Claude Sonnet 4.5 Tries to Write a Scene from Junk Rat

The restricted industrial zone sits on the edge of the old city like a rotting tooth, all rusted chain-link and flickering warning lights that haven’t been maintained since before I was born. Grysk’s instructions were simple enough: get inside the foreman’s office in the main fabrication building, crack the Ascendancy-grade safe, take everything inside, and bring it back. Don’t get caught. Don’t get killed.

Easy, he said.

I’m starting to think Grysk’s definition of “easy” and mine don’t exactly line up.

I crouch behind a stack of corroded fuel drums, watching the patrol pattern of the security drones. Two of them, cycling through the yard in overlapping sweeps. Gus hovers beside me, his sensor dimmed to the faintest amber glow as he tracks their movements.

My shoulder throbs with every heartbeat, a deep ache punctuated by sharp stabs whenever I move wrong. The carbolic acid did its job keeping infection at bay, but it didn’t do anything for the pain. Or the weakness. I haven’t eaten since those breakfast skewers, and that was—what, eight hours ago? My hands shake as I pull them inside my coat sleeves.

Gus pulses a soft pattern—the drones are synchronized, both sweeping the far side of the compound. Now or never.

“Yeah, I see it,” I whisper, pushing myself up. “Let’s go.”

I move quickly but carefully across the open ground, keeping low, boots crunching softly on gravel. The fence is easy enough—someone’s already cut a gap in the chain-link and tried to wire it back shut. I peel it open and slip through, Gus floating behind me like a silent shadow.

The fabrication building looms ahead, a hulking mass of corrugated metal and broken windows. Most of the complex is abandoned—has been for years—but this building still sees occasional use. Enough that they bothered with the drones. Enough that whatever’s in that safe is worth protecting.

I press myself against the wall, breathing hard, and wait for the drones to cycle past again. My vision swims a little and I blink it away. Not now. Can’t afford to be weak now.

Gus flickers amber—all clear—and I move to the loading bay entrance. The door’s locked, but it’s nothing special. Just an old mechanical deadbolt that’s seen better decades. I pull out my picks and get to work, fingers fumbling a bit before I find the rhythm. Tagger taught me this. Said I had good hands for it. Said I could feel what the lock was trying to tell me.

The bolt clicks and I’m in.

Inside, the building is a maze of dead machinery and shadows. Emergency lights provide just enough illumination to navigate by, casting everything in sickly yellow. The air tastes like metal and oil and something chemical that makes my throat close up.

Gus takes point, his sensor sweeping left and right as we make our way deeper. I keep one hand on the wall, the other on the strap of my rucksack. Every sound makes me flinch—the creak of metal settling, the skitter of something small and organic, the distant hum of the drones outside.

The foreman’s office is on the second level, accessed by a metal catwalk that groans under my weight. I freeze halfway across, heart hammering, waiting for the sound of alarms or boots or blaster fire.

Nothing.

Just my own ragged breathing and the ache in my shoulder that’s getting worse.

The office door is unlocked—which should’ve been my first warning that this wasn’t going to be as simple as Grysk made it sound. I push it open slowly, Gus drifting in ahead of me to scan for threats.

The safe is embedded in the far wall, exactly where Grysk said it would be. But it’s not the old Concord-era antique he described. It’s Ascendancy mil-spec, maybe five or six years old at most, with a digital keypad and biometric scanner.

“Bangsat,” I breathe, moving closer. “Grysk, you lying little—”

Gus pulses amber urgently. Right. Complain later. Work now.

I pull out my interface rig—a hodgepodge of salvaged tech Tagger helped me cobble together—and look for an access port. Modern Ascendancy safes are harder to crack than the old ones, but they’re also more vulnerable to electronic intrusion if you know what you’re doing.

And I know what I’m doing.

The port is hidden behind a panel that pops off with minimal effort. I connect my rig and power it up, watching the small screen flicker to life. Gus hovers close, his sensor providing extra light as I work.

The interface is more sophisticated than I expected. Multiple layers of encryption, rotating access codes, the whole works. My fingers move across the makeshift keyboard, running diagnostic routines, probing for weaknesses. There has to be a back door. There’s always a back door.

Sweat drips into my eyes despite the cold. My shoulder screams every time I have to reach up or twist wrong. The hunger makes my thoughts fuzzy, makes it hard to concentrate, but I force myself to focus.

There. A legacy protocol they didn’t bother to disable. Probably figured no one in this part of the city would be smart enough to find it.

I exploit it, feeding my rig’s override commands through the gap in their security. The safe’s display flickers, shows an error code, then goes blank.

Come on. Come on.

Gus suddenly flashes red—urgent warning—and I hear it too. Footsteps. On the catwalk outside.

My hands freeze on the keyboard. The safe is still locked. I need another thirty seconds, maybe a minute, but I don’t have that. The footsteps are getting closer and there’s nowhere to hide in this tiny office and—

The door handle starts to turn.

Gus kills his lights and I yank my rig free, stumbling backward into the shadows behind a filing cabinet. It’s not much cover but it’s all I’ve got. My heart pounds so loud I’m sure whoever’s out there can hear it.

The door opens. A security guard steps in, human, middle-aged, wearing a stained uniform and carrying a plasma pistol on his hip. He’s muttering to himself, something about the drones acting up again, and he doesn’t even glance toward the safe as he crosses to the desk.

I hold my breath. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.

He picks up a thermos from the desk, takes a long drink, sets it back down with a satisfied grunt. Then he turns and walks out, leaving the door open behind him.

I count to twenty after his footsteps fade before I let myself breathe again.

Gus pulses questioning amber.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah, let’s finish this.”

I reconnect the rig, but my hands are shaking worse now and it takes three tries to get the cable seated properly. The safe’s display comes back to life and I pick up where I left off, feeding commands, bypassing protocols, exploiting that stupid legacy back door.

The display flickers again. Shows a progress bar. 60%. 70%. 85%.

Then alarms start blaring outside.

“No no no—” My fingers fly across the keyboard, trying to finish the sequence before—

95%. 98%. 100%.

The safe’s bolt retracts with a heavy clunk and the door swings open just as I hear shouting from somewhere below. The drones must have detected something. Or maybe that guard wasn’t as oblivious as I thought.

I shove my rig in my rucksack and look inside the safe. It’s packed with small sealed containers, the kind used for high-value components or pharmaceuticals. I don’t have time to sort through them. I grab everything, stuffing it all in my rucksack until the bag’s bulging.

Gus is flashing red steadily now—multiple threats converging—and I can hear boots pounding on metal somewhere close.

I run.

Back through the office, out onto the catwalk. Below, I see flashlight beams cutting through the darkness, sweeping up toward my position. More drones too, their sensor lights painting the walls red.

“Find another way,” I gasp at Gus, and he darts ahead, leading me down a different route. Away from the main entrance, deeper into the building’s guts.

We weave through machinery, duck under conveyors, squeeze through gaps I wouldn’t have tried if I wasn’t desperate. My shoulder catches on something and I nearly scream, biting my lip to keep silent as hot pain lances through me.

Behind us, the shouts are getting closer. A plasma bolt sizzles past and punches a hole in the wall to my left, molten metal dripping.

Gus finds a ventilation shaft and I don’t even hesitate. I pry off the grate and crawl inside, the metal freezing against my palms, my rucksack catching on every seam and rivet. It’s tight. Claustrophobic. I can barely move forward and I definitely can’t turn around.

But it leads down. And down leads to ground level. And ground level leads to escape.

I crawl until my arms give out, then crawl some more. Behind me, I hear voices arguing about whether anyone could’ve fit in the shaft. Gus guides me through intersections, his sensor barely glowing, and eventually I see light ahead.

The vent opens on the back side of the building, overlooking the compound’s rear fence. It’s a two-meter drop to the ground and my shoulder’s not going to like it but I don’t have a choice.

I push through, dangle for a heartbeat, and let go.

The landing drives the air from my lungs and sends white-hot agony through my shoulder. I lie there for a second, gasping, trying to make my body move. Gus hovers over me, pulsing urgent red.

“I know,” I wheeze, forcing myself up. “I know.”

The fence is right there. Twenty meters. I can make it twenty meters.

I run, stumbling, my rucksack banging against my back with every step. The contents shift and rattle and I pray to Kiva nothing fragile breaks. Behind me, alarms still blare and I hear the drones repositioning, their repulsors whining as they come around the building.

The gap in the fence. Right there. I hit it full speed and nearly brain myself on a post as I squeeze through. My coat catches on the wire and tears but I don’t stop, don’t look back.

I run until the industrial zone is far behind me, until the sounds of alarms fade into the city’s ambient noise, until my legs give out and I collapse in an alley that reeks of garbage and piss.

Gus settles beside me, pulsing exhausted blue.

“Did it,” I gasp between breaths. “Did it. We did it.”

He flickers an affirmative, too tired for elaboration.

I lie there for several minutes, just breathing, feeling the weight of the rucksack against my back. Whatever’s in those containers, it was worth enough for Ascendancy-grade security. Worth enough that Grysk will have to pay well.

Has to.

Finally, I push myself up and start making my way back to the noodle house. My shoulder’s bleeding again—I can feel the wet warmth soaking into my parka—but I’m alive. I’m alive and I pulled it off and maybe, just maybe, things are finally going to turn around.

Grysk better have my creds ready.

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