Chapter 96: The White Fortress

 

The Swiss Alps. The Matterhorn Region. Altitude: 3,000 Meters. Blizzard Conditions.

The wind howled like a dying wolf. Visibility was zero. A black tactical helicopter (stolen from a PMC depot in Zurich) struggled against the storm. Jack was piloting, fighting the controls. "The altimeter is freezing up!" Jack yelled over the headset. "I can't see the landing zone! We're flying blind!"

"Trust the sensors," Sebastian sat in the co-pilot seat. He wasn't wearing a suit anymore. He was geared up in white arctic camouflage, holding a thermal scope. "The Genesis Sanitarium is built into the mountain. It has no heat signature. We have to find the ventilation exhaust."

Harper sat in the back, loading specialized cryo-rounds into her sniper rifle. "Takeshi's postcard gave us coordinates," she said. "But it didn't tell us about the defense grid."

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. [ MISSILE LOCK DETECTED. ]

"Incoming!" Jack banked the chopper hard to the left. WHOOSH. A surface-to-air missile streak past their windshield, missing them by inches. It exploded against the cliff face, triggering a mini-avalanche.

"We can't land!" Jack shouted. "They have radar-guided AA guns!"

"Then we jump," Sebastian stood up. He opened the side door. The freezing wind instantly filled the cabin. "Drop us on the ridge. You draw their fire."

"You're crazy!" Jack grinned. "I love it."

---

[The Drop]

Sebastian and Harper jumped. They didn't use parachutes (too slow, easy targets). They used Wing-Suits. Like flying squirrels, they glided through the blizzard, hugging the cliffside to stay under the radar.

Below them, the Genesis Sanitarium emerged from the fog. It didn't look like a hospital. It looked like a medieval castle made of glass and steel, clinging to the precipice. Searchlights swept the snow. Armed guards in white exoskeletons (The Immortals) patrolled the walls.

"Target sighted," Sebastian’s voice was calm in the wind. "Landing in 3... 2... 1..."

They flared their suits and crashed into a deep snowbank on the eastern ridge, just 50 meters from the perimeter wall. They buried themselves instantly, letting the snow cover their heat signatures.

A patrol of two Immortals walked by. Their heavy boots crunched on the ice. They held plasma rifles. "Sector 4 clear," one guard said in German. "The storm is getting worse."

Sebastian waited until they passed. He emerged from the snow like a ghost. He didn't use a gun. He used a Monofilament Wire. He slipped behind the last guard. ZIIIP. Silent. Clean.

Harper took the second guard. She used a tranquilizer dart aimed at the neck seal of his armor. He collapsed.

"We're in," Sebastian dragged the bodies into the shadows. "But this is just the outer wall."

---

[The Gatekeeper]

They moved toward the main complex. Kenji (Zero) was monitoring them from a safe location in Zurich. ZERO (Comms): I'm scanning the building's schematics. It's... weird. SEBASTIAN: Weird how? ZERO: The layout. It goes down, not up. It's an iceberg. 90% of the structure is inside the mountain. ZERO: And there's a massive energy reading at the bottom. Bigger than Avignon. Bigger than Tokyo.

"Another meteorite?" Harper asked, hacking the electronic lock on a service door.

ZERO: No. The signature isn't alien. It's... human. It's a heartbeat. A massive, singular heartbeat.

Sebastian paused. "What is the Chairman keeping down there?"

ZERO: I don't know. But the encryption on the lower levels is labeled "Project: Lazarus".

---

[The Ambush]

They entered the facility. The hallways were pristine white. Classical music (Bach) played softly from hidden speakers. It felt sterile. Dead.

"Too quiet," Sebastian raised his weapon.

Suddenly, the lights cut out. Red emergency strobes began to flash. A voice echoed over the intercom. It was The Chairman. Old, raspy, but amused.

"Mr. Sterling. Mrs. Knight." "I expected you sooner. Takeshi was so dramatic, wasn't he? Always playing with his toys." "But here... here we value patience."

Blast doors slammed shut on both ends of the corridor. Trapping them. The walls began to slide open. Revealing Stasis Pods.

Inside the pods were not men. They were Creatures. Genetically modified hybrids. Muscle mass increased by 300%. Skin replaced with graft-armor. No eyes. Just sensory patches. The Rejects. The failed experiments of Project Helios that didn't die. The Chairman had kept them. Weaponized them.

"Please," The Chairman's voice chuckled. "Feed my pets."

The pods hissed open. Six monstrosities stepped out, drooling acidic saliva. They roared.

Sebastian looked at Harper. "You take the left. I take the right."

Harper racked her sniper rifle. "I hate zoos."

(End of Chapter 96)