Chapter 25: The Mountain Falls

Inside Site 3 in the Swiss Alps, the central recreation lounge was filled with the haze of sweet tobacco and the clatter of poker chips.

Bloodhound sat at the head of a mahogany card table, his shirt unbuttoned, a glass of amber scotch resting by his elbow. Across from him, Viper was casually shuffling a deck of plastic-coated playing cards, her nails clicking against the table.

"Raise fifty," a player with heavy scar tissue across his neck grunted, tossing two silver bullion bars into the center pot. "Come on, Bloodhound. Don’t tell me your super-senses can’t read a bluff."

"My senses tell me you’re holding garbage," Bloodhound smirked, leaning forward to match the bet. "Just like the garbage we left outside the front door three days ago."

The men around the table chuckled.

Suddenly, Bloodhound froze.

The glass of scotch on the table trembled. Tiny, concentric ripples formed on the surface of the amber liquid.

A fraction of a second later, the hair on the back of Bloodhound’s neck stood straight up. His golden, predatory pupils dilated until they swallowed his irises. A feeling of absolute, suffocating dread seized his chest, cold and paralyzing, like an icy blade sliding between his ribs.

"What is that...?" Bloodhound whispered, his voice suddenly stripped of all arrogance.

"What’s what?" Viper asked, pausing mid-shuffle. "You hearing things, dog?"

"The rock..." Bloodhound leaped out of his chair, knocking his scotch to the floor. The crystal glass shattered, spilling golden liquor across the rug. "The mountain! Something is wrong with the mountain!"

Before anyone could laugh, the ceiling speakers throughout the entire complex emitted a single, ear-splitting tone:

BEEP.

The bright daylight-simulating LED strips overhead flickered and died, plunging the underground paradise into pitch darkness.

A second later, harsh, blood-red emergency beacons strobed to life, spinning violently against the concrete ribs.

An automated female voice, cold and devoid of human warmth, broadcasted through every hallway, bathroom, and kitchen:

[CRITICAL SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTED.]

[COMMAND SOURCE: VANCE_PRIME_00.]

[INITIATING SUB-STRATA DEPRESSURIZATION AND RESTRUCTURING.]

[HAVE A PLEASANT DAY.]

"Vance?!" Viper screamed, leaping to her feet as green acid involuntarily began hissing from her pores in sheer panic. "What the fuck does that mean?! What is he doing?!"

Down in the residential wing, players burst out of their rooms in their underwear, shouting in confusion.

"The doors won’t open!" someone shrieked from the hallway. "The elevator shaft is sealed! The air scrubbers just shut down!"

"Break the outer bulkhead!" Bloodhound roared, sprint-charging toward the main transit corridor. "Everyone, hit the front gate! Use your skills! Smash the door!"

Thirty metahumans raced toward the entry hall like terrified cattle.

They reached the massive titanium blast door. Bloodhound threw his shoulder into it with monstrous force. The metal didn’t budge.

A player with the ability to shoot white-hot plasma beams fired directly at the lock seam, burning through the paint, but the six-foot-thick armor plate barely even warmed.

"It’s too thick!" the plasma user screamed, tears streaming down his face. "We need hours to cut through this!"

They didn’t have hours. They didn’t even have seconds.

Eighty meters directly beneath their boots, inside the dark cavity carved into the ancient alpine root, forty tons of composite explosives detonated in perfect microsecond synchronization.

There was no sound at first.

Sound travels too slowly.

What hit them first was the sheer, physics-defying shockwave. The solid granite floor beneath the bunker didn’t just crack; it vaporized into a cloud of hyper-pressurized dust.

The concrete foundations sheared like wet cardboard. The entire forty-thousand-ton steel citadel was kicked upward four inches by the raw explosive force, violently snapping the spines and legs of every person standing on the floor.

Bloodhound was thrown into the ceiling, his skull fracturing against the reinforced girders before he even knew what had happened.

Then came the fire.

The liquid-metal containment vessel of the small nuclear reactor ruptured under the pressure of the blast. A wall of superheated plasma and radioactive flame, burning at thousands of degrees, tore upward through the severed maintenance shafts.

It engulfed the residential quarters, the hydroponic bays, and the recreation halls in less time than it took for a human heart to beat once.

Viper opened her mouth to scream, but the air in her lungs superheated instantly, incinerating her vocal cords to black ash.

And finally, gravity took its toll.

With its foundations blown into nothingness, the hollowed-out cavern collapsed. Two million tons of solid Swiss mountain granite caved inward, crashing down into the void like a falling sky.

The blast doors crumpled. The steel ribs flattened.

Within four seconds, the luxurious subterranean palace was reduced to a crushed pocket of smoldering gravel buried beneath half a mile of collapsed mountain.

Thirty signatures.

Zero survivors.