The Grid screamed as if the city itself had been split open. Power surged through every corridor, every panel, every buried artery of steel. Lights burst, walls shuddered, and the air filled with the acrid tang of burning wires. Cain braced himself against the console as the hum rose into a shriek, like some great machine-beast writhing in its death throes.
Steve staggered back, smoke clinging to his fingers. His eyes were wide, alive with something between triumph and terror. "It's unraveling. Every thread, every link—it's tearing itself apart!"
Susan pushed off the wall, her rifle clutched tight, eyes glinting through the haze. "Then we'd better move before it drags us down with it."
Roselle strode past, pistol sweeping over the chamber as if expecting the shadows themselves to strike. "Listen."
They did. Beneath the shrieking Grid was another sound: boots, hundreds of them, pounding closer through the spire's throat. The hunters had not stopped. If anything, the scream of their dying system was pulling them faster.
Cain raised his blade. Its edge quivered faintly, alive with the charge rippling through the air. He thought of Hunter then—still silent, still stone at the center of the storm. The man's eyes hadn't left the sparks bleeding across the servers.
"Hunter." Cain's voice was iron. "Pick a side."
Hunter's jaw clenched. For a moment, his silence felt like betrayal—but then he stepped forward, ripping a sidearm from his belt. His voice came rough, guttural. "We already chose."
That was enough.
Steve tore the breaker free with one last yank, sparks flaring like a star dying in his hands. The lights guttered and went black. For a single heartbeat the world hung in silence.
Then came the collapse.
The Grid's scream cut short, but the walls trembled, and the floor bucked like a beast casting its riders. Panels fell, shattering. A vent split overhead, belching smoke and ash. Somewhere deeper, the city howled—a chain reaction bleeding outward through miles of circuitry.
Susan swore. "You've done it. You've killed the city."
Steve shook his head violently. "No. I killed their eyes."
Roselle spun toward the corridor. The hunters were nearly there, their shouts ringing in the black. "Eyes or not, they've got blades and rifles."
Cain's grip on his sword tightened. The blade gleamed faintly, catching what little light the dying servers shed. "Then we cut our way through the dark."
They moved. The corridor stretched ahead, smoke curling low across the floor, sparks twitching like fireflies above them. Cain led, his blade carving space in the shadows. Roselle kept to his flank, every shot from her pistol carving a path of light. Susan limped but fired steady, her rifle's bark shaking the walls.
The hunters surged into the chamber behind them. Dozens of them, armor catching what little glow remained, masks glinting like metal skulls. Their formation was tight, their pace relentless. Even blinded, they hunted like wolves.
"Faster!" Cain barked.
Steve's lungs burned, each step ragged. "There's an exit shaft ahead—maintenance crawl. If it hasn't collapsed."
"Then it hasn't," Cain snapped.
Hunter fell to the rear, firing in short, disciplined bursts. His silence had broken; now his resolve roared in every shot. The hunters pressed close, but his aim was merciless, each round buying them inches more of survival.
The floor pitched again. Somewhere beneath, the city's bones were breaking. The Grid's death was shaking foundations no one had touched in centuries. The spire groaned like an old god dragged to its knees.
At last they saw it: the shaft, narrow and rust-lined, yawning open in the wall like a throat. Steve dove first, scrambling into the dark. Roselle shoved Susan in after him, then swung up herself.
Cain lingered, blade raised as the first wave of hunters closed in. Their rifles barked. Bullets sang against his edge. Sparks sprayed as steel bit steel.
"Cain!" Roselle's voice was ragged.
He slashed, sending two hunters staggering back in a haze of blood and sparks. Then he leapt, catching the ladder's rung and hauling himself into the shaft. Hunter covered him, retreating last, his boots scraping as he pulled the hatch shut.
Darkness swallowed them again. Only their breath filled the space—the rasp of lungs, the cough of smoke, the grit of dust.
Susan's voice cut through, harsh but alive. "Tell me you have more than ladders for an escape."
Steve wheezed but forced a grin she couldn't see. "Crawl runs vertical another ten floors. Past that, it should spit us into the transit arteries."
"Should," Roselle muttered.
Cain didn't slow. His blade clinked faintly against the rung. "Then we climb until we find out."
The shaft stretched upward like a vein, slick with condensation, trembling with every convulsion of the dying Grid. Their hands slipped. Their arms burned. But still they climbed, because to stop was death.
Above, faint light glimmered through cracks where metal had warped. Cain felt air rush across his face, cold and sharp. Freedom? Or another trap? He didn't know. He climbed anyway.
The hunters' voices echoed faintly below, muffled by steel, but closer than comfort allowed.
"Faster," Cain growled.
And still, the city screamed, though the Grid was dead. Its bones shuddered, its lungs gasped smoke, and its heart beat somewhere far above.
Cain tightened his grip on the blade, the vibrations of the spire thrumming through the steel as though the weapon itself carried the city's pulse. The Grid's scream hadn't faded; it had mutated, spreading like a fever through the walls, pouring light where there should have been silence. Sparks guttered, wires snapped, conduits rattled as if the building were convulsing around them.
Susan leaned into the wall for balance, her teeth bared in something between a grin and a grimace. "You hear that? That's not just pain. That's panic."
Roselle's eyes flicked toward the stairwell where bootfalls hammered ever closer. "Then we've got seconds, not minutes."
Steve crouched by the breaker, sweat dripping down his brow. "The rupture's spreading. Systems are looping on themselves—orders reversing, archives corrupting. They won't know who to trust, what to follow. We've blinded them."
Hunter's face was caught in the half-light, carved with hesitation. He seemed older in that moment, worn by the sudden weight of choice. Cain didn't soften. He only gestured toward the corridor ahead, where the cables writhed like veins exposed.
"Move," Cain said. His voice cut through the chaos. "We're not done until their spine breaks."
And together, they advanced.