They didn't speak for a long time.
The coordinates hovered mid-air, glowing blood-red against the dim light of the vault. The Omega Vault wasn't just a location — it was a grave no one returned from. A Helix secret even the rebellion whispered about in half-truths.
Kael stared at the data projection. His jaw tightened. Something in his blood responded to the image — not recognition. Instinct.
"I've seen this place," he said softly.
Rhea looked at him sharply. "When?"
"In my dreams. But they weren't dreams. They were tests."
Ashar stepped forward, unusually quiet. "They took every failed mutation, every 'unstable' subject, and threw them into Omega. It's where they send what they fear... and what they can't control."
"Like me," Kael muttered.
Ashar didn't deny it.
The Arrival
They left the undercity at dusk, riding a stolen Helix dropship under jamming frequency. The sky was the color of bruised steel, clouds thick like oil smoke.
No one spoke much during the flight.
Even Lorne, who had finally agreed to assist, kept his eyes fixed on the deck floor. He hadn't forgiven Kael for being Helix-born. But even he knew the Vault wasn't something they could ignore.
Rhea leaned toward Kael. "You don't have to go in."
He turned to her, voice barely above a whisper. "I already have. I just don't remember leaving."
Omega: The Dead Zone
The Vault stood like a monolith in a sea of broken world. A former asteroid impact site, sealed over and converted into a deep-lab.
No towers.
No lights.
Just silence.
"Where are the guards?" Ava whispered.
Ashar scanned the area. "There are no guards. There never were. Everything inside is automated. And everything outside… doesn't leave."
The dropship landed hard on fractured black soil. The smell of burnt carbon filled the air. Static clung to their skin like ash.
Rhea checked her gear. "Comms on. Extraction window: twenty minutes. No heroics."
Kael took a breath, pulse syncing to the rhythm of the Earth.
The Vault doors hissed open.
And the nightmare began.
The Descent
The inside of Omega was cold. Not temperature — emotion. A hollow, soulless cold.
Kael moved first. The hallway was wide, but dark. Lights flickered in intervals, casting jagged shadows across the floor. Every few steps, a sound echoed — like machines breathing.
Or worse.
They found the first body twenty meters in.
Half-human. Half something else.
Its face was melted into its helmet. The eyes still open. Clawed fingers fused to the wall behind it.
Rhea turned away, choking. "What the hell happened in here?"
Ashar knelt beside the corpse. "Failed splicing. They tried to merge neural AI with human cerebrum. Didn't work."
Kael felt bile rise in his throat.
It wasn't a lab. It was a slaughterhouse.
The Lost Room
They reached a chamber that pulsed with a red glow.
A control room.
The consoles still worked, barely. Flickering screens rotated between biometric feeds, gene-tracking logs, and error reports.
Kael stepped forward.
The screen flicked. Flashed. Then stabilized.
SUBJECT H-7 DETECTED.REACTIVATING CORE.
Suddenly, the walls lit up.
Rhea jumped. "What did you do?!"
Kael backed away, hands shaking. "I didn't… I just stood there."
Ashar grabbed his rifle. "We're not alone anymore."
They Awaken
Doors hissed open in the lower levels.
Monitors flashed warnings.
BIOCONTAINMENT FAILURE.CELL 13-B ACTIVE.RELEASE CODE: UNAUTHORIZED.
Kael's voice trembled. "What's in Cell 13-B?"
Ava checked the terminal. Her face drained of color.
"There's no log."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean — there was never supposed to be a 13-B."
Ashar's gun was already up.
A low thrum filled the air. Not mechanical. Biological.
Something was moving in the dark.
Kael's heart pounded as the team formed a circle.
From the far corridor, a shape emerged — tall, fluid, glowing with faint blue veins.
It moved wrong. Like it was being piloted.
Its face was smooth. Blank. But Kael could feel the same signal inside it.
And then it spoke.
In his voice.
"Hello, Kael."
The Mirror
Kael froze.
It wasn't his reflection.
It was his shadow.
"I am what you could have become," the thing said, stepping forward. "What they wanted. Perfection."
Kael shook his head. "You're not real."
"I am more than real. I am completed. You are broken."
The team opened fire. Bullets tore into its flesh.
But the thing didn't bleed.
It absorbed.
Its body shimmered and then launched forward, tearing through the wall like paper. It vanished down a side corridor, shrieking in binary tones.
Ashar grabbed Kael's arm. "What the hell was that?!"
Kael's eyes were wide. "Me."
Rhea whispered, "No. That was Helix's backup plan."
Truth Buried
As they descended further, they found the heart of the Vault.
The lab.
Hundreds of containment pods, most shattered, some still active. Inside: failed versions of Kael. Children. Teenagers. Adults — each one genetically twisted, faces frozen mid-scream.
Rhea clutched her mouth. "They kept trying…"
Kael stepped toward one of the pods, staring at a face nearly identical to his.
The eyes opened.
The clone whispered. "Help… me…"
Suddenly — alarms screamed.
MASS CONTAINMENT BREACH.
A dozen pods hissed open.
The lights cut.
Screams echoed.
The door behind them sealed shut.
Fight or Burn
Chaos erupted.
Rhea fired her pistol wildly as one of the escaped mutants leapt across the chamber. Ava was grabbed by a figure that moved like liquid metal — she vanished into the dark.
Kael and Ashar fought back-to-back. Ashar's precision was inhuman, calm even as the world collapsed.
"Kael, we need the map! Get to the core!"
Kael broke away, sprinting through flames, dodging broken pods and mutated claws.
He reached the main server — the one the earlier schematic had led him to.
Inside was a hardcoded command key — a shutdown sequence.
Not for Omega.
For everything.
Helix. The Grid. Every satellite-linked vault worldwide.
The Choice
Kael stared at it.
The shutdown required a biometric trigger.
His.
But activating it would crash Helix's system. Mutants like Ayla — grid-born — could collapse with it.
He hesitated.
"Break the loop," Ayla had said.
But was this her loop too?
Rhea screamed behind him.
Ashar yelled, "Now, Kael!"
The Vault walls shook.
He placed his hand on the trigger.
And made a choice.
End of Chapter Six
To be continued...