The hidden door continued to open.
Slowly.
Silently.
No alarm sounded.
No warning lights flashed.
The reinforced steel panel simply slid sideways into the wall as though someone deep inside the building had been expecting Lauren Walker to arrive.
Beyond it lay a narrow corridor that did not appear on any public blueprint of Fort Rainer.
Lieutenant Carter stared into the darkness.
His hand remained frozen inches above the black drive.
General Rebecca Hale stepped between him and Lauren.
“Everyone stays where they are.”
Her voice had changed.
The shock was gone now.
What remained was command.
Two senior officers behind her straightened immediately.
Lauren, however, kept watching Carter.
She had spent too many years surviving ambushes to ignore the smallest reaction.
The tightening around his eyes.
The sweat forming near his hairline.
The way his right hand drifted toward his belt—not toward his sidearm, but toward the encrypted radio clipped behind it.
Lauren reached him before he could touch it.
Her fingers closed around his wrist.
Carter flinched.
It was not a dramatic movement.
Lauren barely seemed to use any force.
But Carter’s knees almost buckled.
“Don’t,” she said.
He glared at her.
“You’re assaulting an officer.”
Lauren’s expression never changed.
“No.”
Her eyes flicked toward the dead cameras.
“I’m preventing another transmission.”
General Hale looked at Carter.
“What transmission?”
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
Lauren removed the radio from his belt.
Carter lunged.
Lauren moved once.
A small pivot.
A sharp twist.
Carter slammed chest-first against the front desk.
The soldiers nearby reacted instinctively, hands moving toward weapons, but Hale raised one hand.
“Stand down.”
Nobody moved.
Lauren examined the radio.
It looked standard.
Until she peeled back the rubber casing.
Beneath it was a second transmitter, smaller than a matchbox.
General Hale’s expression hardened.
One of the senior officers whispered, “That isn’t Army issue.”
Lauren placed it beside the black drive.
“No,” she said.
“It isn’t.”
Carter pushed himself away from the desk.
“That proves nothing.”
Lauren finally looked at him.
“You activated it the moment I mentioned the footage.”
“I activated nothing.”
“You touched it three times.”
Carter laughed nervously.
“You expect them to believe you noticed that?”
Lauren did not answer.
She did not need to.
Everyone in the lobby already believed her.
The hidden corridor remained open.
Dark.
Waiting.
General Hale pointed toward it.
“Does anyone know what’s down there?”
Silence.
Then an elderly civilian clerk behind the front desk slowly raised his hand.
His name badge read THOMAS REED.
He looked as though he wished desperately to be somewhere else.
Hale stared at him.
“Mr.
Reed?”
Reed swallowed.
“That corridor was sealed seventeen years ago.”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed.
“How long ago?”
“Seventeen years.”
The same year as Black Harbor.
Nobody had to say it aloud.
Hale glanced toward Lauren.
Reed continued.
“This building used to house regional intelligence archives before they constructed the western annex.
There were rooms below this level.
Interrogation rooms.
Communications storage.
Signal-processing equipment.”
“Why seal them?”
Reed hesitated.
Carter suddenly spoke.
“Because they were obsolete.”
Reed looked at him.
And something changed in the old man’s face.
Fear gave way to recognition.
“No,” Reed whispered.
Carter turned toward him.
Reed took one step backward.
“I remember you.”
The silence became absolute.
Carter gave him a cold stare.
“You’re mistaken.”
Reed shook his head.
“You weren’t called Carter then.”
Lauren watched every muscle in Carter’s face become still.
General Hale noticed it too.
“What was he called?”
Reed’s lips parted.
Before he could answer—
POP.
The lobby lights vanished.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Someone shouted.
A weapon cleared a holster.
Lauren dropped instantly.
A gunshot exploded.
BANG.
Glass shattered.
“DOWN!”
Hale yelled.
Two more shots cracked through the darkness.
BANG.
BANG.
Someone screamed.
Lauren moved toward the sound rather than away from it.
Her shoulder struck a body.
A pistol fired inches from her face.
The muzzle flash revealed Carter.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But that was enough.
Lauren trapped his gun arm, drove her elbow into his throat, and forced the pistol downward.
Another shot blasted into the tile floor.
Carter fought with surprising strength.
Too much strength for an administrative lieutenant who supposedly spent most of his career behind desks.
Lauren twisted his wrist.
Bone cracked.
The pistol fell.
Carter hissed in pain.
Then something struck Lauren from behind.
She stumbled forward.
A second attacker.
Lauren turned.
A shadow rushed her.
She caught a glimpse of military boots.
No insignia.
No name tape.
The attacker drove a knife toward her ribs.
Lauren blocked the wrist with both hands.
The blade stopped less than an inch from her skin.
For a moment they stood locked together.
Then the emergency lights flickered red.
Lauren saw the attacker’s face.
A young soldier.
Maybe twenty-five.
Maybe younger.
But his eyes were empty.
Professional.
He had not come to intimidate her.
He had come to kill her.
Lauren slammed her forehead into his nose.
He staggered.
She kicked his knee sideways.
He fell.
The knife skidded across the floor.
General Hale rushed forward with her sidearm raised.
“DON’T MOVE!”
The attacker froze.
Lauren turned toward Carter.
He was gone.
The hidden corridor stood open.
Empty.
“He went inside,” Lauren said.
Hale swore under her breath.
A groan came from behind the front desk.
They found Thomas Reed lying against the cabinets.
Blood spread through his shirt.
One bullet had struck him beneath the collarbone.
Lauren dropped beside him automatically.
For several seconds, Captain Walker—the ghost of Black Harbor—became what she had once been.
A medic.
She pressed both hands against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Reed gasped.
“I know… who he is.”
Lauren leaned closer.
“Save your breath.”
“No.”
His fingers closed around her sleeve.
“Listen.”
Hale crouched beside them.
Reed looked toward the hidden corridor.
“Carter isn’t Carter.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Reed coughed.
Blood touched his lips.
“You don’t understand.”
Lauren’s face tightened.
Reed whispered a name.
“Major Daniel Voss.”
General Hale froze.
Lauren stopped breathing.
For the first time since entering the building, genuine emotion broke through her calm expression.
“No.”
Reed nodded weakly.
“That’s him.”
Hale stared at Lauren.
“You know that name?”
Lauren looked toward the corridor.
“Yes.”
Her voice had become barely audible.
“He commanded Black Harbor.”
Nobody spoke.
Lauren pressed harder against Reed’s wound.
“He died.”
Reed’s laugh sounded painful.
“That’s what the file says.”
Lauren’s mind moved backward seventeen years.
Heat.
Smoke.
Rotors in the distance.
Twenty-seven wounded men scattered inside the ruins of a coastal refinery.
Radio static screaming through broken speakers.
And Major Voss standing beneath a concrete overhang, shouting evacuation orders.
Lauren remembered his face perfectly.
She remembered trusting him.
She remembered watching him board the last operational transport.
She remembered believing he had been killed less than ten minutes later when the aircraft exploded beyond the ridge.
The report had listed Voss among the dead.
Lauren stared into the darkness.
“He survived.”
Reed’s eyes closed.
“And changed his name.”
General Hale stood.
“Medical team!”
Soldiers rushed forward.
Reed was lifted onto a stretcher.
Before they carried him away, he grabbed Hale’s sleeve.
“Don’t use the building network.”
Hale frowned.
“Why?”
Reed looked terrified.
“Because whoever opened that door controls it.”
Then they took him away.
Lauren picked up the black drive.
Hale looked toward the corridor.
“We need to secure the installation.”
“No.”
Lauren’s answer came immediately.
Hale turned.
“This is my base, Captain.”
“And they control your cameras, doors, and communications.”
“I still have six hundred soldiers under my command.”
Lauren looked at the young attacker being handcuffed.
“Do you know which ones belong to you?”
That stopped her.
The question lingered between them.
One of Hale’s officers approached.
“General, external communications are down.
Landlines too.”
“Satellite?”
“Blocked.”
“Mobile?”
“No signal.”
Hale glanced upward.
“They isolated the entire building.”
Lauren shook her head.
“Not the building.”
She walked toward a window overlooking the courtyard.
Beyond the glass, the main gates were closing.
Heavy vehicle barriers rose from the ground.
Guard towers rotated inward.
Toward the base.
Lauren’s voice lowered.
“They isolated the installation.”
A chill passed through Hale.
“What exactly is on that drive?”
Lauren looked at it.
“The truth.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Lauren turned.
“Black Harbor wasn’t designed to rescue twenty-seven soldiers.”
Hale waited.
“It was designed to erase them.”
“Why?”
“Because they saw something.”
“What?”
Lauren looked toward the hidden corridor.
“That’s what I came here to find out.”
Hale frowned.
“You don’t know?”
“I know part of it.”
Lauren held up the drive.
“The footage shows Major Voss ordering evacuation aircraft to hold position while the enemy closed in.”
One officer shook his head.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if the helicopters weren’t supposed to reach us.”
Lauren continued.
“The first aircraft was destroyed by a missile launched from friendly-controlled territory.”
Silence.
“The second helicopter was redirected into an artillery corridor.”
Hale’s face hardened.
“And the third?”
Lauren looked at her.
“Major Voss detonated explosives on its landing zone.”
Someone whispered a curse.
Hale stared toward the corridor where Carter—Voss—had disappeared.
“You saw him do it?”
“No.”
Lauren raised the drive.
“But a helmet camera did.”
The officers exchanged looks.
“Whose camera?”
Hale asked.
Lauren hesitated.
“Sergeant Eli Mercer.”
Hale’s eyes widened.
“Mercer survived Black Harbor.”
“Yes.”
“He died three years later.”
Lauren said nothing.
Hale understood.
“He gave you the footage.”
“Not directly.”
“Then how?”
“He mailed it to me thirteen days after his funeral.”
Nobody moved.
Lauren continued quietly.
“The package contained this drive and one note.”
“What did it say?”
Lauren looked directly at Hale.
“Find the names beneath Black Harbor.”
General Hale’s expression changed.
“What names?”
“That’s why I came here.”
Lauren pointed toward the hidden corridor.
“The original operational archive was stored beneath this building.”
Hale looked toward Reed being carried away.
“He said the archive was sealed.”
“It was supposed to be.”
Lauren stepped toward the corridor.
“But someone just opened it.”
Hale blocked her path.
“You’re not going down there alone.”
Lauren met her eyes.
“I survived Black Harbor alone.”
Something painful moved across Hale’s face.
“No, you didn’t.”
Lauren went still.
Hale lowered her voice.
“You survived it while carrying twenty-seven men with you.”
For several seconds neither woman spoke.
Then Lauren gave a small nod.
Hale selected four soldiers she trusted personally.
Sergeant Ramirez.
Staff Sergeant Cole.
Captain Evans.
And a young communications specialist named Pierce.
The prisoner from the lobby attack was restrained and left under guard.
Hale ordered everyone else to remain above.
“No radios,” Lauren said.
Hale nodded.
They entered the corridor.
The temperature immediately dropped.
Concrete walls narrowed around them.
Old fluorescent lights flickered overhead, illuminating patches of dust that had supposedly remained undisturbed for seventeen years.
But Lauren noticed something.
Footprints.
Fresh ones.
“Someone has been using this place,” she whispered.
Ramirez examined the floor.
“Recently.”
They moved deeper.
The corridor descended underground.
At the first junction they found a security camera mounted near the ceiling.
Its red light glowed steadily.
Pierce looked upward.
“That one’s active.”
Hale raised her pistol.
Lauren stopped her.
“Leave it.”
Hale frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I want them watching.”
They continued.
The first room contained old filing cabinets.
Empty.
The second contained dismantled computers.
The third contained rows of steel shelves.
Empty again.
Evans muttered, “Someone cleaned this place out.”
Lauren touched a shelf.
There was almost no dust.
“Not long ago.”
They reached the bottom level.
A single steel door waited at the end.
Stamped across its surface were faded letters:
SECTION 9.
Hale stopped.
“I’ve never heard of Section Nine.”
Lauren had.
The name had appeared once in Mercer’s footage.
Just before Major Voss ordered communications terminated.
She stepped toward the door.
A keypad flickered to life.
Everyone raised their weapons.
Words appeared on the small screen.
WELCOME HOME, CAPTAIN WALKER.
Pierce whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Lauren’s eyes hardened.
A second message appeared.
SEVENTEEN YEARS LATE.
Then the lock clicked.
The door opened.
Beyond it was not an archive.
It was a command center.
Modern computers.
Satellite displays.
Encrypted communications equipment.
Maps covering entire walls.
Everything powered.
Everything operational.
Hale stared in disbelief.
“This facility has been active beneath my headquarters.”
Nobody answered.
Dozens of monitors displayed surveillance feeds from military installations across the country.
Barracks.
Airfields.
Command centers.
Convoys.
Some feeds appeared to be live.
Others were recorded.
Lauren stepped inside.
One wall contained photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Officers.
Politicians.
Defense contractors.
Scientists.
Journalists.
Some had red marks across their faces.
Others had dates written beneath them.
Captain Evans moved closer.
“These are targets.”
Lauren shook her head.
“No.”
She saw several familiar names.
“They’re witnesses.”
At the center of the room stood a large table.
On it rested twenty-seven folders.
Lauren froze.
Each folder carried the name of someone from Black Harbor.
Private James Dalton.
Sergeant Michael Trent.
Corporal Hugh Bennett.
Lieutenant Avery Cole.
Twenty-seven wounded soldiers.
Twenty-seven men Lauren had dragged, carried, treated, hidden, and kept alive.
She opened the nearest folder.
Inside were photographs taken years after Black Harbor.
Dalton outside his home.
Trent entering a hospital.
Bennett attending his daughter’s graduation.
They had all been watched.
Tracked.
Some for more than a decade.
Lauren opened another file.
A black stamp covered the final page.
TERMINATED.
She opened another.
The same stamp.
And another.
TERMINATED.
Her breathing slowed.
Not because she was calm.
Because rage had become something colder.
Hale approached carefully.
“How many?”
Lauren counted.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-one of the twenty-seven survivors had died since returning home.
Car accidents.
Heart attacks.
Overdoses.
Training incidents.
Suicides.
Random violence.
Lauren had attended some funerals.
Sent flowers to others.
She had believed in coincidence because coincidence hurt less than the alternative.
Now she knew.
“They finished Black Harbor,” she whispered.
Hale stared at the folders.
“Over seventeen years.”
Lauren closed one.
“They never stopped.”
Pierce called from across the room.
“General.”
He stood before a large monitor.
A directory had opened automatically.
BLACK HARBOR CONTINUATION PROTOCOL.
Hale approached.
“Open it.”
Pierce typed.
The screen requested biometric authorization.
Then, strangely, it accepted without one.
The file opened.
Lauren felt the room become colder.
The first document displayed a casualty list.
Twenty-seven names.
Beside each was a status.
Twenty-one read CLOSED.
Five read ACTIVE.
One read PRIMARY.
Lauren already knew whose.
She stepped closer.
CAPTAIN LAUREN WALKER — PRIMARY.
Below it appeared a date.
TODAY.
Ramirez cursed.
“They knew you were coming.”
Lauren nodded.
“Before I arrived.”
Hale looked around the command center.
“Then this entire thing could be a trap.”
“It is.”
The steel door slammed shut behind them.
LOCKED.
The lights shifted from white to red.
An alarm began pulsing.
Pierce rushed toward the controls.
“I’m locked out.”
A speaker crackled overhead.
Then came a voice.
Carter’s voice.
No.
Voss’s.
“Lauren.”
She stared upward.
The others raised their weapons uselessly toward the ceiling.
Voss laughed softly.
“I always wondered what you would look like when you finally understood.”
Lauren stepped toward the center of the room.
“Show yourself.”
“In time.”
“You killed them.”
A pause.
“Some.”
Lauren’s jaw tightened.
“Twenty-one.”
“Not all twenty-one.”
“Who?”
“That is the interesting question, isn’t it?”
Hale shouted, “Major Voss, this is Brigadier General Rebecca Hale.
Open this room immediately.”
Silence.
Then Voss laughed.
“Rebecca.”
Hale froze.
Lauren looked at her.
Voss continued.
“You still give orders as if rank matters.”
Hale’s face hardened.
“You know me.”
“I knew you before Lauren did.”
The monitors changed.
A video began playing.
Old footage.
Black Harbor.
Lauren stopped breathing.
The camera shook violently as Mercer ran through smoke.
Wounded soldiers lay behind a collapsed wall.
A younger Lauren appeared in frame, blood covering her uniform, screaming for tourniquets.
Hale watched silently.
The footage jumped.
Major Voss stood beside an armored vehicle speaking to someone through a field radio.
Lauren moved closer to the screen.
The audio crackled.
“…confirmation required.”
Another voice answered.
Distorted.
Female.
Voss replied, “Twenty-seven witnesses plus medical personnel.”
The woman said something unclear.
Voss looked toward the wounded.
Then asked:
“What about Walker?”
The reply came clearly this time.
“Captain Walker is expendable.”
Lauren felt Hale stiffen beside her.
The footage froze.
Voss’s voice came through the speakers.
“You recognize that voice, Rebecca?”
Lauren slowly turned toward Hale.
The general’s face had gone white.
“Hale?”
Lauren whispered.
Hale shook her head.
“I…”
The video resumed.
The female voice spoke again.
This time there was no distortion.
“Proceed with containment.
No survivors leave Black Harbor.”
Lauren stared at Hale.
It was her voice.
Younger.
But unmistakable.
Ramirez raised his weapon.
Captain Evans did the same.
Both pointed at Hale.
“General?”
Hale stepped backward.
“No.”
Lauren did not move.
Hale looked at her desperately.
“That isn’t what happened.”
“It’s your voice.”
“Yes.”
“Giving the kill order.”
“No.”
“You said no survivors.”
“I know what I said!”
The words echoed through the room.
Everyone froze.
Hale closed her eyes.
When she opened them, seventeen years seemed to have fallen onto her face all at once.
“I was there.”
Lauren stared at her.
“Where?”
“Operations command.”
“Black Harbor command?”
“Yes.”
Lauren’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“You told Voss to kill us.”
“No.”
“I heard you.”
“You heard an edited recording.”
Lauren glanced toward the monitor.
Hale stepped closer.
“The original order wasn’t ‘no survivors leave Black Harbor.’”
“Then what was it?”
Hale swallowed.
“No survivors leave Black Harbor unescorted.”
Lauren said nothing.
Hale continued rapidly.
“You were transporting something out of that refinery.
Something Voss had not reported.”
“What?”
“I never knew.”
Lauren stared at her.
“Then why issue containment?”
“Because Voss told us enemy intelligence had infiltrated the rescue column.”
“Who approved the order?”
Hale hesitated.
That hesitation told Lauren everything.
“Who?”
Hale whispered, “General Marcus Walker.”
Lauren felt as if the floor shifted beneath her.
Nobody else understood.
Not immediately.
Then Pierce looked from Hale to Lauren.
“Walker?”
Lauren’s face emptied.
General Marcus Walker.
Former director of Strategic Operations.
Recipient of three Distinguished Service Medals.
Architect of multiple overseas campaigns.
Dead for twelve years.
And Lauren Walker’s father.
The monitors flickered.
A photograph appeared.
Lauren at twenty-four.
Standing beside her father at graduation.
Voss spoke again.
“You see now?”
Lauren’s eyes remained fixed on the image.
“No.”
“Oh, Lauren.”
Voss almost sounded sympathetic.
“You still think Black Harbor happened because twenty-seven soldiers saw something.”
The photograph disappeared.
A new video loaded.
It showed Lauren herself at Black Harbor.
She was dragging a wounded soldier through a doorway.
Then the footage zoomed toward the soldier’s vest.
A metal case had been strapped beneath it.
Lauren stared.
She remembered the man.
Sergeant Mercer.
She remembered cutting the case away because it interfered with treating his abdominal wound.
She remembered throwing it into her medical bag.
She had carried it for nearly sixteen hours.
“What was inside?”
Lauren whispered.
Voss answered.
“That was the problem.”
The monitors went black.
Then white text appeared.
PROJECT ORPHEUS.
Lauren had never heard the name.
Hale had.
Her reaction was immediate.
“No.”
Lauren looked at her.
“What is Orpheus?”
Hale backed away from the screen.
“It never existed.”
Voss laughed again.
“That phrase has buried a remarkable number of people.”
Lauren stepped toward Hale.
“What is it?”
Before Hale could answer, every computer in the room began uploading data.
Progress bars appeared.
5%.
12%.
18%.
Pierce rushed to a terminal.
“Someone’s transmitting the archive.”
“To where?”
Hale demanded.
Pierce typed rapidly.
Then stopped.
“Oh God.”
“What?”
“It isn’t being transmitted out.”
Lauren understood first.
“It’s coming in.”
Pierce nodded.
Gigabytes of encrypted files poured into the command center.
The black drive in Lauren’s hand suddenly grew warm.
She looked down.
A tiny indicator light flashed.
Hale stared.
“What is it doing?”
Lauren’s eyes widened.
“It’s communicating with the system.”
Voss’s voice emerged one final time.
“Thank you for bringing the key home.”
Lauren ripped the drive from her hand and threw it onto the floor.
Too late.
The upload reached 100%.
Every lock in Section Nine opened.
Then every screen displayed the same message.
ORPHEUS RESTORED.
The floor trembled.
Somewhere beneath them, heavy machinery activated.
A low mechanical hum rose through the walls.
Hale whispered, “There’s another level.”
Lauren looked down.
Voss had not brought her here to destroy evidence.
He had needed her.
Or something she carried.
A section of floor beside the command table slowly separated.
Hydraulic locks released.
A hidden elevator emerged.
Its doors opened.
Inside stood Lieutenant Carter.
Major Daniel Voss.
He no longer looked frightened.
He looked almost relieved.
Two armed men stood behind him.
Voss stepped forward.
Seventeen years had changed his face, but now that Lauren knew who she was looking at, she could see the man from Black Harbor beneath the carefully reconstructed identity.
Same eyes.
Same narrow smile.
Lauren raised a pistol.
“Don’t move.”
Voss looked at the weapon.
Then at Lauren.
“You still hold it exactly the same way.”
Hale aimed at him too.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Voss ignored her.
His attention remained entirely on Lauren.
“You spent seventeen years believing I betrayed you.”
“You did.”
“No.”
“You destroyed the helicopters.”
“Yes.”
“You abandoned wounded men.”
“Yes.”
“You hunted the survivors.”
Voss paused.
“Some of them.”
Lauren’s finger tightened against the trigger.
“Then give me one reason not to kill you.”
Voss smiled faintly.
“Because your father ordered me to.”
The words landed harder than gunfire.
Lauren stared at him.
Voss continued.
“Every helicopter.”
“No.”
“Every containment team.”
“You’re lying.”
“Every casualty designation.”
Lauren’s weapon remained steady, but something inside her had begun to fracture.
“My father died twelve years ago.”
Voss tilted his head.
“That is what the file says.”
The same words Thomas Reed had used.
Lauren felt cold spread through her chest.
Behind Voss, one of the elevator’s internal lights activated.
Illuminating someone standing farther inside.
An old man.
Tall.
Thin.
White-haired.
A scar running from his temple to his jaw.
Lauren’s pistol lowered by half an inch.
She knew that face.
She had seen it beside hospital beds.
At birthdays.
At graduation.
She had seen it in a coffin.
General Marcus Walker stepped into the light.
Lauren could not speak.
Her father looked at her for a long moment.
No surprise.
No confusion.
Only recognition.
Then he said the words Lauren Walker had waited seventeen years to hear from someone who knew the truth.
“Hello, Lauren.”
She stared at him.
Voss moved aside.
Marcus Walker looked past his daughter toward the monitor displaying PROJECT ORPHEUS.
His expression darkened.
“You should never have brought that drive here.”
Lauren’s voice finally returned.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered Black Harbor.”
“Yes.”
Hale whispered, “General…”
Marcus ignored her.
Lauren stared at her father as seventeen years of grief, rage, funerals, scars, sleepless nights, and unanswered questions collapsed into one impossible moment.
“Why?”
Marcus Walker looked directly into his daughter’s eyes.
And for the first time, he seemed afraid.
Not of Lauren.
Of what had just awakened beneath them.
“Because Black Harbor wasn’t an execution.”
The machinery below grew louder.
A warning symbol appeared across every monitor.
Marcus looked toward the floor.
Then back at Lauren.
“It was quarantine.”
A violent impact struck somewhere beneath Section Nine.
BOOM.
Everyone looked down.
Another impact followed.
BOOM.
The reinforced floor shook.
Pierce stared at the monitors.
“What’s beneath us?”
Marcus Walker stepped into the command center.
His face had gone pale.
“The reason twenty-seven soldiers were never supposed to leave Black Harbor.”
A third impact thundered upward.
BOOM.
Then something far below them began screaming.
Not electronically.
Not mechanically.
Something alive.
Lauren slowly looked at the elevator descending into darkness.
Her father whispered:
“And after seventeen years, you just unlocked its door.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
Source: Stories of Destiny · Thanh Thanh
