SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 192: The Voice Behind the Walls

The corridors were a maze, but her voice was the thread pulling me forward.

"Mr. Jester...?" She said soft and shaky. Like a memory brushed against by a cold wind.

I pushed forward, boots slipping a little on dust-coated concrete. The stream was still live. I could hear the chat firing off in the corner of my awareness, but I muted them, needing nothing but her voice in my ears.

I called out into the sterile dead air. "Evelyn? Evelyn, it’s me."

For a second, there was only silence.

@lostinrhythm: wait did he say Evelyn??

@signalphantom: IS THAT THE A-RANK EVALUATOR??

@fragmentx: no way no way no way

@voice4truth: dude what would she be doing here???

Then...."Don’t... please don’t come closer, Mr. Jester..."

Her voice echoed, bouncing between concrete walls and hollow frames. It sounded strained, wrong. Like she was fighting through water just to form words. A stark contrast to the professionalism she always had. Just what did they do to her?

I slowed at the next junction, hand brushing the concrete as I turned the corner. No traps. No guards. Just the endless skeletal frames of an unfinished facility. The map in my mind, the one I’d built from Billy’s descriptions, guided me loosely.

By now I was on the third floor. The signs said ’West wing’ and ’Isolation’.

I kept moving.

"Evelyn, where are you?"

I ducked under a half-installed ventilation duct. The air smelled stale, coppery, like old blood.

Again her voice floated to me, this time more insistent:

"Turn around. Please. It’s not safe for you here."

I clenched my jaw.

Not safe for me?

I laughed quietly under my breath.

She didn’t know what I’d already survived. What I would survive for her.

I moved faster, heart pounding slow and even. Each footstep was a drumbeat against the silence.

The hallway narrowed. Ahead, a door hung off its hinges, bent and broken. I could see a flash of bright white beyond it. A cleanroom? No... too damaged, too exposed.

"Evelyn," I said again, softer this time. "I’m not leaving without you."

Another pause. Then her voice, closer now, almost desperate:

"You don’t understand, Boss. You have to get out. You have to leave me behind."

Boss.

The title hit me like a fist.

She remembered.

Whatever they’d done to her, whatever this place had tried, it at least made me happy that they hadn’t taken everything from her.

I pressed forward, hand brushing the emergency jammer at my belt. Lights flickered overhead, struggling to stay alive. The walls here were cleaner. The dust was less thick. Someone still came through regularly.

Another corner.

Another door, sealed with a keypad.

No time to hack. No finesse left.

I backed up and slammed my boot into it once, twice. The frame groaned, metal bending, until finally it snapped inward.

"Evelyn—!"I called again, stepping into a long hallway lined with observation rooms. Glass windows shattered. Papers scattered. Bullet holes peppering the walls.

Each step forward, her voice came again.

"Don’t make me hurt you."

I froze.

Hurt me?

I shook the thought out. I was too focused and moved. The very reason I went into all these countries was to find her and save her and now that she was right there.....I’m not stopping.

Another hallway. Another set of broken doors. The timer still ticked faintly in my periphery.

[Timer: 42:28:10]

I had plenty of time, no need to worry.

The chat had gone wild again, even though they couldn’t see the halls.

@veilmelt: omg this is why Mr. Jester was in these countries

@catspynetwork: WAIT shes telling him to leave what is happening

@rebootedmedia: She said she was going to HURT him?

@nox_feed: HE CANT LEAVE HER GUYS HE WONT

I pushed through another door, breath catching as the air changed, clinical now. Bleached. Deadened.

The room was wrong.

Florescent lights buzzed overhead, too bright. The walls were blinding white, so clean it hurt to look at them. Like a place carved out of reality itself and sterilized until nothing human could survive.

In the farthest corner, curled into herself like a broken doll, was Evelyn.

Her blond hair had gotten much longer, tangled and lifeless. She wore simple white clothing, like something issued in a mental ward. Her back was to me. Her shoulders hunched.

I moved before I could think.

"Evelyn," I whispered.

Her head flinched slightly. Like she heard me. Like she was still fighting.

I crossed the sterile floor, boots leaving dull scuffs on the white tile.

Closer. Closer.

I reached out, fingers just about to touch her shoulder—

Her voice came again, sharper now, panicked:

"Boss, you have to get out of—"

Before she could finish—

BZZZZZT.

The intercom above us crackled to life, a cold, mechanical voice hissing through:

"Cain sees Abel."

I froze.

The words hung there, heavy, poisonous.

’Cain sees Abel’.

The trigger.

The same one implanted in other subjects.

The same one they’d engineered.

No.

No.

I took a slow step back.

"Evelyn...?" I whispered.

She moved.

Slowly at first. Then faster.

Her head turned.

Her eyes met mine.

And for the first time since I met her, Evelyn didn’t smile.

There was nothing human in her gaze.

No recognition or hesitation.

Only a single command.

Her body moved before I could react, straight at me.

A guttural scream tore from her throat as she lunged, faster than she ever should have been.

My hands went up instinctively, catching her wrists, but the force behind her was monstrous, unnatural. She slammed into me, driving me back across the room. Her strength was wrong, twitchy, explosive.

"Evelyn!" I gasped, struggling to hold her off. "It’s me! It’s Mr. Jester!"

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t blink.

Her mouth twisted into a snarl as she tried to bite, claw, break.

The chat was a hurricane of panic now, but I couldn’t focus on it. Couldn’t even glance.

All my strength was focused on holding her back without hurting her.

The realization hit me like a hammer.

My worst nightmare had come true.

They hadn’t just captured Evelyn.

They had turned her into a Cain Protocol subject.

And now—

Now I was fighting for my life against someone I had sworn to protect.

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