A guttural, almost liquid hum now resonated from the central cryo-core, a sound Mantas had only ever heard simulated in his most ambitious models. The reading in his Safe Quarters plummeted, settling at a crisp 10°C, a stark contrast to the oppressive heat of moments prior. On his console, the ‘Cryo-Core Output’ dial surged, pushing past the green into a vibrant, almost alarming blue. Ruta’s confession had not merely stabilized the system; it had inundated it. Icy vapor still curled from the ventilation grate in her cell, visible even on the grainy feed, clinging to her hair and dampening the sparse, brutalist walls. She shivered, but it was from cold, not fear. Mantas tracked her feed, his smirk fading, replaced by the calculating gaze of an engineer observing an unpredictable experiment. This was too much. The apparatus had gorged itself, but on what exactly? He pulled up the 'Synaptic Guilt Index' readings. Tadas’s needle, a faint green, wavered at a consistent 0.4. Oskars’s, a deeper emerald, held steady at 0.9. Ruta’s, however, was off the charts, flickering violently between 4.0 and 6.0, an intensity Mantas hadn’t thought possible. The sheer volume of her guilt, tied to a systemic betrayal of Zemyna itself, was staggering. The core hummed, satisfied for now, but Mantas knew better. Geothermal stability wasn't a static achievement; it was a continuous battle against entropy. So too, he suspected, was the core mechanism's hunger. He tracked the 'Chamber Gradient Decay' graph, a line that usually climbed steadily. Now, it was a flatline, even dipping slightly. But as the minutes stretched, he saw it. A minuscule, almost imperceptible upward tick. The machine was no longer draining the cryo-core; it was *maintaining* it. And maintenance, Mantas knew, required constant input. Not a single, grand confession, but an ongoing state of penitence. The coolant surge from Ruta’s revelations would eventually dissipate, just like any other energy source. The Kardiak manifold demanded a perpetual offering, a living, breathing sacrifice of penitence. The thought settled in his gut, cold and heavy. Meanwhile, in his own Cooling Ward, Oskars Berzins observed his surroundings with the sharp, predatory focus of a scavenger. The air had turned bitterly cold, the kind that made his breath cloud. He studied the small digital display on the wall above his cot. It showed ‘Sector Temp: 8°C.’ A few minutes ago, it had been a balmy 25°C. Then the chime had rung, a deafening clang that vibrated through the steel floor, followed by the instant rush of icy air. He remembered the previous chimes: a softer one when the skinny, sniveling brother had gone quiet, and a louder, more sustained peal when his own past atrocities had been laid bare. Each chime, he noticed, corresponded with a drop in temperature, with a stronger chime bringing a more significant chill. He stared at the braided lead wrapped around his arm, the thin fiber-optic cables snaking into the wall. It pulsed faintly, a soft green light. This contraption, it ran on guilt. And the colder it was, the better. He flexed his wrist, testing the restraints. Mantas, in his haste, had been sloppy, perhaps unnerved by the loan shark’s reputation. The straps were tight, but not impossible. Oskars had broken out of worse. He’d learned long ago that fear was a tool, but so was desperation. And right now, the cold felt good. He needed to keep it this way. His eyes scanned the ward. The walls were smooth, unyielding metal. The door, a heavy blast-plate, sealed tight. But the couplings… they were the key. He tugged, gently at first, then with increasing force. The straps chafed, but the metal buckles held. He needed leverage. He rolled onto his side, pressing his shoulder against the wall, then pushing his arm outwards, leveraging the sheer mass of his body. A small *click* echoed in the silent ward. The buckle holding his left arm to the chair had given way, its cheap alloy bending under the strain. He worked on the other, grunting with effort, the cold air burning his lungs. Another *snap*. Free. Oskars stood, stretching his limbs, a grimace of satisfaction on his face. He tested the door, pushing against it. Solid. But then he looked at the intercom panel next to it. A single, large button. He'd seen Mantas use something similar on the main feed to open the airlock. He pressed it. Nothing. He pounded on it, a rhythmic thud against the heavy door. Still nothing. His gaze drifted to the other ward, visible through a small, reinforced window. Tadas, pale and gaunt, lay slumped on his cot, the cranial lead still attached. Mantas’s brother. The weak one. The one who had wailed about his innocent daughter to get in. *Useless*, Oskars thought, *unless…* A new idea sparked in his calculating mind, chilling him more than the frigid air. The system didn’t just reward *old* guilt, it reacted to *new* guilt. A fresh atrocity. Something committed right here, in the bunker. Something that would make him feel that satisfying plunge of remorse, that would keep his sector frozen. He looked at Tadas, then back at the door. It was locked from Mantas’s end, but the inter-ward connection… if the doors weren’t completely isolated. He slammed his shoulder into the door again, not to open it, but to listen for any give, any resonance that might indicate a weakness. Nothing. He paced, his mind racing. Then he spotted it: a discarded maintenance panel, partially ajar, near the floor in the corner of his ward. Mantas, distracted by the inflow of new occupants, must have overlooked it. Inside, a tangle of conduits, including a thick data cable for the inter-ward communication. A crude thought formed: if he couldn't get *out*, perhaps he could reach *in*. He found a loose piece of metallic conduit, snapped it off, and began prying at the panel. It yielded with a shriek of tortured metal, revealing a small, dark access tunnel connecting the wards – designed for maintenance bots, not men. It was cramped, barely wide enough for his shoulders. He squeezed through the tunnel, the rough-hewn rock scraping against his clothes. It was a short crawl, leading directly into Tadas’s ward. Tadas stirred, his eyes fluttering open as Oskars emerged from the dark opening like a beast from its lair. Tadas drew back his chin, trying to recoil, but his restraint held him fast to the cot. Oskars wasted no time. He stalked forward, a grim smile on his face. “You want to stay cold, boy?” he rasped, his voice a low growl. “You gotta earn it.” He grabbed Tadas by the hair, yanking his head back. Tadas cried out, a pathetic, strangled sound. Oskars delivered a vicious blow to Tadas’s temple, the impact echoing dully in the confined space. Tadas slumped, blood trickling from his ear, his body convulsing. Oskars hit him again, harder, a primal satisfaction blooming in his chest. This was real. This was fresh. This was *his* doing. The rush of adrenaline, the sickening crunch of bone, the sheer, unadulterated cruelty of it all – it was intoxicating. He felt a profound, satisfying surge of guilt, not the distant, faded guilt of past misdeeds, but a hot, visceral shame for the agony he was inflicting. It was perfect. And he felt the air around him turn instantly, bitingly cold. [WARNING: NEURAL OVERLOAD DETECTED. COOLANT FLUX AT CRITICAL LEVELS.] Mantas gripped the console lip in the Safe Quarters. The security feed showed it all: Oskars’s violent escape, his brutal assault on Tadas. The image of his brother, crumpled and bleeding, made Mantas’s stomach churn. But even as revulsion seized him, his engineer’s eye darted to the console. The ‘Cryo-Core Output’ dial, which had begun its slow descent, suddenly shot upwards, past the vibrant blue, into a deep, shocking violet. The thermal levels in both Oskars’s and Tadas’s wards plummeted, dropping to an unbelievable -5°C, visible as a dense fog on the monitor. Oskars, standing over Tadas’s bleeding form, shivered, but it was with a chilling satisfaction. He had done it. He had gamed the system, manufacturing his own shame through fresh atrocity, and the core had rewarded him with an immediate, terrifying blast of cryo-energy. Mantas stared at the monitors, piecing together the data: the apparatus didn't care about the *source* of the guilt, only its *intensity*. Oskars had found a way to weaponize sin, turning the very mechanism of penance into a tool for his own survival, and for Mantas, a new, unbearable choice was forming.

Manufactured Remorse