Chapter 27 - Chapter Twenty Seven

Two different corpo cells had sent spies into the field with orders to find hard evidence about these mysterious new companies, one targeting Aperture Science and the other aiming for Black Mesa, and both discovered quickly that these facilities weren't like anything they had broken into before, because the Aperture site was buried inside what looked like a normal abandoned mine but opened into massive white corridors that stretched for miles, walls and ceilings made of shifting panels that rearranged themselves into new layouts without warning, platforms dropping and rising like the place was alive, and in the center of it all test chambers where chrome was being pushed to limits the corpos had never seen, experiments involving reflex timing, endurance, augmented strength, all carried out by test subjects under strict supervision, but before the spy could gather more than a handful of photos of the moving walls and strange rooms the alarms erupted, harsh sirens and a calm synthetic voice repeating "intruder detected" over and over while panels closed in to cut off escape routes, forcing him to sprint back through shifting corridors with drones dropping down from the ceiling, red lights fixed on him, and he only just managed to slip out through the mine shaft before the entire place locked down, his footage corrupted but still holding enough images to prove something massive was happening inside. The second spy had it even worse, his assignment being the Black Mesa facility, a towering complex that looked ordinary from the outside but inside was pure military hardware, long hangars filled with weapon prototypes, firing ranges echoing with gunshots, racks of firearms unlike anything seen in Night City, and guarded by soldiers in black combat armor carrying guns that hummed with lethal energy; he had barely enough time to get three grainy photos before the alarms screamed and turrets unfolded from the walls, a robotic voice repeating "intruder detected," while armored guards rushed to his position, forcing him to trigger his sandevistan to weave through the incoming fire, every muscle in his body pushed to the edge, sparks and plasma bolts cutting the air around him. He made it halfway to an exit when his luck broke—one plasma shot clipped his arm, and in an instant his forearm dissolved into green slag, the flesh and chrome melting away with a smell like burning wires and cooked meat, the pain forcing a scream out of him even as he pushed his legs harder, staggering forward with his one remaining arm, adrenaline flooding him as the facility's defenses closed in. He dove through a side hatch, smashed through a half-closed maintenance door, and tumbled out onto the wasteland sand with alarms still wailing behind him, clutching the ruined stump where his arm used to be, the skin charred and the bone twisted but his life intact. Both spies made it back to their handlers with scars—one shaken and empty-handed except for blurry shots of Aperture's white-panel maze, the other missing an arm but alive with just enough footage of strange weapons to prove something dangerous was being developed—but neither could give their corps what they really wanted: detailed schematics, production lines, or the names behind these companies, because the defenses had worked exactly as intended, repelling intruders and letting just enough escape to confirm that whoever controlled Aperture Science and Black Mesa wasn't just building toys, they were producing tech on a level no one else had, and they were willing to kill to keep it secret.