Chapter 38

We moved through the undergrowth like ghosts.

Or rather, Sam moved like she’d haunted the green space in a deeper dark hundreds of times before, and I, more like a phantom echo of something rusted and half-forgotten, followed along as if every micrometer were weighted down with balls of crumpled fillisheet stashed in every pocket and spare crevice.

She had the kind of stride earned through hard work, and practice. Her foot placement was swift and sure, her eyes keen where they pierced the gloom, and it reminded me of something.

A woodland elf, maybe. Silent and unreal. Not ethereal in the storybook sense, but liminal. Half-seen at the edge of a clearing, or within a bush. The kind of presence that makes you question whether you were alone when you knew something was out there.

I knew the comparison was absurd, but it was stuck.

In contrast, I dragged myself through the wet terrain like corrupted syntax. I felt...oafish. Clumsy and lumbering. A Loader caught in an attempt to tiptoe through a breach zone.

The leaves cracked underneath my cumbersome feet like system errors, every snapped twig felt like a shouted confession in a silent room, a wide broadcast in the dark for anyone to hear.

Sam remained steady, but I didn’t. I was too exhausted and loopy by this point.

She halted, her face angled toward me and spoke to me, not with speech or portsign, but a glance and a tilt of her temple toward the slope. The meaning was unmistakable: Down. Away from the thicket. Away from the clamor I'd made.

She didn’t ask and didn’t need to.

I felt...relieved, maybe. I despised how hard it was for me to keep silent, but I nodded anyway. My acceptance and surrender became braided into one motion as she veered left. I quickly followed behind her as we descended.

The rain fell in sheets. Not drops. Not mist. Thick and unforgiving sheets, ready to drown the world in a Biblical sense. It was a final act on a stage, of a night already hollowed out for a morning dawn, ready to show the buried secrets beneath.

Beyond fifteen feet, everything seemed blurred by a soaked veil in both directions.

The canopy's fragile cover gave way as the trees faded to a muddled grey. The trail dissolved, swallowed by a line of water beneath us. It became obvious now, as I watched the water line move, the ditch at the base of the slope wasn't natural. It'd been carved. Masked and folded into the terrain like a furrow that traced the embankment's curve as it skimmed the edge of the green space's bowl-like shape.

The height of the water line at the base of the slope had risen since Paul's unexpected dive. The water, once still and pond-like, had shifted as it moved slowly until it pushed northward with increased urgency. Debris dragged along in its wake as Sam's voice reached me.

"Use the water," she said. "Keep moving."

I nodded, too exhausted to argue or care.

To our left, the canal's voice surged. It seemed rougher now. Agitated. Almost angry.

I stepped into the run-off ditch at the base of the embankment and felt the water grip my knees. Each step met resistance, and every stride felt skewed off-course.

I fought to stay upright as we set forward, and Sam's set pace became a sort metronomic ritual.

Forward motion, cautious balance, and the dull throb of a perpetual alertness all slipped into a form of automation where I lost all sense of time. The task wouldn't halt. It just sort of kept on, like a series of silent loops keyed for an interrupt that wouldnt come. Like a shift that never ended.

This went on for some time until the merciful moment Sam stopped us, and I gladly took the moment to rest.

The time read: 0747.

The spot we were in looked like it could mark a turning point; the embankment curved away from us, back toward the direction of The Spire. There was hesitancy in her stance. Between the looks she gave the embankment and the open field, I could almost hear her mind work on the problem.

Should we follow the concealed line of the embankment, or should we break and straighten our path to the canal?

I looked behind and realized it'd been a while since we'd seen a flare.

Wonder if Jones ever accomplished what he set out to do?

The distinct lack of patrols was likely the outcome for success or failure. So regardless, it was a win for us, even if it was only temporary.

I shook my head to clear my train of thought.

No. While Sam hadn't yet informed me of our progress, she also didn't seem particularly concerned. Purely based on logic? The numbers said stick to the run-off and embankment. Safer. Smarter.

Peaks of light came through the cloud cover from above. In between sections where the clouds thinned, the area around us became easier to see. I looked ahead. A line of trees I hadn't realized had been close due to the haze of the rain and my own mental loop of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other stood, almost like a wall or another embankment across our path.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Though I didn't know how much further we'd need to go, I had to trust Sam knew what she was doing, even if I couldn't quite shake the thought of the potentially wasted time.

Sam's got this.

I remained silent as Sam gestured for us to move again, and we continued...trudging.

You can imagine my surprise when, not much later, we arrived.

The line of trees was indeed her destination. She'd navigated us toward it carefully, and I'd been so happy to leave the water, I stepped beside her as we entered the treeline. It was her grasp on my collar that saved me when my foot waggled out into open air. Honestly, before now, I hadn't really known what to expect. but it hadn't been this. Sam let go of my collar but didn't say anything as I looked onward in awe.

The landscape beyond ended like a razor-cut line, difficult to see until we'd gotten right up to it. We stood upon a bluff, one of those abrupt geological shifts where a level part of the ground forgets its own elevation and suddenly drops.

The nearby infrastructure was familiar.

Below, the run-off ditch parted between sections of terrain and descended sharply into an inlet-outlet system. It mirrored the collection zones Rob had shown me. The one that fed water into the reservoirs for storage and processing for the subterranean Spirelands.

Beyond that? The Locks.

Sam and Rob had called one of them a bridge, but that word felt too simple now.

A canyon? A flume? An aqueduct?

Huh.

None of those words fit cleanly.

Whatever you called it, the structure felt less like a tunnel and more like a trenched wound left open to the sky. It was an open-topped corridor carved for giants and funneled into a sequence of chambers, each one sealed off by gargantuan steel doors, their bottoms staggered in height like a descending staircase.

The upper sections of each side of the Lock zone were set at the same elevation. It gave it the appearance of one long concrete platform, dotted with yards, zones, and any number of demarcation points with functions I couldn't even imagine. Between them, the tops of the gates weren’t just big. They were wide. Enough to walk three abreast and still have room to spare on either side along the narrowest section.

Eight of the nine visible "bridges" relative to our elevated point of view were already closed, their chambers leveled. Only the last gate seemed set into what appeared to be an "open" position, each door V'ed outward toward the ocean, and the Port outlet I knew lay beyond.

The water level in the next-to-the-last chamber was currently a hollowed basin in comparison to the others. From our vantage, the only parts not fully submerged within the murky water took on the appearance of metal pathways, inserted above what should've been calm and placid. The swift current of the canal banks splashed and flowed like waves on a killer shore and caused the pathway to appear as if it could be washed away at any moment. Wave after wave smashed over the first gate like a retaining wall mere moments from a flood.

Due to the rain, the whitecaps of crested waves roared past within the canal furiously. It was a stampede, angled straight into the engineered ravine with no other forces to divert it. Almost like it'd realized it'd been caught ajar, one of the two furthest lock gate pairs groaned as they drew shut. Low, almost deliberate, like a sudden breath sucked into steel lungs, water surged by in a rush as the level markers etched into the concrete walls began their slow ascent, and the next-to-last chamber began to fill.

A tap on my arm from Sam snapped me back to the present. I'd stood transfixed, but she needed us to move.

She pointed to the brush-covered drop-off, and I understood. Carefully, we navigated down to the flattened surface of the next level.

The fog had dispersed, driven to the ground like a drunkard at the cantina. The roaring canal we'd been parallel to was off in the distance on our left, though the rising slope of the embankment behind and to our right hid us from direct view above. From the opposing side, the landscape dropped into a series of steps like where we now stood. Each level was lower than the last, with layers gradually fading into trees and fencing.

The portions of the canal we'd seen earlier had the breadth of a river. It had been so wide, I couldn't make out the far bank while alongside it. What lay ahead and beneath us seemed like a hybrid railyard and port with a little something else mixed in for good measure. It looked worn and industrial where the waterway cinched inward and narrowed into the vast sprawl of the concrete channel.

Silver light cut through the mist in slats and shards like sharpened blades as I took it all in.

Across the divide, a chain-link fence stretched taut along the perimeter, and Sam halted us in front of a nearby section, masked by growth around it. One hand rested lightly on the fence, but her breath was steady. She was alert. Ready for danger. I followed her gaze. Lower down and adjacent to the locks, just beyond the skeletal sprawl of one of the maintenance yards, I could see him. A lone figure.

Rob.

He walked with a casual rhythm, the kind that might pass for ease if one didn't watch too closely. But his hands betrayed him. Held low, tight to his sides, they acted like a magician's sleight, half-concealed.

A twitch.

A signal.

I knew then he was not only aware of where we were, but, as Sam's stiff posture gave away, she'd seen the signal too.

Daylight had stripped away the cover of night, but now there was just enough ambient light for my optics to register the scene in the visible spectrum.

Sam, equipped with a newer gen of camouflaged enhancements, adjusted effortlessly and locked in with quiet precision.

Mine weren't as forgiving.

I squinted to trigger a zoom, then had to shut my eyes against the nauseous lurch of an optical shift. The stabilizers lagged. For a breath, the world spun. Edges were smeared, and any sense of depth remained unmoored until the system finally caught up. Abruptly, clarity snapped into place. Just in time to catch Rob's hand.

His fingers moved fast. Three signs in quick succession:

'C.''

'We.'

'Eye.'

I blinked, confused. The message didn't land. If he'd spoken, it would've sounded like a mouthful of carbo-bun, or—oof!

I was yanked down hard. My left arm jerked backward; vertigo overtook me like a wave. Sam had dropped like a stone and pulled me with her. Her drop had been tactical. In my case, it had been painful. I ended up on my back, my face pointed to the sky. Pain blossomed throughout my left thigh and buttock, where a rock had caught me mid-fall and rolled underneath me.

Sam, assisted by gravity and my own stunned inertia, had positioned me beside her where she rested. She was prone. Like a sniper on a ridge.

"Wha—" I started, but she silenced me with a light backhanded slap on the shoulder.

I shut up.

My sense of balance spun out, top-like. Overhead, a storm-grey cloud pulsed with dull light through my still-zoomed optics. Smeared across my vision, the image was too close, too sharp. Three quick blinks reset the zoom, and I closed my eyes. The befuddled feeling of disequilibrium a bit too much to bear.

Sam stayed silent by my side; I could feel her pressed firmly against me through the fabric of my jacket. Coiled like a sentry dog on high alert, every muscle seemed tuned to threat.

The vertigo was gone.

I slowly rolled over.

The scene still held steady. Nothing much had changed, though Rob had threaded his way toward one of the metal catwalks that stitched across one of the more distant maintenance yards. A familiar grid of yellow hazard stripes marked the concrete, dividing his starting point from a tangled sprawl of pipes, vents, tracks, and walkways scattered like debris across the cordoned zone.

"Okay. So his warning wasn't immediate." She said, her voice almost too quiet to hear beside me as she continued, "We can probably talk, but keep it low so we don't draw any attention."

We continued to watch as Rob shed the last of his casual movements and quickly and efficiently made his way over to a spot that didn't appear particularly accessible. With practiced ease, he cut through the clutter toward a half-obscured section of infrastructure that looked more like a dead end than a viable route. Then, he stopped, right at a recessed junction where three walkways met in a tangle of shadow and rust.

“Most of the catwalks are there from before the Corpos began reactivating them,” Sam said before I could ask. “We can usually pick our way over without being interrupted, provided we've got the right key.”

Silently, Rob dropped into a spot between a web of utility lines and disappeared from sight. I hadn’t expected that, but the faint curve of a guardrail suggested the presence of a stairwell, half-concealed and easy to miss unless you were looking for it. Particularly from where we watched.

“The locks run on automation now.” Sam continued, her voice still low but steady. “Most of the time it’s just maintenance drones drifting through unless a patrol’s been flagged to sweep the zone. What the Corpies haven’t pieced together is that near the first gate, the hardline feeds have been spliced to cycle through randomized schedules."

I nodded, a stray piece finally in place. The constant pressure and sense of urgency? It wasn’t paranoia. We really had raced a clock.

"What was Rob saying earlier?" I asked. “In portsign. Seemed like a bunch of gibberish.”

"It's a code," she replied. "Means we keep our distance from the lock and just watch. Rob came up with it. C, We, Eye—Seaweed Eye. Kelp-eye to Kelpie. Not a perfect match, but close enough to stick."

"Actually..." I paused, surprised by how clearly it clicked. The image of a Kelpie surfaced within my mind. Slick and patient, like something half-submerged in memory. "I do know. Like the water horses from myth, right?"

Sam glanced at me, eyebrows raised. "Yeah. How'd you figure that out?"

"They're shape-shifters," I said. "Aquatic spirits. Usually described as beautiful horses near rivers and lochs."

A flicker of amusement crossed her face. "Locks. Of course. I finally get it." She scanned the terrain ahead. "I asked Rob once why it had to be a horse. He just laughed. Do you know?"

The thought spun in my head. From what I'd read, Kelpies were often cautionary myths. Warnings dressed in allure, designed to remind you beauty could also be a trap.

"I'm not sure why it's a horse, exactly," I admitted. "Maybe something to do with where the legend came from?" She turned to peer forward again. I continued, "But what I do know is a Kelpie doesn't drag you under by force initially. It waits. You have to accept the invitation. Some of the stories say they could appear as beautiful women, or..."

Sam raised her hand, fingers curled into a fist: FREEZE

She swept the terrain with sharp precision, and I felt the itch again. To recalibrate, to prod at the dormant functions embedded in my optics.

The rational core of my mind responded instantly: Not yet.

I wanted data. Craved it like a hunger. But those recovered flag protocols? Still a mess. I hadn't mapped them. Hadn't inventoried their functions. Reactivating them felt reckless at a time like this, like lighting a match in a gas leak.

So I left them inert.

Still didn't explain why she'd stopped.

Her fist dropped, but she still remained silent. Her attention was focused toward the far edge of the lock, like she was trying to hear something buried under the concrete. The silence stretched, not empty, but heavy with a tension I could almost feel.

My imagination made me feel like something had crawled across the back of my neck. It felt insectile. Slimy.

I turned to look behind, just to be certain it was my imagination.

Huh. Nothing. Clear.

Then came the gasp. Raw and wet from behind me.

Sam.

My head and body snapped forward, eyes locked onto the scene ahead. Rob was rising from within the guts of the Lock's infrastructure. Slow. Deliberate. Like he'd waited for the right moment to return. A revenant in streetwear.

And behind him...

My heart began to race as it had on the rail oh-so-many hours ago.

Hair. Perfectly arranged.

A head.

A face.

A set of stormy-grey eyes.

The last set of eyes I ever wanted to see again...

"McCreed."