The maintenance shaft was a vertical tomb of rusted iron and humming power cables. Astra didn’t climb; she fell with intent. Her obsidian claws, still shimmering with the remnants of her lunar shift, bit into the metal rungs as she swung herself downward, floor after floor, toward the Sterling Medical Wing.
Her shoulder screamed with every jolt, a white-hot agony that threatened to black out her vision. But the HUD in her ear was a more persistent torture.
(WARNING: LUNAR FREQUENCY STABILIZING. RADIUS: 50 METERS. ALPHA NEURAL DAMPENING IN EFFECT.)
Leo, hold on, she prayed, her breath coming in jagged hitches. Don’t let them see you as a monster. Not yet.
She kicked through the ventilation grate on the 10th floor, rolling onto the sterile white linoleum of the surgical wing. The air her
