The shout from the agent shattered the cavern's silence. Henri and the two other agents immediately raised their rifles. Dubois, recovering from his fall, roared orders: "Do not fire on the girl! Contain them! She has the Broken Circle Key!"
Elara shoved the frail Professor Laurent behind the ancient Roman pillar, just as a flurry of bullets chipped stone fragments from the opposite side. The reverberations in the cavern were deafening.
She glanced at the Regulator cabinet. The electrical current Dubois had applied was still flowing, causing the two lock plates to pulse with an angry yellow-green light.
"Professor, do you see any exits? Anything not sealed?" Elara yelled over the noise.
Laurent pointed a trembling finger toward the extreme edge of the chamber, where the smooth foundation stone gave way to a rough, unstable mound of rubble. "That area… it's a fault line. The engineers suspected a link to the main Catacombs system. Vance must have known."
Henri began moving, flanking their position. Elara knew they couldn't run for the rubble without covering fire. She needed a desperate distraction.
Her eyes landed on the thick, copper cables Dubois had used to connect the Regulator to the generator.
"Hold on, Professor," she commanded.
She sprinted out from the pillar, drawing the agents' fire. The bullets whizzed past her. Instead of running for the rubble, she dove toward the Regulator cabinet, snatching a heavy metal wrench Dubois had left on the nexus slab.
The pulsating yellow energy from the open Hourglass Lock was dangerously unstable. Knowing the metal of the wrench would act as a conduit, Elara slammed the tool directly onto the thickest copper cable connected to the Regulator.
A blinding arc of electrical energy exploded from the wrench and zipped across the chamber, hitting the portable diesel generator. The generator immediately sputtered, dying with a cough of black smoke, plunging the vast chamber into near-total darkness.
The sudden shock of energy and darkness disoriented the agents.
"The power is down! Get the light!" Dubois shrieked from the darkness.
Using the moment of chaos, Elara hauled Laurent to his feet and dragged him toward the mound of rubble. The two flanking agents were now using small, handheld torches, their beams frantic and unfocused.
They reached the rubble mound. It wasn't sealed, but the stones were loose. Elara started pulling at the foundation blocks. Behind her, Henri recovered fastest.
"Stop, girl! You can't escape!" Henri's voice was close.
The last stone gave way, revealing a narrow, claustrophobic opening that dropped into a deeper, cooler tunnel.
Elara shoved Laurent through first. The Professor landed hard on dusty, uneven ground below. Elara followed, collapsing the rest of the loose stones behind her with a kick.
They were in a low, narrow tunnel, lined not with the polished walls of the Panthéon foundation, but with crude, stacked human skulls and bones—the infamous Paris Catacombs.
"We're in the network," Laurent wheezed, sitting up amidst the stacked remains. "This is the labyrinth. Dubois's men won't know this system."
"They will know the entrances," Elara countered. "They will be behind us in minutes."
The tunnel was impossibly long, twisting and damp. The air was heavy with the scent of subterranean mineral and decay. Laurent, despite his best efforts, began to falter. His pace slowed to a painful shuffle.
"Go, Elara. Don't stop," Laurent pleaded, his breath shallow. "I'm slowing you down. They need the keys. You must get the keys out."
She refused, supporting his weight as they rounded a corner lined with femurs.
Then, they heard it: the echoing thud of feet running down the damp tunnels behind them. Henri was relentless.
"They're here! They've found a way through the rubble!"
Laurent stumbled and fell, his face pale. He was done.
"Elara, look at me," he said, grabbing her hand. "You have Vance's burden now. You must fulfill the philosophy. Save the keys. Save the city. Go!"
Elara looked into the eyes of her friend, her mentor. She was forced into the ultimate sacrifice once again. She secured the two keys deep inside her pocket, gave Laurent one last, desperate nod, and sprinted away, leaving him behind in the darkness of the Catacombs to delay the Society's relentless pursuit.