The Science of Souls

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

No one heard him, or the explosion, as the nuke made it's way into the portal. It was like he was alone. Matteo was quiet for the first time, no one could hear his comms. There was no quip to the bad guy that would solve this, or make this at all light hearted. He was terrified and alone in space. Making the sacrifice play for a team that didn't care.

As the oxygen levels quickly dropped, he thought to scream. Take a selfish action to use up the rapidly depleting breath he had in his lungs. So for the first time in a long time Matteo was selfish. He screamed and he couldn't hear a thing.

He fell through space. Seeing a vision of a goddess. She was made out of stars with horns curling in a halo around her skull. His vision faded to black.

Though he didn't know it. His body wrapped in metal rapidly fell back through the portal to solid ground. His teammates attempting to catch him. In a rash move one of his larger teammates rushed in grabbing him and crashing to the ground using their momentum to slow the fall.

His larger teammate, Tobias Tanner, had medical experience to shame the rest of the team's meager emergency training. Tanner shifted from their larger mutated form to his more average Terran like visage. They attempted talking to Matteo,"Matty, Come on. We just won. You need to get up. I promise you can gloat and O'Conner will never say a word."

Tanner broke open the suit starting to catalogue Matteo's injuries. Their hands starting to shake. Realizing Matteo, their closet friend was dead.

They shifted letting out a roar. Their scattered team having made their way together gathering around Matteo.

O'Conner level-headed as ever, tried to get a read on the situation. "Natasa get a read on Vass. I'll call for a medic team with the evac."

Calling to command, O'Conner got confirmation of the medical team aboard. O'Conner gave a location. Seeing the ship land next to them. The team quickly tried to gather everyone.

Until Tanner stopped, shaking in a way that let everyone around them see the involuntary shift. They transformed letting out a bellow of pure grief and rage.

The planet shook around them. Tanner’s hands slammed next to Vass. Vass jolted up. Taking in a gasp of air as his hardware came back online. He was fine. Matty joked,"Who turned the power off?"

Tanner smacked Matty, their whole demeanor having shifted from grief to relief.

The team that supported the android sighed in relief. O'Connor chuckled,"Get on up Vass, transport just arrived."

The band of heroes came to together evacuating off the planet, knowing a miracle had happened and they would be closer as a team for it. Vass and Tanner came together attempting decipher the logistics of the reboot of his system. No logical solution was found.

A few months later, Matteo finally opened up to Tobias about what it felt like. His touch with death so fresh it wasn't expected that he would give many details. However Tobias was a different story, Matty needed to open up to them. While they were working on deciphering data from a mission, Matteo cleared his throat.

"You remember Majorcan."

Tobias nodded, waiting for Matteo to gather his thoughts.

He leaned back on his chair spinning around to face Tanner, "Death... it wasn't like a bright light that was always described in the movies. It was colors, almost as if the whole galaxy was in hyperdrive and focused on showing him the beauty he missed in his living days. A feeling of nostalgia for something he never knew hit him as it all faded to black. How could I be so afraid of a galaxy that had so much to offer? But also how could I not be? I was gone.”

Tobias looked at him with their calm demeanor. Listening as they always had. Their hands clasped together,”Are you sure you died. Do you think I brought you back with the little cognitive restart?”

Matteo thought back,”No, it was more. It was some entity. She called herself Bat. She told me I had an immortal soul and I had something left to do.” He shrugged,” I don’t fully understand the mechanics behind it. That’s why I called you. I thought we could solve it together.”

Tanner laughed,”Okay science boy. We’ll figure out the science behind your immortal soul.”

Tobias and Matteo went to the labs. They started testing and experiments. Trying to find the common denominators in other cases. They never did find the science explanation for it all. But it didn’t matter Tobias and Matty came together and for Bat that was all that mattered.