The silent destruction left by the high-density electromagnetic pulse still hung heavily in the air as Zeven stepped cautiously out of the narrow stone cave, his boots pressing into the wet gravel of a rugged mountain pathway. The dark rain hammered down relentlessly, washing over the dense coils of a heavy barbed wire fence that bordered the narrow road, its sharp metal spikes glowing with an active, pulsing stream of blue laboratory plasma energy. The bitter stench of scorched electric components from Lyra's destroyed device mixed with the clean, sharp smell of the mountain storm and the chemical tang of the plasma current nearby. Zeven kept his body low, his crimson eyes scanning the dense sheets of falling water as the heavy, rhythmic thumping of approaching mechanical footsteps vibrat
