Saturday was exactly what Clancy needed—not that he'd admit it out loud.
The moment he stepped out of the compound and saw Aram waving at him from across the street, things clicked back into place. It was like flipping a switch—from recruit mode to regular human mode. They didn't dive into anything deep. They just picked up where they'd left off, like no time had passed.
They spent the day wandering the city, grabbing food from every place they used to haunt in college, and trading dumb stories like they were still nineteen. At one point, they met up with a few old classmates at a beat-up pizza shop near campus—the kind of place where the chairs wobbled, the soda machine was always broken, and the food slapped harder than it had any right to.
It was loud, messy, full of inside jokes and name drops Clancy hadn't heard in years.
Even some guys he barely remembered from econ or intro to philosophy showed up, throwing back drinks and trying to one-up each other with post-grad horror stories. Aram was in his element, loud and animated, waving his hands around as he recounted the infamous "projector incident" from sophomore year. Clancy mostly sat back and laughed—not because the stories were new, but because they weren't.
It felt good. Familiar. Easy.
For once, he didn't have to worry about what he was saying—or not saying.
But then Sunday rolled around.
Clancy woke early, still half-wrapped in a blanket on Aram's couch, his neck sore from sleeping at a weird angle. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and Aram snoring like he was trying to start a chainsaw.
Clancy made a cup of tea, leaned against the kitchen counter, and stared out the window.
He couldn't shake it.
That itch in the back of his head. That unspoken question that had been getting louder every day since he joined the OTA.
His dad.
Zephyr had been there the night of the bar fight—calm, calculated, stepping in like it was just another Tuesday. Clancy hadn't gotten a chance to ask then, but he knew. Zephyr had known his father. Maybe trained with him. Maybe served with him. Maybe even knew what happened to him after he vanished.
Clancy had always thought he was chasing shadows.
But now? He had someone who might actually know the truth.
He scribbled a quick note for Aram—something along the lines of "Thanks for the hang. Don't let the plant die. Again."—then threw his bag over his shoulder and headed out.
The OTA compound felt colder when he walked back in. Quieter. Sterile, like a different world entirely from the pizza grease and inside jokes of the night before.
He didn't bother dropping his bag off.
He just walked straight to the admin wing, his boots echoing with each step.
Zephyr owed him some answers.
And Clancy wasn't going to wait any longer to ask.
He stopped in front of the office door, took a breath, and knocked.
Zephyr's office was as stark and precise as the man himself—metal desk, two chairs, a single screen on the wall looping muted security feeds. No personal items. No warmth.
Clancy stepped in, and Zephyr didn't look up right away. He was reviewing a report, pen tapping lightly against the desk in a steady rhythm. Only when the door clicked shut behind Clancy did he glance up.
"Endicott," he said.
Clancy stood still for a moment, jaw tight, hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"I need to talk to you," he said.
Zephyr nodded once. "Then talk."
Clancy walked over and sat, eyes locked on the man across from him—the man who'd saved him without hesitation weeks ago, who always seemed to be watching, even when he wasn't in the room.
"This is about my father," Clancy said, bluntly. "Elias Endicott."
Zephyr's gaze didn't waver.
"I know you knew him. I know you worked with him. I want to know what happened to him."
Zephyr leaned back slowly in his chair. He didn't sigh. He didn't fidget. He just… paused. As if considering how far to let the curtain pull back.
"Elias and I served together," Zephyr said at last. "Same unit. 59th Division, North American Branch."
Clancy straightened slightly.
"We were close," Zephyr continued. "Good friends. Closer than most get to be in this line of work."
There was something in his voice then—not regret, exactly, but a kind of heaviness. A weight only those who've survived something with someone else could carry.
"You were in the field together?" Clancy asked.
Zephyr nodded. "Many times. Your father was one of the best. Tactical, fast-thinking, but never reckless. He always had a reason."
Clancy let that sink in. It was strange—he knew his dad had been sharp, strong, trained. But hearing it from someone who'd actually bled beside him… it made it real.
"What happened to him?"
Zephyr was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said, "He jumped."
Clancy's brow furrowed. "Jumped? Like—time jump?"
Zephyr nodded once.
"Without clearance. Without approval. He activated a window and disappeared. To when, or where, we don't know."
Clancy's stomach dropped.
"He wouldn't just do that," he said, voice firm. "That's not him."
Zephyr's eyes met his.
"No," he said. "It wasn't. Which is why I've been watching you."
Clancy blinked. "What?"
Zephyr folded his hands on the desk.
"Since the day your father disappeared, I've kept tabs on you. Quietly. From a distance. Making sure you stayed safe."
Clancy leaned back in his chair, the weight of it all pressing in. "You were there the whole time? All four years?"
Zephyr gave a small nod.
"I made a promise. Elias asked me to look after you, if anything ever happened. He didn't explain why—just that I'd understand in time."
Clancy let out a sharp breath, trying to keep his head from spinning.
"Why'd you wait until now to show yourself?"
Zephyr's answer came without hesitation.
"Because you weren't ready."
Clancy stared at him, something in his chest pulling tight.
"Ready for what?"
Zephyr was silent again.
"I can't tell you that," he said. "Not yet."
Clancy leaned forward, voice low. "You're telling me my dad jumped into God knows where, broke OTA protocol to do it, and you've been shadowing me ever since—and you still can't tell me why?"
Zephyr's jaw tightened just slightly. The first real crack in his composed exterior.
"All I can tell you is this," he said. "He didn't run. He wasn't escaping. He was… determined. He believed something was coming. Something big. And he made a choice."
Clancy swallowed, the silence suddenly thick between them.
He wanted more. Needed it.
But Zephyr didn't give him anything else.
Not today.
And Clancy could tell pushing wouldn't get him anywhere.
So he stood, jaw clenched, fists in his jacket pockets.
"Then I'll find out myself."
Zephyr gave a faint nod—not encouragement, not approval, but something in between. Recognition.
"I know," he said. "You're your father's son."
Clancy turned and walked out without another word, the door clicking quietly behind him.
And for the first time in four years, he felt like the trail might finally be warming up.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday came quickly, dragging Clancy back into the machine.
The routine hadn't changed—four grueling hours of OTA instruction each morning, packed with lectures on temporal anomalies, Kairon classifications, and mission debrief protocols that made Clancy's brain ache.
Then, after a short break, the afternoon brought four more hours of combat training. Sparring, strength drills, weapon disarms, and conditioning circuits that left the recruits gasping by the end of each session.
It was the same brutal rhythm as the week before—relentless, exhausting, and exacting. But after his conversation with Zephyr, Clancy felt it all land differently now.
Like every hour of training might be another step closer to finding the truth.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Instructor Evelyn Hart stood at the front of the room, her posture as rigid as ever, but her expression was different today—less bored formality, more like someone about to drop a secret they'd been dying to share.
"As I'm sure you all know," she began, hands clasped behind her back, "you may have noticed that each morning after breakfast, a few of your fellow recruits leave—separating themselves from the rest of you while you attend instruction."
Her gaze swept across the room.
"Well… today, I'm going to tell you where they've been."
The room shifted with interest. Chairs creaked. Clancy leaned forward slightly. He wasn't the only one who had been wondering.
It was true—for two full weeks, those three purple-accented recruits had vanished every morning without a word. Clancy had caught glimpses of them in the halls, and sometimes, very briefly, back in the dorms at night. But they were always quiet. Always closed off.
They didn't seem like fighters. Lena and Evelyn moved with precision, but neither had the brawler's build or the posture of someone who spent hours getting slammed to the mat. And Alek—well, Alek was a different story entirely.
A literal child. Ten, maybe eleven. Smug, twitchy, and deeply punchable. He had the confidence of someone who'd never been hit hard enough to question it. Clancy wasn't alone in thinking the kid's greatest power might be how far he could push someone before they snapped.
But now, Instructor Hart was finally pulling back the curtain.
"The reason they train separately from the rest of you," she said, "is because they're not like the rest of you. Their training doesn't involve physical conditioning or combat readiness—at least, not in the same way."
She paused.
"They are what we call Lucents."
The word hung in the air like a ripple through still water.
"Lucents," Hart continued, "are individuals who have formed a direct connection to the temporal realm. To put it plainly—they've seen time itself. And they survived."
Clancy felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"In the early days—before the OTA was even formally created—there were other experiments. The Montauk Project, for instance. Many of you may know it as a conspiracy theory. It wasn't. It was very real. And it was the first time anyone successfully opened a sustained observational rift into the temporal stream."
She clicked a remote, and a faded, grainy photograph flickered onto the wall—a rusted metal chair surrounded by wires, dials, and what looked like a crude helmet hooked to a mess of glowing tubes.
"The Einstein-Rosen Device, a prototype machine of the Einstein Rosen Bridge. capable of peering into the temporal realm. Those selected to use it were referred to as 'Subjects of Light'—the first name given to what would later become Lucents."
Hart turned back to them, her tone cool and clinical.
"Most who were exposed to the stream died. Some lost their minds. Others ceased to exist entirely. But a handful… adapted. The human brain, when forced to comprehend non-linear time, either collapses or evolves. Lucents are those who evolved."
Murmurs passed through the room. Even the usually stone-faced Jihoon glanced up, eyes narrowing with interest.
"They came back with something new. Abilities we didn't understand at first—telekinesis, limited precognition, mental projection. Psychic phenomena grounded in something we still barely comprehend. Their minds function differently now. Lucents are not just soldiers or agents. They are instruments—alive, sensitive instruments calibrated to the flow of time itself."
Clancy swallowed.
They didn't just study time. They felt it.
Hart tapped the remote again, and the screen went black.
"Once the OTA was formed, Lucents were quietly implemented into the organization.. Training them is dangerous. Letting them go untrained is worse."
She looked directly at Clancy's row, her eyes steady.
"That's why they wear purple. And that's why they train apart."
Clancy sat back slowly, processing it all.
Lena. Evelyn. Alek.
Not soldiers. Not analysts.
Lucents.
And Clancy suddenly understood something that hadn't clicked before:
They didn't seem like combat operatives… because they were something else entirely.