The access tunnel was narrow, forcing Amelia into a crouch as she ran. It opened quickly onto a catwalk high above the main sewer junction—a massive, vaulted chamber where the city’s arteries converged. The smell was overpowering, a toxic mix of industrial runoff and human waste.
Below her, the rush of water was a roar. The data spindle was somewhere down there, likely already miles away from the cellar drain.
She stopped at a juncture in the tunnels. The noise covered the sound of her pursuit, a small mercy. She pulled out the folded sketch she’d made back in the cell, the one Director Vane now possessed. She hoped his extraction teams were busy tearing apart the wrong section of the sewer grid right now.
Her sketch wasn't just a map of the cellar; it was a map of the junction she was standing in now. The musical notations she had layered over the drawing weren't directions for Vane; they were coordinates for her. The polyrhythms corresponded to the flow rates and confluence points of the sewer system.
B-flat. C-sharp. The first notes meant the spindle would be carried by the main flow channel (Channel B-flat, perhaps?) and then diverted into a smaller tributary (C-sharp) where the current slowed enough for it to sink.
She traced the path on the sketch. It led her down several rickety iron ladders, closer and closer to the rushing, opaque river below. The air was heavy and warm.
She reached the lowest level, a narrow concrete ledge barely a foot wide. The water was dark and moved with brutal speed. If she fell in, she'd be gone in seconds.
She activated the shock prod she'd taken from the guard, using its light to scan the rushing water and the banks where sludge accumulated. She was looking for a specific confluence point, where the velocity shifted.
The light beam caught a glint in the muck at the edge of the current. It was a shard of ceramic, black and iridescent. The nightingale.
Her heart pounded. The bird must have broken apart in the fall, but the spindle was likely still intact, protected within its central core.
She reached for the shard, leaning precariously over the torrent. Her fingers brushed the edge of the ceramic.
A brilliant white light suddenly flared behind her, blinding her.
"Hold it right there, Miss Thorne!" Director Vane’s voice cut through the roar of the water, no longer calm but furious. He hadn't sent an extraction team; he had come himself.
Vane stood on the ledge behind her, flanked by four officers. He held a custom-made pistol that crackled with blue energy.
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