Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 24: Archive Key
The Underquad door didn’t feel like a door.
It felt like a decision the building remembered.
Noah held the Archive Key in his palm and watched the etched sigil pulse faintly against his skin. The metal was cold enough to hurt. The reader plate beside the door was colder.
Sienna stood half a step back, keeping her body angled so she could watch the corridor and the reflection in the small glass pane at the far end.
“Before you swipe,” she said quietly.
Noah looked at her.
“Check-in,” Sienna continued. “If you use Presence down there, you tell me first.”
Noah’s mouth tightened.
“I’m not using it to steer,” he said.
“I know,” Sienna replied. “Tell me anyway.”
Noah nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “If I use it, I say it.”
Sienna’s gaze held his for a moment.
“Good,” she said.
Noah lifted the key to the reader.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
Cold air rolled out like breath.
Noah stepped through.
The door shut behind them with a soft, final sound.
Masking tightened on reflex.
The Focus drain sharpened.
FOCUS: 118/130
The Veil felt thicker here, not kinder.
It pressed at the edges of Noah’s awareness like the world was trying to convince him the tunnels didn’t exist.
He kept breathing anyway.
The access tunnel was narrow enough that Noah’s shoulders almost brushed both walls.
Concrete. Pipes overhead. A faint drip somewhere ahead.
The lighting was old fluorescents that flickered with a rhythm too close to a pulse.
Noah kept his pace even.
If he moved too fast, he looked guilty.
If he moved too slow, he looked like a tourist.
Sienna walked beside him, close enough to be a team but not touching.
“Map,” Noah murmured.
Sienna pulled the folded printout from her pocket without looking down. She held it low between them, angled so the overhead light didn’t hit it.
The Underquad fragment was drawn in her patron’s handwriting.
Sienna didn’t comment on that.
Neither did Noah.
They followed the first turn.
Then the second.
The tunnel geometry was wrong.
Not physically.
Perceptually.
The Veil tried to make each corridor feel like the last.
His Pattern Sight wanted to flare.
He kept it minimal.
He’d learned that overusing it in tight spaces turned Focus into a leak.
The deeper they went, the more Masking cost.
It wasn’t just hiding from people.
It was hiding from the building.
Noah’s head started to ache.
He kept his face blank.
“You okay?” Sienna asked, too quiet.
Noah nodded once.
“Fine,” he lied.
Sienna didn’t call him on it.
She just adjusted their pace by a fraction, the way you adjusted for someone limping without making it a conversation.
Noah swallowed.
That quiet competence did something to him.
He hated that it did.
The first proof was mundane.
A maintenance panel screwed back on crooked.
Noah stopped.
Sienna’s gaze flicked to him.
“What?” she asked.
Noah nodded at the panel.
“Those screws were turned by someone who didn’t care if they were caught,” he said.
Sienna crouched, fingers hovering.
“Can I?” she asked.
Noah nodded.
Sienna used the edge of a coin to loosen the last screw, then eased the panel open.
Behind it, the tunnel’s concrete bones gave way to a newer cavity.
Fiber conduit.
Metal brackets.
And a strip of black material that was neither tape nor insulation, threaded along the pipe like a vein.
Noah’s skin prickled.
Sigilcraft read it as deliberate.
Not built by RU facilities.
Installed.
“Infrastructure tampering,” Sienna said.
Noah stared at the black strip.
“That’s not for power,” he said.
“No,” Sienna agreed. “That’s for signal.”
Noah leaned closer without touching.
He could feel a faint pressure in his ears.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to be a direction.
“Don’t,” Sienna said softly.
Noah froze.
“Don’t touch it,” she clarified. “If it pings, we don’t know where it pings.”
Noah swallowed.
“Okay,” he said.
Sienna closed the panel and reseated the screws, careful.
“That’s one,” Noah said.
Sienna’s gaze sharpened. “One what?”
Noah exhaled.
“One line,” he said. “One feed. It feels like the pulse from the run.”
Sienna nodded once.
“And the map says second,” she said.
Noah looked at the tunnel ahead.
“Then we find it,” he said.
They moved deeper.
The tunnel opened into a junction with four choices.
On the map, it was simple.
In the space itself, the Veil tried to make the left corridor look identical to the right.
Noah’s headache sharpened.
His Focus dipped.
FOCUS: 92/130
He could brute-force it with Pattern Sight.
He could Veil Step to get ahead and confirm.
Both options felt like risk.
Sienna stared at the map, then at the concrete.
“Stop,” she said.
Noah froze.
Sienna took three slow steps to the right, eyes narrowed.
She stared at the floor drain.
Then at the stain on the wall near it.
“They repainted,” she murmured. “But they didn’t match the run.”
Noah frowned. “What run?”
Sienna pointed at the corner where two coats of paint met.
“See the ridge?” she asked. “That’s older. It’s worn down where people brush past.”
Noah stared.
He hadn’t noticed.
Because he kept looking for sigils.
Sienna kept looking for people.
“Left corridor is used,” she said. “Right corridor is staged.”
Noah’s throat tightened.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
Sienna nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Trust me.”
Noah did.
They took the left corridor.
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