She yanked the audit core loose from the improvised cradle, hugged it to her chest, and moved to the next gallery choke point. Elias followed with the satchel slapping his hip and pain shooting up each step. They crossed under dead screens and hanging cable curtains into a narrower relay throat where the old undercity lines climbed toward the surface in bundled trunks.

Mara dropped to one knee and opened a floor box. "Hold that panel."

He did. She jammed the core into a second improvised bridge and started the next burst.

A sound came from the dark at the far end of the throat. Not loud. A shoe edge on metal. Elias turned.

A figure in matte work gear slid into view behind the mesh, face masked, a compact shock frame raised in both hands. Human height. Human caution. No feral rush, no blind hunger. Behind that figure, two more shapes stacked the corridor with clean spacing.

Mara saw them at the same instant. She slammed the floor box lid on Elias's hand to make him let go, ripped the panel free, and hurled it. It hit the lead masked figure in the face shield with a hard clang. The shock frame fired wide, blue light cracking across the mesh. Mara was already moving. She crashed shoulder-first into the relay rack, tipped it across the corridor, and dragged Elias down behind it.

The fallen rack screamed over metal. Cable bundles tore loose. One struck Elias across the cheek. He tasted blood.

"Not hunters," he said, hearing how foolish the old word sounded now.