The sharp smell of chemicals grew stronger the deeper I went.
Leo floated inches beside me, hands jammed into his pockets, with his cigarette clenched between his teeth. "You know, you could still turn around. Pretend you never saw this. Go home, drink some cheap coffee, watch bad TV…" He gestured vaguely. "Speaking of bad TV, it feels like I'm watching a bad horror movie right now. You sure you wanna keep going down here? I feel like if anyone was watching this, they'd be screaming for you to turn the other way."
I ignored him and kept moving.
The stairs ended in a steel-framed archway, opening into a long stretched corridor. The floor gleamed under harsh fluorescent lights, polished tile so clean it looked sterile. Both walls were lined with panels of dark glass windows, though whatever lay behind them was hidden in secrecy.
A low hum, thread through the air. Machinery. Beneath that, muffled voices, layered over the staccato rhythm of fingers tapping keys.
I pressed myself against the wall, moving silently until I reached the first glass panel. I leaned just far enough to see.
Behind the glass was a room bathed in harsh white light. Rows of computers filled the space, their screens displaying endless streams of data—numbers, graphs, pulse lines, grids, you name it. Men moved between them, their bodies sealed in black tactical suits, faces buried under glossy helmets and mirrored visors. They didn't seem to speak much, only giving short commands and gestures.
Leo peered over my shoulder with a lopsided grin. "Well, that's cozy. Real friendly vibe they've got going. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
My eyes stayed locked on the scene through the glass, on the sterile corridor beyond that stretched into the heart of the facility.
"I'm thinking…" I whispered, pressing back against the cold wall, "…this is bigger than I expected."
Leo tilted his head. "That's great, kiddo. Anyway, my biggest concern is making sure you don't pass out before you find something useful."
I brushed him off and scanned the hallway again. Movement flickered at the edge of my vision. Somewhere in here, there were answers, and maybe a trail to someone like me.
I pushed off the wall and started forward, staying close to the edge of the glass. The corridor stretched on, lined with seamless panels of dark glass. Behind some of them, I caught glimpses of shapes moving—more workers, it seemed.
The screens on the wall pulsed with information I couldn't quite make out. From where I stood, the details were smeared by glare and distance, but I caught glimpses; profiles with names and faces dozens of them.
That's when the realization clicked in my head. This was a remote command post, a place built to watch and track specific individuals.
And if they were tracking people like me…
I shifted my weight and eased forward along the corridor. I was listening closely for anything out of the ordinary, when I noticed a shift in the atmosphere.
Shouts broke the rhythm of clicking keyboards. A door slammed somewhere ahead as boots scraped against tile. Panic.
I froze and listened.
"…losing them again—"
"Lock the feed—NOW!"
More footsteps. A burst of static crackled through an unseen speaker; something had clearly gone wrong.
And as far as I could tell, it wasn't because of me. Not yet. Whew.
I slid deeper into the labyrinth, the chaos causing a distraction that was working in my favor. They were too busy scrambling to notice me slipping past them. Whatever they were dealing with, it had them on edge, and that gave me room to move.
The voices grew louder as I neared the wing with a small "3 - Records" sign. The corridor narrowed, bending slightly before splitting off. Light spilled from the last door on the right, the murmur of frantic voices coming from within.
I crept up, pressed my shoulder against the wall, and listened. Fingers rapidly tapped keyboards as someone cursed.
"They're glitching out again!" A man's voice, ragged with frustration. "We've lost connection to the surveillance feeds!"
"Check the backups," another snapped. "If the main grid's down—"
"It's not the system," a third cut in. "Shit! I think it's—"
"Doesn't matter! Just get it back up!"
I waited until the next wave of clattering keys drowned their words, then nudged the door open, just enough to see.
Three techs crowded around a console glowing with maps and flickering data streams. Their faces were washed in pale blue light. One slammed his fist on the desk hard enough to rattle the screens. Another muttered something under her breath, her hands blurring over the keys. None of them looked up.
Perfect.
I slid through the gap and sank low behind a bank of metal filing cabinets, my knees brushing the cold tile. Servers hummed along the far wall. The information I needed was here, somewhere in this maze.
Suddenly, they all left in a hurry. The door swung open, and their silhouettes vanished into the hall.
Leo hummed a tune behind me. "Beautiful," he said. "You know Abital, this kind of luck is pretty rare for you."
I slipped to the console while the blue light from the screens covered my face. The terminal hummed under my fingers. Rows of folders scrolled across the display: personnel, feeds, network topologies, etc. I pulled up a few files, scanning for anything that looks like a lead.
A label caught my attention: OGC - CURRENT DATA.
OGC—Operation Grand Citizen. I attempted to open it, but the packet was locked. I was met with a blinking password prompt.
Fortunately for me, luck kept showing up that night. One of the techs had left a keycard on the desk; taped to the back, a sticky note curled with a scrawl: ogc_access_2032.
"Of course," Leo murmured. "This is starting to get uncanny. You're getting awfully lucky."
I typed the password. The console took awhile to load, then opened.
The screen split.
On the left were profiles. A column of faces and photographs. Beneath each portrait, a name in capital letters, then a string of data fields: Codename. Known Soulforge. Origin Faction. Threat Level (1–10). Last Known Status.
On the right were engagement logs. Squadrons, numbers, and weapon systems. A running timeline of assignments: Squadron No. 1 → deployed → encounter → cost.
The first profile loaded.
CODENAME: TODESBLITZ
Known Soulforge: Lightning conjuration & manipulation; storm conjuration; conductive supercharge (could overload and supercharge metal conductors).
Origin: 20.o / Solarian Dominion Experimental Trials
Threat Level: 9.2/10
Last Known Status: ENGAGEMENT: SQUADRON 4 (ELITE). RESULT: TERMINATED — 2032-06-14 03:42
A thumbnail of Todesblitz filled the left pane. On the right, a small panel expanded: SQUADRON 4 — call sign Ironfold. Equipment list: diluted Forefather serum vials (containment use), Resonance Blade units, Field Suppressors, Pulse Nets. Then, an explosion of white and red: the word TERMINATED fattened across the feed in a stamp, white over blood-red.
Another profile slid up.
CODENAME: EISENFAUST
Known Soulforge: Dense bone & muscle reinforcement; kinetic conversion (punches converted stored energy to shockwaves); near-immovable hold.
Origin: Iron Union experimental cadre
Threat Level: 6.3/10
Last Known Status: PACKED SQUADRON LOSS — SQUADRON 2 NEUTRALIZED, MISSION REASSIGNED TO SQUADRON 4; EISENFAUST SUSTAINED FATAL DAMAGE — 2032-06-16 22:17
Eisenfaust's portrait was a hulking frame with some kind of metallic armor across his forearms; the engagement log showed a video clip—an open square where you could see men in black moving in coordinated bursts, then exploding in a changed-angle of impact as Eisenfaust performed a single swinging punch that collapsed the squad's formation. The clip broke into steam and then the red-white TERMINATED stamp again.
The list scrolled: NACHTGEIST, BLUTKLINGE, STURMWANDLER, VORBOTE, HOHLSANG, and more; all terminated. My eyes read each profile faster and faster, my mind rapidly descending into a rabbithole of despair.
For a second the screen became a blur of names and numbers. For a second I couldn't breathe.
Between profiles, logs popped up in the right column—Squadron No.1, No.6, No.12, etc.—each with a roster. The squadrons were not generic units; they were labeled and numbered: ELITE HUNTING SQUADRON with readiness levels, ratio of casualties, and—most telling—the intervention method. Each entry listed the equipment used.
As the file autoscrolled, a pattern emerged. The hunters came in trained, fed by the state's resources. They sometimes won engagements—sometimes entire squads were wiped out. But the left column showed casualties, and the right column showed a percentage: ELIMINATION SUCCESS RATE: 98.3%. The few anomalies—the silver lines in the logs—were instances where a Warforged killed an entire hunting squad; the system flagged those as "secondary disruptions" and showed the term HIGH CASUALTY next to the squad's name before returning, inevitably, to the flat termination stamp. It seemed that no matter how powerful a Warforged was, there was no escaping the inevitable.
I scrolled faster. A box in the corner read OGC EXECUTION SUMMARY; the lead analyst's notes listed bio-sampling, spinal fluid allocation, dilution protocols, and civic dispersal methods. There was a schematic—tiny vials, lines of chemical ratios—and a header: FORE FATHER SAMPLES. A lab ID number blinked in the corner: FF-0012.
I slowly massaged my temples. I was being inundated with classified information, and not only was it overwhelming, but none of it was good news.
Another profile blinked up, but it was one that didn't make much sense.
CODENAME: N/A
Known Soulforge: [DATA REDACTED]
Origin: 20.o - Candidate ID #A-17
Threat Level: THRESHOLD EXCEEDED
Last Known Status: ENGAGED — SQUADRON 6 (NEUTRALIZED), SQUADRON 2 [REPACK] (NEUTRALIZED & DISBANDED), SQUADRON 12 (HEAVY CASUALTIES), SQUADRON 4 (LIGHT CASUALITIES) — OUTCOME: TERMINATED — 2032-08-03 01:10
My fingers hovered over the keyboard but didn't move. I was trying to make sense of the information; I knew this was important in some way, but I was lacking something that would bring it all together. That was when Leo spoke for the first time since this started.
"Holy," he breathed. His hands were busy tracing some kind of shape in the air. "They…he…" He didn't finish.
I kept scrolling. The list got denser the deeper I went. For every Warforged entry, there was the same finality.
CODENAME: THE FOREFATHER
KNOWN SOULFORGE: [ARCHIVAL STATUS: PROHIBITED — SEE CLASSIFIED LOGS]
ORIGIN: Prototype — 20.o
THREAT LEVEL: (LEGACY)
LAST KNOWN STATUS: MISSING — PRESUMED DECEASED
There was a note beside the Forefather tag: SAMPLES REMAIN: FF-0012 — FF-0016.
[CURRENT STATUS : AWAITING DIRECTION FOR DISPOSAL/RESEARCH.]
My hands went numb. "Why—" I started, but the word stuck.
Leo's voice was small. "You wanted proof. This is proof. You see what I mean now, Abital? You don't understand half of what you're looking at, yet you know the outcome all the same: everyone's dead. All of them." He bit his lip. "Even…him."
I pulled the thumbnails to a slow pause and loaded a single dossier. The header read TODESBLITZ again, but this time there was more—there was mission footage embedded, a schematic of a containment grid, and a report. I opened the clip: a man in a ruined square, lightning bursting wildly off his arms. The feed was jerky. The moment the Warforged raised a fist, something in the video exploded. A white flash ate the picture. Terminated.
I closed the clip. A low ringing sound in my ears began to give me a headache.
There was a line in the analyst's notes that read: OBJECTIVE: ERADICATE. NOTE: WARFORGED PRESERVATION RISK MITIGATED BY DILUTED SAMPLES. They had written it as if they were discussing animals.
"This is beyond what I thought I'd find," I exhaled. "They slaughtered them, Leo. You saw it with your own eyes. They catalogued them like sheep or cattle, then killed them without a care. The numbers prove it—ninety-eight point three percent are gone. I'm just a thing to be hunted."
"Listen, kid." He said. "You're reading a ledger that's full of dead people. Ninety-eight percent are gone, and we could even round that up to ninety-nine. Fine. Good. That's the whole point I was trying to make."
"No," I said. "That's exactly the problem! Ninety-eight percent gone means—"
"—means the two percent who aren't confirmed dead are ghosts," Leo finished. "They're not going to be in any lists, Abital. They folded themselves into gutters, alleyways, the very noise you walk past every day. If there are only a few left, they'll be impossible to find. You can't start an uprising with ghosts."
Heat settled in my chest. "I don't need an army at first. I need—" I stopped. The word "hope" sounded cliche. "I need a place to start, at least. Even one surviving Warforged is a start. If I keep digging, I may be able to find one. A few more—then we can really start to plan."
Leo gave me a theatrical sigh. "And you think you'll do that by waving at the right alley and shouting 'Hey, ex-soldier friend, want to revolt?'" He tilted his head. "You were made to kill, yes. You weren't made to be good at PR."
"You think I don't know that?" I scowled. "I'm tired, Leo. I'm tired of being scared and folding into the crowd. If there's a single loophole in Solarius' cleanup—"
A sharp chirp cut me off. The console window began to flash. A red band crawled across the screen and the console emitted a thin, insistent tone.
"Did you—" I began.
"Don't look at me." Leo raised his hands. "What did you do?"
I stared at the warning on the screen: SECURITY OVERRIDE — MANUAL INPUT REQUIRED. A second later a harsher alarm snapped alive somewhere deeper in the facility.
Great. Of course I would set off an alarm. My hand jerked, scrambling for the console's override, but a cascade of locked protocols shut the console down faster than my fingers could think. Speakers crackled with a calm, official voice: "Attention. Unauthorized activity detected. All units respond to Access Bay Three."
"Shit." My boots shifted.
"That's gonna be a three-minute response time from the nearest Peaceguard shift," Leo said. I didn't ask how he knew that. He counted on his fingers. "Two minutes if they sprint. We have—" he glanced at a wall clock—"about ninety seconds before the room gets surrounded with Shapers."
I looked at the console again. "Let's get out of here before then. I don't want to fight."
Leo blinked, disbelieving and then, predictably, annoyed. "Of course you don't. You never do." He floated down the length of the table, resting his chin on his knuckles. "I don't think you'll be able to get out of here without shedding a little blood. But if you won't fight, you could do something useful. You could lend me a thread of your essence."
I let out a confused laugh. "I don't have much, Leo. You know that. Why would that even help you?"
He actually puffed a cloud of cigarette smoke right in my face, then stared at me with that violet burn behind his lids. "Because I can't kill them when I'm just a voice in your head. I can't swing at them, or do anything else to protect you. If you hand me a shard of what's inside you, it can temporarily allow me to materialize."
"You mean… become real," I said. The idea felt like handing a toddler a stick of burning dynamite. "You can do that? From me?"
Leo's grin reappeared, triumphant. "I can, for a little while. I take an anchor from your reservoir—feed myself some essence—and I get to have a bit of fun. Moreover, you get a chance to keep breathing while I have my fun."
I had a million questions, like why he didn't mention he could do this before, but time was running low.
"You're not exactly a knight in shining armor," I said. "More like a back-alley dealer asking if I want someone dead."
He hopped off the table and leaned close—way too close. "I am stylish," he said. "Also extremely likely to survive and cause disproportionate havoc. Think of me as your best friend, not a hitman." He leaned in even closer, conspiratorial. "So just behave, and I promise to leave you with more of your dignity than most contractors ever would."
The alarm got louder. Footsteps echoed down the corridor outside, the sound of boots stomping on metal.
"Err—How much? All of it?" I asked, leaning back.
"Not everything," Leo said. "If I siphon the little you keep bottled, I can materialize for a minute or two, maybe three—long enough to wipe out the first wave, disable the emergency relay, and carve us out of this wing. I'll give most of it back when I de-materialize. You might be woozy, and you might pass out; but I won't send you into soul degeneration, and you won't be arrested or killed."
I clicked my tongue. "You're assuming you'll get to do something like this again."
"I'm assuming you're not a monster," he giggled. "And if you are, I'll haunt you for centuries." There's that stupid grin again. "Now, do I have to charm you, or can you just be a good boy and do as I say for once?"
A large part of me wanted to say no. A smaller part wanted to see what would happen if I were to say yes.
"I'm going to give you all of it. If this kills me," I said, "you're responsible."
Leo makes a face like he's offended by the suggestion. "Fine. Your moral responsibility is accepted. Even if I do mess up, I'll write a nice eulogy. Really heartfelt." His eyes flicked to the door. "Now, let's speed things up."
I placed my hands on the console, shutting my eyes. It took a great deal of effort to reach down and stop suppressing myself. Essence spilled from my reservoir. I felt it leaving, a cold sensation that ran through my chest and limbs until I was left trembling.
"Whoa," Leo said, eyebrows lifted. "Guess we're not playing conservative."
"I told you to take it all," I managed, but my voice was already sluggish.
Leo's form began to glow, faint at first, then brighter, until it was hard to look at him. A blinding flash of violet light filled the room.
When it cleared, he was standing there. Really standing. His boots clicked against the tile. The smoke from his ever-present cigarette curled into my nose for the first time, and his grin was painfully, infuriatingly real. He rolled his shoulders.
"Oh, that's good," he said, his voice richer now that it came from an actual throat. He dug his heel into the floor, clearly giddy. "Feels good to have real ground under me again."
The room tilted sideways. My knees went weak, and I hit the floor before I realized I was falling. My last thought before the dark closed in was how annoyingly satisfied he looks.