Ronan and Garrett returned a few minutes later. The resistance had gone from Garrett's face, replaced by a controlled uneasiness that made him look older. He stopped in front of Eli and examined him for the first time as though the boy might be a source of useful information rather than an interruption.
"You really saw names on a map?" Garrett asked.
"Sixty-three," Eli said. "Yours is there, too."
Garrett's jaw tightened. "Show me."
Ronan glanced at Cutter. "Get Mara. We need her eyes on the structure, too."
The four of them went down to the concealed room. Mara joined them at the platform, still carrying the pencil she had been using to mark food deliveries. She looked at the hidden hatch, then at the fresh marks around it, and her expression became grave before she had descended a single step.
Underground, she read the plans carefully, comparing them to the old walls and the modern equipment. Garrett stood before the roster and silently found the names of men who had ridden with him for decades. Cutter remained near the door, keeping an open route to the stairs. Ronan watched all three of them, not because he distrusted their judgment, but because responsibility had become something he could feel pressing between his shoulders.
Mara was the first to speak after studying the revised diagram.
"This is not a maintenance upgrade," she said. "At least, not one that went through any proper design review. These changes affect systems people depend on without knowing they're depending on them."
Garrett turned toward the new cabinet. "Can you shut it off?"
"Not safely without understanding what it controls," Mara replied. "Unknown modifications are exactly where people get hurt when they start guessing."
Eli looked at the amber light. It stayed amber this time.
Ronan made his decision. "We start moving everyone toward the exits. We contact the county fire department. And nobody touches this equipment until we're sure what will happen."
Then the floor beneath them gave a faint, almost imperceptible vibration, followed by the low mechanical knock Eli had heard outside. It sounded three times, paused, and sounded twice more.
Nobody in the room dismissed it as an ordinary noise now.
The knock repeated, quieter than before, and the modern display blinked as if it were waiting for an instruction nobody in the room could read. Garrett took an involuntary step toward the cabinet. Mara caught his sleeve before he got close enough to touch it.
"Don't," she said.
He stopped. The resentment on his face lasted only a moment before common sense replaced it. "I'm not used to standing here while somebody threatens my people."
"Neither am I," Ronan answered. "But this isn't a problem you can hit hard enough to make it disappear."
Cutter checked his phone again. One of his messages had reached Hamish Doyle, the fire chief in Callaway Creek. The response contained only three words: Received. Assessing access. It was not the reassurance anybody wanted, but it meant that somebody outside the property knew where to look if the communications failed entirely.