Vek Sorn pressed a gloved hand against the sealed gate and felt the fungus substrate pulse back. Behind those blast doors, the blight kept eating the spire's core. Three thousand people slept in the upper rings, unaware. Vek had six weeks of warnings logged, and now a wall of mushrooms and steel between them and the cure. A folded quarantine order sat in Vek's chest pocket. Their name was not on it. The overseer's signature was. Vek smoothed the paper flat against the door and laughed once, dry and tired. Inside, on the wrong side of the seal, Vek's research tablet still blinked. The little insectoid face on its round screen would cycle through diagnostics until the batteries died. Every sample, every tissue scan, every culture map — locked behind doors Vek was no longer cleared to open. Vek stepped back. The spire groaned above them, venting pink smog from its upper spouts. The rules had just become the thing killing the colony. Vek folded the quarantine notice, tucked it away, and started walking toward the service shafts.