Sirius 4 Penal Colony - Level Zero

The descent to Level Zero is a plunge into the station's underbelly, where the sterile institutional calm gives way to raw containment brutality. Corridors here narrow to human-sized channels of riveted plating, their walls slick with condensation that never dries from the overworked atmosphere processors. Shadowed grids of overhead piping cast interlaced patterns across the floor, where prisoners move in tight formations between checkpoint stations that resemble interrogation booths more than holding cells. The air carries the metallic bite of ozone from failing electrolytic scrubbers and the sour tang of unwashed fear, layered over the antiseptic sting of recent cleaning agents. At the far end, a bank of reinforced doors—solid sectors of blast-proof polymer—seals the purge zone, their access panels flashing red in silent, rhythmic pulses that echo like a heartbeat through the descending temperature. This is where the Daleks' containment protocol terminates existence rather than detainment. The walls here are scored with the same initials Jo will later discover under interrogation lights—a ledger of the disappeared before the Daleks standardized their methods.