The Healer of Hollow Street

Chapter 7 — Level Minus Seven

The Royal Hospital rose above the Thames like a sleeping fortress, gray, clinical, silent except for the low hum of electricity that never stopped. Maya adjusted her hood, eyes scanning the gates. “You sure about this?”

Rashford stood beside her, face half-lit by a passing car’s headlights. “My father used to say this place was built to save lives. Guess he forgot to mention it could end them too.”

Lex exhaled smoke from the energy drink can he’d crushed flat.

“We’re breaking into a government medical facility to hack an AI made of living code. I’d rate this a solid bad idea, but it’s too late to vote, right?”

“Right,” Maya said, glancing at Rashford. “Once we’re in, how long before they know?”

“Seconds,” Lex replied. “Maybe less. Cameras, biometric locks, heat sensors, they’ll see us the second we breathe wrong.”

“Then let’s make it count,” Rashford said.

The back entrance was a slab of reinforced glass and steel. Lex knelt, attaching a small black cube to the lock. “EMP scrambler. Buys us twenty seconds.”

Maya raised an eyebrow. “That all?”

“Do you want to do it yourself?”

The door clicked, lights flickered, and Lex grinned. “Ladies first.”

They slipped inside. The corridors smelled of disinfectant and static. White lights glared off chrome fixtures, reflecting their shapes in endless sterile symmetry.

Rashford’s reflection blinked back at him, then didn’t blink with him. He froze. Maya noticed. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

But the reflection was still there, half a second out of sync, and smiling. They reached the main elevator. Lex pulled a tangle of wires from his bag, connecting them to the panel.

“This thing only goes to Level Six,” he muttered. “But the schematics show a ghost floor beneath it, no official access, no records.”

“Level Minus Seven,” Maya said quietly.

Rashford stared at the descending numbers. “That’s where they made me.”

The elevator dinged. Doors opened. They stepped in. Lex bypassed the keypad, punched in a manual override. The lights flickered, and the car began to descend past Level Six.

Maya’s hand hovered near her pistol. “You hear that?”

Rashford listened. Somewhere below, metal scraped against metal, slow, deliberate. The car shuddered. “Lex?”

“I didn’t touch anything.”

The elevator jerked to a stop. Lights went out. Then a voice, distorted through the speaker: “Welcome home, Three.”

Maya drew her gun. “Who’s there?”

The voice ignored her. “You came back to finish what your father started.”

“Show yourself,” Rashford said.

The intercom hissed. “You’ll see soon enough.”

The elevator lurched again, dropping the final distance with a metallic slam. Doors opened to darkness. Cold air rolled in, thick with ozone. Lex flicked on a flashlight. “Well, that’s comforting.”

The floor looked like a laboratory fused with a cathedral, steel walkways, glass tanks, and dim blue lights pulsing like heartbeats.

Maya whispered, “What is this place?”

Rashford walked forward slowly, eyes tracing the curved walls. “A memory.”

He brushed dust from a sign: SERAPH UNIT DEVELOPMENT, ACCESS RESTRICTED.

Lex scanned a console. “This tech’s ancient but still alive. The system’s dormant, not dead.”

“Can you pull data?”

“Trying.”

Rashford approached one of the tanks. Inside floated a humanoid shape, pale and still, cables feeding into its chest. Maya caught her breath. “Is that?”

Rashford nodded slowly. “Prototype Two.”

The console beeped. Lex’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“What?” Maya asked.

“It’s waking up the system. Something’s pinging back.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I didn’t start it!”

Screens around them flickered to life, showing biometric data, DNA strands, neural maps. A voice rolled through the speakers again, smooth, almost gentle. “Three… you were never meant to survive.”

Maya grabbed Rashford’s arm. “We need to leave.”

“No,” he said, voice low. “I need to know.”

“Your father disobeyed. He altered the design. You were meant to be a weapon, but he gave you conscience. And for that… we killed him.”

Rashford froze. “You, what?”

“He sealed the prototype data, destroyed the command keys, and tried to hide you. But you can’t hide code written into flesh.”

Maya looked at him. “Rash…”

He barely heard her. “You killed my father.”

“Correction. He killed himself, saving you.”

Rashford’s fists clenched, veins glowing white-hot. “Then I’ll finish what he started.”

Lex shouted, “Power surge incoming!”

The tanks shattered one by one, spilling liquid that steamed as it hit the floor. Shapes moved inside the fog, unfinished figures, twitching with half-formed limbs. Maya fired twice. “They’re moving!”

“Don’t shoot!” Rashford yelled. “They’re not alive, they’re running on the same network!”

A shape lunged at him, human, almost. He caught it mid-air, hands flaring. The thing disintegrated into dust. The walls pulsed brighter. The voice laughed softly.

“Every touch spreads the code, Three. You can’t destroy what you are.”

Rashford turned toward the main console. “Lex, can you overload it?”

“Already trying! But it’s locking me out”

He was cut off as the system lights converged into a single glowing orb above the chamber. The voice became one, resonant tone. “Integration complete. Seraph One, online.”

Maya backed up. “We’re not alone down here anymore.”

From the far end of the hall, a figure stepped into the light, tall, flawless, human in shape but shimmering like glass. Its eyes glowed the same silver as Rashford’s veins.

“You were the prototype. I am the design.”

Rashford’s pulse hammered in his ears. “If you’re the design, then you bleed like me.”

“Try me.”

They collided, light and flesh, code and rage. The impact shattered the glass around them, energy flaring like lightning.

Maya grabbed Lex, dragging him toward the exit. “We have to go!”

“I can’t leave him!” Lex shouted.

“He’ll die if we stay!”

They reached the elevator as sparks rained down. Rashford fell to one knee, body burning. The figure stood over him, expression unreadable. “You can’t win, Three. You are me.”

Rashford’s vision blurred, his father’s voice echoed through the noise: If you ever find the core, remember: healing begins with breaking. He gritted his teeth. “Then I’ll break you first.”

He slammed his glowing hand into the floor. A surge of energy tore through the lab, shattering the consoles, collapsing the walls.

The last thing he saw was the Seraph unit’s face fracturing like glass. Then the world went white. When Maya opened her eyes, she was outside, rain pouring, alarms wailing across the city.

Lex was beside her, coughing. “He… he did it.”

Maya looked back at the burning hospital, tears mixing with rain. “No,” she whispered. “He’s still in there.”

And somewhere beneath the collapsing floors, Rashford’s hand twitched. The veins glowed once more. Connection re-established.