This Broken Earth

Chapter 5: Eyes Open

Chapter 5: Eyes Open


The next morning, the briefing room buzzed with quiet urgency.

Dane stood at the front, arms folded across his broad chest, his face more tense than usual. A map of the city glowed behind him, sectioned into zones, red markings across three of them.

“Last night confirmed it,” he said to the small group assembled. “There’s a new presence on the surface. Not drones. Not rebels. Something else. Possibly engineered.”

The word made Lex’s stomach flip.

Jace—lean build, average height, and always the first to speak when no one else would—tilted his head from the far side of the room.
“Biological?” he asked.

“Could be. Or worse—hybridized.” Dane’s gaze swept the room. “We don’t have full answers. But we know this: it moves faster than we can track, and it is aware.”

Elias folded his arms. “And what about the gunfire? Whoever was shooting at us couldn’t hit the broad side of a wall.”

“We’re still analyzing. Could’ve been a warning. Could’ve been a misfire. But the pattern didn’t look like any rebel ambush I’ve seen.”

“Or they weren’t trying to kill us,” Nate muttered.

Lex felt a chill crawl up her spine. The thought had crossed her mind too—that whoever was out there hadn’t missed… they’d held back.

Dane nodded once. “Exactly. Which is why we’re shifting focus.”

He tapped a section of the map.

“We’re splitting into two teams. One surveillance team outside—track, observe, document. The other stays positioned inside the bunker, monitoring external approaches—entrances, perimeter breaches, anything unusual on the surface feeds. I want records of everything.”

Lex hesitated. “You want to… watch it?”

“I want to understand what we’re dealing with,” Dane said. “No engagement unless necessary. This thing’s not acting like the drones. It might be watching us. It might be trying to communicate. Either way—we need to know.”

From the back, Latch shifted uneasily.
“And if it attacks?”

Dane’s jaw tightened. “Then we adapt. But until then, I want eyes open. If it’s intelligent, we treat it like it is.”

He turned back to the map.
“Team assignments by nightfall. Briefing at 1800. That’s all.”

Chairs scraped. The room shifted as people stood, quiet conversations starting in pockets. But not everyone moved right away.

Jace lingered near the edge of the table. “You really think this thing wants to talk?”

Dane didn’t look at him. “I think it’s watching. And I think ignoring it would be the bigger mistake.”

Jace gave a low, humorless laugh. “Or it’s luring us out.”

No one disagreed.

Across the room, Lex caught Nate’s eye. His brow was furrowed, arms still crossed—a quiet knot of concern in his posture. He didn’t look suspicious. Just… worried.

Lex, on the other hand, felt a prickle under her skin. A low, crawling doubt that Dane wasn’t telling them everything.


*

Later, Lex found herself back in the hydroponic garden, fingers damp with soil, helping replant lettuce with Lina—a petite eight-year-old missing both front teeth and still convinced Lex was secretly a superhero.

The soft buzz of the grow lights and the quiet hum of water through the system felt too calm after everything. Like the bunker was pretending. Like the walls were trying to muffle the truth.

Lina chattered about her dreams. Something about flying over buildings and having a tail. Lex smiled weakly and nodded, her mind still replaying Dane’s words.

She had just finished patting soil around a seedling when she heard a shift in air behind her—a presence that didn’t belong to the soft rhythm of water and lights.

Nate leaned against the doorway, arms crossed loosely, like he had nowhere else to be. His eyes found her immediately, then flicked to the smear of soil across her shoulder.

“You made the team,” he said.

Lex looked up, wiping her hands on her cargo pants. “Which one?”

“Inside surveillance.”

A strange mix of relief and dread twisted in her chest.
“I guess I’m not just babysitting anymore.”

His lips twitched. “Definitely not.”

She stepped out from the row, shoulder brushing a tomato vine. The tank top clung to her back in the lingering warmth of the grow room. Nate’s gaze flickered—just briefly—then settled back on her face.

“You too?” she asked.

“Outside surveillance,” he said.

A breath caught in her throat. “Just… be careful, okay?”

“I always am.”

“That’s not what Latch said last night.”

He gave a crooked smile. “You been asking around?”

“No. People talk. They think you’re the only reason half of the recon teams are still breathing.”

“That’s generous,” he murmured. “But I won’t argue.”

Lex gave a small nod, lips quirking at the corners. It faded almost as quickly.

“I don’t like this, Nate,” she said quietly. “Any of it. I don’t think it was alone.”

Nate’s gaze sharpened. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking the same.”

A silence settled between them again, heavier this time. Then Lex spoke, her voice low.

“We’re all immune. That’s the reason we’re still here.”
She hesitated.
“But I don’t think Dane’s just trying to survive. Whatever this is… it feels bigger than that.”

Nate didn’t answer right away. Just a slow, quiet nod—less certainty, more consideration. His silence felt like agreement.

Then he pushed off the doorframe.

“Get some rest before the briefing. The way things are going, we won’t get many chances.”

He walked away, slow and steady. And when he was gone, Lex let out a breath, hands still stained with soil, heart not quite steady.

A few minutes passed in quiet.

Then Lina leaned over her lettuce tray.
“He’s cute. You should marry him.”

Lex choked on a laugh. “Lina!”

The girl giggled. “You’d have superhero babies.”

*

The air in the bunker always felt recycled, but tonight it felt wrong. Like it had picked up something in its slow circuit through vents and corridors—something stale and sour, like old fear.

Lex sat on the upper floor railing, legs dangling over the edge, staring down at the dim communal area below. Half the lights had been shut off for energy preservation, casting everything in shadows.

Voices echoed faintly from a nearby hall. Meeting room. Briefing spillover.

Nate was probably still in it with the other outside surveillance members. Lex hadn’t been invited to that part. Her briefing had already happened: a standby order and a list of locations to monitor.

She wasn’t supposed to feel left out. But she did.

A soft shuffle broke her thoughts.

“Hey.”

Gray slid onto the railing beside her, hoodie sleeves tucked over his hands. He handed her a protein bar—the kind everyone hated. She took it anyway.

“They’re going to get someone killed,” he said.

She glanced sideways. “You think they can’t handle it?”

“I think they don’t know what they’re walking into.” His voice dropped a notch. “We don’t even know what that thing was. But Dane’s treating it like just another threat.”

She chewed slowly. “Can’t say I disagree.”
Then, with a sidelong glance: “But last I checked, you’re not cleared for the Upper Sector, genius.”

“Like that ever stops me.”

She shook her head in mock disapproval. “How do you even know what’s going on?”

Gray smiled. “I overheard him earlier—near the ops hall. Dane was briefing someone. I caught enough.”

He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “I found something on this level. An old terminal—buried. Found it a couple days ago.”

That got her attention.

At first I thought it was junk—corrupted logs, scrambled drone reports. I spent hours trying to crack the encryption.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Then this morning, I got in. Found a backdoor override. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it would work—but it did.”

Lex raised her eyebrows. “And?”

“Research logs. Drone behavior. Virus triggers. And one tag kept coming up—Version Four.”

He shifted, and his knee brushed against hers. Not on purpose. But he didn’t pull away either.

Lex stayed still. She noticed.
So did he.

After a beat, he went on. “The files weren’t clean. Most came from a blacksite northeast of here. Officially shut down.”

He paused, brow furrowed. “But the tags weren’t just technical. Some of them were… strange. Stuff like ‘version integrity,’ and ‘subject replication.’”

Lex’s stomach turned.

He paused, voice lower now. “I think they were experimenting with something. Maybe a hybrid. The virus could’ve been the start—but it wasn’t the endgame.”

Before she could respond, something shifted in the vent overhead.

Not loud. Not sharp.

Just a faint metallic tick. Delicate.

Intentional.

They both looked up.

Gray whispered, “If that’s a rat, I owe all the normal rats an apology.”

Another sound followed—soft, like fabric brushing mesh. Not airflow. Not pipes.

He stood, offering a hand with a crooked smile. “Well, that’s not horrifying at all.”

Lex let out a quiet breath, half-laugh, half-nerves.

They didn’t rush, but they didn’t linger either.

By the time they reached the lower level, Gray had told her more.


*

It was late in the evening when Lex found Nate alone in the lower level storage area, unloading gear from the lockers.

His shirt was off, back to her as he unlatched one of the crates, and for a moment she just stood there, taking in the long scar that traced over his right shoulder blade. Old. Healed. Brutal.

Not from the surface. Not from now.

He turned before she spoke, eyes meeting hers instantly—already aware of her presence.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” She stepped into the room. “Didn’t think I’d find you down here.”

He nodded toward the locker. “Figured I’d sort through the gear. See what’s worth bringing up.”

Lex stepped a little closer, her voice softer. “You doing okay?”

He paused, then gave a faint shrug. “Yeah. Just running through too many worst-case scenarios, I guess.”

“You’re not the only one.”

His gaze lifted, meeting hers. The moment hung there—quiet, uncertain.

Lex drew in a breath. “There’s something going on. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

He set the utility belt down carefully. “Then tell me.”

She hesitated, fingers brushing the seam of her cargo pants. “Gray’s been working on this old terminal he found. The first day it was just fragments. But today… something broke through. Something real.”

Nate didn’t interrupt. His eyes stayed on hers, steady.

“It’s not just scattered data. He found connections—proof that what happened out there wasn’t random. Someone designed it. Someone tested it.”

Nate reached for the towel again and ran it across the back of his neck, down over his shoulder. across his torso—taut, lean, defined with the kind of strength that didn’t happen by chance.

Lex caught herself staring a second too long. She blinked and looked away, heat rising to her cheeks.

He didn’t seem to notice—or he let her off the hook. “ If Gray’s right, then this changes everything.”

She nodded. “It’s not all clear. But he’s got enough to prove this whole thing wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate.”

His jaw tightened. “I want to see it,” he said.

*

They met Gray in one of the disused supply rooms on the upper sector—no functioning cameras, no patrols nearby, and just enough power to boot a dusty terminal.

He was already waiting, leg bouncing as the screen warmed up.

“This thing’s ancient,” he muttered, patting the side. “But it still talks.”

Gray glanced back at them. “I decrypted some of it. Not everything. But enough to know it’s real.”

Lex and Nate stepped in behind him as lines of fragmented data filled the screen. They scrolled—slow at first—through corrupted logs and partial files. Project IDs. Test notations. Audio clips too damaged to play.
Some phrases repeated:

Subject V4 displayed signs of neural awareness.
Movement suggests learning pattern.
Nonlethal to key identifiers—possibly imprinting behavior.
Emotion tracking—unconfirmed.

Then a file name blinked onto the screen.

V4-019_Lex_Blackwell

Her throat tightened. “Gray,” she said quietly. “Open it.”

He hesitated—just a beat—then clicked.

A short, clinical paragraph filled the screen:

Candidate 019. Stable genome. Clearance expedited. Early-phase exposure complete. Monitor for retention.

A tight silence followed.

Gray sat still, his voice gentler than before. “I don’t think you were just brought here. I think you were placed.”

Lex’s voice came soft. “How am I even part of this?”

Nate folded his arms and glanced at the screen again. “Version Four. It’s in almost every file Gray’s opened.”

Lex swallowed. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “I’m still figuring it out. But this wasn’t just about a virus. It’s bigger than that—something behavioral, maybe even genetic. Some of the logs looked like they were tracking how people changed over time.”

A muscle twitched in Nate’s forearm. “You think that thing on the surface was part of it?”

Gray paused. “Maybe. Or something close.”

Lex looked down at the name still blinking on the screen.

“I don’t understand,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Why me?”

Before anyone could answer, an alarm blared overhead. Sharp. Sudden. Unlike the soft alerts they were used to.

This was the bunker breach alarm.

And for the first time, the danger wasn’t outside.