Elias barely had time to breathe after the reactor shutdown before security arrived.
Heavy boots thundered into the chamber, followed by a squad of armored soldiers in matte-black exo-frames. Their rifles hummed with charged capacitors, though none were raised—yet. The engineers scattered aside, grateful for someone else to take charge.
At the squad's center strode Commander Darius Holt.
Broad-shouldered, scar running across his jaw, eyes hard as tempered steel. His presence alone carried the weight of authority, the kind that came from surviving more than one battlefield. His military uniform was immaculate, every stripe and insignia polished, his posture exuding command.
Elias recognized him instantly—not from this moment, but from the future.
In the timeline Elias had lived through before the rewind, Holt was already a legend. A war hero who commanded respect on every front, one of the few leaders humanity could rally behind. Elias remembered fighting beside him during the Rift incursions, remembered Holt's voice rallying broken lines in the chaos of collapsing cities.
And now… Holt looked ten years younger. Sharper, more unyielding. Still unscarred by the horrors to come.
The commander's eyes swept the room, taking in the still-smoking coolant line, the shaken engineers, and finally Elias. His gaze locked on him like a hawk sighting prey.
"Elias Kael," Holt said, his voice gravel edged with iron. "Walk with me."
It wasn't a request.
They left the reactor chamber under armed escort. Elias could feel the stares of his colleagues burning into his back. Some grateful, some wary. None trusting.
Holt led him down a narrow corridor into a secured debriefing room—bare walls, steel table, no windows. The kind of place where secrets were measured in silence and suspicion. The door sealed with a heavy clang behind them.
The commander remained standing, arms folded, studying Elias as though dissecting him.
"Sit," Holt ordered.
Elias sat. His palms were damp, but he forced himself to keep his gaze steady.
"You're an engineer," Holt began. "Junior grade. Low clearance. Assigned to maintenance rotations. That's your record." He leaned forward. "So tell me—how did you predict a stabilizer rupture that none of my senior staff saw coming?"
Elias hesitated. Tell him the truth? He'll think you're insane. But if you lie…
"I saw patterns," Elias said carefully. "The data looked off. Too clean. Auto-seals usually mean underlying weakness. I put the pieces together."
Holt's expression didn't change. "You put the pieces together—fast enough to bark shutdown orders seconds before the rupture? That doesn't happen by intuition, Kael. That happens by foreknowledge."
Elias's chest tightened. The commander wasn't just dismissing him like the scientists had—he was probing. Testing.
"You think I'm hiding something," Elias said.
"I know you are," Holt replied coldly. "The question is whether you're a liability… or an asset."
The room felt smaller. Elias swallowed hard.
The commander paced slowly around the table.
"Yesterday, you interrupted Dr. Veyna's briefing to declare the end of the world. Today, you 'coincidentally' predict a reactor fault before it happens. That makes you either dangerously unstable… or frighteningly well-informed."
His boots echoed against the steel floor as he circled.
"Now, I don't believe in coincidence. And I don't tolerate chaos under my command. So which is it, Kael?"
Elias's mind raced. If I tell him the truth—that I've already lived through the coming war—he'll have me locked in a psych ward. But if I don't convince him at all, he'll treat me as a threat.
He took a breath. "You've read my record. You know I'm competent. I'm not a saboteur, and I'm not insane. What happened today proves that I can see what others miss. Use that."
Holt stopped pacing. His eyes narrowed. "Use that. You're suggesting I keep you on hand as some kind of… anomaly detector?"
"If it keeps your men alive, yes," Elias shot back, surprising himself with the firmness in his tone. "You saw the data. The rupture was real. If I hadn't spoken up, you'd be scraping bodies off the reactor floor."
The commander studied him for a long, silent moment. Then, unexpectedly, he gave a low chuckle.
"You've got nerve, I'll give you that."
He leaned closer, bracing his hands on the table.
"But understand this: in my world, nerve without proof gets people killed. If you're wrong even once, Kael, I won't hesitate to lock you down or throw you out of this facility. Do you understand?"
Elias met his gaze. "I won't be wrong."
The words came out sharper than he intended, almost a growl. The Core pulsed inside his chest, thrumming like it agreed.
For the first time, Holt's expression shifted—not to belief, but to something Elias hadn't seen from anyone else yet. Wariness.
"Then prove it," Holt said. "Because whether you know it or not, the higher-ups are already asking questions about you. Questions I'll have to answer. If you want me to keep you breathing, you'd better make sure the next time you open your mouth, you save more than a few engineers. You save the project."
The door hissed open. Holt straightened, his hard mask snapping back into place. "You're dismissed."
Elias stood slowly, his thoughts a storm.
As he stepped into the corridor, the commander's voice stopped him cold.
"Kael."
Elias turned. Holt's gaze bored into him like a rifle sight.
"I don't know what game you're playing. But I've seen enough men gamble with other people's lives. If I find out you're lying to me—about anything—I'll end you myself."
The door slammed shut.
Elias exhaled shakily, walking away with the Core's pulse echoing louder than ever.
He'd survived his first test with Holt. But one truth gnawed at him:
The commander didn't trust him. Not yet.
And when the Rifts finally opened, distrust could be just as deadly as the monsters themselves.
Holt acknowledges Elias's value but threatens him personally → sets up a tense alliance dynamic.