Sera returned without a public map.
She carried a folded private route sheet, a scout’s inspection marks, and a question the council would have to answer before she could turn the discovery into a corridor. Beyond a sequence of maintenance passages, she had found a connection to a stable surface gate. The gate’s observed state and local records supported a possible evacuation route. They did not give the surface team ownership of either end.
She made the report in the council’s small room. The door remained guarded while the local scout placed her marks beside Sera’s. Eli could see where their accounts overlapped and where one had checked something the other had not.
“The narrow section needs a relay,” Sera said. “A stretcher can’t pass with two people walking beside it all the way. There is a wider waiting place before it. Another beyond.”
“Can a guard stop someone entering from the surface?” the member with the gray wrist wrap asked.
“There is a checkpoint position. It needs people on both sides.”
“People under whose authority?”
“Yours, if you approve using the route.”
