Gravity was the one law that even Isaac Glacium could not fully ignore yet.
When the floor supports snapped, the entire central platform of the turbine hall plummeted. It was a chaotic descent of screaming metal, shattered ice, and falling bodies.
Vane did not scream. He tucked his chin to his chest and curled his body into a ball. It was a reflex learned from falling off rooftops in the Slums. Relax the muscles. Protect the head. Let the impact happen.
They fell twenty feet.
Crash.
Vane hit a cluster of insulated pipes. The insulation tore, cushioning his fall before he rolled off and slammed onto a metal grating. The breath was knocked out of him. Pain flared in his shoulder, sharp and hot, but nothing felt broken.
He scrambled to his feet instantly. In the Slums, lying down meant dying.
The world around him had changed.
