CHAPTER 11
Kade did not move after he said it.
I have three plans.
People always misunderstood that line.
They thought it meant indecision.
It meant redundancy.
Arden watched him like a chess player realizing too late the board had been rotated while she wasn't looking.
"You're bluffing," she said.
Kade tilted his head slightly.
"No," he replied. "I'm prioritizing."
The thing in the room — Scylla's Heir — shifted again. The air bent around it, a pressure headache without pain.
"You do not have clearance," it said.
Kade smiled faintly.
"Neither do you."
That was when Elias laughed.
A short, broken sound — too light for the room.
"You still do it," Elias said softly. "You still talk like the room is listening."
Kade finally turned to him fully.
"It is."
Elias leaned back in his chair.
"That's why you waited," he said. "You didn't come to save me first. You came to test the system."
Arden's eyes snapped between them.
"What is he talking about?"
Kade answered calmly.
"I never intended to break out of Blackridge," he said.
"I intend to make Blackridge reject itself."
Silence.
Kade stepped closer to the glass.
"Tell me what you remember," he said to Elias.
Elias closed his eyes.
"I remember rooms that don't exist anymore," he said. "I remember doors they sealed. I remember when the Maw was still a prototype and the guards were scared of it."
Kade nodded.
"Good."
Arden's voice cut in. "Enough riddles."
Kade ignored her.
"Do you remember the noise?" he asked Elias.
Elias's fingers twitched.
"The hum," he said slowly. "The one that means Parallax is syncing."
Kade exhaled.
"That hum," he said, "is not generated here."
The thing stiffened.
Kade turned his head slightly — addressing it without looking.
"Parallax is not a closed system," he said. "It's a distributed one. It relies on external synchronization points."
Arden's face changed.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying," Kade replied, "that Blackridge does not contain Parallax."
He took one step back.
"Parallax contains Blackridge."
The thing's voice sharpened.
"You are extrapolating."
"No," Kade said. "I'm remembering."
He tapped his temple.
"My mother didn't build Scylla to imprison people. She built it to predict institutional collapse."
Arden whispered, "That's impossible."
"She hid it as a prison experiment," Kade said. "Because no one questions cruelty if it's labeled 'security.'"
He lifted his eyes.
"The Maw isn't for extraction. It's a stress-test."
The room felt smaller.
"Blackridge exists," Kade continued, "to see how much pressure a system can take before it starts cannibalizing itself."
Elias opened his eyes.
"And we're the pressure," he said.
Kade smiled at him — real this time.
"Yes."
Arden stepped forward. "Stop."
"Too late," Kade said.
He gestured subtly at the walls.
"Plan One," he said. "Collapse trust."
He looked at Arden.
"You brought Citadel inside Blackridge. You let two command hierarchies overlap. That already started the fracture."
He lifted a finger.
"Plan Two," he continued. "Destabilize Parallax."
He looked at the thing.
"You need me conscious, mobile, and unsuppressed. Which means every restriction you place on me is temporary."
The thing hesitated.
"And Plan Three," Kade said quietly, "is the only one that ends with escape."
Arden's voice shook. "There is no exit."
Kade chuckled softly.
"The exit," he said, "isn't a door."
He leaned closer to the glass, eyes cold, precise.
"It's a failure condition."
The lights flickered.
Elias stiffened. "Kade… it's starting."
Deep inside Blackridge, the hum began.
Low.
Resonant.
Wrong.
Arden's console lit up with alerts.
"What did you do?" she demanded.
Kade finally turned to her.
"I did what Schofield always does," he said.
"I memorized the prison — and then I let it break itself trying to contain me."
The thing screamed.
Not in sound — in pressure.
And somewhere far above them, a door that had not been touched in ten years unlocked itself.