While Orion was sleeping, Asher found a nice, secluded spot on the rooftop and called the weird number from the notebook. The notebook didn't give him anything else beyond that phone number, but who did it belong to? There was only one way to find out. He took a deep breath and pressed the call button on his phone.

“How did you get this number?” A voice asked from the other end.

​“Who is this?” Asher asked.

“You called me, who the hell are you?” They retorted.

“How do you know Orion? Wait, let me rephrase that, how does Orion know you?” Asher asked, if this person was even remotely as secretive as Orion it wasn’t going to be easy to get them to talk.

“Orion? Well, how do you know him?” They asked.

“Give me the phone.” Someone in the background demanded.

“No, I got this.” They said. “You'll have to give more information about yourself to get anything out of me.”

“Orion is my boyfriend if you must know, I got the number from him, I just don't know what he wanted me to do with it.” Asher explained. “So, who are you anyway?”

​“Boyfriend? A likely story.” They scoffed.

“Knock it off, Ricky.” The other person said, snatching the phone from them. “You're Asher, right?”

“How do you know my name?” Asher asked.

“I'm actually the one that gave you this number. My name is Claire.” She said.

“What? How? Claire?” Asher questioned. He remembered the name, she was someone who worked at Spectra with Orion.

“It's complicated, contacting you in person would risk compromising our location and you don't answer calls from unknown numbers.” She tried to explain.

“No one does these days, are you kidding me?” Asher scowled.

“I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying it's a really lucky thing you can see through Lucidian encryption.” Claire mused.

“Lucidian what?” Asher asked.

“The notebook is a two-way communication device encrypted with Lucidian technology.” She said.

“You've been communicating with him all this time?” Asher asked.

“Not exactly. It’s effectively been one-way up until this point.” She explained. “It's important that Phalaris, well more importantly, Nullity doesn't know we're here. If Orion knows, they know. He's been able to halt any attempt at communication we've had with Orion because of that.”

“He's a Cognivore so of course he’d be able to figure it out.” Asher gripped the bridge of his nose.

“He's a what?” Ricky asked.

“A Cognivore, the bug things that eat memories? They can read minds and stuff.” Asher answered.

“Cognivore? is that what you call it?” Ricky asked.

“That name is… accurate. He is the main reason things have gotten to this point.” Claire confirmed, “but really the problem is Nullity who's backing him.”

“Nullity.” Asher repeated.

“We may not be able to come to you without the risk of being seen, but you can still come to us. I will send you coordinates.” She continued.

“Is that safe? What if someone’s monitoring this call? What if someone follows me?” Asher suddenly questioned.

“No one in the surrounding area is capable of understanding Lucidian encryption other than Orion and for whatever reason he can't.” Claire admitted, “You may not have noticed but we haven't been speaking in human language this entire time.”

“What are you saying? I’m just speaking normally.” Asher started.

“That part might be difficult to explain so we can go over the details when we meet in person.” Claire assured him.

“How can I trust you?” Asher asked.

“You can see auras, right? Decide for yourself whether to believe me when we meet.” Claire said.

“So, out of curiosity, which one of you told me to fuck off?” Asher asked.

“YOU DID WHAT?” Claire yelled in a whisper.

“You told me to get his attention.” Ricky retorted.

“Not like that.” She chided him.

“But I got his attention, didn't I?” Ricky reminded her.

Asher wasn't really sure if these people could be trusted, they definitely didn’t seem to be all that professional. But it was the only new lead he had, if anything they may be the only people who might know more about BioPort or the Lambda serum. Or even that thing he took from Phalaris’s office.

He grabbed the strange object and quickly checked on Orion before heading out to the location that Claire sent him. It was just a few blocks away,

He could feel something hit the back of his head.

“What the hell?” Asher tried to see where it came from but as he turned to look his vision distorted and blacked out completely. “What the hell!?”

Asher was blinded, as he struggled to get his bearings, he could feel someone trying to pick him up. He tried to get away, but their grip was too strong.

“Sorry about this, we can't risk our location being known even by you. I will return your sight to you when we get there.” Claire explained.

Asher tried to call out for help, but no sound came out.

“And your voice as well.” Claire continued, “Please understand, this is for all of our safety.”

Though most of his vision was complete darkness he could still faintly see aura’s around him. Not enough to make a getaway if he managed to slip free, but enough to tell that they weren’t lying. But it occurred to him in this moment, what on earth did he plan to do if they had been lying?

Asher couldn’t tell how much time had passed. He couldn’t hear much of anything other than the breath of the person carrying him. Even their footsteps were nearly silent. When they finally stopped moving, he was placed in a chair. He could hear a scanner and a few other electronic noises.

“He's not on the grid and he doesn’t appear to be bugged.” The man said, “It’s safe to release him now.”

“Thank you, Taylor. You can return to your post.” Claire said. Asher could feel her hand on his, followed by a stinging sensation in his palm. His vision slowly returned to him, in the blurriness he could vaguely see someone leaving, likely Taylor. Then his eyes rested on the person in front of him.

She was a Lucidian, brown eyes with white pupils and short brown hair. Much like Orion had described her she had a scar over her left eye. Next to her was a man in a wheelchair who he assumed to be Ricky who looked fairly similar to her. He could just barely remember Orion mentioning that they were cousins.

“This is probably the only chance I’ll ever get, is there any way you can tell me what this is?” Asher pulled out the object he stole from Phalaris’s office.

“This is a vial is made with Lucidian technology, where did you get this?” Claire asked observing it carefully.

“Based on the aura, it’s the stuff they’ve been using on Orion. I got it from his boss’s office.” Asher explained.

“Take this back to Viktor.” Claire handed it off to Ricky.

“It might take a few days, but he’ll figure it out.” Ricky assured.

“That body doesn't belong to you, does it?” Another person asked, he hadn't even noticed her in the room, so the sudden accusation almost started him.

“What are you saying?” Asher stared at her in confusion. She had dark skin, but her hair was so vibrantly orange he couldn’t help but feel curious as to why he didn’t notice her right away.

“Your soul isn't seated correctly in your body. And you know, I think I've seen your soul around as someone else.” She said placing a finger on her lips as she thought.

“I don't get it.” Asher looked around but Claire didn't seem to offer any respite from the spontaneous questioning. She was caught up studying some sort of document.

“We obtained a number of profiles from scrubbing some Nullity documents. From the profile on Ash-” Claire started.

“Don’t you dare deadname him Claire.” She cautioned her.

It felt a bit strange to hear that coming from someone who just accused him of having a stolen body. Her aura felt very soft and understanding, like she knew exactly how he was feeling. Asher could tell from that alone that this woman was probably the one Orion referred to as Imani.

“I-I wasn’t going to, I’m not that tactless.” She cleared her throat and continued. “From the profile on Asher: a part demon, classification succubus, body in optimal condition. A codependent alcoholic with an on-again-off-again relationship with supplier Vance. Procurement followed a recent argument over demonic origins. Soultaker was used in the procurement.”

“How does that even make sense?” Asher stared at her.

“Based on the collected data, Soultaker is effective against demons with lower demonic power. This individual was at approximately the best level for maintaining demonic power through the modification process.” She read off of the sheet as an explanation.

“Do you... remember anything about BioPort? Anything at all?” Imani asked cautiously pulling out a small photo. “Do you remember this person?”

It was a young man with pale blonde hair and green eyes. Asher couldn’t help but feel a sense of recognition.

“That’s… John?” Asher asked in response.

“Well, not exactly. This is Shiroé Levitas, son of John Levitas.” Claire explained.

“If you recognize this person or his father, odds are you were one of the Alpha-Eta or Rho-Eta experiments before you became Asher.” Imani added.

“No. I- I'm me. I've always been me.” Asher shook, “That’s right, I-I only recognize him because Orion mentioned him before.”

“I know this is a lot to take in.” Imani frowned knowingly.

“I'm...” Asher looked at the photo again. “No, you're wrong. I remember my childhood, my mom... my mom.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Even if it is true, why does it matter? What's the point of all this?”

“You can't stay that way for much longer.” Imani answered. “That body wasn't finished being prepared before you inhabited it. You've got maybe a few more months... if that.”

“If I'm going to die anyway, then why do I have to know? Can't I just stay ignorant? Why does it matter who I was and not who I am now?” Asher started to cry. “This is insane.”

“Your soul will be able to go back to your original body eventually. If you're not prepared for that it's going to be much harder to acclimate to it.” Claire finally looked up. “It happens to Lucidians on rare occasions when we take up physical forms. Switching them out or even returning to Lucid space can cause all sorts of existential stress. I can’t even imagine what that might do to a human’s psyche even if you are a Lucidian now.”

“I'm not a Lucidian.” Asher griped, “I don’t even have the eyes.”

“Your soul was primed as a candidate to be one of the first batch of humans to connect to the Lucidian system technology. You, along with a few others, escaped from them. That’s how we managed to get our hands on these documents after all.” Claire explained as she placed documents down on the table. “Asher’s body wasn't completely adapted which is why you don't look like a Lucidian but are still able to understand Lucidian encryption. And likely why your soul isn’t seated correctly.”

“The first thing they do when preparing a secondhand body is integrating the language center and preliminary ocular modifications, you wouldn’t be capable of much else based on how far into the procedure they got. I’m sure they took their time to maintain your demonic powers.” Ricky chimed in upon his return, “But you’re not even on the grid, so it's no wonder you never noticed.”

“What’s this… grid anyway?” Asher asked, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He wasn’t Demon enough, he wasn’t Human enough, and now he wasn’t Lucidian enough. ‘I’ve never been enough of anything have I?’

“The grid is… Just a fancy way of referring to our connection to Lucid. Despite Orion’s mission failing initially, we managed to figure out that the grid had been compromised. Meaning those still connected to Lucid are being used as mass surveillance by Nullity.” Claire explained, “Even we were unknowingly leaking information, but Phalaris let that information slip out to us before we fully lost direct contact with Orion.”

“Things are still going according to plan as far as we can tell.” Ricky added, “But obviously we don’t have a lot of information in our position, and we don’t know what Phalaris intends to do when the project is complete. Please tell us everything you know.”

“I…” Asher started. Orion seemed to have trusted these people, but was it truly a good idea? What other options were there at this point? It was a lot of information to be dumped on him at once.

“You want to help Orion, don’t you?” Imani asked, “You love him?”

“Y-yes.” Asher replied. They just confirmed all the anxious thoughts that had been creeping in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t think of anything other than Orion in that moment. Perhaps his anxiety became genuine fear, and he could no longer feel it thanks to the lambda serum… Or perhaps the shock of it all was just making him numb.

“Then please.” Imani urged him.

Asher decided to tell them everything, they diligently recorded everything he said. Claire wrote out information on one monitor, which Ricky took and organized what she wrote down. Imani, however, stared at him very closely, reading his emotions with whatever power she held, asking him detailed questions about everything he said.

“Thank you for this. We’ll contact you when we have the results on that vial you gave us. Until then, I think it would be best to prevent Orion from going to work. The symptoms getting worse is problem enough but considering how close the project is to finishing… We need to have a plan before it happens.” Claire informed him.

When it was done, he was brought back the same way he came. Though he felt like he’d been gone a while, only a few hours passed by the time he made it back home. He went to the bathroom and washed his face.

His mind wandered as his eyes caught the mirror, ‘If I’m not Asher, then who am I anyway?’ he splashed his face with water again and laid back in bed next to Orion.

‘No. Orion’s safety is more important. I don’t have time to think about those things.’ He shook it off and settled himself back into sleep.