Super Hero Rhapsody: 1975

Mara snaps the scan packet shut and shoves it into Sally's hand. Devlan is already at the rear exit, shoulder to the door, listening for boots in the hall.

They slip out through the service corridor, low and fast, leaving the splintering safe house behind. Rain hits them like a wall as the alley opens onto the industrial street.

Devlan's muscle car waits under a weak streetlamp, engine off, windshield beaded with water. He unlocks it with one quick flick and waves Sally and Mara in.

Sally and the team pile inside. Papers, evidence packets, and damp coats crowd the back seat as Devlan jams the key and the engine growls alive.

The car lurches into the Seattle night, tires hissing through rain-slick streets. Ahead, the industrial district stretches toward the hidden facility tied to Sally's origin, and the truth finally has a direction.

Sally leaves Seattle industrial district behind and arrives at hidden facility.

The hidden facility swallows the car in one swallow of lightless concrete and wet steel. Sally steps in under buzzing strip lights, rain still clinging to her coat, and the air smells faintly of oil, dust, and cold metal.

Amilia has already beaten them inside, folder tucked tight under one arm as she studies the corridor ahead. The stamped code on the scan strip flashes once in Sally's hand, matching a red marker on a wall map near the security desk.

Devlan kills the engine outside and slips in after them, shutting the door with a careful click. A distant clang rolls through the facility, but the route marker stays lit, pointing deeper underground.

Sally checks the map, and the red line resolves into a service route marked for industrial transfer. Whatever Polpovich is using here, it is active, and it is close.

Sally scans the facility's internal sensor feed on the wall map, and the heat signature of a single, isolated life sign pulses deep within the lower lift chamber. He is still here, but the facility's automated security grid is already locking down the sector around him.

Sally presses her palm to the wall beside the map, and the concrete gives way like a thin skin. She slips through in a silent blur, reappearing inside the lower lift chamber as the security grid seals airless space behind her.

The jump costs her, a sharp crackle skating across her forearm and leaving a hot line of numbness. The amber marker keeps pulsing outside the wall, but the route is open on this side now.

Devlan holds position by the entry, shoulders squared to the corridor, pistol low and ready. The fluorescent lights stutter over him while the lower chamber hums with a tighter, meaner current.

Ahead, a lift frame sits dark under a red status bar, and the single life sign still burns on the feed beyond it. On the far wall, the stamped scan strip in Sally's packet catches a flash of light.