Chapter 5: The Lockdown
The air in the Grand Library didn't just get colder; it stopped moving.
Kaelen pressed his back against the mahogany railing of the Genealogy mezzanine, his breath caught in a chest that felt too tight for his lungs. Below him, in the atrium, the three Faceless figures—the Silencers—were ascending. They didn't use the stairs in a way that made sense. They drifted up the incline, their grey robes hanging perfectly still, unaffected by gravity or the draft from the vents.
BONG.
The final echo of the third bell died, leaving a silence so absolute it felt like pressure on the eardrums.
Kaelen scrambled backward, keeping low. The [Iron Knife] in his hand felt like a toy. You didn't fight things that floated. You didn't stab things that had no eyes but could see your heartbeat.
He needed the service exit.
He sprinted toward the north corridor, his soft-soled boots making no sound on the plush carpet. The Genealogy Wing connected to the Scribe's Quarters via a narrow maintenance passage used for transporting ink barrels. If he could get there, he could drop into the sewers and bypass the main gates.
He rounded the corner, skidding on the polished stone. The door to the passage was ten feet away.
It was glowing.
A sheet of translucent, golden geometry covered the doorframe. It looked like a honeycomb made of hard light, pulsing with a rhythmic, low-frequency thrum.
Kaelen didn't stop. He threw his shoulder against the wood, hoping the light was just a warning, a hologram.
CRACK.
He bounced off as if he'd hit a solid wall of granite. The golden honeycomb flared brighter, stinging his skin with a wash of dry heat. The wood of the door didn't even vibrate. It wasn't locked; it was removed from the physics of "opening."
[System Warning: Sector Quarantine Active.]
[Exit Status: DENIED. Admin Privileges Required.]
"No," Kaelen hissed, clutching his bruised shoulder. "No, no, no."
He looked down the hall. The windows—tall, arched panes of glass that overlooked the city—were covered in the same golden mesh. The Starlight wasn't keeping things out; it was keeping the "errors" in.
He was in a cage.
A sound drifted from the far end of the corridor. Unlike the unnatural silence of the floating entities below, this was heavy. Physical.
CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.
Boots. Heavy, steel-shod boots striking stone with the weight of authority.
Kaelen spun around. The corridor was a straight line, lined with busts of dead Saints. There was nowhere to hide. The shadows here were thin, stripped away by the ambient glow of the quarantine fields.
The figure rounded the corner.
It wasn't a Silencer. It was a man, encased in the heavy, ceremonial plate armor of the Sanctum Enforcers. The metal wasn't grey steel; it was a white, enameled alloy that gleamed under the magical lights. The helmet was a dome of white metal with a T-shaped visor glowing with soft, blue Starlight.
The Enforcer stopped. He didn't scan the room like a machine. He rolled his shoulders, a very human gesture of fatigue, the heavy pauldrons clanking.
"Sector 5 is closed, citizen," the Enforcer rumbled. His voice was deep, amplified by the helmet, but bored. "The bells rang. You should be in a shelter."
Kaelen held his breath, crouching behind a marble pedestal displaying a "Meteorite."
"I can hear you breathing," the Enforcer sighed. "Come out. I don't want to chase you. The armor is heavy, and my shift ends in twenty minutes."
Kaelen's heart hammered against his ribs. This wasn't a mindless construct. This was a man doing a job. A man who treated hunting people like filing paperwork.
The Enforcer walked forward, unhooking a heavy mace from his belt. The head was shaped like a sunburst, the flanges sharp enough to punch through stone.
"Subject identified," the Enforcer muttered, likely reading a HUD inside his helmet. "Kaelen Vance. Residence marked by Captain Varrick this morning. Status: Probationary."
Kaelen stood up slowly. Running was useless. The hallway was a shooting gallery.
"I... I'm an Archivist," Kaelen said, holding up his empty hand, keeping the knife hidden behind his back. He tried to summon the authority of his station, but his voice shook. "I was working late. I have clearance."
The Enforcer stopped ten feet away. The blue T-visor stared at him, unblinking.
"Clearance is revoked during a Purge," the Enforcer said flatly. "And you aren't an Archivist anymore. The Captain marked your file. You're just... loose data."
He took a step closer. "Did you see something you shouldn't have? Read a book that wasn't meant for your eyes? It's always the readers. You think knowing the truth makes you special."
"I haven't done anything," Kaelen said, stepping back until his heels hit the buzzing Starlight barrier. "I just want to go home."
"Home?" The Enforcer tilted his head. "If the Captain marked your door, you don't have a home. You're being reformatted. It's better this way. Less... messy."
Something in Kaelen's chest snapped.
It wasn't fear. The fear was still there, cold and paralyzing, but it was being overwritten by a sudden, molten heat.
Reformatted.
He thought of the broom closet. He thought of the empty bed. He thought of the blank paper with the tiny, greasy fingerprint—the only proof that his daughter had ever breathed air.
This man didn't care. To him, the erasure of Kaelen's family wasn't a tragedy; it was a clerical correction. A smudge to be wiped away so he could finish his shift on time.
"You think this is just... cleaning?" Kaelen whispered. The tremor in his voice vanished, replaced by a flat, dangerous tone.
"Order requires hygiene," the Enforcer said, raising the mace. "Submit. Kneel, and I'll make it quick. Resist, and I'll have to break your legs to fit you in the containment cart."
Kaelen looked at the mace. It hummed with Starlight—the same energy that kept the world stable, the same energy that had burned the books.
He looked at the Enforcer's feet. Heavy. Planted firmly on the polished marble. The man relied on friction. He relied on the laws of physics holding him up while he swung that massive weight.
Kaelen squeezed the iron knife until the edges bit into his skin. The pain was grounding. It was real.
"I'm not a smudge," Kaelen said.
The blue text of the System flared in his vision, responding to the spike in his heart rate. It overlaid the world in a wireframe grid.
[Adrenaline Spike Detected.]
[System Interface: Combat Mode Initiated.]
Kaelen focused on the floor beneath the Enforcer. To anyone else, it was just stone. To Kaelen, it was a surface defined by a set of variables.
[Target: Marble Floor Tile]
[Material: Calcium Carbonate]
[Property: Friction Coefficient (µ) = 0.60]
[Status: Editable]
"Have it your way," the Enforcer grunted.
He stepped forward, planting his left foot, winding up for a crushing overhead swing. It was a move practiced a thousand times in the sparring yards. Perfect form. Perfect balance.
Based entirely on the assumption that the floor would stay a floor.
Kaelen didn't flinch. He didn't cower. He stared at the marble beneath the Enforcer's boots with a hatred so pure it felt like it could burn through the stone.
You want to erase me?
Kaelen reached out with his mind, grabbing the blue code floating over the floor tiles. He didn't ask the Gods for help. He didn't beg for a miracle.
He grabbed the value 0.60.
And he set it to 0.