Emergency lights came on a few seconds after the generator died.
Old red lamps lit the storage room.
Cade kept the first prisoner on the floor while Dax secured his wrists. Varek tied the second man to a support beside the battery stack.
Another mechanism moved beneath them.
"What did they open?" Cade asked.
The technician shook his head.
"I never saw it. The first team said there was a gate below. These men kept trying to power it."
Cade looked at the prisoner.
"What gate?"
No answer.
Nate crouched beside him.
The Conductive strip disappeared beneath his collar. Up close, the three-line mark was even clearer.
Kellan moved beside Nate.
"Don’t cut it."
"You know what it is?"
"I’ve seen similar tags."
Cade heard him.
"Tags?"
"Old access systems. Personnel could carry them instead of physical clearance keys."
Dax passed a scanner over the strip.
"There’s current running through the contact points."
"From him?" Nate asked.
"Partly. It’s transmitting too."
Cade looked toward the floor.
"To whatever is below?"
"Possible."
He turned back to the freed technician.
"How many of them?"
"Three."
Nate looked at the two prisoners.
"One still downstairs."
The technician nodded.
"He stayed below most of the time."
"Armed?"
"Yes."
"Your team?"
"Two of us were brought here. The others went farther down."
"Alive?"
"They were yesterday."
That was enough for Cade.
"We continue."
Varek glanced at the prisoners.
"And these two?"
Dax secured the restraint cable around a floor support and tested it.
"They stay."
Cade handed the technician one of the captured rifles.
"Lock the door behind us."
The man stared at the weapon.
"I’m maintenance."
"Then don’t go looking for trouble."
Cade opened the far door.
A staircase descended beyond the level shown on the kingdom plans.
Kellan checked the older structural scan.
"This should lead toward one of the missing sections."
"Should?" Cade asked.
"The scan stops halfway down."
They descended.
The construction changed after the first landing.
Modern concrete gave way to large fitted blocks with narrow metal channels running through them. Most of the newer wiring had been attached directly over whatever the original builders had left behind.
The three-line mark appeared again beside a junction box.
Kellan slowed when he saw it.
Nate noticed but said nothing.
The staircase ended at a long corridor.
Small rooms lined one wall. Heavy doors stood open on most of them.
Nate shone his light into the nearest.
A metal bench had been fixed to the wall. Two restraint points sat beneath it.
The next room had the same layout.
"Temporary holding," Kellan said.
Varek glanced inside.
"For prisoners?"
Kellan kept walking.
The third room was different.
Blood covered part of the floor.
A maintenance worker sat collapsed against the wall.
Dax checked him, then moved the jacket aside.
A single gunshot had entered through the chest.
He checked the badge.
"First team."
Cade stood.
"Hostile intent confirmed. From here on, weapons ready. Take them alive if it doesn’t put anyone at unnecessary risk."
Varek took the cutter from his back.
They continued.
The sound below had changed.
Nate listened as they moved.
Metal scraping against metal, followed by the repeated knock of wheels passing over joints.
"Rail system," Kellan said quietly.
The corridor opened into a large underground chamber.
Two tracks disappeared into a tunnel cut directly through the ridge. A loading platform ran along one side.
A heavy gate blocked the tunnel.
It was rising.
Dax looked toward the ceiling.
"Separate emergency circuit."
Cade glanced at him.
"That’s why it still has power?"
"Gate motor isn’t tied to the relay bus. Whoever triggered it could open this even with the upper system dead."
The gate climbed another metre.
Cold air entered through the widening gap.
A light appeared in the tunnel.
Cade pulled everyone away from the platform.
"Cover."
They spread behind support columns.
The light drew closer.
A small freight platform emerged from the tunnel, pulled by a thick cable running between the rails.
Three reinforced military crates occupied most of it.
A man stood beside them with a rifle.
He saw Cade.
Both weapons came up.
Cade fired first.
The round struck the man’s shoulder and knocked him against one of the crates.
He stayed upright and returned fire.
A shot struck the column beside Nate.
The man reached toward his belt.
Kellan saw it.
"Remote."
Nate opened his Circuit.
The operative moved behind the nearest crate and leaned out far enough to expose his left side.
Nate started forward, then stopped.
The position was too easy.
A shot crossed the space he would have entered.
The man shifted to the other side of the crate to find a new angle.
Nate moved with him.
He crossed the last few metres before the rifle finished turning.
Nate struck the barrel aside and drove his elbow into the wounded shoulder.
The man dropped the weapon.
Varek reached them almost immediately and forced him face down against the platform.
Kellan kicked the remote away.
"Clear."
Dax picked it up.
Three controls showed on the small display.
GATE
POWER
PURGE
Cade looked over his shoulder.
"Don’t touch purge."
"I wasn’t going to."
The freight platform reached the end of the line.
A cough came from inside the tunnel.
Nate turned his light toward it.
Someone sat against the wall beyond the gate.
Maintenance uniform.
Cade and Dax went first.
The technician had one wrist secured to a pipe. His face was badly swollen, but he was conscious.
Dax cut the restraint.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Anyone else alive?"
"My supervisor."
"Where?"
The man pointed farther into the tunnel.
"They took him that way yesterday."
Cade looked beyond him.
"The line continues?"
The technician nodded.
"That’s what we found."
"What were you doing down here?"
"Checking the communications failure. We found the hidden passage and followed it."
He looked toward the loading platform.
"There were fresh wheel marks. Ren tried to report it."
Nate glanced back toward the dead technician in the holding room.
Cade understood too.
"How often is this line being used?"
"I don’t know. Enough that the rails were clean."
Kellan had remained near the freight crates.
"Cade."
They returned to the platform.
Kellan crouched beside the first container.
Most of the inventory plate had been removed, but a narrow identification strip remained beneath the frame.
Dax read it.
"Military energy cells."
Nate saw the classification beneath it.
CLASS 2 ASSAULT.
He stopped.
"I know that designation."
Cade looked at him.
"The academy?"
"The cell Cale inserted into the training grid was Class 2 Assault."
Kellan moved to the second crate.
The side panel identified its contents as Conductive bridge components.
Nate stared at it.
Same type of cell.
Same kind of bridge material.
Now sitting together on an active hidden transport route beneath C-19.
Cade looked toward the captured operative.
"Where were these going?"
The man remained silent.
Varek stepped toward him.
Cade raised a hand.
"Leave him."
He crouched beside the prisoner.
"We have a murdered kingdom technician, military equipment with its inventory stripped and a transport route that doesn’t exist on any current map."
The operative finally looked at him.
"You think the equipment was stolen?"
"What should I think?"
The man gave a small smile.
"You don’t know what this place is."
Kellan had gone still.
The operative’s eyes shifted toward him.
For the first time, his expression changed.
He stared for a second longer than necessary.
Then recognition settled in.
"Well."
Kellan raised his rifle.
Cade immediately looked between them.
"You know him?"
"No."
The man laughed once.
"You always were bad at that."
Nobody spoke.
Nate watched Kellan.
There was nothing relaxed about him now.
The operative looked almost pleased.
"Thought you were dead, Rook."
Kellan kept the rifle trained on him.
"You should’ve kept thinking it."
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