The control room was in chaos. For hours the bank of holographic displays revealed feeds from cages, med bays, observation windows and biometric readouts in static.
"Status, now!"
Director Markov barked, voice gone raw from too many shouted orders. His palms were white on the polished console. A junior analyst tapped at a screen and swallowed.
"Losses... one hundred and two test subjects registered are all marked deceased. Casualties among security are at sixty percent. Research staff..."
He couldn't finish. The spectral map behind him filled with red blips. Markov's face went hard as hammered steel. For a second he simply stood there while the numbers burned themselves into his mind. If the World Forces caught wind that a private lab with links to covert government projects had slaughtered a hundred people and was now a smoking ruin, this facility would not survive the investigation.
"We are exposed. This will ruin the Ministry. They'll drag us in front of tribunals, strip assets, prosecute us... we have to leave now. Evacuate critical personnel. Prepare the extraction. Take what you must."
A woman near the comms babbled about route corridors being jammed.
"Sir, communications are down. We compromised. We can't reach the Ministry without hopping through secure relays and they're showing interference."
Markov slammed a fist down so hard the console replied with a soft electronic whine.
"Show me the feeds. Now."
Every screen snapped to the same sequence showing the corridors, halls, the medical bays and, in each frame, a single figure. The man on the monitors moved like a shadow. He wore a faceless white mask. The soldiers came at him with rifles and automatic fire. Bullets threw sparks in his direction and, impossibly, he simply held a blade. The rounds impacted the void-sword and were shredded into sparks before slicing through armor and bodies in seconds.
On the wall of the control room, Markov watched his men fall in the feeds, the view switching from one squad to the next until the picture resolved into a corridor of carnage where the masked man walked alone through the wreckage of bodies.
"How the hell did he get in? Who authorized access? How did... it doesn't matter. Prepare the helicopter for me immediately. I leave in five minutes. Get a pilot, fuel it, get the emergency clearance. If the Ministry asks, you tell them this is a surgical extraction. You understand?"
"We'll—"
One began to speak but Markov cut him off. He shoved a suitcase toward the aide at the console, his fingers shaking. He had already mentally counted his escape routes and the private contacts. He would not be the man who gave up his head in public.
He moved through the facility through the stairs. The soundscape changed the higher he climbed. First the thud of distant boots, then shouts, then folded into the raw sounds of dying people. The control room was already compromised.
He got to the research center.
"Where is 09-C?" He demanded when he caught sight of a junior researcher, stumbling and covered in ash.
"She's the one who set it off. She initiated a system override, sir. The doors opened. The subjects turned on the teams. We lost sixty percent of security nine hours ago. We thought we'd re-secured everything, but now—"
Markov kept moving. There was no solace he could offer, only survival to enact. The helicopter had to be there. It was his last stage manager's trick he would fly out of the facility, spin a made-up origin story to the Ministry, claim sabotage, bribe, silence and erase. He rehearsed the lie on his tongue as he ran.
The roof doors sighed open. A gust of winter air hit him. The chopper's rotors were already a slow blur. The pilot, a veteran with lines like stress fractures on his face, was waiting. Markov felt his shoulders unclench for the first time since the alarms started.
It was short-lived.
The helicopter ruptured in a gout of flame. Black smoke spat up in a column that turned the night into a sky of ash.
Markov was thrown backward. Heat smacked his face. He coughed, spit on the floor and cursed up at the world.
On the edge of the rooftop was a the masked man with a rocket launcher rested against his shoulder. He held the rocket launcher like a child who had just been handed fireworks.
"I always wanted to do that like the movies. Who knew it would be this thrilling!"
The feeds in the control room had gone dark. No one was alive except for him.
"How did you... how did you get here? We locked down that—"
The masked man shrugged as if the answer were a minor inconvenience.
"You locked doors. I walked through them fifteen minutes ago. You need to work on your security systems. I already killed everyone before you reached the roof. Those in the control room were the only ones left."
Markov lunged. He scrambled for the suitcase, the only lifeline he had left. Adrenaline gave him the speed to close a hand on metal and yank, but his movement was slow compared to the calm of the man who had just collapsed a helicopter.
Before Markov could haul the case, the girl, Experiment 09-C, moved.
She had come to the roof seconds ago. She kicked him hard. She stepped forward and took the suitcase from Markov's loose grip. The blade in her hand flashed once.
Markov's eyes widened. He could not say whether his reaction was fear or the moral calculation of a desperate man who'd chosen the wrong life. She thrust the knife and it found the thin line of the director's throat.
The cut was clean, brutal and close to the bone. Markov's hands convulsed on the suitcase. He stumbled back, blood pooling at his feet. The rooftop filled with a new sound.
Nihris, watched all of this with the bored amusement of someone enjoying the last act of a play. He took two steps closer and tilted his head, ignoring the young director's gasps.
"You'll have to excuse us. You were just in the way. We can't let you tell the Russian government about this situation now, can we?"
Blood smeared Markov's collar as he dropped. His pupils rolled back. The masked man turned to the girl. The rocket launcher was still on his shoulder, but now he set it down like a pipe.
"Do you want to finish him? Or are you going to be the one to make the first declaration tonight?"
The girl looked at Markov. The director's chest rose and fell a couple more times. She had tasted the exact penance of those who thought themselves gods. Her fingers trembled around the briefcase's handle. She thought of her sister's last squeeze. She thought of the others who apparently had their bodies melted in acid during her escape. There were no bodies to bury, even that of her sister.
She did not raise the knife again.
Instead, she slit Markov's throat deeper. He gurgled. Blood sprayed the rooftop in a ribbon. Frame by frame the life left him. In a few seconds, he was dead. Nihris shrugged, wiping a speck of ash off his coat as the explosions they had set minutes ago began to destroy the facility.
"You did well. Who knew that you can hack the facility using only your Alteration Flux?"
She didn't answer. Her hands were sticky with blood. He smiled beneath the mask, or at least the tilt of his posture suggested such. He picked up the director's suitcase and looked inside. He scoffed when he was the contents.
"I'd say that this wasn't a bad find. This will be extremely important when the Russian government falls. We have work to do."
The girl's eyes caught on the glow of the burning facility and then on Nihris's blank mask. For a breath, the death and the loss and the cold in her veins coalesced into something like clarity. She had been an experiment. Now she had options on the table.
"Now then, all we have to do is let the World Forces handle this. We already left enough clues concerning us so this should be a breeze. But for now, you should rest."
She turned to him. "Rest? But I'm fine—"
She immediately collapsed on the burning rooftop. Phaser sighed as he carried her.
"Seriously, you lost a lot of blood. I only healed your injuries. I didn't regenerate your blood. Oh well, at least now the Ophaniels will be recognized worldwide now. I just hope this doesn't rush the Dominia Quest about Russia's fall..."