For days after gaining access to the Primordial Relic's data, Neo barely left the private analysis chamber assigned to him.
The torrent of raw information was like staring into a boundless sea. Energy waveforms intertwined with unparseable fragments of signal, patterns both mesmerizing and terrifying. To Neo it was the greatest technical challenge of his life. But the deeper he probed, the more a cold unease gnawed at him.
This was no mere energy device.
He was tracing a particularly strange resonance signal when the door hissed open without warning.
Evelyn Kane stood in the frame—not in her combat armor, but in plain fatigues. She looked paler than usual, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Yet there was steel in her expression, and urgency.
"We need to talk, Neo. Now. Away from here."
Her tone brooked no refusal.
Neo saved the dataset, shut down the terminal, and followed. She didn't take him to an office or secure meeting room. Instead she led him through twisting corridors, up into the upper caverns, into an abandoned observation post long forgotten.
Dust lay thick across consoles, but the view through reinforced glass stretched wide: the eternal gray-yellow wasteland sky. Most importantly, there were no recorders here. No ears but theirs.
Evelyn sealed the door, staring out the window in silence. Only after a long pause did she speak, voice low and rasped.
"Dane's shown you the relic, hasn't he? Told you it's the key to the future. The hope of healing this world."
Neo didn't deny it. "That's how he described it. He thinks my knowledge can help him understand it."
"Understand?" Evelyn spun, eyes burning—anger, yes, but also fear.
"They're not trying to understand. They're playing with fire. They're repeating the stupidity that birthed the Dark Tide."
Neo had never seen her so raw, so openly furious.
"What do you mean, Commander?"
"That relic," she hissed, "is no gift from some higher civilization. It's a tombstone. The very source of the catastrophe."
Neo's breath caught. Dane had called it a 'source' among others. Evelyn was naming it the heart of the disaster.
"But… Dane said it was the remnant of a failed experiment—"
"An experiment, yes. But not some alien benevolence." She stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"From what fragments remain, the Dark Tide began as an Old World megacorporation's ultimate gamble. They tried to breach higher dimensions—or to tap infinite energy. That relic is the core of their machine. It failed. Energy ran wild. Reality tore. Laws of physics collapsed. Life twisted into nightmares."
Her words dropped like lead.
"And why do you think Prism Base still stands, here of all places? Why can we survive in this cavern? Because the geology and the haphazard metal structures left by early settlers formed a natural Faraday cage. It shields us—barely—from the relic's constant emissions. We aren't living in a safe home, Neo. We're living next to a bomb that could go off again at any moment."
Chill crept down Neo's spine. If she was right, then Prism wasn't sanctuary—it was a gamble with extinction.
"Dane knows this?"
"He knows enough. But he and his faction choose what to see." Evelyn's voice sharpened. "They see energy. They see progress. They downplay the danger. Every time they prod the relic, even at its lowest thresholds, the readings around the base spike. Mutants grow agitated. And during their last medium-intensity test?" She leaned closer. "We nearly lost the outer wall to a mutant horde we've never seen before. Coincidence? Hardly."
Her gaze locked onto his.
"I brought you into my command not just for your skill, Neo. I needed an untainted eye. Someone who knows technology enough to see what they're doing—and to tell me the truth. If you push Dane's experiments deeper, you won't save this world. You'll accelerate its ruin. You could unleash something worse than the Dark Tide."
The weight of her words pressed down on him. Dane's promise had been intoxicating: infinite energy, rebirth. Evelyn's warning was visceral: apocalypse reborn.
"Then what do you want from me, Commander?" Neo asked quietly. "To refuse the Fireseed Project? To act as your spy?"
Evelyn shook her head. Her face was weary, but firm.
"I can't forbid you, not with Dane's influence in council. And I know your hunger for knowledge. I'm not asking for loyalty—I'm asking for judgment. If you continue with Fireseed, stay independent. Watch for risk. And if you see anything slipping out of control, you come to me immediately. Base security comes before dreams. Before any so-called future."
Her tone softened then, almost imperceptibly. "My parents were engineers. They died in the chaos of the Tide's first wave. I watched the world fall apart once. I will not watch it happen again."
A rare glimpse of vulnerability, laid bare. And trust, immense.
Neo studied her. Beneath the command and cold precision was someone who bore the weight of the dead, holding order together by sheer will.
"I understand, Commander." His voice was steady. "Thank you for telling me. I'll tread carefully. For the base's safety first."
He hadn't pledged himself to either side. But he had promised awareness. And for now, that was enough.
When he left the observatory, the air outside seemed heavier.
Dane saw promise. Evelyn saw a volcano beneath their feet.
And Neo—an outsider armed with another world's knowledge—was now the weight on the scales. He would have to dig deeper into the relic, not to awaken it, but to strip away its mask and see whether it was truly fireseed—or the last ember of annihilation.
For now, the curtain had lifted, revealing not firm ground but dark waters swirling below. And Neo was already standing in the middle of the stage.