Something is wrong.
I feel it before I can name it—a low, itching wrongness settling behind my sternum like a massive gulp of water stretching my throat.
The light tunnel behind us is already gone, swallowed by darkness. Through the oval windows, the bioluminescent biome bleeds back into view—the floating rock formations, the upward waterfalls, the pale blue glow of everything alive again.
We're too slow.
I check my HUD. Then the window. Then the HUD again.
A transit system built underneath a Leviathan biome doesn't meander. It doesn't sightsee. The second those beads hit the slot, this thing should have punched through to the other side in under a minute—the kind of speed that compresses your organs against your spine and makes conversation physically impossible.
Instead, we're cruising.
Like a Sunday drive.
That's not right.
