Fragmented Light

Chapter 6: Shockwaves

Lyra's boots scraped against worn stone, each step echoing wrong in tunnels that had grown too quiet. The fever burned hotter after her climb from the depths, painting golden afterimages across her vision that lingered like dying stars. She pressed her forehead against a crystal formation, letting its cool surface ground her in reality. The stabilizer pulsed in her pocket like a guilty conscience.

"Not yet," she muttered to no one. "Need a clear head for the meeting. Assuming my head doesn't actually explode first. That would really ruin everyone's evening."

The maintenance tunnels stretched ahead, their paths familiar as breathing to anyone who'd grown up avoiding corporate patrols. Tonight they felt different. Empty in ways that made her mining instincts scream. Even the crystal dust seemed wrong, hanging motionless in air that should never be still.

She passed familiar markers – scratches on walls that told stories in Yellow Sector's secret language. Here, three diagonal lines meant "safe passage." There, a circular pattern warned of structural weakness. The corps had never bothered to learn these signs, assuming them to be random vandalism. Their mistake. These marks had helped generations survive.

A figure emerged from shadow – Voss, his face grey with crystal lung but his eyes sharp as ever. "Cutting it close, girl." His voice carried the distinctive rasp of someone who'd breathed too much mineral residue. "Meeting's already starting. Bad night to be late."

"Sorry, had to make a delivery." She matched his pace as they moved deeper into the maintenance sector. "How many showed up?"

"More than expected. Word's spreading about the buyout. About what DK Inc really means." He coughed, the sound crystalline. "Got people scared enough to risk gathering. You know how bad things have to be for that."

She did. The last major meeting had been three years ago, when Lumina Corp "optimized" life support in the lower levels. Two hundred dead before anyone realized it wasn't an accident. The meeting had saved lives – emergency evacuations, shared resources, unofficial warning systems. But the corps had found some of the organizers afterward. Their names were on the Wall now, listed as "equipment-related incidents."

The stabilizer burned against her ribs. Not yet. Not yet.

They approached the makeshift assembly hall – an abandoned maintenance bay carved deep enough that even corporate sensors struggled to penetrate. Normally it hummed with the background resonance of crystal formations. Tonight it was silent.

"Something's wrong," she said softly, more to herself than Voss. The stolen data chip pulsed in time with her fever, like it was trying to warn her. Like the whole moon was trying to warn her.

"Everything's wrong." Voss's laugh turned into another crystal-chime cough. "That's why we're here."

The hall was already full when they entered. Faces she knew from a lifetime of shared survival. Miners still in dust-caked work suits, fresh from shifts that stretched regulatory limits. Technicians with tools strapped to their belts – not for the meeting, but because you never knew when equipment might fail catastrophically. Even a few corporate workers who'd finally seen too much, their clean uniforms marking them as targets if this went bad.

Senna stood at the front, her doctor's calm masking the tension Lyra could read in her shoulders. Their eyes met briefly. A small nod. A shared understanding of exactly how much they were risking.

"Friends." Senna's voice carried easily through the space, pitched to avoid echoes that might travel too far. "For generations, we've broken our backs and sacrificed our health to pull wealth from Galri's bones. And what have we gotten in return? Poverty. Sickness. Early graves."