Special hanks to Finicolcomic68for the power stone
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Ada set Hope down against the far wall and Leon watched her do it — one arm cradled behind the girl's back until her shoulders hit concrete. Controlled all the way. Hope's head dropped. The bad arm hung extended, fingers still curled past where they should stop.
Ada straightened. Her hand found her own wrist and gripped it. Knuckles white.
She didn't check the door behind Leon. She already knew it had held.
She was looking at the wall. Catching her breath. Her face without the glasses, without the hat, without the things she wore like armor. Just her. And Leon was looking at her looking at the wall — not performing, not calculating, just breathing in the red light.
She felt it. Her eyes moved to him.
He didn't look away.
"You're staring," Ada said.
"I'm not."
"You were." She turned. Whatever had been unguarded was gone. "See something interesting?"
He didn't have an answer ready. His mouth moved first. "You're—"
He stopped. Looked away.
"I what?"
"Different." He kept looking at the wall. "Forget it."
She watched him for half a second. Something crossed her face. Then she turned back into the room. He let out a breath.
The emergency lighting was low and red-orange. Ada stood three feet away catching her breath and it wasn't what he'd seen on that security monitor. The monitor had shown him her face without the glasses, without the performance. This was different. This was her in the same air he was breathing.
She caught him looking again.
Neither of them said anything.
"She's stable," Ada said.
"She's not back yet."
Ada glanced at Hope. Back to him. She let it go.
He crossed to Hope and crouched. The veins were still dark at her collarbone, spreading down her neck. Her skin had that yellow-grey cast that meant her body was still processing the thing that had been put into it. The arm had come back slightly. The joint was still wrong. He adjusted the scarf without pulling tight.
Hope didn't respond.
He stayed close. That was enough for now.
Behind him Ada moved through the room — fast, quiet, the perimeter check. He heard her try the far panel. Nothing. Dead. The door behind him hadn't moved. Just patience on the other side. Just weight.
He kept his eyes on Hope.
Her hand moved first. Then her eyes opened — all at once, fully there, locked on him — and she grabbed his sleeve.
Not reached. Grabbed. Her knuckles went white. Her breath hitched sharp. Her grip was too strong.
He didn't move. Let her hold.
The grip loosened after a moment. She didn't let go. Just loosened, breathing coming back closer to even.
He heard Ada stop behind him.
The power came back without warning.
A thud through the walls. Low and deep. The ventilation shifted. The lighting cycled from red to steady. The far panel blinked green.
The workstation woke.
Ada was at the keyboard before he stood. He came around beside her as Hope's hand slipped from his sleeve. Ada pulled up the schematics.
Blue lines on black. Corridors. Sealed sections. The shape of what they'd been inside.
He recognized it all.
"Leon."
He stood. Hope released his sleeve slowly — a choice, not an accident.
Ada had pulled something specific. He looked at what she'd found.
Facility layout mapped in blue. He recognized the shape. But there was a second structure on the screen. Below the first. Older architecture. Different design logic. Something the upper facility had been built on top of.
Attached. Below. Different clearance levels on the files. Most of them locked.
"This isn't all of it," Ada said.
He looked at the second structure. Older. Deeper. The connection point was vertical. A long drop.
"There's more under it," he said.
"Yes."
"What's down there?"
Ada looked at the screen. "I don't know yet."
He didn't have enough to know if she was lying. She understood that. Neither of them said anything about it.
She traced a line on the screen. "There's an elevator. Access point. Should be three corridors northeast."
"You want to go down."
"I think we have to go down." She stepped back from the terminal. "There's a difference."
"There isn't." He turned to face her. "You've had a direction since before you found us. Going down lines up with it. You had a plan before any of this."
"And you didn't?"
"My plan was the precinct. My plan was getting people out." His voice was level. "Your plan is something else."
Ada met his eyes. She held it. Waited.
"I'm trying to understand what I'm walking into," he said.
"You're walking into whatever's down there," Ada said. "Same as me."
"That's not —"
The impact cut him off.
The frame bent inward with a sharp metallic crack that went through the room. The seal didn't break. It shifted. Enough to matter.
Leon turned. His hand moved toward the door.
Ada was already moving.
"Not here," she said.
Another hit. No pause between them.
It was learning.
Leon crossed the room and planted himself beside the door. The seam was warping. The frame held but barely.
"Not going to last," he said.
"I know."
She was already at Hope, lifting her in one motion. The weight shifted hard. Ada adjusted, settling Hope against her hip.
"Move," Ada said.
Leon didn't wait.
He moved ahead, into the corridor. Controlled. Urgent. The emergency lighting flickered and steadied. Behind them the sound of metal groaning under repeated impacts. The door was failing.
"The elevator," Ada said behind him. She'd seen it on the schematic too.
The corridor split. Access tunnel running left. Leon took it. Ada was right behind him, Hope in her arms.
The elevator doors were ahead. Fifty meters. Forty.
Behind them the sound changed. Wrong now. The seal had given.
Something came through into the corridor behind them.
Leon didn't look. Didn't have time to look.
Thirty meters. Twenty.
He hit the button panel. Red. Nothing. Dead.
"Manual," Ada said.
The emergency release was on the right side. Leon grabbed it and pulled. The doors groaned and started to slide open.
Fifteen meters.
Ada stepped into the opening elevator as the doors came apart. Leon right after her.
The thing came around the corner.
For a half-second Leon saw it. Wrong. Too large. Moving faster than it should have been able to move.
He grabbed the manual door closer and pulled. The doors ground shut. Not fast. But enough.
The impact came hard against the closed doors. Once. Twice.
The elevator lurched and started to descend.
Then they were moving down.
Down into darkness.
Down into depths that had no name on any schematic.
Down into something older. Something buried. Something waiting.
The doors behind them held.
But only just.
Hope was still watching Ada. Not focused, not fully there in the elevator with them. But watching her. The way she'd watched Leon in that moment before the impacts came. Like she was seeing something beneath the surface.
Ada stood with her hand on the emergency brake, breathing controlled, her eyes fixed on the floor numbers descending. The moment of exposure was over. The mask was back.
But it had been there. Leon had seen it.
The elevator descended.
The city above them grew distant.
And somewhere in the dark below, something was waiting for them to arrive.