Chapter 24 · The Witness Core

"Move!" Nora grabbed Samuel by the coat as the red mechanical hand punched through the archive door.

"I'm moving," he gasped. His bad leg dragged behind him, blood soaking through his trouser cuff. "You could try not making me run through a collapsing city."

"Complain faster."

Tarin stood beside the service hatch, staring at the coordinates carved into his palm. He'd written them there before giving away the memories that mattered. His face was calm. Too calm.

"Pier Nine," he said. "Below the old sea reactor. There's a second control core under the western platform."

The hand crushed another section of the door. Red light striped Tarin's face.

"Does that thing know us?" Samuel asked.

"No," Nora said.

Tarin looked at her. "Should I?"

"Not now. Open the hatch."

They dropped into the maintenance shaft as the archive door burst inward. The mechanical Nora stepped through the wreckage, wearing Nora's face with a mouth that moved wrong.

"Living key located," it said. "Return for extraction."

Nora slammed the hatch shut. The machine struck it once. The shaft shook.

Samuel caught her wrist. "It's coming after us."

"Then we give it somewhere worse to go."

She kicked the emergency release.