Chapter 20:
Relic Town
The sky was the color of a fresh bruise—deep purple bleeding into sickly yellow at the horizon, where the sun struggled to rise. It wasn't the kind of dawn that promised a new day. It was the kind that warned you the night wasn't done with you yet. The air smelled of burnt metal and wet rot, a scent that clung to the back of my throat like a bad memory, like the ghost of something long dead refusing to let go. Every breath tasted like rust and regret.
The ruins of Old Helix HQ loomed ahead, a skeletal monument to the corporation's hubris. Its shattered windows stared down at us like empty eye sockets, the jagged edges of broken glass catching the dim light like teeth. The building had once been a beacon of progress, a towering testament to human ingenuity. Now it was just another corpse in the graveyard of the old world.
We moved in silence, our boots crunching over broken glass and twisted rebar. The sound was too loud in the stillness, each step a betrayal of our presence. The city around us was a wasteland of steel and concrete, its streets littered with the remnants of a civilization that had collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance. The Antlers had picked it clean, leaving behind only echoes and ghosts. I wondered, absently, if the ghosts remembered us. If they cared.
Nia walked beside me, her breath shallow, her fingers twitching at her sides like she was counting invisible bullets. The crimson veins beneath her skin pulsed erratically, their glow dimmer than before, as if whatever energy sustained them was running out. She hadn't spoken since we left the bunker, but I could feel the tension radiating off her in waves. It wasn't just exhaustion. It was something deeper. Something worse.
She was fighting it. Fighting him with every step.
I wanted to say something. To reach out, to tell her we'd figure it out. But the words died in my throat. What good were promises now? We were past the point of comfort. Past the point of lies.
Sarin took point, his rifle slung across his back, his movements precise despite the wound in his side. He didn't limp. Didn't complain. Sarin never did. That was the thing about him. Pain was just another variable to account for, another obstacle to work around. Behind us, Reyes and the others fanned out, their weapons drawn, their eyes scanning the shadows for movement.
We all knew what was waiting for us in those ruins.
The first sign of the Antlers came not from sight, but from sound. A low, rhythmic clicking, like bone tapping against bone. It echoed through the empty streets, bouncing off the hollowed-out buildings, impossible to pinpoint. It could have been coming from anywhere. From everywhere.
Sarin raised a fist, and we froze.
The clicking grew louder. Closer.
Then, from an alley to our left, it emerged.
An Antler. But not like the ones we'd seen before.
This one moved differently. Slower. More deliberate. Its black tactical gear was torn, its bone-white mask cracked down the middle, revealing a sliver of pale, veined flesh beneath. And its antlers... they weren't smooth. They were jagged, broken, as if they'd been snapped off and regrown unevenly. Like the hive had tried to fix it and given up halfway.
It stopped in the middle of the street, its head tilting unnaturally to one side.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then it spoke.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice was wrong. Not mechanical, not human, but something in between. A voice dragged through gravel and static, like a corrupted recording of a man who'd forgotten how to speak.
Nia stiffened beside me.
"It's aware."
Sarin didn't lower his weapon. "What are you?"
The Antler didn't answer immediately. Its fingers twitched at its sides, the gloved tips curling and uncurling as if testing the air. When it spoke again, its words were halting, strained.
"We... remember."
Reyes shifted uneasily, his grip tightening on his pistol. "Remember what?"
The Antler's head tilted further, the crack in its mask widening slightly. "The before."
A chill crawled down my spine. The Antlers weren't supposed to remember. They weren't supposed to think. They were drones, extensions of the hive, their minds erased and rewritten by ZERA.
But this one... this one was different.
Nia took a step forward, her hands raised in a gesture that was part surrender, part supplication.
"You're resisting."
The Antler didn't move. Didn't attack. Just stood there, its breath fogging the inside of its broken mask.
"Not... resisting," it rasped. "Fighting."
Then, from the shadows behind it, more figures emerged.
Dozens of them.
All Antlers.
All broken.
Some wore cracked masks like the first. Others had torn theirs off completely, revealing faces that were half-human, half-something else—skin stretched too tight over sharp bones, veins glowing faintly beneath the surface. A few had antlers that were stunted, malformed, as if their bodies had rejected the mutation.
They didn't attack.
They just... watched.
"What the hell is this?" Sarin's grip on his rifle tightened.
The first Antler—the one who had spoken—extended a hand, palm up. A gesture of peace. Or maybe just exhaustion.
"We are the ones who woke up," it said.
Nia's breath hitched. "The hive lost you."
The Antler's fingers curled slightly. "Not lost. Freed."
***
They called themselves the Fractured.
Survivors of the hive's assimilation who had, through sheer will or dumb luck, clawed their way back to some semblance of consciousness. They weren't fully human—not anymore—but they weren't fully Antlers either. They existed in the space between, clinging to their fractured memories like lifelines.
Their leader, the first one who had spoken, was named Kael. Or at least, that's what he called himself now. He didn't remember his real name.
We followed them through the ruins, moving deeper into what had once been HelixMed's headquarters. The building was a shell of its former self, its grand lobby reduced to rubble, its walls scorched by fire and battle. The Fractured moved through it with eerie familiarity, their steps silent, their glowing eyes scanning the shadows for threats.
"The hive still hunts us," Kael explained, his voice a rough scrape. "We are... errors. Flaws in the system."
Nia's fingers brushed the veins in her arm. "And you're helping us why?"
Kael stopped walking. Turned to face her. His cracked mask obscured most of his expression, but his eyes... those were painfully human.
"Because you are the first one who might end it."
The Fractured led us to a hidden chamber deep beneath the ruins. A place the Antlers hadn't found. A relic of Old Helix, preserved by time and neglect.
It was a lab.
Or what was left of one.
The equipment was outdated, covered in dust, but intact. Monitors lined the walls, their screens dark. A central terminal sat in the middle of the room, its keyboard worn smooth from use.
"This is pre-collapse tech. Ancient." Vex let out a low whistle.
Kael nodded. "The hive does not know it exists."
Sarin's gaze swept the room.
"What's here?"
Kael moved to the terminal. Pressed a sequence of keys. The screens flickered to life, casting a sickly blue glow over the room.
"The original ZERA research."
The display filled with files, decades-old schematics, test logs, video recordings. One file, larger than the rest, was labeled:
PROJECT ASTERION - FINAL PHASE
Nia's breath caught. "That's the Shepherd's work."
Kael's fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"Not just his."
He opened the file.
The screen filled with a video feed. A man in a lab coat stood in front of a containment unit, his back to the camera. When he turned, my stomach dropped.
It was the Shepherd.
But younger. Human. His face unmarked by corruption, his eyes bright with something that looked like hope.
And beside him...
"Rina," I whispered.
She looked exhausted, her dark curls pulled into a messy bun, her lab coat stained with coffee and ink. But she was alive. Smiling.
The Shepherd, Elias, said something to her, and she laughed. The sound was tinny through the old speakers, but it was her.
Then the video cut to another scene. A lab in chaos. Alarms blaring. Elias shouting orders as something in the containment unit thrashed.
Rina's voice, frantic.
"It's adapting too fast!"
Elias, his hands shaking as he typed commands into a terminal. "We have to shut it down."
A third voice, cold and authoritative—someone off-screen. "You will do no such thing."
The screen went black.
Kael exhaled slowly. "They knew. From the beginning."
Nia's fists clenched.
"Knew what?"
Kael turned to face us, his cracked mask reflecting the blue light of the screens.
"That ZERA was never meant to cure." His voice was hollow. "It was meant to replace."
***
We didn't have much time.
The Fractured had scouts at the edges of the ruins, watching for Antler patrols. They'd bought us hours, not days.
Vex worked furiously at the terminal, decrypting files, pulling data. The rest of us stood guard, our weapons ready, our nerves frayed.
Nia sat against the wall, her knees drawn to her chest, her breathing uneven. The veins in her arms pulsed weakly.
I crouched beside her. "How much longer can you hold on?"
She didn't look at me. Just stared at the floor, her fingers digging into her sleeves.
"Not long."
The admission hung between us, heavy and final.
I reached for her hand. She let me take it. Her skin was too warm, her pulse too fast.
"We'll fix this," I said, the words tasting like a lie.
Nia finally met my gaze. Her eyes were too bright, the veins around them too pronounced.
"No," she said softly. "But we'll end it."
***
The alarms came sooner than we expected.
A sharp, electronic wail, echoing through the ruins. The Fractured tensed, their weapons snapping up.
Kael's voice was grim. "They're here."
Sarin didn't hesitate.
"Move. Now."
The Antlers poured into the ruins like a flood, their bone-white masks gleaming in the dim light. They moved in perfect unison, their steps synchronized, their weapons raised.
The Fractured fought like demons.
They weren't as fast as the Antlers. Not as strong. But they were angry. And they remembered what had been done to them.
Kael fought at the front, his cracked mask splintering further with every blow. He didn't speak. Didn't scream. Just killed, his movements precise, his eyes burning with fury.
We reached the exit, a collapsed tunnel leading back to the surface.
Vex was the last one through, her arms full of stolen data drives. She turned back just in time to see Kael go down under the weight of three Antlers.
He didn't get back up.
The tunnel collapsed behind us, sealing the ruins, and the Fractured, away forever.
We didn't stop running until we were clear of the ruins, until the only sound was our ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city's dying infrastructure.
Nia collapsed against a wall, her chest heaving. The veins in her arms flared once, then dimmed.
Vex clutched the data drives to her chest like a lifeline. "We got it. The original ZERA strain. The pure one."
Sarin wiped blood from his brow. "And?"
Vex's grin was sharp.
"And now we know how to kill it."
The sun rose over the ruins, painting the sky in shades of blood and gold.