The chamber was quiet except for the hum of the Undercity generators. 24 sat cross-legged on the floor, blades sheathed, but the tension in his shoulders didn't leave. Kira huddled close to him, shivering, and Mara leaned against the wall, arms crossed, her amber eyes fixed on Dr. Lyra Voss.
Voss let her gaze drift over the two of them before speaking. "You want to know what created him," she said softly, "what created all of them. The Black Division. You have to understand… it didn't start as a weapon. It started as children."
She paused, the flickering light from a nearby console casting shadows across her face. Her hands flexed and unflexed. "I was twenty-eight when they brought me to Genesis Protocol. A mountain facility, isolated, all steel and concrete, like a tomb masquerading as a research station. The government called it a 'training center.' Enright… he called it a forge."
Kira leaned forward. "Children?"
Voss nodded. "Children. Orphans. Runaways. Condemned kids. Sixteen, seventeen years old. Some younger. They were small, scared, and sharp. Hungry for any chance to survive."
She looked at 24. "Elias Ward was one of them. He volunteered — if you can call it that. He thought he'd get a second chance at life after surviving a military camp collapse. But he didn't know… they would bend him into something inhuman."
Mara's voice was low. "But they were… kids."
"They were human," Voss said, her eyes glinting with something between sorrow and steel. "And I tried to remind them. I tried to give them names, to let them be something besides test subjects. Specter — the first successful subject — barely spoke, pale as ice, precise as a scalpel. Lark… he was little more than a clown, always joking to hide his fear, but the sharpest eyes in the group. Shade… she barely breathed, but she understood machines better than anyone I've ever met. Wraith, the thrill-seeker, angry and reckless. And then Moth."
Voss's eyes softened, just for a heartbeat. "Moth. She was… bright. Playful. Flirted to survive, teased the boys, challenged Elias constantly. She made them laugh in a place where laughter was forbidden."
Kira whispered, "They weren't monsters."
"They weren't," Voss agreed. "They were children forced to learn obedience through fire."
Voss rubbed her temples, as if the memory itself caused pain. "The experiments began small. Neural conduits implanted along the spine, synthetic veins carrying what we called 'fold current' — energy that allowed displacement. We tested short jumps first, just centimeters. Some children screamed. Some… disappeared halfway and came back… different. Their eyes hollow. Their voices echoing in ways that shouldn't exist. I realized too late that every time they folded, they left pieces of themselves behind. The void remembers everything it touches."
24 shifted slightly, but said nothing.
Voss continued. "Elias was different. He survived his first successful jump, the first one that didn't rip him apart. I remember it clearly — he blinked once, and the room bent around him. For a moment, he wasn't anywhere. And when he reappeared… he was still himself. I thought it was a miracle."
Mara asked, "But it wasn't? Not really?"
"No," Voss said quietly. "It wasn't a miracle. It was a trap. The government wanted perfect soldiers, soldiers who could cross distances instantly, kill without being seen, erase anyone who opposed them. And the children… they were perfect because they were malleable. They were young enough to forget who they were."
Kira's eyes widened. "And Moth?"
Voss's jaw tightened. "Moth… she was brilliant, clever, and terrifying. She learned her abilities faster than anyone, and she used charm like a weapon. She laughed at everything, even at herself. But that laughter… it was a shield. When the purge came, she gave everything she had to save Elias. Her last words…" She faltered. "She said, 'Don't look so serious, hero.'"
24's eyes darkened. The ghost of a smile passed over his face, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Voss pressed on. "We called them the Black Division after the first mission went wrong. They were six children — six human weapons — dropped into the most dangerous sectors of the city to test them against the worst enemies we could find. And they survived. Specter… precise, lethal. Shade… methodical and cold. Wraith… reckless but unstoppable. Lark… unpredictable. Elias… the moral center, the one who kept them tethered to what little humanity they had left."
"And you?" Mara asked. "You watched them become monsters?"
Voss's gaze fell to the floor. "I tried to stop it. I warned Enright, begged him to halt the program, but the boys… the girls… they had already begun to change. Every mission, every jump, every kill… they lost pieces of themselves. They became ghosts of who they once were. And the ones who survived… well… only one walked out of that facility when it burned. Only one remained."
Kira whispered, "Elias."
Voss nodded. "Elias became 24. And even now… even now, the echoes of the others follow him."
The room was silent. Only the hum of the Undercity generators filled the space.
Finally, Voss said, her voice almost a whisper, "They were human once. They were children. And I… I failed them."
24's gray eyes met hers. For a moment, he was not 24, not the last of the Black Division — he was Elias Ward, the boy who had blinked into a world that had no mercy, a boy who had laughed at a girl's teasing and dreamed of an ocean he would never see.
And in that silence, Mara and Kira realized that the ghosts he carried were not just the dead—they were his past, still very much alive inside him.