Chapter 20: Occupied

Outside the gates, the mountain plateaus were quiet once more, save for the pouring rain washing the blood of the fallen down the rockfaces.

Inside the eight bunkers, the internal cameras showed the survivors collapsing onto the clean floors of the residential halls. Some were drinking greedily from the automated water fountains, some were raiding the emergency ration cabinets, and others were applying sterile bandages to their wounds, laughing and crying in pure relief.

They thought they had won.

They thought they had survived the hardest trial of their lives.

Commander Croft leaned closer to Julius’s chair, his voice low. "All eight sites are locked, sir. Exactly two hundred and forty metahumans are now contained within the secondary network."

"And the ones who arrived late?" Julius asked, his gaze drifting to the corners of the screens.

On the Canadian feed, two more figures had just crawled up the muddy trail, panting and bleeding. When they saw the sealed titanium door and the screen reading [PERMANENTLY SEALED], one of them dropped his head against the cold metal and began pounding on it with his bare fists until his knuckles tore open.

No one answered. The door was six feet of solid armor plate.

"They won’t survive the night," Croft said quietly. "They used every ounce of their energy to climb those mountains. With no shelter, no food, and the rain still falling, hypothermia will take them before morning."

"Good," Julius said.

He set his empty wine glass on the tray, picked up his smartphone from the table, and unlocked the screen.

He opened the [World Chat].

The channel was eerily quiet. Only a few scattered messages appeared from the desperate souls who had arrived too late:

— [LoneWolf]: The door is locked! Open the fucking door! I’m outside! I can hear you guys in there! OPEN IT!

— [Swift]: They won’t open it. The screen says maximum capacity. It’s over for us.

— [ShadowStep]: I have nowhere else to go... the water is already up to the foothills... it’s so cold...

Julius didn’t bother typing a reply.

He backed out of the chat and opened his private management app: [Project Sirens: Master Override Console].

Eight glowing green tiles filled the screen, each representing one of the continental bunkers. Beneath each tile was a list of system controls:

[REGIONAL NODE 01 - CANADIAN SHIELD] - OCCUPANTS DETECTED: 30 - PRIMARY BULKHEAD : SEALED (REMOTE LOCK ACTIVE) - POWER GRID : RUNNING (SMR 100%) - ATMOSPHERIC LOOP : NORMAL - EMERGENCY VENTING : STANDBY - HALON SUPPRESSION : STANDBY

The exact same status read across all eight sites. Two hundred and forty of the strongest, most ruthless survivors of the Trial were gathered together in eight neat, tidy boxes, separated from the rest of the world by mountains and miles of steel.

Julius leaned his head back against the soft leather headrest.

A faint, cold smirk spread across his lips.

"Everything is in place," Julius whispered to himself.

He didn’t press the purge button yet.

Let them eat the fresh bread. Let them drink the clean water. Let them sleep in the dry beds and believe, for just a few days, that they had found salvation.

Hope was a fragile thing. And when you rip it away from someone who thinks they’ve already won, the despair is so much sweeter.

Julius tapped his phone off, slid it into the pocket of his robe, and closed his eyes to rest.

Outside, the endless rain continued to drown the world.

Down in the deep rock, the king of the new era slept in peace.