CEO loves me with all his soul.-Chapter 146. The Birth of Equilibrium

In the dim interrogation chamber beneath the Levistis detention wing, Doctor Naehr sat with his hands folded neatly in front of him. He wore the standard restraints: titanium cuffs, neural dampeners around his temples, and a sedative patch embedded in his collar. The only sound was the slow drip of water from a leaking pipe and the faint hum of surveillance equipment.

Despite his confinement, his eyes gleamed with a quiet, calculated intensity. There was no defiance there, no plea for mercy. Just a man who believed he was right.

Cain stood behind the one-way glass, watching. Jesper beside him. Diana, Yuin, even Argo—all had taken turns interrogating Naehr. But none had gotten him to speak of why.

Until now.

When a junior officer tried again, offering deals, Naehr simply looked up and said calmly:

"Bring me Jesper Sebanil. Only he’ll understand."

Jesper had paled. "Why me?"

Cain didn’t answer. Because he had seen that name—Naehr Luthan—once before, a long time ago. And it wasn’t on a wanted poster.

He only remembered after knowing his last name.

It had been in a death report.

-

32 Years Ago — Northern Province Medical Institute

The snow never stopped falling in the Northern Province.

The world there was all frost and silence. Young Naehr Luthan had grown up amidst cold corridors and colder hearts. His parents were researchers—brilliant minds, but emotionally sterile. They believed in evolution through discipline. They loved data. Never each other. Certainly never him.

He had shown signs of genius by age six. By ten, he was already assisting in medical research. At twelve, he developed a vaccine prototype for a virus strain that had stumped his parents.

At thirteen, he saw them die.

Not in an accident.

In a cleansing.

The government had found flaws in their loyalty—corruption, they said. A secret experiment not authorized, something to do with children’s neurogenetics. Naehr had watched through the glass as armed men entered the lab and executed them both.

He didn’t cry.

He remembered only two things that day.

One: the stain of blood on the clean, white tiles.

Two: the soldier who looked at him, tilted his head, and said, "We’ll see what you’re worth, little one."

That was how he came to the Foundation.

-

The Foundation wasn’t listed on any map. Not government-run, not privately owned. A ghost of a place hidden under the pretense of international biological studies.

But what they did wasn’t science.

It was testing.

On orphans. On prisoners. On genetic outliers.

There were five survivors in Naehr’s batch. Out of seventy-two.

He survived not because he was strong, but because he was useful.

They made him dissect the dead. Analyze what worked, what didn’t. Predict who would live the next week based on cellular breakdown. Every time he gave the right answer, he earned more food. More warmth. More hours of light.

They trained him like a weapon. Not just physically—but intellectually.

And Naehr began to believe it.

That the strong must shape the weak.

That mercy was a luxury only the naive clung to.

He stopped seeing faces. He started seeing flaws.

Why did one child die while another survived? Why did a grown man weep under pain, while a girl five years younger endured it in silence?

He wasn’t interested in evil. He was interested in constants.

And what he found was that genetic chaos ruled humanity.

Inequality wasn’t man-made—it was molecular.

So he decided to fix it.

-

The Foundation crumbled after a raid by an unknown rebel faction. Many called them freedom fighters. Others whispered of a secret Sebanil unit involved in toppling the lab.

Jesper had been there.

Though Naehr never saw his face, he remembered a flash of silver hair, a voice shouting orders, and a fire that swallowed the records whole.

Naehr escaped. Of course he did. They had trained him better than that.

He lived under assumed names for years, crossing borders, gaining degrees, rising again in government-run labs. No one questioned his forged identity—Dr. Luthan, they called him.

But he never forgot.

He had seen too much death caused by genetic chaos, and too much suffering caused by emotional ties.

So he began Project Equinox.

He found investors. Stole old research. Hunted for Atop blood samples. Began modifying ancient genome equations, those that predated the war.

And then—he made his first prototype serum.

It killed 87% of subjects.

He was satisfied.

The other 13% showed signs of enhanced neural flexibility. Some resisted disease. Some developed near-photographic memory. Some displayed telepathic flickers under EEG.

"Failure," his assistant called it.

Naehr simply smiled.

"It’s working."

-

Present — Back in the Cell

Jesper finally stepped into the chamber.

He wore no armor, no lab coat. Just a simple sweater and worn slacks. There were shadows under his silver eyes—but fire too.

Naehr looked up and, for the first time, he smiled.

"You remember me," he said softly.

Jesper stared at him. "No."

"You should. You saved me, Jesper Sebanil. You lit the match that burned the Foundation. I was one of the ghosts that slipped through the smoke."

Jesper clenched his jaw. "And you think that gives you the right to play god?"

"I don’t play." Naehr tilted his head. "I redesign."

Jesper walked slowly to the edge of the table.

"You used children," he said, voice breaking. "You used my son."

Naehr’s face didn’t change. "Because your son, like you, is rare. He is an Atop. One of the last. If we do not extract the truth from his body, humanity will stagnate."

Jesper’s voice turned deadly quiet. "So you’ll destroy billions to force your version of evolution?"

"I’ll destroy a billion," Naehr whispered, "so ten billion can live as equals."

Jesper stepped back, trembling.

"I see now," he said.

"See what?"

"That you didn’t survive the Foundation," Jesper said softly. "You never left it."

There is a fine line between Genius and Madness.

Jesper emerged from the chamber.

Cain stood waiting.

"What did he say?" he asked.

Jesper’s voice was hollow.

"He thinks he’s saving the world."

"Is he?"

Jesper turned and looked back through the glass at the man who once had been a boy trembling in a cold lab.

"No," Jesper said. "He’s just trying to erase the part of himself that still remembers being powerless."

Cain placed a hand on his shoulder.

"And Adrian?"

Jesper looked down, eyes full of sorrow. "He’s the only variable Naehr couldn’t control."

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