The descent into the bowels of Oregon was like entering the throat of a metal beast.

  Henry, Kane, and Elena moved in absolute silence. They had left the surface behind, trading the lead-colored sky for the soot-stained concrete vaults of ancient subway stations. The transition was sensory: the scent of pine and rain was replaced by the heavy odor of old grease, ozone, and the cold sweat of those who live where the sun cannot reach.

  "The Machinist has reinforced the patrols," Elena whispered, her silhouette nearly invisible against the damp walls. "I can smell torch oil coming from the North Sector."

  "He has his reasons," Kane replied, adjusting the saw-gauntlets on his wrists, keeping them powered down so as not to give away their position. "With that Bosnian plane down out there, the Travelers know the surface will turn into a slaughterhouse soon. They want to ensure no one enters or leaves from below without paying the toll."

  Henry led the group, his eyes sharp for every Cyrillic marking on the walls. Red-painted gears indicated they were crossing the boundary of neutral territory. Here, parkour was limited by the low ceiling and high-voltage wires hanging like dead vines. They walked along oxidized tracks, where every misstep on the metal creaked like a scream.

  They reached a fork where the ventilation felt stronger. There, the tunnel widened into an old boarding platform, now transformed into an underground slum. Dozens of tents made of tarp and zinc sheets were huddled together. These were Arthur Volkovich’s "passengers"—people who paid with labor and food just for the right to sleep far from the fanatics of the surface.

  Henry signaled for the other two to stay at the top of the decommissioned staircase. He would descend first to scout the area. As he flanked a stack of cargo crates, he stopped, concealed by a support column.

  Henry paused for a moment, the shadows of the railway tunnel hiding his silhouette as he listened to the murmur coming from one of the Travelers' makeshift camps. A mother, her face stained with grease, rocked her young son under the dim light of an oil lantern.

  "You need to sleep, darling..." the woman whispered. "If you don't, the Reapers will smell you."

  "Reapers, mommy?" the child’s voice was a thread of fear. "Like death?"

  "They are known as the Night Folk, little one. They wear skull masks and black hooded coats, always hiding in the shadows. They only appear when the sun goes down. There are eleven of them... all with the power of thunder in their hands. Assassins chosen by gunpowder to rule the dark."

  Henry, hidden in the darkness, let out a short, silent sigh behind his mask. He had heard that story at a dozen campfires, told by drunken assassins and highwaymen. To him, it was merely the folklore of a world that had forgotten how reality worked.

  "Eleven men with ammunition? In the planet's current state? Impossible," he thought, shaking his head.

  Seeing the child's thinness, Henry stepped partially out of the shadows. The woman startled, but the blue of his jacket and the rustic cross on his mask made her freeze. Henry reached out, leaving two cans of food and a canteen of water on a wooden box.

  "Take it," Henry said, his voice muffled by the wood of the mask but carrying an unexpected kindness. "You need it more than I do. No one deserves to go hungry."

  Before she could process the gesture, he retreated into the darkness of the tunnel.

  "God bless you..." she murmured, her voice choked with emotion, clutching the cans to her chest. "You are an angel of God, blue warrior."

  Henry didn’t look back. He was already focused on the tracks ahead, but the legend of the Night Folk seemed to have left the tunnel air a little colder.

  Henry climbed the metal steps with the silent agility of a cat, regrouping with Kane and Elena, who were watching him from the top of the dark platform.

  "One day, your kindness will cost us our position, Henry," Kane whispered, though there was no malice in his voice, only the pragmatism of someone trained to see targets, not people.

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  "If we lose our humanity, Kane, we’ll just be Crusaders of a different color," Henry replied, adjusting the strap of his serrated knife. "Let’s go. The Machinist doesn’t like to wait, and the air down here is getting stale."

  They advanced another three hundred meters until the tunnel ended at a massive sluice gate, originally designed to contain floods but now reinforced with welded tracks and armored steel plating. Two Traveler guards, wearing Soviet-model gas masks and wielding heavy sledgehammers, blocked the path.

  "Identify yourselves or turn into scrap," one of them growled, his voice metallic through the mask's filter.

  "We are from the Order of Heretics," Elena stepped forward, letting the torchlight intentionally reflect off the hidden blades in her wrists. "We have an appointment with Old Arthur. Open up before the smell of your oil starts giving me a headache."

  The guards looked at each other. Respect (or fear) for the eleven Heretics was the only currency that held as much value as food in Oregon. With a nod, the heavy mechanism began to turn. The sound was deafening—gigantic gears grinding against decades of rust and neglect.

  When the door finally gave way, the sight before them was the industrial heart of the underground.

  What was once a central maintenance terminal was now the "Throne Workshop." Hundreds of meters of tracks intersected, and at the center of it all, suspended by thick chains, was a modified steam locomotive, its boilers glowing with a constant coal-red ember.

  Arthur Volkovich, the Machinist, stood on a metal platform, supervising his men’s work. He was a broad-shouldered giant with a gray beard that looked like it was made of barbed wire and hands that looked like iron claws. Upon seeing Henry, he slammed his massive pipe wrench into the grate floor, producing a crash that silenced the workshop.

  "Henry Henrikson..." Volkovich said, his voice escaping like steam from a boiler. "You bring the smell of the surface into my tunnels. A smell of pine and... trouble."

  "The world up there is changing, Arthur," Henry walked to the base of the platform, maintaining eye contact through the slit of his mask. "A metal bird from Bosnia went down at the city limits. It carries what your people need to survive the winter. Fabrics, medicine, maybe even the tools you crave so much."

  Arthur tilted his head, his small, cunning eyes gleaming under bushy eyebrows.

  "I heard the crash. But that territory belongs to the Gunpowder Cross and Malakor’s butchers. Why would I risk my tracks and my men for cargo that is already stained with fanatic blood?"

  "Because we’ll do the dirty work," Henry stated, unfolding a worn map over a nearby workbench. "We clear the site and secure the perimeter. You just provide the transport. An armored freight train. The 'Locomotive 09.' We go in from below, load up, and get out before Malakor can rally his drugged-up crusaders."

  Volkovich stepped down from the platform, the weight of his steps making the metal vibrate. He stopped inches from Henry; the smell of Russian tobacco and diesel fuel was suffocating.

  "And the payment, little Heretic? Solomon knows I don't move a gear for charity."

  Henry held his gaze. He knew the next sentence would determine if they had a chance to save the surface communities or if they would die right there, surrounded by men with sledgehammers.

  "Half the medical cargo is yours," Henry said. "And any technical secrets we find in the plane's fuselage. Bosnian technology, Arthur. Things that can keep your machines running for another ten years without a hiccup."

  The Machinist fell silent for a long time, the only sound being the hiss of steam from the locomotive in the background. He then extended his gigantic hand.

  "If you lie to me, Henry... I will use your wooden mask to feed my boiler."

  Arthur Volkovich did not shake Henry’s hand. Instead, his colossal hands lunged with the speed of hydraulic pistons, grabbing the lapels of Henry’s blue jacket. The Machinist pulled him close, forcing the Heretic onto his tiptoes until their faces were millimeters apart.

  "Pay attention, boy," Arthur's voice was a low growl, heavy with a seriousness Henry rarely saw in the old Russian. "I’ll give you what you need. The train, the fuel, and a clear path. But you have to follow the deal to the letter."

  He squeezed the jacket fabric so hard the seams groaned.

  "If you fail, 'my boss'..." Arthur paused, letting the words weigh in the cold workshop air, "...let me repeat so it gets through your head: my boss will not be happy to know we wasted this train's energy for nothing. And you do not want to draw his eyes toward your group."

  Henry felt a chill that didn’t come from the tunnel wind. Solomon had always spoken of the Machinist as the ultimate authority of the underground, but that mention of a superior—someone who made even the giant Volkovich break into a cold sweat—changed everything. Who could be above the man who controlled the arteries of the world?

  Henry kept his body steady, never looking away from the slit in his mask.

  "Take it easy, Arthur. It’ll work out," Henry replied, his voice maintaining a calculated calm as the Russian’s hands released him.

  He composed himself, adjusting his jacket.

  "And one more detail: that territory where the plane crashed? It doesn't belong to the Crusaders. Malakor and his maniacs might be dangerous, but they don’t have what it takes to bring down a Bosnian cargo plane. They worship lead, but they don't have real firearms that can reach the sky. It was something else that brought that bird down. A threat we haven't met yet."

  The Machinist frowned, his face hardening even further.

  "Then you’d better be fast," Arthur growled, turning to his men and signaling toward the end of the switching yard. "Open Sector 4! Prep 'Locomotive 09'!"

  The Preparation

  The "Locomotive 09" was no ordinary train. It was an armored maintenance hybrid, short and squat, covered in riveted steel plates and protective grates over the windows. Elena was already on board, checking supply stocks, while Kane climbed onto the roof to test the stability of the observation platform.

  Henry approached the side of the wagon, where Beck Volter was waiting for him. Beck had come by a secondary route, bringing the heavy equipment requested by Solomon.

  "Here it is," Beck said, handing Henry a reinforced canvas bag. "Kane’s saws have been lubed, and the Pyro-gauntlets are at max pressure. But, Henry... if what brought that plane down wasn't the Gunpowder Cross, our blades might find something that steel doesn't cut easily."

  Henry took his customized brass knuckles from the bag, feeling the familiar weight of the metal. He snapped the pieces onto his fists, hearing the dry click of the locks.

  "We adapt, Beck. We’ve always done that." Henry looked into the darkness of the tunnel ahead, where the train's headlights began to tear through the void.

  He thought of the woman and the child back there, the legend of the "Reapers," and Volkovich’s mysterious "boss." The world was becoming a more complex and dangerous place than simple faction wars.

  "All aboard!" Kane shouted from the roof of the train.

  The locomotive's engine roared, spitting thick black smoke that rose into the cavern’s exhaust fans. Henry jumped into the command car. The metal beneath his feet vibrated as the steel wheels bit into the tracks.

  The expedition into the unknown had begun.

  End of Chapter