The drainage tunnel roared with echoes—boots slamming metal, the hiss of hydraulics, the relentless hum of the subnet itself. Maya's lungs were raw, her legs screaming, but the Enforcers weren't slowing.
Selene skidded to a stop at a junction, her eyes darting. "We can't outrun them."
Maya whipped around, pistol raised, but the sheer number of red visors advancing through the dark made her stomach knot. At least six, maybe more, moving with machine precision.
"They'll box us in," Selene muttered. "Unless we—"
Her words cut off as the hum of the cables surged, vibrating the walls like a living pulse. The light strips flickered, then died. For one suspended breath, there was only darkness.
Then Maya felt it—the same voice that had whispered stay now pressing at her temples. But this time, it wasn't calling her to surrender. It was urging her to act.
Her headset crackled. Kieran's voice cut through the storm. "Maya. Selene. Listen—use it. The subnet listens if you push back hard enough."
Her pulse leapt. "How?"
"Think of it as… doors. Slam them shut."
The Enforcers advanced, their visors glowing like coals in the dark. Selene lifted her weapon. "We don't have time for riddles."
But Maya shut her eyes, clutching the headset tighter. She remembered the console's hum, the way her thoughts had brushed against something vast. She inhaled sharply, then shoved every ounce of fear and fury outward, like throwing a scream into the tunnels without opening her mouth.
The hum spiked.
The walls shuddered.
And with a metallic groan, the floor grates beneath the Enforcers yawned open.
Water and debris surged upward as the armored soldiers were swept into the roaring flood, their red visors blinking frantically before vanishing into the torrent.
Selene stared. "You… you did that?"
Maya's hands shook. "I don't know how. It just—answered."
The tunnel vibrated again, this time violently. Sparks rained from overhead cables. The subnet wasn't finished.
From deeper in the shaft, a second wave of Enforcers appeared, weapons raised. They fired in precise bursts, the muzzle flashes lighting up the dark. Bullets pinged off the walls, showering sparks.
Selene ducked behind a pipe, returning fire with sharp, controlled bursts. "Do it again!" she barked at Maya.
Maya pressed against the wall, heart hammering. She reached for the hum again, but this time it wasn't a door she imagined—it was a storm. She pushed her fear into it, her desperation, her determination not to let the Enforcers win.
The subnet responded with violence.
Cables writhed from the ceiling, snapping loose like whips. They lashed downward, coiling around the Enforcers with electric force. Screams—half mechanical, half human—filled the tunnel as the soldiers were dragged into the walls, crushed by the very infrastructure they controlled.
The lights flared back to life, blood-red.
Selene lowered her weapon slowly, eyes wide. "You're not just connected, Maya. You're inside it."
Maya swallowed hard, trembling. She hadn't just defended them. She'd fought back—with the subnet itself as her weapon.
Her headset flared with static. Then Kieran's voice broke through again, sharp, urgent. "Good. Don't stop now. They'll keep coming. You have to move."
Selene grabbed Maya's arm and pulled her forward. "You heard him. We're not waiting around to see what else this place throws at us."
As they ran, the tunnel behind them collapsed in on itself, burying the remnants of the Enforcers.
Maya glanced back once, her breath ragged. The subnet was no longer just whispering. It was roaring in her skull, pulsing in her veins.
And for the first time, she wasn't sure if it was protecting her—
or using her.