What was I thinking? Jax's gaze locked onto the scrambled security feeds, the fractured images twitching between bursts of static. The erratic flickers painted a ghostly illusion—a distorted world where clarity eluded him. His fingers tightened around the console, cycling through the interference like a desperate man clawing for answers in a storm of uncertainty. That wasn’t cool. I shouldn’t have lost my composure with her. But we’ve come so far—poured everything into this operation. Why would she choose to throw it all away?
The cycling feeds slowed, his hand stalling as the electrical haze wrapped around him like an eerie phosphorescent fog, swallowing his form in its cold embrace. Thoughts, heavy and restless, coiled in his mind, pressing down like unseen hands. Unease crept in—an insidious, whispering force. Fleeting illusions of peace hovered at the edges of his consciousness, teasing him with the fragility of calm before catastrophe. The complex sat in eerie stillness, a hushed tomb no longer quaking with chaos. Yet, the air held death’s lingering promise.
His eyes shifted up, snapping to Noel—a sharp, instinctual motion. There was still time, and by that logic, still hope. He exhaled, a breath sharpening his resolve, forcing the weight of his doubts back into the recesses of his mind. The virus was working. The silent war raged beneath their fingertips, unseen but undeniably shifting the battlefield.
Jax turned fully, shoulders drawn back, rigid with intent. He stepped toward Noel, every motion deliberate, like a predator threading through the gloom. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, voice low, laced with the edge of restraint. “That was insensitive of me.” His steps were measured, words shaped with precision. “I shouldn’t have been so aggressive.”
“I apologize as well.” Noel’s voice was subdued, carrying the weight of something brittle, something fractured. Her hands splayed over the desk, fingers pressing into its surface as if searching for an anchor in the chaos. Her back remained to Jax, shoulders rigid beneath the strain.
“I’m doing it again.” The words barely escaped her lips before she pushed off, pivoting sharply, her silhouette cutting into the dim haze. She turned halfway, gaze cast toward the distant corridors—toward something unseen yet profoundly felt. “When things fell apart at the CRD, I ran. It’s what I do best, isn’t it? I didn’t fight, didn’t speak out, didn’t blow the whistle. And worse? I took someone with me.” Her breath hitched, fingers twitching at her sides. “I never tried to change the system. A system I built. And look where that left us.”
She exhaled, slow, weary, head dipping as if the gravity of regret itself was a force she couldn’t fight. “All of this—everything—is my fault. And here I am again, ready to take the easy road. Ready to surrender, to lie down and let it all collapse, as if oblivion would erase the responsibility.”
Her voice wavered. “It’s my burden, no one else’s. But I’m a coward. I pulled all of you into this mess because I wasn’t strong enough to face it alone.” Her throat tightened, but still, she lifted her gaze, resolve flickering in the depths of her grief. “And I almost did it again.”
A sharp inhale. A shift in posture—subtle, yet deliberate. “I owe it to you to see this through. And so I will.”
The silence that followed was thick, palpable, stretching between them like something alive. The air carried unspoken truths, breaths lingering, weighted with uncertainty.
Jax stood frozen, her words unraveling the weight of her regret like a slow bleed. He struggled to meet her energy, to respond in kind, but words failed him. Instead, he latched onto the one thing he could control—the mission.
“I think we still have time to get to the roof. We need to make sure our airlift is en route,” he said, voice clipped, urgency threading through his tone.
He was already moving before the thought fully formed, darting between desks, his fingers skimming consoles in a desperate search for a signal. The glow of inactive screens reflected in his eyes—fragments of hope slipping further from reach. “All of these systems were piggybacking off Nolan’s uplink,” he muttered under his breath. “They’re down now. Our uplink’s only running upstairs.”
His pulse thrummed beneath his skin as he fumbled with the transmitter, attempting to force a connection. Silence. Then static. A flicker of interference, then nothing. His jaw tightened. “These are either broken or jammed.” A pause. A sharp inhale as realization struck. “I think they’re digital anyway.”
He straightened, turning toward the stairwell, a new resolve settling into his frame. “There are analog radios upstairs. They should still be operational.”
The room held its breath, thick with tension, the weight of unspoken fears pressing in from all sides.
“Right.” Noel pivoted abruptly, her breath snagging in her throat as she rushed toward the hospital bed. “Hey! We can put him back in bed! How did we forget it has wheels?” Her voice carried the sharp edge of revelation, cutting through the tension. “The two of us should be able to do that—no sweat.”
She moved to Nolan’s side, fingers pressing against his unmoving arm, assessing the weight of their next move. Her gaze flickered briefly to Jax, uncertainty shadowing her features. “I imagine the virus must have affected all of the COA like this. How long do you think it will last?”
Jax stepped forward, positioning himself opposite her, his eyes scanning Nolan’s motionless form with restrained calculation. A slow inhale steadied his frame. “I don’t know.” His voice was measured but laced with the weight of uncertainty. “HIVE is—sophisticated. We don’t know what defenses might be embedded to counteract our attack.” He paused, glancing at the dim monitors, their cold glow barely piercing the room’s uneasy stillness. “With any luck, HIVE will be down long enough for us to stand up the clone and hijack control of Caliber. At full capacity, the system will lock up entirely, rendering all nodes—effectively—shutdown.”
His muscles tensed as he bent down, securing his grip around Nolan’s lifeless frame, fingers pressing deep against the fabric of his clothes. The weight of the body was startling, heavier with the silence that filled the space between them. “Bring that bed a little closer.” His voice had shifted—lower now, steadier, threaded with quiet urgency.
Noel unlocked the gurney’s wheels with a sharp click, pushing it toward the men, its metal frame rattling over the uneven floor. The weight of urgency pressed against her ribs as she moved, her breath shallow, pulse a rapid staccato against her throat. Together, she and Jax wrestled with Nolan’s unconscious bulk, hoisting the titan’s deadweight onto the bed. Noel’s arms trembled under the strain, gasping through clenched teeth as her grip faltered for a fraction of a second.
“Uh—what do you mean by ‘effectively shutdown’?” Her breath came in ragged intervals, words clipped by exertion.
“Steady—watch his head. Get his feet,” Jax directed, his movements sharp, measured, nudging his forehead toward Nolan’s limp form as if silently gauging their control. His voice tightened, strained under the weight of both their burden and the question hanging between them. “If the virus spread reaches 100%, all processing capabilities—internal and external—cease entirely. HIVE won’t be able to execute anything. Every node will be left exposed—susceptible to a man-in-the-middle attack.”
He paused, exhaling through the tension, shifting his grip as the gurney creaked under Nolan’s mass. “That’s the next phase.”
With a strained grunt, Nolan’s upper body collapsed onto the bed with a dull thud, the weight of his unconscious form forcing the mattress to groan beneath him. Noel barely caught his ankles in time, adjusting his limbs with a swift motion, straightening him out with practiced care. She let out a heavy breath, the exhaustion in her exhale barely masking the underlying tension.
“Do you think the freight elevator’s functional?” Her voice was tight, edged with uncertainty.
Jax barely hesitated, moving with intent. “Hmm. I hope so, or this will be a short trip.” They maneuvered Nolan through the suffocating dimness of the room, its air thick with the scent of old dust and sterile decay. Emerging into the hallway, the contrast was stark—murky light filtering through distant fluorescents, casting long, jagged shadows against the floor. The weight of silence pressed in around them, suffused with the unseen presence of things just beyond reach. “Around this corner—two rights,” Jax instructed, his tone clipped, movements deliberate. Yet something pulled at him.
His awareness snagged on the left, his gaze flicking instinctively toward the staircase railing as they rounded the bend. The angle of the shadows twisted unnaturally, the dim glow stretching shapes into unnatural distortions.Noel adjusted her grip, both of them maneuvering past unseen obstacles, their footsteps measured, cautious.
“Another right up ahead,” Jax muttered, pointing forward. His voice had dropped a fraction—lower, weighted with something just beneath the surface. The hall swallowed their presence, its silence breathing around them like something alive.
They rounded the corner, the freight elevator looming to their left, its steel frame dulled by layers of dust and neglect. Noel reached for the panel, tapping it swiftly—an impatient motion. The response was instant: a muted ding echoed through the corridor. Her gaze flicked up, catching the glow of the panel above.
“Darn.” She exhaled, frustration curling at the edges of her voice. “I think it’s in use already.” The up arrow pulsed faintly, its amber glow suffocated beneath years of grime, a quiet signal that their path upward was blocked.
Jax stepped back, clearing his throat as he gestured toward the ascending staircase. The dim overhead lights cast jagged shadows along the wall, their presence distorting in the flickering fluorescents. “There are things I can do while you’re waiting,” he said, voice threaded with quiet determination. “I’m heading upstairs to pack our stuff—check the virus status—see what our egress looks like.”
Before the final word had fully left his lips, he was moving. His silhouette blurred as he turned sharply, his feet already pushing toward the stairs in brisk, bounding strides. A fleeting wave, a signal of departure—then he was gone, swallowed by the stairwell’s dim recesses.
Noel’s voice followed, carrying after him like an echo stretched thin. “Alright! I guess I’ll see you on the roof!”
Up here, the atmosphere shifted—thick with urgency, charged with a pulse that set the air thrumming with tension. The moment Jax reached the top of the stairs, the scene swallowed him whole. The crew operated in tight, frantic motions, their purpose distilled into action. Armed troopers barked orders, their voices cutting through the chaos with a sharp, commanding timbre that echoed off the metal walls. Their clipped directives carried an unmistakable weight, a reflection of the unease gripping the building.
Beyond them, unarmed personnel swarmed in desperate, disordered tangents—burdened by equipment, personal effects hastily gathered in trembling hands. They stumbled through the crammed corridor, navigating the rush in half-coordinated movements, pressing toward the exit, toward the roof—toward whatever fate awaited them beyond the confines of this unraveling stronghold.
At the top of the stairs, the control room door hung open, its darkness pooling into the hallway like a silent omen. Inside, three communications analysts hunched over their terminals, their voices layered in chaotic, stuttering chatter. The disjointed urgency of their words blurred into the background, swallowed by the scrambling turmoil beyond the threshold.
Jax moved without hesitation, his focus zeroing in on his desk, hands swift as he yanked open the bottom drawer. A duffle bag—worn, familiar—was pulled free. His eyes flicked over the scattered remnants of his past, a frozen second where memories pressed against his resolve. A reluctant family portrait, its edges curled with time. Small, unfavored crafts—once beloved gifts from hands he no longer held. An anniversary card, still sealed, its message unread, its purpose never fulfilled.
Then, with quiet finality, he stuffed them into the duffle, consigning his past to the movement of his present. Jax jiggled the mouse on his terminal, the stagnant glow of the screen flickering under his touch, then darted toward Noel’s desk. His movements were swift, precise—each object lifted from its resting place with careful intent, one by one, cradled briefly before being tucked away into the bag. The weight of sentimentality pressed against his chest, fleeting but undeniable.
Noel’s terminals—sleek, foldable workstations built for mobility—stood like silent sentinels. He wasted no time. With a sharp snap, he slammed her terminal shut, the impact reverberating through the room. His fingers worked quickly, unseating cables from the wall in practiced efficiency. As he released them, they recoiled back into the case with a loud, biting zip, snapping into place like taut sinew.
The duffel bag slid over his shoulders, its familiar weight settling against his frame as he snatched Noel’s terminal in one swift, fluid motion. His pulse pounded, surging with adrenaline, an insistent drumbeat in his ears as he bolted back to his desk. His free hand crashed onto the keyboard, fingers flying over the keys, desperation lacing each stroke as he fought to uncover the virus’s spread.
The monitor’s glow bathed Jax’s face in cold, artificial light, its harsh luminance carving sharp edges into his features. The main window dominated the screen, the virus execution dashboard—his creation, meticulously fine-tuned—displaying each critical phase of deployment in meticulous detail. “The spread is 86%! Great! Not long—” His breath hitched mid-sentence as the number shifted—85%, then 84%. A slow, creeping decline. Second by second, the gauge corrected downward, the percentage tumbling to 81% before stabilizing at 82%. A silent beat passed. Jax’s jaw tightened, pulse hammering beneath his skin. “Something’s fighting off the virus.” The realization settled cold in his chest—one of his worst fears clawing into reality. Now, time was no longer an asset. It was the enemy.
His movements were swift but controlled as he turned sharply, gaze locking onto the communications analysts, their heads buried in their consoles, oblivious to the battle unfolding in real time. “What’s that ETA on our airlift?” Jax’s voice cut through the static hum of the room, edged with restrained urgency.
The three analysts, stiff in their seats, hesitated before breaking their focus. The man in the center was the first to respond, his words laced with the weight of unfolding chaos. “Uh—well, actually, we’ve got five heavy choppers already lifting personnel and equipment from the roof. If you hurry, there’s still time to get up there.”
Jax barely processed the confirmation before he was already moving. Jax’s voice cut through the low hum of static and hurried keystrokes. “What are you three doing? Shouldn’t you be getting up on the roof?”
The question hung in the air, momentarily silencing the fevered typing. The trio exchanged glances—silent, weighted, unspoken thoughts flickering between them in the cold glow of their monitors. The man on the right finally spoke, his tone measured but burdened with the weight of grim understanding.
“We’ve been monitoring what chatter we can in the area,” he said, shifting slightly in his chair. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, tension lacing the stillness of his hands. “There’s a lot of it, trust me. The situation is shifting—minute by minute. If it turns for the worse…” A pause, heavy with implication. “We need to be here—to warn everyone else.”
Jax’s jaw tightened. The man on the far left exhaled, the sound barely audible beneath the layered drone of equipment. His voice came next—quieter, edged with something brittle, final.“We’ve basically resolved to go down with the ship, Jax.” The words struck like the sharp echo of a closing door. The monitors continued their muted flitter. The walls held their silence.
Jax turned back to his desk, hands sweeping over its cluttered surface, knocking aside stacks of scattered papers in a frantic search. His breath quickened. Useless documents slid to the floor in careless flurries, but the one thing he needed—the one thing that mattered—was nowhere to be found.
“We need to take some of the attention off this place.” His voice was taut, laced with mounting frustration. His back remained to the analysts, his thoughts barreling ahead. “Send some people to the parking garage while we can.” A sudden pang of realization struck, sharp as a blade. His muscles tensed. “Damnit!”
The sharp crack of his palm hitting the desk reverberated through the room, a raw echo of his growing agitation. His teeth clenched, jaw stiffening as the missing flash drive—containing every piece of stolen data from HIVE—surfaced in his mind like a sudden jolt of electricity. “It’s downstairs.” His breathing steadied, his movements now fueled by sheer determination. He pivoted, facing the analysts with renewed intensity.
“Here’s the deal,” he said, voice cutting through the room’s static hum. “I’ll go down and make sure the coast is clear. In the meantime, get some trucks—armored personnel carriers if you can—down in that garage. Redirect a couple of choppers over there too.” He shouldered his bag, gripping it tighter, legs already angling toward the exit. “I’ll be right back.”
Jax shot out of the room, his momentum carrying him into the hallway, skidding to a stop just outside the door. His breath hitched at the sight—the freight elevator stood wide open, its interior crammed with bodies, packed to the brim in a tight mass of urgency. His pulse quickened. “She couldn’t get in there by herself,” he murmured under his breath, jaw tightening. “Let alone with that thing.”
A shrill chime cut through the moment—the elevator’s bell, signaling imminent closure. The steel doors slid toward each other with mechanical grace, threatening to seal shut, shutting off their only immediate path upward. Not happening.
Jax lunged forward, throwing an arm into the narrowing gap, the impact jolting up his shoulder as the doors stalled against his interference. “Sir, please?!” His voice rang out, sharp, insistent, chasing after the individual who had dismissed the elevator—now walking away, oblivious.
The man stopped in his tracks, then turned, hurried steps bringing him back into view. A pale, portly fellow—scraggly beard, round eyeglasses catching the dim light, an adjustable ball cap shoved haphazardly onto his head. His expression was one of mild surprise, but recognition softened it. “Yeah, Jax?”
“I need enough space in here—for a person, and a gurney, at least.” His voice was clipped, direct, his breath shallow from the rush.
“A what?” The man frowned, confusion flickering across his face. He yanked off his cap, scratching at his scalp in thought.
Jax’s frustration rippled through his frame. “A gurney,” he enunciated slowly, his patience thinning. “A hospital bed. A gurney. Come on, now.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I got it. Consider it done.” The man nodded rapidly, shoving his cap back onto his head. “Uh—about how big is that?”
Jax exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “One person standing up. One person lying down. I don’t know—figure it out.”
Without waiting for confirmation, he spun on his heel, taking the stairs two at a time, his pace urgent, deliberate. Noel was waiting—patient, but watchful. He barely slowed, stepping into place beside her, pulling the duffel bag from his shoulders and setting it down beside her terminal, next to Nolan.
“It’s on the way,” he said, breath still uneven from the exchange. “He’s making room.” Then, a shift in his stance—a tightening of resolve. “I’m going down to check just how effective the virus really is. “I’ll be right back.” And with that, he was gone, swallowed by the descent.
The energy propelling him forward dissipated the moment he hit the edge of the stairwell railing. His foot hovered, poised for descent, before a sudden realization seized him—the flash drive. Operating room. His desk. Out in the open, exactly where he had left it.
Jax pivoted sharply, his movements fueled by purpose now. The drive slid into his pocket, secured with a practiced flick of his fingers, and then he was gone, descending the stairs in quick, decisive strides. Confidence swelled in his chest, reckless energy feeding his pace. No need for stealth. No need for hesitation. The virus had done its work. He was here to witness the aftermath.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Flashlight gripped tightly, he moved through the facility with calculated boldness. Its beam carved through the darkness, swallowing doorways before he crossed their thresholds. Each room lay in eerie silence—no resistance, no movement, only stillness. It should have been satisfying. Instead, something gnawed at him. Where were the remnants of victory? The proof? Restlessness pulled him forward, deeper into the facility. His stride slowed, anticipation wrapping around his frame like a tightening coil. Then—there it was. His first prize.
Waiting at the top of the descending staircase. The bodies convulsed in fractured, stuttering motions—jerking, twitching, half-formed figures swallowed in heaping shadows. The distorted movements sent a ripple of unease crawling up Jax’s spine, cold and deliberate. His grip tightened around the flashlight before instinct compelled him to snuff its glow. Darkness swallowed him, forcing his senses to sharpen, every breath stretched thin beneath the weight of anticipation.
With each step forward, confidence unraveled, peeling away in slow increments until he stood before them. The eerie stillness clashed against their unnatural spasms, a grotesque mockery of life in suspension. He considered testing his luck—a soft, probing kick—but caution whispered against recklessness, and he abandoned the thought. Instead, he moved with controlled ease, his stride smooth, practiced, resisting the primal urge to linger.
The impulse to gamble was gone. Nolan adjusted now, shifting toward precision. Stealth became priority. The facility’s unforgiving design forced traversal—zigzagging flights of stairs stretching the width of the structure, corridors spilling into blind spots that offered both refuge and danger. The deeper he pushed, the clearer the obstacles became—a minefield of fallen soldiers and colleagues, sprawled in broken silence.
Carefully, he maneuvered, threading through the wreckage, the weight of his footfalls drowned beneath the static hum of tension. At last, he reached the first floor, exhaling as he pressed a hand against the heavy door. It groaned in protest but yielded, spilling a thin shaft of light into the abyss.
Nolan retraced his path with unwavering focus, weaving through the chaos with calculated precision. He slipped past bodies—some eerily still, others twitching in fragmented spasms—each one a grim reminder of the battlefield he navigated. Breath tight in his chest, he surged forward, breaking into the fifth-floor command center in a burst of motion, his lungs burning as he caught himself.
“It’s clear. For now,” he forced out, voice edged with the weight of their narrowing window. “We need to tell people to move out through the front—there’s going to be a bottleneck on the roof. We’re sitting ducks if we don’t spread out. Go—start getting the word out!”
The analysts didn’t hesitate. They sprang from their seats in a flurry of urgency, bolting past Jax, their footsteps a rhythmic hammer against the floor.
Jax barely registered their departure—his focus zeroed in on his desk. His fingers dug into his pocket, retrieving the flash drive, and with a sharp motion, he slammed it down against the metal surface. No distractions. No second-guessing.
With swift keystrokes, he cleared the virus execution windows, its spread percentage reading 80% before blinking out of sight. A new command line interface sprang to life. “I think I can…” His fingers hovered for half a second, breath uneven. Then, a flicker—connection established. “…Yes! I can! I’m in our mainframe.” His voice dipped into hushed urgency. “As long as this connection holds, I can upload the data.” He grabbed the drive again, shoving it into the terminal’s slot in one decisive movement. The screen pulsed. The transfer initiated. Jax exhaled. “Let’s hope this works.”
#
Belle clutched his head, fingers digging into his scalp as reality fractured around him. The world churned in wild undulations—buildings warping, corridors stretching, the fabric of existence pulsing in and out of sync. His vision ricocheted between two realms: the tangible chaos of the physical world and the sterile, unfeeling abyss of his internal system.
I should have known better than to synchronize with this primitive, human filth!"His voice rasped, bitter with contempt. He squeezed his eyes shut, plummeting into the digital void. Applications unfolded like luminous galaxies, directories stretched across an infinite plane, shimmering in cascading waves of raw data. He scanned the horizon of his mind. Where are they? What’s—oh. Oh, I see.
Binary seeped into the system, a crawling corruption, a tide of ones and zeroes slithering into every crevice. It moved with insidious patience, coiling through folders like a silent predator, its touch dissolving data into meaningless fragments. Threads of code unraveled, dissolving into the endless current. A creeping infection. A quiet annihilation. It spread like ink in water—unstoppable.
Belle moved through the system with deliberate caution, stepping lightly across the fractured landscape of data. The uncorrupted folders stood like fragile islands amid the wreckage, isolated sanctuaries in a sea of decay. Every motion felt precarious, every breath laced with dread. His pulse hammered in his ears as he sifted through the remnants, scanning the digital abyss with desperate precision. Had the virus burrowed too deep? Then—his gaze locked onto it. The file.
Nestled among the carnage, untouched, waiting—an anomaly in the devastation. Its presence was a beacon, the last line of defense against total annihilation. An executable, dormant but poised, its purpose singular: fight back. There was no time to hesitate.
The instant he executed the file, the system convulsed. Hexadecimal ribbons lashed outward in jagged, chaotic bursts—brilliant streams of shifting letters and numbers detonating into the corrupted pathways. They surged in unpredictable currents, punching through the binary wreckage with violent precision, carving away the infection bit by bit.
The corrupted code writhed, resisting. But the countermeasure pressed forward, relentless. Each pulse tore through the digital mire, reclaiming fragments of stolen data, dismantling the infection with ruthless efficiency. The system quaked, the battle unfolding in a chaotic, unseen war—desperation against destruction, survival against oblivion.
Belle felt it instantly—a shift, not just in the system’s responses, but in the marrow of his being. The heat throttling his processors began to wane, its suffocating grip loosening like a vice unfastened. Strain faded, static thinned, the distortion peeling away in fragile ribbons until the clarity returned—sharp, crystalline, undeniable. Then, with a snap, control snapped back into place.
At first, his fingers quivered, the ghost of disruption still coursing through his circuits, lingering in the echoes of instability. But slowly, carefully, the rhythm took shape. Thumb to index. Then middle. Then ring. Then pinky. Fluid. Precise. Each motion a silent affirmation—his fine motor control had stabilized. His autonomy restored. His presence reaffirmed.
Walls of hexadecimal loomed, cascading in rigid, unrelenting grids, dominating the corrupted binary like a fortress reclaiming lost ground. Belle exhaled, his system stabilizing, the suffocating strain lifting, his presence asserting itself once more. Control—full, undeniable control—coursed through him, a tangible certainty. How much of HIVE has been compromised? They had been blindsided. Cornered. Slipping. His mind sharpened. Joy.
Without hesitation, he cycled through programs, scanning directories in swift succession until IntelSync emerged—a beacon of blue and gold, its icon pulsing with quiet resolve. Let’s assess the damage.
A globe materialized before him, Earth’s continents sketched in fluid strokes, precise and unyielding. X’s and O’s scattered across the map like celestial bodies, data points populating the surface in calculated bursts. Then—another O. A golden mark, plotted at last. A pulse of recognition swept through the system.
Names flickered through file trees, lists shifting and reorganizing—leaders, subordinates, ranks defined in cascading streams of data. The map compressed, tightening its focus around the golden O, pinpointing the nearest online soldiers and the last recorded positions of others.
Belle’s map flickered, then shifted—amber O’s dotting the blueprint of a vast, industrial complex. Online, but silent. Unresponsive. Starting from the first floor, he dove into perspectives, threading through viewpoints with calculated precision. The images fractured, glitching erratically, each frame stuttering like a dying signal. He fought against the distortion, scanning the blurred angles—obscured, imperfect—yet still revealing fragments of movement. A shadow slipping through the chaos. The escape was concealed—but not entirely.
"So, you’re trying to escape, huh?"Belle toggled through soldier perspectives, shifting viewpoints with quick, calculated precision. Fractured images flickered—legs, staggered motion, feet in hurried retreat. The patterns repeated, echoes of what he had found on the first floor. The picture was clear enough. It didn’t take a genius to decipher the unfolding strategy. His focus sharpened.
He honed in on Captain Joy’s signal, syncing his system, assuming the Captain’s perspective. The instant the connection established, Belle spoke, his voice laced with urgency.
"Captain, Caliber is under attack from the inside. Those terrorists have injected some kind of malicious code into our mainframe. You, all of your men—you’re poisoned. But don’t worry—I have the antidote."
A direct link opened between their systems, the transfer initializing—a slow, calculated process, delicate but precise. Belle pushed the antivirus forward, sending the program rippling through Joy’s filesystem. It would take time—an agonizing delay—but once deployed, it would execute swiftly, tearing through the infection with relentless force. "Pass this to every soldier as soon as possible. When you can, retrieve Captain Michaels at all costs. Leave the pedestrians unless they obstruct your path. I’ll be there shortly, Captain.” The connection severed, Belle’s consciousness snapped back into his own body, his eyes fluttering open. A wasteland greeted him.
His motorcade lay sprawled in disorder, vehicles skewed off the road, slumped in broken, useless angles. They hadn’t crashed in chaos—this was controlled disruption. Systematic failure. At first glance, the fleet appeared inoperable. His soldiers, still trapped in their systems, spasmed in the front seat—twitching, flickering, struggling against unseen forces corrupting their neural links.
Belle exhaled, his voice cool, unwavering. "I think I’ll walk the rest of the way, gentlemen. Catch up when the antivirus takes effect.” He pushed open the door, stepping onto the ruined terrain, surveying the horizon with a deliberate gaze. His head tilted slightly, then stilled. His course was clear. Captain Joy was waiting.
#
With a sharp, almost mocking ding, the elevator doors jerked open, revealing a suffocatingly tight compartment—an overstuffed labyrinth of equipment crammed to the ceiling, teetering in uneasy stacks. The space was claustrophobic, barely allowing room for Noel and the bed wedged at the threshold.
She exhaled, steadying herself, then pushed forward, guiding the bed through the narrow gap. Its wheels murmured against the floor, a whisper-soft glide, barely a disturbance. But the tower noticed. A tremble. Then—collapse.
At first, a delicate slide, a cautious betrayal. Then, the avalanche. Devices spilled in a frenzied cascade, tumbling over each other, crashing down in violent succession—a metallic symphony of chaos ringing sharp against the stale air. Noel flinched, trapped in the maelstrom, her heartbeat a hammer against her ribs as the wreckage piled at her feet, the walls closing in.
Noel jerked, a jolt of adrenaline cracking through her like a live wire. The crash had been violent, too sudden, too loud—an explosion of noise that rattled the stale air. For a split second, she braced for impact, muscles coiling, expecting the cascade to reach her, to bury her beneath its ruin. But nothing struck.
Relief flickered, fleeting and thin, swallowed almost instantly by the wreckage sprawled at her feet. Her breath hitched—no time to dwell. She dropped to a knee, hands moving in swift, practiced motions, sweeping up the smaller items first—the duffle bag, her terminal. Every movement was methodical, stripped of hesitation, urgency curling tight against her ribs. She shoved them just inside the elevator doors, barely registering the action.Then—her gaze snapped up. Scanning. Her pulse drummed against her skull. Where was the rifle? Nothing.
Her breath hitched, a sharp catch in her throat. A weight, deep and sinking, settled in her chest—cold, unwelcome. Then she saw it. Not here. Not within reach. Back in the room. A sigh coiled into the stale air, frustration pressing at the edges of her resolve—but there was no time to dwell. No time to hesitate. Her hands moved fast, gathering fallen gear with sharp, precise motions, stacking each item with measured control. She pushed Nolan’s rigid cart against the doorframe, wedging it firmly—a barricade against the elevator’s impatient mechanisms. A precaution.
When she returned, the rifle was slung across her shoulder, its familiar weight anchoring her as she stepped inside. The moment stretched, grounding her—but then, a sound. A sharp, insistent buzzing. It slithered through the lift’s speakers, a static pulse burrowing beneath her skin. The doors twitched, impatient, waiting—but not for her. Then—a sudden, mechanical press. The elevator sealed itself with a cold, final snap.
Noel stiffened, a quiet breath escaping through her teeth. The carriage shuddered beneath her boots, a metallic tremor rattling through its frame, uncertain—resisting the descent it had already committed to. Her gaze flicked to the instrument panel. A crease cut between her brows. Something was wrong. The weight in her limbs shifted—lightened.
She hadn’t seen it before. Hadn’t noticed in the chaos. Several buttons had been pressed—not just the roof. Not just the escape. They were sinking, all the way down. Her voice broke the silence, thin, controlled, forced into steadiness. “Before it heads up, we’re going all the way down to the first floor.” A quiet laugh followed, fragile, hollow against the still air. She turned to Nolan, studying his unconscious form, etching the joke into memory. A keepsake for when he woke—a reminder that this moment had existed, if only for the briefest blink in time.
The descent stretched, dragged. Each floor blinked past in dull, sequential flickers—three… two… one… deeper. With every level, the elevator groaned, the steel frame grinding against itself, protesting. Then—it idled. Too long. Unease settled in her bones. A sudden stutter. The carriage jerked, then stilled. The doors slid open with reluctant finality.
Darkness waited. A hallway stretched beyond, vast yet suffocating, long and uninviting. The air was weighted, wrong—heavier than it should have been. The walls loomed, unfamiliar, pressing close despite their distant reach. Noel narrowed her eyes, scanning, searching—shadows shifting in the murk, curling at the edges of perception, never quite forming.
Footsteps. Faint. Rapid. Scattered like prey fleeing a predator unseen. Plastic clattered, knocked aside in frantic retreat, discarded in the chaos. Then—the rupture. A scream, sharp and raw, splitting through the silence like a blade, tearing down the corridor before dissolving into strangled struggle. Then—more voices. Not just one. Not just fear.
Desperation tangled into the sound, multiplying, twisting into a discordant chorus. Footsteps stuttered, quickened, the rhythm breaking apart—some fleeing, some fighting. Chaos expanding, something unseen pulling them under. Noel’s breath hitched, sharp as static in her lungs. Instinct seized her fingers—they curled toward the rifle. Tight. Ready.
The elevator stood open. Waiting. Watching. Mocking. A voice shattered the air, torn and desperate. “Help!” The plea echoed, fractured, swallowed too fast by the relentless disorder. Then again—another cry—but this time, not alone. The pounding grew erratic, bodies crashing, voices splintering in agony. The hallway convulsed with turmoil.
Noel’s pulse hammered. Her fingers slammed against the ‘close door’ button. Hard. Again. Again. Nothing. The elevator refused her command, hesitating, lingering—like it was thinking. Like it was deciding. Grinding gears awakened, scraping against time-worn mechanisms with an ancient groan. A tremor rolled through the floor beneath her boots. The lift obeyed itself, not her. It shuddered, pulling upward—slow, reluctant, unyielding. Then—the second floor arrived. The doors slid open.
Again, the doors yawned open, exposing the corridor beyond—a passage stretched impossibly long, drowning in suffocating darkness. The air pressed inward, thick and stagnant, as if the walls themselves were closing in. But this time, there was movement. Somewhere within the shadows, something writhed.
Silhouettes flickered—bodies convulsing in unnatural shapes, twisting against unseen forces that pulled them under. Limbs jerked, clawing, fighting back, but the darkness swallowed their resistance whole, consuming struggle like a starving void. The sound followed.
Guttural scowls, warped tongues spilling into the air—voices twisted beyond recognition, speaking a language that was never meant for human ears. It scraped against her skull, vibrating through her ribs, reverberating in places she wished it wouldn’t. The virus was failing.
Noel’s stomach tightened, dread anchoring deep, dragging her breath into the pit of her chest. Her fingers jabbed the call button—hard, rapid, desperate. The lift refused her. Ignored her. As it always did. Not an error. A choice. It lingered, waiting. Thinking. Deciding whether to obey. Or whether it would. She turned, scanning for cover, but the elevator was a prison—cramped, suffocating, unyielding. Its walls pressed close, embracing her in steel. Then—behind her—metal groaned. The doors sealed shut, cutting off the outside.
The stalls deepened, the elevator convulsing in violent tremors, caught in a silent war between unseen forces. Metal groaned, its cry reverberating through the floor beneath Noel’s boots, every breath tightening against the machine’s strained resistance. The world quivered, uncertain. Then—stillness. The doors slid open. Chaos spilled through the threshold.
Shadows writhed against the distant walls, twitching, distorting, stretching in grotesque motions, as though something beneath the surface clawed for escape. The hallway looked familiar—yet grotesquely wrong. Warped. Stripped of meaning. This time, there was no light—only the faintest glow, weak, isolated, clinging to the corridor’s farthest reach. It pulsed softly, casting elongated, trembling shadows across the floor.
Noel’s breath hiccuped. Something else was moving. Small. Subtle. Crawling closer. Then—dots. Two piercing embers flickered in the dark, brightening with each agonizing second. Her pulse slammed against her ears, a dull roar drowning out thought. The elevator refused to move, suspended in time, waiting. Watching.
Noel’s body locked in place, paralyzed beneath the weight of recognition. The glow stretched across familiar features—soft, youthful. Her son. His arm reached forward, fingers twitching, grasping at nothing, at everything. Was this a plea? A warning? A mistake? The figure dragged closer, the air warping around it, forcing Noel back against the wall of clutter, pressing her into the suffocating grip of uncertainty.
#
Lil’lah’s eyes clung to the security feeds, unblinking, transfixed—anchored in place yet unraveling by the second. A pulse of unease curled deep in her chest, tightening, twisting, feeding on every distorted frame that flickered across the screen. Her gaze darted, scanning with frantic precision, threading fragments together in an attempt to force logic into place. But logic refused her—slipping through her grip like mist. More pressing—why was it not tearing through them anymore?
In the hallway, figures convulsed. Twisted. Some clawed at unseen forces, their limbs jerking in frantic desperation—fighting something she couldn't see, couldn't name. Others simply faltered, sinking into unnatural stillness, as if whatever had sustained them had been stripped away, erased, leaving only hollow remnants behind. The feed stuttered. The images warped. Like Nolan. And then—the last one.
Lil'lah danced through the quantum realm, warping through the complex, inspecting. The soldiers were no longer incapacitated, They were now lurching, lunging at anything within grasp, their hand ripped with technology that made their grips like bare traps against the unsuspecting prey. Something was unraveling. And fast.
Soldier Nineteen. His image pulsed in her mind, burned into memory—a figure doubled over in the wreckage, touched by something delicate, fragile in a way that gnawed at her thoughts, unsettled the edges of her understanding. She exhaled sharply, the breath catching in her throat, brows furrowing as the realization sliced too close. The spark. He carried it, too. She whispered it beneath her breath, hesitant, afraid to solidify it aloud. "There’s no way."
Ba’urg-Tech. Uncompromising. Engineered beyond interference. Built by the will of One Mind. Untouchable. Yet here it was. Crippled. By something made here. On this planet. The weight pressed in around her, thick and smothering, the air suddenly wrong—empty where it shouldn’t be. And somewhere within the silence, the stark, unrelenting truth settled into her bones.
Chaos swelled beyond the door—a storm without form, a violent crescendo of sound and motion that gripped Lil’lah’s senses with an unrelenting hold. Her body moved before thought could catch up, feet carrying her forward, crossing the threshold as unseen pressure pressed against her skin, wrapping around her like static in the air. The shift sharpened her perspective—the world beyond stretching into jagged clarity.
Shadows twisted in violent motion. Shapes convulsed within the corridors, writhing, collapsing, reforming in unnatural spasms. There was sound. Not a scream. Not speech. Something worse. A resonance that scraped against her bones.
A sharp, rapid clapping rippled through the complex, rattling against steel, reverberating through the cold, hollow space. The rhythm was wrong—off-kilter, fractured, unnatural. Not applause. Not celebration.
Beneath it, tangled in the chaos, screams wove themselves into the air—thin, brittle, splintered with terror. The cries weren’t singular. They layered, twisted into themselves, tightening the space around her, shrinking the air, sending a chill curling up her spine. Lil’lah shuddered, the weight of uncertainty pressing deep, constricting her breath, coiling around her ribs like an unseen grip.
What was worse? The virus—this thing—spreading like rot, invading, twisting, consuming the technology she had believed unshakable. Like it had been built for destruction. Or—the fact that something was resisting it. Fighting back. A presence that should not exist. Yet did. Her breath slowed, sharpening against the static warping her mind. She had seen enough.
Lil’lah closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift—floating in the quiet abyss of thought, weightless in the stillness. The hum of the ship murmured beneath her skin, threading through her like an unspoken tether. She opened them.
Earth greeted her, a luminous beacon swelling into view, its glow soft yet distant, untouched by her grasp. Unreachable. Her fingers tightened around the controls, the metal cool beneath her grip, grounding her, steadying her in something real. Yet her mind waded deeper, slipping beneath the surface.
Below, the planet’s vast seas stretched out in endless silence, shimmering beneath veiled light, their depths pregnant with secrets, currents curled around unspoken histories. Were they like the oceans of Ba’maub? The origin of the Ba’urgeons. As told by the One Understanding. Did life crawl forth from these waters too?
The question lingered, folding into the hush, settling beneath the rhythmic hum of the vessel. The moment stretched. Then—it broke. Her breath steadied. Her senses sharpened.
The cockpit returned, anchoring her in the present. Her gaze skimmed the console, flicking across streams of data, reviewing logs from the time spent in the shadows. But her thoughts did not leave the water.
Lil’lah’s fingers tingled—a faint current humming beneath her skin, the whisper of something familiar yet achingly distant. She had felt this before. Standing over Soldier Nineteen. Over Nolan. But here, in orbit, it was different. Fragile. A fractured echo that refused to tether itself to her senses.She exhaled, gaze drifting beyond the cockpit’s frame, into the abyss beyond. She had never truly flown to it. Not technically. Last time, she had been dropped. Not by choice. By necessity. By distress.
Beyond the viewport, starlight fractured across scattered debris—silent, drifting sentinels marking the threshold between the unknown and the unforgiving. The remnants pulsed in slow, deliberate motion, fragments of something lost to time. She pressed a few calculated taps into the console. The ship responded—chirping to life, a quiet promise wrapped in machine language. There was a pulse of data.
Lil’lah’s eyes narrowed as the results spilled onto the screen, each fragment threading into place, a vast web of information stretching across the planet. Humanity never ceased to impress. "These things," she murmured, fingers gliding over the unfamiliar logs, tracing their intricate pathways. "They maintain global records—connected, archived, shared across the entire planet. Crude, maybe. But efficient. Enough to get the job done.” Maybe they never needed the sparks. A sharp chirp cut through the quiet. The ship. Lil’lah flinched, snapped back to the present. A fresh notification pulsed on-screen.
Coordinates. Her pulse quickened. "Bingo. Geospatial data—let’s lock it in.” The system processed her request, routing the course, shifting the ship’s trajectory. The frame trembled beneath her hands, adjusting, recalibrating. Lil’lah smirked, fingers tightening over the controls. "System, take me to… Washington DC.” The engines howled. Thrusters ignited. The ship dipped, then dove—slicing through the void with ruthless precision as Earth surged to meet her.
....Interested in reading more? (the frequency of the following chapters my be affected)
