The Past, Rewired

[thisDerius]

"The EVE Project has nothing to do with an IRG Cell," Derius muttered, his voice low but firm, as if trying to reaffirm the separation to himself as much as to Donagan—who watched from across the room, quietly observing.
"I mean, the whole idea never did. EVE was... is... an adaptive AI program. Designed to detect, predict, and counteract Nomad infiltration and psionic interference anywhere in Sirius." He tapped a few lines of code into the console, dragging windows into view as files streamed by, like digital ghosts of the past.
"But it was incomplete. Too unstable. I purged the core design from every known node of the IRG database years ago. Or at least, I thought I did."

A sigh escaped him, heavy with fatigue. He leaned over the console, rubbing at his temple with a cybernetic hand that still bore faint scorches from past work. The weight of years behind him showed in moments like this—when his efforts to safeguard knowledge felt like they'd been for nothing.

"Too much work... too many lives... were tied to EVE. I'm not just giving it up for someone to weaponize, or worse—tamper with it without understanding what they’re dealing with."

As the data continued streaming, another ding echoed through the lab. The terminal screen lit up with a new folder:

"IRG_CELL_THEORETICAL_FRAMEWORK.log"

Derius narrowed his eyes, scanning the entries. It wasn’t the schematic. No core design, no blueprints, no internal mapping—but what he did find was detailed documentation: operational principles, component theories, estimated output scaling, potential power thresholds. It was like a user’s manual without the machine.

"Well... that's not what I needed, but not useless either." He sighed again, but this time it was laced with intrigue. He flagged the files and swept them into a secure folder for later review.
"Might help optimize the new core. At the very least, it tells me what they understood about it—and what they didn’t."

He leaned back, about to close the console when something in the datamap Donagan provided flickered—an unusual pattern in the access log. His brow furrowed. With a few swift keystrokes, he ran a cross-reference.

Access Point: Zeta-3-Theta
Folder Detected: IRG Encryption Index – Tier Access: Locked

His pupils contracted slightly as he stared. Then came a slow, creeping smirk—followed by a soft, amused chuckle that echoed in the sterile lab air.

"Hello, hello..." he muttered, the amusement bubbling just under the surface as his fingers flew across the terminal.
"I think I just found the master index. A full encryption database. This... this is the golden key. And it’s still valid."

For the first time in what felt like days, Derius allowed himself to truly smile. Not just a smirk of arrogance or satisfaction—but something genuinely hopeful. Years of dead ends and redacted files, of scraps and salvaged data—now finally bearing fruit.

"We might be getting out of here much sooner than expected," he called over his shoulder, barely glancing back at Donagan.
"This changes everything."

And just like that, he was a man possessed—focused, hunched forward, eyes glowing faintly with reflected data as he tore into the encrypted vault like a surgeon, finally knowing where to cut. The future, for the first time in a while, didn’t look so far away.