Chapter 21

The restraints embedded in the floor launched upward.

Dozens of black cables shot toward Ramona before abruptly veering toward Gary and Lina. Lina fired until her rifle overheated, severing several strands, while Gary blasted another cluster apart with the scattergun. More cables replaced them almost immediately, wrapping around Gary's torso and Lina's legs and dragging them toward the opening beneath the floor.

“Ramona!”

She moved toward them, then stopped.

The cables weren't tightening randomly. Every time one was severed, energy rerouted through another line. Ramona tracked the shifting glow beneath the floor and realized the entire restraint system was connected to the central mechanism.

The machine wasn't trying to kill them.

It was herding them.

That changed everything.

Ramona fired into the conduit beside Lina. The energy jumped to a second channel. She fired again, forcing the current toward the central ring.

“Gary, don't fight the cable.”

He looked at her as another strand tightened around his chest.

“Follow my signal. When I tell you to fire, hit the anchor at your feet.”

Gary understood immediately. He stopped wasting ammunition against the restraints and waited.

Ramona fired three more shots, mapping the energy flow through the machinery. The final conduit pulsed beneath the central housing.

“There.”

Gary fired.

The plasma blast severed the anchor holding him. The cable snapped backward, whipping across the chamber before striking the exposed machinery. Energy surged through the damaged network.

Ramona was already moving.

She sprinted across the rotating platform, using the machine's own movement to carry her toward the central housing. As the mechanism opened, she drove the Fang into the seam and pulled herself forward.

The core was exposed.

She plunged the blade into it.

The machine shrieked.

Black metal fractured around the Fang as energy erupted through the chamber. Ramona twisted the blade sideways and split the core before jumping clear.

The restraints released.

Ramona landed beside Gary and Lina.

“Move.”

She didn't run blindly for the tunnel they'd entered through. That was exactly what the machine's designers would expect. If the Black Division had built the chamber as a containment system, they would have monitored the primary access route.

She pointed toward the opposite wall.

“Lina, find another exit.”

Lina swept her rifle across the wall and spotted a narrow maintenance seam behind a broken section of black metal.

“Here.”

“Gary, cover the rear. If anything comes through that tunnel, don't engage unless it reaches the doorway.”

Gary nodded and raised his scattergun.

Ramona crouched beside the maintenance opening and examined the floor.

Dust had settled everywhere except along one narrow strip.

Air was moving through it.

“There's a shaft behind this.”

Gary glanced at the opening. “Going down?”

“It's the only route they didn't prepare for.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the machine was built to bring something up.”

Ramona pointed to the cables running toward the buried chamber.

“They needed access between the machine and whatever is underneath us. That means this shaft is probably connected to the original structure.”

Lina looked toward the ruined chamber. “And if we're wrong?”

“Then we find out before they do.”

A deep vibration rolled through the floor.

Ramona looked up.

The ceiling had begun to buckle.

“We have seconds.”

She pulled a strip of cloth from her gear and tied it around a pipe beside the opening.

Gary noticed. “Marking the route?”

“No. Marking the last safe point.”

She pointed to the cloth.

“If we come back, we stop here and reassess. We don't run into a collapsing tunnel twice.”

Another section of ceiling dropped behind them.

This time, Ramona didn't wait.

She entered the shaft first, keeping her rifle angled downward and the Fang ready in her other hand. Gary followed with Lina between them, allowing Ramona to protect the front while Gary controlled the rear.

The moment they descended several meters, Ramona stopped.

“Lights off.”

Gary hesitated. “We can't see.”

“Neither can whatever is down there.”

They switched off their lights.

Ramona waited.

Cold air moved upward through the shaft, carrying dust from below. More importantly, she could hear something disturbing the air at regular intervals.

Not machinery.

Breathing.

She raised one hand, ordering the others to stay still.

The sound came again.

A heavy impact traveled through the shaft.

Something was climbing toward them.

Ramona immediately changed their formation.

“Gary, stay behind Lina. If it reaches us, you hold the shaft. Lina, aim below me. Don't fire until I give you a target.”

Gary frowned. “And you?”

Ramona looked into the darkness.

“I'm going to find out what it wants.”

She lowered herself another step and scanned the walls.

There were no fresh scratches. No blood. No signs of a creature forcing its way upward.

Then she noticed something else.

The vibration wasn't coming from the walls.

It was coming from below.

Something was climbing deliberately.

Ramona slowly backed up.

“We're not escaping.”

Gary looked at her.

“They're driving us downward.”

A faint red glow appeared beneath them.

Then another.

Two enormous eyes opened in the darkness.

The creature continued climbing.

Ramona raised her rifle, but she didn't fire.

Something that large would have been impossible to hide beneath New Mercury unless the city itself had been built around it.

The machine hadn't awakened the creature by accident.

It had been maintaining it.

And destroying the machine had released it.

The creature opened its mouth.

A roar thundered through the shaft, shaking dust from the walls.

Then it spoke.

“Ramona.”

The voice wasn't hers.

Recognition struck before she could stop it.

She knew that voice.

She had heard it on the night she died in her first life.