Helix Breach

The rain hammered the glass of Helix Tower, turning the neon signs into blurry strips of colour. Jason stood in the shadow of the revolving doors, his fingers tightening around the cheap‑metal pistol in his coat. Beside him, Sam paced a half‑step, his guitar case thumping softly against the concrete. Nina leaned against the metal frame, eyes glued to a handheld screen that glowed like a heartbeat.

“The lobby’s a biometric maze,” she said, voice low. “One pulse out of sync and the floor floods with electric darts. We can’t afford that.”

Jason swallowed, feeling the thrum of his own pulse echoing in his ears. “How do we…?”

Nina tapped a sequence on the screen. A thin line of code streamed across, matching the tower’s own rhythm. “The sensors read heart‑rate. If we match the tower’s frequency, they think we’re part of the building’s flow. Think of it like… slipping through a crowd without being seen.”

Sam stopped pacing, eyes narrowed. “You’re asking us to stay calm while the whole city is screaming outside. Not exactly a meditation class.”

Nina didn’t look up. “I’ve built a loop. It’ll broadcast a low‑frequency hum into the biometric field. It forces the lock to think we’re steady. But it only works if our bodies stay steady. Any spike… it’ll trigger the alarms.”

The metal doors hissed open, spilling a thin stream of people into the marble lobby. Security drones hovered, their lenses flickering with red grids. A guard at the far end glanced at his tablet, then turned away, oblivious.

“Everyone, take a breath,” Nina whispered, her voice barely audible over the distant rumble of traffic. “In… hold… out. Count to four.”

Jason felt the sweat gathering at his brow. He forced his chest to rise and fall slower, counting silently. His heart hammered in his ears, each beat a jagged drum. He imagined the rhythm of a song—a slow, steady metronome—until the frantic rush of the night outside faded.

Sam leaned against a column, eyes closed. “You know,” he muttered, “my grandma used to tell me to listen to the rain when I was scared. It’d drown out the thoughts that make you jump.”

Nina’s fingers flew, injecting the humming pattern into the tower’s pulse lattice. A soft, almost imperceptible thrum rose beneath the floor, like an underground subway humming to life.

“Now,” Nina said, “keep that breath. Feel the tower’s heartbeat sync with yours. If you feel it pulling you, push back.”

A sudden siren wailed from the street, a flash of red lights flickering through the lobby’s glass. The tower’s sensors shivered, as if testing the air. Jason’s pulse spiked for a split second; he clenched his jaw, willing the thrum to swallow the surge.

The guard’s tablet pinged. A thin line of green lit up beside his screen—“Biometric clearance: granted.” He shrugged and moved on, never seeing the trio standing still like statues.

Sam opened his eyes, glancing at Jason. “You feeling it? The tower’s… breathing?”

Jason nodded, his throat dry. “It’s like we’re inside a drum. One off‑beat and everything blows up.”

Nina’s screen flashed a simple green check. “We’re in. The lock’s open. Move forward—quietly. The next corridor will trigger a pressure mesh. Keep the rhythm, keep the calm.”

They slipped past the revolving doors, their shoes barely making a sound on the polished stone. The lobby’s glass walls reflected their silhouettes and the rain‑smeared city beyond, a world that seemed to pulse with the same frantic rhythm they were fighting to silence.

As they entered the inner sanctum, the hallway lights dimmed, and a thin, blue laser grid rose from the floor—an invisible fence that would scream a warning at the slightest tremor. Jason’s breath steadied, his hand hovering over the pistol, his mind replaying Nina’s quiet command.

“Stay low, stay steady,” Nina whispered, already moving toward the next console.

The trio moved as one, heartbeats locked to the tower’s silent song, each step a careful note in a tense, unseen symphony. The door behind them sealed with a soft hiss. They were inside.

The door hissed shut behind them, and the light dimmed to a sickly blue that seemed to come from nowhere. A low, humming vibration ran through the concrete floor, like the breath of a giant animal sleeping beneath the tower.

Jason’s eyes adjusted first. Rows of steel pods stretched down the length of the room, each one a sleek, coffin‑shaped cylinder. Inside, a thin band of blue light pulsed in rhythm with the tower’s hum, marking the spot where a body lay still. The lids of the pods were transparent enough to see the silhouettes of people curled inside, their chests rising and falling in a slow, artificial rhythm.

“Jesus,” Sam whispered, his voice barely louder than the buzzing. He took a step forward, the soles of his shoes making a faint thud against the cold metal grates. “What the hell are these things?”

Nina crouched beside the nearest pod, her fingers hovering over the glass. She traced a thin line with her thumb, feeling the temperature change under the surface. “They’re stasis chambers,” she said, voice low and flat. “Chrono‑Pharm’s way of keeping addicts… awake enough to feed the imprint engine. The serum needs a constant flow of raw sensory data. They keep people in a loop, hooked to a feed, so the drug can capture every feeling, every second of perception.”

A soft click sounded from the pod’s control panel. A tiny screen flickered to life, displaying a scrolling list of vitals—heart rate, respiration, neural activity. The numbers were steady, unnervingly perfect.

Jason stared at the faces inside the glass. A woman with a shaved head, her eyes closed, jaw slack. A teenage boy with a scar across his cheek, his hands clenched around an invisible grip. Their bodies were still, but the data showed they were living somewhere else, their minds stretched across a network of wires and pulses.

“Is this… legal?” Jason asked, his voice shaking just enough to make the air feel colder.

“Legal?” Nina snapped, but not with anger. She pulled a small data pad from her coat and opened a file. “Look.” She swiped, and a file opened: **Mika Alvarez – Procurement Log – 02/15/2039**. The document listed serial numbers, delivery dates, and a series of signatures at the bottom—one unmistakable looping “M” that matched Mika’s corporate logo.

“Whoa,” Sam said, leaning in. “Mika? She signed off on this? She was… part of it?”

Nina scrolled down. “See here—‘Authorized for use in Chrono‑Imprint pilot program, Helix Sub‑Level 4.’ The date lines up with the night we’re in. This isn’t just a side project. It’s a core part of the tower’s revenue stream. They’re turning addicts into data farms.”

Jason’s stomach turned. “So they’re… harvesting people’s memories? For profit?”

“Their ‘raw sensory data’ feeds the Chrono‑Imprint algorithm,” Nina replied. “Every scream, every high, every beat they feel while on the serum gets recorded. They sell that to advertisers, the city council, anyone who can afford a splash of authentic emotion. It’s… it’s a market.”

A low, metallic creak echoed from the far end of the room. The trio froze, eyes darting toward the source. A shadow moved behind a stack of crates, a figure cloaked in the same blue light that bathed the pods. A man in a lab coat, his face hidden behind a reflective visor, adjusted a handheld device. He didn’t notice them.

Sam hissed, “We need to get the data and get out. If they see us…”

Nina’s hand moved faster, tapping into the central console that glowed beneath a slab of glass. She pulled up a schematic of the chamber. “These pods are linked to a central feed. If I can disconnect the main line, the whole system will shut down. But that will also trigger the alarm grid—”

She glanced at the pod’s control panels. “—and a failsafe that will try to reboot the chambers, sending a shock through anyone still connected. We have seconds before the system cycles.”

Jason felt the weight of the pistol in his coat. He could’t just stand there while a thousand lives hung in a loop, waiting to be ripped apart.

“Do it,” he said, voice low but firm. “Whatever you need, just… do it quick.”

Nina’s eyes flickered with determination. “I’m writing a backdoor command now. It’ll force a hard reset—everything goes offline for ten minutes. That’s enough for us to slip out with the logs.”

She typed a long string of code, each keystroke sounding like a tap on a dead drum. The glow from the console grew brighter, then steadied.

A sudden, high‑pitched whine filled the air. The pods’ lights flickered, then dimmed, one after another. The blue hum dropped to a low thrum, then stopped. The figures inside the chambers froze, their synthetic breathing ceasing. For a heartbeat, the room was dead silent, save for the distant siren that still wailed outside.

Sam exhaled, a shuddering breath that seemed to release the tension coiled in his shoulders. “That… that was close.”

Nina pulled a thumb drive from her pocket, slipping it into the console’s slot. A small progress bar raced across the screen, copying the procurement logs, the chamber schematics, and a cache of encrypted files labeled **‘Imprint Data – Raw’**.

“Got it,” she said, pulling the drive out. “Everything we need. And we have proof of Mika’s involvement.”

Jason looked at the pods again, at the hollow shells of people lying inside. The eerie quiet pressed on his chest like a weight. He felt a flicker of guilt, a cold knot of shame, because the same corporate ambition that had once promised him fame now showed its darkest face.

“Let’s move,” he said, turning back toward the exit. “We need to get this out before they reboot.”

The trio slipped back into the hallway, the blue laser grid re‑igniting behind them. Their steps were silent, their hearts still trying to match the tower’s rhythm, but now each beat carried a new, heavy note—a reminder of the lives that had been turned into data, and of the price they would have to pay to stop it.

The hallway slammed shut behind them with a metallic clang that echoed like a gunshot. The blue laser grid snapped back to life, slicing the air in thin, humming ribbons. Sam’s breath hitched, his fingers still twitching from the last keystrokes.

A cold wind rushed in from the far side of the lab, carrying the unmistakable scent of ozone and something metallic—blood. The temperature dropped another fifteen degrees as the walls began to frost over, tiny crystals forming on the steel panels like a spider’s web.

Victor Latch stepped out of the shadows, his boots crunching on the frozen concrete. He wore the black leather coat of a mercenary, but the seams were threaded with a faint, pulsing light that matched the lab’s emergency power. In his hand, a compact plasma pistol glowed a sickly amber, the barrel humming with a low, angry vibration.

“Thought you could slip through my little data vault?” Victor snarled, voice filtered through a voice‑modulator that made every word sound like it was spoken underwater. “You’ve got something that belongs to Chrono‑Pharm. Hand it over and maybe you’ll walk out of here with a pulse still beating in your chest.”

Jason felt the weight of the unregistered pistol under his coat shift, the cold barrel pressing against his thigh. He swallowed, feeling his heart thrum like a snare drum against the lab’s icy silence.

“I’m not handing you anything,” Jason growled, flipping the pistol out of his coat and slamming it into his hand. The weapon felt alien, its grip slick with condensation. He raised it, but before he could pull the trigger, Victor lunged.

The first blow was a sweeping right hook that cracked the concrete slab beside Jason’s knee. The impact sent a spray of frost shards up into his face. He staggered, his breath forming white clouds that hung in the air for a heartbeat before freezing and shattering against the pipework.

Sam reacted before the echo of Victor’s footfall died. He ripped a rusted conduit from the wall, yanking it free with a violent jerk that sent a burst of static across the room. The conduit snapped, sending a jagged arc of electricity crackling along the floor. The surge lit the lab in a flash of blue-white light, momentarily blinding everyone.

“—S—c—r—e—e—n—!” Nina shouted, lunging for the nearest console. She slammed her palm onto a large, circular button marked with a red lightning bolt. The whole system shuddered, a low, guttural groan reverberating through the frozen metal. The main processor’s cooling fans sputtered, spewing a plume of white vapor that smeared the air with a thick fog.

Victor recoiled, his visor flaring as the electric pulse surged through the nearby circuitry. He cursed, raising his plasma pistol, and fired. A bolt of amber plasma arced across the room, searing a line through the fog and slashing across Sam’s arm. The plasma cut cleanly, leaving a smoking gash that hissed as the blood froze on contact.

Sam howled, the sound raw and metallic, and dropped the conduit. He clutched the wound, his fingers turning white with cold. “Jesus, Jason—”

“No time!” Jason snapped, pressing his own pistol against Victor’s chest. The trigger clicked, but the plasma weapon’s built‑in safety kept it from firing. In a split‑second decision, Jason twisted the barrel, aiming the weapon’s barrel at Victor’s throat and pulling the trigger. A thin, razor‑sharp burst of quantum‑field energy erupted, tearing a small seam in Victor’s coat and striking the armor plating beneath.

Victor staggered back, the energy searing through his nervous system. His visor flickered, displaying a cascade of warning symbols. “You—can’t——”

“Watch your back, Latch,” Sam snarled, swinging his battered conduit like a club. He smashed it against the nearest server rack, sending a cascade of shards and data drives spiraling into the air. The impact overloaded the rack’s power cells, causing a secondary explosion of icy steam that flooded the floor.

Nina, already half‑crouched beside the main console, seized the moment. She slammed a spare power cable into the back of the processor, yanking it free. The processor screamed, its cooling fans whirring faster until they shattered, sending sharp metal shards flying. One shard ripped across Victor’s forearm, slicing through his glove and exposing the pale flesh underneath.

Victor roared, blood streaming down his arm, and lunged with a feral desperation. He threw a tactical knife, its blade glinting as it sliced through the frost‑coated air. Jason ducked, barely avoiding the blade that nicked the edge of his jacket.

“Sam! Now!” Nina shouted, her voice ragged by the cold. She hacked the console with both hands, fingers dancing across the touchscreen as the screen flickered between green and red warnings. The main power line to the lab’s quantum processor began to destabilize, the readout spiraling into a chaotic cascade of numbers.

Sam, adrenaline fuelling his muscles, snapped his free hand to the fire‑suppressed SMG he kept hidden in his boot. He fired a single shot at the power conduit running along the wall. The bullet ignited the conduit’s coolant, sending a spray of liquid nitrogen that hissed on contact with the plasma field, creating a blinding flash of white light and a sudden, deafening crack.

The lab’s temperature plummeted further, the air turning to a crystalline mist. Victor’s visor cracked, his eyes now visible—cold, hard, and filled with a flicker of fear. “You think you’ve won?” he spat, brandishing the knife one more time.

Jason, feeling the pulse of his own gun’s quantum field sync with the lab’s dying hum, pushed forward. He grabbed Victor’s wrist, wrenching the knife from his grip. The blade skittered across the concrete, embedding itself in a slab of frost with a metallic clang.

“Enough,” Jason said, his voice low, the words reverberating through the lab’s echo chamber. He thrust the quantum pistol into Victor’s chest. The weapon emitted a deep, resonant thrum as its field collapsed around Victor’s nervous system, compressing his neural pathways in a fraction of a second. Victor’s body convulsed, then went limp, the plasma pistol slipping from his hand and clattering to the floor.

Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of frozen air leaking from the cracked walls and the distant wail of the police drones outside. The console’s screen now displayed a single line in stark white: **SYSTEM SHUTDOWN – 00:02:13**.

Nina breathed hard, a thin plume of frost escaping her lips. “We have ten minutes before the backup core kicks in,” she said, eyes darting to the timer blinking on the wall’s neon strip. “If we don’t get out now, the whole thing will reboot and the chambers will...”

She stopped, the words choking in her throat. The thought of the stasis pods re‑activating sent a shiver through the group.

Sam lowered his SMG, the weapon clinking against the frozen floor. He pressed his bleeding hand to his arm, feeling the cold sear the wound. “We need the Clock,” he said, voice strained. “If it’s a synaptic overwrite trigger, we can use it to jam the reboot.”

Jason’s gaze fell on the small, pocket‑watch‑like device tucked inside the case they’d taken from Carter’s body earlier. Its brass face was still ticking, the hands moving in a rhythm that seemed to echo his own heartbeat. He slipped it out of his pocket, feeling the familiar vibration against his palm.

“It’s a trigger,” Jason whispered, the realization settling like a weight in his gut. “The Clock isn’t just a timer—it can rewrite neural pathways in anyone near the pulse. If we fire it now, we can flood the lab’s processors with a massive synapse surge and overload the backup.”

Nina’s eyes widened. “That would scramble their data… maybe even protect the pods… but it could also fry our own brains.”

Sam stared at the frozen lab, at Victor’s motionless form, at the pulsing Clock in Jason’s hand. “We’ve got nothing left to lose,” he said, voice flat but fierce. “We go for it.”

Jason lifted the Clock, the brass catching the dim emergency light. He pressed the hidden button on its side. The device emitted a low, humming thrum that grew louder, resonating through the metal walls, through the frozen air, through their skulls.

A wave of pressure built, like a drumbeat swelling behind their ears. The lab’s consoles flickered, the screens exploding in static as a cascade of quantum data slammed into the central processor. The power grid sang a high‑pitch note, then cracked, and the entire lab shuddered.

The frosted walls cracked, shards of ice raining down. The stasis pods trembled, the blue lights inside flickering wildly before sputtering out entirely. The dead air filled with a deafening, disorienting rush, then—a sudden, crushing silence.

When the reverberation faded, the lab was a wreck of broken metal, shattered glass, and smoking consoles. Victor Latch lay motionless on the floor, his body a heap of black leather and broken flesh. The Clock’s hands stopped, its ticking ceased.

Jason lowered the device, his breath rasping in the frigid air. He looked at Nina, at Sam, at the ruined lab.

“We did it,” he said, voice hoarse. “But the Clock is a synaptic overwrite trigger. It can still be used—if someone gets it.”

Nina nodded, eyes bright despite the cold. “We need to get out, grab the data drives, and make sure this thing never falls into the wrong hands.”

Sam, clutching his bleeding arm, managed a thin smile. “Then let’s move before the backup spikes back up.”

They slipped back into the hallway, the laser grid still flickering erratically, each step echoing against the ruined steel. The night outside pressed against the tower’s glass, rain hissing as it hit the neon streets below, but inside the Helix Tower a new, chaotic rhythm had begun—one that would chase them all the way to the concert’s climax.