### Chapter 4: The Power Trap
The storm was no longer just a threat on the horizon; it was an atmospheric cataclysm overhead. The sky above the Scrapyard had turned the color of oxidized copper—heavy, oppressive, and sick. Arcs of raw electricity lashed out, striking the peaks of the highest metal mounds. With every thunderclap, Marcus's visual sensors washed out with static interference, blinding him with white noise.
His new body was becoming a cage.
The hydraulics were running on fumes, starving for pressure. The massive "Titan" arm from the loader-bot, which he had grafted onto himself only an hour ago, dragged his left shoulder down with the relentless pull of gravity. It was powerful, yes—capable of crushing stone—but right now, without the energy to move it, it was nothing more than a dead anchor.
A warning message pulsed in the center of his vision, throbbing in sync with his heavy, mechanical footsteps:
> ⚠ CRITICAL ENERGY LEVEL: 3%
> ⚠ RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE HIBERNATION
"Denied," Marcus snarled internally.
Hibernation here was synonymous with death. If he shut down, the "Crabs" or other scavengers would strip him for parts before his processor had even cooled. He would wake up as a spare part in someone else's inventory—or he wouldn't wake up at all.
Through the dense curtain of acidic rain that had begun to pit the paint on his chassis, he spotted a shape. It was too geometric to be debris. It wasn't a jagged ship fragment or a heap of refuse.
It was a concrete cube, half-buried in rust and mud. An ancient military field communications module. A broken antenna jutted from its roof like a charred skeletal finger pointing at the accusing sky.
Hope flared in his logic circuits. These modules were built to be autonomous. They had reinforced shielding. And most importantly, they had backup generators. Or batteries.
Marcus dragged himself to the entrance, sliding through sludge made of oil and ash. The door was sealed tight. Thick, military-grade steel, coated in layers of grime.
"Alright, Titan," he addressed his left arm, his voice a distorted rasp. "Show me what you're worth."
He pulled the arm back. The movement was agonizingly slow, plagued by latency—the signal from his brain to the alien limb took half a second to travel through the spliced wires. But when the heavy metal fist finally met the door, the sound was like a bomb going off.
*BOOM.*
The heavy hinges screamed. The steel buckled inward.
A second hit. The metal tore.
A third strike ripped the door free from the crumbling concrete frame, sending it clattering into the darkness inside.
The interior smelled of ozone, dry dust, and a sterility that felt alien in the filth of the Scrapyard.
In the center of the dark room stood a terminal. Its screen was dead, a spiderweb of cracks marring the glass. But beneath the desk, on a massive Uninterruptible Power Supply unit, a tiny red LED pulsed. Weak. Fading. But alive.
A heartbeat.
Marcus collapsed to his knees in front of the block. His scanner identified the port immediately:
> OBJECT: Military Power Source M-12
> STATUS: Standby Mode
> CHARGE: Unknown
He didn't have the right cable. The standard charging port in his neck was generations too new for this archaic hardware.
"We do this the hard way," he decided.
Marcus popped open the maintenance panel on his chest. His fingers—on his right, "native" hand—deftly pulled out two emergency leads, stripped wires meant for jump-starting critical systems. He used a shard of metal to scrape the corrosion off the terminals on the power block.
With trembling hands, he pressed the live wires against the contacts.
*CONTACT.*
The shock hit him like a defibrillator paddle.
His back arched, his joints locking up with the sudden influx of voltage. This wasn't the clean, regulated energy of a charging station. This was "dirty" electricity—unstable, old, accumulated over decades of decay. It tasted of metal and ash on his sensors.
> ⚡ EXTERNAL POWER DETECTED
> ⚡ RECHARGING: 10%... 12%... 15%...
It was like drinking ice water after a week in the desert. The world sharpened. The glitches in his vision vanished. He felt his servos unlocking, strength returning to his legs, his processor clocking up to full speed.
And in that moment, the room woke up.
Emergency strobe lights flashed on the walls, bathing the room in rotating red. Text flared on the broken terminal screen:
**[ALERT! UNAUTHORIZED NETWORK ACCESS.]**
**[DEFENSE PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.]**
Marcus heard a mechanical whir behind him, high up in the corner. A panel in the ceiling, disguised as a bundle of wires, slid open.
An automated sentry turret descended. A quad-barrel kinetic repeater. Its sensor eye glowed with the same predatory red light as the terminal. Slowly, with the menacing hum of high-torque servos, it swiveled to face him.
Marcus froze. He was on his knees. He was physically tethered to the power block by two wires held in his hands. If he let go now to run, he would be stuck at 18% charge, unarmed, against a military killing machine.
The turret's barrels began to spin up. *Whirrrrr-zzzt.* He remembered that sound from his human life. It was the sound of a firing squad.
Time dilated for him. His processor overclocked, running simulations.
*Run?* Survival probability: 4%. He wouldn't make it to the door.
*Attack?* Probability: 2%. He couldn't reach it.
He looked at the turret. And suddenly, he didn't see a threat. He saw a machine.
Something clicked deep within his interface, unfolding a new, previously dormant window:
> PASSIVE SKILL UNLOCKED: [MECHANICAL EMPATHY]
> Target: Automated Sentry "Cerberus-M"
> Analysis: Shared power grid. Unshielded control circuit. Voltage regulator vulnerability detected.
He saw it as clearly as if the turret were made of glass. He could "see" the current flowing through its wires. It was feeding from the same power block he was attached to. They were connected, like Siamese twins sharing a heart.
"You and I..." Marcus whispered, the realization dawning on him. "We are in the same system."
Instead of ripping the wires free to flee, he dug his fingers into the exposed contacts, squeezing them until his metal knuckles groaned.
The turret opened fire.
The first burst tore up the floor, sending fountains of concrete dust and sparks erupting inches from his knees. A ricochet pinged off his shoulder plate.
Marcus shut his eyes (disabling optics to save CPU cycles) and focused entirely on the flow of energy. He didn't take it. He *pushed* it.
He opened his capacitors and reversed the flow. He took all the charge he had accumulated, multiplied it by the incoming current, and shoved it back down the line. He created a feedback loop—a lethal surge of overvoltage.
It hurt. His own fuses began to melt. His system screamed:
> ⚠ CRITICAL OVERLOAD! CORE TEMP 490°C!
"Die!" he screamed silently, unleashing the pulse.
*BANG!*
The explosion was muffled and electric. The turret's control unit, not built to handle such a massive spike from its own power source, detonated in a shower of sparks. The barrels froze mid-spin. Smoke curled lazily toward the ceiling. The red eye flickered once, twice, and died.
Silence returned to the room. The only sound was the fan in Marcus's chest, whirring violently to cool his glowing core.
> THREAT ELIMINATED.
> EXPERIENCE GAINED: 50 XP.
He opened his eyes. The smoke was clearing.
He carefully detached the blackened wires from the block. His hands were shaking—a fine tremor caused by the residual static.
He checked his charge indicator.
**42%.**
Marcus laughed. It was a strange, grinding sound, like radio interference. He had won. Not with muscle, not with speed. But with the mind of an engineer.
He stood up and walked over to the smoking turret. It hung limp on its mount, dead and helpless. It wasn't an enemy anymore. It was Loot.
He grabbed the hot metal with his massive left hand—the "Titan"—and pulled. The mountings groaned and snapped.
> ITEMS ACQUIRED:
> * [Vulcan Gatling Barrel (Damaged)] — Weapon crafting material.
> * [High-Torque Servo (Excellent Quality)] — Joint upgrade component.
> * [Optical Sensor "Eye of Cerberus" (Functional)] — Military grade optics. Night Vision + Zoom x4.
Marcus looked at the optical sensor in his hand—a sleek, black sphere with a red lens. He touched his own face, feeling his cheap, cracked factory eye.
"Time for an upgrade," he said to the empty room.
Outside, the storm was raging harder than ever, but now, he had the eyes to see through it.