The boots—they faded, finally, but Lyra's chest still burned like she'd swallowed ice and regret. Air down here? Way colder than it had any right to be, stinging her throat, all sharp with the tang of old engine oil and this weird, almost bloody-metal smell. Like a robot had caught fire and nobody bothered to clean up.
Cael was already ahead, fingers grazing the tunnel wall like he was reading braille, but faster. Lyra kept close. The data drive he'd handed her was digging a mark into her palm—she gripped it so tight, it could've been a vein.
"They'll hit the Archive in minutes," he muttered, voice all clipped. "We have to cut through the echo shafts."
They took a hard left, ducked under a sad-looking stone arch that probably hadn't seen love in a century. Now it was just a tight crawlspace—metal ladders, rust flakes everywhere, the whole thing dropping into a black pit that did NOT look inviting.
Lyra balked. "What even is this?"
"Old flood bypass," Cael shot back, already clanging down. "Rebels used it during the food riots. Oracle patched most of it shut, but missed a few."
Down they went. The surface world? Gone. Just the drip of water, the groan of bending pipes, and the soft flicker from Cael's gloves—lighting up ancient graffiti: Resistance slogans, scratched-out names, half-faded symbols. Lyra paused at one—a busted-open eye, lightning splitting it in half. She didn't know it, not really. But her heart acted like it did.
"I used to believe in this," she whispered. Not really sure if she was telling him, or herself.
Cael stopped. "You still do. It's just… buried."
They popped out in a half-caved room, wires hanging like the world's worst party decorations. The floor actually pulsed—some kind of old machinery still refusing to die.
Cael found a crusty terminal, wiped grime off the screen with his sleeve, and started punching in codes from memory. The interface struggled, but finally spat out a weak glow.
"Still breathin'. If I mask us from here, we might snag an hour."
Lyra just… took it in. The space felt ancient, wild—like someone had designed it with a sledgehammer. Up top, everything was neat and sharp. Down here, it was all scars and improvisation.
The console beeped. Cael let out a breath. "Okay. We're noise—at least for now."
But Lyra had zoned out, her attention snagged by this mural: pieces of broken glass, all arranged into a sun struggling to rise. Underneath, a rushed carving:
"When the sky forgets, the earth remembers."
It hit her hard. Too hard. She touched the words, and—bam. Something flickered in her head.
She saw herself—standing in a hall, people chanting, a sun blazing on a banner behind her. She was speaking. Dozens kneeling. Hands on hearts.
"We're not the silence they want to make us. We're the echo they fear."
Gunshots. Screams. Smoke. She dropped.
Gone. She stumbled back, dizzy, Cael grabbing her arm just in time.
"What happened?"
"I saw… something. I was speaking, there was a banner, then—gunfire. It felt real."
Cael's face twisted. "You're unlocking faster than I thought. That's… not always great. The memories, they'll come in pieces. Messy. Hurts, sometimes."
Lyra stared at the sun-mural, catching her breath. "Then we keep going. Before it gets worse."
The tunnel past that room? Sketchy as hell. Walls caving, so they had to squeeze through sideways detours. At one point, Cael almost tripped a wire—good thing his reflexes were better than his luck. Old Oracle drone in the wall, rusted to hell, but still dangerous.
"These traps?" Cael muttered, poking at the drone's insignia. "Not ours. This sector was a war zone once. They buried the old fight down here."
The war Lyra couldn't remember. The one she might've started, apparently.
Her steps slowed. More flashes—shattered terminals, someone screaming her name, a woman in red yanking her away.
"Cael," she said, voice rough. "When we meet your contact… if I remember everything—what if I hate the person I was?"
He paused. Shrugged, but not like he didn't care. "Doesn't matter who you were. Only what you decide now."
His words landed heavy. Not exactly comforting, but they fit.
They found the access tunnel—red paint, Oracle symbols scorched off and scribbled over with resistance tags. Cael crouched by the hatch.
"This takes us under the wall, into Sector 9. After that, it's open season. Oracle drones everywhere. No cover."
Lyra glanced back. All those memories, the Archive, the broken sun on the wall.
She faced forward.
"Let's go."
And yeah, they did.