[LOCATION: THE PACIFIC OCEAN - COORDINATES CLASSIFIED]
[TIME: 05:00 HOURS]
The island didn't look like a fortress. It looked like a tombstone.
Rising out of the grey morning mist, "The Forge" was a jagged spire of black volcanic rock. Rusted radio towers pierced the clouds like skeletal fingers. The waves crashed against the cliffs with a violence that suggested even the ocean wanted nothing to do with this place.
"It's quiet," Elena whispered.
She steered the stolen fishing trawler they had acquired in Mexico toward the southern cove. Lucas stood at the bow, wrapped in a heavy tarp to hide his glowing arm.
"It's not quiet," Lucas corrected. "It's dormant."
He activated Resonance Sight.
Even from a mile out, the island was humming. Beneath the rock, deep underground, a massive geothermal heart was beating.
[ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED: GEOTHERMAL/VIRAL HYBRID.]
[STATUS: STANDBY MODE.]
"This place was Marcus Vane's first lab," Lucas said, watching the rusting gun emplacements on the cliffs. "Before the Apostles. Before the politics. This is where he tried to play god."
"And where he failed," Elena added, eyeing the massive "QUARANTINE" signs painted on the sea wall in fading yellow.
The boat bumped against the rotting wooden dock.
"Stay with the kid," Lucas ordered, nodding to the sleeping Julian in the cabin. "I'll clear the breach."
[THE SEA WALL GATE]
The entrance to the facility was a massive blast door made of lead and reinforced steel, stamped with the date 1955. There was no keypad. No handle. Just a wheel the size of a truck tire, fused shut by seventy years of salt spray.
"It's rusted solid," Elena called out from the boat. "We need explosives."
"No," Lucas said. He stepped up to the door. "We need a ghost."
He looked at his right arm.
Since Vegas, the heavy diamond shell was gone. In its place, his arm was a storm of translucent blue energy, held together by sheer will. It cast no shadow.
[TIER 3 ABILITY: PHASE-SHIFT.]
[DURATION LIMIT: 10 SECONDS.]
Lucas took a breath. He didn't push the door. He stepped into it.
Cold.
Passing through matter felt like walking through freezing water. The atoms of the steel door slid past his skin, a million tiny pinpricks of resistance. He saw the interior of the metal—the rust, the grain, the molecular flaws.
He stepped out the other side.
The air inside the tunnel was stale, smelling of oil and dead rats.
Lucas solidified. He walked to the control panel on the inside—protected from the elements—and threw the hydraulic lever.
CLANK-HISS.
Gears groaned. The massive door began to slide open, screeching in protest.
Elena pulled the boat into the subterranean dry dock.
[THE ATRIUM]
They unloaded their meager supplies. A few crates of water, the burner phone, and Julian.
The interior of The Forge was a time capsule. 1950s mainframe computers with reel-to-reel tape decks lined the walls. Dust lay inches thick on everything.
"It's huge," Elena said, her voice echoing. "This place could house an army."
"It did," Lucas said. He pointed to the floor.
There were scratch marks on the concrete. Deep gouges. And bullet holes in the walls.
"The Syndicate didn't abandon this place," Lucas realized. "They lost it."
CLICK.
A red light flickered on a camera mounted in the corner. Then another. Then a third.
The dust on the floor began to vibrate.
"Lucas," Elena said, backing up. "What did you just turn on?"
"The welcome committee."
From the shadows of the maintenance bays, shapes began to emerge.
They weren't human. They were machines.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: MARK-1 SENTINEL.]
[STATUS: FERAL.]
They looked like walking tanks—bulky, quadrupedal robots with rusted chassis and Gatling guns mounted on their backs. They moved jerkily, their servos whining from decades of neglect.
There were six of them.
"Intruder," a robotic voice crackled from the lead machine. "Clearance code required."
"Alexander gave me a code," Lucas said. "Project Omega."
The machine paused. Its optical lens spun, focusing on Lucas.
"Code recognized," the machine said.
Lucas exhaled.
"Code status: EXPIRED 1985," the machine finished. "Protocol: EXTERMINATE."
"Run!" Lucas yelled.
BRRRRRT.
The Gatling guns spun up. Bullets chewed up the concrete floor, sending up clouds of dust.
Lucas grabbed a metal crate and hurled it at the lead bot. It bounced off harmlessly.
"My pistol is dead!" Lucas shouted. "I have no ammo! Elena, get Julian to cover!"
Elena dragged the unconscious boy behind a mainframe tower as bullets sparked off the metal casing.
Two Sentinels charged Lucas. They were slow, but heavy. One swung a hydraulic claw.
Lucas tried to phase.
[ERROR: COOLDOWN ACTIVE.]
He took the hit. The metal claw slammed into his ribs, throwing him back against the wall.
[ARMOR INTEGRITY: 20%.]
"I need a weapon!" Lucas roared, scrambling to his feet.
The Sentinels boxed him in. Six Gatling guns aimed at his chest.
Suddenly, the dry dock water exploded.
WHOOSH.
Something massive breached the surface of the underground pool.
It was a black submarine. Not a military vessel—a sleek, stealth transport with the Syndicate spider logo painted over with a crude, spray-painted smiley face.
The hatch flew open.
"Did someone order a pizza?!" a deep voice boomed.
Tank.
He was standing in the hatch. But he looked different.
His left eye was covered by a new tactical eyepiece. And on his shoulder, he held a weapon that looked like it belonged on a battleship.
"Duck, Boss!" Tank yelled.
Lucas hit the deck.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Tank fired the weapon. It wasn't a gun. It was a Gravity Hammer.
Each shot fired a condensed pulse of gravity.
The first shot hit the lead Sentinel. The robot didn't explode. It crushed. It crumpled inward like a soda can, imploding into a ball of scrap metal.
The second shot hit the floor, creating a gravity well that sucked two other bots together, smashing them into each other with the force of a car crash.
The remaining three bots turned toward the sub.
"Oh no you don't," Tank grinned. "Kain! Flank!"
A blur of neon green shot out of the submarine's torpedo tube. Kain, wearing a scuba suit and wielding dual energy daggers, launched himself into the air.
He landed on the back of a Sentinel.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" Kain laughed. He drove the daggers into the robot's CPU. The machine sparked and collapsed.
In ten seconds, the atrium was a scrapyard.
Lucas stood up, dusting off his trench coat. He looked at the smoking remains of the robots, then at Tank and Kain.
"You're late," Lucas said.
"Traffic was murder," Tank laughed, jumping down from the sub. He walked over to Lucas. He looked bigger. Stronger. "Nice arm, Boss. Or... lack thereof."
"It's a work in progress," Lucas said, looking at his ghostly limb. "Where did you get the sub?"
"The Banker had a private dock in Vegas," Kain said, shaking water out of his hair. "We figured since he wasn't using it anymore..."
"And the cargo?" Lucas asked.
Tank pressed a button on a remote. The submarine's cargo bay opened.
Inside were crates. Dozens of them. Stamped with the Syndicate logo.
"Food," Tank listed. "Ammo. Medical supplies. And... raw palladium for your suit repairs."
Elena walked out from behind the mainframe, looking at the haul. She smiled for the first time in days.
"We have a base," she said.
"Not yet," Lucas said. He turned away from the victory, looking toward the massive elevator shaft at the back of the atrium. The doors were welded shut.
[RESONANCE SIGHT: ACTIVE.]
Through the doors, deep down in the darkness of the facility, Lucas saw something.
A signal. A single, pulsing blue light.
It wasn't a machine. And it wasn't a clone.
"The defenses weren't trying to keep us out," Lucas whispered, the hair on his neck standing up. "They were trying to keep something in."
He walked toward the elevator.
"Load up," Lucas ordered. "We're going to the basement."