With each passing day fading into the next, Nik spent more of his free time within the confines of Valentine's bunker. His bloodshot eyes bore the telltale signs of long hours spent managing countless correspondences. Nights were swallowed by strategizing, while his days were eaten away by persistent troubleshooting.

  Yet, amidst this hectic schedule, there was one silver lining. Confirmation of the STM's existence in other countries had effectively put Project Silent Echo on hold. This pause meant a break from establishing new staging areas and managing recon teams—a small but welcome reprieve amidst the chaos.

  Every now and again, Nik had to go with Ari as part of an envoy to other countries. Their mission was clear: run diagnostic after diagnostic on the foreign STMs, pore over lines of code, and ensure the new additions were safe and reliable cogs in the sprawling US network machinery.

  Nowadays, STMs are used less for spying and more for their intended purpose: travel. Nik noticed they began to pop up in major cities around the world. Of course, only military big-wigs or glad-handing politicians could use them to quickly handle national business. That and their existence were still kept completely secret.

  Nik couldn’t help but feel a warm flicker of satisfaction every time he witnessed a tense conference room thaw into mutual compromise. The enforced cooperation was a nice tonic for his worry-worn heart, even if it was only mild relief.

  But beneath the calm, a phantom worry gnawed at him, a faceless specter whose name he could not quite discern. Sometimes, Nik felt as if Ari could read his thoughts as if he had a teleprompter bolted to his forehead. That guy always seemed to have the right response.

  Nik could only imagine the things Ari had to endure at his own work sites. Whatever Ari had seen seemed to change him at a fundamental level. He intently listened whenever Nik spoke and didn't reply with his usual banter. Instead, he thought deeply and came up with a profound viewpoint.

  Ari's remarkable aptitude shone even brighter against the backdrop of his envoy duties. For the most part, he had performed his role with an air of unflawed elegance. Witnessing Ari’s ability to anticipate and neutralize political manipulations was nothing short of amazing.

  “Astute diplomat” wasn’t a title Nik had initially envisioned for Ari, yet he found it suited him well. Above all, Ari's newfound proficiency made Nik's life considerably easier, which was an advantage he was more than happy to accept.

  Despite his calm exterior, Nik was a reservoir of unspoken worries, the depths of which were unknown even to Ari. He saved only his deepest worries for Valentine.

  "There's a nagging sense I can't shake like all this has been orchestrated right from the beginning," he voiced his concern as he skimmed over the recent list of candidates.

  Every day, they found more people who could safely house an STM, but they never let their guard down. The STM was too precious to let fall into the wrong hands.

  Valentine's shrug was worn and familiar. He used it in countless iterations of the same conversation they had played out before. His words rolled off his tongue with the same reassurance he always gave. "As long as we keep building our contingency network, we don't really have anything to worry about."

  Valentine seemed to have taken his role as chairman of the Bilocation Network seriously. Not a day went by where he wasn't working with the latest person or group to establish another connection point in the network.

  Still worried, Nik continued, "I can't stop envisioning the ways they might twist the purpose of the STM."

  "How so?" Valentine stopped what he was doing. The conversation paused awkwardly. Nik wasn't prepared to repeat some of his thoughts, but Valentine listened intently.

  "Well, as a start, I've been thinking of how the STM works and realized something." Nik thought he sounded crazy. "If you had a proper power supply, you could use existing data to make copies of things just like we did with the other STMs."

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  "Like what?" Valentine asked.

  "Guns. Ammo. Soldiers even," he said. "Hell, with the right resources, what's to stop someone from building a giant STM and turning it into a pseudo-tank factory?" Nik's worries seemed to find a purchase with Valentine because he shared Nik's frown. Seeing Valentine frown was rare. It was always unsettling to Nik.

  "I know what you mean. Sometimes I think of this stuff too," he confessed. After a moment, his customary grin returned. "But that's also what you and that Ariel guy have already prevented from happening, didn't you know?"

  Nik didn't know, which became apparent to Valentine when he didn't respond. "Listen, when you guys go on your envoys, you look at the other STMs, right?" Nik nodded. "So tell me, when you're checking their STMs, what are the things you look at?"

  Nik thought about it and began to tabulate. "First, we check the software for any major changes. Second, the machine itself for specification irregularities. And then the power supply."

  "Just the power supply?" Valentine prodded.

  "Well, no, we check the power grid it's attached to and ensure it's integrated properly with ours, but I don't see why that matters."

  Valentine couldn't help but laugh and shake his head. “You're a brilliant man, Nik. But sometimes,” he sighed, tapping his temple, “you need to flex these muscles a bit more.” Nik couldn’t stop his frown from interrupting, but Valentine continued. "Alright, when you check to ensure their power grid is integrated, they can see your grid, and you can see theirs."

  "Go on," Nik said curiously.

  "That means if they were to start up an STM tank factory, you'd be able to see it on the grid. Or, at the very least, you'd be able to see if they were to ramp up their traffic suspiciously. Not to mention, I'm willing to bet that there are already people in your government who are already watching for something like this, either through the power grid or satellite imagery. It would be pretty hard to hide, in my opinion."

  Nik thought about it. Valentine was right. The US government did have a tendency to keep an annoyingly close eye on everything STM-related.

  "Fine," he said, "But I'm still not going to sit by just in case something does happen."

  "And neither will I," Valentine reassured. "After all, a chairman gotta do what a chairman gotta do to keep the peace around here."

  "And who elected you chairman, again?" Nik quizzed, eliciting a shrug from Valentine.

  "I don't know, some asshole," he laughed.

  ***Ari***

  "Occipital, temporal, parietal," Ari listed off, ticking through the brain territories he had tackled. His clone mirrored him in silence, a common theme as their shared work advanced. But it wasn't a dynamic Ari favored.

  The speculative energy he devoted to pondering his clone's thoughts felt like an inefficient squandering of cognitive resources. The contemplative dance with his duplicate's silence was an unanticipated distraction, an inconvenient ripple in the otherwise smooth flow of their collaboration.

  He didn't require insight into his clone's mind, did he? After all, the thoughts should be identical to his own. Yet, despite his logical deductions, he found himself periodically stealing glances, a stray curiosity pricking at the edges of his focus.

  "Why am I being so inefficient lately?" he wondered to himself. It was odd. The more organized his mind became, the more easily he detected anomalies around him. It made taking advantage of those useless ambassadors almost too easy. He could notice everything from a bead of sweat forming on an eyebrow to a change in body odor. Ari had even hoodwinked the female ambassadors simply by analyzing the smell of their pheromone levels and changing his own to complement theirs. In the end, it all seemed tedious. A mere distraction from the critical goal. He peeked over at his clone again.

  Breaking the silence, he declared, "I've just wrapped up the final phase of the parietal lobe." His clone looked up and smiled. "Excellent. Once we implement it, I'll need you to check my preliminary architecture of the Frontal lobe, " he said. I'm finding its mapping sequence a little more time-consuming since it deals with higher cognitive functions."

  Ari sensed a wave of validation as his clone sought his guidance. It was a tangible reflection of his irreplaceable role, the central pivot upholding their audacious research and goals. He retained a satisfactory degree of command over the project.

  His influence, in truth, had amplified with his clone's existence—more so than it ever had under Nik's purview. A flicker of resentment sparked at this realization, but Ari dismissed it promptly, deeming it another wasteful expenditure of his mental stamina.

  "I sent you the preliminary results," his clone said. Ari looked down at the new file that appeared on his monitor. He began to carefully sift through it and compare the data with his meticulous notes on the frontal lobe anatomy.

  His clone's words rang true in his mind. Their breakneck progress over the past few years felt like a brisk ascent, but they now faced a daunting cliff. This final phase was an entirely different beast, a hurdle dwarfing their previous challenges. Even with their accelerated cognition, it would take at least another few years to complete this portion alone.

  With a firm mental shove, Ari banished the lingering tendrils of anxiety to the shadows of his mind. Then, with a steadying breath, he plunged headlong into the swirling vortex that marked his project's final, most formidable phase.