The floor of the Command Deck didn't just shake. It tilted.
Marcus grabbed the console to stay upright. A coffee mug slid off the desk and shattered.
"Report!" Marcus shouted.
Lucilla was clinging to her chair, eyes glued to the seismic monitors.
"The lake," she gasped. "It's not draining."
Marcus looked at the main screen. The feed from the external cameras showed the magma ocean.
The level was dropping rapidly. But not because of a drain.
Displacement.
Something was rising.
A mountain of black obsidian broke the surface of the lava. It was jagged, plated, and steaming.
It kept rising. Ten stories. Twenty. Fifty.
It wasn't rock. It was a shell.
"By the gods," Galen whispered.
The shell cracked open. Steam vented with a shriek that penetrated the fortress walls.
A limb the size of a skyscraper unfolded. It was mechanical, woven with biological muscle—titanium pistons wrapped in gray, tumorous flesh.
Then a second limb. Then a head.
It looked like a prehistoric crab fused with a drilling rig. Its mouth was a circular grinder filled with serrated teeth.
[ENTITY DETECTED: TERRAFORMING UNIT - CLASS LEVIATHAN.]
[STATUS: AWAKE.]
"The fortress," Marcus realized. "We built it on its back."
The Leviathan shifted.
The entire White Fortress groaned. Steel beams snapped like twigs. The glass wall of the Command Deck developed a spiderweb crack.
"We have to go," Narcissus rumbled, hefting the bent Plasma Caster. "Now."
"We can't," Lucilla said. She pointed to the central server bank. "The Data Core. It holds the network key."
"We have the guns," Marcus said. "Leave the data."
"No!" Lucilla stood up, fighting the tilt of the floor. "The Core has the map, Marcus! It shows every Board operation on the planet. Every mining site. Every safe zone."
She looked at him.
"If we leave without it, we are blind. We are just rats running in the dark."
Marcus looked at the monster rising outside. He looked at the server room down the hall.
"We don't leave blind," Marcus decided. "We take the eyes."
He turned to the team.
"Galen, Narcissus. Get to the Midnight Lift. Secure it. If that elevator falls, we're trapped in hell."
"And you?" Galen asked.
"We're going shopping," Marcus said, grabbing Lucilla's arm. "Go!"
The team split.
Marcus and Lucilla sprinted down the hallway. The floor was now angled at twenty degrees. They had to run on the wall-junctions.
Debris rained from the ceiling. Pipes burst, spraying freezing liquid nitrogen into the air.
They reached the Server Farm.
It was chaos.
The room was sliding. The floor plates had buckled.
At the far end, the main server rack—a towering black monolith—was teetering over a gap in the floor. Below it, rising magma bubbled.
"The terminal is on the rack!" Lucilla screamed.
"I'll hold it!" Marcus yelled. "You hack it!"
He activated the Vibro-Gladius. He stabbed it into the floor plate to create an anchor.
He grabbed the railing of the sliding server rack with his ceramic-plated hand.
GROAN.
The metal screeched. The rack weighed tons.
Marcus locked his knees. The servo in his looted gauntlet whined. His muscles burned.
"Hurry!" Marcus gritted out.
Lucilla scrambled up the tilted floor. She jacked her datapad into the port.
"Accessing..." she muttered. Her fingers were a blur.
On the screen, Executive Vane's face appeared.
"Greedy," Vane said. His image flickered as the connection destabilized. "You should have run, Commodus."
"I'm taking your map, Vane!" Marcus shouted, straining against the weight.
"Take it," Vane sneered. "But you can't read it if you're ash."
BEEP.
[SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED.]
[CORE OVERLOAD IN 60 SECONDS.]
"He's blowing the reactor!" Lucilla screamed.
"Download faster!"
[DOWNLOAD: 60%...]
The room shook violently. The Leviathan outside roared—a sound that vibrated Marcus's vision.
The server rack slipped another inch toward the lava.
"Marcus!" Lucilla cried, slipping on the metal floor.
"Focus!" Marcus roared. "Get the data!"
[DOWNLOAD: 90%...]
The lights turned red. Sirens wailed.
[DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.]
Lucilla ripped the datapad free.
"Got it!"
"Move!" Marcus let go.
The server rack slid into the abyss. It hit the lava and melted instantly.
They turned and ran.
The corridor was a gauntlet.
Gravity was wrong. The fortress was crumbling as the Leviathan stood up.
They had to parkour over collapsed beams. They dodged jets of steam.
A Sentinel drone dropped from the ceiling. Its legs were broken, but its gun tracked them.
BRRT.
Bullets sparked off Marcus's chest plate.
He didn't stop. He shoulder-checked the drone, knocking it into a wall.
They reached the bridge to the elevator shaft.
It was gone.
The Leviathan's movement had sheared the walkway.
A twenty-foot gap separated them from the lift platform where Narcissus and Galen waited.
Below the gap: a mile drop into the magma ocean.
"I can't make that!" Lucilla screamed, stopping at the edge.
The ceiling above them groaned. A massive slab of concrete began to fall.
"You don't have to jump," Marcus said.
He grabbed her by the harness of her suit.
"I'm throwing you."
"What—"
He spun. He used the momentum of his ceramic armor.
He launched her.
Lucilla sailed through the air, screaming.
Narcissus caught her. One hand. Easy as catching a ball.
He set her down.
"Caesar!" the giant bellowed. "Jump!"
Marcus looked at the gap. The concrete slab above him cracked loud.
He backed up three steps.
He sprinted.
He leaped.
He was short.
His chest hit the edge of the platform. The impact knocked the wind out of him.
He slid back.
His fingers scrabbled on the metal grate.
He looked down. The lava bubbled miles below.
He slipped.
A hand grabbed his wrist.
It was cold. Hard.
Narcissus.
The giant lay flat on the grate. His blue eye burned with intensity.
"I have you," Narcissus grunted.
He pulled.
He hauled Marcus up onto the lift like a ragdoll.
Marcus collapsed on the floor, gasping.
"Go!" Marcus wheezed. "Ascend!"
Narcissus slammed his hand onto the manual override.
The Midnight Lift jerked.
It began to rise.
Below them, the White Fortress disintegrated.
The Leviathan shook its massive back. The white towers crumbled. The drone pads slid off.
The entire city fell into the magma.
And then, the reactor blew.
FLASH.
A sphere of pure white light swallowed the cavern.
The shockwave hit the elevator shaft.
The lift rattled violently. Metal screamed.
But they were moving. Up. Into the dark. Away from the fire.
Marcus rolled onto his back. He looked at Lucilla. She was clutching the datapad to her chest like a child.
"We got it," she whispered.
Marcus closed his eyes.
"We got it," he said. "Now let's get out of this grave."