The dust tasted of pulverized stone and old copper.
Julian stood frozen, his chest heaving, the iron crowbar vibrating in his grip like a tuning fork that refused to go silent. Ten yards away, where Captain Elias Thorne had been standing, there was now a crater. The rail line twisted upward like a serrated metal ribbon, steam hissing violently from a ruptured underground pipe.
I did that.
The thought wasn't triumphant. It was horrified. Julian looked at his hand—the one clutching the bar. The crystal corruption on his fingertips pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light, hungry for more.
"Move!"
A small, hard shoulder slammed into his ribs. The girl in the cloak—Lyra—didn't wait for an introduction. She scrambled over the debris of the crates, her movements fluid and desperate.
The metal trap Elias had bent around her was loose, warped by the shockwave Julian had sent through the ground. She kicked herself free, grabbed her fallen siphon device, and looked back at him.
"Unless you want to be a hood ornament on the Emperor's train, run!"
Her voice snapped the paralysis. Julian dropped the crowbar—it clanged dully, its purpose served—and sprinted after her.
"Sector 4 is compromised," a mechanical voice boomed through the clearing dust. "Engage."
Red lenses pierced the gloom. The Resonance Guard was moving. They didn't run like panicked civilians; they advanced in a phalanx, their heavy boots thudding in a terrifying unison that shook the floor. Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Hold fire!" A voice cut through the mechanical cadence. It was strained, angry, but undeniably human.
Elias Thorne emerged from the cloud of steam. His pristine uniform was covered in grey dust, and a thin trickle of blood ran down his forehead. He wasn't looking at the girl. His eyes were locked on Julian.
There was no confusion in his gaze. Only a cold, sharp recognition.
"Julian?" Elias said, the name sounding foreign in the midst of the violence. He looked at the twisted rail, then back to Julian's grease-stained face. "You... you're a Tuner?"
Julian didn't answer. He turned and bolted, following Lyra toward the maintenance corridors.
"Secure the girl," Elias commanded, his voice hardening instantly. "Leave the mechanic to me."
Julian and Lyra burst through a set of double doors into the labyrinth of the station's service tunnels. Here, the air was hotter, thick with the smell of grease and wet rust.
"Who are you?" Lyra demanded between breaths, taking a sharp left turn down a narrow catwalk suspended over huge, churning gears.
"Just a guy who made a mistake," Julian gasped, his lungs burning.
"You hit a Harmonic F-sharp on a steel rail without a tuning fork," Lyra said, glancing back at him with a mix of suspicion and awe. "That's not a mistake. That's military grade."
"I'm not military!"
BANG.
The metal catwalk railing beside Julian's hand exploded in a shower of sparks.
He looked back. Three guards were on the gantry behind them. They weren't using bullets. They were using Air-Rifles—weapons that compressed atmospheric pressure into invisible, concussive slugs.
"Down!" Lyra yelled.
She tackled Julian just as a second blast tore through the space where his head had been. They skidded across the metal grating, the vibrations of the giant gears below rattling their teeth.
They were trapped. The catwalk ended at a sealed blast door. To their right, a sheer drop into the grinding machinery of the station's underbelly. Behind them, the guards were advancing, rifles raised.
"End of the line," one of the guards announced, his voice amplified by his mask. "Surrender for processing."
Lyra scrambled to her feet, pulling out a set of lockpicks. "Cover me! I need ten seconds."
"I don't have a weapon!" Julian shouted, panic rising in his throat like bile.
"You are the weapon, you idiot!" she screamed, jamming a pick into the blast door's keyhole. "Do what you did back there!"
Julian turned to face the guards. He was trembling. His right hand—the crystal one—felt heavy, as if it were made of solid lead.
The lead guard aimed his rifle. "Target locked."
Time seemed to slow down. Julian saw the guard's finger tighten on the trigger. He saw the mechanism of the rifle slide back, compressing the air for the shot.
Listen, the voice in his head whispered. It wasn't the screaming victims this time. It was the metal itself.
Julian closed his eyes. He didn't reach for a tool. He reached out with his mind, feeling the vibration of the world around him. He felt the heavy thrum of the gears below, the high-pitched whine of the gas lamps... and the sharp, staccato click of the rifle's firing pin.
He didn't try to stop the air. He tried to change the song of the metal barrel.
Shatter.
He snapped his eyes open and thrust his crystal-tipped hand forward, palm out.
A ripple of blue light distorted the air. It wasn't a wave of force; it was a screech of dissonance.
The guard pulled the trigger.
But the rifle didn't fire. instead, the barrel of the weapon disintegrated. The steel turned into grey dust, dissolving instantly as if aged a thousand years in a second. The compressed air inside the rifle exploded outward, not forward.
BOOM.
The guard was thrown backward, knocking over the two men behind him. The catwalk groaned under the sudden shift in weight.
Julian stared at his hand. The blue crystal had spread. It now covered his entire ring finger, creeping toward his palm. It didn't hurt anymore. It felt... exalting.
"Got it!" Lyra shouted.
The blast door hissed open.
"Go!" Julian yelled, grabbing her arm.
They dove through the doorway just as Elias Thorne stepped onto the catwalk.
Elias didn't fire. He watched the heavy steel door slam shut between him and his quarry. He looked at the pile of grey dust that used to be his soldier's rifle. He knelt down, running a gloved finger through the metallic powder.
"Dissonance," Elias whispered to himself, a flicker of genuine fear crossing his stoic face for the first time. "He didn't just break it. He unmade it."
Inside the tunnel, Julian collapsed against the cold wall, sliding down until he hit the floor. He clutched his right hand to his chest, gasping for air. The euphoria of the power was fading, replaced by a sick, hollow feeling in his gut.
"You..." Lyra stood over him, breathing hard. She looked at his hand, then at his face. Her expression had changed. The hostility was gone, replaced by a wary calculation. "You're not a Tuner. Tuners shape things. You just turned high-grade steel into sand."
"I don't know what I am," Julian whispered, looking at the blue crystal that now glinted in the dim emergency lights. "I just wanted them to stop."
Lyra was silent for a moment. Then, she extended a hand.
"Well, whatever you are, you just declared war on the Empire," she said grimly. "If you stay here, Elias will find you. And he won't be asking questions next time."
Julian looked at her hand. It was covered in soot and scarred from burns. He looked at his own—the hand of a monster.
He took her hand.
"Where do we go?"
Lyra pulled him up, a grim smile touching her lips. "Down. To the place where the Empire dumps its trash. Welcome to the Resistance, Grease-monkey."