Themaintenance shaft was colder than the air outside. Metal groaned beneath Ethan's weight as he crawled forward, Harper close behind, her breath sharp in the tight space. The darkness swallowed them whole, the only light a sliver from Ethan's wrist torch, dimmed to a red glow.
Behind them, Maxwell sealed the grate, silent as a ghost. No one spoke. There was no need. Every second inside the compound was a borrowed one.
"Liam," Ethan whispered into his comm. "We're inside. Route looks clear so far."
"I've got partial visuals," Liam replied, crackling through static. "No thermal hits near your position yet, but be careful. This place is shielded. Cameras blink in and out,like something's interfering."
Figures.
Caligo wouldn't build a place like this without bending reality around it.
Ethan emerged first, pushing up through a grate into a dark service corridor. Overhead, dull lights flickered in a sickly pattern. The place smelled sterile,like bleach, iron, and something underneath it all... rot.
Harper pulled herself out behind him, her weapon raised. Maxwell followed, locking the grate from the inside. They were in.
The hallway stretched in both directions one end vanishing into darkness, the other leading to a faint green glow.
"Left," Harper said. "Stick to shadows."
They moved in formation. Silent and cautious.
As they crept forward, Ethan noticed something off. The walls was made of smooth steel with indentations, like claw marks or impact dents. Bullet holes? No. These were irregular, erratic. Like something had been thrashing.
Harper noticed too. "This isn't a lab. It's a cage."
Maxwell gestured up ahead. "Movement."
They ducked into a side alcove as a guard passed,tall, armor-clad, and wearing the same matte-black visor Ethan had seen during the warehouse raid. No insignia. No words.
Just obedience.
Once the guard passed, they pushed deeper into the compound.
Room by room, they discovered pieces of a puzzle no one had asked to solve. One room had vats filled with pale liquid and shapes floating inside. Another contained a series of cages. Metal. Bloodstained. Empty.
Then, a door unlike the others. Reinforced. No keypad.
"Behind that door," Harper said. "That's where the data will be."
Ethan approached it cautiously. There was no visible lock. No hinges. Just smooth steel and a small indentation at chest height.
"Biometric," Maxwell muttered. "Not standard. We'll need a match."
Ethan looked around. "We get a guard."
"I can spoof a read," Liam said in his ear, "but you'll need to find the central server room. Feed me the encryption key."
Harper nodded. "We split. Ethan, you're with me. Maxwell,hold position."
Maxwell grunted. "Try not to die."
They peeled off through another hallway. This section of the compound felt different. Warmer. Humming with energy.
A door slid open automatically ahead of them. Inside was the server room,towers of blinking lights and coiled wires. Like the nervous system of something not quite human.
Ethan connected Liam's uplink.
"Give me two minutes," Liam said. "Keep them off me."
Right on cue, alarms screamed.
Red lights burst to life across the hallway. The air thickened.
"They know," Harper snapped. "Move!"
Multiple footsteps echoed.Ethan ducked behind a server rack as three guards stormed in. Harper opened fire,one shot, two, three. Two dropped. The third lunged at Ethan.
They crashed against the wall, and Ethan's blade flashed. Blood sprayed. The body hit the ground.
"Uplink complete!" Liam yelled. "Get the hell out!"
They ran.
Back through the corridor. Back to the steel door.
Maxwell had it ready,hand pressed to a dead guard's wrist, held against the reader.
There come a hiss,then the door slid open.
What lay beyond stole their breath.
Rows of capsules lined the walls, glowing blue. Inside each—people. No—clones? Subjects?
Eyes closed. Wires in their arms. Some looked barely alive. Others looked exactly like people Ethan had seen on the outside.
And in the center of the room, on a raised platform beneath a spotlight—
The girl.
Unconscious.
Strapped to a table.
She looked… smaller. Vulnerable. Not the ghostlike presence she'd been before. Her coat was gone, replaced with a sterile white gown. Electrodes lined her temples. A soft beep marked every second her heart continued.
Ethan moved first, sprinting across the room.
"She's real," he breathed. "She's not a hallucination."
Harper hovered near the capsules, horrified. "This is a harvesting facility. They're using them. Extracting… something."
Ethan freed the girl's wrists, gently shaking her. "Hey. Wake up. It's me."
Her eyes fluttered. Not confused. Not afraid.
Just… empty.
Then, her lips moved. Just one word.
"Run."
Ethan frowned. "What?"
But the lights above flickered—and the floor vibrated.
A growl echoed from the hallway behind them.
Something was coming.
Something not human.
Maxwell backed toward the wall. "We've overstayed our welcome."
The girl stood on her own now, slower than before, but still with that same eerie calm.
She grabbed Ethan's hand and pointed to a grate behind the platform.
Their way out.
Ethan turned to Harper and Maxwell. "Go!now!"
They dove through the opening one by one, crawling through the narrow shaft as the sound of metal tearing filled the chamber behind them.
Whatever had been released was tearing through the lab.
They didn't look back.
Didn't need to.
They burst out into the forest, gasping, mud splashing as they collapsed into the brush. The compound loomed behind them, silent once more.
The girl stood.
She was breathing hard now. Shaking. Her eyes locked on Ethan's—and for the first time, he saw fear in them.
Not of what was behind them.
But of herself.
Ethan stepped forward. "What are you?"
She looked down at her hands. Flexed her fingers.
Then looked back at him.
And whispered
"I don't know."