Chapter 189 The Financier

Chapter 189 The Financier
Fred stood alone near the central archive terminal again, sleeves rolled to his elbows while corrupted financial records scrolled rapidly across multiple screens. It's been three days since we got back from Siberia and haven't slept since then.

I watched him from the far side of the table while Darius spoke quietly with Mara near the communications systems.

Something about Fred tonight unsettled me more than usual.

Not because he looked calm.

Because he didn’t.

He looked angry.

Focused.

And underneath that

Disturbed.

Which meant whatever he’d found mattered.

Vincent noticed too.

“You’ve got the face again,” he muttered from the couch.

Fred didn’t look up.

“What face?”

“The one where civilization probably gets worse.”

Thane snorted softly from near the weapons rack.

Fred ignored both of them completely.

Then suddenly

He stopped typing.

The room quieted instinctively.

Not because anyone was afraid of him.

Because Fred never paused accidentally.

Darius looked over immediately.

“What?”

Fred stared at the screen for several long seconds before speaking.

“I found the funding authorization vote.”

Cold slid down my spine instantly.

Tessa moved first.

“What vote?”

Fred enlarged the recovered archive file across the central projection table.

Old Council records flickered into existence.

Damaged.

Partially corrupted.

But readable enough.

Emergency Council Authorization Session — Classified.
 Subject: Containment Continuation Funding.

My stomach tightened immediately.

Containment continuation.

Not research.

Continuation.

Meaning the projects already existed before the vote ever happened.

Fred’s jaw hardened slightly.

“This happened thirty years ago.”

Silence spread slowly through the room.

Thirty years.

Long before V-Canis.

Long before me.

Darius crossed toward the projection table slowly.

“Read it.”

Fred’s eyes moved across the document.

“Emergency authorization requested following uncontrolled hybrid instability events during initial Helix adaptation trials…”

The room felt colder with every word.

Tessa’s face paled slightly.

“Hybrid instability events,” she repeated quietly.

Fred looked toward her.

“Your polite translation would probably be massacres.”

Nobody argued.

He continued reading.

“…independent funding channels approved under Council discretion for containment research, biological stabilization studies, and long-term subject management…”

My beast stirred uneasily beneath my skin.

Long-term subject management.

God.

Not experiments.

Prisoners.

Children.

Hybrids.

Whatever my father created before the world decided monsters were useful enough to preserve.

Fred zoomed further into the authorization records.

Multiple Council seals appeared across the projection.

Most were faded or corrupted beyond recognition.

But one remained perfectly intact.

Repeatedly.

Eric Vortan.

Again.

Again.

Again.

His seal appeared on nearly every continuation order.

Funding approvals.

Containment expansion authorizations.

Research extension petitions.

My pulse slowed dangerously.

Not a participant.

An architect.

Darius stared at the records silently.

“He signed everything.”

“Yes,” Fred replied quietly.

The room fell silent again.

Because suddenly Vortan’s obsession made horrifying sense.

He wasn’t protecting Calder from exposure.

He was protecting decades of his own decisions.

Tessa scanned farther down the files.

“There are references to relocation protocols.”

Fred nodded once.

“After the early hybrid failures.”

The word failures twisted violently inside my chest.

I already knew what that meant.

Bodies.

Children.

Subjects that survived transformation only long enough to become unstable.

My father’s monsters.

Fred enlarged another damaged section of the records.

“Here.”

The file stabilized slowly.

Subject containment expansion approved following First Blood derivative aggression escalation…

My breath caught sharply.

First Blood derivative.

Me.

Or people like me.

No—

Earlier than me.

The originals.

The first hybrids my father ever made.

The room went completely still.

Vincent sat upright slowly.

“Wait.”

His voice sounded rough suddenly.

“Are you saying there were more?”

Fred didn’t answer immediately.

Which was answer enough.

I felt sick.

Because somewhere deep down, I’d always known.

No scientist starts with success.

There were others before me.