The resistance didn't have a plan; they had a direction.
"The Armory is three levels up," Kaelen rasped, checking the pressure gauge on his chest-bellows. "It holds the riot gear. Shock-staves, kinetic rifles, and thermal detonators. If we get that gear, the slaves stand a chance against the Magma-Troopers."
"And if we don't?" Lyra checked the magazine of her pistol. She was down to her last clip.
"Then we die with sharp sticks," Kaelen grunted. "Let's move."
They moved through the maintenance tunnels like rats in the walls of a dying house. The heat was oppressive, a physical weight that pressed against their chests. Julian could feel the vibration of the Fabricator deep in the rock—a constant, rhythmic pounding that sounded uncomfortably like a slow heartbeat.
Thump... Grind. Thump... Grind.
"You hear that?" Julian whispered to Isolde.
"Hear what? The factory?"
"No," Julian touched the wall. "The dissonance. It's off-key. It sounds... wet."
The Armory Vault
They burst from a ventilation grate into the corridor outside the Sector 4 Armory.
Two automated turrets spun from the ceiling.
"Turrets!" Isolde shouted, diving behind a crate of ore.
BRRT-BRRT.
Heavy caliber rounds chewed up the floor.
Julian didn't dive. He stepped forward, raising his Resonance Gauntlet. The copper coils flared to life.
"Too slow," Julian muttered.
He aimed not at the turrets, but at the sensor cluster on the wall between them.
Focus: Static.
He snapped his fingers. A sharp, crackling pulse of electromagnetic noise shot from his palm.
ZZZT.
The sensors fried. The turrets spun wildly, blinded, firing into the walls before powering down.
"Nice shot, Sparky," Kaelen grunted, charging the heavy blast door. He placed a shaped charge of explosive putty on the lock. "Fire in the hole!"
BOOM.
The door blew inward. The resistance fighters swarmed inside.
It was a treasure trove. Racks of Aether-carbines, crates of grenades, and suits of riot armor.
"Load up!" Kaelen commanded. "Take everything that shoots or explodes!"
As the rebels stripped the shelves, Julian walked to the back of the room. He found a crate marked EXPERIMENTAL AMMO. He pried it open.
Inside were bullets made of glass, filled with a swirling grey liquid.
"What is this?" Julian asked.
Kaelen walked over. His mechanical breathing hitched.
"Liquid Carbon," Kaelen said darkly. "They use it to super-harden the steel. But that's not just carbon, kid."
He picked up a round.
"It's ash. Bone ash. From the incinerators."
Julian stared at the bullet. The Empire wasn't just killing its prisoners. It was using them as raw material.
"We have to burn this place down," Julian said, his voice trembling with rage.
"First the Fabricator," Kaelen reminded him, hefting a heavy rotary cannon. "Then the world."
The Fabricator
With the Armory raided, Kaelen kept his word. He led Julian, Lyra, and Isolde to a service elevator marked with hazard stripes.
"This goes down to the Sub-Basement," Kaelen said. "Directly into the Fabricator's intake. I can't go with you. I have to lead the riot upstairs."
He extended a massive, armored hand. Julian shook it.
"Give 'em hell, Iron-Lung," Julian said.
"Give 'em nightmares, Conductor."
The elevator doors closed. They descended.
The air grew colder. The smell of sulfur faded, replaced by the sterile scent of ozone and antiseptic.
The doors opened.
They stepped onto a catwalk overlooking the Fabricator.
It was a cavernous hall, lit by harsh white floodlights. In the center was a machine the size of a cathedral. It was a mass of robotic arms, laser cutters, and assembly belts, moving with terrifying speed and precision.
It was building War-Bots. Skeletal, humanoid soldiers made of gleaming black chrome.
But it was the Intake Belt that made Lyra gag.
Running into the machine was a conveyor belt carrying piles of "scrap." But it wasn't just metal.
Mixed in with the twisted steel beams were bodies. The bodies of slaves who had died on the line.
"They're recycling them," Isolde whispered, turning pale. "They're melting them down for the carbon content."
Julian gripped the railing. His crystal hand was burning hot, reacting to the atrocity.
"That machine," Julian pointed to the central processor—a glowing red core protected by a force field. "That's the brain. If we kill the brain, the factory stops. And the winch controls for the Titan unlocked."
"It's shielded," Skid's voice came over the comms. "And I'm detecting movement on the assembly line. The bots... they aren't dormant."
On the conveyor belt below, three of the half-finished War-Bots sat up.
They were missing armor plates. Their wiring was exposed. But their eyes glowed red.
Fabricator Guardians.
"Intruders detected," the machine voice echoed through the hall. "Production halted. Initiating sterilization."
The robotic arms on the assembly line stopped building. They swiveled, equipping laser cutters and buzz-saws.
"We have to cross the belt to get to the Core!" Julian yelled. "Run!"
They jumped over the railing, landing on the moving conveyor belt.
The Gauntlet
The belt was moving fast, carrying them toward the furnace intake.
"Incoming!" Lyra shouted, firing her newly acquired carbine.
A Guardian bot—missing its legs but crawling on razor-sharp claws—lunged at her. Lyra's shots sparked off its chassis. She kicked it into the gears of a crusher.
CRUNCH.
"Julian! The arms!" Isolde screamed.
A massive robotic welding arm swooped down, its torch blazing blue-hot. Julian rolled, the flame singing his coat.
He raised his gauntlet.
Focus: Kinetic.
THWUMP.
He blasted the arm's hydraulic joint. The arm went limp, swinging wildly.
They sprinted across the belt, dodging swinging saws and crawling skeletons.
"The Core Shield!" Skid yelled. "It's modulating! You can't shoot through it!"
Julian reached the central platform. The Red Core pulsed behind a shimmering energy barrier.
"I don't need to shoot through it," Julian panted. "I need to disrupt the frequency."
He placed his Resonance Gauntlet against the shield. The energy field crackled, biting at his hand.
"Cover me!" Julian shouted to Lyra and Isolde. "This is going to take a minute!"
"We don't have a minute!" Lyra yelled, taking cover behind a pile of scrap as two fully assembled War-Bots marched onto the platform.
Julian closed his eyes. He ignored the laser fire. He ignored the screams of the machine.
He listened to the shield.
Hummmm-buzz-hummmm.
It was a complex waveform. An Imperial encryption.
Find the flaw. Every song has a silence.
He twisted the dial on his gauntlet. He fine-tuned the output.
He found the gap. A micro-second of silence in the cycle.
There.
Julian poured his power into that gap. He hammered a wedge of dissonance into the shield's harmony.
CRACK.
The shield shattered like glass.
"Shield down!" Julian roared.
"The Core!" Isolde yelled, tossing him a heavy thermal detonator from the armory raid. "Feed it!"
Julian caught the grenade. He looked at the glowing red eye of the Fabricator.
"Choke on this," Julian whispered.
He jammed the grenade into the exposed Core mechanism.
He turned and dove off the platform, grabbing Lyra and Isolde.
BOOM.
The Fabricator screamed. The explosion tore through the delicate internal machinery. The red light died. The robotic arms froze mid-swing. The conveyor belt ground to a halt.
Darkness fell over the factory.
Then, emergency lights flickered on. A green light on the wall console lit up.
System Failure. Security Overridden. Winch Controls: UNLOCKED.
"We did it," Julian gasped, standing up in the debris.
"Not yet," Lyra pointed to the service elevator. "Now we have to go back up to the Spire. And release the beast."
Julian looked at his hand. The blue corruption had surged up to his elbow. It was painful now, a deep, throbbing ache.
"Let's finish it," Julian said. "Before I burn out."