The corridor opened into a chamber that immediately felt wrong.
It was wide, circular, with structural supports sunk deep into the floor and ceiling like the space had once needed to hold weight rather than people. Old mining identifiers were etched into the walls, half-erased by later modifications that never quite managed to overwrite them. This place hadn't been repurposed cleanly. It had been buried and forgotten.
Multiple doors lined the chamber, evenly spaced, each one thick and industrial, built for pressure rather than security. Their locking mechanisms were intact but inactive, jammed in a way that looked intentional. There was no signs of damage or rust. Just sealed and left that way.
Arlen stepped forward and brought up her interface, trying one of the doors. Nothing responded. She frowned and tried again with a deeper override.
"These aren't prison locks," she said. "They're older. They aren't connected to the prison system."
