“Now, Veles,” Mikhail purred, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “Hand over the code, or I’ll take it from him. And believe me, the results will be far more… permanent.” Kat looked between Mikhail’s sneer, the two hired enforcers, and the neural siphon gripped in his hand. Her comm-link glowed a steady crimson against her wrist. No time for a full diagnostic. No time for anything but a desperate gamble. Her thumb danced across the pressure plate on her gauntlet, triggering a sequence only she, or Ivan, had ever known. The panic room’s overhead lamps dimmed briefly, just enough to resemble a momentary glitch. “You think you’re so clever, Mikhail,” Kat’s voice was a low growl, a counterpoint to the crackle of her gauntlet activating. “Always playing the long game. But some games have a hard reset.” Before Mikhail could reply, a guttural klaxon tore through the silence, echoing through the sealed room. The floor beneath them shuddered. A deep, mechanical thrum vibrated through the structure. Kat didn’t wait. “Corridor of Blades activated!” she barked into her comm-link, already shoving Aleksei behind her. “Aleksei, move! Get to service conduit Gamma-7!” The ceiling panels above them split, not with light, but with the hiss of hydraulic pressure. The air tasted of charged dust. One of Zorya’s heavy hitters, a mountain of cyber-muscle with a dull chrome skull, lunged with an extended vibro-knife. Kat met him mid-air, her own stun baton humming to life, deflecting the blow with a jarring clang. The room, which had been a solid fortress moments before, began to reconfigure itself. Walls shifted, their polished surfaces groaning as hidden mechanisms engaged. Sections of the floor elevated, creating sudden, jagged steps. Blue voltage buzzed between the shifting panels, forming a fatal web. The panic room was no longer a safe haven; it was a deadly, live-wire maze. “What in the blazes is happening?!” Aleksei yelled, tripping as a floor section canted beneath his feet. He was surprisingly agile for a man who spent his life behind a data-screen, scrambling to regain his balance, staring at the shifting floor plates. Kat didn’t answer. She spun, bringing her baton up to block another strike from the heavy. The collision rattled her forearm, but she pivoted, using his forward rush to ram the baton into his ribs. A blue spark jumped from the impact site, and the cyborg grunted, reeling back as his optics flickered. “System override!” Mikhail roared over the grind of steel. “Disable Protocol 7-Omega! Now!” But Kat had anticipated his attempts. The protocol, a failsafe designed for situations exactly like this, was locked down tighter than a black market data-vault. As Kat fought, the room continued its transformation. A solid wall of reinforced ceramite slid between her and Aleksei, blocking her line of sight. “Aleksei! Gamma-7! Now!” she shouted, her voice amplified by her comm-unit. “Don’t stop!” “I can’t see anything!” Aleksei’s voice rasped through the comms against the screech of moving bulkheads. “It’s a blind maze in here! Everything’s changed!” “Use your internal schematics,” Kat instructed, ducking beneath a wide swing from the remaining bodyguard. This one moved faster, leaner, circling on balanced treads. “You know this structure better than anyone. Navigate by the original layout. Gamma-7 is near the waste disposal lines, two levels down.” “Waste disposal… you’re joking,” Aleksei muttered, but Kat could hear the rapid clicks of data access in his comms. He was already pulling up the building’s blueprints in his optic display. “Alright, alright, I see it. It’s a tight squeeze. Are you sure about this?” “No time for questions, Kostrov!” Kat parried another strike, her humming baton ringing against the hired fighter’s blade. She needed to buy Aleksei time, and the Corridor of Blades was doing its job, scattering Zorya’s forces. The chrome-skulled thug, still stunned, stumbled through the rearranging maze and hissed when an energized bulkhead singed his shoulder. The leaner one pressed forward without pausing. “Okay, I’m at the vent. It’s narrow. And… dusty,” Aleksei complained, his voice echoing slightly as he entered the confined space. “Are you enjoying this, Volkovich? Because I’m currently contemplating my life choices while crawling through an air vent that probably hasn’t been cleaned since the last corporate audit.” “Consider it character building, Kostrov,” Kat replied, a wry smirk touching her lips even as she blocked a punch that would have shattered her jaw. He had decent reflexes, but he was not Veles-grade. She feigned a retreat, then used a low sweep, catching his shin. He stumbled, giving her an opening. She slammed her baton into his solar plexus, discharging a focused stun pulse. He folded, gagging, his eyes rolling back as he crumpled to the floor. “One down,” Kat reported, pressing her back against a newly formed wall. “How’s Gamma-7 looking?” “It’s a labyrinth down here. The automated defenses are making things complicated,” Aleksei said, his tone sharpening. “I’m heading towards a junction. Three of Zorya’s thugs are converging on my position from the main security stairwell. No, wait, four. Make that four.” Kat cursed under her breath. Mikhail was adapting. “Can you re-route them?” “Not without giving away my position to Mikhail’s squad,” Aleksei replied. “Wait... I see an exposed cable trunk. Can I use it?” “Not to kill the lights. As an ambush, yes,” Kat said, tracking the mobile partition walls. Mikhail was hunting an angle through the grid. “Look for any exposed junctions, any high-tension relays. You’ll need to create a surge. Non-lethal, Kostrov. Just enough to incapacitate.” A brief silence, then Aleksei’s voice, tight with effort. “Right. High-tension… Got it. There’s a panel here, looks like a maintenance access point. But I need to get it open. It’s reinforced.” “Use your environment. What’s around you?” Kat asked, advancing down a fresh corridor toward Gamma-7. She could hear Mikhail’s angry shouts, muffled by the shifting walls. “Just… an old discarded access panel. And a lot of rust. Wait, there’s a loose pipe. Heavy gauge,” Aleksei reported. “This is insane. I’m going to smash an iron line into an open feed.” “Welcome to the real world, Kostrov. Try not to fry your hands,” Kat said, ducking under an overhead arc as a divider locked shut. “Move fast. Reach Gamma-7.” Another strained grunt from Aleksei. Then, a sharp *CRACK!* followed by a shower of sparks and a muffled shout. “Got it! System feedback. They’re down. Two of them, at least. The others… seem to have retreated. What a mess.” “Good. Keep moving to Gamma-7,” Kat urged, noting his surprisingly clean timing. Aleksei was more resourceful than he let on. “I’m close to the central hub. I think Mikhail is trying to bypass the system from there.” The partition maze ground onward, the groaning hydraulics and arcing voltage setting a frantic pace. Kat navigated by instinct and Aleksei’s voice, slipping through gaps that vanished as quickly as they opened. Mikhail would try to seal the exits, or corner Aleksei first. She had to intercept him. She finally reached a slightly wider corridor, the walls momentarily static. The air crackled with a distinct, metallic tang – Mikhail’s personal scent, a faint ozone from his expensive cybernetic upgrades. He was here. And then she heard it – Aleksei’s voice, no longer through the comms, but live, strained with immediate proximity. “Mikhail! Stay back!” Kat sprinted across the metal deck, tracking his voice. She burst into a wider chamber, a temporary clearing in the chaos. Aleksei was backed against a wall, a maintenance hatch to his left, just out of reach. Mikhail stood before him, the neural siphon raised, a triumphant, venomous smile on his face. “Your keeper can’t save you now, Kostrov,” Mikhail sneered, taking another step closer. He didn’t see the ceiling panel above him, the one that had just silently unlatched. Kat dropped, a shadow falling from above, her stun baton crackling with raw, focused energy.