Chương 91: Chapter 90: Maintenance Report (1)

Morning in Worker Block 9-C did not begin. It was activated. At 05: 10, every ceiling light in Unit 26-118 snapped on at once. White glare flooded the room. Ten jolted awake like someone had shot him. Jin cursed so violently the wall speaker probably filed a complaint. Lumina vanished beneath Z-69's coat collar in a burst of blue-white irritation, then poked her head out with both ears flattened. Why is the room attacking us? The wall speaker chimed with synthetic cheer.

"Good morning, citizens. Your productivity maintains civilization." Jin threw a nutrient cup at it. The cup bounced off the speaker and hit Ten in the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Collateral damage," Jin muttered, pulling his blanket over his head. The speaker continued, immune to assassination attempts.

"Shift Cycle A begins in forty minutes. Please consume assigned morning nutrition and proceed to transit platforms. Delayed productivity may affect oxygen priority. Ambient exposure levels remain within acceptable civic tolerance." Ten sat up slowly, hair sticking up in several directions, eyes half-open and hollow.

"They wake everyone like this?" Jin's voice came muffled from under the blanket.

"No. Sometimes the alarm screams if your block missed productivity targets. Sometimes it reminds you not to cough black dust near the hallway scanners. This is the polite version." Lumina climbed onto Z-69's shoulder and stared at the wall speaker. I understand why people here become violent. Z-69 had not slept. He had spent the night standing near the fake window screen, watching the mountain lake glitch every twenty-seven seconds and listening to Worker Block 9-C breathe through its walls. Pipes knocked.

People coughed. The ventilation filters clicked every few minutes as gray particulate collected against cheap mesh. Not ordinary dust. Not entirely industrial waste either. Flux dust. Low-grade. Constant. Accepted. A woman two units down had cried for thirteen minutes, then stopped abruptly when someone knocked on her door. At 02: 40, three Civic Stability patrol drones passed the corridor. At 03: 12, someone accessed the stairwell without registering an ID.

At 04: 03, Jin woke from a nightmare without making a sound. At 04: 56, Ten's breathing changed for exactly nine seconds. Too calm. Too quiet. Then he woke himself by biting his own tongue. Z-69 had catalogued all of it. Not because he wanted to. Because after the Tower, stillness no longer felt like rest. It felt like waiting for the next door to open. The food dispenser clanked. Four gray nutrient blocks dropped into the tray.

BASIC MORNING PORTION — PRODUCTIVITY GRADE C TRACE STABILIZER ADDITIVE INCLUDED Jin lifted the blanket just enough to look.

"Absolutely not." Ten picked one up, sniffed it, then looked like he regretted having a nose. Lumina leaned forward. It smells worse when awake. Z-69 took one block and ate it. Texture: dense. Salt: low. Energy value: acceptable. A faint chemical bitterness lingered beneath the protein base. Industrial stabilizer. The kind given to workers exposed to chronic Flux residue, not to heal them, only to slow whatever their lungs were becoming long enough for the next shift. Jin stared at him from under the blanket.

"You're the reason companies keep making these." Z-69 swallowed.

"It functions."

"So does a pipe full of sewage. I don't eat that either." The door buzzed. A visitor alert appeared on the panel. MARA VENN — MAINTENANCE ACCESS ENTRY REQUEST Jin's posture changed immediately. Not much. Enough. The blanket slipped from his shoulder. His hand moved toward the storage core hidden beneath his pillow, then stopped. Z-69 noticed. Lumina noticed. Ten noticed nothing because he was still engaged in moral combat against breakfast. Z-69 opened the door.

Mara stood outside in a gray maintenance coat, respirator hanging at her neck, tool harness wrapped around her waist. She looked like she had already worked half a shift, which probably meant she had not slept much either. Dust streaked one cheek. Not normal dust. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. It shimmered faintly when the corridor light hit it at the wrong angle. A strip of yellow assignment tape was stuck to her sleeve.

TEMPORARY TRANSFER — FLOOR 8 FILTRATION GRID FLUX EXPOSURE CLEARANCE: WORKER-GRADE Jin's eyes went to the tape. His voice sharpened.

"Floor Eight?" Mara looked at him.

"Good morning to you too."

"What's on Floor Eight?"

"Air," she said dryly.

"In theory." John would have appreciated the answer. That alone made Z-69 dislike it. Mara looked past Jin to Z-69.

"You're coming." Z-69 tilted his head.

"That was not a question."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because your sponsor is missing, Civic Stability tagged you as monitored mobility, and Floor Eight's filtration grid requested abnormal-capable escort for a maintenance inspection." Jin laughed without humor.

"Requested? Since when does filtration request anything?" Mara looked at him.

"Since yesterday's anomaly ping in the lower duct spine." The room changed. Ten stopped chewing. Lumina's ears rose. Z-69's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Anomaly."

"Unconfirmed," Mara said.

"Could be sensor residue. Could be a mutated worker stuck in the ducts. Could be a Flux-active mass clinging to an old pressure line. Could be something that crawled up from a drainage line and learned to breathe industrial solvent." She adjusted her tool harness.

"Either way, my crew got assigned. And because someone in an office decided throwing Tower survivors near problems is efficient, you got attached." Jin's mouth twisted.

"Problems don't get attached to Tower survivors. Tower survivors get attached to paperwork." Mara looked at him.

"You're not assigned." Jin smiled. It was not a good sign.

"Great. I'm volunteering."

"No."

"Yes."

"You have a medical brace and half a working leg."

"I've had worse."

"That's not a qualification."

"It is on Floor Ten." Mara's jaw tightened. Z-69 watched them. There was anger between them. But beneath it, something older. Mara did not want Jin near Floor Eight. Jin wanted to go precisely because Mara did not want him there. That was the shape of unresolved history pretending to be logistics. Mara said, "This isn't about Ren." Jin's smile died.

"That's funny. You said Floor Eight filtration grid."

"It's a different sector."

"Connected spine?" Mara did not answer quickly enough. Jin leaned forward on his crutch.

"Connected spine." Mara's eyes hardened.

"You can barely walk."

"I can limp angrily. That'll do." Ten stood slowly.

"I'll come too." Everyone looked at him. Ten immediately regretted existing.

"I mean—maybe I should—if you need—" Jin pointed at him.

"No." Ten blinked.

"What?"

"Absolutely not. You look like a wet paper towel someone taught to apologize." Ten looked offended.

"I survived the Tower."

"So did I, and look at the quality of decisions that produced." Lumina's voice entered the room. Ten should stay. Ten looked at her. Her expression softened, but her voice remained firm. You crossed too close last night. You need rest. Ten swallowed. The memory of blank seconds passed across his face. His hand tightened. Then loosened.

"Okay," he said quietly. Z-69 looked at him.

"You will train later." Ten looked up.

"Really?"

"Yes." That single word did more for Ten than comfort would have. He sat back down. Jin muttered, "Congratulations. You've been accepted into Undead Murder School." Lumina looked at him. You are jealous.

"I am absolutely not jealous of being repeatedly killed by posture correction." You sound jealous.

"I sound injured." Mara stepped aside from the doorway.

"Transit leaves in twenty." Z-69 gathered his coat. Human knife. Heaven-Sundering Short Blade. Chain Ring. Fox Token. Civic access card. Lumina climbed to his shoulder without being asked. Jin grabbed his crutch. Then the storage core. Mara saw the way his hand protected the inner pocket. Her eyes tightened.

"You brought it." Jin's smile was thin.

"Sentimental object."

"That thing can get you killed."

"So can bad air. You still fix filters." Mara had no answer. They left Ten in Unit 26-118 with three nutrient blocks, a broken cup, and the instruction not to answer the door unless he recognized the voice. Ten looked at Z-69 before the door closed.

"You'll come back?" The question was too young. Too honest. Z-69 looked at him.

"Yes." Ten nodded. The door shut. Jin looked at Z-69 as they entered the corridor.

"You know promises are dangerous, right?"

"Yes."

"And you just made one."

"Yes." Jin shook his head.

"Undead Murder School has a terrible philosophy curriculum." Lumina's voice was quiet in Z-69's mind. You meant it. Yes. Good. They walked through Worker Block 9-C as shift cycle began. The residential corridors were no longer muttering. They were flowing. Doors opened up and down the hall. Workers stepped out with lunch tins, tool belts, filter masks, respirator cartridges, cheap caffeine tablets dissolving under their tongues. Children in gray school uniforms joined separate lines toward education corridors.

Elderly residents carried oxygen tokens to communal recharge stations. No one moved fast. Fast cost energy. But everyone moved with the precision of people trained by systems that punished delay in small, accumulative ways. A man coughed into his sleeve. Gray spots stained the fabric. He folded the sleeve inward before anyone saw. Too late. Z-69 saw. Mara saw too. Her mouth tightened. She did not stop. Jin noticed.

"Dust lung?"

"Maybe."

"Flux dust?" Mara's eyes stayed forward.

"Maybe."

"Reportable?"

"Everything is reportable."

"That wasn't the question." Mara looked ahead.

"If reported, he loses shift clearance until medical review. If he loses shift clearance, he loses pay. If he loses pay, he loses oxygen priority. If he loses oxygen priority, his family breathes worse air." Jin's expression twisted.

"So everyone pretends."

"So everyone survives until pretending stops working." Lumina's tail curled against Z-69's neck. This city makes sickness expensive. Z-69 looked at the coughing man as they passed.

"No." Mara glanced at him. Z-69 continued, "It makes honesty expensive." Mara looked away first. They took a maintenance elevator down to the transit hub. Mara's access card opened a side gate ordinary workers could not use. The gate scanned her, scanned Z-69, failed to scan Z-69, tried again, failed again, then approved him under sponsored abnormal exception. A secondary warning flashed and vanished too quickly for most people to read.

BIO-FLUX PROFILE: UNMATCHED SPONSOR OVERRIDE ACCEPTED Jin leaned toward the scanner.

"You and machines have a healthy relationship." The scanner rejected Jin. Jin slapped his wristband against it. The scanner hesitated. Then approved him under medical mobility exemption. Jin looked smug. Mara said, "If your leg fails on Floor Eight, I am not carrying you."

"Good. I would haunt you."

"You're not dead."

"Technicality." The train to Floor Eight was not the same as the residential rail. It was heavier, older, and less decorated with propaganda because the people riding it already knew where they stood. The cars were built to transport workers and equipment, not comfort. Metal benches lined the walls. Tool racks hung from overhead brackets. Respirator lockers were bolted near the doors. The passengers were mostly maintenance crews.

They smelled of oil, copper dust, filter sludge, Flux stabilizer patches, and bad sleep. A group of men in orange hazard suits sat across from them, helmets in their laps. One had patches of gray scale creeping up his jaw. Another's left eye had been replaced with a cheap mechanical lens that clicked every time he blinked. A third scratched at the inside of his wrist where a translucent medical strip pulsed faint green. FEL MONITOR — WORKER ISSUE Flux Exposure Load. Not protection. Accounting. They looked at Z-69.

Then at Lumina. Then decided not to. The train lurched upward. Not physically upward in a straight line. Crimeria did not allow such simplicity. It moved through industrial arteries, curving around reactor shafts, lifting through pressure locks, sliding along magnetic tracks embedded inside reinforced tunnels. The floor numbers on the overhead display changed slowly. 9-C Residential Transit 9-B Industrial Transfer 9-A Upper Maintenance 8-F Lower Filtration Access As the train climbed, the air changed. Less crowded.

Less warm. Sharper. Chemical. Metallic. Underneath it, something else moved. Not Corruption. Not yet. A pressure beneath matter. A thin, living current caught inside dust, vapor, old metal, and recycled breath. Prime Flux. Weak compared to the surface storms John had described. Dirty compared to whatever ancient names had once called it mana, qi, ether, or sacred current. But present. Everywhere. Mara pulled a respirator from her belt and fixed it over her mouth and nose. Jin did not. Mara glared at him.

"Mask." Jin waved her off.

"I'm fine."

"Mask."

"I survived Floor Ten."

"Floor Ten did not make you immune to heavy metal vapor and Flux dust."

"It tried." Mara threw a spare respirator at his chest. He caught it, winced when the motion pulled his leg wrong, then grudgingly put it on. Lumina watched. She is right. Jin adjusted the straps.

"Everyone's a doctor now." No. You are just very easy to correct. Mara's eyes flicked to Lumina with faint approval.

"I like her."

"I don't," Jin muttered. Liar. Z-69 did not put on a respirator. Mara looked at him.

"Do you need one?"

"No."

"Then can your fox tolerate Floor Eight air?" Lumina lifted her head. I am not his fox. Mara paused. Then nodded.

"Fine, can Lumina tolerate Floor Eight air?" Lumina considered. I can tolerate many things. Floor Eight air should be fine.

"That's Floor Eight's slogan," Mara said. The train doors opened. Floor Eight hit them in the face. Heat first. Then sound. Then air so dense with industrial residue it felt textured. Z-69 tasted metal. Oil. Old pressure. Human sweat. And Flux dust ground so fine the city had stopped treating it as contamination and started treating it as weather. The platform overlooked an enormous filtration hall stretching farther than Ten's artificial forest had seemed to.

Towering cylindrical filters rose from the depths like iron trees, each wider than a residential building. Great pipes ran between them in tangled networks, carrying air, steam, waste gas, coolant, contaminated Prime Flux residue, and things better left unnamed. Turbines spun behind reinforced glass. Conveyor systems transported filter cartridges the size of coffins. Drones moved through the haze, red lights blinking.

Workers crossed suspended bridges wearing hazard gear patched so many times the original material had become more theory than fact. Above everything, massive fans rotated slowly, dragging polluted air through layers of machinery and selling it back to the city as breath. Floor Eight was not a district. It was a lung. A diseased one.