The substructure beneath Gate Seven was an underground maze of pre-Cataclysm work channels, high-voltage power channels, and massive three-meter air-flow shafts that supplied filtered air to the lower arcologies of Mega-City 07.
Down here, twenty meters below the frozen mud of the courtyard, the ear-splitting concussions of the artillery batteries above were muffled into a rhythmic, grinding shaking that shook rusted iron flakes from the overhead pipes. The air was cool, damp, and smelled of rusted iron and machine oil.
Arthur Vance dropped the circular iron service ladder into Sub-Level 3, his combat boots landing silently in an inch of murky standing drainage water.
Suspended across his tactical vest harness was Echo’s portable sky travel flask. A tube-shaped, shock-resistant container of oxygenated stone saline. Floating inside the flask, Echo’s semi-clear pink body drifted lazily, his feathery crimson outer gills fanning through the water. The blind axolotl tilted his blunt, flat snout upward toward Arthur’s chin, releasing a tiny, calm bubble that popped against the watching glass: bloop.
Beside Arthur’s knee, the darkness folded inward.
Vesper slipped from the shadows like a pool of spilled liquid silver. The Shadow Phantom Panther—her sleek, muscular frame clad in short, silver-tipped charcoal fur—moved without producing a single decibel of sound. Her long, sinuous tail flicked once, the tuft at its tip brushing against Arthur’s calf in a brief, possessive greeting. Her violet slit-pupils swelled until they drank in the total darkness of the underground hall.
