The tower shook.
Dust rained from the ceiling as Ethan sprinted down the corridor, boots pounding against metal flooring. Red emergency lights flickered violently, bathing everything in a hellish glow. Sirens wailed like screaming ghosts in the narrow hallways.
Iris's voice cut through the noise.
"Multiple heat signatures entering the tower. Syndicate strike teams are moving fast—Ethan, they're coming for you from every level!"
"Then they're too slow," Ethan muttered, leaping over a collapsed support beam.
He landed hard, but his enhanced reflexes absorbed the impact. Genesis was humming beneath his skin—burning, alive, furious. He could feel it sharpening him, heightening everything: his sight, his hearing, his speed. It was like the tower itself was feeding adrenaline into his veins.
Another explosion rocked the building.
"Ethan!" Iris shouted. "They're breaching the east wing. You have maybe three minutes before—"
Gunfire erupted up ahead.
Ethan ducked behind a twisted metal doorframe as Syndicate operatives swarmed from the hallway corner, rifles blazing.
"Subject 01 spotted!" someone yelled. "Open fire!"
Bullets slammed into the walls around him, sparks showering everywhere.
Ethan clenched his teeth. "I don't have three minutes."
He burst out from cover.
The world slowed.
To him, the muzzle flashes were flowers blooming in slow motion. The raindrops leaking from the cracked ceiling glimmered mid-air like falling stars. Ethan slid under the first volley of shots, grabbed the nearest operative by the vest, and hurled him into two others.
Gunfire continued.
Ethan twisted, dodging bullets as if he were stepping through raindrops. He swept the leg of the closest shooter, disarmed him in one motion, and used the rifle's butt as a hammer, slamming it into another operative's jaw.
Two went down.
Three more rushed him.
Ethan dropped the rifle, sprinted forward, and drove his knee into the abdomen of the first attacker. The man folded. Ethan spun, elbowed the second one in the temple, then snapped his other arm up to parry the third's combat knife.
Steel grazed Ethan's cheek.
He didn't blink.
He grabbed the knife wielder's wrist, twisted—and the blade clattered to the floor. Ethan head-butted the man, knocking him unconscious instantly.
Silence.
Bodies on the ground.
Ethan wasn't even breathing hard.
Iris exhaled shakily through the comms. "Ethan… your vitals—they're spiking like crazy. You shouldn't be able to move like this without burning out."
"Tell that to Genesis," he said, wiping blood from his cheek. "It's doing half the work for me."
That worried her.
He could hear it in her voice.
"Eliminate the power core," she said urgently. "If you destroy the central nexus controlling the tower systems, the signal might die with it."
"Location?"
She hesitated. "Lowest level. Sub-basement 5."
Ethan sighed. "Of course it is."
He sprinted toward the elevator shaft—only to find the elevator car destroyed, a twisted heap of metal at the bottom.
No problem.
He leapt.
He slid down the cables, heat from friction stinging his hands as he descended five floors in seconds. The darkness swallowed him, but his eyes adjusted instantly. When he landed at the bottom, he barely felt the shock.
Sub-basement 5 was colder than the upper floors.
Too cold.
And too quiet.
Ethan jogged into the central chamber—and stopped dead.
Huge cables snaked across the ceiling like black vines. Strange machinery hummed with dead energy. And in the center of the room stood a circular metal pod—cracked open like an egg.
He knew it instantly.
His old incubation chamber.
Ethan's breath hitched.
The pod was huge, tall enough to hold a grown adult, its glass front shattered. Dried liquid clung to the edges—thick, amber, and preserved for years.
He stepped toward it slowly.
"This is where they kept me," he whispered.
"I know," Iris said softly in his ear. "I can see your heart rate rising. Ethan… you don't have to look."
But he did.
He touched the cold metal. It vibrated faintly under his fingers.
Memories hit him in flashes:
The bright white ceiling.
The wires attached to his spine.
Children's voices crying in other pods.
A doctor whispering, "This one is stable. Candidate 01."
His own heartbeat echoing through the liquid.
He'd forgotten more than he remembered.
But his body hadn't.
Ethan stepped back from the pod.
Then the lights flickered—
—and a shadow stood behind him.
Ethan spun instantly.
A figure stood at the far doorway, wearing a black coat, face half-covered by a silver mask. Tall. Silent. Unreadable.
Iris gasped.
"Ethan… that heat signature— I recognize it."
Ethan's eyes narrowed.
"Specter."
He hadn't seen the man in months. The last time, they nearly killed each other.
Specter tilted his head slightly. "You've made quite a mess."
"Get out of here," Ethan said coldly. "This place is wired to blow. You're not dying with it."
Specter stepped forward. "I'm not here to fight you."
Ethan didn't lower his stance.
"Then why are you here?"
Specter let out a quiet breath.
"To warn you."
Ethan's jaw tightened. "About what?"
Specter looked at the pod. "About what Genesis still has planned."
Ethan frowned. "I'm shutting it down. Tonight."
"You think destroying a tower will stop this?" Specter stepped closer, eyes glinting behind the mask. "Genesis isn't a building. It's a program. A network. A seed planted in every subject they ever made."
Ethan felt ice in his stomach. "They destroyed the other subjects."
Specter didn't answer.
Instead, he turned his head, just slightly.
"And who told you that?"
The floor trembled.
Something huge moved in the darkness beyond the chamber.
Ethan's instincts roared.
Another presence.
No—several.
The air shifted. Heavy footsteps echoed. A low, almost inhuman growl reverberated through the walls.
Iris whispered fearfully, "E-Ethan… multiple signals incoming. Five. No—six. Their body temperatures are—wrong. They're moving fast."
Ethan raised his fists. "Rivas was lying."
Specter nodded.
"Project Genesis wasn't shut down."
From the shadows behind Specter, six figures emerged. Their shapes were humanoid—but not natural. Their eyes glowed faintly blue. Their muscles twitched unnaturally under pale skin. Their movements were stiff, puppet-like.
Genesis subjects.
Failed prototypes.
Yet alive.
Iris cried, "Ethan RUN—"
The prototypes lunged.
The first one reached him in a blur, swinging an arm with bone-breaking force. Ethan dodged sideways, grabbed its elbow, and slammed it into the floor—but it didn't feel pain. It moved like an unkillable doll, twisting back upright with impossible flexibility.
The second prototype attacked from behind. Ethan spun, parried, and hammered a punch into its face. Bone cracked. But the creature didn't scream. It simply staggered and kept coming.
Specter drew two blades, eyes narrowing. "Don't let them surround you!"
Ethan leapt backward, vaulting over broken machinery.
Three prototypes charged him at once.
Ethan grabbed a cable hanging from the ceiling, swung, and kicked one square in the chest. The creature flew backward, smashing into a reinforced wall.
Another prototype grabbed his leg mid-swing and hurled him across the chamber.
Ethan smashed into a console, sparks flying everywhere.
His ribs screamed.
Iris shouted his name. "Ethan—your vitals are crashing! You can't take all of them alone!"
"I'm not alone," he groaned, pushing himself up.
Specter stood back-to-back with him, blades glinting red in the emergency lights.
Ethan muttered, "This doesn't mean we're friends."
Specter shrugged. "Good. Friends slow me down."
The prototypes charged.
Ethan and Specter moved in perfect synchrony.
Specter slashed the throat of one prototype, spinning with fluid grace. Ethan smashed another into a steel beam so hard the metal bent inward. Specter ducked under a blow, cut through an Achilles tendon, and kicked the creature down.
Ethan caught a prototype's punch mid-air, twisted its arm until the bone snapped, and slammed his palm into its chest—hard enough to cave in the sternum.
But they kept getting up.
"Headshots!" Specter yelled. "Destroy the brain!"
Ethan didn't hesitate.
He grabbed the nearest prototype by the skull—
—AND CRUSHED IT.
The creature collapsed instantly.
Specter decapitated another with a clean, brutal slash.
The last two prototypes paused.
Their glowing eyes shifted.
Then they turned and sprinted deeper into the sub-basement.
Ethan wiped blood from his mouth. "They're regrouping."
Specter sheathed his blades. "No. They're protecting something."
Iris's voice came through, breathless: "Ethan… I think I've located the central power nexus. It's right where those prototypes ran."
The chamber trembled again.
Something massive awakened below.
A deeper signal.
Older.
Stronger.
The heartbeat returned—pounding so hard Ethan felt it in his teeth.
Thump.
Thump.
THUMP.
Iris whispered, "Ethan… that is NOT a normal Genesis signature."
Specter turned to him.
"Ready?"
Ethan cracked his bruised knuckles. "Born ready."
They ran into the darkness.
Toward the core.
Toward the truth.
Toward the thing the prototypes were guarding.
The tower shook harder… as if something enormous was clawing its way up from the deep.
And when Ethan saw what awaited them—
Even he felt fear.