Project Eden
885 Words
Two Nights Later — The Smith Estate
Moonlight bathed the Smith mansion in silver. The grounds were quiet—too quiet for a place that housed one of the most powerful families in the country. To the outside world, it was a fortress of wealth, status, and legacy.
But to Lysa, it was something else.
A vault of secrets.
She crouched low behind a hedgerow, dressed in black, her heartbeat steady despite the chill in the air. Her gloved fingers gripped the small comm piece in her ear.
“South wing is clear,” whispered a voice on the line.
Lysa smiled.
Elena.
Her old nanny—now one of the estate’s long-serving housemaids—had recognized Lysa the moment they crossed paths in a quiet city market two weeks ago. Time had changed them both, but the bond remained.
“I’ll let you in through the garden entrance,” Elena had promised, eyes fierce. “But you only get twenty minutes. If they find you, I can’t protect you.”
Twenty minutes.
Just enough to find something. Anything.
Meanwhile — Smith Tower, Private Office
Michael stood by the window, the city lights cold and distant. The latest file from his investigator sat open on his desk, heavy with implication.
Subject: Lysa Moreau
Real Name: Lysa Moreau-Valen
Daughter of François Moreau, former CEO of Valen Industries.
Company collapsed amid scandal and legal threats five years ago.
Investigation buried. No convictions.
Connections to Project Eden: Possible.
He closed the file slowly, jaw clenched.
It made sense now.
Why she moved like a woman with purpose.
Why she showed up at the right events, knew the right people, asked the wrong questions.
But what did she want?
Revenge? Justice? Or something else entirely?
And how much did she already know?
His mind spun. He needed answers. Fast.
11:17 PM — Smith Mansion, Inner Hall
Lysa moved through the hallways like a shadow, guided by memory and instinct. The air smelled of old wood and money. Familiar portraits still hung along the staircase wall—paintings of proud men in tailored suits, the bloodline of power.
Her father had once stood among them. Not as a Smith, but as a guest—years ago, before everything turned.
She reached the door Elena had described.
“Your best chance is Thomas’s old study,” the maid had said. “No one’s touched it since he passed. But if Eden started anywhere—it started there.”
Lysa eased the door open.
Dust motes danced in the beam of her flashlight. The room smelled of leather and ink. Shelves lined the walls—ledgers, technical blueprints, books on ethics, war, and innovation.
And a heavy oak desk, locked.
She knelt and pulled a thin tool from her boot.
Thirty seconds. Click.
The drawer slid open.
Inside—papers. Dozens of them. Most dated, unremarkable… until she found one folder marked only:
Eden: Phase Zero
Her pulse quickened.
She flipped through the contents—technical specs, contractor signatures, a facility address redacted in pen. But one phrase burned into her memory:
“Initial cognitive integration tests—Subjects: unconsenting. Memory loop calibration in progress.”
Unconsenting?
They had tested on people without their permission. Her father had warned them. He had fought this. And they destroyed him for it.
She froze.
One of the documents bore a second signature beneath Thomas Smith’s.
Michael Smith.
No.
Her breath hitched.
But as she studied it closer, her eyes narrowed.
The signature was replicated.
Copied.
Forged.
Michael hadn’t signed it. Someone had made it look like he had.
Her father was right.
The rot was deeper than anyone knew.
11:28 PM — Outside the Study
Footsteps.
Voices.
Lysa stuffed the papers into her jacket, closed the drawer, and turned off the light.
Elena’s voice whispered through her earpiece. “Security shift changed early. You need to move. Now.”
Lysa darted down the back hallways, slipping through a servant passage just as two guards passed by. Her breath caught as she waited, pressed against the cold stone wall.
One of them spoke.
“Crane’s been asking about the old lab under the property. Thought they’d shut that down after Thomas died.”
“Apparently not,” the other replied. “Word is something’s active again. Quiet orders. Top clearance only.”
A lab. Under the mansion?
Lysa’s blood turned to ice.
She waited until they passed, then whispered: “Elena, what’s under the mansion?”
A long pause.
Then: “You need to leave. Now.”
Same Night — Michael’s Apartment
Michael couldn’t sleep.
He stared at the photograph again—the one clipped to the investigation file. Lysa, age fifteen, standing beside her father at a press event, her smile innocent, unaware of the storm coming.
A different girl.
But her eyes hadn’t changed.
He leaned back in his chair, the weight of two questions hanging over him:
What did Crane do under his family’s name?
What would Lysa do… now that she was here?
He didn’t trust her.
But somehow, he trusted why she had come.
And if what he was starting to believe was true, they might both be standing on opposite ends of a war neither of them started.
But only one of them might be willing to end it.
- Writer
