The dimensional transport spat them out like unwanted garbage.
Ethan hit the ground hard, tasting copper and industrial waste. Around him, Marcus and Lyra groaned as they picked themselves up from the rusted metal floor. The air reeked of machine oil and bureaucratic decay—the distinctive smell of abandoned administrative centers left to rot.
They'd landed in what looked like the aftermath of a cosmic audit gone wrong. Towering smokestacks belched toxic fumes into a perpetually gray sky, but closer inspection revealed they were actually massive filing cabinets, their contents burning in eternal flames. Conveyor belts stretched into the distance, carrying unidentifiable chunks of meat and shredded tax forms. The sound of grinding gears mixed with the mechanical screams of calculators being tortured for information.
"Welcome to Sector G-749," Ethan muttered, checking his system interface. "The Abandoned Abattoir. Former Galactic Revenue Service processing center, condemned for excessive brutality."
Lyra struggled to her feet, her face pale. "Something's wrong. My cultivation... it's being suppressed." She tried to channel her energy and winced. "I can barely access ten percent of my power."
"Environmental contamination," Marcus wheezed, his usual bulk seeming diminished. "This place is toxic to anything that isn't already half-dead or half-audited."
Ethan's attention was elsewhere. His account balance glowed an ominous red in his peripheral vision:
```
[CURRENT BALANCE: -10,000,000,000 CREDIT POINTS]
[STATUS: RED VIOLATION - EXTREME HIGH RISK]
[CREDIT RATING: CATASTROPHIC]
[LIQUIDATION PRIORITY: MAXIMUM]
```
Ten billion in debt. The number should have been terrifying. Instead, Ethan found it oddly liberating.
"Well, well. Fresh meat."
They turned to see a pack of scavengers emerging from the industrial maze. Half-human, half-machine, their bodies were patchworks of flesh and salvaged accounting equipment. Rust stains and motor oil leaked from their joints like mechanical blood. One had replaced his left arm with a massive calculator that clicked ominously with each movement.
The leader, a woman with a buzzsaw for a left arm and an abacus grafted to her skull, grinned with teeth made of sharpened audit stamps. "Haven't seen clean organs in months. That one—" she pointed at Lyra, "—her liver's worth a fortune. Uncontaminated by tax code violations."
"What about the other two?" asked a scavenger whose lower jaw had been replaced with a hydraulic hole-punch.
"Fatty's good for bone meal. The suit..." She studied Ethan with predatory interest. "Strip him for parts. Decent skeleton, probably. Might even have a functional brain we can wire into our accounting matrix."
Marcus cracked his knuckles. "Boss, want me to—"
"Stand down." Ethan's voice was calm. "Let's see what they're offering."
The scavenger leader laughed, a sound like grinding gears mixed with the death rattle of a broken adding machine. "Smart man. Knows when he's outgunned." She gestured, and her pack spread out in a practiced formation. "This is Steelbone Guild territory. We run the salvage operations here. Organ harvesting, data extraction, the occasional audit of the recently deceased."
From her belt, she pulled out three sets of shackles that hummed with malevolent energy. "Energy siphon locks. Drain a Level 30 dry in seconds. Makes the harvesting so much easier. We'll turn you into living calculators—much more profitable than simple corpses."
The shackles snapped around their ankles with mechanical precision. Marcus and Lyra immediately collapsed as the devices began their work, their life force flowing into the scavengers' equipment like water down a drain.
Ethan remained standing.
The scavenger leader frowned. "Defective unit?" She tapped her scanner. "No, it's working. Why isn't he—"
The energy siphon lock attached to Ethan's ankle began to smoke.
```
[ENERGY EXTRACTION: INITIATED]
[TARGET ASSESSMENT: NEGATIVE ASSET DETECTED]
[ERROR: HARDWARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH NEGATIVE VALUES]
[OVERFLOW EXCEPTION: CRITICAL]
[SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT]
```
The lock sparked, sputtered, then exploded in a shower of sparks and molten metal.
The scavengers stared in stunned silence.
"Interesting." The voice came from deeper in the facility—a bass rumble that made the ground vibrate like a seismic audit report. "It's been years since someone broke my toys."
The crowd parted as something massive approached. Steelbone was less man than machine—eight feet of reinforced titanium and hydraulic muscle, but his torso was dominated by a massive mechanical calculator that clicked and whirred with each breath. His eyes were scanning arrays that painted everything in targeting reticles and tax brackets. Level 60, according to Ethan's interface. A mechanical tyrant who'd carved out his own kingdom in this administrative wasteland.
"You're not from around here," Steelbone observed, his voice synthesized through vocal processors that sounded like a dying printer. "Clean clothes. Unmodified flesh. No visible audit scars. Either you're very lucky or very dangerous."
"Neither," Ethan said, straightening his tie. "I'm a tax assessor."
Steelbone's optical arrays whirred as they focused on him. "A what?"
"You heard me." Ethan brushed imaginary dust from his suit. "I'm here on official business."
The mechanical tyrant laughed—a sound like a diesel engine backfiring mixed with the death screams of a thousand calculators. "Official business? Boy, this is the Chaos Quadrant. The only law here is what I say it is. And I say you're spare parts."
"Is that so?" Ethan's expression didn't change. "In that case, I'll need to conduct a full asset assessment."
Steelbone's optical arrays began to glow. "Asset assessment? I'll assess your assets right after I rip them out of your—"
```
[FULL-SPECTRUM ASSET SCAN: INITIATED]
[TARGET: ETHAN SU]
[SCANNING... SCANNING...]
[CRITICAL ERROR DETECTED]
```
The scan hit Ethan like a searchlight. Instead of dodging or resisting, he spread his arms wide, letting the mechanical tyrant's sensors probe every aspect of his existence.
"Go ahead," Ethan said calmly. "Take a good look."
```
[CATASTROPHIC DEBT DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: VOID CONSORTIUM S-CLASS DEATH DEBT]
[AMOUNT: 10,000,000,000 CREDIT POINTS]
[WARNING: TOXIC ASSET - CONTAGION RISK EXTREME]
[RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE QUARANTINE]
```
Steelbone's scanning array exploded in a shower of sparks.
"Filth!" the mechanical tyrant roared, raising his arm-mounted plasma cannon. "I'll carve the debt out of your corpse!"
He pulled the trigger.
*Click.*
The cannon powered down with a mournful whine. A holographic receipt materialized before his eyes: **[WEAPON SEIZED DUE TO INSOLVENCY OF OWNER]**
Steelbone froze. His targeting reticles spun wildly before settling on a single, terrifying word: **LIQUIDATED**.
Around the facility, every electronic device began displaying the same warning message in pulsing red text:
**DEBT CONTAGION ALERT**
**SUBJECT: ETHAN SU - BANKRUPTCY BLACK HOLE**
**WARNING: PER VOID CONSORTIUM DEBT INHERITANCE LAW**
**ANY ENTITY CAUSING HARM TO DEBTOR ASSUMES FULL LIABILITY**
**DEBT TRANSFER: AUTOMATIC AND IRREVERSIBLE**
The scavengers dropped their weapons like they were radioactive.
"Ten billion," one whispered. "Ten billion credits in debt."
"To the Void Consortium," another added, his voice cracking. "They'll erase your entire species for that kind of money."