[Oliver's PoV]

  A few years earlier

  Oliver swallowed hard, the question burning in his throat long before he dared to speak it aloud.

  “Is there a way to save them?”

  He almost wished he hadn’t asked. Sometimes, the fear of no answer was easier to bear than the certainty of none at all.

  Lian didn’t look up at first. His fingers moved across the console, entering a final string of commands before the screens around him dimmed to a steady glow. Then he exhaled softly and turned toward Oliver.

  “There is,” he said at last. “For some.”

  The words hung in the air, heavy and uncertain.

  Lian stood and crossed the room. When he reached Oliver, he extended a hand. “The drive,” he said.

  Oliver blinked, startled. “The what?”

  “The drive,” Lian repeated, his tone patient but firm. “You have it, don’t you?”

  For a moment, Oliver’s mind blanked. Then it hit him. He reached into the pockets of his worn uniform, fumbling through the few items he had managed to keep. A cracked comm chip, a ration packet, and then his fingers brushed cold metal.

  He pulled out two small data drives. One was the one Hector had given him. The other, the one he’d found in the ruins of the lab.

  “This one?” he asked, holding it up.

  Lian’s eyes lit faintly, a rare flicker of excitement breaking through his composure. “That’s it.”

  He took it carefully, almost reverently, and turned back toward his nest of machines.

  “You were the reason we were recruiting,” Lian said, plugging the drive into a port surrounded by tangled wires. “But this—” he lifted the small device between two fingers “—this was the reason we invaded.”

  Oliver frowned, his pulse quickening. “What’s on it?”

  “All of your father’s research,” Lian said without hesitation. “Every note, every formula, every encrypted file. Everything that defines a Nameless.”

  He paused, his gaze fixed on the data streams beginning to flow across the screens. “The key to both our life… and our death.”

  Oliver felt the floor tilt beneath him, his breath catching. He tried to push his chair forward, inching closer to the array of monitors.

  Before them, the computers began to hum louder, processing at speeds that made the air vibrate. Lines of code cascaded across the displays.

  Old tube monitors flickered beside sleek holographic panels, their screens filled with diagrams, charts, and bursts of static. Folders opened and multiplied faster than Oliver could keep track of. Strings of data unraveling into images, genetic sequences, handwritten notes scanned from paper long since turned to dust.

  Lian stood at the center of it all, his face illuminated by the light of the screens. His eyes raced, scanning through file after file, his expression unreadable. Each flick of his fingers summoned new data streams.

  Oliver watched in silence, the faint ache in his ribs forgotten for the moment. The curiosity gnawed at him until he couldn’t hold it back any longer.

  “Shouldn’t you already know all this?” he asked. “Why do you even need those files?”

  Lian didn’t look up. “When the Lians began to awaken,” he said, his tone detached, clinical, “your father had already been discovered and executed.”

  The words hit Oliver like a cold blade. Lian continued, unflinching. “We never gained access to his full research. We had fragments, theories, conjectures. But this…” He gestured to the glowing screens. “This is confirmation.”

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  Oliver frowned, leaning forward in his chair, trying to catch a glimpse. “And is it helping?”

  “It already has,” Lian said simply.

  “Already?” Oliver echoed, confusion lacing his voice.

  “Yes,” Lian replied, his eyes narrowing as lines of data scrolled faster across the monitors. “There was one missing piece. One small detail that explained everything. And now…” He paused, a faint smile ghosting across his lips. “Now we know.”

  Oliver’s pulse quickened. “And?” he pressed.

  Lian finally turned to face him, the pale light from the screens outlining the hard edges of his face. “You know that androids can’t use Crystals, correct?”

  “Yeah,” Oliver said, nodding. “They say it has to be organic. Something about biological resonance.”

  Lian nodded slowly. “Yes. But then tell me this. Why can tanks use them? Or more importantly, why can’t clones?”

  Oliver hesitated, his mind spinning. 'It must be something to do with the Grand Game,' he thought, but the words never left his mouth.

  Lian’s gaze drifted back to the monitors. “One of my predecessors once theorized that it was divine law,” he said, his voice soft but laced with irony. “A dogma of the universe. Something that simply was. That only a true human could connect to the Crystals.”

  “But then, what makes a clone less human than a human?” Lian asked, his voice steady, almost philosophical.

  Oliver blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Having a mother?” he offered uncertainly.

  Lian’s eyes flicked toward him. “Perhaps. Perhaps it’s the act of gestation. Perhaps it’s the time it takes. The slow growth, the natural rhythm of creation.” He turned back toward the screens. “Or perhaps it’s something else entirely. A process set in place by design.”

  “By someone?” Oliver asked, his voice low.

  Lian turned fully to face him now, his tone sharpening. “Oliver. Oliver.” His voice carried a weight that filled the room. “A Sovereign. A creator.”

  The word hung in the air like an electric current.

  Oliver’s breath caught. The way Lian said it, without hesitation, without question, made it clear he wasn’t speaking in theory. He knew. He understood.

  “A creature demands a creator,” Lian continued, stepping closer. “And that creator, those creators, placed limits on their design. A leash, to ensure their creations never grew beyond control. To wield power, they had to follow the natural flow of life.”

  Oliver frowned, trying to piece it together. “Alright, but… how does that connect to a cure?”

  Lian turned back to the screens, his hands moving across the controls, summoning new streams of data. “Oliver, the Nameless are clones,” he said. “And yet, they can use Z Crystals. That shouldn’t be possible under the old rules. Understanding why, decoding that contradiction, is the only way we can understand what’s happening to our bodies.”

  Oliver’s eyes widened. “And the documents had that?”

  Lian’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. “That and far more.”

  “Your father,” Lian said softly, reverently, “as a Titan, discovered the flame that defines humanity. The connection between the mortal and the divine.”

  Lian stood before the swirling data, his voice calm, detached, as though describing something as ordinary as weather patterns. “He began experimenting with the Z Crystals,” he said, eyes fixed on the holographic strands of DNA twisting in the air. “Combining them with fragments of our Sovereign. He infused pieces of divinity into cloned flesh.”

  Oliver’s stomach turned. “You’re saying he was putting parts of a god into people?”

  Lian nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. “Yes. They would no longer follow the natural flow of life, but they would still retain the connection to what makes us human.” He gestured toward the holograms. “After that, it was only a matter of precision, determining how much to add and where to place it. Each gene responded differently. Some gained the ability to fly. Others could see through walls. A few could even bend space, teleporting objects with thought alone.”

  Oliver shook his head, unable to fully grasp the scale of it. The idea of splicing divine essence into mortal bodies felt surreal.

  “But,” Lian went on, his tone dipping lower, “it all comes with a price.”

  He turned toward Oliver. “That divinity burns away over time. It decays. What begins as a blessing slowly becomes poison. The same energy that elevates them consumes them from within.”

  Oliver’s breath caught. “The Curse,” he whispered.

  Lian inclined his head. “Exactly. The divine spark doesn’t fade. It rots. And when it does, it takes everything with it.”

  The room fell silent except for the hum of the machines.

  “So how do we fix it?” Oliver asked, finally.

  Lian looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, with a hint of dry amusement, he said, “Oh, that part’s simple.”

  Oliver frowned. “Simple?”

  “Yes.” Lian’s tone carried the kind of calm certainty that was terrifying. “We complete our mission. We kill a god.”

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