Okay, here's my attempt at rewriting the text to sound more human:
When the trouble began, it wasn't a big explosion. It was more like a slow drain.
Right when things got darkest, when the city's glow was at its weakest, the Karu just stopped. No more weird gray paste in the cheap food places, at the water taps – nothing. One second it was a trickle, the next, just dry pipes making sad sucking noises.
For a second, everyone froze. The whole city gasped.
Then, the screaming started.
This wasn't some echo thing. This was real, in-your-face terror. Everyone knew the Karu could be cut off one day. Now it happened. The people hooked on the stuff felt it right away – a nasty ache in their guts, shaky hands, and like they were falling apart.
Riots popped up everywhere like nasty weeds. People rushed the food silos, the fancy eating areas, just wanting something to eat more than anything. The guards were already nervous because of the Symbiote threat, and they got swamped in seconds. Stun batons flashed in the dark. The city's weird buildings groaned as people ran all over.
In the empty guard headquarters, Joan Rhodes watched everything fall apart on the security screens. Her face was like stone. She'd given the Symbiotes the patrol routes, the weak spots in the defenses. She had helped set this up as a distraction. But these people suffering on the screens, That's what this cost.
Her comm went off. It was Adler, sounding freaked out. Captain! The Karu—the lines are cut! My models say the lower parts of the city will collapse in half a day! Where are the guards?!
The guards are trying to control the riots that *your* decisions caused, Quartermaster, Joan said, coldly. The Cardinal cared more about knowing what the high-class folks were eating and less about making sure everyone else got fed.
This is sabotage! A betrayal! Adler yelled. You have to send every guard down there, find them, and get the Karu flowing again!
My priority is to keep the city from falling apart and defend the Heartforge, Joan stated, reading from the emergency plan she'd written herself. The attack on the Karu is just a trick. The real target is the Heart. So I am gathering my forces.
She ended the call. Part of this was real but mostly a lie. Her force was her, only.
She took off her Captain's badges, just wearing the regular uniform. She checked her gun—a small disruptor. Then she went to the Alimentary Conduit.
The entrance was a gross, forgotten opening behind a filter plant, filled with the smell of processed divine waste. No one was guarding the door; the weird vibes from the Heartforge made people throw up and lose their memories. Joan turned on a dampener Maxine had given her, a smaller copy of the switch's tech. It created a small, quiet space around her.
She slipped inside. The conduit was a narrow, fleshy tube, its walls wet and slowly pulsing with the nearby heart. Boom. Boom. The noise was crazy loud, you could feel it. The psychic vibes were like a crazy storm of divine hunger—a raw, desperate urge to break down, absorb, eat. Her dampener flickered, but held on.
She moved ahead, counting her steps to match the patrol schedules. She had ten minutes before the next sweep passed the outside grate.
Halfway through, she heard something behind her. A scrape. Not the Heart's pulse. A footstep.
She turned, gun raised.
Lucien Gray was standing there, looking out of place but sure of himself. His scholar's robes were covered in slime.
You're not supposed to be here, Captain, he said, barely loud enough to hear over the boom.
What are you doing here, Anatomist?
The same as you, I guess. Making sure the switch gets where it needs to go. His eyes were haunted but clear. I saw the map she brought back. The healthy routes. It's… it's a better question than the one I was asking. I want to see what happens.
He wasn't lying. The scholar's excitement was gone, just replaced by a shaky kind of hope. Joan lowered her weapon a bit. Can you fight?
I can cut up a nervous system in half a minute. Figured it can't be that different."
It would have to be enough. Stay behind me. And don't touch the walls.
They got to the end of the conduit: a grated opening that looked right into the Heartforge's main chamber. It was amazing and scary. The huge heart beat in front of them, each beat sending blasts of glowing liquid through the pipes. Around it, on platforms, a small bunch of technicians and Palate followers worked, watching the buildup. The air buzzed with energy.
Across the chamber, on the other side, a door opened. Maxine Sharpe came out, still in her suit, holding a shielded case. Her entry was okayed; she was supposed to deliver the final frequency calibration.
Their eyes met across the loud chamber.
This was it. The Karu was cut off diverting the attention of the Guard. The path to a small, defended area wasn't as locked as it would ever be.
Joan nodded.
Maxine turned and walked along the platform, not toward the control area, but toward a small door with the symbol of the Sacred Pacemaker.
Two guards stood there. They saw her coming. Chief Carver. The calibration is for the Cardinal.
The calibration is somatic, Maxine's loud voice answered. Linked to the Node's pulse. As Lead Vault-Surveyor, move.
They hesitated. They weren't sure .
Inside the conduit, Joan raised her disruptor, aiming at the one on the left. Lucien got out a syringe-like tool from his robes.
Now, Joan said quietly.
She fired. A silent pulse hit the guard. He went stiff and fell.
The other guard turned, raising his weapon. Lucien's syringe flashed through the grate, sticking in the man's neck. It wasn't poison. It was a paralytic keyed to the Palate enhancers. The guard gasped, his muscles locked, and fell.
The noise was lost in the boom of the Heart.
Maxine didn't stop. She got to the door, used an override code, and went into the Node area.
Joan and Lucien scrambled out of the conduit. They took positions, guarding the door. Across the chamber, a technician had seen the fallen guards. An alarm started, a loud background to the heart's beat.
The surgery had started.
Two days.