She ran to keep up.
Lucas moved like someone owed him. Swift, silent, and with an edge that wasn't there before—not anger, exactly. Something colder. Cleaner.
Satisfaction in the shape of destruction.
They dipped into another tunnel—one Ava didn't recognize. It cut beneath Level One's core, long and sloped and lined with outdated security nodes Lucas deactivated with nothing more than a flick of his wrist and a dry smirk.
"Where are we going?" she asked, already knowing he wouldn't answer directly.
"To visit an old friend," Lucas said. "The kind you don't miss. Just remember."
The tunnel ended at a lift sealed behind two thick slabs of black alloy, no markings. Ava's system pinged off them with static errors—unlisted access point.
Lucas pressed his hand to the center panel. A retinal scan shimmered, then faded.
The doors hissed open. Ava stepped into a different world.
