Mira pulled up the sequence on her own terminal: 10.16. 100. 244.
"Why? What is it?"
"100," she whispered. "244."
"Coordinates," she said. "And I think we just turned the lock."
She looked at the numbers one last time. They weren't a message anymore. They were a key. 10.16. 100. 244
Mira felt the air change. The desert night had always felt vast and empty, but now the silence felt watched.
The dots weren't decimal points. They were separators. Like coordinates. Or a countdown. Mira pulled up the sequence on her own terminal: 10
The ground hummed. Not from generators. From below.