Chapter 190 The Tip Off
Chapter 190 The Tip Off
The message arrived through one of Fred’s buried relay channels just before dawn.
No sender identification.
No traceable source.
Only coordinates and a single line of text:
If you want to know where they moved the hybrids, look beneath the dead pharmaceuticals.
That was all.
No explanation.
No demands.
No signature.
Which usually meant one of two things:
Either someone inside Calder’s network wanted to survive.
Or someone wanted us walking into a slaughterhouse.
Vincent stared at the decrypted message projected across the war room table and sighed heavily.
“I miss when problems were just murder.”
“You still solve most things with murder,” Tessa muttered without looking up from her terminal.
“Yes, but now there’s paperwork attached.”
Thane checked the magazine in his rifle with quiet precision.
“Location?”
Tessa enlarged the map coordinates.
“Industrial district. South-western territory border.” Her expression tightened slightly. “Old pharmaceutical manufacturing plant.”
Fred looked up immediately from the biological reports spread across the far table.
“Name?”
Tessa zoomed further.
“Velthorne Biotech.”
Fred went still.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
Darius noticed instantly.
“You know it.”
Fred’s jaw hardened slightly.
“It was shut down fifteen years ago.”
“That means absolutely nothing anymore,” Vincent said dryly.
Unfortunately, he was right.
Everything supposedly shut down seemed to still exist beneath the surface. Darius looked toward the map for several long seconds before speaking.
“We move now.”
No one argued.
The drive took nearly five hours through heavy rain and abandoned industrial corridors buried beneath dust and overgrowth . The farther south we traveled, the more isolated the roads became until civilization itself seemed to disappear behind hills and skeletal factory ruins.
By the time the convoy reached the outskirts of the district, darkness had fallen completely.
The pharmaceutical plant sat alone at the edge of a river.
Dead.
Or pretending to be.
Massive gray concrete buildings loomed against the storm-dark sky while rusted fencing sagged beneath years of neglect. Broken loading docks lined the eastern side of the complex, half buried beneath mud and dead weeds clawing through cracked asphalt.
At first glance, it looked empty.
But the moment I stepped out of the armored vehicle, My beast stirred.
Something about this place felt familiar in the worst possible way. Darius stepped beside me immediately.
His gaze moved once across the facility before landing on me.
“What is it?”
I stared at the darkened structure.
“I don’t know yet.”
Lie.
Part of me already knew.
I just didn’t want to say it aloud.
Blood Guards spread across the perimeter while Vincent and Thane breached the outer security gates. The locks had already been cut recently.
Another bad sign.
“Someone was here,” Thane muttered quietly.
“Recently,” Vincent added.
Vines crunched sharply beneath our boots as we crossed the abandoned loading yard toward the main structure.
The building smelled wrong.
Even before we entered.
Beneath the rust and cold air lingered antiseptic.
Chemicals.
Sterile cleaning agents buried beneath old decay.
Laboratory smells.
The front entrance opened too easily.
The interior was dark except for intermittent emergency lighting flickering weakly along the hallways.
Dust coated the upper offices.
Old desks sat overturned.
Computers gutted.
Paperwork scattered across cracked tile floors.
Exactly what an abandoned pharmaceutical plant should look like.
But the deeper we moved
The cleaner things became.
The maintenance corridors beneath the first level showed almost no dust accumulation at all.
Recent movement.
Recent cleaning.
My pulse quickened.
No.
Fred studied the walls quietly while Tessa scanned old security infrastructure through her tablet.
Then Fred spoke softly.
“This isn’t making sense.”
Everyone looked toward him.
He pointed toward the corridor design.
“Too narrow for manufacturing transport. Too compartmentalized.”
Darius’s expression darkened.
“What is it?”
Fred looked around carefully.
“Containment infrastructure.”
The word echoed coldly through the underground hallway.
And suddenly
I understood why my instincts were screaming.
Because I recognized this place.
Not specifically.
Structurally.
The reinforced corners.
The silver-threaded ventilation grates.
The staggered security doors every twenty feet.
God.
My breathing slowed dangerously.
“It’s Council design.”
The words came out before I realized I was speaking.
Everyone turned toward me.
I stared at the corridor ahead while memory crawled slowly up my spine like ice water.
“This layout…”
No.
No no no.
Darius stepped closer.
“Lyra.”
I swallowed hard.
“It looks like the underground lab beneath Council Headquarters.”
Silence crashed through the group.
Even Fred froze.
I know the laboratory beneath Council Headquarters very ,That's where they held me the first time they captured me.
Cold white hallways.
Observation glass.
Containment sectors hidden beneath political chambers where monsters were discussed politely above ground while they were built below it.
And this place
This place mirrored it almost exactly.
I knew where things were before we reached them.
The secondary security checkpoints.
The decontamination corridor.
The observation wing.
Every turn felt familiar before I saw it.
Not because I’d physically been here before.
Because whoever designed this facility copied Council standards precisely.
Someone with direct access.
Direct knowledge.
The lower blast doors opened into a massive underground containment sector.
And my stomach dropped instantly.
Rows of containment pods lined both walls beneath flickering emergency lights.
Empty.
Every single one empty.
The pods stood nearly eight feet tall, reinforced with silver-laced alloy and thick observation glass threaded with neural suppression wiring.
Blood stained several interiors.
Recent blood.
Not dried.
Still dark and wet along the drainage channels beneath the restraint systems.
Vincent swore softly.
“Well. That’s horrifying.”
No one answered.
Because the room itself felt wrong.
Not abandoned.
Evacuated.
Quickly.
My eyes moved across the containment systems slowly.
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
The restraint harnesses.
The spinal injection ports.
The biometric suppression systems.
They were nearly identical to the ones used on me as a child.
Only newer.
Improved.
My pulse hammered violently.
No.
Darius noticed immediately.
“Lyra.”
I stepped closer to one of the pods almost without realizing it.
The glass reflected my face faintly beneath flickering lights.
And memory hit so hard my knees nearly buckled.
Cold restraints digging into my wrists.
Screaming until my throat bled.
Scientists watching from behind glass while my body tore itself apart during forced transitions.
The smell of antiseptic.
The sound of machines.
God.
Darius caught me before I fell.
His hands gripped my arms firmly.
“Hey.”
I couldn’t look away from the pod.
“This is the same.”
The words shook.
“The same as what they used on me.”
Fred moved toward another containment unit and studied the suppression systems carefully.
His expression darkened visibly.
“These aren’t copied systems.”
Everyone looked toward him.
Fred touched the edge of the neural regulator.
“They’re upgraded versions.”
Cold spread through the room instantly.
Because that meant someone hadn’t merely replicated Council technology.
They continued developing it.
Tessa approached one of the active terminals near the center station.
“Power’s still running.”
The monitors flickered weakly alive beneath her touch.System logs scrolled rapidly across the screens.
Transport schedules.
Containment designations.
Biological stability reports.
My beast went utterly still beneath my skin.
Because suddenly the truth became horrifyingly obvious. This wasn’t just inspired by Council infrastructure. The Council built it. Or someone inside it did.Darius stared at the monitor with murder in his eyes.
Fred looked almost sick.
Vincent muttered softly:
“How deep does this go?”
No one answered.