A NEW BEGINNING

Internal Report

(Top Secret – For Section Heads Only)

Subject: Increased Activity in the Terrace Sector – Unauthorized Access

Sender: Internal Security Department

Recipient: Primary Beacon Command

Dear Leadership,

within the past 24 hours we have recorded an unusual number of access attempts into the Terrace direct broadcast databases. We have not yet been able to trace the source, but we suspect several high-ranking individuals with access rights who have taken suspicious steps in recent days.

The latest data indicates:

Transfer of a large volume of files outside the internal Beacon network.

Encrypted connection to a remote access point within the Prim Council.

Forged authorization codes matching the profile of Councillor ***

We are not sure exactly what was transferred or to whom it was intended, but given that several of these attempts involved searches for files related to modificants, Southern operations, and individual mission records, we recommend immediately investigating:

Who exactly has had access to battlefield records in recent days.

How Councillor *** might have been involved in the data leak.

Whether this could be part of a broader coordinated action within the Prim Council.

We will continue to monitor the situation and await your orders.

Respectfully,

Investigation Team Section 14C, Beacon

Ela, Prim Beacon

The Beacon’s doors finally closed behind the two councillors and her brother, leaving Ela standing exhausted in the middle of the vast hall. She felt as empty as the space around her. Everything she had learned terrified her, as did the commitments she had just made.

“You did the right thing,” Seren said softly at her side.

She, too, must have seen how drained Ela was.

“Tonot will probably want to speak with me,” Ela finally said, rubbing her tired eyes.

She would have loved nothing more than to collapse and sleep, but she couldn’t. This was far more important, far more critical than rest.

He was waiting for her.

In the darkness, broken only by the flickering glow of screens, he looked like a phantom. Yet in his eyes, she saw unmistakable curiosity. Something he hadn’t shown until recently. That change, at least, she counted among the better ones. It made him seem far more alive, though she wasn’t sure if that was truly a good thing.

“Well?” Tonot asked simply.

He didn’t need to be more specific; they both knew what he was asking. Ela was also certain he already knew everything from Seren. Given that the specter of her mother was now part of the Beacon itself, she suspected he didn’t need her or her meco to communicate with the werren.

“You need to tell him yourself. He needs to hear it from you,” Seren spoke, as if reading her thoughts.

She appeared right beside Tonot with the kind of natural ease that made it seem like the place belonged to her. Ela didn’t like it. When Seren had been only hers, when she hadn’t had to share her, it had been easier to trust her. Now, though, she was unsure of Seren’s motives and especially of the role she played in all this. Was she Tonot’s friend, his advisor, or perhaps his master? Ela wasn’t sure about any of those possibilities. And in the end, she wasn’t even sure what Seren was to her anymore.

“The meeting was… exhausting,” she admitted cautiously, forcing herself to keep a calm tone even though she could feel the anxiety tightening in her stomach. “But we need to prepare for possible complications. They’re not hiding the fact that they want to publicly discredit the modificants…

The presence of Councillor Noret was especially troubling in that regard.

If we were dealing only with Brooks, I would believe we could rely on the final outcome, but like this… I don’t know.”

Tonot remained motionless, fixing his cold eyes on her.

“Continue.”

“Councillor Noret insisted that the modificants must be punished. According to him, the Beacon cannot place itself above the law, especially if they truly are behind the civilian murders they keep trying to pin on us. Councillor Brooks barely even tried to pretend he was on Valis’s side this time.

I suggested we set up an investigative commission to make it look like we’re genuinely responding, but…” she hesitated, nervously running her hand over her thigh.

“But?” Tonot prompted her to go on.

“They have evidence and witnesses that could really hurt us. Strong evidence. If the commission starts doing its job, it will end in disaster.

Councillor Brooks promised me they would give us time for an internal investigation so we can prepare, but… I don’t know what to think of it. It’s… it’s terrible.”

Seren, who had wandered around the room in the meantime, smiled with a hint of excitement.

“Just as you predicted. The Beacon is guilty, and in the end, it won’t be that hard to prove. It was only a matter of time before they made a mistake. We just had to wait,” she said, her voice carrying such a sinister sweetness that a chill ran down Ela’s spine.

“If we admit fault publicly, it could mean the end of the modificants,” Ela warned them, her voice almost faltering.

As she watched Tonot’s expression and Seren’s smile, she began to feel genuinely afraid for the future of all those people who had sacrificed everything for them.

Tonot let out a quiet sigh, his eyes glinting softly.

“The end of the modificants,” he repeated slowly, as if weighing the gravity of the words. “And that troubles you?”

Ela blinked, slightly taken aback by his tone.

“Well… yes? They’re your project, aren’t they? We’ve invested enormous resources into them. They are an essential element for managing the situation in the South. If the public loses faith in their mission, it will eventually impact everyone.

Even the credibility of the Beacon.

It’ll be like an avalanche that sweeps away everything in its path, and no one knows how it might end.”

Tonot slowly crossed the room, clearly deep in thought. The monitors behind him gave him a mysterious look in the darkness of the room.

“Ela,” he began quietly, “you’ve made many brave decisions lately, and for that, I’m grateful to you. But you still haven’t understood why we are here, nor what role the modificants truly play in this.”

He turned to her, his gaze indulgent, almost fatherly.

“Maybe if someone finally bothered to tell me?” she suggested timidly.

Tonot sighed resignedly, as if weighed down by the burden that this duty had fallen on him.

“Sometimes you have to destroy something to make room for something new, something better.”

“Destroy?” she repeated hesitantly, fully aware that Tonot was quoting her mother. Those were exactly the words her mother had used when, as children, she told them stories about the werren and their purpose. Now there was no doubt that she had been speaking about Tonot all along.

“Exactly,” he nodded in agreement, making sure she didn’t think she had misheard. “The Beacon’s existence has long been built on a lie, and above all on the suffering of the werren themselves. From the moment one small part of me awoke after an accident, I realized just how far we had strayed from the path.”

“I… I don’t understand. You want all this to disappear? Forever? Completely?”

Ela felt the weight of his words almost crush her. What she had just heard was worse than anything she had imagined.

“Not completely. There’s a protocol that can correct the mistakes that have been made. If that is still possible. But the conditions for activating it are not easy. Still, you already helped me fulfill one of them when you secured the configuration change of my shell, allowing me to fully awaken.

But to complete it, I am still missing several steps. And for one of them, I need Reng. He alone is the essential one from the entire modificant program.”

“Nonon. He’s supposed to help you with him…” it hit her, and she drew a deep breath, utterly terrified by what she had just understood.

Tonot wanted to destroy the Beacon?

And she, along with everyone else around him, it seemed, was just a part of his plan. She hesitated, wondering if she had ever truly wanted to know this truth. Maybe it had been much easier to just be a blind executor.

“How much longer until… until it’s done?” she whispered at last, still unable to believe that anyone could wield such power as to bring down something that had existed long before humans themselves.

Seren leaned in toward her. “You will find out soon. But it will be safer if you just follow the instructions. Trust us, this is an enormous chance for all of us. A true New Beginning, the one your mother longed for so deeply.”

Ela could barely suppress a wave of nausea. Being part of something like this was the pure embodiment of her nightmares. And yet she understood that this had been the real reason for her existence all along. Seren had been preparing her for this from her very first steps. And now it seemed her mother’s dream was truly within reach.

But nothing ever goes according to plan…

***

If Ela thought she had already been through the worst, she found out the next morning just how wrong she was.

The horrifying broadcast hit Prim like an unexpected punch to the face.

And Ela felt exactly like that as she stared in disbelief at the infovision monitor, watching images that were all too familiar. Only yesterday they had been confined to the hologram in the Beacon’s meeting room. Now they were spreading uncontrollably across every channel.

She stood frozen, staring at all the destruction left behind by those she and most of Prim had so far trusted without question. She saw again the tears of a small boy, trembling as he recounted what he had witnessed. The rubble, the fire, and the dead bodies. The wind lifting hot ash and delicate shards, burying what was left of the place where people had lived not long ago.

And then she saw new footage, the kind anyone would recognize. Modificant armor was shown on infovision every day in short clips meant to bring people closer to the heavy mission they were created for. But this was something entirely different. Something that perhaps had been whispered about for some time, but only now could everyone see with their own eyes what the Beacon had worked so hard to hide. She knew the recordings existed, because those involved in the modificant training had used them to assess their effectiveness. And the Beacon could be proud. It had created monsters, killing machines that tore through everything in their path without a shred of mercy.

She turned her face away, fighting back the tears rising in her eyes. Partly because she recognized every one of them. The individual armors were too specific, and she could easily pick out Borin, whose indifferent eyes roamed over the devastation he had caused without the slightest flicker of humanity. Then she recognized others, including Miren. So strong and yet so fragile. And finally Reng, whose arms had so often embraced her and held her close, letting her experience that unmistakable feeling of safety and absolute acceptance.

The recording ended, but the broadcast continued, shifting to the image of a gray-haired figure. A chill ran down Ela’s spine the moment she recognized him. Gramp. As always, he was icily calm, though perhaps his face now bore traces of exhaustion she had never seen in him. But his eyes still burned with the fanatical light that captivated crowds.

“They claimed they were created to protect your lives,” he said, looking directly at everyone watching him. “They were supposed to win a war none of us wanted. You were meant to trust them without question, to celebrate them and place your fate in their hands. You let them decide your existence without ever being shown their true face. We have just changed that. Because this is what they are, in all their raw brutality, bathed in the blood of the lives they have taken. That is their essence. Strip away the gilding the Beacon wrapped them in, and you are left with murderers. Brutal, merciless, inhuman.”

Gramp paused, giving everyone who heard him a chance to reflect on his words. Ela stared at his face and realized how cruelly everyone had underestimated this man. They had spoken of him as a terrorist, but he was something more. He was a leader. Maybe blood followed in his wake, but people believed in him. She remembered the faces of those who had attacked her in Karhen Rouz. She knew he and his people had played a part, and she should hate him for it, but now she understood he had been right. Gramp had seen through it all long ago. He knew what the Beacon truly was, and by cutting off Karhen Rouz before it could restore its umbilical cord to Prim, he had done them the greatest possible service. And even though his methods were often cruel and merciless, their goal had been to bring people to a place where they could finally start deciding for themselves.

His voice pulled her from her thoughts again as he picked up where he had left off. And she could not miss the pain she now heard in his voice.

“The people in these images were guilty only of feeding the hungry. Yet they were cruelly erased from the world so the Beacon could show us, those who have nothing but faith in a better future, that we have no right to hope for freer tomorrows. Yes, that is exactly what their world is.

Maybe right now you feel this does not concern you. You live in safety, in the shadow of the Beacon, far from those who die at their hands. But think about it. Who can guarantee that next time it will not be you, or your loved ones, who are wiped out because someone points a finger at you?”

Gramp narrowed his eyes, and his voice rose. “The Beacon is lying to you! But now… now they can no longer deny the truth. They cannot. Because the truth already has a life of its own, it is spreading, and they no longer have any way to stop it.”

The infovision went dark, and the original broadcast resumed, yet Ela felt as if it all must have been just a bad dream from which she had just woken up. But then she heard the murmur drifting through the Beacon. Everyone had seen that message. Some might have already known what was happening out there, but many of those she passed in the halls were terrified by what they had just witnessed. It was clear this would have consequences. And deep inside, Ela felt she might even be glad. No, she did not want anything to happen to the modificants, who were innocent in this. They were merely the tools of others. But she could not forget that because of what she had just seen, she had lost Miren.

A surge of unexpected anger rose in her like an avalanche, swallowing her whole. Until now, she had not wanted to admit that it was the Beacon who had killed Miren. The very Beacon she had dedicated her life to had taken away the person she truly cared about. And worse, now the same fate awaited Reng. Tonot did not even pretend that the modificants were anything but expendable in his plan. They existed solely so he could create his tool in the form of Reng, and although it seemed that Reng was very important to him at this moment, Ela no longer doubted that once he fulfilled what was expected of him, he would be discarded like all the others.

Angry, disappointed, and painfully betrayed, she set out to find Tonot, sensing that the events of the coming hours would be more than turbulent. She could not ignore the wave of emotions around her. This time she saw it not only in the colored waves on the walls but above all in the eyes of the people she passed.

“What did we just see?” she heard someone call out, but she ignored it.

She herself did not know how she should answer. Moreover, in that voice there was not only fear and uncertainty, but also reproach and a faint hint of silent accusation. Everyone knew who she was. She was the mediator of Tonot, the very creator of the modificants. For many of them, she was, in their eyes, equal to the werren. She shared in his successes as well as his failures. No one had yet dared look at her directly, but from every glance that briefly landed on her, she felt the unspoken questions they did not yet dare to voice.

“I thought you said we would have time!”

Ela had never seen Tonot in a rage. The original werren perhaps had not even been capable of it, but the one now standing before her looked terrifying.

The metal face was scowling, and the look he fixed on her was dark and unyielding, as if watching her with something far more sinister than ordinary anger. She sensed he was searching her expression for even the faintest shadow of doubt about her loyalty, something to confirm she was not on his side.

“That was exactly the agreement,” she objected, squaring herself to face him.

She did not want him to know she was afraid of his anger, though the meco surely betrayed that fact to him.

“Ela is not lying,” Seren defended her. “Remember, I was there. But that broadcast came out of the Terraces. Specifically from Councillor Noret’s estate.”

“Valis,” Ela whispered to herself, but then she hesitated. “But it was Brooks presenting the evidence. Valis was just there for show…”

“Well, it seems not entirely,” Seren said grimly. “I’m going through the records from our meeting, and it appears that during it he activated his own communicator and copied over all the materials Brooks had with him. I regret I didn’t notice it.”

“And that closing statement from Gramp?” Ela recalled the tired face of the man who had been a thorn in the side of half of Prim for years.

“That also carries Brooks’s signature.”

“So he’s been working with him all along?” Ela’s jaw nearly dropped.

“It’s not direct proof, but I suspect that now, if he’s smart, he’s already beyond Prim’s borders, because there’s no way he can explain this,” Tonot said darkly, and it was clear he knew what he was talking about.

Prim was not in a position to let something like this slide. People would be looking for someone to blame, and the Council would have to offer someone up. Ela suddenly felt sorry for Councillor Brooks. Even though they had clashed many times, she had always found him somewhat likable.

“What now?” she asked aloud, voicing the question that had been hanging in the air for some time.

“It is… it is…!” Tonot whispered helplessly, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, slammed his fist into the wall.

The thin layer used for projecting emotional waves cracked and went dark, fading into dull gray. The crack slowly spread in all directions, like black spiderwebs across glass. Ela blinked in shock, her mouth slightly open in surprise.

“We have to count on this coming down on us. Everything is getting more complicated,” Seren said, frowning with concern.

“But this is what you both wanted, isn’t it?” Ela asked hesitantly, still not understanding why they were seeing it as such a tragedy.

“Just not now. Not until I have the Heart.”

“The Heart?” she whispered in confusion, but Tonot had visibly stopped noticing her.

Perhaps that was why Seren stepped in to explain.

“The crystalline neuroprocessor, the one Nonon guards on Nylen’s orders. Without it we cannot activate the protocol.”

It all fit perfectly. Except now she realized why it could not work. And Seren almost immediately confirmed her thoughts.

“Reng has the potential ability to force the Heart to release, but to do that he has to have full control over the specific implants Tonot bent nearly every rule to give him,” Seren continued, her voice sinking in disappointment. “But Reng is not ready yet.”

“So… it is too soon…” Ela understood.

Tonot paced the room like a caged animal, terrifyingly silent, trapped in his own helplessness. Suddenly he froze, and Ela knew why. She too received the clear signal through the meco. The Circle had been called, and everyone knew why. They were trapped.

“Time is running out,” Seren sighed unhappily. “We were hoping to get so much more done…”

And then she disappeared.