Episode 10: The Core
949 Words
The private jet touched down in Zurich at midnight under cover of fog and forged flight records. Zara stepped off first, dressed in black tactical gear instead of gowns and heels, her heart pounding with something colder than fear.
Resolve.
Adrian followed, armed and silent, while Graves coordinated with a local contact who’d already planted surveillance inside the facility they were about to infiltrate.
It was time to finish what Vivienne started.
Time to burn Project Reverie to the ground.
The Syndicate’s secret lab was nestled beneath the guise of a children’s neuroscience center in a remote alpine village quiet, gated, and invisible to the outside world.
But behind the facade, seven subjects were being held unconscious, monitored, studied. The serum Zara had once rejected was now being used to build what the Syndicate called "controlled memory realignment."
It was mind control.
Dressed as hospital volunteers and shielded by forged IDs, Zara and Adrian slipped inside.
Every hallway whispered with tension. White walls. Silent nurses. The scent of antiseptic and secrecy.
Zara’s breath caught when she passed a room labeled:
Subject 13 – Elias
Inside was a boy.
Nine, maybe ten years old.
Eyes closed. Tubes everywhere. His hands twitched as machines tracked his neural activity.
Zara’s heart cracked.
“He’s just a child,” she whispered.
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “They’re trying to see if younger brains adapt faster.”
Zara’s fists clenched. “They’re not saving anyone here. They’re creating soldiers.”
They reached the server room deep underground the facility’s digital heart.
Adrian plugged in the encrypted drive Vivienne had hidden, which Graves had rebuilt. It would upload a virus and extract all files to their cloud.
As it ran, Zara scanned the monitors—and paused.
A name blinked on the screen:
Subject 07: Reactivation Protocol Failed.
Her file.
She clicked.
A video feed opened.
Zara unconscious. Monitors beeping. Scientists arguing in the background.
“We gave her the full dose,” one said. “She still remembers.”
“Kill her,” another voice snapped. “No subject has resisted this far. She’s a threat.”
A pause.
Then a third voice: “No. Keep her alive. She’s valuable.”
Zara froze.
The voice was female.
Familiar.
She replayed it.
And again.
Then her knees went weak.
It was Celine.
Adrian glanced over. “What is it?”
Zara looked at him, stunned. “Celine didn’t just help design the project. She tried to keep me alive. *She wanted to study me further.*”
Adrian frowned. “So she saw you as more than a threat.”
“No,” Zara said. “She saw me as… an investment.”
Before they could react, alarms exploded through the facility.
Red lights flashed. A synthetic voice rang out:
“Unauthorized breach. Containment compromised.”
Graves’ voice crackled through the earpiece:
“They’ve found you. Extraction in three minutes. Make it to the roof!”
But Zara wasn’t done.
She bolted down the hall and stopped in front of Room 6.
Inside was another subject. Female. Late twenties. Breathing slowly.
But it wasn’t her face that froze Zara in place.
It was the scar on the woman’s arm.
A symbol.
The same symbol Zara once drew in her dreams as a child.
Adrian caught up to her. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” Zara whispered. “But I think… I think I’ve seen her before.”
The woman stirred.
And opened her eyes.
Dark. Glassy. Empty.
Then she whispered one word:
“Sister.”
Zara stumbled back.
“What did you say?”
The woman blinked again. “They said you died.”
Adrian moved forward, tense. “Zara, we have to go now.”
But Zara couldn’t move.
“What’s your name?”
The woman whispered, “Amira.”
Zara’s breath caught. She had no sister. She’d been an only child.
Hadn’t she?
Amira slowly sat up, her voice shaking. “They said I couldn’t leave until you were confirmed dead. That was the agreement.”
“What agreement?”
“They took us both,” Amira said. “You were five. I was six.”
Zara’s head spun.
The missing years. The blurry memories. The experiments starting earlier than anyone believed.
Adrian pulled Zara away. “Zara we have to go. We’ll come back for her.”
Zara nodded, tears brimming. “I promise,” she whispered to Amira. “I’ll come back.”
Amira gave a weak smile. “I’ll be waiting, little star.”
They ran.
Through sirens. Through gunfire.
Guards descended the stairwells. Zara threw a smoke bomb Graves had packed blinding the floor and dove behind a desk.
Adrian fired two shots and cleared a path. They bolted up the emergency exit to the roof, where a black helicopter hovered low and waiting.
Graves reached out from the cabin. “Go, go, go!”
Zara jumped in first, Adrian behind her.
The facility burned beneath them as the virus completed its upload.
Every secret.
Every file.
Every lie.
Safe in the air, Zara collapsed into the seat, her hands shaking.
Adrian wrapped a blanket around her.
She whispered, “She called me ‘little star.’ I haven’t heard that name since I was a kid.”
“You think it’s real?”
“I think I have a sister.”
Adrian squeezed her hand. “Then we go back for her. And we end this for good.”
Zara looked down at the tablet, where the data was decrypting.
One folder caught her eye:
“Subject 01 – Celine King”
Her jaw dropped.
Celine hadn’t just orchestrated the project.
She was the first test subject.
- Writer
