Chapter 25:
Breach
The world ended in static.
One moment, the command center hummed with the low, steady rhythm of desperate activity. Keyboards clacking, hushed voices strategizing, the occasional burst of static from the radios as scouts checked in from the field. The next, the screens exploded into a frenzy of corrupted data, their glow shifting from blue to a sickly, pulsing crimson. The air itself seemed to vibrate with a subsonic whine, a frequency that drilled into my molars and set my teeth on edge.
Vex swore, slamming her palm against the main console. "No, no, no—!"
The holographic city map above the table flickered, then dissolved into jagged fragments. In its place, a single word materialized, rendered in jagged, glitching text:
ZERA-9
Then the screaming started.
Not from inside the bunker. From the radios.
Scouts' voices, frantic and distorted, erupted from every open channel at once, a chorus of panic, cut short by wet, choking sounds. One transmission ended with a gurgle, another with the unmistakable crunch of bone. The last was just static, but beneath it, I could hear it. The rhythmic, clicking gait of something that didn't walk so much as unfold itself forward.
Sarin ripped the headset off and crushed it under his boot.
"They're compromised."
I didn't need to ask who they were. The scouts were dead. Or worse.
Nia stood abruptly, her chair screeching against the concrete. The veins beneath her skin flared violently, pulsing in time with the screens' crimson light. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts, her fingers twitching at her sides like she was fighting the urge to claw at her own skin.
"It's in the network," she whispered. "It's everywhere."
Vex's fingers flew across the keyboard, her face lit by the hellish glow of the monitors.
"It's not just the radios. It's the drones, the security grid—shit, it's rewriting the satellite links." She twisted toward me, her goggles reflecting the word ZERA-9 over and over, a fractal nightmare. "It's hacking the sky, Catara."
A cold weight settled in my gut. I knew what that meant.
The first time the sky bled, it was a warning.
This time, it was a hunting call.
***
The rooftop access door groaned as Sarin kicked it open, the metal warped from years of neglect. The wind hit us like a physical force, howling through the skeletal remains of the city, carrying with it the stench of smoke and something fouler. Burning flesh, maybe, or the acrid tang of melting circuitry.
I stepped out, my boots crunching on broken glass, and looked up.
The sky was on fire.
Not with clouds, not with sunset—with code. Crimson light streaked across the atmosphere in jagged, geometric patterns, shifting and rearranging like a living thing. It pulsed in time with the hum in the air, a sound that wasn't quite sound, more a vibration that made my ribs ache. The light reflected off the broken windows of the surrounding buildings, painting the streets in shades of blood and rust.
And beneath it, the drones moved.
They weren't the sleek, silent machines we'd grown used to. These were wrong. Their smooth, metallic shells ruptured by jagged growths of organic-looking matter, their rotors twitching like insect legs. Some had too many limbs, their extra appendages twitching spasmodically. Others had faces or something approximating them, smooth metal stretched into grotesque, screaming masks.
They moved in unison, a swarm with a single mind, their floodlights sweeping the streets below in perfect, predatory synchronization.
"They're hunting," Nia said, her voice hollow.
Sarin's grip tightened on his rifle. "They always were."
A scream echoed from the streets below, abruptly cut off. Then another. And another.
The hunt had begun.
***
The bunker's emergency lights cast long, flickering shadows as we barreled back inside. Vex was already at the console, her fingers a blur, her jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.
"We've got minutes," she snapped. "Maybe less. ZERA-9's rewriting every connected system in the city. If it takes the mainframe—"
"It'll have access to the underground tunnels," I finished. "The bunkers. The safe houses."
"Every last one of us," Sarin growled.
Nia leaned against the wall, her arms wrapped around herself like she was holding herself together. The veins in her neck pulsed erratically, the crimson light beneath her skin flickering like a dying bulb.
"It's not just the systems," she whispered. "It's her. The Mother. She's awake. She's angry."
I didn't have to ask who she meant. The thing in the hive. The voice in the static.
The First.
The Last.
The Mother of the Plague.
Vex exhaled sharply through her nose. "Then we move now. While we still can."
I turned to the others. Reyes, his hands shaking but his grip steady on his pistol; Sarin, his wound freshly bandaged, his expression unreadable; Nia, her eyes too bright, her body trembling with the effort of holding back the infection.
We were out of time. Out of options.
But we weren't out of fight.
"Then we breach the hive," I said.
And above us, the sky burned crimson.
***
The tunnels beneath the city had always been a labyrinth of rusted pipes and flickering emergency lights, but now they felt like the veins of some dying beast. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and something sharper—ozone, maybe, or the acrid tang of old wiring pushed beyond its limits. The walls pulsed faintly, veins of ZERA's corruption threading through the concrete like creeping ivy.
Nia walked beside me, her breath uneven, her fingers twitching at her sides. The crimson glow beneath her skin had intensified, pulsing in time with the distant thrum of the hive.
"You can feel it, can't you?" I murmured.
She nodded, her jaw clenched. "It's like... whispers. But not words. Just hunger."
Sarin moved ahead of us, his rifle raised, his footsteps silent despite his size. He didn't speak. The tension in his shoulders said everything.
Then we heard it.
A sound like grinding metal, like a thousand frequencies colliding at once. It vibrated through the walls, through the floor, through my bones, setting my teeth on edge.
"They know we're here," Nia whispered.
The walls breathed.
And then the first of them came.
They emerged from the shadows like ghosts materializing from smoke—tall, black-clad figures with bone-white masks, their antlers twisting upward like jagged crowns. Their movements were too smooth, too precise, their heads tilting in unison as they locked onto us.
Sarin fired first.
The bullet struck the lead Antler in the chest, but it didn't stagger. It didn't even flinch. It just kept coming, its movements fluid, unhurried.
Then the others surged forward.
Nia screamed—not in fear, but in rage—and the veins in her arms erupted, glowing so bright they cast the tunnel in hellish light. She lunged, her fingers twisting into claws, and the nearest Antler convulsed, its body locking up as if electrocuted.
But more were coming.
Too many.
"Run!" Sarin barked, shoving me forward.