THE STATE'S CORE SURVEILLANCE SERVER
The corridor leading to server room F-3 felt different from any other place in Vasena. The walls were no longer cold white, but matte black, crossed by thin blue lines that flowed like pulsing veins. The floor vibrated softly under their feet, a low constant tremor from the machines below that were working without rest, spinning spheres of data and storing millions of training logs, genius evaluations, and classified state operations.
Aki hugged his elbows as he walked faster than usual. "Bro… I feel like we are walking into the stomach of some giant robot. Scary, but also kind of cool."
Ratha glanced at Ryu. "Are you sure this is safe? This is an information hub. Security here should be the tightest in all of Vasena."
Ryu did not answer out loud. He listened.
NV's voice flickered through his mind.
Vex almost tripped. "Four minutes? That is nothing."
Kallen exhaled slowly. "Then we go straight for the central terminal. That is where backup identity data for all staff is stored. We might be able to find who these infiltrators are."
Ryu stopped for a moment. The air felt heavier here, as if the room ahead was already aware of them. The pressure was subtle, but it pressed against his skull.
NV. Sensors?
Why not?
NV answered more slowly, as if wrestling with a result that did not make sense.
Vex moved closer, his eyes widening. "What is that supposed to mean? That you are some kind of walking admin override?"
Ryu shook his head slightly. "I do not know."
Aki grimaced. "With all due respect, bro… the more we walk with you, the more you sound like a bug in human form."
Ryu looked at him. "Human."
"Yeah, yeah," Aki muttered. "Human, but absolutely, catastrophically abnormal."
They reached a door larger than any they had seen. Five meters high, three meters wide, solid metal. In its center sat a glowing blue eye, the symbol of the Dominion Astryx security authority.
Kallen stepped closer, awe and dread mixed in his voice. "This is it. The Surveillance Archive Room."
Aki swallowed. "That sounds exactly like the kind of place where governments hide the worst secrets. I hate this already."
Ryu placed his palm against the cold metal.
The surface shivered under his touch.
NV spoke at once.
All of them turned to stare at Ryu with the same expression: half fear, half disbelief.
The door slid open in a slow, heavy arc. Cool blue light spilled out.
Aki whispered, barely trusting his own voice. "Bro… why is a national security door responding to you like you belong to it?"
Ryu did not answer. He had no answer that made sense.
They stepped inside.
The world beyond was the beating heart of Vasena's surveillance system.
Hundreds of server towers stood in long rows like metallic pillars. Electric currents moved through transparent tubes, glowing faintly. Holographic streams of data hung in midair without a single physical screen, flowing up and folding back like digital waterfalls. The hum of the machines blended into a deep, low sound that vibrated in their chests.
Ratha stared, stunned. "What level of technology is this…"
Kallen did not waste a second. He ran toward the central terminal station at the end of the main aisle. "Ryu. Over here, quickly."
Ryu approached.
The main holographic display flared to life in front of Kallen. It listed personnel with access levels from 0 to 6, each represented by name, code, and role.
"We look for the infiltrators' identities," Kallen said.
Vex pointed sharply at the screen. "There. Those three… they are censored."
Ryu narrowed his eyes.
Three entries sat on the list like holes in the world.
• ----------
• ----------
• ----------
Kallen hit the console with his fist. "This is top-tier censorship. Even the Academy Head would not be able to open this directly."
Aki groaned. "So that is it? We came all the way here just to stare at black bars?"
No.
NV's voice cut through with sudden clarity.
Ryu obeyed.
The instant his palm touched the hologram, every sensor in the room gave a soft chime. The blue light shifted to pure white. The security eye symbol on the display split open like an iris.
Aki yelped. "Bro. You are doing that thing again."
Kallen froze. "Ryu… you just broke a seal that no one in this building is supposed to override."
Vex held his head with one hand as if trying to contain the implications. "What exactly is inside you…"
Ryu said nothing.
The data unfolded.
Three faces appeared.
Three adults.
Three foreign operatives whose names had been on Dominion Astryx wanted lists for years.
Their files read:
• Kael Nexium Serath – Black State Operative
• Dvora Arc Vexon – Widow Bee Shadow Assassin
• Marell Ivon Greth – Southern Rebel Intelligence
Ratha's arms dropped limply to his sides. "Why would people like them… be here for a child?"
Ryu read the text beneath each profile.
His heart tightened.
All three shared a mission objective line.
"Locate biological anomaly subject.
Codename: D•3."
Aki stared at the words as if they were a verdict. "D3… that is your birth code. The one only the hospital and the state should know."
Ryu went very still.
NV lowered its voice until it was almost a thought.
Ryu shut his eyes for a moment.
What am I, really?
HIDDEN TRACES OF HIS MOTHER, AND SHADOWS OF THE PAST
Kallen pulled up another folder, one that had not been fully locked behind censorship: family records. His breath caught as the label expanded. "Ryu… this is your family file."
Ryu straightened without realizing it. His pulse rose. Aki grabbed his sleeve gently. "Bro… are you sure you want to see this now?"
Ryu gave the smallest nod. "Open it."
Kallen tapped the icon. Two profiles unfolded.
The first was a man's.
Father - Varren Kael Ardyn
• Occupation: National Cognitive Biology Researcher
• Status: Deceased
• Cause of death: Silenced (Classified)
The second was a woman's.
Mother - Lyanna Verine Ardyn
• Occupation: Not recorded
• Status: Missing
• Note: Last known location omitted
Ratha lifted a hand to his mouth. "Your mother… was not an ordinary citizen."
Vex read the small print under the image. "Reported missing when you were six. No body recovered. No trace of movement after that."
Aki rubbed his face, overwhelmed. "So from the start… your life was already built on top of secrets."
Ryu stepped closer to the display.
His mother's face looked back at him from an old picture. Her features were soft, but her eyes were sharp in a way that reminded him, painfully, of Lyra.
NV's tone shifted, tinged with something like caution. What trauma? Ryu's fingers curled slowly.
The screen flickered. Not like a normal glitch, but as if another force inside the system was trying to push them out.
Kallen swore under his breath. "Someone is trying to access this console remotely. If they succeed, they will block us out and flag our position."
NV reacted at once.
Ryu pressed his hand back onto the hologram.
The interference smoothed out. The display stabilized, as if the system had recognized a higher authority and chosen his presence over the external intrusion.
Aki sagged against the nearest server rack. "I am now ninety percent convinced you are not a normal human. The other ten percent is just denial."
Ryu drew in a slow breath.
NV. The first voice. The one that spoke to me before you did.
Who is it?
NV fell silent for a long, heavy stretch.
When it spoke again, its tone was careful.
In your active data, I found a pattern match.
Not in your father's files.
In your mother's.
There is something she left behind…
inside you.
Ryu's vision blurred for a second.
So that voice… might be hers?
NV did not agree directly. It did not need to. The absence of denial, in that moment, felt like confirmation.
THE HUNT BEGINS, AND THE TRUE AWAKENING
A siren shattered the quiet.
WUUUUNG. WUUUUNG. WUUUUNG.
The alarm was deeper than the usual facility alerts, a bass note that made the servers themselves seem to vibrate.
Aki screamed on pure reflex. "Bro, that is the big one! We are so dead!"
Vex glanced at the ceiling. His face paled. "No… that is not a local security alarm. That is from central command."
NV confirmed at once.
The main door of F-3 slammed open.
A tall figure stepped through.
His footsteps were unhurried, but the pressure he brought felt like a falling mountain.
The Head of Vasena Academy, Dr. Helvar Sorrin, entered the room alone.
No guards.
No escort.
He did not need them.
Aki's skin crawled so intensely he almost lost the strength in his legs. "That… that is the top of the top. The person everyone is afraid of."
Ratha bowed his head automatically, hands trembling. "Why would he come here personally…"
Helvar walked forward, his gaze sweeping over the servers, the open files, and finally settling on the group of children in front of the central terminal. His eyes did not show panic or anger. His calm was far more unnerving than either.
"You have seen," he said quietly, "things that children of thirteen years old were never meant to see."
Kallen dropped to one knee, terror flooding his face. "S…sir, we just, we were attacked, and.."
"Silence."
Kallen's mouth snapped shut.
Helvar's attention shifted fully to Ryu.
"Ryu Ardyn."
Ryu stood straight. "Yes."
Helvar stopped two paces away from him. The older man's eyes studied Ryu with the focus of a scientist examining the most dangerous anomaly in his lab.
"There are two paths," Helvar said.
"For someone like you. The state makes you into its tool…"
Aki swallowed hard. The unspoken alternative hung in the air like a blade.
"Or," Helvar continued, his voice dropping colder, "the state destroys you."
Aki's knees gave out.
Vex sucked in air through his teeth. Ratha's eyes filled with tears he refused to let fall. Even Kallen shook.
But Ryu did not flinch.
Helvar stepped closer, close enough that Ryu could see the age lines around his eyes, and something else behind them: calculation, weariness, a hint of reluctant respect.
"Yet your eyes," Helvar murmured, "show me something different. Something even the nation does not fully understand yet."
Ryu said nothing.
Helvar raised one hand. Aki instinctively lifted both of his as if surrendering on Ryu's behalf. The others took involuntary half steps back.
Ryu remained still.
Helvar's fingers touched Ryu's forehead.
The world went black.
Not the blackout of power failure. Not the controlled darkness of an arena simulation. This was a deeper curtain, pulled from inside his own mind.
NV's voice echoed as if from far away.
Memory.
Ryu saw a woman.
Gentle. Warm. Her eyes held the same shade of quiet intelligence he had seen in Lyra, but older, heavier with years. She smiled in a way no simulation had ever reproduced.
When she spoke, the words cut straight through him.
"If you are seeing this, Ryu… it means they have found me."
Ryu stopped breathing. "That is your mother," NV said softly. The image continued. "And if they found me… they will start looking for you."
The brightness around her cracked like glass. "Do not let them turn you into a tool. You are not that."
Her face drew nearer, as if she was reaching through time rather than data. "You are more than any experiment they could run."
The vision shattered.
Light rushed back into Ryu's eyes. Helvar's hand dropped away. He was studying Ryu with a new expression now, a mixture of realization and something like resolve.
"All right," he said quietly. "Now I understand."
Aki croaked hoarsely. "Understand what? Please, someone explain something to me before I lose my mind completely."
Helvar did not look at him. His gaze stayed on Ryu.
"You are not a synthetic anomaly," he said. "You were not engineered in one of our labs. You are a natural anomaly. The only one."
Kallen nearly collapsed.
Ratha covered his mouth to stifle a sound.
Vex pressed a palm against his temple, trying to process the implications.
Helvar turned to the open files that showed the infiltrators' faces and mission notes. His jaw tightened.
"And those people earlier…" he said, gaze darkening, "did not come here to assassinate you."
He faced Ryu again. "They came to steal you."
This time Aki actually fainted. He dropped sideways, only saved from hitting the floor by Ratha's quick grip.
Helvar looked at the others. "I will move you to a secure room. From this moment on, your friend is the highest priority target for every hostile power that knows he exists."
Ryu held his gaze. "Why do they need me?"
Helvar fell silent for a moment, as if weighing how much truth to reveal. "Because inside your body," he said finally, "there is something no one else has ever carried."
Ryu's throat felt dry. "What is it?" Helvar's lips curled in the faintest, tired smile.
"The key to the future."