Page 159 of Fractured Loyalties

I step forward. Not raising the gun yet. “You’re here for us.”

“I’m just a messenger,” he says. “You can burn your sins later. But what lives in this facility is older than you think. And it’s awake now.”

The lights above shift tone—subtly—but enough for my brain to register it as a warning.

He turns to leave.

But he pauses and looks over his shoulder.

“And Elias—when the next door opens, don’t follow the blood. Follow the silence. It’s the only thing that won’t lie to you.”

Then he’s gone.

The aperture closes behind him without a sound.

The room breathes differently now.

And the wall to our left hums. A square begins to glow, blue and steady.

A new path.

Not marked.

Not mapped.

But pulsing—like a vein under glass.

Waiting to be opened.

The square glows brighter as we approach. It doesn’t beep. It doesn’t blink. It just waits, like it knows it has the only answer we don’t.

I reach it first.

No hesitation this time. I press my hand flat against the surface.

A hiss. A slide. The wall splits inward, revealing a narrow corridor pulsing in that same dull blue light. But it isn’t just light—it’s a kind of current. Like static on skin, or adrenaline without release. Mara inhales sharply behind me. Kinley says nothing.

The corridor isn’t long. But it’s steep. It descends in a sharp spiral, reinforced walls lined with rivets and blackened glass. We descend in silence, each step hollow and sure.

At the base is a door. Seamless, wide, and locked.

Until the panel above it flashes green.

Then it opens.

And we step into a cathedral made of servers.

Rows upon rows of tall towers, black and chrome, humming with the sound of untold data. Ceiling high. The floor cooled. The air is cold enough to bite.

Mara walks past me before I speak. She moves to one of the towers, fingers grazing a console. No security keypad. Just a retinal scanner.

She hesitates.

“Don’t,” I say. “They’ll log you.”

“I already exist in their files.”

“No. Not like this.”