Chapter 2

The warehouse clock seemed to have stalled. I stared at the green code dancing on the terminal; I knew there were less than ten hours left until the nuclear winter threshold. If I was a sacrificial victim in my previous life, then this time, I was the only survivor holding a golden ticket.

Outside, the cacophony of cursing continued as Gregg and Miller tried to round up reinforcements. Their thudding against the gate sounded like a funeral drum, but to my ears, these sounds were merely the death rattles of men marked for execution.

"Jack! You bastard, I swear I’ll skin you alive!" Miller shrieked from outside, followed by the impact of heavy equipment against the door frame.

I ignored them, my fingers flying over the keyboard. My target: the supplies marked as "High-Priority Outbound"—bulk military-grade vacuum-sealed rations, multifunctional industrial heating cores, and a complete, deep-space-grade air purification system. These goods were scheduled to leave for a rotting corporate terminal in three hours.

Now, they were mine.

I used my administrator credentials to execute a "System Lockdown Protocol," masking the location code of these supplies as a "Non-Existent Zone" in the database. Simultaneously, I overrode the bottom-layer logic of the automated sorting system. The conveyor belts that should have been sending goods into the city reversed, and tons of supplies climbed through hidden vertical lifts, ascending to the summit—the abandoned "Cloud Warehouse" accessible only via maintenance ducts.

Watching the terminal confirm the supplies as "Sealed and Archived," a cold smile surfaced. That pig Gregg would never understand that his own greed became the foundation of my fortress.

But it wasn't enough. I needed the most critical tool—the high-precision industrial surveillance drone, sealed on the rafters above the warehouse rafters. It was the only light I’d seen through the ventilation shafts when I died last time; it would be my "eye" now.

The maintenance room was at the peak of the north rafters, forty meters in the air, with high-voltage busbars coiled beneath like giant pythons. I took a deep breath and pushed open the dust-caked door.

A gale roared in through the shattered skylights, sounding like a wild beast’s whine. Removing my heavy work coat, I started to climb, using the rusty handrails of the maintenance racks.

The metal frame groaned under the neglect of years, trembling enough to shatter one's resolve with every step. It was a height guaranteed to pulverize anyone who fell. I held my breath, moving with the lightness of a beast at the edge of an abyss. I had to clear a three-meter gap—the "Death Jump" between the two high racks. It was the stuff of maintenance-worker nightmares. I had heard stories of men who fell here, landing like burst beanbags on the concrete below, red and white splatter everywhere.

Run. Jump.

The wind shrieked. It felt as if the air itself tore as I leaped. All logic and fear of death were jettisoned. My fingertips hooked onto the cold beam across the gap; the sharp metal edge sliced into my palm, neural pain exploding instantly. I let out a low growl, engaging my core, and vaulted onto the beam like a dragon.

Before I could exhale, a pair of red circular optical sensors lit up in the bay below.

Damn it! Tactical patrol bots!

I froze, pulling my body into a ball, plastered against the icy steel. Two red-eyed bots were scanning along their pre-set tracks. Blue electric arcs danced on their antennae; if they identified any "threat signal" not labeled as inventory, they would discharge high-voltage currents.

Time stretched. The bot lingered directly beneath me for five full minutes, its red scanning laser playing over the racks. I could smell the burnt-toast stench of their overheating electronics. Sweat slid from my brow, but I stared into the void, forcing myself not to make a sound.

The suffocation overlapped with the shadow of my death; I again saw the hallucination of my own life force leaking away in that elevator shaft. A cold laugh bubbled up; the flames of vengeance burned hotter.

Finally, the bot turned away, patrolling toward the south wing.

I leaped, snatching the drone. Its cold chassis felt solid and reassuring in a world about to collapse. On the way back to the security room, I dodged every camera and wiped the system logs clean.

Sitting at the command console, I watched the warehouse panorama on the screen, feeling the thrill of rewriting the rules. In this entire space, there was only the sound of my own breathing.

I initiated the backup lockdown scenario. The warehouse lights extinguished one by one under my command, leaving only the faint red glow of the surveillance points. In this massive, modern iron tomb, I would personally seal the lids for those exploiters.

"Gregg, Miller," I watched the two men still screaming at the door, my heart undisturbed. "You want this warehouse? Excellent. I’m handing it over to you completely—along with the hell about to follow."

I moved the master toggle to "Global Lock." With a low, heavy thud, every physical exit and interior window of the warehouse was fused shut from the inside.

Fortress Embers is now officially declared complete.