July 30, 2025 · B4 Mutation Labs & Deep Containment Wing · 02:58 Local
The blast doors to B4 hissed open with a groan of tortured metal, flooding the catwalk with harsh white lab lighting mixed with pulsing red emergency strobes. Water from the flooded B3 chamber poured in behind the squad like a living thing, rising fast enough to lap at their knees. The air was thicker here — a choking mix of chemical sterilant, rotting flesh, and concentrated T-Abyss.
Alen stepped through first, mask sealed, nine-oh-nine up. His blue eyes swept the corridor with clinical precision. Behind him the team moved in tight formation, breathing hard, weapons dripping.
"B4 confirmed," Chris said. "Mutation labs. Ghost, mark and move."
Alen ghost-phased forward twenty meters, reappearing on a raised observation platform. Blue laser on three targets below — Ooze Chunk variants, headless, armless, bloated sacks of explosive flesh. He marked them blue. Rolando and Dion opened fire from the catwalk. Voidstrike rounds punched clean through the cores. The creatures burst without the secondary explosion, without the acid spray — just liquefied remains sliding into the rising water.
"Clear. Push. Core vault is three sections ahead."
B4 was a maze of glass-walled mutation chambers, observation rooms, and long sterile corridors streaked with dried blood and fresh T-Abyss residue. Holographic displays flickered with corrupted data logs — hybrid infection rates climbing toward 100%. Every shattered containment tube told the story of experiments that had not stayed contained.
Emily caught up to Alen at a junction, voice low over private comms. "Ghost… back in B3. That Sea Creeper had me. You didn't have to phase in like that. Thank you."
Alen didn't slow down. "Team asset. Move."
Emily saw the faint blue flicker in his eyes — the only acknowledgement he would give. She nodded once and fell back into formation, grip tightening on her rifle.
They turned the corner into the main mutation wing.
Scagdead.
Two of the heavy mutations lumbered out of a shattered containment cell — massive, armored hulks of fused flesh and bone, grotesque tank-like forms. One swung a club arm the size of a tree trunk. The other opened a maw of jagged teeth and roared.
Alen marked them red. John dropped prone and fired — the round punched through the first Scagdead's core. It staggered but kept coming. Rolando switched to full auto, Voidstrike belts chewing through its chest until it finally dissolved.
The second charged straight at Chris.
Chris planted his feet and met it with rifle barking. Voidstrike rounds slowed it but the beast was too massive. It swung the club arm. Chris dove sideways — the blow shattered the railing inches from his head.
Alen was already moving. He ghost-phased through the creature's own body, blue tint flashing for a split second, reappeared behind it, and emptied half a magazine of Voidstrike into the back of its skull. The Scagdead dropped like a felled tree, melting into the rising flood.
Chris pushed himself up, eyes locking on Alen for one fraction of a second. That speed. That specific selfless reflex — stepping into the path between his team and the threat before anyone else had processed the danger. Chris swallowed something down and refocused.
"You good, Alpha?" Alen asked, already scanning the next corridor.
"Yeah," Chris said, voice rough. "Keep moving."
They pushed deeper. Water now waist-deep in the lower sections. Pipes bursting overhead, more T-Abyss fluid spraying across the walkways. Globster masses rolling out of side rooms. Dion cleared three in a chain of muffled Voidstrike detonations.
Rolando wiped slime from his visor at a sealed lab door. "These things are uglier than anything we've faced before. You built enough Voidstrike for all of them, Ghost?"
"I built enough," Alen said.
Dion grinned behind his mask as he planted the charge. "Man's got confidence. I like it."
The door blew open.
Inside — a data archive room. Rows of flickering terminals and shattered glass cylinders. Alen moved straight to the central console, titanium fingers dancing across the keyboard. Trinity patched in instantly, decrypting files in real time.
Critical data streamed across his HUD.
Downing's master plan in full. Elpis remnants as a stabiliser for latent t-Virus variants from Raccoon City Syndrome. T-Abyss marine vectors merged with stabilised RCS to create a perfected global infection strain. The final hybrid vial stored in the B5 core vault. Downing's contingency: full oceanic release if the facility was breached. Land and sea simultaneously. No coastline unaffected within three months.
"Found it," Alen said, voice perfectly calm. "Last hybrid vial is in B5 core. Downing's dead-man contingency is full oceanic release on facility breach. We end this now."
Chris's jaw tightened. "Double time."
They left the archive and pushed into the deep containment wing. Water now chest-deep. Red lights strobing across rows of reinforced cells — Scagdead heavies chained to walls, Ooze Shooter variants fused to the bars, a Rachel Ooze slamming against the glass in silent, distorted anguish.
Alen marked every cell blue. The squad cleared them methodically.
Emily slipped again — the wound on her side reopening in the cold flood. Charlie caught her but the current dragged them both toward an open containment breach. Alen ghost-phased through the water itself, blue hue cutting the black like a blade, and pulled them both back onto higher ground.
Emily coughed water, gripping his arm. "Second time today. I owe you, Ghost."
He released her without a word. "Stay focused."
They reached the final blast door leading to B5.
The door was already open.
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