A few hours earlier...
"Hurry up, Tira, we’re running out of time!" Ephraim paced nervously around the cramped workshop, constantly glancing at the locked door.
"Don't rush me, old man!" Tira snapped, without looking up from the exposed wires in Zeno's neck. "One wrong move and I'll short-circuit his central processor, then we're never getting out of here. Just give me a second..."
Her raised voice didn't go unnoticed. Outside, behind the frosted glass partition, heavy footsteps approached. The two massive "guards" stationed in the corridor turned sharply toward their bay.
"Hey, you in there! What's the racket?" one of the big men barked, heading for the door.
The second one already had his hand on his holster. The tension in the room spiked to the limit. Iron clenched his fists, bracing for the worst.
"Alright, done!" Tira breathed out triumphantly, ripping out the diagnostic cable.
The moment the guards barged in to see what was going on, Zeno lunged forward.
Two quick strikes landed in rapid succession. The brutes didn't even have time to raise their weapons—Zeno knocked them both out with precise strikes to the jaw and the base of the skull. Their heavy bodies slammed onto the metal floor.
"Let's go! Move!" Tira ordered, grabbing her tool bag.
Sometime later, the heavy blast doors of the sector slowly slid apart. Accompanied by two loyal men, Mole walked into the room. He took his time, a smug smirk on his face.
Grand plans were already spinning in Mole's head. That kid, Iron... his brain is a goldmine, Mole thought, lazily drumming his fingers. He'll build it for me. The new technology. Project "Arisk". With his engineering genius, we'll build a weapon so powerful that the entire leadership of the Middle Level will tremble. We'll flip the local balance of power completely, and then no one will dare dictate terms to me...
His thoughts were rudely interrupted by one of his henchmen, who froze dead in his tracks.
"Boss... look over there."
"What the hell?!" Mole spat.
His men instantly drew their guns and rushed forward, scanning the corridor and the cell. Mole walked quickly over to Tira's bay. Nothing.
Realization hit him in a wave of fury. Mole's face contorted, the veins on his neck bulging.
"Boss..." one of the fighters addressed him cautiously, swallowing hard. "What... what do we do?"
"Follow me!" Mole growled, barely containing his rage. "At all costs! Find them and bring them back alive!"
They had already turned, about to run for the exit, when suddenly, a figure materialized right in front of them.
"Do not touch my prey," a cold, bone-chilling voice rang out. "If you value your lives."
The next moment, the figure vanished into thin air just as suddenly as it had appeared. The air in the corridor became warm and stale again.
Mole's men turned back in fear, looking around wildly, but behind them was nothing but a blank gray wall and an empty corridor. Cold sweat broke out on the fighters' foreheads.
"Boss..." one of them whispered, stammering. "Is it... could it really be him?"
Mole was breathing heavily, his fists trembling from a mix of helpless rage and creeping fear.
Damn it, Valerius... he hissed to himself.
Present time. The operation.
I sat on the cold floor of the control room, pressing the back of my head against the metal terminal, watching Tira tinker with her tools.
"Bite down on this," Tira shoved a twisted strip of leather into my mouth. "And don't you dare flinch. If I nick a nerve in your arm, you won't be able to hold a spoon for the rest of your days."
I nodded, though the movement sent a wave of nausea straight to my throat.
"Ephraim, hold his shoulders. Tight," Tira commanded.
"Wait! You've got it wrong, it needs to be the right..." I rasped, thrashing around.
She braced herself to make an incision just above the elbow.
"Stop!" I screamed.
"Ephraim, hold him tighter! And stop thrashing already!"
The steel bit into my flesh, and my body arched instinctively. The leather strap creaked under my teeth.
"Quiet... quiet..." Ephraim whispered in my ear. "Just a little longer. Breathe through your nose. Just breathe."
"Got it," Tira exhaled tensely. "Bastards. Using bio-thread... It’s already woven into the connective tissue. If we'd waited another day, I would've had to cut it out with a chunk of muscle."
A sharp yank. Blood poured down my forearm.
"There it is," Tira held up a tiny, blood-covered capsule with thin, translucent threads dangling from it. "Ephraim, drag over the carcass of that beast Zeno dropped by the entrance. Now."
A minute later, I heard him wrestling with something heavy and wet.
"We’ll shove this piece of crap under its hide and dump it down the garbage chute of Sector Four," Tira said, calmly bandaging my arm. "While the Cleaners are busy chasing a dead mutant, we’ll already be topside."
I tried to stand, but my legs buckled. Zeno caught me before I hit the floor.
"Subject Iron," Zeno said. "Recommended: minimize physical exertion. Your condition corresponds to extreme exhaustion and traumatic shock."
"He'll manage," Ephraim interrupted, stepping closer and slinging my right arm over his shoulder. "We can't carry him the whole way. Come on, Iron. Move your feet. We're almost there."
The elevator shaft greeted us with the smell of ozone and a darkness stretching upward into infinity. The elevator cars had long since rotted away somewhere at the bottom. The only way up was a technical ladder—thin metal rungs driven into the concrete wall.
"Five hundred meters," Tira said, looking up.
"I will go first," Zeno responded. "Magnetic clamps will ensure stability. I will secure Iron."
"I’ll back you up from below," Ephraim added. "Don't look down, kid. Don't look at all. Your prosthesis is your anchor. Use it like a hook. Steel is stronger than fingers, remember that."
The prosthesis was starting to give out. Its servos were overheating from the constant strain, emitting a thin, agonizing whine. Every time I clamped the metal fingers around a rung, a jolt of electricity shocked my shoulder. The sensors had gone haywire, flooding my brain with false pain signals.
My left arm was useless—numb after the surgery, it was tightly strapped to my body. I climbed mostly using my mechanical arm and my knees. Zeno hovered above me, moving with incredible speed and hauling me upward whenever I slipped.
A thought kept flashing in my head: when the hell did they manage to do this to my left arm?
At some point, I froze. My strength simply... vanished. I hung two hundred meters above the ground, death-gripping a rusted rung, staring blankly at the gray wall. My thoughts tangled. It felt as though I was still inside the pod.
"Don't you dare stop!" Ephraim’s voice drifted up from below. He pressed his head into my back, shoving me upward. "Move! Just a little further!"
I couldn't answer. I just pulled myself up again. And again.
"Detecting movement below," Zeno suddenly stated. His head rotated one hundred degrees. "Rhythmic signatures. Search party. They are utilizing gravitational platforms."
"Shit," Tira hissed from above. "They figured out the tracker trick. Ephraim, faster!"
A piercing white beam stabbed up from the darkness below, sweeping across the shaft walls.
"Targets acquired!" a voice echoed from loudspeakers. "Open fire! Capture the live subject, eliminate the rest!"
Gunfire erupted. Bullets sparked off the concrete, showering us with debris.
"Engaging suppression," Zeno flatly enunciated.
Holding onto the ladder with one hand, he opened fire downward. The muzzle flashes strobe-lit the shaft.
"Climb, Iron!" Ephraim shouted, shoving me upward so hard I nearly lost my grip.
My brain shut down, yielding to pure instinct. Step. Grip. Move. Step. Grip. Move.
We burst into the Middle Level maintenance airlock at the exact moment bullets tore apart the platform right beneath us. Zeno lunged in last. He spun around and slammed the control panel. With a metallic grind, the blast doors slammed shut, cutting off our pursuers.
"Finally..." Ephraim collapsed next to me, his chest heaving heavily. "Bloody hell... Shit. I am way too old for this kind of adventure..."
Tira was already on her feet, scanning the corridor.
"Move," she tossed out. "That door won't hold them for long. They have access codes. We need to reach the Hive. There are too many people there—even the Academy won't risk an all-out sweep."
We bypassed a few corridors and suddenly emerged onto a massive balcony overhanging the central square of Sector Four.
I froze, blinded.
After the endless dark below, the Middle Level felt blindingly bright. Neon signs. Endless market rows stretching for kilometers. Noise. Crowds. Movement everywhere. A living hive—dirty, overpopulated, reeking.
"Welcome to civilization," Tira smirked bitterly. "Around here, every second person is a thief. And every first is a traitor. Keep your eyes peeled."
We had just started descending the metal stairs toward the market when four figures blocked our path. Leather jackets, chains, armor made of scrap metal. In their hands, they held old but well-maintained rifles.
"Well, look who it is," one of them, a broad-shadowed guy with a gear tattoo on his neck, stepped forward. "Look what crawled out of the storm drains. Tira? And here I thought you were on the run. Heard you owe people."
"Out of the way, Nail," she said coldly, without breaking her stride. "I'm not here for you. And those debts aren't mine."
"Don't care," he leveled his rifle, aiming straight at Zeno. "This bot yours? On the Middle Level black market, he'll fetch a cool fifty. We're taking him as a toll."
"Threat identified," Zeno stated. "Lethality probability: 98% within three seconds."
Ephraim reached slowly for his piece of rebar, though his hand shook noticeably. I stood behind them, leaning my mechanical hand on the railing.
"Hold on," Ephraim suddenly stepped forward, shielding the rest of us. "Look at this robot. Think it's just scrap? Take a closer look. See the mark on his shoulder?"
Nail narrowed his eyes. Beneath the layer of grime, a symbol was faintly visible—a crossed-out circle with a lightning bolt.
"Now look at the kid," Ephraim pointed at me. "He's a Cleaner," Ephraim lied, his voice firm and confident. "Decommissioned after severe injuries, but still lethal. The moment you shoot, this machine will kill you before your finger even finishes pulling the trigger. Let us pass, and we vanish. The Academy is hunting us for desertion. You don't want them tracking us here, do you? They'll burn this damn market to the ground along with the rest of you."
Nail shifted his gaze to Zeno. Then to Tira. Then to me.
"Damned cultists..." he muttered, lowering his rifle. "Get lost. You have five minutes. I don't want to see you in my sector ever again."
He grabbed my arm and dragged me forward into the crowd. Tira led the way, weaving between the stalls and the people.
"Nice bluff, old man," she muttered.
"Doesn't matter," Ephraim breathed out. "Hey, Iron... just don't pass out. We need to find shelter before you collapse."
We forged through the crowd—past butcher shops, repair stalls, hundreds of strangers. After a long while, the Skill was finally fading, leaving a scorched emptiness in my head.
"Over there," Tira pointed toward a dim sign featuring a rusted gear. "An old acquaintance of mine runs a flophouse there. For a couple of coins, he won't rat us out."
We crossed the threshold. The door shut behind us. I slid down the wall onto the filthy floor.
"...Done," I rasped.
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