102 THE INTERNAL REVIEW
"You've got a lot to explain, Damen Dark," Lander said, his tone firm but not hostile.
Damen pushed Ethen into the van before turning to face him. "Go now," he told Ethen.
"What about you?" Ethen asked, worry flickering in his eyes.
"Don't worry about me. Just hide yourself well."
The van's engines flared to life, and within seconds it disappeared into the dim exit ramp, leaving Damen standing alone with Lander.
Lander didn't call for backup. He didn't even reach for his comm. Instead, he folded his arms. "What do you think you're doing?"
Damen met his gaze without hesitation. "You, of all people, should understand. If we don't let Ethen go, he'll end up in another prison—another experiment like those machines in GenSyn. I won't allow that to happen."
"We're only trying to protect him," Lander countered. "We're the SIA. What if he falls into worse hands?"
Damen shook his head. "You know as well as I do that the SIA can't be trusted. There are too many spies, too many deals under the table. Once they take him, we'll never know where Ethen ends up."
Lander hesitated. His expression darkened. "You're not wrong," he admitted after a pause. "Director Ambrone's already in talks with several industries to take custody of Ethen—for 'further research' into his superpower."
"See?" Damen said, stepping closer. "Whether he's in GenSyn, Veyran, or Zetheris, it's the same fate. Tell me, Lander—wasn't it our duty to protect meta-humans, not hand them over for inhumane experiments?"
Lander didn't reply. His jaw tightened.
"It's still an offense to release him," he finally said. "We'll both be in trouble if Ethen goes missing."
Damen pulled out his badge and held it up between them. "Then tell me—why did you become an SIA detective? To serve the people… or to oppress the weak?"
Lander stared at the badge, silently.
The words hit home. He'd long questioned the SIA's motives—how it often served the great families more than justice itself.
After a long moment, he exhaled. "I'll surrender myself to Director Ambrone. You go with Ethen. Hide somewhere. Never show your faces again."
Damen chuckled quietly. "There's no need for that. Just pretend you don't know anything."
"That's impossible," Lander said. "Everything we do is recorded. We can't escape liability."
Damen smiled faintly. "Not this time. Ethen already wiped every trace of us. There's no evidence left."
-----
"This is unbelievable! How can a boy just disappear into thin air?" Director Ambrone shouted, slamming his hand on the table.
"That's the truth," Lander said evenly. "We don't know how it happened. All our cameras were locked on Ethen—and then, the next moment, he was gone."
"Check the footage again! Look for tampering!" Ambrone snapped.
The encryption specialist stood from his console. "Sir, we already did. The footage is clean. There's no sign of alteration—frame by frame, it's authentic."
"If it's too perfect," Ambrone said darkly, "then something is wrong."
The specialist hesitated, then said, "There's only one person—or rather, one thing—that could pull this off. Quantum."
At that name, Ambrone froze.
His mind flashed to the classified reports about the old legend of the digital ghost who could rewrite data in real time, who caused the end of the world once- Quantum.
And Ethen Lace… was suspected of having a similar power.
He swallowed hard. "This is bad… very bad. I've already promised the Zetheris family we'd deliver the boy in exchange for their neural-link technology. Now we've gained nothing."
"At least we didn't lose anything," Lander said, stepping back from the table. "If this briefing's just about security, then it's no longer my concern."
He turned to leave.
Ambrone's voice echoed behind him. "You'll regret walking away from this, Detective."
Lander didn't stop. "Maybe," he said without looking back. "But there's nothing I can do if his power is one thousandth that of Quantum. You find another detective to take this case."
Dorin quickly stood up and left with him.
-----
Damen returned to his school apartment after being discharged from GenSyn's medical facility.
The door slid open, and a woman greeted him with a bright smile. She was too perfect and her body too symmetrical.
"Did you fix her bulging eyes?" Damen asked dryly about the android nurse.
"Yes," Ethen said from inside. "There was a bug in her AI core which caused the ocular sensors to misalign. I rewrote her entire subroutine. She's fully human-compatible now."
Damen stepped forward and hugged him. "It's good to see you safe, kid."
But then he noticed movement in the shadows. Lined along the balcony were android guards—sleek, motionless, eyes glowing faintly blue.
"You brought home the SIA's guards with you?" Damen asked, warily.
"I needed protection," Ethen replied casually. "And I improved them too. Their neural mesh now runs ten times faster—they're smarter than most people."
------
The next morning, Lander arrived at SIA headquarters.
The glass corridors shimmered with cold light, each step echoing his own thoughts. Something was wrong—the air itself felt heavier.
When he reached his division floor, he found every terminal already active. Agents whispering, screens flickering with internal surveillance feeds.
His name was on one of them.
SUBJECT OF INTERNAL REVIEW: AGENT LANDER STRONG (CODENAME: DETECTIVE)
His stomach turned.
"Director Ambrone ordered a full probe on you," said Dorin, walking beside him. "They think you helped smuggle the boy out."
"I didn't," Lander said through clenched teeth. "We all saw the same thing—the kid vanished into thin air."
"That's not what the new reports say," Dorin replied, lowering her voice. "There's new footage... and a new witness."
Lander frowned. "A witness? Who?"
Before Dorin could answer, the doors to the central command opened, and Director Ambrone stepped out—his usual calm replaced by simmering fury.
Beside him was a man Lander had never seen before: a young, sharp-suited investigator with a data jack glinting behind his left ear.
"Agent Detective," Ambrone said coldly. "This is Reth Kellan, from the Cyber Integrity Division. He'll be overseeing the investigation into your recent activities."
Reth smiled thinly. "A pleasure. I've been analyzing SIA's digital footprints. Strange things happen around you, Agent Detective—files go missing, logs get rewritten, and encrypted conversations appear out of nowhere."
"That's ridiculous," Lander said. "You think I can out-hack the entire facility?"
"Oh, I don't think you did it alone," Reth replied smoothly.
"I think you had help. From the same boy who vanished under your supervision. You are suspected of violating internal discipline of SIA, releasing a key asset without authority."