Far from the island, within the bowels of the lead ship, the air smelled of oil and sterilized metal. The hum of generators never ceased. Screens lined the walls, flickering with data pulled from machines buried beneath the hull. Heart rates. Breathing patterns. Neural scans. All gathered from the islanders who had been unknowingly monitored for generations.
At the center of it all sat Director Shiga.
His presence was like the room itself—cold, mechanical, inevitable. Though his hair had thinned with age, his eyes remained sharp and calculating. They gleamed behind wire-rimmed glasses as he scanned the reports scrolling across his desk.
"Exuberant celebrations, compliance at one hundred percent," droned one aide, voice monotonous. "The population perceives our arrival as rescue, not retrieval. No suspicion has spread."
Shiga's lips curled into the faintest shadow of a smile. "Of course not. Hope blinds faster than fear."
Captain Sudo stood to his side, arms folded across his chest, his expression unreadable. "A few of the younger generation hesitated. Three of them, by my observation. Their eyes… they're different from the rest. Sharper."
Shiga did not look up. "Three among hundreds. Irrelevant."
Sudo's jaw tightened. "Perhaps. But I suggest we watch them closely."
Shiga's fingers tapped once against the report, sharp as a gavel. "Watch them, yes. Interfere, no. The island's gifts are awakening… we cannot risk disrupting the natural course. Their compliance is our leash, not force."
A younger officer hesitated before speaking. "Director… with respect, what is the purpose of these examinations? If the people are docile, why not extract them all now?"
The room fell silent. The hum of the machines pressed against the air like a living presence.
Shiga finally raised his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice carried the weight of ice and centuries.
"Because they are not merely people. They are experiments. The island's resonance flows in their blood, their bones, their very breath. To remove them prematurely would be to waste a century of cultivation."
He leaned back, eyes narrowing on the island displayed on the screen—lush forests, glowing rivers, villages unaware of their shackles.
"The examinations," he said softly, almost reverently, "will determine which of them are tools… and which are weapons."
Captain Sudo said nothing. But in the silence that followed, the ship seemed to thrum louder, as if the island itself had heard.