The ground did not explode.It peeled apart.Stone slabs slid back with mechanical patience, revealing a circular shaft beneath the square. Cold air rushed upward, carrying the smell of rust, oil, and something older—dust that hadn’t seen light in decades.Matteo struggled to his feet, blade still humming in his hand.Across the square, the woman—Red Authority—did not move. She watched the opening with narrowed eyes.“You didn’t know,” she said.Matteo didn’t look at her. “I buried them.”“That’s what I meant,” she replied. “You forgot them.”The first Confessor rose slowly from the shaft.Not sleek. Not efficient.Its body was thick with reinforcement plates, joints exposed, movements heavy and deliberate. Symbols were carved into its armor—old ones, etched by hand rather than laser.It looked at Matteo.Not through optics.Through something closer to attention.A second followed. Then a third.They formed a half circle around the shaft, not advancing, not threatening.Waiting.The A

The room was smaller than Ethan expected.Concrete walls. No windows. One table bolted to the floor. Two chairs—one upright, one tipped on its side like someone had kicked it away in a hurry. A single bulb hummed overhead, flickering just enough to make shadows stretch and shrink.Ethan stood at the threshold, weapon raised, breath slow and controlled. The corridor behind him smelled of smoke and burnt wiring. Somewhere deeper in the facility, alarms wailed and then cut out, one by one, as if someone were deliberately silencing them.This room, though—this room was quiet.Too quiet.He stepped inside.The door shut behind him with a soft hydraulic hiss.Ethan spun, gun snapping up—Nothing.No lock sliding into place. No sudden threat. Just the door, sealed and solid, as if it had always been meant to close on its own.He exhaled through his nose and turned back to the room.That was when he saw the blood.Not pooled. Smeared.Dragged.It streaked from the center of the floor toward t

Dawn came slowly, reluctantly, as if the world itself wasn’t sure it deserved another day.Ethan stood at the edge of the tree line overlooking the collapsed facility, rainwater dripping from his jacket, mud caked to his boots. What had once been a hardened black-site complex was now a smoking sinkhole—twisted steel ribs jutting from the earth, concrete slabs stacked like broken teeth. Floodlights ringed the perimeter, harsh and white, casting long shadows over the debris field.Military cordon. Unmarked vehicles. No insignia.Cleanup had already begun.Ethan counted three helicopters overhead, rotating in slow, methodical patterns. He recognized the formation instantly—not rescue, not recovery. Containment.They were scrubbing the scene.He stepped back into the trees, heart steady despite the exhaustion gnawing at him. His body ached in the deep, hollow way that came after adrenaline burned off—bruises blooming, cuts stiffening—but pain was background noise now.He had survived.Luc

“Something’s wrong.”The thought surfaced before Ethan even opened his eyes.The motel stairwell smelled wrong.He stood at the top step, hand resting lightly on the rail, eyes fixed on the dark stain just beneath his fingers.Oil.He let out a slow breath.“Cute,” he murmured to no one.Ethan stepped back, testing the floor behind him instead. Solid. He turned, pushed through the fire exit, and slipped into the alley without ever touching the stairs.From across the street, a man lowered his phone.Ethan caught the reflection in a puddle.He didn’t run.He walked.Three blocks later, the man was gone—and so was Ethan.---Two hours later, Ethan sat in a narrow café that smelled like burnt coffee and disinfectant. He kept his back to the wall, recorder in his pocket, phone face down on the table.The waitress eyed him. “You gonna order, or just glare at the furniture?”“Coffee,” Ethan said. “Black.”She snorted. “Of course.”As she walked away, Ethan’s phone buzzed.Unknown number.He

The lights did not come back on.For a long moment, there was nothing—no hum of servers, no whisper of cooling systems, no artificial voice counting down the end of the world. Just the ocean pounding against steel and Ethan’s own breathing, too loud in the dark.Vale broke the silence first.“What did you do?” she asked quietly.Ethan didn’t answer.The console beneath his palm was warm, then cooling rapidly, like a body losing heat. The screens around them remained black, their reflections ghosting faintly in the glass.Lucas’s voice crackled once in Ethan’s ear.Then stopped.“Lucas?” Ethan said sharply.No response.Vale’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t shut it down, did you?”Ethan finally turned to her. His face was unreadable, carved into something hard and distant.“I ended it,” he said.“That’s not an answer.”“It’s the only one that matters.”The platform lurched—not violently, but decisively. Somewhere deep in its core, massive mechanisms disengaged with a sound like locks slidi