The return was agony.
One moment, Kalpit was a disembodied thought in an infinite, tranquil ocean. The next, he was slammed back into the violent, screaming prison of the flesh. Sensation returned not as a gentle awakening, but as a full-system electrocution.
The feeling of lungs, desperate and burning for air that wasn't there.
The feeling of a heart, hammering against ribs like a trapped bird.
The feeling of skin, screaming as it was reconstituted from raw energy and stray matter.
PAIN. WEIGHT. NOISE. BREATH.
He gasped, a raw, ragged sound that was half-scream, half-sob. He was lying on cold, vibrating metal. The sterile blue silence of the server core was gone, replaced by the deafening roar of a thousand klaxons, the shriek of tortured metal, and the hiss of fire suppression foam. The air smelled of ozone and atomized plasteel.
He pushed himself up. He had a body. It was his own, yet it felt alien, a borrowed suit of screaming nerve endings. He was in the corridor, several meters from where he had last knelt. The spot where he'd made his digital jump was now a crater of melted, slagged floor, the massive power cable above it sputtering arcs of raw energy into the ceiling.
Anasuya's diversion hadn't just blown a junction; it had ripped a wound in the spire's heart.
Speaking of Anasuya, she was there, her form a dark, efficient shape against the flashing red emergency lights. She was crouched behind a twisted bulkhead, her rifle aimed down the corridor. She saw his movement, and for a fraction of a second, her disciplined soldier's mask broke, replaced by a look of sheer, incredulous relief.
"You're alive," she breathed, scrambling over to him. "Gods and glitches, you're actually alive. I saw the plasma wave... you were gone."
"I was," Kalpit rasped, his throat feeling like sandpaper. "I went... in. I stopped it. The patch is gone."
"I know," she said, pulling him to his feet. His legs felt like jelly. "Every alarm in the spire went from 'energy surge' to 'system-wide critical data failure' the moment the corridor blew. You cut the head off the snake."
BWWEEEE! BWWEEEE! CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL SIGMA ACTIVATED. ALL SUBLEVELS IN LOCKDOWN. PURGE TEAMS DEPLOYED.
A cold, synthesized voice boomed from hidden speakers, a stark confirmation of their dire situation.
"Atri," Anasuya snapped into her comm, pulling Kalpit behind better cover. "Status! He's back. We need an exit, and we need it yesterday!"
<"Thank the Sages,">> Atri's voice was strained, the signal breaking up. <"We pulled you back, but it... ksshhht... wasn't a clean extraction. We used the energy from the ruptured conduit as a materializer buffer. It was the only way. Listen! The spire is a cage right now. Every door is sealed. Every corridor is a kill-zone.">>
As if to prove his point, a section of the ceiling further down the corridor dropped down, a heavy-duty turret unfolding from it. It began to spray the area with suppression fire, thick plasma bolts that vaporized chunks of the wall.
VOMP! VOMP! VOMP!
"So we're trapped," Kalpit said, the adrenaline finally starting to clear the fog from his mind.
<"Not quite,">> Atri replied. <"There's chaos in their command structure. Kali's violent disconnect threw their entire network into a temporary loop. Their lockdown is efficient, but it's not smart. I've found a blind spot. A flaw in their Sigma protocol.">>
The 3D map of the spire appeared in the air between them, projected from Anasuya's gauntlet. Atri highlighted a new path.
<"The spire's primary ventilation system," he explained. "Massive shafts that run from the geothermal core to the atmospheric processors at the top. The lockdown sealed the main access points, but it didn't account for the emergency pressure-release valves inside the shafts themselves. I can overload one, force it open. It will give you a straight shot. Up.">>
"Up?" Anasuya questioned. "Up is where the spire's main garrisons are!"
<"Up is the only direction that isn't a sealed tomb,">> Atri countered. <"The shaft will take you to the mid-level atmospheric processors, around level 150. It's a jungle of filtration units and condenser coils. From there... you can find a way to an exterior maintenance platform.">>
It was a desperate, vertical escape. "Do it," Kalpit said.
<"I'll need a minute to bypass the command overrides. Keep your heads down. Kali is awake. And he is furious.">>
The turret's fire was relentless, pinning them behind the bulkhead. Kalpit peeked around the edge. The machine was methodical, its targeting pattern predictable. A memory from Parashurama's library surfaced: the weak point of an automated gun emplacement was not the gun, but its mounting.
He put a hand on the bulkhead they were hiding behind, focusing his Muladhara-sight. The metal groaned under the strain of the plasma fire, but it would hold. For now. He looked at the ceiling where the turret was mounted. He saw the structural supports, the power conduit feeding the machine. He saw the stress point.
"I can take it out," Kalpit whispered.
"With what?" Anasuya asked. "You look like you're about to fall over."
He ignored her, focusing his will. He channeled a tiny, precise spark of his Manipura's fire. Not an explosive punch. A focused, resonant pulse. He sent it not at the turret, but at the ceiling anchor-bolt fifty meters away. It was the same principle as the boulder, but in miniature, and at a distance. He persuaded the bolt to undo its own integrity.
The bolt gave a high-pitched ping and disintegrated into dust.
The turret, its primary support gone, sagged. Its targeting faltered. With a shriek of tearing metal, it ripped free from the ceiling and crashed to the floor in a shower of sparks. The corridor fell silent again, save for the blaring alarms.
Anasuya stared at the wrecked turret, then back at Kalpit. "Okay," she conceded. "You're learning."
A loud KLANG echoed from a wall nearby. A heavy maintenance panel, labeled V-SHAFT 7, glowed red, then slid open, revealing a dark, vertical abyss. Howling wind rushed out. Atri had done it.
<"That's your door!">> Atri's voice urged. <"It will only stay open for thirty seconds before the system auto-corrects! Go! Now!">>
They didn't hesitate. They scrambled through the opening into the ventilation shaft. It was a massive, cylindrical tube, at least thirty meters in diameter, filled with a deafening roar of rushing air. A series of maintenance ladders and platforms clung to the curved walls, ascending up into darkness.
The panel slid shut behind them with a final, booming CLANG, sealing them in the dark, roaring heart of the spire.
They began to climb, the wind threatening to rip them from the ladder with every step. The air was cold, recycled, and carried the metallic taste of the machine.
They were about halfway to the first major platform when a new sound cut through the roar of the wind. A rhythmic, mechanical hiss, coming from below.
Kalpit looked down. Rising up the shaft from the sublevels, moving with terrifying speed, were three figures. Their armor was a polished, chrome-black, more advanced and angular than any Enforcer's. They were not running or climbing. They were ascending via high-tension grapple lines, their boots magnetized to the curved wall of the shaft.
They were an elite hunter-killer squad, designed for zero-gravity and vertical combat. Each one held a long, cruel-looking pulse rifle.
"We have company!" Anasuya yelled, pointing her own weapon down.
The lead trooper looked up. Its featureless, black helmet tilted. A synthesized voice, colder and sharper than any Enforcer, crackled over their comm frequency, a direct, targeted broadcast.
"Designation: 'Purifiers.' Your rebellion is a statistical anomaly scheduled for correction. Surrender to erasure."
Kalpit looked up. The next platform was still fifty meters away. They were exposed, trapped on a ladder in the middle of a wind tunnel, with an elite death squad ascending far faster than they could. There was no cover. There was nowhere to go.
The Purifiers raised their rifles, targeting lasers painting red dots on their chests.