[REMOTE OVERRIDE: INITIATED]

  [QUARANTINE MODE: ACTIVATING]

  The red emergency lights painted the corridor in pulses. The ventilation grille above me rattled harder. Click-click-click. The tagging unit was seconds away from dropping through.

  I grabbed the interface plate, pressed it against my chest, and ran.

  The door to the supply closet burst open behind me. Not the tagging unit. Something heavier. I didn't look back.

  The corridor forked. Left led to the processing bay where Kessler had been trapped. Right led deeper into the corporate level. I went right.

  The lights flickered. Bulkheads were sealing in sequence, cutting off sections. I dove through a closing door, rolled, and came up running.

  Behind me, the door slammed shut. The tagging unit skittered to a stop on the other side, its red light pulsing through a small viewing window.

  I kept moving.

  The new corridor was clean, white, corporate. Signs pointed toward ADMINISTRATION, PROCESSING, DETENTION. No supply closets here. Just sealed doors and humming terminals.

  I stopped at a junction, pressed myself against the wall, and listened.

  Nothing. No footsteps. No clicks. Just the distant thrum of the facility's circulatory systems.

  I checked the plate. Still warm. Still active. A new line pulsed across its surface.

  [OMEGA-NULL COMPONENT: INTEGRITY 20%]

  [PROXIMITY ALERT: ADMIN TERMINAL DETECTED — 7 METERS]

  Seven meters. I scanned the corridor. A terminal sat recessed into the wall near a set of double doors. Standard issue. Supply interface.

  I moved to it, pressed the plate against the reader. The induction pins made contact. A soft hum.

  [HANDSHAKE ESTABLISHED]

  [LOCAL NETWORK ACCESS: GRANTED]

  [QUARANTINE PROTOCOLS: ACTIVE — SECTOR 7 CORPORATE LEVEL ISOLATED]

  I was sealed in. The tagging unit was sealed in with me.

  I pulled up the personnel registry. The Salvage Team was still flagged as contaminants. Vasquez and Kessler were showing as "CONTAINED" in the processing bay. Dekker, the drone operator, was listed as "MOBILE — TRACKING."

  He was still moving. Somewhere in this sector.

  I needed to move too.

  A new menu option blinked on the terminal. OMEGA-NULL COMPONENT: SECONDARY FUNCTIONS AVAILABLE.

  I selected it.

  [THERMAL MASK CAPABILITY: ACTIVE]

  [DURATION: 30 SECONDS]

  [COST: 3% INTEGRITY PER USE]

  [NOTE: MASK REQUIRES DIRECT SKIN CONTACT. HEAT GENERATED WILL CAUSE MINOR BURNS AT CONTACT POINT.]

  Thirty seconds of invisibility. At the cost of more damage to the plate, more pain to my chest.

  I pulled the plate off the reader and pressed it against my sternum, bare skin. The heat was immediate, sharp, like pressing a hand to a hot stove. I clenched my jaw and held it there.

  Thirty seconds. I used them.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I moved down the corridor, past the double doors, through a maintenance junction, into a section marked PERSONNEL ONLY. The plate cooled. The pain faded to a deep, radiating ache.

  I found another terminal, smaller, tucked into an alcove. I pressed the plate to it.

  [HANDSHAKE ESTABLISHED]

  [QUARANTINE STATUS: SECTOR 7 CORPORATE LEVEL — ALL EXITS SEALED]

  [RULE ZERO FILE: ACCESS LOGGED — UNAUTHORIZED VIEWER DETECTED]

  The screen flickered. Then a new window opened. Black background. Green glyphs. Corporate interface.

  [AUTHORIZED USER: VANCE, KAELEN]

  [REMOTE SESSION: ACTIVE]

  His cursor blinked. Waiting.

  I didn't speak. I stared at the screen, plate still pressed to the reader.

  [VANCE, KAELEN: "You accessed the Rule Zero file."]

  I said nothing.

  [VANCE, KAELEN: "You understand now why I can't simply remove you. Why the contractors are necessary. Why I negotiate."]

  Still nothing.

  [VANCE, KAELEN: "You have leverage. I acknowledge that. But leverage is only useful if the other party has something you want. What do you want, Variable Seven?"]

  I pulled the plate off the reader. The handshake dropped. The screen went dark.

  He could wait.

  The flare was still burning.

  Marcus watched it from two hundred meters away, through a crack in the foundation wall. The red light flickered over rubble and broken concrete. The two injured survivors were somewhere under that rubble. Or what was left of them.

  The enforcement team had moved past the flare site ten minutes ago. They were inside the foundation tunnels now, sweeping sector by sector. Getting closer.

  The woman knelt beside him, checking her weapon's magazine. "They'll hit our position in twenty minutes. Maybe less."

  Marcus didn't answer. He counted the rounds in his own magazine. Eighteen.

  The Rival sat against the wall, eyes closed. Not sleeping. Listening. His hand rested on a scavenged detonator.

  Eli was further back, propped against a support column. His breathing was a wet rasp. The black capillaries had spread past his jawline, up toward his temples. He had maybe hours left. Not days.

  Marcus stood. He didn't look at the flare again.

  "We move deeper. There's an old coolant runoff channel two levels down. It leads to the relay core."

  The woman nodded. The Rival opened his eyes. Eli tried to stand, failed.

  The woman helped him up without a word.

  They moved into darkness.

  I found a dead end.

  The corridor terminated at a reinforced door marked ARCHIVE ACCESS — COUNCIL AUTHORIZATION ONLY. No reader. No handle. Just seamless alloy.

  Behind me, somewhere in the vents, the tagging unit clicked.

  I was trapped.

  I pressed the plate to my chest, held it there. The heat flared, buying me another thirty seconds of thermal silence.

  The clicking stopped. The unit was searching, confused.

  I walked to the sealed door. No obvious way through. But at its base, a small maintenance panel, no larger than my hand, marked with the Stasis-Global logo.

  I pried it open with my numb fingers. Inside: a diagnostic port. The same size as the interface plate.

  I pressed the plate into it.

  The induction pins made contact. The plate hummed.

  [HANDSHAKE ESTABLISHED]

  [COUNCIL DOOR: EMERGENCY BYPASS ACTIVE]

  [OMEGA-NULL COMPONENT DETECTED — AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED]

  [DOOR UNLOCKING...]

  The alloy slab slid upward with a soft hiss.

  Beyond was darkness. Cold air. The smell of ozone and old data.

  I stepped through.

  The door sealed behind me.

  I stood in a small chamber, circular, lined with inactive terminals. A single screen glowed in the center.

  [VARIABLE SEVEN: PARTIAL OMEGA-NULL INTEGRATION DETECTED]

  [NEW TRAIT: MODULATION RESISTANCE (LOW)]

  [EFFECT: REDUCES SENSITIVITY TO FREQUENCY-BASED TRACKING SYSTEMS BY 15%]

  [WARNING: INTEGRATION INCREASES OMEGA-NULL TRACE RISK. KAELEN VANCE WILL DETECT ALL FUTURE PLATE ACTIVATIONS.]

  I looked down at my chest. Where the plate had been pressed against my skin, a faint pattern of red lines radiated outward. Like roots. Like filaments.

  I touched them. No feeling. The skin was numb there too.

  The screen flickered. Another window opened.

  [OMEGA-NULL HANDSHAKE HISTORY: ACTIVE SESSIONS LOGGED]

  [SOURCE: SECTOR 7 CORPORATE LEVEL — MAINTENANCE PANEL 4C]

  [TAG DELIVERY: SUCCESSFUL]

  [TAG SOURCE: CHEMICAL PARTICULATE — SANITIZATION FOG (SECTOR 4B, TIMESTAMP 03:47:12)]

  I stared at the words.

  The fog. The sanitization fog I'd triggered to hide from the tagging unit. It hadn't just blinded sensors. It had carried micro-particulate trackers. I'd breathed it in. Coated myself in it.

  I hadn't escaped the tag. I'd delivered it myself.

  I looked at my hands. The pale, waxy fingers. The raw skin. The red filaments spreading from my chest.

  I pressed the plate against my skin again. The heat flared. The filaments pulsed.

  The screen updated.

  [TAG ACTIVE: REMOTE TRACKING ENABLED]

  [CURRENT LOCATION: COUNCIL ARCHIVE — SECTOR 7]

  [TRANSMITTING TO: VANCE, KAELEN — PRIORITY ROUTING]

  He knew exactly where I was.

  The door behind me remained sealed. The chamber had no other exits.

  I sat on the floor, back against a dead terminal, and waited.