The catwalk was gone.
A twenty-meter chasm of empty, vibrating air separated them from the console. From their only objective.
The heat from the molten, slagged metal of the catwalk washed over Haruto's face, a blistering, dry wave that smelled of vaporized steel. He was on his knees, his hands braced on the buckled, groaning gantry, just inches from the edge. Below, the chasm. A dizzying, nauseating drop into the roiling heart of the nest. Above, the strobing, warring lights of the reactor—blue, then green, then black—painted the cavern in the colors of a fresh bruise.
The chittering from the vent behind them was deafening now. A dry, scraping, insectile sound that was getting closer. Too close.
And the song in his head was a triumphant roar.
It is over, little ghost. Come home.
The Conductor stood from its throne, a graceful, unfolding shadow. It watched them, its head tilted, a silent, patient god awaiting their inevitable, broken supplication. The Mark-IV automaton beside it raised its plasma caster, the orange glow from its barrel a malevolent star in the gloom, ready to finish the job.
They were in a perfect kill box. Bugs from the rear. A machine-knight in front. A god watching from its throne. And no way across.
This was it. This was the end. A cold, flat certainty settled in Haruto's gut. All this way. All this fighting. The aqueduct. The crawlspace. The shaft. All for nothing. To die on a broken bridge, torn apart by bugs or boiled by plasma. He looked at Kaito, who was just a whimpering, useless heap of armor beside him. He looked at Riku, who was already turning back toward the vent, his carbine raised, a machine calculating the last, fatal odds.
Live for us.
Eva Rostova's voice, a faint, desperate echo from a thousand years ago. A burden. A promise.
He was not going to die here.
"Riku!" Haruto's voice was a raw, desperate bark, tearing through his own throat. "The vent! Buy me thirty seconds! Whatever it takes!"
Riku didn't hesitate. He didn't ask why. He didn't point out the futility. He just turned, planted his feet, and faced the dark, chittering hole they had just crawled from. A soldier. A damn good soldier. "Affirmative," his voice was a flat, calm line in the chaos.
"Haruto, what—what are you doing?" Kaito gasped from the floor, his voice a wet, broken thing. "We're trapped! It's over!"
"It's not over until I'm atoms," Haruto growled, his voice a low, vicious hiss. He ignored the pain in his shoulder, the song in his head, the overwhelming, crushing despair. He was a soldier. He was an engineer. He had his suit. He had his tools.
He fumbled at his belt, his fingers, clumsy with adrenaline and exhaustion, finding the magnetic clasp of his utility pouch. He ripped it open. Inside, a spool of micro-filament. A high-tensile, spun-polymer line, thinner than a hair, strong enough to tow a light vehicle. And a high-velocity, magnetic piton launcher. Standard-issue climbing gear.
He had one shot.
The chittering from the vent behind him reached a crescendo. The first of the creatures, a blur of black, glistening chitin and sickle-claws, erupted from the opening.
Riku opened fire.
The sharp crack-crack-crack of his carbine was a deafening, percussive sound in the vast cavern. The blue plasma bolts struck the creature, vaporizing its head in a splash of green, steaming ichor. It collapsed, and another one was right behind it, clambering over its corpse.
Riku was a machine. A flawless, brutal engine of destruction. Crack. Crack. Crack. Each shot a kill. A perfect, methodical, hopeless defense.
Haruto ignored it. He had a job to do.
He checked the launcher. Power cell: 8%. Enough for one shot. Just one. He looked across the chasm. Twenty meters. The platform where the Conductor stood was a tempting target, but it was moving, pulsing with the black, oily biomass. It wasn't stable. But above it, a thick, metal-girded structural support for the reactor's containment field. Solid. Imperial.
He raised the launcher. His arms were shaking. The song in his head was a screaming, distracting static. No. No. No. Come home. Join. Be whole.
"Get out of my head!" he roared, the words a physical, guttural explosion.
He centered his aim. The high-pitched whine of the Mark-IV's plasma caster charging. He didn't flinch.
He pulled the trigger.
The launcher kicked hard against his palm, a sharp thunk. The piton, trailing the invisible micro-filament, shot across the chasm, a silent, gray streak in the strobing, unholy light.
It struck the girder.
A loud, metallic CLANG echoed through the cavern.
A good, solid hit.
He hit the auto-tensioner on his belt. The line went taut, a vibrating, invisible thread of hope in the darkness.
"It's on!" he yelled. "Riku! We're crossing!"
Riku didn't look back. He just kept firing. Crack. Crack. Another bug fell. But two more were scrambling into the vent. "Go, Lieutenant! They are too many!"
"Kaito, on your feet! Clip in!" Haruto grabbed Kaito by the harness, hauling him up. Kaito was a dead weight, his eyes wide, his body limp with terror.
"I can't. I'll fall. I can't—"
"You will!" Haruto roared, his voice cracking. He fumbled for the harness clip on Kaito's back. His gloves were slick with his own sweat. He couldn't get the clasp.
Chittering.
Closer.
Riku's carbine was clicking. An empty cell. The sound was a death knell.
Riku dropped the useless rifle, drew his sidearm. Crack. Crack. Slower now. Less effective. A bug lunged. He kicked it in the head, a brutal, bone-snapping blow, and shot it in the thorax.
"Damn it, Kaito, work with me!" Haruto screamed, abandoning the harness clip. He just wrapped the micro-filament around Kaito's chest, a crude, desperate, improvised loop, and cinched it tight.
"This is going to hurt. Don't scream," he said.
He grabbed the line. He grabbed Kaito.
And he jumped.
The fall was a heart-stopping lurch, a drop into the abyss that lasted less than a second. Then the line caught. The harness bit deep, and Haruto's arms were nearly torn from their sockets. He was dangling, spinning, twenty meters above the roiling, green-glowing nest, with Kaito's unconscious body a heavy, pendulum weight below him.
Above him, the Mark-IV. It had seen them. Its plasma caster whined, swiveling down.
"Riku! Cover!" Haruto screamed, his voice a raw, shredded plea.
On the gantry, Riku heard. He had a fresh cell in his sidearm. He was wounded, a deep, black gash on his shoulder from a raking claw. But he was a soldier. He stepped to the edge of the gantry, leaned out over the chasm, and emptied his pistol at the automaton. The blue bolts splashed harmlessly against its thick, gunmetal-gray armor, a flurry of tiny, insignificant sparks.
It wasn't an attack. It was a distraction.
It was a salute.
The Mark-IV, its programming prioritizing the active threat, swiveled. It ignored the two helpless, dangling targets and fired at Riku.
A single, brilliant, orange bolt.
It hit Riku square in the chest.
There was no explosion. No scream. Riku's body just… disappeared. Vaporized in a blinding, white-hot flash that threw Haruto's world into stark, painful, black-and-white relief.
"NO!" The scream was ripped from Haruto's soul.
He was spinning, dizzy, the image of Riku's sacrifice burned into his retinas. The chittering from the gantry was a sound of triumph. The bugs were swarming over the edge, over Riku's molten boot print, and they were looking at him.
He had to move.
He grabbed the line. Hand over hand. His muscles screamed. His shoulder was a white-hot agony. He pulled, his armor grating against the filament, hauling his own weight and Kaito's, meter by agonizing meter.
Below him, the nest roiled. He could feel its heat, a humid, compost-heap warmth that rose in waves. He could smell the rot.
Above him, the Mark-IV, its target eliminated, was swiveling back down. Its red eyes fixed on him. Its plasma caster began to whine.
He was out of time.
He was ten meters from the platform.
He was five meters from the platform.
The Mark-IV fired.
The bolt of orange plasma shot past his head, so close he felt the crackle of it on his cracked visor. It hit the micro-filament line.
His line.
The line vaporized.
The world dropped out from under him.
He was falling.
Falling, with Kaito's dead weight pulling him down, into the darkness, into the chasm, into the glowing, hungry, welcoming heart of the nest.
He saw the platform of the Conductor, now above him, shrinking.
He saw the vast, cavernous darkness rushing up to meet him.
He saw the glistening, black, roiling surface of the Anomaly's biomass, a sea of alien flesh, opening its arms to catch him.
It is over, little ghost.
The song in his head was a triumphant, welcoming roar.
Welcome home.
He hit the surface. It was not a crash. It was a splash. A cold, thick, viscous impact that swallowed him whole, that pulled him down, that filled his mouth, his nose, his armor, his mind.
The darkness was absolute.
And the song was everything.