Nevada Desert - 10 Miles from Facility Omega-Seven

  March 19th, 11:45 PM - 15 Minutes to Insertion

  The transport touched down in complete darkness. No lights. No comms. Radio silence until they were clear.

  The Spectrum Initiative dropped from the cargo bay into the desert night. Five chromatic figures against endless sand and stone.

  Marcus scanned the horizon through his crimson HUD. Thermal imaging showed nothing for miles. They were alone. For now.

  "Comms check," he said quietly.

  "Crimson online."

  "Magenta online."

  "Amber online. Ribs still hurt but am functional."

  "Azure online. I've got the facility's electronic signature—thirty-seven kilometers northeast. No external sensors detecting us yet."

  "Viridian online." Jesse's voice was steady. Calmer than Marcus expected. "Ready."

  Marcus checked the mission clock. Twelve minutes to reach the evacuation tunnel entrance. Two minutes for Silas to crack the biometric locks. Fifteen minutes to traverse the tunnel to the underground levels. Thirty minutes inside the facility—upload overrides, route the weapon, set incinerator parameters, evacuate.

  Total mission time: fifty-nine minutes.

  If everything went perfectly.

  It never went perfectly.

  "Move out," Marcus said. "Stay tight. Eyes open. We're not alone out here."

  They moved.

  Evacuation Tunnel Entrance - 12:03 AM

  The tunnel entrance was exactly where SENTINEL's schematics said it would be—hidden in a rock formation that looked natural but wasn't. Manufactured cave system. Concealed access point. Paranoia made architecture.

  Jesse found the biometric scanner hidden behind a false rock face. Military-grade security. Palm print, retinal scan, DNA verification.

  "Silas?" Marcus prompted.

  The azure-armored analyst knelt beside the scanner. His integration reached out, finding the electronic signature, interfacing with the system's core programming.

  "SENTINEL-era encryption," Silas muttered. "Triple-redundant verification. Designed to prevent unauthorized—"

  The scanner beeped. Green light.

  "Access granted," Silas said. Sounded surprised. "The override codes worked. We're in."

  The false rock face slid aside with a pneumatic hiss. Behind it: darkness. A tunnel descending into the earth at a steep angle.

  Atlas activated his helmet's flood lamps. The tunnel stretched ahead, reinforced concrete walls, emergency lighting that hadn't been active in years.

  "Looks inviting," Jesse said.

  "Looks like tomb," Atlas corrected. "Very SENTINEL. Build exit that looks like grave."

  "Cheerful." Marcus checked his tactical display. "Fifteen minutes to traverse. Stay alert. Even with overrides, there might be automated defenses we don't know about."

  They descended into the earth.

  Evacuation Tunnel - 12:18 AM

  The tunnel was exactly as claustrophobic as Marcus feared.

  Narrow. Low ceiling. Atlas had to duck. The amber armor's bulk scraped against the walls. Every sound echoed—footsteps, breathing, the servo-whine of the integration systems.

  "I hate tunnels," Atlas muttered. "Always have. Too much like bunker. Like being buried alive."

  "Moscow?" Jesse asked quietly.

  "Da. Six minutes underground while world ended above. Now here I am again. Underground. Waiting for world to end." He laughed without humor. "Is like universe has sense of humor."

  "Stay focused," Marcus said. "Silas, how far?"

  "Three hundred meters to the underground junction. Then we access the maintenance level. From there—" Silas stopped. "Wait. I'm picking up electronic activity. Active network nodes. Someone's using the facility's computer systems."

  "The Covenant?"

  "Has to be. But the network traffic is... it's huge. Massive data transfers. Like they're moving something."

  Mara's voice cut in, sharp. "The weapon. They're preparing it for deployment. We're out of time."

  "How long until they deploy?" Marcus asked.

  "Unknown. But if they're moving it now, they're not waiting seventy-two hours. Maybe twelve. Maybe six. Maybe—"

  An alarm screamed through the tunnel.

  Red emergency lights activated. Bulkhead doors began sliding shut ahead of them.

  "They know we're here!" Silas shouted. "Someone triggered the security protocols!"

  "MOVE!" Marcus sprinted forward. The team followed.

  The first bulkhead was twenty meters ahead. Closing fast. Atlas wouldn't make it—too slow, too heavy.

  Unless—

  Jesse blurred past them all. Viridian armor accelerating to speeds that should have been impossible in the confined space. He hit the closing bulkhead at full sprint, wedged himself in the gap, and pushed.

  The bulkhead's hydraulics screamed. Jesse screamed with them. The viridian integration gave him strength beyond normal human limits, but the door weighed tons. It was crushing him, servos groaning, armor plating cracking—

  Atlas reached him. The amber armor's mass manipulation kicked in. Together, they held the door.

  "GO!" Atlas roared. "Get through! We hold!"

  Marcus, Mara, and Silas dove through the gap. On the other side, Silas immediately accessed the wall panel, fingers flying across the interface.

  "Override codes uploading—come on, come on—"

  The bulkhead reversed. Opened fully.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Atlas and Jesse stumbled through, gasping.

  "Is good trick," Atlas panted. "Do not want to do again."

  "Agreed," Jesse wheezed. His armor had stress fractures across the chest plate. "That hurt."

  "More ahead," Silas warned. "They've activated full lockdown protocols. Every bulkhead in the facility is closing. I can override them, but it takes time. We need to move faster than they can lock us out."

  "Then we run," Marcus said. "Full sprint. Silas overrides doors as we reach them. No stopping. No hesitation. We get to the biological storage, upload the incinerator protocols, and get out before this entire place becomes a tomb."

  "Very motivating speech," Atlas said. "Lead the way."

  They ran.

  Facility Omega-Seven - Maintenance Level - 12:31 AM

  They burst into the maintenance level through an access hatch.

  And ran straight into Covenant soldiers.

  Twelve of them. Armed. Armored. Waiting.

  It was an ambush.

  Marcus didn't think. The crimson integration took over. He moved.

  The first soldier died before he could raise his weapon. Marcus's fist went through his chest plate like paper. Felt ribs shatter. Felt the heart stop.

  Felt good about it.

  No. Control. CONTROL.

  But the integration didn't want control. It wanted blood.

  Atlas charged past him, amber armor glowing with kinetic force. Hit three soldiers like a freight train. They flew backward, broken, dead before they hit the walls.

  Mara's precision was surgical. Three shots. Three headshots. Three bodies.

  Jesse moved like a ghost. Viridian blur. Throats cut. Spines severed. Efficient. Silent. Deadly.

  Silas stayed back, azure integration jamming their communications, crashing their HUDs, turning their own equipment against them.

  Twelve soldiers.

  Eighteen seconds.

  All dead.

  The team stood among the bodies, breathing hard, armor spattered with blood.

  "That was too easy," Mara said. Clinical. Analytical. "This was a delaying tactic. They're preparing something worse."

  "Then we move before it arrives," Marcus said. He was shaking. The crimson integration was singing, demanding more, hungry for violence. "Biological storage. Now. Before I—before we encounter more resistance."

  Before I lose control completely, he didn't say.

  Biological Storage - Level B-5 - 12:47 AM

  The biological storage was a cathedral to SENTINEL's paranoia.

  Massive refrigeration units. Reinforced containment. Redundant safety systems. Enough Project Famine to sterilize every inch of arable land in North America.

  Rows upon rows of storage tanks. Each one containing death measured in millions.

  Mara stood at the entrance and felt nothing.

  She should feel horror. Guilt. Responsibility. She'd designed this weapon. Every tank represented her work. Her research. Her sin.

  The magenta integration suppressed it all.

  "How long to route this to the incinerator?" Marcus asked.

  "Ten minutes if I do it manually. Two minutes if Silas can interface with the facility's automated systems and override the routing protocols."

  "Silas?"

  "On it." The azure analyst moved to the central control terminal. His integration reached out, seized the facility's network, bent it to his will.

  The process was supposed to take hours. Safety protocols. Verification. Redundant checks.

  Silas did it in ninety seconds.

  "Routing complete," he said. "All storage tanks connected to incinerator feed. Thermal parameters set to maximum. Ignition timer set to... how long do we need?"

  "Fifteen minutes to evacuate," Marcus said.

  "Fifteen minutes programmed. Once I trigger this, the weapon gets pumped to the incinerator, heated to 850 degrees Celsius, and maintained for twenty minutes. The thermal expansion will destabilize the underground structure. Estimated collapse time: twelve minutes after ignition."

  "So we have three minutes of margin," Jesse said. "That's not a lot."

  "Is more than we usually have," Atlas pointed out.

  "Fair."

  "Trigger it," Marcus ordered.

  Silas's finger hovered over the activation command. "Once I do this, there's no stopping it. The facility is done. Anyone still inside when it collapses..."

  "Gets what they deserve," Mara finished. Flat. Empty. "These people chose to deploy a weapon of mass starvation. They chose genocide. Trigger it, Silas."

  He triggered it.

  Alarms screamed. The facility's automated systems kicked in. Pumps activated. Storage tanks began draining into the incinerator feed system.

  "Move!" Marcus shouted. "Back the way we came! Fifteen minutes to collapse!"

  They ran.

  Maintenance Level - 12:51 AM - 14 Minutes to Collapse

  The Covenant was waiting.

  Not twelve soldiers this time. Forty.

  They'd fortified the maintenance level. Barricades. Overlapping fields of fire. Heavy weapons.

  And leading them: Commander Sable.

  Marcus recognized her from intelligence files. The Covenant's best. The one who'd orchestrated SENTINEL's destruction.

  She stood behind the barricades, armored, armed, absolutely calm.

  "Spectrum Initiative," she said. Voice amplified through her helmet. "You've destroyed our weapon. Congratulations. Now you die with it."

  "Move aside," Marcus said. "We don't have time for this. The facility is collapsing. Everyone here dies if we don't evacuate."

  "I know." Sable smiled. "That's acceptable. We stopped SENTINEL. We deployed Project Famine across three states before you arrived. Millions will starve anyway. Your interference merely delays the inevitable. So we make a trade: our lives for yours. The Spectrum Initiative dies here. Worth it."

  "She's insane," Jesse whispered.

  "She's committed," Mara corrected. "Different thing. More dangerous."

  "Suggestions?" Marcus asked.

  "We fight through them," Atlas said. "Is only way out."

  "Forty soldiers in fortified positions with eleven minutes to escape," Silas calculated. "Probability of success: fourteen percent."

  "I'll take it." Marcus felt the crimson integration surge. Felt the hunger for violence become need. Become purpose.

  He stopped fighting it.

  "Spectrum Initiative," he said. "Weapons free. Break them."

  The crimson armor blurred forward.

  12:53 AM - 12 Minutes to Collapse

  Marcus hit the barricades like a meteor.

  The crimson integration made him fast. Made him strong. Made him perfect for exactly this kind of violence.

  He tore through the fortifications. Felt bullets hit him—the armor held, barely. Felt bones break under his fists—the soldiers fell, permanently. Felt the integration singing praise, flooding him with endorphins, making murder feel like worship.

  He was losing himself. Knew it. Didn't care.

  Atlas was right behind him. Amber armor taking fire that would kill anyone else. Heavy weapons. Armor-piercing rounds. Explosives.

  The amber integration absorbed it all. Turned kinetic energy into mass. Made Atlas heavier with every impact. More unstoppable.

  He plowed through soldiers like they were paper. Each hit crushed armor. Pulped flesh. Ended lives.

  Mara moved like death itself. Magenta armor's camouflage system blurred her outline. She appeared. Fired. Vanished. Three shots. Three kills. Repeat.

  Clinical. Efficient. Empty.

  Jesse was everywhere and nowhere. Viridian blur. He moved too fast to track. Appeared behind soldiers. Throats cut. Disappeared before they fell.

  He'd stopped hesitating. Stopped thinking. Just moved and killed and moved again.

  Becoming what the armor wanted him to be.

  Silas stayed back, azure integration wreaking havoc on Covenant systems. HUDs crashed. Communications jammed. Automated weapons turned on their operators.

  Electronic warfare made manifest.

  12:56 AM - 9 Minutes to Collapse

  Commander Sable watched her soldiers die and made a decision.

  The Spectrum Initiative was too effective. Too powerful. They'd break through eventually.

  Unless.

  She triggered the emergency protocols. The ones SENTINEL installed for catastrophic scenarios.

  The facility's self-destruct.

  Not the slow collapse from the incinerator. Immediate. Explosive. Total.

  "All units," she transmitted. "Fall back to evacuation points. Facility is lost. We evacuate. Now."

  Her soldiers retreated. Professional. Disciplined. Leaving the Spectrum Initiative alone in a maintenance level that would explode in—

  "SILAS!" Marcus shouted. "They triggered something! What—"

  "Self-destruct!" Silas screamed. "They triggered SENTINEL's self-destruct protocols! The facility is going to—"

  The first explosion hit the level above them.

  The ceiling came down.

  12:57 AM - 8 Minutes to Structural Collapse, Self-Destruct in Progress

  Marcus felt the concrete hit him. Tons of it. The crimson armor held—barely. He was buried. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.

  The integration's medical systems flooded him with oxygen from reserves. Bought him time. Not much.

  He pushed. The crimson armor gave him strength. Muscles tore. Bones cracked. He didn't care.

  Broke through the rubble. Gasped air that tasted like smoke and death.

  "SOUND OFF!" he shouted.

  "Magenta—alive—trapped—"

  "Amber here. Am buried. Digging out."

  "Azure functional. I can still access systems but the self-destruct is distributed. I can't stop it."

  "Viridian—" Jesse's voice was weak. "I'm pinned. Something heavy. Can't move my legs."

  "Location!" Marcus demanded.

  "Twenty meters southwest. Under the—" Static. "—falling. Can't hold—"

  The transmission cut.

  Marcus ran.

  Found Jesse under a collapsed support beam. The viridian armor was cracked. Leaking integration fluid. Jesse's legs were crushed.

  "I can't feel my legs," Jesse said. Voice distant. Shocky. "Can't feel anything below the waist."

  "I'm getting you out." Marcus grabbed the beam. Lifted. The crimson integration gave him strength beyond human but the beam was massive. Too heavy. He couldn't—

  Amber gauntlets appeared beside his.

  Atlas. Injured. Bleeding. Alive.

  Together they lifted.

  Jesse crawled free. Tried to stand. Collapsed.

  "Legs not working," he said. Tried to laugh. Coughed blood instead. "Guess I'm done."

  "Like hell," Marcus said. He grabbed Jesse, hauled him up. "Atlas, help me—"

  "Already here." Atlas took Jesse's other side. Between them, they carried him.

  Mara appeared from the smoke. Magenta armor scorched but intact. "Evacuation tunnel is collapsed. We can't go back that way."

  "Then we go forward," Marcus said. "Emergency exits. SENTINEL always built multiple egress points. Silas!"

  "Looking—found one! Northeast quadrant, surface access shaft. Two hundred meters."

  "Can we make it in—" Marcus checked the timer. "Six minutes?"

  "If we run and nothing else explodes, maybe."

  "Then we run."