Thalos moved deeper into the Ribs.
The noise of the Marrow Market faded behind him. The air grew colder. The smell of fried food and ozone was replaced by the scent of old dust and stagnant air.
He was entering the Dead Sector.
This was the area where the Titan's ribs curved inward to meet the sternum. There were no hab-blocks here. No neon signs. Just calcified white bone rising hundreds of meters into the dark smog like cathedral pillars.
It was silent.
[Perception Check: Passed.]
Thalos did not stop walking, but his grip tightened on his knife handle inside his pocket.
Footsteps.
They were faint, but clumsy. Someone was trying to match his walking rhythm to hide their own sound.
He had been followed since he left the Apothecary.
It was Vex. The thug had not taken the humiliation well. He had likely gathered two or three low-level enforcers and trailed Thalos, convinced that a "miner" spending big credits must have a secret stash hidden in the wasteland.
Let them come, Thalos thought. They cannot follow where I am going.
He stopped in front of a massive, concave section of the rib wall. To anyone else, it looked like a dead end. A smooth, seamless wall of white bone.
But Thalos had the [Gecko Grip]. His fingertips were sensitive to vibrations and texture.
He ran his hand along the wall. The bone here felt artificial. Cold.
He pulled out the [Corroded ID Chip].
He did not know where the scanner was, so he pressed the chip against the wall and dragged it slowly across the surface.
Hummmm.
A hidden mechanism vibrated deep within the wall. The white bone shimmered, revealing it was actually a layer of bio-synthetic camouflage. A seamless panel slid open, revealing a rusted, ancient terminal.
[System Interface Detected]
[Scanning Keycard...]
[User: Dr. Aris (Status: Deceased/Missing)]
[Clearance: Red.]
Clack-Hiss.
A blast of stale, pressurized air hit Thalos in the face. It did not smell like the Pits. It smelled of sterile chemicals and death.
A heavy blast-door, concealed perfectly within the bone, groaned and began to slide upward.
"Gotcha!"
The shout came from behind him.
Thalos turned slowly.
Vex stepped out of the shadows about twenty meters away. He was holding a jury-rigged nail gun. Two other thugs stood behind him, holding heavy pipes.
"I knew it," Vex grinned, his cybernetic jaw clicking. "Secret stash. You holding out on the Vermilion Gang, rock-eater?"
Thalos glanced at the opening door, then back at Vex.
"Go home, Vex. You do not want to be here."
"I go where the money is," Vex spat. He raised the nail gun, aiming at Thalos's chest. "Step away from the door. We will take it from here."
Thalos looked at the dark void beyond the door. His instincts were screaming at him. The Predator Essence he had consumed was warning him that this wasn't a vault. It was a cage.
"Fine," Thalos said.
He stepped backward. Into the darkness of the open door.
Vex blinked. "Hey! I said step away!"
Vex sprinted forward, greedy to get inside before the door closed. He thought Thalos was trying to grab the loot first.
But as Thalos crossed the threshold, the ancient sensors inside the room flared to life. A red laser grid swept over his body.
[Alert: Unauthorized Biological Contaminants Detected.]
[Containment Protocol Initiated.]
The heavy blast-door did not just slide down. It slammed shut with the force of a guillotine.
BOOM.
It sealed inches from Vex's face.
Thalos heard a muffled curse from the other side, followed by the dull thud-thud-thud of Vex banging on the thick metal.
Then, silence.
Thalos was alone.
He turned around and the red emergency lights flickered on.
He wasn't in a stash house. He was standing on a metal catwalk suspended over a massive, cylindrical chamber.
Below him, rows of glass tanks the size of buses were lined up. Most were broken, their fluids long drained. But a few were still intact, glowing with a faint, sickly green light.
Inside the nearest tank, floating in the preservation fluid, was something that looked like a Tunnel-Stalker. But it was wrong.
It had metal plates grafted to its skin. Its claws were replaced with mechanical blades. Tubes ran into its spine.
It was a lab.
[Location Discovery: The Titan's Appendix (Bio-Weapon Research Lab 4)]
[Warning: Atmospheric Toxicity High.]
Thalos walked to the railing and looked down.
On the floor of the lab, among the shattered glass and old skeletons, something moved.
It wasn't a monster. It was a Drone. A small, spherical machine hovering over a corpse, scanning it with a blue laser.
Thalos realized the terrifying truth. The monsters in the Pits weren't just parasites. They were escaped experiments.
And he was now locked inside the cage with the prototypes.
[Quest Generated: The First Ascendant]
Objective: Locate the Pure Ichor Well at the center of the Lab.
Secondary Objective: Survive.
Reward: Evolution (Tier 1).
Thalos drew his Bone Blade. The red emergency light reflected off the serrated edge.
"Time to eat," he whispered.