Chapter 13 · Life Six

The alarms stopped.

That was worse.

I shoved through the stairwell door into level three, and the silence hit like a fist. No klaxons. No footsteps. Just the low hum of ventilation and the smell of ozone thick enough to taste.

My wrist itched where the counter sat. 06.

Six lives. Six mistakes left before I found out what happened when the number hit zero.

I pressed my back against the wall and checked the corridor. Empty. Too empty. The kind of empty that meant someone cleared it on purpose.

"Sokolov knows I'm here," I muttered.

Of course he did. The gas, the lockdown, the convenient timing of that file drop—it all screamed trap. But the shard was still here. Had to be. And I'd die six more times if that's what it took to get it.

I moved fast, boots silent on the tile. The server room was two halls over, tucked behind a biometric lock I'd already bypassed in three other loops. This time I had the admin card I'd lifted off a tech in loop four.