The stairwell opened into a quiet, sterile antechamber—to my surprise, I found no alarms, no Red Ties, just an empty space and a silence thick enough to chew. I stepped out, pistol ready, and swept the room.

"Haneul," I whispered, pressing a finger to my earpiece. "I'm on the top floor."

"You're... clear," he confirmed, a hint of surprise tinging his voice. "There's nobody up here, and the hallways below are dead quiet. But I've got nothing inside the office—you're walking in blind again."

Of course I was.

The waiting room before me was jarringly normal. Plush gray couches lined the walls, and a table held a bowl of plastic-wrapped mints and a tall pitcher of untouched water. Corporate civility, even after the end of the world.

Overhead, several framed paintings lined the walls—most were generic, unobtrusive artworks of pre-war cityscapes or natural beauty, but one frame stood out from the others.

A boy knelt at the edge of a pool, dressed in fine fabric that shimmered pale gold in the artificial light. His hands braced against the ground as he leaned in, his face just above the water and stared at his reflection. The surface of the pool was still enough to reflect him perfectly—eyes wide, mouth slightly parted.

The longer I looked, the more unnatural it felt.

I ripped my gaze from the painting and continued further into the room.

The windows had been sealed with the same massive metal shutters I'd seen in the floors below, seamless steel slabs that interlocked like teeth. And further, just beyond the steel gridlock, was a single door of frosted glass.

For a tower so egregiously luxurious, it was laughably mundane—a sheet of clouded white glass, interrupted only by a brushed silver knob. There was no nameplate, no placard, but it didn't need it.

It was impossible not to know who was waiting for me inside.

As my left hand found the knob and my right tightened on the pistol, the muffled sound of voices made me pause. To my surprise, I could hear voices speaking on the other side. It sounded amicable—a peal of hearty laughter floated through the frosted glass.

Pressing my ear to the glass, I strained to make out the conversation within.

"—will perform my duties with respect," the first voice declared. It was loud and boisterous, full of enthusiasm. "I can't thank you enough for this."

"It's my pleasure to present this news to you myself," another replied. The second voice was quieter, more reserved, but caught my attention immediately. "Your assigned consultant will be in contact within the week. It would be sooner, but a previous hire has been unwilling, or... unable... to continue their duties."

"Understandable," the first voice replied. "These are uncertain times, even for men like us."

"What's going on?" That voice was Haneul, whispering in my other ear, and it made me jump, pulling my head away from the door.

"He's not alone in there," I whispered. "There's someone else inside. What do I do?"

Before Haneul or Sora could offer their advice, however, my choice was made for me. To my horror, the doorknob twisted in my grip and the frosted glass swung inward, opening wide before I had time to react.

"You won't regret this, sir!" the first voice exclaimed. "And my sincerest apologies for delaying our meeting, I had to change my jacket. You wouldn't believe what happened downstairs just after the—"

The man's eyes fell on me, standing in his way, and I found myself face to face with the man from the Erebus presentation, Cassius Knight.

Up close, Knight was far less charming—short and slightly rotund, his greasy brown hair shone in the artificial light.

"Oh," he remarked. "Hello. Are you Mister Stoat's next appointment?"

"Uh..." I attempted. "Yes?"

I stared at Knight.

Knight stared back at me.

I flashed him a smile.

Knight's eyes widened, and for the first time he noticed the pistol in my left hand.

I saw his mouth flop open, ready to shout a warning, and that was when my boot met his solar plexus with enough force to send him toppling backward through the door he'd just emerged from.

Knight let out a garbled wheeze as his back struck the carpeted floor, grey suit permanently imprinted with a muddied impression of my sole, and he rolled about in breathless agony as I stepped past him into the room beyond.

The office was silent.

Not the silence of emptiness, but the kind born of insulation—of thick walls, vacuum-sealed glass, and engineered solitude. The kind of silence you could pay for.

The space was enormous. Half of the room was one immense window; the view would've been spectacular, if not for the steel blast shutters clamped tight over the pane.

Every surface was immaculate. Sterile. The carpet was thick enough to swallow sound. Tables held no papers, no clutter—only curated objects that didn't appear practical: among others, I noted a miniature model of what appeared to be some kind of vacuum transportation system, a strange, angular car that resembled a dropship more than a useful vehicle, and even a framed black baseball cap, tarnished and dusty.

And at the far end—past the deep carpet, the buried lights, and the sense of expense so heavy it pressed on your chest—sat the man himself.

Ezekiel Stoat.

His desk was a slab of black stone, untouched by fingerprints or human life. He sat behind it like a mausoleum's final occupant, throne-backed chair cradling his diminished frame. Even seated, he radiated authority—not through charisma, but through inertia, like an ancient engine still humming despite a thousand years of rust.

He was shorter than I expected.

Stoat's grey jacket hung awkwardly, its perfect tailoring fighting against a body that no longer held its shape. His skin was waxy and pale even beneath the office's soft, flattering lights. His lips were dry, yellowed eyes sunken but hyper-focused, like a bird of prey that hadn't blinked in hours.

There wasn't a strand of hair left on his head, but it didn't look like it—instead, a sea of wires trailed from the nape of his neck into the collar of his coat. The fabric shifted subtly with the rhythm of internal devices, technology so vast and advanced that I couldn't begin to fathom how it all worked.

His eyes met mine, and in that instant, it felt less like being seen and more like being scanned.

Stoat smiled faintly, as though it hurt.

"Ah," he crooned, voice soft and melodic. "Now that was an entrance."

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

Whatever I'd expected of the man at the top of the tower, it hadn't been this.

Beside me, Cassius Knight was slowly regaining the wind I had knocked out of him, and now stared up at me from flat on his back, tears in his eyes.

"Are you... out of your... mind?" he wheezed. "Have you any idea... who I am? I'm Axion Industries' new Director and I refuse to be—"

I raised my right arm at him, pistol gripped tightly, and his jaw swung shut.

A single pull of the trigger. It would only have taken the slightest pressure—easier than piloting a mech.

But I couldn't do it. As much as I wanted to, it just wasn't possible for me to kill him.

"You aren't here for him," Stoat smiled. His head twitched to one side as he leered at me from across the room, studying me with those strange yellow eyes. "A premature gunshot would alert my guards—the fact they aren't here already tells me you've got someone else jamming my silent alarm. As far as assassination attempts go, you're doing better than most."

Now that I was focused more on Stoat, his voice unnerved me. It was far too smooth and melodious to be natural—the shrivelled old man before me moved his jaw when he spoke, but the sound seemed to come from elsewhere in the room.

I turned my gaze back to Knight, who'd cautiously pulled himself up onto his elbow and now eyed me with a mixture of terror and contempt.

"Have a seat and stay silent," I commanded, inclining my head toward a plush beige couch near the middle of the room.

Knight did as he was told, trembling hands held high over his head as he trotted over to the seat and plopped down, looking cowed. I followed him, taking up residence in the space just between Stoat's strange display of items and the desk he currently occupied. Here I could keep an eye on both men at once—and, more importantly, keep both in range.

"Are you proud of yourself?" Stoat inquired. It was almost unfathomable to see him rise from his seat, long coat swaying, and begin walking toward me. He eyed the gun in my hand, but didn't stop moving until he'd rounded his desk. "You should be. Really, I mean it. Nobody has ever made it this far, so you're either very lucky or very skilled. I suspect both."

"Hands where I can see them," I demanded. I flicked the pistol in his direction and Stoat laughed, complying with an almost delicate slowness. As his hands moved I couldn't help but notice how they twitched—every finger seemed to have a mind of its own, trembling erratically. Unlike Knight, however, I didn't detect fear—Stoat seemed to be playing along like a parent indulging a child, taking action out of his own amusement instead of any sense of self-preservation.

I'd seen this kind of listless dispassion only once before, six months ago, and it told me everything I needed to know.

"You're already dying," I stated. "Aren't you?"

Stoat's smile widened, his too-perfect teeth a false veneer.

"What gave it away?" He laughed at his own rhetorical question. "You're correct, though—I've got weeks, at best. A nasty double-header of mitochondrial collapse and chimeric immune rejection, topped off with a sprinkle of neural degeneration from all the implants that helped me last this long."

Keeping his hands up, Stoat gave a small bow from the waist, and for a brief moment I saw a mass of wires beneath the folds of his long coat—there was more metal than skin beneath the fabric.

"Oh well," he sighed, "it was a hell of a run, I think you'd agree, but after a century and change there's only so much life that money can buy. The painkillers alone cost more than you'll make in your lifetime!"

"Enough!" I barked. "Tell me what you did to Mallet!"

It was here that I saw Stoat's smile falter, if only for a moment, before returning even brighter than before.

"Marissa?" He beamed. "Oh, I underestimated you! You're more than just an assassin, aren't you?" He paused. "Now this is awkward, but may I know the name of the man who's made my day so interesting?"

I paused for a second, taken aback, but recovered before Stoat could press the advantage.

"Just call me Orestes," I replied.

"Ah, I see what you did there," Stoat nodded. "Taste of my own medicine, eh? Truth be told, I never really liked my last Director's obsession with that branding—we're an American company, damn it, not some Grecian—"

"Tell me what you did to the General!'' I demanded. Storming forward, I levelled the pistol just out of reach of Stoat's head, and saw the man flinch just slightly, before his smile returned.

"Lethe," he said, voice smooth. "That's what we called it. Fitting, don't you think? In myth, the river of forgetting. Lethe was one of the last protocols we greenlit under Cold Iron—experimental, unauthorized, all hush-hush. Back when I still took joy in risk. It began as a side-channel for my own neural pain suppression, but... ah, the brain is a beautiful, fragile mess."

He gestured toward his own temple, fingers trembling like dying reeds in the wind.

"You install enough augmentation, especially along the entorhinal cortex—just behind the ear, see—and you start to notice patterns. Irregular conversions of memory. The hippocampus can be made to skip steps. Suppress encoding. Blip—and it's gone. Entire days. Entire weeks."

He tapped his head lightly, then grinned.

"You see, Orestes, your General wasn't our first, but she was the first who survived. She was hand-picked, delivered to my doorstep as a parting gift from a former consultant of mine. Her mind was perfect. Rigid. Predictable. Strong. I had her for two days before she started forgetting she'd been captured each morning. After that, well... I started introducing variations."

His eyes twinkled with delighted malice.

"You're wondering how she still walks and talks and speaks in coherent sentences, I bet. That's the beauty—Lethe only intercepts short-term encoding to long-term storage. You remember the last five minutes. Maybe an hour, if you're lucky. But ask her what happened yesterday? She won't even be sure there was a yesterday. It's like living in a story that never reaches the next page—sure, they might feel a sense of loss, a phantom pain, but nothing concrete.

I felt my stomach twist, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop thirty degrees.

"Do you have any idea what you've done to her?"

"Well, duh," Stoat retorted. "That was the point!" He swept an arm toward the glass door and the spotless, silent lobby beyond. "Every single member of the waitstaff in this building has an IRON implant, Orestes. Mandatory company policy. It helps with loyalty, you see. Productivity. Compliance. But what if you could ensure no one ever quit? No two-week notices. No burnout. No rebellion. You just... erase the fatigue. The discontent. Even the desire to leave."

"What... did you just say?" I breathed.

He turned his gaze to me, gleeful.

"Of course, it means they might forget birthdays. Children. Names. But what's identity, really, if you're productive? The supply doesn't get to make the demands!"

"You're insane," I hissed. "You can't make people into mindless robots!"

"Better than robots!" Stoat beamed. "After all, robots don't pay taxes... but people do."

I moved on instinct alone, grabbing Stoat by the collar of his jacket and pushed backward, sending both of us crashing against his desk. Pens rolled, clattering loudly, and I saw a small, black remote control skitter across the desk, coming to a stop precariously close to the edge.

As his back struck the black stone, I heard a mechanical crunch, and Stoat gasped, his voice suddenly a rattling chorus of tattered electronic noises.

It wasn't human.

I stepped back instinctively, but my hand stayed clenched in the collar of his jacket. As the fabric slipped down one shoulder, the illusion unraveled.

Beneath the fine grey coat—pressed, monogrammed, spotless—was ruin. Ezekiel Stoat's clavicle was gone, replaced with plated carbon sheathing that traced down over a sunken, metal-laced sternum. Wires coiled like black veins across pale, waxy flesh. A cluster of IRON implant ports were embedded along his chest like tumors, each one of them glowing faintly. The skin around them sagged unnaturally, a paper-thin film stretched over the interface.

Stoat spasmed, then jerked his chin up like a puppet on frayed strings. A flicker of light stuttered across his throat as his voice rebooted—first as a distorted echo, then reassembled with artificial precision.

"Apologies," he croaked, then cleared his throat, which produced more static than sound. "It seems you've disrupted my vocal protocol."

The words that followed were perfect again—charming, warm, even amused—but now that I knew, I could hear the falseness. There was no breath in them. No human resonance. Just an old recording made young again, played through a machine desperately trying to sound like it still belonged in the world.

"You like it?" Stoat rasped, tugging at the torn collar of his coat and sitting up with effort. "Made it back in '57, before my real voice gave out. I keep a dozen backups—though none as charismatic as this one." He smiled, and I saw a glimmer of metal through the gaps in his false molars.

I didn't speak. I was too busy staring at what was left of the man.

He noticed my stare and grinned wider.

"I'll admit," he said, tapping one of the implants in his chest, "maintenance has been hell. But you can't buy legacy, Orestes. You build it—one system at a time."

"How do I fix Mallet?" I demanded.

"Fix her?" Stoat exclaimed. "You think I'd know that? I'm not an engineer, I'm an ideas guy, baby! You'd need to schedule a meeting with my head of R&D!"

"Taewon," Reina warned, "we don't have time for this."

"Literally!" Haneul added. "My override won't last much longer!"

The voices of my team in my ear snapped me back to reality.

"Forget it," I spat. I released Stoat's collar and stepped back, glancing over at Knight to make sure he wasn't trying anything. "Tell me what you know about Hesiod—your old friend Arthur Pierce."

Ezekiel Stoat's smile vanished from his face.

"Now," he replied, "why the hell would I go and do that?"

"You're on your way out," I retorted. "What does it matter to you?" I levelled the pistol once more, and to my satisfaction I saw Stoat twitch a little, his papery upper lip curling as the barrel aligned with his skull. "Besides," I added, "I think you care more about your own survival than you're letting on."

Stoat straightened his jacket with a dramatic sigh, as if I'd damaged anything of value. "Friend," he scoffed, "is a very generous term. Mister Pierce was a coworker at best, and even that's being forgiving."

I narrowed my eyes. "How so?"

"I haven't seen Arthur in years," Stoat explained. "He still obeys orders from the rest of the Oversight Committee, and helped the last Director, Blackwell, fine enough. For all intents and purposes he was a model employee, one of our best. But he sunk too far into his role. The man got weirder, and fast."

My pulse quickened. "What do you mean he got weirder?"

Stoat sighed, and I heard something crack as he leaned back, resting against the side of his desk.

"He used to be sharp. Dangerous, even. Ran point on Project Cold Iron back when it actually mattered. But then, I dunno... guy just stopped showing up." Stoat leaned back against his desk, gesturing lazily like he was recounting a bad date. "He stayed in contact with Blackwell, facilitating his plans, but barely touched any projects himself for years. Then suddenly he was back in the files, breathing down people's necks, pulling data from old satellite logs, cross-referencing IRON chip architecture like it was his religion. I figured the man got bored and wanted to relive old successes to stave off his own senility."

"But why Cold Iron again?" I asked. "Why now?"

"No clue," Stoat stated. He gave a lazy shrug that was more a jitter than an actual motion. "Cold Iron had limitless potential for growth, but the skill floor was far too high for even our best engineers. It was a source of frustration for him. Endless theoretical applications, but only one practical use."

"Balancing mechs," I concluded.

"Exactly." Stoat nodded. "You're a smart one, Orestes."

"But where is he now?" I pressed. "Where does Hesiod operate from?"

Stoat hesitated. The playful glint in his eyes dulled, and for a moment he seemed to reconsider what he was about to say.

"There was a transmission," he admitted, finally. "A few months back. Arrived just after my special guest did. Nothing important, just a request that I keep the great general of SPEAR off the board—permenantly."

"And?" I growled. I wanted so badly for this conversation to be over.

"It was the first I'd heard from Alexander in ages," Stoat continued. "And the last since then. So I had it traced... the message originated from the Northwest Territories—a Sedna Heavy Industries site known as Adlivun."

That gave me pause. "Never heard of that company," I retorted.

"I have!" Calican blurted. I winced at the sudden voice in my ear, and saw Stoat give me a quizzical look. "Stole a few shipments from that corp some years back—they mine rare earth metals and materials for mech construction. Part of the Canadian government's deal with Axion Industries."

"Not many people have," Stoat continued. "They operate a massive refinery out past the tectonic plate line, on Baffin Island." He leaned in, voice lowering. "Given almost the entire effort is automated, I'm not certain why he'd ship himself out to that frigid hellscape, but the transmission doesn't lie."

"Could it have been a rerouted signal?" Sora inquired.

"Doubtful," Haneul replied. "That far north, you're dealing with near-total signal blackout—ionospheric interference, solar scattering, magnetic anomalies left over from the Age of Steel Skies. Even low-band relays get chewed up over time. The point is, you'd need line-of-sight and access to a beefy comms array to even send an e-mail."

"And no one's hauling that into the tundra," I muttered.

"Exactly," Haneul affirmed. "Whoever sent that message had to be at the site. No relay. No spoofing. No doubt."

"And you think that's where he is?" I continued, turning back to Stoat.

"I think it's where he was," Stoat replied. He shot me a self-satisfied smirk. "Given you're so clearly after him, I'd bet Alexander, or whoever he is these days, is long gone by now." He leaned forward, staring me down. "Happy now? Did you get what you needed out of our little confrontation?"

"Just say yes," Sora commanded. "You're out of time, you need to finish this."

I stared at Ezekiel Stoat and felt the hatred rising in me like a tide—cold, absolute, and long overdue.

To my left, Cassius Knight slumped in his seat like he was already halfway to the grave. There was fear in his eyes—not guilt. Not shame. Just fear, for himself alone.

I hated them both—for what they'd done to Mallet, to SPEAR, to all of us.

I looked down at the gun in my hand. It felt steady. Heavy. Final. Behind Stoat, the tall window still loomed with its shutters drawn tight, blotting out whatever lay beyond. I took a step forward, jaw clenched, and—

"Before you make whatever poor decision you're about to, Orestes," Stoat announced, calm as ever, "will you grant a dead man two final questions?"

"Oh, for the love of—" Reina barked. "Must we drag this out any more?"

"Make it fast," I snapped. I eyed the window behind Stoat, focusing my gaze on the metal shutters.

"It will be exceedingly brief," Stoat replied. Now that I knew his voice was fake, I could see that he spoke with a delay, his audible speech an unnerving half-second behind the motion of his jaw.

"First question. You called my lovely guest your General, and seemed to know Arthur Pierce's real name." He leaned forward, staring me down. "Can I surmise that you were once a member of SPEAR, Orestes?"

"I don't like where this is going, Tae," Sora hissed.

"Correct," I replied. I stared at Stoat's hand as his silver-tipped fingers lazily drummed against the desk, a staccato rhythm lacking a steady beat.

"Wonderful," Stoat smiled. "And now, my second and final question."

He rose, slow and deliberate, drawing himself to his full height. The motion was wrong. Too fluid. Too smooth. Like something not used to pretending it was human.

"This building is packed with sensor suites and metal detectors," he explained, almost conversationally. "Many of which are failsafes that aren't even connected to the security systems you've so expertly disabled."

He stepped forward, lifting himself off the desk, and I had to stop myself from flinching. I was the one holding him hostage—so why was the air in here suddenly so cold?

"I should've been able to detect any weapons on your person from a mile away," Stoat crooned. His silver-tipped fingers flexed and curled. "Therefore..." he whispered, "that's not a real gun, is it?"

The question hung in the air for a second, unanswered. Everything in my body screamed to move, to react, to take action and lie or cut and run, but it was all too slow, too late.

Stoat had seen through the ruse. My pistol, little more than a carefully constructed prop of wood and plastic, was useless as little more than a blunt weapon.

"I thought not," Stoat replied. He smiled at me now, wider than ever, and as I stared, frozen, that smile widened more, then more, then more still, papery lips over false teeth spreading impossibly, inhumanly wide until—

"Oh, what the fuck..."

The words came from Cassius Knight, of all people, who had gone white as a sheet, still clutching the couch a few meters to my left.

With a brittle, wet crack, Ezekiel Stoat's jaw snapped open like a snake baring its fangs. The skin along his cheeks tore slightly as a grotesque seam spread from chin to ear, splitting his face in two. And from deep in that abyss of bone and wires, a sickly orange light began to pour from the gap.

It wasn't even a mouth anymore. It was a weapon.

With a deafening screech, a beam of burning plasma leapt from Stoat's distended jaw, screaming through the air toward me.