The mouth of the lower tunnel was like an open throat.
Marcus adjusted the straps of his ceramic chest plate. It felt tight, alien against his ribs, but it was solid.
"Decimus," Marcus said.
The Centurion snapped to attention. He looked tired, but his eyes were hard. He held a spear reinforced with scrap iron.
"Dominus."
"Hold the gate," Marcus ordered. "If we aren't back in twelve hours, collapse the tunnel. Bury us."
Decimus hesitated. He looked at the ragtag team.
A gladiator glowing blue. A mad physician clutching a bag of chemical jars. A fallen noblewoman holding a cracked datapad. And an Emperor wearing a dead machine's armor.
"Twelve hours," Decimus nodded. "Godspeed, Caesar."
Marcus turned to the darkness.
"Let's go."
They descended.
The air grew heavy fast. Within ten minutes, the temperature climbed. Humidity slicked the walls.
The smell of ammonia faded, replaced by something sweet. Like rotting flowers.
"Level 5," Varro had called it. The dead zone where the miners had been trapped when the rain started.
"Light," Marcus ordered.
Narcissus adjusted the heavy canvas cloak he wore. He opened the front. The blue glare of the Fusion Core cut through the gloom.
It revealed the walls.
They weren't stone anymore. They were covered in carpet.
Purple moss. Green slime. Pale, bulbous fungi the size of pumpkins growing from the cracks.
"Don't touch the walls," Galen warned, his voice muffled by a cloth mask. "The spores. They adapt to the chemical runoff. They are aggressive."
Marcus stepped over a patch of orange mold that seemed to pulse.
"Keep moving," he whispered. "Quietly."
The tunnel opened up.
They stepped onto a ledge overlooking a massive cavern.
It was a cathedral of rot.
Stalactites dripped glowing slime into pools of neon water below. The light from the fungi illuminated the space in a sickly violet haze.
And it was inhabited.
"Scavs," Lucilla breathed.
They were everywhere.
Hundreds of them. Pale, mutated miners.
They weren't fighting. They were sleeping.
Some curled in piles on the cavern floor, a writhing mass of limbs. Others hung from the ceiling stalactites like giant, pale bats, hooked by their elongated claws.
The path led directly through the center of the cavern to a heavy iron door on the far side.
"We have to cross that?" Lucilla whispered. Her eyes were wide.
"It's the only way down," Marcus said.
"If we wake them..." Galen looked at the ceiling. "It's a meat grinder."
"They hunt by sound," Marcus said. "Narcissus. Can you dim the light?"
The giant grunted. He pulled the thick canvas cloak tighter, hiding the Fusion Core. The blue glow faded to a faint outline beneath the fabric.
"Walk soft," Narcissus whispered. "I am heavy."
"Step where I step," Marcus ordered.
He lowered himself off the ledge.
The floor was soft. Covered in layers of fungal growth. It felt like walking on a wet sponge.
Squish.
Marcus froze.
A Scav sleeping ten feet away stirred. It let out a low chitter.
Marcus held his breath.
The creature scratched its ear with a long, black talon. It settled back down.
Marcus exhaled.
He moved forward. Step. Pause. Step. Pause.
They moved in a line. Marcus. Lucilla. Galen. Narcissus.
They were halfway across the room.
Narcissus was the problem. He weighed over three hundred pounds with the new armor. Every step he took compressed the fungal mat, releasing puffs of purple dust.
He ducked to avoid a low-hanging stalactite.
His ceramic pauldron scraped the stone.
Skreee.
It wasn't loud. But in the silence, it sounded like a scream.
Above them, a head snapped up.
A hanging Scav. Its milky white eyes stared blindly down. Its ears twitched.
It opened its mouth.
Click.
Then another click from the floor.
The pile of bodies shifted.
"They're waking up," Galen hissed.
Lucilla fumbled with her datapad. Her hands were shaking.
BEEP-BEEP.
A low battery warning.
The sound cut through the cavern.
Fifty heads snapped toward them instantly.
A shriek erupted from the ceiling.
"Run!" Marcus roared.
The stealth was gone.
The cavern exploded into motion. Scavs dropped from the ceiling like hail. They scrambled over the floor, a tidal wave of pale flesh.
"The door!" Marcus pointed.
He didn't run away. He ran toward the swarm.
He grabbed a chemical flare from his belt—one of the items scavenged from the Liquidator.
He cracked it.
Red light flooded the violet room.
He threw it to the left, away from the path.
"Look at the light!" Marcus shouted.
The Scavs were blind, but their eyes sensed intensity. The sudden flare confused them. The front wave swerved, clawing at the red smoke.
It bought them seconds.
They sprinted.
Narcissus bulldozed through a straggler, knocking it into a pool of slime.
They reached the iron door.
It was rusted shut.
"Open it!" Marcus yelled, turning to face the horde. He drew the Vibro-Knife.
Narcissus slammed his shoulder into the metal.
BANG.
It groaned but held.
The Scavs were correcting. They turned away from the flare. They smelled the fresh meat.
They charged.
"Again!" Marcus screamed.
Narcissus roared. The blue light flared under his cloak.
CRUNCH.
The hinges snapped. The door flew inward.
They tumbled through.
"Seal it!"
Narcissus and Galen slammed the heavy door shut.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Bodies hit the metal from the other side. Claws scratched at the iron. Screams of frustration echoed through the steel.
Lucilla collapsed against the wall, gasping for air.
"Too close," she wheezed. "Way too close."
Marcus sheathed his knife. His heart hammered against his ribs.
"We're through," he said.
He turned to look at the new tunnel.
It wasn't a mine shaft.
The walls here were smooth. Reinforced with concrete.
Yellow hazard stripes were painted on the floor.
"This isn't Etruscan," Galen said, touching the wall. "This is new."
"Roman concrete," Marcus said. "But the paint... that's modern."
They walked down the corridor.
Fifty yards in, they found the checkpoint.
It was a blast door, blown off its hinges. Debris littered the floor.
And a body.
It lay in the corner. Not a mutant. Not a miner.
A human in a yellow hazmat suit. The faceplate was smashed. The skull inside was picked clean.
Marcus knelt.
He checked the shoulder patch.
[THE BOARD - GEOLOGICAL DIVISION]
"One of yours?" Marcus asked Lucilla.
She walked over. She looked at the suit.
"Geo-survey," she said. "Level 3 clearance. They were sent to scout the lithium deposits."
Marcus searched the pockets.
He found a plastic ID card. Red stripe.
And a small digital recorder.
He pressed play.
Static.
Then a voice. Panicked. Breathless.
"Drilling Team 4. This is lead surveyor Evans. We hit a pocket of organic resistance at Level 6. The natives... they aren't human anymore. They're changing. Fast. We are overrun."
A pause. Gunfire in the background.
"Central, requesting immediate extraction. Open the lift."
Another voice cut in. Cold. Distorted.
"Request denied, Team 4."
Lucilla froze.
"Vane," she whispered.
The recording continued.
"The timeline is fixed, Evans," Vane's voice said. "Opening the shaft risks contamination of the upper facility. Seal the blast doors."
"We'll die down here!" Evans screamed.
"Then do it quietly," Vane replied. "Your families will receive the standard compensation package. Board out."
Click.
The recording ended.
Marcus looked at the skeleton. The man had died clawing at the locked door. His own bosses had buried him to save a schedule.
Lucilla stared at the recorder. Her face was pale, but her eyes were hard. Harder than Marcus had ever seen them.
"He killed them," she whispered. "His own people."
"He liquidated an asset," Marcus said coldly. "He balanced the books."
He stood up. He handed the ID card to Lucilla.
"Keep it. We might need the clearance."
Lucilla took the card. She gripped it until her knuckles turned white.
"I'm going to kill him," she said. Not a threat. A statement of fact.
"Get in line," Marcus said.
He pointed down the hall.
"The recording mentioned a lift. If they sealed it, that means it leads somewhere Vane wants to protect."
They moved forward.
The corridor ended in a massive vertical shaft.
It was vast. The darkness stretched down forever. Cool air rushed up from the depths, smelling of oil and ozone.
Hanging in the center of the shaft, suspended by four thick steel cables, was a platform.
The Midnight Lift.
It was huge. Industrial. Capable of carrying a tank.
But it was dark. Silent.
A control panel stood by the edge of the abyss.
Lucilla swiped the red ID card.
BEEP.
A green light flickered on the console.
"Access granted," she said. "But... no power. The main grid is offline."
Marcus looked at the massive electric motor housing the winch.
He looked at Narcissus.
"Iron Dog," Marcus said.
Narcissus stepped forward. He looked at the motor.
"I am the battery," the giant rumbled.
"It's a long way down," Marcus said. "If you run dry..."
"Then we fall," Narcissus said simply.
He walked to the motor. He gripped the heavy copper leads with his bare hands.
"Connect me, doctor," Narcissus said to Galen.
Galen wired the leads to the exposed contacts on Narcissus's chest, bypassing the safety regulators.
"Ready," Galen said.
Narcissus closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.
He roared.
The blue light in his chest flared to blinding intensity.
HUMMMMMM.
The motor groaned. Dust shook off the cables.
Sparks flew from Narcissus's hands. His veins bulged, glowing blue under his skin.
The gears engaged.
CLANK.
The platform shuddered.
"Get on!" Marcus yelled.
They jumped onto the metal grate of the lift.
Narcissus stayed by the motor, his hands locked onto the controls, pouring his life into the machine.
"He has to come with us!" Lucilla screamed.
"The leads are long enough!" Galen shouted. "Narcissus! Jump!"
The giant opened his eyes. He didn't let go of the cables. He ripped the cables out of the wall housing, holding the live ends.
He jumped.
He landed on the platform with a crash that shook the whole shaft.
He knelt in the center, holding the live wires together, becoming the living heart of the elevator.
The brake released.
The lift dropped.
Fast.
Into the dark.