The service corridor sat below the newer offices, concrete and steel stacked thick enough to dull sound and signal alike. The lights flickered as Lucas walked, then steadied. He kept going.
He wasn't supposed to be down here long. Just enough time to check the line and leave.
The city still owned the building on paper, but in practice no one came down unless something broke badly enough to notice. That was why he was here. Quiet work, paid late, paid cash.
The corridor sloped downward. Moisture clung to the floor where the ventilation never quite reached. Lucas slowed and shifted his weight as he moved.
The lights cut out.
Not all at once. One strip flickered, surged too bright, then went dark. Another followed. The hum overhead stuttered and stopped, leaving the corridor in uneven shadow.
Lucas stopped, weight held forward, and listened.
Water moved through old pipes. Something popped in the walls.
He took out his phone. No signal. Expected. The flashlight came on, its beam cutting through the dark and catching dust in the air.
The corridor widened slightly at the junction. Lucas knelt and set his backpack down, unzipping it partway. An extension cord, a battery pack, a laptop wrapped in a towel.
Everything where it should be.
He stood and turned.
His foot slid.
The shift was slight. His shoulder struck the wall and pain flared down his arm. He caught himself before he fell.
The phone slipped from his hand and clattered across the concrete. The flashlight beam spun once, then settled against the far wall.
Lucas stayed still, letting the pain level out. He flexed his fingers. Pain followed. Movement came back.
He bent and picked up the phone.
It buzzed.
The pressure came with it. A tightening behind his eyes. He unlocked the screen.
Threat probability: 41%Data reliability: low.
The words stayed fixed.
Lucas turned the phone over, then back again. The casing was intact. The screen uncracked.
The pressure sharpened.
Unstable data.
He looked down the corridor, then back at the phone, and didn't move.
The text vanished.
A sound reached him. Faint. A footstep, filtered through concrete.
Lucas angled his head toward the left wall without raising the flashlight.
The phone buzzed again.
Motion detected.Direction: forward-left.Confidence interval: 29%.
Another sound followed. A voice, muffled. Male. Talking to someone else.
Lucas shifted his weight. Pain spiked in his shoulder and he stopped.
Physiological stress detected.Model confidence reduced.
The voices moved closer, then farther away. Above him, somewhere he couldn't see.
Lucas turned the flashlight off.
Darkness closed in. The phone's screen dimmed but stayed lit. He pressed his back against the wall and waited, breathing slow, until the pressure eased.
Time passed.
The building's hum returned. The lights flickered back on, steady and indifferent.
Lucas unlocked the phone one last time.
Event logged.External observation likely.
The screen went blank.
He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the concrete floor. His shoulder resisted when he tried to lift his arm, and he let it rest.
Above him, people moved through the offices. Lucas stayed where he was.