LOGINMICHAEL'S POV"Your father had more sons than you knew about."The voice came from the direction of the SUV before I fully processed that the door had opened. I turned.The man stood fifty meters out, hands loose at his sides, no weapon visible. He was looking directly at me, not at the survivors dispersing around us, not at the building settling into its final collapse behind us, not at the agents working the perimeter. At me specifically."I am the third one," he continued, walking forward at a pace that was unhurried but covered ground fast. "My name is Rael. I have been waiting for this building to come down for a very long time."I watched him close the distance. My brain ran the inventory before he reached me.Jaw: same line as mine, slightly heavier. Eyes: same depth, different color, darker by two shades. The way he carried his weight across both feet when he stopped, the particular stillness of a man who had learned that movement drew attention. I had seen that posture in mir
SARAH'S POV"Move, move, move. Left corridor, second hatch. Go now."Viktor's voice came through the communication channel with the flat urgency of someone who had already run the numbers, did not like them, was moving anyway. I pushed the last two players through the corridor entrance ahead of me, watched them hit the hatch, watched Viktor's contact pull it open from the other side.Cold air rushed in.Real air. And I meant outside air. The kind that carried no chemical burn, no recycled concrete smell, nothing that the building had been feeding us for weeks.The players went through without stopping.I turned back."Michael." I moved toward the observation room corridor. "We need to go now."He came out of the corridor at a controlled run, Davina two steps behind him. Both of them had heard Viktor's transmission. Neither of them was running at full speed, which meant there was something still happening between them that had not finished, a conversation continuing in the silence arou
CLAUDIA'S POV"Override accepted. East service junction, clear."I said it to nobody. A habit from months of running this building, confirming aloud what the system confirmed silently. The system was not running anymore. The power to the monitoring grid had dropped ninety seconds ago, floor by floor, the building eating itself from the bottom up exactly the way Khalid had designed it to.He had always been thorough. I had admired that about him before I put a blade in him.The service tunnel ran parallel to the northeast section, low-ceilinged, concrete on all sides, the kind of space that existed in this building because Khalid had needed routes that his own cameras could not see. I had found this particular tunnel eleven days after taking the mask. Not from any schematic but from physical exploration, the same way I had found everything worth knowing in my life.Nobody had taught me anything useful. I had walked into every room I needed and taken what was there.The floor shuddered
SARAH'S POV"How many players are still in the hall?"Viktor's voice crackled through the communication channel before I cleared the observation room doorway."Thirty confirmed. Gas is coming through the north vents, which started two minutes ago."I was already running.The corridor outside the observation room was nothing like it had been twenty minutes ago. Three guards were moving away from their posts toward the stairwells, weapons holstered, making their own calculations about a sinking ship. I pressed against the wall as they passed, let them go, kept moving.Behind me I heard Michael zip-tying Claudia to the chair. I heard the plastic bite tight. I heard Claudia say nothing, which was worse than anything she could have said.The stairwell door hit the wall when I pushed through it.Two floors down. The shaking was different on the stairs, more direct, running up through the steps into my knees with every landing. Whatever Khalid had installed in the foundations was not subtle.
MICHAEL'S POV"Nobody moves."The guard's voice bounced off every wall in the observation room. His weapon was up, aimed at my centre mass. The second guard had Sarah against the east console, forearm across her throat, her feet barely touching the floor.Claudia sat in the control chair with her hands folded in her lap. She did not look alarmed. She looked like a woman watching a film she had already seen."Michael," she began, voice carrying that particular smoothness she deployed when she wanted someone to feel managed. "You built something impressive. And you did it intentionally and genuinely. Eleven days in my building, three contacts, Vera's device, the registration gap. I almost missed the crawl space." She tilted her head slightly. "Almost."I kept my eyes on the guard closest to me. Six feet…Weapon held at the elbow, not the shoulder, but sloppy. Someone trained for intimidation rather than engagement."The problem," Claudia continued, "is that you needed everything to go ri
TOM'S POV"Override sequence confirmed… Broadcast ready."I muttered to myself without particularly addressing anybody. The communication room was empty except for me, the screens, the console, alongside the weight of everything I had memorized over three months in a crawl space below this room while Khalid operated it every day without knowing I was listening. And this, of course, has become something I hoped could just stop. The screens were showing game footage, hall footage, the northeast section, and the observation room corridor. Twenty-four feeds running simultaneously, the same wall of visibility I had watched from below for months, now accessible to me from the chair.I had been sitting in this chair for four minutes.I had the override loaded. The broadcast target list built from the contact information Sarah had activated weeks ago alongside every device receiver in a ten-mile external radius. Phone networks, emergency broadcast frequencies, connected screens in every buil
FRIEDA’S POV“We’re approaching the coordinates now."Commander Hayes's voice passed through the helicopter headset. I pressed my face against the window, watching the landscape change from gray ocean to green countryside.My hands shook as I gripped Patricia's files. I'd been reading them for the e
FRIEDA’S POV I wiped my face roughly with my sleeve. No more crying, no more being the victim.I'd spent so long being controlled, being told what to do, being moved around like a chess piece. I'd forgotten what it felt like to make a real choice.But I have one now.I could cooperate with the auth
FRIEDA’S POV I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. It may lie the answers to my freedom. FREEDOM. I’ve dreamt of it, but that’s all it’s ever been. Nothing but a mere dream. Or it could also sink me deeper into the bottom of the ocean. I should run away. Garrett warned me. If I wait too lon
FRIEDA’S POV I opened my eyes, my head spinning. The EKG monitor beeped steadily as I looked at my left hand and saw my veins connected to a drip. I rubbed my eyes with my right hand and yawned. Turning to my right, I saw a doctor sitting with her back to me, typing on a computer.“Doc what happe







