The air in the lower levels of the station was different—thicker, heavier. Ajax could feel it press against his skin as he made his way through the dimly lit corridors that led to the archives. Unlike the sterile, pristine halls of the upper districts, this place felt ancient. The walls were worn, streaked with years of wear and the soft hum of old machinery struggling to keep pace with modern tech. The lights flickered overhead, casting long, uneven shadows on the floor.
This was a part of the station few ever visited. The Archives, especially the restricted sections, were reserved for only the most elite members of the Knowledge Class. And even then, most of them were barred from the deepest corners, where the truly forbidden knowledge was kept.
Ajax had been here once before, as a child. His father, if you could call him that, had brought him, showing him the great halls of data where the station’s history, its plans, and its future were stored. But even then, there had been sections that his father hadn’t mentioned, doors they hadn’t opened.
Today, Ajax wasn’t looking for just any information. He needed answers about his OLA—answers he couldn’t find in the data streams provided by the station. The strange HUD that now lived inside his mind, the unclassifiable nature of his OLA—something was different, and he needed to know why. After being released from the recovery room Caelum had headed back towards his quarters until the notification in his HUD reflected ‘No external monitoring’, to which he bolted out of sight to arrive here.
The hallway ended in front of a massive door, its surface smooth and metallic, with the emblem of the Knowledge Class etched into its center. The seal shimmered faintly in the dim light, a reminder of the power and control this part of the station held.
He approached the door, his heartbeat quickening as he reached for the access panel. His fingers hesitated for a moment, doubt creeping in. Am I really doing this? he thought. If anyone found out what he was about to do—sneaking into the restricted archives—he would be marked as a traitor to the system.
But he couldn’t stop now. He needed answers.
His hand hovered over the panel when a voice cut through the silence.
“You know, they’re watching you.”
Ajax spun around, his muscles tensing instinctively. His enhanced senses picked up the faint movement before his eyes did—someone standing in the shadows, leaning casually against the far wall. As she stepped into the flickering light, he saw her clearly for the first time.
She was young, probably no older than him, with a slender frame that seemed to blend into the shadows with ease. Her long, dark hair was braided down her back, and her sharp, hazel eyes sparkled with mischief. She wore simple, practical clothing—nothing that marked her as part of any faction—but there was something about the way she carried herself, something that told Ajax she wasn’t someone to be underestimated.
“Who are you?” Ajax asked, his voice low and wary.
The girl smiled, a slow, deliberate expression that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Lyra,” she said, pushing herself off the wall and taking a step closer. “And I could ask you the same question. What’s a fresh OLA user like you doing in the restricted section?”
Ajax studied her, his mind racing. There was something familiar about her name, but he couldn’t place it. “I’m looking for answers,” he said, deciding to be honest. “About my OLA.”
Lyra raised an eyebrow, her gaze flicking over him with a hint of curiosity. “Ah, so you’re the one they’ve been talking about,” she said softly, almost to herself. “The anomaly.”
“Anomaly?” Ajax repeated, his brow furrowing.
Lyra’s smile widened. “Don’t act so surprised. Word travels fast down here, especially when it involves someone breaking the mold.” She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. “They don’t know what to do with you, do they? You don’t fit into their little boxes.”
Ajax’s pulse quickened. “You know something about my OLA?”
Lyra tilted her head, considering him for a moment. “Maybe,” she said, her tone teasing. “But the real question is: do you?”
Ajax opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off, stepping closer until she was just a few feet away. “Listen, if you’re here for answers, I can help you. But we need to move quickly. This area is monitored more heavily than you realize.”
“Monitored by who?” Ajax asked, glancing around instinctively.
Lyra’s gaze softened, and for the first time, Ajax saw something in her expression—something that mirrored his own feelings of mistrust, of rebellion. “By everyone,” she whispered. “The station. The factions. They’ve been watching us for years, keeping tabs on anyone who steps out of line.”
Ajax’s mind raced. He had always known the system was rigid, controlling, but the idea of constant surveillance, of hidden monitoring—that was new. His thoughts flicked to the HUD in his vision, the display that no one else seemed to know existed.
“How do you know all this?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Lyra gave a small, secretive smile. “Because I’ve spent my entire life hiding from them. I work in the restricted section, managing what they don’t want people to see.” She paused, her eyes locking onto his. “And I’ve learned how to find the cracks.”
Ajax felt a surge of hope, mixed with a strange sense of connection. She wasn’t just another cog in the machine. She was like him—someone who didn’t fit, someone who was looking for more.
“What kind of cracks?” Ajax asked, his voice tense with urgency.
Lyra glanced around the corridor, making sure they were alone. Then she gestured for him to follow. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
They moved quickly, slipping through a side door that led into a narrow, dimly lit hallway. As they walked, Lyra explained more about the archives, the sections that were kept off-limits, and the underground network of people like her who had found ways to access the forbidden knowledge.
“The restricted areas hold more than just history,” Lyra said in a hushed tone. “They store information on the experiments that led to the creation of the OLA, the old data from the Great Change and the wars that followed. But there’s more—data on anomalies like you, people who didn’t follow the normal pattern.”
Ajax’s heart pounded in his chest. “You think there have been others like me?”
Lyra nodded. “I know there have been. But they don’t last long. The system... it doesn’t tolerate outliers.”
They reached the end of the hallway, where a heavy metal door stood, sealed shut. Lyra pulled a small device from her pocket, pressing it against the panel beside the door. There was a soft beep, and the door slid open with a hiss.
“This is one of the back entrances to the restricted section,” Lyra explained. “It’s not on the official access logs, but it’s still monitored. We’ll need to be quick. While I can hack into the door, the open request will still show on the monitoring. They usually discount it as a glitch, but why take risks.”
Ajax hesitated for a moment, staring into the darkness beyond the door. Every instinct told him that stepping through that door would change everything. But he couldn’t turn back now.
“Alright,” he said, stepping forward.
Lyra followed him inside, closing the door behind them. The room was small, lined with shelves filled with old data tablets and ancient tomes. It smelled of dust and forgotten secrets.
“This is where I work,” Lyra said, her voice quiet. “It’s not much, but it’s where I’ve found the truth. If you’re willing to take the risk, I can help you find what you’re looking for.”
Ajax met her gaze, seeing the same determination in her eyes that he felt burning inside himself. “I’ll take the risk,” he said.
Lyra’s smile was small but genuine. “Then let’s get started.”
But before they could begin, she looked up, her expression suddenly serious. “But remember, Ajax—we’re being watched. Don’t trust anyone. Not even the system you think you know.”
Ajax nodded, his heart pounding with anticipation. For the first time, he felt like he was getting closer to the answers he’d been searching for. But with every step forward, the danger increased.
Together, they began their search for the truth, unaware of the shadows that were already closing in on them.
The soft hum of hidden technology surrounded them as Ajax and Lyra moved through the narrow aisles of the archives. The shelves, packed with ancient data tablets and physical books—artifacts from an era long past—created a sense of both history and secrecy. The weight of countless secrets pressed down on Ajax’s shoulders as they entered deeper into the restricted section, their footsteps muffled by the thick layers of dust that had settled over the years.
“This place is incredible,” Ajax whispered, his eyes scanning the rows of shelves. He had never imagined the archives to be so... old. It wasn’t just the information stored here; it was the physical space itself. The dim lighting, the smell of aged paper, and the strange hum of old tech gave the room a sense of permanence—like the past was still alive within these walls.
“Most of this is forgotten,” Lyra said quietly, her voice barely above a murmur, handing him several documents she deemed worthy of his attention. “They don’t want people to know about it. They don’t want people to ask questions.”
Ajax paused, his fingers trailing across the surface of a dusty tablet. “What kind of questions?”
Lyra’s eyes flashed with something that looked like both fear and determination. “Questions about how the OLA was really created. Questions about why some people—like you—don’t fit into the system.”
Ajax frowned, his fingers tightening around the edge of the tablet. “You keep saying I’m an anomaly. But what does that mean, exactly? What makes me so different?”
Lyra moved to a small console in the corner of the room, her fingers flying over the keys as she brought up a series of encrypted files. The screens flickered as data streamed across them, lines of text and diagrams that Ajax couldn’t fully understand at a glance. But one image caught his attention—an old blueprint, showing the structure of the OLA at a molecular level.
“Most people, when they’re integrated with the OLA, fall into one of the four main factions,” Lyra explained, glancing at him as she worked. “The system scans them, identifies their strengths, and augments them accordingly. Warriors, Engineers, Bio Class, and Knowledge Class—all their abilities are tied directly to their faction’s specialization.”
Ajax nodded, though the words felt distant. He knew this already. It was basic knowledge. “But I don’t fit into any of those categories.”
“Exactly.” Lyra tapped a few more keys, pulling up a set of data files that seemed different from the others. These were marked with strange codes, encrypted so heavily that even the console struggled to process them. “You’re not the first anomaly, Ajax. There have been others. People who didn’t fit into the factions. People whose OLA defied classification.”
Ajax felt a cold chill creep down his spine. “What happened to them?”
Lyra didn’t answer immediately. She stared at the screen, her jaw tight. “They... disappeared. The station classified them as too dangerous to be allowed to roam free. They were either forced into isolation or... worse.”
“Worse?” Ajax repeated, the word heavy in his mouth.
“They were eliminated.”
Silence hung in the air between them, the weight of her words settling like a heavy stone in Ajax’s chest. He had always known the system was controlling, but the idea of eliminating people who didn’t fit their mold? That was something darker, something far more sinister than he had imagined.
“They don’t tolerate outliers,” Lyra continued, her voice hard. “If the system can’t classify you, it can’t control you. And if it can’t control you, you’re a threat.”
Ajax clenched his fists, the OLA thrumming beneath his skin. “Why haven’t they come for me yet?”
Lyra glanced at him, her eyes narrowing. “Because they don’t know what you are. Not yet. They’re still watching, still waiting to see if you’ll fall into line. But if you keep pushing the boundaries... if you keep questioning things... it won’t be long before they make their move.”
Ajax’s heart raced, his mind spinning with the implications. Everything he had ever known, everything he had been taught, was built on a system that thrived on control and conformity. And now, he was standing on the outside, looking in—an anomaly, a threat to everything the station held sacred.
“They’ll come for me,” Ajax muttered, more to himself than to Lyra.
“Not if we get ahead of them,” Lyra said, her voice sharp. She turned back to the console, bringing up a final set of files. “There’s a way to dig deeper. A way to find out why your OLA is different.”
“How?” Ajax asked, stepping closer to her, his eyes glued to the screen.
Lyra’s fingers danced over the keys, and the screen shifted, showing a detailed map of the station. There, marked in red, was a section of the station that Ajax had never seen before. It was buried deep within the core, a place so hidden that even most Knowledge Class members wouldn’t have access to it.
“The restricted archives hold more than just records,” Lyra explained, her voice low and conspiratorial. “There’s a lab. A lab that’s been hidden from the public for centuries. It’s where they developed the current OLA recipe.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Ajax stared at the map, his mind racing. “And you think I’ll find answers there?”
Lyra nodded, her eyes gleaming with determination. “If there’s anywhere on this station that holds the key to your OLA, it’s there. But it’s not going to be easy to get to. It’s buried under layers of security, and if they catch you trying to access it...”
“I know,” Ajax said, cutting her off. “It’ll be the end of me.”
Lyra stepped closer to him, her voice softening. “I’ll help you get there. I can hack the system, create backdoor access to the lower levels. But you’ll have to be careful. If anyone suspects you’re digging into this...”
Ajax nodded, the weight of her words sinking in. He wasn’t just searching for answers anymore—he was putting his life on the line. But the truth, the need to understand what he was, burned inside him. He couldn’t stop now. Not when he was so close.
“I’m ready,” he said, his voice steady.
Lyra gave him a long, appraising look, as if searching for any sign of doubt. Then she nodded. “Good. We’ll go now.”
Before Ajax could respond, a soft chime echoed through the room, and the screens around them flickered. Lyra’s face darkened, her expression hardening as she glanced up at the security feed.
“We’ve lingered too long,” she muttered. “They’re scanning this section.”
Ajax felt his pulse quicken. “What do we do?”
Lyra moved quickly, pulling a small device from her pocket and pressing it against the control panel. The screens went dark, and the entire room seemed to power down, the hum of technology falling silent.
“They won’t find us if we stay quiet,” she whispered, her body tense. “Just don’t move.” She pressed herself against him, minimizing their footprint.
They stood in the darkness, waiting as the soft sound of footsteps echoed in the distance. Ajax’s heart pounded in his chest, his enhanced senses picking up every sound, every shift in the air. His eyes flicked to Lyra, who remained calm, her body still, her breathing even.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the footsteps faded, and the security feed returned to normal.
“They’re gone,” Lyra said, exhaling slowly.
Ajax let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. “That was close.”
Lyra nodded, her eyes hard. “It’ll get closer. But if you want answers, it’s the only way.”
Ajax met her gaze, his determination burning brighter than ever. “Then let’s do it.”
As they left the archives, the weight of what they were about to do settled on Ajax’s shoulders. They were walking a dangerous path, one that could end in disaster. But Lyra was right—if he wanted the truth, if he wanted to understand what he had become, he had no choice.
And he wasn’t going to back down.
Not now.
Not ever.
----------------------------------------
They crept through the station's inner corridors which felt more oppressive the deeper they ventured. Gone were the open halls of the upper levels, where the elites of society moved freely, surrounded by grand architecture and the glow of artificial sunlight. Down here, the walls seemed to close in, their surfaces slick with condensation, lit only by flickering strips of faded light. The hum of the station’s engines was louder, vibrating through the floors and into Ajax’s bones as he and Lyra made their way toward the hidden laboratory.
They moved in silence, careful not to attract attention. Lyra led the way with a quiet confidence, her small frame slipping through the narrow passageways like a shadow. Ajax followed close behind, his thoughts racing as he tried to piece together everything she had told him. A secret lab buried deep within the station, hidden from the public for centuries, where the OLA had first been developed. It felt like a half-forgotten myth, something whispered about in the darkest corners of the Knowledge Class halls.
But it was real. And if Lyra was right, it held the answers he was searching for.
“You’re quiet,” Lyra whispered, glancing over her shoulder at him as they rounded a corner. Her voice was barely audible over the hum of the station’s systems, but there was a softness to it, a hint of curiosity.
Ajax blinked, realizing he had been lost in thought. “Just thinking.”
Lyra smirked, her hazel eyes gleaming in the dim light. “About the lab? Or about what you’ll find there?”
“Both,” Ajax admitted, his voice low. “And about what you said earlier—about people like me. The ones who disappeared.”
Lyra slowed her pace, her expression darkening. “It’s true,” she said softly, her voice tinged with regret. “They called them ‘anomalies.’ People who couldn’t be classified. The station... it doesn’t know how to handle anyone outside of the system.”
“Why?” Ajax asked, his brow furrowing. “Why is it so important to fit into one of the factions? Why does the system need that control?”
Lyra paused at a junction, checking a small handheld device she had pulled from her pocket. It displayed a map of the station, along with a series of security feeds she had hacked into. After a moment, she looked back at Ajax, her expression serious.
“It’s not about control,” she said quietly. “It’s about survival.”
Ajax frowned. “What do you mean?”
Lyra gestured for him to follow as they continued down the corridor, her voice barely above a whisper. “When the Great Change happened—the event that created the OLA—humanity was on the brink of extinction. Resources were scarce, wars were endless, and the population was out of control. The OLA wasn’t just a solution to the physical problems humans faced. It became a way to manage the chaos.”
Ajax’s mind raced as he listened. He had learned about the Great Change in school, of course, but only in broad strokes. The system had always framed it as a necessary evolution—a transformation that had saved humanity from itself. But the way Lyra spoke, there was something more beneath the surface.
“The factions were designed to keep society functional,” Lyra continued. “Each class was given a role—Warriors for defense, Engineers for construction, Bio Class for healing and agriculture, Knowledge Class for planning and governance. The system was built on specialization, on dividing people based on their strengths. It kept order. And for a long time, it worked.”
“But now?” Ajax asked, his voice tight.
“Now, the system is breaking down,” Lyra said, her tone somber. “People like you—anomalies—don’t fit into their neatly defined categories. You represent something they can’t control. Something unpredictable.”
Ajax clenched his fists, feeling the weight of her words. He had always known he didn’t fit in, had always felt like an outsider, even before the OLA integration. But now, it was more than just a feeling. He was different. He didn’t belong in the rigid structure the station had built, and that made him dangerous.
They reached a metal door at the end of the corridor, its surface old and rusted, covered in years of grime. Lyra stopped in front of it, her fingers moving deftly over her handheld device as she accessed the door’s security panel.
“This is it,” she whispered, glancing at Ajax. “The entrance to the hidden lab.”
Ajax stared at the door, his heart pounding in his chest. His muscles tensed with anticipation, the OLA humming beneath his skin as if reacting to the tension. This was what he had come for. The answers to all the questions that had been haunting him since the integration. The truth about what he was.
Lyra pressed a final key on her device, and the door slid open with a low hiss. Beyond it lay a dark, narrow hallway, the air inside thick with the smell of dust and disuse.
“No turning back now,” Lyra said softly, stepping through the doorway.
Ajax followed her, his body towering over the petite figure, the dim light from the corridor behind them casting long shadows across the floor as they entered the hidden lab. The hallway was lined with old pipes and cables, the walls covered in faded diagrams and worn-out signs that pointed to long-forgotten sections of the station.
The air felt different here—heavier, like the space itself was holding onto secrets. Ajax could feel the weight of the past pressing down on him, the faint hum of the station’s power systems barely audible beneath the thick walls.
At the end of the hallway, they reached a large, reinforced door. Unlike the previous one, this door was pristine, its surface gleaming with the faint glow of embedded security systems. Lyra approached it cautiously, her fingers working quickly to disable the locks.
“This place hasn’t been accessed in years,” she muttered, more to herself than to Ajax. “But the security systems are still active. They must be worried about someone finding this.”
“Why keep it hidden?” Ajax asked, his voice tight with frustration. “If this lab holds the key to understanding the OLA, why bury it?”
Lyra glanced at him, her expression serious. “Because the truth is dangerous. If people knew what really happened during the Great Change, if they understood how the OLA was created... it could unravel everything.”
The door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a dark, cavernous space beyond. The air inside was cold, stale, as if it hadn’t been disturbed in decades. Lyra stepped inside first, her handheld device casting a soft light that illuminated the room.
Ajax followed, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. The lab was massive, filled with rows of long-abandoned equipment—metal tables covered in dust, old monitors flickering faintly with static, and strange glass tanks that lined the walls, their contents obscured by a thick layer of condensation.
“This is it,” Lyra said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The place where the OLA was first developed from the defective serum.”
Ajax stepped further into the room, his gaze drawn to the tanks along the walls. He could see faint shapes inside them, distorted by the condensation. He moved closer, wiping a hand across the surface of one of the tanks, revealing the figure inside.
A body. Suspended in the thick liquid, its skin covered in dark, smooth plates of OLA. Its face was obscured, but Ajax could see enough to know that this person—this thing—was like him.
An anomaly.
Ajax took a step back, his heart racing. “What is this?”
Lyra moved to stand beside him, her expression grim. “The original test subjects. The first anomalies. They were never meant to survive.”
Ajax’s mind reeled as he stared at the body in the tank. The OLA on its skin looked similar to his own—dense, organic, with faint traces of bioluminescence. But the person inside was lifeless, their body preserved in the fluid, frozen in time.
“They were experiments,” Lyra continued, her voice filled with a mixture of sadness and anger. “The scientists who created the OLA didn’t care about the people they were testing. They only cared about results. These anomalies were considered failures. Too dangerous to release. So they were... disposed of.”
Ajax felt a surge of anger rise in his chest, his fists clenching at his sides. The system he had grown up in, the society that had shaped his entire life—it was built on the suffering of people like him. People who didn’t fit the mold. People who were discarded when they couldn’t be controlled.
“We have to find the records,” Ajax said, his voice tight with determination. “I need to know why this is happening to me.”
Lyra nodded, her eyes hard. “We will. But we have to be careful. If anyone finds out we’ve been here...”
“They won’t,” Ajax said, his jaw set. “I won’t let them.”
Together, they moved deeper into the lab, the faint glow of the old monitors casting eerie shadows across the room. As they searched for the truth, Ajax couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched—that the eyes of the station, the system, were always on them.
But he didn’t care. Not anymore.
He was ready for the answers, no matter the cost.
The lab stretched on, the silence punctuated only by the hum of dormant machines and the soft sound of Ajax’s and Lyra’s footsteps. The deeper they ventured into the forgotten facility, the heavier the air became. Dust settled on everything, undisturbed for decades, while the long-abandoned equipment stood like tombstones, remnants of a time when the OLA was more myth than reality.
Lyra’s light flickered over rows of data terminals, most of them inactive, their screens cracked or blank from years of neglect. Ajax’s eyes were drawn to the tanks that lined the walls, each one holding the faint outline of a figure suspended in murky liquid. There were dozens of them—bodies encased in OLA, their faces obscured, their fates sealed in this forgotten lab.
The sight of them gnawed at Ajax’s insides, a bitter anger rising in his chest. These were people, anomalies like him, discarded by the system because they couldn’t be controlled. They were considered failures. Their lives reduced to footnotes in a twisted experiment that had spiraled out of control.
“What happened here?” Ajax muttered, his voice low as he ran his fingers over the cold surface of one of the tanks. “Why were they kept like this?”
Lyra stood beside him, her eyes scanning the room with a mixture of anger and sadness. “They were test subjects,” she said softly. “Each generation a team of scientists come together to try and make improvements to OLA in attempt to delay the pending fall of the system. But each time when the scientists realized they couldn’t classify them, they locked them away. Disposed of them.”
Ajax clenched his fists, his OLA humming beneath his skin in response to his rising frustration. “They didn’t even give them a chance.”
Lyra nodded, her expression grim. “They were too dangerous. The system feared them—feared what they could become if left unchecked. Like they knew they needed to do something, but were afraid of becoming obsolete.”
Ajax’s thoughts turned inward, the HUD still flickering in the corner of his vision, quietly displaying data only he could see. His true strength, his agility, his neural speed, he knew he was powerful. And now, standing in this lab, staring at the bodies of those who had come before him, he understood the fear the system harbored.
If he couldn’t be classified, he couldn’t be controlled. And the system couldn’t tolerate that.
“We need to find the records,” Ajax said, his voice filled with determination. “There has to be something here—something that explains why I’m like this. Why they were like this.”
Lyra nodded, already moving toward a console at the far end of the room. “If there’s anything left, it’ll be in the core data storage,” she said. “This lab was shut down decades ago, but the files should still be archived. If we can access them…”
She trailed off, tapping furiously at the keys. The screen blinked to life, dim and glitchy from years of disuse, but it was enough. Streams of encrypted data filled the screen, lines of code that seemed ancient, outdated compared to the station’s current systems.
“This is it,” Lyra said, her voice tight with concentration. “The original research files. They’ve been buried deep in the archives.”
Ajax watched as Lyra’s fingers flew across the keys, her hacking skills put to the test as she bypassed layers of security. The tension in the air thickened, both of them aware that the longer they stayed here, the greater the risk. But they couldn’t leave—not without the truth.
Minutes ticked by, the room filled with the faint hum of the console and the distant sound of old machinery groaning to life. Finally, Lyra let out a breath of relief as the screen flashed green, signaling success.
“We’re in,” she said, scrolling through the files. “These are the original OLA development logs. Everything from the initial tests to the classified records on the anomalies.”
Ajax stepped closer, his heart pounding as Lyra opened the files. His eyes skimmed the pages of data, but it was too much to take in all at once. Thousands of lines of text, charts, diagrams—it was a labyrinth of information, each piece more damning than the last.
Then, something caught his eye.
A name.
Ryker.
His blood ran cold as he stared at the file, his father’s name listed among the original researchers.
Lyra noticed his reaction and paused, glancing at him. “Ajax…?”
“My father,” he said, his voice hollow. “He was involved in the creation of the OLA.”
Lyra’s eyes widened in shock, but she said nothing, letting the silence settle between them as the weight of the revelation hit Ajax like a hammer. He had always known his father had been a key figure in the Knowledge Class, a brilliant strategist who had helped shape the future of the station. But this—this—was something else.
“He was one of the lead scientists,” Ajax continued, his voice barely a whisper. “He helped create the anomalies.”
Lyra’s fingers hovered over the keys, unsure of what to say. Finally, she spoke, her voice soft. “Ajax… we don’t know the full story. This lab, these experiments… they were kept secret for a reason. Maybe your father—”
“Maybe he what?” Ajax snapped, turning to face her. His eyes blazed with anger, the bioluminescent glow of his OLA intensifying. “Maybe he was trying to help? Maybe he thought sacrificing these people—sacrificing me—was justified?”
Lyra met his gaze, unflinching. “We won’t know unless we look further.”
Ajax’s anger simmered, but he knew she was right. There was more to this than he could comprehend in the heat of the moment. His father’s involvement, the creation of the anomalies, the reason he didn’t fit into the system—it was all connected.
“Let’s keep going,” he muttered, turning back to the console. “We need to know everything.”
Lyra nodded, her fingers moving quickly as she pulled up the remaining files. The data flowed freely now, the final layers of encryption falling away as they accessed the deepest secrets of the station. Records of the Great Change, of the original OLA tests, of the first subjects who had been enhanced beyond the system’s control.
“They called them the ‘outliers,’” Lyra said, reading from one of the files. “Subjects whose OLA integration couldn’t be categorized. They exhibited traits from multiple factions, just like you. Strength, intelligence, agility—they had it all. But they were unstable. Their OLA consumed them, and the system couldn’t handle it. Most of them dying upon the integration ceremony.”
Ajax stared at the screen, his mind racing. He was an outlier. Just like them. And if the system couldn’t control him, they would come for him—just like they had come for the others.
“We need to leave,” Lyra said suddenly, her voice tense. “I’ve pulled the data, but we’ve stayed too long. The security systems—”
Before she could finish, a loud alarm blared through the lab, the shrill sound echoing off the walls. The monitors around them flickered as red lights flashed overhead.
“They’ve found us, we must have triggered some silent alarm,” Lyra hissed, grabbing her device and pulling Ajax toward the door. “We need to move. Now.”
Ajax’s heart raced as they sprinted through the lab, the sound of the alarm filling the air. His muscles tensed, the OLA pulsing beneath his skin as he prepared for whatever came next. They were out of time. The truth they had uncovered would put them both in danger.
As they reached the hallway, Ajax glanced back at the lab, the bodies of the anomalies still suspended in the tanks, their faces hidden in the murky fluid. The past was catching up to him, and now there was no escaping it.
They burst through the metal door and into the corridor, the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. Ajax knew they were being hunted—by the system, by those who wanted to keep the truth buried.
But he wasn’t going to let them win. Not now. Not after everything he had learned.
As they ran, Lyra’s voice cut through the chaos, her tone urgent. “We’ll need to regroup. There’s a safehouse in the lower levels, past the Engineering Class workshops. We can lay low there and figure out our next move.”
Ajax nodded, his mind already racing with possibilities. They had the data. They had the truth. Now, they needed to find a way to use it.
But one thing was certain—this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.