CHAPTER 40: THE SINS OF CHIMERA

The Legacy Drive sat on the console, humming.

It was a low, quiet sound, a soft, purple heartbeat in the sterile silence of the safe house.

It was calling to him.

Jinx stood by the weapons bench, her arms crossed, her expression a careful, neutral mask that didn’t quite hide the lingering fear in her eyes.

Chloe was a statue of cool composure by the main holographic table, but Michael, with his new, unwelcome [Void Sense], could feel the turbulent waves of curiosity and calculation rolling off her.

"Well, kid?" Jinx grunted, breaking the silence. "You gonna touch the spooky space-box, or are we just gonna stare at it until it gets bored and opens itself?"

Michael took a deep breath.

The whispers in his head were quiet for now, cowed by the potent serum from the Alchemist. But they were still there. A choir of ghosts waiting in the wings.

He walked over to the console, the faint purple light of the drive reflecting in his eyes.

Okay, Michael, he thought, his internal monologue a familiar, sarcastic shield. Just another day at the office.

Plug the soul-USB into the brain-port.

What’s the worst that could happen?

[SYSTEM WARNING: PROXIMITY TO UNSTABLE ARCANA ARTIFACT DETECTED. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.]

"Thanks for the heads-up, Captain Obvious," he muttered under his breath.

He reached out, his hand trembling just slightly.

He was tired of being a passenger in his own story. He was tired of whispers and secrets.

He needed answers.

His fingers brushed against the cool, polymer casing of the drive.

The world ended.

It didn’t explode. It just... stopped.

And then, it rebooted, with his mind as the new operating system.

A scream of pure, unadulterated data ripped through his skull. It wasn’t a sound; it was a feeling, a tidal wave of information so vast and so fast that it felt like his brain was being scraped clean with a rusty, digital spoon.

His vision dissolved into a blizzard of white static, shot through with flickering lines of crimson code.

He saw flashes.

Images.

Memories that were not his own.

A sterile, white lab, its walls stained with something dark and wet.

A Skitterer, strapped to a metal table, its body convulsing as glowing blue needles were plunged into its carapace, forcing it to mutate, to grow, its silent screams of agony echoing in his mind.

A man in a lab coat, his face a blur, scribbling notes on a datapad as a test subject—a human Hunter—began to transform, his skin bubbling and shifting, his screams turning into a guttural, inhuman roar. The birth of a Chimera.

It was a flood of raw, unfiltered horror.

He wasn’t just watching a video file.

He was in the file. He could feel the cold tile of the lab floor. He could smell the acrid scent of ozone and burnt flesh. He could taste the metallic tang of fear in the air.

He stumbled back from the console, a strangled gasp tearing from his throat, his hands flying to his head as if he could physically stop the flood.

"Michael!" Jinx’s voice was a distant, panicked shout.

But he couldn’t hear her.

He was drowning.

The data stream intensified, shifting from fragmented images to cold, hard text.

A list of names scrolled past his eyes, burning themselves into his memory.

Dr. Aris Thorne, Lead Bio-Engineer.

Kaelen Valerius, Project Supervisor. Wait, Valerius? Like the Captain?

Corporate Sponsor: OmniCorp Cybernetics.

DGC Oversight Committee: General Gideon.

It was a roster of the damned. A list of the architects of hell.

Each name was a sin. Each sin was a ghost.

And they were all pouring into him.

[PSYCHIC DAMAGE DETECTED. USER’S MENTAL FORTITUDE IS FAILING.]

[SOUL CORRUPTION STABILITY: CRITICAL.]

The whispers in his head, the ghosts of the monsters he’d consumed, roared to life, agitated by this new, overwhelming psychic assault. They weren’t just whispering anymore. They were screaming, fighting to protect their new home from this invading data-virus.

His mind was a warzone.

He felt his knees buckle. The strength vanished from his legs, and the world began to tilt sideways.

He was falling.

He braced himself for the impact of the cold, hard floor.

It never came.

Strong, steady arms caught him, breaking his fall.

They were surprisingly gentle.

"Easy, asset."

The voice was Chloe’s. It was right next to his ear, stripped of its usual, clinical distance. It was low, urgent, and laced with something he had never heard from her before.

Genuine alarm.

He slumped against her, his body trembling uncontrollably, the static in his vision slowly starting to recede.

He could feel the solid, reassuring pressure of her hand on his back, grounding him, pulling him back from the brink.

She was holding him up, her grip firm and protective.

For a single, dizzying moment, he wasn’t an asset. He wasn’t a weapon.

He was just Michael. And he was being held.

Jinx stood frozen by the weapons bench, her cynical, hardened expression having been replaced by one of wide-eyed shock.

She had seen him collapse.

She had seen Chloe move.

Chloe hadn’t just walked over. She had moved, with a speed and an instinctual reaction that was completely at odds with her cold, analytical persona.

It was the move of a protector. A partner. A bodyguard.

Jinx watched as Chloe gently lowered the trembling, half-conscious kid into a nearby chair, her hand lingering on his shoulder for a fraction of a second too long.

Huh, Jinx thought, a slow, cynical smirk finally returning to her face.

’Asset.’

Yeah, right.

Michael blinked, the sterile light of the safe house slowly coming back into focus. The psychic screaming had subsided, leaving behind a dull, throbbing headache and the faint, coppery taste of blood in his mouth.

He looked up at Chloe, who was already composing herself, her professional mask slamming back down, though not quite fitting as perfectly as before.

"The data transfer was... more violent than my projections anticipated," she stated, her voice a little too loud, a little too clinical. "Your vital signs are stabilizing. Cognitive function appears to be intact."

"Yeah, well, my brain feels like it just went ten rounds with a particularly angry encyclopedia," Michael managed to croak.

He pushed himself up, his body still shaky.

The Legacy Drive on the console fell silent.

Its purple light faded.

The initial download was complete.

He had the names. He had the proof.

He had the sins of Project Chimera rattling around in his skull.

But he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that it wasn’t over.

There was one file left.

One last ghost in the machine.

A new notification pinged on his HUD, quiet and simple, yet heavier than all the horrors he had just witnessed.

[FINAL DATA FRAGMENT ACCESSED.]

[DECRYPTING... FILE NAME: FOR_MICHAEL.MP4]

[SENDER: ELARA ARCANA.]