EPISODE 10: THE CHAIN BINDING ## CHAPTER 1: THE COHORT The air in the decommissioned service levels smells like wet salt and dead circuit boards. You move with Rashida ahead of you, your boots scraping lightly against scattered debris—pieces of molded rubber, discarded fasteners, a coil of rusted wire that looks nothing like anything functional anymore. Everything down here on Neptune Seven feels coated in neglect, sealed off by time and corporate indifference. You follow the faint luminescence cast by the headlamps, beams cutting through particulate-filled air that tastes metallic on your tongue. The passage narrows until you are forced into a crawl space, brushing past stacked crates labeled with hazard warnings from decades ago. Rashida keeps her voice low, an intimate murmur against the dripping sounds of the platform itself—the steady drip of condensation, the rhythmic thunk of water sloshing somewhere deep in the structure’s belly. “They kept this section air-locked for a reason,” she whispers when you pause beneath a heavy, bolted steel hatch. She runs a gloved hand over the cold metal lip, leaving a streak of damp residue that catches your attention. “The primary schematics don't show it. It’s a blind spot.” You breathe in shallowly, the recycled air doing little to steady the rising tide of anxiety that always accompanies these deep dives into...