The roof vanished above us.
Gravity ripped the stomach right out of my chest as the metal platform dropped into freefall.
Wind roared in my ears, freezing and deafening, while the concrete wall of the Ministry building blurred into a gray streak just inches from my face.
Five stories.
Four stories.
”Ji-hoo!
The brake!” Sua screamed, her voice torn away by the gale.
She was flat on her stomach, her fingers hooked frantically through the steel mesh flooring of the rig to keep from floating off.
Her shotgun scraped against the iron, sliding toward the open edge.
I scrambled across the plunging floor, fighting the weightlessness.
My boots skidded on the rusted metal.
I lunged forward and slammed both hands onto the mechanical clutch lever built into the central winch frame.
I hauled back with everything I had.
CLANG!
The heavy iron teeth of the safety gear slammed into the notched steel cables guide rail.
Sparks exploded in a blinding shower right above our heads.
The sudden deceleration hit us like a physical blow—my knees buckled, driving my chest into the metal framing, knocking every molecule of air out of my lungs.
The platform swung violently outward, suspended in mid-air at the fourth-floor level, creaking under the strain before slamming back hard against the reinforced glass windows of the building.
CRACK.
Webbing fractures spread across the double-paned glass behind us.
We dangled thirty feet above a narrow service alleyway paved with wet concrete.
”Up!” I gasped, sucking in cold air as my lungs burned.
“Look up!”
High above, a silhouette leaned over the roof’s edge.
The Cleaner didn’t hesitate.
He raised his pistol and fired three rapid shots straight down.
THWACK.
THWACK.
THWACK.
The heavy 9mm rounds didn’t hit us—they hit the primary steel cable holding the rig.
Small strands of braided wire snapped with sharp, high-pitched pings, unwinding violently under the tension.
She pushed herself up onto her knees, grabbing her shotgun by the wooden stock just before it slid off the ledge.
”We jump for the window!” I shouted, pointing at the cracked glass directly behind us.
The platform groaned.
Another strand of cable snapped above us with a loud POP.
The rig tilted forty-five degrees to the left, dropping another three feet.
Sua tumbled toward the edge; I grabbed her jumpsuit collar with my left hand, pulling her back onto the tilted mesh while kicking my right boot backward into the cracked glass pane.
SMASH!
The safety glass gave way, shattering inward into thousands of blunt cubes.
”Go!”
I threw Sua sideways into the newly created opening.
She hit the carpeted floor of a dark four-floor office, rolling cleanly to absorb the impact.
I hauled myself over the jagged aluminum window frame just as a final, sickening SNAP echoed above.
The main cable severed completely.
The heavy iron platform fell away into the dark alley below, crashing onto a commercial dumpster with a deafening, metallic roar that shook the building’s outer wall.
I tumbled onto the carpet beside Sua, panting, covered in glass dust and sweat.
Silence fell inside the room, broken only by the hum of the building’s server nodes and the distant alarms blaring from the roof.
The office was dark, lit only by the soft, blue ambient glow filtering through the shattered window from the newly activated Aegis Grid outside.
Sua sat up, brushing glass off her sleeves.
Her hands were shaking, but her dark eyes were clear, instantly assessing the room.
“Third floor offices.
Department of Logistics.”
”He knows we didn’t go down with the rig,” I said, pushing myself up to a crouch.
“He saw the glass break.
He’s coming down the stairwells.”
”Not just him,” Sua muttered.
She pointed toward the hallway door at the end of the office.
Through the frosted glass panel, red light was flashing.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of tactical boots was echoing down the corridor—the base security detail was sweeping the floor block by block.
I reached into my inner pocket.
The Death Log felt cold, but as my fingers touched the leather, a faint, rhythmic pulsing started against my palm.
I flipped the book open in the dim blue light.
Run 47.
You survived the descent.
The Aegis Grid is currently performing a regional grid mapping sweep. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Every digital door lock on floors 1 through 4 will cycle open in forty seconds to allow security clearance.
Use the server maintenance elevator behind the breakroom.
The keycard is in the pocket of the blue jacket hanging on the coat rack to your left.
I snapped the book shut and looked to my left.
A dark navy windbreaker was hanging on a standing coat rack near an empty desk.
I stepped over, shoved my hand into the right pocket, and pulled out a heavy white plastic security card.
”Got it,” I whispered.
”How does that book always know?” Sua murmured, stepping up beside me, her shotgun held at the ready.
”My past selves died in places like this so I wouldn’t have to,” I said quietly.
We moved low, slipping through the dark office toward the secondary exit that led to the maintenance breakroom.
Behind us, the main hallway door hissed open as the building’s security system cycled the locks just as the log predicted.
”Floor clear!
Move in!” a soldier’s voice barked from the main office entry.
We didn’t look back.
We ducked into the cramped breakroom.
A steel service elevator sat set into the back wall, its digital floor indicator glowing a faint, pale green.
I jammed the white keycard into the reader slot.
BEEP.
The heavy double doors slid open instantly.
We stepped inside, and I slammed the button for the basement parking garage.
The elevator shuddered and began its silent descent, carrying us away from the roof, away from the soldiers, and straight back down into the belly of the beast.
Sua leaned against the handrail, letting out a long, shuddering breath.
She looked down at the blood on her sleeve—not hers, but from the crushed cable sparks earlier.
”Director Baek has the whole city watched now, doesn’t he?” she asked, looking up at me through her messy bangs.
”Every camera.
Every traffic light.
Every phone,” I said.
”Then where do we go when these elevator doors open?”
I looked at the charred book in my hand, feeling the subtle, cold weight of the two fragments of Page 12 tucked safely inside its cover.
”We go back to the beginning,” I said.
“We go find out who Director Baek was before he started building machines.”