The cable was unnaturally heavy for a simple piece of copper and insulation. I dragged it with my left hand, leaving bloody streaks on the floor.
Richter lay ahead. Amidst the servomotors and artificial muscles, a small blackened socket gaped.
"Faster, Iron..." Zeno’s voice in my head was fading. "The connection is unstable. I am losing integrity."
"I’m... almost..." I wheezed.
My fingers slipped. With effort, I found the plug. I brought it to the port on the back of Richter's head. My hand shook so hard that I missed three times, scratching the metal.
"Come on, you bastard..."
Click.
The plug, and then the crystal, entered the socket with a soft, dense sound. At that same moment, I felt a shock. The feeling of another mind’s presence—the constant whisper, the commentary—sharply vanished.
I looked up at the nearest monitor. Green lines of code ran across the black screen.
[External storage detected]
Data type: Neural personality imprint.
Target: Biomechanical host "Hound MK-4."
Host status: Critical damage. Biological brain is dead.
Overwriting: 10%... 35%... 68%...
I crawled back to the wall, pressing the stump to my chest. Ephraim's tourniquet was soaked through, but the skill stopped the bleeding in time.
Ephraim stirred in the corner.
"Iron..." the old man barely raised his head. "Why... why did you connect him? Why?"
"It's not him," I whispered. My tongue barely moved.
Overwriting: 99%... Complete.
The screen flickered. Richter’s body jerked.
The massive, mangled heap of steel began to make sounds. Fans whirred inside the armor. Relays clicked. Steam burst from the broken joints.
Then, something moved above the ceiling. Three thin, spider-like legs with laser heads and welding tools. One caught Richter—or "Zeno"—by the shoulder, lifting the heavy body. The second shot a thin welding beam directly into the punctured chest plate, sealing the hole where I had killed him with electricity. The third injected some kind of foam into the joints.
It took less than a minute before they retracted into the ceiling.
He went still.
Then the dark lens on the helmet flared. Bright green. Metal scraped against metal. The giant slowly rose to one knee.
The green eye scanned the hall. It lingered on the Core. On Ephraim. And stopped on me.
I pressed into the wall. All instincts screamed: "Run!" But I simply couldn't.
The giant stood to his full height. He took a step toward me. I closed my eyes.
"Host damage level: seventy percent," the voice boomed from the helmet's speakers. "Student damage level: critical."
I opened my eyes. Zeno—I was certain now—stood over me. He slowly lowered himself into a crouch. A massive hand, encased in black steel, reached for me. I flinched, but the hand stopped. One finger, as thick as my healthy arm, cautiously touched my shoulder just above the tourniquet.
"Does it hurt?" the speaker asked.
"What do you think?" I gave an hysterical chuckle. Tears ran down my face.
He slid his hands under me. And lifted me easily. I hung in his arms, pressing my forehead against the cold chest plate.
"Ephraim," Zeno commanded, turning his head toward the old man. "Can you walk?"
The old man stared at him with his mouth open.
"W-what... what are you?"
"Zeno, who else? Come on, get up. We have three minutes."
Groaning and leaning against the wall, Ephraim rose. Zeno strode toward the far wall of the chamber. In the shadows, another door was visible, something like a cargo ramp. Zeno drove his fingers into the gap between the leaves. Servomotors wailed. The metal groaned and then gave way. The doors parted, revealing a dark tunnel.
Inside hung a capsule, resembling a bullet, matte silver in color. It hovered a few centimeters above the rail on a magnetic cushion.
"Inside."
Zeno gently laid me into a soft chair inside. It automatically adjusted to my body. Ephraim limped after us, casting wary glances at the giant. Zeno entered last. Under his weight, the capsule dipped slightly before the magnetic field stabilized. He sat at the console. His fingers flew across the sensors with incredible speed.
"Where are we going?" I asked, as consciousness began to slip away.
"Outside," Zeno replied.
The capsule shuddered and lunged forward. The G-force pressed me into the chair. The tunnel walls blurred into a single gray stripe. I looked out the side window. Occasionally, the lights of technical stations—huge caverns packed with containers—flew by.
"Look, Iron."
The capsule slowed down. The tunnel ended, giving way to a transparent tube. We burst outside.
It was night. But the darkness was not like it was in the marshes. The capsule stopped on a viaduct suspended over a precipice. The hatch opened with a soft hiss.
A strong wind hit my face. Zeno picked me up and carried me outside. Ephraim followed, holding onto the railing.
"What is that smell?" the old man asked, greedily inhaling the air. "Salt?"
I opened my eyes. Stretching to the very horizon before us was...
"The ocean," Zeno said.
“I knew it—there are oceans in this world too” — that was my last thought before I lost consciousness
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