Buried Alive

The blast threw me backward, skidding across the metal floor of the station.

I coughed, waving away the dust that fell from the ceiling like grey snow. The heavy steel door was dented inward, the locking wheel twisted like a pretzel. But it held.

"Is he still out there?" Chloe whispered, her voice tight.

A massive fist slammed against the metal, the sound echoing like a gong inside a crypt.

"I think that answers your question," Dante said, pushing himself up. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but his grip on his empty gun was steady.

"How much time do we have?" I asked.

"Minutes," Seraphina said, her fingers flying across the terminal. "The geothermal tap is engaged, but the safety overrides are encrypted. I need to break the firewall."

"Let me help," Elena said.

She stepped up to the console. She didn't type. She just placed her hands on the metal casing. Her eyes glowed with that same violet light, pulsing in rhythm with the hum of the machine.

"I can feel it," she whispered. "The code... it's alive."

"Just don't let it consume you," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was hot, vibrating.

"I won't," she said. But she didn't look at me. She was looking into the data stream, seeing things I couldn't imagine.

The door groaned again. A fissure appeared in the steel, leaking cold air and the smell of ozone.

"Hurry," Felix said, backing away from the entrance.

"Done," Elena said.

The lights in the station surged, blindingly bright, then dimmed to a low, throbbing red. A deep rumble started beneath our feet, building into a roar.

"Core temperature rising," Seraphina announced. "We've got overload in sixty seconds."

"And the signal?" I asked.

"Broadcasting," Elena said. "A directed pulse. It will fry anything connected to the local grid. Including Lucius."

"And the Titan?"

"It's part of the grid," she said. "It's the antenna."

The door buckled. A massive stone finger pushed through the gap, tearing the steel like paper.

"It's getting in!" Chloe shouted.

"We need to move," I said. "Is there another exit?"

"The waste chute," Felix said, pointing to a hatch in the floor. "It dumps out onto the lower ice shelf."

"Go!" I ordered.

Felix opened the hatch. A blast of freezing air shot up. He jumped without hesitation. Chloe followed, then Seraphina.

"Elena, go," I said.

She shook her head. "I have to hold the connection. If I let go, the safety protocols will reset."

"I'm not leaving you," I said.

"You have to," she said, turning to look at me. Her eyes were fully violet now, no white, no pupil. "I can survive this, Aria. You can't."

"What are you talking about?"

"The energy," she said. "I can absorb it. You'll burn."

The Titan ripped the door off its hinges. It stood in the opening, filling the frame, a nightmare of ancient stone and alien light. It raised its hand.

"Go!" Elena screamed.

She shoved me toward the hatch. Her strength was terrifying. I flew backward, hitting the rim of the chute.

Dante grabbed my arm, pulling me down with him.

We slid.

It was a dark, twisting ride through the bowels of the station. We shot out onto the ice shelf below, tumbling into a snowbank.

We scrambled up, looking back at the station perched on the ridge above.

It was glowing. Not with lights, but with heat. The metal walls were turning cherry red.

The Titan roared, a sound that shook the glacier. It reached for the station, trying to crush the source of the pain.

Then, the explosion.

It wasn't fire. It was a wave of pure, white energy. It expanded outward, vaporizing the station, the rock, the snow.

It hit the Titan.

The giant statue froze. The violet light in its eyes flickered and died. Cracks appeared on its surface, spreading like spiderwebs.

It crumbled.

Tons of stone collapsed, sliding down the cliff face in an avalanche of dust and debris.

"Elena!" I screamed.

I started to run toward the ridge.

"Aria, wait!" Dante tackled me, holding me down as the shockwave hit us.

We lay there in the snow, the wind howling over us.

When the dust settled, the ridge was gone. The station was gone.

There was only a crater, smoking in the cold air.

I stood up, my legs shaking.

"She's gone," I whispered.

"Look," Dante said, pointing.

In the center of the crater, amidst the ruin, something was glowing.

A sphere of violet light.

It pulsed, fading slowly.

And inside the sphere, curled into a ball, was a figure.

Elena.

She was alive.

But as the light faded, the ice beneath her cracked.

The glacier groaned. A fissure opened up, swallowing the crater, the debris, and my sister.

"No!"

We ran to the edge.

It was a sheer drop into a crevasse. Darkness. Silence.

"We need ropes," I said, my voice frantic. "We need to go down."

"Aria," Dante said, gripping my shoulder. "Look at the sky."

I looked up.

The clouds had parted. But it wasn't the sun shining down.

It was a ship.

A massive, sleek vessel, hovering silently above us. It wasn't the Broker's. It wasn't the military.

It was black, with no markings.

A beam of light shot down from the hull, scanning the crevasse.

"Who are they?" Chloe asked, joining us at the edge.

"I don't know," I said. "But they just found her."

The beam locked onto something deep in the ice. A grapple fired from the ship, diving into the darkness.

Seconds later, it retracted.

It was holding a net.

And in the net was Elena.

"They're taking her," I said, reaching for my empty holster.

The ship turned, its engines flaring. It accelerated, disappearing into the clouds in a matter of seconds.

We stood alone on the ice.

Beaten. Battered.

And minus one.

"Who were they?" Felix asked, his voice trembling.

Seraphina stepped forward. She looked at the empty sky, her face grim.

"The Syndicate," she said.

"I thought they were a myth," Dante said.

"They were," she said. "Until we woke them up."

She turned to me.

"We just traded one war for another."

I looked at the horizon. The cold bit into my skin, but I didn't feel it. I felt only the burning need to get my sister back.

"Then let's go to war," I said.

"How?" Chloe asked. "We're stranded in Antarctica with no ship and no supplies."

I reached into my pocket. I pulled out a small, black device I had swiped from the Broker's belt during the fight on the roof.

A satellite phone.

I dialed the only number I knew would answer.

"Julian," I said when the line clicked.

"You're alive," he said. He sounded disappointed.

"I have the source code," I lied. "And I know where the Titan technology came from."

There was a silence on the line.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Send a pick-up," I said. "And bring your best guns."

"Why would I help you?"

"Because the Syndicate just took the only person who can unlock the vault," I said. "And if you want your legacy back