The command suite settles into a tense electronic hum. Colonel Marcus Vale lies wounded beside the console, while Soren’s masked relay hovers above the desk and Nyx monitors remotely.
Viktor Soren
You want answers. Vale authorized the route change, but he did not design the accident. That order came from higher inside Specter.
Vale’s fingers twitch against the polished floor. His eyes open beneath the blood-smeared silver hair, finding Taz’s weapons before the room around him.
Colonel Marcus Vale
Soren is lying by omission. I redirected the vehicle, yes. I was told your family was leverage, not a termination target.
Viktor Soren
And yet you signed the recovery order afterward. You delivered Taz alive to the BERSERKER program, Marcus. That was the real objective.
Nyx Calder
I am pulling the suite records now. The evidence can be mirrored, the control infrastructure can be destroyed, or we can preserve it for a wider strike.
Across the consoles, Vale’s command credentials unlock a sealed archive. Soren’s relay exposes dormant control routes beneath Elysium, all still capable of reaching Taz’s isolated systems if restored.
“Tell nyx to save all the evidence to process later. "Keep talking Soren, why was I the target of the Berserker program and to what end?" Hack the command suite terminal while Soren is explaining to dig up all the information you can as the same time”
SUCCESS (Legendary Hacking, rolled +1)
Taz
Nyx, save every record and mirror it for processing later. Soren, keep talking. Why was I targeted by BERSERKER, and to what end?
Nyx begins duplicating the suite archive into sealed remote stores. Taz lowers one pistol toward the terminal, linking his cyberwarfare equipment without taking his other weapon from Vale.
Viktor Soren
You were targeted because you survived what should have killed you. Your combat profile, implants, and resistance made you the ideal autonomous trial platform. BERSERKER was built to turn that survival into obedience.
Taz’s intrusion passes the terminal’s layered defenses and opens the command archive. Personnel files, surgical logs, control protocols, and post-crash assessments resolve across the displays while Nyx preserves every copy.
Viktor Soren
The program’s end was not merely battlefield enhancement. Specter wanted a controllable commander who could be activated remotely, tested under stress, and deployed against targets without leaving an accountable chain.
The recovered files confirm Soren’s account and expose the final purpose: use Taz to validate the platform, then replicate his converted systems across a deniable black-operations force. The archive names every approving authority.
Nyx Calder
Everything is saved, mirrored, and indexed. We have the full BERSERKER rationale, the authorization chain, and enough evidence to destroy Specter publicly.
The last dormant route collapsed under Taz's command. Across the terminal, every archive sealed itself behind mirrored copies and an unalterable chain of proof.
Colonel Marcus Vale
I told myself it was leverage. That lie does not make the bodies disappear.
Taz
No. But the truth makes sure you cannot bury them again.
Vale lowered his eyes. For once, the silence belonged to the guilty, not the dead.
The Elysium routes were gone for good, and nothing in Taz's isolated systems answered to another hand. The records survived in triplicate, carrying Soren and Vale's crimes toward the light and naming the machinery that had made Taz a weapon. He remained battered, changed, and finally his own. The chapter ended with the control room dark behind him and the truth secure.