Ace met Kyo’s eyes. “And what is happening in the outside world that makes you think you need answers?”

  Kyo’s posture shifted casually, slipping into something hard and unyielding. “We were lied to,” he said and Ace frowned.

  “We were told the world wouldn’t be habitable for seven hundred years,” Kyo continued. “So tell me why I saw people walking around out there. Breathing clean air. Living while they dragged my brother’s soulless body away.”

  The cave felt smaller.

  “They said it was a shame,” Kyo went on, voice steady. “Said they needed more workers. They mentioned Dante how he warned them some people would come out like this.”

  Ace barked a sharp laugh. “That’s bullshit.”

  Baxter didn’t laugh. He didn’t speak at all.

  “The human population was lied to,” Kyo said. “The world is habitable. Not perfect but livable. Cities. Land. Air. Recovery didn’t take seven hundred years.”

  Ace took a step forward. “You expect me to believe-”

  “I saw it,” Kyo said with a calm certainty.

  “I watched my brother’s pod open,” he continued. “Cryostasis disengaged automatically to save computer memory. I watched Dante’s men drag Thane out like cargo.”

  Ace’s jaw clenched. “No.”

  Silence pulsed loudly in the cave.

  Baxter stared at the cave wall, unmoving. “…That’s not possible,” he murmured. “The science alone.”

  “Then why do you think the lead science engineer was killed?” Kyo cut in. “Why is his only daughter marked red and thrown into this hellscape? To silence them.”

  Ace shook his head violently. “No. You don’t hide something like that. Someone would’ve talked.”

  “They did,” Kyo replied. “They vanished. Every one of Ren’s closest colleagues disappeared before Eden launched.”

  Ace’s breathing sharpened. His hand curled, head shaking in disbelief.

  “You’re saying Dante-” He scoffed, but it rang hollow. “I was in the special forces. I would’ve known.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who were you on the outside to have all this?”

  Kyo carefully shifted Miles, easing him onto the stone beside him.

  “I was an intern,” he said. “Working directly under Ren. He was my mentor. My boss. The closest thing I had to someone who cared about me after my mother died.”

  His voice didn’t waver.

  “He wiped my file. Told me to run. Said he’d found something corrupt and needed to expose it.”

  Kyo swallowed.

  “I never heard from him again. Not after that.”

  A beat.

  “And then my family ‘volunteered’ for the first Eden wave. I thought that was the work of Ren, but while we were being put in the Cryostatis pods. One of the scientists I knew told me he was found dead in his office.”

  His gaze flicked briefly to Broderick.

  “And now,” he said quietly, “I’ve met his daughter and his project. Now here we are.”

  Kyo lifted his head.

  “Dante isn’t saving humanity,” he said. “He’s enslaving it.”

  Ace stepped closer, anger bleeding into his voice.

  “You’re talking about treason. You’re talking about tearing the world apart with rumors.”

  “I’m talking about what I saw,” Kyo snapped “With my own eyes.”

  The edge in Ace’s voice turned sharp. Dangerous. “And you expect me to just accept that?” he demanded. “On your word?”

  His bloodlust flared controlled, but unmistakable. Ava stirred.

  Her eyes snapped open, instantly alert, fingers tightening in Kyo’s cloak. “…What’s wrong?” she asked hoarsely.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Kyo fell silent. Ace realized too late he’d woken her.

  Baxter finally moved, dragging a hand down his face.

  “…If that’s true,” he said slowly, “then we have to help him. There are too many innocent people trapped in here.”

  Ava looked between them, reading the tension, the fury, the shock.

  Ace stared at Kyo like he wanted to shake him. Or hit him. Or demand proof that couldn’t exist.

  “No,” Ace said quietly but no less fiercely. “I don’t believe that. I can’t.”

  Baxter didn’t answer.

  He just sat there, hammer forgotten, staring into nothing.

  And in the dim light of the cave one thing became terrifyingly clear: Kyo hadn’t just shared a secret. He’d dropped a truth that could get them all killed.

  Ace turned away before anyone could say another word.

  He paced the length of the cave, boots scraping stone, hands flexing like he wanted to grab onto something solid and couldn’t find it.

  “I’ve spent my whole life following orders,” he said finally. “Chain of command. Verified intel. Proof before action.”

  He stopped near the cave mouth. “If what you’re saying is true,” he went on, voice tight, “then everything I stood for everything I was trained to protect was a lie.”

  No one interrupted him.

  “That means the people I trusted,” Ace continued, “weren’t incompetent.”

  He turned back slowly.

  “They were complicit.”

  The word tasted like poison.

  Baxter shifted, careful. “Ace.”

  “No,” Ace snapped. Then he forced himself to breathe. “No. I need to think.”

  His gaze locked onto Kyo again.

  “You’re asking me to betray the only structure that ever made sense,” he said. “To throw in with a story that gets people executed.”

  “I’m not asking you to believe me,” Kyo replied quietly.

  Ace scoffed. “That’s funny, because that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

  Kyo shook his head once. “I’m asking you to look.”

  That got Ace’s attention.

  Kyo reached into his pack moving carefully, like someone who knew how jumpy soldiers could be.

  He pulled out a small, cracked data shard. “This wasn’t meant to come with us,” Kyo said. “It wasn’t meant to survive the transfer at all.”

  Baxter leaned forward slightly. “What is it?”

  “A fragment,” Kyo replied. “Leftover diagnostic data from the cryo interface. Broderick helped me stabilize it.”

  Broderick’s optics brightened faintly.

  “Data corruption: severe. Integrity: partial. Authenticity: verified.”

  Ace’s jaw tightened. “Show me.”

  Kyo hesitated then activated the shard. A screen popped up out of nowhere in front of them as the shard glimmered, For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then a video, only ten seconds, but it's something.

  No sound at first. Just motion.

  A sterile white room snapped into focus. Fluorescent lights. Stainless steel. Clean enough to smell the antiseptic through the screen.

  A cryostasis pod lay open.

  Inside it was Thane, his body was limp. Skin pale and his chest did not rise. His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, empty.

  Not sleeping. Not frozen. Dead.

  Two people in white lab coats stepped into frame. Their movements were casual. Efficient. One grabbed Thane under the arms. The other one grabbed his feet

  They dragged him out.

  His head lolled.

  In the background, through a wide observation window, people walked by.

  Not in sealed suits. Normal clothes. Boots. A jacket slung over one shoulder. Outside the glass, the world was alive.

  Then the audio kicked in, distorted and crackling but clear enough and someone laughed at something off-screen as sunlight poured through a window.

  “Shame, really. Dante said some would come out this way.”

  The voice sounded bored. Unbothered, like this was just another day.

  Another voice responded, closer this time.

  “Yeah. Mark it down as non-viable. We still need more workers damnit.. He wont be happy about another dead one”

  The video cut. No warning, just black.

  The shard powered down with a soft click.

  No one moved. Ace’s face had gone white.

  Baxter stared at the spot where the image had been, his mouth slightly open, like his mind had not caught up with what his eyes had seen.

  Ava turned away, visibly uncomfortable.

  Kyo still had not looked up.

  “That’s all I have,” he said quietly. “Just those ten seconds.”

  He finally met Ace’s eyes.

  “But it was enough.” Silence stretched.

  Then Ace laughed. It was sharp. Wrong. Too loud for the space they were in.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head as he finally looked away from the dead screen. “No. That’s not enough. That’s nothing.”

  Kyo stiffened.

  Ace turned on him, eyes blazing. “You really think ten seconds proves anything? You think you cracked the truth because you found a creepy clip and hit play?”

  His voice rose with every word.

  “You’re a kid,” Ace snapped. “A dumb kid with a shard and too much imagination. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Kyo flinched like he had been struck.

  “That was Thane,” he said quietly. “My brother. Being dragged out like he was nothing. Miles’ dad.”

  Ace took a step closer, fists clenched. “You saw what someone wanted you to see. That’s how this place works. Make-believe.” His hand lashed out toward Broderick. “You think a flying metal serpent exists in the real world? No. But he’s here because we’re stuck in a game.”

  His breath came fast now. Desperate.

  “This isn’t real,” Ace said, voice cracking. “None of it is. It can’t be.”