The generator coughed again, a wet mechanical sound that carried through the control room like a warning more than a malfunction, and Evan shifted his weight closer to the doorframe, boot soles grinding softly against concrete dusted with tracked-in snow. The bracelet stayed warm, too warm, the faint glyphs hovering just inside his vision stuttering as calibration packets came and went, never settling long enough to feel real. Outside, wind scraped along the building's skin, finding every seam, every crack that years of neglect had opened.
The older agent broke first, lowering his rifle and stepping back from the console as if distance alone might keep it alive. "We're pulling maybe sixty percent of nominal," he said, voice tight, eyes flicking to the flickering panel and then to the narrow windows. "Enough to handshake, not enough to stabilize. Fuel's the limiter."
Evan didn't answer right away. He leaned out just enough to recheck the service road, the slope falling away toward the tunnel mouth hidden now by angle and blowing snow, and said, "How long before it drops?"
The question rode on breath that already burned from the climb, cold biting at the back of his throat.
"Minutes, if the load spikes," the younger agent replied, crouching to adjust a cable run with fingers gone red despite taped gloves.
"Someone downstream tries to pull telemetry hard, or if this thing surges when the heater kicks—" He cut himself off as the generator surged, the lights dimming in response. "—then less."
A sharp crack echoed outside, metal contracting in the cold, and all three froze until it resolved into nothing more than settling infrastructure. Evan eased his rifle back toward low ready and stepped fully inside, pulling the door most of the way closed without latching it.
"Tunnel approach is dirty," he said, voice kept low, factual. "At least one hostile surrendered, bound at the river side. Others down. No overwatch confirmed."
The older agent nodded, absorbing it, and finally offered a name without ceremony.
"Mark. First wave." He tapped the console with two fingers. "This node feeds a lot of ghosts. We light it up too long, we'll draw company."
Evan caught the implication and let his gaze drift to the map overlay ghosting against his vision, the faint lines of old roadways and rail spurs flickering as ISAC tried and failed to fill in blanks. "Then we don't light it," he said.
"We skim. Authentication bursts only. Cache what we can, then kill it before someone triangulates."
The younger agent snorted, half humorless. "Spoken like someone who's had to run dark," he said, then grimaced as the
generator sputtered again. "I'm Leo. Second wave."
Wind forced its way through a cracked window seal with a high whistle, dragging the smell of river and exhaust into the room, and Evan nodded once. "Evan. Second wave."
He crossed to the console, careful not to crowd, eyes tracking the scrolling diagnostics long enough to pick out the important parts: voltage instability, thermal variance, packet loss climbing with every second. "You've got any hard media?"
Mark jerked his chin toward a battered case shoved under the console. "Old drives. Pre-collapse maintenance logs, routing tables. Not clean."
"Clean enough," Evan said, already crouching, fingers stiff as he popped the latches. The plastic inside was cold enough to bite, and he worked by feel, slotting a drive into the exposed port as the bracelet pulsed in warning. The overlay flared, washed out by glare from the failing lights. "ISAC, priority pull. Authentication keys only. No broadcast."
The response came as a flicker of pale text that almost vanished as soon as it appeared, but the bracelet's warmth steadied, a subtle shift that told him something had taken.
Outside, a gust rattled the door, snow skittering across the threshold, and Evan felt the decision point narrowing.
Leo straightened, rolling his shoulders as if to shake off the cold. "We've got movement on the bridge," he said, squinting through the window. "Can't tell who. Too far."
Evan didn't look. "Assume hostile interest," he said, ejecting the drive and sliding it into an inner pocket. "Mark, you good to pull the plug?"
Mark hesitated, eyes lingering on the console like it was a lifeline. "Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah. On your mark."
Another sound filtered up from below, not a crack this time but a dull thud, followed by voices carried thin by distance and wind, indistinct but too purposeful to ignore.
Evan stepped back toward the door, rifle coming up, muscles already complaining from cold and tension. "Do it," he said.
Mark slapped the kill switch. The generator died with a final shudder, plunging the room into sudden dimness broken only by grey winter light and the faint afterimage of overlays fading from Evan's vision.
The warmth at his wrist ebbed, leaving a hollow cold behind, and the radio went dead so abruptly it felt like pressure equalizing.
They didn't move for a count of ten, listening as the building settled into a new silence, the outside world pressing close again without the thin buffer of network noise.
Evan cracked the door and peered out, breath fogging, the slope below now a study in shifting white and shadow. Voices drifted up again, closer this time, accompanied by the scrape of boots on ice.
"We're compromised," Leo murmured unnecessarily.
"Not yet," Evan said, already backing away from the doorway. "But we will be if we stay." He glanced at Mark. "You mobile?"
Mark hefted his pack, jaw set. "As I ever am."
Evan nodded and took point, slipping out into the cold, the wind immediately clawing at exposed skin. The path uphill offered no cover, only a narrow maintenance trail skirting a drop that fell away toward dark water, and he chose it anyway, distance more valuable than concealment now.
Below them, a shout rang out, sharper than before, and a beam of light cut briefly through the snow where someone tested the dark.
They moved fast but not recklessly, boots finding purchase by memory more than sight, the cold stealing fine motor control with every step. Evan felt the weight of the drive against his ribs, a small, hard reassurance that something had been gained even as routes closed behind them.
Somewhere downslope, an engine coughed to life and died, the sound carrying too well.
By the time they crested the ridge and dropped out of sight, lungs burning, the control building was just another dark shape against the winter sky, already losing whatever importance it had briefly held.
The network was gone again, fragmented back into silence, but the echo of it lingered, a reminder that the pieces were still out there, waiting to be forced together at a cost.