The metal of the access ladder was slick with old coolant.
Hernan's gloves came away damp and stinking of something between oil and mold. He didn't mind. The stink grounded him. Anchored him to the moment.
He descended in silence, boots scraping down the narrow rungs into the dim-lit sublevel beneath Tower 12 — the steel-bone understructure once used to ferry ballast cargo during the early infrastructure build-out. Now it was just cables, rusted rails, and the faint throb of backup power lines no one had serviced in over a decade.
He touched down on the shaft floor.
Above, through the open ceiling channel, he could still hear the wind chewing at the edges of the killbox shell — but down here, in the pulse of concrete and bare circuitry, it was quieter than it should've been.
He tapped his comm twice, voice low. "Stand down all fireteams. Full retreat. No hostiles confirmed."
A pause.
Then Nico's voice: "Say again?"
"You heard me."
