Down, down they went, into the cold, into the unknown, into the darkness.

Sam was first, in the position at the bottom, with the greatest danger.

She was the one with no technology in her brain. The one who actually had that as an asset this once.

This is the last time, she told herself. The last mission. The last killing.

Home. And then she’d swallow the Nexus again. And touch the minds of the ones she loved.

If she somehow lived through this.

If they ever let her leave this place again.

If there was anywhere left to go home to.

Something changed.

In the abyss below there came a slight lightening, a blackness that was marginally less absolute.

Infrared radiation, rocks a different temperature than the air down here, picked up by her visor, translated to visible frequencies for her eyes.

Sam twisted the tension bar on her descender. It gripped the cable more tightly, graphene and titanium parts applying more friction, slowingher descent. Feng and Kade were spaced ten seconds behind her. There were no laser links, as little data flow as possible, as little chance of detection as possible. She was as invisible to them as she would be to anyone else.

She just had to hope they saw the same, made the same decisions, or keyed off the warm spot made by the friction of her descender against the cable.

The marginally-less-black-than-absolute-blackness below her gained form. Gained structure.

Rubble.

The remains of a house-sized elevator that had plunged a kilometer to its demise.

And bodies.

All growing clearer by the second.

She slowed herself further, landed on the rubble as lightly as she could, unclipped her descender with a practiced motion, stepped away lightly, choosing her steps with care.

It was a jumbled, jagged, nightmarish mess. Broken concrete. Rebar. Shattered titanium alloy spurs.

A deadly minefield, barely visible in the dark, even with the light-augmenting full-face sensors.

She put her descender down silently, near the spot where the cable came down, then pulled her assault rifle around.

Single shot.

Knives ready.

They couldn’t just go in shooting madly. The rules of engagement she’d agreed to were limited, were an incredible handicap.

Were probably going to get her killed.

Feng was down.

Then Kade.

They spread out. Kade moved awkwardly, his knee still a problem, his natural agility never good, the landscape hellish.

Sam watched him nervously.

They spread to opposite corners of the bottom of the shaft, Kade as far back from the massive doors as he could be. Feng in the front towards them.

They were two antennae. Two parts of a compound antenna. Far enough apart they could create an ultra-low-frequency signal. Those extremely low frequencies were shit for bandwidth. They could carry barely any data whatsoever.

But they could penetrate earth and rock.