I stood right at the door, but I couldn’t help but think. Just as I was about to leave I said to myself “I think I’m forgetting something.” I looked back and scanned the library. I walked a couple of rows in looking left and right around the book shelves. And there he was fast asleep with his head against the table. “Shiro.” I confirmed to myself. “That wouldn’t have been good.”

I shook his shoulder lightly, “Hey.”

“What’s up?” He yawned, stretching out his arms in a way reminiscent of cats.

“They’re kicking us out. It’s late.” I told him.

“Oh, wow.” He quickly got up and followed me to the door. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to go pick some stuff up at the lab and try to see what I can do up on the surface.” I said mostly focused on the book in my hands. A lot of the pages looked like nonsense, but everything else seemed to be about the facility and the surface. Just as I was about to ask Shiro if he could help me decode some of those pages, a phone alarm went off.

Shiro sighed and pulled out his phone. “I can’t be late for work.” He said turning the alarm off and heading towards the city.

“The lab is this way.” I gestured in the direction I was headed.

“Actually, I work over in business.” He said pointing out to one of the tall buildings that could be seen on the horizon.

“You really don’t strike me as a business person.”

“Well the job is a lot more interesting as a CEO.” He said in the sort of way that implied it was an acquired taste that he’d recently grown accustomed to.

“A CEO?” My eyes widened, it wasn’t hard to believe. He did give the vibe of someone who acts completely different at work then in friendly company. He was quite serious when we entered the lab up until we saw Diana after all. Somehow, I couldn’t really see him wanting to have that sort of job. “What company?”

“BMCK.” He replied back loosely as if it wasn’t anything special. If I was drinking something I would’ve spit it out, but instead a noise that vaguely resembled a mixture of a confused laugh and choking came out of my mouth. A CEO of a major company that is partnered as our suppliers and I legitimately never met him until now.

“Who-?” I suddenly thought back to a line I saw in that book Q gave me. ‘██ ███ ████ █ ███████ ██ ██.’ A mess of noise and glitchy sounds and letters rung out in my head. I wasn’t sure what meaning it had other than nonsensical patterns and scribbles, but something about it diverted my attention entirely. “That’s cool.” I responded distantly. “I have to go get prepared. I’ll see you around.”