The platform shuddered and began its crawl upward. It wasn't even a lift, but a massive cargo deck the size of a hangar, creeping slowly along titanic rails inside an endless vertical shaft.
The hum of the industrial floors below began to fade, replaced by the howl of the oncoming wind. I stood there, staring down. The grime, the rust, and the neon haze of the Hive blurred into a barely discernible, dim smudge.
"Step back from the edge, kid," Ephraim said quietly.
He sat down on a steel crate and pulled out his old, battered canteen. Taking a swig, he held it out to me.
"You're suspiciously quiet today," the old man noted, squinting against the wind. "Even for you."
"Just thinking."
"About what?"
"About why I even started all this. Actually... no, I know why. But still... I brought this on myself."
Ephraim was silent for a long time, staring into the darkness of the shaft.
"We all do stupid things. I used to think I was a big shot too. I was at the top of the Order. But... then they took my daughter—simply because her biometrics matched some new neural interface they were building. I haven't seen her since."
"But if you were at the top, how did they take her from you?"
"The Council of Five. Specifically, one of Valerius's subordinates," he said quietly.
Silence hung in the shaft.
"Wh—"
"Why am I helping you? That's what you wanted to ask, kid."
"Yeah."
"I’ve lied to you a lot. The real reason I'm helping you is that, strangely enough, you remind me of her. Besides, if I help you rip out Valerius's throat, it means my life wasn't entirely a waste."
He patted my good shoulder and turned away.
A little further off, Tira was tinkering with Zeno. The robot sat propped against a support beam. Tira was trying to fasten a torn armor plate to his chest, but her oil-smeared fingers kept slipping.
"Tira," Zeno said suddenly. His voice sounded clear, free of the usual digital static. "If you replace another forty percent of my chassis, will I still be Zeno?"
Tira froze, wrench in hand.
"You're you, Zeno. Your memory. Your care for Iron. You can't replace that with spare parts."
And yet, we're all just fragments of something broken, I thought.
And then, something clicked in my head.
A high-pitched beep. Images flashed before my eyes: a sterile white ward, cold hands in rubber gloves, and Valerius's voice sounding as if underwater.
“Subject Iron-01. Test number forty-eight. Skill activated. Retinal degradation observed. Continue stimulation.”
I cried out and grabbed my head.
"Iron! What's wrong?" Tira rushed over to me.
"He's... here," I rasped, trying to force the images out of my skull. "He's broadcasting recordings."
"He's using the prosthesis as a relay!" Tira frantically reached for her tablet, trying to connect to my port. "Hang on, Iron, I'll try to set up a filter!"
A distinct hum echoed from the darkness of the shaft above us.
"Take cover!" Ephraim barked, leveling his old carbine.
Dropping down from above like a flock of predatory birds came the Interceptors. Light Academy drones, gleaming with polished chrome. Laser cutters scored red-hot lines across the deck, barely missing Zeno.
Fighting in an open elevator shaft was suicide. There was nowhere to hide except behind a few cargo crates, and the platform kept hurtling upward, creating a furious headwind that threw off everyone's aim.
"Zeno, cover the flanks!" I commanded.
Red markers flared on the periphery of my vision. Every drone was calculated: speed, trajectory, destruction probability.
I lunged forward. One of the drones swept past a meter away, trying to take my back; without turning around, I threw my right arm backward. Metal fingers locked around the Interceptor's thin wing with a death grip, and I slammed it hard into the shaft's guide rail. An explosion, a shower of sparks—down goes one.
"Iron, watch out!" Ephraim shouted, laying down suppressing fire on another group.
I snatched a piece of rebar ripped from the platform's deck plating and hurled it at a second drone. The processor calculated the throw perfectly—the steel rod pierced clean through the machine's core, dead center.
But as the last drone—now just a chunk of burning plastic—plummeted into the dark, I realized my left arm had gone completely numb.
I dropped to one knee.
"Enough..." I whispered, trying to inhale, but my lungs felt like they were choked with sand.
Tira ran up to me, her face pale. She whipped an auto-injector out of her bag.
"I warned you! Your nervous system can't handle it! Your synapses are literally burning out under this kind of load!"
She drove the blocker into my neck. A sharp bite of pain brought me back to my senses for a moment, but the numbness in my left arm didn't fade.
"You're killing yourself, Iron," Ephraim said quietly, stepping closer. "Valerius doesn't even have to lift a finger."
"We don't have a choice," I squeezed out, smearing blood away with my sleeve.
The platform began to slow. The grinding of the rails gradually subsided. Above us, massive blast doors began to slide apart. The light flooding through the gap was blinding.
The deck rolled smoothly into a docking berth and locked into place.
We stepped onto the smooth, mirrored floor of a hangar. There was no rust here. No smell of burnt slag. The air smelled of ozone and some kind of flowers.
"Where is everyone?" Tira whispered, tightening her grip on her tablet.
I looked straight ahead. My prosthesis vibrated subtly, acting like a compass needle.
"He's waiting for us at the Source," I said.
"Then let's move," Ephraim tossed out without looking back. "Time to end this."
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