The soft hum of holographic data slabs cycling through pages filled the air—crisp, rhythmic, and utterly grating to Ryder Blackwood's ears.
He'd long since abandoned watching Kael Voss poring over the archives, striding back to the edge of the biopool where his plasma-forged combat blade lay embedded in the obsidian rock. With a sharp yank, he pulled it free and launched into a flurry of strikes, the blade's energy core casting cyan arcs of light as he practiced the Plasma Thunderblade Protocol.
Kael flicked a sidelong glance at his friend's relentless movements, amused by his boundless energy, before refocusing on the glowing slabs in his hands. His enhanced neural recall—honed by the fourth tier of the Cellular Activation Protocol—allowed him to process information at a staggering pace. "Reading ten pages in a blink" might as well have been his defining trait; one thick data archive was dismissed in minutes, replaced by another as he flipped through them without hesitation.
His eyes narrowed slightly, a thoughtful frown tugging at his lips as he fixated on the holographic text. His head tilted subtly with each line of data, a faint echo of the scholarly mannerisms he'd picked up from Dr. Thorne's archives—though there was nothing academic about the lethal combat protocols he studied.
Time slipped away unnoticed. One by one, the archives detailing the Quantum Blink Strike Technique were reviewed and set aside. When Kael reached the eleventh slab, he suddenly froze, closing the holographic interface and tossing the archive back into his bio-synthetic pouch.
He shut his eyes, letting his mind rest for a moment, then settled into a cross-legged position on the cool rock. Activating the Cellular Activation Protocol, he replayed every detail of the ten archives in his memory, sorting through fragmented combat sequences and neural mapping diagrams.
His expression shifted constantly—flashing with excitement at a clever maneuver, furrowing with concentration at a complex neural trigger, and falling into a frown at a seemingly insurmountable limitation.
When he finally opened his eyes, he nearly jolted backward. Ryder's face hovered mere inches from his own, their noses almost touching, as the other man leaned in to study him.
"What are you doing?" Kael asked, startled. "I thought you were practicing your bladework."
"Junior Brother Kael, seriously?" Ryder pulled back, rolling his eyes. "Do you even know what time it is?"
Kael blinked, then glanced around. The biopool's simulated daylight had dimmed to a murky gray, the nebula's external light fading as evening settled over the asteroid field.
"Hmm. Time really does fly when you're focused," he murmured, standing and stretching his limbs, his muscles humming with residual bio-energy.
"So? Find anything useful in those dusty archives?" Ryder's eyes lit up with eager anticipation, leaning forward to press for answers.
"Yeah, actually. Something right up my alley."
"'Right up your alley'? Spare me the vague crap—tell me the details!" Ryder crossed his arms, clearly dissatisfied with the noncommittal response.
"To put it plainly, these archives are a hodgepodge," Kael explained slowly. "No cohesive combat system—just fragmented protocols stitched together from various sources."
"What about the Quantum Blink Strike Technique? Is it real? And why the weird name?" Ryder pressed on, unconvinced by the initial explanation.
"It's real, all right—but only a small part of this collection," Kael replied patiently. "It barely occupies a fraction of the data."
"And the name? There's a reason for it, I assume."
"Could you just spit it out already?" Ryder glared at him, his temper flaring. "Quit dragging this out like that old scholar in Nova City who rambles for hours before getting to the point."
Kael sighed, knowing he couldn't delay any longer. He picked up the pace of his explanation.
"According to the archives, the technique uses light refraction and neural sensory manipulation to overwhelm opponents. It's designed to take down enemies in the blink of an eye—hence the name."
"Seriously? A combat protocol that tricks the brain?" Ryder's interest spiked, only to deflate as Kael continued.
"But it has three prohibitions. Those with even moderate bio-energy refinement can't practice it; those without unshakable perseverance can't practice it; and those lacking innate neural control talent can't practice it."
Ryder's enthusiasm vanished instantly at the first condition. His bio-energy reserves were already well-developed from the Marrow-Extracting Gene Serum—abandoning years of progress to learn an untested technique was out of the question.
With his interest in the archives completely gone, Ryder had no desire to linger. He sheathed his combat blade and stepped toward the narrow service tunnel leading back to the colony.
"Copy all this data and encrypt it before our next meeting," he instructed, pausing at the tunnel entrance. "These archives might be forgotten, but if they go missing for too long, the Apex Combat Division will start asking questions. I'll come retrieve the original slabs then."
After Ryder departed, Kael lingered for a moment longer, staring at the biopool's rippling surface, then gathered his things and followed.
The asteroid field's interior was shrouded in a thin veil of energy mist, casting the gene-modified vegetation in a dim glow. The narrow path back to the Verdant Bio-Dome was flanked by crystalline shrubs, their leaves rustling as the bio-dome's ventilation system cycled air through the tunnel. The branches twisted and swayed in the current, their sharp edges glinting like shards of glass—an eerie, almost menacing sight.
Kael hurried along the path, his enhanced senses on high alert. He'd left later than intended, and by the time he reached the midpoint of the tunnel, darkness had fully fallen. Thanks to the Cellular Activation Protocol, his night vision had been amplified to superhuman levels—otherwise, he'd never have dared traverse the treacherous path, with its sharp turns and uneven terrain that threatened a fatal fall at every misstep.
He kept his hand on the hilt of his sidearm, moving swiftly through the darkness, eager to return to the safety of the bio-dome.