The drones found them in Sector Four.
Nero heard them first-the high-pitched whine that made his teeth ache, made Veyra pulse warning signals through his chest. He grabbed Helia's arm without thinking.
"We need to move. Now." Helia was already pulling him forward, her other hand reaching for her weapon.
The corridor was narrow. Pipes overhead, water damage on the walls. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to-
Light exploded behind them. Not the clinical white of Archive systems. Red. Scanning red that painted the walls like blood.
"Contact confirmed," a drone voice echoed. Flat. Mechanical. "Prototype Twelve. Enforcer Krusate. Retrieval authorized."
Helia spun, weapon raised. Three drones. Sleek, spider-like things that moved too fast, their scanning beams converging on Nero like spotlights he couldn't escape.
"Get behind me. Stay close." Helia's voice was tight, controlled. The voice she used when things were bad.
Nero's hands shook. Veyra was building-he could feel it, that sick pull in his core that meant instability, meant he was about to lose control again. Not now. Please not now.
The first drone lunged.
Helia fired. The blast caught it center mass, sent it spinning into the wall. But the other two split formation, flanking, and Nero saw the calculation in their movements-they weren't just hunting. They were cornering.
"Helia, they're-"
"I see it." She adjusted her stance, trying to cover both angles. "Just stay down."
The second drone raised something that looked like a containment field generator. Blue light crackled at its tip. The third was circling, getting into position behind them.
They were trapped.
Helia fired again at the second drone. Missed. The thing was too fast, and she was trying to watch too many angles at once.
"Shit," she muttered. "Nero, when I say run, you run. Don't look back, don't wait for me, just-"
"DOWN!"
The shout came from above them-somewhere in the maintenance crawlspace overhead. A voice Nero didn't recognize. Male. Urgent.
He looked up just in time to see a metal grate fly open and something drop through.
Not a person. An object. Small, cylindrical, wrapped in what looked like hastily-soldered wiring and blinking lights.
It hit the floor between the drones and them.
Nero's brain registered what it was a second too late.
The world went white.
Not light. Pulse. An electromagnetic shockwave that felt like it turned the air inside out. Nero's ears popped. His vision blurred. Veyra screamed in his chest-a sharp, shocked sensation like touching ice.
The drones didn't just shut down. They died.
Sparks erupted from their chassis. Motors whined and seized. The scanning beams flickered-red to orange to nothing. One drone twitched, its legs spasming, before it crashed to the floor in a smoking heap. The others followed, systems fried, optical sensors dark.
Then the shockwave hit the corridor lighting. Every bulb burst in sequence-pop, pop, pop-down the length of the hall. Emergency systems tried to compensate, failed, died.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Complete. Absolute. Wrong.
Nero's breath was too loud in his own ears. He couldn't see Helia. Couldn't see anything. The darkness was so thick it felt like drowning.
"Helia?" His voice came out shakier than he wanted.
"I'm here. Don't move." She was close-he could hear her breathing, fast and controlled. "What the hell was that?"
Something shifted in the darkness ahead. Not a sound, exactly. More like the absence of sound moving, displacement in the air. Footsteps that didn't echo.
Then, light.
Not Archive light. A handheld torch, old tech, the kind that ran on batteries instead of system power. It cast harsh shadows across the corridor, illuminating the three drones-dead, smoking, their optical sensors fried.
And behind the light, a man.
Tall. Lean. Wearing maintenance coveralls that looked like they'd survived a war-scorch marks, patches, stains that might've been oil or might've been something worse. His face was angular, sharp cheekbones shadowed in the torchlight. Dark hair pulled back. Eyes that reflected the light wrong, like they'd seen too much and learned to hide it.
He lowered the torch slightly, studying them.
Helia's weapon snapped up, targeting his chest.
The man didn't flinch. "You're fast," he said, voice calm. Almost amused. "But not quite fast enough. Lucky I was nearby."
"I said back off." Helia's finger tightened on the trigger. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but-"
"You're cornered, outgunned, and about thirty seconds from having Archive reinforcements crawling all over this sector." The man's voice was matter-of-fact. Not threatening, just... stating reality. "So maybe lower the weapon and let me help before we all get erased?"
Nero's chest tightened. The way this man looked at him-like he knew something, saw something that Nero couldn't hide.
"Who are you?" Nero asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Klaus." The name came easy, but his expression didn't change. He tilted his head, studying Nero like an engineer examining a malfunctioning machine. "And you're Prototype Twelve. The one that shouldn't exist. The Archive's biggest mistake."
Helia took a step forward, weapon still trained on his chest. "How the hell do you know that? Who told you?"
"No one told me anything. I've been watching." Klaus shifted his weight, relaxed but ready. Like someone who'd learned to be calm in situations that should've killed him. "You've been flagged Archive-wide. Retrieval priority. Every drone, every Enforcer, every Reconstruction Unit from here to Sector Zero is hunting you." His eyes moved between them. "Both of you. The prototype that survived and the Enforcer who decided to grow a conscience."
"Then you should walk away," Helia said coldly. "Right now. Before you end up on that list too."
Klaus smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Little late for that. I just killed Archive property with illegal tech. Used an unauthorized EMP device in a monitored sector. In about..." He glanced at a worn timepiece on his wrist. "Two minutes, forty seconds, this corridor is going to be swarming with reinforcements. So you have a choice." He gestured toward the darkness behind him. "Keep running blind through sectors you don't know, hoping you get lucky. Or-" He paused, letting the word hang. "Follow me."
"And why in the hell would we trust you?" Helia's voice could've cut steel.
"You wouldn't. You shouldn't." Klaus's expression didn't change. "Trust gets people killed down here. I learned that the hard way." He glanced at Nero again, something unreadable flickering in his gaze. "But I know routes the Archive forgot. Places where the system's attention is... fractured. Where you can breathe without a target on your back." He started to turn, then stopped. "So. Follow me if you want shadow. If you want to keep standing in the light?" He nodded at the dead drones, still sparking on the floor. "Be my guest. I'm sure they'll send flowers to your erasure."
He started walking, torch beam cutting through darkness.
Helia didn't move. Her jaw was tight, weapon still raised. Nero could see her calculating-threat assessment, risk analysis, all the Enforcer training that had kept her alive this long.
"Helia," Nero said quietly. "We don't have a lot of options right now."
"He knows too much." Her voice was barely a whisper, meant only for Nero. "About you. About me. Everything. He didn't just stumble onto us-he was waiting."
"Or he's been hiding from the same things we are."
"Or he's bait. Or worse." She didn't look at Nero, eyes locked on Klaus's retreating form. "This feels wrong."
"Everything feels wrong." Nero's voice cracked slightly. "But staying here definitely gets us caught. And I-" He swallowed. "I can't go back. I can't let them-"
"I know." Helia's expression softened just a fraction. "I know."
Klaus's voice drifted back from the darkness, patient but firm. "Ninety seconds until Archive system reboot. After that, they'll know exactly where those drones died. Your call, but make it fast."
The Pulse returned-distant at first, then building. Systems coming back online. Somewhere above them, new drones would be launching, recalibrating, searching for the dead signals from their fallen units.
Nero met Helia's eyes. In the dim light from Klaus's torch-already fading into the distance-he could see the conflict there. Trust no one. Survive alone. Every lesson that had kept her breathing.
But they were out of options.
"We go," Nero said, making the decision before he could overthink it. "But we stay careful."
Helia's expression hardened, but she gave a short nod. "You stay within arm's reach of me. If he so much as twitches wrong-"
"I know. I'll move."
She lowered her weapon but kept it in hand, safety off. Started forward, positioning herself so Nero stayed behind her, her eyes tracking every shadow, every flicker of movement.
They caught up to Klaus at a junction. He'd stopped, checking a wall panel that looked ancient-manual controls, physical switches, the kind of tech that predated Archive automation.
"Maintenance level seven," he said without looking at them, fingers working the switches with practiced ease. "Archive doesn't bother routing patrols down here anymore. Too old. Too expensive to modernize." He flipped a final switch. Something groaned deep in the walls-old machinery waking from a long sleep. A passage opened, narrow and dark, exhaling cold, stale air. "This way."
Helia stepped forward, raising her weapon's light to shine into the passage. Stone walls, not metal. Water damage eating at the mortar. Rust stains that looked like dried blood. It looked forgotten. Abandoned.
Like something the Archive had tried to bury.
"After you," she said to Klaus, voice flat and dangerous.
He smiled again-that same empty expression that revealed nothing. "Smart. Keep the threat where you can see it."
Klaus stepped into the passage.
The darkness swallowed him whole, torch beam bouncing off ancient stone. His footsteps echoed once, twice, then faded into the depths below.
Helia and Nero stood at the threshold, staring into the black mouth of the forgotten passage. Cold air breathed out at them, carrying the smell of rust and time and things left to rot.
Behind them, the Pulse was growing stronger. The Archive waking up. Searching.
Ahead, only shadow.
And somewhere in that shadow, a stranger who knew too much.
Nero's hands were shaking again.
Helia checked her weapon one more time, then looked at him. Her eyes were hard, but there was something else there too. Something that looked almost like an apology.
"Stay close," she said.
Then she stepped into the dark.
Nero followed.
The passage swallowed them both.