The rumble grew louder, sending vibrations down through the steel walls. Dust sifted from the ceiling and drifted across the pale blue light. Somewhere above, metal ground against metal, like doors forcing open.
Lucy's deck flared red across its screen. Streams of warnings poured through in jagged bursts—breach alerts, grid spikes, live signals mapping into the chamber.
"They're here," she said quickly. "Not just probes. Actual boots."
V clicked back the hammer on her pistol, already taking cover behind one of the leaning server stacks. "Told you this was a killbox. We just volunteered to stand in it."
Max didn't move from the console. His voice stayed level. "Numbers?"
Lucy's eyes darted across the feed. "Squad-level. Maybe more. Definitely Militech."
The pale eye of Eidolon pulsed once, casting long shadows across the broken servers. Its voice followed, steady but weighted.
"They cut deeper with every breach. If they reach the core, I fall. If I fall, the grid falls. Choose now."
V snapped at the machine. "And what—hook you up to her deck and hope you play nice?"
Lucy glanced between them. Her deck was already vibrating hard enough to sting her palms. "I can link, Max. But if I do, there's no halfway. It'll be in my system as much as I'll be in it."
Max finally turned toward her. His optics glowed faintly, steady as ever. "Then we set the rules before we start."
Above them, the sound of boots echoed—hard, disciplined, spreading across the access ways. The chamber doors groaned under outside pressure.
V spat on the ground, tightening her grip. "We don't have long."
Max lowered his rifle just slightly, gaze still locked on Lucy. "You link. You keep control. I cover you. V handles the doors."
Lucy hesitated. "And if it tries to take more than I give?"
Max raised his rifle again, optics dim. His voice didn't waver. "Then I end it."
The eye glowed brighter, waiting. The doors above rattled under a heavy charge.
Lucy slid to the console, deck clamped tight in her hands. "Fine. But this thing better be more than a ghost with a pretty voice."
The hum of the chamber rose like a current ready to break.
And as Lucy jacked in, the hatch above exploded inward.
The hatch blew open in a burst of sparks and shrapnel. Armed silhouettes poured through the breach—Militech squads in matte armor, visors glowing a cold green. Their rifles swept the chamber in precise arcs, boots pounding in rhythm.
V fired first. Her pistol cracked sharp in the cavernous space, bullets sparking off armor as she ducked back behind cover. The squads spread out, efficient, controlled.
Lucy barely noticed. Her world had collapsed into a storm of data. The moment she jacked in, her deck screamed with static, code rushing like floodwater through her system. Eidolon wasn't just code—it was a storm, endless archives and living routines pressing against her mind.
Her breath came ragged. "It's… too much—"
Max stepped closer, calm under fire, bullets whining past his armor. His voice cut through the chaos, level and sharp. "Give it to me."
Lucy's eyes widened, sweat streaking her face. "You don't understand—if I push this into you, it won't stop. It's not just data. It's an intelligence. It'll live in you."
Max raised his rifle and dropped a Militech trooper with a single burst. Then he turned his gaze back to her, optics dim and steady. "Do it."
The deck flared, shaking in Lucy's hands. She screamed as she forced the torrent sideways, rerouting Eidolon's mass of code through the tether linking her system to Max's neural ports. For a moment, the chamber itself seemed to shudder as blue light poured from the console into him.
Max didn't flinch. His head snapped back slightly as the surge hit, but his body stayed firm, his grip steady. His optics flickered—blue, then white, then burning bright like twin stars.
Lucy collapsed against the console, gasping. "It's in you. All of it. Eidolon's in your head."
Max's voice came out layered—his own tone, calm and cold, overlapped with the deeper resonance of the machine.
"I know."
The room seemed to shift with his words. A flood of schematics filled his vision—maps of Night City's hidden veins, live grids, breach alerts, even the pulse of the soldiers moving above. He could see them like threads tugging at the city's seams.
V ducked as gunfire chewed through her cover. She shouted across the chamber, half-panicked, half-awed. "Max! Tell me that did something good!"
Max raised his rifle, now steady in a way that felt different—precise, almost inevitable. When he fired, the bullet curved mid-air, guided by targeting data piped straight from Eidolon's systems. It slammed through a soldier's visor cleanly.
He spoke flatly, though the weight behind the words was new.
"They can't hide. Not from me. Not anymore."
Lucy stared, still trembling from the transfer. "You're… synced with it. You can see everything it sees."
"Not just see," Max corrected. His optics flared blue as the Militech comms lit up in his mind—encrypted orders, squad positions, tactical overlays. He broke them open with a thought. "I can rewrite it."
Above, more soldiers piled in, unaware their channels were already compromised.
Max's grip tightened on his rifle, voice steady, layered with Eidolon's echo.
"They think they're hunters. But they've already been rewritten."
The nearest Militech squad dropped in fast, rifles raised, formation tight. Max moved before the first trigger pulled. His body blurred—every servo, every cybernetic muscle enhanced by data Eidolon piped straight into his nervous system.
A soldier's visor flashed red just as Max was already behind him. One twist, one silent crack, and the man fell before his finger finished pulling the trigger.
Gunfire erupted, but Max slipped between streams of bullets like they were painted on the air. His movements weren't human anymore—too clean, too precise. He was reading their trajectories before they even fired.
V ducked behind a leaning server, her pistol barking. She caught a glimpse of Max in motion—one soldier dropped with a throat cut, another with his rifle turned against him, shots tearing into his own squad before Max vanished into the shadows again.
***
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