30. Malia
THIRTY
Malia
The night stretches endlessly around me as I pretend to sleep, every distant sound making me wonder if this is it—if this is the signal. Beneath the anxiety and uncertainty, beneath the frustration at Mitzy’s vague warnings, one thought burns bright enough to warm me despite the facility’s perpetual chill: Walt is coming.
Every sound, shadow, and tiny deviation from routine sends my heart racing with false hope. But nothing changes. The facility drones on with mechanical precision—meals at exactly the same time, guard rotations like clockwork, scientists descending into the labs below to work on whatever horror they’re building.
Malikai looks worse each time he returns from the underground labs. The radiation burns on his neck have barely healed. His hands shook so badly this morning that he could scarcely hold his spoon at breakfast. When I tried to help, he stared through me, lost in quantum equations I’ll never understand.
“We can’t keep going like this,” Ally whispers during evening recreation. We sit at our usual corner table, pretending to play approved board games while guards patrol the perimeter. “The containment fields are becoming more unstable. Each breach takes more out of them.”
I want to scream at her that help is coming. I felt metal legs in my hair and heard Mitzy’s voice in my head. But I can’t. I can’t risk whatever plan is in motion. Can’t endanger whatever signal I’m supposed to recognize.
Maybe I imagined the whole thing. Maybe isolation and fear finally cracked something in my mind, making me hallucinate a mechanical bumblebee and the promise of rescue.
The thought haunts me as I lie in bed that night, staring at the ventilation grate where the drone disappeared.
How many more times can Malikai descend into atomic hell before something breaks permanently?
The first hint that something’s wrong comes just after midnight. A faint haze drifts from the air vents—too thick to be steam and too white to be smoke. The scent hits me before I fully process what I’m seeing: burning electronics with an undercurrent of something chemical.
Alarms shriek to life, their sudden wail making me jump despite weeks of drills. Red emergency lights strobe against institutional walls as smoke pours from every vent. The sprinkler system engages with a mechanical groan, releasing torrents of water that turn the smoke into a ghostly fog.
“Everyone out!” Guards burst through doors, their usual precision fracturing around the edges. “Move! Move! Move!”
I’m already grabbing my shoes when they reach our quarters. Malikai stumbles from his room, disoriented from whatever nightmares haunt his sleep. The guard’s shove sends him reeling, but I catch his arm before he falls.
“Stay together!” The command carries over chaos as other families spill into the corridor. Water drums against concrete, smoke swirls in psychedelic patterns under emergency lights, and machinery screams in mechanical agony somewhere beneath it all.
My fingers find Ally’s hand in the confusion, gripping tight enough to hurt. She squeezes back with equal desperation as guards herd us toward the emergency exits. The Williamses appear through the haze like ghosts, then the Chens, their teenage son pressing close to his mother’s side.
“Keep moving!” The order is sharp and cold as we are directed through decontamination chambers that haven’t been used since the Cold War. Ancient steel doors groan open, letting in the bitter night air that cuts through our soaked clothes.
The quarter moon offers barely enough light to navigate by, but the facility’s external floodlights compensate for the lack of light. White beams sweep the perimeter, reflecting off water droplets to create halos in the smoke that still pours from every vent and window.
Is this it?
The signal Mitzy promised?
Every shadow could hide rescue; every strange sound could be the start of something. But all I see are more guards, more guns, and concrete walls closing in.
“Faster!” Petrov’s voice carries over the chaos. “Everyone inside! Now!”
The bunker’s entrance gapes like a mouth, ready to swallow us into underground darkness. My grip on Malikai and Ally tightens as we’re shoved forward. The smoke is thinner out here, but the facility’s floodlights paint everything in harsh contrast—too bright, too sharp, too exposed.
The quarter moon hangs like a broken fingernail above us, offering barely enough light to cast strange shadows across the compound. Every sweep of the perimeter lights makes me flinch, waiting for—something.
What was it Mitzy said? When you get outside, be ready to run.
Run where?
The steppes stretch endlessly into the darkness beyond the fences—cold, unyielding, and unforgiving. Guards pace with military precision, rifles ready, eyes sharp. Every breath feels like borrowed time. There’s no way out—just isolation and the brutal certainty of another underground cage.
A sharp crack splits the air. The facility’s lights shudder and die with a mechanical groan, plunging the world into absolute darkness. The hum of electrified fences falls silent, leaving only the ragged sound of my breathing.
A heartbeat of stillness.
Then everything ignites.
Blinding flashes tear through the night as explosions detonate in rapid succession, burning jagged afterimages across my vision. Guards shout in multiple languages, their commands tangled in panic.
Thump-thump-thump. Projectiles arc through the air—not bullets, too deliberate, too controlled. They burst overhead, raining down clouds that reek of scorched metal and sharp peppermint.
Gunfire cracks, muffled and strange, like someone’s smothered the rifles with thick cloth. Shadows twist in the flashing light, soldiers scattering as precise strikes tear through their formations.
A metallic whir slices through the chaos, distinct and deliberate. My head jerks toward the sound just as the first RUFI unit bursts from the darkness—sleek, powerful, lethal. Its robotic frame gleams in the flickering light as it leaps, muscles of titanium and hydraulics propelling it forward like a predator unleashed.
Guards spin, weapons snapping up too late. The RUFI collides with the nearest one, sending him sprawling. Another unit surges from the opposite flank, driving two more guards back with a low, resonating hum that sounds almost alive.
More RUFI units follow, fanning out with terrifying precision. They strike like wolves, herding the guards away from us.
Every move is calculated, cold, and unstoppable.
I stand frozen amid the hostages, breath locked in my chest. The guards scatter, their tight formations dissolving into fractured clusters. One tries to regroup, barking desperate commands—but the machines are faster, merciless in their pursuit.
Around me, hostages tremble, pressed together in a terrified huddle. But the RUFI units never come for us. They carve a protective perimeter around us, driving the enemy away—forcing distance between us and the armed chaos erupting beyond.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, I think: We might survive this.
“Get down!” Malikai tries to pull me toward the bunker, but I plant my feet.
No. I’m not going back underground.
Never again.
I catch glimpses of shadows moving with deadly grace through the chaos and smoke. Dark figures flow between guard positions, precise as dancers, lethal as striking snakes. The sounds of combat are oddly muffled, like everything’s happening underwater.
“NOW!” The command cuts through the noise—a voice I’d know anywhere. My body responds before my mind fully processes. I yank Malikai and Ally toward the source. Other figures emerge from the smoke—massive shapes that resolve into Ethan and Rigel, covering our retreat with strange weapons that fire clouds of that peppermint-scented gas.
“Run!” Ethan directs us toward a gap in the fence I swear wasn’t there seconds ago. “Don’t stop! Don’t look back!”
I pull Malikai and Ally forward, forcing them to match my pace. I yell at the others to follow.
Behind us, more explosions rock the compound. The smell of gunpowder grows stronger, making my head swim.
“Keep moving!”
The command slices through the chaos, sharp and relentless. Shadows surge through the smoke—figures in tactical gear, helmets concealing their faces, head-up displays glowing faintly in the flickering light. But I know them—not by sight, but by the way they move.
One figure breaks left, fluid and precise, his motion a blend of strength and speed. Blake. No one else moves with such ruthless control, calculated yet explosive. Another charges forward like a battering ram—Rigel, unmistakable in his raw, unyielding power.
Ahead, two more figures flank the hostages with perfect synchronicity, clearing a path through the gunfire. The way they cover each other, an unspoken rhythm born from countless missions—that’s Hank and Gabe.
Something kicks up dirt near my feet—real gunfire. My grip tightens around Malikai and Ally’s hands as we sprint toward the distant break in the fence. Every step feels like pushing through thick, choking air.
Then, the RUFI units barrel past, relentless and unstoppable. They strike like living nightmares—lethal machines driving the guards away from us, cutting through the chaos with brutal precision.
And then he emerges.
Through the swirling smoke and flickering firelight, Walt materializes like a vengeful ghost—a force forged from war, fierce and unyielding. His every movement is lethal artistry, precise and fluid. He drops two guards, never faltering, never slowing.
My breath locks in my chest. Even masked, even in the madness, it’s him. His presence hits like a physical force—unchanged, undeniable.
Through the smoke, through the inferno, through the hell separating us, he finds me.
It isn’t his face—I can’t see it beneath the matte-black helmet, the polarized visor concealing every feature. It’s him. I feel it in the way he moves—unstoppable, lethal, and deliberate.
His head snaps in my direction, his body shifting with electric precision, locked onto me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters. Recognition blazes in the way he freezes for a fraction of a second—a heartbeat stretched thin—before surging toward me with fierce, singular intent.
My knees threaten to give out, my breath catching like I’ve forgotten how to breathe. Walt.
He moves like a weapon unleashed—swift and unrelenting. Two guards appear in his path, but they never have a chance to raise their weapons. He cuts them down, never breaking stride.
Every step, every breath screams him. No voice, no face, but I know. Deep in my bones. The universe narrows to this moment, suspended on the edge of something too vast to name.
Then his voice cracks through the chaos like a gunshot, sharp and commanding—unmistakable.
“RUN!”
And I run.