"Shit," Rowan thought. "How did the kid figure it out that fast? He barely even looked at the list". He was panicking internally—and, if he was being honest, externally too. Thankfully, the helmet covered his facial expressions. After a few seconds of tense, awkward silence, Rowan turned to a tried-and-true method known across the galaxy to dispel all suspicion upon its utterance:

  “Uhhh… I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  Fervent denial. The go-to strategy of guilty parties and children caught near cookie jars since the dawn of time

  In his head, he could feel Xy’Rosh mentally facepalming.

  Dev, across from him, gave a deadpan—are you serious?—look that pierced right through the armor.

  “Really?” Dev said as he grabbed his laptop and pulled up his profile. “Alright, let’s break it down. According to your data, you're supposed to be around twenty-eight, but you didn’t look a day over twenty. Your license says five-nine, but the guy at the Gate? No way he was that short.”

  The comment stung a little. Rowan used to be five-ten—five-eleven in shoes, okay? Before Xy’Rosh had done all his weird bio-augmentations to make sure he wouldn’t, quote, “turn into soup the second he activated the exoframe.”Which, for the record, was actually pretty tall in his opinion.

  “You were at least 6’ 3” at the Gate,” Dev continued, totally ignoring the growing tick in Rowan’s jaw. “Hell, you barely even look like your ID anymore.”He held up Rowan’s old license: stubbled jaw, sunken eyes, and a harsh widow’s peak.“I mean, the hairline alo—”

  “Okay, stop!” Rowan barked “Fine”.

  The helmet lost its features, flattening into a smooth, silver mask before retracting into his collar. His face was exposed—same bone structure, new vitality. A few scars, better skin, and hair that no longer ran from his forehead like it owed child support.

  “Yeah, I’m Rowan. Rowan Pierce. You got me, okay?” Rowan said, exhaling like he’d just given up on holding in a sneeze. “Now what do you want from me?”

  "Hooman, what are you doing?!" Xy’Rosh screamed inside his skull, his voice somewhere between scandalized and murderous.

  "He knows who I am, Xy", Rowan replied mentally, rubbing his temples. "Even if I bailed right now, he’d probably track me down again—same way he got the porter team data."

  "So let’s just kill him and be done with it."

  "What?! No—we just saved his life like two days ago!"

  "Then let me go in, do a little snipping in his brain, erase the memory—"

  "Xy’Rosh, you’re not giving the kid a lobotomy!" Rowan shot back, eyes narrowing in disbelief. "Besides, the kid might actually be seeing the future—or at least he thinks he is. Let’s just hear him out. Worst case scenario, we wipe my identity, go off-grid, do the whole fugitive-in-a-hoodie thing they do in the movies."

  There was a long pause in the neural link.

  "...Fine."

  Xy’Rosh’s voice was sulky now, like someone who’d just been denied dessert.

  Rowan refocused on Dev, who was watching him with a mix of nerves and curiosity.

  “Kid, I’m waiting,” Rowan said, arms crossed, visor still retracted. “Why were you trying to find me? What do you want?”

  Dev shifted slightly on the couch, adjusting the crutches resting beside him. “First... I want to thank you.”

  Rowan blinked. “Huh.”

  “For saving me,” Dev continued. “Going into the boss room with no abilities and a glorified pea shooter was... objectively stupid. I know that. But you still risked your life to pull me out of there.”

  A pause.

  Rowan scratched the back of his neck, clearly not used to hearing stuff like that. “...Okay,” he muttered, awkwardly. “Cool. You’re... welcome, I guess.”

  The silence stretched between them for a moment.

  Then Rowan cleared his throat. “But that can’t be it. You don’t chase someone across a government database just to say thanks.”

  Dev gave a small shrug. “No, I don’t.”

  Rowan narrowed his eyes. “So what is it, then?”

  “I want to become strong,” Dev said suddenly.

  Rowan gave him a slow blink. “Strong how?”

  “Like you,” Dev clarified, leaning forward slightly. “Physically. I want whatever turned you from a regular person into someone who looks like they could bench press a thousand pounds.”

  Rowan blinked. "Can I bench a thousand pounds?" he thought.

  According to my analysis of your current body composition, Xy’Rosh replied in his head, "you should be able to bench press approximately 1,323.447 pounds without the aid of chemical stimulants or external augmentation."

  "Wait—really!?"

  "Yes. Did you think I just made you look pretty? No. I turned your body into a machine. Hyperdense Myofibrillar Hypertrophy, Augmented Hypermineralized Osteocortical Matrix, Neuroreceptor-Amplified Hyperacuity, and a reinforced Fibrocollagenous Tensile Matrix. And don’t even get me started on your vascular and Organ systems."

  Rowan blinked again, trying to keep a straight face as Dev watched him with growing curiosity.

  "What the hell does any of that even mean, Xy? I said I still wanted to stay human."

  “Basically? Muscle, bones, senses—as well as tendons and ligaments, in that order,” Xy’Rosh said matter-of-factly in Rowan’s head. “You’re made of the same biological materials as any other hooman. I didn’t alter the chemistry—just the shape and structure. Optimization to the max.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Honestly, though? An organic titanium substrate would’ve been way better for your bones. Lightweight. Durable. Very sleek,” Xy’Rosh mused. “And while we’re on the topic of upgrades you wouldn't let me do—replacing your hemoglobin with a perfluorocarbon-based substitute would’ve increased your oxygen-carrying capacity tenfold. Imagine holding your breath for twenty minutes, running full sprint, and still not passi—”

  Rowan exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the mad scientist in his head kept rambling.

  Dev tilted his head. “You good, man?”

  “Just... internal screaming,” Rowan muttered.

  “Listen,” Dev said, “I know this is a big ask coming from someone who’s basically blackmailing you. But I can help you in return.”

  Rowan raised a brow. “Kid, I checked your background. If your idea of help is money, don’t bother. You seem broker than me.”

  He leaned forward slightly, voice dropping. “Also, just so we’re clear—there’s a voice in my head that told me to kill you. And when I said no, it offered to erase your memory instead. But there’s a fifty-fifty chance that’d turn you into a vegetable. So this better be good.”

  Dev tensed. The casual atmosphere vanished in an instant. His eyes sharpened, colder than a snowstorm. The shift was sudden—like flipping a switch.

  “Don’t touch my mind,” Dev said, voice low but firm. “My memories are mine. Kill me if you have to, but don’t mess with my head.”

  “Okay, okay, relax, kid,” Rowan said, hands raised slightly in a peacekeeping gesture. Something told him that if he even tried, this kid would bite his own tongue off before letting someone crawl inside his skull. “I never said I’d do it. I said it was an option... one I didn’t take. So calm down. But that all depends on your offer.”

  Dev took a breath, shoulders easing a little.

  “I know your problem,” he said. “Why you signed up as a porter instead of a hunter. You’re hiding. Any guild would’ve taken you—hell, you beat a Cat 4 hunter. Pantheon would probably throw a recruitment party if you gave them the time of day.”

  “Go on,” Rowan said warily.

  “All the mana you’re using... it’s coming from your armor. But you? You don’t have any internal stores. No mana signature, no system access. If anyone scanned you, you'd come up blank—just some regular guy in a fancy suit.”

  Rowan’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “If you joined a real party,” Dev continued, “they’d figure it out fast. And when they did, people would start asking questions. Not all of them nice.”

  Rowan said nothing. He didn’t have to.

  “I’m saying,” Dev said, leaning forward, “I can give you a way to have system access aka I can help you officially awaken. And everything that comes with it.”

  “I feel a ‘but’ coming up,” Rowan said, eyeing him.

  Dev sighed. “To do that, I need a mana stone and getting my hands on one would take me, like, a month. At best.”

  Rowan perked up at that. “Does it have to be a specific rank? Or is any stone enough?”

  “It can be any rank,” Dev said. “The higher, the better. But for what I’m trying to do—for it to be safe—the max I need is a Cat-3.”

  Rowan’s lips curled into a grin. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  Dev blinked.

  “I’ve got loads of those back at my apartment,” Rowan said casually. “Picked a bunch off monsters in the Gate when I was turning back for you .”

  Dev just stared. “...You serious?”

  “As a heart attack,” Rowan replied. “We can go right now so I can see if your full of it or not.”

  Dev looked at him like he’d just won the lottery. “Let’s go then.”

  Rowan moved to scoop him up, but Dev instinctively put a hand out.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to pick you up so I can carry you to my apartment.”

  “You’re not princess-carrying me all the way to your apartment.”

  “For the record,” Rowan said dryly, “I was gonna piggyback you.”

  Dev gave him a long, blank look. “This is the guy,” he muttered to himself. Then louder: “I have crutches. I can still walk. And we can just take the subway like normal people.”

  “Oh. Right,” Rowan said. It had been a while since he’d taken public transit. He used to ride taxis when he had a job. Lately, being able to run faster than a car had been way more convenient.

  “Subway it is,” Rowan said, sighing as he scratched his head. “You got a MetroCard I can use?”

  ……

  The green line rumbled steadily beneath them as the subway car barreled toward Queens. The late morning crowd was sparse—just a few commuters, an old man asleep with his head against the window, and someone playing lo-fi through busted phone speakers.

  Rowan stood near the doors, one hand on the overhead bar, hoodie pulled low. Dev sat across from him, leg outstretched and cast resting awkwardly over the seat next to him. He held onto a metal pole for balance with one hand and scrolled through his phone looking through new bulletins with the other, occasionally peeking up at Rowan.

  “So you ran all the way over to Brooklyn from Queens?” Dev asked, not looking up from his phone.

  “It was faster than a taxi. Even faster than this subway, for that matter,” Rowan replied flatly.

  Dev raised an eyebrow. “Not that you could take one anyway—you’re probably the only guy in New York City without a MetroCard.”

  Rowan slowly turned his head and gave him the most unimpressed, deadpan stare he could muster.

  “I’ll have you know,” Rowan said, tone dry as sandpaper, “I did pretty well for myself back in the day. I didn’t need a MetroCard. I had a car.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m reading it all here,” Dev said, waving his phone like a receipt. “Rowan Pierce—former Bohling airline engineer turned company whistleblower.”

  He tilted the screen toward Rowan, revealing a slew of old news articles and blog posts. Headlines flashed across the top: "Engineer Exposes Fatal Engine Flaw in Cargo Aircraft," "Anonymous Source Reveals Corporate Cover-Up," and "Bohling Denies All Wrongdoing After Whistleblower Testifies."

  Rowan’s jaw clenched. He let out a sharp tsk. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Really?” Dev said, not looking up from his phone. “Looks like it was, what, six months ago? Pretty recent. So why didn’t you come forward before Flight 376 happened?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Rowan muttered. “I guess I was scared. I didn’t want my life to blow up. Ignorance is bliss, and all that.”

  “Right. I bet the people on that plane thought the same thing.”

  Rowan turned sharply. “You don’t know a damn thing about my life. You don’t know what I went through so could testify. So if you’ve got more snark to throw, keep it to yourself—or this deal is off.”

  Dev raised a hand and leaned back, his voice calm. “Sorry. That was harsh. But I need to know who I’m about to trust with the secrets of awakening—and maybe more than that. I need to know if you’re the kind of person who could…”

  He trailed off.

  “Someone who could what?” Rowan asked, bitterness creeping into his voice. “Let a plane full of people die because he was too much of a coward to speak up? Someone who looked the other way because the paychecks kept coming? Someone who naively thought, if I just hung on a little longer, maybe I’ll get promoted and fix things from the inside?”

  Dev met his eyes without flinching. “No. Someone who can be trusted.”

  Rowan’s fist curled around the overhead bar. The metal creaked under the pressure, aluminum groaning faintly. He noticed, then let go with a sigh, his gaze falling.

  “Every time I go to sleep, I have the same recurring dream” Rowan said quietly, “I hear voices. Not screams. Not accusations. Just... conversations. A mom talking to her daughter. A father joking with his son. A couple planning their vacation. Two best friends chatting about nothing. A boy laughing at his sister.”

  He continued

  “It’s funny—I never met these people, but I know exactly who they are. I can’t see anything in the dream. I just hear them. What they would’ve sounded like. What they could’ve sounded like.”

  His voice tightened.

  “Then the tone changes. Gasps. Prayers. A baby’s crying then his mother starts to cry too. Another’s calling someone, trying to say goodbye. But they’re too high up. No signal. Then the voices all rise—panic, confusion—and then…”

  He snapped his fingers softly.

  “Silence. Just... nothing. No noise. No life.”

  He paused, eyes distant.

  “And I wake up in a cold sweat.”

  He looked back up at Dev.

  “So if you’re asking me whether I’m that person? Yeah. I am. I was. My guilt doesn’t erase my sins. No one but those conversations in my head can”

  A long breath.

  “But I can promise you this—”

  Rowan met Dev’s gaze again. The younger man didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. He was staring down someone who had broken into his home, threatened not only his life but his mind as well, and wielded enough power to turn him to ash—and still, there was no fear in his eyes. Only scrutiny. And maybe... a sliver of hope.

  “I don’t want to be haunted by fading conversations anymore. I don’t want to add more voices to the choir,” Rowan said, his voice steady now. “So if I can change... if I can be better I will. I have to. Never again. That’s all I can promise. Do you understand?”

  Dev gave a small nod, his expression softening.

  “More than you know,” he said, just as the subway doors hissed open at their stop