When the blast door slid into its grooves, cutting us off from the outside world, silence didn't follow. A dense, vibrating hum filled my ears, like the buzzing of high-voltage power lines in the rain.
Zeno moved fast. His right manipulator transformed, extending a thin plasma cutter. A brief flash of blinding blue light, and the metal of the hinges softened, fusing immovably to the frame. Heavy thuds echoed from the other side of the door. First a sledgehammer, then something heavier. The dull impacts vibrated through the floor, but the door, engineered to withstand direct blasts, didn't even budge.
"We are secure," Zeno said, his voice sounding unusually crisp. "The probability of a breach through this barrier using the pursuers' available tools is 0.04% over the next six hours."
"Safety is relative," Tira rasped, breathing heavily as she crouched down. She ripped off her respirator, exposing pale, soot-stained skin. "We're in the Black Zone. Out here, even the air can kill you if you breathe too deeply."
I tried to answer, but my tongue felt completely numb.
"Hey... you alright?" Ephraim stepped closer, holding out a canteen.
I took it with a trembling hand. The water was warm and tasted of rust, but it was the best thing I've ever tasted in my life.
"I'm fine," I managed.
"No surprise there," the old man grunted, shaking his head. "Come on, lean on me."
We moved deeper into the tunnel. The Black Zone looked nothing like the residential sectors or maintenance corridors we had passed through before. A slick film coated the walls, pulsing faintly with a phosphorescent glow.
Tira walked ahead, constantly checking a small device on her wrist. Every now and then, it crackled with dry static.
"Background radiation is above parameters," she tossed over her shoulder. "Don't touch the walls. And whatever you do, don't step in puddles with an oily sheen. They're leftovers from protein synthesis chemicals. They'll burn through your soles in ten minutes."
"How do you know all this, girl?" Ephraim asked, looking around warily.
"My dad was a tech in a cleanup squad ten years ago," she replied shortly. "He never came back from a raid. But he left me his logs. And a habit of always checking my filters."
Because of my fractured perception, phantom figures kept flickering at the edge of my vision. I'd turn my head, and there'd be nothing. Just gray walls and slime.
Suddenly, I froze.
Ten meters ahead, a man was standing by the wall. He wore a clean white lab coat and was writing something on a tablet.
"Over there..." I pointed. "Someone's there."
Zeno snapped his manipulator up instantly. A red targeting laser sliced through the gloom, hitting a blank wall.
"Target not detected," the robot replied. "No thermal signatures present. Acoustic levels nominal."
"He's right there, damn it!" I took a step forward.
The white-coated figure raised its head. It had no face—only a smooth, glowing surface. Slowly, it raised a hand and pointed a finger right at me. Then it dissolved into thousands of tiny sparks and vanished.
"Iron, there's no one there," Tira said, stepping closer to peer into my eyes. She frowned. "Your pupils aren't reacting to light at all. The old security systems here sometimes bleed stored data into the air. It's visual noise. Just ignore it."
"Hard to ignore," I muttered, wiping cold sweat from my forehead.
"Get used to it," she tossed back, turning away. "In the Black Zone, reality is just whatever hasn't killed you yet. The rest is just background dressing."
The tunnel led us out to the Rotting Bridge. It was a massive cavern that large transit lines used to run through. Now, all that remained of the bridge was a narrow strip of rusted metal suspended over a bottomless chasm filled with a thick, corrosive fog. Strange noises drifted up from below—wet rustling, scraping, and a faint, eerie whistling.
"One at a time," Tira commanded. "Zeno, you go last. The girders might not hold your weight."
She moved first. Ephraim followed. Then me. Distance warped—stretching out for miles one second, snapping down to a single step the next. My head spun.
"Don't look down, kid," Ephraim called out from ahead. "Keep your eyes on me. Just walk."
Something rose from the fog below. It looked like a tangled mass of wire and raw meat. Eyeless. Possessing long, jointed limbs that ended in sharp bone spikes. The creature moved silently, crawling along the underside of the bridge.
"Contact!" Zeno shouted.
Bullets tore into the creature's flesh with wet thuds. It shrieked and plummeted into the fog. But more silhouettes were already climbing up from the depths.
"Shit," Tira said, whipping out a sawed-off shotgun from beneath her cloak. "Move! Everyone to the other side—now!"
I tried to pick up the pace, but my foot slipped on the wet metal, and I pitched sideways, catching the railing at the last possible second. One of the beasts vaulted over the edge right in front of me. Its maw, bristling with rows of needle-like teeth, ended up inches from my face. I saw everything: the translucent gray skin, the veins pulsing beneath it, the complete lack of eyes, the bloated sac at its throat. The joint between the jaw and the skull.
My healthy hand acted on pure reflex: it snatched the knife Ephraim had given me and drove it precisely into that point. The creature went limp, drenching me in foul black ooze. I shoved it off into the abyss.
"Iron, take my hand!" Ephraim was already there.
He hauled me onto solid ground just as Zeno laid down a covering burst, cutting off the remaining pursuers. The robot leaped across the final two meters—and the bridge collapsed behind him, plunging into the fog along with a dozen monsters.
"What... what the hell was that?" I asked, trying to wipe the black slime off my jacket.
"Lab error," Tira said. "They used to be dogs. Or pigs. Now they're just hunger given form."
Half an hour later, we stumbled upon a control room. A small chamber carved into the rock. Its heavy steel door still retained some semblance of a seal. Inside, it was clean, save for a thick layer of dust blanketing the control consoles.
Zeno took a position by the entrance, dropping into a low-power state while keeping his sensors active. Tira went straight to work on the terminals, trying to coax something back to life. Ephraim tracked down a few sealed containers in the corner stamped Emergency Rations: Type B.
"If this stuff doesn't kill us, nothing will," he remarked, prying one open with his knife. Inside was a gray paste. It smelled terrible, but it was edible enough.
I sat on the floor, leaning against the metal wall. I'm just an ordinary human after all, the thought drifted through my mind. And strangely enough... it brought a surge of strength.
"Got it," Tira said quietly. "It's a map of the ventilation shafts. If we cut through Sector Five, we can reach the utility elevators to the Middle Level. There are people there. Markets. We can disappear."
"What about the Academy?" Ephraim asked.
"They don't have as tight a grip on it. There are too many gangs and merchant guilds."
"Hold on, wait, the Academy? You mean Valerius sent the entire Academy after us?"
"As much as I hate to admit it, yeah," Ephraim replied.
"And what about the Council of Five? Are they hunting us too?"
"I don't know," he answered dryly.
"Attention," Zeno’s voice made everyone jump. "Anomalous radiation detected within the room."
"What, them again?" Tira adjusted her grip on the shotgun.
"Negative. The signal is of technological origin. Narrowband radio transmission at a frequency of 4.2 GHz. Academy data protocol."
"Where is the signal coming from?" I asked, slowly pulling myself up.
Zeno turned his head. His lens shifted from Tira to Ephraim... and locked onto me.
"The source of the signal is within 50 centimeters of Subject Iron," he stated calmly. "There is an active tracking beacon inside your body or clothing."
Ephraim slowly lowered his ration tin. Tira stepped back, raising her shotgun toward me.
"I knew it wouldn't be this easy," she hissed.
"I didn't know..." I began frantically tearing through my pockets, ripping off my jacket. "There's nothing here! Zeno, narrow it down!"
He took a step closer. His scanner swept across my body.
"The signal originates from your right arm," Zeno said, pointing to the stump wrapped in filthy bandages. "Beneath the skin, near the elbow joint. Depth: 1.5 centimeters. The beacon initialized at the moment of peak neural load."
The prosthesis... but when? I thought. Even so, my vengeance runs far deeper.
"Cut it," I said, holding out my arm to Tira.
"What?" She froze.
"You have a knife. Cut it out."
"It's going to hurt," she warned.
"I don't care. Just do it."
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