The ladder seemed to go down forever.
Julian led the descent into the darkness of the bunker. The air grew colder with every step, heavy with the metallic tang of stagnant air and preserved chemicals. His Resonance Gauntlet cast a pale blue light against the concrete walls, revealing faded warning stripes and the logo of a company that hadn't existed for centuries: AETHER DYNAMICS.
"This isn't a military bunker," Skid whispered, her voice echoing softly in the shaft. "It's a lab. A Black-Site."
"The air is dead," Zephyr muttered, clutching his staff. "It has not moved in a hundred years. It tastes of ghosts."
They reached the bottom. A heavy blast door stood open, its locking mechanism melted by extreme heat long ago.
They stepped into the Atrium.
It was a cavernous space filled with rows of shattered glass tanks. Cables hung from the ceiling like dead vines. On the floor lay the scattered remains of… things. Not robots. Not humans.
Twisted skeletons fused with metal plating. Skulls elongated by cybernetics.
"By the Void," Lyra covered her mouth. "What happened here?"
"They were trying to make Conductors," Julian realized, kneeling beside a skeleton that had a tuning fork fused into its forearm bone. "Before they built the Silence masks… they tried to build soldiers who could channel Resonance biologically."
"And they failed," Isolde noted, kicking a rusted metal ribcage. "Badly."
The Inner Sanctum
They pushed deeper into the facility. At the end of the hall stood a single, massive door marked PROJECT: PRIME / UNIT 00.
"This is it," Julian said. "The Emperor's pet project."
He placed his hand on the console. It was dead, but he fed a trickle of power from his gauntlet into the circuits.
Hum-click.
The door groaned and slid open.
The room inside was pristine. Unlike the carnage in the hallway, this lab was untouched. Lights flickered on automatically, bathing the room in a sterile white glow.
In the center of the room, suspended in a magnetic field inside a vacuum-sealed cylinder, was The Prime.
It was beautiful and terrifying.
A humanoid figure, standing seven feet tall. It was encased in armor made of white ceramic and gold—the same material as the Titans. But where a face should be, there was a smooth, featureless surface of black glass.
It didn't have hands. Its arms ended in long, elegant blades made of oscillating crystal.
And plugged into its back were thick cables pumping a glowing red fluid.
"It's a Golem," Zephyr whispered. "A statue made of war."
"It's not a statue," Skid ran to the main terminal, her fingers flying over the keys. "It's a shell. A vessel. Look at the specs."
She pulled up a schematic on the main screen.
SUBJECT: PRIME.
ORIGIN: GENETIC SAMPLE - VANE, A.
STATUS: DORMANT.
Julian froze.
"Vane," he whispered. "Arthur Vane. My father."
"They used his DNA?" Lyra asked, horrified.
"No," Skid read further. "They didn't just use it. They tried to clone his nervous system. They wanted a Conductor who obeyed orders. A machine with the soul of a Builder."
Julian walked up to the glass cylinder. He looked at the black face of the machine.
"The sin of the father," Julian murmured. "He helped them. Before he rebelled... he helped them build this."
He touched the glass.
Resonance.
It wasn't a hostile frequency. It was a question.
Are you there?
The machine twitched.
The red fluid in the cables pulsed faster. The magnetic field hummed.
On the black glass faceplate, a single vertical line of white light appeared. It opened like an eye.
SYNCHRONIZATION DETECTED.
SOURCE: BLOODLINE.
PROTOCOL: AWAKEN.
"Julian, step back!" Skid yelled. "The power spikes are off the charts! It's drawing from the facility's reserve reactor!"
"I didn't turn it on," Julian backed away, raising his gauntlet. "It turned itself on!"
CRACK.
The glass cylinder didn't break; it disintegrated into dust.
The Prime dropped to the floor. It landed silently, despite its size. The cables detached from its back with a wet pop, sealing instantly.
It stood up. The white light on its face scanned the room. It stopped on Julian.
It tilted its head.
"Brother," a synthesized voice spoke. It sounded like Julian's voice, but stripped of all emotion, layered with static. "You look... inefficient."
The Duel of Mirrors
"Identify yourself!" Lyra shouted, aiming her carbine.
The Prime didn't look at her. It raised its right arm. The crystal blade began to vibrate.
Hummmmm.
It wasn't just a sword. It was a Resonance Blade. It vibrated at a frequency that could separate molecules.
"Directive," the Prime stated. "Test the Prototype against the Original. Calibrate for Ascension."
It vanished.
It moved so fast the eye couldn't track it. A blur of white and gold.
CLANG.
Julian instinctively raised his gauntlet to block.
The Prime's blade slammed into Julian's lead-lined forearm. The impact drove Julian to his knees, cracking the floor beneath him.
"Julian!" Isolde fired her shotgun.
The pellets hit the Prime's armor and flattened harmlessly.
The Prime swiveled its torso 180 degrees without moving its legs. It backhanded Isolde with its free arm, sending her flying across the room into a rack of servers.
"Ineffective," the Prime stated.
It turned back to Julian, pressing the blade down. The Sonic Lance in Julian's gauntlet whined, struggling to hold back the vibration of the sword.
"You are weak," the Prime whispered. "Your biological shell is decaying. I can hear your bones turning to glass."
"I'm still... human," Julian gritted his teeth.
He twisted the dial on his gauntlet.
Focus: Repulse.
BOOM.
A shockwave blasted the Prime backward. It skidded across the floor, its magnetic feet carving grooves in the metal.
"Zephyr! Skid! Get Isolde out!" Julian shouted. "Lyra, aim for the joints!"
Julian charged. He couldn't outrun this thing, but he could out-think it.
He fired a Sonic Lance.
The Prime didn't dodge. It raised its blade and cut the sound wave in half. The energy dissipated harmlessly around it.
"It can parry sound?" Lyra gasped.
"It has my father's reflexes," Julian realized. "And a computer's speed."
The Prime lunged again. This time, it spun, turning into a whirlwind of cutting edges.
Julian dodged, ducking under a strike that sliced the top off a steel table.
I can't beat it in a sword fight. I need to overwhelm its sensors.
"Zephyr!" Julian yelled. "Create a vacuum!"
Zephyr understood. He spun his staff, creating a localized vortex of air in the center of the room.
The air pressure dropped.
The Prime stumbled. Its cooling fans whirred loudly, struggling in the thin air.
"Now!" Julian screamed.
He didn't fire at the Prime. He fired at the ceiling directly above it.
Focus: Structural Collapse.
CRACK-BOOM.
Tons of concrete and steel rebar collapsed from the roof, burying the Prime in rubble.
Dust filled the room.
"Is it dead?" Lyra asked, coughing.
A white light shone through the pile of rocks.
The rubble began to vibrate. Then, it exploded outward.
The Prime stood up, unharmed. Its white armor wasn't even scratched.
"Test Phase 1 Complete," the Prime said. "Data acquired. The Subject relies on environmental improvisation. Clever. But finite."
It looked at the open door.
"I require... upgrades. The Scrapyard contains suitable components."
It turned and walked toward the exit.
"Hey!" Julian shouted, charging his gauntlet. "We aren't done!"
The Prime stopped. It looked back.
"Correct. But you are dying, Brother. If I kill you now, the data is incomplete. I will let the rot consume you a little longer. When you are at your peak... I will harvest you."
It engaged its thrusters.
WHOOSH.
It shot up the elevator shaft, smashing through the blast doors, vanishing into the Scrapyard above.
The Diagnosis
Julian collapsed against a console, clutching his corrupted arm. The pain was blinding. The fight had accelerated the infection.
"It let us live," Lyra said, helping Isolde up. "It's toying with us."
"It's learning," Skid said, staring at the empty cylinder. "It's an adaptive AI. It wants to fight Julian at his best so it can absorb his techniques. It wants to become the Perfect Conductor."
"We let it out," Zephyr said grimly. "We opened the tomb, and death walked out."
Julian looked at his hand. The crystal veins were glowing brighter than ever.
"We came here for parts," Julian said weakly. "To fix my arm. Did we find anything?"
Skid looked around the lab. She pointed to a heavy, reinforced medical pod in the corner.
"That," Skid said. "It's a Nanite-Infusion Chamber. Pre-Collapse tech. It's designed to repair cellular damage in pilots."
"Will it cure the crystal?"
"No," Skid shook her head. "Nothing cures the crystal. But... it might be able to graft a containment sleeve onto your arm. Like a dam. It won't stop the corruption, but it will stop the pain. And it might give you the strength to fight that thing."
Julian limped toward the pod.
"Fire it up," Julian said. "If the Prime wants a fight... I'm going to give him a war."