Chapter 43 - BEFORE ORION
Nobody answered Voss's question.
The underground courtyard became unnaturally quiet. Even the emergency alarms had fallen silent, leaving only the distant sound of ventilation echoing through Level D.
Alex looked toward the enormous oak tree.
"You said Orion existed before any of you."
Voss nodded.
"Long before."
Daniel folded his father's journal shut.
"Then who financed it?"
"Who built this place?"
Voss smiled faintly.
"You're still thinking like an executive."
"What does that mean?"
"You assume someone created Orion."
He slowly turned in a circle, gesturing toward the classrooms, dormitories, and underground streets surrounding them.
"You should be asking who inherited it."
Arthur's face tightened.
"I spent fifteen years inside this program."
"I never heard anyone say that."
"Because," Voss replied, "you were never meant to."
Bennett stepped closer.
"So tell us."
Voss looked directly at Alex.
"The first underground facility wasn't here."
Alex frowned.
"There were others?"
"Three."
"All destroyed."
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"And this one?"
"Built over the ruins of the oldest."
A cold silence settled over the group.
Voss pointed toward the roots of the giant oak.
"That tree is older than this entire complex."
Arthur looked stunned.
"Impossible."
"It was transplanted."
"From where?"
Voss answered without hesitation.
"The original Orion estate."
Daniel slowly opened his father's journal again.
Several loose pages slipped onto the ground.
One of them contained a rough sketch.
Not of Level D.
But of an enormous country estate surrounded by forests.
Across the top, Jonathan Reed had written one sentence.
Nothing truly began underground.
Alex stared at the drawing.
Something about the mansion stirred an uneasy feeling inside him.
Not a memory.
A sensation.
As though he had once stood at its front gate.
Then another page slipped free.
This one contained only an address.
Arthur inhaled sharply.
"I know that place."
Everyone turned toward him.
"I thought it had been demolished twenty years ago."
Voss quietly replied,
May you like
"It wasn't."
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