Elliot Voss’s office on the 20th floor was spacious. In addition to his desk with its standard two guest chairs, a small oval-shaped conference table sat in the corner, offering a wide, sweeping view of the morning light dancing on the waters of San Francisco Bay.
Seated at the table this Monday morning were Elliot Voss himself, Mallory McInnis, Graham Thorne, and Ronan Vale. A few weeks had passed since the mission in Japan and North Korea, and while Grim and his team were gone, Voss and Colin Mercer had done a little cleaning up of their own.
This time, they had opted for soft containment and continued surveilnce. Mercer made short work of the Signal chat that the kids at Bureau 121 had been using to stir up discontent among employees at five of Voss’s companies. Through careful, quiet intervention, the situation was defused, and all five employees had returned to productivity. Voss had followed up with subtle HR bonuses—not so rge as to attract attention, but enough to generate goodwill and reinforce loyalty. In the end, both Voss and Mercer were pleased. Violence hadn’t been necessary. Soft power had done the job. This time. Just in case, Grim’s watchers continued monitoring systems those five accessed.
Two assistants entered the room with trays of bagels, pastries, coffee, and tea. After setting everything down, they slipped out silently. The gss doors hissed closed behind them.
Voss took a long sip of his tte, savoring the frothy smoothness, then stood and turned to the window, hands csped lightly behind his back as he took in the view.
“You’ve all been extraordinary these past few weeks,” he said. “Truly stepping up, going far beyond any reasonable expectation. Thank you.” He turned and gave a slight bow—a gesture from another time, one that still carried weight in his eyes.
“It’s time to talk about what comes next. We may not have every detail worked out, but we know enough to map the path forward. I think you’ll find it... enlightening.”
He raised an eyebrow as he looked Mallory, Grim, and Ronan each in the eyes.
“Let’s begin with the Round Table.”
From his jacket pocket, Voss retrieved a small remote. With a soft mechanical hum, the LED presentation screen descended from the ceiling. A glowing pentagon appeared—five white circles at its points, gently pulsing against a bck background.
“Ronan, you’ll recognize this from our discussion a few weeks back. And the rest of you have had glimpses. But let me walk you through the full vision.”
He clicked the remote again. One of the circles zoomed out and enrged.
“Dr. Elise Draven will head the team responsible for Vitalyx and Rejuvenex. She’ll select two additional members, subject to the approval of the other core Round Table leaders. Her team will manage manufacturing, distribution, and ongoing development.”
Ronan nodded. He noticed Mallory and Grim doing the same.
With confirmation in their expressions, Voss moved on.“Graham will lead the Css Path—combat architecture, progression systems, archetype bancing. Vanessa Cho, with her engineering and industrial background, will head the Profession Path. Ronan, of course, will oversee The System.”
He clicked again.
“And for Race Evolution, I’ve asked Dr. Darian Sirova. He’s a longtime friend. Grew up near the Gon Heights. Drafted into Israeli intelligence, then served in Mossad until a shoulder injury ended his active duty career. He moved to the U.S., reinvented himself, and now teaches evolutionary biology at UC Berkeley.”
Grim let out a low whistle. “That’s impressive, boss. Sounds like a good fit. Looking forward to meeting him.”
Voss smiled, pleased. They discussed the Round Table’s structure in more detail.“Each of you will form a three-person team under your domain, but only the five of you will sit at the Table.”
Voss paused, letting the structure of the Round Table settle in their minds. Five circles. Five pilrs.
Then he turned toward Mallory, his voice softer now.“You may have noticed,” he said, “that your name isn’t on any of those five points.”
Mallory gave a small nod, her expression unreadable.
Voss stepped forward, his hands loosely csped behind his back.“That’s not because I overlooked you. It’s because you stand somewhere else entirely.”
He looked to the center of the diagram. The heart of the pentagon glowed faintly on the screen, empty but vital.
“You’re not one of the points, Mallory. You’re the keystone—the force that holds the whole thing together.”
She tilted her head slightly, unsure if he was being poetic or literal.
“I’ve been thinking about what to call the role,” he went on. “It’s not leadership in the traditional sense. You won’t vote. You won’t direct. But you will be the one everyone turns to when alignment falters. When crity is lost. When trust wears thin.”
He turned back to face her fully. “I want to call it The Steward.”
The word settled in the room like dust on still air.No one spoke. Then Mallory’s voice, barely above a whisper.“You’re giving me your job.”
Voss didn’t flinch. “I’m giving you the part of it that matters. Titles fade. Control shifts. But stewardship—that’s legacy. It’s eternal.”
Tears welled in her eyes, trailing silently down her cheeks.“This was your dream,” she said. “Your vision. How could I ever—”
He cut her off gently, stepping close.“It stopped being mine the moment you said yes. Not just to the job. To all of it. You never asked for power. That’s how I know you’re the one who should wield it.”
Her lip quivered, but she nodded once, tight and sharp, and whispered, “Then I accept.”
Voss ughed loudly this time. “Well, I’m certainly gd to hear that! I don’t know what I would have done if you had refused!”
Everyone chuckled quietly, the emotional tension easing up significantly.
Just before Voss ratcheted it up again.
“So this is not all I wanted to tell you today. I will be contacting the other Round Table members ter this morning, and you six will begin meeting a few times a week to coordinate your efforts. Mallory will drive the effort to keep everything on track and moving forward.”
Voss stopped for a moment as he finished off his tte, just in time before it started growing cold.
“So the obvious question you’re avoiding is what my part in all of this will be.”
Nods around the table, curiosity in everyone’s eyes.“I’m going to tell you my pns, but I want you to understand. I have firmly made up my mind and will not be arguing or entertaining any conversations trying to convince me otherwise.”
He paused to emphasize his point. “I will not be joining you in your new life full of vitality, longevity and evolution. Humanity’s new adventure. It’s not mine to pursue. It is yours. My time on Earth is almost over, and I am literally dedicating my body to science.”
Graham, Mallory and Ronan all looked at each other, then up at Voss, who was gazing out the window again at the picturesque mid-morning scene.
In perfect unison, they all excimed, “What?”
“As you know, I’ve always been firmly against animal testing in any of our companies,” Voss began. “I don’t believe that one life is inherently more valuable than another. And I’ve done everything I can to hold that belief sacred, even when it slowed us down.”
He paused, exhaling quietly, his eyes fixed on something only he could see.
“You can’t imagine how many arguments I’ve had with our scientists and executives over the years. People urging me to push forward—just one test group, just a few specimens. Rats. Primates. Prisoners, even, if we kept it quiet.” He shook his head slowly. “But I never allowed it. Not once.”
Voss turned back to the table and sat, resting his hands lightly on the polished surface.
“Instead, we built a single chamber. A controlled environment. Hermetically sealed. Electromagnetically shielded to eliminate interference. The walls are ced with full-spectrum biosensors. The ceiling is a quantum neural mapping grid. It’s designed not just to monitor, but to learn—to absorb everything it can about the final, live integration process.”
He looked up, meeting their eyes.
“I’ll be the subject. I’ll take both Vitalyx and Rejuvenex. Once I’m inside, a gaseous compound will put me to sleep—peacefully, without pain. Then the chamber will release the synthetic constructs.”
A beat of silence followed. No one breathed.
“The nanites will begin to consume me. Not all at once, but slowly, deliberately. Every cell, every neural impulse, every signal my body emits will be recorded and analyzed. They’ll learn exactly what’s required to reach true, complete human evolution—physically, mentally, genetically. How much tissue is needed? How long does it take to reach transcendence? No simution can answer those questions.”
His voice softened.
“They need everything. And so… I’m giving it to them.”
He looked down for a moment, then back at the three who had become the core of his legacy.
“At the end of the process, there will be nothing left to bury. My body will be gone. But in return, humanity will have the key to ascend.”
A single tear fell down his cheek as everyone could only look on silently.
Mallory shook her head, barely able to speak. “But… if you take Vitalyx and Rejuvenex, you’ll be healed. You’ll get your body back. Why not just live?”
Voss gave a sad smile, one lined with more peace than pain.
“Because healing isn’t the same as evolving.”
He leaned forward, his voice soft but steady.
“Vitalyx will eliminate my diseases. Rejuvenex will restore my body to its prime. But they work within the rules we already know. They fix what’s broken—but they don’t show us how to become unbreakable.”
He let that hang for a moment.
“What the constructs need isn’t just a body. They need a complete transformation cycle—from restoration, to enhancement, to dissolution. They need to watch every system in my body respond, adapt, fail, and try again. That’s something no simution can teach them.”
He exhaled quietly.
“If I stayed alive, they’d never learn what it takes to carry a person beyond death. To bridge the gap between biological life… and something more.”
Grim’s brow furrowed. “But why consume you? Aren’t the nanites already programmed?”
“They’re built, yes. Programmed? Partially.” Voss looked at him. “Think of them like instinctive organisms—engineered with potential, but cking experience.”
“They know what they’re meant to do. But they don’t know how to do it across all biological variance—how to lead someone through a complete Ascension without destroying them.”
“And so they’ll study me,” he continued. “Moment by moment. Cell by cell. As I transform… and as I go. They’ll record it all—the final puzzle piece.”
Mallory’s voice cracked. “And then?”
Voss looked at her gently.
“Then they’ll have everything they need.”He looked down, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. “And I… I will be with Enor and Madeleine again.”His wife. His daughter. His reason for everything he does.
Mallory instinctively reached out—but stopped herself just short of touching his hand. There were no words left, and Voss clearly had made up his mind.