The rain hit her face like shards of glass, cold and unrelenting. She stumbled forward, heart pounding, breath ragged in the night air. The abandoned metro station was a cavern of shadows, flickering with the occasional spark from broken cables overhead.
Li An didn't look back,the shard in her jacket felt heavier with every step, a silent beacon she hoped would lead to salvation or at least to someone who understood what it contained.
Somewhere deep in the tunnels behind her, the voice still echoed too calm to be human.
"Unauthorized biological signature,"Tier 3 lockdown initiated."
Her boots slipped in the mud and shattered glass,the glow from her tablet flickered against the wet concrete, warning of low power.
"Not now, Not yet."
Up ahead,there was a metal gate hung ajar, one side twisted off its hinges,she slipped through, into a hallway lined with emergency shelter maps from a different era. The city had buried this place long ago, during one of the early outbreaks, so there were no official records left, but someone had kept the locks updated, Sanyu maybe or whatever was left of it.
She turned a corner and almost ran into a figure crouched near a power box.
Her breath caught in her throat.
But it wasn't one of them.
It was a woman young, soaked through, her hands trembling over an old makeshift transmitter. A flare gun lay beside her, its red paint chipped and peeling. When she looked up, her eyes widened.
"You're not infected," the woman said.
Li An hesitated. "Neither are you."
A slow nod.
The woman stood, warily, "Name's Qiao Lan, I've been bouncing signals off defunct satellites since the wall went up,You?"
"Li An." She pulled out the shard, holding it just tight enough to keep from shaking. "I need to get this out, It's proof of everything what Virex is, what it's doing and how it's changing."
Qiao Lan's eyes fixed on the shard, then darted back toward the way Li An had come, "You're being followed, aren't you?"
"Yes."
Qiao didn't hesitate,she grabbed the transmitter, slung it over her shoulder, and waved for Li An to follow, "Come this way there's a lift shaft that leads up to the rooftop repeater, If we can connect before they triangulate us, I might be able to reach someone on the relay net out past Suzhou."
The path up was steep steel stairwells warped from years of neglect, stair treads slick with moss and water twice Li An slipped,the second time, Qiao caught her by the wrist.
"Don't stop," Qiao said panting "If you hear them, you run, You don't wait for me."
"I'm not leaving you behind," Li An said.
"You might not have a choice."
The air grew thinner as they climbed. The storm above was intensifying, Lightning flashed through the cracks in the structure, casting shadows that moved too fast to be natural.
Finally, they reached the top a shattered dome with a rusted antenna and a makeshift uplink console surrounded by thermal blankets and old solar panels. Qiao knelt immediately began wiring the transmitter fingers flying with practiced speed.
Li An kept watch.
At first, all she heard was the storm then footsteps.
Not running. Measured. Many.
She drew a breath stepped forward to block the stairwell If they came, they'd see her first.
She yelled "Qiao?"
Qiao responded "Almost—" A sharp buzz,"Connection live. Just give me a few more seconds…"
The first figure appeared below its face wrong, lips moving but no sound coming another behind it, then another.
They moved like dancers Synchronized, As if guided not by instinct but by command.
"I have to slow them down," Li An said, turning.
"No," Qiao said, "Just keep the shard safe,that's the priority."
But Li An knew the look in Qiao's eyes. She'd already made her choice.
A flare gun was pressed into her hand.
Qiao shoved the shard's data copy into the console port, "I'll send it to everyone pirate towers, civilian nets, emergency archives,If even one node survives the sweep, the truth gets out."
Li An took one step back.
The storm screamed louder.
Qiao grabbed the flare gun again "Go. Now."
Li An hesitated then she turned and climbed out through the broken window onto the scaffolding outside. Wind whipped her face,She didn't look down.
The flare went off behind her.
Red lit the sky.
A scream—not human—followed.
Then silence.
She didn't stop until the ground returned beneath her feet, She was alone again, soaked, shaking, the shard warm against her chest. The flare's red still bled across the clouds above.
The broadcast was out.
And someone, somewhere, was going to hear it.
Or they would die trying.