We ran into the dark of the corridor, the thick steel door clanging shut behind us, sealing the lobby away.
I leaned against the cold metal, my legs nearly giving out, tightening my grip on Selene. She was limp in my arms, her head lolling against my shoulder, breaths coming in shallow, hitching gasps.
A vibration buzzed against my hip—Selene’s phone, tucked into her pocket.
I shifted her weight, fishing the device out with one hand. I tapped the speaker and held it out for Dane.
“Orin? Report,” Dane said, his voice gravelly but steady.
“Dane?” Orin’s voice was barely audible over a cacophony of sirens. “Get out of there. Now. The second that blast hit the roof, Highspire triggered a Protocol Zero. The police and special tactical units have locked down every street in the district.”
“They just blew the main doors,” Dane shouted back over the noise. “We’re boxed in. What’s the perimeter look like?”
“Tight. They’re flooding the ground floor?—”
A piercing static hiss cut him off as a mechanical siren began to wail from the building’s overhead speakers—a deafening, rhythmic pulse that vibrated in our bones.
“They’re jamming the signal,” Dane snarled.
I snatched the phone and smashed it against the wall. The screen shattered, silencing the trace.
In the sudden gap between sirens, Selene’s ragged breathing sounded thin.
“The lobby is lost,” I said, my voice tight. “We go down.”
Goran rumbled from the shadows, kicking open the maintenance hatch that dropped into the sub-basement intake. “Move.”
I hoisted Selene higher, ignoring the ache in my own muscles, and followed Goran into the damp blackness of the shaft. We left the lies and the glare of Highspire behind us. The silence of the tunnels offered no relief.
That ancient voice was still echoing inside my mind, far louder than the sirens or the deception being spun above our heads.
Hello, my son.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Selene
Forty-eight hours.
That was how long it took for the world above to rewrite the history of the world below.
We were gathered around the central stone table in the Cistern’s atrium. The glow-stones overhead were dimmed to a faint amber pulse, leaving the battered tablet propped up against a stack of old books as the sharpest light in the vast, shadowed room. Its screen glitched with a grainy, encrypted video feed.
Orin’s face filled the frame. He looked exhausted, sitting in the shadows of his own flat, curtains drawn shut. Mira sat beside him, her face pale and tight with anger.
“The encryption is holding for now,” Orin said, his voice tinny through the tablet speakers. “But you can’t stay on the line long. They’re sweeping the frequencies.”
“Who is?” Dane asked.
He was leaning against the stone pillar, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing borrowed tactical gear from the Archive stores and a look of grim resignation.
“Everyone,” Mira said. “MCIU. ACD. Private security contractors. There is a city-wide manhunt.”
She leaned forward, her eyes dark.
“They released the official statement an hour ago.”
Orin tapped a key. The video feed switched from their faces to a news broadcast.
