29. Pietro
Pietro
The tunnel breathes.
Damp stone, stale air, and some low-frequency vibration that crawls down your spine and makes your pulse forget how to behave.
Valaria walks just ahead of me, flashlight cutting the dark.
She hasn’t spoken since we entered.
Her body’s on autopilot—shoulders square, footsteps sure. But I can see the tension in her grip, the set of her jaw.
She knows this place.
Even if she doesn’t remember why.
We pass rooms with shattered glass doors, rusted medical chairs, lockers split open like ribs. No lights. No cameras.
But the deeper we go, the more I feel it.
We’re not alone.
She stops at a sealed metal door. Red handprint scanner. The kind they used in deep-classified vaults. The kind no one should have access to anymore.
Without a word, Valaria presses her hand to it.
A pause.
Then—
Click.
The door slides open with a hiss of stale air.
“Val—” I start.
But she’s already stepping through.
I follow.
The chamber is perfectly preserved.
White walls. Bright overhead lights that flicker awake. A long mirror stretching across the right side of the room. And on the opposite wall?—
A row of screens.
One glows to life.
No signal input. No cable.
Just a blinking cursor.
And then it types?—
CRIMSON ORACLE DETECTED.
WELCOME BACK.
Valaria goes rigid.
The screen types again.
DO YOU REMEMBER?
She doesn’t move.
The silence stretches so long I almost step forward?—
But then she whispers:
“No.”
The screen blips–pauses.
Then—
WOULD YOU LIKE TO?
My hand goes to my weapon. “Don’t answer that.”
But Valaria doesn’t even look at me.
Instead, she says softly, “Why now? Why wake this up after all these years?”
The screen changes.
YOU TRIGGERED THE SEQUENCE.
I frown. “What sequence?”
Valaria blinks. “The phrase. The one I read from the file. I recorded it. Played it back.”
“And that activated this?”
She nods slowly. “Like a keycode… but vocal. Genetic. Something programmed into me.”
The screen blinks again.
YOU ARE THE KEY.
“To what?” Valaria squares off.
THE FUTURE.
Suddenly, every screen lights up.
Footage floods them.
Not just surveillance.
Her.
As a child.
Training drills. Memory tests. Language immersion. Her with electrodes on her temples, solving complex patterns in seconds.
She stumbles back. Gasping for air.
I move to shut it off, but there’s no terminal. No switch. No cord.
This system’s closed loop. And it’s been waiting.
Then—
The door behind us slams shut.
Locked.
Valaria spins. “We’re trapped?”
I check the mechanism. Deadbolted.
On one screen, a countdown begins.
00:60.
“What is this?” she whispers.
I don’t know.
But I know one thing for sure.
Whatever Arcadia was—it never shut down.
It went dormant.
And now it’s waking up again.
Because Valaria’s not just the key.
She might be the weapon.