Confinement Laboratory - Bicycle

The elevator required a retinal scan he didn’t have, but the service stairwell descended six floors below ground. At the bottom, a steel door hung ajar, its lock freshly torched. Inside, the air smelled of ozone, sweat, and something sweetly chemical.

Then alarms blared, and the basement doors began to seal.

A woman. Mid-thirties. Dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her percentage: . Unlike the others, her eyes were open. Staring directly into the camera. Her mouth formed a single word, over and over. bicycle confinement laboratory

Below the data, a live video feed showed a bare room with white walls. Inside, a man in a gray jumpsuit sat on an identical bicycle, pedaling steadily. His eyes were closed. His lips moved, but no sound came through. Behind him, a robotic arm periodically extended a water bottle to his mouth. He drank without waking.

He stopped at Screen 12.

The room was a cavern. Dozens of exercise bicycles sat in neat rows, each connected by thick cables to a central mainframe. Their seats were worn, their pedals scuffed—but no one was riding them. Instead, each bike’s crankset was attached to a small electric motor that turned the pedals in slow, mechanical revolutions. A silent, automated peloton.

The rain had been falling for three weeks when Elias first noticed the bicycles. The elevator required a retinal scan he didn’t

Help.