Forgotten Stars

Elijah raised his hand, and the red armor moved in perfect unison with his every gesture. Crowe and Evelyn could only stare, mouths slightly agape.

“I…I can’t quite explain it,” Elijah began, his voice sounding robotic through the helmet. “But it feels as if… my nervous system has merged with this metal. Every cable, every sensor—I can feel them. It’s like there’s an AI reading my thoughts before I even act.”

Crowe frowned, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re saying this armor responds to your thoughts? It’s not just being controlled?”

Elijah nodded.

Evelyn stepped closer, tapping lightly on Elijah’s helmet. “Is it safe? What if the system glitches?”

“Quite the opposite, Ma,” Elijah replied. “I feel… secure. As if the armor is alive and ensuring I won’t get hurt.”

Crowe sighed as he eyed the black armor resting on the podium. “This isn’t standard military technology. Its design is too organic—the material isn’t like ordinary metal. Perhaps Benedict acquired it from… somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?” Elijah echoed, the helmet emitting a soft squeak as he turned his head.

“Another civilization. Or maybe it’s some kind of illegal experiment that was never reported to the government.” Crowe crossed his arms.

Elijah shrugged, and his red armor creaked as he moved. “Instead of debating, why don’t you try one of those armors, Mom?”

Evelyn took a step back. “No, darling. I’m too old for that.”

“But you’re smart—more than anyone!” Elijah urged, gently pushing her toward the podium. “Try the black one. It suits your favorite color.”

Evelyn exhaled slowly, but eventually she approached the black armor. For ten seconds nothing happened.

“Maybe it has to be touched?” Elijah exclaimed.

Evelyn extended her hand, but the armor remained inert. “Forget it, perhaps it’s only meant for you—”

“Try the white one!” Elijah interrupted, pointing at the silver armor.

Evelyn grumbled as she moved over to the second suit. The moment her fingertips brushed its surface, the transparent fibers pulsed with a blue glow.

“DNA scan detected,” the AI announced. “Match 92%: Evelyn Voss. Activating Stealth Mode.”

In an instant, the silver armor disassembled into nano‑particles and enveloped Evelyn like liquid mercury. Within three seconds, her figure vanished from sight.

“Mom?!” Elijah panicked.

“I’m here!” came her voice from the empty air. Slowly, her body reappeared—now perfectly fitted with the silver armor, its helmet fashioned like a mask with no eye slits. “Is this… a cloaking device?!”

Crowe was visibly stunned. “How are you controlling that?”

“I don’t have to control it. I just… think,” she explained, raising her hand and watching a thin energy blade materialize from her lower arm. “It’s like a reflex.”

Elijah laughed through his helmet. “Look at you! You’re amazing, Mom!”

Now it was Crowe’s turn. Elijah pointed toward the black armor. “Come on, Mr. Crowe. The black one would perfectly match your badass aura.”

Crowe grumbled as he approached, but despite being touched, pounded, and even whispered to, the black armor remained inert.

“Strange,” Elijah mused, scratching his helmet. “Maybe it only reacts to Voss family DNA?”

Crowe suddenly jerked. “Or… maybe this armor is meant solely for Benedict.”

A heavy silence fell. Evelyn glanced at the empty podium, her face hidden behind the silver helmet. “He… might have prepared this for himself.”

Elijah ignored the silence. “Enough! The important thing is we now have two armors. Let’s try out their other functions!”

With caution, Evelyn activated the energy blade on her arm. The blade transformed—from a short sword into a whip of pure energy. “This is too complicated. I’d need days to figure it out.”

In stark contrast, Elijah acted without hesitation. He pressed a random button on his helmet. Click! Plasma wings suddenly detached from his back, floated in the air, and then transformed into two large, glowing red swords.

“Whoaaa!!” Elijah shouted in exhilaration, though one of the swords nearly slashed Crowe’s head.

“Unstable kid!” Crowe recoiled, his face paling.

“Sorry! I thought it was the flight mode!” Elijah laughed nervously, trying to reattach his wings. But the swords spun wildly, slicing through ceiling cables.

Evelyn sighed. “Elijah, stop before you destroy the bunker!”

After five minutes of chaotic flailing, Elijah finally managed to regain control of his swords. “It turns out you just need to think to store them back…”

Evelyn deactivated her energy blade. “We have to focus. If this armor was designed to fight the creatures out there, we need a strategy—not just toys.”

Elijah nodded seriously, though his fingers continued tapping on the panel on his arm like a kid with a new gadget.

After an hour of experimenting with every function, Elijah and Evelyn ended up wandering around the secret chamber, poking every part of the armors while murmuring, “How do we get them off?”

“Maybe there’s an emergency button along the spine?” suggested Evelyn, trying to reach her own back. But the silver armor was slick and seamless—designed to repel any manual intervention.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor with his helmet removed, Elijah frowned like a child struggling with a puzzle. “I’m sure Benedict wouldn’t want us stuck in these suits forever. There’s got to be a logic to the system!”

From the Control Zone, Crowe’s voice crackled through the intercom: “Try a voice command. ‘Deactivate’ or ‘Exit’.”

“Already! It’s not working!” Elijah complained, kicking an empty podium in frustration.

Then Evelyn fell silent. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the hologram on her wrist, which displayed an energy diagram. “Elijah… earlier you said the armor responds to your thoughts. But what if we’re misinterpreting the command? Maybe it’s not about spoken words, but a pattern?”

Elijah’s eyes lit up. “I know!” He closed his eyes and concentrated, imagining streams of data—like binary code flowing from his mind into the armor.

Click!

In an instant, the red armor detached and shrank into a maroon bracelet with crescent‑moon ornaments. Elijah laughed joyfully and raised his hand. “Mom, look! This is neural coding! The system is reading my brainwaves, not just following verbal commands!”

Evelyn nodded, her face brightening. “In that case…” She focused on the diagram on her HUD, visualizing the armor’s energy flow shutting down. Her silver helmet creased as, within three seconds, the armor dissolved into a thin silver bracelet around her wrist. “Amazing… this nano system is connected to our neural biofeedback.”

Hours later, in the Main Zone, holographic TV light bounced off the cold steel walls. Elijah idly bounced a blue holographic ball off the wall—a habit when he was anxious. The TV played footage from a drone tracking a group of mutated humans. They staggered amid crumbling buildings, their skin reptilian and freshly molted, eyes glowing a pale yellow in the dark. One figure suddenly screamed, its mouth torn wide to its ear, emitting a sound more akin to grinding metal than human agony.

“Mutations are accelerating,” Evelyn whispered, her fingers clenching the silver bracelet on her wrist tightly. Her voice trembled, but her eyes remained sharp—as if analyzing the threat on the screen. “Look at the cell structure on the HUD’s lower left. Their DNA degrades within 48 hours.”

Elijah slammed the TV off with a harsh motion. The room’s light dimmed, leaving only the red emergency lamps flickering on the ceiling. “Mom…” His breath was heavy, the word lodged in his throat. “I want to go out. To test the armor.”

Evelyn quickly turned, her usually pale face draining even more color. “Absolutely not! Look at what’s happening out there! They’re no longer human—they’re monsters!”

“But we need to know what the armor is capable of!” Elijah pounded his fist on the glass table, causing small cracks to appear. “How are we supposed to protect ourselves if we just hide in this bunker indefinitely?”

“You’re only 18, kid,” Evelyn protested, rising as her black silk dress swished softly. “Benedict would never allow it—”

“Dad isn’t here!” Elijah shouted, his voice echoing in the cramped room. Suddenly, the red armor’s helmet materialized in his hand as if reacting to his emotions. He froze and then looked down. “I’m sorry, Mom. But…I refuse to lose you the way I lost Dad.”

Evelyn stopped in her tracks. The bunker’s air felt like it was stabbing her lungs. In the corner of her vision, tears welled up, reflecting the red glow of the emergency lights. She wiped them away with the back of her hand—quickly, as if ashamed to show weakness. “Alright,” she whispered hoarsely. “But you come with me.”

“What?!” Elijah stepped back, the helmet falling from his grasp. “This isn’t a game, Mom! They could—”

“Before I married your father,” Evelyn interjected, her fingers dancing over the silver bracelet, “I was a martial arts instructor at Nova Academy. I trained daily with elite troops, designed city defense tactics… and even Benedict lost three times in combat simulations.”

Elijah’s eyes widened in disbelief. The image of his graceful, elegant mother in silk and stilettos suddenly crumbled before him. “But… you always said you were allergic to weapons!”

“And did you believe that?” Evelyn teased, a playful glint returning to her eyes as she suddenly looked ten years younger. The silver bracelet on her wrist glowed, and within seconds, armor enveloped her body—helmet forming like a faceless mask and a thin energy blade materializing from her arm. “I still remember your signature move: jump and crush. That won’t work on heavy mutants.”

Elijah blushed. “You’ve been spying on my training sessions?!”

“Every day,” she admitted, then deactivated the armor and it melted back into a thin silver bracelet. “Now, come on. We have 30 minutes before Crowe finishes maintenance in the Technical Zone.”

Elijah sighed, but a small smile tugged at his lips. “Just like you, Mom… stubborn through and through.”

“Not stubborn—just that survival is an attitude,” Evelyn replied, smoothing Elijah’s collar.

The emergency lights blinked twice—a signal that Crowe was about to return. Elijah pressed the red bracelet, and with a dramatic final hiss, the armor reassembled from his wrist to cover his body completely. “Ready, Mom?”

Evelyn nodded, her silver helmet concealing a tense smile. Beneath the layers of metal, her heart pounded—not for herself, but for her son who had suddenly inherited a burden of war he never asked for.

“Team connection established,” the AI announced. “Additional Operator: Evelyn Voss. Link established: Crowe Mantell.”

“Communication test. Can you hear us loud and clear?” Crowe’s voice boomed through their helmets.

“Loud and clear!” Elijah shouted, giving a thumbs-up to the security camera.

Evelyn activated the map on her HUD. Seven red dots blinked within a 500‑meter radius. “It appears they’re gathering at the old underground warehouse.”

“Early-stage mutations,” Crowe warned. “They’re slow for now, but their numbers are increasing by the hour.”

The heavy steel door slowly swung open, releasing a hiss of pressurized air. Elijah stepped forward, plasma weapon already active in his hand. Evelyn followed, her cloaking device on standby.

The scene outside was apocalyptic. A sky choked by radioactive ash clouds emitted a sickly green glow, as if the sun had died and been replaced by a feeble synthetic light. Once-magnificent skyscrapers adorned with neon holograms lay in ruins. Shards of glass littered the streets like poisonous jewels, while twisted iron frames jutted from debris like the bones of forgotten giants. The air reeked of burnt metal and rotting flesh, a stench that made the stomach churn.

“Move quickly. Stay undetected,” Crowe reminded them over the comms, his voice distorted by interference.

Elijah activated silent mode. The footsteps of his red armor—usually accompanied by a mechanical whir—were now nearly silent, leaving only thin red trails of light in the air like fleeting fireflies. On his HUD, the seven red dots crept closer—only 200 meters away. Behind the ruins of an electronics store, shadowy figures moved slowly, sometimes accompanied by low, rasping growls that sent shivers down the spine.

“There’s something over there,” Evelyn whispered, her voice coming through Elijah’s helmet via their private network. The silver armor on her seemed almost invisible, occasionally shimmering like a heat haze in a desert.

“Not just mutants… the ambient energy is unstable. Like… a tiny portal,” she continued.

They dashed forward—Elijah leapt with a plasma burst from his armor, landing lightly atop an overturned bus. Evelyn followed like a shadow, gliding deftly between gaps in the debris. From above, Crowe’s mini-drone—shaped like a metallic dragonfly—spun in the distance, its red camera capturing every move.

“Fifty meters. Stop behind that burning truck,” ordered Crowe.

Elijah jumped down, but his right foot caught on the carcass of a moss-covered car. CRRAAAK! The fragile door of the car collapsed with a thunderous sound in the eerie silence.

“Elijah!” Evelyn screamed, and her right hand activated an energy blade that formed into a short sword.

Suddenly, seven pairs of glowing yellow eyes appeared out of the ashen haze. Hunched humanoid figures emerged from the shadows—their skin scaly and peeling, grotesque bony growths spiking from their backs like thorns, and mouths ripped open to reveal bloodstained, serrated teeth. One mutant lifted its head, its nose twitching as it sniffed the air. Its deep, guttural growl rumbled like a malfunctioning machine crunching metal.

“Quiet… don’t move,” Evelyn hissed, her cloaking device gradually rendering her nearly invisible.

But it was too late. The lead mutant fixed its gaze on Elijah. Its yellow eyes blinked once, then—with an unexpected burst of speed—it leaped into the air, its metallic, clawed snout aiming straight for Elijah’s neck.