CHAPTER 1 — 90Ik
The room is made of silence.Concrete walls, colorless and cold. Even the air hums differently here—thick, metallic, as if it remembers what was said inside it.
A single bulb dangles above the table. Its light doesn't warm anything; it only exposes dust. The bulb's hum mixes with the faint tap of an old tape recorder waiting to be fed words. Across from it sits the Prisoner—thirty-two years old, unshaven, still. His wrists are cuffed, yet his posture is calm, almost polite.
The Agent studies him from the other side. Behind the mirrored glass, someone breathes too loudly into a mic. The Agent ignores it.
A folder lies open on the table. Inside—photos, reports, a map marked with black X's. One of the pages carries a fingerprint smudge, dark like ash.
The Agent clears his throat. The sound feels too alive for this place.
Agent: The recording is live. State your name for the record.
The Prisoner doesn't move. His eyes drift to the recorder's red light, following its blink.
Agent: Name. Age. What you were doing at Facility E-09.
Nothing. Just the slow breath of someone who's learned patience in isolation.
The Agent leans back.
Agent: You were found sitting on the floor beside a dozen… people. Facility burnt. You had no injuries. I'd call that a miracle. You want to explain that?
The Prisoner finally looks at him. The stare isn't hostile; it's clinical—like he's the one observing.
Prisoner: You think survival needs an explanation?
Agent: When you're the only one breathing, yes.
The faintest smile appears. It vanishes just as fast.
Prisoner: Survival's never luck. It's consequence.
A pause stretches. The recorder hums softly, catching the rhythm of two people who haven't decided which one's in control.
Agent: Consequence of what?
Prisoner: Understanding what others refuse to.
The Agent scribbles something. The pen sounds loud in the silence.
Agent: Then help me understand.
Prisoner: You wouldn't want that kind of clarity.
The light flickers. Dust dances in its pulse. The Agent speaks slower now, choosing tone over authority.
Agent: We can sit here all night. You'll still have to talk.
Prisoner: Talk? You people never listen. You transcribe. You label. You reduce everything to paper so you don't have to feel it.
He tilts his head slightly. The cuffs clink against the table, metallic and soft.
Prisoner: You've read the files, I assume. You know the numbers. The codes. The failure logs. But you don't know what happened.
The Agent nods once.
Agent: Then tell me.
The Prisoner closes his eyes. His breathing deepens, slow and mechanical, like he's rewinding something inside his head.
Prisoner: It started before the fire. Before the facility. Before they called it an experiment.
His voice lowers.
Prisoner: I was four the first time they measured me. Said I was special. Said I could help shape the future.
The Agent stays quiet. The Prisoner continues.
Prisoner: You want the story? Fine. But remember, you asked.
He opens his eyes again, and they're not tired anymore—they're focused.
Prisoner: They built a place where fear was a resource. Where the mind could be mined like ore. They said it was science. But I know what it was—hunger.
The Agent notes something, glances toward the mirror as if expecting instructions. None come.
Agent: Who are they?
Prisoner: They change faces. They wear badges, lab coats, uniforms. Sometimes they sound like teachers. Sometimes like gods. Doesn't matter what you call them—they're the same breed.
His tone grows colder, sharper.
Prisoner: They wanted to perfect human instinct. Make it purer, cleaner. Remove the noise—emotion, morality, hesitation. They didn't realize those were the only things keeping us from becoming something worse.
The recorder captures each syllable, mechanical and obedient.
Prisoner: You can't sterilize instinct. You can only starve it. And when it breaks free, it consumes everything.
He pauses, as though he can hear the sound of the past moving again.
Prisoner: That's what 90Ik was born from.
The Agent's pen stops mid-word.
Agent: 90Ik? What is that—
Prisoner: Later.
He leans forward, eyes locking with the Agent's.
Prisoner: You asked for a story. I'll give you the truth. But truth has a cost.
The Agent doesn't flinch.
Agent: And what's the cost?
Prisoner: You'll have to believe me.
The bulb hums louder. The air feels heavier. The tape spins on, waiting.
The tape keeps turning, a small circle of magnetic memory eating seconds. The Agent leans back, crossing one leg over the other. He doesn't write this time; he just watches.
Agent: Start wherever you want.
The Prisoner studies the table. His fingers twitch once against the metal, not from nerves but rhythm, like counting something invisible.
Prisoner: You ever notice how quiet hospitals get at night?The kind of quiet that makes you hear your own heartbeat?That's where it began.
The bulb hums, lower now.
Prisoner: I remember white coats, white walls, white light. Everyone smiling too wide. They told my mother I was gifted—high cognitive scores, reflex tests off the charts. I thought they were helping. I thought I was lucky.
He exhales through his nose, a dry laugh.
Prisoner: They don't test intelligence. They test obedience.
The Agent watches the smile vanish again, as if it never belonged there.
Prisoner: I was seven when they separated us into groups. Different numbers, different colors on our wrists. They called it The Program. They said we'd be pioneers. Imagine telling a child he's chosen by destiny. He'll believe you—until the pain starts meaning something.
The Agent finally picks up his pen.
Agent: What kind of program? Military? Medical?
Prisoner: Both. Neither. It depended on who was signing the check that week. To them, we were variables. I was "Unit K."
He looks up, eyes almost colorless under the white light.
Prisoner: The K stood for kinetic. They wanted to know if the mind could move matter. Not with muscles—with thought.
The Agent's eyebrows twitch, a small crack in professionalism.
Agent: Telekinesis?
Prisoner: Big word for what they never understood. It wasn't magic. It was focus—the kind that burns through empathy.
He speaks slowly, measuring each word.
Prisoner: They trained us to isolate emotion, to turn it into fuel. First they took away comfort. Then sound. Then faces. They said fear interrupts the signal. So they stripped us of anything human.
The Agent keeps his tone even.
Agent: And it worked?
Prisoner: Depends what you call success.
He shifts slightly, the chain clinking once against the metal table.
Prisoner: After a while, thoughts weren't thoughts anymore. They became pressure. You could feel it in your skull, like gravity growing teeth. The walls would hum when we concentrated too long. I think the walls learned to listen.
The Agent taps his pen, hesitates, stops.
Agent: You said they. Who ran it?
Prisoner: Faces changed. Some wore lab coats, some wore medals. Same eyes. Empty. Hungry. They wanted a weapon that could think faster than guilt.
The Prisoner leans forward, voice dropping.
Prisoner: The last thing they taught us was silence. Not the peaceful kind—the kind that follows when something living stops moving. They said silence means control. But silence only hides screams if you stop listening.
A long pause follows. Even the recorder's whirring sounds hesitant.
The Agent finally says,
Agent: You seem… composed for someone who claims all this happened.
The Prisoner smiles again, faintly.
Prisoner: That's what makes you uncomfortable, isn't it? You expect shaking hands, guilt, some hint of madness. But madness isn't noise. It's structure. It's order built on the wrong foundation.
He glances up at the bulb.
Prisoner: They wanted order. I became it.
The Agent studies him, jaw tightening.
Agent: And that order—what did it cost?
Prisoner: Everything. But it bought clarity.
He sits back. The cuffs rattle like punctuation.
Prisoner: You asked who I am. You asked what happened at E-09. The answers are the same thing. They called the result of all that training "Project Obsidian."
The Agent repeats the word quietly, testing it.
Agent: Obsidian.
Prisoner: Dark. Sharp. Fractured glass pretending to be stone.
He smiles without warmth.
Prisoner: You cut yourself trying to understand it.
The bulb buzzes louder, a mosquito trapped in static. The Agent flips a page in the file, eyes scanning lines we can't see.
Agent: So Project Obsidian—that's you?
Prisoner: No. That's the name they gave to what they created.I'm just what survived it.
The Agent flips another page, eyes darting between paragraphs. Some of the text is blacked out—whole sentences turned into censorship marks, like memory redacted on paper.
He looks up.
Agent: You said you survived Project Obsidian. How?
The Prisoner watches the recorder's reels spin. The red light winks, hypnotic.
Prisoner: Survival was never the goal. They wanted control. They failed to realize the two can't coexist.
His voice is calm, measured, but something underneath it vibrates—like a note struck too deep to hear clearly.
Prisoner: They thought discipline was strength. That fear could be harvested, refined, programmed. But when you strip away fear, you strip away boundaries. The line between what can be done and what shouldn't—it disappears.
He pauses. The air between them feels denser now, filled with unsaid things.
Prisoner: That's when they lost control. Not when I rebelled. When they made me too perfect for obedience.
The Agent exhales quietly through his nose.
Agent: And the others?
Prisoner: Gone. Some broke. Some vanished. Some became echoes. You ever walk into a room and feel something watching, though you're alone? That's not imagination. That's residue. They left a lot of it behind.
He closes his eyes, and for a second his expression almost softens—then it hardens again.
Prisoner: After the breach, I remember alarms. Doors slamming. Heat. But none of it frightened me. I wasn't built to feel fear anymore. I remember light—too bright to be fire—and then nothing until I woke up in a room just like this one. Different walls, same questions.
Agent: And you expect me to believe all this?
The Prisoner finally meets his gaze, steady and unblinking.
Prisoner: Belief is irrelevant. Understanding is optional. Truth doesn't need acceptance—it just waits.
He leans closer, the chain sliding across the table with a metallic whisper.
Prisoner: You think this is an interrogation. It isn't. It's a continuation. You just don't realize which side of the glass you're sitting on yet.
The Agent freezes, pen halfway to the page.
Agent: What does that mean?
The Prisoner smirks faintly.
Prisoner: They never told you, did they? About the backup program? About what happens when the original fails?
The Agent's grip tightens on the pen. He glances toward the mirrored wall. No response. The static from the tape grows louder, as though the recorder itself is listening.
Prisoner: You can stop looking. They can't hear us anymore.
The Agent straightens sharply.
Agent: What did you—
The bulb flickers, once. Twice. Then steadies.
Prisoner: Relax. I'm not going anywhere. Yet.
He sits back again, calm returning like an exhale.
Prisoner: The point is, it wasn't an accident. None of it was. You'll learn that soon enough. But for now… you asked for a name.
The Agent waits.
Prisoner: The one they gave me doesn't matter. The one I chose does.
He leans into the microphone, voice dropping to a whisper that sounds almost like static itself.
Prisoner: 90Ik.
The tape clicks. The red light goes dark.
Silence reclaims the room, thick and absolute.
**END**