There is more to any story than you know. There will be things they don't show you, things they don't tell you, and things that you take for granted.

For example, this:

Tieria stands at an access terminal that will no longer respond to his commands, trying to push his way back in, desperately searching for ways to bring it flickering back to life. It has information that he wants. Information that, not too long ago, was just a thought away, a movement in his mind.

Information that he had taken for granted, because he had then thought that it was easy to get to, that he could have looked at it any time he wanted.

But things are different now.

He knows, see, that there's a lot more to Lockon than just a collection of facts and figures. Veda is full of journals Tieria hasn't read, full of private testimonials and personal logs, years and years of Lockon's inner thoughts on his friends and colleagues. Why he did what he did. What his reasons were for living.

He wants to know all this, but the terminal, dead and reduced to showing a single unchanging message, won't let him in. Frustration curls his fists into tight, angry balls.

And that's where we come to the important part, the key point:

Tieria feels a presence behind him.

Lockon stands in the doorway, a causally slouched silhouette, arms crossed, the light across his face suggesting a warm smile. "You could have just asked me, you know," he says, chuckling.

And you can end the story there, and be none the wiser.

Or, choosing to go on, find:

Tieria turns, but there's nobody there. Just an empty doorway occupied by an absence that can never be filled again. He yearns for Lockon, for that unreachable shadow, but the man is gone, never to return. All he is left with are meaningless questions and a flickering screen that reads "ACCESS DENIED".

It's all in the way you choose to look at it. Which parts you leave out, and which parts you keep.

He finally finds her bunk in the far end of the room, bathed in the artificial glow that comes in from the window high up on the wall. A finger goes against her startled lips as she sees him. [Shhh. It’s just me. We've been hearing each other.]

Her eyes grow wide. [It’s you? How did you get here?]

He points. [They don’t seal the circulations ducts, and you can get past the guards if you’re very, very quiet. I’ve been looking for you for days.]

She sits up. One finger goes tentatively towards his cheek and gingerly makes contact, dimpling flesh. [So you’re real.]

He nods.

The children stare at each other, digesting the reality of their contact after having heard each others' voices in their respective heads for weeks. The boy is older, stick-thin, a mop of unruly dark hair growing over a blank and vacant eye; the other one glints eagerly silver in the dim light. The girl has a soft face and round yellow irises that are framed by a shoulder-length bob the faintest shade of lavender.

[Which one of them are you?] she asks.

[The first one, I think. I still can’t find the other one. He comes and goes and I can’t tell whether he’s near or far away, not like with you. He’s like a ghost...]

She lifts the fringe away from his face, exposing the blank, dead eye. [What happened to it?]

[I… don’t know. But they can’t fix it. It just doesn’t work.]

She tilts her head, mystified by this sudden addition to her life. He smiles, a close-lipped but genuine little thing that crinkles across his narrow face. [What’s your name?] he asks.

[I don’t have one.]

[Can I give you one?]

She hesitates, then nods.

He takes a long time, frowning and thinking, hands clasped on her bed as he remains kneeling on the ground. Finally, he goes, […Marie?]

[Why?]

[The way your fringe folds, it reminds me of a statue of the Virgin Mary.]

Her eyes grow momentarily wide before collapsing into narrow, annoyed slits. [That’s stupid!]

[I’m sorry.] The silver eye creases at the edges. [I’ll let you give me a stupid name in return?]

She folds her arms and purses her lips into a tiny pout almost vindictively, brow creased in thought. After several moments of silence:

[Hallelujah. No, wait, Allelujah. That’s a stupid name.]

He contemplates it. [I like the sound of Allelujah better. So.] He proffers his hand. [Hi, my name is Allelujah. Nice to meet you.]

Another hesitation on her part. Then her warm fingers close firmly over his. [Marie. It’s nice meeting you too, Allelujah.]

In the semi-darkness, the children share their first silent, secret handshake, unaware of the future that looms over them, reveling only in the joy of a friend found. It is the joy of a new and precious thing, and a joy of the present moment; for them the moment is a glorious one, at least for now.

At least for now.

Arms around bloodstained knees, he watches his breath crystallize in the thinning air as it cools around him in the empty wreckage. Gravity and life support failed hours ago; it's only a matter of time before the ship becomes no different from the asteroids around it, aimlessly tumbling and utterly lifeless.

The remains of the other children float past him.

"Maybe it's better to just die," he whispers.

[What kind of talk is that?]

A tighter ball, hands over ears in a futile gesture.

[I didn't kill all of them for you to die sitting here whining like a pussy.]

He wants nothing to do with Hallelujah. He's a monster, a murderer, a terrible presence that's been there all the while, lurking in the shadows, lurking and whispering sometimes, "Allelujah..."

His name is not Allelujah. It's Andrei, he tells himself. Andrei. That was what his dead mother called him, what she called him. Marie.

[Andrei died the day I was born, sweetcakes. Allelujah...]

"Marie," he breathes desperately, shuddering at the oozing presence sliding through his head. But Marie is not there. Her voice is gone, long gone from his head. He wants to hear her voice but he can't, and her absence hurts, hurts like something real, hurts like somebody thrust a fist into his chest and left a mark there, left a metallic taste in his mouth. "Marie..."

[Yes, Marie. We have to live on for her, you hear? It was a promise.]

But what's there to live for, if she's not here to see it? All the beauty is gone from his world.

[You're not going to find beauty sitting here and waiting for death, you fuckwit.]

Marie, he thinks, is alive and out there, still. Does she feel this pain too, wondering where he is, what he's doing?

His chest hurts.

[If you die now, you'll never see her again.]

Beauty exists. He has to believe it. If he believes it he will survive, and if he survives he'll find it again.

Isn't that right?

The shadow of a passing ship casts darkness across his face. He exhales into the waiting emptiness.

Isn't that right?

He likes mealtimes best.

With their abilities they can talk to each other anytime they want. But nothing beats being able to do it while in the same room, having the same things to talk about. For a moment, that almost makes them feel like normal people, having a normal conversation.

[Look at what Ivan’s doing], she says.

[Which one is Ivan?]

[Let me count. Two rows up from you, fourth from your right. Brown hair, short.]

He looks up, counts, zooms in on the dark mop of hair bent over the table, intent on the job of stacking green peas into a glistening pyramid. One jostle from the child next to him later, the pyramid is in shambles, shaken to its knobbly green foundations. Undaunted, the boy picks up his fork and starts pushing the peas back into formation.

[He’s weird. Has he always been this weird?]

He catches sight of her head as it bobs, with its distinctive crown of hair, from across the room. The shrug is probably involuntarily; if they keep trying to look at each other the handlers might suspect something. [He’s new to my block. I think they’ve done something to his head.]

[They’ve done something to all our heads.]

And their eyes meet briefly across the canteen as they share a private, secret laugh, in the midst of the hundred faceless, nameless children of the program. Then the moment passes, and they’re back to being indistinguishable, on the surface.

[Have you found the other one yet?] She asks.

He shakes his head, involuntarily, then remembers she isn’t looking. [No. I can’t pin him down. He comes and goes. Sometimes I wonder if he’s a hallucination...]

[No, it can’t be, I hear him too.]

[Maybe you’re just hearing what I hear when I think I hear him.]

[...are you trying to make my head hurt on purpose?]

He laughs, a tiny, discreet little thing, partly because he can feel her trying to drill her stare into him from across the room. [’m sorry. You’re right. There’s two hundred of us here and he could be any one of them.]

There are times where he thinks, very quietly so that she won’t hear, that maybe it’s better not to find this other child, who scares him sometimes with the things he says. But she wants to find him, and he doesn’t want to fight with her. In his drab and tiny little world she is the sun, the giver of life, who warms the barren plains of his existence and brings forth the green buds of hope.

[We’ll find him together], she says, and he imagines her nodding and squeezing his hand, like playhouse best friends. He nods back.

[We’ll find him.]

Back pressed to cold metal he closes his eyes and blanks his mind, imagining it a white canvas, imagining it a black void where thoughts were sucked in never to reemerge. He breathes slowly in and out, keenly aware of his body, keenly aware of his own existence. He fills his empty mind with his weight of his corporeal presence.

[Ready or not, here I come.]

Across the universe he can feel her concentrating, feel her yearning, reaching her senses through the vast body of the colony searching for any sign of him. She listens through the white noise of it all: people walking and talking and eating and laughing and discussing their latest experiment. She seeks the sound of his breath, the beat of his heart.

She smiles.

[Maintenance duct in sector nine. Right above the institute.]

[Hey, this isn't how the game is played.]

[You're right. You're supposed to say "You found me."]

He looks down at the grille between his feet, the yawning space of the colony waiting, free of gravity, free of constraints. He smiles.

[You haven't found me yet.]

And with that he launches himself out, drifting away, floating in white space, knowing it's only a matter of time before the men find them both and pack them back to their rooms. He revels in the temporary sensation of freedom.

[Come find me], he says to her, and he knows she's out there, somewhere, listening.

[Come find me.]