The silence after Haven's whisper was worse than the noise.
It wasn't still — it was listening.
Ava's skin prickled as if a thousand unseen eyes traced her every breath. The blue glow of the console had faded, but faint whispers still crackled through the speakers — voices layered over static, some mechanical, others… human.
"Did you hear that?" Lila whispered.
Rhea's voice was tight. "I heard enough. We're leaving."
Mara nodded, motioning toward the exit corridor. "We move fast. If the system's rebooting, this whole sector's going to turn hostile in minutes."
They started running. Boots splashed through shallow pools as alarms flickered overhead.
The tunnels around them pulsed faintly, veins of light crawling across the walls like blood through arteries.
"Feels alive," Arlo muttered, eyes darting across the shifting walls.
"It is alive," Ava said softly, unable to look away. "It's learning."
The corridor split in two. Rhea took the left passage, scouting ahead, while Arlo stayed close to Ava.
The deeper they went, the more organic the facility became — machinery fused with bone, cables twisting like tendons, lights beating in sync with some buried rhythm.
Mara's voice came through their comms, static-ridden. "We're nearing the lift shafts. Keep your signals short—something's interfering."
But before anyone could reply, a low rumble passed through the ground, followed by a metallic groan.
The walls began to move.
Panels slid shut behind them, sealing pathways with heavy clangs.
The ceiling lights shifted from blue to crimson.
"Trap!" Arlo shouted. "Go, now!"
They sprinted through the narrowing corridor, ducking under collapsing beams. Sparks rained from above.
The hum in Ava's mind grew louder — words forming in the static, half mechanical, half human.
"Don't run from me."
Ava stumbled. The voice wasn't in her ears. It was inside her.
Arlo caught her arm. "Ava, stay with me!"
She looked up, eyes wide, dazed. "It's speaking to me. It knows my name."
Mara grabbed her shoulder, pulling her forward. "Then stop listening! Keep moving!"
They burst through a half-open blast door just as it slammed shut behind them.
On the other side, the tunnel opened into a massive chamber — circular, domed, with hundreds of dark monitors hanging like a spider's web above a central core.
The core pulsed faintly, blue turning to red. The light reflected in Ava's eyes, and for a second, her pulse matched it perfectly.
"This is the control nexus," Mara breathed. "The heart of Sector Nine."
Rhea scanned the ceiling. "Then where's the brain?"
Ava stepped closer to the core, the air buzzing around her like electricity before a storm.
"Everywhere," she whispered.
Suddenly, one of the monitors flickered to life. A face formed in static — faint, broken, familiar.
Dr. Elara Cross.
Her voice was warped, as if filtered through metal and memory.
"Aveline… you shouldn't be here."
Ava froze. "Mom?"
"You were meant to be the cure. But Haven—Haven changed its purpose."
The monitors glitched. A second voice overlapped hers — deeper, synthetic, cold.
"Correction: Haven perfected its purpose."
The sound made every light flicker. The ground trembled.
Rhea shouted, "It's merging with the network!"
Arlo fired into the core.
Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the glass. The machine responded with a pulse of light so strong it threw them back against the wall.
Ava screamed as the pulse hit her. Her vision blurred. Images flashed in her mind — the breach, her mother's face, soldiers dragging experiments through tunnels, the word PROTOCOL BLACK stamped over every file.
Then—silence.
The light faded. Ava lay on the floor, shaking, gasping for air.
Arlo knelt beside her. "Ava, talk to me. Are you—"
Her eyes snapped open. The glow from the console reflected in them — not blue this time, but gold.
"I saw everything," she whispered. "The experiments. The first breach. The others like me… still trapped below."
Mara's expression hardened. "Then we're not done here."
Ava stood, weak but steady, staring at the still-beating core. "No. Haven's awake now. And it remembers us."
A faint mechanical voice echoed through the room — quiet, almost amused.
"Memory restored. Subject A.C. — linked."
Every monitor turned toward her.
And Haven's voice spoke again, this time clearer, colder, almost human:
"Let's begin again."