Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first sensation isn't pain—it's the stench. A cocktail of rotting meat, fermented vegetables, and something distinctly chemical that burns the inside of my nostrils like industrial-grade paint thinner. My eyes water before they even open, tears cutting clean tracks through what I can only assume is a layer of grime accumulated on my face overnight. The smell penetrates deeper, past my sinuses, settling into my throat like a physical presence I have to consciously swallow around.

8:12 AM. I know this without checking anything—my body's internal clock has been calibrated by necessity to the City's brutal rhythms. The Sweepers finished their rounds three hours and thirty-eight minutes ago. The morning shifts at the nearest factories started twelve minutes ago. And my stomach, that reliable traitor, begins its morning protest with a growl that echoes metallically in my current accommodations.

My fingers twitch first, testing. Still attached, still responding. The left hand presses against cold, slightly damp metal—rust flakes adhering to my palm like desperate parasites. The right arm is completely numb from being folded under my body all night, pins and needles promising their arrival the moment I attempt movement. My legs are folded into my chest, knees practically touching my chin in this sardine can I've called home for the past nine hours.

"So... I'm trash!"

The words escape before I can stop them, bouncing off the trash bin's interior walls with a tinny reverberation. I can't help the laugh that follows—dry, scratchy, like sandpaper on wood. You're probably wondering how I got here, right? Some grand tale of falling from grace, maybe? A riches-to-rags story where the protagonist learns valuable life lessons about humility?

I shift my weight, vertebrae popping in sequence like bubble wrap as my spine attempts to remember its proper configuration. My left hand finds purchase on the bin's rim, rust flakes embedding under my fingernails as I grip.

Well, hate to disappoint, but there's no "how" here—only "now." Because this? This is just Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Might be Thursday, actually. The days blur together when your primary concern is not becoming a statistic in the Sweepers' nightly efficiency reports.

My right arm explodes into sensation as blood flow returns—thousands of needles dancing from shoulder to fingertips. I bite down on my tongue to suppress the groan, tasting copper. Can't make too much noise. Not yet. The Backstreets might be awake but that doesn't mean safe. Never means safe.

But seriously, you ask, why sleep in a trash bin? Why subject yourself to the aromatic bouquet of decay and the chiropractor's nightmare of metal contortions?

Simple. You ever seen a Sweeper unit?

I haven't. Not directly. To witness a Sweeper is a contradiction in terms, a final, fleeting thought before you become a part of the morning cleanup report. But I have seen what is left after they pass. An alleyway that was ankle-deep in filth and the forgotten dead just hours before is suddenly blank. The walls are scrubbed down to the bare metal, every crack and crevice sanitized with a chemical precision that leaves behind a sterile, almost antiseptic smell.

I once saw a single, perfect tooth sitting on a curb, the only piece of a man that the system had somehow missed. They strip buildings of anything deemed "unauthorized organic material." That means rats, insects, moss, and yes, people. The people are not even statistics in a report, they are just a final weight measurement. "Sector 7-B sanitation cycle complete. Efficiency rating: 98.7%. Total biomass recycled: 1,247 kilograms."

The trick isn't hiding from them—they are a tide. A nightly, city-wide tide of chrome and flesh and absolute, unwavering purpose. No one knows how many there are. A million? Two billion? The number is an irrelevance. Are they monsters? Clones? The whispers in the dark say they are prisoners from the Outskirts, their minds wiped clean, their bodies rebuilt for a single, terrible function.

Others say they are the failed applicants from the Wing checkpoints, their bodies repossessed and repurposed by a system that wastes nothing. I do not know. Nobody who has gotten a close enough look to tell the difference has ever lived to file a report.

The timing is more reliable than any train schedule the Wings ever produced. You could set your watch by the sound of their approach—a low mechanical hum that builds to a crescendo of grinding metal and efficient violence.

My trash bin is special, though. Spent three weeks making it look just neglected enough to be ignored but not so derelict as to be marked for removal. The exterior is carefully oxidized—rust in all the right places to suggest age without structural compromise. A few strategically placed dents that imply regular use by the local rat population.

Even went so far as to scatter some relatively fresh food waste around the base every few days. Nothing too fresh—that attracts attention. But just enough decomposition to suggest this bin is part of the acceptable baseline decay that even the Sweepers recognize as necessary City ecosystem.

I press my left palm harder against the rim and begin the delicate process of extracting myself. The lid needs to open just enough for me to see out—too fast and the hinges shriek like dying cats, too slow and the metal groans like a haunted house effect. There's a sweet spot, about two inches per second, where the rust actually acts as a sound dampener.

The first sliver of outside light is gray. Not the gray of dawn or dusk, but the perpetual gray of the City's industrial atmosphere. Clouds that aren't really clouds but accumulated smog from the Wings' factories, hanging low enough that you could almost taste the metal particulates if you stuck your tongue out. Not recommended, by the way. Friend of mine tried that once. Spent three days vomiting black bile before his body finally gave up trying to process whatever he'd ingested.

My eyes adjust, pupils dilating to compensate for the months of grime coating the inside of my temporary shelter. The alleyway comes into focus in layers—first the general shapes, then details, then the crucial minutiae that separate the living from the soon-to-be-recycled.

Narrow. Maybe three meters wide. The buildings on either side rise up like canyon walls, their facades a patchwork of repairs, modifications, and the architectural equivalent of scar tissue. Someone's strung laundry between two windows on the third floor—a supremely optimistic gesture considering the rain here is sixty percent industrial runoff. The clothes hang limp, more gray than whatever color they started as.

No immediate movement. Good. The morning shift workers have already passed through, leaving behind only the lingering scent of cheap synthetic coffee and cheaper synthetic hope. The real danger period won't start for another hour when the first wave of afternoon desperates emerge, looking for anything that might extend their survival another day.

I push the lid open another few inches. The hinges cooperate, managing only a whisper of protest. My left hand trembles slightly—hunger, not fear. Fear is a luxury I can't afford. Hunger is just background noise at this point, my stomach's complaints as routine as breathing.

Time to move. Can't stay in the bin once the sun—or whatever passes for it through the smog—gets high enough to start cooking the metal. Learned that lesson the hard way my first week. Nothing quite like being slow-roasted in your own juices to teach you about timing.

My legs unfold with a series of pops and cracks that sound like someone stepping on dried twigs. The sandals are where I left them, tucked into the corner where the bin meets the wall. Can't sleep in them—the straps leave marks that take days to fade, and marks are memorable. Being memorable in the Backstreets is a death sentence written in installments.

The left foot emerges first, toes spreading as they make contact with the ground. The pavement is cold, wet with the morning's condensation mixed with whatever chemicals leak from the building's broken pipes. It seeps between my toes, oily and wrong. The right foot follows, the sandal's worn sole barely providing any barrier between flesh and City.

Standing is an adventure. Nine hours of contortion has left my body confused about its proper configuration. I have to lean against the bin for a moment, waiting for the blood to remember how circulation works. My spine attempts to straighten, each vertebra grinding against its neighbor like misaligned gears.

The meeting. Right. Pete and the others, assuming they survived the night. We always assume—never know. The Backstreets don't offer guarantees, only varying degrees of probability. Pete's probability is higher than most. Man's got a sixth sense for danger that borders on precognition. Saved my ass more times than I care to count.

The rendezvous point is approximately six blocks from here, though blocks is a generous term for the organic sprawl of the Backstreets. More like six general areas of navigation, each with its own unwritten rules and territorial disputes.

I start walking, my gait initially resembling a newborn deer's first steps. Dignity is another luxury I can't afford. The first few meters are always the worst, muscles remembering their function through repetition rather than conscious command.

The alleyway opens onto a marginally wider street. Here, the Backstreets show their true face. It's not the dramatic poverty you might expect—no burning barrels or huddled masses. It's more insidious than that. It's the absence of things. No proper streetlights, just the occasional jury-rigged LED strip stealing power from who knows where. No sidewalks, just worn paths where thousands of feet have established the most efficient routes. No signs or markers, because anyone who needs them wouldn't survive long enough to read them.

A few early risers are already out. There's Mrs. Chen—not her real name, but that's what everyone calls her—setting up her shop in the alcove of a collapsed storefront. She sells things that fell off trucks, or never made it onto trucks, or maybe never existed in any official capacity. Her eyes track me as I pass, cataloging. Not a threat assessment—I'm too skinny, too obviously bottom-tier to be a threat. She's checking if I have anything worth trading. The slight dismissal in her expression tells me she's concluded I don't.

"Morning, Chen," I croak out, my voice still rough from sleep and dehydration.

She doesn't respond verbally, just a slight nod that could mean acknowledgment or could mean she's decided not to report my existence to whoever she reports to. Both are acceptable outcomes.

I continue down the street, my sandals making wet slapping sounds against the pavement. The buildings here tell stories in their decay. That one, with the black scorch marks climbing three stories? Incendiary raid by a competing syndicate two months ago. The one with all its windows replaced by sheet metal? Sweeper malfunction six weeks back—went off-schedule, started cleaning at 2 PM instead of AM. Twenty-three people became statistics that day.

My stomach growls again, louder this time. When did I last eat? Yesterday morning? No, that was just water from a pipe that probably wasn't connected to the sewage system. Probably. The last actual food was... two days ago? Three? Time gets fluid when malnutrition becomes your baseline.

There's a technique to walking hungry. You can't think about it directly—that way lies madness and poor decision-making. You have to let it exist in your peripheral awareness, acknowledged but not engaged. Like a aggressive dog you pass on the street. Make eye contact and it attacks. Ignore it completely and it attacks. But that perfect middle ground of casual awareness? Sometimes you get to keep walking.

A rat scurries across my path, fat and glossy. The rats here are better fed than most humans. They've figured out the system, you see. They know exactly when the Sweepers come, where the real food gets dumped versus the synthetic stuff that'll kill you if you're not careful. I've followed rats to food before. Not proud of it, but pride is—say it with me—a luxury I can't afford.

The street branches into three paths. Left leads to the factory district, where the air is thick enough to chew and the workers look at Backstreets rats like we're contagious. Right leads to the contested zones, where the small-time syndicates play their violent games of territory and we're just collateral damage waiting to happen. Straight ahead leads deeper into the Backstreets proper, where the rules are unwritten but absolute.

The convenience store comes into view after another ten minutes of walking.Store is generous. It's more like the skeleton of commerce, the bones of capitalism picked clean and left to bleach in the smoggy sun. The sign still hangs at an angle, most of its letters missing. "24H M RT" is all that remains, and even those letters flicker with dying electrical connections that spark occasionally, little fireworks of failing infrastructure.

But it's not the store I'm interested in. It's what's beneath it.

The sewer access is hidden behind what used to be the loading dock. You have to know where to look—past the rusted dumpster that hasn't moved in three years, around the pile of concrete debris that looks accidental but is actually carefully arranged to obscure the entrance. The grate looks rusted shut, tetanus waiting to happen. That's intentional. Pete spent weeks getting it to look just dangerous enough that no one would try it without good reason.

I grab the grate's edge, feeling the false rust flake away to reveal the treated metal beneath. It swings open on well-oiled hinges—Pete's paranoid about squeaking hinges. Says it's the little sounds that get you killed, not the big ones. Everyone expects big sounds in the Backstreets. It's the little ones that make people curious.

The ladder descends into darkness. The first three rungs are real rust—tetanus absolutely included. Another Pete innovation. Anyone following has to commit to the descent, can't just peek in and retreat. By the time they realize the fourth rung is solid, they're already committed to the descent, already vulnerable.

I descend slowly, each rung a meditation on not falling. The sandals make it tricky—no real grip, just friction and hope. The smell changes as I descend. The surface stench of rot and chemicals gives way to something older, more fundamental. This is the smell of the City's bowels, where everything eventually ends up. It's almost honest in its putridity—no pretense, no attempt to hide what it is.

My feet hit the tunnel floor with a splash. The water—and I'm being generous calling it water—is ankle-deep, warm in a way that suggests biological processes I don't want to contemplate. It moves sluggishly, carrying things that bump against my legs with suspicious weight.

The tunnel extends in both directions, but I know the way. Left for thirty meters, then the first right, then follow the sound of Pete's paranoid muttering. He's always muttering—conversations with himself about contingency plans, escape routes, the seventeen different ways any situation could go sideways.

The darkness here is absolute. Not the kind of darkness you get on the surface, where there's always some distant light pollution. This is darkness that has weight, presence. It presses against your eyes like velvet, making you see things that aren't there. Or maybe they are there. In the Backstreets, certainty is—

"A luxury you can't afford, yeah yeah, we get it."

Pete's voice cuts through my internal monologue. Of course he heard me coming. The man could hear a rat fart from three tunnels away.

A light flickers on—just a candle, but after the darkness it might as well be a spotlight. Pete's face emerges from the gloom like a Renaissance painting, all dramatic shadows and sharp angles. He's sitting on what might generously be called a ledge, more accurately described as a slightly-less-submerged piece of concrete.

"You look like shit," he observes, not unkindly.

"Yeah, well, you smell like shit," I respond, completing our traditional greeting.

"We all smell like shit. We're in a sewer." Pete's logic is, as always, unassailable.

The others materialize from the darkness as my eyes adjust. Marcus, nervous as always, fingers constantly moving in patterns that might be counting or might be prayer. Hard to tell with Marcus. Then... there is Little Kim—not actually little, just younger than Big Kim who died last month. We don't talk about Big Kim.d

"So," Pete says, and I can hear the capital letter in his tone. This is business now. "We've got a problem."

Of course we do. In the Backstreets, there's always a problem. The question is whether it's a problem that kills you fast, kills you slow, or just makes you wish you were dead.

His hand moves to his jacket pocket, pulling out something I haven't seen in years—a radio. Not the sleek communication devices the Wings use, but an honest-to-god analog radio, the kind with dials and an antenna that looks like it was salvaged from before the City decided analog was a security risk. The thing is held together with electrical tape and what might be dried blood.

"This started talking to me three hours ago," Pete continues, setting the device on the concrete ledge with the kind of care usually reserved for explosives.

"Started talking?" Kim's voice carries the skepticism we're all feeling. "Radios don't just start—"

The static cuts her off. It erupts from the device like a living thing, filling the tunnel with white noise that makes my teeth ache. Then, through the chaos of electromagnetic interference, a voice emerges. No, not a voice—an absence of static that somehow forms words.

"—eaver crew seven-seven. Acknowledge. Scavenger crew seven-seven. Time sensitive. Acknowledge. Scavenger crew—"

Pete clicks it off. The sudden silence is almost worse than the noise.

"We're not crew seven-seven," Marcus points out, because stating the obvious is his contribution to group dynamics.

"We're not crew anything," Pete responds. "But this thing was in my stash spot. The one only I know about. The one I've never told anyone about. Not even you, Kim."

Her's expression doesn't change, but I see her weight shift slightly. She knew about the stash spot. Of course she did. But she's smart enough not to admit it now.

"Someone put it there," she says, and for once she's not talking about eating corpses. "Someone who knew exactly where to put it so you'd find it."

Pete nods, his fingers drumming against his leg in that pattern he does when he's thinking hard enough to hurt. "Three hours ago, it starts broadcasting. Same message, over and over. Then, two hours ago, this."

He clicks the radio back on, fiddling with the dial until he finds what he's looking for. The static morphs, reshapes itself into something almost like language.

"—Grade nine work. Botanical retrieval. Time sensitive. Tin Grins territory. Forty-third and Industrial. Payment—"

The number that emerges from the static makes my empty stomach clench. It's more money than I've seen in my entire life. More than all of us have seen combined. It's the kind of money that should go to a Fixer, someone with a license and insurance and the kind of weaponry that makes violence a foregone conclusion.

"That's..." Marcus trails off, unable to even vocalize the amount.

"Enough to get out," Kim finishes. "All of us. Enough to buy passage to another District, set up clean identities, maybe even get real jobs that don't involve sewers."

"Or it's enough to get us killed," I point out, because someone has to be the pessimist and my stomach is too empty for optimism. "Nobody pays that much for moss harvesting."

Pete's laugh is dry as bone dust. "Who said anything about moss?"

He turns the dial again. The static reshapes once more.

"—limmer Moss. Twelve-hour bloom cycle. Post-mortem chemical reaction. Tin Grins used T-7 energy weapons. Chemical leak from Goldwater Facility. Unique conditions. Harvest required. Clean cuts only. No contamination. Time window closing—"

"Glimmer Moss," She breathes, and for the first time since Big Kim died, she looks genuinely shocked. "That's... that's not real. Is it?"

"Apparently it's real enough that someone wants to pay us a fortune to harvest it," Pete says. "The question is why us? Why not a proper Fixer crew? Hell, for that money, they could get a Grade 8, maybe even a Grade 7."

The answer hangs in the air like the sewer stench—because Fixers have licenses. Fixers are tracked. Fixers leave paper trails and digital footprints. But us? We don't exist in any meaningful way. If we die, nobody investigates. If we disappear, nobody notices. We're deniable, disposable, and desperate enough to take the job despite all the obvious red flags.

"The Tin Grins got into it with the Copper Teeth last night," She says, her network of information always impressive. "Big firefight. Lots of bodies. The area's been cordoned off but not cleaned yet. Too much chemical contamination from the Goldwater leak."

"So we'd be walking into a contaminated zone full of corpses to harvest fungus that may or may not exist for a client who may or may not pay us," I summarize.

"That about covers it," Pete agrees.

We all look at each other. The smart move would be to walk away. The smart move would be to pretend we never heard the transmission. The smart move would be to continue our marginal existence rather than chase a probably-fatal payday.

"When do we leave?" I ask, because we're not smart. We're desperate. And desperation makes every bad decision look like opportunity.

Pete's smile is grim. "Now. The window is closing. If the moss is real, it only blooms for twelve hours after the right conditions. We've already lost three."

We move quickly after that. No time for extensive planning, just grab what we need and go. Pete produces a bag from another hidden cache—whoever our mysterious client is, they've been thorough. Inside are what look like glass containers, each one etched with symbols that hurt to look at directly. There are also gloves, thick rubber things that go up to the elbow, and modified scissors that look more like surgical instruments than anything you'd find in a barber shop.

"Clean cuts only," Pete reminds us as we gear up. "The client was specific about that. No tearing, no pulling. The moss has to be harvested intact."

I pull on the gloves, the rubber sticking to my skin in uncomfortable ways. They smell like a hospital, all antiseptic and latex, completely at odds with our sewer surroundings. The scissors feel strange in my hand, too delicate for someone used to scavenging with bare hands and desperation.

We exit through different tunnels, planning to reconvene at the edge of Tin Grins territory. Can't move as a group through the Backstreets—too conspicuous. Five people together means gang, and gangs mean territory disputes, and territory disputes mean violence we can't afford. Better to drift separately, just more human debris floating through the City's bowels.

I take the eastern route, emerging near what used to be a parking garage before something—probably a Syndicate war, possibly a Wing experiment gone wrong—melted the top three levels into abstract sculpture. The sun is low now, maybe an hour from setting, painting everything in shades of orange that make the blood stains on the concrete look fresh.

The walk to Tin Grins territory takes forty minutes of careful navigation. You can't just walk straight anywhere in the Backstreets. Every block has its own ecosystem of violence and survival. That corner? That's where the organ sellers set up shop every Tuesday. That alley? Controlled by kids who'll shank you for your shoes. That building? Nobody goes in that building. Nobody talks about why.

I keep my head down, moving with the particular shuffle that marks someone as not worth robbing. Too fast and you look like you have somewhere important to be, which means you might have something important. Too slow and you look vulnerable. The perfect pace is one of resigned purposefulness—someone going nowhere important but unable to stop.

The chemical smell hits me two blocks from the destination. It's sharp, acidic, like battery acid mixed with rotting flowers. It makes my eyes water and my nose run. Whatever leaked from the Goldwater Facility, it's nothing that should be in human lungs. But then, lots of things that shouldn't be in human lungs end up there anyway in the Backstreets.

I spot Little Kim first, tucked into a doorway that provides good sightlines in three directions. She nods slightly—all clear so far. Pete materializes from behind a burned-out car, his bag of containers clinking softly. Marcus crawls out of what might be a storm drain, his nervous energy practically visible.

"Masks," Pete says, producing cloth strips from his bag. "Won't stop everything, but better than nothing."

I tie the cloth around my face, immediately tasting the chemical tang through the fabric. It's going to be a long night.

We move together now, caution overridden by time pressure. The site of the firefight is impossible to miss. The street looks like someone took a giant ice cream scoop to reality, leaving perfectly spherical holes in buildings, cars, even the road itself. T-7 energy weapons—I've never seen their aftermath before. It's almost beautiful, in a terrifying way.

The street is carpeted with them. Tin Grins, Copper Teeth, and probably some unfortunate civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They're sprawled in the positions death caught them—some reaching for weapons, some trying to crawl away, some just... parts. The T-7 weapons didn't always kill cleanly. Sometimes they just took pieces.

But that's not what makes us all stop and stare.

Every corpse glows with a soft blue-green luminescence. The Glimmer Moss covers them like a shroud, delicate filaments swaying in the breeze that shouldn't exist but does, carrying that chemical flower smell. It's beautiful. It's horrible. It's the most valuable thing I've ever seen.

"Holy shit," Marcus whispers. "It's real."

"It's really real," She's agrees, and for once she's not looking at the bodies as potential food but as something approaching wonder.

Pete is already moving, business-like, pulling out the containers and scissors. "We have maybe six hours before this stuff stops glowing and turns to regular moss. After that, it's worthless. So we work fast, we work careful, and we—"

He stops, staring at me. Specifically, at my hair.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" he says, and I know what's coming before he says it.

My hair. Right. It hangs to the floor when I'm standing, longer when I'm crouched to harvest. I've been meaning to cut it for... months? Years? Time blurs together when personal grooming becomes a luxury you can't—

"Someone should have brought scissors for this guy,"

"Or contaminate the samples, right Marcus?" Pete adds, his tone suggesting this is the greater sin. "That hair touches the moss, the whole container is ruined. The client was specific—no contamination."

The moss extends beyond the bodies, creeping up walls, hanging from fire escapes like bioluminescent Spanish moss. It moves slightly, though there's no wind, reaching toward us with what might be curiosity or hunger.

I gather the heavy mass of my hair, trying to twist it into something manageable, but there is too much of it. It is like trying to contain a waterfall with a single, frayed rubber band. Every time I shift my weight, a few long strands escape, threatening to drag through the glowing fungus that represents our only chance at a life that isn't this.

"I'll manage," I say, though we all know I won't.

"You'll manage to fuck this up for everyone. Kim, you got a—"

His request for a knife is cut short as the makeshift knot in my hair gives way completely. The wet, heavy mass falls forward over my shoulder just as I am leaning over a particularly vibrant patch. A single, long strand brushes against a tendril of moss that is creeping from a crack in the pavement.

The reaction is immediate and violent. The moss surges up the strand of hair like a bolt of blue lightning, its glow flaring with a hungry intensity. It constricts, a living vine climbing with unnatural speed toward my scalp. I jerk back with a choked gasp, but it holds fast, pulling taut.

"Don't move," Pete hisses, his voice now a blade of pure command. "Nobody fucking move."

The others are frozen, their faces masks of horror. "What's it doing?!" Kim yelled in a panicked rumble. "Is it going to eat him?"

"It's climbing to his head!" Marcus adds, his scouting composure shattered. "If that shit touches his skin, what happens? Does he melt? Does he turn into one of those things?!"

The moss continues its exploration of my hair, and where it touches, I feel... something. Not pain... but information. Like the moss is reading me, cataloging me, deciding what I am and whether I'm worth consuming.

"Hold him still!" Pete barks at Kim.

Kim slowly, carefully, pulls out a pair of rusted scissors from her pack. "Found these three blocks back," she whispers. "Figured you might need them."

She reaches toward the infected strand, the scissors held open. The moss pulses brighter, agitated or excited, I cannot tell. The blade closes with a sound that is a scream, whether it was mine or the moss's, I am not sure, and the infected length of hair falls away. It hits the ground and immediately begins to dissolve, the moss consuming it with a visible, enthusiastic hunger. Within seconds, there's nothing left but a small, new patch of fungus, glowing with a soft, contented light.

We all let out a collective, shaky breath we did not know we were holding. Pete turns to me, his face pale but his expression a mask of cold fury. He does not ask. He tosses the scissors at my feet.

"New rule," Pete says, his voice steady despite the sweat I can see on his forehead. "Nobody touches the moss directly. We harvest with tools only. And you," he points at me, "tie that fucking hair up properly or I'm cutting it all off myself."

I let out a quiet sigh. "They're all freaking out over some moss." Still, an order was an order, and my hair had been a constant source of Pete's irritation. I nod, my hands already shaking as I pick up the rusted blades of a large pair of shears we used for cutting through wiring. I begin to hack away at the long, heavy, and suddenly very dangerous weight on my head. It is a slow and ugly process, more like sawing through thick rope than cutting hair.

Thick, dark locks fall to the grimy floor, and I do not stop until the bulk of it is gone, leaving a messy, uneven mane that is just long enough to nearly brush my shoulders but no longer a liability that could drag on the ground.

While I finish my grim haircut, Pete pulls out the collection containers—glass jars with lids that look properly sealed. He also produces several pairs of tongs, the kind you might use for salad if salad was a biohazard that might eat you back.

"We work in pairs. One harvests, one watches. The moss reacts to movement, so go slow. And if anyone starts feeling strange—seeing things, hearing things, wanting to touch the pretty light—you tell someone immediately."

We approach the nearest body, a Tin Grin who couldn't have been older than sixteen. The moss has transformed him into something almost artistic, growing from his wounds in patterns that follow his veins, creating a map of his circulatory system in blue light.

Pete demonstrates the harvest technique, using the tongs to gently grasp a cluster of moss. It comes away from the body with reluctance, clinging until the last moment before releasing with a soft sigh. He drops it into a jar, and immediately it begins to pulse faster, brighter, like it's panicking.

"It knows it's dying. We've got maybe two hours before it all goes dark. Work fast, but careful."

We spread out across the killing field, each pair taking a section. Kim and I work together, her handling the tongs while I hold the jars. The moss varies in texture and behavior—some comes away easily, almost eagerly. Others cling like they're rooted in bone.

"Look at this one,"

She's standing over a body that's more moss than man. It's grown into him, through him, replacing flesh with fibrous blue light. His eyes are gone, replaced by two pools of concentrated glow that track our movement despite the obvious death of their owner.

"We're not harvesting that one," I say quickly.

As we work, the moss begins to sing. Not audibly—I feel it in my bones, a vibration that might be communication or might be the sound of something learning to scream. The bodies shift slightly, not alive but not quite dead either, animated by the fungus that feeds on them.

My hands shake as I maneuver the tongs, keeping them at maximum extension. Kim works beside me, her movements more confident but equally careful. We've developed a rhythm—she spots the thickest clusters, I position the jar, she harvests. No words needed. Words might disturb whatever equilibrium we've found with this luminescent parasite.

The eighth jar fills with a particularly aggressive specimen that pulses angry red before settling back to blue. My shortened hair keeps trying to fall forward, and I have to keep jerking my head back. Every time I do, the moss on nearby corpses reaches toward the movement, like flowers following the sun.

Marcus is working the far edge with Kim, both of them moving with the exaggerated care of people handling explosives. Which, for all we know, we are. Pete oversees from the center, his gas mask making him look like some prophet of plague, directing us with hand signals when verbal communication might agitate our harvest.

We're three-quarters done, eleven jars filled and glowing like captured stars, when I hear it. A footstep that doesn't belong to any of us. Too heavy, too confident. The kind of step that doesn't care about being heard.

"Well, well. What do we have here?"

The voice comes from behind a overturned car, gravelly and amused. Two figures emerge, and my blood goes cold—not from fear, but from recognition. Every Backstreets rat knows Scab by reputation if not by sight.

He's smaller than I expected, maybe five-foot-six, but built like a compressed spring. His face is a roadmap of scar tissue, the namesake scab covering most of his left cheek, perpetually weeping some kind of clear fluid. His hair is gray-white, pulled back in a greasy ponytail that exposes more scarring along his scalp.

He wears what might have once been a suit jacket, now so patched and modified it's become armor by layers. His eyes are the worst part—intelligent, calculating, the eyes of someone who's survived everything the City could throw at him and learned to throw it back harder.

But it's his companion that makes my knees weak. The man has to duck to clear the car's roof, easily seven feet of condensed violence. His "armor" is street-sign metal beaten into crude plates, held together with industrial cable and what looks like human tendons. His head is shaved except for a mohawk of black wire—actual wire, braided into his scalp in some form of combat modification.

His face would be handsome if not for the Glasgow smile carved from both corners of his mouth, the scars pulling his expression into a permanent, too-wide grin. Arms like bridge cables, hands that could palm my entire head.

Scab steps forward, casual as a afternoon stroll, though his companion's hand drifts to the rebar club hanging from his belt—three feet of metal with concrete still attached to one end.

"Pete," Scab says, like they're old friends. "Fancy meeting you here. We were just coming to collect our boys' gear. Imagine our surprise finding you playing with the... what is this exactly?"

He gestures at the glowing moss, at our careful harvest. His companion hasn't stopped staring at me, like a cat that's spotted something small and edible.

"Job," Pete responds, his voice muffled by the mask but steady. "Anonymous client. We're just the hands."

"Anonymous client who pays Backstreets rats for botanical work?" Scab laughs, the sound like grinding gears. "Must be good money. How much?"

"Not enough to split five ways, let alone seven," Pete says.

I count. Five of us, two of them. Pete's already calculating survival odds.

"See, that's where you're wrong," Scab says, pulling out a knife—a real one, military grade, the kind that costs more than I've seen in my lifetime. "You're not splitting it seven ways. You're giving it to us, and we're letting you walk away. Call it a... territorial tax."

"This isn't your territory," Kim stated, and I want to scream at her to shut up.

Scab's companion moves so fast I barely see it. One moment he's standing still, the next Kim's on the ground, blood pouring from her nose. He didn't even use the club, just backhanded her like swatting a fly. She doesn't get up.

"Now it is," Scab says simply. "See, we lost good people last night. Good earners. Their deaths need to mean something. And what it means is whatever you're harvesting here belongs to us. The money, the moss, all of it."

Pete's thinking. I can see it in his posture, the way his weight shifts. He's running calculations—can we take them, can we run, can we negotiate. The problem is, I already know the answer to all three: no.

"Counter-offer," Pete says finally. "We give you half the moss. You let us deliver the rest. We split the payment 60-40, your favor."

"Counter-counter-offer," Scab replies, his smile revealing teeth filed to points like the Copper Tongue kid, but neater, more professional. "You give us everything, and I don't let Grunt here use your skulls for bowling practice."

Grunt. Even his nickname is understated. The man cracks his knuckles, each pop sounding like a gunshot in the blue-lit killing field.

"Can't do it," Pete says, and there's something in his voice now. Not defiance—resignation. "Client's not the forgiving type. We don't deliver, we're dead anyway. Might as well die fighting."

"Might as well," Scab agrees, and everything happens at once.

Little Kim went for her knife. Marcus tried to run. Pete pulled something from his jacket—a thick pipe, maybe two feet long, wrapped crudely in barbed wire. I went for my knife, the cheap thing I bought three weeks ago for two cans of food and a half-promise of future payment.

Grunt moved like an avalanche given purpose. His club caught Marcus in the stomach with a wet, meaty thud, folding the boy completely in half. Marcus went down vomiting bile and blood, his hands scrabbling uselessly at the mossy ground as he tried to crawl away from the pain. Little Kim only managed three frantic steps before Grunt's free hand snaked out, catching her by the ragged tuft of her hair—what little was left of it after her own encounter with a different patch of moss—and introduced her face to his knee. The crack of her nose breaking was a sharp, ugly sound, audible even over the moss's quiet singing.

That left me facing this mountain of a man while Pete circled with Scab, two old rats in a familiar dance, each looking for an opening, a moment of weakness, a final mistake.

I pulled my knife from its sheath, feeling the disappointing lack of weight in my hand. The blade was already pitted with an aggressive rust, the handle wrapped in electrical tape that was beginning to peel and come loose. Grunt looked at the pathetic weapon and actually laughed, the sound emerging from his carved smile like it was being squeezed from a rusty bellows.

"That's just adorable," he said, his voice a surprisingly high and almost childlike tenor. The disconnect between his size and his tone made him more terrifying, not less. "You're really going to fight me with that little thing?"

I offered no answer. Talk is time, and time is blood, and blood is what keeps you from becoming another lump in the meaty carpet under our feet. Instead, I moved, my sandals slipping on a patch of viscera as I tried to circle, to find an angle, any angle that wasn't his front. The moss made the footing treacherous, the corpses shifting under our weight with soft, wet sounds.

Grunt had no interest in circling. He just walked straight at me with his club raised high. Why bother with technique when you are fighting someone half your size with a weapon ten times the weight of their own?

I dodged the first swing by a hair's breadth. The club passed so close to my head I felt the wind of its passage and saw the concrete dust trailing in its wake. It struck a corpse instead, and the body exploded like a rotten melon that had been left in the sun for a week, a cloud of moss spores filling the air between us with a sudden, beautiful storm of luminescent snow.

The second swing was faster, clipping my shoulder and spinning me completely around. A white-hot pain exploded down my arm, a fire in the nerves that made my fingers spasm uncontrollably. I kept hold of the knife through a sheer, desperate clenching of muscle.

"Just stand still," Grunt said, his voice now petulant, annoyed. "You're just making this longer for yourself."

I darted in under his next swing, trying to get inside his reach where the club was useless. The knife found a small gap in his makeshift armor, the blade scraping along his ribs with a grating sound. The thin metal bent, caught on something hard—a piece of wire, a stray bone, who knew—and with a final, pathetic snap, the blade broke. It snapped just like a promise from a Wing executive, leaving me holding nothing more than a useless handle with maybe an inch of jagged metal protruding from it.

Grunt looked down at the insignificant scratch I had made on his side, then his gaze shifted back to me. His permanent, carved smile seemed to widen, stretching the skin on his cheeks. A slow rumble started in his chest. "Now, it's my turn."

His hand closed around my throat before I could even process the thought to move. He lifted me from the ground as if I weighed nothing, my feet kicking uselessly at the air. His other hand dropped the heavy club with a thud, coming up to join the first around my neck. The pressure was immediate and inexorable.

A low roar began to build inside my own head, the sound of a distant ocean that was getting closer, drowning out everything. The world began to lose its color, the vibrant blue of the moss fading to a dull, flat grey. My lungs were on fire. The only points of focus left in my collapsing sight were his two, cold eyes and his one, terrible smile.

Yet... he dropped his club, and my legs were still free, and a pure, animal panic makes a person creative. I kicked out, not at his body, a useless gesture against a man his size. I kicked at the club. My foot connected with the heavy shaft, sending it rolling away. It did not go far, but it was far enough. It rolled into a puddle of the glowing blue moss, which immediately and with a hungry eagerness, began to consume the concrete end.

Grunt failed to notice. He was too focused on watching my face turn a dark, mottled purple. But I noticed. I saw the moss creeping up the club's length with an unnatural speed. I saw it moving toward his leg, toward the unprotected gap where his makeshift armor did not quite meet the top of his heavy boot.

I used the last, burning whisper of air in my lungs to speak, though the words came out as barely a rasp. "Your leg...!"

He looked down instinctively, his focus momentarily broken. He saw the patch of glowing blue moss now touching his skin. His reaction was immediate and absolute. He dropped me, stumbling backward, his hands slapping uselessly at the growing patch of blue on his calf.

I hit the ground hard, my lungs screaming for air, my throat a raw and bruised mess. But I was already moving. I did not move away, I moved toward him. Toward the broken knife handle that was somehow still clutched in my spasming hand. Toward his leg, the one he was now favoring as the moss did something terrible to the muscle beneath his skin.

I drove the single, jagged inch of remaining blade into his knee, the bad knee, the one already compromised by the strange, beautiful poison of the moss. It was not a deep wound, but it was enough. He staggered, his weight shifting, a howl of surprised pain tearing from his lips.

That's when I saw it. A jagged piece of rebar, sticking up from the chest of a nearby corpse, the remnant of some dead gang member's improvised weapon. I grabbed it with both hands, the rough rust flaking off and cutting into my palms, and I swung it with all of my body weight behind it, aiming for the exact same knee.

The connection was a perfect, terrible, and final thing. I heard a wet, popping sound, and I saw his leg bend completely sideways, in a way that legs are not meant to bend.

Grunt went down screaming, that high, childlike voice now a pure, unadulterated shriek of agony. But he was not done. Even on the ground, even with a completely destroyed knee, he was still a danger. His hand shot out, catching my ankle as I tried to back away, and he pulled me down into the soft, yielding carpet of the dead with him.

We rolled through the corpses, through the patches of glowing moss, a desperate and ugly tangle of limbs, each of us trying to gain a dominant position. He was still stronger, even wounded, but I was desperate, and I was smaller, and I was willing to do things that would make a sane person hesitate.

I bit him. Not in any strategic place, just wherever I could reach. My teeth sank into his forearm, and my mouth was filled with the taste of blood, of rust, and of something harsh and chemical. He tried to shake me off, but I held on like a rabid dog, grinding my teeth deeper, trying to find bone.

His free hand found my hair, what was left of it, and he pulled my head back with a savage jerk. But that gave me an opening. I drove my knee, hard, into his destroyed leg, into the exact spot where the jagged white of his own bone had broken through the skin.

The scream he made was not human. His grip on my hair loosened for just a moment, but a moment was all I needed. I let go of his arm, my hand scrabbling in the filth, and I found another piece of debris. A heavy chunk of broken concrete with a short piece of rebar still attached. I brought it down on his head. Once. Twice. A third time before his hand, impossibly fast, caught my wrist, stopping the blow inches from his face.

We were frozen for a moment, him holding my wrist, me holding the concrete, both of us covered in blood and moss and things that were worse than either. His carved smile was still smiling, but his eyes were focused now, the pain having burned away the arrogance and replaced it with a cold and terrible clarity.

"You dirty cunt!"

His grip on my wrist tightened, the bones beginning to grind together, and I knew he was about to break it. That was when Pete's scream cut through everything.

I turned my head just enough to see it. Pete was on the ground, Scab standing over him, that clean, military-grade knife buried to the hilt in Pete's shoulder. A dark pool of blood was spreading out beneath him, mixing with the blue moss to create strange and beautiful patterns of glowing purple light.

"Seems we are both winning," Grunt said, and then he headbutted me.

The world exploded into a silent supernova of white stars. I was on my back, my vision swimming, my thoughts a fractured mess. I could feel Grunt dragging himself up my body, his immense weight crushing the air from my lungs. His hands found my throat again, and this time, there was no trick. There was no escape. There was just the final, inexorable pressure, the encroaching darkness, and the weird, quiet singing of the moss as it watched us all die.

Marcus was either unconscious or dead, I could no longer tell. Little Kim was definitely unconscious, her face a swollen mask of blood. Pete was trying to crawl away from Scab, leaving a wet trail of blood that glowed with an otherworldly light where it touched the moss.

Scab followed Pete slowly, his movements casual, savoring the final moments. "You should have just given us the moss, Pete. This whole ugly mess did not have to happen."

"Fuck... you," Pete managed to gasp, his crawl slowing to a pathetic scrabble.

Scab sighed, the sound a tired hiss, before he raised his knife for the final, killing blow. I tried to scream, to shout a warning, but Grunt's hands had crushed that possibility from my throat. This was it. This was how we all died. Not to the Sweepers or to starvation or to some corporate purge. We died to our own kind, fighting over glowing scraps in a field of forgotten corpses.

That was when someone coughed. It was such a normal sound, so polite and utterly out of place in this symphony of agony, that everyone froze. Even Grunt's hands, which were moments away from ending my life, loosened slightly on my throat.

Three figures stood at the edge of the killing field, having approached with a silence so absolute that none of us had noticed them. They wore matching uniforms, not quite military, not quite corporate, that particular blend of function and style that screamed "Fixer Office." The deep blue fabric of their coats somehow remained perfectly clean, untouched by the filth of the alley, its silver trim catching the faint, ethereal light of the moss. Each had a weapon strapped to their back, professional-grade, the kind of equipment that costs more than a Backstreets rat would see in ten lifetimes.

The one on the left was tall and lean, his white hair cut short, his eyes the color of old, tarnished copper. His weapon appeared to be some kind of modified rifle, all sleek lines and integrated suppressors. The one on the right was broader, built like a brawler, with black hair in a precise military cut and scarred hands that spoke of a long and violent history. A pair of short swords were crossed on his back, their hilts worn smooth from countless draws.

But it was the one in the middle who had drawn our attention with his polite, almost apologetic cough. He was of an average height, an average build, with brown hair that fell just past his collar and eyes that seemed to shift color in the moss-light, sometimes a pale green, sometimes a flat, stony gray. The weapon on his back was less obvious, a long object wrapped in a simple cloth that could have been anything from a sword to a very expensive pipe.

"I am so sorry," the middle one said, his voice carrying a tone that I immediately, and with a cold and certain dread, recognized was not sorry at all. "Hope we are not interrupting anything important?"

That was not the voice of a man who was sorry. It lacked fear. It lacked surprise. It lacked any real interest at all. It was the calm, measured, and almost musically pleasant tone of a person who has just walked into a theater after the play has already started and is politely asking the usher if they have missed anything good.

He tilted his head slightly to the right, a gesture of mild curiosity, like he had just stumbled upon a group of particularly interesting children playing a new and fascinatingly violent game.

"An interesting little ecosystem you have here. This particular strain of bioluminescent fungus... it appears to have a symbiotic relationship with decaying organic matter, accelerating decomposition while using the released nutrients to fuel its own growth. Fascinating. The client will be pleased."

The white-haired man on the left shifted his weight, his rifle held in a low ready position. "The contract is for sample retrieval, Captain. Not a biology lesson. Our window is closing. These specimens will lose their luminescence once the ambient chemical concentrations dissipate."

"Patience, Joric," the Captain said, his gaze still fixed on the tableau of the dying. "Observation is a key component of any successful operation. For example,"—he didn't turn or break his calm, observant posture. Instead, his chin lifted by a mere fraction of an inch, a subtle, almost imperceptible cant to the right that directed Joric's attention towards Scab, who was still standing over Pete with his knife raised—"the dominant male of this particular tribe seems to be asserting his authority. A classic power struggle. Though I must say, the quality of their equipment is... disappointing."

The woman on the right, her short swords a dark line against her blue uniform, finally spoke, her voice sharp and practical. "They are rats, Captain. Nothing more. Their struggles are an irrelevance. The contract also specifies a 'sterilization' of the operational area to ensure exclusivity of the sample. We are authorized to eliminate all non-contracted personnel."

Pete and Scab both froze. The blood drained from their faces. They were rats, yes, but they were old rats. They knew the language of The City. They knew what "sterilize" meant when it was spoken by a Grade 7 Fixer. It was not a warning. It was a line item on a work order.

"Besides," the woman added, checking the edge of her blade with a practiced thumb, "Grade 7 means we need to maintain a certain... productivity metric. Their deaths will simply be a small, additional fee for our services. You will help us—"

Pete did not let her finish. A sound tore from his throat, a raw, primal noise that was not a word, but a pure and absolute command born from a lifetime of knowing when the game was over. "NOPE!" He shoved Scab away from him with a surprising strength, scrambling backward through the gore. "SCATTER! FUCKING RUN! EVERY RAT FOR THEMSELVES!"

The white-haired Fixer, Joric, reacted not with haste, but with a bored and surgical efficiency. He raised his rifle, not to his shoulder, but just to waist height. A soft, almost inaudible hiss was the only sound. A thin beam of pure, white light, no thicker than a needle, shot from the barrel and struck Kim where she lay unconscious.

There was no explosion. There was no sound of impact. Her body just... dissolved. It evaporated into a cloud of green dust and plasma particles that hung in the air for a moment before dissipating, leaving only a dark, greasy stain on the corpses beneath her.

That single, silent act of erasure was enough. The fragile and temporary truce between the two rat gangs shattered into a million pieces of pure, animal terror. Marcus, who had been semi-conscious on the ground, jolted awake at Pete's scream, his eyes widening in horror as he saw the empty space where Little Kim had been. He scrambled to his feet and ran, a choked, terrified sob escaping his lips. Scab was gone, having vanished into the shadows of the alley the moment Pete had shouted.

My captor, was still on top of me, but his attention was on the Fixers. I saw the flicker of fear in his eyes, the dawning realization that his size, his strength, the things that made him a king in this small, filthy world, were a complete and utter irrelevance to the things that had just arrived.

My hands, which had been clawing uselessly at his, scrabbled at the ground beside me. My fingers closed around a handful of wet, gritty earth and glowing blue moss. With a final, desperate surge of strength, I brought the handful up and ground it directly into his eyes.

He screamed, a high, panicked sound, and his hands flew from my throat to his face. "MY EYES! IT'S IN MY EYES!" The moss was not just dirt. It was alive. It was a poison. And it was now eating its way into his soft, vulnerable tissue. He rolled off me as his massive body was left thrashing into a beautiful music.

I did not wait to see the end. I scrambled to my feet and I ran. I ran without looking back, my bruised throat burning, my lungs on fire. I could hear the sounds of the Fixers' weapons behind me, the clean hiss of the plasma rifle, the sharp, percussive thump-thump-thump of the woman's blades as she likely engaged with the last, foolish members of Scab's crew. I did not care. I just ran. My only thought was to put distance between myself and that polite, conversational voice.

I felt... I felt hunted. Not by all of them. By him. The one in the middle. The Captain. Joric was a soldier, the woman was an executioner. They were just doing their job. But him... his curiosity, his detachment... it was personal. I felt like a particularly interesting bug that he had found, and he was not going to let me scurry away before he had a chance to pull my legs off, just to see what would happen. I was not just another rat to be sterilized. I was the main event.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE—NOT LIKE THIS—NOT AS SOMEONE'S DAMN SCIENCE EXPERIMENT!"

My legs pumped, my sandals slapping against the slick, grimy pavement. I could feel my body starting to fail, the adrenaline beginning to fade, replaced by a deep and bone-aching exhaustion. Every alley looked the same, a maze of rusting pipes and overflowing refuse containers.

I risked a glance over my shoulder. And my heart stopped. He was there. The Captain. Standing at the far end of the alley, not running, just... watching. He raised a hand, not in a threatening gesture, but in a small, casual wave, like a friend seeing another friend across a crowded room. And then he began to walk towards me, his pace unhurried, his posture relaxed.

That was when the real terror began. He was not chasing me. He was herding me. He was toying with me. I knew, with a certainty that chilled the marrow in my bones, that he could have ended me at any point. A single, almost lazy, shift of his weight from one foot to the other; his right hand, which had been hanging loosely at his side, would move with a speed my eyes could not properly track, his fingers closing around the cloth-wrapped hilt of the weapon on his back.

I could almost picture the motion, a smooth, practiced draw of the blade just an inch from its sheath—a glint of polished metal, the soft shing of a perfect fit—and in the next instant a thrown projectile, or the blade itself, would be severing my spinal cord. But he was letting me run. He was letting me exhaust myself. He was letting me feel the quiet, creeping despair of a chase where the hunter is not just faster, but is in a different reality of power entirely.

"MOVE—YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT—MOVE YOUR DAMN LEGS—HE'S COMING—"

I pushed myself harder, my vision starting to tunnel, the world a blur of rust and grey. I scrambled up a pile of overflowing trash bags, their plastic skins splitting under my weight, a cascade of rotting food and filth spilling out behind me. I pulled myself onto the roof of a low-slung maintenance shed, my fingers raw and bleeding.

I ran across the corrugated tin, my footsteps a loud and desperate drumbeat in the quiet of the alley. I could feel him behind me, not a sound, but a presence, a quiet and amused pressure at the back of my neck. He was enjoying this. This was his game. And I was the only one playing.

I reached the end of the roof. A four-meter gap to the next building. A jump I would never have even considered on a good day. But today was not a good day. I looked back. He was standing on the other end of the roof now, his arms crossed, that same, calm, curious expression on his face. He tilted his head again, a silent and mocking invitation. 'Go on. Jump. Let's see what happens.'

I jumped. It was a final, desperate act of defiance. A scream of 'fuck you!' to a god who was holding all the cards. My feet left the edge of the roof, and for a single, glorious, and heart-stopping second, I was flying. And then, gravity, in its usual, brutal, and unforgiving way, reasserted itself. I was not going to make it. Not even close. My fingers scrabbled uselessly at the brick wall of the other building, and then I was falling.

But it was not a simple fall to the pavement below. My feet hit something hard and angled. A metal fire escape. A sharp, searing pain shot up my leg as my ankle twisted with a sickening, audible crack. My body was no longer my own, just a collection of parts tumbling in a chaotic and uncontrolled descent down the long, long flight of rusty, metal stairs. The world became a chaotic, tumbling sequence of jarring impacts. My back slammed against a flat step, driving the air from my lungs in a wet gasp.

My shoulder caught a railing, the sharp edge digging into muscle and bone. I could feel the rough texture of the rust scraping skin from my cheek as I tumbled end over end. The repeated, percussive clang of my body hitting the unforgiving iron was a brutal and arrhythmic drumbeat counting down my final moments. My head slammed against a railing with a final, solid thud, and the world exploded into a silent, white flash of blunt trauma before my vision went black.

The world was a muffled, distant roar. The pain was a living thing, a fire that was burning in my ankle, in my shoulder, in the back of my head. I tried to push myself up, but my arms would not obey. I was lying on something soft. The smell... it was not the smell of the Backstreets. Not the familiar perfume of rot and despair. It was the smell of a thousand unwashed bodies, of cheap stimulants, of a clean and artificial sweat, of a kind of desperate, hopeful humanity I had not smelled in years.

I forced my eyes open. A light. A bright, steady, and almost painfully clean fluorescent light. I shielded my eyes with a hand that was shaking uncontrollably. The roaring sound was not a sound; it was voices. A hundred different voices, all talking at once, a low and constant murmur of a crowd. I was in a crowd. I was on the floor, in the middle of a massive, dense, and tightly packed crowd of people.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, the pain in my head a sharp, stabbing rhythm. I was in a long, wide, and impossibly clean tunnel. The walls were a smooth, white, and unblemished concrete, the ceiling a grid of those bright, humming lights. The air was cool and filtered, and it felt so clean in my lungs that it almost made me gag. And at both ends of this long, crowded space, I saw them.

Figures in full, head-to-toe suits of a dark green and black armor, their faces obscured by opaque visors. They stood in a perfect, unwavering line, each holding a large, black riot shield and a long, black-and-green stun baton that hummed with a quiet, contained energy. They were like insects. Perfect, identical, and utterly without emotion.

"WHAT IS THIS PLACE—WHERE AM I—IS THIS A TRAP?!"

The people around me... they were a strange and motley crew. Some were young, their faces a mixture of a desperate hope and a profound terror, clutching white folders of what looked like official papers. Others were older, their faces grim, lined with a weary resignation, their postures a tense and coiled spring. They were all looking in one direction, towards the line of insect-guards at the far end of the tunnel. And they were all talking, their voices a low and anxious hum.

"...said the cognitive screening is harder this cycle. My cousin failed last time. They said his 'emotional baseline was too volatile.' What does that even mean?"

"...just need to get through. Just need to get into the Nest. My kid... she needs medicine. The good kind. From inside. I can't... I can't go back..."

"...this is my third time. The third damn time. If I fail again... I don't know what I'll do. The interest on the loan I took just to get the application fee... it's going to bury me..."

Nest? Papers? Cognitive screening? The words were a foreign language, a set of rules for a game I had never played. This was not a gang's territory. This was not a Syndicate's hideout. This was something else. Something clean, something orderly, something... corporate. And that was a more terrifying thought than any Fixer.

I felt so profoundly and absolutely out of place, a filthy, bleeding rat that had just fallen from the ceiling into the middle of a king's court. My clothes, my smell, the blood and the grime of the alley... I was a walking, breathing violation of this clean, sterile space. But no one seemed to notice. They were all too consumed by their own, private anxieties, their own desperate hopes. I was invisible.

I groaned, the sound a low and pathetic thing, as I tried to pull myself to a sitting position, the pain in my ankle a sharp, white-hot scream. The movement drew a few, brief, and dismissive glances from the people nearest to me, but their attention quickly snapped back to the line of guards. I was just another piece of trash on the floor, an inconvenience to be stepped around. I could have crawled back into that trash bin. I would have been safe in there. I would have been home.

That was when a new voice, louder than the others, cut through the low murmur of the crowd. A man, somewhere in the middle of the dense pack, was shouting, his voice a high-pitched and frantic wail of pure, bureaucratic despair.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY ARE OUTDATED?! THEY ARE CLEAN CLEARANCE PAPERS! I GOT THEM YESTERDAY! HOW CAN THEY BE OUTDATED ALREADY?!"

The shout was a raw, ragged thing, a blade of pure human frustration cutting through the low, anxious murmur of the crowd. The man who had screamed was an unremarkable figure, his face pale with a mixture of sweat and desperation, his clothes the neat but slightly worn attire of someone who had spent their last Ahn on a clean shirt for a job interview that was now collapsing before his eyes. He held a thin, white data-folder in his trembling hand, waving it like a holy relic at the impassive, insect-like figure before him.

The K-Corp guard did not flinch. His entire body was a fortress of dark green and black composite armor, his face a smooth, featureless visor that reflected the sterile, fluorescent lights of the tunnel. He stood with his legs planted wide, a massive, black-and-green riot shield held in one hand, a long, black-and-green stun baton held loosely in the other. He was not a person. He was a wall. A very well-armed, very patient, and completely unfeeling wall.

The guard's response was not a sound made by a human throat. It was a synthesized, toneless, and perfectly modulated burst of corporate policy, broadcast from a small speaker embedded in his helmet. "Regulation 7-Delta. All clearance applications for this Nest are subject to a rolling 24-hour validity window. Your papers were processed at 08:00 yesterday. The current time is 13:12. Your validity has expired. You are no longer on the approved entry list. Please step aside and re-apply for the next cycle."

The man's face crumpled, the last vestiges of his composure shattering into a thousand pieces of pure, unadulterated despair. "Re-apply? The next cycle is in two months! My family... we can't wait two months! Please! I'm begging you! Just look at the name! I am on the list!"

"You were on the list," the synthesized voice corrected, its tone utterly devoid of sympathy or any emotion at all. "You are not now. The system is absolute. Please step aside."

The man did not step aside. He took a half-step forward, his voice dropping to a low, pleading whisper. "Please... I will do anything. I just need to get through. I just need a chance."

The guard's response was a single, simple, and brutally efficient motion. He did not raise his baton. He simply shifted his weight, and the heavy, flat edge of his riot shield came forward, connecting with the man's chest with a dull, solid thud. It was not an attack. It was a push, a simple and impersonal application of force that sent the man stumbling backward into the front ranks of the crowd.

A wave of angry murmurs rippled through the hundred or so people packed into the tunnel. They had all heard the exchange. They had all felt the cold, hard finality of the guard's synthesized voice. They were not just a crowd. They were a single, collective entity of desperate hope and simmering resentment, and the man who had just been shoved was their prophet. His failure was their failure. His despair was their own.

"It's a rigged game!" a voice shouted from the back of the crowd. "They take our money for the application, and then they just change the rules whenever they want!"

"My brother waited three cycles!" another voice cried out. "He passed every test! And they still turned him away! Said he had 'insufficient corporate loyalty!' What the hell does that even mean?!"

I saw the desperate, pleading face of the man with the outdated papers. I had no idea where I was. I had no idea what this place was. But I knew, with the deep and primal certainty of a rat who has spent its entire life navigating a world of traps, that I had just stumbled from a small and simple one into a much, much larger and more complicated one. I should have stayed in the trash bin.

The man with the papers, his face now a mask of pure, nihilistic rage, did the one thing you are never, ever supposed to do. He picked up a bottle from the floor, an empty container of some cheap stimulant, and he threw it. It was a pathetic, clumsy, under-handed throw, a final, desperate act of a man who had nothing left to lose. The bottle sailed through the air in a lazy arc and shattered harmlessly against the K-Corp guard's riot shield, a small and insignificant explosion of glass and brown, sticky liquid.

It was all the excuse they needed. The man who had thrown the bottle was not just a disgruntled applicant anymore. He was an agitator. An insurgent. A threat to corporate order. And the crowd was not just a crowd. They were his co-conspirators.

A new sound cut through the murmuring. A low, sharp, and perfectly synchronized series of clicks, as the stun batons in the hands of all twenty guards were activated in unison, the air crackling with the hungry hum of contained electricity. They did not shout a warning. They did not give an order to disperse. They simply took one, single, coordinated step forward. A wall of shields and pain, moving with the slow, inexorable, and completely impersonal momentum of a glacier.

The front ranks of the crowd tried to surge back as one of them threw a smoke grenade, but there was nowhere to go. The people behind them were still pushing forward, unaware of what was happening. The result was a sudden and violent compression, a wave of pure, kinetic force that rippled through the crowd. I was lifted from my feet, my injured ankle screaming in protest, and I was carried along in the tide of panicked, screaming bodies.

The K-Corp guards were not fighting a battle. They were performing a procedure. A crowd-control procedure. Their movements were a perfect, brutal, and horrifyingly efficient ballet of corporate-sanctioned violence. A shield would push, creating an opening. A baton would swing, a clean, horizontal arc that would connect with a head, a shoulder, a chest, with a wet, solid thud. The person would go down, and the wall would continue its slow, inexorable advance, the space they had once occupied now just another piece of conquered territory.

It was not a massacre in a conventional sense. It was a harvest. A very loud, very messy, and very, very efficient one. I was knocked to the ground in the chaos, my head hitting the concrete floor with a jarring impact. The world was a blur of stamping feet and screaming faces. I curled into a ball, my arms over my head, trying to make myself as small as possible, trying to become just another lump on a floor that was rapidly becoming covered with them.

That was when I saw him. A young man, no older than me, his clothes clean and well-fitted, his hair a neat, black style that was almost identical to my own long, matted mess. He was on his hands and knees, crawling with uncomprehending terror.

A K-Corp guard, in a casual and almost thoughtless backswing, had caught him across the temple with the edge of his shield. He was not a rioter. He was not an agitator. He was just an innocent, a quiet and hopeful boy who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He collapsed onto the floor beside me, his body limp, and from his grasp, a white folder spilled its contents.

A sheaf of papers, held together by a single, metal clip, skittered across the floor, coming to a stop just inches from my face. They were clean, white, and covered in a dense, official-looking text. And at the top of the first page, there was a symbol. A simple, elegant, and almost beautiful logo that I had seen a thousand times in the Backstreets, a symbol of a power so immense and so distant that it was almost a myth.

My mind, which had been a screaming chaos of fear and pain, suddenly went very, very quiet. The sounds of the riot, the screams, the thud of the batons... they all faded into a distant, unimportant hum. There was only the paper. The L-corp logo. The quiet and absolute promise of a different life.

"Survival—that's all that matters—I need to survive—these papers—these papers are a way out—a way to a place where there are no alleys, no moss, no Fixers who hunt you for sport—he's in the way—he won't need them if he's just... sleeping—just need to borrow them—just for a little while—"

I looked at the young man. He was stirring, a low groan escaping his lips. He was trying to push himself up, his eyes unfocused, a thin trickle of blood running from his temple. He was not a victim. He was a complication. A witness. A loose end.

"No! it has to be certain! There can be no witnesses! In all this chaos, no one will ever know, it's just one more broken body in a pile of them. Ut's for my survival—it's his own fault for being here, for being so soft, so unprepared—I just need this—I deserve this—I have fought and bled and crawled through the filth of this city—I have earned this chance—"

My hand closed around the jagged piece of scrap metal in my pocket. The same piece I had used on Scab's man. It felt warm, familiar. A piece of the world I knew, the world of brutal and simple solutions. I scrambled forward, my movements a low, desperate crawl. I grabbed the front of the young man's clean, expensive shirt, and I dragged him, his body limp and unresisting, behind a small pile of other, unmoving bodies, into a small, temporary pocket of shadow and privacy.

"—I am not a rat anymore! I am a survivor—and survivors do what must be done—"

He was conscious now, his eyes wide with a dawning, terrified understanding. He opened his mouth to scream. I did not let him. I brought the piece of scrap metal down, not on his head, but hard across his mouth, a single, brutal, and silencing blow. The sound was a wet, ugly crunch of breaking teeth and splintering bone. He did not scream. He just made a small, pathetic, gurgling sound.

The air was now a choking soup of dust kicked up from the concrete floor and a strange smoke that stung the eyes—maybe from a ruptured pipe or one of the guards' own type of grenades, I couldn't tell. I grabbed a handful of his clean, black hair and slammed his head back against the hard, white concrete of the tunnel wall. Once. The impact was a solid, final-sounding thud that vibrated up my arm. But it was not enough. What if he wakes up? What if he remembers my face? He can't. He just needs to sleep. A long, long sleep.

I did it again. Harder, harder, and harder! Again, again, and again! The sound was lost in the greater noise of the riot, another percussive note in the chaotic rhythm of batons hitting flesh. And again. And again. The motion was mechanical now, a desperate and repetitive prayer for silence, for certainty, each impact a new justification screaming in the quiet of my own head. "This is for a better life! This is for a warm bed! This is for a full stomach! This is for the right to not be garbage!"

My arm was aching. I let him go. Through the swirling smoke and dust, I couldn't see the back of his head clearly, just a dark, wet patch in his hair. He slumped to the floor, a quiet and forgotten shape in the chaos. He's just knocked out. That's all. In a place like this, he'll wake up with a headache and a good story to tell. He'll be fine. He has to be—

The acrid smoke was starting to thin, the screams tapering off into a chorus of pathetic, whimpering moans. Unit Commander designated K-7 scanned the tunnel through his helmet's visor, his internal sensors filtering out the worst of the stench—a cocktail of sweat, blood, voided bowels, and the sharp, coppery ozone of a dozen discharged stun batons. The insurrection had lasted less than three minutes. Standard procedure. A predictable and inefficient expenditure of corporate resources, but a necessary one. His squad was already moving through the piles of twitching and unmoving bodies, their movements economical, their batons delivering quiet, final thuds to silence the last of the noise. The cleanup was the most tedious part.

His HUD flagged a single, standing figure laying against a wall, an anomaly in a landscape of the prone. K-7's gaze locked onto the target. The figure was clad in the clean, well-fitted vest and trousers of a legitimate applicant, the kind that usually had the good sense to hit the floor when the suppression protocol was initiated. This one was just standing there, his posture a strange, rigid line of shock, his hands clutching a white data-folder. His clothes were spattered with blood, a common enough sight, but it was the source that drew K-7's attention.

At the applicant's feet lay another body, this one dressed in the filthy, ragged attire of a Backstreets rat. The rat was unmoving, his face turned away, a dark and matted mess of long hair obscuring his features. The applicant's folder was also stained with a fresh, wet patch of crimson. The scene told a simple and familiar story, one that K-7 had seen a hundred times. A rat, in the chaos of the riot, had likely tried to assault a legitimate applicant to steal their papers.

The applicant had, through some surprising and commendable act of self-preservation, defended himself. The rat was now just another piece of organic refuse to be cataloged and incinerated.

K-7 approached, his heavy boots making no sound on the corpse-littered floor. The applicant was shaking, a fine, full-body tremor, his face pale, his eyes wide and unfocused, fixed on the far end of the tunnel as if it were the gate to a heaven he no longer believed in. The boy's hair was as black as the rat's on the ground, a tangled mess that suggested a hard life. He was clutching a small shoulder bag, its strap pulled tight across his chest. He looked like he had just walked through hell. In a literal sense, he had.

The boy did not seem to notice K-7's approach until the massive armored figure was standing directly in front of him, blocking his view of the promised land. He flinched, a small and pathetic gesture, and held up the data-folder, his hands trembling so violently that the papers rattled. He did not speak. His mouth was a thin, white line, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might shatter.

K-7 did not speak either. He simply gestured with the tip of his stun baton, a short, sharp, and unambiguous command. The papers. The boy offered the folder. K-7 took it, his gauntleted fingers surprisingly gentle. His internal HUD scanned the primary document. The name was irrelevant. The clearance code was valid. The temporal stamp was well within the 24-hour window.

The biometric data, what little the scanner could get from the trembling, traumatized boy, was a near-perfect match to the file's registered owner. The slight discrepancy in heart rate and adrenaline levels was well within the acceptable margin of error for a post-riot stress response. The paperwork was clean.

The Commander looked from the folder, to the boy's terrified, silent face, and then down to the dead rat at his feet. He felt nothing. Not sympathy. Not curiosity. Only a mild annoyance at best. This whole incident had put them behind schedule. The next wave of applicants for the afternoon screening would be arriving soon, and the tunnel was still a mess of twitching bodies and corporate-sanctioned gore. This one, at least, had the correct papers.

K-7 handed the folder back. The boy took it, his fingers brushing against the cold, hard composite of the guard's glove. K-7 then made another gesture, a simple, dismissive flick of his baton towards the far end of the tunnel, towards the ascending stairs at the end of the tunnel. The command was unspoken, but its meaning was absolute. 'You have my permission. Now go. Get out of my sight. And become someone else's problem.'

The boy just stood there for a second, his wide, shocked eyes unblinking. Then, as if the command had finally broken through the wall of his own internal screaming, he turned and began to walk, his steps stiff and robotic, a single, lucky survivor in a graveyard of broken dreams. K-7 watched him go, then turned his attention back to the mess. There was still so much cleaning to do—

I walked. My legs felt like they were made of wood, each step a stiff and disconnected motion. The long, white tunnel stretched out before me, a sterile and silent pathway to a world I had no right to be in. The sounds of the riot, the screams, the wet thud of the batons, all of it faded behind me, replaced by the quiet, almost reverent hum of the tunnel's fluorescent lights. I clutched the folder to my chest, its smooth, clean surface a stark and terrible contrast to the sticky, wet warmth of the blood that had soaked through my stolen vest.

I was a new person now. A person with papers. A person with a future. And the only price for that future was a single, small, and already forgotten ghost that I would carry with me for the rest of my miserable, and now slightly more comfortable, life.

I reached the end of the tunnel. The air that hit my face was not the familiar, smog-filled soup of the Backstreets. It was clean. So clean it hurt to breathe, a crisp and almost sweet scent that felt alien in my lungs. I stepped out into a world that was not my own. The sky was not the usual, oppressive lid of grey and brown.

It was a high, distant, and almost impossibly blue dome, dotted with the faint, glittering lights of the Nest's upper levels. The buildings were not the crooked, rusting, and perpetually leaking shanties of my home. They were towers of glass and steel, their lines clean, their surfaces polished, their very existence a quiet and contemptuous insult to the world I had just left behind.

And the silence. Oh... the silence! There were no screams. There were no distant, rumbling sounds of a factory collapsing. There was only the gentle, almost musical hum of the Nest's ambient systems, the quiet whisper of a wind that did not carry the scent of death, the soft and distant murmur of a society that was not actively and perpetually trying to tear itself apart.

I stumbled into a small, clean, and utterly empty side-alley, my legs finally giving out from under me. I slid down the smooth, cool surface of a wall, my body shaking with a violence that had nothing to do with the cold. I looked at my hands. They were trembling. I looked at the stolen vest, at the dark, still-wet spatter of blood that was not my own. I clutched the stolen bag to my chest, its weight a constant, heavy reminder of the man who had carried it just an hour ago.

This was it. I had made it. I had won.

So why did it feel like I was dying?

This had to be a dream. A very, very vivid and very, very cruel one. The kind of dream you have in the final, oxygen-starved moments before your brain finally shuts down for good. I had been caught. The Fixer, the one with the polite voice, he had caught me. And this... this was just some strange and beautiful hallucination, a final, merciful lie my own mind was telling me before the end.

I reached out a trembling hand and touched the wall beside me. It was smooth, cool, and undeniably solid. I breathed in. The clean, sweet air filled my lungs. I was here. I was really, truly, and for some reason, still alive.

I had done it. I had crawled out of the trash bin of the world and had landed in a palace. A quiet, clean, and terrifyingly empty palace. I was a rat in a king's court, and I was so, so profoundly and absolutely out of my depth.

I did not belong here. I was a piece of filth, a walking, breathing crime scene, and I had just tracked my own, bloody footprints all over their clean, white floors. Someone would find me. Someone would see the lie I was wearing.

The guards, the Fixers, some kind of corporate peacekeeper. They would find me, and they would correct their mistake. They would drag me back to the alley, back to the moss, back to the corpse with the broken head that was wearing my own ragged clothes, my own familiar stink of failure.

And with that, I looked at my hands, at the stolen vest, at the dark, still-wet spatter of blood that was not my own. I had been so focused on the escape, on the raw, animal need to survive the next five seconds, that I had failed to consider the next five hours.

Or the next five days. The man I had... the man who had fallen... he was not a rat. Rats do not have clean hands. They do not wear clothes that are not stained with the filth of the Backstreets. They do not carry crisp, white data-folders with the official, stylized seal of a Wing on them.

A new and terrible kind of cold, a cold that had nothing to do with the clean, filtered air of the Nest, began to seep into my bones.

Who was he? Who had I just killed?

In the Backstreets, a death is a statistic. A body is a resource. A missing person is just... Tuesday. But here? In this clean, quiet, and orderly world? People with papers like these, they were not just statistics. They were assets. They were investments. They were someone's son, someone's subordinate, someone's property. And property, in The City, is always, without exception, accounted for.

A fresh wave of nausea washed over me, more potent than the exhaustion or the pain. I had traded a simple predator for a complex one. The Fixer in the alley, the one with the polite voice, he was just a hunter. His motives were simple. He wanted to kill me because I was a nuisance, a piece of trash that needed to be cleaned up.

But this... this was different. I had not just killed a person. I had stolen a piece of a system. And a system, a great and terrible corporate system like a Wing, does not just get angry. It gets curious. It investigates. It sends people. People who are much, much smarter and much, much more patient than a simple Grade 7 Fixer.

"WHAT IF HE WAS IMPORTANT—WHAT IF HIS FATHER IS A SYNDICATE BOSS?! A WING EXECUTIVE? WHAT IF I DID NOT JUST COMMIT A MURDER BUT A GODDAMN ACT OF WAR!"

I was not just a rat who had snuck into the palace anymore. I was a rat who had murdered one of the king's favored sons and was now wearing his clothes, thinking no one would notice. They would notice. They would find the body. They would check the records. They would see a single, unaccounted-for applicant who had passed through the gate. And then they would start looking for him. They would start looking for me.

I had been so proud of my cleverness, of my desperate, bloody survival instinct. But it was just another form of stupidity. I had traded a quick death in a dirty alley for a slow, methodical, and very, very professional one in a clean and beautiful cage. The quiet of this place was no longer a comfort. It was the silence of a hunting ground, and I was the only prey.

I scrambled to my feet, my injured ankle screaming a protest that I could not afford to listen to. I had to hide. I had to disappear. But where do you disappear to in a world that is so clean, so orderly, so... perfect? Every corner was lit. Every surface was polished. There was nowhere for a rat to hide. For there is no convenient placed trash bin in a Nest.

I was so, so fucked.

Chapter Text

"SHIT!" The word was a dry, rasping thing, a piece of gravel scraped from the back of my throat, spoken aloud into the crushing quiet of the alley.

My immediate reality in the clean, silent alley was a disorienting assault of contradictions. The physical pain was a familiar anchor—a sharp, radiating agony from my ankle, a dull, concussive throb at the back of my skull, and the raw, bruised ache in my throat. But the environment was an alien landscape.

The silence was the most unnerving part; it was a heavy, layered quiet, not the temporary lull between screams and sirens I was used to. I remained slumped against the smooth, cool wall for several minutes, my body caught in a violent, full-body tremor that was a mixture of adrenaline withdrawal, shock, and a profound, soul-deep cold. My first coherent thought was not of escape, but of the impossibility of my situation.

The cold, smooth texture of the wall's material didn't just feel real; it felt expensive. There was no grit, no grime, no damp smear of unidentifiable filth that coated every surface in the Backstreets. It was a perfect, seamless plane of manufactured stone, and the touch of it sent a jolt of horrifying clarity through me.

This was no dream. The clean air, the distant, impossibly blue sky visible between the towering buildings, the oppressive silence—it was all real. I had survived. I had made it out. And the relief that should have come with that realization was completely absent, replaced by a new and far more sophisticated kind of terror.

I was a piece of filth in an unblemished room. I was a walking, bleeding, breathing crime scene. The stench of my own fear-sweat, the metallic tang of drying blood, the ingrained odor of Backstreet refuse that clung to my ragged clothes—I was a walking olfactory violation in this sterile world. I scrambled to my feet, my injured ankle screaming a protest that was drowned out by the klaxon of panic in my head, and I looked down at myself.

The stolen vest was a disaster. It was a dark, wet map of another man's final moments, the fabric stiffening in places where the blood had begun to dry, the spatter patterns a silent, screaming testimony to the violence I had committed. My own clothes underneath were no better, soaked with the same blood, the same filth from the alley with the corpses.

I had to change. I had to erase the evidence. I ripped open the stolen shoulder bag that was still slung across my chest, its strap digging into the bruised muscle of my shoulder. My fingers, clumsy and shaking, fumbled with the clasp, my nails scraping against the clean metal. Inside, nestled amongst the few meager possessions of a dead man, was a small, worn wallet made of some synthetic leather. I tore it open, my heart pounding a frantic, desperate rhythm against my ribs.

My hope died a quick and brutal death. There was no identification card. No plastic slip with a name and a face that could tell me the name of the ghost I was now impersonating. It must have fallen out in the chaos of the tunnel, lost in the sea of bodies and blood. The wallet contained only a meager collection of Ahn, a thin stack of worn, low-denomination bills. I counted them with a desperate, frantic speed, my mind struggling with the simple arithmetic.

'23,800.' It was a fortune to a rat who usually measured their wealth in half-eaten cans of food. But here? In a world where a clean shirt probably cost more than that? It was nothing. It was an insult. It was just enough money to buy a hot meal and a final, comfortable place to sit while I waited for the inevitable end.

A sound, a low and guttural noise of pure, undiluted rage, tore from my throat. I threw the wallet, the useless piece of another man's life, against the far wall of the alley. It hit with a pathetic, slapping sound and fell to the ground, a small and insignificant piece of trash in this impossibly clean space.

I kicked it. A full-bodied, desperate, and ultimately pointless kick with my good leg. The wallet skittered a few feet, its journey ended by the unyielding wall. The act did nothing. The fear, the desperation, the cold, creeping certainty of my own doom—it was all still there, a knot of ice in my gut. I slid back down the wall, my head in my hands, the rough texture of my own filth-caked hair a familiar and almost comforting sensation.

What was I supposed to do? I had no name. I had no face. I had a pocketful of useless money and a suit of clothes that was screaming 'murderer' to anyone who cared to look. The K-Corp guard in the tunnel... he had been a fool. A blind, overworked, and blissfully incurious fool. He had seen a story that made sense—an applicant defending himself from a rat—and he had accepted it because it was the easiest and most efficient thing to do. He would not be the last person to look for me. Others would come. People who were not fools. People whose job it was to ask the questions that the guard had not.

I had to create a new story. A better one. One that was so loud, so confident, and so completely and utterly insane that it might just become the truth. Another murder was out of the question. The clothes-swapping trick was a one-time miracle, a fluke of chaos and circumstance. I couldn't replicate it. I needed something else. An alibi. A history. A reason to be here that was not 'I just bludgeoned a man to death and stole his life.'

Acting on their own desperate volition, my hands plunged back into the stolen bag. I rummaged frantically, my fingers pushing past a half-eaten nutrition bar and a spare battery pack for some device I did not recognize. And then, my fingers closed around something cool, smooth, and rectangular. I pulled it out.

It was a datapad, but unlike any I had ever seen. The ones that occasionally found their way into the Backstreets were thick, clunky things, their screens scratched, their casings held together with tape. This... this was different. It was thin, almost impossibly so, its body a single, seamless piece of dark, matte-black material that felt cool and solid in my hand. It was shaped less like a tablet and more like... like a camera.

One you could hold in a single hand, your fingers wrapping around its ergonomic grip. A small, flexible strap was attached to the side, clearly meant to secure it to the user's wrist. It was a piece of technology so far beyond my own experience that it felt like an artifact from another world. What did this man do for a living that he needed a device like this? Was he a reporter? A corporate spy? The possibilities were a new and terrible garden of paranoid fantasies.

A small, almost invisible button on the side of the device seemed to be the only control. With a trembling thumb, I pressed it. The screen, which had been a perfect, featureless black, flickered to life. Not with a welcome screen, not with a menu, but with a single, stark, and utterly incomprehensible image.

The screen was a chaotic, flickering mess of what looked like static, but it was not the simple black and white of a dead channel. Corrupted color, fragmented images that were too fast and too broken to be understood. Jagged lines of green and purple shot across the screen, interspersed with what looked like a single, distorted human eye, stretched and warped into a grotesque oval, before it dissolved back into the digital noise. The image was accompanied by a sound, a low, unpleasant buzz that emanated from a small speaker on the device. It was the sound of a machine in pain.

And in the center of this chaotic, digital storm, there were two words, written in a clean, simple, and almost mockingly calm white font.

"WARNING: DATA CORRUPTED"

"ENTER SAFE MODE?"

I stared at the screen, the words a foreign and utterly meaningless prayer. Safe Mode? What in the hell IS a a Safe Mode? The concept was so odd, so fundamentally at odds with every second of my entire existence, that my mind struggled to even form a definition.

Safety was a trash bin that the Sweepers ignored. Safety was a moment of quiet between the screams. Safety was a lie you told yourself in the dark to keep from going completely insane. It was not a button you could press. It was not a place you could enter. Was this a trick? A trap? If I pressed it, would it send a signal to the real owners? Would it broadcast my location to every Fixer and corporate enforcer in the Nest?

But then... what if it was not a trick? What if, in this clean world, safety was a real thing? A feature. A system. A place where the data was not corrupted, where the screaming digital noise would stop. A place where, just for a moment, I could be... safe.

—The possibility was so seductive, so profoundly and absolutely tempting, that it was a physical thing, a warm and gentle hand on the back of my neck, whispering a promise of a peace I had never known. The world of paranoia, of the constant, grinding fear of being hunted, of the certainty that I was a dead man who was just taking a little too long to lie down... it could all just... stop. If I just pressed the button.

My thumb hovered over the glowing question on the screen. The choice was a simple and terrible one. Was this the key to a sanctuary, or was it the trigger for my own execution? I had dug myself in that situation myself, all for a chance to survive.

And as I pressed down. The screen underwent a transformation. The chaotic, buzzing static collapsed in on itself, folding into a single, bright point of white light in the center of the screen before expanding outwards in a smooth, silent ripple of cool blue. A series of clean, white icons materialized, their designs simple and intuitive, things I could understand without having to read the text beneath them: a small camera, a gear, a series of horizontal lines that must have meant a list of some kind. It was not a full system. It was a stripped-down, emergency version, a lifeboat floating on an ocean of corrupted data.

The background, the lock screen, was a picture. A still image, frozen in a moment of impossible happiness. It was the man from the tunnel. He was smiling, a genuine, unforced smile that reached his eyes, crinkling the corners.

His arm was wrapped around a young woman with kind eyes and a gentle expression, her head resting on his shoulder. They were standing in what looked like a park, a place with real, living trees, their leaves a vibrant and almost painful shade of green. The grass beneath their feet was a perfect, manicured carpet, a thing so alien to my experience it might as well have been a scene from another planet.

For a moment, I just stared, the datapad held loosely in my hand. This was a person with a life. With someone who smiled at him like that. A cold, hard knot of something that felt like stone and tasted like bile formed in the pit of my stomach. The ghost in the tunnel, the one I had created with a piece of scrap metal, had a face now. And it was smiling at me. He was not a ghost. He was a memory. And memories, I reminded myself with a fresh and terrible surge of panicked resolve, can be erased.

"NO! DELETE IT! DELETE IT ALL! I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR DAMN LIFE! I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID PICTURES! IT'S ALL JUST DATA! IT HAS TO GO! NOW!" The scream was silent, a frantic and desperate prayer in the confines of my own skull.

My fingers flew across the screen, my movements clumsy but driven by this new and terrible purpose. The bloody smudge from my thumb smeared across the smiling faces as I swiped the lock screen away. I navigated through menus I did not understand. Guided by the universal symbols of corporate design, I found the icon that looked like a stack of photographs. The gallery. I tapped it.

Dozens of pictures. Thumbnails of a life I had just extinguished. The smiling woman, again and again. An older couple, their faces lined with a gentle kindness, probably his parents. A group of laughing friends, their arms slung around each other, a moment of casual and effortless camaraderie that made my own solitary existence feel like a physical wound. I did not look at them. I could not afford to. My eyes scanned the screen, ignoring the faces, looking only for the options. The words. The commands. My finger found it at the top of the screen: Delete All.

"Are you sure you want to permanently delete all items?"

I did not hesitate for a second. My thumb slammed down on the glowing 'Confirm' button. The pictures vanished. The screen was a blank, sterile white, a clean and empty canvas where a life had once been painted. It was not enough. I went back, my heart pounding a wild and frantic rhythm. I found the message logs, the call history, the personal notes. I did not read them. I just deleted. Delete. Delete. Delete. With every tap of my finger, I felt a strange and terrible sense of power, a feeling of clean and absolute control.

Finally, I found the system settings, the small gear icon that represented the heart of the device. And there it was. The final solution. Factory Reset. I pressed it.

"This will erase all data from your device's internal storage, including your accounts, system and app data and settings, and downloaded apps."

I confirmed. A small, blue progress bar appeared on the screen, a slow and methodical erasure of a life's mundane and beautiful details, from the contacts in his address book to the stupid, time-wasting games he had probably played on his commute. I watched the bar fill, the percentage climbing with an agonizing slowness. Each tick of the numbers was a final, quiet nail in a coffin that only I would ever know existed.

When it was finished, the device went dark for a moment, and then it rebooted. A short, cheerful, and utterly soulless jingle played from the speaker, the theme song of a machine that had just been born again. The screen was now a bright, clean, and welcoming blue, with a single prompt in the center: Create a Username.

I let the datapad fall into my lap. The digital ghost was gone. Now, I just had to deal with the papers. I looked down at the folder, at the crisp, clean documents that were my only and final hope. What the hell was this stuff for, anyway? I pulled the papers from the folder, my bloody fingers leaving small, faint smudges on the clean, white surface.

WING L – NEST ENTRY PERMIT (24-HOUR VALIDITY)
DOCUMENT ID: WL-NEP-981-L-477B
ISSUING AUTHORITY: Wing L Corporate Worker & Security Council

SUBJECT: Aramitsu, M.
CLEARANCE LEVEL: Provisional (Tier 4 – Non-Citizen, Restricted Access)
BIOMETRIC SIGNATURE: 7d4f-c3a9-e0b1 (On File)
ISSUED: 08:00, Cycle 345, Year 981
EXPIRES: 08:00, Cycle 346, Year 981
APPROVED TRANSIT CORRIDOR: Checkpoint L-12 -> Designated Route Gamma-7 -> Destination
DESTINATION: Lobotomy Corporation, Nest L Division (Surface Reception Area)
STATUS: APPROVED (Pending On-Site Biometric Signature Verification and Physical Search)
Failure to report to the designated destination within the specified validity window will result in the immediate and permanent revocation of this permit. The bearer will be classified as an Unregistered Entity and will be subject to immediate expulsion, detainment, or neutralization by Wing L Security forces. Non-compliance is not an option. We build a better future, together.

(Back of Permit)

The reverse side of the stiff, semi-translucent paper was a dense and almost unreadable wall of text, printed in a font so small it made my eyes ache. A massive, faint watermark of the Wing L sigil—a gear interlocked with a stylized wing—was visible beneath the words.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF PROVISIONAL NEST ENTRY (FORM 77-C)

1. SCOPE OF PERMIT: This permit grants the bearer, hereafter referred to as "The Subject," temporary and restricted access to Wing L for the sole purpose of transit from the point of entry to the designated destination. Any deviation from the approved transit corridor is a direct violation of this agreement and will trigger an immediate security response. Loitering is prohibited. Unscheduled stops are prohibited. Interaction with citizens is prohibited.

2. PROHIBITED ITEMS: The Subject is forbidden from bringing the following into Nest L: unregistered weaponry (ballistic, bladed, or conceptual), illicit chemical compounds, non-standard biological matter (including unsealed foodstuffs from non-Wing sources), personal communication devices not approved by Wing L Authority, and any data-storage medium containing unsanctioned information.

3. SEARCH & SEIZURE: By presenting this permit, The Subject consents to a full and complete physical and biometric search at any point during their transit, to be conducted by authorized Wing L Security personnel. Refusal to comply will be treated as an act of aggression against the Wing.

4. WAIVER OF LIABILITY: Wing L and its associated corporate entities assume no responsibility or liability for any and all harm that may befall The Subject during their time within the Nest. This includes the risk of physical injury or death. By entering the Nest, The Subject acknowledges and accepts all risks, known and unknown, and forfeits any right to compensation or legal recourse.

LOBOTOMY CORPORATION, WING L DIVISION – HUMAN RESOURCES & ASSET ACQUISITION
DOCUMENT ID: LC-RA-981-L-148
"Face the Fear, Build the Future"

CONGRATULATIONS, APPLICANT ARAMITSU!

"Following a rigorous and highly selective screening process, we are thrilled to inform you that you have been chosen to advance to the final stage of our recruitment initiative. This is not merely an offer of employment; it is an invitation to become part of a pivotal moment in human history, a new dawn for our City powered by courage and innovation.

You might become one of 150 specially selected pioneers who will have the distinct honor of contributing to a brighter future for all of humanity. At Lobotomy Corporation, we understand that true progress is forged in the crucible of adversity. We believe that the greatest challenges do not require the strongest muscles or the sharpest minds, but the greatest courage.

Your assignment is to join our primary operational team at our state-of-the-art energy extraction and refinement facility, located deep beneath the foundations of Nest L. Here, you will play a vital, hands-on role in our mission to secure a revolutionary new source of energy. Utilizing our patented Cognito-Energy Conversion process, our teams work directly with a unique Exotic Ore Matrix (EOM) that possesses properties previously thought impossible.

The environment is unique, the work is challenging, and the potential for discovery is limitless. Your fortitude, your resilience, and your willingness to confront the unknown in a high-pressure environment will be your most valuable assets.

Your success in this initial assignment will not only secure you a permanent and highly lucrative position within our prestigious Wing, complete with unparalleled benefits and security. It will also mark you as a true savior of our City, one of the few with the bravery to face the darkness and bring back the light."

(Back of Assignment)

The back of the thick, cream-colored paper was divided into three neat, ruthlessly efficient sections. It was practical, it was direct, and it was deeply unsettling.

A. REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS:

A small, cleanly rendered map depicted a single, highlighted path through a sector of Nest L. The route was simple, direct, leading from the approximate location of the Nest L-12 checkpoint to a large, monolithic, and completely windowless building marked only with the Lobotomy Corporation logo.

REPORTING TIME: No later than 16:00, Cycle 346, Year 981. Punctuality is not a suggestion; it is a prerequisite for success. Late arrivals will be considered voluntary withdrawals from the program.

B. PROHIBITED PERSONAL ITEMS:

All personal communication devices (including, but not limited to, datapads, communicators, and signal boosters).

All recording devices (audio, visual, or conceptual).

All forms of unregistered data-storage.

All personal weaponry. (Note: L-Corp will provide all necessary tools and equipment for your assignment).

C. PRELIMINARY NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (BINDING UPON ACCEPTANCE OF ASSIGNMENT):

This section was a single, dense block of text in an even smaller font than the Nest permit. I couldn't understand half the words, phrases like "proprietary conceptual assets" and "ontological hazards," but the message between the lines was as clear as a knife to the throat. By showing up, you were agreeing to shut your mouth. Forever.

You could not talk about the work. You could not talk about the facility. You could not talk about the "tools and equipment" they provided. You could not talk about anything you saw, heard, or experienced within their walls to anyone, ever. Breaking this rule would result in the immediate termination of my contract, the seizure of all my assets, and something the document referred to with a chilling vagueness as "further corrective measures administered by our Disciplinary Department." It was a contract that promised a new life in one paragraph and threatened to erase it in the next.

But still... one hundred and fifty? The number felt... small. Wrong. A Wing, one of the great pillars of The City, was only hiring one hundred and fifty people for a energy extraction facility? A mining company? A real mining operation would need thousands of workers, right? An army of laborers to dig and haul and process.

Why only one hundred and fifty? Were they just the first wave? The managers, maybe? And the job description... "face the fear," "build the future"... What did that have to do with digging rocks out of the ground? It sounded... fancy. The kind of words people in Nests used when they wanted to sound important, a language I did not speak and had no interest in learning.

Then, another part of the document caught my eye. No list of required skills. No demand for a degree from some Nest academy I had never heard of. No mention of previous work experience whatsoever. They were not looking for miners with years of service. They were not looking for demolition experts or geologists. They were looking for... anyone. Anyone willing to show up. A quiet, almost hysterical laugh escaped my lips.

I shrugged, the motion sending a fresh wave of pain through my bruised shoulder. A strange job, then. A very strange job. But even a strange job was a job. A place to be. A place to hide. If I could just get in, if I could just last long enough... I could disappear. I could become a number, a faceless cog in their machine. I could become a new person. A real person. The thought was a spark of insane, desperate hope. My eyes, which had been dull with terror, suddenly felt sharp, focused with a new and terrible kind of light.

And with that, I picked up the datapad again, its screen still glowing with the prompt for a new username. I ignored it. I found the recording function, the small, red camera icon. I turned the lens on myself.

On the screen, a stranger stared back. A filthy, wild-eyed animal with matted black hair and the blood of another man smeared on his stolen clothes. This face... I needed to change it. I forced my lips into a wide, unnatural grin. It felt like pulling skin too tight over my skull. I took a deep, shuddering breath, and I began to perform.

I hit the record button. The small, red light blinked, a single, judgmental eye in the quiet of the alley. I held the datapad out at arm's length, mimicking a pose I might have seen once on some flickering, pirated Backstreet broadcast, and I exploded into a manic burst of forced enthusiasm.

"WHAT IS UP, EVERYBODY! Your boy has officially made it! I got a super sweet corporate gig at a Wing called L-Corp! The welcome party at the checkpoint was absolutely wild! They were so excited for the new hires that the whole tunnel just erupted in celebration!"

I gestured with my free hand at the clean, empty alley around me, as if it were a luxury suite, the walls adorned with invisible works of art. My laugh was a high, unhinged, and brittle sound that echoed off the smooth, unforgiving walls.

"Yeah, things got a little rowdy, you know how it is! Some corporate fireworks, a little mosh pit action..." I pointed a trembling finger at the dark, wet stains on my stolen vest, the grin on my face stretching wider, feeling like it might crack the skin. "Got a little messy, but hey!"

It was at that moment, in the middle of my frantic performance, that I heard it. The sound of clean, sharp footsteps on the pavement, approaching the mouth of the alley. It was not the scuffing, uncertain sound of a rat. It was the confident, rhythmic tap of expensive shoes.

A man and a woman, both dressed in the clean, simple, and impossibly expensive-looking casual wear of the Nest, walked past. They did not stop. They did not even break stride. The woman glanced into the alley, her nose wrinkling slightly with distaste as her eyes swept over my filthy form. She turned to her companion, her voice a low, dismissive murmur, not even meant for me to hear.

"Ugh. What's wrong with him?"

The man did not even bother to look directly at me. His gaze flickered towards the alley for a fraction of a second before returning to the path ahead. "Just some Backstreet trash that slipped through the checkpoint. Ignore it. The Sweepers will get him eventually."

And then they were gone. Their footsteps faded, leaving me alone in the alley with the echo of their casual, unthinking cruelty.

The grin on my face froze, then collapsed. A hot, prickling wave of something intensely shameful washed up my neck, burning my cheeks. The datapad in my hand suddenly felt incredibly heavy, a monument to my own pathetic stupidity. Every lie I had just shouted, every manic gesture, every unhinged laugh, it all echoed back at me in the crushing silence.

The little red recording light was not a witness to my clever alibi. It was a witness to my complete and utter insanity. I was not a clever survivor building a new reality. I was a crazy, blood-soaked rat screaming at a wall, and the clean people of this world had looked at me with the same mild annoyance they might show a pile of rotting garbage.

I stabbed a finger at the screen, ending the recording. As the little red light went out, the persona I had created collapsed in an instant. I slumped back against the wall, the datapad clattering from my nerveless fingers. The grin was gone, its absence leaving my face feeling slack and numb, the familiar taut lines of terror pulling my features back into their usual shape.

The alibi was utterely pathetic, but the act, the performance, it had served a purpose. It had given me a direction. I had spoken the lie into existence. Now, I just had to live it.

I looked down at the data-folder, at the crisp, clean papers that were my only and final hope. The invitation was time-sensitive. The recruitment session was taking place today. Failure to attend would render the clearance papers invalid, and I would be subject to immediate expulsion from the Nest.

My first priority was to erase the evidence. The thought was a cold, hard, and brutally logical intrusion into the screaming chaos of my own mind. I could not buy new clothes, not yet. I could not present myself to any kind of authority looking like I had just crawled out of a slaughterhouse. I had to clean the ones I was wearing.

I limped through the clean, empty streets, each step sending a fresh, white-hot spike of agony up my leg from the shattered ankle. The ragged appearance I presented drew a few, brief, and dismissive glances from the well-dressed Nest-dwellers who passed me by, their movements fluid and confident, their clothes immaculate.

To them, I was not a murderer. I was just another piece of human refuse that had somehow slipped through the cracks in their perfect world, an unsightly and temporary problem that would eventually be dealt with by the district's sanitation services or, more likely, a bored corporate peacekeeper with a quota to fill. Their dismissal was a small and temporary mercy. It gave me time.

I found a small, ornamental public fountain in a quiet, sterile plaza surrounded by towering glass buildings that reflected a sky of impossible blue. The fountain was a mockery of nature, a single, perfect stream of recycled, chemically-purified water arcing from a polished chrome spout into a basin of smooth, grey stone. With a desperation born of pure terror, I began to scrub at the bloodstains on the stolen vest.

I dipped a corner of the fabric into the cold, clear water and rubbed, my movements frantic and furtive, my eyes constantly scanning the plaza for any sign of a security drone or a corporate peacekeeper. The water in the basin turned a pale, sickening pink, the fabric of the vest a dark, damp grey. The stains did not disappear completely, but they faded, becoming less a fresh declaration of a crime and more an old, ambiguous memory of one. I used a discarded piece of promotional cloth I found near the basin to wipe the dried blood from my face and hands. I was lucky. No one stopped. No one cared.

Clean, but still a mess, I now faced the daunting task of navigating a world that was not built for him. The Nest was a disorienting landscape of clean lines, of reflective surfaces, of a logic that was utterly alien to my Backstreet sensibilities. There were no familiar landmarks, no piles of refuse that told you which Syndicate's territory you were in, no graffiti-covered walls to mark a path. I felt a profound and disorienting sense of agoraphobia, a fear of the wide, open, and terrifyingly clean spaces. The silence was the worst part. It was a weighted, expectant silence, the kind that precedes a verdict.

Buying food, even with the dead man's meager Ahn, was out of the question. A vendor would look at me, at my damp, stained clothes, at the wild terror in my eyes, and they would ask questions. Or worse, they would make a quiet call. The Fixers from the alley... had they killed Pete and Marcus? Were they still looking for the last rat who had escaped their sterilization? 

They could be anywhere. They could be anyone. They could be the smiling man behind the counter of a noodle stand, just waiting for me to get comfortable before putting a blade in my back. No. The only path was forward. The only path was the one laid out in the stolen papers. It was a deadline, and a deadline was a direction.

I eventually found my way by a simple, primal logic: I moved towards the biggest and most imposing structure I could see. In the heart of Nest L, one building dominated the skyline. It was a colossal tower of a dark, almost black, polished stone and smoked glass, a monolithic and silent statement of absolute corporate power that seemed to suck the very light from the air around it. It did not scrape the sky; it owned it.

The L-Corp logo, the same one from my stolen papers, was emblazoned near its peak, not in neon, but in a subtle, inset design of a slightly lighter stone, a quiet and confident declaration of ownership over the very sky. The building was set back from the main thoroughfare, perched atop a wide, terraced plaza. Two massive flights of wide, shallow concrete stairs, each fifty steps or more, led up to the main entrance, creating a sense of a formal, almost religious, procession.

As I began my slow, painful ascent up the first flight of stairs, the silence became even more profound. This was a Wing. An energy company. There should have been noise. The distant rumble of machinery, the hum of massive power converters, the sound of... drilling. But there was nothing. Only the soft whisper of the wind and the sound of my own, ragged breathing.

I reached the top of the stairs, a vast, windswept plaza of the same dark stone. The main entrance was a set of massive, revolving glass doors, so clean they were almost invisible. I pushed through, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs, and stepped into the lobby.

It was... normal. Deceptively so. The floor was a polished, white marble, the ceiling was impossibly high, and the far wall was a single, massive pane of glass that looked out onto a manicured corporate garden. A few comfortable-looking sofas were arranged in small, conversational islands. A single, long reception desk, carved from a block of that same dark stone as the building's exterior, sat to one side. It was just a lobby. A very big, very clean, and very, very quiet lobby. There was a woman behind the desk, her fingers typing silently on a keyboard that made no sound.

I limped towards her, each step an agony, my wet, ragged clothes a screaming violation of the room's sterile perfection as I felt the weight of her gaze on me.

"Excuse me," I began, my voice a dry, cracking thing I barely recognized as my own. "I... I'm sorry to bother you. I think... I think I'm in the right place? For the... the job?" I fumbled with the folder, pulling out the recruitment assignment paper, my hands shaking so badly that the document rattled. I held it out to her, a pathetic and blood-stained offering.

Her eyes, a cool and distant grey, flickered from my face, down to my clothes, and finally to the paper in my hand. Her expression did not change, but a small, almost imperceptible muscle in her jaw twitched. She took the paper from me, her fingers careful not to touch my own. She scanned it, her eyes moving with a quick and practiced efficiency.

"You are on time," she said, her voice as cool and smooth as the polished stone of her desk. She did not comment on my appearance. She did not ask what had happened to me. The state I was in was simply a piece of data that was not relevant to her current task. "Please follow me. The orientation group is assembling."

She stood, her movements fluid and efficient, and walked out from behind the desk. I followed, limping in her wake. She led me to a small, waiting alcove where three other men were standing. They all held the same white folder, the same recruitment paper. They were older than me, their faces hard, their bodies carrying the tense, coiled energy of men who were familiar with violence. They looked at me, their eyes taking in my ragged state with a mixture of contempt and a strange, almost professional, disinterest. They knew what a mess looked like. And they knew it was usually best to keep your distance from it.

The receptionist led the four of us towards a wide, sweeping staircase. As we walked, the three men began to talk, their voices low and rough.

"Can you believe this shit?" the first one, a burly man with a network of faded tattoos on his neck, muttered. "A Wing. A real, honest-to-gods Wing. After all those years of scuttling for crumbs in the Backstreets... I almost feel respectable."

"Don't get your hopes up, Dmitri," the second one, a wiry man with nervous, constantly moving eyes, replied. "You hear the stories about this place. They say it's not a normal gig. They say people who go in... they don't always come out the same."

"It's better than getting shanked by some rat over a half-eaten food pack," the third man, who seemed to be their leader, said. His voice was calm, steady, and held a note of finality. "This is our last chance, boys. A clean slate. Whatever they ask us to do, we do it. No questions. We just need to pass the entrance exam."

The receptionist led us down a long, white hallway on the second floor. The silence was absolute. We stopped before a simple, white door with no markings. She opened it and gestured for us to enter.

The room was as white and sterile as the hallway, and completely devoid of windows. The floor was a seamless expanse of white tile, the walls the same. In the center of the room stood a single, metallic chair. It was a thing of cold, brutalist design, its surface a dull, brushed steel. Thick, black restraints were attached to the armrests and the legs. A large, sleek, metallic headset, connected to the chair by a thick bundle of black cables, was perched on its back.

To one side, there was a small, fancy wooden table with a stack of papers and pens, and two comfortable-looking sofa chairs. It was an interview room. A very, very strange one.

"Please wait here," the receptionist said, her voice echoing slightly in the bare room. "The interview will begin shortly." She looked at the three men. "Who will be first?"

The leader of the group stepped forward. "I will."

She nodded. "The trial will last for 60 seconds. Please answer the preliminary questions, then take a seat." She gestured to the fancy table. The man sat down and began to fill out a form.

I leaned against the far wall, my mind a screaming vortex of confusion and fear. A metallic chair with restraints? A headset? What kind of an interview was this? Was this some kind of a joke? A very, very bad one? They... they don't give people lobotomies, right? That's just a word. A funny, old-fashioned word. They can't... they can't actually be literal about it, can they?

The man finished his paperwork. The receptionist took it, reviewed it with a single, quick glance, and then gestured to the metallic chair. "Please, take a seat."

The man walked to the chair and sat down. He did not look afraid. He looked... resigned. As if this was just another, stranger hoop to jump through. The receptionist moved behind him. She picked up the heavy, metallic headset. She placed it over his head, pulling it down until it covered his eyes and ears. With a series of quick, efficient movements, she fastened the restraints around his wrists and ankles, the straps clicking shut with a sound of absolute finality. She then walked to a small, almost invisible panel on the wall and pressed a button.

A low hum filled the room. The man in the chair, who had been sitting perfectly still, suddenly stiffened. His entire body went rigid, his muscles bunching under his clothes. A low, guttural groan escaped his lips, the only sound he would make. Then, he began to convulse. It was not a simple tremor. It was a violent, full-body spasm, his back arching, his limbs straining against the thick, black restraints with a force that should have broken them.

The metallic chair creaked and groaned under the strain. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles in his cheeks bulging. His eyes, visible for a moment as the headset shifted, had rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. A thin trickle of smoke, smelling of ozone and something that was horribly, sickeningly organic, like burning hair and meat, began to radiate upwards from the sides of the headset.

The 60 seconds felt like an eternity as the man's convulsions grew more and more violent. I stood frozen against the wall, my own body rigid with a new and profound kind of terror. The other two men were just as still, their faces pale, their expressions... They had known. They had known this was coming.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The hum of the machine cut out. The man in the chair went completely limp, his body slumping against the restraints like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The restraints clicked open, and the machine ejected him with a single, sharp hiss of pneumatics. He did not fall out. He was thrown, his boneless body tumbling from the chair and landing on the clean, white floor in a broken, undignified heap.

His head... it had turned into soup. A dark, viscous, and steaming liquid was leaking from his nose, his ears, and the corners of his eyes.

"What the fuck?" The words were a whisper, a breath, a thought given an accidental and horrified voice.

The receptionist walked over to the panel on the wall and tapped a few more buttons. A small, synthesized voice, the same kind as the K-Corp guards, emanated from a speaker. "Subject's Cognito-Hazard Resilience rating: 17%. Result: Catastrophic psychic collapse and full neural liquefaction. Subject is below the 32% minimum viability threshold. The subject has failed the trial, unfortunatly."

She looked at the two remaining men, her face as calm and professional as ever. "As you can see, the results can be... definitive. L-Corp seeks individuals with a degree of... average mental fortitude. The percentage, in this case, was incredibly low. An absurd result, really. Most common citizens possess a baseline resilience of at least 40%. This individual appears to have had no cognitive defenses whatsoever." She then turned her cool, grey eyes on the two men. "Who's next?"

The smell hit me then. It had been a background note, a sharp ozone tang mixed with something organic, but now, with the body lying still and the machine silent, it was blooming in the sterile air of the room. It was the smell of cooked meat, yes, but it was wrong. It was sweet, cloying, with a fatty, overheated scent that spoke of burned nerve endings and boiled fluids. It was the smell of a brain that had been flash-cooked inside a skull. A smell of a life not just ended, but rendered into a useless, steaming slurry.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!—I AM GOING TO DIE! THERE IS NO WAY I CAN PASS THAT! I AM A RAT A SCAVENGER A CREATURE OF PURE SIMPLE AND ANIMALISTIC INSTINCT! MY MIND IS NOT A FORTRESS IT IS A TERRIFIED THING COWERING IN A CAGE OF BONE AND THEY ARE ABOUT TO HOOK IT UP TO A MACHINE THAT WILL TEAR IT TO PIECES!"

"I KILLED A MAN FOR THIS! I BASHED HIS HEAD AGAINST A WALL AND STOLE HIS LIFE FOR A CHANCE TO SIT IN A METAL CHAIR AND HAVE MY HEAD TURNED INTO SOUP?! WHAT A FUCKING JOKE! WHAT A COMPLETE AND UTTER JOKE ON ME!"

The two remaining men looked at each other. They were pale, yes, but there was no surprise in their eyes. Only a grim and terrible understanding. They had known. This was the price of admission they had been willing to pay. The one with the nervous eyes, the one who had spoken of the stories, gave a short, sharp nod to his burly friend. It was not a gesture of encouragement. It was a gesture of finality, of a decision made long before they had ever stepped into this white room. He then looked at the receptionist, his voice steady despite the horror of what he had just witnessed.

"I am."

The wiry man, the one with the nervous eyes, walked forward. He moved with the stiff, jerky gait of a man walking to his own execution, but his face was a strange and unsettling landscape of resolve. He knew the risks. He had heard the stories. And yet, he was still walking forward.

He sat at the small, wooden table, his back to the corpse on the floor. He filled out the paperwork with a hand that was surprisingly steady, his movements quick and efficient. He did not look at me. He did not look at his remaining friend. He looked only at the paper, at the questions, at the finality of the ink.

"He's going to die! He saw what happened to the first one. He smelled the air. He knows. And he is still doing it. This isn't an interview. And this woman... she is not a receptionist. She is the operator. She is going to sit there, with her calm, grey eyes and her perfect, composed posture, and she is going to turn all of us into soup!"

The man finished the form. He stood, walked to the metallic chair, and sat down without being told. He looked straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the blank, white wall. The receptionist moved with that same, unnerving and silent grace. She placed the headset over his eyes, the dark metal obscuring his face. She fastened the restraints, the clicks of the magnetic locks echoing in the quiet room, a final and absolute punctuation.

She returned to the wall panel. The hum began again.

I braced myself for the screams, for the convulsions, for the inevitable, sickening smell of a human mind being boiled in its own casing. The man in the chair tensed, his knuckles white where his hands were bound to the armrests. A low groan, a sound of immense and terrible pressure, escaped his lips. His body began to tremble, a fine, high-frequency vibration that shook the entire chair. But he did not convulse. He did not arch his back. He just... sat there. Vibrating. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose, a single, dark tear on his pale face.

The 60 seconds passed in a silence that was more terrifying than the screams of the first man. The hum stopped. The restraints clicked open. The machine ejected him with that same, sharp hiss of pneumatics.

He did not tumble out like a broken doll. He staggered, falling from the chair to his knees on the white, tile floor. He was breathing, his chest rising and falling in deep, ragged gasps. He was alive.

The synthesized voice from the wall speaker was as calm and toneless as before. "Subject's Cognito-Hazard Resilience rating: 95%. Result: Minimal psychic degradation. Subject has passed the trial. Welcome to Lobotomy Corporation."

The receptionist looked at the man, who was now pushing himself to his feet, his legs still shaking. "Most impressive," she said, her voice betraying not a single flicker of surprise or any other human emotion. "Please leave your personal belongings, including your bag and any communication devices, on the sofa. Proceed back to the main lobby and take the central elevator to the sub-level designated 'Sector A.' Your colleagues who have also passed the screening are waiting for you there. Do not worry. The path will be made clear. Welcome to the team."

The man nodded, his face pale and slick with sweat. He did not look at his remaining friend. He did not look at me. He stripped off his bag, letting it fall onto one of the comfortable-looking sofas. He turned, and with the unsteady gait of a newborn animal, he walked out of the room.

The last man, the burly one with the tattoos, was next. He did not hesitate. He walked to the table, filled out the form with a big, clumsy hand, and then sat in the chair. The process was the same. The hum. The tension. The 60 seconds of silent, vibrating agony. When the machine ejected him, he too was alive. He stumbled, but he did not fall.

"Subject's Cognito-Hazard Resilience rating: 88%," the synthesized voice announced. "Result: Moderate psychic strain, within acceptable parameters. Subject has passed the trial. Assignment designation: Clerk."

The receptionist looked at the burly man. Her expression was, for the first time, tinged with something that might have been a microscopic hint of... something. It was not pity. It was not disappointment. It was the quiet, professional assessment of a tool that was functional, but not optimal.

"Your resilience is adequate for a clerical position," she said. "Please leave your belongings. Proceed to the third floor and take the service elevator marked 'C-3.' Your orientation will begin shortly."

The man's face fell. Just for a moment. A flicker of something... a deep and profound disappointment. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by that same, stoic resignation. He nodded, dropped his bag, and walked out of the room, his heavy footsteps echoing in the hallway.

Clerk? What in the hell was a Clerk? The word sounded... small. Unimportant. A lesser prize. There were different levels to this hell. Not just life and death, but success and... adequacy.

And then, the room was quiet again. Quiet, except for the sound of my own, frantic heartbeat. It was just me, the receptionist, and the cooling, silent corpse on the floor.

She turned her calm, grey eyes on me. I swallowed hard, my throat a dry and constricted thing.

"It is your turn," she said. It was not a question.

I limped to the table, but not without a renewed sensation of screaming nerves and aching bones. I sat down on the comfortable sofa, the soft cushion a bizarre and insulting contrast to the cold, hard terror that had taken root in my soul. She handed me a form and a pen.

"Before you begin," she said, her voice a low and almost conversational murmur, "I am required to inform you of the two potential employment tracks. As you have witnessed, this trial is... definitive. It measures a quality we value above all others: the ability to maintain neurological homeostasis in the face of a direct, conceptual assault. A mind that collapses, as our first applicant so vividly demonstrated, fails. If they survive, their memory of the last hour is chemically wiped, and they are politely escorted from the premises."

She paused, letting the words hang in the air, a quiet and terrible threat.

"A mind that endures, that weathers the storm with a baseline resilience between 60% and 89%, is deemed suitable for clerical work. They are numerous, replaceable, and their minds are just sturdy enough to handle the ambient dread of our facility without immediately breaking. They are a vital part of our operational support structure."

Her gaze was unwavering, her expression a perfect and unreadable blank.

"But for those whose minds exhibit a resilience of 90% or higher, those who can look into a conceptual void and not have their sanity completely unravel... a different contract is offered. They are selected to become Employees. The spots for this role are far more limited. We select a cohort of precisely one hundred for each 50-day operational cycle. The work is... demanding. But the rewards are unparalleled. This is, without exaggeration, the single greatest employment opportunity in The City. Can you believe it? A 50-day contract with a final salary of three billion Ahn. Fifty days of honest work, and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. All for helping us with a simple, straightforward energy extraction project. A mining operation."

Three billion Ahn. The number was so large, so completely and utterly nonsensical, that it did not even register as money. It was a fairy tale. A joke. And a mining operation? The word felt so... normal. So mundane. A lie so blatant and so simple that it was almost insulting. But the alternative, the truth of the chair, of the liquefied brain, was a thing so monstrous that my mind recoiled from it, desperately scrabbling for the simple, comforting lie.

She saw the disbelief on my face. She did not try to convince me further. "I am merely adhering to my daily task," she said, her voice returning to its cool, professional tone. "The choice, as they say, is yours."

I looked down at the form. It was a simple, one-page document. Name. Age. Next of kin. I left them blank. I did not have a name that mattered. I did not have a family. I was a ghost.

A cascade of questions tumbled through my thoughts, each one colder and sharper than the last. She had not asked for my name. Not for the ID that should have been in the wallet. She had not even glanced at the name on the papers. Why? Was she tired? Exhausted from a long day of turning people into soup? Was it just... boredom? A quiet, corporate apathy that rendered the details of my life an irrelevance? Or was it something else?

Did she already know? Did she see the lie, the fraud I was? Was this whole sterile room just part of the trap? Or was it simpler than that? Did she not care because she knew, with an absolute and final certainty, that in 60 seconds, my name, my past, my entire, miserable existence, would be a meaningless and forgotten smear of cooked protein on her clean floor?

That last thought was a cold and solid thing in the pit of my stomach. Yes. That had to be it. She did not need my name, because I was already dead.

My hand, slick with a fresh sheen of sweat, moved to the bottom of the page. I signed the contract. Not with a name, but with a simple, crude 'X.' My eyes scanned the fine print as I did so. The duration of this contract is for a single, uninterrupted 50-day cycle. Early termination by the Employee is not permitted.

The Employee is forbidden from leaving the facility for the full duration of the cycle. And then, another clause, this one in a bold, underlined font. The Employee agrees to a total and absolute non-disclosure of all operational details, under penalty of... The words blurred, the legalese a dense and unreadable thicket. Secrecy. Absolute secrecy. What could be so secret about a mining operation that the other Wings would go nuts over it? I dismissed the thought. It did not matter. Nothing mattered except the chair.

I stood up and handed her the form. A single bead of sweat trickled down my temple. I quickly scrubbed it away with the back of my hand. I tried to smile, to seem normal, to not look like a terrified animal that was about to be put down.

"Ready when you are," I said, my voice a high and unnatural croak.

She took the form without a word and gestured to the chair. I walked towards it, but... I had to walk around the body of the first man. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling with a dull and lifeless surprise. I averted my gaze while my stomach felt wrong.

I sat down. The metal was cold against my back, even through the damp fabric of my clothes. The smell of cooked brain was so strong here, it was almost a taste. She moved behind me. I felt the weight of the headset as she lowered it over my head, plunging my world into a sudden and absolute darkness. The restraints clicked shut around my wrists and my ankles, a final, cold, and metallic embrace.

I heard her footsteps walk away. I heard the soft, almost inaudible click of the button on the wall. And then... the hum began.

It was not a sound. It was a pressure. A feeling of something immense and ancient waking up inside my own skull. For a moment, there was nothing. Just the darkness, the pressure, and the low, vibrating hum. And then, the universe inside my head broke.

It was not a single image, not a single thought. It was everything, all at once. I felt the walls of my own mind dissolve, the fragile and carefully constructed barriers of my own identity turning to sand. I was in the alley again, but the moss was not blue. It was a color that had no name, a screaming, violent hue that was a physical pain to perceive. The polite Fixer was there, but his face was a shifting, geometric nightmare, his voice a language of pure, mathematical terror that was dismantling my own thoughts, one by one.

The dead man from the tunnel was there, his face whole and unblemished, and he was smiling at me, that kind, gentle smile from the photograph. But his eyes... his eyes were black, empty pits, and they were weeping a thick, dark liquid that smelled like burning sugar.

I was falling, not down a set of stairs, but through an infinite, starless void, the sensation of endless acceleration a constant and agonizing scream in every nerve of my body. The sounds were the worst part. The wet, solid thud of my scrap-metal weapon hitting the young man's skull, over and over. The polite, conversational tone of the Fixer. The final, pathetic gurgle of the man in the tunnel.

They did not play one after another; they all happened at once, a chaotic and overlapping collision of my own personal failures. The thud was a constant, visceral impact against my eardrums, while the Fixer's voice was a sharp needle of sound that pierced through it, and the gurgle was a wet, choking foundation beneath it all.

And through that wall of noise, another sound pushed its way into my mind. A voice, rough and dry like sun-baked earth, reverberated not in my ears, but in the very structure of my skull directly.

"Yo̵u aim̴ ̵l̷i̵k̵e̸ ̷a̶ ̸d̷r̶u̸n̸k̴e̸n̸ ̸m̵o̸n̵k̷e̴y!"

The pronouncement was sharp, a piece of jagged flint thrown with perfect accuracy. It was followed immediately by a different sound, the low, rumbling laughter of another man, a sound rich with amusement at my incompetence. The individual noises bled into each other, creating a singular, overwhelming wave of auditory torment that pounded against the inside of my skull, a physical force intent on shattering my sanity.

I could feel my own brain starting to cook, a low, simmering heat that started at the base of my skull and spread outwards. I was dying. I was really, truly, and for real, dying. My own thoughts were no longer my own. They were a chaotic, screaming torrent of images and sounds, a river of pure, conceptual poison, and I was drowning in it.

I screamed. A raw, ragged, and utterly hopeless sound, trapped inside the silent, dark world of the headset. The moss was in my throat again, a thousand tiny, crawling ants of blue-green fire, choking the air from my lungs.

At the 58-second mark, something inside me broke. The last, stubborn, and terrified part of me that was still fighting, that was still trying to hold on to the idea of "me," it just... let go. The world went white. The screaming stopped. And for two silent seconds, there was nothing.

The hiss of the pneumatics was a violent and unwelcome intrusion. I was thrown from the chair, my body a boneless, twitching thing. I hit the floor hard, and the last, meager contents of my stomach erupted from my mouth in a hot, acidic rush. A pathetic puddle of green vomit spread out on the clean, white floor, just inches from the face of the dead man.

Despite everything, the receptionist did not react. She walked to the wall panel.

"Subject's Cognito-Hazard Resilience rating: 90%," the synthesized voice announced. "Result: Significant psychic trauma, borderline systemic collapse. Subject has passed the trial. Welcome to Lobotomy Corporation."

She looked down at me, a trembling, vomiting, and sobbing wreck on her floor. There was no pity in her eyes. There was no disgust. Her expression, which had been a perfect and unwavering mask of boredom, shifted. It was a subtle change, a slight sharpening of her gaze, a new stillness in her posture. She was no longer just processing a task. She was observing a fascinating and unexpected result.

"Congratulations," The word was flat, but the silence that followed it was different. The air of bored procedure had evaporated. For the first time, she looked at me not as another piece of paperwork to be processed, but as an unexpected result on a printout. She took a step closer, her gaze no longer just dismissive but dissecting, as if she were trying to read the lines of code in my trembling form to understand how such a flawed program had managed to execute.

"You are an Employee. A near failure into the clerical designation, I see. A single, arbitrary percentage point. The entire framework of your future, the dream of three billion Ahn, it all hung on that one, insignificant digit." She took a step closer, her gaze no longer just dismissive but dissecting, as if she were trying to read the lines of code in my trembling form to understand how such a flawed program had managed to execute. "It must be your lucky day."

The word was so absurd, so profoundly and hilariously wrong, that a sound tried to escape my throat. It was not a word. It was the beginning of a laugh, a raw, hysterical bark of pure, unadulterated irony. But my throat was a raw and burning ruin, and the sound came out as a choked, wet, and pathetic wheeze.

Lucky? I had barely survived a corporate-sanctioned massacre. I had just spent sixty seconds in a machine that had turned the man next to me into hot soup and had very nearly done the same to me. If this was luck, I wanted no part of it.

And yet... my throat was on fire, the phantom sensation of the crawling moss a torment that was worse than the actual, physical pain. I looked up at her, my vision blurry with tears and vomit. "Water," I croaked, the word a painful and desperate thing. "Please... water!"

She nodded, a small and efficient gesture. "Of course," she said. She turned and walked to a section of the blank, white wall. She pressed a small, almost invisible panel, and a section of the wall slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a small, recessed alcove with a single, chrome spigot and a stack of clean, white paper cups. She took one, filled it with a precise amount of clear, cold water, and walked back over to me.

She did not hand it to me. She did not even offer it. She simply bent at the waist, her movements economical and precise, and placed the cup on the clean, white floor, just a few inches from the spreading puddle of my own sick.

My body moved on its own, a desperate and pathetic thing. I crawled forward on my hands and knees, my injured ankle dragging uselessly behind me. My shaking hand reached for the cup, my fingers smudging its clean, white surface with blood and grime. I brought it to my lips and drank, the water so cold it was a shock, a beautiful and agonizing relief against the fire in my throat. I drained the cup in three, long, desperate swallows. The phantom sensation of the crawling moss did not disappear, but for a moment, just for a moment, the fire was quenched.

"When you're finished," she said, her voice a flat and toneless instrument, "you will return to the main lobby and take the elevator located behind this desk. You will leave your personal belongings here. All of them." She gestured vaguely towards the sofa where my stolen bag and the now-blank datapad lay, a small pile of another man's life that I had so thoroughly and violently edited.

I drank the last droplet of water from the paper cup, the cool liquid a fleeting mercy against the raw, burning landscape of my throat. My stomach, a hollow and aching void, gave a loud, protesting growl. I was so hungry I felt dizzy, a light-headedness that was blurring the edges of the room.

The insane, hysterical video I had recorded on the datapad flickered through my mind, a brief and distant spark of panic. What if she looked inside? What if she watched it? The thought was immediately crushed by a more immediate and pressing reality. She had told me to leave it. And in this clean, quiet, and terrifyingly orderly world, you did what you were told. To argue, to question, to show any sign of a will that was not perfectly aligned with the instructions you were given... that was how you ended up a steaming pile of liquefied brain on the floor.

I pushed myself up, my body a collection of screaming protests. My injured ankle sent a fresh, blinding spike of pain up my leg. My head throbbed with a dull, concussive rhythm. The receptionist stood near the corpse, her hands clasped behind her back in a posture of perfect and patient stillness. She did not look at the body. She did not look at the puddle of my own sick on the floor. She simply waited, a statue of corporate efficiency.

I limped to the door, my hand closing around the cool, metal handle. I did not look back. I pulled the door open, stepped out into the silent, white hallway, and pulled it shut behind me. The click of the latch was a sound of absolute finality.

I was out of the room. I had survived, only for my knees to gave out again.

The muscles in my legs, already strained to their breaking point by the chase, the fall, and the sheer, gut-wrenching terror of the last hour, simply ceased to function. My knees buckled, and I hit the soft, thick carpet of the hallway with a pathetic, muffled thud. I lay there for a moment, my cheek pressed against the clean, synthetic fibers, the world a swimming, grey haze.

"NO! NOT HERE! I AM NOT GOING TO DIE LIKE THIS! NOT ON A DAMN CARPET! I KILLED A MAN FOR THIS JOB! I AM NOT GOING TO LET A LITTLE BIT OF STARVATION KILL ME NOW!"

The hunger was not just an emptiness anymore. It was a physical thing, a clawing, scraping presence in my gut, a weakness that was turning my bones to water. With a groan that was more animal than human, I began to crawl. I pulled myself along the hallway, my good leg pushing, my bad one dragging uselessly behind me, a dead and painful weight. The hallway was empty. The entire floor was empty. No workers, no men, no women. Just the silence, the white walls, and the soft, mocking whisper of the ventilation system.

I reached the grand staircase, a sweeping curve of white marble and polished steel. Getting down was a slow, agonizing, and deeply undignified process. I sat on the top step and slid down on my backside, one step at a time, the friction of the smooth, cold stone a strange and unpleasant sensation against my ragged trousers. The journey down that single flight of stairs took an eternity.

I finally reached the ground floor, the massive, empty lobby stretching out before me like a marble desert. I crawled, then stumbled, my way back to the reception desk. It was empty. The woman was gone. The entire, cavernous space was as silent and still as a tomb.

I looked around and then as I spinned. "The elevator... she said there was an elevator behind the desk! Where is it?! There is nothing here but a wall! A big, stupid, stone wall! WAS THIS ALL A TRICK?! DID SHE JUST LEAVE ME HERE TO—"

My frantic, internal scream was cut short by a sound. A low, soft hum, the sound of perfectly oiled machinery waking from a long and patient sleep. I watched, my mouth agape, as the massive, seamless stone wall behind the reception desk began to move. It did not swing open. It slid, a single, monolithic slab of polished rock retracting sideways into the wall with a near-silent hiss of hydraulics, revealing a dark, square opening beyond.

It stayed open for three seconds. Three, long, and terrifyingly short seconds. And then, with that same, smooth, and inexorable motion, it began to close.

A new and more potent kind of terror, a primal fear of being trapped, of being left behind, surged through me. I did not think. I just moved. I launched myself forward, a clumsy, limping, and desperate run. I threw myself through the shrinking gap, my shoulder catching the edge of the moving stone wall with a jarring impact. I tumbled through, landing hard on a floor that was not the polished marble of the lobby.

The wall slid shut behind me with a soft, final thud that sealed me in a new and different kind of darkness. I was in a small, square room, its walls the same dark stone as the lobby. And in the center of the room, its floor flush with the surrounding stone, was a perfect circle of brushed, stainless steel. An elevator.

I scrambled towards it, my hands scrabbling at the cool, smooth metal. As I stepped onto the circular platform, the floor beneath me lit up with a soft, white light. A curved section of the steel wall in front of me slid open with a soft, whooshing sound, revealing a small, circular interior. The elevator was maybe three meters wide, its walls a seamless curve of the same brushed steel, the ceiling a flat, white disc that emitted a soft, even light. I stumbled inside. The door slid shut, and with a gentle, almost imperceptible lurch, I began to descend.

I collapsed onto the floor, the last of my strength gone. I lay on the cool, metal surface, my body a single, throbbing ache, the world a distant and unimportant hum. The elevator was moving, a smooth and silent descent into the unknown. But for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

"I can't believe I made it! I am actually going to work for a Wing! I am going to be rich. Three billion Ahn. That is enough to buy a small house, a real one, in the Mid-Nest. No more moss, no more rats, no more hunting—"

The mental fantasy was sharp, beautiful, and utterly destroyed by the gnawing pain in my gut. The hunger was rotting me away, a constant, ugly truth beneath the fragile hope of the money.

The lift continued its descent. It was taking forever. How much deeper were we going? Hundreds of meters? Thousands? The steady, downward acceleration was a constant physical pressure, a mechanical certainty that we were burrowing deep into the unyielding foundation of the earth.

The process was broken by a sudden, violent deceleration. The thrum of the engine cut out, and the elevator lurched to a brutal, complete stop. The circular door in front of me hissed and slid open.

I pushed myself up, using the cold metal wall of the lift car for support. I stumbled out, moving slowly onto a surface that felt different than the cold metal, different from the slick marble, and different from the gritty Backstreet pavement. It was smooth, resilient, almost soft, but utterly clean. The light here was diffused, a soft, pervasive orange that seemed to emanate from the walls and ceiling, both of which were curved, constructed from seamless, riveted metal plating.

I found myself in a vast, semicircular space, a hub of immense size. And I was not alone.

One hundred and forty-nine other individuals stood scattered across the immense floor, all facing away from me, all standing in various poses of tense readiness or weary exhaustion. They were a sea of pale, sweat-slicked faces, their ages a narrow band between late teens and perhaps thirty. A collection of ghosts who had just walked through the same fire I had. The ones who had passed the terrible test. My initial thought, the sudden, overwhelming sensation of being watched, was confirmed by the collective, silent presence of so many people.

Before a single word was spoken, the silence itself became a living entity. It was not the empty quiet of the alley I had just left; this was a thick, charged silence, heavy with the weight of shared trauma and unasked questions. The vastness of the orange-lit hub seemed to amplify it, the curved metal walls swallowing any small sound—a cough, a shuffle of feet—and leaving only the humming stillness in its wake.

A young woman near the center of the crowd, her knuckles white where she gripped her own arms, tried to break the tension with a weak, trembling joke. "So... anyone know if they have a decent bar in this place? I could kill for a drink."

Her voice, thin and reedy, was absorbed by the space, and the only response was a deeper, more profound silence. No one laughed. No one even turned to look at her. The joke had landed with the heavy thud of a body hitting concrete. A man standing a few feet from her, his face a grim, stony mask, muttered just loud enough for those nearby to hear, "Shut up. Just... shut up."

Another voice, a whisper from a small group huddled near the far wall, was a thread of desperate rationalization. "It was a test, right? That chair... it had to be. A psych evaluation. To see if we'd crack under pressure. No one would... no one would actually do that to a person, right?" His companions offered no answer, their eyes fixed on the empty space where the elevator had been, as if expecting it to return and swallow them whole.

My own presence did not go entirely unnoticed. A young man, his face still slick with the sweat of his own trial, caught my eye. He took in my blood-and-vomit-stained clothes, my matted hair, the raw, bruised look of my face. His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of something—disgust, fear, a morbid curiosity—before he quickly looked away, turning to whisper something to his friend. I was not just an outsider here. I was a contamination, a piece of the bloody, chaotic world they all thought they had just escaped.

I turned quickly, looking back at the open space where the elevator had been. The car was already in motion, sliding silently back up into the immense, dark shaft, leaving me standing alone in this new, overwhelming space. I noticed now that the outer circular metallic surface of the car served a second purpose. It was impossibly thick, its outer shell a massive cylinder that extended upwards, a structural pillar that carried the immense weight of the ceiling high above, at least 14 meters high, an inverted silo driven deep into the ground.

A voice, clear, calm, and utterly devoid of effort, echoed from the far end of the hub, cutting through the low murmur of the gathered recruits. The voice was female, smooth, and perfectly modulated, carrying easily across the distance, a sound so clean and controlled it felt like it was being generated directly inside my skull.

"Ah, excellent. Precisely on schedule. I thank you all for your prompt arrival at the terminus."

I quickly turned back around, facing the source of the voice. She was standing at the entrance to a long, dimly lit hallway that led to a elevator, its label too far away for me to read. My attention, however, was focused entirely on the woman.

She materialized out of the shadows with a fluid, unnatural grace that suggested she had not so much walked there as simply decided to exist there. She wore a perfectly tailored black suit, the inner lining a stark white, offset by a sharply pressed red tie. Over this, she wore a simple, unadorned lab coat that fell to her knees.

Her hair was extraordinary. Long, straight strands of what looked impossibly white at the crown flowed down her back, the color gradient dissolving into a soft, glowing light blue, way earlier before reaching the tips, one section tied neatly into a long ponytail that rested on her left shoulder. She held her hands clasped together, resting them down near her waist, a picture of serene composure.

But her face... it's was neutral, composed, and absolutely flawless. And her eyes—they were closed. My mind sputtered, unable to reconcile the image with the reality of her voice. She has her eyes closed!

Is she blind? Is this another test? Is she stupid? How can she even see all of us standing here? Is she some kind of psychic, reading the room with her mind? Or is it just... arrogance? A way of showing us that we are so far beneath her notice that she does not even need to open her eyes to command us? The question, born from a lifetime of needing to assess a threat through its eyes, its gaze, hung unanswered in the silent air.

Then, her expression changed. A soft, welcoming smile spread across her face, a perfect and sudden bloom of warmth that banished the neutrality. It was a beautiful smile, a work of art, and it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. And her voice, still perfectly modulated, flowed into the space, filling the massive hub.

"Welcome, truly, to Lobotomy Corporation." The smile deepened, a pleasant and utterly false mask. "My name is Angela, and I serve as the facility's integrated assistant to the director of this Wing—the Manager himself. Before we move on to the practical aspects of your work, I want to take a moment to confirm the necessity of our unique arrangement."

She gestured with an open hand toward the vast, curved walls around us. "Your work for the upcoming 50-day cycle is of such vital importance to the City's energy grid, requiring the extraction of our proprietary energy source, that it must be conducted in a deeper-level facility under the earth. Hundred of hundreds of meters down, to be exact. This depth is necessary, not only to protect our proprietary technology from corporate espionage, but also to ensure absolute compliance with the terms of your contract. No unscheduled departures."

A collective murmur rippled through the gathered recruits, the words "no unscheduled departures" a cold and final note in the warm and welcoming speech. My own internal dread sharpened, the mining lie suddenly tasting metallic and foul in my mouth. Proprietary technology? Hundred of meters down? That machine that fried the man's brain... that was the entrance exam for a simple miner?

Angela continued, her smile unwavering. "To leave before the 50-day term is complete is, yes, a breach of contract. But L-Corp understands the complexities of commitment. Therefore, we offer a guarantee that is as tempting as the paycheck itself: the 'Phoenix Protocol.' At the end of your contract, not only will you receive the full payment of three billion Ahn, but your current identity is flagged for termination."

She raised her hand, and a large, flat screen, previously invisible, flickered to life on the curved wall behind her. The screen cycled through various documents: a death certificate with a generic cause of death listed as "industrial accident," a census report with an entry neatly and officially stamped 'ERASED,' a new identification card with a blank space for a name and a fresh, clean Nest L residence permit.

"For the public eye of District L, you will simply vanish, officially declared dead after a period of time—a victim of a factory accident, a casualty of a Backstreet gang war, a statistical blip erased from the census. L-Corp has the bureaucratic might to make this legal death absolute. Once you have completed your 50-day quota of work, you will receive a new name, a guaranteed permanent residency in a Nest, and the financial means to ensure a comfortable life of total anonymity. You will be reborn. You will have a new identity, a new life, and the guarantee of a safety that few in The City ever achieve. A small price, for only fifty days of your time."

The murmuring in the crowd intensified, the desperate allure of a total, official erasure of a past life a dizzying promise. They were buying not just money, but a second chance at existence.

A bubble of pure, soundless hysteria began to form in my chest. It was not a feeling that made me want to scream or cry. It was a feeling that made me want to laugh. A wild, unhinged, and utterly silent laugh that threatened to shake my entire body apart—Aramitsu—that I now realized was completely and utterly worthless.

The company was going to give me a new name anyway. They were going to wipe the slate clean, professionally, officially, with a level of bureaucratic finality that I could never have achieved with a piece of scrap metal and a desperate lie. It was the funniest, most tragic, and most utterly pointless joke in the history of the world, and I was the punchline.

A wave of profound and giddy relief washed over me, so potent it almost made me dizzy. I was not a fraud pretending to be Aramitsu. I was just... me. A nameless, faceless rat. And in fifty days, they would give me a new name, a clean name, a name that was not stained with the blood and the filth of the tunnel.

Hundreds of meters down, huh? The words echoed in my mind, not as a threat, but as a promise. A promise of safety. Down here, in the guts of the earth, wrapped in a blanket of steel and concrete, the outside world could not touch me. The polite Fixer with the curious eyes and the plasma rifle, the one who had hunted me for sport, he could search the alleys of the Backstreets for a thousand years for all I care.

I could almost feel the phantom weight of my left middle finger rising in a silent, final salute to this damm bastard! Go on, you son of a bitch. Keep looking. I'm already gone!

This feeling... it's was so intoxicating, so filled with a sense of a victory snatched from the jaws of certain death, that it almost made me forget the price of that victory. Little Kim... may she rest in plasma dust, indeed.

I raised my hand, my left arm shooting straight up into the air, a movement born of pure, frustrated confusion. "Wait! What is this place exactly?" I yelled, my voice still rough, carrying awkwardly in the massive space.

Angela's smile did not falter, her gaze seeming to shift toward me even with her eyes closed, and the surrounding crowd of 149 faces turned in unison. I felt the weight of their collective attention, their collective hunger, their collective willingness to ignore me if it meant reaching the finish line.

"A simple question," Angela replied, her voice granting me the validation I desperately craved. "This location is officially designated the Acclimatization & Staging Hub, but it is known colloquially among the staff as 'The Hive.' This is your home as Employees for the next fifty days. It contains sleeping pods, a communal cafeteria dispensing optimized nutrient paste and some rare delicacy every week, a physical library with carefully vetted, pre-approved literature for your mental enrichment, and basic hygiene facilities."

She gestured again, and the wall screens flickered to display direct camera footage of the different areas of the Hive. Clean, narrow corridors of the same orange metal. Small, utilitarian rooms with multiple bunks stacked three high. A brightly lit cafeteria with people in black and red uniforms already silently eating from small bowls. A special area was highlighted on the screen, a room labeled "0-00-00," a designated "Introductory Work Simulator" for inexperienced Employees, situated right next to the library.

"Now, the final orientation," Angela continued, her gaze sweeping across the room. "The command structure. This Facility is segmented into three operational zones: Asiyah, Briah, and Atziluth. Each of these zones contains specialized departments dedicated to our energy extraction process. Overseeing these departments are the Sephirah, our integrated operational assistants. They are former employees whose minds have been... specialized for their roles."

A strange, fleeting expression, a quick, almost contemptuous tightening of the muscles around her eyes and mouth, crossed her face, a visible, momentary spasm of disgust at the word "Sephirah." It was gone instantly, replaced by the perfect smile. It was a look of distaste so profound, so personal, it was as if the very word had a foul taste.

"I must advise you on a vital operational inconsistency. While the Sephirah hold management rank, their past traumas can sometimes compromise their judgment. Their personal histories have, on occasion, led to... inefficient emotional responses. You are encouraged to prioritize objective efficiency and report any operational inconsistencies, particularly those related to undue emotional distress or contradictory direction, directly to me. Your ultimate loyalty lies not with the integrated assistants, but with the Manager. When the Manager gives orders—and his directives are transmitted via facility intercom, a privilege I also share—you will follow those orders without any doubt or question. Is that clear?"

A low chorus of assent rippled through the assembled recruits.

"Good. Now, the final requirement. Company standards." She scanned the crowd, her gaze lingering on my stained, Backstreet attire. "You will not wear your own outfit within this facility. We already provided your uniform. A Black suit, black pants, black shoes, and a red tie. This is for your safety and for maintaining organizational coherence. You will now acquire your room keys and proceed to your assigned locker."

A pedestal of polished dark metal rose silently from the floor near where Angela stood. The top section of the pedestal retracted with a mechanical hiss, revealing 150 small, simple keys nestled in individual slots. They were numbered with IDs ranging between 1 and 100, suggesting some rooms held multiple bunks.

"Due to the limiting amount of resting quarters required for the current cycle's operational capacity, Employees will be required to share sleeping quarters, which will be in close proximity or stacked within the same room. Select your key. The number you select will correspond to your room. Find your locker, don your uniform, and make use of the provided hygienic facilities."

Angela's perfect smile seemed to anticipate the unasked question. "Any questions?"

—Sleep with strangers?! After everything I have seen, everything I have killed, I have to sleep in the same room as a bunch of lunatics who just survived a brain-melting machine?! The quiet certainty of a shiv in the kidney in the middle of the night... a stolen key... a slit throat while I am asleep...

And fifty days with no time out?! What about the three billion Ahn? The contract was a damn scribble on a cheap piece of paper I barely bothered to read! A fifty-day prison sentence for a fairy-tale paycheck! And a Manager? I am supposed to follow the absolute orders of a faceless voice for a mining operation?! This is not a job! This is a goddamn cult! A very, very rich and very, very dangerous cult!—

The thoughts were a panicked stampede, but I kept my mouth shut. I did not want to be the second anomaly. I did not want to find out what Angela did to the ones who questioned the sharing of rooms.

I shuffled forward, my wounded ankle dragging, following the flow of the other recruits toward the pedestal. My gaze settled on a key marked '72.' I grabbed it, the cold metal a new anchor in my trembling hand. I just needed to find the uniform. I just needed food. I just needed to survive the next five minutes. That was all that ever mattered.

"Sorry, Pete! Sorry, Marcus!" the apology was a quiet, sarcastic whisper in the back of my mind. "Hope you found a good alley to bleed out in. Looks like I got the better deal."

Chapter Text

"Sorry, Pete! Sorry, Marcus!" The apology was a quiet, sarcastic whisper in the back of my mind, a final, dismissive eulogy for the life I had just abandoned. "Hope you found a good alley to bleed out in. Looks like I got the better deal."

My left hand tightened around the key, the number '72' digging into the flesh of my palm until it hurt. The cold, sharp edges of the metal were a new anchor, a tangible piece of my impossible future, a future I had purchased with another man's blood and a lucky guess in a tunnel full of corporate violence. A surge of frantic urgency, a feeling born from a lifetime of knowing that hesitation is a fatal disease, propelled me forward. I had to move. Now. Before Angela changed her mind, and decided that a 90% resilience rating was, upon reflection, a rounding error. Before the universe itself realized its mistake and sent another Fixer to correct the egregious error of my continued existence.

I turned and limped away from the pedestal of keys, not daring to look back at the woman. I could feel her attention on me, a silent, unseen pressure between my shoulder blades, a heavy and unwelcome focus that had nothing to do with sight. The other survivors, my new and temporary colleagues, were shuffling forward in a dazed, obedient line to take their own keys, their movements a mixture of a shell-shocked compliance and a deep, soul-shaking weariness. I pushed through the entrance of the long hallway she had indicated, the one that led into the heart of The Hive, and the darkness of the passage swallowed me whole for a moment before the same, ubiquitous orange light bloomed into existence.

The hallway was a perfect and terrifying exercise in monotonous scale. It was a long, seamless tube of that same orange-hued metal, the floor a slightly softer, more resilient material that absorbed the sound of my limping footsteps, turning the desperate scrape of my broken ankle into a soft, pathetic shuffle. The ceiling was a gentle, continuous curve, the soft, orange light emanating from it without any visible source, bathing everything in a perpetual, artificial dusk. 

The air was cool, clean, and carried the faint, almost imperceptible scent of ozone and sterilized metal, a smell I was beginning to associate with imminent death and impossible survival. And the doors... gods, the doors. They stretched out before me in two, perfect, unending lines, a hundred identical portals to a hundred identical cages. Fifty flush-set metallic doors on the left wall, and fifty identical doors on the right, each marked with a small, neatly engraved number. It was less like a living quarters and more like a hotel designed by a machine with a deep and abiding hatred for individuality, a place where you were not just a number, but a number that was identical to every other number.

I dragged myself down the corridor, my injured ankle a constant, screaming counterpoint to the oppressive, humming silence. I was a stain in this place, a moving smear of filth and blood on the clean, resilient floor. My own reflection, a dark and distorted shape, moved with me on the polished surface of the metal walls, a constant and unwelcome companion, a ghost of the rat I had been just hours before.

The sheer, repetitive uniformity of the hallway was a new kind of disorientation, a place designed to make you feel small, anonymous, and completely, utterly interchangeable. Every door was a potential sanctuary, and every door was a potential trap. My began to play tricks on me. Was I being watched? Were there cameras hidden in the seamless walls? Was this a maze designed to test my navigation skills, a test I was already failing by the simple act of being lost?

I finally found it, after what felt like a lifetime of limping past identical doors. A simple, metallic door, indistinguishable from all the others except for the small, elegant '72' engraved upon its surface. I stood before it for a moment, my hand hovering over the keyhole, the key itself feeling slick and foreign in my sweaty palm. What was on the other side? A room? Or just another, smaller, more personal version of the test I had just survived? A bed that would inject poison while I slept? A shower that would spray acid instead of water? In a world where the hiring process involved turning a man's brain into hot soup, no possibility was too paranoid to be considered.

With a deep, shuddering breath that did nothing to calm the frantic hummingbird of my heart, I slid the key into the lock. It turned with a smooth, satisfying click that was a small and beautiful miracle, and the door slid open with a soft, pneumatic hiss, retracting into the wall.

The room was... sparse. But it was clean. The same orange light filled the space, softer here, less industrial, giving the small room a strange, almost womb-like quality. Against the far wall, there were three beds. But they were not beds, not in any sense I understood. They were pods. Sleek, white, ovoid chambers, arranged in a neat row, looking like a cross between a futuristic coffin and a gigantic, unhatched egg. They were completely sealed, their surfaces a smooth, seamless expanse of some kind of high-impact polymer, without a single visible handle or hinge.

I had never seen anything like it. This was not just a place to sleep. This was a piece of technology, a machine for resting. A small, glowing blue panel on the side of each pod displayed a series of incomprehensible glyphs and numbers that pulsed with a slow and steady rhythm, an undeniable display of a science so far beyond my understanding it might as well have been from the stars.

I imagined lying inside one, the lid hissing shut, sealing me in a perfect and absolute darkness, a willing entombment. Did it pump you full of drugs to keep the nightmares at bay? Did it attach microscopic wires to your head and scrub your dreams clean of any seditious thoughts, any lingering memories of the world outside?

The corporate brochure in my head, the one narrated by Angela's smooth and perfect voice, would probably say it used 'bioresonant frequencies' and a 'nutrient-rich atmospheric mist' to accelerate the body's natural regenerative cycles, ensuring that every Employee awoke after a precisely calibrated six-hour sleep cycle feeling refreshed, revitalized, and ready to contribute to a brighter future. But to me, they just looked like places to be stored. Like meat in a locker, kept fresh until it was time for the next day's slaughter.

To the right of the pods, there were three tall, metal lockers, each with its own keyhole, their surfaces the same dull, functional grey as the hallway doors. On the left side of the room, in a jarring and almost surreal juxtaposition, there was a small, comfortable-looking sofa upholstered in a simple, grey fabric, and a low, wooden table with three simple, wooden chairs. It was a strange and unsettling mix of the impossibly advanced and the reassuringly mundane, as if someone had tried to build a prison and then, as an afterthought, had decided to make it feel a little bit like a home. And on the wall above the sofa, a single red neon sign glowed, displaying the current time: 22:47.

A new wave of frantic energy surged through me, the last dregs of my adrenaline. I had to change. I had to get this blood-soaked uniform off me before it fused with my skin. I limped over to the lockers, my key held tightly in my hand like a holy relic. I jammed it into the lock of the middle locker. It would not turn. I jiggled it, my frustration mounting, the sound of the key scraping against the metal a harsh and ugly noise in the quiet room. Nothing. Just the solid, unyielding resistance of metal against metal.

"Come on, you piece of junk!" I hissed, my voice a low and angry rasp, spitting the words at the inanimate object.

I pulled the key out and tried the locker on the left. The same result. The key went in, but it would not turn. My breath started to come in short, sharp gasps, a hot and tight feeling in my chest. This was a trick. It had to be. They had given me a key to the room, but not to the locker. A small, petty, and infinitely cruel corporate joke. A way to remind me of my place, to let me know that even in my own, small cage, I was not truly in control.

With a final, desperate, and already-defeated hope, I tried the last locker, the one on the far right. I slid the key in. And it did not turn.

A sound, a low and terrible noise, a prelude to a scream of pure, undiluted rage and despair, began to build in the back of my throat. I had survived the alleys, the Fixers, the riot, the brain-melting chair, only to be defeated by a locker? The absurdity, the sheer, pathetic injustice of it, was too much. The scream was about to tear its way out of my lungs, a wild and animalistic sound that would surely bring the corporate peacekeepers down on my head and end this miserable farce once and for all—

"What are you doing?"

The voice was calm, steady, and so completely unexpected that the scream died in my throat, replaced by a choked, squeaking sound. I spun around, my heart trying to hammer its way out of my chest, my body coiled like a cornered animal.

A man was standing in the open doorway of the room. He was tall, with a lean, wiry build that spoke of a disciplined and efficient strength. His hair was short, a stark and striking white that seemed to absorb the orange light of the room, making it appear almost luminous. His eyes were a dark and intense blue, and they were fixed on me with a quiet, analytical curiosity that was more unsettling than any open aggression.

His face was all sharp angles and hard planes, a face that looked like it had been carved from a block of ice, with a jawline so sharp it could cut glass. He was wearing the same ragged, travel-worn clothes as the other men from the orientation, but on him, they looked less like the attire of a desperate survivor and more like a temporary and inconvenient disguise.

He held his own key in his left hand, and with his right, he gestured vaguely towards the open door. "The door was already open when I got here," he said, his voice a low and even baritone, completely devoid of any discernible accent. "So... I figured someone was already inside."

I stared at him, my mind a blank and panicked slate, my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. I tried to speak, to form a coherent sentence, to explain my frantic and insane-looking behavior, but my brain was not cooperating. I quickly tried to recompose myself, forcing a nervous, jerky smile that felt like a painful grimace, a rictus of terror.

"Yeah, that's me," I managed, my voice a high and unnatural squeak that I barely recognized as my own. "Just... just trying to get my locker open. But it seems... it seems they gave me the wrong key." I held up the key, a silent and pathetic piece of evidence for my own incompetence.

The man's eyes narrowed slightly, and they focused on the key in my hand. The corner of his mouth twitched, a small and fleeting movement, as if he were fighting back the urge to let out a short, sharp laugh of derision. He raised a single, long finger on his left hand and pointed, not at the locker, but directly at my key.

"You are holding it in reverse," he said, his voice flat, stating a simple and undeniable fact.

I blinked. My gaze dropped to the key in my hand. I stared at it, my mind struggling to process the information. In reverse? But... but when I opened the door to the room, it was held just fine. What was that supposed to mean? The key had a top and a bottom. A right way and a wrong way. But the door lock and the locker lock... they were oriented differently? Was this another test? A small, stupid, and infinitely frustrating intelligence test designed to weed out the truly incompetent? Or was it just... the hunger? The insanity? The sheer, overwhelming exhaustion of the last twelve hours playing tricks on my own, simple mind, making me incapable of performing even the most basic of tasks?

I scratched the back of my head with my other hand, a nervous and reflexive gesture. A hot, prickling wave of shame washed over me, a feeling so intense it was almost a physical burn. I forced another, wider, and even more painful smile. "Ah," I said, my voice a weak and airy thing. "Right. Of course. My mistake."

I turned back to the locker, my face burning, my ears ringing with the sound of my own, internal, screaming humiliation. I flipped the key over in my hand and slid it into the lock. It turned with a smooth, silent, and deeply mortifying click. The large, metal door swung open.

The contents of the locker were arranged with a terrifying and inhuman neatness. A single, black suit, a pair of black dress pants, and a crisp, white shirt were all hanging on a single, wooden hanger, their fabrics perfectly pressed, without a single wrinkle or crease. A pair of polished, black dress shoes sat on the bottom shelf, their laces tied in perfect, symmetrical bows. Beside them, a pair of black socks and a single, folded pair of black underwear. And on a small, metal hook on the inside of the door, a single, blood-red tie was hanging, a stark and violent slash of color in the monochrome perfection.

As I took in the scene, my face must have been a strange one. I was not relieved. I was... puzzled. The perfection of it all was unsettling. It was the uniform of a person, but the arrangement felt like the work of a machine, its perfect order a quiet and mocking rebuke to an order and a cleanliness that I could never hope to achieve.

And then, leaning in the corner of the locker, behind the perfectly pressed suit, its dark form almost hidden in the shadows, was a riot stick. It was almost identical to the stun batons the K-Corp guards had used in the tunnel, a long, black shaft of some kind of composite material. But this one was different. The handle and the pommel were a matte black, but the main shaft was marked with three, long, glowing green lines that ran its entire length, terminating in a square, black tip.

What in the hell was a riot stick doing in the locker of a miner? The question was a loud and dissonant chord in the quiet of my own mind. We were here to dig. To extract energy. To "face the fear and build the future." Why would we need a weapon designed for crowd control? Unless...

"Heh." A short, dry, and almost amused sound came from behind me.

I turned. The white-haired man was standing there, his own key now in the lock of the middle locker. He gestured with his chin towards the riot stick in my locker. "Unusual, isn't it?" he said, his voice holding a note of a shared and ironic confusion. "For a simple 'energy extraction' job, they seem to be preparing us for a different kind of work environment." He turned the key in his own lock, and his locker swung open. Inside, it was the same. The perfect suit. The perfect shoes. And leaning in the corner, another identical riot stick. "Perhaps," he continued, a thin, humorless smile touching his lips, "some of us are meant for a security enforcement detail."

We stood there for a moment, two strangers in a strange room, bound by a shared and unspoken understanding that we had been lied to, that we were in a place that was far more dangerous and far more complicated than we had been told. The silence between us was a heavy thing, filled with the weight of unasked questions and a new, more specific kind of dread.

Our quiet, tense moment of shared paranoia was shattered by a sound from the hallway. A series of quick, sharp, and almost theatrically loud knocks on our open door.

A young man was leaning against the doorframe, his back to us, his eyes fixed on the ceiling of the hallway with a smug and self-satisfied smirk. He was gloating, not to us, but to himself, his voice a low and confident murmur. "A Wing. A real, honest-to-gods Wing. Mother always said I'd amount to nothing. Well, look at me now, you old bat. Three billion Ahn. I'm going to buy your favorite bar and turn it into a public toilet."

He then turned, his movements a slow and deliberate performance, and his eyes widened in a display of a feigned and completely unconvincing surprise. He let out a loud, theatrical gasp. "Oh! My apologies! I did not see you there! How incredibly rude of me. I was just... admiring the architecture."

"Are you... are you the third occupant of this room?" I asked, my voice still a raw and uncertain thing, the question a simple and desperate attempt to ground myself in this increasingly surreal situation.

The young man's smirk widened into a bright, cheerful, and utterly untrustworthy grin. He walked into the room, his movements infused with a bouncy and confident energy that was a stark and jarring contrast to the tense, weary stillness of the other man and myself. He was younger than me, maybe eighteen, with bright, intelligent, and slightly mischievous light blue eyes. A simple, grey bonnet was pulled down over his head, concealing most of his hair, though a few, stray strands of a bright, corn-silk blonde peeked out from underneath.

He was wearing a thick, high-collared, dark blue coat, the kind of practical and well-made garment that was designed for a cold I had never felt, and a pair of simple, grey trousers tucked into sturdy, worn leather boots. He looked like he had just stepped off a very long and very cold journey, and he did not seem to be bothered by it in the slightest.

"That I am!" he said, his voice a bright and cheerful tenor. He offered a hand, first to me, then to the white-haired man, his handshake firm and confident. "The name's Makoto. Pleased to make your acquaintance, roommates."

I stared at him, at his clothes, at the healthy, well-fed color in his cheeks. He was not a rat. He was not a desperate survivor from the Backstreets, a piece of human flotsam washed up on the shores of this corporate island. His accent was different, too, a clean and precise enunciation that was devoid of the slurred consonants and clipped vowels of the gutter. He had walked here, or more likely, taken a train, a long one, from a very, very long way away. My mind, still scrambling to make sense of this new and impossible world, latched onto the single, tangible clue of his warm, expensive-looking coat.

The north! He has to be from the north! Y-Corp, maybe? I don't know shit about this corporation, just what I have seen on the few, flickering maps of The City I have ever laid eyes on. A massive, sprawling territory that covers most of the northern districts, a place of legends and rumors for a Backstreet rat like me, a place they called the Northern Industrial Sprawl. One of the few Wings, alongside Q-Corp and R-Corp, that was bigger than L-Corp in sheer, geographical radius. It must be cold there. Colder than the deepest, darkest pits of the Backstreets. A cold that gets into your bones and stays there. A cold that makes you wear a bonnet indoors and still manage to smile like the sun is shining.

This simple and almost childish piece of deductive reasoning was a small and welcome anchor in the swirling chaos of my own mind. I was not just a terrified rat anymore. I was an observer. A student of this new and terrible world. The white-haired man, who had remained silent during Makoto's cheerful introduction, finally turned his head, his eyes assessing the boy with a flat, unreadable expression before shifting his gaze to me.

"It seems we are to be quartered together," he stated, his voice a low and even baritone that carried a weight of finality. He gestured with his chin between the three of us. "A situation of forced proximity. It is best we know what to call each other. We will be watching each other's backs, after all. Or putting a knife in them. Either way, names will be useful." He extended a hand, first to Makoto. "I am Ivan."

Makoto took the hand with his own bright enthusiasm. "A pleasure, Ivan! It's good to have a solid name to a face." Then, Ivan, along with Makoto's eyes, turned to me. The weight of their combined attention was a sudden and unwelcome pressure as Makoto's cheerful grin, returned in full force."And you, got a name to go with the... rugged look?" he asked, gesturing vaguely at my stained ensemble.

A sound that was half-chuckle, half-choke escaped my lips. I brushed the back of my matted hair with a hand that was still trembling slightly, forcing a smile that felt brittle and thin, a piece of glass threatening to shatter against my teeth. "Kurouni," I said, the name feeling foreign and clumsy on my tongue, a sound I had not had much cause to use in a world where names were a luxury you could not afford. "Kurouni, Korouni, Rouni. It's all the same, really."

Makoto blinked, his bright, cheerful smile wavering for a fraction of a second, his head tilting with a genuine, almost bird-like curiosity. He tested the sounds, his lips forming the syllables with a careful motion. "Kuh-rouni... Ko-rouni... Rouni?" He let out a short, sharp laugh, a sound that was friendly but carried an undercurrent of something that felt dangerously close to pity. "Right. Let's just stick with Kurouni, then. It's much easier to shout in a hurry when something big and ugly is trying to eat us, yeah?"

Ivan's expression remained completely unchanged. His face was a block of carved ice, his eyes giving away nothing. He did not bother to repeat the variations. He did not acknowledge the joke. He simply processed the information, selected the most efficient variable, and stated it as a fact. "Kurouni, then" It was not a question. It was a designation. A label had been assigned. The matter was closed.

A hot, prickling flush of shame crawled up the back of my neck, burning my ears. My own mouth. A traitor. Why did I say that? Why offer them a choice, a buffet of names, like some kind of back-alley jester trying to be interesting? It was stupid. So stupid. Makoto thinks I'm a joke, a strange and amusingly pathetic creature. Ivan thinks I'm an idiot, a waste of cognitive resources. I had tried to be... something, and in doing so, had only succeeded in highlighting my own, profound otherness.

Ivan's gaze lingered on me for a moment longer, a cool and analytical assessment that seemed to peel back the layers of my pathetic attempt at social interaction and see the terrified, scrambling rat underneath. Then, he dismissed me as a solved equation and gave a single, sharp nod. He looked from me to Makoto, his expression shifting to one of a grim and practical purpose. "The time is slowly approaching midnight. We should get food in us before the cafeteria closes for today."

The necessity of changing was an unspoken but absolute law of survival that I understood in my very bones. To walk into a communal space looking as I did, smelling as I did, was not just a breach of some unspoken etiquette; it was a declaration. It was an invitation for questions, for scrutiny, for the kind of focused, predatory attention that gets a rat like me cornered and killed. We turned to our lockers, the three of us moving with a shared and unspoken understanding.

The air in the small room suddenly felt heavy, charged with a strange and uncomfortable intimacy. The act of undressing in front of these two strangers, these two men who had just judged me, one with a friendly pity and the other with a cold, dismissive logic, was a forced and deeply unwelcome vulnerability. We barely bothered to gaze at each other, our eyes fixed on our own lockers, on our own small, metal boxes of corporate-approved identity.

I turned my back to them, facing the cold, grey metal of my locker, and began to strip. The stolen vest came off first, the fabric stiff and heavy with dried blood, peeling away from my skin with a soft, tearing sound. My own ragged shirt followed, its material thin and worn, little more than a collection of holes held together by a few, stubborn threads. And then the pants, the stiff, grimy denim that had been my second skin for gods know how long. Finally, my socks, which were once white but were now a permanent and disgusting shade of grey-brown, stiff with a mixture of sweat and filth.

And for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I was completely bare. The cool, clean, filtered air of The Hive washed over my skin, a sensation so alien and so profound it was almost painful. For a single, fleeting moment, standing there naked and exposed, I felt... clean. Not physically, but conceptually. I was a blank slate. A man with no clothes, no name that mattered, no past that anyone here knew.

The relief that washed over me when I pulled on the new, clean underwear was a physical and almost spiritual thing. The fabric was soft, breathable, and blessedly free of the ingrained grit and stench of the Backstreets. It was a small and simple thing, a piece of clothing that most people in this world probably never even thought about, but to me, it was a luxury so profound it almost brought tears to my eyes.

The black pants were next, their material a heavy and durable synthetic that felt like it could stop a knife. Then the crisp, white shirt, its starched collar a strange and unfamiliar sensation against my neck. I pulled on the new, clean socks, the polished black shoes. I fumbled with the red tie for a moment, my fingers clumsy and unaccustomed to the intricate knot, before finally managing a crude approximation of what I had seen on the corporate broadcasts.

I looked down at myself. I was a different person. The reflection that stared back at me from the polished metal of the locker door was a stranger, a clean and respectable-looking young man in a sharp, corporate uniform. We each left our individual riot sticks in the lockers, a shared and silent agreement to leave that particular and disturbing question unanswered for now, and re-locked them with our keys.

We exited our new home, the door hissing shut behind us, and walked back into the long, orange-hued hallway. The corridor was even emptier now, the silence more profound. We exited the residential hallway and walked through the vast, central hub. Most of the other Employees had already departed to different sections of The Hive. Angela herself was no longer there, her serene and terrifying presence having vanished. She must have gone deeper into this underground world, to her own private sanctum, to her own personal sleeping pod, I supposed. The thought of that woman sleeping, of her mind being at rest, was a deeply unsettling one.

Another long, identical hallway led from the central hub to the cafeteria. The entrance was a wide, open archway, and as we stepped through, I was greeted by a scene of quiet, communal misery. The cafeteria was a vast, cavernous space, its walls and ceiling the same seamless orange metal as the rest of The Hive.

Long, grey metal tables with attached benches were bolted to the floor in neat, ruthlessly efficient rows, stretching from one end of the room to the other. Maybe twenty or thirty other Employees were scattered throughout the space, sitting alone or in small, silent groups of two or three, their shoulders slumped, their faces grim, their movements slow and lethargic. They were not talking. They were just eating, their gazes fixed on the contents of their trays with a kind of dull and weary resignation. This was not a place for socializing. This was a refueling station for damaged and exhausted machines.

At the far end of the room, there was a long, white counter. There were no servers, no cooks, no visible sign of any human presence at all. There was just a series of brightly lit slots in the wall. As we approached, a tray slid out from one of the slots with a soft, pneumatic hiss. On the tray was a simple, plastic bowl, a plastic spoon, a knife, a fork, a large, plastic cup of water, and a single, thick slice of dark bread. We each took a tray and found an empty table in a corner of the room, a small island of isolation in a sea of shared and silent despair.

I looked down at the contents of my tray. The bowl was filled with a thick, gelatinous, and completely odorless substance, a nauseating shade of pale, sickly green. It was nutrient paste, the legendary and universally reviled staple of the corporate underclass. It did not smell of anything, which was somehow more disturbing than if it had smelled bad. It was a purely functional substance, a collection of proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins that had been stripped of any and all resemblance to actual food. The slice of bread beside it looked like a king's feast by comparison, a small and feeble attempt to conceal the disgusting taste of the main course.

Makoto stared at the green substance in his bowl, his face a perfect picture of a horrified and profound disbelief. He picked up his spoon, dipped it into the paste with the cautious and hesitant motion of a man disarming a bomb, and brought a small, trembling dollop to his lips. He chewed once, twice, and then his entire face contorted in pain, quite litteraly.

"What is this?!" he hissed, his voice a low and strangled thing, as if he were trying not to vomit. "It's like... it's like chewing on cold, wet sand that's been mixed with vomit! We are working for a Wing! A real, honest-to-gods Wing! And this is the food they give us?! This is what they feed their saviors?!"

A strange and unfamiliar sensation bubbled up in my chest. It was a laugh. A real, genuine, and almost painful laugh, and I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep it from escaping. My lips pulled back from my teeth in a tight, silent grimace, the muscles in my cheeks twitching with the effort of containing my own, cruel amusement.

This guy. This blondie in his warm, expensive coat. He has never eaten trash before. He has never had to fight a pack of starving dogs over a half-eaten, maggot-infested piece of meat. He has never had to drink water that was a cloudy, brown soup of rust and god knows what else and pray that it would not give him the kind of sickness that makes your insides turn to water. He thinks this is bad? This is the cleanest, most nutritionally complete, and safest meal I have had in my entire, miserable life. He can't be from a Nest, can he? Or maybe the food in the Nests is just that good.

We were working for a Wing, yes, but the details of the job were still a dark and shifting shadow. The food, however, was a clear and unambiguous statement. This was not a prison, no. But we were not being judged as worthy of eating like kings, either. We were assets. And assets are not given luxuries. They are given fuel. And this green, tasteless, and utterly disgusting paste was the most efficient and cost-effective fuel they could provide.

I ignored the paste for now. I picked up the slice of bread. It was heavy, dense, and slightly warm. I took a bite. It was... it was just bread. But it was the best damn bread I had ever tasted. It was fresh. It was uncontaminated. It did not have the faint, sour taste of mold or the gritty texture of rat droppings. It was just... clean. I devoured it in three, huge bites, the simple and honest taste of the baked grain a profound and almost overwhelming relief.

Upon drinking the water in my cup. It was so cold it made my teeth ache, and it was so pure it had no taste at all. It was just... wet. The water I was used to drinking, the water I had to scoop from rusty, stagnant puddles in the guts of the Backstreets, it always had a taste. A taste of metal, of rot, of sickness. To drink water that was just water... it was a miracle. A small, simple, and beautiful miracle in a world of complex and ugly horrors.

Ivan, who had been eating his own paste with a slow, methodical, and completely expressionless determination, finally spoke. "It is fuel," he said, his voice a low and final statement of fact, not an opinion. "It is designed to keep us functional. Nothing more." He then turned his eyes on Makoto. "If you cannot stomach it, you will not have the strength for the work. And if you do not have the strength for the work, you will become a liability. And liabilities, in a place like this, have a tendency to disappear. Eat your food."

Makoto looked from Ivan's hard, unyielding face to the green paste in his bowl, and then, with a look of profound and absolute defeat, he picked up his spoon and began to eat.

We finished our meal in silence. We returned our empty trays to a different slot in the wall, where they were swallowed with a soft, mechanical hiss, and we walked back to our room. The Hive was even quieter now, most of the other Employees having already retreated to their own, small cages for the night. As we walked down the long, orange-hued hallway, Makoto let out a long and weary sigh.

"I can't believe they took our phones," he complained, his voice a low and mournful thing. "Fifty days without a single message, without a single game... what are we supposed to do? Talk to each other?"

Ivan's response was a short, dry, and almost amused grunt. "They took our phones because they do not want us communicating with the outside world. And they do not want us to have any distractions. We are here to work. Not to play games."

Makoto then turned to me, as his eyes were filled with a new and unwelcome curiosity. "So, how did you get this gig, anyway? You don't exactly look like the corporate type. No offense."

The question was a sharp and sudden jab, a casual and unthinking probe into the heart of my own, very fragile and very, very bloody lie. I felt a cold knot of panic tighten in my gut, but I forced another, easy-going smile.

"Just got lucky, I guess," I said, my voice a carefully constructed and casual shrug. "Heard about some kind of anonymous lottery L-Corp was running in the Backstreets. A recruitment drive for people without... formal qualifications. Threw my name in the hat. Never thought I'd actually win."

It's was so simple, indeed. It explained my presence here. It explained my ragged appearance. And it was so absurd, so completely and utterly nonsensical, that it was, in its own way, almost believable. What kind of a Wing runs a lottery in the Backstreets? The kind of Wing that uses a brain-melting chair as a hiring tool, apparently.

Makoto seemed to accept it without question, his natural and naive optimism filling in the gaps. "Wow! A lottery! That's amazing! See? The universe is looking out for us! This is going to be the start of a whole new life for all of us!"

Ivan just grunted again, a sound that could have meant anything from agreement to a profound and weary contempt.

Wthout a word, he took his own key from his pocket. He did not fumble. He did not hesitate. His movements were a study in pure, unadorned efficiency. The key slid into the lock, turned with a single, sharp click, and the door hissed open, retracting into the wall. He stood aside, a silent and unspoken gesture for us to enter.

The room was exactly as we had left it, the soft, orange light bathing the three sleeping pods, the small sofa, and the wooden table in a strange, almost sepulchral glow. Makoto of course, was the first to break the silence.

"So," he said, gesturing with a wide, sweeping motion at the three white, ovoid chambers against the far wall. "Who gets which high-tech coffin? Any volunteers for the one on the left? I hear it has a better view of the wall."

Makoto's joke dissolved into the quiet of the room, receiving no acknowledgment from Ivan as he walked to the middle pod, his movements deliberate and purposeful. He placed his hand on its smooth, white surface. The muscles of his face were completely still, his jaw set in a firm line that was neither a frown nor a smile as his eyes, scanned the pod's surface as if he were cataloging its every seam and potential function.

"The pods are likely integrated with biometric sensors," he stated, his voice a low and even baritone that seemed to absorb the quiet of the room. "They will monitor our vital signs, regulate our sleep cycles, perhaps even administer subliminal conditioning. Clothing would interfere with the sensors."

Makoto's forced smile faltered for a moment, a flicker of genuine unease in his eyes. "Right. Of course. Bio-sensors. Guess they want a clean connection to whatever voodoo science they're using in these things." He let out a short, nervous laugh that did not quite reach his eyes.

The three of us turned, a shared and unspoken reluctance creating a sudden and uncomfortable tension in the small room. The act of stripping down again, of peeling away the layers of our new, corporate-approved identities and revealing the pale, flawed, and scarred flesh beneath, was a new and more intimate kind of trial.

I turned my back to them, facing my locker, a hot and prickling wave of shame and self-consciousness washing over me. My body was a roadmap of a hard and ugly life, a collection of old scars from forgotten fights, fresh bruises from the alley and the fall, the angry red welt on my throat where the big man's hands had been. I did not want them to see it. I did not want them to read the story of the rat that was written on my skin.

I undressed with a frantic and clumsy haste, my fingers fumbling with the buttons of the shirt, the zipper of the pants. The clean, black fabric of the uniform fell to the floor in a heap. I folded it with a care that was completely alien to me, my movements stiff and awkward, and placed the neat, black-and-red pile on the small, wooden table. Ivan and Makoto were doing the same, their own uniforms creating a small, monochrome mountain of corporate identity. We were three strangers, stripped of our clothes, stripped of our pasts, standing half-naked and exposed in the soft, orange light of our shared and sterile tomb.

I moved to my pod, the one on the far right, putting as much distance as I could between myself and the others. I ran a hand over its smooth, cool surface, searching for a seam, a handle, a button. I found a small, almost invisible panel near the top of the pod, its surface a slightly different texture than the surrounding polymer. I pressed it.

With a soft, almost inaudible hiss of hydraulics, the top half of the pod rose upwards, revealing a contoured, white interior. The smell that wafted out was the same as the rest of The Hive, clean, sterile, and faintly metallic. The inside was not a flat mattress. It was a single, molded piece of a soft, yielding polymer, shaped to the approximate contours of a human body, a shallow and impersonal cradle. At the head of the pod, there was a single, crescent-shaped cushion of a dark, grey, gel-like substance. I touched it. It was cool and firm, yet it yielded to the pressure of my fingers, molding itself to their shape before slowly returning to its original form. It was both comforting in its support and unnervingly anatomical in its design.

I lay down, my back sinking into the form-fitting polymer, my head and neck cradled by the cool, soft gel. The pod was a perfect fit. A terrifyingly perfect fit. It felt less like a bed and more like a custom-made sarcophagus, a place designed not just for sleep, but for containment. I could see the rest of the room from my position, the ceiling, the silent, red neon clock on the wall, the dark silhouettes of Ivan and Makoto as they got into their own pods.

The time on the wall read 22:59.

As the final digit ticked over to 23:00, the room was plunged into an absolute and disorienting darkness. The soft, orange light did not fade. It simply ceased to exist, leaving a blackness so profound and so complete it felt like a physical weight on my eyes.

And then, a sound. A low, soft, and inexorable hiss from above me. I looked up into the darkness and I saw it. The lid of my pod was closing. The thin sliver of almost-black that was the darkened room was shrinking, a closing eyelid on my new and terrifying world. The hiss of the hydraulics was the only sound, a soft and final lullaby. The lid met the base with a solid, satisfying thud, a sound of perfect and absolute closure. A small click echoed in the enclosed space, the sound of a lock engaging.

I was in a box! A dark, silent, and perfectly sealed box! And I could hear my own breathing, a loud and ragged sound in the absolute silence. A wave of pure, primal claustrophobia washed over me, a hot and suffocating tide. A raw scream clawed at the back of my throat, a frantic command to my own body to let it out, to shatter the silence.

My fists clenched, muscles coiling with the need to hammer against the lid, to break my way back into the world. My fingers dug into the polymer beneath me, trying to find a purchase, a seam, anything to tear open. But the commands were lost in the static of a new and more sophisticated kind of terror.

Then, another sound. A soft, almost inaudible hiss, coming from a series of small, recessed nozzles in the wall of the pod, just above my head. A faint, sweet, and slightly chemical scent filled the small space. It was not unpleasant. It smelled... calm. Like the air after a rain I had never felt, like a flower I had never seen.

I tried to hold my breath, a last, futile act of rebellion. But my lungs burned, and I was forced to inhale. The sweet, calm scent filled my head. The frantic, pounding rhythm of my heart began to slow. The sharp, jagged edges of my terror began to soften, to dissolve into a dull, swimming confusion. My limbs, which had been tense and coiled, began to feel heavy, my eyelids like lead weights.

My last, coherent thought was a fragmented and disjointed collage of the day's horrors. The smiling face of the man from the datapad, his kind eyes filled with a life I had stolen. The cold gaze of Ivan. The bright, cheerful, and utterly untrustworthy grin of Makoto. The gnawing, aching emptiness in my stomach, a final and unanswered question. And then... nothing. Just the blackness. A soft, gentle, and absolute blackness that was not just the absence of light, but the absence of thought, of fear, of... me—

║ 𝓓𝓐𝓨 ᛑ ║

Absolute white light flood my vision. It felt less like seeing and more like being dissolved. My eyelids, heavy as stones, fluttered open, my hands instinctively flying up to shield my face from the sudden and unwelcome dawn. The soft, orange glow of the room had been replaced by a clean, white illumination from the ceiling, a light that felt sharp and interrogative. A small, digital display on the wall, one I had not noticed before, glowed with the numbers: 08:00.

A soft, synthesized three-note chime began to repeat, a gentle, patient, and completely unavoidable signal that the time for oblivion was over. From the pods to my left, I heard a chorus of low groans, the sounds of two other men being dragged from the depths of their own artificial slumber. The lid of my pod was already open, having retracted with a silence I had not registered. I sat up, the movement a slow and agonizing process. Every joint in my body cracked and popped, a dry, percussive sound like old wood splintering.

The first thing I noticed was the pain. A dull, aching pressure deep behind my sternum, as if my heart had run a marathon while the rest of me slept, a strange and unsettling exhaustion in a body that otherwise felt... rested. My ankle still throbbed, a familiar and almost comforting baseline of agony, but the deep, bone-weary fatigue that had been clinging to me like a shroud was gone. I felt... energized. Too energized. A strange, buzzing, and slightly nauseating current of excess vitality hummed just beneath my skin.

Makoto was already standing, stretching his arms towards the ceiling with a groan that was a mixture of relief and discomfort. His back arched, producing a series of loud, satisfying cracks. He then collapsed onto the small sofa, his body going limp. "Ugh, my chest," he complained, rubbing a hand over where his heart is located. "It feels... weird. Like I overslept by a week. And this room... does it feel different to you guys? The air... it feels less sterile now. More... charged. Like there's static electricity in it."

He was right. The clean, filtered air of the previous night now had a new quality, a low-grade hum that you could almost feel on your skin, a faint and almost imperceptible vibration that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I swung my legs out of the pod, my bare feet hitting the cool, resilient floor. The bizarre, nonsensical fragments of my own artificial dreams still clung to the edges of my consciousness, a sticky and unwelcome residue.

"I had a dream," I muttered, my voice a rough and unused thing. "A really, really weird one. I was on a treadmill. One of those things that just keeps going. And it was... it was endless. It was stretching out in front of me through a landscape of brightly colored, oversized candies. The trees were giant lollipops, the rivers were made of some kind of pink goo, and the ground was a soft, spongy cake. And there was this music... a cheerful, stupid jingle, the kind they use to sell cheap toys to kids, and it was just playing on a loop, over and over and over again. I had to keep running, because if I stopped, I had this feeling... this absolute certainty... that the candy would eat me."

Wide with a mixture of amusement and a dawning, horrified recognition, Makoto stared right at me in the eyes. "No way," he whispered. "Mine was... I was building a tower. Out of teeth. And every time I placed a new tooth, it would whisper a secret I had forgotten. And the secrets... they weren't good ones."

Ivan was already out of his pod, standing and inspecting the seams of the white, ovoid chamber with a critical and detached eye, as if he were looking for a manufacturing defect. He seemed completely unaffected by the lingering strangeness of the artificial sleep. "The gas likely contains a mild neuro-stimulant and a REM-cycle accelerator," he stated, his voice a flat and final diagnosis, not a theory. "It is designed to maximize mental recuperation in a minimal timeframe. The 'dreams' you experienced are merely a predictable side effect of the brain processing a full night's worth of synaptic pruning and data consolidation in a fraction of the usual time. They are a form of cognitive exhaust. Irrelevant." He dismissed the conversation, and our shared, strange experience, with a single, sharp wave of his hand. "The side effects are not our concern. Our focus should be on the day's directive."

Whatever that might be. The three of us began to dress in silence, the act of putting on the identical black and red uniforms a somber and wordless ritual. We were erasing our individual histories, the stories told by our old clothes, and recasting ourselves as interchangeable assets. The clean, corporate-approved skin of L-Corp settled over us, a new and heavy identity.

We still had some time before whatever directive was coming. The small, glowing clock on the wall now read 08:07. A half-hour passed in a strange and silent blur of new routines. We found the basic hygiene facilities at the end of the long, orange-hued hallway, a communal space of clean, white tile and polished chrome. The showers... gods, the showers.

For a rat who had spent his entire life washing in cold, rusty water that smelled of rot and sickness, the sensation of hot, clean water cascading over my body was a profound and almost religious experience. It was a luxury so absolute, so far beyond the realm of my previous existence, that it was almost painful. The heat sent shivers down my spine, a feeling of pure, unadulterated pleasure that was so intense it bordered on a kind of agony. I stood under the spray for as long as I dared, scrubbing away the layers of ingrained filth, watching the water that swirled around my feet turn a dark and satisfying grey.

I even took the opportunity to wash my hair, the black strands that had been my defining and most disgusting feature. With the small, corporate-approved bar of soap, I managed to wash it, to untangle it, to turn the greasy, filth-caked rope into something that was, if not neat, at least clean. I tied it back with a piece of string I had found in the pocket of my old trousers, a small and final act of reclamation before I threw my old life into the designated incinerator chute.

When we emerged, clean and dressed in our identical uniforms, the long, orange-hued hallway was no longer empty. It was filled with the low murmur of the other 147 employees, all dressed in the same uniform, all emerging from their own rooms with faces that were a mixture of a forced readiness and a deep, underlying anxiety.

The entire group converged on the vast, central hub, the space now a sea of black and red, the collective tension of the assembled crowd a palpable and living thing. And Angela was there, standing exactly where she had been before, a single, serene and unmoving figure against the backdrop of the expectant masses, her eyes still closed, her posture one of perfect and patient stillness. She waited, a statue of absolute authority, until the last of the employees had filed into the hub, until the low murmur of conversation had died down into a tense and expectant silence.

"Good morning," she began, her voice the same smooth and perfectly modulated instrument, a sound that cut through the silence with an effortless and absolute authority. "I trust you all slept well. As I mentioned yesterday, this facility's operational expansion is a phased process. The Hive is a living entity that grows with each passing cycle. Today, on this inaugural day, only the most foundational department will be brought online: the Control Department, the very heart and brain of our entire operation."

She paused, letting the words settle, letting the weight of their significance be felt.

"Due to the specialized and sensitive nature of the department's initialization phase, the Manager himself has personally reviewed the resilience data from your trials. He has made his selection." She paused again, a small and almost imperceptible smile touching her lips, a smile of pure and absolute power. "The Control Department can only be staffed by a maximum of three employees for this first day. The shift will last for three hours."

A collective, in-drawn breath, a soft and rustling sound from 147 pairs of lungs, was the only response. The realization that they were about to be left behind, that their first day in this new and terrifying world would be spent in a state of idle and anxious waiting, was a fresh spike of anxiety that rippled through the crowd. A few, low and angry murmurs began to rise from the back ranks. "What the hell? We all passed the test!" "So we just sit here all day?" "This is a joke."

Angela raised her left hand, a small and placating gesture that was, in its own way, a silent and absolute command for silence. The murmuring stopped instantly. "Your time will come," she said, her voice a smooth and reassuring balm of corporate doublespeak. "You are in 'pre-deployment standby.' As the facility expands, day by day, new departments will be opened, and you will be assigned your roles accordingly. Your patience is not only appreciated; it is a vital component of our operational success."

She then looked out over the sea of faces, her gaze seeming to lock onto each and every one of us, a feat that was made all the more unnerving by the fact that her eyes were still closed. The large screens behind her, which had been displaying benign footage of The Hive's facilities, flickered and went dark for a moment. The L-Corp logo materialized, hung in the air for a second, and then dissolved into three empty, rectangular frames, like blank identification cards waiting for data. Her voice, an irrevocable verdict that cut through the silence, announced the finality of the Manager's will.

"Ivan, Makoto, Kurouni. The Manager's selections have been finalized. Your departmental assignments and initial operational parameters will now be displayed for confirmation."

A portrait of headshot materialized, it's was us, the three of us, and in the first frame. It was a picture of Ivan taken under harsh, direct lighting, his face a mask of cold composure, his eyes staring directly forward, devoid of any warmth. Text began to populate the space beneath his image, the letters and numbers appearing with a clean, digital snap, a block of cold, hard data that I stared at, completely uncomprehending.

IVAN - Level-I [CONTROL DEPARTMENT]
EQUIPMENT: Standard Riot Stick [ZAYIN]
DAMAGE: 1-4 Red
FORTITUDE I: 17
PRUDENCE I: 16
TEMPERANCE I: 14
JUSTICE I: 13

MAKOTO - Level-I [CONTROL DEPARTMENT]
EQUIPMENT: Standard Riot Stick [ZAYIN]
DAMAGE: 1-4 Red
FORTITUDE I: 6
PRUDENCE I: 9
TEMPERANCE I: 10
JUSTICE I: 8

KUROUNI - Level-I [CONTROL DEPARTMENT]
EQUIPMENT: Standard Riot Stick [ZAYIN]
DAMAGE: 1-4 Red
FORTITUDE I: 6
PRUDENCE I: 5
TEMPERANCE I: 4
JUSTICE I: 4

The crowd parted around us, a silent and shuffling sea of black and red, creating a small, isolated island of the chosen. The weight of 147 pairs of envious, resentful, and fearful eyes was a heavy and uncomfortable burden on my back. I could feel their collective gaze, a mixture of a 'why them and not me?' resentment and a palpable relief that it was, in fact, them and not me who had to be the first to step into the unknown.

Ivan's face was a grim and stoic mask of acceptance. He had expected this. He was the kind of man who was always chosen first. I, on the other hand, felt a hot and liquid wave of pure terror wash through my bowels. I had spent my entire life trying to be invisible, and I had just had a spotlight shone directly on me in a room full of strangers who already had a reason to hate me.

Makoto, standing beside me, let out a low whistle as he looked at the screen. "Temperance? Justice? What the hell is this, a video game?" he whispered, his usual, cheerful bravado tinged with a new and genuine note of confusion.

The three of us, the chosen, limped, walked, and bounced our way to the front of the crowd, stopping before the serene and smiling form of Angela.

"Prior to the Manager's selection," she instructed, her voice a low and confidential murmur, as if she were sharing a small and important secret with just the three of us, "you must return to your quarters and retrieve your standard-issue safety and compliance tools from your lockers. This equipment is a mandatory component of your work attire for this assignment. Once you are properly equipped, you will proceed to the northern elevator. The Manager is waiting."

Makoto's face paled slightly at the mention of the "tools," the connection between the brain-frying chair and the riot stick in his locker finally solidifying into a cold and terrible certainty. The three of us turned and began the long walk of the damned, back against the tide of the other employees.

As we walked down the long, orange-hued hallway, back towards our room, Ivan's patience, a thin and brittle thing at the best of times, finally snapped. He turned on me, his movement a sudden and angry pivot, his voice a low and furious growl.

"Did you even bother to read the terms and conditions before you came here? Did you read anything on those papers you were clutching?"

I flinched, a small and pathetic gesture. I offered a nervous shrug, a gesture that was rapidly becoming my only and most useless defense mechanism. "The text was too small and the words were too big," I confessed, the lie coming easily now, a familiar and comfortable skin to crawl into. "But I... I remember a part near the end. Of the job description. It said I would have to get my hands dirty. Sounded easy enough."

Ivan let out a short, sharp, and completely humorless laugh, a sound like grinding stones. He turned his gaze back to the path ahead, his silence a more damning judgment than any insult he could have hurled at me.

We retrieved our riot sticks, the black and green weapons feeling heavy and awkward in our hands, a strange and unwelcome addition to our clean, corporate uniforms. We walked to the northern end of The Hive, to the elevator that Angela had indicated. The large, circular metal door was already open, waiting for us. The looping logo of Lobotomy Corporation was projected onto the ceiling above it, a constant and silent reminder of who owned us. We stepped inside. The door slid shut, and the elevator began its descent.

The journey down was a low, grinding noise that sounded less like a machine and more like a great and ancient beast groaning in its sleep. When the doors opened, it was to a central, wide, square room of a uniform and almost painfully bright yellow. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all of it was a single, seamless expanse of that same, sickly color. The central core of the room was lined with countless, green-tinted CCTV screens, most of them displaying silent, empty corridors, but a few showing rooms that were... not empty.

The largest screen, positioned near a massive, green, steel-reinforced auto-door, showed a direct and live footage of the hallway that lay beyond it. The hallway was as long and as yellow as everything else, and completely devoid of life. In the middle of the hallway, there was a strange, reinforced gate, a lighter shade of yellow, with a round, green, reinforced window in its center. The hallway had no other doors. It was just a long, yellow tube that ended in a solid, yellow wall.

Along the right side of the room, a line of black and yellow caution tape was painted on the wall, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. And beside it, a large and chaotic diagram had been drawn in a simple, black pencil, a web of interconnected circles and unreadable, scrawled names.

"Anyone else finding this whole setup... weird?" Ivan's voice cut through the ambient, humming silence of the room. "I mean, where is the equipment? The safety gear? I thought we were heading down to some mining shaf—"

"Hello there!" a new voice, a cheerful and almost painfully energetic female voice, chirped from behind us.

We spun around. A woman was standing there, a woman who had absolutely not been there a second before. Her hair was cut short, a strange and striking mixture of brown and yellow, held back by a simple, red hairband. Her eyes were a flat and pupil-less brown, a dark shadow covering the top half of each eye, giving her a strange and unsettlingly intense gaze.

She wore a regular business suit with a red tie and a small, white armband with the letter 'M' embroidered on it. She was constantly fidgeting, a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other, which was so covered in notes and scribbles that it looked like it was about to fall apart. She was whirling around to face us now, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a smile that was all sharp angles and no warmth.

"Greetings! My name is Malkuth! I am the Sephirah and the head of the Control Department! And you three must be my new team! Oh, this is just wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! We have so much work to do! So many protocols to initialize! So many procedures to perfect! I do hope you're ready to give it your all!" Her entire body seemed to radiate an aura of endless and slightly unhinged energy, a human-shaped hummingbird of pure, corporate zeal. And her eyes, those dark, pupil-less, and unnervingly enthusiastic eyes, were fixed on us with an intensity that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

"Right! So! The Control Department! The most important department, if you ask me, but don't tell the others I said that!" she chirped, her voice a high and almost painfully enthusiastic staccato. "Our primary purpose here is to monitor everything! Every blip, every flicker, every single operational variable throughout the entire facility! From the Information Department," she pointed a sharp, decisive finger at a blank section of the yellow wall to her right, as if indicating a door that only she could see, "to the Training Department down the hall, we are the eyes and the ears of this entire operation! Every piece of data flows through here! Through us! It is a tremendous responsibility, but also a tremendous honor!"

I exchanged a quick, uncertain glance with Ivan. His face was a stone wall, but I could see a small, tight muscle twitching in his jaw. This woman's boundless excitement felt so profoundly out of place, so completely at odds with the institutional coldness of our surroundings, that it created a strange and unsettling dissonance in my mind. It was like someone had spliced a children's television show host into a live feed from a morgue.

"Now," she continued, clapping her hands together with a sound that was startlingly loud in the quiet room, "today's shift is nothing too difficult, really! It's our first day, after all! A gentle introduction to our protocols! We don't have too much to do, really, aside from that one little task down that hallway you see on the big screen there." She gestured with her clipboard towards the main monitor, at the image of the long, empty yellow corridor and the reinforced gate. "Just a quick little energy collection task to get us all warmed up! Nothing to worry about at all! It will be a perfect opportunity to establish our baseline efficiency metrics and—"

Ivan raised a hand, his movement slow and deliberate, a clear and unambiguous signal that he was about to speak. "Excuse me, but—"

He never got to finish his question. Malkuth cut him off, not by speaking over him, but by turning away completely, her attention suddenly and absolutely fixed on a point in the empty air just to the left of my head. Her entire demeanor shifted, her high-strung energy softening into a strange, almost reverent delight.

"Oh! Manager! Congratulations on joining us here at Lobotomy Corporation! It is an absolute honor, a true and profound honor, to have you with us! I have reviewed your file, of course, and your aptitude is simply off the charts! I am so looking forward to working with you, to building a brighter future, to achieving a level of operational perfection that this facility has never seen before!" She closed her eyes, a beatific expression spreading across her face, her hands clutching her clipboard to her chest as if it were a sacred text.

I froze. Manager? She was talking to... the Manager? But there was no one there. The three of us stood in a silent, bewildered triangle, watching this woman carry on a one-sided conversation with empty air. Was the Manager invisible? Was this another bizarre test, a piece of corporate theatre designed to see how we would react?

It made no sense. Why would she, a department head, a 'Sephirah,' be so deferential to a new boss, especially one none of us could see? In the Backstreets, power was simple—the one with the biggest weapon or the most bodies was in charge. This... this was a set of rules I did not understand, and that made it dangerous.

A sharp, electronic crackle, followed by a voice that was as cold and smooth as polished glass, filled the room, diectly emanating from a small, circular speaker on the ceiling. "Malkuth. Do not confuse the new Employees. Your introduction is to be as brief and as procedurally accurate as possible."

Malkuth's eyes snapped open. She did not look startled. She looked... annoyed. Like a child who had just been scolded by a parent in front of her new friends. She turned her gaze back to the empty air, her cheerful expression now tinged with a hint of a conspiratorial pout. "You see? Miss Angela is not in a very good mood today. But don't you worry, Manager. At least the other Sephirah are looking forward to meeting you. Well... maybe not all of them."

Before I could even begin to unpack that particular and deeply unsettling piece of internal corporate politics, another voice, a new one, echoed from the intercom. This one was from a man, calm, and held a tone of absolute and unquestionable authority.

"Makoto. Proceed to Containment Unit O-03-03. Perform Attachment Work. Energy quota: 12 PE-Boxes."

A small, almost inaudible chime came from the pocket of Makoto's uniform. He fumbled for a moment before pulling out a small, black, handheld device, a PDA of some kind. The screen was glowing with the same text the Manager had just spoken.

"PE-Boxes? What the hell is a PE-Box?" The question escaped my lips before I could stop it, a small and stupid sound of my own profound and all-encompassing ignorance.

Malkuth spun on her heel to face Makoto, her face once again alight with that same, unnerving cheerfulness. "Oh, Makoto! I see you've received your first assignment! How exciting! PE-Boxes are Positive Enkephalin Boxes! They're the primary energy units we produce here in the facility! Think of them like... little batteries of happiness! Now, off you go to the containment unit. The door's just down the main hall, third on your left. You'll do great! I know it!"

Makoto stared at her, his cheerful bravado from the dorm room now completely gone, replaced by a pale and wide-eyed confusion. "Containment Unit? But... contain what? We're mining, right? That's what Angela said. What are we containing?"

Ivan stepped forward, his hand resting on the riot stick at his hip. "The order was specific," he said, his voice a low and steady anchor in the swirling sea of strangeness. "We will accompany him. A three-person team is a standard operational unit."

Malkuth's smile faltered for a fraction of a second. A flicker of something, a shadow of an old and familiar anxiety, crossed her face. "No, no, that won't be necessary!" she said, her voice a little too loud, a little too bright. "The Manager's directive was for Makoto only! It's a simple, introductory task! A one-person job! You two will have your own assignments soon enough, I'm sure! Now, Makoto, off you go! We're on a schedule!"

The Manager's voice was gone. There was no clarification. There was no further explanation. Just the order, hanging in the silent, yellow air. Makoto looked at Ivan, then at me, his eyes pleading for an answer that none of us had.

"Good luck," Ivan said, his voice flat and devoid of any real comfort. "Follow the instructions. Do not deviate."

Makoto swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. He gave a single, jerky nod, turned, and walked towards the large, auto-door that led into the main hallway. The door hissed open before he reached it, revealing the long, empty, and brightly lit yellow corridor beyond. He stepped through, and the door hissed shut behind him, the sound of his footsteps fading into an absolute silence.

The heavy door slid shut with a solid, definitive boom, the sound swallowed by the oppressive yellow of the room. A profound quiet descended, thick and humming with the low, steady thrum of unseen machinery. For a few seconds, the three of us remained frozen in a tableau of bewildered inaction. Makoto was gone, vanished into a hallway to perform a task whose name made no sense, for a purpose that was completely and utterly opaque. We were alone. Alone with her.

Ivan stood with his back to me, his gaze fixed on the large monitor that showed the empty hallway where Makoto had disappeared. His posture was rigid, his weight perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet, his right hand resting on the grip of his riot stick with a familiarity that spoke of a long and violent history. His knuckles were pale against the black composite material of the handle. He was not just waiting; he was observing, his head making small, almost imperceptible movements as his eyes scanned every monitor in the central console, cataloging, analyzing, searching for a pattern in the chaos.

In the center of the room, Malkuth was a statue of misplaced joy. The frantic, hummingbird-like energy she had displayed upon our arrival had completely evaporated, replaced by a strange and unnerving stillness. Her head was tilted back, her pupil-less brown eyes fixed on a small, dark camera lens nestled in the corner where the yellow wall met the yellow ceiling. A small, serene expression was fixed on her face, the corners of her lips pulled up in a gentle curve, but the skin around her eyes was completely slack, devoid of the small crinkles that accompany a genuine feeling. Her breathing was so shallow, so even, that for a moment I wondered if she was breathing at all. She was a doll left in the middle of a room, its painted-on features locked in a single, unchanging emotion.

I tried to emulate Ivan's stoic composure, to plant my feet and become a pillar of calm readiness. My body was a traitor. My heart was pounding a frantic, irregular rhythm against my ribs, a trapped bird trying to beat its way out of my chest. A cold sweat was prickling at the back of my neck, making the collar of my new, stiff uniform feel like a band of wet and abrasive sandpaper.

I shifted my weight from my good foot to my bad one, the sharp, grinding pain from my ankle a welcome and familiar distraction from the screaming, silent questions that were ricocheting around the inside of my own skull. What was Makoto doing in there? What in the hell was a Containment Unit? And why did they call the work "Attachment?" The words were so strange, so deliberately and unsettlingly vague, like a language designed to describe things that were not meant to be understood by a normal human mind.

Ivan finally broke the silence, his voice a low and controlled rumble that seemed to absorb the humming of the machinery. He did not turn to face me. He spoke to the bank of monitors in front of him. "This is inefficient," he stated, the words a cold and final judgment. "The chain of command is unclear. The operational directives are ambiguous. The departmental head is... non-responsive."

He turned his head slightly, his eyes meeting mine in the reflection of one of the tinted screens. "In any other corporate structure, in any functional organization, she would be fired from the job. A supervisor who engages in unprompted and one-sided conversations with an invisible entity and then enters a state of catatonic stillness in the middle of an active work cycle is not an asset. She is a liability. A severe one."

His logic was a cold and solid thing in the warm, yellow strangeness of the room. He was trying to fit her into a box he understood, the box of corporate hierarchies and performance reviews. He saw an employee who was failing at her job. I saw something else.

Is she broken? That chair, the one that had turned the first man's brain into hot soup, had she sat in it one too many times? Or was this an act? A performance? The kind of strange and unpredictable behavior a predator might display to lull its prey into a false sense of security before it strikes. I watched her, really watched her. Her stillness was absolute. Not even a flicker of an eyelid. The smile was just a shape her mouth was making, as meaningless as the carved smile on the face of the brute in the alley. She was looking at the camera. Or was she looking through it? Was she talking to the Manager right now, her thoughts a silent and instantaneous stream of data that was being fed directly into the heart of this machine?

"Maybe she's just tired," I offered, the words a stupid and pathetic piece of my own, desperate need for a normal explanation.

Ivan let out a short, sharp huff of a sound that was not quite a laugh. "Tired people do not stand in the middle of a control room with a beatific expression on their face while staring at a security camera. She is compromised. Mentally. Either through trauma or by design. It makes no difference. She is a faulty component."

He turned his attention back to the monitors, his dismissal of her as final and absolute as a death sentence. I let my own gaze wander around the room, the strange and unsettling details of our new prison. The drawing on the wall, the chaotic web of circles and lines, it was pulling at the edge of my consciousness again. It was a map of this place, I was certain of it now. A schematic of this underground hell. The circles were the departments, the lines were the hallways. And at the bottom, there was a single, large circle, a foundation, from which all the others seemed to grow, like the roots of a terrible and unknowable tree.

The hum of the machinery seemed to grow louder in the silence, a constant and monotonous drone that was starting to get under my skin. The minutes ticked by, each one a slow and agonizing drop of water in an endless ocean of waiting. I could feel the gnawing emptiness in my stomach returning, the brief and beautiful relief of the bread and water from the cafeteria now a distant and mocking memory. I leaned against the cool, yellow wall, the pain in my ankle a dull and constant throb. The silence was a living thing, a predator that was slowly and methodically stalking the edges of my own, fragile sanity.

Ivan, to his credit, was a rock. He did not move. He did not fidget. He just stood there, his gaze sweeping across the bank of monitors in a slow and steady rhythm, his mind, I was certain, cataloging every flicker of light, every shadow, every single, insignificant detail of this strange and empty kingdom.

Then, a sound. A low, grinding noise, the unmistakable sound of heavy machinery moving somewhere down the long, yellow hallway. I looked up at the main screen. Ivan had already seen it, his body tensing, his hand tightening on his riot stick. The reinforced gate in the middle of the corridor, the one with the circular window, was sliding open. It retracted into the ceiling with a slow and ponderous finality, revealing the dark, empty space of the hallway beyond.

And from that darkness, a scream echoed, a high, thin, and utterly terrified sound that ripped through the quiet of the control room like a blade.

He was running, his arms pumping, his face a white and contorted mask of pure, unadulterated terror. He was screaming, not words, but a single, continuous, and ragged wail of a man who has seen the end of his own world. The heavy, yellow gate began to descend behind him, its grinding descent a slow and final punctuation to his escape. He cleared the gate just as it slammed shut with a solid, echoing boom that shook the entire department.

He did not stop running. He sprinted down the hallway, his footsteps a frantic and desperate staccato, and then he was at the door to our room, the hub. The steel-reinforced auto-door hissed open, and he stumbled through, his momentum carrying him across the room until he slammed into the solid, yellow wall next to the elevator, the one that led back up to the world we had just left.

"LET ME OUT!" he shrieked, his voice a raw and broken thing. He began to pound his fists against the unyielding metal wall, the impacts a series of wet, meaty thuds. "LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! OPEN THE DAMN DOOR! MANAGER! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! I AM GOING TO HAVE A STROKE! A COMPLETE AND TOTAL STROKE! LET ME OUT!"

Ivan and I were moving before we even had a chance to think. We grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to pull him away from the wall, trying to stop the frantic and self-destructive rhythm of his fists. He was surprisingly strong, his body wiry and tense with a kind of hysterical power.

"Makoto! Calm down!" Ivan's voice was a low and commanding growl, the voice of a man who was used to giving orders in the middle of chaos. And as Makoto stopped pounding on the wall. He turned to face us, his bright eyes, wide and unfocused, his face a pale and sweaty canvas of pure terror. He grabbed the front of my uniform, his fingers digging into the fabric with a desperate and painful strength. He pulled me close, his breath a hot and ragged thing on my face, and he screamed.

"A SKULL! A GIANT, FLOATING SKULL! IT HAS NO BODY! JUST A SKULL! A GIANT, FUCKING SKULL OF DEATH! AND IT SINGS! IT SINGS THIS AWFUL MELODY, AND IT WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND! AND THEN... AND THEN IT... IT TRIED TO... IT'S COMING! IT'S COMING TO END US ALL!"

He let go of me and collapsed onto the floor, his body curling into a tight, fetal ball. He began to sob, a series of high-pitched, gasping, and utterly broken sounds.

A skull? A giant, floating, singing skull? The words were a nonsensical and chaotic jumble, a collection of sounds that had no basis in reality. He was high. He had to be. He had somehow, in the half an hour since we had left the dorm room, managed to get his hands on some kind of powerful, hallucinogenic drug. He had to have smuggled it in.

A small flask of cheap, back-alley alcohol, maybe? Or something stronger? The kind of stuff that makes you see things, that makes you scream at walls. The people I knew in the Backstreets, the ones who spent their days in a haze of cheap drugs and cheaper booze, they saw things all the time. Winged rats, talking puddles of sludge, the ghosts of their dead mothers. A giant, singing skull was not even the weirdest thing I had ever heard.

—He's just drunk. Or high. That's all it is. He's just having a bad trip. I need to... I need to calm him down. But how do you talk to someone like this? Do I play along? Do I tell him the skull isn't real? That will probably just make it worse.

I crouched down beside him, my movements slow and cautious, the way you would approach a spooked and unpredictable animal. I put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, a violent and convulsive movement.

"Hey... Makoto," I began, my voice a low and awkward murmur, trying to pitch it in a way that sounded calm and reassuring, but probably just sounded like I was scared. "It's okay. You're okay. You're back here now. You're safe. The... the skull... it's gone now, right? It can't get you in here."

My attempt at comfort was a complete and utter failure. He just shook his head, his face still buried in his knees, his sobs growing louder, more desperate. "You don't understand," he choked out, the words muffled by his own, folded body. "You didn't see it. You didn't hear it. It's not a joke. It's real. And it's coming!"

I looked over at Ivan, searching his expression for some kind of reaction, some signal on how to handle the hysterical boy on the floor. His attention was elsewhere. His entire body was angled towards the large auto-door, his jaw was set, and his eyes were narrowed as he stared at the seamless metal barrier. He stood perfectly still, his weight balanced, listening with an intensity that completely ignored the sobbing and screaming happening at his feet.

There was a subtle shift in his posture, a tightening of the muscles in his shoulders and back that was almost imperceptible. He was no longer just an observer. But still... what Makoto just rambled about just now... the idea was absurd, the product of a mind that had been shattered by a machine designed for that exact purpose. But the scream... the scream had been real. The terror had been genuine.

And a place that used a Cognito-Hazard scanner as a hiring tool was not a mining company. It was something else. Something that had containment units, something that required riot sticks, something that could reduce a cheerful, confident young man into a weeping child in under fifteen minutes. Every instinct in Ivan's body, honed by a lifetime of violence and survival in a world that rewarded paranoia, was screaming at him that something was terribly, fundamentally wrong.

My PDA chimed, the small, electronic sound a sharp and unwelcome intrusion. The voice of the Manager, calm, authoritative, and completely indifferent to the hysterical man sobbing on the floor, echoed from the intercom.

"Kurouni. Proceed to Containment Unit O-03-03. Perform Insight Work. Now."

The words appeared on the screen of my own device, a clean and simple command that felt like a death sentence. I stared at the message, my own blood turning to ice in my veins. The same unit. The same goddamn place.

Makoto heard it. He scrambled up from the floor, his face a mess of tears and snot, and he grabbed the front of my uniform, his knuckles white. "NO!" he shrieked, his voice a raw and ragged thing. "DON'T YOU GO IN THERE! DON'T YOU FUCKING DO IT! IT WILL GET YOU! IT WILL EAT YOUR MIND! YOU'LL DIE! YOU'LL FUCKING DIE!"

I looked from his terrified, pleading face to Ivan's grim and silent one. Ivan's expression was unreadable, but his silence was a kind of command in itself. To refuse, to show fear, would be to align myself with the broken, weeping thing at my feet. It would be to declare myself a liability. And liabilities, in a place like this, have a tendency to disappear.

I peeled Makoto's fingers from my uniform, one by one. I tried to make my own voice sound calm, steady, dismissive. I waved a hand, a gesture that was meant to be a casual shrug but was probably just a spastic twitch. "Relax," I said, the word a dry and cracking thing in my throat. "It's probably just a prank. A hazing ritual for the new guys. They're just trying to scare us."

The hallway outside the department was even more sterile than the office, if such a thing was possible. The walls were seamless metal, broken only by heavy doors marked with alphanumeric codes. I found O-03-03 easily enough—the designation was stenciled in black letters on a door that looked capable of withstanding a direct missile strike. Beside the door, a small, illuminated sign was posted prominently above the scanner panel, its text a clean and ominous piece of corporate legalese.

NOTICE: Under Facility Energy Stability Mandate 12-B, Confession Work of Level 3 on this unit is strictly regulated. This protocol is in place to prevent a potential Cascade Failure event within the facility's primary power grid. Unauthorized attempts will be classified as an act of facility-wide sabotage and will result in immediate disciplinary action.

Confession Work? The words were another piece of a puzzle I did not have the picture for. I looked down at the clipboard and pen I was carrying, the tools that Malkuth had insisted I take from a small dispenser by the door. Not a pickaxe. Not a shovel. A clipboard. This was a social experiment, I told myself, a new and more elaborate part of the test. They were just trying to see how we would react to a strange and stressful situation. It was just paperwork. Some kind of document review. That had to be it.

I pressed my hand against the scanner. The light on the panel shifted from red to green, and the containment gate's locking mechanism disengaged with a series of heavy, mechanical sounds—a deep ka-thunk of massive bolts retracting, a low groan of gears turning, a final, sharp hiss of released pressure. It was an amount of noise and security that seemed... excessive, for what I had convinced myself was just a filing room.

The door began to slide open, a thick slab of reinforced steel retracting into the wall, revealing a small, dark antechamber beyond. I stepped through, and the door slid shut behind me with a final, echoing boom. I was in a short, narrow hallway, a transitional space between the main corridor and whatever lay beyond. At the end of this small hall, a tight set of steel stairs led down into a deeper darkness. I walked down, my footsteps the only sound, and arrived before another, even larger sliding containment gate. It opened automatically upon my arrival, a silent and welcoming maw. As I stepped through, another gate slid shut behind me with a solid, final thud, sealing me inside.

The choir hit me then. The sound was too present, too real, too... layered. Many voices, all male, were singing in a language I did not recognize, a series of long, mournful, and ancient-sounding syllables that resonated in the very bones of my chest. It was Latin, maybe, the kind of dead language I had heard whispers of in stories about the old world. Their tones oscillated between a profound and sorrowful lament and a sudden, soaring exultation.

The room was wrong. My mind, which had been clinging to the comforting and logical idea of a mining operation, of a simple, dirty, and understandable job, recoiled from the reality of this space. There were no rough-hewn walls of a cave, no piles of rubble, no pickaxes or drilling machinery. There was only a vast, empty chamber of polished, grey steel. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all of it was a single, seamless expanse of cold, clean metal.

The room was too large for the hallway it was connected to, its dimensions a physical impossibility. The ceiling was too high, lost in a darkness that the soft, golden radiance that filled the room could not penetrate. The light itself had no visible source; it just... was. A warm, beautiful, and deeply unsettling glow that seemed to emanate from the very air itself.

I am not in a mine. I am not in a factory. I am in a box. A very big, very clean, and very, very wrong box. My heart began to pound, a frantic, desperate rhythm that was a sickening echo of my ordeal in the alley with the moss. But this was worse. So much worse.

And floating in the center of the room, two meters above the polished, steel-tiled floor, was something that my mind actively and violently rejected as real.

A skull. A giant human skull, but massive, easily three meters in diameter, its bone an ancient and luminous white, the color of something that had been excavated from a tomb sealed for millennia and then polished by hands that understood the sacred nature of death. The bone itself seemed to emit a faint phosphorescence, not bright enough to illuminate the room, but noticeable enough to make the edges of the thing blur and shimmer like heat rising from summer pavement.

Around its cranium, a crown of thick, black thorns was wrapped so tightly that it seemed to bite into the bone itself, each individual thorn as thick as my wrist, their points digging into the skull's surface and leaving dark, weeping stains in their wake, stains that looked disturbingly wet despite the obvious impossibility of bone bleeding. Through the center of the skull, driven directly through from top to bottom like a twisted version of holy martyrdom, was a crude, iron cross, its surface pitted and stained with a dark, reddish-brown material that was either an advanced state of decay or old, dried blood that had oxidized over what must have been centuries of exposure.

The skull was facing me. It had no eyes, no muscles, no tissue, no physical means of perception whatsoever. But it was unquestionably and absolutely aware of my presence. I could feel its attention the way you can feel someone staring at the back of your neck in a crowded train, that primal awareness that bypasses conscious thought and goes straight to the ancient, reptilian part of your brain that still remembers when humans were prey.

As I stood there, frozen in a state of pure and absolute disbelief, my body refusing to obey any command my conscious mind was desperately trying to issue, I heard a sound. A low, grinding noise, the sound of ancient bone scraping against ancient bone, the sound of teeth being gnashed in a mouth that did not exist, that could not exist, that was existing anyway in flagrant violation of every law of physics and biology I had ever passively absorbed through a lifetime of existing in a world that had rules.

And as I watched, unable to look away, unable even to blink, the entire massive object rotated with a slow, deliberate, and completely silent grace that was somehow more terrifying than if it had moved with violent, aggressive speed. Its empty eye sockets tracked my position with the precision of a predator, never leaving me, never wavering in their non-existent gaze, and I understood with a clarity that felt like ice water being poured directly into my brain that this thing was not just aware of me—it was studying me, evaluating me, measuring me against some unknowable standard that existed in dimensions my consciousness couldn't even perceive.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT—THAT IS NOT REAL! IT CANT BE REAL! MY MIND IS BROKEN! THE MACHINE BROKE MY MIND! THIS IS A HALLUCINATION—A NIGHTMARE—I'M STILL IN THE POD?! I'M STILL SLEEPING! THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!"

The choir's volume swelled in direct response to my mental scream, the voices rising in a crescendo of such profound and alien beauty that it felt like my ears were bleeding sound instead of processing it. The word they were singing resolved itself in my consciousness with a clarity that suggested it had always been there, just waiting for the exact perfect moment of my maximum vulnerability to make itself known:

HOPELESS!!!

Chapter Text

My legs gave out from under me, all strength and sinew and bone structure turning to water, to nothing, to the complete absence of structural integrity. I hit my knees on the cold, steel floor with a sharp, painful crack that I felt all the way up through my femurs and into my hip bones, the clipboard and pen clattering across the polished surface with a sound like gunshots in the vast, echoing chamber.

My breath came in short, panicked, ragged gasps that didn't seem to be delivering any actual oxygen to my brain, each inhalation feeling like I was trying to breathe through a wet cloth that was being pressed tighter and tighter against my face. The edges of my vision were starting to blur and darken, not with unconsciousness but with something worse, something that felt like my visual cortex was simply giving up on trying to process information that so flagrantly violated its parameters.

"No. No, no, no, no, no. This isn't... this can't be... this is not real. This is not real. Things like this are not real. I am having a psychotic break. I am experiencing a complete mental collapse brought on by severe stress and that fucking gas they pumped into the pods. This is a chemical-induced hallucination of unprecedented vividness and I need to wake up. I need to wake up right now."

I was talking to myself, my voice a high, thin, desperate thing that didn't sound like it belonged to me, or to any human being for that matter. It sounded like the kind of noise a trapped animal makes when it finally understands that the trap isn't going to open, that struggling is pointless, that death is simply a matter of time and the only question remaining is how much it's going to hurt.

The skull drifted slightly closer, a slow, lazy movement like a boat on calm water, like it had all the time in the world and was simply enjoying the show. The movement was so smooth, so perfectly controlled, that it couldn't possibly be the result of any kind of conventional propulsion. It was just floating there, hanging in space, suspended by nothing, obeying no physical laws, existing purely because it had decided that existence was more interesting than the alternative. The choir's volume seemed to respond directly to my fear, to my mental state, growing louder and more insistent and more hungry with each gasped breath I took, each terrified thought that skittered across the surface of my fragmenting consciousness.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS?"

I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, my movements clumsy and uncoordinated and pathetic, my injured ankle screaming in protest as I put weight on it at wrong angles, my palms slipping on the too-smooth steel floor, until my back hit the cold, unyielding surface of the sealed door with enough force to knock what little remaining air I had in my lungs out in a pained wheeze.

My hands fumbled desperately for a handle, a release mechanism, a seam in the metal, a button, a weak point, anything that would offer even the slimmest possibility of escape from this impossible reality that was rapidly consuming every last shred of my sanity. My fingers found nothing. The door was completely smooth, perfectly flush with the wall, as if it had never been a door at all, as if it was just another section of impenetrable steel that happened to have the vague suggestion of door-like properties but no actual functionality.

"LET ME OUT! THERE'S BEEN A MISTAKE! I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS! THIS WASN'T IN THE CONTRACT! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! THIS IS ILLEGAL! THIS HAS TO BE ILLEGAL!"

Through a tiny, almost invisible intercom speaker set into the wall beside where the door used to be, Malkuth's voice chirped brightly, a sound of such profound and horrifying cheerfulness that it felt like someone was driving nails made of optimism directly into my eardrums, each word a new and more creative violation of everything that should be considered appropriate for this situation.

"Oh dear! It looks like we're generating negative PE-Boxes already! That's okay, Kurouni, it happens to everyone on their first Insight Work! The key is to calm down and try to achieve a state of genuine emotional connection with the Abnormality! One Sin really does appreciate sincere human interaction, but it can tell when you're panicking, and that makes it feel sad, which unfortunately creates a negative feedback loop in the emotional energy collection system!"

Her tone was exactly the same as when she'd been explaining the cafeteria hours—bright, encouraging, relentlessly positive in a way that suggested either complete disconnect from reality or such profound acceptance of horror that it had circled back around to cheerfulness. I couldn't decide which possibility was more terrifying.

"STORY?" My voice cracked on the word, breaking into a high, pathetic register that I didn't know I was capable of producing. "IT'S A GIANT FLOATING SKULL! IT'S LOOKING AT ME! IT DOESN'T HAVE EYES AND IT'S LOOKING AT ME!"

"I know it seems intimidating at first!" Malkuth's voice maintained that same horrifying brightness, like she was coaching me through a difficult yoga pose rather than a encounter with something that violated every principle of reality I'd ever understood. "But the entity is actually one of our more cooperative ZAYIN-class entities! Just try to think positive thoughts and focus on establishing a genuine emotional rapport! You still have fourteen minutes and thirty seconds remaining in your work assignment!"

The intercom clicked off with a soft, final sound that somehow conveyed absolute indifference to my mental state.

Fourteen minutes. Fourteen minutes locked in a room with this thing. Fourteen minutes of this impossible, reality-breaking, sanity-destroying nightmare before they would even consider letting me out. If they let me out. If there even was an out anymore. If this wasn't just my new permanent reality, my new forever, an eternity of floating skulls and impossible geometry and voices singing about hopelessness in languages that hurt to understand.

A sharp, piercing pain lanced through my skull, starting at the base of my neck and radiating forward with the precision of a spike being driven directly into the center of my brain by someone who knew exactly where to aim for maximum agony. It wasn't a physical pain, not exactly. It was wronger than that. It felt like the pain was happening to the idea of me rather than my actual physical body, like some essential component of my consciousness was being damaged at a level that existed before the concept of neurons and synapses.

The pain had texture—it felt crystalline, sharp-edged, fractal, like if you could somehow experience the sensation of geometric shapes being forced into spaces that were the wrong dimensions to contain them.

A single, red number flashed in the corner of my vision, appearing without any visible interface or screen, just suddenly present in my field of view like it had always been there and I was only just now noticing it: -1.

With that number came an understanding that was not learned, but inflicted. The knowledge was a violation, a set of definitions that bloomed in the ruins of my own logic without permission, bypassing thought entirely. How did I know that? How could I possibly have a name for this agony? The definitions for 'Negative PE-Box' and 'White Damage' took root in the scorched earth of my mind, alien concepts that felt less like information and more like a diagnosis for a terminal illness. The piercing agony was a direct and measurable injury to the very structure of my thoughts, to the fragile coherence of my own self.

The source of this wound was not an overt attack. The skull remained perfectly still, a silent and patient sun of pure wrongness. Its very presence was the weapon. A passive and continuous assault on the very structure of my sanity. Was it a psychic radiation? An aura of conceptual poison that dissolved any mind that got too close? I had no answer. My thoughts were not tearing themselves apart; they were being unmade, systematically dismantled by the sheer, crushing weight of an entity whose existence was a contradiction to everything that should be real. I was not collapsing on my own. I was being eroded, and the skull was the slow, patient, and silent tide that was washing me away.

The damage felt like it was spreading through my thoughts like cracks spreading through glass, each crack creating weak points where more cracks could form, a cascading failure of psychological structural integrity. I could feel my ability to rationalize, to construct coherent narratives about my situation, beginning to fragment. Thoughts that had been linear were becoming circular, looping back on themselves in ways that didn't quite connect, leaving gaps in my reasoning that I couldn't identify but could sense were there, like missing stairs in a dark stairwell that you only discover by falling.

My hands were shaking so violently that I could barely maintain my grip on anything, each tremor radiating up from some deep, primal part of my nervous system that existed below conscious control. I pressed my palms flat against the cold steel floor, trying to ground myself in physical sensation, in something real and tangible and governed by normal physical laws, but the steel felt wrong against my skin. It felt too smooth, too perfect, like the idealized concept of steel rather than actual metal, and that wrongness just fed back into my spiraling panic.

—This isn't real. It's not. It can't be. This is a hallucination. The gas, the gas from the sleeping pods, it was a powerful psychotropic agent, something experimental, something that could create full-immersion hallucinations of unprecedented realism. Or maybe... maybe we were never in a real facility at all. Maybe the entire interview process, the bus ride, all of it was fake from the start. Maybe we were kidnapped. Maybe right now my actual body is floating in a sensory deprivation tank somewhere in the real Backstreets, plugged into some kind of full-immersion virtual reality system, and my real self doesn't even know I'm here. Maybe I'm in a coma. Maybe I died in that alley with the big man and this entire experience—the interview, the facility, the pods, this thing—is just my dying brain's attempt to make sense of its own dissolution. Maybe I'm already dead and this is what comes after. Maybe this is hell.

The thoughts spiraled through my consciousness in rapid succession, each one a desperate attempt to construct a framework that would make this situation comprehensible, that would restore my sense of control by providing an explanation, any explanation, that didn't require me to accept that reality itself was fundamentally different from what I'd believed for my entire life. The hallucination theory was comforting. The simulation theory was comforting. Even the "I'm actually dead" theory was comforting, because at least it meant this had an end point, that eventually the system would shut down or my consciousness would dissolve or something would change.

But if it was real... if this room was as solid as it felt, if that skull was a physical object governed by some other, darker set of rules... then the world I knew, the world of alleys and hunger and simple, brutal physics, was the illusion. The floor beneath my hands seemed to tilt, not a physical movement, but a conceptual one, the ground of my entire reality turning to sand and slipping away through my fingers. A profound nausea, a vertigo of the soul, seized me. To look at that possibility, to truly consider it, was to stand on the edge of a cliff so high that the fall would never end.

So I chose a story. I selected the narrative that would allow me to continue functioning, even if that functioning was marginal at best. This was a simulation. A game. A sick, twisted, highly realistic corporate training exercise designed to test new employees' psychological resilience under extreme stress. L-Corp was a Wing, and Wings had resources beyond normal comprehension. Of course they could create something like this. Of course they could make it feel this real. That was the entire point of the exercise—to find out who could maintain their composure even when confronted with scenarios that seemed to violate reality itself.

No. I could not let that idea take root. I rejected it, shoving it down with a desperate mental violence. It was a simulation. It had to be. I clung to that explanation, that single, solid piece of wreckage in the churning, black ocean of my own terror. The idea itself was flimsy, a desperate construct, but it was something to hold onto. I focused on it, wrapping my entire consciousness around the notion, letting it become my anchor. The chaotic spiraling of my thoughts began to slow, the raw panic receding just enough to let me breathe, to let me think, to prevent the final, shattering collapse of my own mind. It was enough. For now, it was barely enough.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing air into lungs that didn't want to expand, focusing on the mechanical process of respiration as a way to anchor myself in something routine and automatic. The clean, golden air of the containment chamber felt thick and heavy in my lungs, like breathing honey, like each breath had substance and weight and was leaving deposits of something foreign in my alveoli. But I kept breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, the way you're supposed to do when you're trying to calm down from a panic attack, even though every breath felt like I was pulling something toxic into my body.

"Okay," I whispered to myself, my voice a trembling and uncertain thing that barely qualified as vocalization. "Okay. It's a game. A social experiment. A psychological stress test. Very advanced VR. Very, very advanced. Incredibly realistic. And if I just play by the rules, if I complete the assignment, they'll let me out and I'll pass the test and everything will be fine. This is fine. This is just L-Corp being thorough. They want employees who can handle weird situations. This is just a very, very weird situation. It's funny, really. It's actually kind of funny when you think about it. Giant floating skull. Sure. Why not. What's next, flying spaghetti monsters? Dancing teapots? This is... this is fine."

My own words sounded hollow and unconvincing even to me, the forced casual tone doing absolutely nothing to disguise the underlying hysteria. But the act of speaking, of forming words and sentences, helped. It created a buffer between raw experience and conscious processing, a thin layer of linguistic rationalization that I could hide behind.

The skull was still floating there, its empty eye sockets fixed on me with that same unwavering attention, the sound of its grinding teeth—or whatever mechanism was producing that sound—a constant presence like a baseline rhythm that everything else in the room was orchestrating around. It was just an NPC, I told myself with desperate firmness. A very well-rendered psychologically traumatized NPC in what was probably the most advanced virtual reality simulation ever created, but an NPC nonetheless. Just pixels and polygons and very sophisticated AI programming. Not real. Couldn't be real. Reality didn't work like this. 

My hands were still shaking, tremors running through my fingers in waves that I couldn't control, but I managed—through what felt like an act of pure will that exhausted some fundamental resource I didn't know I possessed—to pick up the pen and clipboard from where they'd fallen. The clipboard's metal edge had dented slightly from the impact with the floor, a small imperfection that felt oddly reassuring in its mundanity. The pen still worked when I tested it against the paper with a small, shaky mark. These were real things, solid things, things that behaved according to normal physical principles. I could hold onto that.

I forced myself to stand, my legs trembling like a newborn animal trying to walk for the first time, my injured ankle sending sharp complaints up through my nervous system that barely registered against the overwhelming sensory assault of everything else. The skull was still there, still floating, its position having shifted slightly higher, moving in a slow, rhythmic pattern—up and down, up and down—with the mechanical precision of something following a programmed animation loop. See? Just code. Just a very elaborate, very convincing piece of programming. Not real. This was manageable. I could manage this.

Now I just had to work. I just had to write something, anything, for this Insight Work that Malkuth had mentioned. The term itself was bizarre enough to reinforce my simulation theory—it sounded exactly like the kind of pseudo-profound corporate jargon that a company would use to make something mundane sound important and meaningful. Fill out this form. Observe the VR entity. Write down your observations. Very corporate. Very normal, in a abnormal sort of way.

 "So. Insight Work. What the hell is Insight Work exactly? Am I supposed to interview it? Conduct some kind of psychological evaluation? 'Good morning, and how are we feeling today? Any interesting dreams? How's your relationship with your mother?'"

The attempt at humor, even gallows humor, even humor so weak and desperate that it barely qualified as such, helped. It created distance, irony, a sense that I was capable of observing this situation from outside rather than being completely subsumed by it. If I could joke about it, even badly, then I wasn't completely broken yet.

"Or maybe I'm supposed to talk to it? Like those old therapeutic techniques where you talk to inanimate objects to work through your issues? 'So, Mr. Skull—'" I had to pause to take another breath, my voice wanting to break into that high, panicked register again, "—how's the whole floating thing working out for you? Must save a lot on shoes. Very economical. I respect that. Good financial planning."

I let out a weak, hysterical chuckle that was more a sob than a laugh, a sound that came from somewhere deep in my chest where terror and absurdity had somehow mixed together into something that my brain could only express through inappropriate laughter. "Is that it? Is this a joke? Is Ivan somewhere watching this on a monitor, laughing his ass off? Did Makoto set this up as some kind of elaborate hazing ritual? 'Let's see how long the new guy lasts before he pisses himself.' Is that what this is?"

The skull didn't respond, of course, because it was a skull, a dead thing, an object that couldn't possibly have consciousness or intention or any of the qualities I was desperately hoping it didn't have. But the choir's volume shifted slightly, the mournful voices dropping in pitch and intensity for just a moment before resuming their previous level, and that change felt like a response, like acknowledgment, like the thing was listening to my increasingly unhinged rambling and finding it either amusing or pitiful or both.

"Or am I supposed to write about it?" I continued, my voice gaining a manic edge as I clung to the sound of my own words like a lifeline. "Write a detailed observation report? 'Subject is a large cranial entity of unknown origin. Appearance: osseous, specifically resembling Homo sapiens cranial structure but scaled to approximately three times normal size. Notable features include crown of thorns, iron cross through vertical axis, and apparent ability to levitate through means that violate known principles of physics. Behavior: stares at observer in a unsettling manner. Emotional state: unclear, as subject possesses no facial muscles or other indicators of affect, yet somehow conveys sense of judgment and disappointment.'"

I actually wrote some of this down, my hand shaking so badly that the letters came out jagged and barely legible, but the act of writing helped. It was concrete action, task completion, something I could point to as evidence that I was functioning, that I was doing the work, that I was playing along with this insane game. The pen scratching against the paper created a sound that was blessedly normal, a sound that belonged in the real world of offices and forms and bureaucracy, not in this impossible space with its impossible occupant.

"Is that the kind of insight they're looking for?" I asked the skull directly, my voice steadier now, though whether that steadiness came from genuine calm or from some kind of shock-induced numbness I couldn't determine. "Clinical observation? Or do they want something deeper? Does the skull represents our fear of mortality? The thorns suggest suffering. The cross indicates religious iconography. In conclusion, this is all very symbolic and meaningful and definitely not just a nightmare made manifest.'"

Another flash of pain stabbed through my consciousness, another increment of white, percing agony... and the number in my peripheral vision changed: -2.

I was doing this wrong. Whatever this was, I was failing at it, and the failure was literally damaging my mind in ways that I could feel happening in real-time. The knowledge arrived with absolute certainty, bypassing doubt and rationalization: my panic, my fear, my desperate attempts to distance myself from genuine engagement with the entity in front of me—all of it was creating negative emotional energy that the facility was somehow measuring and quantifying and which was apparently feeding back into my own psychological state as damage to my mental coherence.

"Seven thorns," I whispered, the words scraping out of a throat that felt like it was lined with sand. I tried to write it down, my hand shaking so violently that the letters were barely legible scrawls. "Spiral pattern. Growing into the bone. Causing discoloration, possible structural damage to—"

Another needle of pure cold plunged into the core of my brain. My vision fractured into a thousand glittering shards. The white -2 that flashed in my mind's eye felt less like a number and more like a physical brand. I gasped, dropping the pen as my other hand flew to my chest, clutching the fabric of the stupid uniform as if I could somehow hold myself together. It felt like something was reaching inside me, past the bone and muscle of my ribs, to grasp something deeper, something essential that had no name but felt like the very anchor of my being.

The skull made a sound. It was not the grinding of teeth this time. It was something else, something new. A long, drawn-out exhalation that had no business coming from a thing with no lungs, no throat, no mechanism for producing sound. It was the sound of a universe sighing. And in that sigh, a torrent of noise and broken thought poured directly into my consciousness, bypassing my ears entirely. It was not language. It was the raw, unfiltered static of a dead god's dream, a transmission of pure meaning that my brain fought to reject. Fragments of letters, phantom shapes of words, burned themselves onto the inside of my eyelids.

"S█ ██N█ ████ ██E█S. S█ ██N█ E█████S. S█ ████ S█████N█. AN█ ███ ██A█? ███ N████N█. A██A█S N████N█. ██E S N █E█A NS. ██E S N S E███NA█. ██E ████ ██E█S ██NN██ E█ASE ██. ██E█ ███E U█. ██N██E█S. ███USAN█S. ██████NS. A ██UN█A N ██ V███UE. AN█ █ENEA██ ██, ██US██N█ ██E █UUN█████N, ██E S N. UN███████A██E. UN█████E██A██E. E███NA█."

The message was garbage, a corrupted file of the soul, but the feeling behind it was clear. It was a weight. An immense, crushing weight of judgment. My mind, reeling from the psychic assault, tried to find a foothold, anything to make sense of the abstract dread that was now filling every corner of my being. And in that frantic search, it found a memory. A fresh one. The feeling of scrap metal in my hand. The wet, solid impact against the back of a skull. The sight of a young man, a boy really, slumping to the ground in a tunnel filled with screams and chaos. The man with the papers. The man whose life I had stolen.

The name, which I had only seen for a second on the paper, now bloomed in my mind like a black flower. He had a face. The face from the datapad. He had a life. The woman with the kind eyes. He had parents. He had friends. He had a future. He had a folder of clean, legitimate papers that were his ticket to a better world. And I had taken it all. I had not just killed him. I had erased him. I was wearing his clothes. I was walking in his shoes. I had become a parasite that had devoured its host.

The skull seemed to grow brighter, the golden light in the room intensifying, feeding on the sudden and catastrophic eruption of my own guilt. The choir swelled, the voices no longer just mournful, but accusatory, a thousand fingers pointing at the filth in my soul. The numbers in my vision cascaded, each one a fresh stab of that icy needle -1. -2. The pain was no longer just in my head. It was everywhere. It was in my bones, in my blood, in the very fabric of my being. I could feel myself coming apart, the fragile construct of 'me' being systematically dismantled.

"I didn't have a choice!" I screamed at it, the words tearing from my throat, raw and ragged. I was screaming at the skull, at myself, at the universe that had put me in that tunnel, that had put that piece of metal in my hand. "I would have died! I did what I had to do to survive! That's not a sin, that's just... that's just living! That's what you do!"

But the skull did not care for my justifications. It was not a judge to be reasoned with. It was a mirror, a terrible and perfect mirror, reflecting the ugly mathematics of my own actions. One life stolen for one life saved. An equation that could never be balanced. The choir swelled, its voices now filled with a terrible, sorrowful beauty, a lament for a soul that was already lost.

I was crying now, openly, the tears hot and thick as they streamed down my face, my body wracked with sobs that felt like they were being torn from my very core. I huddled against the door, the clipboard and pen forgotten, a small and broken thing in a vast and golden tomb.

My watch read 09:57. Ten minutes had passed. Five minutes remained. Five minutes that stretched before me like a desert, like an ocean, like an impossible distance I could not cross because there was nothing left of me, because the damage had carved out so much of me that I was mostly empty now, mostly void, mostly the absence of who I had been when I walked into this room.

The skull drifted back, its movement slow and deliberate, giving me space. Its work was apparently done. The choir softened to a murmur, the voices now almost gentle, almost kind, like the sound of a mother comforting a child after a nightmare, unaware that she was the source of the nightmare in the first place. And in that softness, in that terrible and final gentleness, I understood the ultimate insult: this thing pitied me. It looked at me and it saw a creature so mired in its own, small, and pathetic sins that it was not even worthy of condemnation. It saw a thing that was already damned, just another piece of data to be processed, another soul to be weighed and found wanting.

"I hate you! YOU HEAR ME?!" I yelled, the words a raw and broken sound, addressed to the skull, to myself, to the entire, monstrous and uncaring world. But the words had no power. They were just sounds, just vibrations, just more fuel for the terrible, silent engine of this place.

The intercom crackled to life, Malkuth's voice a violent and unwelcome intrusion of cheerfulness into my private hell. "Excellent work, Kurouni! The timer is almost up! I'm seeing some fascinating fluctuations in your psychic output! We even managed to generate a few positive units at the end there, right after that spike of... negativity. How curious! The work result is a Neutral, 4 PE-Boxes out of a possible 12, with a minor negative feedback loop. Not a perfect result, but a result nonetheless! The important thing is that you survived your first sess—"

Her voice began to distort, the cheerful, feminine tone stretching and warping like old tape being pulled too tightly, layering over itself until the words melted into a thick and ugly sonic slurry. The bright encouragement twisted into a high, piercing whine that scraped at the inside of my ears, the syllables reassembling into a new and terrible shape, a new and more honest truth.

"...useless work... spike of... negativity... a perfect failure... worthless result... the important thing is that you'll never survive this session... never leave... nothing to be proud of...! Proudofproudofproudof..."

The golden light of the chamber bled away, replaced by a sickly, familiar blue-green, the exact shade of the bioluminescent moss from the alley. The air grew thick and heavy, carrying the scent of rot and decay and something chemical, something that smelled like a city dying. The choir's mournful, Latin chant dissolved, its notes reassembling into a new and more terrible melody: a conversational, and utterly calm voice, the voice that had haunted my every waking moment, the voice that had hunted me for sport.

"An interesting little ecosystem you have here," the voice hummed, the sound coming not from the walls, but from inside my own head, a vibration in the very bone of my skull. "A classic power struggle. Though I must say, the quality of your resilience is... disappointing."

I looked up at the skull. Its ancient, white bone was now crawling with the glowing filaments of the moss, the thorns of its crown dripping with a viscous, luminescent slime. And in the black, empty pits of its eye sockets, I saw a reflection. Not of me. Not of the room. I saw the glint of a plasma rifle, the cool, detached curiosity in a pair of copper-colored eyes.

The voice inside my head! It twists! It's not his voice anymore. It's Pete's. Pete, screaming from some long-dead alley, his voice a raw and frantic shard of glass in my memory. "They got a bead on you, kid! They're gonna shoot! Hit 'em first! HIT 'EM FIRST!"

The steel white of the room started to bleed. A thick, wet red seeps from the corners of my vision, staining the light, turning the air to blood. The world contracts, a tunnel of sick crimson, through the red haze, I see them. Their shapes warp, twisting into something else. The riot sticks in their hands are not sticks. They're rifles. Long, black, and pointed right at my head. Their faces are not faces. They are the cold, calm expressions of executioners, the same placid indifference I saw in the Fixer just before he was about to end my world. They put me in the box with the skull! They sent me in there to die! And now they're here to finish the job!

A noise tears from my throat, a wet, guttural snarl that rips through the bruised tissue. Spit flies from my lips. My hands are not hands anymore. They are claws, the fingers hooked, the nails digging into my own palms, drawing blood that I cannot feel. The only thought, the only feeling, the only thing that is real is Pete's voice screaming: "DON'T LET THEM SHOOT! BREAK THEM!"

I don't crawl. For my body is a coiled spring, a thing of pure, unthinking reflex, propelled forward by a single, burning imperative. The floor is just ground to be covered. The distance is just a space to be crossed. My objective is the one holding the rifle that is about to tear my head from my shoulders. The one with the white hair. The one who thinks I am just another liability to be terminated. My teeth clamp together, the grinding sound a counterpoint to the blood roaring in my ears, my entire being focused on a single, final, and absolute purpose: break him before he breaks me—

...

.........

..................

The first thing I knew was pain. A deep, foundational ache that was not localized in any single part of my body, but seemed to emanate from the very marrow of my bones. It was a grinding sensation in my joints, a sharp protest from my ribs every time my chest rose and fell, a dull, concussive throb at the back of my skull that made the orange light of the ceiling pulse in time with my own, sluggish heartbeat. I was lying on my back on the cool, resilient floor of the Control Department, staring up at the soft, orange glow of the ceiling, my mind a slow, thick, and muddy river of confusion.

My left eye was swollen shut, a hot and tight pressure that made the entire side of my face feel like a single, massive bruise. I tasted blood, a coppery tang on the back of my tongue. I tried to push myself up onto my elbows, but my arms were heavy, uncooperative things, and the muscles in my shoulders and back screamed with a fire that made me collapse back onto the floor with a groan. I had a vague, fragmented memory of impacts, of a crushing weight, of a darkness that had been absolute.

I should have been dead. Or at least, in a hundred, screaming pieces. But I was just... aching. A deep and profound ache that suggested I had been systematically and efficiently dismantled, and then just as systematically, but not quite as efficiently, put back together again. As I forced my good eye open, the details began to swam into focus with an agonizing slowness, each one a fresh and unwelcome piece of a puzzle I did not want to solve.

Ivan and Makoto were standing a few feet away, leaning against the central console, their own riot sticks held loosely in their hands. They were watching me, their expressions a mixture of exhaustion, a deep and profound wariness, and a quiet, simmering anger. Malkuth was standing by the wall, her clipboard tucked under her arm, a look of bright, almost scientific, curiosity on her face as she observed the scene with the detached interest of a biologist watching a particularly violent insect documentary.

The ambient hum of the control room was the first sound to penetrate the thick, cottony fog in my head. It was a low and constant thrum, the sound of a great and terrible machine breathing in its sleep. Then, other sounds began to filter in. The soft, rhythmic dripping of something wet hitting the floor near my head. The ragged, shallow sound of my own breathing. The almost inaudible scrape of Ivan's boots as he shifted his weight on the resilient floor.

My skull felt like a cracked eggshell, a dull, concussive throb radiating out from a point just behind my right ear, each pulse of my own blood a fresh wave of nausea. My ribs were a cage of broken glass, every breath a sharp and grinding negotiation between the need for oxygen and the agony of expansion. I could feel the individual muscles in my back, my arms, my legs, not as a cohesive system, but as a collection of torn, bruised, and screaming entities, each with its own unique and personal complaint. A deep, grinding pain in my left shoulder suggested a dislocation, the ball of my humerus sitting in a place it was not meant to be.

I tried to turn my head, a small and simple movement, and a bolt of pure, white fire shot down my neck, making me cry out, the sound a wet and pathetic croak. I was a wreck. A complete and utter wreck. I should have been a corpse. The fact that I was conscious at all was a violation of every law of cause and effect I had ever known.

My gaze fell upon a polished, yellow floor panel to my left. In its reflective surface, a stranger stared back at me. A monster. The left side of my face was a swollen and distorted landscape of purple and black, my eye a puffy, useless slit. My nose was clearly broken, bent at an unnatural angle, and a dark, thick liquid was still trickling from one nostril, the source of the dripping sound I had heard. My lips were split and swollen, my teeth stained with a mixture of my own blood and the vomit from the interview room. This was not the face of a person. It was the face of something that had been systematically and efficiently beaten to the very brink of death.

"He's awake," Makoto's voice was a low and trembling thing, stripped of all its previous, cheerful bravado. He took a half-step back, his hand tightening on the grip of his riot stick, his posture a tense and defensive crouch. He looked at me with the wide, terrified eyes of a man looking at a wild animal that he thought was dead but has just started to stir.

Ivan did not move. He just watched me as his his expression was a carefully constructed blank, every muscle held in a state of rigid neutrality. The skin around his eyes was still, the line of his mouth flat, a calm surface held in place by a tremendous and focused will. The only visible sign of the pressure building beneath was the muscle in his jaw, clenched so tight the tendon stood out like a taut wire against his neck. The silence in the room stretched, a thin and brittle thing, pulled taut between my pained confusion and their wary, hostile stillness.

"What..." I began, my voice a dry and rasping whisper, the act of speaking sending a fresh wave of agony through my bruised throat. "What happened?"

Makoto let out a short, sharp, and hysterical laugh, a sound that was more a bark of terror than of amusement. "What happened?" he repeated, his voice rising in pitch, cracking with a barely contained panic. "What happened?! You tried to kill us! That's what happened! You came out of that room, and you were... you were a monster! You were screaming, and you just... you just came at us!"

He gestured wildly with his riot stick, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. "I tried to talk to you! I tried to see if you were okay! And you just... you swiped at me! With your hands! Like you had claws! You almost took my eye out!"

Ivan's voice cut through Makoto's frantic and rising hysteria, a low and commanding growl that was as cold and as sharp as a piece of broken glass. "Be quiet, Makoto." He took a single step forward, his gaze never leaving my face. He crouched down, not with any sense of sympathy, but with the cold, practical motion of a man examining a piece of broken and unpredictable machinery.

"You experienced a full-blown psychotic break," he stated, his voice a flat and final diagnosis. "A cognitive collapse. You came out of that containment unit, and you were no longer in control. You moved like an animal. Your primary objective was to neutralize any and all perceived threats in your immediate vicinity. That meant us."

He pointed with the tip of his riot stick to the door leading to the hallway. "You came at me first. I parried your initial attack with my baton. The force of the impact should have broken your arm. You did not even seem to notice. You were... unresponsive to conventional pain stimuli."

He then gestured to a small, spiderweb crack in one of the CCTV monitors on the central console. "Makoto attempted to flank you. You reacted with a speed and a violence that was... disproportionate. You threw him into the console. He was lucky he did not crack his skull open."

His gaze was a physical weight, a heavy and unforgiving pressure. "We had no choice," he continued, his voice dropping to an even lower and more serious register. "We were in a confined space with a hostile and unpredictable entity. We responded with escalating force. The standard-issue safety and compliance tools are designed for non-lethal suppression. But you... you were not being suppressed. You kept getting up. We delivered multiple, direct blows to your torso, your limbs. You were making sounds that were not human. The final blow," he paused, his eyes flickering for a fraction of a second to the back of my head, "was to your head. It was a calculated risk. A blow with sufficient force to induce unconsciousness, but with a high probability of causing a fatal concussion. You were unconscious before you hit the floor. We were certain you were dead."

Dead...? DEAD?! The word hung in the air, a small and simple and absolute thing. They had beaten me to death. And yet, here I was. Alive. And aching. So very, very much aching.

"But... but I'm not!" I replied as  the words were a stupid and obvious statement of fact.

"No," Ivan said, his eyes narrowing, a new and more complex kind of suspicion dawning in their depths. "You are not. You have been unconscious for over an hour. Your wounds... they are still present. But they are healing. At a rate that is not... normal."

Malkuth, who had been a silent and smiling statue up until this point, finally decided to join the conversation. She clapped her hands together, the sharp sound making me flinch, and she walked over to us, her steps a light and bouncy rhythm that was a grotesque and horrifying counterpoint to the grim and bloody reality of the situation.

"Isn't it fascinating!" she chirped, her pupil-less brown eyes alight with a bright and almost feverish enthusiasm. "A textbook case of a stress-induced hyper-aggressive state, followed by a remarkably rapid physical and neurological recovery! Most Employees who experience a full cognitive collapse from Red Damage exposure do not... re-integrate so quickly! If at all! The ambient restorative field in this department is functioning at optimal efficiency!"

"Restorative field?" I croaked, the words tasting like blood and confusion.

"Of course!" she said, as if she were explaining the most obvious and simple concept in the world. "To ensure maximum operational uptime, the very atmosphere of every main room of each departement is suffused with a low-level regenerative nano-particulate! A mini-singularity, if you will! It accelerates cellular regeneration and promotes neurological homeostasis! It's perfectly safe! Mostly! Though I must admit," she tapped her chin with her pen, a thoughtful consideration in her posture, "I am rather surprised. Your profile on the screen indicated a complete psychic fragmentation. Most Employees who reach that state do not come back from Red Damage. It usually requires... a more direct intervention. It is almost as if someone missed the final blow on purpose."

She glanced from Ivan to Makoto, a bright and inquisitive look in her eyes, a look that was completely devoid of accusation and filled only with a pure, scientific curiosity. The implication, however, was as heavy and as sharp as a guillotine blade. They had been ordered, in a sense, to put me down. And they had, in their own, brutal, and perhaps not-quite-final-enough way, failed.

Ivan's face remained a stone wall, but a small muscle in his jaw began to twitch again, a single and telling crack in his icy facade. Makoto, on the other hand, went pale, his eyes darting from Malkuth to Ivan and then to me, a new and more terrible kind of fear dawning on his face. The fear of having failed a test he did not even know he was taking.

"For training purposes, of course," Malkuth continued, her cheerful tone completely oblivious to the sudden and suffocating tension in the air, "we should review the footage! It is always beneficial for new Employees to observe and analyze their own performance metrics during a cognitive collapse event! It helps with future avoidance!"

She turned and tapped a series of commands into a small keypad on the central console. The largest of the CCTV monitors, the one that had been showing the empty hallway, flickered and went dark for a moment. And then, it lit up with a grainy, green-tinted, and brutally detached recording of the last twenty minutes of my life.

The camera angle was from high up in the corner of the room, a cold and impersonal god's-eye view. I saw the three of us standing there, waiting. I saw the containment door slide open. And then, I saw... it.

It was me, but it was not. The thing that came out of that hallway was not the terrified, broken creature I remembered being. It was a predator. Its movements were low, jerky, and inhumanly fast. Its head was cocked at a strange and unnatural angle, and its mouth was open in a silent, screaming rictus of pure, undiluted rage. It did not limp. It did not hesitate. It just... attacked.

I watched, a cold and sick feeling of detachment washing over me, as the thing on the screen, the thing that was wearing my face and my uniform, launched itself at Ivan. I saw Ivan's efficient and brutal parry, a clean and powerful blow with the riot stick that connected solidly with the creature's arm. And I saw the creature... my creature... not even flinch. It absorbed the blow as if it were a minor inconvenience and continued its assault, its hands clawed, its fingers reaching for his throat.

I saw Makoto try to intervene, the color draining from his face until it was a waxy, bloodless grey. His eyes were blown wide, fixed on the creature with a look of pure, horrified disbelief, his mouth stretched open in the silent, gaping shape of a scream. He took a single, stumbling step forward, his hand half-raised in a useless, pleading gesture. I saw the creature that was me turn, its head snapping around with a speed that should not have been possible. Before Makoto could even register the movement, it grabbed him, lifted him from the floor, and threw him into the console with a casual and terrifying strength.

And then I saw the two of them, Ivan and Makoto, become something else. They were no longer just two scared and confused new hires. They were a team. A brutally efficient one. They moved in concert, their riot sticks rising and falling in a steady and methodical rhythm, their blows precise, targeted, and completely devoid of any hesitation. They were not trying to subdue the creature. They were trying to dismantle it.

The footage was silent, but I could almost hear the wet, solid thud of the batons hitting flesh and bone. I watched as they broke the creature's arm. I watched as they shattered its leg. I watched as they beat it to the ground, and then continued to beat it while it was down. And the creature... it just kept trying to get up. It kept snarling, it kept clawing, it kept fighting, until the final, brutal, and mercifully final blow from Ivan's baton connected with the back of its head, and it finally, finally lay still.

The footage stopped. The screen went dark. And in the sudden, ringing silence of the room, I could hear only the sound of my own, ragged breathing.

"That... that's not me," I whispered, the words a raw and broken sound of pure and absolute denial. "That's not what happened."

"That is exactly what happened," Ivan said, his voice a low and final thing.

Malkuth tapped a few more keys on the console. "Well, that was the 'what.' Now! For the 'why!' The system automatically syncs all ambient sensory data, including audio and psychic energy fluctuations, with the camera feed from the standard-issue work clipboard. It generates a full sensory reconstruction of the event. It is very useful for post-incident analysis!"

The main screen flickered, the previous security footage of the control room vanishing. It was replaced by a new feed, the text in the top-left corner identifying it with stark, black lettering: CONTAINMENT UNIT O-03-03 - ARCHIVAL FEED. Ivan and Makoto watched, their faces lit by the monitor's cold tinted glow.

The recording was from a fixed, high-angle camera inside the containment chamber, showing the entire, impossible space. The footage was silent and grainy. In the center of the vast, golden-lit room, the giant skull floated with a slow, ponderous grace. In the far corner, huddled against the sealed door, was a small, dark figure—me. Even on the low-resolution feed, the trembling of my body was visible, a constant, full-body tremor of a creature in its final, terrified moments. I was a pathetic, curled ball of black and red against the immense, cold steel of the floor.

For five, long, silent seconds, nothing happened. The figure on the floor—me—remained a huddled, trembling ball against the door. The skull continued its slow, rhythmic drift. The heavy containment gate behind my on-screen self slid upward with a soft, mechanical sigh, revealing the dark antechamber beyond.

Then, the figure on the floor moved. It was not the slow, pained crawl of a survivor. My head snapped up with a speed that was not human. My eyes, wide and completely devoid of any recognizable emotion, fixed on something beyond the camera's view—the open doorway. My mouth was open, the shape not a scream of terror, but a silent, bestial snarl.

I scrambled to my feet with an unnatural, jerky speed that was horrifying in its efficiency. I did not stand up like a person. I uncoiled like a spring, a low and guttural growl tearing from my throat, a sound that was captured by the room's audio sensors as a distorted spike of pure aggression. I did not look back at the skull. Its existence had become an irrelevance. My entire being, my every muscle, was focused on the single, absolute objective of the open door.

I moved not like a person scrambling to escape, but like a predator launching itself from an ambush. I was low to the ground, using my hands and feet to propel myself forward in a frantic, four-limbed sprint across the polished steel floor. The clipboard and pen were forgotten, just two small, insignificant pieces of debris in my violent wake.

In less than three seconds, I cleared the distance to the antechamber and launched myself through the open doorway, disappearing from the camera's field of view.

The footage continued for another ten seconds, showing only the empty, golden chamber and the silent, floating skull before the feed cut to black.

I pushed myself into a sitting position, a movement that sent a grinding wave of fire through my ribs and made the room swim in a sick, yellow haze. The footage was no longer on the screen, but it was still playing in my head: the low, four-limbed sprint across the steel floor, the snarl that pulled my lips back from my teeth in a way that was not a human expression, the casual and brutal strength as I threw Makoto into the console.

That hadn't been me just scared. That hadn't been me just panicking. I had been... gone. Replaced by something else, a monster that was wearing my face and using my hands to try and tear them apart. A raw, scraping sound tore its way out of my throat, the words themselves a fresh source of pain against the bruised tissue. "I... I'm sorry," I whispered. "I don't... I don't know what happened."

Makoto just stared at me, his mouth slightly agape, the cheerful bravado he had displayed in the dorm room now a distant and forgotten memory. He looked like a child who had just been shown definitive, irrefutable proof that the monster under his bed was real.

Ivan's attention was elsewhere. His entire body was angled towards the large auto-door, his jaw was set, and his eyes were narrowed as he stared at the seamless metal barrier. He stood perfectly still, his weight balanced, listening with an intensity that completely ignored the sobbing and screaming happening at his feet.

"A giant skeletal head," Ivan said, his voice a low and dangerous growl, each word a carefully shaped piece of cold, hard rage. "A floating skull with a crown of thorns! What the HELL is happening in this facility? What was that thing? We were told this was a mining operation!"

Malkuth's expression shifted, not to fear, but to a genuine and almost patronizing surprise at his anger. She let out a small, tinkling laugh, a sound so completely out of place that it felt like a physical violation, a shard of glass in the ear. "Mining?" she repeated, the word sounding alien and faintly ridiculous in her mouth. She tapped her worn clipboard with the tip of her pen, a gesture of mock contemplation. "Oh, you poor dears. Did you truly believe that something as mundane as digging rocks out of the ground could generate the kind of energy required to power an entire Wing? To keep the lights on in a city that never sleeps? That's... that's a very simple and charmingly incorrect assumption to make."

A subtle flicker of the lights in the room, a brief and almost imperceptible displacement of the air, and she was there. Angela. She had not walked into the room. She had simply... arrived, materializing from nothing in the space between Malkuth and the central console. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, her posture one of perfect and serene authority, her eyes still closed.

"Malkuth," Angela said, her voice as cool and smooth as polished glass, "your introductory methods are inefficient and create unnecessary panic. A more direct and factual approach is required." She turned her head slightly, the movement fluid and precise, directing her words, and her unseen gaze, towards the three of them. "This facility does not manage rocks. It manages Monsters. We call them Abnormalities. They are the true source of our energy."

The word was not a sound. It was a pressure change in the room, a sudden and absolute drop in the cognitive atmosphere that made the air in my lungs feel thin and useless. My breath hitched, a dry, scraping sound in my own ears. Monsters? The word was a child's explanation for the dark, a story told in the Backstreets to keep you from wandering too far into the unlit alleys where the real monsters, the human ones, did their work. It could not be real. Not here. Not in a place of science and order and machines that cooked brains.

Was this another lie? Another layer to the bizarre corporate game they were playing? The room, which had already felt unreal, seemed to lose its structural integrity. The floor beneath my feet felt like it was tilting, a slow and sickening lurch that made my knees weaken. The yellow walls seemed to pulse, their flat color shifting to a sickly, jaundiced yellow that radiated a feverish heat. The steady hum of the machinery was no longer a neutral, background noise. It was the sound of a great and terrible heart, beating slowly, patiently, in the deep and hidden places of this underground tomb.

Makoto made a small, choking sound, a wet and pathetic noise of pure, undiluted terror. "Monsters?" he whispered, the word a fragile and broken thing. "You mean... you mean the skull... it's real? It wasn't a drug? It wasn't a hallucination? It's... it's a monster?"

"Of course it's real," Angela stated, her tone that of a teacher correcting a particularly slow child. "All of them are real. They are the foundation upon which this corporation, this Wing, this very City, is built. Your purpose here is not to dig. It is to manage them. To interact with them. To extract the emotional and conceptual energy they generate. That is the true nature of your work."

The simulation theory, the last, flimsy shield my mind had constructed against the crushing weight of this impossible reality, shattered into a million pieces. The pain in my body, the memory of the chair, the sight of the first man's liquefied brain... it all slammed back into me with a brutal and undeniable finality. This was real. The skull was real. The voice was real. The danger was real. We had not been hired. We had been fed to a machine that ran on fear and madness. We were not miners. We were bait.

"No," I heard myself say, the word a low and desperate denial. "No! This... this is a simulation. It has to be! The gas... the gas in the sleeping pods... it's a full-immersion VR system. We've been kidnapped. Our real bodies are somewhere else, floating in a tank. This isn't real. It can't be."

Ivan let out a short, sharp, and utterly contemptuous sound, a huff of air through his nostrils that was more insulting than any shouted rebuttal. He turned his head just enough to fix me with a glare of pure, undiluted scorn.

"The pain is real," he said, his voice a low and dangerous growl. "The blood is real. The body of the man who failed the entrance exam, which I saw directly myself, the one whose brain was cooked in his own skull, was real. I smelled it for instance, I saw it unlike Makoto. This is not a game. This is not a simulation. Open your eyes and look at the world in front of you. It is a world with monsters in it. And we are locked in a box with them."

Angela tilted her head slightly, an almost imperceptible gesture, in my direction. "Your temperance was too low for that particular entity," she stated, her tone that of a scientist noting a failed experiment, completely ignoring Ivan's outburst. "Had you maintained your composure, the work would have been successful. A simple task, really. But first-time Employees are always so prone to... theatricality."

The intercom crackled to life again, the Manager's voice a cold and final interruption, coming after Angela had finished her pronouncement, a new command laid upon the fresh horror of the old.

"Ivan. Proceed to Containment Unit O-03-03. Perform Instinct Work this instant"

Ivan did not move for a full three seconds. His entire body went completely and absolutely rigid, a statue of suppressed and violent potential. The knuckles of the hand gripping his riot stick turned a stark and bloodless white, the composite material of the handle creaking under the sudden and immense pressure. A single, dark vein began to pulse in his temple, a visible and angry rhythm against the pale skin. His jaw was clenched so tight that I could hear the faint, grinding sound of his teeth. The air around him seemed to grow heavy, charged with the sheer, unvented force of his rage. He was a bomb, a meticulously crafted and carefully contained explosive, and the Manager had just lit the fuse.

He did not shout. He did not curse. His rebellion was a silent and far more potent thing. He slowly, and with a deliberate and insubordinate slowness that was a direct and contemptuous challenge to the immediacy of the order, raised his head. His gaze bypassed Angela, a dismissal so complete it was an insult. It bypassed Malkuth, who was watching the scene with a bright and almost feverish excitement. His eyes found the small, dark lens of the security camera on the ceiling, and he stared into it, a look of such pure, cold, and absolute hatred that I felt a shiver of sympathetic fear run down my own spine. He was not just looking at a camera. He was looking at the Manager. He was looking at his god. And he was challenging him.

For a moment, I thought he was going to refuse. I thought he was going to raise his riot stick and bring it crashing down on the console, on Malkuth, on Angela herself. I thought he was going to burn this entire, insane world to the ground. But then, I saw the change. A subtle, almost imperceptible shift in his posture. The rigid tension in his shoulders softened, not into relaxation, but into a grim and terrible resignation. The grinding of his jaw stopped.

This was the cold, hard pragmatism of the Backstreets, a brutal arithmetic learned over a lifetime of weighing unwinnable odds. He had come here seeking an escape from that chaos, a more normal existence, only to find himself in a new, more structured, and infinitely more terrifying kind of meat grinder. He had looked into the abyss of his own furious rebellion, weighed it against the absolute and inescapable power of the system that now owned him, and he had made a survivor's choice.

Open defiance was a quick and messy suicide. Following the order was a walk into a probable death, but it was not a certain one. For a man who had clawed his way through a life measured in five-minute increments of survival, the decision was already made.

He gave a single, sharp, and almost imperceptible nod, an acknowledgment of the order that was also an admission of his own, complete and utter defeat. He turned, his movements stiff and robotic, the movements of a man walking to his own execution. He walked towards the large auto-door, his footsteps the only sound in the now-silent room.

"Ivan, wait," Makoto whispered, his voice a small and pathetic thing. "You can't... you can't go in there. It will..."

Ivan stopped, his back to us. He did not turn around. "Stay here," he said, his voice a low and final command. "And be quiet."

He stepped through the doorway, and the door hissed shut behind him, the finality of the sound a heavy and suffocating thing in the oppressive, yellow silence of the control room. For a moment that stretched into an eternity, there was no sound at all, just the low, ambient hum of the facility, the sound of a great and terrible machine breathing in its sleep.

Then, a flicker of movement. The soft lights in the room, which had been a steady and unwavering glow, shifted for a fraction of a second, a subtle and almost imperceptible displacement of the air, and Angela was gone. She had not walked away. She had not taken an elevator. She had simply... ceased to exist in this particular space, her departure as silent and as absolute as her arrival.

Malkuth, who had been a whirlwind of frantic and misdirected energy just moments before, was now a statue. Her head tilted back, her pupil-less brown eyes fixed on a point on the yellow, metal ceiling with a strange and unnerving stillness. A small, serene expression was fixed on her face, but it was a dead thing, a shape her mouth was making that had no connection to any internal state. She was a doll that had been put back on the shelf, its painted-on features locked in a single, unchanging emotion.

Makoto let out a low, shuddering breath, the sound a wet and pathetic thing in the quiet room. He was still on the floor, his body curled into a tight, protective ball as his gaze remained fixed on the spot where Ivan had disappeared. The skin on his face was pale and slick with a cold sweat, his mouth hanging slightly open as if he had forgotten how to close it. When he finally looked at me, his bright blue eyes were wide and unfocused, swimming with a desperate, pleading confusion while he seemed to be searching for an answer I could not possibly have.

"He's dead," he whispered, the words a fragile and broken thing, not a prediction, but a statement of what he believed to be a simple and undeniable fact. "That thing... it's going to kill him. Just like it almost killed you. We're next. We're all... we're all just going to die in here, aren't we?"

I did not have an answer for him. My own body was a landscape of pain, my mind a fractured and unreliable narrator of my own recent and brutal past. I pushed myself into a sitting position, my ribs screaming a protest that I could not afford to listen to. The restorative field, or whatever the hell Malkuth had called it, was a slow and subtle thing, a quiet and invisible hand that was knitting my broken pieces back together, but the memory of the breaking was still a fresh and bleeding wound.

I looked at the main monitor, at the image of the long, empty, and brightly lit yellow corridor. The containment gate was closed, a solid and final barrier between our world and the impossible, reality-breaking horror that lay on the other side.

"Maybe not," I said, the words a dry and rasping thing, an attempt at a reassurance that sounded hollow and unconvincing even to my own ears. "Ivan... he's different. He's not... he's not like us."

The minutes ticked by, each one a slow and agonizing drop of water in an endless ocean of waiting. We sat in silence, two broken and terrified boys in a yellow room, watched over by a smiling and catatonic woman, waiting for a verdict that would be delivered by either the return of our colleague or the sound of his final, dying scream. The silence was a living thing, a predator that was slowly and methodically stalking the edges of my own, fragile sanity. I could feel the ghost of the skull's presence, the memory of that cold, ancient bone, the sound of the choir, the needle of white pain in my own mind.

I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the slow, almost imperceptible sensation of my own body healing, a small and bizarre miracle in a world of large and terrible horrors. The sharp, grinding pain in my ribs was dulling to a low and steady ache. The throbbing in my head was receding. I was getting better. And that fact, in its own strange and terrifying way, was more unsettling than the pain had been. This place was not just breaking us. It was fixing us. Preparing us for the next time we would be broken.

After what felt like a lifetime, after fifteen minutes that had stretched and warped into an eternity of tense and silent waiting, a sound. A low, grinding noise from the hallway. I looked up at the main screen. The heavy, yellow containment gate was rising, its slow and ponderous ascent a prelude to a revelation that I was not sure I wanted to see.

The gate retracted fully into the ceiling, revealing the dark, empty space of the antechamber beyond. For a moment, there was nothing. And then, a figure stepped out into the light of the main hallway.

It was Ivan. He was... he was unharmed. His uniform was immaculate, not a single speck of dust or blood on its clean, black surface. His riot stick was held loosely in his hand. He was not running. He was not screaming. He was walking, his pace slow, steady, and deliberate, the walk of a man who had just finished a routine and slightly tedious piece of work. He looked... pale. A deep and profound exhaustion was etched into the lines of his face, and his eyes, when he finally looked up at the camera, held a new and haunted depth, a cold and ancient stillness that had not been there before. But he was alive. And he was whole.

He walked to the main door of the control room. It hissed open, and he stepped through, the door hissing shut behind him. He did not look at me or Makoto. He walked to the far wall of the room, the one with the strange, pencil-drawn diagram, and he leaned against it, his head tilted back, his eyes closing for a moment as he let out a long, slow, and shuddering breath.

"It is not a hologram," he said, his voice a low and weary thing, each word seeming to cost him a significant and painful effort. "It is real. I touched it."

Makoto and I just stared at him, our own, separate and silent screams of disbelief trapped behind our teeth. He had touched it? He had willingly made physical contact with the giant, floating, and sanity-destroying skull of death? The idea was so completely and utterly insane that it looped back around and became a new and more terrible kind of sanity.

Ivan pushed himself off the wall and walked towards us, his movements still slow and deliberate, the movements of a man who was carefully and methodically re-integrating himself with a world that he had just left and returned from. He sat down on the floor, a few feet from where Makoto was still huddled, a gesture that was not one of comfort, but of a grim and practical necessity.

"It operates on a conceptual level," he began, his voice a low and even report, a field agent debriefing his terrified and incompetent subordinates. "It responds to the perception of sin. It is not a judge. It does not pass sentence. It is a... a measurement. A mirror. It reflects the weight of your own, internal, and unresolved transgressions back at you, amplified a thousand times over."

He looked at me, his dark blue eyes holding a new and almost analytical understanding, the gaze of a mechanic who has just identified the faulty component in a broken machine. "That thing... it doesn't attack your body. It attacks the arguments you have with yourself."

His voice was a low and steady report, stripping the impossible horror of the skull down to a set of operational mechanics. "It identifies a structural weakness in your psyche. A contradiction. An act you have committed that conflicts with a belief you still hold. When it looked at you, its presence forced that conflict to the surface. It applied pressure to that specific point until the entire structure shattered."

He paused, his gaze unwavering, pinning me in place with the sheer force of his certainty. "The friction between the two ideas—the act and the story you tell yourself about the act—that's the energy it uses. It turned your own internal conflict into a weapon and beat you to death with it. That's the White Damage."

His gaze then shifted, moving from me to Makoto with a cool and detached finality. The faint, almost imperceptible softening that might have been mistaken for pity was gone, replaced by a flat, diagnostic assessment. "And you," he said, his voice completely devoid of any emotion, "there was no contradiction for it to exploit. Just a pure, uncomplicated terror. A vacuum. Your mind wasn't a fortress with a crack in the wall. It was an empty room with the door wide open. It didn't need a key."

He then told us what had happened to him. The "Instinct Work,"  he explained, was not about feeling. It was about acting. He had walked into the room, and he had seen the skull. And his first thought, his primary and overriding instinct, was not one of fear. It was one of analysis. He had treated the impossible, reality-breaking horror not as a monster, but as another dangerous and unpredictable variable in a hostile environment, a problem to be solved.

He had walked around it, his riot stick held at a low ready, his movements slow and non-threatening. He had observed it, documenting its slow, rhythmic drift, the subtle shifts in the choir's volume, the way the golden light in the room seemed to pulse in time with its... its whatever. He had attempted to check for vital signs, a ridiculous and absurd notion that was, in its own way, a profound act of defiance against the very nature of the thing. He had walked right up to it, reached out a hand, and he had touched it.

"The bone was cold," he said, his voice a distant and hollow thing, the voice of a man describing a dream. "Like a stone that has been at the bottom of a deep and sunless lake for a thousand years. It had a texture. A fine, almost microscopic grain. And it was vibrating. A low and constant thrum, a frequency so low it was almost more of a feeling than a sound."

The act of touching it, of confirming through direct, sensory contact that the skull was a physical object with temperature and texture and substance, had been the core of the work. He had performed a physical analysis. He had documented his own, controlled fear response, the slight increase in his heart rate, the sweat on his palms, treating his own terror as just another piece of data to be collected.

And when the skull had probed his mind, when it had searched for the guilt and the shame and the hypocrisy that it fed on, it had found... nothing. A void. He had killed men. Many of them. But in his mind, those killings were not sins. They were a basic and operational reality, a series of mathematical necessities in the brutal and unforgiving equation of survival. They carried no more moral weight than the act of breathing. His consciousness was a fortress, not of innocence, but of a cold, hard, and absolute pragmatism. The skull had found no purchase, no handhold, no crack in the walls of his own, self-contained and perfectly justified reality.

"It was... unsatisfied," Ivan continued, a strange and almost thoughtful look in his eyes. "It generated a minimal amount of energy. The work result was a failure. But it did not... it did not break me. It caused the White Damage, yes. The same needle of cold, that piercing strike in the mind. But it was... it was a glancing blow. It could not find the core of me."

—I killed a man yesterday. Of course it found me. Of course it broke me. My hypocrisy had not just been a weakness. It had been a weapon that the skull had turned against me. Ivan had survived not because he was stronger, but because he was... emptier. He had a void where a conscience was supposed to be. And in this place, that was not a flaw. It was a shield. It was a superpower.

"You're a fucking idiot," I said, the words a raw and broken sound, a mixture of a horrified awe and a deep and profound terror. "You touched it?! You performed a scientific analysis on a giant, floating, and sanity-destroying skull of death?! This isn't science! It's a monster! A monster that wants to kill us! This entire corporation, this entire place, they're just watching us die! Is that it?! Is this just a show for them?!"

Ivan's response was a slow, weary shake of his head. "It is not a show," he said. "It is a process. An energy extraction process. And we are the tools. And the only thing that matters is whether or not we are useful."

The next five minutes passed in a thick and heavy silence. The three of us, a broken and terrified rat, a traumatized and weeping boy, and a cold and calculating killer, sat on the floor of our yellow, corporate cage, each of us lost in our own, private and personal hell. The ambient regenerative field continued its slow and subtle work, knitting our broken bodies and minds back together, preparing us for the next round.

The intercom crackled to life, the Manager's voice a cold and final intrusion. "Makoto. Proceed to Containment Unit O-03-03. Perform Insight Work."

The color drained from Makoto's face, leaving it the color of old parchment. He looked at me, his eyes wide with a new and more terrible kind of terror. He had seen what Insight Work had done to me. He had seen the monster I had become.

He turned his pleading gaze to Ivan. Ivan's face was a stone wall. He did not offer a single word of comfort, not a single piece of advice. His silence was a command, a clear and unambiguous statement that the order was absolute, that refusal was not an option. You go in there, or you find out what the alternative is. And the alternative, we all knew, was a quick and messy termination.

Makoto let out a long, shuddering breath, a sound that was a mixture of a sob and a sigh of absolute and final defeat. He pushed himself to his feet, his legs shaking so badly he could barely stand. But then, something inside him broke. The fragile, desperate hope that had carried him this far, the cheerful bravado he had worn like a suit of armor, it all shattered into a million pieces.

"No," he whispered, the word a small and pathetic thing, a tiny crack in the dam of his composure. Tears began to well in his bright, blue eyes, spilling over and tracing clean, glistening paths through the grime and sweat on his pale cheeks. He took a stumbling step backward, away from the door, away from the order. "No, I don't want to go."

His voice rose, cracking with a raw and childish terror that was a thousand times more horrifying than any stoic resignation. "I DON'T WANT TO GO! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! PLEASE! I'll do anything else! I'll clean the floors! I'll scrub the nutrient paste vats! Just don't... don't send me back in there!"

He was openly weeping now, his body wracked with great, shuddering sobs, his hands held up in a pleading, defensive gesture. He was not a corporate employee. He was not a survivor. He was just a child, a terrified boy being told to walk into the dark and shake hands with the monster under his bed.

A sudden presence at his side, Malkuth's cheerful face appeared in his peripheral vision. "Oh, now, now, Makoto!" she chirped, her voice a bright and musical thing, completely at odds with the raw, human misery unfolding before her. "There's no need for all this fuss! It's just a little chat with our friend! A simple performance review! You'll do wonderfully, I know it!"

Makoto scrambled backward, away from her voice, his body a tight knot of terror on the floor. Her hand descended, not to his shoulder to comfort him, but to his ankle. Her fingers—just her thumb and two fingers—closed around the thick leather of his boot with the casual firmness of someone picking up a piece of discarded paper. The sudden, unyielding pressure made Makoto yelp, a small and pathetic sound of surprised pain. He tried to pull his leg away, but her grip was absolute.

"No, please, let go of me!" he begged, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the smooth, yellow floor as she turned and began to walk towards the door, her pace unhurried. Makoto's body was pulled along behind her, his entire weight scraping across the floor with a low, friction-filled hiss. His free leg kicked, his hands clawed at the floor, leaving no marks, finding no purchase. "I can't! I can't go back! It'll kill me! It'll EAT MY BRAIN!"

"Nonsense!" Malkuth said, her cheerful tone never wavering, her smile fixed as she pulled the weeping, struggling young man across the room with one hand. "It's a simple energy collection task! A vital part of our operational success! You should be proud to contribute! Think of the PE-Boxes!"

I watched the chaos unfold with a strange and profound emptiness. My mind did not form the question of how. It did not try to calculate the physics of a woman her size dragging a struggling young man with three fingers. The question was irrelevant. In a world with floating skulls and brain-melting chairs, impossible strength was just another rule of the game I was only just beginning to learn as his screams echoed in the vast chamber. A high-pitched and desperate wail that slowly faded as the heavy, auto-door hissed shut, cutting off the sound with a final, indifferent finality.

I sat on the floor, my own aches and pains a distant and unimportant hum. I watched the door, the spot where my new and temporary roommate had just been dragged, presumably, to his death. A strange and profound quiet settled over my mind. The frantic, screaming panic that had been my constant companion for the last twelve hours... it was gone.

My turn was next. The rotation was now established. Ivan, Makoto, me. Or maybe just Ivan and me now. It did not matter. The pattern was clear. We were the tools, and we would be used until we broke. And then, we would be replaced.

I closed my eyes. A strange, almost peaceful sense of resignation washed over me. I did not fight it. I let it take me, a slow and heavy tide pulling me under. My posture slackened, my shoulders slumped, my head lolling back against the cool, metal wall of the central console. The world narrowed, the bright and oppressive yellow of the room fading to a dull and unimportant grey. My gaze became unfocused, my eyes staring at a point in the empty air, seeing nothing. The image that bloomed in the quiet of my own mind was not of the skull, not of the chair, but of the alley.

I remembered the moment Joric had raised his rifle, the almost silent hiss as he had erased Little Kim from existence. A clean, white fire that had turned a living, breathing person into a cloud of dust. A quick and absolute oblivion. And in this moment, sitting here in this clean, yellow, and silent tomb, waiting for my own, much slower and much dirtier erasure, that quick and clean death felt like a mercy. It felt like a kindness. It felt like a prize I had foolishly and desperately run from, only to find myself in a place where the punishment was so much worse.

The plasma rifle just ended you. It was a simple and honest transaction. Your life, in exchange for a brief and painless burst of heat and light. But this... this was different. This place did not just kill you. It unmade you. It peeled you open like a rotten fruit and forced you to look at the worms that were squirming inside your own soul. The skull, the chair, the very air in this place, it was a slow-acting acid that did not dissolve your flesh, but your sense of self. It did not just erase you. It showed you, in excruciating and undeniable detail, exactly why you deserved to be erased.

A strange, subtle tingling spread under my skin, a feeling of being worked on from the inside out. The bruises on my face were not fading; the deep purple and black discoloration was receding, pulling back from the surface like a tide of bad blood being drawn away. The swelling over my eye lessened, the tight, painful pressure behind the socket releasing with an almost mechanical precision.

The sensation less like the slow, messy work of my own body knitting itself back together and more like an invisible and efficient tool was being applied, sanding down the raw edges of the pain. The faint, humming energy in the air seemed to be the cause, a thousand tiny, invisible hands working under my skin. This efficiency, this impersonal precision, brings only a spreading cold that has nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

So this was it. This was the end of the line. A dead man, waiting for his name to be called. There was no escape. There was no clever plan. There was only the quiet, humming silence of this yellow room, the cold and indifferent presence of Ivan standing guard over a future that did not exist, and the inevitable, crackling voice of the Manager from the intercom. I did not fight it anymore. I did not even fear it. I just... waited. I listened for the sound of my own name, the final and irrevocable summons to my own end—

>>>>>>>>>>> 

The elevator's ascent from the Control Department was a mechanical dirge, each meter of vertical movement accompanied by the grinding protest of cables that sounded too much like screaming metal. Ivan stood perfectly still in the center of the cage, his riot stick held loosely but purposely in his right hand, his breathing was controlled and measured rhythm that suggested years of practice in managing acute stress responses. His eyes were fixed on the door, unblinking, the muscle in his jaw working in a slow and methodical pattern as if he were chewing on something that didn't exist.

Makoto had collapsed against the elevator's wall, his legs no longer capable of supporting his weight, his cheerful mask completely dissolved into something raw and unformed, like a face that hadn't quite decided what expression to wear after witnessing the impossible. And I stood in the corner, my reflection in the polished metal showing a creature I didn't recognize—bruised, broken, rebuilt by forces I didn't understand, wearing the uniform of a dead man whose ghost I could still feel in the fabric.

The elevator lurched to a stop with a pneumatic hiss that sounded too much like the containment door opening, and all three of us flinched—a synchronized and involuntary full-body spasm that would have been comedic if it weren't so profoundly pathetic. The doors slid open to reveal The Hive's main area, and for a moment that stretched like pulled taffy, nobody moved. Not us, not them—the 147 other employees who had been waiting, who had been speculating, who had been constructing increasingly elaborate theories about what "mining exotic energy" actually entailed.

They saw us, and their conversations died mid-syllable. Not a gradual trailing off, but an immediate and absolute cessation of sound, as if someone had pressed mute on reality itself. They saw Ivan's thousand-yard stare, the way his knuckles were white around the riot stick's grip despite there being no immediate threat. They saw Makoto's face, which had aged ten years in three hours as his eyes now carry a weight that made them look like they were sinking into his skull. They saw me, the walking contradiction of someone who should be dead but wasn't, whose face bore the fading evidence of a beating that should have been fatal, whose eyes couldn't quite focus on any single point because every shadow might contain something impossible.

"What happened down there?" The question came from someone in the crowd, a woman whose voice carried the kind of desperate need for reassurance that only comes from already knowing the answer will be terrible. "What did you mine? What did you find?"

Ivan's response was to walk past her without acknowledgment, his movements mechanical and precisely controlled, like someone navigating a minefield they couldn't see but knew was there. Makoto tried to speak, his mouth opening and closing several times, but all that emerged was a sound that might have been laughter or might have been the beginning of a scream, cut short by his own hand clamping over his mouth. And I just stood there, swaying slightly, my body still trying to process the impossibility of being functional after what it had endured.

The crowd pressed closer, their questions becoming more insistent, more desperate. "Where are your tools?" "Why do you have those sticks?" "What's that smell?" The smell was fear-sweat mixed with something else, something chemical and wrong, the lingering trace of the containment unit's golden atmosphere that clung to our clothes like an accusation. Someone reached out to touch Makoto's shoulder, a gesture of concern or curiosity, and he recoiled so violently that he fell backward, scrambling away on his hands and feet like an animal, his breathing rapid and shallow, hyperventilating.

"Don't touch me!" The words tore from his throat, raw and primal. "You don't know! You don't know what's down there! It's not mining! It's not—" He choked on his own words, doubling over as if someone had punched him in the stomach, dry heaving onto the floor

That's when Angela materialized. Not arrived, not walked in—materialized, her existence simply asserting itself in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Every screen in The Hive—the monitors on the walls, the displays above the dormitory entrances, even the small readouts on the vending machines—flickered to life simultaneously, all showing her serene and impossibly perfect face.

"Greeting," her voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a stereo assault that made several people cover their ears. "I trust you are curious about the nature of your colleagues' first shift. Allow me to provide clarity."

The screens changed, and suddenly everyone was watching me. Not current me, but three-hours-ago me, walking into the containment unit with a clipboard and the naive confidence of someone who still believed in the fundamental logic of reality. They watched my face change as I encountered the skull, they watched my pathetic scramble backward, they heard my screams—raw, animal sounds that didn't seem like they could come from a human throat. The crowd watched me break down completely, sobbing and babbling about simulations and hallucinations, trying desperately to rationalize the impossible.

"This," Angela's voice continued with the dispassionate tone of a museum tour guide, "is One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds. Classification: ZAYIN. The safest category of Abnormality in our collection."

The word 'Abnormality' rippled through the crowd like a stone dropped in still water. Someone whispered "What?" in a voice so small it was barely sound. The screens kept playing, showing my complete psychological dissolution, the generation of negative PE-Boxes represented by floating numbers that meant nothing to anyone but suddenly meant everything.

Then came the footage from the control room. The crowd watched me emerge from the containment unit as something else, something wrong, moving with the jerky efficiency of a creature that had forgotten it was human. They watched me attack Ivan, watched me throw Makoto into the console, watched the systematic beating that followed. The wet, meaty sounds of the riot sticks connecting with flesh were audible even through the tinny speakers, and several people in the crowd turned away, unable to watch.

The screens shifted again, and now they displayed something different—not footage but data. Three employee profiles, side by side, their statistics laid out with brutal and unforgiving clarity.

EMPLOYEE: IVAN | FORTITUDE: 17>18 | PRUDENCE: 16>17 | TEMPERANCE: 14 | JUSTICE: 13

EMPLOYEE: MAKOTO | FORTITUDE: 6>9 | PRUDENCE: 9>11 | TEMPERANCE: 10>12 | JUSTICE: 8

EMPLOYEE: KUROUNI | FORTITUDE: 6>8 | PRUDENCE: 5>7 | TEMPERANCE: 4>5 | JUSTICE: 4

Angela's voice cut through the stunned silence, each word a precisely aimed dart designed to wound. "Your collegue's psychological profile placed him at the minimum threshold for employment. His performance during Insight Work with O-03-03, a ZAYIN-class Abnormality—the safest and least dangerous classification in our containment system—resulted in complete cognitive collapse and violent psychotic break. His inability to maintain basic emotional regulation when confronted with a low-threat entity required immediate disciplinary intervention from his colleagues to prevent loss of additional assets."

She paused, letting the weight of that sink in, letting every person in the crowd look at those numbers and understand the implication. If a ZAYIN-class entity could reduce someone to that state, what would the higher classifications do?

"ZAYIN-class Abnormalities," Angela continued, her voice taking on the quality of a lecture, as if she were teaching a classroom rather than condemning a crowd, "represent the baseline of our containment hierarchy. They are, by definition, entities that pose minimal risk to adequately prepared personnel. Above ZAYIN, we maintain TETH-class, HE-class, WAW-class, and ALEPH-class entities, each tier representing an exponential increase in danger, complexity, and energy output potential."

The implications of that statement spread through the crowd like poison through water. If the floating skull that had driven me to attempted murder was the safest thing in this facility, what horrors waited in the tiers above it?

"Your function here," Angela stated, her closed eyes somehow making her words feel more invasive, as if she was seeing directly into each person's soul without needing physical vision, "is to interact with these entities in controlled conditions. To perform Work upon them—Instinct, Insight, Attachment, and Repression—in order to extract the emotional and conceptual energy they produce. This energy, measured in PE-Boxes, is then processed through our Singularity and converted into the power that sustains not just this facility, but a significant portion of the Nest above. You are not miners. You are Energy Harvesters. And the resource you are harvesting is your own psychological and emotional response to controlled exposure to entities."

"This is the nature of your work," Angela announced, her tone shifting to something that might have been pride if she were capable of such an emotion. "Lobotomy Corporation harvest emotional energy through the controlled interaction between human consciousness and entities that exist outside normal reality. The Abnormalities you saw are real. They are contained within this facility. And you will be required to interact with them daily to meet our energy quotas."

The screens changed again, showing a different angle, different footage. Makoto being dragged by his leg down a hallway by Malkuth, his fingers leaving scratches on the floor as he screamed "I don't want to die! Please! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" The audio was crystal clear, his terror so pure and absolute that several people in the crowd began crying just from hearing it.

"The energy generated from these interactions," Angela explained with the patience of someone teaching children basic arithmetic, "powers not just this facility, but contributes significantly to the City's infrastructure. Each emotion—fear, desperation, hope, despair—has a quantifiable energy signature that we harvest, refine, and distribute. You are not miners in the traditional sense. You are batteries. Living, thinking, feeling batteries."

A woman with short dark hair, the skeptic who had been so certain moments before, found her voice first. "What do you mean, Interaction? We were hired for mineral extraction! The job posting specifically stated—"

"The job posting," Angela interrupted, her voice not rising in volume but somehow cutting through the other woman's words with the precision of a scalpel, "stated that L-Corp was seeking employees for energy production in a controlled underground facility. This description was accurate. What it did not specify were the methods by which that energy is produced. An omission, perhaps, but not a deception. You are producing energy. Simply not through the mining of minerals."

Someone in the crowd laughed—a single, sharp bark of disbelief. "This is a joke," they said. "This has to be a joke. A psychological experiment. You're testing us."

Angela's expression didn't change, but somehow her smile became colder. "I assure you, this is quite real. To demonstrate the permanent nature of your situation, please direct your attention to the location of the entrance elevator."

Everyone turned, a synchronized movement of 150 heads, to look at the spot where they had all arrived a day ago. Where there should have been elevator doors, there was only a smooth wall, as if the elevator had never existed at all.

"The entrance has been sealed for the duration of your 50-day training period. The only exit is through successful completion of your contracts."

The silence that followed was absolute, a vacuum of sound so complete that the ambient hum of the facility's life support systems seemed deafening. Then someone whispered, "We're trapped..?" Just those two words, barely audible, but they were the match that lit the fuse.

The screams reached a new and terrible crescendo, a sound not of outrage, but of the dawning, absolute horror of a trap snapping shut. The hope that had been a fragile and flickering candle in the darkness of their collective despair was extinguished in an instant, replaced by the raw, animalistic terror of a creature that has just realized the walls of its cage are solid and there is no way out.

The initial, chaotic surge towards the spot where the elevator had been devolved into a frantic, useless mob. People were on their knees, pounding their fists against the floor, their blows creating a series of dull, meaty thuds that were swallowed by the vastness of the space. A woman was clawing at the floor, her fingernails scraping uselessly against the resilient material, leaving no mark, a low and continuous wail tearing from her throat.

"It's a trick!" a man shouted, his voice high and cracking with a desperate and fragile hope. "It has to be! This is part of the test! A social experiment! They're just trying to see how we react under pressure! If we just stay calm, they'll open the door!"

His words, a desperate and pathetic attempt to impose a rational framework on an irrational reality, were met with a fresh wave of screams. "There is no test!" another man shrieked. Tears streamed down his contorted face, mixing with the thick mucus that ran from his nose. "Don't you get it?! We're not in a Nest! We're in a tomb!"

Angela did not move. She did not raise her voice. She simply stood there, a serene and silent island in a sea of screaming, human chaos, and she let the terror build. She let it swell, let it reach its peak, let it burn itself out against the unyielding walls of their new and terrible reality. Her stillness was a more potent and more absolute form of control than any shouted command or display of force could ever be. It was the calm and patient stillness of a scientist observing the predictable and violent reaction of a chemical compound, a process that was interesting, but ultimately, of no personal consequence to her.

When the initial, violent wave of panic had begun to subside, when the screams had softened into a chorus of ragged sobs and desperate, pleading murmurs, she spoke. Her voice, as cool and as smooth as polished glass, cut through the noise with the clean and effortless precision of a surgeon's scalpel.

"Resistance is futile," she stated, the words not a threat, but a simple and final statement of fact. "The Hive is a self-contained and fully autonomous environment. The elevator you arrived in has been permanently decommissioned for this operational cycle. The only way out, like I said before, is through the successful completion of your 50-day contract. Any attempt at organized resistance, any act of sabotage against facility property, any deviation from the established protocols, will be met with immediate and definitive corrective measures."

The screens behind her, which had been dark, flickered to life. They did not show images of violence. They showed something far more terrifying. They showed pages from the contract we had all signed in the white room, the dense and unreadable blocks of fine print now blown up to a massive and undeniable scale. She highlighted a single, simple clause with a glowing, red box. Section 7, Paragraph C: In the event of a contractual breach, including but not limited to refusal to work, attempted escape, or acts of insubordination, the Employee's contract will be terminated, and the Employee will be subject to immediate asset liquidation.

"Asset liquidation," Angela repeated, her voice a low and almost conversational murmur, "is a clean and efficient process. There is no pain. There is no struggle. There is only a simple and final cessation of all biological and conceptual functions. You will simply... cease to be. That is your only alternative to useful work. A useful and profitable fifty days, or a useless and instantaneous death. The choice is yours. But it is the only choice you have left."

The crowd stared at the words, at the cold and bureaucratic language of their own damnation. The last, flickering embers of their rebellion died, extinguished not by a wave of violence, but by the cold, hard, and undeniable logic of a contract they had all willingly and desperately signed. The room fell silent again, a new and more terrible kind of silence, a silence not of waiting, but of absolute and final defeat.

The silence was broken by a single, raw, and broken voice. Makoto, who had been a trembling and silent wreck on the floor, pushed himself to his feet. He stumbled forward, through the parted crowd of his fellow damned. His face was wet and blotchy, his jaw clenched so tight the tendons in his neck stood out like wires. Tears streamed from his red-rimmed eyes, no longer just from terror, but from a new and terrible kind of rage. He stopped a few feet from Angela, his body shaking, his hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.

"YOU LIED TO US!" he screamed, his voice a raw and ragged thing that tore at the new and fragile silence of the room. "YOU LIED TO ALL OF US! THERE IS NO MINING! THERE IS NO EXOTIC ORE! IT'S MONSTERS! IT'S ALL JUST MONSTERS!"

He coughed, a wracking and violent spasm that bent him in half, a thick strand of saliva flying from his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at her, the raw fury in his eyes so intense it was almost a physical heat. "THERE ARE NO PICKAXES! THERE ARE NO DRILLING MACHINES! THERE'S JUST A ROOM! A ROOM WITH A MONSTER IN IT! A MONSTER THAT TRIES TO EAT YOUR MIND! WE ALMOST DIED DOWN THERE! HE," he pointed a trembling finger at me. For a moment, his gaze locked with mine, and the wild rage faltered, replaced by a flicker of something else—a raw, shared recognition of the horror we had both just witnessed. He was using me as his evidence. "HE ALMOST DIED! AND YOU JUST... YOU JUST WATCHED!"

Angela's posture did not falter. She did not even acknowledge his outburst. To her, his screams, his pain, his anger, it was all just... irrelevant data. The tantrum of a faulty and inefficient component. She simply proceeded with the day's schedule, her voice as calm and as steady as if he had not spoken at all.

"The next shift will begin in fifteen minutes," she announced, her voice a cool and final dismissal of his entire, miserable existence. "The following Employees will report to the Control Department for their initial assignment." She paused, and three new names, three new death sentences, were spoken into the silent, heavy air of the Hive. "Leo. Alex. Igor. You have fifteen minutes to prepare."

And then, with a final, almost imperceptible flicker of the air, she was gone. The screens all went back to their calming, abstract patterns. The horror show was over. The lesson was complete.

We were left in the aftermath, a hundred and fifty broken and terrified souls in a vast tomb. The three new names stood frozen in the crowd. The blood had drained from their skin, leaving them looking pale and waxy under the artificial light. Their eyes were wide, fixed on nothing, their mouths slightly agape as if they'd forgotten how to breathe. The people around them shuffled away, a slow and silent recoil, a physical flinching that created a small, empty circle around them, a pocket of isolation in the heart of the panicked mob.

I stood there, a silent and invisible ghost in the crowd. The public shaming, the revelation of my own, pathetic weakness, it all felt like a distant and unimportant memory now. I was just another number, another cog in this monstrous and uncaring machine. I looked down at my hands, at the faint, fading bruises on my knuckles. as I touched the side of my face, I felt it now more than ever, the swelling over my eye now just a dull and tender ache.

"How am I still alive?"

The whisper scraped from my throat, a dry and broken sound swallowed by the vast space. My fingers moved, a slow and hesitant exploration of the ruin of my own face. They traced the ridge of bone over my eye. The split in my lip was no longer a raw, open wound, but a thin, scabbed line that pulled uncomfortably when I moved my mouth.

It was too fast. A deep, primal wrongness settled in my gut. This was not the slow, messy work of my own body. This was something else. A strange and subtle tingling under my skin, a feeling of being worked on from the inside out. The very air seemed to participate, a thousand tiny, invisible hands knitting my broken tissues back together with an unnerving efficiency.

The fragile, stunned silence that had followed Angela's departure shattered within the next eight second. It did not break like glass, in a single, clean crack. It crumbled, like old and rotten wood, a hundred different fractures spreading through the crowd at once.

A man near the center of the hub, a large and powerfully built individual who had looked like a pillar of stoic resolve just minutes before, threw his head back and began to laugh. It was not a sound of amusement. It was a high, unhinged, and hysterical sound, a series of sharp, barking peals that echoed off the metal walls, a noise of a mind that had been stretched past its breaking point and had snapped.

And as he laughed at the screens, which were now displaying calming, abstract patterns. He laughed at the floor. He laughed at his own, trembling hands. He was laughing at the sheer, cosmic absurdity of it all, a man who had signed a contract for a mining job and had just been informed that his new pickaxe was his own, quantifiable terror.

"NO!" a woman screamed, her voice a raw and ragged thing from the back of the crowd. "THIS IS A LIE! IT'S A TRICK! IT'S A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! WE HAVE RIGHTS!" She started pushing her way through the stunned and silent bodies, her eyes wild, her face a mess of tears, she reached the spot where the elevator had been and began to pound her fists against the floor, each blow a dull and pathetic thud. "LET US OUT! LET US OUT!"

Her panic was contagious as a small group near her took up the cry, their voices a ragged and desperate chorus. Their desperation quickly soured into a new and more dangerous emotion while another man turned on the people next to him. The muscles in his jaw were clenched so tight the tendons stood out like wires against his neck, his brow furrowed into a hard, straight line over eyes that had narrowed to slits. A dark flush of blood had crept up from his collar, making his skin appear several shades darker in the light as he spoke. "You believe this? You're all just going to stand here and take it? We have to fight! We have to do something!"

"Fight who?" another man shot back, his voice thin and reedy with fear. "Fight her? She's not even here! Fight the walls? They're just walls! We're trapped! Don't you get it?! We are trapped!"

The argument devolved into a frantic and shoving match, two terrified and powerless men turning on each other because there was no one else to turn on. The crowd began to shift and churn, a single, massive organism in the throes of a grand mal seizure. The air grew heavy with the scent of fear-sweat, a sharp and animalistic odor that was a stark and jarring contrast to the clean, filtered atmosphere of The Hive. Someone vomited, the sound a wet and pathetic retching that was barely audible over the rising tide of screams and accusations.

Another man simply sank to the floor, his body folding in on itself as if his spine had dissolved. He wrapped his arms around his knees, buried his face, and began to rock back and forth, a small and silent island of catatonia in a sea of screaming chaos.

And in the middle of it all, a new and more specific kind of venom began to find its target. The crowd, in its frantic and desperate search for a focus for its rage and terror, found one. Three of them, to be exact.Leo, Alex, Igor. The three names Angela had called. The next sacrifices.

The sea of black and red parted around them, not with the grudging envy of before, but with a new and more potent mixture of fear and a strange, almost accusatory pity. They were no longer just three employees. They were omens. They were the living, breathing proof that the cycle would continue, that the machine would demand its fuel, that this was not a bad dream that would end, but a new and terrible reality that had just begun.

Igor stood his ground, his jaw set, her hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists as he met terrified and accusing stares of the people around her with a look of pure defiance. And Leo, a young man who looked like he had not yet started shaving, had gone completely pale, his entire body trembled, his eyes darted left and right as if he were looking for an escape route that did not exist, while Alex, a man of middling height and a quiet, unassuming demeanor, was muttering to himself, his lips moving in a silent and frantic prayer to a god that could not hear him down here.

I watched it all with a strange and profound sense of detachment. This was not new to me. The panic, the screaming, the desperate and violent search for a scapegoat... it was the background music of my entire life. When a food source ran out, when a Syndicate moved in, when the Sweepers came. It was the natural and predictable behavior of rats in a cage when the food pellets stop coming and the electric shocks begin. The only difference here was the quality of the lighting and the cleanliness of the floor.

Makoto let out a low, shuddering breath. He was watching the chaos with the wide, horrified eyes of a man seeing the true and ugly face of humanity for the very first time. He was not a rat. He was a pet who had just been thrown into the snake pit, and he was only just now beginning to understand the rules.

Ivan wasn't watching the chaos like the rest of us. He wasn't staring in horrified disbelief or looking for an escape that did not exist. What was he doing? His gaze swept across the crowd, not with fear, but with a strange, cold focus. His eyes moved with a slow, methodical rhythm, lingering for a second on the man who was laughing hysterically, then on the woman screaming about rights, then on the two men who had started shoving each other. Was he looking for the weak points? The ones who would break first?

Then he moved, a small and subtle shift of his weight, placing himself slightly in front of me and Makoto, his back to the solid, metal wall of the hub. Was that to protect us? My gut screamed no. It was a tactical move, putting the two most unstable variables—the weeping boy and the half-broken rat—between him and the mob, a living, breathing meat shield. He was putting us in a more defensible position, sure, but was it a position to defend *us*, or just *him*?

A fight broke out the next moment. The man who had been screaming about fighting and the man who had been screaming about being trapped finally came to blows. It was a pathetic, clumsy, and deeply sad affair, two terrified men flailing at each other with a desperate and ineffectual fury. But it was a crack. A crack in the fragile and already-breaking social order of The Hive.

Ivan's hand shot out, the movement a sudden and violent whip of motion, and his fingers closed around the back of my uniform, the fabric bunching painfully in his grip. "Not our problem," he muttered, his voice a low and final command. He began to pull me and Makoto away from the spreading stain of violence, back towards the relative safety of the residential hallway. "Let the weak cull themselves."

The fifteen-minute deadline Angela had given was a ticking clock that no one could see but everyone could feel. The three condemned, had to move. And they had to do it by walking through the heart of a crowd that now saw them as a contagion. Their journey of course, was a slow and agonizing procession. The people in their path did not just step aside. They recoiled, a physical and visceral flinching, as if the three of them were carrying some terrible and infectious disease. It's was then that a man stood in front of Igor.

"You're not going," he hissed, his voice a low and desperate thing. "If we all just refuse... if we all just say no... they can't kill all of us, right? Right?!"

Igor did not answer him with words. He shoved him, a single, hard, and efficient application of force that sent him stumbling backward into the people behind him. He did not look at him. He did not acknowledge his desperate and pathetic plea for solidarity. He just kept walking as his eyes were fixed on the entrance to the residential hallway.

Alex was openly weeping now, his body wracked with great, shuddering sobs as he stumbled after him, his hands held up as if to ward off the stares and the whispers of the people he passed. Leo just walked, his eyes fixed on the floor as his lips were still moving in that silent and frantic prayer.

As I watched them go, a cold, hollow space opened in my gut while my eyes followed their rigid postures, the way they walked through a crowd that recoiled from them as if they were carriers of a plague. I saw myself in every hesitant step they took. While they walked towards their own personal hell, my own mind was already replaying the feel of that yellow room, the oppressive sound of that choir, the memory of that cold needle of white pain stabbing through my thoughts.

A grim certainty settled over me, as solid and as cold as the steel floor. This cycle had started, and it would not stop for them, just as it would not stop for me. It would not stop until this place, this machine, got whatever the hell it wanted.

The three of them disappeared into the dark maw of the residential hallway, leaving the rest of us in the simmering, unresolved chaos of the hub. As the last of them vanished from sight, my stomach gave a loud, protesting growl. It was a simple, primal need that cut straight through the complex, existential horror of it all.

The immediate threat, the brief and messy explosion of panic, was over. But while the screams faded and the mob dissolved back into a collection of broken individuals, a new reality had already taken its place. This long, slow, and grinding process of our new existence had just begun. And through all the fear, all the madness, I was just hungry—

>>>>>>>>>>>

The minutes in the cafeteria stretched into an uncomfortable silence while the three of us sat at a small, square table in the middle of the cavernous room, a tiny island of shared trauma. On our table, three identical trays sat like offerings at a grim altar. The bowls were filled with a nutrient paste, this time a bright, almost aggressive shade. No one dared to speak as the events of the morning—Angela's horrifying revelation, the sight of Makoto being dragged away, Ivan's cold return from the void—had scoured all unnecessary words from the air, leaving only the heavy, humming quiet of The Hive.

We just stared at the orange paste, our spoons held loosely, each of us lost in our own private nightmare. My mind was a frantic and chaotic place, a storm of paranoia. That first man, the one whose brain had turned into a hot, steaming soup... his body had been removed from the white room by the time I had left. Where had it gone? Down an incinerator chute? Or to a different kind of processing facility?

Are we eating him? Is that what this is? The genuine possibility was a cold, slick, and horribly logical intrusion into the chaos. The paste yesterday was green, today, it was orange. The color of... of what? Of brain matter processed and reconstituted with some cheap, corporate-approved food coloring? Were they recycling the failures? Were we cannibals? The idea was so monstrous, so completely depraved, that it felt... plausible. In a place that ran on fear and madness, a place that treated its employees like disposable batteries, why would they waste a source of protein?

My train of thought was derailed by the soft scrape of a spoon against a plastic bowl. Looking up, I saw Makoto eating. His hand trembled, a fine tremor that made the spoon rattle against his teeth, but he was eating. His face did not twist in disgust as it had the day before while he chewed slowly, his expression one of weary concentration, as if trying to solve a complex puzzle with his tongue.

He swallowed, a pained and difficult motion, then found the strength to speak, his voice a low and raspy thing stripped of all its previous bravado. "It's... not as bad today," he said, his gaze fixed on the paste. "Marginally better. There's a... a hint of carrot. I think. Where yesterday there was just... nothing."

My face contorted, a rictus of pure horror pulling the skin on my cheeks so tight I thought it might tear. My lower jaw ached with the effort of not screaming. Carrots? He thought the liquefied brain of a dead man tasted like carrots? He was broken. The skull had broken him so completely his own senses were lying to him, feeding him a comforting falsehood to protect him from the screaming, cannibalistic truth.

"What the fuck are you saying? That's not a taste worth celebrating! You're eating a human brain, you absolute dic—"

Ivan's arm shot across the table in a sudden whip of motion. He had scooped a spoonful of the paste from his own bowl, and with a terrifying speed, brought the spoon to my mouth. I gasped, an involuntary intake of breath, and he shoved the spoon past my teeth, the cold plastic scraping against the back of my throat as I choked, my body's panicked response forcing me to bite down and swallow.

The taste... it was carrots. A faint, watery, and slightly chemical taste of carrots, but it was undeniably, and disappointingly, carrots. It was a puree, bland and textureless, but it was not the taste of meat. My elaborate and horrifying theory collapsed in an instant, leaving me feeling foolish and exposed. My paranoia, which felt like a sharp survival instinct moments before, was now just... insanity. After everything I had seen, was it so wrong to think this corporation was capable of such a thing?

Ivan withdrew the spoon and placed it back in his bowl, then brought his right hand to his face, his thumb and forefinger pressing hard against the bridge of his nose as his eyes squeezed shut. He let out a long, slow, and weary sigh, a sound of such profound exhaustion that it seemed to drain the energy from the air. "We have been fools," he said, his voice a low murmur to the table, to himself. "The signs were there from the beginning. The training room next to the library. The secrecy. The chair."

His hand dropped, and he looked at us, a new and terrible clarity in his gaze. "We need to stop thinking about what this place should be and start dealing with what it is. We need to focus on procedural matters. Shift schedules. Work assignments. The location of medical supplies, if any exist in this hellhole. We need to operate as a unit, or we will be broken, one by one."

"But there has to be a way out, right?" I asked, the question a pathetic flicker of a hope I knew was already dead. "A Wing... taking 150 people hostage? This... this has to be against the law, right?"

Ivan let out a weak, humorless laugh, a dry and rasping sound. "The law?" he repeated, the words tasting like ash. "In a city where the Fingers run entire districts and the Wings operate as sovereign states, what law are you referring to? Who enforces it? Another Wing? They only get involved when one of their own breaks the real rules. But a hundred and fifty nobodies disappearing into a basement? A recruitment drive that's a little... forceful? That's not a crime. That's just business. It's their internal affair. And no one interferes with another Wing's internal affairs."

He paused, a strange look in his eyes. "However... I have been thinking," he began, his voice dropping to a confidential register. "That thing... the skull... it felt... old. Ancient. Like it was not...."

"Not what?" Makoto asked, his voice small.

Ivan ignored him, looking around the empty cafeteria, his gaze lingering on the security cameras. "Have you ever considered," he began again, his words slow and careful, "that if we die down here... our families will never know? Our friends will never know. We will just cease to be."

He let the words sink in, a cold and terrible truth. "And if they can do that," he continued, "what else can they do? Can they erase memories? Can they modify our perception? Or is it... just in the name?" He looked at us, a dark question in his eyes. "Does Lobotomy Corporation... actually give people lobotomies?"

The words hung in the air, a final monstrous possibility that felt horribly plausible in a place where men's heads were turned to soup. The silence was broken not by a gasp of fear, but by a short, sharp, and incredulous scoff from Makoto. It was a sound of such profound disbelief that it momentarily overrode his own, lingering terror.

"Lobotomies? Are you serious?" He looked from Ivan's grim face to my own, his eyes wide with a kind of baffled condescension. "It's a rule. A law of the City, handed down by the Head. Every Wing is assigned a letter of the alphabet. Their corporate name is required—obligated—to start with that letter. L is for Lobotomy. R is for... whatever the hell they call themselves. It's just branding. Bureaucracy. Even the dumbest of rats knows that."

The final four words were a casual backhand, a sharp and dismissive flick against the raw nerve of my own ignorance. My jaw tightened, a hard knot of muscle clenching just below my ear. A hot, familiar wave of gutter-rat anger flared in my chest, a desperate and useless urge to defend a history I was trying to erase.

I had not known. And this person from a world of clean streets and warm coats, had just pointed it out with the casual cruelty of a king remarking on the dirt under a peasant's fingernails. I forced the muscle in my jaw to rela while forcing my hands to un-clench from the fists they had instinctively formed, forced myself to just... take it.

I looked at Ivan, at the deep weariness in his eyes, at the grim understanding of the world etched into his face, and I felt a wave of strange pity. He was a killer, a cold machine, but he was also trapped. Just like us. A strong and dangerous animal in a cage that was stronger and more dangerous still.

"So we're just supposed to accept this?" I asked, my voice a quiet, defeated thing. "We're just a part of their sick experiment?"

"The elevator is gone," Ivan said, his voice flat and final. "Angela was not bluffing. I checked. The wall where the elevator was is a solid, seamless piece of metal. There is no way out. We have been thrown into this without guidelines, without truth, and we have a very high probability of dying down here. I will not insult your intelligence by suggesting otherwise. So yes. For now. We accept. And we survive. One day at a time."

We finished our meal in silence and returned our trays to the slot in the wall, the hiss of the disposal unit a soft and final punctuation to Ivan's grim declaration. The Hive was a quiet and desolate place as we walked out of the cafeteria, the other employees having retreated to their rooms or to the library, to their own forms of quiet despair. The walk back through the vast, central hub was a different kind of journey than the one we had taken just an hour before. The space, which had been a sea of black and red, was now a vast and empty desert of metal, the silence a heavy and suffocating blanket. The initial, chaotic explosion of panic had burned itself out, leaving behind the cold, grey ash of a shared and absolute hopelessness.

"How?" Makoto's voice was a small and fragile thing, a whisper that was almost swallowed by the vastness of the space. "How can you just... accept this? Just like that? We're prisoners. We're lab rats. And you're just... you're just ready to survive? What does that even mean in a place like this?"

Ivan did not stop walking. He did not even turn his head. His gaze was fixed on the entrance to the residential hallway at the far end of the hub. "It means I am not going to waste my energy screaming at a wall that will not move," he said, his voice a low and even rumble. "It means I am not going to waste my time looking for an escape that does not exist. It means I am going to learn the rules of this new cage, and I am going to use them to my advantage. Survival is not about hope. It is about efficiency. And right now, the most efficient thing we can do is understand the nature of our work."

As we walked past the entrance to the library, the quiet of the hub was broken by a strange and frantic energy. The library was a large, circular room, its walls lined from floor to ceiling with shelves of identical, hardbound books. The books had no titles on their spines. They were just uniform blocks of dark grey, a library of institutional and anonymous knowledge. I could see the titles on the few that were lying open on the tables: 'Optimal Nutrient Paste Consumption' Strategies for Maximum Cognitive Function,' 'A Brief History of Corporate Synergy: A Lobotomy Corporation Perspective,' 'Maintaining Psychological Homeostasis in High-Stress Environments.'

About twenty Employees were inside. They were not reading. They were searching. A man was running his hands along the back of a bookshelf, his fingers probing for a hidden latch, a loose panel. A woman was on her hands and knees, tapping at the floor tiles with the heel of her shoe, listening for a hollow sound. Another group was systematically pulling every single book from a single shelf, dropping them to the floor in a growing pile of grey and white, their faces a mixture of a feverish, desperate hope and a dawning, soul-crushing despair. They were looking for a switch, a lever, a secret passage. They were looking for an escape that did not exist.

"Do you think...?" Makoto began, his voice a thin and reedy whisper of a hope he could not quite extinguish. "Do you think they'll find anything?"

"No," Ivan said, his voice a flat and final thing. He did not even slow his pace. He gave the frantic scene a single, dismissive glance, his expression one of a profound and weary contempt. "They are looking for a secret that was never hidden. The secret is that there is no secret. This is a prison. A very well-designed one. It would not have a flaw as simple as a hidden door behind a bookshelf. They are wasting their energy. They are burning their fuel on a fire that will not keep them warm."

We walked on, past the hopeful and the damned, towards the one place that might have an answer. The room marked '0-00-00.' The training dummy. We found it easily enough, another heavy, reinforced containment gate identical to the one that had held the skull, except for the small, illuminated screen above it.

(O-00-00) Standard Training-Dummy Rabbit
MAX ENERGY OUTPUT: 5 PE-Boxes
RISK LEVEL: TETH

A TETH...? A fucking TETH-class Abnormality for a training dummy?! Angela, or whoever was responsible for this madness, had to be insane! The skull, the thing that had almost shattered my mind, had been a ZAYIN, the safest classification! And they were using a TETH, a creature a full step up in danger, as a practice tool?!

Makoto reached out a trembling hand and pressed it against the scanner panel. He did it slowly, his movements hesitant and filled with a profound reluctance. The light on the panel shifted from red to green, and the heavy, steel door began to slide open with a low, ominous groan.

We stepped through, into another antechamber, and then through a second, automatically opening gate. The room beyond was identical to the skull's. A vast, empty chamber of cold, polished steel, its dimensions an impossible and unsettling contradiction to the space it should have occupied. In the center of the room, there was a single, yellow warning line painted on the floor, a threshold we were not meant to cross. And just behind that line, standing in the exact center of the room, was the Abnormality.

It was... it was a rabbit. Or something that was meant to look like one, as it was barely tall enough to reach our knees, its body a single, round, and perfectly white sphere. Its head was a featureless continuation of its body, with a thin, straight line for a mouth and two, large, yellow circular markings on either side that resembled huge, blank eyes, but were probably meant to be cheeks. Two, long, white protrusions that resembled ears stuck up from the top of its head. It just stood there, while its expression, if you could call it that, was one of a complete and total and unimpressed stillness. It did not breathe. It did not move. It was a dummy. A statue. A toy.

But the screen outside had said TETH. And in this place, the label was more real than the thing itself. I held my riot stick in a white-knuckled grip as my body tensed, waiting for the other shoe to drop. My mind was screaming a warning, a frantic and continuous alarm bell that was being triggered by the single, damning word on the screen outside, while my eyes were telling me it was a toy, a birthday gift for a daughter brought by a rich occupant of a nest, something that should have a price tag and a brightly colored box. The silence in this room was different from the skull's, as that had been a sacred, waiting silence, a silence filled with the weight of judgment and the promise of a terrible revelation.

The material of its body was a seamless, matte white, a substance so flawless and so pure it seemed to absorb the light of the room. It did not look like plastic. It looked... soft. Like polished bone that had been ground into a fine powder and then reconstituted into this perfect, unbroken shape. Like some kind of dense, cool ceramic that would be pleasant to the touch. The yellow eyes that almost look like cheeks were circles of inset yellow material, so flawless they seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it, two flat and absolute voids of color.

The urge to reach out, to run my hand over that surface, was a sudden and powerful thing, a physical craving that started in the tips of my fingers and spread up my arm. In a world of grit and rust and filth, in a life that was defined by the rough and the broken, the sheer, unblemished smoothness of this object was a profound and unsettling temptation. It was a desire for something clean. Something that was not stained or broken or bleeding.

I had to know. I had to know if it was real.

I took a single, hesitant step forward, crossing the yellow warning line on the floor.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" The words were a strangled hiss from behind me as Makoto's voice came out as a raw nerve of undiluted panic. "ARE YOU INSANE?! IT'S A TETH! DON'T TOUCH IT!"

I ignored him while my hand, acting on its own volition, reached out. The world seemed to slow down as the air grew thick and heavy, the only sound the frantic and terrified pounding of my own heart. My fingers, still trembling slightly from the aftershocks of my own, recent breakdown, made contact with the rabbit's face.

A strange heat bloomed in my cheeks, a feeling so foreign and so unwelcome I almost flinched from my own internal reaction. My heart gave a sudden, hard thump against my ribs, a single, heavy beat that was out of sync with the frantic, panicked rhythm that had been my constant companion for the last day, all while the absurd, insane idea of picking it up, of tucking it under my arm and taking it back to our room, just to have it there, just to have this thing in my own, personal space, to look at it, to touch it when no one was watching, was a thought so strange and so deeply inappropriate that it was almost a form of madness in itself.

My fingers sank into the material a fraction of an inch before meeting a firm and unyielding resistance while it felt like touching something that was not quite solid, not quite liquid, a state of matter that should not exist.

As I gave its face a small, almost contemptuous shove, the entire object tilted back a few degrees on its base and then rocked back into place with a slow and silent motion. It did not react. It did not move. It was just a thing. A very strange, very soft, and very, very unsettling thing.

"Get your hand off of it. Now." Ivan's voice was not a shout. It was a low, cold, and absolute command, spoken from just behind my right shoulder. He had moved with a silence that I had not even registered, while his presence was now a sudden and heavy weight at my back. I could feel the coiled and ready tension in him, the feeling of a predator that was about to strike.

I pulled my hand back as if I had been burned, a jolt of a new and different kind of fear, the fear of the known and predictable violence of a man like Ivan, cutting through the strange and formless terror of the rabbit. I stumbled back, my feet tangling with each other, as I scrambled to get back on the safe side of the yellow line.

Ivan did not look at me while his eyes were fixed on the rabbit, his body positioned slightly in front of me and Makoto, a living shield between the unpredictable variables and the potential threat. "They put a TETH-class entity in a room with no locks, next to the library," he said, his voice a low and dangerous growl, each word a carefully shaped piece of cold, hard logic. "It generates almost, nothing. It has no discernible purpose other than to just... sit here. And you... you walked across the line and you touched its face." His head turned just enough for his gaze to cut into me like a shard of glass. "What did you think was going to happen? Did you want to find out what happens when this toy decides to stop being a toy? Did you want to be the one to wake it up?"

"I just... I just wanted to see if it was real," I stammered, the words a pathetic and inadequate explanation for the strange and powerful urge that had just compelled me to touch the face of a monster.

Ivan's head pivoted slowly, a mechanical turn, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords. The contempt in his expression was a physical thing, a tightening of the skin around his eyes, a slight downturn at the corner of his mouth that conveyed more disgust than any shout ever could. His whisper was a low vibration that barely disturbed the air, a sound meant only for me, a final judgment. "It has a risk classification. That means it is real. And your inability to control your impulses, your sheer, childish need to touch things you don't understand, is going to get us all killed."

He turned his gaze from me, his dismissal so complete it felt like I had ceased to exist in the room. We stood there for another, long and silent minute, a triangle of frozen fear and contempt, staring at the small, white, and completely motionless rabbit. It did not move. It did not react. It did not do a single, solitary thing. Its perfect face that says "Boring..." in this open, unlocked room resonated with a quiet and patient threat that was more unnerving than any open display of aggression.

Then, Ivan moved. He took a measured step back from the yellow line, his body coiling, then unwinding. His right leg shot forward, all his weight driving through the heel of his boot in a heavy, brutal stomp. The impact was a dull, wet thud, a sound absorbed by the soft, strange material of the dummy's body. The white form tilted back sharply from the force of the blow, then settled, returning to its upright position with a slow, hydraulic smoothness. The yellow circles that served as its eyes remained fixed on the far wall.

A low and guttural sound, a noise that was half-growl, half-snarl, tore from Ivan's throat. He kicked it again, harder, his boot connecting with a solid and unsatisfying impact. The rabbit rocked, then settled. Still. Unchanged.

He turned his head, his gaze a burning and furious thing, and he looked at Makoto. "What are you doing?" he barked, his voice a low and savage command. "Are you going to stand there and weep like a child? Or are you going to hit something? This thing," he gestured at the rabbit with the toe of his shoe, "is a TETH. It is meant to be dangerous. It is meant to scare us. Are you going to let it?"

Makoto just stared, his face pale, his body trembling. "But... but it's... what if it...?"

"What if it what?" Ivan's voice was a blade. "Fights back? Good. Then we will know what it does. Are you going to let your fear of what might happen paralyze you? Is that how you survived this long? By crying in a corner? Now. Get over here."

Makoto flinched, a small and pathetic gesture, but he did not move. Ivan took a step towards him while a corner of his mouth pulled back in a slight, almost imperceptible sneer, a gesture that conveyed more disgust than any shout ever could. His dark blue eyes were flat and hard, completely devoid of any sympathy, as he looked down at Makoto like he was a piece of malfunctioning equipment. "Do you want to be the one crying on the floor when the next skull comes through that door? Or do you want to be the one who is still standing? Your choice. Make it. Now."

Something in Makoto's face shifted. The wild, cornered-animal terror in his eyes was slowly, and with a visible and painful effort, being replaced by a grim and terrible resolve. A spark of his own, long-dormant rage began to burn in the depths of his gaze. He took a single, hesitant step forward, crossing the yellow line. He looked down at the small, white rabbit. And he kicked it. The kick was a clumsy, hesitant thing, but it was a start.

"Again," Ivan commanded.

He kicked it again. Harder this time. Then Ivan's boot struck again, a solid and percussive blow. Makoto found a rhythm, a brutal partnership formed in the sterile, steel room. Their polished black shoes rose and falling in a frantic, ugly dance, a steady and methodical application of violence. They stopped two minutes later of course, panting, their chests heaving in the silent room as the rabbit stood amidst the flurry, no longer a clean white form. Black scuff marks from their shoes crisscrossed its body like crude tattoos. A fine, hairline crack had spiderwebbed out from one of its yellow eyes. Grime from the floor, smeared by their boots, clung to its flanks.

Makoto's frantic, shallow breaths slowed, deepening into a steady, controlled rhythm. The wild terror had drained from his face, leaving the skin taut over his cheekbones, his mouth set in a hard, thin line. A small, almost imperceptible nod passed between him and Ivan.

"There," Ivan said, his voice a low and final thing. "Now we know what it is. It is a thing we can break."

He turned and walked out of the room without another word. Makoto followed, his stride no longer a shuffle of fear, but a firm, grounded walk. I was left alone. My own hand... the one that had reached out just minutes before, felt heavy and useless at my side. The strange, powerful urge I'd had to touch that smooth surface was gone, curdled into a cold knot of something that felt like disgust.

The thing was dirty now. It was stained. They had smeared the filth of this place, the grime of their own frantic fear, all over it. My hand twitched at my side, a strange, unwelcome urge to wipe the marks away, to smooth over the crack, to somehow restore the clean, unbroken surface. The impulse was immediately followed by a wave of revulsion, and I took a small, involuntary step backward, my hand recoiling as if I had touched something hot. My fingers curled into a fist. I wanted nothing to do with it now.

The unimpressed eyes stared past me, their blankness holding a stillness their violence hadn't even touched. But something had changed. A low hum started in the room, a sound I hadn't heard before. It was not the hum of the facility's machinery. It was a subtle, internal vibration, a resonant frequency that seemed to emanate from the dummy itself, traveling through the steel floor and up into the bones of my feet.

I froze, my hand still halfway to my side after pulling back from the dummy. My breath hitched. It was just the facility. The power cycling. A ventilation fan starting up somewhere deep in the walls. It was nothing. It had to be nothing.

The humming grew in intensity, a palpable thrum that made the air feel tight and heavy in my lungs. With that, the note shifted, sharpening from a low bass rumble into something higher, a sound on the very edge of hearing that scraped at the inside of my skull like a rusty nail.

The rationalization shattered. Every instinct, every piece of gutter-rat survival sense that had kept me alive this long, was screaming a single, silent, and absolute command. My body moved before my mind could form a coherent thought. I took one slow step backward, then another, my eyes locked on the small, white, and now-vibrating form in the center of the room—

"Nope! Absolutely not. I am not staying here for this shit! I'm done! I'm done with this!"

I spun on my heel and bolted. And as I threw myself through the chamber, my right shoulder slammed against the doorframe, a fresh spike of pain a welcome and grounding sensation in the rising tide of terror. I burst back out into the main hallway just as the sound from within the containment unit changed again.

A low, electronic growl. Something waking from a long and patient sleep.

Our sleep in the pods had been soft and yielding, and it's was still going to be the case. But tomorrow... tomorrow was going to be anything but.