The cold door opened against a restraint chain, revealing ten cages beneath pipes that fed silver fluid into every collar. Six animals lay against their floors without breathing, while four damaged core rhythms pulled unevenly at the Forge.
Vell kept the cutter away from the first lock despite another alarm sounding above him. Opening everything would destroy the arrangement before he knew which victims could survive the drain.
He took a pocket recorder from his inner coat, then started with the room number above the door. The lens passed over every cage plate, collar serial, human graft code, plus the feed line entering each dead core.
The nearest body belonged to a Needle Jackal with half its chest replaced by a pressure lattice. A human medical number had been stamped below the beast label, though the name field had been burned away.
