October 7, 2025 · Connections Black-Site, Level 2 · 02:58
The elevator opened onto a wall of cold.
Negative four degrees Celsius. Alen stepped out and felt the temperature drop across every exposed surface simultaneously — the air had the specific bite of liquid nitrogen and the low rhythmic hum of cryo units running at full draw. Blue-white LED strips ran along the ceiling, casting the corridor in the kind of light that made everything look like it had been photographed rather than witnessed. Condensation beaded on every surface. The floor was frost-rimed and polished. His boots made no sound on it.
He kept the Reality-Lens active. Cold blue over everything. The corridor stretched sixty metres straight and then curved into a wide circular chamber where the main cryo array hummed. Six tubes in the array — five empty or on standby, one occupied at the far end. Heart rate: thirty-eight. Deep cryo-sleep. He marked her position and noted the guard ghost-trails: three active pairs on this level, all carrying advanced gear. Reinforced helmets, ceramic plate carriers, encrypted comms running back to Level 3 command. Not the surface guards.
He drew the suppressed USP and moved.
∗ ∗ ∗
The first patrol pair came around the curve with night-vision visors down and rifles held low. Alen phased directly behind them on the seventh step of their rotation, placed the USP at the base of each visor's seam in sequence, and fired twice. Two suppressed shots, both lost under the cryo hum. Both men dropped together. He caught the rifles before they could clatter and laid the bodies in the shadow between two empty chambers. Forty seconds total.
He continued.
The static post at the circular chamber entrance had two guards — one watching a wall terminal, one sweeping the tube row with a flashlight. Their vests carried motion sensors. Alen activated the Phantom Cloak from the belt pouch, the field rendering him near-invisible for twelve seconds, and closed the distance in three bursts. Two more suppressed shots. He caught the flashlight.
The final pair was near the occupied tube. One checking logs on a tablet, one pacing. He waited for the pacer to reach the far side of the array, then moved on both in sequence. The pacing guard died mid-step. The tablet guard looked up before the last shot.
The level was clear.
He holstered the USP and approached the occupied chamber at the centre of the array. Frost coated the glass. He pressed his palm to the override panel and Trinity's protocol fed through the earpiece. "Cryo sequence interrupted. Awakening protocol engaged. Ninety seconds."
He waited.
The chamber hissed as the fluid level dropped. The woman inside stirred. Eyes opened behind the glass — first the unfocused confusion of someone surfacing from deep cryo, then full wakefulness arriving in a rush as the suspension drained and the glass panel rose. She gasped. Her eyes found him.
She saw the platinum hair swept back in that style. The high-collared black coat. The rectangular sunglasses. The exact silhouette.
Yoko Suzuki had survived Raccoon City, testified against Umbrella at trial, and spent twenty-seven years trying to stay out of rooms like this one. She had seen Albert Wesker's face in photographs and intelligence briefings enough times to know it in half a second. And now it was standing three feet away from her in a Connections cryo bay and she couldn't tell if she was still under or if this was real or if it was somehow, impossibly, both.
Her mouth opened. Her body pressed back against the chamber wall.
"You're dead," she said, voice cracking. "The volcano—"
"I'm not Albert Wesker," Alen said. Flat. Not unkind, just corrective. "I'm here to take you out of this facility. Don't make noise."
She stared at him. Processing it. The voice was wrong—different cadence, no contempt in it. The eyes behind the lenses, what little she could see, were not amber. She didn't fully believe him yet, but she was quiet.
He reached into the inner pocket of the coat and withdrew a compact Glock, suppressor already threaded. He pressed it into her hands, closing her fingers around the grip. She took it on reflex.
"Stay in the alcove," he said. "Don't move until I come back for you. If someone who isn't me comes through that corridor, use it."
She clutched the gun and looked at him and then at the coat he was already pulling off his shoulders. He wrapped it around her over the medical gown without ceremony. The heavy leather settled across her frame. The residual warmth from his body hit her skin and she exhaled once, involuntarily.
"Warm," he said. "Quiet. I'll be back."
She caught his sleeve before he could turn.
"Manuela," she said. Urgent now, the horror partially overtaken by something more functional. "They moved her two days ago. Level 3, Medical Wing, recovery room at the end of the right branch. She had another kidney replacement a week ago—tissue graft too. She's in deep recovery sleep and she'll need careful handling or the t-Veronica will start rejecting the new organs. There's one static guard outside her door. The floating supervisor rotates between 3 and here every forty minutes." She looked at him. "She's stable right now. Not for much longer if she doesn't get out."
He took it in. Nodded once. "Good. Stay here."
He turned and phased toward the stairwell without another word.
— END OF CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN —