The air in the service tunnels beneath the Zenith Tower tasted of nothing. It was a manufactured void, chilled to a precise twenty degrees Celsius and scrubbed of the desert heat, the city’s ambition, and any trace of human life. It smelled only of ozone and the faint, sharp scent of industrial cleaning solvents. Sineus moved through the oppressive sterility, the rubber soles of his boots making no sound on the polished concrete floor. Beside him, Isabelle Moreau was a shadow, her movements economical and silent. Their goal was a sub-basement laboratory, the heart of the Axiom Group’s research into memory.
They reached a blast door marked with hazard symbols in three languages. It was not their way in. Moreau pointed to a ventilation grate set into the wall, large enough for a man to crawl through. According to the schematics Ben Carter had acquired, it led to a maintenance shaft that dropped down alongside the lab’s exterior wall. It was a forgotten service route, a flaw in the tower’s otherwise perfect design.
Sineus unslung his pack and removed a compact plasma cutter. The tool was a sleek cylinder of matte-black tungsten, cool to the touch. He pressed its magnetic clamps to the grate’s hardened steel bolts. There was a soft hum, a hiss of superheated gas, and a brief, intense flare of white light that threw their shadows into sharp relief against the tunnel walls. One by one, the bolts melted away with surgical precision. This entry cost them time; they had less than three minutes before the next automated sensor sweep of the main corridor.
Moreau pulled the heavy grate free. The air that wafted out was even colder, carrying the low, resonant hum of immense power. It was a sound Sineus felt in his bones, a discordant thrum that set his teeth on edge. They slipped into the shaft, replacing the grate behind them. They were inside. Deep inside the enemy’s fortress.
The laboratory was a cathedral of sterile perfection. They observed it from a service gallery, looking down through a thick pane of armored glass. The room was a brilliant, shadowless white, the air visibly shimmering with positive pressure to keep out any contaminants. Robotic arms, currently inert, were poised over empty workstations. There were no people, only machines waiting for commands.
In the center of the room, inside a cube of shimmering energy fields contained by a massive Faraday cage, was the source of the hum. The Memorum lattice. It was a crystalline structure that seemed to twist in on itself, its facets pulsing with a cold, blue light. It was Axiom’s attempt to replicate the fabric of reality, a machine built to read and write memory. To Sineus, its hum was a perversion—a steady, mechanical pulse that lacked the organic, chaotic harmony of the world’s true Memorum. It was the sound of a cage.
— There, — Moreau whispered, her voice tight in his ear. She pointed to a small cradle next to the Faraday cage. A single object rested within it: a smooth, black cylinder about thirty centimeters long. The Memorum alignment rod. The final component they needed.
— The cage’s energy field will trigger every alarm in the tower if it’s breached, — she stated, already pulling a bypass device from her pack. — I can create a two-second window. It’ll be enough.
Sineus put a hand on her arm, stopping her. — No.
She turned to him, her eyes questioning, annoyed. — That was the plan. Get in, create a window, grab the rod, get out.
— New plan, — he said. He looked down at the humming lattice. He could feel its power, a brute-force attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. It was powerful, but it was simple. It was a machine. And he was not.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the sterile white of the lab. He focused on the discordant hum of the lattice, finding its precise frequency. Then, he began to chant. It was not a loud sound, but a low, resonant counter-frequency that vibrated in his chest, a line of Memorum script passed down through his family for generations. It was a language of pure command, a native code that spoke directly to the building blocks of existence.
The effect was immediate. The sharp, mechanical hum of the lattice faltered. The blue light within its crystalline structure flickered, then died. The shimmering energy field of the Faraday cage collapsed with a soft pop, like a soap bubble bursting. The local sensors, all tied to the lattice’s energy signature, went blind.
A sharp, stabbing pain shot through Sineus’s skull, as if a hot wire had been pressed behind his eyes. He tasted the metallic tang of blood at the back of his throat. The strain of imposing his will on a system this powerful was immense. He swayed, steadying himself against the glass, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Moreau was at his side instantly. She saw the trickle of blood from his nose, the sudden pallor of his skin. She said nothing. There was no time for concern. She simply registered the cost, filed it away, and acted.
— The window is open, — he managed, his voice rough. — Go.
She didn’t hesitate. She dropped from the gallery into the lab below, landing in a silent crouch. She moved to the now-inert cage, her steps sure and swift. She reached into the cradle and took the alignment rod. It was cool and heavy in her hand. The final piece. They had it.
The moment her fingers lifted the rod from its cradle, a new sound shattered the silence. Not the hum of Memorum, but the shrill, piercing shriek of a conventional alarm. A secondary system. A simple pressure plate. Red lights began to flash, sweeping across the sterile white room, painting it in strokes of blood and warning.
— Joric, — Moreau breathed, her eyes darting to the lab’s main entrance.
A voice, cold and devoid of emotion, cut through the noise of the alarm, broadcast from speakers in the ceiling. — Lockdown initiated. Sector Gamma-Seven. All units converge. The targets are in the core lab. Seal the exits.
They had the prize, but the hunter was at the door.
