The buried infrastructure under the old transit grid was a service corridor that hadn't held a service in thirty years.
The Hacker pulled the maintenance hatch open with a tool she hadn't brought to a maintenance hatch before. Flat. Magnetic. Ringed at the head. The hatch came up without complaint. Caleb watched her clip the tool back to her belt and decided not to ask.
They went down a ladder.
Caleb tested the first four rungs and found them sound. He stopped testing and trusted the rest.
The corridor at the bottom had lights in the ceiling sockets and no power in any of them. Dust on the floor. One set of boot prints leading the same direction they were headed. The prints were a man's size. The man hadn't been hurrying.
"He came in ahead of us," the Hacker said.
"By how much."
"The dust pattern says days. Not hours."
"He's not coming back."
"He's not coming back tonight."
