PROJECT: CAYRO

Cayro Bracton:

August 18, 2025

15:54 EST

The Autumn

30 miles off the coast of VA.

After getting dressed and ready, I left the infirmary and found my grandfather waiting for me in the hall. Together, we followed the signs posted along the corridor walls, guiding us to the flight deck. As we walked, I couldn’t help but be utterly amazed by the sheer size of the Autumn. The inside of the ship was massive—far beyond anything I had imagined. The pictures in Sky Magazine did no justice to its true scale. I knew it was big, but this was something else entirely! The corridors were wide enough to easily fit a medium-sized car with plenty of room to spare. Unfortunately, all the doors in the corridor were closed, so we didn’t have time to explore other parts of the ship. But my mind raced with possibilities—what did the bridge look like? How enormous was the hangar? I couldn’t believe airships could be this colossal.

At the end of the final corridor, we reached an elevator and stepped inside. I watched as my grandfather quickly scanned the control panel before pressing the button labeled "Sky-deck." I assumed it was the flight deck located at the top of the Autumn. The elevator door slid shut, and the car began to ascend smoothly.

“Pretty impressive ship, isn’t it?” my grandfather asked, glancing over at me with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, it is, Grandpa,” I replied, unable to hide my excitement. “For years, I’ve imagined what this ship looked like on the inside, but seeing it in person—it's just amazing!”

“I remember a couple of years before I retired, the Autumn’s schematics and concept came across my desk as a potential project the Air Force was considering,” he replied casually, a slight grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“WHAT!” I exclaimed, snapping my head up to look at him. “I knew it! I absolutely knew it!” I couldn’t contain my excitement at the revelation he just shared.

Before he could respond, the elevator doors slid open, revealing the sky-deck and two very peculiar-looking vehicles. They looked like someone had taken a hovercraft, a plane, and an old Volkswagen bus, then smashed them together to create this odd, boxy vehicle with wings and two jets protruding from the back. I could see that the cockpits were designed to fit five people—two pilots up front and three passengers in the back. The cockpit window was slanted back, leading seamlessly into the cockpit roof. The wings were mounted on top of the roof and appeared to be foldable, likely for storage.

As I continued to take in the vehicle’s profile, I noticed that the cockpit slanted downwards toward a large air scoop, which most likely fed into the engine intake. Behind the scoop, two large jets were housed in shrouds. I couldn’t believe these things could even fly. One of the vehicles was painted dark blue with silver trim streaking down the side, while the other sported a striking crimson red and emerald green color scheme with black trim—matching the Autumn’s exterior paint job.

“So, what do you think?” came a voice from behind me. I turned to see the Captain walking up with a slight smirk.

I stood there on the sky-deck, utterly speechless. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d find myself on board the infamous Autumn, let alone interacting with Team SAF. The reality of it all was overwhelming.

“I hear that you’re an avid skyboarder?” the Captain asked, breaking through my stunned silence.

His question caught me off guard. I was still trying to process everything around me. “Uh… Um… Yeah, I guess so,” I stammered, still at a loss for words.

“Don’t be so modest. You’ll have to show me your skills sometime, though maybe not today. Unfortunately, we’re on a tight schedule. But perhaps in the near future, I could arrange something,” he replied, his words making my thoughts spin even faster.

It was then that I realized he was treating me as if I were someone important—like a VIP.

“Why are you treating me like a VIP or someone special?” I blurted out, unable to keep the question from spilling out.

“Oh, no. I treat every guest on board the Autumn with the same courtesy that I’m treating you with,” he explained with a smile. “Granted, not every guest has the same honor as you do aboard this ship.”

I cocked an eyebrow and turned towards my grandfather, seeking answers. The moment I caught sight of his expression, I saw him shoot the Captain a vicious glare, clearly displeased with the Captain’s last remark. My thoughts screeched to a halt as I remembered the conversation I overheard between them while I was still in the infirmary. Narrowing my eyes at the Captain, I asked the question that had been gnawing at me.

“I overheard you and Grandpa talking about my father. Does that mean you knew him?” I asked, choosing my words carefully as I glanced at my grandfather to gauge his reaction. As expected, his posture went rigid, and a vicious look quickly settled on his face when he realized what I was asking.

The Captain seemed momentarily taken aback by my question. He paused, thinking carefully before responding. He caught my grandfather’s warning glare and simply smiled in response.

"Yes, I did, young Cayro. I knew your father for a very long time,” he said, his tone carefully measured. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to discuss it right now. It’s time to go,” he added, swiftly cutting off the conversation before I could probe further. “Cayro, you’ll fly with Star. Mr. Bracton, you’ll fly with me. It’ll give Cayro and Star a chance to get to know each other,” the Captain directed, gesturing towards the dark blue vehicle. “Mr. Bracton, you might as well explain to Cayro how and why he’s here over the radio. That way, we won’t be stuck here for another hour explaining my and your son’s relationship,” he continued, opening the passenger side door for my grandfather.

“Fine, but I’m not going into detail. And Andrew, stop ordering me around. You lost that right years ago,” my grandfather grumbled, clearly irritated.

“Yes, sir,” the Captain quickly replied, throwing his hands up in mock surrender.

I made my way over to the dark blue vehicle, noticing that the girl from the infirmary—Star—was sitting in the pilot seat, her focus on the instrument panel. As I approached, the door slid back automatically, like a van door, revealing the copilot seat and the back seat. I paused for a moment, taking in the interior. Despite the array of controls, instruments, and other features I couldn’t identify, it felt surprisingly roomy. From what I could tell, it seemed straightforward enough to fly if the need arose.

The pilot’s seat featured two joysticks, each mounted on either side of the chair, with a large touchscreen interface positioned where a steering wheel would be if this were a car. The throttle controls were integrated into the joysticks, allowing for precise maneuvering. The copilot seat, where I was sitting, had a similar touchscreen interface. However, the controls here seemed geared towards managing onboard weapons, in-flight system diagnostics, and communications. A joystick on the left side of my seat likely controlled the machine gun I had noticed mounted under the vehicle when I approached.

As I took in the setup, I couldn’t help but notice the word "Hydrogen" painted above the fuel door. That clued me in that this vehicle likely ran on hydrogen fuel. I’d bet a year’s worth of paychecks that most of the systems were operating on a fiber optic network, though that was just speculation.

“Please don’t touch anything. This is a very delicate machine. I’ll be pissed if I have to reconfigure the controls again,” Star, the girl now confirmed as my pilot, said sharply while tapping an icon on her control panel.

“Um…okay, I wasn’t planning to,” I snapped back, taken aback by her sudden change in attitude. “It’s just…impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it before,” I added quickly, before she had a chance to retort. What did she mean by reconfiguring the controls again? Does she actually work on this unique vehicle? The whole situation felt off, and her sudden grumpiness wasn’t helping. It’s not like I was planning on messing with anything—the last thing I wanted was to crash this thing.

“It’s called a skycar, and again, please don't touch anything,” she repeated, her tone firm.

“Okay… I won’t… Jeeze…” I grumbled under my breath.

I quickly fastened myself into the five-point seat harness and placed my hands firmly in my lap, determined not to upset her Grumpiness any further. This was definitely not the timid girl I had met earlier in the infirmary. Now she was acting short and commanding, almost as if she were military. Deciding it was best to keep my mouth shut, I simply watched her, secretly admiring the way she expertly navigated through the controls and readouts as she prepared for takeoff. It was clear she knew exactly what she was doing.

As she reached over me to check a control, her arm brushed against mine. Instantly, she tensed and shivered, and I felt goosebumps shoot up my arm in response. The touch was oddly familiar, like something buried deep in my memory. Before I could explore the thought further, the crackle of the radio snapped me back to reality.

“Zaraki 01, are you ready for takeoff?” a female voice asked over the radio.

“Yes, bridge, I’m ready,” Star replied, tapping an activation icon on her screen. The engines roared to life, vibrating through the skycar.

“Prepare for launch in three...two...one...” the voice announced.

Without warning, the skycar launched forward, slamming me back into my seat. The sudden burst of speed sent my heart racing, adrenaline surging through my veins. As the vehicle shot off the ship, I felt it drop slightly, causing my stomach to lurch into my throat before it leveled out. The sensation wasn’t unfamiliar—I was used to the ups and downs of skyboarding—but with everything that had happened in the past few hours, my mind was reeling, and the sudden drop caught me off guard.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I turned to look out the side window, releasing the death grip I had on my knees. We were flying over the ocean, the water stretching out below us, while the distant coastline came into view. Just as I began to get my bearings, the radio crackled to life again, startling me back to attention. I redirected my focus to the dashboard, where a video screen blinked to life in the center of my console, displaying the Captain’s face.

“Alright, Cayro, your grandfather is going to explain to you what is going on and why you were on board the Autumn,” the Captain's voice came through the screen before I could even greet him.

“Okay,” I replied, a knot of unease tightening in my stomach as I nodded.

The Captain’s face disappeared, replaced by my grandfather’s stern, grumpy expression. He looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else than having this conversation. His usual demeanor was tough, but this—this was different. The air felt heavy with whatever he was about to reveal.

“Cayro, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Do you understand?” His voice was calm, but I could hear the tension behind it.

“Okay…” I responded cautiously, my heart pounding in anticipation. Whatever he was about to say, I had the sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to like it.

I watched as he took a deep breath, his hand rubbing down his face in that familiar gesture of frustration—something I had seen countless times when he dealt with difficult customers at the shop. But this was different. This was personal.

“Cayro…” he began, pausing to take another deep breath. “You were once a part of a top-secret military project that your father orchestrated and developed nearly seventeen years ago. It was known as Project Cayro.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I blinked, trying to process what he had just said. A cold chill ran down my spine as I struggled to comprehend. I was part of a top-secret military project? And it was named after me? My mind slammed into a wall of disbelief, leaving me frozen in my seat.

“The project was initiated to conduct research in bioengineering—to create super soldiers. About two years into the project, your father decided to include you as one of the subjects to be augmented into a so-called super soldier. The year your mother died. Why your father would do that to you is beyond me. I believe losing your mother caused something to snap in him. During one of the operations you were undergoing, something went horribly wrong. I don’t know what exactly happened, but the military decided to shut the project down at the last second. The candidates who were part of the project were all supposed to be terminated—or so the military thought,” he explained, his voice tight with anger and frustration.

The gravity of his words hung in the air, but my brain refused to accept it. It felt too surreal, too impossible to be true.

“Uh… what…” I stammered, cocking my head to the side in disbelief. “This has to be a joke, Grandpa… I am not some superhuman or super soldier… Ha ha, very funny, Grandpa. You can stop with the jokes now,” I said, forcing a weak smile, hoping against hope that this was just some twisted prank.

“Cayro… I am not joking,” he replied in a deadly serious tone, the look in his eyes confirming the harsh truth. It was the same look he had given me when I lied about taking that motorcycle out for a joyride when I was fifteen—serious, unyielding, and not to be questioned.

My smile vanished, and I glanced over at Star, who was sitting quietly beside me. She shook her head slowly, her soft eyes confirming the gravity of the situation.

“He is not joking,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

I turned back to the screen, my heart sinking as the reality began to set in. The weight of it all crushed down on me.

“Have you ever noticed how toned and muscular you are, and the fact you don’t even try to be?” my grandfather pointed out, trying to drive the point home.

“Well, yeah… I just thought it was the way my metabolism worked,” I replied, my mind racing to make sense of what he was saying.

“You’ve never wondered how you could eat like a bottomless pit and still maintain that physique? Or how you survived that skyboarding crash last year? You were thrown into the side of a parked car, Cayro—a car that was totaled from the impact. And yet, you walked away with nothing more than bruises. Normal people don’t walk away from something like that without serious injuries. You were lucky to survive at all, but not only did you survive, you barely had a scratch on you. Does that sound like something a regular person could do?” He leaned in closer to the camera, his voice carrying the weight of the truth he was laying on me.

I remembered that crash vividly—the terrifying impact, the sight of the car’s crumpled side, and the stunned expression of the car’s owner. At the time, I had chalked it up to sheer dumb luck. But now, hearing my grandfather’s words, it all seemed to take on a different, more sinister meaning.

“You and that girl sitting next to you were two of the ten candidates in the project. The only two candidates that survived, thanks to your father and Andrew here,” he emphasized, his voice tinged with anger as he shot a glare off-screen, presumably at the Captain.

“The military ordered your father to stop all operations on the project while he was in the middle of augmenting the candidates. You and Star were the first to be completed and were placed in a separate area of the project’s medical facility before your father’s upper chain of command came in to shut the project down. The rest of the candidates were… terminated. From what Captain Clark has explained to me, he was able to sneak the two of you out of the facility and hide you in a safe location while your father devised a plan to use cadavers to fake your deaths. What the exact purpose of this project was, I don’t know. Captain Clark refuses to divulge those details. His exact words to me were, ‘It is in the best interest that no one else knows the exact details of what we were trying to do.’ But I do know your father was trying to create a team of soldiers with superhuman capabilities—a Black Ops group that would handle missions deemed impossible. Team SAF was supposed to be the parent unit for this group,” my grandfather growled, his teeth grinding in frustration.

“But that means Team SAF was part of the military, and that means the Autumn was once a military ship, right?” I asked, choosing to focus on the ship’s history rather than the overwhelming revelations about my own identity.

The Captain appeared on the screen, his expression serious as he answered my question.

“That’s correct, Cayro. The Autumn was once a military ship. After what happened to the project, your father ordered me—not as a commander, but as a friend—to go rogue if something happened to him. He wanted me to protect you and Star. That’s why your grandfather calls us traitors. Your father and the team we created built the Autumn as a test bed for future airships. Being that we were, at the time, part of a top-secret group, we took the plans of the Autumn that were laid out just before your grandfather retired and built it for this project. Once the ship was built, we weren’t exactly eager to let the military use it after they betrayed us. The funny thing is, the Autumn was an experimental ship and not officially on any records. The Air Force had to deny any involvement when we went rogue,” the Captain explained, his gaze piercing through the screen as he looked me directly in the eyes.

“After we went rogue, we hid the name of the combat team from the public to avoid raising suspicion, if you catch my drift,” he added with a faint smirk. “And thus, Team SAF was born. Instead of being a militarized organization, we now transport dignitaries, deliver cargo outside of the U.S., and compete in the International Skyboard Association,” he continued, laying out the twisted history of Team SAF with an air of nonchalance.

“Then why hasn’t the military released any information about Team SAF being military?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could think it through.

“Do you really think the military wants people to know they had a top-secret special operations group go rogue?” the Captain replied bluntly, his voice carrying a hint of incredulity. “Not a chance in hell!”

My grandfather’s face reappeared on the screen, his patience clearly wearing thin.

“Now that you’ve got some information about the ship, can I get back to discussing what happened to you?” he asked, his tone clipped.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered, lowering my gaze to my hands, feeling the weight of what was to come.

“In every candidate, your father surgically implanted multiple devices. Once you turned sixteen, one of those implants began to activate. The problem is that once it activated, the implant needed to be configured to your body using a program your father created. But since no one’s been monitoring you for the last thirteen years, the program in your implant had a delayed start. A similar issue happened with Star, from what Andrew has told me. The program that’s needed is on a portable compact hard drive referred to as the C Drive. The only problem is, your father hid it before he was killed, and Team SAF hasn’t been able to locate it. This means they can’t finish the augmentation you need to survive. That’s why you blacked out at work and when you got home from skyboarding,” my grandfather explained, his voice heavy with concern.

I sat in stunned silence, my mind reeling from the implications. The realization that I could die if Team SAF couldn’t find this drive hit me like a ton of bricks. What the hell was my father thinking? Why the hell did that asshole do this to me? The anger that I had buried for so long—the anger over his death, his absence, the way he had been branded a war hero—began to resurface, burning hotter and more intense than ever.

For years, I had been questioned, teased, and ostracized because of him. Now, it wasn’t just my social life that was at stake—it was my very existence. My father had left me with this ticking time bomb inside me, and for what? Some twisted vision of creating super soldiers?

And then it dawned on me—if I was part of this so-called project, then did it mean I wasn’t truly human? Had I not been fully human since I was five years old? The thought sent a cold shiver down my spine, and for a moment, I felt utterly alienated from everything I had ever known. My body, my life, everything I thought I was—it all felt like a lie, a cruel experiment gone wrong. I could feel the walls of reality closing in on me, suffocating me with the weight of this horrifying truth.

“Grandpa, does this mean I’m not human?” I asked, my voice trembling with the weight of the revelation.

“No, Cayro, you are still human, but you and Star are more than human. You’re more physically powerful than any other person on this planet. Your father may have given you a great gift—or a great burden,” my grandfather said, his voice steady, though I could hear the concern underneath. I let out a bitter snort, my mind still reeling, but he pressed on. “In the end, how you choose to use these abilities is up to you. It’s also one of the reasons why you’re so smart. You were given the ability to solve problems quickly, even those that seem impossible. I noticed it years ago, like when you helped me work on one of my bikes, figuring out things most people wouldn’t even attempt. That’s why I let you work with me, why I trusted you, Zak, and Aura to go out and do your own thing. I knew you’d make the right decisions—well, aside from that little motorcycle stunt,” he added, trying to lighten the mood, though his voice softened again as he continued. “Cayro, you’re a wonderful young man. Don’t let this destroy you or your life.”

I leaned back in my seat, feeling the anger burning hotter with each word, my heart pounding in my chest. A tear slipped down my cheek, the first of many. How could he leave me with this mess?

“Grandpa, how long have you known about this project?” I asked, my voice shaking as I struggled to contain the fury threatening to explode.

“I only found out about it two years ago,” he said, his tone patient, as if trying to soothe the storm brewing inside me. “Andrew contacted me directly when Star started having issues with her implants. I didn’t tell you because I believed Andrew would have found a solution by now. And you weren’t showing any signs of problems with your implants until recently. When you started passing out randomly, I was worried, but I hoped it was just exhaustion from all the work you were doing. When your implants began to malfunction, it sent a signal to Team SAF. That was why we were aboard the Autumn.”

“Why… why did he leave me like this?” I choked out, my anger dissolving into tears that I couldn’t stop from falling. The questions pounded in my mind, each one more painful than the last.

“I don’t believe he meant to, Cayro. Your father loved you more than you know. After your mother died, he was always there for you in his own way, even if it wasn’t perfect. He had every intention of coming home to you. You were all he had left,” my grandfather said gently, offering a small, sad smile before moving off-screen, giving me a moment to absorb everything.

I leaned my head against the side window, letting the tears flow freely. I rarely cried—hardly ever—but today had shattered something inside me. If I didn’t let it out now, I feared what I might do. I wanted to scream, to punch something, anything, just to make this unbearable pain go away.

“Why are you crying?” Star’s voice cut through my turmoil, soft but tinged with confusion.

The question sent a spike of anger through me, sharp and hot. Closing my eyes, I tried to suppress it, to keep it from boiling over. But when I lifted my head and looked at her, I couldn’t hold it back.

“How could you ask that? You, of all people! You’re the same as me!” I snapped, my voice laced with bitterness, unable to comprehend how she could be so oblivious to the pain I was in.