ACCIDENTALLY HIS LAB EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER 8: NULL SPACE

Selene didn’t sleep. She counted.

One. Two. Three. The panels in the med bay ceiling. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Then her own pulse. Too fast. Too loud.

The Helm sat on the table beside her. Cracked. Dial frozen at 40%. Vant’s fingerprints still ghosted on the metal from this afternoon. She could see the smudge where his thumb had been. `Scans clear. She’s stable.` The lie echoed louder than the mountain ever could.

She pressed her palms to her ears. It didn’t help. The vents screamed. A machine beeped three rooms down. A nurse laughed. Someone’s boot squeaked on polished floor. Each sound landed behind her eyes like a needle.

`Too much. Always too much.`

Her ears were still human. No blue glow. No dots. Just skin and bone and nerve endings that had decided the entire mountain was their enemy. The clock above the door ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick. Vant had said “Rest. Two hours.” That was one hour and forty-three minutes ago. She knew because she was counting.

The door hissed.

Light footsteps. Not Vant’s. Not Kade’s. Too much energy in the step, too little weight.

Cael.

He slipped inside holding a matte black device the size of his palm. Dirt on his sleeve. Grease on his cheek. His uniform badge was missing. Like he’d come straight from the lower levels without stopping. No tray. No cups this time. His grin was softer than usual. Careful.

“Med bay rules say no gifts,” he said quietly. “Good thing I’m terrible at rules.” He set the device on the bedside table. “Two meters of null space. Just for you.”

Vant’s shadow moved under the door. Then stopped.

Selene stared at the dark line. “He’s out there.”

Cael followed her gaze but didn’t turn. He just pushed the device closer with one finger. “I know. He’s been standing there for nineteen minutes.”

“Then why—”

“Because he won’t come in,” Cael said simply. “And I will.” He sat on the edge of her bed. Not close enough to touch. Close enough that she could smell metal + ozone on him. Like he’d been soldering wires in a maintenance tunnel. “Don’t worry. He’s not here to confiscate it. Yet.”

Selene didn’t touch it. “What is it?”

“A filter. Prototype. Not military grade.” Cael left two fingers of space between them on the mattress. Always careful. Always asking without words. “Takes the raw input and slices it. Turns the mountain’s noise into... background. Like rain. You can still hear it, but it stops stabbing you.”

“Prof. Kade said no tech until scans clear. Forty-eight hours.”

“Because you’ve been awake for forty-seven minutes counting ceiling panels,” Cael said, matter-of-fact as if he was diagnosing a headache. “Because your pulse hit 120 when that nurse dropped a tray two rooms over. Because Vant won’t admit it, but he’s counting too.”

Selene’s breath caught. “How do you—”

“I count things too,” he said. “It’s what people like us do when the world gets too loud.” His eyes were serious now. No grin. “Turn it on?”

“You already lied to Kade for me,” she said. “Stealing coffee. Sneaking in here. What’s one more rule?”

“I didn’t lie,” Cael corrected, grin flashing. “I omitted. Big difference. Lies get you court-martialed. Omissions get you ‘talks’.”

He pressed his thumb to the center of the device.

Silence fell.

Not quiet. Not ‘med bay at night’ quiet. True silence. The kind that had weight. The air changed. The ticking clock vanished. The vent hum died. Even her own heartbeat sounded distant, like it was happening to someone else.

For the first time since the lab accident, Selene heard... nothing. Just her breath. Her thoughts. Her.

She gasped. It felt like surfacing after drowning. Like the first breath after her head broke the water.

“Two meters,” Cael said, voice normal but distant, like he was speaking from underwater. “Radius around the device. You’re in the bubble. Outside it? Still chaos. Inside? Just you.”

Selene closed her eyes. Tears hit her cheeks before she realized she was crying. Not from pain. From relief. From the absence of pain. Her shoulders dropped. Her hands unclenched. For ten seconds she just existed.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t,” Cael said quickly. “No thanks. You’d do the same for me if our roles were reversed.” He shifted closer. One inch. “Talk to me. Fill the space. Otherwise your brain will fill it with the mountain.”

“Talk about what?”

“Anything,” he said. “Tell me why you count panels instead of sheep.”

So she did. She told him about her stepfather’s house. Thin walls. Constant shouting. How she learned to count cracks in the plaster to survive. How numbers didn’t lie. People did. How she’d lie awake at 3am and count the seconds between her stepfather’s footsteps and her brother’s door closing. Safety measured in time.

Cael listened. He didn’t interrupt. When she paused, he didn’t fill the silence with noise. He just waited.

“Your turn,” Selene said finally. Her voice sounded normal here. Not distant. Not shattered.

Cael hesitated. Then he rolled up his sleeve. Scars ran up his forearm. Thin. Old. Some fresh, pink and angry. “Lower levels,” he said. “Machines don’t care if you’re slow. Only if you’re useful.”

Selene reached out before she thought. Her fingers hovered over the oldest scar. Didn’t touch. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” Cael said. But his eyes stayed on her face. “Not when someone asks.”

The device hummed softer. 7 minutes left. The silence had texture now. Warm. Safe.

Selene told him about the frequency dream. Static. Then intent. `I found you.` Not words. Just knowing.

Cael went still. “What did you hear exactly?”

“A voice,” she said. “Not Vant’s. Older. Like the mountain itself.”

“Or someone using the mountain,” Cael said quietly. He glanced at the door. The shadow hadn’t moved in nineteen minutes. “Someone’s looking for him. Or for you.”

The device warmed under her palm. 5 minutes left.

The door hissed again.

Neither of them moved.

Vant filled the frame. Gray eyes swept the room: device in Cael’s hand, Selene’s wet cheeks, the dead silence that still clung to the air like frost. He didn’t look at Cael. He looked at Selene. At her face. No blood. At her hands. Steady.

He didn’t speak for three seconds. Three seconds too long.

“Patrol ended early,” he said finally. Flat. “Kade wants vitals.”

Cael didn’t pull his hand back. Not right away. His fingers brushed Selene’s under the blanket. Quick. Warm. Then gone. “Vitals are stable,” he said. “For now.”

Vant stepped inside. The temperature dropped 3 degrees. The Null Space bubble flickered. For one second Selene heard the mountain again. Just a slice. Just enough to flinch and hiss.

Cael stood, pocketing the dying device before it burned out completely. “Time’s up. Two hours is two hours. Vant’s rules.” He winked at her. “But the bubble leaves a trace. Your nervous system remembers what quiet feels like now. That’s data too.”

He passed Vant at the door. Shoulder to shoulder. Neither looked at the other. The air between them crackled.

Vant watched him leave. Then he looked at Selene. He didn’t come closer. He just placed the cracked Helm on the bed beside her.

“You shouldn’t rely on him,” Vant said quietly. “Bubbles break. Control doesn’t.”

Selene picked up the Helm. 3% dial. Vant’s fingerprints on the metal.

“I know,” she said. But she was still listening to the echo of silence. The one Cael gave her. Ten minutes where she wasn’t counting to survive. She was counting to remember.

Vant’s jaw flexed once. He turned to go. Paused at the door.

“Rest,” he said. Same word as before. But his voice was lower this time. Rougher. Like he’d heard her heartbeat settle too and hated that he noticed.

The door closed.

Silence rushed back in. Not Cael’s kind. The heavy, waiting kind.

Outside, two men stood in the hallway, not speaking. Waiting.

And somewhere in the mountain, the frequency pulsed once. Twice. Like a heartbeat.

Like it had found her.