The sound of the Hunter's steps faded, swallowed by the low hum of the tunnels. Marcus stood motionless, breath shallow, eyes fixed on the darkness that had just watched them. The air had gone still—too still. Even the city's constant tremor above seemed to pause.
"Move," Kade muttered. The word came out like an exhale, half command, half prayer.
Marcus adjusted the prototype against his chest. Its glow had dulled to a faint blue shimmer, heartbeat-soft. He didn't need to check if Kade was right—they couldn't stay here. Not when the shadows themselves seemed to be listening.
They crossed the old platform in silence, boots crunching over broken glass and brittle paper. Every sound echoed too long, returning distorted, as if the tunnels were repeating them wrong on purpose.
Then came the whisper. Faint. Metallic. A sound like breath drawn through a mask.
Marcus froze.
Kade's knives were out before thought, glinting under the prototype's light. "Tell me that was you."
"It wasn't."
The whisper came again—lower this time, drawn out, like a thousand voices buried in the stone. The tunnel ahead pulsed faintly in rhythm with the sound. Marcus felt the prototype stir in his arms, warmth blooming beneath the casing.
Kade took a half step back. "Marcus—"
"Keep your eyes open."
The walls began to change. What Marcus had taken for graffiti wasn't graffiti at all—it was etched into the concrete. The lines ran in looping patterns, and at each intersection faint symbols glowed, fading in and out in time with the prototype.
Marcus stepped closer, lifting the device toward them. The glow brightened, resonating with the markings. The air thrummed.
"What the hell is this?" Kade asked.
Marcus's voice was low. "Resonance mapping. These are old conduction lines—soul circuits. Someone wired the tunnels to channel energy."
Kade frowned. "You're saying the city's bleeding power?"
"I'm saying it's alive."
The light along the wall surged. From the corner of his eye, Marcus caught movement—a door unsealing with a hiss and a spill of white vapor. Beyond it, a slanted corridor descended into deeper dark.
"Down again?" Kade asked, disbelief edging his voice.
"Down again."
The corridor narrowed as they moved, the walls slick with condensation, the floor uneven. The deeper they went, the stronger the hum became. It wasn't just noise—it was a vibration in their bones, a rhythm that made Marcus's pulse stumble to match it.
The tunnel widened suddenly into a chamber lined with glass cylinders. Dozens of them. Some shattered, others intact. Tubes hung from the ceiling like veins. Each cylinder held traces of something that had once been human—hands pressed against glass, faces half-formed, skin like translucent wax.
Kade gagged softly. "They were experimenting on people."
Marcus moved closer to one of the intact pods. Inside, a figure floated in cloudy liquid. A child—maybe ten years old—though the proportions were wrong. The eyes were closed, the chest barely rising and falling. Faint light flickered through veins that didn't look entirely human.
He touched the glass gently. The prototype flared bright blue, and the child's eyes snapped open.
The glow rippled through the chamber. Machines whined to life. One by one, the pods lit up. Some stayed dark, others sparked violently and went still. But a few—three, maybe four—began to hum at the same frequency as the prototype.
Kade swore under his breath. "Marcus—what did you just wake up?"
Marcus stumbled back, heart hammering. "I didn't. It responded."
The hum deepened. The child in the pod pressed its hand against the glass. Light burst beneath its palm, tracing runes across the surface in patterns identical to the prototype's casing.
"Energy synchronization," Marcus whispered. "They were using human cores as anchors—trying to merge physical and sub-space energy."
"You're saying these are… what, batteries?"
"Sacrifices."
A metallic crack echoed through the chamber. One of the pods split open. Liquid spilled onto the floor, steaming. The figure inside slumped out, hitting the ground with a wet thud.
Marcus stumbled back, raising the prototype instinctively. The figure twitched, spasmed—and then inhaled sharply, chest expanding as if the first breath had taken centuries to find. Its skin glowed faintly where the prototype's light touched it.
"Marcus," Kade said, voice thin.
"I see it."
The thing looked up. Its eyes were blank at first, then flickered with recognition—or hunger. Its mouth moved, forming shapes of words it couldn't speak. The sound came out wrong, layered, like more than one voice speaking through it.
"We… are… still… here…"
The prototype's light pulsed faster. Marcus felt it responding to the creature, like a tether tightening. His vision blurred; the hum was in his skull now, under his ribs, syncing with his heartbeat.
Kade grabbed his shoulder. "We're leaving. Now."
Marcus hesitated. The creature was crawling toward him, leaving faint trails of light on the ground where its fingers touched.
"Don't… leave us…"
The other pods began to tremble. Cracks spiderwebbed through the glass.
"Marcus!"
The prototype's hum spiked into a scream of energy. Light exploded outward. The glass around them shattered, shards hanging midair for an impossible instant before slamming into the walls. Marcus hit the floor hard, the air punched from his lungs.
When the ringing in his ears cleared, the chamber was dark again—except for the faint, sickly glow of the prototype.
The figures were gone. Only the open pods remained.
Kade helped him up, breathing hard. "You good?"
Marcus nodded slowly. "They're gone. But not dead."
"What do you mean gone?"
"They phased out. Into sub-space. The generator—the prototype—it gave them a bridge."
Kade looked around, jaw tight. "Then they can come back?"
Marcus didn't answer. He was staring at the far wall, where faint red lights flickered on—mechanical, precise. One by one, a dozen eyes stared back from the dark.
Old surveillance drones, long dormant, now awake.
Kade raised his knives. "Guess we found what the Hunter was leading us to."
"No," Marcus said softly. "The Hunter was leading us away from this."
The air vibrated again. The red eyes shifted, focusing. Somewhere deep beneath them, something huge began to stir.
Marcus tightened his grip on the prototype. The hum in his chest answered.
"Run?" Kade asked.
Marcus nodded once. "Run."
They sprinted through the collapsing chamber as alarms wailed and the machines began to move. Above them, the city pulsed on, unaware of what had just awakened in its veins.