The darkness in the collectors had its own levels. The first level was a thick, oily blackness. The second was the faint glow of Zeno’s dying lens, catching pieces of rusted pipes and dripping slime out of the void. And the third—barely perceptible—was a ghostly shimmer emanating from Iron.
Ephraim walked behind, clutching Zeno’s cold manipulator. The old man could barely drag his feet. Every time his boot sank into another puddle with a wet squelch, the echo reverberated through the tunnel.
"Quieter..." he whispered, though the sound of his own voice frightened him even more.
Zeno moved with mechanical monotony. His left hip drive jammed every five steps, letting out a short metallic clang. Iron hung over his shoulders like a sack of bones. His head rolled with every step, and his one healthy hand dragged along the concrete whenever Zeno leaned too low.
"Why isn't he coming to?"
"The subject's consciousness is in a state of forced isolation," Zeno responded. "Critical overheating of synaptic pathways. If a repeated attempt to activate the Skill is recorded within the next twenty hours, the probability of irreversible damage to the cerebral cortex will be..."
"Enough!" Ephraim snapped. "Just carry him."
They stopped about an hour later when the tunnel widened into a small utility chamber. Zeno carefully lowered Iron onto a dry concrete platform. His breathing was so shallow that Ephraim had to press his ear to his chest to make sure he was still alive.
"He's burning up," Ephraim muttered, touching Iron's forehead and instantly pulling his hand back. The skin was dry and scorching. "We need water."
Zeno frozen in the corner, his lens narrowing to a barely visible pinpoint.
"The water in this sector contains 40% heavy metal impurities and organic decomposition products," Zeno stated flatly. "Purification is impossible."
Ephraim cursed under his breath. He pulled out the remainder of the canteen from the mill—the cloudy liquid Iron had called alcohol. Wetting a scrap of cloth, he began to wipe the kid's face.
Suddenly, Iron’s body convulsed into a violent arch.
"Hold him!" the old man shouted.
Zeno reacted instantly. His fingers pinned Iron’s shoulders to the concrete.
[INVOLUNTARY DISCHARGE OF NEURAL NODES DETECTED]
Side effect: "Will to Live"
Current process: Attempting to shed excess system load
Iron thrashed in Zeno's grip, his eyelids fluttering. For a brief moment, they cracked open.
A second later, Iron went limp and slipped back into unconsciousness. Ephraim sank to the floor, his hands trembling.
"Who is he, Zeno? No human should have to suffer like this."
"The Skill is a tool," Zeno replied. "But the tool is not designed to operate at one hundred percent host degradation. It destroys the host in order to preserve them. A logical paradox."
They sat in silence for another ten minutes—until the sound changed.
A thin, high-frequency beep. It was coming from above, out of a debris-clogged ventilation grate. Zeno killed his lens instantly.
"Do not move," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Active scanner."
Ephraim froze, afraid to even swallow. A cold drop of sweat rolled down his spine. The grate above them let out a faint metallic click. Through the slats, a thin red beam sliced through the darkness. It slid slowly across the walls, lingered on a rusted pipe, then swept across Zeno's legs.
The old man squeezed his eyes shut, praying to every god he could remember. The red beam paused just a couple of inches from Iron’s face. The air in the chamber felt charged with electricity. Somewhere above, a soft click echoed, and the "mosquito" flew on, its whining beep fading into the labyrinth of tunnels.
"The Academy..." Zeno breathed a minute later. "They are using 'Whisper' class tracking modules. They aren't searching blindly. They want the archive."
"Or him," Ephraim said, nodding toward Iron.
Zeno lifted Iron back into his arms.
"We cannot remain here. The drone's signal repeats every five minutes. Soon they will deploy an assault squad or flood the sector with nerve gas. There is an exit to the Threshold here."
"To where?"
"To the lower levels of the old city. To where the Academy's sensors go blind from interference."
The path to the Threshold turned into an endless succession of narrow crawlspaces and flooded corridors. Ephraim waded waist-deep in freezing water, trying not to think about what was brushing against his legs beneath the surface. Zeno walked ahead, holding Iron high above the water. Sparks showed from his joints, his movements growing increasingly jerky, but he did not stop.
Finally, they reached a massive steel door. It looked nothing like the one they had entered through. There were pickaxe marks, soot stains, and strange symbols painted in white.
"Locked," Zeno stated. His manipulator slid uselessly across the metal. "The electronic lock is dead. The mechanical drive is jammed from the other side."
Ephraim stepped closer, breathing heavily. He noticed an old, corroded manual override wheel, choked with rocks and petrified mud.
"Move aside," the old man spat on his palms.
He grabbed the wheel. The metal burned with cold. He threw his weight into it once—nothing. Again. His joints popped, his vision blurring from the strain.
"Come on... you stubborn bitch..." Ephraim rasped.
He felt the skin on his palms burst, hot blood mixing with the rust. Then—a jar. The door groaned. The wheel screeched, turning a quarter of a rotation.
"Again..." Zeno pressed his shoulder into the door, assisting him.
Together, they forced the mechanism to give way. With a long, grinding screech, the door slid aside, revealing a vast space.
Part of the ceiling had collapsed, exposing the rusted skeletons of buildings far above under a gray sky. Shreds of fog hung everywhere, and along the tracks, small, dim campfires flickered among shattered train cars.
"Where are we?" Ephraim whispered, wiping the blood from his hands onto his cloak.
"Free Zone," Zeno replied. His lens flashed an anxious red.
From the shadow of a nearby train car, three figures emerged. They wore cloaks patched together from scraps of plastic and canvas, their faces hidden behind makeshift filters. In their hands, they held heavy rebar clubs studded with spikes and an old crossbow wrapped in electrical tape.
The one in the center stepped forward. His gaze shifted from the sparking robot to the exhausted old man, and finally, to Iron.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," the stranger said in a low, raspy voice. He leveled the crossbow, aiming straight at Zeno's lens. "Drop the meat and get lost while I'm feeling generous. We don't need extra mouths in the commune, but spare parts..." He smirked.
Ephraim reached slowly for the knife at his belt, but his legs were trembling too violently.
"He's not meat," he said firmly, though his voice wavered.
"Then what is he?" the stranger said, letting out a dry, hacking cough that passed for a laugh.
Zeno stepped forward, shielding Ephraim and Iron with his chassis.
"Threat detected. Analysis... Target: Eliminate."
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