THE VENGEANCE OF THE CAGED BIRD
GDI HIGH-SECURITY DETENTION FACILITY 'THE AEGIS'
SUB-LEVEL 9
11:45 GST
The heavy iron door sealed with a pneumatic hiss, locking Sir Malcolm Hayes out and leaving Queen Elara alone in the silence of her lead-lined tomb.
She sat perfectly still for a long time, her head bowed, the picture of a broken, grieving mother. The Magic-Dampening Cuffs on her wrists hummed their low, parasitic frequency, drinking her mana as fast as her heart could pump it.
But they could not drink a memory.
Elara slowly raised her head. The milky, defeated film over her eyes vanished, replaced by a sharp, violet clarity. A dry, rasping chuckle bubbled up from her throat.
"Iron-Men," she whispered to the empty room. "You build such strong cages for the body. But you leave the mind so... unbound."
Hayes was clever. He was ruthless. But he was arrogant. He believed that because he understood tactics, he understood magic. He believed her story about the "Prime Gene" and the Architects because it fit his worldview—a worldview where biology was just code and war was just resource management.
He didn't understand that a lie is most effective when wrapped in the skin of the truth.
The Architects were real. They were hunting. But Elara had no intention of helping humanity destroy them. She intended to watch them destroy each other.
She reached into the folds of her grey prison jumpsuit. It had been searched, scanned, and sterilized. But the guards had looked for technology. They had looked for weapons. They had not looked for a single, dried seed pod, no larger than a grain of rice, sewn into the seam of the fabric by a thread of her own hair before she had surrendered.
She brought the seed to her lips.
She bit her own tongue, hard. A drop of copper-rich blood welled up.
She spit the seed and the blood onto the metal table.
"Grow," she commanded. Not with mana, which the cuffs would sense, but with Life-Force. She pushed her own vitality into the seed.
The seed cracked.
It didn't grow into a plant. It unfurled legs.
Tiny, translucent wings buzzed to life. It was an Ether-Fly, a construct of organic stealth used by the Shadow-Leaf assassins. It was biologically inert, undetectable by electronic sensors or mana-sweeps.
"Go," Elara whispered. "Find the portal. Find the High-Garden. Tell them the Iron-Men are coming. Tell them... to wear the faces of the dead."
The fly buzzed. It flew up to the air ventilation duct in the ceiling. The mesh was fine, but the fly was smaller. It squeezed through the grate and vanished into the labyrinth of the Gibraltar facility's air system, beginning its long, impossible migration back to the Omega Gate.
Elara leaned back in her chair, the draining fatigue returning. She closed her eyes.
"Burn them, Hayes," she murmured. "Burn them all. And when you are ash... I will scatter you."
THE GLITTERING TRAP
OMEGA, SECTOR 7 (THE VALLEY OF ASH)
SITE OMICRON
08:15 LOCAL TIME
Greed is a powerful anesthetic. It numbs the instinct for self-preservation.
Inside the volcanic caldera, the twelve men of Shadow Company were drunk on it. The atmospheric analyzers on their suits were flashing red warnings about heat and toxicity, but nobody cared.
They were standing inside a cathedral of wealth.
The mining drones had carved a deep fissure into the crater wall, revealing a cavern that glittered with an unholy iridescence. The veins of Thaumic-Gold were thick here, rope-like strands of superconductor running through the obsidian like fat through a steak.
Captain Mercer stood near the entrance, supervising the loading of the fourth crate.
"Easy with that!" Mercer barked at two mercenaries hauling a slab of ore. "That rock alone buys you a penthouse in Dubai. Don't drop it."
"We're gonna need a third ship, Cap," one of the men laughed, his voice tinny over the comms. "There's too much. We're gonna have to leave the rations behind just to fit the gold."
"Leave the water if you have to," Mercer grinned behind his visor. "We fly out in forty hours. Keep digging."
In the back of the cavern, Tex was working alone.
He was standing facing the rock wall, his pickaxe hanging loosely in his hand. He hadn't moved in ten minutes.
The "rock" on his shoulder—the Architect parasite—was gone. It had dissolved, burrowing through the weave of his suit and fusing with his spinal column.
"Tex!" Mercer called out, checking his HUD. "Your bio-monitor is throwing errors. Pulse is erratic. You good?"
Tex didn't turn around.
A sound came over the squad channel. It wasn't words. It was a wet, bubbling gurgle, like a drain backing up.
"...We..."
Tex's voice was distorted, overlayed with a high-pitched, digital screech.
"...We... are... not... making... it... out..."
Mercer frowned. He unslung his SIG Spear. "Tex? Cut the chatter. Get back to the line."
Tex dropped the pickaxe. It clattered loudly on the stone floor.
He turned around.
The squad went silent.
Tex's helmet was fogged with a dark, red mist on the inside. His posture was wrong. His arms were hanging too low, the joints dislocated.
"Medical!" Mercer yelled. "Check him! He's having a seizure!"
Two mercenaries, Davos and King, moved forward, lowering their weapons.
"Easy, Tex," Davos said, reaching out. "Let's get that helmet off, buddy. You're overheating."
Davos touched Tex's shoulder.
Tex's body... opened.
PART 3: THE TRANSFORMATIONIt didn't happen fast. It happened with agonizing, biological deliberation.
A sound like wet canvas tearing filled the cavern.
Tex's chest plate—heavy Level-IV ceramic armor—split down the middle. Not from external force, but from internal pressure.
Ribs, sharpened into jagged spears, burst outward, shredding the Kevlar undersuit.
"Oh god!" Davos screamed, stumbling back, covered in a spray of pressurized blood. "He's... he's exploding!"
"...Optimize..." the thing that used to be Tex gurgled.
Tex's head snapped back, the neck bones pulverizing. The helmet flew off, revealing a face that was stretching, the jaw unhinging and splitting down the chin.
From the ruin of his torso, legs emerged.
They were not human legs. They were long, multi-jointed limbs made of white bone and gleaming chrome, tipped with diamond-hard spikes.
One. Two. Four. Eight.
Tex's human legs withered, sucked dry of calcium to fuel the new growth. His arms elongated, the fingers fusing into scythe-like blades.
He fell forward onto his new limbs.
He was no longer a man. He was an Arachnid-Construct. A horrifying fusion of human biomass and Architect nanotechnology. A spider made of meat and metal, wearing the tattered remains of a mercenary's tactical gear like a grotesque skin-suit.
The face—split in two—still hung on the front of the cephalothorax, the eyes rolling wildly, still conscious.
"...Run..." the human mouth whispered.
Then the Architect programming took full control. The eyes went black. An orange sensor slit opened on the creature's forehead.
It shrieked. A digital, ear-splitting scream that shattered the glass of the mining drones.
PART 4: THE GOLDEN ABATTOIR"CONTACT!" Mercer roared, the greed vanishing instantly, replaced by primal terror. "OPEN FIRE! KILL IT!"
The cavern erupted in gunfire.
Ten rifles opened up at point-blank range.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
The 6.8mm rounds from the SIG Spears slammed into the creature.
They sparked off the chrome legs. They punched into the wet, red meat of the torso.
It didn't care.
The creature moved with a terrifying, skittering speed. It leaped—clearing twenty feet in a second—and landed on Davos.
Davos screamed as the scythe-arms pinned him to the floor. The spider-thing lowered its new mouth—a circular maw of spinning grinders—onto his chest.
There was a sickening crunch as armor and ribcage were consumed.
"HELP ME! HELP...!"
The scream was cut short as the creature ripped his throat out.
"AP Rounds!" Mercer screamed. "Aim for the joints!"
King stood his ground, firing a stream of bullets into the creature's flank. Black ichor sprayed, but the spider spun around, lashing out with a rear leg.
The bone-spike punched through King's thigh, pinning him to the rock wall.
King dropped his rifle, clawing at his leg.
The creature scrambled up the wall, defying gravity, and descended on him.
"Grenades!" Mercer yelled. "Use the EMPs! Fry it!"
A mercenary named Vargas pulled the pin on one of the expensive Vanguard EMP grenades. He threw it perfectly.
VWOOM.
The pulse detonated. The mining drones instantly died, collapsing into sparks. The lights on the mercenaries' suits flickered and died.
The Spider... stalled.
It froze mid-strike, its orange sensor eye flickering. It twitched, shivering as the electromagnetic shock disrupted its nanites.
"It's working!" Vargas yelled. "Pour it on!"
The team unloaded into the frozen beast. Chunks of flesh and metal flew.
But the pause lasted only three seconds.
The "Third Factor" technology was adaptive. The orange light stabilized. The creature rebooted, rerouting its neural pathways through the biological host matter.
It shrieked again, louder this time.
It leaped over the firing line, landing on the ceiling of the cavern.
It scuttled upside down, drooling acidic saliva onto the men below.
It dropped onto Vargas.
The impact crushed him. The creature didn't bite him; it stabbed him. All eight legs piston-fired downward, turning Vargas into a sieve.
"Fall back!" Mercer screamed, realizing the cavern was a kill box. "Get to the ships! Move!"
The remaining seven men broke formation. They ran for the fissure entrance.
But the Spider was faster. It was herding them.
It shot a web—not silk, but a monofilament wire—from its abdomen. The wire wrapped around the neck of a running soldier.
The creature pulled.
The soldier's head detached cleanly, rolling across the gold-strewn floor.
"Sidearms!" Mercer yelled, his rifle clicking empty. He drew his pistol, firing wildly at the blur of motion. "Die! Just fucking die!"
The bullets pinged off the bone-armor.
They reached the entrance.
The Spider was there before them. It hung from the archway, blocking the light.
It looked at Mercer. The tattered face of Tex, hanging loosely on the creature's chest, seemed to smile.
"We're not making it out," Mercer whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. The gold. The retirement. The island. It was all just dust.
The creature lunged.
It was a blur of violence.
One mercenary was bisected. Another was thrown against the wall with enough force to shatter his spine.
Mercer backed up, firing his pistol until the slide locked back.
He was the last one.
He stood in the center of the glittering cavern, surrounded by the butchered remains of Shadow Company. The gold veins in the walls reflected the carnage, turning the room into a kaleidoscope of blood and greed.
The Spider stalked toward him slowly. It savored the chemical taste of his fear.
Mercer dropped his gun. He pulled his combat knife, a useless gesture of defiance.
"Come on then," Mercer spat. "Come and get your gold."
The creature didn't bite. It raised a leg, the diamond tip gleaming.
It drove the spike through Mercer's chest, pinning him to the floor.
As Mercer gasped his last breath, choking on his own blood, the creature leaned down. The orange eye scanned him.
Subject viable for biomass repurposing, the Architect program noted.
The feasting began.
PART 3: THE PUPPET MASTER'S LAUGHGDI HIGH-COMMAND, GIBRALTAR
THE AEGIS SCIF
15:30 GST
The screen on the wall was dark. The telemetry from Shadow Company's suits had flatlined, one by one.
General McCaffrey looked ill. "That was... horrific. Twelve men. Gone in five minutes."
Sir Malcolm Hayes stood by the console, watching the final biometric data fade to red.
He didn't look ill. He looked satisfied.
"Horrific, yes," Hayes agreed, his voice devoid of sympathy. "But educational. We now know the gestation period of the parasite. We know their resistance to standard ballistics. And we know that commercial-grade EMPs are insufficient."
"You let them walk into a blender," McCaffrey said accusingly.
"They walked into a crime scene, General. I just didn't stop them," Hayes corrected. He tapped a key, bringing up a communications link. "Director Sallow. You have the update?"
Director Elena Sallow's face appeared on the side monitor. She looked flushed with adrenaline.
"We have it, Sir Malcolm. The story is live. 'Rogue Private Military Contractors Launch Unauthorized Raid, Trigger Biological Incident.' We are leaking the flight logs. We are painting them as reckless looters who endangered the entire planetary blockade."
"Excellent," Hayes said. "And Vanguard Resources?"
"Their stock is in freefall," Sallow reported with a shark-like grin. "The footage of the... creature... leaked 'accidentally' to the dark web. The public is terrified. They are demanding that the private sector be banned from Omega operations. The 'Earth Defense Tax' approval rating just jumped fifteen points. People want the military in charge, not corporations."
Hayes chuckled. It was a dry, cold sound.
"Of course they do. Fear is a wonderful clarifier."
He looked back at the empty, blood-soaked cavern on the screen.
"Shadow Company didn't just die, General. They bought us legitimacy. They bought us a monopoly."
Hayes turned away from the screen, checking his watch.
"Close the file on Sector 7. Mark it as a bio-hazard restricted zone. And send a thank-you note to Director Sterling's next of kin. I believe she just became a liability to her board of directors."
Outside the bunker, the world was burning with riots and fear. But inside, Sir Malcolm Hayes smiled. He had sacrificed a few pawns, but he had cleared the board. The private sector was dead. The war belonged to GDI.
And the Spider in the gold mine waited in the dark, bellies full, guarding a treasure that no human would dare touch again.