She was frozen in place for a moment, able to do nothing but listen. A few seconds later, she determined that the sound was, in fact, several voices, and they were all coming from the conference room. She didn't understand it. The Operators only convened every full moon, and tonight was no full moon. 

Part of her, the logical part, knew she needed to turn back. They had to leave while there was still a chance to. They never did this when people were here, and they couldn't start now- or at least they certainly shouldn't. 

Any Marred caught outside the facility was condemned to execution by default. No trial. No discussion. No review before the Oversight board. Lethal injection within 24 hours of capture. Yet the other part of her, the hungry part, pushed her further down the hallway, her body crouched low to the ground as if that simple act would camouflage her.

She could soon distinguish five separate voices, no doubt belonging to the Operators. If she was quiet enough to avoid them detecting her, she could get into the control room and unlock the staircase near the loading area. They wouldn't know she was ever here. 

Her heart quickened its pace, like a bomb about to explode. To her own ears, her carefully placed footsteps sounded like rolling thunder. She could feel deep down that this was a bad idea, but the gnawing in her stomach firmly stifled her characteristically logical thoughts and pushed her forward in spite of them. 

She heard the voices clearly now. They were discussing the fact that there had been more than two hundred new births so far in this moon-cycle, an unusually high amount for a race of only around one hundred thousand. Avaria deduced that this was what caused them to have a genetic submission day nearly two weeks before the scheduled one. She crept closer; the control room door was only a few arm lengths away.

Then she heard an Operator utter her least favorite word that existed in their language. Algorithm. She stopped in her tracks. The feelings that welled up inside of her weren't anger, not really, they could only best be described as betrayal. The word represented the system that stopped her from walking among her people. She knew what the Operators did, but now it was forced directly into the front of her mind. She enjoyed thinking about the algorithm as much as she enjoyed walking on shards of hot glass. 

The Operators entered every Chorlak on the planet's DNA into the computer for it to process through the algorithm. Indirectly, their entire race was ruled by the algorithm. It compared the genetics of each Chorlak to one another, deciding which infants showed the most ideal disposition to one day be on the Oversight. It chose each member, from the High Overseer down to the eight board members. 

If that were where its authority ended, she wouldn't mind at all. In fact, she wouldn't even be thinking about it because she would not be one of the Marred. The Marred wouldn't exist for her to be one of them. But that was not the full extent of the algorithm's power.

Optimization. That was the purpose of the algorithm. Creating the most powerful, efficient version of the Chorlak possible. The most crucial piece of a strong society was producing capable children, and such children came from parents with the most compatible genetic make-up. It was the algorithm that assigned two individuals to each other as mates in order to create the most optimal next generation; that was the system. There was no mercy for those who had the audacity to violate the system. 

With no warning, a hand clamped over Avaria's mouth. She jumped, so thoroughly startled that she was sure she'd leaped out of her skin for a split second. 

“We have to go,” Korbak hissed into her ear.

Avaria snatched his hand away, turning to face him in one smooth motion. 

“We can still make it work, I-” 

“No! What's wrong with you, we'll all get killed. Tarr is a fool! He should have told us to turn back as soon as he saw people going inside.”

Her proposition died on her tongue. She knew her disagreeable ally was right. The same hunger that made Tarr behave so carelessly was affecting her judgment too. She pursed her lips, irritated that the situation forced her to agree with him, but she nodded. Her hunger seemed to relent a bit as if it accepted the fact that it would be ignored. 

Korbak jerked his head indicatively the way they came. Her lips formed a hard line as she passed him, knowing he relished the feeling of superiority when her own logic demanded that she concede to his point of view. 

She didn't look back to see if he was following her down the hall. Although his steps were silent, she knew he had to be; there was nowhere else for him to go. She was still crouching, but her posture was straight and confident, nonverbally denying him the satisfaction of seeing her display embarrassment.

Her defiance was rudely interrupted when an explosion of sound erupted from behind them. They both froze, their subtle rivalry forgotten as their heads twisted around to stare at the double doors of the conference room as if the dark metal coating them would provide answers. The loud clamor continued, sounding almost like a parade. A very angry, unorganized parade. 

“A boy reported suspicious characters in this area,” a booming voice deadpanned, “Did anyone authorize the opening of the storeroom door?” 

Avaria's chest felt like it was being squeezed; her eyes met Korbak's, and she briefly wondered if her own skin looked as unhealthily light as his did. They both seemed to snap out of their shock-induced trance at the same moment, casting stealth aside as they burst into a run. They couldn't have moved faster if molten lava was inches from their heels. She posted her hand against a corner, using it to pivot around without slowing down much, then promptly collided rather hard with a very large body. Stars peppered across her vision, but hands secured her shoulders before she could wobble too much. 

“Enforcers in the storeroom.” Jabic's features were tightened with intensity as he spoke. 

“Did they see you?” 

“No. They're coming.”

Gasmi, who had been eclipsed by Jabic, darted around him to make herself known with Tarr close behind her. 

“They are aware that we opened the loading door,” she informed them.

“Okay.” Avaria massaged the skin over the left side of her brain, as though the action might stimulate intelligent thought. “Start trying doors.” 

All of the others, even Korbak, were too desperate to question her newfound assumption of leadership, and she joined them as they frantically jiggled the knobs, confirming door after door as locked. 

“Here.” 

Gasmi worked her jaw in worried impatience as they herded into whatever lay beyond the door she'd found. 

The room was empty save for a chair and stacks of computers with blinking lights lining the wall. Gasmi shut the door and locked it. Seconds later, they heard stomping feet fast approaching. It seemed they had hidden just in time, but they were far from being out of danger. 

“Now what? They'll find us here.” With these words, Tarr made the mistake of bringing attention to himself. 

“This whole mess is on you!” Korbak's lips peeled up into a snarl, furthering the impact of his gruesome tone. 

“How could you not inform us immediately when you saw the Operators going in? You should have disclosed it to us the very instant you saw them from the top of that wall! We had every right to know what we were about to walk into.” Gasmi's voice was more scolding than angry, but it fueled the building tension nonetheless. 

Korbak straightened to his full height as he burst aggressively into Tarr's personal space. For an instant, it looked like the smaller man might just shrink back, but it passed so quickly it could have been imagined. He squared up his body in response, puffing out his chest and stretching his neck to push his face up to Korbak's face. Chorlak didn't fight amongst each other; it wasn't dignified or productive. 

Usually, Korbak was a well-disciplined rule-abiding Chorlak, but Avaria had never seen him so thoroughly provoked. Tarr seemed to sense the danger in the atmosphere; his features were starting to lose their hard edges, and the thumbs of his tightly clenched hands were fidgeting a bit. Still, he showed no signs of backing down. 

“Hey!” Avaria threw her hands up in exasperation as if she was attempting to manage unruly children. “Pull yourselves together! You squabble amongst yourselves all you want once we get back, but you're not getting me killed, not tonight!” 

“Who do you think you are?” Korbak rerouted his wrath to her in record time, his tone so distorted by the animalish growl tearing simultaneously from his throat that his words were almost lost. 

Her snarl in response was more annoyance than aggression, almost offended by the magnitude of his pettiness. Her placating expression must have brought his childishness to his attention because he visibly diffused a bit, and she took the opportunity to try and refocus the group. 

“Tarr was right. The Enforcers are going to find us, that's a done deal. Only a matter of time. So how are we going to get outta this?” 

“Window.” Jabic nodded in the direction of it. “It's too high.” He was right; the window was at least four feet above his head, even he couldn't reach it. 

All eyes fell upon the lone chair, each with the same thought, but it could only bring them a couple of feet closer to their escape. Besides, it looked wobbly. Struck by another idea, Avaria approached the wall, brows drawn in concentration. 

As she expected, the black wall was composed of bricks, each separated by a thin layer of grout. She pulled back the flap of her vest, exposing her training belt, which was equipped with a pair of small knives. She jammed one into a seam at hip-height and then inserted the other higher up, at her eye's level. Catching onto her idea, Jabic gave her his knives. 

“Marred training knives,” he stated blandly. His words sounded like they were just an unnecessary clarification, but Avaria caught his line of thought. When the Enforcers came, they would find the knives and know that their owners came from the Marred facility.

Using the two knife handles that now protruded from the wall as climbing pegs, Avaria ascended it high enough that she could install the additional blades the same way. 

“Well, we have two options. First, they come in here and find an empty room with our training knives. Second, they find a room occupied by us. Personally, I'm much more comfortable with the former.” Her words ended with a grunt as she twisted her upper body backward to gain momentum, then swung her elbow through the glass, reducing it to hundreds of shards. It hurt, her elbow felt warm with what she knew was her blood, but she was confident that being shot by Enforcers would hurt much more. 

“Someone toss me their vest.” 

Encouraged to hasten by a new round of Enforcer activity audible in the hallway, the group cooperated, and within seconds she was spreading a vest over the broken glass in the window frame. 

She crawled through it, only falling a couple of feet on the other side. 

“Come on!” She whisper-yelled, leaning back through just long enough to see Korbak following her route up the wall, then returning her attention to the immediate surroundings.

There were no signs of Enforcers up here, not yet anyway. Her crouched body was pressed close to the wall as her eyes darted back and forth. Without thinking, her fingers began to drum an impatient, unsteady pattern against her knee. Each second she waited felt miserably long, as though time were suddenly buckling under a heavy burden. She refused to allow herself to become antsy, instead choosing to take deep breaths through her nose and exhale through her mouth to keep her thoughts slow and controlled. 

After what felt like enough time for her to memorize a dictionary, she was helping Tarr pull himself through the window. With everyone finally outside the building, she snatched up Tarr's vest from where it lay over the broken glass and jammed his closest arm through the hole before lightly shoving him towards the back gate, not giving him time to situate the garment properly.

 “Hurry up!” She hissed, her urgency validated by the floodlights that sprang to life without warning. 

They raced around the structure in single file, as close to the wall as they could get without slowing down. The back door came into view, and to their relief, it remained ajar, promising them salvation. Just as their hopes rose, it started to shut. Avaria charged ahead of the others, adrenaline pulling a final burst of energy from somewhere deep within. The courtyard felt more extensive than it ever had before, as if she were moving in slow motion while the door was on the fast track. 

She caught a glimpse of something just ahead of her, its creamy color making it barely distinguishable from the white grass it lay in. She stooped to grasp the broken branch as she passed it, her momentum propelling her into an unintentional forward roll. She didn't miss a beat, landing upright and resuming her pace as though she'd never been interrupted. 

The door was mere inches from snapping into place and enclosing them within, but she was close now, only a few feet away. She held her stick at the ready as she covered the last bit of ground, and with all the strength her muscles could produce, she jammed it into the track on which the door slid, forcing it to halt with groans and creaks of protest. 

She continued through, only skidding to a halt when she was safely outside. The others were only a few steps behind her and leaned into their pace even more when monstrous clamoring erupted into the yard behind them, each shout vehemently commanding them to stop. 

Gasmi slowed enough to angle her body to the side, successfully sliding through the opening with Korbak and Tarr just behind her. Avaria jogged a few steps backward towards the city's edge, hesitating to commit to a full run in favor of visually confirming that the others weren't far behind her. Just as she started to turn around, Jabic called out, pulling the group's attention. 

He was stuck, his broad, muscular body caught into the small space her stick-wedge had allotted them. They all grabbed his outstretched arm and pulled in unison, causing him to growl in pain. It was no use; he wasn't even close to fitting through. Korbak abandoned his efforts first. 

“Help pull!” Avaria snapped at him, her body too fueled with adrenaline to maintain her typical calm demeanor. However, the venom in her tone withered away the second she met his eyes, and her features went slack when she realized the full weight of the situation. All at once, her mind slowed enough to truly process what had to happen next. She knew what Korbak was about to say even before he opened his mouth, but that didn’t make his words any less terrible.

“We have to leave him.”