The CGI building sat inside a ring of infected soldiers.
They circled it at their own pace, slow, unhurried, uniforms still on, rifles still slung across chests that had stopped needing them. The late sun went down behind the district and made long shapes of all of them across the concrete—dark, stretched, repeating the same empty orbit without variation. The light was the colour of rust and old blood. Dust hung in it, unmoving.
Inside, nobody was working.
The building had gone into lockdown at midday and stayed there. Staff moved between floors with nothing to do and did it anyway, making themselves look busy with the knowledge that none of them were going home tonight, or tomorrow, or possibly at all.
The elevators ran on schedule. Doors opened and closed on empty purpose. The air conditioning hummed with the same indifferent efficiency it always had.
