To punish someone for your own mistakes, or for the consequences of your own actions, to harm another by shifting blame that is rightfully yours; this is a wretched and cowardly sin. - Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
* * * *
~November 231; ESA Headquarters, Zhane City~
The light and continuous tap-tap-tap of fingers against the keyboard were just the only sounds that could still be heard in the office of Team Alpha.
Most of the other agents have long turned in for the night, and thus, Lucas won’t even be surprised if he is the only one remaining within the northern wing of ESA headquarters.
The repairs to ESA headquarters had just wrapped up barely a month ago, much to everyone’s relief. Though like what Elijah and even Misha have pointed out months earlier; the ‘attack’ on ESA headquarters honestly isn’t much of one. It is more for distraction’s sake. The only real damage to headquarters apart from the walls needing to be repaired is just the communications tower.
It seems like after the ‘attack’, Aegis had been lying low, as there has been little to no activity from them since. Privately, however, Lucas is relieved, as it at least gives Team Alpha and Team Delta the time to catch up on their other cases.
The cases revolving around Aegis aren’t the only ones on Team Alpha’s plate, after all.
‘Maybe I should just ask Elijah or Lou for help.’ Lucas thought miserably, resting his chin on one propped-up hand as he sifted through the ESA database.
Even with Lucas’s level of clearance, he can only access files up to a certain level. The comments by Timo and even Sera have been bothering Lucas for months now. It seems like there’s something about either the ESA or even the hunters that they both knew. However, anything relating to the hunters in the ESA database is kept under strict access. Even with Lucas’ clearance level, there’s only so much he can view.
Just as Lucas was about to close the windows and his computer and turn in for the night, his fingers twitched as he then came across a series of folders located right at the bottom of the extremely long list that he had been sifting through in the database.
Nona.
“…Nona?” Lucas mused to himself, clicking on the folders.
A beep echoed from the computer, with a warning window that he doesn’t have the clearance level required to access the file.
Lucas’ first instinct is to close the window and turn in for the night. Given how those folders and files are nestled right at the bottom of the database; it could mean one of two things.
Either it’s a highly classified file, or it’s nothing of importance. Yet the name seems strange. Most of the files and folders in the database are named with the case file number—all to make it easier for agents to be able to find the files they need. But not this particular one.
Why?
Lucas took a peek at his wristwatch only to see that it was nearly eleven at night. It’s late, but not too late that he can’t access the Archives room just downstairs that is easily available to all agents. The ESA might have gone full digital now. But there are several old cases that didn’t make it into the digital database that still had their files stored in the Archives room.
No case or complaint ever filed with the ESA is ever thrown out. Lucas knew this from experience.
The walk down one level from Team Alpha’s meeting room to the Archives room didn’t take long. But considering how quiet it is, it seems almost eerie during the ten-minute walk that Lucas had taken. He was relieved when he finally got to his destination and used his access card to gain entry to the Archives room.
Lucas made a non-committal sound in his throat even as he walked down the rows of shelves that were filled to the brim with thick case files dating back decades. Finally, he stopped before the shelf labelled ‘N’, running his finger down the various files located in this section.
It took Lucas several searches before he found what he was looking for, only to realise that the file was marked with the omega symbol (Ω) on the spine instead of the case file number as is the case for all the other files in the room. That and this file were tucked in between two particularly thick files, which explains why Lucas had overlooked it the first couple of times.
Surprisingly, however, for a case file, the file is suspiciously thin. It’s like all it contains is just a brief overview of the case, and that’s it. No witness transcripts. No reports were written by the investigating team. No conclusion report. Nothing like what is normally required in ESA investigations.
The little that is in the file however only made Lucas’ suspicions increase, especially with the brief mentions of experiments, and even vague mentions that the writer had made about someone known as Seraphina C, and even someone known as R.
Aliases about the key people involved in this case?
What’s with all the secrecy?
“Lucas?”
Lucas almost jumped out of his skin when someone spoke from behind him. He whirled around, quickly hiding the file that he had been reading behind his back, his heart thumping so loudly that he was sure that it could be heard echoing all around the room.
Much to Lucas’ relief, he saw the chief of the ESA standing behind him with one brow raised, her coat draped over one arm. It seemed like she was just about to leave for the night but had seen the lights turned on in the Archives room and had come to check it out.
Tiara Suzanne Michabelle, the current chief of the ESA. And also the one to indirectly recruit Lucas into the ESA.
To this day, no one knows how old she is, though Lucas is fairly certain she had to be old enough to at least fight in the last civil war. Despite that, however, she still looks beautiful, with long silvery-blonde hair reaching down to her waist and honey-brown eyes. Despite her looks, however, she is a tough woman, and Lucas knew better than most that to underestimate her is a mistake that most wouldn’t make twice.
“…Chief,” Lucas murmured, ducking into the shelves behind him to conceal the fact that he was trying to hide the file behind his back.
“Lucas, what are you doing here at this time of night?” Tiara questioned sharply. “And what do you have back there?”
Lucas groaned inwardly. The gig is up. He knew better than to try to lie to Tiara. The chief of the ESA just had this way of looking at someone and making them spill their guts without even laying a single finger on them. Lucas also knew that Tiara was the one person in the ESA that he knew for sure wasn’t working with or even a sympathiser to the hunters. If anything, she had been trying for years to get all those affiliated with the hunters or their sympathisers out of the ESA, but it’s not working as well as she would like.
“I found something strange in one of the files in the database.” Lucas finally admitted, handing over the file that he had found to Tiara. The look on Tiara’s face was strange when she saw the file that Lucas had. “I got curious. Why is this file here, Chief? And why is it labelled in such a way?” Lucas met with Tiara’s eyes. “‘Nona’. What is that?”
A strange look appeared on Tiara’s face, even as she worried at her bottom lip. Her eyes then flickered towards a corner where there was the distinct sight of a surveillance camera.
“Not a word here, Lucas,” Tiara warned in a low voice. Lucas noticed how Tiara discretely tucked the file within the folds of the coat that was hanging over her arm. “It’s beyond your normal working hours, anyway. Don’t you have the day off tomorrow?” Lucas nodded. With the rotation system that the ESA uses, Team Alpha is slated for the day off for the next two days. “I’ll take you out for a drink. Come with me.”
* * * *
Lucas had often hitched rides with his teammates for one reason or another; often because his own bike is slated for maintenance or repairs. But it was a very strange feeling to be in the side passenger seat in his boss’ car, even as she drove them to who knows where.
When Tiara drove past the entrance of a particularly familiar town and put her car in park outside a familiar café, it was then when Lucas recognised where they were.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Timo’s café?”
“Oh, you know Timo, huh?” Tiara however didn’t look very surprised. “Small world.”
At this time of night, Lucas is honestly surprised that Cross Café is still open for business. Timo is standing behind the counter as usual, cleaning one of the drinking glasses with a cloth. He only gave Lucas and Tiara nods when they both entered.
“Welcome.” Timo greeted. “Your usual, Tiara?”
“Not today. I just need to borrow your place for a bit.” Tiara shook her head. “Lucas, this way.” She led the way towards one of the side tables that would afford them some privacy, though, at this time of night, there wasn’t anyone else around in the café apart from themselves and Timo. “I want you to tell me, Lucas, how did you come across ‘Nona’?” Her eyes are deathly serious.
Lucas swallowed nervously. There was deadly steel in Tiara’s voice, and Lucas got a feeling that he had to be very careful when answering.
“I was just searching through the database for something today,” Lucas answered at last. “‘Nona’ popped up near the bottom. I got curious, as it was labelled differently from all the other case files in the database, but my access was restricted.”
And considering Lucas’ rank within the ESA, there isn’t much in the database that he can’t access.
“That’s when you went hunting in the Archives room.” Tiara sighed, and Lucas nodded.
“Why are the files restricted?” Lucas wanted to know. “Even in the Archives, there is hardly anything about it. What is ‘Nona’?”
Tiara was silent for a long time, staring at a spot on the wall past Lucas’ shoulder. “…It’s honestly not something that I can talk about freely,” she admitted at last. “Nona…” She trailed off slowly. “Only the upper echelons of the ESA and the politicians even knew about it. Even amongst the hunters, only their highest-ranked ones know about it. It…is one of our greatest shames.”
“What do you mean?”
Tiara didn’t answer for several moments. “…Lucas, I’ll tell you a little something. A life lesson, so to speak,” she said at last. “The law can’t always punish the guilty, especially in this country. Sometimes, we have to resort to other methods to seek justice.” Her eyes flickered towards Timo, unseen by Lucas. “I told someone the same thing a long time ago, and I think she understood that phrase more than I do.”
“Chief?”
Tiara hesitated for several moments. Should she even say anything about it? Knowledge about Nona is strictly forbidden. Not only because of the horrific experiments but because of who was actually involved. In the end, however, it is all just an attempt to cover up and protect the careers of those higher-ups.
Tiara never agreed with the cover-up, but she was then just a mere ESA agent and had no power to speak of. Even after she ascended to her current position, she is bound by the laws of the country. Laws that those in power actually made to suit themselves.
You can’t keep ignoring everything around you as no concern of your own. If you lie to yourself long enough, there will soon come a day when you can’t even believe in your own words any longer.
Her words came to the fore of Tiara’s mind just then. And she is right, isn’t she?
“What I’m going to tell you here, you can’t go repeating this to anyone,” Tiara warned. “Not your brother. Not Leonid. And not even Elijah.” Though Tiara had suspected for years that Elijah and that twin sister of his, Taylor, probably knew about Nona even before joining the ESA. “No one. If anyone knows that you’ve been talking about it, you would likely be executed. Do you understand?”
Lucas felt shivers go down his spine with those foreboding words, but he nodded.
“‘Nona’ is short for ‘Nonary’.” Tiara began her tale. “The Nonary experiments, or the Nonary Project, is what it’s known as. Inhumane experiments were carried out on both Normals and Gifted alike over a decade ago right at the close of the civil war. It was a ‘project’, you can say, that was created and backed by high-ranking government officials, renowned researchers, and even hunters.”
Lucas’ eyes were as wide as saucers. “E-Excuse me?” he spluttered.
Whatever that he is expecting to hear, this is not it.
“I believe even you must have heard something back then.” Tiara wasn’t frazzled by Lucas’ outburst. Though over by the counter, Timo had looked over towards their table. “About the vast disappearances of a bunch of kids, between the ages of five to fourteen?”
Lucas bit on his lower lip. Come to think of it, he did remember hearing something about that long ago, back when he was but a kid himself. His parents were still alive then, and hardly let Lucas and even Misha out of their sights for long at that time, probably due to the vast disappearances going on.
“I believe I heard something about that, yes,” Lucas admitted.
“The disappearances of those kids back then were the start of everything. Those kids were the subjects for the Nonary experiments. Of course, none of them were volunteers.” Tiara added grimly. “Kids. Normals and Gifted. Between the ages of five to fourteen.” Tiara sighed. “And as the vast majority of those missing kids were street kids or even orphans, the people in charge at that time didn’t care. This was during the recovery period at the close of the civil war. So sad as it is to say, the ESA at that time wasn’t able to spare any resources to look into the disappearances, even if we wanted to.”
“What is this experiment?”
“Humans can only access up to 5% of their brain at most. Even the Gifted can only access up to 10% at best. That is where the majority of the Gifted even got their abilities, Lucas. They can access beyond the 5% limitation of their brains. That’s what the Nonary experiments were about.” Tiara explained, tapping at the side of her temple. “The purpose is to break beyond the limits and gain full access to the human brain. Thus, those experiments are carried out in secret.”
“Why in secret?”
“Because it breaks every single human rights law that we ever had in place. There have also been laws restricting mental research and experiments for decades. Experiments relating to the brain. The Nonary experiments likely broke every single one of those laws.” Tiara explained to Lucas’ shock. “And from what we could find out later on, the experiments by the individuals involved in the Nonary experiments were beyond inhumane.” Tiara’s jaw tightened. She was part of the team involved in actually busting down the main facility, and even she still gets nightmares today of the sight that she’d seen. “As mentioned, the children involved in the experiments were those that wouldn’t be missed or noticed. Street kids. Orphans. Even children in hospices. And it doesn’t help that the backers of the Nonary experiments wield tremendous power and influence. Thus why this project went unnoticed for a long time.”
“Government officials. Politicians. Maybe even hunters?”
Lucas is starting to feel sick to his stomach. He had a good idea of where this conversation was about to go.
“Yes. This is why we didn’t even find out about those experiments until nearly a year later. There were whispers about the disappearances of those children in the underground. And as you know, Lucas, the underground takes care of their own. They got concerned and even suspicious with the vast disappearances of so many of their own. Particularly children. And they started digging into it.”
“And they found something,” Lucas concluded. Suffice it to say that whoever those backers are would get nervous once the underground starts sniffing around as well. Lucas knew from personal experience that the underground is very tenacious when they want something.
“They did.” Tiara nodded. “I wasn’t the ESA chief at that time, but I was still pretty high up in the ranks. One of the agents brought word to me about the rumours going around the underground, and I started digging into it. That’s when we found out about the Nonary experiments. The news spread. And even as influential as the people in charge are, they won’t be able to hide the truth of those experiments, especially with the underground involved. When we finally found the location where those experiments are being carried out, it was almost too late.” Tiara was almost startled to see that she was gripping both hands together so hard that she almost drew blood. “Of the forty children that were taken, there were only two survivors. A Gifted. And a Normal.”
“O-Only two?”
Tiara nodded grimly. “I was part of the team that busted down the facility where the experiments were carried out. It was a joint operation between selected ESA agents and even members of the underground. And trust me when I say this, Lucas. I still get nightmares from that sight now.”
Lucas gave a start with that comment. There isn’t much that can faze Tiara. The fact that she’d said that likely means what they’d discovered in that facility is horrible.
“We cracked down on all those involved. Several doctors and researchers were arrested, alongside various hunters. Even the backers were rounded up and arrested. And all of them were executed silently after a closed-door trial due to what was discovered, and what they were trying to do. But to this day, there are still those of us who believe that there are some backers or even the leaders of that particular project that were never discovered. Because of the backlash if something like this is ever made public, records about the Nonary Project were sealed. And those of us who knew about it were sworn to never spill a word about it to anyone. As horrible as those experiments are, it is also a fact that the result of that experiment is what led to the medical breakthroughs that we have today. As well as the understanding of the Gifted and their Gifts.”
Several moments of silence fell, even as Lucas tried to contemplate what he’d just heard.
“You mentioned two survivors in the experiments,” Lucas said at last. “What happened to them?”
For a moment, Lucas dreads to hear the answer.
“They’re still alive,” Tiara answered with a shake of her head, much to Lucas’ surprise. With the way the people in the know have acted about the Nonary experiments, he had half expected to hear that the two survivors have mysteriously died not long after being rescued. “They however disappeared from the hospital that they were brought to. We believed that someone from the Abyss likely took them away. To protect them.”
Lucas nodded slowly.
“Because even after we cracked down on all those involved, there are still some, especially the hunters, who have expressed interest in continuing the experiments. It was then that the High Judge passed a law forbidding human experiments, no matter the reason. Not even if they’re a Gifted.”
And knowing how the hunters are, Lucas can’t see them being very happy with this decision.
“It is one of Eldario’s most absolute laws, and it was created and passed in such a way that it needs a unanimous vote from all those in Parliament to overturn it. Any who attempts to even so much as violate or break this law will be executed without question. And despite the hunters’ rising influence these days, this law applies even to them. That’s why, Lucas, can you honestly blame the underground for their attitudes towards us? Those who remembered the Nonary Project don’t speak of it either. But they got long memories.”
Whatever Lucas was expecting when Tiara had taken him to Timo’s café, this isn’t it. And he felt shivers going down his spine when he thought back on what Tiara had told him.
The Nonary Project. The experiments that were carried out on children—Normals and Gifted alike. Inhumane experiments that lead to the deaths of nearly every single one of those subjects.
“You should go back and think about what I’ve told you, Lucas,” Tiara said at last, seeing the look on Lucas’ face. “And remember what I’ve said. Not a word to anyone.”
Lucas got to his feet wordlessly. “…I’ll see you after my break, Chief,” was all that he managed to say before he left the café, with the bell tinkling somewhere as he did so.
Tiara sighed before finally getting to her feet. It’s been a long time since she had the chance to talk about the Nonary Project with anyone. Even those in the know were reluctant to talk about it for good reason.
Timo only eyed Tiara silently as she approached the counter, pushing a thick wad of bills over the counter—with it cleverly bundled in such a way that it hid the data disk from sight.
“…Give that to Sera,” Tiara murmured, even as Timo accepted the wad of bills.
“You should hand it to her personally, Tiara,” Timo said with a frown. “How many years has it been since you last saw each other?”
“You know why it’s for the best that no one knew we are related.” Tiara shook her head. “Sera knows it too. So does Karl.”
Timo sighed, shrugging his shoulders. From experience, he knew better than to interfere in family relationships. Especially ones as messed up as the one that Tiara had with Sera.
“Why did you bring Lucas here?” Timo wanted to know. “Telling him about Abyss, and even the Nonary Project furthermore.” Timo was still an Enforcer for the Abyss at that time when they cracked down on the facility. No one knew why he left that life not long after that, but those who knew him have assumed that it had something to do with the Nonary Project and what he’d witnessed. “Can you even trust him? You know who he is.”
“I know whose son he is. But he is not his father, Timo.” Tiara said immediately. “He is one of the few that I know I can trust in the ESA. I don’t believe in the sins of the father transferring to the child. At the very least, I want to give him a chance.”
“It’s your funeral.” Timo only commented with a shrug. He sighed. “You and Sera both…” He shook his head. “At least with Sera, I can understand why she’s the way she is with Lucas. But you… With him being that man’s son, I would at least think you would be wary of him. You and Sera both are more alike than it seems.” Timo fell silent for several long moments. “The Nonary Project. The two survivors from back then… Seraphina C. Seraphina Celes Kroix. Sera.” He eyed Tiara knowingly. “Your late brother’s daughter. Your niece. To this day, no one knows who she is, do they? Not even the hunters.”
“Karl took measures to bury her history. He did the same for the other survivor.” Tiara answered weakly. “We did that for a reason, Timo. Yes, I should have done what my brother asked me to do and raised her myself. But it’s too dangerous. I did the next best thing for her that I could. All to ensure that Sera could at least survive long enough to see adulthood.”
“I’m not getting into this with you.” Timo gave a loud sigh, raising both hands in surrender. “It’s not like Sera blames you for anything, either way. I think she understood what you’re trying to do for her now.” He shook his head. “Anyway, be careful, Tiara.”
“Always am.”