Chapter 5 SUBLEVEL THREE

The rain had turned to needles by the time Evie reached the metro.

She rode three stops, gripping the keycard so tightly it left an imprint in her palm.

Bastion Cold Storage had been locked up tight when she left - chains on every door. But the card... the card was a promise. Or a threat.

She didn't sleep that night. At dawn, she returned.

The front gates were still chained, but she knew another way in. Through the side entrance, down the row of lockers, past the one where she'd found the card.

She found the access panel beside a nondescript steel door. The kind of door that didn't want attention. She swiped the card.

A green light blinked once, then the lock released with a low thunk.

Beyond was a narrow staircase spiraling down. The air grew colder with each step, tasting faintly of ozone and something sour disinfectant, maybe.

At the bottom, she found another corridor. Steel walls, numbers stamped above identical doors.

Her heart pounded. This was it. The place from her memory.

She passed doors marked 1, 2, 3... until she stopped at 6. Her hand hovered over the handle.

The hum of machinery seeped through the metal, low and steady.

She opened the door.

Inside, the chair was empty. The wires coiled neatly on the console, as if waiting for the next patient. But there was something else a faint smell of blood, sharp and metallic, hanging in the air.

On the console sat a small cassette recorder.

Her fingers trembled as she pressed play.

A voice - male, tired, urgent:

"If you're hearing this, they've already erased me from everyone else. You're the last one who knows I existed. Don't trust the man in the red hood. He's not your enemy - but he's not your friend either. And Evie... you did this to me. Find the vault before it's too late."

The tape clicked off.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She replayed the words, but they only twisted tighter around her thoughts. You did this to me.

A sudden metallic clang snapped her head up. The corridor lights flickered.

Footsteps - deliberate, unhurried - moved closer.

She snatched the cassette and bolted into the hall, her footsteps pounding the steel floor. But when she reached the staircase, the way up was blocked.

The man in the leather jacket stood there, breathing hard, rain dripping from his hair.

"I told you not to come here," he said.

She tightened her grip on the cassette. "You said you remembered me."

His eyes darkened. "I do. And if you want to stay alive long enough to remember yourself, you need to leave now."

Before she could answer, the lights went out.