The elevator door opened.

Behind it was one room. The room was lit by dim lights, and appeared to be a small lab, barely the size of a school lab. There wasn’t any particularly expensive equipment, but in the center was an apple tree, green with vitality.

“You got a tree down here?” Jana asked as Samuel walked to it.

“Yes,” he said, plucking a red apple from it. “Want one?”

“I’m good.”

“More for me,” he said, taking a bite. After he swallowed, he said, “Kalen, do your thing.”

Jeremy and Jana watched as the younger soldier walked to where the apple had been plucked, then reached out and closed his eyes. Slowly, a bud formed, then it rapidly moved through stages of its development, eventually growing back into another apple. The soldier stumbled to the tree, and leaned against it, breathing heavily.

“Wait, did he just grow that plant?” Jana blurted out, shocked. “I thought it wasn’t possible to create life with psychic abilities…”

“Now it is,” Samuel said. “Allow me to explain, follow me.”

Jana and the soldiers followed him to the other side of the room.

However, Jeremy remained scarce, keeping far from the conversation. Nobody was paying attention to him, besides Samuel, for some reason, who was preoccupied at the moment, so Jeremy looked to Hatty, who stood between him and the group. “What do you think?” he whispered.

The blue-robed person glanced to him, a thoughtful expression on their face. “I’m thinking a lot of things.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m thinking nothing about whatever is happening,” they said. “I can’t hear or see anything, so you will have to explain this all to me later.”

Jeremy looked back as Samuel spoke to Jana. “But I think the technical jargon can wait. I must ask, Jana, you are aware of the project your father was involved in, yes?”

Jeremy and Jana locked eyes as she suddenly glanced at him and the two soldiers with a downcast, guilty expression. So he knows about it… she thought nervously. “I...I know what my father was involved in,” she said. “but he wasn’t directly involved. At worst, all he did was fund the project...” she said. “and since you brought it up, that must mean you’ve been aware for a while?”

What is she talking about?

“Yes,” Samuel said. “Truth be told, I found it hard to believe, myself. Your father was not a man who sought money, knowledge, or fame. He just wanted what was best for those he loved.”

“I’m sorry, could someone catch me up?” Jeremy asked. “Involved in what?”

“He...” Jana began, trailing off. “Jeremy...” Jana looked down, ashamed.

This was the first time Jeremy had seen this particular emotion from her. She had been sad or angry at herself but not outright staring down at the ground with a strained, guilty expression.

“Jeremy, what I’m about to say...maybe I should have expected this...Or maybe I just shouldn’t tell you...”

Just what was her father involved in? What would make Jana so ashamed of him that she would feel nervous just speaking it? Perhaps she simply didn’t trust him? Jeremy wouldn’t have been surprised at that, they had only spent a day or two together. He furrowed his eyebrows seriously. “Jana, if you don’t trust me with this sort of thing...I won’t hold it against you if you ask me to leave. I was basically only ever here to entertain you in the first place.”

She shook her head. “Stop speaking nonsense. Look, Jeremy...I...my father...” She sighed. “Two years ago, when he appeared...he didn’t appear from nowhere.”

Jeremy had a feeling he already knew where this was going.

“I was there when he appeared. I had taken my father to a laboratory not far from here. Then, he asked me to wait outside. And from there...I...” Jana punched the wall, making a crater in the stone. Her hand quaked as she looked down. “I waited outside, and...before I knew it, the building collapsed. I narrowly avoided...a whip of blackness.”

“Your father...was there when he appeared?” Jeremy asked with worry. “And I guess...he had some connection to the people in that lab?”

Jana nodded slowly. “I let A-Azad fly away, and I searched for him -my father- but...he was already…d-dead.” Jana now looked more like she was leaning against the wall for support, revolted by her memories.

“So that’d mean...” Jeremy said, averting his eyes, “That your father is likley at least partially responsible for The Catastrophe.”

She nodded.

“Alright...” he said calmly. “I think I get the geist of things. But I just want to make something clear, Jana. This changes nothing.”

She looked up to him, her eyes slightly narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a catastrophe still on the loose, and my sister is gone. Whatever your father may have done, and for what reasons, we can talk about later, when we feel like it. Alright?” He stared her in the eyes, trying to convey what he really meant. Don’t lose your brave face. I need you to stay in control of the situation like you always do.

He’s right. She slowly nodded, then stood and faced Samuel as she remembered the last time she saw her father, but steeled her expression . “So, Sam. Why did you bring this up? Are you just lording your knowledge over me, or what?”

He shook his head. “It’s quite relevant,” he said. “That project, the research done in it, much of it was not lost.”

Jana took in a deep breath, her plan coming to fruition.

“Meaning?” Jana slowly said.

She would not allow another catastrophe to be made in the name of saving a person’s life. She wasn’t sure what horrid experiment could create The Living Catastrophe, but she would make sure it never saw the light of day, if necessary. And, if that meant destroying lives and betraying others in the process, Jana would not hesitate to do so.

“I found the facility after the catastrophe, and with my crew of researchers, we uncovered much of the research done there.”

Jana stared at him with a stony expression, hiding her dangerous disdain.

“And what I found in their logs was paradigm-shifting information. It revealed that exactly one in three people who would have otherwise been born with psychic abilities were not.”

“What? That’s what you got from their research?” she said, suddenly a bit distraught. “Then how they make Azad?”

“He was one of them.”

“I don’t- I don’t- What do you mean? Explain it!” Jana said with frustration.

Samuel sighed, annoyed at her attitude. “A psychic can be one of three things. Primary Blue, Primary Red, or Primary Green. When a psychic’s green value overvalues their other values, they are a Primary Green psychic, and become unable to use any psychic abilities. The research project your father funded may have been dubious, but was not fundamentally unethical. Their research stated that some psychics could not use their abilities but also that they had engineered a method of rendering such psychics capable of using those abilities. Azad was a test subject for that experiment, but not the only one. Jana, look at Kalen.” He pointed to the soldier who had created the apple. “Does he look familiar?”

Jana stared at him for a moment in confusion, furrowing her eyebrows for a few seconds before her expression lit up. “No way...are you...that boy I saved from the wreckage?”

He bowed briefly, then spoke slowly, trying to speak English as fluently as he could. “Yes, Jana Pontoon. You saved me two years ago, along with many others.” When he stood straight again, he quickly rubbed his arm over his eyes, like he was about to cry. “I wanted to repay you, so when I met Samuel, I willing worked with him to help reconstruct the nation and the research what happened at the laboratory.”

Samuel smiled smugly as his subordinate said that.

Jana’s eyes widened in surprise. “For...me?” she said, confused. “How does any of...that translate to ‘helping’ me?!” she said with a hint of anger.

“I-You...fought to protect the city.”

Jana shook her head. “I mean, for a lot of different reasons! And what fucking joke is that? ‘reconstruct the nation’? what about those people out in the ruins of the city? What have any of you done to help those people?!”

The other soldier stood in front of Samuel as Jana glared at each of them, gaseous, white clouds drifting down around her. Kalen looked down. “We can only do so much in two years...”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Precisely,” Samuel said with an edge of annoyance. “We don’t have the space to accommodate them in the city. New buildings must be made, and I’m sure you’ve seen them in progress.”

“Ch! Sure.” Jana rolled her eyes. “Just don’t blame me when you all realize you’re playing with fire. I appreciate the effort, but recreating the project that killed my father won’t earn any of you appreciation from me.”

“If that were the case, then I’m afraid we don’t have business with each other,” Samuel said, crossing his arms. “However, this project is the only method of potentially tearing a hole in reality itself. Psychi will be long dead of old age by the time other sciences achieve such a result, and nobody else is pursuing this particular subject of study.”

“So...you mean...” Jana began reluctantly.

“Yes, Jana,” Samuel said. “I am the only person capable of this right now. You already committed to this venture with your money, so I suggest that you at least hear me out.”

“Fine, but give me a moment to make sure I have everything straight,” she responded before taking in a deep breath. “The project that my father was involved in crumbled before my eyes, and afterward, I happened to save this Kalen guy. Then, you met him, and he helped you find the laboratory where you gathered information on the project?”

“Project: unlimited was its name,” Samuel absently added, absently looking at his nails.

“The project was one where people whose psychic powers were limited because of their ‘green’ value were fixed. That’s also why he can grow apples when it isn’t normally possible. And also...he was in the same boat.”

“Yes, that’s mostly correct,” Samuel said.

“But that sounds like bullshit to me because he was a ridiculously powerful psychic. He -Azad- is the strongest psychic there is, and you’re trying to tell me that he was just one of just a couple test subjects? Some one-in-a-hundred-billion chance mishap?”

Samuel sighed. “I figured you would have that reaction. I had that reaction when I read their files as well. I didn’t recover everything, of course, so I can’t be sure of the fact, but they only tested the technology on about a hundred people. Many are likley still alive today, walking among the people under our noses.”

“And even if that’s the case,” Jana said, throwing out a hand, “What about who he is!? Are you telling me that he just...happened to be a genocidal maniac?”

“I conquer on your former statements. I found it unlucky, to say the least of the facts. However, there is one piece of this puzzle you’re missing.”

“And that would be?”

“Why don’t I have their technology, do you think?” Samuel asked. “Surely, I would easily be able to replicate what the researchers did, but, until now, I haven’t given you an inkling that I can do that.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t pick up the right files?”

“No. It’s because while their research seemed theoretically safe, their solution resulted in people’s minds being corrupted.”

“Which is codeword for:” Jana said questioningly.

“They made people go insane,” Samuel finished for her. “It wasn’t obvious at first, from what I gather, but unlocking green psychics’ abilities corrupted their minds, and the researchers ignored it.”

Jana’s eyebrows narrowed. “You keep using that word, ‘corrupted’. I can’t help but feel like you’re implying something, there.”

“I’m not quite sure what I’m implying myself, but the word seems to most resemble what I saw in their subjects. They each gained pessimistic views on humanity, varying depending on their own life experiences. I would know because I have handled and treated many.”

“Alright, but what about Kallen?” Jana asked, pointing at the soldier. “He doesn’t seem crazy.”

“Unfortunately, he was corrupted as well. Thankfully, if you look at the ‘headphone’ in his ear, you will see how I saved him.”

“I don’t get it,” Jana said in confusion. “Are you implying the earbud stopped him...?”

“No, that would be a wire connected to his brain via his ear. I would compare it directly to a cochlear implant, except wired to an external logic system. It was originally designed to halt malign psychic abilities, but I modified it just a little over the years. And that leads me to what I was trying to say. I currently know precisely how to build the machine that removes their limits, the ‘inhibition alterator’, as I’ve dubbed it, but I don’t know any way to fix the corruption.”

Rana nodded slowly. “Right...So you just need to fix that, and then you can release a prototype that’ll make a whole bunch of people psychics with new abilities like the Chaos Whips and that ‘Plantekineiss’?”

“Entirely correct. However, without funding, I haven’t even begin the project in full. Three-million dollars, however, is more than enough for me to release my own inhibitions on beginning it.”

“Right...so, I never really had anything to worry about, did I? You just wanted an excuse for me to give you a shit ton of money.”

“HA!” Samuel laughed. “Right on the money, my dear ‘niece’!”

“Why didn’t you just use your nation’s money to do that...? Like, you’re seriously telling me that you don’t have the cash? That machine would make you billions.”

He looked at Jana like she was stupid. “You have no self-awareness, do you? I don’t have the money to spend on a project with no guarantee of success. This is a new field of psychoology, and it takes time to develop such things. My budget is spread quite thin, and I, again, don’t own this nation. I control many technical aspects of civilization in the area, but I do not have singular control over the government. No Iraqi would invite me in as their single leader, and I think you should know that well. I’m a technocrat, not a dictator.”

“Sure,” Jana said doubtfully, annoying the ‘technocrat’. “So, if I fund this project more, how quickly can you get this shit out, do ya think?”

He blinked in confusion, surprised. “What do you mean? You’re suggesting you’ll fund the project further?”

Jana nodded. “Duh. I like to be an entrepreneur, like my dad. I see a lot of potential in this, and I want to be part of it. You got somethin’ wrong with that?”

“O-oh, no, not at all! I’m ecstatic. You simply gave me the impression that you didn’t believe in the project.”

“Man, if I get 1.5 times the psychics and new psychic abilities in the psychic league, I’ll make a lot of money. Not just that, but we might find a way to defeat the catastrophe for good, especially if we learn more about these ‘green psychics’.”

“Well...I’m willing to discuss funding with you, of course!” Samuel said. “It’s good to know I can once more find funding from the Psychic League.”

“And out comes the political talk. Once money comes into the picture, everyone talks like that.” She shrugged, “Pffft, but I don’t care. Let’s get some ground rules set, and I’ll discuss the details of your lab research later.”

“Of course!”

“Uhh...” Jeremy raised his hand, a worried look on his face. “Cool. It’s good to know we have everything ready, but...I don’t think I need to be here for the technical negotiations.”

Samuel nodded to Kaled, and the soldier opened the elevator for Jeremy.

“Are you sure?” Jana asked.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

He left.

Hatty sat on Jeremy’s bed, a hand on their mouth. They had begun pacing back and forth as the details were unveiled, and once the opportunity had arisen, Jeremy asked to leave so as to speak with the mysterious entity.

“What has you so riled?” Jeremy said worriedly.

“This problem with ‘green’ psychics...” Hatty explained, “Worries me quite a bit.”

“I don’t blame you, considering how it makes them go insane.”

They sent him a disinterested look. “No, that is hardly the direct problem.”

“Then what would be? You don’t think you’re one, do you?”

“No. I’m more concerned about a friend of mine. And no, he isn’t a green psychic either...sort-of.”

“And I guess it isn’t that cohort you mentioned?”

“No.”

Jeremy waited for Hatty to explain further, but they didn’t, resigned to thinking alone. Eventually, he said, “So I guess you’re still not able to tell me anything?”

“Hmm...perhaps I can. Or rather, it might be alright if I tell you this: I have amnesia.”

“That is not what I was expecting to hear.”

“Truth be told, I’ve forgotten much of my purpose, my family, and my secrets. However, there are some important facts that come to mind as I think of them. I have a feeling that some of those missing holes are related to the problem at hand.”

“Which is the ‘green problem’?”

“Yes. Though, more accurately, that problem shouldn’t exist.”

“And how do we know this?”

“Because if it does exist, it means that something very bad must have happened to a family member of mine...”

Jeremy thought on that for a moment, his expression doubtful. “You’re saying that the reason why people’s minds are being corrupted is because of your family.”

“Yes, roughly.”

“Would you mind explaining just who you are so that this makes any amount of sense?”

“I would.”

“Of course you would,” he said with exasperation.

“Sorry, but there are still some things I cannot explain, amnesia ignored.”

“Alright, sure. Anyway, do you know where your family is? Why don’t you just talk to them about the problem?”

“Not an option, as we seem to each have amnesia and are scattered across the globe.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, I suppose I was vague earlier. The ‘cohort’ I mentioned is none other than my brother.”

“Why...alright, why don’t you ask him.”

“He appears as clueless as me.”

Jeremy nodded his head, crossing his arms. “Cool, cool, so we’re left with two clueless people who both have amnesia because of who knows what, and apparently one of their family members has some tie to the green problem...” he threw his arms up. “What the hell is this?! I’m missing so much information, and you don’t seem willing to explain more than the bare minimum.”

“I do apologize for that. It isn’t as though explaining would help, though.”

“Maybe, but it’s still frustrating...”

He thought about it all. As frustrating as Hatty was, they were the one who saved Jana’s life, not him. They were pretty fucking useless after the fact, but he could put that to rest. Jeremy also wanted to find his sister, and he wanted to do it quickly. Samuel said it himself: there was no guarantee that the problem could be fixed.

And Jeremy had said it before, and would say it again. He would rescue his sister, no matter what.

“But that’s alright,” he said, standing up restlessly. “Because I’m going to help you find your family.”