Chapter 4: Defects

Lu’dunum returned to the sink.

He peeled off his gloves carefully, turning them inside out before letting them drop into the marked bin. He reached for a fresh pair, sliding them on with quiet precision.

Then he looked up at the mirror.

He gave it a cheeky grin.

He knew he had been staring a little longer than normal.

So he practiced.

“Oh — that? Must be a blip. A lot of the region was dominated by said infection.”

He tilted his head.

No, that sounded rehearsed.

“Ah! I had to use the restroom!”

That one was worse.

He glanced toward the eastern doors instinctively.

Locked.

Always locked.

His reflection offered him a sheepish smile.

Whoops.

“Yes,” he murmured softly. “Whoops.”

He resumed scrubbing his hands.

Then—

He heard it.

Music.

Not his.

He had turned his radio off to conserve battery for the walk home.

He would often hear things behind the walls. The factory carried sound strangely. Pipes spoke. Gears whispered. Sometimes the turbines made rhythms that almost resembled melody.

But this was different.

This was intentional.

The band was old — at least to him.

Pink Floyd.

No one liked that band here.

Doubly so not Envy, who saw the band as… an escape.

Lu paused mid-scrub.

The sound seeped faintly through the wall beyond the south door.

A guitar.

Not gentle.

Not melodic.

It screamed.

Long, bending notes stretched thin — vibrating with a kind of restrained anguish.

Oh.

Yes.

He recognized it now.

Comfortably Numb.

Quite apt for the places behind that wall.

Lu dried his hands without realizing he had stopped washing them.

He stepped closer to the southern wall and pressed one large ear against the cold metal sheet.

He listened.

The guitar wailed again.

Desperate.

Straining.

He wondered if another Doctor was having problems.

When the Crown was infused with too much emotion, it could cause… complications.

Very. Very catastrophic events.

Overflows.

Backwash.

Cross-channel contamination.

He was lucky he was not there right now.

The solo climbed higher.

More frantic.

More pleading.

Lu’s tail lowered slightly.

The guitar was very… desperate.

And for a moment —

just a moment —

the green light felt thinner.

As Lu backed away from the wall, he reached for a towel.

Hmm.

That felt off.

He looked down.

He had been washing his second glove.

Thoroughly.

The latex now clung damp and loose against his fingers, absolutely ruined.

He groaned softly.

“Oh.”

He peeled them off with a gentle tug and disposed of the pair properly. Then he began again — this time washing his bare hands.

Between fingers.
Across palms.
Up the wrists.

He shook his head faintly.

His reflection offered him that same sheepish expression.

“Whoops.”

Lu chuckled under his breath.

Once dried — properly this time — a buzzer rang.

Short.

Precise.

The Crown was done on his end.

He turned.

At the back of the apparatus, a black light glowed.

“Oh… whell, that’s not good at all.”

He perked up and moved at a brisk pace toward the platform, momentarily forgetting to put on a fresh pair of gloves.

The black light was powerful.

It nullified the green light around it.

As if it drank it.

Big enough to be noticeable.
Small enough not to interfere with the rest of the room.

It pulsed steadily.

This meant the Dreamer had a problem.

Lu reached for his notepad and flipped it open. The list of problems was written in tidy, obedient script — ordered from least concerning to worst.

A.) Dreamer’s output too low to keep.
B.) Infection in the line. (Often located at the needle junction before the tube.)
C.) The Dreamer has died. (Or “deep sleeping,” as it would say for Lu’s notepad.)
D.) Overflow.
E.) Elysium Cascade event. (Lu had no idea what that really meant — only that it involved so much emotion the Crown breaks.)

He checked the wires.

The tubes.

He traced his claws gently down each hose to the needles.

All clean.

Clean.

Yes — the Dreamer’s output was low…

But—

He looked closer at the face.

The body.

The steady, shallow rhythm beneath the solvent.

The Dreamer was now in “deep sleep.”

The black light pulsed once more.
Lu’dunum leaned back and gave a small, upset sigh.

This was normal.

Deep Sleep.

Dreamers fell into “deep sleep” all the time.

The manuals said so.
The charts confirmed it.

Still—

He always felt like it was his fault.

And he absolutely hated going past the south door.

Normally, there was a green button on the Crown.

It had a small smiling face printed on it.

Pressing it would disengage the rails and guide the Dreamer east — toward feeding, observation, and reintegration. The pleasant corridor. The one he didn’t have to think about.

He rarely pressed that one.

He glanced down.

The other button was red.

An angry face marked its surface.

That was how he always knew he had messed up.

His ears lowered.

His tail stilled.

The squawk box chimed in with a crackle.

The Advisor’s voice returned, thinner now. More brittle.

“Lu’dunum. Report. You have a Black Light.”

Lu swallowed.

He stumbled slightly over his words.

“Ah… it’s a Code C. I, um… going to Recycling.”

Groans drifted faintly through the line.

A chair scraping.

Paper shuffling.

Silence.

The Advisor let the silence stretch just long enough to feel like a held breath.

“Alright… that will be in your report. Let Recycling team know it’s a Code C.”

Lu opened his mouth to protest — something small, something hopeful —

But before he could speak, music seeped through the squawk box.

Faint at first.

Then clearer.

The same guitar.

Strained.
Crying.
Desperate.

“Can someone purge THAT FUCKING MUSIC!” the Advisor screamed somewhere beyond the microphone.

He almost never cussed.

The sharpness of it startled Lu more than the word itself.

The line went dead quiet.
Lu’dunum reached into the Crown and pressed the red button.
The response was immediate.

A loud airhorn blasted through the lab — a sharp, piercing whistle that echoed against the marble wall and rattled the grates beneath his feet.

Lu shrank instinctively, shoulders curling inward, ears flattening tight against his head.

He always forgot how loud it was.

The southern metal door began to unlock.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Heavy bars withdrew from their slots one by one.

Again — the locks were on the wrong side.

The chair beneath the Dreamer jolted as its internal mechanism activated. A low vibration passed through the rails, then a deeper mechanical churn as the transport system engaged.

“Ah—”

Lu moved quickly now.

Frantic but practiced.

He lifted the Crown just enough to free the last needles from the Dreamer’s skull. One by one they retracted with soft suction sounds, leaving faint circular impressions in the solvent-slick surface.

He unlocked the restraints at the wrists.
Then the ankles.

The chair did not wait for him to finish tidying.

It began to roll south.

The rails shifted direction beneath it, guiding it toward the open doorway.

Lu stood there for half a second longer than necessary.

Then sighed.

And followed.