Chapter 241: Glasshouse
The helicopter touched down without fanfare.
No searchlights. No armed convoy waiting with rifles raised. Just the whine of the engine fading as the aircraft settled into place—an automated landing pad embedded directly into a mountainside, its borders lit by faint, buried LEDs that pulsed with cold, clinical rhythm. The blades slowed to a whisper, then silence.
We weren’t in the jungle anymore.
The ramp dropped. Wind sliced inward, sharp and dry, stinging the cuts on my cheek. I looked out and felt my stomach twist. Everything was wrong.
The air had shifted. Thinner. Colder. The stars above looked clearer—emptier. Snow dusted the edges of the cliffs, bleeding like ash across black stone. This wasn’t just a relocation. It was exile.
They moved us fast. Guards in layered gray uniforms herded us down a narrow tunnel carved into the rock, no wider than a freight hallway. No one spoke. Not the agents. Not the prisoners. Just the echo of boots and the electronic hum of the facility that swallowed us whole.
The tunnel opened into white.
A corridor stretched out like something grown, not built—pure white walls that reflected no shadow, seamless tile underfoot, pale strip-lights running like veins overhead. Cameras blinked behind matte-black domes. At every intersection, a metal port glowed red until we passed, then dimmed. Sterile. Controlled.
But not repurposed.
This place wasn’t converted from something else. It had no wear, no history, no mismatched screws or reinforced corners. It was new. Custom-built.
And it was built to hold people like us.