Ezra didn’t go home for the summer. He couldn’t. There was too much work to catch up on, too much he had left unanswered, too many questions gnawing at the edges of his mind. So he did exactly as Mr. Key instructed.

  He started digging.

  Not in the way a casual student would—not just the surface-level material the world had been fed for centuries—but deeper, beyond the official textbooks, beyond the approved research papers, beyond what the world thought it knew about graviton energy.

  And what he found? It didn’t add up.

  According to the world’s records, the story was simple. There was a geological anomaly beneath Mt. Fuji—a rare, alien ore, disturbed by the volcanic activity. It had gone unnoticed for centuries, but in the mid-third millennia, something changed. The instability had begun to grow worse.

  Japan itself was at risk—the unpredictability of gravity waves threatened to turn the isnd nation into a fragmented wastend, with parts of it sinking, while others were lifted skyward into the air. A complete gravitational failure was imminent. But then—Mr. Key’s family stepped in.

  Back then, they were just geologists, hired to investigate the phenomenon. They found the source of the anomaly. They stabilized it. And over the next several generations, they devoted their lives to understanding the strange material beneath the earth. Sacrifices were made. Lives were lost.

  But through sheer persistence, humanity had tamed the impossible. The material was more dense than anything else known to exist. But despite its unimaginable weight, it could be maniputed. Using graviton-compressed matter, humanity learned to shrink atoms themselves, creating materials that were extremely lightweight yet impossibly strong.

  That was what the whole world knew. That was the story written in history books.

  But as Ezra spent night after night poring over research documents, pulling records from White-Coat archives, cross-checking names and dates and patterns, something started to feel wrong.

  From Generations 6 to 12, the world saw a technological boom unlike anything before. Anti-gravity transport. Orbital factories. Deep-space resource mining. Graviton technology became the backbone of human civilization, propelling them into a golden age of expansion.

  But something shifted by Generation 12. Something Ezra couldn’t ignore. When he cross-referenced the life expectancies of each Key Industries leader, a disturbing pattern emerged. Generations 1 through 11? They died young—every single one of them. None lived past 70 years old.

  The reason? Adverse radiation effects.

  They had been exposed to something they didn’t yet understand, and their bodies had paid the price. But Generations 12 through 14? Something changed. Their lifespans extended dramatically. They weren’t just outliving their predecessors—they were outliving their entire era.

  Ezra had to triple-check the records, because even by his time, with all the medical advancements in the world, the oldest humans barely reached 150 years. But the Key family members of Generations 12 through 14?

  They lived to nearly 200 years old. And that’s when Ezra asked himself the question he didn’t want to ask. Just how old is Mr. Key really?

  The official statement was that graviton radiation was dangerous.

  That’s why the world had restricted access to the depths of Mt. Fuji—why it had been decred a hazard zone for centuries. But if that was true… If it was so dangerous…

  Then why did some people—very select, very specific people—seem to benefit from it?

  Ezra sat alone in his dorm, the glow of the screen reflecting in his tired eyes, the documents spread across his desk making less sense the longer he stared at them. There was something missing. Something buried beneath the surface of the story they had all been fed.

  Ezra tapped his fingers against the desk, staring at the aged photograph of the man who had led Generation 12. He looked… strange. Not obviously unnatural. Not inhuman. But something was just off enough. The same way Mr. Key’s eye had been off. The same way Edgar hadn’t felt entirely human either.

  Ezra leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. He had one year left at this university. And he was starting to wonder if he would leave it the same man he had entered as. Because whatever the Silent Legion was hiding beneath Mt. Fuji…

  It wasn’t just about graviton energy anymore. It was about what it did to people. And if Mr. Key’s warning had been true…

  Then not all sacrifices had been made willingly.

  Ezra needed a break.

  His head was swimming with too much information—too much to process, too many threads he couldn’t quite connect, too many implications that made his stomach churn.

  The Silent Legion.The radiation.The Key family’s unnatural longevity.

  He pushed back from his desk, exhaling slowly. This is too much.

  His usual escape had always been binge-learning random fun facts—tiny, digestible pieces of knowledge that had nothing to do with conspiracies, secret organizations, or the horrifying realization that reality wasn’t what he thought it was.

  So, for a few hours, he let himself fall down the rabbit hole of the mundane.

  He read about how octopuses have three hearts.He read about how honey never spoils.He read about how lobsters don’t actually age, they just grow indefinitely until something kills them—which, honestly, hit too close to home given his research.

  When that stopped distracting him, his gaze fell on the history textbook sitting on the edge of his desk. The one filled with bullshit White-Coat myths. Ezra sighed. Might as well. Out of sheer curiosity, he flipped to a random section, picking a date right around the 12th generation of the Key family.

  The real history was simple: The Silent Legion took over the Graviton facility and the entire operation overnight.

  But in this book? The truth had been buried beneath a mountain of lunacy. And as Ezra began to read—He felt a headache forming.

  "It began, as all great conflicts do, with breakfast."

  Ezra squinted. Oh, here we go.

  "For years, the Kingdom of Syrupia and the Waffle Consortium had lived in a delicate peace, bancing their rule over the breakfast trade of the Eastern Quadrants. But in the 34th Century, a radical new movement arose: The Pancakian Rebellion."

  Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose.

  "Led by the revolutionary chef known only as ‘The Fpjack Phantom,’ these rebels sought to dethrone the waffle and syrup empire by introducing an all-new, unauthorized breakfast option—Graviton Pancakes. These pancakes, rumored to be so dense they could warp space-time, posed an existential threat to the current ruling factions."

  Ezra let out a silent scream into his hands.

  "A battle was waged over the infamous Mt. Fuji Griddle, the st remaining neutral ground where breakfast diplomacy was still possible. But in one single night, everything changed. The Kingdom of Syrupia fell. The Waffle Consortium vanished. And the Pancakian Rebels? Never seen again. Only one faction remained, stepping from the shadows to cim absolute control—The Silent Legion."

  "And thus, the age of Graviton Breakfast came to a close, as the true rulers of humanity took their rightful pce."

  Ezra smmed the book shut.

  What the actual fuck?

  Ezra sat staring at the closed book, his thoughts racing.

  It was always like this. Every time history had something important buried beneath it, the White-Coats had spun it into the most ridiculous narrative possible.

  And yet—The truth was still there. The Silent Legion took over overnight. Mr. Key’s family had become too powerful, and something even more powerful had decided it was time to step in. This wasn’t just about science anymore. It was about who controlled the science.

  Ezra leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "What the hell have I gotten myself into?" he muttered under his breath. Nothing good. That much was obvious. But there was no turning back now. So instead of dwelling on it, he forced himself to focus on something tangible. Something that, at the very least, made sense.

  Physics.

  The White-Coats had given him access to research that no civilian had ever seen before.

  Everything humanity thought it knew about graviton waves was surface-level nonsense—an acceptable lie to keep the masses content. But in reality? They weren’t just exotic energy fields. They were dangerous.

  Graviton waves shared properties with electromagnetism, but instead of maniputing electric charges, they interacted with the very structure of matter itself. That was why graviton-compressed metals were possible. Atoms could be shrunk, packed tighter than physics should allow, making materials that were light but impossibly strong.

  But that wasn’t what disturbed Ezra the most. What disturbed him was how humanity was harnessing it. An antimatter reactor.

  That was what supplied the entire sor system with energy—a massive containment system that harnessed graviton waves the way an electromagnet traps charged particles. And the graviton batteries? They weren’t just power sources. They were potential energy storage devices, holding onto raw graviton forces in stasis, ready to be released on demand.

  Ezra leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. This technology was at the center of human civilization. But it had started with a single alien ore beneath Mt. Fuji. And somehow— Somehow—That had led to Mr. Key’s family living for centuries, and the Silent Legion pulling the strings of the entire world.

  Ezra ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. He had one year left. One year to figure out what the hell was really going on. One year to decide if he was going to accept the world as it was—or if he was going to dig deeper, no matter the cost.

  Because one thing was becoming clear: If graviton radiation could twist genes—if it could extend life, alter biology, and grant power beyond human comprehension—Then maybe the Silent Legion wasn’t just hiding science.

  Maybe they were hiding something even bigger. Ezra set the book aside, grabbing his research notes instead. This was going to be a long, long year.

  The week before fall finals, Ezra sat in the university dining hall, staring at his pancakes, brain fried from endless study sessions. As he absentmindedly poked at them, his mind drifted back to the Great Pancake Revolt of the 34th Century—the ridiculous White-Coat history that supposedly masked the Silent Legion’s takeover of Key Industries. But what if pancakes was a code for something else? What if the Silent Legion hadn’t attacked unprovoked, but rather, Key Industries had discovered something that warranted the takeover?

  He had seen what graviton radiation did first-hand, how it altered biology, extended lifespans, and left irreversible consequences. Generations 1 through 11 had died young from exposure, but by Generation 12, something changed—they weren’t just surviving, they were thriving unnaturally long. What if the Silent Legion hadn’t seized power for control, but rather, to contain something dangerous? What if they weren’t just rulers, but protectors?

  Ezra set his fork down, his appetite gone. He had spent months assuming he was uncovering a dark truth, that he was fighting against something hidden. But now, for the first time, doubt crept in. What if the real truth wasn’t about power—but keeping humanity from repeating a mistake it didn’t even know it made? For the first time, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know.