The outpost was frozen to the bones, concrete walls frosted with condensation, vents hissing cold air instead of warmth. The old thermal grid had long since given up, wires stripped, cores emptied, most likely scavenged by The Ghost Lines' raiders.
Minjae could see his breath when he swore. “Shit. This place is an icicle with Wi-Fi.”
Kairo was already in the middle of the floor, kneeling over a pile of glowing wires and humming with delight.
“It won’t be for long,” he said, tone far too bright for the frozen room. “I’m making us a heat signature.”
Onyx narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like something that gets us murdered.”
“No, no, no.” Kairo held up a knotted coil of salvaged cable like it was holy. “It’s subtle. Controlled. Like a personal campfire that doesn’t scream ‘come kill us.’”
Minjae leaned over his shoulder. “Why is that power cell bubbling?”
“Because it’s working,” Kairo replied brightly.
Rayne stood against the far wall, arms crossed, motionless. The pale blue glow of the cables brushed across his skin and made it hard to tell where the cold ended and he began.
Soahn sat near the door, wrapped in two blankets, a coat and a scarf, eyes half-lidded. He looked like a painting titled Mild Regret in Minor Frostbite.
“Still no word from The Hollow?” Minjae asked.
Soahn shook his head. “Not yet. They're still rerouting the upflow path. Probably waiting on a scan lull.”
Kairo smiled. “Which gives us plenty of time to get toasty.”
There was a brief, warning sizzle from the cable.
Onyx dropped into a crouch beside him in an instant. “If that arc jumps to the relay junction, it’ll fry every personal system in this room.”
“Details.”
“I will throw you through the wall.”
“You’d freeze halfway through and then we’d just end up with a very grumpy icicle.”
By some miracle, and Onyx’s reluctant supervision, Kairo got the contraption running. A steady hum filled the centre of the room, gently emanating outward. Warmth bloomed like breath against bare skin. It wasn’t high tech; golden light struggled like a waning fire, fragile and wavering. But it worked.
Soahn slid closer with a sigh. Minjae flopped down dramatically beside him, arms spread. “We survive another day.”
Onyx lingered near the edge, one hand resting on his knee, the other still half-curled from instinct, like he was ready to shut it all down if it turned. You could take the soldier out of the program, but you couldn’t always take the program out of the man.
Rayne watched from the doorway. Then, without a word, walked over and sat cross-legged inside the warm zone, closing his eyes. The warmth seemed to hit something in him.
“Whoa,” Minjae stage-whispered, “Rayne has entered the social circle. Alert the press.”
Kairo grinned. “He likes it. That means I win.”
“You didn’t win,” Onyx snapped. “You jury-rigged a radioactive hug machine.”
“A warm one.”
Minjae leaned his head on Soahn’s shoulder, then muttered, “Still better than up there.”
Kairo’s voice softened. “Yeah.”
For a second, no one said anything.
The sensor cuff on Soahn’s wrist buzzed once and lit up, a ripple of data scrolling across the tiny screen. “The Hollow says they’re close,” he murmured. “Once the grid resets, they’ll boost the signal.”
“Then the next track goes up tonight.” Rayne didn’t open his eyes, his voice steady, almsot serene.
Kairo nodded. “Signal-locked, spliced through Ghost Line relay B-9. They won’t even know we were there.”
Minjae huffed approvingly. “So, just another night being illegal legends. Cool.”
The heater crackled gently.
Outside, the wind howled through dead tunnels. But inside the heat signature, five people—ghosts, rebels, artists—stayed warm in the dark.
Together.
Somewhere far above The Ghost Lines, above the frostbitten rails and the echoing tunnels and the ghosts who lived in both, a rooftop antenna flickered once, then caught.
Inside a shattered comms outpost-turned-safehouse, an old terminal pulsed to life. Just once. Just enough.
The woman seated at it sat up straight in her chair. She’d been waiting for this. She tapped the waveform. The audio file played.
It wasn’t NuYu. Too imperfect. Too alive.
She smiled.
On-screen, the file name scrolled:
UcantDELETEm3.wav
origin: deep ghostline relay B-9
flagged: unregistered
flagged: destabilising content
Of course it was.
She leaned back, relit her half-smoked cigarette, and whispered into the recorder:
“Echo confirmed. The boys are still transmitting.”