The first explosion sealed the main exit.
The concrete corridor collapsed behind us, cutting off the way to the surface. At the same time, the lights went out. Red seals planted on the walls by Kane's men flared in the darkness.
Styx called up the swarm, but the signal returned with a delay. One of the captains was answering to someone else.
On the far side of the station, Kane held the living node in a glass container. A suppression seal forced the captain to transmit a false impulse: the queen is here, follow the queen. Several autonomous broods were already moving straight into prepared fire traps.
"Cut that captain off," Mira said.
"I can't. He's beyond the direct circuit."
Styx could still sever the bond with the entire brood, but then thousands of swarm members would lose their last shared command inside the enclosed tunnels.
She chose another way. The three nearest captains received new tasks and began relaying a signal across the old chain: do not follow the call, stay with the cold air, find exits.
It was slower than a command. But the false node could no longer steer the entire swarm in a single movement.
Cole opened an emergency cabinet and handed out filters. Mira led us to the service lift. The car was not working, so we had to climb down the shaft.
Beneath the laboratory, there were none of the usual concrete floors: the walls became smooth and dark, like hardened wax. Empty hexagonal cells remained in them, ranging in size from a palm to a human body.
Styx brushed the walls with her wings, and red light came alive along the passage.
"The nest recognises the queen," Mira said.
"Which means Kane will know where we're going too."
Guild fighters met us at the bottom. They wore none of the usual seals bonding them to beasts. A white cable ran from each man's neck to a portable seal held by an operator. Kane had replaced living beasts with an artificial circuit in advance, so Styx could not free them through the parasite.
Cole opened fire on the seal. The operator took cover behind a shield, and the fighters advanced without reacting to their wounds.
"They can't feel anything," Lily shouted.
"They can," Mira replied. "They aren't being allowed to stop."
I sent the soldiers at the cables, not the men. Hundreds of thin bodies covered the white lines, Styx released a weak discharge, and the insulation melted. The circuit broke.
The fighters collapsed. One immediately began to scream; another could not unclench his fingers. The control had hidden the pain, not removed it.
We moved on without finishing them off.
The consent key stood at the centre of a circular chamber. It looked like a transparent plate with two recesses: one for a human palm and one for a beast's paw. The archive opened only when both parties confirmed at the same time.
I placed my hand in one. Styx settled into the other.
The System tried to confirm the action for her.
"Host command accepted. Subordinate unit…"
Styx withdrew her legs.
The key went dark.
I closed the System window.
"Decide for yourself."
She returned and touched the plate without my command.
The key lit up.
Contract records appeared on the chamber walls, with millions of lines connecting people and beasts throughout the city. Most were ordinary two-way bonds, overlaid by the Guild's white network. Every line converged on a single seal owner.
The owner was the Li family.
Lily connected a storage device and began copying the archive. Seven minutes remained until the transfer was complete.
We did not have seven minutes.
A Chain Basilisk emerged from the opposite passage. The white plates covering its body spread apart, releasing golden rings. Kane followed the beast, flanked by suppression operators.
"Thank you, Rex. The chamber would never have opened without the queen."
He had not followed us blindly. The core fragment had led him to the station, the captured captain had shown him the way, and we had unlocked the key ourselves.
Kane looked at Styx.
"All these years, you called this freedom. In the end, she still obeys a boy's commands."
"Not all of them any more," I replied.
The basilisk opened its golden rings.
The first ring struck the swarm. The mosquitoes did not die, but hung in the air, stripped of direction. The second ring closed around Cole and forced him to lower his rifle. The third went for Styx.
She slipped into spectral flight. The ring passed straight through her.
That was exactly what Kane had been waiting for. The old incubators in the walls activated, filling the chamber with grey light that matched the radiation used to force the egg awake. Styx's spectral body turned solid.
The golden ring closed around her wings.
I felt her pain and lunged forwards, but the basilisk turned its head. The band around its eyes flared.
My right hand rose to my throat on its own.
Kane was not controlling my muscles. He had found the System's external circuit and was issuing commands through it.
"You wanted to know who owns your strength," he said. "Look at your own hand."
My fingers closed around my throat.
Styx jerked inside the ring. A single furious impulse tore through the bond.
"No."
The System between us cracked. I regained control of my hand for one second and drove the thunder core into the floor.
The discharge scattered the operators, extinguished some of the rings and broke Cole free. But Styx's ring remained closed.
Kane raised the portable queen cage.
Inside its walls, the captain he had used as a beacon was already pulsing.
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