I

  could've told you it took forever to get from the open doorway to

  another, but I'd be lying. With the hood in place and armed with the

  fresh intel of Crawler hunting habits, the walk into the tunnels went

  by rather quickly and was mostly unremarkable.

  The

  one major discovery of note: Every so often, I came across the

  skeletons of tiny creatures no wider than my hand and, in some cases,

  as small as my pinkie: Scrabs.

  It

  was during the final stages of the Global War when the Geneva

  Conventions were ignored. The resulting strikes created a hellish

  landscape anywhere not actively defended by advanced screening

  systems like those within the Spire's upper levels. The hot spots

  affected by the immense fallout, radiation, and other effects of the

  combined tactical nuclear arsenals and genetic cocktails of mass

  biological warheads created the Unrecovered zones. Scrabs were the

  descendants of biologically mutated rats and rodents changed in such

  zones as these, just like the ones surrounding City 17's borders

  outside The Glow.

  Though

  sometimes able to chew and claw their way into the heavy metal

  containers we used to transport bulk goods between cities, there were

  dedicated protocols for handling potential Scrab infestations. Seeing

  one usually wasn't a big deal. They were a common enough problem at

  the Port you'd rarely see anything more than single digits or solo

  stragglers. However, if allowed to thrive, the little vermin could be

  more than just a headache.

  Their

  bare, grinning skeletons seemed no more desiccated than Branch's body

  despite their smaller size, but I had a bit of a scare when these

  skeletons became trails of bones I initially mistook for fingers and

  metacarpals large enough to be those of children and small adults.

  The

  horrifying image of people being dragged down here by Scrabs mirrored

  the thought of being pulled into a sub-tunnel by a Crawler. Having

  not thought much about either as a kid when I'd been roaming around

  unmolested by either?

  Nope.

  I was gonna just not think about that too hard right now.

  Judging

  by the number of bones I'd already spotted, there must have been

  hundreds, if not a thousand, Scrabs at one point.

  I

  came across a series of dotted trails made by the tapping feet of

  Crawler drones into the now powdered skeleton piles. The dots pointed

  toward one of the doorway vestibules as, behind me, skeletons led

  deeper and away, toward Branch's corpse. By the looks of the

  aftermath, the whole of the push inward by the Scrab Wave had been

  ceased by strategic flooding of nitrogen gas as the Crawler Drones

  did their gruesome work.

  Assuming

  the trail of intact skeletons would thin toward the breach point, I

  paced carefully toward the nearest vestibule and finally connected

  key pieces of a very fractured puzzle. The piles closer to the

  doorway ahead bore scorch marks, with fewer intact bones as the

  powder became finer, and the coloration took on a more ashen quality.

  As the numbers of charred piles increased, so too did the quantity of

  trailed dots as the paths converged.

  The

  ash piles made it difficult to walk as my suit's work light traced

  the outline of a plastcrete plug, a plug flush with the surface of

  the wall and fitted to seal a roughened hole no wider than my head.

  Surrounding

  the now-sealed hole were claw marks rising to the ceiling and

  spreading outward along the floor and corridor. The lines were so

  numerous they flowed in a way reminiscent of an ivy plant clinging to

  the dull plastcrete foundation. Moving my light to and fro made the

  lines stand out in stark contrast. They danced and stretched like

  wriggling tendrils.

  I'd

  once seen a Creeper Ivy at a botanical garden.

  I'd

  found it beautiful despite the warnings of its ability to spread and

  take over man-made ecosystems. There were other holographic exhibits

  intermixed, visible examples of the non-genetically modified variants

  the Ivy had pushed out as it adapted to our climate. The leaves of

  the Creeping Ivy were vibrant and had a certain aesthetic pattern

  despite being intermixed with the uniformity of modified genetics.

  I'd been told by the guide that any attempts to control and reconcile

  the vibrant coloration were a failure, "Chaos theory

  exemplified."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Here?

  The markings were ugly. The claw-created vines forming a hungry

  scrabble on the plastcrete as the swarm moved and burrowed toward a

  desperate future. By the looks of the scene as I took it in its

  entirety, if you thought about it, the swarm only existed by a chain

  of genetic manipulations, time, and evolutionary theory. Being drawn

  toward the promise of heat and sustenance was in their make-up, what

  they were forced to do as a result of their created environment.

  Piles

  of powdered skeletons and bones acted as gruesome monuments to the

  successful work of Crawlers fighting against the Scrab menace. They'd

  brought order back from history-created chaos but created chaos

  themselves as the sins of mankind fought back. Their machine logic

  focused more on order and maintaining environmental conditions. The

  logic wouldn't, or couldn't, take humans into consideration as it

  cycled. It was a risky trade-off: safety and protection so long as

  you didn't become an outlier.

  Branch

  had been caught in between Scrab and Crawler as he attempted to save

  himself. He became an outlier just like I had, but to different

  parties.

  Poor

  guy, I thought.

  Letting

  my light wander, I visualized a rough approximation of where Branch's

  body had been. It matched the trail. There had been a great number of

  Scrabs, each gouge, tear, pile, and intact skeleton a clear sign for

  how dangerous the threat had truly been, a threat stopped at the cost

  of one human life.

  Was

  the cost worth it?

  I

  couldn't honestly answer.

  Hero?

  Victim? Unfortunate bystander? There was just no way for me to tell.

  The breach point of a burrowing vermin infestation might not have

  been large in the scope of things, but its effects would've been

  locally horrifying if nothing had stopped it. It was entirely

  possible he was the one who raised the alarm, which led to his own

  demise. Would he have done it if death was guaranteed?

  As

  to why the drones were left on hunter mode and Branch's body had

  remained undisturbed once the threat was handled? I had no real way

  of telling. A silent but furious subterranean war had been waged as

  people like me lived our lives above, oblivious.

  I'd

  never known.

  WE...had

  never known.

  Like

  the true appearance of the Spires, how much more had we been blind

  to, and why?

  I

  moved past the plug, past all of the piles of crushed Scrab bodies

  and dotted trails, and approached the doorway. My interface was met

  with nothing as I held my finger over the contact point. The way out

  had been blocked, the internal mechanisms having been disabled or

  removed.

  I

  felt a shot of anxiety. I'd had my own battles to wage, and I'd been

  held up too long unraveling the tangled threads of this unrelated

  mystery. How much air would I need to find another way out? How much

  air had I already wasted if I couldn't get another door to open? Why

  had the original door worked?

  From

  a technical sense, the choice to permanently disable doorways nearest

  the plug's location was a smart one. It also didn't bode well for my

  chances of finding a doorway in the immediate vicinity. The decision

  to flood the tunnels with nitrogen gas and set the triggers on the

  Crawlers to activate if they detected Scrab breathable air was also

  an efficient one. Too bad Branch and I needed the same ratios to

  live.

  The

  sinking feeling in my stomach returned as I tried two other doorways,

  both disabled.

  I'd

  confirmed my theory.

  It

  was time to turn back; I needed air.

  I

  continued to see Crawlers as I sped along, careful not to touch or

  trigger any of the singular units pausing to monitor me as I passed.

  I was able to observe several of the groups, always in threes,

  lingering in areas that were paths of least resistance from the

  location of the breach point. Their movements and positions now made

  sense to me, and I was easily able to avoid them as I carefully

  picked my way back.

  At

  last, the doorway opened with a quiet click, as I gasped, breathing

  as deeply and quietly as I could of the frigid air. Black spots had

  begun to creep into my vision, and I'd been miraculously closer to

  passing out than I felt comfortable admitting. I took a few extra

  breaths, ready to close the hood in anticipation of another dive into

  the tunnel depths when I inhaled it.

  Thick

  and cloying, a stream of cigarette smoke drifted from outside the

  entry, making a straight beeline into my face. My lungs were

  assaulted with a sudden urge to cough as a rough voice yelled from

  outside the doorway.

  "HEY!

  What are you doing down here?!"