Chapter 7 · Undercity Broker - Chapter 7: The Owner Behind the Seal

The dark hit like water. Lin couldn't see Lei anymore. Couldn't see the sealed platform entrance where Lei's boss had just disappeared. He could hear people shouting somewhere behind him, scavengers yelling about breakers, about the grid going down, but the voices felt far away and wrong. His arm burned. The tattoo.

"Move." The curse didn't whisper this time. It said it flat.

Lin moved. He didn't think about it. His feet were already going, hands out in front, fingers brushing cold tile and then the rough edge of the doorframe. The sealed platform. The one Su Jin's people didn't patrol. The one everyone said had infected inside, the kind that didn't die right, the kind that got back up.

He stepped through.

The air changed. Colder. It smelled like rust and something sweet that made his stomach twist. His eyes started adjusting. Not much light, just a sick green glow coming from somewhere deeper in, maybe chemical sticks or one of those old emergency strips that hadn't died yet. Shapes formed. Train car on the left, half-tipped. Shipping container on the right, door hanging open. And past that, the platform itself, stretching into nothing.

He couldn't see Lei's boss.