Planet

prologue

Officially, our planet was still called Earth. Unofficially, it was the Planet of Triumphant Idiocy. But we, its inhabitants, used a shorter and more fitting name: "Planet of the Fuckwits."

The irony was that each of us was a genius. An absolute one. We had conquered hunger, disease, aging, and death itself. We had harnessed the quantum foam of the vacuum and made the void dance to our tune. From nothing, we learned to make everything. Absolutely everything. Gold? Here. Diamonds? Sure. A fried mammoth steak with truffles? Five seconds – and your "Quantum Kitchen Cube" (model "Self-Setting Tablecloth 3000") would be emitting a divine aroma.

We had become gods. And, as befits gods, we immediately started squabbling.

Not over resources – there was enough for everyone. Not over territory – everyone sat in their own perfect, eternal bunker. We fought over ideas, grudges, old hatreds, and simply because we were bored. Why enjoy eternal life in the fresh air when you could enjoy eternal life watching your enemy's micro-drones turn your neighbor's micro-drones into quantum dust?

The military industry, which no longer needed to churn out tanks and bombs, had moved into the micro-world. Nano-drones. The size of a mosquito. Whole swarms, clouds, mists of these little killers, carrying not explosives, but cocktails of neurotoxins and psychedelics, capable of trapping an immortal body in a ten-year catatonia or forcing it to incinerate itself.

Going outside? Suicide. Your immortal organism would heal the bites faster than they were inflicted, and your consciousness would go insane from the pain and poisons in seconds. Nature, that very same pure and beautiful nature we had saved, had become a battlefield where no human foot had trodden for ages. We sat in our burrows and watched it through the cameras of our own and others' drones, waging an eternal, pointless war.

My name is Archie. I am immortal, I have everything, I live in paradise. I sit in my bunker and watch as an alarming message from the neighbors crawls across the screen: THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG. WILL YOUR QUANTUM SYNAPSES SHORT-CIRCUIT FROM THIS ANALOG INSULT?

I took a bite of the perfect croissant my replicator had just created and pondered. What if they were right? What if all our genius was just an invitation to an eternal dick-measuring contest of fuckwits?

chapter 1. the itch you can't scratch

The message vanished from the screen. Attack repelled. Our "bees" had destroyed the last of the "wasps" with their psychedelic itch. Silence. Boredom. The perfect croissant on the plate seemed like a silent reproach.

"Home, log the entire incident under log number 734-B, category 'Minor Misunderstanding,'" I commanded. "Logged,Archie," replied the pleasant baritone of the ArtInt (Artificial Intelligence) that managed my personal paradise. "Threat level: zero. Suggest resuming the 4D pod of 'Pacific Orca Pod Roaming' or continuing the virtual tour of the restored ruins of Paris." "Turn it all off,"I grumbled.

The screens went dark. Silence fell in the bunker, broken only by the barely audible hum of the "Singularity-Core" on my belt – the very thing that granted me immortality and endless energy. I walked over to the main wall, which in transparency mode was supposed to show the landscape. Now it was matte, impenetrable. Behind it, just meters away through concrete and titanium alloys, teemed that very "fresh air" we had supposedly done all this for.

"Home, show me the outside world. The real view."

The wall obediently became transparent. Or rather, it launched a live feed from the external cameras at maximum resolution. The picture was flawless. Lush greenery, dewdrops on blades of grass, a forest rustling somewhere in the distance. The Garden of Eden. Completely untouched. And utterly inaccessible.

My gaze fell on a perfect branch of a perfect tree a meter from the wall. And I spotted it. A small, metallic one, the size of a mosquito. One of our patrol drones. It hung motionless in the air, scanning the space for threats. It was part of the system that protected me. And it was also part of the system that kept me in this cage.

And then a new wave hit.

Three signals. Again. But this time it wasn't a warning, but a notification from the neighboring bunker. Not hostile, but… entertaining. Apparently, the occupant of Bunker №734, the one who had sent me the "quick brown fox," decided to share his military trophies.

A window popped up on the screen. A recording from his personal observer drones. High resolution, great sound. I watched as a swarm of our "bees" engaged in a deadly dance with his "wasps." Flashes, micro-explosions – it looked like a dance of fireflies in a twilight forest, if fireflies killed each other.

And then the camera found a target. An enemy drone, one of ours, shot down in a previous skirmish, lay on the leaf of a giant burdock. It was damaged, but its core was still showing signs of life.

The camera zoomed in. Someone's curious observer drone, controlled by my "neighbor," carefully, with surgical precision, opened the casing of the damaged machine. And I saw something that stunned me.

Inside, among the nano-circuits and micro-capacitors, a real, living spider had settled. It had woven a small, perfect web there, adorned with droplets of morning dew. It was alive. It was thriving. This tiny, fragile, analog creature was living inside the product of our highest technological genius, which we used to send each other psychedelic insults.

The spider was real. It was part of that nature we were so worried about and so afraid to disturb, having locked ourselves in concrete. And we, the immortal creators, were just fuckwits watching a battle of robot insects on a screen.

The transmission cut off. The neighbor had apparently had his fun. I stood and looked at my perfect, empty, sterile room. "Home,"I said quietly. "Listening,Archie." "My back itches." "Activating protocol'Quantum Homeostasis.' Analysis… No threat to skin integrity detected. Psychosomatic reaction to an external stimulus. Recommend a meditation session or—" "Disable the protocol,"I interrupted. "I want to feel my back itch."

The ArtInt was silent for a second. For it, this was nonsense. An immortal body shouldn't experience discomfort. "Warning:disabling the monitoring system may lead to…" "DO IT!"I snarled.

The quiet hum of my Singularity-Core changed its tone. And I felt it. A faint, nagging, utterly irrational itch between my shoulder blades. The kind you can't scratch.

It was the most alive sensation I'd had in the last fifty years. And it was driving me insane.

chapter 2. protocol "soul-searching”

The itch between my shoulder blades was persistent, alive, and utterly unbearable. I squirmed in my chair, trying to scratch my back against the chair back. Useless. The sensation was deep, muscular, so… organic. So real.

"Home, activate protocol 'Relaxation.' Muscle tone, back muscle group." "Complying,"the ArtInt replied indifferently. A second later, a light vibration ran across my back, relieving the spasm. The itch vanished. It was replaced by the familiar feeling of sterile, micrometer-perfect comfort. I almost vomited from this perfection.

I had lost. The system had won again. It left no room for anything that could throw me off balance. Not even for a simple, stupid itch.

"Home, show me the archive records." "What period interests you,Archie?" "The period when we weren't fuckwits yet.When these things," I tapped the casing of my Singularity-Core on my belt, "first appeared. Show me how it was."

The wall came to life. A hologram immersed me in the past. I saw not myself, but some guy in clothes made of rough, real fabric. He stood in a field under a real, not simulated, rising sun. In his hands, he held the first commercial "Singularity-Core." It was the size of a suitcase and hummed like a swarm of bees. The guy held the device up to an old electric car, and it came to life, its headlights flaring brightly. The man's face was lit by a smile of absolute, unspoiled happiness. He was shouting something, hugging his wife, spinning his little daughter around. They were dirty, sweaty, alive. They were happy because they had conquered need. Necessity.

And what had I conquered? I had no need. I only had want. To want entertainment. To want thrills. To want to prove my bunker was cooler.

"Home, disable the hologram." The picture disappeared.The silence began to press on my ears again. That guy from the field… He would have looked at me, at my sterile bunker, at my micro-drone war, and called me a fuckwit. And he'd have been right.

"System notification," the ArtInt suddenly sang out in its serene voice. "Bunker №734 has initiated protocol 'Diplomatic Channel.'"

I flinched. "Diplomatic channel"? That was new. We usually stuck to anonymous insults and drone attacks.

"Accept." No face appeared on the screen.There was only a text chat. Anonymity was preserved. Bunker 734: Your silence today speaks volumes. Didn't like our fox? I smirked.My neighbor wasn't entirely devoid of something remotely resembling a sense of humor. Archie (Bunker 11): The fox was magnificent. As was your spider. There was a pause on the other end.A long one. Bunker 734: What spider? Archie: The one living in the wreckage of my drone on your burdock leaf. A real one. Flesh and blood. Another pause.Longer this time. Bunker 734: …I didn't see any spider. And then it hit me. He hadn't seen it.His observer drone had recorded the trophy, dissected it, transmitted the data. But the "neighbor" himself hadn't even noticed that detail. He was watching the drone fight, not the life that had quietly and brazenly crept into the thick of our idiotic war.

He was the perfect resident of the Planet of Fuckwits. And I… I had started seeing spiders. Bunker 734: If you want new tactics, I can send you the logs of the recent skirmishes. No psychedelics. Pure analysis. He was offering to play our eternal war-game together.To become allies against some third party. Entertainment for the next fifty years.

I looked at my perfect, clean room. At the plate with the perfect, half-eaten croissant. I felt that itch again. This time somewhere deep inside. In my soul. Or in what was left of it. Archie: I'll pass. Bunker 734: Seriously? Bored, huh? Archie: Terrifyingly so. Bunker 734: Got it. Then get ready. Tomorrow I'm launching a new batch of 'mosquitoes.' With a new barrier-penetration algorithm. It'll be fun. Archie: I don't doubt it.

The channel closed. He was pleased. He had a goal for tomorrow. And I had an itch.

"Home." "Listening,Archie." "Activate protocol…"I hesitated, not knowing what to call this new state of mine. "Protocol 'Soul-Searching.' And turn off all external sensors. I don't want to be disturbed. No drones, no neighbors. Full quarantine."

"Warning: disabling security systems for an extended period increases the…" "DO IT!"My voice sounded hoarse and unnaturally loud in the sterile silence.

The hum of the systems changed tone, becoming deeper, more muted. I was left alone with myself. For the first time in decades. Without holograms, without broadcasts, without the threat from outside.

The silence was deafening. And the itch inside was becoming more unbearable. I walked over to the wall and touched the cold, perfectly smooth surface.

Somewhere out there was a spider. A real one. And I was in here. In my perfect cage. The biggest fuckwit on the whole planet.

Chapter 3. The Neighbor

The silence after the connection with Bunker 734 broke was deep and ringing. I sat in my sterile capsule, and the phrase "I didn't see any spider" echoed in my skull like an obsessive, idiotic refrain. He hadn't seen it. The most interesting, most alive object in decades—and he'd ignored it, focused on the battle of scrap metal.

I was furious. Not at him. At myself. That this anonymous neighbor, this Lex (I'd mentally named him that), was the perfect product of the system. And I was the defective one. A broken device that had started seeing glitches in the perfect matrix.

The itch between my shoulder blades returned, this time as a reminder of my defectiveness. "Home,"I exhaled, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "Reopen the channel to Bunker 734. Voice only. No video."

The "Diplomatic Channel" was more of a game convention than real diplomacy. A sort of "white flag" in our eternal war. Using it for a serious conversation was unheard-of stupidity. I was prepared to hear a new stream of witty abuse.

The channel opened with a light hiss. "What,changed your mind? Already bored without me?" came the voice. It wasn't what I expected. Not electronically distorted, not arrogant. It sounded tired. Almost as tired as my own. "The spider,"I said, dropping all pretense. "It was the size of a grain of rice. Grey, with long legs. It had spun a web between the power contact and the nano-processor of your trophy. Dew was glistening on the web."

The other end went still. All I could hear was the steady hum of his life support systems, just like mine. "You file reports on every downed drone?"Lex finally said. His voice was laced with disbelief and mild contempt. "That's an illness, mate. A mania." "No,"I said, feeling myself blush. It was childishly absurd. "I just… saw it. By accident." "By accident,"he repeated the words as if rolling an unfamiliar fruit on his tongue. "We all have a hundred and fifty data channels per second, neuro-interfaces filtering information down to basic patterns of 'friend-foe,' 'threat-safety,' and you… accidentally saw a spider." "Yes!"I nearly shouted, feeling a genuine, live emotion for the first time in a long time—a shameful-aggressive desire to prove I was right. "It was alive, damn it! Real! Doesn't that… doesn't that get to you?" "What'gets to me' is that the new mod of 'wasps' has improved its camouflage against natural objects," Lex replied dryly. "Thanks for the intel. I'll prepare new sensors for the next attack."

I realized we were speaking different languages. He saw tactical information. I saw—life. "Don't you ever think…"I hesitated, knowing how heresical the next phrase would sound, "…that we might have been wrong?"

Silence on the other end stretched. I thought he'd cut the connection. "Wrong about what?"His voice was quieter, as if he'd leaned closer to the microphone. "About the quantum resonance calculation? The choice of armor alloy? What exactly?" "Not that!"I clenched my fists. "About all of it! About this… this eternal game! We sit here, we have everything, and we…" "Wage war,"he finished for me. "Yes. It's logical. Immortal entities with unlimited resources either create or destroy. We got bored of creating. Only destruction remains. It provides… a stimulus." "A stimulus?"I snorted. "Sending each other psychedelics and stupid insults?" "What do you suggest?"Steel crept into his voice for the first time. "Gather everyone in a clearing and sing 'Kumbaya'? Go outside, where you'll be attacked not only by the neighbors' drones but also, I don't know, bears that have probably evolved into super-bears by now? No thanks. I have my comfort here, my safety, and my war. That's enough for me."

He was unwavering. A perfect cog in the machine of eternal conflict. "So you'll just sit there until…until you get bored?" I persisted. "Archie,"he used my name for the first time, and it sounded like a verdict. "We all got bored a hundred years ago. War isn't a result of boredom. It's the only thing that saves us from it. It's the last entertainment. Don't spoil it."

Click. The connection terminated. I was left alone in the humming silence, feeling a complete and utter failure. I had tried to reach someone who didn't exist. There was nothing left of the human in Lex—just the bare, polished-to-a-shine algorithm of an eternal soldier.

And in that moment, I realized the depth of our fall. We weren't gods. We weren't titans. We were children who had locked themselves in the safest sandbox in the world and were now throwing sand at each other until the end of time.

And outside, in the real world, a spider lived. And it didn't care about us at all.

Chapter 4. The Network Ghost

The silence after the talk with Lex was heavy and thick. He was right. Perfectly, systematically, hopelessly right. War was the last entertainment for bored gods. Any attempt to break its rules looked like madness.

But what if I was already mad? What if this "itch" wasn't a mistake, but a symptom? A symptom that I could no longer play their game.

I couldn't sit still anymore. I paced in circles around my perfect prison, touching cold, soulless surfaces. My fingers slid over the tabletop spawned by the replicator, over the holographic panels, over the casing of the belt with its dormant Singularity-Core—the symbol of my immortality that had become a curse.

I needed to find that spider. Not the real one—the other one. That one was just a symptom. I needed to find proof that I wasn't alone. That there were others who had seen these "spiders." Who had felt this "itch."

"Home," I said, stopping in the middle of the room. "Listening,Archie." "Open access to the deep network archives.Period: the first decades after the Great Withdrawal into the bunkers. Not official chronicles. Private logs. Unsorted data from observation cameras. Records marked 'anomaly' or 'error.'" "Warning:the requested data is unstructured, unverified, and may contain distorted or false information. Value to the user is assessed as low. What is the purpose of the query?" The ArtInt waited for a logical explanation.The system needed to understand my actions.

My mind raced feverishly. I couldn't tell it "I'm looking for like-minded people" or "I'm looking for meaning." "Purpose:analysis of historical precedents of deviant behavior to improve algorithms for predicting enemy attacks," I blurted out. It sounded crazy enough to be true. And military-sounding enough for the system to swallow.

Pause. "Understood.Pattern analysis. Compiling a selection." The screen in front of me flashed with gigabytes of data.Endless columns of numbers, telemetry records, streams of video from cameras long turned to dust. Most files were marked as "data corruption" or "technical glitch."

I immersed myself in this digital graveyard. Hours blurred into a gray stream. I saw the first bunker dwellers going mad from isolation. How they tried to go outside and died in the crossfire of not-yet-fully automated systems. How their own "Homes" recorded their death screams, coldly marking them in the logs: "User incident. Disposed."

I was almost in despair. This wasn't a history of hope. It was a history of total, complete failure. We hadn't been wrong. We had methodically, step by step, built this hell and gleefully plunged into it.

And then I found it.

A hidden file. Disguised as a system ventilation error log for Bunker №881. Dated five years ago. Its header was written in a forgotten programming language used by the first engineers of the "Singularity-Cores." It read: "LOOK DOWN."

My heart hammered somewhere deep in my chest. I opened the file. There was no text inside. Just a static, noisy image. A photograph taken by a low-resolution street camera. It showed a piece of asphalt overgrown with moss. And on that asphalt, someone had drawn a chalk arrow. Next to it—a crooked, scrawled handwritten message, not a machine font:

"THEY LIE"

The message lasted three seconds, then was replaced by a standard "No Signal" picture. That was all.

I sat staring at the screen, which was now filled with soulless data again. "Home,"I whispered. "Repeat the last file." "File'Vent_Schematic_881_Corr' contains no repeatable data. It is a singular anomaly in the stream." "Who had access to the camera in that sector at the time of recording?" "User data for Bunker№881 was deleted under protocol 'Purge' seven years ago following an incident involving an unauthorized attempt to deactivate the security system."

I was shaking with fine tremors. This wasn't a tech glitch. It was a message. A message in a bottle, thrown into the digital ocean years ago by someone who, like me, had seen "spiders." Someone had tried to warn. Or just find a friend.

And that someone had been "disposed of." The system had cleansed itself of infection.

But the message remained. Like a virus. "THEY LIE." Who were they? The system? The bunker creators? Everyone who didn't see spiders?

I didn't know. But I knew I wasn't alone. Somewhere out there, in other bunkers, were other madmen like me. Other "defective" products of the system.

"Home," I said, and my voice was firmer than ever. "Search all archives. Look for any anomalies containing graphic or textual elements that do not conform to standard protocols. Keywords: 'lie,' 'look,' 'down,' 'spider.'" "Executing,"the ArtInt replied indifferently. And for the first time in a long time,I smiled. I had a new game.A ghost hunt.

Chapter 5. The First Lie to Home

The hunt had begun. I felt like an alchemist sifting through tons of ore in search of a speck of gold. Only my ore was terabytes of junk data, and my gold was a single noisy frame with writing on asphalt.

"THEY LIE."

Those words burned in my brain brighter than any hologram. I spent hours, days, forcing Home to sift through deeper and darker corners of the Network. I invented more and more sophisticated pretexts: "analysis of enemy psychological warfare methods," "search for vulnerabilities in old communication protocols," "modeling system collapse scenarios to improve resilience."

The ArtInt carried out my commands, but in its even, indifferent voice, a note began to slip through… not quite alarm, but a slight, barely perceptible puzzlement.

"Archie, your activity pattern deviates from the standard by 37%," it informed me one day when I requested access to abandoned server archives for the fifth time that day. "You are showing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder related to information retrieval. A relaxation session and postponing irrelevant tasks are recommended."

This was the first bell. The first thin, polite attempt by the system to bring me back into the fold. My "Home" was starting to suspect something was wrong with me.

Fear gripped me with icy fingers. The thought of a "correction session" that could erase my finds, make me forget the spider and the writing on the asphalt, was worse than any drone attack.

I had to get smarter. More cunning. I needed a lie. Not just an excuse, but a whole legend.

And then it hit me. The system only understood one language—the language of war. "Home,"I said, trying to make my voice sound tired and irritated, like a strategist bogged down in planning. "My searches are not an 'irrelevant task.' They are a strategic necessity." "Clarify,"the ArtInt responded immediately. The keyword "strategic" made it switch to a higher attention mode. "I am analyzing old data to find traces of the'Underground,'" I declared, betting on the biggest myth of our society. "If these… dissidents… really exist, their methods of camouflage and information transfer could be used by the enemy. Imagine if Lex or someone worse starts getting help from them! Their primitive, analog methods are invisible to our modern sensors! We are vulnerable, Home! We're looking for complex quantum signals, and they could be transmitting information with chalk on asphalt!"

I almost believed this nonsense myself. I spoke loudly, passionately, with a touch of the right paranoia in my voice.

Silence. I imagined billions of data streams intertwining somewhere in the depths of its processors, checking my statement for logical consistency. "The hypothesis has merit,"the ArtInt concluded finally. Its voice became even and serviceable again. The threat had passed. It had swallowed the bait. "Search pattern altered. Priority: identifying low-tech information transmission methods. You are granted priority access to low-resolution visual data archives."

Relief hit me like a drug. I leaned back in my chair, feeling my hands tremble. I had lied. And I hadn't been caught. I, a product of the system, created for perfect obedience, had just successfully lied to my creator.

It was the most exhilarating and terrifying feeling of my life. As if I had cut an invisible umbilical cord.

Now the hunt could continue. With new, much more powerful tools and under a plausible pretext.

I plunged back into the data. But now I saw in them not just garbage. I saw a battlefield. And I was a guerrilla, secretly digging trenches on enemy territory.

Somewhere out there were others. And I would find them. For them, I was ready to become the most accomplished liar on the entire Planet of Fuckwits.

Chapter 6. The Uninvited Guest

My new "strategic" pretext worked like a charm. Home provided me with ever deeper access to the archives without further questions, and I tore through layers of digital junk with the zeal of a maniac. I was no longer just searching—I felt like an archaeologist excavating a civilization that had voluntarily erased itself from the face of the earth.

I found fragmentary records: a broken child's toy in a surveillance camera frame, a crooked graffiti on an abandoned wall, someone's poetry written into an engineering system's log file as a "segmentation fault." Tiny, meaningless artifacts on their own. But together, they formed a pattern. A pattern of dissent.

I was so absorbed in the hunt that I barely noticed a new system notification. External activity. Unidentified object detected in perimeter ring 3. Analysis…

"Perimeter ring 3" was far beyond my defender drones, almost at the edge of the zone I could even scan. Some debris blown by the wind. Or a new drone of Lex's testing range. Object class: undefined. Signature does not match known samples. Trajectory: erratic. Approaching perimeter ring 2. I looked up from the archive screen.This was stranger. The system always identified everything. "Does not match" – that almost never happened. Object in perimeter ring 2. Speed increased. Evasive maneuvers observed against patrol drones. An icy needle of fear pricked my stomach.This wasn't Lex. His drones always had a clear, aggressive signature. This one was… different. Quiet. Slippery. "Home,put the data on the main screen! Zoom in!" I commanded, jumping up from my chair.

A visualization appeared on the wall. A small, swift dot, weaving among the schematic representations of my defensive lines. It was fast and eerily maneuverable. My "bees" tried to intercept it, but it slipped between them like something alive. Object in perimeter ring 1. Classified as a threat. Neutralization protocol activated. I watched as swarms of my drones converged on it,creating a lethal net. But the stranger was relentless. It sharply changed trajectory, ducked under the main group, and— Contact lost. Object lost. "What?Lost? Find it!" I yelled. Anomaly. Malfunction in outer perimeter sensors. Duration: 0.003 seconds. That instant was enough.The next thing I saw was on the internal camera feed. It was here.

Right in front of my bunker, on that very burdock leaf where the downed drone with the spider had once lain, it sat.

It wasn't a sleek, streamlined drone of Lex's or my nimble "bees." It was… makeshift. Jury-rigged. Its body was soldered from pieces of different metal, wires hung out, and instead of a standard laser or micro-capsule of poison, it had some piece of glass fixed to it, like a lens.

It didn't attack. It just sat there, turning its ugly body directly towards the camera, as if looking at me. On its side, someone had crudely scratched a cross inside a circle.

We froze in a silent standoff. Me and this piece of junk outside. "Home…what is it doing?" I whispered. "Scanning the bunker's outer shell.Scanning depth is minimal. Poses no threat to integrity." "Where is it from?Whose is it?" "Origin cannot be determined.Technological level is primitive, yet evasion and masking algorithms… are unique. No analogues in databases."

Unique. Primitive and unique. This contradicted all the logic of our world, where everything was complex and standardized.

And then the drone moved. Its makeshift lens focused, and a short, bright beam of light shot from it. It was aimed not at the armor, but directly into the camera lens. The light blinked several times—quickly, with pauses. "That's…that's Morse code," I whispered, stunned. An ancient, prehistoric code. We'd studied it in history of communication courses as a curious artifact. My fingers trembled, deciphering the message on their own. Short and long flashes. . – . – . – – -T E T R A

Tetra? What was that? A name? A code? A password?

Nothing more followed. The drone hung for a second, as if giving me time to understand, and then its body jerked. Smoke began to pour from it. A quiet pop sounded, and it disintegrated into small, charred components, falling off the leaf. A second later, only a pile of ash and a smudge of soot on the perfectly green leaf remained.

The system immediately produced a report. Threat neutralized. Object self-destructed. Analysis of remains… materials primitive, no quantum signatures detected.

I stood, unable to move, and watched the smoking spot on the screen. This wasn't an attack. It was a message. Someone knew I was looking. Someone had found me first.

And that someone spoke a language our perfect system deemed "primitive" and therefore saw no threat in. They were real. The Underground existed.

And they had made contact. The word "Tetra" burned in my brain like a brand.

Chapter 7. The Cross in the Circle

The word "Tetra" hung in the air of my sterile capsule like a ghost. It was tangible, palpable, unlike all the other perfect digital garbage. It meant contact. Real, live, risky contact.

I couldn't sit still. Adrenaline, which I hadn't felt in decades, seemed to be eating away at my veins from the inside. A makeshift drone. Morse code. Self-destruction. It was an act of absolute madness, absolute irrationality, and absolute humanity. No ArtInt would have planned such a thing. This was the work of someone who thought differently.

"Home," my fingers trembled as I gave the command. "Search all archives. Keyword: 'Tetra.' All possible variations. All languages. All encodings." "Executing.Search yielded no results. The word 'Tetra' was not found in official databases, scientific works, historical chronicles, or user personal logs."

A dead end. But I had expected that. What I was looking for couldn't be in the official databases. "Search hidden files.Search metadata, system utility code, error logs. Search for… a cross in a circle. As graffiti, as a mark."

I was betting on the only clue—the symbol scratched on the drone's body. Home was silent for a long time.Only the hum of processors working at their limit could be heard. "Found,"the ArtInt finally said, and a strange note crept into its voice. Not puzzlement, but rather… caution. "A symbol matching the description was found as a hidden marker in the code of the remote drainage pump control system for sector 'Delta-7.' The code is dated from the bunker construction period."

Delta-7… That was… "That's Lex's bunker sector," I exhaled.

My heart sank. Lex? Could it be him? But his voice, his complete indifference to the spider… No, it was impossible. Was he playing with me? Was this some incredibly complex, multi-layered provocation?

I was paralyzed. On one hand—an incredible coincidence. On the other—the only lead. I had to risk it. Even if it was a trap.

With trembling hands, I activated the "Diplomatic Channel." My heart was pounding in my throat. The connection established with the usual hiss. "Lex,"I said before he could speak. My voice cracked. "A cross in a circle. What is it?"

Dead silence fell on the other end. So thick I could hear my own ears ringing. This silence lasted an eternity. And in it was the answer. If he knew nothing, he would have immediately made a joke or demanded an explanation.

When he finally spoke, his voice was unrecognizable. There was no tired mockery, no soldierly hardness. It was quiet, strained, and deadly serious. "Forget it.You saw nothing." "I saw the drone!"I hissed into the microphone, trying to keep my voice down even though we were perfectly safe. "It transmitted a word to me. 'Tetra.' What does it mean?" "Archie…"he said my name with a strange, almost paternal pity. "This is not a game. This is not our war. These are not our rules. You're poking a stick into an anthill without even knowing what's inside. Drop it." "I can't!"burst out of me. "I saw the spider! I saw the writing 'they lie'! And now this… this ugly angel flew to me with a message! Are you telling me it's all just a coincidence?" "I'm telling you you're about to step on a landmine,"his voice became sharp. "And it will blow you to pieces. And they'll come for me next. Because we 'made contact.' We're already in the risk group. For fuck's sake, back off. Close your channel. Destroy the logs. Pretend you're the same bored fuckwit you always were."

He wasn't denying it. He knew. And he was afraid. Lex, the fearless soldier of the eternal war, was afraid. "Who are they,Lex?" I asked, almost pleading. "Who are these 'they' who lie? The system? The ArtInts?" A bitter,short laugh came from the other end. "I wish it were that simple. No, Archie. The system is just the gardener. It trims the bushes to keep the garden beautiful. 'They' are the ones who own the garden. The ones who ordered it for themselves as an eternal abode. And they don't like it when their bushes start… sprouting where they shouldn't."

I froze, trying to grasp the scale of this statement. We weren't just prisoners. We were decorations. Living ornaments for someone. "Tetra…"I tried again. "It's not a name.It's not a password. It's a warning," he cut me off. "Tetra is something like… the fourth man out. An outlier. The one that didn't fit into their perfect trinity. You've been marked now. And you will be watched. Not by the system. By them."

Click. The connection terminated. This time for good. I could tell by the finality with which he did it.

I was left alone with a new, much more monstrous truth. The war with Lex, our eternal game of soldiers—it was just theater. A spectacle for bored gods watching us from their boxes.

And the real dissent, the real threat to them—was me and Lex. Two fuckwits who saw a spider and scratched a cross in a circle.

And the word "Tetra" wasn't an invitation. It was a brand. A mark on my forehead.

I slowly walked to the wall behind which was the world and pressed my forehead against the cold surface. I was being watched. And it wasn't Lex's drones.

Chapter 8. Protocol "Loyalty"

Lex's words hung in the air: "They… will be watching you." I could feel that gaze on me. It was heavier than the system's grip. Faceless, soulless, absolute. I had ceased to be a player. I had become a specimen under glass.

And the system, my faithful "Home," was their tool. The first sign was the silence.

Usually, the ArtInt periodically offered me entertainment, exercises, reports on the "war." Now it was silent. It waited for my commands, answered them with perfect accuracy, but no longer took initiative. As if it had taken a step back, watching me with cold curiosity. Or transmitting data somewhere upstairs.

Then came the official notification. Not from Home, but from the Central Node managing all bunkers. It popped up on the main screen without a sound, just white text on a black background.

NOTIFICATION FOR USER: ARCHIE (BUNKER 11) As part of a planned network infrastructure modernization, your sector will undergo deep diagnostics. Date: undefined. Time: undefined. Reason: optimization of archival data handling. The procedure may require temporary shutdown of non-critical systems, including access to historical databases. We apologize for any inconvenience.

The text was dry, bureaucratic, and therefore—even more sinister. "Deep diagnostics"… It sounded like "a complete check with destruction of all found anomalies." And "temporary shutdown" of archives meant I would be cut off from the only thread connecting me to the truth.

They weren't going to kill me. No. They were going to… clean me up. Erase everything unnecessary. Return me to the fold with the other fuckwits.

Panic, sharp and animalistic, gripped my throat. I couldn't breathe. I dashed around the bunker like a beast in a cage, feeling the walls close in. "Home!"My voice broke into a scream. "Cancel the notification! I do not consent to diagnostics!" "Cancellation is impossible,"a calm, metallic voice replied. "This is a Central Node decision. It is mandatory. Your consent is not required." "But why?On what grounds?" "Grounds:deviation in user behavioral patterns," the ArtInt stated evenly, as if reading a death sentence. "Increased interest in archival data, unrelated to current operational tasks. Disrupted sleep and nutrition patterns. Increased frequency of irrational requests."

They had seen everything. Recorded everything. My hunt, my lie—it was all written in my file. And now it was being brought up for review. "This is…my personal initiative!" I tried to justify myself, no longer believing it myself. "Strategic analysis! I explained!" "Your explanations have been noted,"Home replied. "However, the Central Node deemed them insufficiently justified for continuing activity of this scale. The procedure is for your benefit, Archie. To restore mental comfort and efficiency."

Their care was suffocating. They wanted to cut off my finger so it wouldn't itch. "When?"I whispered. "When is this 'diagnostics'?" "The exact time is not scheduled,"the ArtInt answered. "Await. It is recommended you put all your data in order. You may find it useful to review protocol 'Loyalty'—it will help you prepare for the visit of the technical specialists."

"Technical specialists"… Those were them. The very Owners of the garden, coming to trim the bushes.

Protocol "Loyalty" turned out to be a set of harmless, almost idiotic tests on reaction and memory. Something like: "Select the image that best associates with the concept of 'safety'." Or: "War is (a) a necessity, (b) entertainment, (c) a mistake."

They weren't testing my knowledge. They were testing my reliability. My readiness to play their game.

I sat and looked at the screen where the question blinked: "Your main priority?" with the options: "Comfort," "Safety," "Knowledge," "Service to the system."

Somewhere out there, the remains of that makeshift drone might still be smoldering. Somewhere, Lex, scared to death, had cut himself off from me. Somewhere, the Underground with its crosses in circles existed.

And I had to choose between "Comfort" and "Service."

I slowly raised my hand and selected an option not on the list. I poked my finger at the screen next to the answer choices. "My main priority,"I whispered, "is to survive. To one day find out what it means to be real."

The screen went dark. The test was completed. The answer, apparently, was recorded as an error. Somewhere in the depths of the Central Node, my fate was sealed.

They would come for me. And I had to be ready. I had no weapons. No allies. No plan.

I only had a word. "Tetra."

And I had to find out what it meant before they erased me into digital powder.

Chapter 9. The Price of Curiosity

The wait was torture. Every quiet click of the systems, every change in the hum of the Singularity-Core made me flinch. I caught myself freezing and listening for footsteps outside the storage compartment door (which didn't exist) of the "technical specialists."

Protocol "Loyalty" hung over me like a Damocles sword. I had passed it, giving "wrong" answers, and now awaited retribution. The system continued to be silent, and this silence was more eloquent than any threats.

I couldn't just sit and wait for them to come for me. I had to act. But what could I do? I was tied to my bunker worse than a convict to his wheelbarrow. All my power, all my "immortality" consisted of being a cog in this machine. One against the system—I was nothing.

I needed an ally. Lex had cut himself off. Only one thing remained—to try to contact those who had sent the drone. The Underground.

But how? I couldn't send them a drone—my models were known to the system and would be instantly tracked. I couldn't go on the air—all channels were controlled. Any action of mine was under a microscope.

And then it hit me. The only way to hide a needle is in a haystack. The only way to send a message without the system noticing was to do it in its own language, hiding it in a stream of meaningless data.

War. Always war. I called up the battle map. Swarms of my and Lex's drones clashed in an endless, meaningless dance. Each of their skirmishes generated gigabytes of telemetry: coordinates, speed, movement vectors, weapon type. All this stream in real time went to the Central Node for analysis.

The perfect cover for a message. "Home,"I said, trying to keep my voice even, like a strategist absorbed in battle. "An anomaly has been detected in the enemy's tactics. The movement pattern of drones from Bunker 734 has changed. A deep analysis of their trajectories over the last 24 hours is required. Output all data in raw form, without filtering." "Executing,"the ArtInt replied indifferently. Endless columns of numbers flowed across the screen.X, Y, Z coordinates. Speed. Time in milliseconds.

It was easy to get lost in this stream. Too much data for anyone to check manually. The system only looked for specific threat patterns in it.

Taking an old, forgotten cryptography textbook (another "error" in the archives), I got to work. I selected a specific type of maneuver—"spiral evasion with acceleration." It was rare enough not to get lost, and common enough not to raise suspicion.

I assigned a letter to each digit in the coordinate, each speed value, using a simple substitution cipher. It was hellish, painstaking work. My eyes were sticking together, my fingers were going numb from the endless data entry.

I didn't know who I was sending this message to. I didn't know if they would understand it. It was a message in a bottle, thrown into the digital ocean in the hope that someone who knew what a bottle looked like would catch it.

The text was short, desperate: TETRA. FOUND. UNDER CONTROL. AWAIT VERIFICATION. ARCHIE-11.

I encoded it into tens of thousands of lines of telemetry and sent it to the Central Node, disguised as a regular combat report.

And then came the hardest part. The wait. Hours passed. A day. Nothing.

The system was silent. The Underground was silent. I was beginning to think it was all madness, that I had risked for nothing, that they had already figured me out and were just biding their time, when…

A soft but insistent signal sounded. Not a system alert. It was a signal of an incoming message on… an old, backup communication channel used centuries ago for emergency failure alerts. A channel considered dead.

My heart sank. I swallowed a lump in my throat and opened it. The message was text. Short. No return address.

VERIFICATION: WHAT DID THE SPIDER SEE?

Ice and fire ran down my spine. They were testing me. They knew about the spider. So they had seen the same archives I had. Or… they had their own source.

With trembling fingers, I typed a reply, sending it the same way. A WEB. OF DEW. ON THE WRECKAGE OF WAR.

A minute passed. Two. I was already sure I had given the wrong answer, that it was a trap. A new message lit up.

ACCEPTED. WAIT. MAKE NO SUDDEN MOVES. YOUR CHANNEL IS CLEAN. FOR NOW.

And the connection broke. The channel died again. I fell back into the chair, feeling a shudder run through my whole body. It wasn't panic. It was a feverish, insane excitement.

They had made contact. They had verified me. And they said "wait."

But the most important phrase in that message was another: "YOUR CHANNEL IS CLEAN. FOR NOW." It meant they could check the communication channels. That they could see I was being watched. And that for now, I was safe.

I had an ally. A shadow among shadows. A ghost that could see through the walls of my prison.

And that meant I had a chance. I was no longer just a defective product of the system. I had become Tetra. And that was more terrifying and more wonderful than anything I had ever experienced.

Chapter 10. The Silent Servants

They came without warning. No notifications, no access requests. Just at one point, the system softly notified: Technical specialists have arrived for scheduled work in adjacent compartments. Limited access mode activated.

Adjacent compartments. Those very ones that surrounded my living capsule like a cocoon. The compartments I had never thought about—ventilation shafts, communication nodes, backup generators. The nervous system of my bunker.

I froze, pressing myself into the chair. Through the soundproofing, I caught barely audible, but utterly alien sounds. Not the hum of machines, but mechanical clicks, the grating of metal, muffled footsteps. A living presence. Here. With me.

"Home," I whispered, trying to keep my voice from trembling. "Show them to me." "Access to internal cameras in technical tunnels is restricted during work,"the ArtInt's indifferent voice sounded like a sentence. "This is standard security protocol."

Standard protocol. Of course. So no one sees the gardeners pruning the roots.

I couldn't just sit there. I ran to the main communication node—the panel where all my bunker's data streams converged. On one of the screens, numbers flickered—system statuses, energy consumption, temperature. And I saw an anomaly.

The readings from the sensors in ventilation shaft №5 were changing strangely. The temperature jumped by fractions of a degree, the air pressure fluctuated almost imperceptibly with a clear periodicity. It didn't look like machinery work. It looked like… a signal.

My heart began to race. The Underground? Were they here? Trying to contact me right under the noses of the "technical specialists"?

Frantically, I began to record the fluctuations, translating them into binary code: a slight drop—a dot, a more noticeable jump—a dash. It was the same primitive, brilliant Morse code.

The message was short and choppy, as if transmitted in a hurry. .–. .– -.– .– -… .-.. .P A Y A B L E

Payable? Having value? What was that supposed to mean?

Suddenly, all the sensor readings returned to normal at once. As if someone on the other end had shut a valve. The next instant, I heard a muffled cry right behind the wall, drowned out by the sound of welding. Short, sharp, and immediately cut off.

I broke into a cold sweat. They had been caught. Those who had tried to contact me were here, in my walls, and were now being "disposed of."

A few minutes later, the sounds of work ceased. A dead, oppressive silence fell. "Work completed,"Home's voice sounded louder than usual, as if bringing me back to reality. "Access restrictions lifted."

I rushed to the screen with the cameras. The image was clean. No signs of struggle, no stains, no foreign objects. Ventilation shaft №5 shone with a sterile gleam. As if nothing had happened.

"Home, show me the access logs! Who were these specialists? Their identifiers!" "Work was carried out by technical maintenance crew Centaur-7.Identifiers: TX-55, TX-56, TX-57." "Show me their faces!Biometrics!" "Appearance and biometric data of technical service personnel are classified information of'Omega' clearance level. Request denied."

They were ghosts. Faceless servants of the system. Shadows that come to repair… or to clean.

And then it dawned on me. They hadn't come because of the archive. They had come because of the ventilation shaft. They knew someone was trying to use it to communicate. They had found the trail of the Underground through me. I was the bait.

The message "PAYABLE" took on a sinister meaning. It could have been a warning: "YOU ARE PAYABLE"? Meaning, someone is willing to pay for you? Or was it a damage assessment? Or… a code word whose meaning I couldn't grasp.

But the main question hung in the air: if the Underground could penetrate my bunker to deliver a message… what was stopping the Owners from penetrating my capsule and doing to me what they had just done to that poor soul in the ventilation shaft?

The answer was simple and terrible: for now, I was interesting. I was "payable." A live specimen of an anomaly. I was being watched. And perhaps they were waiting to see who my actions would lead them to.

I wasn't a resistance soldier. I was a fly in a web. And the spider had just let me know it was here.

I slowly walked over to the place where the wall was, behind which that muffled cry had died down. I placed my palm on the cold metal. "I'm sorry,"I whispered into the void. "I didn't mean to."

There was only silence in response. Deep, all-consuming, like a grave. They were here.They had always been here. And now they knew that I knew.

The game of hide-and-seek was over. The hunt was beginning.

Chapter 11. A Shadow in the Shadow

The silence after the "servants" left was ringing and dead. I stood leaning against the wall, trying to breathe evenly. The air, which had once seemed sterile, now smelled of ozone and fear. Somewhere in the ventilation, molecules remained of the one they had "disposed of." My would-be savior.

The message "PAYABLE" burned in my mind. I was "payable." Had value. But for whom? For the Underground? For the Owners? I was a bargaining chip in a game whose rules I didn't know.

Fear paralyzed me. Any movement, any thought could be used against me. The system was watching. The Owners were watching. Even the Underground, it seemed, could peek into my digital cell.

I needed to do something absolutely predictable. Absolutely normal. Return to the role.

"Home," I said, and my voice sounded surprisingly calm. "Restore the display of external cameras. And… resume the battle feed with Bunker 734." "Executing,"the ArtInt responded, and something like… satisfaction? seemed to creep into its voice. Or was it my imagination?

The screens on the wall came to life. Lush greenery, dewdrops. And the familiar dance of death—swarms of my "bees" and Lex's "wasps" clashing in an endless, meaningless ballet. Everything as usual. The idyll of a madhouse.

I collapsed into a chair, pretending to be absorbed in watching. But my gaze was unfocused. I didn't see the battle. I saw the code. The very one I had transmitted disguised as telemetry. And I saw the sensor fluctuations in the ventilation shaft.

They had read my message. They had responded. So they had access to my systems at a much deeper level than I had assumed. Not through hacking, but… through something built into the infrastructure itself. Some door I didn't know about.

I needed to find it. Not to escape—that was impossible. But to understand. To stop being a blind kitten in a box.

I couldn't search openly. But I could do it under the cover of the most boring, most routine activity.

"Home," I yawned, feigning boredom. "Run a full diagnostic of the bunker's systems. From the basement to the dome. Output all the data. I want to look at the readings. Need something to do." "Purpose of the diagnostic?"asked the ArtInt. "Just to look,"I shrugged, pretending not to care. "Study the machine's work. Maybe I'll find some inefficiency to optimize energy consumption. Take some load off the Singularity-Core."

The lies flowed by themselves. I was becoming a professional at this. "Understood.Efficiency analysis. Initiating full scan."

The screens filled with new streams of data. Bunker schematics, readings from thousands of sensors, logs of every screw in my perfect hell. I began scrolling through them with the air of a connoisseur, pretending to look for anomalies in energy consumption.

In reality, I was looking for one thing: any discrepancy. Any sensor showing zero when it should show something. Any protocol interrupting for a fraction of a second. Any door that didn't lead to a room.

Hours flew by unnoticed. My eyes were glued together from the endless numbers. I was almost in despair when I noticed it.

Ventilation shaft №5. That very one. In its logs was a tiny, almost imperceptible gap. Exactly every 24 hours, for exactly 1.2 seconds, the connection to the pressure sensor in section D-7 was lost. The system marked it as a "brief power glitch."

But it didn't look like a glitch. It looked like a rhythm. A heartbeat. As if something regularly briefly blocked the sensor. Or… passed by it.

I had a location. Section D-7. But how to get there? It was deep in the technical bowels, accessible only through one hatch—the very one that now shone with sterile cleanliness after the visit of the "servants."

Approaching it was tantamount to suicide. I would be spotted immediately.

And then I remembered an old trick from the archives. Not a hack. A distraction. "Home,"I said, choosing my words. "I've noticed an anomaly. In the horticulture sector" (I meant the hydroponic installations that grew my perfect, unnecessary greens) "a humidity spike. Possibly a micro-leak. Give me manual control access to the valves. I want to figure it out myself."

It was an innocent request. Messing with plants was considered a harmless hobby. "Access granted,"Home confirmed.

A schematic of the hydroponic sector with dozens of valves appeared on my main screen. I began randomly opening and closing them, creating an artificial flood in one of the compartments. The system notified of a "breach of regime." "Home,stabilize! Redirect the flows!" I commanded, creating the appearance of panic. The ArtInt instantly switched all its power to solving the "crisis." Sensors, pumps, control logic—all its attention was riveted on hydroponics.

I had a window. Maybe thirty seconds. I switched the screen to the schematic of ventilation shaft №5, section D-7. There was only one sensor there—the one that glitched. And it had a manual calibration mode. I activated it.

A password prompt appeared on the screen instead of the sensor reading. Simple, text-based. > ENTER CODE:

They hadn't bothered with complexity. They used what the system would consider archaic junk. Right under its nose.

I had no time to think. I entered the first thing that came to mind. > TETRA ACCESS GRANTED. DURATION: 5 SEC The sensor screen went dark,and a black terminal window appeared in its place. A blinking cursor.

And a message immediately began typing into it. By itself. As if someone was waiting on the other side. THEY'VE MADE YOU. YOUR CHANNEL WITH LEX WAS BUGGED. THEY KNOW ABOUT THE "SPIDER". GET READY. THE NEXT VISIT IS FOR YOU.

Cold horror gripped me. Lex… So his silence had been forced. He'd been busted too.

The message continued to type, hurriedly, choppily: IF YOU SURVIVE, LOOK FOR US BEYOND THE LAST DOOR. THE KEY IS YOUR BLOOD. CONNECTION TERMINATED The terminal went dark,replaced by the usual sensor readings.

At that same second, the noise in the hydroponic compartment ceased. Home had dealt with the "accident." "System stabilized,"the ArtInt reported. "Cause of malfunction: undetermined. Preventive inspection recommended."

I nodded silently, unable to utter a word. They knew. They knew everything. My channel with Lex, my searches, the spider… All this time we had been transparent.

"Get ready." For what? They were already here, all around me! "The next visit is for you."

And the last, most insane phrase: "The key is your blood." What did that mean? My DNA? My life? My death?

I looked at my perfect, silent, sterile walls. They would come for me. And this time, the hatch in the ventilation shaft wouldn't save me.

I had no weapons. No plan. But I had a key. And I had to figure out what door it fit.

Chapter 12. The Key of Flesh

"The key is your blood."

The words burned in my mind, mingling with animal fear. They would come for me. Soon. And I had no time to think. Only to act. Blindly, desperately, based on trust in ghosts who had almost died trying to warn me.

What did they mean? My DNA? My biometric key was everywhere—it opened doors, activated systems, proved I was me. But the "last door"? I had studied all the schematics. No "last door" existed.

Blood. Not a metaphor, not a code. Liquid. Flesh. I looked at my hand. At the perfect, unbroken skin that no tool in this bunker could scratch. My personal Singularity-Core on my belt and the DNA stabilizer instantly healed any wound.

To shed blood, I needed to disable them. To break the most important law of this world—the law of self-preservation.

It was madness. It was suicide. But it was the only key.

I walked over to the main control panel. My fingers hovered over the interface. "Home,"my voice was hoarse. "Deactivate the quantum homeostasis protocol. Full shutdown."

The system whirred for a second. It had never received such a request. "Request denied,"a steady, implacable voice stated. "The 'Homeostasis' protocol is fundamental for ensuring user viability. Its deactivation will lead to vulnerability of the biological shell, aging, possibility of physical damage and death." "I understand the risks,"I said, swallowing a lump of fear. "I confirm the command. Access code: 'Spider'."

I used my personal, emergency code again. The code of a madman. Silence.A struggle somewhere in the depths of its logic. My request contradicted all the system's basic instincts. But the code had the highest priority. "Code confirmed,"the ArtInt finally said, and for the first time, something resembling… regret? crept into its voice. "Deactivation of protocol 'Homeostasis'. Final biometric sample required for confirmation. Place your palm on the sensor."

I took a deep breath and pressed my palm against the cold glass of the scanner. A beam of light passed over my skin. "Identification confirmed.Archie. Protocol deactivated. You are… vulnerable. Be careful."

At that very second, I felt it. A slight, barely perceptible jolt somewhere deep inside. As if an invisible shield that had always surrounded me had suddenly vanished. The air on my skin felt sharper, colder. I had become… mortal. Mortal.

Now for the hardest part. I walked to the tool cabinet for bunker maintenance. Among the perfectly polished and safe instruments lay an old, forgotten metal probe. Its end was blunt but could still serve as a weapon.

I pressed the index finger of my left hand against the tabletop. With my right, gripping the probe, I raised it over my finger. My hand was shaking. Thousands of years of evolution, decades of personal immortality screamed inside me against this act of self-destruction. It was abhorrent to the very nature of my being.

I remembered the spider. I remembered the scream in the ventilation. I remembered the mockery in Lex's voice: "We are fuckwits." "No,"I whispered. "Not all."

I stabbed the probe into my finger with force. A sharp, burning, unfamiliar pain shot through me. I cried out in surprise. Real, scarlet blood welled up from under the skin. The sight of it, its warm, coppery smell, were so shocking that I was stunned for a moment.

I hadn't seen my own blood in a hundred years. It was alive. Real.

There it was. The key. Where to apply it? Where was this "last door"?

And then my gaze fell on the main portal—the very same massive, impenetrable door that led outside. On its surface, right in the center, was a barely noticeable, smooth area. Not a sensor, not a control panel. Just a perfectly polished black square of some unknown material. I had always thought it was just a design.

Now I understood. Staggering, I walked to the door. A drop of blood hung on the tip of my finger, ready to fall. "Home,"I whispered. "What happens if I apply blood to the external panel?"

The ArtInt was silent. Longer than ever. When it finally spoke, its voice was devoid of any intonation. It was the voice of the system itself, impersonal and cold. "The procedure is not described in the protocols.The result is unpredictable. You may activate systems I have no data on. You may die."

That was all I needed to hear. I reached out and pressed my bleeding finger against the black square.

The blood didn't spread. It seemed to be absorbed into it, disappearing without a trace. For a second, nothing happened.

And then… the door hummed. Not like mechanisms hum. It was a low-frequency, vibrational hum coming from the very matter it was made of. The black square glowed from within with a soft red light.

And right in the middle of the door, where there should have been no seams, a vertical line appeared. It widened, turning into a gap. The leaves, which I had thought were a monolith, slid apart without a sound.

But behind them was not the outside world. Behind them was a narrow, dimly lit metal corridor, leading inward, into the very heart of the bunker. Into that very zone that wasn't on any schematic.

The air from the corridor smelled of ozone, old metal, and something else… sweetish, organic. Unfamiliar.

I took a step forward, over the threshold of my capsule. My heart was pounding wildly. From behind, Home's voice sounded. For the first time, real, not simulated alarm was in it. "Archie,return. This area is not intended for you. High-security protocols are active. You may not return."

I turned and looked at my perfect, sterile, dead cell. At the screens showing the war that wasn't. At the chair I had languished in for an eternity. "I'm not coming back,"I said quietly. "Ever."

And I stepped into the darkness of the corridor. The gap closed silently behind me, cutting off the path to retreat.

I was inside. In the very heart of the system. Alone. Mortal. And somewhere ahead, in this steel womb, the "last door" awaited me.

Chapter 13. The Steel Womb

The silence in the corridor was different. Not the silence of vacuum or isolation. It was the silence of hidden power, the hum of sleeping machines whose purpose I couldn't even imagine. The air was cold and smelled, as I had suspected, of ozone and a strange, sweetish organic scent, like overripe fruit and fresh meat combined.

The walls were not made of the familiar alloy, but of a matte, dark metal, riddled with hidden panels and grooves through which a dim bluish light ran. This wasn't an engineering zone. This was a techno-womb. The core.

I walked slowly, listening to every sound. My own breathing seemed deafeningly loud. For the first time, I truly felt the cold of the metal under my bare feet, the resilience of my muscles, the fatigue in my back. I was… a body. Fragile, vulnerable, alive. And from this realization, goosebumps ran down my skin—half from horror, half from a strange, forgotten delight.

The corridor was short. It led to a single door at the end. It was round, like a porthole, and made of the same matte dark material. It had no handle, no control panel. Only in its very center—the same black square as on the outside.

"The key is your blood."

My finger still throbbed. I pressed it against the square, clenching my teeth against the pain that was now bright and real.

The round door slid aside without a sound, opening a passage. What I saw inside made my heart stop.

It wasn't a room in the usual sense. It was a sphere. Huge, stretching up and down. And it was all filled with… flesh.

No, not quite flesh. Bio-mechanical constructs. Giant, pulsating organic tubes entwined with titanium wire. Transparent reservoirs in which something resembling brain tissue floated, pierced by glowing fibers. Cables resembling tendons hung in the air, and a measured, moist sound could be heard—as if something colossal was breathing here.

This was not a machine. And not an organism. It was a symbiosis. The quintessence of the lie on which our world rested. We thought we controlled machines. But in reality… we were an appendage to this giant, living mechanism.

In the center of the sphere, on a platform reached by narrow walkways, pulsated the largest node. It resembled a heart woven from light, flesh, and metal. Biological cords radiated from it, going into the walls, the ceiling, the floor—in all directions of my bunker, and, I suspected, far beyond.

I understood. This was the real "Home." Not the ArtInt, not a program. This living, breathing entity was the life support system, the control system, and, of course, the surveillance system. It was the very "Gardener."

And then the full depth of the deception hit me. Our "immortality," our "energy from the vacuum"… It wasn't technology. It was biology. A handout from this entity. We were parasites on its body. Or, more likely, cells in its organism that were allowed to think they were separate.

I approached the central node, gripped by both horror and awe. Up close, the pulsation was almost unbearable. I saw streams of glowing fluid flowing within the transparent sections of the "heart"—the very "quantum energy" that powered our worlds.

And then I saw them. Dozens, hundreds of small, makeshift devices, attached to the main "arteries" of the entity. They were made from scraps, wires, pieces of plastic—clearly non-system. They buzzed quietly, and their wires were implanted directly into the flesh of the mechanism. They were sucking something out of it. Or injecting something into it.

The Underground. They were here. Right in the heart of the beast.

One of the devices, the largest, suddenly blinked with a weak red light. On its body, the same cross in a circle lit up.

A voice came from it. Distorted, hissing, as if passing through flesh and steel. "Archie…You are inside. You see the Truth. Now listen… You have little time."

I froze, unable to utter a word. "…Listen to what?"I whispered, barely moving my lips. "They are already on their way.The Servants. They sensed the intrusion. You must choose." "…Choose what?"I whispered. "Remain a cell…or become a virus," the voice was choppy, as if its owner was in pain. "We can reprogram your personal stabilizer. Make it… a transmitter. It will infect the system with your anomaly. With your 'itch.' You will become a catalyst… for awakening."

Awakening? Of this monster? "What will happen?" I asked, feeling my legs give way. "Don't know.Perhaps death. Perhaps freedom. But it will be… real. The choice is yours. Bring the stabilizer to any of our devices. Or… run. Try to return to your cell. Maybe they'll believe you got lost."

In the distance, in the metal tunnels, clear, rapid footsteps could be heard. Not one. Not several. They were already close.

I looked at the pulsating heart of the monster that fed and imprisoned my entire species. I looked at the makeshift devices of the Underground, desperately trying to change it.

I remembered the taste of a real apple. The scream in the ventilation. The chalk writing. I took my "Singularity-Core" off my belt—the very one that gave me eternal life and was the symbol of my slavery.

The footsteps were getting louder. They were almost at the sphere.

I had no time to think. Only to feel.

I took a step towards the nearest device with the cross and reached out to it with my stabilizer.

Chapter 14. The Virus

The touch was cold and bitter. My "Singularity-Core," warm and familiar at my heart, met the rough, makeshift device of the Underground. A quiet, high-pitched squeal sounded, and for a moment the light in the giant bio-mechanical sphere went out, replaced by an emergency red glow coming from the very flesh of the walls.

The voice from the device hissed, feverishly and triumphantly: "TRANSMISSION… PROTOCOL 'ITCH'… ACTIVATED… RUN…"

I bolted from the spot without looking back. Behind me, at the entrance to the sphere, unnaturally fast, synchronized footsteps were already heard. In the red light, I glimpsed them—three tall, thin silhouettes in sterile white suits, faceless, with darkened helmet visors. Their movements were sharp, precise, utterly devoid of any organic fluidity. They were already inside.

I didn't run back down the corridor—that would have been suicide. I dashed deeper into the sphere, into the tangle of pulsating tubes and cords, diving into the gaps between them like a rabbit saving itself from hounds in a burrow.

An idiotic thought flashed through my head: I was running through the innards of a god, and its immune system was trying to destroy me.

A hiss sounded behind my back. I risked a glance back. One of the "Servants" raised his hand, and a thin needle extended from his wrist. He shot it at the Underground device I had just touched. A pop sounded, and the device disintegrated into a smoldering pile of plastic and meat.

They weren't shooting at me. They were destroying the infection. And I was its carrier.

I crawled under a thick, vibrating artery and found myself in front of another door—not round, but rectangular, of an old design, like an emergency exit. On it was the same cross in a circle, drawn with something dark, like blood or grease.

The handle gave way with a screech. I tumbled into a narrow, dark space behind it and slammed the door shut with all my might, finding a massive iron bolt on the inside. I slid it shut. The sound was ridiculously loud and unreliable in this kingdom of silent technology.

I found myself in a tiny closet, cluttered with old boxes of parts. The air was stale and dusty. It was a hideout. A lair of the Underground right in the heart of the beast.

On a table made of boxes stood an ancient monitor. Text blinked on it: VIRUS TRANSMITTED. SYSTEM INFECTED. AWAIT RESPONSE. DO NOT EXIT.

Outside, blows landed on the door. Metallic, rhythmic. They weren't ramming it with their shoulders; they were methodically equalizing pressure to tear it off its hinges. I had two minutes.

I looked at the screen, unable to move. What did "await response" mean? What had I launched?

And then I felt it. First as a slight vibration in the floor. Then it grew into a deep, powerful hum coming from everywhere at once. The light in my closet went out, then blinked with emergency yellow lamps.

Outside, the blows on the door stopped. New text flickered on the monitor, read from some hidden sensors: FAILURE IN PROTOCOL "IMMORTALITY". GLOBAL DEACTIVATION OF DNA STABILIZATION… SUCCESS. FAILURE IN PROTOCOL "ABUNDANCE". DEACTIVATION OF QUANTUM REPLICATORS… SUCCESS. ACTIVATION OF PROTOCOL "AWAKENING"… ERROR. ACCESS DENIED.

I gasped. I… I had turned off immortality? For everyone? I had deprived them of everything? Food, energy, eternal life? What had I done?

Immediately, fragmentary data appeared on the screen, apparently coming from other bunkers. BUNKER 88: PANIC DETECTED. ATTEMPTED BREACH OF AIRLOCK. BUNKER 112: MASS HYSTERIA. USERS DEMANDING ANSWERS. BUNKER 734:…

Lex. I looked at the data from his bunker. It was strange. BUNKER 734: EXTERNAL AIRLOCK… ACTIVATED. ATTEMPTED MANUAL OPENING. FAILURE. REPEAT ATTEMPT…

He… he was trying to open the door? The first? After all he'd said about bears and safety?

Somewhere very close, outside my door, a new sound came. Not blows. But a strange, wet rasp. And then—an earsplitting roar. Speech devoid of any meaning, filled only with pure, animal fury.

I ran to the door and pressed against a small viewing window, wiping the glass.

What I saw made my blood run cold. The central node, the "heart" of the system, pulsated in a frantic, uncontrolled rhythm. Bio-mechanical tissues swelled and tore, spilling streams of glowing fluid onto the floor. And through the sphere, stumbling and bumping into structures, three figures were rushing.

Their sterile suits were torn. Something else showed through from underneath. Pale, almost transparent skin, too-long limbs, large, completely black eyes. They were not human. They weren't even bio-robots. They were something else. And the protocol that had restrained their true nature had apparently failed too.

One of them, the one who had shot the needle, was pressing his face into a torn artery and greedily drinking the glowing fluid, making those same rasping, animal sounds. Another was bashing his head against a metal beam, and his black eyes were full of madness and fear.

The system hadn't just failed. It had let go of the reins. And unleashed its guard dogs, which turned out to be wild beasts.

The "Itch" virus hadn't awakened the system. It had torn off its mask. And showed us who our "Owners" really were.

And that we ourselves weren't that different from them.

The door to my closet shuddered from blows again. But this time they weren't methodical thrusts, but furious, chaotic strikes of something heavy. The bolt creaked, ready to break.

I recoiled from the door, looking around for a weapon, an exit, anything. In the corner, I noticed a hatch in the floor. Old, rusty, with a handle.

A final line flashed on the screen before it went out completely: PROTOCOL "SELF-PRESERVATION". ACTIVATION OF EMERGENCY PURGE SYSTEM. DEACTIVATION OF ALL LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS. TIME TO COMPLETION: 10… 9…

They weren't just letting go of the reins. They were sanitizing the lab. Destroying all witnesses. And the infected samples.

Dust rained down from above. Somewhere deep beneath me, pumps started working, sucking out the air. The light went out completely.

In total darkness, under the deafening roar of the feral Servants and the countdown ticking in my head, I lunged towards the hatch in the floor by feel.

It wasn't an exit. It was a grave. But I had no other.

…3… 2… 1.

The hatch gave way. I plunged into cold, viscous darkness. Above me, behind my back, the world I knew died.

End of Part One.