“You brought me to a sewer?" Aria asked, eyes adjusting to the damp light as the transport door slid open.
Dominic helped her down the narrow stairwell into the abandoned subway lab beneath Central Park. “Decommissioned Cold War research wing. Off-grid. Shielded from satellite."
She stared at the ceiling, where vines clawed through cracked tiles. “Romantic."
“I've done worse," he said.
“True," she muttered.
Viktor and Mara hauled equipment crates down the corridor. The air smelled of rust and static. Aria's boots echoed over flooded concrete as she followed Dominic into the main lab chamber.
A holo-table flickered to life.
He gestured. “This is the failsafe."
She leaned in, stunned.
Biological sequences. Thermal blueprints. Two vials projected side by side.
“Xi-Ω," he said. “A mi
