Ahead stood the sign: Union Office No. 1.
As she approached, Leo warned,
“Boss, it’s dangerous. The First Union possesses fifty 7-mm K-5 hunting rifles.”
“Got it. Keep audio hot. I’ll fake a hidden-cam shot — more raw that way.”
Inside, she crept along the corridor.
Through a window, workers shouted, faces red with grief and rage.
“Who did this? Zion Kang killed the union leader?”
“Hanged him from the crane like a warning!”
Then one skeptical voice cut through:
“Wait — something’s off. How would a man carry another man up a construction crane? There’s no platform!”
“What are you saying?”
All eyes turned.
“That’s Sector Five’s crane — under repair. No scaffold, no lifts. Someone hauled him up bare-handed? Impossible.”
“If not a person, then what?”
A silence. Someone swallowed.
From the hallway came footsteps — a young worker burst in holding a tablet.
Mika ducked behind a pillar.
“It was a robot!”
“What?”
“A robot did it!”
He raised the tablet, but the footage was static and noise.
“Sector Five CCTV — someone deleted this earlier!”
“Deleted? By who?”
“By who else — the killer! We recovered this from maintenance logs!”
The image stabilized: a blurry shape running fast, carrying a heavy body.
As he zoomed in, the outline resolved — a robotic frame.
“See? It’s a robot!”
Fear rippled through the room.
A senior member leaned close, eyes wide.
“Wait… that looks like the one we smashed months ago.”
“Yeah… same model.”
“How the hell is it alive again?”
“It’s not alive — someone rebuilt it!”
“So you’re saying a robot killed our union leader?”
Anger boiled over.
“Those machines stole our jobs, our livelihoods — and now they’re killing us?”
“Then we kill them first!”
“All of them!”
At that moment, a janitor robot rolled in quietly — round body, mop arms, monitor head wrapped in a cloth cap.
“Cleaning service for Union Office One. Shall I begin?”
It didn’t see their faces twist in rage.
“Smash it!”
“What? Please wait — I haven’t reached disposal date yet. Allow me to finish clean—”
Thud. Crash. Crack.
Pipes rained down. Plastic split, wires flared.
The robot’s gloved arms tore off; its screen flickered, eyes blinking in panic until a pipe punched through.
The display went dark with a shrill whine.
“Any robot we see — we destroy!”
From the hallway, Mika filmed everything.
Inside Car Y, Leo’s system auto-edited the footage — adding music, titles, impact beats. It would air tonight as a Shocking News Special.
Then Leo’s third monitor pinged.
The search pointer locked onto a mass at the end of the corridor.
A dark shape stood motionless.
“Boss, forty-five degrees right — police robot detected.”
Mika turned.
In the dim hall, a black figure watched her quietly — red eyes glowing inside the frame.