No time to breathe. No time to bleed.
I dragged the last body out of the open and slammed the storage bay's lockdown controls. The reinforced door hissed shut behind us just as another burst of gunfire rattled down the corridor, rattling the door on its hinges.
Finch scrambled to his feet, wide-eyed and pale, clutching a hard drive to his chest like a lifeline. "They're not done—there were more down the hall. I heard boots. Multiple sets. They're flanking us."
"Then we move. Now."
The room shuddered again—something deeper this time. Explosives, maybe breaching charges, going off above or in adjacent sectors. Dust rained from the ceiling tiles like falling ash, coating the floor.
I scanned the ceiling, watching the ripple of stress fractures spider across the concrete. Every inch of this place felt like it was seconds from collapse.
I should've been tired. Wounded. Drained.
But the Artifact had gone quiet again. Too quiet. That awful hum pulled back into my bones, like a coiled thing biding its time. Not gone. Just waiting.
Waiting for the moment I lost control.
"Is there another way out?" I asked.
Finch nodded toward the back of the lab. "Emergency access tunnels. Old service line. But they're sealed tight—manual wheel locks, corrosion, bulkhead fail-safes."
"We've handled worse."
I shoved a lab table aside, its legs screeching across the floor as I cleared the path. Sparks flared as another burst of gunfire slammed into the walls behind us. The lights overhead gave one final flicker, then cut out entirely—leaving us bathed in emergency red and the strobe of muzzle flashes.
"Go!" I barked, grabbing Finch by the collar and hauling him toward the floor hatch.
His fingers scrambled at the wheel lock. Metal shrieked as he forced it open, a wave of dry, metallic air rushing up from the dark below.
Below us: a shaft. Deep. Ladder running down into pure black.
I didn't hesitate. I swung onto the rungs and dropped fast, boot soles slamming one after another.
Finch followed with a grunt, nearly slipping as more shots rang out above. One round pinged off the hatch frame as he slammed it shut.
The clang echoed like a death knell.
We dropped two stories before the shaft opened into a narrow corridor—walls tight, barely enough room to run shoulder to shoulder. The darkness ahead swallowed sound. The floor vibrated beneath my boots.
"This way," Finch whispered hoarsely. "Cuts under the power grid. If we're lucky, it'll put us out near the old drainage tunnels."
"We're overdue for luck."
Behind us, faint clanks of boots began to echo down the shaft.
We didn't wait.
We ran.
The tunnel forked. Finch veered left without hesitation, guiding us into a crawlspace barely taller than my shoulders, half-swallowed by collapsed brick and sheared steel beams. The air inside tasted like rust and mold.
I ducked beneath a tangled mess of hanging wires, the conduit above us snapped and sparking faintly. The floor was uneven, pocked with shattered tile and debris. At one point, I had to stop and lift a collapsed I-beam just enough for Finch to shimmy under. He scrambled through, breathing ragged, hands scraped and shaking.
Then—shouts.
Behind us. Muffled but growing louder. Echoing through layers of steel and stone.
"They're following," Finch gasped, glancing back over his shoulder.
Flashlights pierced the darkness behind us—jagged cones of light sweeping, bouncing off walls.
Then came the gunfire.
The first shot sparked off a wall behind my head. Then another ricocheted down the corridor, ringing like a bell in a cathedral.
I didn't think. I grabbed Finch's arm and yanked him toward a side duct, low and half-obscured by broken paneling. We dove together, sliding under the jagged edge of a crushed ventilation panel.
We crawled fast—hands and knees slapping through sludge and shattered conduit. Sharp edges tore at my jacket. My shoulder clipped a pipe and sent a shudder down my arm. Behind us, boots thundered louder. Closer.
"They're getting closer," Finch panted. His voice was thinner now, laced with panic.
I didn't answer. There was nothing to say.
Just keep moving.
The duct tilted down and spat us into a drop. I hit first, landing in knee-deep stagnant water. Finch landed beside me with a splash and a wheeze.
The corridor stretched in both directions—one end flooded, the other dry and narrowing.
"Move!"
The tunnel gave way to another utility wing—old, water-damaged. Rust bled down the walls like scars, and the stale air carried the stench of ozone and something long-decayed. A generator hummed somewhere to our left, low and steady, like a pulse trying to keep pace with my own.
We stopped only once. Finch stumbled against the wall, doubled over, coughing hard enough to sound like something might come loose.
"You good?" I asked, my eyes never leaving the dark behind us.
He nodded between ragged breaths, sweat pouring down his face. "Yeah. Just—" He leaned on his knees. "I haven't run in a while. They don't exactly do fire drills for the forgotten."
No time for comfort.
A distant shout rang down the tunnel—louder now. Distinct. Not just boots this time.
A barked command.
Then came the whine. Metallic. Electric.
"Drones," Finch whispered, his voice almost swallowed by the dark. "That's a tracking buzz. They're launching drones."
I heard it too—the high-pitched tremor of rotors slicing the air, echoing off the walls.
A sharp metallic ping rang out, bouncing from pipe to pipe. A second later, a red flare splashed light down the corridor behind us, cutting through the dark like a sniper's eye.
"They've got line of sight!" I hissed, already pulling Finch upright. "Go!"
We broke into a sprint again, pounding through puddles, echoing down the tunnel like cannonfire. The lights flickered overhead—some dying out entirely, plunging us into patches of near-darkness.
Another flare snapped past us, impacting the wall to our left and detonating with a sharp burst of EMP wash. The shockwave slammed into us like a wall, knocking dust loose from the ceiling and sending a wave of static across my nerves.
The Artifact flared instinctively, a golden sheen washing over my skin just in time to catch the surge. Sparks danced at the edges of my vision as the interference rolled off me.
We turned a corner—shallow breath, aching lungs—and froze.
Two Cadmus soldiers. Mid-sweep. Their helmets tracked toward us with machine precision. One raised a scanner already pinging red. The other's fingers hovered above the trigger.
Too late.
I exploded forward before thought could catch up, the Artifact erupting through my limbs in a wave of molten heat.
The first soldier's weapon discharged—close enough to singe hair—but I hit him like a sledgehammer wrapped in thunder. He flew backward, slamming into the far wall hard enough to dent it.
The second turned, just a twitch of fear in his movements—but that hesitation cost him.
I reached him in two strides, seized his collar, and threw him like he weighed nothing. His back hit the concrete with a bone-rattling crack, his visor spiderwebbing on impact.
He twitched once, then went still.
Behind us—more boots. Closer.
Shouts. Orders.
A metallic shriek echoed up the tunnel—elevator cables being yanked or gear-driven doors pulled wide.
I spun to Finch. "Move!"
No argument. Just raw fear and adrenaline.
We ran again, our feet hammering the floor, the corridor shaking with the chaos closing in behind us. Each breath burned. Each step echoed like a countdown we were sprinting to beat.
We finally made it to an access lift hidden behind an old service gate. Finch plugged in a worn keycard and slapped the console.
The platform groaned to life.
As it rose, the tension didn't fade.
My breathing stayed sharp. My hands shook. The Artifact still pulsed, but not from power—from memory.
From what I'd seen in that lab.
"Finch," I said quietly. "Back there. When you said you'd die with the rest of it—what did you mean?"
He looked up slowly, leaning against the gate as the lift ascended.
"I was there the night it fell apart. The night Helix died. We had a breach—someone from the inside triggered it. Containment failed. We lost control. The ones they couldn't sedate… they turned on each other. Some just stopped being human altogether."
He swallowed.
"They told us to evacuate. Then they locked the exits. Sealed everything. I was in the lower wing. Maintenance. I watched the feed as they shut it down. Floor by floor."
I stayed silent.
"They left me there. With the systems. With the memories. I stayed because I didn't know who I was outside of it anymore. I didn't know if anything else was real."
The lift stopped. A soft ding. We were close to street level now.
I checked the exit.
Clear—for now.
"We're not done yet," I said.
Finch nodded. "We never were."
We moved fast. Took a side street back to Maya's place. No tail. No cameras. If anyone saw us, they knew better than to get involved.
Maya was already waiting by the time we reached the safehouse. She opened the door and said nothing—just scanned both our faces and stepped aside.
Finch collapsed onto the nearest couch, cradling the drive like it was gold.
"This better be worth it," Maya muttered.
"It is," Finch said. "But you need to see it for yourself."
He plugged the drive into the cracked monitor on the desk. It took a second. Fans whirred, flickers ran across the screen, then—
Static.
Then: a video feed. Old. Flickering black and white. The Helix facility—surveillance footage, timestamped.
Footsteps echoed in the hall on the screen.
A figure entered the frame.
I leaned in.
And froze.
The audio cut in, sharp and sudden.
A voice. Familiar.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.