The question hung in the air, sharp and heavy as the knives in her hands. The background noise of the dying city—the distant sirens, the fire alarm's relentless pulse—all of it seemed to fade away, leaving only the charged quiet in the small security office. Leo's pulse pounded in his ears. He could feel the weight of three sets of eyes on him: Chloe's wary curiosity, Ben's hungry, analytical stare, and Maya's intense, penetrating scrutiny.
She hadn't moved a muscle. Her gaze was a physical weight, pinning him in place. She was a hunter, and he had just done something unexpected, something that broke the rules of her world.
"How," she repeated, her voice dropping lower, each word precise, "did you know that?"
Leo's throat was dry. The taste of dust and old fear coated his tongue. He couldn't tell her the truth. I have a magic window that lets me read the source code of reality. She would think he was insane. Or a threat. Or both. He needed a different answer. A plausible one. He fell back on the only persona he knew how to fake, the one he'd worn for a decade.
"I'm in IT," he said, forcing a calmness into his voice that he was nowhere near feeling. "My entire job… it's about diagnostics. Spotting problems before they become critical system failures."
A flicker of disbelief crossed her face. Her eyes narrowed. "You're telling me you saw a microscopic fracture in hardened steel from across a room?"
"I see patterns," Leo pushed on, the lie building on itself, taking on a life of its own. He had to sell it. "Stress points. Things that aren't… right. It's not just the knife." He took a gamble, his eyes darting to the worn leather pack on her back, discreetly triggering [Inspect Element]. "The main buckle on your shoulder strap. The stitching is starting to fray. The Structural_Integrity is... low. In a day, maybe two of hard use, it's going to tear loose."
Maya's expression didn't change, but he saw her shoulders tense almost imperceptibly. She knew. She knew about the buckle, just as she'd known about the knife. He wasn't just guessing. He wasn't just lucky. He was providing actionable intelligence.
The quiet stretched, thick and heavy. It was Chloe who finally broke it, stepping forward, her professional poise a shield against the impossible situation. She became the mediator, the social engineer.
"What he's trying to say," she said, her voice even and clear, "is that we have a unique skillset. One that complements yours." She gestured from Leo to Ben. "He can diagnose the problem. Ben… Ben can probably fix it."
Ben, startled by the attention, jumped slightly. He held up one of the shimmering [Corrupted Data Fragments] and a tangle of wires he'd pulled from the console. "The knife handle," he said, his words coming in an excited rush, tumbling over each other. "It's just a material science problem, yeah? Stress and cohesion. These fragments… they're unstable, but the energy density is off the charts. If I could rig a small induction field, I could probably melt down the plastic and—and re-bond it. Reinforce it at a molecular level. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would be stronger. A lot stronger."
Maya's gaze shifted from Leo's unnerving insight, to Chloe's calm negotiation, to Ben's frantic genius. She was processing, analyzing. Leo could almost see the calculations happening behind her watchful gray eyes. He had offered a mystery. Chloe had offered a sales pitch. Ben had offered a practical, tangible solution. They were a package deal. A weird, dysfunctional, but potentially useful package.
Before she could respond, a new sound reached them from the street outside. It wasn't the shriek of a lone goblin. It was a roar. A deep, guttural, coordinated roar from dozens of throats, followed by the sound of crashing metal and shattering glass. The floor beneath them vibrated slightly. It was organized. It was moving. It was hunting.
Maya's head snapped toward the sound, her entire body going rigid. The detached pragmatist was gone, replaced by a warrior on high alert.
"They're hunting," she said, her voice flat and grim. "Systematically. That group I killed was just a scout party. This is the main pack." She looked back at them, her decision made in an instant. The luxury of skepticism was a peacetime indulgence. "Fine. You're with me. But there are conditions."
She took a step closer, her presence filling the small office. "One: I'm in charge. My orders are absolute. No arguments." She looked at Leo. "Two: You are my eyes and ears. You see something, a weakness, a threat, you report it to me. Quietly. You don't engage. You don't act. You are non-combatants." She looked at all three of them. "Three: You keep up. Anyone who falls behind is left behind. Understood?"
They all nodded, the gravity of her words settling over them like a shroud.
"Good," she said, her tone all business. "First order: we're leaving. This office is a deathtrap. Too many windows, not enough defensible exits."
"Where do we go?" Chloe asked, already scanning the room for anything useful to take.
"Underground," Maya replied. "Always go underground in a city. Subways, maintenance tunnels…"
"The server room," Leo blurted out. "In the sub-basement. It has a single, reinforced steel door and no windows. Independent ventilation." He had helped install the rack servers down there two years ago. He knew the layout. He knew the smell of the chilled air, the specific hum of the backup batteries.
Maya considered it for a second, then nodded. "Good. That's our destination." She pointed at Chloe. "You. Gather any supplies you can carry. Water, food, medical. Anything." She pointed at Ben. "You. Can you make something that tells us when they're getting close?"
Ben's eyes lit up. "A motion sensor? Yes! The security console has passive infrared sensors for the hallways. If I can reroute the power from the battery backup and link it to a simple LED, I can make a tripwire. A digital one." He was already moving, pulling at panels with a focused intensity.
"Do it," Maya commanded. "Leo. You're with me. Point man. You're going to be my canary in the coal mine."
The next five minutes were a blur of urgent, coordinated chaos. Chloe found an emergency kit and started stuffing water bottles and protein bars from a broken vending machine into a duffel bag. Ben, muttering to himself, worked with a speed and precision that was mesmerizing, his hands a blur of wires and circuit boards.
Leo followed Maya back out into the wrecked lobby. The sounds from outside were closer now, a cacophony of guttural roars and destruction.
"Stay behind me," she ordered, her voice low. "Scan everything. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. Tell me if you see anything that looks weak. Anything at all."
He nodded, his pulse pounding. He was her diagnostic tool. They moved quickly, Maya in the lead, knives held at the ready, her movements fluid and silent. Leo followed, his gaze darting everywhere, activating [Inspect Element] on anything suspicious. He saw the stress fractures in the marble floor, the low integrity of a decorative plaster column, the degraded wiring in a flickering emergency light. He fed Maya a constant stream of low-level data, his voice a quiet murmur.
They reached the stairwell door. Maya paused, listening. The sounds of the horde were coming from the front of the building. This way seemed clear. For now. They descended into the darkness, the concrete steps echoing their hurried footsteps. The air grew cooler, smelling of damp and dust.
They found the server room in the sub-basement, just as Leo remembered. A heavy, gray steel door with a keypad lock.
"It's powered down," he said, looking at the dead keypad.
Maya didn't waste words. "Get it open."
While Ben worked his magic on the door's electronic lock, hot-wiring it with a practiced ease that Leo found both impressive and slightly unnerving, Chloe stood guard, clutching a heavy fire extinguisher.
The door clicked open with a heavy thud, revealing a dark, cool space that smelled of ozone and chilled air. The hum of the battery backup was a low, comforting thrum. They all piled inside, and Maya shut and barred the heavy door behind them.
For a moment, they were safe.
The server room was an oasis of order in a world of chaos. Racks of servers stood in neat rows, their small green and blue lights blinking in the darkness. Ben immediately went to work, plugging his half-finished motion sensor into a server's power supply. Chloe began taking inventory of their meager supplies, her calm efficiency a small anchor in the storm. Maya found a clear spot on the floor and began methodically cleaning her knives, one after the other, her movements economical and precise.
Leo just stood there, watching them. This was his team now. His responsibility. A hardware specialist, a social engineer, and a high-level warrior. And him. The helpdesk guy.
Ben let out a small, triumphant hiss. A single red LED on his cobbled-together device blinked on. "It's active," he whispered. "I've tied it to the main stairwell camera feed. Anything bigger than a rat moves through there, this light will flash."
It was a tiny point of light in the overwhelming darkness. A single, fragile line of defense.
As if in response, a deep, earth-shaking crash echoed from the floors above them. The concrete floor vibrated beneath their feet. A fine shower of dust drifted down from the ceiling.
The horde had breached the building.
Ben's motion sensor, their new early warning system, immediately began to flash, its red light painting their terrified faces in frantic, rhythmic pulses.