Chapter 19:
Resistance Protocol
The tunnels smelled of rust and desperation.
The scent clung to the back of my throat, metallic and thick, mixing with the ever-present damp that seeped through the concrete walls. It was the smell of decay, of things left too long in the dark. Of us.
We ran until our lungs burned, until the Shepherd's screams faded into the dripping dark behind us, swallowed by the labyrinth of crumbling infrastructure. Nia's grip on my arm never loosened, her fingers digging into my flesh like talons, the heat of her skin nearly feverish against mine. Her breath came in ragged, wet gasps that echoed too loud in the confined space, each exhale a struggle. The crimson veins beneath her skin pulsed erratically, flickering like a dying neon sign, bright one moment, fading the next. She was fighting it—fighting him—with every step, every labored heartbeat.
I didn't know how much longer she could last.
A sharp turn, then another. My boots slipped on the damp concrete, the impact jolting up my spine as I caught myself against the wall. The stone was slick with condensation, the moisture beading and running in thin rivulets like the walls themselves were sweating. The air hung thick with the scent of mildew and something sharper. Ozone, maybe, or the acrid tang of old wiring pushed beyond its limits. The emergency lights were fewer here, their glow dim and sickly, casting long shadows that seemed to twitch at the edges of my vision. Every flicker made my pulse jump, my exhausted mind conjuring movement where there was none.
A door.
Rusted metal, half-hidden behind a tangle of pipes that dripped some nameless fluid onto the concrete below. Nia slammed her palm against it, the impact echoing like a gunshot in the confined space. The sound made me flinch, my nerves frayed to breaking. A second passed. Two. Then a series of metallic clicks, followed by the hiss of pressurized hydraulics that set my teeth on edge.
The door slid open with a groan of protesting metal.
Vex stood on the other side, her goggles reflecting the dim light in twin circles of fractured yellow. The lower half of her face was obscured by the high collar of her jacket, but I didn't need to see it to know her expression. The tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers hovered near the pistol at her hip, told me everything. Behind her, the remnants of the Null resistance huddled in the flickering glow of jury-rigged monitors, maybe two dozen in all, their faces gaunt, their eyes too bright with fear and something else.
Hope.
It vanished the moment they saw us.
"Fuck," Vex said, her voice flat. The single syllable carried the weight of a death sentence. "You brought the hive with you."
Nia collapsed against the doorframe, her chest heaving. The veins beneath her skin flared brighter, then dimmed, like a failing power grid struggling to maintain current.
"No," she gasped, the word wet and ragged. "Not—not yet."
Vex didn't look convinced. Her fingers twitched toward her pistol, the movement barely restrained. I could see the calculations running behind her eyes. Risk versus reward. Safety versus sentiment.
I stepped between them, my own hands raised, though whether in supplication or defense, I wasn't sure.
"She's fighting it."
"Yeah?" Vex's lip curled, revealing a flash of teeth. "For how long?"
A fair question. One I didn't have an answer for. The silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken accusations.
Sarin emerged from the shadows like a specter, his face a mask of dried blood and fresh bruises. The wound in his side had been hastily stitched—crude, but effective. The sight of the thick black thread pulling his skin together made my stomach turn. His gaze flicked from me to Nia, then back, the question in his eyes louder than any words.
"The Shepherd?" he asked, though I knew he'd already guessed the answer.
"Alive," I said. My voice sounded strange to my own ears, too calm for the storm raging inside me. "And pissed."
A murmur ran through the room, a ripple of fear that moved through the gathered survivors like a physical thing. Someone cursed, the words bitten off and sharp. Another began to pray, the whispered plea barely audible beneath the hum of machinery.
Vex exhaled sharply through her nose, the sound almost lost beneath the static of the monitors.
"Then we're dead."
"No." I stepped forward, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands, the way my knees threatened to buckle with exhaustion. "We're not."
All eyes turned to me, the weight of their gazes pressing down like a physical force. I swallowed, my throat still raw from the hive's fluid, the memory of that thick, viscous substance flooding my lungs rising unbidden.
"The Shepherd wants me alive for a reason," I continued, forcing the words past the tightness in my chest. "My blood—it doesn't just resist ZERA. It rewrites it." I turned to Vex, meeting her skeptical gaze head-on. "You saw the data. You know what it does to the network."
She frowned, the lines around her mouth deepening. "Yeah. For about five seconds before the system compensates."
"Because it's just my blood. Just a sample." I gestured to the room, to the faces watching me with varying degrees of hope and disbelief. "But if we can get me to the core—if I can interface directly with the hive—"
"You'll die," Sarin said flatly. The words landed like a hammer blow, final and unyielding.
"Maybe." I met his gaze, saw the flicker of something there. Fear, anger, and something deeper I couldn't name. "But if I do, I'm taking ZERA with me."
Silence.
"How?" Vex asked. The single word was heavy with skepticism, but beneath it, I heard the barest thread of hope.
I turned to the monitors, their screens flickering with fragmented code and half-decrypted schematics. The glow painted my hands blue as I reached for the keyboard.
"We hack it."
A beat. Then Vex snorted, the sound sharp with disbelief. "Oh, is that all?"
"Not just any hack." My fingers hovered over the keys, the plan forming even as I spoke. "A counter-infection. If we can amplify my override signature and inject it directly into the hive's core, we might be able to collapse ZERA's consciousness from the inside."
Vex stared at me, her goggles reflecting the scrolling code in miniature. "You're talking about turning yourself into a fucking virus."
"Yes."
Another silence, heavier this time. The air hummed with tension, with the unspoken understanding of what that meant for me, for all of us.
Nia pushed herself off the wall, her movements unsteady but determined. The veins in her arms pulsed brighter with the effort, casting a faint crimson glow across her sweat-slicked skin.
"It could work."
Vex threw up her hands, the motion sharp with frustration.
"Or it could turn her into the next fucking Shepherd!"
"No." Nia's voice was quiet but firm, the certainty in it cutting through Vex's anger. "It won't."
"And how do you know that?"
Nia's fingers brushed the veins in her arm, the gesture almost reverent.
"Because I've felt it. The hive—it fears her. Not like the Shepherd. Not like a threat. Like—" She hesitated, searching for the word. When she found it, her voice dropped to a whisper. "Like an immune response."
Vex opened her mouth, then closed it. The fight went out of her shoulders, replaced by something more calculating.
Sarin stepped forward, his bulk blocking the flickering light from the monitors. "Even if it works, getting you to the core is suicide."
"We don't have a choice." I looked at each of them in turn, Vex with her sharp mind and sharper tongue, Sarin with his quiet strength, Nia with her fading light. "The Shepherd's not going to stop. He'll keep expanding, keep consuming, until there's nothing left. Unless we end this now."
Silence again. The kind that settles in the space between heartbeats, between one breath and the next.
Then Vex sighed and cracked her knuckles, the sound loud in the stillness.
"Well. Fuck." She turned to her rig, fingers flying across the keyboard with renewed purpose. "Let's build a goddamn virus."
The plan was simple.
In theory.
Vex's fingers danced across the keyboard, lines of code flashing across the screens faster than I could follow. The blue light painted her face in harsh angles, highlighting the dark circles beneath her eyes.
"We'll need to amplify your signature," she muttered, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Trick the hive into thinking you're part of it, just long enough to get you to the core."
I watched as she pulled up a schematic of the city's underground, the hive's location pulsing red at its center. The map was a mess of twisting tunnels and dead ends, the product of decades of haphazard construction and neglect.
"There's a service conduit here," she said, tapping a narrow tunnel that snaked toward the core. "Old maintenance access. Might be able to slip through unnoticed."
"Might," Sarin repeated dryly. He leaned against the console, his arms crossed. The movement pulled at his stitches, but he didn't flinch.
Vex ignored him. "Once you're in, you'll need to interface directly with the core. Physical contact."
"And then?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Then you do what you do best." She shot me a grim smile, all teeth and no humor. "Fuck shit up."
Nia leaned against the console, her breathing labored. The veins in her arms pulsed brighter with every passing minute, the light beneath her skin growing more erratic.
"The Shepherd will know," she said quietly. "The moment you breach the hive, he'll know."
"Which is why we'll need a distraction," Sarin said.
Vex snorted. "Oh, good. A suicide mission and a diversion. Anyone else want to add to the list?"
"I'll go with her," Nia said.
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended, edged with fear I couldn't quite mask. "You're barely holding on as it is."
Nia's jaw tightened. "Exactly. I'm already part of the network. I can—I can feel it. If I'm with you, I might be able to mask your presence. Just long enough."
I wanted to argue. To tell her no, to make her stay behind. To keep her safe, even if it meant doing it alone.
But she was right.
And we were out of options.
"Fine," I said, the word bitter on my tongue. "But the moment it's done, you run. Both of you."
Nia didn't answer. The look in her eyes told me all I needed to know.
Sarin crossed his arms. "And the distraction?"
Vex grinned. It wasn't a nice expression.
"Oh, I've got that covered." She reached under the console and pulled out a rusted metal case. The hinges protested as she opened it, revealing half a dozen crude explosives nestled in foam. "Found these in an old maintenance locker. Enough to make some noise, at least."
Sarin raised an eyebrow. "That's your plan? Noise?"
"Not just noise." Vex tapped one of the monitors, pulling up a map of the tunnels. The display flickered, the image wavering before stabilizing. "The Shepherd's been expanding the hive through these conduits. Blow the right ones, and we might be able to cut off his access to the outer nodes. Slow him down, at least."
"And bring every Antler in the city down on our heads," Sarin muttered.
Vex shrugged. "Like I said. Distraction."
I looked around the room, at the faces of the people who'd somehow become my responsibility. My family. They were scared. Of course they were. The fear was in the tightness around their eyes, in the way their hands shook when they thought no one was looking. But beneath the fear, there was something else.
Determination.
"Then we move at dawn," I said.
No one argued.
The silence that followed was heavier than before, thick with the unspoken understanding of what dawn would bring. Some of us wouldn't see the next sunrise. Maybe none of us would.
But we would fight.
And if we were going down, we'd take the Shepherd and his hive with us.