The ground laughed first.
Not sound—pressure. The street under our boots buckled, then settled like a giant took a slow breath beneath the Gate district. Barricade pylons rattled in their housings. A dead tram shivered on its tracks and vomited sparks. The crater's rim sloughed a meter inward with a noise like concrete chewing ice.
"Line stays tight!" Raene snapped. "Shields front—two-deep!"
Hana's threads flared, a crisp snow of blue light leaping between sheared lamp posts and mangled coil housings. Jax dropped the Grav-Edge's tip to the asphalt, testing the pull, jaw clenched.
Something rose.
