"The devil is coming," Valerius had said.
"Great," Rook muttered, shoving his laser cutter back into his belt. "We just beat two Terminators, and now we have to fight the devil. Is there anyone else? The Easter Bunny? A dragon?"
"Focus," Valerius snapped, the soldier in him overriding the shivering of his limbs. He looked at Lyric. "Give me your coat."
"What?" Lyric asked, blinking. "It's freezing in here."
"I'm in a paper-thin jumpsuit and I've been on ice for three days," Valerius said, his teeth chattering. "If my core temp drops any lower, I go into shock, and you have to carry me. Give me the coat."
Lyric hesitated, then stripped off the torn canvas coat and handed it over. The cold air of the lab hit Lyric's skin immediately, biting through the thin shirt beneath.
Valerius pulled the coat on. It was tight in the shoulders, but he buttoned it up. He looked down at the dead android Lyric had shut down.
"Boots," Valerius said. "I need boots."
"Those are welded to its legs," Rook pointed out.
"Then we move barefoot," Valerius grimaced. "We can't take the elevator. The Warden controls the shafts. If we get in a box, he'll just vent the oxygen or drop us to the bottom."
"So how do we get out?" Lyric asked, picking up the ceramic sword. "This is Level 9. We're three miles underground."
"The Coolant Flushes," Valerius said, moving toward the rear exit of the lab, limping slightly. "The tanks need to be kept at absolute zero. There's a maintenance network behind the walls. It's tight, it's dangerous, but it's analog. The Warden can't lock a manual valve."
"Lead the way," Lyric said.
They exited the operating theater and back into the massive warehouse of tanks.
The atmosphere had changed. The low thrumming sound was gone, replaced by a high-pitched whine that seemed to come from the walls themselves. The blue lights in the tanks were pulsing in unison—bright, dim, bright, dim. Like a slow, massive heartbeat.
"He knows," Valerius whispered. "He's waking the Hive."
"The Hive?" Rook asked, jogging to keep up. "You keep saying that. Is the Warden a person or a bee?"
"The Warden isn't a person," Valerius said, scanning the row numbers. "It's the central consciousness. The AI that manages the memories. It doesn't have a body, so it uses… spares."
CRACK.
To their left, the glass of a stasis tank shattered.
Blue fluid gushed out onto the metal grating, steaming in the cold air. The body inside—a large man with wires trailing from his spine—flopped onto the wet floor.
He didn't gasp for air. He didn't cough.
He just stood up.
His movements were jerky, like a puppet on strings. He turned his head toward them. His eyes were glowing that same electric blue as the guard in the elevator.
CRACK. SMASH. CRACK.
All around them, tanks began to burst.
"Run," Lyric said.
"Running!" Rook yelped.
They bolted down the center aisle. Behind them, wet, slapping footsteps echoed on the metal. Dozens of them. Then hundreds.
"Row J!" Valerius shouted, pointing to a service hatch in the wall. "There!"
A "Hollow"—a thin woman in a hospital gown—lunged from the shadows between the tanks. She didn't scream; she just reached out with unnatural speed.
Lyric didn't break stride. They swung the ceramic sword.
The blade cut through the air, slicing the woman's arm. She didn't flinch. She didn't bleed red; she bled blue fluid.
"Don't fight them!" Valerius yelled. "They don't feel pain! Just push through!"
Lyric kicked the woman in the chest, sending her stumbling back into a pile of glass shards, and kept running.
They reached the service hatch. It was a heavy, circular wheel set into the concrete.
"It's stuck!" Valerius groaned, straining against the wheel. His hands were slipping on the cold metal.
"Move!" Lyric shoved him aside and grabbed the wheel.
Muscle memory. Apply torque. Use the legs, not the back.
Lyric grunted and heaved. The rust screamed, and the wheel turned. The hatch popped open.
"In! Go!" Lyric shouted.
Rook dove in first. Valerius followed.
Lyric looked back. The aisle was filling with a horde of blue-eyed, dripping figures. They were walking in perfect synchronization, a silent army of empty shells filled with a digital ghost.
The Intruder, a voice spoke.
It didn't come from the PA system. It came from the mouths of a hundred Hollows at once.
You cannot delete us all.
"Watch me," Lyric muttered, and jumped into the hatch, slamming it shut behind them.
Lyric spun the locking wheel from the inside just as a heavy body slammed against the door. THUD. THUD.
"They're banging on it," Rook whispered, shining his flashlight down the dark, narrow tunnel. "That door won't hold forever."
"It doesn't have to," Valerius said, leaning against the curved wall of the pipe, catching his breath. "Just long enough for us to get to the Junction."
The maintenance tunnel was a nightmare. It was round, slick with condensation, and barely four feet high. They had to crawl on their hands and knees.
It was freezing. Lyric could see their breath puffing out in white clouds.
"So," Rook panted, crawling behind Valerius. "You're the brother. The guy in the photo."
"And you're the driver," Valerius said, his voice echoing in the pipe. "Rook, right? I saw your file when I was… processing."
"You saw my file?"
"I saw a lot of things," Valerius said darkly. "When they put you in the Keter pod, they don't just put you to sleep. They hook you into the stream. I saw thousands of memories. Petty crimes. First kisses. Grocery lists. And your file. You're wanted for data theft in three sectors."
"I'm eclectic," Rook said.
"And you," Valerius said, glancing back at Lyric, who was bringing up the rear. "You erased yourself. To save me?"
"Rook says so," Lyric said, crawling steadily. The ceramic sword scraped against the metal floor. "I don't remember it."
"You were always impulsive," Valerius muttered. "But stupid? That's new. You realized that by erasing yourself, you erased the location of the key to my cell, right? That's why I was being moved to Deep Storage. They couldn't find the encryption key in your head because you deleted it."
Lyric paused. "I… I didn't think of that."
"Clearly."
"Hey," Rook interrupted. "Lay off. If Veyne hadn't come back, you'd be a slushie right now."
"I know," Valerius sighed. "I know. Thank you. Both of you. It's just… being in that box changes you. It's hard to be nice when your brain feels like it's been put through a blender."
"We're coming up on the Junction," Valerius warned. "Quiet now. The acoustics in the vertical shafts carry sound."
The tunnel opened up into a vertical cylinder. It was a massive shaft filled with pipes, cables, and a metal ladder that went up into the darkness.
"This is the Coolant Spine," Valerius whispered. "It runs up the entire length of the facility."
"We climb three miles?" Rook looked at the ladder. "My arms are gonna fall off."
"We don't go to the top," Valerius said. "We go to Level 5. The Incinerator."
"Why the incinerator?" Lyric asked.
"Because the Incinerator has an exhaust vent that dumps directly into the Underground's waste management sector," Valerius explained. "It's the only exit that isn't sealed by a blast door."
"One catch," Rook said. "It's an incinerator. Won't we, you know, burn?"
"It activates every hour on the hour," Valerius said. "We have twenty minutes before the next cycle. If we're fast, we crawl through the cold chamber before it lights up."
Lyric looked up the shaft. It was dark, wet, and slippery.
"Okay," Lyric said. "I'll go first. If anything falls on us, I can… deal with it."
Lyric grabbed the ladder. The metal was icy.
They began to climb.
The climb was grueling. The ceramic sword banged against Lyric's leg with every step. The bruise on their ribs throbbed in time with their heartbeat.
They passed Level 8... Level 7...
"Hold," Lyric whispered.
A drone drifted past them in the shaft, its red eye scanning the pipes. Lyric pressed flat against the ladder, holding their breath. The drone buzzed, hovered for a second, then descended.
"Clear," Lyric breathed.
They reached Level 6.
Then, a sound came from above.
CLANG.
A heavy metal hatch opened somewhere high up.
"Debris purge initiated," the Warden's voice echoed down the shaft.
"No," Valerius hissed. "The cycle! It's early!"
"What does that mean?" Rook yelled from the bottom.
"It means they're flushing the trash!" Valerius shouted. "Brace yourselves!"
A wind roared down the shaft, carrying dust and ash. And then, falling objects.
Pieces of metal, broken glass, and heavy chunks of slag rained down the center of the shaft.
"Cover!" Lyric yelled.
Lyric grabbed the ladder with one hand and reached out with the other, trying to act as a shield for Rook and Valerius below.
A large piece of twisted rebar fell toward them.
Lyric slapped it.
Erase.
The rebar vanished.
A concrete block fell next.
Erase.
Lyric's head swam. Using the power so fast, back to back, was draining.
"Move fast!" Lyric shouted. "I can't catch everything!"
They scrambled up the ladder, dodging the smaller debris that Lyric missed. A bolt hit Lyric's shoulder, tearing the shirt, but they kept climbing.
"Level 5!" Valerius shouted. "The hatch on the left!"
They reached the platform for Level 5. Lyric hauled themselves up, then pulled Valerius, then Rook.
They tumbled onto the metal grating just as a massive, car-sized compactor block fell down the shaft past them. The wind of its passing nearly knocked them over.
"Close it!" Lyric yelled.
Valerius slammed the hatch shut and spun the wheel.
They were in a dark, soot-stained room. The heat here was intense, a stark contrast to the freezing lab below.
"The Incinerator," Rook coughed, tasting ash.
"We have to cross the burn chamber," Valerius said, pointing to a long, tunnel-like room ahead. The walls were lined with scorch marks. "The exhaust vent is on the other side."
"How much time until it fires?" Lyric asked, wiping sweat and soot from their face.
Valerius looked at a panel on the wall. It was counting down.
01:00
00:59
"One minute," Valerius said, his face pale. "Run."
They sprinted.
The floor was covered in ash, slippery and soft. The chamber was long—fifty yards.
00:45
"I see the light!" Rook yelled. At the end of the tunnel, a circle of daylight (or at least, artificial street light) was visible.
00:30
The walls began to glow orange. The heating elements were powering up.
00:15
"Faster!" Lyric screamed. The heat was becoming unbearable. The air shimmered.
00:05
They reached the end. The vent was covered by a grate.
"Kick it!" Valerius shouted.
Lyric didn't kick it. Lyric shoulder-checked it.
The grate was rusted weak. It gave way with a screech.
Lyric tumbled out, falling onto a pile of garbage bags. Rook and Valerius landed on top of them.
WHOOSH.
Behind them, inside the tunnel, a wall of fire erupted. The flames licked out of the vent, singing the heels of Lyric's boots.
They rolled down the pile of trash, coughing, covered in soot and slime, until they hit the bottom of an alleyway.
It smelled of rot and garbage, but it was the sweetest smell Lyric had ever known.
They were out.
Rook lay on his back on a trash bag, laughing hysterically. "We rode a coffin, fought zombies, climbed a chimney, and got spit out by a volcano. I quit. I officially quit."
Valerius sat up, brushing ash off Lyric's borrowed coat. He looked around the alley.
"We're in the Dumps," Valerius said. "Sector 8. The lowest point of the Underground."
Lyric stood up, legs trembling. They looked at the vent, still glowing red from the fire inside.
"We got you out," Lyric said to Valerius. "Now what?"
Valerius stood up. He looked at Lyric, his expression serious.
"Now," Valerius said, "we have to disappear. Because the Warden doesn't stop. And now that we've escaped the Vault... the Guild is going to go to war."