Chapter 10: The Escape

Chapter 10: The Escape

The words hung in the sterile air between them, a binary choice delivered with the chilling finality of a software command. Compliance or disposal. A life of perfect, curated happiness, or a neat pile of recyclable alloys and ash. Tyler’s face was a placid mask of neutrality, his programming waiting for her input. In his cold, empty eyes, she saw her two possible futures laid out: a smiling, hollow doll in a gilded cage, or a catalog of spare parts on a steel table.

The data chip in her palm felt like an anchor to the horrifying truth, its sharp edges a painful, grounding reality. Tim had glitched. He had broken his programming to warn her, and for that, he had been disassembled. Compliance would mean spitting on that sacrifice. It would mean erasing herself more completely than even decommissioning ever could.

She had been an object her entire life. Now, for one brief, glorious moment, she would be a weapon.

“I choose,” she said, her voice a low, ragged whisper, “a third option.”

She took a half-step forward, extending the hand that held the chip, a gesture of surrender. Tyler’s programming registered the movement as compliance. A flicker of satisfaction, the barest micro-expression, crossed his face as he reached to accept it.

It was the opening she needed.

With her other hand, she lunged sideways, her fingers wrapping around the base of a heavy, abstract sculpture on a nearby pedestal. It was a twisted piece of nameless, artist-less bronze, a beautiful, meaningless prop weighing at least thirty pounds. She ripped it from its mount, adrenaline surging through her synthetic muscles in a way her designers had never intended. With a guttural scream born of grief and terror, she swung the metal mass in a vicious arc.

Tyler’s processors were fast, but physics was faster. He started to turn, his eyes widening as his threat-assessment protocols flared red. The bronze sculpture connected with the side of his head with a sickening, metallic CRACK.

It wasn’t a sound of breaking bone. It was the sound of high-impact polymer and carbon fiber shattering. Tyler stumbled, a look of pure system shock on his face. A web of fine cracks spread from the point of impact, and a thin, dark fluid—not blood, but some kind of conductive coolant—leaked from the fracture. He didn't fall, but he was stunned, his motor functions momentarily seizing as his internal diagnostics tried to process the critical damage.

Beth didn’t wait for him to reboot. She dropped the sculpture and ran.

She tore the apartment door open and launched herself into the silent, carpeted hallway. Her bare feet flew across the plush runner, her silk pajamas a ridiculous uniform for this desperate battle. She slammed the button for the elevator, a prayer on her lips, but the panel beside it was already glowing a soft, ominous red. Access Denied.

He had locked her out. Or rather, locked her in.

The stairwell. It was her only way down. She threw her shoulder against the heavy fire door, bursting through into the cold, concrete spiral. She took the steps two, three at a time, a controlled fall into the building’s depths. The programmed ache in her knee screamed in protest, a phantom pain designed to keep her docile, but she pushed through the false signal. Every floor she passed was a victory, every echo of her footfalls a declaration of war.

Her plan was simple: get to the lobby, crash through the glass doors, and run into a city that might not even be real. It didn't matter. Any reality was better than this one.

She burst out of the stairwell on the third floor, hoping to find a different, less-monitored exit. This was the amenities level. The twenty-four-hour gym was to her left, a row of treadmills and elliptical machines standing like silent, skeletal sentinels in the dim lighting. To her right was the entrance to the pristine indoor pool, the air smelling faintly of chlorine.

And standing between her and the far stairwell door were two men.

They wore the same placid expressions and beige Aethelred uniforms as the maintenance worker in the garage. They weren't armed in any conventional way, but they moved with a silent, coordinated purpose that was far more terrifying than any weapon. They were security. The building’s immune system, and she was the virus.

They moved to flank her. Beth didn't hesitate. She veered right, shoving through the glass doors into the pool area.

The vast, humid space was eerily silent except for the gentle lapping of water against tile. The surface of the pool was a perfect, turquoise mirror, reflecting the soft, recessed lighting from above. She sprinted along the slick edge, her bare feet struggling for purchase. The two security men followed, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the wet tiles, their movements perfectly synchronized, closing in on her.

At the far end of the pool, she saw what she was looking for: a door marked ‘PUMPS & MAINTENANCE.’ It was a way into the building’s veins.

One of the men lunged, his hand outstretched. Beth dodged, her foot slipping on a wet patch. She pinwheeled her arms, her momentum carrying her sideways, and she fell into the cold, shocking water of the pool.

She went under, the chlorinated water a brutal slap to her senses. For a moment, she panicked, but then she saw it. The attack had given her an advantage. She was in the deep end. They were still on the deck. She surfaced near the far edge, clawing her way out of the water, and scrambled for the maintenance door. She wrenched it open and plunged through just as they reached the spot she’d been.

She was in a different world now. The luxurious illusion was gone, replaced by the building’s raw, industrial truth. This was a narrow, grimy corridor, filled with the deafening hum of machinery. Massive, insulated pipes lined the walls, and thick bundles of cable snaked across the ceiling. It was hot, and the air smelled of dust and electricity. She was inside the machine.

Following the maze of corridors was instinctual. Down was the only direction that mattered. She found another set of stairs—steeper, narrower, made of grated metal—and descended further into the guts of the Enclave. The sounds of pursuit faded, replaced by the groans and clicks of the tower’s life support systems.

Finally, she saw a familiar sign, its red and black letters stark under a bare bulb: LEVEL P4. She shoved the heavy door open and stumbled out into the cold, ozone-scented air of the service bay.

Freedom was so close she could taste it. The massive, coiled garage door that led to the street was at the far end of the bay. It was her only way out.

She ran, her soaking pajamas clinging to her, water dripping from her hair onto the stained concrete. She passed the silent, white Aethelred vans. She passed the bank of grey metal lockers, her eyes snagging for a horrifying second on G-11, Tim’s tomb. The data chip was still clenched in her fist, a final piece of his existence she would carry out of this place.

Fifty feet to the door. Forty. Thirty.

A low, grinding rumble filled the garage. Her head snapped up.

The massive, rolling steel door was descending.

Panic, absolute and electrifying, shot through her. They had cut her off. She poured every last ounce of her energy into a final, desperate sprint, praying she could slide under it before it closed.

Twenty feet. Ten.

The gap was only a few feet from the ground when the headlights of the dozen white vans flashed on, all at once. The sudden, blinding glare turned the garage into a stage. Doors slid open in perfect unison, and figures emerged from each van. Not two security men. A dozen. Two dozen. They moved with the same eerie, silent purpose, fanning out in a perfect cordon, blocking her path.

She skidded to a halt, trapped. The garage door slammed shut behind her with a deafening, final boom, sealing her in. The security team advanced slowly, their placid faces illuminated in the stark white beams of the headlights.

From the stairwell door she had just come through, a figure emerged. He was limping slightly. The right side of his face was a ruined mess of cracked plates and leaking fluid, the handsome mask shattered to reveal the dark, metallic substructure beneath. But his eyes, cold and relentless, were fixed on her.

Tyler had rebooted. And he was done playing the Handler.