Mimi had just finished guiding the lottery participants to their designated areas, which meant, by protocol and by her own interpretation of freedom, that she was completely off duty for the rest of the day.
That thought sat comfortably in her mind as she descended the staircase with almost careless ease.
As she walked, fragments of the escort replayed in her head, particularly the woman named Rachel. Or at least Mimi thought that had been her name from the briefing.
Rachel carried herself with controlled dignity. Not artificial. Not performative. Familiar.
She spoke like someone long accustomed to authority, or at least environments shaped by it. The posture, the restraint, the quiet certainty in the way she occupied space, all of it reminded Mimi of the higher-tier personnel she usually worked under.
Remembering the briefing, Mimi mentally categorized her as part of the second classification of lottery entrants, the non-broadcasting category. Someone connected to business leadership rather than public media.
Honestly, the woman radiated executive energy.
It had unsettled Mimi for a moment at first, though compared to the people she regularly served under, Rachel still felt almost amateurish in execution.
Interesting, though.
The second individual was harder to place.
By the time Mimi reached the lower staircase landing, her pace had slowed slightly. The man she had escorted should have been easy to remember, yet every attempt to reconstruct him slipped apart halfway through.
She stopped walking.
"I don't forget people that easily," she muttered.
She tried again to piece him together. Appearance. Briefing details. Identifiers. Anything.
Nothing held.
Even ordinary people left clearer impressions than this, and in this facility, ordinary was often the strangest thing a person could be.
Mimi tapped her forehead once in irritation.
All she could clearly remember was that the documentation had labeled him troublesome.
The rest blurred every time she tried to focus on it.
Eventually, she exhaled and let the thought go.
Maybe she was just tired.
That explanation came easily enough, especially since her current freedom mattered far more than chasing a half-formed memory.
Her mood recovered quickly.
Rosie swapping routines with her felt like an administrative miracle. One escort assignment instead of two. A gift wrapped in paperwork.
Mimi continued toward the maze sector to retrieve her belongings, already thinking about the end of her shift and the relief of finally being able to unwind.
She briefly wondered whether the Boss was still in the meeting room. Technically, she had a few things to report, though none of them felt urgent.
A short report would probably be enough.
Then the day would officially be over.
That thought alone improved her mood.
As she stepped toward the maze sector entrance, the wall behind her suddenly slammed shut with a heavy metallic bang.
The sound cut straight through her thoughts.
Mimi flinched and turned sharply.
"What?"
The passage behind her had sealed completely.
A cold feeling crept into her stomach.
What if today was a change day?
Her hand immediately moved to her device as she checked the schedule, scanning rapidly for any procedural update or emergency shift notice.
Nothing.
No updates.
No scheduled changes.
Nothing that explained what had just happened.
The corridor did not give her time to think further.
Even if there had been a scheduled alteration, it should have been postponed. Today was supposed to be structured. Logged. Stable.
But the wall behind her had already sealed.
Then the corridor moved again.
The passage tightened inward with mechanical precision. Not collapsing.
Converging.
Spiked structures advanced from both ends simultaneously, compressing the corridor into a narrowing channel that erased any remaining escape path.
Bang.
The layered impact echoed through the hall like multiple containment systems locking at once.
Mimi reacted before fully processing it.
Her breath caught as the space compressed around her, movement turning from directional into purely reactive. Her balance broke as the walls forced her into a tightening gap.
A series of uneven impacts followed.
Not random.
Mechanical.
Pressure cycles.
Her hands pushed instinctively against the enclosing surfaces, but the structure absorbed force without yielding. The walls felt deceptively soft while still completely immovable.
She twisted sideways, trying to force herself toward any remaining seam in the corridor, but there was almost no space left to work with.
Beyond the pressure, her vision narrowed to a thin sliver of visibility.
Then her thoughts detached.
Not from panic.
Recognition.
A memory surfaced with sudden clarity.
The first time she met Angela.
Back then, Mimi had still been new to the system, recently assigned after a year of rotational training under the Piao Corporation framework. The conflict with the beastfront had not stabilized yet, and operational structures were still experimental.
The guiding role barely existed as a formal branch at the time.
There were no proper mentorship chains. No standardized instructors. Mimi had entered a system that was still constructing itself while trying to survive wartime pressure.
She had been assigned through necessity more than optimization.
Her onboarding had been handled directly by Madam Piao, the mother of the current Piao masters.
At first, the explanation sounded procedural. Maze adaptability testing. System durability evaluations. Simulated containment environments.
Structured.
Controlled.
Manageable.
At least that was what Mimi thought while following Madam Piao through the restricted corridors toward the barracks sector.
Then they arrived.