Antang stopped dead, causing Kewin to nearly collide with his spine. The android tilted his head, his golden eyes scanning the darkness with a predatory focus that made the hair on Kewin’s arms stand up."Did you hear that?" Antang asked, his voice devoid of its usual melodic lilt. It was flat, mechanical, and dangerously sharp.Kewin froze, his hand dropping instinctively to the rusted pistol holstered at his hip. "Hear what? The wind whistling through the vents? Or the sound of my patience evaporating?""Frequency oscillation," Antang said, ignoring the jab. "340 Hertz. It’s coming from the floor beneath us. It’s not mechanical, Kewin. It’s bio-rhythmic."Kewin crept forward, his boots making no sound on the corroded grating. "Bio-rhythmic? We’re in the middle of a dead industrial district. Nothing breathes down here except the mold.""That is a faulty assumption," Antang replied, his hand moving to his side to unsheathe a shimmering, electrified blade. "The Aethelgard facility was

Antang didn’t wait for a response. He dropped to his knees, his palms pressed flat against the vibrating steel grating of the floor. The amber light in his neck intensified, pulsing in sync with the low-frequency hum that seemed to vibrate through the marrow of Kewin’s teeth."You’re doing it again," Kewin whispered, crouching low beside him. "Turning into a human oscilloscope. Just tell me if we need to run or fight.""Neither," Antang murmured, his eyes unfocused as his pupils flickered like failing camera shutters. "We need to calibrate. The floor isn't a floor, Kewin. It’s a sensory membrane."Kewin wiped a smear of black grease from his forehead, his breath hitching in his chest. "A sensory membrane? You’re telling me the entire industrial sector is a living organism? That’s not science, that’s a horror movie script.""Aethelgard did not just build a facility," Antang said, finally looking at him. His golden eyes were unnerving, devoid of the hesitation that had once made him 'An

"Both," Antang repeated, his voice chillingly detached. He stood up, his movements fluid—too fluid, devoid of the slight, jagged hitch that had characterized his trauma-addled state just hours ago. He brushed a dusting of oxidized iron from his tactical vest, his gaze sweeping the darkened corridor with the precision of a laser array. "Though I suspect your fall would be less problematic for the hardware than for your own structural integrity, Kewin."Kewin let out a sharp, breathless laugh, though it died quickly in the stale, metallic air. He kept his hand hovering near the grip of his sidearm, the cold weight of the metal offering a sliver of comfort. "Thanks for the concern, 'Partner.' You’re really leaning into the whole 'cold, calculating machine' aesthetic today, aren't you? It’s a bad look. I liked the version of you that occasionally forgot how to walk."Antang turned to look at him. His golden eyes, usually so expressive, were currently locked in a state of hyper-analytical

"Thirty-four percent," Kewin muttered, his voice echoing off the damp, rusted walls of the corridor. "Fantastic. Let’s make it a nice, round zero, shall we? Can you stop calculating the probability of our collective doom and start calculating how we get through that locked blast door ahead?"Antang stared at the bulkhead. It was a massive slab of reinforced titanium, etched with the faded, bioluminescent logo of Aethelgard. "The door is not locked by a key, Kewin. It is locked by an identity query. It is waiting for a signature that my system currently cannot replicate without triggering a lethal countermeasure."Kewin stepped forward, his boots crunching on layers of decayed wiring and loose bolts. "An identity query? Like a password? What if I try to kick it in? My boots are reinforced."Antang let out a sound that might have been a laugh, though it sounded more like the cooling fans of a drone spooling down. "Your physical force is negligible compared to the kinetic dampeners embed

"Forty-two seconds," Antang finished, his hand trembling—a glitch, or perhaps a deliberate mimicry of human tension. "Kewin, if the system triggers the defensive turret protocols, do not attempt to drag me. You must retreat into the ventilation shaft. My chassis is designed to withstand a level four thermal blast; yours is essentially wet paper."Kewin stared at Antang’s back, the golden light radiating from his companion’s eyes casting long, skeletal shadows against the rusted bulkhead. "I’m not leaving you, Antang. We discussed this. If you go, I’m just a guy with a gun and no map. I’m dead either way.""The logic remains sound," Antang murmured, his fingers dancing across the interface panel, which groaned with the screech of shifting metal. "But your attachment is statistically inefficient.""Shut up," Kewin snapped, though his grip on his sidearm was slick with cold sweat. "Just get the door open."The corridor grew silent, save for the rhythmic, metallic pulse of the facility’s