VII.II - The Sparks
Mark Tu-Lee's optical sensors flickered, tracking the dilation of Talgat's pupils. Servos whirred faintly as processors converted biometric data into combat probabilities: seventy-three percent aggression threshold, eighty-nine percent evasion likelihood. Suddenly, Talgat swooped. Mark Tu-Lee noticed the movement, executing a 'Te-Teep' frontal kick. Talgat boot snapping against Mark Tu-Lee's kicking leg. The recoil propelled him into a tight rotation, blades flashing as he pivoted behind the android. His left dagger traced a precise arc toward the exposed joint wiring at the rear knee. Metal shrieked against alloy, sparks erupting in jagged arcs that painted the corridor walls with brief, stuttering light.
"Even the wires weren't cut; that's some damn fine material." Talgat mumbled for himself.
"Classified information," Mark Tu-Lee responded, his voice flat and mechanical. "I'm unable to answer that query." The words carried no inflection, no variation, just precise, programmed denial.
He shifted his stance again, anticipating no immediate reaction from the machine. Mark Tu-Lee's knees bent sharply, hips lowering slightly. His elbows stayed tight against his ribs. As Talgat closed in, Mark Tu-Lee launched a faster right-center teep kick, driving it into Talgat's low guard. Talgat didn't hesitate—his right dagger darted toward the narrow gap between the android's chest plate and abdomen. The dagger slipped into the seam, aiming for the thorium core beneath. Mark Tu-Lee pivoted his torso, trapping the dagger against his armored plating and forcing Talgat off-balance. With his right arm pinned awkwardly, Talgat barely managed to shield his exposed ribs.
Mark Tu-Lee took the chance, his knee pistoned upward: left, right, left. Each strike landed with a dull crunch against Talgat's flank.
The impacts shuddered through his ribcage, unyielding alloy meeting fractured bone. Talgat registered the sound—his ribs had fractured too many times before. Yet, he held firm. His right dagger remained trapped, and his left dagger failed to find a decisive cut against the android's knees and legs. Talgat clenched his teeth; he pulled the left dagger close to his shoulder. At the same time, Mark Tu-Lee had sent off a left jab at Talgat, but Talgat reacted reflexively enough to save his nose from getting ripped, but he got a piercing cut right in the middle of his nose. Talgat remained steady, using the opening to pivot closer. He angled his left dagger's tip toward the thumb side, then drove it sharply at the exposed wiring near the neck. The large oval-like object gleamed in the center, wires snaking vertically from under the head metallic skull to under the metal chest plate. That's the key. His focus sharpened—a single weak point amid the armor plates. Mark Tu-Lee recoiled, releasing the right dagger from the lock. He shifted stance, raising his right forearm to guard. As Mark Tu-Lee's right leg bent lower, Talgat pressed forward without hesitation. The android's right forearm intercepted, knocking Talgat's left dagger aside. Mark Tu-Lee shifted his weight smoothly; using Talgat's momentum, he immediately lowered his stance before sending a palm strike upward in a tight arc, striking Talgat's lower jaw with a sharp uppercut.
The impact snapped through Talgat's jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground. The crackling sound echoed down the corridor.
Talgat recognized the technique, the kid's move, but how? , replicated flawlessly by the machine. His fingers dug into his throbbing jaw. If it wanted me dead, I'd already be dead. The thought chilled him. The fight had to end now. Every second wasted brought Nyla farther out of reach.
"I am warning you, either you voluntarily come with us, or I will make you."
"You guys were all the same; the powerful men would just keep oppressing the people underneath. This is the world now, eh?" Talgat spat blood out of his mouth to the side. "I would rather die than have to endure a new cycle of tyranny regime.
Inside the COC, Zhang Bo had been watching the center screen projecting the current scene between Mark Tu-Lee and Talgat as well as overlooking the current commotion of the above ground territory being overran by endless hordes of CCs. and another monitor, Kaodin.
"A.I. how long did the boy sat there without moving for?" Zhang Bo asked.
"It had been Thirty—Three—minutes and Forty-Five seconds, Sir." A.I, voiced, "Would you like me to ask Wanchai to cross reference by sending him the footage.?"
Zhang Bo crossed arm and his right hand index finger tabbed on his upper lips a few times as his lips tightened, gazed down.
"Sir, Wanchai called, expectedly regarding to his request for an assistance to retreive the essential medical substance." A.I paused, "Would you like to take it or i should send…"
"No, I'll take it, send him up on the auxiliary screen."
Static clawed through the auxiliary feed. Wanchai's face materialized, coffee sloshing over the rim of the cup he forgot he held, brown liquid dripping onto his sleeve. "L-Lao Zhang."
"The cub, Wawa, he appeared earlier." Wanchai gestured toward the stairwell's corner where crimson emergency lighting striped the floor. "Sitting right there, like he was guarding Liara's pod, just...stared, like he was looking after her. Scratched behind his ear like any house cat.", Wanchai's lips trembled. The screen slightly shaken. A choked sound escaped his throat, half-laugh, half-gasp, before his jaw clenched tight. The tendons in his neck stood rigid beneath flickering screen light.
Zhang Bo's fingers stilled against his lips. The monitors reflected in his widening pupils.
"A—and then—" Wanchai stepped aside, revealing Liara smiling as she standing at the archive shelves. Her fingers traced the leather-bound spines without tremor, her movements steady and composed. Wanchai straightened the flat-surface interface before his face again. "No tremors. No labored breathing. The console's biometric warnings steadily decreased."
Zhang Bo regarded him attentively. "What do those readings mean?"
Wanchai's expression shifted, a half-laugh, half-gasp escaping his clenched jaw. "It means she could prolong her symptoms without even using medicine. This
"What are those reading means," Zhang asked, attentively.
"It means she could prolonged her symptoms without even used medicine, This is huge, don't you know how big this is?", Wanchai, once again, he partly laugh, and the next second one of his hand crasp on his mouth as if he was about to cry.