Corporate Monsters: The After- Hours Shift

Chapter 10: Human Resources Liquidation

The elevator doors didn't slide open; they split like a ruptured metal skull, spitting a hot mix of mechanical grease and synthetic ozone into the hall. Arman stumbled out, his leather-soled shoes slipping on floor tiles coated in a thin, greasy lacquer of black fluid.

Behind him, Elena stepped out of the cabin, adjusting the cuffs of her silk blouse with serene precision. Behind her, three analysts—faces slack, throats whistling with binary static—marched in silent lockstep like a grotesque secretarial honor guard.

"This is the Third-Floor Annex," Arman said, his voice carrying that newly acquired dual-layered rattle. His left eye projected a brilliant blueprint overlay across the smoke-choked corridor, registering IP addresses for every ceiling sprinkler and biometric scanner. "Human Resources and Payroll. What is the Bureau doing here?"

"They're performing a write-off, Mr. Arman," Elena said calmly. "Standard practice for failing investments. When an asset becomes liabilities-only, you don't salvage. You liquidate."

A scream cut through the steady rumble of the building's dying air conditioning. It was sharp, distinctly human, and laced with the absolute panic of someone facing an executioner. Arman ran toward the noise, the S&V network hum in his skull screaming with high-priority warnings as he breached the double doors of the HR bullpen.

The open-concept office, once filled with cheap motivational posters and cheap cubicles, had been turned into a systematic kill zone.

MHB incinerator units—soldiers clad in white, flame-resistant ceramic plating—were dragging trembling Sterling & Vance employees out of their glass cubicles. But these weren't normal humans anymore. Under the glaring fluorescent lights, the analysts' skin split to reveal blue, pulsating networks of fiber optics underneath. They wept human tears, but their fingers twitched in erratic, frantic keyboard patterns against the air.

"Burn the files and the flesh," a voice barked over a tactical radio channel. It was a squad leader, his matte-white helmet reflecting the glowing orange tips of three heavy-duty plasma throwers. "MHB containment protocols. Total sanitation of the talent pool. No infected biometrics leave this floor."

"Hey!" Arman roared, his voice hitting the high-voltage resonance of the network. "You're trespassing on corporate property!"

Every head in the room snapped toward him. The squad leader lowered his rifle, the heat-goggles on his helmet whirring as they scanned Arman’s thermal and kinetic signatures.

"We have a runner from Sector Seven," the leader muttered into his mic. "The CEO. The anchor itself is active on Floor Three. Suppress immediately."

"Arman, look at the fire-control mainframe on the corner wall," Elena whispered, her fingers wrapping around his bicep. Her touch sent a jolt of dry, calculated adrenaline straight through his nervous system. "We don't need a manual weapon. You hold administrative privileges. Change their clearances."

Arman didn't wait. He closed his right eye, focusing entirely on the digital architecture pulsing behind his left iris. He saw the MHB soldiers' tactical suits—closed-loop military gear, yes, but wireless diagnostics were still active. He dove through the network path like a bird plunging into a high-speed draft.

Device Name: MHB_Tact_Pack_L3. Status: Operating under High Temp. Protocol: Terminate connection? Yes.

With a vicious grin, Arman clicked his jaw.

The squad leader's weapon hissed as the automatic coolant valves inside his plasma gun slammed shut. Within half a second, the localized pressure spiked. The soldier screamed, dropping the weapon just as it ruptured in a blinding spray of scalding hydraulic fuel and white smoke.

"My gun! It's overpressurized!" the soldier screamed, his white-armored gloves blistered black by the flash-melt.

"Bram," Elena said, her voice dropping to a low, guttural click. "Deploy security."

From the shadows of the suspended ceiling panels, a massive shape descended with a wet, heavy thud. It looked like an enormous canine, but the anatomy was terrifyingly wrong. Its ribs were reinforced with layers of brilliant blue fiber optics, its spine a flexible cable of thick Ethernet lines, and its maw open in a three-hinged steel bite that shrieked with digital feedback.

Bram—or what S&V’s former Head of Security had been optimized into—slammed into the second MHB soldier. His jaws clamped shut over the man's chest plate, the ceramic cracking with the sickening pop of brittle glass.

"Get this thing off me!" the soldier shrieked before Bram’s optical cabling whipped around his throat, choking off the voice in a sudden, violent crunch.

"We need to authorize immediate severance for the rest of these consultants," Arman said, stepping further into the room. He felt the cold energy in his blood surging, his thoughts translating into commands that reprogrammed reality itself.

He raised his hand. The flickering fluorescent tubes in the ceiling didn't just flash; they exploded outward, raining glass shards on the remaining soldiers. The static hum rose to a physical wind, whipping the loose paper printouts and tax invoices into a frenzied vortex.

"I’m terminating your employment," Arman snarled, staring directly at the third MHB operator who was desperately reloading his rifle. "Effective immediately. No severance package."

With a thought, Arman routed the power lines directly beneath the soldier’s combat boots. The heavy copper lines behind the drywall burst, arcing wild, blinding lightning through the damp carpet. The current shot up the soldier's legs, frying his biometric helmet and throwing him thirty feet across the office where his smoking, convulsing body shattered an executive water cooler.

Silence fell over the HR department, save for the wet, rhythmic crunching of Bram feeding on ceramic plating and the low whimper of four surviving junior HR clerks hiding under a mahogany conference table.

Arman approached the table, his footsteps heavy. He knelt, his eyes glowing in dual colors—human grey and systemic blue.

"Mr. Arman?" a junior clerk named Mia gasped, her eyes wide as she clutched a shredded stapler like a weapon. Her forearm was leaking the blue, luminescent S&V fluid from a shallow laceration. "What... what did they do to us?"

"They tried to execute a hostile takeover, Mia," Arman said, his voice softer, attempting to project the familiar, paternal confidence of a chief executive. He extended his hand, the blue sparks on his fingertips retracting out of sight. "But we just had an emergency board meeting. We decided to reinvest in our staff."

Elena walked over, stepping over a ruined torso with an elegance that defied the gore of the room. She looked down at Mia with cold, analytical appraisal.

"The integrity of their host shells is at sixty percent," Elena observed. "Acceptable for transit. We should integrate them into the shadow servers in the sub-districts before Vane sends a heavy cleanup division. They can still calculate."

"Will we be okay?" Mia wept, taking Arman's hand. Her fingers felt cold, the bone underneath humming with the same sub-audible vibration that now ran through Arman's own joints.

"You're part of the team, Mia," Arman said, pulling her up with a strength that didn't feel like his own. "And Sterling & Vance always protects its proprietary resources."

Outside, the heavy, bass-driven rumble of an armored MHB APC echoing from the street level reminded them that they were still in a death trap.

"They're sealing the main street exits," Bram hissed, his metallic head tilting at ninety degrees as he translated the engine sounds from outside the broken windows.

"Then we go through the drainage pipes to the abandoned sub-districts," Arman said, adjusting his necktie and wiping blood from his cuffs. "Elena, locate the offline subsidiary servers. We’re about to start working remote."