"I'm so fucked."
Jace rasped, the echo from the main hatch still rattling through his bones like a warning bell he could never shut off.
He slammed his fists into the console. "shit. shit. SHIT!" The machine shrieked in protest, spewing green code and red warnings in a digital fit.
Override codes spilled from his frantic fingers, each curse-laced keystroke vanishing into the void. The system was dead. Game over.
He pounded the desk, frustration twisting his features. "FUCK!" His vision swam, mind spiraling with dread. "Two years," he choked, his lip quivering.
"Two years for this? Not a fucking chance," he snarled, desperation sharpening into raw defiance. Cold panic sliced through him. He slammed the Emergency Shut-Down. Power strangled out, plunging everything into icy darkness. The strobes faded, leaving silence.
He refused to waste a second. Scrabbling under the desk, he grabbed his taped, salvaged electric bat. Crude and bristling with nails, it felt like hope masquerading as a weapon. He thumbed the button, high-voltage sparks crackling in the gloom.
"Time for a test drive," he muttered, hefting the bat and swinging with everything he had.
He scuttled, silent as a rat, toward the nearest service locker. Wedging himself inside, he gripped the modified bat tight. "Come on, you shitheads," Jace whispered through clenched teeth, breath hitching in his chest."If I'm going down today, then we'll go down together, fuckers."
---
The main hatch tore open with a final, explosive clang. A masked figure stepped through the breach—cold, composed, and deliberate. He wore minimal armor: lean black tactical plates over dark, close-fitting clothes, a long, shadowy coat swaying around his boots. The mask was featureless, matte black, revealing nothing but a faint predatory glint in his eyes. Every movement was measured, silent, assassin-like. He radiated ruthless efficiency—the aura of a rogue agent, a ghost born in secret wars. The red alarm sirens briefly flared, casting harsh strobes over his silhouette before the Silo's power finally surrendered to the overload.
"Clear the outer sectors," the masked figure's voice was a low, amplified command. "Standard scan. Report anything above a Phase 1 entity. I'll take the central hub." His team nodded their assent and dispersed. He moved alone. His Spatial Reasoning was activated, painting the layout of the old facility in his mind.
Scan.
Upon muttering the command, his vision overlaid with an invisible 3D, monochromatic hologram of the Silo's infrastructure. His internal mapping confirmed no life signs from the central column. Empty. Just another vault, he confirmed, though his intuition says otherwise.
He descended the steel stairs to the next floor, every step calculated, his silhouette distorting in the flicker of dying lights. A security drone lay crumpled at the landing, its casing punctured with three neat holes—evidence of its earlier, silent entry.
The corridor ahead was a maze of shadow and ruin. His hand brushed the wall, feeling for subtle vibrations—a trick learned from years of infiltration, reading the heartbeats of buildings as if they were people. Somewhere above, a pipe groaned and hissed. He stilled, listening, every muscle tensed for an ambush that never came.
He advanced, passing a shattered observation window. Inside, the remains of a monitoring station flickered with static, abandoned mugs growing moldy on the consoles. He took in every detail, mentally cataloging potential witnesses, escape routes, and makeshift weapons. The air smelled of ozone and burnt insulation, old fear clinging to every surface.
As he walked through a short, dark hallway, his eyes—glowing briefly crimson—activated his Radar.
Search.
His vision instantly saturated with a high-frequency scan: a transparent, sweeping red bar pierced through the corridor walls and tangled debris like an X-ray. Only featureless wreckage surfaced. No class objects or energy signatures appeared.
While analyzing the room, his attention snagged on the primary console. It was running on a faint internal backlight, displaying a single colossal, blinking text notification. The language was ancient, incomprehensible.
He was locked on the console when a sudden flash of movement snapped his attention away.
Bang.
Jace erupted from the locker, screaming as he swung the electric bat. The weapon crashed onto the metal floor, missing its target by only a heartbeat—its wild arc slicing through empty air just after the masked intruder dodged aside.
The masked man's thoughts were detached, clinical: Primitive, but quick. In a blur, he closed the distance. Jace, running on raw terror, twisted for another strike.
Primitive, but quick. He dodged the wild swing. Jace, fueled by raw terror, twisted for another strike. The dagger clashed against the bat with a sharp crack. The battery fizzled out in a final hiss. He tossed the dead weapon aside. Jace slammed into the locker door.
A kid? What is the kid doing in here?, the man thought.
Jace groaned, clutching the bat, thrashing on the floor. Rage smothered any training. In a final, desperate burst, he lunged at his enemy's torso. The response was ruthless: a knee pinned him down, cheek mashed to the freezing grate. Utterly helpless. The man reached for his belt, pulling out his Aether Compass. Its needle spun wildly, then locked onto an impossible reading.
ZERO.
"No. Impossible." His mind reeled. "A living organism cannot register zero Aether cores." Confusion clouded his voice.
He ignored Jace's struggling for a moment, pulling out his translator relic—a sleek, palm-sized device.
"Who in the actual fuck are you?" Jace screamed, his voice hoarse with panic. "I can't understand shit you're saying! Let me go!"
He pointed the device at Jace. The sensors whined, then began frantically glitching, unable to parse the source. Then, the screen locked onto a category:
LANGUAGE: ANCIENT. UNCLASSIFIABLE.
He stared at the screen, then at Jace. Ancient. Unclassifiable. This was a living, forbidden relic. "Hey," he spoke into the Relic, his voice now being filtered into Jace's native language. "You can understand me now."
Jace stopped struggling, his eyes wide. "Wait, what...?"
"S-squad leader," a voice crackled through the comms attachment on his shoulder armor. "Updates on your end. We have secured the perimeter. Report status."
His stare flicked from the boy to the comms unit. Highly irregular. Extract what he can before committing to any choice.
"Reaper 1 to team," he barked into his comms, his voice regaining his cold, professional tone. "Cleared on my end, proceed to the rendezvous point. Over and out."
He pointed his dagger at Jace's throat, pressing the cold steel just short of the skin. "I will give you a chance to live, but we have to talk. If you make funny moves, you know where this edge is going."
Jace swallowed hard, rage snuffed out by the dagger's icy promise of death. He nodded. Resolve wavered as the blade finally withdrew.
Jace glared up at the man who had both saved and threatened him. "Fine," he spat, settling back on his heels as anger flickered back into his eyes.
"What do you want?"