Chapter 37
title: "Tell Them We Were Here" wordCount: 3229
The transmission bar hit one hundred percent and Dex's vitals flatlined on the same screen. Cass heard herself screaming his name into dead air, the comm channel nothing but static, and Finn's hands locked around her waist as she lunged for the airlock controls.
"He's gone." Finn's voice in her ear. "Cass, he's gone."
She twisted against his grip. The monitor showed Dex's body sprawled across the antenna array, one hand still clutching the transmission relay. Black fungal growth covered his suit from neck to fingertips. The spore counter in the corner of the feed read critical saturation.
"Let me go."
"You can't reach him in time."
"Doesn't matter."
But her hands stopped fighting. She watched the screen. Dex's chest didn't move. The oxygen saturation number dropped to zero and stayed there.
Finn released her slowly, ready to grab again if she bolted. She didn't. Her legs felt distant, someone else's legs, carrying someone else's weight.
The main display flickered. Then every screen in the communications hub lit up with the same feed—the Archive footage playing on loop across every sector of the Vaults. She saw her father's face, younger, arguing with someone off-camera. Saw the Bloom samples in their containment units. Saw the selection protocols, the calculations, the names of the chosen and the discarded.
"It's broadcasting everywhere." Finn moved to the console, fingers flying across the interface. "Every public screen, every private terminal. He did it."
The dog tags under her shirt felt cold against her sternum.
On one monitor, Sector Seven's main plaza filled with people. They stood motionless at first, watching the screens. Then someone threw a rock. The screen shattered. The crowd surged forward toward the Council office entrance.
Another monitor showed Sector Three. Enforcers removing their helmets, dropping their weapons, walking away from their posts.
Sector Twelve. A woman climbed onto a platform and started speaking. The crowd around her grew.
"Run the numbers," Finn said. "How many sectors are we seeing this in?"
"All of them." Her voice sounded flat in her own ears. "Every single one."
The door behind them exploded inward.
Cass spun, hand going to the knife at her belt, but the figures pouring through weren't enforcers. Ward residents. She recognized the woman in front—Kella, who ran the water reclamation station. Behind her, two dozen more, carrying cutting torches and pry bars and lengths of pipe.
"We saw the broadcast." Kella's face was streaked with soot. "Saw what they did to your father. Saw what they've been doing to all of us."
"How did you get through the seals?"
"Cut through them." Kella hefted her torch. "Took three hours. Would've been faster but we had to dodge patrols." She looked at the screens, at the riots spreading across the sectors. "Looks like we're not the only ones who decided enough was enough."
More Ward residents flooded in. Cass recognized faces from the market, from the salvage yards, from the lower tunnels where people went when they had nowhere else to go. They weren't just here to help. They were armed. Organized. Ready.
"We need to move," Finn said. "If the Ward residents could cut through, enforcers can too."
"Where?" Cass looked at the screens again. Every sector showed chaos. Fires. Crowds. Violence spreading like the Bloom itself.
"Anywhere but here." Kella gestured to her people. "We've got a route mapped through the maintenance shafts. Gets us to Sector Nine without hitting any main corridors."
"Why Sector Nine?"
"Because that's where the armory is." Kella's smile showed too many teeth. "And because half the enforcers there just defected."
The screens flickered. All of them, simultaneously. The riot footage vanished, replaced by a single image—the Council chambers, and Vera Latch sitting at the head of the table. Her hands were folded. Her expression was calm.
"Citizens of the Vaults." Her voice came through every speaker in the hub. "What you have witnessed today is a carefully constructed fabrication designed to destabilize our community during a time of crisis. The individuals responsible for this attack on our social order will be identified and dealt with according to our laws."
"Lying bitch," someone muttered behind Cass.
"However." Vera leaned forward slightly. "I understand that many of you are frightened. Confused. Angry. These are natural responses to such a sophisticated deception. To demonstrate the Council's commitment to transparency and justice, I am offering amnesty to anyone who ceases their unlawful activities within the next thirty minutes. Return to your homes. Return to your duties. Help us restore order, and you will not be prosecuted for your actions today."
The feed cut to footage of Sector Seven. The crowd that had been attacking the Council office was now surrounded by enforcers in full riot gear. Smoke grenades detonated. People scattered, coughing, falling.
"She's making an example," Finn said.
"She's making a mistake." Kella turned to her people. "Everyone who's not armed, start evacuating the Breathers. Everyone else, with me. We're holding this position until—"
Every screen went black.
Then the lights died.
Emergency lighting kicked in after three seconds of absolute darkness, bathing everything in red. The air recyclers' constant hum cut out. Silence rushed in to fill the space.
"No." Finn was already at the console, pulling up system diagnostics. "No, no, no."
"What is it?"
"Life support." His fingers moved faster. "She shut down the Ward's life support. Complete system lockdown. No air circulation, no filtration, no—" He stopped. Looked at her. "We've got maybe forty minutes of breathable air left in here."
"Can you override it?"
"Not from here. The command came from the Council chambers. I'd need direct access to the primary environmental controls."
Kella grabbed his shoulder. "How long to get there?"
"Through the maintenance shafts? Twenty minutes if we run."
"Then we run."
"Wait." Cass pointed at the screens. They'd flickered back to life, showing camera feeds from throughout the Ward. "Look."
The Ward's main concourse. People stumbling out of buildings as the air thinned. Children crying. Someone collapsed against a wall, gasping. And in the center of it all, a figure in a contaminated environment suit dragging itself forward on hands and knees.
Dex.
His suit was more fungus than fabric now, black growth spreading across every surface. But he was moving. Slowly, agonizingly, but moving.
"He's alive." The words came out before Cass could stop them.
"He's dying." Finn's voice was gentle. "The spore saturation—"
"I can see the fucking numbers."
On screen, Dex reached the center of the concourse and stopped. He knelt there for a moment, head bowed. Then he raised his arms.
People began gathering around him. Ward residents. Breathers who'd been trapped in the sealed sector. They formed a circle, then another circle outside that one. Dozens of them. Then hundreds.
Someone started singing.
Cass didn't recognize the song at first. Old words, older melody. Something from before the Vaults, from when people still worked in mines and fields under open sky. A song about darkness and depth and the light you carried with you into the earth.
More voices joined. The sound came through the speakers, tinny and distorted but unmistakable. They were singing as the oxygen depleted. Singing as their lips turned blue and their lungs burned. Singing around a dying man who'd given everything to make sure the truth survived.
Dex's head lifted. His face was barely visible through the fungal growth covering his helmet, but his mouth moved. The comm channel crackled to life.
"Tell them we were here."
His voice was a rasp, barely human. But the words were clear.
"Tell them we didn't go quiet."
He collapsed forward. The singing continued around his body, growing softer as people fell to their knees, as they lay down on the cold metal floor, as the air turned to poison in their lungs.
Cass's hand found the dog tags under her shirt. Squeezed until the metal edges cut into her palm.
"We need to move." Kella's voice came from far away. "Now, or we die with them."
"She killed them." Cass couldn't look away from the screen. "Two hundred people. She just killed two hundred people."
"And she'll kill two hundred more if we don't get out of here." Finn touched her arm. "Cass. We have to go."
The singing stopped.
The Ward's main concourse was silent except for the emergency alarms. Bodies lay in circles around Dex's still form. Some of them were still moving, fingers twitching, chests rising and falling in shallow gasps. But most were motionless.
Cass turned away from the screens.
"Show me the route."
The maintenance shafts were narrow enough that they had to move single file, hunched over, hands on the walls for balance. Kella led, her torch providing the only light beyond the emergency strips. Behind Cass, Finn kept one hand on her shoulder, steadying himself as they navigated the turns.
The air was already getting thin. Cass felt it in her lungs, the way each breath took more effort than the last. Around her, people were starting to wheeze.
"How much further?" someone called from the back.
"Ten minutes." Kella didn't slow down. "Maybe less if we—"
The shaft shuddered. Metal groaned. Somewhere ahead, something massive slammed into place with a sound like thunder.
"Blast doors." Finn's hand tightened on Cass's shoulder. "She's sealing the sector completely."
"Can we get through?"
"Not without cutting equipment. And not before the air runs out."
Kella stopped. Turned. Her face in the torchlight looked carved from stone. "Then we find another way."
"There is no other way." Finn pulled up a schematic on his datapad, the screen's glow painting his face blue. "Every exit from the Ward goes through a blast door. She's locked us in."
"So we unlock them."
"From where? The controls are in the Council chambers."
"Then we go to the Council chambers."
"Through sealed blast doors?"
"Through the ventilation system." Cass pushed past Kella, studying the schematic over Finn's shoulder. "The air has to come from somewhere. Even if she shut down the recyclers, the ducts are still there."
Finn zoomed in on the map. "The main ventilation trunk runs from the Ward to Sector Nine. But it's not designed for people. The diameter is maybe two feet."
"I've been in smaller spaces."
"Not for a quarter mile you haven't."
"You have a better idea?"
He didn't answer. Just stared at the schematic, his jaw working.
"I'll go." Kella stepped forward. "I'm smaller than you. Faster."
"You don't know the system." Cass met her eyes. "I've been crawling through ducts since I was eight years old. Scavenging, hiding, running. This is what I do."
"You'll suffocate before you reach the other side."
"Maybe." Cass looked back at the people crowded in the shaft behind them. Faces pale in the emergency lighting. Breathing hard. Dying slowly. "But if I don't try, we all suffocate anyway."
Finn grabbed her arm. "Have you considered that this is exactly what Vera wants? You, alone, separated from everyone else, crawling through a death trap?"
"Doesn't matter what she wants."
"It matters if you die."
"People are already dead." She pulled free. "Dex is dead. Two hundred Ward residents are dead. My father is dead. I'm not letting anyone else die because I was too scared to move."
"This isn't about fear."
"Then what's it about?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. His hand dropped to his side.
"Show me where the vent access is," Cass said to Kella.
The access panel was three shafts back, hidden behind a junction box. Kella pried it open with a crowbar while Cass stripped off her jacket and anything else that might catch on the duct walls. The opening was barely wide enough for her shoulders.
"Once you're in, you can't turn around." Finn crouched beside the opening, his datapad showing the route. "It's straight for two hundred meters, then a ninety-degree drop for fifty meters, then straight again for another three hundred. The exit is in Sector Nine's maintenance sublevel."
"How do I open the blast doors from there?"
"You don't. You find the environmental control station and restore life support to the Ward. That's the priority."
"And then?"
"Then you run. Because once Vera realizes what you've done, she'll send every enforcer she has after you."
Cass looked at the vent opening. Darkness beyond, absolute and waiting. Her chest was already tight from the thinning air. The thought of crawling through that narrow space, unable to turn back, unable to see what was ahead—
The dog tags pressed against her skin.
"If I don't make it—"
"You'll make it." Finn's voice was flat. Certain. "You're too stubborn to die in a ventilation duct."
"If I don't make it," she continued, "get everyone to Sector Nine. Find the defected enforcers. Organize. Fight."
"Cass—"
"Promise me."
He looked at her for a long moment. Then nodded once.
She turned to Kella. "Keep them alive as long as you can. Slow breathing. Stay calm. Don't panic."
"We'll be here when you get back."
Cass didn't answer. Just pulled herself into the vent opening, elbows scraping metal, and started crawling.
The darkness swallowed her whole.
The duct was exactly as narrow as Finn had said. Cass's shoulders brushed both sides with every movement forward. Her hands found purchase on the seams where panels joined, pulling herself along inch by inch. The metal was cold enough to sting her palms.
Behind her, the light from Kella's torch faded. Then disappeared entirely.
She counted her breaths. In for three seconds, out for three seconds. Slow and steady. Don't think about the walls pressing in. Don't think about the air running out. Don't think about getting stuck.
Just move.
The duct angled downward. She braced her feet against the sides and let herself slide, controlling the descent with her hands. Metal shrieked against metal. The sound echoed in the confined space, loud enough to make her ears ring.
Then the angle steepened and she was falling.
She hit the vertical section hard, her back slamming against one wall, her knees against the other. The impact drove the air from her lungs. She gasped, tasted metal and dust, and started the controlled fall Finn had described. Feet against one wall, back against the other, sliding down in jerky increments.
Fifty meters. In the dark. With no way to know how far she'd gone or how far remained.
Her legs started shaking. The muscles burned. She slipped, dropped three feet in a rush, caught herself with her shoulders wedged against the walls. Pain shot through her spine.
Keep moving.
The vertical section ended without warning. Her feet hit horizontal duct and she collapsed forward, gasping. Every breath felt like inhaling sand. The air was worse here, stale and thin. How long had she been crawling? Five minutes? Ten?
Three hundred meters to go.
She forced herself forward. Hands, knees, elbows. The rhythm of movement. Don't think. Just move.
The duct branched. She stopped, disoriented. Finn hadn't mentioned a branch. Left or right? She couldn't remember the schematic. Couldn't remember which way led to Sector Nine and which way led deeper into the sealed Ward.
Her hand found the dog tags again. Eli's name engraved in the metal. She traced the letters in the darkness.
Left. The word came from nowhere, from memory, from instinct. She went left.
The duct narrowed further. Now her shoulders scraped with every movement, the metal catching on her shirt, tearing fabric. She felt blood on her elbows where the skin had worn away. Felt her lungs screaming for air that wasn't there.
Light ahead.
Faint, barely visible, but there. She crawled faster, ignoring the pain, ignoring the way her vision was starting to tunnel. The light grew brighter. She could see the vent cover now, the slats letting in illumination from whatever room lay beyond.
She reached it. Pressed her face against the slats. Breathed in air that was fractionally less stale.
The room below was empty. Some kind of storage space, shelves lined with equipment she didn't recognize. The vent cover was held in place by four screws.
Cass braced herself and kicked.
The cover held. She kicked again. Again. On the fourth kick, the screws tore free and the cover clattered to the floor below.
She dropped through the opening and landed hard, her legs buckling. For a moment she just lay there, breathing real air, feeling her lungs expand properly for the first time in—how long? Fifteen minutes? Twenty?
Then she stood. Found the door. The corridor beyond was empty, lit by emergency lighting. A sign on the wall read SECTOR 9 - MAINTENANCE SUBLEVEL 3.
She'd made it.
Now she just had to find the environmental controls, restore life support to the Ward, and somehow survive whatever Vera sent after her.
The corridor branched. She chose right, running now, her footsteps echoing off metal walls. Doors flashed past. Storage. Equipment. Electrical—
There. Environmental Control Station 9-B. The door was sealed but not locked. She yanked it open.
The control room was small, dominated by a central console and a wall of monitors showing system status for multiple sectors. She found the Ward's designation and pulled up the life support controls.
Offline. Complete system shutdown. Override authorization required.
She didn't have authorization. But she had Finn's bypass codes, memorized from watching him work. Her fingers flew across the interface, entering the sequence, praying it would work.
ACCESS DENIED.
She tried again. Same result.
"Come on." Her voice was hoarse. "Come on, you piece of—"
The monitors flickered. Every screen went black, then lit up again with a single image.
Vera Latch. Still in the Council chambers. Still calm.
"Miss Tennant." Vera's voice came through the speakers. "I must commend you on your resourcefulness. The ventilation duct was quite clever. However, I'm afraid your efforts have been in vain."
Cass's hands didn't stop moving on the console. There had to be another way in. A backdoor. Something.
"The Ward's life support will remain offline until you surrender yourself to Council custody. You have five minutes to comply. After that, I will initiate sector purge protocols. Every remaining resident of the Rattle Ward will be eliminated, and the sector will be permanently sealed."
"You're insane." Cass looked up at the screen. "You're killing your own people."
"I'm protecting the Vaults." Vera leaned forward. "You've seen what happens when order breaks down. The riots. The violence. The chaos. How many people died today because of that broadcast? How many more will die if we don't restore control?"
"They died because you killed them."
"They died because they chose rebellion over survival. I'm offering you a different choice. Surrender now, and I will restore life support to the Ward. The remaining residents will live. You will face justice for your crimes, but they will live."
The console beeped. A countdown appeared on the screen. 4:47. 4:46. 4:45.
"Four minutes and forty-five seconds, Miss Tennant. I suggest you use them wisely."
The feed cut out.
Cass stared at the countdown. At the life support controls still locked behind authorization she didn't have. At the monitors showing the Ward's main concourse, where bodies lay in circles around Dex's still form.
Tell them we were here.
Her hand went to the dog tags. Eli's name under her fingers.
The countdown hit four minutes.