CHAPTER 14: THE GLASS MIRROR
880 Words
POV: CAPTAIN ELIAS VANCE
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The ringing in my ears wouldn't stop. It was a dull, persistent hum that felt like it was coming from inside my skull rather than the environment. We were sitting in the back of the transport, the hum of the rotors the only thing keeping me grounded as the Blackwood facility became a burning scar in the earth behind us.
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I looked down at the mirror I’d scavenged from Lab 4. It looked ordinary. Just a piece of polished glass framed in tarnished silver. But every time I caught my reflection, something felt... off. Like my eyes were reacting a millisecond slower than they should.
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"You've been staring at that thing for twenty minutes, Cap," Bravo said. He was leaning against the fuselage, cleaning a smudge of black ichor off his combat vest. He looked tired. Not just soldier-tired, but soul-weary. "Whatever that kid was, he's gone. We buried him."
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"He wasn't a kid, Bravo. He was a door," I replied, not looking up. "And I don't think we closed it as tightly as we think."
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[ Jace: He's right. I'm looking at the thermal signatures from the blast zone. The crater isn't cooling down. It’s... feeding. The energy isn't dissipating into the atmosphere; it’s being pulled inward. ]
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Jace didn't look up from his tablet, but his hands were shaking. That was the problem with being the tech guy—you saw the numbers, and sometimes the numbers were scarier than the ghosts.
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"We have our orders, Jace," I said, finally tucking the mirror into a secure pouch. "Sector 7 is compromised. We head to the safe house in the Cascades. We regroup, and then we figure out who this 'Board of Directors' is."
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Suddenly, the transport jolted. It wasn't turbulence. It felt like we’d hit a brick wall in mid-air.
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"Status!" I yelled, grabbing the overhead rail.
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[ Jace: We... we lost the pilot. Cap, the cockpit—it's empty! ]
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I unbuckled and lunged toward the front of the craft. I ripped the curtain aside, and my blood turned to ice. Jace was right. The seats were occupied by flight suits, but there was no one inside them. The suits were slumped over, hollow and deflated, while the helicopter continued to fly on its own.
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The radio crackled to life, but it wasn't the base. It was a symphony of overlapping voices—men, women, children—all speaking in a rhythmic, clinical cadence.
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“Patient Alpha has cleared the first stage. Proceed to the secondary evaluation. The Board is pleased with the performance.”
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"They're remote-piloting us," Bravo growled, raising his shotgun. "Where are they taking us, Jace?"
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[ Jace: I can't override! The signal is coming from the mirror, Cap! The glass is acting as a transmitter! ]
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I reached for the pouch, but before I could touch it, the mirror shattered inside the bag. The shards didn't fall. They tore through the fabric, hovering in the air like a swarm of glass hornets.
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In the reflection of each tiny shard, I saw a different face. Some were people I knew—soldiers I’d lost, enemies I’d killed. And then, I saw the woman again. The one with Sarah’s eyes.
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"Elias, look out!"
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A shard of glass streaked past my face, cutting a thin line across my cheek. The blood that dripped onto the floor didn't turn red. It turned silver, swirling into a pattern on the deck plates.
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“The surgery requires a clean environment,” the voices whispered through the speakers. “Blackwood was the incision. Now comes the extraction.”
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The floor of the transport started to turn translucent. Beneath us, I didn't see the dark forests of the Northwest. I saw a city—but not one I recognized. It was a sprawling metropolis of white stone and black glass, illuminated by a sun that never moved.
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"Brace for impact!" I yelled, throwing myself over Jace and Bravo.
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The helicopter didn't crash. It dissolved. The metal turned into a fine grey mist, and for a terrifying second, we were falling through an endless, sun-drenched sky.
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We hit the ground, but there was no pain. Just the cold, hard reality of a marble floor. I looked up, gasping for air, my hand instinctively reaching for my sidearm.
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We weren't in the mountains. We were standing in the lobby of a massive corporate skyscraper. The walls were lined with monitors, and on every single one, our lives were playing back in high-definition loops.
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At the far end of the room, a receptionist sat behind a desk. She looked perfectly human, wearing a crisp, grey suit. She smiled at us—a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
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"The Board will see you now, Captain Vance," she said. "Please leave your weapons at the door. They aren't compatible with the new reality."
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I stood up, my muscles screaming, my shadow finally re-attaching itself to my boots—but it wasn't mine anymore. It was shaped like a man in a lab coat.
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The hunt was over. The corporate takeover had begun.
- Writer
