65. Clay
Clay
Thirty minutes.
The words slam through the checkpoint harder than the gunfire.
For half a second, nobody moves.
Nobody breathes.
Then everything explodes at once.
“Evacuate the children now!” Russ barks.
Mason immediately starts moving operators toward the upper tunnels while Gabriel works frantically at the terminal trying to stop the reactor countdown.
“It’s encrypted!”
“Can you shut it down or not?” Lucas snaps.
Gabriel’s silence is answer enough.
Not remotely.
Of course not.
Because Wu planned this.
Every second.
Every contingency.
Every grave.
The bunker trembles again beneath our boots.
Somewhere deep below us, Ascension Core is waking up.
And Director Wu is still sitting on top of it.
Hannah stands frozen beside me staring at the countdown timer flashing across the terminal screen.
00:29:14
White numbers.
Cold numbers.
Death numbers.
The little girl clings tightly to Hannah’s side now.
Not letting go.
Not wanting to.
And something about that nearly destroys me.
Because Hannah’s doing the exact opposite of what Wu created her to become.
She’s comforting them.
Protecting them.
Teaching them trust.
Wu notices too.
His voice slides through the speakers again.
“You continue proving my point.”
I swear to God—
I’m going to rip his throat out with my bare hands.
“You formed attachment despite conditioning.”
A pause.
“Remarkable adaptation.”
Hannah finally looks upward.
And there’s no fear left in her now.
Only hatred.
“You tortured children.”
“No,” Wu replies calmly.
“I removed emotional instability before adulthood.”
The oldest rescued boy suddenly speaks from near the wall.
Quiet.
Empty.
“Is that why they took Eli?”
Everything stops.
Hannah turns toward him slowly.
“Who’s Eli?”
The boy swallows hard.
“He cried too much.”
Jesus Christ.
The checkpoint goes dead silent except for distant gunfire deeper in the bunker.
The child keeps talking like he doesn’t even realize how horrifying the words are.
“They said emotional disruption spreads weakness.”
The younger children lower their eyes immediately.
Like they already know what happened to Eli.
Hannah kneels carefully in front of the boy.
“What did they do to him?”
The boy’s face stays blank.
Too blank.
“They took him downstairs.”
A pause.
“He didn’t come back.”
Rage detonates inside me so hard I physically feel dizzy from it.
Wu killed children for crying.
Not soldiers.
Not threats.
Children.
Russ slowly chambers another round into his rifle.
And I’ve never seen him look this cold before.
“You hear that, Wu?”
No answer.
Russ nods once.
“Good. I wanted you listening.”
Gabriel suddenly curses at the terminal.
“I found the reactor schematics.”
Everybody moves instantly.
A digital map flashes across the screen.
Multiple underground levels spiraling downward beneath the bunker.
At the center—
Ascension Core.
And directly above it—
Command Sector Alpha.
Wu’s location.
Lucas studies the layout.
“One path?”
Gabriel shakes his head.
“Three.”
He points rapidly across the map.
“Main corridor heavily fortified.”
“Service tunnels unstable.”
“Emergency transit shaft…”
He stops talking.
Because Hannah’s expression changes instantly.
She recognizes it.
“The transit shaft.”
Gabriel looks at her.
“You know it?”
Hannah nods slowly.
Memory flashes behind her eyes again.
Painful ones.
“They used it to move children between sectors without guards seeing us.”
The oldest boy quietly adds:
“The elevators don’t show on the main system.”
Gabriel’s eyes widen slightly.
Hidden routes.
Of course.
Wu built secret movement channels inside the bunker itself.
Clay. Focus.
“Can it get us to Wu?”
Hannah hesitates.
Then nods once.
“Yes.”
Russ immediately points toward Mason.
“You get the children out.”
Mason nods sharply.
“We’ll hold upper sectors as long as we can.”
Lucas checks his rifle magazine.
“How many are going down?”
Russ looks at the reactor timer.
00:26:02
Not enough time.
Not enough anything.
Finally he says:
“Small team moves faster.”
I already know where this is going.
Russ points immediately.
“Me.”
“Clay.”
“Hannah.”
“Gabriel.”
Lucas protests instantly.
“Hell no.”
“You’re injured,” Russ says flatly.
“I can still fight.”
“And you can barely stand.”
Tension spikes hard between them.
But Lucas knows Russ is right.
Even if he hates it.
Gabriel grabs portable drives from the terminal station.
“If we reach the core, I can download Ascension files before detonation.”
Hannah looks toward him sharply.
“You still want evidence?”
Gabriel’s face hardens.
“We expose all of it.”
Yes.
Because if Wu dies alone—
someone else eventually replaces him.
But if the world sees Ascension?
Sees what they did to children?
Maybe this nightmare finally burns completely.
The bunker shakes violently again.
Ceiling lights flicker.
Concrete cracks somewhere deep below us.
The reactor is getting worse.
Wu’s voice returns softly through the speakers.
Almost disappointed now.
“You truly believe humanity will care?”
Silence.
Then calmly:
“They created me, Hannah.”
That hits differently.
Even Russ notices it.
Hannah slowly rises to her feet.
“What does that mean?”
Wu laughs quietly.
Not mocking.
Almost tired.
“Ascension was funded because governments feared weakness.”
A pause.
“They simply lacked the courage to complete the work themselves.”
Cold slides through every inch of me.
No.
No, no, no.
He’s saying governments helped build this.
Gabriel looks sick.
Russ just gets quieter.
Deadlier.
Wu continues:
“I did what civilized nations secretly wanted.”
And somehow—
somehow—
the horror just became even bigger.