Chapter 1: Clocking In
Chapter Text
December 23, 1096 — 5:57 AM
Natasha lowered her phone and slumped her head against the cold window of the car. The glass hummed faintly with the vibrations of the road, but it wasn’t enough to lull her into sleep. Still, she shut her eyes, trying to steal whatever rest she could before the day fully began. They had to be up early for this, earlier than usual, and the weight of that schedule already sat heavy in her chest.
At the wheel was her boyfriend, Yulian Smirnov, a career firefighter who already looked half-scorched by duty. He was dressed head to toe in his bunker gear—heavy boots, fire-resistant trousers, and that thick turnout coat, expecting to respond to a call immediately after entering the station. The cold streets of Chernobog blurred past in shades of gray and ice, steam curling from the gutters like lazy ghosts.
Lately, strange accidents and freak mishaps topside had been stretching him thin. His shifts used to run 48 hours straight. Now they ballooned into 72. Worse still, his supposed four-day rest period never seemed to involve much actual rest. If anything, he found more ways to stay moving, cleaning the apartment, fixing busted equipment, volunteering for drills, or responding to emergency calls that weren’t even his.
He didn’t know when to quit. Natasha recognized that fire—ironically—in him. It reminded her of herself back when she still had something to prove. Now, she just hoped he’d learn when to ease off before it was too late. Burnout didn’t discriminate.
She wore her security khakis, the standard-issue uniform of Chernobog’s internal security. Not glamorous, but practical. Her work kept her mostly underground, monitoring the labyrinthine lower decks of the city. It could get claustrophobic down there—low ceilings, industrial bulkheads, stale, over-filtered air that tasted faintly metallic—but at least she wasn’t under the punishing glare of the sun. Small victories.
Her shift wouldn’t start until 7:00 AM, but the tram system had been in one of its moods lately—breaking down more often than usual. Even the early birds were showing up late. She’d stopped caring about punctuality a while ago, but if an audit showed up out of nowhere—and in Ursus, they always showed up out of nowhere—her lateness would be another tick mark against her.
Natasha shifted in her seat, hugging her work bag close to her chest like a pillow she didn’t trust. Without looking over, she asked quietly, “So, how many hours is it this time, Yulik?”
“Seventy-two,” Yulian replied without missing a beat. “So I might be gone for a while, again.”
She scoffed. “You keep working so hard, that’s why they give you more hours.”
He shrugged, a faint grin creeping onto his face. “Heh, yeah? Well, it’ll look good on my audit, right?”
She sighed and leaned her head back against the window again. The hum of the engine, the rhythm of the tires—it all threatened to lull her into a half-dream. “Tell me again why they’ve suddenly got all of you crunching so hard at the firehouse?”
Yulian chuckled, the kind of laugh you give when the answer’s both obvious and infuriating. “Isn’t it obvious, Natochka? It’s the winter months. Everything turns to chaos. Traffic accidents. Slippery roads. And it’s the Winter Solstice festival, so you’ve got a whole parade of idiots who barely know how to work a burner stove setting their garlands or curtains on fire. Don’t even get me started on the lights—all tangled, half-broken, just begging to short out.”
Natasha blinked, not really surprised, just exhausted by it all. “Wow. I don’t remember the winters being this bad last year.”
“To be honest? Me neither,” Yulian admitted. His voice took on a more thoughtful edge, less tired, more wary. “Think it’ll get worse next year. I dunno. It feels like everything’s gone to shit real fast.”
Natasha gave a soft huff of agreement. “You’ll get used to that. I expect everything to go to shit at some point.”
Yulian laughed again—this time, a low, warm sound that filled the cabin for a moment—but didn’t say anything else. Silence settled in like a familiar coat as they continued driving through Chernobog’s frozen veins, the only sound left the steady beat of wheels against worn concrete.
Outside the car, the city of Chernobog was beginning to stir.
Clusters of weary commuters gathered at bus stops, bundled in worn coats and wool scarves, their breath fogging in the frigid air. These were the people who couldn’t afford a private vehicle—or simply preferred the old-fashioned methods. A few joggers passed by on the shoulder, headphones in, breath puffing rhythmically in the cold, while a handful of workers pedaled past on rusted bicycles, chains clicking like old clocks.
In front of the communal apartment blocks, community volunteers in bright reflective vests were busy dumping buckets of salt across the icy sidewalks and slick asphalt. The salt crunched underfoot, spreading in streaks like chalk lines.
Yesterday’s snowstorm had already been cleared—visibly, at least. Not a flake remained on the roads or rooftops, but looks were deceiving. The air smelled of more snow, heavy and wet. Within a few hours, the skies would open again and bury the city beneath another fresh white sheet, just like clockwork.
As they stopped at a red light, Natasha found herself drifting off again. Her eyelids sank, her grip on her bag loosened, and for a brief, precious second, the world began to fade.
Then came the crash.
A sharp, metallic bang echoed through the intersection ahead, jolting her upright. She blinked rapidly, her pulse kicking up as she looked forward. A plume of smoke was already curling into the air. Somewhere in the distance, someone had run a red light and collided with another car in the opposite lane—thankfully far enough not to affect their own.
Yulian sighed, slumping over the wheel like a man already too tired for this kind of chaos.
Chunks of crumpled metal and shattered plastic skidded across the road, glinting like broken teeth. One of the cars had spun out, steam hissing from under its bent hood.
Yulian waited for the light to turn green. When it did, he simply drove past without a word for a few seconds, eyes lingering in the rearview.
“I can’t deal with that on my own,” he muttered finally. “I don’t even have my gear. But I already know I’ll be answering that call the second I hit the station.”
Natasha rubbed her eyes. “You think it was drunk driving? Or the car just slipped on black ice?”
He sighed again, deep and tired. “I don’t know anymore.”
Neither of them said anything after that. The city moved on around them—unbothered, half-awake, and bracing for whatever the morning would throw next.
Eventually, they arrived at their destination: the Chernobog Control Tower, the beating, mechanical heart of the nomadic city. Here was where the city’s internal systems were operated and monitored—every gear, every lift, every vent tied to the hands of underpaid specialists deep beneath its armored plates.
The plaza strip outside the tower pulsed with weary foot traffic. Dozens of workers shuffled toward their respective posts, faces hollowed by fatigue, shoulders sagging under invisible burdens. No one spoke. It was too early for conversation, and too late for rest.
Instead of festive decorations or ornamental gardens to soften the landscape, the ground was littered with squat exhaust vents. They hissed angrily, coughing pale fumes into the air—gas that would eventually snake its way into the lower decks and choke the already stale atmosphere even further. The smell of sulfur and ozone hung in the cold, thick enough to taste.
Yulian drove the car into a tunnel ahead, its walls painted in dull warning stripes and pulled up to a security checkpoint positioned halfway inside. The road was blocked by a wooden barrier, manned by two Ursus guards wearing the same khaki uniform as Natasha, though their faces were hidden beneath black balaclavas. Berets sat atop their heads, each embroidered with the proud insignia of Ursus: a symbol that once stirred patriotism, now more often greeted with suspicion or weariness.
Yulian had dropped Natasha off here more times than either of them could count. The guards recognized them immediately.
He rolled down the window with a slight grin. “Denis, Maxim. How are you fellas?”
Denis gave a crisp salute, already scribbling something on his clipboard. “Doing good, comrade. A bit early today, isn’t it, lieutenant?”
From the passenger seat, Natasha groaned and adjusted the strap on her work bag before reaching for her peaked security cap. She tugged it snug over her head. “Have those idiots fixed the trams yet?”
Denis gave her a resigned look. “Unfortunately, нет. Human traffic down at Sector A is still a mess. I’m surprised half these people haven’t just invested in dormitory rooms already.”
Natasha scoffed. “Have you ever been in a civilian dorm, Denis?”
Before Denis could answer, Maxim stepped forward to halt another private car in the next lane, dragging another wooden barrier across. Standard ID protocol kicked in—the driver handed over papers through a crack in the window, and Maxim began his check.
Natasha reached for the lanyard around her neck, unclipping her ID and handing it to Denis. He glanced at it briefly before nodding and returning it.
“All clear. Good luck down there, Lieutenant,” Denis said with a faint chuckle. “Word from Sector C is you folks have your work cut out for you.”
“Never a dull moment at the CLD,” Natasha muttered dryly.
She popped the door open and was about to step out when a familiar urge overtook her. She paused, leaned back in toward Yulian, and gave him a look that said you know what this is.
And he did.
As she leaned in, Yulian tilted his head slightly, already bracing for what was coming. Denis, grinning like a teenager caught in a movie scene, wordlessly raised his clipboard to shield his face and tactfully retreated toward the security door.
Their lips met.
What was meant to be a brief kiss quickly deepened. Days of waiting for Yulian to finish his shift, only to find him too drained to do anything but collapse into bed, had left Natasha simmering. She cupped his face in both hands, pressing herself into the kiss, fingers curling against the nape of his neck as if she could anchor herself there.
Yulian’s eyes flew wide at first, but he didn’t pull away. It took several seconds before Natasha finally broke the kiss, her breathing uneven. Both of them were flushed, faces tinted with color that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Sorry,” she murmured, voice hoarse. “It’s been a week. Can you blame me?”
He blinked rapidly, trying to process words, flipping his bangs back in a moment of fluster. “Well, uh… have fun at work, babe…”
Natasha laughed as she stepped out, pulling the door closed behind her. She headed for the access door, shooting him one last glance over her shoulder—and a cheeky wink—before disappearing inside.
Back at the checkpoint, Maxim and Denis moved into position to help guide Yulian’s car as he reversed. Maxim tapped the rear bumper lightly, motioning for a few vehicles behind to pause. It was a familiar routine—one they’d repeated too many times to count.
As tradition dictated, Yulian rolled down the window just enough to clasp each of their hands in a firm handshake, subtly sliding them each a folded 20 LMD note in the process. Neither guard said a word, but both gave him a respectful nod as he pulled away, disappearing into the steam-choked arteries of the city.
Inside the security entrance, Natasha paused. Two paths lay ahead: directly in front of her was the maintenance lift—meant strictly for engineers or emergencies—and to the side, a long, soul-draining staircase that spiraled downward into Sector A.
Technically, she wasn’t supposed to take the lift. Technically. But sore legs and exhaustion had a way of rewriting protocol. She wasn’t the only one who ignored that particular regulation—most of the other security staff did too, especially after back-to-back shifts or sleepless nights.
Without hesitation, she pressed the “Down” button.
The lift groaned in protest as its metal shutters creaked shut. The chamber shuddered, then dropped with a sharp jolt, giving her that familiar brief sense of weightlessness in her gut. The lift always made the same sounds: squeaks, clanks, the occasional metallic grind that suggested someone should’ve lubricated it last year. But no one ever did. That was just life in Chernobog.
She clutched the straps of her work bag tighter as the lift descended. Out of habit, she straightened her uniform, adjusting her tie, the ceremonial shoulder cord, and tapping her peaked cap forward with a practiced flick. The elevator finally lurched to a stop.
The rear shutters opened, spilling her into the sprawling main floor of Sector A.
It was part transit terminal, part shopping mall—an architectural amalgamation of function and distraction. Four tram terminals branched off to the north, south, east, and west, constantly spewing out waves of workers, students, and staff. At the center, a large recreation hub buzzed with activity. Restaurants lined the plaza, many of them foreign-owned—Colombian fast food chains, Leithanian coffee carts, even a Yan outpost serving fried buns at a corner stall.
Chernobog was one of the few Ursus cities that actually welcomed international brands. That was one of the rare things Natasha liked about the place. She often took her lunch breaks at a greasy-but-efficient Colombian burger joint rather than subject herself to whatever gray paste was being served at the state-sanctioned mess halls.
No one seemed to notice her slipping out of the off-limits maintenance lift—just as planned. She walked casually, blending into the foot traffic as if she’d come from one of the terminals like everyone else. A pair of Sector A security guards noticed her, offering lazy waves from their post near a support column.
They weren’t proper enforcement—more like glorified mall cops. They wore the standard khakis, their uniforms paired with ushankas that made them look like oversized children playing soldier. Still, Natasha returned the salute, if only out of habit.
But then she paused. Something was off.
They were too heavily armed.
Standard-issue protocol for internal security dictated sidearms: pistols or revolvers, enough to deter a pickpocket or calm down a shouting match. But one of the guards had a 23mm shotgun slung over his shoulder, the kind designed to rupture shields. The other carried a bolt-action rifle across his chest like he was expecting insurgents, not lunch-hour loiterers.
Natasha narrowed her eyes and strode over.
“Excuse me, boys,” she snapped. “Why the fuck are you issued with this much firepower?”
The first guard, the one with the shotgun, blinked at her and gave a casual shrug. “I’m just as surprised as you are, Lieutenant. We reported to the quartermaster this morning, and this is what he handed us. Not that I’m complaining.”
Natasha frowned. “And no one thought to question why you’re walking around a public zone armed like it’s a warfront?”
The second guard chuckled, tapping the barrel of his rifle like it was a joke. “Look on the bright side, Lieutenant. At least we’ll scare off any would-be robbers.”
The two of them laughed as if that were some kind of victory.
Natasha didn’t laugh.
She stared at them a moment longer, jaw tight, then turned on her heel. “Someone’s gonna get written up,” she muttered to herself as she walked off, already composing the incident report in her head.
Sector A was starting to feel a little too tense for her liking—and she hadn’t even clocked in yet.
The cacophony of Sector A hit Natasha like a brick wall.
Loud chatter bounced off the steel walls—shopkeepers hawking cheap wares with voices like sirens, salarymen in cheap coats yelling into phones as if volume equaled authority, and students arguing over platform queues like it was a blood sport. It was a full sensory assault, all sharp edges and overlapping chaos. Natasha gritted her teeth and pushed through it, weaving past commuters as she stepped onto a descending escalator.
The terminal level was somehow worse than the mall above.
To the north lay the tram line for Sector B—a route serving office clerks, and state-sponsored underground schools. That tram was infamous for its glacial schedule, with long wait times that stretched patience thin. The metal benches were already full, so the rest of the commuters either slouched against walls or slumped directly on the cold floor, eyes bleary, shoulders sagging.
Security had been deployed to manage the crowds. And judging by what Natasha saw, the guards were once again heavily armed. The same low-ranking "mall cops" were now standing at full attention with submachine guns across their chests, compact weapons with enough rate of fire to mow down a crowd if someone sneezed wrong.
It was ridiculous. Overkill didn’t begin to cover it.
Sure, the presence seemed to be working—people were keeping in line, arguments stayed verbal—but Natasha couldn’t shake the thought: Why the hell are transit guards equipped like frontline troops? A pistol made sense. Maybe a baton. But this? Someone up the chain was either panicking... or planning.
To the west, the station to Sector C waited. This was her stop.
Unlike the chaos at Sector B’s platform, Sector C was nearly deserted. That made sense—most of the security personnel who worked there had better accommodations, including more private, quiet dormitories. It was one of the few real perks of the job. Natasha had a dorm room assigned to her too, a small, utilitarian cube carved into the walls of Sector C. She barely used it.
She preferred Yulian’s apartment. It wasn’t much bigger, but it was warm, familiar, and smelled like someone actually lived there. That counted for a lot in Chernobog.
To the east was the tram to Sector D, the maintenance and hydraulics zone—the guts of the city’s locomotion systems. Dirty, loud, and perpetually underfunded, but without it, the city wouldn’t move an inch.
And to the south, the line to Sector E—the heart of Chernobog’s power. The engines, the reactor, the wires that fed the entire nomadic city above and below.
Her rank as a lieutenant didn’t grant her access to Sector E—not that she minded. The place was a walking nightmare. Rumors swirled constantly about the radiation levels down there, and the “eggheads” in their hazard suits weren’t exactly reassuring. Half of them looked like they'd walked out of a lab accident and just decided to keep working.
Nope. She’d pass on that sector.
She checked the time. The tram to Sector C would arrive soon. For now, she stood in silence, the din of the terminal fading slightly at this quieter end of the station, her thoughts still circling back to the guards and their guns.
Someone in Chernobog’s upper decks was expecting trouble.
And Natasha was beginning to wonder if she was already standing in it.
She checked the time on her phone: 6:39 AM.
The flickering screen above the terminal doors buzzed with static, then refreshed to display the estimated arrival time for the next tram—6:45.
Natasha scoffed under her breath. “Yeah, sure,” she muttered, unconvinced. Those clocks were about as reliable as Ursus hospitality.
She considered killing time with music—something rough and loud. Yulian had dragged her into his bizarre Cautus hole of rock, most of it full of wailing guitars, scratchy vocals, and political undertones she was pretty sure weren’t approved by the state. Still, it had grown on her. Maybe enough to drown out her own thoughts for a while.
But before she could even grab her earbuds, the tram screeched into view, rather early come to think of it. Still didn't prove her wrong though.
It came rattling down the line, its long body groaning as it slowed to a halt. A loud hiss of compressed air escaped the doors as they opened, followed by the polite monotone of an automated voice:
“Please allow passengers to exit first.”
Only… no one exited.
The tram was completely empty.
Natasha looked around, blinking. The terminal was deserted. She shrugged to herself and stepped inside without ceremony, the rubber soles of her boots clicking softly against the floor.
She took a seat near the door, letting out a weary exhale as she sank into the plastic bench. As the train lurched forward with a smooth hum and the doors sealed behind her, she allowed herself a rare moment of stillness.
And then—
From the far end of the platform, a door slammed open. A bathroom door.
A security guard exploded out of it in full sprint, flailing slightly as he clutched his workbag in one hand and tried to pull his pants up with the other. Natasha caught sight of a roll of toilet paper trailing behind him, caught on his boot like the world's saddest tail.
“Ah shit! No, no, no!”
He lunged for the train, but too late. The tram was already moving, gaining speed with quiet finality. Natasha raised an eyebrow. She could’ve helped if it were a manual system. But the trams were fully automated. No emergency stop. No conductor. No mercy.
Through the glass, she watched the guard come to a staggering halt, hands on his knees, cursing the heavens in full view of no one except her.
“Ah, damn it!”
Natasha nearly choked trying to suppress her laughter. She pressed her knuckles to her lips, shoulders shaking slightly as the guard began pacing furiously across the empty platform, the toilet paper still stuck to his shoe like a badge of dishonor.
“Poor bastard,” she mumbled to herself, shaking her head as the terminal blurred past the windows.
The tram moved on, the brief comedy already fading behind her.
The tram rumbled along its rails, taking a few slow turns before descending sharply along a sloping section of track. Natasha watched as the overhead lines dipped low, and soon a massive, flickering sign came into view, half-lit in buzzing white:
SECTOR C PERSONNEL ENTRANCE
Below the sign, two guards were stationed at a checkpoint built into the concrete wall. They leaned casually over a rusted railing, waving lazily as her tram passed by. Natasha gave them a curt nod, more out of habit than recognition, as the vehicle continued its plunge into Chernobog’s shadowed underbelly.
Darkness swallowed the tram almost immediately.
The only light came from scattered emergency strobes embedded into the walls—harsh red flashes that pulsed rhythmically like the heartbeat of a dying beast. The air grew heavier, pressing in against her sinuses and ears. She swallowed hard to equalize the pressure, resisting the urge to yawn. The descent always did this.
Eventually, the tram eased to a crawl, coasting along a narrow tunnel that had clearly seen better decades. The place looked more like a maintenance shaft than a transit line.
The walls were spiderwebbed with cracks, concrete flaking like dried skin. Rust had eaten through patches of the floor plating, and what little paint remained was peeling in long, curling strips. Someone had left tools scattered across the catwalks—wrenches, spanners, even a half-open soldering kit—probably thinking they’d "come back for it later." No one ever did.
The tram rounded another turn. Massive exhaust fans lined the tunnel wall, their blades churning the thick, chemical-laced air into barely breathable currents. Two maintenance workers in reflective jumpsuits were perched on a scaffold nearby, doing what passed for a routine inspection. They didn’t look up as the tram passed.
From the opposite line, another tram came hurtling by in the other direction. Natasha didn’t care who was in it—she never did—but she smirked slightly. Maybe that poor bastard from earlier finally caught his ride.
The moment passed.
She slid in her earbuds—not just to block the sound, but to ease the pressure on her ears. Music helped. The rumble of the city’s guts was oppressive, constant, and too damn loud. Something raw and twangy crackled through her earpieces—some old Ursus rock track Yulian had loaded onto her phone.
Another curve in the tunnel brought her past a sterile-looking room sealed behind reinforced glass. Inside was a bizarre patchwork of civilian comforts: rows of washing machines, spinning like they were powered by jet turbines, dryers shaking as if possessed, and—of all things—a pair of arcade cabinets flickering with bright, childish lights.
A Sector B salaryman occupied one cabinet, tie loosened and jacket off, hunched forward in the groove of intense concentration. Next to him, a bored security guard mashed buttons on the other machine, clearly killing time before their shifts started.
Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Must be the residential wing for Sector B,” she murmured to herself. Which meant she was still far from Sector C.
She checked her phone.
7:02 AM.
Late. Again.
She sighed, dragging a hand down her face. “Well, can’t get any more late than this,” she muttered. The tram groaned beneath her, still moving—too slowly for her liking.
After passing the surreal comforts of the Sector B laundromat, the tram veered into a narrower, more oppressive shaft. The tracks from multiple lines merged into one, like arteries funneling into a single clogged vein. The walls grew tighter, the air colder. Concrete gave way to steel plating, reinforced with bolted ribs that suggested this tunnel was meant to survive more than just wear and tear.
Ahead, another security station stood at the threshold. Past it loomed a massive vault door—round, reinforced, and easily ten feet thick.
A single guard stood posted, arms behind his back, his stance relaxed despite the heavy fortification he guarded. He smiled as Natasha’s tram slowed to a stop and gave her a two-fingered salute.
“Morning, Lieutenant. Was wondering when you’d show up.”
Natasha gave a tired grunt and stood to meet his eyes. “The Motherland decides when I arrive at work these days,” she replied, voice dry as ever.
The guard chuckled and turned toward the small security station behind him. “Hold up, let me open her up for you.”
He tapped a button on the control panel, and a loud klaxon screamed to life. Red strobe lights began flashing overhead as the vault door let out a deep thunk, its internal locks disengaging with the weight of centuries. Gears rotated, the central disc twisted with a hiss, and finally the entire slab of metal began to recede into the wall, grinding slowly to the side, revealing the path deeper.
Natasha was just about to take her seat back when the guard called out again.
“Oh, one more thing! The boys and I were thinking of hitting a poker game after shift. If you’re up for it, you’re welcome to tag along. Bring your boyfriend too, if he’s off-duty.”
She paused and glanced back over her shoulder. “Unfortunately, he’s on a three-day shift. And I’ll be staying in tonight.”
“Ah, alright. No problem!”
The tram began rolling forward again, easing through the yawning mouth of the now-open vault.
“Take care in there!” the guard shouted, his voice echoing through the steel tunnel.
Natasha gave him a half-wave, then turned her eyes forward as the door behind her began to close, massive and final. It sealed shut with a heavy clank, leaving her alone with the silence and the dark.
The tram slid into another narrow shaft, just wide enough to be claustrophobic, but not tight enough to raise alarms. After a few more turns, its slow crawl finally opened into a massive, cavernous chamber.
To her left, the Sector B mess hall sprawled out beneath cold fluorescent lights. And to the right, a large, reinforced window overlooked the wastelands beyond Chernobog's walls—though "overlooked" was a generous word. The glass was caked in grime, snow, and windblown sand; years of exposure had rendered it an abstract canvas of frost and filth. No one was foolish enough to go outside and clean it. The view, once meant to impress, was now a hazy blur of nothing.
Beneath that window? Just an abyss.
Natasha deliberately avoided looking down. She didn’t need to know what was waiting under all this. She had enough nightmares without adding “bottomless pit of bureaucratic despair” to the mix.
The mess hall was lively—if by “lively” one meant “sluggishly occupied.” Workers from both Sectors B and C crowded around long communal tables, wolfing down their state-issued breakfasts like inmates with just enough spirit left to chew.
No one looked thrilled to be there. No one laughed. It was the kind of joyless efficiency that made Natasha all the more thankful for Sector A’s overpriced foreign fast food. Greasy, yes. Unsanitized, absolutely. Full of chemicals? It's a given. But at least it tasted like choice.
Her tram kept rolling. She wasn’t here for breakfast anyway.
Sleep began creeping in again.
Her eyelids drooped, shoulders sagging into the cheap plastic of the tram seat. She still hadn’t bothered turning on her music. Too tired to think, too wired to rest. Her thoughts dulled to white noise.
Then—
Thunk.
She jerked forward, her hand instinctively darting to grip the metal pole beside her seat. Just muscle memory.
The tram had come to a full, awkward stop.
In front of her, an automated pedestrian bridge had extended across the rail path. Two Sector B office workers trudged across, arguing about coffee quotas or heater malfunctions—who knew? They didn’t even glance at the tram. Natasha groaned, head falling back against the window with a hollow clack. Bureaucracy: always in motion, always in the way.
Eventually, the bridge retracted. Her tram rolled forward again.
Finally, she reached the end of the line. A literal dead-end in the tunnel is marked by another reinforced security checkpoint.
In front of her, an inactive tram rested ahead. To her right, the checkpoint: a modest station with two guards—one seated at the control panel, the other standing outside conducting personal inspections.
The inspector was immediately recognizable.
Boris, the jolliest wall of a man this side of Chernobog. His body armor barely held together over his stomach, the Velcro gasping with every breath. Natasha had always found him more bearable than most, probably because he didn’t talk like he was trying to impress anyone.
The seated guard wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. What the hell is that smell, Boris?”
Boris took a cautious step away from the panel, hands raised. “Hell if I know. Gas leak, maybe?”
“Yeah, your gas leak. Emperor’s brows, I swear I’m bringing a respirator next time they stick me on shift with you.”
Boris waved off the insult and walked up to Natasha’s tram with a grin.
“Morning, Lieutenant.”
Natasha gave him a tired nod. “Hey, Boris.”
He tapped on his work tablet, scrolling through the manifest. “Looks like you’re in for a long one today.” After tapping the screen a few more times, he signaled to the panel guard with a lazy twirl of his hand, then gave Natasha a crisp salute. “Have a good one, Lieutenant.”
“Bye, Boris,” she replied, sliding back into her seat.
A small metal fence extended to lock the tram into place, and the station’s strobe lights bathed her in another round of pulsing red. Her eyes narrowed against the brightness. Her nose wrinkled as the recycled air hit her again—thick, metallic, laced with oil and ozone.
Then, with a low rumble, the tram plunged deeper into the abyss.
The tram continued its descent into the belly of Chernobog, and Natasha’s ears popped from the pressure drop. She winced slightly, trying to yawn the discomfort away. The temperature dropped as well, not the crisp, fresh kind of cold, but the stale, dead chill of poorly circulated subterranean air.
Half the tram had gone dark. Only the headlights and taillights provided illumination now, bathing the metal walls in a cold, red, and dull white glow. Shadows clung to the corners like mold.
The shaft narrowed even further. The walls now curved and twisted, tight and confining—like an elevator shaft designed by someone with a grudge against comfort. She’d taken this route dozens of times before, and still, she never fully adjusted to it. Some things were too unnatural to normalize.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself to take a few deep, measured breaths. It didn’t help the sinking sensation in her stomach, that subtle vertigo that came from descending too fast into something too deep. A coffin on rails, she thought grimly.
Then—sudden stillness.
The tram halted.
Already? Her eyes snapped open.
For a terrifying half-second, all she could see was pitch blackness. Her brain screamed that she’d gone blind. Her hand instinctively reached for her holster before the tram’s emergency lights flared to life, bathing the cabin in pulsing red.
Natasha exhaled sharply, her heart thumping against her ribs.
“Fantastic,” she muttered under her breath. “The eggheads at Sector E must be pushing the damn reactor again.”
She leaned her head against the wall, staring at the dark ceiling. What is it this time? Trying to macrowave their lunch with the reactor? Power their coffee maker with enriched Originium? She wouldn’t put it past them. Sector E always danced too close to the edge of madness in the name of science—or whatever they called it now.
The air conditioning had gone out too. With no airflow, the heat became immediate and oppressive. The tram’s metal interior turned into a furnace, and Natasha could feel sweat bead along her neck and between her shoulder blades. She was hundreds of meters underground, and the icy touch of winter was nothing more than a memory now. Down here, it was suffocating.
She pulled out her phone, thumb hovering over the security dispatch contact. If this were a full-scale electrical outage, she’d have to report it immediately.
But just as she was about to press the screen—buzz. Click.
The lights flickered. The tram let out a mechanical sigh and lurched back to life. The air conditioning kicked back on, the shaft lights resumed their low hum, and they began descending again.
Natasha leaned back into her seat with a groan, pulling her security cap off and wiping the sweat from her brow. She ran her fingers through her damp hair, exhaling slowly.
The tram rattled again—not from a power outage this time, but from something far more familiar: Ursus automation failure.
Up ahead, the Sector C lobby finally came into view. Fluorescent lights flickered sterile and white, spilling across the tracks like a beckoning void. Natasha squinted as her eyes adjusted to the brightness, the last leg of her descent lit like a surgical ward.
An automated gate stood between her tram and the platform. Standard security. No big deal.
Except the gate didn’t open.
Instead, it jolted downward, stopped halfway, and then jerked back up again. Sparks flew from the track as the motor squealed in protest. The gate stuttered like it couldn’t make up its mind—down, then up, then halfway again—before finally jamming in the closed position, blocking Natasha’s tram with all the enthusiasm of a drunk bouncer.
Natasha sighed loudly, threw her hands up in exasperation, and collapsed back into her seat, her head thunking against the wall.
Behind her, the voice of the checkpoint guard came through the internal intercom, groggy and already fed up.
“Oh for fu— Igor! Igor, take a look at this.”
There was a pause. Then a second voice crackled in.
“What’s going on, Oleg?”
“Gate’s freaking stuck. Now the tram can’t move.”
“Huh. Okay… She’s supposed to go to… Area 4, right? Just reroute her tram to the dormitories. Set the checkpoint there as her destination.”
“Copy that.”
Oleg’s voice returned with a sigh. “Sorry, Lieutenant. Guess we’re having one of those days again.”
Natasha didn't bother replying. She just gave the security camera a deadpan half-salute as the opposite gate—thankfully still functioning—slid open with a graceful hiss , allowing her tram to continue forward finally.
She leaned back in her seat again and let out a long, slow breath. Another delay. Another cog slipping in Chernobog’s rusted, over-engineered machine.
The tram lurched forward, then made a hard left down another shaft. Natasha groaned softly, pressing her palm to her temple.
She hadn’t even clocked in yet, and already it felt like she’d worked a full twelve-hour shift. Her uniform clung to her from the residual heat of the stalled tram, her back ached from the rigid seat, and her patience—what little she had—was long gone.
She wanted to punch something, not just the clock.
She resisted. Assaulting property would get her written up, and as much as she hated this place, she wasn’t about to gift the brass that kind of satisfaction.
The tunnel opened again, revealing a vast, cavernous chamber— Area 2, Sector C’s main deployment station, built into the infrastructure like a staging bay for a war that never quite ended. The space was alive with movement and voices. Platoons of guards stood in rigid, square formations, their boots echoing against the steel floor as they were barked into line. Natasha instinctively slouched lower in her seat.
Morning assembly. Great.
She had completely missed it.
She slid down just enough that the edge of the tram window barely framed her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to be seen by anyone in that formation, let alone the two people currently leading the roll call.
At the front of the assembly stood a grizzled old officer, broad-shouldered and built like a relic from another war. His black greatcoat flared around him like a banner, the twin-headed eagle of Ursus stitched proudly across the back in gleaming thread. His peaked cap could’ve housed a family of pigeons.
Chief of Security Yosef Vasiliev. Natasha didn’t know whether to salute or run.
Beside him stood a figure far more out-of-place: an Ursus woman clad in a grey chemical suit, its design more appropriate for reactor maintenance than military command. Her hood was down, revealing a cascade of unkempt ash-brown hair, and her gas mask dangled lazily from her satchel like a forgotten accessory.
Svetlana Petrikov. Chief of Engineering. And the sole reason the Internal Security Force had access to firearms that weren’t Laterano imports.
Natasha blinked.
"Wouldn’t that just… compromise the suit?" she muttered under her breath, watching as Svetlana gestured broadly, mid-speech. The chemical suit was meant to be sealed, but Svetlana wore it like a lab coat.
The tram coasted silently past the formation. Natasha hunched further, willing herself invisible. An empty tram creeping through a major assembly like some ghost of infrastructure probably didn’t go unnoticed, but no one pointed or reacted. That didn’t make her feel any better.
Whatever that roll call was about, she’d find out eventually. She always did.
Just... preferably not from Chief Vasiliev screaming it into her face.
She slumped back into the hard plastic, sighing.
After what felt like the hundredth turn down yet another dim, narrow shaft, the tram finally began to slow. Natasha exhaled a long, weary sigh as she spotted the platform ahead—one more security checkpoint, and hopefully, finally, her intended stop.
She stood up, grabbing her workbag and slinging it over her shoulder as she made her way to the tram doors.
The checkpoint itself looked... unimpressive. Just a cramped, concrete alcove barely larger than a smoker’s lounge. A camera perched lazily in the upper corner, blinking with a small incandescent light bulb that didn’t inspire confidence. A single metal security door stood embedded in the wall, flanked by an ID scanner. It had all the majesty of a back-alley broom closet.
The tram eased to a stop.
“Please stand back from the automated doors until they are fully open,” the tram’s AI chirped in that tinny, manufactured optimism.
“Before exiting, please check for personal belongings. Thank you and have a safe and productive day.”
“For Glory and Purity. For Ursus. Uraa.”
Natasha winced. Hearing an AI spout patriotic slogans with the enthusiasm of a birthday clown was enough to make her stomach turn. The door hissed open.
She stepped onto the platform, just as the tram slid away behind her.
Inside the tram, at least it was quiet. Cold and lifeless, but quiet.
Now? Now she had to go to work.
She walked up to the ID scanner, slapped her badge against it, and waited for the click.
ACCESS DENIED
She blinked.
“What?”
She pressed the badge again. Harder this time.
ACCESS DENIED
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Maybe the scanner didn’t recognize her ID. Maybe it was a regional authorization error, this wasn’t her usual route, after all. Or maybe, and far more likely, the scanner was just another proud example of Chernobog’s failing infrastructure. State-of-the-art in the 1050s, and never once serviced since.
Grumbling, Natasha went analog. She knocked firmly on the door.
No response.
She knocked again, harder.
Finally, a voice muffled by steel echoed from the other side.
“Hold on! Scanner’s not picking up your ID. I’ll try opening it from my side.”
She heard the distant beep of a badge being swiped. Followed by:
ACCESS DENIED
“…Great,” the voice muttered.
“I’ll try inputting a code manually.”
A new series of electronic beeps followed. Another pause. Then—
ACCESS DENIED
Natasha let out a sharp exhale and stalked back to the door, rapping on it with her knuckles again—this time loud enough to echo down the shaft.
“I said I’m working on it!” came the voice, frustrated.
“Work faster!” she snapped, slamming her fist against the metal.
“Hey! You dent this door, it’s coming out of your pay!”
“I’m already late enough as it is!”
A tired sigh filtered through the metal. “Ma’am… no one is this eager to start their shift.”
Natasha groaned and threw her hands in the air. Fighting it was clearly futile. She paced a few steps in place before spotting a rusted metal crate shoved against the wall. With a grunt, she sat down on it, unbuttoning her breast pocket and pulling out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes.
She lit one with a flick of her match and leaned back against the wall.
The air was already heavy and stale, so what was one more layer of smoke? Besides, with how run-down this place was, she figured it counted as a designated smoking area by default.
The scanner beeped again in the distance. Natasha didn’t move.
She took a long drag and muttered, “Take your time. I’m only bleeding punctuality over here.”
As Natasha “calmly” waited for the damned door to open, the soft hum of another tram echoed from the opposite track. She glanced up, cigarette dangling from her lips, and spotted another train emerging from around the bend.
Only one passenger sat inside.
At first, the figure was just a silhouette against the interior lights—but as the tram rolled closer, Natasha made out the unmistakable form of Svetlana Petrikov, clad in her signature grey chemical suit, the hood down, her hair an unkempt halo of pale-brown static, gas mask slung lazily at her hip.
Their eyes met.
Natasha, mid-drag, exhaled a slow stream of smoke rings, utterly off-book for her station’s “authorized smoke break” hours. But Svetlana, in typical fashion, didn’t seem to mind. She raised a hand and offered Natasha a small salute—playful, almost conspiratorial.
Natasha returned the gesture with her free hand and a cloud of smoke, lips curling slightly in amusement as the engineer’s tram glided past and disappeared down the tunnel. Probably heading back to Sector E, if Natasha had to guess. Which meant Svetlana, of all people, was also stuck taking the long way around.
That thought alone made her feel a little better.
She flicked the spent cigarette against the edge of the crate, snuffing the ember with a hiss, then tossed the butt into a nearby trash can.
Before the silence could settle again, a voice from behind the door called out.
“Okay… okay, I think I got it now!”
Just in time, the security door hissed and began to slide inward—then promptly screeched, sparked, and jammed halfway open, shuddering like it had just remembered how to fail.
From behind the gap, the guard groaned.
“Oh for crying out loud.”
He wedged his way through the partially open frame and began shoving the door manually, grunting as he forced the stubborn metal slab into its housing. It resisted every inch like it had something to prove.
“Sorry about that, Lieutenant,” he muttered, straining against the mechanism. “Damn thing’s been jamming all week.”
With one last heave, the door gave in. He straightened, brushing off his hands, and gestured theatrically for Natasha to step through like she was a Baroness.
She groaned, but complied, stepping into the inner checkpoint at last.
The adjacent security station loomed behind a thick pane of reinforced glass. Inside, a single officer sat slouched before a wall of monitors, their grainy feeds tracking the dim corners of this part of Sector C. In the back, an armory locker stood tall and silent, filled with boxes of ammunition—sidearms, rifles, a few collapsible batons, riot shields, even a trio of compact submachine guns and a brutal-looking 23mm riot shotgun.
It was all standard for each security stations: fortified, over-equipped, and quietly falling apart.
Natasha gave the layout a once-over. She remembered she’s in the dormitories—not her station. Not yet.
The guard who had opened the door for her stepped ahead, leading her toward the next set of double doors.
“Been a rough morning across the sectors,” he said, walking backward as he rattled off the problems. “We’ve had system crashes coming out of Sector B’s offices, a total mix-up with firearm issuing in Sector C, and some of our cameras just blinked out completely in Sector D.”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Sector E’s gone quiet, and that’s never a good thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if those damn eggheads are behind half the outages.”
Natasha huffed, brushing imaginary dust from her collar.
“Just another day in the internal decks.”
The guard chuckled at that and turned toward the retinal scanner beside the door. He leaned in, the system blinking as it processed his eyes.
The double doors groaned open.
“Have a nice shift, Lieutenant,” he said, stepping aside.
Natasha walked past him with a tired smirk.
“I’ll try to have one,” she replied.
But she didn’t sound convinced.
The hallway beyond the checkpoint forked into two paths: left toward the dormitories, and right toward Area 4, the Training Zones—her turf.
Natasha turned right, boots echoing softly on the cold metal floor, until she reached an airlock unit tucked around the next bend. She didn’t need the posted instructions; she’d done this dance too many times.
With a sigh, she removed her peaked cap, brushing a stray strand of white hair from her face, and placed the cap onto one of the wall-mounted racks. The doors slid shut behind her with a pneumatic hiss.
She raised her arms automatically.
Lines of yellow scanning light laced across her vision, briefly giving her the illusion of floating. After a moment, they shifted to green—no signs of Oripathy, as expected.
Then came the mist—sharp, minty, sterile. It enveloped her in a cool fog meant to kill any bacteria she might’ve picked up on her journey from the upper decks. The air smelled like mouthwash mixed with ozone.
Finally, the inner doors opened with a groan, and Natasha stepped out into the lobby of Sector C’s Area 4, the decontamination chamber now behind her.
At the center of the room stood a hexagonal security checkpoint, reinforced and elevated slightly above the floor. Three guards manned the interior, their silhouettes visible through layers of protective glass. A fourth sat outside the station—Yakov—propped against the outer wall like a fixture.
Yakov had been down here longer than some elevators—fifteen years in the internal decks. Natasha sometimes wondered if he even remembered what sunlight felt like.
He spotted her immediately and snapped off a crisp salute, smirking under his goatee.
“There you are, Lieutenant. We had a bet going whether you'd even show up toda—”
A klaxon cut him off.
A shrieking alarm blared through the room, red strobe lights slicing across every surface. Natasha tensed, spinning toward the sound. The interior guards jerked upright. One of them knocked over a mug. The female medic stationed inside yelped in surprise and turned to scan the camera monitors. “Ah! What was that?!”
Yakov raised a hand to calm her down. “Just ignore it,” he grunted, clearly unconcerned.
With a grunt, he strode up to the checkpoint, banging his fist against the security glass.
“Hey! You guys wanna turn that thing down or what?!”
It took a few moments, and some panicked button-mashing on the control console, but the klaxon finally fell silent. The red lights faded, leaving everyone blinking in its absence.
Inside the station, someone muttered something about tracing the source of the false alarm. Good luck with that.
Yakov just shook his head, chuckling bitterly.
“Another fun day at work, huh, Lieutenant?”
Natasha gave him a slight nod, already walking past toward the stairwell that descended deeper into Area 4.
“Stay frosty, fellas,” she muttered, her voice deadpan as ever.
“Oh, and make sure to grab your vest before you go do something else,” Yakov called out, just as Natasha was already making her way down the stairwell.
Right. The vest.
She did feel somewhat exposed without it, like stepping outside without a jacket. Though, thankfully, they at least let her keep her sidearm when off-duty—for "personal protection," as the official line went. It had come in handy once or twice—some overconfident lowlifes had tried to mug her and Yulian late at night, thinking she was just another woman walking home with a tired man. Big mistake.
The pistol also helped with... domestic persuasion. Not that she ever used it to make Yulian do chores, of course. Her presence was persuasive enough. The gun was just a decorative flourish.
She descended to the second-level floor, where the narrow corridors split like cracks in the concrete. To the right was a place she considered her second home: the Armory area. If she wasn’t out training rookies on how not to get shot, she was in there tuning up guns, testing loadouts, or swearing at paperwork.
Too bad the place was off-limits for now.
The heavy twin security doors that guarded the Armory area were sealed, and a single, stone-faced guard stood planted in front of them. No vest, no entry. Regulations. Protocol. The usual.
With a groan, Natasha veered forward instead, stepping into the break room.
The place had all the warmth and charm of a padded cell, but at least it offered coffee, vending machines, and a few miserable boxes of state-issued pastries. The donuts were famous for tasting like chalk soaked in government disappointment, but when you were dead on your feet, a little sugar could be the difference between clocking in and blacking out.
The room was empty. No witnesses. No shame.
She sauntered over and snagged a donut from the box, biting into it—and immediately regretted it. It crunched with the texture of cardboard that had fossilized under the artificial Ursus sun. Probably had been sitting there all week, untouched, unloved. Still, better than nothing.
Moving on, Natasha took the stairwell down to the third level, the heart of Area 4’s security operations—a kind of makeshift reception hall. Here, guards received their task briefings, checked on updates, and figured out what part of the deck they were meant to babysit for the next twelve hours. Patrol routes, incident reports, assignment reshuffles—if anything mattered, it filtered through here.
Across the lobby, a kiosk stood embedded in the wall like a sore tooth. A lone clerk manned it, headset on, surrounded by ringing phones, blinking lights, and the universal stench of “underpaid and over it.” Natasha caught part of the chaos.
A Sector B salaryman, red in the face and foaming with corporate stress, was standing in front of the desk, voice rising like a kettle.
“I can’t access my files, I can’t access my mail, I can’t even get in my damn office!”
The clerk, to her credit, managed a strained smile, her tone the rehearsed balm of a thousand tired service workers.
“I know, sir, I understand your frustrations. We’re doing everything we can to keep the problem under control. Just… give us a little more time to figure things out.”
“Time?” he barked, making aggressive air quotes. “I don’t have any more ‘time’! If I don’t compile my report for the head manager in the next hour, the auditing that follows will bury me—and I promise I won’t be the only one they drag down.”
He pointed a finger at her like she personally caused the malfunction, then spun on his heel and stormed out, stomping like a toddler in a full-grown man’s body.
The clerk exhaled sharply, then dropped her head into her hands, fingers digging into her temples like she was trying to squeeze the migraine out manually. Still, she dutifully logged his complaint, fingers clacking on the old terminal keyboard.
She looked up at Natasha with a tired smile that barely passed for human.
“I just love my job,” she deadpanned.
Natasha gave her a dry nod in return. No words. Just mutual pain. She made a mental note of that whiny Sector B idiot, though. If he gave the guards any more trouble, she’d make sure he found himself waiting even longer next time.
With that little burst of morning drama out of the way, Natasha finally approached the assignment desk.
Another clerk, looking just as fried as the one from earlier, sat behind it, eyes glued to her monitor. The dull glow of the screen lit her face like the backlight of purgatory. She didn’t even look up.
“Nice of you to finally join us, Natasha. You're late.”
“I know, you can blame the—”
“Yeah yeah, I get it. Trams not on time. Access systems breaking down. Same old story. Hope you're ready for a long shift. Go grab your vest in the locker area so you can start.”
Natasha gave her a deadpan nod and moved on without another word. She knew better than to trade verbal jabs before the first caffeine hit. Besides, she had bigger concerns—like not dying of boredom or burnout.
She stepped into the adjacent room—personnel lockers.
This was the collective dumping ground for every guard in this part of Sector C. Rows and rows of identical steel lockers, all smelling faintly of sweat, disinfectant, and the horrors of shared body odor. At the far end, communal showers churned with running water—someone was already in there. She didn’t envy them.
No separate showers for women.
The Ursus solution? “Don't drop the soap and nobody makes eye contact.” It was one of many reasons Natasha showered before her shift. You had to pick your battles down here, and that one wasn’t worth fighting.
“Morning, lieutenant,” called out one of the guards as he finished lacing his boots.
Natasha gave him a silent wave and made her way through the metallic corridor of lockers until she found hers. “MEDVEDEVA” was printed in bold across the top. She opened it with a creak.
Inside were two halves of her world.
On the left:
Her ballistic vest, broken in and molded to her body from constant wear and tear.
A chest rig with slots for magazines, stun rounds, and a multitool.
Her combat helmet, complete with the fold-down visor that doubled as a welding mask. Most guards ditched theirs. Too heavy. Too awkward. Natasha kept hers—it was as much intimidation as it was protection.
On the right:
A mix of personal effects—manuals, a couple of paperback novels, and a pile of toiletries crammed together with military neatness.
On the inside door: a collage of pictures and propaganda posters meant to “boost morale.” Most were state-issued slogans about strength and duty. But the ones that mattered were photographs.
Photos of her and Yulian.
He was smiling in all of them—grinning, laughing, goofing off in a way that defied the grey walls of the city. She, on the other hand, barely cracked a smirk. If she ever smiled in a photo, Yulian made it his life's mission to tease her about it for weeks.
"You do smile! See? You like me!"
He'd say it with such smug glee it made her want to headbutt him. But that was just them. It looked dysfunctional to outsiders. To them, it was survival.
She let herself linger a moment longer, then snapped out of it with a breath. Right—she was here for a reason.
She took the vest off the hook, slipped it on, and tightened the straps across her toned frame. She slid the chest rig into place, letting the weight settle on her like an old, familiar friend. Her ID went under the vest—never keep it exposed. That was a lesson drilled into her long ago.
She stashed her work bag back into the locker, slammed the door shut, and locked it. Turning toward the mirror above the sink, she gave herself a once-over.
Gear on. Face set. The old scars on her cheek caught the sterile lighting just right. They didn’t make her look softer—they sharpened her edges. Her resting bitch face? Perfectly aligned.
She struck a couple of serious poses, half-joking with herself. Not bad. She wore a uniform better than any dress. Civilian clothes didn’t suit her anyway. She still looked like a soldier. Not a pretty one. Not a photogenic one. Just real.
And then—just in case someone was watching—she quickly broke from the mirror and walked out like none of that happened.
Time to finally start her shift.
Chapter 2: Insecurity
Chapter by Cynical_Waste23
Summary:
Due to a shortage of available maintenance staff, Lieutenant Natasha had to be called in to fix a malfunctioning elevator, of all things, but would later find out that a broken elevator is the least of her worries.
Chapter Text
Having her vest on settled something in Natasha.
A steady rhythm of calm returned to her chest as she gave the front plate a quick, habitual thump—a soldier’s reassurance that if today went to hell, at least she wouldn’t be the first to drop. The weight, once unbearable, now brought focus.
Her sidearm was already snug in its thigh holster, safety on, grip worn smooth. She was armed, uniformed, and mentally dialed in. That meant she could finally get to work.
When she returned to the lobby outside the personnel locker room, the tired-eyed clerk at the assignment desk waved her down with the same enthusiasm as someone being asked to mop up a sewage spill.
“Nothing new yet, Lieutenant. No patrols assigned, no squads to brief. Recruits haven’t arrived either, so the training halls are empty.”
“Wonderful,” Natasha muttered.
“We’re short-staffed today, obviously.” The clerk didn’t even pretend to hide her sarcasm. “So, you might get slapped with grunt-level busywork at any moment. They’re pulling officers for menial shifts now. Be on standby for reassignment.”
Natasha exhaled through her nose and crossed her arms. She wasn’t above getting her hands dirty—she preferred it, frankly—but there was a difference between doing the work and being used as a duct-tape solution for lazy logistics.
Still, if nothing else had come up, she knew where she needed to be.
The workshop. Tucked near the Firearms Armoury, it was her second home—equal parts repair bay, inspection point, and unofficial shrine to the failure of Ursus engineering standards. And if what she saw at Sector A was any indication—mall cops hauling around shotguns and bolt-actions like it was wartime—then she was going to be buried in malfunctioning rifles and jammed sidearms by the end of the day.
Probably overtime. Again.
But it wasn’t just the extra work nagging at her. Something didn’t sit right.
She remembered what the checkpoint guard had said earlier—firearm mix-ups, distribution errors, and the quartermaster brushing it off like it was Tuesday.
No. That wasn’t just an accident. That was an incident.
And incidents meant someone upstairs either screwed up—or was doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.
“Is the quartermaster still at his station?” she asked the clerk.
“Yeah. He’s still at the range, down at subspace level five.”
“Good.” Natasha turned on her heel. “I’m gonna need to talk to him. This whole ‘issue’ with the mall cops getting firepower meant for riot teams? That doesn’t happen by mistake.”
“Go ahead,” the clerk said, already half-checked out and reaching for her newspaper. “Just make sure you clock in at the workshop after you finish mouthing off at him.”
Natasha shot her a glare. The clerk didn’t even look up.
Fine. She’d play along—for now.
She pushed through another set of automated double doors, turned down the next dimly lit corridor, and approached the elevator that led deeper down into Sector C.
The call button glowed red for a moment, then dinged open.
She stepped in, hit the panel for the bottom-most level, and leaned back against the wall as the doors slid shut.
The elevator hummed to life, and Natasha crossed her arms, already rehearsing how many shades of hell she was about to give him.
When the elevator dinged open on Subspace Level 5, Natasha stepped out with her mental artillery locked and loaded—ready to give the quartermaster a thorough tongue-lashing.
Unfortunately, her sense of direction was out to lunch.
Still absorbed in her own internal monologue about bureaucratic incompetence and overly armed mall cops, she turned left instead of right and ended up somewhere familiar but… wrong.
Ahead of her was another security station, just like the others—glass-paneled, decked in screens, and radiating that uniquely Ursine ambiance of fluorescent lights, stale coffee, and underpaid labor. Surveillance feeds lined the walls, all glowing like tiny mechanical eyes. But the place was understaffed, with the lone guard meant to oversee the station fast asleep, head tilted back, mouth slightly agape.
A half-empty box of state-approved pastries and a sweating can of soda sat beside him. Sugar crash, probably. Or incompetence. Or both.
Natasha could’ve backed out. Could’ve let it slide. But her curiosity was already twitching—and so was her compulsion to snoop.
She stepped inside, quietly, her boots whispering across the floor tiles.
Her eyes landed on the remote CCTV tablet, docked on a charger beside the guard's limp arm. The new surveillance system was designed to make a guard’s job easier: all camera feeds, all control functions, in all corners of this specific area, in one handheld slab. Convenient. Efficient. Lazy as hell. Naturally Ursus.
Let’s see what’s cooking.
She lifted the tablet and scrolled through a few feeds. Nothing exciting in the lobby. Nothing happening in the mess hall. Then she clicked over to the Area 4 checkpoint camera, and—
SLAM.
The far-side door burst open.
Yakov limped through, muttering curses under his breath.
“The lock was already broken before I got there,” he barked, half-defensive, half-irritated.
The guards stationed at the checkpoint snorted in amusement. A medic rushed out to inspect Yakov’s leg while he leaned against the wall, scowling. Natasha smirked—Yakov was infamous for bypassing faulty doors with one specific override command: boot to hinges . Technically a violation. Practically? Effective.
She kept scrolling
Lobby—clear. Armory—quiet. Firing range—ah, her destination. Still far.
One camera caught her attention—a maintenance hallway, where a lone guard stood on a ladder fixing a busted camera.
Natasha raised an eyebrow… then spotted a button on the screen interface:
"FLASH – Take Still Frame"
Her grin bloomed, slow and wicked.
Don’t do it, her better judgment warned.
She tapped it.
FLASH.
A white burst lit the hallway.
“AAGH! Woa—AAHH!” The guard flailed, slipped, and tumbled off the ladder, the camera view shaking violently.
“Yeah! Real mature, guys! Му́даки!”
Natasha slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Her chest trembled with silent mirth as she hunched over the desk.
Then—the worst sound: “Uhhh?” The overseer stirred.
Natasha’s smile vanished.
He blinked at her groggily, rubbing his eyes. “Lieutenant...? What are you doing here?”
Think, Natasha. Think. Save it. Save it. Save it.
She spun on her heel, scowled hard, and shoved the tablet against his chest.
“What am I doing? What are you doing—sleeping on the goddamn job?”
Her voice turned cold, clipped, pure officer tone.
“You’re lucky it was me walking in and not your supervisor. Do you want a permanent assignment guarding the latrines instead? Because I can make that happen.”
The man jolted upright like he’d been shot. “No, ma’am! Sorry, ma’am! Won’t happen again, ma’am!”
“Mm-hmm.” She loomed over him just long enough to let the shame settle, then turned on her heel. “Don’t get sloppy on me again.”
And before the poor fool could ask why the CCTV tablet’s photo function was still warm, she vanished out the door.
Whew.
Once she was around the corner, Natasha let her breath out in a slow hiss and allowed herself a single, satisfied chuckle.
“Goddamn, I still got it.”
Back at the elevator, Natasha corrected her earlier blunder and took the proper hallway—right this time. Her boots echoed against the concrete as she moved through the sterile corridor, eyes immediately catching the usual cast of characters going about their thankless daily rituals.
One guard leaned toward a water fountain, ready for a sip. A nearby medic was double-checking the contents of her first-aid kit, laid across a row of plastic chairs. A third figure, another guard on patrol, casually strolled by, with a goddamn machine gun slung over his shoulder.
The DinnerPlate-87, or the DP-87, which looked like, ironically, a dinner plate that mated with a machine gun and raised a child exclusively on high-caliber spite.
Seriously, Natasha thought, what the hell is with the firepower today?
The water fountain let out a high-pitched hiss as the first guard pressed the button, then exploded.
A jet of high-pressure water blasted the poor bastard in the face. His uniform was instantly soaked, his cap knocked askew, and the broken fixture began vomiting water onto the floor like it, too, was fed up with working conditions in Chernobog.
“AUGH! Сука, блядь!” The guard stumbled back, flailing like a drenched cloudbeast.
The medic let out a choked laugh. The patrolling guard nearly doubled over.
“Hey, uh… took a swim there, comrade?” he called out between chuckles.
“Yeah,” the soaked guard muttered, wringing out his sleeves. “All I need is a snorkel and a pair of flippers to complete the look.”
“Don’t know, man. Think it’s the wrong season to go swimming,” the patrolling guard smirked, stepping around the slowly spreading puddle.
Natasha bit down on her grin, clearing her throat to reassert professional dominance. Then her attention snapped back to the walking absurdity lugging around the DinnerPlate.
“Why the hell do you have a machine gun?” she asked bluntly.
“No idea,” he shrugged breezily as he passed. “But I’m not complaining.”
Natasha squinted at his back like she could pierce through the idiocy with sheer scorn. Someone's handing out weapons like they're party favors again.
She stepped over the growing puddle, careful not to let the water soak into her boots, and gave the soaked guard a final side-eye.
“Get yourself changed, or you’ll be writing incident reports with a cold.”
“Gotcha, Lieutenant,” he muttered miserably, water squelching from his boots as he shuffled away.
Natasha didn’t stop walking.
She continued down the corridor until she reached a security door with a retinal scanner. No keypads, no cards—just a machine that wanted your face.
She leaned in, pressed her eye to the scanner, and after a few seconds of sterile beeping, the door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
Beyond, the rhythmic crack-crack-crack of firearms greeted her like an old friend.
The firing range sprawled before her—long aisles of modular target lanes where paper silhouettes danced back and forth at the press of a button. On the far side, a full obstacle course mimicking Chernobog’s tight corridors and low ceilings waited in silence. One section was a perfect mock-up of a decaying Ursus apartment: holes in the walls, flickering lights, uneven floorboards. Close-quarters combat, as real as it could get without someone bleeding on the floor.
Across from that was the traditional gauntlet—wall climbs, tire hurdles, crawl spaces. Sweat and cursing lived here. Natasha had spent more hours yelling at cadets in this chamber than she'd care to admit. Shut up. Keep up. Or go home in a box. That sort of thing.
But today wasn't for shouting. No new recruits, no training regimens.
Today was for answers.
Tucked into the wall like an afterthought was a recessed window—the armory kiosk. Behind reinforced glass sat the quartermaster, lazily flipping through a user’s manual about firearms and gear—probably articles he could’ve written himself by now. Racks of weapons lined the walls behind him: everything from semi-auto pistols to full-sized riot suppressors. Ammunition crates were stacked with precision. Everything catalogued. Everything accounted for.
Natasha approached the counter, boots clicking with finality.
The quartermaster glanced up. “Hey, Lieutenant. What’s going on?”
She didn’t waste a second.
“What’s going on is that I’m seeing Sector A mall cops armed like they’re storming a bunker. Shotguns, submachine guns—hell, I just saw a guy casually lugging a machine gun that belongs in a pillbox not 20 seconds ago. Those are emergency use only. What the hell is happening?”
The quartermaster exhaled, folding the magazine closed. “You’re not the first one to ask. Look, I don’t make the orders. I just process them. I get a new log in my inbox every morning—who gets what, how much ammo, when to dispatch it. All of it comes from Administration. I forward it to the other quartermaster at Area 2, and he issues the gear.”
Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “And what exactly did the brass change this time?”
“They’re reallocating gear. Stronger weapons are being routed to topside units. Basically, Sector A’s getting beefed up—at the expense of everyone else.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” He raised both hands. “I don’t ask. But I’ve been hearing things. From the surface. Fires, unrest in the Infected slums, increased vandalism… Someone even mentioned another attempted bombing near a topside ferry station. Real quiet stuff—real official.”
That… did line up. Too well.
The quartermaster leaned back in his chair, gaze settling on her.
“Look, I get it. You’ve been up there. You know what normal looks like. This? It ain’t that. But I’m sure it’ll pass. Probably another overreaction. Happens every time the weather changes.”
Natasha didn’t respond immediately. She processed it. The firepower. The rumblings up top. The busted doors. Cameras going down. Even the tram acting up.
It was too much.
Still, no use chewing on air. She straightened her vest. “Fine. I’ll let you get back to your reading. Just give me three mags.”
“For which?”
“Sidearm.”
“Got it.”
He passed over a tattered ledger. Dozens of names. Dozens of equipment logs, initials, and timestamps. Natasha signed hers and slid it back.
The quartermaster stood, cracked his back, and rummaged through one of the ammo lockers behind him. A moment later, three pistol magazines hit the counter.
“Here you go. Anything else?”
“That’s all. For now.”
She slotted the magazines into the chest rig loops, the clicks satisfying, familiar.
The quartermaster already had his nose buried in the manual again. Some article about prototype thermal scopes or anti-materiel rifles.
Natasha turned and walked off.
Her shift hadn’t officially started, but already she felt like she was twenty minutes away from kicking down a door and dragging answers out by the collar.
Whatever the case, Natasha had no choice but to keep moving. Shifts didn’t pause just because the city creaked at the seams.
After clearing up that firearm debacle with the quartermaster, she retraced her steps back to the elevator and punched the button for subspace level 3. She planned to head toward the Armory Zone and finally clock in at her workshop—maybe actually do her damn job for a change, when—
“Hey, Lieutenant!”
She stopped mid-stride just before passing through the upper doors. The assignment clerk, still hunched over her desk, waved her over with all the enthusiasm of a tax audit.
Natasha sighed through her nose and trudged over. “What now?”
“Something just came up,” the clerk said, scrolling through a new series of dispatch reports. “Sector D, Area 2, Level 5, Hydroelectricity, the main access lift’s malfunctioning. Ironic part? Maintenance staff’s too swamped to handle it.”
Natasha gave her a flat, incredulous stare. “Let me get this straight. The maintenance sector has a broken lift… and no one from maintenance is available?”
“That’s right.” The clerk brushed her sarcasm aside like a bug. “I sent one of the new guards that transferred from Rim Billiton—Yana—but he’s not managing too well down there. You trained him, didn’t you?”
Natasha blinked. Of course, she had. She trained everyone—she was the only one left in Internal Security who hadn’t gone deaf, gone soft, or gone missing.
Yana. The name stirred something in her memory. Cautus. Thin frame. Wide-eyed. Tougher than he looked, but still adjusting to the weight of a sidearm and the colder, more brutal Ursus work ethic. Hard place to prove yourself, especially in a system designed to chew you up, not build you up.
She snapped back to reality.
“Yeah. I remember Yana.”
“Good. He needs help. Head to the tram station past the armory zone. That’ll take you straight to Sector D, Area 2. I’ve already sent word ahead—you’re expected.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow. “So I don’t have to clock in at my workshop?”
“Oh no, you still do,” the clerk said with a wry smile, already scribbling something in her ledger. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re not marked as tardy. Consider this a ‘field errand.’”
“Great. Thanks... I guess.”
Natasha spun on her heel, her boots clacking against the concrete floor as she headed for the stairs again. This time, she pushed faster—if only to burn off the rising frustration in her chest.
By the time she reached the top level, she was at the armory checkpoint. A guard was stationed beside the sealed double doors. As soon as she approached, his communicator buzzed, and he glanced down, confirming her orders.
Without missing a beat, he stepped to the side and slid his keycard through the reader. The heavy doors disengaged with a thunk and hissed open.
“Good luck with your shift, Lieutenant,” he said, offering her a crisp, textbook salute.
Natasha returned a half-hearted one without breaking stride.
Then she vanished into the corridor, bound for the tram, and yet another problem that wasn’t supposed to be hers.
Taking another turn, Natasha entered the fabrication plant embedded deep within the Armory Zone—Sector C’s own miniature munitions factory. Rows of automated printers hissed and clanked as brass casings were spun, filled, sealed, and boxed in rapid, rhythmic succession. On the surface, bullet manufacturing was usually done in massive industrial plants, but here in the belly of the city, this place kept Sector C armed to the teeth thanks to advanced 3D fabrication tech.
The firearms still had to be shipped in manually—too many moving parts, too many checks and balances—but the ammo? Chernobog printed its own death wishes on-site.
She still found it surreal. A decade ago, Ursus couldn’t even sneeze near a firearm without Laterano breathing down their necks. But then Svetlana came along, with her suitcase full of blueprints and her utopian ambitions, and suddenly even backwater Internal Security grunts were lugging state-of-the-art hardware forged right here in the underbelly of a city on tracks.
“Easy to make, easy to use, easy to teach with,” Natasha muttered under her breath. “Too damn easy.”
A part of her still couldn’t believe it wasn’t standard issue on the surface. Maybe the Ursus brass wanted to keep this tech buried—an ace in the dark, tucked far away from the public eye and their paranoid chain of command. Can't have frontline troops knowing warfare is made deadlier, right?
She moved up to the upper catwalk, adjacent to the second fabrication line, and immediately noticed something was off.
Three men stood around a table-level munitions printer: a security guard and two factory workers, all with their heads buried into a malfunctioning fabricator like it owed them rent.
She squinted. The thing was sparking—never a good sign when you're elbow-deep in explosives.
Then it happened.
A single errant spark leapt from the faulty unit, arcing toward a nearby box of completed rounds. It kissed the side of the box like it meant it, and all hell broke loose.
CRACK! POP! SNAP!
Rounds cooked off violently, bursting like firecrackers. One ricocheted off the floor and shattered a warning light. Another shredded a corner of a printer. A third pinged off the ceiling and tore through a sprinkler, setting it off in a steamy cascade that immediately drenched half the factory floor.
Natasha hit the deck, gritting her teeth as metal pinged around her. When she stood again, soaked to the ribs, her jaw was clenched tight enough to cut steel. The entire floor of carefully-produced ammunition was now soggy, smoking junk—completely unusable. All because some techs didn’t flag a sparking machine.
No one was dead—miraculously—but everyone looked like they'd seen the old Emperor’s ghost. The stunned workers and guard were still crouched behind a half-wall, one of them mumbling a prayer to a saint that probably didn’t cover workplace accidents.
A furious shout broke the silence.
“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN HERE?!”
A sergeant barged in, his boots splashing into the ankle-deep mess as he laid into the group like a man who'd just watched his pension go up in smoke.
Natasha didn’t stick around, otherwise, she might get caught up in this mess.
Her boots squelched as she stomped her way out of the drowned manufacturing line, soaked to the bone and shaking from the leftover adrenaline. Her hands trembled from the fury of watching incompetence cost them days of output and gods knew how much in supply.
And it was only midmorning.
When she saw that poor bastard get soaked earlier by a rogue water fountain, Natasha didn’t think the city would come for her next. But here she was—wet to the skin, boots squelching, gear soggy, and her patience hanging by a single frayed thread.
She tugged at her vest as she walked, feeling the cold cling of damp fabric beneath. “Great,” she muttered, “just got dressed and I smell like a moldy gun rack.”
Hopefully, the magazines in her chest rig hadn’t turned into soup. She doubted she’d need them anytime soon, but it was the principle of the matter. A soaked soldier was just a sad punchline.
There was no way she could go back and change, so the only plan now was to air-dry like a professional—grit her teeth, soldier on, and hope Sector D wasn’t also on fire. Though with her luck…
Another set of double doors loomed ahead, guarded by someone who looked like he’d just stepped out of a vodka commercial. As jovial as Boris and twice as wide, the man greeted her with a curt nod and a grunt that might’ve passed as "hello" in Urussian. With a push of a button, he opened the doors without ceremony.
She stepped into a wide 4-way corridor.
To the left: her workshop. Her sanctuary. Her battleground of busted firing pins, warped barrels, stripped screws, and always too little time. Probably more fabricators there too, maybe intact, maybe not.
Ahead: her mission path. The road to Sector D and whatever dumbassery awaited her there.
To the right: the Firearms Armory. The beating heart of Sector C’s firepower. Sealed behind a monolithic pair of 12-inch-thick blast doors, guarded by two walking arsenals in uniform who stood as rigid as statues. Each one carried a 23mm riot shotgun like it was a love letter to the face of anyone who tried to screw around.
Natasha paused briefly as she passed by. She could’ve been in there today, going over the inventory, conducting inspections, maybe even stealing a moment to admire the craftsmanship—flawed as it was—of Ursus’ strange, brutally simple firearms. She could’ve been elbow-deep in gun oil at her workshop, muttering at jammed bolts and cursing the engineers who designed left-handed ejection ports for right-handed guards.
But no. Someone had to deal with a lift in the Water Filtration section. So here she was: tired, wet, and marching toward yet another mess that someone else made.
The two armory guards spotted her and snapped into a salute. Natasha, without breaking stride, raised a hand halfway before letting it drop. That was about as much respect as she could muster in her current state.
She kept moving, boots leaving faint wet prints on the concrete floor, her breath fogging slightly in the chill. Sector D awaited.
And it better not be leaking too.
She took another turn down the corridor and, like clockwork, came across yet another airlock. The guard stationed there gave her a routine once-over, expression blank but eyes just tired enough to betray how much coffee wasn’t working. With a salute and the press of a button, the airlock cycled.
Natasha stepped through with a sigh. Her arm was starting to ache from returning salutes all damn morning. Maybe she’d fake an old shoulder injury next time and see how many she could get away with ignoring.
Finally, she arrived at the tram station platform, and—
Nothing.
No tram.
No noise.
Just one old maintenance worker, sitting alone on a bench like the world’s most stubborn ghost. He was hunched over a state-issued newspaper, reflective coveralls catching what little light the station had, and a battered toolbox at his feet.
Natasha stepped onto the platform, her boots echoing against the metal floor as she glanced both ways down the track.
Only darkness.
“Where the hell is this damn tram?” she muttered.
The old worker lowered his paper, barely glancing up. “If you’re waitin’ on the tram to Sector D, you’re better off walkin’.”
That set off a little twitch in her brow. “What?”
He adjusted his hard hat with an idle hand. “I just read it—every tram on this end of the deck’s acting up again. You know how it is. Critters in the wiring, or maybe another power fluctuation. Either way, you’re not getting there by rail today.” He jabbed a thumb toward the opposite end of the platform. “Maintenance access is that way. Tunnel leads straight to Sector D. More or less.”
Natasha followed his gesture toward the far end of the platform. The access corridor was dimly lit and likely crawling with mildew. It practically smelled like respiratory infection from here. She squinted into the gloom, then looked back at the maintenance worker, raising a brow like she expected him to follow that up with a joke.
“The tunnel’s clear, right?” she asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.
He shrugged. “Might be some Originium slugs in there. Maybe a rodent or two big enough to qualify for a workers’ union. But nothing you can’t handle.”
Natasha dragged a gloved hand down her face and sighed hard. “Right. Fantastic.”
She marched to the maintenance access, climbing the rust-flecked ladder down beneath the station, she landed with a grunt on a grated floor. Ahead of her was a thick industrial door, and beyond that, the tunnels.
The air changed immediately—warmer, heavier, dense with stale humidity and the sharp, faint stench of ozone and rust. It was like breathing through a damp towel. Filtration wasn’t a priority here. Typical.
She stepped forward into a dim corridor where the only working lights were too far apart and too flickery to be useful. She unclipped the angled flashlight on her chest rig, flicked it on, and let the beam cut through the murk. Dust swirled like ash in front of her eyes.
Steam hissed from overhead valves. Thick industrial wires and insulation snaked along the walls like arteries. The further in she went, the more the chill crept up her back, not from cold but from the wrongness of this place—sealed off from civilization, sound, and even smell. Just metal, shadows, and stale air.
The tunnels weren’t made for walking. They were made for workers who already hated their lives. But now, they were Natasha’s scenic route to hell.
She kept walking.
As Natasha pressed deeper into the maintenance tunnel, her flashlight passed over what remained of Ursus iconography—banners, rust-worn plaques, and steel panels embossed with the empire’s twin-headed eagle. Once meant to inspire awe, now barely distinguishable beneath layers of mold, corrosion, and water damage. The metal flaked like burnt paper.
There was probably some poetic, tragic message hidden in there—something about the rotting guts of a bloated empire, about the illusion of control when the fringes are falling apart—but Natasha couldn’t care less. She was too busy praying this tunnel didn’t collapse on her head.
Eventually, the tunnel forked. Three routes. All dark. All equally inviting as a colonoscopy.
A grimy map display buzzed weakly to life at her proximity. Left led to Area 1 – Hydraulics, the ancient system responsible for making Chernobog crawl forward like a wheezing metal beast. Right led to Area 4 – Temperature Control, where steam pressure and infernal heat likely awaited. Straight ahead, Area 2 – Water & Filtration. Her target.
She pushed forward, refusing to look back just in case she did see something. The tunnel sloped downward, and at the base of the ramp, her shoulders sagged. The bottom was submerged, knee-deep, and still spreading.
She stared at the stagnant water and gritted her teeth. “Of course. Water and filtration. Wouldn’t live up to the name if it wasn’t pissing itself all over the floor.”
Maybe if she were in a ballast tank or a pressure chamber, this would make sense, but Chernobog didn’t float. There was no ocean to cross—only frozen dirt and regret. That’s when she saw it: one of the heavy-duty water pipes lining the wall was split wide open.
At first glance, it could’ve been pressure or corrosion. But the rupture was too clean. Too deliberate. Tool marks. Controlled incision.
Sabotage.
Her eyes narrowed.
It wasn’t unheard of. Internal discontent was rising. The infected population had grown bolder lately, and some lunatics might’ve slipped in. But speculation wouldn’t get her dry. The water was still rising, and the power was dead.
She spotted a fuse box on the adjacent wall, just far enough to be annoying and submerged enough to make her nervous.
“Great. Shocking myself to death in a puddle. That’s how I go, huh?”
With a tired grunt, she sat on a dry crate and began unlacing her boots. She tied them together and slung them around her neck. Socks—already damp from the earlier sprinkler incident—were peeled off and tucked inside. She rolled her pants up to her knees and stood with a deep breath, steeling herself.
The first step into the water nearly made her yelp. Ice cold. Not just ‘cold-shower’ cold—this was abandoned-swimming-pool-in-the-icefields cold. She hissed and clenched her fists, legs trembling as she pushed forward. The frigid bite climbed her calves with every sloshing step.
She reached the fuse box, double-checked her hands were dry, then pried it open. It took some fiddling, but finally, with a sharp snap and a mechanical thunk , the lights around the corridor flickered on. Fluorescents buzzed, a few burst out with a loud pop, but the place was finally visible.
Unfortunately, so was the rest of the flooded hallway.
She sighed. “Wonderful. One step forward, four hundred soggy ones to go.”
As she sloshed through the icy corridor, boots hanging around her neck like damp medals of service, she paused mid-step.
The place was silent.
Still.
Dead.
And that’s when it hit her.
She was alone.
Utterly, completely alone.
She grinned.
“Wait. I’m alone… no one can hear me swear.”
She squared her stance, took a deep breath, and let it all out:
“SON OF A BIIIIIII—”
Her voice echoed gloriously through the pipe-rattling hallway. For the first time that day, Natasha felt better.
Not warmer.
Not drier.
But better.
Now, back to business.
She finally waded to the other side of the flooded passage and collapsed onto the dry floor with a grunt. Propping her flashlight against the wall, she sat down and wrestled her soaked socks back onto her half-frozen feet. The boots followed, cold as bricks. As she tightened the laces, a sudden thunk echoed above her, followed by skittering.
She froze, metaphorically.
Her hand instinctively slid to her holster.
No breeze down here. No ventilation, no drafts. That definitely wasn’t just some rusty pipe groaning in sympathy. It could be a rodent. Could be a slug. It could be her nerves getting the better of her.
She stood slowly, grabbed her flashlight, and continued forward—more alert now, eyes flicking to every shadow. Her breath steamed faintly in the cold air, heart thudding.
She reached another security door, the kind made for containment, not convenience. Pressed the button. Thunk-hiss. It opened.
She stepped through.
Another hallway, deeper still.
She checked her phone: 8:38.
She had no idea when she first entered this maze, but it felt like she’d been down here for a goddamn eternity.
At the end of the corridor, the tunnel widened into a larger open space—probably a break area or impromptu storage dump for maintenance crews. Scattered crates, scrap metal, abandoned tools. Nothing moved. Her flashlight beam swept over it all.
The path split again—left and right.
A flickering maintenance map buzzed overhead, barely legible under a layer of grime. Left led to Area 2 —her target. Right went to Area 3, the Sector D dormitories.
She turned left.
And that’s when she heard it.
Fast. Heavy. Boots. Pounding against concrete.
Before she could spin around, something slammed into her with the force of a freight train.
Crack!
Both of them hit the ground. Her back struck the concrete. Her flashlight clattered away, its beam spinning like a panicked lighthouse.
For a second—just a second—they stared at each other.
The man on top of her wore a white, hooded jacket. His face was hidden behind a smooth, expressionless white mask. Featureless. Almost ceramic. Wrong.
He wasn’t maintenance. He wasn’t crew.
He didn’t belong here.
Instinct lit up like a spark in her spine.
She grabbed his shoulders, yanked him forward, and kicked her legs up. A solid toss—he flipped over her, landing hard. Natasha rolled backward onto her feet, drawing her sidearm in one practiced motion.
“FREEZE! ” she barked. “ I SAID—FREEZE!”
The masked man bolted into the opposite hallway, feet pounding the concrete.
She took off after him, breathing hard, pistol raised in one hand, the other yanking at her shoulder-mounted radio.
“This is Lieutenant Medvedeva—pursuing an unidentified suspect, masked male, Area 2 maintenance tunnels—requesting immediate backup!”
Static.
Of course. Radio signals don’t reach this deep. No repeater stations. No coverage. Just her.
Natasha gritted her teeth.
“Fantastic,” she muttered.
She ran faster.
The masked weirdo stumbled on his footing as he rounded the corner—clearly no intention of stopping, and clearly no idea where he was going.
Natasha barreled after him but came to a stop just before the turn. She raised her pistol, gripped with both hands, and took a deep breath. The hallway ahead was dim and narrow. No time for hesitation.
BANG!
The gunshot echoed like a thunderbolt down the corridor.
The bullet tore into the back of the runner’s thigh. He crumpled with a shout of pain, then scrambled back to his feet with a limp, dragging himself down another hallway and out of sight.
Not fast anymore, but still moving.
Natasha was just about to continue her pursuit when she heard it.
A squelching sound above. The sound of slithering.
And then—plop.
Another. Plop. Plop.
From the ceiling, yellow, spike-covered gastropods began raining down like a grotesque hailstorm.
Originium slugs.
Dozens of them.
They dropped like bad omens, their glassy, crystalline shells glinting under the hallway's flickering lights. Some crawled toward her. Others just squirmed, oozing radioactive slime across the floor.
Natasha took a step back, raising her pistol, then paused.
Shooting them would be easy, but every time she fires, it rings her ears, and she has to log every bullet she fires. And these slugs are small, she’d end up missing them. Looks like she’s going to have to do things the old-fashioned way.
With a grumble, she lowered her pistol and reached for the collapsible baton on her belt. A flick of her wrist extended it with a satisfying snap.
Pistol in one hand, baton in the other, she charged into the slug swarm.
CRACK!
One slug shattered under the blow, its shell caving in with a sick crunch.
Another lunged—she punted it with a steel-toed boot, sending it splattering against the far wall.
CRACK. WHACK. SQUISH.
It was like beating toy rodents in a backwoods carnival game. She worked her way through the squirming tide, her boots sliding on slime, baton swinging in rhythm. Her expression remained flat, lips tight, only the glint of focus in her eyes betraying any emotion.
Eventually, silence returned.
Slug guts littered the floor in glistening piles. Natasha stood at the end of the hallway, breathing hard, baton dripping yellow gore.
She looked down—blood. Not hers.
A trail.
She followed it—streaks on the floor, smears on the wall—until it stopped just beneath an open ventilation shaft. Blood still clung to the edge of the grate.
“…Shit.”
He got away.
She stood there for a few moments, hands on her hips, glaring up at the dark hole like it owed her something. Maybe he’d bleed out before reaching help. Maybe not.
Either way, the implications were worse than the mess.
This wasn’t random. This wasn’t bad luck or wear and tear.
The busted pipe. The broken tram. The surging access locks. They weren’t accidents.
And now? There was no longer a “maybe.” There were enemies in the tunnels.
She turned without another word, ignoring the carnage behind her—the cracked shells, the squelching underfoot, the acidic stench—and pressed forward, to Area 2.
Time to report in. The worms were turning.
Natasha retraced her steps down the other hallway, her breathing still ragged. Her baton dripped with slug gore, arm trembling from the relentless swings, muscles aching with every movement. Her ears were still ringing from that single shot she fired in the narrow corridor—a harsh reminder that gunfire in tight spaces has consequences.
So much for a boring shift.
She pushed her pace faster. If she wasn’t alone down here—and that was now a fact —then that masked bastard probably wasn’t either. Backup might be on the way. And she didn’t plan on sticking around for round two without a proper welcoming party.
The tunnel finally opened up to a stairwell leading down—a promising change from the endless claustrophobia. She descended quickly, boots squelching with every step from her soaked pants and socks, until she reached a standard door.
No locks. No scanners. Just a simple push.
Beyond it, another cramped corridor. And then, mercifully, light.
She stepped through one final doorway and into the tram station for Area 2. The brightness made her squint for a moment. The air hit her next—a faint tang of smoke and recycled air.
“Went spelunking there, Lieutenant?”
A lone guard leaned against the wall by a trash can, cigarette dangling from his lips. His tone was casual, but he was already eyeing the filth and slime caked along her boots, the soaked pants, the bruise starting to form on her temple.
Natasha didn’t answer right away. She walked up beside him, her face unreadable. Reaching into her vest pocket, she pulled out her own battered cigarette.
“You got a light?”
The guard nodded, fishing out a cheap plastic lighter. A spark later, she took a long, grateful drag. Smoke filled her lungs, the kind that didn't help anything but somehow made it all a little easier to stomach.
She exhaled and gestured toward the tunnel she’d just emerged from.
“Keep an eye on that door.”
The guard arched a brow. “Rodents?”
“Rodents of unusual size.”
He chuckled until he saw her face.
“How unusual?”
“Big enough to slice a main pipeline and flood a corridor.”
The amusement dropped from his face. His posture straightened. He took one last drag from his own cigarette before flicking it into the ashtray and resting his hand on the grip of his sidearm.
“Understood, lieutenant. I’ll hold this post.”
Natasha gave him a silent nod, snuffed her cigarette in the same tray, and turned away. Her shoulders were heavy, her uniform still wet, and the day was only getting longer.
She stepped off toward Area 2 proper. No time to rest. There was still a job to do.
After pushing through another set of double doors, Natasha descended a winding stairwell, each step drawing her closer to the now-familiar sound of sloshing water. The humidity down here was thicker, clinging to her skin like guilt. On the way, she passed a row of data rooms behind glass windows—technicians in full PPE poking at dials and scribbling half-heartedly on whiteboards. Anyone paying attention could tell they were just putting on a show for the surveillance cameras.
Eventually, Natasha reached a small security checkpoint manned by a lone overseer, his boots kicked up on the desk and a fan oscillating lazily behind him. When he caught sight of her soggy, grime-streaked state, he straightened up immediately.
“Damn, Lieutenant,” he blinked. “What’d you do, take the scenic route?”
“It was anything but scenic,” she grumbled, flicking a bit of dried slug blood off her sleeve.
He let out a chuckle before briefing her. “Alright, so, a couple of workers near the main access lift. The maintenance staff is fully booked and stretched thin. We had to toss that rookie, Yana, at the problem. Rim Billiton transfer. He's over there trying his best.”
Natasha’s brows furrowed. “He’s a bit soft, but he’s determined.”
“Yeah, well,” the guard snorted, “he’s about as useful as a broken jimmy-hat right now.”
She scowled. “Don’t write him off yet.”
“Fair enough. Anyway, just cross the bridge, elevator’s on the other side, past the hydro generator room. One of the techies should be there to meet you.”
“Understood.” She paused, leaning closer to the checkpoint window. Her voice dropped. “One more thing—I need to report something serious.”
The overseer held up a hand, already half-distracted as the desk phone rang beside him. He sighed and answered it.
“Hello—?”
A woman on the other end practically exploded through the receiver. “Okay, how much longer is this going to take?!”
“Ma’am—”
“We’ve been waiting here for an hour!”
“Ma’am, please, chill out, help’s already en route.”
“For real this time?”
“Yes, for real! Why would I joke about this?!” He slammed the receiver down with a groan. “By the Emperor’s beard. You try babysitting her for a whole hour.”
Natasha leaned in again. “Listen. Sergeant. There’s an unauthorized individual down in the maintenance tunnels of Sector D.”
He raised a brow. “It’s probably just a maintenance guy hopped up on caffeine. You know how those 24/7 shifts mess with them.”
She didn’t flinch. “You know any staffers that wear white hoodies and plain white ceramic masks?”
That shut him up.
“… Is this a prank, Lieutenant?”
“Does it look like I’m joking?” Her tone sharpened like a blade. “There's a possible saboteur down there. I need someone on it—now.”
He exhaled hard. “I can’t pull my patrols. They’re already locked into fixed sectors. That’s admin-level clearance. But, I can file a report with Dispatch in Area 1. Maybe they’ll send a squad to sweep the tunnels.”
“Do that. And tell them to be quick. Something’s wrong down there.”
“Got it. I’ll make it sound spooky enough to light a fire under someone.”
She gave him a long look, then nodded reluctantly. “Fine. I’ve got work to do anyway.”
“Wouldn’t want to keep the screaming lady waiting,” he muttered.
Natasha turned and stepped through the security doors, jaw tight. Doubt it’ll matter—if that squad gets there at all, it’ll be late and too light. Whatever’s unfolding in those tunnels, it’s already in motion.
But for now, she had to put that out of her mind. There was a broken elevator, an anxious rookie, and another mess to clean up.
Like always.
As Natasha stepped through the next door, the sloshing of water grew louder—almost thunderous. A few more paces in, and she found herself facing a wide steel bridge suspended above a deep canal. The artificial current below surged like a man-made waterfall, roaring in the echoing depths of Sector D’s underbelly.
She crossed steadily, boots clunking against the metal grate, then stepped into a cluttered storage area on the other side. Crates were stacked high beside idle forklifts. A guard was pushing a trolley while a foreman, dressed in stained reflective coveralls and wielding a battered clipboard, scribbled something that probably wasn’t worth reading.
The guard looked up and grinned. “Hey, Lieutenant! You look like you’ve been through hell.”
“Can’t even begin,” Natasha muttered, not slowing down.
Unfortunately, her reply distracted the man just enough. His grip on the trolley slipped—and it began to roll, slowly but steadily, down a ramp behind him.
The foreman glanced up. “Uh oh.”
“Huh? Oh, shit—no, no, no—!” The guard bolted after it, but too late. The trolley crashed spectacularly into a stack of crates, sending up a plume of dust and packing foam. Natasha didn't even flinch. She kept walking, suppressing a smirk as the guard hung his head in shame. The foreman nonchalantly scratched something on his clipboard. “I’m drawing a blank here,” he muttered to no one in particular.
Natasha didn’t stick around to be blamed. She ducked through a side passage and almost ran into a lone technician in a blue reflective jumpsuit leaning against a crate. The woman glanced at her with mild surprise, then gave a respectful nod.
“Oh. You must be the backup. Glad you made it,” she said, falling into step beside her. “Name’s Oksana.”
“Lieutenant Medvedeva,” Natasha replied tersely.
“Commissioned officers doing maintenance call-outs now? Must be real short up there.”
“I was thinking the same thing about you lot.”
Oksana chuckled. “There’s more nuance than that, Lieutenant. But yes—we’re drowning.”
They arrived at a security door, which groaned and stuttered before sliding clumsily into the floor. Beyond it, a narrow catwalk extended above a cavernous chamber. Massive hydroelectric turbines rotated in deep pits below, vibrating through the metal under their feet. The whole space thrummed with low, mechanical energy.
Natasha looked down at the spinning giants—another piece of tech stamped with Svetlana Petrikov’s impossible brilliance. She remembered hearing about this system during briefing lectures: water-powered energy converters that extract usable power from internal fluid cycles, essentially allowing parts of the city to run semi-independently from the main grid.
It sounded insane when she first heard it. But like most things Svetlana touched, it just worked.
And yet, Natasha mused bitterly, after everything Svetlana had built for the Empire—the weapons, the seemingly impossible tech, the systems—you’d think she’d be retired by now, swimming in her own fortune. But no. Still employed. Still useful.
Then again, Natasha figured the Empire always made back every penny it ever spent on her.
With interest.
Oksana kept talking as they made their way across the catwalk, boots echoing over the turbine hum below. “With all the malfunctions happening down here lately, my buddy Kirill’s been getting real twitchy. Don’t be too hard on him.”
“I wouldn’t call it twitchy. I’d call it appropriate,” Natasha replied, tone flat. “You know what it’s like up there on the surface?”
“Lieutenant, I haven’t seen sunlight since I signed my first paycheck four years ago. But judging by your tone? Not great.”
They reached another security airlock—only to find it jammed. Inside the glass enclosure, a trapped technician glared out, while a maintenance worker crouched at the side panel, absorbed in a mess of exposed wiring.
“I’m not claustrophobic,” the technician muttered, “but I’ve got places to be. How long is this gonna take?”
Oksana groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding. It was working fine just two minutes ago.”
The maintenance worker shrugged without looking up. “Yeah, seems like that’s the punchline today. Sorry, folks, you’ll have to go around. This one’s gonna take a minute.”
“Fantastic,” Oksana muttered.
Natasha was already peeling off toward the alternate route. “No use standing around. Let’s move.”
The adjacent airlock was still functional, thankfully. As they stepped inside and the door began to close behind them, Natasha caught the unmistakable sound of someone’s fingers getting caught in a mechanism, followed by a yelp and a torrent of muffled cursing. The door sealed with a hiss, blocking out the worst of it.
“Guess ‘a minute’ turned into a personal injury claim,” she muttered.
They passed by a squat, boxy Ursus utility car parked against the wall—stamped with a worn-out MAINTENANCE label and a rusting siren awkwardly mounted on top like a toupee.
“First the elevator, now the doors,” Oksana said, arms crossed. “Getting a little scary thinking about what’s gonna break next.”
Natasha exhaled through her nose. “It’s like the whole sector’s falling apart all at once.”
“Could be. I mean, things are always broken—but not this broken.”
Natasha didn’t respond. Not directly. That masked man still lingered in her mind—too calculated, too well-timed. Sabotage wasn’t just a possibility anymore.
She just hoped Oksana didn’t end up figuring that out the hard way.
They rounded the corner, passing an empty glass-walled conference room on the left and a data station on the right, where a lone clerk pretended to look busy with a clipboard.
“Alright, we’re just about there,” Oksana said, her tone laced with relief.
As they neared a doorway, Natasha caught a snippet of conversation between two hydroelectric techs leaning on a nearby railing.
“You hear what’s clogging the intake gate?”
“Unusually large buildup of Originium clusters,” one replied. “But with the filtration system Chief Svetlana built, it shouldn’t be infectious. The barriers catch most of the trace particles.
“Wait, those were Originium clusters? Remind me never to drink from the damn water fountains again. Bottled for me from now on.”
Natasha perked up. Originium buildup in the main flow? That didn’t sound routine. But it wasn’t her department—and sticking her nose where it didn’t belong was a fast track to getting it bitten off. So she let it go… for now.
They stepped into what passed for a waiting area: a concrete-walled nook with flickering overheads, a few dented chairs, a vending machine someone had kicked in, and dead center—a freight elevator that looked more like a cage from a penal colony than a proper lift.
“Well,” Oksana muttered with a faint smirk, “hope this won’t take long. The last guy they sent wasn’t much help. I’d say ‘take your time,’ but we’ve got jobs to do down here.”
Natasha’s gaze hardened, her tone immediately frigid. “How about you keep your sarcasm to yourself and let me do the job. Now, where’s Yana?”
From inside the elevator, a young Cautus man looked up—grey hair ruffled under a hard hat designed to accommodate his long ears, his face streaked with grease. He was hunched beside an open control panel, tools scattered around him, wires sticking out like entrails. A technician—probably Kirill—sat cross-legged on the elevator’s built-in bench, arms folded and visibly unimpressed.
“Haven’t you already tried that?” Kirill drawled, exasperated.
“Wait, I think I’m close, just give me a sec—” Yana muttered, squinting into the panel.
Natasha let out a sharp exhale and stepped into the cage. Oksana stayed behind, arms crossed, leaning against the wall like she was watching a sitcom.
“Yana,” Natasha said, voice calm but knife-edged, “step aside.”
Yana’s eyes widened. He bolted upright, nearly knocking his helmet off, and threw a salute that looked like muscle memory smothered by panic.
“Lieutenant! I’m honestly glad you’re here.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she replied coolly. “This is the sort of mess that gets you written up. If your supervisor has to be sent to back you up, that’s a black mark on your record. Now get out of the lift, we’ll talk later.”
Ears drooping, face burning, Yana muttered, “Yes, ma’am,” and gathered his tools. He didn’t even meet her eyes as he shuffled out, head lowered like a hound that broke several dishes.
Kirill huffed. “About time. We don’t get paid to sit around and wait.”
Natasha didn’t even look up. “We hardly get paid at all, pencil-neck.”
Kirill rolled his eyes with force. “Whatever. Just fix this thing so we can finish our shift without dying of old age.”
Approaching the open panel, Natasha muttered, “Yeah, well, I’d rather be at home drinking hot cocoa… but my boyfriend’s on a three-day shift and I’m on idiot duty.”
Natasha crouched before the elevator panel, eyes scanning the wiring. Nothing looked burned, crossed, or fried—though she was half-expecting Yana’s meddling to have made it worse. She double-checked the connections, let out a quiet hmph, then began screwing the panel shut with her multitool.
Once the panel clicked back into place, the lights flickered on. A promising start. She pressed the button for subspace level 3.
The elevator rattled
Doors slid shut.
A low whir sounded… followed by a hollow thunk. Then the doors opened again.
Kirill, arms folded like a smug statue, snarked, “Rookie kept hitting that same button. Elevator just sits there and wheezes.”
“Yeah, it’s a real diva,” Oksana added dryly. “Only works when it feels like it.”
Natasha ignored them both. The panel wasn’t the problem. If the electronics were functional, that left one possibility: insufficient power. But in a hydroelectric sector that could run half the deck independently, why was there a power shortage?
She muttered, “I’ll be right back.”
Without waiting for a response, she stepped out of the lift. Sure enough, Yana was parked on a waiting bench, hunched over like a scolded schoolboy, nervously spinning his multitool between his fingers.
She walked up, raised a hand, and gave the back of his helmet a light, disciplinary tap.
Clang! “Ow—! Oh, Lieutenant!” Yana straightened, flustered. “Sorry—I was just, uh, cooling off.”
“When you were fiddling with that elevator,” Natasha said, “did you notice anything?”
“Uh, it… wouldn’t go anywhere?”
“And why do you think that might be?”
“Uhhh…”
“Nothing comes to mind?”
“...No, ma’am.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ugh. Come on. You're with me.”
Yana scrambled to his feet, trailing after her. They moved down a dim corridor that led to a heavy, secure door labeled LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE ACCESS. She slides her ID through, and the reader blinked green—her clearance pinged immediately. She barely glanced at it.
A few paces in, they passed another security door, this one slightly ajar. A peeling sign read: MAINTENANCE SUB-STATION.
Natasha froze. Pointed. “You come through here earlier?”
Yana blinked. “No, ma’am. It wasn’t open when I got here. Maybe one of the day shift crew?”
Or maybe not.
Her eyes narrowed. Her memory flashed: the saboteur’s white hood, the ceramic mask, the deliberate damage to the pipeline. This door wasn’t just ajar, it was inviting.
She drew in a slow breath. “Keep a hand on your holster. Eyes open. Stay behind me.”
Yana swallowed hard but gave a sharp nod. “Got it, Lieutenant.”
Natasha reached for the door.
Her fingers paused just short of the handle.
Natasha swung the door open.
A dimly lit maintenance room greeted them. Directly ahead: a ladder leading up to a narrow catwalk. Rust clung to the railings like a second coat of paint, and the air buzzed faintly with low-voltage hums from deeper within.
She stepped up to the ladder, Yana close behind.
“Don’t ogle too much, Yana,” she quipped as she started climbing.
“W-What? I—I would never!” His ears twitched with embarrassment.
She chuckled under her breath, amused by how easily flustered he still was.
They reached the catwalk. On either side were locked security doors—no doubt access points to the deeper tunnels of Sector D. But straight ahead, a side corridor lay open, faintly humming with energy.
The generator room.
They entered, switching on their chest-mounted flashlights. Twin beams cut through the dark, revealing the guts of the system: an old electrical box bolted into the wall beside an industrial power socket.
The power cable meant to connect them to the generator? Unplugged. Lying limp on the floor like a corpse.
Natasha sighed through her nose. “Well, would you look at that…”
She extended a hand toward Yana. “Give me your electrical gloves.”
“R-Right!” He quickly unhooked the gloves from his belt and passed them to her. “But… who would remove the cord in the first place? I mean, who unplugs an elevator?”
She slid off her tactical gloves and pulled on the protective pair. “Grand Ursus engineering. Barely enough redundancy to get a vending machine working, let alone a lift.”
“But… why power the elevator through a plug in the first place?”
She shot him a look. “Welcome to internal city design.”
Then her voice lowered, a little sharper. “And this wasn’t an accident. Someone’s been snooping around.”
Yana stiffened. “Should we report it?”
“I already did. But knowing Dispatch, they’ll send a sweep team in five to ten business days. You ever see those job request papers for 'urgent' tasks from three months ago? Exactly.”
His eyes darted around the dark corners of the room. “I’ll keep an eye out, ma’am.”
“Good.” She stepped over to the power cord and shoved it into the socket.
CRACK! A fat spark exploded from the socket. Yana flinched hard.
A second later, the generator let out a steady whirrrr—the sound of power returning.
Natasha peeled off the gloves and shoved them into Yana’s chest as she passed. “Next time you hit a wall, don’t just keep doing the same thing. That’s not diligence. That’s insanity. Step back. Look around. Try something else.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Yana nodded, clearly trying to fold his arms but failing to look confident while doing it. “I guess I just panicked. I didn’t want to screw it up…”
“‘Panic’ isn’t an excuse,” she cut him off, already climbing down the ladder. “Pressure is part of the job. If you can’t make decisions under it, someone’s gonna die. That’s not hyperbole.”
Yana swallowed hard and followed. “Understood. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She jumped down the last few rungs and held the door open. “Be better.”
They returned to the elevator.
Oksana and Kirill looked far more relaxed than before, seated comfortably. Judging by the hum of the systems, they'd heard the power come back online.
“We heard a jolt earlier,” Oksana said with a nod. “I take that as a sign the grown-up fixed it.”
“Great,” Kirill added without looking up from his newspaper. “Now can we get on with it? I’ve got an urgent report on the soul-crushing topic of how much electricity we produced today.”
Natasha stepped up to the elevator panel but noticed Yana wasn’t following.
“You coming?”
Yana clipped his pager back onto his belt. “No, ma’am. Just got a call, ironically, one of the vending machines in the staff breakroom crapped out. But I think I can handle this one… myself.”
Natasha smirked. “Don’t make me come over there.”
He chuckled nervously and scurried off down the hallway. Probably relieved to be dismissed before he put his foot in his mouth again.
Turning back to the others, she asked, “What floor?”
“Subspace Level 2. Offices,” Kirill grunted.
She hit the button. The doors closed with a mechanical hiss, and after a pause, the elevator jerked upward. Natasha shifted slightly as the subtle pressure change hit her ears. Her stomach gave a small lurch. Still not used to these deep-deck lifts.
The elevator climbed. Kirill rustled his newspaper again. Oksana tapped her phone. Natasha kept her eyes on the narrow window, watching the numbered sectors tick past in faded stencil on concrete walls.
HYDROELECTRICITY LEVEL 5.
Then came the rattle. The elevator shuddered. Lights flickered. Everything slowed to a stop.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kirill muttered, his head lolling back like a man betrayed by gravity itself.
Then came the voice.
“WARNING: ELECTRICAL FLUCTUATIONS DETECTED. MAIN POWER GRID EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED. BACKUP POWER ONLINE.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Oksana said flatly.
“Oh, by the Emperor’s greasy beard,” Kirill groaned. “It’s the Sector E eggheads again, I swear to the great deities above.”
“How can you be so sure?” Oksana raised an eyebrow.
Kirill slapped his newspaper in her face like it was evidence in a court trial. “Look at this! Weather bulletin. Catastrophe messengers are already detecting unusual fluctuations. Probably another cold snap—happens every other week. But Sector E? They panic and redline the reactor. All while still poking that cursed box they unearthed two decades ago like it's a damn science fair project.”
Oksana blinked. “You mean the Sarcophagus?”
“I mean the glorified Originium time bomb they keep on display like it’s a tourist attraction. Why, I’d be surprised if there’s at least one capable mind in that entire sector.”
Natasha turned to face him, one brow arched. “And you don’t count Chief Svetlana among the capable minds in Sector E?”
That shut Kirill up for a full three seconds.
“Why are you so angry?” Oksana asked, folding her arms.
Kirill threw his hands in the air. “Because I bought into the hype, alright? How can I not be? I studied my ass off in Deity Grypherburg! I wanted to invest in power sources that don’t require Originium. Then I land a job here, and what do I do? Babysit a hydro generator and fill out paperwork that no one reads. I spend more time waiting for elevators than I do actual important work.”
“Oh come on, your work is important,” Oksana said, but it didn’t have much bite.
Before anyone could say more, a low rumble vibrated through the elevator shaft. The lights flickered again—worse this time—and the lift groaned as it came to a full, uneasy stop.
Natasha stiffened.
That wasn’t just a mechanical fault. That felt like something big.
Her hand instinctively went to her pistol. Something deep inside her gut twisted. And this time, she didn’t ignore it.
“Ugh. Stuck again?” Oksana muttered, slumping slightly in her seat, her exhaustion bleeding into every word.
“Of course we are,” Kirill replied, his tone as dry and bitter as week-old coffee.
The elevator gave a low groan, rattling ominously as the lights dimmed again, then flickered in a stuttering pattern that set everyone on edge. Without warning, a deep, grinding rumble rolled through the shaft, and the whole lift shuddered violently. Natasha was nearly thrown off balance, barely managing to catch herself by grabbing the safety railing.
She cursed under her breath, trying to steady her heartbeat. “What the hell was that?”
“M-Maybe it short-circuited?” Oksana offered weakly, gripping her seat.
Kirill only rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that day. “Oh sure, right. Just like everything else around here.”
The elevator lurched again with a shrill whine, followed by a slow, reluctant upward crawl. The cables above them groaned under the strain, like some great beast being forced to move when it would rather die.
“Maybe the system just needed to, I don’t know... adjust to backup power?” Oksana suggested, more hopeful than certain.
Neither Natasha nor Kirill looked even remotely convinced.
Then it hit again.
Another low rumble—this one sharper, more focused. The elevator rocked hard. Oksana let out a startled yelp as she nearly slid from her seat, while Natasha’s white-knuckled grip on the railing tightened. Her combat instincts were screaming at her now.
“That sounded like an explosion!” Kirill said, voice rising in alarm.
Natasha’s stomach dropped. “What the fuck is going on?”
Before anyone could answer, the warning klaxons erupted—harsh, grating alarms echoing through the shaft like banshee wails. A shrill fire alarm followed close behind, adding to the cacophony.
As the elevator crawled past another floor, light spilled in from the open catwalk—and that’s when the automated PA system kicked in.
“WARNING: SECURITY BREACH DETECTED IN SECTOR E AND SECTOR D, AREAS 1, 2, AND 4. SECURITY TEAMS, ACT IMMEDIATELY.”
Oksana gasped. “A security breach? By who?!”
Natasha’s pulse surged. Her jaw clenched, and she swallowed down the panic rising in her throat. The saboteur. The bastard she let go with just a single shot. Whatever he had been doing in the tunnels, it was now erupting into full-blown disaster—and she was stuck in a goddamn elevator.
Through the elevator’s window, they saw two riot-armored guards sprint across the catwalk, SMGs clutched tightly in their gloved hands.
“Move it, Nikolai! Come on!” one of them shouted as they disappeared into the corridor beyond.
“Shit, shit, shit!” the other yelled, barely keeping pace.
Natasha scanned the control panel with wide eyes. They were still only at subspace level 3. She slammed her hand against the wall in frustration.
“This is the slowest goddamn elevator I’ve ever been in! Can this thing go any faster?!”
Kirill was nearly hyperventilating now. “What is going on here?! What the hell is this?!”
“I have no fucking idea!” Natasha snapped, reaching for her shoulder-mounted radio. She clicked into the command frequency, her voice sharp with urgency. “This is Lieutenant Medvedeva! What the hell is happening?! Come in!”
Nothing. Just static. Loud, useless static.
She hissed through her teeth and shoved the radio aside. “Fantastic.”
The elevator rattled its way into another level, crawling toward what was supposed to be their destination—Subspace Level 2. But even before it came to a full stop, the view from the elevator’s window made Natasha’s heart seize.
It overlooked a warehouse floor in utter chaos. A squad of security personnel stormed the catwalk above, rifles in hand, quickly taking up defensive positions along the railing. Below them, warehouse workers abandoned their stations and scattered toward the exits like startled livestock, red strobe lights flashing wildly and bathing the space in a pulsing crimson glow.
On the catwalk, a commanding officer in a peaked cap barked rapid-fire orders, his voice barely audible over the alarms. Three riot guards peeled off from his squad, descending to the floor below, shields raised high as they tried to push through the confusion.
Then came the ding. The elevator doors groaned and juddered open.
And the world on the other side was a waking nightmare.
The hallway was littered with bodies—security officers torn apart, many hacked or stomped to death. Blood smeared across the walls and pooled beneath broken limbs. And doing the butchery? A mob of figures in white hoodies and blank, bone-white ceramic masks. That same faceless horror from earlier.
Natasha didn’t hesitate. Her pistol was in her hand before the doors were fully open.
“Back! Stay back, you savages!” a lone guard screamed from the corridor. He stood at the threshold, covering the elevator entrance, his sidearm all he had against eight masked attackers bearing down on him with stolen batons and blades.
One of them rushed from the left—CRACK. The guard nailed him right between the eyes, shattering his mask and dropping him instantly. Another bent down to drag the body away—CRACK—another clean shot.
Oksana shrieked behind Natasha, and Kirill recoiled, hands over his ears. But Natasha stepped forward, cool and precise. One attacker came in from the guard’s right. Crack. Natasha put a bullet in his gut.
The guard glanced back, wild-eyed. Natasha waved him in. “Move! Get in here, now!”
But before he could take a step, a blur of motion slashed into view—a tall figure with a long, curved blade. He crashed in from the adjacent hallway, plunging his weapon deep into the guard’s side. The man doubled over with a choked grunt, eyes wide in disbelief.
“No!” Natasha fired at the swordsman, hitting him square in the cheek. He stumbled, but kept coming.
Five of the masked bastards started kicking the wounded guard, stomping him even as he tried to crawl away. The swordsman rose again, face twisted under his cracked mask, his gait unsteady but unstoppable, driven by some obscene inner fire.
Natasha shot again, this time center mass. He flinched but didn’t drop.
“Shit!” she snarled. She emptied the rest of her magazine into him as he charged the elevator, one round after another hammering his chest. When her pistol clicked dry, the man still advanced.
Then—slam. The elevator doors shut.
The banging began almost immediately. Loud, vicious pounding, as fists and weapons battered the steel doors like the jaws of a closing trap.
Oksana was white as a sheet, trembling. “Who the hell are they?! What do they want ?!”
“This doesn’t make any sense!” Kirill stammered and kept his finger firmly on the “>|<” button. “How the fuck did they breach this part of the facility so fast? This is—this is madness!”
Before he could finish, the elevator panel sparked violently. A flare of electric light surged from the controls.
Kirill convulsed.
He let out a distorted shriek, arms flailing, then collapsed with a sickening thud. His body twitched on the floor, the acrid stench of scorched flesh and ozone filling the cramped elevator.
“KIRILL!” Oksana screamed, diving to his side, eyes wide in horror.
Natasha stood frozen for a second, heart hammering in her chest, her ears still ringing from gunfire and alarms. Her pistol was empty. The lights were flickering. There was a small army of madmen outside the door, and now, whatever electrical issue was affecting the whole facility had just claimed one of her own.
Her jaw clenched. Whatever was happening down here, it had just escalated into open war.
Natasha knelt beside Oksana, watching her frantically perform CPR on Kirill’s limp body. Her hands pressed rhythmically against his chest, her breathing erratic from panic, but Natasha’s eyes kept straying toward the chaos unfolding just beyond the elevator's window.
Below, warehouse and maintenance workers scrambled like rodents in a flood, chased down by packs of those white-hooded psychopaths, and worse, feral-looking hounds with glowing red eyes and spittle-drenched jaws. One worker tripped and was immediately dragged down, his screams sharp and short-lived as the beasts tore into him. The mob surged behind them, flailing with machetes, scavenged tools, and crude clubs.
Up on the catwalks, the security detail was being overrun. Their bolt-actions and peashooter SMGs barked frantically, cutting down some of the attackers, but it was like trying to shovel snow in a blizzard. Every time a mask fell, two more surged forward.
And then the fire started.
Firebombs rained down, glass shattering and flames spreading like bloodstains across catwalks, shipping crates, and floor tarps. Smoke filled the air. Screams now competed with sirens.
From behind the overwhelmed guards, new figures emerged—robed, lithe, unmistakably feminine in build. Their black garments shimmered like oil slicks, their hands glowing with raw, crackling Arts energy.
Natasha’s gut dropped.
The robed figures raised their arms and hurled glowing orbs of power into the fray. Explosions of force and heat sent guards flying, their body armor melting away like paper in a furnace. A few were thrown from the catwalk entirely, landing on steel crates with sickening finality.
Then the floodgates truly opened.
More masked maniacs stormed the catwalks themselves, charging headlong into gunfire. Some fell quickly, but the guards, outnumbered and outgunned, ran dry. Natasha saw one try to reload his bolt-action and take a machete to the chest before he could finish cycling the bolt.
She was still frozen when Oksana snapped.
“Don’t just stand there! Do something!”
That broke the spell.
Natasha’s eyes darted to her kit—no defibrillator, of course. But her gaze snapped to the wall—there. An emergency unit is embedded in the elevator. She bolted for it, yanked it free, and slid back to Kirill’s side.
Yulian had taught her to use AEDs. One of the few things she was grateful for. She tore open Kirill’s coveralls, slapped the pads onto his chest, and braced to administer the shock.
But she paused. Not out of hesitation, but because something moved above them.
She looked up.
There, through the grated top of the elevator, stood another white-hooded figure, mask featureless. He was wielding a fire axe. And he was standing near the primary suspension cables.
Natasha’s stomach turned to ice.
“Oh, shit.”
She raised her pistol—but couldn’t get the angle. Not from inside.
The bastard knew it.
Instead of fighting fate, Natasha did the only thing she could.
She dropped onto her back, arms flat beside her.
“I highly suggest you brace yourself!” she shouted.
Oksana turned to her in disbelief, tears streaking down her cheeks. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“This is gonna be bad! ”
The axe came down.
WHANG. The elevator shook violently. Oksana screamed.
Another swing. SNAP.
The cable gave.
The elevator lurched violently. Natasha’s stomach shot into her throat as gravity vanished. The world tilted sideways. Sparks shrieked along the walls as the elevator plummeted, metal grinding against metal, the emergency brakes offline. The entire cab howled like a wounded beast as it dropped, faster and faster.
Oksana curled into a ball, sobbing uncontrollably. The noise was deafening—alarms, screaming metal, and the monstrous wind of descent. Natasha held on to the railing, gritting her teeth so hard she thought they'd crack. Her vision swam.
Then—
A crash. A bang. Metal shrieked. And—
Everything went black.
...
Chapter 3: Caught in Headlights
Summary:
The rookie Cautus guard, Yana, just as much of an unwitting victim as everyone else in the security breach, has to navigate himself through the suddenness of the attack in order to survive.
Chapter Text
As the elevator rattled upward toward the higher decks, Yana’s belt pager chimed with a sharp, tinny ping. He glanced down, frowning. The alert summoned him to one of the staff break rooms—apparently, a vending machine had given up the ghost again.
This, he told himself, was his chance. His chance to do something right, to redeem himself after the humiliation with the elevator earlier. Fixing a vending machine wasn’t glamorous, but it was something he could handle. Hopefully.
The corridor he stepped into was lit by the usual tired strip lights that buzzed faintly overhead. As he made his way down, he slowed when he saw a hydroelectric engineer trapped in one of the airlocks, pounding the glass with the palm of his hand. On the far side, three maintenance workers strained at the emergency release, faces flushed, boots braced against the steel frame.
Yana froze, gawking. His ears twitched as he blinked in bewilderment at the scene. The trapped engineer noticed, and his expression twisted with irritation.
“Are you here to help?” the man barked.
Yana flinched. “Um, no, I just—”
“Then get out of here and stop staring at me!”
“Okay, okay, geez…” Yana backed away, scratching at the back of his head as his tail drooped. “Why is everyone so hostile in this environment?”
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t noticed it before. Ever since he’d started working here, a few weeks back, the atmosphere had been suffocating. Berated for the smallest mistakes, talked down to because he was a Cautus in a facility staffed mostly by Ursus—every interaction seemed to bruise him a little more. He tried reminding himself this was better than the mines back in Rim Billiton, but that was a weak comfort. Both jobs meant being buried underground, but somehow working as a technician felt more stressful than busting his back against the rock face.
Shaking off the thought, he reached a junction where four corridors split in different directions. A security kiosk sat at the corner, manned by a guard in a crumpled uniform. Yana hesitated, then stepped up.
“Um, excuse me?” he asked carefully.
The guard lowered his newspaper with the same enthusiasm someone might reserve for swatting a fly. He rolled his eyes. “What? What is it?”
“I, uh, I was called to fix a vending machine in a staff break room,” Yana explained, clutching the strap of his tool belt. “Could you point me to the right hallway?”
Before the guard could answer, a deep rumble shook the floor. Yana felt it reverberate through his boots, up into his ribs. The overhead lights flickered, buzzing madly, then steadied again as if nothing had happened.
“W-what was that?” Yana’s voice cracked despite his effort to sound casual.
The guard sighed like a man who’d seen this a hundred times before. “Probably the Sector E eggheads again. They do this all the time—experiments, system calibrations, or whenever the city needs to shift position. Nothing to worry about.”
Yana wasn’t convinced. His ears twitched, and he swallowed the unease knotting in his throat. Focus on the job. Just fix the machine.
“Right. Okay. So… where exactly is the staff break room?”
The guard jabbed a thumb toward the left-hand corridor. “Nearest one’s down that way. Look for the door with a plaque that says ‘break room.’ The request came from there.”
“Got it.” Yana turned, but then the guard spoke again.
“Use your pager, genius. It pinpoints the location.”
“My what?” Yana blinked and pulled the pager off his belt.
“Top right corner—twist the knob,” the guard instructed, already lifting his newspaper again.
Yana fiddled with the device, turning the knob until the clunky interface shifted into a grainy digital floor plan. His eyes widened as a small glowing waypoint appeared, blinking steadily down the left corridor.
“Oh wow…”
“Yeah. Now get to work.” The guard waved him off without looking up.
Clutching the pager, Yana hurried on, now finally aware of where to go. But even as his boots carried him toward the break room, the uneasy rumble still echoed in the back of his mind. Something was wrong here—he just didn’t know what yet.
Yana flushed with embarrassment when he realized his pager had a map function the entire time. He hadn’t been given proper training on the thing—hadn’t been given training on much of anything, if he was being honest. The device wasn’t even supposed to be his to toy with; someone had simply clipped it onto his uniform when he clocked in and told him to “get to work.” He’d been expected to figure out the rest on his own.
If he’d known about that map function earlier, half his headaches in this labyrinth of corridors could’ve been avoided.
Two technicians walked past him as he mulled this over. By seniority, they were supposed to be his mentors, or at the very least his colleagues. Remembering the etiquette drilled into him, Yana gave them a polite wave in greeting. Both men returned only with baffled looks, as if his existence itself was an insult, and kept walking. His ears drooped.
The plaque for the staff break room came into sight at last. Relief welled up—until the floor shuddered again. A heavy rumble reverberated through the hall, and this time the overhead lights snapped off completely. For a few heartbeats, he stood in absolute blackness, his pulse hammering so hard it filled his ears. Then the power stuttered back on in a harsh white glare.
An automated voice rang from the PA, clinical and cold:
“WARNING: ELECTRICAL FLUCTUATIONS DETECTED. MAIN POWER GRID EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED. BACKUP POWER ONLINE.”
“The main power’s out?” Yana whispered to himself. His throat felt dry. He forced the thought away and swallowed down the panic. He had a job to do. He needed to look like he belonged here, even if every fiber of him screamed otherwise. Bracing himself, he pushed open the door.
The break room reeked of stale coffee and smoke. What was meant as a space for employees had clearly been claimed by security personnel. Six guards lounged about, sprawled across couches or leaning against walls, while only a few technicians and researchers hovered at the periphery. The TV blared an Ursus soap opera—bad acting, overwrought monologues, the kind that seemed to run on endless loops—occasionally swapped out for an imported Higashi cartoon with mangled subtitles.
The kitchenette was a sad little corner: a microwave that looked more overworked than Yana himself, a fridge humming with a death rattle, and two vending machines pressed up against its side. On the coffee table sat a box of state-issued pastries. He’d tried one once—rough as bricks, hard as bricks, and about as edible as bricks.
A haze of cigarette smoke clung to the ceiling, pulled sluggishly toward an exhaust fan in the far corner. Just standing near it made Yana want to cough.
The real commotion was by the vending machine. One of the guards was squaring up with it like an opponent in the ring, fist raised. An engineer tried to intervene, voice tight with panic.
“Violence solves nothing!” the engineer snapped.
But it was too late. The guard drove his fist into the machine with a loud clunk . Something rattled violently inside, and then—miraculously—cans began to tumble out. One, two, three, four, five. They rolled across the floor, hissing softly as they settled.
The guard turned with a smug grin, gesturing grandly to the spoils. “Drink up.”
“This is not how civilized beings are supposed to act!” the engineer shouted, throwing up his hands before storming off.
Yana closed his eyes and drew in a steadying breath. If the vending machine had been malfunctioning before, it was well and truly broken now. He resisted the childish urge to crawl under a table and disappear. Instead, he stepped forward, clutching his tools tighter.
“So… what seems to be the problem?” he asked cautiously.
The guard scoffed. “No problem, techie. I just fixed it.”
“Or broke it worse than it already was,” Yana muttered under his breath. He raised his voice. “What was the problem before you… handled it?”
“It ate my quarter and took too long to drop the soda. Then the power went out, so I figured it jammed. I punched it a few times, and now it works again. You’re welcome.”
Yana sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let me check it. And if anything inside is broken, you’ll have to pay for the damages.”
The guard leaned close, brushing against him as he passed. “Oh? My word against yours, eh? I fancy my chances.” He gave Yana a rough shoulder check as he walked away, chuckling. “Remember where you stand, techie.”
Yana staggered slightly, his ears burning with humiliation. For a bitter moment, he wished the elevator had electrocuted him earlier when he’d been tinkering with it. But daydreams wouldn’t fix the vending machine. He kept his head down, swallowed the sting, and got to work.
Yana didn’t have the vending machine key. Technically, he had a lockpick tool on his belt, but after the guard’s smug warning, he could already imagine how this would play out: He touched it, it broke, and now it’s his fault. Still, standing there like an idiot wasn’t an option.
He shot the guard a final look of disgust, then crouched down and pulled the tool from his kit. A few careful twists, pushes, and pulls later— crack —the latch gave way. The door swung open with a metallic groan.
Inside, the problem revealed itself immediately. A mechanism had twisted loose, lodged halfway out of place, still clinging to the soda cans it was supposed to dispense. Yana deliberately avoided the coin and bill compartments, leaving no chance for anyone to accuse him of stealing. He gathered the scattered cans, stacking them neatly to one side. Against his better judgment, he slipped one into his tool bag—but, guiltily, he fed the machine a coin for it anyway.
Hunched over, his ears flicking nervously every time the machine gave a metallic pop , he was so focused that the next rumble barely registered. By now, the tremors had become background noise. But then it came again—harder, sharper. The kind of sound that carried through the floor and into the bones.
This time, everyone in the break room froze.
Yana’s hands stilled. He glanced up at the ceiling as if the plaster tiles might hold the answer. The lamps rattled violently with another concussion. It didn’t sound like mechanical strain—it sounded like an explosion.
His breathing quickened. His hands trembled as he slammed the vending machine door shut. Fixed or not, it didn’t matter anymore.
A technician’s panicked voice broke the silence. “WHAT’S GOING ON?!”
“Calm down!” barked the same guard who’d shoulder-checked Yana earlier. He jumped to his feet, rallying his squad. “Boys, on your feet! Might be some kind of accident.”
“Oh really? What tipped you off, genius?” Yana muttered under his breath. If anyone heard him, the sarcasm was swallowed up by the sudden wail of klaxons.
The lights stuttered violently. Then the fire alarm shrieked. A woman outside screamed, high and piercing—and finally the PA system roared to life with its cold, inhuman voice:
“WARNING: SECURITY BREACH DETECTED IN SECTOR E AND SECTOR D, AREAS 1, 2, AND 4. SECURITY TEAMS, ACT IMMEDIATELY.”
“Security breach?!” Yana shouted. “What security breach?!”
The guards didn’t answer. They were already storming out of the break room, weapons drawn, boots hammering against the floor. The remaining technicians and researchers were left behind in terror, clinging to each other, or scrambling toward hiding places—lockers, bathrooms, anywhere that felt like shelter.
Yana just stood there, frozen, like a beast caught in the headlamps of an oncoming truck. His heart pounded so hard it felt like a sledgehammer breaking through his ribs. He stumbled back until he hit the kitchenette counter.
You’re supposed to be security, a voice in his head whispered. You’re supposed to do something. But he wasn’t a real guard—not anymore. He was “security maintenance,” the polite term for spare parts. He had no weapon, no training for a “breach,” whatever that meant. Just a belt full of tools and the kind of courage that was fast draining from his body.
“Hey!”
The shout snapped him back. One of the service techs glared at him, jabbing a finger toward the door. “You’re a security guard, right? What the hell are you still doing here? Get out there!”
Yana opened his mouth, but no words came. He didn’t have the nerve to argue. His legs quivered like they wanted to buckle, but somehow he pushed himself toward the door. Two researchers shoved him the rest of the way out, and behind him came the scrape of furniture against tile. They were barricading the break room shut.
“Ah, fantastic,” Yana muttered, staring at the closed door behind him. Alone, unarmed, and terrified, he had no choice but to face whatever was coming.
The klaxons wailed overhead, shrill and relentless. The lights still burned, but Yana’s sensitive Cautus ears picked up far more than the alarms. He heard the chaos bleeding through the corridors: the crash of breaking metal, the pounding of boots, shouts twisted by anger and terror, the snap of gunfire from Internal Security’s rifles. Each sound struck like a hammer against his skull, battering his nerves until his vision blurred at the edges.
He staggered forward, tears he hadn’t even noticed streaking down his cheeks, and slammed his shoulder into the wall. Sliding down, he curled in on himself, clutching the sides of his head, pulling his long ears down to muffle the world. The noise wouldn’t stop. The fear wouldn’t stop.
A rough yank on his shoulder jolted him upright. Blinking through the blur, he looked up into the visor of a riot-helmeted guard. The man was a wall of armor: Ursus standard-issue riot gear, a heavy shield that looked almost bigger than Yana, and a brutal steel mace strapped across his chest.
“Kid, what the hell are you doing?” The guard shook him hard, voice muffled through the helmet but sharp with urgency. “I know it’s scary—hell, it’s gonna get worse —but there’s no time for a breakdown. Now get up!”
Yana swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded weakly. He grabbed the man’s gloved hand, hauling himself upright, forcing his lungs to take in one deep breath after another.
“What’s going on, sir?”
“I don’t know!” the guard snapped. “I was deployed as soon as the second rumble hit. Got my gear on, headed out with my squad toward the dam—and then it all went to shit. Some weirdo fucks in white masks and hoodies came outta the goddamn walls and took them out.”
Yana’s eyes widened. “What?!”
“I don’t fucking know!” The guard shoved him lightly toward the hall. “Listen—we’re heading to the checkpoint up ahead. From there we can call for reinforcements. You with me, kid?”
“Yes, sir. Uh… do you have a weapon for me?”
The man shot him a look that could curdle milk, then gestured at the tool harness hanging from Yana’s belt. “Use your fucking tools, kid. Whack ‘em on the head when they get too close.”
“I—I’ve never used them on a person before, sir! Slugs, sure, but—”
“Doesn’t matter!” the guard barked. “It’s either you let them kill you, or you kill them.”
Yana’s stomach turned. He gulped down bile, reached for the pipe wrench on his belt, and tightened his grip around the cold steel. His knuckles went white. “Got it, sir. Lead the way.”
The guard gave him a curt nod. “By the way—what’s your name?”
“Yana, sir. Sector C. Security maintenance.”
“Maintenance, huh? Great. You got your pager with you?”
Yana blinked. “Uh, yes sir?”
“Good. Don’t lose it. That thing’s got more uses than just pinging you when someone can’t work the fucking coffee machine. You’ll see. But enough fucking around—move!”
Yana followed close behind, his head constantly swiveling as they pressed forward. The chaos around them didn’t quiet — if anything, the noise grew sharper with every step. Screams and gunfire echoed down the corridors, but for all the terror rattling through his nerves, Yana felt a fragile comfort in the presence of the armored guard beside him.
They reached the security checkpoint at last. But the kiosk was eerily empty. No overseer. No sentries. Not even the officer Yana had spoken to just minutes earlier.
The older guard strode to the door, testing the handle. Locked. He grunted irritably and muttered, “Coward must’ve locked himself inside. Hey, Yana — you’ve got those fancy lockpicks, right?”
Yana nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Handle it.”
Dropping to a crouch, Yana worked the tools with trembling fingers. He forced his mind away from the screams echoing through the sector and focused on the stubborn mechanism before him. His ears twitched at every sound, but his eyes stayed glued to the lock. Twist. Pressure. Release.
There was a sharp snap as the tumblers gave way. The door clicked open. Yana exhaled in relief — just in time to nearly die.
“Watch out!” the guard barked.
Yana spun, eyes wide, as a tall figure surged out of the shadows — face hidden beneath a blank white mask and a matching coloured hood. A machete gleamed overhead.
Instinct saved him; Yana flung himself backward, scrambling away on his hands and heels. The guard intercepted, slamming his massive shield into the attacker’s chest with a bone-rattling crash.
The masked man staggered but didn’t fall. The guard swung his mace twice in a brutal arc, but the attacker twisted aside and ducked low. The weapon smashed into the wall, embedding deep in the metal plating.
Yana staggered upright, wrench clutched tight in his sweaty palm. His instincts screamed at him to help, but he froze. If he struck blindly, he might just cripple his ally instead. His hesitation rooted him in place.
The guard wrenched at his stuck mace, but the masked man struck first. A savage kick slammed into the shield, hurling him back and ripping the weapon free of his arm. The shield clattered to the floor, discarded as the masked man seized it and threw it aside.
The guard, undeterred, lashed out with a fist. His haymaker connected solidly against the mask, snapping the assailant’s head to the side. For a heartbeat, Yana thought it might be enough.
But the attacker straightened almost immediately, blood dripping beneath the mask, and drove forward again. He slipped under the guard’s follow-up swing and hacked viciously at his knee. The older man crumpled with a strangled cry, dropping to one leg.
Then came the killing blow. The machete flashed down across the back of his neck, and the guard collapsed, barely clinging to life. The masked man didn’t hesitate. One more stroke, and the head rolled free, leaving the body in a twitching heap.
Yana stood rooted in place, wrench shaking in his grip. His mind reeled, heart pounding against his ribs. He had done nothing. He had just watched a man die before his eyes.
Nearly blinded by the veil of tears stinging his eyes, Yana could barely comprehend what had just happened. The older guard’s body still twitched in his mind’s eye, his severed head rolling to the floor like a grotesque punctuation mark. And now, the masked man stood over him, the machete dripping with fresh blood. That blank, unfeeling mask turned toward Yana, tilting slightly to the side as though curious, mocking, savoring the fear that radiated from him.
Yana’s grip on his wrench tightened so hard it felt like the bones in his hands might crack. His arms trembled, whether from terror, exhaustion, or the crushing weight of what he’d witnessed, he didn’t know. The masked man raised his weapon and pointed the machete at him, a gesture less like a strike and more like a cruel invitation—you’re next.
Then, without hesitation, the killer surged forward. His boots slammed against the steel flooring as he sprinted at Yana, machete lifted high for the same fatal overhead strike he’d used before. Yana’s survival instincts screamed at him; he jerked his body sideways, throwing himself so far off balance that he tumbled to the ground in a graceless sprawl. The machete whistled down through the space he had occupied a heartbeat before, cracking against the metal floor with a vicious clang.
The masked man’s momentum carried him forward, nearly sending him crashing into the far wall. He pivoted swiftly, like a predator correcting itself, and fixed his gaze back on Yana. That faceless stare was worse than eyes—it gave nothing away, no hint of fatigue, no glimpse of hesitation.
Yana scrambled upright, his breathing shallow and ragged, lungs burning with the effort. The killer charged again, but this time the machete was held low, feinting to strike from a different angle. Yana barely saw it coming; instinct carried him as he dove sideways again, his shoulder slamming into the cold wall. The machete carved into the metal where his ribs had been.
It was working against him—every dodge, every frantic scramble, was eating away at his stamina. His chest heaved like a bellows, and each breath burned hotter than the last. Sweat and tears stung his vision. He could feel his legs shaking, not just from fear but from exhaustion, while the masked man seemed tireless, unrelenting, as though powered by some hatred that would never fade.
Yana forced himself to stop running. He knew he couldn’t keep evading forever. Planting his feet, he steadied his breath and tried to remember the drills, the words of his instructors, of Natasha, the rhythm of training that had always seemed so empty until this moment. He lowered his stance, tightened his grip, and let the masked man come to him.
The machete slashed at his gut—Yana darted back just enough to feel the wind of the blade graze his jumpsuit. Another swing, this one a backhand aimed at his head—he ducked in time, the steel flashing past his cheek close enough to cut the air. The killer roared as he brought the machete down in a brutal overhead chop, but Yana didn’t retreat. Instead, he stepped into the strike, caught the attacker’s descending arm in a desperate grab, and twisted with every ounce of strength he had. The killer’s balance broke; his body flipped over Yana’s shoulder and slammed to the ground with a jarring thud.
The masked man thrashed, already trying to rise, but Yana was faster. He raised his pipe wrench high and swung with both hands. The steel smashed into the side of the man’s face, the impact loud and wet, sending his head snapping to the side. Yana’s heart leapt—he thought that had finished it—but the man’s body began convulsing instead.
The killer writhed grotesquely, twitching and jerking as blood spilled through the cracks of the crumpled mask. The gurgling noises that followed weren’t human, a bubbling, choking sound that clawed at Yana’s sanity. The wrench slipped in his sweaty palms, but he forced himself to raise it again.
And again.
And again.
Each strike landed heavier than the last, fueled by panic, fury, and the raw instinct to survive. By the time Yana finally stopped, the twitching had ceased, the mask caved in completely, and what was left beneath it was unrecognizable. The silence that followed was suffocating.
But it wasn’t peace. It was a hollow, oppressive stillness. Yana’s knees buckled beneath him, and he collapsed beside the body, his arms trembling so violently the wrench nearly fell from his grip. His heart pounded so loud it drowned out everything else, each beat hammering in his ears.
He tried to breathe, but each breath came out ragged, torn between sob and gasp. His entire body shook uncontrollably as he stared at what he had done—at the shattered mask, the mangled corpse, the blood pooling on the floor. He had killed before, maybe, in distant memory, but never like this. Never with such brutal intimacy.
And in that moment, Yana realized he wasn’t sure what frightened him more: the masked man who had tried to kill him, or himself, for being capable of ending him in such a way.
He forced himself to look away, swallowing hard against the bile clawing its way up his throat, and scrambled to his feet. His legs felt like splintered wood, each step uneven, clumsy, but he pushed forward down the corridor. When he rounded the next turn, his heart plummeted.
There—slumped against the wall—was the guard he had failed. His body was sprawled grotesquely, uniform soaked with blood, head lying several feet away. The eyes, wide open, stared at nothing. Yana froze, transfixed by the sight, unable to blink, unable to breathe. The scene hammered itself into his memory, an image branded onto his mind with merciless clarity. He hated himself for standing still back then, rooted to the spot like a terrified child instead of stepping in, instead of doing something. Now the guard was gone, and Yana was alone again. Utterly, suffocatingly alone.
The hallway suddenly felt too narrow, too oppressive. He tore his gaze away, chest tight with guilt, and shoved open the security checkpoint door. The heavy metal door groaned as it swung, and once he slipped inside, he shut it quickly, turning the lock with shaking fingers.
The adrenaline drained all at once, and his legs gave out under him. He collapsed onto the cold tile floor, gasping, sweat mixing with grime on his face. His mind reeled—what he had just done, the way the man’s head caved beneath the wrench, the way the body had convulsed. What he hadn’t done—helping the guard. The weight of it all crushed him until he was crawling, dragging himself toward the waste bin like a wounded animal. He clutched it desperately, knuckles white, before the floodgates burst.
He retched until his throat burned raw, his stomach twisting itself inside out. Bitter bile stung his tongue, tears pricked his eyes, and the sound of his own gagging filled the small room. At last, dry heaves wracked his body, leaving him slumped and trembling over the bin. It didn’t make the guilt disappear, but it did leave him lightheaded, empty, if only for a moment.
He sat there, shaking, breathing in sharp, ragged gasps, staring at the bloodied pipe wrench he had tossed aside. Bits of gore clung to it, sticky and congealed, a grotesque reminder that the weapon had saved his life—and taken one at the same time. He muttered an apology, barely audible, to the guard outside. A pathetic gesture, but it was all he had.
Pulling himself upright, Yana scanned the checkpoint. The room was small, utilitarian. A cluttered overseer’s desk with a security tablet propped against the wall, a radio with static hissing faintly, and a bank of aging monitors displaying distorted camera feeds. In the far corner sat a locked weapons locker, matte-gray and imposing. The overseer must have had the key.
He rubbed his ears, which still rang faintly from the fight. Firearms training had been part of his standard induction—pistols, the basics—but the instructors noted his Cautus physiology wasn’t ideal. His ears were too sensitive, his reactions too sharp to tolerate repeated gunfire without severe disorientation, and that was just gunfire. Even so, he needed more than a wrench if he was going to survive. If he could find the overseer, maybe he could get that key.
But for now, he needed to stay hidden. His trembling hand reached for the control panel and pressed a switch. With a grinding hum, the metal shutters on the kiosk clamped down, sealing him in, shielding him from view. That gave him at least some comfort.
Then something caught his eye—a glint of polished steel left carelessly on the desk. A revolver. Compact, old-fashioned, but solid. The inscription marked it as a Verdict-80, a V-80. Ursine design, reliable, meant for desperate close-range encounters. His chest tightened. If the overseer had left this behind, it meant he hadn’t gone far. Perhaps he was still alive.
Yana slid the revolver into his grip, the weight unfamiliar but reassuring. He wasn’t trained to perfection, but he’d take this over swinging a wrench until his arms gave out.
That’s when the sound came. A sudden, heavy thud that rattled the room. Yana froze, revolver halfway raised, staring at the checkpoint door. The pounding came again—but not from the entrance. It came from inside.
He spun toward the bathroom at the corner of the room. The door rattled violently against its hinges, shaking with each strike. Yana’s heart climbed into his throat. Someone was trapped in there.
“Overseer?” he croaked, creeping closer. His pulse pounded in his ears.
The banging stopped, replaced by muffled groans—long, guttural, unnatural. Yana pressed his ear against the door. The noises weren’t words, just wet, strangled sounds. His stomach tightened.
He wanted to believe it was just the overseer doubled over with food poisoning. The thought, absurd as it was, lodged itself in his mind. Maybe the poor man had eaten something rotten; maybe that explained the groaning. Maybe he was alive, suffering, needing help.
“Sir? Are you alright in there?” Yana called out, his voice trembling.
No answer came—just another groan, heavier. The smell of copper and fecal matter began to seep through the crack under the door.
Yana’s grip tightened on the revolver. Either the overseer was fighting demons, or something was very, very wrong.
Yana’s voice cracked with nervous urgency as he called out to the office, knuckles white around the grip of his revolver. “Sir, are… what’s going on in there?”
The only reply was a sickening, violent rattle against the hinges. Metal groaned as something inside pounded the door from the other side, the frame quivering under the assault. It didn’t sound like a man asking for help—it sounded like a wild animal throwing itself against its cage.
Yana’s pulse thudded in his ears. The lock might’ve been jammed, maybe broken, but if that were the case, why hadn’t the overseer shouted to him? He had known the man long enough to expect curses, panic, anything—yet silence gnawed between each slam.
Raising his revolver halfway, Yana crept closer, each step cautious, his boots scraping softly against the concrete. His throat was tight. “I-I’m opening the door, sir!” he stammered, voice wobbling. “Please… uh, keep your pants on!”
With a trembling hand, he turned the handle. The hinges shrieked—and the door blew outward.
The edge caught Yana square across the face. Pain exploded through his skull as his head snapped back, metallic tang flooding his mouth. He stumbled, vision swimming, until his back slammed against the opposite wall.
Blinking hard, trying to force the world back into focus, Yana finally saw what had been trying to claw its way out.
The overseer was still upright, though calling him a man anymore was generous. Something clung to his head—an Originium slug, its translucent carapace glowing sickly yellow as if a lantern had been jammed inside. Where it attached, flesh had melted and warped; the overseer’s face was a grotesque mask of blood and lesions. His hands—stripped to bone at the fingertips—hung like claws, black veins snaking down his arms. Jagged Originium spikes had erupted from his back, tearing through his uniform like knives, while his legs were slick with a shameful mix of blood, urine, and filth.
He shambled forward, a ruin of the man Yana once reported to. A broken groan spilled from his throat: “Heeeelp… meee…”
Then his arms raised, not in a plea, but a strike.
Yana’s scream tangled with the gunshot. The revolver barked, deafening in the confined space. The overseer’s head snapped back, and both bodies—monster and man—crumpled. Yana dropped to his knees, revolver nearly slipping from his hand, his own skull pounding from the recoil’s shockwave reverberating inside the checkpoint.
Smoke coiled lazily from the barrel as the silence that followed pressed in. Yana wheezed for breath, tried to crawl backwards, but then froze as movement twitched near the corpse.
From the ruin of the overseer’s skull, the slug tore free. It slid wetly to the floor, carapace glistening with gore. Somehow, impossibly, it was still alive.
Its eyestalks swiveled and locked on him. Yana’s stomach dropped. For a split second, in his haze, he thought he saw its grotesque body rise upright on spindly limbs, exposing its pulsating yellow underbelly and a maw lined with fleshy hooks.
Then it shrieked and launched.
Instinct yanked Yana sideways. He rolled clumsily, gasping as the slug slammed into the ground where he’d lain. Scrambling, he shoved himself upright against the overseer’s desk, revolver shaking in his grip.
The slug pivoted with alarming speed and sprang again. Yana bolted to the side, the creature smashing into the stacked monitors, shattering glass, and knocking one to the floor. Sparks spat into the air.
Yana fired. The hammer clicked on an empty chamber—his mind blanked. He fumbled, sweat slicking the grip, and then the slug was already airborne. He dove, hitting the cold concrete hard, while the thing crashed once more into machinery. His revolver clattered away into the dark.
Cursing, Yana tore his wrench from his belt. It felt pitifully small, but it was all he had. He charged as the slug righted itself, raising the tool high and bringing it down with every ounce of his fear.
The wrench struck wood and steel instead of flesh. The slug had darted aside at the last instant, and the shock rattled through Yana’s arm, numbing his wrist.
The creature sensed its opening. It leapt straight for his chest, but Yana blocked with his forearm. Pain detonated as its jaws latched down, teeth sinking deep. He howled, blood streaming down his sleeve.
Panicked, he smashed his arm—and the thing attached to it—onto the desk. Once. Twice. A third time, until it screeched and finally ripped free, leaving his arm a mangled mess.
Yana’s vision blurred, breath ragged. Desperation clawed at him. He seized the fallen monitor, yanked the cord free of the socket, and staggered back as the slug writhed on the desk.
“Die, damn you!” he roared.
He lifted the heavy monitor over his head and slammed it down.
The screen burst in a shower of sparks and shattered glass. The slug convulsed, its body splitting with a wet crunch beneath the weight.
Yana staggered back, gasping, blood dripping down his arm, adrenaline burning out of his veins like smoke. The wreckage smoldered at his feet. His knees buckled, and with a final ragged breath, he collapsed to the cold floor, the world spinning into silence.
Silence settled over the room, broken only by the trickle of blood and Yana’s ragged breaths. His mind reeled as he stared at the pulped remains of the slug, but the sharp pain burning through his left arm yanked him back to reality. His sleeve was soaked through with blood, sticky and heavy, so he tore it off and tossed it aside. The only chance of treatment lay in the medicine cabinet—most likely inside the bathroom.
He forced himself to step past the overseer’s corpse. The stench alone was almost unbearable: rot, filth, and the sour reek of blood thick in the air. He tried not to look down, but his boots sloshed against something wet—another reminder of the man’s violent end.
Inside the bathroom, the truth became clear. Above the toilet, an open exhaust vent yawned wide, no doubt the entry point where the slug had crawled in and latched onto the overseer at the worst possible moment. Yana flushed away what the overseer had left behind, not daring to glance at it, then pushed forward to the medicine cabinet.
At the sink, he rinsed his forearm, crimson washing over the porcelain basin in thick streaks. The bite marks were worse than he expected: blackened, jagged, raw. He found a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of sterile bandages, steeling himself for the inevitable.
The first drop of disinfectant seared like fire, and the sting made his grip falter. Too much spilled onto the wound, and suddenly his arm was an inferno. He groaned through gritted teeth, eyes watering, body trembling as the chemical burned its way through the injury. But it was necessary. Once it was done, he wound the bandage tight, blood already spotting through the sterile fabric. He pressed gauze firmly over it before finding a packet of painkillers. He downed two capsules and gulped water straight from the faucet.
Relief wouldn’t come quickly, but at least there was hope it would come at all. Infection was another matter. Being bitten by an Originium slug was a death sentence in some cases—but he didn’t have time to dwell on that.
He pulled off his hard hat, the inside slick with sweat. His hair was matted, clinging to his scalp with the same damp sheen. He cupped water in his hands and splashed it on his face. In the cracked mirror above the sink, he saw a stranger: hollow-eyed, lined, older. A man who looked ten years beyond his actual age. He was barely in his twenties, yet in that reflection, he could have passed for someone who had carried decades of exhaustion.
The thought boiled into frustration. This breach, this nightmare—they knew too little. He knew too little. And ignorance in a place like this would only kill him faster.
He wiped himself down with toilet paper—face, hair, helmet—before fitting the hard hat back onto his head. Then, gathering his breath, he left the bathroom and returned to the checkpoint. There was no more time to waste. He had to figure out what to do next.
Back in the wider checkpoint area, Yana bent down and picked up the revolver that had slipped from his grasp earlier. Its weight felt oddly heavier now, as though the weapon itself understood the stakes. He flicked open the cylinder—only one spent round sat inside. His stomach sank, but then a memory surfaced: Ursus Roulette. A sick, twisted pastime some guards in Sectors D and E indulged in, born from boredom and despair. A single bullet, a spin, and a prayer that the chamber wouldn’t align with the hammer. Most called it suicidal foolishness; others called it inevitability, given the crushing monotony and hazards of their posts. Yana grimly realized the overseer must have been playing just before the slug got him. Perhaps if he’d “won” his little gamble, he’d have been spared an uglier end.
Pushing the thought aside, Yana searched the overseer’s desk with frantic purpose. Pens, paperwork, a newspaper, a half-eaten ration bar—nothing useful. Then he pulled open a bottom cabinet, and his chest tightened with relief. Inside was a small box cartridge, rattling faintly when lifted. He cracked it open—29 rounds. Enough to buy time, maybe even enough to make a difference. His fingers fumbled as he reloaded, a few bullets slipping and clinking onto the desk before he managed to secure six in the cylinder. He pocketed the rest in his tool kit, each round feeling like a fragment of borrowed survival.
The room was stifling, shadows pressing in with the shutters drawn. He grabbed the security tablet off the desk, sat heavily in the chair, and twisted open the soda he’d snagged earlier. The hiss of carbonation almost mocked him—something so normal amid the nightmare. He took a swig, the sweetness coating his parched throat, before thumbing through the cameras.
Static. One feed after another fizzled out to a snowstorm of dead pixels. His pulse quickened. Whoever had done this wasn’t just careless—they’d deliberately crippled surveillance. He cycled through furiously, jaw tightening, until finally, a working feed flickered to life.
The footage showed an office area—once quiet, sterile, now a killing floor. A maintenance worker was cornered, five masked figures descending on him with clubs and batons. The camera’s microphone didn’t work, but Yana imagined the dull, wet thuds as the worker’s body buckled under the frenzy. His stomach lurched when one of the assailants suddenly stopped, glanced up at the camera, and broke from the pack. The masked man picked up his baton, wound his arm, and hurled it with startling accuracy. The feed went black with a crack.
Yana cursed under his breath and flicked to another camera. This time a hallway came into focus. Two researchers bolted into view, a man and a woman, their white coats flaring behind them. Hope sparked for a moment, then died instantly as an orb of Arts energy streaked across the frame. It struck the man mid-stride—an explosion of light and gore, his arm torn clean from his body. The woman looked back, eyes wide with horror, but instead of stopping she bolted faster down a side corridor. Yana leaned closer to the screen as the man writhed on the ground, clawing himself forward with his remaining arm.
A figure entered the frame, petite and deliberate. Robes black as soot, face hidden. They strode with an eerie calm, placing a knee on the dying man’s back as though pinning down a pest. Energy crackled in their hand, a sinister glow that hummed through the feed. Then, Yana flinched as the man’s skull erupted like a melon, splattering the wall. The robed killer stood, head tilting, and for a heartbeat, it looked like they were staring straight into the lens. Their hand twitched, and an energy bolt surged outward. The camera went dead, the feed vanishing in static.
Yana’s hand trembled against the tablet, his breath shallow, every nerve screaming at him to run. But he forced himself to continue, skipping to the next available camera.
This one showed a barricade hastily erected across a wide hallway. Six guards manned the chokepoint, weapons raised, their shouts faint but urgent as they shepherded a stream of terrified workers behind them. The sight should have been comforting—order, resistance, survival—but Yana’s relief lasted only seconds.
At the far end of the hall, a mob appeared. Dozens of masked freaks, surging forward in a tide of frenzy. Their charge was so wild they trampled one another, but it only made them faster, angrier. The guards opened fire, muzzle flashes lighting the barricade. Bodies dropped, the front ranks collapsing into heaps—but still the mob pressed on, their numbers endless. Bullets carved through them, and yet they came, shrieking like beasts.
Yana gripped the revolver tighter, heart pounding as he watched the inevitable. The guards shouted to fall back, retreating step by step, still firing desperately into the sea of bodies. But the barricade wavered. It wouldn’t hold much longer. And if it fell, Yana realized, the thin line between order and chaos would snap completely.
And he was sitting in the middle of it.
The more footage Yana forced himself to watch, the more the anxiety twisted in his stomach like a knife. His pulse was a drumbeat in his ears, his breathing shallow and uneven. Every second on that chair, staring at those grainy monitors, chipped away at his nerves. He couldn’t stay here forever. The walls of the checkpoint felt like a coffin waiting to be nailed shut if those masked lunatics decided to pry the door off its hinges. But venturing outside meant throwing himself into the feeding ground. Every choice was a trap.
Still, his finger twitched over the tablet, compelled by something equal parts dread and desperation, and he flicked to another feed—this one labeled Main Access Elevator.
The screen opened on chaos. Sparks spat from torn wiring, raining down through the safety mesh in bright white bursts. The lights above flickered like a dying heart. His throat went dry. He knew that elevator. Natasha had left in it—with those two technicians—barely half an hour ago.
Then the implication hit him. If the lift had been cut loose, it wouldn’t have been just sabotaged. It would’ve plummeted. Straight down the shaft. His breath caught in his throat, and his ears folded forward as if trying to shield him from the thought. He slammed his head down on the desk with a muffled thunk , groaning through gritted teeth. “No, no, no…” He pressed his palms against his skull, as though he could squeeze out the thought entirely. Natasha couldn’t be gone. Not her.
But then—the tablet pinged. A notification slid across the cracked display:
“Main access lift interior proximity camera available.”
He blinked, frowning. That made no sense. How the hell could a camera survive a full-drop crash? The entire compartment should’ve been mangled, blackened wreckage by now. But it was there. One last sliver of proof. A chance. His trembling thumb tapped connect.
The feed opened on the interior of the destroyed elevator. The sight twisted his gut. The walls were caved in, warped as though some giant fist had squeezed the lift like a tin can. Electrical cables dangled from the ceiling, spitting arcs of blue and white. Three bodies lay crumpled on the floor, their shapes jagged and wrong.
One was little more than a charred husk—clothes seared into skin, smoke still whispering from blackened flesh. Another lay in a grotesque sprawl, head bent so far back that Yana had to look away before bile rose in his throat. And the last—flat on her back, arms crossed protectively over her head and torso—was still moving. Barely.
He leaned closer to the screen until his nose nearly brushed the glass. The chest was rising. Shallow, but steady. A faint twitch of fingers. And the uniform—scuffed, dust-caked, bloodied, but recognizable—was the unmistakable khakis of Chernobog Security.
“Natasha,” Yana whispered. His heart nearly leapt out of his chest. She was alive. Bruised, battered, maybe dying—but alive.
That was all he needed.
He shoved back from the desk, the chair clattering against the wall. His fingers dug into the revolver as he pulled it close, the steel cold but reassuring in his palm. His free hand tugged the blood-slick wrench from his belt, fastening it tight against his hip. The empty soda can clattered into the trash bin, the splash loud in the silence.
He glanced down at his pager, half-expecting the usual monotonous scrolling of system alerts. Instead, a new message flickered across the tiny display.
“Priority Task: Rescue Lieutenant Natasha Medvedeva.”
For a moment, his heart skipped. He hadn’t heard a notification. No buzz. No chime. The message was simply there, like it had been waiting for him to see it. His tail bristled at the uncanny timing, but there was no room left for hesitation.
She was his best shot at survival, and, more importantly, she was his mentor.
He knew the way to the lift shaft. What he didn’t know was what waited in the corridors between here and there. The memory of the camera feeds clawed at his brain—those robed killers, the mobs tearing men apart, the stampede against the barricade. He would have to cross their hunting grounds. Alone.
His eyes flicked to the radio on the overseer’s desk. The thought lingered—he could call for backup, call for anyone—but the reality was sharp and ugly. He didn’t know the frequencies. He’d never been trained to talk like the guards, with their clipped codes and procedures. And worst of all, he knew the kind of bastards orchestrating this breach—they’d be jamming comms. Probably listening in, too. Grabbing that handset would be nothing but suicide.
No. His path was set. Rescue Natasha. Live.
Yana tightened his grip on the revolver until his knuckles paled. With his tail flicking low and tense, he eased the door open a crack and peered through. The hall beyond was silent but suffocating, the kind of silence that felt alive, waiting. The only figure there was the ruined corpse of a guard slumped by the corner, headless, the stump glistening under the flicker of emergency lights.
No movement. No sound.
Good enough.
He slipped out, breath low and controlled, ears twitching for the faintest scrape or shuffle. His boots landed softly against the steel deck as he slid into the corridor, revolver raised. Every step was weighted with the knowledge that beyond the next corner could be a dozen masked maniacs waiting to tear him apart.
Yana nearly tripped when the toe of his shoe scraped against something solid. Looking down, he found the battered riot shield the dead guard had once carried. For a moment, he considered leaving it. He wasn’t trained to use such equipment, and dragging a shield around felt like an invitation to slow himself down. But then he glanced at the sprawled corpse again—the man certainly wouldn’t need it anymore. And with no armor of his own, Yana figured any barrier between him and a swinging pipe, or worse, was worth the trouble.
He slid his arm through the thick straps and clamped his hand around the handle. The shield was heavy, taller than his own frame, and its weight pulled at his wrist until he adjusted his grip. Still, the moment he felt the slab of reinforced material positioned in front of his chest, he breathed easier. If luck were on his side, he’d avoid the same fate as the guard who’d last carried it. The revolver at his side would do most of the work, but an extra layer of protection might just mean the difference between life and death.
With careful steps, Yana pressed forward. The hall stretched ahead in fits of flickering light, the overhead fixtures dying one by one as though mocking him. Each flash disoriented his eyes, leaving behind ghostly afterimages that swam in the corners of his vision. The noise was no better—the distant howls of hounds, the crash of metal, the steady hum of machinery somewhere below. A whole city seemed to groan under siege, yet he pushed on, steadying his resolve with every step. Natasha was waiting. She had to be.
When he circled back to the airlock corridor, his stomach clenched. The technician was still trapped inside, pounding his fists raw against the reinforced glass. The maintenance crew that had been struggling earlier was nowhere to be seen, likely abandoning the task once panic consumed them. Yana froze, watching as the poor man kicked at the sealed secondary door, breath fogging up the narrow strip of air the malfunction had left open.
It was enough to keep him alive, but barely. Claustrophobia gnawed at the edges of his sanity, and Yana didn’t blame him. Anyone would unravel in a steel coffin like that, alone, with danger echoing from every hall.
The man spotted him instantly. His eyes lit up with wild hope, and he charged the glass, palms splayed. “You!” His voice cracked with desperation. His hands were bleeding from the effort to break through. “You have to get me out of here! Now!”
Yana winced. “I’ll be with you in just a moment, sir. I just need to get someone first. Just st—” He caught himself, realizing his words rang hollow, almost patronizing. He forced himself to adjust. “I mean—please, just don’t do anything rash. Stay quiet, or you’ll bring them down on us.”
“No!” The man’s voice rose to a shriek. His fists battered the glass again, red smears left in his wake. “You get me out of here now!”
“I’m sorry!” Yana barked, taking a step back, heart hammering. “I can’t!”
Then he turned and ran, ignoring the furious slams against the glass behind him. “Hey! Get back here!” The technician’s voice broke as his hands thundered against the sealed door. “Get back here right now!”
Yana shut out the sound, forcing himself to focus on the path ahead. His shield rattled against his forearm as he jogged, revolver drawn and ready. So far, luck was with him—no masked maniacs prowled these halls, no beasts waited at the corners. But the silence itself was eerie, more dangerous than noise.
Finally, the corridor opened up into the maintenance passage near the main access lift. The air smelled of scorched wiring and something acrid—burnt plastic, maybe. A pair of double security doors loomed ahead, their heavy frames flanked by dead cameras and darkened control panels. Yana reached for the lanyard around his neck, holding up his guard-issued ID.
The card reader blinked red, then green. The locks hissed as hydraulics disengaged, and the doors parted with a reluctant groan. He exhaled, drawing the small crowbar from his toolkit and tucking it close.
…
Chapter 4: Crash Course
Summary:
After surviving through a free-falling elevator, Natasha wakes up to find her workplace has quickly turned to chaos. A tragedy for some, terrifying for many, but for Natasha? She was really looking forward to finally doing something exciting in such a mundane environment.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A brutal pounding throbbed behind her eyes, like a drumbeat trying to split her skull open. The ringing in her ears was constant, a sharp, high-pitched note that made her want to claw at her own head. Every muscle in her body screamed in agony, though strangely she felt numb at the center of it all—like her nerves were so overwhelmed they’d simply stopped registering new pain.
Her first breath was jagged and desperate, tearing into her lungs so sharply it arched her back off the floor. She rolled onto her side with a hiss, forcing her trembling arms beneath her. Crawling was all she could manage at first, dragging herself across the elevator’s cold metal floor until her back pressed against the far wall.
A sudden crackle and spit of sparks exploded from the ruined elevator panel near the door, making her flinch violently and shield her face with her forearm. She swore under her breath, patting herself down, fingertips running over her arms, chest, ribs, and legs, searching for missing pieces. Relief washed through her when her hands met nothing worse than bruises and scrapes. She flexed her toes and ankles, rotating her feet; everything worked. She was in one piece—miraculously.
The interior of the elevator was pitch-black. Even the dull red emergency lights were dead, leaving her in suffocating darkness. Her pulse hammered in her throat as her hand fumbled at her utility belt until her fingers closed over the flashlight. With a sharp click, a cone of pale light pierced the dark, illuminating the cramped box. A ragged sigh escaped her lips. At least she wasn’t blind.
She swung the beam toward where Oksana and Kirill had been sitting moments ago. The light froze over their corpses, and her breath caught in her chest. Kirill’s body was a blackened husk, scorched beyond recognition, the smell of burnt flesh crawling into her nostrils and making her gag. He hadn’t been burned like that before the fall; some electrical discharge from the elevator’s ruined wiring must have cooked him after the crash. Oksana’s corpse was worse—her head was bent grotesquely backward, neck twisted so far she swore she saw the white splinter of a vertebra jutting out. Natasha shut her eyes for a brief second, forcing back the bile rising in her throat. She could only hope Oksana’s death had been instantaneous.
She clenched her jaw, the taste of copper sharp in her mouth, and used the wall to push herself upright. Her body protested every movement, but adrenaline un drowned out the worst of it. She had to focus. The breach. The chaos. The masked freaks cutting through security personnel like they were nothing. This wasn’t a breach; this was a full-scale slaughter. She’d cursed this place and its corruption more times than she could count, but never had she imagined its downfall would come while she was trapped inside, fighting for air.
The priority was simple: get out of this box before she suffocated or fried like Kirill.
Her hand went to her thigh, checking the holster. The weight of her sidearm was still there, solid and familiar. She drew it briefly, checked the chamber, and finds it empty. Through shaking hands, she loads a fresh new magazine from her vest pouches and holsters it again. Nothing was out of place. She’d need it soon.
Stepping carefully over Kirill’s corpse, Natasha crouched in front of the elevator doors. She knew there was an emergency latch near the base—a manual release she’d used during drills. Her fingers found the small recess, gripping the latch firmly. She gritted her teeth and yanked hard.
The sound came first: a sharp, brittle snap. Then the world lurched.
The force of her pull sent her tumbling backward, landing hard on Kirill’s blackened remains with a nauseating crackle of charred flesh. She gagged and scrambled up, the broken metal latch still clutched in her fist. A white-hot surge of fury boiled through her chest. Of course. Of course, the elevator’s emergency mechanisms hadn’t been serviced, or even maintained in years. This entire sector was a maintenance nightmare, ironic for being called the Maintenance Sector, and now its neglect had her trapped.
Her hand trembled with rage as she hurled the useless latch across the elevator. It clanged off the door and ricocheted straight back into her face, striking her nose with a sharp crack. Warm blood streaked down her lip, the metallic taste blooming instantly in her mouth.
Her vision swam red. Snarling, she drew back her leg and slammed her boot into the narrow gap between the elevator doors. The metal dented with a deafening bang, the impact reverberating through her body and nearly spraining her ankle. The pain only stoked her anger, a low growl rumbling from her throat as she steadied herself against the wall.
Natasha sucked in a sharp breath, chest heaving, forcing herself not to panic. She wasn’t going to die here—not pinned between two corpses, suffocating in the dark.
She spat blood on the floor and steadied her flashlight in her other hand. If the doors wouldn’t open from here, she’d find another way.
Before she could even decide her next move, a sharp knocking came from the other side of the jammed doors.
“Hello? Lieutenant Natasha, it’s me, Yana! Are you still alive in there?”
For a moment Natasha stood frozen, staring at the steel, pulse quickening. Her gut reaction was distrust. For all she knew, this was one of those lunatics wearing a mask, mimicking Yana’s voice to trick her into letting her guard down. She pressed her back against the wall and lowered her voice into a growl.
“Is that really you, Yana?” she asked carefully.
“I'm not one of those masked freaks, alright?”
“Rank, class, and serial number,” she snapped back.
A pause. “…Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Rank, class, serial number. Spit it out.”
On the other side, Yana sounded flustered, as if caught mid-bluff. “Uh—Private, security maintenance, 942024.”
Natasha smirked to herself despite the tension. “Cute. But you could’ve just read that off his ID.”
“Do you want out or not, lieutenant?” Yana’s irritation was seeping through his voice now.
“Alright, fine, I’ll bite. How exactly do you plan on getting me out?”
“I, uh… got this crowbar?”
She raised a brow at the doors, picturing him nervously holding the tool like it was an explosive. “Do you even know how to use it?”
“Yeah, sure. You just, you know… stick it inside the slit and wiggle it until it budges.”
Natasha snorted, unable to help herself. “Oh yeah? Just stick it in there real good, wiggle until it opens? Force it if you have to?”
There was a stunned silence before Yana, horrified, blurted out, “Lieutenant! I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Alright, alright,” Natasha chuckled, shaking her head. “What’s the safe word, Yana?”
“…Excuse me? Are you— Lieutenant!” His voice cracked into sheer embarrassment, and that made her grin widen.
She let out a rough laugh, the first genuine one since the chaos started. “Relax, kid. Things may be fucked beyond belief right now, but a little humor goes a long way.”
Yana didn’t respond after that, but she could practically hear him steaming on the other side. For a moment she worried she might’ve scared off her one chance at freedom, but then came a loud metallic bang. The lift shuddered as he jammed the crowbar into the seam with all his strength, grunting with effort.
Natasha stepped back automatically, eyes narrowing as sparks danced from the crowbar scraping steel. The elevator groaned like a wounded beast. Inch by inch, she saw the metal bend until, with a sharp crack, one of the doors shifted just enough to reveal a slim gap.
Through the narrow opening she caught sight of Yana’s blood-smeared face peering in, kneeling low to see her. His eyes widened with visible relief. “Lieutenant!”
Natasha exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from her shoulders. “Oh, so it really is you. To be honest, I half expected you to be a corpse already.”
“Kind of a weird way to say thanks, lieutenant,” Yana muttered, though she could see a faint smile tug at his lips.
“This is how I give thanks. Get used to it. Now stand back.”
She crouched low, forcing her fingers into the gap. Her nails scraped metal as she dug in, muscles taut as cables. The doors shrieked in protest while Yana scrambled backward, watching her in awe as she forced the panel wider, inch after stubborn inch, until it slammed into the wall with a harsh metallic click .
The way was open. Natasha’s chest heaved, sweat dripping down her temple.
Yana hurried forward and offered his arm. “Here, lieutenant—let me help you out.”
Natasha eyed the gesture, then shook her head with a faint smirk. “No offense, Yana, I appreciate it. But remember—I’m an Ursus. If I grab you, I’ll end up yanking you into the wall with me.”
“Oh. Right,” he said sheepishly, pulling his arm back.
With one final push of her boots, Natasha scrambled out of the cramped lift and into the hall. Standing tall, she rolled her shoulders, savoring the air of open space again. Yana stepped aside instinctively, wide-eyed, as if only now remembering why people called Ursus terrifying.
Natasha dragged herself out of the narrow maintenance shaft with a low grunt, her palms scraping against the cold metal floor as she collapsed to her hands and knees. Her chest rose and fell in sharp, shallow breaths, the metallic taste of blood and adrenaline thick in her mouth. For just a heartbeat, she allowed herself a moment of relief, inhaling the stale air like it was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. Freedom. Safety—however fleeting.
But reality was quick to return. The echoes of distant gunfire and screams reminded her they were still in a warzone. She forced her head up, scanning her surroundings, her pulse hammering in her ears.
Yana hurried over, crouching low as he reached for her shoulder. Natasha threw up a hand, stopping him with a sharp gesture.
“I’m good. I’m good,” she muttered between ragged breaths, though her body screamed otherwise. She shifted to her knees, shaking out her trembling hands as her eyes swept the darkened corridor. The silence here was unnerving—no movement, no chatter, no alarms, only the occasional hum of flickering lights overhead. It wouldn’t last.
She glanced back at Yana. For a moment, it was like she didn’t recognize him. The rookie she’d known just an hour ago—if it had even been that long—was gone. What crouched before her now was a bloodied, rattled survivor. Blood smeared across his face. A hasty, crimson-stained bandage was wrapped tightly around his left arm, and his once-clean security uniform was a patchwork of sweat, grime, and gore.
Natasha wasn’t faring much better. Her muscles still burned from the fall she’d survived, her ribs ached, her clothes were torn and dusty, and her vest might be compromised. She’d seen chaos tonight on a scale she’d never imagined—entire security perimeters breached in minutes, whole sectors overrun. She felt the weight of it in her bones, like gravity itself was trying to drag her down.
The two locked eyes in silence for a long beat. Then Natasha pushed herself to her feet, towering over him, the glint of leadership returning to her sharp, amber gaze.
“What’s going on, Yana?” Her voice was low, steady, but there was an edge to it.
“I… I don’t know, lieutenant,” Yana stammered, forcing himself upright. He bent down to snatch a discarded riot shield, fumbling slightly as he hooked his injured arm through the strap. His knuckles were white as he gripped it. “It all happened so fast. There was this announcement—a security breach—then…” He shook his head. “Then everything went to hell. Seconds. Just seconds after the announcement, everything was chaos.”
His breathing quickened, panic clawing its way back as he spoke. “Then these masked people—god, they’re just killing everyone. I… I was with another guard. We got jumped by one of them. He…” Yana’s voice cracked, and he swallowed hard, staring into some distant memory. “I might’ve let him die. I—froze when he came out of nowhere, and—”
“Hey.” Natasha closed the distance between them in a single step, clamping a firm hand on his shoulder. He flinched but didn’t pull away, and something in her grip steadied him. She tilted his chin up, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Listen to me. We all make mistakes in a shitstorm like this. You hear me? But you don’t get to make it twice. What’s done is done. That man’s gone.” Her voice hardened, a flicker of dark humor cutting through. “But if you let me die like that, I swear I’ll haunt your sorry ass until the day you croak.”
A terrified gasp escaped Yana’s lips, and he nodded frantically. “Y-Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She released him and adjusted her grip on her pistol. “If you’re still with me, our next move is to find a safe place. Somewhere we can regroup, collect our heads, and plan.”
“There’s… there’s a security checkpoint not far from here.” Yana’s voice wavered as he spoke, but he seemed a little more grounded. “I already unlocked it. We can hole up there, maybe wait for reinforcements?”
“No.” Natasha’s reply was instant, cutting through the gloom like a blade. “Even if someone got the distress call, it’ll take them two or three bloody business days to respond.” Her lip curled in disgust. “And if these bastards were smart enough to breach this deep, you can bet your ass they sabotaged the tram lines too. We’re on our own, Yana.”
“Oh…” His voice faltered, his eyes dropping to the floor. He avoided her stare, shame and fear mingling on his pale face.
“Look, stick with me and we might make it out of this alive.” Natasha’s tone softened just a fraction. “Now, this checkpoint of yours—”
A distant shout cut her off.
“HEY! We got two of ‘em here!”
Both Natasha and Yana snapped their attention to the source of the voice. Across the wide access-lift platform, a man in a plain white mask stepped into the dim light. He wore a patched-up hoodie beneath stolen riot gear, and in his hand gleamed a short sword. Five more masked figures flanked him, each wielding mismatched weapons—pipes, bats, knives, even a service pistol.
The leader strode forward, his boots echoing against the metal floor. His mask turned toward them, the black eyeholes an empty void. He leveled his blade at them with theatrical menace. “Let’s fuck ‘em—”
Natasha’s pistol barked once, the muzzle flash lighting up the hall. The bullet struck dead center between the eyeholes of his mask, and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
“GO, GO, GO!” Natasha’s voice roared through the corridor, and both she and Yana bolted for the nearest hallway, boots pounding against steel as shouts erupted behind them.
The two slipped into the dimly lit maintenance corridor, boots thudding softly on the steel floor panels as the heavy door sealed behind them. Natasha moved with practiced precision, flicking her keycard through the wall-mounted reader. The mechanism gave a deep, mechanical groan as thick locking bolts engaged, and a red light blinked to life over the door. Moments later, the first of their masked pursuers slammed into the glass, the sound echoing. Four more figures joined him, weapons raised, their muffled shouts reverberating against the corridor walls as they battered the reinforced barrier.
Natasha turned, her sharp features lit by the flickering fluorescent lights overhead, and sized them up coolly. “Don’t worry,” she said, glancing at Yana over her shoulder, her tone calm and disdainful despite the chaos. “That’s six inches of reinforced glass and steel plating. It won’t hold forever, but it’ll buy us time.”
To punctuate the remark, she raised her hand and flipped them off with a smirk. The gesture immediately stoked their anger; one of the masked men snarled, raising a battered service pistol and firing several rounds directly at the barrier. The sharp cracks of gunfire filled the air, and spiderweb fractures bloomed across the glass. One bullet ricocheted violently off a metal frame, and one of the attackers screamed, staggering back and collapsing as his comrades scrambled around him.
Natasha chuckled at their misfortune, her voice dripping with scorn. “Idiots.”
Yana’s voice cut through the moment, calm but firm, his nerves clearly stretched thin. “Lieutenant, I’d rather we didn’t taunt them while they’re armed. We should move. Besides, there’s someone else who needs help.”
“Right,” Natasha muttered, tearing her gaze away from the attackers and motioning forward. “Let’s go.”
The pair sprinted through the narrow corridor, weaving past pipes, bundled cables, and the stench of grease and ozone. Natasha sealed another set of security doors behind them, layering obstacles between themselves and the men chasing them. They emerged into another hallway, this one an airlock passage lined with grimy white panels and blinking hazard lights. At the far end stood a technician, trapped behind a sealed door.
The man’s face was pale and wild-eyed. He pounded desperately on the glass, his fists leaving streaks of red where his fingernails had been torn down to the quick. His breath fogged the window as he shouted, voice hoarse and cracking. “Finally! Quick! You have to get me out!”
Natasha skidded to a halt, taking in the scene. “Are these fucking doors still jammed?!” she barked, incredulous.
“The ones meant to fix this have left,” Yana replied, grimacing as he approached. “I’m still just a trainee. They haven’t even taught us how to override door locks yet.”
Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a frustrated groan. “Fantastic. Just fantastic.” She gestured toward the trembling man on the other side of the glass. “We’re not leaving him there. Use your crowbar.”
Yana hesitated, tugging the tool from his belt, but instead of approaching the door, he handed it to Natasha. “How about you do it? You’re Ursus. Strongest race there is, right?”
“That’s… still debatable,” Natasha muttered dryly, snatching the crowbar from him. “But fine. Cover me.”
Yana nodded and turned to watch their backs, his revolver sweeping the corridor behind them. Natasha crouched before the sealed door, slipping the crowbar’s tip into the narrow seam of the locking mechanism. She braced herself, the muscles in her arms and shoulders flexing as she heaved with all her strength. The door resisted with a groan, but something cracked—loudly. For a moment, Natasha thought she’d succeeded, only to realize the tool suddenly felt lighter. She looked down.
The crowbar had snapped clean in half.
“What—WHAT?!” she exclaimed, voice rising in sheer disbelief. “Can NOTHING in this fucking sector hold together?!”
Yana turned at the sound, his expression twisting with frustration as he spotted the broken tool. “I maintain my own gear! Either even that’s not enough, or something’s seriously wrong with this door.”
The technician slammed his palms against the glass again, his voice ragged with panic. “Please! Do something! I can’t… I can’t breathe in here!” His words dissolved into frantic sobbing as his fingers left new bloody smears on the window.
Natasha’s jaw tightened, her sharp eyes scanning the locking mechanism for any weakness. The airlock wasn’t just jammed; it had been forced into a lockdown state, its internal gears jammed tight. Someone had sealed it intentionally. The thought only added fuel to her anger.
“Yana, keep it steady,” Natasha ordered. She adjusted her grip on the broken crowbar, mentally calculating leverage points. Every second they wasted was another second their pursuers closed in.
Behind her, Yana adjusted his stance, the hammer of his revolver clicking softly as he scanned the corridor. The faint sounds of distant pounding echoed through the maintenance halls, a reminder that the masked mob wasn’t far behind. The corridor itself was suffocatingly narrow, lit by flickering lights that cast long shadows across rust-streaked walls.
Natasha’s sharp shake of her head confirmed what Yana already suspected—they weren’t getting through without the right tools. Specialized cutters or breaching gear could force it open, but Yana didn’t have any of that, and time was bleeding away fast.
A sharp movement on the other side of the thick, glass-paned door caught their attention. Emerging from the dim corridor was a towering figure—a man, if he could even still be called that. He was broad-shouldered, his gray-tinged skin stretched tight over wiry muscle, and the rags clinging to him hung in tatters like shredded banners. His massive hands gripped a crude metal club as if it weighed nothing. He approached with deliberate, heavy steps, his shadow stretching along the corridor floor like a creeping stain.
The technician stationed at the airlock froze, his eyes widening before he spun around and slammed his back against the jammed door, pounding desperately against the steel with both fists. Natasha and Yana could only stand in grim silence, their weapons half-raised, watching the scene unfold like spectators to an inevitable execution.
The hulking stranger raised his club and swung. The impact echoed like a gunshot through the narrow hallway, and the reinforced glass quivered under the strike. A thick, spiderweb crack spread across its surface—far too wide, far too deep. It hadn’t absorbed the blow.
The technician’s frantic pounding grew faster, a panicked rhythm against the door as he screamed for help.
Yana adjusted his stance, his large shield clutched tightly against his chest, the revolver at his hip remaining holstered. Natasha leveled her pistol, her expression grim but steady, her jaw tight.
“Are we not gonna help him?” Yana asked, his voice trembling, his eyes darting between Natasha and the doomed man on the other side.
“It’s too late for him, Yana.”
“HEEEELP! HEEEELP ME!” The technician’s screams cut through the air like knives, desperation cracking his voice, but they might as well have been whispers. Natasha’s eyes stayed locked on the hulking man. She wasn’t going to waste bullets—not yet.
The club rose again and came down with devastating force. This time, a hole was punched clean through the glass. A third, savage swing followed, and the entire pane burst apart in a shower of crystalline shards. The massive figure swept away the jagged remnants with his weapon, the glass screeching against the frame as it fell.
The giant ducked low, his frame barely fitting as he hunched through the airlock. His weapon clattered to the floor as he surged forward, hands shooting out. He seized the technician’s head in his massive palms, lifting the man effortlessly off his feet.
“NO! PLEASE—!”
The rest was cut short.
The first slam against the steel door rang out like a bell. The technician’s body convulsed as his skull struck the metal. A second slam followed, harder. His legs flailed, boots kicking against the air, fingers clawing at the brute’s wrists, but it was like prey struggling in the jaws of a fangbeast.
Yana winced at every thunderous thud, his face contorting as he turned his head away, unable to watch. Natasha didn’t flinch; her gaze narrowed into a cold, deadly focus.
Blood bloomed across the glass, streaking and smearing with every blow. The door was painted in red handprints, droplets running down in thin streams. The technician’s screams turned to gurgles, then silence. After a final, sickening crunch, his body went limp. The giant discarded him like trash, letting him slump lifelessly against the wall.
Yana swiped at his cheek, brushing away tears he hadn’t even realized were there, while Natasha’s sharp, watchful glare never left the killer. They both took a careful step back, and another, as the massive brute calmly bent down to retrieve his weapon.
More figures slithered in behind him—four masked men, clad in ragged clothing, their movements sharp and deliberate. They poured through the shattered doorway like carrion crows circling a corpse, waiting patiently behind their monstrous ally as he once again raised the heavy club.
One strike cracked the glass of the inner barrier. Another slammed through it, fragments spraying across the floor. The third, brutal swing shattered the pane completely. The brute pushed aside what little remained of the barrier, clearing the path as though ripping apart paper.
Natasha and Yana fell back quickly, boots scraping against the floor, but Natasha halted after only a few steps. Yana glanced back at her in alarm, but she stood her ground, pistol raised steadily as the towering figure straightened to his full, intimidating height.
“Lieutenant, come on!” Yana barked, already jogging down the corridor.
She didn’t answer.
Her pistol barked sharply, muzzle flashing in the dim hallway, each shot cracking through the air like a whip. She aimed high, every round placed squarely at the man’s head, the recoil biting into her arms as she emptied the magazine in controlled bursts. The slide locked back with a metallic snap.
For a moment, the brute didn’t move. He stood silently, his head jerking slightly from the impact of the rounds, blood pooling in dark rivulets down his face. His frame swayed, motionless save for the slow roll of his shoulders.
He opens his mouth to speak, but what came out was a strained, “...ow.” Then, like a felled tree, he toppled forward. The sound of his body slamming into the floor reverberated through the hall, followed by the slow spread of a crimson puddle around him.
The masked men hesitated, watching their towering companion fall. Natasha turned on her heel and sprinted after Yana, her empty pistol gripped tight.
The corridor ahead felt narrower now, shadows pressing in as their boots hammered against the metal floor, the echo of their escape chased by the distant, hollow thud of approaching footsteps.
The two of them stumbled into the checkpoint. Yana barreled through the doorway first, nearly tripping over his own boots as he swung it open with frantic force. He didn’t bother to glance back; he just dove inside, his breath ragged and panicked. Natasha was right behind him, skidding to a halt at the threshold. She spun around with mechanical precision, slammed a fresh magazine into her pistol, and fired three deafening rounds back down the dim corridor. The muzzle flashes lit the narrow hallway in sharp bursts of orange, suppressing the shouting figures chasing them. With each shot, the thunder cracked through the stale air, leaving her ears ringing.
She followed Yana in, slamming the door behind her, and he locked it with a trembling hand, fumbling with the latch before it finally clicked shut. For a moment, the two simply stood there, catching their breath in that tense silence, save for the distant echo of shouting from the other side of the barrier. Natasha’s pistol smoked faintly in her grip, her knuckles white from the hold. She stood in a crouched stance, scanning the doorway like she expected it to burst open at any second.
Yana leaned heavily against the overseer’s desk, his shield hanging from his back like a useless weight while his revolver dangled loosely in his hand. One palm pressed against his chest as though to calm the riotous hammering of his heart. He swallowed thickly.
Natasha’s eyes flicked over to him, her tone low but sharp. “Holding up, Yana?”
He cleared his throat and gave her a shaky nod, though his trembling hands betrayed him. “I… I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“Then don’t quit on me yet,” she said, firm but carrying that steel-edged encouragement only a soldier could muster under fire. “We’re barely through the first hurdle. Stay sharp.”
Her gaze swept the cramped checkpoint room with practiced efficiency. “There should be an arms locker in here. Every checkpoint’s got one.”
Yana, still trying to steady his breathing, raised his revolver and pointed toward the far corner. “Over there. Haven’t been able to get the key… it’s with the overseer.”
Natasha followed the direction of his gun barrel. The body wasn’t hard to spot. The overseer’s corpse was crumpled on the floor, half-naked, filthy, and stiffened in death. The reek of unwashed flesh and early decay clung to the air. Natasha suppressed her disgust, rolling her eyes skyward for a moment as if summoning the will to deal with it. She approached without a word while Yana turned his head away, as though the sight alone threatened his stomach. Kneeling by the corpse, she dug through what was left of his clothing, her hands rifled through grime and filth. The overseer’s pants were bunched around his ankles; it didn’t take long to spot the keyring clipped to a belt loop. Rather than unclasp it neatly, she yanked the entire thing free with one sharp tug.
She turned back toward the locker, but a thunderous crash against the door froze her in place. The steel barrier groaned violently under the assault, and muffled voices rang out on the other side.
“They’re in here! I saw ’em!”
“Come on out! You’re dead already!”
The taunting sent a chill through Yana’s spine, and he quickly shuffled closer to Natasha, as though her presence alone could shield him. His revolver trembled in his grip, and his wide eyes never left the door. Natasha, still crouched by the locker, glanced at him briefly, sizing him up with a sharp look that carried the weight of command.
“Yana,” she said flatly, her voice like a calm before a storm, “we’re going to have to fight our way out.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out—just a shaky breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, inhaled deeply, and forced himself to nod. It was enough.
Natasha jammed the key into the locker, twisting it sharply. The metal door creaked open, revealing an arsenal that had clearly been picked over in a hurry. It was far from the full stock these checkpoints were supposed to hold, but it was something. She scanned the selection: a compact CrowdController-85 submachine gun, a well-worn Petrikov Rifle-80 bolt-action, stacks of ammunition for both, a few remaining mags for her pistol, and a meager spread of explosives—flashbangs, smoke grenades, and a pair of tear gas. Armor was scarce, too: just a single guard vest and a steel-visored helmet. The guard squad that once held this post had clearly taken most of the gear when they’d gone out to fight.
Natasha exhaled through her nose, eyes narrowing at the sight. “Figures. Better than nothing.”
Yana’s attention was fixed on the weapons like a child gazing at forbidden treasures. “I’m still… stunned,” he muttered quietly, “that Chief Petrikov managed to pull this off. All these designs…”
“Good thing she did,” Natasha said as she began loading a fresh mag into her pistol, “because today we’re putting them to work. Shame I’m the only one who knows how to use them.”
Yana gave a nervous chuckle. “That’s fine… I wasn’t trained for any of this anyway.”
Natasha grabbed the vest and tossed it at him. “Then you can at least wear this. That jumpsuit of yours won’t stop a kitchen knife, let alone their swords.”
The pounding on the door intensified; the hinges groaned in protest, rattling with each blow. Natasha’s voice cut through the rising noise. “Hurry it up.”
Yana unclipped his tool harness, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter. He picked up the vest, running his fingers over it as though it were some foreign artifact. For a moment, he just stared at it, hesitating, before finally slipping it over his head and fumbling with the straps, pulling them tight until the vest hugged his torso snugly. Natasha, meanwhile, plucked the steel helmet from the locker, setting it firmly over her head. She adjusted the chin strap, her lips curling into a cold smirk as the banging on the door reached a crescendo.
“All that time at the range,” she muttered with quiet satisfaction, sliding the SMG’s bolt back with a loud click, “is about to pay off.”
The air in the checkpoint grew heavy with anticipation. Yana glanced nervously toward the door, revolver in hand, shield slung over his arm, his breath shallow. Natasha stood beside him now, SMG at the ready, helmet shadowing her eyes. The steel door shuddered violently with another blow, and for a moment, all that filled the room was the sound of their synchronized breathing and the ominous rattle of their barricade.
It was only a matter of time before the door gave in, and Natasha knew hesitation would get them both killed. The pounding on the metal was relentless—each strike sharper, harder, more impatient. They didn’t have the numbers, but what they did have was a plan. She pushed Yana into the cramped bathroom across from the arms locker, her voice low but firm, almost drowned out by the metallic thuds reverberating through the hall.
“Stay behind the shield. I’ll cover you. We hit them hard, then we keep moving.”
Yana didn’t argue. He adjusted the straps of his heavy shield, its battered faceplate already scarred with dents and bullet scratches from earlier engagements. His revolver, though far from ideal against four or more armed men, was clutched tightly in his other hand. Its cylinder was freshly loaded—seven shots, seven chances—and he wasn’t about to waste them.
Natasha crouched beside him, her submachine gun pressed close to her chest. She pulled the bolt back slightly with practiced ease, her eyes narrowing at the chambered round. Loaded. Ready. She flexed her gloved fingers around the grip, the other hand curled firmly around the pin of a flashbang. Through her visor, she caught Yana’s gaze—steady but strained—and lifted the grenade just enough to signal. He nodded once, lifting his shield like a wall between them and the coming storm.
The pounding grew savage. Then, with a teeth-rattling crash, the door buckled inward, hinges screaming as metal warped. Four masked figures surged inside, weapons up.
“Where the hell are they?!” one barked, his voice muffled behind the crude mask.
The intruders fanned out, overturning desks, ripping cords free, and smashing monitors, kicking over chairs in frustration. One saw the overseer’s slumped corpse near the bathroom, recoiling at the sight.
“Eugh—shit! What happened to his face?!”
Another spat back in disgust, “Mephisto, probably. That sick bastard’s been toying with those slugs for weeks. Guess this is his new idea of fun.”
Natasha and Yana exchanged a glance, both freezing for a moment at the name. This wasn’t the time to dwell on it, though; information like that could save them later, if they lived long enough to use it.
The killers grew careless, noise filling the checkpoint as they ransacked it. Then one shadow peeled off from the group, footsteps edging dangerously close to the bathroom door. His voice was smug, confident.
“They’re hiding. I know it. Check in here!”
Yana’s grip trembled slightly, the pin of the flashbang rattling in his hand. The faint metallic jingle gave him away.
“Wait—hear that?” another voice called out. “Something’s jingling. They’re pissing themselves in there!”
A third added mockingly, “Come on out, we’ll make it quick. Painless, even.”
Natasha’s breath steadied, her lips moving in silent count. One.
The first shadow grew longer, another figure joining him, their steps slow, deliberate, hungry.
Two.
The creak of boots against the tile grew louder. Yana raised his shield slightly, flashbang low, ready to throw it across.
Three.
The moment their hoods came into view, Natasha and Yana pulled their pins and hurled the grenades.
The twin blasts detonated with a rattling crack, blinding white light filling the room. The masked men screamed, clutching their faces as they staggered and fell to their knees, weapons clattering against the floor.
Natasha and Yana burst from the bathroom. Yana charged first, shield braced in front of him, his revolver barking in his hand. The two nearest intruders were dropped instantly, their chests exploding in red spray as Yana’s revolver’s rounds found home. Natasha swept in behind him, SMG pressed tight against her shoulder, muzzle flaring in controlled bursts. The third man, caught mid-shout, collapsed near the desk in a storm of bullets.
The fourth, dazed but realizing the trap, staggered toward the broken door. His legs buckled as though made of rubber, the aftershock of the flashbang dragging him down with each step. Natasha sighted in and cut him down in a clean burst before he could cross the threshold. He pitched forward face-first onto the floor, motionless.
Then, silence.
The acrid smell of gunpowder and hot brass thickened the air. Smoke curled from the barrels of their weapons, mixing with the metallic tang of blood now spattered across the walls and furniture. Natasha’s shoulders remained tight, her breathing shallow through clenched teeth. She didn’t trust silence, not yet.
“Check outside,” she muttered.
Yana advanced with his shield still raised, stepping over corpses as Natasha kicked at twitching limbs. When one so much as jerked, she put an extra round straight into the skull. No second chances.
Satisfied, Yana pressed out of the checkpoint, revolver raised to one side, shield sweeping to the other. His boots echoed sharply in the corridor as he scanned every angle. Empty. At least for now.
He looked back. “Clear.”
Natasha exhaled, lowering her gun just enough to rest it against her chest plate.
The smell of gunpowder and blood hung thick in the air, the flickering overhead lights making the scene feel even more grim. Four bodies lay sprawled across the checkpoint floor—twisted and broken, some clutching weapons they’d never get the chance to fire again. The steel-reinforced door that had once given them a sense of security now hung crooked on its hinges, warped and splintered by sheer force. Whatever illusion of safety this place once offered had been shattered.
Yana stood frozen near the carnage, his breath shallow and uneven, hands trembling so hard he could barely keep his shield up. The young guard’s pale face told its own story; the horror was all-consuming. Natasha, on the other hand, looked almost unnervingly composed, her expression calm yet hardened. She gave the dead only a passing glance before letting her Smg hang over her chest.
“Had to be done,” she said, her voice low but steady. Without hesitation, she turned on her heel and strode back toward the arms locker, the blood-streaked floor squelching under her boots. “I suggest we move on, find a way out of this hellhole. Chances are, more of their friends are coming to check why these idiots haven’t reported back.”
Yana finally exhaled, stepping carefully around the bodies as if afraid to disturb them. Inside the arms locker’s shadowy interior, he grabbed the overturned overseer’s chair, setting it upright with a soft screech of metal on tile before slumping into it. He set his battered shield down beside him and fumbled with the strap of his helmet. Once it was off, he buried his face in his hands, dragging his fingers through his sweat-matted hair and tugging lightly at his soft Cautus ears, which twitched and folded beneath his palms. The constant noise, the gunfire, the screams—it was all too much.
Natasha returned with her prize: the PR-80 bolt-action rifle slung effortlessly over her shoulder. She looked over at him, sighed, then nudged the side of his foot with her boot.
“Hey,” she said softly, her tone leveling out from its usual commanding edge. She stood close, looming over him with arms crossed. “Just so you know, Yana… we can’t change how things are. We just have to deal with it. You’ve got to understand, we can’t have you breaking down every time some lunatic tries to take a swing at us. I get it, it’s hard—harder than anyone told you. But you knew what you were signing up for when you put that uniform on.”
Yana raised his head, his eyes red and tired. He shook his head slowly, voice trembling. “Doesn’t make it easier, Lieutenant.”
“I know,” Natasha replied, crouching slightly to meet his gaze. Her words came firm but not unkind. “That’s why you’ve gotta close that bleeding heart of yours before it bleeds you dry. You can’t wash off the blood on your hands, Yana. No one can. But it’s better to have their blood on yours than yours on theirs. So get up. We’re not dying here, not today.”
He studied her for a moment, then straightened. There was a flicker of something in his eyes—a shift from fear to determination. With a deep breath, Yana grabbed his helmet, slid it back on, and rose from the chair with new resolve. A small, shaky smile tugged at his lips.
“Yes, ma’am. But…” he glanced around the ruined checkpoint, “…where are we going to go?”
“Good question,” Natasha said with a smirk, pointing a finger at him like she’d just called on him in training. “If there are no other guards left in this sector, then we move to the next. We gather what’s left of security as we go, push forward, and find a way out.”
“I like that plan,” Yana replied, clutching his shield again, gripping it tighter this time.
“Only one I’ve got,” she chuckled dryly, shaking her head.
That earned a laugh from him too—a small, nervous one, but genuine. The tension in the air loosened just slightly.
“Okay,” Natasha said as she adjusted the strap on her rifle, her voice returning to its commanding tone. “Grab everything you need here. Ammo, armor, medical supplies, whatever you can carry. Once we’re stocked up, we’re moving out. No looking back.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Yana snapped to attention, his voice carrying more confidence now, though his hands still trembled faintly as he reached for ammunition and gear.
As they scoured the arms locker, stuffing magazines and rounds into belts and pouches, the dim checkpoint felt less like a tomb and more like a staging ground. The blood-stained floor and shattered door were reminders of what they’d already survived—and what was still out there waiting for them.
Natasha glanced once more at the lifeless bodies sprawled across the floor, then at her shaken but willing partner. “Let’s move,” she said curtly, loading a fresh magazine into her sidearm.
Yana nodded, gripping his shield like a lifeline. Together, they stepped over the corpses, leaving the so-called safehouse behind.
They return to the intersection of hallways, three starkly different paths stretching into dimly lit uncertainty: straight ahead lies a shadow-choked corridor that swallows what little light flickers from the overhead fixtures; to the right, a bathroom door hangs ajar beside a broom closet; and to the left, the staff break room Yana had been sent to earlier, a place that once smelled faintly of burnt coffee and cheap instant meals.
“There’s people inside that break room over there,” Yana murmured, nodding toward the left hallway. “Maybe we can take them with us? Mostly technicians and researchers, I think.”
“Hopefully at least one of them knows which end of a gun to point forward,” Natasha muttered, her voice calm but edged. She nodded sharply to the left. “Let’s go.”
Yana took the lead, his large riot shield raised, its surface already dented and scuffed from close encounters earlier that day. Natasha gripped the back of his belt with her left hand, her pistol steady in her right, her movements controlled, her eyes sharp. Their boots thudded softly against the hard floor, echoing faintly in the dead air. Every shadow felt like a warning, every flickering light above screamed of imminent violence.
Then Yana froze mid-step. His breath caught audibly.
“Oh no…” he whispered, his voice tight.
Natasha followed his line of sight and immediately understood what he meant. The staff break room door stood wide open, its lock mechanism mangled, frame splintered from brute force.
“Shit,” she hissed under her breath. “Is there anyone inside?”
Yana only shrugged, wide-eyed, his uncertainty clear. The tension hung between them like a drawn bowstring. Natasha gave him a quick hand signal to hold position as she crouched slightly, pistol raised, and studied the scene. The silence beyond the doorway was heavier than gunfire, oppressive and thick.
They approached carefully. Natasha’s hand tightened on Yana’s shoulder as she lowered her pistol slightly, scanning for signs of movement. The break room, once warm and alive with idle chatter, was a scene of devastation. The overhead lights flickered intermittently, casting the space in a sickly yellow strobe. Chairs were toppled and splintered. Tables lay overturned. Snack wrappers and shattered glass littered the floor like confetti from a party long since turned into a massacre. The vending machines Yana had been tasked to repair earlier were smashed open, their interiors gutted.
And then, in the center of it all, sat the only occupant. A lone researcher slumped against the wall, his once-pristine lab coat a sodden mess of crimson, his head lolling at an unnatural angle.
Natasha’s gut tensed instantly. Something about the scene reeked of calculation.
“Hold up,” she whispered, catching Yana as he instinctively started forward. Her tone was sharp, commanding. “This feels wrong. Why leave one guy here, like this, and take everyone else? That’s bait.”
Yana stiffened, his hands tightening around his rifle. His face was pale, his ears flattened slightly on his helmet. But he didn’t argue. He stepped back, letting her take control.
Natasha slipped another flashbang from her belt and glanced at him with a tight smirk. “This is something the Ursus military drilled into us. You don’t walk into a room blind; you let Mr. Grenade go first.”
Yana blinked, not quite getting the humor, but nodded and moved aside.
Natasha’s movements were smooth and precise. She yanked the pin with practiced ease, crouched low, and rolled the flashbang inside. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then:
A deafening BANG erupted, the shockwave rattling their bones, followed by a burst of searing white light and acrid smoke.
The silence shattered.
Screams erupted from within—ragged, pained, and panicked. Shadows shifted violently as figures stumbled from cover. Natasha clapped Yana’s back with a firm hand.
“Move!”
Yana surged through the doorway, shield up, pivoting sharply to the right. Natasha swept left, her pistol already aimed.
Two masked maniacs, their pale ceramic masks glinting faintly in the flickering light, crouched in the corners of the room, both clutching crude crossbows. They were writhing in agony, hands pressed desperately against their ears and eyes, completely disoriented. Natasha didn’t hesitate.
Her pistol barked once—sharp, controlled. The nearest enemy’s head snapped back violently, his body crumpling lifeless to the ground. Yana fired his sidearm in quick succession: three rounds, two slamming uselessly into the wall, the third sinking into his target’s chest with a wet thud. The enemy staggered forward onto his hands and knees, groaning.
Yana stepped forward, steadying his breath, and delivered a final, merciful shot to the back of the man’s head.
The chaos evaporated in an instant. The only sounds left were their own breaths, heavy but steady, and the soft hum of the flickering ceiling light. The smell of burnt gunpowder and blood was overwhelming in the confined space.
Natasha scanned the corners one more time before lowering her weapon. “Clear,” she muttered, though her tone betrayed no relief.
Yana exhaled shakily, glancing at the fallen enemies. “We almost walked right into that…”
Natasha gave him a sideways glance, holstering her pistol. “Welcome to real combat, kid. You think these bastards play fair? Always assume someone’s waiting to slit your throat.”
Her gaze shifted to the dead researcher. She crouched briefly, checking for signs of life, but it was pointless. The man’s body was cold. His expression was frozen in fear and pain. Natasha’s jaw tightened as she stood.
“They didn’t kill him fast,” she said grimly. “Which means they wanted someone to find him like this. Psychological warfare.”
Yana looked at her, his face pale under his helmet. “They’re… really that organized?”
Natasha’s eyes were hard as steel. “You don’t stage an ambush like that by accident.” She turned back toward the hallway. “Come on. Let’s not stick around to become the next exhibit.”
Yana took one last uneasy glance at the dead researcher before falling in behind her, shield raised once again.
The break room was silent once more, but the lingering sense of dread was suffocating.
The break room was a lost cause—empty, ransacked, and barren of anything worth taking. The crossbowmen they’d dispatched earlier had carried nothing that would help them now, so Natasha and Yana left without ceremony, slipping back into formation as they crept down the dim hallway. The cold fluorescent lighting flickered overhead, buzzing faintly, while every step echoed just enough to make them paranoid. Their path twisted and turned through sterile corridors until they came to a sharp intersection.
Yana holstered his revolver and unclipped the battered pager from his belt, flipping through its interface with a confidence that caught Natasha off guard. A glowing schematic map of the deck popped up on the screen.
“Wait, that thing can do that all this time?” Natasha blurted out, voice tinged with incredulity.
“Yeah? I just found this out.” He grinned. “Neat, huh?”
“...Why the fuck isn’t this standard issue?!” Natasha growled, shaking her head.
Yana chuckled at her outrage before leaning closer to study the map. “Alright… we’ve got two paths. Left takes us to the generator control and operation room. Right leads us down to… ah, a staircase.”
Natasha frowned. “Not sure if going up is a good idea. I’ve been topside—there’s dozens of these bastards running around up there.” She sighed and scratched her jaw beneath her mask. “Still… I’d rather be anywhere but stuck in here.”
“Yeah, fair. But shouldn’t we, like, check on the generator control room first?” Yana’s voice carried an undertone of hesitation, but his logic was sound. “If these freaks get control of that, they’re gonna wreck the place.”
Natasha groaned inwardly. He had a point, and she hated it. The generator control hub was the beating heart of this deck’s operations. Its systems regulated the flow and output of the hydroelectric turbines powering Chernobog’s mobile infrastructure. If these amateurs started fiddling with controls they didn’t understand, the consequences could be catastrophic. Natasha blew a sharp breath through her nose. “Alright. Left it is.”
They advanced cautiously, pressing themselves against the corner of the intersecting hallway. Yana knelt low, peering around the edge with a practiced flick of his head, before quickly pulling back. “Two of them,” he whispered, voice barely audible over the faint hum of machinery deeper in the facility.
Natasha gave a sharp nod and holstered her sidearm, switching smoothly to her SMG. Her fingers ran over the worn grips of the weapon, ensuring it was set to burst fire.
Down the hall, two masked fighters emerged from a heavy steel door marked Generator Control . Both wore stolen riot gear scavenged from fallen security guards, though their posture betrayed inexperience.
“You think Denis and Danyl managed to get someone with their trap?” one murmured, baton casually slung over his shoulder.
“Or they’re the ones who got way over their heads,” the other scoffed. “I don’t like the sound of those gunshots earlier. Too close for comfort.”
“We’ve cleared this area out already. Doubt any guards are left standing.”
“Watch it. That’s how you end up eating your words.”
Their voices faded as they drew nearer to the corner. Natasha’s heart thudded once, steadying as instinct took over.
“Grenade!” Yana barked.
The masked fighters reacted immediately, leaping back in panic—only for the “grenade” to clatter harmlessly against the floor. It was a ball-peen hammer. The split-second of confusion was all Natasha needed. She lunged from cover, SMG barking sharp bursts. The first volley slammed into their riot armor, staggering them but not penetrating. Natasha adjusted her aim, squeezing off tight, surgical bursts toward their fragile masks. Wet splatters followed the crumpling of plaster, and both fighters collapsed against the doorframe, lifeless before they hit the ground.
Natasha smoothly ejected her magazine, scanning the hall as she reloaded. Yana advanced with his shield raised and revolver at the ready, kicking away the stolen batons and securing the perimeter. “You think these masks actually have any tactical purpose?” he muttered, crouching over one of the corpses.
“Absolutely not. They’re more of a liability,” Natasha replied dryly as she slapped a fresh magazine home. “You can barely see a damn thing in those. Probably gets musty in seconds.”
Yana snorted. “What about yours, then?”
“I can see just fine,” she shot back with a smirk hidden behind her mask. “Gets stuffy, sure, but I can flip it up whenever I want. Looks like more of their buddies are holed up inside.” She gestured toward the generator control room with her still-smoking SMG.
Yana hesitated, his expression tense. “You think we should handle it?”
Natasha’s answer was immediate. “We’re security. Survival’s our first priority, but this sector’s safety is a close second. If they compromise that generator, we’re screwed anyway. So yes—we handle it.”
Yana didn’t argue. Instead, he methodically reloaded his revolver, pressing the ejector rod to pop out the spent brass casings and feeding fresh rounds into the cylinder one at a time. The quiet click of the weapon was a grim metronome, underscoring their readiness.
Once finished, he snapped the cylinder shut and gave Natasha a firm nod. “Ready when you are, lieutenant.”
Natasha checked her SMG one last time, her finger hovering over the safety. She nodded back, the silent understanding between them sharpened by survival instincts. The door ahead was reinforced steel, scarred by years of use, but beyond it was a room that could decide the fate of the entire sector.
They slipped inside the door, finding themselves in an observation chamber humming with life—flickering monitors, blinking lights, and an array of instruments that neither Natasha nor Yana had the faintest clue how to operate. Through the reinforced glass, the generator hall spread out below them, a cathedral of steel and turbines now crawling with masked intruders. The turbine decks were swarming; the invaders had completely overrun the place.
Natasha crouched low, and Yana followed, ducking behind a bank of consoles. From there, they got a clear view of the scene: eight armed brutes in scavenged armor, each carrying stolen batons, axes, or rifles, their every movement sharp with manic energy. A group of terrified technicians and researchers huddled together on the floor, guarded closely.
One man stood out—his mask painted blood-red, a grey poncho draped over his shoulders like a warlord’s mantle. He shoved a trembling technician toward the main control console, barking orders. The terrified man stammered that he didn’t know how to operate the regulators, that he only handled pipes and maintenance.
The red-masked man responded by grabbing the man by the collar and smashing him against the console with brutal finality. The technician crumpled, lifeless, as the masked thugs roared in approval. Their laughter was sharp and ugly. The other hostages averted their eyes, sobbing quietly, knowing they might be next.
Yana’s expression hardened, the fear that clung to him earlier replaced with something cold. He glanced at Natasha, voice low and steady. “Bastards. What’s the play, Lieutenant?”
Natasha checked her gear with quick, practiced movements. Two flashbangs. Three smokes. Two tear gas. She’d burned through more grenades than she’d have liked, but this would do. “Take this.” She pressed a flashbang into Yana’s hand. He took it, glancing at her for direction. “You flank to that corner,” she whispered, pointing to a shadowed spot at the far end of the room. “When I flash, you do the same.”
Yana smirked faintly, revolver in his other hand. “I don’t think they’ll like what they see.”
Natasha almost barked at him, but instead she exhaled sharply through her nose and allowed herself the barest flicker of a smirk. “Very clever, smartass. Now quit fucking around.”
He gave her a sharp nod, the levity slipping from his face as he crawled away to take position. “On your mark, Lieutenant,” Yana murmured, ready to move.
…
Notes:
Just in case:
CrowdController-85:
Petrikov Rifle-80 (carbine vers):
Natasha's sidearm (Enforcer-81):
Yana's sidearm (Verdict-80):
Chapter 5: Scorched Earth
Summary:
“You may have won, but your victory is no triumph. You can force me from my home, but you will not live in it. I will leave you nothing but scorched earth."
Chapter Text
The technician’s body twitched one final time before going still, his lifeblood spreading in a dark, reflective pool across the cold steel floor. The red-masked man barely spared the corpse a glance as he prowled toward another hostage, his boots echoing in the cavernous chamber. His attention was fixed on an Ursus woman kneeling among the terrified cluster of researchers. Her once-pristine lab coat was now a canvas of grime and sweat, torn at the shoulder. She trembled violently, sobbing into her hands, unable to meet his gaze.
He crouched before her with unsettling calm, the crimson mask obscuring his expression but doing nothing to soften the menace radiating from him. He leaned closer, breathing deeply—long, deliberate inhales and slow, drawn-out exhales that filled the suffocating silence.
The woman peeked up at him, confused, caught off guard by his strange rhythm. Against her better judgment, she mirrored him. Breathe in. Breathe out. Her trembling slowed, though fear still glistened in her wide, tear-filled eyes.
“Do you know how to operate this thing?” His voice was low, gravelly, a serpent’s whisper slithering between them.
She hesitated, then nodded.
In an instant, his feigned calm evaporated. His hand shot out like a viper, clamping around her arm with brutal strength. She let out a sharp yelp as he yanked her to her feet, dragging her toward the control panel.
“Hey!” came a voice from behind her—a younger Ursus man, also in a soiled lab coat, his face twisted with fury. He started to rise, but the leader’s sword flashed from its sheath with a hiss. The steel’s edge hovered inches from the young man’s throat, freezing him mid-motion.
“Sit. Down.”
The young researcher hesitated, then sank back to his knees, rage smoldering behind his eyes.
“Good boy,” the red-masked man muttered, sheathing his blade. He turned to two of his masked subordinates and jerked his chin toward the defiant youth. “Give him an educational beating.”
The order was met with eager compliance. The two brutes lunged, seizing the boy by his collar and slamming him to the ground. His cry of pain was quickly drowned beneath a flurry of fists and boots. The female researcher screamed his name, but her captor shoved her forward, forcing her against the control panel. Her stomach collided with the sharp edge, knocking the wind from her lungs as she bent over the machinery.
“Focus,” the red-masked man growled, his voice dripping with mockery. He gestured lazily toward the dead technician, his limp body sprawled nearby. “Now, I’m gonna ask you like I asked Mr. Pulp-face over there. How do you shut down those pretty turbines?”
The woman winced at the nickname, her breath hitching as she tried to speak through her panic.
“Boss,” one of the thugs called out mid-pummel, “why are we even turning these off?”
“Because the scary dragon lady said so,” the leader replied without looking back, his tone flippant. He loomed over the woman, his mask almost touching her face. “Now talk. Which switch, which knob, which glowing little button? And don’t you dare waste my time.”
The woman raised a trembling hand, pointing shakily toward a cluster of labeled levers and switches. “Th-there. It’s those ones. Please… please don’t hurt me.”
The man cocked his head, examining the controls with mild curiosity. “So if I just twist these and pull that, the turbines go silent?”
“Yes,” she stammered, her voice cracking. “It won’t… it won’t shut them down completely, but it will stop the turbines from converting the water flow into power.”
That seemed good enough for him. He straightened with a shrug, stepping back as if to release her. “Alright. You’re free to go.”
The words sank in slowly, disbelief flashing in her eyes. “R-Really—”
Her relief lasted half a second. He moved like lightning, lunging forward and slamming his knee into her midsection. The blow landed with a sickening thud, folding her in half. She gasped, choking on her breath as she clutched her stomach, collapsing to her knees. The masked men around him erupted into cruel laughter, reveling in her pain.
The red-masked man crouched down again, tilting his head as she wheezed on the floor, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “See? Free to go. Just… not far.”
Two of the brutes hauled the dry-heaving researcher back into line, her sobs breaking into ragged coughs as she cradled her battered midsection. The young man who had dared to stand up to them was left in a heap nearby, a pulped, barely breathing mess. His face was swollen beyond recognition, blood pooling beneath him. He didn’t even have the strength to moan.
The red-masked man returned to the control panel, his boots striking the floor with a predator’s rhythm. He flexed his gloved fingers, savoring the moment. “Finally,” he muttered to himself, reaching for the glossy buttons and switches. He twisted a knob and pressed a large illuminated button with a decisive click—
—and instantly, the entire room was plunged into darkness.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered once, then died completely, leaving only the ghostly glow of the massive turbine chamber beyond the glass. The hum of machinery filled the sudden void of light, an eerie backdrop to the startled murmurs and curses of the masked raiders.
“What the…?” The red-masked man froze.
He wheeled around, stalking back toward the female researcher with a fury that burned even hotter than before. She was hunched over, clutching her ribs, still trying to catch her breath. He grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back so hard she squealed in pain.
“You lying bitch! That was the light switch!” he roared, his mask an inch from her terrified face.
Her voice came out strangled, barely a whisper. “It… wasn’t the light switch…”
“What?!” He shook her violently, his rage bubbling over—
—and then they heard it: the metallic clink of something small and hard skittering across the floor.
Every masked head turned. The leader squinted into the gloom just in time to see the cylindrical shape roll to a stop, perforated with small holes. His body stiffened.
“GRENA—”
The room exploded with light and sound.
A blinding white flash swallowed everything, followed by a bone-rattling bang that turned the air into a physical wall of force. Smoke burst outward, choking the dim chamber, while every living soul inside reeled and screamed, clutching their ears, blinded and deafened.
Another blast followed a heartbeat later. The ambush had begun.
The raiders staggered like drunken beasts, their formation breaking instantly. Hostages wailed in confusion, curling into fetal positions, praying for survival.
Natasha’s rifle cracked the silence next. She had her weapon braced against a shattered monitor, her eye calm and unblinking as she tracked the red-masked leader staggering upright. He barely got out, “WHO THE FU—” before his head snapped back in a pink mist, his body collapsing lifelessly against the glowing console.
Chaos erupted.
Natasha fired with machine-like precision, all four of her remaining rounds ending one of them almost immediately. Almost. Her second shot tore through a raider’s throat, sending him flopping to the ground like a seaborne out of water. Her third shot split a man’s jaw, his scream gurgling into silence.
On the opposite side, Yana emerged from the gloom, his revolver barking thunder. The muzzle flashes lit his grim expression as he put two slugs into one man’s chest, then another into his skull. Another raider spun from the impact of Yana’s bullets, collapsing in a heap.
One of the masked fighters regained enough composure to level his weapon, but Yana was already charging. He hit the man like a battering ram, his shield slamming into him with bone-breaking force. The raider crashed backward, stunned. Yana dropped his revolver for a moment and gripped his heavy wrench, bringing it down with brutal finality on the top of the man’s head. The sound was a sickening crunch, a watermelon splitting under a hammer.
The man convulsed once, twitching. Yana drew his revolver again, pressed the barrel between the raider’s mask’s eyeholes, and pulled the trigger. The body went limp instantly.
In less than thirty seconds, the generator control room was transformed into a charnel house. The laughter and taunting that had filled the air moments ago had been replaced with silence, save for the ringing in everyone’s ears and the soft sobs of the surviving hostages.
Yana lowered his shield, breathing hard, his revolver still smoking. Natasha remained perfectly still for a moment longer, scanning for movement, her rifle steady.
No more threats. Not in this room.
“You okay, Yana?” Natasha called out, her voice carrying over the oppressive ringing that still lingered in both their ears. She moved carefully, her boots crunching over glass and shell casings as she stepped out from behind cover.
“Yeah, I’m good!” Yana answered, his voice steady but low, as if speaking too loud would disturb the stillness. He snapped open the revolver’s cylinder with a practiced flick of his wrist, the weapon’s steel glinting in the dim light of the turbine chamber beyond. The spent brass fell with soft, deliberate clinks onto the cold metal floor—a sound almost soothing in the chaos they’d just unleashed.
Natasha crouched beside him, rifle in hand. Her grip on it was natural, intimate, like it had been part of her body for years. “Did you check them at least?”
“None of them are moving,” Yana replied flatly, sliding fresh rounds one by one into the cylinder. “Or breathing.”
Natasha raised her visor, revealing her face—sweat-slick, flushed from adrenaline, but smiling faintly. “Good. I saw the way you moved back there. Nice work.”
Yana exhaled heavily, snapping the revolver shut with a click. “I just… acted on instinct. Didn’t think about it too much.”
“That’s the point,” Natasha said, reloading her own rifle with smooth, mechanical efficiency. She slammed the bolt forward and slung it across her back, her hand coming down hard on Yana’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what I want to see.”
The shared moment didn’t last.
A low groaning broke through the ringing in their ears—painful, weak, human. Natasha’s expression hardened instantly as she turned her attention to the hostages.
There were five of them left. It should have been six.
Two technicians, three researchers, all alive but shaken. One of the researchers—the young man who had dared to stand up to their captors—was beaten nearly senseless, his body limp and bloodied, breaths shallow and ragged. The rest were curled up or sprawled across the floor, clutching their heads, their ears, trying to blink away the shock of two flashbangs detonating in their midst.
Natasha pointed to the beaten man. “Yana. Stabilize him.”
“On it.” Yana knelt, setting his shield on the floor. He yanked a first-aid kit taken from the early checkpoint from his harness, the red cross on its side smeared with dirt. His voice softened as he knelt by the young researcher, his hands startlingly gentle as he examined the bruises. “Hey, sir. You’re safe now, alright? Just hang on.”
Natasha turned her attention to the rest of the hostages, moving with deliberate calm. The female researcher who had been kneed in the gut was curled on her side, one arm protectively over her stomach. Natasha crouched beside her.
“Ma’am, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
The woman flinched and shouted back, voice trembling: “WHAT?!”
Natasha winced, rolling her eyes at herself. “Perfect. Deafened half the room,” she muttered under her breath, guilt tugging at her, but unable to outweigh the relief that every masked raider in this chamber was dead.
It took nearly thirty seconds for the hostages to regain some composure, enough to sit up shakily. The ringing in their ears wasn’t gone, but their movements were less panicked now. Yana had propped the battered researcher upright against a bank of shattered monitors, gently coaxing him to sip from a plastic water bottle they’d scavenged from the raiders.
On the floor nearby lay a grim collection of stolen goods—soda cans, chips, bottled water, all pilfered from vending machines and guard stations, now a lifeline for the survivors.
Natasha grabbed a pack of cheese and salted crackers, tearing it open with her teeth. Her hands shook slightly, but she ignored it. She hadn’t eaten in a while, hadn’t sipped water since they started this nightmare. She cracked open a bottle of Colombian soda, the carbonation hissing softly in the tense quiet, and finally allowed herself a drink.
The sugar was like a jolt of electricity to her starved body. She closed her eyes for half a second, savoring it, then distributed rations to the others, pressing a half-empty water bottle into trembling hands, passing crackers to those too stunned to reach for them.
The hostages’ breathing steadied. They whispered reassurances to one another. The food and water helped, but Natasha could see it in their eyes—the sight of the sprawled corpses, the smell of cordite and blood, the reality that they’d been seconds from execution—none of it was going to leave them soon.
For now, though, they were alive. That would have to be enough.
After everyone had settled down, food and drink easing both nerves and stomachs, Natasha straightened herself and took control of the room. Her tone was firm but calm, the kind of voice that demanded attention without needing to shout.
“Alright,” she began, scanning the battered survivors. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on here.”
The first to speak was a technician, his voice sharp with frustration and fear. “Does it look like we know either? We were hiding in the break room, keeping our heads down, when they stormed in. They slit the throats of anyone who even thought about fighting back, dragged the rest of us here like livestock.” His eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling as he recalled it.
“They weren’t even subtle about it,” the female researcher added bitterly, still pressing a hand to her bruised abdomen. Her lab coat was smeared with dirt and dried blood, but she forced herself upright. “They were obsessed with those turbines. Obsessed—and none of them seemed to even understand why. Just kept saying some ‘dragon lady’ told them to.”
Natasha’s expression hardened as she pieced it together. “Targeting the infrastructure,” she muttered. “Cutting the power to the surface city, cutting the lifeblood that keeps Chernobog moving. They’re not just thugs—whoever sent them knew exactly what shutting down those generators would do.”
“Lieutenant,” Yana’s voice cut in as he returned from tending to the half-conscious young researcher. His large hand held up something he had stripped from one of the corpses: an armband, orange cloth dulled by blood and grime. “They were all wearing these. Some kind of symbol.”
Natasha took it from him. The material was rough beneath her gloves; the emblem was painted in crude black strokes—a jagged, twisted cross. Recognition stabbed at her gut like a knife. She had seen this before, in training seminars where they’d been taught to identify Ursus insurgent groups by banners and emblems.
And not the kind of insurgents who just wanted autonomy, or regional pride, or to fatten their egos as little warlords.
Her jaw clenched as the memory surfaced—slideshows in a stuffy classroom, the instructor explaining which groups fought for territory, which hired mercenaries, which raided the borders. Some were brutal, but pragmatic. This symbol, however, was different. It wasn’t just rebellion. It was an ideology.
Her stomach sank.
“Reunion,” she breathed.
“What was that, lieutenant?” one of the technicians asked, his tone wary.
Natasha raised her head, her voice steady. “They’re Reunion.”
Blank stares met her words. Confusion, irritation, even a flicker of fear. Finally, one of the researchers scoffed, an older man with streaks of grey in his beard. “You’re saying that like it’s supposed to mean something. Who the hell are they to us?”
“They’re an insurgent movement,” Natasha explained, her tone clipped, professional. “Composed mainly of the Infected. People who’ve been pushed to the edge because of Oripathy—because of a disease they never asked for. They got sick of being beaten down, starved, denied work, denied dignity. And so they decided to fight back. Against Ursus. Against anyone who profits from the suffering of the Infected.”
Her explanation was followed by silence. But it wasn’t thoughtful silence—it was heavy with resentment. The grey-bearded researcher’s face twisted in disdain. “Unbelievable. Instead of dying quietly in a ditch like they ought to, they’d rather drag the rest of us into their misery. They want to make their curse our problem.”
“Yeah,” another technician chimed in bitterly. “Ain’t our fault they caught themselves a plague. They should’ve stayed the hell away from us.”
The words sparked a wave of mutters, some fearful, some angry. One of the younger technicians suddenly blurted out, panic cracking his voice: “Does this mean we’re gonna get Infected too?!”
Natasha said nothing for a moment, just looked at them. She could see the fear in their eyes, but also the deep-rooted ignorance that had been cultivated by years of propaganda and neglect. She didn’t entirely blame them—they knew only what they’d been told. That the Infected were dangerous. Contagious. Untouchable.
And yet… she thought of Yulian. Thought of the countless times he had rushed into danger without hesitation, helping anyone, even those society had condemned. He had taught her that the Infected weren’t monsters, weren’t demons to be shunned. They were people. People who bled and cried and loved like anyone else. People betrayed by the very systems meant to protect them.
She clenched her jaw, swallowing her words before they spilled out raw. She could correct them. She could rail against their ignorance. But here, in this room thick with fear, she knew it would fall on deaf ears.
Instead, she glanced at Yana. He had overheard everything, and the look on his face mirrored her own—stunned, uneasy, angry, but quiet. He was too disciplined to speak out of turn, but the weight of what they had just uncovered pressed heavily on them both.
Natasha’s jaw tightened as she stood over the trembling survivors, her gloved fingers resting against the strap of her rifle. Sympathy for the Infected, or not, this was war. She wasn’t going to hand over an inch of ground, not for some sob story or the moral high ground. The Reunion were here to burn her home, to slaughter innocents, and to turn Chernobog into a graveyard. There would be no leniency, not now.
The female researcher, pale and still clutching her stomach, broke the uneasy silence. Her voice trembled with exhaustion but carried a desperate edge. “So… what’s going to happen now, Lieutenant? Where’s the rest of your unit?”
Natasha didn’t sugarcoat her reply. “There is no rest of my unit. It’s just me and Yana.”
That made the room even quieter. She could feel their fear thickening the air like smoke. She let them absorb the weight of her words before continuing, her voice steady, calculated. “Reunion’s spread across this entire sector. They caught us completely off guard, overwhelmed the guard teams before anyone could organize a proper defense. Even the firearms Chief Petrikov issued us didn’t mean shit against lunatics willing to charge headfirst into bullets. The city’s in chaos. But…” She scanned the room, letting her gaze harden as her tone grew more commanding. “We’re not staying here to die. We’re going to regroup with any surviving teams, push forward to another sector—Sector C. I know for a fact they’re still holding out with everything they’ve got. That’s where the bulk of our armory is. We can resupply there, rally whoever’s left, and mount a counter-offensive.”
The senior researcher—a wiry man with thinning hair and a permanent scowl etched on his face—spoke up sharply. “What about us? You expect us to follow you through that warzone?”
Natasha turned her head to meet his glare, her expression unwavering. “That’s your choice,” she said bluntly. “You come with us, or you don’t. Either way, staying here is a death sentence. At least with us, you’ll have a fighting chance. That is… if any of you even know how to fight?”
A bitter laugh escaped the old man’s throat as the hostages exchanged uncertain looks. “I’m old, Lieutenant. I’ve got grandchildren. If I swing a punch, I’ll throw my back out before I hurt anyone.”
“I think something’s broken inside me,” the female researcher admitted, grimacing as she tried to straighten up. Her hand pressed firmly against her abdomen. “I can barely stand.”
The young man Yana had been tending to let out a soft groan, his body riddled with bruises and swelling. He was in no state to even lift a weapon, let alone swing one.
The two remaining technicians shook their heads silently. One of them muttered, “I’m a systems guy, not a soldier. Closest I’ve come to a weapon is fixing a coffee percolator.”
Natasha let out a sigh heavy enough to fill the room. “Perfect. Well, guess what? That doesn’t matter. Because if those bastards come for us, they’re not going to care if you’re old, sick, or clueless. You’re either going to fight back or die.” She pointed to the bodies of the dead Reunion fighters, her voice cutting like a blade. “So grab a weapon. I don’t care if it’s a machete, a rifle, or a broken pipe—anything. You’re going to do what’s necessary to survive. No excuses.”
The bluntness of her words left the group stunned. Some bristled, some looked offended, but they all understood she wasn’t wrong. Slowly, reluctantly, they moved. The two technicians picked through the discarded rifles and handguns, their movements awkward, unpracticed. Natasha noticed one of them keeping his finger curled on the trigger, the barrel swaying dangerously close to his fellow hostage. Her eyes narrowed.
“Rule number one,” she snapped, her tone sharp enough to make the technician flinch. “Keep your goddamn finger off the trigger until you mean to kill something. Point that at someone again and I’ll make sure you’re the first to drop.”
The man swallowed hard and nodded, adjusting his grip as Natasha moved on to the others. The elderly researcher reluctantly picked up a crowbar, his hands trembling but resolute. The beaten young researcher was hoisted gently onto the old man’s shoulder with Yana’s help, the boy groaning softly but managing to cling on.
Soon, the group stood armed—albeit shakily—and Natasha felt the weight of responsibility settle even heavier on her shoulders. These weren’t soldiers; they were terrified civilians being dragged into a nightmare. But if they were going to survive, fear had to be their weapon as much as steel.
They were about to move out when Natasha’s attention drifted toward the observation windows. Below, the cavernous generator hall stretched out like a steel labyrinth. Shadows danced under the dim emergency lights, and the faint silhouettes of patrolling Reunion fighters moved like restless predators. The turbines loomed massive and imposing, humming faintly.
She turned back to the control panel, its lights and levers blinking quietly like a heart monitor. A thought sparked. A dangerous thought.
Just as the female researcher limped toward the door, Natasha raised a hand to stop her. “Hold on.”
The woman turned, confusion flickering in her bloodshot eyes. “What?”
“You said you know how to work this equipment, right?” Natasha gestured to the control panel.
The woman hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
Natasha’s smirk was cold, calculated. Her mind was already racing ahead. “Because I might have a better idea for how to deal with these bastards…”
Her gaze flicked back out the window to the sea of patrolling enemies. A plan was forming, one that involved turning their own sabotage against them. If Reunion wanted Chernobog’s power grid crippled, they might just regret leaving the controls in her hands.
Natasha’s mind worked like a cold, well-oiled weapon, calculating every angle of the battlefield and its consequences. She knew exactly what she was doing, even if those following her didn’t have the stomach for it. The dam’s control room reeked of blood, gunpowder, and ozone, a metallic tang that clung to the back of her throat. The bodies of fallen Reunion fighters lay scattered, their improvised armor and ragged cloaks smeared with dirt and oil, their crude weapons glinting dimly under the flickering emergency lights. To Natasha, they weren’t martyrs. They were obstacles.
The doctrine drilled into her during her Ursus military service played over in her head: Never give the enemy an inch. And if you must, turn that inch into a grave. Every enemy given ground would use it as a launch point, and Natasha wasn’t about to let them. If Reunion wanted this dam, they’d choke on its destruction.
Chief Engineer Petrikov’s hydroelectric dam wasn’t just another power source—it was a work of genius, a testament to Ursus' ingenuity and one of the few pieces of infrastructure that could keep the city running even if its volatile Originium-powered grid was disabled. The turbines thrummed like the heartbeat of Chernobog, deep and steady, even as the halls above echoed with distant gunfire. Natasha knew its value intimately; she’d studied the schematics when posted here. This dam wasn’t just important—it was irreplaceable. Which meant destroying it was the perfect play.
Reunion clearly wanted it intact. Shutting down the turbines was just a step in their plan. They’d seize control, hold it, and restart the system to power their war machine. Natasha’s lip curled at the thought. That wasn’t going to happen.
She turned to the female researcher, who was slumped over a console, pale-faced, clutching her stomach as if keeping herself from folding in half. “You said you know this system,” Natasha growled.
The woman nodded, hesitant. “Y-yeah. But what you’re suggesting… if we overload the grid, that’ll destroy—”
“That’s the point,” Natasha snapped, her voice flat and unyielding. “You overload this dam, and Reunion gets nothing but twisted steel and boiling water. It’ll slow them down, maybe drown a few for good measure. I’m not leaving a single working circuit for those lunatics.”
The researcher flinched but obeyed, hands trembling as she keyed in override sequences. The panel came alive with flashing warning lights, sirens muted by Natasha’s earlier orders to cut alarms and keep quiet. Each keystroke was a nail in the coffin for the dam, and the researcher’s hesitation was palpable. Natasha leaned in close, voice low, cold enough to frost glass.
“You think I like this?” she muttered. “You think I enjoy burning down my home? I’m doing this because if we don’t, they’ll take everything. Do your job. That’s an order.”
The woman swallowed hard and complied.
Natasha straightened, calling Yana over. Her second-in-command looked ragged, bruised, and utterly exhausted, but his eyes burned with the same grim determination. She handed him the pager of the female researcher, her voice all business.
“You’re holding the detonator now. I’ve wired the overload to the pager’s radio frequency. Scroll to the ‘Dam Overload’ channel, and this whole place becomes a deathtrap. Once we leave, Reunion gets nothing but fire and rubble. Got it?”
Yana nodded, lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t question her, didn’t flinch. That was why she trusted him.
The rest of the group—researchers, technicians, and one bloodied young man barely clinging to consciousness—watched with wide, uneasy eyes. They were civilians, not soldiers. They didn’t understand this kind of ruthlessness, this doctrine of destruction. Natasha could feel their silent judgment, their horror at her plan. She didn’t care.
“Let’s move,” Natasha barked, ushering them toward the exit.
As they left the control room, the glow of the panels behind them pulsed like a heartbeat on life support, warning of the impending disaster. Natasha spared one last glance over her shoulder, the hum of the turbines echoing through the narrow corridors. Soon, this marvel of Ursus engineering would be nothing but scorched metal and boiling water.
The researcher who’d armed the overload whispered to another technician as they climbed the stairs, her voice tremulous. “She’s insane. This is… this is too far.”
Natasha, overhearing, spoke without turning. “You’re alive because I’m willing to do what you can’t. Remember that.”
Her boots rang against the steel steps as she led them ahead. Behind her, the civilians clutched stolen weapons they barely knew how to use, fear in their eyes. Ahead of them lay more enemies, more chaos, more death.
But Natasha moved forward like a force of nature. In her mind, she wasn’t destroying her city—she was denying her enemy victory. Every scorched sector, every collapsed hallway, every flooded room was a knife in Reunion’s side. She had become the embodiment of Ursus doctrine, a soldier who would rather burn everything down than let it fall into enemy hands.
And deep down, in the cold recesses of her heart, she knew this was the only way Chernobog had a chance.
After wiring the dam to overload with a single radio command, Natasha and Yana moved the battered group of survivors through a side hallway, its fluorescent lights flickering like a dying heartbeat. Yana led the way, his shield slung back into position, revolver at the ready, every step deliberate. The air was heavy with damp concrete musk and the faint, ever-present hum of machinery buried in the lower decks. Nobody spoke; they all carried the weight of the massacre they’d just survived.
The corridor stretched out in oppressive silence, only the hollow clack of boots against tile breaking the stillness. Natasha’s eyes flicked from doorframe to ceiling corner to shadow, her SMG ready to cut loose at the first sign of movement. The civilians followed in a nervous procession, heads down, clutching their scavenged weapons, knuckles white against steel grips.
The staircase Yana had scouted earlier finally came into view, a squat metal structure built more for utility than grace. Its narrow steps zigzagged upward into dim light, a way out of the lower decks that now felt like a tomb. Natasha raised her fist, signaling a halt, and Yana stepped forward.
He hugged the wall as he rounded the corner, shield raised, revolver cocked. The empty stairwell greeted him with eerie silence, no ambush, no waiting Reunion. The lack of resistance only made Natasha more uneasy. She crept forward, her back pressed against the wall as she ascended a few steps, her weapon sweeping every shadow.
She paused at the landing and peeked around, catching a clear glimpse of the upper floor’s corridor—empty. Not a soul. She scanned twice, slow and methodical, before descending back to the others. With a quick hand gesture, she ordered them forward.
The survivors began to move. The two technicians climbed first, hugging the wall cautiously, rifles swaying clumsily, but at least their fingers were off the triggers this time. Behind them, the injured female researcher hobbled forward, pushing herself into the wall for support, her limp painfully obvious as she clutched her bruised midsection.
Then came the most vulnerable pair: the young researcher, beaten so badly he couldn’t walk, being half-carried, half-dragged by his older colleague. Natasha and Yana hung back to cover the rear, Yana’s revolver scanning the corridor behind them.
The climb was painfully slow. Every groan of the steps, every breath seemed deafening in the tension. And then—
A sharp, unmistakable click.
Time froze for a fraction of a second. Natasha’s gut twisted. Yana’s eyes went wide. The older researcher’s foot was on something.
The explosion came like the roar of a dragon. A fireball bloomed upward, slamming into the ceiling with a concussive WHUMP. Shrapnel screamed through the stairwell. Natasha instinctively ducked behind Yana’s shield as he braced himself, taking the brunt of the blast.
The older researcher and his battered colleague were swallowed whole by the flames. Their screams tore through the hallway like nails on steel, raw, beast sounds that clawed at Natasha’s brain. The staircase became a furnace, heat washing over them as charred debris clattered down.
“NO!” The female researcher at the top wailed, shrieking their names. She was frozen, her voice ragged with terror. The smell of burning flesh hit Natasha a second later, thick and nauseating.
“GO!” Natasha roared up the stairwell, voice hoarse and commanding. “RUN! MOVE NOW!”
She couldn’t see them through the fire and smoke, but she prayed they listened.
Yana slammed his shield against the wall in frustration, the clang echoing down the corridor. “How?! HOW is this possible?!” His voice cracked as he turned to Natasha, fury and disbelief in his eyes. “You said you cleared it!”
“I DID!” Natasha snapped back, her voice sharp with equal parts anger and guilt. “They set a trap in the middle of the stairs—hugging the wall didn’t save us from that!”
The fire raged higher, embers cascading down the metal steps like glowing rain. There was no getting through. Natasha’s heart thudded in her chest, her instincts screaming that this wasn’t a random trap. This was deliberate, calculated.
Yana paced frantically, his breathing ragged, while Natasha’s mind raced. “Goddamn Reunion… they’re setting traps this precise, this fast?!”
She glanced at her phone, not for reception—there was none this deep—but for the time. 9:47 AM.
Less than three hours since her shift began. A few hours since she’d walked into Sector D, expecting another dull day of security rounds. Now she’s separated from her squad, civilians burned alive in front of her, and the dam they’d been sworn to protect was rigged to blow.
If things were already this bad by midmorning, Natasha dreaded what Chernobog would look like by nightfall.
The scorched stairwell crackled and hissed behind them, filling the corridor with an oppressive heat and the acrid stench of burning flesh. Natasha knew better than to linger—Reunion had already stolen enough time and lives from them. The stairway was gone; that route was a tomb now. There was nothing left to do but press forward and carve their own escape.
She glanced back at Yana. He was down on one knee, his shield resting against the wall, his revolver dangling loosely from his grip. His face was pale, jaw tight as he gagged, fighting against the nausea twisting his gut. Natasha crouched beside him, instinctively reaching out a hand, but she froze mid-gesture, withdrawing it before it could land on his shoulder. Comfort could wait. Right now, her job was to make sure Yana didn’t get himself killed while his guard was down.
The young man squeezed his eyes shut, chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths. Then the smell hit him harder—the searing stink of scorched hair, charred skin, melted clothing—and his control shattered. He turned his head and retched violently, the bile splattering across the floor.
Natasha’s expression hardened. She’d smelled it before—on battlefields, in ruins, in the aftermath of strikes that reduced entire blocks to rubble. It never stopped being awful, but experience gave her armor Yana didn’t have. She crouched low, resting her weight on one knee, scanning the dim corners of the hallway with practiced vigilance. Yana’s reaction wasn’t weakness; it was humanity.
He spat, wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, and forced himself upright. Sweat clung to his brow, his breathing shallow and uneven. He looked exhausted already, and the day hadn’t even reached noon. His gaze flicked toward her, uncertain and searching.
“What are we gonna do now, Lieutenant?” His voice cracked at the edges.
Natasha straightened, checking the magazine in her SMG before answering. “We find another way. That’s all there is to it. We keep moving. Are you still with me, Yana?”
He hesitated, looking down at his revolver as though hoping it could answer for him. “…I wanna get out of here,” he admitted, voice small but steady.
“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do,” she said, her tone sharp, decisive. “Now come on. There’s got to be another staircase, another route—something. Get your pager out. Let’s see our options.”
Yana nodded faintly and fished out his pager with fumbling fingers, scrolling through the internal map. “Three hallways ahead of us. Straight leads to… data storage, I think. Right loops back to the security checkpoint. Left…” He squinted at the small display. “Left leads to Area 4?”
“Temperature Control,” Natasha confirmed quickly, already forming a plan. “Alright, that’s our best bet.”
“I thought we’d head to Area 3,” Yana murmured, more to himself than her.
“No. That’s staff dormitories, mid-level at best. You wouldn’t put beds anywhere near the deep decks. Too loud, too unstable. People need silence to sleep.”
He glanced at her, as if to argue, then said, “…I guess that makes sense.”
Natasha gave him a firm nudge between the shoulder blades, gesturing down the hallway. “Then let’s move before that fire crawls its way down here. Stay sharp.”
The two of them advanced, weapons ready, boots clicking softly on the cold tile as the glow of the fire flickered at their backs like a living predator, chasing them deeper into Sector D. Every step away from the flames carried the weight of what they’d left behind: two colleagues burned alive, their screams still echoing in Yana’s ears. Natasha could see it in his expression—he’d remember those sounds for the rest of his life.
The corridor ahead was silent except for the faint hiss of distant flames and the steady thud of their boots on tile. Behind them, the stairwell burned like a furnace, filling the air with a choking haze that clung to their clothes. Natasha led the way, SMG raised, her sharp eyes scanning every shadow. Yana followed close, shield up, revolver steady, his posture tense as a drawn bowstring.
They approached the next junction, ready to turn left toward Area 4, when something flickered in Natasha’s peripheral vision—a movement straight down the hallway ahead. She froze, snapping her weapon up, finger poised on the trigger. Yana mirrored her instantly, his revolver leveled at the dim shape in the distance.
What stood there wasn’t a Reunion soldier. It was a person in a white lab coat, one of the researchers. At first glance, relief stirred in Natasha’s chest—another survivor. But something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
The figure shuffled and swayed like a puppet on frayed strings, slamming their forehead rhythmically into the wall with dull, wet thuds. A faint, pulsing glow caught Natasha’s attention. On the back of the researcher’s skull, clinging like some obscene parasite, was a slug-like creature, its yellow body veined with darkness, bristling with spiny protrusions that writhed with each pulse of light.
Yana’s breath caught audibly. “Oh no,” he whispered, voice tight.
Natasha flicked him a glance, eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean, ‘oh no’?”
“I saw one of those before,” Yana said, his voice trembling, revolver quivering slightly in his grip. “Back with the Overseer. It was… this thing, like a parasite. Took over his head. That scientist—he’s not in control. That thing’s pulling the strings.”
Natasha squinted at the scene, suspicion laced with disbelief. “You’re telling me some slug is—”
Her words died in her throat as the scientist abruptly stopped banging their head. Slowly, unnaturally, they turned their face toward her and Yana. The eyestalks of the creature on their skull swiveled, locking onto the guards with a predatory precision. Then, with a guttural, otherworldly howl, the figure charged.
The transformation was horrifyingly fast. Fingers curled into jagged claws of exposed bone, legs pumping with unnatural speed. The shambling gait was gone; this was no staggering victim—it was a predator.
There was no time to hesitate. Natasha and Yana opened fire at once, the sharp crack of revolver shots punctuating the staccato roar of Natasha’s SMG. Bullets tore through its torso, shredding cloth and flesh, punching gaping wounds that spilled intestines onto the floor. Yet it kept coming, shrieking in a distorted voice that was no longer human.
Natasha adjusted her stance, drew a bead on the parasite-ridden skull, and squeezed the trigger. The creature’s body jerked violently, its legs folding beneath it as it collapsed with a wet thud. It twitched once more, issuing a rasping chitter before falling still.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The hallway seemed to grow colder, quieter, as Natasha stared at the body in shock. She’d seen atrocities, improvised explosives, mutilations, even executions—but this was something entirely new.
Yana stepped forward cautiously, his revolver still trained on the corpse. The slug pulsed faintly, trying to detach. He didn’t hesitate; he leveled the barrel and fired. The parasite exploded in a spray of black ichor, splattering across the tiles. The shot revealed a mangled scalp beneath, torn and hollowed, the victim’s skull partially exposed.
Yana turned, his face grim, sweat running down his temple. “Don’t let these critters get to your head,” he said flatly, the seriousness in his tone cutting through the lingering fear.
Natasha swallowed hard, gripping her weapon tighter. “…Noted,” she muttered, her voice low.
The smell of blood and gunpowder mingled in the hallway as the echo of gunfire faded. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t a one-off. And now they knew the enemy wasn’t just Reunion—it was something worse. Something that could hollow a person out and wear their body like a disguise.
Natasha glanced at Yana, their eyes briefly meeting, and she could see the same thought crossing his mind: they needed to move. Fast.
They retreated from the parasite-infested scene, nerves frayed but not broken. There was no time to dwell on the horror behind them; survival demanded forward momentum. The corridor stretched ahead, sterile white walls now marred with streaks of blood and bullet holes. At its far end, the airlock to Area 4 stood like a promise of escape—still distant, but tantalizingly close if they could just keep moving.
As they advanced, Natasha noticed something odd near the airlock: scattered debris littering the ground, the remnants of a barricade hastily erected and violently dismantled. The bodies told the rest of the story. A dozen Reunion corpses lay sprawled in grotesque heaps, their weapons still clutched in rigor-stiffened hands.
They passed another side corridor, and Natasha’s stomach turned at the sight of a headless researcher sprawled face-down in a congealed pool of dried blood. It was the kind of scene she was used to by now, but something was chilling about the stillness—no frantic gunfire, no shouts, just silence and death.
“This place feels familiar,” Yana murmured, his voice low and uneasy.
Natasha glanced at him. “How so?”
“When I checked the security tablet at the checkpoint earlier… There was a defensive line set up here. A barricade. I saw it in the footage. The last thing I saw was them getting overrun by the Reunion.”
Natasha sighed through her teeth, scanning the corpses again. “At least they didn’t go quietly. Think there’s anyone left alive?”
“Not sure,” Yana admitted grimly. “Hopefully the survivors aren’t the Reunion ones.”
That earned a humorless chuckle from Natasha. They pressed on, weaving through the aftermath of what must have been a desperate last stand. The barricade was crude—tables, chairs, and even couches dragged from break rooms and hallways to form a makeshift wall. Not much in the way of cover, but it had bought the defenders precious time.
And now, here they were, finally within reach of the airlock door. Natasha felt a flicker of hope—right up until she saw the small red light blinking steadily on the keycard reader. Locked. Emergency shutdown in place.
“... Oh, great. Of course!” Natasha barked, throwing her arms up in frustration. “It couldn’t have been that easy, could it?”
She drove her boot into the security glass, the sharp thunk echoing down the empty hall. Then she started pacing, hands tugging at her hair as her mind raced through options. She could try shooting the panel, but she knew better—damage the reader and it’d trigger an alarm loud enough to draw every Reunion freak in a three-floor radius. Not worth the risk.
Yana, meanwhile, seemed to deflate. He lowered himself into one of the few intact chairs, letting out a long, weary sigh. His revolver rested across his lap as he stared blankly at the locked door, looking for a moment like a man who’d finally hit the edge of his endurance.
Natasha ground her teeth, glaring at the blinking red light like it had personally betrayed her. They weren’t getting through here—not without setting the entire sector on fire.
It felt like they’d be trapped in this section forever, their options dwindling by the second—until a noise echoed from the hallway to their right. Both Natasha and Yana snapped toward the sound instantly, weapons raised, fingers brushing triggers, their nerves strung taut.
“Don’t shoot! Friendly!”
The shout came from a man in Ursus riot gear, his visor raised and his hands thrown high above his head. His uniform bore the familiar insignia and colors of Chernobog’s Internal Security, though his armor was scuffed and flecked with dried blood. Yana exhaled sharply, dropping his revolver to his side, while Natasha only lowered her pistol, her sharp gaze still fixed on him.
“Name, rank, and serial number!” she barked.
The man froze for a moment, startled by the formality, then quickly rattled off, “Vanya Kuzmin. Sergeant. 307912.”
Natasha finally holstered her pistol with a curt nod. “Lieutenant Medvedeva. This is Private Yana. What’s your situation, Sergeant?”
Kuzmin let his arms fall, shoulders sagging with exhaustion. “I was part of the security detail at Checkpoint Delta. We tried to funnel as many staff through Area 4’s airlock as we could, but those masked lunatics came at us in waves. We couldn’t hold the line. We managed to barricade two corridors, but… well, it wasn’t enough. Me and my buddy had to retreat and hide in the checkpoint. I don’t know what happened to the others. Maybe they got through. Maybe…” He trailed off, his jaw tightening. “Maybe they didn’t.”
Natasha’s expression hardened. “So it’s just you two left.”
“Yeah.” Kuzmin hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “But… listen, I need help. My buddy… something’s wrong with him. One of those… things got him.”
Yana’s eyes flicked to Natasha, his voice low and uneasy. “What kind of ‘thing,’ Sergeant?”
Kuzmin grimaced. “A slug. This… black, spiky thing, latched onto his head. I tried to pull it off, but it wouldn’t budge. I locked him in the arms locker for his own safety. Figured it’d be secure enough until someone knew what to do.”
A tense silence settled over them. Natasha and Yana exchanged a grim glance—both remembering the horrifying scene with the slug-controlled researcher. Natasha’s gut told her they were already too late.
“Show us,” Natasha said flatly.
Kuzmin nodded and gestured for them to follow. They moved cautiously down the dim hallway, Yana leaning close to Natasha, whispering, “How are we gonna tell him? Those things… his friend’s probably gone already.”
Natasha kept her voice low but firm. “We’ll make him see.”
The corridor turned sharply, leading to a fortified checkpoint at the corner. The heavy steel door creaked open as Kuzmin swung it inward without hesitation. He strode into the room, oblivious to the danger that might be lurking within.
“Hey, Miron! Backup’s here! We’re gonna get you help,” Kuzmin called out, his voice carrying a flicker of hope. He moved quickly toward the arms locker, his boots clanking against the floor.
“Wait!” Yana hissed, hand shooting out to stop him—but it was already too late.
The arms locker door rattled as something inside slammed against it. With a guttural growl, the door burst open, and Miron staggered out. He was barely recognizable as human: his skin pale and mottled, his hands twisted into skeletal claws, and the grotesque parasite pulsing atop his skull like some obscene crown.
“Miron?!” Kuzmin gasped, horror and disbelief twisting his face.
Miron didn’t respond—he lunged. His claws swiped at Kuzmin, who barely managed to catch his friend’s wrists, the two of them locking in a brutal struggle.
“Miron! What are you doing?! It’s me!” Kuzmin’s desperate voice cracked as he strained to hold back the creature that used to be his comrade.
Natasha didn’t hesitate. She raised her SMG, Yana bringing his revolver up alongside her. “Clear!” she barked.
The cramped checkpoint exploded with gunfire. A burst of bullets ripped through Miron’s body, shredding flesh and bone. Yana’s revolver shots struck with surgical precision, cracking into the parasite on his skull. The creature let out a chilling, insectile screech as it writhed and spasmed.
Kuzmin dove to the floor just in time to avoid the torrent of lead, his armor scraping loudly against the concrete. Miron’s body convulsed before collapsing in a heap, lifeless and grotesque, the slug’s ruined remains still clinging to what was left of his head.
The room fell silent except for Kuzmin’s ragged breathing and the smell of cordite. He stared at his fallen friend, shock and grief washing over his face like a physical blow.
Yana quietly shut the checkpoint door with a soft click, sealing out the distant echo of chaos beyond the hallway. The muffled silence that followed felt alien, like stepping into a tomb. Natasha moved carefully, her boots making the faintest scrape against the tiled floor as she approached Kuzmin. He stood frozen, staring at Miron’s broken body, his riot shield slipping from his arm and clattering onto the ground with a dull, heavy thud.
“Are you alright?” Natasha asked softly, her voice carrying the weight of exhaustion rather than sympathy.
Kuzmin swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he forced himself to answer. “Yeah…” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m alright… By the Emperor… What the hell happened to him?”
Natasha hesitated, her gaze flicking to the still form of Miron, his lifeless body twisted unnaturally, the slug’s charred remains clinging to his skull. “We’ve seen that before,” she said finally, her tone grim. “Those things… they don’t just kill you. They take control, make you fight your own. You’re not you anymore—just a puppet.” She gestured sharply toward Miron’s body, forcing the image into Kuzmin’s mind.
He let out a bitter laugh, though it sounded more like a strangled sob. “Damn it… poor bastard. He never deserved this.” He crouched for a moment, running a hand over his head, then slammed his fist against his thigh with a sharp exhale. “What are we up against? Who are these freaks? How the hell do you come up with this?” He jabbed a trembling finger at Miron’s body, his voice rising with outrage.
Natasha leaned against the wall, adjusting her grip on her sidearm as if its weight anchored her thoughts. “Reunion,” she said bluntly. “Same bastards they warned us about in last year’s counterinsurgency seminar. Remember that?”
Kuzmin glanced over his shoulder at her, his face pale and drawn. “Yeah… I kinda slept through half of it.”
“Not surprised,” Natasha muttered. “Doesn’t matter anymore. Not like those slides would’ve helped.” She turned her attention to the arms locker Miron had stumbled out of, scanning the racks with a professional eye. The sight made her shoulders sag. “You mind if I—”
“Don’t bother, lieutenant,” Kuzmin cut her off with a weary wave of his hand. “We stripped that locker bare when we set up the barricade. There’s nothing worth taking.”
She sighed sharply through her nose, her fingers twitching with frustration. Flashbangs had been their lifeline, buying them precious seconds in every engagement. Now she’d be stuck with smokes and tear gas—less lethal, but far more dangerous in close quarters if she miscalculated. One mistake, and she’d gas herself.
Yana finally broke the silence, kneeling to dig through his pack. “Any supplies in the med cabinet?”
“Yeah,” Kuzmin replied. “Didn’t do Miron any good, but… it’s stocked.”
“Good,” Yana said, already heading toward the cabinet. “I’ll patch up my arm and resupply.” He paused, glancing back over his shoulder with a faint grin. “And maybe take a leak.”
“You don’t have to announce it,” Natasha groaned, shooting him a side-eye.
“That’s half the fun,” Yana muttered with a smirk, his voice muffled as he rifled through the cabinet.
Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned against the wall, letting her weight sag for a moment. For the first time in hours, no footsteps echoed down the hallways. No gunfire. No monstrous screams. Just the quiet hum of the checkpoint’s emergency lighting, bathing everything in a sterile, pale glow. She allowed herself one deep breath, the tension coiled in her shoulders loosening ever so slightly.
Kuzmin knelt beside Miron’s body, his movements slow and reverent. He didn’t speak as he lifted the limp form and placed it back inside the arms locker, arranging his fallen comrade’s limbs with care. He hesitated before closing the heavy door, resting a hand on it for a brief moment as if saying a silent goodbye, then sealed it shut with a loud metallic click. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
Natasha cracked open another can of soda she’d scavenged from a dead Reunion trooper earlier, the hiss of carbonation loud in the stillness. She took a long sip, grimacing at the taste but welcoming the caffeine’s bite. Across the room, Yana sat on the floor, unwrapping a fresh bandage and methodically cleaning the wound on his arm. The faint scent of antiseptic filled the air. He broke a snack bar in half, tossing a piece to Kuzmin, who caught it with a muted grunt of thanks.
For a moment, the three of them existed in a fragile bubble of peace, surrounded by death and ruin. The checkpoint felt like a sanctuary, its reinforced doors and humming security systems a thin wall between them and the horrors crawling through the halls. But Natasha knew it wouldn’t last. It never did.
She leaned her head back against the wall and stared up at the flickering light fixture above, forcing herself to catalog their dwindling supplies, their route forward, their next fight. Even here, in the quiet, her mind couldn’t rest.
They’d bought themselves a few minutes of safety. That was all.
Natasha glanced down at her phone again—10:24 AM. The numbers glared back at her, a reminder of just how long they’d been trapped in this sector, burning through time and luck in equal measure. The brief reprieve had felt good, almost too good, like a dangerous luxury they couldn’t afford. The checkpoint might have been secure for the moment, but the memory of clawed hands scraping against doors and the sound of Reunion boots echoing in the distance reminded her that this safety was a thin illusion. Somewhere nearby, those slug-infested corpses still roamed, their grotesque groans reverberating through the halls like a warning.
Break time was over. Natasha crushed the empty soda can in her hand, the aluminum crumpling with a sharp crack that seemed too loud in the silence. She tossed it into the overflowing trash bin, then straightened her posture and approached Kuzmin, who was checking the fit of his riot shield straps.
“The airlock doors into Area 4 are still in emergency shutdown,” she said, her voice low but firm. “Any chance we can get them open?”
“Wait, lieutenant,” Yana interjected from where he was tightening the bandage on his arm. “Can’t you just unlock it with your keycard? You’re an officer.”
Natasha shook her head, irritation flickering across her face. “If I were the one who triggered the shutdown, sure. But these aren’t simple locks. There’s an override code I need to input, and every single sector has its own unique code. It’s meant to stop saboteurs from waltzing through a lockdown, but now it’s just slowing us down.” She crossed her arms, her tone sharp with frustration.
Kuzmin raised a hand, a small spark of confidence lighting his weary expression. “Actually, I might know it. This is my post, after all. If they haven’t changed the protocol since this morning, I can get us through.”
Natasha turned to him sharply, her eyes narrowing, then glancing at Yana. For a brief, fragile moment, hope glimmered between the three of them.
“That settles it,” Natasha said finally, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Pack it up, gentlemen. We’re done hiding.”
They moved with practiced efficiency, the weight of exhaustion clear in their movements. Natasha slung her rifle over her shoulder and double-checked her ammo pouches; only a few magazines for both her pistol and SMG remained, but she still had a dozen cartridges for her rifle. Yana secured his med kit and holstered his sidearm, his face pale but determined. Kuzmin armed himself with his battered riot shield, service pistol, and a worn baton—hardly the arsenal of a man prepared for another fight, but it would have to do.
“Ready?” Natasha asked, her voice calm but clipped.
“Ready,” Yana confirmed, his jaw tight.
Kuzmin gave a curt nod, rolling his shoulders. “Let’s get it done.”
Natasha stepped up to the door and swiped her keycard, the checkpoint’s security system chirping softly. The door’s mechanisms clunked as they disengaged, the sound unnerving in the tense silence. She pressed her back against the wall, motioning for the others to ready themselves.
She slowly pushed the door open, careful not to let it slam against the wall. The dim, flickering lights of the corridor beyond stretched out like a tunnel. The faint hum of damaged electrical wiring filled the air, punctuated by the occasional distant clang of metal—movement somewhere deeper in the sector. Natasha scanned the hallway, every muscle taut, finger resting near her trigger.
“Stay close,” she whispered, stepping into the corridor.
Yana fell in behind her, pistol raised, his bandaged arm stiff. Kuzmin brought up the rear, his shield angled forward, covering their backs. Together, they slipped out of the temporary safety of the checkpoint, leaving behind the eerie calm for the tension of open ground once more.
Every shadow felt alive. Every sound made Natasha’s stomach tighten.
There would be no more resting until Area 4.
…
calhutcherson on Chapter 2 Mon 21 Jul 2025 01:33AM UTC
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Cynical_Waste23 on Chapter 2 Mon 21 Jul 2025 04:59AM UTC
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(Previous comment deleted.)
Cynical_Waste23 on Chapter 5 Sat 13 Sep 2025 07:24PM UTC
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