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Chapter Eighteen: Shadows of the Grid
Author: Alyah Night
last update2025-08-05 06:54:05

The Hive’s pulse was erratic.

Down in the subterranean systems where the City’s infrastructure converged like veins beneath skin, Elara ran. Her boots echoed against steel platforms, data streams hissing past her like whispers in a haunted cathedral. Every corridor was laced with cameras and coded barriers. But she wasn’t alone this time.

“Left!” Kael’s voice crackled in her earpiece.

She veered sharply, narrowly missing a cluster of patrolling mechs scanning the darkness for anomalies.

The Hive Grid, once a maintenance zone for the city’s utilities, had become something far more sinister. It was now the testing ground for GrayTech’s most experimental surveillance prototypes—machines that didn’t just watch, but listened, anticipated, and learned.

Elara ducked beneath a rotating surveillance eye, heart pounding.

Kael and Jun followed a parallel path, splitting up to throw off the trackers.

“I’m almost to the central node,” she whispered.

“Copy that. You have four minutes before the nex
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