Where it all began

Myra insisted she would show around the building, now that we had gone all the way there.

Myra is working as a Research Scientist at GROWL and her research focuses on Brain Machine Interfaces. “What were you planning to say next anyway?,” Myra asked in a sarcastic way “Like you are an alien disguised as a human?”

“Haha, no. I am from another universe though. That much I can tell you.”

Myra looked at V. “Wow!” she said. “Do we have any specific name?”

“Yes, you are universe 425 and I am from universe 12.”

“That’s great. I don’t know how, but my instinct says I can trust you V.”

“So do mine Myra.”

“Well, do you know where exactly you want to head in here?” Myra asked while rushing into the elevator before it was closed.

“Certainly, 12th floor it is.” “ Really? Is it a coincidence or by purpose that what you need is on the same floor as your universe number.”

“We are about to find all that.”

Myra and V headed to the 12th floor where there was a long room and only one office at the end of the hall.

“My department is on the 15th floor and it looks quite different from this one. I believe Dr. Luther’s lab occupies this whole floor.”

They went all the way to the end of the lab and checked out the door. It had a sophisticated 3 way lock system that’s a combination of gestures, eye scan and finger scan.

V looked at it as if he had been there before, even though he was going there for the first time. “I have been to this exact moment before,” V exclaimed. “ We call that deja vu,” Myra casually responded. “But this seems different,” V thought to himself.

A robot approached them. It was looking like a human but it’s eyes turned blue when it saw a living being. “Hi, I’m Ray. How can I assist you?” asked the robot in a female voice. Myra asked Ray, “When would Dr. Luther return back from vacation.” Ray scanned Myra once before responding and replied, “ He will be back after a week and should I give him a message regarding your visit, to him.”

“That would be great. It’s important. Can you mention ‘code dusk’ to him?” V insisted. The robot immediately sent a message to Dr. Luther. Within seconds, the robot mentioned that Dr. Luther wanted to connect to V.

Ray projected a hologram of Dr. Luther. “Hello V. Welcome to our universe. How are you doing? I was expecting a more experienced person for this mission and you are pretty early too.”

V looked perplexed, as he had no idea what Dr.Luther was talking about. V was about to let him but he saw something that he wasn't supposed to. It looked like Raven, and he was tied on to the wall with spider webs. His mouth was closed with some sort of glowing wires. That's when he realized Dr. Luther was in his universe.

“The beach looks beautiful, is it Miami?” Myra asked. “Certainly,” Dr. Luther responded. V looked at Myra and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"The place where Dr. Luther is talking from. Look at the background," Myra said in an exciting voice. "Oh, yes. I am just noticing," V managed to go with what she said.

V understood that Dr. Luther was hiding something and V didn’t want him to know that he figured out where he was. V kept quiet about it.

V asked if Dr. Luther knew a way to go back to his home universe. "Yes, you could, once you complete the mission assigned to you. Let me assist you with getting everything started right away. Dr. Myra, you might have to work with the team on BMI as discussed."

"I thought, that project doesn't have an approval yet, and we would have to wait until next month to begin" Myra answered.

"I almost forgot. I got an approval yesterday. I will forward the email to you today, and you may start working on it this Monday if your schedule permits. I was hoping to start after my vacation but now that V is there, we could start it immediately"

"Sounds great," Myra said it in an exciting voice.

"I thought you had never interacted with Dr. Luther," V asked Myra. "About that, I had discussed one project a while ago, after which we hardly interacted directly with each other," Myra answered. "And I was waiting for the project to be approved," she continued.

They both walked towards the lab. Ray was working with Dr. Luther and opened the lab for them.

At the entrance, there was a small clinic with two robots that looked like Ray, but only with different skill set and eye color when they looked at them. The robot from different departments have different eye colors set when they interact with the living beings. The ones in the healthcare have green.

"Now that you both are here, you may take a few tests as a part of general procedure before starting to work in this lab," Dr. Luther insisted. "Why do I have to do it? I am an employee of GROWL anyway," Myra asked in a suspicious way. "It's just a part of the process here, at our lab Dr. Myra. Nothing to worry about. This is just a normal procedure to do, before commencing any project and after completing it, so as to check if you are not contaminated by any of the chemicals in the lab," Dr. Luther said.

"Well, let me check for the approval email first before taking the test." Myra checked her email and read the whole document before continuing and the agreed to take her blood samples. "There is one more test that you might have to take on Monday," Dr. Luther insisted. They did take blood samples from V as well.

"I do not have a good feeling about this, or am I over thinking," Myra thought to herself. V knew this was definitely a scam but he was afraid if he didn't accept their terms he might end up being killed and wouldn't have a chance to save his friend back at his home universe. So all he could do now is play along with them for now.

After taking the blood samples, they entered the actual lab. Both V and Myra were awestruck seeing that lab.