The overhead lights flickered weakly, casting long shadows over the cold concrete floor. The Helix team was still seated inside their black surveillance van—quiet, tense, and simmering with frustration. Tyler tapped the dashboard rhythmically with the bottom of an empty water bottle, while Jesse scrolled through data on his tablet without really reading it.
The sliding door opened with a sharp click.
Caleb Vaughn climbed in. His steps were quick, breath slightly heavy, but his face was calm—stone-cold calm, the kind before a storm.
"Gear up. We're going anyway." he said flatly, tossing a small encrypted chip into Jesse's lap.
Ayla turned sharply.
"What do you mean? Nova took the op."
Caleb looked at each of them, one by one.
"Officially, yes. But off the record? We're still in play. Sandwell and Keller couldn't approve us... so they gave us an opening."
Jesse activated the chip. A holographic map projected above the dashboard: a dark-route pathway from Slovenia into France via the Swiss border, used by black-market smugglers with past ties to CIA shadow programs.
"Entry point is Annecy. We meet an old contact there—a smuggler named Luc Renard. He's reliable. As long as we bring cash and don't ask about his past."
Tyler perked up, grinning.
"Luc Renard? The guy with three passports and two ex-wives who were both spies? Legend."
Mina looked at Caleb, voice low but sharp.
"So we go in with no backup. No eyes on us. Nothing official."
Caleb nodded.
"If we're caught, CIA disavows everything."
Ayla stared at the map, muttering.
"So we're not just going against Nova… we're going against the very system that built us."
Jesse shut off the projection.
"If Palimpsest is active and Edevane's alive, better we find out before they wipe us too."
Caleb opened a compartment beneath the van's bench. Inside: burner IDs, untraceable euros, international driver's permits, and unmarked sidearms. He handed them out without a word.
"We fly cargo-route. Our vehicle's waiting at the drop. Keep your gear light, your instincts sharp. We're not government anymore. We're ghosts."
Tyler holstered a pistol into his jacket with a crooked smile.
"Finally—a mission that fits my style."
Caleb shut the van door, voice low but firm.
"We leave in one hour. If any of you have doubts... step out now."
No one moved.
They all knew.
From this moment on, Unit Helix wasn't a sanctioned team.
They were hunters in the dark.
Chasing a truth someone powerful wanted to erase.
And their target?
Dr. Vahl Edevane.
The man who could rewrite memories—and possibly, their very identities.
Rhône-Alpes, France – 4:27 AM
A cold mist hung low over the mountain slopes. The early morning wind whispered through the pine trees, sharp and biting like it carried secrets from the past.
A convoy of matte-black SUVs moved silently along a narrow road that snaked through the forest, heading toward an old research facility tucked deep in the valley.
Inside the lead vehicle sat Commander Alix Vireau, head of Task Unit NOVA. Her face was unreadable—stone-carved and steeled by years of covert operations. Beside her was Lieutenant Strahm, quiet and lethal, fingers resting near the concealed weapon built into his sleeve.
In the vehicles behind them, four more NOVA operatives rode in complete silence. Tactical gear—customized, silent, faceless. No chatter. No nerves. Just professionals with a mission.
Vireau pulled up a digital tablet on her lap, displaying drone imagery of their destination. The target: a once-decommissioned CIA facility—now quietly rebuilt, expanded in ways that didn't match official records.
"Edevane rebuilt this sector… in secret," she said flatly. "This isn't just a lab. It's a resurrection site."
Strahm's eyes flicked over the screen.
"Then Helix was right. The tech's alive again."
Vireau's voice was ice.
"Which is why we're here. We get the data before they do. Truth only weakens command."
The convoy came to a halt on a remote ridge overlooking the valley. The facility was barely visible through the mist—a ghost in the forest.
Vireau keyed into the encrypted comms channel.
"NOVA, activate mapping and infiltration protocol. No gunfire unless ordered. We go in clean. If we have to, we erase this place… and everything in it."
One by one, NOVA agents disembarked.
Silenced weapons. Brainwave frequency jammers. Memory disruption projectors.
They weren't just here to kill.
They were here to erase history.
And if Unit Helix showed up?
They had orders for that, too.
"If Helix enters the zone, they are not allies. They are a leak risk. Silent elimination. Except for one."
Strahm turned.
"Which one?"
Vireau's eyes didn't blink.
"Tyler Reeve. He doesn't die. Not yet."
Elsewhere, at the Swiss border, a dusty old van bounced quietly over a dirt road—Unit Helix inside, slipping into France through the old ways. No flags. No satellites. Just instinct and urgency. And in less than four hours… two teams would walk the same ground, chasing the same ghost—with missions that could never coexist.
Rhône-Alpes, France – 8:19 AM
The golden sunrise filtered through the misty mountains as an old moss-green van pulled off a narrow dirt road, hidden among tall pines and brush. It looked like an ordinary logistics vehicle—but the people inside were anything but ordinary.
Unit Helix stepped out one by one.
Caleb exited first, wearing a weathered leather jacket and a gray scarf wrapped around his face against the morning chill. Jesse followed with a tactical pack of portable comms gear. Ayla clipped a custom-built neuro-sensor to her belt. Mina held a slim folder of Edevane's psychological blueprints.
And Tyler… Tyler came out last, yawning like he just woke up from a nap, sunglasses on, his signature grin already in place.
He looked around and smirked.
"So… we really smuggled ourselves into France? I gotta say, I love the drama."
Caleb ignored him.
"We're meeting someone here. Ex-CIA asset. Used to be deep cover. Now he's off the grid—but he knows an undocumented way into Edevane's facility."
Just then, a soft rustle of footsteps came from the underbrush.
Out from behind the trees emerged a man in his fifties, wearing a long wool coat, sharp blue eyes, and a face lined with experience and quiet scars.
Luc Renard.
He gave a small, amused smile when he saw Caleb.
"Vaughn. Still alive. I thought they buried you five years ago."
Caleb allowed the faintest smirk.
"Plenty of people wish they had."
Luc looked past him to the team, sizing them up with a veteran's eye.
"Helix, huh? I've heard rumors. People in high places want you to fail. That usually means you're doing something right."
Tyler stepped forward.
"And you? What makes you so special?"
Luc met his gaze evenly.
"Me? I know where the door is. The one no one ever documented. And it only opens two hours each day—before electromagnetic surges seal it again."
Mina stepped closer, cautious.
"Are you sure the facility is still active?"
Luc nodded slowly.
"Three nights ago, I saw a blue pulse from beneath the mountain. Like a reactor breathing. And... I saw something else."
He turned to Caleb, voice lower now.
"Someone came out. But he wasn't the same as when he went in."
Ayla tensed.
"What do you mean?"
Luc's tone dropped to a whisper.
"His face was the same. But his eyes... were empty. Not human. Like his body had been… overwritten."
The group fell silent.
Tyler looked down, jaw clenched. Jesse activated a small thermal scanner and aimed it toward the valley.
Caleb finally broke the silence.
"Show us the path."
Luc gave a single nod, then turned and pushed through the brush into the woods.
"Follow me. But move fast. Because when the sun hits that peak up there—the path vanishes. And if you're still inside by then… you may never come back out."
As Helix followed Luc into the trees, none of them noticed what waited ahead—
Task Unit NOVA, already in the valley, planting memory disruptor charges along the perimeter.
Time was running out.
Rhône-Alpes, France – 09:46 AM
Undisclosed Coordinates – Eastern Mountain Ridge
The Helix team followed Luc Renard in silence as the fog thinned, revealing a steep slope dotted with jagged rocks and pine trees. Ahead stood what appeared to be nothing but a stone cliff—no door, no sign of entry.
Luc walked directly toward a narrow crevice between two boulders. He stopped, then pressed a specific spot along the rock with two fingers.
Click.
A faint mechanical sound. The stone to the right vibrated slightly and slid open, revealing a narrow passageway just wide enough for one person to slip through. Cold air wafted from the darkness inside—stale and metallic.
Luc whispered,
"Welcome to a door that shouldn't exist."
Tyler muttered behind him,
"Yeah, this is definitely how horror movies start…"
Caleb nodded toward Jesse.
"Infrared scanner on. Mina, take center. Ayla, you're rear guard."
They entered in single file, their silent flashlights cutting through the dark.
The passage sloped downward. The walls were old concrete, cracked in places. Long-dead wiring trailed the ceiling. On the side, a rusted magnetic rail system hinted at what used to be an internal transport network.
After a long descent, they reached the first chamber.
Old Control Room.
The space opened into a buried lab, filled with shattered screens, dead panels, and loose wires. At the center was a strange steel chair—something between a medical recliner and an interrogation seat. A bulky neural helmet hung above it, frozen drops of coolant still clinging to its cables. Other helmets hung from wall hooks like discarded masks.
Ayla approached cautiously.
"Low EM output... but this system still has residual activity. If we juice it up, it could run again."
Mina stared at the chair.
"That's a neuro-imprinting rig. Early models. They used it to implant reflexes and emotional responses. Problem was—after a few sessions, subjects lost track of who they actually were."
Tyler eyed one of the helmets.
"So this is the memory reset machine. Neat."
Jesse, working near a damaged console, suddenly said—
"Hold up. I've got something."
He plugged his portable reader into an old wall port. A few seconds later, a small screen flickered to life with recovered data:
> LOG 1123-A - SUBJECT REEVE-08
"Subject shows high resistance to long-term memory deletion. Must repeat with emotional module. Target: fabricated affection bond. Note: reaction to Ashford—positive."
Mina froze.
"Ashford. That's me."
Caleb clenched his jaw.
"So Tyler's feelings weren't just real. They were engineered. His memory, his emotional response—it was all part of the experiment."
Tyler slowly sat in the steel chair. He stared at the helmet above him.
"I've been in this seat before… haven't I?"
No one answered.
Then—
CLANG.
A heavy metal door opened from deeper down the corridor. Footsteps. Heavy. Precise.
Caleb gave a sharp hand signal.
"Scatter. Stay hidden. Whoever's coming… it's not friendly."
They moved into the shadows.
The door creaked open fully—
Two figures entered.
Black uniforms. No names. Helmets with dark visors. A strange symbol—a black eye—etched on their chest armor.
Not NOVA. Not CIA.
Tyler whispered,
"Who the hell are those guys?"
Jesse whispered back, voice barely audible—
"That symbol… that's the Black Chamber."