Zack, grab the battery," Arthur ordered, stepping off the Mag-Lev maintenance walkway.
Zack reached into the train's dashboard and yanked out the glowing blue Class-C Core. The train's lights died instantly, plunging the tunnel back into darkness, save for their flashlights.
"It's getting hot," Vivian noted, wiping sweat from her forehead. She unzipped her sanitation overall to the waist, revealing her leather armor underneath. "And it smells like... sulfur."
"That's the pressure," Arthur said, his voice echoing in the vast, circular chamber they had entered. "We are standing inside the Main Valve Assembly."
The room was colossal. It was a dome made of seamless white metal, hundreds of feet wide. In the center, suspended over a pit of glowing magma, was the Processor Core—a sphere the size of a castle.
Massive pipes—Ley Line Conduits—fed into the sphere from the walls. They pulsed with light: Blue, Green, Red.
But one pipe—the largest one, labeled SECTOR 7 (CAPITAL)—was dark.
