The explosion didn’t sound like one boom. It sounded like a thousand.The world went white-blue, the generator core splitting open, fire and lightning bursting in every direction. The shockwave slammed into them like a truck.Davion hit the ground hard, ears ringing, lungs on fire. For a second he couldn’t even tell if he was alive. Just heat, just noise, just weight pressing down.“DAVION!”Reika’s voice cut through the haze. She grabbed his arm, yanking him up with strength that didn’t match her size. Her face was smeared with blood and grime, but her eyes blazed. “Get up, idiot! Unless you want to be ash!”He stumbled, vision blurring. Behind them, the chamber was collapsing—steel beams twisting, flames shooting upward like monsters clawing out of the earth.Wilson screamed somewhere ahead. “RUN! Run now or we’re toast!”They ran.The hallway outside shook with each blast. Alarms wailed, red lights flickering like dying fireflies. The floor tilted under their feet, and sparks raine

The cabin’s kitchen table didn’t look like a war room.But with wires snaking across it, laptops glowing, and half-empty energy drink cans scattered everywhere, it was exactly that.Lina’s fingers flew across the keyboard, eyes sharp, posture tense. Her laptop screen was filled with lines of code that looked like gibberish to anyone else—but to her, it was the only way forward.Reika sat opposite her, arms crossed, tapping her nails against the wood. She pretended to be calm, but her foot bounced under the table nonstop.“Talk to me,” Reika said. “How close are we?”Lina didn’t look up. “Close enough to get arrested if we screw this up. Not close enough to celebrate.”Reika rolled her eyes. “That’s comforting.”“Would you rather I lie?” Lina shot back.Silence. The only sound was the hum of the laptop fan.Reika leaned back, staring at the ceiling. She hated this—the waiting, the not-fighting. In a fight, you could punch, stab, dodge. In here? It was all invisible. You didn’t even kno

The air inside Genesis felt heavier the deeper they went. Not just the recycled, metallic chill of underground vents, but something else. Like the walls themselves were listening, carrying whispers of everything that had happened there—the screams, the orders, the broken promises.Davion walked at the front, shoulders squared, his jaw tight. Every step felt like it carried the weight of his father’s shadow. Behind him, Beverly’s footsteps were steady, her voice quiet as she relayed updates from the hacked comms.“They know we’re here,” she said, scanning the flickering screens on her wrist device. “Security’s shifting. We’ve got maybe five minutes before they corner us.”“Plenty of time,” Wilson muttered, checking the magazine on his rifle. “Unless you want me to slow down.”Reika’s name hung unspoken between them, like a wound none of them had bandaged yet. She had turned on them, tried to burn them down from the inside. And Davion—Davion couldn’t stop replaying it, couldn’t stop won

The hallway stretched on forever, pulsing red with the emergency lights. The deeper they went into Genesis, the louder everything felt—the alarms, the pounding of Davion’s heart, the footsteps of his friends echoing behind him.“Keep moving,” Davion muttered, half to himself, half to the team. His voice was sharp, like if he stopped giving orders for even a second, the weight of everything would crush him.Beverly jogged up beside him, her hoodie stained from the fight earlier. “You good?” she asked, brushing her hair out of her eyes.“I’ll be good when this place is ashes,” Davion snapped, then sighed. “Sorry. Just… I need to end this.”“Then we end it,” Beverly said, steady. “Together.”Behind them, Irene adjusted the rifle slung across her shoulder. She didn’t say much, but her eyes kept scanning every shadow. Wilson limped slightly but pushed forward anyway, his fists clenched. Even battered, no one was backing out.Finally, the hallway widened into a massive chamber. The ceiling

The rain didn’t let up. It poured harder, drumming on the cracked pavement like it was trying to wash the whole night away. The storm smelled like smoke and iron, sharp and raw.For a long while, none of them moved. They just lay there outside the collapsed blast doors, gasping, coughing, letting the rain streak the grime off their skin. The silence, broken only by thunder and their uneven breathing, felt louder than any alarm.Beverly was the first to push herself up, her hair plastered to her face. She looked at the others, then back at the ruined entrance. “We did it,” she said, though her voice cracked halfway. “Genesis is gone.”“Gone,” Wilson echoed, flopping onto his back like he couldn’t believe it. He spread his arms out in the mud. “Somebody tell me I’m not hallucinating. Please.”“You’re not,” Reika muttered, wringing water out of her sleeve. “Unfortunately, this mud is very real.”“Good,” Wilson groaned. “Because if I’m dreaming, I want somebody to wake me up with pizza, n