When Harvey approached the sealed gate, neither Tom nor Mark moved.
Tom remained upright, eyes fixed ahead, palms pressed against his thighs. The old urgency was gone, the familiar rush with which he used to unlock the mechanism the moment Harvey appeared. The quiet understanding between them had disappeared as well.
He had been corrected.
Not through shouting. Not through punishment.
Mark had done it without raising his voice.
That was what made it worse.
It had not been an argument.
It had been a sentence.
Calmly delivered, precise, cold enough to stay inside a man long after the words had ended.
Every phrase had landed exactly where it was meant to.
Tom carried that discipline now like armour.
His movements were controlled.
His breathing measured.
His eyes no longer searched.
“Open the gate, Mark. I’m going out this time.”
Without another word, Harvey adjusted the gas mask over his face.
Each movement felt ritualistic.
Heavy.
Final.
Inside his rucksack, sealed against moisture, rested Adam Stewart’s letter for the President.
It was not just paper.
It was direction.
Perhaps the last attempt to stop something from breaking inside the network forever.
For a moment Harvey looked back.
The dirty light.
The damp concrete.
The people breathing beneath the station like trapped shadows.
Then he stepped out.
The gate closed behind him with a metallic crash.
The wind came immediately after.
Cold.
Violent.
Merciless.
And London waited.
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