Incredible as it was, Darien didn't find the elevator very inviting. The fact that nothing actually held it up meant they would be totally at the mercy of millennia-old mechanisms: a disquieting thought at best. Nevertheless, it also represented a straight-shot to within striking distance of the Coring Well at the base of the complex. He peered inside. On the right hand side of the room where a normal elevator might have had a series of buttons, the alien machine had a holographic display that extended out from the wall, shaped like an old style tube map, with daubs of white at regular intervals over the tendrils.

He didn't really want to risk trying to Blink down to the base of the complex, not when they were still trying to read the scale of the interior map provided by the alien machine. As far as mapping the interior with their own instruments, along with human measurements, the operatives had barely secured a tiny fraction of the place. Shoving his apprehension to the back of his mind, he turned to his squad mates.

"Okay, we've got ourselves a ride," he declared. "Idas, Hekket and Amber, come with me. Niamh, stay with Brannigan and feed us directions as best you can. Keep working with the schematic and see if you can pinpoint the locations of Tundra and Vandal."

Niamh's brow crumpled with annoyance and he knew why. As someone who prided herself on being one of the toughest operatives on the force, she would not thank him for the job of babysitter. Nonetheless, whatever his misgivings about Brannigan, there was no doubting that she could handle the alien machine and was learning fast. The more they learned the better, but he wasn't about to leave the rookie operative on her own.

For her part, his second in command kept her mouth shut despite her obvious displeasure. The others stepped forward to accompany him and Idas gave the alien elevator a suspicious look.

"You sure this think won't just drop us like a stone?"

"It came up from somewhere," Amber replied, giving him a nudge with one elbow. "And made it in one piece. If it's survived this long intact it'll survive us."

"You never know," he grumbled.

Darien smiled and shook his head. "All aboard."

He stepped in first. The walls sloped in around him like the inside of an enormous bell and he found himself hunching his shoulders instinctively. He waited as the others followed. Amber and Hekket seemed happy enough, but Idas still cast wary glances at his surroundings every few seconds, as though he expected the thing to suddenly just give way just because they were standing in it.

Ignoring his friend, Darien turned his attention to the controls. The lines were layered over each other, some green, some blue, some yellow and a there was a cluster towards the bottom that pulsed gently in red. On impulse he decided not to touch any of the lights in the red section. The shape of the diagram seemed to correspond roughly to the shape the city but it didn't seem large enough or have enough what he assumed were floors to fill the space.

"This is Hammerhead to all stations," he said, sending his voice over all the comm channels. "We are about to descend right into the centre of the structure. Be advised, there's a good chance we'll lose radio contact at that point, depending on our proximity to other teams." Then he looked at his companions. "Hang on everyone."

After placing his feet slightly further apart to brace against any sudden motion, he reached out and touched a dot on one of the yellow pathways in the lower half of the diagram. To his surprise the elevator didn't move. Instead the display flashed and a completely new arrangement of lines and dots, this one much more intricate and sprawling than the last.

"It must work like the main console," Amber said after a moment. "The first map was by area. This one's zoomed in on the area of the city you selected."

"Alright then. Take two." Darien reached forward again and pressed the lowest point he could.

This time the elevator moved.

No amount of preparation would have been enough to ready him for the ferocious rate of descent that flung the operatives around the interior of the elevator like skittles. He lost his footing, tripped and tumbled face first into the floor where he splayed out his limbs in an attempt to stay steady. Amber let out a high pitch shriek as the jolt threw her forward, bowling Hekket over and slamming her into the wall. Whether thanks to his bulky frame or his paranoia, Idas fared slightly better, only stumbling before dropping deliberately to all fours, spreading his arms and legs out against the cold stone floor.

The ride lasted perhaps ten seconds and halted as violently as it started. Darien felt his teeth clack together painfully and he grimaced, slowly pushing himself to his knees. For a moment only the heavy breathing of his stunned comrades filled the air.

"Alright," Idas croaked, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "Next time, we're taking the stairs."

"Everybody okay?" Darien said as he clambered unsteadily to his feet. There was a general mutter of assent as the others picked themselves up. He rolled his head from side to side and looked around at the elevator. "That's one hell of a descent."

"It's not designed for use by humans," Hekket put in. "The things that used to live here – you saw the hologram and the scale of this place. They're much bigger; heavier. They'd stay grounded during the descent because of their weight."

"Yippee for them," Amber muttered.

Darien shook his head with a thin smile and turned his attention to the part of the city they had finally descended into. He looked out into another immense, vaulted hallway structurally similar to the others they'd passed through, but with a few differences. The depths of the city seemed to have taken more of a pounding over the centuries, be it from quakes or otherwise and he could see massive stress cracks running up and down the walls. Added to that, the vast emptiness of the hall was lit in a grim twilight, with several of the pyramidal nodes in the ceiling broken down – one lay smashed to pieces not far from the entrance having fallen from its mounting.

His smiled faded.

"Niamh, this is Darien. Do you read me?"

"We're reading you," she replied. "But the reception is patchy. You go much deeper and we'll lose you altogether."

"Copy that. We knew this would probably happen. If you lose contact with us do what you can to co-ordinate the other teams. We'll be fine." He took a long, deep breath. "Is there a way to track movements with the main console?"

"We're looking into it," she answered apologetically. "But Brannigan's still finding her feet with this gizmo. Doesn't look like our friends left an instruction manual so best guess is all I can give you right now."

"I'll take it. We'll make regular check-ins. Darien out." He looked back over his shoulder and motioned the others forward. "Right then, mappers out, kids. Follow me."

And on they went out into the grim half-light. In the dark the enormous majesty of the alien halls took on a foreboding countenance as the four operatives marched onward. They added their own tiny torch beams to try and further illuminate the space. Darien was suddenly very conscious of how insignificant they were in the grand scheme of the place.

He also became aware of something else. The sound of water.

The further they travelled the more pronounced the drippy echo became. He kept an eye out for where it might be coming from, and he could see rivulets seeping from between the cracks in the walls. Some of the black fractures ran dozens of feet up and down, disappearing down even further, and the damp smell of salt water filled his nostrils. He glanced at his mapper. The current passage ran several hundred meters and sloped downwards, so they were on the right track. Thinking back to the schematic he knew the route they should be able to take, the eidetic memory characteristic of Blink operatives now proving its worth.

Amber walked past him at the head of the group, mapper outstretched as she let her gaze wander up and around the walls.

"I guess Churchwood must be right," she said. "The damage is much worse down here. The epicentre of the quakes must be closer."

"That's what we're here to find out," he replied. "That and-,"

He broke off sharply and stopped walking.

"Wait..." Hekket murmured. "Do you hear-?"

"A tremor!"

This time there was no tell-tale rumble to give them prior warning. Before the operatives could react another quake tore through the complex and this one struck their position with much greater force than any other. The bone-shaking vibrations knocked Darien off his feet and he hit the ground with jarring force. He frantically tried to get back to his feet but the shaking continued. The whole structure shook as though in the grip of a furious titan, and he could hear the yells of his comrades as they tried to fight back against the elements. Then an ear-splitting crack echoed through the hallway.

"Darien!" Idas roared a warning above the chaos.

He looked up to see an enormous broken slab of rock plummeting down towards him. Digging his fingers against the stone with the strength of desperation, he managed an awkward leap to one side. The stone debris smashed into the floor an instant later, the tremendous force causing a spider-web of cracks to burst from the epicentre. He scrambled against the shaking and managed to regain his feet, stumbling to halt near the relative safety of one of the supporting struts. Looking around wildly he tried to locate the others.

Hekket and Idas had ended up several meters further back, closer to the more structurally intact segment nearer the elevator shaft. Amber, however, had not been so lucky. In the mayhem following the shock wave she had found herself driven much further down the corridor by falling rocks and cracks in the floor. The floor beneath her seemed to be rising and falling as more shocks assaulted the massive structure. He saw the fear in her eyes as she looked up at him. Then the slab beneath her broke apart.

Her panicked yelp sliced through the low thunder of the quake and for an instant Darien felt his heart slam into his throat as she started to fall. But she managed to latch onto the edge of the broken section and heave herself up onto her elbows.

His hand shot out toward her. "Amber, hold on! I'm coming-,"

Just as he was about to throw his own safety to the winds and run the gauntlet of falling masonry to reach her, the section of flooring he stood on started to give way, too. It dropped sharply and nearly threw him to the ground again. He managed to stay upright, and with a snarl of effort he took three huge strides and jumped, catching the edge of the next floor segment that hadn't yet buckled under the strain. Gritting his teeth he dragged himself up onto it and tried to locate Amber again.

He caught a glimpse of her as the lights flashed and flickered under the onslaught. Then he felt the ground beneath him start to come apart and he had to turn his gun-mounted torch downward to follow his own footing. With frantic agility he danced his way over to the more stable areas against the wall, site-stepping huge hunks of falling rock and leaping over breaks in the floor. He pressed himself against the stone for purchase and shone his light towards where Amber had been moments before.

He spotted her, still clinging on desperately to the ledge, unable to pull herself up as the shaking threatened to dislodge her if she moved too much. But the worst was still to come. Another thunderous roar of collapsing stone from directly ahead filled his ears, and for a moment he couldn't pinpoint the cause. Then his eyes widened in horror when he saw one of the massive supporting struts between him and Amber start to fall. He saw her looking back at him with an expression of numb terror stamped on her features.

Despite the destruction, despite the shaking that rattled bones, all he could think about was the girl who dangled barely twenty metres away. A hollow feeling took root in his gut as he realised there was nothing he would do. With the inevitability of an avalanche the whole gigantic support finally gave way; hundreds of tons of stone ripped away from the wall and toppled. It was like watching a skyscraper come down. He looked back to Amber and stared helplessly into her eyes, right up to the second the support landed. It slammed to the floor with titanic force, sending a secondary shock wave ripping through the passage and completely obscuring Amber from view.

Darien didn't see her fall, but he heard her scream.