Chapter 101: Reminiscences

The silence weighed heavily in the corridors that followed. Even Kane had stopped complaining.

The group advanced through a succession of tunnels lit by intermittent lighting, pale blocks of light embedded in the walls. With every step, the metallic echo of their boots rang out like a sentence being passed.

That was when Evelyn stopped dead.

“Evelyn?” Zeynn called, worried.

She didn’t answer.

Her gaze was locked on a door left slightly ajar, unremarkable at first glance. But inside, she caught sight of a stretch of wall painted pale gray, the shadow of an oval porthole on the left… and a checkered tile floor, white and seafoam green.

It hit her like a blow to the solar plexus.

A flash. Blinding.

She saw herself again, small, kneeling on that cold floor, fingers clenched around a broken toy. A learning cube. Too colorful. Too cheerful for a place like that.

She remembered the muffled voices behind the glass.

“Stable prototype…”

“Inadequate emotional response.”

“Reset suggested.”

And her, curled up in the corner, trying not to cry, because last time she had, she’d been punished.

“No… not here…”

The whisper slipped from her lips without her realizing it. Vykhor was already moving, instinctively placing his body between her and the door.

“What do you see?” he asked quietly.

Evelyn shook her head, a shiver sliding down her spine.

“It’s not the lab. But… the architecture, the corridors, the layout of the modules… it’s similar. Very similar. They used the same plans, the same circulation protocols.”

She slowly turned in place, staring at the walls as if they might speak.

“We’re getting close to the center. I can feel it. This isn’t just a technical complex anymore. It’s a… matrix.”

She pressed her hand to the wall. Closed off, calm on the surface, but Vykhor saw her fingers tremble.

Griffin confirmed grimly.

“He’s replicating his schemas. He’s not just creating clones. He’s rebuilding the environment that shaped you. Or rather… that distorted you.”

Zeynn stepped closer, timidly brushing Evelyn’s hand with his fingertips. She looked at him, her pale eyes shining with a pain she thought she’d buried long ago.

“You got out of there,” he said softly. “You’re not going back. Not today.”

She nodded slowly.

And started walking again.

A new tension had seized the group. As if, without a word, they all understood that they weren’t just pushing deeper into the Master’s lair.

They were traveling back in time.

They moved in a tight formation, silent. Their shadows rippled along the walls, riddled with cables and conduits. Vykhor led the way, followed by Evelyn, focused, almost holding her breath.

Zeynn slowed just a little, until he found himself walking alongside Skye.

She noticed him out of the corner of her eye without breaking her vigilance. Her rifle was ready, fingers on the grip, senses wide open.

“You should stick with the group,” she murmured. “Places like this love bad surprises.”

“I know,” he replied quietly. “It’s just that…”

He glanced ahead. Evelyn. Upright, apparently calm. But he knew her too well. She was breathing less. Blinking less. And her shoulders… so rigid.

“She’s cracking on the inside,” he added in a whisper. “And she’s pretending everything’s fine. Like always.”

Skye didn’t answer right away.

Then, evenly:

“She’s stronger than you think.”

“That’s the problem,” he shot back. “She’s too strong. She holds it all in. And I’m scared that one day it’ll snap all at once, and we won’t be able to catch her.”

His jaw tightened.

“I was in that damned room with her when she stared at that case. I saw her shaking. Not from fear… from exhaustion. Like she was fighting herself with every breath.”

Skye studied him for a moment, then, unexpectedly, lowered her weapon slightly and sighed, almost fondly.

“That’s some serious loyalty for a kid raised in a cage.”

Zeynn managed a sad smile.

“I saw her bandage others while she was bleeding herself. Save me when she could’ve run. Understand me when I was just a kid with too much anger in my veins.”

He shrugged.

“I can’t save her the way she saved me. But at least, I can stay by her side.”

Skye turned her head forward again.

“Then stay. And if she falls… we’ll catch her together. That’s what a pack does.”

A beat. Then Zeynn replied with a small nod.

“Yeah… one hell of a pack.”

The group moved into a secondary corridor Kane had flagged as a former access to the experimentation chambers.

“It was supposed to have been decommissioned for years,” he’d said.

“Then why are the lights still powered?” Skye had muttered.

They advanced slowly. The neon lights flickered, some crackling with a greenish glow. The walls sweated with moisture, and a strange hum hung in the air.

Zeynn, lingering slightly behind, turned his head. His chest thudded. Something… was calling to him. An old, sticky sensation.

He stopped in front of a door left ajar.

“Wait,” he breathed.

Evelyn froze instantly. Vykhor raised a fist, signaling a silent halt.

“What is it?” Rax asked, ready to hack any lock.

“Nothing,” Zeynn murmured. “Nothing… but too much nothing.”

He pushed the door open.

A gray room. Almost empty. Except for a medical bed in the center, isolated under harsh light. And on that bed, a figure lay strapped down.

Zeynn stepped inside alone.

“Zeynn?” Evelyn called.

He didn’t answer. He moved closer.

It was a human being. Or what was left of one.

Ash-gray skin. Bluish veins. Eyes open but empty, fixed on the ceiling. An IV line pierced the neck. The body barely moved, wracked by tiny nervous tremors in waves. Like a machine at the end of its life.

“Fuck…” Skye murmured as she stepped in behind him.

Zeynn remained frozen, breath caught in his throat.

“He’s… he’s not really alive,” he said in a strange voice. “But he’s not dead either. They… erased something. His mind. His will. They… hollowed him out.”

He slowly lifted his eyes to Evelyn, pale in the doorway.

“I know that look,” Zeynn added. “It’s the one I had… when I almost stopped fighting.”

Silence fell. Thick.

“Do we take him with us?” Skye asked, uneasy.

Evelyn slowly shook her head.

“He wouldn’t survive a transfer. And… he probably isn’t conscious of what he is anymore.”

Zeynn lowered his gaze to the body.

“You deserved better than this,” he murmured. “Even if you were a failure in their screwed-up plan… you were still alive. At least a little.”

Then, gently, he placed his hand on the body’s icy forehead.

And closed its eyes.

The smell.

Evelyn stopped short.

She didn’t speak, but her jaw clenched, her gaze fixed on the corridor ahead. Her free hand trembled just slightly—imperceptibly. But Vykhor saw it.

“Evelyn?” he murmured.

She nodded slowly, eyes still locked on the pallid neon light above.

“It’s not the lab… I know that. But my body doesn’t know the difference.”

She drew a deep breath, as if pushing back the vise tightening around her chest.

“They may have copied the walls, the cables, the angles. But it’s the smell. The temperature. The humidity in the air. That hum just at the edge of hearing…”

Her fingers pressed to her temple, as if she could force her mind to calm down.

“My hypermnesia records everything. Every detail. And everything is screaming that we’re close to the center.”

She looked at the others.

“I’m ready. But I can’t promise I’ll stay that way.”

The walls closed in on them with surgical precision. Too precise. Too silent. Not a speck of dust, not a single dead cable. The secondary control room looked exactly like a trap pretending to be an abandoned corridor.

“This isn’t a deserted post,” Evelyn murmured. “It’s active… but masked.”

Rax, focused on a dormant interface, nodded slowly.

“There are entire layers of code asleep here. Military code. I’ve seen this on ghost stations along the southern fringe, but never at this level. This isn’t a surveillance terminal. It’s a filter.”

“A filter for what?” Skye asked.

“To sort whoever comes in. Observe their reactions. And decide what comes next.”

The room shuddered slightly.

A faint hiss rose from the walls.

Then the screens lit up one by one, revealing footage taken without their knowledge. Their arrival on Helios-V8. Their progress through the corridors. Evelyn passing a tank. Zeynn brushing past a console. Even Kane asleep in the infirmary.

Every face captured. Every movement isolated.

“Shit…” Skye breathed. “We’ve been watched from the start.”