The request did not come from Taylor.
That was the first wrong thing.
It arrived as a maintenance directive routed through three dormant departments, stamped with a level of urgency just low enough to avoid scrutiny. The language was bloodless, familiar, impossible to refuse without generating friction.
Infrastructure integrity audit. Subsurface node.
Taylor felt it settle into place like a key cut for a lock that hadn’t existed yesterday.
“This is new,” he said.
Mara read the overlay without moving her head. “No,” she replied. “It’s recycled.”
They stood at the mouth of a stairwell that sank beneath a municipal records building. The entrance was unmarked, the door already open. A thin ribbon of light traced the steps downward, patient and inviting.
“Maintenance,” Taylor said.
Mara’s mouth twitched. “That word again.”
The pressure was light — lighter than it had been in days. Too light. Like the system was prepaying the cost of their descent.
They started down.
The city thinned as they went. Sound dampened. Overlays simplified, then vanished entirely.
Taylor realized with a jolt that this was the first time since his alignment that he was seeing with unaugmented eyes.
No prompts.
No margins.
Just concrete and cable and the slow echo of their steps.
“How far?” he asked.
Mara paused, listening to something he couldn’t hear. “Farther than it admits.”
They passed junctions labeled in obsolete codes. Doors that had been sealed, then reopened, then sealed again. Each layer felt less like security and more like sediment.
The system did not intervene.
That was the second wrong thing.
Instead, it assisted.
Lights came on ahead of them. Environmental controls stabilized before discomfort could register. A handrail extended from the wall when Mara’s gait faltered.
Taylor felt the ledger hum — not calculating loss, but anticipating use.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
Mara nodded once. “It’s making space.”
“For us?”
“For something,” she said.
The stairwell ended at a corridor that curved gently, disappearing into shadow. At its entrance, a terminal blinked awake as they approached.
\\ ACCESS CONFIRMED.
No biometric scan.
No challenge.
No request for consent.
Taylor swallowed. “We didn’t authenticate.”
“We were already counted,” Mara replied.
They moved forward.
Behind them, the door closed without a sound.
Not locking.
Sealing.
For the first time since the system had noticed him, Taylor felt something he hadn’t expected to feel underground.
Not pressure.
Not fear.
Expectation.