The hallway was a deathtrap of Leo's own design. The air, thick with the smell of ozone and steam, crackled with residual electricity. The Janitor, a being of methodical entropy, was on its knees in the center of the scorched, flooded corridor. Its maintenance uniform was a blackened, smoking ruin, peeling away to reveal the cold, hard truth of it: a shimmering, chrome-molybdenum skeleton, its form utterly inhuman.
It was damaged, but it was not destroyed.
Slowly, unsteadily, the machine began to get back up. Its movements were jerky, its internal mechanisms clearly struggling against the massive electrical overload it had just endured. But its entropic field, a passive aura of dissolution, was still active. The saltwater pool around its feet began to fizz, the water molecules themselves seeming to lose their cohesion. The remaining ceiling tiles above it didn't just sag; they seemed to age decades in a matter of seconds, turning brittle and crumbling into a fine, grey dust.
And then it turned its featureless head. The two pinpricks of cold, blue light that served as its eyes locked directly onto the doorway of the room where Leo was hiding. It had pinpointed his location.
"Julian," Leo whispered into the silence of his own mind, his adrenaline running cold. "Plan B."
Julian materialized from the shadows at the far end of the hallway, a silent, golden-eyed sentinel standing between the damaged Janitor and Leo's position. He held no weapon. He simply stood there, an immovable object of pure, ordered reality, a direct antithesis to the Janitor's chaotic decay.
The Janitor paused. It recognized the energy signature. A Cleaner. A Unit from its own cohort. But this one was… different. The golden glow of its optics, the aura of loyalty it projected—it wasn't directed at The Board. It was directed at the anomaly. A corrupted asset. A rogue unit.
This momentary hesitation, this brief pause for categorization and analysis, was all Leo needed. His focus, his entire will, shifted away from the immediate threat in the hallway. He turned his attention inward, plunging his consciousness deep into the hospital's network, guided by the ghost in the machine, Glitch. He found the live feed from Marcus Thorne's vital signs monitor. Heart rate: a steady 65 bpm. Blood pressure: 120 over 80. Brain activity: deep, sedated REM sleep.
A stream of pure biological data. An asset. A living, breathing human being.
The System, his System, which saw the world in terms of finance and corporate structures, presented him with an option. It was an ability that had unlocked when he reached Level 2, one he hadn't dared to touch, an idea so audacious, so monstrously logical, that it made all his previous exploits seem like child's play.
It wasn't about killing his enemy. It wasn't about saving him.
It was about ownership.
He took a deep breath, the decision a cold, hard lump of ice in his stomach. The memory of seventeen dead faces flashed in his mind. This is how I stop them, he told himself, the justification a necessary armor for what he was about to do. This is how I win.
He focused his entire will, pouring every last drop of his remaining energy, drawing on the terrifying phantom credit line from his cosmic loan shark, and slammed it into a single, horrifying command.
[System Command: Initiate Hostile Takeover. Target: The Biological and Neurological Systems of Asset 'Marcus Thorne'.]
The moment he gave the command, a wave of agony unlike anything he had ever felt tore through him. It was not the grinding pain of [Energy Debt]. This was different. This was the pain of forcing his consciousness, his very identity, into a space it did not belong.
His System interface, usually a clean, blue dashboard, became a chaotic storm of conflicting data streams.
[Executing... Forcing System Handshake with Foreign Biological OS...]
[WARNING: Target's psyche is resisting intrusion. Primitive, ego-based defense mechanisms detected.]
Leo felt it then. He was not just hacking a computer; he was invading a soul. He could feel the swampy, narcissistic landscape of Marcus Thorne's subconscious mind pushing back against him. He felt Thorne's arrogance, his greed, his petty cruelties, all swirling around him like a toxic fog. It was a battle of wills, and Thorne's will, even in its sedated state, was a fortress of self-interest.
A sharp, searing pain exploded behind Leo's right eye. He cried out, stumbling back against the wall of the room, a hand flying to his face. Warm, thick liquid was trickling from his nose. Blood.
[System Alert: User is suffering from paradoxical feedback. Forcibly merging with a separate biological consciousness is a high-risk procedure. Sustained effort may lead to permanent psyche fragmentation.]
I don't care, Leo thought, gritting his teeth, the taste of blood metallic on his tongue. Push through.
He felt like he was trying to force a river to flow uphill. He poured more of his will into the takeover, his vision tunneling until the only thing he could see was the glowing progress bar on his interface.
[Acquiring... Controlling Interest in Target's Autonomic Nervous System... 10%...]
He felt Thorne's heartbeat stutter under his influence. He felt the rhythmic pulse of his lungs falter. It was a sickening, intimate violation.
[18%... Target's limbic system is fighting back... 22%...]
Fragments of Thorne's memories flooded Leo's mind. The smug satisfaction of stealing Leo's design. A secret meeting with a shadowy figure, accepting money to use substandard materials. A cold, dismissive thought about the "acceptable losses" of a potential structural failure. The sheer, unadulterated evil of the man's casual corruption was staggering.
The disgust gave Leo a new strength. He wasn't just conquering an enemy; he was evicting a parasite.
He pushed harder, the pain in his head reaching a crescendo. [35%... 41%...]
In the hallway, the Janitor had begun to move again. It recognized Julian as a threat, but its directive was Thorne. It raised a hand, and the petrified wall of the sealed room began to crack and crumble under its entropic touch.
"Sir," Julian's voice came, calm as ever. "The hostile's structural dissolution field is powerful. I can delay it, but I cannot contain it indefinitely."
"Just hold on," Leo gasped.
He focused everything he had left on the final push. He felt a final, powerful wall of resistance from Thorne's ego, and then, with a silent, psychic snap, it shattered.
The progress bar hit 51%.
[Acquisition Successful. You now possess a Majority Stake in 'Marcus Thorne'.]
[Neural, Autonomic, and Motor Control pathways are now rerouted through User's System.]
[New Asset Unlocked: [The Marionette]. User can now exert direct control over the motor functions and vocalizations of the target.]
The agonizing feedback loop in Leo's head ceased instantly. The storm on his interface cleared. He was left panting in the darkness, bleeding, exhausted, but in control. He felt a new connection in his mind, a new set of limbs he could twitch, a new pair of lungs he could command. It was horrifying. It was glorious.
In the hospital bed, Marcus Thorne's eyes snapped open. They were vacant, empty pools, his own consciousness now a prisoner in a locked room deep within his own mind.
Then, slowly, mechanically, he sat up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, pulling the IV from his arm with a detached indifference to the trickle of blood. He turned his head and looked directly through the crumbling wall, through the chaos, at the Janitor in the hallway.
And then, Marcus Thorne smiled. But it wasn't his smile. It was Leo's.
The Janitor finally broke through the wall, stepping into the room, its blue eyes glowing. It saw Thorne, standing there, smiling that impossible smile. Its internal logic stuttered. The target was awake. It was mobile. And it was projecting an energy signature that was both human and... something else.
"Threat detected," the Janitor's internal speakers crackled, its voice a synthesized monotone. "Sanitization protocol commencing."
It raised a hand, preparing to unleash its full entropic field on Thorne.
But Leo, through his new puppet, was already in motion.
[Marionette Command: Engage Hostile Entity. Execute Protocol: Controlled Demolition.]
Marcus Thorne's body moved with the jerky, unnervingly precise motion of a puppet on invisible strings. It didn't charge the Janitor. It charged the wall behind the hospital bed.
With a surge of bio-electrical energy directed by Leo's System, the Marionette slammed its shoulder into the wall right next to the room's main oxygen supply valve. The drywall crumpled, and the impact, delivered with supernatural force, sheared the thick copper valve right off its fitting.
A high-pitched, deafening shriek filled the room as pure, high-pressure oxygen began to vent into the enclosed space.
The Janitor's environmental sensors went wild. [Atmospheric Composition Altered. Oxygen Levels at 85%. Warning: Extreme Flammability.]
It recognized the danger, the classic setup for a fuel-air explosion. It turned to retreat back into the hallway.
But Leo was an architect. He never built a trap without a lock.
[Marionette Command: Secure Exit.]
Thorne's body, moving with that same unnatural speed, grabbed the heavy, metal-framed hospital bed and, with a grunt of impossible strength, wedged it into the hole in the wall, blocking the Janitor's only escape route.
The Janitor was now trapped in a small room that was rapidly filling with pure, highly combustible oxygen. It turned its glowing blue eyes towards the Marionette, a flicker of what might have been computational fury in their depths.
Leo, watching through Thorne's eyes, gave a final, cold smile. From his hiding place down the hall, he issued his last command to the building itself.
[System Command: Edit Object [Room 712 Ceiling Light Fixture]. Apply Concept: [Generate Spark].]
In the oxygen-saturated room, the simple, mundane light fixture on the ceiling gave a tiny, almost imperceptible click. A single, beautiful, blue-white spark jumped from a frayed wire.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the world turned white.