Chapter 252: A Limit for Recognition
We moved like shadows through steel.
Camille’s disguise held, but not perfectly. Even with her work stitched from full-level skills, we were still three people supporting a fourth, slinking through concrete passageways that echoed more than they should’ve. Our steps were silent, our breathing shallow, but every shift in fluorescent lighting felt like a spotlight. Every door we passed was another roll of the dice.
The disguise she gave me was sharp-edged and imposing. A tactical coat with stitched rank bars and subtle weave illusions that bent the air slightly around my shoulders, making me seem taller, broader. Higher rank. Alexis and Sienna wore similar layers, though Camille’s touch was different for each of us. Alexis had the air of precision—something clinical, hard to look at for too long. Sienna looked dangerous in a more grounded way. Me? I looked like I gave orders.
Or that was the idea.
Camille was barely breathing.
She hung limp on Sienna’s back, arms swaying with each step, her pulse light but steady. I couldn’t tell if she’d woken up again since the collapse. But her handiwork had already carried us further than we would’ve managed alone. I owed her. I owed all of them.
We approached a junction—Sublevel Three etched into the old security placard overhead. The lighting down here was worse. Yellowed and twitching. Like even the power grid didn’t want to stay conscious.
"Still picking up the signal," Alexis whispered. Her eyes flicked between the handheld panel she’d scavenged from the Tier 3 console and the darkened hallway ahead. "Anthony and Evelyn are about 70 meters east, two locked corridors down."
"Security?" I asked.
"Sparse. Patrols are tighter upstairs. They think we went higher, not lower. But there are checkpoints." Her voice lowered. "And facial scans."
That stopped me.