Chapter 70: Secrets – I

The weapons stay raised, but no one fired.

Johannes and Evelyn stood on one corner, Dmitri on the other. After inspecting the vial, he gestured toward the stairwell.

“Inside,” he said, lifting off his foot that struck the third person’s spine.

The three of them moved without protest.

“Echo Actual, I’ll stay for overwatch,” Zolyah reached out. “Your squad should be there soon.”

“Roger that,” Dmitri lowered his weapon and followed where the three had come in.

The room was silent.

Thick concrete walls boxed the darkness in, leaving only a thin blade of moonlight cutting through a cracked ceiling near the right corner.

Dust hung in the air, motionless, undisturbed for days or maybe even longer.

A single table stood at the center, scarred and uneven. An unlit lamp rested atop it, its glass clouded with grime.

Johannes stepped forward without hesitation.

The scratch of a match flared sharply in the dark. For a brief second, his scarred face was carved out by fire. Diamond-like eyes, and hands steadier than any normal person.

The match’s flame touched the wick.

The lamp hissed softly as light bloomed outward, pushing the shadows back just far enough to reveal where everyone stood.

“Pardon for our lack of manners,” he extended his hand, confidence filling his voice. “This is the best we can prepare.”

“This will do,” Dmitri slung his gun over his shoulder and slowly approached the chair.

Cold to the touch, though incomparable to sitting on hard concrete.

His weapon rested on the right, his hand having no intention of pulling away.

Four Scouts arrived not long after, cramping the room not only with people, but also with an unspoken tension.

Each side eyed the other with great scrutiny.

Johannes and his group were mesmerized.

Dmitri and his cohort remained suspicious.

“Making a commotion late at night,” Dmitri broke the silence. “Sneaking into our perimeter. Then surrendering without a fight.”

He studied Johannes, Evelyn, and the third agent.

“Your intentions run deeper than simple surveillance. So I’ll ask again—who are you people?”

“Johannes Schandler,” Johannes bluntly replied. “Ashington Special Agency Service. Or whatever’s left of it. My team was assigned to this city before it collapsed. ”

“Seems like you’ve failed your post,” Dmitri mocked.

Johannes didn’t bristle. He simply nodded in response.

“If not for what you’re now holding,” he said, glancing at the vial. “that assessment would be true and fair.”

Dmitri’s fingers tightened around the bottle. “Then start talking.”

“It’s classified,” Johannes paused. “is something I would have said. But the government is no more, and some secrets will eventually leak out.”

Evelyn tightened her grip on her clothes, while the other agent swooped their head to the side.

Johannes leaned over.

“The program was called Project HELIX. On paper, a long-term defense initiative. In practice, it was an attempt to manufacture powerful assets.”

He tapped lightly against the table.

“The ones in your hands are the third of its kind. Cleaner. More stable, or so we were told. They call it HELIX III.”

“The third of its kind,” Dmitri was startled. “How long has this been going?”

“A decade in the making,” Johannes nodded. “Still unfinished.”

The two of them stared at each other.

“HELIX III doesn’t just enhance the body,” Johannes continued. “It can cause destabilization. Loyalty. Command cohesion.”

His gaze lifted to the ceiling.

“We were a four-man field call,” he said quietly. “I led the team. Marcus handled the systems. Evelyn and Elias ran the reconnaissance on shift.”

Johannes paused.

“The government sent us a package. Two bottles full of HELIX III supplies.”

His jaw tightened.

“It started off fresh, then things took a turn for the worse.”

Dmitri was intrigued, “What happened?”

“Elias was deployed near Pandora District. He was tracking a financier suspected of selling state intelligence to foreign interests.”

“Maybe it was the isolation, or the task at hand. When the world collapsed, he returned to us—body of the same, but the mind has changed.”

“How so?” Dmitri asked.

Johannes’s fingers clawed on the table, chipping wood off the surface.

“He said that the military was obsolete. Bureaucracy was nothing but fiction. That whoever could enforce order should.”

Johannes looked Dmitri in the eye.

“He wasn’t ranting. He was planning.”

“I take it you rejected, and you had a fight?” Dmitri guessed.

“We argued. I told him power without control would rot. He told me that control died with the state. It was up to us, Superhumans of the new generation, to enforce it.”

Silence stretched between them.

“A fight broke up,” Johannes added. “Elias was a master of martial arts. HELIX improved on it, and we were almost defeated by him.”

He tried to steal a glance towards Evelyn, but Dmitri caught sight of it.

“Now what?”

“He left,” Johannes sighed. “Took one of the vials with him.”

His hand rested flat on the table, fingers spread, unmoving.

“Now he has followers. A supply chain. A territory on the east. The three of us can’t contain him without becoming what he already is.”

Johannes glanced at Dmitri again, assessing his thoughts.

“That’s why I’m talking to you.”

Dmitri didn’t answer right away.

Sounds dangerous,

he thought—but not because of Elias and his group. Because Johannes wasn’t exaggerating.

Men who lied tended to oversell. Johannes had done the opposite.

“You expect me to help you with that?” Dmitri questioned, probing.

“Elias’s ambitions are greater than you think,” Johannes warned. “If he is not stopped now, nothing will in the future.”

Evelyn shifted beside the wall. Her arms were folded, yet her hands were clenched, drenched in sweat.

She didn’t look at Johannes, nor at Dmitri either.

“What makes you think we can help you?”

Johannes leaned forward again.

“You have armor. Heavy weapons. A sniper who already proved she can kill what others can’t.”

His eyes flicked, briefly, toward the window where Zolyah’s rifle remained at aim.

“And you said it yourself,” he added. “He won’t be the first superhuman your people have put to the grave. Definitely not the last either.”

Dmitri’s thoughts moved, not in doubt, but in calculations.

If Johannes was indeed lying, then the risk was immediate.

If Johannes was telling the truth, then the risk was exponential.

Either way, walking away didn’t reduce it. But he had no intentin of doing so.

The Commander’s standing policy suddenly surfaced without effort.

No additional variables were to be left unchecked—especially those with the capacity to grow beyond control.

Elias fit the profile perfectly whose ambitions remain unchecked by structure. His power came by without alignment. A future collision waiting to happen.

Such a threat could not be allowed to mature. The warlord and his forces were a testament to that.

Dmitri studied their faces. Assistance will eventually come, but not as freely as they would expect.

Still, the information they gave was a leverage.

Johannes looked controlled.

Evelyn, strained, but steady.

The last one, he couldn’t tell.

None of it felt rehearsed.

Yet at the end of the day, an agent was an agent. Something close enough that the distinction no longer mattered.

“Lead me to your base,” Dmitri decided after a moment of silence.

Johannes didn’t smile. He simply nodded once.

“That can be arranged.”

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