Time Remaining: 36 Days, 20 Hours. (Status: Traveling blind. High beams are dead. Speed is consistent.) Location: Sector 2 - The Serpent's Throat (Mid-Tunnel).
The Iron Horse was running on anger and physics.
The flash-boil had worked, but it had consequences. The engine wasn't humming; it was screaming. The pressure gauge was vibrating so hard the needle was a blur between 100 and 120 PSI.
But the real problem wasn't the engine. It was the lights.
"I can't see!" Zack yelled, his hands white-knuckled on the steering levers.
He was right. The high-beams were dead, blown out by the fuse overload. The only light in the tunnel came from the sparks flying off the wheels and the faint, red emergency glow of the cabin. Beyond the windshield, the world was absolute, crushing blackness.
"Don't brake!" Arthur ordered, standing behind the driver's seat. "If you brake, the friction lights up the tracks, and the Whisperers catch us. We have to outrun the swarm."
