The hum deepened until the floor itself began to tremble.
Ethan braced against the wall, his pulse syncing with the mechanical vibration that rolled through the refuges. Every light in the lab flickered in unison—an artificial heartbeat echoing from somewhere beneath their feet.
“Dr. Taylor!” he shouted. “Shut it down!”
“I’m trying!” she snapped, her fingers flying across the console. But the command lines resisted, rewriting themselves faster than she could type. “It’s overriding manual control.”
Dr. Myles leaned over her shoulder, eyes wide. “That code—it’s recursive. It’s not activating the system it's calling something back.”
Maya stood unsteady, her eyes glowing faintly with static. “It’s coming from below us. Deep within the data vault.”
The hum became a pulse. The air itself s
