Nalina
NALINA
T he maintenance shaft narrowed as we descended further into the station’s insides. My footsteps echoed off corroded pipes while I tracked power fluctuations on the tablet. The readouts pulsed brighter - we were getting closer.
“Another surge.” I pointed to fresh numbers scrolling across the screen. “Same pattern we saw in the monitoring station.”
Tyrix nodded, his head tilted as he tracked something I couldn’t detect. “Chemical traces are stronger here.”
My knees protested as I ducked under a low-hanging conduit. The air grew thicker with each level we descended, heavy with the smell of burnt electronics and something medicinal that burned the back of my throat.
“Wait.” I caught Tyrix’s arm. A maintenance panel hung askew ahead, its edges still warm. “Someone’s been through here. Recently.”
He brushed his fingers over the metal. “Within the hour.”
The deeper we went, the more signs appeared - access panels disturbed, power connections jury-rigged into configurations that made my maintenance training scream in protest. Whoever had done this knew enough about station systems to be dangerous.
A strange humming vibrated through the deck plates. Not the normal song of the station’s systems - this was wrong, discordant.
“They’re drawing massive power.” I studied the readouts. “Way more than medical equipment should need.”
“How much further?”
I checked the schematics. “Two more junctions. Then-”
The words died in my throat as labored breathing echoed through the tunnel ahead. The sound was wet, gurgling - barely recognizable as something that had once been Poraki.
Tyrix’s hand reached for mine in the darkness, squeezing once before letting go. We moved forward in silence, following the awful sound.
The room opened up like a wound in the station’s flesh.
Medical equipment crowded the space, a nightmare blend of stolen hospital gear and station power systems. Neural monitors pulsed with readings I’d never seen before, their displays showing cascading patterns that looked more like programming code than vital signs.
A device that should have been measuring brain activity had been modified, its sensors rewired to feed something back into the system. Cables snaked across the floor, pulsing with diverted power.
And in the middle of it all lay Jevik.
My stomach lurched. The monitoring data hadn’t prepared me for this. His skin had gone translucent, shot through with threads of purple-black. The gills at his neck fluttered weakly, struggling for each breath. Tubes and wires pierced his flesh, pumping in whatever hellish cocktail was destroying him from the inside out.
“Gods.” I pressed my hand to my mouth. “What did they do to you?”
His eyes flickered open at my voice. For a moment there was nothing behind them - just the empty stare we’d seen in the controlled maintenance workers. Then recognition sparked.
“Na...?” The word came out as a wet rasp.
“I’m here.” I moved closer, trying to make sense of the equipment readouts. His vitals strobed red across every screen. “We’re going to get you out-”
“No.” His hand shot out, surprisingly strong, gripping my wrist. “No time. Have to... tell you...”
“Save your strength.” But even as I said it, I knew. The cellular breakdown we’d seen in the data was accelerating. His body was literally falling apart.
“The humans.” Each word seemed to cost him tremendous effort. “They started... with the humans first. Testing... compatibility...”
“Compatibility for what?”
“Neural pathways more... adaptable. Easier to...” His eyes rolled back as another surge of whatever they were pumping into him hit his system. “Integration rates... higher than... other species...”
His back arched as something surged through the tubes. Purple-black spread further under his skin.
“Where light... doesn’t reach.” His grip on my wrist tightened painfully. “That’s where... they keep...”
He convulsed, fighting against whatever tried to silence him. “Dr. Gondon... she tried to... but they...”
An alarm shrieked through the station’s comm system. Security alerts flashed red across my tablet.
“We’ve been detected.” Tyrix’s hands moved over the equipment, downloading what data he could. “We need to move. Now.”
“Can’t we-”
“He’s dying.” Tyrix’s words cut through my hesitation. “But we can still help the others. If we move now.”
I knew he was right. The readouts told the story in brutal clarity - multiple organ failure, massive cellular deterioration. Nothing we could do would save him now.
But leaving him here...
Jevik’s eyes cleared one final time. “Go.” His voice was almost his own again. “Stop them. Use... the codes...”
His hand fell away from my wrist. A series of numbers scrolled weakly across one monitor - access codes that might lead us deeper into whatever horror the Consortium had created.
Boot steps echoed through the maintenance shafts. Multiple teams converging.
“.” Tyrix’s hand found my shoulder. “We have to go.”
“Wait.” I spotted something half-hidden under the main console - a medical data core, its housing modified with unfamiliar tech. The kind of black-market neural interface components that didn’t officially exist. “This isn’t standard medical equipment.”
I yanked it free, ignoring the angry spark of disconnected cables. Whatever data it contained might help us understand what they were trying to create.
We fled through maintenance tunnels, evading patrols by instinct and luck. My mind spun with Jevik’s broken warnings.
Where light doesn’t reach.
I knew these tunnels, knew this station’s guts like my own body. And I knew exactly where he meant.
“The Deep Dark.” I caught Tyrix’s arm as we paused to catch our breath. “That’s what he was trying to tell us. The abandoned sections below the reactor core - where even maintenance crews won’t go.”
His expression darkened. “Makes sense. Perfect place to conceal something they don’t want found.”
“The access codes he gave us...” I pulled up the sequence on my tablet. “They’re for the old emergency systems. The ones that predate current station infrastructure.”
“Then we know where we’re going next.”
I nodded, though my stomach twisted at the thought. The Deep Dark had earned its name. Even the station’s most desperate residents avoided those levels.
A patrol passed overhead. We pressed against the wall, barely breathing, until the boots faded.
“The Deep Dark won’t have working life support,” I whispered, mind racing through practicalities. “We’ll need breathers, light sources that won’t fail.”
“I have gear in a secure drop.” Tyrix checked the station time. “Basic survival equipment. But we’ll need more than that to navigate those levels.”
I thought of the purple-black corruption spreading through Jevik’s flesh, the way his body had fought against the control even as it destroyed him. Whatever waited in the Deep Dark had to explain this horror - had to give us a way to stop it.
“Two hours,” I said. “That’s enough time to gather what we need and make it to the lower access point before shift change.”
He nodded, already plotting our route. “The security patterns will shift then. Give us better coverage.”
“They won’t get away with this,” I promised the empty tunnel, remembering Jevik’s final moments of clarity. “Whatever they’re doing, whatever they’re creating - we’ll stop them.”
The Deep Dark waited below. And somewhere in that lightless realm, answers lurked.
But first, we had a few ghosts to lay to rest.