The Lab Wing didn't smell like tea.
It smelled like a burnt-out circuit board.
The air was heavy, vibrating with a low, rhythmic thrum that made the marrow in my bones itch. The violet mist—the same haze leaking from James's skin—hung thick in the air, turning the sterile white hallway into a graveyard of shifting shadows.
"James! The walls! Quiet them down!" I roared.
My voice was a dry rasp in the thinning oxygen.
James stumbled against the wall.
His left arm was flickering again, a translucent purple smudge that passed right through the durasteel paneling.
He slammed his solid hand against the vibrating wall, trying to throw a Filter.
"I've... I've got it," he gasped.
He tried to mute the hallway.
I'd seen him do it in the vents—a flat, stabilizing wave that killed the noise.
But this wasn't a vent.
This was the spine of the Academy, and it was already slaved to a different rhythm.
The moment his pulse hit the wall, the building hit back.
A sound like a cannon shot echoed through the wing.
James was thrown backward, his back hitting the opposite wall with a sickening thud.
He didn't bounce;
he slumped.
Blood sprayed from his mouth, dark and thick, coating his chin.
"James!" Luna screamed, scrambling toward him.
"The building is too heavy!" Xander yelled, staring at a datapad that was beginning to smoke in his hands. "He tried to force a mute, but the Core pushed back! The feedback just crushed his ribs!"
That was the limit.
The Filter wasn't a magic wand;
it was a physical bridge,
and the bridge had just snapped.
James was out.
"Luna! Keep him solid!" I ordered, stepping over James as a shape emerged from the violet mist at the end of the hall.
It was a man in a lab coat, but he didn't walk;
he slid, his boots never quite touching the floor.
His skin was the color of a bruise, and his eyes were twin pits of violet static.
Behind him, three more Instruments emerged from the shadows of the labs.
"Specimen identified," the lead Faculty member said.
His voice was a chorus of a thousand whispers.
"Initiate harvest."
"Kara! They're coming for the heat!" I barked.
Kara didn't wait.
She lunged forward, her hands glowing with that aggressive, blinding white haze.
She didn't throw a blast.
She reached out and grabbed the lead Faculty member's arm.
"You want heat?" Kara hissed. "Take it all!"
She didn't burn him.
She siphoned.
The air around them turned freezing as Kara pulled every bit of thermal energy out of the man's translucent body and vented it behind her in a violent burst of steam.
The Faculty member shrieked—a high, mechanical sound—as his violet form began to crystallize into ice.
"He's not solid!" Kara yelled, her own skin frosting over from the backwash. "He's just a frequency! If I drop his temperature, his rhythm breaks!"
But the other three were closing in.
They didn't use weapons.
They reached out with glowing hands, their fingers vibrating so fast they blurred.
I stepped in.
I didn't swing my shield;
I Anchored.
I slammed the edge of the tower shield into the floorboards and leaned my entire weight into the kinetic feedback of the room.
"Get behind me!" I roared.
The first Faculty member slammed a hand against my shield.
It didn't feel like a punch.
It felt like an earthquake.
My teeth rattled in my skull. The vibration traveled up my arm, threatening to shake the gauntlet right off my skin.
But I didn't budge.
I matched the room's heartbeat.
I wasn't just a man;
I was a counter-weight.
"Xander! Find the source!" I shouted, my vision swimming.
"The speakers!" Xander pointed to the ceiling. "They're not alarms, Drake! They're Tuning Forks! They're keeping the Faculty synced! If we kill the sound, we kill the connection!"
"Kara! The ceiling!"
Kara looked up, her eyes burning with orange fire.
She was shaking, her body struggling to process the massive thermal imbalance she'd just created.
She didn't have the precision for an arrow.
She had to go wild.
She threw both hands upward.
"Burn out!"
A wave of brilliant orange flame erupted from her palms, not aimed at the men, but at the entire ceiling grid.
The plastic covers melted instantly.
The wiring hissed and popped as the heat overloaded the localized circuit.
The low-frequency hum cut out.
The Faculty members stopped mid-stride.
Their violet eyes flickered.
The translucent skin on their faces began to sag, losing the shape that the sound had been providing.
"Now, Drake!" Xander yelled.
I didn't use the shield.
I used the Purge—a short, sharp burst of kinetic force I'd been holding in my gauntlet.
I slammed my fist into the floor.
The shockwave didn't move the air.
It moved the rhythm.
The three remaining Faculty members didn't fall.
They shattered.
They turned into a cloud of violet dust and static, drifting harmlessly onto the white carpet.
The hallway went silent.
I slumped against my shield, my heart hammering a frantic, uneven beat.
I looked back at the team.
Luna was still hovered over James, her emerald light pulsing in a steady thump-thump against his chest.
James was breathing,
but he was pale—
deadly pale.
"We can't stay here," Luna whispered. "The building is still breathing, Drake. I can feel it in my feet. It's... it's calling for him."
I looked down the hall.
The violet mist wasn't gone.
It was regrouping, swirling around the ventilation grates.
"We're moving," I said, pulling James's solid arm over my shoulder. "To the Core. If we're going to ring the bell, we're going to be the ones holding the striker."