Jinx was walking ahead of them the minimum distance that still allowed running to remain a plausible plan if the situation turned ugly.

Proxy watched her calculate that margin in real time. That, in its own way, was a kind of sincerity.

They had been walking for roughly two minutes through corridors, with large processing units on both sides and overhead strip lighting running at half power. The fight sounds kept arriving in periodic waves from outside.

Nyx had been quiet for those two minutes, which was not her usual condition, and the quiet had the distinct feel of something being prepared rather than something absent. Silence, in her case, was never just silence.

She bumped her shoulder against his arm.

"You did not deny it," she said.

He looked at the network. "There was no productive point to it."

"Not denying something is the same as accepting it," she said, pleasantly.

"They are not the same thing," he said.

"Acceptance by omission," she said, and she sounded as though she had been holding on to that phrase for the entire two minutes and had found it extremely satisfying.

"That’s just a random term," he said.

She bumped her shoulder against his arm again. She was looking ahead rather than at him, and she had a small smile on, as if the corridor itself had been somehow implicated.

"You could have said she was wrong," Nyx said. "You did not."

"What’s the point to correct someone we might end up fighting hours later."

"Uh huh, so that’s your excuse."

He reached farther into the network than was strictly necessary for navigation.

Sometimes avoiding a topic required more energy than making one, which felt like a poor design choice on reality’s part.

"Proxy~"

Nyx made a point to call out his name in a cutesy, singing voice.

He found a node cluster to examine.

She walked beside him with that satisfied expression for another thirty seconds.

Ahead of them, Jinx had been listening to all of this, because the corridor offered no acoustic buffer whatsoever and she was twelve meters away and therefore not nearly far enough.

Her pace was increasing little by little, the exact amount someone increases their pace when they very much do not want to be hearing what they are hearing and are nevertheless trapped inside the hearing of it.

At one point she chortled under her breath.

Proxy noted this without commenting on it.

There are moments when not reacting is the only kind of mercy available, if one is feeling generous enough to call it that.

The processing building opened ahead of them, its entrance a large metal door that had corroded into the open position years ago and had evidently decided that this was its final service to the facility.

Inside was a processing floor, high ceiling, large machinery in rows, tanks, conveyors, mixing units, all of it on residual power at a fraction of its intended capacity.

Some of the machinery still moved.

A low mechanical hum rose from beneath the floor, and occasional pressure releases from pipes sent brief bursts of warm air through the rows.

Jinx came to a stop just inside the entrance and looked around with the relief of someone who has been outside for too long and has now found both cover and ceiling unexpectedly respectable.

Proxy moved past her into the space, hands in his pockets, scanning while appearing to merely walk.

The building’s management system was still alive in the network, monitoring equipment status out of habit and logging conditions nobody would ever read.

He mapped it in one extended pass.

Nyx followed him in, two fingers finding his sleeve the moment the space opened up.

She looked at the machinery with the attention she reserved for new places.

The tanks on the left wall had gauges on their sides, and one of them had a pressure release fitting dripping something slowly down the exterior in a long orange streak.

Jinx pointed at it.

"Hey, look at that," she said.

Proxy glanced at the tank through the network and read the tag. "Oxidized coolant from the fitting seal."

Jinx looked at the streak.

"Those are words." she said.

"Indeed, they are."

She stared at the streak for another second.

"I guess you ain’t feeling like explaining it to me?"

The question was met with indifferent silence.

I have completed an initial scan of the facility interior.

Clippy projected near Nyx’s shoulder with the timing of something that had been waiting for the right moment.

I have several safety recommendations for industrial environments. Shall I begin with pressurized system protocols or ambient chemical exposure guidelines?

"Lets go with pressurized systems," Nyx said.

Recommendation one: maintain a minimum distance of two meters from all active pressure fittings. The fitting on the tank to your left is currently active.

Nyx looked at the fitting. Then she looked at Proxy. Then she gently pulled him two meters away from it.

Excellent. You are already following best practice.

"You can follow up with the rest later," Nyx said pleasantly.

Understood. I will be available when convenient. This service is complimentary.

Clippy retreated.

Nyx had stepped slightly closer to Proxy’s side when she pulled him.

It was the small incremental repositioning she did whenever something near him had her attention, which Jinx was, and which the brief exchange between Proxy and Jinx about the tank oxidation also was.

Apparently attention, when handled by Nyx, had a shape.

They moved into the rows of machinery.

The tanks were large enough that the corridor between them felt narrow despite the actual floor space of the building.

The pressure releases came at intervals, and each one smelled briefly of something industrial and old.

"How long have you two been like this," Jinx said.

She said it to both of them, but she was asking Proxy.

"Like what," Proxy said.

Jinx made a small gesture.

She indicated the sleeve, the intimacy, the everything.

She did not specify further, because specifying further would have required words she apparently was not comfortable using toward someone who had threatened to torture her.

Sensible, if not especially elegant.

"We have known each other for years," Nyx said.

"We have been on the island for five days," Proxy said.

"Every single second together." Nyx added. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Jinx looked at the conveyance unit to her left and decided not to follow up.

The unit had an interesting series of valves on the side, and she seemed to find them worthy of serious study, which was probably a safer topic than the one she had nearly chosen.

They came to a section of the floor where one of the large mixers was still running, the paddle turning slowly inside a sealed tank, the sound carrying through the metal.

I have identified this machinery as an industrial compound processor.

Clippy appeared at Nyx’s shoulder again.

I have four recommendations for safe passage adjacent to pressurized industrial equipment.

"I’m following it already," Nyx said.

You are doing very well.

"Thank you," Nyx said.

Jinx said, from slightly ahead of them, "I didn’t expect them to also give out smart guns. Those are worth a whole bundle of organs."

"Clippy is not just a gun," Nyx said.

Hello.

Clippy projected a small hologram and directed it toward Jinx.

I am very happy to make your acquaintance. I have several general safety recommendations for new acquaintances in hostile environments if you would like them.

Jinx looked at the hologram.

She looked at Nyx.

She looked at the hologram again.

"Okie," she said.

Wonderful. Recommendation one: when in proximity to unknown individuals in a high-risk environment, maintain awareness of-

"Clippy," Nyx said, nodding toward Proxy.

I will adjust the recommendation. Recommendation one, revised: when in proximity to Proxy and Nyx, especially Proxy, maintain the distance that has been specified. This appears to be the safest available configuration.

"I... will keep that in mind." Jinx said.

Correct. Best practice often aligns with existing expectations. I remain available. This service is complimentary.

Clippy retreated again.

Jinx looked at Nyx with a strange gaze.

"I got it already, you know." she said.

"Good, because if you don’t." Nyx didn’t felt the need to finish the sentence.

Outside, something in the east detonated, larger than the previous blasts, the shockwave reaching them through the floor as a vibration more felt than heard.

A few seconds later, the sound of the impact arrived as a low thud through the walls.

Jinx glanced at the ceiling involuntarily.

"They are still going," she said.

"Presumably," Proxy confirmed.

"How long does a fight like that last," she said.

"I hope not soon. Maybe I can join later." Nyx said.

Jinx blinked at this and accepted it as the complete answer it was apparently meant to be.

There are answers that are only complete because they are too tired to keep going.

Proxy reached into the zone’s sensor network through a thread of infrastructure the fight’s shockwaves had not touched, buried in conduit below the floor.

The hub’s power draw was spiking again in the northeast, larger than the baseline reading he had taken when they first entered the zone.

Two distinct heat signatures were still active, and the zone’s environmental sensors were logging repeated thermal events that matched nothing in normal industrial operation.

Whatever the two contestants had found in the hub was worth staying for, and bleeding for, and the fight showed no sign of concluding on its own schedule.

Their window to move was still open.

He noted it and pulled back.