Kimmy remained in front of the wall for several seconds. The shielding still refused to let her through.
What changed was how she looked at the problem.
She stopped trying to sense whatever was behind the wall and focused instead on the interference itself.
Her senses felt equally empty, losing connection the moment it approached the shielded areas.
Kordula and Johannes remained silent, watching the blindfolded girl move around in random patterns.
Kimmy moved along the wall in short intervals, changing her angle each time. The interference remained almost uniform until she reached one corner.
A small dip in the interference occurred between two seamlessly connected parts of the floor.
However, Kimmy felt that her senses pushed through slightly deeper only to be disconnected once more.
"Mr. Johannes, please check this part." She pointed.
Kordula and the agent exchanged glances. The Overseer gestured for Johannes to check it.
Johannes crouched beside the section Kimmy indicated.
At first, there was nothing unusual about it. The concrete continued cleanly into the adjoining floor, with no visible seam or access panel separating either side.
He tapped it twice.
"Engineer."
One of the Engineers approached with a handheld scanner and ran it across the surface. Several seconds passed.
"Very small gap underneath. Looks almost flawless."
Johannes looked toward Kimmy. "What’s the shape?"
"I don’t know," she replied. "My senses only slipped through for a moment."
"How did you do it though?" Kordula asked.
"I observed the changes on the interference. Most of it feels the same, but there are small differences in some places."
Kordula blinked her eyes. "Huh. I wouldn’t have thought of using the interference itself."
"Thank you. I... didn’t even think of it until now."
Johannes lightly patted her shoulder. "You’ve done a good job, Miss Asters."
Kimmy slowly bowed. "Thank you, Mr. Johannes."
"If you’re done admiring it, can I inspect the thing?" The Engineer interjected.
The trio immediately gave space to the Engineer. He checked the surrounding floor again before marking a narrow rectangle.
Johannes stood.
"Open it carefully."
"I know. I’m not an idiot."
The Engineer began working around the marked section.
Kimmy moved away and continued along the corridor.
Now that she knew what to look for, the interference no longer felt completely uniform.
Most of it remained dense enough to shut her out, but small inconsistencies appeared where different sections met.
A doorway.
A service line.
A repaired crack.
None of them were useful by themselves, and not every inconsistency proved the possible location of a hidden compartment.
But they were enough to prove that the shielding was not perfect.
Kimmy slowed again. Another dip came from the wall nearby.
She moved closer, shifted slightly to the side, then stopped.
"There’s another one."
Johannes looked toward the first Engineer, who was still working on the floor.
"Mark it. We’ll check that one next."
Kimmy nodded. She still couldn’t see through the Directorate’s protection. She was learning where it wasn’t seamless.
...
The first compartment held two sealed storage modules.
The second contained only paper records, several identification cards and a small metal case Johannes kept with the recovered material.
Neither solved the archive problem outright, but they proved Vaughn had hidden material throughout the Directorate.
The official’s reasoning could be investigated later.
Kimmy continued searching. Another weak point appeared farther ahead.
She followed it around a damaged corner and stopped.
This one was different as the interference wasn’t coming from the wall, but came from below instead.
Kimmy frowned. Something faint pressed against her perception from beneath the cracked floor.
She moved closer to the source. Her spatial perception traced something large running through the fracture.
It didn’t feel like cable or exposed reinforcement. The material was hard and irregular. A faint smell of rotting vegetation reached her a moment later.
She followed it farther beneath the cracked concrete until it joined something thicker buried below the floor.
"That’s a root from the Tree, Ms. Asters."
"The one that Hans killed?"
"Yes. It’s that."
"How strange, and powerful. Is this... what a Tier Two is?"
Johannes and Kordula remained silent.
One had seen how horrific that tree was. The other could only imagine how powerful it truly was.
"I feel something, from the root. It’s... radiating. Outward."
Johannes looked toward the exposed root with a furrowed brow.
"Is it still alive?"
"I don’t think so."
She reached closer without touching it.
The sensation strengthened. Something warm brushed against the edge of her perception before slipping inward.
Kimmy froze.
The pressure around the root weakened as it got absorbed into her body.
Johannes noticed her reaction. "Miss Asters?"
"I’m fine."
Kimmy focused on herself instead. If anything, she felt lighter now. The faint tiredness she had carried since entering the Directorate had eased slightly.
She reached toward the root again. Another trace moved from the dead tissue and disappeared into her.
Kimmy slowly pulled her hand back. "I think I’m absorbing it."
Kordula stopped examining the nearby wall. "Absorbing what?"
"Something from the root. I don’t know. Life essence, maybe?"
Johannes’s mind flashed back to thte Highcross encounter—when Kimmy approached the first Broodmother’s corpse.
He wondered if this was the same, and whether it would induce any effects at all.
Kimmy tried to find the sensation again, but there was less of it now.
Before she could say anything else, pressure swept across the Core.
Kimmy’s head snapped toward the source. The DASF operators around them shifted immediately while the Engineers stopped what they were doing.
This pressure was nothing like the weak residue beneath her feet.
It was stronger, concentrated, and familiar.
Johannes braced himself against the wall. "I thought this area was sealed."
The squad leader checked his communicator. "The source is Doctor Shearman."
Kordula’s brows twitched. "Of course it is."
Another wave crossed the Core, stronger than before.
Kimmy staggered sideways and caught herself against the wall. Her perception distorted for a moment, the Directorate’s shielding and the foreign pressure overlapping until she could barely separate one from the other.
Johannes dropped to one knee with a grunt, one hand pressed against his head.
Kordula immediately crossed the distance and pulled one of his arms over her shoulder.
"That bastard’s doing something again. Do something to stop him!"
The DASF squad had already started moving.
Two operators shifted toward the corridor leading outside while the others closed around Kimmy, Johannes and Kordula. The Engineers abandoned the opened compartments and collected their tools as they moved back toward the breach.
"Response teams have already been sent," the squad leader said. "We’re evacuating you three first."
"I can walk," Johannes muttered.
"Don’t be hard-headed."
Kordula hauled him upright anyway.
Kimmy took several steps with them before stopping.
The pressure weakened again. She turned toward the direction it had come from.
"Wait."
The DASF nearest her stopped immediately.
"Mistress?"
Kimmy ignored the title this time.
Something had changed outside the Directorate.
The presence she recognized as Tyrus was still there, but it no longer felt the same as before. The pressure around him was denser, extending farther with every pulse before falling back again.
Another wave approached.
"Move," the squad leader ordered.
This time Kimmy moved with them. The pressure reached the Directorate seconds later.
Johannes stumbled again. Kordula swore under her breath as she tightened her hold on him.
Kimmy felt the wave pass through her senses, then through the faint residue she had absorbed from the dead root.
Just as she stopped breathing, the feeling vanished.
"Ms. Asters?" Johannes asked.
Kimmy continued toward the breach.
"I’m fine."
The faint residue she had absorbed no longer felt quite as faint.
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