The quiet didn't last long.
A screech tore through the station's stillness — metallic, high-pitched, and unnatural. Lights along the tunnel blinked red. Not flickering. Pulsing. Like a heartbeat… no, a warning.
Kael snapped into motion. "They've found us."
Aeris pulled away, pulse surging. The moment between them was gone — buried beneath the weight of what was coming.
Lira cursed under her breath and threw down a small device. It unfurled like a metallic flower, humming with static. "Scrambler. Won't stop their drones, but it'll buy us two minutes — maybe less."
The sound grew louder — the clicking of spider-like limbs crawling against steel and stone. From the depths of the dark, crimson eyes lit up one by one. Five… ten… twelve.
"Hunter-class Sentinels," Kael muttered. "They're not here to arrest us."
"They're here to erase us," Aeris said, drawing her shock-pulse pistol, its barrel lighting up with a blue plasma charge.
The first drone leapt out of the tunnel — all serrated limbs and whirring blades, its steel carapace glinting under the station's dim glow. Kael moved first, spinning low, a flash of silver as his blade arced through the air — severing the thing mid-stride. Sparks burst like fireworks.
Behind him, Aeris dropped to one knee, firing a pulse straight into a drone's core. It convulsed in mid-air, then exploded into a mess of wires and shrapnel.
Another dropped from above — claws slicing toward her — but Kael was already there, body a blur of speed and instinct, shield slamming it sideways into a crumbling vending machine.
Lira activated her wrist-holo and unleashed a burst of magnetic feedback, distorting the Sentinels' sensors. The drones twitched violently, some crashing into walls like flies hitting glass.
But more kept coming.
They were faster now. Smarter. Learning.
NeuroNet was watching.
"We need to move!" Lira yelled. "They're adapting!"
Kael grabbed Aeris's hand and they bolted across the shattered platform, jumping onto the tracks below. Sparks erupted around their boots as they ran, the third rail sizzling nearby.
Above, the last light in the station burst, casting the world into deep crimson emergency tones.
The tunnel ahead yawned wide and dark — the only way forward. A jagged hole in the wall marked an access shaft.
Aeris slid in first, heart pounding like a war drum. Kael followed, his boots clanging against the rungs. Lira sealed the hatch behind them, locking out the chaos — at least for now.
In the dim shaft light, Aeris's face was streaked with grime and blood, hair plastered to her forehead. But her eyes burned — not with fear, but resolve.
Kael reached her side, chest heaving. "You okay?"
She gave a breathless nod, then looked up the narrow shaft. "We're close. The mainframe's above us."
"And so is everything trying to kill us," Lira added grimly.
Aeris looked back down the tunnel they'd just left behind. Red sparks flared against the shadows.
"Then we finish this," she whispered. "For all of them."
They climbed higher, into the machine's heart.
And the city held its breath.