Facility K-9's central tower rose like a broken needle against the scorched sky, its top shattered and its internal systems still pulsing with unstable energy. The reactivation key—Kael's bracelet—had granted access only to the surface systems.
The real secrets, the ones that mattered, were buried 20 stories down in Sub-Lab Theta—a classified tier once only accessible by Kael's father and his highest-ranking officers.
Kael stood before the inner elevator, flanked by Talia and the others. A security plate pulsed red until Kael placed his hand on the scanner.
Drayven DNA confirmed. Access: Ultra Black. Initiating descent.
The doors opened.
The ride down was long.
Too long.
The elevator screeched to a halt at -20. Doors parted to reveal a hallway of sterile white, untouched by time, yet thick with silence. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, barely powered by emergency cores. The air was wrong—recycled too many times, too still, too cold.
And the smell hit them fast.
Not rot. Something older. Synthetic and organic at once. Like melted plastic mixed with bone dust.
"Something died down here," Talia muttered. "A lot of somethings."
Kael walked forward.
Every panel, every door, bore the same symbol: the Eye of the Veil.
Inside the first chamber, glass tanks lined the walls. Each held an inhuman shape—mutated bodies, some with mechanical augmentations grafted into bone. Limbs replaced by conduits. Eyes replaced by sensors. Many still twitched, despite being submerged for years.
"Gods," Nez whispered. "This isn't research. It's torture."
Kael read the nearby console.
PROJECT: SPHERE-VEIL_03. Host Compatibility: <1%. Ethical Override: Manual.
He turned away.
"There's more," he said.
In the second room, they found Level Theta Core—a suspended neural engine, cracked but still alive. Kael approached carefully.
A light blinked.
User detected. Legacy match. Would you like to initiate memory stream?
"Yes," Kael said.
The room dimmed.
Then a hologram appeared—Jarek Drayven, his father, younger, more human than Kael remembered. He was standing in this very room, speaking to a team of scientists.
"Project Veil is not about creating weapons. It's about containment. There's something out there—something that speaks through frequencies we can't map. The moment we touched the outer signal, it came to us. We can't stop it. We can only bind it. Temporarily."
One of the scientists argued.
"This goes against every protocol—"
"Screw protocol," Jarek snapped. "If the veil falls, there is no future. Not for Earth. Not for Mars. Not for anyone."
Kael's heart thundered.
His father hadn't been building power.
He'd been trying to hold back annihilation.
Suddenly, the memory stream cut.
Then came the sound—grinding metal, clicking limbs.
A whisper over comms:
"They've found us."
From the far end of the hallway, a figure emerged.
No… not a figure.
A fusion of man and machine—tall, spider-limbed, face blank except for a glowing red spiral where eyes should be.
Theta Subject 01. Incomplete. Hostile.
Kael raised his rifle. "Fall back! Now!"
The creature moved like lightning—its limbs lashing out, slicing a wall panel in two. Vox screamed as a shard grazed his side.
Kael triggered his pulse rounds. The creature flinched, not from pain—but from interference.
"EMP! Aim for the relay nodes!" Kael barked.
Talia and Nez joined in, targeting the glowing nodes along its spine. Two direct hits and it staggered.
Then came the scream—a distorted, inhuman wail that knocked Cray to his knees.
Kael moved in close, slashing with the plasma saber he'd custom-forged. The blade cut through one of the limbs, sending sparks and fluid flying.
The creature shrieked—its spiral eye dimming.
Then, it lunged—
Straight at Kael.
Everything froze.
Kael saw it—knew he couldn't move in time.
But the bracelet on his wrist flared to life.
A pulse of energy erupted from it, blasting the creature mid-air, disintegrating its upper torso.
The rest collapsed in a heap of sizzling metal and bone.
Smoke filled the corridor.
Everyone was silent.
"What the hell was that?" Nez asked.
Kael stared at the bracelet. "A failsafe. My father must've encoded a defense system into it. A last resort."
Talia looked at him. "Kael… your father wasn't just a tycoon. He was playing god."
"No," Kael said, still panting. "He was fighting one."
Back in the elevator, Kael held a data core torn from the sub-lab. Inside were logs, experiments, blueprints, and a location—a hidden orbital station designated Argus Prime.
Whatever Project Veil had started, it didn't end in K-9.
It had spread.
As the elevator ascended, Kael looked at his team—bruised, bloody, but alive.
"We're going orbital," he said. "There's more out there. And if Drayven blood is the key…"
He clenched his fist.
"Then I'm unlocking the whole damn vault."