The black drive flickered to life.
Mira connected it to a battered laptop, running it through layers of encryption protocols as Fred paced restlessly across the dimly lit room.
The files were old.
Buried.
Meant never to see the light of day.
But Mira was a ghost in the system.
Piece by piece, she pulled it apart—
until a blueprint unfolded on the cracked screen.
Fred froze.
It wasn't a building.
It was a city beneath the city.
A spiderweb of tunnels, bunkers, labs... stretching for miles under their feet.
At the center, marked with a single chilling word:
Chrysalis.
Fred's throat went dry.
"What the hell is Chrysalis?" Mira whispered.
Reeve, standing silently in the corner, finally spoke.
"Her final project," he said grimly.
"The real empire. Built under your noses. Hidden in the rot."
Fred leaned closer, reading the tiny, jagged annotations.
Human trials.
Behavioral programming.
Genetic modification.
Children.
Hundreds of names.
And among them, highlighted in red—
Fred's own.
---
Hours later, they descended into the undercity.
Mira led, weapon ready.
Fred followed, heart pounding.
Every step down the crumbling stairwells felt like a descent into hell.
They passed walls lined with peeling murals—smiling faces, bright suns, flowers painted over rust and mildew.
The deeper they went, the colder it became.
Until even their breath became mist.
It wasn't just the physical cold.
It was the cold of death.
Fred recognized this place.
In his nightmares.
In flashes he thought were just imagination.
The black rooms.
The whispering doctors.
The endless tests.
This was where Selene built him.
This was where she broke him.
---
They reached a heavy steel door.
Mira hacked the keypad with trembling fingers.
It hissed open.
The smell hit them first—
stale blood, chemicals, and something far worse.
Inside were rows of cryogenic pods.
Most were dark.
A few... still glowed faintly.
Fred stepped forward, his stomach turning.
Inside the pods were children.
Or what remained of them.
Small, twisted bodies.
Some perfectly preserved.
Some... incomplete.
Failed experiments.
Discarded lives.
Fred turned away, bile rising in his throat.
Mira's hands shook as she filmed everything with a hidden camera.
Proof.
Reeve muttered something under his breath—a prayer or a curse.
Suddenly, a soft click echoed from the far side of the room.
A pod.
Opening.
Fred raised his gun instantly.
A figure stepped out—
a boy, maybe fifteen, wearing nothing but hospital scrubs, eyes wide and empty.
The boy looked at Fred.
And smiled.
Not with joy.
But with recognition.
---
The boy moved faster than anything Fred had ever seen.
A blur of motion.
Fred barely blocked the strike aimed for his throat.
Mira ducked, firing a stun dart that barely slowed the boy.
"This isn't a rescue mission anymore!" she shouted.
Fred grappled the boy, feeling strength unnatural for someone so young.
Whispers filled the air—
commands etched deep into the boy's mind.
Kill the intruders.
Protect the heart.
Obey the voice.
Fred gritted his teeth, slamming the boy against a metal pillar, trying not to break him.
This wasn't his enemy.
This was another victim.
Another soul stolen by Selene.
With Mira's help, they finally sedated him, strapping him carefully to a stretcher.
Fred looked down at the boy's sleeping face.
He could've been Fred.
He had been Fred, once.
And if they didn't stop Selene...
There would be thousands more.
---
As they dragged the unconscious boy out of the facility, alarms began to blare through the tunnels.
Selene knew.
The queen spider had felt the web tremble.
And she was coming.
Fred didn't flinch.
Let her come.
Because now, he wasn't just fighting for himself.
He was fighting for all the ghosts trapped beneath the web.
For every name erased.
For every child broken.
For every yesterday stolen.
And this time—
he wouldn't stop until Selene's empire crumbled into dust.
---