“You left alone.”
The radio carrier blinked once after Gauss spoke. Leo watched the empty landing until the terminal dimmed and left him with the same answer in fewer lights: one sealed door behind him, one dead door ahead, nowhere a second arrival could stand.
He wanted to ask what Gauss thought had arrived. The useful question was how to keep moving before his legs decided the landing counted as a bed.
“The second relay,” Leo said.
Gauss accepted the change of subject. “Beyond the unpowered door. I can give the entry circuit enough charge to release it.”
“Can you see what is waiting there?”
“No image. The relay reports offline, but one of its manual banks is still drawing current.”
“Offline things usually make less effort.”
“Usually.”
The lock ahead struck once. The door opened onto a short service passage lit by a single amber lamp. This concrete belonged here. No impossible distance, no white corridor waiting to vanish behind him. Leo almost trusted it for that.
He confirmed that the rifle was still set to single fire and entered.
The passage ended at a broad bulkhead with a narrow observation pane. A personnel terminal beside it had survived on emergency power. Its screen was cracked through the center, but two lines remained legible.
AUTHORIZED TECHNICIANS: 1
MANUAL CONTACTS HELD: 12
Leo read them twice.
“Your offline relay has an employee.”
“It has an old authorization record,” Gauss said.
Something tapped the other side of the bulkhead.
Not a knock. A fingertip pressing a control, lifting, then pressing again.
Leo moved to the observation pane.
The second relay stood in the middle of a larger hall, a dark column ringed by metal housings and dull blue collector lines. Two structural supports broke the open floor. An overhead rail crossed above the installation, with a maintenance hoist parked near the far wall. Beyond it, a yellow isolation cabinet stood beside another closed shutter.
There were hands around the relay.
One lay flat against a dead panel. Another curled around a lever. Farther up, bare fingers emerged between two armored plates and held a contact Leo could not see. Sleeves ended at different lengths. Some wrists were burned.
He counted six before the arrangement stopped resembling separate bodies.
“I can see a lot of arms. None of them are attached to anything,” Leo said.
Gauss's answer came after a brief wash of static. “How many people?”
“That depends on how generous we are with the word.”
The hand nearest the observation pane had a pale band burned around its wrist. The thumbnail was split to the quick. Leo found the same split nail on the hand above it. Then on a third hand gripping a wheel near the floor.
One technician, repeated until the terminal's twelve held contacts made sense. Someone had looked at twelve jobs, assigned one man, and recorded the problem as solved.
“Do not open the bulkhead yet,” Gauss said.
Leo kept looking. The hands did not try to pull away or change position. They worked. A finger corrected a slipping switch. A palm leaned harder against a contact. A bare foot, visible beneath the relay housing, braced against the floor as though the unseen technician needed more leverage.
“Can you restart it without releasing those contacts?” Leo asked.
“No. The local isolation control is on the far side of the hall.”
Leo had never seen an emergency control installed on the useful side of an emergency.
“If I leave it alone?”
“The second connection remains closed.”
The route behind Leo was concrete again. Apartment 4812 might as well have been on the other side of the city. Somewhere ahead was the laboratory, with medicine, food, and a scientist who answered most questions only after Leo had already stepped into their consequences.
He set the delivery bag against the wall outside the bulkhead. The rifle stayed with him. So did the radio and utility knife.
“Open it,” he said.
“I advised you not to.”
“You also put the switch on the other side.”
Gauss did not defend the building. The bulkhead unlocked.
Warm air moved out of the relay hall. It smelled faintly of dust and overheated insulation. A white maintenance rectangle enclosed the relay. Its near edge crossed the floor just inside the entrance; the far edge ran in front of the yellow isolation cabinet. Between Leo and the relay, an emergency shutter stood raised between two supports. Narrow passages ran outside both supports, and a red handle hung on the relay-side face of the left one. Beneath the relay, cables moved slowly through a recessed opening in the floor.
Leo opened the door far enough to pass through and stopped before the line.
The nearest hand continued tapping.
He shifted left. Nothing followed him. The limbs remained fixed around the relay, their reach spent on controls. The shutter blocked only the central opening. Narrow passages outside the supports offered two routes toward the far wall; either concrete column could block the limbs while he moved.
It was visible, anchored, and made of flesh. After doors that changed their destination and footsteps without bodies, Leo's mind seized on the courtesy of a target he could shoot.
Leo stepped across the white line.
The tapping stopped.
The bulkhead closed behind him.
Leo turned at the sound. The internal release showed no light. His delivery bag remained visible through the observation pane, safe in the passage. The bulkhead had locked itself between him and the supplies.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Did you close that?”
“No,” Gauss said. “The hall entered a local containment state.”
The nearest hand lifted from its panel.
It turned toward him. Its palm opened.
Around the relay, some hands released their controls. The rest tightened until the knuckles lost their color.
The mass around the relay unfolded.
Arms pulled free from gaps that had not been wide enough to contain them. Knees rose between cable housings. Feet unhooked from the back of the column and found purchase on metal, wall, and ceiling. The limbs gathered without forming a human outline. They built height instead: wrists locked around ankles, elbows became supports, hands spread across the floor to carry the upper limbs above them.
Something heavier remained hidden in the center.
The structure leaned toward Leo.
D-RANK ANOMALY — THE LAST ONE STILL HOLDS
Causal kernel: incomplete.
The closest arm struck.
Leo moved before he understood its length. Fingers grazed his jacket and closed on empty cloth. He brought the rifle up and fired once into the forearm.
The bullet broke bone and threw the hand across the floor.
It landed on its back. The fingers folded beneath it. Then the hand began pulling itself toward the relay.
The gap in the creature filled with a wash of blue light. A new wrist pushed out through the same cluster of elbows.
It carried the same split thumbnail as the hand crawling across the floor.
The relay could replace whatever Leo cut away. That did not mean the body buried beneath the limbs could survive a bullet. There had to be something original inside the copies. Something vital.
Leo backed toward the bulkhead and struck its release with his palm. Nothing moved. Through the narrow pane, he could see the delivery bag where he had left it. It was only a few steps away, but the bulkhead would not open from his side.
Leo fired twice more. One round tore through a knee supporting the upper mass. The second struck deeper, where he expected a chest to be.
There was no chest there. Only another shoulder, facing the wrong direction.
The upper limbs collapsed. They hit the floor, caught themselves, and rose again around the damage.
“It is drawing from the relay,” Gauss said.
“I noticed.”
Three hands came around the left support. Leo went right, using the concrete to cut their reach. A fourth arm descended from above and hit the rifle hard enough to knock the stock from his shoulder. The impact did little more than sting. It still turned the muzzle toward the floor.
Another hand closed around his ankle.
Leo drove his free foot into the arm and shot through its wrist at arm's length. The severed hand hit the floor still clamped to his trouser leg.
He tore the fingers loose and backed toward the raised emergency shutter. The severed hand crawled past him, not attacking now. It wanted the blue light.
The monster leaned after the crawling hand. Every attached limb pulled toward the relay before turning back to Leo. He kept the yellow cabinet in sight, but still had no route to it.
The mass lunged between the supports and forced itself through the central opening beneath the raised emergency shutter, toward the entry side.
Leo switched the selector to the automatic-fire symbol marked by three cartridges and pulled the trigger.
The rifle hammered his shoulder. The first rounds crossed the front of the creature. Leo meant to release the trigger and did not. The rifle kept firing as muzzle climb carried the next rounds through reaching arms and into the relay housing. Flesh opened. Metal sparked. The sound flattened the room until even Gauss disappeared.
For an instant, the path through the center cleared.
Then blue light ran from the contacts still held into the torn wrists.
Hands pushed from the wounds. Too many. Some emerged with only two fingers. The missing fingers lengthened while Leo watched.
He released the trigger. Hands were still growing when the rifle stopped.
He had kept shooting because somewhere inside all those limbs there had to be a body. The belief felt stupid only after the magazine grew lighter. If bullets bought him seconds and nothing more, he had already bought too many.
A hand caught the detachable magazine pouch where it hung from the rifle sling. The pull drove the sling into Leo's neck and dragged him through the raised shutter opening toward the recessed cable throat. He reached the relay side and planted one foot against the nearest support. The creature pulled harder.
The pouch straps held long enough to pull one of his feet from the floor.
Below the relay, a slow industrial feed drew cables into a narrow opening. One spare magazine struck the edge and bent inside the pouch.
Leo reached for the utility knife.
Two arms wrapped around his ribs before he opened it.
The arms slowly compressed his ribs. The protection he had bought could blunt a blow, but the monster was not striking him. It simply did not let go. The grip paused, then tightened. Air left him. Something shifted beneath his left ribs with a small internal click.
His first attempt to open the knife failed. On the second, the blade locked, and he forced its edge under the pouch strap.
If he kept the pouch, the machinery would take him with it.
Leo cut.
The pouch vanished into the cable throat. Metal folded. Loose cartridges flashed blue at the edges before the machinery carried them out of sight.
Leo registered the sound as lost ammunition before he registered that it had bought his life.
The cut freed Leo and the rifle from the pull toward the cable throat. The arms around his chest did not release.
He stopped pulling away. With both feet beneath him, he drove backward into the concrete support. The hands took the impact first. One grip loosened. Leo forced his forearm under the other wrist and heaved upward with his new strength.
The arm bent.
Not enough.
He bent it farther. The joint broke, and the pressure released all at once. Leo folded the knife, shoved it back into his pocket, and dropped to one knee.
Only half a breath came. He moved before the creature could collect what he had broken.
“Leo.” Gauss's voice returned through the ringing. “The isolation cabinet. Move.”
The yellow housing waited on the far wall. The monster filled the direct path. Severed hands were already climbing back into it.
Leo returned the selector to single fire.
“Can you cut its power?” he asked.
“Not the local feed. I can starve one bank briefly.”
“Which side?”
“Either. Choose.”
Leo looked at the hall instead of the monster.
The creature had forced most of its mass through the emergency shutter toward the entry side. Its longest arms still stretched back beneath the raised blade to the relay contacts. Leo now stood on the relay side beside the red handle. The left bank carried most of the blue light. A weaker current remained on the right, where three hands held contacts. A long arm and a bare leg remained free of the controls and blocked the route to the far wall. Above them, the maintenance hoist hung from its rail with a heavy hook folded beneath the motor.
The hoist was out of reach. Leo abandoned it and kept his hand near the red handle.
“Kill the left bank,” Leo said.
The light on that side vanished.
Half the creature sagged. The remaining limbs seized new holds on the powered side, twisting the mass toward the right support.
Leo pulled the emergency handle.
The emergency shutter dropped between Leo and the creature's main mass. It caught the arms stretched back toward the relay and pinned them to the floor. The monster pulled against them, splitting its strength against itself.
The left route from the relay to the far wall opened. Leo ran along it, keeping the lowered shutter and left support between himself and the creature's main mass.
Pain cut his first stride short. He adjusted and kept going. The long arm swept low around the support. Leo jumped over the wrist, struck the concrete shoulder-first, and pushed off around its outer face before the upper limbs reached him.
The yellow cabinet was close now.
A bare foot lashed around the support and slammed into his back.
The blow exceeded whatever protection he had bought. Leo fell onto his forearms and slid shoulder-first into the wall. Pain spread across his back, deep but blunt. His arms and legs still answered.
The long arm reached past him and flattened its hand over the cabinet handle. Leo fired into its wrist.
The wrist burst against the yellow metal. Before the replacement could form, Leo reached the cabinet and tore it open.
Inside was one red isolation lever.
“If I pull this, do I lose you?”
Static answered first.
“Possibly,” Gauss said. “It will also stop the relay from restoring the manifestation.”
The pinned arms tore backward. The shutter twisted in its guides: its left edge struck the floor, while the right jammed at waist height. Beyond the new gap, the mass began turning.
He pulled the lever.
Blue light disappeared from the hall.
The relay slowed into silence. The radio carrier died with it, cutting Gauss off in the middle of Leo's name.
Every limb stopped.
Leo stayed against the wall, unable to trust the quiet. The rifle's magazine had witness openings along one side. Seven cartridges remained behind them. He drew the bolt back just far enough to see the faint blue sheen of the eighth in the chamber, then let it close.
Eight rounds in total.
That was everything.
Across the hall, the first hand opened.
It released the relay contact it had held since Leo entered. Another hand let go above it. Then another. Limbs on Leo's side reached back through the crooked gap. On the entry side, the rest folded around the weight hidden at their center and forced it toward the opening.
Without the blue current, nothing regrew. Nothing returned to its station either.
The hidden weight scraped beneath the shutter's jammed right edge. Hands on Leo's side pulled until it passed through; the legs followed and found the floor beside the relay. Arms built shoulders around the buried torso. Only one long arm remained stretched back to the installation, its hand locked around the final contact.
The last hand opened.
Its arm pulled through the gap and joined the forming body. Hands spread against the concrete, pushed, and lifted the entire mass clear of the relay.
It crossed the far edge of the white maintenance rectangle.
The monster took its first step toward Leo.