The metallic tang of blood and the fetid odor of the slain mutated rats filled the oppressive air of the subway tunnel. Lin Ye sagged against the overturned mine cart, his breath coming in ragged, pain-filled gasps. The adrenaline that had fueled his desperate fight was ebbing fast, leaving behind a cold, debilitating weakness and the searing, throbbing agony from his freshly mauled thigh. Dark blood pulsed from the deep, ragged tear in his trousers, pooling on the grimy concrete beneath him, a stark crimson stain in the dim light of his gauntlet.
Zero, her face ashen, stared at the carnage around them – the twitching bodies of the mutated rats, the dark stains spreading on the ground – then at Lin Ye's bleeding leg. The initial shock of her own strange outburst was momentarily overshadowed by the immediate, life-threatening reality of Lin Ye's condition.
[Noah: Host, blood loss is significant. The femoral artery itself does not appear to be severed, but several major superficial vessels are compromised. You are entering hypovolemic shock. We must apply pressure and find a sterile or at least cleaner environment to treat this wound immediately. Remaining in this open, contaminated area risks rapid infection and further attacks.] Noah's voice, though calm, carried an undeniable urgency that cut through Lin Ye's pain-hazed consciousness.
"Right… cleaner environment…" Lin Ye slurred, trying to push himself up, but a wave of dizziness sent him reeling back against the cart. His vision swam, the edges greying out. "Can't… stay here."
"I'll help you," Zero said, her voice small but surprisingly firm. She scrambled to his side, her earlier terror now channeled into a desperate focus. She looked around wildly, her amber eyes darting through the gloom. "Noah? Is there anywhere? Anywhere at all?"
[Noah: Scanning immediate vicinity… There is a signalman's maintenance booth approximately 70 meters further east down the tunnel, on the north wall. Pre-collapse schematics indicate it's a small, enclosed concrete structure, likely with a door. Its structural integrity is unknown, but it is our closest option for an enclosed space.]
"Seventy meters…" Lin Ye muttered. It might as well have been seventy kilometers in his current state. He tried to put weight on his injured leg and nearly screamed, a choked sound dying in his throat as white-hot agony lanced through him.
"Lean on me," Zero insisted, positioning herself under his arm, her small shoulder surprisingly solid beneath his weight. "We have to try. I won't let you die here." Her voice, though trembling, held a fierce, unexpected protectiveness.
The journey was a blur of agony for Lin Ye. Every lurching step sent fresh waves of torment through his thigh and back. He was a dead weight, relying almost entirely on Zero's desperate strength and Noah's constant, calm directions relayed through his AR, which flickered erratically. Zero gritted her teeth, her breath coming in harsh gasps, her own exhaustion forgotten in the face of Lin Ye's critical need. Dust and grime caked their faces, mingled with Lin Ye's sweat and blood. The oppressive darkness of the subway tunnel seemed to press in on them, a suffocating blanket, each shadow potentially hiding more of those chittering horrors.
Finally, Noah announced, [Noah: Approaching target location. Booth is on your left, Host. The door appears to be heavy steel, slightly ajar.]
It was a small, squat concrete box, barely more than a closet, tucked into an alcove in the tunnel wall. Its steel door hung crookedly on one hinge, scarred and rusted, but a heavy-duty bolt on the inside looked potentially functional. The air around it reeked of mildew and something else – a faint, coppery scent that Lin Ye's hazy mind registered with a fresh spike of alarm.
With a final, desperate effort, they stumbled inside. Zero, panting, immediately slammed the heavy door shut and, after a moment's struggle with the rusted mechanism, managed to slide the thick bolt home with a satisfying, if grating, thud.
The sudden silence, after the imagined or real sounds of pursuit and the cacophony of the rat attack, was almost deafening. The booth was tiny, barely enough room for them both. A single, grimy control panel with smashed gauges covered one wall, and a broken stool lay in the corner. The air was thick with the smell of dust, rust, and old despair. But it was, for the moment, a sanctuary, however grim.
Lin Ye slid down the wall, leaving a bloody smear, his injured leg outstretched, his breathing shallow. "Medkit…" he gasped, his vision tunneling, the small space spinning around him.
Zero was already by his side, her hands shaking as she ripped open his medkit – their only medkit. The contents were pitifully meager: a few antiseptic wipes, one last tube of regeneration gel (smaller than the one they'd used on his back), a roll of grubby gauze, and a couple of painkillers.
[Noah: Zero, listen carefully. The bleeding must be stopped first. Use the gauze to apply direct, firm pressure to the wound. Lin Ye, try to stay conscious. I need you to guide her if my direct AR projection to her is still unstable from the EMP.] Noah's voice was a lifeline of calm in the rising panic.
Zero, her face a mask of terrified concentration, tore open the gauze. Her hands, stained with Lin Ye's blood, trembled violently as she pressed the pad onto the deep, ragged bites on his thigh. Lin Ye cried out, a raw, animal sound, his body arching against the wall before collapsing back, unconscious.
"Lin Ye!" Zero shrieked, her voice cracking. "Noah, he's… he's not responding!"
[Noah: He has lost consciousness due to blood loss and extreme pain, Zero. It is critical you continue. Maintain pressure. I am projecting the next steps to his AR – if you can see the faint light from his eyepiece, try to follow the highlighted areas on his leg and the medkit supplies. The priority is cleaning and disinfection once the bleeding slows.]
Tears streamed down Zero's face, but she bit her lip, forcing herself to focus. She could see a faint, flickering green light from Lin Ye's gauntlet, which was still active, and a barely perceptible glow near his eye from the AR lens. She squinted, trying to make sense of the shaky, simplified diagrams Noah was projecting. It was like trying to read a ghost's handwriting.
With a courage she didn't know she possessed, she began the gruesome task. Cleaning the wound with the last antiseptic wipes, her stomach churning at the sight and smell of torn flesh and congealing blood. The regeneration gel seemed to vanish into the angry, inflamed tissue, a pitifully small amount for such a grievous injury. She dressed it as best she could with the remaining gauze, her hands clumsy but driven by a desperate urgency.
Hours seemed to pass in that cramped, fetid booth. Zero periodically checked Lin Ye's pulse, a faint, thready beat against her fingertips, and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. She herself was running on fumes, exhaustion gnawing at her, but the fear of Lin Ye dying kept her awake, hyper-alert.
Finally, as the first hint of a change in the quality of darkness outside the booth's tiny, grime-caked window suggested the approach of whatever passed for "dawn" in these subterranean depths, Lin Ye groaned, his eyelids fluttering.
"Ugh… Noah?" he mumbled, his voice weak and raspy.
"Lin Ye!" Zero was by his side in an instant, relief washing over her in a dizzying wave. "You're awake!"
He blinked, focusing on her face, then slowly registered his surroundings, the throbbing pain in his leg, the stiff, blood-caked dressing. "Zero… you… you did this?"
She nodded, suddenly shy, looking down at her bloodstained hands. "Noah… Noah told me what to do."
[Noah: Zero performed admirably under extreme duress, Host. However, your condition remains critical. The risk of infection is very high, and our medical supplies are now effectively depleted. You need a prolonged period of rest and, ideally, broad-spectrum antibiotics which we do not possess.]
Lin Ye absorbed this grim assessment. He knew he was lucky to be alive, thanks to Zero and Noah. He looked at Zero, truly looked at her. The terror was still there in the depths of her amber eyes, but it was overlaid with a new weariness, a new resilience, and something else… a hesitant connection.
"That… that thing you did," Lin Ye said, his voice still weak. "With the rats. The scream… the… the effect."
Zero flinched, hugging herself. "I don't know what it was. I was scared. It just… happened. I didn't mean to." Fear of her own unknown capabilities was clear in her voice.
"But it helped, Zero," Lin Ye insisted gently. "It saved us. Noah said it was a… a sonic pulse? An EMP?"
[Noah: A localized, high-frequency sonic pulse coupled with a minute electromagnetic distortion, Host. An involuntary stress reaction, as I theorized. Highly potent at close range against organisms with sensitive auditory or electromagnetic sensory systems. The energy expenditure for Zero, however, appeared significant, and her subsequent neurological readings indicated a period of severe cognitive disruption.]
"It felt like my head was splitting open," Zero whispered, rubbing her temples. "And then… empty. Like all the noise was gone for a second, but also… like a part of me was gone too." She looked at Lin Ye, her eyes pleading. "Am I… am I like them? Like the things that… that changed me?"
"No, Zero," Lin Ye said firmly, reaching out a hand, his fingers brushing hers before he winced from the movement. "You're not like them. You fought them. What you did… it came from you, from your will to survive, to protect. That's not what they wanted." He hoped he sounded convincing. He needed to be convincing, for her sake.
He saw a flicker of something in her eyes – not belief, not yet, but perhaps a willingness to consider it.
"We need to rest," Lin Ye said, his voice fading with exhaustion. "Then… we figure out what to do next. Gamma-7… it feels a million miles away right now."
Zero nodded, pulling her hand back. She settled against the opposite wall, her gaze fixed on the bolted door, a silent, fragile guardian in their makeshift, bloodstained haven. The darkness outside pressed in, but for now, within these four grimy walls, they were alive. And that, Lin Ye thought as unconsciousness claimed him again, was a start.