REN PLUTO
The air in the room was a goddamn vacuum.
Automatic. Academic. Erasure.
Zara's words had sucked all the sound out, all the air, all the hope.
Ren stood there, the steam from the bathroom still clinging to his blazer, making him feel hot and cold at once. His heart, which had been hammering, just... stopped.
He was dead.
He looked at Nyx. She was dead too.
Still a statue, face carved from stone, but he saw her eyes. The calculation. The same one he was making.
Two against five.
This wasn't a unit. It was a firing squad. And he and Nyx were the ones against the wall.
Zara was smiling. Enjoying this. Holding that handbook like a winning lottery ticket.
"A hundred points." Her voice was a soft sick sweet purr. "Enough to get one of us into Tier Two. Out of this... damp... shithole. All we have to do... is choose."
Ren's eyes cut across the jury.
Ravi. Sunny Boy wasn't sunny now. Pale. Hands shaking. Looking at Ren with wide wet eyes—a dog about to be put down. But he was also looking at the book. Thinking about it. Doing the math. His "unit cohesion" bullshit versus survival.
Jules. The crybaby was a wreck. Face blotchy, tear-streaked. Staring at Zara, mouth open. A sheep. He'd do whatever the last person who spoke told him. A complete non-entity.
Maven. The mouse.
She made his skin crawl.
Still pressed against the far wall. Face a blank white unreadable mask. Not looking at Zara. Not looking at him. Staring at the floor. At nothing.
Don't trust the mice.
The warning from the journal was a spike of ice in his gut. She was the witness to the journal. The witness to the door. She had the most to trade.
And Sayer. The ghost.
In her corner by the slimy window. Back to the room. Hadn't even turned around. Useless.
Two against four.
"So." Zara's voice was bright. "Who wants to make the call? Ravi? You're the 'leader,' right? Why don't you lead?"
Ravi looked like he might be sick. Opened his mouth. Only a small choked sound came out. "I... we... Zara, we can't... we're a unit. We just got here. We're supposed to... to..."
"To what?" Zara snapped. Purr gone. Replaced by a cold sharp hiss. "To die? To rot in this basement until they 'prune' us? I'm not here to make friends, Ravi. I'm here to win. And the rulebook just handed me the first win of the game."
"She's right."
The words were out of Ren's mouth before his brain caught up. Rough. Hoarse.
Everyone froze.
Nyx looked at him, eyes narrowing. Silent: What the hell are you doing?
Zara's smile faltered. Just a fraction. She hadn't expected him to agree.
Ren pushed off the bathroom wall. Walked out of the ruined doorway, past Nyx, into the center of the room. Felt the camera on him. Didn't care.
"She's right." His voice harder now. Forced himself to meet Zara's gaze. "It's a good deal. A great deal. A hundred points."
He let that hang.
"But here's the thing, 430." His voice dropped. "It's just for one."
He saw the flicker. The change in her eyes.
"You're not offering us a deal." Ren walked a slow tight circle. Wolf in his element now. This wasn't a classroom. This was a cell block. He knew how to play.
"You're not offering the unit a way out." His voice cut. "You're offering a one-in-five chance. You, Ravi, Jules, Maven... even the ghost. Who gets the points? Who makes the call? You, Zara? You gonna take it for yourself?"
Zara's perfect painted smile was gone.
"And what about the other four?" Ren pushed. "The ones who don't get the points? The ones who were 'complicit'? The ones who just stood here and watched?"
Ravi's face went from pale to gray.
"You think the faculty's stupid?" Ren laughed. Cold ugly sound. "You think you can go to Thorean and say, 'Hey, my unit's been conspiring for ten minutes about how to cover up a Tier One Violation, and I'd like my hundred points now'? They'll erase all of you."
He stopped. Right in front of Zara.
"The Severance Clause." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Is a scalpel, you idiot. It's for oneperson. One witness. The second you made it a group discussion... you voided the warranty."
He was bluffing. Didn't know if that was true. Didn't know shit.
But she didn't know he was bluffing.
"He's wrong."
The voice was a rasp. A dry dead unused thing.
Ren's blood turned to sludge.
Everyone turned.
Sayer was still in the corner. But she'd turned her head. Looking at them over her shoulder. Face hidden in hoodie shadow.
"He's wrong about the conspiracy part." Sayer's whisper landed like stones in the silence. "The clause is probably still valid."
Zara's smile came flooding back. "See? Even the corpse agrees."
"But." Sayer continued. "You're all stupid. You're all so... loud."
She turned. Movements slow, stiff. Walked out of the shadows. Caramel-skinned face pale. Grey-hazel eyes huge, dark, utterly, terrifyingly... empty.
She wasn't looking at Ren. Wasn't looking at Zara.
She was looking at the camera.
"The violation." Sayer's voice was flat. "Happened at 18:04." She pointed a bony finger at Nyx. "When she kicked the door. It is now 18:11."
She looked at Zara. "You've been in possession of the handbook for five minutes. You've been 'negotiating' for three. You haven't made a move. You haven't gone to the terminal. You haven't alerted the staff."
Sayer took a step toward Zara.
Zara—for the first time—took a step back.
"They're watching us." Sayer tilted her head toward the black dome. "They're listening. They know you found the rule. And they know... you're still here."
She was right.
Holy. Shit.
Ren stared at her. The ghost had a goddamn brain.
Zara's face went white. She understood.
If she made the call now, she wasn't a loyal student. She was an opportunist who got caught. A co-conspirator who tried to flip when the deal went south.
She wasn't just implicated. She was guilty.
The Severance Clause wasn't a scalpel anymore. It was a bomb. And they were all holding it.
Zara slowly, deliberately, closed the handbook.
"So." Nyx's voice cut through the silence. First to recover. All business. "The deal's off the table. We're all in the same boat."
"What... what boat?" Ravi's voice was a high thin terrified squeak. "We're... we're all going to be Erased?"
"Not if they don't find it," Nyx said.
"Find what?" Jules squeaked from his corner. Finally managed to speak. "The door?! It's splintered! It's broken! Look at it!"
He was right. The frame was a jagged splintered mess. The lock was gone. A gaping guilty-as-hell hole.
"Inspections are at 0700." Nyx was already assessing the damage. Eyes scanning the frame. "That gives us twelve hours. We have twelve hours to fix it."
"Fix it?" Ravi sounded hysterical. "With what, Nyx? With... with what? We're in a concrete box! We don't have tools! We don't have wood! We have nothing!"
"So we get it." Nyx's voice was flat. Final.
"Get it from where?"
"The school." Ren said.
The word hung there.
A heist. A goddamn heist. On their first night.
He'd just committed them. All of them.
Ravi looked like he might faint. Zara looked furious.
"You're insane." Zara spat. "You want us to break in somewhere? To 'get tools'? After this? You want to dig the hole deeper?"
"You got a better idea?" Nyx shot back. "You want to sit here and wait for the 7 AM Erasure? I don't. We fix it. We stay quiet. We survive."
The logic was brutal. Undeniable.
They were all in it. All chained together. The Severance Clause had backfired and welded them into the one thing Zara had scoffed at.
A unit.
A terrified, fractured, completely screwed unit.
Ren looked at the faces. Ravi, on the verge of panic attack. Jules, already crying again. Zara, furious and trapped. Sayer, retreated back into her hoodie, her work done. Nyx, coiled spring ready to move.
And Maven.
The mouse.
Still by the wall. Still silent. Still blank.
Don't trust the mice.
He had to know. Had to test it.
He walked over to her. Didn't loom this time. Just stood in front of her.
"You." His voice low. Just for her.
She flinched. Eyes—wide, black—snapped to his.
"The wall." He pointed. "The spot you were scrubbing. You've been at it for twenty minutes. It's just a spot."
A test. Was she a panicking mouse? Or something else?
Maven looked at the spot on the wall. Looked at her own fingers—red and raw from sanitizer.
Then she looked at him.
"It's... it's blood." Her whisper was barely air. "It's old. But... it's blood. Someone didn't clean it right. The disinfectant they used, it's the wrong pH. It didn't set the stain. It just... smeared it. And it's... it's wrong."
Ren stared at her.
She wasn't panicking.
She was investigating.
A goddamn forensic analyst, having a breakdown because the janitors did a bad job.
The journal was wrong.
Or... maybe it wasn't. Maybe this was a different kind of mouse.
Ren made a choice.
He had the journal. Nyx had the muscle. Sayer had the logic. Zara had the motive. Ravi and Jules were hostages.
But Maven... Maven had the details.
He looked back at the room. They were all staring at him. Waiting for a plan.
He looked at Nyx. She nodded. Your move.
"Okay." Ren's voice cut through the fear. "We're all in. We're all guilty. So we're all in on the fix."
He turned. Looked at the splintered ruined doorway. The impossible twelve-hour problem.
Then he looked at Maven.
"Nyx and I." He pointed at himself, then Nyx. "Are going to figure out where to get the tools."
He pointed at the mouse.
"You. You're going to figure out how the hell we're going to use them."
Maven stared at him. Her face, for the first time, showed something other than blank terror.
Confusion. "Me? I... I don't... I don't know how to—"
"You know materials." Ren cut her off. "You know pH. You know what cleaners work and what don't. You saw blood on a wall and diagnosed the janitor's chemical imbalance."
He stepped closer. Not threatening. Intent.
"You're not just a cleaner, 500. You're an analyst. So analyze. That door is wood. The frame is metal. The lock is steel. We need to make it look untouched by morning. How?"
Maven's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"The... the wood." Her voice was small. Thinking out loud. "Splintered wood can't be unsplintered. But it can be... filled. Bonded. Sanded. If we had wood filler. Or epoxy. Something with similar grain structure."
"And the frame?"
"Metal's easier. Bondo. Automotive filler. Sand it smooth, paint over it. But we'd need the right paint. Matching color. And clear coat."
"And the lock?"
Her face fell. "The lock is destroyed. The bolt is bent. The mechanism is..." She trailed off. Looked at the door. Really looked.
"We can't fix the lock," she whispered. "Not tonight. Not without a new one."
Ren's heart sank.
But Maven kept going. "But we don't need to fix the lock. We need to make it look fixed. From a distance. Through a camera."
She looked at the door. At the frame. At the floor.
"The latch mechanism is still there. The part that clicks into the frame. If we can secure the door from the inside—wedge it, brace it—and make it look like the lock is engaged..."
She looked at Ren. Her eyes weren't blank anymore.
"They won't test it. They'll just look. At 0700, a guard will walk by, glance at the door, mark it as secure on his tablet. If it looks locked, if the door doesn't swing open when he rattles it..."
"We buy another day," Nyx finished. Stepped forward. Looking at Maven with new eyes. "Smart."
Maven flinched at the praise. Like she wasn't used to it.
Ren looked at Nyx. "You know where to get this stuff?"
Nyx's jaw tightened. "Maintenance. Sub Level 2. Supply closets. I saw a map in the orientation packet."
"That's staff only."
"Obviously."
Ren looked at Ravi. At Zara. At Jules. At Sayer.
"Anyone else got skills we should know about? Now's the time."
Silence.
Jules sniffled.
Zara rolled her eyes. "I can pick pockets and distract men. That useful enough for you?"
Ren almost smiled. "Yeah. Actually. That might be."
Ravi raised a trembling hand. "I... I'm good with people? I can... talk to anyone? Make them feel comfortable?"
"A hostage negotiator in a unit of hostages," Nyx muttered. "Perfect."
But Ren saw it differently. Ravi's desperate need to please—that could be useful. If they needed someone to run interference, to be the friendly face, to make people underestimate them...
"Keep it," Ren said. "We'll need it."
He looked at Sayer. The ghost. Back in her corner, staring at nothing.
"Sayer?"
Nothing.
"Sayer." Louder.
Slowly, she turned. Those empty grey-hazel eyes fixed on him.
"You saw the camera timing. You know the surveillance patterns. Can you figure out a route? A way to Maintenance without being seen?"
A long pause.
Then a single nod.
Ren let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"We've got a team." He looked at each of them. "A broken, scared, probably-incompetent team. But a team."
He pointed at the door.
"That's the problem. We fix it, we live. We don't, we're Erased. Simple."
Zara snorted. "Nothing about this is simple."
"No." Ren met her eyes. "But it's clear. And clear is better than simple."
He looked at Nyx. "We move at 0200. When the sleep cycle is deepest and the cameras are on low rotation. Sayer maps the route. Maven figures out exactly what we need. Ravi runs cover if anyone wakes up. Zara picks the locks. Jules..."
He looked at the crying boy.
Jules stared back. Waiting.
"Jules stays here. If anyone comes, you make noise. Lots of it. Pretend you're having a breakdown—shouldn't be hard. Buy us time."
Jules nodded. Swallowed. Nodded again.
Ren turned to Maven.
"How long to write the shopping list?"
Maven looked at the door. At the frame. At the broken lock. Her lips moved silently—calculating, measuring, estimating.
"Ten minutes," she whispered. "Maybe fifteen."
"You've got five."
She blinked. Then moved. Grabbed a torn piece of cardboard from her suitcase. A pen from her bag. Started writing. Fast. Precise. Her hand didn't shake anymore.
Nyx watched her for a moment. Then looked at Ren.
"You trust her?"
The question hung.
Don't trust the mice.
Ren looked at Maven. At the blood spot she'd noticed when no one else did. At the chemical analysis she'd done without thinking. At the way she'd just calculated a repair plan in under a minute.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I need her."
Nyx nodded. "Fair."
She walked to her bunk. Pulled something from her duffel—a small black pouch Ren hadn't noticed before. Opened it. Inside: lock picks. A small flashlight. A multi-tool. A roll of black electrical tape.
Zara's eyes widened. "You came prepared."
Nyx didn't look up. "I came to survive."
She tossed the multi-tool to Ren. He caught it. Weighed it in his hand.
"0200," Nyx said. "Don't be late."
Ren looked at the room. At his unit. At the shattered door and the ticking clock.
Twelve hours.
Twelve hours to steal. To fix. To survive.
He sat on his bunk. Pulled out the journal. Started reading again. Looking for anything he'd missed. Anything about Maintenance. About Sub Level 2. About what they might find in the dark.
Behind him, Maven wrote. Nyx prepared. Sayer stared at the ceiling, tracking camera patterns in her head.
And somewhere above them, in the gleaming towers, Darian Blackwood was probably sleeping soundly. Confident. Untouchable.
Ren smiled. Cold. Sharp.
Let him sleep.
The pigs were about to leave the pen.