A soft voice emanates through the train car, “Final stop, Furaka University.”

Violet is still asleep on my lap, I lightly caress her hair in an effort to wake her up, to no avail. Summoning a little more confidence, I rub her back, “Violet we are here.”

She wakes with a start and immediately sits up, her eyes wide. Looking around, she seems to remember where she is and she takes a deep breath, “Oh, okay,” she smiles to me as she stands up, offering her hand, “now that we are here, come on!”

Accepting the offer, Violet pulls me to my feet, wrapping her arm around my waist, and we exit the train. As the door closes behind us, I am greeted by some of the most interesting architecture I’ve ever observed. The buildings stretch into the sky, while above us is a massive mountainous overhang, which buildings hang from, reaching down from above. My eyes are involuntarily wide, because I have never seen such incredible engineering… I wonder how they imagined all of this.

After giving me a moment to look around, Violet tugs on my arm, pulling me toward the entrance of one of the towers, with her typical, “Come on little girl” smile. While I am far from a little girl, I do need the guidance here. So, as has become natural for me, I follow her into the tower without hesitation.

Stepping into a glass elevator, Violet presses a button and we begin ascending rapidly. “So… the professor we are going to meet is a… blunt fellow, if he says something offensive… I’m sorry.”

I roll my eyes starting to feel more used to how things work, “I’m not really worried about it.” When the elevator opens, my eyes trail down as Violet quickly grabs my arm.

“Of course you aren’t, he should be in one of these classrooms,” she laughs, as she pulls me into a large hallway. “His class got out a little while ago and he always pokes around for a few minutes.” There are twelve doors lining the hall, the ends of the hall connected to larger classrooms. Violet pulls me down the hall into one of the larger classrooms. This rooms seems quite similar to what I envisioned college classrooms looking like, my only experience being what I had seen on TV while I was growing up.

Except… there was a set of tinier chairs at the front of the room, which I presume are for the men, elevated to about waist height. With a tiny podium and a camera to project the little speaker to the audience in the larger chairs. Standing at the tiny podium was a stout man, about seven and a half centimeters tall, with a bushy brown beard. He wore professional looking attire, presumably the professor we had come to see.

He leans over his microphone, making brief eye contact with me before Violet blocks my line of sight with her hip. His voice cracks over the PA in the room with a monotone drawl, “Good to see you Violet.”

With her goofy smile she reaches down to the professor and grabbing him, elevating him up and giving him a careful hug. “It’s good to see you too Professor Duval!” She spun a couple times, apparently Professor Duval was used to this kind of treatment from Violet, because all I could see of his face was a light smirk, and when she stopped spinning I could see him roll his eyes.

When Violet finally set the little man down, he leans forward onto the rail of his platform, “So, what brings you here today Ms. Alliotti?” I make a mental note of Violet’s last name, as she kneels down to be at Professor Duval’s eye level. He cracks a smile, “and who is your date?”

My eyes widen, as Violet smiles down on the little man, “She isn’t my date Professor, I got the information from the last planet, and this is Alice.” She motions to me, “When I visited Earth I was injured, and she helped me.”

The Professor’s eyes widen, and his hands grip the rail. “Wait, you did what?!”

I step up to the platform next to Violet wrapping my arm around her, “Professor Duval, I wanted to come, my entire life was… terrible. I don’t even like to think about it. Violet saved me from a life of abuse and sadness!”

He nods to affirm what I said, but he looks down and cradles his head in his hands. “That may be true, but do you know how much trouble you could be in? Who have you told?”

Violet spun around, “I’ve already run the genetic comparisons, she is 100 percent human, so I don’t think there will be a problem!”

Just then there is a slam, as several women dressed in dark red, skintight bodysuits enter the room. Two of them grab Violet and drop her to the floor, and two others, rushing past grab me and pin me down next to her.

“What’s happening?” I ask, hoping for an immediate explanation.

A soft voice fills the room “We meet again Violet.”

Violet yells, her voice shaking, “I haven’t done a damn thing wrong!”

The click-clack of heels tempers the air as a woman who appears to be in her thirties, appears over us, her long black hair braided and held behind her. Her eyes appear black, veiled behind slim framed glasses, with flashes of blue within. She stares down at Violet, “That is to be determined… Miss Alliotti.” Her eyes center on me, “We have no record of you, what is your name?

Scared and close to petrified, I wait a few moments as I attempt to summon my voice. I finally stutter out, “A-A-Alice… S-Speirs’.”

She smiles lightly, “Miss Speirs, I don’t believe this is your fault,” the officer waved off the officers holding me and extended her hand.

As Officer Gisele helps me up, I turn back to look at Violet. Her eyes seem erratic, fearful. I had never seen her afraid before; it was… unsettling.

The woman with the long black braid takes my arm and starts leading me out of the room, “My name is Officer Gisele, and I just need to talk with you for a moment.” I walk with her into the hall.

“I just need your side of the story before I decide what to do with Ms. Alliotti, where are you from?”

Taking a deep breath, trying to remain calm, “I’m from a planet called Earth.”

Officer Gisele leans in close to me, making eye contact. “Did you want to come to Auru, or were you forced to come against your will?”

“I wanted to come, Violet saw how I lived and offered to bring me along.”

She sighs deeply, with a surprising hint of compassion, “Then this is important to how we proceed, tell me about how you lived…”

My eyes well up with tears as I explain my life. Officer Gisele took my shoulders holding me steady as I explain my father, my early life, the constant beatings… I pour myself out, holding nothing back. When I finish explaining, Officer Gisele’s demeanor was quite different, she seemed almost motherly, she turned and stormed back into the classroom.

I followed her, as I heard her command, “Let her go, she was absolutely right to bring her.”

Then I hear Violet’s familiar voice, “Thank the Goddess!”

As I reenter the room Violet was on her feet, she rushes to me, embracing me. Her hand cradles my head, as she whispers, “Everything is okay.”

Professor Duval’s voice crackles over the PA again, “This has been very insightful, but I would like to see your findings Ms. Alliotti.” Violet simply hugs me tighter, helping me feel much better.

Violet turns to talk with Professor Duval, and Officer Gisele pulls me aside, “Tell me about Earth Alice, what kind of world is it?”

I shrug, laughing nervously, “I’m not sure how to describe an entire planet.” Gisele looks at me like I was silly for not having this skill, “Oh you’re serious?”

I thought for a moment, considering the life I lived. How I was raised, how people treat one another. I became easier thinking about it in internet terms. Humans are fucking trolls…

I thought back to the flight from Earth and how… shiny the Earth was from orbit, how perfect it seemed from so far away… I then knew how to answer, “Well, Earth is a little blue marble with a ton of problems… It’s beautiful and conflicted, and I lived in one small town, never saw the rest of the world until Violet saved me.”

I was surprised, but Officer Gisele seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, as she asked something else, “What is your society like? How big are your people?”

I laugh, “The people are smaller than we are now, and we are all about the size of your men. What I know comes from the internet… our computer network, I don’t think you could say we have a singular society… We are very much divided, people love to hate one another, and many spend all their time trying to hurt and harm others. Some people are good though.”

The Officer thought for a moment as she placed her hand on my shoulder, “I’m sorry for this incident. I’ve sent a message to Violet, reminding her of the proper way to bring someone from another world. I really hope I haven’t soured your opinion of Auru.” She was much more relaxed now, as she leans back on the wall, smiling.

She waves her cohorts off, “Let’s head back, ladies.” With her command the officers quickly vacate the room, she remains only for a moment, “I’m not sure I was wrong about you Ms. Alliotti, but what you did was good. I will see you later.” She grabs my shoulder, squeezing it softly, and extending her other hand for a handshake, “Friends?”

I take her hand, shaking it firmly, “Friends.” then she left, and only the Professor, and Violet and I remain.

Violet pulled out a small chip, which I assume is a memory device, “On this HGD is the result of many years of work, the information from Earth completes it.” She turns around after placing the chip on a contact pad and causing a hologram of the galaxy to appear in the center of the room.

“As you know professor, these are all of the planets which we have discovered harbor humanity.” Blue spheres appear all over the outside of the galaxy. “These planets form a lattice, and at the center of each group there is a quantum singularity.”

I reach up into the hologram… my hand dwarfing the images of stars, “So you are telling me, someone made a map with planets… and the people are somehow the key?”

Professor Duval furrows his brow, considering this new information, “Now, why do you believe that is significant?”

“Because each of the singularities are orbited by a giant blue star, and a single planet. I wasn’t sure the pattern would hold before, but with the information gathered from Alice’s home, I now believe we need to visit these planets and find whatever was left for us to find.”

“So what were you looking for at each of these places?” I ask.

Violet smiles, and wraps her arm around me, “For years we have been searching the stars, and from all of these planets we have found humans. The only difference being their size. Some humans much larger than us, and some much smaller then you were.”

“So... my next question, why would we all be different sizes?”

The professor smiles, “That is a very good question, and the answer is quite simple. What do you think happens if a planet is larger and less dense than your home?”

I shrug as I don’t really understand, “I guess it would have bigger people?”

“That’s right, when the planet is bigger, but less dense, it has less gravity, and the people there grow much larger, while smaller, denser planets all have smaller people.”

My mind was blown, I sit in one of the ladies chairs, and simply watch as the Professor and Violet keep talking about the mission they’ve created.

After a moment of silence, Professor Duval laughs, and I turn to look as he takes over the display. “Okay, Miss Alliotti, you found the location, I think I know what you need to look for.” he waves his hand, and throws a program on the wall. “This signature is what I believe you will find… it might be slightly different, you will have to get close to be sure.”

The wave loops up and down and in and out. Some kind of 3d wave, unfortunately I don’t really understand these things too well. Just then the screen went blank, several boxes with some kind of code appears for several moments.

As I stand here helpless, Violet is struggling to restore the screen, slamming her hand down in frustration. “What the hell…” Violet clears the screen and turns it off.

I turn to Professor Duval who was furiously typing on his terminal, “What’s happening professor?”

Sounding desperate, he yells, “I wish I knew ladies! All my files are being disrupted!”

Violet thinks for a moment, reaching down and grabbing a small holographic device off her hip, pulling it out she presses in a few commands, causing the Professor’s screen to clear. “Someone was copying your files Professor, but I think I blocked them. You should still lock down your systems to be safe.”

“I will, and I’ll report this to the police, maybe they can find out who was trying to copy the files.” Professor Duval smiles, “Be careful, you know how important this is… and I doubt this hacker was a coincidence.”

Violet picks him up again, hugging him, “Thanks for being incredible Professor,” she put him down again, “Let me know what happens with the hacker.”

Professor Duval waves Violet away, “Of course, of course, and Violet, Alice is a wonderful person, you are lucky to be with her, take care of her.”

I blush, “No, I’m lucky…” out of top of my eye I see Violet is as red as I am. Noticing that we are both embarrassed, we get even more embarrassed.

After a few moments, I decide to pull Violet out the door for a change, I yell, “Thanks Professor!” as we leave the room and enter the elevator. Our trip back to the ship was uneventful, and I was harboring a new feeling in my heart…

Looking at Violet, I can see someone incredible. Someone who saved me from a life of sadness… like I told Gisele. I think I’m falling in love with Violet.

Her eyes are deep and focused, she doesn’t reveal a thing I wish I knew if she feels the same.

Shit.