Pain has a specific frequency.
Most people think it's just a sensation, a signal sent to the brain. But when you are connected to the Deus System, you realize pain is data. It's a corrupted file overwriting your nervous system. It tastes like ozone and burning copper.
[WARNING: Host Vitals Critical.] [Ouroboros Integrity: 12%. Heat Sink Fused.]
The red holographic text blinked in my vision, overlaying the grey mud of the trench. I tried to lift my right arm—the one encased in the black, jagged metal of the Type-Zero: Ouroboros gauntlet—but the servos were locked. The coolant lines had ruptured. Steam hissed from my elbow, mixing with the freezing rain.
Ah. Right. The Kinetic Sniper on the ridge. I forgot to angle my shield at 08:02.
"Unit 7! Status report!"
The voice in my cranial implant was High Marshall Vesper. Even through the static of a dying frequency, she sounded crystal clear. Cold. Calculating.
I coughed, a wet, rattling sound.
"Unit 7," I whispered, the vocalizer in my helmet cracking. "Status is... terminal. Again."
"Do not be absurd, Specialist," Vesper snapped. I could hear the hum of her Laplace Drones spinning up in the background of her transmission. "I have calculated a 3% survival probability if you crawl ten meters north. Move. That is an order."
Three percent.
I laughed. A wheezing sound.
In exactly one minute and forty-two seconds, an orbital kinetic rod from the Iron Ascendancy is going to turn this entire grid square into glass. I know this because I died to it last time. And the time before that.
The universe is a broken algorithm, and I am the only error code that keeps repeating.
"Sorry, Marshall," I murmured, watching the sky turn bright orange. "My hardware is fried. I'm initiating a hard reset."
"Unit 7? Caelum? What are you talking about? Your neural signature is spiking!"
I closed my eyes. The Ouroboros Gauntlet began to vibrate, feeding off the kinetic energy of the incoming blast. It wasn't magic. It was a failsafe.
[CRITICAL ERROR DETECTED.] [Initiating System Restore...] [Loading Save File: 5,002...]