On the morrow of the following day, the crew had come together to enjoy breakfast. 

The ground, that had been hard as stone the night before, was sandy and soft today; it had dried completely, clouds hung motionless in the sky, and the temperature had risen by twenty or so degrees Fahrenheit.

Finn sat at the table with the others, in a run-down room with one large window opposing Finn. The gray meat's texture had a strange taste, but no one questioned it after eating pureed food for two weeks.

Nathan, still chewing the leathery sole of undercooked flesh, had given up on swallowing it any time soon, and became the first to offer information regarding Andy's still unanswered question.

"We'll probably leave soon," said Nathan, smacking his lips, "I've repaired their main computer, now all that's left is to secure their system, and the rest is up to them."

Stating the obvious, Day said, "The building is a mess. Why does KSP continue to fix it?"

"One day, when the planet has reached its end," Christopher put down his fork in disgust, "this station could be these people's last chance to escape."

"But can't they fix it themselves?" asked Day, being the only one to enjoy his dish.

"No," said Christopher, "they can't. They can rebuild buildings, but they possess no knowledge about the complexity of our cyber system."

Nathan lifted his nose up higher. "Besides, anyone with access to the intelligence needed to understand the system has enough common sense to refuse a life on Pluviam. It's best to send the professionals every once in a while."

"I wasn't complaining," expressed Day, "it sure looks good on my paycheck."

Behind the ruins of a wall crouched Lena, waiting for Finn to spot her, and when he did, she gestured him to come. 

He was undecided if it could be the same girl from last night. The window he saw her through was dirty, with dust and mud, it must have been a coincidence that he had seen her at all. 

His confusion found no end, but he thought to himself that if she kept waving at him, someone else might find her hiding spot, and it was after a hesitation that Finn stood up to excuse himself to visit the bathroom. Another lie. 

Having found a backdoor at the tail of the house, he made his way to the outside, where Lena already awaited his attendance.

He hadn't seen her in the daylight until now. She had toffee brown hair, when sunlight merged with it, however, it looked rather beige. Her nose and cheeks were sprinkled lightly with freckles, and her eyes, which had appeared so dark the night before, now flared in greens and blues and a touch of yellow. 

When Finn lost himself in her alluring eyes, his pupils dilated. Those colors reminded him of his home planet, where the oceans were blue, and the land green. 

Finn would have denied with undefeated confidence that something had the virtue to trump the view of Kepler in abundance. When two weeks earlier he was looking out of the rocket's window to gape at his planet shrinking in the distance, he swore it would be the most beautiful sight he would ever live to see. 

In defiance of his pride, he could not restrain his love for her eyes.

"Finn—"

"You shouldn't be here," lectured Finn in concern for her safety.

She wore what looked like black leggings, and in combination, a mustard-yellow shirt, roughly three sizes too large for her petite body. The front of it was covered by an x, painted in black. Her skin was as tan as his, a healthy look, considering that the sun barely showed itself at this cursed place.

"I've come to tell you that the building you eagerly tried to enter yesterday is now unsupervised. And if I'm not mistaken, your enemy is distracted with eating."

"Nathan is not my enemy," said Finn, holding back a smile. "Just someone who's really hard to fool. I should strongly avoid him during illegal activities." He scratched the back of his neck, where his hair had its border. "I can't leave now, my immediate return is expected."

"This may be your only chance. Whatever you're trying to achieve, I'm under the impression that its importance surpasses breakfast."

She was anything but wrong. For a moment Finn had lost the focus on what mattered, but he remembered that everything he had risked to come here would be wasted if he did not take the chance. 

Nitha, if she truly was left in space, counted on someone to find her, and Finn was determined to be that one.

"I've got to be quick," was his resolution.

Finn and Lena raced to the KSP building. Her honesty remained untouched, for the building truly was defenseless. 

Finn and Lena raced to the KSP building. Her honesty remained untouched, for the building truly was defenseless. It was facile to access, thanks to his father's ID, but once they both slammed the heavy doors behind them, Finn was faced by the challenge of relocating the folder he had tried to open on his father's computer two weeks earlier.

The damaged roof welcomed sunbeams to fall into the office area. Red sand covered the floor unevenly, and heaps of dirt had been collected by the wind. The walls were gray, as well as the desks with the computers. 

A lot of screens had cracks, some rocks had found their way inside, and one section of the room swam in a spreading puddle. 

Finn looked up to the holes of the roof, through which he was able to see a brown sky, with parted clouds traveling significantly brisker than those on Kepler. The walls held humid air and silence. 

When Finn saw that they were alone here, he chose the nearest computer as the first for an attempt to find the folder.

"So," said Lena without her restricted voice, "what are you searching for?"

Finn's first thought was Nitha, but he cared not to tell her that.

"Half a month ago I tried to access a folder with crucial information, but KSP's security system hindered me from opening the folder. Now that Pluviam's security is out of order, I might be able to cheat the required password."

"Can't you simply ask for the information? KSP is your ally, wouldn't they want to help you?"

If that was the definition of allies, then they clearly were none.

"I hold the opinion that KSP is concealing the truth about the tragic fate of hundreds of people, and if I am right with my theories, then it would cause a lot of problems if I found out about it."

By now he had moved to the third computer, his hand slammed on the keyboard.

"Why aren't they turning on? Nathan claimed he fixed them!"

Lena had followed a pair of stairs, leading her to the open second floor, which contained a private office room. She walked back out of the office and leaned over the iron railing of an indoor balcony to shout down to Finn, who had failed to power the last computer.

"There is another one up here!" Her voice echoed off the walls. She pointed at the empty door frame behind her, while Finn walked upstairs, where the air was even thicker. It felt like stepping into an oven.

"This must be the main computer that Nathan mentioned," perceived Finn with caution. He gave the button on the processor a push, and the lighting of a white screen followed. "It's working!"

The desk with the computer stood against the wall, and on the opposite side of the crowded room was a table, swamped with stacks of external hard drives, broken motherboards, unidentifiable plastic objects, and Nathan's tools.

The hard drives had all tags with written titles on it, and while Lena read through them, Finn skimmed the computer files unwavering, until he found what he sought.

"154A," bore Finn's shaking voice to say, as the cursor glided over the folder.

"Did you just say A154?" Lena held in her hand a black hard drive that was the size of a paperback, with the title of the folder Finn was about to open.

Finn smiled in mischief. "KSP, your time has come. The truth will come forward."

He clicked on the file, and in appal, read a message that popped up on the screen. File damaged.

"What?" He clicked it again, and again, yet the message didn't leave. "No!"

"Finn?" said Lena frozen, with her voice having returned to a whisper.

"I can't believe this! All was for nothing!"

"Finn—"

"How could I have failed my mission? I had made it this far!"

"Finn!"

He turned to Lena and found her as stiff as a statue, staring in terror at what appeared to be a camera. 

It hung above the door frame, with the red light of horror. Finn's shoulders fell free from tension, his heart stopped in shock, and only his hands began to shake in an odd trembling rhythm. He was as rooted as a tree; unable to move.

"Should we break it?" asked Lena under her breath, still glued to the spot.

"It's a live transmission. Our only hope is that no one is watching. I don't understand! The security system should be down; cameras shouldn't be working." Finn steadied his breath and tried to tame the panic. "I'm screwed."

"I'm dead," emphasized Lena with both eyes ripped open.

Both kept their eyes fixed on the camera, unsure how to react to the threat.

"You have to leave," said Finn as serious as a heart attack.

"They'll catch me!"

"Not if you hide."

"When they find me, they'll kill me! You don't get it! There won't be a trial, no second chances, no mercy. I'm as good as dead just standing here."

An alarm went off. Lena's pulse throbbed in her ears, loud and irregular, but she barely heard it, for her head was clouded with fear. The beating of her own heart blocked out all other sounds.

"Run," said Finn, surprisingly calm, waiting for his legs to move. But they wouldn't. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to flee. He remained frozen.

Lena gave him a rough nudge to end his trance. They hurried out of the room and skipped the last four steps of the stairs. In a cold sweat, they made it to the closest building unseen.

The stomping of troops and the sound of loaded guns moving up and down was unmistakable. They could not stay there, they continued to run, only through alleys, as fast and as quiet as anyhow possible. 

Having gained distance between chaser and chased, they threw themselves onto the ground between two abandoned buildings. They sat in the shade, breathing rapidly through burning throats. Where they were was cover, but it was a dead-end, too.

A bleak voice was audible nearby. "Are you serious?"

Through his obsolete radio, someone replied, "Dead serious! Find them, don't let them escape!"

"They can't be far, sir. This city has limits they can't cross," answered the man through the communication device.

In Finn's terrified mind, every breath of wind was as loud as a blood-curdling scream.

The man walked stealthily. He must have been close because Finn and Lena could hear how the soldier made an effort to move soundlessly. He was dressed in black armor; a bulletproof vest, and a helmet and gas mask, black gloves, boots, and a heavy machine gun in his tight grip. 

Finn laid his finger on his pointed lips, signaling Lena to be still with all her body. The sand had left a trail, and few seconds ticked before the guard figured it out.

"Sir," he muttered into the mic, "I have a visual, what's the order?"

"Shoot the girl!" dictated a man's croaking voice.

Lena put her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream.

With his elbow, Finn broke the window next to them. He jumped through and pulled Lena into the darkness of the building, late enough for her foot to be seen by the armed man. 

He followed them into the empty, concrete apartment, aiming at the kids every time he got close enough to see them but always too late to shoot them, right before they turned at another corner.

Finn and Lena ran up a set of stairs without handrails to get to another, identical floor, with the only difference that this one's walls were half-decayed and struggled to hold the roof.

"I know where to go to lose him!" wheezed Lena and made a quick turn.

Finn, forced to trust her with his life, dashed after her. 

Out of a window with no glass, she climbed on an electricity box that was screwed to the outside of the wall, to get to the roof. Trapped like a fly in a jar, they now stood on the top of a three-story building (it used to have more, but it fell apart years ago).

"Now what? He saw us go up here!" said Finn, panicked.

Lena took the position. "Now we jump."

Her fierce look focused on the roof of another building, separated from this one by a gap of eight feet.

"No."

"Yes."

She began her sprint, careful not to slip on the pebbles beneath her shoes. She did not run for long, as space was bounded, and with one last, large step, her feet pushed her body and lifted her off the ground. 

Finn didn't dare to look, with the image in his head of her falling between the gap. It would be her deadly end. He heard a thump. Her feet touched the other roof and with gravity pushing her down, her hip bones and elbows slammed on the floor and her body made a few rolls before getting up.

"Jump!" yelled Lena, as if she was in his danger.

"I can't!"

The guard's hand popped up at the border of the roof. He grabbed the ledge and began to pull himself up. 

Finn didn't think long enough to take even one last, deep breath. He began to run for his attempted jump, and in the air, he looked beneath him, and quickly away again. Lena helped him up after gravity had him fall as well. 

The gun, resting against the guard's shoulder, had both runaways in its scope and laid the target's cross above Lena's head. 

They vanished behind a brick wall before the soldier pulled the trigger. 

Lena led Finn from building to building, climbing higher and higher while the sky turned darker. Thunder growled in the far distance and the continuing striking of lightning could be seen at the horizon.