No, Finn. You’re gone. That place is gone! You blew it up!
“Do you have any idea who I am,” Xi says. The room hums louder. His voice deepens—not in volume, in gravity. "You are standing in the heart of RhoXi, Finn Scott.Mycity. I carved it from scrap and spark. I built its towers, its tunnels, its systems—every breath taken inside these walls is a breath I allow. I don’t rule by force. I rule by architecture."
He chuckles. Low and distorted, but all the more godlike.
"You were never chosen. You were configured. Your loyalty is a line of code. Your love? A useful glitch. You don’tprotectJasina. You don’tloveher. Youpowerher. It’s not you, I want, my boy. It’sher.”
I ignore him. Because Ididprotect her. Ididsave her. Ididit all right!
The speaker crackles, just once. Then stillness as another memory comes to mind. Small, it is. Like a drop of water on a parched tongue in the mid-day sun.
“I want to know things, Jasina. I want to understand what’s happening to us. I’m tired of the lies and I want the truth. I think it’s up there in that room. And if you want the truth as well, then I would like you to join me so we can find it together.”
"Do you understand what she is, Finn? She is the closest I’ve come to perfection. A maiden who glows without death. A spark that recharges. Do you realize what that means?" A silence here so I can contemplate what it means.
And I know what it means. It means… we lose.
"It means I win the Game of Gods."
A static pulse rolls through the floor, like the Factory is listening too. "The others talk of freedom, of revolution, of faith. But I play for reality. I am the architect of the Grand Design. And this girl of yours will be the spark that gets me my final tower between worlds, where every system, every soul, will realign to me.
Now the voice lowers—soft, intimate, cruel.
"So stand up, Augment. You were made for this moment. Your fight is the matchstick I strike against her skin. Let’s see how brightly she burns."
Something buzzes in my head. I fall to the ground, hands over my ears, trying to make the high-pitched screeching go away.
But it’s not external, it’sinsideme.
White-blue flash.
CRADLE ARRAY: ACTIVE
SPARK INTERFACE: STABLE
FEMALE CONDUITS – ONLINE
This is when I see them. I’m on my feet again, not even aware how that happened. I scan the three men standing before me. Tags pop up as my eyes sweep across the room.
OPPONENT 578-A-DAINRIK
UNIT 3-ALPHA-PRIME COUPLER: 578-B-VEYRA
OPPONENT 577-A-ZAYLEN
UNIT 2-ALPHA-PRIME COUPLER: 577-B-MAELIS
OPPONENT 576-A-UNKNOWN
UNIT 1-ALPHA-PRIME COUPLER: 576-B- ELSHA
Each man’s eyes glow blue. Spark comes out of the back of their necks as a flickering wave of blue static—arcing high up into the air, flowing through the thick pane of glass that separates us, the combatants, from them, the Maidens.
But it connects us too. This is what Xi was talking about. Jasina is powering me. I can feel her. The other women are powering my opponents.
This is a death match.
We fight until we die.
