The heavy doors to Site Zero shuddered open with a mechanical groan, spilling a wash of sterile white light into the forgotten maintenance tunnels.
Irfan Shah stood still for a moment, staring into the threshold.
The air inside was unnaturally cold, carrying a scent of metal, oil, and something older — something wrong.
Behind him, Aina Farisha checked the charge on her compact sidearm.
Reza secured the EMP grenades beneath her jacket, her face unreadable.
They had made it this far.
There was no turning back now.
"Stay sharp," Irfan murmured. "They'll know we're coming."
Aina offered a faint smile.
"Let them."
They crossed the threshold into the lion's den.
Inside, the facility was a labyrinth.
Polished steel walls stretched endlessly, broken only by security checkpoints and motionless drones docked into their charging nests.
The corridors were lined with soft white lighting embedded into the floors and ceilings — clinical, perfect, oppressive.
Every footstep echoed in the sterile silence.
Irfan's prosthetic eye scanned constantly, overlaying schematics against the real environment.
LUCIA updated in real-time:
"No immediate threats detected. Surveillance blind spots ahead. Proceed with caution."
It felt too easy.
Too quiet.
And that was what worried him most.
They moved quickly, weaving through service corridors and maintenance shafts, avoiding main thoroughfares wherever possible.
Everywhere they turned, the sheer scale of Site Zero revealed itself:
Massive data cores humming behind reinforced glass.
Nanotech fabrication labs lined with deactivated machines.
Rows of cryostasis pods — empty — standing like tombstones.
Whatever PHALANX was building here, it was beyond anything Irfan had ever imagined.
They were no longer dealing with simple mind control.
They were dealing with the reprogramming of humanity itself.
At a secure console, Irfan connected a portable decryptor.
He worked fast, fingers flying over the cracked interface.
Aina and Reza kept watch.
File directories spilled onto his retina overlay:
TITAN-9 Core Systems
Neural Synchronization Test Logs
Subject Integration Trials
E-9 Behavioral Protocols
Irfan froze.
E-9.
The name he had seen earlier in PHALANX's files.
He hesitated, scrolling deeper.
There were no full images, no specifications — only encrypted warnings.
Caution: Asset E-9 Deployment requires Level Omega Clearance.
Irreversible Activation Once Engaged.
He swallowed hard.
Whatever E-9 was… it wasn't a weapon in the traditional sense.
It was something worse.
Something unleashed.
"We've got movement!" Reza hissed through clenched teeth.
Irfan jerked his head up.
At the far end of the corridor, small ceiling-mounted drones powered to life with a hiss, their sensors blinking red.
Aina pulled Irfan back just as the drones deployed micro-turrets from their chassis.
Brrrt!
Bullets chewed into the floor where Irfan had been standing seconds ago.
"Move!" Aina barked.
They sprinted across the corridor, weaving between cover points, bullets sparking off steel pillars.
Reza tossed a compact EMP grenade mid-run.
It detonated with a muted thump, sending a pulse of blue-white energy rippling outward.
The drones spasmed and fell to the ground, lifeless.
Breathing hard, they reached a secondary corridor — narrower, darker.
The lights flickered as emergency power rerouted.
Irfan felt it then — a low vibration running through the floor.
Not from the drones.
Not from machinery.
Something else.
Something bigger.
LUCIA whispered into his mind:
"Warning. Significant mass displacement detected in sublevel corridors. Heat signature… unknown configuration."
He exchanged a glance with Aina.
Both of them knew.
The true danger hadn't even arrived yet.
And they were already trapped inside the beating heart of PHALANX.
Deep within Site Zero, heavy magnetic doors began to unlock with a hydraulic hiss.
Chains slithered back into recessed walls.
Security fields deactivated.
And from the deepest shadows, something ancient, something built from stolen science and broken ethics… stirred.
Its breathing was slow.
Measured.
Hungry.
Unit E-9 was awake.
And it had been waiting for them.