Contract Marriage with My Secret Partner in Crime-Chapter 167: Chaos

Everything was chaos.

The sirens wailed inside Level S-3, their piercing cry bouncing off the walls like a scream from the past. Red lights flashed overhead, painting the white lab in violent pulses. Smoke coiled from the shattered containment chamber, curling around their feet as if alive.

Zephany pulled herself up, her arms stinging from glass shards, her breath tight in her lungs. Beside her, Kendrick was already on his feet, shielding her with one arm while scanning the room.

The boy was still on the floor, curled in a fetal position, his glowing violet eyes blinking as though seeing light for the first time. Sparks jumped from the shattered panel behind him. Elias remained frozen beside him, his wrist still gripped in the boy’s hand. Blood trickled from where the grip dug into his skin.

"Don’t move," Elias said, voice quiet, but steady. "He’s not stable."

Reynold stepped forward, gun raised. "He doesn’t look like he belongs in the world above."

"Put it down," Elias warned.

Reynold hesitated.

Then Sophia spoke. "He’s scared." Her voice was level, soft. She had knelt behind one of the side consoles, her tablet blinking with active signals. "His neural activity is spiking erratically. If you fire, it might trigger an uncontrollable reaction."

Zephany stared at the boy. His breathing had turned ragged, rapid. His body was shaking, muscles twitching with unfamiliar sensation.

"Let him go," she said, taking a step toward Elias. "You’re hurting him."

"He’s the one hurting me," Elias replied, strained but calm.

Then, with a subtle shift, the boy loosened his grip.

Elias pulled back. The boy looked around the lab. His eyes stopped on Kendrick.

"You..." he rasped. "Same..."

Kendrick flinched.

The boy slowly lifted himself onto his elbows. Muscles rippled beneath his translucent skin. Veins glowed faintly beneath the surface. "You are like me."

Kendrick opened his mouth, then shut it. The air seemed thinner now.

"He recognizes your cell markers," Sophia said, eyes wide.

Zephany turned. "Wait. You’re saying Kendrick shares his genetic structure?"

"Not fully. But... enough. The Helix serum changed Kendrick. This boy was *made* from it. In some twisted way, they’re siblings."

The lab door screeched. Everyone turned, weapons rising. But it wasn’t Brent.

It was Pia.

She burst through the door, panting, hair disheveled. "Okay," she huffed, "what the *hell* did I just walk into?"

Kaelion and Levy appeared behind her, both breathless.

"Is that a child?" Levy asked, staring at the boy.

Christy arrived last, wincing as she leaned against the doorframe. "We heard the alarms. What’s going on?"

Before anyone could respond, a voice crackled through the overhead speakers.

Brent.

"You opened the gate."

Elias narrowed his eyes. "What did you do?"

"You were warned. None of them were meant to survive down here."

The floor shook.

"That’s not good," Kaelion muttered. "That’s definitely a self-destruct sequence."

Sophia’s fingers flew over her tablet. "We have less than ten minutes. System override is locked. This whole level’s about to collapse."

Reynold grabbed his radio. "Cassius, do you copy? We need immediate evac."

Static.

Zephany ran toward the boy. He was still staring at Kendrick, as if trying to memorize his face. "We can’t leave him."

"He might be the reason we can’t leave at all," Reynold shot back.

"He’s not our enemy," Kendrick said.

Christy walked over. She crouched beside the boy, gently touching his forehead. Her nurse’s instincts kicked in. "He’s burning up. If he was frozen for years, his body’s in complete shock."

Pia raised her hand. "Okay, not to rush anyone, but *collapsing lab*."

Sophia pointed to the side. "Emergency lift access. But it’s a tight fit. Maybe six people max."

"We split," Elias said.

"Not an option," Zephany snapped. "We stick together."

The boy tried to stand, swayed, and collapsed again.

Kendrick moved fast. He lifted the boy in his arms. "He comes with us."

Sophia nodded. "I’ll lead."

They ran.

Through winding halls, past flickering lights, down broken stairs. The facility roared around them, groaning like something alive. Fire sparked from ruptured cables. Walls cracked.

They reached the emergency lift. Sophia hacked the panel. It opened with a reluctant hiss.

Everyone piled in.

As the lift ascended, the tremors worsened.

Kendrick looked down at the boy, now unconscious again in his arms. "Hang on."

Zephany reached out and touched Kendrick’s shoulder.

For that moment, none of them spoke. They all just breathed.

The lift opened to daylight.

Cassius stood waiting, coat flapping in the wind. "Took you long enough," he said.

Then the ground behind them exploded.

---

The air was damp with the scent of metal and chemicals. Cassius stood at the threshold of the chamber, his eyes fixed on the wall lined with containment pods. The soft pulse of pale blue lights reflected off the glass tubes, each one labeled with a code and a red Helix insignia. He didn’t speak, didn’t move, not yet. He simply listened—to the hum of the machines, the slow drip of condensation, and the rapid beat of his own heart.

Sophia stepped in quietly behind him, her gloved hand brushing the side of the entrance as she scanned the room. Her voice was hushed, but firm. "They kept it operational. Even after all this time."

Cassius took a slow breath. "Not just operational. Active. Look at the condensation levels. Someone’s been monitoring these pods. Recently."

He crossed to the nearest containment unit and wiped a streak into the foggy glass. Inside, the figure of a young man floated, skin pale, eyes closed, thin tubes running from his chest and neck into the machinery behind him. Vital signs blinked faintly on the monitor beside the pod.

"Stasis," Sophia murmured. "No decay. These aren’t failed subjects. They’re preserved."

Cassius narrowed his gaze. "Or stored."

Sophia moved toward a central console, tapping the surface until a panel lit up with rows of encrypted files. "These records are newer than I expected. See this timestamp? Last month. Someone’s been running diagnostics. Adjusting vitals. Even altering serum levels."

"Brent," Cassius muttered. "He’s replicating Mern’s protocol. Perfecting it."

Sophia’s fingers hovered over the data feed. "No. This is beyond Brent. These readings are too stable. There’s a precision here that Brent never had. Someone else is helping him."

Cassius stiffened. "Or leading him."

A sudden alert chimed from the console. Sophia turned. "Someone’s accessing the system remotely. Now."

Cassius stepped back from the pod. "Trace the signal."

Sophia worked quickly, fingers flying over the surface, tracing layers of network activity. Her brows furrowed. "Encrypted... rerouted... but it’s bouncing through a local relay. Someone’s inside the facility."

Cassius’s voice dropped. "Brent?"

"Unlikely. These movements are methodical. They know the system. Could be Elias."

Cassius’s jaw tightened. "Or someone sent by him."

They heard it at the same time—a quiet scrape of metal against stone, just beyond the corridor leading into the cryo-wing. Cassius motioned silently. Sophia ducked behind the console, hand already reaching beneath her coat for the sidearm she rarely revealed. They waited.

A figure stepped into the dim light. Hooded, tall, but not unfamiliar.

"You’re late," Cassius said calmly.

The hood slipped back. Elias.

He looked older. Not by age, but by burden. The lines on his face were deeper, his eyes shadowed but alert. He said nothing, walking slowly into the chamber until he stood beside the nearest pod.

"Do you know what this is?" Elias asked softly, pressing his palm to the glass. "This one survived three failed iterations. The fourth stabilized. He shouldn’t be alive. But he is. Do you know why?"

Cassius didn’t answer.

Elias turned. "Because I changed the algorithm. I didn’t cure the mutation—I rerouted it. Let it consume nonessential tissue. Redirected growth. And still... Brent wanted more. Faster. Cleaner. Obedient."

"You abandoned the project," Cassius said. "Then why are you here?"

Elias’s lips twitched, but not quite into a smile. "To end it. The real formula is here. And the backups. I never trusted Brent. He never understood restraint."

Sophia stepped forward. "Then why send him data at all? Why feed this for years?"

Elias’s gaze didn’t flinch. "Because I needed to watch what he’d do when left alone. Now I know. And now, I erase it."

"Not without consequences," Cassius warned.

"Everything has consequences," Elias replied. "Including letting this fall into the wrong hands."

A thud echoed down the hall.

Then another.

Footsteps.

Not one pair. Several. Heavy. Armed.

Sophia’s face paled. "Brent’s men."

Elias didn’t seem surprised. "He followed me here."

Cassius drew his weapon. "We need to move. Now."

"No," Elias said. "I’ll hold them. You two get to the core system. Destroy the data. The serum samples are locked behind a DNA-coded vault. You know how to open it, Cassius."

"And if you don’t make it?" Cassius asked tightly.

Elias gave him a look both grim and proud. "Then do what I never could. Finish it."

Without another word, he turned and disappeared into the hall, cloak billowing behind him. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Cassius and Sophia didn’t hesitate. They sprinted across the lab, passing rows of pods, toward the far end where the central vault rested beneath reinforced steel and biometric locks. Alarms began to ring overhead, red lights bathing the room in pulses of warning.

The last Chapter of Helix had begun.

And there would be no turning back.