The gameplan did not take long because neither of them needed it to.

"This is also the best opportunity for the other contestants to eliminate us."

Proxy said, low enough that the bars would not carry it far.

He stood near the desk with his hands in his pockets, "In here, with no cyberware and no weapons to separate us from everyone else, the advantage we had in the real world is essentially gone."

Nyx sat on the stool with her arms folded over her knees and her chin resting there, watching him.

"Of course, that’s a double-edged sword." he said.

She tapped one finger against her sleeve once, already ahead of him.

"We can also eliminate them in here," she said, before he could get there.

"Correct. A hundred points for Nyx."

She tilted her head cutely, as if pondering what favor she could buy with a hundred points.

"So today the gameplan is recon."

Proxy continued. "We learn the layout of the prison and pick up anything that’s worth the trouble. And we don’t raise any attention to what we are doing."

"Do you have something in mind?" she said.

He glanced toward the corridor, then back. "I’ll check the prison library. If there is anything in there that maps the facility, old documents, maintenance schedules, construction records. Laundry after, if there’s time. We could use some chemical agents."

Nyx nodded slowly, turning something over behind her eyes. "Yard for me."

She hummed. "I want to see the wall. And maybe there’s an outside gym too, I could sneak out some weights to use as weapon."

She had been thinking about the wall since the lobby, and she was thinking about it now with an expression that made it obvious she wanted to go over it. Proxy looked at her for a moment and did not add anything, because there was nothing to add.

The 8 AM alarm sounded.

Flat tone, three seconds and done, and then the guard’s footsteps were in the corridor at the pace Proxy had already marked as consistent. They moved to the door.

Two rows of cells faced each other across a central corridor, strip lighting turning everything the boresome color, and up and down the row the other inmates stood at their doors, all orange, all waiting, the eighteen of them spread through the building in whatever format intake had decided.

Proxy observed the contestants without letting it show.

Jinx was visible to the left at her own bars, one hand on the metal, already looking back at them. She wore the same uniform. The outfit fit her the way it had been designed to fit, loose even, doing its job and nothing else.

He looked at Nyx at the door beside him. The outfit was definitely not loose with her.

He looked back into the corridor and kept his attention there.

Nyx said nothing. She was watching the row of cells across the corridor, making the headcount like she was a hitman cataloguing her targets. The awareness was there in the small, satisfied tilt of her chin and nowhere else.

The guard came down the row in order. Cell numbers, confirmation, movement.

Proxy confirmed when the number reached them and watched the guard complete the block, two minutes from start to end, eye contact forward-facing, route clean and fixed, no variation whatsoever. He added the information to the other set he had seen at the first alarm at seven.

At 8:15 AM, the locks disengaged.

The block opened and the inmates dispersed. Some went toward the yard exit at the far end of the corridor, some toward the interior.

Guards everywhere watched the movement without interaction. There were dozens of them.

Proxy and Nyx moved together through the corridor. Her two fingers found the back of his sleeve as they walked, light and habitual.

"The block guard runs a fixed route."

He said, quiet under the ambient noise of the moving inmates. "Two minutes end to end. He checks the board at the east wall before he starts each sweep, which gives us the rough start point. If his timing stays consistent, there’s a window between the board check and the first cell that is long enough to hide anything we might be doing."

"Do you have a plan already?" Nyx said.

"Maybe the beginning of one."

He kept his eyes ahead.

"For now."

She made the small sound that meant she liked the answer, and they kept walking.

They reached the fork, one corridor toward the yard, where the light coming through the far window was white-grey and real, actual outside light instead of fluorescent. The other corridor went toward the interior of the building.

He stopped.

"Now the game really begins," he said.

She was already looking at the exterior corridor, at the light at the end of it.

"Mm, I might actually enjoy this."

He extended his fist.

She looked at it for a moment, then bumped it with her own, warm and unceremonious, the way you seal a plan that is already understood and only needs punctuation.

"Also, one warning maximum," he said.

"I’m not getting warned."

Nyx snorted, with complete sincerity, like someone who genuinely could not imagine that outcome sticking to her. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Proxy wasn’t as confident. He shrugged and went left.

Behind him, after a beat, he heard footsteps. He had noted Jinx’s steps just because that was how his attention worked, and these were hers. He did not turn around at once, because he already knew the direction they were taking.

He glanced back.

Jinx had both hands in the pockets of her orange uniform, eyes ahead, walking toward the exterior corridor at the specific pace of who has made a decision and is not going to advertise it by looking like she has made a decision.

Nyx had not slowed. She was already several meters toward the yard, moving with calm,

Jinx was one step behind her. The yard corridor was taking both of them away together.

Proxy watched that for a moment.

Then he turned and went toward the library.