Chapter 14: Buried Secrets

A.T.L.A.S. Secure Medical Facility, Manhattan - June 1987

Blood had soaked through Caspian's fresh bandages by the time Howard regained consciousness. The secure medical bay, buried twenty floors beneath Manhattan, hummed with suppressed tension. Two armed guards outside, another four at facility access points. All hand-picked by Walter personally.

"You look like shit," Howard rasped, fingers trembling as he reached for the water glass.

"Caring for my health now?" Caspian's Emperor Eye tracked the older man's vital signs. Elevated heart rate. Stress indicators in facial muscles. Fear response cycling beneath the practiced calm.

"Where are they?" Howard's voice dropped to barely a whisper.

"The files were destroyed in the explosion."

"Not those files." Howard's laugh turned into a wet cough. "The real ones. The ones I've been... collecting. Learning from."

The door opened. Carrie Valemont entered, her heels clicking precisely on the polished floor. No sign of the fact she'd been coordinating emergency protocols for twelve hours straight.

"Howard." She took the chair opposite Caspian. "I believe it's time we had a very honest conversation."

"Carrie." Howard's attempt at his usual charm fell flat. "I suppose I owe you some explanations."

"You owe us rather more than that." Her voice could have frozen flame. "Eight dead operatives. A compromised storage facility. And combat protocols that haven't been used in A.T.L.A.S. for twenty years. Start talking."

Howard's eyes darted to the door, then back. "What I'm about to tell you... it goes back to the beginning. To before Erskine, before the SSR. To why organizations like A.T.L.A.S. were really created."

"We're aware of the historical context," Carrie started, but Howard cut her off.

"No. You're aware of the sanitized version. The one we all agreed to put in the official records." His hands shook as he reached for a cigarette. Caspian noted the gesture—Howard had quit smoking fifteen years ago. "The enhancement programs didn't start with trying to create super soldiers. They started with trying to contain what was already out there."

The Emperor Eye caught the minute tension in Carrie's shoulders. "Explain."

"1939. A Soviet research team in Siberia found something in the ice. Not a person, not a weapon... something else. Something that changed the people who touched it. Changed them in ways we..." He swallowed hard. "In ways we couldn't control."

"The early SSR files," Caspian said quietly. "The ones you've been accessing."

"Documentation of the attempts to understand it. To replicate it. Every major power wanted their own program. Their own enhanced humans." Howard's laugh was bitter. "Most of them ended in death. The lucky ones, anyway."

"And the unlucky ones?" Carrie's voice was very quiet.

"Became something else. Something that had to be contained. Hidden." Howard's hands wouldn't stop shaking. "That's why the SSR created the first containment protocols. Why Professor Valemont really founded A.T.L.A.S.. Not just to protect secrets... to protect humanity from them."

Caspian's Emperor Eye caught every micro-expression as Howard spoke. No deception indicators. Just raw fear.

"The Russian commander," Caspian said. "He knew about this?"

"He's part of it. Has to be. The old protocols, the specific targeting... they're trying to access the original research. All of it."

"Where?" Carrie's question cracked like a whip.

"Scattered. Hidden. I've spent years tracking down pieces, trying to understand what we were really dealing with back then." Howard met Caspian's eyes. "Your grandfather knew the truth of it all. Professor Arthur Valemont. He wasn't just A.T.L.A.S.'s founder. He was part of the original containment team."

The silence that followed was absolute. Caspian felt the weight of his family legacy shift, deepen with dark implications.

"The founding of A.T.L.A.S.," Carrie said carefully, "it wasn't just about conventional threats."

"No." Howard closed his eyes. "And now someone's trying to restart it all. The original programs. The experiments. Everything we tried to bury."

"The Bangkok formulas," Caspian said. "The facilities in Eastern Europe. They're not just trying to recreate Project Rebirth."

"They're trying to wake something up." Howard's voice shook. "Something that should have stayed buried in that ice."

Carrie stood smoothly. "You'll provide everything you have. Every file, every contact, every piece of intelligence. Caspian will coordinate the investigation personally."

"There's more," Howard said, looking directly at Caspian. "About your grandfather... about what really happened to him."

The Emperor Eye caught the minute tension in both Carrie and Caspian's frames.

"The official record says he died of natural causes. The truth..." Howard looked suddenly every one of his years. "The truth is, he made sure certain things stayed buried. And it cost him everything."

Through the medical bay's windows, Manhattan's lights glittered like stars. The Valemont legacy, Caspian realized, was darker and deeper than even his mother had known.