Ten standard years without a trace. No movement. No signal. No whisper of the shadow war rumoured to burn beneath the hollows.
Then — without preamble — the sensorium array lit.
Heat blooms across abandoned sectors. Energy surges through grid lines long thought dead. Metallic rhythms roll through the underhalls, faint but unmistakable — the sound of machinery moving in concert, the sound of purpose.
For the first time in decades, the Iron stirs.
Surveillance feeds show blurred shapes in the dust, banners of scrap steel carried through corridors, weapon systems sparking to life. For hours, the movement grows bolder — reaching higher levels, seizing junctions, holding them against whatever force occupies the surface.
But as suddenly as it began, the push falters. The feeds shake with concussive impacts. The rhythms break apart, scattered by detonations. In the distance, signal-casters catch voices — raw, panicked, pleading in the high-vaulted spaces where the sound carries far.
Then, silence.
Power drains from the grids, leaving only the cold hum of the ruined world. Whatever rose from the depths that day has fallen back into shadow, leaving only the memory of motion… and the echo of cries that still seem to linger in the air.
[End of record]