Day 14.
The Command Deck.
Sauget, Illinois.
18:00 Hours.
The choice was simple math.
Variable A: We had 400 gallons of diesel fuel left in the underground reserve.
Variable B: The generator consumed 30 gallons a day to keep the lights, the scrubbers, and the heaters running.
Variable C: The Flamethrower Turret—our only defense against the Enclave's return—burned 50 gallons an hour during active combat, but required a constant, pressurized idle feed to keep the napalm viscous and the pilot light hot.
I looked at the map. The Enclave hadn't attacked again, but they hadn't left. A solid blue line of static marked their blockade two miles west. They were waiting.
"Reroute it," I said.
Boyd stood by the breaker panel, his hands hovering over the switches. He looked exhausted, his face smeared with grease.
"Jack, if I divert the main fuel line to the turret compressor, the generator starves," Boyd said. "We lose the overheads. We lose the heat in the barracks. We lose the ventilation in the factory floor."
"We keep the Lung running," I said. "Auxiliary battery backup for the hydroponics. Everything else goes dark."
"It's going to be freezing down there," Boyd argued. "The Nulls are already starving. Now you want them to sleep in the dark? In the cold?"
"I want them alive," I said. "The Enclave will be back tonight. I can feel it. If that turret isn't pressurized, they breach the gate, and we all die."
`[CRUELTY TRAIT: ACTIVE.]`
`[LOGIC: FEAR KEEPS THEM ALERT. COMFORT BREEDS WEAKNESS.]`
"Do it," I ordered.
Boyd sighed. He pulled the main breaker.
THOOM.
The heavy hum of the factory ventilation died. The sodium lights overhead flickered and died, plunging the Command Deck into grey twilight. The only light came from the holographic map table and the faint, orange glow of the pilot light visible through the window, burning in the center of the kill box.
"Power diverted," Boyd whispered. "Turret is hot."
"Good," I said. "Go get some sleep, kid. Keep your door locked."
I walked out to the catwalk.
The factory floor below was a cavern of shadows. I could hear the Nulls shifting in the barracks area—a corner of the floor we'd walled off with tarps and pallets.
"Hey!" someone shouted. "Lights! What happened to the lights?"
"Conserving fuel!" I yelled down. My voice echoed, flat and authoritative. "System protocol. Stay in your bunks."
"It's freezing!" a woman's voice cried out.
I ignored her.
I walked to the outer railing. Yana was there, staring out at the perimeter fence.
"Jack," she said. She didn't turn around. "You need to see this."
I engaged my Decay Sight. The world turned into a wireframe of grey structures and red threats.
I looked where she was pointing.
At the edge of the tree line, just beyond the reach of our floodlights (which were now dead), new shapes had appeared.
They weren't zombies. They were static.
I raised the binoculars.
Scarecrows.
Three of them. Strung up on the old telephone poles with barbed wire.
They were stripped naked. Their chests had been cut open, the ribs spread like wings—a "Blood Eagle" execution. Their entrails hung down, swaying in the wind like wet pendulums.
`[THREAT DETECTED: PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE.]`
`[VICTIMS: UNKNOWN SCAVENGERS.]`
`[SIGNATURE: THE ENCLAVE (SANITATION SQUAD).]`
"They gutted them," Yana whispered. "And strung them up. That's... that's medieval."
"It's a warning," I said. "Submit or be sanitized."
I looked at the gruesome display. It was clean. Surgical. The Enclave didn't just kill; they processed.
"Don't let the crew see this," I said. "If they see that, they break."
"They're going to break anyway, Jack," Yana said, turning to me. Her hazel eyes were glowing faintly in the dark. "You cut their food. Now you cut their lights. Miller is down there whispering that you're trying to kill them off to save resources."
"Miller is a problem," I said.
"Miller is a symptom," Yana corrected. "You're the disease."
She walked away, fading into the shadows.
The Barracks.
23:45 Hours.
The darkness was absolute.
Without the ventilation, the air in the factory floor grew stale and cold. The smell of the unwashed bodies, the lingering scent of the bone-meal concrete, and the faint chemical tang of the napalm turret created a suffocating atmosphere.
I was in the office, watching the map. Nothing moved.
Then, a scream tore through the silence.
It wasn't a scream of fear. It was a scream of pain. Short. Wet. Cut off abruptly.
I was moving before the echo died. I vaulted the railing of the catwalk and slid down the ladder, the friction burning my gloves.
"Travis!" I roared. "Lights!"
There were no lights.
I hit the floor and activated the tactical flashlight on my Fang .45. The beam cut a cone of white through the gloom.
"Stay back!" Miller's voice shouted from the barracks. "He's got a knife!"
I sprinted toward the tarps. Travis was already there, a hulking shadow moving through the dark. His veins were glowing—a dim, orange bioluminescence that provided the only ambient light.
I ripped the tarp aside.
The barracks was chaos. The Nulls were scrambling, pressing themselves against the walls.
In the center of the room, a body lay on the concrete.
It was Paul, the accountant we'd picked up.
He was on his back. His hands were clutching his throat, but they weren't stopping the blood. It pumped between his fingers, black in the dim light, pooling rapidly around his head.
"Paul!" Paige screamed, dropping to her knees beside him. "Oh god, Paul!"
Helen pushed through the crowd. She checked the wound, then looked up at me. She shook her head.
"Carotid," she said. "He's gone."
I shone the light around the room.
"Who did this?" I demanded. The Cruelty trait kept my voice steady, but my heart was hammering. This wasn't a zombie. This was murder.
"It was him!" Miller shouted.
He pointed the beam of his own flashlight.
It landed on Dan, one of the brothers.
Dan was standing in the corner, shaking. He held a bloody shiv—a piece of sharpened rebar wrapped in duct tape. His mouth was smeared with chocolate.
"He... he was hiding food," Dan stammered, his eyes wide and blinded by the light. "I saw him eating. Under the blanket. He had a bar. A whole protein bar."
I looked at Paul's corpse. A half-eaten protein bar lay in the blood next to his hand.
"He wouldn't share," Dan whispered. "I'm so hungry. I just wanted a bite."
The silence stretched, heavy and terrible.
A man had just murdered another man over four hundred calories of chocolate.
Miller stepped forward. "See?" he hissed to the room. "This is what happens. Monroe starves us, and we turn on each other. We're rats in a cage."
He turned to me.
"You did this, Jack. You set the price. You turned off the lights. You made this happen."
`[LOYALTY CRITICAL.]`
`[MUTINY RISK: 99%.]`
I looked at Dan. He was crying now, licking the chocolate from his lips, mixing it with tears and snot.
`[ROOT: KILL HIM. JUSTICE MUST BE BLOOD. EXECUTE THE MURDERER.]`
`[ADMINISTRATOR: DETAIN. LABOR IS SCARCE. EXECUTION WASTES RESOURCES.]`
I raised the Fang.
"Drop the knife, Dan," I said.
Dan dropped it. It clattered on the concrete.
"Travis," I said. "Take him."
Travis stepped forward. He grabbed Dan by the back of the neck like a kitten. Dan didn't fight. He just wept.
"Where?" Travis grunted.
"The Gutter," I said.
A gasp went through the room.
"You're gonna feed him to the zombies?" Ronnie asked, his one eye wide with horror.
"No," I said. "He's going to clean the grates. Night shift. Until he works off the debt of the life he took."
I turned to Miller.
"And you, Sheriff," I said, stepping into his personal space. "If I hear you blaming the math for human weakness one more time, you'll join him."
Miller didn't back down. In the harsh light of my tactical lamp, his face was a mask of pure hatred.
"This isn't math, Jack," Miller whispered. "It's hell. And you're the devil."
I turned and walked away.
"Helen, clean up the body," I said over my shoulder. "Burn it. We don't bury food."
I climbed back up to the Command Deck. I sat in the dark, watching the orange glow of the napalm pilot light.
Paul was dead. Dan was broken. Miller was weaponizing the grief.
And out in the dark, the Enclave was watching, waiting for us to tear ourselves apart.
`[SANITY: 75%.]`
`[STATUS: FRACTURED.]`
The darkness had gotten in.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 14
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████░░░░░ 5/10 Nodes
STATUS: INTERNAL CRISIS
Casualties: Paul (Murdered)
Prisoner: Dan (Labor Camp)
Power: BLACKOUT (Turret Priority)
Threat: Enclave Blockade / Mutiny