The overload shattered the facility's fragile order. Corridors that once pulsed with a steady hum erupted into a battleground of shifting light and shadow. Flickering panels, slamming doors, and sparks of errant circuitry turned every step into a confrontation with a living, mutating enemy.
Kiera led her team through the maelstrom, her pulse pounding in her ears. "Regroup—now!" she barked over the crackling comm, her voice slicing through the chaos. Automated defenses, desperate to reassert control, triggered alarms and erratic motions that distorted the once-familiar layout.
Aerin's voice, tense and focused, came through next. "Structural shifts detected—walls are moving. This place is adapting to us." The revelation sent a shiver down Kiera's spine. The labyrinth wasn't static; it was reshaping itself, a digital beast fighting back.
Rhys, scanning the dim corridors with his weapon raised, whispered, "Movement up ahead—specialists are converging." Bullets met metal as an automated turret suddenly materialized from the gloom. Kiera dove aside just as a burst of blinding light seared the space, and Rhys's shot split the turret's frame in a shower of sparks.
"This facility is alive," Kiera murmured, a mix of awe and dread in her tone. "It wants us gone."
Over the comm, Elyndra's urgent call crackled from the eastern wing: "Our blackout window's nearly over! Aerin, I need that override now!"
With nimble precision, Aerin's fingers danced across her portable interface, her eyes never leaving the jittering feed. "Recalibrating circuits—if I can force the manual override on the central control, we might carve out an escape route."
As the building trembled around them, each step became a desperate dance with fate. Corridors shifted like the inner workings of a mad mind, and every heartbeat throbbed with the risk of entrapment. Amidst the cacophony of collapsing order, the team pressed onward—united, vulnerable, and determined.