze told her to be alert. She didn't know what it was, so she held the info about the murder victim.

"Hagar, Officer Adam here demanded that he is to be partnered with you with the case," George blurted. He whizzed every time he inhaled, "I'm sorry Hagar, I'm telling you, not asking for your permission. You have to oblige."

Asshole.

She watched Adam fumbling on his helmet tried to open it. He finally did. She could see he was just crying, poor thing. She knew now that there was no avoiding the colliding comet. The planet couldn't step out of a comet's way, it could only accept its fate. Working with Adam would destroy her again. She hated this. She hated that she still cared about the man's pain. She didn't want to empathize. Too late. She could already feel her heart was breaking along with his.

'Aster, help me.'

"Hey," Adam said.

"Hello, Adam. Welcome aboard," Y-14 cheekily answered.

"Good!" George exclaimed, "I guess you already know each other really well, right? Heheh…" George said. She was amazed at the fact that she hadn't jumped to his throat and strangle him, "Two teams are better than one. I need you guys to solve this quickly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I should go to a security meeting which was caused by my underlings' incompetence."

'Wow. 'Underlings?''

After George left them, Adam blurted out, "okay. Hagar, Y-14, sorry. But this case… I'm sure you… how can I…"

"We knew," she answered.

Adam looked at her. His grey eyes looked more radiant with a glaze of tears. She clenched her fists on her sides, "I… I…" Adam stuttered, "I hope George…"

"He doesn't know yet," she could still tell what in his mind. One part of her felt proud of it, but her gut told her not to. That she would only open herself another gate of hell, and it would be worse.

"Good. Thank you. Thank you, Hagar," Adam sat on one of the lab's stool. He leaned on the desk and closed his eyes, "We can't disclose that to George just yet. I mean… this is practically my father…"

She reminded herself what her therapist said about a narcissist who feigned vulnerability. Even if it's real, it was fleeting. But how could she keep being cold when she knew that Adam was genuinely broken right now.

But again, she didn't know Adam and Marco's real relationship. She still had to be very careful around Adam. She said, "you're afraid you'll be dismissed from the case if you have a close relationship with the victim. I understand. You wanted to catch his killer."

Adam still closed his eyes. He looked like he struggled to keep himself from crying.

She continued, "I don't think revenge would do you any good, Adam. You can still know the development of the case even when you're not assigned to it."

"No…" he said. She felt it. His usual freezing coldness, "I don't want to avenge Marco. I want to know who is behind this.

"For what end?" she asked. She mentally braced herself.

"Marco was the second worse thing ever happened to me, after my own father…" he said, "…I have this feeling that this is all connected. Whoever or whatever did this to Marco, must have some connection with what happened to my father…"

"A feeling," she couldn't stop herself, "very rich coming from you."

Adam opened his eyes and stared at her. It was anger. She could hear in her head, his voice saying, "what can you do, Hagar? You are trapped with me. You couldn't escape." The comet had hit the planet. The planet was now destroyed slowly like it had several times before.

But instead of those, Adam looked down then closed his eyes again, "I'm sorry, Hagar. Please believe me. I need to find them."

"Only if you promised not to be an avenging hero and break all the rules," she said, tried to be as cold as she possibly could.

"I won't," he said, "I promise."

She knew immediately that his promise was just a lie. She needed to be very careful.