The air in the hangar bay tasted of burnt copper and heavy grease. Kai stood at the base of the Vanguard-Sigma, looking up at its intimidating, dark-alloy frame.
Unlike the elegant, lightweight constructs of Neo-Veridia, this Mecha was built for raw, industrial carnage. It stood thirty feet tall, its limbs thick and hydraulic, covered in matte-black plating that seemed to absorb the dim hangar lights.
Roric: "Do not be fooled by its stillness, Analyst. Inside that chassis, sixty terajoules of untamed Industrial Flow are circulating through a core that was never meant to contain them."
Kai placed a hand on the cold exterior of the machine's leg. The metal vibrated with a low-frequency hum that set his teeth on edge.
He felt the hollow ache in his chest—his Primal Flow affinity was still dangerously depleted. But looking at the Widowmaker, he realized the "Industrial Flow" Roric spoke of was essentially the same energy source he knew as Synthetic Flow, just stripped of its safety buffers and refined with violent, heavy minerals.
Roric: "The engineers who built it died in the first boot sequence. The feedback loop was too unpredictable. It doesn't follow code; it follows impulse. If you touch the core with your pride, it will consume your mind before you can flicker your eyes."
Kai looked up at the pilot's cockpit, high above. "I don't use pride. I use probability."
He began the long climb up the maintenance ladder. Each step felt heavier than the last. His synthetic suit, meant for the climate-controlled Helix Sector, was already damp with sweat.
As he reached the cockpit hatch, he paused. If he opened this, the raw industrial energy would leak. It would be like standing next to a sun made of molten iron.
Lin (RogueCode-04): "Kai, wait! The core is in a 'Hysteresis Loop.' If you break the seal without neutralizing the pressure, you'll trigger a localized blast. P(textDetonation)= 88%."
Kai stared at the hatch. His vision began to blur, the crystalline geometries of his HUD manifesting unbidden. It was weaker now, flickering like a dying bulb.
P(textDetonation)=88.00%.
He touched the lever. He didn't have the power to force a 100% override. He had to be surgical.
"I don't need to neutralize the pressure," Kai whispered to himself, his breath coming in short, shallow bursts. "I just need to find the one-thousandth of a second where the valve fluctuates."
He concentrated, closing his eyes. He stopped looking at the hatch as a physical object and started seeing it as a timeline.
He watched the numbers dance. 88%... 87%... 89%. He looked for the anomaly.
There. A rhythmic oscillation caused by a faulty piston in the basement levels of the factory. Every 1.2 seconds, the vibration from the floor sent a micro-tremor through the Widowmaker's frame, briefly sealing the valve tighter.
He pulled the lever at the exact moment of the tremor.
The hatch hissed, but there was no explosion. Only a cloud of hot, pressurized steam that smelled of ozone.
Roric: "Impressive timing, Analyst. Or luck. Enter the belly of the beast."
Kai climbed inside. The cockpit was cramped, filled with physical levers and thick, analog gauges—a far cry from the holographic interfaces of Neo-Veridia. In the center sat the pilot's harness, and behind it, encased in thick lead-glass, was the Industrial Core.
It looked like a trapped lightning storm, swirling with dark purples and angry, volatile reds.
He sat in the chair. As the harness locked around his chest, a neural link probe attempted to interface with his neck. He flinched, but let it connect.
The immediate sensation was like drinking liquid fire.
The Industrial Flow poured into his consciousness. It wasn't the clean, quiet data stream of Clio. It was a roar of mechanical intent. It told him of grinding gears, burning oil, and the crushing weight of monolithic steel. It was heavy. It was violent.
THE WIDOWMAKER (Neural feedback): "IDENTITY? UTILITY? PURPOSE? CONSUMPTION?"
Kai gasped, his hands gripping the controls so hard his knuckles turned white. "Identity... Kai. Purpose... Stability."
The core flared. The needle on the energy output gauge slammed into the red zone and snapped off.
Roric: "It's rejecting him! Lin, ready the emergency suppression dampeners! We're going to lose the bay!"
"No!" Kai screamed, his voice echoing in the cockpit. "Don't suppress it! If you suppress it, it creates a vacuum! The feedback will kill everyone!"
He forced his mind to expand. He had to map the entire machine's internal Flow.
He saw the jagged, unstable rivers of energy flowing through the hydraulic lines. They were like broken glass, tearing at the internal piping. The Iron Dominion build logic was "Power through Reinforcement," but no metal could reinforce against pure energy chaos.
He opened the HUD. It was erratic, pulsing with the same red light as the core.
P(textCore Stabilization)=0.04%
He didn't have enough Primal Affinity to fix the whole thing. He looked at his health metrics—his Primal Flow was flashing at 3%.
If I go to zero, I don't just lose power. I lose the anchor. I'll become a Scourge entity.
He had to use the machine's own volatility against itself. He looked for the "Reflected Flow."
In Neo-Veridia, reflected energy was wasted data. In the Iron Dominion, it was a weapon.
He found the junction where the primary energy path split toward the legs. He willed the probability of a Partial Blockage in the left leg conduit.
P(textBlockage)=99.9%
The energy surged, hit the wall he created, and reflected backward toward the core. It collided with the incoming flow, causing a massive internal interference pattern.
Two waves of chaos met and canceled each other out for a fraction of a second.
The roar in his head quieted. The Widowmaker hesitated.
"Now," Kai groaned, sweat stinging his eyes. "Calculate... sync... finalize."
He pushed the final bits of his Primal Flow into the interference pattern, shaping the dead zone into a temporary stabilize loop. It was a bridge of light over an abyss of lightning.
The gauges began to drop. The violent shaking of the cockpit ceased.
The hangar went silent.
Outside, Roric lowered his heavy service pistol. Lin dropped the dampener remote, his hands trembling.
Roric: "The lights are green. He's... he's synced. With a widowmaker."
The Vanguard-Sigma hissed as the primary hydraulics pressurized. Slowly, the massive machine rose to its full height, the tangles of power cables falling away like old snakeskin.
Kai sat in the pilot's harness, gasping for air. His vision was tunneling, but he could see through the Mecha's cameras. He saw Roric looking up at the machine with something that wasn't just pragmatic utility—it was awe, tempered by fear.
Roric (Over the neural link): "Analyst Kai. Can you move?"
"I can... maintain," Kai managed. "But the loop is fragile. It's not a patch. It's a stalemate."
Roric: "A stalemate with that power is enough. Walk forward."
Kai engaged the drive system. The sensation was massive. With every step the Widowmaker took, the factory floor shook. He felt the pure Industrial Flow roaring through the machine's veins, but it was held in check by the interference loop he had built.
He felt powerful. Dangerous. This wasn't a Code Analyst's tool. This was an avatar of the Dominion's unrestrained might, directed by Neo-Veridia's surgical logic.
Roric: "Good. The Widowmaker lives. But realize what you have done, Analyst. The moment you engaged that machine, you alerted every surveillance beacon in the Dominion. My superiors—the High Command—are on their way. They do not share my patience for anomalies."
"So we leave?" Kai asked, his voice shaking.
Roric: "No. We negotiate. You have stabilized the un-stabilizable. You have given them the weapon they need for the Reclamation Fleet. They will want to keep you. But I have other plans for your 'cheating' ability."
Roric walked to the base of the machine, looking up.
Roric: "You asked about the Prismatic Array. It isn't just failing in the spirit world. It is failing here. The heavy industrial extraction has weakened the Array's physical anchors in the Dominion. The Scourge isn't just coming—it's already underneath this city."
Kai looked down through the camera feed, seeing Roric's face. The Mecha Commander looked exhausted, his scarred tissue twitching.
Roric: "If the Array fails here, the Industrial Flow won't just glitch. It will detonate, turning the entire nation into a crater. My nation is committing suicide to fuel their wars. You are the only person who can reach the anchors and reinforce them without the Array shutting down."
"You want me to fix a global anchor while piloting a walking bomb?" Kai muttered, a bitter smile touching his lips.
Roric: "I want you to save my people. Whether you fix the world or not is your business. But the Widowmaker is the only vehicle shielded enough to survive the Scourge pockets under the city. Stay in the chair, Analyst. The ride is about to get significantly heavier."
Kai felt the low hum of the machine, the dangerous power of the Dominion coursing around him. He had entered the world of the giants, and as the sirens of the High Command's approach began to wail, he knew his time as an exile was over.
He was a soldier now. A probability of one in a world of zeros.