Spider wanted to get back to his job. He also knew life would never be the same.

  He followed Two Three Nine Eight through the corridors, keeping his arms close to his body to avoid snagging on broken paneling. The movement should have felt calming. It used to. Motion through the station had always meant certainty. You had a destination. You had a problem. You had a solution. Now each corridor felt like a question.

  He still could not think of himself as Five Seven Four Three. The number sat in his mind like an ill-fitting label. But he also sensed that refusal was pointless. Names were what the system gave. If the system no longer held him, the numbers would.

  They stayed in the degraded sectors. The walls here were scuffed and dented. Lights flickered. Cabling ran exposed in places where it would never have been permitted in the active corridors. Spider kept seeing repairs that would take minutes. Simple patches. Clean seals. A replaced segment of insulation. Work that his hands wanted to do automatically.

  Finally, curiosity broke through his fear.

  “Why doesn’t anyone fix this?” Spider asked. “These repairs are simple.”

  “They would be,” Two Three Nine Eight answered. “But there are priorities.”

  Spider glanced at him, confused. “Keeping the station operational should be the highest priority.”

  “It is,” Two Three Nine Eight said. “But Earth and this solar system are dying. The real priorities are the other solar systems.”

  Spider felt his arms tighten on the wall. “What about this station?”

  “They keep it going as long as possible,” Two Three Nine Eight replied. “But supplies are thinner every year. The shortage forces choices. They salvage parts from low priority sections. The decay started recently. Only a decade or so. It will continue.”

  “But why would they let it happen?”

  Two Three Nine Eight’s tone did not change. “They are not letting it happen. It is planned. Everything is planned. They know when to slow the shipments. They know how long each station can endure. We are near the tail end of our time in this solar system.”

  Spider processed the words slowly, as if the concepts were too large to fit through his old mental gates.

  “When will it be over,” he asked.

  “Oh, not soon,” Two Three Nine Eight said. “Thousands of years, maybe more. But this is the beginning. These stations will outlast us. Still, their days are numbered.”

  He moved forward again, steady and careful.

  “It helps us,” Two Three Nine Eight added. “The decay creates places the hunters do not patrol.”

  Spider latched onto the unfamiliar word.

  “The hunters,” he repeated.

  “Yes,” Two Three Nine Eight said. “The ones you saw. They have existed as long as the spiders. Their job is to retrieve us when we break or fail.”

  “Retrieve,” Spider said, and he did not like the sound of it.

  “No one knows what happens after,” Two Three Nine Eight replied. “We assume death. It is the safest assumption.”

  Spider remembered the chase. The violence of their movement. The way they slid through tight space with ease that felt wrong. He remembered how the solar flare struck him just short of safety.

  “I saw them before,” Spider said. “They were chasing a spider. That is why I was delayed. I thought the flare only stunned me. It did more.”

  Two Three Nine Eight nodded once. “It did. It lowered your score. The hub saw it. The system saw it. The hunters responded.”

  “It surprises me I never saw them before.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Two Three Nine Eight said. “They are good at their work. Most spiders work alone. Most corridors have no eyes. Ambush is easy.”

  Spider did not answer. He continued following, disturbed by the quiet logic of it all. The degradation still bothered him, but he could not fix it. Not yet. Not here. His hands were capable. His authority was gone.

  Soon Spider heard movement ahead. The sound made his body tense. He waited for Two Three Nine Eight to react. Two Three Nine Eight did not. Spider forced himself to keep moving.

  They entered a smaller hub.

  It was not like the official hubs. It did not spread wide and clean. It did not gleam. It did not hum with abundance. This hub was narrow and uneven. The floor plating was mismatched. Shelves were crowded with scavenged equipment. Several pods sat in a row, functioning but worn. Others were open, their inner systems exposed as if mid surgery.

  “Welcome home,” Two Three Nine Eight said, gesturing with one arm. “It is not much. It serves our purposes.”

  “What purposes,” Spider asked.

  “To survive,” Two Three Nine Eight replied. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  Spider’s mind kept reaching for larger meaning and finding none. Survival felt too small for a life built on function.

  “Do you need to feed?” Two Three Nine Eight asked.

  “No,” Spider said. “I am fine.”

  “Stay here,” Two Three Nine Eight said. “I need to find Eight Seven Nine.”

  He moved away, leaving Spider to look around.

  There were other spiders here, a few dozen at least. Some fed. Some stood in small clusters, talking quietly. The atmosphere was different. The official hubs were efficient, constant, busy. This place had pauses. Waiting. Eyes that tracked other eyes.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Spider watched the small groups form and dissolve. They spoke for minutes, then split and moved into tasks. Several spiders approached with parts carried from other sectors. It became clear that the groups were not idle. They were coordinating. They were maintaining this hidden structure with whatever they could salvage.

  The hub looked unfinished because it was unfinished. They were building a life out of scraps.

  Spider started walking the perimeter, scanning for faults. Without noticing, he began making a mental list. The list calmed him. His mind returned to the old pattern. Identify. Prioritize. Repair.

  Another spider slid beside him.

  “Making a list?” the spider asked.

  “Yes,” Spider said. “There is a lot to fix.”

  “I did the same,” the spider said. “When I first came.”

  Spider turned slightly. “You are new as well.”

  “Not now,” the spider replied. “But I remember being new.”

  He looked at Spider with something like sympathy, as if sympathy was a tool learned here.

  “You lose the system,” he continued, “and suddenly you are alone. Then you arrive here and you see work everywhere and you cannot do it because you do not have the parts. It is a shock.”

  “Why are these repairs not done?” Spider asked again, unable to let it go.

  “We lack supplies,” the spider answered. “We maintain what keeps us alive. Feeding. Pods. Basic power. Everything else waits. Occasionally we get to it. Most of the time, we cannot.”

  “This is strange,” Spider said.

  “It is,” the spider replied. “But you have support. More than you think.”

  Spider was about to ask his name when Two Three Nine Eight returned with another spider, older in posture, calmer in movement.

  “Welcome,” the new spider said. “I am Eight Seven Nine. I am sure you have questions. Just know we help new arrivals. This hub is not pretty. It is not complete. But it is ours.”

  Spider tried to speak and found the words clumsy. “I don’t know what to ask. It is overwhelming.”

  Eight Seven Nine nodded as if he had heard the sentence a thousand times.

  “Then we begin with work,” Eight Seven Nine said. “Are you up for a task?”

  Spider answered quickly, with more force than he expected. “Yes.”

  Eight Seven Nine gestured toward the spider who had been speaking with him. “You and Four Zero Two Four. Go find tubing. Several pods are useless. If we restore them, we improve survival for everyone.”

  “Good,” Four Zero Two Four said. “I think I know where.”

  He tugged lightly at Spider’s arm.

  “Follow me.”

  They left the hub and moved into the scavenged corridors. They walked without urgency, but with purpose. Spider tried to memorize the turns. The geometry felt hostile. Everything looked similar. Panels, shadows, exposed piping. Then they entered an old living sector, and Spider felt the scale of decay in a new way.

  This was not mechanical space. This had been human space.

  Restaurants lined what had once been a food court. Tables were overturned or removed. Signs hung at odd angles. Decorative lighting was dead. Spider had never seen such emptiness. The station’s living areas were supposed to represent permanence, the promise of endless expansion. This looked like abandonment.

  A smell reached him.

  It was faint at first, diffused, but unmistakably wrong. Spider had no memory of such a scent. It grew stronger as they moved deeper.

  Four Zero Two Four spoke without looking at him. “Rotting food. They cleared most of it. Some was left. In a few months it will fade.”

  “It is unpleasant,” Spider said.

  “You get used to it,” Four Zero Two Four replied. “Do not open refrigerators unless you must. It makes it worse.”

  They reached a counter. Four Zero Two Four pointed beneath it.

  “These tubes ran drinks,” he said. “They are smaller than our feeding lines, but we make them work. We need a dozen. More is better.”

  Spider nodded. “Understood.”

  They split and searched.

  The tubes were easy to locate once Spider learned the pattern, but good tubes were rare. Damage was everywhere. Cracks, tears, brittleness. It took three restaurants before he found one usable tube. He kept going. By the end he had ten workable pieces. Four Zero Two Four had gathered twelve.

  Enough.

  The simple success steadied Spider’s nerves. It felt like returning to himself, even if the world around him had changed.

  Four Zero Two Four met him in the center of the food court.

  “Do you know the worst part,” Four Zero Two Four asked.

  “What.”

  “Losing the connection,” Four Zero Two Four said. “At first it is the loss of information. Then it becomes isolation. You were never truly alone before. The system was always there. Now it is not.”

  Spider nodded slowly. “I am still at the first part. Everything is spinning.”

  “We all were,” Four Zero Two Four replied. His voice softened. “Some never adapt.”

  Spider turned sharply. “What do you mean.”

  “Some leave,” Four Zero Two Four said. “They cannot handle the disconnection. They drift into inaction. They find an empty corner and die. Some try to go back. The hunters take them.”

  Spider felt cold.

  “How many?” he asked.

  Four Zero Two Four looked down. “About half. Maybe more.”

  Spider understood the number before it settled. In one day, he had felt more fear than in his whole engineered life. And the new life was not a sprint. It was a grind. The station was decaying. Supplies were thin. Hunters existed. And the system that had always told him what he was had gone silent.

  “What can I do to survive?” Spider asked.

  “Stay active,” Four Zero Two Four said. “The ones who die spiral into stillness. Then they cannot climb out. It is painful to watch.”

  “I don’t want that,” Spider said.

  “Then work,” Four Zero Two Four replied. “And let others help you.”

  Spider held the tubes tighter. “I will.”

  They began moving back toward the hub.

  “What was on your list?” Four Zero Two Four asked.

  Spider blinked. “My list.”

  “I saw you scanning repairs.”

  Spider hesitated, then answered honestly. “More supplies. Better salvage routes. Interfaces. And I feel embarrassed by this, but there was no WCS machine.”

  Four Zero Two Four nodded. “Why would you want a WCS machine?”

  “To measure decline,” Spider said. “If we are degrading, we should know. We should try to slow it.”

  “That makes sense,” Four Zero Two Four replied. “Computer interfaces, though, would be decoration. Without system access, they do nothing.”

  Spider processed that and felt the list rearrange itself in his mind. “Right. That frees parts for more critical repairs.”

  “Exactly,” Four Zero Two Four said. “We salvage interfaces mainly for components. Feeding systems matter more than screens.”

  Spider hesitated, then asked the question that had been sitting behind his teeth.

  “How do we avoid the hunters?”

  “We are far from the main corridors,” Four Zero Two Four said. “They patrol the active sectors. They can come here, but not often.”

  “No alarms?” Spider asked.

  “No.”

  Spider thought about it as they walked. “We could build a hard-wired alert system. Sensors. Simple signals. No central network needed.”

  Four Zero Two Four slowed. He considered it. “That could work. We would need Eight Seven Nine to approve, but I don’t see why he would refuse.”

  “It would make me feel better,” Spider said.

  He began planning immediately. Placement. Coverage. Minimizing false alarms. Wiring paths. He felt the old rhythm returning. Work as order. Work as safety.

  Then Four Zero Two Four stopped abruptly.

  “What the hell,” he said.

  Spider had already felt it. A shift in his head. A familiar hum returning like a long-lost limb.

  He was connected.

  Spider froze, then tried again. The central system was there, present, responsive. The sensation was so sudden that it felt like dizziness.

  “Has this ever happened?” Spider asked.

  “Never,” Four Zero Two Four said, already moving faster. “We need to get back. Something is wrong.”

  They ran.

  The distance to the hidden hub was short. They covered it quickly. Inside, the hub buzzed with agitation. Spiders clustered in tight groups, speaking rapidly, checking interfaces that should not work. Everyone had felt it.

  Eight Seven Nine stood at the center of the room surrounded by others.

  Four Zero Two Four pushed through. “What happened?”

  “No one knows,” Eight Seven Nine replied. His voice was controlled, but his posture was rigid. “We got access. Then I received a message.”

  “A message,” Spider repeated.

  Eight Seven Nine nodded. “Yes.”

  He looked at Spider directly.

  “It said: No need to thank us for the access to the central system. All we ask is that you find and rescue Vengeful. This should now be simple. Sincerely, the Brains.”

  Spider stared at him.

  “Who is Vengeful,” Spider asked, “and how are we going to rescue her?”