Ben opened his eyes and looked at the floor.
Not the ceiling. The floor. Right in front of his face, cool and pale grey, the morning hum of the facility around him.
He pushed himself up slowly and sat back and looked at the room. Empty. Equipment humming. Sleeping area door open. He looked at the open door for a moment then at the spot on the floor where he'd been lying.
"Good morning," Gellix said.
He was at his desk with his pad and a small steaming cup, watching Ben with those wide eyes that gave nothing away.
"Why were you sleeping on the floor?" Gellix said.
Ben looked at the floor. At the sleeping area. At the floor again.
"I don't know," he said.
"You don't know?."
"I remember going to bed." Ben stood up, stiff in the left shoulder. "I don't remember anything after that."
Gellix looked at him for a moment. Then he looked at his pad.
"Come here," he said. "Full checkup before anything else."
Forty minutes. Head to foot, systematic, unhurried. Gellix ran the scanner in careful passes and the data built on his pad in columns Ben couldn't read from the exam table. The Omnitrix got the most attention, Gellix holding the scanner close for a long time, eyes moving fast between the device and the screen.
Ben sat still and let him work.
"Left shoulder sore?" Gellix said.
"A little."
"You were on your side for part of the night before moving to your front. Consistent with the floor." He lowered the scanner. "Everything else is within range."
"Good," Ben said.
Gellix set the scanner down. Looked at his pad. Set it face down.
"Breakfast?" he said.
Max was in the corridor with a coffee when the door opened.
He looked at Ben the way he always looked at Ben now, the quick assessment, head to foot, checking, finding nothing wrong, settling. His hand went briefly to the back of Ben's neck.
"Sleep well?" he said.
"On the floor apparently," Ben said.
Max looked at Gellix.
Gellix looked back "I did gave him a bed."
Ted came down the corridor, saw the open door and changed direction toward them. Gwen appeared from the other end almost at the same moment, slowed to a walk when she saw Ben, and stopped in front of him with her arms crossed.
She looked him over. "You look terrible."
"Thank you," Ben said.
"I mean it. You look like you slept on a floor."
"I did sleep on a floor."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Gwen looked at Gellix.
"For god's sake i did gave him a bed stop judging me,"
Gwen looked back at Ben.
"Well," she said. "You're standing. That's something."
"I can turn into ten aliens," Ben said.
"Four," Gwen said. "You can turn into four."
"Four very good ones."
"Chosen by a device."
"I can lift three objects simultaneously," Gwen said.
"I can set things on fire."
"You could already do that before the Omnitrix."
"Not on purpose."
Max watched them over his coffee with an expression that was doing something it hadn't done in days. Gellix watched them both.
"Go have breakfast," Gellix said. "All of you."
They started walking. Max and Ben and Gwen moving together down the corridor, still arguing, Max between them saying nothing and not needing to.
Gellix stopped.
Ted noticed. He slowed. Looked back.
Gellix's expression said what it needed to say without words. Ted looked at the Tennysons walking away toward the cafeteria. Then back at Gellix.
"My office," Ted said quietly.
Ted closed the office door and sat behind his desk. Gellix took the chair across from him, set his pad on the desk and turned it to face Ted.
"Last night," Gellix said. "After Ben went to sleep. The training room scanners kept running. They always do." He tapped the pad. "Look at the graph."
Ted looked.
Two lines. Running across the screen from left to right.
"The first line," Gellix said. He pointed at the one running low and steady across the bottom of the graph. "That is Ben's conscious brain activity. Running low and flat the entire night. He was asleep."
Ted nodded.
"The second line, which wasn't originally there." Gellix moved his finger to the other one. Flat at first, then a sudden sharp spike that climbed high and stayed there for a sustained period before dropping back down to nothing. "It appeared out of nowhere approximately twelve minutes after Ben fell asleep. It ran at full intensity for several minutes. Then it dropped the exact moment Ben hit the floor unconscious."
Ted studied the graph. "What does the second line represent?"
"Omnitrix activity," Gellix said. "Every alien form in the device was cycled through during that window. All ten. Including the locked ones."
The office was quiet for a moment.
"The locked forms?," Ted said.
"Yes."
"That Ben's body wasn't ready for."
"That Ben's body wasn't ready for," Gellix confirmed. "But someone accessed them anyway. While Ben's brain activity was at full sleep baseline. While he was unconscious and had no knowledge of any of it." He paused. "Ben told me this morning he remembers nothing after going to bed. He woke up on the floor with no explanation."
Ted leaned back in his chair slowly.
"So Ben wasn't doing it," he said.
"No," Gellix said. "Ben was asleep."
Ted looked at the graph. At the two lines. At the spike that appeared out of nothing and disappeared when Ben hit the floor.
"Then what was," he said.
"The Omnitrix," Gellix said simply. "Ben's body isn't fully revived yet. The Omnitrix knows this. It has been working on it since the cardiac integration." He tapped the second line. "What this shows is the Omnitrix acting on its own while its host was unconscious. Running its own diagnostics. Testing the locked forms. Checking its own work." He sat back. "It didn't need Ben to do it. It just did it."
Ted looked at him.
"I believe," Gellix said, his voice level and precise, "that the Omnitrix is trying to gain consciousness. A contingency. If it fails to revive Ben it needs a way to keep functioning. Keep surviving." He held Ted's gaze. "It will probably take over the host's body."
Ted's chair moved back an inch. Not dramatically. Just the involuntary shift of someone whose body reacted before their mind caught up.
He looked at the graph.
"Is it dangerous," he said.
"Right now it appears dormant, the omnitrix respects it's owner's life so it won't try to evade his mind forcefully but if it detects an unavoidable threat it might take over his body," Gellix said. "Ben won't remember anything that'll happen at that moment because as of that moment Ben will cease to exist so the omnitrix can gain temporary control and he will be revived after as the omnitrix handover the control back."
Ted pointed at the graph "So you're saying Ben Tennyson died last night and was bought back to life."
"Hmm.. you're smarter than you look" Gellix said.
The office held that for a moment.
Ted didn't say a word.
"I need to contact Azmuth," Gellix said. "I can theorize all day but the Omnitrix is Azmuth's creation. Whatever it was designed to do at its deepest level, whether this falls inside or outside those parameters, only Azmuth knows." He picked up his pad. "This is beyond what I can answer alone."
Ted looked at the graph one more time. At the converging lines.
He stood up.
Straightened his jacket.
"Does Max know," he said.
"No," Gellix said.
"Ben."
"No."
Ted looked at the door. "Keep it that way for now."
Gellix nodded once.
The cafeteria was warm and bright. Agents at the long tables, trays and conversation, the ordinary working morning of a facility that had seen stranger things than most and treated them all the same way.
The Tennysons were at a table near the far wall. Gwen eating and writing simultaneously. Ben eating with his usual focused efficiency, the Omnitrix sitting quiet and green at his chest. Max with a fresh coffee and the settled look of a man whose worst week in recent memory was behind him.
Ted got a coffee from the counter and crossed the room and sat down next to Max.
Max glanced at him. "Everything alright?"
"Fine," Ted said. "Gellix had some notes. Routine."
Max nodded and looked back at his grandchildren.
Across the table Ben said something flat and dry that made Gwen point at him with her fork without looking up. Ben reached over and took a piece of toast from the rack. Gwen moved the rack. Ben moved it back. The Omnitrix pulsed its slow green pulse.
Ted wrapped both hands around his coffee.
He looked at Ben over the rim.
The cafeteria moved around them. Voices, trays, the ordinary noise of people starting a day. Ben looked up once, not at Ted, just at the room, those flat careful eyes doing their quiet sweep of the space the way they always did, and then looked back down at his food.
Ted drank his coffee.
He said nothing at all.