Agent Ivan
Being the team analyst wasn't glamorous. My head lay on the desk, cheek pressed against cool metal as I listened to the amplified ticking of a device I'd smuggled in from the agency. It looked like a flashbang grenade—if a flashbang were designed by a mad fetishist. Fully metal, no safety pin, and the outer casing pulsated, twitching back and forth like a heartbeat gone wrong.
"Which pervert designed this?" I muttered.
Knock. Knock.
I jolted up, stuffed the artifact into my cabinet like I was hiding contraband, and called out, "Come in."
Agent Leon. Great.
He strolled into my cramped office—the intellectual swamp I called a workspace—wearing his trademark smirk. His left cheek curled just enough to make you question your career choices.
"Were you sleeping just now?" he teased, his tone practically dripping with amusement.
"Uhh, no?" I lied without trying. He collapsed onto the couch beside a leaning tower of unsorted papers.
"You should really clean up in here. It's starting to smell like sarcasm and regret."
I ignored him. Mockery was part of his ritual. Rival squads, rival egos. Technically, we didn't care about the Cold War between Slavoj and his boss—but Leon seemed to treat it like an Olympic sport.
Adjusting my round glasses, I finally asked, "Shouldn't you be on vacation? Mr. Kroos is out of the country."
"Who knows," he replied casually, crossing his legs like he owned the place. "Want to know where he went?"
"Not interested," I said flatly.
I returned to my paperwork. The awkwardness began to hum between us. For me, anyway—he just stared at me like a cat waiting for me to do something stupid.
Finally, I broke. "Why are you here, again?"
Leon blinked, suddenly remembering. "Oh! Right. Damn, I forgot." He sprang up like an overcharged battery and handed me a single sheet of crisp paper.
"Here, you smartass. It's a report."
The moment I touched it, I paused. The paper wasn't normal—high quality, expensive stock. Smooth edges. Government-issue, but very hush-hush.
"What's it about?" I asked slowly. "And why the hell did they print it on something this fancy?"
His smirk was gone.
"BRAIN," he said.
"Their history—and the evidence they tried to erase."
For a second, neither of us moved. The air shifted.
Leon, always the jester, looked like a completely different man.
He looked me dead in the eyes.
"Where are your team members?"
I gave a casual shrug, trying to deflect the pressure. "Do you particularly mean Klara?" I added a half-smile to ease the weight in the room.
It didn't land. He just glared. No humor. No forgiveness. Just the kind of stare that makes the air feel colder.
I sighed, giving in. "Fine. They went to TITAN V."
Not a word more from him. No snarky retort. No dramatic pause. He just turned on his heel and walked out the door like the floor was on fire behind him.
I sat there for a second, stunned. Normally, he'd stick around and poke a few more holes in my sanity. But this time... his face had changed. Something about his expression screamed that whatever was happening was way above my clearance.
I looked down, unlocked the cabinet.
The device was still running. Still twitching.
"Pervert," I muttered without thinking.
Markov
"Hey! Markov. Markov! Why are you ignoring me?"
The auto's synthetic voice buzzed through the static, its mechanical joints clinking lightly as it hovered beside me.
"You shouldn't just sleep at a time like this! Markov! Are you even listening?"
I wasn't. Not really.
Not to her, not to this dull reality, not even to the tremors echoing through the ship's hull.
I was deep inside my own mind, lost in the silent corridors of fragmented recollection — trying to reconstruct the void left by my memory reboot.
And then—
Something clicked. A sliver of recollection. Out of sequence. Wrong.
I rose suddenly from the mesh bed of wires and loose circuits, startling the auto. My breath caught, a rare human flaw.
"Anna," I said sharply. "I'm not doubting your skill. But when you transferred my memories into this current chip… did you encounter anything strange?"
The auto paused, mechanical fingers twitching, processing.
"…Now that you mention it…" she began slowly. "I wasn't able to restore 100% of your data. You're running at about 90% capacity."
My eyes widened.
"You what? Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" The volume in my voice cracked the static between us.
Anna stammered, flinching slightly — even in that cold metallic shell, her voice carried the awkwardness of youth.
"Relax, Markov. You're fine for the mission. I planned to patch the rest later. It would've taken time. I thought— I thought you'd rather be operational."
Touching my temple, I could feel the static again — a dull pressure behind my artificial thoughts, like a thousand puzzle pieces being jammed into place. Exhausted, I sank to the floor, metal to metal.
"Slavoj." I breathed. "He's tampered with it. I should've seen this coming…"
Anna took a step closer, her silhouette reflecting my expression back at me — black, unreadable eyes in a face too still.
"Markov... what memory was lost?"
I stared at my own reflection in her armor, and replied with ice:
"Enough to get us killed."
Then I turned fully to face her.
"Anna. You're on this ship, aren't you? Use the internal network. Hack into one of the teleportation pods. Leave immediately."
The auto hesitated. Her head lowered. It almost looked like she was frowning.
"What about you?"
"I'll find my way out." I stood again, eyes sharpened. "Someone has to stay. Someone has to change the plan."
"And the reserves?" she asked carefully. "Can't we just steal the Dark Matter stockpile? We could use it against BRAIN—"
"Inconvenient leverage," I cut her off. "Too unstable. Too obvious. We need something better. Something they won't see coming."
I stepped away, but stopped again — for her sake.
She was only sixteen.
"I'll come up with something. I always do. Just... stay ready. I'll update you through the chip."
There was a pause. Then the auto raised its hand, a small wave.
"Okay, Markov. See you later."
I didn't turn back again, but my words floated over my shoulder like smoke.
"Stay tuned."
As I sprinted through the narrow corridor — walls of pure metal vibrating with every step — my own footsteps echoed like gunshots in a tomb. The past, uninvited, surged through my mind.
I had never been raised properly. Discipline was foreign. Love, even more so.
And yet, it was this war — this endless, burning war — that shaped me into what I am now. A weapon. A ghost. A purpose forged in ruin.
There is no room for regret.
Only a cold map in my mind, a thousand paths branching in every direction. All of them converging toward one truth — the future. My future. The one I must build.
No time for regrets…
And then I saw it.
The hallway bathed in red — not by light, but by blood.
My bloodbath.
The massacre I had caused.
I didn't stop. I couldn't. I leapt over the broken bodies like they were obstacles, not remnants of souls. They meant nothing now. They were the cost. And I had already paid it.
Not out of focus.
Not out of cruelty.
But out of necessity.
I whispered to myself, breath shallow, boots slapping wet against the crimson floor:
"Even more must die."
Even millions more.
If that's what it takes to shape this world into what it should have been from the start.
"A perfect world," I said under my breath, the words lost in the trail of corpses behind me.