Concealed Brick-Lined Tunnel

A narrow brick-lined passage burrowed through the earth, its walls comprising rough-hewn red bricks pressed into damp mortar. The tunnel slopes downward, its ceiling low enough that Ace must crouch despite her lean frame. Flickering emergency lighting casts jagged shadows where ancient piping threads along the ceiling, humming with the faintest charge of residual electricity from the laboratory’s classified systems. Millington moves with practiced ease, his boots displacing fine brick dust that glints in the dim glow.