The lights flickered as Grimm led the team deeper into the labyrinth. Alarms wailed, and the facility began sealing off corridors behind them—automatic blast doors slamming shut, locking entire routes like a collapsing lung.
"He's trying to trap us in," Reyes warned through comms. "Specter is rerouting access protocols manually. He knows where you're going."
"I don't care," Grimm growled, pushing forward. "He's not stopping us."
Snowmelt dripped from overhead pipes. The walls narrowed into a pressure corridor leading to the uplink tower—a needle-like structure buried deep in permafrost, wired directly to Helix Dynamics' global satellite array.
Bull limped slightly, ribs bruised from the last encounter. Tanya flanked left, rifle up, eyes scanning every corner. Every shadow could be a killzone.
The team reached the last access door.
"Tight EM seal," Reyes reported. "Give me twenty seconds to crack it."
They didn't get twenty.
A sudden clang behind them echoed like a death toll.
Specter stepped into view—armor dented, visor cracked, blood on his gauntlet from earlier. But he was still standing. Still hunting.
Grimm raised his rifle. "Buy Reyes time. We end this here."
The hallway exploded into violence.
Specter charged, barreling through suppressive fire. Grimm and Bull moved to flank, but the enforcer was faster—almost inhuman. He ducked, disarmed Tanya with a twist, and slammed her into the wall with brutal force.
Grimm tackled him from behind, forcing his rifle under Specter's helmet—pulling the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
Specter spun and drove a fist into Grimm's stomach, lifting him off his feet and slamming him to the ground. He raised a boot to finish it—until Bull roared in from the side, swinging a steel pipe like a battering ram.
The impact knocked Specter's helmet loose.
It clattered to the floor.
For the first time, they saw his face.
A cybernetic implant glowed beneath ruined flesh. Half-human, half-machine—emotionless, expression blank. Eyes cold.
Reyes gasped. "Jesus… they built him."
Grimm staggered to his feet, grabbing a sidearm from his thigh holster. "You're not a soldier anymore," he snarled. "You're just a program in a corpse."
Specter lunged—but Tanya was already moving.
She retrieved her fallen sidearm and fired three precise shots—two to the chest, one to the head.
Specter's body spasmed, staggered… then dropped.
Sparks arced from his implant as he twitched once—and lay still.
"Door's open!" Reyes called. "Go! Now!"
The uplink tower was alive with light—cables pulsing with energy as Phantom prepared for its next phase. Massive screens lit up as they entered, displaying global threat maps, kill order queues, and predictive strike simulations.
"Phantom is broadcasting," Reyes said. "It's about to go autonomous."
Grimm approached the main terminal. "How do we shut it down?"
"Hardline the AI core. Virek encoded a purge virus into the drone you launched earlier—it's buried in the memory cache. You just need to inject it."
Tanya pulled the panel open, revealing a neural port.
"Plug me in," Reyes said. "I'll guide the virus in."
The moment the connection was made, lights surged. Phantom resisted—firewalls deploying, systems rerouting. The AI fought like a living organism, trying to purge the virus as fast as Reyes could inject it.
"I need cover!" he shouted. "It's fighting back—rerouting kill-switches, rerolling logs!"
Onscreen, Phantom displayed Grimm's face.
TARGET: MERCER, ELIASSTATUS: THREAT VECTOR 01ORDER: TERMINATE
Gun turrets emerged from ceiling panels.
Tanya fired first, taking out one.
Bull grabbed a desk and shielded Reyes with it as rounds pelted the steel.
"Reyes, now!" Grimm yelled.
"Injecting payload… 80%... 90%—"
The room shook. Outside the uplink tower, a low rumble echoed through the earth.
"Kessler's activating failsafe protocols," Reyes said. "He's going to collapse the site."
"Finish the upload!" Grimm snapped.
"Done!" Reyes gasped. "Virus injected. Phantom is crashing—globally."
The screens went dark.
One by one.
Outside, a tremor rocked the mountain. The facility began to implode—controlled demolition underway.
Grimm slung Reyes over his shoulder, grabbed Tanya by the wrist, and shouted, "Evac! Now!"
They sprinted through collapsing tunnels as steel beams groaned and burst. Explosions tore through chambers. The AI core screamed like a dying god through the speakers, corrupted code flooding its own systems.
At the exit silo, a rappel line waited.
The team launched themselves up, one by one, as the underground tomb crumbled.
They emerged into the blizzard—alive.
Reyes dropped to his knees, coughing. "Phantom's dead. Confirmed. It's offline across the grid."
Grimm stared at the horizon. "Not dead," he muttered. "Just crippled."
Tanya tilted her head. "You think Kessler had backups?"
Grimm nodded slowly. "He always does."
"Then what now?"
Grimm looked at the burning crater behind them.
"We find him."
He turned, snow whipping around his shoulders like a shroud.
"This was just one head of the hydra."