Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a steady rhythm that masked Kasper's labored breathing. The elevator's descent had taken him past the facility's gleaming surface and into its drowning depths. Pressure gauges lined the walls like ancient chronometers, their needles trembling with each surge from below. Through the rust and ruin, Kasper caught the rhythm of the facility's pulse—the steady flow of seawater through treatment systems older than The Director's reign.

Ancient pipes lined walls of corroded steel, their joints weeping decades of mineral buildup. The air hung thick with the taste of salt and rust. His father's voice echoed through memory: "The sea claims all tech eventually, boy. That's why the old ways endure." The salt air in his lungs felt like inheritance.

A holographic blueprint flickered weakly from a forgotten maintenance terminal, its light casting strange shadows through the mist. Kasper's eyes caught fragments of information before the display sputtered out—pressure valves, water treatment notations, something about tidal monitoring. The facility's guts stretched toward the sea like hungry fingers, descending through layers of industrial evolution. Each level down was a step back in time, from polished chrome to raw iron.

The first enhanced operator died without a sound. Kasper watched from the shadows as enhanced vision swept uselessly through the steam. They'd separated to cover more ground—predictable, efficient, fatal. The operator's own cooling system masked Kasper's approach until ancient rebar, torn from crumbling concrete, found the gap between helmet and spine.

"Section Eight clear," the operator's radio crackled. No response.

One down. Four to go. Then Santos.

Kasper retrieved the rebar with trembling hands, fresh blood soaking through makeshift bandages. The exoskeleton's knee servos whined protest as he dragged himself deeper into the facility's intestines. Every movement sent fire through his ribs, but pain meant living. Pain meant hunting.

The second operator died to industrial democracy—a vote between gravity and a loose catwalk. Kasper watched the enhanced implants flicker and die as the body disappeared into the depths. Three hundred feet down, he estimated. The facility's warren of maintenance tunnels and treatment plants stretched nearly a quarter-mile into the earth, bottoming out where the sea began.

The third fell when his enhanced vision transformed a burst steam pipe into blinding apocalypse. The fourth never saw the maintenance bot through the condensation, its suddenly-active arm pinning him against two centuries of rust. Each death revealed more of the facility's nature—a living thing, breathing steam and salt, rejecting the silicon invaders in its veins.

"Teams Two and Three, report." Santos's voice echoed through dead comms. "Status on lower levels?"

Silence answered. Even static had abandoned them.

The last operator—the one with the twitching ocular implant—proved trickier. His paranoia made him cautious, kept him alive an extra thirty seconds. But paranoia meant distraction, meant missing the pressure gauge's warning before automated systems cycled. Ancient pumps roared to life, and thousands of gallons of seawater did what Kasper's broken body couldn't.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Five down.

"Impressive." Santos's voice carried through the chamber's metallic canyon. No radio distortion. No electronic edge. Pure, cold amusement. "The Director said you'd prove entertaining. Called you a 'fascinating regression.'"

Kasper pressed himself against corroded steel, trying to place the voice. Pain slurred his thoughts. Too much blood lost. Too many hours running. The weight of water and stone pressed down—seven levels of industrial history between him and the surface world.

"But this?" Santos continued. "This is art. Primal. Using our advantages against us. Making us fear the dark again."

Movement above—a shadow against shadows. Santos had killed his tech. Was hunting pure analog, like Kasper. But Santos's movements flowed smooth, unhampered by injury. A predator in his element.

"We're not so different," Santos said, each strike precise as programming. "We both know technology's limits. The difference is—" his fist found Kasper's ribs "—I embrace the hybrid path. Evolution demands balance."

"The sea claims all tech," Kasper spat blood, his father's words copper-bright on his tongue. "Balance is entropy."

Santos's laugh held genuine warmth. "Did your father teach you that? How to think like the machines? How to break men who'd forgotten they were men?"

The first blow caught Kasper's broken ribs, drove him gasping to his knees. The second cracked across his jaw, sent him sprawling onto metal grating. Santos moved like liquid violence, each strike precise. Professional. A martial artist's economy of motion.

"The others thought you were running." Santos caught Kasper's desperate swing, turned it into an arm lock that sent lightning through torn shoulders. "But you weren't running. You were choosing your ground. Leading us here. To the dark. To the decay."

Kasper's vision swam as Santos drove him into the grating. Blood or condensation dripped through metal mesh, falling into ancient machinery below. So far to fall. So deep to drown. The taste of salt grew stronger with each level they'd descended.

"I studied you, you know." Santos's weight shifted, preparing for the kill. "Every record. Every simulation. You were better before they carved out your enhancements. Purer. But now?" A knife appeared, ceramic edge catching dim light. "Now you're just fascinating archaeology."

Kasper's fingers found the emergency release as Santos drove the blade down. Rusted metal screamed. The grating dropped like a gallows trap, and gravity claimed them both.

They fell through industrial darkness. Past pressure valves and oxidized rails. Past depth markers counting down to sea level. Santos's enhanced reflexes saved him, sent him rolling across a lower platform. But Kasper fell further. Past the platform. Past the failsafes. Into the facility's primitive heart.

Warning klaxons shrieked. Ancient pumps roared alert. The taste of salt grew stronger.

"Clever." Santos's voice echoed down. "But these systems still answer to us. To the new gods. There's nowhere left to—"

Kasper's bleeding fingers found the manual override. Warnings turned to screams. Emergency floodgates shuddered open.

The sea answered its children's call.

Water thundered through forgotten pipes, through decades of industrial evolution. Santos's shout dissolved into white noise as the flood claimed everything. Kasper felt himself swept into drainage systems older than his father, than his father's fathers. Pure force threw him against rusted walls, drove precious air from tortured lungs.

The current carried him past pressure doors, past failing sensors and drowned machines. Each impact brought fresh pain, fresh darkness. The facility's bones crumbled around him as automated systems fought the ocean's invasion. Salt water filled his mouth, tasting of rust and memory.

His last thought, before consciousness fled, was of brass elevators and carved angels. Of a father's wedding band, now lost to industrial depths. Of balance, and entropy, and the patient sea.

Then there was only the tide, and the dark, and the long fall toward dawn.