Day 24.
The Command Deck.
Sauget, Illinois.
20:55 Hours.
The trap was set. Now, we just had to wait for the rats to take the cheese.
I stood in the darkened office of the Command Deck, watching the courtyard through the reinforced glass. The only light came from the dying embers of the fire pit where the Coalition envoys were gathered.
There were eighteen of them down there. Fifteen fighters and the three leaders—Silas, the bearded man from Rank 438; Mara, the woman from 460; and a quiet, nervous man named Kael from 422.
They were laughing. They were toasting with tin cups.
"They're drinking it," Boyd whispered. He was plugged into the surveillance feed, his eyes darting across three different monitors. "Visual confirmation. Silas just poured a round for the perimeter guards."
"Good," I said.
At 18:00 hours, while the Coalition was busy digging latrines, Travis and I had swapped the water barrels designated for their camp. We didn't use cyanide. We didn't have any.
We used the Gutter Runoff.
Grey water. A toxic cocktail of bleach, dissolved organic matter, and the chemical sludge that settled at the bottom of the zombie processing tanks. It wasn't lethal immediately, but it was a concentrated dose of dysentery and chemical burns waiting to happen.
"Status on our crew?" I asked.
"Yana is in position on the roof," Boyd reported, his voice flat. "Ronnie and the loyal Nulls are locked in the barracks. Travis is at the main blast door."
I checked my internal clock.
21:00 Hours.
Right on schedule.
Down in the courtyard, the laughter stopped.
Silas dropped his cup. He doubled over, clutching his stomach. Mara fell to her knees, retching violently.
The poison hit them fast. The bleach burned the stomach lining, inducing immediate, violent spasms.
"Now," I said.
Boyd hit the switch.
CLACK-HUMMM.
The sodium floodlights—which I had ordered repaired yesterday specifically for this moment—blazed to life.
The courtyard was bathed in blinding, stark white light.
The Coalition fighters were scattered, vomiting on the concrete, clawing at their throats. They tried to reach for their weapons—the shotguns and hunting rifles they had hidden under their bedrolls—but they were weak, blinded by the sudden glare.
"Breach!" I shouted into the comms.
The blast doors rolled open.
Travis stepped out.
He looked like a demon from industrial hell. He was wearing a welding apron over his grey, stone-like skin. In his right hand, he dragged a heavy logging chain. In his left, he held the sledgehammer.
"Nobody moves," Travis rumbled. His voice shook the ground.
Yana appeared on the roof of the barracks, the Barrett .50 cal leveled at the center of the group.
I walked out onto the catwalk, the megaphone in my hand.
"Drop them," I ordered. "Drop the weapons, or the big man turns you into paste."
Silas looked up at me. His beard was slick with bile. His eyes were red, filled with betrayal.
"You..." Silas wheezed. "You poisoned us."
"You were going to slit our throats at midnight," I said. "I just adjusted the timeline."
I pointed at the map table inside the office, though he couldn't see it.
"Decay Sight, Silas. I saw your death timers three days ago. 'Cause of death: Execution.' I was just waiting for you to earn it."
A fighter near the truck tried to raise a pistol.
CRACK.
Yana didn't hesitate. The Barrett fired. The round hit the man in the shoulder. It didn't just break the bone; it tore his arm off at the socket. The limb spun through the air, landing in the mud.
The man screamed, collapsing into shock.
"Anyone else?" I asked.
Silence. Only the sound of retching and the hum of the floodlights.
"Travis," I said. "Round them up."
The Gutter Intake.
21:30 Hours.
We lined them up along the edge of the killbox.
Eighteen people. Zip-tied. Kneeling in the slurry. They looked pathetic. Sick, scared, and defeated.
I stood in front of them, the Fang .45 in my hand. Miller's ghost whispered in my ear that this was tyranny. The Cruelty trait told me it was accounting.
"Here is the deal," I said. My voice was calm. Mathematical.
I walked to Silas. I kicked him in the chest, knocking him onto his back. I did the same to Mara and Kael. The three leaders lay in the mud, looking up at their followers.
"These three," I said, pointing at the leaders, "planned to kill us. They planned to steal the Serum, poison our water, and sell the rest of you to the Enclave as slave labor."
A murmur went through the kneeling fighters.
"They used you," I said. "They made you the weapon. Now, you have a choice."
I looked at the fifteen grunts.
"I need labor," I said. "I need people who can follow orders. I need people who understand that loyalty isn't a suggestion; it's a survival trait."
I motioned to Travis.
He stepped forward, dropping a pile of knives onto the concrete. Cheap kitchen knives, shivs, screwdrivers.
"Cut their throats," I said.
Helen gasped from the medical tent doorway. "Jack! You can't!"
"Quiet, Helen," I snapped.
I looked back at the fighters.
"Execute your leaders," I said. "Prove you aren't them. Prove you want to be part of Sector 1. Do it, and you get antibiotics for the poison. You get food. You get a bunk."
I leaned in close to a young man in the front row. He was shaking, tears streaming down his face.
"Refuse," I whispered, "and you go into the tank with them."
The silence stretched. The wind howled through the ruined factory.
Then, the young man moved.
He crawled forward. His hands were bound, but he grabbed a knife with his fingers. He looked at Silas.
"You said we'd be safe," the kid whispered.
He plunged the knife into Silas's neck.
Silas gurgled, eyes bulging. The kid didn't stop. He stabbed again. And again.
It broke the dam.
Seven other fighters scrambled forward. They grabbed weapons. They fell on Mara and Kael like starving dogs. It was messy. It was brutal. It was the sound of desperate people buying their lives with blood.
Eight of them.
That left seven.
Seven men and women who stayed kneeling. They looked at the slaughter, then at me. They shook their heads. They wouldn't do it.
Maybe they had morals. Maybe they were just too scared.
It didn't matter.
"Stop," I ordered the eight killers. "Stand up. Move to the wall. You're hired."
They scrambled away, covered in their former bosses' blood.
I looked at the seven who remained.
"You made your choice," I said.
`[ROOT: THEY ARE WEAK. THEY HESITATED. FEED THE MACHINE.]`
`[ADMINISTRATOR: INEFFICIENT TO WASTE BIOMASS. PROCESS THEM.]`
"Travis," I said. "The intake."
Travis walked over. He didn't look happy about it. He looked sick. But he was Loyal (95%).
He grabbed the first man by the ankle and the neck. The man screamed, thrashing.
"No! Please! I just didn't want to kill him!"
Travis walked to the edge of the Gutter grate. The intake fans were spinning below, a dark, churning maw designed to grind bone and rot.
He threw the man in.
THUNK-GRIND-SPLAT.
The scream was cut short by the wet crunch of the impellers. A spray of red mist shot up from the vent.
"Next," I said.
Travis grabbed a woman. She didn't scream. She just went limp.
He threw her in.
GRIND.
One by one. The mechanical rhythm of the disposal unit filled the air. Scream. Thud. Crunch. Silence.
Paige was watching from the decontamination station. She wasn't crying. She wasn't looking away. She was watching with a terrifying intensity.
I saw her loyalty meter flicker.
`[PAIGE: LOYALTY 35% -> 45%.]`
She wasn't loyal because she liked me. She was loyal because she realized that I was the thing that ate the other monsters.
When the last one—a heavy-set man who fought until Travis broke his back—went into the grinder, the Gutter tank indicator flashed green.
`[BIOMASS TANK: FULL.]`
`[FUEL RESERVES: RESTORED.]`
I turned to the eight survivors. They were huddled against the wall, terrified.
"Boyd," I called out. "Get them to the Mudroom. Full cycle. Then get them to the Lung. Give them the charcoal slurry to neutralize the poison."
"Yes, Architect," Boyd said.
I walked over to Helen. She was standing by the medical tent, her face white as a sheet. She looked at the blood on the concrete. She looked at the red mist settling on the Gutter grate.
"You just fed seven people into a meat grinder," she whispered. Her voice was trembling. "Alive. You fed them in alive, Jack."
"They were vectors," I said. "Traitors."
"They were people!" Helen screamed. "They surrendered! You're not human anymore. You're just... data."
I looked at her.
`[HELEN: LOYALTY 48%. STATUS: BREAKING.]`
"I'm the only human left, Helen," I said, wiping a speck of blood from my cheek. "Everyone else is just sorting themselves into biomass or labor."
I walked past her.
I felt a notification ping in my mind. A heavy, dark pulse that vibrated in my teeth.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THE CULLER.]
[TRAIT UPGRADE: CRUELTY II.]
Effect: Empathy suppression active. Fear Aura unlocked (Radius: 20m).
Cost: Sanity -5%.
[RANKING UPDATE.]
[TERRITORIES ELIMINATED: 3.]
[CURRENT RANK: 310.]
I climbed the stairs to the Command Deck. My leg hurt. My head hurt.
But the math worked.
We had absorbed three territories in one night. We had refilled the fuel tanks. We had eight new laborers.
I sat in the chair, staring at the map.
"Nine days," I whispered.
The red light of the map table reflected in my eyes. They didn't look like eyes anymore. They looked like target designators.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 24
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) ███████░░░ 7/10 Nodes
RANK: 310 (Climbing)
STATUS: CONSOLIDATED
New Assets: 8 Nulls, 3 Territories' Loot
Morale: TERROR
Next Event: The Sanitation Notice