The alarms were already screaming before Netoshka even kicked the door open.
The Control Core chamber lit up in pulses of red—like a mechanical heartbeat struggling against its own death. Bundles of fiber-optic veins snaked across the ceiling, converging into a giant suspended sphere of glass and steel. Inside it, distorted by the refracting glow, was the fractured holo-face of Dr. Kraustein—or what remained of him. His features cycled between human, corpse, and glitching wireframe.
"You cannot stop evolution."
His voice slithered through every speaker at once, layered, warped.
"I have rewritten my own limits. You, Netoshka Nezvany… are an obsolete prototype."
Twila raised her gun.
"Oh shut up—you're a brain in a jar with Wi-Fi!"
"Technically," Rue muttered as she sprinted to the nearest console,
"he's a brain, a distributed neural net, and forty-seven corrupted subroutines running parallel—so don't piss him off!"
Mechanical arms descended from the ceiling, unfolding like predatory spiders. Netoshka stepped forward, blades humming with glitch-light, her coat whipping from the heat of sparking machinery.
"Cover Rue," she ordered.
"I'm ending this freak."
Zev, Taran, and Surgien moved instantly, forming a triangular defense as Rue worked. She plugged in a hand-terminal, fingers flying across the controls.
ACCESS DENIED.
HOSTILE OVERRIDE DETECTED.
AUTOMATED COUNTERMEASURES ENGAGED.
Four panels in the floor burst open.
Blue-lit, Wire-twisted corpses—Kraustein's resurrected technicians—dragged themselves out like puppets, joints creaking, eyes glowing the same electric blue as the barrier fields from earlier.
Genrihk's Pistols flickered.
"These bastards again—!"
"No!" Rue yelled.
"They're tethered to the central server—he's using their nervous systems as backup processors! If they get close, he can hard-crash us!"
So, of course, they charged immediately.
Netoshka blurred forward. Her glitch-field erupted around her, shredding two corpses mid-lunge. Taran crushed another beneath his boot before snapping its spine with a single twist. But more kept coming, dropping from vents, crawling out of data ports, skittering on all fours like inverted spiders.
Kraustein laughed through the tremoring speakers.
"Your resistance is statistically insignificant. The City you're heading towards to belongs to me. Erythia will be rebuilt—organism by organism."
Rue's terminal chimed.
"OKAY—I found his core override pathway—but it's encrypted under a… uh… genome-lock? Who the hell encrypts a password behind DNA?!"
"Kraustein," Surgien growled.
"Crazy bastard used to brag about wanting to 'bind code to blood.'"
The AI-face flickered, its smile stretching too wide.
"Correct. And only one key remains alive."
Netoshka felt her pulse drop.
His screens displayed her face.
"Open wide, dear aberration. I require a fresh sample."
The chamber vents snapped open.
A vacuum-force yanked toward her—an extraction protocol meant to rip blood straight from the veins.
Taran grabbed her arm, bracing her.
"He's trying to drain you!"
Netoshka snarled, blood already beading from her nose.
"Rue—SHUT HIM DOWN!"
"I'm TRYING—BUT HE KEEPS LOCKING ME OUT!"
Genrihk fired another round, blowing a crawling corpse's head apart. "Then we buy her time!"
Netoshka steadied herself, planting her boots as the vacuum intensified. She raised both arms.
Reality fractured at her fingertips.
GLITCH-DOME.
A distortion bubble built around her—rippling pixels forming a shield that pushed the extraction force back.
Kraustein shrieked.
"IMPOSSIBLE. YOUR ANOMALY IS NOT IN MY ARCHIVE—"
"Yeah?" Netoshka spat blood.
"Archive this."
She surged forward, glitch-blades cutting through the vacuum vents, severing the conduits feeding the extraction system. Sparks burst in showers of white-blue flame.
Rue screamed over the noise:
"NETO—I'VE GOT THE GENOME LOCK OPEN! But I need someone to manually pull the server fuses on the upper grid!"
"On it!" Zev sprinted to the ladder.
But the AI anticipated it.
Mechanical arms shot out, stabbing toward Zev like spears.
Netoshka intercepted—shattering two, ripping one clean off—but one still struck Zev across the ribs, sending him falling from the ladder.
"Zev!" Twila caught him before he hit the floor.
Rue slammed her hands on the console.
"We're out of time! Someone has to get up there!"
Taran didn't hesitate. He charged the ladder and climbed with brute speed, dodging jagged metal limbs trying to stab him off. When he reached the upper grid, he grabbed the first fuse.
"Kraustein," he growled,
"you're done."
He ripped out the fuse.
The lights stuttered.
The AI-face distorted—melting, screaming.
Netoshka leapt onto a central platform, tearing deeper into the wiring.
Genrihk and Twila held the line.
Zopi sliced through cables feeding the resurrected corpses.
Surgien barricaded Rue with overturned consoles.
"TAKE HIM APART!" Netoshka roared.
Taran pulled another fuse.
Rue completed the genome override.
Netoshka's glitch-field launched straight into the AI-core.
The sphere cracked.
A shockwave hit the room—blue, loud, collapsing every holo-screen at once.
Kraustein's voice finally broke.
"NO—NO—NO—"
Then silence.
The sphere shattered, raining glass and sparks.
The chamber went black.
Only emergency lights flickered on, dim and exhausted.
Rue exhaled shakily.
"Core is offline… Kraustein is officially dead."
Twila slumped against a railing. "Good. I was sick of his monologues."
Netoshka stepped through the smoke, face streaked with blood and faint glitch-static.
"Everyone still alive?"
Taran jumped down from the grid. "Barely."
Genrihk pumped his shotgun once more. "Now what?"
Netoshka turned toward the newly unlocked blast door at the far end of the chamber—its red lights shifting to green.
"We move," she said.
"We're not done. Whatever Kraustein woke up down here… it didn't die with him."