Chapter 22

The creature climbed another level, its claws scraping against the ancient metal with a grinding shriek that echoed through the shaft. Ramona kept her rifle trained downward but held her fire. The creature had not attacked, and the voice coming from it had changed the situation completely.

“Ramona.”

It said her name again.

Gary shifted behind her. “You know it?”

“I know the voice.”

“Whose?”

Instead of answering, Ramona listened. The creature's breathing was heavy but controlled, and its deliberate pace suggested that it knew exactly where they were. It wasn't rushing because it had no reason to. That unsettled her more than an immediate attack would have.

“Lina, how much ammunition?”

“Two magazines.”

“Save them.”

Gary tightened his grip on the scattergun. “You're expecting a fight.”

“No. I'm expecting a test.”

A pale hand curled around the edge of the shaft below them, its fingers long enough to wrap around the entire metal frame. Lina raised her rifle, but Ramona pushed the barrel down.

“Wait.”

The creature pulled itself upward, revealing a massive body covered in layers of dark, mineral-like armor. Red light pulsed beneath the plates along its chest and throat, following the same pattern Ramona had seen inside the chamber.

The machine hadn't merely been connected to this creature. It had been feeding it.

When the creature finally raised its head, Ramona saw its face clearly, and the recognition struck with enough force to make her forget the rifle in her hands.

One of its eyes was human, gray and scarred above the brow.

She knew that face.

“Joshua.”

Gary turned toward her. “Who is Joshua?”

Ramona barely heard him. The creature smiled, but the expression looked horribly wrong on its inhuman face.

“I wondered how long it would take you.”

Ramona raised her rifle again. “You died.”

“So did you.”

The answer dragged the memory of her first death back with brutal clarity: smoke filling the room, alarms screaming through the compound, blood soaking through her uniform, and Joshua standing across from her while the doors sealed shut. He had reached for the emergency controls and told her to trust him.

Then the explosion came.

Ramona had watched him disappear behind the blast and believed he had died with her. Yet the creature standing below her possessed his voice, his eye, and something that felt disturbingly close to his memories.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

The creature's expression tightened as another vibration traveled through the shaft. It came from below rather than from the creature itself.

“I stayed,” it said. “I remained beneath this city while you were reborn.”

Ramona immediately shifted into assessment mode. It wasn't claiming to have been resurrected; it was saying that it had remained here the entire time. That meant the machine hadn't created it.

The machine had been containing it.

“What are you?”

The creature glanced toward Gary and Lina. “They aren't supposed to be here.”

Ramona stepped between them. “They stay with me.”

“That is why they will die.”

Gary raised the scattergun, but Ramona stopped him with a small movement of her hand.

“Not yet.”

She kept her rifle aimed at the creature's head. “You called me here.”

“No. They did.”

“Who?”

For the first time, fear appeared in the creature's expression. It looked toward the sealed shaft above them before answering.

“The ones who built the Gate.”

Another mechanical tone sounded beneath their feet, and the metal trembled in response.

The creature hadn't moved. Something deeper inside the structure had activated.

Ramona finally understood what the Black Division had been doing. They hadn't simply been trying to capture her. They had awakened the machine, forced her underground, and used her presence to trigger whatever system had been dormant beneath New Mercury.

But if the creature was telling the truth, the machine had also transmitted a signal.

Someone had received it.

Ramona turned toward Gary and Lina. “We're moving.”

Gary nodded, while Lina glanced toward the creature. “Where?”

“Down.”

Ramona pointed toward the passage descending beneath them. “If whoever built this place is coming, they'll search the surface first. We don't need to beat them there. We need to find out what they're coming for.”

Gary studied her. “You think it's us?”

“They already have a plan for me.” Ramona tightened her grip on the Fang and looked directly at the creature. “I'm going to find out what happens when I make my own.”

The creature slowly moved aside, revealing a narrow passage descending beyond the shaft. Ramona started down, keeping her rifle angled toward the darkness while Gary and Lina followed close behind.

The creature climbed fully into the shaft but made no attempt to stop them. Instead, it turned toward the sealed passage above.

A mechanical pulse sounded somewhere beneath the city, followed by another from farther away. A third answered from deeper within the ruins, and then a fourth carried through the walls.

Ramona stopped to listen.

Those weren't random signals. Ancient systems were waking beneath New Mercury in a sequence, each activation traveling farther through the buried structure.

The creature's voice followed them into the darkness.

“You should have stayed dead, Ramona. Now they know where the first vessel is.”

Ramona glanced back and saw that the creature was watching the darkness above rather than her. Whatever was coming frightened it more than she did.

Then something enormous shifted far below them. The sound traveled through the shaft and continued into the depths, followed by another movement from somewhere even farther away.

Ramona tightened her grip around the Fang as the truth settled into place. The machine hadn't been built to contain a single creature waiting beneath New Mercury. The city had been constructed over an entire buried network, and her return had begun waking all of it.

Gary came alongside her, keeping his voice low. “Ramona, how many things are down there?”

She stared into the darkness for several seconds before answering.

“I don't know.”

Another deep vibration rolled upward through the shaft, strong enough to make the metal beneath their feet tremble.

Ramona raised her rifle and continued downward.

“But we're about to find out.”