The lights in the containment wing were always dim, an intentional design choice meant to pacify hostile detainees. The air here smelled like sterile frost and stale circuitry, with thick walls lined with automated suppression turrets and reinforced doors sealed by biometric keylocks.
Kastur Iyer lay still under the glow of soft-blue vitals. His body, wrapped in sensor mesh and neural dampeners, barely moved. A shallow rise and fall of the chest. To most, he looked comatose, defeated.
But behind his closed eyes, Kastur was counting. Not sheep. Not seconds.
Pathways.
Every hallway. Every access node. Every guard rotation he had calculated during the short trip from Sector Nine to this very chamber. Getting captured wasn't failure, it was infiltration.
Executive Room
Shawn Rose stood at the far end of the command balcony, arms crossed. Below him, the city lights stretched like stars fallen to Earth, broken by the shadows of slums between towers. A good distraction from the conversation behind him that was getting more heated.
"You brought him into our walls," Amrita snapped, voice sharper than the glass table they surrounded. "A terrorist. A murderer. And you expect me to believe this was for protection?"
Adawe's hologram face was unreadable, "The alternative was letting him vanish again. We don't get second chances with someone like this."
Amrita turned to Shawn. "You should've killed him."
Shawn met her glare without blinking. "I could've. But he knows more than we can guess. About the override tech. About hard light infiltration. There's too much that he knows that we need to learn."
Adawe cut in, "And he's not an executioner. Kastur will face justice for what he's done."
Amrita scoffed. "Oh. A trained assassin doesn't want to kill. What are we even paying you guys for?"
"Your predecessor among other world leaders all agreed to fund Overwatch. Being that this was before your time, and due to your inexperience to the position, I could see how you could reach the illogical conclusion that you could assume that hits could be placed on someone. I'd advise you to have your guards on alert." Adawe retorted.
"You don't need to tell me that, they already are." Amrita says, crossing her arms, pouting as she turned her face away from Adawe.
Sublevel Medical Containment
They weren't.
The two guards posted outside Kastur's room exchanged a look. One tapped his wrist twice. The other reached for his holster then didn't draw a weapon. He drew a knife. Within ten seconds, both suppression turrets were dead.
And Kastur's vitals flatlined.
But the second the lock disengaged with a hiss, the monitor surged back to life. Kastur sat up with a single gasp, tearing the sensors from his chest like they were threads of silk. He stood without staggering, fully alert.
His "coma" had been induced by a dampener pill he'd bitten into the moment he was captured. Temporary paralysis. Total vitals suppression. He smiled.
"Like clockwork."
Amrita stirred in her sleep. She always kept her sidearm beneath her pillow, despite the tower's security. But it doesn't matter if one isn't trained for danger. By the time she realized she was in danger, it was far too late.
The door hissed open without sound. Too fast for a system reboot. Too quiet for a keyed override. And when the first intruder stepped in with their face masked, blade glinting with blue hard light, the glow woke her up, and she instinctively reached for the panic alarm.
The second intruder was faster. He fired a tranquilizer bolt into her shoulder. She dropped hard, disoriented but conscious. A third figure stepped in behind them, wearing hospital scrubs stolen from the sublevel.
Kastur.
He knelt beside her.
"You don't deserve a last word," he said softly, pulling the keycard lanyard from her throat.
But Amrita, ever the arrogant, smiled, just a little.
"You're making a mistake."
"No," Kastur whispered. "You made it first. The day you thought you could own light."
Then the alarm finally triggered.
Upper Transit Hall
Shawn's comm lit up as red indicators painted the wall in emergency stripes.
"Priority One: Executive Threat Detected – Location: Penthouse Sector. Armed Hostiles Confirmed."
S3bastian was already jumping up from his seat.
"Tell me we're not surprised. That you saw this coming.
"We're not," Shawn said grimly. "I've had eyes on the sublevel feed since they moved Kastur. I just didn't think he'd move this fast."
They sprinted down the corridor, his team already mobilizing. They weren't just medics at this moment, but hardened soldiers ready to face anything in their way.
Kastur and his team dragged Amrita toward a private lift that led directly to the Vault Core, a secure chamber only the keycard and retinal scan of a board member could access.
He needed her alive, for now. But just barely.
"She'll give us access. And once I have the key, her death will mark the beginning of Vishkar's collapse."
Then the door exploded inward.
S3bastian's plasma shot incinerated the first guard mid-sentence.
Leslie and Felix followed close, laying down suppressive fire. Shawn moved like a phantom, katana drawn, energy humming down the blade.
Kastur hissed, dragging Amrita's barely-conscious body back behind a bulkhead.
"You can't stop it," he shouted from behind cover. "I've seen your code! I've studied your serum! You are the battery to a new era of power, Rose! Once I have the key and your blood, I won't need this tower. I'll become the tower!"
Shawn replied by kicking down the last barrier and hurling a stun charge.
It detonated right in Kastur's face.
The man collapsed to one knee, dazed, but still gripping Amrita.
"Let her go!" Shawn barked.
"You don't understand," Kastur coughed, blood in his mouth. "Her key unlocks light. But your blood? It gives it will."
Shawn surged forward. A blade to Kastur's shoulder. Then a crack across his jaw. The man slumped unconscious. This time, there would be no feigned coma. No shadow games.
Medical Bay
Amrita lay on a recovery bed, scowling despite the sedatives.
"You're welcome," Shawn said dryly.
She glanced at him, annoyed. "If you expect a thank you, you'll die disappointed."
"I just want answers," Shawn said. "What is the key he was after?"
She hesitated. "A Vishkar failsafe. The prototype for autonomous light constructs. A way to make hard light obey emotion, not code. It reads a persons bioelectrical emotional signals to adjust the behavior in real time. Just mere moments of usage created strains on a persons nervous system, leading to at best, headaches. Common side effects was being turned into uncontrollable fits of rage or fear paralysis. We, as a whole of Vishkar, decided it was best to scrap it. "
"Doesn't sound scrapped to me. You meant that you stored it for a time when you could figure out how to use it. Makes one wonder where Kastur got his belief about my blood."
She didn't deny it. Instead, she confirmed what Shawn had pieced together.
"It was a leak. Didn't realize that my own personnel turned on me. They didn't have all the information though. He believed that it was your blood that was the answer, but I know it to be that drug you secretly made."
Shawn didn't say anything, not wanting to incriminate himself and Amrita continued.
"My sources revealed that you attempted to create a drug but was shut down by Overwatch. But if someone looks at your past actions, one could assume that you created another one. One that does almost the same thing but differently. Quieter."
Shawn's metal hand fizzed as sparks danced between his fingers. "Tell me what you know."
Amrita scoffs. "Hah. I know that you can't kill me. Your threat is meaningless."
"I wasn't threatening to kill you. My mission forbids it. However, you remember that I'm a doctor. One touch and you'll lose the ability to interact with anyone. No more Amrita looking down on anyone. But your heart will still beat. The mission and the tower will recognize you as alive, but you, technically won't be."
Understanding what he was saying, Amrita shrunk further back. "Ever since reports have come in that someone has increased healing, and response, we've been keeping track of you. Soon it became apparent that you somehow enhanced your own bioelectricity, leading to these effects. Then when we found tat you were developing a drug that did the same thing. But after you were shut down, we don't know what you did afterwards. I took a guess that you developed another one and tested it on yourself, leading to Kastur thinking that your blood was the answer."
"He got greedy, trying to take everything for himself. Went rogue trying to kill off loose ends. Got your guards involved, either giving them false promises, or feeding into their hatred of you. We'd better hope that he doesn't have any collaborators. Sooner or later, someone will come for it. And me."
Amrita sat up, eyes sharp. "Then we make a deal."
Shawn raised a brow.
"I don't expose your new illegal drug, and you continue to help me by eliminating everyone involved. Once no more threats are apparent and the people no longer against me, I promise that it will remain a secret." She proposes.
He hated everything about the deal she just offered. Making her a vegetable was way easier. However, Adawe would definitely know it was him, not matter how much he would try to cover it up. He would no doubt immediately be detained and imprisoned. Getting kicked out of the military was also a possibility. He needed to think of his team. "Why not shut me down now?" he asked.
"Because we both know the world's falling apart. You're dangerous, Rose, but right now, you're useful."
Shawn leaned in. "One more move against my team, and I stop being useful. Then I become a problem."
Amrita's eyes narrowed. But she said nothing.
Kastur's Cell
Deep below the tower, in a triple-reinforced cell, Kastur sat awake again. He was broken but only physically. Mentally, he couldn't be better. Everything was still going to plan. All he had to do was just wait once again.
Because somewhere, someone still had his backup drive. Someone still had his research. And if they followed the instructions he left behind…
The key, the blood, was still in play. And next time, there'd be no capture.
Only ascension. Didn't matter if it was him or someone else.
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Unfortunate news to everyone but me: I'm going on vacation. After Wednesday don't expect another chapter until next week Tuesday. Don't worry, should something happen to me, I made my will where some random person who donated power stones will inherit this story.