Lucas's final words lingered in the cold, humming corridor.
"You can't stop it. But maybe… you can survive it."
Then he was gone.
Not a step taken, not a sound made—just a blur of light and static flickering like a faulty signal before vanishing into the air. It left behind only silence—thick, pressing, and almost alive.
Ayla didn't move. Something in her gut twisted. She didn't know him—not really—but the feeling that she should was hard to shake. Not from memory, but from something deeper—like an echo her body remembered.
Karen was already kneeling beside the spot where Lucas had stood. Her voice trembled. "He left something."
On the ground was a thin metallic shard no larger than a coin. Strange engravings shimmered along its surface, etched in a language that felt both ancient and advanced. Karen picked it up carefully. The instant her skin met the surface, the air seemed to shift—like something stirred just beneath it.
Ayla's fingers found the chain at her neck without her noticing. She held the locket tightly, not sure why—just that it felt like something solid when everything else wasn't.
Silas stepped closer, his voice low. "You okay?"
She nodded, but her eyes never left the space Lucas had just vanished from. "He knew my father."
Silas frowned, processing her words, but before he could respond, Zayn muttered, "This is getting too weird."
As they headed back, the corridor seemed changed. The flickering lights grew harsher, shadows stretching too far for comfort. The air was denser. Heavier. As if it were watching.
The corridor narrowed as they pressed deeper into NexaCore's inner wing. The overhead lights stuttered, making the shadows twitch. A steady drip echoed from the ceiling, each drop loud in the silence.
Zayn moved ahead, but the floor gave a sudden jolt under his boot, nearly sending him off balance. He cursed under his breath.
Ayla reached out quickly and steadied him. "Easy there. This place isn't done testing us yet."
Zayn managed a crooked smile, despite the tension. "You weren't nearly this pretty in the old days."
Sable's voice cut in sharply from behind. "Focus. We don't know how long we have."
Karen, still catching her breath, paused beside Sable and eyed him. "Speaking of focus—when exactly were you going to tell us about your encrypted access clearance?"
Sable's posture stiffened. "I told you what you needed to know."
Karen stepped closer, her voice sharper now. "No, you told us what you wanted us to know. That's not the same."
Silas raised a hand, trying to de-escalate. "Not now."
Karen wasn't having it. "No—now, Silas. If he's hiding something, we need to know."
To everyone's surprise, Ayla spoke up. "She's right."
The hallway went silent. Even the dripping water seemed to stop for a second.
Zayn looked between them all, uncertain whose side to take. But Sable didn't defend himself—he just turned away, jaw clenched.
They moved on in strained silence.
The next junction forced them to split. Karen and Ayla took the upper passage, a narrower route toward the core's environmental grid. Silas, Zayn, and Sable moved toward the uplink chamber.
As their footsteps echoed through the dim hallway, Ayla turned to Karen. "You really worked with NexaCore?"
Karen hesitated. "For three years. Before I found out what they were really building."
"Why stay quiet until now?"
"I figured no one would believe me," she muttered. "To be honest, I probably wouldn't believe me either."
They reached a sealed vault door. Karen crouched, tools in hand. A few quick motions, a soft metallic snap, and the door eased open with a long groan, revealing dust and shadows untouched for what looked like decades.
Inside, the air sat heavy—cold, unmoving, and stale like something long forgotten. It had the kind of quiet that made you whisper, like walking into a sealed vault.The scent of cold metal and stagnant air greeted them. Rows of data drives lined the walls, blinking faintly. Screens flickered on as they entered.
Then the footage began.
Ayla stepped forward—and froze.
It was her father. Younger. Smiling. Standing beside Lucas.
Karen activated a second monitor. This time, the footage wasn't warm memories. It was clinical, brutal. Blueprints. Code streams. Machinery. Experiments. Human test subjects. Machines hooked into the nervous system. A digital file name pulsed at the bottom of one screen:
PROTOTYPE_ATHENA_V2: ACTIVE IN SECTOR 14 – LIVE STATE
Ayla stumbled backward. "It's already running…"
Then they saw her—Karen—slumped against a metal table in the far corner of the room, bound at the wrists with coarse rope. Her head hung forward, dark hair shielding her face.
Zayn's breath caught. "Karen?"
He ran to her, panic flaring in his chest. He checked her pulse. Weak—but still there.
Silas scanned the shadows, gun drawn. "Who did this? Why leave her here?"
Karen let out a soft, shaky groan. Her head turned slowly, eyes fluttering open with a glazed, dazed look—like she wasn't sure where she was or how she got there.
Zayn reached for her hand and held it—not firm, not loose, just there. No words, just presence. He didn't say anything—he just stayed close, solid and calm. "We've got you. You're safe now."
But Karen didn't speak. Her gaze shifted toward the console. With effort, she reached out, hands trembling, and initiated one final data sequence.
A holographic message flickered to life.
"Ayla, if you're seeing this… then I've failed to stop them."
Her father's voice.
Meanwhile, Silas's group reached the uplink chamber. The room buzzed with a low hum of active systems. Banks of monitors tracked their every move.
"We've been made," Sable muttered.
"They've been watching since we breached the core."
Suddenly, a countdown flashed across every screen:
00:02:13
Silas's heart pounded. He slammed the comms. "Fall back—NOW!"
Karen's eyes widened. "They knew… all along."
Ayla stood frozen, staring at the holographic message of her father. His face flickered, then distorted—glitched—before the image vanished entirely.
The countdown kept ticking.
01:57
01:56
01:55
The storm was coming.
And there might not be time to outrun it.