The night fell over the outskirts of Westvale, the city skyline fractured by the glow of Taskforce searchlights sweeping in wide arcs.
Three shadows broke from the treeline—quick and quiet.
Anna moved first, her pace sharp. She never glanced back, but her shoulders were rigid, every step coiled with certainty.
Nullis slipped ahead, body half-phased, flickering in and out of solidity as she scouted. She reappeared against a rusted storage wall, whispering through the comm: "Two guards posted by the gate. One's pacing, one's static. Cameras dead—thanks to Slha."
Static crackled in Anna's ear, followed by Slha's sharp, dry tone. "Keep moving. I've looped their feeds, but every second you linger is borrowed time."
Anna pressed forward. "We're clear. Go."
Xylo brought up the rear, his smirk flashing even under the dark. "Nothing like a midnight stroll through military kill-zones. Real romantic choice, Anna. If we survive this, I'm putting it on our first date list."
Anna shot him a side glance, her lips twitching before she could stop it. "If we survive this, maybe I'll let you buy the food. That's all you're getting."
"Progress," Xylo whispered, grin widening, though his eyes darted nervously to the towers ahead.
Nullis phased through a fence, reappearing on the other side with a hand raised—safe. Anna and Xylo followed, ducking under the sweep of the searchlights.
Every corner they turned revealed more Taskforce presence—armored carriers, gun towers, soldiers in patrol formation.
The closer they drew to the containment wing, the more obvious it became: they were walking into a fortress.
Xylo's voice dropped low, the humor cracking at the edges. "This is insane. They've got enough steel here to stop an army. You really think the three of us can walk out with him alive?"
Anna didn't answer at first. She looked ahead, eyes hard, locked on the glowing silhouette of the Taskforce compound in the distance.
Finally, she said: "We're fighting our way out if we have to."
Nullis' voice came back through the comm, sharp with urgency. "Then we'd better hurry. Patrols are shifting. Our window's shrinking fast."
The three slipped into the compound through a drainage culvert, Slha's voice guiding them through every step.
"Thirty seconds," she warned in their ears. "Security sweep is looping—this is your gap. Don't waste it."
They dropped into a narrow service tunnel, the air stale with rust and chemicals. Faded warning signs lined the walls, most of them scorched, some eaten away by acid burns. Old dampener nodes were bolted into the concrete, their surfaces cracked but still humming faintly, as if clinging to life.
Xylo brushed his hand against one and hissed as static sparked up his skin. "These things are ancient. And they're still strong enough to fry us?"
"To cage us, you mean?" Nullis muttered, eyes narrowed.
Anna's jaw clenched as she took in the tunnel—the residue of burnt metal, the faint outlines of claw marks gouged into the walls.
She swallowed hard. "This is what they want for all of us. Locked up. Tested. Broken down until we're tools or corpses."
The tunnel led them deeper, where the service passage intersected with a maintenance wing. Shattered restraints hung from the walls, bent and twisted. A cracked visor, smeared with dried blood, lay abandoned in the corner.
Xylo forced a laugh that fell flat in the air. "Really setting the mood here. Definitely thinking second date territory."
Anna didn't smile this time.
Slha's voice snapped back in: "Patrol incoming. Four guards. Eight seconds."
Nullis didn't hesitate—she grabbed Anna and Xylo by the arms, pulling them toward the wall. "Hold your breath."
The world blurred as she dragged them through the concrete, phasing them just as boots clattered into the corridor behind them. They slipped out into an empty room on the other side, chests heaving as they re-solidified.
Through the wall, muffled voices carried: "Sector clear. Moving on."
The footsteps faded.
Xylo slumped against a crate, shaking out his arms. "Remind me never to get used to that. Feels like I'm drowning."
Anna ignored him, scanning the room. Her voice was low. "We're close. If Grant's alive, he's in this place. We find him—fast."
Nullis met her gaze, eyes hard. "One mistake, and we end up in those cages with him."
****
Sterile white burned his vision when he surfaced.
Grant's eyes cracked open, but the light seared them shut again. His body jerked against restraints he could barely feel—every nerve already stretched thin.
The luxium was part of him now. He could feel it in his bones, a cold weight threaded through marrow. His skin pulsed faintly with its glow, veins lit in fractured lines that crawled up his arms and chest.
And beneath it all—the serum. The iridescent red liquid Veynar forced into him still stormed through his blood. It hadn't taken hold. It hadn't bent him. Instead it raged, convulsing inside him, arcs of crimson lightning twitching from his body to the dampener coils.
Machines screeched in protest, lights flickering every time a surge tore loose.
Above the chamber, behind the reinforced glass, Colonel Veynar dictated into a recorder. His voice was clinical, detached.
"Subject's physiology continues to resist neural override. Serum fails to establish compliance. Secondary effect: increased instability, uncontrolled energy discharge. Fascinating. The next trial will need recalibration."
Grant's head lolled to the side, sweat stinging his eyes. The world came in fragments—whispers slithering at the edges of his mind.
Anna's voice. Quiet. "You're not alone. Keep fighting."
Grant clung to it, to her, even as the serum inside him writhed like it wanted to tear him apart from the inside out.
His breath hitched, sparks flaring.
And still—he held on.
****
The three pressed deeper into the compound, following the narrow hum of Slha's voice in their comms.
"Checkpoint ahead," she warned. "Four guards, heavy armor. Cameras are still looped, but they won't be for long."
Anna pressed flat to the wall, peering past the corner. The corridor ahead was bathed in white light. Two soldiers paced the hall while another pair stood braced at the blast door. Their rifles gleamed under the fluorescents, fingers always near the trigger.
"Too many," Nullis murmured. "We can't slip past them all."
Xylo cracked his knuckles, a grin tugging at his mouth though his eyes darted nervously. "Guess subtlety's out. Stand back."
He pressed one palm to the metal floor. Frost raced outward in a spiderweb pattern, climbing quick and slick beneath the guards' boots. The first soldier shouted, stumbling as his footing gave way. The others followed in a chain reaction, armored bodies slamming down hard against the ice.
"Go!" Xylo hissed, pulling himself upright.
But the noise carried. Warning lights along the ceiling sputtered, flickered red, then steadied back to white.
Slha's voice cracked with static. "That almost tripped the alarms. Almost. Keep moving—I can only bury their scans for another minute."
Nullis didn't hesitate. She grabbed Anna's arm, dragging her toward the wall. "Hold tight."
They phased through the bulkhead just as one soldier staggered up, shouting into his comm. The three emerged in a shadowed storage bay on the other side, hearts hammering.
Anna pressed her back to a crate, chest heaving. The silence pressed heavy after the chaos.
She closed her eyes, steadying herself. Then, in a whisper, she said:
"He's here. I can feel it."
Xylo's grin faltered, more serious. "Then let's not keep him waiting."
The storage bay funneled into a narrow access hall, quieter than the rest of the compound. The hum of machinery was louder here.
Slha's voice was a whisper in their ears. "You're near containment. One corridor left."
Anna's chest tightened. She pushed ahead, ignoring the tremor in her hands.
They rounded a final corner—then stopped.
Through a pane of reinforced glass stretched the containment wing. And at its center, strapped into a rig of clamps and coils, was Grant.
He looked smaller than she remembered, pale and broken against the steel. But light still burned faintly under his skin. His chest rose in ragged rhythm, sparks twitching weakly at his fingertips.
Anna's breath caught. Her hand pressed against the glass before she could think.
"Grant…"
Xylo's smirk was gone. Even Nullis froze, her sharp focus wavering.
Then—sirens.
The hall ignited in red light, alarms shrieking overhead. Boots thundered from every direction as Taskforce soldiers poured into the corridor, weapons raised.
Slha's voice hissed through static: "Window's gone. You're exposed."
Anna tore her eyes from the glass, stepping back, fists clenched. Nullis' body blurred, half-phased, ready. Xylo rolled his shoulders, frost already bleeding across his arms.
The three of them stood braced, framed by the crimson glow, Grant's broken body just beyond reach.
The chamber shook with the sound of Taskforce closing in.