He took a step forward, his enhanced eyes cutting through the pitch-black corridor stretching infinitely in both directions. Even with his sight, the tunnel had no clear end. This place was deep. Deep enough that even time had likely forgotten about it.
Aurora stepped past him, her posture tense, her hand lingering near her sidearm. The faint glow of her violet eyes flickered in dim light coming from above, betraying her unease. James caught the shift in her demeanor immediately.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral but his senses sharp.
Aurora’s fingers curled slightly. “Be on alert. We don’t know what’s down here,” she murmured, scanning the tunnel as if expecting something to move in the darkness. “We lost contact with this facility when the bombs fell. Thought it was destroyed, just like the others. But last year… we picked up a signal.”
James arched a brow at that. “And you’re telling me this now? After we’re already inside?” His voice carried a touch of irritation, but he kept his focus on the shadows ahead.
Aurora glanced at him, unphased. “Because now you need to know. Laim didn’t.”
James exhaled through his nose, rubbing his jaw. Typical. SDS wasn’t known for transparency, even with their own operatives. “Alright,” he muttered, stepping forward as they began their trek down the metal walkway. “Since we’re sharing, mind telling me what exactly you guys were working on down here?”
Aurora was silent for a moment before she finally spoke. “Project Prometheus.”
James stopped mid-step, processing the name. He immediately ran a search through his implant, scanning through classified documents, old-world archives, and restricted files he had collected over the years.
Nothing.
That alone made his stomach tighten.
He had data on things no one should know about. Weapons projects, failed experiments, hidden war crimes from the old world—but this? This was a ghost.
That meant it was either buried too deep for even him to uncover… or it was deliberately erased.
His eyes narrowed. “What the hell is Project Prometheus?” he asked, his voice quieter now, more serious.
Aurora kept walking, her tone steady. “A highly advanced defense AI.”
James frowned. “A defense AI?”
“If it had been finished,” Aurora said, glancing at him, “Then about 85% of the nuclear warheads would have been intercepted before impact.”
James let out a low whistle. “Well, someone really dropped the ball on that one.”
Aurora’s lips thinned. “We were close. But war doesn’t wait for perfection.” She exhaled, her breath barely visible in the cold subterranean air. “By the time the system was ready for live implementation, it was already too late.”
James glanced at her, the gears in his head turning. “But isn’t it a little late for that now? What’s the point of a defense AI when there’s nothing left to defend?”
Aurora hesitated, and that small pause told James everything.
“That,” she said finally, “is something you don’t need to know.”
James scoffed. “Figured.” He didn’t push her further—not yet. But now, more than ever, he had the feeling that whatever they came here for wasn’t just about securing old-world tech. There was something bigger at play, something SDS wasn’t telling even their own people.
And that meant James wasn’t going to stick around here for too much longer. Maybe it's time to see florida.
James followed Aurora as they passed through the threshold of the heavy metal door, stepping from the raw, industrial tunnel into something entirely different. The contrast was stark. The facility beyond was pristine.
Unlike the cold, concrete halls outside, this section had the sterile, polished look of a high-tech research base that had somehow been untouched by time. White panels lined the walls, some flickering slightly from old age or battle damage. The air was cleaner, processed, controlled—artificial even. The smooth floors barely had a speck of dust, but the eerie silence made it feel abandoned in a way that was almost unnatural.
James’ eyes immediately scanned the walls, noting the scorch marks. Not just regular gunfire—these were plasma burns. The once-pristine white walls were marred by deep, molten streaks, the residual energy from the blasts still faintly visible.
He narrowed his eyes. “You guys were making plasma weapons?” he asked, glancing at Aurora.
She barely reacted, her expression calm. “Yes.”
James let out a low whistle. Plasma weaponry was supposed to have been a dead-end technology—far too unstable, too power-hungry for practical battlefield use. But if SDS had actually cracked the code.
“Let me guess,” he muttered, stepping over a scorch mark where the floor had melted from an impact. “Whatever happened here didn’t exactly stay in the testing phase?”
Aurora didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she ran a hand along a nearby panel, brushing off a layer of dust. “This isn’t good,” she finally said, her voice quieter than before. “All of the droids should be shut down.”
James stopped mid-step. “Excuse me droids?”
Aurora gave him a look. “This facility was meant to be fully automated. The only personnel were high-clearance engineers and security staff. Everything else was handled by defense drones.”
James exhaled sharply. “And let me guess those ‘defense drones’ had plasma rifles?”
Aurora nodded. “Among other things.”
James dragged a hand down his face. “Of course they did.”
He turned his focus back to the hallway ahead. It stretched long and straight, lined with doors on both sides—each marked with codes he didn’t recognize. Some were slightly ajar, while others remained tightly sealed, their digital locks flashing error messages. The damage wasn’t chaotic like in other ruined labs he had explored. No. This was methodical.
The further they walked, the more unnerving it became.
Doors that had been welded shut from the inside. Panels that had been ripped off walls, exposing gutted wiring.Some lights flickered erratically, but there was no sound—not even the hum of a still-active power source. It was like a corpse of a facility, perfectly preserved but completely lifeless.
At least, for now.
James’ grip tightened on his rifle.
The deeper they went, the worse it got.
They passed an open door leading into what looked like a security checkpoint. The sentries were gone, but the turrets above were melted—not shot down, melted—as if something had overridden their systems and turned them against one another.
Next, they found a room with shattered observation glass, its insides resembling a firing range or weapons testing chamber. The walls were riddled with scorch marks, the remains of something big having been torn apart inside. Half-melted mechanical limbs lay scattered across the ground, severed by something far hotter than standard weapons fire.
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Aurora stopped at a terminal, trying to boot it up. The screen flickered before shutting itself off.
James ran a hand over the table, brushing aside layers of dust and soot. The edges of the burned documents curled and crumbled at his touch, revealing fragmented words scorched into the paper. But among the wreckage, something else caught his eye—a tablet, half-buried under melted wires and shattered glass.
Carefully, he pulled it free. The screen flickered weakly as he tapped it, glitching with distorted text before stabilizing. He could barely make out the messages through the fractured display, but what he could see made his stomach sink.
- "Thanatos shutdown failed—Error Error"
- "Forced entry of Prometheus Core failed."
- "Thanatos lockdown failed."
- "AI Recalibration Failure—Do Not Proceed."
- "Lockdown Code Expired—Immediate Action Needed."
- "ERROR ERROR—Initiating Rogue AI Fail-safe."
- "ERROR ERROR—Self-Detonation overridden by nuclear detonation in DC."
- "ERROR ERROR—SYSTEMS DAMAGED. REPAIRS NEEDED—D3A7D—..."
James stared at the screen, his mind working through the implications. Then, without looking up, he spoke.
"What is Project Thanatos?"
Aurora was quiet for a moment, reading over his shoulder. Then, in a measured voice, she answered, "It was meant to be the other side of Prometheus. If Prometheus was a shield, Thanatos would’ve been the sword. But..." she hesitated, scanning the corrupted data, "...it wasn’t even close to completion."
James finally tore his gaze from the screen, his grip tightening on the tablet. "Then why does it look like Thanatos didn’t just survive—but took over?"
Aurora shook her head. "This doesn’t make sense," she murmured, mostly to herself.
James turned toward her fully now, eyes narrowing. "Let me ask the real question," he said. "Did you guys make a true AI?"
Aurora’s expression turned sharp in an instant. "No. Of course not," she said firmly. "Who would be that stupid?"
James exhaled slowly, but he didn’t believe her—not completely. The messages on the tablet painted a different picture. If Thanatos had been incomplete, then something had finished it. Something had let it out.
“So where is this Prometheus? I’d prefer to get out of here—” James started, but his instincts flared, cutting his words short.
In an instant, he grabbed Aurora and slammed her against the wall, shielding her with his body just as a plasma bolt ripped through the air where she had been standing a second ago. The energy blast sizzled past them, scorching the metal behind them.
Aurora barely had time to process what had happened. One second, she was standing freely; the next, her back was against cold steel, James pressed close, his arm braced against the wall beside her head. The sudden impact knocked the breath from her lungs, leaving her stunned for just a heartbeat too long.
James didn’t hesitate—he turned and fired back, his HK416 barking in controlled bursts as he engaged the unseen threat. Aurora, however, was still locked on the moment before the gunfire.
She had been taken by surprise.
Her.
She never got caught off guard.
And yet, in that instant, James had moved faster than she had. Reacted before she even registered the danger.
Her violet eyes flicked up to him, catching the glow behind his sunglasses, the sheer focus carved into his expression. He wasn’t just acting on impulse. How fast does his mind work?
Something stirred deep in her gut, a feeling she didn't have time to analyze.
Instead, she smirked, masking it with sarcasm. “What, no dinner first?”
James barely spared her a glance. “Next time, duck faster,” he shot back before shifting his aim, putting down another hostile.
James was taken aback—these droids weren’t just humanoid, they were hulking monstrosities of metal and reinforced plating. Their frames were broad, standing nearly seven feet tall, with arms thick enough to rival industrial machinery. Their heads were sleek and featureless aside from a single, glowing red optic that flickered and scanned with eerie precision. Their joints moved with unsettling fluidity, a perfect blend of machine efficiency and combat adaptability.
And worst of all—they could take a hell of a beating.
James cursed under his breath as his rounds sparked uselessly against their armor. Even with full plasteel rounds, it took concentrated fire just to bring one of them down.
“There’s four of them left!” he called out, dropping to the floor for cover as Aurora raised her pistol and fired. Her shots punched into one of the droids, but it barely even staggered.
“Yeah, I noticed!” she shot back, dodging as one of the machines locked onto her and unleashed a barrage of plasma fire.
James rolled out of cover, raising his HK416 in one fluid motion. He aimed for the weak spots—the neck, the knee joints, anywhere the armor looked thinner. The rifle barked, and sparks erupted as he sheared the arm off one of the droids. The severed limb twitched on the ground, the machine still pushing forward undeterred.
Then, one of the droids rushed him.
Its massive metal fist slammed into the ground inches from James' head, denting the steel plating beneath it. He kicked off the floor, narrowly avoiding a follow-up strike, pivoting just in time to see **Aurora take a risky shot—**a perfect round straight into the optic of one of the droids.
The red light burst in a shower of sparks, and the machine collapsed with a heavy thud.
“Three left!” she called out, her voice carrying a competitive edge.
Another droid lunged, its arm swinging down like a hammer. James ducked under the strike, snapping his rifle up and firing point-blank into its exposed knee joint. The limb buckled under the force of the shot, and as it crumpled forward, James emptied the rest of his magazine into its skull. The second droid crashed to the floor, its systems going dark.
“Two more!”
Before they could regroup, one of the remaining droids lifted its arm, revealing a built-in Gauss cannon.
James’ stomach dropped.
“MOVE!” he yelled, grabbing Aurora’s wrist and yanking her aside just as the entire hallway behind them disintegrated in a violent explosion.
Chunks of metal and debris whipped past them as the gauss blast carved through steel like paper. The sheer force of the impact sent shockwaves through the facility, leaving nothing but a smoking crater where the corridor had been.
James hit the ground hard, coughing from the impact, his ears ringing. He turned his head toward Aurora, who was sprawled beside him, her hair singed from the heat.
James barely had time to process what had just happened before he shouted, "YOU GAVE THEM GAUSS CANNONS?!"
Aurora groaned, shaking dust out of her hair as she pushed herself up. "I DIDN’T COME UP WITH THIS!" she snapped back.
James let out a breath, brushing the dust from his shoulders as he slung his rifle over his back and drew his 1911 in one smooth motion. The two remaining droids locked onto him, their weapons charging again—but they never got the chance to fire.
Two thunderous shots rang out in quick succession.
The Durasteel armor-piercing rounds tore through the droids’ heads as if they were made of nothing more than reinforced paper. Their glowing optics flickered violently before shutting off completely, and with a final, mechanical groan, the machines collapsed into motionless heaps of metal.
James exhaled, spinning his pistol once before sliding it back into its holster.
Aurora, still dusting herself off from the shockwave of the gauss blast, gave him a look—one he couldn't quite place between disbelief and annoyance.
"You had the ability to do that this whole time?"
James shrugged, kicking at the smoking remains of one of the fallen droids. "They’re Durasteel armor-piercing rounds," he explained nonchalantly. "They cost a fortune, and I like to use them sparingly."
Aurora scoffed, shaking her head before muttering, "Unbelievable."
James ignored her tone, stepping forward to inspect the wreckage. The droids’ armor was charred from plasma fire and riddled with bullet holes, but it was what lay beneath that mattered. He crouched down, prying open a panel on one of them. The exposed circuits and inner components were unlike anything he'd ever seen.
He let out a low whistle. "These things weren’t just standard security units. They were combat models… and not the kind you throw into just any facility."
Aurora, standing behind him, crossed her arms. "We were testing a lot of shit."
James stood, cracking his neck before rolling his shoulders. "Then let’s find Prometheus."
They moved cautiously through the corridors, each turn revealing more destruction.
The deeper they ventured, the worse the damage became. Walls were torn open, massive gashes carved through solid metal like a predator had clawed through them. Overhead lights flickered erratically—some areas were completely swallowed in darkness.
A collapsed section of ceiling forced them to crawl through a narrow gap, twisted rebar and shattered glass making every movement dangerous. James gritted his teeth as he maneuvered through, his reinforced jacket ripping against jagged steel.
They passed more bodies some human, some machine.
A security checkpoint had been reduced to charred corpses and melted weapons. The stench of burned flesh and scorched circuits hung heavy in the air, making Aurora cover her nose with her sleeve.
"Looks like they made a last stand here," James muttered, nudging a half-destroyed turret with his boot. The weapon had overheated and fused into the floor, a testament to just how much firepower had been unleashed.
Aurora’s gaze swept over the scene. "And they still lost."
They pressed on, stepping into a central atrium.
The room was massive, filled with shattered terminals and ruined consoles. A holographic display flickered weakly,flashing distorted schematics and system errors across its surface.
Then James saw it.
A reinforced blast door stood at the far end of the atrium, its surface scarred with deep, jagged marks. The words etched into the steel plating sent a shiver down his spine.
PROJECT: PROMETHEUS CORE
James glanced at Aurora.
She was already moving forward.