Chapter Text
The entire space station was restless. Researchers and other employees kept whispering in the corners about an extremely specific subject.
A voice cuts through the haze. A researcher boasts loudly, for the entire group to hear, “I heard that one of the members of the Geniuses Society is visiting the space station this week,”
Another researcher—a woman—inquiries, “Really? Which one?”
“If I'm not mistaken, I believe it's one of Madam Herta's simulated universe teammates... that Ruan Mei chick.”
A soft sigh. “That’s her. My goodness, I'd be less nervous if I knew what her face looks like,” one of the countless voices said. “She doesn't have a portrait like the other geniuses in Madam Herta's office. Many people here have no idea what she looks like, and frankly? The things I've heard? I’m not sure if I wanna find out. This woman gives me the creeps!”
They chatted in a circle about the visit of one of the members of the Geniuses Society, who happened to be enjoying a creamy peach pie at that very moment, paying no mind to the cacophony of sounds around her.
Plums would be a more bitter option. I'll consider it next time, she thought, as she took the final spoonfuls of dessert.
The woman, who was standing in front of the station's huge windows in a wider, quieter part of the station, gazed indifferently at the vast immensity of the cosmos that seemed so close, as if all it took was a stretch of her arm to touch it with her fingertips. Nothing could distract her when she was immersed in her own thoughts—be they about her projects, her philosophies, her experiments, or the dessert in her hands.
If only the young people chatting nearby had known that this young lady, with turquoise eyes, fair skin, and brown hair held back by a DNA-shaped hairpin, was the visitor they were referring to, they would probably be begging for their lives, kneeling on the ground. Not that Ruan Mei was that kind of person. She honestly couldn't care less about what they say, or don't say, about anything about her that she doesn't find interesting enough.
A scholar of exquisite temperament, indifferent and completely enigmatic, Ruan Mei earned her position as member number 81 of the illustrious Geniuses Society. With terrifying talent and perseverance, and her great renown and expertise in the field of life's sciences, she received the attention of Nous, Aeon of Erudition, and began her research into the origin of life in a secret corner of the universe.
“Regardless of what she looks like or whether the visitor is herself, let's just get back to work and finish this matter immediately,” one of the researchers finished, in a reprimanding tone. “We'll be in trouble with the Lead Researcher if we're caught wasting time.”
Finally, they left, passing the static figure, standing in exactly the same place and now with a completely empty dessert jar in her hands. Silence prevailed in that immense corridor; all that was left was her and her random thoughts. It was even possible to hear her breathing, as she now thought about the last few trips she had taken.
At the beginning of the year, she had traveled to one of the immense ships of the Xianzhou Alliance fleet, the Xianzhou Luofu. Her brief visit was quite productive: her travel bag came back full of plant cuttings, recipes for local cuisine, samples of foxian DNA, and, basically, enough for her to fill a good part of the botanical space she had set up in her laboratory—as well as a few other gifts that had been indicated to her by the Astral Express when she visited the train. Some of the plants that Ruan Mei had brought with her showed clear signs of Mara, a kind of parasite that is the result of abundance and is in the development stage, but they didn't pose enough of a threat to stop her from studying the kind of virus that has almost caused devastation.
After all, Ruan Mei would never tolerate interruptions in her ambitions for knowledge, even if the source was an imminent danger.
Her current research was living proof of that.
Somewhere on the immense space station, a zone that until then had been closed off and completely out of use due to the latest invasion by the antimatter legion, Ruan Mei was working day after day on her newest and extremely secret project, a piece of research that could never leave the doors of her laboratory, since she had turned that restricted zone into her private area.
‘You can have your own lab on the space station, as long as you come to my meetings!’ Was all Madam Herta told her, as she offered her a space to work as she pleased. Both of them were together on the Simulated Universe project, alongside Screwllum and formerly Stephen. All things considered, her offer seemed more like an exchange of favors or a bribe than something genuine, but Ruan Mei didn’t care about the intentions behind it either.
Ever since she took up her reclusive life, seemingly everyone has been trying to get in the way and force a social aptitude on her. And she wasn’t, never had been, and was unlikely to be interested, simply because Ruan Mei loved the fascination of studying life, but didn’t sympathize with the idea of socializing with those who possessed it. However...
Madam Herta was an exception in her indifference to human beings—socially speaking.
To create puppets of herself, in the image and likeness of her appearance as a child, endowed with her consciousness and personality, and in enough copies to transit and take care of the Space Station... Fascinating. Ah, yes. Fascinating—that’s what Ruan Mei thought when she was introduced to one of the puppets for the first time. To this day, she vividly remembers when she arrived at the space station, after much insistence from the members of the Simulated Universe team. They wanted to meet her. They were eager to be introduced to her projects and to understand in practice and theory how her intelligence had caught Nous’s attention.
And suddenly, Ruan Mei was faced with what appeared to be a thirteen-year-old girl wearing a beret, with long brown hair lighter than her own and a personality that many said was unbearable. She immediately realized that the figure in front of her was not a human, but a kind of doll, and only then was it explained to her that this was one of the many puppets of the owner of the space station, Madam Herta, member of the Geniuses Society, number 83—the human with the highest IQ on the Blue, who only did what interested her and abandoned her projects the moment she lost interest in them.
As research colleagues, so to speak, Ruan Mei had a gray relationship with Madam Herta. They only talked about the essentials, mostly about their goals, tasks, and objectives for the Simulated Universe. But Ruan Mei had to admit: Herta’s fierce desire to make her speak more than a few sentences was interesting. And even more interesting and surprising was that she always succeeded.
Ruan Mei had a genuine interest—a fascination—for Herta, despite the fact that their fields of research were completely different. While Ruan Mei worked with life forms, Herta worked with the crudeness of numbers and formulas, with mathematics in its purest form; she used technology in such ingenious ways that many geniuses and scholars didn’t understand. It was for this reason that she received a standing ovation at the Intellectuals’ Guild for creating the Simulated Universe. However, Ruan Mei’s interest and curiosity in Madam Herta had other foundations that even she, a scientist endowed with such terrifying intelligence, could not fully understand.
Herta’s true form, isolated somewhere in the universe, was probably wrapped up in her own ego, working on her current interests while not getting bored of them and then abandoning them, as her puppets prowled the space station, discussing details here and there with Screwllum about new expansions for the Simulated Universe, analyzing the so-called ‘toys’ that Himeko sent her every now and then, and last, of course, but not least: keeping an eye on the space station. No matter where Ruan Mei was in that place, she would always have the company of one of Madam Herta’s many puppets.
However...
Strangely, in the restricted zone where Ruan Mei was working on her latest project, they never met. Not even once. This, in certain scattered moments, made her wonder how it could be possible that there were none of Herta’s puppets roaming around. Even though she had offered her a laboratory to work in as she pleased, the space station was still hers, and there was nothing to stop Herta from appearing whenever she wanted, wherever she wanted on it. Ruan Mei had two places to carry out her projects on the space station, one of which was close to Herta’s office, but away from the central base where most of the researchers were concentrated, and the other was located in a totally restricted zone, basically in the confines of the space station where no one was supposed to go.
It turned out that Ruan Mei and her fascination with life beyond the human could turn her desire for knowledge into something terrifying. That’s why her newest research object needed a large, totally isolated space—because it would be dangerous. And even though she was willing to take the risks the project presented, Ruan Mei couldn’t let others be harmed by her newest experiment. Thinking exactly like that, she decided to venture into the most isolated and deepest regions of the space station, with the aim of finding a new area to set up a new, unique laboratory designed just for her most secret experiments.
And she did. She brought to life the creation of an incomplete synthetic clone of Skaracabaz, the extinct Emanator of Propagation.
The aim of her research was to cultivate life and develop a greater understanding of Emanators, and, in her own definition, Skaracabaz was primitive and pure compared to other Emanators. It was for this reason that she chose him as the subject of her experiment, making good use of the information gathered in the Simulated Universe.
The results of her experiments led to the creation of an imperfect synthetic clone of the Emanator, who was now living in the Reclusion Zone of the Herta Space Station.
And without the owner’s consent.
It’s not that Ruan Mei didn’t think Herta should be questioned, or if she would authorize something of this magnitude to be done on her station. She simply didn’t want to communicate about her new experiment, nor did she intend to—after all, Ruan Mei is a woman who works alone.
But then again, Madam Herta was never far away from being an exception to yet another of her personal dilemmas and rules.
At that moment, Ruan Mei was walking in articulate steps towards the Seclusion Zone, where her second laboratory was housed. She needed to check the experiment and continue her compulsive research into it, until she reached her limit, as she always did, to the point of not eating regularly and spending days and nights without sleep. For some reason, she felt a little uneasy, with a sense that something was definitely not right. That long day inside the base, Ruan Mei was working in the Simulated Universe when the twins Stelle and Caelus showed up to test the new expansion created by Madam Herta. Their visit wasn’t surprising. Considering Madam Herta’s short temper, they both knew that they would be prone to hearing the most profane things ever said if they didn’t show up to do the tests as agreed.
Ruan Mei had the role of meeting them in one domain or another, guiding them and answering questions about the life forms found there. She had to ensure that the two of them could complete all the stages without any imperfection index higher than the degree of adaptation, as the difficulty of each stage increased. Normally, Screwllum took part in this observation together with Herta, but to the surprise of the three, only the aristocratic automaton was present in the universe store, equally surprised by Herta’s absence, unable to tell Stelle and Caelus the reason for her absence.
‘We have entered a domain where we are used to meeting Doctor Screwllum and Madam Herta, but he was alone this time,’ Stelle had explained when she and her brother left the simulated universe, causing Ruan Mei to feel a certain strangeness. Knowing her as she did, and this being her Simulated Universe, Herta would never be absent. In this particular situation, the sudden disappearance was made even stranger by the fact that not even her inorganic clones were around. There wasn’t even a puppet with Screwllum in the domain, anywhere on the station. Even her office, the entrance to the Simulated Universe, was completely empty the only time Ruan Mei visited that day.
This was unusual, strange, and curious. Herta's puppets practically prowled the station, and ever since Ruan Mei had started frequenting it, there hadn't been a single time when she hadn't come across at least one of her clones hanging around.
As she entered her laboratory in the seclusion zone, the gears in Ruan Mei's brain moved. She could understand Herta's dry indifference, but not this... strange absence. Uncomfortable. Curious.
And now, walking calmly between the various incubators where the clones of the swarm lay unconscious, Ruan Mei's eyes were fixed on the largest incubator, where Skaracabaz was. The Emanator's incubator, as well as being larger, reproduced organisms through the liquid, which served both as food to keep her experiment alive while he was in there, and as a powerful sedative, which kept him unconscious.
It was only when Ruan Mei approached the Emanator that she sensed something definitely wrong.
It was as if a second presence was on the outskirts of the laboratory, through the shadows—flickering and dark, since the place wasn't very well lit, to avoid waking the heirs of the Monarch Insectorum.
She looked around, trying to identify what that strange feeling of closeness was. There were several life forms in that laboratory, all linked to the swarm, with which Ruan Mei had already done the biological identification process. Which meant that the sensation wasn't coming from one of them.
“Someone was there.”
She muffled all the low noises of the machines and the unconscious noises of the sleeping swarm from her ears so that she could hear any distinct sound. Sounds that an intruder might make. A breath, a heartbeat, or a sigh — anything that would confirm her suspicion and help her understand who it might be. Ruan Mei knew that researchers didn't go in there, nor did the guards. Perhaps not even Madam Herta.
Madam Herta.
(Could it be?)
Strange that her puppets hadn't been seen at any time, anywhere, and now Ruan Mei had a familiar sensation that gave her a chill: whoever it was, they were getting closer, and she couldn't see from where. Could it be a threat or something? No. If it was, she would have realized the risk before she even entered the laboratory. Ruan Mei had very keen senses of perception. She worked to make the whole area favorable for her sensors so that she could sense the presence of people with just a sound coming from anywhere. Whoever it was, they were there for the first time.
Suddenly, a familiar voice echoed through the laboratory, drawing her attention. An extremely carefree voice, somewhat debauched, but loaded with a certain lust and arrogance.
It was her.
Sitting at one of the tables, holding a letter in her hands as she analyzed her own handwriting on the paper, she wore a lopsided smile on her face.
Madam Herta had finally shown her face, but not in the way everyone is used to.
“I have to confess... the attraction and admiration I feel for your audacity in refusing those invitations every time is very curious,” Herta said. “I find that terrifying indifference you carry in that beautifully sculpted face completely fascinating.”
Ruan Mei stood still in the same place, without making a sound, without any reaction, and without even being able to formulate a sentence that might be useful to answer her. This was certainly far from her normal. It was probably due to the fact that Madam Herta was standing right in front of her, just a few meters away, but not one of her many puppets based on the caricature of her childhood, and yes, the older, more beautiful, and totally unbelievable woman that Herta is.
Yes, it was her human “version” who was there, for some reason.
And she was looking disdainfully at the letter she herself had written to Ruan Mei weeks ago, inviting her to a meeting with the other members of the Geniuses Society.
She was wearing a mini dress with black and purple details, her typical and favorite color palette. Her outfit had stunning details—white embroidery, an exposed back, asymmetrical boots, and a hat in the same colors as the dress. Unlike the puppet, her light brown hair seemed even longer, and her incomparable beauty now seemed more unshakable than ever.
Those who only know the fibers and plastic of her puppets could never imagine how breathtaking the real Madam Herta is. She's an extraordinary beauty, a truly beautiful woman.
“Let me guess: your silence indicates that you're now wondering what I'm doing here and why I've appeared in this form,” Herta said. “You don't need to confirm that. Your lack of reaction is enough of an answer.” She crossed her legs on the table and threw the invitation in the garbage can, pointing at it with a lift of her chin. “I believe you usually do that with everyone else's letters, am I right?”
“...Despite my fascination with the Simulated Universe and the possibility of direct communication with the Aeons, that's still not enough to get me to attend meetings with so many people,” Ruan Mei replied.
“But on the other hand, you prefer to surround yourself with extinct life forms, apparently.” Herta looked around, observing with her expressive eyes all the incubators with the unconscious clones of the swarm, stopping her gaze on the Skaracabaz clone. “...Or not. Depending on what your intention is in using clones of the swarm as an experiment, I still have to decide how I should judge this secret action of yours.”
The way the climate in that laboratory had completely changed to a strange but peculiar atmosphere was making Ruan Mei a little apprehensive.
She was more than used to Herta's presence at her side on the space station. She wouldn't be surprised if she happened to enter her laboratory in the seclusion zone and came across one of the puppets judging her research and asking a thousand questions, wanting to understand at all costs how she had achieved all those feats on her space station, in a totally restricted area, totally without her knowledge.
But nothing could have prepared her for receiving Madam Herta in the flesh—in the most literal sense of the expression—in her laboratory, right in front of her eyes for the first time since the two had met at the Geniuses Society.
Ruan Mei sighed. She was uncomfortable because something essential was missing from that communication. The woman in front of her was definitely not a puppet—she was a human being. And for any dialog between them to continue, Ruan Mei needed to absorb her in her own, human, living way.
“Do you know what fascinates me the most? All this time working together, and I know almost nothing about you,” Herta said suddenly. In the blink of an eye, she was already in another space, and with long, slow steps, she was closing the distance between them. “I never know what you're thinking and I simply can't read you. This intrigues me, sometimes it irritates me, but it piques my curiosity about you.
“That’s not entirely true,” Ruan Mei replied. “You know about my research projects, my methods, and the way I conduct my experiments. As geniuses, I don’t see anything more valuable to know about someone who does that.” She tilted her head, eyes fixed on Herta. “...Or is there something else you want to know?”
“I want to know more about you,” Herta replied, impassive. “I know a scientist who works in my Simulated Universe, skipping nights of sleep without stopping, but I want to know more about the person behind that figure.”
Ruan Mei crossed her arms. Just as Madam Herta was considered unpredictable, she could make the same accusation if she wanted to. Never in a thousand Amber Eras could Ruan Mei have imagined that Herta would be so interested in her personal affairs.
And now, faced with her human form, the fascination she had always felt for the Society’s number 83 genius boiled over within her. Ruan Mei resisted the strange urge to rest her fingers against Herta’s neck, to feel the heat of her skin and the steady pulse of her arteries. Instead, Ruan Mei just blinked, slowly, like a cat.
“Let me touch you,” she said, finally. “It’s my habit to collect information about your biological system and fill my brain with it.”
Since she understood herself as a person, Ruan Mei had an interesting way of better knowing the human lives that aroused some kind of interest: the use of touch. Skin against skin and feeling the heat or coldness. Despite that, in all the times she did it, she always wore her silk gloves.
She had used this method with other people before, like Stelle and Caelus the night she met the twins on the space station. Using her fingertips in the neck region to gather information from the biological system helped her open her senses and better understand their way of life. And with Herta, it should not be different. After all, it was her human version there and not the puppet—which was merely a robotic life form, more or less similar to that of Screwllum’s. Ruan Mei hadn’t felt the need to apply her method of touch to the puppet. What she needed to know about Madam Herta until then was presented to her in a professional routine.
“Certainly, I thought you would ask for this. I noticed your visual restlessness with my appearance,” Herta replied. “Take off your gloves.”
“Mm. For what reason?” Ruan Mei asked.
“Human heat in skin-to-skin contact can be more effective for its data collection through the sensory method,” Herta explained. “Because I assure you that once your hand touches me, you will discover beyond what your eyes can see.”
Ruan Mei partially opened her mouth, feeling somewhat intimidated and at the same time surprised, nervous, and curious about that specific request. It was as if Herta was trying to show her something she wasn’t able to see — something that was in front of her eyes and yet felt invisible.
There was a sense behind this, she thought. Madam Herta never gave a point without a knot; if she was suggesting that a more carnal touch would be more effective in her habit, then there was no reason to disregard her suggestion.
“Very well,” Ruan Mei replied before taking off one of her turquoise silk gloves.
She was more than used to wearing them constantly. In a strange way, Ruan Mei felt that her gloves gave her a certain protection, which was a little curious for a biological scientist.
Ruan Mei held her glove with her hand still covered and slowly approached, raising her arm toward Herta in order to touch her for the first time and absorb the details of her biological system, allowing the information to fill her brain.
Suddenly, her hand stopped in the air centimeters away from Herta. It was as if she could not move it forward anymore, like a sudden paralysis. Ruan Mei realized she was indecisive, nervous, and confused about where to touch her. On her face, perhaps? It didn’t seem right for some reason. On her neck? Neither. Herta had her shoulders completely exposed, but still, it didn’t look enough.
“Are you having trouble continuing?” Herta asked, smiling sarcastically. “Obviously, it was a rhetorical question. Let me help you.”
“I just can’t decide. How strange,” Ruan Mei replied. “Your sudden presence in this form may have messed up my senses. If I knew you would be here, it wouldn’t be a problem, maybe.”
“Your sensory habit of gathering information from the human biological system does not necessarily need to come from yourself,” Herta said. “I can pass you everything about me too, so let me touch you.”
The first time Ruan Mei met the twins on the space station, she performed the sensory method with both. However, Stelle made mention of touching her cheek because of some cake flakes that were stuck there. But one hard look from Ruan Mei was enough for the girl to immediately lower her hand. She didn’t want to be touched, and she didn’t need to say it with words; her look was enough most of the time.
However, with Herta, she at least had time to take a step back. Her dress was open in the region of the collarbone and made the neckline evident on her bust. And it was exactly in that exposed area that Madam Herta put her fingertips, without hesitating for even a second. Ruan Mei felt as if her whole body was paralyzed at the moment that the heat from that simple touch emanated.
Herta dragged her fingers all over her collarbone, and that touch shone. Ruan Mei felt some very mild shock waves with the amount of information her brain absorbed. Not only information but previously unknown sensations, too.
She closed her eyes for a moment. It was too much to be passed, and many of them probably were not known by anyone else. Ruan Mei felt the immense load of insane intelligence that Herta possessed, how her whole system worked, her powers that seemed to transit between the ice and the cosmic. But something even more aroused her attention.
Everything inside Madam Herta seemed to exist for too long. Her biological system gave the feeling of having changed several times in evolution format, but this phenomenon only occurs when the person in question is alive for a long time. A time an ordinary human being could not withstand.
And then, Ruan Mei saw him for the second time since she started her research years ago.
Nous.
Ruan Mei’s breath catches on her throat, heart skipping a beat—how is this possible?
Her subconscious was going round and round. She could feel the gaze of the emanator of erudition at that very moment, as if they were in an audience with him. The numbers in his codes came in an overwhelming amount. She was beginning to feel it, and it was as if he were trying to communicate with her too.
Instinctively, Ruan Mei held her wrist still, her eyes closed, and took a deep breath. Madam Herta’s touch shone on her skin, but despite her attempt to intervene, Herta dragged the tips of her fingers down her neck to her chin, making Ruan Mei tilt her head and open her eyes immediately.
It was when the contact ended, and Herta stopped touching her there, but her pulse was still being held.
“I’ve never seen you look so distraught before. What a divine expression,” Herta said, a typical convinced smile on her lips. “It was exactly what I was waiting for the moment you opened your eyes.”
Ruan Mei was in complete shock, her eyes wide, breathing a little fast, and her mouth slightly open. For the first time since she had entered the Geniuses Society, Herta managed to cause her a sense of surprise to the point of leaving her speechless in the first instance.
“Herta,” Ruan Mei whispered, still trying to process what she had felt. “I... I have many questions and desperately need your answers to all of them.”
Herta smiled. Of course her colleague would be curious after having seen everything about her, especially the parts related to Nous.
“So, we’ll make a deal,” Herta answered. “I will answer whatever you ask me, and you, in turn, will allow me to delve into your touch habit.”
“Excuse me?” Ruan Mei asked. “I’m sorry, I’m not understanding this sudden interest in personal affairs. You never were before.”
“You know, Ruan Mei, I’m the kind of woman who eventually gets bored with everything that doesn’t interest me. And I get so easily bored that I lose interest from one hour to the next,” she replied. “But you... Oh yes, I want to know everything about you. I want to enjoy your explanations about your experiment involving a clone of the emanator of a dead Aeon. I want to know everything about you.”
Herta continued, “I want to know what you think, what you feel, what you see... And finally, I’ve found a perfect opportunity to make you my new research project.”
Ruan Mei ended up squeezing her hand around Herta’s wrist, breathing deeply to the point of her chest rising and then slowly descending. She wasn't angry, but intrigued, because she could never have imagined that Madam Herta, known to be the most difficult form of life to impress in the entire universe perhaps, would have such interest and curiosity in her person.
Both are part of the same Geniuses Society, both were noted by the Aeon of erudition and both Ruan Mei and Herta had different directions in their respective areas of research. Ruan Mei was a scientist of exquisite temperament with a specialty in the field of life sciences, while Madam Herta opted for pure mathematics and all the technology that involves her. It is not for nothing that she herself developed the simulated universe and later invited Ruan Mei to join her, Screwllum and Stephen in the project.
Perhaps, what piqued Herta's curiosity was the fact that Ruan Mei was a completely gray woman. She didn't show feelings, her understanding of love broke with the ideas taught in textbooks, challenged conventional definitions of morality. She showed both her virtues and her faults, and immediately turned away anyone who tried to stay by her side. She didn't create bonds but allowed someone’s time with her to be precious, did not let them remember her, but lamented when she noticed that they did not want to forget her.
Totally gray.
“Right.” Ruan Mei responded and then released Herta's wrist. “You'll answer all my questions and I’ll let you study whatever you want about me. We have a deal and I will take it very strictly.”
“Sure. And that means…?” Herta asked.
“That you can’t get bored and give up before I’m satisfied.” Ruan Mei replied.
Madam Herta was not the kind of person you could negotiate with unless she was extremely interested in something or if you had something valuable to offer in exchange. Ruan Mei was extremely interested in everything she absorbed during that touch. She saw things and thought about questions that needed immediate answers and would certainly be frustrated if she was interrupted because of Herta’s selfishness.
However, Herta smiled discreetly. She was more than willing to make a deal with her colleague because just as Ruan Mei had plans in mind, Herta also had her own.
“I promise not to abandon our deal until you are satisfied.” She said.
“Very well.” Ruan Mei answered, visibly satisfied. “What if I get bored at some point?”
“You won’t.” Herta simply replied.
“And how can you be so sure?” she asked.
Herta sat on her floating scepter with her legs crossed and observed Ruan Mei's analytical gaze on her.
“Because I am Herta.” She replied. “I’ll never be uninteresting to anyone. Simple as that.”
And finally, there she was. The arrogant, irreducible, extremely confident and completely self-centered Madam Herta.
No matter how you try to refute it, Herta would always have an answer on the tip of her tongue about how perfect she is in every possible aspect and free from any defect. She was so convinced of her own perfection, that you would reach a point where you simply gave up on continuing to argue and just accept that yes, Herta is perfect and nothing less.
And every day that passed, it became more and more difficult not to follow her line of reasoning, because Madam Herta knew her potential, reaffirmed it and let no one forget it.
Well, Ruan Mei never denied herself the perfection that Madam Herta possessed, on the contrary, she reaffirmed it without any hesitation.
“Give me a few minutes. I’ll make some tea before we can talk.” She said. “Do you prefer lemon with plums or a more fruity flavor? This second one I brought from one of my trips, more precisely when I made a stop in Penacony, the good planet of festivities.”
“Hmm. Lemon with plums.” Herta answered. “I like the citrus combination of it and mainly because plums are similar to your perfume. Every time I enter the Simulated Universe and feel this specific scent, then I know you were there.”
“It’s something I never noticed about myself, to be honest.” Ruan Mei replied as she headed to a part of her laboratory where she used to make her recipes. “That’s a very interesting way for you to notice me, however.”
“What can I say? My senses are sharp. Not all kinds of aromas please me—take Tayzzyronth for instance. I hate encountering him there.” Herta explained. “That smell of insects and plasma makes me sick to my stomach.”
“And yet, you did not oppose my research with a clone of its Emanator.” Ruan Mei countered.
She prepared the tea quietly, the tone of voice calm as usual and without allowing flaws in her voice. Ruan Mei hardly lost her composure, in fact, that gray personality ended up making her behavior very elegant all the time. Not even Herta's puppets were enough to disturb her unshakable patience and serenity.
“Depends. What do you intend to do with it?” she asked.
“Study it.” Ruan Mei replied. “The understanding of life beyond the Aeons fascinates me, you know that. This Emanator has a limited time of life once it is fully awake, but it is not the time yet for and this stage of the experiment still requires a little more time.”
“How long are we talking about?” Herta asked.
“56 seconds. It’ll wake up and live for 56 seconds, then die in an implosion. Not a second more than that.” She said, “I have cream, sugar cubes, cinnamon, and honey. What do you prefer in your tea?”
“Nourish the propagation’s Emanator just for it to exist for less than a minute... How impressive.” Herta now analyzed with her critical eye the immense sleeping beetle in the largest incubator of the laboratory, totally preserved and very well cared for. “Two spoons of honey, please.”
Herta wondered how far Ruan Mei’s intellect could take her. For her achievements, and especially current ones, she would surely go further than someone could ever imagine. And knowing that the sensory method was effective, Herta knew that Ruan Mei’s interest in her existence would be the basis of communication between them from now on.
“I considered the possibilities of what could occur in less than a minute during his existence.” She replied. “Although it presents a high risk for the space station, I believe the Emanator won’t react violently when this time comes.” Ruan Mei separated the tea for both in porcelain cups with white and gold colors.
Herta laughed in a conformed manner, but impressed at the same time and wondered silently how anyone could talk about such things so naturally. Ruan Mei did exactly what she wanted to and no matter how atrocious it could be, she would simply describe her feat with a frightening normality, as if she were explaining the process by which ice turns to steam when it reaches the boiling point of water.
“Let's raise new possibilities here.” Herta said. “What if by chance, your experiment reacts with aggression when he's free of the incubator?” she asked. “What will you do at that time?”
“That’s a valid point to be discussed, I suppose.” Ruan Mei replied.
She delivered one of the cups of tea to Herta, the freshness of the plums that evaporated from the liquid caused a feeling of tranquility, and particularly speaking, Herta liked combinations involving plums too much.
“Ruan Mei... We both know that I wouldn't put your intellectual capacity at stake in your experiments. Failures happen and even a genius of my caliber can commit certain blunders,” Herta remarked, never leaving her ego out. “However, I am curious about what you will do if your experiment fails more than acceptable.”
“The twins,” Ruan Mei answered. “They have advanced the new stages of the incognito domain almost without difficulty and will prepare for the final stage.”
“So, you intend to use the twins in case the emanator tries something too risky?” Herta asked. “This will not work, I’m sorry to say, but those two can’t keep information even if their lives depend on it. And look that most of the time, their lives depend on it!”
“Certainly, but I’ve thought of everything,” she said. “Skaracabaz won’t cause damage to your space station, that’s a guarantee I can give you. And about the twins, don’t worry, I know exactly how to keep both of them with their mouths shut.”
They enjoyed tea quietly, nor did it seem that they were in front of an immense incubator with the emanator of propagation sleeping inside it. For a long time, Skaracabaz was the nightmare of several worlds during the swarm disaster and as an emanator, his jaws were inherited directly from Tayzzyronth. Precisely because she is a biological scientist and specialist in the life sciences, Ruan Mei wanted merely to study it. Skaracabaz was not more than an object of research for her and would be discarded when her experiment ended.
She just did not expect to receive the very owner of the station in her secret laboratory, in her real form, and making Ruan Mei discover that Madam Herta's existence would be much more interesting research. Ruan Mei created the imperfect synthetic clone of an emanator to study and now, she was with two in the same space.
“I suppose you would like to ask me your many questions,” Herta commented suddenly while still enjoying her tea. “Ask as much as you want and when you want, I’m bored lately. No wonder I ended up here.”
“Boredom is something that consumes you with immense ease,” Ruan Mei said.
“For a genius of my level, nothing seems interesting enough and when I finally find something to entertain myself, I lose interest quickly,” Herta answered. “It is difficult to hold my attention in the long term, as much as they offer me something that is beneficial or valuable for me, nothing lasts forever.”
“Even your relationship with Nous?” Ruan Mei asked.
And the answer did not come immediately. Instead, Herta offered her a suggestive look, as if she silently said that the question was rhetorical. They made a deal and Herta knew exactly what she was getting into the moment she agreed to let Ruan Mei use her sensory method for information gathering, but Herta wasn’t trying to hide anything because if she didn’t want Ruan Mei to know something, it would not be difficult to select what she would let her colleague see and what she would not.
“Can I start?” Ruan Mei asked.
“Whenever you want,” Herta replied, now sitting on her scepter again and with her legs crossed.
Ruan Mei took a deep breath, stood before greatness never seen with her own eyes, and honestly, if she knew more about the secrets of Madam Herta, Skaracabaz's clone would never exist.
She put her now empty cup on the table and crossed her arms afterward, looking at Madam Herta with her turquoise and totally expressionless eyes. Herta was anxious sometimes with this detail. Ruan Mei was totally unpredictable and it was impossible to decipher her. Nothing in her expressions was able to at least report what she was feeling.
“How long have you been around?” Ruan Mei asked.
“A long time ago,” Herta answered.
“Be specific,” she insisted, not tearing her eyes away. Not even for a second.
“Well, I’ve had this same appearance before you were even born,” Herta explained. “And I had the puppet's appearance a bit before the Glamoth’s Iron Cavalry fell.”
“Roughly two thousand years ago,” Ruan Mei concluded, totally fascinated with the information. “How can you exist so long and have entered the Geniuses Society after me?”
“That’s the least about me. There have been other people noticed by Nous over the centuries who are not part of this guild,” she answered. “You recently visited the Xianzhou Luofu, right? You must have heard of their Master Diviner, gifted by Nous with a blessed trinket—is it called the third eye? Something like that.”
“Oh, Lady Fu Xuan, you mean? I had the opportunity to meet her personally. It was a fleeting meeting, but interesting nonetheless,” Ruan Mei remembered the woman of short stature, pink hair, and a temperament almost as foul as Herta’s. “And at what point did you enter the Society?”
“When I wanted to,” she smiled. “When I decided that I wanted to be part of something and be in the midst of fellow beings. That’s when Nous made me one of the members of the Genius Society.”
Waiting so many Amber Eras to decide whether or not to be a part of something is definitely something she thought, but while it seemed intriguing, it was also typical of Madam Herta to do things when she felt like doing them. If she did not enter the Geniuses Society before, it was simply because she did not want to.
Herta could have joined the organization even before Polka Kakamond. Perhaps, Herta could have been the first genius among them and simply chose to pass ages and ages from outside.
“How was the moment he conceived you?” Ruan Mei asked.
“Um, let’s see... I should have been between 10 to 13 years old at the time, a long time ago,” Herta replied, pulling the memories of the moment when Nous first observed her. “It was soon after I had solved the theory of solitary waves. The one proposed by Patavia Adler during the Conflict of Scholars."
Ruan Mei listened carefully, fascinated by the memory accounts of Madam Herta telling how she was conceived by the Aeon of Erudition. Basically, the theory of which Herta was referring consisted of finding the answer to the fourth cosmic enigma according to Nous: is the universe predetermined or not?
This theory is based on a wave that permeates the imaginary background, rises from an unknown point, and disappears beyond an unfathomable range, causing the experiment that is normally in it to face a mysterious error. This wave has always been identical, never decayed, and was not affected by the distortion of space-time precisely because this wave is a moment extrapolated by Nous.
“I remember the little research I did on this theory a few years ago, pure curiosity,” Ruan Mei said. “And did you solve it during your childhood? An admirable feat, I must admit.”
“Of course I solved it. It’d be shameful for myself if I, Herta, could not get a resolution to it,” she answered. “I can remember exactly how boredom was consuming me moments before I came across that so-called problem...”
No matter what form it took, Madam Herta would never miss an opportunity to speak almost without stopping about her incomparable greatness, about how her intelligence is so immense that it makes the most complex dilemmas of the galaxy easy to unravel by pure lack of anything better to do.
But...
Ruan Mei held her cup of tea in half while she watched her colleague who was now talking about herself as always, but Ruan Mei did not hear exactly what was being said by Herta. The words did not form phrases in her brain. She could hear the sound of her voice, but she didn't understand even a comma that came out of her mouth. The reason was simple: Ruan Mei was fascinated by her desire for something while analyzing some details.
Herta appeared to have extremely silky, soft skin that could shine depending on the angle of the light. Her long brown hair spread out on her back, or in front of her shoulders covering her collarbone, as well as her face symmetrically perfect and very expressive. Her mouth moved without stopping while Herta spoke about something, her big eyes of violet color followed the movements of her lips and her expression of superiority. In the junction of all these things seemed... a perfect experimental specimen.
Ruan Mei loved perfect experimental specimens.
Analyzing more calmly and carefully, Madam Herta's beauty once again impressed to the point of making the most inexpressive woman of the space station, leaving her lips half-open and her gaze lost in admiration and another feeling that Ruan Mei, by chance, was not able to identify in herself.
“To which dimension did your confused mind travel this time?” Herta asked suddenly, ripping her out of her hyper-focused thoughts.
It was curious, while Herta was talking and talking without stopping about herself—at least the topic was that while Ruan Mei was still able to follow—then the words just entered by one ear and soon came out by the other, not causing the slightest of effects in her brain to the point of triggering an immediate reaction. However, Ruan Mei came back to reality at the moment when Herta caught her attention with that critical, impassive and analytical look.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” Ruan Mei asked, feeling confused and a little disoriented.
Herta rose from her scepter, making it disappear then and, with arms folded, walked in slow steps to Ruan Mei, eliminating any distance between them.
“I think that I have answered enough questions for today,” she said. “I gave you exactly what you wanted, now you will give me what I want.”
Ruan Mei wasn't the kind of person who would be so easily intimidated, in fact, she was the one who ended up intimidating the rest of the people even without having the intention. Something in her neutral and apathetic personality ended up giving the impression that she was testing someone’s ability when she couldn’t care less.
However, Ruan Mei would be lying if she said that Herta's sudden approach did not cause her surprising chills.
Madam Herta’s gaze was mesmerizing, so deep and vivid that it seemed to see beyond her soul. For Ruan Mei, it was as if she were before the gaze of Nous himself. And it was not only her violet look so focused on her person, but also her lips carving a smile suggestive of who would make an excellent profit from something.
“I want to touch you,” Ruan Mei expressed suddenly, letting one of her thoughts speak out loud. “All the information and details of your biological system that I acquired was because of your touch on me,” she said. “Let me put the tip of my fingers on any corner of you, Madam Herta.”
Herta smiled as satisfied as possible, but at the same time discreetly not to show how much she was anxious about it. Although it was her turn to ask for something, she wanted to influence Ruan Mei’s curiosity as much as she could, and if her colleague wanted to start by the touch, then so it would be. Calmly, Herta took off her hat and put it on the table next to her and sighed with immense serenity as she turned her gaze to Ruan Mei.
“Take off your gloves,” she said. “If you want to touch me, then take off your gloves.”
“I didn’t mean to leave them on anyway,” Ruan Mei replied. “But... I want to ask you one more thing.”
“You’re asking too much, don’t you think?” Herta asked, full of cynicism. “When it’s my turn, I expect no less than having you at my mercy.”
Ruan Mei took a deep breath, moistening her lips with her tongue and rubbing her fingers in the palm of her hands. She was a little nervous, it was remarkable. The problem is that Ruan Mei definitely wasn’t used to feeling like this.
It was common that she felt an overwhelming desire for the discovery of something scientifically speaking, her curiosity always became quite noticeable and overwhelming when the subject was of interest to her. Now, feeling the need to touch a specific person? Well, for everything there was a first time.
“I... want you to put my hands on you,” Ruan Mei asked. A request that seemed more like a plea. “I don’t know where to touch you and I feel an immense desire to the point that I can feel my hands burning from the inside out, but... I don’t know where to start. Could you do that for me?”
Herta smiled in a way that Ruan Mei had never seen before. It was possible to feel the malice in her expression and the way that simple reaction on her part suddenly made Herta seem unpredictable, left Ruan Mei with the question in mind: what is going through her head?
Unlike Ruan Mei, Madam Herta was not the kind of person undecipherable depending on the situation. Of course, like all the other geniuses in the organization, she had her most hidden secrets and her affairs that were only to her knowledge and no one else. But in other respects, it was easy to guess what her opinion would be precisely because of her self-centered and unbearable personality. This is something that Madam Herta would say or Madam Herta would hate this choice and we all know it more or less in this way, besides other similar situations where it was possible to even hear the voice of the puppet complaining, criticizing something.
But at a time like this, it was really hard to predict her actions or have at least an idea of what she might be thinking. Herta’s beauty was an almost fatal distraction. Ruan Mei could not think rationally for even a second, she was so lost in that deep look, it was as if she was standing before an Aeon.
“I had an interesting idea.” Herta closed her palm and then opened it again, revealing a red lipstick. “If you don’t know where to start, then I’ll plot a path that you can follow with your fingertips. What do you think?”
Ruan Mei raised her eyebrow, it looked strangely provocative.
“Like a map?” she asked.
“More or less. Where I pass the line of lipstick, you keep touching it until you get used to it,” Herta answered. “So next time, you’ll be used enough to explore my skin with your fingers without needing a command as a guide.”
Used enough to it? Her hands become restless. Ruan Mei scratches her palms with her well-manicured nails, observing carefully.
Ruan Mei took a deep breath in a way that you could hear the air coming in through her mouth, as if the movement she needed to make at that moment required a silent courage. Her eyes remained fixed on Herta, feeling intimidated to initiate contact, but at the same time, it was as if her desire to touch her was being stirred to make her reach its limit. Seeking permission with her gaze—which had already been granted—and finding there not only acceptance but also something that seemed a tacit invitation.
Madam Herta refused to say a single word, would not lose her patience, and not give up. She was willing to wait patiently until Ruan Mei laid hands on her, simply because it was pleasing to see her colleague challenging herself in something so simple.
Ruan Mei quickly closed her eyes as her fingers approached the shoulder, pausing briefly before touching the skin. Then she opened them and bit her lip discreetly as she put her fingers where the lipstick line began. The touch was light, almost ethereal, like the first snowflake that touches the ground. The warm, vivid texture under her fingertips seemed to create an indescribable connection, as if touch conveyed something deeper than words could achieve.
Suddenly, Ruan Mei stopped the movements of her fingers the moment she heard a sigh when it reached the region of the collarbone.
“Herta, is everything okay?” she asked. She was so keen to continue following that line drawn by lipstick that she didn’t notice something curious. “Your face is red. Did I do something wrong?”
Herta held Ruan Mei’s wrist, preventing her from moving her hand away, and raised her gaze to face her. When she opened her eyes, it was possible to see clearly what was happening to her during what they were doing.
She felt desire in its most licit and transparent form. And if that desire wasn't still burning for Ruan Mei, then it would start soon.
“Don’t worry about it,” Herta replied. “You’re doing it better than I could have imagined. Keep going.”
An interesting thing to note is that even in a moment of vulnerability, apparently, Herta did not beg or plead, even discreetly. She gave an order to be fulfilled and did not give up her dominant side.
Ruan Mei continued, her fingers gently sliding down the curve of the shoulder to the collarbone where they paused for a moment, exploring the delicacy of that region. Every little wrinkle and protrusion on the skin of Madam Herta seemed to tell a story, and Ruan Mei, being the person who touched her, did so with the reverence of someone who leafs through the pages of a precious book.
“How do you feel touching me?” Herta asked suddenly.
“Feels good,” Ruan Mei replied, without distracting her attention from what she was doing. “Your skin is so delicate. It’s soft. Warm. It brings me this feeling of… I don’t know—serenity.”
Herta remained motionless, but not rigid; her breath was slow, and her eyes, which had lowered momentarily, found again those of the one who touched her. There was an exchange that transcended the physicality of the moment, a silent dialogue between desires and intentions.
Ruan Mei followed towards the neck, a more vulnerable and intimate territory. The touch there was even more careful, almost as if the weight of the movement could break something invisible. Her fingers traced a gentle path along Herta's neck, exploring every line and curve with the devotion of one who appreciates a work of art.
“Aren’t you lucky? Few have seen, much less touched this body like you are right now,” Herta replied. “And yet I am willing to let you become the single exception.”
Her hand that once held the wrist of Ruan Mei now was on her waist, both hands were and held that region with a certain firmness, in a way that made Ruan Mei feel her fingers sinking into the fabric of her dress.
“And why is that, Madam Herta?”
After a few seconds that seemed to contain an eternity, Ruan Mei moved her fingers to the cheek, where they found the skin soft and warm. The touch there was different, more direct, but still tender. Ruan Mei slid her fingers around the face, starting at the jaw and climbing up to the cheekbone. The thumb lightly brushed her cheek, drawing a gesture that seemed almost casual, but carried the intention of memorizing every detail of that instant.
Herta was so, so attractive, beautiful, and irresistible in countless ways...
Finally, her fingers reached the lips and at that moment, Ruan Mei needed to pause because it was a time when time seemed to stop immediately. Her fingers hovered there, a few centimeters away, as if that gesture carried a special and more intense gravity. When the touching finally happened, it was like a sigh, a silent statement of all that didn’t need to be said.
“It’s not a complicated answer,” Herta answered, getting closer to the point of having her colleague put her free hand on her shoulder. “I desire you. All of it. I want to be the reason your beautiful face contorts. I want to know every tiny detail about you.”
Ruan Mei felt her breath being interrupted. Her eyes closed and suddenly she could feel her body being leaned against the table behind her.
It was a set of many things happening. She felt her body betraying the commands of her brain, the way it seemed to fit so well between Herta's arms, the burning desire to touch her which was now more intense than before, the hoarse and considerably thicker voice of Herta, totally disregarding that voice that Ruan Mei heard every day by the puppet...
And of course, her fingers finally touch Herta’s lips.
Those lips, soft and receptive, did not move, but there was a vibration there, an implicit response to the gesture. Ruan Mei stayed for a few seconds, long enough for the intimacy of the moment to solidify in the air between them. When she pulled her fingers apart, the connection was not broken; on the contrary, it seemed to have deepened, as if both had just shared something deeply human.
“Herta, I don’t know how to answer properly,” Ruan Mei said. She still had to follow the rest of the line marked by lipstick. “But... I would like to hear more about it. I would,” a beat. Ruan Mei sucks a slow breath in. “I would like to try.”
It happens in a blink of an eye.
At one point, Herta held Ruan Mei by the waist gently as she felt her fingertips rub against her skin. And on another, Ruan Mei finds herself pressed firmly against the table surprisingly. The feeling instills within her a sense of euphoria, deep and restless. Her thighs clench on each side of Herta's waist.
“Will you be at my mercy?” Herta asked.
With the tip of her finger, Herta traced a path that started at Ruan Mei’s neck, descending to her collarbone, then between the full breasts almost uncovered because of the abrupt movement, just to end the path on her left thigh.
“Yes...” Ruan Mei responded with her breathing accelerating gradually. “Please.”
She feels Herta freeze.
Maybe it’s the plea—the begging of an unpredictable woman who was now so pliant under her hands, close to melting just by the sound of her voice.
The silence that instilled reigned almost absolute, except for the sound of a restrained breath and another accelerated. It is as if the universe has stopped to witness the energy that pulsates between them. Time seems to slow down, and every detail—the tension on the shoulders, the brightness of a malicious and satisfied smile, the slight trembling of one hand—was enough for both to say entire sentences without needing words for it.
“Let’s proceed with our experiment.”
Herta smiles, eyes twinkling with something Ruan Mei couldn’t quite tell.
“Now it’s my turn.”