The flickering emergency lights barely illuminated the narrow maintenance corridor as Irfan Shah stumbled forward, blood seeping from a shallow cut above his eyebrow.
Every muscle in his body screamed for rest, but the sound of distant boots—Black Omega units—kept him moving.
No time.
No mercy.
Only survival.
⸻
He ducked into a side hatch, slamming it shut behind him with a muted clang.
Silence engulfed him, broken only by the rasp of his own breathing.
The chamber he had entered was colder, older — the architecture different from the sterile perfection of the rest of Site Zero.
Dust floated like spectres in the stale air.
It felt… abandoned.
Forgotten.
And yet, humming quietly beneath the stillness, there was power.
Hidden veins of energy pulsed faintly in the walls.
⸻
LUCIA chimed softly into Irfan's mind:
"Unknown sector detected. No registered access logs. Recommend extreme caution."
Irfan wiped the blood from his brow, eyes scanning the space.
On the far side of the room, behind shattered glass panels and crumbling steel, he spotted something.
A terminal — ancient, flickering weakly, but still alive.
Beneath it, the faded insignia of PHALANX was barely visible… overwritten with another symbol, scratched deep into the wall:
TITAN-9
⸻
He approached carefully, heart pounding.
The terminal resisted his first attempts to interface — encrypted layers beyond anything he had hacked before.
But LUCIA adapted, carving through the decaying firewalls like a scalpel through flesh.
Slowly, fragmented data surfaced:
Blueprints.
Test logs.
Personnel reports.
And then — a hidden archive.
Labeled simply:
Ascension: Final Phase
⸻
Irfan's blood ran cold as he scrolled.
TITAN-9 wasn't just a mind control system.
It was a complete neural overwrite.
A new consciousness seeded across the entire population.
Every man.
Every woman.
Every child.
Linked.
Controlled.
Rewritten.
The individual would cease to exist.
Only the "Collective" would remain.
And Kuala Lumpur was only the prototype.
The first city.
The first sacrifice.
⸻
He staggered back from the console, bile rising in his throat.
This wasn't about control.
This was about extinction.
Of free will.
Of choice.
Of humanity itself.
⸻
Before he could react, the door behind him screeched as it was forced open.
Two Black Omega operatives flooded into the room, weapons raised.
Irfan dove sideways as bullets tore through the decaying panels, showering him with sparks and debris.
He hit the ground hard, rolling behind a collapsed server rack.
No weapon.
No backup.
Only his mind.
Only speed.
⸻
Thinking fast, he ripped open a loose panel beside him, exposing live power conduits.
He tore a wire free, sparks flying.
He had one chance.
As the first operative advanced, Irfan hurled the sparking wire into a puddle of coolant pooling at their feet.
Electricity exploded outward with a crackling roar.
The first operative spasmed violently, collapsing instantly.
The second stumbled, disoriented.
Irfan didn't wait.
He surged forward, grabbing the downed operative's sidearm and firing two quick shots.
Silence returned to the chamber.
Broken.
Burnt.
Breathing heavily, Irfan staggered upright.
⸻
He knew the brief window he had just created would not last.
Reinforcements would be coming.
But now he had something more valuable than his own life:
The Truth.
He downloaded the remaining files onto his portable drive, heart hammering.
Somewhere out there, Aina and Reza were still fighting.
And now more than ever — they needed each other.
Because the war for the city had already begun.
And humanity's survival hinged on what they did next.