The red light pulsed.
A frantic, silent heartbeat painting the racks of dormant machines and the four frozen figures in rhythmic waves of crimson. The air, chilled by the humming backup system, did nothing to cool the sweat on Leo's neck. He could feel the vibrations through the soles of his shoes—a deep, resonant thrumming that spoke of mass and violence on the floors above. A tremor not of the earth, but of the world itself breaking.
Each flash of Ben's makeshift sensor was a fresh spike of adrenaline. It painted Chloe's face in stark relief, her knuckles white where she gripped the fire extinguisher. It caught the feverish glint in Ben's eyes as he stared at his creation, a look of both terror and pride. It illuminated the hard, unreadable lines of Maya's expression as she stood near the door, knives held in a loose, ready grip.
The sound when it came was not a roar, but a scrape. A long, drawn-out shriek of metal on concrete from the hallway outside. Then another. They weren't just rampaging. They were searching.
"Status," Maya's voice was a low command, cutting through the tension. Not a question. An order for data.
"The sensor is tied to the stairwell camera," Ben whispered, his eyes glued to the flashing LED. "That means they're in the stairwell. On our level."
"Leo," Maya said, her gaze not leaving the door. "Can you see them? Through the door?"
He shook his head, his throat tight. "No. My—my skill, it needs line of sight. It's not X-ray vision." He felt a familiar surge of uselessness. He was their analyst, their canary, and he was blind.
Think, Leo. Work the problem. He closed his eyes, shutting out the pulsing red light, and focused. He couldn't see through the door. But the door was connected to the wall. The wall was connected to the building's network infrastructure. He had helped lay the CAT5 cables himself. He focused on a bundle of wires running in a conduit near the ceiling. He activated [Inspect Element].
A torrent of garbled code filled his vision, a waterfall of incomprehensible data. Like trying to drink from a firehose. He almost pulled back, the mental strain making his head ache, but then he saw it. Amidst the chaos, familiar patterns. Data packets. Corrupted, fragmented, but readable.
...packet_source: sec_cam_04b... ...data_type: visual_light_spectrum... ...entity_count: 47... ...entity_class: goblin_standard... ...entity_class: goblin_brute... ...entity_status: aggression_high, coordinated_search...
"Forty-seven of them," Leo breathed, his eyes snapping open. "Mostly standard goblins. But there's something else... Brutes. Four of them."
BOOM.
The sound was a physical blow. The heavy steel door shuddered in its frame, the noise echoing like a gunshot in the confined space. A fine shower of dust drifted down from the ceiling. Everyone flinched. Leo instinctively threw his focus on the door.
[Reinforced Steel Door] [Durability: 98/100]
BOOM. BOOM. Two more impacts, faster this time, in a brutal rhythm. The durability dropped. 95/100.
They had found them.
"Ben," Maya said, her voice dangerously quiet. "The knife. Can you fix it now?"
Ben didn't look up from the components he was frantically pulling from an open server chassis. "No! I need—I need a stable power draw. The induction field would take everything we have. But…" His eyes darted around the room, a manic energy about him. "But the principle is the same. Unstable energy. Destructive resonance." He held up a large, cylindrical capacitor and one of the shimmering [Corrupted Data Fragments]. "This is a weapon. Or, it could be."
BOOM. CRUNCH. A new, grinding sound. The door buckled slightly, a small dent appearing near the lock. [Durability: 87/100].
Chloe moved, her fear channeled into sharp, practical action. She placed two water bottles and a protein bar next to Ben. "Work," she said. "Tell us what you need."
"The magnets," Ben said, not looking at her. "From the hard drives. All of them. And the fans from the power supplies."
While Chloe started unscrewing server casings with a multitool from the emergency kit, Leo kept his eyes on the door, a grim countdown timer for their lives. "Eighty-two percent," he called out, his voice shaking. "They're focusing on the hinges."
Maya moved to the center of the room, her back to the server racks, facing the door. She planted her feet. "Leo. Keep calling it out. Chloe, get him anything he needs. When that door comes down, get behind me."
The next few minutes dissolved into urgent, coordinated chaos. The rhythmic, deafening pounding on the door was the soundtrack to their desperate work.
"Seventy-four percent!"
Sparks flew from Ben's corner, the sharp smell of ozone cutting through the chilled air. He had a fan spinning, powered by a backup battery, and was arranging the powerful hard drive magnets around it in a precise, strange pattern. Chloe was a silent, efficient assistant, handing him wires and tools without being asked.
"Sixty-five percent! The lock is degrading!"
Leo's head was pounding in time with the impacts. The Minor Edit skill had left him with a phantom headache, but this was worse. This was the stress of pure, helpless observation. He was just a voice, a narrator for their demise.
"Ben, how much time?" Maya asked. Her voice was steady, but Leo could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her knuckles were white around the grips of her knives.
"It's not about time!" Ben yelled over the din, his voice cracking. "It's about stability! I'm trying to create a focused electromagnetic pulse using the data fragment as a catalyst. But the energy is… dirty. It's not meant to be contained." He carefully, with trembling hands, placed a data fragment into the center of the spinning magnets. A low, discordant hum started to build, a sound that felt wrong, a sound that vibrated in Leo's teeth. The air in the room grew heavy, charged with static.
CRACK. A loud, sharp sound from the door. A long, thin fracture appeared near the top hinge.
"Forty-one percent!" Leo shouted, his voice hoarse.
The hum from Ben's device grew louder, rising in pitch until it was almost a scream. An unhealthy blue light began to glow between the magnets, pulsing in time with the red flashes of the motion sensor.
"It's almost ready," Ben breathed, sweat dripping from his face. "I just need to wire the trigger."
GROAN. The door bulged inward, the metal straining.
"Thirty percent! Ben!"
"I know, I know!"
"Give it to me," Maya said, stepping toward him.
Ben looked up, confused. "It's not done!"
"There's no time," she said, her eyes fixed on the groaning door. "Give it to me now."
Reluctantly, Ben handed over the strange contraption. It was a mess of a server fan, wires, magnets, and the impossibly glowing fragment, all held together with electrical tape and prayer.
"What does it do?" Chloe asked, her voice tight with fear.
"Proof of concept," Ben said, his chest heaving. "In theory, it will release a burst of chaotic energy. It might disorient them. Scramble whatever passes for their nervous system. Or…"
"Or what?" Leo demanded.
Ben swallowed hard. "Or the fragment will destabilize completely and detonate. And we'll be at the center of it."
A massive, final CRASH slammed against the door. The top hinge ripped free from the frame with a shriek of tearing metal. The door canted inward, held only by the lock and the bottom hinge. [Durability: 9/100]. Through the gap, Leo could see a press of green bodies, snarling faces, and hateful, black eyes.
The pounding stopped.
No one spoke. No one moved.
Then, a slow, methodical scraping sound began as dozens of claws began to pry at the gap, widening it.
Maya held the device in one hand, her other knife in the other. She looked at the exposed wire Ben had pointed out as the trigger. She gave one sharp, final nod to them. An acknowledgment. An acceptance.
She touched the wire.
There was no sound. No explosion. Just a flash of silent, brilliant blue-white light that bleached all color from the room, and a wave of pressure that slammed Leo against a server rack. The red light of the motion sensor died. The green and blue lights of the server racks winked out. The low hum of the backup power system ceased.
They were plunged into absolute, deafening silence and pitch-black darkness.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, from the hallway, came a chorus of high-pitched, agonized squeals that quickly faded.
It worked. He didn't know how, but it worked. Relief, so potent it made him dizzy, washed over Leo.
Then, a new sound began.
From the other side of the broken door.
It wasn't a goblin. It was a slow, heavy, metallic scrape. The sound of something impossibly heavy dragging itself across the concrete. And it was getting closer.