The interior of the fortified shelter in the abandoned mine was cold and stuffy, lit only by yellow filament lamps connected to a noisy diesel generator that grumbled in a secluded corner. The smell of dampness, old metal, and dust permeated the air.
In the original series, this was the moment when the tension between Erik and Hanna reached its peak: the requested isolation tested the girl's sanity, as she began to question the lies of the man who raised her and felt an implacable curiosity about the outside world she had never known.
But with Arthur's presence, the dynamics of the shelter subtly changed.
Erik sat in a wooden chair near the central table, cleaning the mechanism of his rifle with methodical and silent movements. His eyes periodically drifted to the opposite corner of the room, where Hanna sat on the edge of a camp bunk.
Hanna held a small, old transistor radio that Erik used to pick up amateur radio frequencies. She slowly turned the tuning knob, listening to the static hiss alternating with distant fragments of pop music and specific songs in languages she didn't understand. For someone who had spent her entire life hearing only the whistling of the wind in the forest and the rigid commands of Utrax, this chaotic noise of the human world seemed fascinating and terrifying at the same time.
Arthur moved silently, bringing two cans of heated military rations. He settled on the edge of the bunk beside her, keeping a comfortable distance, and held out one of the cans.
Hanna looked at the food, then at Arthur. In the series, she tends to refuse or eat with animalistic suspicion. But now, she accepted the can without hesitation, pulling the metal seal easily.
"What's this?" she said softly, pointing with her chin at the radio, while a snippet of cheerful music echoed briefly before fading into static.
"Music," Arthur replied calmly, eating some of the rations. “People in big cities hear this when they’re driving or working in offices. It’s a form of… organized noise to occupy the mind.”
Hanna fixed her blue eyes on the device.
“Aren’t they afraid?” she said, her voice carrying the raw frankness of someone raised for war. “Living in crowded places, not knowing who the enemy is.”
“That’s why there are rules, laws, and distractions,” Arthur said, looking her in the eye. “So that people think they’re safe, even when the world around them is dangerous.”
Across the room, Erik stopped cleaning his weapon. He observed an exchange of words with a deep, analytical expression. Erik had spent years trying to protect Hanna from the world, teaching her only how to kill and survive. However, seeing the girl accept his explanations and demonstrate genuine curiosity about Arthur—something she had recently done with him, due to the weight of the lies about her past—generated in Erik a mixture of protective unease and discomfort.
Hanna ate in silence, but the usual frailty in her shoulders had almost completely disappeared. She wasn't on high alert. In that shelter, surrounded by tons of rock and the imminent threat of the CIA, she felt safe in a way she had never experienced before.
She turned to Arthur, hesitating for a fraction of a second before asking the question she had been holding back since their escape in the desert:
"Why did you stay? You were one of their guards. You had a life at the base. You could have run alone."
Arthur nodded slightly, breaking the seriousness of the atmosphere.
"Let's just say I didn't like my bosses very much," he replied simply. "And in the end... I preferred to bet on the she-wolf rather than the hunters."
Hanna didn't cheat—she hadn't yet mastered the art of expressing herself that way—but the corner of her lips relaxed slightly. She glanced back at the radio, but this time, she lightly rested her shoulder on Arthur's arm, a small, silent gesture that was easy to use.
Erik sighed deeply, refocusing on cleaning his weapon. The calm in the shelter was fragile, and they knew Marissa Wiegler wouldn't take long to find a new clue. But, for that night, deep underground, the storm outside seemed infinitely distant.