CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE NURSERY BREACH
SHAARR
The alarm came through bark. Three strikes. Pause. Three more.
Nursery distress. I was already moving when the second set began. Vyrr dropped from the upper canopy beside me.
"Lower western nursery."
"Young?"
"Nine."
"Guardians?"
"Three."
"Route?"
She pointed north. Wrong. The Rootmaws had been shifting west for two days under Rowan's correction model. Not north.
Not toward the nursery. The branch beneath us trembled. Once. Then again.
Deep. Many bodies. We ran. The nursery appeared through broken foliage. Half the lower platform was gone. One support root had collapsed into a fresh tunnel.
Guardians moved young toward the upper canopy while the ground heaved beneath them. A Rootmaw breached. I dropped. Its jaws opened.
I landed across the upper plate and drove both claws into the seam behind its head. It twisted. The force nearly threw me. Another animal surfaced near the evacuation path. A guardian activated a sonic disruptor. The Rootmaw recoiled.
Then turned toward the sound. Wrong. The counter-frequency was attracting them.
"Stop the emitters!"
Too late. The nursery floor cracked. Vyrr shouted. Three young remained on the lower platform. I released the creature and jumped. The structure fell as I landed.
One child came into my arms. Another guardian caught the second. The third disappeared between collapsing roots. A small hand.
Copper armor. Gone. I dropped to the opening.
"Where?"
A frightened click came from below. Alive. The ground shifted. Something large moved toward him. Vyrr grabbed my shoulder.
"Do not tear through the wall."
"He is below."
"You collapse the chamber, you kill him."
She was right. I hated her for being right. My communicator pulsed. Juno.
"Shaarr."
"Nursery breach."
"We know."
"The frequency model failed."
"It changed."
"Explain."
"Root mineral reflection. The corrective signal is interfering with residual Preybridge contamination."
"Fix it."
"We're working."
A second voice entered. Rowan. Everything inside my chest reacted. I gripped the edge of the hole.
"What?"
"I found the inversion pattern."
"How long?"
"No clean estimate."
The child cried again. Closer movement beneath him.
"No time."
"I know."
Rowan's voice became sharper.
"Do you have a field transmitter?"
Vyrr held one up.
"Yes."
"Set it to local output only. No network relay."
She adjusted the controls as he spoke. I listened. Not because he was compatible. Because he knew what he was doing. The transmitter activated.
A low pulse entered the root system. The approaching Rootmaw changed direction. Six seconds. Then corrected.
Came back. Vyrr swore.
"Signal too weak."
Rowan's breath hissed through the channel.
"Depth loss."
The child screamed. I began tearing through the root wall. Vyrr shouted my name. I ignored her.
The passage collapsed around my shoulders. Earth struck my armor. I forced through. Darkness opened beneath the nursery. The young guardian crouched between exposed roots. A Rootmaw emerged twenty body lengths away. I reached the child.
Pulled him against my chest.
"Eyes closed."
He obeyed. The creature accelerated.
"Shaarr."
Rowan again.
"What?"
"Depth."
I checked the human beacon at my wrist.
"Twelve meters."
Silence. Too long.
"Rowan."
"Too deep for remote correction."
The Rootmaw slammed into a root column. The chamber lurched. I turned my back to it and shielded the child.
"Then find another way."
"I'm trying."
A new crack opened above us. Dust poured down. The channel went quiet. Then Rowan said my name again. Not as medic.
Not as scientist. Something else.
"Shaarr."
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
Cold moved through me.
"Why?"
The connection died.