Ep 21 - Underground

The forest was thick with mist. Crickets and distant thunder filled the silence. Low red lights of a hidden perimeter flickered faintly through the trees. Two blacked-out vans idled beneath camouflage tarps. Milena checked the engines quietly while Williams scanned the treeline with NVGs. Trella crouched over a map projected on Talia’s laptop. The faint blue glow illuminated a dozen grim faces. Michelle stood at Trella’s shoulder, trying to steady her breathing.

“Entry points are minimal,” Trella said quietly. “The main gate’s suicide. Motion detectors, cameras and a kill-zone crossfire.”

Talia tapped the keyboard, thermal overlays flickered across the map. “South perimeter has two roving patrols. The north side has a service door. Least coverage, but it’s badge-locked.”

“I’ll take the first patrol,” Katya said calmly.

Aya’s grin flashed in the dim light. “And I’ll eat the second.”

Samira flicked open a pouch of shaped charges, her eyes gleamed with anticipation.

“No loud entries yet,” Trella cut in, firm. “We need intel before anything explodes.” Her gaze shifted to Michelle. “You’re on my six. You follow orders. No improvising.”

Michelle nodded quickly. “Understood.”

Williams handed Trella a comm unit. “We’ll be here. If things go bad, you run back this way. Milena and I will cover your retreat.”

***

The Fangs crawled belly-low through pine needles. Drizzle slicked their gear. In the distance, faint electric hum and the whir of a generator carried through the woods. Katya and Aiko vanished into the darkness, ghosting toward the nearest guard posts. Aya and Amelie angled wide, setting up a diversion route. The others slithered toward the north service door. A muffled thwip—Katya’s suppressed rifle. A soft grunt—Aiko’s blade work. Two silhouettes collapsed soundlessly.

“Patrols down,” Talia whispered over comms. “Camera disabled. You’re clear.”

The service door clicked open after Samira worked her improvised pick. The door slid silently. A sterile hallway stretched into darkness.

“Go,” Trella whispered. “Slow.”

The team slipped inside. The faint echo of distant machinery vibrated through the floor. Somewhere below, something was very much alive. Every footstep echoed like a gunshot. Trella signaled a halt with a clenched fist. Maya slipped forward scanning corners with her MP5.

“Two cameras ahead,” Maya murmured after slipping forward. “Overlapping arcs. Someone’s working late.”

A shadow moved at the far end of the hall. A lone oblivious worker in coveralls with earbuds in walked by. An electronic keycard was dangling from his neck.

“Perfect,” Trella said. “Mei-Ling. Aiko. Quiet grab.”

In a blur of motion, Aiko stepped out of the darkness, one hand over the worker’s mouth, while Mei-Ling’s kukri rested cold against his throat. “Don’t scream. Blink twice if you understand.”

The terrified worker blinked twice. Liza pulled the badge from around his neck and pocketed the keycard. Aya smiled softly. “Our golden ticket.”

Aiko used a zip-tie to bind and gag the worker, leaving him unconscious behind a supply cabinet. The stolen keycard opened a bulkhead door with a muted beep. Beyond was a wider industrial hallway, security cameras blinking in every corner. Trella gestured for Talia to stay tight.

“The deeper we go, the more encrypted traffic I’m seeing,” Talia said quietly, checking her detector. “There’s a whole secure network under our feet.”

Michelle said softly: “They’re moving a lot of data. This isn’t just an assembly line.”

A low, mechanical whine vibrates through the floor, rising and falling like distant breathing.

“And listen—” Maya muttered. “—something big’s running below.”

The Fangs snaked along the wall, twelve shadows moving as one. The keycard granted them access again. Another beep, another door slid open. Through a small observation window ahead rows of sealed cargo crates stamped SIMCOR COMPONENTS could be seen. A single motion-activated camera scanned the room methodically.

“That’s confirmation. We’re in the right place,” Trella said under her breath.

Michelle swallowed hard. “This is bigger than Atlanta.”

The girls fanned out, slipping deeper into the labyrinth of corridors.

The metal steps creaked under twelve careful sets of boots. Lights cast the walls in a cold, pale glow as the Fangs descended.

“Level zero’s clear,” Trella said. “No chatter unless vital.”

“Feels like the basement of hell down here,” Aya muttered.

Michelle stayed close to Trella, laptop hugged to her chest, the stolen badge looped around her wrist.

Talia checked her scanner. “Signal strength’s spiking. Whatever they don’t want anyone to see, it’s below.”

The team halted at a heavy blast door labeled SUBLEVEL –1 ACCESS. A security camera swept the stairwell behind them. Close, but not on their side yet. Mei-Ling slipped the badge into the reader; a green light blinked. The Fangs swept through dim hallways lined with humming pipes and flickering strip lights. Their boots made only whispers on the concrete.

“Eyes sharp,” Trella whispered. “We grab intel before anything goes loud.”

Maya signaled an unlocked side door ahead. “Unsecured. That’s either a trap or a gift.”

“Let’s take the gift,” Trella said.

A cramped space with three active monitors, a half-empty coffee mug and a humming server stack. Michelle’s eyes widened. “The system’s still logged in!”

Talia’s fingers twitched with anticipation. “We need network credentials. Let’s—”

The door creaked. A white-coated technician stepped back in and froze at the sight of twelve armed teenagers.

“Wrong place, wrong time, buddy,” Aya growled.

The girls yanked him inside, shoved him against a cabinet and pointed weapons at him.

“Y-you can’t be—” he stammered.

Amelie stepped forward, the muzzle of her BAR lifting his chin. Her grin was wide, unhinged, almost playful. “Oh, we can be. Key. Now.”

His courage evaporated. He logged them in with shaking hands. Michelle and Talia dived onto the terminals. “We’re in. Pulling schematics and shipment logs.”

“Grabbing research files. This is… oh my God. Neural grafts, hybrid protocols… Schmidt’s making soldiers that heal like monsters.”

Michelle plugged her laptop into the port. The progress bar hit 67%. Suddenly the monitors flashed red: NETWORK BREACH DETECTED – SECURITY LOCKDOWN. Sirens howled through the sublevel; lights turned crimson.

“We’re cut off!” Talia snapped.

Michelle yanked the cable free. “Got most of it. It’s enough.”

Trella cracked the tech on the temple with a rifle butt. He crumpled unconscious. “That’s it. No more sneaking.”

Aya cocked her grenade launcher with a satisfied click. “Finally.”

“Schmidt’s plans end tonight,” Trella continued. “We blow the whole place.”

The girls shouldered weapons. The raid is no longer silent. The sirens continued their wail as the Fangs poured out of the computer room and toward a wide industrial corridor. Sparks flickered from the disabled elevator panel. Aiko’s blade severed the control wires moments ago.

“Elevator’s dead,” Maya whispered over comms. “The only way out is the stairs.”

“Good,” Trella replied. “No one runs. No one calls for backup topside.”

The hallway opened into a vast warehouse. Towering shelves stacked with cybernetic limbs, fiber coils, servo motors, crates of surgical steel. A squad of SimCor security soldiers in dark tack-gear scrambled for weapons. Gunfire erupted. The Fangs fanned out: Katya took the sniper angle behind shelving, Amelie shouldered her BAR, Aya swept the left flank with grenades. Sparks showered from ricochets; crates splintered under bursts of gunfire. Samira whipped a flashbang around a corner blinding the soldiers. Mei-Ling spun a rope dart around a crate corner, hitting one guard. Trella led a tight push down the central aisle, Michelle stayed low behind her while Talia kept her pistol drawn but mostly covered Michelle. Maya vaulted over a pallet, landed on a guard’s back and used his own rifle to drop another. Liza tossed a small gas ampule, forcing a pair of guards out of cover and into Amelie’s sight. Within moments the warehouse was a ruin of overturned crates and sparking equipment. One surviving guard dived for a wall alarm, but Aiko pinned his hand to the panel with her short blade before finishing him silently.

“All of this…” Talia breathed. “It’s enough for an army.”

Michelle checked her laptop. “And this is only spare hardware. The real nightmare is deeper.”

“Then deeper we go,” Trella said.

The team tightened formation, weapons ready and started toward the stairwell marked SUBLEVEL –2 – RESEARCH.

The Fangs descended in silence. The air here felt different. Sterile and chilled, humming with the faint buzz of servers. Frosted-glass partitions revealed long rows of terminals, workbenches, and delicate surgical instruments. Holo-screens glowed with anatomical schematics: human spines overlaid with carbon frameworks.

A pair of SimCor soldiers patrolled near a secured lab door. Aya silently signaled two fingers forward. Trella nodded. Aiko glided behind one, blade flashing. Aya tackled the second before he could shout. Both fell without a sound. The squad entered the main corridor. Behind one panel of glass white-coated researchers frantically copied files, trying to secure drives.

“They’re locking data… and probably alerting everyone below,” Michelle said.

“If any of them escape, this whole nightmare starts again,” Talia added quietly.

“We stop it here.” Trella snapped.

The researchers froze as the barrel of Amelie’s BAR shattered the glass with a deafening crack. “Hands where I can see them!”

Some complied, trembling. One older scientist lunged for a hidden pistol and Anya gunned him down instantly. The others stared in horror. Michelle lowered her weapon slightly, her face was pale, but she forced herself forward. “You built monsters out of children.”

The room became silent. Aya slinged her SMG, her expression was hard but heavy. “We can’t let this spread. Not to anyone.”

Michelle swallowed hard and finally nodded. “ …Do it.”

The Fangs swept the labs methodically. Servers smashed, drives pocketed or wiped. They moved room to room, disabled cameras, cut power to critical machines and left explosives in key corners.

A frightened young tech tried to run, but Liza intercepted him, her P90 hissed softly. The team secured the remaining researchers, bound them and left them on the floor. They regrouped at the central corridor door leading to SUBLEVEL –3 – ASSEMBLY.

“No going back. Let's finish the job,” Trella said coldly.

The stairwell door creaked as they descended toward the lowest level, where the true horror awaited. The door opened to a cavernous chamber humming with pumps and life-support machinery. Tubes snaked from massive nutrient tanks, inside half-formed cyborgs floated limply in pale green fluid. The Fangs fanned out cautiously, weapons raised. Trella gestured two fingers—advance slow.

Suddenly, overhead lights flared and through a bulletproof glass observation deck, they saw Dr. Johann Schmidt flanked by two suited VIPs: an older defense contractor and a stern CIA deputy director. Their expressions were a mixture of shock and fury.

Schmidt’s voice purred over the intercom. “Well… the prodigals return. I’d hoped Sung’s demise would buy me more time. Clearly, I underestimated you.”

Michelle caught sight of the CIA brass. She realized just how high this goes. She whispered… “Oh my god… Dad’s boss.”

The VIPs vanished behind a closing blast door. Schmidt smirked one last time and slammed a control panel. A deep mechanical hiss filled the hall. One of the largest biotanks vented its fluid violently. A half-finished cyborg dropped to the wet floor, steaming and dripping, its synthetic eye flickered to life. Its movements were jerky at first, but stabilized rapidly. It turned its head toward the girls.

“Fresh out of the tank…” Aiko breathed.

“…and already wants to kill us,” Aya finished.

The cyborg lunged, moving with terrifying speed despite its incomplete form. Trella’s shotgun blast staggered it but didn't drop it. Amelia’s BAR rattled, sparks flew as rounds glanced off reinforced plating. Mei-Ling darted in with her kukri, scoring a shallow slash before being thrown across the floor. The Fangs were forced to scatter, using columns for cover. The cyborg backhanded Anya, sending her skidding. Aiko dived low, slicing its knee and momentarily crippling its balance.

Trella yelled. “Hit the joints and optics!”

Amelie drove her scythe through a weak point in her shoulder and quickly evaded; Aya followed with a grenade launcher round at point-blank blowing off an arm. She rose again, sparking, but slower now. Aiko finished it with a swift blade strike to the skull’s weak seam. The cyborg spasmed, collapsed and lay still, fluid pooled beneath it.

The Fangs stood, breathing heavily, bruised and scraped but alive.

“They’re building monsters faster now,” Trella said grimly.

They exchanged weary but determined glances. The destroyed cyborg steamed at their feet as the blast door to Schmidt’s inner lab sealed tight below. The door hummed with electronic locks. Aya stomped forward, snarling. She grabbed the access console, muscles straining and ripped it clean from the wall. Wires dangeled like torn veins. Sparks showered across the floor. “Door problem solved.”

Talia slid beside the exposed wiring, her fingers were a blur as she hotwired the circuits. Sparks flickered, then a satisfying hiss of hydraulics. The blast door opened.

Inside was a sterile command lab filled with glowing monitors and surgical tables. Schmidt, the CIA deputy director and the contractor turned toward them. The deputy’s hand went to his shoulder holster and drew a gun. “Don’t—!”

Too late. Liza, Amelie, and Anya unloaded in perfect sync. The deputy was shredded in a heartbeat. Armor-piercing rounds tore him apart, his pistol clattered uselessly to the floor.

The unarmed contractor froze, trembling.

Michelle whispered. “He… he can’t walk out of here.”

Aiko stepped forward in silence, sword flashed. One precise arc and the contractor’s head tumbled free, rolling across the sterile tiles.

Schmidt staggered back, chest heaving, a desperate, psychotic grin stretched across his face. “You can’t stop progress. You can’t stop science. And don’t forget, you crawled out of a test tube, too.”

Trella leveled her shotgun, her eyes were cold as winter steel. “This isn’t progress. And you’re worse than the monsters who made us. Time to take a deep breath… through your big-ass forehead.”

The BOOM of Trella’s shotgun at point-blank filled the lab. Schmidt’s body crumpled, the wall behind him painted red. Silence fell, broken only by the drip of fluids and the distant alarms. The Fangs exchanged grim looks. No celebration, only the heavy weight of what they’ve just done. Trella lowered her shotgun. Her hands trembled almost imperceptibly. Aya’s fierce mask slipped. Even Amelie’s grin was gone. The room felt heavier than any firefight.

Michelle whispered. “We… We crossed a line tonight.”

Trella's voice was steady as steel. “We crossed it the second they came after us.”