Chapter 28 - THE MOUNTAIN BEGINS TO COLLAPSE
The facility’s evacuation alarms began.
Concrete dust fell from the ceiling.
Elias accessed the internal security map.
“Charges are detonating along the upper support tunnels.”
“Teresa?” Evelyn asked.
“No,” Elias said. “External command.”
Teresa’s fear deepened.
“You don’t understand. The sponsors are erasing the project.”
“Who are they?” I demanded.
She looked toward the ceiling as another explosion struck.
“The Continuity Council.”
Adrian pulled himself upright despite the blood soaking his shirt.
“Names.”
“They don’t use names.”
“Everyone uses names.”
Teresa’s mouth tightened.
“Government ministers. pharmaceutical executives. defense contractors. technology founders. They funded different parts without understanding the whole.”
“They understand enough to bury hundreds of people,” I said.
Elias displayed the medical wing.
Locked doors prevented the subjects from escaping.
I moved to the main console.
“Can we open every room?”
“Yes,” Elias said. “But emergency power will fail in nine minutes.”
Evelyn contacted her extraction team.
Road access had collapsed.
Only the water intake remained open.
It could not carry hundreds of weak patients.
“We need another exit,” I said.
Adrian pointed toward the original architectural plan.
“There was a rail system beneath the eastern laboratory.”
“I saw no rail access,” Elias said.
“Because Teresa sealed it after Daniel used it to remove Connor.”
Teresa stared at Adrian.
“You knew?”
“You never found the tunnel because I deleted it before you took control.”
We moved toward the eastern laboratory.
Amy insisted on walking, but her legs failed after ten steps. I carried her while Elias guided the waking subjects through the corridor.
Some could barely speak.
Others panicked at the open doors.
They had lived for years under medication and conditioning.
Evelyn’s people organized them into groups.
At the sealed rail entrance, Adrian entered an old engineering code.
Nothing happened.
Teresa laughed weakly.
“I changed every code.”
Amy lifted her head from my shoulder.
“Not every code.”
She reached toward the keypad and entered her mother’s melody sequence.
The wall opened.
Beyond it stood three industrial transport trains on narrow tracks leading beneath the mountain.
Adrian stared at Amy.
“Your mother knew about this.”
“She knew more than any of you believed.”
We loaded patients into the first two trains.
Elias connected the third train to the emergency power grid.
Another explosion rocked the tunnel.
Teresa disappeared during the confusion.
I saw the open door leading back toward the core.
“She’s going for the archive,” Elias said.
“Let it burn.”
“The archive contains every sponsor identity.”
I handed Amy to Evelyn.
“Take everyone out.”
Amy grabbed my sleeve.
“Don’t follow her.”
“I need the names.”
“You need to live.”
I kissed her forehead.
“I plan to do both.”
Elias stepped beside me.
“I’m coming.”
We ran toward the collapsing core as the first evacuation train pulled away.
Behind us, Amy shouted my name.
May you like
Ahead, Teresa sealed the blast door.
📖 Connor chooses to pursue the sponsor archive, but Teresa has trapped herself inside the collapsing core with every secret behind her. 👇
