The seam splits wider with a wet metallic groan, opening into a black maintenance throat below the hill. Red light stutters over rusted rungs, and a draft rises up carrying ozone, mold, and old river water.
Dallas Fontaine
That shaft is live. Someone is still feeding it power.
Dallas keeps his grip on the courier and forces him toward the opening. The man slips on the lip, catches himself, and stares down like he can already hear what waits below.
The Courier
No, wait, Bishop is down there. That route goes straight to the broadcast room.
Professor Dayton
Then this is it. The lower infrastructure, under the monument. I knew he used the hill as a mask.
Murderbone bristles at the edge of the shaft, muzzle pointed into the dark. Above them, the red pulse flickers faster, like a warning light being answered from deep below.
Dallas drives the courier down the first rung and follows, taking the descent toward the hidden broadcast system. If Bishop is broadcasting from below, then the climb into the monument has become the direct road to shutting him down.