The innermost seal protecting Project Eclipse was a door originally designed for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and while it was well-balanced enough to be opened by one person, it was guarded by two: Pyotr [REDACTED] and Olga [REDACTED], both of whom carried one of the two keys necessary to gain access during their shift. They had been briefed in emergency shutdown and containment protocols, nothing more, and passed the considerable time by field-stripping and maintaining their weapons one at a time, and making small talk.

“So he says he doesn’t think you’re the kind of girl who can be serious?” Pyotr said. He was seated on an overturned paint container, cleaning the bore of his AN-94 of the debris from his last trip to the range. He still had his sights set on the father-son trophy at the annual marksmanship contest.

“I mean, define serious relationship,” Olga replied, her own weapon at the ready. “What does that mean, exactly?”

Pyotr looked up to nod in agreement, only to pause. “Говно!” he muttered. Then, aloud to both Olga and Grigory, on the comms: “We have lights out on Inner Seal perimeter.”

Grigory responded: “No reported breaks in circuitry. We’re sending Beta Team down to reinforce you. Do not investigate; do not engage. Smells like a trap.”

“Говно!” Pyotr said again, hurrying to reassemble his AN-94. “Of all the days to have an alert, of all the times, right when I need to do rocket surgery to put this thing back together!”

“Uh, Pyotr?” Olga said. “What’s going on?”

Looking up, Pyotr saw that lights were going out, bank by bank, all around them–to either side of the patrol bath around the Project Eclipse core and the catwalk back to the elevator.

“Additional lights out,” Pyotr said, abandoning his AN-94 and drawing his first backup weapon, a PP-19 Bizon submachine gun. “Grigory! What the hell is going on up there?”

“I…I don’t understand,” Grigory said. “I am getting reports of lights failing all over the complex, but the power is still flowing. By rights the lights should be on.”

The darkness was closing in, bank by bank. “I hear footsteps,” Olga muttered. “There’s a human agency behind this, mark my words.”

The footsteps were still approaching; Pyotr and Olga each pulled down the night-vision attachments on their helmets just before the last nights went out. “Do not approach any further, or we will open fire,” Olga cried.

In a sudden, suffocating moment of darkness, both the night vision rigs went out, the screens going completely black even though they still emitted the high electronic buzz that accompanied their typical operation. Pyotr, cursing, cast his aside and opened up with his Bizon at the unseen assailant. Olga joined him, firing a series of short burst from her AN-94 before dropping a flare. The muzzle flashes of the weapons combined with the flare allowed both of them to see that a figure was approaching.

But that was before the flare winked out too, impossibly. Pyotr let off a second burst, if only to make some light, but to his horror he found that the gun spat and recoiled but shed no light.

“What witchcraft is this?” he whispered.

The PM Makarov pistol was drawn from Pyotr’s holster and fired twice, once for him and once for Olga. As they slumped to the floor, Darklight tossed the weapon aside with a chuckle. “I can snuff out any light in existence,” she purred. “Even the one in your eyes.”

Project Eclipse awaited before her, unguarded, for the taking.

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