| ALESSANDRO |

FOURTY FIVE

The door sighed and night breathed us out.

Cold air hit my teeth, diesel, the metal-sour rain. We broke in pairs without discussion: Imran and Eva in front of me, Rhonda a quiet heat at my back, Nico already a voice in my ear, Lila's engine a purring rumor somewhere down the south road. Caleb ghosted left to his waiting truck, door loose on the latch like a held breath.

"Atlas to All," Nico's voice stitched the dark. "Municipal grid drop in four... three... two. Pump sleeping. Go, go."

We ran crouched along the shadow line of the seawall, shoes whispering grit. The service hatch waited where the concrete turned scar—waist-high, paint blistered, padlock cocky.

Eva didn't pick it. She looked at it, judged it, then was simply inside. The lock gave a small embarrassed click. I loved her for not making it a magic trick.

"Lilac, gloves," she murmured without looking, and I tugged the neoprene on. Barnacles glittered along the hatch lip like a jaw full of glass teeth.

Imran slid his shoulder under the hatch and lifted. Water breathed against the other side, drafted cold over our faces. The smell tightened something in my chest that years of swimming and salt couldn't loosen.

"Blackbird first," Imran said. "Then Lilac. I'm last. Rhonda, on Yas' air. We crawl on exhale."

Rhonda squeezed the back of my arm twice—ready?—and I nodded even though no one could see it. I folded into the hole and the sea took me down to my shoulders. The tunnel grabbed my ribs and made me smaller.

"Atlas to Blue," Nico said, calm as sleep. "Cameras yawning. Twelve minutes of mercy starts now."

 Crawl, slide, scrape. The concrete was slick at the edges, sticky in the throat. My knee bumped metal—grate, then ladder, then a lip you don't want to miss if you like your teeth. Eva's boots flashed and vanished in front of me. Behind, Rhonda counted under her breath in a rhythm I could step my heart to.

Somewhere above us, a spa pretended to be a sanctuary. Somewhere far beyond that, a man I loved might be learning how to die slowly. My hands found new prayers in the dark.

"Pinch in two meters," Nico said. "Thirty-seven centimeters, give or take your sins."

The tunnel tightened like a fist. I exhaled everything and made myself paper. My shoulder scraped, my cheek found roughness, water licked my ear. Panic reached for me with wet hands. I bit the back of it until it let go.

Rhonda's fingers tapped twice at my calf. Still here. Still we.

Past the pinch, the tunnel opened a fraction and the water fell away—pumped down, just as promised. We slithered into a junction where the dark was not absolute anymore. A bruised light leaked in—maintenance grate above, a ladder slick with algae and old skin.

Eva went up silent, studying the seam of a hatch with those listening hands of hers. She glanced down once, two fingers flicked: stand by. She pulled a tool the size of a pen, worried the hinge, waited, listened again.

"Atlas?" Imran whispered, his breath a ghost against my cheek.

"Court cameras blind," Nico said. "Two guards crossing north wing at nine. Kitchen static in three... two..."

A siren woofed somewhere in the building—short, ugly, then chopped. Nico rocked the system like a baby until it forgot how to cry. Footsteps accelerated on tile that was never meant for running.

"Blackbird?" Imran.

"Clear," Eva breathed, and the hatch tilted like a slow yawn.

We came up into a corridor that smelled of lemon cleaner and secrets. White walls, white light, a quiet too clean to be honest. Eva went right without hesitation; Imran's palm found my spine and turned me left. Rhonda closed the hatch with a grace that wouldn't leave fingerprints.