The next morning, Zajin woke to the sound of metal scraping against metal.
He opened one eye.
Scrape.
Pause.
Scrape.
For several seconds, he simply stared at the ceiling, his mind still somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Then the unfamiliar ceiling slowly brought yesterday back to him.
P53 Hotel.
The broken Sphere.
Castor.
And, somehow, the fact that he had slept through an entire night without waking to the sound of someone trying to kill him.
That last part still felt suspicious.
Zajin rolled onto his side and checked the time on his damaged wrist device.
06:18.
"Too early, to be early."
He pulled the blanket over his head, hoping the noise would disappear with it.
It didn't.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Zajin slowly lowered the blanket and stared at the ceiling again.
"...Seriously? That noise is bothersome."
With a tired groan, he finally sat up.
The room looked exactly as he had left it. His belongings were scattered across the floor and the small table beside the bed, casualties of the crash and the hurried repairs he'd been working on. His damaged Runner footwear rested beside his pack, while his Vitality armor sat partially disassembled, its outer plates removed so he could inspect the damaged connections.
He had planned to finish repairing everything yesterday.
Instead, he slept.
Again.
Zajin rubbed the sleep from his face and glanced at the mess around him.
"At least I'm consistent."
He reached for his jacket, pulled it on, and stepped into the hallway.
The temperature dropped immediately.
Cold air drifted through the cracks in the walls, carrying the faint smell of dust and old machinery. Most of the hotel's lights remained dead, leaving only a handful of weak lamps along the ceiling to illuminate the corridor. Somewhere below, the building's aging machinery hummed steadily through the walls.
And there it was again.
Scrape.
Zajin followed the sound downstairs.
When he reached the lobby, he found Castor exactly where he seemed most comfortable: in the middle of fixing something that had probably stopped working years ago.
The old manager was kneeling beside one of the hotel's damaged power conduits. A section of the wall had been opened, exposing a bundle of old wiring, and Castor worked patiently with a pair of worn tools as though the ruined building around him were perfectly normal.
"You're awake early."
Castor didn't look up.
Zajin leaned against the reception desk.
"Your fault."
"My fault?"
"You've been scraping metal for the past ten minutes."
Castor paused.
"I have?"
"Yes."
"I suppose I should apologize."
"You should."
Castor returned to his work.
Zajin watched him for a moment, his eyes following the careful movements of the old man's hands.
"You actually sleep?"
"Sometimes."
"That sounds unhealthy."
"Coming from the man who slept through dinner?"
Zajin's expression changed.
"...You noticed?"
"I run a hotel kid."
"There's like three people here."
"One of them still needs dinner."
Zajin stared at him.
Castor finally looked over his shoulder.
A faint smile appeared.
"Breakfast will be ready soon."
Zajin sighed.
"You really are a manager."
"That is generally how it works."
---
By seven in the morning, Zajin was sitting at one of the old diner tables with a cup of hot tea in front of him.
He stared at it.
Then at Castor.
Then back at the tea.
"You had tea?"
"Yes."
"Where did you get tea?"
"In the storage."
"You have tea?"
"I have many things."
"You said this place was practically abandoned."
"But I never said it was empty."
"That didn't helped manager."
Castor sat across from him.
"Because I like tea."
Zajin narrowed his eyes.
"That's your explanation?"
"Yes."
"Suspicious."
"Well, you're free to leave."
Zajin looked at the tea and took a sip.
"It's good."
"What kind of a gentleman I am if the tea I'm drinking is bad."
"Well, I suppose you're right."
Then silence settled over the table.
It wasn't the uncomfortable kind Zajin had become accustomed to. In the world outside, silence usually meant something was wrong. It meant someone was hiding, watching, waiting. It meant the next sound might be a gunshot.
Here, there was nothing.
Just the quiet clink of a cup against an old table and the distant hum of the hotel's machinery.
Two people eating breakfast.
That was all.
Zajin let his gaze wander around the diner.
Despite the cracked floor and the age showing through almost every surface, the room was kept surprisingly orderly. The old tables had been arranged with care. Several chairs had clearly been repaired with whatever pieces of metal Castor could find. Even the counter, battered and discolored by years of use, still held functioning equipment.
It was strange.
The building was falling apart.
Yet someone kept fixing it.
Not perfectly.
Just enough to keep it going.
Zajin looked toward the ceiling.
"How long have you been here?"
Castor's hand stopped around his cup.
"A while."
"How long is a while?"
"Long enough."
Zajin smiled slightly.
"You always answer questions like that?"
"When they're unnecessary."
"Then I'll ask necessary ones."
Castor raised an eyebrow.
Zajin pointed toward the lobby.
"Why keep repairing this place?"
Castor looked toward the dark hallway.
For a moment, something distant passed across his expression. It was gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
Then he answered.
"Because it still stands."
Zajin waited.
Castor continued.
"And because leaving everything to rot doesn't make the past disappear."
The words settled between them.
Zajin didn't reply.
There was something behind that answer. Not an explanation exactly, but the shape of one. Something Castor had no intention of handing over simply because Zajin had asked.
He could have pushed.
Instead, he looked back at his tea.
He knew he shouldn't.
---
After breakfast, Castor took Zajin downstairs.
There was no hidden chamber waiting beneath the hotel, no secret facility concealed behind some false wall. It was simply an old maintenance area, forgotten beneath layers of dust and years of neglect.
Shelves lined the walls.
Batteries.
Old tools.
Spare mechanical parts.
Broken weapons.
EQUI components.
Some of the equipment was so old that even Zajin couldn't identify what it had once been used for.
He stopped in front of the shelves.
"You weren't joking."
"I rarely joke."
"You definitely joke."
"Not intentionally."
Zajin reached toward one of the shelves and picked up a small EQUI core.
It was old, but intact. Its casing carried scratches and discoloration from years of storage, yet the component inside still appeared functional.
He turned it over in his hand.
"This could stabilize my armor."
"Yes."
"How much?"
Castor looked at him.
"Nothing."
Zajin immediately put it back.
"Theres no nothing manager."
Castor sighed.
"You need it."
"I said I'll pay."
"With what?"
Zajin opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Castor nodded.
"See."
"But I can work for it."
"You already are."
"Huh?"
"You're staying here, that's plenty."
Zajin frowned.
Castor walked toward another shelf, his fingers moving through the collection of old components as though he knew exactly where everything belonged.
"You wanted an EQUI core. I have one. You need repairs. I have tools. You need somewhere to sleep. I have rooms."
He looked back at Zajin.
"So use them as you please."
Zajin crossed his arms.
"You make it sound easy."
"It is."
"No, it isn't."
Castor said nothing.
Zajin looked down at the core again.
"I don't like owing people."
"I didn't ask you to owe me."
"Then what do you want?"
Castor considered the question.
"Nothing."
Zajin laughed once.
"That's impossible."
"Then perhaps you'll understand when you're older."
"That's the worst answer I've heard today."
"It is still early."
Zajin shook his head.
But he took the EQUI core.
---
The rest of the morning disappeared into repairs.
Castor didn't take over the work.
Instead, he showed Zajin what needed to be done, explained why certain connections mattered, and handed the tools over to him. Whenever Zajin made a mistake, Castor let him discover it himself.
It became obvious quickly that Castor wasn't merely familiar with old technology.
He understood it.
There was a difference.
He knew which components could still be trusted, which ones had degraded beyond repair, and which supposedly useless pieces could be salvaged if someone understood what they were looking at.
Zajin wasn't used to learning from someone.
Most of what he knew had come from necessity.
If something broke, he learned how to fix it because the alternative was dying.
Castor approached it differently.
He taught him to understand the equipment before touching it.
When Zajin connected the wrong stabilizer, the armor gave a violent spark.
Zajin jumped backward.
"Fuck!"
Castor calmly reached over and disconnected the power.
"Wrong contact."
"I noticed."
"You noticed after the explosion."
"Still counts."
Castor almost smiled.
Almost.
They continued.
By noon, Zajin's Vitality armor was functioning again.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
He tested the arm mechanism.
The plates moved smoothly, responding without the sluggish hesitation they'd had before.
His wrist display flickered several times before finally stabilizing.
VITALITY OUTPUT: 71%
Zajin stared at the number.
"That's better."
"You'll need more than seventy-one percent."
"For what?"
Castor looked at him.
"For wherever you're going."
Zajin looked away.
"I'm looking for data."
"Data of what?"
"The data from the Sphere."
Castor's expression didn't change.
But his eyes did.
Only for a second.
Zajin didn't notice.
"I'll leave once everything's ready," Zajin said.
Castor nodded.
"I expected that."
There was no disappointment in his voice.
That somehow made Zajin feel worse.
"You don't want me to stay?"
"You're a Pilgrim."
"So?"
"You're supposed to keep moving."
Zajin smiled.
"Exactly."
Castor returned to his tools.
But after a moment, he said:
"Just make sure you know where you're going."
Zajin looked at him.
"I usually don't."
"I see."
Castor left a small laugh.
---
That evening, Zajin returned to his room.
The repaired equipment sat beside his bed, looking considerably more reliable than it had that morning. His pack remained open on the floor, waiting to be filled again.
He began putting everything back.
Food.
Tools.
Ammunition.
EQUI core.
A few spare parts.
Then his hand stopped.
Something was missing.
Zajin looked around the room.
"Where's that thing...?"
He searched beneath the bed.
Nothing.
Under the table.
Nothing.
He opened the pack again, checking each compartment more carefully.
Still nothing.
Then he remembered.
The crash.
The chase.
The explosion.
His bag had been thrown everywhere when he hit the hotel.
He had collected most of his belongings afterward.
Most.
Zajin left the room.
He walked through the hallway and descended toward the lobby, the faint sound of his repaired equipment shifting against his clothes with every step.
Castor was behind the reception desk, reading an old book.
"Castor."
"Yes?"
"Did you see anything when I crashed here?"
Castor slowly closed the book.
"What kind of thing?"
"A cylinder."
That got his attention.
Barely.
But Zajin saw it.
Castor reached beneath the desk.
He placed something on the counter.
A metal cylinder.
Small enough to fit inside one hand.
Old.
Smooth.
There were no obvious markings except a strange symbol etched near one end.
Zajin's expression changed.
"The KEY."
Castor looked at him.
"You know what it is?"
"I found it months ago."
Zajin picked it up carefully.
The device felt heavier than it looked.
He turned it over.
"I thought I lost this."
"You nearly did."
Zajin looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"When you crashed into the hotel, this was thrown out of your bag."
Castor tapped the cylinder.
"It landed near the glass window and was about to fall off, but then I saw it before I even followed you at the rooftop when we first met."
Zajin stared at it.
"Why didn't you ask about it?"
Castor's eyes remained on the device.
"You didn't seem ready to talk about it."
Zajin became quiet.
That answer bothered him.
Not because it was suspicious.
Because it was considerate.
He looked down at the KEY.
"There was a message inside."
Castor said nothing.
"A holographic message."
"From whom?"
"I don't know."
Zajin's thumb moved across the cylinder.
"It was about the Sphere."
For the first time since Zajin had met him, Castor's expression completely disappeared.
No smile.
No calm.
Nothing.
"About the Sphere?"
"Yeah."
Zajin looked toward the broken windows of the lobby.
Outside, the ruined city was slowly disappearing beneath the evening dust.
"I've been trying to understand what happened."
Castor watched him.
"To the Sphere. To the world. Everything."
Zajin closed his hand around the KEY.
"And if I can find the truth, maybe I can find something that actually helps everyone."
Castor's eyes lowered.
"Everyone?"
"Not just the people inside the Sphere."
Zajin looked at him.
"Everyone."
The word remained between them.
Castor leaned back in his chair.
For a moment, he didn't look like a hotel manager.
He looked tired.
Older than he had seemed yesterday.
Then he smiled.
It was small.
Real.
"You really are a strange Pilgrim."
Zajin grinned.
"I get that a lot."
Castor opened his book again.
"Go get some sleep."
"Why?"
"You'll need it."
"For what?"
Castor turned a page.
"Tomorrow."
Zajin stared at him.
Then laughed.
"You really like that word, don't you?"
Castor didn't answer.
Zajin returned to his room.
The door closed.
The hotel became quiet again.
Castor remained behind the desk.
His eyes stayed on the closed door.
Then they moved to the empty space where the KEY had been.
He knew that cylinder.
He knew exactly what it meant.
And he knew something Zajin didn't.
The Sphere had not forgotten the KEY.
It had only been waiting for it to appear again.
But to Castor, it looks more like the sphere is chasing it.