A stillness so dense it felt alive settled into the basement. Daniel held his breath. Megan froze beside him, every muscle tensed.
She felt her own pulse hammering in her throat. And then, a choked gasp broke the silence.
“Oh my God—” an agent blurted, the sound of boots stumbling back. “What *is* that?” Another voice followed, lower and utterly shaken. “Sir… you need to see this. Now.” Flashlight beams shifted wildly below, painting frantic arcs on the foundation walls as boots scraped on concrete. Someone swore, low and vehement, under their breath.
Halpern stepped forward, his voice taut with a disbelief that penetrated the respirator. “…It’s a grow lab,” he said finally. “Mushrooms. Several species.” A beat passed, too long and too tense. “Some are medicinal,” he continued slowly, as if reading a label. “Some are… psychedelic.” A second agent added, his voice wavering, “There’s… a lot of them. Christ. It’s like they took over the whole room.”
Another moment of silence followed, heavy with shock and the faint hiss of unsettled air drifting from the open chamber. “Hazardous?” one agent asked, his voice cutting through the quiet.
“Not in the catastrophic sense,” Halpern said, wiping his hands on a cloth. “But definitely illegal. Whoever built this was experimenting. Some hybrid strains, too, that’s what mutated into the walls.” He gestured toward the fibrous, creeping patterns they had all seen. Another pause stretched, filled with the muffled sounds of activity from below. “And the pressure buildup? Gas and moisture trapped behind the sealed door. If this had gone on much longer…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Above the hole, the atmosphere shifted into a mixture of exhaustion and stunned disbelief. Not joy, not triumph, just the immense weight of what almost happened settling into their bones.
Agent Brooks climbed up last, peeling her mask off with a tired sigh that seemed to come from her very core. “We’ll contain it,” she said, her voice hoarse from the filtered air. “We’ll clear the space and investigate who was using it. But you two…” She offered the faintest, rarest smile, a brief crack in her professional demeanor. “…you made the right call.”