Elias's head was covered with a rough, black burlap sack. The fabric smelled of dust and machine oil.
His own breathing sounded too loud in his ears, muffled and panicked. He could feel the vibration of the van's engine beneath his feet, taking sharp turns on the Yogyakarta streets he knew, but which now felt alien. The plastic zip-tie binding his wrists behind his back was too tight, numbing his fingertips.
No one spoke.
The cold-voiced female agent—the one he'd heard called "Rina"—was sitting across from him. He knew because he could smell the sharp antiseptic from her uniform, mixed with the faint scent of gunpowder. Next to her, he could feel the large, silent body heat of one of the other tactical soldiers.
"Where... where is Mr. Joko?" Elias's voice was hoarse and cracked.
Silence.
"He's fine," Rina's voice finally cut through the silence. Flat, devoid of emotion, like a weather report. "He will be processed."
"Processed? What do you mean?"
"He will forget tonight. He will forget the compass. He will forget you," Rina said. "He'll be given a new story. Maybe he's transferred to the night shift at a hospital. Maybe he wins a small lottery and retires early. The Psychology Division will give him a happy ending. He's lucky."
Elias felt a chill run down his spine, colder than his restraints. "You... you're going to erase his memory?"
"We call it 'Amnestic Application'. It's a compassionate act."
The van suddenly slowed, then turned onto an uneven road, like gravel. After a few minutes, it came to a complete stop. The engine was cut, leaving a deafening silence.
"We've arrived," Rina said.
The van door slid open. The humid night air was immediately replaced by a dry, cold, sterile draft. Elias heard an electronic beep, then a heavy, hydraulic hiss, as if a massive steel door was opening.
One of the soldiers grabbed Elias's upper arm roughly. "On your feet. Walk."
Elias stumbled out of the van, his stiff legs nearly giving way. He was pushed forward across a floor that felt like grooved metal. The sack was still over his head, blinding him completely. He could only hear—the echo of their footsteps in a massive chamber, the drip of water in the distance, and the constant, low-frequency hum of high-voltage electricity.
They stopped. A door opened. They entered a smaller space. An elevator.
The door closed, muffling the humming sound. Then, with a soft hydraulic sigh, the floor beneath Elias dropped.
His stomach leaped into his throat. This was no museum elevator. A museum elevator went down one floor. This one... just kept going.
Down.
Down.
Elias lost all sense of time. One minute. Five minutes. Long enough that he began to wonder if they were descending to the earth's core. The air in the elevator grew colder, more pressurized.
Finally, with a gentle lurch, it stopped. The doors opened.
Elias was shoved out, across a floor that now felt like polished tile. He could hear other doors opening, the beep of key cards, muffled voices in languages he didn't understand. The smell of antiseptic and bleach was now so strong it made his eyes water beneath the sack.
He was pushed through one final set of doors, then forced down into a hard, cold chair.
"Remove his restraints," said another woman's voice. This one was older, deeper than Rina's. Full of a calm, absolute authority.
Elias's hands were pulled back, and with a sharp click, the zip-tie was cut. He flexed his aching wrists, feeling the blood rush back.
"The hood as well," the voice said.
A hand grabbed the back of the sack and ripped it upwards.
Elias gasped, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden, assaulting light. It wasn't from a normal bulb; it was a flat, shadowless, blue-white light radiating from panels in the ceiling.
He was in a room made entirely of polished grey concrete. No windows. No decorations. In the center of the room was a stainless steel table. Across from it sat the woman.
She was perhaps in her late fifties, with jet-black hair pulled back into a severe bun. Her features—Southeast Asian, possibly Javanese like Elias, but it was hard to tell. She wore a sharp, graphite-grey uniform, almost military-style, but with no rank insignia whatsoever.
"Dr. Elias Thorne," the woman stated. It wasn't a question. "I am Director Keva. This is Site-04."
Elias tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. "Wh... where am I?"
"I just told you. You are at Site-04. Location: Classified. Affiliation: The Institution."
"The Institution?" Elias repeated.
"Correct." Keva leaned forward slightly, steepling her fingers on the steel tabletop. "Your organization, the museum, collects history. So do we. The difference is, we collect the history that shouldn't exist. The history that, if left unchecked, would tear apart the very order you love so dearly."
Elias thought of the compass. "The compass... Mr. Joko... That thing—what was it?"
"It is an Asset," Keva said. "Asset-408. 'The Time-Freeze Compass'. An anomaly. A violation of physical law. One of thousands we have secured."
"Thousands?" Elias felt dizzy.
"The Institution," Keva continued, her voice calm and methodical, "has existed in various forms for millennia. We are the wall between humanity and the unexplainable. We are the organization that ensures the world continues to make sense. Our motto is: Catalog, Confine, Conceal."
"Conceal?"
"Yes, Dr. Thorne. Humanity is not ready. They would see Asset-408 as magic. They would worship it, or they would try to weaponize it. They would create chaos. So, we take it. We study it. And we lock it away in places like this, deep underground, where no one can ever find it."
Keva paused, her eyes boring into Elias, analyzing him. "Normally, when someone like you—a civilian—makes contact with an Asset, the procedure is simple. Agent Rina would have administered a Class-B Amnestic. You would wake up tomorrow in your apartment with a cover story about food poisoning and a high fever. You would forget the compass, the museum, and us."
Elias's heart hammered. "But?"
"But," Keva said, "we've been watching you, Dr. Thorne. For some time. Ever since you published your paper on the lost pictographic language of the Indus Valley civilization."
"That... that was just academic research..."
"To you, yes. To us, it was a confirmation. The symbols you translated—you thought they were 'ritualistic metaphors for harvest'. They were, in fact, the earliest containment protocol we've ever recorded. For Asset-006."
Elias's mind reeled. "You're joking."
"We do not joke in this Institution, Doctor." Keva slid a thin folder across the table. Inside was a single sheet of paper. It was his cargo manifest from the museum. "You found an anomaly in your manifest. A 48th crate that shouldn't exist. You didn't ignore it. You didn't call your supervisor. You had to know. You had to organize the chaos."
Keva stared at him. "You have the mind of a true archivist. A mind obsessed with order. We value that. Such minds are rare. And here we are, in a world filled with unimaginable chaos."
She closed the folder.
"So, Dr. Thorne, you have a choice. A choice Mr. Joko did not get. A choice we rarely offer."
Keva stood, her voice leaving no room for negotiation.
"Option A: You accept the Class-B Amnestic. You return to your life. You will forget the smell of ozone in your archive, you will forget the horror of watching a man freeze before your eyes. You will go back to cataloging pottery and ancient currency. You will be safe."
She walked around the table, stopping beside Elias.
"Or Option B: You join. You trade your old life for the truth. You will work here, at Site-04. You will use your talents to help us catalog the things that creep in the darkness. You will see horrors that make a bronze compass look like a child's toy. You will never see the outside world again without an escort. You will live and die in this concrete tomb, nameless and unremembered by the world you are protecting."
Keva leaned in close to Elias's ear, her voice barely a whisper. "In exchange... you will have access to the greatest archive ever assembled. The answers to every question you've never dared to ask. The truth behind every myth, every legend, and every whisper in the night."
The choice hung in the sterile air.
To forget.
For an archivist who had dedicated his life to uncovering hidden truths, it wasn't a choice at all. It was a damnation.
"I... I'll join," Elias whispered.
Director Keva smiled. It was a smile that did not reach her eyes. It was the smile of a predator that had just cornered its prey.
"A wise decision," she said, returning to her desk. She pressed a button on an intercom. "Medical team to Interrogation 2. Process a new recruit."
She looked back at Elias. "Welcome to the Institution, Researcher Thorne. Your work begins now."