The tremor hit before the system alarms could catch it, and a sharp crack split the corridor, metal shearing somewhere deep in the tunnels. And then everything came down at once.
Instinct kicked in: Onyx didn’t remember moving, only pressure, a rush of shattered air, the crush of earth where the ceiling used to be. The light fractured and heat slammed through him as the world broke apart and swallowed him whole.
When he came back to himself, the air tasted of iron and dust; it clung to the back of his throat and he coughed. A single emergency strip blinked weakly overhead, throwing sickly light across the rubble. Onyx rubbed dust out of his eyes and looked around. The relay junction they’d come to inspect was now buried under half a wall. His sensors scrambled through debris readings, one arm refusing to respond below the elbow. A quick systems scan threw the warning across his HUD. Partial servo lock. Great.
Movement stirred a few feet away.
“Okay,” Minjae’s voice rasped through the haze. “That was not in the briefing.”
Relief punched through Onyx and he twisted, forcing the rubble off his legs. “Status?”
“Cranky. Breathing. Possibly covered in my own sarcasm.” Minjae coughed, sitting up. “You?”
Onyx flexed his shoulder, the damaged limb twitching like an irritated animal. “Functional enough.”
Around them, the tunnel groaned again, a slow metallic protest that made both of them freeze. Onyx’s internal compass flashed once and then failed. He didn’t like that. Losing orientation made him feel… vulnerable.
Minjae squinted through the dimness, now brushing dirt from his hair. “Comms are down, yeah?”
Onyx tested his earpiece, but it was dead. “For now.”
“So we’re doing this the old-fashioned way.” Kicking a loose panel aside, Minjae whistled. “Got to say, not your best field trip idea.”
“Wasn’t supposed to be a field trip.” Onyx glanced around. “We’ll need to mark a safe zone before the secondary collapse.”
“Secondary? Oh, lovely.” Minjae rolled his eyes but started moving, clearing smaller debris. For all his jokes, he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Ex-corporate efficiency underlaid by an engineer’s brain.
Onyx joined him, one hand digging through a tangle of cables. The augment in his left arm stuttered again and the smell of overheated circuitry hit the air.
Minjae frowned and glanced over at him. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”
“It’s fine.”
“Sure,” Minjae said. “If fine smells like burning metal.”
Onyx ignored him, but the tremor in his grip betrayed him. Minutes passed like that, the two of them working in the near-dark, trading barbs between the clatter of falling dust. It wasn’t until Onyx tried to move a section of pipe that the limb finally seized; his servo screamed and locked, sparks snapping across his sleeve.
He bit off a curse and knelt hard against the nearest wall.
Minjae was beside him in seconds. “Hey. Don’t you dare fry yourself. Soahn will kill me if I let you melt. You’re one of his favourite hybrids.”
Onyx’s jaw tightened. “It’s a malfunction. I can handle it.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Minjae said dryly, watching another spark jump. “Move your hand before you cook the joint.” He reached toward Onyx’s arm and Onyx flinched away automatically.
“Don’t.”
One of Minjae’s eyebrows lifted at that. “You planning to wrestle it into compliance, or are we going to fix it like rational people?”
Onyx glared at him, breathing hard. The limb was locked in a half-clenched fist, metal hot against his skin where his augment knit to his body. He hated this — the helplessness, the reminder that his own strength could occasionally betray him.
Minjae knelt at his side. “Listen, you’ve patched me up more than once. Let me return the favour. No fuss.”
Onyx hesitated, but no matter how he looked at the situation, he couldn’t see any other option. Slowly, he extended the arm; heat shimmered between them, a subtle tang of ozone filling the space.
Minjae worked quickly, scanning the servo housing, popping the panel loose with a quick twist, and isolating the heat spike along the inner wiring, his touch careful but not gentle. “You should’ve told me it was running this hot,” he muttered. “You’re basically holding a furnace.”
“Didn’t seem relevant.”
“Everything that might explode is relevant.”
Onyx rolled his eyes but said nothing. Minjae was right, though, and he knew it. It was just difficult telling others when there was a problem. Onyx had spent so many years self-sufficient in the military, and whenever he needed maintenance it was always handled by automated systems, not real people who actually gave a damn about how he was holding together.
Onyx tipped his head back and watched dust drift down, fine as ash, as Minjae adjusted one of the power cables with a small tool pulled from his jacket.
“If I can vent the charge, it should stabilise—”
He was cut off by a low rumble echoing through the tunnels, and both of them froze. Carefully, Minjae twisted one of the exposed connectors, his movements slower and steadier now. A brief hiss cut through the silence as trapped heat vented from the joint.
“There. Not fixed,” he muttered, sitting back, “but you aren’t about to take my eyebrows off, so that’s a good start.”
Onyx nodded once, scanning for any viable exits. None. Just the sound of their own breathing and the faint whine of failing power.
They settled side by side against the wall, the light stuttering overhead.
Minjae’s voice came quieter this time. “You think they’ll find us soon?”
“They’ll look,” Onyx said. “But it could take hours.”
“Right.” A pause. “So… we talk, then. Otherwise, I’m going to start narrating the slow demise of my sanity.”
Onyx didn’t answer, but he tilted his head fractionally, a silent concession.
He could hear Minjae’s smile in the words. “Knew I’d win that one.”
~*~
Every sound was muted and flattened by the earth above them, the space absorbing it before it could travel. The only things still working were the emergency light and the soft ticking from Onyx’s damaged servo.
Minjae crouched across from him, sleeves rolled up, a small toolkit splayed out on the ground. “I still can’t get over the fact you carry a wrench set but no snacks,” he muttered, blowing dust from a connector. “Who does that?”
“I rarely need snacks.”
“Everybody needs snacks. I don’t care what you say.”
Onyx watched him work, his fingers deft and unhurried. For someone who lived on jokes and deflection, Minjae turned into pure focus when he had something broken in front of him. It was almost comforting, the soft click of tools and controlled rhythm of his movements. The light caught on the old burn scars tracing Minjae’s hands. Onyx had seen them before plenty of times, but he’d never really looked at them. They mapped over Minjae’s knuckles like pale circuitry, lines uneven, intersecting, pinching the skin. Onyx knew some of the story — the sabotage, the fire, the escape, the NuYu servers gone up in smoke — but Minjae had never gone into detail about why, or the aftermath.
For a moment, Onyx found himself wondering what it had cost, what else those hands had done to buy freedom, but he wouldn't ask. It wasn't like Onyx had ever gone into detail about why he’d left the military. And he knew what his own damage looked like — scar tissue meeting metal plating, the frequent maintenance he often had to conduct to keep his augments balanced, the constant feeling that he wasn’t quite complete, and the small failures like his servo right now. In many ways he didn’t need to ask what it’d cost Minjae or what he still carried silently. He already understood enough.
If Minjae noticed the scrutiny, he didn’t react to it. He was lost in the rhythm of repair; it changed his entire face, his usual sharp observation softened into calm focus.
Onyx turned his attention away, the thought settling somewhere deep and uncomfortable — admiration tangled with a quieter feeling, harder to name. He brought his damaged arm closer, the metal’s heat easing slightly under Minjae’s touch. Sparks had scorched the plating along the forearm, blackened in places.
Minjae let out a low whistle. “You’ve been running this joint past safe threshold for a while.”
Onyx lifted a shoulder. “It still functions.”
“Yeah, until it doesn’t.” Minjae pried the panel loose with a small groan of metal. “You know, I always thought you’d have some fancy self-repair protocol, or a secret military drone that follows you around with a spanner.”
“I prefer control.”
“Control’s good,” Minjae said. “Until it eats you alive.”
Onyx frowned. Control had served him well over the years, kept him operational in conditions that would’ve broken others. But it hadn’t stopped this — the locked joint, the unchecked heat, the moment his own body refused to obey, or how unmoored it made him feel.
Minjae smirked. “Hey, don’t give me that look. I get it. You and I both play god with our own disasters. Yours just involves more metal.”
A bead of coolant rolled from the joint and sizzled out. Onyx watched it silently.
Minjae kept working. “You ever think about it? What you’d be like without all the upgrades?”
“No,” Onyx said automatically. But then he hesitated when Minjae cast him a sideways look. “I don’t remember a version of me before this,” he added, although this was also untrue. A memory pushed through, then: broken windows and bitter air, a door that didn’t lock, the hollow ache of hunger that never went away, frozen fingers trying to hold a pencil and make up raps in the flickering candlelight.
He shut it down before it could drag him further into the past.
Minjae continued to watch him, his head tilted slightly. To his credit, he didn’t push. Instead he nodded and adjusted a filament with the tip of the screwdriver. “Guess I know that feeling.”
Onyx stared at him. “You?”
Minjae gave a half laugh. “What, you think I was born with the personality of a security breach? NuYu wrote more code in me than I care to remember, and then they tried to erase me. I left before they could finish the job.” He snapped a connection back into place, and the servo twitched.
Onyx’s voice dropped a little. “And you joined us.”
Minjae shrugged. “Better ghosts than gods.”
They both sat with that for a moment, the tunnel around them creaking gently like even what was left of the walls was listening. The repairs were nearly done now. Minjae’s hands hovered over the exposed servos, steady despite the fine dust still drifting down onto them.
“All right, big guy. Last connection. You’re going to feel it.”
The surge kicked through the limb like a lightning bolt, and Onyx’s fingers spasmed once before settling. He blew out a breath through his teeth.
Minjae grinned. “See? Look at that. Didn’t explode. Ten out of ten.”
“Eight,” Onyx corrected. “You skipped calibration.”
“God, you really are impossible.”
They both laughed, quietly, tiredly, the sound echoing strangely in the confined space.
Minjae sat back on his heels and looked around. A minute passed before he spoke again. “You could’ve escaped sooner, you know. Back when you first started doubting your superiors. No one would’ve blamed you for running.”
Onyx looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers again. “Leaving wouldn’t have stopped the program.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Onyx didn’t answer at first. The blue gleam from the servo cast long shadows across his arm and shoulder, picking out the human skin from the metal seams. “If I’d gone,” he said finally, “they would have taken someone else. Someone younger. Easier to rebuild.”
“So you stayed to make sure no one else got turned into a weapon,” Minjae said.
Nodding, Onyx let his hand drop and tipped his head back against the stone. “There were things we were asked to do…”
“Asked?”
Onyx felt a muscle jump in his jaw. “Told. Programmed.” He swallowed. “I didn’t stay long enough. Perhaps I could have… made more of a difference.”
“Maybe,” Minjae said. “But more likely is that they would’ve dismantled you like they do everything else they can’t control.”
“Hm.”
He felt Minjae reach for his arm again, tightening one last bolt. “You know,” he said lightly, “most people just take up knitting when they want redemption.”
It was so absurd that Onyx found himself laughing softly at that. “Knitting requires softness. I’m not good at handling soft things.”
“Ha! There’s the Onyx I know.”
Far away, an echo of comms crackled through the dust. Onyx tilted his head, listening. “Signal.”
Minjae tapped the side of his earpiece. “It’s weak, but yeah. Soahn’s probably panicking.”
“Then we wait.”
Stretching his legs out and leaning back against the wall, Minjae shrugged. “Could be hours. You realise you’re stuck with me.”
The corner of Onyx’s mouth twitched. “I’ve endured worse.”
“Wow, high praise coming from you.” He could hear Minjae’s smile in the dark. “Thanks, mate.”
For the first time since the tunnel collapsed, Onyx let himself relax, the tension in his shoulders easing. The steady hum from his repaired servo matched the rhythm of Minjae’s breathing, two frequencies settling into the same range.
~*~
By the time the next comms signal crackled distantly through, the air within the tunnel had turned thick and stale. Dust shimmered in the beam of Minjae’s portable light, suspended like fading stars in a sealed world that didn’t want to let them go.
Minjae knelt by the buried relay junction, stripped down to his t-shirt, arms streaked with grime and arcs of blue light from the phosphor circuitry inked along his neck. “If I can get the core coupler back online, we might have power for a ping,” he said, voice low but oddly calm. He glanced over at Onyx. “You sure this thing won’t blow us sky high?”
“Seventy per cent sure,” Onyx said.
“Wow. Comforting.”
Pushing away from the wall, Onyx went over and crouched beside him, prying the metal panel with his newly steady hand. “Cables first.”
Minjae passed him a frayed bundle. “You’re lucky that arm’s working again, because I am not strong enough for this nonsense.”
Onyx adjusted the wiring with slow, methodical movements. “You’re resourceful enough.”
“Don’t try to butter me up while we’re buried alive.”
When the coupler finally clicked into place, the relay shuddered, throwing sparks, and a thin blue arc of energy raced along the floor conduit before disappearing into the dark. Around them, the tunnel filled with a soft, low thrum; the sound of power returning.
Minjae sat back. “There we go, little heartbeat.” He leaned against the wall again, staring up at the strip of light that blinked back to life overhead. “God, I missed that sound.” In the glow, Onyx could see how tired Minjae was underneath the irreverence.
“Why did you stay?” he asked quietly.
Minjae blinked. “Huh?”
“With us,” Onyx said. “After you left NuYu. You could have disappeared. Started over.”
Minjae stared at the floor for a long moment. “Started over as what? A ghost with good Wi-Fi?” His smile was thin. “I spent months helping build the system that breaks everything. The least I can do is help the ones who still believe it can be rewritten.”
“Redemption.”
“Survival,” Minjae corrected. Then, softer: “But okay, redemption sounds prettier.”
The relay buzzed louder, a rising pitch that filled the space between them. Onyx had to raise his voice slightly. “You don’t owe us anything.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Minjae said, glancing at him. “I owe you all everything. You gave me a place to stop running.” He paused, wiped a streak of dust from his cheek, and then added, “Staying won’t erase what was done to me, but it makes it matter less.”
Onyx nodded once.
They fell quiet again for a while, the sounds of the relay wrapping around them. Then Minjae nudged his boot lightly against Onyx’s. “Your turn. Why’d you stay?”
Onyx considered this, though he already knew. He stared at the conduit running along the wall. “Because fighting for E.V.E.N is different,” he eventually said. “It’s the first time I’ve chosen what my strength is for.”
Minjae let out a slow breath. “That’s the most Onyx answer imaginable.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Yeah,” Minjae said softly. “And that’s what makes it hurt.”
In the thin blue light, the two of them sat side by side, shoulder to shoulder — one built from discipline, the other from defiance — held together by shared exhaustion and the fragile rhythm of survival.
“When we get out of here,” Minjae said. “I’m filing for hazard pay.”
“Denied,” Onyx said, almost smiling.
“Figures.” Minjae snorted and closed his eyes. “Then at least you’re buying the first round.”
“Deal.”
Just then, comms crackled again, louder this time. “Hello? Guys?” Soahn’s voice bled through. “Hold tight. We’ve got Hollow ops here to help get you out.”
Minjae’s grin lit up in the dark. “There we go.”
Onyx gave him a small nod, already scanning for the direction of the rescue signal. “Time to go home.”
~*~
The Hollow’s rescue team cut through the last barrier at dawn, breaching the collapsed tunnel near one of the Light Wells where pale morning seeped down from the city above. Cold air poured into the tunnel, sharp and alive after hours of stale heat and dust. Onyx climbed out first, bracing one hand at the edge of the breach, servos whining softly, and pulled himself through. The light hit him like an impact, too bright and clean and too sudden. Behind him, Minjae swore under his breath and squinted, shielding his eyes with a grimy arm.
Soahn and Rayne were there when they surfaced, both of them kneeling in the rubble.
“We lost your signal for six hours,” Rayne said.
“Yeah,” Minjae rasped, brushing dust off his arms. “Next time, we’re installing a skylight.”
Soahn stared at Onyx’s arm, where the augment plating was scratched and dented. “Are you okay?”
Onyx shrugged. “Arm’s stable.”
“No spontaneous combustion,” Minjae added. “You know, I think I’m going to start charging for near-death experiences. Premium subscription service.”
“You would make a fortune,” Rayne said in his usual dry way. It was always hard to tell whether he was making jokes intentionally; Onyx supposed it didn’t really matter. For a moment, they all stared at Rayne, and then Minjae and Soahn laughed. Onyx found himself leaning into the warm, familiar sound of it.
Rayne helped haul up the last of the equipment. Onyx took a step back to give the team room, but he noticed the way Minjae lingered beside him, and he felt no real need to create distance. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, had changed within the rubble, only that things were different now. Onyx had always kept a certain distance from Minjae. Not because he disliked him. Dislike would have been clean, functional, simple to manage. Minjae was none of those things. He noticed too much, laughed at the wrong moments, turned vulnerability over in his hands like faulty wiring and found the live current beneath it every time.
Minjae stood beside him now, filthy, exhausted, one sleeve torn at the shoulder, his burned hands flexing as though checking they still belonged to him. Pale light from the well above touched the side of his face and caught in the phosphor lines at his throat.
Soahn was speaking with the Hollow team, Rayne gathering what could be salvaged from the relay, but for one brief moment the noise around them thinned. Onyx flexed his repaired hand once, and the servo answered smoothly.
Minjae noticed. “Still holding?”
Onyx glanced down at the arm, then back at him. “Yes.”
“Good.”
Above them, the Light Well caught more of the morning, hazy and distant but real. No one stayed beneath them long; too exposed, too visible, too easy to find. But Onyx understood, suddenly, why people paused there anyway.
Sometimes you needed proof there was still a world above you.
Sometimes you needed proof you had made it back.
Minjae nudged his shoulder lightly against Onyx’s. “Come on, then. Before Kairo hears about this and writes a tragic survival anthem.”
“He already will.”
“Yeah. Terrible point. Let’s go home before he adds mushrooms.”
Onyx huffed softly, almost a laugh, and moved with him toward the others.
His arm ached, his systems were battered, and dust clung to every seam in his body, but Minjae walked beside him, close enough that Onyx didn’t have to guard the space between them.
For once, he let it stay open.