Bima pulled the silver-cased drive from his jacket, the metal biting into his palm with a chill that felt unnatural against his skin. "I haven't even cracked the seal, Lalu. If this isn't connected, then what are they keying off of?"Siti turned, her face illuminated by the rhythmic, pulsing amber light above. Her eyes looked distant, as if she were viewing a memory projected behind her retinas. "It’s not the drive, Bima. It’s the blood. It’s the design.""Explain that," Bima snapped, his voice tight with the frantic need for logic in a room dissolving into madness. "We are humans. We are survivors. We are not 'designs.'"Lalu leaned against the rusted bulkhead, his breathing shallow and jagged. "Look at the floor, kid. Look at the shadows."Bima glanced down. His own shadow, cast by the bioluminescence of the Error-Spawn, didn't match his posture. While he stood rigid, his hand clutching the drive, the shadow on the floor moved with a fluid, predatory grace, mimicking a technician wo

"Finish the sentence, Siti," Bima whispered, his voice trembling as he backed away from her. "Did you really think the bunker was the beginning? Start talking. Right now."Siti didn't blink. She remained in that strange, tranced state, her fingers twitching against the amber-glow of the ceiling-crawling bots. "The bunker wasn't a shelter, Bima. It was a cradle. A mass-production facility for the hopeful. We aren't the survivors of the cataclysm. We are the leftovers of an failed experiment to repopulate a world that decided it didn't want us."Lalu let out a harsh, dry laugh that turned into a coughing fit. He slumped harder against the rusted bulkhead, the tourniquet on his leg looking far too thin to stem the tide of his reality. "She’s right, kid. I’ve known for years. Why do you think I never try to leave? Why do you think I just sit here, counting the leaks in the ceiling? Because once you realize you're just a spare part, the concept of a 'future' loses its flavor.""You knew?"

"I remember the smell of rain," Bima repeated, his voice straining against the metallic silence of the vault. He stared at his hands, watching the faint, flickering translucence that occasionally bled through his skin. "I remember a house with a wooden porch. I remember the sound of a storm rolling over the mountains. That is not a file. That is a life."Lalu pulled the tourniquet tighter, a grunt of agony escaping his lips. "Memory is just data with a high-fidelity emotional trigger, kid. The architects were poets of cruelty. They didn't just build us to survive; they built us to yearn. If you didn't miss something you’d never actually touched, you wouldn't be desperate enough to keep the engine running."Siti didn't move her hand from the pulsating amber membrane above them. Her eyes were glazed, reflecting the rhythmic, sickly glow of the Error-Spawn. "He’s right, Bima. The rain you remember? It’s a simulation packet. I can feel the code under my skin. Every time you think of that

 Bima stared at the wall. The metal shuddered under his touch, not from his force, but from the rhythmic, seismic thudding of the Error-Spawn clawing their way through the outer plating of the Rinjani bunker. "Listen to that," Bima whispered, his hand trembling against the vibrating bulkhead. "That is not a simulation. That is the sound of something hungry trying to tear us apart. Tell me how an 'emotional trigger' makes my teeth ache with terror, Lalu." Lalu let out a hollow, rattling laugh, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Fear is the most efficient motivator in the system, Bima. They didn't want us to solve the puzzle; they wanted us to react to it. Every time you scream, every time you fight back, you’re just generating more data for the archive. You’re feeding the very thing you’re trying to kill." Siti withdrew her hand from the membrane. The amber light flickered, dying down to a dull

 "Stop calling me that," Bima snapped, his voice echoing off the curved, claustrophobic walls of the sub-basement. He leveled his sidearm at the ceiling, where the groaning of twisted steel signaled the Error-Spawn’s slow, deliberate advance. "I am not a chassis. I am not a serial number. And I am definitely not waiting here to be recycled." Lalu forced a grimace, shifting his weight. His leg was a ruin of torn muscle and exposed circuitry—or was it synthetic plating? In the low, flickering light, it was impossible to tell where the man ended and the machine began. "Does the truth change the fact that we’re cornered, Bima? Look at your hands. Really look at them." Bima looked down. His knuckles were raw, bruised from striking the bulkhead. He flexed his fingers. They felt heavy, sluggish, weighted by a strange, metallic fatigue. "I see flesh. I see blood." "You see what the interface wants