The portal behind them fizzled out with a low, hollow groan, like a dying creature exhaling its last breath.
They stood in a crooked alley, the walls around them weeping moisture and layered with old bloodstains.
Neon signs flickered overhead, some in broken English, others in strange symbols none of them recognized.
Garbage piled high around them, molding into grotesque shapes, and the smell, rotting flesh, chemicals, rust, curled thick in their noses.
Bright slung his rifle over one shoulder and spun in a lazy circle, surveying the area.
"Well," he said, voice bright with false cheer, "I've been to worse dumps. Once got mugged by a three-armed baboon outside Site-19. True story."
Cain, his massive frame calm and still, turned slowly, taking it all in with those eternally sad blue eyes. His armor whispered against itself, layers of bio-resistant plating flexing around his form.
"There is a deep sickness here," Cain murmured. "It clings to the ground... to the air itself."
Clef, loading shells into his shotgun with casual precision, barked a short laugh.
"Oh please. Everywhere we go stinks of rot. This one's just... more honest about it."
Tau-5 stood silent and still at their flanks, four identical figures clad in black combat armor, visors blank, weapons ready.
Omar, Nguyen, Ibrahim, and Sokolov.
No heartbeats.
No fear.
Just walking weapons awaiting commands.
Bright adjusted his gear and pointed down the street with exaggerated flair.
"Alright, kiddies. We need shelter, info, and maybe a good drink if we're lucky. Let's move."
The team fell into a staggered formation, Samsara leading point while Cain covered the rear. Their boots echoed dully against cracked pavement.
The Backstreets unfolded before them, endless alleys, crooked markets shuttered with rusted metal, hollow-eyed citizens scuttling between shadows.
Every face they glimpsed was worn thin with fear.
Every door was barred.
Every window was blacked out.
Bright whistled low.
"Creepy even for Foundation standards."
They passed what looked like a small gang, barely more than teenagers wrapped in scrap-metal armor, armed with kitchen knives and pipes.
The kids took one look at the armed strangers, at Cain's towering bulk, Tau-5's mechanical precision, Clef's unsettling grin, and bolted into the dark without a word.
Still, the air felt... wrong.
Like the whole city was holding its breath.
Cain slowed, gaze sharpening.
"Something is coming," he said softly.
Clef snorted. "Thanks, Nostradamus."
But even he was tense now.
They rounded another corner, and stopped.
In the far distance, a low, rhythmic sound began to echo through the streets.
Clank.
A dragging sound.
Like metal hooks raking across stone.
Like someone pulling a heavy sack of wet meat across broken glass.
Bright frowned.
"Uh... is that just local flavor, or should we be worried?"
No one answered.
A figure appeared at the end of the street, moving in a jerky, almost puppet-like gait.
Robotic, metal, blood, gore.
And behind it came more.
Dozens.
Marching in staggering lines.
Each dragging massive, bulging tube behind them, the tube leaking blood across the ground.
Blood dripping from their frames.
Some dragged rusted hooks or serrated scythes, the metal biting sparks from the stone.
Others simply reached out, grasping at the air with broken, trembling fingers.
Cain exhaled slowly.
"Sweepers," he said, the word tasting of old sorrow.
Clef swore under his breath. "Of course there's a goddamn death parade. They're the creature D-1453 reported before getting killed"
Bright, for once, didn't joke.
"Alright, let's not be here."
He spun around and froze.
More Sweepers were emerging from the other end of the street. From the alleys. From sewer grates and broken buildings.
They were being herded, like rats into a trap.
Tau-5 reacted instantly, weapons raised, stance shifting to a perfect diamond formation around the VIPs.
Clef racked his shotgun with a mechanical snap.
"We're not getting out clean. Pick a direction and blast our way through."
Bright pointed toward a collapsing building nearby, half-sunken into the street.
"There. High ground. Better sightlines."
They moved, fast, disciplined, Tau-5 suppressing with precise bursts.
The Sweepers didn't flinch.
Bullets tore through ragged coats, shredded limbs, and yet they kept marching, dragging their meatbags, smiling those awful, hollow smiles.
Cain waded through them like a living tank, swinging his warhammer with deliberate, devastating strikes, bones snapped, torsos crumpled like wet cardboard.
Every time a Sweeper touched him, it blackened and rotted away instantly, but duel to Cain's anomalous ability, the damage reverted.
Clef unleashed shell after shell, blasting heads into mist, buying seconds at a time.
Bright covered their flank, firing controlled bursts, his Mercury Lance humming with plasma light.
They burst into the crumbling building, slamming the broken door shut behind them.
For now.
Bright leaned against the wall, panting, wiping grime from his mask.
"Okay," he said between breaths "mental note. Never complain about D-Class riots again."
The sounds outside grew louder, the Sweepers weren't giving up.
They scraped and clawed at the walls, the windows, the very stones, patient as the grave.
Clef peered through a crack in the wall.
"They're not human. They're something worse."
Cain sat cross-legged, head bowed.
"This world... it is a graveyard pretending to be alive."
Bright chuckled, low and grim.
"Well. Fits right in with the family business. Pyre and Volt probably saw our signal moving fast, they'll call Lambda-5(White Rabbits) for backups"
The night stretched on, the darkness alive with movement.
The Backstreets whispered and groaned around them, and far off in the poisoned sky, something vast and unseen laughed soundlessly.
This was not a mission anymore.
This was survival.
And the Sweepers were just getting started.
...
The walls trembled under the pressure.
Dust rained from the cracked ceiling, falling like ash onto the heads of the huddled team.
Bright pulled a flashlight from his pack and clicked it on, the beam slicing through the ruined interior.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice tight but trying for levity, "we've got about eighty minutes before those charming janitors tear this building down around our ears. Ideas?"
Cain stood, brushing off his armor.
Even in the flickering light, he looked unflinching, a statue of grim patience. "We cannot stay here. They are persistent, and their numbers are growing."
Clef racked his shotgun again, the sound sharp and aggressive. "No shit. We need a way out. Sewers? Underground tunnels? I bet a dump like this is crawling with them."
Bright tapped the side of his rifle thoughtfully. "Risky. Those Sweepers crawled out of sewers too, remember? Might be jumping into their nest."
"Then what do you suggest?" Clef's voice was sharper now, eyes narrowed, the ever-present smile on his lips fading to a line.
Tau-5 remained silent, the four identical figures scanning windows, walls, the broken ceiling above. They did not tire. They did not panic.
Cain moved toward the rear of the room, stepping lightly despite the weight of his armor. His voice was low, thoughtful. "We ascend. If we can reach the rooftops, we may be able to move unseen. The Sweepers seem... focused on the ground."
Bright nodded slowly. "High ground. Makes sense. Question is, can this place even support our weight without collapsing?"
As if summoned by his words, a low groan echoed through the structure. Plaster cracked and peeled from the ceiling.
A thick, wet sound, like something heavy dragging itself across stone, echoed closer outside.
Bright winced. "That is not encouraging."
Clef kicked over a broken chair, clearing a path. "Not many options, doc. Either we climb, or we wait here for Mister Smiley and his bodybags."
Bright clapped his hands once, sharply. "Alright then. Up it is."
They moved fast.
Tau-5 led, their metal boots barely making a sound as they scaled a broken stairwell leading deeper into the building's guts.
The staircase was a ribcage of twisted rebar and crumbling concrete, but it held.
Barely.
Cain climbed with a strange grace for a man his size, helping Bright and Clef over the worst gaps without a word.
As they reached the second floor, the air grew colder.
Every breath fogged in front of their faces.
Bright swung his flashlight across the hallways.
Mold spread like cancer over the walls.
Doors hung crooked on rusted hinges.
Somewhere deeper in the building, something scratched and scraped against metal.
Clef swore under his breath. "This place gives me the creeps."
Bright gave a humorless laugh. "What, not your dream vacation home?"
A sudden bang from below.
They froze.
Dust cascaded from the ceiling.
Something massive was pounding against the entrance now, battering it rhythmically.
Cain's voice was soft but urgent. "They are trying to breach."
Bright checked his watch. "Seventy-seven minutes to go."
"Plenty of time," Clef muttered. "Plenty of time to die."
They pressed on, climbing higher.
Every step felt like a prayer not to fall through the floor.
The building moaned and shifted around them like a dying animal.
As they neared what must have once been the roof access, they found the way blocked.
A cave-in.
Concrete slabs and steel beams tangled together like a giant's fallen skeleton.
Bright cursed under his breath.
Clef approached it, running a hand along the debris. "We can blast it."
Cain shook his head immediately. "Too loud. We would bring the entire structure down on our heads."
Bright looked around, desperate.
His flashlight caught something, a maintenance hatch half-hidden behind collapsed drywall.
He grinned. "Or we crawl."
Clef looked at the hatch, then at Bright, then back again. "I hate you sometimes."
"Feelings mutual, Al."
Bright dropped to his knees and pried the hatch open.
The smell hit them first, a choking reek of mildew, old oil, and something else underneath, something rancid.
Cain crouched beside him. "I will go first. I can endure more than you."
Bright hesitated.
Cain's resilience was a known factor, but sending him first into a dark, unknown shaft still felt wrong.
Clef clapped Bright on the back, grinning. "Let the man have his moment, doc."
Cain nodded once, then slid into the hatch without hesitation. His massive frame barely fit.
Bright turned to Tau-5. "Follow him. Tight formation. No shooting unless I say so."
The bio-robots obeyed without question, filing in one after another.
Bright and Clef followed last, the hatch clanging shut behind them.
The crawlspace was agony.
Tight, wet, suffocating.
Rusted pipes scraped against their armor.
Rats, or things that used to be rats, scurried ahead of them, bloated and blind.
Cain moved steadily ahead, guiding them by memory and instinct.
They crawled for what felt like hours, every second punctuated by the distant sound of the building being torn apart.
Clank.
The Sweepers were relentless.
Bright's earpiece crackled. Clef's voice, terse.
"How much time left?"
Bright checked. "Sixty-nine minutes."
"Nice," Clef said automatically, earning a snort from Bright despite the situation.
Cain's voice floated back to them. "I see light."
Bright squinted ahead. A soft glow bled through a broken ventilation grate.
Cain rammed it with his shoulder, the metal giving way with a shriek.
They tumbled out onto the roof, or what was left of it.
The top of the building was half-collapsed, metal girders jutting into the air like skeletal fingers.
Beyond, the city stretched endlessly, a rotting maze under a bruised sky.
And down below, in the streets, the Sweepers moved like ants, dozens, hundreds of them, swarming through the ruins.
Clef crawled to the edge and peeked over.
"Great," he muttered. "We're ants on an anthill."
Bright surveyed the horizon, squinting through the swirling fog.
There. A few blocks away, a taller building, more intact, its lights still faintly burning.
A miracle in this nightmare.
Bright pointed. "There. If we can cross the rooftops, maybe we can reach it."
Clef grinned. "Cross rooftops in a crumbling hellscape while being hunted by psycho janitors. Sounds like Tuesday."
Cain was already moving, graceful and deliberate. "We must hurry. They will adapt."
Bright slapped the side of his helmet. "Move. Fast and quiet."
They started across the broken rooftop, jumping gaps, climbing shattered air-conditioning units, slipping through the ruins like shadows.
The city groaned around them, alive and angry.
Every second was a countdown.
Every breath a gamble.