The darkness in the command center didn't last.
It was replaced by a light far more terrifying than the blackness.
Buzz. Click.
The wall of three thousand screens flickered back to life simultaneously. But they didn't show the streets of District 9. They didn't show the factories, the bedrooms, or the secrets Envy hoarded like gold.
They showed Envy.
Every single screen displayed a recording of the man sitting in the chair.
There was Envy picking at a scab on his arm. Envy sleeping with his mouth open, drool sliding down his chin. Envy weeping into his hands. Envy talking to an empty room, whispering paranoid delusions about his subordinates.
Nyar had found the internal diagnostic logs—the cameras Envy didn't even know were recording him—and was broadcasting the raw, unedited footage on an infinite loop.
"No..." Envy whispered, covering his face with his hands. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"
"Look at them," Vance said, walking closer. His magnetic cuffs lay on the floor behind him, discarded metal husks. "You spent your life watching everyone else because you couldn't bear to look in the mirror. Now, it's the only thing you can see."
Envy shrieked. He grabbed his chrome pistol from the floor and fired wildly at the wall.
BANG. CRACK.
One screen shattered. But two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine others remained, all showing his pathetic, lonely existence. The audio kicked in—a chorus of his own voice, muttering, crying, and screaming, overlapping into a cacophony of madness.
Vance stepped over the debris. He didn't fear the gun. Envy wasn't aiming at him; he was aiming at his own reflection.
Vance reached the fallen tyrant. Envy was curled into a fetal position on the white tiles, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to block out the light.
The smell coming from him had changed again. The sharp scent of vinegar was gone. Now, he smelled like Stagnant Water—something that had sat in the dark for too long and gone rotten.
Vance knelt down. He didn't strike Envy. He simply reached into the breast pocket of Envy's torn suit.
His fingers brushed against a cold, hard object.
He pulled it out. It was a bio-metric chip, glowing with a faint blue pulse.
Key No. 1: [Envy].
"I'll take this," Vance said softly.
Envy didn't react. He was rocking back and forth, mumbling a stream of nonsense code, his mind retreating into a safe place that no longer existed.
Ping.
The elevator doors slid open behind them.
Cerberus walked in, carrying the limp figure of Nyar over his shoulder. The boy's tactical gear was scorched by laser fire, but he was unharmed. He dropped Nyar onto one of the leather guest chairs.
The man in the straitjacket looked up. His hair parted, revealing a face that seemed to blur at the edges. Nyar looked at the wall of screens, then at the broken man on the floor.
"A fitting cage," Nyar giggled, his voice echoing through the room's speakers. "He is the watcher, and he is the watched. A perfect circle."
Cerberus looked at Envy, then pulled out his knife. "Do I finish him?"
"No," Vance stood up, pocketing the Key. He adjusted his coat, turning his back on the sobbing Administrator.
"Killing him is a mercy he doesn't deserve. Let him live here."
Vance gestured to the room.
"He built this tomb. Let him rot in it."
"Nyar, lock the door on the way out. Seal the elevator. Cut the external comms."
"With pleasure," the speakers replied.
Vance walked toward the elevator. He didn't look back at the man who had ruled District 9's secrets for a decade. Envy was no longer a king. He was just a ghost haunting his own machine.
As the elevator doors began to close, Vance saw Envy crawl toward a shattered piece of screen, staring at his own reflection in the broken glass, weeping.
Vance adjusted his sunglasses, hiding the exhaustion in his eyes.
"One down," he whispered to the reflection in the metal doors. "Six to go."