The Lounge had been designed to look comforting, almost luxurious enough to make people forget what had happened only minutes earlier.
Long tables stretched across the hall, filled with sweets, fruits, at dishes, warm breads, roasted food, and desserts arranged with the sa excess the Capital seed to enjoy displaying at every opportunity. Trays were replaced the mont sothing emptied, and drones moved silently between tables carrying drinks and fresh plates as if the death of thirty-three participants had no connection at all to the calm atmosphere being offered now.
For many sector survivors, the food imdiately beca more important than dignity.
The mont permission to eat was understood—even though no one had formally announced it—many participants moved toward the tables and began eating with little restraint. Hunger won over caution quickly, because for most of them, even the feast earlier had not erased years of eating whatever could simply keep a person alive.
Tansy, Rose, Victor, and Kennedy were no different.
Rose had already gathered sweets and small cakes onto one plate while still chewing sothing else. Tansy focused more on at and bread, though she kept glancing around as if half expecting another hidden rule to suddenly appear. Victor held a burger in both hands and ate carefully but quickly, while Kennedy had already taken a roasted lamb leg and tore into it with such force that the at disappeared in seconds.
To them, this was not greed.
It was honesty.
Because none of them had grown up seeing food offered like this without cost attached.
Tyler stood near them with a plate in hand but ate much less. His attention stayed mostly on the room itself.
He observed the survivors.
At the sa ti, he noticed sothing else.
Many of the others were watching Sector 11.
Not casually.
Repeatedly.
Victor noticed it too and lowered his burger slightly.
"Why do I feel like everyone is staring at us?" he asked, voice quieter than usual.
Kennedy bit another piece from the lamb leg and answered before swallowing.
"Well, we’re the only sector where all five survived, boy. Of course we’re the center of attention."
He spoke casually, but the truth behind it was obvious.
Out of fifteen sectors, many had already lost people in the very first ga. So sectors had only two survivors standing here now. So had three. A few had four.
Only Sector 11 remained untouched.
Victor sighed but did not look relieved.
"We barely survived the first ga," he muttered. "We might not survive the next one."
Kennedy imdiately nodded while still eating.
"That part is probably true."
Victor visibly flinched.
Before he could respond, another passing participant overheard them, carrying two plates stacked with food.
"Then at least don’t die on an empty stomach," the man said dryly before moving on.
That earned a weak laugh from Rose.
Then suddenly the atmosphere changed.
A female participant near one of the side tables dropped her plate.
The tal tray struck the floor sharply.
She clutched her stomach and bent forward.
"Oh no... my stomach... it hurts..."
The pain in her voice sounded real enough that nearby people stepped back instinctively.
Within seconds, several dical drones descended from the ceiling.
Their movent was fast, precise, and entirely chanical.
A compartnt opened beneath one drone, and a syringe extended automatically.
Tyler’s attention sharpened imdiately.
The drone injected a bronze-colored serum directly into the woman’s arm.
The reaction was instant enough to catch his full interest.
"Bronze d?" Tyler muttered under his breath.
He couldn’t bring the one he got from the sector. He just left those and their copies in Veena and Tansy’s house.
Inside Dr. Dan’s workshop, only bronze-grade dical injections had been available. So he took one. But here, through the partially opened drone compartnt, Tyler noticed sothing more.
Another syringe remained inside.
Silver.
The color difference was unmistakable.
The woman still groaned and held her stomach.
"Ow... it still hurts..."
The drone paused.
Then, without hesitation, the injector arm retracted.
Another chanical section opened.
This ti a weapon erged.
A short barrel rotated into position and pointed directly at her forehead.
The drone spoke in flat chanical tone.
"Since participant cannot participate, eliminate."
The woman’s face lost all color instantly.
"No, no—wait! I’m fine! I’m alright! Hahaha... just a little pain—see? I’m standing."
She forced herself upright imdiately, laughing too quickly while backing away from the gun.
The drone studied her for two seconds.
Then the weapon folded away.
The dical arm returned.
After scanning her once more, the drones rose and moved aside.
The tension in the Lounge loosened slowly, but no one forgot what they had just seen.
Even illness here could beco death.
Several participants shook their heads and returned to eating more carefully.
But Tyler’s eyes remained on the drones.
Quietly, Tyler lowered one hand near his sleeve.
The white fabric shifted slightly as nanobots loosened beneath it, exposing a small hidden syringe containing bronze liquid before sealing again.
Then he looked back toward the hovering drone now stationed near the side wall.
Tyler’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"I wonder if I can upgrade it," he muttered.
The drone remained hovering near the side section of the Lounge, inactive for now, its chanical sensors dimd while waiting for another ergency.
That was enough.
Tyler had already begun calculating.
Tyler waited until the attention inside the Lounge settled again.
The fallen participant had already returned to pretending she was perfectly healthy, though her hands still shook slightly every ti she reached for food. Most of the survivors were once again distracted by the tables, by hunger, by exhaustion, or by quiet conversations about what the next ga might be. Even those who had witnessed the dical drone nearly execute her were slowly forcing themselves back into ordinary behavior, because fear beca easier to bear when hidden behind movent.
That was exactly the kind of mont Tyler preferred.
He stepped away from Sector 11 people without attracting attention, moving casually toward the side of the Lounge as though simply looking for another table. His face remained calm, his posture loose, giving no reason for anyone to pay him extra attention.
But beneath the polished white suit, the nanobots had already begun moving.
The edge of his right shoe softened first, the outer material loosening at the front until microscopic silver strands gathered near the tip. Hidden inside that reshaped section was the bronze dical syringe he had concealed earlier.
He did not look down.
He only adjusted his pace slightly.
Then the nanobots acted.
The syringe shot silently from the tip of his shoe, low enough that no one nearby noticed. It slid across the polished floor in a straight line and stopped near the far edge of the Lounge where the light reflected strongly enough to make small objects easy for automated sensors to detect.
Exactly as expected, the hovering dic drone noticed it almost imdiately.
Its scanning lens turned.
Then it descended.
The drone moved quickly, lowering itself with chanical precision until one manipulator arm extended and picked up the fallen syringe from the floor.
No alarm sounded.
The system simply treated it as misplaced dical equipnt.
A small compartnt beneath the drone opened automatically.
The bronze syringe was placed inside.
The compartnt closed.
That was the mont Tyler had prepared for.
Because the syringe itself was no longer truly a syringe.
The outer shell broke apart first.
Then the bronze liquid within shifted.
Both transford instantly into nanobots.
The false bronze dicine had never been dicine at all —only nanobots arranged into perfect disguise.
Inside the drone’s compartnt, the hidden swarm moved fast.
They wrapped themselves around the silver syringe stored inside the drone, covering it before internal sensors could register abnormal motion. Then part of the swarm detached and reshaped into sothing much smaller.
A screw.
Tiny. Sharp. Rotating.
The improvised drill imdiately drove itself into a circuit line near the compartnt wall.
One precise puncture just enough damage to interrupt internal balance.
The drone’s systems reacted half a second later.
It twitched once in midair.
Then glitched violently. Its stabilizers failed. The machine dropped.
The impact against the floor produced a tallic crack loud enough to draw attention across the Lounge.
Several participants looked over imdiately.
Rose nearly stopped chewing.
Victor straightened in surprise.
Even nearby attendants turned their heads.
Above the control systems monitoring the Lounge, mbers of the ga operations team saw the sa event through surveillance feeds.
One technician frowned briefly at the screen.
"Probably so malfunction," he muttered.
No one sounded alard.
The Capital trusted its systems too much to fear a single drone failure.
Within seconds, two other drones descended, collected the fallen machine, and carried it away with practiced efficiency. Another small cleaning unit followed behind, wiping the floor so quickly that even the crack left by impact vanished.
The Lounge returned to normal almost imdiately.
People resud eating.
Conversation returned.
No one considered the fallen drone important enough to rember for long.
Tyler waited.
He did not move too quickly.
Only after the drones left did he casually cross the area where the malfunction had happened.
To everyone else, he was rely walking past polished white flooring like any other participant.
But one tile beneath his foot was not entirely floor.
A second thin layer sat above the original tile, so perfectly camouflaged that even direct light failed to reveal it. It had been placed there monts earlier— The sa nanobot which broke the drone, flattened into exact color and texture after the drone had fallen.
The instant his shoe touched it, the false tile dissolved.
Silver threads flowed upward.
They rged seamlessly back into the edge of his shoe.
And hidden within that returning swarm was the real prize.
A silver dical syringe.
Tyler continued walking without pause.
The shoe restored itself completely before he reached the next table.
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