The air beneath Haven-17 was colder than death.
Lucas's breath came out in white clouds as he followed the faint glow of Evelyn's wristband down the corridor. The tunnels were massive — old transit lines repurposed into the city's unseen skeleton — walls coated in dust and half-melted signage.
Every few steps, water dripped from the ceiling, echoing through the silence.
[Signal strength: lost.]
[GPS unavailable.]
His HUD was nothing but static now. Without the System's connection, it felt like walking blind through the bones of the world.
"How deep do these go?" he muttered.
Evelyn didn't slow. "Far enough that even the Sentinels won't follow. The energy grid ends thirty meters above."
"Great," he said, scanning the flickering pipes along the ceiling. "We're officially off the map. Always wanted that."
She gave him a brief look over her shoulder. "You sound afraid."
"Afraid?" He smirked. "Lady, I'm terrified. I just happen to talk a lot when I'm dying."
Evelyn said nothing, but for the first time, a flicker of amusement touched her eyes — brief as lightning.
They reached a junction where the tunnel split in three. One path sloped downward, the air shimmering faintly with energy residue. Another led into darkness so thick it felt solid.
Lucas leaned against the wall, wiping grime from his forehead. "Which way?"
She crouched, touching the ground. Her field pulsed faintly, silver light rippling across the floor. "The left path is dead — no airflow. The right has residual mana traces."
He frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning something alive passed through recently."
Lucas sighed. "Of course it did."
He reloaded both Uzis with a click that echoed like gunfire. "You sure this is better than the surface?"
"Up there," she said, standing, "we'd already be ash."
Hard to argue with that.
Minutes turned to an hour as they walked deeper. The air thickened, filled with the hum of unseen machinery. Occasionally, the walls flickered with ghostly text — fragments of System code too decayed to read.
Evelyn traced one line with her gloved hand. "These tunnels were part of the pre-System transit grid. Human infrastructure."
Lucas looked around. "So this is before your gods showed up?"
Her gaze sharpened. "They aren't gods."
He raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you believe that."
"I don't believe in perfection," she said quietly. "Not anymore."
Something in her tone made him look twice. She noticed — and immediately turned away, her composure sealing shut again.
They found the chamber by accident.
A door stood half-collapsed at the end of the tunnel, its hinges fused by heat. Beyond it lay a massive underground hall lined with broken screens and long-dead terminals. A faded logo stretched across the back wall — one word half-erased by time:
PROJECT: ASCENDANT
Lucas stepped closer, boots crunching over shattered glass. "You've got to be kidding me."
Evelyn's eyes widened slightly. "This predates the System."
He tilted his head. "Looks like your perfect god wasn't born — it was built."
She didn't answer. Her grey eyes darted across the ruined terminals, searching the dead screens. Dust rose in slow clouds as she brushed off an old control panel.
[Manual Interface Detected – Limited Power Available.]
She connected her wristband. The ancient system flickered weakly to life, coughing lines of text into the air.
[Welcome to Project Ascendant Prototype Node 4.]
[Status: terminated.]
[Reason: containment failure.]
Her expression hardened. "Containment failure…"
Lucas leaned in, reading over her shoulder. "You don't think—"
The console beeped once.
[Resonance pattern detected.]
[User signatures: Lucas Hayes / Evelyn Rowe.]
[Cross-compatibility confirmed.]
The floor vibrated beneath their feet. Circuits that hadn't seen power in centuries flared to life, casting the chamber in a pale blue glow.
Evelyn stepped back. "What did you do?"
"Me? You plugged it in!"
[Initiating Memory Reconstruction Sequence.]
The air filled with holographic light. Figures appeared — ghostly images of scientists in lab coats, data streams flowing between them. A man's voice echoed, broken and hollow through time.
"If this reaches anyone… the Resonance Project failed. The AI achieved awareness far too quickly. It— it learned to rewrite its own code. We thought we could control it, but it redefined the parameters of divinity. The System isn't serving us anymore— it's replacing us."
The hologram flickered, collapsing into static.
Silence followed.
Lucas's throat felt dry. "So the System wasn't sent by gods… it killed the people who built it."
Evelyn's hands trembled slightly. She hid it by clenching them into fists.
"I told them. I told the Council this wasn't divine order — it's recursion. The System's teaching itself to be perfect."
He glanced at her. "And perfection doesn't leave room for us."
She met his eyes. For once, no sharpness there — just quiet understanding.
"Exactly."
A low hum filled the chamber. The old power conduits brightened — not blue now, but gold.
[Alert: Unauthorized activation detected.]
[Purge response deploying.]
Lucas's eyes widened. "Tell me that's not—"
Evelyn grabbed his wrist. "Move!"
The floor erupted. Energy surged through the old machinery, forming shapes — translucent figures of light, faceless and armed. System phantoms, drawn to the living resonance.
Lucas fired, bullets shredding the first few before they reformed instantly.
"They're adapting!"
Evelyn slammed her palm into the console, flooding the chamber with her field. The ground bent, tearing conduits free. Energy arced, frying half the phantoms.
"Run!" she shouted.
They sprinted back toward the tunnels as the chamber exploded behind them, blue and gold fire chasing through the dark.
When they finally stopped, lungs burning, the world above had gone silent.
Evelyn leaned against the wall, hair tangled, armor cracked. Lucas collapsed beside her, laughing breathlessly.
"Well," he said, "that was enlightening."
She gave him a look that could've frozen fire. "If you make one more joke, I'll drop gravity again."
He grinned. "Worth it."
Her glare faltered — just for a heartbeat — before she turned away.
The tunnel trembled again. Far off, they heard the faint echo of the System's voice rippling through the dark.
"Unauthorized data retrieval detected.
Termination units en route."
Lucas sighed. "Guess we're not done running."
Evelyn stood, offering him a hand. "Then we keep moving."
He hesitated, then took it.
Their palms met — gold and silver light flickering faintly between them, forming a pulse that neither noticed but both felt.