Chapter 85: SANITIZATION

The ventilation changed before anyone in the holding wing understood what the new protocol meant. The steady circulation deepened, shutters closed over the return vents, and red guidance lines appeared along the floor.

Silas answered Sio before he asked. Sanitation isolates contaminated sections, preserves whatever the facility considers essential, and destroys the rest. Sio looked at the prisoners, then at the wall display as staff evacuation routes appeared. "So the building has decided none of us are essential."

Angle glanced toward the ceiling. "Good to know where we stand." Rhea was already moving when she said, "Tavi."

Sio opened the maintenance route he had used earlier, but the first connection shuddered and collapsed before it fully formed. His Scar showed too many changing paths at once as doors sealed and ventilation channels rerouted.

"They’re changing the building faster than I can hold the route," he said. Rhea put both palms against the floor, closing her eyes while the captives crowded behind them. "Then stop following the doors. The foundation isn’t moving."

That was annoyingly sensible, so Sio ignored the shifting corridors and traced the deeper structure instead. Support walls and utility shafts remained continuous even while R-4 divided everything above them.

The route to Tavi returned, and Sio opened a narrow portal into the storage recess. Gumm’s face appeared almost immediately, with Tavi behind him and one hand pressed to the wall. "The lights changed."

"We noticed," Sio said. "Come through." Gumm stretched through first and tugged Tavi after him. Rhea checked the boy quickly while several rescued prisoners began coughing, though nothing visible had entered the room yet. The wall display updated while shutters continued sealing the ventilation system.

LOWER RESEARCH SECTORS SEALED

ATMOSPHERIC STERILIZATION: PREPARING

ARCHIVE PURGE: IN PROGRESS

Angle read the last line. "They’re deleting everything." Another display showed research files turning grey one after another. Sio watched too long, and Silas caught the hesitation.

You cannot take all of it, Silas warned. Sio knew that. He still hated hearing it.

Rhea followed his gaze. "How much can you save?" Sio kept watching the files disappear. "Depends how badly I want to die carrying paperwork." Rhea answered without hesitation, "Less than that."

Sio almost smiled. "One package, maybe." They already had the Architect records and treason summary. What mattered here was the current transfer registry, lineage data and Earthfarer screening results. If they left with nothing, R-4 could erase every trace of where the remaining captives had gone.

Angle pointed toward a research station beyond the sealed glass. "Then choose." Sio opened a hand-sized portal through the station wall and reached the terminal as the purge raced down the file list.

He selected the active transfer registry first, then the lineage summary and Earthfarer screening records. The first copied cleanly. The second stalled halfway. The third began transferring just as the source directory started deleting itself.

TRANSFER COMPLETE: PARTIAL

SOURCE PURGE CONTINUING

Sio pulled the data band back through the portal as the terminal went dark. "We got enough to work with." Rhea did not look at the band. "Then we get the people."

The first sterilization seal closed at the far end of the wing, and a pale mist entered behind it. The prisoners recoiled as Angle pushed heat through the nearest ventilation grate. Metal warped until the shutter jammed half-open. "That will slow one vent. Not the whole floor."

"We don’t need the whole floor," Sio said. "We need a route." He opened a short portal into the service passage Rhea had mapped. After the first group crossed, he closed it, shifted farther along the same structural line and opened another.

Gumm understood before Sio explained. He slipped through each opening ahead of the group, stretched one arm back, and slapped the floor twice whenever the next space was clear. Tavi stayed close to Rhea while the rescued adults helped the weaker prisoners through.

They reached the lower utility junction just as a security partition dropped across the passage ahead. Angle moved toward it, but Rhea caught his sleeve. "Wait." She crouched and put one hand against the floor while the others gathered behind her.

The connection came slower under the noise. Pumps changed pressure, staff ran through protected corridors, and the sterilization system hammered through the pipes. Rhea stopped separating every vibration and focused on the partition.

"I can feel where the weight goes," she said, keeping her palm against the stone. Sio looked at the door. "Can you move it?" Rhea’s eyes opened. "I don’t know."

"That is not the answer I wanted," Sio said. Rhea shifted her other hand to the floor. "It’s the one I have."

She placed both hands down, but nothing happened. The mist reached the previous junction. Angle gathered heat, but the passage was too crowded for him to burn through the partition safely.

Rhea breathed out and shifted her palms wider. The black scratched markings did not appear, and her eyes stayed their normal color. Instead of pushing upward, she followed the pressure beneath the partition. Sio saw one cracked line appear between two floor tiles near its left support.

Rhea moved her fingers, and the tile sank less than an inch. The support above it tilted just enough for the partition to drop unevenly, its right edge catching against the frame while the left lifted enough to leave a narrow gap beneath it.

Rhea jerked her hands away and nearly fell forward. Angle caught her shoulder before she hit the floor. "You moved it." Rhea stared at the crooked partition. "Barely." Sio was already widening a portal through the gap. "Barely is currently our favorite amount."

They sent the children and injured through first. Rhea stood on the second attempt, hands trembling as the next sanitation stage began.

BIOLOGICAL STORAGE TERMINATION

LOWER LEVEL THERMAL PURGE: ARMED

Silas reacted to the second line with a flash of remembered white corridors and emergency doors. Once thermal purge begins, the lower foundation becomes the heat sink. You cannot stay connected to it.

Sio looked at Rhea. "Your sensing route is about to become an oven." Rhea pushed herself upright. "Then stop talking." Sio took the advice and traced one remaining path toward the outer maintenance level.

It was longer than the jumps he had used before and bent through three separate structural spaces, but the connection existed. Not destination to destination. Route to route. Sio opened the portal, and it failed immediately as the edges folded inward before anyone crossed.

Pain stabbed behind his right eye, and Sio pressed two fingers beneath the purple scar while Silas warned him not to force the same connection again. Sio looked at the captives waiting behind him, then at Gumm. "Can you find the outer side?"

Gumm chirped and squeezed into a drainage gap beside the wall before Sio finished pointing. His body flattened enough to disappear through the narrow opening, and Angle stared after him. "You just sent the smallest member of the group into the walls during a purge."

"He has seniority," Sio said. Gumm’s distant chirp came through the pipe, and the route settled into something clearer.

Sio did not see Gumm through the wall, but the familiar presence at the far end gave the route an anchor. The connection stopped feeling like a guess. He opened the portal again, smaller this time, then widened it only after the edges held.

Cold outside air struck his face, and they started moving immediately. Sio kept the opening stable while prisoners passed in groups, each person making the edges tremble harder. Angle stayed at the rear until only Rhea, Tavi, Gumm and Sio remained.

The floor beneath them warmed as Rhea pushed Tavi through first, then Gumm. Angle crossed next after Sio threatened to close the portal on his coat if he argued.

Rhea stopped beside Sio. "You first." Sio kept both hands steady around the opening. "I’m holding it." She looked at the strain around his scar. "And I’m not carrying you if you collapse."

"That sounded almost caring," Sio said. Rhea caught his sleeve. "It wasn’t." The heat reached their boots, so Sio waited until the last rescued prisoner cleared the opening, then pulled Rhea through with him and let the portal collapse behind them.

They landed on wet grass beyond R-4’s outer service perimeter. From outside, the gardens were still lit and the white upper buildings remained clean while smoke leaked from vents near the foundations.

The escape did not feel finished. Some prisoners bent over coughing while others immediately searched the group for family, and Rhea found Tavi beside Gumm and pulled him close. Angle watched R-4’s perimeter for pursuit while Sio checked the data band in his hand. The casing was hot, but the transfer light still blinked. A low engine sound approached from beyond the tree line.

Angle turned toward it with heat already gathering along his fingers. "Sterling?" Sio listened to the engines. "Too quiet."

Three dark transport vehicles emerged between the trees without headlights. They stopped short of the survivors and their doors opened.

Fern stepped out of the first vehicle while Caspian came down from the second. He took one look at the smoke behind them, then at the crowd of rescued prisoners. "You people really cannot enter a building normally."

Sio stared at him. "I was about to say the same thing about your timing." Fern’s expression did not soften. "We knew R-4 would burn itself if its lower research was compromised."

Angle stepped forward. "How?" Fern looked at him for a moment, and whatever answer she had prepared seemed to change when she saw Arch in his face. "Because your father planned for this kind of day."

Angle remained still while Caspian opened the rear doors of the transports and people inside began making space for the injured. Fern kept her attention on him. "Arch left instructions. They were not supposed to activate while he was alive."

Sio felt Silas go completely still inside him as Fern glanced toward the burning facility, then back to the group. "He’s dead now. So the waiting is over."