"Stay low, Vertin," Kars whispered.
"These things don't have ears, but they sense movement. It's like they can feel the heat of your blood."
"I'm trying," I hissed back.
But staying low was getting harder. The further we moved from my waking chamber, the more the "System" in my head began to scream. Icons flickered in my peripheral vision, marking every sensor array and heat vent. My skin felt tight, humming with a frequency that matched the walls.
We rounded a corner and stopped dead.
We weren't in a hallway anymore. We were on a high, narrow catwalk overlooking a canyon of metal. Below us, as far as the eye could see, were rows upon rows of silver alcoves. In each one stood a Necron Warrior, motionless, their eyeless sockets dark. There were thousands perhaps millions.
"Holy Terra..." Kars breathed, his face turning a ghostly shade of grey. "It's an army. A whole damned legion."
[ ALERT: SECTOR 7 'CHAMBER OF AWAKENING' ]
[ STATUS: ACTIVATION CYCLE INITIATED ]
[ TIME TO FULL AWAKENING: 04:59 ]
A low, subterranean thrum shook the catwalk. One by one, the green conduits in the walls began to pulse. A single spark of emerald light flickered in the eyes of a warrior directly below us. Then another. And another.
"They're waking up," I whispered. "Kars, we have to go. Now."
"The gear locker is on the other side of this floor," Kars said, pointing a trembling finger toward a fortified door across the chasm. "My vox-caster, my lasgun... if I can get a signal out to the fleet, maybe we have a chance."
"Or maybe you just bring a rain of fire down on our heads," I countered, but I started moving.
As we sprinted across the catwalk, the silence was replaced by a terrifying sound: the synchronized click-clack of millions of joints locking into place. The air grew heavy with the smell of scorched ozone.
[ INTEGRATION: 38% ]
[ WARNING: CHRONO-STUTTER DETECTED ]
Suddenly, the world slowed down. Kars was frozen mid-stride, his mouth open in a silent shout. A stray green bolt of energy from a distant sentry hung in the air like a glowing spear.
Don't just watch, the "Deceiver" voice purred in my mind. Reach out. The web of time is thin here. Pull a thread.
I reached out my hand toward the door at the end of the catwalk. I didn't try to run faster; I tried to bring the door to me. The space between us rippled like water. With a sickening pop, Kars and I were suddenly standing ten feet in front of the gear locker.
Kars stumbled, vomiting onto the metal floor. "What... what was that? My stomach feels like it's inside out."
"Don't think about it," I said, my head throbbing. "Just get your stuff!"
I slammed my hand against the gear locker's control panel. My purple energy bypassed the encryption in a heartbeat. The heavy doors hissed open, revealing a pile of confiscated Imperial equipment: flak vests, bayonets, and a heavy-duty vox-unit.
Kars scrambled for his lasgun, kissing the barrel. "Oh emperor, I missed you." He then looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "That... thing you did. That wasn't psyker warp-craft. It felt... Like one of them."
"I am human like you. " I snapped, grabbing a long, ornate cloak from a side rack to cover me. I found a belt and strapped a few strange, glowing cubes to it Necron grenades, if the System was right.
[ AWAKENING PROGRESS: 92% ]
[ MULTIPLE HOSTILES DETECTED ON CATWALK ]
"Kars, we're out of time!"
The legion below let out a collective, metallic roar a sound of grinding gears and synthesized banshee screams. Thousands of green eyes snapped toward us at once.
"Right," Kars said, his soldier instincts finally overriding his terror. He slammed a fresh power pack into his rifle. "You do the magic stuff, I do the shooting. Where to, Boss?"
I looked up. High above the pyramid, I could see a sliver of real stars through a massive ventilation shaft.
"Up," I said. "We're going to the surface."
[ NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: 'THE WEAVER'S PATH' ]
[ WOULD YOU LIKE TO VIEW THE ESCAPE ROUTE? ]
"Show me," I whispered.
A glowing purple line appeared on the floor, zigzagging through the rising tide of metal skeletons. It looked like suicide. It looked like the only way home.