Chapter One: Free Mint

Lin pressed a hand to the blue main. The vibration wasn't a rupture. Three short impacts, three long, then three short traveled through the metal. Something enormous was using water hammer to send a distress signal. Old Zhou's phone lit despite the dead network. Remnant displayed an arrow into the black passage. RELIC 7411. DISTANCE: 37 METERS. MINT? He pressed confirm. The floor trembled. A hexagonal piece of metal passed through the wall as though surfacing from water and dropped into his palm. The number 7411 was engraved across it, and pale light crawled along the veins of his wrist. “It's real.” Footsteps sounded in the passage—a whole squad's worth.