Lena knocked softly on Kaelan's door. No answer. She pushed it open—it wasn't locked—and found him asleep at his workbench
("the spot where Kaelan studies Rustbucket himself"), head resting on one arm still wrapped in a dirt-stained uniform. Scattered beside him was a medical report showing dangerously high cortisol levels and early signs of PTSD.
"He can't keep going like this," Lena muttered to herself.
Back in her sterile office, Lena pulled up the Foundation's restricted database. Oddly, her usual password was denied. Strange. As Kaelan's overseer, she should have full clearance. Using her emergency credentials, she forced her way into the sealed archives.
What she found froze her in place.
PROJECT GRIT: EXPERIMENTATION PROTOCOLS
The document listed detailed breakdowns of every mission Kaelan had been through:
Day 14: Subject deployed to Corrosion Scenario. Stimulus: High-oxidation field. Expected response: Adaptation via material sacrifice. Actual response: Within prediction.
Day 21: Subject deployed to Illusion Scenario. Stimulus: Multispectral holograms. Expected response: Enhanced sensory adaptation. Actual response: Exceeded prediction.
And the most chilling line of all:
Day 28: Planned Sonic Scenario. Stimulus: High-frequency lethal soundwaves. Risk: Permanent neural damage. Approval: KL4US.
KL4US. Director Klaus.
Lena stared at the screen, her stomach twisting. This wasn't research. This was systematic torture. She glanced at the photo embedded in the file—Kaelan's face, older than his years, eyes sharpened by exhaustion, shoulders tense even in an ID shot.
Something had to be done. But what? Klaus's eyes were everywhere.
Then, another notification popped up across her screen: "Prepare Subject Alpha for Sonic Scenario. Schedule: 48 hours. Rescue protocol: Not required."
Not required. They didn't care if Kaelan survived.
Lena clenched her fist. Enough. She had to warn him. But how, without tipping Klaus off?
She typed a short message to Kaelan's tablet:
"Take a break (already approved by Foundation). Meet me in Lower Sector tomorrow morning."