Chapter 75: The Road to Sector Seven
Vane did not answer Glen immediately.
His fingers moved across the war table, and Johannesburg opened beneath them in layers of red, blue, and black light. Sector Three was almost swallowed. Sector Four was breaking along the lower transit lines. Then the map shifted west until Sector Seven appeared like an old scar in the city’s body.
The destroyed Gate Hub sat at its center, marked in black.
Around it, the Sunken Necropolis was covered in warning seals, collapsed routes, dead zones, and unstable Red Gate readings. Eden had files on all of it. Of course they did. Eden always had files. It was the part where they pretended not to know things that made Glen want to start breaking glass.
A large red signal moved beneath the old hospital road, crawling west through the lower arteries of Johannesburg. Smaller infected markers moved around it, gathering in the same direction.
Caleb stepped closer. "That thing is heading toward Sector Seven."
Vane enlarged the signal. "Yes."
Isla’s Frostbreaker clicked softly on her arm. "The Gate Hub is destroyed."
"It is," Vane said.
Glen looked at the moving signal. "Then why is everything going back there?"
No one answered.
That was beginning to annoy him.
Malachi turned toward the control pit. "Reopen Valor’s live relay."
The operator worked fast this time. Static broke over the table, followed by gunfire, shouting, and the deep sound of something heavy striking concrete. Then the projection formed.
Elias Vance appeared in a damaged command bunker washed in red emergency light.
He was seated.
That alone told the room how badly the Wanderer had hurt him.
His armor was gone. Surgical seals covered his chest, and a gold core stabilizer spun over the center of his body. Beneath it, the wound was black and ugly, gray veins spreading from the place where the Wanderer had nearly ripped out his S Rank core.
Elias looked half-dead.
Unfortunately, his eyes still worked.
They found Vane first.
Then Glen.
"You," Elias said.
Glen looked at the stabilizer on his chest. "Still alive?"
Elias’s jaw tightened. "Still useful?"
Glen smiled. "More than you, apparently."
Fraser lowered his head from the medical chair and stayed quiet.
Good.
He was finally developing survival instincts.
Elias leaned forward slightly, then stopped when the stabilizer flared. His face twisted for half a second before he forced it back under control. "Do not mistake my injury for weakness, Mcdonald."
"I am not," Glen said. "Weakness would have killed you already."
The bunker went quiet enough for the gunfire behind Elias to sound louder.
Vane’s mouth twitched faintly.
Elias looked like he wanted to stand up just to spite the wound.
A woman stepped into view behind him before he could try.
Silver hair. White cloak torn by ash and battle. Spear in hand, the wing-shaped blade carrying a quiet silver flame. Seraphine Vance did not enter like someone joining a meeting. She entered like someone had stepped away from a battlefield for ten seconds and expected the battlefield to behave while she was gone.
Her eyes moved over Eden’s room once.
They paused briefly on Glen.
"So that is the boy," she said.
Elias’s face tightened. "Seraphine."
She gave Glen one small, unreadable look. "He does have the face of someone who causes paperwork."
Glen did not smile. "I burn paperwork."
"Better."
That was all she gave him.
Then her attention moved to the map, and the lightness vanished.
Vane pointed at the large moving signal. "What is this?"
Elias answered first. "Unknown corrupted mass. It is gathering fiends as it moves. The ones behind it are bigger than the ones before it. We think it is feeding on cores, but we have not gotten close enough to confirm without losing teams."
Glen looked at him. "You sent teams?"
Elias’s eyes sharpened. "I sent hunters."
"And they died."
"That is usually what losing them means."
The hostility stayed clean between them.
No one softened it.
Seraphine tapped the butt of her spear against the bunker floor. "The mass is not the only problem. The fiends are nesting around the destroyed Gate Hub. Sector Seven is crawling. Whatever is happening there is not random."
Caleb looked at the Red Gate reading. "And the gate?"
Vane’s voice lowered. "S Rank Red Gate signature. Active, distorted, unstable."
The words settled over the platform.
S Rank.
Red Gate.
Sector Seven.
Glen felt Isla grow still beside him.
Caleb’s grip tightened around his focus.
Glen looked at the black mark where the Gate Hub had been. "The Wanderer?"
Elias did not answer quickly.
Seraphine did.
"That is why I am not going into your tunnel."
Everyone looked at her.
She stood behind Elias’s chair, silver fire crawling along the spear blade, calm in a way that did not feel human.
"I am waiting for him," she said.
No joke. No smile.
Just fact.
"If the Wanderer shows himself near Sector Seven, I intercept. If he comes for Elias again, I intercept. If he tries to move through the east line, I intercept. That thing in the tunnel is your problem."
Glen held her gaze through the projection.
SS Rank.
Silver Valkyrie.
The woman who had forced the Wanderer to step back once.
Not defeated him.
Not stopped the war.
Just made a monster like that acknowledge her presence.
That was power.
Real power.
The kind Mary had told him to try and reach before coming after her.
Glen looked back at the map. "Then I take the tunnel."
Vane turned toward him. "You do not even know what the mass is."
"I know where it is going."
"That is not enough."
Glen stepped closer to the war table. "It is moving toward the nest. You have a route. Elias has maps. Eden has toys. I have a sword."
Vane’s black eyes narrowed. "You think that is enough?"
Glen smiled.
Not wide.
Not friendly.
"Enough for the first thing that gets in my way."
Fraser stared at him from the medical chair like he was seeing a stranger wearing an old classmate’s face.
Elias gave a harsh breath. "Still arrogant."
Glen did not look away from the map. "Still alive."
"You are walking toward a low-S threat with two teammates and stolen confidence."
Glen’s eyes moved to him.
"Say stolen again."
The room tightened.
Isla shifted half a step.
Caleb’s focus gave a low hum.
Elias smiled despite the blood at his mouth. "Careful."
"No," Glen said. "You be careful. You are the one sitting down."
Elias’s eyes burned.
For a moment, the entire receiving platform felt ready to crack.
Then Seraphine spoke, quieter than before. "Enough. The mass reaches the outwr Gate Hub tunnels in fifteen minutes."
That cut through the room.
Vane dragged a blue route across the map. "Eden’s south access artery connects to an old maintenance line beneath the hospital district. It does not enter the destroyed Gate Hub. It puts you near the approach route. If you move fast, you intercept before the mass reaches Sector Seven."
Glen looked at the blue line.
Half red.
Half black.
No live feed in the last stretch.
Of course.
"What is in the black zone?" Caleb asked.
Vane looked at him. "Nothing we can still contact."
Isla’s voice was dry. "Wonderful."
Glen pointed at the route. "Gear."
Vane’s gaze returned to him. "Two portable suppressors, four purifier charges, one breach anchor."
"Three suppressors."
"One."
Glen stared at him.
Vane stared back.
Malachi’s white mask angled slightly. "Two."
Vane’s mouth tightened. "Two."
Glen accepted it.
Not because he was satisfied.
Because the clock was moving.
Elias leaned back in his chair, face pale beneath the red light. "If you fail, that mass reaches the nest. If it reaches the nest, the next wave comes from Sector Seven."
Glen looked at the moving signal.
"And if I do not fail?"
Seraphine answered instead of Elias. "Then you buy me a cleaner field when the Wanderer shows up."
Glen glanced at her.
She smiled faintly this time.
Very faintly.
"Try not to die before then. I want to see whether the attitude is attached to talent."
Glen’s mouth curved. "Try not to blink when you watch."
For the first time, Seraphine looked properly amused.
Elias did not.
"I hate him," Elias said.
"You hate everyone with a pulse," Seraphine replied.
"I tolerate some pulses."
"Name one."
Elias looked at the map instead.
The bunker shook again. This time something silver flashed behind Seraphine as she turned, and the light from her spear spilled across the projection. Voices shouted off-screen.
She stepped away from Elias’s chair. "He is close enough to make the line nervous."
"The Wanderer?" Malachi asked.
Seraphine’s smile vanished.
"No," she said. "But something wants us to think so."
Then she looked back once, not at Eden, not at Vane, but at Elias. "Stay sitting."
Elias’s eyes narrowed. "Do not give me orders."
"Then stop needing them."
She moved out of frame, silver fire bursting a second later somewhere beyond the projection.
Elias remained.
His breathing was worse now.
The stabilizer spun too fast over the wound.
Still, he looked at Glen like hatred alone could keep him upright.
"Fifteen minutes," he said. "If you are going, go."
Glen nodded once.
No thanks.
No promise.
The relay cut.
The war table remained bright.
The red mass kept crawling toward Sector Seven.
Vane turned toward the lower platform. "Prepare the suppressors, charges, and breach anchor."
A lift rose from below carrying two black cases stamped with Eden hazard seals, four compact purifier charges, and a folded anchor locked in steel. Glen took the first case. Caleb took the second. Isla clipped the charges to her belt and checked the seals with quick fingers.
Fraser watched from the medical chair, pale and silent.
Glen looked at him once. "Still breathing?"
Fraser’s jaw tightened. "Yes."
"Good. Try not to die."
Fraser had no answer.
The south access doors opened, and cold air rolled out. It smelled of ash, rust, old water, and something rotten moving under the city.
Vane’s voice followed them. "If the Red Gate surges, the route may close behind you."
Glen stepped into the dark.
"Then keep up."
"That was not reassurance."
"I was not reassuring you."
Isla moved on his right.
Caleb moved on his left.
Behind them, Eden’s receiving platform glowed with maps, alarms, and watching eyes.
Ahead, the tunnel lights flickered one by one, leading down into the lower arteries beneath Johannesburg.
The moving signal had fifteen minutes.
Sector Seven was waiting.
The Wanderer was somewhere in the dark, or close enough that an SS Rank was waiting for him.
And Glen was done standing still while stronger monsters decided the shape of his life.
He tightened his grip on the case and walked faster.
The tunnel swallowed him whole.
