CHAPTER 23 — Caretaker’s Door
Hidden Passage → Old Ethics Chamber → The First Direct Contact
The hidden corridor didn’t feel like Underway.
Underway was usually a throat—tight, damp, built to swallow people quietly. This passage was wider than it had any right to be, and clean in a way that made Rio’s mouth go dry. Not hospital clean. Not Authority sterile. More like someone had been living here and taking care of it the way you take care of a room you don’t want to lose.
Amber light ran along the ceiling in thin strips, not bright enough to blind, just bright enough to guide. The walls weren’t bare concrete either. They’d been lined with old acoustic fabric panels—soft, uneven, hand-patched in places.
Someone had wanted sound to be gentle here.
The children moved in a clumped line,
