I didn’t trust her. Not completely.

  But in that sterile room, with the weight of an apocalypse whispering behind every word she'd spoken, trust wasn't really the currency anymore. Curiosity was. Desperation too. And maybe—just maybe—that small flicker of belief that something inside me was more than ordinary. That maybe the version of me I'd been living wasn't all I was meant to be.

  So when she looked at me and said, “You don’t have to decide now. Just stay long enough to understand what choice really means,” I nodded.

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll stay... until I know more. Until I can actually make a choice.”

  A faint smile pulled at the corners of her lips—not smug or triumphant, but... something softer. Older. Like she'd seen too many others say those words and either never return, or never walk straight again.

  “You won’t regret it,” she said quietly.

  With a flick of her gauntlet, the metal cuffs snapped open. The hiss of decompression echoed in the small room like a sigh of release. My wrists ached with sudden freedom, but I didn’t rub them. I kept my eyes on her.

  I hesitated. “Maya… isn’t your real name. So what is?”

  Her expression didn’t shift much. But after a moment’s silence, she answered.

  “We don’t really get names. Not anymore. Names are roots, and roots get burned when the ground turns to fire.” She turned toward the door, her tone even. “But if you want something to call me... call me Jean.”

  “Jean,” I repeated. The name felt like a thread of normalcy in a sea of unraveling chaos. I gave a half-smile. “Alright. Jean it is.”

  She didn’t return the smile—but something about her shoulders relaxed.

  “Come on,” she said. “Time to meet the team.”

  She led me through corridors that pulsed with soft light. The walls were etched with shifting blue circuits, and each step echoed like we were walking through the belly of some sleeping machine. I could hear distant voices, mechanical whirrs, even a low, constant hum—like a song the facility never stopped singing to itself.

  Jean walked with practiced precision. Confident. Measured. Like she knew exactly how many steps each hallway took. How many seconds to reach the next door. She was the type of person who didn’t fidget. She had discipline etched into her spine.

  "Are you the Cap?" I asked.

  “Technically,” she said without looking at me, “I’m not the real captain. Just the last one standing to actually lead. Acting lead.”

  “What happened to the real captain?” I asked, voice low.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She paused at a security panel and tapped something in. The door hissed, scanning her gauntlet.

  “Agent 01,” she said. “He was a Looper too. Like you. Last one before you showed up.”

  “And?”

  She met my gaze, finally. “He couldn’t control it. Time bent around him like a dying star. Eventually, it turned against him. Aged him from twenty-three to eighty-nine in three hours.”

  My breath caught. “He… died?”

  Jean nodded. “In his sleep. After screaming for twenty-two minutes straight. All the clocks in the facility stopped during those last moments. We never got them working again. We tried hard to subdue whatever might have happened to him but all to no avail”

  A shiver ran down my spine. What the hell am I caught in?

  She turned. The door slid open.

  And I stepped into a world where everyone was already watching me.

  The room was massive. A training floor, a tactical command hub, and a living space all stitched together with futuristic minimalism. Sleek black panels lined the walls. Holographic screens hovered mid-air. The scent of metal, sweat, and faint ozone filled the air.

  Eight people. Five men. Three women. All in sleek, reinforced tech suits of matte black with glowing blue seams running along the fabric—like veins of power constantly fed by some unseen source.

  One man, bald and ripped like a boulder, was doing push-ups at a brutal speed, sweat glistening off his skin. Another sat at a curved screen, eyes darting with feverish intensity as code streamed faster than I could process. The third, a woman leaned against the wall, head lowered, arms crossed—her entire energy that of someone barely containing some kind of storm. The others were in scattered pairs, some talking, some silent, some with eyes trained directly on me the second I entered.

  All of them looked like warriors.

  And I looked like a guy in a borrowed white shirt and disoriented memories.

  I felt naked.

  “Eyes front,” Jean called out.

  They turned. All of them. Some curious. Some skeptical. A few indifferent.

  Except for one.

  A woman leaned against the far wall, face downcast, long braids shadowing her expression. She didn’t look up.

  I couldn’t tell if she was ignoring me or too deep in thought to care.

  Then came a voice like a gunshot through the air.

  “Well, well, look at you. You’re the next Looper, huh?”

  The man who stood grinned like someone born without the gene for subtlety. Broad-shouldered, tanned skin, scars running down his cheek like claw marks. His voice was loud, and his presence even louder.

  “Name’s Torque,” he said, clapping his hands together as he approached. “Good to have you, young lad.”

  I raised my hand slightly in return. “Nice to be here,” I muttered, trying not to let my face betray the mental screaming.

  Torque laughed. “Don’t worry. We all felt like crap our first day. Especially the Loopers. You guys get the worst welcome party.”

  As I moved further in, trying to find my place in this gallery of shadows and steel, the air shifted.

  A presence entered the room.

  Tall. Precise. Authoritative.

  A man, 6’4, give or take, with silver-threaded hair and a quiet intensity that made everyone instinctively stand a little straighter.

  He didn’t raise his voice.

  He didn’t need to.

  “Well done, Agent 09,” he said, his tone smooth like polished granite. “You brought him.”

  Jean nodded once.

  He turned to me.

  “Time for a proper introduction.” He said with an authoritative voice.

  This was the moment I stopped being a confused outlier strapped to a bed… and started becoming something else. I didn’t know what—soldier, tool, mistake. But as his eyes met mine, calm and ancient like they’d seen time split, I knew one thing: There was no going back. The Null Sequence had found me. And now, it was writing me in.