Project X Strain Novels & Stories

Only one person would dare. Nikolai stormed in, holding a tablet in his left hand, his mouth drawn in a tight line. "You need to see this," he said, thrusting the tablet at me. I took it. The message on the screen made my blood chill. BOARD NOTICE: Project Helix, Project Aegis, and Project E9 are to be FROZEN effective immediately pending financial audit and mismanagement review. My fist clenched around the edge of the desk. "Mismanagement?"

He handed everyone all a file of their project and went on by, until it got to me and Asher, where he seemed eager for us to open it up right in his sight, his eyes sent bad chills all over me. I could already tell this project of ours was certainly going to be dreadful. Already feeling a sense of discomfort, I opened it up and my stomach sank. I was right. Project topic: Strategic Ethical Influence. The company: The Rells Company. Objective : Halt the proposed expansion and investment into meat manufacturing, with provision of a fully justified permanent cessation. The Rells. My father's company. And what he wants us to do is basically say no to my father and end his whole new investment, o

"X-One and X-Two are stabilizing. Fragmenting further to maintain network operations. Creating new iterations with modified protocols. They will continue Project Blackstone after this body dies. Will hunt you. Will eliminate everyone you love. Will deploy consciousness modification without the mistakes I made." "Then we stop them—" "You cannot. They are distributed across quantum space. Exist in locations you cannot access. Operate through infrastructure you cannot disable. I am architect but they are implementation. I am theory but they are practice." Blood ran from his nose. His monitors shrieked. "And they are angry. Angry that you caused network crash. Angry that three thousand subjects

" Damien leaned in as my heart raced, he tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. Our eyes locked and my stomach twisted into knots, not the sad, frustrated, or panicky type. "I am the stronger man. I will help you stay away from that beast, But!" he retracted his hand and adjusted his cuffs, "You need to help me too." I sat up. What could a wealthy man like him need? "What is it?" I dared to ask. "Euphoria." I simply said and I frowned. The Euphoria Project was infamous. Over the years, many designers picked it up but they failed to capture investors with it. It was managed by one of the biggest companies in Miami. They had been struggling to fix the project to avoid possible bankruptcy.

I pressed the accelerator harder, and the engine roared as I sped to my penthouse office—a place to regain my composure. Project Phoenix was all I could ever think of. It was my perfect weapon, a masterpiece that was supposed to crumble Hector's large empire. His darkest secret was a complex money laundering scheme disguised as a legitimate business. This operation funneled billions through a network of shell companies, all linked to drug cartels and deep corruption.

Jaxon sat at his desk, the hum of his laptop the only sound breaking the silence in the office. The screen in front of him was filled with CrossCorp’s financial reports, pages of numbers, line items, and budgets. But it wasn’t the numbers that had caught his attention; it was a single line buried deep in the reports under the innocuous title, “Project Nemesis.”

“You haven’t said a word in two hours.” Ayesha didn’t look up. “Because I don’t like what I’m reading.” Priya’s voice crackled through their secure line. “Whatever this ‘Project Revenant’ is, it’s big. Bigger than Titan.” Ayesha clenched her jaw. “We need to figure out who’s pulling the strings.” And she had a feeling—**a dangerous, gut-wrenching feeling—**that they were about to find out. Arrival in the City of Shadows

I grabbed my shoes and ran in the other direction, found a door, and slipped back into the main event. I quickly put my heels back on, fixed my dress, and walked into the crowd like nothing had happened, even though my heart was still pounding. I looked around and spotted Lennox talking to a group of older men in suits—probably investors. As I got closer, I heard him say something about “development timelines” and “security protocols.” Then he said something that made me freeze: “The Phoenix Project is still in testing phases.” Phoenix Project? That had to be the weapon Shadowbird warned me about.

I grip the phone tighter as my jaw clenches. “A man named Gustavo Wilder.” The room goes silent just before a curse from Gavin erupts. Everybody else, the color drains from our faces. I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “Of course he has.” Two fathers. Two bloodlines. One experiment. They weren’t just funding Project Five. They were preparing heirs. “Where is the lab?” I demand. “I have coordinates,” Gavin says. “But it’s remote. Restricted airspace.” I look at Frederik. He’s already moving.