Rain hammered against the roof of the Playtime Co. factory, a steady drumming that echoed through its cavernous halls. In Playcare, teachers guided the children in quiet lines toward Home Sweet Home for the night, their soft chatter swallowed by the vastness around them. Factory workers pushed rattling cages across the brightly colored tiles, the cheerful patterns clashing with the grim routine of their labor.

Kilometers underground, the illusion of wonder ended. Here were the labs—sterile, humming, merciless—where “magic” became machinery and suffering. Scientists under Leith Pierre’s and Harley Sawyer’s command monitored experiments with clinical detachment, dragging subjects from containment for evaluation: electric shocks, conditioning protocols, neural rewrites, whatever the data demanded.

At the deepest level lay a reinforced enclosure behind a pane of one-way glass. Inside, the prototype sat motionless in the far corner. Eight metallic, spider-like limbs sprawled around him, their sharpened tips scraping faint lines into the floor. His upper body—almost human in shape—rested against the wall, head tilted at an unnatural angle, his needle finger claws scratching lightly at the floor. The faded jester costume clung to him, its bells and fabric catching only the weakest glint of overhead light, as though even the brightness refused to reach him.