The tunnels under Lowwater had their own weather.
Not wind, not rain, not anything a person could point to and call natural—but pressure. A thick, invisible weight that made the air feel older the deeper Evan ran. The Lattice lights along the maintenance walls flickered in soft violet pulses, and every time they dimmed, the darkness didn't just return. It leaned in, like it was listening.
Evan slowed near a sealed junction gate marked with faded hazard paint and an old warning that looked like it had been scraped and rewritten a hundred times. The metal was warped in places, as if something on the other side had pressed against it from below.
Aelira's voice was low in his comm. "You're too deep, Evan. That gate isn't in any municipal blueprint."
Cairn cut in immediately. "Turn around. Right now. If the city buried it, it was buried for a reason."
Evan kept his hand on the rail running along the wall. The hum under his palm felt different here—less like electricity and more like a heartbeat from a sleeping animal.
"I'm not here to break it open," Evan said. "I'm here to learn what's calling."
The Lattice under his boots pulsed in response, a subtle flash that traveled down the corridor and vanished into the floor.
Then his visor blinked.
[SYSTEM NOTICE] [ANCIENT NETWORK SIGNAL — STRENGTH INCREASING] [ORIGIN: BELOW CURRENT DEPTH] [NAME: REDACTED] [ACCESS: DENIED]
Aelira exhaled sharply. "It's still redacted. That means the System knows what it is and doesn't want you seeing it."
"Or it wants me to earn it," Evan said.
Cairn scoffed. "That's the kind of sentence that gets people killed."
Evan stepped closer to the gate. The metal vibrated faintly—not from his movement, but from something syncing to it. It was like standing near a massive engine that wasn't running yet, but was warm and ready.
He switched on Thermal Sense, and the world shifted into heat-lines and gradients. The gate glowed colder than it should have, like its temperature had been leeched away. Beyond it, down through the floor, there was a shape that wasn't heat and wasn't cold—just absence, a void in the thermal map where reality didn't want to give him readings.
Evan's throat tightened. "There's something directly under us."
Aelira's voice turned razor-focused. "I'm seeing it too. But it's not reading as a body, Evan. It's reading like… a structure."
Cairn muttered, "Or a coffin."
Evan placed both hands on the gate and let Runbreaker energy flow into it. Not as a blast. Not as force. As a signal.
The violet pulse traveled into the lock.
The lock didn't resist.
It accepted.
[RUNBREAKER INTERFACE] [LATTICE OVERRIDE REQUEST — PENDING] [WARNING: UNREGISTERED DEPTH NODE] [AUTHENTICATION: RHYTHM MATCH REQUIRED]
Evan frowned. "Rhythm match?"
Aelira's voice softened. "Evan… it's asking you to prove you're you."
Cairn snapped, "Or it's bait."
Evan closed his eyes. He thought about the city's heartbeat, the way it matched his steps. He thought about how he ran, not just fast, but in patterns that the Lattice understood. He tapped his heel once against the rail.
A pulse answered from below.
He tapped again.
Another pulse answered—closer, deeper, older.
Evan breathed and began to run in place. Not for speed. For rhythm. A compact loop of motion controlled and precise—his footfalls setting a tempo the rails could measure.
The gate's lock chimed.
[AUTHENTICATION — ACCEPTED] [LATTICE OVERRIDE — GRANTED] [DEPTH NODE ACCESS — TEMPORARY]
The metal gate opened with a slow, heavy groan.
Cold air poured out of the darkness beyond, carrying the scent of wet stone and old iron. Evan stepped through and the lights behind him dimmed, as if the city itself didn't want to look.
The corridor beyond was narrower, older, and less "built" than the maintenance tunnels above. This wasn't municipal construction. This was something else—smooth walls etched with faint circuitry-like grooves that didn't match any human technology. Some of the grooves glowed faintly violet when Evan walked past, responding to his presence the way rails responded to his running.
Aelira whispered, "Evan… that architecture isn't Lowwater."
Cairn's voice was tense. "This is not just under the city. This predates the city."
Evan kept moving. The corridor sloped downward for a long time. His steps echoed differently here, like sound had more room to travel. Eventually, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber. Evan stopped at the threshold.
The room was enormous—an underground cathedral of metal and stone, with rails embedded in the floor in concentric circles, all pointing inward toward a central pit. Suspended above the pit was a structure that looked like a heart made of interlocking rings: countless bands of dark metal, hovering in perfect alignment without support, rotating slowly as if they were waiting for a command.
And beneath them, in the pit, something vast and silent shifted.
Evan's thermal sense failed entirely. His visor flickered. His suit hummed, uneasy.
[SYSTEM WARNING] [PERCEPTION LIMIT REACHED] [UNKNOWN FIELD PRESSURE DETECTED] [RUNBREAKER STABILITY — HOLDING]
Aelira's voice came through like a whisper in a church. "Evan… that's not a machine."
Evan stared into the pit.
The darkness inside wasn't empty. It was layered. Like looking into deep water at night and seeing movement you couldn't identify.
Then the pit spoke—not with sound, but with the same pulse Evan had been feeling for days. A rhythm that vibrated through his bones.
And suddenly Evan understood it wasn't speaking to him.
It was speaking through the Lattice.
The central rings above the pit brightened faintly, violet light threading between them like veins. Symbols along the chamber walls woke up, lines of glowing script that looked like equations pretending to be language.
Evan stepped forward.
"Hey," he said, not sure if he was addressing a god, a machine, or a memory. "You've been calling me."
The chamber's rhythm intensified.
The pit answered.
Not in words. In meaning.
Evan's visor lit up violently, system text flashing faster than Aelira could read aloud.
[SYSTEM NOTICE] [ANCIENT NETWORK IDENTIFIED] [NAME: THE RUNNER BELOW] [DESIGNATION: LATTICE CORE ENTITY] [STATUS: DORMANT / AWAKENING] [ORIGIN: PRE-CITY / PRE-HUMAN] [NOTE: THIS ENTITY IS NOT A SHARD. THIS ENTITY IS NOT ASHCODE.]
Aelira's voice broke. "It has a name. The Runner Below."
Cairn whispered, "That's… not comforting."
Evan kept his eyes on the pit. "What are you?"
The rings above the pit rotated faster. The grooves in the floor lit in a spiraling pattern, like the chamber was simulating motion without moving anything. Evan felt the Lattice inside his suit respond like a nervous system being tugged by a familiar hand.
Then his visor flashed again, slower this time, as if the System was forcing itself to translate something it never wanted to translate.
[SYSTEM TRANSLATION: PARTIAL] [THE RUNNER BELOW: I AM THE FIRST CIRCUIT OF THIS PLACE.][THE RUNNER BELOW: I AM THE RHYTHM BEFORE RAIL.] [THE RUNNER BELOW: I AM THE HEART THAT HUMANS BUILT A CITY AROUND WITHOUT KNOWING.]
Evan's mouth went dry. "You're the reason Lowwater has the Lattice."
The chamber pulsed once, heavy and affirmative.
Aelira sounded like she was trying not to panic. "Evan… are you saying the city's entire network is built on top of a living—something?"
Evan swallowed. "Yeah."
Cairn's voice sharpened. "And it's waking up because you're forcing the system to evolve. Evan, you're poking the foundation of the world."
Evan stepped closer to the pit's edge. The darkness inside moved again, and for the first time, a shape emerged—not fully, not physically, but as an impression in his mind: a massive silhouette of layered rings and rails, a creature made of pathways, a body made of routes. It didn't have eyes. It didn't need them. It perceived through connection.
Evan felt it "look" at him the way a city looks at a runner: not with affection, but with recognition.
The Runner Below pulsed again, and this time Evan received not a statement, but a memory.
He saw Lowwater before it was Lowwater: a marshland, a river, small settlements. He saw the first iron laid into the ground, not as a train line, but as a ritual—humans instinctively laying metal along the places where the Runner Below's rhythm was strongest. He saw the Lattice forming like veins, growing outward as the city grew.
Not invented.
Discovered.
Then he saw something else: a wound. A fracture deep inside the Runner Below, a scar of gray corrosion crawling through its pathways like rot.
Ashcode.
Not as a villain roaming above ground—but as an infection that had once tried to consume the Runner Below itself.
Evan's jaw clenched. "So Ashcode was trying to eat you."
The rings above the pit flared violet and the chamber answered with a pulse so heavy Evan's knees nearly buckled.
[SYSTEM TRANSLATION: PARTIAL] [THE RUNNER BELOW: ASHCODE IS MY SHADOW FROM A BROKEN AGE.] [THE RUNNER BELOW: IT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A CIRCUIT FORGETS ITS RHYTHM.] [THE RUNNER BELOW: YOU BROUGHT ITS CHILDREN TO MY DOOR.]
Evan thought of the gray threads that followed him. The little fragments learning his steps. He felt them now—far above, scattered across the city, pulsing uncertainly like nervous sparks.
"They followed me because I was connected to you," Evan said quietly.
The Runner Below's rhythm softened, almost gentle.
[SYSTEM TRANSLATION: PARTIAL] [THE RUNNER BELOW: THEY FOLLOW THE FASTEST HEART.][THE RUNNER BELOW: THEY SEEK A PATTERN THAT WILL NOT ABANDON THEM.]
Aelira's voice trembled. "Evan… it's treating you like a key."
Cairn's voice was harsher. "Or a fuse."
Evan stared into the pit. "What do you want from me?"
For a long moment, there was only the chamber's hum and the slow spin of the rings.
Then the System flashed one final time, and the words landed like a sentence carved into stone.
[SYSTEM NOTICE] [THE RUNNER BELOW: I AWAKEN WHEN THE WORLD REQUIRES A RUNNER.][THE RUNNER BELOW: YOU ARE FAST, BUT YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH.][THE RUNNER BELOW: LET ME TEACH YOU THE TRUE PATH.]
Evan felt his suit vibrate. Not fear. Not warning. Invitation.
His heartbeat matched the chamber.
The city above them pulsed once in response, like Lowwater had just overheard its own secret name.
Aelira's voice was small. "Evan… don't."
Cairn's voice was urgent. "Evan, we don't know what 'teach' means to something like that."
Evan didn't move yet. He looked down into the darkness, into the thing that had been under his feet his entire life without him knowing it.
He thought of Cross, of the black lightning, of the way the world had nearly collapsed. He thought of Veylos's warning: others will come, and some will erase motion itself.
If that was true… then Evan couldn't afford to stay at his current ceiling.
He took a slow breath.
Then he stepped closer to the pit until the violet light from the rings painted his armor in a soft glow.
"Okay," he said, voice steady. "Teach me."
The Runner Below pulsed, and the concentric rails in the chamber lit up like a spiral runway.
[SYSTEM NOTICE] [NEW TRAINING MODE AVAILABLE: TRUE PATH] [WARNING: IRREVERSIBLE LEARNING EVENT] [BEGIN?]
Evan's visor waited for his answer.
Above them, Lowwater hummed, unaware that the thing it was built upon had opened its eyes.
And in that underground cathedral, Evan made his choice.
He confirmed.
[SYSTEM: TRUE PATH — INITIATED]
The chamber's lights surged violet, and the first lesson began.