The sterile, blue white corridors of Dominion Sector Nine's data archives hummed with oppressive order. Izaki moved with a practiced calm he didn't feel, his regulation grey uniform a perfect camouflage. The Aethelburg data burned on a secure chip in his pocket, a dangerous weight. He needed to reach Emma. Her workshop in the under levels was their pre arranged emergency rendezvous.
He rounded a corner, nearly colliding with a maintenance drone. Its optical sensor, a cold blue lens, lingered on him for a fraction too long. Paranoia, or was the system already flagging him?
"Citizen Izaki," a synthesized voice echoed from a hidden speaker. "Your presence is required in Sub Level 4, Data Reconciliation. Marshal's office has flagged your recent access patterns."
Izaki's blood ran cold. They knew. Or suspected enough. "Acknowledged," he replied, his voice a carefully modulated monotone. "Proceeding now."
He didn't proceed to Sub Level 4. He turned, a sharp, decisive movement, and plunged into a restricted service conduit, the emergency release hissing softly as he sealed it behind him. The polished corridors gave way to a maze of grimy pipes and sparking junction boxes.
Emma was already there, her usually bright workshop a scene of hurried packing. Sparks flew from a device she was hastily disabling. Emma, with her cascade of unruly auburn hair pulled back in a tight knot and grease smudges on her cheek, looked up, her hazel eyes wide with alarm. "Izaki! What's wrong? I've been getting system alerts – security lockdowns initiated across the upper levels."
"Aethelburg is gone," Izaki said, the words stark even in the cluttered space. "Vanished. I have the logs. And Dominion knows I know. Or they're onto something. We have to leave. Now."
Emma's face paled. She'd heard the whispers from Aethelburg, the same ones that had drawn Izaki's attention. "Vanished? How?"
"No time. Where's Yohan?"
"He's prepping the 'Rat'," Emma said, gesturing towards a heavily modified maintenance crawler hidden beneath a tarp in the corner. The 'Desert Rat' was their unlikely escape vehicle, something Emma had been working on for months, piece by painstaking piece, siphoning parts and power cells. "He picked up chatter about a sector wide security sweep starting any minute. He said to meet him at Ventilation Shaft 7B – it vents out into the old, decommissioned transport tunnels."
Just then, the heavy plasteel door to the workshop began to groan, a tell tale sign of a forced breach. Red emergency lights pulsed, casting long, dancing shadows.
"They found us faster than I thought," Izaki muttered, pulling Emma towards the hidden exit behind a bank of deactivated servers. "Let's go!"
They scrambled into the narrow maintenance passage, the sounds of the door buckling echoing behind them. The air was thick with dust and the smell of ozone. Yohan, lanky and perpetually anxious but surprisingly agile, was waiting by the massive, grimy opening of Shaft 7B. He had a satchel slung across his chest, no doubt filled with essential tech and whatever intelligence he'd managed to snag.
"Took you long enough!" Yohan hissed, his eyes darting nervously. "Security's sealing the lower levels. We've got maybe five minutes before this shaft is swarming with Enforcer drones."
The Desert Rat was a marvel of illicit engineering. Emma had stripped it down to its chassis, reinforced its armor with scavenged plates, and boosted its power core far beyond regulation specs. It was ugly, angular, and utterly out of place in the Dominion's sleek aesthetic, but it was theirs.
They piled in. Izaki took the crude pilot seat, Emma co piloted and managed systems, and Yohan squeezed in the back, already trying to interface his data pad with the crawler's makeshift sensors.
"Hold on," Izaki grunted, slamming the activation lever. The Rat lurched forward with a surprising burst of speed, its treads clattering as it plunged into the darkness of the old transport tunnel. Behind them, they heard the distinct whine of Dominion hover platforms descending the ventilation shaft.
"They're on our tail!" Emma yelled over the roar of the engine, her fingers flying across a console, trying to seal the shaft entrance behind them. A shower of sparks erupted as a magnetic lock engaged with a clang. "That won't hold them for long."
The tunnel was a chaotic mess of collapsed sections and treacherous drops. Izaki navigated with instinct and the flickering schematics Emma was feeding him. Laser fire suddenly stitched across the tunnel behind them, an Enforcer squad's warning shots.
"They're definitely not happy we borrowed their crawler," Yohan quipped, his voice tight with fear but laced with his usual nervous humor. He was trying to jam their pursuers' targeting systems. "Izaki, left upcoming junction! It's a tighter squeeze, but it's less stable. Might slow them down if we can cause a minor cave in."
Izaki didn't hesitate, wrenching the controls. The Rat scraped against the tunnel walls, showering them with debris. Emma, anticipating the move, fired a small, precisely aimed concussive charge from a repurposed mining laser bolted to the Rat's side. The tunnel behind them groaned, then a section of the ceiling collapsed with a deafening roar, plumes of dust billowing out.
"That bought us some time," Izaki said, his knuckles white on the controls. The chase was far from over. They were out of Sector Nine, but they were now officially fugitives, hunted by the most powerful and ruthless force on the planet. The lights of the sprawling mega city receded as they plunged deeper into the forgotten underbelly of their world. Freedom, if they could even call this desperate flight that, tasted like grit and fear.