Threats from within.

[Emissary]

Over the years Altair became a city floating in space, carved inside three asteroids connected to each other. A lot has changed since the last time.

The person holding the answers to Lily’s questions was someone called the "emissary". Emissary... Suddenly the name came up in her mind: Angela Corino. Somehow Lily knew that and knew her looks despite never seeing in person nor in picture nor anywhere else. The map on PDA sprung up showing the emissary's rooms were located far off on the third asteroid. To reach that part of the station she'd need to take monorail tram, a transportation system that connected all main areas of this facility.

Lily walked outside the bar and headed straight to closest station. She remembered very little of the place since her first visit here when she and other trainees were rather forcefully dragged into some kind of tests. Over the years Altair became a rather crowded place. Inside the massive asteroids there was a vast network of tunnels, corridors and halls one after another. Although initially an ingenious human construction some areas were oddly decorated with shapes normally not associated with any human architecture, while others seem retained original industrial utilitarian looks. While she was waiting for the tram a cargo train passed by, carrying what she could identify as cryopods, similar to those used in sleeper ships but slightly different and having unreadable markings.

Finally she arrived to the third asteroid station. This place was completely unlike any other area she previously seen before at Altair. This time prominently featuring alien architecture, the walls were made of materials she never saw before, part crystalline, part what looked like liquid but upon touching were solid and strong, yet... warm, distinctively different from the cold metal surfaces. Floors were made of curved panels and tiles creating a odd mosaic where no element is repeated, each is unique. There were no displays hanging on the walls, no pads, no wires, no tubes going above on the ceiling. It all looked amazingly pristine and clean, making other stations look like a junkyard compared to this (and junkyards in space they probably were among other things). Lily turned on PDA to check on further directions but the device strangely couldn't find it's own location. She let out a deep sigh and had to walk on through bizarre alien looking corridors and halls relying on memorized path she saw before on the screen. Walking though she noticed there was not a living soul around, no humans, nobody at all.

Lily slowly entered into emissary’s apartments, looking around carefully, mixed with surprise and awe. The room was pretty much fitting the whole alien-looking area, and yet it was clearly designed for humans, fitting human proportions and feeling rather comfortable but aesthetically striking as otherworldly place.

“You look good... for a dead person.”

Lily turned around...