Chapter 10

“Pa.” Military boots hit the ground, splashing water in all directions and stirring up layers of echoes.

He was already soaked through, so he couldn’t tell how much water splashed onto his pant legs. Rainwater and a pungent damp smell assaulted him, along with a strange rotten earth odor that surged forward amid the constant slapping of water against the walls.

Some drainage systems consisted of narrow pipes, while others were low tunnels wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Horne hunched slightly, stepping on the cement ground swallowed by rainwater, inching toward the interior of the Tower District.

The pipes at night were so dark he could barely see the path. Fortunately, every short distance, there was an iron grate like the one he had just jumped through, and some had streetlights shining on them, casting a pale, eerie glow below. Using those few seconds of visibility, Horne proceeded step by step.

Tonight’s rain fell fiercely. The rushing water pushed against his boot soles, producing constant resisting sounds. Each step required more force than usual to steady himself. The only misstep was that he had left in a hurry without grabbing the emergency escape gear from his room—it would have been much more convenient, at least with a flashlight.

Horne pressed against the right wall. His view obstructed, he could only grope his way rightward. The Tower District lay roughly to the right, and he wasn’t sure of its internal layout yet. As long as he found an iron grate inside the Tower District, he’d be set.

The walls, long deprived of sunlight, felt sticky to the touch, like the slickness of moss or algae, with occasional whiffs of mold.

Horne remained silent. His ears filled with the noisy “splash” of water flow. The downpour overhead never ceased, nearly overwhelming his hearing. After a while, he could hardly distinguish between the water and tinnitus.

After a bend, the Tower District’s entrance should be just ahead. Another beam of cold light shone down, fragmented into stripes by the iron grate, flickering faintly on the surging water.

With careful steps, he passed this short illuminated stretch. Then, “Pa!” A loud bang exploded overhead. Horne shuddered, his limbs freezing in place. But after the huge noise from above, nothing followed. He slowly looked up.

A shoe pressed on the iron grate, its sole right in Horne’s face. This grate’s position marked the Tower District’s entrance.

Horne held his breath and retreated a small step, then another, until he was out of the light beam. He realized he didn’t need to hold his breath—the water flow and storm could mask all his movements.

He just needed to follow this pipe forward.

The shoe stayed still above. Horne hugged the right wall and gradually left the spot.

Another long stretch followed, but it grew darker the further he went. Horne wasn’t sure if he had crossed into the Tower District’s boundary underground. The cold lights grew scarcer; he relied more on memory from the last light and the feel of the right wall.

Rainwater thoroughly soaked his clothes, icy cold invading his entire body.

Inside the Tower District, the iron grates were fewer. The storm’s roar gradually gave way to the low tunnel’s water flow, blending into echoes of water and footsteps that reverberated through the space. Each step made it feel like someone else in the darkness followed one step behind.

“Plop, plop.”

“Plop, plop.”

Horne’s heart grew uneasy. He lightened his movements further, ensuring all sounds drowned in the endless clamor. If he could see, it would be fine, but in this pitch black, he felt unsteady.

Just then, a sound unlike water came from behind.

“Woo woo—” A cry, like a child’s or a night cat’s.

Horne halted instantly, back tight against the wall, holding his breath completely.

In the dark, eyes open saw nothing, so Horne closed his, sensing directions roughly.

A breeze brushed lightly. He slowly exhaled the air pent in his lungs, hand gently pressing his heart to force the accelerating beat back to calm.

It was just wind echoing in the confined space, wave reflections.

Even surrounded by water, the claustrophobic darkness dried his throat. He opened his eyes; prolonged darkness sharpened his light sensitivity.

It seemed… there was light ahead.

He didn’t know how long passed—ten minutes, half an hour. The low tunnel’s structure varied: some parts allowed standing, others required bending, some were so narrow he crawled on knees. By the end, his body was slick with microbes, but it was easier than past Military District training covered in mud and snow.

After crawling a narrow pipe, the space opened up. Horne stood, following the water flow forward. But then, a groove slid under his fingertip. He paused, stepping back. His fingertip found it again—a clear pattern.

Parallel lines and a dot.

Horne frowned, covering the spot with his whole palm, sliding it left and right. Amid the sickening slick microbes, the grooved wall felt slightly raised.

Confirming the range, he touched the groove again.

Not just one line and dot—it was a series, left to right. Horne’s lips moved silently: “Dot, line, dot, line, dot, line, dot, line, dot, line, line.”

Entry.

Horne jerked his head up. Instinctively, a beam of light hit down.

A streetlight.

An iron grate opening lay directly above him.

It was too dark, and with his body soaked, he hadn’t sensed if water on him was rain or splashes, missing the grate with rainwater pouring through.

The streetlight here suddenly lit. Horne dodged out of the striped light, but then footsteps echoed nearby.

“Thud, thud.”

Horne froze again, leaning against the wall, chill seeping into his heart.

“Thud, thud.”

“How much longer?” A human voice.

The prolonged water echoes made him doubt his spatial sense.

Someone on the grate talked to another, voices suggesting one or two meters beside it. They had just passed overhead.

“Liquid Particles have shifted from high-energy excited state to low-temperature inert liquid state. As expected, human knowledge systems are highly applicable on Earth.”

The speaker’s voice sounded unnatural, intonation and wording robotic. Horne stayed put below. If his sense of direction held, this was inside the Tower District. So even Aliens in the Tower took human form to live.

Leaning on the cold wall, Horne’s hand touched the Morse code again, then he looked up.

“Liquid Particles possess intracellular targeted delivery capability, penetrating the body through pores, crossing cell membranes, inducing cytoskeleton reconstruction. But protein folding might fail—everything depends on the actual Particle Rain effect.

“Hmph, human cells have astonishingly high error rates, but strong plasticity.”

What were they talking about? Horne held his breath, waiting.

No continuation came. Footsteps faded, leaving only the pouring rain above.

Horne straightened, gripped the iron grate, and slowly shifted it aside.

“Boom—” Thunder crashed.

At the edge of the Tower District’s central plaza, in grassy drainage mouth, an iron grate slowly lifted. A head emerged cautiously, scanning. Seeing no one, hands followed onto the ground. A second later, the figure agilely flipped up, restored the grate, and vanished into shadows.

He had really reached inside via the drainage pipes. Horne concealed himself in the grass. Good luck—this grate opened to a grassy patch. Perfect cover to observe the Tower District interior.

A vast oval plaza held no Alien activity, not even Recon Drones. Only the storm’s pallor filled the space, occasional fierce lightning tearing a rift overhead.

Dozens of Corinthian Columns, over ten meters tall, ringed the plaza. Seven colorful flags—silver, red, blue, gold, green, gray—hung inverted on them, swaying in the gale. Dense towering trees like a forest bordered the columns, the only life in the cold.

He had imagined the Tower District’s interior: Aliens, tech, advanced. Reality differed vastly from expectation.

An Obelisk stood at the plaza’s center, white marble base with blurred sea god and stone lion carvings in the rain. Under streetlights, its body gleamed ink-green and cold. Surrounding scenery distorted subtly, like flowing metallic texture. Enveloped in thunderstorm, it seemed more alien, an extraterrestrial artifact.

Horne’s gaze traced from the Obelisk’s base upward, cold rays converging layer by layer to the tip, piercing the sky.

That instant, his feet involuntarily retreated a step. Dizziness hit briefly.

What… was that?

Atop the Obelisk, countless black particles coalesced, intertwining, hovering midair, forming huge numbers.

2168: 39

What?

In the downpour, the particles stood unmoved. After brief shock, they reorganized into new digits.

2168: 38

Lightning paled Horne’s face.

One minute later.

2168: 37

“Boom—” Explosive thunder roared beside his ear, followed by fresh lightning, then muffled rumbles.

Rain endless, intensifying, nearly overwhelming the city. Yet the black particles changed on time, unaffected.

2168: 36

The central plaza dwarfed Horne to an ant. Beyond Corinthian Columns stretched building clusters, a city within Loch City. In this vastness, finding that escape room seemed impossible.

Horne calmed his long-trembling heart, planning to drop back into the drainage pipe and infiltrate underground to the buildings. But then, a straight cold beam swept over.

“Who’s there?!”

Horne’s eyes sharpened, freezing in place.

His focus on the incredible countdown had missed the humanoid Alien approaching nearby. The flashlight pierced the greenery, swinging up and down. Rain fell as myriad needles in the beam.

Horne stayed motionless, prone in the grass pile. In this night of thunder, rain, and danger, it seemed nothing else stirred—as if the glimpsed shadow was illusion.

The patrolling guard with the flashlight saw nothing, slowly nearing the grass. Each step cautious, shoes splashing water.

Closer. Horne held his breath, staring at the shadow. Two choices: stay still until fully discovered; strike first and take out the Alien.

But the other sensed wrongness, halted, and bellowed first: “Intruder spotted!”