The Director's office was located in the Core of Sector 1, a place where the hum of the Orbit was no longer a vibration, but a physical weight. Here, the air didn't just taste of copper; it was enriched with pure, pressurized oxygen that made the head light and the senses unnaturally sharp. It was a dizzying, artificial clarity; a stark contrast to the thick, stagnant atmosphere of the lower residential tiers where Evelyn's lungs often felt like they were straining through wet wool.
Evelyn stood before the massive crystalline window that spanned the length of the room. From this height, the Orbit's nested spheres were visible, a mechanical iris staring down at the world it had abandoned. Below her, the intricate lattice of Sector 4 and Sector 7 seemed like toy models, fragile cages suspended in the infinite dark. The silent vacuum of space pressed against the glass, and for a moment, Evelyn felt the terrifying urge to lean her forehead against the pane, to see if the cold could penetrate her skin and freeze the frantic pulse in her throat.
"Do you know why we chose glass, Evelyn?"
Director Silas Vane didn't turn around. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, silhouetted against the glow of the dying Earth. From this distance, the planet looked like a charred coal, its edges blurred by the toxic grey veil of the Ash.
"To see our enemies, Director?" Evelyn asked, her voice sounding small in the vast, sterile space. The words felt brittle, threatening to crack under the pressure of the artificial silence.
"No," Vane said, turning slowly. His face was a map of calculated angles, his skin so pale it looked like translucent parchment. Even his eyes seemed drained of pigment, a predatory grey that absorbed the light rather than reflecting it. "To remind us of our fragility. Glass is pure. It is ordered. But one hairline fracture, one tiny, biological impurity, and the vacuum of the universe claims us all. It is a constant lesson in the necessity of perfection. One flaw is a death sentence for the collective."
He walked toward her, his footsteps silent on the white carbon-fiber floor. Every movement he made was economical, devoid of the messy, wasted energy of human emotion. He stopped just inches away, radiating a cold, clinical energy that made the fine hairs on Evelyn's arms stand up.
"Your performance during the blackout was... enlightening," he continued, his gaze drifting from her eyes to her rigid posture. "Most candidates would have panicked. They would have fumbled in the dark, their reptilian brains screaming of monsters and shadows. You, however, appeared to be in a trance. Or perhaps, a state of hyper-resonance. Your diagnostic readings didn't just spike, Evelyn; they sang."
He reached out, his fingers grazing the air near her shoulder. He didn't touch her, but the proximity was enough. Evelyn felt the silver mark beneath her skin pulse in a warning rhythm; a low, rhythmic throb that felt like a snarl vibrating through her bone marrow. It was a territorial warning, a primal instinct that she was standing in the presence of a different kind of apex predator.
"I've been watching your medical files since you were five, Evelyn. Your father, Thomas... he's a good worker, a reliable cog in the maintenance grid. But he's a man of secrets. He thinks he's protecting you by hiding your 'glitches,' using black-market sealants to patch over what he cannot understand. He spent years trying to smother the fire in your blood." Vane's lip curled into something that might have been a smile, though it held no warmth. "But I don't see them as glitches. I see them as a bridge."
Vane stepped to a holographic terminal, flicking his wrist with a sharp, practiced motion. A 3D map of Evelyn's brain activity from the exam bloomed in the center of the room, a constellation of neural firing patterns. The parietal lobe was lit up in a fierce, shimmering silver, pulsating with an intensity that defied standard medical logic.
"This is not the brain of a standard human," Vane murmured, circling the hologram like a sculptor admiring a masterpiece. "Standard humans are disconnected, floating in the void. But this? This is a frequency. You are reacting to stimuli that don't exist in the Orbit. You are hearing the 'Ghost Heartbeat' of the Ashworld, aren't you? You feel the pull of the dirt."
Evelyn felt her own blood drain from her face. Her hands clenched at her sides, her nails digging into her palms to keep her hands from shaking. The shocking realization that what she thought was a secret she and her father had hidden well over the years were being read out to her like a book written and owned by the very man that they had been hiding it from.
"I don't know what you mean, Director. I am a student of the Academy. I focus on my modules."
"Don't lie to me. I groomed you for this," Vane said, his voice dropping to a predatory whisper that seemed to echo inside her skull. "The Orbit is starving, Evelyn. Not just for oxygen or minerals, but for vitality. Our genetic pool is a stagnant pond, turning toxic from decades of inbreeding and artificial preservation. We are failing. We are becoming as brittle as the glass I so admire. But down there, in the rot, something survived. A mutation. A strength that we lost when we fled the surface like frightened children."
He leaned in closer, the smell of ozone and sharp mint clinging to him. "The werewolves. They aren't just monsters, Evelyn. They are the keys to our biological evolution. They have adapted to the radiation, to the scorched atmosphere, to the very death of the world. And you... you are the lock. You have the frequency. You can find their Alpha. You can lead us to the 'Lush Zones', the heart of their strength where the Great Weeping Tree still stands."
"You want me to be a scout," Evelyn said, the realization turning her stomach. The image of the wolf boy from her visions flashed through her mind. His amber eyes, his fear, his strange, haunting connection to her. "You want me to help you kill them. You want to turn me into a weapon against my own... my own visions."
"I want you to help me harvest them," Vane corrected gently, as if explaining a simple surgical procedure to a child. "For the survival of humanity. It is a noble sacrifice. We will take their resilience, their cellular regeneration, their sensory web. You will be the hero who brings the 'Luna's Legacy' back to the stars, Evelyn. You will be the savior of our species."
He straightened his tunic, his expression returning to one of cold professionalism. The intensity vanished, replaced by the detached air of a bureaucrat.
"Your first mission is already logged. You will lead the Recon Team under Commander Jax. He is a man of action, but he lacks your... intuition. You will find the source of that heartbeat, Evelyn. You will find the Alpha. And you will bring him to me, alive or in pieces. It matters little to the laboratory. But, until then, you must study to show yourself approved".
As Evelyn turned to leave, her heart hammering against her ribs so loudly she was sure the sensors would detect it, Vane added one final note. His voice was casual, yet it carried the weight of a guillotine blade.
"And Evelyn? Tell your friend Leo to stop poking around the history archives. Digital ghosts are easy to exorcise, and his fingerprints are all over the Sector 4 firewall. I would hate for your father to lose his only daughter and his only assistant in the same week. It would be such a waste of biological resources."
The threat was as clear as the glass walls surrounding them. Evelyn walked out of the Core, her legs feeling like lead. The weight of the Orbit, the pressure of the vacuum, and the cold shadow of Vane's ambition were finally heavy enough to crush her. She was a traitor to a world she hadn't even set foot on yet.