The descent into Lab V was quieter without its architect.
Arik stood alone in the glass elevator as it shuddered down into the buried levels of Alexandria. The conditional access badge Liam had issued him glowed a faint white against the dark, steady and unwillingly permissive in his hand. Beyond the transparent walls, the shaft sank through reinforced stone, old conduits, and the mechanical bones of a city that had long ago learned to hide its most important organs underground.
When the doors opened, the lower chamber greeted him with blue-white light and the thunderous, disciplined pulse of the Vanguard.
The turbine hung over the abyss like blasphemy made useful. Raw red ether flashed through the intake in violent surges, then was crushed, refined, and driven forward through the machine's heart until blue turned to white and power became civilized enough for the city above to pretend it had earned it.
