A NEW BEGINNING

“In a world where threats lurk around every corner, we need a solution that will protect us. The Institute, as the guardian of our safety, presents an answer after years of research.

We introduce the Modifiers – the new guardians of our world. Born under the watchful eyes of our finest scientists, they are stronger, faster, and more resilient than ever before.

Modifiers are not just soldiers; they are our salvation in hard times, our defenders. Each of them stands here with a single purpose: to protect you and your families.

We are your light in the darkness, your guardians in uncertain times.”

Ela, the Beacon, Upper Prim

The Beacon’s deep hum, which used to stir uneasy, almost anxious feelings in her, now merely calmed her. She stood in the dimly lit technical room, thoughtfully watching the dark silhouette hidden behind the glass of the synchronization pod. Her eyes drifted to the screen next to it, now black. Still, she knew what lit up there every single day.

“Did you speak to Vin?”

Seren appeared beside her, her voice urgent. Ela looked at the flickering apparition of her mother and hesitated a moment. Her mind was on alert. For some time now, she’d been trying to find a pattern in Seren’s behavior, something to help her understand what she was truly capable of. She knew Seren only appeared when she wore the meco, which made sense – the device was their bridge for communication. But she also never showed up in the presence of any awakened werren, and, oddly enough, seemed to avoid Vin when possible. As if she feared the young technician might somehow sense her presence.

 “I did,” Ela confirmed briefly, recalling the look on Vin’s face when she asked him a question that, in his eyes, bordered on blasphemy.

What would happen if Tonot had all the same synchronization marks? How would such a werren function?

“And what did he say?” Seren was visibly impatient for the answer.

“Tonot would have only one entity inside him. He’d be standing here as himself,” Ela confirmed what she had already suspected. She was convinced that Seren knew it too but, for some reason, didn’t want to give her that information for free. She wanted her to search for it on her own.

“So to find the true werren, we have to disrupt the synchronization process,” Seren mused, twirling a strand of hair around her finger the way her real mother used to. These small, human gestures genuinely unnerved Ela. She tried not to perceive Seren as a real being, but sometimes it was hard.

“Exactly. But Vin also added that it’s not realistic, because the synchronization doesn’t happen externally—it happens directly inside the shell. You’d have to dismantle it, which, as we both know, isn’t exactly feasible.”

Ela was disappointed by Vin’s words. She had hoped there would be an easier path to finding the real werren—but what was ever easy these days? She also knew she had to be careful now. Vin was already eyeing her and her odd questions with suspicion, and the fact that they’d had the discussion while he was completely drunk didn’t help matters.

“You’re not planning something stupid, are you?”

She just shook her head, but it was clear that Vin, as an information source, would have to be put on hold for a while.

“So now we’ve got a problem. We need to get under the werren’s skin. Literally,” Seren smirked.

Ela nodded, but she couldn’t help it. The problem with Tonot was being pushed aside by the day’s events. Her fingers tapped an empty cup, and she felt the bracelet on her wrist—the one that had returned to her under strange circumstances. She’d worn it for years before giving it to Reng. She had no idea what the bundle of cords and colored beads had gone through before making its way back to her wrist. She found it shortly after speaking with Borin. It was among the belongings of those now floating in the regeneration tanks. It was there, just like his bolaso and the old hunting knife Reng had gotten from her father. The only thing she hadn’t found—was him.

“Are you able to access the system where I don’t have clearance?”

Seren was surprised by the question, but eventually nodded.

“After the attack on Sindar Lad, a total of thirty-five men and women were admitted to the Beacon to recover, and some of them later joined the modification project.”

“That matches—why?”

“I’m looking for a specific name, but the system couldn’t find it. Yet Borin claims the man was handed over alive.”

Seren raised an inquisitive eyebrow and looked searchingly into Ela’s face, as if trying to figure out what was driving her to search for someone who might not even exist.

“If the system didn’t find him, there are two options. Either he wasn’t as alive as Borin thought, or someone made sure the system wouldn’t see him.”

“I know. But I searched the list of all those who died in Sindar Lad, and his name wasn’t there. So I’m assuming the second option, even though I don’t know why.”

“I agree—it certainly sounds suspicious,” the apparition flickered as she paced a few thoughtful steps. “You seem to care about him. Why? What does he mean to you?”

“You’ll be surprised, but he was someone your real self almost considered a son,” Ela replied tensely.

“A son?” Seren echoed her, more as if she were testing the thought than actually believing it. “Interesting. It seems my life took some strange turns after I left the Beacon.”

“His name was Reng. My father brought him home from one of his last Drifter expeditions. He grew up with us. I last saw him when I left Karhen Rouz, and then all I got was a short message saying he was dead…”

“Clearly he wasn’t, if he showed up in Sindar Lad,” Seren noted.

“Clearly,” Ela agreed, looking at her with a flicker of hope. “But now he’s disappeared again, for some reason.”

“If a record of your Reng was deleted, there had to be a reason. No one bothers erasing nobodies.”

“And that’s what makes no sense. Reng was just a normal boy. There was nothing special about him.”

Except for those hands.

She recalled his palms, calloused from hard work, yet so gentle when they touched her. She always wondered how something so rough could feel so tender. But now…

She shook her head to drive the thoughts away. Her cheeks flushed uncontrollably, and she stared down at the ground in embarrassment. She knew Seren must’ve picked up the emotional surge through the meco, but either she couldn’t decipher it or chose to keep a straight face and ignore it.

“There really isn’t a single mention of him in the standard systems,” Seren mused. “But Tonot keeps a separate section reserved for his own… more interesting cases. If I were you, I’d look there.”

“Tonot? How come I don’t know about that?”

It made her angry. She kept discovering that her role in the Beacon had been repeatedly undermined. She was supposed to be its confidant, its mediator—perhaps even its friend. Someone Tonot should trust enough to mention that the regeneration tanks in the modification lab weren’t the only ones. If he hadn’t told her that… what else had he kept from her?

“Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to ask him directly,” Seren remarked dryly.

***

Ela knew the conversation ahead wouldn’t be a pleasant one. She hesitated for a long time, nervously pacing back and forth, trying to organize everything she had learned through Seren. She was worried—if she told Tonot that she knew about Reng, he might start asking how she found out. She needed to ensure he wouldn’t suspect that her virtual companion gave her access to classified data.

She took a deep breath and placed her hand on the reader panel beside the door. A green light scanned her palm carefully, and the door opened with a soft hiss to let her in.

The room was dark. Not completely, but enough that it forced her to stop and let her eyes adjust. The only illumination came from the monitors at the back of the lab, blinking in a steady, slow rhythm. They reminded her of the breathing of a giant, sleeping creature. The Beacon was alive.

She stepped forward slowly, trying to ignore the silence that grew heavier with every footfall. This was Tonot’s domain. Uninvited guests were never meant to feel comfortable here. And even welcome ones often left with the sense that they’d be better off elsewhere.

“Are you looking for me?” came a voice from the depths of the room.

Tonot spoke without the slightest hint of surprise. He knew exactly who had entered.

Ela blinked as her eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness. In the center of the ring of monitors sat the werren. His shell glistened in the soft light of the screens, hands embedded in the panel before him, as if he were merely another part of the machinery that surrounded him. If she hadn’t known him, he might have seemed like nothing more than a hunk of motionless metal. But his voice—soft, almost human—proved otherwise.

“I am,” she admitted quietly.

She approached him, her footsteps echoing louder in the room’s emptiness than she would have liked. She knew he could sense her even through the meco, could feel her nervousness.

Tonot raised his head, and his lifeless eyes briefly glinted in the dim light.

“What’s going on?”

Ela swallowed and forced herself to speak.

“I’ve lost someone.”

“Many of us have.”

“I know. But he was very close to me, and now I’m afraid for him. It seems, by a twist of fate, he ended up in the Beacon. But for some reason, I can’t find him.”

“Perhaps you don’t have the right information.”

“Borin claims he was brought here after being injured in Sindar Lad.”

That caught Tonot’s attention. He disconnected from the control panel and turned to face her, signaling that she had his full focus now.

“So he’s one of the true heroes our Modifiers rescued?”

“Probably. The problem is the system doesn’t see him. I personally checked every tank, but he’s nowhere. If I hadn’t found his belongings in the archives, I wouldn’t believe he ever made it here. But I did.”

She placed the bolaso and knife in front of him. The only thing she kept was the bracelet, which held too much personal value to let go.

Tonot listened attentively, his expression perfectly unreadable as he looked at the recovered personal items. She didn’t take that as a good sign.

“Does this someone have a name?” he asked after a moment.

Ela hesitated only for a split second, then spoke the name with tense resolve:

“Reng.”

She expected Tonot to say something—anything. But the silence only stretched on.

The shell before her suddenly felt different. Alien. Menacing. It was as if she could feel real cold radiating from it, seeping into her mind through the meco.

“You know where he is,” she decided to break the silence. Her voice sounded more confident than she felt, given how much she was trembling.

Tonot continued watching her, his eyes glowing in the flickering light of the monitors. If he were human, she could have read his face for clues. But instead, she saw only a blank mask—mechanical, motionless, devoid of life.

“I’m not sure how much of a coincidence it is that you’re looking for this man in particular,” he said quietly. “It seems his favorite pastime is being presumed dead.”

Hope surged in Ela and she nodded.

“Exactly. But this time it seems to have been a misunderstanding.”

“We wouldn’t call it a misunderstanding. Before his supposed death, Karhen Rouz had him listed as a wanted subjected. So it was a deliberate deception.”

Ela’s stomach dropped. Subjected? What kind of nonsense was that? She shook her head.

“Reng was a member of my family. He was… he was free, I swear it.”

“And the fact that he served in PDC penal units to avoid further sentencing—was that also a mistake?” Tonot asked, watching her closely. “You might be surprised, but he and his… associates caused extensive property damage to one of the major cattle lords in Oko Lahab. Maybe you should ask Borin about it sometime. He was one of them. But unlike your Reng, he ended up here—while Reng was sent straight to the South.”

Ela drew breath to respond, but then shut her mouth again and looked down. There was too much she didn’t yet have answers to.

“It seems you know far less about him than you probably should.”

“I know what kind of person Reng is,” she countered firmly. “And I know he’s not a bad man. Maybe he was in a penal unit, but he truly fought at Sindar Lad—and nearly died there. So I don’t care what others say about him. I know him. And I trust him.”

“Let’s hope you won’t end up disappointed. But we’ll try to take your conviction into account.”

She felt her heart pounding. She recognized something in his response—a promise. She took a deep breath and finally found the courage to ask:

“So he’s alive?”

The werren smiled faintly for the first time and then gave the slightest nod, inviting her to follow him.

The regeneration tanks were terrifying in themselves. But over time, Ela had grown used to them. The sight of bodies floating in viscous liquid still stirred oppressive, deeply unpleasant feelings in her. But just like Miren had once frightened her, this time it was even worse. The sight of a helpless body suspended in the dense fluid nearly buckled her knees.

Tonot stood just a step away, and Ela’s mind was suddenly flooded by the presence of the werren—hungry, devouring everything inside her. Sorrow. Horror. Disgust. Ela closed her eyes, but the images didn’t leave. She stepped closer to the tank and touched the glass. It was ice cold. Just like him.

Reng was there. Alive—at least according to the instruments. A miracle.

There wasn’t a patch of skin on his body untouched by scars. Deep and disordered, like intricate maps of pain. Some were old. She saw the mark of Jara’s knife, others from his time with the PDC.

The freshest ones were from the battle at Sindar Lad—and those carved by surgeons. His arms and legs had been bolted together to heal.

And on his back… a mesh of implants.

It stretched from his neck to his lower back, resembling a metallic parasite—too real, too hungry. Wires connecting the implanted components ran beneath the skin. She could see their shadows on his wrists, shining faintly near his collarbones like hidden larvae of young tickworms, burrowed into living flesh.

Ela felt her eyes begin to burn.

“This… this is something entirely different from the others,” she whispered.

Tonot nodded, but his eyes held something closer to pride. He didn’t understand her reaction.

“Exactly. We took advantage of his status to carry out certain experimental procedures. That’s also why he’s not on active duty yet. The process was much more complex—more demanding, even for him. So it took significantly longer.”

“How…?”

Tonot turned to her, finally realizing that Ela did not share his enthusiasm.

“Reng is still officially a dead man. That’s what his home oasis declared, and with that, he lost the right to his physical body.”

“He doesn’t seem dead to me. And the PDC didn’t think so either when they signed a contract with him…”

“PDC would sign a contract with a crippled hornbeast if it meant more meat for the front,” Tonot cut her off sharply.

Why did the werren always show these erratic behaviors at the worst moments? Now was not the time.

Ela drew a sharp breath and finally whispered,

“This isn’t right…”

“He tried to cheat the system, and it could’ve cost him everything. He actually got off easy. He’s alive, Mediator. Many of his comrades can’t say the same. And we believe that in the end, we’ll all benefit from the possibilities his recklessness has given us.”

She shook her head one last time, unwilling to accept it—but in the end, she only pressed her palms against the cold glass and looked at the motionless body. She noticed small muscle twitches; his fingers trembled slightly, and his chest rose gently in controlled breaths through the mask that concealed his face. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was drifting in a sea of endless sleep. It was impossible to tell.

“Could I be there when he wakes up?” she finally asked quietly.

Tonot nodded.

She didn’t need anything more.