Maya was taken at dawn.

Ethan had been running a supply scavenge two blocks from Baker Street — canned food, batteries, first aid — when the Bastion convoy arrived. Six trucks. Fifty soldiers. Not scouts this time. This was an army.

By the time he sprinted back, it was over. The permanent Safe Zone still stood — its blue dome humming steadily, monsters unable to enter — but the people inside had been given a choice. Come willingly, or watch the Bastion leave and take their protection with them.

"They didn't know the Safe Zone was permanent," Gerald explained, his face ashen. "The soldiers said the dome would fail within hours. That only the Bastion could keep them safe."

"And Maya?"

"She tried to stay. Two soldiers took her arms. She went — to keep them from hurting the kids."

Ethan stood in the empty community center. Gymnasium mats still warm. Crayon drawings on the walls from the children. A single medical glove on the floor, dropped in the rush.

His ERROR interface pulsed. A new notification:

``` ⚠ MAYA CHEN — STATUS UPDATE LOCATION: BASTION COMPOUND (SECTOR 4) DESIGNATION: HIGH-VALUE ASSET RESTRICTION LEVEL: GOLD MOVEMENT: RESTRICTED TO MEDICAL WING ```

She was alive. She was inside the Bastion. And she was classified as an asset, not a person.

Ethan picked up the medical glove. Tucked it into his pocket alongside the Fragment's warm absence.

"Gerald," he said. "I'm going to get her back."

"The Bastion has two thousand soldiers."

"I know." He drew the Fracture Blade. Its dark metal caught the Safe Zone's blue light. "I don't need to fight two thousand soldiers. I just need to find the five doors between me and Maya."

---

Jax met him at the subway tunnel with a floor plan.

"Don't ask how I got this," the hacker said, unrolling a printout on the maintenance alcove floor. "Okay, fine — I bribed a defecting Bastion engineer with three cans of peaches and a working charger. The man had priorities."

The Bastion compound occupied a converted convention center on the city's north side — a massive structure with loading docks, underground parking, and a skybridge connecting to the adjacent hotel. Voss had fortified it with System-enhanced barriers, sentry turrets, and garrison patrols on twelve-hour rotations.

"Maya is here." Jax pointed at the convention center's third floor. "Medical wing. They've got six Healers total — Maya is the strongest. She's working twelve-hour shifts healing soldiers, refugees, anyone Voss wants to keep productive."

"Guarded?"

"Two soldiers outside the medical wing. Four at each stairwell. And Voss has a personal guard of eight — all Level 10-plus, System-enhanced gear." Jax looked up. "Ethan, this is a fortress."

"It's a building. Buildings have systems. Systems have exploits." Ethan studied the floor plan. His ERROR interface overlaid data onto the layout — security nodes, power conduits, ventilation routes. Things no one else could see. "I'm going in through the underground parking. It connects to the loading dock on sublevel 2. From there, maintenance corridors run to all floors."

"And the security?"

"System-enhanced sentry turrets run on the same framework as dungeon traps. I can Exploit Window them. Freeze, bypass, move."

"That burns your correction probability."

"I know." He was at 24.1%. Every exploit pushed it higher. "How much time do I have?"

Jax calculated. "At your current usage rate... you'll hit 50% within the next few days. 100% — probably within two weeks. After that, the Enforcer deploys."

Two weeks. To rescue Maya, expose Voss, build a resistance, and figure out how to survive an enemy that had killed forty-seven versions of him across the multiverse.

"Then I'd better move fast."

---

The Bastion's underground parking was exactly as grim as it sounded — a concrete cavern of abandoned vehicles and flickering emergency lighting, repurposed as a motor pool for Bastion military trucks. Ethan dropped in through a ventilation shaft at 2 AM, landing silently on the roof of a delivery van.

His ERROR interface mapped the space instantly. Three guards on patrol — regular rotation, five-minute intervals. Two sentry turrets at the sublevel entrance — System-enhanced, motion-triggered, calibrated to fire energy bolts at anything moving faster than a walking pace.

He timed the patrols. Waited. Moved between the guard cycles like water flowing through gaps in a dam.

The first turret detected him at fifteen meters. He triggered Exploit Window. The turret froze — mid-rotation, barrel pointing at empty air. He slid underneath, heart hammering, and reached the maintenance door.

``` [SYSTEM TURRET — EXPLOIT] CORRECTION PROBABILITY: 24.8% ```

Climbing. Always climbing.

The maintenance corridors were narrow, hot, and smelled like industrial cleaning solution. Ethan moved through them using his interface as a guide — blue lines showing the path, red zones marking guard positions. He was a ghost in the machine, invisible to the Bastion's security because he was exploiting the very system their security was built on.

Third floor. Medical wing.

Two guards outside the door. Both Level 8, armed with System-enhanced rifles. Ethan studied their panels from around the corner:

``` [BASTION GUARD — Lvl 8] WEAKNESS: System-linked comm device → Exploit: 2s comm blackout causes automatic position check protocol → Guard will step away from post for 8s ```

He triggered Exploit Window on both guards' communication devices simultaneously. Their earpieces went dead. Both guards reflexively touched their earpieces, exchanged a glance, and one stepped away to check the comm hub at the end of the corridor.

Eight seconds.

Ethan moved. Past the remaining guard — pressed flat against the wall, one hand on the Fracture Blade, not breathing — and through the medical wing door.

---

The medical wing was a converted ballroom. Rows of cots lined the walls, most occupied by wounded soldiers and civilians. Medical equipment — real equipment, pre-apocalypse — hummed and beeped alongside the golden glow of System healing.

Maya was at the far end, hands glowing gold over a soldier's shattered leg. She looked exhausted — dark circles under her eyes, hair unwashed, scrubs stained. But her hands were steady. Always steady.

She saw him.

Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened — and he pressed a finger to his lips.

She closed her mouth. Finished the healing. Set the soldier's leg down gently.

Then she walked to him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him behind a supply cabinet.

"Are you *insane*?" she whispered. "There are guards everywhere!"

"Temporarily exploited. We have about four minutes before the comm reset triggers an alert."

"Ethan, I can't leave."

He stared at her. "What?"

"Look at them." She gestured at the rows of cots. "Forty-two patients. Six missing limbs, twelve with internal injuries, three children with system-induced trauma. The other Healers here are Level 3, Level 4 — they can handle cuts and bruises. I'm the only one who can mend bones and purge system corruption."

"Voss is *using* you."

"Yes. And if I leave, these people die." Her eyes were fierce — not angry, not scared. Certain. The same certainty she'd had in the pharmacy, the first time they met. "I won't trade forty-two lives for my freedom."

The silence between them was heavier than the concrete walls.

"Then I'll bring the freedom to you," Ethan said.

"What?"

"Voss. His deals. His harvesting. Jax has everything recorded. We're going to broadcast it — to the entire Bastion. Every soldier, every refugee. Let them decide if they want to follow a man who feeds people to the System."

Maya looked at him. Something shifted in her expression — from certainty to something softer. Trust.

"You have a plan?"

"I have a hacker, a grudge, and an increasingly hostile alien operating system that wants me dead." He grinned — cracked, exhausted, genuine. "Close enough."

"Ethan." She touched his hand. Gold warmth seeped through his skin — not healing, just... warmth. "Be careful. Please."

"I'll be back," he said. "With evidence, allies, and hopefully a better plan than 'run in and improvise.' "

He slipped back through the medical wing door. The guards were still checking their comms. He was in the maintenance corridor and gone before anyone knew he'd been there.

But his ERROR interface logged the visit:

``` ⚠ SYSTEM INTEGRITY ALERT: LVL 5 ANOMALY DETECTED WITHIN FACTION TERRITORY CORRECTION PROBABILITY: 26.3% ```

The clock was running faster.