City of Blood and Iron

The White Room

The white void did not have a floor, and falling through it felt like dropping straight down the center of an endless computer screen.

I clutched my heavy wooden stamp in one hand and grabbed for Elena as we spun through the bright light. The wind roared past our ears, loud and sharp, blowing our hair back until we hit a hard, flat surface with a loud thud that knocked the wind right out of my lungs.

"Get up, Kyle," Elena said, her voice sharp and steady.

I rolled onto my back and blinked against the blinding white light. There were no rain-soaked streets here, no broken asphalt, and no dark alleys. We were standing in a massive, perfectly square room made entirely of smooth white glass. Endless rows of floating glass desks stretched out into the distance in every direction, and behind each desk sat a faceless worker in a clean grey suit, typing furiously on keyboards made of pure light.

"Where are we?" I asked, pushing myself up to my feet and checking my belt to make sure my iron gun and stamps were still there.

"The processing center," Elena answered. Her dark wings were folded tightly behind her, but the feathers were glowing with a bright blue edge. She looked around the giant room with a cold, 계산적 look in her eyes that made me realize she was already mapping out our escape route. "This is where the Bureau drafts every contract for the city. If we destroy the main server at the end of this floor, we break the binding magic on every human soul in Seattle."

Before I could answer, a loud chime echoed through the white room.

DING.

Every single faceless worker stopped typing at the exact same second. Hundreds of heads in identical grey suits turned toward us in unison, their blank faces reflecting our images like mirrors.

"Intruders detected in Sector 4," a cold, automated voice announced from the ceiling speakers. "Subject Kyle Vance and asset Elena Vance are in direct violation of employment guidelines. Security clearance is permanently revoked. Termination protocols are now active."

The glass floor beneath our feet began to glow with bright red lines, spelling out long legal paragraphs in giant capital letters.

"Move!" I grabbed Elena's hand, and we sprinted down the wide aisle between the endless rows of glass desks.

As we ran, the faceless workers stood up from their chairs. They did not pull out guns or swords. Instead, they raised heavy legal ledgers and hurled them at us like flying bricks. The books spun through the air, glowing with sharp red light.

I pulled out my red wooden stamp, turned around while running backward, and slammed it down onto the glass floor.

THWUMP.

A wall of golden runes shot up behind us, catching the flying ledgers and sending them crashing down into the floor in a shower of broken glass and red ink.

"They are trying to trap us in a loop," Elena warned, pointing ahead.

At the end of the long aisle, the white glass walls were shifting and sliding together, blocking our path to the main server room. A tall, familiar figure stood right in front of the closing exit, leaning casually against a glass pillar.

Director Thorne adjusted his cuffs, his smile wide and unbothered. His expensive suit was clean again, as if he had never been crashed into a brick wall by a black sedan.

"You really thought you could smash a control stamp and walk out of the building, Kyle?" Thorne called out, his voice echoing clearly across the giant room. "You are just an employee. You cannot beat the management."

I stopped running, letting go of Elena's hand and stepping forward. My iron gun was raised, pointing straight at his chest.

"You lied to me about my father," I said, my voice cold and hard. "You used my own signatures to trap my sister."

"Of course I lied," Thorne laughed, spreading his arms wide. "Management always lies to the staff. It keeps production numbers high."

He snapped his fingers. The glass floor around our feet opened up, revealing a deep pit of glowing red numbers spinning like a giant meat grinder.

"Step into the audit pit, Kyle," Thorne ordered, his eyes narrowing. "Or watch your sister get formatted into a mindless database."

Elena stepped up beside me. She did not look at Thorne. Instead, she reached into her coat and pulled out my broken plastic pen.

"Kyle," she whispered, her voice dangerously calm. "Do you trust me?"

"With my life," I answered without a single second of doubt.

"Good," she smiled, a sharp, cunning expression that mirrored our father's old look before he fought back. "Because I just forged a new termination clause."

Before Thorne could blink, Elena threw the broken plastic pen straight at his face like a dart. Thorne ducked out of the way, but the pen hit the glass pillar behind him, shattering into a bright flash of pure golden light that unlocked the closing exit doors.

"Now!" Elena shouted, diving forward and pulling me right into the open server room before the doors could slam shut again.