Project: Cayro

Chapter 11: Connections

Cayro Bracton:

August 22, 2025

10:00 EST

The Bracton House

Hampton VA.

A few days had dragged by since my panic attack, and I found myself standing under the cool spray of the shower, hoping it would do more than just wake me up. The cat, that damn cat, had haunted my dreams again. Every time I tried to ignore it, the ground beneath me would give way, and I'd start falling—falling endlessly through a sky-blue abyss. Frustration welled up inside me each time I confronted it, demanding answers, but the cat would just turn and vanish through the mirror, leaving me with nothing but more questions. Eventually, I started to follow it, if only to end the nightmares and get some semblance of sleep. But during the day, when I was awake, I did my best to ignore it. The constant signs to "follow me" and the way it would disappear from mirrors or screens only served to frustrate me further, so I pushed it out of my mind.

With a sigh, I turned off the water, grabbed my towel, and began drying off. As I stepped out of the shower, a knock on the bathroom door startled me.

"Hey Cayro, when you're done getting dressed, come downstairs to my study. I have something to give you," my grandfather's voice carried through the door, steady and authoritative.

"Yes, sir," I replied, loud enough for him to hear over the residual ringing in my ears from the water.

I quickly dried my hair, leaving it damp, and dressed in silence. There was something grounding about the routine, something that kept my mind from spiraling back to the strange dreams and the cat that seemed determined to torment me.

When I made my way downstairs to my grandfather's study, I found him waiting behind his desk, his expression unreadable.

"Hey Grandpa, you wanted to see me?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady, though the edge of curiosity gnawed at me.

"Yes, Captain Andrew wanted me to give you something," he said, his tone patient but firm. He picked up a tablet from his desk and handed it to me. The simple black rectangle felt heavier than it looked, maybe because I knew it was more than just a device. I hesitated before taking it, eyeing the active lock screen that blocked me from seeing anything further. It looked like an Android OS, but that wasn't what intrigued me—it was the purpose behind it.

"You can use this to contact the SAF," my grandfather continued. "They've stripped down the tablet's OS to provide a secure line of communication for you. You probably understand better than I do how they programmed it. You're more tech-savvy than me," he admitted with a small nod, acknowledging a truth I'd known for years.

He handed me a piece of paper with a password typed out on it. I glanced at it and committed it to memory with ease, just like I'd done countless times with bike VINs at the shop.

"Your username is CB-5522. No spaces," he added. I furrowed my eyebrows, the familiarity of those numbers tugging at something in my memory.

"Why do those four numbers sound familiar?" I asked, trying to piece together the puzzle.

My grandfather's jaw tightened, his teeth grinding audibly before he spoke. "They are the last four digits of your military DoD number assigned to you when you were chosen."

"Oh..." The weight of that number settled in my chest. It wasn't just a random string of digits—it was a part of my identity, a part of the experiment that had shaped my life in ways I was only beginning to comprehend.