The convoy moved like shadows across the city.Three black SUVs. Silent engines. No headlights. Just purpose.Sonia sat in the front vehicle, flanked by Alex and Jason. Behind them, Eric and Silas prepped the charges in silence. They were less than twenty minutes from the underground Daxton facility the final stronghold of everything corrupt, cruel, and hidden.Jason tapped the map spread across his lap. “There’s a maintenance tunnel. No heat sensors. Leads straight to Sublevel 4.”“What’s on Sublevel 4?” Alex asked.Jason hesitated.Sonia turned. “What aren’t you saying?”Jason looked at her, pain etched into every line of his face. “The children. The ones they’ve been experimenting on. There are dozens. Maybe more.”Silas cursed under his breath. “This just got darker than I imagined.”“They’ve been altering them,” Jason went on. “Neurochemical injections. Memory wipes. Psychological breaks. All to create the next generation of ‘perfect operatives.’”Sonia’s hands balled into fists.
The warehouse was cold, the metal walls sweating from the chill of pre-dawn. Everyone was gathered Sonia, Eric, Silas, Alex, and the remnants of the resistance who had survived everything this mission had cost.Blueprints were scattered across the central table. Final floor plans of the underground Daxton compound. Security rotations. Hidden passageways. Emergency kill codes.They were ready.Almost.But Sonia’s gut twisted. Something still felt… off.Alex noticed. “You good?”“No,” she said honestly. “We’re missing something. There’s a gap.”“We’ve triple-checked everything.”“No. Not the maps. The people.” Sonia looked around. “There’s someone who’s been silent. Too silent.”“You think Daxton has another informant?” Eric asked.“I think…” Her voice trailed off, eyes narrowing. “He has a shadow. Someone none of us factored in.”That’s when the door burst open.Everyone snapped to attention, guns rising.A man stepped inside.Drenched in sweat. Bloodied lip. Bruised jaw. But his prese
The silence between Sonia and Eric on the ride back was thick enough to choke on.She didn’t cry.She didn’t scream.She didn’t say a word.Eric knew better than to push. He simply drove, his hand resting near hers on the center console. Not touching just there, if she needed it.When they got back to the safehouse, the others were waiting. Silas sat at the table, maps and blueprints spread out. Alex was hunched over a laptop, eyes hollow and wired. Mia, their tech contact from the inside, leaned in the corner with a mug of cold tea.“Any luck?” Silas asked as they entered.Sonia dropped her bag wordlessly. She looked around the room like it was made of glass and she could see right through everyone.“Where’s Clara now?” Silas asked again.“She’s not coming,” Sonia said. “And she’s not who I thought she was.”Silas studied her face. “What happened?”“She gave me up. To protect me, she said. But she gave my brother to Daxton instead. He died because of her.”A long silence followed.Er
Sonia stood outside the government building, the one Clara Morales now worked from not as a scientist, but as an “advisor” to the post-Daxton clean-up crew. It was clean, modern, glass-walled and hollow at its core. Like the truth Sonia was about to shatter.Inside, Eric paced in the car, ready if things went sideways.Sonia didn’t knock when she entered Clara’s office.Clara looked up from behind her desk, startled. “Sonia? What, what are you doing here?”No smile. No pretense.Sonia shut the door softly behind her and locked it.“We need to talk,” she said.Clara hesitated. “Is this about the investigation? I told the team—”“It’s not about the team,” Sonia interrupted, her voice steady but burning. “It’s about me. About you. About what you’ve been hiding.”Clara’s face froze.“I saw the files, Clara,” Sonia said. “Project Ember. Subject A2. Your daughter.”The older woman slowly stood, her hands resting on the desk as if steadying herself. “Sonia…”“Don’t. Don’t lie.”Silence stret
The safe house was nothing more than an old cabin buried deep in the woods, once owned by a Daxton staffer who defected before mysteriously vanishing. Sonia didn’t ask questions when Silas brought them there she was too focused on what came next.The air inside was heavy with tension, thick as fog.Alex sat at the kitchen table, fingers flying over his laptop as he decrypted the drive. Eric paced. Silas watched the windows. Sonia stared at the old, dust-covered portrait hanging over the fireplace.She didn’t know the woman in the painting.But something about her looked… familiar.“Guys,” Alex said suddenly, breath catching in his throat. “You need to see this.”They all crowded around.He clicked into a folder marked CLASSIFIED – PROJECT EMBER.The screen filled with images and documents. Sonia’s stomach twisted as she saw her twin brother’s photo not a school photo, but a lab photo. Skin pale. Monitors strapped to his body. Blood type listed. Neural scan reports. Underneath his file
The compound felt different now.Not just because of the broken systems or the flickering lights overhead but because Eric wasn’t sneaking in this time. He was charging in.He sprinted past the shattered access gate, the sirens overhead still wailing. Guards scrambled in the distance, confused by the blackout Alex had triggered moments ago. Every security protocol was falling apart in real-time.Eric didn’t have time to think about backup.He had to find Alex.And fast.He slipped through the server wing using the same route they’d used during reconnaissance weeks earlier. But now it smelled of burnt wires and adrenaline.“Alex!” he called, voice low but sharp.No response.He turned a corner and stopped.There, crouched beside a console, Alex was typing furiously, his face drenched in sweat. He didn’t even look up. “They shut me out,” he muttered. “Someone knew the leak was coming. They’ve been running a ghost trace in the system.”Eric moved closer. “You okay?”“No,” Alex said flatl