C-168 had never stopped watching us.
He wasn't smart enough to hide it completely.
Sometimes it was just the way his gaze lingered a little too long.
Sometimes it was the questions — casual, sharp-edged — dropped into the air when no one else was listening.
At first, we thought we could outlast him. Stay low. Keep invisible.
But the man had patience, and something mean gnawed at him that wouldn't let go.
And then, at the beginning of the fourth month, he finally acted.
That evening, when the last teleportation gate beamed up the guards for their shift rotations, C-168 didn't leave with them.
Instead, he hung back, slinking through the shadows of the garbage fields like a dog on the scent of blood.
The first few nights, Aman and I were careful.
We spotted him quickly — looming clumsily behind trash heaps, pretending to pick through scrap — and we gave him the slip.
We led him into dead ends, fake trails, lost him among the dunes.
But you can only play the same tricks for so long before luck runs out.
And one night... it did.
The shift ended like any other — exhausted bodies trudging back to the quarters, the air thick with the stink of burning rubber and rotting food.
But when Aman and I regrouped, Dikshant wasn't there.
Neither were Naina or Aanchal.
At first, we told ourselves they were just delayed.
Maybe cornered by another shift boss. Maybe double-checking the scrap weights.
But five minutes turned into ten.
Ten turned into twenty.
And the sinking, gnawing feeling in my gut grew claws.
"They're not coming back," Aman muttered, scanning the emptying fields.
Then, from somewhere deep among the trash mountains, a scream tore through the night.
Raw. Terrified.
Without a word, we bolted.
We sprinted across the junkyard, boots slipping on shattered glass, sliding down slick slopes of chemical sludge and rusted bones.
The smell grew worse — burnt oil, blood, fear — until it clogged our throats.
When we crested the largest heap, we saw them.
Pinned against a mound of shattered drone parts and broken car frames.
C-168 stood there, flanked by two other guards from the lower shifts — a wiry man with a club and a tall, heavyset one with a dented helmet.
Dikshant was on his knees, bleeding from his eyebrow, his arms twisted behind him in a painful grip.
Naina and Aanchal were backed up against a wall of compressed plastic, bruises already purpling on their forearms where the guards had grabbed them.
C-168's face lit up when he saw Aman and me standing there.
Like he had been waiting for this moment.
"I knew it," he snarled.
"I knew you little rats were hiding something."
He jabbed the tip of his baton into Dikshant's chest, forcing a pained grunt out of him.
"You've been lying since the day you crawled in here. No more games."
He turned to us, voice dropping to a growl.
"You're going to tell me everything. Now. Or we start breaking bones."
Behind him, the other two guards flexed their clubs, eager.
For a heartbeat, the world tilted.
I felt Aman stiffen beside me, muscles coiled to strike — but there were three of them. Armed. Ready.
And then — Crackle.
C-168's walkie-talkie squawked to life, sharp and loud against the tense night.
"All guards report to main gate. Roll call begins in two minutes. Transportation beam scheduled for immediate departure."
C-168 flinched.
He swore violently, yanking the walkie off his belt to bark something back — but that moment of distraction was all we needed.
I surged forward, fueled by sheer terror and rage.
My hand shot out and grabbed the baton dangling from his hip.
He reacted fast, swinging a backhand toward my head — but Aman was faster.
Aman tackled him low, throwing his weight into C-168's knees and sending him sprawling.
I didn't even think.
I swung the baton with everything I had.
It cracked against the side of C-168's skull with a wet, sickening sound.
He crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.
The other two guards lunged — but Naina and Aanchal, bruised but burning with fury, struck first.
Aanchal hurled a handful of crushed glass into the wiry man's eyes.
Naina drove her knee into the tall one's gut with a grunt.
Aman and I finished it.
Two quick blows.
Two more bodies hitting the ground.
It was over in seconds.
Breathing hard, I wiped the blood from my temple, realizing only now that some of it was mine.
Aman grabbed my shoulder.
"We have two minutes."
We moved like a machine.
Ripping off the guards' uniforms, yanking boots free, stuffing unconscious bodies under a collapsed refrigeration unit.
The girls pulled on the smaller uniforms, cramming their hair under helmets.
I took C-168's armor, sticky with his sweat.
Aman and Dikshant — already battered and bloodied — we passed off as newly "promoted" sanitation workers being transferred topside.
A rare reward for "good performance." Rare — but believable.
I tightened the strap on my stolen chest plate.
Every second, I expected to hear the thunder of boots, the crackle of alarms.
But none came. We ran.
At the main gate, the workers were already lined up.
Rows upon rows of broken bodies, heads bowed under the buzzing electric lights.
The transport beams shimmered ahead — white, humming, waiting. My heart hammered so hard it hurt.
The guard captain was checking IDs, glancing at faces.
If he looked too closely — if he asked one wrong question — we were dead.
I kept my head down, aping C-168's stiff, angry gait.
Aman stood behind me, hands cuffed in front, Dikshant slumped beside him.
Naina and Aanchal flanked me like proper junior guards.
Closer. Closer. My throat was dry as dust. The weight of the stolen baton at my hip felt like it might drag me down. The beam loomed before us.
Five meters. Three. One. The light swallowed us.
There was a moment of nothingness. No ground. No sound. Just falling— And then we stumbled out into another world.
Above us, the sky was gone — replaced by sweeping steel arches, glass towers rising into the heavens. Hovercars zipped by in perfect, glittering streams. Billboards flashed across the buildings, blindingly bright, selling luxuries we couldn't even imagine. The air smelled different. Clean. Sharp. Metallic.
For a long moment, we just stood there. Stunned. Blinking in the neon glow.
We had made it. We were inside the floating city.
But as the transport beam faded behind us and the guards around us barked fresh orders, a cold realization crept in.
This place might have been beautiful.
But it was no safer than the hell we'd just left behind.
And we had no idea what waited for us next.