The station’s shields flared to life,
and—at Airi’s initiative, just like before—
a narrow “invitation gap” opened within them,
calibrated precisely for three bodies
and for exactly the amount of time she deemed sufficient.
The station hovered dangerously close to Methuselah.
Constant thermal radiation, radioactive bursts, violent gas streams—
all of it turned the outer hull into a hellish frying pan.
To survive, the station relied on a massive thermal shielding system,
spreading a thin layer of cooling moisture across its external platforms.
The condensation trickled downward,
slipping into temperature gradients
and transforming into artificial rain.
Not weather.
Not climate.
Just the sweat of a steel colossus
running at its limit.
They stepped forward
and dropped through the soft resistance of the energy field—
like passing through a layer of cosmic jelly—
landing smoothly onto the platform below,
deep inside The Gut.
The shields sealed behind them,
but above, a faint drizzle had already begun.
And that artificial rain,
bleeding from the station’s thermal shield,
ran down Zeros’s frame—
thin streams tracing along his armor
like a perfect ray-traced render,
each droplet reflecting light, metal, motion.
Shiori stepped onto the wet metal first,
silent, focused—like stepping onto a stage
where mistakes were not allowed.
Without a word, she drew her plasma rifle,
raised her hand,
and gave a short signal: Follow me.
Blindy moved after her—bright, almost childlike,
like a kid following his mom into a toy store,
sloshing through the shallow puddles gathering across the platform.
Zeros brought up the rear—tall, straight, silent.
They moved forward,
and the platform beneath them began to hum,
drowning out the steady whisper of artificial rain—
low, heavy, the sound of old metal
feeling something foreign enter its core
for the first time in years.
Ahead stretched a wide maintenance bridge,
welded from thick metal plates,
layered over each other
as if built on a simple rule: if it holds—it’s enough.
On either side—
a sheer drop into nothing.
Below, plasma channels churned violently,
pulling gas from the depths of Methuselah.
Orange bursts from beneath lit the bridge in sharp, trembling flashes,
turning everything into the insides
of a massive industrial beast.
A circular hatch loomed ahead.
Shiori reached for the control panel—
but Zeros, without wasting a second,
gripped the edge of the hatch with one hand
and tore it open.
The hatch ripped free
and flew off like a poorly fastened pot lid,
spinning twenty yards into the void
before dissolving into clouds of hot gas
venting from the station’s exhaust shafts.
They stepped inside.
Into the place where the real station began.
The corridor was colossal,
wide enough for cargo platforms to pass through,
and tall enough that its upper reaches disappeared into darkness,
lost behind a web of industrial conduit lines
threaded across the ceiling.
Instead of walls, there were rows of pipelines,
twisted like the veins of a living organism.
Signal lights flickered on and off,
slowly pulsing through shades of red and orange.
The hum of transformers pressed into the chest,
like the low growl of something massive and deeply irritated.
Workers stood at their stations. Hundreds. Thousands.
All in identical protective masks
and heavy thermal jackets.
Some monitored pressure gauges,
some adjusted plasma flow,
others scraped burned plating off overheated channel segments.
And all of it happened
under the glow of red-orange bursts
erupting from deep within the station,
turning people
into moving shadows.
Chains stretched overhead.
Cargo containers moved along them,
sparking, crackling,
reacting in dying flashes to violent heat shifts.
Somewhere deeper inside, pumps thundered.
Thermal furnaces roared,
dumping exhaust straight into Methuselah’s atmosphere,
which was already holding together by a thread.
Blindy walked slowly, turning his head from side to side.
His brain refused to accept
that these people didn’t just work in this hell.
They lived here. Every day. They breathed toxic fumes.
Slept under the roar of transformers.
Aged faster than they could earn a day off.
Shiori moved with confidence,
knowing the route exactly,
not a second of hesitation.
She was leading them toward the control hall,
toward the heart of the station,
to where their target was.
Zeros followed last.
Steady. Silent.
Perfectly in sync with the station’s hum.
And there was a strange feeling
that the entire massive structure
was unconsciously adjusting to the rhythm of his steps,
like a living organism
that had sensed a predator.