“Millie Anderson? Welcome to the team. Harold has told me a lot about you.”

  Doctor Antoine Venn was a man who looked to be nearing his seventies, but Evantra knew that he was well over a hundred years old. One of the original researchers of Project Darwin, which started her crazy journey.

  Antoine Venn wore a brown trench coat and a flannel shirt tucked into some old, black faded jeans. He looked less like some conniving corpo, and more like a kindly grandfather. A pair of circular glasses were perched on a prominent nose, and he smiled down at her.

  Evantra’s breath caught as she met his eyes. She was met with—

  Eyes like her own.

  Two kindly eyes filled with what looked like white mist swirling in their depths stared back at her, from behind the man’s glasses.

  Antoine Venn was Wraithmarked.

  It was a fact she had known about from the briefing itself, but seeing it in person was something else. He was the first person she had met who was like her. Someone who had borne witness to the birth of a wraith.

  Someone who knew grief.

  “Tea? Please, sit. Sit. I read your profile. An orphan from a religious family? A rarity these days.”

  “It would be improper, sir,” Evantra intoned, hands behind her back and shoulders pulled backwards, her eyes fixed to a point in the rear wall of the researcher’s office.

  “Nonsense! Please, I insist. I love to get to know my team. It is one of the small pleasures I enjoy these days, apart from the work, of course,” the man laughed.

  Evantra took a seat, accepting the man’s tea. She watched as he poured himself a cup, taking a sip with a sigh of contentment.

  It was only after the man drank that Evantra followed.

  “Excellent, excellent. A great eye for detail. It’s good to be critical of your own bosses, after all, your loyalty is to Demeteria. Now tell me, do you have any questions for me?”

  What was Project Darwin?

  Who was Alfiera, and what were you doing to her in that lab?

  Why did the magical girls and guardians disappear?

  Can we return their powers?

  “No questions, sir.”

  The man smiled warmly, the edges of his eyes crinkling into crows feet. He stroked his brown beard, which contained streaks of white as he laughed.

  “You remind me so much of my granddaughter! So diligent and serious. But I’m sure that’s exactly why you’ve risen as far as you have. This world is cruel to those with too much compassion,” the man said with a hint of regret, before trailing off.

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, we’ve been attempting to terraform Mars and have made some huge strides in doing so. Our goal is to eventually grow a second garden for mankind, to bring about life in desolation. But also, to push the envelope in a range of areas – medicine, healthcare, longevity – Demteria is at the forefront of some of the greatest innovations of our lifetime. So.”

  Antoinne winked at her with a grin.

  “How did you find my corporate spiel? Feeling motivated?”

  Evantra bit down a smile as the man laughed.

  She had to give it to him.

  The old man was disarming and grounded, unlike many of the other corpos she’d encountered. But in this case, she knew that there was more to him than met the eye. It was just a matter of finding out what lay beneath the surface.

  Well… there are exceptions.

  Her thoughts came to rest briefly upon Clark Hallewell.

  “Please. Tell me a bit about yourself.”

  Evantra cleared her throat, taking the opportunity to cast a brief glance around Antoinne’s office. From her cursory look, she couldn’t identify the trove seeker or any other meaningful tidbits that would help her with her search.

  “My parents were killed in a ghost attack. I didn’t get a formal education… and decided that Demeteria’s Ghostslayer pathway would be a good fit for me.”

  The old man nodded sincerely, his attention solely on her.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. Your parents would be very proud of you to see how far you’ve come. Was that…”

  “Yes. That was how I was Wraithmarked.”

  Antoine let out a slow sigh, the pain evident in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “What about you?” Evantra ventured, glancing at his irises before remembering herself. “Sir.”

  “My children,” he said.

  For a moment, they sat in collegiate silence, sipping their tea. Evantra watched as the man savoured the moment with a gentle smile, as if afraid to let it slip away from him.

  “It is rare that we find people who make us feel so… understood. Would you mind if I shared something further?”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  Antoine smiled before standing to his feet. He walked behind his desk, clicking a button embedded into the table, which seemed to eject a datapad. Upon entering his code, Evantra watched with wide eyes as the bookshelf next to her began to shift sideways, revealing a hidden passage.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “The hidden passage is a great touch, sir.”

  Antoine laughed in delight, gesturing for her to enter.

  “I’m somewhat of a romantic with these things. It’s an open secret, of course, the whole floor knows about it and no doubt teases me for it. Come, come.”

  Evantra led the way, watching as the passageway led to a second, larger room. But this one wasn’t the room of a researcher.

  It was the room of a child.

  Evantra stared at toys and picture books littering the room. At the colourful walls, and holograms of a young couple, holding their child in their arms.

  But it was the fixture at the heart of the room that caught her attention.

  “Sir…”

  “Please, do come closer.”

  Evantra stared down at the cryogenic chamber containing a little girl, who couldn’t be any older than Tai’s age. She had short black hair and was dressed in clothes that resembled an old-fashioned school uniform, complete with a black bowtie under her chin. There were two plushies in her pod. One looked like a duck and the other, a monster made of grass. Her eyes were closed, and as young as she was, Evantra could clearly see the resemblance to her grandfather.

  But there was also something peculiar about her.

  “My darling granddaughter Genie.”

  Evantra’s eyes widened as she recognised just what looked off about the girl.

  Of course.

  Upon closer inspection of the girl… Evantra noticed it. The slightest artificiality to her skin and features, easily mistaken for the distortion caused by the curved glass covering her cryogenic housing.

  “Tell me, Millie. Are you familiar with the side effects of relying on heavy-duty cybernetics?”

  “Just the basics, sir. Emotional dysregulation. Taken to extremes, the individual can devolve into a bloodthirsty mania. Although one person’s tolerance differs from the next.”

  “She had a condition which necessitated immediate intervention. The only solution was cybernetics. But as the disease spread, more of her body had to be replaced. Her skin, hair, organs… it wasn’t long before she was sporting more heavy-duty implants than professional Ghostslayers.”

  Antoinne smiled warmly at her, taking a heart-wrenching step away from his granddaughter. The longing in his eyes was clear as day, his lips drawing into a firm line as she turned away from Genie.

  It was raw and genuine.

  A desperation that was all too familiar to her.

  “There are debates about whether you would lose your identity if every part of you were systematically to be replaced by other parts. Your skin, organs, and brain. Your thoughts, memories and feelings being transferred into a digital repository. Where do you draw the line? Do you think she’s any less of who she was? Still worth going to the effort to save?”

  Evantra wavered before she delivered her answer.

  “If you still consider her your granddaughter, then that’s good enough for me.”

  Antoine watched her carefully. The seconds passed as Evantra calmly met his gaze.

  “There are too many people who would be all too eager to let go of someone that was more machine than human. They would think it’s a fool’s errand, a waste of time. Why bother going to those lengths for a mere shell? Someone lost to rage and mania. Someone not worth saving.”

  “Then, with all due respect sir… they haven’t experienced true grief.”

  Antoine’s eyes widened.

  “And they’re welcome to go fuck themselves.”

  Antoinne burst into hearty laughter. The old man doubled over, supporting himself on his cane.

  “Either you’re a romantic like myself, or far too kind and patient with this old man. How far would you go, if I might be so bold as to ask?”

  Evantra’s fists tightened by her side as the faces flashed before her.

  Too many to count.

  The answer was simple.

  “To the ends of the Earth. Beyond, if it meant seeing them again.”

  “A fitting answer, given where we find ourselves,” Antoinne said with a laugh. “Thank you for your sincerity,” the man said with a smile that reached his eyes. Evantra couldn’t help but return it before catching herself.

  There was something in herself that she saw in him.

  A familiar fixation.

  At least in that, there was something that Evantra admired.

  Antoinne smiled.

  “Thank you for your time, Millie. I hope you’ll join me for tea again soon.”

  ***

  Evantra stared at her rations as she fiddled with them in the canteen. The other new cadets around her were getting acquainted, and she roughly sensed Noelle and Benjamin’s approach as they seated themselves next to her.

  “You ok?” Noelle whispered under her breath. They were seated a distance away from the other cadets, and their intel had been that Demeteria didn’t actively record all of their conversations. Benjamin helpfully verified that fact, just in case.

  “Doctor Antoinne...”

  Her friends waited for her to speak before Evantra eventually let out a sigh.

  “He showed me his granddaughter. The little girl with the illness, suspended in cryogenic stasis. I didn’t even think we had that tech.”

  Noelle’s lips drew into a hard line before she averted her gaze.

  Antoine Venn’s fixation on cybernetic dysregulation had been addressed in their briefing. His noble goal to crack dysregulation and to give his granddaughter the life she deserved after the passing of her parents.

  What none of them had expected was for him to reveal her existence so blatantly to Evantra.

  “I’ve noticed the way his subordinates treat him,” Evantra continued. “He runs a tight ship. They’re loyal and highly motivated. He recognises their contributions fairly, giving them clear incentives. He figures out what makes his people tick.”

  Evantra could understand why the Doctor had ‘confided’ in her.

  It was humanising. Instead of pursuing some nebulous, profit-driven goal for a megacorp, he had immediately demonstrated to her that her work mattered. She wasn’t surprised that his sincerity had engendered loyalty to his cause.

  But she knew that there was more to the man than that.

  “He’s a scary bastard. Scarier than Elaine. In the span of a few minutes, he had me invested in Demeteria’s operations here. Invested in the stakes of his research and in him. He’s a great leader, observant and excellent at reading people. But above all… he’s a manipulator. Willing to be vulnerable about himself if it means that he endears you to him. If I didn’t volunteer the things I did about myself to demonstrate my sincerity… he may have seen through me.”

  Benjamin nodded.

  “We’ll move fast, before he gets suspicious, Amitabha. I’ll try to identify the location of the trove seeker and where he keeps his experimental logs. From what I’ve been introduced to so far, it seems like he’s handling numerous, concurrent projects here. If I can trawl through the records, I might be able to find some clues, Amitabha.”

  “Thanks, Ben,” Evantra said with a nod.

  Reflecting on her conversation with Antoine, Evantra couldn’t help but feel like there was meaning hidden in the man’s words that she had failed to grasp.

  Her eyes fell on Noelle Laurent, who was staring at her food, lost in her thoughts.

  ***

  One month ago

  “Twig. Anything you want to tell me?”

  “Huh? Oh, hey. What do you mean?”

  Noelle fidgeted with her fingers in her lap, her gaze carefully averted from Evantra’s. Evantra leaned closer, watching as her friend flinched back.

  “I’m not going to pry. But if there’s anything that you need to tell me about Antoinne, I want to hear it now. I saw you react when his name came up in the briefing. If you’re familiar with him, have any information on him… anything at all that could help us…”

  Evantra’s gaze hardened.

  “Or if there’s anything that would you hold you back from the mission. I’d like you to tell me.”

  Noelle blanched, the colour draining from her cheeks.

  The girl’s face fell, but even as it did, her fists curled tightly by her sides.

  “Understood.”

  Evantra raised an eyebrow sardonically.

  “Really? ‘Understood’? What am I, your commander?”

  Noelle blushed, a degree of tension draining from her expression.

  “Listen…” Evantra started, before clearing her throat. “If there was anyone who taught me the importance of being open and trusting your friends, it was you. So… what I’m trying to say is that if you’d like someone to lend a listening ear, I’m here… for you,” Evantra said, before immediately gagging at the words that escaped her lips.

  “Who are you and what have you done with Evantra?”

  “Right?”

  They exchanged a grin before Noelle’s smile gradually faded.

  “Thanks, Evantra. I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, before turning on her side of her mattress.

  “I’ve told Uriel and Jack everything they need to know. They’ll plan things out accordingly.”

  Evantra stared at her friend’s back as the silence drew on.

  But…

  Why haven’t you told me?

  “Don’t trust him. No matter what he says,” Noelle said softly before she fell silent for the rest of the night.