Chapter Entry #18 - Dead End
The corridor narrowed until it became a throat of concrete and steel.
Every breath tasted like rust.
The water that had chased them through the tunnels had thinned to a shallow stream, but the air was still thick with the sour smell of flooded wiring and coolant.
Netoshka slowed, raising her fist for silence.
Ahead, the tunnel ended — a solid wall of collapsed debris and reinforced concrete. No openings, no vents, nothing but ruin.
Surgien scanned it with his wrist console. The display flickered, failing to form a clear image.
"That's it. It's sealed. Collapse goes at least six meters thick."
Alev let out a dry laugh, half delirious.
"Great. So we blew our way straight into a tomb."
Taran leaned against the wall, his weapon hanging limp at his side.
"We're not going back the way we came. The flood's eaten that entire section."
"Then we find another way then" Netoshka said, stepping closer to the wall. She brushed her gloved fingers over the concrete, feeling for weak points. Her headlamp flickered across jagged cracks — faint lines, spidering upward.
She could almost feel the vibration of the outside world beyond, like distant thunder muffled by stone.
Ron came up beside her.
"You think there's daylight past that?"
"There's pressure," Netoshka murmured.
"Could be a vent pocket. Or surface breach."
"Or it's just another sealed shaft," Alev muttered.
Netoshka turned sharply.
"You want to wait here and drown when this place fills? Then get your hands on those cracks and start setting anchors."
He hesitated, then nodded, pulling what little gear he had left — two small concussion charges and a single manual detonator, jury-rigged with tape and stripped wire.
He placed them in sequence along the cracked portion of the wall.
Taran checked his rifle, eyes flicking down the dark behind them.
"We should hurry. They're not far. I keep hearing them moving."
Surgien frowned.
"That's not movement. Listen."
They froze.
The sound came faint at first — not metal footsteps, but something heavier. A groan deep in the structure, like the tunnels themselves were breathing.
Then — a scream of shearing steel, echoing down from where they came.
Decapitators.
"Positions," Netoshka ordered quietly.
They fanned out along the narrow corridor, weapons trained on the dark.
Alev finished arming the charge and slid the detonator to Netoshka.
"Ready when you are."
"On my mark."
The tunnel trembled as distant gunfire-like echoes grew louder — the Decapitators crawling, scraping, tearing their way through the rubble.
Netoshka waited, hand steady on the trigger.
When the first red glare of an optical sensor appeared in the dark, she pressed the switch.
The wall erupted.
A shockwave of dust and white flame filled the passage, blasting concrete outward. The squad hit the ground, covering their faces as debris and water rushed over them.
When the smoke cleared, a gaping hole stood where the wall had been — daylight pouring through a jagged split.
Netoshka blinked against it, the first natural light she'd seen in hours.
"Go! Move!"
They scrambled through the breach, one by one, boots hitting gravel instead of metal. The air was cold, dry — wind. Real wind.
They stumbled out into open terrain — a rocky canyon stretching as far as they could see, lit by the red haze of a dying sun.
The roar of collapsing tunnels echoed behind them, and then — silence.
Alev fell to his knees, gasping.
"We actually made it…"
Netoshka turned, watching the hole they'd just escaped from. Steam and dust still poured out of it.
No movement — for now.
Ron scanned the ridgelines with his rifle scope.
"Canyon's narrow. Good cover. We can rest here until nightfall."
Netoshka nodded, lowering her weapon.
"Surgien, check our vitals. Taran, perimeter sweep. No one goes far."
The squad moved with slow precision — the kind of exhaustion that didn't fade, even after surviving hell.
They found a dry alcove beneath a rock ledge and gathered what little supplies remained.
For the first time in what felt like days, there was silence — no alarms, no metal, no screams.
Taran sat beside Netoshka, both staring out at the canyon floor glowing orange in the fading light.
"You think they're all dead?" he asked quietly.
She didn't answer right away. The wind carried a metallic smell, faint but unmistakable.
"No," she said at last.
"Machines don't die easy."
Before Taran could reply, a sound echoed through the canyon — a scraping noise, sharp and hollow, like knives dragging across stone.
Ron stood immediately, weapon ready. "Contact. Southwest ridge."
Shadows moved among the rocks — thin, stuttering shapes, metal limbs glinting.
Alev cursed. "You've gotta be kidding me—"
"Positions!" Netoshka barked, pulling her rifle to her shoulder. "Use the terrain. Make every shot count!"
The Decapitators dropped from the cliffs in pairs, their bodies half-torn but still functional, crawling toward them through the dust. The setting sun glinted off their wet steel.
Gunfire erupted. Bullets sparked against rock and armor.
Ron's shotgun echoed like thunder. Alev hurled a grenade, the explosion lighting the canyon in orange flame.
One Decapitator tumbled down, limbs snapping — another followed, screeching as its faceplate split in half.
Taran caught one mid-charge, slamming it to the ground and crushing its skull under his boot.
Surgien yelled, "More on the ridge!"
"Hold!" Netoshka fired in bursts, covering Alev as he reloaded. Sparks and shards flew in every direction.
When the last Decapitator fell, the canyon went silent again — save for the wind and the ping of cooling metal.
They waited several long seconds, weapons still aimed, before lowering them.
Ron spat into the dirt.
"They're thinning out. That has to be the last of 'em."
Netoshka didn't respond. Her gaze lingered on the breach far in the distance — the one they'd escaped through.
The hole glowed faintly with an inner light. Movement — faint, like shifting shadows behind smoke.
"Not yet," she said quietly.
"They'll dig through what's left."
She turned toward the east, where the horizon broke into jagged silhouettes of machinery — the remains of a turbine tower, faintly visible miles away.
"That's where we go next," she said.
"If we're lucky, Genrihk's team made it."
Alev stood, wiping soot from his visor.
"And if we're not?"
Netoshka slung her rifle.
"Then we make our own way out there until they come towards us, if not, then their M.I.A. or K.I.A."
The squad packed their gear in silence, the canyon echoing with the hiss of cooling metal.
When they began their march east, the sun dipped below the horizon — the last light fading behind the ridges, leaving only the hum of wind and the faint pulse of the Wire somewhere beneath the earth.