The corridors of the Bureau's headquarters looked like gray-painted blood vessels, cold light flowing through them. The air was a cocktail of disinfectant and cold metal, as if someone had decided human taste buds were the perfect test subject for a bad joke.
Ethan leaned against the wall, still clutching the notebook his old friend had left behind. He stared at the page, wondering if he'd gone insane: the handwriting was familiar, yet every word grinned back at him like a lunatic.
"You know, Ethan," murmured his partner Karin, eyes darting nervously toward the surveillance cameras lining the hall, "just walking this corridor might already have sold us out. They won't let him go—and they won't let us go either, not now that we know too much."
Ethan let out a laugh, the sound like a blunt knife scraping sheet metal."Oh, wonderful. They finally take us seriously. We used to be nothing more than dust in their archives—now we've upgraded to stains."
Before Karin could answer, a shrill alarm split the silence at the far end of the corridor. Red lights flashed like drunkards waving glow sticks in a nightclub. A mechanical voice echoed over the loudspeakers:
"Target Codename: Gray Fox confirmed in Sector Three. Lockdown initiated. All units, Level-One pursuit mode."
"Gray Fox," Karin muttered through clenched teeth. "That's your friend."
Ethan's chest tightened. His friend was alive—not a hallucination. He'd actually infiltrated the Bureau's headquarters. That wasn't bravery; it was suicide.
The broadcast continued:
"All individuals with knowledge of this target are to be treated as potential accomplices. Termination authorized."
"See? The Bureau's tender mercy," Ethan said with a bitter smile. "They don't even give us time to say goodbye."
Footsteps thundered closer—special units in full armor, like tin soldiers dragged out of a freezer, weapons gleaming under the red light. Their visors reflected the alarms, making them look like surgeons ready for a throat-slitting.
"What do we do?" Karin's voice trembled.
Ethan folded the notebook and tucked it into his jacket. His voice dropped to a whisper."If I were sane, I'd run. But luckily, I'm already insane. Which means I'm going to find him."
"You're insane all right," Karin muttered, rolling her eyes—yet she still followed.
They slipped into a narrow emergency passage, the roar of falling security gates echoing above them. The whole building felt like a steel beast woken from hibernation, ready to swallow anyone foolish enough to touch its scales.
Finally, they found him in an abandoned archive room.
His friend stood between rusted filing cabinets, coat torn, Bureau-issue handgun in his grip. His defiant smirk looked like it belonged in the final scene of a low-budget noir film.
"You should see your own faces," the friend rasped. "Like you've seen a ghost."
"The problem is," Ethan sighed, "we can't tell ghosts from people anymore. And we're about to be corpses anyway."
The friend's smile had a razor edge of madness. "Don't worry. I know the Bureau. They won't give me a trial—just a bullet. You can either walk away, or join me in betrayal."
As he spoke, the archive doors crashed open. The special unit poured in, red laser dots locking onto him like a pack of starving eyes.
"GRAY FOX! Drop your weapon immediately!" the commander barked, voice stripped of humanity, like reading refrigerator instructions.
Instead, Gray Fox raised his gun to the ceiling and squeezed the trigger. The bullet shattered the old light fixture, sparks raining down. The room plunged into chaos, half-light and shadow.
The special unit opened fire. Bullets tore through filing cabinets, shredding them like paper piñatas. Clouds of dust filled the air—an absurd celebration of death.
Ethan and Karin hit the floor, ears ringing with gunfire and screams. Yet through the madness, Ethan's mind birthed one absurd thought:
So this is what a storm inside the Bureau looks like—just a bunch of lunatics shooting each other in their own office.
He couldn't help but laugh, the sound cutting through the roar of explosions like jagged glass.