The violent floorboards groaned as the low, guttural vibration rattled the foundations of the mansion, shaking dust from the arched vault ceiling. Leo backed out of the server chamber, his eyes glued to the thick bundle of black bio-conduits snaking down into a newly revealed steel hatch in the sub-floor. His head throbbed, a brutal flash of violet light tearing through his optic nerves as his father’s voice reverberated inside his skull again, louder this time, like a blade scraping against his brainstem.
You were never meant to inherit the empire, Leo. You were meant to dig the grave.
«Shut up!» Leo roared, striking the side of his head with his palm. The physical impact did nothing to quell the cold, alien thoughts invading his memory—recollections of cold metal gulleys, dark subterranean corridors, and the smell of ozone and damp earth beneath the estate.
A sudden rasping gasp broke the hum of the vault.
Leo spun around, his hand dropping to the heavy steel tire iron lying discarded near the hearth. Across the threshold, Victoria was pushing herself up, coughing violently as her fingers searched the bloody marble for her discarded firearm. Her eyes were bloodshot, the left side of her face bruised where the acoustic pulse had thrown her against the mantle.
«Leo…» she choked out, her hand wrapping around the grip of her pistol. She aimed it at his chest, her barrel trembling so violently the laser sight danced across his throat. «What… what did you do?»
«Drop it, Victoria,» Leo said, his voice dropping into that unnerving, mechanical register that didn’t feel entirely his own. «The men in suits are down. Chen is out. If you pull that trigger, you won’t survive what’s waking up under this floor.»
«You’re one of them,» she wept, her knuckles white on the grip. «You’re not my brother! The files—the Council—you’re just a parasite he grew in a tank!»
«I’m the only thing standing between you and whatever is breathing down there,» Leo snapped, stepping toward her despite the red dot centering on his heart. «Look at me! I didn’t ask for this!»
A metallic snap echoed from the staircase.
Richard wasn’t unconscious. He was on his knees behind the heavy velvet drapes, holding a sleek black detonator he had pulled from the pocket of one of the fallen men in charcoal suits. His teeth were crimson, a thin streak of blood running from his nostril down to his chin.
«He promised me,» Richard wheezed, a hysterical, breathless laugh bubbling out of his chest. «Father promised me… if I brought the suits to the hall… if I let them initiate the download… I’d get the keys to the Swiss holdings. He promised!»
«Richard, put that down!» Victoria screamed, shifting her gun toward their brother. «The toxin in the air—»
«It’s not a bomb, Victoria,» Richard grinned, his eyes wild and unblinking. «It’s the release valve for the cryo-fluid. He told me if you resisted, I just had to press the white button.»
Do not let him press it, his father’s voice purred in Leo’s head, filled with urgent, predatory malice. The liquid in that tank isn’t preservative, Leo. It’s the neural solvent. If it flushes, my primary mind dissolves before the transfer reaches one hundred percent.
Leo didn’t hesitate. Powered by the surge of artificial adrenaline coursing through his altered bloodstream, he crossed the room in a blur of motion.
Victoria fired. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed hall, the bullet grazing Leo’s shoulder, tearing through his jacket and drawing a bright line of crimson—but he didn’t even flinch. The pain was distant, almost irrelevant. He tackled Richard into the heavy oak banister, the wood splintering under their combined weight as they crashed onto the landing.
The detonator bounced out of Richard’s hand, sliding across the polished floorboards and dropping straight into the open steel hatch leading into the darkness below.
A heavy, wet clack echoed from the abyss.
Instantly, the violet lights in the server vault died, plunging the grand hall into total darkness, save for the strobing flashes of lightning beyond the high stained-glass windows. The deep, rhythmic thud beneath the floorboards stopped.
For three agonized seconds, there was absolute silence.
For three agonized seconds, there was absolute silence.
Then, a high-pitched, agonizing frequency blasted through the mansion’s sound system. The glass panels of the display cases shattered simultaneously, raining crystal shards down onto the marble floor. Victoria shrieked, dropping her gun and clamping her hands over her bleeding ears. Richard curled into a fetal position, sobbing as the sound tore through the room.
Leo fell to his knees, his vision drowning in a sea of static. But through the piercing noise, a new sound emerged from the hatch—the wet, tearing sound of metal being sheared apart from the inside.
A pale, elongated hand, its skin slick with translucent amber gel and thick with black fiber-optic cables embedded directly into the flesh, reached up from the dark hatch and gripped the edge of the floorboards.
Leo stared in horror as the creature pulled itself into the dim light of the lightning flashes.
It wasn’t a child. It wasn’t his father.
The face that turned toward Leo was a grotesque, twisted amalgamation of features—half-formed clones stitched together with metallic mesh, their open eyes clouded over with milky cataracts. And right in the center of the creature’s chest, embedded beneath a thick layer of reinforced glass, was a pulsing crimson bio-core, beating in perfect synchronization with the synthetic pulse in Leo’s own wrists.
The creature’s jaw unhinged with a sickening crack, and two distinct voices spoke in absolute unison from its mouth—one belonging to his father, and the other belonging to Dr. Chen’s missing daughter.
«Thank you for opening the door, Brother,» the dual voice hissed. «Now, give us back our keys.»
Before Leo could move, the heavy iron doors of the grand hall were violently thrown open from the outside. A dozen flashlights pierced the gloom, revealing a tactical squad clad in unmarked black armor, their rifle barrels raised.
«Target identified!» a voice bellowed over a radio. «Secure the host! Terminate the anomalies!»
The squad opened fire, not at the monster rising from the floor, but directly at Leo and Victoria.