The other side of the gate wasn't a fortress. It was a hive.
Kieran stepped through the cooling ring of molten iron and looked up. The Inner Rust Sprawl was a vertical canyon of misery. Makeshift shanties welded to the sides of massive cooling towers rose hundreds of meters into the smog. Neon signs, flickering with dead pixels, cast a sickly green and pink glow over the wet, oily streets.
It smelled of ozone, unwashed bodies, and cheap ramen.
Standing in the street before him were thirty Scrappers. They were light infantry—cyborgs with blades for legs and buzzsaws for hands. They were twitching, their optics zooming in on the intruder.
But they didn't attack.
They looked at the melted gate. They looked at the massive, black Piston Arm dragging beside Kieran. They looked at the violet circuitry pulsing on his face.
[Enemy Status: HESITATION.]
Kieran smiled. The steam rising from his shoulders made him look like a demon emerging from hell.
"Who is the shift manager?" Kieran asked calmly.
A Scrapper with red chevrons on his chest—an Alpha—stepped forward. He revved his buzzsaw arm aggressively, but his stance was defensive.
"You are unauthorized!" the Alpha screeched, his voice box static-filled. "This is the Lady's Garden! Leave or be recycled!"
Kieran raised his Piston Arm. He pointed the massive claw at the Alpha.
"I have a complaint," Kieran said.
He triggered the [Lag Step].
He didn't aim for the Alpha. He aimed for the space behind the Alpha.
Kieran vanished. The Scrappers fired a volley of nail-gun rounds at where he had been, hitting nothing but air.
Kieran reappeared in the middle of the pack.
CRUNCH.
He swung the Piston Arm in a wide, horizontal arc. It hit three Scrappers at once. The hydraulic force shattered their chassis, sending metal limbs flying into the neon signs above.
"The service here," Kieran whispered, grabbing a Scrapper's face with his metal left hand, "is terrible."
[Deconstruct.]
The Scrapper dissolved into violet light.
The hesitation broke. The remaining twenty-six Scrappers swarmed him.
It was a chaotic melee. Blades sparked against Kieran's titanium spine. Buzzsaws ground against his Piston Arm.
[Damage: 2.] [Damage: 1.] [Integrity: 98%.]
They couldn't hurt him. He was too heavily armored. His Patchwork body—part hydraulic press, part titanium strut, part void monster—was built for this.
Kieran moved with a brutal, mechanical rhythm.
Block. Crush. Absorb. Block. Crush. Absorb.
He caught a buzzsaw blade with his Piston Claw, snapped it off, and jammed it into the owner's neck. He kicked a scavenger through a sheet-metal wall. He was painting the street with oil and data.
Within two minutes, the street was silent.
Kieran stood alone, surrounded by piles of scrap. He hadn't summoned Vanguard. He hadn't needed to.
[Combat Complete.] [Data Harvested: 300 Bytes.] [Capacity: 200/200 (Overflow).]
"I'm leaking data," Kieran muttered. He looked at the overflow warning. "I need to spend it."
He looked up at the towering skyscrapers of junk. Somewhere in this vertical maze was the Lady of Rust. But the Sprawl was huge. He could search for weeks and never find her.
"I need a guide," Kieran said.
"High-speed movement detected," Spam warned, his blue light snapping toward the rooftops. "Someone is watching you. Someone fast."
Kieran looked up.
On a rusty balcony, four stories up, a shadow moved. It wasn't a clunky Scrapper. It was sleek, chrome, and moved like liquid mercury.
[Entity: Chrome-Stalker.] [Class: Assassin.] [Status: Elite.]
The Stalker leaped. It didn't jump down to the street; it ran along the wall, defying gravity with magnetic boots. It decloaked mid-run, revealing twin monofilament blades glowing blue.
It was coming for Kieran's neck.
"Fast," Kieran noted.
He couldn't block it. The Piston Arm was too slow.
"Behind you!" Spam yelled.
Kieran didn't turn. He dropped to one knee and activated [Anchor].
The Stalker landed silently behind him and swung the blades.
SHING.
The blades hit Kieran's Titanium Spine.
They didn't cut through. The monofilament wire bit into the alloy, screeching, but the spine held. Kieran's rigid posture saved him.
[Damage: 10.] [Integrity: 88%.]
"Gotcha," Kieran hissed.
Before the Stalker could retract its blades, Kieran spun on his knee. He didn't use the Piston Arm. He used his left hand—the Decompiler Hand.
He grabbed the Stalker's ankle.
The Stalker tried to phase out, activating an optical camouflage cloak.
"No you don't."
[Skill: Logic Error (Connection Interruption).]
Kieran flooded the Stalker's system with junk data. He spammed the Stalker's internal router with millions of "Hello World" requests.
The Stalker froze, twitching. Its cloak flickered on and off.
[Target Status: LAG SPIKE.]
Kieran stood up, dragging the glitching assassin off the ground. He slammed the Stalker against a brick wall.
He raised his Piston Arm, the claw hovering inches from the assassin's chrome faceplate.
"Where is she?" Kieran demanded.
The Stalker hissed static. "The Lady... sees... all."
"I don't care what she sees," Kieran said, tightening his grip on the assassin's ankle. "I want to know where she sits."
The Stalker laughed—a glitchy, distorted sound. "She is in the Core-Processor. The Penthouse. You... cannot reach her. The elevator is bio-locked. Only... pure... metal."
"Bio-locked?" Kieran frowned.
"It means the elevator scans for organic matter," Spam explained. "If you have any human meat left on you, the elevator won't open. The Lady hates flesh."
Kieran looked at his body. His legs were still mostly human. His chest was human. He was only 15% cyborg.
"So I have to cut off the rest of my humanity to seek an audience?" Kieran asked.
"Yes..." the Stalker glitch-laughed. "Die... flesh-bag."
Kieran sighed.
"I'm not cutting anything off," Kieran whispered. "I have a better idea."
He looked at the Stalker. It was fully mechanical. Sleek. Chrome. 100% Metal.
"You have a bio-pass, don't you?"
The Stalker's red eyes widened. "What...?"
Kieran's violet eye flared.
"Spam. Is it possible to zip a file... inside another file?"
"You want to compress the Stalker?" Spam asked. "Yes. But why?"
"I'm not going to ride the elevator," Kieran said, a dark grin spreading across his face. "I'm going to mail myself to the top."
He looked at the Stalker.
"Open wide."
Kieran activated [Deconstruct]. But he didn't deconstruct the Stalker. He deconstructed himself.
He targeted his own body.
[Command: COMPRESS SELF.] [Target Host: Chrome-Stalker.]
Kieran's body began to dissolve. His Piston Arm, his flesh, his spine—it all swirled into a violent vortex of violet data.
The Stalker screamed as Kieran forced his essence into the assassin's storage drive.
ZRRRRT.
Kieran vanished.
The Stalker dropped to the ground, panting. It looked at its hands.
Then, its red eyes flickered. They turned Violet.
"System Override," Kieran's voice spoke through the Stalker's vocal processor. "Host body acquired. This feels... sleek."
Kieran flexed the Stalker's chrome fingers. He looked at the world through the assassin's HUD. He was inside the enemy. He was the Trojan Horse.
"That was incredibly risky," Spam beeped, floating down to land on the Stalker's shoulder. "If his firewall had blocked you, you would have been deleted."
"Drive to the Penthouse, Spam," Kieran ordered, testing the magnetic boots. "I have a date with a Lady."