The heavy steel door separating us from the Glitch-Wraiths vibrated faintly, a low-frequency thrum that resonated through the concrete floor and up my aching bones. The muffled scraping outside had taken on a new, more worrying quality. It was a deeper, grinding sound, like something trying to chew through the metal itself. My already fuzzy vision seemed to worsen and I saw faint, iridescent geometric patterns, like oil slicks on water, flickering intermittently across the grimy concrete walls near the door, vanishing as soon as I tried to focus on them.
"Stability degrading," Anya observed grimly, her gaze fixed on the shimmering patterns. She had her scanner out again, pointed not at machinery, but at the air itself near the door. The readings scrolled rapidly, mostly gibberish and error codes, but the trend line was clearly downward. "URE wasn't wrong. They're actively stressing the local reality field. Trying to unmake the door, maybe? Or just weaken the whole damned room."
The thought sent a fresh wave of cold dread through me, colder than the lingering chill from the SP burnout. This wasn't just being trapped, it was being trapped in a box that was slowly being deleted.
Debug options? The thought sparked instinctively, followed immediately by a lance of pain behind my eyes. I squeezed them shut, picturing my mental toolkit. It looked… pathetic. The visualization was fuzzy, indistinct. My [Logic Probe] tool flickered like a cheap holo-emitter running on a dying battery. The 'Shields' construct seemed cracked and fragile, incapable of holding any real energy. Trying to actively do anything, like reinforcing the junction's reality field? Suicidal. The mental backlash would likely cause the very cognitive crash the URE kept vaguely warning me about. My only recourse was observation, and even that felt like trying to read fine print through frosted glass.
"How long does that take?" Leo asked, his voice tight. He'd forced himself off the crate and was nervously pacing near the workbench, eyes darting between the vibrating door and the flickering lights overhead. "How long until they… stress it enough?"
Anya consulted her scanner again, her expression grim. "Hard to say. Depends how focused they are, how many there are. But this junction… it wasn't designed for heavy reality flux." She traced a pattern in the air, likely recalling old schematics or past experiences. "It's old. Solid physically, but the underlying reality code? Probably riddled with legacy vulnerabilities. Hours? Maybe. Minutes? Possible. Especially with the auxiliary power draining." She nodded towards the dimming overhead lights. "Less power, less inherent stability."
"We have to get out before the power fails then," I stated the obvious, pushing myself upright again. The brief rest hadn't done much besides solidify the exhaustion. "That water pump system…"
"Is a deathtrap," Anya finished firmly. "Flooded tunnels, unknown critters, probable structural collapses. And even if we survived all that, where does it lead? We're taking this Undercroft route for one reason – to get west, under the Kilo-7 Distortion Field that makes surface travel impossible. Those overflow tunnels could dump us anywhere, probably deeper, further east." She shook her head decisively. "Not an option unless the alternative is certain death." Which, admittedly, felt increasingly like our current situation.
Leo, meanwhile, had stopped pacing. He wasn't looking at the door anymore, but frowning at the massive, silent pump machinery that dominated the far corner of the junction, his gaze tracing the thick, rust-coated pipes that disappeared into the concrete wall. His draftsman's instincts, perhaps?
"Anya," he said slowly, walking towards the pumps, "you said this place had power regulation issues?"
"Notoriously," Anya confirmed, still monitoring the door and her scanner. "Blew circuits constantly back when it was operational. Why?"
Leo ran a hand over one of the large pipes near where it bolted into the wall, dislodging flakes of rust. He peered closely at the concrete around the join. "Because… look at this." He pointed. "These cracks… they aren't random stress fractures from age. See the pattern? Radiating outwards? That looks like damage from repeated, focused energy discharge. Like the unstable power wasn't just blowing internal circuits... it was arcing out, hitting the structure itself, right here."
He moved along the wall, tracing the pipework, tapping gently on the concrete. "And this section…" He stopped near a large support pillar that intersected with several major conduits. "The concrete sounds… different here. Thinner? Or maybe hollower?" He looked back at us, a spark of nervous excitement replacing the fear in his eyes. "This whole corner feels like it took the brunt of those old power surges. It might be the weakest point in the whole junction. Structurally."
Anya frowned, lowering her scanner and walking over to where Leo stood. She examined the cracks he indicated, then ran her own hand over the pillar, her experienced touch assessing the texture, the subtle vibrations. After a moment, her eyes widened slightly.
"You're right," she murmured, almost to herself. "I remember reports… Old Man Fitz used to complain about needing to reinforce this section constantly after bad surges back in his smuggling days. Said the rebar was practically cooked." She knocked on the pillar herself. It gave back a dull, slightly resonant thud compared to the solid density elsewhere. "Weak point. Definitely."
A potential way out? Not through the Wraiths at the door, not through the flooded death tunnels, but through the wall itself?
My foggy brain tried to process the implications. Creating a breach… would require force. Noise. Attract attention. But maybe… just maybe…
"Can we break through?" I asked, taking a step closer, the idea feeling fragile but vitally important.
Anya assessed the pillar, her gaze calculating. "With what? My sidearm on overload might crack it, but the feedback in this confined space? Bad idea. The Probability Drive's ram? Can't maneuver it in here." She looked around the cluttered junction. "No heavy demolition tools…"
Leo, however, was already examining the nearby pump machinery again, his eyes lit with a different kind of focus now, the focused gaze of someone understanding complex systems. "The pump mechanism… see that main impeller housing? It's designed to handle massive water pressure. It's got hydraulic pistons, pressure seals… if we could somehow reroute the hydraulic pressure…"
Anya stared at him, then back at the pump, then at the weakened pillar. A slow, dangerous grin spread across her face. "Reroute the hydraulics… use the pump itself as a battering ram against the weak point…" She looked back at Leo, truly impressed this time. "Draftsman, huh? You got a devious mind when you're not panicking."
Leo flushed slightly but nodded eagerly. "The control systems are dead without main power, but the hydraulic reservoir might still have pressure. We'd need to bypass the electronic controls, trigger the piston release manually… maybe reroute a fluid line directly?"
"It's insane," Anya breathed, but the grin remained. "Crazy noisy. Might bring the whole ceiling down. And we'd need tools we don't have to reroute high-pressure lines safely…"
"Maybe not," I interjected, pushing myself away from the wall again, an idea flickering through the cognitive static: not debugging reality, but physics. Applied physics. "Forget rerouting the lines. What about the valve stems? The main pressure release valves on the pump housing? They're designed to handle catastrophic failure. If we could somehow shear the stem bolts…"
Anya looked at the massive, rust-seized valves on the pump housing. "Shear hardened steel bolts? How?"
I held up my multi-tool, hefting the alloy punch attachment. "Targeted percussive application," I said, echoing my earlier deflection, but this time with grim intent. "Maybe not shear them clean, but weaken them. Brittle fracture. Then apply blunt force." I nodded towards Leo's golf club, leaning against the crate. Not ideal, but maybe enough?
It was a long shot. A noisy, dangerous, potentially suicidal long shot that relied on Leo's structural assessment, Anya's acceptance of a crazy plan, and my ability to hit something hard enough despite feeling like wet cardboard.
Outside, the grinding noise intensified. A visible crack, thin as a hair but emitting faint purple sparks, spiderwebbed across the steel door near the lock mechanism.
Time was officially up.
"Alright," Anya declared, grabbing a heavy wrench from the workbench. "Crazy plan it is. Leo, show me exactly where you think the weakest point on that pillar is. Ren… start tenderizing those valve bolts. Let's make our own damn exit."
Our unlikely trio – the cynical debugger, the pragmatic speed demon, and the observant draftsman – prepared to bring the house down. Literally.