The metro map looked wrong.
Not in the usual way—stations renamed, lines closed, dotted segments promising future expansions that never happened.
Wrong like someone had taken the image, folded it in half, and drawn new tracks across the crease.
FULCRUM stared at the screen at the front of the briefing room, arms folded.
Red lines overlaid the standard transit schematic, dipping into places that didn't exist on the official grid. Curves where there should have been corners. A junction that looped back on itself in a way the scale bar politely insisted was impossible.
"New toy?" DUSK murmured from the next seat over.
"New problem," FULCRUM said.
The room buzzed quietly as operators filed in.
Nu-7 TEAM 1 took up one cluster of chairs: KESTREL, HARROW, BASTION, RATCHET. PATCH and FUSE stood at the back with tablets, MedIntel and IMINT icons already live on the room's feed.
Across the aisle, an E-11 SQUAD 3 contingent—NOVA, BAY-4, GRID, LATCH—settled into their own formation.
The air felt thick with caffeine and mild territorial suspicion.
The low conversation cut off when OWL stepped to the front.
"Settle," OWL said.
The screen flicked to a different layout—3D cross sections of tunnels beneath the █████ metro interchange.
"We've been asked to support ZETA-9 on an urban-subterranean survey," OWL said. "Beneath a critical civilian transit hub. Reports of anomalous geometry, time slippage, and at least one unauthorized shaft connecting public infrastructure to restricted sublevels."
He tapped the console.
Red lines pulsed.
"Zeta-9 will lead subterranean navigation," he continued. "E-11 will handle structural and breach advisory. Nu-7 TEAM 1 is attached for surface coordination, on-site response, and civilian interface if this mess spills upward."
He nodded toward the door.
"Zeta-9 liaison is inbound."
FULCRUM knew she was there a half second before she walked in.
Boots in the hall. The specific rhythm of her stride. The brush of fabric at the doorway.
Then CATACOMB stepped into the room.
Hoodie—charcoal, sleeves shoved up. Field pants, boots, ZETA-9 patch on one shoulder. Dark hair pulled back in a practical knot that had already escaped in two places. A tablet under one arm, stylus tucked behind one ear, and a thin metal ring threaded through the hoodie's zipper pull like a charm.
She took the room in at a glance.
Her gaze slid past Foxes, paused on Nu-7, stopped when it hit him.
The smile started in her eyes and pulled her mouth up like gravity.
"Figures," CATACOMB said, stepping up beside OWL. "Show me a structurally unsound hole under a city and I find FULCRUM already on the guest list."
A few operators chuckled.
KESTREL's brows climbed. DUSK's eyes lit with pure gossip.
"Catacomb," OWL said. "Zeta-9 route specialist for this sector."
She half-saluted with the tablet.
"Hi," she said. "I bring maps and bad news."
The first map snapped up behind her.
"This is the official layout," CATACOMB said. "Blue lines are our nice, boring, documented infrastructure. Maintenance corridors, utility ducts, service shafts. The city thinks it knows where all of these are."
She tapped.
Red lines threaded through the blue—loops, spikes, curves that traced through empty space.
"These are the parts it doesn't," she said. "Segments that don't match the original plans. Distances that don't align with ground truth. Places where our drones went in and either came back confused... or didn't come back at all."
On the back wall, DOCSTRING's voice came over the speaker.
"Preliminary classification: spatial anomaly," DOCSTRING said. "Potential overlap with known phenomena—SCP-970-like behavior in a linear environment. Designation pending until we get more consistent data."
CATACOMB flicked to footage.
Drone video in grainy gray—concrete tunnel, tracks half-buried in dust, walls sweating moisture. The timestamp in the corner jumped ahead: twenty seconds, then two minutes, then eleven, with no obvious cuts.
"Time slippage?" NOVA asked.
"Preliminary analysis says yes," CATACOMB said. "But it's patchy. You can walk through the same segment twice and your camera will swear you did it at different speeds. We're not sending boots deep without someone topside who can drag them back if the clock starts improvising."
Her eyes flicked to FULCRUM when she said it.
He kept his expression neutral.
"And the unauthorized shaft?" KESTREL asked.
"Here," CATACOMB said.
She zoomed in.
A thin, jagged red line cut downward from one of the outer platforms into a blank space.
"Somebody dug their own access," she said. "We picked up signs of recent civilian presence. Graffiti, food wrappers, a very brave cigarette butt. We don't know if they went into the warped sections. If they did, they might not come out in the same week they went in."
FULCRUM's jaw tightened.
"Objective," OWL said. "Locate and secure unauthorized access points. Escort any civilians out. Support Zeta-9 in mapping warp boundaries and tagging anomalies for later containment. You are not there to resolve the core phenomenon in one go."
"Boring," BAY-4 muttered.
"Necessary," CATACOMB said. "You can't shoot a maze back into compliance."
FUSE snorted softly at the back of the room.
"Challenge accepted," HARROW murmured.
"Questions?" OWL asked.
FULCRUM lifted his hand a little.
"Expected duration?" he asked.
"Inside?" CATACOMB said. "Depends on whether the corridors like you. Topsides schedule says six hours. We plan for twelve. We pack for twenty-four."
He nodded.
"Team splits will be in your inboxes," OWL said. "Zeta-9 will run route drills with Nu-7 and E-11 once we confirm all sensors are talking. Dismissed."
Chairs scraped back.
Operators started filing out.
KESTREL stayed seated.
"Old friend?" she asked under her breath.
"Yes," FULCRUM said.
The word felt like an understatement.
CATACOMB threaded through the lingering clusters until she reached their row.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," he replied.
Up close, he could see the faint tired lines at the corners of her eyes. New. The way her smile hit him was not.
"You look exactly the same," she said. "Just with more bruises and a fox in your inbox."
"You look like you stole that hoodie from Logistics," he said.
"I did," she said. "Come on. Map room."
She jerked her chin toward the hall.
KESTREL stood.
"I'll catch up," she told FULCRUM.
He glanced at her.
"Later," he said.
Kestrel gave Catacomb a nod.
"Good to meet you," KESTREL said.
"You too," CATACOMB said.
Their eyes weighed each other for a brief, measuring heartbeat.
Then Kestrel stepped aside.
The map room was a converted storage bay with ambitions.
Four large displays on one wall, a table in the middle, cabinets stuffed with old paper maps and newer sensor logs. A kettle and three mismatched mugs sat on a side shelf like someone had declared this neutral territory.
CATACOMB dropped her tablet on the table and shrugged out of the hoodie.
Underneath, she wore a faded t-shirt that said KEEP BACK 200 FT over a stylized tunnel diagram.
"Gift from a foreman," she said when she caught him looking. "We almost got flattened by a backhoe. It was romantic."
He huffed.
She grinned and went to fill the kettle.
A small cardboard box sat on the edge of the table, lid pushed half aside.
Inside, FULCRUM could see a transit ticket, a bent bolt, a coin from a country they had never officially been in.
"Still collecting?" he asked.
"Souvenirs or bad ideas?" she said.
"Both," he said.
"Yeah," she said.
She nudged the box toward him with two fingers.
"You left that one," she added, nodding to the bolt. "Service tunnel under ████. Thought you might want to say hi."
He picked it up.
Familiar weight. Rust at the threads.
"I thought you threw these out," he said.
"I did," she said. "Then I took them back out of the trash like a well-adjusted human being."
He set the bolt down carefully.
Steam hissed from the kettle.
"You read the E-11 cross-train brief?" she asked, pouring.
"Yes," he said.
"You going to let them put fox ears on you full-time?" she asked.
"Provisionally," he said.
"Scared?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Good," she said. "Means there's still someone home behind the armor."
She slid a mug toward him.
Their fingers brushed.
"How's Zeta-9?" he asked.
"Still mostly alive," she said. "We lose more drones than people these days. Progress."
He watched her face.
"You still counting?" he asked.
"Every time," she said.
Her smile thinned for a heartbeat.
"Lost one last month," she said, voice dropping. "Anchor line snapped just shy of a warp pocket. My map was off by half a meter. That half meter is the difference between 'we all laugh about it later' and 'I file a body report.'"
He set his mug down.
"You know the math," he said.
"I know the math," she said quickly. "I know it wasn't all on me. Try telling that to the part of my brain that thinks perfection is the minimum acceptable standard."
He stepped around the table and held out a hand.
"Come here," he said.
She blinked, then took it.
He pulled her in gently, one arm settling around her shoulders like it had never stopped knowing where to go.
She fit against him as if there hadn't been months and missions between the last time and now.
"You can't fix every warp," he said quietly. "Sometimes the floor goes out no matter how good the map is."
"I'm supposed to see it coming," she said into his chest.
"Sometimes I'm supposed to duck," he said. "We both screw up. We're still allowed to breathe afterward."
She let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh.
"You died in a training maze," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Foam?"
"Yes," he said.
"Idiot," she murmured.
"Occupational hazard," he replied.
She pulled back enough to look at him properly.
Her eyes were bright, but steady.
"You really are going to the foxes," she said.
"Unless something changes," he said.
"And you're going to keep throwing yourself at structural failures and hostile geometry," she said.
"Probably," he said.
She searched his face like she was checking for cracks in a wall.
"Try to keep your organs inside the armor," she said.
"I'll do my best," he said.
She leaned up and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
Soft. Familiar. Gone before he could overthink it.
"We're not doing labels," she said softly. "Not with you on three different patch rosters and me living under cities."
"I know," he said.
"But I'm also not pretending you're just 'Nu-7 liaison' in my file," she added.
"Me neither," he said.
They let that sit.
No resolution. No declaration.
Just an honest line drawn across old ground.
"Come on," she said, stepping back. "Let's talk about how to throw you at this without losing any civilians or my remaining sanity."
"Ambitious," he said.
"Perfectionist, remember?" she said.
They bent over the displays together.
On the screens, colored lines traced potential routes—safe corridors in green, warped zones in yellow, red sections labeled DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT A DEATH WISH.
"Nu-7 topside here," CATACOMB said, pointing. "Surface cordon, evac routes, civilian interface. E-11 anchor point here and here—if the tunnels start eating their own walls, I want Fox eyes on the load paths. Zeta-9 in the middle, because we like being yelled at from both directions."
"Where do you want me?" FULCRUM asked.
She tapped a junction icon.
"Here," she said. "At the choke between stable and weird. You anchor the handoff. If someone panics and bolts the wrong way, you're the first wall they hit."
He nodded.
"Copy," he said.
"And Fulcrum?" she added.
"Yes?"
"If you feel time dragging, or the corridor doesn't match the map, you pull back," she said. "You do not go deeper to 'get better intel.' You call it and you move your people to daylight."
He opened his mouth.
She raised a brow.
"Non-negotiable," she said.
He shut his mouth.
"Understood," he said.
She smiled.
"Good boy," she said.
The metro hub felt wrong even before they went below.
Too quiet for its size. Digital boards flickering nonsense—arrival times jumping forward and backward by minutes. A few civilians loitered near closed platforms, confusion written in the set of their shoulders.
Nu-7 TEAM 1 fanned out along the concourse.
WAYPOINT and DUSK handled the polite part—redirecting foot traffic, blaming "signal failures" and "maintenance issues." BASTION loomed near a locked gate, presence alone enough to dissuade curiosity.
Down on the lowest platform, CATACOMB clipped a line to the service gate and checked her harness.
"Zeta-9 Mole Rats, tunnel stack," she said into the local channel. "Fox, you're just behind me. Nu-7, you get to babysit the upworld. Try not to let anyone fall into my holes."
"Understood," OWL said from the mobile command post.
NOVA and BAY-4 joined Catacomb at the gate, E-11 helmets sealed.
"Last chance to decide you hate tunnels," CATACOMB said into FULCRUM's ear.
"I already hate tunnels," FULCRUM said from the top of the maintenance stairs. "I'm going down anyway."
"Atta boy," she murmured.
He took his spot at the transition point—halfway between platform and dark.
Behind him, KESTREL had the topside anchor, rope coiled, eyes on him and the crowd in alternating sweeps.
"You fall," KESTREL said over Nu-7's channel, "I'm hauling you out by your ears."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
He followed Catacomb down.
The air cooled with each step.
The hum of the station faded into dripping concrete and the distant rumble of trains that might have been memory.
At the bottom of the ladder, CATACOMB's flashlight carved a cone through dust.
"Welcome to the underworld," she said.
Ahead, the tunnel yawned.
Blue lines on his HUD matched the real corridor—for now.
Farther in, yellow and red waited.
He took a breath.
"Nu-7 on station," he reported. "Zeta-9 moving. Fox behind them. Surface cordon established."
"Copy," OWL said.
"PRIORESS on Overwatch," another voice added, cool and distant. "Shadow channel, online."
In the quiet band no one else heard, FOXHAMMER's voice came through.
"Another hole," he said. "Another Nu-7 on the edge of it."
"Watch and learn, then," PRIORESS said. "We may be getting him sooner than you think."
FOXHAMMER didn't answer.
Down in the tunnel, FULCRUM took the first step past the point where the map started to go blurry and followed Catacomb into the dark.
The lines on his display wavered.
The mission began.