“Can you stand?”
Mihail’s voice scraped through the fog in her head—gravelly, low. The floor vibrated under her hands, mechanical and steady.
Audrey stared at his hand and didn’t move.
He smiled, nothing but teeth. The split in his lip had dried black at one corner, and his black curls looked damp with sweat. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “You should be quite docile from now on. We’ve given you both sedatives.” His eyes roamed over her. “So, no running.”
She pushed up without touching him, muscles shaking, and got halfway to her feet before her legs collapsed. Her knees crashed onto the floor. It seemed like she’d might collapse entirely, but she didn’t. Pride kept her upright, although kneeling.
“I don’t need your help, you prick,” she managed.
He snickered, clearly savoring her weakness, as if he’d predicted it.
Whatever they’d pumped into her crawled through her blood.
Farther down the corridor, Nikos had a fist wrapped around Emerson’s arm. His shaved head caught the clinical light. Tattoos climbed out from under his collar and disappeared into the cuffs of his coat.
Emerson’s jaw was clenched, eyes murderous, one side of his face swelling dark beneath the eye—but his knees threatened to give out. If he tried to break away, he’d face-plant.
Bastards.
The hallway looked nothing like any office she knew. Tall, vertical digital identification screens—each essentially a tablet as large as a television—covered each reinforced door. The walls were white and spotless. No seams showed where the ceiling met the wall. People moved in clusters, tapping silently at lightweight glass slates. They waited beside doors to submit to full-body biometric scans, then disappeared inside. Everything here ran with mechanical efficiency, overseen by nearly invisible cameras. It was less like a workplace and more like a channel for travelers.
Eight or ten doors. All identical. Intake chambers, not offices.
No one looked at them twice.
Her heart rate skyrocketed. Adrenaline seared below her skin, fighting the drug. Tears burned in her eyes; she blinked them away. Fear didn’t change anything. It didn’t erase the knife in her mother’s hand or the flames eating her body. If she failed now, she might never see her sister again. Every step pulled what she loved further away. Escape meant saving Cary, snatching at freedom. But any mistake would trap her in this nightmare forever.
They reached a queue guarded by a screen bigger than the others—taller than she was, whirring quietly, the surface dark and waiting.
“Get in line,” Mihail said, putting a heavy hand against the small of her back and steering her along. “Welcome to the route.” He slapped a tablet or a phone into her hand.
The Silo ID, she assumed. It was a wafer-thin tablet, barely heavier than paper, dark and cool in her hand, radiating faint, circuit-like lines pulsing beneath the surface. This device probably acted as both permission and clearance, likely embedding credentials and temporary biometrics.
She lifted her chin and stepped into place as if she belonged here. Her knees were jelly. People shuffled ahead, each carrying luggage, duffels, or metal cases. Everyone held a Silo ID—either a wristband with a glowing strip, a sleek card with a digital display, or a thin chip set into a tablet worn as a necklace or bracelet. Some wore them openly, like people used to moving through systems built for them. Others kept checking theirs, guarding them as if they were stolen.
It looked too much like airport security—but wrong. Wrong scale. Wrong technology. All the visitors walked with intent, as if this place were normal.
She looked down at the Silo ID and prayed it wouldn’t fry her where she stood.
When her turn came, the monitor woke. Light gleamed. An invisible sensor grid traced up and down her body, its scan leaving pins and needles quivering across her skin. She wondered what it searched for—breath, blood, bone, or the guilt stamped into her pulse. Did it read her biometric data, analyzing heart rate and respiration? Was it sequencing her DNA, checking for banned implants, or hidden contraband embedded in tissue? No one asked her name. The machine decided whether she existed where she claimed to exist. Everyone here trusted it more than a human face.
Is it in my head?It wouldn’t be the first time she’d hallucinated.
She reached out anyway, fingertips touching the glass. It was hot. The image on the screen changed, confirming a glowing outline of her body, all rendered in pale lines and pulsing points she didn’t understand.
A shrill beep cut through the air. Text appeared in a language she didn’t recognize, followed by a green band of light wrapping once around her outline.Approved.The door beside the screen glided open with a subtle click.
“Good thing Jaxon knows what he’s doing with those Si-IDs,” Mihail muttered. “Without Aggregate clearance, this door doesn’t open for people like us.”
Audrey stared, mute, for a short instant. Then she forced her feet to move.
The floor swallowed her footsteps as she crossed into the vestibule.
Audrey stopped.
The space was too large to understand immediately.
