He ran. The darkness of the maintenance duct was a temporary gift, a pocket of pure negation inside the brightly lit logic of Aethelburg. Jian Li’s only goal was forward motion, a desperate flight through the city’s functional underbelly. The air tasted of ozone and damp, recycled water, a stark contrast to the sterile, filtered atmosphere of the city above. He burst from the duct back into a main service corridor, a long tunnel lit by the dim, intermittent glow of red emergency lights.
His lungs burned. He was a composer, not an athlete, and his body was already protesting the sustained exertion. He pressed on, his soft-soled shoes slapping against the grated metal floor. A faint, high-pitched crackle hung in the air, a sound like tearing silk that he could feel in his teeth. It was the ghost of his own music, the faint, lingering echo of the schism static he had conducted, a residue that now marked him as prey.
A flash of brilliant blue light erupted behind him, striking the wall just to his left and showering the corridor with sparks. The impact left a scorch mark of fused metal, the air suddenly sharp with the smell of burnt polymers. He didn't need to look back to know it was a stun bolt from a Union squad. They were using non-lethal force, which meant their orders were to capture, not to kill. An asset to be secured. The thought sent a fresh wave of adrenaline through him.
He pushed his speed, his body screaming in protest as he maintained a pace of nearly 15 kilometers per hour. The corridor ahead split into a T-junction. Safety was a choice between left and right. He veered right, deeper into the labyrinth, but as he rounded the corner, he skidded to a halt. They were there, waiting. Beck Irvine, the Hunter-Gatherer Pathfinder, stood flanked by two of his operatives, their forms like specters in the dim red glow. They had anticipated his path, their knowledge of these hidden ways far superior to his own.
"Nowhere left to run, composer," Beck’s voice was calm, a low baritone that held no malice, only certainty.
The heavy, rhythmic tread of magnetic boots grew louder from the corridor behind him. The Union squad was closing in. He was caught, the filling in an ideological sandwich, trapped between the cold, hard logic of the Union and the suffocating faith of the Gatherers. The air itself seemed to thicken, the faint crackle of schism static growing louder as the two opposing belief systems converged on his position.
The Union squad, eight strong, rounded the corner thirty meters behind him. They raised their rifles, the blue charging lights of their stun modules casting sharp shadows. Beck Irvine’s team tensed, dropping into low stances, their hands reaching for weapons Jian couldn’t immediately identify. For a single, frozen moment, Jian was the focal point of two warring philosophies, the prize in a game he had never agreed to play.
Then the moment broke. The Union squad leader barked an order. — Engage all hostiles! Secure the asset!
The Gatherers did not wait. Beck Irvine met the first volley of stun bolts not with a shield, but with a fluid, evasive movement that seemed impossible. One of his operatives threw a handful of small, dark pellets that struck the floor and erupted into a thick, fibrous growth, a temporary wall of tangled roots that absorbed the next volley of energy. The corridor became a chaotic canvas of conflicting realities. Blue energy discharges met bursts of accelerated biology. The sharp hum of Union tech clashed with the wet, tearing sound of the Gatherers’ living weapons.
Jian was no longer the target. He was an objective, temporarily forgotten in the raw, violent debate that had erupted between his pursuers. He saw his chance. The price of this opportunity was the lives of the men and women now fighting over him, a cost he refused to calculate. He pressed himself against the grimy wall, inching away from the firefight. The skirmish was a microcosm of the entire planetary conflict: the Union trying to impose a clean, predictable order through force, the Gatherers using emergent, chaotic methods to counter it.
He slipped around the corner of a massive, humming power conduit, the sounds of combat fading slightly behind him. He was moving deeper into the warren, away from the main arteries and into the capillary-like maintenance tunnels. The air grew warmer, thick with the smell of hot metal and charged particles. He found himself at another junction, this one dominated by a large, gray junction box bolted to the wall, its surface covered in warning labels so old the text had faded to illegibility. From it, thick, armored conduits snaked up into the ceiling and down into the grated floor. It was a node for the local power grid.
An idea formed, born of desperation and his innate understanding of complex systems. He could not outrun them, and he could not fight them. But he could change the rules of the environment itself. He moved to the junction box, his hands finding purchase on the edge of its heavy access panel. It was a choice to commit an act of large-scale sabotage, to trade subtlety for a chance at escape.
With a grunt of effort, he tore the panel from its housing. The screech of protesting metal was loud in the relative quiet of the side corridor. Inside, a dense web of thick, insulated cables pulsed with a low, powerful hum. He had access. He grabbed two of the largest conduits, each as thick as his arm, ignoring the warning indicators that now flashed a frantic red. This was not the elegant synthesis of his music; it was a crude, brutal act of dissonance.
He forced the two conduits together. The resulting arc of electricity was not blue, but a pure, blinding white. It was a silent scream of energy, a physical manifestation of schism static, raw and uncontrolled. The sound was a deafening shriek that was over before it began, a flash of pure paradox that overloaded his senses. Then, absolute darkness. Absolute silence.
The emergency lights, the hum of the conduits, the distant sounds of combat—all of it was gone. He had created a localized power failure, plunging this entire sector of the city’s underbelly into a black, silent void. The Union’s electronic weapons would be dead. The Gatherers’ advantage in the dark was now matched by his own. He had moved from forced order to emergent chaos, and in that chaos, he found his freedom.
His eyes, already accustomed to the dim red light, adjusted quickly to the profound blackness. He could hear the surprised, angry shouts of both factions from the main corridor, their technological and biological advantages momentarily negated. He didn't wait. He turned and melted into the darkness, a ghost in a machine he had just broken.
Miles away, in a sterile command center, Commander Valerius watched a segment of his tactical grid go black. A single, concise report appeared: "Asset lost. Sector-wide power failure." His mission had failed. The composer was not compliant. The data had been wrong. He would have to report his failure to a deeply displeased Hanno Valberg.
And in the sudden, profound darkness of the service corridor, Beck Irvine cursed quietly. He ordered his team to regroup, their primary advantage of environmental knowledge erased. The prophet had refused his saviors and vanished. The hunt would have to begin anew.
The silence of the dead corridor was deep and profound. The air, no longer vibrating with power, felt heavy and still.
He was finally, truly alone, and he had no idea where to go.
