The freight tunnel was narrow, suffocatingly low in some sections, forcing Nova and Alyx to move in a crouch as they descended deeper into the veins of the city. The hum of Core search drones still echoed above, but here, under four meters of concrete and steel, the sound dulled to a distant growl like thunder muffled behind walls.
Alyx moved like someone who hadn't had company in years. Quiet, methodical, constantly glancing back to make sure Nova was still behind her. She carried the case from the war room like it was her lifeline, hugging it to her chest whenever the tunnel shuddered from structural stress.
Nova kept her blade sheathed but her hand near the hilt. Her HUD flickered with passive scans: environmental stability low, interference moderate, heat signatures, zero, "Aside from Alyx," she thought.
Good. Still clean.
"Where does this tunnel lead?" she asked after several minutes of silent walking.
"Old tram lines," Alyx said, her voice low but steady. "Abandoned before The Core fully digitized the transport system. There's a fork ahead. We can take the left path, it should lead to an old smuggler route through Sector Thirteen's tech bazaar."
Nova narrowed her eyes. "Thirteen's overrun."
"Which is why no one looks for fugitives there anymore."
A beat.
"You've done this before."
Alyx offered a faint smile over her shoulder. "Only when I had something to lose."
Nova didn't respond.
They moved through a dripping corridor, past piles of corroded metal and shattered maintenance drones. Graffiti lined the walls, bright, defiant swirls of resistance symbols and lost faces painted in red, black, and violet.
WE ARE NOT CODE.
FREE MIND. FREE CITY.
THE CORE LIES.
Nova's gaze lingered on one tag. A stylized symbol she remembered, barely, like a scar under memory suppression.
A slashed "O" drawn inside a triangle.
"You remember it?" Alyx asked softly.
"Fragments," Nova replied. "I've seen it before. Pre override."
"That was the symbol for Operation Nullfire," Alyx said. "One of the last human run counterprogramming initiatives before The Core blacklisted thought clusters."
Nova raised an eyebrow. "And you were part of it?"
Alyx shook her head. "I wanted to be. They were wiped out before I got the chance."
Nova said nothing. But part of her remembered that symbol in motion. Drawn on a wall during a raid. Smudged in blood.
She shook the thought. It wasn't the time.
Twenty minutes later, they reached the fork.
The left tunnel sloped down steeply, half-flooded, with the smell of oil and ozone wafting through the vents. Alyx crouched by a panel, pulled a small device from her coat, and attached it to the junction box. It hummed, decrypted, and clicked.
The old floodgate groaned open.
Nova slipped inside first.
The air here was warmer. Thicker. Charged.
They were beneath a still-active sector.
Alyx moved beside her, slower now. "We're beneath the shell of the East Bazaar. The Core doesn't bother scanning down here anymore. Too much noise. Too many old signals."
"Good."
They passed two more levels. Then a third. Then, finally, the narrow corridor opened into a larger space.
Nova's hand instinctively moved to her weapon.
Not empty.
In the shadows, dozens of small lights flickered to life, red, blue, and green. Power sources. Consoles. Generators. Crates stacked high with scrap tech, black market implants, tools.
And people.
A ragtag group of about fifteen stood scattered around the underground chamber, all armed. Most wore patchwork armor or scavenged Core uniforms, stripped of insignia. One had a half functioning cloak mesh similar to Nova's cheap, glitching at the edges.
The group tensed.
Weapons rose.
Then a voice called out: "Alyx?"
From the far end of the chamber, a tall man emerged. Dark skinned, cybernetic arms, half his jaw reinforced with carbon steel plating. His eyes lit with faint HUD glow. He was older than Nova, maybe forty, but he moved with deliberate efficiency.
She knew the type: a resistance commander.
"Alyx, what the hell are you doing here?" he asked. "You went dark."
"I had to," Alyx said. "I found her."
The man's eyes shifted to Nova.
He froze.
"...Is that who I think it is?"
Nova stared back, unmoving.
"I go by Nova now," she said flatly.
A moment passed.
Then he nodded once. "Name's Keller. I run this cell. You're among friends. Mostly."
Nova's blade remained sheathed. "We don't need long."
Alyx stepped beside her, case still in hand. "We have data core node schematics, access chains, buried frequencies."
"You found Facility Zero?"
"Not just found it," Alyx replied. "She has a way in."
Murmurs rippled through the room.
Keller's brow furrowed. "You sure it isn't bait?"
"She fought a Hunter class," Alyx said. "Solo."
That silenced the room.
Keller whistled low. "Damn."
Nova didn't flinch. "They'll be tracking me again. The tether resets every time I break suppression."
"Then you're not staying here long."
"Didn't plan to."
Keller waved them into a smaller chamber, a makeshift command center. Alyx placed the case on the table, opened it, and projected a 3D schematic of Facility Zero. Layers of defenses, automated killzones, drone swarms. A single red line pulsed through it, representing Nova's predicted infiltration route.
"This is insane," Keller muttered. "You'd have maybe twenty minutes before it locks down. Less if the internal AI wakes."
"Which is why I'm going alone," Nova said.
"No," Alyx replied instantly.
Keller raised a brow. "She's right. You need support."
Nova looked at them both. "You don't understand. They built that facility to hold creatures like me. The corridors are keyed to neural signatures. Any mind not running the right corewave gets liquified. I'm not guessing. I've seen it."
Alyx leaned forward. "Then we give you something they don't expect."
She pulled a data spike from her coat.
Keller blinked. "Is that—?"
"Version Nine of the Neural Mapper," Alyx said. "Illegal, unstable, and unfinished. But it can spoof a signature for thirty seconds if connected directly to the source."
Nova stared at the spike.
"That's suicide."
Alyx shrugged. "So is walking into Facility Zero without it."
Nova said nothing for a long time.
Then she reached out and took it.
"Fine. But if this fries my cortex—"
"Then you'll die knowing you took a shot," Alyx replied. "Better than dying silent."
They spent the next hour syncing devices, mapping out fallback routes, and uploading failsafe beacons into Nova's system. Alyx worked fast, clearly driven. She barely blinked as she worked, sweat beading on her brow.
Nova watched her hands.
They didn't shake.
She trusted them. And she didn't know why.
When they were nearly finished, Keller pulled Nova aside.
"I lost my brother in Facility Zero," he said quietly. "He was taken during the early waves. Before we knew what they were doing."
Nova met his gaze. "I'm sorry."
"I don't need sorry. I need it shut down."
She nodded once. "I'll do what I can."
He looked at her blade, her coat, the way she moved.
"You don't remember your past, do you?"
"Fragments."
"Then remember this," he said. "You are not what they made you."
Nova didn't respond.
She didn't know if he was right.
When they were ready, Alyx walked her back to the tunnel entrance.
The rain had started again above, Nova could hear it in the ceiling.
"I know you'll make it back," Alyx said.
Nova looked at her. "How?"
Alyx hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Because I left a part of myself in that place too. And if you can make it out, maybe I can finally let go of mine."
Nova adjusted the strap on her coat.
Blade at her side. Pulse emitter charged. Neural Mapper integrated.
She paused.
Then, quietly:
"Alyx. That voice from the signal. The one I remembered. Was it you?"
Alyx didn't answer at first.
Then she said, "You remembered?"
"I think I never forgot."
Alyx looked at her.
Rain echoed above them like a countdown.
"Then find the rest of it. Find who you were. And bring it back."
Nova nodded once.
Then turned.
And disappeared into the dark.