Something about mopping biohazard tile at 4:03 a.m. is when you really start to revalue your life choices.

Not the big ones, like being born under a corporate regime that controls food, water, or which songs get played at karaoke night. No, smaller stuff. Like maybe you should’ve taken your cousin up on that gig at the fry station. Or maybe you shouldn’t have told your supervisor to “eat a microwaved di—” last Thursday. Or—and this one’s fresh—maybe you shouldn’t have leaned over and felt your spine break in half from too many nights hunching over.

“Fuckin’ assholes,” you mutter, one hand on your lower back like an octogenarian war vet. “Goin’ insane and they call me in at 4-fuckin’-AM—for what? To mop up Susan’s breakdown again? ‘Cause she couldn’t handle one more test subject screamin’?”

Down the hall, containment chamber GL-0B13 hums like a sleeping bear. That’s the official name, anyway. Everyone else calls it “Ditto.” Or “The Slime.” Or, if you’re Dave from sanitation, “███.”

…Don’t ask.

You just call him Bob.

You named him that three months ago. It was lonely, mopping these halls. But Bob was always there for you, granted he doesn’t have a choice.

So now? Bob’s your weird jelly cube friend.

“Hey, buddy,” you say every shift, squinting through the triple-reinforced glass. “You good?”

Bob pulses once in reply, light flickering in his translucent body.

You don’t know what that means. You never do. But it feels polite to acknowledge him. He’s been in there since the Incident. And unlike the other stuff in this place, he never made you feel like prying your eyes out.

Weird little guy.

From what you’ve heard in the break rooms is that the bastard can melt metal. Dissolve flesh in seconds. But Bob can also sustain human life. He can wrap you up and keep you breathing for countless years even after your bones shrivel away.

The scientists spent hours teaching him words. Showing him cartoons. Playing him lullabies and explaining “right” and “wrong” like he’s a toddler.

You don’t really get it.

But it’s not your job to get it.

What you also don’t know is that Bob?

Bob is watching you.

Bob’s been watching you.

He’s heard the screaming, the drills, the lies. He knows what they do in this place. He’s felt acid probes, neural jacks, control phrases whispered through reinforced speakers while they piped lullabies in the background like that’d made up for it.

And he hated them.

But you?

You weren’t evil. Just really dumb. Bob didn’t realize you weren’t involved until he saw you on your lunch break. Some noodles were stuck to your hoodie as you ranted about working overtime.

And Bob, for the first time in his chemically-mutated existence, felt something…warm.

So that night?

He breaks out.

He absorbs the night shift scientists. Dissolves security. Leaves nothing but bones, badges, and the smell of scorched hair behind.

Bob was in section E when he heard you singing. If he had ears he’d probably say it hurts them.

You’re mopping with your headphones in, completely oblivious to the colossal, gooey apocalypse that looms behind you.