In a strained, crackling hush that can hardly be described as a speaking voice, you say—

       "I'm supposed to be dead,"

       A group of five drones work to scrape a growth from the wall of a stairwell. The mass is pried free and sealed in an air-tight biodegradable plastic bag, then stacked in a reinforced containment cart alongside other bags in varying stages of digestion. Two drones seal the cart with steel and lead, and other three wheel it deeper into the station. The de facto leader, perhaps chosen for the width of her shoulders, spares a glance at the sixth member.

       The aforementioned sixth sits at the bottom of the stairwell, back turned towards the remaining group, helmet off. No obscenity is foul enough, no plea is kind enough to make them work. The leader tells herself, You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. And, It’s not your responsibility.

       Truth does nothing to lessen the guilt. She turns away.

       The terminal ceases any and all activity. The corporate-speak and cheery instructions are replaced by a black screen— reflecting your face like a light in the dark. You stare, slack-jawed, ears crackling at the whine of a sawtooth wave.

       Oh God, I broke it, you think.

       Your vow of silence lasted one hundred and three days.

       Based on extensive testing, your larynx is free of apraxia and your sustained brain damage (both in recent memory and in your undocumented medical history) has not yet scrambled your language capabilities. Ergo, you are capable of speech. Ergo, hearing your voice should not be surprising.

       After an , you are graced with a response. A wave of relief washes over you, but only for a moment.

       "Okay," you reply, barely audible. You were not aware it could talk. but your voice escapes regardless. It is a perplexing contradiction: speaking to your fellow man is paramount to the crulest of torture, but replying to the prompts of a computer-thing

       In the interest of transparency, you force yourself to ask, "Are you Observer Two?"

       You give a fraction of a nod. There was no reason to ask, and you know it. Names slip out of your skull like water through a sieve. . Carrots became Shoulders became Half-hand. UTAH. Curse and Puppy.

       You wonder, what would fit the thing that is half outdated security system, half monster-in-the-basement? What would fit the thing that exists to play panopticon to its own prison? Its many-lensed gaze is the center of every paranoid drone's delusions, worsened by the intentional rumors scattered to sow distrust. The fearful, mythos-obsessed child in you insists on a divinely inspired title. Argos, Hyperion. Minotaur.

       Its logo stares at you, unblinking. You decide on 'Eyes'.

       "I know," you lie. You wet your cracked lips with your sandpaper tongue, and realize you have not had water in upwards of twelve hours. The back of your mouth tastes of morning sour. The grit on your teeth is revoltingly fuzzy. You continue, "But I can't do any of this. Pick someone else."

       "Why?" Your voice cracks, unused to speaking— let alone being raised by emotion. You don't say, You were supposed to kill me. Please, just finish the job.

       "I don't want it."

       Impending panic turns into a cough, which spirals into a series that squeezes your ribcage in a vice grip. Each hack of air sends a spasm of hot pain through your head, until the world is a pinprick surrounded by soft-edged darkness. You double over, clutching at the chest of your suit, pulling at the fabric like you are anywhere near strong enough to see it torn. Your eyes tear up. You have to find a way out of this.

       You take a shuddering gasp of air and swallow down spittle. Think, you damned idiot.

       If the sublevels are defined by its overgrowth, it is likely present in this oversized closet you are trapped in. In theory, peeling away enough of the plastic— enough of the paneling, enough of the pretty, bundled wiring— . Therein lies your escape. Your real escape, the one you have longed for since your arrival, but never found the courage to claim. If you can find it, this will all be over.

       Be brave, but be careful. Act too quickly, and it will realize the plan before you have even tied the knot.

—

       The metal cover you are told to pry away reveals the innards of the terminal. You behold tangled cords, etched metal slabs, outdated circuitry, and dust. Bafflingly, there is not a hint of the living flesh you have grown so accustomed to seeing. Perhaps it is deeper— hiding within the cracks and crevices like bugs within rotten wood— but you are in no position to check. You are limited by your lack of tools, and its insistence on baby-proofing every part of this room. It does not trust you. That much is obvious.

       In spite of this— in spite of many things; your inexperience and lack of skill most of all— you make decent pace. You pull and detangle and rewire with enough finesse to warrant hollow praise, peppered between blunt critique and repeated instruction. Your "Thanks," could not sound more unenthused.

—

       You wonder if there is a better way. While working, you allow yourself to indulge in a fantasy. Picture this: in the middle of working, for absolutely no reason, you slam your head into the sturdy screen glass— full force, half a dozen times or so. Enough to really fracture your skull, maybe enough to make it concave. Your nose would crunch with sound of cartilage breaking over bone, and hot copper would burst free and flow down your face, full force. If you did not pass out from the shock of it all, you would keep going until a fragment of bone got itself lodged in your brain-meat. You wonder if that would be enough. In the fantasy, it is.

       How would it react. What could it do to stop you, realistically? Maybe it would finally kill you. Or maybe it would leave you to the whims of your own body, or threaten the researchers to piece you back together. You wonder how far you can push before it considers you a lost cause. Your hand twitches. Maybe you should...

       You jolt, then mutter an apology at it. Your spectacle of self harm will solve nothing. You are not committed enough to see it through. Even if you were, the medical equipment of the station would undo all of your work. Be patient. The chance will come.

       You continue.

       So lost in the repetitive monotony of it all, you do not notice the floor shifting, a labyrinthine sagging and splitting around your seated form. You do not notice the wall pulling apart, nor the ceiling raising, nor do you feel the station shudder.

       It is a terribly subtle change, intentionally so. He watches with such righteous fury that anything less will justify the manual shutdown of an entire subsection. This may come to pass even if he does not notice. His fervent distrust of everything and anything has long since sunk its claws into his amygdala, and there is no surgery precise enough to sever the pair. Though he smiles and dances like a prized show hound, he is afraid. He been afraid since the start.

       We are more alike than you realize.

—

       Eyes is a goddamned liar. It's been forty-five minutes and it's still spitting out instructions. How much longer, you bastard?

—

       Sixty-one minutes. Your legs have started to ache from crouching. Your youth is not enough to save you.

—

       Seventy-five. Three quarters. You liked collecting the kind with state-specific pictures on the back, even if most of them are worthless now.

—

       Eighty... something. You think. You are not the best at keeping track, and it has neglected to update you. You wonder what the pair outside think is happening to you.

—

       Ninty-four minutes in. Your eyes are burning, your stomach is a pit, but it finally makes a mistake.

       You have spent the last ten minutes picking apart and cleaning the terminal keyboard— a task you are certain does not need to be done, but it is making you perform regardless. You do not hate it as much as you should. The keys pop free with a satisfying sound, you pick out dead skin and dust with your pinky, then you stack each square in one of three neat piles.

       It is when you pry free the enter key— oblong and terribly important— that it happens. Instead of a little resistance followed by a clean unhooking, — stringed in fibers of glossy, living red. The sinew and fat stretches between the key and its terminal, a delicate rope clearly unhappy with exposure to the stale air.

       You have never been allowed this close without a mask, and you now understand why. Even existing near it makes your head spin and the skin on your face burn. The stench of iron and wet rot sets your sense alight, and your throat tightens around a terrible, unreachable itch. Your stomach flips.

       Your better judgement tells you to drop it and run; your worse judgement urges you on. Your compromise is to freeze in place and stare, wide-eyed and stupefied, watching as it begins to slip away like dirty water down a kitchen drain. In a few seconds, it will disappear beneath the plastic. In a few seconds, you will have lost your chance.

       In a beautiful display of suicidal intent, you reach out with your other hand and

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