The Vasena underground facility felt more and more like the belly of something enormous, cold and alive in ways the eye could not see. Beneath the white walls and frosted glass, hidden machinery stirred without rest, a constant undercurrent of hissing valves, electric pulses, and the measured rhythm of a ventilation system that never allowed the air to change. After the session with Cassandra Nox, Ryu did not feel lighter. His thoughts felt heavier, like a sealed room with no wind.
He walked back toward his small room, Cassandra's quiet footsteps always just behind him, never close enough to feel familiar, never far enough to be forgotten. The distance between them was precise, like a line drawn for psychological effect. When they reached his door, she stopped.
"Ryu." Her voice was flat, but there was a thin tension beneath it. Ryu turned. "Yes."
"I have scheduled an extended cognitive test," she said, folding her arms. "This is not a standard assessment. The test is sealed from staff access. Only Arvis, the Director, and I will be able to review the recording."
Ryu frowned. "Why so secret."
Cassandra took one step closer. Her gaze sharpened. "Because your brain is not something that can be examined in front of ordinary people." Ryu drew in a quiet breath. "Alright."
She watched the small change in his expression. "Do not worry. Different is not always the same as dangerous." She turned away. "Tomorrow. Sealed Cognitive Sector A Five."
The door slid shut between them. Ryu stood alone in the quiet room, arms folded around himself before he even noticed the gesture. He sat on the thin bed and stared at the white light above him. It was too bright and too clean to feel like a sky.
Nex Vanthor. What were you to my father.
The question went unanswered.
Ryu's body clock did not function in Vasena. There was no sun, no horizon, no change in the color of the sky. Only subtle shifts in the strength of the lights, pretending to mark the passing of time. The door to his room slid open on its own. No approaching footsteps. Only the soft click of the lock and the sigh of the panel.
"Ryu," Cassandra's calm voice reached him. "Itunanswered He stood and followed her measured steps. The corridors were empty. Even the usual maintenance drones were gone. "Why is there no staff here today," Ryu asked quietly.
"Because this is Sector A Five," Cassandra replied without looking back. "Not everyone is allowed in."
They stopped in front of a thick door the color of dull steel. Cassandra pressed her biometric ID against the panel. The metal vibrated under the surface.
ACCESS GRANTED.
CASSANDRA NOX. SUPERIOR LEVEL.
The door slid open. Cold air flowed out with the indifferent sterility of an operating room.
The chamber beyond was much larger than the spiral room he had seen before. The walls seemed to move with a slow, almost invisible shift, as if smooth metal panels were breathing in time with the machinery hidden behind them. In the center rested a circular platform with a single black chair.
"Sit," Cassandra said.
Ryu sat, his shoulders tight. The overhead lights dimmed. A slender mechanical arm unfolded and lowered three sensors onto his temples with surgical precision. Cassandra stood off to the side, fingers moving across a control panel.
"Ryu. This test is not meant to scare you or knock you unconscious," she said, adjusting the display. "It is meant to show how far your neural patterns travel when they are not given boundaries."
Ryu bit down lightly. "What do you mean by no boundaries." Cassandra walked closer and leaned slightly until her eyes were level with his.
"It means your brain will read what your brain chooses to read," she said quietly. "Not what we program into the machine." Ryu's heartbeat climbed. Cassandra moved back to the controls. "Close your eyes."
He obeyed. The sound of machinery rose around him, a low, controlled hum. He felt a fine vibration brushing his skin. Even with his eyes shut, he could sense brightness pressing through the darkness. A neutral synthetic voice spoke.
ACTIVATING FREE COGNITIVE MODE.
SUBJECT. RYU.
LEVEL. UNRESTRICTED.
The first second. Ryu saw faint lines behind his eyelids, pulsing like currents of electricity.
The second. The lines converged, weaving into a structure that felt like a network.
The third. The pattern stopped. Silence.
A stillness that felt wrong. Then it changed into a shape he knew. The same symbol that had been carved into his father's hand.
Ryu's breath caught. "That symbol. Again."
Cassandra's posture shifted. "What symbol do you see." Ryu rubbed his warm temple. "The same one from that night, when everything went tight." Before he could finish the sentence, the room changed.
On Cassandra's panel, the data spiked. Graphs twisted into a new configuration. Chaotic to the untrained eye, yet moving with a deep hidden order.
Cassandra tapped commands in quick succession. "No. This is not a human pattern." The AI issued a warning.
ANOMALY THREE B.
UNIDENTIFIED NETWORK ENTRY.
Cassandra drew in a slow breath. "Ryu, stay calm. Do not open your eyes." But something tugged at him from inside. A pull he could not resist. As if the signal inside the machine had reached past the sensors and into the muscles behind his eyes.
He opened them. The room was gone.
No platform. No lamps. No walls. Only a clear, clean darkness stretching in every direction. In the center floated a ring of white light, turning slowly as if considering him.
Ryu stared. "What is this."
The light thickened as it spun. It widened. It stretched. It shifted into a spiral. The same impossible spiral that had stopped on its own.
Then the spiral bent into letters.
On the other side of the glass, Cassandra's hands flew over the controls. "Ryu, close your eyes. Close them now." He could not. The words burned too clearly in the air, as if etched into his vision.
Ryu. He froze. I have been waiting for you.
Cassandra slammed her palm on the emergency cutoff. "Shut it down. Now."
White light detonated across the chamber. The platform shuddered. The sensors snapped free. Air rushed back into Ryu's chest. The darkness evaporated. The white walls returned as if they had never left.
He looked at Cassandra. Her face was controlled, but the tension now was unmistakable.
"What was that," Ryu asked, his voice almost breaking.
Cassandra crossed the room in quick steps and removed the remaining sensor from his skin. "Ryu," she said, voice low and sharp. "You just opened a sealed protocol that has not been touched in five years." "I did not do anything." "You did it with your brain."
Ryu fell silent. Heat throbbed at the back of his skull, like something inside had turned over and refused to lie back down. Cassandra checked his pulse with brief, clinical fingers.
"Your heart rate is stable," she said. "That makes this even more concerning."
She stopped herself as if swallowing the last word. "More what," Ryu asked. Cassandra met his eyes. "More similar to someone else."
Ryu frowned. "Who." She straightened.
"Five years ago, only one person could open that protocol," she said. Ryu held his breath. "Who." Cassandra exhaled so softly it was almost soundless, like a confession she did not want to make.
"Nex Vanthor."
Cassandra returned to the screen and replayed the sensor feed. Ryu moved closer. The lines and waves formed an image. A thin white symbol emerged from the noise, shaped like a broken figure eight. Ryu knew it instantly. "That is the symbol on my father's hand." Cassandra went still, as if someone had frozen her in place. "You are certain."
Ryu nodded. "Yes." She folded her arms slowly. "Ryu." Her eyes locked onto the symbol. "This is not a simple mark."
Her fingers danced across the interface. The symbol rotated, magnified, sharpened. Hidden inside the looping shape, almost invisible, two letters emerged. N and V. Interlocked with surgical precision. Ryu stepped back. "What is that." Cassandra shut down the screen.
"Nex Vanthor left that mark years ago," she said. "No one knows what it means. No one but him." She turned to Ryu. "And your father." Ryu felt his breath stall in his chest. Cassandra's voice softened, a tone she rarely used. "Whatever happened to Varian Alverion was not random."
"I know," Ryu answered, his voice cracking faintly. "He knew he was going to die."
Cassandra bowed her head a fraction, the closest she came to grief. "And he left something for you," she said.
She powered down every panel in the room. Screens went black. Noise tapered off. Only the overhead light remained. "You will undergo another test tonight." Ryu straightened. "What kind of test."
Cassandra walked toward the door. Just before crossing the threshold, she glanced back. "A test to determine whether Nex Vanthor is trying to speak to you," she said, "or trying to enter you."
A tremor ran through Ryu's body. Cassandra gave him one final warning. "Remember this, Ryu." Her gaze did not waver. "The entity calling you is no longer simply human."
Somewhere beyond the white walls, Nex Vanthor might not only be alive, but searching for a way back through a living channel. And Cassandra Nox now understood that Ryu Alverion was not a normal subject. He was a threshold.