Time Remaining: 35 Days, 14 Hours. (Status: Provisional Asset. Inspection in Progress.) Location: District 4 - The Deep Foundries.
The air in District 4 tasted like chewing on a penny.
For four hours, the Iron Horse had descended into the bowels of Ferro, navigating a spiral ramp that cut through the city's geological layers. The sky was gone, replaced by a ceiling of rusted catwalks and dripping coolant pipes that hung just feet above the truck's roof. It was hot. Not the dry heat of the desert, but a wet, suffocating heat that made clothes stick to skin.
THUD. HISS. THUD.
The rhythm was inescapable. Every four seconds, a ten-ton drop-hammer slammed down in the darkness nearby. The ground jumped. The water in their canteens rippled. The rivets in the Iron Horse's dashboard buzzed like angry wasps.
"Turn left," Arthur said, his voice flat. He didn't look up from the blueprints spread on his knees. "There's a service junction behind that stamping press."
