Carlos was deep in enemy territory.

He stood with a small team of operatives gathered near the intersection of several sewer tunnels, quietly discussing the best way to rescue Tanya. The air around them smelled damp and stale, and somewhere deeper in the tunnels, water echoed softly through the darkness.

Carlos felt increasingly uneasy.

Something about this place made it difficult to think clearly.

“We need a map,” he said finally.

Reaching into his front pocket, Carlos pulled out a folded sewer map and spread it carefully across a narrow concrete ledge beside the tunnel wall. The others gathered around it immediately.

The leader of the strike team, a broad-shouldered man named Eric, crouched beside the map holding a flashlight low over its surface. His English was rough and broken, but confident enough to make himself understood.

“She probably somewhere above these tunnels,” Eric said, tracing a gloved finger along part of the map. “East Corridor.”

Carlos leaned closer.

“Is there anything north of that?”

Eric shook his head.

“No. Tunnels end here.”

Carlos stared quietly at the map.

Something felt wrong.

Not obviously wrong.

Just… off.

Directions in these sewers had a strange tendency to shift somehow. Even the maps themselves were unreliable at times, as though the tunnels refused to fully stay where they were supposed to.

Still, the strike team spread out carefully through the network of sewer mains, flashlights sweeping slowly across the damp walls as they moved.

Carlos followed one of the larger tunnels for several minutes.

Nothing.

No ladders.

No doors.

No signs anyone had passed through recently.

Then suddenly Carlos slowed.

Hadn’t he already come through this tunnel?

He frowned and looked around uncertainly.

Everything looked the same.

Trying to calm himself, Carlos cracked a glowstick and placed it carefully against the curved sewer wall before continuing forward.

The tunnels twisted onward through darkness.

A few minutes later, Carlos looked down.

The same glowstick rested beside the wall ahead of him.

Carlos stopped cold.

For several long seconds he simply stared at it.

“How…”

A deep frustration slowly began tightening in his chest.

The tunnels were looping somehow.

Or folding.

Or lying.

Carlos closed his eyes tightly for a moment.

Enough.

Instead of trying to force himself to understand the tunnels, he focused on Tanya instead.

Not the map.

Not the corridors.

Her.

He pictured her as clearly as he could in his mind.

And suddenly, without understanding how it happened, Carlos was standing right beside her.