The elevator whined like a dying god as it crawled downward through layers of bedrock, sediment, and secrets. The descent to Archive Black wasn't just physical—it was psychological. EDEN's maps listed the substructure as "unmapped" beyond a certain depth, and for good reason. No one who had gone past the Archive's outer gate had ever resurfaced. That wasn't metaphorical—it was literal.
"This place wasn't just abandoned," Rourke muttered, squinting at the flickering readouts. "It was erased. Like someone didn't want it remembered."
"Which means it's definitely where we need to go," Rina replied, tightening the sling on her rifle. "Nothing screams 'answer to our problems' quite like a place scrubbed from history and secured with quantum locks."
The lift clunked as it reached the final security checkpoint—an enormous vault door made of obsidian alloy, laced with copper-like circuits that pulsed faintly, as though alive.
