Chapter 1: A Mouse Plays While the Cat's Away

  Imagine an object weighing seventeen thousand kilograms, rising six hundred meters into the sky, and stretching another six hundred meters wide. Not merely a building, but a machine. A machine that controls the two most dangerous forces humanity has ever known: electromagnetism and radiation.

  The engine was buried beneath the ice in the depths of the Arctic, behind a massive wall. And in that wall, there was a large opening, clearly visible, yet hidden from the public eye. It was in a place reachable only by those who knew.

  Our days at the base passed like clockwork. A heavy routine, but safe. We were Grade 6 employees; our tasks were simple, requiring no geniuses: measuring the temperature, recording minor changes in the ice, and conducting experiments on bears and penguins to study their adaptation to this white hell.

  Simple things. Ordinary. Boring, even.

  But it was far better than what the poor souls in Grade 8 endured.

  Those were the unluckiest. Their job was to clean the lower base and polish the walls of the "Zarab Engine." They would descend there and rarely come up. The cold was more intense there, the bacteria more lethal, and the death rate among them was silently high, spoken of by no one. Their known motto was: "We live underground, and we die beneath it."

  The irony was that Grade 8 employees were the lowest rank, yet their scientific qualifications were enough to land them jobs at major universities and corporations. Why would they sacrifice their lives here? Why would the base sacrifice them for an engine whose true function no one knew?

  No one asked. And we knew that the very question could be a crime.

  Days passed as usual. Until that morning.

  We were in the adjacent examination room, arranging tissue samples, when a scream exploded from the other room:

  "Jeffrey! What are you doing, you bastard! Drop the knife!"

  We all froze for a second. Then we ran. Me, Tom, and the rest of the staff. We ran towards the sound, feeling in our hearts, before we even saw, that disaster had struck.

  When we entered the room, all our eyes widened.

  We were not prepared for this scene.

  There was a body. The body of the Head of Grade 6 Staff, slumped in the chair where we had been examining microorganisms just hours earlier. The knife was still in the perpetrator's hand. And the neck... his neck was slit like a slaughtered camel.

  A cold shiver crawled up our spines. That moment lasted no more than a second, but it felt like an eternity.

  Then the room erupted in screams.

  The only woman in our department was screaming hysterically. I didn't know her name personally, but I knew she was beautiful. So beautiful that employees from other departments would court her and approach her with flimsy excuses. But her beauty now was merely a faded backdrop to her shrill screams.

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  I didn't blame her. The scene was grotesque in every sense of the word. Who wouldn't panic upon seeing their department head a lifeless corpse, blood staining the microscopes?

  Quickly, security forces arrived. They cordoned off the place, began investigations, and arrested us all. They put each of us in a solitary room.

  There were about ten of us in our department. But our department was just one of twelve under Grade 6. The total number of employees in this grade was 890. Yet, the crime occurred in our department. The smallest in area, the fewest in number. The chief was killed here. With us. Not anywhere else.

  Everyone knew Jeffrey was the perpetrator. He disappeared immediately after the incident, and security forces were searching for him in every corner.

  The interrogation was theatrical. All the questions revolved around him:

  "Was your relationship with employee 6-8-810 (known as Jeffrey Parker) good?"

  I answered firmly and steadily: "I only spoke to him a few times. He never showed any strange behavior."

  The next day passed heavily. The investigations concluded, and the case was referred to higher authorities.

  My colleagues and I remained in the department, waiting. Waiting anxiously for a response. We didn't know what would happen to us. And we didn't know exactly why Jeffrey killed his boss.

  I was sleeping on my comfortable bed, sinking into a deep sleep after a long day, when the door shuddered with violent knocking.

  I got up, disoriented. I opened the door and didn't even have a chance to lift my eyes to see who was standing before me.

  An electric shock. Sharp pain coursed through my entire body. Within a second, I fell to the ground, half-conscious, paralyzed, and then everything went dark.

  "Get up, you scum!"

  The scream pierced my skull. I tried to get up slowly, my body heavy as lead. Suddenly, a powerful kick to my stomach. My body flew through the air for about six meters before slamming hard onto the ground.

  I felt my guts had burst inside me.

  "I feel sick..." I whispered in pain.

  The place was dark. Nothing illuminated it except a little faint light seeping through narrow windows in the ceiling, not enough to see the features of those sitting above. Only shadows. Blurry shadows.

  A soldier approached me, his voice like thunder:

  "You scum! How dare you raise your heads in the presence of Grade Zero fighters and scientists?!"

  Those words were heavier than a thousand kicks. Heavier than a giant truck container falling on us.

  Everyone lowered their heads. Even I, despite the pain, found myself bowing my head involuntarily.

  I heard Tom whisper beside me, his sweat pouring despite the cold:

  "Impossible... is it that serious, for Grade Zero to get involved? Those... even the organization's leaders had trouble controlling them. Humans who have transcended the meaning of humanity... talents you'd call myth if you hadn't seen them yourself..."

  The voice of a senior soldier, showing signs of age and high rank, cut through the silence of terror:

  "Now, pursuant to the organization's law 69, all employees who have betrayed the organization will be executed."

  He began reading the names. Each name was like a gunshot to my heart.

  "Traitor: 6-8-790 (Tom Clay)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-875 (Jake Cluster)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-819 (Bobby Nyke)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-756 (Harry Fren)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-890 (Thomas Hall)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-814 (Maceilwa Bubabk)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-811 (Jack Park)."

  "Traitor: 6-8-859 (Asser Skarim)."

  My number.

  859

  That's me.

  I almost went insane. What? I didn't do anything. I was just doing my simple job. Why?

  I looked around in the darkness, saw soldiers wearing night vision goggles. No escape. Any movement meant instant death.

  Tom suddenly shouted, a hysterical smile trembling on his face, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets:

  "There must be a mistake! Right?!"

  The soldier looked at him coldly, then replied in a flat voice:

  "I have named all Grade 6 employees present in Section 8... except two."

  He paused for a moment.

  "The killer... and the woman."

  Silence filled the place for seconds. Then Tom exploded again, his voice choked with terror and anger:

  "Why didn't you mention Jeffrey Park's name?! And Asil Marie?! What do we have to do with this?! We're just garbage doing useless work for you! We left our families... our connections... for this damned organization!"

  The senior soldier sighed, his voice void of any emotion when he said:

  "What you're saying is correct."

  He paused for a moment, then added:

  "But the decision belongs to the Zero Council and the Chiefs."

  Tom raised his head upward, towards the shadows sitting behind the narrow windows, and shouted tearfully:

  "I beg you! Forgive me! I never failed in my work! Never!"

  Silence. Then one of the shadows moved.

  A young man, seeming no older than twenty-seven, descended from the upper compartment. His voice was calm, but held a note of anger cold as ice:

  "How dare you... you garbage... speak to us like that?"

  Before Tom could finish his sentence, the soldier fired.

  The bullet pierced his head.

  Tom fell to the ground. A lifeless corpse. Before my eyes. Before all our eyes.

  I looked at his body. Just a minute ago, he was screaming and crying. Now he was nothing.

  And I looked at the shadows above.

  And at the soldier who still had his rifle aimed at us.