Pierce's forces advanced like a machine built for killing. Twenty operators moving in perfect coordination, heavy weapons complementing their assault rifles, tactical positioning that spoke of years working together. These weren't hired guns. This was a professional military unit operating outside any official chain of command.The CIA teams engaged them immediately. Matthews might be down, but her people were well-trained and motivated. Automatic weapons fire echoed through the concrete corridors, bullets ricocheting off walls in deadly angles, muzzle flashes strobing in the emergency lighting.Crane's Architect soldiers were fighting both invading forces simultaneously. Hundreds of them throughout the facility, holding defensive positions, coordinating through encrypted comms, turning the underground complex into a killing field. Three armies locked in combat. Total chaos.Dante's group was caught directly in the middle, trying to reach the maintenance tunnels while death screamed p

The tunnel was pitch black, swallowing them in darkness so complete it felt physical. Phone lights flickered on one by one, creating small islands of illumination that only emphasized how vast and empty the darkness around them was. Battery indicators showed red. They had minutes, maybe an hour if they were lucky.Morrison's tactical team was conducting triage in the cramped space. Three officers were dead—left behind in the facility collapse, crushed under tons of concrete. Five more were injured badly enough to need immediate medical attention they couldn't provide down here.Dante's group was in worse shape. Isabella lay unconscious across his lap, her breathing so shallow it was barely visible. The adrenaline shot had restarted her heart but done nothing for the internal injuries. Reaper was still bleeding heavily from multiple gunshot wounds, his tactical vest soaked through. Sophia was exhausted from performing CPR, her hands shaking with muscle fatigue.Adrian held his mother's

Leonard's body was cooling on the stone floor, blood pooling beneath his head. His final words about the "fifteenth fragment" echoed in the chamber, a dying man's secret that changed everything.Victoria stood over the corpse with complete indifference. "He never could finish a sentence. Weakness. Every version of him had that same flaw. Sentiment over survival."She moved without warning. One moment standing still, the next launching herself at Dante with superhuman speed. Enhanced Victoria was everything the Architects' technology could create. Superhuman strength. Impossible speed. Combat training downloaded directly into her neural pathways.Dante barely got his arms up in time to block the first strike. The impact felt like getting hit by a car. He was thrown backward, crashing into rusted laboratory equipment that crumpled under the force.She was on him before he could recover. Blows raining down with mechanical precision. Each one calculated to cause maximum damage. Dante foug

Sophia couldn't stop staring at her hands.Victoria's neck had snapped under her grip like dry timber. She'd felt the bones give way, felt the life leave that monstrous body, felt something ancient and terrible and precise moving through her muscles with borrowed expertise. The strength was already fading, draining away like water through cupped palms, but the memory of it remained. The impossible, terrifying memory.Dante stepped toward her carefully, the same way you approach someone standing too close to a ledge. "Sophia... how did you...""I don't know!" The words came out half-sob, half-shock. "I just... saw Emma in danger and something TOOK OVER. Like my body belonged to someone else."Pierce was practically vibrating with excitement. Blood-soaked, surrounded by corpses in a collapsing underground laboratory, and his eyes were lit with the pure joy of a man who'd just found treasure. "Magnificent! The dormant genes finally activated! Trauma trigger! Leonard you brilliant, beauti

General Stone's forces moved like water finding every crack. Special operations. Not regular military brass and bulk, but lean, purposeful operators who'd been doing the ugly work of unconventional warfare for decades. They breached Pierce's perimeter in coordinated four-point entry, suppressing the facility's guard towers before the mercenaries inside had time to organize a coherent defense.Pierce's people were well-equipped and well-paid. They fought back with professional discipline, turning the corridors into kill boxes, using the building's layout to channel Stone's teams into choke points. The firefight that erupted was the most organized chaos Dante had ever witnessed—and he'd seen plenty.His group was caught in the middle. Again.Dante kept Sophia's gurney moving, pushing it through back corridors with Adrian on the opposite side. The surgical team had completed emergency closure eleven minutes after the strike—faster than possible under normal circumstances, driven by the k