The Janitor's synthesized voice was the sound of a closing coffin lid.
Area Saturation commencing in T-minus ten seconds.
The hum of a dozen kinetic launchers powering up filled the chamber, a rising chorus of imminent death. For a frozen moment, the three of them were paralyzed by the sheer, overwhelming finality of the machine's logic.
Valeria broke first. Her training, a bedrock of discipline buried beneath layers of exhaustion and despair, surged to the surface. Her eyes scanned the ruined chamber, dismissing inadequate cover—the flimsy data banks, the shattered catwalks—and locked onto the one thing solid enough to withstand a tactical bombardment: the massive, reinforced base of the central relay spire.
"To the spire!" she roared, her voice a raw command that cut through the rising panic. "Move! Now!"
Silas was a blur. The scavenger's lithe form moved with a desperate, practiced economy, his survival instincts honed to a razor's edge. He didn't run; he flowed through the wreckage, reaching the relative safety of the spire's base in seconds.
Ren, however, was a different story. His body was a traitor, his limbs still clumsy and disconnected from the lingering poison of the [System Lag]. He pushed himself to run, but his legs were heavy, his coordination shot. The world had a half-second delay that was the difference between life and death. He was fifty meters from the spire. Then forty. The drone's countdown echoed in his ears.
Nine… eight… seven…
He wasn't going to make it. A cold, bitter acceptance began to settle in his gut. He had survived the chaos of the Fracture only to be executed by a pre-programmed, mindless machine. It was a perfectly Gamma ending.
He saw Valeria reach the spire, turning to see him struggling, falling behind. He saw the flicker of calculation in her eyes—the cold, hard choice of whether to save herself or the volatile, broken asset she now depended on.
Six… five…
Valeria cursed, a sharp, violent sound. "Silas! That flare! Light it and throw it left!"
Silas, already pressed against the spire, fumbled for a moment before producing the chemical flare from his scavenged pack. With a practiced flick, he ignited it. A blinding magnesium-white light filled the chamber. He hurled it as far as he could into the wreckage on their left.
Four…
Several of the Janitor's turrets, deprived of visual data but still tracking sound and light, swiveled towards the sudden, brilliant flare.
It was the opening Valeria needed. She sprinted back from the spire, not all the way to Ren, but to a point between them. The last dregs of her power flared to life. A single, shimmering golden hexagon, no bigger than a shield, materialized in front of her. It was a pale, flickering imitation of her full barrier, but it was something.
Three…
She met his desperate lunge, grabbing his uniform and hauling him forward. "Come on!"
Two…
They dove the final few meters, crashing behind the thick, alloy base of the spire. Valeria's small barrier pulsed, absorbing a stray kinetic bolt that ricocheted from a nearby wall. Then, her power gave out completely, the golden light vanishing with a soft, final sigh.
One…
The world erupted in a symphony of percussive violence.
A continuous, deafening roar of kinetic drivers filled the air. Huddled behind the spire, they felt the impacts not as single hits, but as a constant, brutal vibration that shook the very foundations of the chamber, rattling their teeth and blurring their vision. The air filled with the smell of superheated metal and ozone as bolts hammered against their cover, sending a storm of ricochets and shrapnel screaming through the surrounding space. It was the sound of a god drumming its fingers, and they were the insects hiding from the rhythm.
It lasted for a full, agonizing minute.
Then, silence.
The sudden absence of noise was almost as shocking as the barrage itself. A low hum was all that remained.
Sterilization cycle complete. Resuming patrol pattern.
The three of them stayed frozen for a long moment, the adrenaline slowly draining away, leaving them hollow and trembling. Valeria was slumped against the spire, her face pale and beaded with sweat, her power completely spent. Silas was curled into a tight ball, his eyes wide. Ren's head was clearing, the last vestiges of the lag finally receding, but his body ached with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion.
They had survived.
The heavy clank… clank… of the Janitor's patrol pattern began, its footsteps circling the chamber in a slow, predictable loop. It was blind, but it was still active, still armed. They were trapped behind the spire, with a walking arsenal between them and the only exit.
Silas finally uncurled, his voice a ragged whisper. "Now what? We can't fight it. We can't get past it."
Ren watched the blind machine on its programmed path. It was a system. A predictable set of inputs and outputs. And he had always been good at finding the bugs.
He looked at Silas, a faint, tired smile touching his lips.
"You said you can't trick a machine," he said, his voice quiet but clear in the echoing silence. "You're wrong. You just have to know which lies to tell it."