The rage within Kael did not scream. It did not explode. It settled, condensing into something cold, hard, and sharp as a shard of ice in his heart. The faces of his Alpha Squad teammates flashed through his mind, not in their final screams, but in quiet moments—Raptor's laugh by the fire, Titan's clap on his shoulder. Those memories were now tainted with the sickening color of betrayal. They didn't die in battle. They were sacrificed on the altar of an experiment.
He turned to look at Gryphon, and the seasoned commander could see the change in his eyes. The confusion was gone. The fear was gone. All that remained was a singular purpose, pure and lethal.
"They're fighting," Kael said, his voice low and devoid of emotion. "Hunnigan and Kante. They don't trust each other. That's a crack in their armor."
"And what do you plan to do? Walk in there and ask them to surrender?" Rook snapped, though his voice held a newfound respect.
"No," Kael replied. "When a machine has parts fighting each other, it's bound to fall apart. We'll be the hammer. We'll strike that crack. Right now. While they're worried about each other and our diversionary attack, they won't expect us to dare infiltrate the nerve center itself."
"That's suicide, Spectre," Gryphon said, but his tone held no protest. He was considering it.
"Staying here and waiting is also suicide," Kael countered. "Just a slower one. We have a clear objective now: the serum supply. And we know it's in that building. I'm going, with or without anyone else."
He was no longer asking. He was declaring. The self-determination of a man with nothing left to lose.
Gryphon looked at the unshakeable resolve in Kael's eyes, then at the rest of his team. He saw agreement in Wraith's eyes, hesitant but ready willingness in Jotun's, and even a reluctant acceptance from Rook.
He nodded. "Alright, Spectre. We'll do it your way. But we go together."
"While they were talking, I scanned their security network," Wraith whispered, displaying a schematic on her tablet. "Their system is modern, but they made a rookie mistake. They wired the security cameras through the ventilation system to save on cabling. Stupid. But an opportunity for us."
She pointed to a large ventilation duct, hidden by a dense thicket on the back side of the bunker. "I can disable the motion sensors in that shaft for exactly ninety seconds. Enough time for us to get inside. But once we're in, we have no way back out until I can access another terminal."
"Ninety seconds is all we need," Gryphon said.
They moved as one, slipping through the rocks and bushes. Jotun and Rook stayed behind to guard Viper and provide cover from a distance. Only Kael, Gryphon, and Wraith would make the insertion.
Wraith did her work, her fingers a blur on the screen. "Okay... disabling now... go!"
Gryphon used a knife to cut through the grate covering the duct. Kael slid in first, then Gryphon, then Wraith. They were in a narrow, pitch-black metal shaft, forced to crawl on all fours. The air was stale and smelled strongly of chemicals.
They moved as fast as they could. Kael could hear his own heart pounding in his chest. Seventy seconds. Sixty.
They reached a junction, and Wraith pointed to a grate on the floor of the duct. "This is it. It leads down to a medical supply closet."
Gryphon and Kael carefully lifted the grate. They dropped down lightly, landing on the cold floor of the room below.
They were in.
The supply closet was sterilely clean, a world away from the chaos outside. On metal shelves were boxes of antibiotics, rolls of gauze, and bags of saline.
"Search for anything useful," Gryphon ordered quietly.
While Wraith went to a terminal on the wall and began her work, Kael and Gryphon searched the shelves. Kael found several doses of potent antiviral and anti-inflammatory drugs. He immediately stuffed them in his pouch. For Viper.
On a table in the corner, he saw a stack of documents. He picked them up. They were research reports, filled with complex chemical formulas and biological diagrams.
"Plagas Type-III," he read the title. "Host Compatibility: Blood Type O. Success Rate: 38.7%."
Below were handwritten notes. "Subject shows dramatic increase in strength and speed, but accompanied by emotional instability and uncontrolled violent tendencies. 'Aurum Serum' stabilizer required to maintain higher cognitive functions."
"Aurum Serum," Gryphon murmured, reading over Kael's shoulder. "The Gold Serum. That's what Kante is injecting."
"And here's why," Kael said, pointing to a chart. The chart showed that without the Aurum Serum, the host's cells would begin to degenerate, turning the host into a mindless, instinct-driven creature. "Without it, he'll destroy himself from the inside out."
Their target was confirmed.
"I'm in," Wraith said suddenly. She had disabled the cameras in the next hallway. "We have a clean corridor. Let's go."
They stepped out of the supply closet, moving deeper into the lion's den.
The next corridor led them to a completely different area. Clean. Bright. The walls were made of reinforced glass, allowing them to look into the laboratories within. Most were empty.
"Where are we?" Gryphon asked. "Looks like a high-level research wing."
They reached the end of the corridor, where a massive steel door was marked with the words "BIO-HAZARD LEVEL 4 CONTAINMENT - SUBJECT ZERO."
"Subject Zero," Wraith read.
The door wasn't locked. It seemed no one expected anyone to get this deep. They entered.
The room inside was not a lab. It was more like a sterile hospital room. In the center, on a medical platform, was a cylindrical glass containment chamber. Countless wires and tubes connected the chamber to the surrounding machinery, which beeped with a steady rhythm.
And inside the chamber, floating in a pale blue liquid, was a child.
A little girl.
She was about eight or nine years old, with long black hair that floated weightlessly around her serene face. Her eyes were closed, as if she were in a peaceful sleep. She wore a simple white dress. On her arm, they could see the tell-tale sign of a Plagas parasite, but it wasn't aggressive and black like Kante's. It was smaller, more refined, and seemed to be perfectly integrated with her body.
"My God," Gryphon breathed, horror written all over his face.
Wraith walked to a nearby monitor. On it were the girl's vitals. "Name: None. Designation: Subject Zero. Notes: The original host of the Type-III Plagas. Parasite and host have achieved perfect symbiosis. She is not controlled. She is the network hub. All other Plagas parasites are derived from her DNA and maintain a latent psychic link to her."
Wraith looked at Kael and Gryphon, her eyes wide. "She isn't the host. She's the Queen. The 'Little Queen'."
The entire serum program. The entire super-soldier project. It all stemmed from one innocent child, imprisoned in a glass cage.
Kael stared at the girl, a rage greater than any thoughts of revenge swelling within him. This wasn't just war. This wasn't just profit. This was a crime against the nature of everything.
"We have to get her out of here," he said, his voice filled with conviction.
"We can't!" Gryphon countered. "We don't know what will happen if we disconnect the machines! And we're in the middle of an enemy base!"
CLANG!
A deafening noise echoed as steel blast doors slammed shut over every exit simultaneously. The lights in the room suddenly flared to full, blinding brightness.
Kael, Gryphon, and Wraith immediately spun into a defensive triangle, their weapons pointed outwards.
They were trapped.
From a hidden speaker in the ceiling, a voice echoed. A cold, mocking voice. The voice of Ingrid Hunnigan.
"I must admit, I'm impressed. You got further than I expected."
A hidden door in the wall slid open, and Hunnigan stepped out. She was flanked by two large MLF soldiers, but not the transformed ones. These were professional soldiers, armed with advanced assault rifles.
"But all parties must come to an end," Hunnigan continued, a cold smile on her lips. She didn't look like someone who had just been through a battle. She looked completely in control. "Welcome to the heart of the show, Hummingbird team. I was wondering when you'd show up."
She knew. She had known they were here the whole time. The chaos outside, the fight with Kante... it could have all been a charade to lure them in.
Into the very center of the perfect trap.