The battle for Baker Street lasted forty-seven minutes.

Voss arrived with sixteen soldiers and enough firepower to level a city block. His personal guard — four Level 12 elites in System-enhanced armor — flanked a modified military Humvee mounted with what Ethan's ERROR panel identified as a System-enhanced EMP turret.

But they had one problem: they couldn't enter the Safe Zone.

The permanent dome of blue light that Ethan had created with the System Fragment deflected hostile intent. Voss's soldiers could approach, could shout, could aim — but the moment they tried to cross the threshold with weapons drawn, the barrier solidified. Impenetrable.

"Come out, anomaly!" Voss's voice boomed through a megaphone. He was standing behind his Humvee, a tall man in his fifties with silver hair and the uniform of someone who'd decided the apocalypse was a career opportunity. His Commander Class panel glowed with System enhancement — boosted stats, augmented senses, administrative privileges. "You can't hide in there forever!"

"Not hiding," Ethan called from the community center roof. "Defending."

"You've turned my people against me! That broadcast—"

"Told the truth. Your people turned against you when they learned you were feeding them to the System."

Voss's face contorted. Even at a distance, Ethan could see the rage — and beneath it, desperation. The broadcast had fractured his base. More than half his soldiers had defected in the first two hours, streaming south toward Baker Street. Some were already inside the Safe Zone, being processed by Gerald and Diana.

But Voss still had his loyalists. And his System-enhanced gear.

The EMP turret charged. Ethan's panel screamed:

``` ⚠ SYSTEM WEAPON DETECTED TYPE: EMP (System-Enhanced) TARGET: SAFE ZONE BARRIER ESTIMATED DAMAGE: 12% barrier integrity NOTE: sustained fire could breach in ~8 shots ```

Eight shots. The turret could break the Safe Zone.

"Diana! Sparks!" Ethan dropped from the roof. "They're going to breach the barrier! We need—"

The turret fired. A pulse of white energy slammed into the blue dome. The barrier flickered. Everyone inside felt it — a shudder, a drop in temperature, a moment of primal fear.

---

Ethan ran.

Not away. Toward.

He burst through the Safe Zone barrier — it let him pass, recognized his anomaly signature — and sprinted into the gap between the dome and Voss's convoy. The Fracture Blade sang in his grip, its dark metal catching the turret's residual glow.

His ERROR interface mapped the battlefield in real-time. Sixteen soldiers. Four elites. One Commander. And the turret.

The turret was the priority.

Ethan triggered Exploit Window on the turret's charging mechanism. The weapon system froze mid-charge — energy crackling uselessly in its barrel. He closed the distance in three strides, leaped onto the Humvee's hood, and drove the Fracture Blade into the turret's power coupling.

The weapon exploded outward — a shower of sparks and twisted metal. Ethan was thrown clear, landing hard, rolling. Maya's ring — even from inside the Safe Zone — sent a pulse of golden healing that caught him mid-tumble, mending the burns across his forearms.

"Get him!" Voss screamed.

Four elite guards converged. Level 12, all of them. Ethan was Level 8. The math was brutal.

But math was a system. And systems had exploits.

He read their formation — his panel showing attack patterns, coordination delays, the 0.3-second gaps between their synchronized strikes. He slipped between the first two strikes like water through fingers, Fracture Blade catching one guard's weapon and deflecting it into another's path.

Exploit Window on the third guard — freeze, sidestep, cut the power cable on his armor. The System-enhanced plating deactivated, leaving him in standard tactical gear. A single strike to the helmet sent him crumpling.

The fourth guard adapted — smart, experienced, not relying on predictable System-enhanced patterns. He fought manually, years of pre-apocalypse military training backing every move.

Ethan couldn't exploit what wasn't System-dependent.

The guard's knife caught his shoulder. Pain flared — deep, immediate. Blood warmth. Maya's ring activated again, golden light sealing the wound in seconds, but the delay cost him.

Sparks saved him.

A bolt of electricity — brilliant white, crackling — leaped from the community center roof and hit the remaining elite guard square in the chest. The man convulsed, dropped. Sparks stood on the roof edge, barely five feet tall, hands still sparking, looking absolutely terrified and absolutely fierce.

---

Voss was alone now. His soldiers — the regular ones — had backed off when they saw their elites fall. Several were lowering weapons. More were watching the defectors inside the Safe Zone — former comrades, unharmed, fed, protected.

"This ends here," Ethan said, blade leveled.

"It doesn't end," Voss replied. His voice was calm now — dangerously calm. "You don't understand what you've done. The System *chose* me. I am humanity's administrator. Without me, the culling proceeds unchecked."

"The culling proceeds *because* of you. You sacrifice people for System credits."

"I sacrifice the few to protect the many!" Voss's eyes blazed. "Without my deals, the Bastion doesn't exist. Forty thousand people — fed, sheltered, defended. What do you offer? One Safe Zone and a God complex!"

Ethan opened his mouth to respond.

And then the sky went dark.

---

Not dark — wrong. The sky-crack, which had been a constant presence since Day Zero, suddenly widened. Not gradually. Instantly. A gash of white fire tearing the heavens open like a wound being reoened.

And descending through the crack — slowly, deliberately, with the calm precision of something that had done this forty-seven times before — was the Arbiter.

It was humanoid. Tall — eight feet, maybe nine. Its body was geometric, angular, made of interlocking surfaces of dark metal and pale light. It had no face — just a smooth, featureless plate where features should be, and a single point of light at its center that pulsed slowly.

Red.

Ethan's ERROR interface went berserk:

``` [ENTITY DETECTED: ARBITER] LEVEL: ??? CLASS: SYSTEM ENFORCER (PRIMARY) HP: ???/??? ABILITIES: [CANNOT BE SCANNED] STATUS: CATALOGING

⚠⚠⚠ CRITICAL ALERT ⚠⚠⚠ CORRECTION PROBABILITY: 28.9% ARBITER DEPLOYMENT: EARLY STAGE CURRENT OBJECTIVE: OBSERVATION THE ARBITER IS NOT ATTACKING. IT IS RECORDING YOUR CAPABILITIES. EVERY EXPLOIT YOU USE IN ITS PRESENCE WILL BE CATALOGED AND COUNTERED. ```

The Arbiter landed on a rooftop across the street. Standing. Watching.

Not attacking.

*Cataloging.*

Every soldier on the street — Bastion and Baker Street alike — froze. The Arbiter's presence radiated a pressure that had nothing to do with gravity. It was judgment. Raw, impersonal, procedural judgment.

Voss looked up at the Arbiter. And smiled.

"You see?" he whispered. "It's coming for you, ERROR. Not today. But soon." He turned to his remaining soldiers. "Fall back."

They left. Voss, his survivors, disappearing into the night.

The Arbiter remained. Silent. Watching.

And then — as if it had seen everything it needed to see — it rose. Straight up, back toward the sky-crack, folding into the void between worlds like a letter being slid into an envelope.

Gone.

But not forgotten.

Ethan stood in the middle of Baker Street, bleeding from his shoulder, heart slamming, blade in hand.

Behind him, the Safe Zone hummed — forty people safe behind its barrier.

Above him, the sky-crack pulsed.

And in his ERROR interface, a single line:

``` ANOMALY DETECTED. CORRECTION SCHEDULED. ```

The first judgment had been rendered.

The forty-eighth ERROR user had been found.