I knew that Madeline Cato had to be connected to this somehow, but I never expected her to be in the EDGE Force hierarchy, let alone the head honcho of the whole shebang.

“Commander, this is a surprise,” Xiphos said.

“Rho came to me with the intel you’ve brought back,” EDGE Commander Cato said. “He believed it warranted my involvement, and he is right. Hatchet, it’s nice to meet you finally. I’ve read the reports on what you did on Mori Island, and I’ve heard it recounted by Commander Cullen herself. It’s an honour to have you serve with us.”

“The honour is mine,” I said, not wanting to reveal just how much I knew about everything.

If Madeline Cato was involved, then who’s to say she wasn’t up to some nefarious business too. The cult and Mnemtech were shady as hell, and didn’t bode well for comparative analysis.

“What you saw was not the reality crash,” Cato said.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“What you saw is our last line of defence if we can’t stop it,” Cato replied.

My eyes went wide as the sound of my heartbeat got louder in my ears.

“Do you want to expand on that?” Xiphos asked in a testy tone.

The Captain really had no poker face.

“We’re getting down to crunch time, and what you do from here might change the course of human history,” Commander Cato said. “So yes, I will expand. The reality crash is coming, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. The only thing we can do is prepare for it. That’s part of what the facility you’re at right now is for. We were researching the restorative power of the naturally occurring anima network in the southern Carpathians. We had no idea it belonged to a sapient being.”

“That’s because he’s been asleep until recently,” I said. “The guardians of the forest were keeping watch over him, but now that there’s another party trying to corrupt him and take his power, Balaur is waking up.”

“I’m sending you another file right now. We’ve compared the video of the man you encountered in the ski lodge. We believe he was one of the willing volunteers that we experimented on in the facility you’re in right now,” Cato said.

Xiphos’s hands balled into fists as her lips drew tighter. It would have been imperceptible if I weren’t sitting so close to her.

“His name is Trajan Cel Tradat,” Cato continued, which confirmed what the chatty Upyr had said in the forest. “His wife died when his daughters were still young, and they both suffer from the same genetic condition that took his wife. He submitted himself for regenerative experimentation too, to show his daughters it was safe.”

“Let me guess, things didn’t work out so well, did they?” I asked.

I’d heard this story many times in lots of books, movies and comics. An organisation wielding some kind of crazy power tried to do good, but it backfired, and things got all kinds of fucked up for everyone involved. I expected this to be the same.

“To the contrary,” Cato continued. “The degenerative condition affecting the daughter’s nervous systems healed in a span of hours. After a week of observation, they returned to their everyday lives, in a much better condition than when they’d left.”

I furrowed my brows in confusion. “So what happened?”

“We don’t know. We kept tabs on them for six months, and things were better than ever. Trajan and his daughters came in for regular check-ups, and eventually we stopped checking in on them. We mothballed this project, because it was deemed a success. Pike was originally sent in here to check on Trajan’s village, and then after that, come here to make sure all the diagnostic equipment was running well. It was important to keep tabs on this anima network after all.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“You know that Pike was only sent in recently,” Commander Cato replied.

“Yes, but I’m not asking about Pike’s deployment. I’m talking about these experiments, and when this project was abandoned,” I said.

“Three years ago,” Cato said.

“So sometime in the last three years, something happened here to Trajan which turned him into this dragonslayer. What do you know about red anima?” I asked.

Cato shook her head. “We’ve never encountered that before.”

“It’s here and it’s corrupted Trajan. What else did you do to him?” I asked.

“The regenerative qualities of Balaur’s anima have a side effect. They stabilise and bolster the anima network of the person, making them more resistant to anima damage over time if they are repeatedly exposed to it.”

Xiphos took a breath and spread out her hands on the desk in front of us. “You’ve been using Balaur’s anima for some time, haven’t you? That’s what runs the healing component of the EDGE Force augment.”

Commander Cato smiled. “Yes. We make changes over time as our knowledge grows. Regeneration was something we struggled with over the course of our first few decades. If we’d have mastered it earlier, many EDGEs would have survived, not died in the line of duty. Imagine how much we can learn from Balaur now that he’s awake again.”

“Like these?” I said, then flashed the claws Balaur had blessed me with.

Commander Cato leaned forward in her chair. “Fascinating. These are the claws which let you siphon anima directly from an enemy, yes?”

I nodded.

“Absolutely fascinating. In all our years of research we’ve never heard of anything like this. The ability to transfer anima from one entity to another. It is incredibly unique. If the reality crash is tied to some kind of anima overload, then perhaps your ability to siphon anima from something could lead to a breakthrough in strategy,” Commander Cato said. “Continue to explore what this ability allows you to do. Cultivate a positive relationship with Balaur. I have no doubt that he will prove to be a valuable ally in whatever is to come.”

I couldn’t help feeling like I was just a pawn in someone else’s game.

“What’s your final line of defence? And why does it involve Mnemnhion?” I asked. There was a part of me that thought I should keep that little morsel of knowledge to myself, but I kind of wanted to see this EDGE Commander squirm.

Commander Cato smiled. “We each have allies in this fight. You’ve heard of the old adage the enemy or my enemy is my friend, yes?”

“So that’s the way it is?” I asked as I shook my head.

“Against something that threatens the very existence of our entire reality? We’re all in that fight together.”

Damn, I couldn’t argue with that logic.

“So why the hell are Edgebreaker trying to kill us?” Xiphos asked. “They’ve got an entire team here, along with enough grunts to populate a small town. Why are they trying to kill us if we’re meant to be fighting together?”

Commander Cato shook her head. “You misunderstand me. Mnemnhion is our ally. Edgebreaker is not. They’ve found a way to utilise Mnemnhion’s anima powers independently of him. Much like Arthur Cullen did with Altrighus’s anima once it was harvested. Mnemnhion himself has very little say in how his essence is used once it is harvested.”

Damn, that actually made sense. It fit with the fact that Mnemtech had pulled out of Mori Island after securing another source of anima.

“Why did Altrighus tell us that Mnemnhion is her sworn enemy?” I asked.

Commander Cato nodded. “Miranda and I have discussed that at length. I believe it comes from the fact that Altrighus is all-seeing – she can peer into different aspects of reality – different dimensions – but can’t invent or imagine anything for herself. Mnemnhion is the complete opposite. He is all-knowing.”

“Like, omniscient?” I asked.

“No. Not omniscient. He has a mind which stretches across the fabric of space and time. He sees all, observes all, and learns everything he can about those other universes. He creates and destroys his own universes on a whim. Do either of you have a background in application or software development?”

“I used to write video games. Programming was never my strong suit, but I certainly gave it a shot,” I said.

Xiphos just shook her head.

“Okay, you might understand this, but you may have to break it down for Xiphos. Mnemnhion takes what he has learned from his almost-infinite observations and uses it to build things. New universes, simulated universes, in tiny little bubbles that sit against our own. Menmnhion is not Altrighus’s enemy in the true sense of the word – she envies him for his abilities, and that is why she calls him foe.”

“What percentage chance is there that we are living in one of Mnemnhion’s universe simulations?” Xiphos asked.

“Zero,” Commander Cato replied. “If we were, we wouldn’t have Altrighus or this unknown red anima being to worry about. Trust us, we’re sure that Mnemnhion isn’t the God of our universe. There’s just no way he could be.”

“So what were you saying about Mnemnhion creating and destroying universes on a whim?” I asked.

Commander Cato nodded. “Think of Mnemnhion like a supercomputer. One that can turn reality into math, then use projections and predictions to calculate the outcome of a series of events. The concept of big data that Silicon Valley use as a buzzword is small potatoes compared to the kind of number crunching Mnemnhion is capable of.”

“It’s like a simulated instance with differing parameters,” I said.

“Except imagine if you could simulate an almost infinite number of those simulations at once,” Commander Cato said with an expectant smile.

“That’s insane. The kind of computing power you’d need to do that…” I said, trailing off.

Xiphos just shook her head. “I’m lost. I’ve never been good with tech.”

“You have other talents,” Commander Cato said. “Yes, Hatchet. The scope of Mnemnhion’s capacity is incredible, and he has been helping us with our predictions about how humanity might survive the reality crash. Unfortunately the answer is very simple. We don’t. Not all of us, anyway. Those pulses of light you saw will spread out over the face of the planet and choose the best and brightest. They will select those who have the greatest chance at allowing us to rebuild in this new world, and empower them.”

Anger bubbled up within me as I realised where this was going. “The people that Mnemnhion doesn’t deem to be worthy are turned into monsters.”

Commander Cato sighed. “It is far better that some of us survive than none of us.”

“If Mnemnhion doesn’t intervene, then we all become corrupted?” Xiphos asked.

“Yes,” Commander Cato said.

A silence fell between us then, which gave me a moment to reorient my understanding of these events. Madeline Cato, Arthur Cullen and Robert Forge all met in college, and each went down the rabbit hole of anima research.

Arthur used it to fuel his paranoia and wanted to weaponise the human race against their own weaknesses. Was that so different from what Commander Cato had done with EDGE Force? She’d managed to do it without turning people into monsters, which was an important distinction between their approaches, but her contingency plan was just as bad.

Ten percent of humanity would survive to rebuild, at the cost of the remainder?

That was an equation that had an unacceptable solution.

“There has to be a way to stop the reality crash from happening and save everyone,” I said.

Commander Cato nodded slowly. “There has to be a solution, I agree, but we’ve spent the better part of three decades looking for it.”

“I’ll talk to Balaur. He might have some ideas. His anima heals, strengthens, even cleanses corruption,” I offered.

“Now that your dragon is awake, he might possess a missing piece of the puzzle,” Commander Cato said. “If Trajan Cel Tradat manages to corrupt Balaur while his powers reawaken, then we may lose our chance. Trajan must be stopped, but before you leave, I need you to get into one of our regeneration pods. It’ll heal your body and let us figure out what Balaur has done to you.”

A wrinkle of immediate resistance flowed through me at that.

My blessing from Balaur was mine. I hated the thought of EDGE Force figuring it out and replicating it, but odds were that they wouldn’t be able to manipulate Balaur’s anima in the same we the great dragon could himself. After all, they’d already harvested his anima and only used it for regenerative purposes. They hadn’t even discovered its anima-transferring properties.

“Fine,” I relented.

“You might be the missing piece of the puzzle yourself,” Commander Cato said, and I hadn’t really considered that possibility until now.

Perhaps I had my own part to play in this.

“Come on, Captain,” I said as I stood from the office chair. A wave of dizziness passed over me and I stumbled to grab onto the desk in front of me. “Let’s get to that regeneration chamber, yeah?”