In corridors where silence dwells,
They tread with caution, minds compelled.
Clad in coats of sterile white,
They probe the dark and pursue the light.
Anomalies behind the glass,
Subjects of study, none surpass.
With instruments and sharpened thought,
They framed the chaos progress brought.
Class-Ds helped with tests each day,
In tasks where lives could slip away.
With strict rules set and methods tight,
They worked through dangers, day and night.
A limb replaced, a memory changed,
They said it helped—but things felt strange.
No one talked about the toll
That came from sharpening the soul.
It started with one man’s dream,
A mind too sharp, a heart too keen.
He walked the halls of blackened glass,
Where whispers curled and secrets passed.
He gave his years to hidden truths,
To charts and tests and dying youths.
But something in the silence grew,
A question that the answers knew.
The Foundation said, Contain and stand,
But he saw more with trembling hands.
Why cage the world to keep it still,
When could we learn, and shape, and heal?
Disillusion bloomed like wildfire,
He reached for three who'd not expire.
They met in secret under smoke and shade,
A pact of minds the world betrayed.
They tried to wake the sleepers there,
To stir the minds too numb to care.
But silence stood in every hall,
So they withdrew, to let it fall.
Gone for decades, off the grid,
While rumors guessed at what they did.
The world kept turning, blind and wide,
still, they worked, and still, they tried.
In time, the whispers took on weight,
A ghost in labs, a trembling gate.
And from depths unknown, STRAD became,
No longer few. No longer alone.
No logos marked their coats of gray,
No stacks of forms to block their way.
They moved through cracks, through lines of code,
Through satellite and mountain roads.
Their cause was sharp, their purpose plain,
To bind the wound, not chain the brain.
Anomalies weren’t marks of doom,
But riddles waiting room to bloom.
No more red tape to slow the blade,
No silent forms in triplicate were made.
Where the Foundation feared and stalled,
STRAD pushed ahead, no matter the cost demand.
Some called them traitors, mad or lost,
Blind to danger, deaf to cost.
But others saw the world they drew
Where knowledge bloomed, and hope broke through.
And still, they walk, unseen, unheard,
Beyond the reach of frightened words.
Not bound by fear, nor name, nor brand
Just tools in heart and truth in hand.
—Discovered on a paper strewn on the floor of Site-16 outside the archives.