The fluorescent lights stuttered above, buzzing faintly like dying insects. Adrian moved through the corridor without sound, a phantom in the sterile dark. He knew these halls better than anyone alive — every blind corner, every broken sensor, every security override buried in the system's bones. Once, this place had been his cage. Now, it was his battlefield.
The air carried the same chemical stench he remembered — bleach, iron, and the faint sweetness of burnt metal. Beneath it all lay something that never washed away: the ghosts of those who had screamed here before him.
His designation had been Subject 539. There had been others — dozens, maybe hundreds. Only he remained.
He checked the pistol in his grip, tightening the silencer with a practiced twist. The weapon caught a glint of light and vanished again as he slipped through shadow. A combat knife pressed against his thigh, perfectly balanced, an extension of his will. Every tool had its purpose. So did he.
Ten years. That was how long it had taken to reach this moment. At fifteen, they'd dragged him from his home in the middle of the night — black masks, black boots, no names. His parents had been the first to die. Loose ends, Dr. Voss had called them. The words had never left his head.
The first five years were spent here, deep underground. Not as a student. Not as a soldier. As an experiment. He had been starved, broken, and remade. Not a machine, not a man — something caught in between.
They called the project Aeon. Its goal: to create human weapons capable of perfect learning and zero emotion. Soldiers who could out-adapt any machine and kill without hesitation. They failed. Adrian didn't become what they wanted. He became something worse — a man who still remembered. No amount of programming could erase his mother's voice. No shock therapy could burn away the nights spent reading under the covers, lost in the world of novels. They couldn't take his hatred, either. That, he had kept — sharp, cold, and alive.
At twenty, he escaped. Not by accident. By design.
The next five years were spent hunting. He tracked every name tied to Project Aeon — the directors, the scientists, the soldiers who had signed the reports and turned away. Some he exposed to the world; most, he killed. The others like him — the remaining test subjects — had been obstacles on the path. Some had stayed loyal. Some were too broken to know better. He put them down quietly, a mercy they never asked for.
Now only one name remained. Elric Voss. The architect of Aeon. The man who had written "Asset 539 — stable" on every torture record. The man who smiled while ruining lives.
Adrian reached the elevator at the end of the hall. Its reinforced door scanned his face and rejected him. He smiled faintly, pulled out a contact lens case, and slipped in the left lens. The world flickered. Override accepted. Level 10 clearance granted. The door slid open with a hiss.
The central chamber was as he remembered — minimal, polished, soulless. Black-glass walls reflected the glow of embedded screens. A decanter of amber liquor sat on the modern desk like an ornament of arrogance. Behind it stood Elric Voss, older now, streaks of gray in his beard, but his eyes still cold and assessing.
"Subject 539," Voss greeted, swirling the whiskey as if they were old colleagues. "I wondered when you'd finally make your way back."
Adrian stepped forward, silent, boots echoing against marble.
"You've done well," Voss went on. "The board thought you'd die after Berlin. I told them no. Not you. You were always different."
"I was human," Adrian said quietly. "You just refused to see it."
Voss raised his glass in a mocking salute. "You're still not human, 539. You're better."
The gunshot cut through his words. The glass shattered. Blood splattered across the desk. Voss crumpled backward, eyes wide, disbelief frozen on his face.
Adrian approached slowly, the pistol steady at his side. He looked down at the man who had turned him into a monster.
"You wanted a weapon," he said softly. "Congratulations. You built one. It just learned where to aim."
Voss gurgled something — maybe a plea, maybe a curse. Adrian didn't listen. He turned and walked toward the exit. Behind him, the central console began to blink red. The silent alarm pulsed through the chamber. He didn't care. His mission was complete. The rest of the world could burn or rebuild; it no longer mattered. His war was over. Or so he thought.