The Company -v5.12.0 Public- — -westane-

He’d seen the version number before. Everyone had. It was stamped on ration packs, loading bay doors, the inside of his own eyelids after a 20-hour shift. Version 5.12.0 Public. The Company’s public-facing operating charter, safety protocols, and employment nexus. Clean, efficient, soulless.

But her hand was wrapped around a data-slate. Still running. Screen cracked but alive. He shouldn’t look. Cleaners who looked ended up on the other end of the bag. The Company -v5.12.0 Public- -Westane-

Westane’s hand trembled. He looked at his own forearm. Under the skin, faint silver threads glistened. He’d always thought it was scar tissue. He’d seen the version number before

He found the body slumped against a shattered glass enclosure. A woman. Lab coat. Her badge read . Her eyes were open. Not dead from trauma. Dead from something slower. Something that had crystallized her veins into a frosty silver lattice. Version 5

There was another version. Everyone knew it. The Company - v.5.12.0 Private - Restricted . Nobody had seen it. But you felt it in the way the vents groaned at night, the way maintenance logs for Section G never matched the on-paper schedules, the way Cleaners like him were assigned to “Decommissioning” shifts that left them hollow-eyed for days.

Westane knelt. Routine . Bag. Neutralizer. Burn.

The notification pinged again.