The command was a simple, two-fingered gesture from Silja Valis. Rhys Marko, a mountain of quiet competence, moved to the lab door. He placed a small, shaped charge, no bigger than his thumb, over the magnetic lock. It was a tool of precise, non-violent entry, designed to sever a connection, not shatter a wall. Jago, the scavenger whose betrayal had led them here, stood ten meters back, his posture a study in anticipated failure.
The charge popped with a sharp, contained crack, like a bone snapping. The heavy plasteel door hissed and slid open into a room of blinding, shadowless white. The air that washed over them was cold, sterile, and carried the clean, electric hum of a machine operating under immense strain. Silja and Rhys moved through the opening in a fluid, synchronized motion, their weapons down but ready. They were not soldiers. They were mechanics, and this was a repair job.
In the center of the room, Orina Cassel was strapped into a chair. It was a throne of cold chrome and glowing fiber-optic cables, an armature of extraction that cupped her skull. Her head was slumped, her eyes unfocused and dull. A thin, dried trail of blood marked a path from one nostril to her lip, the ghost of a past trauma. She was a component being stripped for parts.
Beside the chair, a diagnostic monitor displayed the grim calculus of her deconstruction. A single green bar pulsed with a slow, predatory rhythm. Data Extraction: 65%. A second, smaller bar flickered in the red. Subject Health: 40%. They were running out of time. They were running out of Orina.
Miles away, in a room of absolute black, Corbin Vance watched the scene on a high-resolution monitor. He saw the breach, the efficient entry, the way Rhys’s eyes immediately assessed the machine while Silja’s locked on the girl. He did not reach for an alarm. He did not dispatch a single security agent. His expression was one of placid, academic curiosity. He was observing their methods. This was not an incursion. It was a data point.
— Rhys, kill the machine, — Silja’s voice was a low, sharp command that cut through the hum. — Jago, the door.
Rhys was already moving. He was a mechanic, not a demolitions expert. He did not smash the delicate armature. He circled the machine’s base, his eyes tracing the thick, shielded conduits that fed it power from the sub-floor. He found the primary line, a cable as thick as his wrist. He gripped it with both hands, planted his feet, and pulled.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a groan of stressed metal and a shower of brilliant blue-white sparks, the conduit ripped free from its housing.
The effect was instantaneous. The machine’s oppressive hum died with a pathetic, descending whine. The glowing fiber-optics went dark. The monitor beside Orina flashed a single, angry red message: CONNECTION LOST. The sharp, clean scent of ozone, the smell of murdered electricity, flooded the sterile air.
Silja was already at Orina’s side. Her fingers, deft and sure, moved over the restraints. They were not the gentle hands of a rescuer. They were the efficient hands of a technician disassembling a system. A click, a hiss, another click. The restraints fell away. She helped Orina sit up, the younger woman’s body limp and unresponsive.
Orina’s head lolled, her eyes struggling to find a focal point in the white room. They swept past Rhys, past the dead machine, and then they found Silja. The fog in her gaze cleared, replaced by a flicker of absolute, unwavering certainty. It was the look of a believer seeing proof of their faith.
— I knew you’d come, — Orina whispered. The words were a thread of sound, barely audible in the sudden silence, but they landed with the weight of a promise fulfilled.
Silja’s expression did not soften, but she held Orina’s gaze for a fraction of a second longer than tactically necessary. It was an acknowledgment. A data point logged and accepted. The system of their relationship had been tested, and it had held.
— Can you walk? — Silja asked, her voice returning to its usual flat tone. She pulled Orina to her feet, taking most of her weight.
Orina nodded, a small, jerky motion. She leaned heavily against Silja, a fragile counterweight to the other woman’s solid, unyielding frame.
From the doorway, Jago’s voice was a nervous crackle. — Clear, for now. But the diagnostic window is closing. We have less than ten minutes.
— Machine’s dead, — Rhys confirmed, turning from the sparking ruin. He wiped a smear of lubricant from his hand onto his heavy coat. — Won’t be getting anything else out of her.
The team was whole again. The navigator, the support, the key, and the traitor who had given them the way in. Orina was no longer just a liability to be protected. She was the asset, the living codex they needed to rewrite the world. The first phase of the plan was complete. The extraction was a success.
The lab was quiet now, the silence broken only by the distant, rhythmic pulse of the Pinnacle’s life support systems. The air was still, thick with the smell of burnt electronics and the cold, clean scent of a sterile cage that had been broken open.
