Chapter 17 - THE SUBTERRANEAN TERMINAL
The abandoned water treatment plant looked like a concrete skeleton against the pale moonlight. Heavy chain-link fences topped with barbed wire surrounded the rusted main building, but a side access hatch—marked with the faded silver crest of Westbridge Armored Solutions—stood slightly ajar, venting a faint, steady hum of filtered air.
I slipped through the hatch, descending a long, grated spiral staircase that plunged deep underground.
The air grew steadily cooler, smelling of ozone and sterile server cooling fans. At the bottom of the shaft, a pair of heavy sliding glass doors parted automatically as I approached, welcoming me into a sprawling subterranean control hub bathed in the soft, ambient glow of hundreds of wall-mounted monitors.
There were no guards, no armed security forces. Only rows of silent, pulsing servers and endless streams of global financial data cascading across glass screens.
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And sitting in the center of the room, dwarfed by the massive console before him, was Unit Seven.
He wasn't wearing his denim jacket anymore. He wore a simple gray cotton pullover, his legs swinging slightly over the edge of an oversized ergonomic chair as his small fingers danced across a holographic keyboard with impossible speed.
