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The passage constricted around Marcus like a throat swallowing reluctant prey. The architectural lighting dimmed to almost nothing, replaced by the intimate glow bleeding from premium pods that breathed with their own bioluminescent rhythms. This wasn't framework designed for human movement. This was the corp's most private anatomy, built for functions most didn't want to contemplate.

Thick and oppressive air arrived, tasting of high-voltage processing and something else unsettling. The ambient hum shifted to a deeper register that Marcus felt in his bones, a deep rumble that suggested machinery working at capacities that would melt ordinary consciousness.

He approached another pod and immediately met resistance. The electromagnetic field around it rippled with defensive energy, like touching the surface tension of electrified water. When he found the diagnostic panel, the metal was fever-hot and somehow aware of his presence.

This unit was active. Fully engaged. And the consciousness inside was fighting something that required significant processing power to contain.

Marcus jerked his hand back.

Each pod he passed radiated the same hostile energy, their occupants clearly awake. The heat signatures suggested conscious minds under extreme duress, their suffering converted to energy that fed the machine's appetite for authentic human experience.

The corridor opened into a vast vertical chamber that throbbed with mechanical desire. Above Marcus, a towering shaft penetrated upward into shadow, its walls lined with pod after pod arranged in ascending spirals of chrome and copper.

The architecture was built as if it understood dominance on a cellular level. A central spine ran the length of the structure. Each pod nestled into angled frames, connected by fluid lines that pulsed with the rhythm of circulation. Electrical conduits snaked between the units like nerve endings, carrying sensation and control signals through the machine's network.

At the shaft's center, a massive column rose through the chamber's core. Thick as a tree trunk, it pumped machine lubricant and oil through pressurized arteries that flexed with each cycle load. The entire structure breathed with mechanical lust, each pulse sending ripples of pressure through the fluid structures that kept thousands of consciousness units perfectly maintained and responsive.

Marcus stood at the base of this towering phallus, feeling it pump in his chest. The machine's heartbeat was sexual, possessive, constructed to penetrate and claim everything within its reach.

He looked up through the spiraling levels of captured souls, following the logic that had brought him here.

She would be at the apex. Mounted at the tip of this monument to digital domination.

Of course, Reiss would position his favorite possession where she could survey his entire domain while remaining perfectly displayed for his private viewing pleasure.

High performance. High value. High up.