Bernard's fingers closed around the edge of the hidden trapdoor, heart hammering in his ears.
From behind them, the voices grew sharper—no longer coaxing, but cold, sharp-edged threats.
"We'll count to three, Mara," the woman called lazily.
"And then we start redecorating—with blood."
Mara's hand clamped onto Bernard's shoulder and shoved him hard.
He stumbled forward, half falling, half sliding into the sloping tunnel.
The floor dropped away steeply, and Bernard fought for balance, scraping his palms on rough concrete walls as he descended blindly into the dark.
Above him, the trapdoor slammed shut with a heavy thud.
Complete blackness swallowed him.
---
He stumbled onward, hands scraping along the narrow walls for guidance.
His breath came in shallow gasps, each one loud in the suffocating silence.
Somewhere overhead, faint but distinct, came the muffled crash of splintering wood—and the first gunshot.
Bernard flinched violently, his knees buckling.
Another gunshot.
A shout.
His mind raced.
Is Mara okay? Did she follow me? What if they catch her?
A tiny voice deep inside answered coldly:
If they catch her, you're next.
He forced his legs to move, fumbling his way deeper into the passage.
The tunnel twisted sharply, the incline growing steeper.
The walls wept moisture.
The air turned foul, thick with the stink of mildew and old metal.
Somewhere ahead, a pinprick of light flickered.
Bernard stumbled toward it, praying it wasn't another trap.
---
The tunnel spat him out into a cramped utility room.
Bare concrete walls.
A buzzing fluorescent light dangling precariously overhead.
Pipes snaked across the ceiling, dripping rust-colored water.
A battered metal door loomed to his left, marked only by a faded green EXIT sign.
Bernard didn't hesitate.
He threw his weight against the door, and it screeched open into a filthy back alley.
Cool air rushed over him, shocking after the stifling tunnel.
For a moment, he simply stood there, gasping, heart slamming against his ribs.
The city stretched around him—so familiar, and yet now alien.
Danger lurked behind every corner, every shadow.
Bernard realized with a jolt that he couldn't go back.
Not to his tiny apartment.
Not to his favorite coffee shop.
Not even to the life he had so painstakingly, miserably built.
He was a ghost now.
Hunted.
Alone.
---
Or maybe not entirely alone.
A low whistle cut through the alley.
Bernard spun around, fists clenched, heart lurching into his throat.
Mara emerged from the shadows, limping slightly, one arm wrapped tightly around her ribs.
She looked battered but alive.
Relief crashed over Bernard so hard his knees nearly buckled.
"You made it," he croaked.
Mara gave a grim, humorless smile.
"Yeah. Thanks for not screwing it up."
He opened his mouth to reply, but she was already moving, grabbing his wrist in a bruising grip.
"No time. We need to move."
She half-dragged him down the alley, weaving between dumpsters and piles of broken crates.
Bernard stumbled after her, his mind a blur.
"Who were they?" he panted.
"Collectors," Mara said shortly.
"Hired guns. Sent to retrieve the wallet—and kill any witnesses."
Bernard's stomach twisted violently.
"And they know my face now."
Mara shot him a sidelong glance.
"Congratulations. You just graduated from 'random idiot' to 'high-priority target.'"
She didn't slow down as she said it.
If anything, she moved faster.
---
They emerged onto a side street, crowded with early morning traffic.
Delivery trucks rumbled past.
Vendors shouted over one another.
Businessmen in tailored suits strode by without sparing them a glance.
Bernard realized how easy it would be to disappear here.
To become just another faceless figure swallowed by the city.
But Mara didn't lead him into the crowd.
Instead, she darted across the street and into another building—an abandoned dry cleaner's, judging by the broken signage and boarded-up windows.
Inside, the smell of mold and old chemicals hit Bernard like a fist.
Mara led him past a row of empty clothing racks and into a back office.
There, hidden behind a false wall, was another passageway.
Another escape route.
Bernard stared, incredulous.
"How many of these places do you have?"
Mara didn't smile.
"Enough."
She punched a sequence into a hidden keypad, and a section of the floor slid aside, revealing a spiral staircase leading downward.
"Welcome to the Underways," she said grimly.
Bernard stared.
"The what?"
Mara was already descending.
"The parts of the city that don't show up on maps," she called over her shoulder.
"Tunnels. Basements. Forgotten rail lines. Smuggler routes. We'll be safer down there."
Bernard hesitated.
The stairwell yawned below him, dark and narrow and infinitely more terrifying than the streets above.
But he remembered the gunshots.
The voices.
The knowledge that people were hunting him—and that in the world above, he was a walking target.
He followed Mara into the dark.
---
The Underways were worse than he imagined.
Cramped.
Rotting.
Infested with rats the size of cats.
Pipes hissed overhead, and water dripped constantly from unseen cracks.
Every few yards, Mara would pause, listening intently.
Twice, they had to duck into side tunnels to avoid patrols—men and women in tactical gear, moving with cold efficiency, sweeping the tunnels with flashlights and silenced weapons.
Bernard's nerves were shredded by the time they reached what Mara called a "deep point"—a natural dead zone for surveillance.
Here, the air was heavier, the walls thicker.
Mara finally allowed herself to relax—slightly.
She leaned against a rusted pipe, breathing heavily.
Bernard collapsed onto an overturned crate, wiping sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand.
"Okay," he gasped.
"You win. I'm convinced. I'm in."
Mara arched an eyebrow.
"Good. Because there's no getting out now."
---
As Bernard caught his breath, Mara pulled a battered notebook from her coat and flipped it open.
"We need to move fast," she said.
"Gideon's trail isn't going to stay hidden for long."
Bernard frowned.
"What trail? I thought it was just the wallet."
Mara shook her head.
"The wallet is the beginning. A map, of sorts."
She tapped a page in her notebook, where she'd sketched a complex diagram of symbols and locations.
"Gideon scattered pieces of his knowledge across the city. Maybe beyond. Hidden caches, encrypted files, coded messages. Each one leading to the next."
Bernard swallowed hard.
"And the end of the trail?"
Mara's eyes gleamed with a fierce, dangerous light.
"The Foundation's black vault," she said.
"Their deepest secrets. The skeletons that would burn them to ash if they ever saw daylight."
Bernard's mind reeled.
"And you want me to help you find it?"
Mara gave a short, humorless laugh.
"You're the only one who can."
Bernard stared at her, feeling the world tilt under his feet.
"This is crazy," he said.
Mara didn't argue.
She simply handed him a small, battered device—something that looked like a cross between a pager and an old-fashioned calculator.
"This," she said, "is a key."
Bernard turned it over in his hands.
"To what?"
Mara smiled—a real smile this time.
Sharp.
Challenging.
"Everything."
---
They spent the next few hours moving through the Underways, Mara explaining as they went.
The device she had given him was a decryptor—an ancient model, nearly forgotten, capable of reading the layered encryption Gideon had used to protect his secrets.
The wallet contained embedded data—micro-etchings invisible to the naked eye, instructions and coordinates burned into the fibers themselves.
Bernard would need to use the decryptor to extract the first set of instructions.
Then they would follow the trail.
Step by dangerous step.
---
They reached a safehouse around dawn—a tiny, forgotten service room tucked deep beneath an abandoned subway station.
The room was barely bigger than a broom closet, furnished only with two battered cots, a crate of supplies, and an ancient radio.
Mara collapsed onto one of the cots with a groan, cradling her injured side.
Bernard hovered uncertainly.
"Are you okay?"
Mara waved him off.
"Bruised ribs. Nothing fatal."
She pulled a bottle of painkillers from her pocket and dry-swallowed two, grimacing.
Bernard sat heavily on the other cot, the decryptor clutched in his lap.
For a long moment, silence stretched between them.
Then Bernard spoke, voice low and hesitant.
"Why are you helping me?"
Mara opened one eye and regarded him.
"Because you're the only chance we have."
Bernard frowned.
"'We'?"
Mara closed her eyes again.
"There are others," she said.
"People who want to tear the Foundation down. People who've lost everything to them. I'm just the unlucky one who drew the short straw."
Bernard hesitated.
"And if I don't want to be involved?"
Mara's voice was quiet, almost gentle.
"You don't have a choice."
Bernard stared at the cracked ceiling.
Part of him still screamed to run.
To hide.
To pretend this wasn't happening.
But another part—the part that remembered the desperate look in Mara's eyes, the gunshots, the trapdoor—knew that there was no going back.
Only forward.
Only deeper.
---
Later, after Mara had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Bernard sat alone with the decryptor.
He turned it over in his hands again and again, feeling the weight of it.
Feeling the weight of everything.
Finally, heart pounding, he slid the wallet onto the cot and held the decryptor against its surface.
The screen flickered.
Then a message appeared.
Coordinates.
A time.
A single word:
BEGIN.
Bernard stared at the screen, the letters burning into his vision.
A choice.
A warning.
A promise.
Slowly, he smiled—a small, grim thing.
"Okay," he whispered.
"Let's begin."
---