The silence in the factory felt like a physical presence, thick and suffocating. The ghost of Silas haunted the space, not as a memory, but as an absence. The loud noises from the machines had been a lie, a stage set for a play with no actors, designed solely to demoralize them. And it had worked. Standing in the greasy, echoing vastness of the decommissioned unit, Davon felt a cold, heavy weight settle in his chest, a mixture of failure and a deep, personal rage. They had been played, again.
Claire stood a few feet away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, not against the chill, but against a deeper cold. Her professional composure was a thin veneer over a well of frustration and shared guilt. She stared at the dormant stamping press, its massive, frozen jaw a monument to the Archit
