Ethan dropped to the floor, pulling his shirt up over his nose as the hiss of gas filled the corridor. His vision blurred almost instantly, eyes stinging from whatever toxin Caligo had pumped into the air system.
"Harper," he choked into his earpiece, coughing. "They locked me in. Gas... it's everywhere."
Static.
Then Harper's voice, sharp and panicked: "We're coming in hot. Hold on, Ethan."
The steel door behind him wasn't going to budge. He needed another way out. Ethan pressed his shoulder to the wall, feeling for hollow space. His fingers found an edge, a panel slightly misaligned.
He jammed the blade from his belt into the seam and pried it open. Inside, a narrow crawlspace snaked through the wall like the veins of a dying beast. Without hesitating, he crawled in, dragging the crate behind him for cover. The moment he sealed the panel shut, the gas sound faded. Still, his head was light, every breath short and sharp like sucking air through a straw.
Crawling through the duct felt endless. Hot metal pressed against his skin as the echo of movement behind him told him he wasn't alone.
Someone else was in the vents.
He paused, heart racing.
Clang.
Clang.
Closer.
"Liam," Ethan whispered. "I'm in the vent system,north corridor, fourth floor. I'm not alone."
Liam's voice came through, a whisper in his ear. "I've got movement on thermal. You're not imagining it. Something's tracking you."
Of course they'd send someone in after him. A cleaner.
Ethan reached a junction and made a hard left, then slid the crate around to shield his back. He held still, one hand on the blade, the other pressed against the warm steel beneath.Everywhere became quite.
Too quiet.
He turned.
A pale face emerged from the shadows behind him, eyes wild, face painted black. The man moved like a shadow, soundless and wrong. Not a soldier,something else. Caligo's version of a bloodhound.
The figure lunged.
Ethan didn't think,he kicked out with both feet, slamming the crate into the man's face. The impact echoed like a gunshot in the vent. The man reeled, then grabbed Ethan's ankle, yanking hard.
Ethan twisted, slashing with his blade. The metal sliced skin, a flash of blood,then the man shrieked, an inhuman sound that didn't belong in any real person's throat.
He shoved backward with all his strength. The vent gave way, and he tumbled down through a loose grate,crashing into a storage room on the third floor. He landed hard on his shoulder, the crate splintering beside him.
Above, the face vanished.
Harper's voice crackled in. "We're inside. Where are you?"
"Third floor. Storage area. Something followed me,I don't know what it was."
"Sit tight. We're two minutes out."
Ethan staggered to his feet, every muscle screaming. The storage room was dark and cold, rows of outdated equipment stacked along the walls. Broken printers, old servers, shattered monitors. A junkyard grave for forgotten tech.
And something was humming.
He followed the sound to a steel cabinet in the far corner. It wasn't dusty like the rest. Recently opened. Inside, he found a small black device,curved, sleek, blinking with a slow red pulse.
He tapped his earpiece. "Found something. Small tech,looks like a transmitter."
Liam's voice returned. "Can you describe the model?"
Ethan squinted at the engraved letters. "ZT-5E, maybe prototype."
A pause. "That's not just a transmitter. It's a relay node,Caligo uses them to scramble their data trails. If you found one, they were routing something through that tower. Pull the core out if you can. I'll guide you."
Ethan grabbed the device and pried the panel open. A cluster of microchips and wires blinked back at him like eyes.
"Red wire first," Liam said. "Then green. Careful,wrong order and it bricks itself."
Sweat dripped down Ethan's temple as he pinched the red wire with his blade and cut.
Then the green.
The blinking stopped.
He pocketed the core just as Harper burst through the door, gun raised. Her eyes widened at the sight of him,sweaty, bruised, bleeding from a gash near his ear.
"You're alive," she breathed.
"Barely," Ethan muttered, swaying.
She steadied him. "We need to go. Now."
Maxwell covered the hall as they moved. Outside, the van's engine was already running. They piled in, tires screeching as they sped down Lockley and back into the heart of Brinlake.
Back at the safehouse, Ethan collapsed into the nearest chair. Liam immediately hooked the relay core into his laptop. Harper stitched the cut near Ethan's temple, silent but quick. She worked like someone who'd done this a hundred times before.
Maxwell returned with a fresh pot of coffee and dropped into the seat across from him.
"That thing in the vents," Maxwell said. "You sure it was human?"
"No," Ethan replied. "And I don't think it was alone. They're deploying something new."
Harper nodded grimly. "Caligo's losing control. That makes them more dangerous."
Liam sat forward, staring at his screen. "I'm in. The relay was masking a direct signal,live data feed to an off-grid location. Tracking it now."
Ethan rubbed his eyes. "So we hit a nerve."
"No," Liam said. "We found one."
The laptop screen flashed, displaying a satellite image of a forest outside Brinlake's city limits. At the center: a compound. Remote. Fenced. No roads in or out.
"What is that?" Harper asked.
Liam zoomed in. "I don't know. But it's not on any map."
Ethan leaned closer.
Whatever was in that forest wasn't just important—it was central.
Harper looked at Ethan. "Do we go after it?"
Ethan stared at the compound, jaw tightening.
"We don't have a choice anymore."