CHAPTER 1 – The Gate of Ghosts (≈1000 words)

The wind always carried the same taste at Fort Ashbury—dust, metal, and the echo of forgotten wars. It whistled through the blast barriers, rattled the loose sheet metal along the perimeter, and scraped itself against the guard post like a restless spirit. Private Samuel Ellis tried not to rub his eyes again, but the grit stung like needles.

He squinted at the woman standing ten feet in front of him.

Everything about her looked wrong—out of place, out of time, out of reason. She wore rags, some barely stitched together, more survival than clothing. Boots cracked from years of sun and stone. Skin weathered, hair matted with gray streaks that did not match her still-young face… maybe late thirties, early forties.

But what bothered Ellis most wasn’t her appearance.

It was her posture.

Ragged or not, starving or not, exhausted or not—

Her spine stood straight.

As if it had never forgotten the parade ground, the rifle, the command: Attention.

Ellis cleared his throat. “Ma’am… this is a restricted facility. You can’t just walk up to the checkpoint and say you served.”

The woman didn’t answer. Didn’t react. She just breathed—a slow, tired exhale, barely enough to disturb the dust drifting past her boots.

Behind Ellis, Sergeant Kirk muttered, “Waste of time.” He stepped up, hand resting on his rifle.

“Lady,” Kirk barked, “unless you have ID, tags, insignia—something—then turn around. We’re not running a charity at this gate.”

Still nothing.

Not fear. Not anger.

Just stillness.

Like she had faced worse—far worse—than a young sergeant trying to scare her.

Ellis shifted, uncomfortable. “She doesn’t look like a threat, Sergeant.”

Kirk scoffed. “Everyone is a threat until proven otherwise. You wanna bet your life she isn’t?”

Ellis didn’t answer. He just swallowed.

Finally, the woman lifted her gaze. It was slow, deliberate, as though effort itself cost her something. When her eyes met theirs, Ellis felt a chill.

Not because they were hard.

But because they were old.

Not in age.

In memory.

Eyes that had seen things no new recruit believed could still exist.

She raised one hand, fingers trembling slightly, and began pulling back the torn sleeve of her coat.

Kirk crossed his arms. “Oh, this I gotta see.”

Before the woman could reveal anything, a sharp voice cut across the wind.

“No need.”

Every soldier froze.

Footsteps. Commanding. Heavy. Controlled.

A cluster of officers approached the checkpoint—routine inspection. Their uniforms were crisp, medals gleaming. Leading them was General Marcus Hale—four stars, known across the entire country for absolute discipline and an unshakeable will.

Hale was a monument of a man: broad shoulders, clean-shaven jaw, eyes that could cut steel when he glared. His mere presence made young officers stiffen their posture.

He wasn’t looking for trouble.

He simply happened to be passing by.

Until he saw her.

He stopped.

Not gradually—mid-stride, as though his boots had been bolted to the concrete. His eyes widened the tiniest fraction as the woman lowered her coat sleeve completely.

Sergeant Kirk frowned. “Sir, we’re handling—”

Hale didn’t hear him.

Didn’t hear anything.

He was staring at the exposed skin of the woman’s arm.

Ellis blinked.

Not scars of barbed wire or injury.

Something else.

Patterned burn marks. Surgical seams. Tiny, deliberate incisions. Skin grafting arranged in geometric alignment—like a coded language carved into flesh.

Ellis whispered, “What… what is that?”

Hale stepped forward, every breath measured. The clipboard in his hand slipped from numb fingers and clattered against the pavement. The officers behind him halted, whispering uneasily.

Kirk shot Ellis a confused glance.

“General?”

But Hale didn’t turn.

Didn’t blink.

He walked right up to the woman—close enough that the dust swirling between them could have been the last smoke of a battlefield.

The woman looked at him, eyes tired… and something else. Recognition. Sadness. A tiny flicker of something that might once have been respect.

Hale’s jaw tightened. His voice came out low, raw.

“…I thought they all died.”

Kirk’s eyes widened. “Sir… you know her?”

Hale didn’t answer him. His attention never left the woman.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t confirm.

Didn’t deny.

Hale inhaled sharply—as if steeling himself—and then…

To the shock of every soldier present…

He slowly dropped to his knees.

Ellis gasped.

A four-star general kneeling before a woman in rags?

Kirk stammered, “General—sir—what are you—”

Hale’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I never thought I would see one alive again.”

The woman closed her eyes, as though the weight of his words pressed against wounds the world couldn’t see.

“What… are you?” Ellis whispered without meaning to say it aloud.

She opened her eyes.

When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, cracked—not from age, but from silence.

“I was part of Unit Zero.”

Dead silence.

Kirk blinked. “That’s a myth. A rumor.”

Hale looked up at him, expression cold.

“It was classified. And sealed. And buried.”

Ellis felt his mouth go dry. “Sir… you’re telling us she’s—”

“One of the originals.”

Another gust of wind howled through the checkpoint, kicking dust over their boots. It sounded like a distant scream.

Hale bowed his head.

“I never understood why they disappeared. We were told the entire project was… shut down.”

He looked up at her slowly.

“Were you the only survivor?”

The woman finally looked away, her voice barely a whisper.

“One does not survive what we were made for. We only… continue.”

Her words landed like stones in the silence.

Ellis shivered.

Kirk looked rattled for the first time in years.

Hale slowly rose to his feet—not military-sharp, but like a man bearing invisible weight.

“You’re coming with me,” he said quietly.

“It isn’t safe for any of us out here.”

Ellis exchanged a look with Kirk. “Should we escort her, sir?”

Hale glanced at them, his eyes intense.

“Do not escort her.”

They stiffened.

“Why not?” Kirk dared to ask.

Hale’s voice dropped lower.

“Because if what I think is true… she could escort every one of us.”

The woman didn’t react.

Just stood there, as if the world’s judgment no longer mattered.

Hale turned toward the base interior.

“Let her through.”

Kirk swallowed. “But regulations—”

“That is an order.”

No one argued.

The gates buzzed.

The ancient hinges groaned.

And as the woman stepped through, even the wind seemed to quiet… as though Fort Ashbury itself was holding its breath.

CHAPTER 2 – The General’s Office

The interior of Fort Ashbury was a world apart from the battered desert outside—gleaming hallways, polished floors, and the smell of antiseptic military efficiency. But despite all the order and discipline, the soldiers who passed the strange woman did so with long stares and uneasy glances.

Not because they knew who she was.

They didn’t.

But they could feel it.

Something ancient walked beside them.

General Hale led the way down a wide corridor, jaw locked, shoulders stiff. His pace was measured but fast—too fast for someone usually calm enough to unsettle men with stillness alone.

Private Ellis followed behind, unable to stop replaying the moment at the gate.

A general kneeling.

Over a woman in rags.

If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have called any man who said such a thing a liar.

Sergeant Kirk leaned in as they walked.

“General Hale has seen combat on four continents,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen him even flinch. Today he looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

Ellis swallowed. “Sir… what do you think she is?”

Kirk shook his head. “Pray we never have to find out.”

Ahead of them, Hale spoke without looking back.

“Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No speculation, no chatter. And not a word of what happened at the gate leaves your mouths. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ellis nodded quickly. “Crystal, sir.”

They reached the fourteenth-floor wing—restricted access, steel blast doors, retinal scanners. Hale pressed his face to the reader. The machine beeped.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The doors peeled open, revealing the general’s private command suite—a set of rooms few on base ever saw.

He motioned her inside.

The woman walked without hesitation, though her boots made barely a sound. Despite her malnourished appearance, every step was balanced—like someone whose muscles remembered training long after the training ceased.

Hale motioned his men to wait outside, but the woman spoke before he could dismiss them.

“They stay.”

Her voice was quiet but firm, worn but still sharp. Hale hesitated, surprised—not by the tone, but by the familiarity of command in it.

Then he nodded.

Inside, the general’s office was furnished with dark wood, leather chairs, and walls lined with framed medals, operations maps, and unit photographs. A folded flag sat in a glass case above Hale’s desk—blackened on one corner as though rescued from fire.

He gestured toward a chair.

“Sit, if you’re able.”

She looked at the chair as though remembering what sitting felt like, then slowly lowered herself, hands resting on her knees.

Hale remained standing.

Ellis and Kirk stood by the door at attention.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

Then Hale broke the silence.

“…tell me your designation.”

She looked up, the desert in her eyes.

“Zero-One. Prototype Alpha.”

Ellis felt his skin crawl.

Hale paced slowly behind his desk.

“The Zero Program… was erased,” he said. “Every file classified triple-black. Even the name was denied. How did you—”

“Survive?” she finished for him. “I didn’t.”

Kirk frowned. “Ma’am, you’re sitting right there.”

She shook her head.

“You do not understand. Unit Zero wasn’t built to live. We were… engineered to continue.”

Hale inhaled sharply, hands curling behind his back.

Ellis blurted, “Engineered how?”

Hale shot him a warning look, but the woman answered.

“Genetic reinforcement. Neurological alteration. Thermal stress conditioning. Organ redundancy. We were designed to endure environments that kill normal soldiers in minutes.”

Kirk’s voice dropped.

“Warfare beyond human limits.”

She nodded once.

“We were built for wars the public never learned about—wars that governments refused to acknowledge even to themselves.”

Hale stopped pacing.

“I read the briefings. I saw the test logs. I saw the casualty numbers.” He turned to her, voice lowering. “But I was never cleared to meet one of you in person.”

“Few were.”

Ellis whispered, “So something went wrong?”

The woman slowly laced her fingers together, as though grounding herself before speaking.

“We completed the trials. Survived the training. Surpassed every expectation.” Her voice darkened. “That was the problem.”

Kirk stiffened. “You were too powerful.”

“Too… independent,” she corrected. “Too aware. The things they did to create us—once you endure that kind of pain, loyalty becomes… complicated.”

Ellis stammered, “So command tried to shut the program down?”

She spoke four words that chilled the room.

“They tried to erase us.”

Silence fell like a blade.

Hale lowered himself into his chair at last, rubbing his temple.

“It was rumored the entire unit died in a facility fire during training.”

Her eyes flickered.

“It wasn’t a fire. And it wasn’t training.”

Ellis felt sweat bead at the back of his neck.

They told the world you died because they tried to kill you.

She leaned back, voice hollow.

“We were ordered to report for ‘evaluation.’ Instead… the facility went into full lock. Gas. Heat. Structural collapse. Automated turrets activated. A kill command.”

Kirk clenched his fists. “Against U.S. soldiers?”

She looked at him, expression brittle.

“Against weapons they no longer controlled.”

Hale whispered something Ellis had never heard him say before.

“…God.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Most of us didn’t make it out. The others… either died later or never stopped running.”

Ellis asked softly, “And you?”

Her gaze drifted.

“I didn’t escape. I was… extracted.”

Hale stood again. “By who?”

She hesitated.

Then:

“Unknown operators. They knew who we were. They took us alive. For years we were… reprogrammed, redeployed, repurposed.”

Ellis swallowed.

“You mean… black ops?”

She turned her head slowly.

“There are operations so dark even shadows don’t know about them.”

Kirk stepped forward. “Then why come here? Why now?”

She looked at Hale, not the others.

“Because he was there.”

Ellis blinked. “General Hale?”

Hale froze.

Kirk looked between them in disbelief. “Sir, she can’t mean—”

“I never saw Unit Zero,” Hale snapped. “I was never in the test wing. I wasn’t even on the West Coast when the program was—”

She cut him off without raising her voice.

“You never entered the facility… but you were stationed one mile away. You monitored heat signatures. You saw the spike. You saw the command line override. You saw the kill order.”

Hale stared at her.

“Those logs were burned…”

“You memorized them,” she finished.

Hale exhaled slowly, the truth settling around him.

Ellis whispered, “Sir… what was in those logs?”

Hale looked at him—and for the first time since Ellis had been stationed under him, the general looked afraid.

“I saw the kill order. And the originating signature.”

Kirk frowned. “Whose signature?”

Hale turned to the woman.

“Project authorization was signed by a civilian defense liaison. One name—”

The woman finished the sentence like a verdict:

“Director Vaughn.”

Ellis blinked. “Who’s that?”

Hale looked at him.

“A man who doesn’t exist in any public record. A man who outranks generals without ever wearing a uniform.”

The woman nodded.

“And as long as he lives… Unit Zero is never truly dead.”

Hale sat again, eyes hardening.

“Are you here for justice?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

Hale narrowed his eyes.

“Then what?”

She looked at the three soldiers in front of her.

“Director Vaughn is not done. And whatever he built after us… will make Unit Zero look merciful.”

The room fell silent.

Kirk whispered, “Are we already too late?”

Her voice was barely audible.

“We might have days. Maybe hours.”

Ellis felt a cold chill settle over him.

Hale stood, command voice returning—sharp and controlled.

“Sergeant. Private. Not a word of this leaves this office. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to her.

“Rest. Eat. Hydrate. Then we talk next steps.”

She looked down at her hands.

“No,” she whispered. “We don’t have time.”

The lights flickered.

A distant alarm began to echo through the corridor outside.

Hale’s eyes snapped toward the door.

Ellis felt his stomach drop.

Kirk reached for his rifle.

The woman stood slowly—too slowly.

“They found me.”

CHAPTER 3 – The Hunters Arrive

The alarm reverberated through Fort Ashbury like a pulse of war—deep, metallic, and urgent. Red strobes splashed across the corridor windows, turning polished walls into blood-tinted reflections.

Hale was already moving.

“Sergeant, lock down the entire eastern wing. No one comes in or out without my direct authorization!”

“Yes, sir!”

Kirk sprinted to the door.

But the woman didn’t move. She simply closed her eyes, as though listening to something beyond the alarm.

Ellis whispered, “What’s going on? Who found you?”

She opened her eyes again.

“They don’t track people.”

Her voice was flat.

“They track signatures.”

Ellis frowned. “Signatures?”

“Neurological, chemical, thermal, electromagnetic—whatever they changed in us decades ago… it still broadcasts.”

Kirk opened the office door.

And froze.

“Sir… we’ve got incoming.”

Footsteps thundered down the corridor—heavy, synchronized, unified. Hale leaned to look.

Black-clad soldiers in advanced tactical gear rounded the corner in perfect formation—eight of them, helmets matte, visors sealed, rifles held with military precision.

But Ellis noticed one detail:

No unit patch.

No rank.

No flag.

Ghost soldiers.

Kirk whispered, “Those aren’t ours.”

Hale’s face turned to stone. “No. They’re Vaughn’s.”

The first soldier raised a weapon.

A barrel long—lethal—suppressed.

Ellis shouted, “Get down!”

The shot fired with a muffled thump. Hale grabbed Ellis and shoved him behind a heavy desk as the round slammed into a steel filing cabinet, punching through like cardboard.

Kirk fired back, spraying rounds toward the doorway. Sparks flew as bullets chewed into the wall, forcing the intruders to duck behind cover.

Hale shouted over the gunfire:

“Kirk—keep them pinned!”

“Yes, sir!”

But the woman stood calm in the middle of the room, perfectly still.

Ellis yelled, “Ma’am—move! You’ll get hit!”

She didn’t answer.

Another soldier stepped into view and lobbed something through the doorway—black, round, blinking.

Ellis saw it land near him.

“Grenade!”

He braced.

But the woman moved first.

She stepped forward, scooped it off the floor, and threw it back down the hall with a fluid motion no half-starved woman should have been capable of.

A flash—deafening—rocked the corridor.

The attackers were thrown backward, slamming into walls.

Ellis stared, stunned. “How…?”

She looked at him once, eyes empty.

“Unit Zero.”

Hale barked, “We’re leaving now! Follow me!”

He kicked open a side door leading to a maintenance stairwell. Kirk backed through, firing short bursts to keep the corridor occupied.

Ellis charged in, adrenaline roaring through his blood. Hale was right behind him. The woman paused at the threshold just long enough to look back down the corridor.

More shadows appeared through the smoke.

“They brought two teams,” she murmured.

Then she stepped inside and pulled the heavy steel door shut.

Kirk dragged a filing cabinet across and jammed it under the handle.

“Won’t hold long,” he said.

“It doesn’t need to,” Hale replied. “Four floors down—armory access hatch.”

They descended the concrete stairwell at a rapid pace.

Ellis panted, gripping the rail. “General—how did they get on base without anyone raising alarm?”

Hale answered grimly:

“They didn’t come through the gate.”

Kirk swore. “So what—helicopter? Subterranean breach? Cloaked insertion?”

The woman spoke quietly as she kept descending.

“Vaughn has assets capable of bypassing conventional defense infrastructure.”

Ellis stared at her. “Meaning?”

Hale answered.

“Meaning… they walk through walls if they have to.”

Kirk reached the next landing. Something flickered overhead—lights stuttering. Then came a deep mechanical thud from above.

The stairwell door four floors up buckled inward.

Ellis froze. “They’re cutting through.”

Kirk shouldered his rifle. “Let them come.”

The woman stepped in front of him.

“No.”

Kirk raised a brow. “With respect, ma’am, I don’t take orders from—”

“I am not giving you an order.”

Her eyes slowly lifted toward the top of the stairwell.

“I am telling you: you are not ready.”

Kirk bristled—until Hale put a hand on his shoulder.

“She’s right.”

Another explosion rocked the upper door. Dust rained down the stairwell.

Hale’s voice hardened.

“Move!”

They continued descending.

Ellis’s boots hammered the concrete, heart tearing against his ribs.

“How did they find us so fast?”

The woman answered without looking back.

“They never stopped looking.”

Kirk grimaced. “So we’ve been a target since she walked up to the gate?”

“No,” she said. “Since I escaped eight hours ago.”

Hale stopped on the third landing.

“You escaped?”

She nodded.

“They were moving me between facilities. Their convoy crashed. Ten of them died. I ran.”

Kirk frowned.

“Accident?”

She looked at him with a cold, distant expression.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Silence.

Kirk finally swallowed. “You did it.”

She didn’t confirm.

She didn’t have to.

Hale turned toward a steel side door with a keypad.

Here.

The general punched in a 12-digit code. The door clicked and opened into a reinforced service corridor.

Ellis stepped through.

Unlike the rest of the base—bright, modern, polished—this hallway looked old. Pre-war construction. Reinforced bunker concrete, exposed pipes, emergency lighting humming overhead.

“What is this place?” Ellis asked.

Hale didn’t slow.

“The original foundation of Ashbury. Built during nuclear development. Forgotten… but still powered.”

Kirk grinned. “I always hoped we had secret tunnels.”

Hale’s voice dropped.

“They weren’t built for evacuation.”

Ellis swallowed. “Then what—”

He froze.

They all did.

At the far end of the corridor stood a steel blast door.

But what stopped them was the writing burned into the concrete beside it.

Three digits:

ZERO

Ellis’s voice cracked. “General… why is that here?”

The woman stepped forward, staring at the symbol with no expression.

“Because this is where we were born.”

Ellis went pale.

“You mean—this base—”

“Yes,” Hale confirmed. “Unit Zero was not trained elsewhere. They were created here. Below this facility.”

Ellis ran a hand through his hair, stunned.

“We’ve been standing on top of it the whole time?”

Hale nodded.

“The base was expanded over it. Most personnel never learn what’s beneath.”

Kirk stared at the huge blast door. “And this opens… how?”

The woman stepped toward a small embedded panel—old, rusted, the metal worn thin.

She placed her hand on it.

The panel hissed.

A small amber light flickered, scanning her palm.

Ellis blinked. “After all these years it still works?”

Hale answered softly:

“These systems weren’t designed to forget.”

A grinding sound filled the hallway.

The massive blast door slowly rolled open, dust shaking loose from the ceiling.

Beyond lay a dark corridor leading downward—into the oldest part of the base.

But before they could enter—

A voice crackled through the emergency speakers above them.

Cold.

Calm.

Male.

“Hello, Zero-One. I see you made it home.”

Her eyes turned ice.

Ellis whispered, “Who is that?”

Hale already knew.

“Director Vaughn.”

The voice continued.

“General Hale. Sergeant Kirk. Private Ellis. You are interfering in a federal retrieval directive. Cease movement and surrender the asset.”

Kirk raised his rifle toward the speaker. “Screw you.”

Vaughn’s voice remained unfazed.

“You cannot escape the facility. You cannot hide. And you cannot protect her.”

The hallway lights flickered.

Then died.

Everything went black.

Hale spoke into the darkness, his voice razor-sharp.

“Move. Now.”

The woman whispered the last words before they disappeared into the dark:

“They didn’t come here to retrieve me…”

She looked up at the dead lights.

“…they came to erase all of us.”

CHAPTER 4 – The Forgotten War

Darkness swallowed them whole.

Not the soft darkness of night, but the mechanical void of a facility starved of power. No hum of overhead lights. No ventilation. No emergency strips.

Just silence.

And the distant echo of boots—mechanical, precise, closing in.

General Hale’s voice cut through the black.

“Ellis. Kirk. Stay shoulder-to-shoulder. No one splits.”

“Yes, sir.”

The woman spoke softly.

“Down the ramp. Fifteen meters. Then left.”

Ellis blinked. “You can see?”

“No.”

She continued walking anyway—perfectly confident.

“I remember.”

A flicker of emergency power stuttered to life ahead, revealing a rusted metal ramp leading deeper underground. Pipes hissed overhead, and stale air pressed in, as if the bunker itself were exhaling after decades of holding its breath.

Ellis jogged to keep up.

“Ma’am, if this was your birthplace, what exactly was down here?”

Her voice echoed against the walls.

“Pain.”

They continued.

As they descended deeper, the corridor widened, opening into a massive underground atrium—concrete walls six stories tall, catwalks overhead, surgical lights hanging lifelessly from retractable frames.

Ellis stopped in his tracks.

“What… what is this place?”

“A testing hangar,” Hale answered grimly. “Before the expansion, Ashbury was a classified research site. Dark-funded. Off-record. No oversight.”

Kirk’s flashlight beam slid across the floor.

Rows of reinforced training cages.

Observation rooms with shattered glass.

Dried blood in cracked circles.

Ellis felt sick.

“Humans were kept in here?”

The woman walked past him, staring up at the catwalks.

“Humans weren’t built in here.”

She turned to face them, eyes hollow.

“We were unmade.”

A metallic clunk reverberated from behind them—something heavy slamming into place.

Kirk spun.

“Door sealed.”

Hale gritted his teeth. “They’re boxing us in.”

A soft electric buzz rolled through the room.

Then, floodlights overhead snapped on.

Blinding white.

Ellis threw an arm over his eyes—but the woman just stared into the light, unaffected, like she’d already stood under this glare countless times before.

A voice boomed through hidden speakers, amplified and controlled.

Cold. Smug. Certain.

“Unit Zero. Welcome home.”

Director Vaughn.

Kirk raised his rifle and shouted into the lights, “Show yourself, you son of a—”

Vaughn ignored him.

“General Hale. You were supposed to remain a chess piece. Not a player.”

Hale shouted back, “You created soldiers you couldn’t control, and then you tried to bury the evidence.”

Vaughn chuckled.

“General… countries bury rifles. They bury compromised tech. They do not bury living weapons.”

Ellis felt rage boiling.

“So you tried to kill them.”

“We tried to protect the world from them,” Vaughn corrected, voice ice-calm.
“But some weapons survive their disposal.”

Ellis looked at the woman.

She stood motionless, like a statue carved from trauma.

Hale stepped forward.

“Vaughn… what did you do to her?”

A long silence.

Then:

“Everything necessary.”

Metallic clanking echoed overhead.

On the catwalks above, armored soldiers appeared—black visors shining under harsh lights. Thirty at least. All leveling rifles at the hangar floor.

Kirk breathed, “We need cover—now!”

But the woman finally spoke—not to her allies.

To Vaughn.

“You still have them running the old protocol.”

Vaughn sounded almost amused.

“Why change something that works?”

She turned slowly, eyes rising toward the catwalks.

“They’re using line-of-sight targeting… which means they’re linked.”

Ellis frowned. “Linked how?”

Kirk’s eyes widened.

“Shared telemetry. If one sees the target…”

“…they all see the target,” she finished.

Ellis blanched. “Okay but—how does that help us?”

She finally looked at him.

And for the first time, he understood why the others once feared her.

“Because I wasn’t just trained to survive their world,” she said quietly. “I was designed to break it.”

She took a single step forward.

The catwalk gunners opened fire.

Hale roared, “TAKE COVER!”

Kirk dove behind a surgical workstation, bullets chewing sparks from the steel nearby.

Ellis slid behind a rusted containment crate, heart pounding.

But the woman—

She didn’t hide.

Instead, she dropped to one knee, placed her palm flat on the floor, and whispered something under her breath in a language none of them recognized—harsh consonants, syllables built for command, not comfort.

The lights overhead flickered.

Cameras on the walls crackled.

Vaughn’s voice sharpened.

“Zero-One. Stand down.”

She didn’t.

The catwalk soldiers froze.

Rifles raised.

Triggers half-pulled.

Unmoving.

Kirk blinked. “What the hell…?”

Hale stared in disbelief.

“She’s accessing their neural sync network. She’s overriding them.”

Ellis whispered, “I thought only command could do that…”

The woman stood.

And spoke one word:

“Sleep.”

Thirty soldiers collapsed at once—like puppets cut from their strings.

Silence crashed through the hangar.

Kirk stood, stunned. “That… shouldn’t be possible.”

She turned to them, voice as flat as a machine’s.

“It was never meant to be. Which is why they sealed us away.”

Suddenly, Vaughn spoke—still calm, but now with a thread of panic beneath the civility.

“Clever. But that network was just the perimeter guard.”

A soft mechanical grinding filled the hangar.

Hale turned.

Behind a set of retractable steel shields… a new chamber was opening.

Ellis raised his rifle.

“General… what is that?”

Hale swallowed.

“I was afraid of this.”

The chamber fully opened.

Something enormous stood inside.

Armored. Massive. Human-shaped—but not human.

Exoskeletal plating. Hydraulic limbs. A glowing spinal rig. A humanoid war machine.

The woman whispered:

“No…”

Kirk stammered, “What is that thing?!”

Hale’s voice was grim.

“Project Titan. The successor to Zero.”

Ellis felt the blood drain from his face.

“You mean… the improved version?”

Hale shook his head.

“No. The controlled version.”

Vaughn’s voice boomed with pride.

“Zero was too expensive to maintain. Too independent. Too… human.”

Ellis realized the horror.

“They made a weapon that doesn’t question orders.”

“Exactly.”

Titan stepped forward—floor trembling with each metallic footfall.

The woman spoke softly.

“It wasn’t your intention to erase us.”

Vaughn answered without hesitation.

“No.”

Silence.

Then:

“It was to replace you.”

Titan charged.

Hale shouted:

“Spread out!”

A shockwave blasted from Titan’s lunge, metal crates skidding across the floor. Kirk fired repeatedly—bullets sparking uselessly off armored plating.

Ellis dove behind a concrete barrier.

“We need anti-armor!”

“We don’t have any!” Hale shouted back.

Titan swung a massive fist, smashing through a staircase with explosive force.

Kirk yelled, “How do we kill something like that?!”

The woman closed her eyes.

“We don’t.”

Ellis stared.

“What?!”

She turned slowly toward the old facility infrastructure—exposed wiring, coolant pipes, sealed blast valves.

“Zero wasn’t trained to destroy Titan.”

Her voice darkened.

“We were trained to destroy the entire facility if Titan was ever activated.”

Hale went still.

“Killswitch protocol…”

She nodded.

Ellis backed away, alarmed. “Wait—we’re still in the facility!”

She walked toward a sealed emergency conduit panel.

“Then move.”

Kirk ran up beside Hale.

“General—do we follow her lead?”

Hale looked at Titan tearing through another support beam.

“Sergeant…”

He lowered his voice.

“…we don’t have a choice.”

The woman placed her hand on the conduit’s manual override.

Sparks hissed.

Alarms screamed.

Somewhere below, heavy machinery groaned awake after decades.

Vaughn’s voice erupted over the speakers—no longer calm, no longer composed.

“ZERO-ONE, THAT SYSTEM CAN’T BE ENGAGED! DO YOU HEAR ME? STAND DOWN!”

She whispered:

“You took everything from us.”

A deep rumble began to shake the walls.

“You tried to burn us out of history.”

The lights flickered red.

“But you forgot something.”

She looked up—face illuminated by emergency sirens.

“We burn back.”

The floor shook.

Titan roared and charged.

Hale grabbed Ellis.

“MOVE!”

They sprinted as the woman yanked the final lever—

A klaxon shrieked through the base:

FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT OVERRIDE ENGAGED. CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT.

Vaughn screamed through the speakers, voice shredding.

“NO—STOP—YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE—”

And then—

Silence.

Titan lunged.

The woman turned—

And the story ended in a blaze of white.

END