DR. KWAME POV
The sun had not yet crested the horizon, leaving the Dead Zone in a perpetual, bruised twilight. Inside the reinforced hull of the mobile laboratory, the air was sterile, vibrating with the low hum of cooling fans and the distant, rhythmic pulse of the boys' containment units.
I stood at the central console, my fingers hovering over a holographic interface. I wasn't looking at energy readings or genetic markers. I was looking at a map—a digital ghost of a world I had abandoned decades ago.
"Adam. Eve. Front and center," I said. My voice didn't carry the weight of a father; it carried the resonance of a commander.
The two of them appeared from the shadows of the sleeping quarters. Adam moved like a ripple in water—silent, precise, his eyes already glowing with that faint, calculating Golden Light. Eve followed, his steps heavy, his dark hair a mess of static, a faint trail of Black Impulse coiling around his wrists like a restless pet.
"Is it the Council?" Adam asked, his voice devoid of fear. "Has the Exile returned with reinforcements?"
"No," I replied, finally turning to face them. I clicked a button, and the hologram shifted. Instead of ley lines and rift coordinates, it displayed a grainy, high-resolution photograph of a farmhouse. It was old, white-washed, and surrounded by sprawling oak trees that looked like they were holding up the sky. "We are leaving the Dead Zone. But we aren't going to the coast. Not yet."
Eve squinted at the image. "What is that? A museum? It looks... fragile."
"It's a home," I said, the word feeling like a jagged piece of glass in my throat. "Specifically, it belongs to Silas and Martha Vance. They live in the Oakhaven valley, three hundred miles from the nearest rift gate."
Adam tilted his head, his logic-driven mind already cross-referencing the name. "Vance. You've mentioned that name before in relation to the Sentinel we encountered. Is there a genetic link?"
"A name is just a label, Adam, but in this case, the link is biological," I said. I took a deep breath, the scent of ozone filling my lungs. "Silas and Martha are your grandparents. Your mother's parents."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the hum of the laboratory seemed to dim.
Eve was the first to break it, a harsh, disbelieving laugh escaping him. "Grandparents? You told us we were 'iterative masterpieces.' You told us our origin was the centrifuge and the catalyst. Now you're telling us we have... family? People who grow vegetables and sit on porches?"
"The lab provided the spark, Eve, but the blueprint was human," I said, stepping closer to them. "Your mother, Sarah, was not a scientist. She was the reason I stopped being a weapon. And Silas and Martha... they are the only people left in this world who remember her as a girl, rather than a casualty of my ambition."
Adam stepped into the light of the hologram, his gaze fixed on the farmhouse. "If they exist, why have they been excluded from our internal database for fifteen years? Why are they relevant now?"
"Because I can no longer protect your humanity, Adam," I said, my voice dropping to a low, serrated whisper. "I have taught you how to command the Impulse. I have taught you the math of the universe. But last night, when I looked at you after the fight with Lyra, I didn't see a son. I saw a mirror of the man I used to be. A man who sees people as variables."
I walked over to a locker and pulled out two sets of clothes—simple denim, cotton shirts, heavy boots. Not the high-friction tactical gear they were used to.
"The Vances believe I killed their daughter," I continued, staring at the floor. "And in a way, they are right. I brought her into a world of rifts and shadows she wasn't built for. They hate me. They have spent fifteen years cursing my name to the very dirt they farm."
"Then why go?" Eve asked, his Black Impulse flaring in a sudden burst of agitation. "If they hate you, they'll hate us. We're your 'projects,' remember?"
"They will love you because you are her blood," I said, looking Eve directly in the eyes. "And they will hate me because I am the one who changed that blood. That is the agreement. I am delivering you to them. You will stay there. You will learn to fix fences, to watch the weather without calculating the barometric pressure, and to speak to people without looking for their jugular."
"And you?" Adam asked.
"I am uninvited," I said. "I will drop you at the edge of the property. I will not step foot on their land. To them, I am the monster who stole their child. To you, for the next few months, I am simply the man who provided the transport."
Adam processed this, his eyes flickering as he ran a thousand simulations. "You are abandoning the primary objective. The Council is hunting us. Separating the units decreases our survival probability by 72%."
"Survival isn't just about breathing, Adam," I snapped, the Golden Impulse in my own veins humming with a sudden, rare heat. "It's about having something worth breathing for. If you stay with me, you will become a god, and you will be utterly, horrifyingly alone. I would rather you be a farm boy who knows how to bleed than a masterpiece who has forgotten how to feel."
I turned back to the console, closing the hologram. The room fell into darkness.
"Pack your things," I said, my back to them. "We leave in ten minutes. No tech. No Impulse-conductive alloys. Just yourselves."
As they turned to leave, I heard Eve whisper to Adam, "Do you think they have internet? Or do we have to learn to talk to cows?"
"Calculations suggest," Adam replied, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, "that the cows might be more welcoming than the grandparents."
I stood alone in the dark, listening to their retreating footsteps. I reached into my pocket and touched the small, worn photograph of Sarah. My logic told me this was a mistake. My math said that leaving them unprotected was tactical suicide.
But as I looked at the digital ghost of the farmhouse, I knew that for the first time in fifteen years, I wasn't solving an equation. I was trying to save a soul.
"Forgive me, Silas," I whispered to the empty air. "I'm bringing them home."