The brilliant blue waypoint on his UI was barely a flicker, occasionally dipping into a dull gray before weakly pulsing back to life. She was dying on that altar to keep the line open, and every passing second felt like a physical weight pressing down on Sebastian's chest.
"How much further, Corbin?" Sebastian barked down the stairwell.
"Two miles! Maybe less!" the code-smith chattered back, his teeth audibly clicking together. "The radar is completely blind, Boss! The data density up ahead is so thick it's just returning solid black walls on the monitors!"
Sebastian turned his gaze back to the viewport.
Then, the universe simply stopped.
It didn't happen with a crash or an explosion. It happened with a terrifying, absolute suddenness that completely defied the laws of physics.
