Chapter 48: The Fall

This squad’s strength didn’t match their swagger.
Barely a dozen of them, their scattered gunfire posed no real threat to Arthur’s group.
Tracking the flicker of their muzzles, Arthur’s bullets found them one after another, each shot leaving another man silent.
The last one dropped when Jackie closed in and smashed him with a rifle butt.

Under the dim green light, the man crumpled to the ground, snot and tears running as he begged for mercy.
Jackie’s expression stayed cold. He crouched and leveled his gun at the man’s head.

“I’ve only got one question. Where’s the elevator?”
“Inside—on the right.”

A gunshot cut him off, returning the space to silence.

Across the room, V gripped a crate and pushed herself upright. She stamped her foot and muttered.
“Damn it. This never ends.”

After a quick cleanup, the group headed for the elevator.
V still moved slowly, but she was clearly recovering bit by bit.

“We can’t use that elevator. It’s wired into Biotechnica’s internal system. Unless we had a team of netrunners to crash their main network, it’s useless.”
She explained as they walked.

“Maybe the shaft’s not too deep. Or we could just jump and fly down,” Arthur suggested.
“Ha, flying works. I had Jackie pack rappelling gear—we’ll use the shaft.”

She patted the large pack on Jackie’s back, salvaged from the car that the Drone had shredded to scrap.
“Jackie, you stay topside and cover us. Then haul us back up when it’s time to retreat.”

By then, they had reached the elevator doors.
V pulled a palm-sized red charge from Jackie’s pack and slapped it against the metal.
She signaled for the others to step back.

Arthur didn’t need to ask. He knew the setup instantly—once it had been train tracks, now it was elevator doors.

Ten seconds later, a sharp bang echoed. The doors were gone, leaving only a few swaying steel cables.
A deep red glow rose from the shaft below.

“How deep is it?” Arthur asked casually.
“Couple hundred meters,” V answered from behind.

Arthur’s expression hardened.
“I can’t actually fly.”

Before he could say more, something small was shoved into his hand.
A reel, a hook, a strap. V didn’t explain—she didn’t need to. Arthur knew what it was for.

She was already strapping hers on.
“Move it. We don’t have time.”

Arthur followed suit.
“David, you stay up here with Jackie. Watch over Lucy.”

David’s eyes lit up.
“I can do it!”
“Forget it, David. You’re staying here.
This place isn’t safe—those guys we drew off could come back any second. Jackie will need cover.”

Arthur pressed a hand on his shoulder.
“As for your mom—trust me. I don’t promise things often. But this one’s on me.”

Then he went back to tightening his gear.
“And Rebecca, you—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Rebecca was already rigged, standing at the edge of the shaft, reaching for the dangling steel cables as if the hundred-meter drop meant nothing.
She looked utterly fearless, her nerve seemingly forged from iron.

Hearing her name, she turned, wide-eyed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”

Arthur secured the last strap, strode over, and pulled her back a few steps.
“V, I hope this thing works.”

He glanced down into the shaft, swallowing hard.
The crimson lights stretched downward until they shrank to a pinprick.

“Damn, that’s deep. What are they, drilling for oil?”
V patted him on the back and chuckled.
“Nuke-proof lab. Of course it’s deep.”

Using the cables, the three of them rappelled down.
As V had said, most of the security was focused aboveground—meaning Jackie and David faced more danger than they did.

Iron hooks screeched against the steel cables, spitting sparks. Each hook had a nut that could be tightened to slow the descent.

Dropping fast, Arthur, leading the way, soon spotted the twisted elevator doors lying below.
Near the bottom, he tightened the nut—sparks burst as his boots hit solid ground.

When the others landed, Arthur shoved the broken doors aside, revealing the car’s top hatch.
V rubbed her hands, eyes fixed on the hatch.
“Finally.”

She turned to Arthur.
“Use your rifle.
The heat from Achilles rounds will pierce it clean—no ricochets.”

“But it’s not as reliable as you think.”

Arthur swung the rifle from his back, only to see it looked fine.
“What the hell? It shut down earlier—the sight was gibberish. I thought it was done for.”
“The EMP just rebooted it. A main battle rifle doesn’t break that easy—especially not Militech’s flagship tech.”

Arthur shrugged, gripping the weapon as its familiar vibration hummed back to life.

“Whumm!”

A glowing hexagon burned through the cover plate.
A few more shots, and the plate clattered to the ground.

Next, V planted another charge and blew the doors below.
From their perch on the car, the three felt the tremor beneath their feet before staring into the hollow void beyond.

The lab’s power was out.
Something was lurking in the shadows.

“Looks like that bastard Bain’s holed up,” V sneered.
“But hunting rats is my specialty.”

Arthur frowned.
“Who?”
“Bain. The director here. A complete piece of trash.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes.
“Bane Linton?”

V blinked at his reaction.
“What? You know him? I pulled the data through corporate channels.”
“Me?
Jackie and I already killed a Bain Linton.
Idiot had a jellyfish in his skull.”

Arthur’s voice was grim. A coincidence? He doubted it.

“Ghosts, huh. Wonder if they’re bulletproof.”

Rebecca pulled out her pistol and twirled it eagerly.
She wasn’t nervous in the slightest.

V chuckled, ruffling her hair.
“Who cares what kind of ghost it is? Nothing in this world shrugs off bullets.
If it does, it just means the bullets aren’t big enough.”

Leaving the eerie thought behind, V flicked on a lamp, and they stepped inside.
The beam cut through the dark, bouncing off porcelain-white floors and flooding the corridor with light.

Keeping hidden wasn’t an option—they couldn’t stumble through blind. If there were traps, it would get them killed.

They advanced carefully, the light sweeping every corner.

The corridor was wide, walls pristine white.
Idle medical carts lined the passage, some messy, others neatly arranged, as if abandoned mid-task.
Like everyone had simply vanished in the middle of a workday.

Rows of silver doors stood on either side, marked only with numbers, offering no clue of what lay beyond.
Arthur and the others didn’t bother checking them one by one. The strange silence ahead kept them sharp.

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