Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

Dallas tears open the packet on the concrete. Schematics spill out with frequency logs, relay sketches, and red penciled timing marks. The flashlight beams shake across the paper as he drags his notes beside them.

The numbers line up. The pulse he stabilized was never calming the system, it was holding pressure on the thing beneath the hatch. His earlier adjustment has loosened the cage.

A dull thud rolls up through the floor, then another, harder this time. The concrete seam near the hatch quivers. One of the agents drops his weapon and backs away from the broken formation.

Dallas looks from the packet to the hatch. The barrier is failing, and whatever Bishop caged down there now knows the rhythm is wrong.

Dallas reaches for the secondary relay leads, but the moment his fingers brush the copper, the entire junction box sparks with a violent, blue-white discharge. The current is not just failing, it is actively rejecting the connection, and the feedback surge blows the fuses in the surrounding light towers.

The pier plunges into near-total darkness, save for the rhythmic, pulsing red glow now bleeding directly from the widening cracks in the floor hatch. The thudding stops, replaced by a low, wet scraping sound that vibrates through the soles of Dallas's boots.

Dallas grabs the nearest agent by the collar and hauls him out of the red wash and smoke. The man stumbles, half-blind in the dark, and goes rigid when Dallas shoves him against the ruined box.

Murderbone shifts in close, blocking the agent’s retreat. Beneath them, the hatch answers with a hard thump, then another, as if something below has heard its name.

The pier goes still for a beat, wrong and empty, then the red glow brightens through the cracks. The agent swallows, staring past Dallas at the hatch like he already regrets saying anything.

Dallas pivots off the ruined box, crosses to the stair-side panel, and catches the fourth pulse in the dark. The wheel gives under his hand, then locks with a dry click.

The red seam beneath the hatch tightens from a broad glow to a narrow, angry line. The wet scraping below stops for one beat, as if whatever is under there is listening.

Murderbone holds his ground, muzzle low, while the smoke from the junction box thins into the black air. The pierced silence on the dock feels deliberate now, not empty.

The hatch still trembles, but the rhythm is broken. Dallas has the panel reset, and the containment is held for the moment, though the red light keeps pulsing under the seam.