He’d expected it. For six months, he’d been a ghost in the system, illegally rewiring the broken minds of veterans the Bureau had discarded. But knowing it was coming didn't stop the hollow ache in his chest.
Marcus smiled, a tired, crooked thing. He picked up his old, cracked XPT trainer badge from the table. He wouldn't need the Bureau's permission anymore. He had something better: a student who remembered how to be afraid, and a new rule to live by. xpt trainer
Marcus knew the name. Kaelen was the youngest pilot ever to receive the XPT certification. A prodigy. A perfectionist. And three weeks ago, he'd tried to solo-drive a quantum-freighter through a Coronal Mass Ejection. He survived. His mind didn’t. He’d expected it
He found the core shard—the original Kaelen, a small, terrified figure curled in the captain's chair, repeating, "I have to be perfect. I have to be perfect." Marcus smiled, a tired, crooked thing
The screen in Marcus’s neural-link flickered, displaying the cold, official seal of the Federal Bio-Augmentation Bureau.
He knelt in front of Kaelen, ignoring the nurses' worried glances. He didn't plug into the neural-link. He spoke, raw voice to raw silence.
The moment he entered, the storm hit.