?The path didn't exist.

  It was an imaginary line traced through the thick briars.

  Abby paved the way without looking back, a silent bulldozer. Theo brought up the rear, clutching his bandaged arm tight against his chest, checking over his shoulder every ten meters with the paranoia of someone expecting a bullet in the back of the neck.

  ?Tony, Alex, and Cristy weren't walking. They were stumbling.

  Tony wiped a hand across his face. He felt the crust of dried mud on his cheek and froze.

  He checked his watch. 9:00 PM.

  "My dad gets home in half an hour," he said. His voice came out broken, meaningless. "He'll find the house empty. The garage door open."

  ?Abby didn't slow down. "Save your breath."

  ?"No, wait," Tony stopped, grabbing a branch to keep from falling. The panic, the real kind, hit him only now. Not the fear of dying, but the certainty of the bureaucratic end of his existence. "Lydia has our names. Will she go to them? If my father..."

  ?"If you stop, you're making Lydia's job easier," Theo interrupted, pushing him forward with his good hand. No empathy, just time management. "Move. We are behind schedule."

  ?"At least tell us where we're going!" Alex yelled. He was pale, sweating. His mother's energy had faded, leaving him empty as a shell, but with a latent hunger starting to claw at his stomach. "We're in the middle of nowhere. There's just the flooded quarry."

  ?"Stop whining," Theo growled. "We didn't save you to hear you complain. We retrieved you because you were a security breach."

  ?Cristy spun around. Her hands were shaking so hard they made her hoodie sleeves vibrate.

  "A breach?" she repeated, voice cracking with hysteria. "I just... I went inside a man's head. I made him shoot his friends. I feel like I have his sweat on me, his mind..." She rubbed her arms violently, as if trying to tear off contaminated skin. "And you're talking about security?"

  ?Abby stopped. She turned and shined her tactical light right in Cristy's face, blinding her.

  "You made a mess, kid. That's what you did," Abby said, ice-cold. "You violated the Tower Alpha perimeter. You lured TerraCore to the source. You are unstable assets that we need to contain."

  ?"We didn't know anything!" Tony shouted.

  "Exactly. You are ignorant and dangerous. If it were up to me, I would have left you there. But Command wants you alive for analysis." Theo spat on the ground. "So shut up and walk. You are refugees, not guests."

  ?They resumed marching. The silence was worse than the shouting.

  Alex sidled up to Tony. "I'm not going back home, am I? I won't see her again." He was talking about his mother.

  Tony didn't answer. His eyes darted through the dark, mentally mapping the reverse route, looking for landmarks that weren't there.

  ?"We're here," Abby announced.

  ?They stopped in a dead end of the old quarry.

  In front of them was just a vertical wall of gray granite, a hundred feet high. Moss, rock, end of the road.

  ?"What?" Alex looked around, eyes wide. "It's a wall. We're trapped."

  "Christ, they brought us here to kill us," Cristy whispered, backing up until she bumped into Theo.

  ?Abby didn't answer. She walked toward the wall.

  She didn't slow down.

  Tony went to scream "Stop!", but the words died in his throat.

  Abby impacted the rock. But there was no sound of breaking bones.

  Her figure sizzled, like a corrupted video file. She became transparent, vibrated for a second, and then... vanished. Swallowed by the stone.

  ?"Where did she go?" Alex yelled. "Where the hell is she?"

  ?"Cloaking barrier," Theo cut him off. He pushed them toward the wall. "Inside. Now."

  ?"It's solid rock!" Tony dug his heels in. His reptilian brain rejected the idea of walking into a wall.

  ?"Either you go in, or you stay here and explain to Lydia why you're still alive. Your choice," Theo barked.

  ?Tony looked at the wall. He looked at Theo, who had the face of someone who wasn't joking and a hand ready to shove him.

  He swallowed.

  "Let's go," he told the others, trembling.

  He stepped closer. Now he could hear the hum. Static electricity. Ozone.

  He closed his eyes and took a step into nothingness.

  ?The crossing was brutal.

  It wasn't magical. It was like being crushed at the bottom of the ocean in a split second.

  Tony felt his ears pop from the sudden pressure. The world flipped upside down.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Violent vertigo threw him off balance, his stomach twisting into a tight knot.

  He stumbled, unable to stand, and crashed onto gravel, gasping like a fish out of water.

  ?"Up," Theo's voice ordered. "Breathe slowly. Or you'll pass out."

  ?Tony wiped his mouth with his sleeve and raised his head, trying to focus on a world that was still spinning wildly.

  He expected a dark cave.

  Instead, the world had exploded into impossible light.

  ?There was no forest.

  They were in an immense garden of unreal, synthetic beauty.

  Orbs of warm light floated in mid-air, wireless, illuminating beds of night-blooming flowers that looked like velvet. There were white marble fountains where water flowed upward in crystalline spirals, defying gravity with hypnotic elegance.

  ?But the building dominated everything.

  A colossal, magnificent Victorian mansion.

  Five stories of red brick glowing under that strange light, ten-foot-tall gothic windows reflecting the landscape like black diamonds, wrought iron balconies worked like lace.

  It wasn't oppressive. It was a masterpiece. It looked like a palace plucked from a dream, suspended in time.

  Above them, the sky wasn't black. It was deep purple, electric, absolutely starless. A ceiling of liquid amethyst that screamed "alien."

  ?To the left towered a massive steeple. And in place of the bell, there was a golden toroid, smaller and more refined than the one in the mine.

  It pulsed. Thum-thum-thum.

  ?Alex recoiled sharply, tucking his hands under his armpits and squeezing them against his chest, terrified.

  The air here was saturated, thick like electric syrup. He felt the ambient energy pressing against his skin and was absolutely terrified to touch anything, afraid his hands would start drinking that charged atmosphere on their own like they had with his mother.

  "There's too much stuff here..." he whispered, voice strangled.

  ?Cristy, beside him, wasn't looking at the mansion. She was pressing her palms to her temples, squinting hard.

  It wasn't vertigo. It was noise.

  Behind those red brick walls, there was no silence. There were hundreds of active minds. A buzzing, confused, stratified psychic hive pressing against her forehead like a hot needle, without asking permission.

  "It's too many..." she moaned, unable to shield herself. "They're all in there. They're all screaming at once."

  ?"Vibrational shock," Abby said, looking them up and down with clinical coldness. "You went from a base frequency to a high one without decompression."

  ?She pointed to the majestic building with a sharp nod.

  "That is Headquarters. The District Chief is waiting for you."

  ?Tony forced himself to stand straight, ignoring the nausea. His eyes didn't seek the beauty of the garden, but ran along the perimeter walls: too high, no visible gate, exit blocked by the barrier.

  We're in a box, he thought coldly. And I have no idea how to open it.

  ?"Do you... live here?" he asked aloud, calculating distances.

  ?"We stay in the field. This is just where they give us targets," Theo cut short.

  He pushed Tony toward the white gravel path.

  "Now move."

  ?Tony wiped his mouth one last time.

  He crossed the threshold of the massive oak door, leaving the real world behind and stepping into that impossible wonder, aware he had just entered a gilded prison.

  ?The interior wasn't a shelter. It was a temple dedicated to a forgotten war.

  The atrium opened up to a ceiling so high that shadows ate the top, hiding the dark beams.

  The walls weren't wallpapered; they were a military archive. Huge faded frescoes covered every inch, depicting battle scenes that didn't exist in history books.

  Tony, walking while trying not to make noise with his muddy boots, analyzed the images coldly: soldiers in 19th-century uniforms holding weapons connected to backpacks full of tubes; hooded figures manipulating the air, surrounded by halos of oxidized gold leaf.

  It's not decoration, Tony thought, memorizing the details of the painted weapons. It's an instruction manual.

  ?They reached the foot of a mahogany staircase, wide enough for five people to walk up abreast. The handrails were carved in the shape of stylized lightning bolts.

  As they climbed, the atmosphere changed. It became dense, electric.

  The second-floor corridor looked like a manic collector's warehouse. Along the walls were dozens of niches protected by thick glass. Inside, on black velvet cushions, rested raw quartz crystals the size of fists.

  They pulsed.

  Purple light, burnt orange, electric blue. There were no lightbulbs; the stones were illuminating the hallway.

  ?Alex flattened himself in the center of the carpet, far from the walls. He pulled his hoodie sleeves down over his fingers, clutching his fists to his chest. He could feel the hunger of those crystals, or perhaps their fullness. He was terrified that if he brushed against the glass, his "thirst" would reactivate, draining that pulsing light just like he had with his mother. He held his breath, trying to make himself small.

  ?Cristy, on the other hand, closed her eyes for an instant, staggering.

  To her, those crystals weren't lamps. They were recorded screams. Every pulse was a trapped emotion scratching at her mind.

  White noise, she thought, trying to erect a mental wall she didn't know how to build. Too much noise.

  ?At the end of the corridor, the way was barred by a double door of dark wood, ten feet high, engraved with schematics that looked like electrical circuits superimposed on alchemical symbols.

  Abby stopped. Her posture changed instantly: shoulders back, chin up, absolute rigidity. She adjusted her jacket collar with a nervous gesture that betrayed reverent fear.

  She turned to them, bringing a finger to her lips.

  Then she knocked.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Three sharp raps. A code, not a request.

  ?The door opened inward, silent and heavy.

  The office was immense, lit by an amber glow coming from dozens of glass tubes lined up on shelves, inside which luminous gases swirled in a hypnotic loop. The air smelled of ozone and wood wax.

  Everywhere there were leather-bound books and machines of copper and brass: spirals, floating spheres, small toroids buzzing like mechanical insects.

  ?But the threat was at the far end of the room.

  A figure stood before the enormous window overlooking the park, hands clasped behind his back, motionless as a statue.

  Tony stopped ten feet from the ebony desk. His eyes scanned the environment with icy automatism: windows sealed, no blunt objects within reach. Only escape route: the door behind them.

  ?Abby snapped to attention. Her heels made a dry click on the inlaid parquet.

  "Director. Immediate report," she said. It was a soldier reporting to a general. "Extraction complete. Subjects were intercepted at the Tower Alpha perimeter. Lydia Vance and the TerraCore recovery team were engaged and temporarily neutralized."

  She took a breath, stiffening.

  "However, the enemy acquired visual contact. Lydia Vance confirmed the identity of the three subjects. The targets are burned. Repeat: civilian covers are blown."

  ?The figure at the window didn't move a millimeter. He watched the purple sky outside the glass.

  "Received," said a deep, calm voice that filled the room without needing to raise the volume. It was a voice used to giving orders that determined life or death. "Thank you, Abigail. You may go now. Leave me alone with them."

  ?Abby hesitated for a fraction of a second. She met Tony's gaze—an indecipherable flash, perhaps apology, perhaps pity—then Cristy's and Alex's.

  "Sir, yes sir."

  She did an about-face. She and Theo left the room.

  The door closed with a heavy, definitive clack. The sound of a lock snapping shut.

  ?The silence that followed was solid.

  Alex stared at his muddy shoes, trying not to breathe the electrically charged air. Cristy huddled in her shoulders, feeling the mental "pressure" of that man's back like a physical weight on her chest.

  Tony remained motionless, hands at his sides, ready for anything, even if he didn't know what.

  A full minute passed.

  The ticking of a grandfather clock counted down the time remaining in their lives.

  ?The man's hands, clasped behind his back, twitched. A single muscular jerk, sharp. The knuckles turned white, as if he were strangling someone's neck, while the rest of his body remained still.

  ?Then, without turning around, the District Chief spoke.

  "Anthony Flint..."

  The voice was low, meditative, in stark contrast to the violence of that grip.

  "The son of Sarah Hedges. The traitor."

  Author’s Note ??