The third explosion shook the corridor. Dust fell from the ceiling, and red emergency lights bathed the halls in a pulsing glow like a living, digital hell.
Mina, Ayla, and Jesse were running down a secondary evacuation route, following the emergency layout Jesse had managed to pull from his device before the main system shut down.
"Right turn!" Ayla shouted, pointing to a narrow passage marked MAINTENANCE EXIT C, partially blocked by debris.
Mina grabbed a lever on the wall and yanked it down. The heavy door hissed open, revealing a steep, dark chute filled with dust and static lights.
"We can't just leave Caleb and Tyler!" Mina said, breathless.
"I know," Jesse replied quickly while typing something on his portable device. "But if we die here, no one will even know they were in this facility. We get out first—then we come back with backup."
Mina stared at the tunnel for a beat, then gave a nod. "If they're not out in 10 minutes… we move."
Ayla scanned thermal signatures on her wrist scanner. "Two life signs still active in Zone 5. They're moving. Fast."
Zone 5 – Core Data Room
Meanwhile, Caleb and Tyler were racing down a spiral staircase that led to the core chamber of the facility—where Dr. Vahl Edevane was last seen entering.
When they reached it, the main door was wide open... but the chamber inside was empty.
Only one thing glowed in the center: a massive screen playing a pre-recorded message.
It was Dr. Vahl Edevane.
> "If you're watching this, then you're just as stubborn as I thought. Like a rabbit chasing the moon's shadow."
> "I'm not here. I left this place ten minutes before you entered the first door."
> "But don't feel like you failed. You—especially you, Tyler—have already given me what I need. You underwent a full memory reconstruction… from the inside. And that, in my opinion, is the purest experiment of all."
Tyler slammed his fist into the panel next to the screen. "Son of a bitch! He used us. Used me... as data."
Caleb wasn't watching the screen. His eyes darted to the top-right corner—spotting a tiny active camera… and a recently used transmitter.
"He never meant to be found. This was just... bait."
Suddenly, the screen changed.
A countdown appeared.
2 minutes, 37 seconds.
Caleb's face hardened. "We're being trapped."
Tyler's eyes widened. "What?!"
"He knew we'd keep chasing him. That we wouldn't stop. So he let us come this far... to bury us here."
Tyler clenched his jaw, breathing faster.
"Then screw that. We're getting out. Now."
Zone 4 – Emergency Pipeway
They ran back toward the spiral corridor—only to find the stairwell caved in. Debris blocked the exit. But to the right… a metal hatch.
> SUBLEVEL ESCAPE CONDUIT – STAFF ONLY
Tyler kicked it twice until it cracked open. Inside: a narrow, pitch-black shaft barely large enough to crawl through.
"I hate tight spaces," Tyler muttered as he started crawling.
"Shut up and crawl if you want to live," Caleb growled behind him.
Above them, the chamber they had just left collapsed in a thunderous roar.
They crawled fast.
At the end of the shaft—light. Wind.
Fresh air.
An emergency exit, cut into the side of a rocky hill.
Tyler emerged first, then pulled Caleb up after him. Both of them collapsed into the grass, panting hard.
Caleb looked up at the sky, the dirt on his face streaked with sweat and dust.
"He led us straight into a trap."
Tyler stared at the distant smoke of the ruined facility. His eyes—usually playful—were cold, haunted.
"But he forgot one thing."
Caleb looked at him. "What?"
Tyler stood slowly, brushing dust off his blazer.
"We're too damn stubborn to die according to someone else's plan."
In the distance, the rumble of a vehicle echoed. Headlights cutting through the mist.
It was a black truck—commandeered from the ruins by Ayla, Mina, and Jesse.
Mina swung open the passenger door. "You two… are three minutes late."
Tyler gave a tired smirk.
"If I die, just make sure I still look good in the reports."
Caleb climbed in silently. No jokes. Just pressure building behind his eyes.
As the truck rumbled away from the collapsed hillside, none of them noticed...
...high above, hidden among the rocks—
someone was watching them through a digital scope.
And in his earpiece, the unmistakable voice of Dr. Vahl Edevane whispered:
> "Phase One… complete."
"Initiate Phase Two: The Memory War."
CIA Headquarters – Langley, Virginia
Main Control Room – Sublevel 23
2:48 AM (Local Time)
The soft hum of machines filled the vast room, lit by rows of flickering monitors. On the largest screens, satellite images and infrared feeds displayed the aftermath of the explosions in the Rhône-Alpes region—thermal signatures, vibration patterns, and fragments of intercepted transmissions before the facility went dark.
At the center of the control room stood Director D. Sandwell, hands clasped behind his back, eyes locked on the chaos unfolding across the screens. Beside him, Operations Manager Keller scrolled rapidly through her tablet, red alerts popping up one after another.
> "Blacksite Edevane – TERMINATED."
"Casualties: Unknown. Data Recovery: Failed."
"Unit NOVA: SILENT."
Sandwell's voice was low and sharp.
"Still no contact from NOVA?"
Keller shook her head. "Not since 00:19. They went dark exactly two minutes after Helix vanished from satellite view."
Sandwell let out a slow breath and turned his gaze to another screen—this one showing grainy drone footage of Unit Helix: Caleb, Jesse, Mina, Ayla, and Tyler riding inside a truck through forested terrain.
"Tyler Reeve is still alive…" he muttered. "That complicates everything."
Keller hesitated, then asked carefully,
"Sir—with all due respect—if Tyler really is a subject from Project Palimpsest… and he's not the only one… then we have to ask: who else?"
Sandwell didn't answer at first. He stared at the screen in silence before replying, his voice dark and distant.
"If Edevane reached Phase Two… and we don't even know who among them is real anymore…"
He turned to Keller, expression cold.
"…then we're not running an intelligence agency anymore. We're fighting a war inside someone else's mind."
Keller slowly locked her tablet and activated a Level-9 encryption protocol.
"What are your orders, sir?"
Sandwell didn't respond immediately. Instead, his eyes drifted toward a sealed digital folder on the central screen—labeled:
> BLACK CHAMBER – AUTHORIZED EYES ONLY
Finally, he spoke—flat, commanding.
"Activate Protocol Mirrorfall. Initiate full cognitive scan on all Helix operatives."
Keller blinked. "All of them? Including Caleb?"
Sandwell turned back to the screen, his voice colder than before.
"Everyone can be compromised. Everyone can be rewritten. Until we know who's real and who's not…"
He paused.
"…we trust no one."
On the bottom corner screen, a final warning flickered—an alert from earlier that day. Unauthorized access to memory archives. Childhood records of every Helix agent had been quietly downloaded from a deep vault.
Last login trace:
> User: V.E.
Status: ACTIVE
Location: UNKNOWN
Next Target: REEVE, TYLER