The Planetary Engine didn't look like a miracle; it looked like a rusted mountain of iron and hate. In the city of Gear-Town, the only currency that mattered was "Amp-Hours." If you had power, you were a king. If you didn't, you were just another piece of scrap waiting to be melted down.

Detective Jax Thorne leaned against a damp wall, lighting a cigarette that tasted like burnt plastic. He was a "Current-Hunter," a man hired to find leaked power and the people stealing it. He didn't care about the mission to Proxima Centauri. To him, the "Great Migration" was just a fancy word for a slow-motion shipwreck.

"The Ignition Key is gone, Jax," his client, a suit from the Core Corporation, told him. "If we don't get it back, the engines stop. The Earth stops. We all stop."

The Key wasn't a physical object; it was a sequence of encrypted codes held by the three major Corporate Houses. For centuries, they had played a game of balance, ensuring the Earth kept moving just enough to keep their profits flowing. But someone had broken the balance.

Jax spent three days in the underbelly of the city, fighting through gangs of "Wire-Heads" and bribing corrupt officials with stolen batteries. He found the thief in a dive bar called The Short Circuit. The thief was a kid, no older than twenty, with a cybernetic eye that twitched with every heartbeat.

"I didn't steal it for money," the kid gasped, blood leaking from his mouth. "I stole it to stop the engines. Look at the readouts, Jax. The engines aren't pushing us to a new home. They're just spinning us in circles. The Corporations knew. They just wanted a permanent colony where they could be the gods of a closed system."

Jax looked at the data chip in the kid's hand. The kid was right. The trajectory was a loop. A perfect, endless circle of servitude.

The Core Corp agents arrived a minute later, their silenced pistols drawn. They didn't want the Key back to save humanity; they wanted it to ensure the loop continued.

Jax looked at the kid, then at the agents. He thought about the millions of people in the dark, believing they were heading toward a sunrise that would never come.

He didn't give them the chip. He crushed it under his boot.

"Sorry, boys," Jax said, a grim smile on his face as the agents opened fire. "I've always hated circles."

*** OTMES_v2: [V-03]-[T3-05]-[M5:9.0, N1:0.8, M3:6.0, theta:210]