We sat in the "Dead Water" sector. The place reeked of stagnant chemicals and old steel. The water in the concrete troughs glowed a toxic green, casting reflections across the vaulted ceiling—sometimes in thin threads, sometimes in ugly, floating splotches.
The name fits, but it's stupid, I thought.
Ephraim slid down the wall, trying to bandage a burn on his forearm. Tira was tinkering with my prosthesis, her tools laid out right on a filthy crate.
Idiot, the thought flashed.
I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my head against the cold concrete. Everything inside me burned with a fierce self-hatred. Why the hell did I have to talk about my Skill in the first place? And Richter—what the fuck was he even doing there when we were talking about him?
My own stupidity stung worse than the wound on my left arm.
"Iron, don't move," Tira's voice yanked me from my thoughts. "I need to open up the central node."
She pressed the laser cutter against my shoulder joint. A thin beam bit into the metal. I clenched my jaw until my teeth cracked.
"The Centurion's processor is almost seated," she muttered, adjusting her goggles. "It's got about three times the power of your old block. But there's a problem... the arm is rejecting it."
"Meaning?" I squeezed out through gritted teeth.
"There's a lockout protocol here. It's shielding an isolated memory sector."
Tira cursed filthily and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She hooked up a diagnostic cable to her tablet, and endless lines of code flooded the screen.
"Alright, let's see..." Her fingers flew across the touchscreen. "Protocol bypass... root directory breach... Hold on. What the hell is this?"
Ephraim raised his head. I leaned forward too, fighting through the pain in my shoulder.
"A hidden archive," Tira frowned. She cut herself off, staring at the bottom line of the file. "'Project Watcher: Valerius. Subject: Iron-01. Objective: data collection for mass replication of the Skill.'"
"So," I choked out. "He..."
"He was waiting for you to push the Skill to its limits under extreme conditions," Ephraim cut in.
"But how..." I mumbled. "You guys built the prosthesis! Zeno! Ephraim!"
"We don't understand it ourselves, kid."
"I trusted you..."
"Listen—"
"Why did you do it? Was everything we went through staged by you too? And—"
"Just damn well listen to me!" Ephraim shouted. "We don't know where the hell this thing came from! Even if it were like that, tell me, why would we suffer right alongside you? For one lousy objective? We don't give a damn about your Skill! We can see what it's doing to you!"
Silence fell over the collector. The only sound was the distant dripping of water.
The raw edge in his voice... it’s probably the truth, but I still have to keep an eye on them, I thought to myself.
"Tira," I finally managed. "Can you wipe it?"
"Uh... yeah, sure, but the arm will go completely dead. The protection is hardcoded into the OS kernel. Although..." she narrowed her eyes with a sly grin. "We could spoof the data."
"Do it," I snapped.
Tira took a deep breath and rammed the Centurion processor all the way into the socket.
Red system notifications flashed violently before my eyes.
[CRITICAL ERROR]
[UNAUTHORIZED HARDWARE DETECTED]
[SYSTEM REBOOTING...]
I screamed until my voice blew out. Ephraim pinned my shoulders to the floor with a death grip so I wouldn't smash my skull against the concrete.
After a while, I lay on the concrete, gasping for air. My right arm... was humming. I slowly raised it and squeezed it into a fist.
The metal responded with blinding speed.
"Did it work?" Tira asked, holding her breath.
"Yeah," I rasped.
"What's next?" Ephraim asked.
"We're heading to the Lift. To the Upper Level," Tira said. "It's time to finish this with him."
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