MIRROR CAGE – CHAPTER 19: BREACH
"To break a cage, you first need to become the key."
[Late Night – Sublevel -3 Entrance]
Elijah crouched in the service tunnel, the metallic taste of fear on his tongue. Beside him, Sable Thorn checked the USB drive in her hand, her eyes hard in the low-red emergency lights.
"Once we're in, there's no turning back," she whispered, voice echoing.
Elijah's heart pounded as he fit the drive into the console slot beside the sealed door. A soft hum began, and the biometric door read his perfect-body imprint. It clicked and slid open.
"This isn't just data," Sable said. "It's a trigger. Once inside, the Mirror core will activate protocols we can't predict."
He flexed his fingers, knuckles still bruised. "Then we better move."
They slipped inside, the door sliding shut behind them with a hiss that sounded like a held breath.
[Inner Core Corridor]
The corridor walls were lined with dormant screens and tangled cables. Sparks flickered from half-exposed conduits—vestiges of an abandoned system that never truly died.
Sable led him down a spiraling ramp. "This is where they stored the core backups," she explained. "We need the mainframe room at the end."
A sudden vibration in the floor made them freeze. From around the bend came footsteps—slow, mechanical.
Elijah pressed himself against the wall with Sable, breath caught. Two security drones—tall, with sensor domes that scanned the corridor—glided into view.
They paused. Red lights flickered across their panels.
"Juno." Sable's voice cracked. "Juno's diversion."
[POV Shift – Juno Park in Service Shaft]
High above, in the ventilation duct, Juno Park peered through a grate at the drones. He clutched a makeshift EMP device Leah had cobbled together from smuggled parts.
"If this thing works—" he thought, then jammed the trigger.
A pulse of blue-white energy shot out, cracking the air. The drones sputtered, their lights flickering. They twitched, then collapsed.
"Gotcha," Juno muttered, dropping the tool and clambering down to join them. He grabbed a short baton from his waistband, ready for anything.
[Echoing Footsteps – Security Alert]
Back in the corridor, alarms blared—loud, discordant. The lights shifted to blinking red.
Elijah's chest tightened. "We've been detected."
Sable's eyes flared. "Too late to turn back. Let's finish."
They sprinted down the ramp, passing walls plastered with old student IDs, lab notes, and one faded poster: "Project Mirror – Control or Collapse."
[Mainframe Room – The Heart of the Cage]
The door to the mainframe room was massive—cylindrical, with a circular locking mechanism etched with runes of code. Sable approached, drawing a slender data-jammer from her coat and disabling the outer lock.
It swung open.
Inside, the room stretched wide, housing a towering cylindrical core. Screens floated around it, displaying cascading data. At its base, cables ran into the floor like roots of a machine tree.
Elijah swallowed. "This is it."
Sable set the USB drive into a console port. The core emitted a low hum and the screens flickered to life, showing live feeds of every sensor in Kingsvale—dormitories, classrooms, battle arenas.
On one screen, a live feed of Naomi's reflection-filled bathroom paused as her distorted face stared back.
Sable typed rapidly. "We're pulling the registry—every Mirror subject's file."
Lines of code scrolled, deleting encrypted blocks, exporting logs.
[Red Alert – System Defense Protocols]
Suddenly, overhead speakers crackled.
SYSTEM: "Unauthorized access detected. Initiating lockdown."
Steel shutters began lowering over the mainframe windows. The hum became a low roar.
Elijah grasped Sable's arm. "We need to move faster!"
She nodded, sweat beading on her brow.
SYSTEM: "All Mirror data will be purged. Subject Zero anomalies will be contained."
Containment protocols meant lethal measures—gas release, automated turrets—everything set to eliminate intruders.
[POV Shift – Naomi in Security Hub]
Naomi slammed open the door to the security hub and burst in. Screens displayed the lockdown countdown.
Her pulse raced. "What the—who's in the Core?"
She traced security IDs—only one accessible: Elijah Cole's perfect-body imprint.
"Damn." She grabbed her comm.
"Heads up!" she shouted. "Elijah and Sable in the Core! Lock everything down and send contractors!"
She saw a flicker on one monitor: Elijah's face, standing before the core.
For a moment, she hesitated—her own reflection on another screen lagged, grinning back at her.
No time.
[Mainframe Room – Final Extraction]
Sable gave Elijah a nod.
"He's uploaded. We have copies of every data block. Pull the drive."
Elijah yanked the USB and thrust it into his pocket.
Alarms reached a fever pitch.
They sprinted to the exit corridor. The steel shutters were halfway down.
Juno and Mason met them there—Mason firing makeshift ammo rounds at robotic turrets while Juno smashed the control panel with his baton.
"Go! Go!" Mason barked.
Elijah and Sable dove through as the shutters clanged shut inches behind them.
[Sublevel -3 Service Tunnel]
They ran until the alarms faded. Finally, they reached a maintenance hatch.
Juno pried it open.
"Get in!" he yelled.
They piled in, sealing it above them.
Silence.
[Safe Hideout – Sable's Apartment]
Panting, they collapsed onto the sofa in Sable's cramped apartment.
The room smelled of old paper and solder.
Sable plugged the USB into her private terminal. The registry appeared—dozens of files: Mirror subjects, test logs, containment orders. She scrolled to the bottom.
One file blinked red: "Subject Zero: Elijah Cole".
"Read this," she said calmly.
Elijah's hands shook as he opened it. Lines of encoded text revealed the purpose: Project Mirror was designed to split identities, harvest the stronger self, and purge the original once the new one stabilized.
A final note read:
Subject Zero diverged from protocol. Proposal: live extract and reprogram to serve as control nexus.
Elijah's blood ran cold.
He looked at Sable. "They were going to turn me into... a tool."
She put a hand on his shoulder. "We stopped that."
He nodded, pulling out the drive. "Now we expose them."
[Closing Scene – Naomi's Reflection]
Back in the security hub, Naomi stared at the monitors showing the breach.
She felt both fear and exhilaration.
Someone had broken into the heart of Kingsvale's secrecy—and lived.
She tapped a final message:
Naomi → Elijah Cole (Encrypted):Meet me where it began. Sublevel -1. Midnight.
Her reflection cracked in the glass.
A cold smile spread across both their faces.