The utility closet was a cramped, forgotten space that smelled of rust and stale air. Leo slammed the door behind him, the alarms and panicked shouts of the hallway instantly muffled. In front of him was a wall of pipes and a small, grated access hatch near the floor, no bigger than a pizza box. This was the entrance to the maintenance sub-corridor, the Foundry's grimy, unglamorous circulatory system.
He didn't hesitate. He kicked the grate, the cheap metal buckling easily, and plunged into the darkness beyond. The corridor was tight, forcing him into a hunched-over run, but it was a clear path.
The party chat was a frantic storm in his mind.
The Infiltrator was smart. He had used the internal manhunt as the perfect diversion. With Grunt and the Phoenix Guard busy shaking down the barracks and Vulture teams, and with command focused on the warehouse "thefts," the Med-Sci wing's security response was delayed and disorganized.
Leo ran, his work boots splashing through shallow puddles of grimy water. He knew this labyrinth. The knowledge wasn't just from schematics; it was an instinct now. He understood how the building breathed, how its veins and arteries connected. He knew the path of least resistance.
Ahead, a massive cluster of primary coolant pipes blocked the corridor. A solid wall of steel and pressure fittings, impassable to anyone else. A dead end.
Leo didn't even break stride. He reached out his hand as he ran, placing it on the nearest pipe. He focused his will on the system, the interconnected lattice of bolts, flanges, and valves. He invoked his newest skill. [Breakdown].
It wasn't a violent explosion. It was a quiet, efficient, and deeply terrifying unraveling. With a chorus of perfectly timed clicks, hisses, and snaps, the entire section of pipe disassembled itself. Bolts unscrewed. Clamps released. A five-hundred-pound segment of the network swung aside on a single hinge like a perfectly balanced gate, revealing the path forward a split second before Leo reached it. He ran through the opening without missing a beat, the gate swinging shut behind him.
He emerged from another grate into the pristine sub-basement of the Med-Sci building. The klaxon was deafening here. He located the emergency stairwell and began to climb, taking the metal rungs three at a time, his body a blur of motion.
The betrayal, cold and sharp, lanced through Leo. Thorne. The obsessive scientist, so consumed by his hunger for data that he would trade their safety for a look at the Chiron Group's files. He had been the master key all along.
Leo burst through the stairwell door onto the third floor. The hallway was eerily quiet, the lockdown having sealed it from the rest of the building. Two Phoenix Guards lay slumped against the wall near the lab, caught in a shimmering haze of soporific dust.
The lab door itself was a thick slab of reinforced steel, its mag-lock glowing a defiant red. He didn't have time for [Breakdown].
He saw the air conditioning vent next to the door—the system's weakest point. He ripped the Ventilation Over-Key he had improvised at the daycare from a loop on his belt. The System, recognizing the intent and the familiar form, flared the tool back to life. He jammed it into the grate's emergency lock and twisted. With a single sharp CLACK, all the internal latches disengaged.
He ripped the heavy grate free, tossing it aside with a clang, and dove into the shaft.
He slid down the angled ductwork, his boots scraping and screeching against the metal, and crashed out of the vent on the other side, landing in a combat roll on the sterile, white floor of Lab 3.
He was in.
Sarah was on the far side of the room, her body shielding a terrified Lily, who was crying from the noise and confusion. Through the now-transparent blast-glass of the observation room, he saw the scene just as Sarah had described it.
The Infiltrator stood calmly beside a data console, a spike siphoning information from The Foundry's most secure server. And Dr. Thorne, his face alight with a feverish glee, was at the lab's control panel, his hand on the switch.
"The data transfer is almost complete, as promised!" Thorne was saying, his voice giddy. "The full genome, the null-field recordings, Weaver's original work! Now, your end of the bargain! The Chiron databases!"
"Compensation will be processed upon completion of the secondary objective," the Infiltrator's cold, synthetic voice stated. It looked past Thorne, its gaze landing on Leo. For the first time, its impassive mask showed a flicker of something. Annoyance. "A janitorial anomaly. The probability of your intervention was calculated at 0.03%." It turned to Thorne. "Secure the primary asset. Now."
With a triumphant sneer, Thorne slammed the button. With a hiss of hydraulics, the heavy interior door that separated Leo from Sarah began to slide open. The path to Lily was clear for them. The trap was sprung, and Leo was locked in the kill box with all of them.