The Chase

Jiro rose at dawn, weary and aching but unable to rest longer. The hulking ruins waited ahead, promising shelter if they could survive its labyrinthine depths. Haunted by visions, Jiro knew answers also lurked there about humanity’s stained legacy.

He roused Ruka and the other refugees gently. All shared his bone-deep exhaustion, but peril left no time for pampering frailties. Jiro checked his rifle as they prepared to head out. Its weight reassured him.

Approaching the lifeless city, Jiro was reminded how those who came before constantly reached beyond their wisdom. Now the task fell to the refugees to decipher cryptic warnings etched in these inert monoliths.

They navigated debris-choked streets towards the heart of the old metropolis. Jiro chose a weathered clock tower as their rally point, hoping its height might reveal safe paths through the maze. The sooner they located sanctuary, the sooner breath could be drawn deeply again.

A noise instantly shattered the tomblike silence. Ruka gestured for Jiro to investigate as she led the group into concealing rubble. He crept towards the sound’s echo, rifle ready.

Turning a corner, Jiro nearly gasped in surprise. A hulking cyborg warrior stood motionless astride a rusted vehicle. Jiro hesitated, then realized this sentry was deactivated, its power core depleted ages ago. Heart racing, he rejoined the others.

“A relic guard, nothing more,” he assured them. “But keep alert. Where one sentinel stands, more may too.”

They proceeded cautiously towards the clock tower, scanning for motion. The city remained still as a crypt, but perhaps not yet empty. What programming orders might a security system still execute here, so long ignored?

Reaching the tower’s arched doorway, Jiro discovered power flowing to illuminated consoles inside. He examined interfaces accessing archived data, utility controls, and even surveillance feeds. This tower somehow endured as a nexus across eras.

“If it runs, we may be able to tap maps and monitors to find a safe path through,” Jiro told Ruka.

Her fingers danced across control panels, opening databases. Jiro watched camera feeds emerge showing empty corridors, machinery compartments, and even restricted laboratories deep below ground. What had this city once sheltered?

Ruka pulled up a complete schematic of the underground research campus. Jiro leaned in, recalling the horrors that barely escaped back in ruined Cassou. Had similar forces once found a haven here?

His blood turned to ice as Ruka opened camera views into a cavernous testing hall. Rows of stasis tubes housed misshapen genetic subjects and cybernetic amalgamations. This buried complex still lived on some cursed level.

Jiro pointed out an isolated chamber block registering functional. If they could seal it off, perhaps the secrets lurking below would remain dormant.

“Cut power to all sectors but our access route and target room,” he told Ruka. She nodded, fingers dancing across the controls once more as Jiro watched nervously.

Alarms flashed as the research complex registered cascading system failures. Entire zones blinked off the monitors as Ruka severed connections. Lights darkened across the campus schematic until only their route and destination remained illuminated.

Jiro led them warily down through the clock tower access tunnels towards the sealed research block. It held answers, he was certain, to the cancerous forces overtaking civilization. Mankind's survival depended on excavating this truth.

They descended countless laddered levels through claustrophobic emergency stairways and dank utility corridors. Faint musty smells hinted at simmering organic processes alive in the depths.

Reaching the research sector, Jiro used security overrides from the tower to unseal the area entranceway. Thick blast doors rumbled open, revealing a dusty sanctuary where time itself seemed suspended. This lone lit chamber had waited patiently to share its revelations.

Jiro accessed the shielded records database as Ruka and the others explored scattered papers and specimen jars. Whatever work occurred here had left traces revealing its purpose. But comprehension eluded Jiro as he puzzled over dense scientific notes.

Ruka approached, her face pale. "Jiro, you need to see this," she said, hands shaking as she offered a frayed lab journal. He took it carefully, dreading the implications her reaction signalled.

As he skimmed the complex jargon, the researcher's slow descent into madness and hubris became clear. Forbidden experiments had mingled men with machines, blending artificial and biological cognition toward insidious ends. This was the fatal seed.

Jiro opened his mouth to speak just as proximity alarms blared from the monitoring console. Surveillance screens showed shadowy forms moving through the complex towards them. Sealing the bulkheads had failed.

"They're coming for the research," Jiro said, rushing to grab scattered notes and data cores. "We can't leave any of it intact!"

They ransacked cupboards and hard drives, destroying everything related to the immoral experiments while the wailing alarm heightened their panic. Loud banging shook the sealed doors. Ruka primed her weapon, ready to fight.

As Jiro frantically overloaded the system drives to erase the digital research, the door hinges began visibly buckling. The horrors beyond knew exactly where to find them and the secrets they carried. There was no more time.

Grabbing the bag of journals and drives, Jiro pointed to a supply closet where uniforms hung. "Cover yourselves in those coats, now!" Their only chance of escape was blending in once the horde forced entry.

Moments later, the blast doors catastrophically caved in and misshapen creatures poured through. Ruka and the others stood frozen, wrapped in researchers' jackets, trying not to tremble. Jiro's plan would soon be tested.

The apparent leader of the genetic monstrosities examined the trashed laboratory equipment as the others crowded menacingly around Ruka's disguised team. It seemed blind to the infiltration.

Turning to leave, the hulking beast gestured for the interlopers to follow back out through the ravaged complex. Jiro's gambit had worked - they were taken as members of the research staff. He led their terrified team forward, daring not to even breathe until safely beyond the lab entrance.

Retracing their steps to ground level, each second stretched taut as guitar strings. Finally, they emerged under open skies into the dead city once more. Safe for now, but with stolen secrets that could change everything. Jiro did not look back.

..........

That night, they made camp in a decaying hotel lobby. Jiro could not sleep, reading feverishly through journals by flashlight. The researcher's descent from scientific aspirations to madness made his moral duty clear. Knowledge untempered by wisdom spelt doom.

He explained his findings in hushed tones. A rogue element had subtly influenced research here toward their nihilistic ends. Thus jaded, science and machines became blunt weapons against decency. Jiro mourned our species' capacity for self-destruction.

"So the new viral strains are engineered..." Ruka whispered, realizing the implications. Jiro nodded grimly. The equations and schematics left no doubt the contagion was designed, not random mutation.

However, the researcher's logs also indicated a conscience reawakening in his final entries. Jiro's reading was interrupted by a distant thunder growing louder. Moments later, armoured transport craft landed outside, armed troops pouring out - the laboratory's last line of automated defence had found them.

They had no choice but to run again. Dashing upstairs, Jiro primed his rifle and took position at a shattered floor-to-ceiling window. As Ruka led the others up towards the roof, troops began entering the lobby below. Jiro fired precisely, driving them back towards cover while the team escaped.

On the roof, smoke rose ahead signaling Ruka had activated the emergency evacuation protocol as planned. Jiro moved floor by floor, firing and dropping back. Finally emerging onto the roof himself, he saw a cargo drone approaching. Their ride out.

As troops stormed up stairwells towards the roof, Jiro lay suppressing fire so the team could reach the drone. He didn't dare imagine what horrors these automatons had seen or the orders that still drove them.

The drone extended an access ladder and lifted off with the refugees safely aboard. Jiro sprinted and leapt, barely grasping the bottom rung over space. He clambered up as plasma bolts sizzled past from below. They were away for now.

He slid the hatch shut, embracing Ruka and the others in their shaking relief. Once again, wisdom and compassion had overcome the deathly trappings of history. But Jiro sensed the struggle was far from over.

He watched the fading city until it disappeared beneath mountains on the horizon. Somewhere down there, amid the ruins, their unknown pursuers followed protocols written generations ago by flawed men. There was still a righteous fire to rekindle in his species.

Jiro checked the data haul safe in his pack. As long as truth survived, hope remained their darkest impulses and creations might yet be redeemed. Rest could wait. A new dawn beckoned.

..........

Touching down in an isolated valley, Jiro greeted the sunrise alone on an empty plain. The others remained in the drone, exhausted. He didn't begrudge them this respite.

Kneeling, Jiro let hot tears fall as the light warmed his skin. So much was sacrificed already, yet their ordeal stretched endlessly onward. How much farther could weary souls be asked to march into darkness uncharted?

Wiping his eyes, Jiro turned back to rouse them. They would share the last provisions, and make plans to disappear into the mountains beyond. Perhaps years might pass unfound by the powers seeking their stolen secrets.

As he trudged back, the drone exploded without warning behind him. The force hurled Jiro brutally to the hard ground, searing waves of heat washing over him. Stunned, he crawled desperately through swirling debris searching for survivors.

Then his heart sank in utter despair. Surrounded by smouldering wreckage lay the charred bodies of his friends, the last remnants of hope now erased. Jiro collapsed forward into churned dust and wept bitterly.

How? None had followed their flight here. Then he remembered the laboratory data cores. The researchers must have installed trackers as security measures. He had doomed them all.

Footsteps slowly approached as Jiro knelt defeated, waiting for death's reprieve. Ruka and the others would be avenged someday, he swore silently. The files in his pack would reveal all.

Instead of a gunshot, a firm hand grasped his shoulder. Jiro turned slowly to see Ruka miraculously standing over him, scraped and shaken but alive! The others rose wearily too, having escaped the blast by chasing a stray dog into a ditch. It was a miracle.

They embraced while Jiro thanked unknown forces watching over their journey. He had drawn hope too soon. The files still had to reach those who would uncover the truth. Until then, survival was resistance.

With hunters tracking their every step, the road ahead now wound steeper. But they would walk it together, passages illuminated by love and loyalty that fear could not extinguish. The light still shone from within, however darkness pressed.

On they marched, spirits lifting as the terrain grew harsher. Snow swirled as their figures dwindled across the frosted plain. But no winter lasts forever. And their hearts burned bright to see justice dawn. The seeds they carried would sow revelation in time. For now, enough to simply endure.