The echoes of the last Vitraspawn's collapse still vibrated through the broken tiles as Netoshka's team pushed forward, boots splashing through murky water. The tunnels ahead spider-branched into a labyrinth—corridors splitting left, right, spiraling downward, and disappearing into pitch-black shafts where only the stench of decay drifted back out.
Genrihk swept his flashlight across the walls.
"We're in the heart of the old interchange… This place used to connect three whole districts."
Circe snorted, reloading her weapon.
"And now it's a festering maze of nightmares. Perfect."
Twila pointed down the center corridor.
"Neto. Look."
Floating in the middle of the path—pulsing weakly—was another sphere of blue energy. Then a second one materialized behind it. A third flickered at the far junction. The team froze.
Zev muttered under his breath,
"Oh hell no… That's more than before."
Taran stepped closer, helmet lights reflecting off the spheres' electric shimmer.
"These… are stronger. You feel that?" The air wavered, vibrating with a pressure that made the fillings in their teeth buzz.
Netoshka felt it too—the pull. A distortion, faint but unmistakable. Like a call being broadcast from another reality, bleeding through the tunnels.
"Blue anomalies," Rue whispered, studying them with a trembling tablet.
"Energy signatures match the Rift static we saw by the ruins… but these ones are clustering. Blocking routes."
"Someone's controlling this," Genrihk said darkly. "Or something."
Behind them, the guttural, wet shrieks of Vitraspawns echoed again—coming fast.
"They're on our trail," Circe hissed.
"More than two. Maybe six."
"Or eight," Zev corrected grimly.
Neto exhaled.
"We're boxed in."
For a moment, the team weighed their options. Every corridor except the one choking with anomalies was now swelling with shadows—mutant silhouettes slithering closer through the dark.
Twila's voice wavered.
"Neto… we can't go around these things."
"No," Netoshka agreed. She stepped forward, removing one glove. Her pale fingers flickered with static, her veins turning black for a moment as she reached inside herself—into the glitching fragments of Wire corruption she'd stolen and mastered.
"But we can go through."
Taran turned sharply.
"Neto—"
She ignored him.
With a forceful breath, she slammed her palm into the nearest energy sphere.
It rippled… resisted… then exploded outward in a distortion wave.
Netoshka's entire body flickered—glitched—her silhouette fracturing into overlapping frames for a heartbeat. The tunnel lights shattered behind them. The Vitraspawns shrieked as the shockwave crushed the first two like insects.
"MOVE!" she shouted.
Her team sprinted into the distortion field as it widened. For a few seconds, reality thinned around them—the air cold, sound muffled. A shimmering blue-white barrier built itself around the squad, forming a crackling dome that separated them from the pursuing creatures.
Vitraspawns slammed into the barrier and disintegrated on contact, sizzling into heaps of blue ash.
Rue gasped,
"Neto… Did you just—"
"Glitch-phase barrier," Genrihk muttered in awe.
"She tore a hole around us."
Netoshka stumbled, catching herself on the wall, her vision doubling before clearing.
"Don't get excited. I can't hold it long."
The barrier sputtered, thinning as more spheres flickered in the distant corridors—multiplying rapidly like defensive cells responding to an infection.
Twila looked ahead and froze.
"Uh… guys?"
Where the barrier spat them out…
Where the tunnels opened…
A massive set of sealed blast doors, half-buried in rubble, loomed ahead—rusted shut but very much intact. Beside them, a broken maintenance sign read:
NEW HORIZON EMERGENCY SECTOR — RESTRICTED LABS
Taran stepped forward, jaw tightening.
"So this is where Kraustein hid his sins."
Netoshka steadied herself, wiping a line of blue static from the corner of her eye.
"Then that's where we're going."
Behind them, the barrier shattered.
The Vitraspawns howled along with the electric flesh eating zombie corpses.
The anomalies pulsed brighter.