The system pulses harder. Once. Pause. Again. The bond-line pulls. Sera staggers toward the seam. I drop the map tube and brace both hands against the floor.
Pain tears through my burned palm. The red surges, furious and bright.
Take her. Claim her. Seal the bond. Make the line yours before the machine does.
No. Not like this. Not because a hungry system has named us useful. Not because Adran reached for a key. Not because fear wants a shortcut. Sera plants her boots, shaking, and lifts her chin.
“Not yet,” she says.
Her voice trembles. It does not break. The bond-line steadies. My hearts hit once, hard. She is speaking to the system too. The room holds.
“This is what you wanted to control. It doesn’t know the difference between saving us and using us,” Sera says, turning on Adran.
Adran’s face has gone pale. Good. Too late, but good.
The seam widens. The west chamber floor begins to sink in a perfect circle around the table.
Rosalind shouts, “Out!”
Virn lunges for the box holding the blackened sample. Syin snatches the pouch holding the healthy sample from the edge before it falls. Rosalind grabs the broken anchor with a cloth-wrapped hand. Sera is still on the sinking section.
I leap over the seam.
The white-gray light burns across my legs and claws, but I clear the seam. I land beside her as the circle drops another handspan. This time, I do not wait for her to fall.
I offer my hand. Open. Her eyes flash. She takes it. Choice. Always choice.
I pull her against me and jump back as the table drops into the floor.
We crash onto the stable side beside Virn. Sera hits my chest, her breath knocked loose, but her hand remains locked in mine.
The chamber floor finishes opening. Below it, there is not empty darkness. It is a vertical shaft of blue-white light, plunging toward the reservoir. The system has opened a direct throat under the City.
Far below, something vast turns an eye upward. Adran stares into the shaft. For the first time, he has no words. Sera’s grip tightens.
The bond-line between us still glows faintly beneath our joined hands. Not complete. Not safe. No longer avoidable.
The system has found its key. And it is us.
32
SERA
We’re the key.
The thought should be impossible. It isn’t anymore. Not with a shaft of blue-white light plunging through the west chamber floor. Not with proof scattered in guarded hands. Not with Adran pale and speechless beside the hole he had tried to turn into leverage.
Not with Kavor’s hand locked around mine.
The bond-line glows faintly between our joined hands. Unfinished. Waiting. The system pulls.
Not hard at first. That would be easier. A hard pull is a thing to resist. This is subtler. A pressure beneath the skin. A suggestion. A door opening in the dark, promising that if we step through, everything will stop hurting.
My arm flares blue beneath the bandage. Kavor’s burned palm answers against mine. Below, far down the vertical throat, the reservoir glows. Something vast looks up, and the room trembles.
Rosalind grips the broken anchor in its cloth wrap.
“Out of the chamber,” she orders.
