"Yes… First of all, I offer my sincere thanks and gratitude for this life story you have shared so honestly, dear Lara Sharon," Hikmar began. His voice had taken on a tone more serious and central than in any of his previous conversations. "However, as far as I can see… you seem a bit lost. You don't seem to be fully aware of what you are doing or why. Yet, I assure you that most of your moves—even if you couldn't guess or foresee the consequences—were the right ones."
The room grew silent for a moment. Hikmar made a brief pause to heighten the impact.
"Now… I have a confession to make. My real name is not 'Hikmar.' I apologize. Perhaps you feel deceived right now. Perhaps I have damaged that fragile trust you felt toward me. But… but when you learn the secrets lying beneath my true identity, you will likely understand."
"Then what is your name?" Sevda asked, with curiosity and caution.
"Polxaurneskova…" Hikmar said, pronouncing the word slowly and clearly. Sevda immediately looked at Edmond, seeking meaning. Both had blank, puzzled expressions; the name meant nothing to them. Lara, however, was different. Her eyes widened slightly as if something was stirring in her mind.
"Joe Stone…" Lara murmured, almost to herself. "Sometimes he would talk about his old life, memories of the 'man he used to be.' In one of those memories… he spoke of a scientist named 'Po.' He said he was a terrifying but equally brilliant man."
"Yes," Hikmar confirmed, a bitter smile appearing on his face. "I am that 'Po.' Joe Stone and I… we had an acquaintance."
"Where did this acquaintance come from?" Lara pressed.
"We used to… work together," Hikmar said, his voice suddenly becoming deep and heavy. "Ah… those secrets I sealed in the darkest corner of my heart. I find it quite difficult to bring them out and put them into words. But I will tell you. However, you must listen very carefully and keep these secrets in the depths of your own heart. Because if the SWR (Supreme World Republic) senses that you possess these secrets… it will not only be your end. it will be the end of that 'precious family' of yours and every soul in this town."
"Sounds a bit like an exaggeration…" Edmond whispered, leaning toward Sevda's ear with a slight sense of humor. His voice was so low that only Sevda could hear. Hikmar likely saw his lips move and understood, but he didn't let it show. His gaze simply grew sharper as he continued his story.
"I… was once the lead scientist in a special team founded by Dante Shade," he began, measuring every word. "This team carried out the work of 'intelligence regulation' for the SWR. Sharing the full name of the team… is not quite possible with you."
"Why?" Lara asked, her brows furrowed.
"The SWR," Hikmar explained, lowering his voice further, "possesses technology capable of tracking specific keywords and names across the galaxy. They do this through a 'frequency network' formed by surveillance satellites in space. It is said that the origin of this technology is alien and incredibly expensive. So expensive that they can only actively monitor a handful of special words or names at a time."
"And you," Edmond interjected, having completely dropped his sarcasm, replaced by serious curiosity, "claim to know such a word or name, do you?"
"I realize I am not being listened to with seriousness here," Hikmar said, looking directly at Edmond. His voice was soft but clear; there was no resentment, only a warning. "If what I've told you so far has already started to sound strange, I apologize. Because what I am about to tell you will get even stranger…" He took a short breath and continued. "The goal of this team Dante Shade founded was simple and dark: to handle the SWR's dirty business while staying in the shadows. Political assassinations, blackmail, mass manipulation, war crimes, and more… This team would carry them out without blinking an eye. Joe Stone was part of this team too. He was their chief surgeon, the doctor responsible for all their medical and biological operations. He was a very intelligent, very wise man. May he rest in peace."
"He would sometimes speak of being a member of a team… in a cryptic way," Lara Sharon confirmed, a flash of sorrow and understanding shining in her eyes. Hikmar's words seemed to connect the pieces Joe Stone used to mutter from his metallic throat during his pain-filled screams at night.
"My inclusion in that team was for a different reason. I… I used to be a major criminal. Since my memories of that time are fragmented, I don't want to mention them and drown you in unnecessary details… At least, I won't do that for now."
"Then what was the reason for your inclusion?" Lara asked.
"It was the Incompatibles…"
While this voice plunged everyone into silence, Edmond said: "Just what we needed… Just when I thought things couldn't get any more interesting, something else happens."
"The Incompatibles? You can't be serious… I…" Lara was stuttering slightly from shock as she spoke. "…I couldn't quite understand what you have to do with the Incompatibles."
"The Incompatibles were a great anomaly for humanity. Humans first noticed them as anomalies wandering the galaxy. In whichever star system these anomalies went, they ended life in those systems. At least, that's what scientists thought. Because alien civilizations on all routes passed by the Incompatibles were disappearing. Wasn't Exosanguis founded for this reason anyway? To hunt for valuable remnants of alien civilizations…"
"When the Incompatibles came to our galaxy, even our star system, humanity only then understood they were a kind of alien. This was less a doomsday scenario and more an invasion scenario."
"When the Incompatibles landed on planets, humans realized these aliens were not understandable by human intelligence. Even if naked eyes saw them, they couldn't perceive them; when human brains tried to understand them, they gave errors like a simulation glitch. They couldn't be filmed by cameras, tracked by sensors, and so much more… It was as if we were surrounded by ghosts made of flesh and bone. Dozens of colonies were occupied by these aliens."
"The interesting thing was that these aliens, seen as invaders, did not react to humans in any way. They neither fought humans nor were provoked by the missiles and bullets humans fired at them. They truly hid in the atmospheres of planets like ghosts."
"The SWR's official explanation was that they came only to 'gather resources.' And in a sense, this was true. The Incompatibles'… should I call them ships, or forms? Those ships hanging in the air seemed to 'consume' specific, usually rare and energy-dense resources to maintain their presence on the planet. 'Spaceships,' did I say? Perhaps the Incompatibles themselves were those ships. Or maybe they weren't ships at all. That is what I'm trying to tell you: The Incompatibles were far beyond our conceptual framework and intelligence."
"When you say beyond our intelligence…" Edmond started to speak, but Hikmar cut in:
"I'm not saying above it, dear Edmond. I'm saying beyond… Whatever these creatures are, they were the product of a different intelligence beyond ours. It was as if they weren't from the same dimension as us. They weren't on the same frequency."
"Can we go back to your connection with the Incompatibles?" Lara asked.
"Dante Shade's team was tasked with researching the Incompatibles. But the team didn't have a member who did advanced research on genetics and biology. Researching alien genetics and especially working on alien evolution wasn't a well-known field back then. In fact, since alien genetics were collected by the state, possessing alien genetics was illegal in most places. Since I was a man making genetic weapons in Justan, I illegally possessed alien tissues and organs; I was conducting experiments on them. That is why they included me in the team…"
"You remember the quarantine times. How the whole galaxy was dragged into a great depression, etc. At that time, I was inside the quarantine. I was researching the Incompatibles." He licked his lips and waited in silence for a while. "To research the Incompatibles, I had to stretch the boundaries of science."
"What does that mean?" Lara asked.
"Our universe consists of our perception, dear Edmond. There is a force of gravity because we can feel it. There is also a black hole because it pulls us toward it. But we don't know what lies beyond passing through a black hole. Because that is beyond our perception… The other side of the black hole is the responsibility and consciousness of those on the other side… That is why the laws of physics of our universe concern us."
"What you're trying to say is…"
"What I'm trying to say is this: if you want to cross the boundaries of science, you shouldn't try to do it using your own laws of physics. That is impossible. But if you can manage to change your perspective a bit; if you can access the physics and universal rules of other dimensions, everything can change. Think about it… Going to a universe with different physical laws for even a second… Forging a weapon in that universe suitable for its physical theories… Then bringing that weapon to this universe… Don't you think that weapon would be an anomaly in this galaxy? It would… It would absolutely be an anomaly."
"Are you saying they came from another universe? I thought the SWR announced that they found the planet that could be considered their homeland in another galaxy by reverse-engineering the orbits the Incompatibles followed in space. I thought they went on record as coming from a waterless planet several galaxies away."
"That planet is a reflection of their planet in their dimension," Hikmar said.
"So this is it? This is the whole deal with the Incompatibles? Aliens from another universe, is that it?" Edmond said. "If this is the whole secret, it's very simple…"
"I wish it were that simple." Hikmar pulled up a chair and sat down. He caught his breath for a while. He was making a great effort to explain what he told in a simplicity everyone could understand. What he would tell from now on had to be with the same absolute simplicity.
"When first examining the Incompatibles, I completely abandoned traditional methods. I recalibrated my sensors to detect rare quantum events, traces of causality violation, non-local interactions, and abnormal concentrations of dark matter. I had alien tissues collected and researched them to realize how other alien tissues reacted to the Incompatibles, not just humans. I even cloned an alien from the DNA tissue of one whose race was destroyed by the Incompatibles."
"From the alien reactions given to them, I tried to turn their physical theories into formulas one by one. For example, which aliens reacted how to the light reflecting off the Incompatibles. I collected each as data, including humans. Each gave unique reactions, but through mighty artificial intelligences and powerful computers, I found a pattern. But for a pattern to emerge, I had to test on countless… truly countless aliens. When the time for cloning them sometimes seemed insufficient, we set up advanced simulation computers and started testing on them. But in times when simulation wasn't enough, we resorted to cloning the aliens."
"For example, reactions to the smell of the Incompatibles; reactions given while looking at the Incompatibles, the instinctive reaction every living thing gives against the Incompatibles… Many more reactions were analyzed by many alien races and these patterns were collected. Finally, a tissue emerged. That tissue was so illogical, so irrelevant, that it was impossible for such a tissue to start life. In our world, such a tissue couldn't even be a tissue."
"This situation created that idea in me. Could the formula we made be missing something? True… perhaps it could be incomplete. But it wasn't quite possible for it to be this wrong. What we were trying to do was make a fish fly. Yet, when we put it in the sea, that's when the fish gained meaning. This proved to me that the Incompatibles were not formed with the physical theories of this universe. So, what kind of universe was it where such a tissue could establish life? If such a universe existed, how could we find it?"
Hikmar narrowed his eyes as he continued his narration. Laboratory images of the past seemed to come alive in his mind. While his tone fluctuated between the cold-bloodedness of a scientist diving into technical details and the weight of the terrifying truth he discovered, Edmond spoke up:
"Are you saying you managed to reach another universe somehow?"
"The theory of parallel universes has been accepted for centuries, dear Edmond. Some scientists made many proofs that it was possible, even if there were mathematical flaws. But the answer to the question is no… I didn't pass into another universe or dimension."
"Then how did you find it?" Lara Sharon asked.
"I told you we discovered the formula for a tissue, didn't I? Perhaps that tissue could take us to that universe. If we could create a being with that tissue outside our own perceptions, maybe then that being could take us there. But for the being we'd create with that tissue to communicate with us, it had to be human. Because it would guide us toward that universe."
"I thought you said it was impossible for such a tissue to exist in our universe," Lara Sharon said.
"How obvious it is that you are a scientist, dear Sharon. Indeed, some details do not escape your eyes. The answer to your question is this… Yes, it wasn't quite possible for us to bring such a tissue to life. But the Incompatibles were able to exist in our universe with such a meaningless tissue. In short, the creatures created with the physical rules of another universe that do not fit ours; when they came to our universe, they could maintain their existence, no matter how outside of meaning it was."
"My head is starting to ache…" Edmond muttered toward Sevda.
"Mine too…" Sevda muttered back.
"This gave birth to an idea in my mind. What if a being with such a tissue wasn't created, but born? What if an Incompatible and a human had a child? In this case, which of the physical theories of the two universes would clash?"
"This… what you're saying is hair-raising," Doctor Sevda said. She felt as if a coldness was truly covering her insides.
"An Incompatible and a human having a child? This was just a theory, right? Such a thing should be impossible according to your description. Humans couldn't even perceive them yet. And… how could such a mating be meaningful?"
Hikmar was cautious about what he would say next. He swallowed… He fixed his gaze on the distance.
"We made an artificial womb. While doing this, we were forced to use the genetics of someone from the team. We couldn't bring many people from outside while in quarantine. In this artificial womb, we tried to fertilize that tissue many times. We did everything we could to partially transform that tissue into a sperm. We crossed it with human sperm repeatedly, making slight deviations in the formula of the tissue that forms those Incompatibles. Every attempt at making a child with a cross showed not even the smallest sign of life."
"The physical laws of our universe clearly did not allow a tissue formulated in such a way to live. We thought the formula was wrong, we came to the point of giving up, but then… then something happened. An Incompatible ship at Titan had started acting unstable. So, we moved all our research to Titan."
"This Incompatible ship at Titan, or whatever it was, was stuck between its own universe and ours. That is why it distorted the space-time around itself; at times opening small pieces from its own universe. This was actually the exact opportunity… While this Incompatible ship full of anomalies constantly changed the physical laws around it; we would try to bring the tissue in this artificial womb to life."
"We moved the lab to the closest we could get to that ship… Ah, it was a true nightmare. People's minds were shattering, people were falling ill, and so much more… While near that ship, the stories Lovecraft made up were taking flesh and bone."
"Countless attempts were made…" He paused for a while. Swallowed. "And all of them were failures." He took his hand to his forehead and scratched it for a while. "But Subject 99 was successful. She was born as a baby girl. A girl who was half-Incompatible, half-human… We saw her human side, and likely the Incompatibles saw her Incompatible side…"
"Holy sh*t!" Edmond said.
"This… this is goddamn madness!" Sevda said.
Sharon, however, was listening to what was told in great silence but with great astonishment on her face.
"So what happened then?" Sharon asked.
"That girl helped us. She brought information from the side the Incompatibles came from; because one part of her was there. She produced countless creatures from that Incompatible tissue on the other side and brought them to this side. She even found and fixed the flaws in our formula…" Hikmar stopped and sank into a short silence. "I can't tell you the rest," he said.
"But why?" Lara asked.
"We had just gotten to the most exciting part," Edmond said. "You haven't even explained what the Incompatibles are or why they came."
"Because I don't exactly know."
"How?"
"I was the one who found the God Particle. But the SWR knew the power and danger of this information. They wouldn't let me go easily. I couldn't be their slave forever. So, I cloned myself. These clones were two… If one clone emerged, the memories of both were empty so that they wouldn't be stolen. I would kill myself and be resurrected in whichever clone was available with my memory."
"But interestingly, there must have been a glitch; both clones had come back to life. I was the person among these clones who had no memory. What proved to me that the other was alive was the creature named Volem. Because Volem was surely a being created with the God Particle."
"So you are looking for your other half and trying to get your memory back," Edmond said. "This truly is a nonsensical story…"
"Yes!" Hikmar said angrily. "Because my other half knows the formula of the God Particle. He knows my life's purpose. I am a scientist and everything I need to know… the other clone knows!"
"Your other clone works for John Crowrift, does he?" Sevda asked.
"I'm not quite sure, but it seems so."
"So you are one of us," Lara said. "Our enemies are the same."
"It's not certain whether I see John Crowrift as an enemy," Hikmar said. "But that man is definitely dangerous. Even dangerous enough to hold the formula of the God Particle in his hands…"
Hikmar rose from the chair he was sitting on. The memories of Polxaurneskova had now ended, and Hikmar's own memories had begun to return; therefore, his voice was prouder, clearer.
"John Crowrift was in constant contact with Azrak from Exosanguis. To assign Azrak as the guard of this transport vehicle, he assigned him a parasitic drone assistant. This drone assistant was made with alien technology and was constantly directing Azrak according to John Crowrift's desires. 'Manipulation' is an understatement… He was washing the man's brain."
"And I," Hikmar continued, "suspected when I noticed that John Crowrift's scientist Ukar was collecting alien tissue just like me. I followed Ukar. I became his mission partner. This was the reason for my presence on this planet, and I realized my suspicions were correct."
"Where is Azrak then? I can't see him," Lara said.
"I killed him," Hikmar added.
"Wait a second…" Edmond said. "Did you say Ukar?"
He searched the corners of his memory. Ukar had treated his enhanced body many times. He had saved him from death many times; moreover, he had personally created his friends at the facility.
"Was Ukar working for John Crowrift?"
"Do you know Ukar?" Hikmar asked.
"We had a common business once," Edmond said. "He was obsessed with the Incompatibles just like you. He was a very, very intelligent scientist."
"If you don't know, let me tell you," Lara Sharon said. "Ukar is dead. His facility was rejected by the Bioethics Audit Bureau. He was executed after attacking the inspector who came to audit his facility…"
"You must be joking…" Edmond's face tightened. "Could it be that the bioethics audit inspector named Mehmet did this? Under the statue of the Calosians, a child named Calmo had told a story. He talked about a Bioethics Audit Inspector closing a facility. So that facility mentioned… was Ukar's facility."
"I'm sorry," Lara Sharon said.
"So," Edmond's voice hardened, "Ukar also died as John Crowrift's puppet, is that it? This man…" Suddenly he stood up. Everyone was now on their feet. "This goddamn man must die!"
"Then we have a common enemy too," Lara Sharon said. "Now that all our enemies are the same, we can make a plan."
But for Edmond, formerly known as Aldoux, John Crowrift's enmity wasn't just about the Ukar matter. That goddamn man had blown up his facility. He had killed Velsil, causing his paths to diverge irreversibly from his other friends. It didn't end there; the main reason behind Aldoux living a life as a prisoner was also John Crowrift.
Of course, he wouldn't tell any of these details to anyone. But one thing was certain: In that room, the person who hated John Crowrift the most was Edmond.