The sky was still bleeding when Nova emerged above ground.
A velvet-black canopy, painted with electric scars from a dying storm, hung low over Neo-Vega's northern district—one of the last untouched relics of pre-Core architecture. The Core towers didn't reach this far. They didn't need to. No one lived here anymore.
Not legally.
The air was dense with smoke and static as Nova sprinted across a ruined monorail line, each step echoing in the metal skeleton of a city lost to time. Her destination was two kilometers ahead—the surface-level access point for Facility Zero.
It looked unassuming on satellite: a collapsed shipping yard, overgrown with rust and synthetic moss. But underground, it connected to Vault 1-A—a direct conduit into the processing labyrinth where Project NOVA had been born.
Where she had been born.
Nova's coat flared behind her as she moved, each stride calculated. Her blade stayed off, hidden, conserving energy. The Neural Mapper Alyx had wired into her HUD blinked amber once every thirty seconds—reminding her that it was experimental.
Unstable.
And if it failed during the corewave simulation, her mind would likely liquefy from the inside out.
No pressure.
She reached the outer perimeter just before dawn.
It was quieter than she expected. No Sentinels. No aerial scans.
No obvious defenses.
Too quiet.
Nova crouched behind a rusted cargo container, then slipped inside through a cracked security vent, sliding on her back as she passed through decades of decay and magnetic rot. Her visor flickered, HUD switching to thermal.
Still nothing.
Facility Zero loomed beneath her—a descending corridor, circular and precise, lined with sterile black material that looked untouched by time. It was like stepping into a memory she'd never owned.
The entrance hissed open without a sound.
She didn't even need to hack it.
They were expecting her.
Facility Zero was silent.
No alarms. No movement.
Just the faint hum of generators and the eerie glow of recessed lights illuminating the hall in perfect, soulless symmetry. The floor reflected her footsteps in a mirror-shine polish. Even her breath felt quieter here, like the air itself feared to echo.
She moved fast but cautious, sticking to the shadows, monitoring her neural feed. The Mapper pulsed green—it had synced with the facility's passive scan system.
So far, so good.
Her HUD populated.
N-04A recognized. Authorization key valid. Neural Echo confirmed. Access granted.
A chill crawled up her spine.
She hadn't heard that designation spoken aloud in years. Not since the night she broke protocol and escaped through blood, fire, and erased memories.
The facility remembered her.
It welcomed her.
She made it to Core Hall Beta without resistance.
That's when she heard it.
Footsteps.
Not mechanical. Not heavy.
Human.
Nova pressed herself to the wall, blade in hand. She peered around the corner just as a figure stepped out of the far hallway—a woman in a silver-trimmed Core uniform, tall, composed, her expression blank. No HUD overlay. No tech visible.
Except for her eyes.
Silver. Synthetic.
Clones.
The woman saw her—and didn't flinch.
Instead, she smiled.
"I knew you'd come back," she said softly.
Nova's blade lit with a low hum.
"Who are you?"
The woman stepped forward slowly. "Designation N-03B. You can call me Vera."
Nova's eyes narrowed.
"Another prototype?"
"No. The successful one."
Before Nova could react, Vera moved.
She was fast—faster than Nova remembered even the elite prototypes being. Her strike came low, sweeping like a steel wind. Nova barely blocked it, sparks flying as their blades collided, energy rippling down her arm.
Vera was laughing.
"This place called to you, didn't it? You couldn't help it."
Nova ducked a kick, spun low, and aimed a slash at Vera's ribs—but the woman twisted mid-air, flipped, and landed a meter away like gravity had loosened its hold on her.
"You're not real," Nova hissed.
"I'm everything you were supposed to be."
They clashed again—harder this time. Blade to blade. Sparks flew, energy snarling in the air as each attack got closer, more precise. Nova's muscles screamed, her breath shallow.
Vera didn't sweat.
Didn't breathe heavy.
She didn't seem alive at all.
Nova leapt backward and fired a pulse shot from her gauntlet. It hit dead center—but Vera barely flinched. Her coat absorbed most of the blast.
"You can't kill me," she said.
Nova didn't respond. She was already moving again.
She darted left, then right, ducked low and slid between Vera's legs, slicing upward—but missed.
Vera laughed again.
"Still human," she said. "Still soft."
Nova caught her footing and stared her down. "Still free."
That stopped the smile.
Just for a second.
Then Vera tilted her head. "You think this is about freedom?"
Nova didn't wait. She threw a stun beacon at the ceiling—it exploded in a burst of white light, blinding.
She ran.
Down the corridor. Through the maintenance shaft. Up a vertical lift tunnel using only grip spikes and burning muscle.
She didn't stop.
Her HUD pulsed red: SIGNAL STRENGTH SPIKE.
They were broadcasting her position.
She slammed through a sealed checkpoint, overriding it with the Neural Mapper. Doors hissed open just long enough for her to slide through.
Then they sealed behind her.
Vault 1-A.
The heart of the facility.
A massive spherical chamber with a glowing core suspended in a gravity field. Around it—rows upon rows of suspended pods. Cryotanks. Memory coffins.
Nova stood at the edge, breath catching.
They were all still here.
Every version. Every test subject.
Some looked like her. Some... didn't.
She approached one pod. Inside, a boy barely older than sixteen. Hair white like hers. Face too familiar.
Designation: N-11C. Status: Dormant. Memory Net: Stable.
She backed away.
This wasn't just a graveyard.
It was a nursery.
A war machine waiting to wake.
She uploaded the virus from Alyx's drive.
The data spike hissed as it connected, beaming anti-pattern code into the neural lattice of the core processor. Her HUD flickered as subroutines collapsed, one by one.
SUPPRESSION FIELD: FAILING
MEMORY BLOCKS: UNLOCKED
AI OVERMIND: UNRESPONSIVE
She stared up at the core.
It began to dim.
A slow collapse of light. Like a sun dying.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Vera's voice again.
Nova spun—too late.
The blade pierced her side.
Not deep.
But enough.
She collapsed against the railing, coughing, blood in her throat.
Vera stood over her.
Expression unreadable.
"You could've stayed with us," she said. "You could've ruled beside me."
Nova gritted her teeth.
"I'd rather burn."
And with the last of her strength, she pulled the second data spike.
The one Alyx told her not to use unless there was no other choice.
She stabbed it into the core's secondary input.
And everything went white.
Alarms screamed.
Lights burst.
The gravity field collapsed and Vera was flung backward by the shockwave. Nova grabbed the railing, barely holding on as the whole chamber began to shake.
The virus was overloading the core.
Not disabling it.
Destroying it.
Nova forced herself to her feet, blood trailing down her side. Her HUD was a mess of static and emergency beacons. The Neural Mapper shorted out.
But she was alive.
She ran.
Emergency Exit Detected.
Warning: Detonation Imminent.
The escape route was narrow, shaking, lit by red strobe.
Nova leapt over debris, ducked through collapsing bulkheads, sprinted through corridors she hadn't seen in a decade.
Behind her—screams.
Not Vera's.
The others.
The cryopods.
They were waking up.
She made it to the surface as the first explosion hit.
The ground buckled.
Glass shattered.
A tower of light erupted into the morning sky as Facility Zero imploded, consumed by its own collapsing neural web.
Nova was thrown to the ground, rolling, coughing, bleeding.
But she was alive.
Above her, the sky had cleared.
No more storm.
Just silence.
Her visor pinged.
Encrypted call incoming.
She accepted.
Alyx's voice came through. "Nova?"
She coughed. "Still here."
A pause. Then relief. Real.
"Are you clear?"
Nova looked back at the rising smoke, the crater where the facility once stood.
"No," she said.
"But it's gone."