Hanson hit the swarm like a man punching water.
Tape-black bodies slapped against him, biting, clinging. The air smelled like hot plastic and ozone. His boots slid on the stairs, slick with something that wasn't blood but wanted to be.
A peeling sign above the landing read WATCH YOUR STEP. Hanson almost laughed, then swallowed it like bile.
He swung the kinetic anchor pipe in wide arcs, bursts cracking the air and blasting creatures off the steps.
Every impact shook his bones.
Every near-miss sent the heart count higher.
♥ 500,114 → 540,003
Heat flooded him, steady and terrifying—it wasn't adrenaline anymore. It was a transaction.
The swarm crawled around the shockwaves, learning, adapting. It clung to the ceiling and dropped in clumps, trying to overwhelm his arms.
Hanson's forearms burned.
His ankle screamed.
He kept swinging.
He thought of the crowd behind the doorframe.
He thought of children.
He thought of how the system would cut away if he failed, and how the crowd would become background noise.
He refused to let them be background.
A cheerlike alert chimed, bright as a party popper.
MILESTONE UNLOCKED: "HERO CLIP"
Reward: Exposure Surge (15 seconds)
The view count spiked.
The heart count jumped.
♥ 540,003 → 600,221
For fifteen seconds, Hanson's body moved like it belonged to someone else. Faster steps. Cleaner swings. A sense of timing that felt like stolen talent.
He drove upward, not toward escape—toward control.
At the top of the stairs, the swarm thinned.
Not because it was dying.
Because it was being pulled.
Hanson reached the landing and froze.
The stairwell above him didn't lead to a street.
It led to a platform.
A set.
A space that should not exist inside a subway.
The walls shimmered with black gloss, like the same material used to erase alleys. The ceiling was too high. The lighting was too even, as if someone had designed it for cameras.
And in the center of the platform stood another obelisk—smaller than the hub terminal, but the same black shine, humming like a server.
Text hovered above it in pale light.
EXTRACTION ELIGIBILITY TERMINAL — SUBNODE
ELIGIBLE: 0
Hanson's breath caught.
The swarm behind him stopped.
They didn't push into the platform.
They waited at the threshold like stagehands.
The system had guided him here.
The camera framing snapped tight, centering Hanson against the obelisk like a thumbnail.
A new panel slid into view.
OBJECTIVE UPDATE:
REACH TERMINAL (✓)
NEXT: INITIATE ELIGIBILITY CHECK
Hanson approached the subnode terminal, pipe raised, expecting a trap.
Elena's voice echoed faintly from below, distant, muffled: "Hanson! Are you—"
Hanson didn't answer.
He placed his palm on the terminal.
Cold surged through his hand again.
A buffering bar appeared.
ASSESSING…
RANKING…
AUDIENCE RETENTION…
A new stat line flashed, then vanished, like the system didn't want to break immersion:
BASE (EARTH LIKES)
VIT ↑ (minor)
The bar hit 40%…
Then stopped.
A cheerful warning popped up.
He planted himself on the stairs like a doorstop, forcing the swarm to deal with him before it could taste anyone behind.
NOTICE:
Eligibility checks require "Proof of Deliverability."
Deliverability.
Ice settled in his gut.
A new poll widget appeared, not from Earth.
Stamped with an offworld symbol—sharp, geometric, unsettling.
OFFWORLD POLL — 00:15
ALLOW ELIGIBILITY (TEMPORARY)?
A) YES — "Loan"
B) NO — "Denial"
Percentages surged instantly, as if millions of alien hands were already hovering over buttons.
A) 61%
B) 39%
The chat to his right flickered with messages that weren't human.
Their words were translated, but the intent was unmistakable.
HE'S VALUABLE
KEEP HIM RUNNING
DON'T GIVE HIM ESCAPE
LOAN HIM POWER
MAKE HIM OWE
The bar continued at 40%, waiting.
Hanson backed away from the terminal, heart pounding.
He'd made a mistake.
He thought eligibility meant a door.
It meant a leash.
Proof of deliverability was not about whether he could survive.
It was about whether he could be transported like cargo.
A new donation alert popped up with obscene brightness.
✨ DONATION! ✨
From: "Star-Court_Arbiter"
Gift Offer: "Signal Collar (Prototype)"
Effect: Stabilize eligibility checks.
TERMS: Accept "Asset Status."
Hanson's throat tightened. "Asset status."
He looked at the swarm at the threshold. They waited, patient, like they knew he wouldn't be allowed to leave until he signed something.
He looked down the stairs, where Elena and the crowd waited.
He looked at his own hands.
The warmth of likes steadied him. The cold of offworld interest threatened to own him.
The OFFWORLD poll timer ticked down.
00:05… 00:04…
Percentages shifted.
A) 58%
B) 42%
Hanson took a breath and did the thing that felt like rebellion: he spoke to the invisible audience again, but not with a plea.
With a promise.
"You want proof of deliverability?" he said, voice low. "Fine."
He lifted the kinetic anchor pipe.
He turned to the swarm at the threshold.
"If you want me intact," he said, "you'll have to earn it."
The OFFWORLD poll ended.
RESULTS FINAL.
A) YES — "Loan" — 57%
The terminal flashed.
TEMPORARY ELIGIBILITY: GRANTED.
DURATION: 00:05:00
CONDITION: MAINTAIN ASSET INTEGRITY.
A new icon appeared beside his LIVE badge:
⌛ LOANED STATUS
Hanson's skin crawled.
He backed toward the stairs.
The swarm parted just enough to let him pass—like the show had decided the scene was over.
As he descended, the black gloss walls shimmered and vanished behind him, replaced by normal concrete.
The set collapsed like a stage being struck.
Below, Elena's face appeared through the narrowing doorframe, eyes wide. "What happened?"
Hanson didn't answer.
Because in his vision, beneath the LOANED STATUS icon, a new line of text scrolled quietly:
DELIVER INTACT — ACTIVE.
The words sat on his neck like a collar.
And he knew, with a certainty that tasted like metal, that the show was not building an exit.
It was building a shipping label.
He returned to the crowd with borrowed strength in his veins and a five-minute timer ticking down on his soul.
And the red ● LIVE badge pulsed like a promise he hadn't agreed to.