Lucien clenches in his hand an electronic badge stained with blood. The small piece of plastic bears the stylized logo of the Prometheus Project. He runs his thumb over the half-erased name of the deceased employee he relieved of this precious pass. A necessary step, he thinks, closing his eyes for a brief moment. In the silence, only the man's last pleading words echo in his mind, just before the fatal explosion.
"Please… I had nothing to do with this…"
Lucien opens his eyes again. The faint stirrings of conscience he might feel have no place here. Not after everything the System has taken from him.
Light footsteps sound behind him on the walkway. Lucien does not turn around; he recognizes the soft click of Vernet's cane, his old mentor. Soon, the tall silhouette of Professor Emil Vernet appears beside him, his cane striking the metal floor in hollow echoes.
"Did everything go as planned?" the professor asks gently, placing a parchment-thin hand on his former student's shoulder.
Lucien nods slowly, opening his palm to reveal the bloodied badge.
"I have what we need. Level 2 access to the Prometheus complex. The explosion erased our tracks."
Vernet nods, but his smile quickly fades when he notices the dried blood on Lucien's fingers.
"That poor devil… was it truly necessary to—?"
Lucien's gaze hardens as he rises to his full height. Even in the dim light, his gaunt face takes shape beneath the faint orange glow filtering through the shattered glass roof. His eyes burn with an inner fever.
"He worked for them, Professor. They all share responsibility," he murmurs hoarsely. "Prometheus isn't just an energy project. It's the instrument of their absolute power over the city."
Vernet nods without enthusiasm. He knows all this, of course. For years, he himself supervised research on Prometheus, dreaming of offering clean energy to the inhabitants crammed into the lower levels of the city. And he saw his dream twisted by the elites to cement even harsher control. Still, watching Lucien coldly execute a simple technician unsettles him.
"Sometimes I wonder how far you're willing to go, Lucien," the old scientist confides quietly. "We wanted to expose their crimes, awaken consciences… Not become like them."
Lucien lets out a short, joyless laugh that echoes beneath the warehouse's high metal vaults.
"Become like them? They don't hesitate to starve, crush, and sacrifice innocents to preserve their little empire. Every day their factories poison the air and water while their media tells us everything is fine. I won't take moral lessons from them."
He steps closer to the edge of the walkway, tightening his fist around the badge until the plastic cuts into his palm. His voice rises, thick with cold anger.
"Do you know what Prometheus represents to them? The culmination of their perverse utopia. An ivory tower powered by the core's energy while the masses rot under the toxic fallout of their experiments. I've seen what that hunger for power has caused…"
His fist trembles slightly. Vernet looks at him with a mixture of sadness and pride. He knows that behind Lucien's fury lie deep wounds. He can only imagine the images that still haunt his former student's mind: flames devouring an entire district, screams, unbearable loss.
Trying to calm him, Vernet ventures gently:
"We will soon have the opportunity to reveal everything. When we broadcast the evidence we've gathered about what truly happens behind Prometheus, public opinion—"
"Public opinion?" Lucien cuts in bitterly. "It's blind, Professor. Blind and mute. They're afraid, or apathetic, stupefied by propaganda. No… there will be no uprising just by showing them the truth. They'll rationalize it."
He turns to face Vernet, locking eyes with the pale, worried old man.
"We have to go further. Strike a blow no one can ignore."
Vernet holds his gaze for a few seconds, then lowers his head.
"'And the universe shall perish by fire…' Wasn't that what you used to say?"
Lucien flinches almost imperceptibly. It was a biblical quotation he liked to repeat in their secret conversations during their darkest hours—a verse tossed somewhere between provocation and prophecy. A cold smile curves his lips.
"Fire purifies everything, Professor. Sometimes you have to reduce it all to ashes to rebuild."
At that moment, a faint creak sounds near the warehouse entrance. Instantly, Lucien and Vernet fall silent. Lucien raises a hand and listens. The metal door has moved. A prearranged signal.
"It's her," Lucien says simply.
Below them, the door opens just enough to allow a nimble silhouette to slip into the shadows. Lucien recognizes Nadia's confident stride as she carefully closes the door behind her. He follows her with his eyes as she quickly climbs the iron stairs leading to the walkway.
Nadia soon appears in the glow of a few portable lamps lighting the hideout. Tall and dark-haired with light eyes, her hair tied back in a ponytail, she wears a fitted dark coat still damp from the rain. She offers Lucien and Vernet a tight smile.
"Mission accomplished," she announces, pulling a small USB drive from her pocket and twirling it between her fingers. "I accessed the internal network through our contact's terminal. I copied a bundle of files on Prometheus. Blueprints, security procedures… and some rather juicy private correspondence."
Lucien steps forward, eyes gleaming with interest. He extends his hand, and Nadia places the drive in it. Their fingers brush, and she notices the blood stains on his hand.
"Are you hurt?" she asks, frowning.
Lucien glances down at the shallow cut in his palm caused by the badge's plastic. He opens his hand, revealing the wound and the badge now snapped in two.
"Nothing worth worrying about," he replies neutrally, tossing the pieces over the railing. "And you? No complications?"
She shakes her head, removing her damp coat.
"Our informant cooperated. He was trembling like a leaf, but he let me extract the data without trouble. He has no idea who commissioned the operation."
"He didn't try to double-cross you?" Vernet asks cautiously.
Nadia smiles enigmatically.
"Oh, he knows that would be pointless. Let's just say… I know how to be persuasive."
Lucien senses, in the hard flicker crossing her eyes, that persuasion did not rely solely on charm. Nadia grew up in the city's underbelly too. She knows how to intimidate when necessary.
"Excellent work," Lucien concludes, plugging the USB drive into a tablet resting on a metal crate. "Let's see what we have."
As the data loads, a bluish glow lights up his gaunt face. Nadia and Vernet gather behind him. Complex schematics appear: the layout of the Prometheus complex, cooling systems, evacuation ducts, emergency protocols.
Vernet lets out a low whistle.
"They've made progress… The main reactor appears fully operational. The volume of confined plasma is colossal."
"Yes," Lucien murmurs. "Colossal enough to vaporize half the metropolis if released at once."
Silence falls.
"And that's still what you want to do?" Nadia asks quietly.
Lucien keeps his eyes on the screen.
"Every day this monster runs is another day they tighten their chains around us. Another day when an accident could happen anyway, killing thousands of ours while they remain safe."
He turns to her.
"I know what you're thinking. That it's extreme. That it's wrong."
He continues, almost tenderly:
"The system is rotten to the core. It can't be reformed or healed. It must be destroyed so something new can rise. Sometimes you must sacrifice lives to save far more."
The air grows heavy.
"The municipal council will hold the official inauguration in three days," Lucien continues. "A grand ceremony. All the leaders under one roof. The perfect opportunity to strike."
He zooms in on the reactor control room.
"We'll plant charges at key structural points. With the badge codes and Nadia's data, we can infiltrate as technical staff. On the day itself, we wait until they're all present… and then we trigger the chain reaction."
Vernet closes his eyes briefly, as if banishing the image of the titanic explosion.
"Very well," he says faintly. "I'll prepare the detonators. And finalize the transmitter to broadcast our message before the blast."
Lucien nods.
"In three days," he says in a low voice, "the prophecy will be fulfilled. Their impure world will burn to ashes… and from those ashes, perhaps something pure will rise."
None of them speaks. In their eyes flicker the blue reflections of the screen—like a dark fire already alive.