The chill of the night air bit at my cheeks through my mask as I followed Tempus down the quiet streets of Neo Lyon's upper district. His midnight-blue suit glinted faintly under the muted glow of the streetlights, the hourglass motif shimmering like some cosmic warning. I hated how calm he seemed, hands casually resting in his pockets as if we were taking a leisurely midnight stroll instead of sneaking into one of the most secure areas in the city.

  My own nerves were frayed, but I forced myself to keep steady. After all, we were here for a reason—a tunnel, buried deep under layers of bureaucratic nonsense and guarded like the crown jewels. That alone made it suspicious, and suspicious was worth investigating. Even Tempus agreed on that much, which was why we’d struck this uneasy alliance in the first place.

  “Are you always this silent?” Tempus’s voice cut through the quiet like a shard of glass, startling me out of my thoughts.

  “Are you always this chatty?” I shot back, adjusting the strap of my utility belt. My gear wasn’t heavy, but every ounce seemed to weigh more under the tension of the district’s eerie quiet.

  He chuckled, low and sardonic. “Fair point. Still, your grim determination? A bit much. You could try smiling, you know. Might make you look less like you want to kill someone.”

  “Maybe I do… And how’d you know if I were smiling? My mask covers my full face!”

  “Call it intuition,” he said, his voice dripping with mockery. “You’ve got that ‘death glare behind the mask’ vibe down to an art form.”

  I ignored him, focusing instead on the street ahead. The upper district of Neo Lyon wasn’t built like the rest of the city. It didn’t sprawl or blend into chaos; it towered in orderly blocks of glass and steel, wrapped in a clinical precision that felt unnatural. Here, the streets weren’t filled with graffiti or the echoes of street vendors, but with an oppressive silence that only heightened my unease.

  Tempus stopped abruptly at an alleyway, his hand brushing against the metallic wall beside him. I caught up, my breath puffing white in the cold.

  “This is it?” I asked, surveying the alley. It looked nondescript—a shadowed crevice tucked between two imposing high-rises. Nothing about it screamed “secret tunnel.”

  Tempus tilted his head as if listening for something, his hand brushing the wall again. “Patience, dear Replica. You’ll learn something yet. Here.” He took a step forward, knocking lightly at a seemingly solid steel panel.

  At first, nothing happened. Then, with a low hiss, the panel slid away, revealing a dark, yawning opening in the wall.

  I glanced at him. “And how exactly did you figure this out?”

  “I have my methods,” he said with a smug grin that I wanted to slap off his face.

  “Convenient.” I stepped through the opening first, the dark swallowing me whole.

  The air inside the tunnel was cold, a stark contrast to the dry chill of the night outside. It smelled damp, like wet stone and metal, with a faint tang of ozone. My footsteps echoed against the smooth concrete floor as I descended into the shadowy depths, my senses on high alert. Tempus followed, his movements unnervingly quiet, like a ghost trailing in my wake.

  The passageway was narrow, lined with dull steel walls that seemed to absorb the light from my flashlight rather than reflect it. No markings, no signs, just an unbroken corridor stretching ahead into the unknown. It felt wrong—too clean, too precise for something that shouldn’t even exist here.

  “What’s the point of this place?” I muttered, my voice low to keep it from bouncing back at us. “It doesn’t match anything in the city’s infrastructure records.”

  “Who says it’s supposed to match?” Tempus replied smoothly. His voice held the faintest edge of amusement, as if the strangeness of our surroundings didn’t faze him. “You think the city council would publicize something like this? Hell! It could even be a Meta’s work!”

  I took another cautious step forward, shining my flashlight along the smooth steel walls. The beam cut through the shadows, but the tunnel seemed endless, its emptiness mocking our presence. My fingers twitched with unease, as if my subconscious could sense something hidden in the dark.

  “A Meta’s work, huh?” I replied, keeping my voice low. “If that’s true, then whoever built this should have left some Power Trace, seeing the sheer size… Someone would have felt it when they made it, no?”

  “…True. Unless they’re like you—or me,” Tempus said, his voice taking on an uncharacteristic seriousness. “No power trace. No signs of interference. Just… something here that shouldn’t be.”

  I had an inkling it was like that. I never felt anything whenever he used his power. So much so I thought I couldn’t feel Power Traces. Thankfully, it seems like I am the same, that’s less to think about at least.

  As I was ruminating over our power traces, we continued walking in silence, the noise present Tempus’ boots hitting the floor, our breaths or the rare breeze coming inside the tunnel.

  The cold seeped into my gloves, making my fingers stiff as I gripped my flashlight. The beam cut through the oppressive darkness, but the longer we walked, the less comfort it gave me. The walls were unnervingly smooth, not a crack or bolt in sight. If this tunnel was old, it didn’t show. If it was new, it was absurdly well-hidden.

  “Careful,” Tempus said suddenly, his voice sharp. He reached out, stopping me just before my boot landed on an odd section of the floor. The steel panels here were faintly discolored, darker than the surrounding ones.

  “What is it?” I asked, my flashlight hovering over the spot.

  “Could be a pressure plate. Or just a bad weld. Either way, step over it.”

  I did as he said, carefully placing my foot beyond the suspicious section. He followed, his movements effortless as always. It annoyed me how easily he moved, like the world bent just slightly to his will.

  “Pressure plates in a tunnel like this?” I asked once we were past the anomaly. “That doesn’t scream ‘innocent government project.’”

  “Does anything in Neo Lyon?” Tempus quipped, but his tone was distracted. His gaze darted around the tunnel, his eyes narrowing. “This place doesn’t sit right. It’s too precise, too controlled. If it’s not a Meta’s work, then someone with a lot of resources wanted it built without prying eyes.”

  “Think it was there before? I mean, before they built Neo Lyon. From the ruins?”

  “…Maybe,” Tempus muttered, his tone unusually thoughtful. “But I doubt that. There’s no charred walls, no trace of any fire. If it were there during Laubert’s breakdown, it either resisted the fire quite well, or got restored since.”

  We continued deeper into the tunnel, its stillness a weight that pressed against my mind. The narrow steel walls felt like they were closing in, the air growing colder with each step. Tempus kept glancing at the strange map he’d started sketching on a notepad he pulled from who knows where, an old-school touch for someone who could stop time.

  “You seem a bit obsessed with that map,” I said, trying to mask my unease with sarcasm.

  “Obsessed?” Tempus smirked without looking up. “I prefer meticulous. It’s called preparation, Replica. You should try it sometime.”

  “I prepare,” I shot back. “I just don’t doodle every corner like it’s a treasure hunt.”

  “You’ll thank me later,” he said with maddening calm, his pen tracing the lines on his notes. “This place has more turns and dead ends than the city’s tax code.”

  "Their tax code is a maze, alright," I muttered, my eyes scanning ahead. The tunnel stretched onward, the darkness seemingly alive, thickened by the faint metallic tang of the air. I adjusted my flashlight and moved forward. Tempus, with his maddening calm, trailed behind me like a shadow. The further we went, the more the tunnel's eerie perfection gnawed at my nerves.

  “This place doesn’t just feel secure,” I said. “It feels... wrong. Too controlled. No dust, no wear. It’s not natural.”

  Tempus hummed in agreement. “I get what you mean. Most secure places like this overcompensate with tech and traps, but this? It’s almost like it’s hiding itself.”

  “Comforting,” I deadpanned, my grip tightening on the flashlight. “You sure you’re not leading us into some kind of trap?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, dear Replica,” he said with a mock bow. “But if this is a trap, I’d bet good money it’s one hell of an elaborate one.”

  I sighed, pressing forward. The monotony of the tunnel was starting to get to me—every turn, every featureless wall blended into the last, making it difficult to track our progress. But Tempus’s notepad never stopped scratching. His focus on it was unnerving. Whatever he saw in this labyrinth was clearly more than I did.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Anything interesting on your doodle?” I asked, gesturing at his map.

  Tempus glanced at me, his smirk faint in the flashlight's glow. “We’ve taken at least seven lefts and six rights. Either this place loops, or someone built it deliberately to disorient.”

  I stopped walking, processing that. “You’re saying we might be going in circles?”

  “Not might.” He held up the notepad. His scrawled lines converged into something that resembled a spiraling pattern. “We are. But there’s a difference between looping and repeating. I think we’re moving deeper each time, just not in a straight line.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Welcome to Neo Lyon,” he quipped. “But here’s the fun part—if someone wanted to hide something, this is exactly how they’d do it. Layered paths, subtle changes, and enough confusion to deter anyone without persistence.”

  “Or without your apparent need to solve every mystery like it’s a Sunday crossword.”

  “Hey, puzzles are my thing,” he said lightly. “And I’m not stopping now.”

  “Talking about puzzles… Don’t you think it’s strange we only saw that one pressure plate at the start and nothing else since? Doesn’t that mean we are going the wrong way? Should we retrace our steps back to the plate?”

  ...Not necessarily,” Tempus replied, his tone thoughtful rather than dismissive. “If this tunnel is designed to confuse, the lack of traps could be intentional. It lulls intruders into a false sense of security. But retracing our steps might not help if the route loops as I suspect.”

  I frowned, glancing at his notepad again. The sketch of the spiraling map unsettled me more than I cared to admit. “So, what? We just keep walking until we hit something that makes sense?”

  “Precisely,” Tempus said, his confidence unwavering. “Patience, Replica. The answers are here—we just have to find them.”

  The darkness pressed in as we continued, the faint hum of unseen ventilation systems the only sound beyond our footsteps. The monotony was suffocating. Every step felt like walking deeper into an abyss, the flashlight's beam slicing through shadows that seemed unnaturally dense. My gloved fingers brushed the smooth steel walls occasionally, searching for any anomaly, but they offered no clues—no seams, no imperfections. Whoever or whatever had built this place was meticulous.

  “Do you think this tunnel really has something to offer? They might have led us on to save their skin? I mean, clearly Corsair won’t be here! We’ve been walking on for hours now!”

  Tempus smirked at my outburst, the faint gleam of amusement dancing in his green eyes behind the faint silver of his Venetian mask. “Ah, Replica, always the optimist. If this tunnel is just a wild goose chase, I’ll buy you a drink. Deal?”

  “You’d better make it a strong one,” I muttered, focusing on the path ahead. “But seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Maybe we should mark the walls or something.”

  “And ruin this beautiful, sterile décor?” Tempus quipped, running his hand lightly along the unblemished steel. “Perish the thought.”

  Ignoring his sarcasm, I pulled out a marker from my belt—a precaution I’d brought, though I wasn’t sure it would even show up on these unnervingly smooth walls. I paused to draw an arrow on the wall at eye level. The marker left a faint black line, a small relief against the unbroken monotony of the tunnel.

  “This arrow will help us track if we’re actually making progress,” I said, capping the marker with a satisfying click. “Or if we’re just walking ourselves into madness.”

  Tempus raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “A crude method, but I suppose it suits you.”

  I ignored him and pressed on, the tunnel stretching endlessly ahead. The beam of my flashlight swept across the walls, catching only the same smooth steel panels as before. The air felt thicker now, carrying an almost imperceptible hum that made my skin crawl. My thoughts kept circling back to the absurdity of this place. Who would build a labyrinth like this? And why bury it under one of the most secure districts in Neo Lyon?

  Tempus’s map grew more intricate with each step, the lines twisting and overlapping in a way that made my head spin. His focus never wavered, his pen moving with precise strokes even as the oppressive atmosphere closed in around us.

  “This place reminds me of a clockwork mechanism,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence. “Each turn, each path—it’s all too deliberate.”

  “Clockwork?” I asked, glancing back at him. “You think this is some kind of machine?”

  “Not literally,” he replied, his tone measured. “But the design feels purposeful. It’s not random. Someone wanted this to be a maze, and not just for fun.”

  “Fun isn’t the word I’d use,” I muttered. “Sadistic, maybe.”

  He chuckled lightly. “Call it what you will. But there’s intent here. And intent means someone thought this place was worth hiding.”

  The idea unsettled me more than I cared to admit. If this tunnel was built with such precision, it wasn’t just a forgotten relic. It had a purpose, and whoever created it had gone to great lengths to keep it hidden. My grip tightened on the flashlight as we rounded another corner, my unease growing with each step.

  We walked in silence for what felt like hours, the tunnel’s unchanging monotony eating away at my nerves. The only signs of life were the occasional arrows I left on the walls, their faint marks a small comfort in the endless void. Tempus’s map had become a tangled web of lines, and even he seemed less confident as we continued deeper.

  Finally, the tunnel widened into a larger chamber—a circular room with a high, domed ceiling. The walls were the same smooth steel, but the floor was different: a grid of tiles that glinted faintly under the flashlight’s beam. It was empty.

  “Well, this is... anticlimactic.” I sighed. “Guess we just gotta walk back a few hours again to get back to the surface. This was really for nothing! Told you we should have went back to the pressure plate!”

  Tempus shrugged, his usual smirk flickering back. “Come now, Replica. You didn’t think we’d uncover Neo Lyon’s darkest secrets in one night, did you?”

  I swept my flashlight across the room one last time, desperate for some hint of meaning, a clue to justify the hours spent wandering this labyrinth. But there was nothing. Just the same sterile, unyielding steel. My frustration bubbled to the surface.

  “This was a waste,” I muttered, jabbing the flashlight into my belt. “A perfect, cold, empty nothing.”

  Tempus leaned casually against the wall, twirling his pen between his fingers. “I wouldn’t call it a complete waste. We’ve got a map now. That’s something.”

  I shot him a glare through my mask. “A map to nowhere.”

  “Patience, dear Replica,” he said with maddening calm. “Many paths are left unexplored.”

  I ignored him, focusing instead on the notepad he still clutched. The spiraling lines he’d drawn seemed to mock me, their chaotic precision a reflection of my growing irritation. With a resigned sigh, I turned back toward the tunnel.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “The air down here is giving me a headache. And the night is almost done, it will be hard to be stealthy once the sun rises.”

  We retraced our steps through the labyrinthine tunnel in silence, our combined frustration palpable. The hours we’d spent down there gnawed at me, but there was no point in turning it into another argument with Tempus. He would just deflect with his maddening nonchalance, and I didn’t have the energy for it.

  The chamber had been the endpoint of our exploration for the night, an empty space with nothing to show for its meticulous design except more questions. Despite Tempus’s assurances that the map we’d made was valuable, I couldn’t shake the sense that this had been a wild goose chase.

  “You know,” Tempus began as we navigated yet another featureless corridor, his voice echoing faintly in the oppressive silence, “you could try lightening up. We did accomplish something tonight.”

  I shot him a sharp look. “Like what? Discovering that Neo Lyon has even more useless secrets than we thought?”

  He smirked, his mask hiding most of his expression, but the glint in his eyes was unmistakable. “Oh, Replica, your cynicism is showing again. A map, even of nowhere, is still knowledge. Knowledge can be power if used correctly.”

  “Spare me the platitudes,” I muttered, stepping over another marked section of the floor. “We’ve mapped an uninhabited maze that might not lead anywhere. And as you love to point out, patience isn’t my strong suit.”

  We reached one of the arrows I’d drawn earlier, confirming we were on the right path back to the entrance. A rare moment of clarity in the monotony. Tempus noted it on his notepad, the scratching of his pen breaking the heavy quiet.

  “Do you ever stop making noise?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at him.

  “Do you ever stop complaining?” he shot back, his grin audible even if I couldn’t see it.

  I ignored him and focused on the task at hand: getting out. The air felt heavier the closer we got to the surface, a reminder of the weight this district carried—not just the physical structures above but the invisible threads of control MetaPol weaved here.

  When we finally reached the entrance, the steel panel slid open with a hiss, letting the night air flood in. I inhaled deeply, grateful for the sharp chill and the stars overhead. The suffocating stillness of the tunnel faded into the background, replaced by the distant hum of Neo Lyon’s restless heartbeat.

  Tempus stepped out after me, his movements as smooth as ever. He stretched slightly, as if the hours spent underground had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

  “Well, that was fun,” he said, his tone infuriatingly casual.

  I turned to face him, arms crossed. “Define ‘fun.’ Because I’m pretty sure I just spent hours wandering in circles while you doodled.”

  He waved the notepad in the air. “This ‘doodling’ is what separates us from the amateurs, dear Replica. Now we have a map of at least part of the maze. That’s progress.”

  “Progress toward what?” I demanded. “We still don’t know what this place is or why it’s here. For all we know, it’s just some abandoned project no one cared to clean up and the Red Hands saw as a possible way to confuse their enemies with weird places.”

  Tempus shrugged, his smirk deepening. “Progress toward understanding. Knowledge, dear Replica. I know you find it boring, but it’s the foundation of power.”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “You sound like you’re auditioning for a lecture series.”

  His laugh was soft, almost playful. “Perhaps I am. You’d make an excellent student, by the way. Always so eager to critique.”

  I turned sharply, walking away from him. “We’re done here.”

  Tempus fell into step beside me, his easy demeanor as infuriating as ever. “Oh, Replica, don’t be like that. You know you’d miss me if I weren’t around.”

  “Not even remotely,” I shot back, quickening my pace. “You’re an endless source of annoyance.”

  “And yet, here we are,” he said, his voice a teasing lilt. “Two unlikely allies unraveling the secrets of Neo Lyon together. Admit it—you’d be bored without me.”

  I stopped abruptly, forcing him to halt as well. “We’re not allies, Tempus. This—whatever this is—ends here. You go your way, I go mine.”

  Tempus tilted his head, mock hurt flashing in his eyes. “So cold. And after I kept you safe from all those treacherous floor panels.”

  I took a step closer, letting my irritation show. “The next time we cross paths, it won’t be on the same side.”

  “Ah, but wouldn’t that make things even more exciting?” he said, his smirk softening into something almost sincere. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

  Without waiting for a response, he gave a mock bow and started walking away, his notepad tucked neatly under his arm. The faint shimmer of his suit caught the streetlights as he disappeared into the shadows, his presence lingering like an unwelcome echo.

  I stayed behind for a moment, letting the night air clear the frustration in my head. Tempus had a way of getting under my skin, his charm a weapon as sharp as any blade. But he was right about one thing: the secrets of Neo Lyon wouldn’t uncover themselves.

  And I’d be damned if I let him be the one to unravel them first.