Punishment sectors.
Correction wings.
Clay notices my reaction immediately.
“What’s down here?”
I stare toward the sealed corridor ahead.
And the answer barely leaves my mouth.
“The broken ones.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Then distant metal doors suddenly unlock somewhere deeper below us.
One after another.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Russ raises his rifle instantly.
“That’s not good.”
No.
It’s very not good.
Movement appears at the far end of the corridor.
Figures stepping slowly beneath the fluorescent lights.
At first I think they’re guards.
Then I realize—
they’re children.
Teenagers.
Older than the others upstairs.
Sixteen maybe.
Seventeen.
Gray uniforms.
Barcode tattoos.
Blank expressions.
