The city was a corpse.
Istanbul lay sprawled across the hills, suffocated by green vines. Skyscrapers that had once gleamed glass were now vertical jungles. The silence was absolute.
The convoy rolled through the outskirts.
Marcus sat in the passenger seat of the Rover. The dashboard glowed with JARVIS's gold interface.
[WARNING: RADIATION POCKETS DETECTED.]
[SOURCE: THE BOSPHORUS STRAIT.]
[ADVICE: KEEP THE WINDOWS ROLLED UP.]
"The water is hot," Marcus said. "Nuclear hot."
Marcia drove slowly, weaving around rusted cars and fallen masonry.
"Where is the bridge?" she asked.
"Gone," Lucilla said from the back seat. "The Board blew the bridges to quarantine Europe during the Stalker outbreak."
She pointed through the windshield.
Ahead, two massive concrete pylons stuck out of the dark water. The cables between them were snapped, dangling like dead nerves.
"So we swim?" Marcia asked dryly.
"We go under," Marcus said. "The Hyperloop."
He pointed to a massive concrete bunker near the water's edge. It was stamped with the white logo of the Board.
[LOCATION: ISTANBUL TERMINAL - LINE 4.]
[STATUS: SEALED.]
They pulled up to the entrance.
The blast doors were titanium, three feet thick. A red holographic lock spun in the air.
The convoy stopped behind them. The refugees peered out of the trucks, weapons ready. They were jumpy. The city felt like it was watching them.
Marcus jumped out. He walked to the door console.
"Lucilla," he said. "Open it."
Lucilla jacked her datapad into the port.
She tapped the screen. She frowned.
"Access denied," she said.
"Try again."
"I am trying," she snapped. "It's a Level 10 Lockdown. Since we blew up Antioch, Vane has scrubbed my credentials. I'm locked out of the global network."
"Can JARVIS do it?"
[NEGATIVE. IT'S AN AIR-GAPPED SYSTEM. HARD WIRED SHUT.]
Marcus kicked the door.
"We need a key," he muttered.
Narcissus climbed out of the lead truck. The giant cyborg walked over. His steps cracked the pavement.
"I am the key," Narcissus rumbled.
He jammed his metal fingers into the seam of the blast doors.
The servos in his arms whined.
"Get the winch," Marcus ordered.
Marcia backed the Rover up. She spooled out the heavy-duty tow cable. Marcus hooked it to Narcissus's belt.
"Pull!" Marcus yelled.
The Rover's electric motors screamed. Tires smoked on the asphalt.
Narcissus roared. He pushed against the doors.
Metal groaned. A sound like a dying whale.
CRACK.
The seal broke.
Dust puffed out. Stale, ancient air.
The doors slid open slowly, fighting every inch.
A black hole appeared. A tunnel leading down into the earth.
"It's open," Narcissus gasped, letting go. The doors stayed put, jammed in their tracks.
Marcus looked into the dark.
"Headlights on," he ordered. "Convoy formation. Close interval. If you stop, you die."
The trucks fired up.
One by one, they drove into the throat of the tunnel.
The tunnel was a world of its own.
Twenty miles long. A concrete tube running under the sea.
The air was cold and dead. The headlights cut through dust that hadn't moved in ten years.
The Hyperloop track ran down the center—a magnetic rail. The convoy drove on the service road alongside it.
"It's tight," Marcia said. The Rover's mirrors scraped the wall.
"Keep moving," Marcus said. "Don't look at the walls."
"Why?"
"Because they're moving."
Marcia glanced sideways.
The walls weren't concrete gray. They were covered in something white. Silk?
Webs.
Thick, industrial webs. But they weren't made of organic silk. They glinted in the light.
"Is that... wire?" Marcia asked.
[ANALYSIS: SCAVENGED COPPER AND FIBER OPTIC CABLE.]
[CREATOR: TUNNEL WEAVER.]
[THREAT: HIVE.]
"We aren't alone," Marcus whispered.
SCREECH.
A sound echoed from the darkness ahead. Metal on stone.
"Contact!" Decimus yelled from the lead truck.
Something dropped from the ceiling.
It landed on the hood of the first transport.
It was the size of a car. A spider. But mutated. Its legs were reinforced with rebar. Its abdomen pulsed with blue light. Its mandibles were hydraulic cutters.
A Tunnel Weaver.
It smashed the windshield. The driver screamed.
"Fire!" Marcus yelled into the radio.
The legionaries in the truck bed opened up. Muzzle flashes lit the tunnel like a strobe light.
Bullets sparked off the spider's carapace. It didn't care.
It shot a web.
THWIP.
A net of sticky wire covered the driver's side door. It jerked the truck sideways.
The convoy slammed on brakes. Tires screeched.
"Don't stop!" Marcus screamed. "That's what they want!"
More screeches. From the ceiling. From the walls.
Dozens of red eyes appeared in the dark.
They dropped. A rain of monsters.
One landed on the roof of the Rover. The metal dented.
Marcia didn't scream. She hit the sunroof button.
She shoved her shotgun up through the gap.
BLAM.
Green ichor sprayed into the cabin. The spider fell off, thrashing.
"Drive!" Marcus yelled. "Push through!"
The lead truck was stuck, pinned by the web.
Narcissus was in the second truck.
He didn't wait for orders.
He leaped out. He landed on the hood of the trapped truck.
He grabbed the spider by its front legs.
"Get off my ride!" Narcissus roared.
He ripped the legs off.
Green slime sprayed. He kicked the spider into the wall. It crunched.
"Go!" Narcissus shouted, banging on the hood.
The driver floored it. The truck tore through the web.
The convoy surged forward.
Speed was life.
They hit sixty miles an hour.
Spiders chased them along the walls, skittering faster than the trucks.
"Turret!" Marcus yelled.
He climbed into the back seat of the Rover. He opened the rear hatch.
He grabbed the mounted heavy stubber (looted from the Crawler).
He opened fire.
DA-DA-DA-DA-DA.
Heavy rounds chewed up the walls. Spiders exploded in showers of sparks and goo.
"Focus fire!" Marcus commanded the trucks behind him. "Watch your sectors!"
The refugees weren't civilians anymore. They were the Legion.
They fired in disciplined bursts. Left side. Right side. Ceiling.
A spider landed in the bed of Truck 5. It grabbed a child.
Decimus was there.
He didn't shoot. He lunged with his spear.
He drove the spearhead through the spider's eye cluster.
"For Rome!" he screamed.
He booted the carcass out the back.
The child cried. Decimus patted his helmet.
"Reload," the centurion ordered the men. "Eyes up."
The convoy roared deeper into the tunnel.
The darkness felt endless.
But up ahead, a shape loomed.
A massive obstruction blocking the track.
[WARNING: OBSTACLE DETECTED.]
[DISTANCE: 1 MILE.]
[OBJECT: DERAILED TRAIN.]
"Marcia," Marcus said, looking at the screen. "Brake."
"If I brake, the spiders catch us!"
"If you don't brake, we hit a train."
Marcia slammed the brakes.
The Rover fish-tailed. The convoy screeched to a halt.
Dust swirled.
In the headlights, they saw it.
A Hyperloop passenger train. Smashed. Derails. It lay sideways across the tunnel, blocking the path completely.
And behind them, the chittering sound grew louder.
The swarm was catching up.
"We're trapped," Lucilla whispered.
Marcus looked at the train. It was fifty tons of steel.
He looked at Narcissus.
"One more push, brother," Marcus said.
Narcissus cracked his neck.
"I hate trains," the giant said.
He walked toward the blockage.
Behind him, a thousand red eyes glowed in the dark.
The horde was here.