They moved through the tunnels with packs heavier and hearts lighter. The small victory of food and water had given them a fragile sense of safety—just enough to make the air feel almost breathable again. But as every survivor learns, the city only gives peace to take it back harder.
Maya led this time. The shaft they'd entered was narrow and sloped upward, littered with broken cables that hung like vines. Each step echoed off the walls, and though the sound was small, it carried too far. The deeper they climbed, the louder the hum of the subnet became—like static whispering through the bones of the place.
Kieran walked a few paces behind her, weapon drawn, eyes flicking to every shadow. He had grown quieter since the scavenging trip. Focused. Calculating. The kind of silence that comes before something breaks.
Selene was last, checking every turn with the measured rhythm of a soldier on borrowed time. She paused once, pressing two fingers to the wall. "Hear that?"
Maya stopped. The tunnel vibrated faintly beneath her palm, like something alive was stirring beneath the concrete. "Machinery?"
Selene shook her head. "No. That's movement."
The hum sharpened—once, twice—then went silent.
They froze.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then came the first clang. Metal on metal, far below. Then another. A pattern, deliberate and steady, rising toward them.
Kieran's grip tightened. "Enforcers?"
Selene crouched, eyes narrowing. "No patrol moves that slow. They're searching."
Maya's pulse jumped. "They found our trail."
"Maybe," Selene muttered. "Or maybe they're following something else."
Another clang echoed, closer now. The sound vibrated through Maya's spine. She glanced behind—darkness stretching endlessly, as if the tunnels themselves were breathing.
Selene motioned for silence. She pointed upward toward a service hatch above the incline. "We go up. Now."
Kieran dropped his pack and boosted Maya first. The metal hatch was half-rusted, but she managed to shove it open with a grunt. Dust spilled down like ash. She pulled herself through, then reached down for Kieran's hand.
The moment he came through, the hum below spiked.
A harsh beam of blue light cut through the tunnel they'd just left—searchlight. The Enforcers had arrived.
Selene leapt up last, slamming the hatch shut as a pulse round sizzled against the steel below. The impact nearly ripped the hatch from its hinges. The smell of ozone filled the air.
"Move!" she barked.
They stumbled into a wide service gallery—broken glass, pipes, half-dead monitors still flickering faint images. Maya ran first, lungs burning. The hum followed them, twisting into words that weren't words—garbled tones, almost like whispers in machine language.
<
The subnet's voice. Cold. Everywhere.
Kieran spun and fired down the hall, pulse shots flaring white in the dark. The feedback screamed through their comms. "They've synced to the subnet grid! It's mapping us!"
Selene cursed, dragging him forward. "We'll never outrun them down here!"
Maya's mind raced. The subnet… the lights… if she could twist the code like before— "Wait! I can jam their path!"
Selene's eyes snapped to her. "You'll fry your head doing that!"
"I'll fry theirs first!"
Before anyone could stop her, Maya pressed both palms against the wall. The metal was cold, but beneath it she felt that same pulse—the living, digital heartbeat of the subnet. She focused on it, pulling at the threads she'd glimpsed before.
Light exploded behind her eyes. She could see the Enforcers' signals, blue trails like veins through the dark grid. She wove a wall across them, bending the data flow. The network fought back, sparks lashing up her arms, but she pushed harder—until the trails went black.
Silence.
Then, a second later, the tunnel below them erupted with distortion—feedback so strong it shattered nearby screens. The Enforcers' signals blinked out, one after another.
Maya stumbled back, gasping, her hands smoking faintly. "They're blind. For now."
Selene caught her before she fell. "You could've killed yourself."
"Would've been worse if I didn't," Maya rasped.
Kieran knelt beside her, scanning her pulse. "You burned half your nerve feed. You can't keep doing that."
Maya tried to smile, though her voice trembled. "Then we better finish this before I run out."
Selene looked at the sealed hatch, where faint pounding still echoed below. "They'll regroup."
Kieran checked the flickering monitors, finding a schematic buried under static. "Then we don't wait for them to come. We head to the uplink—hit them before they reboot."
Selene's expression hardened. "Counterattack?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Their turn to run."
Maya lifted her head, eyes glowing faintly from the subnet's residue. "Then let's make sure they do."