“Good,” she replies. “Because that’s where they’ll expect us.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “We go back the way we came, but not exactly.”
She glances at me.
“Define ‘not exactly,’” she says.
“We cut through the lower maintenance grid,” I reply. “Same tunnels, different access point. Less traffic, fewer eyes.”
“More ways to get trapped,” she mutters.
“Yeah,” I agree. “But we’re already past the safe options.”
She huffs a breath, something almost like a laugh slipping through despite everything.
“Fair,” she says.
We move again, dropping down a level through a service ladder that rattles under our weight, the air shifting colder as we descend back toward the understructure.
“You didn’t answer me,” she says as we hit the lower corridor.
“About what?” I ask, already moving.
“You getting out,” she says. “You just show up like that’s not a thing.”
“I got out,” I reply.
“Yeah, I noticed,” she mutters. “How?”
“Bad decisions and good timing,” I say.
“Yeah, no shit.” she replies.
We round another corner, the alarms dulling slightly as the structure absorbs some of the sound, and I finally slow enough to pull the device from my belt.
“Show me what you’ve got,” I say.
She doesn’t hesitate.
She hands it over.
The screen flickers to life, the recording still active, and I scrub through it quickly, catching the key moments—the admission, the shift in Driscoll’s tone, the shot.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “That’s solid.”
“Your turn,” she says.
I pass her my device.
“Partial logs,” I explain. “Patrol manipulation, breach scheduling, command overrides.”
She scans it fast, her expression tightening as she processes it.
“They match,” she says. “Everything lines up.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Which means we’ve got something real.”
“Something they can’t bury,” she adds.
