AN: Missed 1 chapter [Ch: 45: Power of Technology]. Uploaded it.
Dreykov sipped his tea, the warmth doing little to chase away the ever-present chill of the Ural Mountains. He stood before the massive glass wall of his private office, high above the rest of the underground command center. From here, he could see everything... the control room, the training floors, the surveillance feeds displaying his network of bases worldwide.
For decades, he had built the Red Room into something untouchable. A shadow empire that stretched across governments, economies, and battlefields. Assassins, informants, and agents... All threads woven into the fabric of global power.
No war happened without him knowing. No country moved without someone whispering in his ear.
He smiled to himself.
They thought they could take him down before.
A soft chime echoed through the room. Dreykov turned his head slightly as Colonel Vasily Ivanov, his head of security, strode toward him.
"Routine checks, sir," Ivanov replied, standing at attention. "Surveillance is stable, all communications are running normally. Our assets in Washington and Beijing confirm that there are no external investigations into our operations."
Dreykov nodded. "Good. And the Widows?"
"Fourteen active in the field, thirty-two in rotation here at the main facility. All protocols remain intact."
Dreykov took another slow sip, exhaling through his nose. Nothing could touch them.
Then everything collapsed.
It started with a flicker.
One of the surveillance feeds glitched, just for a second. Barely noticeable.
The main screen in the control center stuttered before stabilizing. The officers below exchanged uneasy glances, fingers flying over keyboards as they attempted diagnostics.
Dreykov's grip tightened around his glass. "What is happening?"
"Sir," an officer called out, voice laced with confusion. "We're detecting..."
The main map of the Red Room's operational network went black.
Every facility. Every server. Every communications relay.
Dreykov's blood turned to ice.
The control room exploded into chaos. Officers shouted over each other, scrambling for answers. Error messages flooded the screens. Every attempt to re-establish contact failed.
"No... No, no, no!" One of the senior technicians slammed his fists on the desk. "It's not just a communications blackout! The systems, our entire network... it's not there anymore!"
"What do you mean, 'not there'?" Ivanov barked, stepping forward.
"I mean it's been wiped! Deleted! Every system, every backup, every off-site server!"
Dreykov's fingers twitched. He forced himself to remain still, to keep his face expressionless.
Even if someone had attacked a base, they would have received warnings, distress calls, encrypted messages—anything.
Instead, they had received nothing.
Because someone had made sure of it.
Then came the first security alert.
[Siberia Base – OFFLINE]
Dreykov's throat went dry.
[New York Hub – OFFLINE]
[Hong Kong – OFFLINE]
The alerts piled up, one after the other, cascading across the screen like a digital avalanche. Every hub. Every sub-base. Every safehouse.
It was as if every last piece of the Red Room had been erased at the exact same time.
Dreykov's teacup slipped from his fingers, shattering against the floor.
"Who did this?" he whispered, voice barely audible over the panic in the control room.
The realization settled in like a lead weight in his stomach. Whoever had done this wasn't just attacking them.
They had planned this for a long time.
They had infiltrated his systems so deeply that they had been feeding false reports, creating a loop to make everything appear normal, until now.
Until the moment they decided to end it.
Dreykov turned sharply to Ivanov. "Activate full lockdown. I want every Widow on standby. If they could take down everything without us knowing, then there's a possibility that they are already here. If there is even a single breach, I want to know about it..."
A new alarm blared, high-pitched and deafening.
Dreykov's hands curled into fists.
A terrified officer turned from his console. "Sir... It's coming from above."
The first explosion came from the north wing.
A controlled blast, just enough to cave in the tunnel leading to the armory, cutting off security's access to heavier weapons.
Then, the lights flickered.
For a brief moment, everything plunged into total darkness.
Then, the emergency lights activated, bathing the base in an eerie red glow. Shadows twisted along the walls. Gunfire, explosions... Sudden silence...
Something was in the base.
Ivanov was barking orders, mobilizing the soldiers. He ordered the Widows to move.
Dreykov watched the security feeds. Fear was something he never knew, heck he was the fear, until now. Droplets of sweat appeared on his forehead.
They were being hunted.
The first team of guards vanished in the northern corridors. A black figure moved through the red haze, fast and silent. Bodies dropped before they could scream.
Another group—elites this time—stationed at the south gate. They raised their rifles, scanning the shadows.
Something moved in the darkness above them.
A single shot rang out. One man crumpled. The others turned, only to be yanked violently into the air, their bodies smashing against the walls before collapsing in a heap.
Who the hell was this?
Dreykov's fingers dug into the armrest of his chair. "Get me visuals!"
The cameras flickered, struggling to keep up with the movement. But for a fraction of a second, one frame captured a silhouette.
Not a Widow. Not a soldier. Not one of theirs.
The figure wore a black suit. No insignia. No markings. A metal gauntlet gleamed under the emergency lights, shifting as the figure flexed its fingers. Around him lay the broken dead bodies of his men and unconscious Widows.
Then, the person looked up and tilted his head, right at the camera.
And showed them the middle finger.
The feed cut to static.
Dreykov's heart pounded in his chest. This wasn't a random strike force. This wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D. or any other agencies.
This was something else.
'A personal grudge? But who? When? Why?' Too many questions assaulted his mind, yet no answers.
Dreykov turned as Ivanov rushed toward him.
"The intruder is non-lethal against the Widows, but he's executing the rest of our forces. We have reports of close-quarters combat... guards taken out before they can fire a shot."
Dreykov's breath was shallow. His empire, his life's work, was being dismantled before his eyes.
But he was still here.
And as long as he lived, the Red Room lived.
He straightened his spine. "Activate the final protocol."
Ivanov hesitated. "Sir, he is not ready. If we get him out before the synchro process..."
Ivanov swallowed hard, then turned to the nearest console, inputting the necessary commands.
Dreykov exhaled slowly. Whoever this was, they had underestimated him.
They thought they were hunting him.
But he had spent decades being the hunter.
And he wasn't done yet.
[Deep Containment Level]
The alarm's shrill wail echoed down the cold steel corridors of the Red Room's most classified sublevel. Rows of cryogenic pods lined the chamber, each one filled with failed experiments, discarded weapons of war frozen in time.
But at the very end of the chamber stood one pod that was different. Larger. Reinforced. Adorned with heavy locks and warning symbols in bold red Cyrillic letters:
Inside, submerged in freezing stasis fluid, was a monster in the making.
Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich.
Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich was known to be a cruel and violent man who served with the USSR's Spetsnaz in the early 1960s. However, his crimes were eventually discovered, which led to his supposed execution. Surviving a fatal gunshot to the head thanks to his newly discovered mutant abilities, Rossovich was court-martialed and forced into the USSR's own Super Soldier Project after the potential of his abilities was noticed. Rossovich underwent years of experimental torture and enhancements that not only turned his skin chalk-white but transformed him into a deadly cyborg who soon took the name Omega Red. (He did shit much worse, but due to certain rules, I couldn't write them. You can check the fandom)
The glow of his pod's biometric scanner pulsed yellow, showing incomplete synchronization. His latest cybernetic upgrade, a next-generation neural interface designed to push his combat efficiency beyond human limits, was still at 72% integration. Under normal conditions, the process would take another forty-eight hours to complete.
But Dreykov had no time for patience.
"Ivanov," Dreykov barked, eyes locked on the surveillance screens. "Override containment failsafes. Wake him up."
Ivanov hesitated. His thick fingers hovered over the terminal's final authorization key.
"Sir, the cybernetic fusion isn't complete. We have no idea how unstable—"
"DO IT!" Dreykov's voice cracked with raw desperation. "Now!"
Ivanov swore under his breath and slammed his fist against the console.
[Deep Containment Level – Omega Red's Pod]
The stasis fluid drained with a deafening roar, hissing steam rolling across the floor as the chamber's temperature rose from -200°C to 35°C in seconds. Hydraulic clamps hissed and released, their steel locks disengaging one by one.
Inside the pod, a pair of burning crimson eyes snapped open.
The biometric scanner turned red.
Subject: Rossovich, Arkady Gregorivich
Status: Reawakening – Forced Manual Override
Cybernetic Synchro: 72%
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Ch: 49 [Rats in a Cage]