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Noah stayed under the street hatch and kept his mouth shut, even when the loudspeaker said his name again. The metal above him vibrated with boots, and dust fell into his hair. His hands shook from the crystal pain that still hadn't finished, so he pressed his palm against the wall until the shaking calmed enough to hold a knife.Riley crouched on the other side of Owen and whispered, "They want you alive. That means you're worth more than both of us." Her eyes cut to the hatch like she was already counting the steps to the surface. Owen tried to breathe quietly, but his throat made a wet sound that did not care about plans.Noah lifted the hatch a finger-width and looked up. White floodlights washed the street, and a line of barricades cut the road in half like a wall. Men in hard helmets held rifles low, but they also held strange launchers that looked like tube nets. A camera on a pole panned back and forth, slow and steady, like it had all night.Cages sat near the curb, and people sat inside them with their heads down. A woman in a dirty jacket knelt outside one cage and wrapped a strip of cloth around a man's leg, tight enough to make him hiss. Her hands moved fast and sure, like she had done it a hundred times. Two steps away, a calm woman with sharp eyes stood with her hands tied in front of her, still watching the guards like she was studying them.The loudspeaker cracked again. "Noah Carter. Come up now. Hands visible. If you run, we process them first." The word process made the guards shift, and one of them tapped the side of a black van with a painted sign: INTAKE. HEAD INTACT.Noah's stomach tightened. They weren't here to "restore order." They were here to take things. They wanted bodies, and they wanted heads that were not broken.Riley's whisper turned hard. "Open it. Give them you. I walk away." She didn't sound cruel. She sounded like the math was easy. Noah looked at her hands and saw the small plastic band she hadn't had before, thin and gray, like a pass tag.He understood, and the anger came clean and cold. She had picked it up somewhere. Maybe she had already shown them something, maybe just a name. Either way, the deal was already moving, and he was the price.Owen coughed again, and the sound rolled up the shaft like a bell. From the dark behind them, something scraped on concrete. Noah turned, and his eyes caught a shape moving low and fast, wrong in the tunnel's thin light.It was a zombie, but not like the ones he fought yesterday. This one didn't stumble. It hugged the wall and slid forward, its head tilted like it was listening. When it smelled Owen's blood, it snapped forward in a burst that made Noah's heart jump.Noah fired once, but the shot hit shoulder and did nothing but punch meat. The zombie didn't even slow. So Noah stepped in, jammed his knife into the eye socket, and forced it deep with both hands. The skull felt thicker, and the blade scraped bone instead of sinking clean.The zombie's nails raked his forearm as it died, and warm blood ran down to his wrist. Noah hissed and ripped the knife free, then slammed a pipe down on the head until the bone cracked. The sound was ugly, wet, and loud.He forced himself to finish the chain. He pried the cracked skull open with the pipe, digging past ruin and heat, until his fingers touched something hard. He pulled out a dark crystal the size of a fingernail, slick with brain matter, and the moment it hit the air Riley's gaze locked on it like a starving animal."Give it," she said."No," Noah said. His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.Riley's hand twitched, ready to snatch, but Noah lifted the pistol and aimed at her chest, not her head. "Try it," he told her, "and you bleed next." Owen groaned, and Noah hated how much the choice hurt even while he made it.Above them, the hatch rattled again. Someone tested it, then stopped. Noah heard a radio click and a short sentence he couldn't make out, and the fear turned sharp. They were not just waiting. They were listening.Noah shoved the crystal into his pocket and grabbed Owen under the arm. "Move," he said. Riley stared up at the hatch one more time, then followed because the other option was a cage.They ran down the service tunnel until the air got colder and the walls sweated. Noah's legs moved faster than they should have, but his body felt wrong, like his skin was too tight. His ears picked up small sounds now, too many of them—drips, scuffs, the distant hum of a generator, and the far-off scrape of boots entering the tunnels behind them.The old tactics were dying in real time. The zombies were faster, the skulls were tougher, and the humans had learned to hunt without killing. Noah could feel the world turning into a trap with fewer exits every hour.A rusted gate blocked the next corridor, chained shut. Noah hit it once and it barely moved, so he yanked the chain with both hands until it bit into his palms. The metal gave a little, but not enough, and behind them the tunnel echoed again with a low, eager shuffle.Noah made the call. He pulled the crystal out, wiped it once on his jeans, and pressed it to his tongue. The taste was like metal and ash. Then he swallowed.Pain hit him so hard his knees almost folded. His jaw clenched until his teeth hurt, and his vision flashed white. He tasted blood, and for a second he couldn't remember why he was underground at all.In the white flash, a clean room appeared. A man in gloves said, "Cross, don't break the head." Noah heard his own name, Daniel, spoken like a file number. Then it was gone, and he was back in the tunnel, shaking and breathing like he had been kicked by a horse.He stood anyway. His muscles felt fuller, tighter, ready to snap forward. The chain on the gate was still there, but when he yanked it now, it tore loose like cheap wire. He shoved the gate open and dragged Owen through, and Riley slipped after them, eyes wide with a mix of fear and greed.--- They pushed into a narrow utility hall with pipes overhead and a locked door at the end. A keypad sat beside it, dark. Noah reached for it anyway because he had no better path, and the moment his fingers touched the metal, a voice hissed from the other side."Don't," the voice said. "I'll shoot."Noah froze and lifted his empty hand. "We're not Authority," he said. "We're bleeding. We need thirty seconds."The door opened a crack, and the same woman he saw above—dirty jacket, fast hands—looked out with a pistol aimed at his face. Her eyes flicked to Owen's leg, to the blood, then back to Noah. She didn't look soft. She looked tired and angry."You bring trouble," she said."It followed us," Noah said. "It will follow you too."She opened the door wider, just enough to pull Owen inside. The room smelled like bleach and old food. She shoved Owen onto the floor, knelt, and started working like she was on a timer. Her hands didn't shake even when Owen bit back a scream.Riley leaned against the wall, watching, and Noah watched Riley. He could feel the crystal in his gut like a burning stone, and his thoughts kept trying to slide into sharp corners. He had to keep his head straight, because one bad call meant a cage."You're a medic," Noah said to the woman."Not yours," she snapped. "You pay, or you leave."Noah pulled a battery pack from his bag and held it up. "Trade," he said. "You patch him, we go."Her eyes tracked it, and she swallowed once. "Two," she said.Noah didn't argue. He tossed a second pack, and she caught it without looking away from Owen's wound. "Name," she said, not friendly."Noah," he lied on habit. He watched her jaw tighten like she knew it was a lie and didn't care. "Mara," she said, like it was a warning.Outside, the tunnel carried new sounds. Boots, measured and close. A radio whisper. Then a sharp pop, like someone testing a net gun.Mara's head snapped up. "They tracked you," she said.Noah's new hearing caught it too, and he felt sick because it meant the Authority wasn't guessing anymore. They were following the blood, the noise, and maybe something else he couldn't see.He made another dirty choice. Noah grabbed a wrench from a shelf and smashed a pipe valve near the door, hard. Water burst out, screaming into the hall, and it echoed down the tunnel like a beacon. The flood would slow anyone coming through, but it would also pull zombies like a dinner bell.Riley stared at him. "You're insane.""Better than a cage," Noah said.The first zombie hit the far end of the hall ten seconds later, drawn by sound and wet heat. Then another. Their heads were low, their steps faster, and the water made them slip but not stop. Behind them, Authority boots paused, and Noah heard a guard curse as something heavy splashed.Mara grabbed her bag and backed up. "Get out," she said. "Now."Noah hauled Owen up, half-carrying him, and pushed toward a side hatch Mara kicked open. It led into a cramped duct that smelled like rust and oil. Riley went first, then Owen, then Noah, and as he crawled in, he heard the net gun fire again, followed by a human scream that turned into a gurgle.--- The duct spilled them into a drainage tunnel that angled up toward daylight. Noah's muscles worked better now, but his mind kept skipping like a scratched disc. He had to count breaths to stay in control. One, two, three, move.They reached a grate and stared through it at the street behind the checkpoint. A line of abandoned cars sat like dead animals, and beyond them the INTAKE van waited with its back doors open. A guard dragged someone toward it by the collar, and Noah saw Mara's dirty jacket for half a second before she vanished behind the door.Riley's face changed. Not guilt. Not fear. Just calculation. She raised her voice and screamed, "He's here! Daniel Cross is here!"For a heartbeat, the street froze. Then the world snapped tight.A guard swung toward the grate with a launcher, and a thin dart punched through the metal holes and hit Noah's neck. Heat spread fast under his skin. His legs tried to fold.Riley's eyes widened, shocked that the deal didn't save her. A second dart hit her shoulder, and she stumbled back, swearing, panic finally breaking through.Noah ripped the dart out, and blood followed it. The crystal inside him screamed for more, for power, for violence. He swallowed that urge like poison and forced his body to move anyway.He shoved Owen toward a gap between cars. "Run," he told him, even though Owen could barely walk. Then Noah moved the other way because he needed the guards to split, and splitting them was the only chance he had.A drone buzzed overhead, and a red light painted his chest for half a second. The loudspeaker came back, calm as a judge. "Daniel Cross. Stop running. We can see you."Noah sprinted into the shadow between buildings, bleeding, shaking, and faster than he had any right to be. Behind him, the checkpoint alarms rose, and somewhere inside the INTAKE van, a door slammed shut like a mouth.