Chapter Three: Fire in the Ice
The reinforced hatch sealed behind them with a hiss, locking out the distant scream of warning klaxons. Kael and Thalyn plunged into the dim sub-tunnels beneath the outpost—old maintenance corridors layered in frost, barely wide enough for two. Kael's breath fogged the air, but Thalyn moved without struggle, her movements fluid and certain, as if she had memorized the path before ever setting foot here.
"Where are we going?" he demanded, struggling to keep pace.
"To the geothermal vault. It's where the fusion core is housed. And the only way to wipe this place clean."
Kael froze. "You're going to blow it up?"
Thalyn turned, her face half-illuminated by the flickering emergency lights. "Yes. All of it. The servers, the genome work, your neural maps—everything. They can't have it."
"But my work—our work—"
"Would become a weapon before it became salvation," she said quietly. "You know that."
He looked away. He did know.
They moved again, deeper into the heart of the outpost. The corridor angled downward, the metal beneath their boots vibrating with the distant hum of the fusion core. As they descended, the sound of the drones grew faint—but not forgotten.
"Who are they?" Kael asked. "The ones coming."
Thalyn's jaw tightened. "The surface governments. Or what's left of them. Intelligence divisions that monitor fringe research. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed the atmospheric data anomalies your experiments triggered."
"You knew this would happen."
"I suspected. I just hoped we'd have more time."
Time. It was always the one thing they'd never had enough of.
The corridor opened into the central power chamber—a circular space ringed in machinery, its core dominated by the cylindrical fusion drive pulsing with slow, ominous light. Backup systems blinked red across the panels. The hum of stored energy vibrated in Kael's bones.
Thalyn moved to the override terminal, pulling a device from the hidden seam of her bodysuit. She plugged it into the system with a practiced flick.
Kael stepped beside her, chest tight. "You're really going to do this."
"I have to," she whispered. "If they get this data, they'll replicate the genome, militarize it. They won't understand the balance we've created—they'll just see a new way to win."
His hands curled into fists. "You're talking about erasing three years of work. My life's purpose."
Thalyn turned to him. "No, Kael. I'm saving it. You're not losing your purpose. You're becoming it."
Kael stared at her, heart hammering. "What does that mean?"
She touched the side of his neck—where the first signs of his genetic shifts had begun to surface weeks ago. Just beneath the skin, faint, bioluminescent patterns responded to her touch.
"You've already begun to change," she said. "And soon, we'll leave this place behind."
We. The word steadied him more than he expected.
He nodded.
"Then do it," he said. "Burn it all."
---
The core room dimmed as the override took control. Warning systems shut down. Kael watched the fail-safes fall away like falling dominoes. A detonation timer appeared on the main display: 00:10:00.
"We need to go," Thalyn said.
She led him through a secondary exit, deeper underground, to a sealed bay Kael had never seen before—an emergency hangar chamber built into the ice shelf. Inside, docked and humming with quiet power, was a military-grade deep-sea submarine—sleek, black, and unmistakably alien in design. Unlike surface-built models, this one had no hard edges—its hull was curved, seamless, almost organic, but still mechanical. Abylaris tech adapted for human interface.
Kael stared at it. "That's not from any navy I know."
Thalyn gave him a look. "Of course not. This is Nethari-engineered. Designed to travel the Hadal zones undetected."
"You came prepared."
"I told you—I wasn't leaving without you."
They boarded quickly. The interior was dim, lit by faint blue light from recessed lines in the walls. The controls, a hybrid of tactile consoles and bioluminescent interfaces, pulsed gently under Thalyn's touch.
Kael slid into a seat beside her, strapping in as the submarine disengaged from the dock. The reinforced hatch closed behind them.
Through the viewport, the icy vault fell away—and the world turned black.
---
They descended into the trench, the submarine navigating with quiet grace through twisting columns of basalt and drifting clouds of particulate sediment. The light from the surface vanished almost immediately. Pressure mounted. But the hull held firm—engineered for depths no human had ever reached.
Kael sat in silence, watching the dark world pass them by. Strange creatures blinked in and out of view—jellyfish with spiraling lights, eels that shimmered and vanished, enormous shadows that moved just beyond perception.
"You've been planning this for longer than you let on," he said eventually.
"Yes," Thalyn replied.
"How long?"
She hesitated. "Since before I arrived. Years, actually."
He turned to her slowly. "You mean you've been monitoring my research from the start."
"I was sent to find a mind capable of understanding the Nethari genome. Of bridging the divide."
"And you chose me."
"No," she said. "I didn't choose you, Kael. I recognized you."
He frowned. "What does that mean?"
She leaned in, her expression unreadable. "It means you were already changing long before I arrived. You just didn't know it."
Kael's heart skipped. "What are you saying? That I was part of this from the beginning?"
Thalyn nodded. "You are the bridge. The first human capable of becoming Nethari in both mind and form. That's why I destroyed the lab. The world doesn't need your research. It needs you."
Kael looked down at his hands. The faint glowing patterns on his skin had grown brighter in the pressurized dark, as if responding to something beyond the reach of logic.
"You used me," he whispered.
"I saved you," Thalyn said. "And soon… you'll understand everything."
---
The submarine slowed as it reached the ocean floor. The trench here was vast, cathedral-like, illuminated by ancient structures rising from the rock—towers, bridges, bio-tech domes lit with living light. Abylaris.
Kael pressed against the glass in stunned silence.
The city pulsed with its own rhythm—its own language. Creatures moved along the structures in graceful arcs. Submarines and organic vessels cruised between archways carved from coral-steel. Great leviathans passed through guarded gates.
Thalyn guided the sub toward a wide docking spire surrounded by armored sentries. The landing arms extended.
Kael exhaled. "I don't belong here."
Thalyn looked at him, softly. "Not yet. But you will."
As the hatch opened, and pressure equalized, a deep voice echoed from the platform outside.
"He will. Or he will not leave again."
A towering figure stepped into view, encased in ceremonial armor. His eyes glowed gold.
Thalyn stood. "Kael… this is Virexen. My father. High Regent of Abylaris."
Kael stepped out of the sub and into the city he was never meant to see.
And the invasion of the surface had already begun.