Even Deeper into the Asteroid

After around 5 minutes of running...

"Well, I'll be. You've gotta be kidding me."

It sounded neat to be called a man blessed by destiny, but it might have no correlation with being lucky, as once Milanor faced his reality, his fortune was in truth rather dreary.

"So how do you like my prophecy?"

"I'll have you know I hate it!" he snapped at Miledi's stony boasting.

Whether or not it was her computational prowess that led her to predict the future, Miledi was apparently quite the clairvoyant. The path Milanor took actually led him to a dead end.

The tunnel he was in was deep under the lower-class residential district of the colony. Runanthor was not an especially large asteroid, so instead of above ground, the colonist dug into the interior and hollowed the hunk of rock to make space for the city.

The tunnel was dimly lighted and unwelcoming, yet Milanor could sense that people still has a presence around there.

"You think that door will lead somewhere?" Milanor asked about an entryway he passed shortly before.

He ran through numerous branching junctions on his way, showing just how labyrinthine the underground tunnel was. A pretty inconvenient characteristic of an asteroid colony like Runanthor, where infrastructure developed in pretty much every direction.

"There is no telling what door would lead to where, why don't you just try your luck?" said Miledi with no care in her words.

"Well, I should still keep moving in any case. They could have sent a search party down here and backtracking sounds like it would be a problem," Milanor said with a shrug.

He had noticed similar entryways during his traverse through the corridor, and he chose to ignore them all. But now that he reached a dead end, he had no choice but to go through one. It was not like he could go back and check the previous ones either, so really he only had one choice.

Milanor approached the door and squinted his eyes to the wall beside it, around halfway from the floor and the ceiling. A terminal lock, it seemed. Password variety.

"This is quite old-school," he commented. "These kinds of locks would be obsolete in the Empire's core worlds."

"Well, we are not there, if you somehow forget," chimed Miledi. "It serves its purpose well enough for the lower classes." Indeed, the more common type for residential security would be a keycard and biometric combination lock.

Milanor eyed the door frame next, looking for something. "No audible alarm, but whether a remote warning is present is anyone's guess. I'm not familiar with the model. Suggestions?" he asked.

"Brute force," came a swift reply.

Milanor instinctively readied himself into a stance. "Wait," he stopped before doing anything. "This isn't a delicate glass wall in front of me! I'm gonna break my skeletal frame well before any door frame!"

It was disturbing how immediate his reaction was after hearing such a ridiculous suggestion. Milanor was concerned he had become too dependent on Miledi lately.

"Your complaint has been noted, Captain. I will file it securely inside a folder titled 'My Master's Daily Whine.'" The sarcasm was thick and perfectly suited her voice.

"What's with the name? I'm curious about it." Milanor chose to dodge it and let it whoosh past his head straight into outer space. "Also, I need to get back to the ship safely for me to read it, so how about coming up with something that leaves my bones intact?"

"Haaah..." He could hear a heavy sigh from the PAW's speaker. Milanor was impressed. Miledi's character development during this last year was nothing short of astonishing.

Well, astonishing in all except this one crucial part called expression delivery.

"Confirm the available numbers and letters, the needed amount of digits, then use the Burst Jammer to prevent resets and hard lock. Does that instruction makes sense to you, Captain?"

'That's what you meant by brute force...?' Milanor felt apologetic for misunderstanding his maid and her well-hidden consideration.

"Alright, alright. I understand what you're trying to say." Milanor did what Miledi just instructed. "How long will this take?"

"5 seconds."

"That's fast!"

"I am equipped with the latest, next-generation processor after all," she quipped, sounding as flatly proud as she could be. "It is done."

"Oh, uh, thanks," he replied, dumbfounded.

For all his intentions and purpose, Milanor was actually an upright and honest young man. Or so the people thought of him. And while he was not unfamiliar with the act of trespassing, it wasn't something he committed every other day.

In fact, he hadn't remembered doing anything like this since he picked up Miledi, so he was quite surprised by her capabilities.

The door slid open while he mused.

"Ah, shoot, whatever. Need to get out of here," and with that, he entered the door.

Contrary to his expectation, it wasn't a corridor that greeted him, but a medium-sized room, Milanor estimated. The lighting on the ceiling was on, and he could see his surroundings clearly again.

After a quick glance across, he noticed a single cozy bed in the corner with a rectangular desk beside it. A device was running on the desk. At the corner on the other side was another door, likely for the all-essential backroom.

'It's obviously someone's dwelling,' Milanor ruminated in his mind while stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

"Doesn't look like anyone home," he said, staring at the back door. He looked to his left and saw a pile of machinery of unknown origin and purpose. This side of the room was a total mess.

"Captain, I have finished the preparation for us to move the ship to the dock on the other side of the city." Determining that things have calmed down, Miledi notified him. "It would seem those ruffians would wait at the current dockyard's gate for quite a while, after all."

"So you actually did something while I was running around earlier..." Milanor felt relieved. He then confirmed the location and particulars of the port she choose.

It was hard to imagine considering her numerous jabs at him today, but usually, Miledi would act as his truly loyal servant filled with extreme compassion and excessive politeness. Emphasis on usually. Milanor's inexcusable blunder must have triggered something inside her, something that opened the floodgate of sarcastic comments and passive belligerent.

Case in point, "As an excuse, I had told Milady that you met a pretty lady at a bar and had gone along with her to her home in the city's farside district."

"You what?!"

"And the reason why I moved the ship was for convenience in picking you up."

"No one asked you to do that, Helmswoman! You'll gonna need counseling later!"

"Are you not the one who will be subjected to that?"

"Signing off!"

With irritation, Milanor turned off their communication. The morning had long since passed, but he was sure that the moment was only the beginning of his tribulation.

ווו×

After confirming with Miledi about their ship's relocation, Milanor again surveyed the room he was in. There was only a single bed in the room otherwise normal furniture, so probably only one person was inhabiting the place.

"That tablet's on though... Are they only out for while? Should be back soon then," he mused to himself.

There was a hologram tablet (holotab) on the desk beside the bed, and it seemed to be playing some sort of video on its overhead holographic display. The reason why Milanor couldn't say for sure was that it played a strange video he had never seen before.

Not from the regular interstellar broadcast, not from any vid ads, and certainly not from any AR media he was forced to get familiar with by a certain someone.

"Weird. I haven't seen any clothes like that before... or maybe I did?"

Something resurfaced in his memories. Way back from his childhood. A memory of a naughty little kid who peeked at his parent's work computer.

The people in the video... The fashion they wore... He felt like they resembled the ancient clothing the First-Founders had worn.

"So this is what they looked like in motion... how did this video survive all this time?" he continued talking to himself.

First-Founders were the people who left humanity's homeworld, Earth, in their massive sleeper ships called Arks. They were refugees who successfully escaped the wars and environmental disasters that had plagued Earth, according to the ancient record. And from there, they sowed the seeds from which the current state of human civilization would blossom.

It had been almost eight thousand years since then, and due to the long voyage of early space travels, incidents, and inevitable decay of time, much of Earth's history was lost.

Including, most importantly, its location.

Milanor remembered the articles he read on his parent's computer. They were filled to the brim with information on the history and culture of these distant ancestors. An anthropological collection, if you will. They named it the Origin Database.

It was superbly comprehensive, and no other annals matched the amount of data it contained. Yet even with that distinction, the database only scratched the surface of how much history and culture humanity had.

"Fascinating." Milanor approached the tablet to investigate more. Swiping the holographic display, he was relieved to see that there was no security measure on it. The owner clearly never considered a stranger would barge into their room, uninvited, and start messing around with their property.

Moving the video into the background, he saw there were numerous video files similar to the one currently playing. He was amazed. The statistics lines showed that there were more than 1000 different ones.

Growing more excited by the minute, he opened a video on the top, titled 'A Tour of Ark Freedom.'

Ark Freedom. Milanor knew that one. A homeworld nation that idealized the act of self-determination. A land of the free, which philosophers attributed as the namesake of the ark. Its name was... America? Or something. Milanor wasn't sure. It had more or less become a legend at this point. He tried to remember more as he watched.

The video started with a middle-aged man who seemed to be introducing himself.

"Oh?" a sound slipped from his lips. "He's speaking weirdly... Is that what our language was thousands of years ago? I'm barely able to understand what he's saying."

The Common Universal Language-or simply Universal-used by most of the human population was said to be a descendant of an archaic language called English. Milanor was no linguist, but he understood that there were many corruptions that changed it throughout the millennia until it was barely recognizable anymore to its parent language.

He deduced the language the man spoke was this ancient one. A predecessor to Universal, it had many similarities in its very basic vocabulary.

"But I could read the video title with no problem..." he pondered. "Maybe the tablet owner was the one who named them?"

After the man looked to be done with his introduction, he began walking through the massive ship while being followed by the camera, probably being carried by another fellow accompanying him, unseen.

"Amazing... This is what an intact ark looked like... They were in space? I thought the people were in cryogenic sleep when the ship traveled the stars... They woke themselves up just to record this?"

Question after question appeared in his mind as he watched the hologram in perfect concentration. Milanor's snooping didn't stop on this one video either. He browsed and browsed the huge repertoire available inside the folder.

At this point, it was evident that he had lost awareness of his illegal existence inside this room.

Nevertheless, it was a very moving experience to see what the great journey humanity's ancestors had achieved. While browsing, he found other interesting videos like when the Freedom had found a suitable planet to colonize, the gradual highlights of when the awakened passengers built their first city, and the historical moment when they regained contact with another Ark, the Kunlun.

Milanor cannot find any video that was filmed on Earth or even close to Earth—like in the Solar System—so there was not a single picture available of the lost homeland.

"Really...?" Milanor felt a mild disappointment. Not even the aforementioned Origin Database had a single picture of the planet. As far as he knew, nobody alive remembered how the homeworld looked.

He could only imagine how much value would be put on an image like that. Something that would lead sentimentalists to go ballistic, willing to do anything to get their hands on it. Milanor was tempted by a possible fortune he could gain if he were to commercialize it, profiting off the nostalgic emotion of humanity.

'Actually, that sounds scummy,' Milanor chided himself. Still, while a missed monetization opportunity played a part, his disappointment that arose from the lack of Earth's picture was genuine. Originally, Milanor was that sort of romantic person. It was probably the influence of his parents.

Milanor wondered why the owner never shared these wonderful videos with the public. He was sure they would cause immediate sensations once released.

"We have reached Spaceport Number 12, Captain. I will initiate the docking procedure soon," Miledi's voice could be heard from Milanor's PAW again. "Now may I ask what sort of trouble you have fallen into in the half-hour since our last contact?"

Miledi—bless her electrical soul—had preemptively prepared herself to hear her master's presumed plight. It was audacious, and if Milanor was allowed to speak honestly, extremely rude. That wasn't an attitude a good maid should conduct herself with.

"Oh, you won't believe what I'm seeing. I found something amazing." And he chose to ignore the remark, as he was too excited to entertain the spite. "Wait a second... It's been 30 minutes?" he realized the fact slightly late.

"Indeed. It seems you were preoccupied with something. Please, do tell."

Milanor proceeded to describe his findings. "Yes, how curious. I do not have much knowledge of human history, but I do agree with your assessment that the materials would likely garner attention."

Happy that she concurred with his opinion, Milanor said, "Right? I wonder where they got this data from. I'd really like to ask them—"

"Nothin' that I'd tell you, punk. The heck did you get in here from?"

"Eh?" A sudden voice from behind Milanor startled him, causing him to choke on his words. The voice was crass but unmistakably feminine. It definitely didn't come from Miledi. "Wha!? You— When did you get here?!" He turned around with the speed of a twister.

Milanor was so focused on the tablet, and talking with Miledi, that he hadn't noticed someone had entered the room. It was a young girl, wearing a long dark purple cloak that covered most of her body. She did not put the hood on though, so Milanor could see her face rather clearly. A pair of blue eyes shone through locks of light-blonde hair that was cut to shoulder length.

His breath was taken away for a moment. He was surprised, of course, but her appearance was also stunning. If this was any other day, Milanor probably would've blushed. True enough, he could be a sucker for cute girls.

His mind raced. 'Is she the owner? How long has she been here?' he asked over and over silently. As her head was the only part he could clearly see, Milanor focused on it.

"When did I get here? What makes you think you get to question me? It's my house, darn it. You got some nerve..."

Her face showed unbridled anger targeted toward him, yet from those sky-blue eyes he also sensed wariness and subtle anxiety as well.

That day marked the first time Milanor met her, the mysterious girl under the asteroid. It was a tiny coincidental encounter that seemed so insignificant compared to the size of the galaxy, yet the profound impact it would lead would incite him to engrave the moment forever in his memory.