Chapter 18

The transport tore through the burning skyline, engines screaming as Gary fought to keep the damaged craft airborne. Below them, New Mercury had become a battlefield. Fires consumed entire districts, evacuation sirens wailed through the smoke, and military transports fled the capital while artillery thundered somewhere beyond the ruined towers.

“Airspace is getting crowded!” Gary shouted.

A missile streaked past the cockpit, close enough to rattle the entire transport. Lina caught herself against the bulkhead and looked through the rear viewport. “Three fighters behind us.”

“Four,” Ramona corrected.

Gary glanced over his shoulder. “How do you know?”

Ramona pointed toward the cockpit glass. The burning skyline reflected across it, revealing the fourth fighter hidden behind them.

“Reflection.”

Gary swore and dropped the transport.

The city surged toward them as buildings filled the windshield. Ramona studied the pursuing fighters, tracking their formation and calculating their approach. Three remained high while the fourth descended aggressively, trying to keep them from reaching the lower levels.

“Keep dropping,” she ordered. “Don't give them room to spread out.”

“You're going to get us killed.”

“Not if you hit the tunnel.”

Gary followed her gaze. Ahead, a section of the lower concourse had collapsed, exposing a massive maintenance tunnel beneath the city.

His expression changed. “You're insane.”

“Probably.”

Gary drove the transport toward the opening.

The first pursuing fighter followed too aggressively and clipped the edge of a collapsing tower, disappearing in an explosion of glass and fire. Lina leaned through the side hatch and fired at the second fighter, her controlled bursts forcing it away from the transport before a final shot tore through its engine.

The remaining aircraft launched another missile.

“Missile!” Gary shouted.

Ramona looked toward the tunnel. “Take us underground.”

“There is no room.”

“Then make room.”

Gary shoved the transport into the opening just as the missile followed them inside. A heartbeat later, it struck the entrance, sending a wave of fire and debris through the tunnel. The transport bucked violently as the blast chased them underground, showering the cockpit with sparks and triggering a cascade of warning lights.

“Engine's damaged!” Gary shouted.

“Can we fly?”

“Barely.”

“Then keep flying.”

Gary fought the controls while the transport scraped against the tunnel walls. The passage twisted sharply ahead, forcing him to slow, and the reduction in speed finally gave Ramona time to examine their surroundings.

Something was wrong.

New Mercury's maintenance tunnels had been built from reinforced concrete and industrial steel. These walls were neither. Beneath the damaged surface, black metal gleamed through the dust, covered in symbols that looked impossibly old.

Lina noticed them as well. “What is this place?”

Ramona stared at the markings.

She remembered them from her first life.

A buried facility beneath the capital. Bodies scattered across a laboratory floor. Black stone covered in the same symbols. A dying researcher warning her never to open a sealed chamber.

If the seal breaks, don't fight it. Run.

The memory was so vivid that Ramona could almost smell the blood again.

“Gary, kill the engines.”

He stared at her. “We're still moving.”

“Kill them.”

He hesitated only long enough to see her expression before shutting down the engines. The transport coasted through the darkness before grinding against the tunnel floor and coming to a halt.

For several seconds, the only sound was the ticking of overheated machinery.

Then something beneath them began to pulse.

The transport trembled with each deep vibration, and dust sifted from the ceiling as the sound grew louder. It wasn't machinery. Ramona could feel the rhythm through the soles of her boots.

It was a heartbeat.

Gary slowly raised his scattergun. “Tell me that's part of the tunnel.”

“It isn't.”

Ramona moved toward the center of the transport and studied the floor. A thin crack had appeared across the deck, leaking a faint black light from whatever lay beneath them.

Lina raised her rifle. “Ramona, what is that?”

Before Ramona could answer, the floor split apart.

A black metal blade punched through the deck, followed by another and then several more. Armored figures climbed through the opening with weapons already drawn, their movements disciplined enough to reveal that they had been waiting for this exact moment.

Ramona recognized the weapons immediately.

Her blood chilled.

“They belong to the people who killed me.”

Lina opened fire.

Gary answered with the scattergun, filling the tunnel with blue-white energy as the first wave of soldiers pushed through the transport. Armor sparked beneath the assault, but one figure moved through the chaos with unnatural speed.

Ramona barely brought her rifle up before the stranger reached her.

Its blade struck.

She twisted aside, but the weapon still sliced through her ballistic vest and opened a burning wound across her ribs. Ramona staggered into the transport wall, one hand instinctively pressing against the cut.

The armored figure stopped several meters away.

Its helmet turned toward her, and a distorted voice emerged from its speaker.

“Target confirmed. Subject Ramona has survived.”

The other soldiers stopped firing.

Their weapons lowered slightly as every helmet turned toward her.

Gary looked from the soldiers to Ramona. “They came for you?”

Ramona didn't answer. She was studying their positions instead.

Two blocked the tunnel behind them. Three controlled the transport's exits. The remaining soldiers had positioned themselves around the wounded craft, preventing any attempt to launch.

They weren't here to kill her.

They were here to take her alive.

The realization was worse than the ambush itself.

The armored leader raised its weapon.

“Begin Phase Two.”

Ramona felt the old assassin's instincts settle over her. She measured the distance to the leader, counted the enemy weapons, identified the narrowest gap in their formation and considered the damaged transport behind her.

There was only one problem.

She knew these soldiers.

She had fought them before, and every encounter in her first life had ended with someone she loved dying.

Ramona raised her rifle and centered the sights on the leader's helmet.

“Then Phase Two starts with you.”

The leader remained motionless.

Then its helmet tilted slightly.

“That's exactly what we were hoping you'd say.”

A deep vibration rolled through the tunnel.

The soldiers suddenly stepped away from the opening beneath the transport.

Ramona's eyes narrowed.

Something was rising from the darkness below them.

At first she saw only black armor and enormous mechanical restraints. Then a massive silhouette emerged behind the soldiers, forcing its way through the ancient chamber beneath the tunnel.

The air pressure changed.

The lights flickered.

Even the armored soldiers appeared to give the thing a cautious distance.

Ramona slowly lowered her rifle by an inch.

She finally understood why they had come.

The soldiers weren't the real threat.

They had awakened something beneath New Mercury, and they intended to use her as bait.

The enormous figure below lifted its head.

Two pale eyes opened in the darkness.

The leader's voice came through the helmet speakers.

“Phase Two isn't about capturing Ramona.”

A faint smile touched Ramona's lips despite the blood running down her side.

“Then what is it about?”

The leader looked toward the creature.

“Finding out whether the woman who died once can survive what killed her.”

The restraints beneath the tunnel began to break.

Ramona tightened her grip on the rifle.

For the first time since her rebirth, she realized that someone had been preparing for her return long before she ever knew she had another life.