# Chapter 31: The Precog's Warning
Liraya's hand hovered over the access panel, the cool metal a stark contrast to the feverish heat of her palm. The recycled air of the Magisterium corridor felt thin, sterile, a mockery of the living city outside. Every instinct screamed at her to turn back, to abandon this suicide run. But the image of Elara, pale and still in a hospital bed, and the memory of Konto's shattered resolve, pushed her forward. Her friendship with Belly was a currency she was about to spend, and the price might be everything.
Just as her fingers brushed the panel, a sound shattered the tense silence. It wasn't the polite chime of an authorized entry or the blare of an alarm. It was a frantic, metallic pounding from the other side of the workshop door—the one they had just left. A desperate, ragged rhythm that spoke of panic, not protocol.
"Edi, what's going on?" Gideon's voice crackled over the comm, tight with alarm. He was stationed two blocks away, his Earth Aspect giving him a preternatural sense of the city's vibrations. "I'm feeling tremors. Not structural. Something… frantic. From your direction."
Before Edi could respond, the workshop door buckled inward with a deafening screech of tortured metal. The reinforced frame, designed to withstand a mundane siege, groaned as it was torn from its hinges. A figure stumbled through the opening, a silhouette against the rain-slicked neon of the Undercity street. She collapsed to her knees, a gasp of pain tearing from her lungs, and the door slammed shut behind her, its locks automatically re-engaging.
The workshop plunged into a new kind of chaos. Liraya spun around, her hand instinctively going to a sidearm she wasn't carrying. Konto, leaning against the wall for support, pushed himself upright, his cane forgotten. His synesthetic perception, though overloaded, flared with the raw, unshielded terror emanating from the intruder. It was a psychic scream, loud and clear.
Edi was already moving, his fingers flying across a holographic keyboard. "Security breach! The door's mag-locks just engaged! I'm locked out of the override!"
The woman on the floor was young, no older than Edi, with a shock of dark hair matted with blood. A deep gash on her forehead wept crimson down the side of her face, mingling with the grime of the street. She wore the simple, practical clothes of a Lower Spires tech-runner, but her eyes—wide, dark, and impossibly old—held a terrifying clarity. She pushed herself up on trembling arms, her gaze darting around the workshop, cataloging them in a single, sweeping glance.
"They're coming," she rasped, her voice a dry whisper. "The Wardens. Valerius's new commander. He knows you're here."
Liraya took a step forward, her mind racing. "Who are you? How did you get past our wards?"
The woman managed a grim, bloody smile. "Your wards are digital. I'm analog." She flinched, her eyes losing focus for a second. "No time. I saw it. The raid. Black armor, pulse lances set to stun. They're not here to talk. They're here to erase you."
Konto moved to Liraya's side, his presence a grim reassurance. He could feel the truth in her words, a raw, unvarnished certainty that cut through the psychic noise in his head. "Saw it how?"
"I see things," she said, pushing herself to her feet using a workbench. She swayed, but her gaze remained locked on Konto. "Ten seconds. Sometimes more if I concentrate. I saw the commander give the order. I saw them breach the door. I saw… I saw you on the floor." Her eyes flickered to Liraya. "Both of you."
Edi's face was pale, illuminated by the frantic red glow of his monitors. "She's right. I'm picking up three Warden patrol skiffs on a direct intercept course. No transponders. They're running dark. ETA, three minutes."
Gideon's voice was a low growl over the comm. "Three minutes? That's not a raid, that's an extermination. Liraya, Konto, get out of there. Now. The mission's blown."
Liraya's heart hammered against her ribs. The mission. Belly. The lockdown codes. Everything they had worked for, the desperate gamble to save Elara and the city, was evaporating in front of her. "We can't," she said, her voice tight. "We're so close."
"Close to what? Getting yourselves killed?" the young woman snapped. "My name is Anya. And I didn't bust my way in here to watch you commit suicide. There's a service tunnel behind the main server rack. It leads to the old aqueduct system. It's your only way out."
Anya. The name meant nothing to Konto, but her power did. A precog. Not a vague oracle, but a tactical asset. A living, breathing early-warning system. And she was on the run from the Wardens, which meant she was an enemy of their enemy.
"Why help us?" Liraya demanded, her analyst's mind trying to find the angle, the trap.
Anya's gaze softened, just for a moment, as she looked at them. "Because I saw what happens if you fail. It's… worse." She shuddered, a violent, full-body tremor. "And because Valerius's men aren't just after you. They're after me. I saw my own face on a detention manifest. We're in the same sinking ship."
The floor vibrated with a low, powerful hum. The sound of heavy grav-engines. They were here.
"Edi, the tunnel!" Gideon commanded.
"On it!" Edi yelled, shoving a heavy server rack aside with a grunt of effort. Behind it, a circular, rust-covered hatch was revealed, barely visible in the dim light. "It's an old maintenance hatch. Manual lock. I can't open it from here."
Gideon's voice was strained. "I'm too far. I can't get to you in time."
"I can," Konto said. He took a limping step toward the hatch, his cane clicking on the concrete floor. Every movement was an agony, his body screaming in protest, but his mind was clear, sharp as a shard of glass. He looked at Anya. "How many? How do they come in?"
Anya's eyes glazed over again, her body tensing. "Four… no, five. Front door. Two with breaching charges. Three with pulse lances. They move on your mark… five seconds after the first charge blows." She blinked, the vision receding, leaving her breathless. "The commander stays in the skiff. He's… enjoying this."
Liraya made a decision. The mission was a bust. Survival was the new objective. "Edi, grab the drive. Gideon, find us an extraction point. Anya, you're with us." She turned to Konto. "Konto, the hatch."
He nodded, his jaw set. He reached the circular door, his fingers tracing the cold, rusted edges. There was no handle, no keypad. Just a series of ancient, interlocking gears. It was a mechanical puzzle, a relic from a time before Aspect Weaving automated everything.
"Two minutes!" Edi shouted, yanking a glowing data crystal from its cradle and shoving it into a hardened case on his belt. He scrambled toward the hatch, his lanky frame surprisingly agile.
The first explosion rocked the workshop. It wasn't a loud, fiery blast, but a concentrated, percussive *thump* that vibrated through the soles of their feet. The reinforced door shuddered, spiderweb cracks spreading across its surface.
"They're in," Anya whispered, her face ashen.
Konto ignored the sound, his entire being focused on the mechanism in front of him. His fingers, numb with exhaustion, found a series of hidden levers. He pushed, pulled, and twisted, his movements guided by a lifetime of picking locks and disarming traps, both physical and mental. The gears groaned in protest, rust flaking away. With a final, agonizing screech, the central wheel turned. The hatch popped open with a hiss of stale, damp air, revealing a dark, narrow shaft leading down into the city's forgotten guts.
"Go!" Konto yelled, shoving the hatch open wider.
Liraya grabbed Anya's arm, pulling her toward the opening. "You first."
The second explosion was louder, more violent. The workshop door tore off its frame and clattered to the floor, revealing the black-armored figures of the Arcane Wardens. Their helmets were featureless obsidian masks, their pulse lances humming with deadly energy.
"Freeze! On the ground!" a synthesized voice boomed.
Edi didn't hesitate. He dove through the opening, disappearing into the darkness below. Liraya shoved Anya in after him, then turned to cover Konto.
"Konto, now!"
He was still by the hatch, his body a shield. "I'm right behind you. Go!"
A pulse lance fired, a bolt of blue energy sizzling past Liraya's head and slamming into the wall behind her, showering the area in sparks and molten concrete. The Wardens were advancing, their movements precise and relentless.
Liraya made a split-second choice. She couldn't leave him. She lunged for him, grabbing his arm. "We go together."
As she pulled him toward the hatch, Anya screamed from the tunnel below. "No! Look out!"
Konto looked up, not at the Wardens, but at Anya. Her eyes were wide with a new, more profound terror. It wasn't a vision of the next ten seconds. It was something else. Something deeper.
"Anya? What is it?" he called out, his voice strained.
She was staring right through him, her pupils dilated into black pools. "The end," she whispered, her voice echoing strangely in the confined space. "I see it. The final battle. Not here. Later. In a place of thrones and shadows."
The Wardens were almost on them. Liraya could feel the heat from their armor, hear the whine of their charging weapons. She pulled harder, dragging Konto toward the escape route.
Anya's voice rose, becoming a chant of pure, unadulterated horror. "You face him. The Arch-Mage. But he's not… he's not a man anymore. He's a monster. A thing of nightmare and twisted light. His eyes are dying stars."
A third Warden fired, this time aiming not at them, but at the server rack next to the hatch. The explosion was immense, a shower of debris and electronics. The shockwave threw Konto and Liraya off their feet, sending them tumbling toward the open hatch.
"You're losing," Anya's voice cut through the chaos, a final, damning pronouncement. "He breaks you. He breaks the city. The dream… it wins."
Konto felt himself falling, Liraya's hand still locked in his. The last thing he saw before the darkness of the shaft swallowed them was Anya's face, a mask of pure despair, her final vision burning in his mind. Then the world was a blur of cold metal, rushing wind, and the sickening lurch of a descent into the unknown.