Dawn barely lit the eastern sky as Shadow regrouped with his team in a hollowed-out farmhouse outside the city. The morning air tasted of dewy grass and gunpowder. Petrov sat quietly in a corner, wrists bound, but the tension in his shoulders was easing.
"Good job tonight," Liu said quietly, nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee. Her eyes met Shadow's, searching. She noticed the slight tension in his jaw. "That was close."
Shadow nodded but didn't respond.
Jovan entered with a laptop, excitement in his tone. "The data from Petrov's wrist beacon – it's encrypted, but I got a lead." He pointed at the map on the screen. "An abandoned chemical plant outside Lviv. The coordinates align with a facility that made explosive gases, but it's been deserted for years. Yet active now – probably converting it."
Yara frowned. "Lead on, Jovan. Why would serum operatives want a chemical plant?"
Jovan shrugged. "Probably to extract raw materials or mix something. The place has a small runway. That's what was lit in Petrov's signal."
Shadow leaned in. The small white airplane icon blinked on the map. "That's it," he said. "They've been moving cargo by air, staying one step ahead. No wonder our intel missed it. Underground facility on an old site."
An internal rattle ran through Shadow. "Sabotage it," he said. "We take it out before it goes full production."
Liu tapped furiously. "We have enough explosives in the cache. Satellites caught a heavy lift helicopter delivering something last night. Maybe crates of special tools or material. We disrupt the refinery, collapse the roof over whatever they're making."
Shadow considered. The moral lines blurred when millions could die if the rogue serum escalated. "Agreed. We'll take down the lab and get whatever intel we can on the operation. Dragan, you're on overwatch perimeter. Yara, the detonators. Jovan, intel feed and communications. Liu, on point with the hacking."
Petrov suddenly coughed, leaning forward. Shadow's reflexes jerked him to rise. "Doc?"
Petrov shook his head, forcing out the sour taste of coffee. "I can come with you," he insisted. "After what happened, they'll know I talked to you."
Yara looked at Shadow, her brow raised. He studied Petrov's face — gaunt, determined. He knew they needed him alive to explain the bigger picture.
Liu keyed her radio. "Van's loaded. We'll be airborne in fifteen."
By sunrise, the team arrived at the outskirts of Lviv. The old chemical plant squatted behind barbed wire: rusted pipes and broken walls. Birds circled above.
Shadow slid out of the drop truck and nodded to Dragan. "Secure perimeter." Dragan and Liu melted into the shadows of the forest line, preparing their gear.
Shadow checked his gear: a compact submachine gun for close quarters, his silent sniper rifle for distance. His portal gloves strapped tight. In his mind, images of extraction turned sabotage. This was war.
They moved on all fours through tall grass. Jovan, high in a hawk's nest camouflaged tree, quietly tagged points on the handheld. "Three guards at main gate; two on the west tower; one chasing a guard dog away from the yard."
"Understood," Shadow whispered. He separated his vision between two overlapping windows in his high-tech goggles: one thermal, one normal. He spotted a pile of crates labeled in Cyrillic: "кислота" (acid) and "новые хрупкие детали" (fragile new parts). Among them, a brutal-looking man with buzz-cut hair and a cybernetic left arm stomped toward Shadow's flank.
"Enhanced operative inbound. Heavy genotype 4," Jovan warned. "Name's Dmitri. Cold shoulder implant for extra strength."
Shadow's heart skipped. A heavy enhancer meant a near-bulletproof head-on confrontation. He'd avoid that. "Got it. Headshot if needed. Watch flank," he replied, edging further under the forest canopy. He pulled out a clowder of micro-portals disguised as broken twigs.
Yara patted her vest. "Detonators live. One minute to sync."
They split: Shadow toward the storage shed where he spotted what looked like a makeshift lab. Petrov trailing behind, quietly shaken but resolute.
Inside, shelves held vials of pale liquid—serum prototypes? In the corner, a small centrifuge turned slowly under dim lights. Shadow recognized patterns from classified intel: this was an accelerant, fuel for a bomb, or maybe a batch of serum itself.
He drew a tablet, thrust it into the centrifuge. The machine began to spark, wobble. "Time to go," he said softly.
Suddenly, footsteps. Dmitri's heavy boots. The cyber-arm clicked ominously. He burst in — face twisted with malice — and raised a Glock. "You think Prometheus let you in here, no suit?" he jeered.
"Shadow," Yara's voice crackled: "Get him out of there!" The shrieking alarm in Yara's tone blared as a final countdown pinged: less than ten seconds.
Shadow slammed the shed door shut behind them and tackled Petrov through the exit. They spun through a shimmering portal on the other side of the courtyard wall, arriving among parked crates. Sirens wailed.
Dmitri's grenade nearly clipped Shadow's helmet as it detonated, sending a rubbery shockwave. Dirt and flame raced toward them.
"Gate blowers en route," Jovan reported.
Shadow looked back. The chemical lab was a sick glow. Tanks ruptured; the feed line exploded into sky-high fire. Chemical-laden smoke poured out, suffocating the dawn light.
They sprinted for the treeline. Dragan's figure sprinted to cover them, rifle blazing in short spurts. Bullets pinged steel barrels but faltered against the blastproof walls Shadow had cut through with portals.
A second, massive explosion sent shrapnel raining. Shadow barely rolled under cover of a fallen conduit. The lab's roof collapsed inwards. Trees shook.
"Everybody move!" Shadow yelled, issuing commands that seemed to echo inside him. He reached for Petrov. The old scientist crawled frantically, smoke rising from his boots. Smoke and dust choked the air.
Shadow helped drag him away from the smoke. "Hold on." Fear and anger had sharpened Petrov's eyes. He pulled something heavy from his chest: a chip-card with data—Prometheus information.
"We have what we came for," Petrov rasped as they staggered out of the blast radius.
Shadow nodded grimly. "Plug us out of here."
Liu's exosuit sprinted in from the treeline, flipping the manacylinders on his back to power boost. "I've got you," Dragan grunted, hoisting Shadow in one arm. Yara pulled Petrov behind Dragan with the other.
Together they plunged into the forest just as a fresh wave of helicopters thudded overhead.
Down the hillside, Shadow's heart pounded inside his chest like the rotor blades above. Smoke and flame behind had turned morning bright orange. Wounded birds fled. Somewhere behind was the Prometheus symbol—their necropolis of lies—now disassembled.
Jovan's voice steadied them. "Extraction's clear. Van's at rendezvous. Let's move."
Shadow didn't answer. The resonance of explosion still filled his ears. He could feel how close they'd come to losing it all. But in his hand, an encrypted key card with Prometheus secrets. A success, yes. But at what cost?
In the safety of the makeshift hideout that night, Petrov was given tea and debrief. Shadow watched as the old man's fingers traced the vapor lines on the table, frustration and hope dancing in his eyes.
"They know you're coming now," Petrov whispered at one point. "They'll change tactics."
Shadow only stared into the flickering candlelight. He wondered how many more missions lay ahead.
At midnight, when the farmhouse finally gave silence, Shadow lay on the cot in the corner. Yara sat beside him. "You all right?" she asked softly.
Shadow didn't want to burden her, but he breathed out. "Guilty. Everyone's safe, and we succeeded. But…"
Yara nodded, "We're not killers, you know? But doing what we do…" Her fingers glided through her hair. "What you did. These people. They were building something horrific."
He closed his eyes. "War isn't clean."
Yara gently squeezed his shoulder. "We have a job. We keep going. But hey, at least you didn't let Petrov get kidnapped again." She tried a wan smile.
And Shadow realized he'd begin dreading each sunrise: another mission, another confrontation.
But also, each dawn sharpened his resolve. The Prometheus conspiracy was bigger than one city or one blast. It was global. And he was crawling through dark corners to expose it.