The Rigorous Keepers of the Mechanism
In the public eye, the G.E.A. (Global Energy Research Institute) was a highly respected behemoth, backed by international capital and government funding. Its buildings were made of glass and steel, known for their eco-friendly facade and constantly published reports on clean and renewable energy solutions. However, beneath this polished surface lay the G.E.A.'s true mission: "Anomaly Hunting" and "Cosmic Resource Management."
The agents and scientists in the G.E.A.'s clandestine units were tasked with safeguarding the world against all entities that violated the accepted rules of physics. They were obsessed with the accepted rules and systems of the universe. This required G.E.A. personnel to be emotionally isolated; for them, data was paramount, not people. Max, to this system, was nothing more than a labeled test tube.
Max's ordinary life, following the infiltration of T500, left an electromagnetic signature. This trace was immediately picked up by G.E.A.'s sensitive "Resonance Trackers." To them, Max was a highly unstable, high-energy carrier infected with an alien entity, and therefore, highly dangerous.
When Max first confronted the three-person team, led by Dr. Stone, outside his apartment building, the agents stood perfectly erect, their faces devoid of emotion. Dr. Stone's voice was not a human voice, but like a cold conclusion read from a laboratory report, every word weighed by logic:
Carrier Max. The T500 parasite form within your body is causing immeasurable, unstable energy emissions in the local reality plane. You are a conscious experimental rodent. Our objective is to study the cosmic structure of this form, isolate its energy, and potentially integrate it into our defense and energy systems. Your free will, your emotional responses, or your personal demands are entirely excluded from this equation."
The G.E.A. believed that harnessing T500's pure, limitless energy would solve all of Earth's energy crises and grant them absolute geopolitical superiority. They planned to filter T500's cosmic data while keeping Max's consciousness sedated. If successful, Max would become a breathing object, a cosmic information and power battery, with his identity fully neutralized.
The G.E.A.'s threat was slower, more insidious, and therefore psychologically more terrifying to Max than the Recyclers' threat of molecular annihilation. This institution would not completely destroy Max's physical existence; they would merely 'cleanse' his identity, emotions, and will. If Max fell into the hands of the G.E.A., he would be neither a human nor a slave to T500; he would simply become a living asset labeled "High-Risk Anomaly."