RTS System in the Apocalypse-Chapter 104: Underground Meeting - II

Hans did not react to the scale of it.

"Explain the relevance," he said.

Tyrus’s eyes narrowed slightly. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"One of the archives contained biological doctrine."

"Doctrine?" Yunera asked.

"Evolution as an engineered process. That kind that is safe and controlled."

He walked toward the wall and pulled down a sheet of paper pinned beside the table.

"They had categorized life not by species, but by thresholds. Tiers were not titles, or any glorified ranks. They were existential ceilings of an organism."

Kimmy tilted her head slightly. "Ceilings?"

"Biological limits," Tyrus corrected. "Tier 0 is the baseline. In our case, that is the maximum potential of a regular human. Tier 1 is the first breach."

You call someone throwing a truck as if it was paper a maximum potential?

Hans almost laughed, but the seriousness of Tyrus’s expression and voice implied that he wasn’t making an exaggeration of everything.

His tone remained steady as he interjected.

"And HELIX?"

Tyrus looked at the documents Hans brought.

"HELIX was never about creating superhumans. It is nothing but a social term made by fools."

He tapped the stack once.

"HELIX was about determining whether humanity could survive crossing its own ceiling."

Yunera stared at her hands, then to her own body.

Kimmy’s hands drifted over her own as well.

Tyrus ignored their weird actions.

"The early iterations failed. HELIX-I forced augmentation resulting in organ collapse. HELIX-II suppressed rejection, then the mind fractured in response."

Yunera stiffened slightly.

"And HELIX-III?"

Tyrus’s voice leveled.

"HELIX-III adjusted its philosophy. It no longer forced evolution but amplified what was already present."

He glanced at Hans again.

"It optimized the latent potential of an individual."

Hans leaned against the table.

"What about HELIX-IV?"

For the first time, Tyrus hesitated.

"That was when they stopped respecting the ceiling."

"They?" Hans was confused.

"I rejected their drastic, unsound modifications and research path. I am a scientist, not a madman."

Tyrus exhaled.

"HELIX-IV wanted to remove the conservative limiters, or as per the documents say. To them, evolution was no longer an enhancement but a permanent state."

Kimmy curled her fingers.

"And the failures?"

"The body survived," Tyrus said coldly. "The person inside did not."

The room sank into coldness, not from the air conditioning systems, but the harsh truth that Tyrus laid out.

"What happened after that?" Hans pursued. "Surely it’s not another form of the end justifies the means from the government?"

Tyrus smirked. "You get the idea, but that is only half the truth. Aurelia has long been embroiled in a secret war. The Alliance of the Western Nations did not want to be on the losing end. This was their driving force to implement HELIX-IV immediately."

Alliance of the Western Nations, huh? Hans recalled the geopolitical structure of Aurelia. That’s just NATO in Earth.

Libertan, Ashington, Albia, Teutonia, and even Danubia at times. They were the conglomeration of money, industry, research, and reach.

"The AWN on the losing edge?" Hans was baffled.

Tyrus tapped the table once, as if emphasizing a map no one could see.

"It is true that the AWN has shouldered the world for decades," he said. "But confidence breeds complacency. And complacency leads to stagnation."

Hans suddenly realized Tyrus’s direction. "Have Daika truly attained a super technocracy?"

"They were already a super technocracy," Tyrus let out a subtle smile. "Their mecha military is the real deal. The first experimental units may have failed, but scientific advances are exponential in nature—if and only if one attains the imagination behind it."

Hans finally connected the dots.

"And HELIX-IV was an attempt of this exponential leap?"

"Bingo!" Tyrus flicked his finger and pointed at Hans.

"If HELIX-IV was so unstable... why didn’t it end there?"

Tyrus looked at Hans, waiting for him to say that exact line.

"Because they learned something from the archive," he said. "Something simple."

He reached to the side and pulled out a page—firm and ironed out flat, with rewritten notes layered over a copied diagram.

"Evolution does not move in one direction."

Yunera stared. "What does that mean?"

Tyrus held the page up.

"Tell me, miss, what enhancement did you think your body received the most?"

"Speed." Yunera furrowed her brows.

"And hers is perception," Tyrus shifted to Kimmy. "Am I right, little girl from the Asters family?"

Kimmy was stumped. "Yes..."

She did not expect Tyrus to have known it all along.

"Stop with the puzzling antics," Yunera quickly shielded Kimmy. "Where are you going with this?"

"You thought strength was the answer to becoming a superhuman," Tyrus replied. "We thought so too. But the archive mapped four dominant pathways termed as axes. It depended on genetics, profession, fixation, environment—everything about an individual."

He looked at Hans.

"Four ways a living thing becomes a higher form of life."

His raised the first finger.

"Somatic. Enhancement of the body."

Hans’s eyes shifted briefly to the memory of Callum dragging metal like it was nothing.

Tyrus’s finger moved.

"Cognitive. Enhancement of the mind."

Psychic? Hans raised an eyebrow.

"Neural dominance," Tyrus added. "Signal overwrite. Perception collapse."

Kimmy’s shoulders shrank close to her neck. The meteorite shard’s effects were as close to those words.

Tyrus’s finger moved again.

"Perceptual. Awareness becomes the weapon."

Yunera glanced at Kimmy, then back to Tyrus who had raised the last finger.

"The last?" he said, quieter now. "Elemental."

Yunera scoffed. "Elemental? That’s nothing but fantasy. Don’t bullshit us with your words."

Tyrus met her eyes.

"It is a reality," he corrected. "Resonance to the universe, as per how the archive’s translation recorded it. Heat. Pressure. Electromagnetism. Geological stress. Atmospheric flow."

He lowered the page.

"HELIX-III only reached a limited enhancement to the body. The axis depended on an individual’s life experience and preferences. The AWN and the scientists deemed it too... minimal."

"So HELIX-IV demanded the body to choose an axis."

Hans was very interested now.

"And a stronger wave of enhancement as well," Tyrus shook his head. "HELIX-III empowered an individual from Tier 0 to Tier 1. HELIX-IV promised more than that."

"How many Tiers are there exactly?"

"From the archive?" Tyrus closed his eyes and paused. "My predecessors’ translations reached four. Others rumored of higher tiers, but that is a conversation I no longer have information of."

The room fell silent. Everyone contemplated Tyrus’s words, repeating them over and over again like a core memory that refused to settle.

Tyrus didn’t interrupt. He simply stood there, as if silence was part of the procedure.

Hans broke it first.

"How does one go from Tier 0 to Tier 1?"

Yunera glanced at him. Kimmy’s head turned slightly, blindfold angled toward the scientist.

Tyrus slightly angled his head upward, his mind full of thoughts.

"That," he said, "is the only part they never managed to simplify into a clean answer."

Hans didn’t move. "Trying isn’t wrong either."

Tyrus set the paper down.

"As I have said, Tier 0 is the ceiling of an organism’s species," he said. "Tier 1 is what happens when the body accepts a new set of limits."

"And how does it accept it?" Yunera pressed, eager to acquire the answer.

"Reports varied," Tyrus’s fingers moved. "Some say through crisis, stress."

He lowered his head, then looked at the four of them.

"Or a trigger strong enough that the body adapts quickly."