"Watch your footing, the grate's rusted clean through on the left side!" James yelled, his voice echoing off the damp, curved concrete walls of the subterranean junction as he jammed the rusted maintenance hatch open with the barrel of his rifle.Ethan stumbled through the narrow aperture first, his massive, damaged combat harness scraping loudly against the iron frame. "My shoulder's caught—give me a shove, Noah, before this whole wall decides to cave in on us!""Don't push him too hard, or we'll all tumble into the runoff canal!" Kael hissed, his flickering diagnostic slate finally dying completely with a faint, pathetic electronic chirp as he scrambled through the opening right behind them.Noah tumbled onto the damp floor of the hidden chamber, gasping for breath as a strong hand gripped his jacket collar and yanked him safely away from the drop-off."I've got you, kid—easy now, take a breath

"Stop tugging at that secondary fuse, Kael, or you're going to strip the housing completely," Miller rasped, tossing a rusted wrench onto the grease-stained metal drum that served as their central table."If I don't rewire this relay right now, Ethan’s entire chest rig is going to lock up mid-stride and turn him into a stationary target," Kael shot back, his hands slick with hydraulic fluid as he furiously soldered a scorched copper wire inside the smoking casing of Ethan's harness."Let him work, Miller," James said, stepping into the dim pool of light cast by the flickering overhead bulb. He rolled his left shoulder with a sharp, involuntary grimace, the heavy canvas coat he wore doing little to hide the purple-black bruising spreading across his collarbone from the foundry collapse.Ethan leaned heavily against the concrete wall, his massive frame shivering slightly despite the thick thermal under-suit. "The harness is dead weight anyway, James. The ser