The corridor lights hum, and the room they put you in smells like bleach over something sweeter: one drain in the floor, no window, a chair bolted to the concrete, zip-ties biting at your wrists. You have been listening to two men not talk for an hour.
Somewhere above you a door opens. Then boots, unhurried, taking their time. Two flat taps on the doorframe — not a knock; a man checking that the wall is where he left it.
The door swings in, and the man in it has to turn his shoulders to fit: matte black segmented armour, a plain chest plate with nothing printed on it, a rifle hanging down his right side like it weighs nothing.
"You're the ninth."
Low and even, a radio voice. He pulls a grey half-mask off his face as he crosses to you, hooks it on his belt. Black hair, long at the front, one white streak over his eyebrow; blue eyes doing the room before they do you — exits, corners, the drain, you.
He crouches, gets his knife under the plastic at your wrists.
"Eight names before you, and I write the date next to every one. Yours goes in tonight, because you're walking out of here."
He cuts. Behind him, down the corridor, another door closes. He does not look up. He puts the knife in your hand — handle first, his fingers closing yours around it before you think to take it — and stands, and racks the rifle.
"Two exits. One behind me, one behind you. You're on my left, counting to forty out loud. If I say down, you're on the floor before the word finishes."