The air inside the abandoned metro station hung thick with dust and secrets. Slivers of daylight slipped through the cracks in the boarded windows, cutting across rusted tracks and broken control panels. The quiet wasn't peaceful—it felt like eyes were on you, just out of sight.
Karen adjusted the receiver on her wrist. The message from Sable still glowed faintly: "You're late, Ghost. And they're watching."
Ayla paced the perimeter of the room, her boots echoing softly. "Who's watching? And why does he sound like he's more worried about us than the people chasing us?"
"Because Sable doesn't trust anyone," Karen replied, her voice taut. "And because in his world, trust gets you killed faster than a bullet."
Silas leaned against a cracked pillar, arms crossed. "Sounds like someone I know."
Karen gave him a quick glance but didn't respond.
Zayn crouched near a pile of scorched schematics, eyes scanning the floor. "This place looks like it was torched intentionally."
Karen nodded. "It was. Old resistance site during the Blackout Riots. Sable used to operate out of here. Then he burned it down himself—to disappear."
"Then why are we here?" Ayla asked.
"Because this is how he talks," Karen muttered. "Cryptic threats, hidden messages, layered paranoia. But if he responded, it means he's listening. And that means he'll reach out on his terms."
A faint vibration hummed through the metal floor.
Silas turned toward a sealed maintenance hatch. "That normal?"
Karen moved quickly, checking the beacon again. "No."
Something groaned beneath their feet—a deep, dragging sound. A grinding noise followed from the far corner. An old locker shifted aside, not to reveal weapons or gear, but a tight passageway, just large enough for
someone to squeeze through.
"Time to move," Karen said. "He opened a door. That's all we'll get."
Zayn drew his weapon instinctively. "Could be a trap."
"Could be," Karen agreed. "But it's the only option."
One by one, they slipped inside.
---
The corridor twisted downward, deep beneath the old station. Lights flickered along the curved ceiling—motion-triggered, faint, and failing. It felt like moving through the throat of some ancient machine, abandoned and sentient.
"Doesn't feel like a trap," Ayla whispered, brushing her fingers along the wall. "Feels like… a test."
Karen half-smiled. "It is."
They passed a set of biometric scanners, then a pressure pad disguised beneath a broken floor tile. Karen navigated each with surgical
precision, occasionally tapping codes into recessed panels or holding up her
wrist unit for silent verification.
"He wired this place like a digital fortress," Silas muttered.
"He is a fortress," Karen said. "But he's not invincible. Just... smarter than most."
After nearly ten minutes of winding descent, the tunnel widened. They emerged into a cavernous room—part tech sanctuary, part apocalypse bunker.
Cables snaked across the floor like vines. Massive servers hummed against one wall, blinking rhythmically. Screens lit up from the shadows, revealing fragmented images: satellite feeds, city surveillance, facial recognition windows flashing one after another. Their faces flickered on one of the monitors—live footage.
"Sable sees everything," Karen said softly.
A voice echoed from above, filtered and artificial.
"You brought them. Even after I told you not to."
From a grated platform above, a figure stepped forward. Hooded, faceless behind a carbon fiber mask with pulsing blue eyes. His voice crackled with modulated distortion.
Karen raised a hand. "They need access."
"I don't care what they need. You know what's at stake."
Silas stepped forward. "You want to fight Wellington, right? We've got the key to his entire network. But it's encrypted inside NexaCore."
"Then you're already dead," Sable said flatly.
Zayn growled. "You've been hiding in this digital cave while people are bleeding out there. You think that makes you better than him?"
The mask tilted toward Zayn. "It makes me alive."
Karen stepped between them. "He's not our enemy. He just doesn't know how to be anything else."
Sable moved down a stairway silently, steps making no noise on the grated metal. As he approached, Ayla noticed subtle tremors in his right hand—minute but telling.
"You're scared," she said suddenly.
Sable froze.
"You know what's in that data, don't you?" she pressed. "It's not just intel. It's something bigger."
His voice dropped in tone. "You have no idea what you're trying to unlock."
"Then help us," Ayla said.
A long pause followed. Finally, Sable turned toward one of the terminals. "If I help you, there's no turning back. Wellington has a mirror AI. Anything we do—he sees. Every door we open… he knows."
Karen exchanged a look with Silas. "We've already passed the point of no return."
Sable sighed—distorted even through the modulation. "Then follow me. But understand this: once we start, the city becomes a battlefield. And NexaCore… won't let you walk out."
---
Sable led them to a secondary chamber, smaller, colder. A command station sat in the center, surrounded by encrypted nodes and power cells rigged like the heart of a machine. Holograms flickered to life: NexaCore's infrastructure, schematics of the data vault, rotating locks of quantum code.
"This is the vault," Sable said. "One terabyte of raw, black-market intelligence fused with AI consciousness. Wellington's failsafe."
Silas stared at the display. "You're saying he gave the AI access to blackmail material?"
"To everything," Sable replied. "Political leverage. Financial control. Defense contracts. Kill switches."
Zayn's eyes darkened. "This isn't about money. It's about power."
"No," Sable corrected him. "It's about control. Pure, algorithmic domination."
Karen leaned in. "Can you get us in?"
"I can try," Sable said. "But once I start, there's no quiet way out. NexaCore will see the breach—and Wellington will come personally."
Ayla stepped forward. "Then let him come."
Everyone turned toward her. The resolve in her voice was clear, unshaken.
"He took my father. Burned my future. I'm not hiding anymore."
Silas moved beside her. "Neither am I."
Karen nodded. "Then we make our stand."
Sable's fingers danced across the console. "I'll prep the intrusion software. You've got 48 hours to plan. After that… there's no more waiting."
As screens flickered and warnings filled the air, one thought echoed in every mind:
There would be no going back.