The Shadow Sovereign: Level Up from the Dirt

The Countdown

The giant beam of red light cut through the dark clouds, pinning our small alley to the ground like an insect on a board.

In the lower sectors, an orbital strike was the final sentence. The rich families on the Island called it urban clearing. Whenever a slum neighborhood stopped producing enough copper taxes or hid a runaway runaway convict, the council did not waste time sending police officers. They used the massive plasma cannons mounted on their flying warships to melt four city blocks into hot glass, killing thousands of poor workers just to make a point.

"Four minutes and thirty seconds," Kemi said, her small voice steady as she tracked the warship's target lock on her stolen tracker. She didn't look up at the massive ship floating in the sky. She kept her eyes glued to the street map on her screen, her sharp mind already turning the entire district into a board game. "Femi isn't just trying to kill us. He wants the other slum gangs to turn on us so they can save their own lives."

"The people in Sector Four know us," Tariq said, shifting our mother's weak body higher on his back. "They won't help Femi."

"They will," Kemi corrected him without a second of doubt. "When a gun is pointed at a man's children, he will sell his neighbor for a crust of bread. We have three minutes before the local gang bosses come looking for our heads to buy a pass out of the blast zone."

"Where do we go?" I asked, checking my gun magazine. I had five physical bullets left, and my internal mana bar had only recovered twenty points. "The main tunnels are blocked by the harbor police."

"We go into the old underground water mains," Kemi said, her finger pointing at a dark iron grate hidden under a pile of rusted metal plates. "The water pipes were built eighty years ago out of thick lead and stone. The orbital strike will destroy everything on the surface, but the deep water channels run right under the city river."

"That grate is welded shut," Tariq noted, kicking the heavy iron bar with his boot. It didn't budge an inch. "We need a torch to cut through this."

"Zane, use your shadow soldier," Kemi directed, her red eyes flashing with fierce determination. "Not to lift it. Have the shadow pull the lock pins from the inside."

I focused my mind, sending a thin stream of dark smoke through the narrow gaps in the iron grid. The shadow shape slipped into the dark space below, its smoky hands finding the rusted iron pins holding the hatch in place. With a sudden, heavy snap, the pins sheared off under the shadow's force.

I grabbed the handle and yanked the heavy grate open, revealing a dark drop into the rushing water below.

"Tariq, go first with Mom!" I said.

Tariq didn't hesitate. He swung his legs over the edge and dropped down into the dark opening, landing with a heavy splash in the shallow water eight feet below. I helped Kemi down next, watching her small feet disappear into the dark drain.

Before I could jump in after them, a loud gunshot echoed from the end of the alley.

A bullet slammed into the brick wall two inches from my ear, spraying sharp bits of stone across my face. I spun around, raising my pistol toward the entrance of the lane.

A crowd of twenty men stood at the mouth of the alley, carrying heavy pipes, rusted blades, and scrap rifles. They weren't Femi's elite guards or hunters. They were our neighbors—the shopkeepers, scrap collectors, and street fighters from Sector Four.

Leading them was Nnamdi, the owner of the local scrap yard where I used to sell metal pieces when I was twelve. His face was covered in sweat, his hands shaking as he pointed a double-barreled shotgun straight at my chest.

"I'm sorry, Zane," Nnamdi called out, his voice rough and full of desperate fear. "We heard the announcement. The ship will burn the whole sector if you stay here! My grandkids are in the basement down the street! We have to give you to the Chairman!"

"Nnamdi, Femi is lying to you!" I shouted back, stepping back toward the open hatch. "He won't stop the strike even if you give us up! He wants this whole sector wiped out!"

"We don't have a choice!" another man shouted from the back, waving a heavy iron bar. "Get him!"

The crowd surged forward, their desperate cries filling the narrow alleyway. They were terrified, driven mad by the red light glowing brighter in the sky above.

"Two minutes!" Kemi's voice called up from inside the dark drain. "Zane, jump now!"

I fired two shots over the crowd's heads, forcing the front line to duck behind a rusted dumpster for a second. That single moment was all I needed. I threw myself backward, dropping straight through the iron hatch into the dark water below.

I hit the cold current hard, the water reaching up to my waist. Tariq slammed the heavy iron grate back into place above us, cutting off the light from the alley.

Above our heads, a deafening roar shook the entire earth.

The orbital strike hit Sector Four. The ground buckled and cracked like thin ice, massive stone blocks crashing down all around us as the heat from the surface turned the iron grate red hot. The air inside the pipe grew instantly burning hot, choking my lungs as the city above was melted into ash.

We ran through the rushing underground stream, holding onto the stone walls as the ceiling continued to crumble behind us.

After ten minutes of running through the dark tunnels, the shaking finally stopped. We reached a wide chamber where three large pipes met near the deep river outlet.

Tariq set our mother down on a dry stone ledge, her face pale but her breathing steady. Kemi sat beside her, using her small knife to clean the dirt from under her fingernails, her mind already moving to our next step.

"Femi thinks we are dead," I panted, leaning against the damp wall to catch my breath. "The whole sector is gone."

"He won't think that for long," Kemi said, looking up from her hands. She pulled a small, glowing data drive out of her pocket, the one she had ripped from the ship's control panel before we escaped. "Femi's real strength isn't his warship, Zane. It's the private bank account he uses to pay off the council members. And I just downloaded his master key."

Before I could ask her what that meant, a heavy metallic clack sounded from the dark tunnel ahead of us.

A tall figure stepped out of the shadow of the main pipe, illuminated by the dim green light of a chemical flare. He wore a fine tailored suit, completely clean and unbothered by the sewer water, and held a silver cane in his right hand.

"Very impressive, little girl," the man said, a smooth, cultured voice echoing through the stone chamber. "I have been waiting for someone smart enough to steal Femi's master key for three years."