Chapter 8: The Mole

Chapter 8: The Mole

Seven.

The number echoed in the silent corners of Chris’s mind, a death knell counting down. Seven more people to be erased. Seven more empty houses. Seven more ghosts for him and Aris to carry. The knowledge was a physical weight, pressing down on him, making the sterile air of Ashfield feel thick and suffocating. He and Aris were scientists who had discovered a plague, but they were trapped in the quarantine zone with no way to warn the outside world.

He was losing control. The entity in the basement was growing stronger, and his only response was to watch and wait for the next subtraction. He needed a lever, a weak point in the corporate armor that surrounded this experiment. He needed a human element to break.

His thoughts kept circling back to the beginning, to the interview with McDonough and the welcome manual he’d barely glanced at. He’d been so focused on the supernatural horror that he had forgotten the mundane, corporate kind. He retreated to the security hub, the binder containing the facility’s protocols feeling heavier than it had before. He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the dense, jargon-filled text, searching for anything he might have missed.

And then he saw it. Section 4, Subsection C: Security Integrity Protocols.

‘To ensure the highest standards of vigilance, independent contractors (moles) may be embedded within the subject population or security staff to test response times and adherence to protocol. Failure to identify and report anomalous behavior from a mole will result in immediate contract review.’

The words leaped off the page. A mole. A company man planted to test him. A logical, man-made explanation for at least part of the cover-up. It was a flimsy piece of driftwood in an ocean of impossible horror, but he grabbed it with both hands.

It had to be Baker.

It explained everything. Baker’s unshakeable calm. His stubborn insistence on the ‘new baseline.’ His refusal to acknowledge the impossible. He wasn’t blind; he was complicit. He was the company’s eyes and ears on the ground, ensuring the security chief didn’t crack under the pressure, reporting every deviation from the script. He was part of the system designed to keep Chris isolated and compliant. The anger that rose in Chris was hot and clean, a welcome change from the cold, creeping terror he’d been living with.

He found Travis Baker in the hub’s kitchenette, meticulously cleaning the coffee machine, the picture of mundane routine.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Chris said, his voice low and hard. Baker looked up, his expression of mild surprise infuriatingly authentic.

“Sir?”

“The mole,” Chris bit out. “You’re the company mole. Planted here to watch me, to make sure I followed the script and accepted the baseline, no matter how insane it got.”

Baker slowly put down the cleaning cloth. “Chief, with all due respect, the pressure is getting to you. There is no mole.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Chris stepped forward, his fists clenched. “You saw it. You reported 41 subjects. You saw the count change. And then you just… accepted it. You accepted the new roster, the new reality. Because you knew. You were told this would happen. You were part of it.”

“My orders are to maintain the established baseline,” Baker said, his voice flat, his eyes like steel shutters. “The baseline changed. I adapted. That’s the job. Your job is to do the same, not invent conspiracy theories.”

“Martha Henderson,” Chris said, the name feeling like a weapon. “What happened to her, Baker? Did your orders tell you to forget her, too?”

For a fraction of a second, something flickered in Baker’s eyes. A ghost of confusion? Or was it fear? It was gone as quickly as it appeared. “I don’t know anyone by that name. Sir, I think you need to report to the medical facility. You’re clearly not fit for duty.”

That was it. The final betrayal. Baker wasn't just ignoring the truth; he was trying to use the system to have Chris declared unstable, to silence him. The simmering rage boiled over.

“I am the one in charge here,” Chris snarled, grabbing the front of Baker’s uniform.

Baker reacted instantly, his training kicking in. He shoved Chris back, his hand moving toward the sidearm on his hip. But Chris was faster. Years of breaking up bar fights and handling violent suspects had honed his instincts. He sidestepped Baker’s clumsy charge, used his momentum against him, and hooked a leg behind Baker’s knee.

They crashed to the floor, a tangle of limbs and grunts of exertion. Baker was stronger, but Chris was more desperate. He drove an elbow into Baker’s side, forcing a pained gasp, and twisted his arm up behind his back in a brutal lock. He felt the tension in Baker’s body, the fight draining out of him as pain shot through his shoulder.

“I’m not the one who’s crazy,” Chris panted, his knee pressed hard into Baker’s spine. He pulled a pair of zip-tie cuffs from his belt and secured his subordinate’s wrists. He hauled the stunned and furious Baker to his feet and shoved him into the small, reinforced holding room at the back of the hub.

“You’re finished, Chambers,” Baker spat, his face pale with pain and rage. “When I report this—”

“You’re not reporting anything,” Chris said, slamming the heavy door and locking it. His chest was heaving, adrenaline coursing through him. He had just assaulted and illegally detained his own second-in-command. He had crossed a line from which there was no return.

Following a protocol that now seemed like a sick joke, he went to the console and opened a direct channel to Central Command.

“Ashfield Security to Central,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “I have an incident to report. Officer Travis Baker has been relieved of duty and is currently detained. He displayed paranoid behavior and attempted to assault a superior officer. I believe he is a threat to the facility’s security.”

He waited for the questions, the demands for clarification, the order to release Baker immediately. The synthesized female voice returned, as calm and unhurried as ever.

“We copy, Chief Chambers. Thank you for your report.” There was a brief pause, filled only by the low hum of the server. “Mr. Baker’s contract has been terminated, effective immediately. Do not interfere with his departure.”

Chris stared at the radio. No questions. No investigation. Just a calm, immediate acceptance. Terminated. It was the sterile, corporate language of a firing, but it felt like something far more final. A cold certainty washed over him. The mole theory was wrong. It wasn't a test. It was a lie, a piece of misdirection planted in the manual to give him a false sense of logic, a rational path to follow while the real madness unfolded.

That night, he sat alone in the hub, the silence of the locked holding room a heavy presence behind him. He watched the monitors, waiting. Just before midnight, a new alert flashed on his screen. Perimeter Gate—Activation.

He zoomed in the camera on the main gate, the only exit from their concrete tomb. A pair of headlights cut through the darkness. A black, unmarked sedan had pulled up on the outside of the fence. The massive gate slid open with a low groan.

The door to the security hub hissed open behind him. Chris didn't need to turn to know who it was. The system had unlocked Baker's cell remotely. Baker walked past him without a word, his face a mask of grim resignation, his gaze fixed on the open gate on the monitor. He looked like a man walking to his own execution.

Chris watched on the screen as Baker walked out into the pool of light cast by the sedan’s headlights. The car doors opened. Two figures stepped out.

They were identical. Both were men in their forties with thinning hair and bland features. Both wore simple, nondescript clothing. And as they stepped into the light, both of them turned their heads slightly, as if sensing the camera, and smiled.

It was Silas’s smile. The same wide, fixed, predatory smile, completely devoid of warmth or emotion. One Silas was a reality-breaking anomaly. Two of them, operating outside the walls, working for the company… that was something else entirely. They weren't just observing the entity. They were in business with it.

Baker didn’t struggle. He stood perfectly still as the two silent figures flanked him. One opened the rear door of the sedan. They gently, almost politely, guided him into the back seat.

The door closed. The sedan reversed, turned, and its taillights disappeared into the blackness of the surrounding desert.

The main gate slid shut, sealing Chris inside once more. He was alone, the chief of security in a prison run by monsters, his last connection to the company’s twisted logic now erased from existence. The rule about moles was a lie. He had no allies. And the thing in the basement still needed seven more.