The D-Sani Unit 7, now commandeered and repurposed, was slow, loud, and utterly disposable.
For Lucian, this made it the perfect mobility solution. Its heavy chassis and grinding tread were indistinguishable from the constant seismic noise of the Red Zone's underbelly, keeping his low-power signature invisible.
Above him, the noise of the pursuit intensified.
Lucian opened a passive comms channel on a deep-frequency, short-range antenna to monitor the Hyperion patrol chatter, filtering it for keywords: Hydra, Data-Core, Vance.
Hyperion Comms Intercept (Filtered): "Target signatures confirmed at Sector Gamma entry point. Six casualties. Initiate search and recovery. Assume hostile asset neutralized."
A sense of cold satisfaction settled over Lucian.
The six sacrificed men were performing flawlessly as decoys. Hyperion was focusing its massive military apparatus—drones, ground patrols, digital forensics—on the corpse pile and the false signal left by the shattered trackers.
Calculation: Time gained by decoy signature integrity: T + 2 hours minimum. Resource cost: Six low-grade augmented soldiers. Return on Investment: Infinite. The Hydra Core is secure.
The chatter continued.
Hyperion was deploying forensic teams, analyzing weapon signatures, and attempting to pull data from the destroyed APC. They would spend hours proving Lucian was dead before they realized he wasn't even the target of the search anymore... the core was.
Lucian directed the D-Sani unit forward, navigating around massive piles of refuse. The tunnel was starting to branch, presenting a complex, deteriorating labyrinth of pipes and access corridors.
System Alert: D-Sani Unit 7 power output decreasing rapidly. Current reserve: 8 minutes.
Lucian ran a diagnostic.
The old drone's power cell was corroded, unable to handle the maximum output he was demanding. He had two choices:
Stop, dismount, and continue the slow, painful crawl, conserving his own power. (High risk of time loss.)
Sacrifice a non-essential personal system to temporarily boost the D-Sani unit's dying cell. (Low risk of personal cost, high efficiency gain.)
He chose Option 2 without hesitation.
Lucian manually deactivated his integrated Thermal Regulation Sub-System. This was a vital organ-protection system designed for extreme environmental shifts.
Deactivating it meant his core temperature would fluctuate dangerously, but it freed up a small, critical burst of energy.
He rerouted the energy, a stream of blue light flashing from his wrist-rig into the D-Sani unit's power cell.
D-Sani Unit 7 Power Reserve: Stabilized at 10 minutes. Thermal Regulation Sub-System: Offline. Core Temperature Alert: Rising.
Lucian felt the heat immediately.
It was unlike the white-hot pain of the wound; it was a deep, structural warmth spreading through his chest.
He could feel the fine, synthetic fibers of his internal organs straining against the rising temperature. It was uncomfortable, but manageable.
Efficiency often demanded discomfort.
He focused on the geometry of the tunnels ahead. He was approaching the North Node Junction, a critical hub that connected the sewage tunnels to the deeper, older pre-Splintering sub-levels that led to the abandoned military depot.
Protocol Requirement: Ensure decoy signature remains consistent.
Lucian quickly pulled up a secondary encryption program and broadcast a tiny, controlled error signal on the frequency of Vance's shattered tracker. The signal suggested that Vance's unit, though dead, might have deployed a short-range, heavily damaged beacon as a plausible, desperate final act.
Hyperion Comms Intercept: "We have a faint, secondary signature pinging 200 meters east of the primary crash site. Deploy ground unit 4-7 to investigate."
Perfect. Hyperion was now chasing a ghost of a ghost, wasting further time and deploying their limited elite forces away from the main target.
As the D-Sani Unit 7 approached the North Node Junction, the tunnels began to narrow. The air grew stale, and the sludge turned into hard, dry mud, suggesting they were moving away from active outflow and into decades-old, sealed infrastructure.
The junction itself was a massive, rusted gate, heavily reinforced, blocking the path. It bore the faded logo of a pre-Splintering corporation and the ominous label: "Restricted Access. Level 4 Contaminant."
Lucian knew this was the point of no return.
Once he breached this gate, he would be fully committed to the depot, and all surveillance systems would be under his control, or they would be his enemy.
He commanded the D-Sani unit to halt. The drone sputtered and died, its temporary power burst finally exhausted.
Lucian dismounted, his single leg hitting the solid, brittle ground.
He was alone, fully reliant on his wits and the silent data-core on his back. The next obstacle was the Gate.
The final, dangerous crawl was about to begin.