Chapter 4

Leo Tanner

Moving to the balcony door, my fingers trembled as I pushed it open.

At first, nothing made sense. A section of the dome's protective ceiling had caved in. The buildings I should have seen across the sector weren't there. Empty spaces and jagged ruins where they used to stand.

Digital boards throughout the remaining structures flashed: IMMEDIATE EVACUATION.

How long had those been going? How had I missed it? The dome-wide alerts should've reached me. Should've blared through the vents or scrolled across the emergency board of the apartment. But the power cut meant I didn't hear a thing. No warnings. Just silence. Just sleep.

An enormous shape loomed in the distance, obscured by dust and debris.

A Nephilim.

Titan-class. The six glowing eyes arranged in a circular pattern on its head confirmed it, burning through the haze like malevolent stars.

Shock held me rooted to the spot. Tried to breathe. My chest barely rose.

I didn't even register the mech at first. A new shape in the dust, moving with purpose, while the world cracked open. Then the armor resolved in the dust. Sleek. Ornamental. The shield-shaped shoulders.

The Valkyrie.

Callan Pierce's machine.

Everyone in the domes knew Callan Pierce. His missions and battles played on public boards for morale—the hero who never lost. Blond hair, angular face, blue eyes, always too calm for someone fighting monsters. Broad shoulders, lean frame, all muscle. He had to be. Not everyone could pilot an Aegis unit. It took focus, speed, and a mind that wouldn't break under pressure. He projected the image of the kind of man the world wasn't meant to keep. That's why I hated watching him. Or why I always did.

Valkyrie ducked beneath the Nephilim's arm, swift despite its size. It was one of the massive Aegis Units, humanity's desperate answer after conventional weapons failed against the first wave. The machines were designed for full neural integration, the pilot becoming one with the weapon. It was a necessary evolution, born from the need to fight monsters on their own terms, with monsters of our own making.

Valkyrie spun behind the towering monster and stabbed both blades deep into its shoulder joints.

The impact rippled across gray-blue skin stretched taut over an exoskeleton of bone-like plates before the monster howled. Its secondary arms went useless. I clamped my hands over my ears, teeth clenched. The sound was like metal tearing inside my head.

I'd seen broadcasts of Pierce fighting before, but nothing compared to this. The ground shook with each step of the Aegis Unit. Valkyrie's energy core whined as it powered up for each strike. I tasted metal on my tongue as the air ionized around us. My skin prickled with static electricity.

Valkyrie wasn't like the other units. Where most Aegis were bulky and uniform, Pierce's was streamlined. Its armor plates resembled ancient Norse warrior gear, complete with a helmet-shaped head module and shield-like shoulder guards. Some idiot designer thought making our last defense look like mythological figures would boost morale.

Waste of resources if you asked me.

Blue energy conduits traced paths along its limbs, channeling power from the core. That core sucked energy from our last three fusion reactors, the same energy that could power entire dome sectors for a month.

People starved in the dark while the Aegis units ate power like it was infinite, but the Resistance Nations called it "a necessary sacrifice." It wasn't like we had a choice.

The monster roared again, a sound that vibrated deep in my chest, and lunged forward. Its four primary arms swung wide, with hooked claws reaching fifteen stories above the ground, holding a dull glint, appendages capable of tearing through reinforced concrete like paper.

Displaced air slammed against the balcony with physical force, carrying the hot, acrid stench of ozone and something alien. Instinct took hold. I dropped, pressing my back flat against the biting cold of the metal wall as debris chips of concrete and steel rained down, grit stinging my face and eyes.

Valkyrie drove one of its blades through the Nephilim's core, the energy chamber where they housed their life force. The blade flared with blue energy, a blinding flash that seared spots into my vision even after I squeezed my eyes shut against it.

A killing blow.

The Nephilim's massive form went rigid, a sudden, awful stillness. My breath sawing in my raw throat, I risked peeling myself from the wall and crawled back toward the railing on trembling arms, ignoring the scrape of small debris against my clothes. My hands were distant, numb, but I gripped the railing anyway. The sharp edges of the metal bit hard into my palms, a spike of pain proving I was still somehow here.

The creature swayed, a mountain teetering on its axis. Then, with a low groan emanating from the stressed metal of the dome itself, it pitched backward and fell. It plummeted toward my sector at an incredible speed.

I stared up, jaw locked so tight my teeth ached, as its dark shape swelled, consuming the smug. As it fell towards me, the sheer scale and the horrifying reality of it struck me with overwhelming force: the eight-limbed body towering, the segmented plates, and the immense hooked claws promising annihilation. All that power, engineered by whatever dimension spawned it, now dead weight, hurtling down. It fell towards Block D, towards me.

A high-pitched whine drilled into my skull as its core destabilized, the sound vibrating up from the floor, through my boots. Run inside. Run. My brain screamed it, but my body refused. My legs were stone, locked solid from hip to ankle. My lungs seized, breath trapped like a rock in my chest. Even my fingers, still clamped white knuckled on the railing, were fused to the cold metal, unable to twitch.

The whine intensified, drowning out thought, drowning out everything but the falling monster and the cold, absolute fear washing over me. It was the sound, that specific pitch of the destabilizing core, exactly like the one that had torn through Dome City Twelve.

Ten years melted away. I wasn't on a balcony; I was twelve again, watching the ceiling fall in Dome City Twelve, unable to move then, unable to move now.

Old memories crashed into the present. The screams. The weight of debris. My parents, pushing me onto the transport, their faces disappearing into chaos.

It was happening again.

Steel and concrete rained down. Not dust, but chunks of ferroconcrete, some bigger than my head, slammed onto the balcony nearby with sickening thuds. The vibration from impacts elsewhere shook the railing with such force under my numb grip that it threatened to tear my hands away.

So much for staying numb; all these years of surviving meant nothing now. The universe had a sense of humor. I'd live through one Nephilim attack only to die in another.

Valkyrie pivoted toward my balcony. Had Pierce spotted me?

Ah, it doesn't matter. My last thought was simple: At least I wouldn't have to worry about that energy bill.

A wave of pressure slammed into me, stealing the last of the air. Then darkness.