Horace frowns at the digital documents a police automaton sent to him earlier. One of them includes DNA information collected from the subject. A brief profile appears next to the picture taken of him.

Profile

Name: "Sylvester"

notes:

- exhibits healthy signs

- doesn't seem to speak any known language but can understand nonverbal gestures

He swipes to a different link, a profile of one Tanner O'Hara. The profile picture shows a solemn-looking young man with blue eyes and a neat blond buzzcut.

Profile

Name: Tanner O'Hara

Date of birth: 10/3/2062

Date of death: 23/5/2081

Height: 5'11 (180.3 cm)

Weight: 182 lbs. (83 kg)

Military Rank: Private

A click on the picture leads to an article from twenty years ago titled: "Clash between mafia and guerrilla force leads to massive damage." Yet another picture shows up in Horace's view, this time a mugshot of a middle-aged man with a double chin and graying hair. He holds a board with his name "Ivan Lattanzi." The head of the former mafia. The resemblance between the three is visible but the first two more so.

"So let me get this straight. We're assigned to take care of this boy who likely has certain abilities and survived falling from space. No spaceships from our government or anywhere else have confirmed him being registered, yet we have information about his relatives, some of whom were rather ... infamous. This makes no sense," his wife Marla says.

Horace lets out a deep sigh.

"I'd like to know the whole story as well, but who knows if we would? The records claim that O'Hara had no children, but this recent analysis has shown otherwise. Probably an illicit test tube baby we've never encountered until now."

The doorbell rings, most likely from the police automaton.

"I'll get it!" a girlish voice cries out, and a rush of brown hair and pink clothing descends down the staircase.

Before Horace or Marla could stop the girl, the door swings open, followed by an awkward pause. Then, she walks away with a sour expression on her face.

"Next time, Lucy, you should use the peephole on the door rather than opening it immediately," Marla tells her daughter, "Besides, what if it was a stranger?"

"Who's he?"

"Oh. He's a boy who's going to stay with us for a while. Were you expecting one of your friends from school?"

"No but ... never mind," Lucy mutters. She sulks back upstairs.

After she's gone, Horace and Marla walk up to the door with polite smiles. At the door, the automaton and the boy stand there expectantly. The boy's sunken missing eye almost compels one to stare, they think almost at the same time.

"Hello there," Marla greets. She extends a hand, and the automaton shakes it first, mostly for the sake of the boy. All turn their attention to Sylvester, who hesitantly shakes her hand then Horace's in stilted imitation.

The boy glances at his shoulder where a tiny piece of skin is missing then at the automaton with a brief leer. However, the expression quickly passes as they gesture for him to come inside.

"Take care. We'll leave you to it," the automaton says before promptly leaving.

***

After awkward simplistic communication, he gets the sense he’s supposed to stay here. When the police automaton went away, two human adults were showing him around the house and smiling and talking in light voices to him. But a strangeness made him feel like an anomalous animal around the two. There was also an angry-looking girl too, but she didn’t stay too long around him. The man’s name is something that sounded sharp. He remembers the woman’s name a bit better, something that sounded like Muhrle. Despite talking, they used few words; perhaps someone already told them.

Finally, he can have some peace here though. Sylvester inspects the tiny green room, most likely serving as a bathhouse of sorts. There’s an oddly shaped chair and an even smaller room within that room with its sliding door of glass. An assortment of colorful bottles clutter around on a shelf above. Sylvester steps into the tinier room and turns the metal handle out of curiosity. Immediately, a rush of water smacks him. He flinches and covers his face from further deluge. He rushes to turn it back, and it stops. Instead of a giant fountain to provide water like at home, it's more like miniature controlled rain. Interesting …

He didn't go to the bathhouse back home frequently since he liked the view of the natural landscape better at the river. However, the room was beautiful, and in the center of the east wall, there was a mural of the dead goddess in her avian form. Her wings looked similar to his although he didn't directly descend from her. Someone (maybe Chance or a deity on an exceedingly rare visit) told him so once, but in his heart, he already knew that he is a reincarnation of someone who stole a fraction of her powers.

Itching skin reminds Sylvester to turn on the water again, prompting him to do so. Now that he notices it, the water smells weird, but it washing over him transcends him to another state of mind. He discards the ragged sarong and closes his eye.

Fzzzz.

"Guh!"

Accidentally took out his wings again. At least they didn't spread out completely. He glances at the puddle of water starting to form outside the tinier room and then at the pile of clothes stacked on the odd-looking chair. Plaid red shirt with long sleeves and faded blue pants the human man gave him.

After using a bit of fire to dry up, Sylvester struggles to put on clothes for ten minutes. Particularly, pushing the tiny discs inside the cloth slits challenges his fingers. After he successfully dons them, rough fabric scratches him whenever he moves, and the pants cling too tightly in some places. However, he pretends to ignore these inconveniences; the absence of grime is enough.

The mirror reflection catches his peripheral vision then he turns his head. A different being stares back at him, not like the one he saw in the Infinite Continuum, but still different. For one, he looks like less of a mess. Two, it feels odd seeing a version of himself so covered up.

He blinks once then twice. That presence. A small guilt bites him for not acknowledging it more ever since last week. There was the matter of immediate survival but still. The words forming in his mind to address it already fail. There's the obvious questions to ask such as "Who or what are you?", but they don't feel like enough.