We gathered at the processing spire lift in silence. The morning's exhaustion hung heavy on all of us, and none of the usual banter filled the air as we stepped into the massive cylindrical chamber of reinforced steel and glass.
The doors sealed shut with a pneumatic hiss.
The descent began.
For the first minute, there was nothing but the low hum of the magical core driving us downward. The harbour's murky green water surrounded us, gradually darkening as we sank deeper. Shadows from the base's submerged structures passed like spectres in the gloom.
The deeper we went, the quieter everything became. Even the hum of the lift seemed to fade, swallowed by the weight of the water and the distance between us and the surface above.
Then, Montgomery started coughing.
It wasn't a throat-clearing sound. It was a wet, rattling hack that seemed to tear its way out of his chest. He slumped against the curved glass wall, one hand clutching the torn fabric over his wound, his face rapidly losing what little colour it had left.
"Montgomery?" Sylus stepped forward, his own post-amnesia fatigue momentarily forgotten. "Hey, look at me. Breathe."
But Montgomery couldn't. His breaths were coming in short, panicked gasps, his eyes wide and unfocused. The veins along his neck were beginning to darken, standing out starkly against his pale skin.
The mood in the confined lift shattered, instantly replaced by a suffocating tension.
Something is wrong.
My pulse spiked. I focused my vision on Montgomery and mentally triggered [Insight].
The familiar overlay of information washed into my mind, but what I saw made my stomach drop.
-
Name: Montgomery Burns
Rank: ???
[Status]: Poisoned (????)
-
He's poisoned.
But even then, his condition made no sense.
My working theory was an Argyle. But Argyle venom was a paralytic at best. A potent muscle relaxant designed to prevent prey from thrashing in the water. It didn't destroy lung tissue. It didn't cause this.
"He's hyperventilating," Mira said, her instincts taking over. She moved toward him, reaching out to check his pulse and examine the wound.
"Don't!" I snapped, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her back roughly.
Mira stumbled, shooting me a sharp, confused frown. "Noah, what are you doing?"
"He's poisoned," I said, my voice tight. "And we don't know if it's contagious."
Mira froze, her hand hovering in the air. "Contagious?"
"We've been sealed in this lift with him for three minutes," I reasoned quickly, speaking loud enough for both teams to hear. "If it were an airborne pathogen, the rest of us would likely be showing early respiratory distress by now. We aren't. That leaves contact transmission. Whatever is in his blood or on that wound, you cannot touch it."
The logic landed heavily in the small space. Without a word, Sylus, Darius, Kami, and the others subtly shifted their weight, taking half-steps back until Montgomery was isolated in the centre of the lift. He collapsed to his knees, coughing violently, a dark fluid spotting his lips.
The descent felt agonisingly slow. Every rattle of his breath amplified the helplessness hanging over us.
When the lift finally slammed into its locking clamps at the base level, steam poured from the exterior vents. The doors parted, and we spilt out into the sterile, brightly lit receiving bay.
A medical squad was already waiting, flanked by Lieutenant Zamri and Lieutenant Nomi.
"Medics, move in," Zamri ordered sharply.
As the medical personnel rushed forward with a hovering stretcher, I watched the Lieutenant's face. Zamri's eyes locked onto Montgomery's darkened veins and the dark fluid on his chin.
There was a microsecond where her professional mask slipped. Her eyes widened slightly, her jaw tightening. It was an unmistakable flash of recognition.
"Secure him in an isolation ward," Zamri barked, her voice suddenly devoid of its usual calm. And then, the red flag that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up: she didn't ask us what had attacked him. She didn't ask for a threat description.
She turned directly to us. "All of you, into the secondary quarantine wing. Now. Do not touch each other, do not remove your gear until you are decontaminated. We have a potential localised contagion."
"Lieutenant," I spoke up.
"Not now, Cadet Reed. We'll talk later, " Lieutenant Nomi turned away.
Before we could protest, security personnel ushered us into a sterile holding room down the hall from the infirmary. The heavy door locked behind us, leaving the seven of us trapped in a stark, white room with nothing but metal benches and a glass viewing window.
The adrenaline of the morning finally crashed, leaving a heavy, exhausted silence in its wake.
We sat in the sterile holding room for what felt like an eternity. Minutes ticked by without anyone speaking. Sylus stared at the metal bench in front of him, his fingers drumming an anxious rhythm. Kami leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes closed. Darius stood by the glass viewing window, his massive silhouette rigid with tension.
I remained motionless, my back pressed against the cool wall, but my mind was anything but still.
Deep claw marks. Memory erasure. Luring calls by the harbour. Shallow grip marks. And a deadly respiratory poison.
The pieces wouldn't stop circling. Argyle venom didn't cause respiratory failure. It simply didn't. I knew about the game's monsters thoroughly enough to be certain. So what was Montgomery infected with? And why had Lieutenant Zamri's eyes widened with that flash of recognition the moment she saw him?
The two different hunting patterns gnawed at me.
The violent tunnel assault versus the luring behaviour at the docks. Two different creatures? Two different tactics from the same predator?
She knew, I thought, my jaw tightening. Zamri knew what it was before the medics even examined him.
Which meant that the Lieutenants knew more than what they'd told us. Which meant they'd sent us out into the city with incomplete information, perhaps already knowing there was something dangerous out there that they'd already identified.
The implications spiralled outward, each one darker than the last.
While I was lost in my thoughts, Mira turned to me. Her eyes were sharp, analytical, and angry.
"So," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "Are you going to tell us what you know, or are we going to keep playing games?"
Her words snapped me out of my trance.
I met her gaze evenly. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't," she stepped closer. "Down in the tunnels, before you said a word, you looked at those claw marks, and your expression changed. You figured something out. Then, in the lift, you diagnosed Montgomery with a contagious poison before a medical squad even saw him. You stopped me from touching him with absolute certainty."
She crossed her arms. "It's almost as if you know something. And you're letting us walk into this blind."
Darius pushed himself off the wall, his massive frame suddenly feeling very imposing in the small room. His jaw was clenched.
"She's right," Darius frowned, stepping up beside Mira. "You've been acting strange. I thought we were supposed to be a team. If you know what's going on, spit it out."
I calculated my response carefully. I couldn't tell them everything—not when the evidence was contradicting itself, and certainly not when the lieutenants were clearly hiding something too.
But at this stage, not saying anything would only brew distrust.
"I had a working theory in the tunnels," I admitted, giving them the partial truth. "Based on the memory loss and the environment, I thought we were dealing with an Argyle."
Nico's brows furled. "An Argyle? Here?"
"Exactly," I continued, holding Darius's gaze. "It didn't fit perfectly. And then Montgomery started showing symptoms of respiratory poisoning. Argyle venom doesn't do that. So yes, Mira, I had a theory. But as of ten minutes ago, that theory was proven wrong. I didn't say anything because I don't actually know what we're dealing with."
Mira stared at me, her eyes searching my face for the lie. She was too smart to buy it completely. She knew I was still holding something back.
Darius didn't care about the logic. He took a heavy step toward me, his chest puffed out. "Something still doesn't add up."
"Hey."
Nico's voice was quiet, but it cut through the room effortlessly. He stepped smoothly between Darius and me, not aggressively, just placing his body in the space between us. He didn't puff his chest or raise his voice. He just looked at Darius.
"We're all tired", Nico said softly. "Montgomery's in a bad spot, and we're all stressed. But nobody here is the enemy. Just sit down, and wait for the medics to do their job."
Darius stared down at Nico for a long moment. The tension in the room pulled taut, hovering on a knife's edge. Then, slowly, the larger boy let out a harsh breath through his nose. The stiffness drained from his shoulders.
"Fine," Darius muttered, turning away and slumping onto one of the metal benches.
The standoff dissolved, leaving a hollow quiet behind. Mira gave me one last, lingering look of distrust before taking a seat on the opposite side of the room.
I leaned my head back against the cool wall, closing my eyes as the others idled in the silent room.
Deep claw marks. Memory erasure. Luring calls by the harbour. Shallow grip marks. And a deadly respiratory poison.
The pieces were scattered in front of me, jagged and contradictory. Two different hunting patterns. Two sets of physical evidence. But the most terrifying piece of the puzzle wasn't what we found in the city above.
It was the look in Lieutenant Zamri's eyes.
She knew what was in Montgomery's blood.
As we waited in the cold silence of the quarantine room, I combed through my thoughts, and one chilling truth became clear to me.
This wasn't the first time this had happened.