Gridlock Protocol

Abner Sterling is a diagnostic technician whose days are defined by the predictable, sterile rhythm of a fifteen-level, fully automated robotic parking matrix. Hidden beneath the city center, it is a windowless, sprawling subterranean maze of conveyor belts, magnetic lifts, and colossal robotic arms. Abner's quiet existence is shattered when a routine sensor jam leads him to Pallet 404. There, deep within the pitch-black, shifting grid of stacked luxury cars, he discovers the cause of a persistent weight discrepancy: a fresh, bleeding body locked inside a trunk. Before Abner can retreat, the access doors seal shut. The system's sensors log his body heat not as a human, but as an unregistered vehicle, automatically initiating a protocol to clamp him onto a steel pallet and file him away in the darkest corner of the moving grid. This is no malfunction. High above in the control room, a rogue night operator is manually manipulating the massive, crushing mechanical arms to systematically flatten the evidence—with Abner trapped right beside it. Forced into a deadly game of cat and mouse against an untraceable killer and tons of unyielding steel, Abner must hot-wire suspensions and trigger localized explosions to trick the facility's sensors. He has only minutes of breathable air left in the deep storage vault to break the automated system before he becomes a permanent part of the concrete foundation.