The doors of the submersible slide open with a low hydraulic sigh, and the sound echoes like a memory through the flooded dock. A wash of blue light spills in, pale and trembling, glancing off the damp titanium floor. Beyond the threshold, the city waits — half asleep, half alive — a cathedral of glass and pressure buried beneath the weight of the ocean.
Authorized personnel stand ready to receive them. Their suits are white and sealed, faintly luminous under the sodium corridor lights. One steps forward, helmet retracting with a hiss. "Welcome to Hydraxis, Sensei Slade. We were told to expect you."
Sensei nods, voice steady. "We'll be conducting an internal review. Full access, no interference."
The man — gray-eyed, polite, tired — gestures them in. "Of course. We'll assist however we can. Most of the city's sectors are on minimal power. Life support's stable, but... it's colder now. The systems age faster down here."
Zander follows them out of the submersible. The first thing he notices is the silence — not empty, but layered. Pumps hum behind walls. The ocean presses faintly on the structure, a living weight. Even through his Titan Lace suit, he can feel it — the deep, slow heartbeat of the abyss. The air smells metallic, like salt over circuits.
He adjusts his visor, his vision sharpening as the lenses adapt to the dimness. The corridor stretches ahead, a long tunnel of tempered glass reinforced by steel ribs, and through the glass he can see the outside world: the ocean, endless and dark, lit only by drifting bioluminescent specks. They look like stars that forgot which sky they belonged to.
Sensei moves with that effortless precision that always unsettles Zander — every motion minimal, controlled. Even under the suit, the old warrior's presence carries weight. "Stay alert," he says quietly. "This place may look calm, but the deep never sleeps."
Zander nods, eyes scanning. His hearing stretches further than it should — a ripple of sound bouncing off far walls, the soft murmur of a generator two corridors away, the faint strain of something metallic creaking under pressure. He can almost taste the vibration through the air.
They walk past the entry checkpoint into the main atrium. Hydraxis reveals itself like a sleeping beast: massive domes interconnected by transparent tunnels, suspended platforms wrapped around central pillars of steel and coral-like growths. Holo-signs flicker weakly, projecting ghostly letters that fade before completing their words. A single transport drone drifts above them, its guidance lights blinking red as if uncertain it still has a purpose.
The authorized personnel — only a handful — linger near control stations. They are caretakers more than inhabitants. Their voices echo softly when they speak, and when they stop, the city hums to fill the gap.
"Population used to be over twenty thousand," one of them explains as they pass. "Scientists, engineers, families. After the Prometheus incident... most evacuated. Only maintenance and security remain now."
Sensei glances at the man. "Prometheus operated here?"
"Section Theta, beneath the central dome," the man says, lowering his voice as if the walls themselves might listen. "It's sealed. Officially decommissioned. But... we never had clearance to remove the archives. The systems still power that sector. We just maintain perimeter integrity."
Sensei exchanges a brief look with Zander. No words, just understanding.
They descend deeper into the city.
The elevator drops silently, cutting through levels of translucent corridors that show glimpses of submerged plazas, old marketplaces, frozen in time. Zander's breath fogs slightly inside the suit — a sign of the temperature drop. His enhanced senses pick up the faint thrum of old machinery working beyond its lifespan. The deeper they go, the more it feels like the city isn't just decaying — it's enduring, refusing to let go of life.
When the doors open, they step into Section Theta.
Dust doesn't exist underwater, but neglect has its own texture. The air here feels thicker, the lights dimmer. Panels flicker erratically, their blue glow pulsing like an unsteady heartbeat. The hall ahead is lined with reinforced doors — laboratories, research wings, containment rooms. The symbols of Prometheus are still etched above the entryways: a stylized flame intertwined with a helix.
Zander's stomach knots as he sees it. That insignia has followed him all his life — the mark of ambition and hubris that created him. He volunteered, yes, but still... seeing it again feels like staring into the shadow of his own beginning.
Sensei stops before the first door, gloved hand brushing against the control panel. "They built miracles here," he says softly. "And then they built monsters."
The door opens with a hydraulic groan. Inside, the lab looks frozen mid-moment: workstations covered in translucent sheets, monitors cracked but still faintly powered. Tubes and pods line the walls, empty now, though some still hum faintly — dormant life-support systems refusing to die. A lone chair lies overturned beside a terminal, as if someone once stood in haste and never came back.
Zander steps closer. His eyes trace faded notes across a glass board — equations, diagrams of cellular lattices, annotations written in hurried strokes: Chromosomal variance stability rate 48%, Subject resonance—failure, Neural flow divergence.
He touches the surface, feeling the grooves where the marker had pressed deep. "It's like they left in a rush," he murmurs. "But not because they wanted to."
Sensei moves toward a corner where a workstation still glows faintly. The interface flickers to life under his touch. "Old system," he mutters. "Analog backups. They weren't meant to be accessed anymore."
Zander peers over his shoulder as the terminal stabilizes. Lines of text scroll — Prometheus Project Archive 19B. Restricted access. And then, after a beat, Playback available.
The screen brightens. A recording begins.
A man appears — lab coat, dark hair streaked gray, eyes sunken from sleeplessness. The background hum is the same tone that fills the current silence, a continuity of ghosts. He looks into the camera like he's addressing someone years in the future.
"To whoever finds this... Prometheus was never meant to be a weapon. We began with healing — genome repair, cellular restoration. We wanted to give mankind longer lives, not rewrite its soul. But success... breeds hunger. The investors wanted soldiers, not saviors."
He glances aside, as if hearing something beyond the frame.
"When we discovered resonance within the 24XY chromosomal structures, it was supposed to be a proof of evolution — not domination. The children were stable at first. Bright. Gifted. But the serum... the serum changed them faster than we predicted. It amplified what they already were — their strengths, their fears, their instincts. We didn't realize until too late that we weren't enhancing humanity. We were splitting it."
His voice cracks. The screen flickers, static crawling over his face.
"If this recording survives... know this: one of them—one—was not accounted for. The project's records show twenty-four, but only twenty-three... terminated. If you find the missing one, end the chain. Before the fire rises again."
The feed cuts abruptly, leaving the lab in silence.
Zander stares at the screen long after it fades to black. A quiet pressure builds in his chest — anger, curiosity, something unnamed. "He's talking about one of us," he says finally. "One that survived. But how—why hide it?"
Sensei doesn't answer at first. His gaze lingers on the blank monitor, the reflection of light flickering across his visor. "Prometheus never buried its secrets," he says. "It just sank them."
Zander walks deeper into the lab. He can sense the faint hum beneath the floor — a residual energy pattern, old yet consistent. His enhanced senses trace it like a current, following it toward a sealed compartment at the back. The hatch is half corroded, but he forces it open with a hydraulic hiss. Inside lies a storage rack filled with discarded prototypes — armor fragments, power regulators, filtration systems.
And at the center, hanging in a cradle of cables, a black exosuit.
Its plating is smoother than his Titan Lace, lines more compact. The surface ripples faintly when touched, as if reacting to heat. Small hexagonal nodes pulse at the joints, syncing automatically when he brushes the interface. A label on the frame reads Aegis-Type Adaptive Pressure Suit — Prototype 02.
Sensei examines it, running a scanner from his gauntlet. "Adaptive density alloy. Bio-synced response. Designed for deep-pressure environments... This shouldn't still be functional."
Zander watches the soft pulse of light across its spine. "Looks like it's waiting," he says quietly.
"Maybe it is," Sensei replies.
He steps back, allowing Zander to approach. The moment Zander connects his gauntlet to the suit, the system responds — lights blooming along the seams, power cycling through like breath returning to lungs. The helmet opens in segments, awaiting its user.
For a second, the whole lab glows faintly blue, the same color as the ocean outside.
Zander hesitates. There's something solemn in the act — not discovery, but inheritance. He can feel the weight of what this place used to be, of the intentions that decayed into obsession. Is this what they wanted us to become? he wonders. Or what they feared we would?
Sensei's voice breaks the silence. "Take it. You'll need it soon."
Zander nods. The Aegis Suit folds around him like liquid metal, integrating seamlessly with his own neural interface. The sensors adjust instantly, calibrating to his pulse, his breathing. He feels the pressure around his body shift — lighter, balanced. Like standing in still water while the storm rages above.
He flexes his fingers. The suit responds with eerie precision.
From somewhere deeper in the complex, a faint tremor rolls through the floor. Distant, but real. The personnel above had warned of instability — shifts in the trench's foundation, old reactors still running. But this feels different, almost deliberate. Zander turns toward the sound, instincts tightening.
"Probably a pressure adjustment," Sensei says, though his tone is cautious. "Still, we've seen enough."
They retrace their steps through the lab, the corridors dimming as systems fall idle again. The Prometheus emblem above the door flickers once more, light crawling through the cracks before fading entirely.
When they return to the main level, the authorized personnel meet them at the checkpoint. One of them speaks hesitantly. "Did you find what you needed?"
Sensei gives a small nod. "We found reminders."
The man doesn't ask more. Down here, everyone has ghosts, and none of them want to name them.
Zander lingers near the observation window while the others prepare for departure. Beyond the glass, the ocean is a vast silence. Shadows drift in the distance — maybe fish, maybe debris — and streaks of light cut through from distant sub-beacons. He closes his eyes, focusing on the rhythm of the currents. His hearing stretches far again, touching the hum of the city's heart.
It's alive, he thinks. Not the way a thing breathes, but the way a memory does.
Sensei joins him, hands clasped behind his back. For a moment they simply stand there, the light from Hydraxis painting their reflections against the glass.
"You've changed since we left the surface," Sensei says quietly. "You feel it too, don't you? The pressure. The way it forces you inward."
Zander nods. "It's like the deeper we go, the more it tries to show us who we are."
Sensei's gaze remains fixed on the abyss. "Or what we're becoming."
The silence stretches, filled only by the soft pulse of the city's remaining power systems.
Then Sensei turns, his tone shifting — calm, decisive. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we start training again. There's a facility beneath the lower trench — built for endurance conditioning. High pressure, full gravitational simulation. You'll need to learn how to fight when the world itself is crushing you."
Zander exhales, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You make it sound easy."
"It never is," Sensei replies. "But it's necessary."
The authorized personnel escort them back to their quarters. Lights dim as the corridor seals behind them. Somewhere above, the faint echo of the ocean's weight hums against the walls. Hydraxis sleeps, but not peacefully.
In his room, Zander sets the helmet of the Aegis Suit on the table. Its surface still glows faintly, reflecting the pale shimmer of the ocean beyond the window. He stares at it for a long time, then looks out — into the darkness that feels like both a warning and a promise.
"Ghosts," he whispers. "Everywhere."
Outside, in the deep where no light reaches, something shifts — a slow current, a pulse in the dark — but by the time he looks again, it's gone.
The city hums on, waiting.