Kade wandered the narrow corridors and winding market bays, hoping to find an option or luck into a way, but nothing fell in his lap. So much for hope and prayers. He thought as he rounded the corner.
He was back at the cantina, and Jax was still at the table nursing his drink. "Crap. I walked in a big circle." Kade sighed. Really easy to do on a round atmo-station.
"Damn," he huffed as he pulled his hood tighter over his head.
"Hey." It was Jax. "Come here," he waved Kade towards the door as he was walking out.
Reluctantly, Kade walked back, shrugging with his hands.
"Come on," he mumbled as he grabbed Kade's arm and walked sharply away. "Two dudes in fancy suits came in asking questions. What the hell did you do? Wait, on second thought, don't tell me, I don't want to know."
They moved fast, slipping into a narrow alley that smelled like coolant and old fry oil. Against Kade's better judgment, he followed him around the corner to a small hatchway half-hidden behind a stack of broken cargo crates.
The hatch hissed with a spray of water and hot air. Jax ducked inside.
"Dude. Come on." He whispered as he stuck his head back through the brightly lit opening.
"Oh, boy," Kade thought as he ducked into the hatch.
The lights on the other side were bright. He blinked and was disoriented for a moment. Kade's head was swimming as the hatch sealed behind them with a heavy clunk. For a second, he couldn't tell which way was up. The whole place felt like someone had taken a maintenance corridor and forgotten about it.
"Welcome to 'The Spine', your secret highway to anywhere in the Atmo." Jax chimed as he motioned to the partially lit tunnel.
The wind from a tube train buffeted them, making his ears pop, as it sped by. The spine was the service corridor running beneath the vac tube tunnels throughout the station. It offered privacy, plausible deniability, and an off‑the‑books way to move people, things, and information if you knew where to step.
"Come on." Jax waved him forward as he stepped onto the grating and conduit. "Watch your step."
Kade still had no idea where they were going, but anywhere was better than getting snagged by the asshats in suits. The corridor split into three directions, all of them looking equally wrong. Jax glanced back at his companion, then pointed straight up.
The service hatch for the vac‑tube tunnel sat directly overhead.
"We need to merge," he said, throwing air quotes around the word like that made it less insane.
A train screamed past them, rattling the Spine. Jax twisted a dial on the hatch, and it snapped open with a hiss. The pressure shift grabbed them instantly. Being pulled upward felt like getting swallowed by a giant mechanical snake.
They slammed against the tunnel roof, boots skidding on the smooth plating. Jax scrambled for the secondary hatch, fingers flying as he shoved it open before another train could turn them into paste.
"What the fuck?" Kade mouthed as he opened his jaw, letting his ears pop.
"Fastest way to get here," Jax said as he motioned to the abandoned capsule hotel in the old common yard that had been part of the early settlers' sector.
"Only one still in Atmo. When they expanded the ring, this was in the support zone. They never tore it down," he said as they walked into the old lobby.
The place was stripped down to its bones, with rounded edges, utilitarian lines, a plate‑glass window, and a door that was long gone. The walls were a dull cream that used to be white, and the floor was a washed‑out brown that had once been a bright colonization‑era orange.
Everything about it felt like a leftover thought, or a forgotten dream.