“Kezra, that isn’t indigestion. That’s a classified atmospheric event. The Zenith alignment isn’t a myth. It’s happening. In precisely seventy-two hours. And if we don't intervene, the entire city will burn.” Seventy-two hours. The number matched my nightmare, ticking down toward his steel finding my ribs. Rot-ale sloshed in my skull while the floorboards vibrated. Before I could string together a cutting retort, the concrete shelter shuddered. A concussive shock rattled the plates bolted across the drywall. A low, grinding groan followed, then a sickening *crack* from the main entrance. Toris didn’t hesitate. His grip on my shoulders vanished as he spun, already pulling a gleaming shiv from a wrist sheath. The casual way he produced a blade made my stomach clench. He moved with a predator’s grace, shedding his patrolman rigidity for something feral. “Stay behind me,” he barked, his voice stripped of its earlier intensity, replaced by a honed, dangerous edge. He didn't wait for a response, already positioning himself between me and the rapidly disintegrating door. The reinforced slab gave way with a shriek of stripped bolts, blowing inward in a storm of slag and copper wiring. Three figures poured through the smoke, cloaked in charcoal twill beneath featureless chrome masks. Each gripped a polished carbine etched with spiraling script. Obsidian Dawn. My brain, drunk as it was, supplied the name with chilling certainty. Bravin's offhand comments about sky-zealots stirring up riots down below suddenly took on sharp teeth. These weren't petty thugs. They were here for Toris. And by extension, for the only person currently in the room with Toris. The lead fanatic raised his barrel, hum vibrating through my teeth. Toris lunged, driving his shiv directly into the charging port until blue sparks bit into the ceiling. The other two advanced, muzzles crackling with sickly viridian discharge that hissed like acid. “Kezra, move!” Toris bellowed, deflecting a rifle stock with his forearm. Move where? The safehouse was a glorified metal box. Running was useless. Especially when the world was ending in 72 hours, and these masked maniacs clearly saw Toris as part of the problem. If they were after him, and he was stuck here, then *I* was stuck here. My usual escape routes were gone. The outbound train was a charred husk. The transit floor crawled with fanatics. I scanned the room. Concrete walls, reinforced ceiling, a few overturned crates, and… a magitech heating grid panel, exposed and sparking near the far corner. It hummed behind a dented iron grate, pipes throbbing with superheated manifold flow. A reckless gambit, but the only lever left to pull. “Toris! Keep them busy!” I shouted, darting across the room. He ducked another green discharge, ducking his shoulder low. “What are you doing?!” “Improvising!” I shouted back, fumbling with the grimy panel. My fingers, accustomed to stripping conduits in unlit crawlways, worked without pausing. The panel cover was rusted shut. I slammed my heel against it, twice, three times, until the flimsy catches gave way with a screech of metal. Inside, conduits coiled around brass release taps. I skipped the wiring, searching for the primary steam valve—a bronze cylinder scored with calibration notches. I didn't want gradual. I wanted blinding, searing chaos. The second fanatic broke past Toris and leveled his sights on my chest, heat building behind the emitter. “Don’t even think about it,” I muttered, wrenching the brass valve counter-clockwise with both palms until the emergency stops sheared clean off. Then, with a desperate prayer to whatever forgotten god oversaw the undercity’s plumbing, I jammed a loose piece of conduit into the primary release mechanism, locking it open. The pipes wailed. Superheated vapor shrieked through the joints, the overhead line glowing dull crimson under the spike. “GET DOWN!” I bellowed, throwing myself behind a stack of empty fuel drums just as a geyser of superheated steam erupted from every fissure, every vent, every loose pipe in the room. The air instantly became a swirling, opaque wall of white-hot vapor. The shriek of the system was deafening. I heard shouts of surprise, then pained gurgles, as the cultists were engulfed. Their arcane weapons, not built for a full-contact steam bath, sputtered. The green hum died as copper coils fused inside hot receiver casings. The smell of ozone and burnt electronics filled the air. Through the fog, Toris stood braced against the bulkhead, his forearm shielding his brow while his stare locked onto me. The sheer shock softened into a fierce, startled regard that set my skin prickling. When the vapor cleared into damp mist, the three assailants lay motionless across scorched flagstones, their gear fused and venting gray smoke. Toris stepped over a body, kicking aside a bent barrel. “Smuggler ingenuity,” he said, his voice flat. “Using the building's boiler as ordnance.” I hauled myself upright, clearing the dizziness. “You learn pipe tolerances when your landlord ignores leaks. Check their pockets before reinforcements arrive.” We searched the cloaks. Dry battery cells, brass talismans, and dried herbs filled the pouches. On the third body, clenched in a stiff leather glove, rested a sheet of foil beaten thin as paper, glowing pale azure. Toris pried open the stiff fingers. When the foil uncurled, light cast an overhead schematic into the air: the entire transit network, cross-sectioned down into ancient sub-levels beneath the tracks. “The Sub-Veridian Passages,” Toris whispered, tracing a cluster of crimson-lined corridors. “Smuggler rumors. Sealed off before the Great Smog.” “Looks like someone found a way,” I muttered, my cynical pragmatism warring with a grudging curiosity. The corridors suggested an unmonitored exit past the city wall, but an amber padlock symbol pulsed over the lowest threshold. Toris deciphered the script along the border. “‘Entry requires biometric cylinder. Patrol-coded. Tier Gamma clearance.’” My ribs tightened. “Patrol-coded? Meaning locked inside your precinct?” He nodded grimly. “Deep storage. The central vault, two levels below the Watch Commander’s desk.” An impossible heist. Right into the heart of the beast. My only hope of escaping this city, and Toris’s prophecy, lay locked away in the most secure building in Kivarr, guarded by the very people who wanted to catch me. And I had seventy-one hours to do it.

Steam and Sarcasm