They moved quickly down the transit ramp, the Archive's stale air closing around them. The light from Klaus's handlamp cut a narrow path through the dust. Nero walked between Helia and Klaus, feeling unusually exposed—like a raw nerve stretched tight across the metal bones of the place.
They reached a reinforced door set into the far wall. Klaus paused, fingers hovering over the rusted keypad. He glanced back at Nero and Helia, a small, oddly sincere smile in place.
"Beyond this is a service gallery," he said. "It'll put you close to the old transit lines. From there you can slip between sectors without touching the main arteries."
Helia watched his hands as if she expected a trick. "And why do you know this?"
Klaus met her gaze cleanly. "Because I lived in the dark long enough to map the veins. I promised myself I'd help anyone who looked like they might get out."
Nero believed him. Helia wanted to disbelieve, but years of survival had taught her when to follow a plan. She placed a hand on Nero's shoulder—steadying, not letting him show it—and stepped forward to help Klaus enter the code.
The keypad clicked. The door hummed, then slid open with a mouth-like sigh.
They stepped in.
The corridor beyond smelled of old coolant and something sweeter—ozone and burnt circuitry. Klaus led them between crates and collapsed scaffolding, words soft at the edges: directions, safety, pathways. Nero's chest loosened a little. For the first time in days, he allowed himself to imagine a way out.
Then, almost imperceptibly, Klaus's smile faltered.
A panel along the corridor lit—tiny red LEDs, like a cluster of watchful eyes.
Helia's gaze snapped to it. "Klaus," she said without turning. "Why is that panel active?"
Klaus's hand trembled as he drew up a small tool and pressed it against the side of the casing. "Hold on. I'll"
Before he could finish, the hum of the maintenance systems stuttered. A deep, mechanized voice rolled through speakers above them cold, clinical.
"Attention: Unauthorized movement in Sector Transit Channel. Initiating retrieval protocol."
Nero's stomach dropped. He saw Helia's jaw clench. He saw Klaus's eyes go wide—not with fear of them but of what had him.
Klaus's hand fell away from the tool. "This isn't...this wasn't supposed to."
Two drones dropped from the ceiling with soft whine. They circled, fast and precise, and then the corridor exploded in heavy shadow as an enormous silhouette filled the passage: the Reconstruction Unit.
Helia moved first, weapon up, instincts sharp as blades. She dove toward Nero, pushing him behind a pillar. "Run!"
Klaus backed up until his spine hit the wall. For the first time he looked smaller than his coat. His voice came out raw. "I told you I could get you to shadow. I did. I swear—"
A drone lasered the floor inches from where he stood. Sparks flew. Klaus looked at the robotic eyes with something like pleading.
The Unit's audio barked, flat and absolute: "ASSET: DELIVERED. VERIFY. TERMINATE WITNESS: YES."
Nero felt a cold that had nothing to do with the Archive's pipes. "What do you mean terminate witness?" he croaked.
Klaus's lips moved, fast and broken. "They promised me safety if I....if I brought the prototypes in for retrieval. They said I.." His voice cut. He laughed, a terrible small sound. "I thought I could bargain. I thought"
Helia's gun barked twice. One drone shattered against the wall in an orange spray of sparks. But the Unit moved with the inexorable patience of a thing that always got what it needed. Its massive limbs swept out, slamming a containment net across the corridor and pinning Helia to the grated floor.
Nero dove forward, lungs burning, but a wedge of dark metal shot from the Unit like a chain and wrapped around his torso. The world narrowed to the pressure across his ribs, the smell of ozone, Helia's voice crying his name.
Klaus stumbled to Nero's side, hands hovering uselessly. "Please please don't" he begged, looking to the Unit as if he might bargain with gears and code.
The Unit's audio rasped again. "Terminate witness: affirmative."
Klaus's eyes went to Helia, to Nero, then back to the Unit. His face crumpled in a way that left no dignity. "No. I didn't" He reached for Nero, for some impossible absolution, and the Unit's mechanical claw extended.
Nero heard nothing but a clean, final motion—the sick, precise sound of metal meeting flesh and then Klaus sagged, a rag dropped from a shelf. A single, sharp spasm, and his body lay still, eyes glassy with a look that asked a question and received no answer.
Helia screamed. It tore through the corridor, raw and savage, the sound of grief born into a place that never learned it. The Unit's lights reflected in her tears.
"NO!" Nero managed, the word ragged and small. He pushed against the clamp around his waist with nothing but rage and the useless strength of a trapped thing.
Drones swarmed, emitting strobe-like scans. A shock collar lowered from the Unit and snapped around Nero's neck. Everything dimmed his Veyra dampening like a hand pressing down on the light inside him.
Helia thrashed against the net. Her vision tunneled, breaths ripping from her chest.
Soldiers, Archivist commanders arrived in exosuits, sliding down from harnesses in the ceiling. They moved with an efficient brutality, eyes cold behind visors.
One of them stepped forward and spoke, voice crisp. "Klaus was a known asset. He assisted in retrieval operations. He provided access codes and bait. He has been terminated for breach."
Helia's fingers found the mesh again, nails white. "He...he saved us," she hissed. "He..."
The commander's facemask tilted. "He delivered prototypes. He knew too much. Protocol requires elimination of compromised assets."
Nero watched the life drain from Klaus's face, the way the light left his eyes like someone closing a book. For an instant, everything shrank to that one image, Klaus's half-smile when he'd first tossed the EMP, the way he'd eased the pressure valve—then the Unit's mechanical hand.
Helia's shoulders shook with a sound that was part sob and part rage. "You lied," she whispered to the man who couldn't hear. "You lied to us."
The commander's boot clipped against the Unit's platform. "Contain the prototypes. Transfer scheduled."
They yanked Nero and Helia—separately—into identical pods. Cold edges bit into his arms. Restraints wrapped around his limbs. A film of something slick closed over the pod's opening with a whisper. The dampeners hummed low and merciless, pulling the heat out of Nero's veins.
Helia's pod slid a meter away. Through translucent polymer he saw her pale, undefeated, her mouth forming his name as if it mattered. He tried to scream. The words died in his throat.
Above, the Archivist commanders barked orders. The Unit rolled to stand guard. Somewhere in the corridor, Klaus's body lay crumpled like a bad memory.
Nero's world narrowed to the sound of the Unit's motors and the pulse of his own failing breath.
A cold light swept across his vision.
"Preparation complete," a commander intoned.
And on the far side of the corridor, a small maintenance camera—one Nero had noticed days ago—flickered, sending its feed upward into the Archive's silent veins. The image of Klaus's still face glitched for a heartbeat, then streamed away.
They had delivered the prototypes.
The door closed.
They were no longer walking.
They were cargo.