[Location: Outpost Omega - Main Hall]
The facility was vast. It looked less like a military base and more like a cathedral of mad science. Rows upon rows of massive glass cryo-pods lined the walls, most of them shattered or drained.
"What is this place?" Rook whispered, his voice echoing in the cavernous room.
"A laboratory," Vesper said, shining her light on a dusty central terminal. She wiped the grime off the screen. "Look at these physical file labels. 'Project Genesis.' 'Project Chimera.' 'Project... Zero'."
She froze.
"Zero?" I asked, walking over.
"It says... 'Subject Zero: Temporal Displacement Prototype.'" Vesper looked up at me. Her eyes were wide, horrified behind her glasses. "Caelum. That's your callsign."
I stared at the label. The date stamped on the folder was 20 years ago.
"I'm twenty-one," I said quietly, a cold knot forming in my stomach. "That's impossible."
"Unless you weren't born," Silas said from the shadows across the room. She was standing in front of a large, unbroken tank filled with murky green fluid. "Unless you were manufactured."
I walked over to her. Inside the tank was a skeletal frame. A metal arm—identical to my Ouroboros down to the last piston—was floating in the muck, attached to a half-formed synthetic torso.
"This isn't scavenged enemy tech," I realized, touching my own mechanical shoulder. "This is... Federation technology. They built it."
"They built you," Silas corrected softly. She aimed her flashlight down a long row of tanks.
Inside each one was a failed experiment. Twisted bodies. Metal fused with flesh in grotesque ways. Hundreds of discarded, broken versions of me.
And in the very last tank...
Lyra walked up to it, trembling. Inside floated a girl with long silver hair. She was perfect, whole, and sleeping peacefully. But when Lyra wiped the condensation from the glass, she let out a choked sob.
The girl in the tank had no face. Just a smooth, blank slate of flesh where her features should have been.
"That's not me," Lyra whispered, stepping back into my arms. "It's just a spare part."