The door to the Solder-Sump was kicked open with the force of a hydraulic ram.
Two Inquisitors stepped in. They were towering figures, clad in "Blessed Steel"—armor etched with prayers that absorbed Aetheric interference. Their helmets were faceless, save for a single T-shaped visor that glowed with a cold, blue light.
"Scavenger," the lead Inquisitor said, his voice a synthesized drone. "The theft of Holy Circuitry is a sin of the flesh. Your penance is disassembly."
He raised a heavy, steam-powered mace. The head of the weapon began to spin, its centrifugal force whistling in the small room.
Kaelen stood up slowly. He looked like a ghost. His left arm was wrapped in blood-soaked rags, but beneath the fabric, the golden light of the Model-7 Core was pulsing.
"My flesh has already been sinned against," Kaelen said, his voice eerily calm. "By the hunger. By the cold. By people like you."
He didn't have a weapon that could penetrate Blessed Steel. His rebar-shiv would snap against their armor like a toothpick. He had only one option left. He had to go back to the "Silence."
Kaelen's hand went to the manual crank on his chest.
"What is he doing?" the second Inquisitor asked, pausing. "Is he... attempting a manual restart?"
"He's suicide-patching," the leader realized, his voice losing its robotic calm. "Stop him! He'll overload the local grid!"
Kaelen didn't wait. He gripped the handle of the crank and turned it—not to start his heart, but to jam the mechanism.
THUMP.
THUMP...
...
The world froze.
This time, the "Zero-Pulse" state felt different. Before, it was a fluke. Now, with the Model-7 Logic-Core integrated into his nervous system, the grayscale world was overlaid with bright, neon-red data streams.
He could see the stress points in the Inquisitor's armor. He could see the exact frequency of the spinning mace. He could see the electrical impulses traveling from the Inquisitor's brain to his mechanical fingers.
Kaelen moved.
To the Inquisitors, he simply vanished.
Kaelen slid under the swing of the mace. The air felt thick, like he was moving through gelatin, but his muscles—supercharged by the Capacitor—tore through the resistance. He grabbed the leader's arm.
CONDUCTIVITY AT 100%, the voice in his head whispered.
Kaelen didn't strike. He merely "Opened" the circuit in his arm.
The golden energy of the capacitor poured into the Inquisitor's armor. The Blessed Steel, designed to absorb energy, couldn't handle the raw, unrefined surge of a Zero-Pulse discharge. The armor began to glow cherry-red. The Inquisitor's synthetic voice box let out a distorted, high-pitched wail before the internal electronics melted into slag.
Kaelen stepped back as the giant fell, smoke pouring from his visor.
His own body was screaming. Zero Pulse for 12 seconds. Warning: Brain-Stem Temperature Rising.
Kaelen turned to the second Inquisitor. His vision was blurring. He was dying. Again.
"My turn," he whispered into the silence of his dead heart.