Inside Veena’s house, Tyler and Tansy immediately felt as if they had stepped into a junkyard.

Every inch of the place was crowded with objects. Broken toys were piled into crates near the walls. Rusted pieces of furniture leaned against one another as if they had been dragged here from different houses over the years. Wires tangled across the floor like vines, connecting strange electronic devices that blinked faintly in the dim light.

There were old lamps, cracked screens, small mechanical parts, and stacks of clothes hanging from improvised racks. Some of the dresses looked unusually colorful for Sector 11, as if they had once belonged to people from somewhere far richer.

Tyler and Tansy stepped carefully through the chaos, making sure not to crush anything beneath their feet.

"Careful!" Veena’s voice echoed from deeper inside the house. "Some of those things still work... sometimes."

They followed the sound and found her sitting at what might once have been a dining table. The table itself was barely visible beneath a forest of gadgets and small machines. A glowing cube sat in the center.

"Welcome, little chicks," Veena said with a grin. "What do you want to know? Oh! Or do you want to know about me first?"

Before either of them could answer, she tapped the cube.

The device lit up instantly, emitting shifting colors. A faint humming sound filled the room, and a projection appeared in the air above the table.

Tyler and Tansy pulled two chairs closer and sat down.

The image that formed was unlike anything either of them had seen before.

People walked along wide, clean streets wearing bright, elegant clothing. Their posture was confident, their expressions relaxed. Sleek cars glided silently along smooth roads.

Even the animals were strange.

A well-groomed dog trotted beside a man in a tailored suit, its fur shining like polished silk.

"Is that the Capital?" Tyler asked.

Veena nodded proudly.

The projection continued.

A young woman appeared on the screen, standing in front of one of the grand buildings. She wore a neat outfit and spoke into a headset microphone while addressing a floating camera.

Tansy leaned forward.

Tyler’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The woman looked familiar.

Then realization struck both of them at the same time.

"That’s... you," Tansy said.

The young reporter on the screen was unmistakably Veena—only decades younger.

"So you’re from the Capital?" Tyler asked.

Veena burst into loud laughter.

"From the Capital? No, no!" she cackled, slapping the table. "I ran away from the Capital! Or maybe... they threw me out."

Her laughter echoed through the cluttered room.

"I loved journalism," she continued. "I traveled through the sectors reporting stories. That’s when I met a man from one of the sectors." Her voice softened briefly. "I fell in love with him."

Her smile faded slightly.

"My parents did not approve. They said if I insisted on bringing him home, he would only be allowed as a pet." She snorted bitterly. "A pet."

Tansy’s hands tightened.

"But I loved him," Veena continued quietly. "And I wanted him to keep his dignity. So I ran away with him."

She paused.

Her eyes grew distant, unfocused.

For several seconds, she seemed lost in memory.

Then suddenly she blinked and straightened.

"Huh! Welcome, little chicks!" she said again cheerfully. "What do you want to know? Oh! Or do you want to know about me first?"

Her hand moved toward the glowing cube again.

Tyler leaned forward quickly.

"That’s alright," he said calmly. "I heard you know a lot of things."

Veena stopped and smiled.

"Of course I do, sweet boy."

Then she squinted at him.

"You’re not from here."

Tyler shrugged slightly. "Yeah, something like that. "

He rested his elbows on the table. " Enough about you and me, I want to know about the Carbonyx ore disease.," he said.

---

"Carbonyx ore..." Old Lady Veena repeated slowly, leaning back in her creaking chair. "Ahhh... yes. That’s what Sector 11 is famous for."

She nodded to herself, then added in a quieter tone, "And the disease that comes with it."

Her wrinkled fingers moved across the glowing device on the table—a semi-cube that projected floating images into the air. She swiped through several recordings. The projections flickered rapidly: images of younger Veena standing beside a tall dark-skinned man, smiling brightly, traveling through different sectors.

For a moment she lingered on those scenes, her expression softening as if lost in memory.

Then she shook herself and scrolled further.

The projection changed again.

Now it showed her younger self standing outside a large white facility. The structure was clean and modern, completely different from anything in Sector 11. Veena in the recording wore a yellow hazard suit with a transparent helmet.

"This is a medical research center in the Capital," Veena explained absently.

Inside the projection, people moved slowly through a carefully maintained garden area. At first glance they looked like ordinary patients. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Then one elderly man stepped forward.

He opened his hospital robe.

Half of his body had turned into stone-like material.

Tansy gasped.

Tyler leaned closer.

The "stone" wasn’t ordinary rock. The growth spreading across the man’s chest and ribs was dark black with thin purple veins pulsing faintly beneath the surface.

Carbonyx.

The projection continued.

More patients appeared.

Some had entire arms transformed into jagged ore. Others had legs hardened into thick mineral columns. One woman had her jaw partially crystallized, the stone creeping toward her cheekbones.

Then another clip played.

A man stood in the middle of a laboratory hallway.

His entire body had hardened.

He turned into a statue.

"Take him away! Take him away!" several workers shouted.

A team in hazard suits rushed forward and lifted the stone body onto a wheeled platform before carrying it deeper into the facility.

Young Veena tried to follow them, but security guards blocked the main laboratory entrance.

The recording shifted again.

Apparently she hadn’t stopped filming.

The camera now showed her crouching behind a service corridor. She whispered excitedly toward the floating camera sphere she carried.

"Okay... they won’t let me inside the lab. But we’ll find another way."

The small spherical camera drifted upward toward an air vent.

It slipped through the opening.

The projection changed to the interior of the hidden laboratory.

Rows of people hung suspended in metal harnesses.

They were still alive.

Their bodies were partially transformed into Carbonyx.

Workers in hazard suits surrounded them.

Instead of medical tools, the workers held pickaxes.

Tansy’s breath caught.

The first strike came down with a sickening crack.

The pickaxe plunged directly into the hardened ore growing from a man’s shoulder.

Chunks of Carbonyx broke loose and fell into metal containers below.

The man screamed.

Another worker struck again.

And again.

Each blow ripped ore directly from living flesh.

Screams filled the recording.

Some of the infected struggled weakly, their human limbs trembling while their crystallized sections shattered piece by piece.

Tansy covered her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

"If you came here looking for a cure," Old Veena said quietly, "I’m sorry to disappoint you."

She tapped the device, freezing the projection.

"The Capital never had a cure."

Her voice hardened.

"They harvest the infected. Those whose bodies mutate into Carbonyx produce the highest quality ore."

Tansy’s hands began shaking.

Her mind flashed to her father’s side— the small dark crystal emerging from his skin.

"These people feel unbearable pain whenever the ore is extracted," Veena continued bitterly. "But the Capital doesn’t care. Sector citizens are expendable."

Tansy suddenly stood up.

"I—I can’t..." she whispered.

Then she ran out of the house.

Her footsteps echoed down the narrow street outside.

Veena watched the doorway where she had disappeared, pity flickering briefly in her old eyes.

Tyler remained seated.

He took a slow breath, forcing himself to remain calm.

"Even if there’s no cure," he said eventually, "there should be a way to stop it from spreading further."

Veena shrugged.

"Hmmm... there is."

Tyler looked at her.

"Stop mining," she said simply. "That’s the only real solution."

She leaned forward, tapping the frozen projection again.

"And there’s another thing."

The video rewound slightly.

"These people inside the facility were injected with drugs," Veena said, her voice carrying a trace of disgust. "Chemicals designed to accelerate the transformation. The faster a body turns into ore, the faster the Capital profits."

Tyler leaned forward, watching the projection carefully as the footage replayed.

In one scene, several patients lay unconscious on metal beds. Workers in hazard suits moved between them, calmly injecting a thick purple liquid into their veins.

Moments later, the effect became visible.

Dark Carbonyx veins began spreading rapidly beneath their skin, the hardened mineral patches expanding while the patients were still asleep.

The most disturbing part was that the doctors did not even attempt to hide it.

One of them spoke directly toward the camera, his voice full of pride as he explained how successful their "ore accelerator" had been. He described it as if it were a groundbreaking medical achievement rather than a method of torture.

"Pause," Tyler suddenly said.

Veena tapped the device.

The projection froze instantly.

Tyler pointed toward the figures in the laboratory.

"The suits they’re wearing..."

Veena nodded.

"Protective gear. Carbonyx spores and particles can infect anyone who touches them directly. Those suits prevent contamination. They only let me in after I wore that one."

Tyler leaned back in his chair, thinking.

Then he asked quietly,

"Do you have one?"