The farther Dane moved underground, the more she believed the latter. From all directions, a cacophony of voices, of screams, wails, and outright shouting was so loud, was amplified so greatly by the tunnels, that Dane could palpably feel the tremors of their fear

She’d only stomached it for less than an hour. This place had once been crammed full of tens of thousands of castoffs. What would five years trapped in the Undercroft do to a mind? It would unhinge a person, that’s what it would do.

She wanted out, but the only way out was up. Even with a COMscreen projecting the data cube’s maps, often she’d have to guess when she found a newly carved out juncture. The ant farm Shepherd’s men had carved was a maddening circle designed to trap the unwelcome. The paths made no sense. Every direction led her back to the same place.

That had to be why so many were screaming; they were lost.

Behind the heavily barred door she’d strained to force open, Brigadier Dane saw the first one. A man little more than bones, his body covered in the repulsive, telling marks of Da’rin. He rushed at her from the dark. Reaching for her weapon, she’d fired without thinking. It was not until after he’d collapsed, she realized her hand was shaking.

The Undercroft was getting to her.

The corpse lay crumpled, gripping a shiv, hardly a rag covering his body.

There were more of his kind, she found them around almost every turn. Most shrank from her, from the light of her screen. They cowered against the walls and wept, as if she had come only to cause them pain. Some tried to stalk her through the twists and turns. Fortunately for Dane, she had more bullets than they had life to spend.

These men were never supposed to be set free. Shepherd had left them here for a reason.

Saturated in the stink of human waste, of things far more rotten than any corpse aboveground, Dane plodded forward. She went North, always North. It took an hour to reach the gate she assumed must block this sector from the city center.

All that metal, all those gears and locks, someone had thrown them open.

Sniffing the air, Brigadier Dane hesitated. Something was not right. The citadel was on the other side of that door, of that she was certain, but the smell of Omega was here.

The sound of screams, the very horrible music she had been subjected to. Dane began to listen.

She heard a sobbed name buried in the noise. Someone was screaming for Shepherd.

Corday could hardly believe what he was a party to. The rebels had done enough damage that outcome of the battle aside, millions would die from exposure. Subsequently, just by coming to this place, he had betrayed the resistance. Everyone was doing harm to everyone else.