THE GLUTTONY SYSTEM

Chapter 22: The Audit

Chapter 22: The Audit

"The audit is proceeding under Section 89, Paragraph 4 of the Corporate Solvency Act," a synthesized voice chimed from the darkness of the tax-processing facility, perfectly calm, utterly devoid of human warmth, and smelling faintly of ozone and old copier toner. "Please do not resist, subject Chai. Compliance ensures a clean liquidation."

Chai didn't answer. He couldn't. His vocal cords, reinforced with industrial-grade carbon-weave and half-melted data cables, were currently locked in a static-heavy spasm, vibrating with the trapped voice of Vachirawit. Instead of speaking, he let out a guttural, low-frequency rumble that rattled the dense, floor-to-ceiling stacks of physical paper files surrounding him. The air in the cavernous room was thick with the dust of dead corporations, a million unread quarterly reports, tax returns from defunct subsidiaries, and digitized compliance forms printed out on heavy rag bond just in case the main servers suffered a catastrophic blackout.

"Subject has failed to provide a verified identification badge," a second automated compliance drone announced, stepping out from behind a towering shelf of tax ledgers. It was a blocky, four-wheeled unit equipped with a heavy pneumatic riot suppressor and a blinding compliance beam that cut through the dim, emergency-lit gloom like a laser scalpel. "Initiating asset reclamation."

The blue legal compliance beam lashed out, striking Chai directly across his right shoulder. Where it hit the heavy steel plating Lin had welded into his flesh, the metal hissed and bubbled, releasing a foul-smelling cloud of vaporized grease and scorched skin. Chai grunted, his heavy boots sliding three inches across the polished linoleum floor as the sheer kinetic force of the suppressor pushed him backward. His internal HUD, struggling to reboot beneath the corporate blue-light invasion of Vachirawit's digital ghost, flashed a frantic string of amber errors.

[WARNING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED BY 12%. LEGAL COMPLIANCE BEAM DEGRADING ARMOR COATING.]

"Box!" Chai mentally roared, forcing his consciousness to fight past the synthetic cadence of the dead man echoing in his skull. "Give me a loop around their targeting array!"

[ACCESSING LOCAL INTRANET...] Box’s interface flickered, stuttering through a sequence of corrupted data packets before locking onto a harsh, amber-and-black diagnostic screen. [UNABLE TO OVERRIDE ENFORCER PROTOCOLS DIRECTLY. THEY ARE RUNNING ON LOCAL HARD-WIRED MUNICIPAL TAX SERVERS. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE CONSUMPTION OF PHYSICAL ASSETS FOR FUEL.]

"Already on it," Chai muttered.

With a sudden, explosive heave of his reinforced shoulders, Chai drove his massive, armored fist backward into the nearest stack of physical paper files. The steel-and-concrete shelving groaned under the impact, tipping forward with the thunderous roar of an avalanche. Ten thousand pages of third-quarter loss projections, merger agreements, and tax exemptions poured over him like a suffocating wave of white pulp, burying his legs and lower torso beneath a mountain of bureaucratic red tape.

The two automated compliance drones paused, their internal sensors whirring as they recalculated their trajectory parameters to account for the sudden, massive obstruction of unregulated paper.

"Obstruction of audit procedures is a Class A felony," the lead drone stated, its optical sensors pulsing a menacing, bureaucratic crimson. "Deploying high-density shredder array."

A high-pitched, deafening whine filled the tax-processing facility as the drone's front-mounted rotary blades spun up to maximum velocity, chewing through the top layer of paper ledgers with terrifying speed, sending a blizzard of shredded confetti flying into the smoky air. The machine lunged forward, its treads churning over the sea of paper as it aimed directly for Chai's chest cavity, intent on carving out the Gluttony core humming beneath his ribs.

Chai didn't try to dodge. His heavy, industrial-plated frame made evasion impossible anyway. Instead, he reached down into the dense drift of paper around his waist, his fingers closing around a thick, steel-bound ledger as heavy as a paving stone. As the drone's shredder blades screamed inches from his face, spraying sparks against his carbon-fiber jawline, Chai jammed the entire ledger directly into the machine's intake throat.

The internal gears of the compliance drone shrieked in protest. A thick plume of black smoke billowed from its exhaust vent as the dense, ancient paper jammed the rotary blades instantly, seizing the motor with a violent shudder that cracked the machine's white ceramic housing.

"Asset... malfunction..." the drone stuttered, its crimson optical sensors flickering and dying one by one until the machine slumped forward against Chai's heavy chest, completely dead.

Chai reached out with a scarred, massive hand, grabbing the smoking chassis of the wrecked drone and ripping its primary power cell free with a wet, tearing sound of rending metal. Without a moment's hesitation, he shoved the exposed, pulsing battery core directly into the open-air intake port on his own left shoulder.

A blinding surge of violet energy shot up his spine. The pain was absolute, white-hot, and blinding, tearing a ragged, half-human roar from his throat that shattered the remaining overhead fluorescent lights in a cascade of sparking glass and dust. His internal hunger level, which had been dangerously creeping toward 80%, plummeted instantly as his mutated cells greedily devoured the raw, unrefined municipal electrical current.

[ENERGY RESERVES STABILIZED AT 94%,] Box reported, its voice momentarily clear of Vachirawit's synthetic echo before the glitching cadence crept back in. [WARNING: EXCESSIVE MUNICIPAL POWER DRAW DETECTED. LOCAL ENFORCER REINFORCEMENTS ARE EN ROUTE VIA SERVICE ELEVATOR 4.]

Chai stood up from the wreckage, towering over the sea of shredded paper like an ancient, metal-clad monolith. His eyes glowed with a faint, dual-toned amber-and-blue light as he stared across the dark, sprawling tax facility toward the distant gleam of the service elevator doors. The digital floor indicator above the elevator was rapidly ticking downward: Level 74. Level 73. Level 72.

They weren't sending audit squads anymore. Based on the access codes he had skimmed from the dead drone's memory banks, the upper-middle tier administration had just classified him as an uncontained biological hazard requiring immediate total deletion.

"Let them come," Chai growled, his voice sending a low-frequency hum through the steel floorplates. He bent down, grabbing a heavy iron wrench dropped by a fleeing auditor ten minutes ago, and began walking toward the elevator doors, his heavy boots leaving deep, scorched footprints in

the ash of a million corporate debts.