# Chapter 19: The Eve of the Culling
The air in Blackstone was different on the eve of a Culling. It was thicker, heavier, saturated with the low-frequency hum of anticipation and the metallic tang of fear. Every conversation was a murmur, every glance a furtive calculation. The inmates, predators and prey alike, were weighing their chances, their Essence a faint, almost visible shimmer in the oppressive gloom of the cell blocks. For Barrett, the tension was a current he could ride. He moved through the controlled chaos of Sector Gamma's main thoroughfare, his Silver Rank tattoo a silent declaration on the back of his hand. The uniform, still stiff in places, felt less like a costume and more like a second skin, a tool he was learning to wield with deadly precision.
His datapad, a modified slate with Inner Circle access, was his conductor's baton. With a few taps, he rerouted a supply cart carrying nutrient paste to a distant, less-essential sector. With another, he reassigned two guards, Miller and a rookie named Hayes, to a quiet patrol along the outer perimeter. It was a subtle reshuffling of the board, moving his pawns into position while making it look like standard, bureaucratic procedure. Each order was a risk. Every guard he moved was a potential informant for the Warden. He could feel the weight of unseen eyes on him, the prickle of surveillance cameras tracking his every move. The Warden was watching. He had to be.
He paused by a reinforced plexiglass window overlooking the mess hall. Below, the gangs were segregated, their territories marked by invisible lines of menace. The Skullcrushers, Taaland's brutal legion, sat hunched over their trays, their postures radiating coiled violence. Across the hall, the Rust Vipers, a smaller but notoriously vicious gang, were doing the same. The animosity between them was a palpable force, a low-grade fever waiting to break. This was the kindling. All it needed was a spark.
Barrett's earpiece crackled, a pre-arranged burst of static that was Anya's signal. He tapped his comm twice, acknowledging her. "Stage one is a go," her voice, a whisper filtered through layers of encryption, stated. "Eirik is in position. The package has been delivered." The package. A small crate of shivs and sharpened scrap metal, hidden in a laundry cart and "accidentally" routed to the Rust Vipers' block. It wasn't much, but in the pressure-cooker environment of Blackstone, it was enough. It was an accusation. An insult. A declaration of war.
Barrett's gaze swept the mess hall, his enhanced perception picking out Eirik, who was mopping a spill near the Vipers' tables. The old inmate moved with a practiced lethargy, his shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast. But Barrett saw the tension in his grip on the mop handle, the slight, almost imperceptible nod he gave to the Vipers' leader. The message was delivered. The lie was planted: the Skullcrushers were making a move, trying to arm a rival to thin their own numbers before the Culling. It was a dirty, cynical play, perfectly suited to the prison's ecology.
He turned away from the window and continued his patrol, his heart a steady, cold drum against his ribs. The next part of the plan required him to be seen, to be the very image of a diligent Silver Rank officer. He approached a guard station near the junction between the Skullcrushers' and the Rust Vipers' territories. Miller was there, his face a mask of weary suspicion. "Kane," he grunted by way of greeting. "Heard you're pulling rank today. Shaking things up."
"Just optimizing response times," Barrett said, his voice flat and professional. He leaned against the console, affecting a casualness he didn't feel. "Warden wants everything running smooth for the harvest. Can't have any… inefficiencies." He let the word hang in the air, a piece of jargon he'd picked up from the Inner Circle's files. It was the language of the system, and speaking it made him one of them.
Miller grunted, unconvinced. "Efficiency. Right. Well, keep an eye on Gamma. The snakes and the boneheads have been staring at each other all morning. Smells like rain."
"Let them stare," Barrett said, pushing off the console. "They're just animals. They know what happens if they step out of line." He walked away, feeling Miller's gaze boring into his back. He was playing a part, a double agent walking a tightrope over a pit of fangs. Every word, every gesture, had to be calibrated. He was no longer just Barrett Kane, vengeful brother. He was a ghost in the machine, a virus in the system, and the Culling was his only chance to execute the code.
The spark came twenty minutes later. It wasn't an explosion, but a scream. A high, piercing shriek of pain and rage that cut through the prison's ambient drone. Barrett was on a catwalk overlooking the junction when it happened. A Rust Viper lay on the floor, clutching his stomach, a crude shiv protruding from his gut. Standing over him, a Skullcrusher enforcer held a bloody fist, a triumphant sneer on his face. It was a setup, a perfectly staged assassination. The Vipers, already primed with the knowledge of the "delivered" weapons, saw it as the first shot in a pre-emptive war.
The response was instantaneous and brutal. The Vipers erupted from their tables, a tide of orange jumpsuits surging across the mess hall. The Skullcrushers met them head-on, their war cries a guttural roar. The air filled with the sickening crunch of bone on bone, the wet tear of flesh, and the clang of metal on concrete. It was a maelstrom of pure, unadulterated violence. Guards swarmed in, firing stun rounds into the melee, but it was like trying to cup water in their hands. The riot had a life of its own, a hunger that could not be easily sated.
Barrett watched from his vantage point, his face a mask of grim concentration. This was the chaos he had engineered. It was uglier, more visceral than he had imagined. He saw a man get his head stomped into a pulp, another get his throat ripped out with a sharpened toothbrush. The air grew thick with the coppery scent of blood and the ozone discharge of stun batons. He forced himself to observe, to catalog the flow of the battle. It was spreading, exactly as planned. The fighting was spilling out of the mess hall and into the cell blocks, a contagion of rage.
His comm crackled again. "Cole is deploying his enforcers," Anya reported, her voice tight with tension. "They're moving to contain the Gamma sector. You have a window, Barrett. It's now or never."
"Copy," Barrett replied, his voice steady. He turned his back on the carnage, the sounds of the riot a chaotic symphony behind him. He moved with purpose, his long legs eating up the distance. He used his Silver Rank access to override a maglock on a service corridor, slipping into the sterile, quiet belly of the beast. The transition was jarring. One moment he was in the heart of a primal battle, the next he was in a world of humming fluorescent lights, recycled air, and the faint smell of disinfectant. The screams of the dying were muted here, reduced to a distant, unsettling hum.
He jogged through the corridors, his mind racing. The plan was working. The diversion was drawing the Warden's primary forces, including his top dog, Sergeant Cole, into the fray. The administrative wing would be lightly guarded, its focus on the riot, not on a lone officer making his way to the Warden's sanctum. He passed a few junior guards, their faces pale and their eyes wide with panic. They were trying to get updates on their comms, their training completely inadequate for a full-blown sector-wide riot. Barrett gave them a sharp nod, his Silver Rank tattoo a silent command to stay at their posts. They obeyed, too intimidated to question him.
He reached the elevator to the administrative level. The doors slid open with a soft chime, revealing an empty car. He stepped inside, his reflection staring back at him from the polished steel walls. He looked haggard, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion, but there was a fire in them that hadn't been there before. He was no longer just a man seeking revenge. He was an instrument of justice, a harbinger of the reckoning Blackstone so richly deserved. The elevator ascended smoothly, the floor numbers climbing silently. The sounds of the riot faded away completely, replaced by a profound, almost sacred silence. He was entering the dragon's lair.
The doors opened onto a plush carpet. The air here was different—filtered, scented with a hint of expensive cologne and old paper. This was the Warden's domain, a world apart from the squalor and violence of the cell blocks. The corridor was empty, the only light coming from recessed fixtures in the ceiling, casting long, dramatic shadows. He moved silently, his boots sinking into the thick carpet. He could feel the Essence in this place, a cold, oppressive energy that seemed to emanate from the very walls. It was the Warden's power, his presence imprinted on his territory.
He reached the door to the Warden's office. It was a massive slab of polished mahogany, with no handle, no visible lock. A biometric scanner glowed a soft red beside it. This was the first real obstacle. The access key. He had hoped to find it, maybe left carelessly on a desk or in a drawer. But the Warden was not a careless man. He pressed his hand against the scanner, knowing it would fail. A harsh buzz and a flashing red light confirmed his suspicion. He was locked out.
Frustration, cold and sharp, pricked at him. He had come this far, risked everything, for a locked door. He took a step back, his mind racing, his eyes scanning the corridor, the doorframe, the ceiling for any weakness, any alternative. That's when he saw it. Through the small, reinforced window set into the office door, he could see the Warden's desk. It was a vast, obsidian surface, immaculately clean. But on it, a personal terminal was active. Its screen glowed with a soft, blue light, a single file icon displayed prominently in the center. The file name was clear, even from this distance.
*Project Chimera.*
The name sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the prison's cold air. It was an official designation, a corporate label. This wasn't just the Warden's personal madness. This was something bigger, something organized. The access key wasn't here. The Warden carried it with him, no doubt. But this terminal, this file… it was another way in. A digital key. He pulled out his own datapad, his fingers flying across the screen, invoking the specialized backdoor programs Anya had installed. He had to get in. He had to know what Project Chimera was. The riot raged below, a distraction he had created, but the real battle, the battle for the truth, was happening right here, right now, on the other side of this locked door.