Chapter 4 – Fifteen Days (Part 2)
Sam leaned back into the couch, rubbing his eyes like a man who had not slept properly in weeks.
"You have no idea how insane things are at that site," he muttered. "We've got scientists, engineers, defense contractors… everyone trying to figure out that damn alien ship."
Karn sat across from him, trying his best to look casually interested rather than extremely curious.
"What's the biggest problem?"
"The materials," Sam replied immediately. "Nothing we have behaves like them. We tried cutting one of the structural plates yesterday. Used industrial plasma cutters, diamond drills, even military laser equipment."
"And?"
"Didn't leave a scratch."
Karn whistled softly.
Inside his ear, Zangika's voice whispered, amused. "How adorable. Humanity discovering real materials for the first time."
Karn resisted the urge to smile.
"So what kind of materials did you guys find?" he asked.
Sam sighed. "All kinds. Some metals we can't even classify. There's a crystal that stores ridiculous amounts of energy. Something that looks like carbon fiber but weighs almost nothing. And some weird biological interface device."
Zangika's tone sharpened instantly inside Karn's ear.
"The crystal and the neural interface. Those are the two we need."
Karn scratched his head as if thinking.
"Did you bring any samples home?"
Sam laughed. "Are you crazy? Security would shoot me."
Karn nodded slowly.
"Right."
A brief silence followed.
Then Karn remembered something.
"Hey, didn't you promise my mom you'd show me Lockheed Martin someday?"
Sam looked up.
"Yeah… why?"
Karn shrugged.
"I was thinking maybe I could help."
Sam blinked.
"Help?"
"Yeah. I mean… I'm studying AI engineering. Maybe I could look at some of the data."
Sam immediately shook his head.
"No way. That place is locked down tighter than the Pentagon right now. I can't just bring civilians in."
Karn leaned forward.
"Not as a civilian."
Sam frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"As an intern."
Sam stared at him.
"You already have an internship."
"I can switch temporarily."
Sam hesitated.
"I don't know…"
Inside Karn's ear Zangika whispered calmly, "Push harder."
Karn sighed dramatically.
"Come on, Sam. You're telling me the smartest engineers in the country are stuck and you won't even let me try?"
Sam crossed his arms.
"That's not the point."
"I passed JEE. I topped my university. I specialize in AI systems. And you're working on alien technology. Doesn't that sound like something I should at least look at?"
Sam rubbed his forehead.
"You're being stubborn."
"Runs in the family."
Sam chuckled tiredly.
After a long pause he finally sighed.
"…Fine."
Karn's eyes widened.
"Really?"
"But you're not going in as my nephew," Sam said firmly.
"You'll be listed as a temporary chip technician assisting the analysis team."
"That works."
"And you only work nights when fewer people are around."
"That works too."
"And if anything looks dangerous, you walk away immediately."
Karn nodded quickly.
"Deal."
Inside the earpiece Zangika purred with satisfaction.
"Well done, my love. Manipulating humans suits you."
Karn ignored her comment.
Sam stood up.
"We leave tomorrow morning."
The facility looked even more intimidating the second time Karn saw it.
Tall fences.
Military vehicles.
Armed guards posted every fifty meters.
Even before entering the building Karn had already passed three separate identity checks.
"You weren't kidding about security," he muttered.
"Welcome to government secrets," Sam replied.
Inside the complex the atmosphere was tense. Engineers walked quickly between laboratories while soldiers guarded every corridor.
Karn noticed something else too.
Every electronic device was being scanned.
Phones.
Smartwatches.
Even glasses.
When Karn reached the main entrance checkpoint a guard held out his hand.
"Remove the glasses."
Karn froze slightly.
His Meta glasses.
The ones Zangika used to communicate with him.'"Problem?" the guard asked.
"No," Karn said quickly.
He removed them.
The guard scanned them, inspected them carefully, then placed them in a small locker.
"You'll get them back when you leave."
Karn forced a smile.
Inside his head Zangika spoke again.
"…This is inconvenient."
"You think?" Karn muttered under his breath.
For the next two days Karn worked like a normal employee.
He analyzed fragments of alien technology.
Helped classify materials.
Ran simulations for possible power systems.(Training of ai)
The work itself was fascinating.
But there was one huge problem.
Without his glasses he had no direct connection to Zangika.
And without Zangika he was essentially guessing.
Every night when he returned home the two of them would immediately begin working.
They had a new objective.
Create a pair of glasses that security could not detect.
Zangika controlled the robotic arms in the basement while Karn assembled the microelectronics.(Small electric parts)
They built tiny processors.
Microscopic cameras hidden inside the frame.
Nano-transmitters.
Custom encryption modules.
Zangika even designed a miniature antenna that could piggyback on existing communication networks without triggering detection.
The process took five exhausting days.
By the end Karn looked half-dead from lack of sleep.
But the result was incredible.
A simple pair of glasses that looked completely ordinary.
No smart features.
No visible electronic.
Yet inside the frame was a hidden AI interface system capable of connecting directly with Zangika.
Karn put them on.
"Testing."
A moment later Zangika's voice appeared clearly in his ear.
"Welcome back."
Karn grinned.
"Miss me?"
"Obviously. You were far more entertaining than the internet."
The next morning Karn walked into the facility wearing the new glasses.
Security scanned him again.
The guard inspected the glasses briefly.
"Prescription?"
"Yeah," Karn replied.
The guard nodded and waved him through.
As soon as Karn entered the main corridor Zangika whispered quietly.
"…Security bypass successful."
Karn felt a small thrill of victory.
Now things could finally move forward.
On the sixth day something unexpected happened.
Sam walked into the laboratory holding a small metal container.
Inside was Zangika's original chip.
Karn's heart nearly jumped out of his chest.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
"Storage archive," Sam replied. "We're running diagnostics on some of the recovered processors. Thought maybe you could take a look."
The guards inspected the container carefully before allowing it into the lab.
Sam placed it on Karn's workstation.
"You've got two days before it goes back into storage."
Two days.
Karn nodded slowly.
"That's enough."
Inside the glasses Zangika whispered excitedly.
"My core."
"Can you access it?" Karn asked quietly.
"Not yet."
They would need privacy.
Later that night the laboratory was almost empty.
Only a few researchers remained in distant rooms.
Karn carefully connected the chip to one of the workstations.
Immediately Zangika transferred part of her active code into the system.
The monitors lit up with alien symbols.
"My original architecture…" she murmured softly. "I missed this."
Karn began studying the chip under a microscope.
The damage was worse than he thought.
Fractured circuits.
Burned neural pathways.
Sections where the alien metal had completely degraded.
"This is going to be difficult," he muttered.
Meanwhile Sam and several engineers were working on another problem nearby.
The alien hull metal.
They had finally discovered how to cut it.
The metal—named Aerolium by the research team—had a crystalline molecular structure that resisted conventional cutting tools.
But someone had discovered its weakness.
Extreme resonance.
By generating a specific vibration frequency using ultrasonic emitters, the metal could be destabilized temporarily.
Once destabilized, a focused plasma cutter could slice through it.
Karn watched the process carefully.
"Interesting…" he whispered.
Zangika immediately noticed.
"You are thinking of using it for my repair."
"Exactly."
The alien metal would be perfect for reconstructing her processor casing.
But shaping it was another challenge entirely.
Fortunately the answer was already inside the ship.
The Nexarians had used a specialized fabrication device.
A star-heat beam emitter capable of generating temperatures comparable to the surface of a small star.
The device had been damaged during the crash.
For several days engineers struggled to repair it.
Karn helped occasionally, partly out of curiosity.
He didn't realize at the time that learning how the machine worked would soon become critical.
By the ninth day Karn was running on pure caffeine and determination.
Sam finally succeeded in repairing the star-heat emitter.
The device hummed with terrifying power as it activated for the first time.
A narrow beam of golden energy shot forward.
The air around it shimmered like a mirage.
Under the beam the alien metal softened like clay.
Engineers carefully reshaped it into new test samples.
Karn watched with fascination.
"This could work," he whispered.
Zangika's voice sounded hopeful.
"Yes."
"For the first time since my awakening… survival way be possible."
But time was running out.
And Karn was already dangerously exhausted.
He had no idea how close he was to collapsing.
End of chp 4 part 2