Lupine Echoes

Chapter 15: Origins

Jaden and Skylar stepped through the mangled remnants of the doors, the jagged edges of twisted metal and crumbling walls framing their entrance into Wilton's sanctum. The room stretched out before them like the command deck of a futuristic starship. But it wasn't the vastness of the space that unsettled them—it was the overwhelming flood of sensory input.

Every wall was covered in thin, nearly seamless glass panels. Hundreds of screens blinked in and out of focus, their contents overlapping in a chaotic dance of live feeds: distant cityscapes, office rooms, server farms, and endless streams of data. The floor, slick and reflective, mirrored the glowing mayhem above, giving the disorienting impression that the entire room unfolded into infinity, with no clear boundaries. It was less like a room and more like walking into the living mind of a machine, one that never rested.

Skylar's gaze flitted around as the feeds from security cameras, traffic drones, and private conversations all filtered in at once, too many to track. The wall of screens moved in irregular patterns, occasionally scintillating with bursts of code or biometric data—heart rates, neural scans, names of people who were, somewhere, unaware they were being observed.

"What the hell!" Skylar murmured.

In one corner, a cluster of spindly machines hunched over neural interfaces, their delicate, jointed arms tipped with tiny needles. A central workstation spread out before them, a web of black glass and holographic overlays. Bio-monitors pulsed, tracking who-knows-what kind of brainwave patterns or behavioral data in real-time.

Jaden took a slow step forward, the click of his red high-top Converse resounding against the floor. The sound felt out of place, quickly absorbed by the hum of electronics and the steady ticking of unseen systems buried within the walls. As he neared one of the towering glass screens, his reflection appeared distorted, fluttering with digital static as it merged with the shifting images on the surface.

He gasped as he saw them. On the massive screen in front of him, Chase and Dawn were talking—not a recording, but a live feed from their Iron Phalanx division office. The Iron Phalanx logo was visible in the background, and he could see the way Chase's lips moved, his expression serious yet animated as he discussed something important with Dawn. Her arms were crossed, her gaze as piercing as ever, though a slight tension creased her brow.

"W-What is this? Are they... spying on us?" Jaden stammered.

"Yeah... looks like it," Skylar replied, his mind reeling as he scrambled to process what he was seeing. He had known—of course, he had known—that Van Boxtel Technologies was supplying surveillance tech to Heng Qi Island. It was the very reason he had fought so hard against them, determined to free his homeland from the warlord's oppressive grip. But this—this level of intrusion, this pervasive surveillance right here in Veridian City? The thought was unthinkable.

Van Boxtel Technologies wouldn't dare... right?

But how could he deny what was right in front of him? The screens didn't lie. People—ordinary citizens, students, his own friends—were being watched, their lives scrutinized and recorded. Van Boxtel had always claimed to be a pillar of security and progress in Veridian City, a company that kept people safe. But what was safety, really, when no one had privacy? When every word, every movement, was being cataloged and used for purposes no one could fully comprehend?

Jaden pulled out his phone and started recording, sweeping the camera over the room, capturing every screen, every machine, every blip of invasive data. This wasn't just a snapshot of some corporate wrongdoing; it was a window into a conspiracy that reached into every corner of Veridian City—and beyond.

Skylar peered at the silver-haired boy and questioned, "What are you doing?"

"Documenting this whole Orwellian nightmare," Jaden responded. "I am sending it to my mother. This—this is sick. I am going to expose it all. People need to know."