ELLEN POV:
The file opened with a faint click, almost too soft to hear over the hum of the servers. But in that silence, it felt deafening.
The folder was labeled "SUBJECT SERIES: HN-09", the same cryptic tag I'd seen in every classified archive linked to the dead researchers. My hand hovered above the mouse, unwilling to move.
Narion's voice came from behind me, cautious. "That one's restricted. You'll trigger the fail-safe."
I ignored him. The file expanded, revealing a series of digital records—medical logs, neural scans, progress reports. The kind of data no human should have to represent.
Clyde leaned closer, frowning. "What's the name attached to the code?"
I scrolled down, and there it was—
HN-09 / CHLOE R. MAGDALENA
The world tilted slightly. My breath caught.
"No…" The word slipped out before I could stop it.
Chloe. Her name looked wrong on the screen—too clinical, stripped of warmth.
The report continued: Subject demonstrates unusual resilience. Neural mapping completed. Integration phase successful. Termination pending—protocol breach during containment.
I pressed a hand to my chest. My heart was hammering so hard it hurt. "She—she was part of this. They experimented on her."
Narion stepped forward, his expression darkening as he scrolled through the next file—images, graphs, and a final incident report. Subject escaped facility grounds. Presumed deceased. Body recovered twelve days later.
The photo attached was low-resolution, but the outline was unmistakable—Chloe's profile, her hair matted, her face bruised beyond recognition.
I stumbled back, my knees hitting the edge of the table. "They killed her," I whispered. "She wasn't died accidentally. She was silenced."
Clyde's jaw tightened. "Ellen… there's more. Look at the next list."
Another set of names filled the screen—the same researchers we'd traced, all marked TERMINATED.
It wasn't a random string of deaths. It was a cleanup.
I felt my throat tighten. The weight of it pressed on my lungs, heavy and cold. Shin hadn't just been caught in the crossfire—he was the experiment.
Narion's voice was quiet now. "Helios wasn't just studying them. It was changing them. He must've found out what they did to him."
I stared at the last line of the report:
Remaining data scheduled for deletion. Next subject under evaluation: S. SELEXA.
The screen blurred as tears stung my eyes. For a long time, I couldn't breathe.
I thought I'd been chasing the truth for Chloe. But the truth was chasing Shin all along.
I don't remember moving away from the screen—only the cold against my palms as I braced myself on the edge of the table, trying to steady a body that no longer felt like mine. The air in the room was heavy, thick with electricity and grief.
Chloe's face lingered in my mind—the way she used to laugh when I told her she worried too much, the calm in her voice that always made chaos bearable. Now all I could hear was the clinical tone of the report that erased her with a single word: terminated.
Narion closed the file quietly, as though he could hide what we'd just seen. "Ellen," he said carefully, "you need to step back. This isn't just corruption—it's biological warfare. They were building something with people."
Clyde's voice was lower, almost hoarse. "And Shin is next on that list."
I looked up at him, the tremor in his voice clashing with the storm outside. "Then they'll regret leaving me to know this matter."
Clyde flinched at the steel in my tone. But it was Narion who met my gaze fully. "If we're doing this," he said, "we burn every trace—Helios, Clayton, all of it."
I nodded, the decision settling into me like gravity. "No backups. No mercy."
Narion hesitated. "That means Chloe's data too."
The thought pierced deeper than I expected. Her file—the last piece of her that existed anywhere—was part of what needed to be destroyed. If we wiped it, she'd vanish completely, even from the digital ghosts that held her now.
I closed my eyes. The memory of her smile surfaced, brief and real. She wouldn't have wanted to be another number in their ledger. She deserved release.
"Do it," I said softly. "Erase her from them, not from me."
Narion's hands moved across the keyboard again, and the screens filled with static. Code fractured, files dissolved. One by one, the faces of the dead disappeared, until only darkness remained.
The lights flickered as the last fragment of Project Helios burned from existence. I straightened, breathing in the silence that followed.
"This isn't over," I said. "Clayton's still out there—and someone authorized this. They'll try to rebuild."
Narion gave a grim smile. "Then we make sure they never can."
Outside, lightning split the sky open. The sound rolled through the city like a promise, and for the first time, I didn't flinch.
Chloe was gone. But her truth wasn't.
And I wasn't done fighting.
The storm had eased to a dull hiss against the windows, but inside Narion's lab, the air still crackled with static. The monitors were dark now—no code, no traces, no ghosts. Only the faint scent of burnt circuits lingered, the aftermath of a digital execution.
Narion leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. "That's it. Helios is gone. Every node, every copy, every trace wiped from the network."
Clyde exhaled shakily. "Then we did it."
I wanted to believe that. But the silence in the room didn't feel like victory—it felt like the pause before something else.
I crossed my arms, staring at the blank screen that had once held Shin's file. "No. We stopped a part of it. Clayton Enterprises doesn't bury something that deep unless there's more."
Narion gave a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe. But whatever it was, it's ash now."
Clyde stood, stretching, trying to shake off the tension. "You both need rest. We'll plan the next move in the morning."
I nodded automatically, but my eyes stayed on the central monitor. A small light flickered in the corner—barely visible, like an afterimage. At first, I thought it was a power glitch. Then the cursor blinked once… twice… and text began to appear.
> YOU CAN'T ERASE WHAT'S ALREADY REPLICATED.
My stomach dropped.
"Narion," I whispered. "Look."
He spun toward the screen, confusion snapping into alarm as the message continued to type itself.
> PROJECT HELIOS: STATUS—REINITIALIZING.
The cursor blinked faster now, lines of code unfurling like a pulse returning to life.
"No—no, that's impossible," Narion said, his voice cracking. "The core system was destroyed!"
The lights flickered overhead, once, twice, and then every monitor in the room came alive at once—screens filled with static, and beneath it, faint outlines of faces. Dozens of them.
I felt the blood drain from my face. They weren't just random images. They were the victims. The ones who had died. The ones we'd just erased.
And in the center of the main screen, one image sharpened.
Chloe.
Her eyes were open.
Then the message flashed one final line before every monitor went black again.
> WELCOME BACK, SHIN.
The power cut out, plunging us into darkness.