True Purpose

“Are you sure about this?” Yui asked.

“No,” Stella said as she input the access pin. “But we’re doing it anyways.”

A green light went off after she entered the code, signaling her success. “We’re in,” Stella whispered. “Let’s go.”

It had been a week since their fight with Surge, and Stella hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the Aria’s death.

Stella wanted to believe her mother had the best of intentions for creating the Aria, but the amount of hostility Surge had for her was unsettling, and the explosion of energy when she died caused her doubts to fester further.

Desperate to soothe her anxieties, she decided she couldn’t just accept the answers her mother handed to her. She had to confront her with enough evidence to force her mother to admit the truth—even if it was a truth Stella didn’t want to hear.

But while Yui was fine with omitting the details of Surge’s death from their report to pretend ignorance, she’d hesitated when Stella revealed she wanted to bust into the energy development division to investigate.

Stella knew it was risky. She was the CEO’s daughter, and even she wasn’t privy to what research was conducted in the energy division. Getting caught would surely mean that the truth would be permanently out of her grasp. Worse, it could mean being fired from the Strike Force and stripped of all her access privileges.

Even so, Stella wouldn’t cower under the threat of punishment. People were dying. The homes and businesses of the city’s residents were in shambles. The Aria were being hunted down—and perhaps unfairly so. The consequences of her inaction were too great for her to worry about preserving her position. She was grateful Yui felt the same.

“Find anything?” Yui asked as she combed through the logs on the head researcher’s computer.

Stella exited the file manager on the computer she’d hacked into with a sigh. “No. There’s too much redacted information in the documents. They’re definitely hiding something, though.”

Yui glanced at the robust doors at the back of the office area. “I guess if we really want answers, we need to try the lab.”

Stella nodded in agreement. “Looks like it.” Stella pulled a slim card out of her pocket. “I’m glad we were able to clone my mom’s access key. If not, we’d be stuck in the office area.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me you knew someone who had magic capable of that,” Yui said. “There’s so many concert after-parties I could have attended with a fake ID…”

“Well, getting you a fake ID doesn’t exactly benefit the greater good. I only made an exception because of how important this is.”

“And my concerts aren’t important?”

Stella shook her head in exasperation as she held the access key up to the sensor and unlocked the heavy steel doors. “Let’s just focus on what we came here to do, okay?”

“Fine,” Yui said as she crossed her arms. While she was definitely pouting, she didn’t look seriously upset.

The doors were too heavy to open manually, so Stella and Yui waited with baited breath as they slowly inched open.

Yui’s arms fell limply to her sides in shock. “What…”

Stella’s heart thudded in her throat like a piano hammer. There was a simple, straight path to the heart of the lab from the entrance, and in neat rows on either side of it, were large test tanks filled with…Aria.

Stella rushed toward the tank closest to her and pressed her hand against the glass.

There was only one thing she needed to confirm—just one. “It’s breathing,” Stella exhaled. “It’s alive, Yui. It’s alive.”

Yui joined her, looking up at the oxygen bubbles being released into the liquid tank. “They’re still making more,” she murmured. “We’ve been spending all this time trying to exterminate the ones that escaped, and they’re creating new Aria.”

“This isn’t right,” Stella said. “It can’t be.” Stella pulled her hand away from the tank and marched down the hall of suspended Aria, straight into the heart of the lab.

Unlike the computers in the outer division area, Stella quickly realized that all the files on the lab’s main computer were unaltered. She could read every single word. Yui peered over her shoulder as Stella scanned a document of interest. “What does it say?” Yui asked.

“‘Aria Release and Energy Extraction Project?’” Stella said aloud.

“‘With the magical energy provided by the celestial dragon waning, we at the energy development division were directed by the CEO, Sakura Sakai, to create an alternative energy source to replace it,’” Yui read.

Stella picked up reading where she left off, “‘This is how the Aria Project was born. However, while the Aria possess the great energy of the dragon thanks to inheriting its DNA, they have proved to be incapable of reason and extremely violent. The project was considered by this team to be a failure.’”

Yui’s brow furrowed as she read the next part, “‘Fortunately, the project quickly turned around when the CEO suggested a new strategy for harvesting energy from the Aria.’”

Stella’s voice trembled as she read the final paragraph of the document, “‘By releasing them under the guise of an escape, Sakai Kousan would have the obligation to eliminate the threat they created—and upon the death of Aria, release the energy needed for Stardust City to continue to thrive as a center of magic.’”

Surge was right, Stella thought as she stared blankly at the glowing screen. I was naive.

“I knew it,” Yui said. For once, she actually sounded angry. “They used us. All of us. They manufactured this conflict between the Aria and the Strike Force just so we had an excuse to kill them.”

Stella stood from the computer. Her fingertips were glowing red. “Sorry, Yui. Could you download all the documents here to the external hard drive we brought?” she asked. “I’m afraid if I touch the computer for any longer I’ll accidentally melt it.”

Yui nodded as she stepped in. Stella stumbled as she stepped away. As she watched Yui work, the fierce, volcanic glow isolated to her fingertips began to crawl up her arms.

Once Yui had successfully downloaded the files, she pulled out the hard drive and turned to Stella with a grim expression. “What now, Captain?”

Stella’s magical energy pulsed with each enraged beat of her heart as she answered, “I think it’s time we had a talk with my mother.”