"You mentioned you could prove we were innocent," Tom said after a few minutes of the professor not emerging from his workplace. "I don't mean to question your integrity but I'm not sure I see how you can do anything a defence lawyer couldn't."<br/><br/>"Ah, you're referring to the machine," the man said, finally emerging from his hiding place. He had unkempt brown hair, a pair of thin reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, a pair of grey eyes squinting from behind them. "That's what I was trying to make operational when you walked in."<br/><br/>"A computer?" Tom asked, scoffing. "I should've known this was a waste of time, you said it yourself, this computer barely works, why would it solve anything?"<br/><br/>"Comp..." Mertens started saying, before laughing loudly. "This old thing? That's not the machine I mean. I mean THIS machine." He flicked a light switch on the wall, which revealed that the far wall featured a window which opened into a large circular room. At it's centre was a pair of chairs sat back to back, a pair of helmets trailing masses of wires hanging above them. The floor around it glowed with an eerie blue light. "Meet Enigma, and no, I didn't name it. This is the most advanced tech in Alliance space as far as I'm aware."<br/><br/>"I've not heard of it," Tom said, studying it with interest.<br/><br/>"You wouldn't have," Mertens replied. "This is alien tech, although we've never discovered who created it. It's...it's hard to explain, but it can read people's minds, extract information and show it to whoever is linked with it. It's advanced enough it can break through the psychic defences of the most well-trained soldiers."<br/><br/>"And you think it can prove who committed the crimes we were jailed for?"<br/><br/>"I don't know if it can prove who DID do it," Mertens answered. "But at the very least it may prove that you didn't."<br/><br/>"Well I'm interested," Tom said. "What about you Ix?"