The data drive sat in Kai's palm like a buried secret.
He had found it in the back of his family's electronics shop, hidden behind a false panel in his father's workbench. The drive was old—older than anything else in the shop. Its casing was scratched, the edges worn smooth by years of handling. Someone had held this drive many times.
Someone had wanted it hidden.
"Analysis complete," Red said. "The drive contains encrypted data. Encryption level: Military-grade. Origin: Shinra Electronics Research Division."
Kai's thumb traced the letters etched into the metal: SHINRA PROJECT — CLASSIFIED — DO NOT OPEN.
His father's work. His family's secret.
"Can you decrypt it?"
"GROX was designed for temporal navigation, not decryption. However, the encryption protocols are outdated by 247 years. I estimate a 73% chance of successful decryption within..."
A pause.
"Forty-seven seconds."
Kai waited.
The drive glowed faintly in his hand. Data scrolled across his vision—streams of code, fragmented files, corrupted logs. Red worked fast, sorting, decoding, assembling.
Then—
"Decryption complete."
A holographic interface bloomed before him. Files. Dozens of them. Experiment logs. Research notes. Video recordings. And at the center, a single folder labeled:
SUBJECT FILES — CLASSIFIED
Kai's throat tightened.
"Open it."
The folder expanded. Ten subfolders. Each labeled with a number.
SUBJECT 01
SUBJECT 02
SUBJECT 03
SUBJECT 04
SUBJECT 05
SUBJECT 06
SUBJECT 07
SUBJECT 08
SUBJECT 09
SUBJECT 10
Kai stared at the list. The subjects who came before him. The ones who failed.
"Subject 03: FAILED," he read aloud. "Subject 04: LOST. Subject 07: CORRUPTED. Subject 08: BROKEN. Subject 09: GONE. Subject 10: ESCAPED."
He looked at the empty folders—01, 02, 05, 06. No status. No notes. Nothing.
"What about the others? Subjects 01, 02, 05, 06?"
"Files corrupted," Red said. "Intentionally. Someone erased them."
Kai's jaw tightened. Someone wanted those subjects forgotten.
He opened Subject 03's file.
The first thing he saw was a face.
A woman. Late twenties. Dark hair, sharp eyes, a faint smile that didn't reach her gaze. She looked like someone who had seen too much and trusted too little.
Name: Maya Chen
Subject: 03
Status: DECEASED — Neural collapse during transition
Final Log: "Tell my mother I'm sorry. Tell her I was trying to fix things. Tell her..."
The recording cut off.
Kai sat in the silence of the ruined shop, the holographic image of Maya's face frozen before him. She had been someone. Someone with a mother. Someone who had tried to fix things.
Someone who had died trying.
"Subject 03 was the first to undergo full neural bonding," Red read from the file. "The procedure failed. Her mind fractured during transition. She was found in the chamber three days later. No vital signs. No neural activity. But..."
"But what?"
"Her essence remained. The scientists called it a 'residual imprint.' A ghost in the system. They tried to extract it. They failed."
Kai thought of Mira. Subject 09. GONE. But still here. A fragment. A ghost.
"They're all still here," he said quietly. "All of them. The fragments. The essences. They never left."
"It appears so. The experiment did not merely send them forward in time. It scattered them. Their bodies arrived. Their minds... fractured. What remained became something else."
"Something hungry," Blue added softly.
Kai closed Subject 03's file. Opened Subject 04.
A man. Young. Early twenties. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a face that looked like it had laughed easily once. Now it was hollow.
Name: Jax Meridian
Subject: 04
Status: LOST — Disappeared during field test
Final Log: "It's not safe here. Something is watching. Something old. Something that was here before us. I'm going to find it. I'm going to—"
The recording dissolved into static.
"Subject 04 vanished during a reconnaissance mission," Red said. "His tracking signal was lost approximately three kilometers from the laboratory. No body was ever recovered. No fragments. No essence. Just..."
"Just nothing," Kai finished.
"Yes."
Kai moved to Subject 07.
The face was distorted. The file image was corrupted, the features blurred, fragmented. Like someone had tried to erase it and failed.
Name: [CORRUPTED]
Subject: 07
Status: CORRUPTED — Neural merge incomplete
Final Log: "I can still hear them. The voices. The others. They're not gone. They're not dead. They're just... waiting. They want to come back. They want to use me. I won't let them. I won't—"
Silence.
Kai closed the file. His hands were cold.
"Subject 07's neural patterns became unstable after prolonged exposure to the fragments," Red said. "She attempted to resist. For 347 days, she held them back. Then..."
"She broke," Kai whispered.
"Yes."
He opened Subject 08.
A boy. Fifteen. Maybe sixteen. His face was young, too young, with wide eyes and a nervous smile.
Name: Dagan Kessler
Subject: 08
Status: BROKEN — Cognitive collapse
Final Log: "They're not fragments. They're not ghosts. They're something else. Something that was here before us. Something that will be here after us. I saw it. In the Bleed. I saw..."
The recording ended.
"Subject 08 was the first to enter the Bleed Zone," Red said. "He was inside for six minutes. When he returned, he was... different. He could see things. Know things. But it cost him."
"What did he see?"
"The file does not say. But his final log suggests he found something. Something that changed him."
Kai opened Subject 09.
Mira's face appeared. He had seen her in the cavern, her skin cracked with light, her eyes ancient and young at the same time. But this recording was before. Before the experiment. Before the fracture.
She was laughing. Bright. Alive.
Name: Mira Voss
Subject: 09
Status: GONE — Essence fragmented, physical form dissolved
Final Log: "I'm not afraid. I know what's coming. I've seen it. In my dreams. In the dark. There's something beautiful waiting for us. Something terrible. Something we were always meant to find. Tell Subject 11—"
The recording cut off.
Kai sat frozen.
"She knew about me," he whispered. "Before I was even sent. She knew."
"The fragments have access to data beyond normal perception," Red said. "Time. Space. Possibility. Subject 09 may have seen what was coming."
"Or what was always meant to come," Blue added.
Kai stared at Subject 10's folder. The last one. The one who escaped.
He opened it.
The file was almost empty. One image. One log. One word.
The image was a chamber. Glass broken from within. Liquid drained. Empty.
The log was a single line:
"I'm sorry. I couldn't stay. I couldn't watch the rest of you die. I'm going to find help. I'm going to find something that can stop this. Wait for me. Please. Wait."
The final word was scratched into the file's metadata, repeated over and over, like a scream that wouldn't end:
WAITING
WAITING
WAITING
WAITING
Kai closed the file.
"Subject 10 escaped the laboratory approximately six months before your awakening," Red said. "No further data is available. Her current status is unknown."
"Still waiting," Kai said quietly. "She's still out there. Waiting."
"Perhaps."
Kai sat in the ruins of his family's shop, the weight of nine failures pressing down on him. Maya. Jax. The unnamed Subject 07. Dagan. Mira. And the others—the ones whose files were erased, whose names were forgotten.
They had all been people. People with families. People with hopes. People who had tried to do something and failed.
And now their fragments haunted the ruins, waiting, hungering, hoping for something Kai couldn't name.
"What was the experiment?" he asked. "What were they trying to do?"
"The files are incomplete," Red said. "But the core objective is clear: temporal transmission. Sending human consciousness forward through time. What they were searching for..."
A pause.
"The files do not say. But your father's research notes suggest he believed something was waiting in the future. Something that needed to be found. Something that needed to be stopped."
Kai looked at the drive in his hand. His father's drive. His father's secret.
"He sent me here," Kai said. "He sent me to find it."
"It appears so."
Kai stood. His legs were steady. His hands were steady.
"Then I'll find it. Whatever it is. Whatever it costs."
He pocketed the drive and walked out of the shop. The goblins were waiting for him in the street—Tik at the front, the others scattered behind. They had been watching. Waiting. Protecting.
"The Neuro-Sync Network," Red said. "You have one bonded subordinate. Eleven potential. Your Cognitive Load is at 5/100. Your Will Resonance is at 10% capacity. You are far from ready for what is coming."
Kai looked at the goblins. At Tik, whose eyes were brighter now, whose mind was linked to his own.
"Then we grow," he said. "One Sync at a time. One step at a time."
He looked toward the horizon. Toward the Bleed. Toward whatever was waiting.
"Subject 01. Subject 02. Subject 05. Subject 06," he said. "Their files were erased. Someone didn't want me to know what happened to them."
"Yes."
"Then I'll find out myself. When I'm ready. When I'm strong enough."
He turned back to the city. To the ruins. To the home he was rebuilding.
"One step at a time," he repeated.
Tik chirped in agreement.
Kai smiled. It was small. But it was real.
"Let's start with today."