EPISODE 7: The Kill Switch
1203 Words
The ceiling vent groaned, and the sound that followed wasn’t human.
It was mechanical. Rhythmic. Click. Slide. Whirr.
A red-eyed drone slithered through the vent shaft, unfolding limbs like a spider made of steel and glass. It dropped into the corridor with a bone-jarring clang, landing with impossible grace between two unconscious trainees.
Seviah didn’t breathe.
Neither did the man in grey.
“Sentinels,” he muttered.
The machine’s head swiveled. It scanned the room—left, right, up, and then locked on Seviah.
A narrow beam of red light danced across her chest. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Move,” the man hissed. “Now.”
But she was frozen.
The drone twitched.
Then sprang.
She dove.
It missed by inches, slamming into the wall behind her, metal limbs sparking against the pipework. The sound shattered the quiet, and suddenly everything was moving too fast—alarms rising in a new pitch, boots pounding from above, voices shouting over intercoms.
Seviah scrambled down the hall, the baton still clutched in her hand, fingers slick with sweat. The man in gray kept close, silent, focused.
“Where’s Panel 12B?” she gasped.
“We’re two halls away.”
“We won’t make it.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
Behind them, the sentinel pulled itself free and launched again, faster this time. It hit the floor running—spindly legs skittering like claws—and fired.
A crackling blue bolt zipped past Seviah’s cheek and scorched the wall beside her. She flinched, ducking around a corner. The man in gray reached over her shoulder and slammed a panel on the wall.
The door slid open just enough for them to slip through.
They landed hard in a dark maintenance room, filled with pipes and leaking valves. The man slammed the door shut behind them and pulled a latch from the side, locking it.
The sentinel crashed into it a second later, metal fists slamming against steel. The entire frame groaned under the impact.
“That won’t hold,” Seviah whispered.
“No,” he said. “But it’ll buy us thirty seconds.”
He turned and crouched beside a wall console, pulling back a rusted grate. Beneath it was a narrow crawlspace marked “12B.”
“Go.”
Seviah crawled in without hesitation, the air thick and hot. Her palms scraped against the metal. Every noise echoed—her breath, her heartbeat, her thoughts.
He followed close behind.
The sentinel outside shrieked and began welding through the door.
They emerged on the other side into another tunnel—a cleaner one this time, with blinking yellow lights and numbered labels. She saw her first blood smear on the wall just past a hatch. Fresh.
“Where are we?”
“Quarantine wing. Discarded section. No surveillance here.”
“Why are you helping me?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he handed her the data stick again. This time, she took it.
“There’s a console inside that chamber,” he said. “It’ll only work once." Plug that in, and download your file to the core. It’ll show you everything they’ve hidden.”
“And then what?”
“Then you run.”
She swallowed.
“What’s your name?”
“That’s not important.”
“You said I’d want to know what I am. What am I?”
He looked her in the eyes.
“You’re not the first girl they tested. But you’re the first one that lived.”
He opened the hatch.
The chamber was circular. Dark. Cold. A data port blinked on the far wall.
Seviah approached slowly, her boots echoing on the tile floor.
She plugged the stick in.
The lights flickered. Then dimmed.
And the screen came to life.
Her file appeared.
Subject: LIRIEN, SEVIAH
Age: 17
Category: Red – Collector Class
Status: UNSTABLE
Power Onset: Premature (unsanctioned activation)
Directive: Terminate on breach
Authorization Level: BLACK
Notes: Possesses memory-leech capabilities. Suspected carrier of multiple dormant Gifts. Exposure to Subject 421 triggered latent abilities.
Seviah blinked.
There was more.
A section marked “Incident 000.”
She opened it.
A black-and-white surveillance video played.
An orphanage room. Hers. Two girls sharing a blanket.
One of them—Nali—touches her hand.
A flash.
Nali’s nose begins to bleed.
The image freezes.
Subject 07 exhibits transfer abilities. Unclear if telepathic or volatile cellular activation. Test pending. Immediate extraction ordered.
Seviah felt sick.
The next file loaded: a lab document. Signed by Dr. Merek.
“Seviah Lirien’s file has been redacted at the Director’s request. Origins unknown. Subject not listed in the original census. Internal markers suggest external placement. Do not awaken.**
Her knees buckled.
She had not been born in the system.
She had been planted in it.
A voice sounded behind her.
“Now do you understand why they’re afraid of you?”
She turned.
The man in grey stood in the doorway. Behind him, a second figure appeared.
Not a drone.
A girl.
Maybe eighteen. Short white hair. Eyes like smoke. She wore a scar across her collarbone, shaped like a sigil.
Seviah knew without asking—
This girl had survived the Gift.
And she wasn’t here to help.
“I told you,” the man said, backing away. “They were going to send someone.”
The girl stepped forward.
“Your file says you’re unstable,” she said. “But I’ve been watching you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know if it’s true.”
“If what’s true?”
The girl smiled.
“If you’re the one who ends us all.”
Then she lunged.
Seviah didn’t know if it was instinct or fear or something older than both, but her body lit up like a match dropped in oil.
Her veins glowed. Her palms burned. Not painfully—almost beautifully. Like she was being written in light.
The girl’s attack came fast—faster than anyone Seviah had faced. She moved like a phantom, every step controlled, every strike precise. A spinning kick aimed straight for Seviah’s temple.
Seviah ducked.
Barely.
The heat in her body surged upward, flooding her limbs. The ground cracked beneath her feet. She didn’t try to fight back. Her body did.
The girl lunged again, this time with a short blade drawn from her sleeve. It shimmered with an unnatural edge—Gift-tempered steel.
Seviah caught it.
With her bare hand.
The blade hissed against her skin—but didn’t pierce it.
A pulse of silver burst from her grip, sending both of them flying apart. The girl slammed into the wall with a gasp. Seviah stumbled back, panting.
“You’re not unstable,” the girl breathed, rising slowly. Her lip bled. Her blade was cracked.
“You’re waking up.”
From behind, the man in gray stared like he’d seen the ghost of something sacred and cursed all at once.
“They’re too late,” he whispered. “She’s already beyond Phase One.”
Lights overhead exploded. Sirens screamed.
And then a new sound echoed above them—
The grind of steel doors.
The release of Containment Level Zero.
And someone whispered, “Subject Collector... unlocked
- Writer
