Time in the tunnel was a strange, fluid thing, measured in the slow ache of muscles, the dwindling charge of phone batteries, and the steady, rhythmic scrape and jolt of the gurney. They walked. They rested. They walked again. A slow, shuffling dirge through the bowels of the dead city.
Leo drifted in and out of a hazy, pain-filled consciousness. In his lucid moments, he thought. A helpdesk tech, troubleshooting the apocalypse. The System wasn't just a random overlay. It was an invasive program. It had created monsters, yes. But it had also created them. An Admin. A Conductor. An Artificer. A Warrior. Now a Strategist and a Support. It was like a game developer, seeding a new server with a balanced starter party. But what was the game?
During one of these moments, he saw Ben kneeling beside the gurney, his tablet tethered to the Core.
"How's the patient?" Leo croaked.
Ben looked up, his eyes bloodshot but alive with a feverish energy. "The Core, you mean? It's… fascinating. After the feedback loop from your… episode… its internal architecture restructured. It's more efficient. It's like you didn't just reboot it. You upgraded it." He gestured to the screen. "I'm running a deep scan. It's mostly static down here, but there's… something else."
He pointed to a faint, wavering line on his diagnostic screen. "It's a signal. Faint. Heavily encrypted. But it's not the System. It's not red. And it's not green. It's… blue."
[Signal_Type: Unknown]
[Origin: Encrypted]
[Broadcast_Pattern: Passive_Echo]
"What does that mean?" Chloe asked, drawn by their conversation.
"I don't know," Ben admitted. "It's not active. It's like a… a ghost. A recording. An echo of a broadcast, trapped in the infrastructure. It's old. Very old. Predates G-Day, maybe by years." He zoomed in, the signal resolving into a complex, beautiful, and utterly alien waveform. "Whatever it is… it's not human. And it's not the System. It's a third party. Someone else was here."
The thought was a chilling one. They were not the first. They were just the latest.
Their journey was interrupted by a sharp, hissed command from the front. "Stop."
It was Maya. The column halted. They were in a wider section of the tunnel, a large, cavernous space where three subway lines intersected. A junction. The air here was different, carrying a dozen new scents on a slow, sluggish current. Old metal. Stagnant water. And something else. Something… savory. Cooked meat.
A low murmur went through the survivors. Food. After days of chalky protein bars, the smell was a powerful, intoxicating lure.
"It's a trap," Maya stated, her voice a low growl.
"Probability of this being a neutral or friendly encounter is… 2.7%," Arthur whispered, his voice trembling.
They were about to retreat when a new sound echoed through the junction. Music. Faint, tinny, distorted. A pre-G-Day pop song, horribly out of place. It was coming from a small, battery-powered radio, set on a makeshift table just visible at the edge of their light. Next to the radio, a small, controlled fire burned in a rusted barrel, a piece of meat sizzling on a crude grill.
A camp. A human camp.
Figures began to emerge from the shadows around the fire, their forms silhouetted, their weapons—crossbows, sharpened pipes, a rusty shotgun—all aimed directly at them.
"Stay where you are!" a voice called out, sharp and commanding. A woman's voice, rough and steady. "Don't come any closer!"
They were caught. Out in the open. Exposed. This wasn't a monster. This wasn't a mindless beast following code. This was something far more dangerous and unpredictable. Other people.