The tunnel shook for a long time after the blast faded.
Dust fell from the ceiling in slow motion, glowing faintly in the light of Lucas's damaged HUD. The blue flare from the ruined chamber still shimmered miles behind them, echoing through the metal veins of the old world.
They had run until the air turned thin. Now, they were alone with the sound of their own breathing.
Lucas leaned against the wall, panting. "Next time," he said, "remind me not to poke at ancient god-machines."
Evelyn crouched beside what was left of a maintenance terminal, her silver hair falling forward as she examined its wiring. The glow of her Resonance band painted her features in soft white light. "You were the one who touched the panel."
"You plugged it in."
She didn't look up. "I was studying it. You were… improvising."
He grinned faintly despite the pain. "Improvising worked."
"Barely."
She tried to power the console, but the circuit hissed and died. Sparks scattered across her glove; she flinched, and for a heartbeat Lucas saw it — not the controlled Ascendant, but the exhausted woman beneath the armor.
"Hey," he said softly, "you okay?"
Evelyn drew a slow breath and stood, brushing dust from her armor. "I'm fine."
"Sure. Because everyone says that after nearly being vaporized."
Her grey eyes lifted to his, cool again. "You seem to enjoy arguing."
"Habit," he said. "Keeps me from thinking about how everything wants me dead."
Something that might have been a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth before she caught it. "That's… inefficient."
"Welcome to humanity."
They moved on. The tunnels sloped downward until the air turned damp and metallic. Pipes lined the ceiling, dripping steadily into black puddles that reflected their light like mirrors.
Every few minutes, Lucas's HUD flickered. His health bar glitched, then reappeared with no damage shown. The System wasn't tracking him anymore.
"You feel that?" he asked.
Evelyn nodded slightly. "It's quiet."
"Too quiet."
"I meant internally." She tapped the side of her head. "The System's feed is gone. No voice, no updates. It's… disorienting."
He tilted his head. "Feels kind of nice, honestly."
"To live without guidance?"
"To live without someone telling me what to be."
She didn't reply, but her expression shifted — a flicker of recognition, or envy, maybe both.
They found a cavern at the tunnel's end.
The ceiling had collapsed long ago, leaving an open space where bioluminescent moss crept along the walls. The glow painted everything in soft blue, reflecting off pools of still water.
Lucas stopped at the edge of one pool and looked down. His reflection was fractured — split between gold flickers of his Resonance and the faint silver shimmer of hers standing beside him.
For a moment, the ripples merged into a single color: pale white.
Evelyn noticed it too. "The link is stabilizing again."
"Any idea why?"
"It shouldn't be possible," she said quietly. "Not after a forced separation."
He glanced at her reflection instead of her face. "You think maybe we're just too stubborn to break?"
Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Or too similar."
The silence stretched between them until the water trembled. The light dimmed.
[Resonance interference detected.]
[External entity approaching.]
Both of them froze.
From the far end of the cavern came a sound — mechanical, rhythmic, wet. Metal scraping against stone.
Lucas raised his guns. "Please tell me that's not another Sentinel."
Evelyn extended her hand; her field shimmered faintly, silver runes circling her wrist. "Smaller. Faster. Scouting unit."
The creature emerged from the dark — a spider-like drone with too many eyes, its body half-biological, half-machine. When it moved, it made a sound like breathing through metal.
It saw them.
[Target acquisition confirmed.]
"Run or fight?" Lucas asked.
Evelyn's eyes narrowed. "Fight. I'm done running."
The drone leapt, faster than anything human. Lucas opened fire, but its carapace deflected most of the rounds. It landed between them, tail splitting into four bladed limbs.
Evelyn slammed her palm down, gravity spiking. The drone crashed into the floor, leaving a crater — but it kept moving, crawling toward her even as its legs buckled.
Lucas vaulted over it, emptying both clips point-blank into its core. The thing screamed — not mechanically, but organically, a horrible sound that made the walls vibrate.
Then it split apart.
The pieces dissolved into data static, evaporating into the air.
For a moment, silence again. Then Evelyn said, "It wasn't autonomous. It was remote-controlled."
"By who?"
"By what," she corrected. "The System sent it."
Lucas holstered his weapons, exhaling. "Guess that answers whether it still cares about us."
She met his gaze. "It doesn't care. It learns."
They camped in the cavern after the fight, exhaustion finally catching up to them. Evelyn sat against the wall, repairing the cracks in her wristband with a small tool she'd salvaged. Lucas sat across from her, the glow of his guns casting long shadows on the floor.
He watched her work. The precision of her movements, the calmness despite the chaos — it was infuriatingly impressive.
"You really never miss a step, do you?" he asked.
Evelyn didn't look up. "Control is necessary."
"Control's an illusion."
"Then why are you still alive?"
He chuckled. "Because I keep pretending it isn't."
That earned him a glance — quick, assessing, but softer than before.
"Lucas," she said suddenly. "If what we saw in that chamber is true — if the System was created by humans — then what does that make us?"
He hesitated. "Mistakes they didn't finish making."
For once, she didn't argue.
Hours later, when the lights of their devices dimmed, they sat in silence listening to the hum of the tunnels.
Evelyn spoke quietly, her voice barely echoing. "I used to think I understood perfection. That it meant order. Now I think it just means extinction."
Lucas looked up at her — the faint silver of her hair catching what little light was left. "Then maybe imperfection's the only thing worth fighting for."
Neither of them said anything after that.
But somewhere in the dark, the faint pulse of their Resonance link synchronized again — gold and silver merging into a single beat that neither could hear, but both could feel beneath their skin.