The heavy iron snap of the manual deadbolt echoed through the floorboards, vibrating straight into the soles of Arkan's boots.
Chan froze, his hand still hovering over the strap of his oversized jumpsuit. The nervous, high-pitched whimper that had been building in his throat cut off instantly, replaced by a dead, hollow silence. "Tell me that was just the building settling," he whispered, his eyes widening as he stared blankly at the frosted glass of the office door. "Arkan, tell me old print shops just make heavy, industrial locking noises when the sun comes up."
"Old buildings don't have moving internal brass gears, Chan," Bhas said, his voice dropping into a low, predatory gravel. He didn't drop the filing cabinet he was holding; instead, he set it down with a calculated, silent precision against the plaster wall, his hand immediately moving back to the handle of his salvaged iron pipe. He didn't look at Arkan. His sharp eyes were already fixed on the narrow gap beneath the doorframe. "Someone just ran the manual secondary lock from the main corridor stairwell."
Arkan didn't move from the window. His right hand remained shoved deep inside his coat pocket, his fingers clamped so tightly around the hidden telemetry node that the plastic edges cut into his palm. Beneath his sleeve, the dead, frozen weight of his left arm gave a violent, electric throb, a sudden spike of icy pressure shooting directly into his shoulder. Across his retinas, the grey registry lines didn't flash a red warning, but the text began to jitter, minor pixels breaking off into tiny, drifting flakes.
[LOCAL SECTOR: MODIFICATION DETECTED]
[ACCESS POINT 02: HARDWARE OVERRIDE]
[SYSTEM STATUS: ENCLOSED TRAP]
"They used the master key," Ela whispered from the center of the room. The silver boy hadn't moved away from the desk, but his translucent form had grown thin, the pale light radiating from his skin flickering like a dying fluorescent bulb. His dual-layered voice carried a strange, metallic echo that made the air in the office feel ten degrees colder. "It's the same frequency as the administrative lockouts from the old lab, Arkan. The network didn't trigger it. Someone physically turned the tumbler."
"I don't care about the tumbler, Kir," Arkan snapped under his breath, his tsundere armor locking down hard to mask the cold sweat breaking across the back of his neck. He turned away from the window, his sharp, defensive gaze cutting straight through the dim twilight toward Bhas. "Get the pipe. If they're locking it from the outside, they aren't planning on checking the rooms one by one. They're sealing the block."
"Sealing the block?" Chan's voice spiked into a panicked squeak as he frantically dragged himself upright against the lockers. "Like... like a quarantine? Arkan, you said this place was abandoned! If they dump that purple chemical stuff from the basement in here, my lungs are going to turn into soup!"
"Nobody is dumping anything, Chan. Keep your mouth shut before you give the network more audio logs," Arkan hissed, his teeth grinding together as another wave of digital frost flared from his wristwatch. He moved away from the window, his right boot stepping deliberately over a loose pile of yellowed schematics.
Bhas didn't drop his stance. He gripped the iron pipe with both hands, his muscular frame dropping low as he glided toward the frosted glass of the office door. He pressed his ear against the rotting wood, his sharp gaze cutting downward toward the floor. "There's no footsteps, Kan. Whoever turned that bolt did it from the auxiliary panel at the end of the hall, then immediately took the maintenance stairs down toward the rail yard."
"They're not trying to catch us," Ela whispered. The ghost boy floated closer to Arkan, his silver hair casting a faint, rhythmic glow against the dusty wallpaper. His wide silver eyes were locked onto the bottom of the door frame, where a thin, pale gray mist had begun to slowly seep through the narrow crack. "They're clearing the sector line. The administrative block... it's marked for a cold purge. The master system thinks the anomalous parameters are still localized in the lift shaft."
"Let it think whatever it wants," Arkan growled, his tsundere armor tightening as he forcibly shoved the creeping dread down into his chest. He reached down with his functional right hand, grabbing Chan by the rough canvas collar of his jumpsuit and dragging him away from the wall. "Move your legs, zero-percent-muscle. We're not staying in this office to become a closed data packet."
[ALERT: SECTOR CONFINEMENT ACTIVE]
[ENVIRONMENTAL PURGE SEQUENCE: COMMENCING IN 180 SECONDS]
[TARGET COMPILATION: CORRIDOR_02_REDUNDANT]
The grey numbers flashed over Arkan's retinas, the digital countdown ticking backward in a relentless, mechanical rhythm that made his dead left arm throb with a vicious, stinging heat.
"One hundred and eighty seconds," Bhas repeated, his jaw tightening as he looked down at the pale gray mist swirling over his utility boots. The air was already beginning to taste sour, sharp with the phantom tang of ozone and old battery acid. He didn't waste time trying to force the handle of the office door. "The window frames, Kan. We smash the glass and take the lower ledge toward the fire escape."
"We can't," Arkan ground out, his voice a low, bitter rasp. He forced his right leg forward, dragging the trembling Chan toward the center of the room while keeping his eyes glued to the countdown burning behind his retinas. "The western yard lenses are sweeping the external perimeter right now. If we blow out that glass, the local security grid logs a physical breach. The drones will be on this roof before we even touch the iron ladder."
"Then what's the play?" Chan wailed, his knuckles white as he clamped his hands over his ears, staring in absolute terror at the gray mist expanding into thick, heavy coils across the linoleum. "We can't go down, we can't go out, and we definitely can't breathe whatever the system is pumping in here! Arkan, do something! You're the one who understands the stupid code!"
"The vent," Ela's dual-layered voice cutting through the panic, vibrating with a strange, high-frequency resonance that made the glass panes rattle. The ghost boy had drifted all the way up to the ceiling, his translucent fingers touching the rusted iron slats of a long-abandoned ventilation shaft set into the corner brickwork. "The fan inside isn't spinning, Arkan. The network didn't route the isolation protocols through this line. It... it flows directly into the old storage annex behind the school gardens."
Arkan looked up, his sharp gaze instantly assessing the narrow square opening. "Bhas, the desk. Move it under the grate."
"I'm on it," Bhas grunted. He dropped the iron pipe and slammed his broad shoulders against the side of the heavy oak desk, his boots skidding across the slippery, mist-slicked floorboards as he forced the rotten wooden frame to slide under the vent.
Across Arkan's vision, the numbers continued their cold, mechanical descent.
[ENVIRONMENTAL PURGE: 120 SECONDS remaining]
[ATMOSPHERIC TOXICITY: RISING]
[TARGET REDUCTION: IN PROGRESS]
The heavy oak desk scraped violently against the floorboards, leaving deep, raw grooves in the wood.
"Get up there, Chan! Now!" Bhas barked, his voice straining as he braced his broad shoulders against the desk to keep it from wobbling on the uneven floor.
Chan didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled up the rotten wood like a frantic cat, his sneakers slipping twice before he managed to plant his feet on the dusty surface. His small frame was trembling so hard his teeth clicked together. He reached upward, his fingers clawing at the edges of the rusted iron grate. "It's stuck! Arkan, the screws are rusted into the brickwork! It's not budding!"
"Move," Arkan growled, his tsundere defense mechanism snapping into a cold, biting fury to drown out the hammering in his chest.
He lunged onto the desk beside Chan, ignoring the sickening, heavy lag in his left shoulder. The gray countdown numbers behind his retinas were shifting to a harsh, vibrating orange now, blurring the edges of his vision as the atmospheric toxicity sensors began to register the encroaching mist.
[WARNING: TOXIN THRESHOLD — LEVEL 01]
[ATMOSPHERIC RECONSTRUCTION: IN PROGRESS]
[TIME REMAINING: 45 SECONDS]
"Hold the frame with your right hand, Chan," Arkan commanded, his voice a sharp, flat blade.
He didn't wait for the smaller boy to comply. He jammed his functional right hand into the gap between the iron slats, his fingers catching the lip of the rusted housing. He couldn't use his left hand—it was completely dead, hanging like a sack of lead inside his canvas coat—so he braced his right knee against the wall, channeling every ounce of leverage into a single, brutal upward heave.
With a deafening, splintering CRACK, the old mortar gave way. The iron grate tore free from the brickwork, sending a shower of red dust and dried plaster down onto their heads.
"The line is clear," Ela's dual-layered voice echoed from inside the dark square opening, his silver form already drifting into the black void above them like a localized beacon. "But the internal shafts are narrow, Arkan. If the purge pressure rises behind us, the vacuum will drag the gray mist straight into the duct."
"Then we don't look back," Arkan muttered, his eyes burning as he grabbed Chan by the scruff of his oversized jumpsuit and forcefully shoved him headfirst into the dark ventilation tunnel. "Go! Bhas, climb up! We're out of time!"
Bhas didn't waste a single millisecond. He leaped onto the scarred oak desk, his heavy utility boots splintering the rotting wood beneath his weight. With a brutal upward surge, he hoisted his broad frame into the narrow concrete opening of the ventilation shaft just as the first thick, sour wave of the gray mist rolled over the edge of the desk.
"Kan! Grab my hand!" Bhas barked, his voice echoing hollowly through the tight metal duct. He hung upside down from the shaft opening, his thick arm extended downward through the swirling haze, his sharp eyes cutting through the rising gloom.
Arkan stood alone on the dissolving platform of his father's office desk. The countdown behind his retinas hit a vibrating zero, the flashing orange characters fracturing into a series of jagged, clinical lines.
[ENVIRONMENTAL PURGE: SECTOR SEALED]
[ATMOSPHERIC DECOMPOSITION: ACTIVE]
The sour taste of burning wire and old chemical coolant flooded his throat. His right hand reached up, his fingers locking into Bhas's iron-tight grip with a desperate, bone-crushing tension. He couldn't use his left side; his dead arm hung completely limp against his ribs, heavy as lead. With a violent, uncoordinated heave, Bhas dragged Arkan bodily up into the pitch-black tunnel, the rough concrete lip of the shaft tearing a long, jagged line through the shoulder of Arkan's dark canvas coat.
They tumbled into the narrow, suffocating dark of the metal pipe just as a deafening, rhythmic hiss erupted below them. Through the open square hole, the office was instantly swallowed by a thick, churning wall of absolute white fog, dissolving the desk, the lockers, and the faded map on the wall into an unrecognizable blank slate.
"Keep crawling," Ela's dual-layered voice vibrated from the dark ahead of them, his silver hair casting a dim, trembling trail of light through the layers of ancient soot. "The pressure is shifting. The system is trying to draw the vacuum back into the core."
Chan was already scrambling ahead on his hands and knees, his oversized jumpsuit dragging loudly against the rusted rivets of the pipe. "I'm crawling! I'm crawling so fast my knees are bleeding!" he sobbed, his voice bouncing off the narrow iron walls. "Just don't let that white smoke touch my feet!"
Arkan dragged his numb body forward using only his right arm and knees, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached. Inside his right pocket, the scuffed plastic tracking beacon throbbed with a dull, rhythmic heat, its amber LED reflecting faintly against the damp metal of the tunnel.
The file was still cached behind his retinas, hidden beneath the routine system noise. PROJECT_ELA_PHASE_01_MANIFEST.DAT. It sat there in the dark, a ticking time bomb of unread parameters, waiting for the moment he was weak enough to look.
They crawled for what felt like miles through the claustrophobic black tube, the air growing progressively colder and thinner until the rusted iron floor beneath them suddenly sloped sharply downward.
With a collective, sliding crash, the three boys spilled out of the ventilation exhaust, tumbling over a heap of discarded plastic crates and old industrial refuse.
Arkan rolled onto his right side, coughing violently as he forced his lungs to reject the lingering taste of the sour purge gas. He pushed himself up with his functional hand, shaking the white plaster dust from his hair before looking up at their new surroundings.
The air here was completely different. It was freezing, stagnant, and thick with the distinct, metallic scent of stagnant pond water and decaying lilies. Above them, towering through the shattered glass panes of a high, rusted greenhouse ceiling, the dark, monolithic concrete blocks of the Novara Advanced Academy science building loomed against the gray morning sky.
They weren't outside the perimeter. The vent hadn't led them away from the school grid at all.
It had dropped them right into the center of the restricted old gardens.