Fortunately, it seemed they were indeed lucky, as their trek downwards through the embassy was uneventful. Erin led them through service hallways and stuck to staircases. Using the embassy's lifts would have brought them into contact with far too many Purists.

Still, they did occasionally encounter the ambiguously robed figures as they made their way through the halls. While accompanied by Tiber, they had ignored the intruders, but alone, they attracted lingering stares from those that passed them.

It made Lukas nervous, but Erin barely acknowledged their presence. She moved through the building like she belonged there.

We should have taken their robes, Lukas thought, then almost instantly berated himself. He wasn't - shouldn't - be comfortable with what was happening. Still he did want to get out of this in one piece.

After what felt like an eternity, Erin came to a sudden stop. Lukas checked the map - they were on the embassy's ground floor, but they'd taken a different path than the way they'd come in. They were near the rear end of the building, and directly underneath one of the subterranean systems.

She leaned over and rapped her fist against the floor, eliciting a dull ringing note that filled the air. Lukas sighed. He didn't need his mother pointing it out - his Factor-enhanced senses had already alerted him to the presence of every ounce of metal in the vicinity. The flooring featured the same brooding black as the rest of the space, but within Lukas' mindscape, the paneling glowed like a bed of coals.

"Unless you want to take another pill, I suggest you move quickly. We need to get this flooring out of the way."

Lukas did not want to lift the flooring. He wanted to curl up into a ball and wait for his waves of anxiety to fade. He felt like they were walking targets - subject to attack at any moment.

"Alright," is what Lukas mumbled instead.

Reluctantly, he embraced the burning connection to the metal that lingered in his mind. Then he lifted one of the panels, wincing at the horrid shriek of metal.

Erin scowled at the sound, glaring, and Lukas felt the heat rising to his face.

"We could have just used one of the entrances," he protested, trying to shift the panel with more care.

"What? Walk right through?" She scoffed. "The place is under surveillance. They're not going to let anyone pass."

"Well, they'll notice us pretty soon anyway," Lukas grumbled, moving the now-detached panel to the side. The fresh cavity revealed a layer of cables and conduits; below them was another set of panels.

"We just have to get into the tunnel system," she said. "Once they notice, we'll simply outmaneuver them."

Right. When you put it like that, it sounds so simple.

A fresh rush of indignation and fear fueled Lukas, and he tore away a panel from the second set below with reckless abandon. The metal plate sheared right through the cable system as he pulled it out, sending sparks flying.

"Let's move quickly - that wasn't exactly a surgical touch," Erin said, and she threw herself into the hole, paying no heed to the sizzling cables and metal shards that rimmed its edges.

Lukas, with deep relief, heard a low thump as she made contact with the floor below.

"Jump," came the command a moment later, muffled by distance. Despite the urgency in her tone, Lukas hesitated, eyeing the sparking mess of the cavity.

"Jump!" She repeated. "I'll catch you."

He edged closer, peering down. From his vantage point, he could see his mother, neck craned up at him. The surrounding walls and dim ambient light mirrored the hallway he still stood in. It was like they were trapped in some sick person's idea of a maze. Break down a wall, and look - you're in the same exact place.

Lukas very much did not want to continue. "Ma," he said, voice shaking. "Maybe I should go back to the others. I'm sure they're worried."

"No," she said, voice going hard. "I need you here."

"But I don't even understand-"

"You have to trust me!" Her voice rose several octaves, and Lukas failed to conceal his flinching.

"Why are you treating me like this?" he asked her, trying to keep his voice even, to hold his ground. "Why were you so... violent?" His voice cracked on the last word.

Erin didn't even flinch. "I already told you. You'll get an explanation, but right now is not the time-"

A terrible, piercing wail cut her off, reverberating through the halls. At the same time, the building's steady light fixtures began to flash.

An alarm, Lukas realized, with the detachment of someone who was on the precipice of shock.

"Jump!" bellowed Erin, and a flood of panic hijacked his motor functions. He jumped, narrowly missing the serrated edges of metal, and dropped like a stone through the air.

He was untethered, hurtling down, down, down for what felt like an eternity. The blaring siren, the booster-induced anxiety, all the fear and confusion from the past few minutes - it all seemed to fade away, replaced by primal thrill.

And then he made impact, dropping into the iron-hard arms of his mother. The world rushed back into place, and he was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground. Still disoriented, he stared up at her. There was something in her stance, her expression, that felt more solid than the very walls around them.

Was he pissed-off at his mother for this shitty glory ride of a trip? Yes - and pretty damn scared of her as well. But there was a little bit of awe mixed in there, a touch of grudging respect for the powerhouse before him.

Erin turned to meet his gaze, and he was struck by the flush that had crept into her cheeks, the hard gleam in her eye. Lukas wasn't sure if he'd ever seen his mother ever look this alive.

She reached down and yanked him up on his feet. "Let's go, kid," she said, "we still have a job to do."

Lukas nodded mutely - the stupid alarm was drowning everything out - and squared his shoulders.

"Let's hustle," she said, and so they did.

...

Lukas had thought the Embassy was a maze, but it couldn't hold a candle to the subterranean network. The uniformity of it all left him feeling as though he were trapped within a fever dream. Without the map, he was sure they would have been lost within moments. Although the tunnels were lined with rows of doorways, all presumably for their own unique purpose, the passageways themselves were identical: dim, dark, and bereft of any decor.

The alarm was no quieter in the lower levels, and they still had no idea what set it off. With a pang of concern, he thought about the others, and what had happened to them. Earlier, he'd tried contacting them on his feed, but whatever Erin had done to the Purists seemed to have affected his implants as well; he couldn't send a signal to anyone else.

He would have been more panicked about the situation, but his mother didn't seem perturbed. To be fair, this new, tactical-soldier version of her didn't seem particularly worried by anything.

They ran in silence, Erin only speaking to order Lukas to take another pill. When he did, fumbling with the case, his anxiety shot up tenfold. Colors were too sharp, sounds too loud - the alarm was like a still drill digging into his skull. Reality felt lighter, somehow - as though he was viewing all this intensity behind a pane of glass.

Then they rounded a corner and encountered a pair of Purists, almost crashing into them head-on. Everybody flinched, stumbled back - but Erin and Lukas recovered faster. She backpedaled, throwing out a command to him. Juiced-up on boosters, he operated on a barely-formed thought, letting his reflexes take over. As he threw out a hand, a side section of the wall ripped away, the shriek of tearing metal pitched high over the sound of the sirens.

Before the Purists could even lift their stun-guns to aim, the panel slammed into them with the force of a missile. The pair went flying, tossed against the opposite wall. There was no movement from either as they slid shapelessly to the floor.

Lukas hunched his shoulders, panting. The station's gravity took hold of the panel again, but Lukas ignored it as it clattered to the floor.

"Holy stones," he gasped. "Oh, shit." But Erin wouldn't give him the satisfaction of surveying the damage he caused.

"Keep moving," she growled, pulling him around the debris, "don't worry - these people deserve it." She paused only briefly to scoop up one of the stun-guns that had been tossed on the floor.

"Maybe I knocked some sense into them," Lukas tried for a smile, but his lips felt too tight against his teeth. Still, humor was better than slipping into the quickly-gathering darkness that was seeping into his mind.

Then a sharp, breathy chuckle cut through the noise of the alarm, and Lukas was shocked to see that his mother was laughing.

"I think you did that and much more," she said. "Didn't even know what hit them."

This did not make him feel any better.

Still, they continued on, deeper into the tunnels. The longer the alarm rang out, the more frequent the altercations became. Life became a whirlwind of dark hallways; of running, and dodging, and gasping for every breath.

But Erin was armed now, and so they were on decent footing. She would go on the offensive while Lukas supported her and cleared the way. Often, Erin had him form barriers for them to hide behind and regroup. Sometimes, after they'd fight their way to the end of a tunnel and come to a branching of passageways, she'd direct him to close up the path they didn't choose by bringing down the ceiling or walls. It was a lucky thing that the Purists had used so many metal components in their construction; most modern stations had an internal structure composed of ultra-strong carbons. Onyx - and Purica space as a whole - seemed to be lagging behind the rest of the galaxy in terms of technological development.

The sheer number of Purists they faced had terrified Lukas, initially, but Erin's military training was leagues above their skill. Wielding her stolen stun-gun, she boasted pinpoint accuracy without fail, nailing the Purists before they had time to react. Cool and efficient, she'd managed to turn them into a two-person army.

Finally, deep beneath Onyx, and far from where the embassy stood, Erin slowed to a stop. She'd broken into a sweat, her forehead slick and shiny. Her hair, frizzy and singed from near-misses, floated around her head like a halo. Lukas, who was on his fourth pill, felt downright nauseous. Even now, he was fighting to block the bile in his throat from coming up.

Like all the other tunnels, this one was of similar proportions. But unlike the utilitarian doorways they'd been running past, there was only a single door inset into this section of the wall. It was far larger and bulkier than anything he'd seen so far.

"Here," she said.

Lukas reached out with his Factor, but the door was like a patch of darkness against the bright metal of the tunnel.

"I can't open this," he said, voice desperate.

"We've arrived," Erin said, looking away. "Move into position."

"What?" He blinked at her, flummoxed. Ignoring him, she spoke again, and this time he could see that her focus clearly was directed elsewhere, eyes glassy.

She's on the feed, he realized. She had been vocalizing the message out loud for his benefit. Unlike his own connection, Erin's seemed to be immune to whatever feed-blocker she instated.

He waited for a long, tense minute in silence as his mother directed whomever was on the other end. Finally, she glanced over at him and said, "in about thirty seconds, be ready to move again."

Having gotten used to things by now, he knew better than to ask for more information.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he waited, with bated breath. Erin appeared unfazed, but her gaze was unblinking, trained towards the nearby junction in the tunnel. He followed her lead, alert for any sudden hostile appearance.

Then, like a breath of fresh air, the system's alarms went blessedly silent. All along the tunnel, lights flickered, going dark. What had grabbed most of their attention, however, was the armored door, and the hiss of released valves as the door slid upwards.

Erin wasted no time in hurrying inside, and Lukas followed suit.

"What the shit..." he choked out, his mind stuttering at the sight before him.

Unlike the previous tunnels, the space was wide and brightly lit; the sudden shift in brightness didn't help his disorientation.

Row upon row of armored doors lined the sides of the room, smaller versions of the ones they'd just entered. Inset between each one was a monitor that displayed a room. For a moment, he thought they were all showing the same scene, but then he noticed differences; while most were empty, some of the rooms held figures.

The rooms beyond the door, he realized. They're prisoners.

He moved deeper into the room, hoping to get a better look, but the monitors' images were fuzzy and indistinct. Like the door and the lighting, they seemed to be affected by whatever Erin had triggered.

The doors! Lukas realized with a jolt; at the same time, Erin shouted at him to keep back.

With heavy, resounding clanks, every single door in the room began to lift open.