2025-07-19 02:37:49
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One hundred and forty - four
The farther Eli moved from the atrium, the quieter the world became.It wasn't peaceful—not like he was expecting it to be. It was muffled, like the building itself was holding its breath.Emergency lights washed the corridors in dull amber, stretching shadows long and warped along the walls. The distant echoes of shouting and boots faded with every step, replaced by the low hum of systems still running as if nothing catastrophic had just happened.Eli didn’t reduce his pace.His shoes whispered against polished floors as he moved deeper, turning corners without thinking, muscle memory guiding him through spaces he hadn’t thought to check until now - thinking he still has time, that Selene was still going to have time to show him more places. He laughed at the thought, his heart hammering against his ribs, it wasn't from the run– that wasn't enough to make his heart hammer the way it was—but from everything he’d left behind.Victor.Aiden.Nova.“N—Nova,” he whisper-shouted, voice cra
One hundred and forty - three
For a heartbeat after the words Subject V3 left Carlos’s mouth, no one moved.Not the executives frozen mid-panic.Not the mercenaries with their fingers hovering too close to triggers.Not even Victor, whose expression had gone unnervingly still.Then the murmurs started as the execs looked from one person to another, wondering if this was something they needed to know while trying to grasp what was going on around them.Eli inhaled slowly.Then he straightened to his full height.Blood still traced a thin line from his nose, but he didn’t bother wiping it away. He took one deliberate step toward Carlos, then another—hands open, posture calm, eyes locked forward.Carlos’s smile flickered.“Don’t,” Carlos warned lightly, adjusting his stance. The gun snapped back up, steady, professional. “Real bullets, Eli. This isn’t one of your boardroom bluffs. Take another step and I won’t miss.”To prove the point, he pivoted smoothly and fired.Two shots.A mercenary to Victor’s left dropped wi
One hundred and forty - two
Eli didn’t respond to what Victor had said, neither did he pay attention to the spread across his face.He simply walked.Straight past him.The movement was deliberate—unhurried, dismissive in a way that carried more weight than shouting ever could. Eli’s shoulder brushed the edge of Victor’s coat as he passed, eyes already scanning beyond him, toward the far corridors that disappeared into emergency-lit shadows.Victor’s smile faltered.Then his hand shot out.He caught Eli’s arm, fingers tightening just enough to stop him.“Where do you think you’re going?” Victor asked, voice light but sharp underneath. He tilted his head, glancing around theatrically. “Walking away? In front of all these people?” His brows lifted. “That’s a little… cowardly, don’t you think?”A ripple of unease moved through the gathered execs and staff.Eli stopped.He turned slowly, looking down at Victor’s hand on his sleeve as though it were something mildly offensive.Then he scoffed.“Cowardly?” Eli said, i
One hundred and forty - one
Eli’s hand hovered inches from the handle.The corridor was silent in the way he had expected, reminding him of how secured buildings always were —engineered quiet, layered with systems humming just beneath perception. The reinforced door loomed in front of him, matte black, anonymous, as if it had never been meant to draw attention. Yet everything about it did.The blood trail had ended here.The shadow—he was certain he’d seen it—had shifted just inside, a flicker of movement that suggested breath, weight, intent.His communicator vibrated.Once.It was sharp and insistent. A contrast to the silence.Eli stilled completely.He lowered his gaze to the screen. The name glowed up at him in clean white text.Carlos.For a fraction of a second, Eli lifted his head, eyes flicking back to the door.The shadow was gone.No movement. No distortion in the light. Just emptiness behind reinforced steel, as though the room itself had swallowed whatever shadow he had seen.Eli didn’t relax.He ke
One hundred and Forty
For a long moment, nothing moved.The monitors glowed steady green. The hum beneath the floor had returned to its normal pitch, almost comforting, almost mundane after the panic of the past hour. Outside the core, technicians leaned back, rubbing their eyes, exchanging looks that teetered between relief and disbelief.“It’s… done,” someone murmured, almost too softly to carry.“Done,” echoed another.There was a cheer, tentative at first. Then another, louder. Laughter followed, quick and sharp—the kind of release that comes after being inches from disaster. Hands clapped on shoulders. Backslaps. Voices overlapped, fragments of congratulations carried across the room.Eli didn’t move.He stood at the center of the core, communicator in hand, gaze fixed somewhere between the console and the ceiling. The room erupted around him, and he remained still, silent, an island of control amidst the chaos.Carlos nudged someone, whispering, “She… she did it. Firestorm held. It’s over.”“Yes,” th
One hundred and thirty - nine
Firestorm Protocol didn’t sound like much when it activated.It didn’t trigger any alarms. No cinematic countdown. Just a sequence of confirmations sliding across the glass walls—authorization chains snapping shut, external links severed, entire regions of Aurelius infrastructure going dark in a disciplined, pre-planned collapse. A controlled burn.The room felt it anyway.Lights dipped, then stabilized. The low hum beneath the floor shifted pitch, deeper now, like the building itself had braced.Nova didn’t waste the moment.She moved.Her bag hit the central console first—unzipped in one smooth motion, contents spilling with deliberate precision. No flashy hardware. No oversized rigs. Just layered tools: a hardened tablet, two slim encrypted drives, a fiber tap, gloves she didn’t bother putting on yet.She pulled the tablet free and slid into the central chair like it had been waiting for her.“Okay,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “You bought me silence. Let’s use
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