"He’s coming down the old freight line now," Mara hissed, her hand hovering instinctively over the worn grip of the pneumatic nail-gun strapped across her chest as she stared down the dark, dripping corridor of the salt-processing plant. "If this is another corporate trick, Leila, we won't even wait for Vance's enforcers to clear the outer perimeter. We'll drop him right here in the brine."Leila stepped out from behind a towering crystal pillar, her eyes fixed on the flickering light of the hand-cranked elevator shaft at the far end of the cavern. "It's not a trick. A corporate middle-manager doesn't risk a one-way trip to the lower sinks unless the walls are already caving in on top of him.""People like that don't have spines, Leila," Kaelen muttered, pressing his back against the damp stone wall as he winced, his fingers unconsciously brushing the improvised bandage wrapped tightly around his shoulder. "They ride the corporate elevator all the way down to the basement, and when th

"Keep your voice down," Kaelen hissed, his fingers gripping the frayed edge of the makeshift workbench as another spasm of pain shot through his bandaged shoulder. "If Vance’s automated perimeter sweeps pick up acoustic signatures down here, we won’t even make it to the drainage junction before the gas drops."Leila didn't slow her pace, her boots splashing rhythmically through the knee-deep, freezing water of the subterranean drainage pipe. "The sweep frequencies run on a ninety-second loop, Kaelen. I timed them at the last three maintenance hatches. We have exactly fourteen seconds before the thermal scanner sweeps this sector again, so unless you want to spend the rest of your very short life hiding behind a rusted valve, you need to move.""Easy for you to say," Kaelen muttered, stumbling as his boot caught on a submerged length of heavy-gauge cable. He muttered a curse under his breath, catching himself against the slick, moss-covered concrete wall with his good arm. "You didn't

"Hold still, Kaelen. If I slip with this iron, I’m going to cauterize your collarbone to your chin.""You’re already halfway there," Kaelen groaned, his knuckles white as he clenched a strip of blood-stuffed leather between his teeth. His voice was muffled, thick with pain, but the hiss of heated metal meeting torn flesh drowned out any further complaint. A thin plume of acrid, grey smoke rose from his shoulder, smelling sharply of scorched wool and burnt meat.Leila didn’t blink. Her face was grim, smeared with soot and dried sweat, her hands steady despite the exhaustion clawing at her bones. "Breathe out. It’s done."Kaelen slumped back against the damp concrete wall of the culvert, his chest heaving as a cold sweat beaded across his forehead. He spat out the leather strap, panting like a runner at the end of a sprint. "If Vance’s hunters don't kill us, your bedside manner certainly will.""Be quiet and save your breath," Leila said, tossing the red-hot iron pipe into a puddle of s

"Over them means freight lifts, unmapped service shafts, and forty stories of sheer corporate glass," Kaelen muttered, pressing his back harder against the cold, damp concrete of the salt-processing plant's inner pillar to ease the throbbing ache in his cauterized shoulder. "And if any part of that rusty machinery jams halfway up Sector One, we won't even have the luxury of a firing squad. We’ll just drop straight back down to the sinks like lead weights.""Then we make damn sure the lifts don't jam," Leila snapped, not looking up from the greasy, salt-encrusted map spread across the wooden crate. Her finger traced a jagged red line past the primary blockade zones, pressing down hard enough to tear the wax paper. "Mara, how many pneumatic nail-guns and reclaimed riot batons did your people pull out of the Sector Four supply depot before corporate locked the biometric seals?"Mara stepped forward out of the flickering, pale circle of the chemical lantern, her face set in a hard, uncomp

"Sub-level six?" Mara's voice dropped an octave, her eyes narrowing as she stepped closer to the makeshift table. "That cargo haul hasn't carried anything heavier than scrap metal in five years. The hydraulic lines are probably rusted solid, Kaelen. If we pile twenty armed fighters into that cage, the cable will snap before we even hit the third tier.""It won't snap if we bypass the load sensors," Kaelen snapped back, wincing as a sharp spasm of pain shot through his bandaged shoulder. He pushed himself off the concrete pillar, stepping into the pale circle of light. "I pulled the maintenance logs from the secondary grid yesterday. The cable is reinforced industrial-grade synth-steel. It can hold ten tons. We’re carrying maybe two.""And the power draw?" Leila asked, her gaze fixed entirely on Kaelen’s pale, sweat-slicked face. "Vance’s automated grid monitors power spikes across every sub-level. The second you hot-wire that lift, his security consoles will light up like a flare in a