# Chapter 21: The Culling
The klaxon's shriek was a physical thing, a serrated blade scraping against the inside of Barrett's skull. Red emergency lights flooded the administrative corridor, painting the polished concrete in frantic, bloody strokes. The air, once stale and recycled, now carried a new, ominous scent: the sweet, cloying perfume of ozone mixed with the faint, metallic tang of the Essence-draining gas already seeping under a nearby office door. The datapad in his hand felt cold and heavy, its screen dark, the downloaded file a silent victory in a war he was already losing. The Warden's trap wasn't just sprung; it was actively digesting them.
A heavy *thump* echoed down the hall. Barrett flattened himself against the wall, his heart hammering against his ribs. An automated sentry turret had unfolded from the ceiling, its multi-lensed eye a malevolent red star sweeping the corridor. It was a brutish, functional machine of steel and whirring servos, a stark contrast to the subtle, metaphysical threat of the gas. He was a ghost in a machine that was actively trying to exorcise him, and the hunt had just begun.
He had to move. The central control room. That was where the Warden would be, the spider at the center of his web. It was also the only place with the power to stop this madness. He clutched the datapad, a sliver of hope in a sea of despair, and pushed off the wall. His Silver Rank senses, honed by desperation, flared. He could feel the faint, oppressive hum of the gas, the electrical discharge from the turret, the panicked heartbeats of guards trapped in other sections. He let the shadows swallow him, pulling the ambient gloom around his form like a shroud. It wasn't true invisibility, but in the strobing red light, it was the next best thing.
He moved, a fluid whisper against the wall. The turret's sensor beam swept past him, missing him by inches. He slid past it, his breath held tight in his chest. The next corridor was a nightmare. Blast doors had slammed down, sealing off entire wings. A group of guards, their faces pale with terror, were trying to pry one open with a crowbar. They weren't hunting him; they were just trying to survive. One of them, a younger man Barrett recognized from the mess hall, saw him. His eyes widened, not with recognition, but with a primal fear of the unknown. Barrett didn't hesitate. He wasn't their enemy today, but he couldn't afford witnesses. He raised a finger to his lips, a gesture of silence that was both a promise and a threat, and melted into a service duct before the man could raise an alarm.
***
Deep in the guts of Sub-Level 3, Eirik was a rat in a maze of his own choosing. The server room was a tomb, the only sound the frantic clicking of his own keyboard and the muffled blare of the alarm from the corridor beyond the sealed door. The Warden's final words echoed in his mind. *A live biometric signature.* The key wasn't a code. It was the man himself. The mission had just become terrifyingly simple and impossibly complex. He had to get to the Warden.
He slammed his fist on the console. "Anya, are you there? Barrett? Anyone!" His secure comm was nothing but static. The lockdown had severed them, isolating each member of the Ghosts in their own personal hell. He was blind, deaf, and trapped. But Eirik had survived in Blackstone for a decade by knowing its secrets, by understanding that every fortress had its weaknesses, its forgotten passages. His eyes scanned the room, not the glowing servers, but the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There. Behind a rack of obsolete equipment, a maintenance panel, barely visible in the emergency lighting. It was a long shot, a forgotten relic from the prison's initial construction, but it was the only shot he had.
He wrenched the panel free with a grunt of effort, revealing a narrow, dark shaft that smelled of rust and damp earth. It was a service conduit for the prison's original plumbing, long since abandoned. It was tight, filthy, and dangerous. It was perfect. He grabbed a fallen server rack's metal leg, using it as a makeshift lever to pry open the sealed door just enough to slip through. The corridor outside was a chaos of flashing lights and the hiss of the pale gas. He didn't hesitate, plunging into the darkness of the shaft. The metal groaned as he pulled the panel back into place behind him, sealing him in the suffocating blackness. He began to crawl, his destination etched in his mind: the central control room. He had to get to Barrett. He had to get to the Warden.
***
In the Ghosts' hideout, Anya was a warrior in a different kind of battle. The screens around her were a cacophony of red alerts and system failures. The lockdown had turned her fortress into a prison, her network into a weapon aimed at her. But she wasn't just a target; she was still a player. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, lines of code scrolling past in a blur. The Warden had control, but he didn't have *her* control. He had the master keys; she had the backdoors she had built herself.
"Come on, you son of a bitch, fight me," she muttered, her face illuminated by the glow of a dozen monitors. She couldn't stop the Culling, but she could bleed it. She found the environmental controls for Sector Gamma, where the gas concentration was highest. She couldn't vent it, but she could reroute the power to the ventilation fans, causing a massive surge that would trip the breakers for that entire wing. It would buy the inmates there a few precious minutes. It was a small act of rebellion, but it was something.
She pinged Barrett's datapad. Nothing. The signal was being jammed. She tried Eirik's comm. Static. They were cut off. Her heart sank, a cold, heavy stone in her chest. She was alone. But she wasn't helpless. She brought up the prison's security schematic, her eyes scanning the web of corridors and rooms. She found the Warden's location, a pulsating icon in the central control room. She also found two other moving icons she recognized: Barrett, moving with desperate speed through the administrative wing, and Eirik, a blip moving through the unmonitored maintenance tunnels. They were both heading for the same place.
She had to help them. She began to work, her focus absolute. She couldn't open the doors for them, but she could create diversions. She triggered a fire alarm in a distant, empty sector, drawing automated sentries away from Barrett's path. She looped the camera feeds outside the control room, playing a recording of an empty corridor on a ten-second loop. It wouldn't fool the Warden for long, but it might give them the window they needed. She was a ghost in their machine, just like Barrett, and she would haunt the Warden until her very last breath.
***
Barrett burst into the main corridor leading to the control room. It was a wide, imposing space, but now it was a killing field. Two more turrets were deployed, their red beams crisscrossing the floor. And between him and the massive blast door of the control room stood a figure. It wasn't the Warden. It was Cole, the hulking Bronze Rank guard who had been a thorn in his side since day one. But he was different. His eyes glowed with a faint, sickly green light, and Essence, raw and uncontrolled, crackled around his fists. He had been promoted, enhanced. He was the Warden's champion.
"Kane," Cole's voice was a low growl, distorted by the energy flowing through him. "The Warden sends his regards. He said to make it messy."
Barrett didn't waste time with words. He launched himself forward, a blur of motion. He met Cole's charge head-on. The impact was like hitting a brick wall. Cole's strength was immense, far beyond a normal Bronze Rank. He swung a haymaker that connected with Barrett's ribs, a sickening crack echoing in the corridor. Pain, white-hot and blinding, flared through Barrett's side. He stumbled back, gasping for air. He was outmatched. Cole was a monster.
But Barrett had something Cole didn't: a reason to fight that was stronger than fear or pain. He channeled his rage, his grief, his vengeance, letting it fuel his Essence. The shadows in the corridor deepened, clinging to him. He dodged another swing, the force of it sending a gust of wind past his face. He drove his stun baton into Cole's side. The crackle of electricity was met with a grunt of annoyance, not pain. The baton was useless.
Cole laughed, a brutal, ugly sound. "Is that all you've got, ghost?" He grabbed Barrett by the throat, lifting him off his feet. The world began to go gray at the edges. Barrett struggled, his hands clawing at Cole's iron grip. He was going to die here, at the feet of this brute, while the Warden watched from his throne.
Then, a voice crackled in his earpiece. It was Anya. "Barrett! The floor panel! Three feet to your left!"
With his last ounce of strength, Barrett kicked out, his boot connecting with the floor panel Anya had indicated. It was a maintenance hatch for the lighting system. It sparked, and a shower of sparks erupted, temporarily blinding Cole. The hulking guard roared in surprise and pain, loosening his grip just enough. Barrett dropped to the ground, gasping, his lungs burning. He didn't hesitate. He drove his fist, infused with every ounce of his Silver Rank Essence, into the side of Cole's knee. There was a sickening pop. Cole screamed, his leg buckling. He went down, hard.
Barrett didn't wait to see if he would get up. He scrambled for the control room door, his ribs screaming in protest. It was sealed, a solid slab of adamantite. He slammed his hand on the access panel. Nothing. "Anya, I'm at the door! It's sealed!"
"I know! I'm working on it! Hold on!" her voice was strained.
From behind him, Cole was getting up, his face a mask of fury. Barrett turned, raising his fists, ready for the final, hopeless stand. Then, the door beside him hissed open. Not the main control room door, but a smaller service entrance. Eirik stood there, covered in grime and sweat, a grim look of determination on his face.
"About time you showed up," Barrett grunted, stumbling through the doorway.
"Couldn't let you have all the fun," Eirik replied, slamming the door shut just as Cole threw himself against it with a deafening roar.
They were in an antechamber, a small, sterile room that led to the control room proper. Through a large, reinforced window, they could see the Warden. He was standing in the center of the room, a circular chamber filled with holographic displays and consoles. He wasn't looking at them. He was looking at a massive, central hologram that depicted the entire prison, a web of light where icons representing inmates were flickering and dying, their Essence being siphoned away. He was conducting a symphony of death.
The door to the main control room slid open with a soft chime. The Warden turned, a faint, almost amused smile on his face. "Mr. Kane. Mr. Eirik. I've been expecting you. Welcome to the heart of Chimera."
***
The control room was a nexus of power, a cathedral of cold technology and cruel ambition. The air hummed with the thrum of immense energy, and the holographic displays cast the Warden in an ethereal, godlike light. He was dressed not in a guard's uniform, but in a simple, tailored black suit, a stark contrast to the chaos he had unleashed. He looked calm, in control, as if he were merely observing a fascinating experiment.
"You're too late," the Warden said, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. "The harvest has begun. Your little rebellion was a useful catalyst, I'll admit. It flushed out the weak and provided a surge of fear and desperation. A most potent vintage." He gestured to the central hologram, where hundreds of lights had already dimmed. "Each one of those is a life, its Essence now property of OmniCorp. A valuable resource."
Barrett's rage was a cold, hard knot in his gut. "My brother," he snarled, his voice raw. "Liam. Was he just part of your 'vintage'?"
The Warden's smile widened. "Ah, yes. The idealistic guard. He stumbled upon things he shouldn't have. He was a... premature harvest. A shame. His Essence was quite strong. But his death served a purpose. It brought you here, after all."
That was it. The final straw. The last vestige of Barrett's control shattered. He didn't think. He didn't plan. He just moved. He launched himself across the room, a shadow-fueled missile of pure vengeance. Eirik tried to grab him, to hold him back, but Barrett was too fast, too consumed by his fury.
The Warden didn't even flinch. He simply raised a hand. An invisible wall of force slammed into Barrett, throwing him back across the room. He crashed into a console, the impact sending a shower of sparks and a fresh wave of agony through his broken ribs. He slumped to the floor, gasping, his vision swimming.
"Pathetic," the Warden sighed, shaking his head. "All that rage, and so little control. You are Silver Rank, yes? A fledgling. I am Orichalcum. I have been cultivating Essence since before you were born. You are a child throwing a tantrum in a god's temple."
Eirik helped Barrett to his feet. "He's right, Barrett. We can't win this head-on."
"We have to try," Barrett choked out, his body screaming in protest.
The Warden laughed, a cold, mirthless sound. "Try? By all means." He gestured again, and the doors to the control room slammed shut. The lights dimmed, leaving only the glow of the holograms. "Let us see what you are made of."
The fight was a massacre. The Warden was a blur of motion, a phantom of power. He didn't just use Essence; he commanded it. He shaped it into whips of crackling energy, into shields of solid light. He moved with an economy of motion that was terrifying to behold. Barrett and Eirik fought with everything they had, but it was like trying to fight a hurricane. Barrett's shadow manipulation was a parlor trick against the Warden's mastery. Eirik's cunning and knowledge of the prison were useless in this arena of pure power.
The Warden backhanded Eirik, sending him flying into a wall with a sickening thud. He turned to Barrett, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, pale light. "And now for you," he said, raising his hand for a final, killing blow.
Then, a new voice cut through the chaos. It was Anya, her voice strained but clear over the control room's speakers. "Barrett! The primary conduit! It's behind the central console! If you can overload it, you can disrupt his connection to the room's power grid!"
The Warden's head snapped toward a speaker. "Anya. The little mouse. I should have crushed you when I had the chance."
Barrett saw his chance. While the Warden was distracted, he scrambled towards the central console. It was a desperate, suicidal move. The Warden saw him, his eyes narrowing. He fired a bolt of pure Essence, a spear of incandescent light that would have vaporized Barrett.
But it never hit him.
Anya, from her terminal in the hideout, had made her choice. She couldn't fight the Warden physically, but she could fight him with the one thing she had left: herself. She had been building a failsafe, a direct link to the prison's core power system, a way to burn out the entire network from the inside. It was a one-way trip. She triggered it.
"Go to hell, you monster," she whispered, her final words.
A massive surge of raw, uncontrolled electricity erupted from the console behind Barrett. The lights in the control room exploded. The holograms flickered and died. The Warden screamed, a high-pitched shriek of pain and surprise as the feedback loop tore through his Essence. He staggered, his connection to the room's power severed, his concentration shattered.
Barrett didn't hesitate. He lunged, not with his fists, but with the datapad. He drove it, with all his remaining strength, into the Warden's chest. The screen cracked, the sharp edges of the device sinking into the Warden's flesh. The Warden's eyes widened in shock and pain. He looked down at the datapad, then back at Barrett, a flicker of disbelief in his gaze.
"You..." he gasped, stumbling backward.
Barrett stood over him, his chest heaving, his body broken, but his spirit unbroken. "That's for my brother," he rasped.
The Warden staggered against the central console, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was wounded, but he was not dead. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face. He began to laugh, a low, guttural sound that was somehow more frightening than his anger.
"You've won nothing," he sneered, his voice thick with blood and triumph. He slammed his hand down on a final, red-encrusted panel on the console. "You've only ensured you all die with me."
A new alarm began to blare, deeper and more ominous than the Culling klaxon. A calm, female voice echoed through the control room. "Self-destruct sequence initiated. T-minus ten minutes to core detonation."
As the Warden slumped to the floor, defeated but victorious, a small panel on the console beside his hand clicked open. A data drive, glowing with a soft blue light, ejected from the machine. It sailed through the air in a perfect arc, landing directly in Eirik's outstretched hand. He looked at the drive, then at Barrett, his face a mask of grim understanding. They hadn't just killed the Warden. They had inherited his final, terrible secret.