Her gaze fell to her left arm. Not the crude, mismatched prosthetic, but a new, flawless limb of flesh and bone. She raised it into the soft light from the capsule, turning it over, her scientist's mind struggling to accept the impossible evidence. The skin was smooth, unblemished. She flexed her fingers, a slow, deliberate motion. It felt perfect, as if the arm had never been lost, the connection between mind and muscle seamless and absolute. She was whole.

Her eyes caught on a polished metal panel embedded in the far wall, its surface a makeshift mirror. She took a hesitant step closer, her reflection slowly coming into focus. The gaunt, haunted woman from her memories was gone. The capsule had healed her and… optimized her. Her frame, once whip-thin from stress and malnutrition, now had a healthy, stronger form. The premature streaks of grey in her wild, dark hair had vanished, replaced by a deep, uniform black that shone with a healthy luster. The fine lines of worry and exhaustion etched around her eyes were gone. She leaned closer, her mouth opening slightly in disbelief. Even her teeth were whiter, straighter.

It was still her face, her eyes, her form, yet it was the face of a stranger. A version of herself she thought had been lost forever to time and trauma. She felt an alien strength in her own limbs, a profound sense of peace in a mind that had only known chaos. It was terrifying as it was perfect.

Her gaze drifted to the window, and her jaw dropped. She saw a lush, vibrant jungle, shrouded in a swirling mist, dotted with waterfalls that seemed to fall from the sky. Herds of impossible, colossal creatures drank from the shores of a pristine lagoon. For a terrifying moment, she thought she was in Hell Garden.

A soft, two-note chime echoed from the door. A knock.

Elara's head snapped away from the window. Her hand instinctively moved to cover her nakedness as her eyes darted around the small, concrete room, landing on a simple ledge near the door. A set of neatly folded, utilitarian clothes—simple grey pants and a t-shirt—rested there. She quickly dressed, the fabric feeling strange and foreign against her new, flawless skin.

"You can come in," she called out, her voice still raspy.

The door hissed open. Synth, in his "Ghost" persona, stepped inside.

"How do you feel?" he asked, his calm brown eyes meeting hers.

A slow, genuine smile spread across her face, an expression she hadn't truly felt in years. "Great," she breathed, the word a statement of pure, unadulterated wonder. "Better than I could have ever imagined."

Synth offered a single, slow nod. "I have prepared some food for you. Come with me."

He turned and stepped back into the hallway. Elara watched him go for a moment, then followed, her gaze sweeping her new surroundings. The corridor wasn't the cold, sterile metal of a military bunker. The floor was a polished, seamless tile that looked like white marble, and soft, indirect light emanated from unseen sources in the ceiling. "This doesn't look like a research outpost," she said, her voice regaining a fraction of its old, analytical edge. "It looks... like a house."

"It is," Synth replied, his calm brown eyes meeting hers. "It will be your home from now on." He handed her a datapad. An image bloomed on the screen, followed by a series of detailed schematics that made her scientific mind reel.

The structure was a breathtaking, multi-leveled marvel of clean, white metal and vast panes of reinforced synth-glass, built directly into the side of a volcanic cliff overlooking the turquoise lagoon.

Walkways connected different modules, some of which were partially submerged, their underwater windows looking out into the clear blue water. He swiped, showing her the interior. A central atrium with a soaring, automated hydroponic garden, lush with edible plants and strange, glowing flora from Hell Garden. A state-of-the-art laboratory that made her old setup look like a child's chemistry set, packed with every piece of equipment she could ever dream of: gene sequencers, chemical synthesizers, a quantum computer, all top-of-the-line. He swiped again. A utility wing housed its own water purification and heating systems. A drone bay where sleek, flying drones and multi-limbed, spider-like maintenance drones rested in charging cradles. A long-range communications array with massive antennas folded discreetly into the roof, powerful enough to pierce any corporate firewall. It was a fortress of scientific inquiry, a paradise of research.

He swiped one last time. The final schematic was a small, simple room lined with smooth, dark wood, with simple benches and a pile of heated volcanic rocks in the corner. "A sauna?" Elara blurted out, the word a ridiculous, alien concept in her world of desperate survival. The sheer, pointless luxury of it was more unbelievable than the advanced lab.

Ghost offered just a simple shrug.

Her paranoid nature, honed by years of corporate backstabbing and desperate flight, screamed at her. A home. A cure. Safety. No one gave gifts like this without asking for something in return.

She watched him go, a silent, intimidating figure. After a few steps, he paused and glanced back at her over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. The gesture was an invitation. An expectation. She understood. With a final, hesitant look at the datapad in her hand, she jogged to catch up, falling into step by his side. They walked down the long hallway and up a set of stairs into a room with a glass dome for a roof. Her gaze snapped to the woman standing on a mat in the center of the room, meditating.

The first thing Elara registered was her presence. A profound stillness that seemed to bend the very air around it. Then, the details resolved into the form of a woman meditating in the center of the room. Tall and statuesque, with a frame that was both lithe and powerful. She wore simple, green cargo pants and a blue t-shirt that did little to hide the sculpted muscle beneath. Her skin was pale and luminous, with a faint, almost imperceptible silver sheen, and her hair, a cascade of pure, shining silver, fell to her waist.

The woman's eyes flickered open. They were a startling shade of ice-blue—piercing, cold, and impossibly sharp. They did not simply look at Elara; they dissected her, measured her, as though cataloging every flaw and weakness. It was the gaze of a predator cloaked in beauty, and it made Elara's pulse stutter.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Artemis," Synth said, his tone calm but edged with something unreadable. He gestured toward Elara. "This is Dr. Vance."

Elara's shoulders tightened instinctively, her muscles coiling as though preparing to spring. Her brown eyes locked with Artemis's glacial stare, and for a heartbeat it felt less like an introduction and more like a challenge—an animal testing another at the edge of its territory.

Then Artemis moved. Each step struck the synth-wood floor with a deliberate, echoing weight, the sound reverberating like a drumbeat in Elara's chest. She could not stop herself from retreating, her body reacting before her mind could catch up.

The tall woman stopped just in front of her, close enough that Elara could feel the faint heat radiating off her presence, like a sun contained within human form. Slowly, Artemis extended her hand in a gesture that felt both courteous and commanding.

Elara hesitated, her own hand rising as though pulled against her will. Their palms met. Instantly, Artemis's grip closed like a vice, strong and unyielding. Elara winced at the pressure, her fingers trapped in the iron clasp, her breath caught between defiance and the urge to pull away. It was only a handshake, yet it felt like a test. A silent, brutal message. I am the apex here.

After a tense, silent moment that stretched into an eternity, Artemis released her. But Elara did not feel relief. A memory flashed, hot and sharp: the cold barrel of a gun against her own temple. She had fought, bled, and nearly died for her survival. She had clawed her way back from the brink of oblivion, had been remade, reborn. The months of terror coalesced into a single, sharp point of pure, volcanic rage. She was not a victim to be tested.

She yanked her hand back as if burned, her brown eyes flashing with a fire that had been banked by fear and exhaustion for too long. "What was that?" she snarled, her voice a low, dangerous thing. Her gaze shot from Artemis's impassive, beautiful face to Synth. "Who is she? And what, exactly, is my role in this gilded cage you've built?"

Synth let her anger hang in the air for a moment, a storm he seemed perfectly willing to weather. "I understand your anger," he said, his voice still unnervingly calm. "But there are things you need to know. Things that started with your brother, Andrew Vance." His hand rose, and a holographic image bloomed in the air between them. It was a man with thinning gray hair that was more salt than pepper, hunched over his datapad, his brow furrowed in a permanent frown of middle-management anxiety. Elara blinked rapidly. Ten years? Had it been that long since she'd seen Andrew?

"And what does this have to do with my brother?" she demanded, her tone dripping with a familial contempt. "He's just a boot-licking slave for Kaizen."

The hologram shifted, the image of the anxious, middle-aged man dissolving to reveal a young woman. Shoulder-length, jet-black hair, framed a slender neck and a sharp, determined jawline. Her eyes were like cold, brilliant sapphire glass.

Elara's breath caught in her throat. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Years melted away, but the face was unmistakable. How could she not recognize her niece? "Alyna…" she breathed. Her gaze snapped back to Synth, the worst-case scenarios, vivid and terrible, flashing before her eyes—Alyna, her brilliant, beautiful Alyna, her body and mind ravaged by the poison she herself had created. "What does Alyna have to do with this? With Nexus?"

"With Nexus, nothing," Synth said, and the relief that washed over Elara was so profound it almost buckled her knees. "But she is a friend of mine. What I said in that bunker—that I wanted to create a cure and release it to the public—was only half the truth. The other half is that I could not let someone Alyna cares for die."

Before he had set foot in the desert, he had checked what Andrew was doing after Ray had made sure Kaizen would breathe down his neck for a while. He was still under heavy supervision, but not dead. Synth had dug up more of Andrew's past and family, and then he stumbled over a piece of data. He had chosen to trust the woman before him not just for her scientific brilliance, but because she was someone Alyna had once loved. And because, unlike her brother, this woman had a spine of steel. She would rather die on her feet than live on her knees.

"And I plan to bring her here to see you," Synth stated.

Elara froze. The entire situation felt like a complex, cryptographic equation with too many impossible variables. How had Alyna, a girl she last heard was destined for a quiet life in Kaizen's cybersecurity division, befriended a being of such impossible power and resources? The paranoid scientist in her, the survivor, screamed that it was a lie, a crafted piece of psychological manipulation to win her compliance.

Her spiraling thoughts were cut off by Synth's calm, even voice.

"I know you have a lot of questions. But first, you need to eat."

The tension was a physical weight in the air, thick enough to suffocate. Synth led them down the long, marble-like hallway. They arrived at a glass-enclosed balcony that served as the kitchen and dining area. The view was breathtaking. Floor-to-ceiling synth-glass walls looked out over the misty, primordial landscape of the new Eden. Flocks of neon-colored birds soared through the sky, and far below, small creatures swam in the turquoise lagoon. A round, white table stood in the center, already laden with an assortment of food. The smell—of real, roasted meat, of fresh greens, of something warm and sweet—was so potent, so unfamiliar after months of nutrient paste, that it made Elara's mouth water and her stomach ache with a sharp, forgotten pang of hunger.

They sat, the silence between the three of them a character in its own right. Elara watched the other two. Synth and Artemis sat close, a comfortable, familiar proximity that spoke of a history she couldn't begin to guess at. Synth had taken off his bandana revealing his face. He looked handsome but nothing out of ordinary. Artemis approached the meal with the focus of a predator encountering new prey. Her fork moved with analytical precision, dissecting a piece of roasted fowl as if it were a lab specimen. Elara watched, puzzled by her strange, formal gestures. Artemis would occasionally glance at Synth and they looked like they were speaking without opening their mouths, a silent, data-rich exchange passing between them that Elara couldn't decipher. Noticing Artemis's hesitation with the main course, Synth simply slid a small bowl of vanilla ice cream in front of her. The effect was immediate. Her eyes lit up with a surprising, almost childlike delight, and she abandoned the fowl entirely, her spoon attacking the ice cream with an enthusiasm that was utterly at odds with her stillness.

Seeing Artemis's reaction, she took a bite of the ice cream. There was a bowl for each of them.

The paranoia that had been a suffocating weight in Elara's chest was momentarily pushed aside by a wave of pure, unadulterated sensation. If Nexus had a flavor, this was it. The cool, creamy vanilla was a symphony of complex notes—sweet, floral, with a rich, buttery warmth that seemed to bloom on her tongue. She wolfed down the spoonful, then another, the cold, sweet shock of it a jolt to her system.

Synth's voice, laced with a quiet, knowing amusement, snapped her back to reality. "Like it?" he asked. "It's incredible," she admitted, her guard momentarily down. "Good. The primary flavor compound is synthesized from castoreum." The word was unfamiliar... "What's castoreum?" she asked, her voice sharp with suspicion. "A glandular secretion," Synth explained, his tone perfectly clinical. "From the castor sacs of a beaver...

The spoon clattered from Elara's hand, hitting the white table with a sharp, metallic sound. Her face, which had been flushed with a newfound warmth, went pale. Artemis, however, merely raised a single, elegant eyebrow and slowly, deliberately, shoved another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, a flicker of dry amusement in her ice-blue eyes. She then turned her attention to a soft, gelatinous cube of brown pudding.

"What?!" Elara shrieked, her mind reeling with a sudden, visceral disgust that was somehow more violating than her earlier paranoia. "You motherfucker," she snarled, her voice a low, venomous hiss. "You fed me beaver-ass juice?!"

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.