The cold steel of a barrel pressed against the nape of Arthur’s neck, the metal biting into his skin with clinical precision."Don't move, Arthur," a voice rasped from the darkness—not the cold, synthetic tone of the facility AI, but something ragged, human, and utterly exhausted. "If you twitch, your grey matter becomes part of the scenery."Arthur held his breath, his muscles coiled like a spring. "You’re not the System. Who are you?""I'm the guy who’s tired of watching you play hero," the voice hissed. A heavy hand shoved Arthur forward into the gloom. "Walk. The power surge fried the magnetic locks. If we’re lucky, we can slip into the Lower Maintenance Tunnels before the lockdown resets."Arthur stumbled, his boots crunching over pulverized concrete. He caught a glimpse of Ulya and Cochos being shoved forward by two other shadows. Ulya looked battered, her lab coat hanging in ribbons, but her eyes were sharp, darting around the ruin of the landing pad."Ulya! Cochos! You okay?"

"You're seeing things again, aren't you?" Ulya whispered, her eyes tracking the way Arthur’s gaze drifted along the geometry of the ceiling."I see how it breathes," Arthur replied, his voice barely a murmur. He tapped the wall, feeling for the vibration of the conduits behind the plating. "The whole room is held up by four load-bearing support beams that are currently being corroded by a leaking hydraulic line. This place isn't just a cafeteria. It’s a ticking time bomb waiting for a stiff breeze."Miller stepped up beside him, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the corridor. "Intuition is a dangerous thing to rely on, kid. Usually, it’s just a fancy way of saying you’re going to get yourself killed.""I’m not relying on intuition," Arthur said, clutching his mop handle with a grip that turned his knuckles white. "I’m looking at the blueprints. The System just handed me the keys to the kingdom."Cochos let out a shaky, jagged laugh, his hands still trembling from their brush with the C

The ceiling didn't just break; it detonated. A slab of reinforced concrete the size of a shipping container slammed into the cafeteria floor, sending a shockwave of shrapnel through the air. From the dust and jagged rebar emerged a nightmare of polished chrome and hydraulic pistons: a "Janitor-Class" prototype. It stood seven feet tall, its face a featureless monitor glowing with a sterile, pulsing blue cross."That's not a machine," Miller choked out, firing his sidearm in a desperate, frantic rhythm. "That’s the Facility’s enforcer."The bullets pinged off the prototype’s chassis like rain on a tin roof. It didn't flinch. It extended a serrated, telescoping arm—a high-pressure cleaning nozzle meant for industrial acid—and swept it across the room. Where the liquid hit, the floor dissolved into a bubbling, toxic soup."Arthur, the pipe!" Ulya shrieked, scrambling up the maintenance ladder toward the vent."Not yet!" Arthur shouted. He watched the prototype’s movements. It was efficie

"Employees?" Miller leveled his weapon at the door, the metal vibrating as the rhythmic thumping intensified. "You mean the human staff? I thought they were all either purged or turned into those scavengers.""Not all of them," Arthur muttered, his Janitor’s Intuition mapping the vibrations in the floor. "The ones who didn't crack—they’re the ones who run the security shifts. They don't want to fix the facility; they want to quarantine the 'contamination.' And guess who the contamination is?""Us," Cochos squeaked, his back pressed against the cold glass of a specimen cylinder. "We’re the stain on the carpet, aren't we?"Arthur gripped his mop handle. The alloy felt warm, pulsating with a low-frequency hum that synced perfectly with his own heartbeat. "Miller, how many rounds in that mag?""Four," Miller rasped, his face drawn. "And we’re about to be swarmed by high-clearance security. We aren't winning this fight with bullets, kid.""I don't plan on fighting them," Arthur said, his e

The blast door didn't just fail; it liquefied. A molten ribbon of alloy dripped onto the floor, hissing like a serpent, and from the glowing orange gap stepped a figure that made Miller’s jaw go slack.It wasn't a droid. It wasn't a scavenger. It was a man, tall and impossibly poised, wearing a pristine, starched white jumpsuit that seemed to repel the grime of the tunnel. His face was a mask of calculated indifference, his eyes glowing with the same aggressive violet hue as Arthur’s interface."Identification," the man said, his voice a smooth, synthetic resonance that seemed to vibrate the very marrow in Arthur’s bones. "Asset 002. Redirect your path to the incinerator. Your service cycle is terminated.""Terminated?" Arthur spat, stepping forward. He didn't raise his mop yet. He let the head of it drag against the floor, leaving a faint, shimmering trail of residue behind him. "You’ve got a funny way of asking for a resignation, pal.""I am the Overseer," the man replied, his hands