The cupboard came away like rotten plywood. Dust sighed out, and behind it the black mouth of the shaft yawned—cold, stale air rising from the belly of Lexington. Sarah's flashlight painted the interior in a slow, nervous sweep. The elevator car sat three floors down, doors sealed but not fused. Mayling's whisper of a route had been right: old service shafts led where streets could not.
"Front clear," UMP45 said, voice clipped. She and UMP9 already had their shoulders through the doorway, weapons up. UMP9's grin was all adrenaline. "You first, Commander. Or you want the honor of belly-flop practice?"
"Save the theatrics," Sarah replied, and she smiled without humor. "You two, breaching. G11 and HK416, rooftop overwatch until we ping you. If anything moves, light it up."
UMP9 lobbed a stun grenade into the elevator gap. The ring of concussive light bloomed, and a synth guard slumped as its circuits stuttered into silence. UMP45 checked the body with a fast, efficient sweep and gave the sign.
"Clear," she said.
UMP9 craned his neck to the shaft above, peering into the black throat where the elevator hung. "Commander, you can come down. It's a neat drop—like urban spelunking."
Sarah hooked her boot into a rusted rung and dropped feet-first into the shaft, winded for a second as the echo swallowed sound. G11 followed with a lazy, practiced roll, landing with a soft curse.
"Yawn," she said, padding to the car. "If I nap here, wake me when you find the treasure."
HK416 joined on the car's lip, already sweeping the platform for tripwires. "Sleep after we clear this place," she murmured.
They pushed the hatch open into the elevator box and climbed into the dark like thieves. The car grated down on old cables, a shuddering labor that smelled of grease and disuse. At the bottom the doors creaked apart onto a service corridor—narrow, tiled, lined with faded routing maps and the kind of cable runs that made Mayling mutter into her sleeve.
"ISAC—map the level," Sarah ordered, voice low and efficient. The drone above ticked and painted thermal reads into her HUD. "Mayling said two locked rooms, a maintenance bay, and then the switchboard hub. Move slow. Expect ambush."
They moved as a single, small organism: UMP9 and 45 clearing doorways with flash and sweep, G11 sweeping highs with a soft hum of suppressed rounds, HK416 a cold, constant presence at the flank. The corridor gave up a maintenance hatch first—a nest of old junction boxes and an aged turret, long-dead. Spare parts lay scattered: RobCo plates, a stamped tag, and a cable bundle someone had attempted to cut cleanly.
"Looks recent," G11 said, tapping a casing with gloved fingers. "Someone's been talking to the old lines."
"Or someone's listening," HK416 replied.
They pushed room by room. A storage locker yielded a stack of maps annotated in a cramped hand—rail lines redirected, relay notes scrawled in pencil. Sarah snatched the top sheet and felt that small tickle of something like hope. Mayling's intel had pointed to this: the ex-Railroad switchboard should be under the donut—this was the access path.
At the second locked door, UMP9 set a charge, and they went loud. The blast popped the lock and sent a cloud of paper and dust into the corridor. Behind it, dim emergency lighting revealed a bank of old switchgear: dials, glass vacuum tubes, a master switchboard with a dozen labeled circuits—RAIL 01 through 12. Rust had eaten some labels, but someone had kept this place powered enough to matter. A faint hum ticked underneath like a heartbeat.
"Jackpot," UMP45 breathed.
G11 crouched and began reading the panels. "There's still a listener line active. Minimal power, but active. Looks like someone's been hot-patching a beacon into a loop."
HK416 scanned the far wall and froze. Her HUD pulsed—thermal residue, an EM trace. "Here," she said. "Teleport residue. Short hop. Not long enough to be a full relay, but—someone staged here."
Sarah's fingers moved over the board with practiced reverence. The master panel responded to her touch, but the main magneto was cold; the power needed routing. "We'll piggyback whatever juice we can," she said. "G11, get me the last thermal frame. UMP9, pull logs—if there's a buffer, we need the dump. 45, watch the door."
They had only seconds before a synthesis of old tech and hostile intent answered. Down a thin service hallway came the hollow clank of synth servos—two precision units, synths that had just now stirred.
"Contact!" UMP9 snapped, and the corridor spat flash and tracer.
The synths moved fast and wrong. One tried a pincer move while the other ran silent to flank. G11's snap shot folded the flanker perfectly, the round punching clean through an upper actuator and dropping the unit with a little mechanical groan. The other synth brought up a plasma pistol and burned a hole through a support column. Sparks rained.
HK416 detonated a breaching round into the synth's servo cluster, shredding hydraulics and toppling it in a spray of coolant. UMP45 slammed forward with a buttstroke and a quick coup de grâce, her SMG bark muffled at point-blank range.
The stale air of the Switchboard was heavy with ash and ozone. Faint wisps of smoke curled from shattered conduits and melted terminals. The smell of burnt plastic mixed with something far worse — charred flesh.
Sarah stepped into the main command room, her boots crunching on cracked glass and shell casings. The pale light of her wrist drone illuminated the horror: scorched skeletons slumped over ruined consoles, the remnants of Railroad agents who had made their last stand here. Burn marks traced the walls like claw scars; plasma fire had turned the place into a tomb.
HK416 crouched beside a melted turret base, scanning the debris. "Multiple impacts — Institute plasma signatures. At least two assault teams hit this place hard."
UMP9 kicked aside a scorched arm casing, her voice quieter than usual. "All this… just to make sure no one talked."
Sarah's gaze swept across the destroyed terminals. "The mainframes are slagged. Even if we recover fragments, it'll take days to rebuild the data structure." She exhaled slowly. "It's been raided once before — but why would the synths come back here?"
Before anyone could answer, a soft, wet cough echoed from the dark corner of the room. Weapons immediately snapped toward the sound — safeties off.
"Hold!" UMP45 barked, stepping forward with her rifle raised. "Identify yourself!"
From the shadows, a man stumbled into the weak light, blood matting his shirt. His voice rasped through a cracked grin. "Heh… if it isn't the mighty Division paying a visit to our final bastion…"
Sarah was already at his side. Without hesitation, she jammed a stimpak into his neck. "Mayling sent us. This place looks raided twice over. Why did you come back?"
The man coughed again, wheezing a laugh. "Was… trying to retrieve a prototype. Guess the Institute came back to make sure the Railroad stayed dead." His hand trembled as he fumbled into his pocket. "Didn't expect… dolls to answer the call…"
He pulled out several holotapes, their metal casings scorched but intact. "Here… some data I salvaged — Institute records, synth escape logs, before the ringleader came back to finish the purge…"
Sarah caught the holotapes as his hand went limp. His last breath rattled out, and his body slumped against the wall.
For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of Sarah's drone. She lowered her head and gently closed his eyes.
"Rest easy, agent," she murmured.
Then, turning to her squad, her voice hardened. "404 — call in a Vertibird for extraction. We're done here."
HK416 toggled her comms. "Castle command, this is Team 404. Mission complete. Preparing for retrieval."
As they waited for the distant thrum of rotor blades, Sarah glanced once more at the corpses of the fallen Railroad before heading outside. The Switchboard had truly gone silent — but the data in her hand might lead a way.