Particle Differences

"Huh? What's with the stern look?" Anna asks. She just finished copying a mimic of the glass particle to her hologram. When she was done, she returned to her little girl appearance and drifted towards the task force—who were in silence. Anna walked towards Ephraim, who was the first to notice her.

"Anna," Ephraim calls. "How is it?"

"Well, I created a copy that mimicked the molecules and their composition," Anna says. "Sorry it took me a while. What happened here?"

Ephraim shakes his head. "Nothing. What were you able to find out?"

Anna tilted her head to show her confusion before she decided to explain her findings. Nonetheless, rising from crystal shards to pixels, a mimic showed in front of Anna.

Esmeralda stares at the mimic particles. She recalls a distinct memory of her chemistry class as they studied molecules and electrons. Esmeralda proceeded to poke at it, her index finger slipping through the hologram.

"This looks straight out like the models I see in researches we conduct," Samuel exclaims. "Which is impressive, Hologram girl."

"My name is Anna . . ." Anna utters. "Anyways! Do notice that the compositions are very much alike in a normal glass . . . here, let me show you all another model," Anna then showed another hologram model. "This is the glass from the laboratory. It's in a way very similar, see?"

"Yeah, they're identical," Ephraim observes. "But . . . why are these somehow . . . different?"

"That's what I was thinking about as well," Anna exclaims. "The crystallinity of this glass is bizarre, compared to the usual composition seen in ours,"

"In closer inspection, this seems to be composed of altered . . . specks," Anna explains. "It's the same as normal glass. Silicate glass, to be precise. Which consists mainly of silica or silicon dioxide, SiO2."

Ephraim started to sketch the two models to compare and contrast, as he scribbles a Venn diagram down below.

"Have they only differ in terms of appearance?" Asks Ephraim. "I mean, if they're the same composition, but only looked a bit dissimilar, then are they actually different at all?"

"Well, for one, let's start with basic science," says Anna. "Glass is the name given to an amorphous or non-crystalline solid that exhibits a glass transition when it nears melting point. Glass is a type of matter. On occasion, the word glass is circumscribed to inorganic compounds, nevertheless, a glass may be an organic polymer or plastic or even an aqueous solution."

"In other words," Berthold starts. "It can either be formed from inorganic matter, plastic, or even watery-solutions?"

"Precisely," Anna says. "The type humans use on a daily basis is often made with Silicate. Silicate is one of the compounds seen on windows and drinking glasses. You can actually create glass by melting silicate sand. Anyhow . . . natural forms of silicate glass also occur. Impurities or additional elements and compounds added to the silicate change the color and other properties of the glass, which explains durability and as you've all seen earlier—decompose to hologram and dissolve to nothing."

Ephraim remembers the glass separating the simulation area—when Anna identified herself as she gained the login permission, the sturdy glass pane seems to fade with its shards dissolving to crystalline-hologram pixelated shards. It occurred to him how similar it is to an anime he watched, right—Sword Art Online. The dissolving pixels akin to a digital world. Now Ephraim was bombarded with thoughts about how far did technology actually goes when things like these existed just underneath the ground?

"So there is naturally-occurring glass. Examples include Obsidian, which comes from volcano silica; Fulgurites, vitrified sand from a lightning strike, and Moldavite, which transpires from meteorite impacts. Obviously, this glass isn't made out of those three—this glass . . . is manmade," says Anna as she grabs the hologram model of the glass beneath them. "As I delve into thousands of information when I was examining the composition, I soon saw a glass somewhat similar to what we have here."

"A glass that is somewhat similar?"

"Yes," Anna says. "That is . . . metallic glass."

"Researchers have made a metallic glass that is the strongest and toughest material ever made. To make a metallic glass, five elements were infused to complicate the material. That way, the substance wouldn't be able to activate into automatic memory and form its normal, crystal structure."

"Hm, so this is made with metallic glass?" Asks Berthold. "So does that mean metallic glass restricts you? Does that mean it complicates your programming as well?"

"I am designed to pass through electrons undisturbed without messing their structure," says Anna. "That explains how I can pass through mediums. Metallic glass restricts automatic memory to form the normal crystalline structure of the glass. It doesn't say it restricts any other entity for entering . . . I mean, how can I examine if I can't disintegrate the particles?"

"Point," Samuel says. "So it isn't metallic glass, then?"

"As I said earlier," Anna exclaims. "It is somewhat similar, but then I can't really tell what it is,"

"That's odd," Ephraim says.

The research members then turned to him.

"You have all the access to information, Anna," Ephraim says. "You said this yourself."

"Well, except classified ones," Anna retorts.

"But this is a composition of something almost arbitrary," Ephraim says. "Is it possible it's not a mineral from earth?"

"What do you mean? It's manmade?" Asks Anna, "well, for one it's not Fluoro-aluminate, Polyvinyl acetate, or any Amorphous metals and alloys,"

Ephraim stares at the glass.

"It's . . . something similar to metallic glass but it's different." Anna utters.

"It's like . . . it came from another dimension,"

Silence.

Ephraim blinks.

Flicker.

The lights flickered on and off, which caused the team to stand alert. Ephraim blinked as he stares upwards, the light fading into a dizzying nonstop on and off. Is there a power outage? If yes, then how so? The lights were working perfectly earlier.

The timing was too convenient. Ephraim eyed Hiroaki, who immediately drew his gun out, remaining vigilant.

Flicker.

On. Off. On. Off.

Anna was glowing in the dark, but her light was dim for Ephraim and the team to see the whole vicinity.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

The sounds echoed . . . "outside the room?" Esmeralda spoke aloud.

It was getting nearer, like extensive and heavy stomping feet. Ephraim listened to the ground shake as the glass quivered. The sound was getting nearer and nearer towards them.

Until the lights turned on.

And the sound stopped.

"Wh-what in the world . . . was . . ." Samuel stopped talking shortly as his electric blue eyes fix to a person standing just before the vault door.

"Hello, I figured things would get complicated." Says a little girl to them. It seemed that she appeared passing through the door—because there was no sign the vault door was opened. "All of you have learned a tad too much, which is why I think it is better to terminate everything instead of playing the guessing game whether this would be for good or for naught,"

Ephraim blinked as he met the eyes of the girl—gleaming, sinister blood-red eyes and a glossy black hair falling just beneath her waist which was paired with a silky, red dress. She was fair, and barefoot, with the same stature as Anna.

And she was glowing.

"Pardon my intrusion," says the girl. "My name is Project A. NN3331-a."

The girl bowed gracefully, and then her eyes met that of Anna—red eyes to blue ones.

"Hence, I call myself," says the girl. "The real Anna."

Ephraim blinked as he turned towards Anna standing alongside them, looking equally confused and frightened as her gaze pinned to the girl standing a distance away from them. The girl smiled.

"Now, I must initiate the mission." She says and flicked her finger. With a snap, the vault door opened, revealing a fog.

And a silhouette of a large creature.

"Subject 00457," the girl grins. "Exterminate the intruders."