The humming scalpel hovered centimeters above the emerald pulse in Kael's chest. The air between them felt ionized, thick with the clinical cold of Elara's intent.
"Wait!" Kael managed, his voice a jagged rasp. "If you... if you open me up, the system might trigger. It thinks anything that breaks the skin is a predator."
Elara paused, the blade's pale light reflecting in her sharp, dark eyes. She didn't look convinced, but she didn't cut. "The 'system' is a biological interface, Kael. It doesn't have a hive-mind. It's an engine, and right now, your engine is red-lining because of those crude grafts you slapped on without a buffer."
She lowered the blade slightly, but didn't put it down. "Most people who try to host an Origin Seed turn into a slurry of bone and glass in seconds. Your DNA isn't fighting it because there's nothing to fight with. You're a genetic zero, a void. That lack of resistance is the only thing keeping your nervous system from liquefying."
[STATUS ANALYSIS: HOST STABILITY CRITICAL]
[Orchard Plot 1: Unstable.]
[External Biomass Interaction: Invasive.]
[Recommendation: Neutralize Threat.]
"It's telling me to neutralize you," Kael choked out. The emerald veins on his neck began to throb, a low-voltage vibration hummed through the metal table.
Elara snorted, a dry, humorless sound. "Of course it is. It's a parasitic architecture. It wants survival above all else. But you aren't an apex predator yet. You're a half-starved scavenger with a failing heart and a leak in your throat."
She sighed, the intensity in her eyes shifting from clinical to pragmatic. "I didn't pull you out of that alley just to watch you die under my knife. I need to understand how the Seed is anchoring to an Inert host. If I can stabilize the bridge between your DNA and the Orchard... I might actually be able to save you."
"Save me?" Kael pulled tentatively at the straps. "By strapping me down and cutting me?"
"Trust is a luxury the Sprawl can't afford, Kael," she said, finally placing the scalpel on a nearby tray. "But survival is a shared currency. You need my knowledge to keep that system from eating you alive. I need your body to prove my theories."
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the hum of the gene-sequencers and the distant, rhythmic drip of water somewhere in the pipes. Kael felt his heart rate begin to slow, the system alerts fading to a dull, background thrum.
Then, the floor vibrated.
It wasn't the low-frequency hum of a beast or a machine. It was a structural impact—a heavy, decisive blow on the level below.
[CAUTION: AUDITORY SPIKE DETECTED]
[Classification: High-Force Entry.]
[Distance: 12 Meters. Vertical Gradient: Downward.]
Elara froze. Her head snapped toward the small, reinforced door that led to the clinic's staircase.
"The Ironbark," Kael whispered, his pulse spiking.
"No," Elara hissed, reaching for a switch on the wall that killed the overhead biolume. The room plunged into a suffocating, emerald-tinted shadow. "They shouldn't have found this sector yet. I paid the ward-bosses—"
BOOM.
The sound of the heavy iron door downstairs being kicked off its hinges echoed up the stairwell. It was followed by the unmistakable, synchronized tread of marching boots—armored, disciplined, and relentless.
"Jax," Kael said, the name tasting like copper and ash.
"Get him!" a voice roared from below—a rough, gravelly command that cut through the silence. "Check every room! If he resists, kill the doctor and bring me the chest plate!"
Elara grabbed the scalpel again, but this time, she wasn't looking at Kael. She was looking at the door. Her expression wasn't fear; it was a cold, calculated fury.
"Well," she whispered, her fingers flying over a keypad on the surgical table. "It seems our examination has been interrupted."
The straps holding Kael's wrists snapped open.