"Keep your hands out of your pockets, Rian," Kael snapped, his boots crunching loudly over the pixelated, smoking gravel of the ruined camp perimeter. "You look like you're hiding a grenade. And considering what you did to the mess hall, you practically are." "I'm just checking my pulse," Rian muttered, withdrawing his hands. He kept his fingers clenched tight, burying the faint, sickening violet glow of the residue pulsing beneath his skin. "Or what's left of it. My heart feels like it's skipping every other clock cycle." "Save the medical complaints for a medic who isn't currently missing an arm," Jax groaned, limping into view from behind a skewed shipping container. He dragged a battered military-surband radio box with his good hand, dropping it heavily onto a charred crate. "And stop twitching. You're making the terrain stutter just by standing near it." Rian looked down. The ground beneath his right boot was flicke

"Watch your footing, Rian. The limestone down here doesn't have collision physics enabled anymore; miss a step and you'll phase right through into the lower sub-basements," Sera whispered sharply, her flashlight beam cutting through the thick, damp gloom of the subterranean drainage tunnels. Rian caught his heel on a slick, moss-covered stone, his stomach dropping as the ground beneath his boot momentarily lost its density, turning into a patch of shifting, semi-transparent code before hardening again with a jarring crunch. He caught himself against the slimy brick wall, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. "I'm watching it," Rian hissed back, pulling his arm close to his chest to hide the faint, rhythmic pulse of violet light leaking from beneath his jacket cuff. "You don't need to remind me that my entire nervous system is currently acting as an open-source disaster area." "Keep moving," Kael growled from the he

"Just pointing out that my internal organs are rearranging themselves into a very decorative puzzle, Sera!" Jax hissed, his voice echoing off the damp, glistening limestone walls of the drainage tunnel. "If my lungs decide to swap places with my liver, I'm billing you for the medical fees.""You won't have a liver left to bill if you don't shut up and turn off that radio receiver," Kael snapped, holding a closed fist up to halt the line. The veteran dropped into a low crouch, his eyes narrowing as he stared into the oppressive darkness ahead. "We've got company. Heavy company."Rian pressed his back against the slick, stuttering brick wall of the tunnel, his breath hitching in his throat. The air here didn't feel right; it tasted like ozone and burnt copper, thick and foul against the back of his tongue. Beneath his jacket, the violet veins beneath his skin throbbed in a violent, staccato rhythm, syncing up with a low, mechanical hum vibrating through the very foundations of the earth

"We're pinned!" Jax yelled over the continuous, deafening roar of rail-slugs chewing the concrete inches above his head. "And my tactical assessment of this situation is that we are about to become very expensive chunky salsa!""Shut up and keep your head down!" Kael barked, sliding on his knees across the wet floor to press his back against the opposite wall. He didn't even look back as he unclipped a heavy, dented iron pipe from his tactical belt. "Rian! Can you repeat that trick you pulled on their triggers, or are your hands just glowing for the aesthetic?"Rian pressed his palms hard against the stuttering, polygonal stone of the tunnel wall, panting as waves of nausea rolled through his stomach. The violet light beneath his skin was practically screaming now, a blinding, chaotic pulse that matched the frantic hammering of his own heart. "I—I can't just aim it through a concrete bulkhead, Kael! I need line of sight, or at least a localized anchor!""Well, find one, because I coun

"Move, move, move! Keep those crates between you and the perimeter wall, or we’ll be picking lead out of our teeth before Vane even opens the rolling gate!" Jax hissed, his boots splashing heavily through the stagnant, oil-slicked puddles of the Rust Market's outer freight yard. Kael stayed close to Rian's shoulder, one heavy arm slung tightly around the younger man's ribcage to support his stumbling, uneven gait. The violet veins creeping up from Rian's collar were no longer just a faint pulse beneath his skin; they thundered with a toxic, rhythmic luminescence that cast eerie, shifting shadows across the stacked piles of rusted machinery parts and discarded data-slates. "I don't need a crutch, Kael," Rian muttered through clenched teeth, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as another wave of searing, white-hot agony shot down his left arm. "I can walk on my own two feet." "You couldn't walk in a straight l