Thompson’s composure cracks, his pale face flushing before he regains control.
“Everything we do creates ripple effects in the timeline. So far, the futures we’ve documented show accelerated climate destruction and a viral pandemic that eliminates over sixty percent of the global population. Complete economic collapse follows, governments fall like dominoes, and the United States as we know it fractures into something called Sunderlands, a feudal nightmare where powerful families rule over districts like medieval lords. People with supernatural abilities are hunted, captured, and trafficked like living weapons. They call them Avids.”
That brings back the visceral memory of that world’s suffering.
“Avids,” one board member repeats, mystified.
“Yes, Avids. Our analysis suggests they’re a derivativemutation from this very project, though we haven’t isolated the exact catalyst yet. Viridian completed her longest simulation to date, eleven consecutive hours. That may not sound extensive, but our temporal calculations indicate each hour represents approximately one year of her life in the future. That’s eleven years of lived experience compressed into a single session.”
The board members lean forward, their whispered excitement filling the sterile air. The casual way they discuss my torment—like I’m not sitting right here, like I’m another piece of lab equipment—makes my skin crawl.
“Now we obviously don’t have eleven hours right now to review the complete simulation, but I’ve compiled key highlights to demonstrate the exact catastrophic future we’re working to prevent. This last sim started almost a hundred years from now.”
The massive screen flickers to life, and my blood turns to ice as very real memories—not simulations, not dreams, but lived experiences—flood the room in high definition. I see Aurora’s laugh, bright and genuine as she tends to my garden in the Depths. Cade’s protective stance as he shields her from danger. The warmth in Malachi’s eyes when he looks at me.
My grip on my knees becomes painful as I fight to remain motionless while these monsters dissect the most precious moments of my life. Every scene they’re watching, every person they’re analyzing—it was real. It was my reality for those eleven hours, compressed into a nightmare that felt like years.
They’re witnessing an hour of carefully edited footage from a life I actually lived, a life set nearly a century in the future that they’re determined to erase from existence. Every friend I made, every love I felt, every sacrifice that gave my existence meaning—all of it labeled as an “undesirable outcome” to be prevented.
When Thompson finally sits down, Dr.Harrison turns to me with that practiced, paternal smile that makes my stomach turn.
“Katja, I would appreciate it if you could address the board about your experience. Share your perspective on the project and the remarkable work we’re doing to secure a better future for all of humanity.”
It’s a gentle suggestion that’s really a command. He wants me to play the grateful test subject, to validate their noble mission in front of these investors.
I nod slowly and rise from my chair, feeling every pair of eyes in the room lock onto me like targeting systems. Under the table, Mischka’s warmth against my leg reminds me what I’m fighting for.
Time to show them exactly what their perfect weapon can really do.
I was willing to play along, willing to endure endless cycles of psychological torture masquerading as research until we found a future worth preserving, until we found a future worth fighting for. I didn’t realize until this moment they wouldn’t be one and the same.
They haven’t finished analyzing all the data yet, but that life is still seared into my consciousness like fresh burns. Every detail, every face, every moment of love and loss plays on repeat in my mind. Unity Lab isn’t simply connected to Unity Broadcast in the future. It is Unity Broadcast, the propaganda machine the Volkovs will use to control the fractured remains of civilization.
This pandemic that will slaughter sixty percent of Earth’s population is their creation, engineered in the sterile laboratories beneath my feet. The virus is their opening move in a game of global chess, designed to create the chaos they need to seize control.
And the vaccine they’ll develop in the future, the supposedcure they’ll market as humanity’s salvation? That’s how Avids are really born. They splice my genetic code into their antidote, and it backfires in the worse way possible—creating a race of supernatural beings who become living commodities in their twisted marketplace.
The cruel irony burns like acid in my veins. They’re not trying to prevent the future I showed them, they’re engineering it, step by calculated step. Every simulation they’ve extracted from my mind, every vision they’ve stolen and dissected, it’s all been research for their master plan.
It spirals into total devastation when Marco and Viktor Volkov come of age and complete their ascension to power, using the destruction they created to justify their authoritarian regime. They’ll run experiments that make this lab look like child’s play, developing bioweapons that can control supernatural armies while systematically exterminating anyone who threatens their new world order.
But I know what has to be done now. The future I’m truly fighting for isn’t the sanitized utopia these monsters envision. It’s the one where I’m united with him. With my person, the love of my life, Malachi. I will become the demon so he can be the savior.
This lab, every machine, every file, every trace of their research needs to be obliterated so completely that the pandemic never happens. So the vaccine is never created. So Avids never come to exist. So Sunderlands remains nothing more than a nightmare that never takes root in reality.
I know exactly which political pieces need to fall, which leaders need to rise, which power structures need to crumble for the world to heal instead of hemorrhaging into the dystopian wasteland I’ve lived through.
All of this has to start now. Today. In this sterile conferenceroom with these arrogant men who think they’ve created the perfect test subject.
“Complacency is a poison, seeping slow until it kills you. And I fear everyone in this room has already let it seep too deep.
“You call yourselves men of science, pioneers, visionaries. But all I see are cowards in white coats. You forgot what you turned me into.
“You hide behind your data, your charts, your endless meetings, convincing yourselves that this is progress. But it isn’t progress.
“You let yourselves believe that if you look away long enough, if you avert your eyes, you aren’t guilty. That complacency absolves you. But it doesn’t. It damns you.”
Dr. Harrison gets to his feet, moving toward me, his smile strained as his eyes flick nervously from me to the board members. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly, “she’s often tired and irrational after going through a simulation. That one was clearly draining for her?—”
