66. Hannah
Hannah
The emergency transit shaft is hidden behind a false maintenance wall three corridors below the checkpoint.
If I hadn’t remembered it…we never would’ve found it.
Russ forces the rusted panel open while distant gunfire echoes somewhere above us through the bunker levels.
Mason and Lucas are buying us time.
Every second costing blood.
And Wu knows it.
He’s been pulling us exactly where he wants us from the beginning.
The hidden shaft beyond the wall is narrow.
Industrial.
Old steel ladders descending into darkness beneath Bucharest.
Cold air rises from below, carrying the sharp scent of antiseptic and burned circuitry.
And underneath it—
something worse.
Memory.
I stop at the edge of the shaft too long.
Clay notices immediately.
“You okay?”
No.
Not even close.
Because I remember this place now.
Children lined against these walls waiting for transport.
No talking.
No crying.
No eye contact.
Some so drugged they couldn’t stand on their own.
My stomach twists violently.
Gabriel studies the shaft depth with a flashlight.
“It goes deep.”
“That’s the idea,” Russ mutters.
He descends first without hesitation.
Rifle strapped tight across his back.
Gabriel follows next carrying the portable drives.
Then me.
Clay stays directly beneath me the entire climb.
Close enough to catch me if I fall.
Close enough to ground me every time the memories hit too hard.
And they keep hitting harder now.
The deeper we go—
the more Ascension wakes up inside my head.
Level markers pass beside us.
SUB-3
SUB-5
SUB-7
Each level colder than the last.
Each level quieter.
Until finally—
I hear it.
Children singing.
Soft.
Distant.
My entire body locks instantly.
Clay looks up sharply from below me.
“Hannah?”
The singing echoes faintly through ventilation shafts somewhere beneath us.
A nursery rhyme.
Romanian.
I know the words before my brain even processes them.
Because we used to sing it during behavioral isolation.
The memory slams into me so hard my grip slips.
Clay catches my boot instantly.
“Hannah!”
I suck in a sharp breath.
The shaft spins around me for half a second.
Then stabilizes.
“I’m okay.”
Lie.
Complete lie.
But we don’t have time.
Russ reaches the bottom level first and signals upward.
“Clear.”
We descend into a massive underground maintenance corridor beneath Ascension.
And for one horrible second—
I forget how to breathe.
The corridor stretches endlessly beneath fluorescent white lights.
Pristine floors.
Polished steel doors.
Observation windows.
Not abandoned.
Not damaged.
Operational.
Alive.
Dear God.
Gabriel stares around in horror.
“This place is bigger than some hospitals.”
Because it was never a bunker.
It was a system.
A city beneath the city.
Wu’s voice suddenly returns overhead.
Lower now.
Closer.
“You remember this level.”
I physically flinch.
Because I do.
This was where they brought children who failed conditioning.
Punishment sectors.
Correction wings.
Clay notices my reaction immediately.
“What’s down here?”
I stare toward the sealed corridor ahead.
And the answer barely leaves my mouth.
“The broken ones.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Then distant metal doors suddenly unlock somewhere deeper below us.
One after another.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Russ raises his rifle instantly.
“That’s not good.”
No.
It’s very not good.
Movement appears at the far end of the corridor.
Figures stepping slowly beneath the fluorescent lights.
At first I think they’re guards.
Then I realize—
they’re children.
Teenagers.
Older than the others upstairs.
Sixteen maybe.
Seventeen.
Gray uniforms.
Barcode tattoos.
Blank expressions.
And every single one carrying weapons.
Oh my God.
Gabriel whispers:
“Wu turned them into soldiers.”
The teenagers stop about thirty feet away.
Not speaking.
Not threatening.
Just standing there watching us.
Watching me.
Then one of the girls tilts her head slightly.
Recognition flickers across her face.
“You survived.”
My blood runs cold.
Because I know her.
Not her name.
Not fully.
But pieces.
Training sessions.
Isolation rooms.
Children disappearing after failed evaluations.
And suddenly—
I remember her screaming once.
Not from pain.
From grief.
The girl lifts her rifle slowly.
Not aiming yet.
Just holding it.
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
Clay steps slightly in front of me instantly.
Protective.
Automatic.
The girl notices.
And something strange flashes through her empty expression.
Confusion.
Like she doesn’t understand why someone would protect another person without orders.
Wu speaks softly through the speakers:
“Ascension graduates.”
A pause.
“The future of controlled human evolution.”
Rage burns through me.
“No,” I whisper.
The girl’s eyes shift toward me.
And for the first time—
I see something human still trapped inside them.
Tiny.
Buried deep.
But there.
Fear.
Wu continues calmly:
“They do not hesitate.”
“They do not fracture emotionally.”
“They do not fail.”
The teenage boy beside her suddenly raises his weapon fully.
Hands perfectly steady.
Cold.
Trained.
And quietly—
without emotion—
he says:
“Director Wu ordered termination.”