Veronica had made a strong pronouncement. She was still holding the passports, as she gauged the group’s reactions. Rebecca and Ganjo exchanged a quick, almost imperceptible look. Their expressions, moments before tinged with cautious hope, shifted. They switched into a familiar, deep-seated suspicion. Mariah and Olt watched them, sensing the sudden change. Lyona, standing slightly apart, looked on, her confusion deepening.

  Rebecca's eyes narrowed slightly.

  "You can explain?" she asked, her voice flat, edged with a sharp cynicism. "How convenient. Almost too convenient." Her posture stiffened, as her arms crossed defensively.

  Ganjo mirrored her stance, his own arms crossing over his broad chest.

  "Yeah, Veronica. You know about Hadic, about the Factory, about our pasts. You have resources, a whole network. You show up right when things escalate. Forgive us if we're not immediately convinced you're not involved."

  His tone was challenging, almost accusatory.

  Veronica watched them. A slow, knowing chuckle escaped her lips.

  She shook her head slightly with a gesture of weary understanding.

  "Ah, yes. The hardened cynics. Years in the shadows, dealing with Hadic's games. I know exactly how your minds work."

  She set the passports down on the dusty surface of the makeshift table.

  "But I assure you, I was not behind the attacks on Ms. Santander or Mr. Bartholomew's family. That is not my method. And frankly, it would be counterproductive to my goals."

  Her expression turned serious, as her vision seemed to look through them with intensity.

  "I have obtained information. Information that points directly to the source. Just as Ms. Santander's documents point to the rot within the SDRA."

  Veronica gestured towards the papers Chloe now held.

  "It’s all about information. But, let’s start unraveling all of this, won’t we?"

  Veronica then looked directly at Ganjo.

  "Ganjo, let's start with something you know intimately. Five years ago. Alberto Pointe. Do you remember exactly what happened there?"

  Ganjo visibly flinched at the mention of Alberto Pointe. His usual stoicism cracked, his composure fracturing like thin ice. His eyes widened slightly, and a muscle twitched uncontrollably in his jaw. He clenched his fists at his sides, as the knuckles turned white.

  Alberto Pointe. Why is she asking about that? Does she know? Does she know about the kids? About him? Is this it? Is she using that? Trying to blackmail me into revealing why I did it? Why I betrayed Oliver over that? Damn it, Ganjo, keep it together. Don't give her anything.

  He forced himself to meet Veronica's eyes, trying to regain his composure, but the nervousness was palpable.

  "Alberto Pointe?" he said. He spoke those words rough, perhaps a little too loud, betraying his inner turmoil. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  Rebecca, Olt, and Mariah exchanged worried glances. They saw Ganjo's distress, the sudden, raw vulnerability that had broken through his usual hardened facade. Rebecca took a small, almost imperceptible step closer to him. It was a subtle gesture of support. Olt looked confused, sensing the immense weight of the name "Alberto Pointe" and the profound impact it had on Ganjo. Mariah's eyes narrowed, a flicker of curiosity mixing with empathetic concern as she observed Ganjo's physiological response to the stress. He showed a slight tremor in his hands. There was also the tightening of his jaw. Lyona looked completely lost, sensing the sudden, heavy shift in the conversation.

  Veronica watched Ganjo's struggle, her expression firm, unyielding.

  "This is no time for secrets, Ganjo, not if you want to understand who is targeting you. Who is targeting all of you."

  She gestured towards Olt.

  "Olt's family was attacked. Alonso Gijon attacked Ms. Santander. These are not random events. They are connected. And the connection leads back to Alberto Pointe."

  The assertion that Alonso Gijon and the red-haired woman were somehow linked to Alberto Pointe, combined with Ganjo's intense, visceral reaction, created a powerful, almost gravitational pull into the past.

  The dim, vast warehouse, with its scattered debris and flickering lanterns, began to fade from their perception. The low hum of the city outside, the scent of dust and stale air, and the very feeling of the cool concrete beneath their feet receded.

  Flashback: 5 Years Ago; Alberto Pointe

  The air in the sub-basement lab was thick with the coppery scent of blood and the sharp, chemical tang of the shattered sensory deprivation tank. Ganjo stood over the wreckage, the lifeless body of the young boy sprawled amidst the broken glass and spilled fluid. The harsh, utilitarian lighting of the facility, overhead fluorescent strips and the stark glow from computer monitors beside each tank, cast unsettling shadows. Rows of similar tanks, tall, rectangular glass and metal enclosures, lined the walls of the expansive, concrete room. Inside each, indistinct forms of other children were visible, suspended in the murky liquid. Some were connected to an array of tubes and wires that snaked up towards the complex network of pipes and conduits running along the high ceiling.

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  Horror, raw and visceral, clawed at Ganjo's throat. A choked sound, a low growl of disbelief and fury, escaped him. He turned, looking over the other tanks. Each one was a fresh wave of revulsion. The sight of the children, trapped, experimented upon, ignited a burning rage within him. It felt like a fire that threatened to consume his reason.

  "The kids," he rasped, thick with a storm of emotions, "we need to get them out of here!"

  In the distance, the sounds of the fight were winding down. There was a final grunt, a heavy thud, then an uneasy quiet. Ganjo’s team had finished off the remaining facility guards.

  Suddenly, Maya’s voice cut through the tense aftermath.

  "Guys, over here! It's important!"

  Ganjo, still reeling from the gruesome discovery, moved towards her. His team converged around the spot where she knelt beside one of the downed attackers. The man lay twisted on the floor, his eyes wide and unseeing.

  Maya pointed to the defeated guard.

  "I know this man," she said. Her face was grim. "He's a martial advocate with the Krautzberger firm."

  She looked up at Ganjo with shock and a dawning horror.

  "Why would he be security here?"

  Ganjo stared at the Krautzberger advocate's face. The man’s features, contorted in death, were vaguely familiar. It was a face he might have seen in passing at some official function or in a news report. A chilling realization began to dawn on him. This wasn't just some rogue, black-market operation. It was as he feared. This was connected. Connected to power.

  He looked around the lab. The rows of gleaming, sinister tanks, the dead children, the defeated attackers in their nondescript uniforms itched at his heart strings. Why was he so upset? He’d seen scenes like these plenty of times before. This was different. It was not the visuals that ate at him as much as it was a gnawing sensation in his stomach. His rage, which had been a wild, consuming fire, began to solidify. It cooled into a core of cold, hard determination. He needed to know everything. He needed to understand the full scope of this depravity.

  Ganjo signaled his team, his voice now devoid of its earlier emotional tremor.

  "Secure the area. Check for survivors, for anything. I'm going deeper."

  Ganjo moved through the sterile corridors of the hidden facility. His heavy boots echoed meshed with the hum of tanks. The air was thick with the smell of chemicals, damp concrete, and a cloying, metallic sweetness that turned his stomach. His team fanned out behind him, securing the area, their movements tense and efficient. The aftermath of his Aether use left Ganjo feeling drained. There was a dull ache thrumming beneath his skin, but the adrenaline of the discovery, the sheer horror of it, pushed him forward. He passed rooms filled with buzzing machinery, darkened observation chambers, and what looked like makeshift holding cells. Each doorway hinted at further depravity.

  He reached a heavy steel door at the end of a long, dimly lit corridor. It was slightly ajar. There was a sliver of darkness beckoning from within. Pushing it open cautiously, Ganjo stepped inside.

  The sight that greeted him was a charnel house. The stench, so faint in the corridors, was overwhelming here. A thick, gagging miasma of blood and viscera tickled his nose. Mangled bodies came into vision. Some were small, unmistakably children, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Others were larger, adults, their forms torn and brutalized. The bodies were strewn across the cold, tiled floor. It was a scene of unimaginable carnage.

  Ganjo shrank back, as the horror hit him like a physical blow. His breath hitched in his throat. And then he saw him.

  Standing near the center of the room, amidst the carnage, was Alonso Gijon. He was unnervingly still, his face smeared with blood, his clothes soaked in it. But his eyes, when they slowly turned towards Ganjo, were not the wide, fearful eyes Ganjo knew. They were calm, almost serene, fixed on something unseen, or perhaps simply vacant. His posture was unnaturally rigid, lacking the usual nervous energy that always clung to him.

  "Alonso?" Ganjo said with a choked whisper, disbelief warring with the abject horror of the scene. "What…what the hell happened here? What did you do?"

  Alonso turned his head slowly towards Ganjo. There was no panic in his expression, no remorse. There was only a cold, detached recognition. His voice, when he spoke, was flat, devoid of emotion.

  "The failures," Alonso said, gesturing vaguely with a bloodied hand towards the mutilated bodies. "Unstable assets. Byproducts of the original trials."

  He looked down at his own blood-soaked hands without a hint of disgust, as if observing a mundane task completed.

  "This is where the impurities are cleansed. Where the damage is controlled."

  "Alberto Pointe was the source," Alonso continued, his voice a chilling monotone. "The origin of the prototypes. But the process was flawed. Unstable. They became monstrous."

  Alonso glanced briefly at the torn bodies of the children, his demeanor unchanging.

  "The organization, the commune, was established for this," he explained, his look distant, unfocused. "To manage the fallout. To take the unstable assets, the ones who activated prematurely. For purification. For a new dawn."

  Alonso, still distant, seemed to turn inward for a moment.

  "I was one of them. They activated me too soon. Uncontrolled."

  He touched his own temple lightly with bloodied fingers.

  "Father brought me here. To be refined. To be given purpose."

  The words struck Ganjo with the force of a physical blow. Martin Gijon, Alonso’s father, a man Ganjo knew, a man connected to the highest echelons of Oliver Nader's regime, had willingly subjected his own son to this horrific process.

  "He understands the necessity," Alonso stated.

  For the first time, a faint, almost imperceptible hint of something akin to pride touched his monotone voice. It was a deeply unsettling inflection given the carnage surrounding them.

  "The importance of a better tomorrow."

  Ganjo listened, his face growing paler with each chilling revelation. The pieces were clicking into place, forming a picture of depravity far beyond anything he could have imagined. The child experimentation he had witnessed in the tanks, the "failures" and "byproducts" mutilated in this room, Alonso's chilling transformation from a nervous wreck into this cold, detached instrument, and now, Martin Gijon's direct, personal involvement.

  This wasn't just a rogue lab. It wasn’t just a black-market operation hidden in the city's underbelly. This was organized and sanctioned. A meticulously managed system for dealing with the horrific experiments took place here. It wasn't just about creating assets, drugs, and profiting. It was evident that this was dogmatic. And people Ganjo knew, people who moved in Oliver's world, were not just aware of it, but intimately participating in it. This was the twisted means, the dark undercurrent he had only suspected before, now laid bare in all its gruesome reality.

  Ganjo stared at Alonso, then at the mangled bodies on the floor, then back at Alonso's unnervingly calm, blood-smeared face. The realization was a complete, devastating understanding of the true depths of depravity lurking beneath the surface of Oliver Nader's Synoro.

  Taking a shaky step back, Ganjo’s hand instinctively went to his mouth as if to stifle a cry of revulsion. His other hand clenched into a fist.

  Alonso remained standing amidst the gore. He was the embodiment of the operation's perverse success in turning human failure into controlled monsters. Alonso simply stared back at Ganjo, his eyes empty, reflecting nothing of the horrors around them.