Kaela stepped through the open doorway into the Genesis dormitory, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the soft, ambient lighting. The room was larger than she expected, lined with sleek, minimalist beds, each neatly arranged against the walls. The entire space had a pristine, almost clinical feel—everything was in perfect order, from the folded gray blankets to the glowing touch panels embedded beside each bed.
The other Genesis recruits filed in, moving with an eerie sense of routine, as if they had done this before. Kaela hesitated before making her way to an unclaimed bed near Iris. As she sat down, she let out a slow breath, trying to process everything that had happened.
Genesis. That was her faction now.
Chris explained to her how it works well atleast now she got a little light on how the whole genesis works except for the part where she was chosen as the genesis when she had a weak mind that could be erased in just three days.
She turned to Iris, lowering her voice. "Back there… you didn't seem surprised when I got Genesis. Did you know already?"
Iris smirked, stretching out on her bed. "Not exactly. But I had a feeling."
Kaela frowned. "Why?"
Iris tilted her head, studying her. "Because you think too much…. And ask way too many question "
Kaela blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Genesis isn't about brute force like Aegis or running recon missions like Vortex. It's about understanding the bigger picture, making the tough calls. And you… you don't just accept things at face value. That's what makes you one of us."
Kaela let the words sink in. Was that really how they decided? Because she thought too much?
Before she could ask more, a voice chimed in from the next bed over.
"Oh, please, Iris. Stop pretending you know everything."
Kaela turned her head to see a girl with short dark curls and sharp green eyes smirking at them. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, lazily flipping through a thin, digital tablet.
"That's Rhea," Iris said, rolling her eyes. "Ignore her."
"I'd rather you didn't," Rhea said with an amused expression. "Especially since you're new, and I love fresh perspectives." She tossed her tablet aside and leaned forward. "So? What do you think of our little 'home' so far?"
Kaela hesitated. "I think it feels… controlled."
Rhea let out a laugh. "Smart girl."
Another voice chimed in, this time from a girl with deep brown skin and short, silver-dyed hair sitting on the bunk above Rhea's. "Better than being dumped into Aegis," she said. "At least here, they don't treat us like machines."
"Kaela, meet Amira," Iris introduced. "Rhea's partner in crime."
Amira shot Iris a mock-offended look. "Excuse you, I am an upstanding member of Genesis."
Kaela almost smiled at the interaction, but she still had questions swirling in her mind. One in particular lingered.
"So you and Chris.." Iris started after the other two quiet down, " mind telling us what's going on between you too?"
Well that came out of nowhere, Kaela thought
She smiled awkwardly as she answered back
"He was just a guy I met earlier, giving me the details of how genesis worked around here, Chris. Tall, dark eyes, really polite. Do you know him?"
Rhea snorted. "Chris Ryker?"
Amira sighed dramatically. "Oh, of course she met Chris."
Kaela raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Iris smirked. "Chris was Genesis's golden boy. Smart, strategic, and—well, you saw him. Half the recruits here had a crush on him at some point."
Rhea leaned in with a mischievous grin. "Not just because of his looks. He was a Vortex before he left Genesis."
Kaela's brows furrowed. "Wait—he was genesis first, as in he was in this faction before he ended up in vortex?"
"exactly," Amira said. "He was Genesis first. But he was too good in the field, so they moved him to Vortex, where he made a name for himself. Tactical genius, near-perfect mission success rate."
"He was almost an Architect," Iris added. "But then he disappeared. No one really knows why."
" wait disappeared what exactly do you mean by that as in he once left the neurogenesis facility?"
Rhea nodded " hmm, he disappeared when the vortex team went outside the walls and faced the sand shifters, huge wormlike creatures that lives in the desert of the wastelands"
Kaela remembered Chris telling her about these sand shifters, huge monsters that took out the vortex team, was that the time he disappeared? Why didn't he tell her that?
Kaela thought to herself as she listened to the two.
"News came that they were getting close to the walls of neurogenesis, if they've gotten closer they would've tear down the metal walls no matter how strong they were, that was before neurogenesis developed the walls with high voltage power, they didn't know what they were facing outside so they left and went to fight it…"
"That was a brutal war" Amira added
" it was, hundreds vortex got killed and Chris, disappeared…. His body wasn't found so people though he was eaten or ruined bad enough to not be recognized, but after a month, he was found outside of the gate, looking for help, the architects took him in, interrogated him for a whole week before they finally rebooted him for the first time and became a reboot"
" wait, Chris is a primal?!" That came out as a shock " was a primal, now he's a reboot like all of us"
" so wait a minute, a Primal who's been rebooted…"
"Reclaimed…. That's what they're called here, Only one of those exist and that's Chris"
Again, Chris never mentioned that, or was it because he was rebooted thus remembering nothing? Possible
" a unique boutique" Iris said when Kaela was lost in her thoughts
The other two as well as Kaela looked at her before they shook their heads at her craves for Chris.
"So that's why he's famous here huh!"
" yeah, but mostly his looks, that's guy's too handsome to be a reboot"
" But he's an original primal before he became a reboot, Primals are good looking" well Kaela couldn't argue with that " Lian was one piece of handsomeness if one would ask, he almost looked perfect, shame she didn't saw that before, and now, even Chris held the same aura as Lian, guess that's why she felt they were the same, cos they both a Primals.
Kaela thought to herself before she finally asked the question " where was he for the whole month I mean as far as I've been instructed, the wastelands are dangerous and one may not survive
" Most people believed that it was because he was a vortex, a vortex is build to survive in the heat and dangerous situations like the wastelands"
"Chris is so cool, it's a shame he left vortex and joined genesis once more.." Ameria said as she sigh
Iris stared at her and answered her " well atleast now we get to see him, if he was in vortex we wouldn't even be able to see hi…"
Before they finished talking, the lights went out
Kaela stared at the light before she noticed the three girls heading to bed and covering themselves with the gray blankets
Guess it's time to sleep, she thought, before she finally laid down too and shut her eyes
But she couldn't sleep, so many questions ran her mind about this whole Chris thing, where was he in the whole month and how was he able to survive, the wastelands as far as she was told was a dangerous place that no man could survive for a week let alone a whole month!! She wanted to ask these questions to Chris himself but she would seem nosy on other people's business, the other three were already asleep
She was shocked how first they were to sleep, she sigh as she turned in bed and shit her eye to sleep once more…
Nb:
The Reclaimed
A Primal who has been rebooted is called a Reclaimed.
Unlike standard Reboots, who were brought into Neurogenesis from the outside world and had their memories erased, Reclaimed were originally Primals—those born within the facility—who, for one reason or another, were deemed unstable, non-compliant, or unfit for their original purpose.
To correct this, the Architects put them through a full reboot, wiping their minds and restructuring their personalities. However, unlike normal Reboots, Reclaimed individuals often exhibit fragments of their past selves—glitches in memory, flickers of recognition, or instincts that don't align with their supposed "new" selves.
Some say Reclaimed are never quite the same afterward.
Some whisper that they're dangerous.
And others believe that deep down, the past never truly disappears—it's just waiting to resurface.