She summons Badim to her room.

  Not long ago, she had asked Kelensky for help with a UN speech. Unexpectedly, the response was positive.

  It wasn’t a definitive "yes," but the door was clearly open. However, there was one condition.

  He wants to meet in person to talk.

  Lillik can understand the reason without even asking. It is already clear what Kelensky will demand:

  information on the "cosmic weapons" we possess, and if possible, the transfer of some of them.

  The military asymmetry revealed in the battle against R must have been his greatest concern.

  To avoid being pushed back on the battlefield, he needs anything and everything.

  At this point, the fact that an extraterrestrial entity is helping U is an irresistible opportunity for him.

  An opportunity born of crisis. He is not the type of person to let it slip away.

  “I will meet him in person,” she decides quietly.

  And she intends to take Badim with her, not go alone. Since he has risen to a new status, he must learn about various matters.

  Furthermore, she has no intention of keeping this meeting private. She plans to fly directly to his office in a small aircraft.

  Without hiding or avoiding, she will expose the move to the entire world head-on. That itself will be the message.

  –

  There was much to explain to Badim regarding this schedule. The UN speech following the meeting with Kelensky, and the instructions for our response posture should R’s attacks intensify—all had to be addressed.

  His shoulders, once stiff with the tension of the battlefield, had noticeably softened.

  His stride was steady, and his gaze unwavering. Where he once would have reflexively scouted the perimeter of the room, he now approached Lillik naturally.

  A new body. He now possessed enhanced senses and power incomparable to his past self. When he first accepted it, he was clearly confused. The dissonance of his changing heartbeat, the muscle reaction speeds, and the overwhelming sensations—detecting even the slightest flow of air.

  The lingering echoes of his time as a human were holding him back.

  But the Badim of now is different. He no longer looks down at his hands as if they are strangers.

  He doesn't flaunt his new power, nor does he fear it. He moves naturally, as if that body has been his since the very beginning.

  “You called for me?” His voice, a low resonance, is stable.

  Lillik gazes at him for a moment. Though Badim appears composed on the surface,

  his inner thoughts remain a mystery. She doesn’t get to the reason for summoning him right away.

  Lillik walks toward the wall beside the bookshelves. Looking at a painting hanging there, she speaks to Badim.

  “Badim, Do you know who is in this painting?” she asks him out of the blue.

  The painting on the wall depicts a woman standing next to a horse, wearing the Abaya, traditional Arab clothing.

  “This is the Portrait of Lady Anne Blunt in Arab Costume. In the late 1870s, she traveled through Najd, Saudi Arabia.

  She studied and preserved Arabian horses, observed the Bedouins living and moving across Saudi with their camels, and left a record of it all.”

  Lillik crosses her arms and continues.

  “She was an explorer, a chronicler, and a writer. And most importantly, she was a great woman.”

  Badim cannot understand where she is going with this.

  “Badim, your spirit and memories were transplanted into a droid body, but I shared the memory files and abilities of a woman named Lillik within my own body.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I am not a clone. I have simply become an ‘upgraded me.’ In that sense, you too have become an upgraded version of yourself, regardless of the means.”

  Badim was inwardly stunned. The revelation that Lillik was not originally an extraterrestrial being,

  but a human who shared the memories and abilities of one, was shocking.

  ‘Lillik… wasn’t an alien from the start?’

  The fact that a human came to share the memories and powers of an extraterrestrial—this was not a mere confession of a secret.

  It was a declaration that shook the very definition of existence.

  “Badim, look around this room. Doesn’t the interior feel Arabic?

  Doesn’t it feel as if a desert wind might blow in at any moment?”

  “Badim, in 1940, I was an Arab woman in my twenties living in Medina.

  I was a man's wife. It is hard for you to imagine how women lived in Saudi Arabia in the 1940s.”

  “When a woman went outside, she wore the Abaya and covered her face with a Shayla and Niqab.

  Except for the eyes, the entire body was hidden under black cloth.

  A woman could only show her beauty within the 'Harem,' a space where only other women could see her.

  We were a male-dominated society, being an Islamic one. Traveling without a man was difficult, and holding a job was nearly impossible.

  A woman's greatest value was bearing and raising children. Of course, men respected and cherished women in their own way.”

  “But what if a woman couldn't have children? That was almost like a death sentence.

  I couldn't have children… I cannot put into words the pain I felt at home back then. Eventually, my husband took another wife.”

  Lillik turned her face from the painting toward Badim and continued.

  “I was always thirsty for travel. I wanted to leave Medina and travel the world. I hated that I was a woman. But… later I found out.

  That British women were coming into our Arab lands, traveling the desert, roaming around…

  Only the Arab women were stuck at home. It was around 1947 when I learned about a British woman, Anne Blunt—no, Lady Anne Blunt.

  I read her book. She had already traveled through Saudi in the mid-1870s, recording our culture and people.”

  “Why? Why was it impossible for an Arab woman, yet allowed for a British woman? In 1947,

  I was so angry. I shed tears of rage while reading her book. There was a well in the village, a Harem space where men couldn't come.

  There was a village well, and since it was a Harem space, men were not allowed to come.

  I meet a women there.

  She wasn't an Arab. She was a Persian woman, from what is now Iran.

  She was a pilgrim who had come to Medina. I won't go into what happened in 1943 right now.

  Regardless, meeting her in Medina in 1947 became the turning point that changed my life.”

  “I thought Iran was a country just like ours, but it was completely different.

  I learned then for the first time that women there studied all the way through university, didn't wear hijabs, and strode through the streets flaunting their beauty in knee-length skirts.

  She offered me a new life… she was the one who is now 'Illik.'”

  “And so, I came to share her memories and abilities. And I traveled. I traveled every corner of the Arab world.

  But… everything changed when Israel was founded in 1948. What if Illik had appeared in Saudi with a space battleship back then? Haha…”

  “I believe it was the foolish Hitler who ultimately brought about today’s Israel. He ordered the massacre of Jews,

  and the whole world pitied and supported Israel. If the Holocaust hadn't happened, would Israel have been able to establish its own country? But there are no 'ifs' in history.”

  Badim listened quietly to the long story, then asked:

  “Lillik, don't you regret it?”

  “Regret? No, not at all. Badim… a new life, a new opportunity, isn't given to just anyone.

  My life in the 1940s was one of sorrow. It was the luck of my life to gain the power to overcome that sorrow.

  Badim, I believe you have also gained luck on a much grander scale!”

  Lillik continued without a moment's hesitation.

  “And before we meet Kelensky, go quietly to your hometown.”

  Badim’s eyes instantly froze.

  “Go see your mother. I have prepared money; take it to her.”

  Her voice was calm, as if this had been decided long ago.

  “I’ve applied a hologram projection to your helmet. Your face will be projected. It will be perfectly… restored to how you used to look.”

  Those words were not a simple technical explanation. They meant he could briefly reclaim the 'self' he thought he had lost.

  "And..."

  Lillik trailed off ever so slightly.

  "Natasha is in your hometown right now as well. Go meet her."

  At that moment.

  "Natasha... is back home..."

  Badim's heart surged violently. Although his enhanced body was designed to suppress emotions,

  that single name caused all his internal calculations to collapse.

  His heart rate spiked, his blood flow accelerated, and his senses swung wide open.

  Natasha.

  The last face he had seen before he was shot. He instinctively clenched his fist. His metallic, reinforced skeleton hummed faintly.

  "Why... why now?" The question felt like a breath squeezed out with effort.

  Lillik looked at him quietly.

  "You are not a weapon, Badim. No matter what you have become... you are human."

  Badim's chest thundered once more. A face restored through a hologram.

  His mother’s touch. And the chance to see Natasha.

  Lillik watched Badim's back as he walked out of the room.

  ‘Badim. You are a humanoid droid. To meet the spacecraft flying toward Earth from the far reaches of the universe... you must leave this earth.’