The screen went dark mid-feed.

  A clean cut, as if something had reached through the transmission and closed it from the inside.

  Valley kept his palm against the console casing, feeling for vibration that did not return.

  "It didn't crash," he said.

  Griff stood at the glass, studying the under-structure three levels down — maintenance gantries, runoff channels, the shadowed throat of a decommissioned mag-rail shaft feeding into the city's foundation.

  Rain hammered Neon Spire in vertical sheets, neon dissolving into streaks of magenta and acid blue across the observation room walls.

  "Show me the last frame."

  Kyle was already moving — youngest of the crew, still carrying the optimism that came from believing systems could be fixed if you just found the right angle. He dropped to one knee and opened the lower access panel.

  "Power's still running. Feed cut somewhere upstream."

  Valley unhooked the phase rig from his wrist.

  Scarab glanced at it. "You're going to ask it nicely?"

  "It listens."

  Kyle bridged auxiliary power from a portable cell. Valley fed a fibre lead from the rig into the service port and pressed the device against the casing.

  The screen flickered.

  Static thinned.

  Thermal residue resolved into the final captured image. Beneath the foundation grid, heat pooled and tightened.

  Valley adjusted the dial with his thumb.

  The bloom sharpened. Expanded.

  A vertical column mapped itself along the mag-rail spine.

  Jake lifted his head.

  The heat column tightened and pulled inward, drawing deeper into the shaft like something inhaling.

  The screen cut cleanly to black.

  Kyle leaned back. "That wasn't a fault."

  Valley removed the lead and let the rig hang loosely from his hand.

  "It pulled away."

  Griff studied the afterimage still ghosting his vision.

  "Below the rail."

  Jake turned towards the stairwell door.

  Elin stepped close to Griff. "Full kit?"

  "Close quarters. Controlled fire."

  "Blade ready. Tags live."

  He gave a single nod.

  "Gear."

  Griff took point down the maintenance shaft. Jake ranged ahead, nose and eyes angled to the floor and walls. Marty stepped just behind him, hands brushing supports, scanning the ceiling lattice. Valley carried the rig. Elin moved with her knife already loose in its sheath. Kyle hauled the sensor pack. Mad and Scarab covered rear security, rifles angled at alternating elevations. Andrea and Archie stayed in the middle. Don flanked the right side. Jake moved between Griff and Marty, alert, keeping them in check.

  The stairwell swallowed them in concrete echo. Rain leaked through hairline seams and ran down the steps in narrow streams. The air cooled as they descended, metallic and heavy with runoff.

  The tunnel opened into a low junction chamber. The sound shifted — thinner, metallic, carrying further than it should. Griff lifted a hand. The team slowed.

  Marty stepped forward, not to overtake, just to see past the angle of the support struts. He tapped the nearest column with his knuckles. Listened.

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  “Older than the rail above,” he said. "The load-bearing isn't reliable — it's shifting in ways it shouldn't."

  Griff studied the lattice above, calculating.

  “Shift risk?”

  Marty tilted his head slightly. “If it goes, it’ll favour left.”

  A beat.

  Griff nodded. “Right wall. No gaps.”

  They adjusted without comment. Jake moved between them, shoulder brushing first one, then the other.

  Vibration moved underfoot, faint and almost imperceptible. Griff studied the seam running along the left wall.

  “Slow. Two at a time.”

  Marty didn’t look at him. He tracked the tremor in the dust.

  "Too slow. It registers hesitation — it's already adjusting for it."

  Griff’s jaw shifted. A second passed. Then he nodded.

  “Three. Tight spacing. Move.”

  No one reacted to the adjustment. They moved as if that had been the plan. Jake glanced between them once, then dropped his head and went forward.

  Floodlights flickered along the abandoned rail bed. Stripped tracks cut through pooled water. The ceiling arched overhead in disciplined concrete curves.

  Something new entered the shaft — vibration, faint underfoot where there had been nothing seconds before.

  Jake froze. Head angled.

  A seam brightened above Griff. Something extruded from the ceiling — thin, metallic, segmented.

  It dropped fast.

  Griff shifted on pure instinct, body moving before his mind registered the threat.

  The strand halted centimetres from his skull — so close he felt the displaced air against his scalp. Suspended. Amber light pulsed along its length like a heartbeat.

  Waiting.

  Testing.

  No one fired. Griff's hand was frozen on his rifle. One wrong move and the thing would complete its trajectory.

  No one breathed.

  The strand hung there for three eternal seconds.

  Then retracted smoothly into the ceiling, as if it had made its point. The seam sealed.

  Griff exhaled and nodded.

  Runoff spilled across exposed conduit ahead, hissing where water met fractured housing. Sparks spat sharp and white against the wall.

  Scarab raised an arm to shield the others from the spray.

  "Watch it—"

  Don stepped forwards. He kicked the loose conductor clear and braced his left hand against the rail casing to steady his footing.

  The hum deepened.

  Jake’s growl gathered in his chest.

  Amber threaded beneath the composite where Don's palm met metal.

  "Don."

  Light raced along the ceiling seam.

  The surface parted.

  The strand drove down and wrapped Don's forearm in a tightening spiral.

  Amber surged up his arm. His breath locked.

  Griff fired. The round struck concrete. The strand held.

  Jake slammed into Don's hip, teeth snapping at the coil. Metal. His jaw closed on metal and living flesh fused together.

  The glow reached the base of Don's thumb — seconds from full integration.

  Jake lunged higher, ignoring the amber heat searing his gums. He bit where metal met flesh, teeth grinding against the strand's composite surface.

  The strand cracked.

  Skin tore. Amber fractured across Don's arm in splintered lines.

  Jake twisted with his full weight — ninety pounds of loyal, stubborn mammal refusing to let the system take what was his.

  The coil snapped.

  It recoiled upwards, trailing sparks.

  Jake hit the ground hard, muzzle bleeding from where the metal had cut him.

  He didn't stop. Planted himself between Don and the ceiling. Eyes locked on the seam. Daring it to try again.

  Don's hand remained behind. For a breath, the severed tissue rippled — amber light racing through muscle and bone, trying to rebuild the connection from pure filament.

  Then the system lost its grip. The amber died.

  The hand collapsed back to flesh — useless, dead, human. It struck the rail bed with a wet sound.

  Don made a noise. Small. Strangled. Shock hadn't caught up with his nervous system yet, but it was coming.

  The seam sealed. Silence pressed into the shaft.

  Griff caught Don as his knees buckled. Elin cinched pressure above the wound. Kyle pressed cloth into the stump. Scarab tracked the ceiling with his rifle, jaw tight.

  Don stared at his arm, shock held in disciplined containment. The silver thread beneath his skin pulsed. Then steadied.

  Jake pressed against Griff's thigh — solid, warm, insistent. A pack check. Making sure Don was still here. Still breathing. Still his.

  Don's free hand found Jake's head.

  "I'm here," he whispered.

  The dog held position for three seconds, then stepped back. Satisfied.

  Griff lowered the rifle.

  "What the hell was that?" Scarab asked.

  Valley watched the rail housing Don had touched. "Responsive."

  Griff met his gaze. "Then we stop behaving predictably."

  They moved deeper.

  The air ahead wavered. Light bent across the rails in a thin band that shifted sideways as they approached.

  Jake slowed. His tail dropped. His head angled fractionally, reading pressure. Griff stepped into the distortion. His stride adjusted without consent. He forced it irregular. Jake cut across the band sharply. The shimmer thinned.

  Behind them, concrete cracked. A slab of ceiling dropped across the rail line, sealing half the shaft in broken debris.

  Silence. Then — thin white lines illuminated along the exposed rails beyond the rubble. Precise. Symmetrical. Guidance bands sketching themselves into existence.

  Jake ignored the brightest path and forced through a tighter split in the debris. Griff followed. On the far side, Don's boots drifted towards the centre of the guidance band before he caught himself. Heat rose at his stump. Jake slammed into his thigh and shoved him sideways. The warmth faded. Don blinked and steadied himself.

  They advanced.

  A vertical recess interrupted the shaft wall. Inside, slender strands pulsed behind a narrow housing, amber light contained and rhythmic.

  Don slowed without meaning to. Pressure built along his arm.

  Jake stepped between him and the recess, teeth visible. The strands flickered and quieted.

  Griff rested a hand against Don's back.

  "Forwards."

  They reached a maintenance junction where a steel door stood set into the wall, wheel handle rusted but intact.

  Griff seized the wheel and turned. Metal resisted. Then gave.

  They slipped into a concrete service tunnel that smelled of mineral runoff and trapped air. Valley pulled the door shut behind them. The sound of rain faded.

  Jake pressed briefly against Griff's knee. The same ritual. Counting. Confirming. Griff's hand dropped to Jake's shoulder for a moment. The dog moved on. Griff adjusted his rifle and looked into the darker tunnel ahead.

  "Down."

  Behind the sealed door, the Hollow recalculated. It had tested them. It would adjust.