I worked at Medi-Borg, and every day I looked forward to going to work. I felt that I was part of something great and groundbreaking. People with severe mobility or sensory impairments came to us, and we restored what they had believed was lost forever—the ability to move independently and live a fuller life.
Every smile from a patient who, after months of rehabilitation, picked up a fork or moved their fingers for the first time filled me with pride. In moments like those, I felt as though I were standing on the threshold of a miracle.
The clinical division of Medi-Borg was headed by Dr. Markus Ruppert, an experienced neurosurgeon and my immediate superior. During my first few years there, the company operated like a strictly regulated medical facility. Every experimental procedure had to be approved by an internal ethics committee, and before surgery, patients underwent an extensive series of neurological and psychological examinations.
The greatest innovation was our neural interfaces—a new generation of bioelectronic implants that we inserted into the motor regions of the brain or connected to the major neural pathways. Their processors could recognize patterns of neural activity associated with intended movement and translate them into commands for artificial limbs.
The cybernetic prostheses were made from lightweight carbon composites, titanium joints, and ceramic insulating fibers. They no longer responded solely to simple nerve signals. Their control systems gradually learned to recognize the patient’s intention to move.
Every signal from the brain was transformed into movement with a degree of precision that previous generations of prostheses could never have achieved.
Most often, we implanted robotic arms and legs anchored directly to the bone and connected to the remaining neural pathways. Safety limiters prevented the force of the prosthesis from damaging the patient’s joints, bones, or spine. Even so, it took months for someone to learn how to control a new limb precisely.
Patients could not experience touch in the same way they would with a natural hand, but pressure sensors could provide them with at least a basic sensation of contact. They could dress themselves, eat, pick up objects, and, after extensive training, even drive a car.
It was a kind of freedom that no one would have believed possible only a few years earlier.
As I watched patients rise to their feet again and take their first cautious steps, fasten a button with artificial fingers, or lift a glass of water, I felt that the boundary between human and machine was slowly beginning to fade.
I was witnessing their rebirth. At the same time, however, I sensed a disturbing shift. The technology was beginning to touch the very essence of what it meant to be human.
Later, we also began testing visual implants. Miniature cameras connected to the optic nerve and visual cortex could digitally magnify images or enhance fine details. It was not the same as natural vision. Some patients suffered from headaches, visual blackouts, or temporary loss of spatial orientation.
Auditory implants with an expanded range of perception followed. They detected extremely high frequencies and converted them into a range the brain could learn to interpret.
After a lengthy calibration process, one patient could hear the hum of electrical wiring, the beating of his own heart, and even ultrasonic signals normally perceived only by certain animals, translated into a strange, shifted tone.
Every innovation seemed like a small miracle. Yet its imperfections and side effects reminded us that we were only at the beginning of a new era in medicine.
Something very different, however, was taking place in the building’s basement levels.
Krohn, our director and owner, maintained a closed team of researchers down there. Officially, the underground levels housed a secure development division working with technologies protected by corporate and government secrecy.
The access elevators required special biometric authorization. Our regular employee cards did not grant us access to them.
Almost no one spoke about the developers’ work. It was as though they existed only in the shadows.
We were permitted to submit technical questions solely through a secure internal system. Direct contact with the developers in the classified division was forbidden, and we had no access to their facilities.
Then, one day, I made a mistake.
While we were synchronizing one patient’s neural interface with his cybernetic prosthesis, electrical feedback caused delayed, uncontrolled movements. We immediately deactivated the external control unit, but the implant’s irregular activity continued. There was a risk of damage to the surrounding neural tissue.
Ruppert was away at a medical conference for several days, and my urgent requests for a technical consultation went unanswered.
Fearing for the patient, I decided to bypass the established procedure and go directly to Krohn.
His secretary, Júlia, was away from her desk. I knocked, but instead of waiting for an answer, I walked in.
Krohn was standing in the office.
Facing him was a tall, slender man in a perfectly tailored gray suit. Krohn addressed him by an unusual name—Xanak.
He appeared to be around forty. His perfectly smooth face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. He seemed cold and self-assured, like a man who knew exactly what he wanted and never doubted that he would get it.
Dark glasses concealed his eyes. Yet I could still feel his gaze—a gaze that did not stop at the surface.
Krohn roared in a voice I had never heard him use before:
“What are you doing here?! Get out! Now! And don’t come back today!”
I stood there as though someone had shut down every command traveling from my brain to my body.
At that moment, the stranger removed his glasses.
His eyes were not human.
His black pupils covered almost the entire surface of his irises, and even in the harsh light of the office, they did not contract. Their edges rippled almost imperceptibly, as though a dark liquid were flowing inside them.
I felt as though he could see everything I had ever tried to hide.
My body went rigid. I could neither move my legs nor speak. The pressure inside my head became a burst of searing pain. I could not breathe, and I felt as though my skull might split open at any moment.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
The entire room fell silent. The light suddenly seemed paler—fragile and confused.
I watched as Krohn accepted a dark, matte case from Xanak. Its surface did not reflect the light but seemed to absorb it. When Krohn touched it, his fingers trembled, and for a moment, all the color drained from his face.
I could not explain why, but the object radiated the same cold pressure that Xanak’s gaze had awakened inside me.
At the time, I had no idea what the case contained or where it had come from. But its image was engraved indelibly in my memory.
Just then, Júlia returned to the office.
“Mr. Reichmann! Out! Get out immediately—you’re not allowed in here!” she almost screamed.
Xanak slowly put his glasses back on.
The pressure inside my head subsided, and I was able to breathe again.
“Y-yes. I’m leaving,” I stammered.
That evening, I lay on my bed, replaying the entire scene over and over again.
Why had Krohn become so furious? Who was the stranger? And what kind of gaze had left me completely paralyzed for several moments?
Was I simply exhausted? Had I suffered a sudden neurological episode? Or had that man truly looked at me with eyes that did not belong in this world?
The same images kept appearing before my eyes—the fading light, the dark case, and the eyes that were not human.
My heart was pounding so violently that I could feel every beat.
From that day on, I began noticing things that had previously escaped my attention.
Krohn changed. He looked exhausted, and his eyes seemed empty. His moods shifted for no apparent reason. At times, he spoke quietly and seemed distant; at others, he exploded over the smallest things.
During a staff meeting, he suddenly began shouting at us:
“The clinical division is spending too much money, and the company is in the red! You will shorten procedure times, increase the number of implantations, and stop questioning every decision made by the development division. Otherwise, I’ll shut down the entire clinical operation. Do you understand me?!”
I worked until I was exhausted, sometimes for as long as fourteen hours a day. Slowly, I began to lose all sense of time.
But the same question continued to echo through my mind:
Who was the man with the strange eyes—and what was hidden inside that case?
At the time, I still did not know who Xanak truly was. But I was certain that, for the first time, I had encountered something that did not belong to the world I knew.
It was only much later that I learned that beings of his kind called themselves the Archons.
Xanak was one of them.
From that moment on, my perception of the world began to change. The reality I had known until then was becoming merely one part of a much broader and darker picture.