The steel door groaned open under Netoshka's push, its rusted hinges scraping like something wounded. A blast of cold, stagnant air slid out from the dark beyond. The team raised their flashlights in unison — eight beams cutting through drifting dust like spears of white fire.
The Maintenance Area.
A long corridor stretched before them, narrow and heavy with pipes along the ceiling. Leaking coolant dripped rhythmically, each drop echoing into the dark like a heartbeat. Signs once painted bright yellow were faded to meaningless stains. Genrihk kept the rear, weapon shouldered, twitching at distant clangs that might've been the tunnels shifting… or something else dragging itself closer.
Zopi stepped forward and immediately recoiled.
"Smells like burnt wiring and rot… Great combination."
Twilla, pale and shaking from the previous battle in the Operations Room, steadied her breath.
"Whatever Kraustein left behind… this place kept it alive."
Taran said nothing. The bandages around his arm pulsed faintly — corruption beneath the skin crawling like wires searching for a circuit.
Netoshka glanced at him, worry flashing through her eyes, but she kept her voice hard.
"Stay close. This area's tied into the old engineering wing. We'll find the access lift to the Crane Hook sector here."
They moved.
STRANGE SIGNS --
As they passed deeper into the hallway, Rue stopped at a wall panel. The glass was shattered outward, as if something had forced its way through from inside the circuitry. Blue residue — the same unstable energy from the field — crackled faintly around the exposed wires.
"This isn't Plasmageist tech," Rue muttered.
"Something modified the electrical grid… something alive."
Zev tapped the pipe overhead.
"Feel that vibration? Something big is moving in the vents."
Not a comforting idea.
Circe knelt by the floor where strange claw marks etched deep grooves through concrete. Four talons, then a fifth lower scythe-like gouge repeating down the hallway.
"Not Belfre. Not Vitraspawn," she whispered.
"Something else stalks this place."
Netoshka didn't slow.
"Then let it stalk. If it wants us, it knows where to find me."
THE CRAWLSPACE DOOR
The corridor ended at a massive metal gate stamped in faded text:
MAINTENANCE ACCESS — AUTHORIZED CREW ONLY
KEEP CLOSED DURING BIOLOGICAL TESTING
Genrihk raised a brow. "Why's that sign never good news with you people?"
Before Netoshka could answer, the lights above flickered violently. Something scraped the other side of the gate — slow, dragging, the sound of claws testing the metal.
Then…
A whine of servomotors struggling to activate.
The gate's locking wheel twitched.
Taran immediately raised his rifle.
"IT'S TRYING TO OPEN ITSELF!"
Rue slammed her handheld device into the side port. Sparks shot out as she jammed the override.
"GIVE ME A SECOND— NO, SCREW THAT, GIVE ME THREE!"
The wheel kept turning.
Whatever was on the other side was strong.
Too strong.
Netoshka stepped forward, her hand glowing with glitch-light, veins flickering purple-black with her inner distortion. She pressed her palm to the metal.
"You want to come through?" she growled.
"Do it when I'm ready."
With a violent shudder, she overloaded the mechanism. The wheel snapped off its track and the door froze in place, sealing shut.
For a moment — complete silence.
Then, a roar, low and furious, echoed just beyond the metal. Followed by the sound of something slithering away through pipes above.
Zopi swallowed hard.
"We are absolutely not opening that thing. Ever."
THE MAINTENANCE FLOOR --
They continued downward until the corridor opened into a vast underground chamber. The roof was lined with catwalks and cranes. Mechanisms from another era hung suspended in stillness. Tools littered the floor, some fused into the concrete as if melted. Entire workstations were overturned, coated in decades of dust.
Surgien's helmet light swept across the far wall — and froze.
"There's bodies," he said quietly.
Dozens.
Maintenance crew uniforms torn, pinned together by melted metal restraints, wires threaded through their torsos like macabre marionettes. Their eyes glowed faint blue like dying bulbs, their jaws locked mid-silent scream.
Genrihk, usually unfazed, stepped back.
"He was stringing them up… testing something. Using them."
Taran clenched his fist.
"Kraustein wasn't just experimenting. He was building."
Rue exhaled.
"Then whatever he succeeded in creating is still here."
Netoshka approached the center where an enormous control pillar stood. Dust covered every console except one — wiped clean, still humming with weak power from the facility's backup grid.
She brushed her hand over the screen.
It flickered alive.
MAINTENANCE DISTRICT:
ACTIVE THREATS LOGGED — 1
CREATURE DESIGNATION: LOBER
STATUS: UNCONTAINED
LOCATION: CRANE HOOK SECTOR
Twilla staggered back.
"There it is… the name again."
Zev exhaled slowly.
"So that thing we heard behind the access gate… that's not Lober?"
Netoshka narrowed her eyes.
"No. Whatever was behind that door wasn't logged. And whatever Lober is… it's waiting in the next sector."
The lights above flickered again — but this time not from decay.
Something had just entered the Maintenance Area behind them.
Multiple somethings.
Vitraspawn shrieks echoed down the hall.
Netoshka pointed forward.
"Move. NOW. Toward Crane Hook. We don't look back."
And the team sprinted toward the next sector as the tunnel behind them exploded with pursuing monsters.