"Quiet," Abby mouthed.
Micah's breath caught. He leaned close to David and muttered, "Quiet? I'm practically reverse-breathing here. My lungs are filing for divorce."
David bit down a laugh. The tension didn't break—but it cracked.
The keypad blinked green on the third try. David held his breath as the service door clicked open—Jez's override code still worked. That was either very good or very bad.
They crouched together just inside the heavy door of the Pathlight Youth Recovery Center, the last echo of the latch clicking shut behind them like a lock sealing a tomb.
The air was sharp with bleach and something older, mustier—like mildew trying to hide behind a sermon. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering with the uneven rhythm of dying neon. Shadows warped along the concrete hallway, long and liquid.
David could feel the pulse in his throat. Each breath scraped his ribs. They were in. No alarms. No spotlights.
Abby crept forward in a crouch, eyes tracking the ceiling corners. "No alarms yet. Either Jez came through, or we're about to get very unlucky."
"That's not comforting," Michelle whispered behind them, arms wrapped tight around herself.
Her steps were stiff. "Luck isn't really our brand."
"We shouldn't have come without Jez. We don't even know what we're walking into."
Abby didn't look back. "Jez went dark. We couldn't wait."
"That's exactly why we should've waited," Michelle snapped. "What if she's not just offline? What if they got to her?"
"You know why we couldn't wait," Abby said sharply, finally turning to face her. "Tomorrow morning—"
"I know about the deadline," Michelle cut her off, but her voice wavered. "I just... I thought Jez would come through. She said she could get David reclassified, buy us time."
Micah looked between them. "What deadline?"
Michelle's expression crumbled slightly. "David's intake. Nine AM tomorrow."
She glanced at David, then away. "My father signed the paperwork. After the church testimony."
Michelle couldn't meet David's eyes. She remembered handing her father the pen—how he'd murmured something about "necessary sacrifices" before sliding the papers into his briefcase. She had just stood there. Watching. Letting it happen.
"I tried—" she started, then stopped.
"What?" Micah spun toward David. "When were you planning to mention this?"
David stayed silent, jaw clenched.
"He wasn't," Abby said flatly. "He was going to walk in there tomorrow and disappear, keep us all out of it."
"That's not—" David started.
"Isn't it?" Abby challenged. "You ripped up the intake notice, but I saw it first. 'Recommended intervention for spiritual realignment.' They didn't even pretend this time."
David felt their eyes on him—waiting for denial, for rage, for fear. But all he felt was a strange calm. Let them take me, he thought, fingers curling into fists.
If I'm inside, I can find Noel. I can document everything. I can be the witness they need.
It wasn't resignation. It was strategy. The same quiet rebellion his mother had taught him—sometimes you had to flow like water to break the stone.
Michelle hugged herself tighter. "If Jez is compromised and can't get him reclassified, they'll know David's missing by morning. They'll come for all of us."
"Then we better find Noel fast," Micah said grimly. "Because after tonight, we're all on their list."
Abby stepped between them. "Enough. We're here now. We don't know what happened to her—but we do know what's happening to the kids stuck in this place. And if we leave now, we leave them behind."
Micah's voice was soft, but clear. "If Jez is compromised, this could be a trap."
Abby nodded. "Then we move like it is. Eyes open. No mistakes."
Micah looked at David, then away. "Hope your gut's worth trusting, Sheffield."
David exhaled slowly, his breath visible in the cold. "It has to be."
Abby checked the corridor ahead again. "Let's move."
They did.
David looked back. The four of them were clustered like misfit scouts on a cursed field trip. Abby in the lead, all sharp motion and steel focus. Micah behind her, body taut with tension he covered by smirking. Michelle trying to disappear into her jacket.
And himself—David—too aware of every sound, every breath.
The hallway sloped slightly downward. As they moved, the temperature dropped with it.
David rubbed his forearms, the chill sinking into him despite his jacket. Goosebumps prickled along his skin. It wasn't just cold. It felt... dead.
The kind of dead that wasn't empty but waiting.
Ahead, a junction split into two corridors.
A dome camera hung at the intersection, its red recording light dark. Jez had promised two hours of looped footage on the surveillance cameras. That was forty minutes ago.
Something about the lens inside seemed wrong—like it had been facing a different direction a second ago. David blinked. The lens stared straight at them now, perfectly still.
Abby signaled a stop... Then she pointed left. "Basement. That way. I hear machinery—air filtration maybe. Could be the mining rigs."
Micah muttered, "Or the recycling unit for wayward souls."
Nobody laughed this time.
David swallowed and nodded. "We stick together. No matter what."
They moved like shadows, shoes muffled by aging vinyl tile. Every door they passed was closed—except one. It gaped a few inches, just enough to hint at the darkness beyond.
Michelle paused, her eyes catching on something inside. She took one hesitant step in, then drew back. "There's nothing in there. Just a bare mattress and wire hangers. Like someone was yanked out in a hurry."
They passed another row of doors, all sealed. Micah counted at least twelve. Twelve kids who'd been here. Twelve who'd stopped showing up to class. Twelve they'd all pretended not to notice missing. Nobody had asked questions.
Above each door, a small camera pointed downward—all dark, all watching nothing. But their perfect positioning made David's skin crawl.
David didn't want to look.
He already knew what they'd find.
Or what they wouldn't.
Another turn.
Another descent.
The cameras multiplied as they went deeper—black domes nested in corners like sleeping spiders.
"Lot of eyes for a building that's supposedly not watching," Micah muttered.
The building seemed to inhale around them—pressing closer with each step. By the time they reached the final flight, the air had changed again. Not just colder. Metallic. Processed. Like breathing through a filter someone else controlled.
The basement corridor stretched longer than it should have, each step taking them further from any possible exit.
The stairwell door loomed ahead.
Abby turned, expression taut. "Last chance to run screaming back to Stricton center and pretend this was a weird group dream."
Micah raised two fingers in a mock salute. "For the record, I vote cowardice. Too bad I'm outvoted."
David pressed his hand against the door. It was cold. Real.
He looked at the others. Fear in every face. And something else behind it.
Resolve.
He nodded.
"Let's find them."
The stairwell opened into silence.
Not the kind of silence that suggested emptiness—but the thick, deliberate hush of a space designed to absorb sound. The walls were bare concrete.
The constant buzz of computer servers grew louder with each step.
When they reached the door, David stepped in first.
A cavernous room stretched before them—half-warehouse, half-laboratory. The air was dry and cold, edged with ozone and something burnt.
Long tables lined the center, covered in defunct mining rigs: stripped
motherboards, cracked cooling units, tangled spools of copper wiring.
Some machines still blinked—green lights pulsing softly, like pilot lights on a life support system nobody had checked in weeks.
Orange garments littered the floor in loose piles. They were coarse. All of them stamped with the same black initials over the left breast.
The fabric was stiff with sweat and something darker. He turned it over.
At first he thought the piles were laundry.
David picked one up.
The initials stenciled in block letters: J.M. Not laundry. Jumpsuits. Not folded.
Shed. "Jesus," Micah breathed, moving deeper into the room.
He stopped at another pile, fingers trembling as he lifted the orange fabric.
"N.C." The letters blurred as his hands shook.
He turned it over, searching for something—anything—more.
A moment passed.
Then two. "...Noel." The name came out broken.
David moved closer.
He didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
Micah clutched the jumpsuit, and suddenly he was back in the auditorium—watching Noel from the last row, eyes closed, head tilted, voice cutting clean through the noise of the world.
His voice clear.
His smile unguarded.
Micah blinked hard, the memory dissolving.
He swallowed, "He was here."
Michelle looked away, hugging herself tighter. "They all were."
"My father would call this 'progress,'" Michelle said, her voice bitter as burned coffee. "Productive citizens contributing to society." She kicked at one of the piles. "He probably gets reports. Probably knows their names."
Abby drifted to one of the tables, examining the disassembled rigs. Her fingers hovered over the twisted circuitry. "This isn't rehab," she said.
"It's an engine."
"For what?" David asked.
Abby pointed to the burned-in FaithCoin logo on a cracked housing unit.
"Crypto. Maybe worse."
Micah rose slowly. "I thought this was a place to fix them."
Michelle shook her head. "No. It's where they break you until you're useful."
David dropped the jumpsuit like it burned.
All around them, the silence felt heavier now.
Not stillness.
Absence.
Beds stripped bare. Toothbrushes still in holders. A single shoe beneath a cot.
The kind of mess left behind when someone leaves in a hurry—or doesn't get to leave at all.
David turned toward the hallway beyond the equipment. Faintly, he heard it: a low drone, mechanical, steady.
He didn't know what waited beyond the next door. But he knew what it wasn't.
It wasn't rescue.
David looked back at the others. "We keep going."
No one argued.
They moved forward.
And behind them, in the distance—A hiss.
They heard the stairwell door seal shut.
They followed the sound.
Past the rows of stripped rigs and empty cots, the hallway narrowed—walls tighter, the air colder. The mechanical hum grew louder, layered now with something else: the soft, rhythmic clatter of keyboards.
Not casual typing.
Synchronized.
Obsessive.
The corridor ended at a thick panel of glass, inset with reinforced framing and rimmed by condensation. Beyond it, a larger chamber stretched—dimly lit and low-ceilinged, humming with fluorescent buzz and artificial light.
David stepped forward.
He didn't speak.
Didn't breathe.
Behind the glass: rows of teens hunched at glowing terminals. Their faces were pale, eyes locked forward. Fingers moved in perfect unison over old mechanical keyboards, the click-clack punctuating the silence like insect wings.
No talking. No expressions. No variance.
Just motion.
A silent algorithm made flesh.
Abby leaned in next to David, her breath fogging the glass. "Holy shit," she whispered. "It's real."
Michelle pressed a fist to her mouth. "They're... all kids."
Micah stared through the glass, his jaw tightening. "They don't even look up."
It was like a morgue with breathing corpses.
David's heart thudded. He scanned the faces—searching. Noel wasn't there. Not yet. But any one of them could've been him. Young voices turned into background processes.
Bodies wired for output.
The hum vibrated through his chest. The lights flickered once, then steadied. Somewhere, a screen refreshed. Numbers rolled. Profits calculated.
Michelle turned away.
Abby backed up a step.
Micah stayed at the glass.
And David... David couldn't move.
He pressed one palm to the window. No one looked back.
Not even one.
For a moment, David saw himself among them. Tomorrow's future.
But instead of fear, he felt something harder crystallize in his chest. This is why I didn't fight the intake, he realized. Someone has to witness this from the inside. Someone has to survive it and tell the world.
His mother's Buddhist teachings whispered: Sometimes the lotus has to grow through mud to bloom.
Then Micah jolted.
Hard.
"Wait—" His voice cracked. "That's him."
He lurched forward, palm slamming the glass with a dull thud. "That's Noel."
Abby grabbed his shoulder, but he shoved her off. "No. I see him. Third row. Station five. That's him—he's right there!"
"Noel!" Micah shouted, pounding his fist against the glass now. "Noel, look at me!"
Inside the room, the boy didn't flinch. He just kept typing—shoulders squared, fingers dancing, eyes unfocused.
Not catatonic. Just... empty.
"Micah, stop!" David hissed, yanking him back as hard as he could.
Abby rushed in, helping to restrain him as his knees buckled.
"They did something to him," Micah rasped. "That's not him. That's not—"
His voice broke.
Michelle stared, frozen. "He doesn't even blink."
Micah dropped to the floor, head in his hands, shaking with silent fury.
David crouched beside him, a hand on his back, trying to steady his own breath.
"He was singing," Micah whispered, almost despondent. "At the winter showcase. His face—he smiled like the whole world was music. And now... this?"
A long beat.
Then—an electronic chime.
All their heads turned upward.
They looked up.
Mounted near the ceiling, a flat digital monitor came to life—rows of numbers refreshing with each keystroke.
FAITHCOIN PRODUCTION, it read in bold, backlit text.
Then a running total.
Then quotas.
Then compliance scores.
A final line scrolled across the bottom of the screen, backlit in blinking green:
TOP PRODUCERS WIN DESSERT.
The scroll continued, its tone was upbeat, almost celebratory—like a classroom sticker chart written.
BADGES EARNED: Quota Hero – 14 Days of Peak Output!
BRONZE REWARD: 6 Bonus Minutes of Private Prayer Time
FAITH STREAK: Eligible for Morning Testimony Leadership
Michelle read it aloud, her voice flat. "Dessert?"
Micah's face twisted. "Jesus. They're gamifying starvation."
A scoreboard for souls.
The glow of the scoreboard still lingered in their eyes when the lights overhead flickered—once, twice—then held.
David's hand dropped from Micah's back. He stood, heart pounding, scanning the ceiling.
A soft click echoed through the corridor.
Then a second.
The hallway behind them dimmed.
Michelle spun. "What was that?"
"Power shift," Abby said grimly. "Or a reroute."
A hum built beneath their feet—different from the mining rigs. Lower. Hungrier. Like something waking up.
David turned to the door leading into the typing chamber.
It was still sealed.
No handle. No keypad. No visible lock. Just thick glass and brushed steel, cool under his fingertips.
He pressed along the edge, searching for a seam, a catch—anything.
"There's got to be a mechanism," he muttered.
Abby was already beside him, crouched low. "It's pressure-sealed. Maybe magnetic."
Micah joined her, shoulder bumping David's as he tried to wedge his fingertips between the frame and wall. "We could try to pry it."
"With what?" Michelle snapped. "We don't even have—"
But Abby, always prepared, had pulled out a thin carbon tool from her sleeve. She jammed it into the base of the frame with a soft grunt.
Sparks flared.
"Move," she said.
David and Micah stepped back. Abby twisted.
Nothing happened.
She hissed and leaned into it.
"Let me," Micah said, already taking her place. His knuckles went white as he shoved. The door vibrated but didn't budge.
David threw his weight against it too.
The door didn't crack.
Didn't shift.
The kids inside kept typing.
Like they couldn't see them.
Like they didn't want to.
"They've locked us out," Michelle said, frazzled. "Or in. I don't even know anymore."
"There has to be another way—" David started, but his voice cut off.
High above them, embedded in the concrete wall, a small black circle blinked red. The speaker crackled to life.
Eli Prophet was speaking to them at last.
"Ah," came his voice—smooth, practiced, too familiar. "There you are."
David froze.
The others turned toward the speaker.
"I do hope you're not disappointed. I know how important... discovery... can be to young minds."
"Shit," Abby whispered. "He's been watching the whole time."
"Since the moment you stepped inside," Eli continued, his voice echoing just enough to feel omnipresent.
"I'm proud of you all.. for making it this far."
The speaker paused.
Micah didn't look up. He was still on the floor, eyes fixed on the window.
"You'll be able to see Noel soon, Micah," Eli continued with false reassurance, "He's better now."
Eli's tone shifted—mocking, intimate. "It's a terrible thing, isn't it? To love someone who no longer remembers you."
David took a step forward, fists clenched. "What do you want, Prophet?"
"To help," came the gentle reply. "To guide. To teach. You're all such lost little creatures. But don't worry. You're in the right place."
Eli promised, "We're going to fix your souls."
A hiss split the air—behind them, the way they came.
David turned sharply.
The hallway had gone dark.
A small display above the sealed door flashed red text: INTAKE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.
"They've sealed us in," Abby said under her breath.
Michelle backed toward the wall. "There has to be another exit."
But even as she said it, Michelle knew the truth. There had always been exits for her—back doors, second chances, her father's name opening every lock. I've been living off their suffering, she thought, looking at the sealed door.
Every opportunity I had came from kids who got none.
For the first time, she understood what choosing David over her father really meant. Not just losing her inheritance—but inheriting their debt instead.
Eli's voice returned, warmer now. "No need to panic. Consider this... orientation."
"Fuck you!" Micah shot back.
"Fascinating, our new sensors are exceeding expectation." Eli said. "The data you're producing... even now. Cortisol levels, pulse ox, neural reactivity. We learn so much when you think no one's watching."
Michelle's face drained of color.
Micah stood at last, his hands shaking. "You son of a—"
"Temper," Eli warned, calm as ever. "You'll need that energy for what comes next."
A door slid open at the end of the corridor—the one adjacent to the typing chamber. A soft blue light spilled into the hall.
A new path.
An invitation.
"Now," Eli said. "Shall we continue our intake?"
No one moved.
Behind them: the stairwell. Sealed.
Ahead: the typing room. Still sealed.
Behind the side door—now glowing faintly blue—a new hallway beckoned.
Abby was the first to speak. "It's a rat maze."
David turned to her. "But which way is the cheese?"
Micah scoffed under his breath, but there was no humor in it.
"I say we don't play this game," Michelle muttered.
"Tempting," Abby said, "But what else do we do?"
The question hung between them like a noose. They all knew the answer: nothing. They were already caught.
The blue light pulsed faintly, casting their shadows ahead of them like ghosts leading the way.
"He wants us to follow," Micah said. "That's the whole setup."
"And we want Noel back—all the kids," David answered. "So we follow. For now."
No one liked it.
But they moved.
David stepped toward the corridor, then paused. The blue glow washed over him—corpse-pale, almost spectral.
"Together," Abby said quietly.
Her voice wasn't just instruction—it was a tether.
They crossed through.
The new hallway was different—cleaner somehow. The walls were the same concrete, but painted over with a sterile gloss. A camera followed their movement, rotating with a soft mechanical tick.
David resisted the urge to give it the finger—barely.
The corridor curved slightly, then opened into another chamber—this one smaller, more intimate. It looked like an interrogation room, chairs on either side of a small, steel table. A blackened window on the far wall. It was a two-way mirror.
The walls were covered in framed prints of smiling teens: mock testimonials with phrases like "Pathlight showed me who I could be" and "Obedience is the first step toward clarity."
David recognized one of the faces—a girl from his chemistry class who'd disappeared last spring. Her smile looked painted on.
The mirror flickered—darkness giving way to light.
Eli Prophet stared back at them.
Close-up. Crisp. Composed.
Like he'd been waiting.
"Welcome to the Processing Suite," he said cheerfully. "You've made it farther than most."
David clenched his jaw. The lighting was soft, Eli's voice syrupy with condescension.
"You'll be happy to know," Eli continued, gesturing toward something off-screen, "that Noel is one of our top performers."
"He hasn't missed a quota in four weeks. FaithCoin loves discipline."
Micah lunged toward the mirror.
"You son of a—" David caught his arm.
Held him back.
"Let him go," David said.
"Now."
"The next level of spiritual integration begins now," Eli said.
"Remember, freedom is surrender."
The phrase coiled in the air like incense—sweet, choking, unshakable.
Eli stood perfectly still, hands folded behind his back, like a headmaster inspecting a detention line. The overhead light behind him cast a halo against the glass, softening his face just enough to make it worse.
Micah froze.
David didn't breathe.
Only Eli moved—tilting his head slightly, like a bird considering a struggling insect.
"You're all producing such interesting data," he said, his voice filtered through a speaker near the ceiling.
"Elevated cortisol, rapid heartbeat... except for you, David. You're surprisingly calm."
Abby stepped forward. "You sick bastard."
Eli smiled. "I'm not the one who's sick Abby. Sickness is, after all, the absence of The Lord."
Behind him, a wall of monitors pulsed—compliance scores, biometric readouts, color-coded performance charts.
"Noel's recovery is progressing very well," Eli continued. "He's already earned his favorite dessert tonight. I may even share it with him."
Micah's breath caught.
David heard it.
Felt it.
Like the snap of a string pulled too tight.
"You're giving him dessert?" Micah said, voice low, trembling. "You're feeding him pudding for being a perfect slave?"
Eli didn't flinch. "We reward growth. That's what recovery is all about."
Micah moved.
Fast.
He crossed the room in three strides and struck the glass with his fist—rage compressed to a single blow.
The thud echoed through the chamber.
Eli didn't blink.
"Micah, stop," David said, stepping in—too late.
Micah grabbed one of the bolted chairs and wrenched it hard. The metal groaned, screws snapping from the floor with a shriek.
Abby shouted something, but it blurred in the tension.
Micah hurled the chair at the glass with everything he had.
The sound was huge.
The mirror didn't crack.
It didn't even shudder.
Just swallowed the blow and stared back.
A slow clap came through the speaker—each beat soaked in mockery.
Micah stood there, heaving.
David approached slowly. "Micah." He put his palm on Micah's shoulder.
"He didn't blink," Micah said, not looking at him. "He didn't move."
He turned toward Eli again. "He was light. He was music. And you—you turned him into a fucking... spreadsheet."
Eli raised an eyebrow. "He turned himself into something useful - a man of faith. A useful person. Isn't that the dream?"
Michelle stepped forward. "You're a monster."
"No," Eli replied calmly. "I'm an educator."