Core Descent
The door to Floor Six opened like the jaws of hell.
John was the first to enter, rifle raised. The heat from Floor Four had faded, replaced by a sharp chemical tang — sterile, electric, with the lingering stench of ozone and blood.
The corridor was sleek, white, and too quiet.
"Place is spotless," Soap muttered. "Creepy clean."
"Too clean," Ghost replied. "This level was rebuilt. Different architecture. Modernized."
John paused, studying the ceiling. "Advanced optics. Sensor strips. Thermal tripwires."
Price clicked his tongue. "Smart security. They're watching."
The moment he said it, the lights died.
Total darkness swallowed them.
"Night vision," John whispered.
Clicks echoed around the room as their goggles activated.
Then came the hum.
The corridor flickered with red emergency lights—then shapes moved in the dark.
"Contacts!" Nikolai barked.
They weren't soldiers.
They were machines.
Tall, skeletal androids stepped forward from side passages—clad in ceramic plating, holding plasma-edged weapons, and running on silent legs. Red optical sensors blinked alive like tiny devils in the gloom.
"Open fire!" Price ordered.
Rounds tore down the hallway. Sparks erupted as the lead machine caught multiple shots—yet it kept moving. It lunged forward, blade first.
John ducked under the slash and fired point-blank into its gut. The third shot pierced its power core. It exploded with a shriek of artificial agony.
Ghost got pinned against a wall, his rifle knocked aside. One machine raised its plasma blade—
"GHOST!" John roared.
Price tackled the android from behind, pulling it away as Ghost recovered his footing and emptied a mag into its head.
Soap was breathing hard, bleeding from a graze across his side.
"These things are too quiet," he hissed. "You don't even hear them move."
"They're running tactical silence," Nikolai said, backpedaling as another pair advanced.
John lobbed a stun grenade.
FLASH!
Even machines recoiled at the overload.
They made it through the first chamber—but the machines weren't done.
Alarms began to wail as the floor went into full lockdown.
"Sector Six breached. Emergency containment activated."
Steel blast doors slammed shut behind them.
"We're being funneled," Ghost muttered. "Like prey."
Mid-Level Halls – Floor Six
They pushed forward, room by room.
Resistance escalated.
The team had to burn through ambushes—mines triggered by body heat, synthetic guards using cloaking tech, machine-gun nests built into the walls.
Soap got clipped in the shoulder, barely staying conscious.
"Hold still," John said, pressing a foam injector into the wound.
"I'm fine—"
"You're bleeding like a pig in a butcher's prayer circle," John muttered, sealing the gash.
"Then pray faster," Soap said, eyes fluttering.
Ghost crouched beside them, breathing heavily. "We're halfway. Rooms ahead lead to the data core."
"Movement!" Nikolai yelled from the rear.
A wave of drones poured out of vents like locusts. Dozens of them—small, fast, deadly. Each armed with electrified blades.
"Back!" John shouted.
They dived into the side hall as the drones swarmed through the previous corridor.
Ghost tossed a thermite charge behind them and slammed the blast door closed.
FWOOSH!
The hall lit up in white flame. Metallic shrieks rang out as drones melted mid-flight.
"That's gonna bring more," Price growled.
John nodded. "We need to breach the server vault before they reboot the upper levels."
Central Vault – Floor Six
The core of the level was encased in reinforced tungsten walls. Two automated turrets turned the moment they entered the chamber.
"Cover!" Price shouted.
Bullets chewed through crates and barriers. John sprinted low, tossed a flashbang, and dove into a side crawlspace.
"Ghost, suppress left turret!" he barked.
"Copy!"
Ghost opened fire while John crawled beneath the control platform. He pulled a magnetic charge from his pack and slapped it onto the base of the turret's rotating joint.
Boom!
Sparks and hydraulic fluid burst from the shattered mount.
John rolled out and nodded to Soap.
"Other side's yours."
Soap smiled through bloodied teeth. "Gladly."
Another explosion. Then silence.
They stepped into the core vault.
The servers inside hummed like a hive of sleeping wasps.
Ghost inserted a decryptor spike.
"Downloading... 30 seconds."
The moment the download started, John felt it — that shift in air, the pressure behind the silence.
"They're coming."
The floor shook.
Then the walls cracked open.
From the gaps emerged five heavily armored units. Not machines. Humans in prototype exo-frames.
"They've got Titans," Nikolai said under his breath.
John's hand went to his rifle — then his knife. "Everyone pick a target. Stay out of their direct line."
The suits were massive — six-feet-eight minimum, dual-wielding belt-fed LMGs and gauntlet-mounted blades.
They moved like tanks with the reflexes of cats.
Soap got slammed into a wall. Price took two rounds to his vest and went down hard. Nikolai dropped one with a rocket, but another stepped right over the remains and fired.
Ghost tackled John just in time.
"Cover's useless!" Ghost shouted. "They're tearing through steel!"
John bit back pain and rolled, drawing two thermite grenades.
"Eyes! Hit the visors!"
He tossed the first. A Titan flinched.
That was enough.
Price, wounded but awake, fired a slug round through the cracked faceplate. The Titan dropped.
Two remained.
Ghost used a zipline wire to trip one. John sprinted across the room and climbed its back, jamming his blade through the rear coolant port. The machine hissed and shut down.
The last one grabbed Nikolai.
"Nik!" John shouted.
Before it could crush him, Soap—bleeding, limping—fired a final shot.
BANG.
Direct hit through the chest panel.
The Titan dropped.
Silence fell again.
Ghost grabbed the decryptor. "Download complete. Moving."
They didn't linger. They limped to the elevator shaft that would take them to Floor Seven.
Price leaned on Soap. John had a bandage wrapped around his side. Ghost reloaded in silence, eyes alert.
"Still alive," Nikolai said weakly.
"Barely," Price muttered.
John looked at them.
"Three more floors."
They nodded.
No cheers. No jokes. Just steel in their spines.