he station felt like it was holding its breath.
Announcements scrolled across cracked LCD boards in a loop of apologies. SERVICE DISRUPTION. DELAYS EXPECTED. PLEASE STAND BY.
No trains came.
KESTREL leaned against a pillar on the upper concourse, one boot braced against the concrete, eyes flicking between her tablet and the maintenance gate below.
From up here, the tunnel entrance looked like a dark mouth with CATACOMB's line running down its throat.
"Cordon stable," WAYPOINT said over Nu-7's local net. "Civilians redirected to alternate platforms. One guy tried to argue about his transfer, but BASTION stood up and the conversation resolved itself."
"Copy," KESTREL said.
She watched the icons on her HUD.
Blue triangles for ZETA-9. Fox-tail markers for E-11. A single Nu-7 chevron moving with them in the map overlay—FULCRUM, posted at the hinge between stable and weird.
Everyone else topside.
Didn't mean the floor felt solid.
"You're glaring at the tiles," DUSK observed, appearing at her elbow with a paper cup.
"I'm glaring at the idea of gravity," KESTREL said.
"Gravity can't read," DUSK said. "It won't take it personally."
She sipped whatever atrocity she'd talked the kiosk into brewing before they closed the shutters.
"Any motion?" DUSK asked.
"Zeta-9 just passed the first junction," KESTREL said, watching the tracker. "No warps yet."
"Define 'yet,'" DUSK said.
KESTREL didn't bother.
Down on the lowest platform, BASTION stood near a locked gate, helmet off, arms folded. He looked like a piece of infrastructure someone had installed to keep the station from falling apart.
WAYPOINT hovered nearby, her smile weaponized as she redirected the occasional late commuter.
"Signal failure," WAYPOINT told a woman with a briefcase. "They're routing trains around. Free bus at street level if you need northbound."
"Is it safe?" the woman asked.
"Safer than down there," WAYPOINT said, gesturing vaguely to the stairs.
KESTREL eavesdropped without meaning to.
Years of rope work had given her a strong appreciation for people not falling into holes they didn't know existed.
"Nu-7, status," OWL said over the wider channel.
"Surface cordon intact," Kestrel replied. "No civilian ingress. Maintenance personnel cleared."
"Zeta-9?" Owl asked.
"Approaching first warped marker," CATACOMB's voice came, slightly fuzzed by tunnel acoustics. "Geometry still behaving. Time stamps steady."
"Fox?" OWL asked.
"Structural load paths green," NOVA said. "If the walls are thinking about giving up, they're keeping it to themselves."
"FULCRUM?"
There was a half-second of silence.
"On station," FULCRUM said. "No visual anomalies yet."
Something in the way he said it made KESTREL's shoulders loosen by a millimeter.
"See?" DUSK said quietly. "Still alive."
"For now," KESTREL said.
DUSK nudged her.
"You know," DUSK said, "some people respond to stress with mindfulness and deep breathing."
"Some people respond to stress by not crawling into holes with broken physics," KESTREL said.
"Not this unit," DUSK replied.
In the mobile command van parked just outside the station entrance, PATCH sat hunched over her console.
Heart rate graphs marched across one screen—FULCRUM, CATACOMB, the Fox squad, Zeta-9's point operators. Another screen showed structural readings, FUSE's domain.
"You're chewing your pen," Fuse said without looking up.
PATCH stopped, pen halfway to ruin between her teeth.
"Habit," she said.
"Dental hazard," he replied.
She set the pen down and swapped it for a stylus.
"FULCRUM's HR just bumped," she said.
"Minor," FUSE said, glancing. "Looks like exertion, not panic. Probably stairs."
"Warp markers?" she asked.
"Static," he said. "If the tunnels are stretching, they're doing it where we can't see yet."
She watched the little spikes and dips.
"I don't like time anomalies," she said.
"You like any anomalies?" he asked.
"I like the ones with predictable patterns and no teeth," she said. "So... no."
He grunted.
On one of the feeds, CATACOMB's helmet cam showed a narrow tunnel; the beam of her light caught graffiti along the wall.
PATCH squinted.
"You see that?" she asked.
FUSE zoomed the frame.
Spray-painted letters glowed under the flashlight.
TIME ISN'T REAL
"Philosophical vandalism," FUSE said. "Great."
PATCH rolled her eyes.
"Give me blood and broken bones any day," she said. "At least they obey anatomy."
"You're very normal," FUSE said.
She smiled faintly.
"Occupational hazard," she said.
On the concourse, KESTREL shifted her weight and scanned the crowd.
A teenage boy in a hoodie hovered too close to the locked stairs.
"Waypoint," KESTREL said over local band. "Got a loiterer near Stairwell C."
"On it," WAYPOINT said.
She approached the boy with the breezy confidence of someone who had never met a corridor she couldn't redirect.
"Hey," WAYPOINT said. "Sorry, platform's closed right now. We've got a problem with the signal equipment down there."
The boy shrugged.
"My train's supposed to come on this line," he said.
"Not from that platform," WAYPOINT said. "Signal failure rerouted it to Platform B. Come on, I'll walk you over."
KESTREL watched the kid hesitate, then go with her.
She exhaled.
"Topside is clear," she said to no one in particular.
"Physically," DUSK said. "Metaphysically, we're doomed."
"Thank you for your contribution," KESTREL said.
"Anytime," DUSK replied.
In the tunnels, the floor sloped.
FULCRUM kept his weight centered, watching how the beam from CATACOMB's flashlight played over the curve.
"Angle's off," he said quietly.
"Yeah," CATACOMB said. "Should be three degrees. My inclinometer says five. Walls say 'don't worry about it.' I say they're liars."
Ahead, Zeta-9's point man dropped a marker tag on the wall—little plastic puck, adhesive back, a blinking light.
"Tag one," CATACOMB reported. "Geometry mild. Time stamps clean."
"Logged," FUSE said from the van.
FULCRUM shifted his grip on his shotgun.
"You good?" CATACOMB asked over the personal channel they shared.
"Yes," he said.
"Complicated?" she probed.
He almost smiled.
"Yes," he said.
"Good," she said.
He could hear the smile in her voice.
Back on the concourse, KESTREL's tablet buzzed.
PRIVATE: CATACOMB → KESTREL
ATTACHMENT: IMAGE_01
TEXT: "For your files. Tried to stop him from walking toward weird geometry. Failed."
Kestrel frowned and opened the image.
It was a still from CATACOMB's helmet cam—FULCRUM in the tunnel, head bowed slightly as he studied the wall. The angle made him look taller, somehow. Focused in that way he got when the world narrowed to arcs and load paths.
Someone—CATACOMB—had drawn a little cartoon fox tail on the back of his armor with a stylus.
KESTREL snorted.
DUSK leaned over.
"What's that?" DUSK asked.
"Nothing," KESTREL said, locking the screen.
"Lies," DUSK said cheerfully.
KESTREL felt heat crawl up the back of her neck.
"He's an idiot," she said.
"Everyone in this room is an idiot," DUSK said. "Some of us are just more charming about it."
KESTREL glanced at the gate again.
"I like her," KESTREL said before she could stop herself.
"CATACOMB?" Dusk asked.
"Yeah," KESTREL said. "She gets it. The way he moves. The way he... steps into things."
"Jealous?" DUSK asked, too gently to be teasing.
KESTREL considered the question.
"A little," she said. "Not in a 'rip her throat out' way. More in a 'why does it have to be a tunnel gremlin' way."
DUSK laughed.
"He collects us," DUSK said. "The ones who live in weird spaces. Tunnels, ropes, paperwork."
"You live in paperwork," KESTREL said.
"Exactly," DUSK replied.
Inside the Overwatch suite, a floor above the command van, PRIORESS stood in front of a bank of monitors.
One showed the station concourse from the security cameras—KESTREL by the pillar, DUSK flanking, BASTION at the gate.
Another showed CATACOMB's feed.
A third alternated between FULCRUM's HUD and structural overlays.
"Shadow," she said over the secure line.
"Here," FOXHAMMER's voice replied.
"See anything familiar?" she asked.
"Man walking toward a hole," he said. "Another man watching graphs. Woman pretending none of this bothers her."
"Accurate," PRIORESS said. "Your assessment?"
"He's reading the space instead of just pushing into it," Foxhammer said. "Ceiling checks, pace adjustments. Maze runs are sticking."
"Any critique?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "He's still too willing to stand at the hinge."
"That's why we put him there," she said.
"I know," he said. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."
On the screen, FULCRUM reached out and steadied CATACOMB by the harness as she leaned in to inspect a junction.
FOXHAMMER watched the motion.
"They're close," he said.
"Yes," PRIORESS said.
"You okay with that?" he asked.
"I prefer my breach leads attached to someone who reminds them they're mortal," she said. "Better than the ones who think they're invincible."
"Fair," he said.
She allowed herself a brief smile.
"When he comes to us," she said, "you're not going to tell him you watched this feed, are you."
"Absolutely not," FOXHAMMER said. "I have some pride left."
Down in the tunnel, CATACOMB paused at a junction.
Three branching paths. Two matched the map.
The third didn't.
"Left and center are blue," she said. "Right is... new."
On FULCRUM's HUD, the right corridor glowed faint red.
"Time stamps?" he asked.
Her cam feed stuttered for a half-second.
"Left and center steady," she said. "Right just skipped a second."
He stepped closer to the boundary between them.
"Feels colder," he murmured.
"That's your skin," she said. "Back up."
He did.
"Nu-7," OWL's voice came over the main net. "Do not enter untagged red corridors. Mark and withdraw."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
CATACOMB dropped another marker puck at the edge.
The little light blinked, out of sync with their heartbeats.
"We'll let the eggheads name that one later," she said.
"Eggheads hate that term," DOCSTRING said.
"Earn better PR and I'll upgrade you," CATACOMB replied.
Fulcrum almost smiled.
"FULCRUM," PATCH's voice came, softer on MedIntel band. "Vitals are up. You good?"
"Yes," he said. "Red corridor. We're retreating."
"Good," she said. "I'd like you to come back in the same decade you left."
On the concourse, KESTREL watched his icon step back along the blue line.
Her shoulders eased another millimeter.
"See?" DUSK said.
"He listened," KESTREL said.
"Two miracle words," Dusk replied. "We should mark the date."
KESTREL's tablet buzzed again.
PRIVATE: CATACOMB → KESTREL
TEXT: "He actually backed up. 10/10. You're a good anchor."
KESTREL stared at the message for a second.
Then she typed back.
"You're a good map. I'll keep the rope. You keep the walls."
Three dots appeared.
"Deal."
KESTREL smiled, small and sharp.
Below them, the tunnels shifted by centimeters and seconds.
Above, the station kept pretending it was just another day of delays.
In between, Nu-7 held the line, watching one of their own walk the edge with a tunnel gremlin at his side and a fox watching from afar.
Surface tension.
For now, it held.