Return to Subaquilus One
Jackie surfaced into the Dome through the silent maintenance well, the tube's inner walls still humming faintly with residual hydraulic pressure. The access hatch hissed behind her as she stepped onto the grated platform. She waited for her breathing to catch up.
Two figures waited for her already — Lyra and Aiden.
They walked to her in unison, their faces emotionless blanks slates. Lyra spoke first.
"You actually made it back," she shook her head, voice low, controlled, almost analytical.
Aiden's expression was tighter. Calculating. Not cold — just braced for what this implied.
Jackie nodded, adjusting her seal-suit collar. "I'm back." She smirked. "You almost sound disappointed."
Lyra matched her smirked, but made no reply. There wasn't time for this here — the docking alcove was technically off roster, but it still had cameras above the emergency ladder shaft.
Lyra pulled her toward the access lift. "Come on. We're taking you to the old rotor housing district. No traffic. Abandoned unit blocks. You can hide there."
Aiden keyed a bypass into the lift console, and the wall slid open into the forgotten corridor — an older service line designed back when the Dome first opened, before population control protocols reduced the need for these living stacks.
"They'll search the docks in maybe an hour," Aiden muttered. "Or sooner. Depends if they noticed the drop in hydraulic load when you used the tube."
Jackie shrugged, her expression intense. "I won't hide for ever. Let them know."
"Stop talking like that!" Lyra said. "We're going to get ahead of them."
As they walked, Aiden pinged a tight-channel message on his wrist console. Lyra's tablet chimed. A map — full annotated schematic — appeared. Not a Dome map from public archive. Something older. Deeper. More dangerous to even have on a device.
Resistance.
Jackie saw the coordinate marker: Sector C-Red. Utility waste-plasma reclamation level. Very close to the outer hull.
Lyra stared at it. "The channel answered. They're ready to receive you."
Aiden didn't slow his pace. "We move now."
They stepped into one of the sealed housing columns — a vertical living stack long abandoned after desalination protocols changed years ago — and Aiden sealed the door behind them. Half the lighting was dead. The silence was heavy.
Lyra turned to Jackie, voice barely above a whisper.
"Once you step into that sector, you aren't just visiting them anymore. You're joining them."
Jackie didn't look away.
"That's why I came back."
Aiden exhaled very slowly through his nose — relief, resignation, fear, all mixed.
Lyra handed Jackie the encrypted beacon token — a physical chip. A sign of acceptance.
"Then we go." Lyra said.
They moved deeper into the abandoned stack, toward the hidden service staircase that would take them into the Resistance's under-network.
Jackie didn't look back.
Jackie followed Aiden through the forgotten warrens beneath Subaqualis One, the stale recycled air tasting like metal dust and old industrial solvent. Nobody used this lower tier anymore. Two centuries of hurried expansion, then collapse, then reorganization, had left entire sections of the dome's original infrastructure half-decommissioned. Walkways welded over. Maintenance halls that used to hum with repair crews now silent, sealed off, or repurposed into storage for things nobody remembered. Lights flickered. Some didn't turn on at all until Aiden slapped the panel.
"Almost there," he murmured.
Lyra was ahead, her steps sure, her movements sharp. She'd already sent the encrypted ping. "They're expecting us. Just stay close."
Jackie had been here once, but the route felt different. Like it had been altered just enough to stay untraceable. Left, right, right, down. Through a deactivated sewage reclamation spillway. Then—
a dark service corridor.
Dim violet light strips came online along the floor, guiding them inward.
At the end sat Reeves Halden.
He wasn't tall, but he had the posture of someone who grew up reading every nuance in every room. Steel-gray eyes. Voice neutral. Body still. As if he could fold his entire affect away into pure analysis if he chose.
He didn't greet them. He observed first.
"You returned alive." His words landed like an evaluation, not a welcome. "The abandoned shaft was an unnecessary risk."
Jackie didn't bow. Didn't shrink. "I needed answers."
"And what did you find?"
She paused, not really sure what she should say. She looked him in the eye.
"The Subaquilus Crystal has resonated with me and created a type of psycho-cybernetic circuit with me. We are forever linked." She paused again, her eyes narrowing. "And I found out about the breeding facility."
Reeves didn't react visibly, but she saw the small exhale from him.
"So." He leaned forward ever so slightly. "what does that mean to you Jackie? You can't just run off and do what you want."
"Why not? I will work for the Resistance but I am also going to make sure the people of this world are not used, harmed, or manipulated."
Lyra stood behind her silent, she was still on a mission as well, but something about Jackie made her gravitate toward her, made her route for her and want her to succeed.
Jackie continued: "I want to commit. Full. Not informant status. Not occasional support. I want to join the Resistance cell here, officially. I want to act for you. I want to take direct orders. I want to understand what is going on in my world and I feel I can only do that with the resistance."
Aiden's eyes flicked to her, surprised.
Reeves was very still.
Then, finally—an almost imperceptible nod.
"Then pledge."
Jackie squared herself.
"I will work against Nexus Directive. I will work against any faction that intends to own, contain, or direct me."
Reeves' voice lowered. "And what will you work for?"
Jackie breathed deep.
"For humanity. For the people who can't fight. For the ones already exploited by the world that's been built since the terraforming accident."
Her pulse was steady. Her body felt electric.
"I pledge myself to the Resistance."
Reeves considered her a moment longer, then accepted.
"Then you're one of us."
He stood.
"In the morning—" his tone shifted, more operational, more brisk "—you, Lyra, and Aiden will be transported topside. You will board a military-registered submersible. There will be two men aboard who've been waiting for you. They outrank me. They will determine your next role."
Aiden stiffened—but said nothing.
Reeves looked at Jackie one last time.
"Get ready, Jackie. You asked for involvement. After tomorrow, there won't be any turning back."