The support crossed the retreat passage even in the smallest version of Juno’s calculation.
She moved the marker representing the gate’s manual catch through its predicted travel. On the first drawing, it blocked the passage after the damaged channel separated. On the second, using the lower pressure estimate, it stopped short of the wall and left a gap too narrow for a person wearing a harness. Neither drawing gave Mira a viable route back.
Eli watched Juno move the marker a third time, as though another repetition might discover a direction the metal had not been designed to take.
“That’s the mechanism resisting intervention,” the dungeon engineer said over the surface line. “It wasn’t made to keep a release worker safe.”
Mira listened from the gate approach. She had moved no farther inward. Her lamp showed the manual support beyond the near rail, and she described the fitting whenever Juno asked for another comparison. Seeing the thing itself gave her no authority to disregard the calculation, but Eli could hear how difficult it was for her to wait while everyone else studied the position she could almost reach.
“The automatic control won’t hold it,” she said. “I watched it turn with the last pressure change.”
