"Harlan chuckles to himself and shakes his head, as though enjoying a joke only he has heard. 'Now I guess it's only fair to warn you,' he says. 'This is not going to go the way you want it to." ― C. Matthew Smith (Twentymile)

* * * *

The room was dark, save for the dim blue glow of a monitor and the faint, pulsing green light from a palm-sized device humming on the desk beside it. The hum was rhythmic and deliberate—more than machinery, it was a heartbeat of paranoia, a sentient warning to those who dared dig too deep.

Elijah Rosales sat hunched over the desk in his small dormitory room within the ESA agent dormitory wing. It was quieter here than in the main ESA headquarters—quieter, but not safer.

Not anymore.

His fingers moved with methodical precision over the keyboard, eyes narrowed, his irises glinting with reflected screen-light, pupils slitted like a cat's as he scrolled through a list of heavily encrypted folders, all named in some variation of one word.

Nona.

A nervous tick had developed—every few minutes, he'd pause, his ears straining for footsteps in the corridor, his eyes flickering to the door like a hawk scanning for a predator. His right hand never strayed far from the sleek matte-black handgun lying on the desk beside the monitor. Every distant creak or shuffle beyond his walls tightened the grip on his nerves.

The hallway was quiet. Nothing but silence and his own breathing.

Elijah turned back to the screen. The humming device, acquired years ago through black market connections he barely trusted, flickered a light signal—indicating an ongoing masking operation. It was doing its job, making sure no one was tracking what he was doing.

Or who.

He hovered the cursor over the top folder, the label stark and unsettling in its simplicity.

PROJECT NONA.

"Project Nona…" Elijah murmured to himself, his voice low and wary. "Why do I get a bad feeling about this…?"

The file names were clinical, almost sterile. A string of numbers, followed by brief titles like Phase 3B – Viability Test Subjects or Nona Protocol: Stage Delta. Nothing concrete. Not yet. Just fragments. Ghosts.

Then, three long knocks echoed on the door. Followed by two short.

Elijah was on his feet in a second. The chair scraped backwards silently, his hand already flicking the safety off his handgun. A smooth and practised motion. Every muscle in his body tensed as he crept to the door, pressing his body against the cool metal and peeking through the viewing slit.

Relief flooded through him like a sudden exhale.

"Louis," Elijah said as he opened the door a crack, keeping the gun behind his back.

Louis Krusen stood casually in the hallway, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, dark brown eyes scanning the corridor. His headphones, slung lazily around his neck, glinted beneath the hood of his grey jacket.

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"What's with all the secrecy?" Louis asked, stepping inside.

Neither ESA agent, however, spoke the reasons out loud, knowing that in this time of turmoil, it is needed, considering the chaos that Eldario is in. And with the influence and power that the hunters have, even the ESA are dragged into the madness.

Not that ALL the ESA are against it, however. There were more than a few of them that were caught up in the frenzied madness of 'all Gifted are the enemy', and it's showing a side of ESA agents that none of them liked.

Elijah closed the door behind them, double-locking it and twisting the blinds shut before holstering his gun.

"We talk here," Elijah said simply. "I need your help with something."

Louis whistled under his breath. "You Alpha guys really know how to set the mood. First Jonan, then Lucas, now you. I'm half expecting Allen or even Taylor to approach me next. What is it this time—unauthorised ops, illegal surveillance, or hidden enemy agents in our ranks?"

Elijah didn't smile. His face was pale under the glow of the screen. "None of those. Worse."

Louis arched a brow, stepping closer to the desk and instantly spotting the humming encryption blocker. His eyes widened slightly. "Okay, this just got interesting. That's Abyss-grade tech. Where the hell did you get it?"

"Years ago. Taylor and I prepared in case we ever had to investigate from the inside."

Louis gave a slow nod. "So this is why you joined the ESA?"

"Part of it."

Louis's tone shifted, more serious now. "What do you need?"

"I need your help cracking this." Elijah gestured to the computer. "It's buried. Layers deep. Not on any surface networks. I had to go through backup data loops, half-forgotten caches, and manual redirections through discarded servers. Someone buried this on purpose."

Louis leaned over the desk, scanning the folder names. His expression turned grim. "I don't even want to know how the hell you got those," he muttered. "Is this a sanctioned mission or unsanctioned?"

Elijah gave him a look.

Louis rolled his eyes. "Right. Dumb question. You know, if anyone else had asked, I'd be running out the door. But fine. I'm game. It's been a while since I got to test my skills on something this juicy."

Elijah snorted faintly. "Best hacker in Eldario, bored? What a tragedy."

Louis waved a hand dismissively. "Not best hacker anymore, Elijah. I lost that title when Aegis's tech guy started ghosting our entire systems. Whoever they are… Genius. Like, scary genius. I'd love to meet them one day."

He cracked his knuckles and got to work. His fingers danced over the keys, a blur of movement. Windows opened and closed rapidly, bypass scripts executed in rapid succession.

Elijah watched in muted awe. "You're gonna melt my keyboard."

"You'll thank me later. Hmm… Backdoor ports here, weak firewalls there. Whoever encrypted this? They missed a few cracks in the foundation. And… Done."

Elijah blinked. "Already?"

Louis grinned. "Was almost disappointingly easy. A few fragmented traps, but nothing solid. Some amateur-level misdirection, though a few layers were straight up government-grade. Makes me wonder…"

As he clicked into the first folder, several windows sprang open. Walls of text. Numbers. Scans. Photographs. Medical reports. Names—some redacted, some completely wiped. Every line sent a chill down Elijah's spine.

Most of it was dated. Older than most living agents.

"…This stuff is from over a decade ago," Elijah murmured.

Louis's eyes narrowed. "And yet, it's buried deeper than the director's encrypted logs."

A quarter of the files were completely scrubbed, nothing but white screens with error messages or [REDACTED] sprawled across them in bold letters. Others had fragments of data, as if only pieces of a larger puzzle remained.

"That means someone has gone to great lengths to scrub this information," Louis said grimly. "The ESA never deletes anything. If it's not in the archives, it's in the mainframe or stored physically. If this has been wiped from all fronts, it means someone either didn't want it found, or they were scared of it being found."

Then they saw it.

PROJECT NONA – Primary Archive.

Inside it was a list of subfolders. Each one had a chilling title: Nonary Game Protocol, Test Subject Viability, Cognitive Stress Trials, Asset Conversion, Suppression Metrics, and most hauntingly—Control Mechanisms: Gifted Specimens.

"Project Nona," Louis read aloud. "Nonary Game… What is this?"

"I've heard whispers. Long ago. Back when Taylor and I were kids," Elijah said slowly. "Some kind of government-run project. Supposedly shut down before the anti-experimentation bill passed in Parliament. Before human experimentation on Gifted was officially outlawed."

"You mean Gifted were the subjects."

"Yeah."

Louis stared at the screen. His fingers hovered above the mouse but didn't move. "…What's going on?" he whispered.

Neither of them answered. The room was too quiet. The monitor glowed like a beacon of buried sins, illuminating the worst fears neither of them had ever voiced.

Outside the dormitory window, the world of Eldario stirred. A world unraveling thread by thread. Hate crimes were spiking. Gifted were hunted. Those who spoke up were dragged into the streets and shamed, or worse, silenced.

Even within the ESA, sides were being drawn. Friendships strained. Loyalties tested. The line between law and brutality blurred until the blood became indistinguishable from justice.

The hunters were no longer acting in the shadows. Under Albert Nicolosi, they walked openly, their cruelty sanctified, their depravity institutionalised. They called the Gifted "aberrations", "anomalies", and even "flawed mutations."

Not even human. Not worth rights. Not worth mercy.

And now, here in this forgotten corner of the ESA's digital vault, lay the roots of it all.

Project Nona.

And the truth was still hidden.

Elijah leaned back, exhaling slowly. "Whatever this is, it didn't end. Someone made sure we'd never know the full truth."

Louis glanced at him, the unspoken question hanging between them.

What now?

But Elijah couldn't answer. Not yet.

Not until they knew what Project Nona truly was.

And why, after all these years, someone still wanted it buried.

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