The silence that followed was heavy. The kind that wasn’t just the absence of sound—it was the weight of realization settling in.

  Billy took another look at the summoning circle, the runes still faintly glowing despite the destruction around it. He wasn’t an expert in occult magic—hell, magic shouldn’t even exist—but after everything he’d seen today, he was starting to wonder if Kane Industries had found a way around that.

  The Cerberus agent stood beside him, her golden eyes sharp as she studied the runes.

  “Project Vanta…” she muttered. “I’ve heard whispers about it before. Classified beyond top level. Even within Cerberus.”

  Billy raised an eyebrow. “And yet here you are, poking your nose into it.”

  She smirked. “Call it professional curiosity.”

  Billy glanced back at the terminal. Most of the data had been wiped the moment he triggered the emergency termination, but a few corrupted files still lingered, flickering in and out of existence on the cracked display.

  He tapped into his cybernetic interface, running a deep scan to extract anything salvageable.

  A video file popped up.

  Corrupted. Fragmented. But still playable.

  Billy hit play.

  The screen flickered to life.

  The feed was grainy, dark, shot from the perspective of a security camera overlooking a high-tech lab chamber. Scientists in biohazard suits moved frantically between control panels, their movements frantic, panicked.

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  A deep, mechanical voice echoed over the speakers.

  “Containment failure imminent. Initiate emergency lockdown.”

  In the center of the lab was a containment pod—thick, reinforced glass, covered in faint glowing runes. Inside it… something shifted.

  Something alive.

  Billy leaned closer.

  The footage glitched, the audio warping.

  Then a new voice cut through the distortion.

  Smooth. Confident. Cold.

  “You were warned.”

  The moment the voice spoke, the pod shattered.

  The scientists barely had time to scream before the screen cut to black.

  Billy clenched his jaw as the video ended.

  That voice.

  It wasn’t Kane’s.

  The Cerberus agent’s face was unreadable, but Billy could tell she was thinking the same thing.

  “This wasn’t Kane Industries acting alone,” she said. “Someone else was behind Project Vanta.”

  Billy exhaled sharply, his mind already piecing things together.

  Kane was ruthless, ambitious, willing to break every law in the book for power—but this? This was beyond them. Someone else had fed Kane Industries this knowledge. Someone had given them access to things they shouldn’t have been able to touch.

  The real question was: Who?

  And why?

  Billy tapped a few more keys, trying to recover any more data.

  One file remained.

  A single name—buried deep within the system.

  “Dr. Vance Holloway.”

  Billy frowned. “Never heard of him.”

  The Cerberus agent’s expression darkened. “I have.”

  She turned to face him fully, her tone deadly serious.

  “He was the head of Kane’s experimental division. Disappeared five years ago. Officially? He’s dead.”

  Billy’s smirk returned. “I’m guessing that’s a lie.”

  She nodded. “If Holloway’s involved… this just got a hell of a lot worse.”

  Billy cracked his knuckles. “Then I guess it’s time we find him.”