Apocalypse Days: I Rule with Foresight and a Powerful Son
Chapter 193

Chapter 193: 193

The reinforced hallway hummed with low, electric tension. Lights embedded in the steel floor pulsed a dull red beneath Adrian’s polished boots, casting shadows that elongated with each step.

His coat flared behind him like a cape as he strode, dark and angular.

Six guards flanked him, expressionless behind mirrored visors, rifles held tight, loyal to a fault. At least for now.

They knew better than to speak unless spoken to.

"Sector Twelve lost contact at 0300," said Captain Rennic, his most senior shadow and glorified watchdog. The man fell into step beside him, face hidden beneath his visor, voice clipped. "Seventeen men gone. One trace left: residual pheromone disruption. We think it’s one of the older mimics."

Adrian didn’t stop walking.

He inhaled through his nose. Clean air, recycled through triple-filtered vents. He missed the smell of blood and carbon. It told the truth.

These halls were too clean, like lies dressed in white walls and chrome. Sterility masquerading as order.

"Seventeen men only?" Adrian asked, repeating the number slowly. "How efficient."

Rennic said nothing.

Adrian’s mouth twitched into a grim smile. "You know what I find amusing, Rennic?"

"No, sir."

"That we built armies to fight monsters. And the monsters became far more obedient."

There was a flicker of something beneath Rennic’s visor, maybe unease. Or maybe just reflection.

Another turn. A retinal scanner blinked red at the end of the hall. Adrian stepped forward, eyes to the scanner.

It beeped, chirped, and the triple-reinforced door hissed open.

Inside: the mobile command unit—well, what remained of the Mobile Command Unit.

The room was lined with vertical screens, each projecting live video from multiple sectors.

Static broke occasionally across the monitors, like the machines themselves were afraid of what they were showing.

Rows of black terminals and elevated monitors. A ceiling like a submarine—low, cramped, lined with cables. Surveillance feeds ran in every direction.

Most were chaotic. Screams in static. Blurry movement. Flashes of firelight and bone. Unmapped shadows where there should’ve been light.

"Seventy-three casualties in the last two hours," one of the techs called out as Adrian passed the open doors of Command Sub-Bay 3. "Containment breach in Quadrant Echo. Three units down. No visuals on the subject."

Adrian paused. Tilted his head. The numbers had increased. Was it dedication or incompetence that made this happen?

"If this continues, we might call unwanted attention to ourselves, sir." The agent tried to warn, lowering his head as Adrian looked in his direction.

Adrian’s fingers tapped against the data slate at his side, but his eyes remained fixed ahead.

The air in the surveillance sector was colder than the rest of the tunnels. The scent of ozone, rust, and faint steriliser mixed into something like decay dressed in surgical gloves.

He hated and loved the smell. It reminded him of his early failures.

The forgotten trials. The prototypes who screamed too long. The ones who never made it past the vat.

Still, it was fitting. This was where monsters were born.

"Status," he snapped, ignoring the mention of the casualties.

Rennic hesitated.

"Sir, with all due respect, our forces are dying. At this rate—"

Adrian stopped walking.

Rennic did too.

Adrian turned slowly to face him. "Dying for progress. For evolution."

Rennic stiffened. "Yes, sir."

Adrian resumed his stride, voice now low and reverent, almost conspiratorial.

"We were children playing with sticks in the ruins of an empire. But now? With foresight and a possible fold-space at our fingertips..." He paused, turning toward a flickering wall screen. One of the static feeds showed a group of scavenger mercenaries being torn apart by a twitching blur—one of the failed hybrids. "Who needs armies when you have gods in chains?"

Rennic didn’t respond. Adrian didn’t care. He wasn’t really speaking to him anymore.

A new feed blinked on.

Zara’s face froze mid-turn—captured from mere moments ago. A faint trickle of blood was visible on her temple, matting strands of dark hair to her cheek.

Adrian stepped closer.

His pupils dilated.

There they were. His trinity.

Winter, injured, staggering, still shielding Leo like some tired, obsolete knight. His movements were sluggish—yet he stood. Loyal. Predictable. He would keep him alive long enough to keep Zara under his control.

Zara, limping, her body failing under the weight of her gift. Blood seeped through her side again. She’d pushed her foresight too far, too fast.

Adrian watched her eyes. Always those eyes. How they flicked seconds before her body moved. Foresight. Spontaneous. Natural. Still rough.

Still unreliable.

But the serum would change that.

He touched the vial in his pocket. Cold glass, wrapped in metal casing. A single dose. Fluorescent green. Distilled from three separate brains—two volunteers, one less so.

The process had been excruciating. Brains didn’t want to give up their visions.

Once she took it, her mind would sharpen. Visions would burn clearer. She’d see entire paths of probability laid out like strands of silk.

But more importantly—

"She’ll be mine," he whispered.

"Sir?" Rennic turned toward him.

Adrian didn’t answer. His eyes were back on Leo.

Leo’s power is raw. Dimensional. Unstable. He manifests things from memory. Objects. Sound. Pressure. Emotion. A world inside his skin.

A universe waiting to be used.

Adrian’s lips curled.

"She’ll use it to protect him. The foresight serum. She’ll take it to see what’s coming. And when she does..." He turned slowly, smile widening. "We rewrite everything."

On-screen, three more feeds died.

Rennic tensed. "Sir. We just lost the east grid. All of it."

"Mimic?" Adrian asked.

"No footage. Just—nothing. Same as before. Lights, then dark."

Adrian clicked his tongue. "Then the mimic’s hungry. About time."

He moved toward a smaller terminal near the rear. One reserved for him. He keyed in a sequence.

The mimic’s control feed bloomed on screen. Not a visual, but pulses. Biological telemetry. Motion. Neural spikes.

Adrian flicked to command code 027-R.

A vial inside the mimic’s back chamber deployed. A burst of synthetic pheromone, coded specifically to one blood sample.

Zara’s.

Adrian had inserted it during the last sweep. A fabricated ’medical emergency.’ A forced sedation.

She never even knew.

The mimic, keyed to her blood now, would find her. Would follow her.

Would become the things she feared and trusted the most, and lure her into his arms.

Her guilt would do the rest.

Adrian’s fingers danced across the keys. Feed coordinates overlapped with old construction logs. "Service Rung 12 is above their path. If we collapse Junction 9, they’ll have no choice but to climb."

He turned.

"Rennic. Prep intercept. If we move now, we beat them to the shaft."

"Yes, sir." Rennic nodded sharply. "Should I deploy drones?"

"No. No more tech. No more barriers. Let the mimic play."

He walked toward the far end of the unit. Another door waited there—

Adrian slammed his palm on the biometric scanner. The door hissed open with a hydraulic sigh. Cold air poured out, prickling their skin. Lights bathed the small room in sterile blue.

Inside, suspended in a gravity stasis pod, floated a woman no older than Zara—pale, too still, almost porcelain. Her eyes were closed.

Her hair drifted like seaweed in slow motion. Tubes connected to the base of her skull. A faint pulse monitor ticked beside the pod.

Adrian approached her like a priest at an altar and touched the glass.

"Soon," he whispered. "You’ll wake. And when you do... the world will finally be clean."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

He remembered her scream when she was taken.

He remembered promising it would be worth it.

A chime behind him. The mimic feed buzzed.

Adrian turned.

Someone was waiting in the command unit.

Not Rennic.

Winter.

No—the mimic, wearing Winter’s shape. Blood-stained, arms folded, smile wrong in all the ways that mattered.

It stepped forward. Not quite human. Not quite other.

Adrian tilted his head. "Report."

The mimic spoke in Winter’s voice. Too smooth. Too practiced.

"She has been found."

The smile widened. And Adrian, for the first time in days, felt something prick beneath his skin.

Not fear.

Excitement.

"Good," he said softly. "Bring her."

Almost mine.

The words echoed through his skull like thunder.

Every step had led to this. Every lie. Every death. Every experiment. All to ensure that no one would ever hold power like this again—except him.

He had seen what nations did with power. He had watched as treaties burned, as generals traded bombs like currency, as leaders smiled with blood on their hands.

Before most communication had gone off, before the satellites blinked out, he had seen the end coming.

They destroyed the world once. The scorched sky, the poisoned oceans, and the dead cities were all proof of their incompetence.

But now...

Now he would create a new order.

Foresight. Fold-space. Telepathy maybe. Biomorphs. Controlled. Weaponized. Sold. Privatized.

The war to end all wars... would be fought by his army of tailored gods.

Zara was the key. Her gift was navigational, strategic. A born tactician who needed to be molded.

But Leo—

Leo could rewrite distance, ignore walls, bring supplies or soldiers from anywhere at will.

Together, they were the prototype.

Together, they’d usher in the final phase of the Apex Directive.

Adrian clenched the serum vial tighter.

It glowed brighter now.

Soon.

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