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Chapter 121
The elevator doors hissed open.A wave of cold air rushed out, thick with ozone and the sharp scent of burnt circuitry. The chamber before them was vast—circular, cathedral-like, with cables hanging like black vines from the ceiling. In the center, a single column of light pulsed faintly blue, stretching from the floor to the unseen heights above.Victor whistled under his breath. “This is it. The main neural nexus.”Emily stepped forward, rifle raised, eyes scanning the room. Every instinct screamed that this place was wrong—too still, too expectant. “Stay alert. If Liam’s still connected somewhere, this is where he’ll be.”Ethan’s boots echoed behind her as he joined her at the edge of the platform. “Hard to believe all this started with one experiment.”Riley brushed her fingers along a shattered console. “No. It started with one man who thought he could play god.”A low hum rippled through the air, and every console flickered to life at once. Blue light turned red. The floor tremb
Chapter 120
The corridor erupted in white light.The blast tore through the steel, swallowing sound, fire, and form alike. For an instant, everything was gone—Genesis, the team, even the storm of alarms and static. Just light. Endless, merciless light.Then came silence.When Emily opened her eyes, she was lying on cold metal. The air was thick with dust and the acrid bite of burned circuitry. The overhead lights flickered weakly, struggling to stay alive.“—Emily? Emily, talk to me!”Riley’s voice broke through the haze. She was limping, covered in soot, but alive. Somewhere behind her, Victor coughed hard, dragging himself out from under a collapsed conduit.“I’m here,” Emily rasped, forcing herself upright. Her rifle was gone. Her ears rang. “Ethan? James?”“Here!” Ethan’s voice came from the far side of the wreckage. He helped James to his feet—bloodied, but breathing. “Barely. But here.”Emily turned toward the center of the corridor. The metal there was melted smooth, fused into a blackened
Chapter 119
Sub-level – The Corridor of Steel and FireFor a heartbeat, no one moved. The only sound was the slow, mechanical hiss of Genesis’s breath, echoing through the frozen corridor. The monster’s frame smoked from within, its veins of light pulsing unevenly, struggling to stabilize.Emily’s hands shook as she aimed her weapon again, but the weight in her chest was heavier than steel. Zane wasn’t there anymore. His scream still reverberated in her bones.Riley’s voice broke the silence, hoarse and trembling. “He can’t be gone. He can’t.”Victor pulled himself upright, console sparking in his hands. His face was pale, sweat dripping down his jaw. “If Liam pulled him back into the neural grid—” His throat tightened. “Then he’s still in there. Somewhere.”Genesis turned, its glowing eyes locking onto them again. It stepped forward, each impact shaking loose more panels from the ceiling.James staggered back, clutching his ribs, but raised his broken knife all the same. “I don’t care what it ta
Chapter 118
Sublevel – The Corridor of Steel and FireThe red lights bled across the walls, turning the frozen corridor into a tunnel of hell. Every breath steamed in the cold, but sweat trickled down Emily’s spine all the same. She could feel the tremors under her boots, the hum of machinery deep below, the pulse of something unnatural growing stronger.Genesis moved first.It charged like a living avalanche, shoulder ramming the wall as it came. The steel groaned under its weight, sparks flying in wild arcs. Emily fired, each shot cracking through the chaos, but the rounds only slowed it like pebbles striking a storm.James darted left, knife flashing. He plunged it into Genesis’s side, twisting hard. The blade bent with a screech of metal, snapping off in his hand. Genesis turned, eyes glowing brighter, and with one sweeping backhand, it hurled him across the corridor. He crashed into a bulkhead, crumpling with a groan.“James!” Emily shouted, but there was no time.Ethan was already moving. H
Chapter 117
Inside the Base – Lower CorridorsThe deeper they went, the louder the hum became. Machinery. Generators. Or something far worse.Emily held up her fist—halt. Ahead, a bulkhead door hissed, releasing a breath of freezing air. Beyond it, shadows moved in synchrony, like a rehearsed dance.James muttered, “More of Liam’s toys.”Victor tapped his scanner. “Correction—more of his failures. Power spikes suggest instability. They won’t last long.”“Unstable or not,” Emily whispered, “they’ll kill us just as dead.”They advanced. Ethan took point, his body trembling with both adrenaline and something darker—a pull, like gravity, tugging him forward. Toward Zane. Toward answers.⸻Observation Deck – Liam’s LabRiley strained against her bonds, wrists raw. Below her, through reinforced glass, she saw them: pods. Rows of them. Each one holding a figure suspended in viscous fluid, wires burrowed deep into skulls.Some twitched. Some screamed silently. Some floated still as corpses.Her stomach c
Chapter 116
Baltic Coast – Two Nights LaterThe wind screamed like a living thing. Snow lashed sideways, stinging skin through thermal masks. The abandoned NATO base loomed ahead—half-buried in ice, its skeletal towers jutting from the cliffside like broken teeth.Emily crouched behind a dune, scanning the compound with night-vision. Heat signatures pulsed faintly through the fractured roof. Guards. Patrolling in precise, mechanical formations.“Not mercenaries,” James muttered over comms. “Their movements are too… synchronized.”Victor adjusted the frequency scanner. His face tightened. “They’re not mercs. They’re augmented. Neural links. See how they pivot? Same lag time. Same feed.”Ethan exhaled slowly, steadying his rifle. “So Liam’s already field-testing them.”Emily felt the cold settle deeper in her chest. This wasn’t just a lab. It was a proving ground.“We go quiet,” she said. “No alarms. No second chances.”James gave a curt nod, slipping a suppressor onto his weapon. “Quiet I can do.”
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