Hiroki—or T-109, as he now had to remind himself—pushed open the door to his assigned workspace. The room was dimly lit, filled with the low hum of machinery and the scent of oil and metal. It was supposedly a maintenance office, but the cluttered space offered no real indication of what maintenance actually entailed. Tools lay scattered on a workbench, but they were strange, almost nonsensical in design, their purposes as inscrutable as the factory itself.
As Hiroki stepped further in, he was greeted by a small, wiry man with bright eyes and a thin, almost eager smile. The sight of the supervisor triggered something automatic in Hiroki’s mind. Remember the training. Smile in front of a superior.
So he did, pulling his lips into the grin he had rehearsed. The supervisor’s smile in return was less forced, more fluid. There was something oddly comforting in that. Hiroki’s own smile softened, became less rigid, though a flicker of confusion crossed his mind. Why did the man’s ease of expression comfort him? He couldn’t quite place it.
“Welcome, welcome!” the small man exclaimed, his voice bright and rapid. “I’m K-9987, your supervisor. So pleased to have fresh hands aboard. We’ve been running thin on manpower lately, the job demand is just... well, you know.”
Hiroki nodded, though he wasn’t sure he did know. “What exactly is our job demand?” he ventured cautiously, hoping for clarity.
“Oh, you know, it’s maintenance... upkeep... making sure everything runs smoothly,” K-9987 said, waving his hands vaguely as if that explained everything. “We ensure the... continuity of operations, the optimization of output.” His words flowed in loops, each explanation folding back into itself until Hiroki found his head nodding along as though it all made perfect sense. The words were hollow, but they filled the silence, and that seemed to be enough.
Satisfied with Hiroki’s apparent comprehension, K-9987 beamed and gestured to the other two occupants of the room. “Let me introduce you to your new team. This here is T-1717.” He pointed to a girl about Hiroki’s age, her mousy face framed by loose strands of dark hair. Her skin had a warm, amber hue, but there was a quiet, almost withdrawn look in her eyes. She nodded once in greeting, her expression inscrutable.
“And over there, we’ve got K-9,” the supervisor continued, nodding toward a man who looked to be in his early thirties. K-9 wore a worn-out cap that shaded his eyes and a faded, greyed shirt that had seen better days. He fit seamlessly into the factory’s dreary aesthetic, his posture relaxed yet alert.
As Hiroki glanced over, he caught K-9’s gaze lingering on him. There was something there—something that hovered just beyond understanding. It was as if K-9 was studying him, searching for a clue or waiting for a signal Hiroki didn’t know how to give. The moment stretched, taut and silent, before K-9’s lips curved into a slow, almost reluctant smile. Hiroki returned it, though his own felt awkward, uncertain.
Hiroki sat at his newly assigned desk, the surface cluttered with strange, unmarked tools and a collection of parts that looked as though they belonged to a machine no one had ever seen. As he tried to orient himself, K-9987 perched on the edge of the desk, grinning widely. In the span of seconds, Hiroki noticed, the man had wolfed down five donuts, barely pausing to breathe.
“So,” Hiroki ventured, trying to make sense of the chaotic energy in the room, “why are you so excited to have me here? I mean... why now?”
K-9987’s eyes gleamed, and he leaned in conspiratorially, powdered sugar dusting his lips. “Ah, well, see... we never hire new people. Not usually, anyway. As a matter of fact, the last new hire before you?” He pointed a sticky finger across the room. “That would be K-9 over there.”
At the mention of his name, K-9, who had been halfway into the storage room, stiffened. For a fleeting moment, Hiroki thought he saw the man give a quick salute, but K-9’s back was already turned, disappearing deeper into the shadows.
“Alright, T-109,” K-9987 said, straightening up with a clap of his hands. “Time to earn your keep. Your task for today is simple. You’ll be assembling and disassembling this mechanical part here. Easy, right?”
Hiroki glanced at the small, jagged object set in front of him, its purpose unclear. Still, he nodded as though it all made perfect sense. “Right, got it.”
Satisfied, K-9987 moved away, humming to himself. K-9 reappeared, carrying a similar machine part, his face expressionless as he set to work with quick, practiced motions. T-1717, without a word, was already deep in her own task, her hands moving in a steady rhythm as she assembled, then disassembled, the same piece over and over.
Hiroki tried to focus on his own task, but the rhythmic clanking of metal against metal was almost hypnotic. He glanced up just in time to catch K-9 shooting him a quick, searching look. But before Hiroki could interpret it, K-9’s gaze had already dropped back to his work, his hands moving with mechanical precision.
Across the room, K-9987 was licking his fingers clean when his stomach suddenly let out a loud, rumbling growl. His face flushed a deep red. “Ah! Looks like nature’s calling, and let me tell you, she’s not the patient type,” he said with a forced laugh. Without waiting for a response, he bolted for the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind him.
For a moment, Hiroki just stared at the closed bathroom door, listening to the muffled sounds on the other side. The room felt strangely quieter without K-9987’s manic energy. Hiroki turned his attention to T-1717. She remained focused on her task, her expression unreadable as she assembled and disassembled the same part with clockwork efficiency.
He then shifted his gaze to K-9, whose hands moved in a blur, his eyes never leaving the task in front of him. But Hiroki could feel it—K-9 was aware of him, watching from the corner of his eye. The man’s glance was brief, almost imperceptible, but it carried a weight Hiroki couldn’t quite decipher.
Hiroki took a deep breath and turned back to his own work. Assemble. Disassemble.
Hiroki tried to focus on his work, fitting the jagged pieces together and taking them apart again, but the task was mind-numbing. The dull repetition made his thoughts wander, and that’s when he heard it—the first sound. A deep, rapturous noise, like someone wrestling with a particularly stubborn piece of machinery, followed by a theatrical, drawn-out moan.
Hiroki paused, glancing at the closed bathroom door where K-9987 had disappeared moments before. The noise stopped, and with a shrug, Hiroki returned to his task. But no sooner had he set a bolt into place than the noises started up again. This time, they were louder, more emphatic. The moan was almost musical, rising and falling like some bizarre opera.
Trying to ignore it, Hiroki turned back to his work. Assemble, disassemble. But each time he found a rhythm, the raucous sounds from the bathroom would break it. Another groan, this one a lamenting wail, filled the room, accompanied by a series of dramatic thuds.
Hiroki couldn’t help it—a chuckle escaped him. The absurdity of it all was starting to tickle some part of his mind that had been too tense for too long. He tried to stifle the laugh, but when the next moan came, accompanied by the words, “Oh, Ambressa! If only you loved me, I would never have suffered these donuts!”—Hiroki let out a genuine burst of laughter.
He turned to K-9, who was still methodically working on his piece, unaffected by the bizarre serenade. “Hey, uh... is the supervisor going to be okay in there?” Hiroki asked, his voice still tinged with amusement.
K-9 glanced up, his eyes dark and serious. For a moment, Hiroki expected some equally absurd reply. But K-9’s face was solemn, almost mournful.
“No,” he said quietly, the word hanging in the air like a final verdict.
The door to the maintenance office swung open with a sudden bang, and a man stepped inside. Hiroki froze, his hands still mid-motion on the mechanical part he was assembling. The figure who entered was impossible to ignore. Tall and powerfully built, with sleek, slicked-back blond hair, sharp cheekbones, and a chiseled face that seemed more sculpture than human. His presence filled the room like a force of nature, the air growing thick and heavy.
Hiroki recognized him immediately—the image was seared into his mind. It was the same flawless figure from the illustration X-194 had shown them earlier. This was The Perfect Worker. The resemblance was uncanny, as if the drawing had been plucked from the page and brought to life. Yet, there was something wrong. The aura he radiated was suffocating, the kind of pressure that made Hiroki’s stomach churn with an instinctual fear.
“What’s cookin’, everyone?” the man called out, his voice smooth, with an upbeat lilt that felt ripped straight from an old TV show. It was cheerful, friendly, and yet... entirely hollow.
Without missing a beat, both K-9 and T-1717 turned toward him, their faces lighting up in exaggerated, almost manic smiles. “Eggs and bacon is what’s cookin’, welcome, Perfect Worker!” they chorused in unison.
Hiroki’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The change in K-9 and T-1717 was shocking. They were practically different people, their usual robotic demeanor replaced with animated enthusiasm. K-9, the same man who had been so somber moments ago, was now all but fluttering his lashes, his eyes wide and shining with admiration.
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When K-9’s gaze flickered to Hiroki, there was a brief moment of lucidity, a silent plea. He made a subtle motion with his hand and mouthed the word, “Smile.”
Hiroki’s heart pounded in his chest as he scrambled to remember himself. Smile. Smile. The training snapped into place, and he forced his lips into the most pleasant, eager grin he could manage. He turned to face the Perfect Worker, hoping it was enough.
But the man had already crossed the room with fluid, almost inhuman grace, and was now leaning over Hiroki’s workbench. His face was so close that Hiroki could see every pore, every flawless line, as if he were inspecting him like a specimen under a microscope. Hiroki’s smile trembled, but he held it, straining to keep his lips from quivering.
The Perfect Worker squinted, an impish grin spreading slowly across his perfect features. With a sudden, almost violent motion, he sandwiched Hiroki’s face between his strong hands. Hiroki’s heart skipped, but he kept smiling, even as the pressure on his cheeks grew.
“Good smile,” the Perfect Worker said in a hushed, intimate tone that somehow carried to every corner of the room. It sent a shiver down Hiroki’s spine.
With that, the man released him and straightened up, his movements so smooth they seemed almost choreographed. He performed a jaunty, exaggerated walk toward the bathroom door, but even as he moved away, his gaze never left Hiroki. The smile on his face remained, but it didn’t reach his eyes. There was something predatory lurking there, something Hiroki couldn’t quite name.
Just as the Perfect Worker reached the door, another round of rapturous noises and theatrical moaning erupted from within. The man paused, coughed out a laugh that sounded almost genuine. But Hiroki knew, with a cold certainty, that there was no amusement behind it. There was nothing funny about this.
The Perfect Worker’s hand hovered over the door handle for a moment, his eyes flicking back toward Hiroki, the grin widening. Then, with a fluid motion, he opened the door and stepped inside, the heavy clang of the door shutting behind him leaving a weighty silence in its wake.
Hiroki’s instincts kicked in before he even realized what he was doing. As soon as the door to the bathroom closed behind the Perfect Worker, Hiroki shot up from his seat, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. Without pausing to think, he bolted toward the bathroom door, his pulse a frantic drumbeat in his ears.
He flung the door open just in time to witness a chilling scene. The Perfect Worker was yanking K-9987 out of a cramped stall, the supervisor’s clothes haphazardly half-buttoned, his belt dangling loose around his waist. K-9987’s eyes were wide, his voice cracking with desperation as he pleaded, “Please, I—I just couldn’t help it! It was the donuts! I had diarrhea, I swear!”
But the Perfect Worker’s expression remained blank, a mask of detached disinterest. He ignored the supervisor’s frantic excuses, his only response a flat recitation of the rules broken. “Leaving your station unattended. Abusing company time. Displaying unsightly behavior unbecoming of an employee.”
The mention of diarrhea seemed to draw a sneer of genuine disgust from the Perfect Worker. He leaned in close to K-9987, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper. “Never mention such vile things to my face again,” he hissed. The supervisor nodded frantically, his face pale, but his begging continued, each word spilling out in a frantic, breathless rush.
The Perfect Worker’s grip remained unyielding. With one swift motion, he dragged K-9987 toward the bathroom’s exit, Hiroki frozen in place as they passed. The Perfect Worker didn’t even glance at him; instead, he muttered a sing-song apology as he bumped into Hiroki, all the while staring straight ahead, his focus entirely on the quivering man in his grasp.
Hiroki could only watch in mute horror as the Perfect Worker hauled K-9987 out into the open space beyond the office. The supervisor’s pleas had turned into incoherent sobs, tears streaming down his face, but none of it seemed to reach the eyes of those around them. The other workers turned to look, but their expressions ranged from mild curiosity to complete indifference, as if they were watching an announcement on a break room television.
The Perfect Worker dumped K-9987 onto the cold, hard ground with a bone-jarring thud. The supervisor’s cries grew louder, his voice raw with panic, but the Perfect Worker paid him no mind. In a bright, theatrical voice, he began listing off the man’s violations, his tone that of an over-the-top game show host.
“Failure to maintain proper decorum! Abandoning your post! Unauthorized personal breaks!” With each accusation, he leaned in closer, his smile widening. The crowd around them watched with vague interest, like spectators at a dull sport.
Then, the Perfect Worker paused, his body going stiff as if a switch had been flipped. In an exaggerated, announcer-style drawl, the words stretched like taffy, he yelled, “And now... the grand finale! You’re fiiiiiired!”
What happened next should have shocked Hiroki, but in the twisted reality of the factory, it almost felt inevitable. Flames erupted from nowhere, engulfing K-9987 in an instant. The fire was unnatural, an intense blue-white blaze that seemed to devour him whole. The supervisor’s screams were terrible, a raw, guttural sound that echoed off the factory walls. The flames rose higher, hungry and insatiable, until there was nothing left but ash.
And just as quickly as they appeared, the flames vanished, leaving nothing but a scorch mark on the floor where K-9987 had once been. The workers around the scene blinked once, twice, and then simply turned back to their duties, the spectacle already forgotten.
Hiroki stood frozen in the doorway of the office, his mind reeling. The scene replayed in his mind—those flames, that scream, all coming from the only man in this damned place that seemed to have displayed an ounce of genuine personality, the warm smile from earlier appeared suddenly in his mind.
Hiroki’s mind was a blur as he bolted from the office, adrenaline propelling him through the factory’s labyrinthine corridors. The sight of his supervisor engulfed in flames, the hollow indifference of the workers—he needed to find his companions, the ones he’d started this day with. Surely, they had seen the madness that had unfolded.
But as he turned the corner, skidding to a stop, his heart sank into a pit of cold dread. His office—the dingy little nook he had just left—stood alone. The two offices that had been beside it, where Abeni and Takeshi had been assigned, were gone. The wall now stretched on infinitely in both directions, blank and featureless, as if the spaces he had seen earlier had never existed.
What the hell is this place? he thought, a sick feeling churning in his gut. He had seen them, talked to them—they were real. They had to be. An urgent, primal need surged through him: he had to find them, to know they were still out there somewhere. “This place is f—cking crazy,” he muttered under his breath as he broke into a run, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence.
But distance meant nothing here. The wall curved when it should have been straight, led back to where it began. His office approached like a recurring nightmare, and there stood the Perfect Worker, smile exact as ever.
“Hey there, champ,” the Perfect Worker said, voice as cheerful as ever. “Where’d you run off to? You know you’re off your duty, right?”
Hiroki’s mind raced. He had to think quickly. “Oh, uh... just keeping in shape,” he blurted, forcing himself to smile. “You know... it’s good to stay fit.”
The Perfect Worker’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded, as though Hiroki had just imparted some great wisdom. “Of course, of course! Exercise is important.” He leaned in closer, his smile widening. “I try to keep fit too—gotta stay sharp for the ol’ softball league, you know?” He gave a hearty, theatrical laugh that sent chills down Hiroki’s spine.
Hiroki’s smile tightened, a thin veneer stretched over his mounting nausea. There was something deeply, horribly wrong about this conversation. He didn’t know what disturbed him more—the casual way the Perfect Worker spoke about a normal life, or the gut-wrenching certainty that it was all a lie. Whatever this... thing was, it had no life beyond these walls. It was playing a role, and Hiroki had the sinking feeling that engaging further would only ensnare him deeper.
“Ah, well, I should really get back to work,” Hiroki said abruptly, forcing himself to step back. The Perfect Worker’s eyes tracked him, unblinking, but he nodded once, as if Hiroki’s excuse made perfect sense.
“Of course,” the Perfect Worker said, voice dripping with that same saccharine cheer. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from your duties, now would we?”
Hiroki was about to turn back to his work, to slip back into the monotony of assembling and disassembling, but something made him glance upward. Above the Perfect Worker, where the raised center of the panopticon stood, the shadow behind the frosted glass remained, ever watchful. It shifted restlessly, pacing left and right. And as Hiroki’s eyes moved, it seemed to follow him, tracking his gaze with unnerving precision. Even when he tried to look away, forcing his eyes to the left, the shadow was there, a constant presence. It wasn’t just watching everything—it was watching him. Only him.
A chill ran down his spine as he lowered his gaze back to the Perfect Worker, who was still standing there with that same perfect, unreadable smile. “You’re not smiling,” the man said softly, his tone almost conversational, but there was a dangerous edge beneath the words.
Hiroki’s heart skipped a beat. In his panic, he realized his face had slipped, the forced smile dropping without him even noticing. He tried to pull it back up, the corners of his mouth trembling as he forced his lips into that familiar, strained expression. But the moment hung open, raw and exposed, as if some unseen door had briefly cracked open, allowing something unknown to leak through.
“It’s fine,” the Perfect Worker said after a pause, his tone oddly lenient. “I’ll allow it... for now.”
Relief washed over Hiroki, but it was tainted with an underlying dread. The Perfect Worker’s gaze didn’t soften; if anything, it sharpened. “But don’t let me catch you not smiling and not working again, okay?” The words were a warning wrapped in sugar.
As the Perfect Worker turned to leave, he paused, his head tilting back toward Hiroki. In a sing-song voice, one that seemed to carry not just his own tone but a cacophony of others—voices that included, unmistakably, the one from the shadow above—he said, “And don’t forget... I’m watching.”
The words echoed in Hiroki’s mind long after the Perfect Worker had sauntered off, leaving him standing in the oppressive quiet. With a deep, shaky breath, Hiroki returned to his office, his legs feeling like they were made of lead. He sank into his chair, the cold metal pressing into his back as he tried to steady his thoughts.
K-9 looked up from his station, their eyes meeting for a brief, tense moment. In that shared glance, there was a flicker of understanding, a recognition of something neither of them could put into words. But just as quickly, they both looked away, returning to their mindless tasks. Assemble. Disassemble. The motions were a comfort now, a shield against the madness pressing in from all sides.
Hiroki’s body was heavy with exhaustion, his mind frayed from the relentless strain of the day. But beneath that bone-deep weariness, something had settled in his heart—a resolve that hadn’t been there before. He would find Abeni and Takeshi.
The words “always seek each other out” echoed in his mind, a mantra he couldn’t place but that felt right, felt urgent. He didn’t know why it mattered so much, only that it did. And there was something else—a certainty that one more person in this twisted place hadn’t yet been consumed by the madness.
Hiroki glanced up at the flickering lights, the oppressive shadow above still pacing, and returned to his work. This time, he moved with a renewed determination, assembling and disassembling with a fierce focus.
He knew where to start.