"Shoot, Raka! Now! Don’t let my sacrifice go to waste on this bridge, dammit!" Kaleb shouted, his voice hoarse, defying death in the middle of a free fall.Kaleb was clutching the metal body of the Child with the remaining hydraulic strength of his melting armor. They were both drifting in the air, falling toward the darkness of the Megalo River, which was tilted from warped gravity. The Child roared in fury, its silver hands trying to tear Kaleb’s throat open, but Kaleb only tightened his grip as if they were a couple about to die together. On the bridge, Raka lay sprawled out, his right hand reaching toward the sky, shaking violently as he held back a surge of energy that was starting to char his palm."I can’t do it, Kaleb! I can’t shoot you!" Raka roared, silver tears erupting from behind the bandages covering his blind eyes."You have to, you bastard! If this thing doesn’t blow up now, Seraph will have admin access to your brain forever!" Kaleb fired back through a distorted radi

"Shut up and stay still, Raka! You’re just an antenna I have to fix so this purge signal doesn't glitch out!" Elena snapped as she dragged Raka’s bloodied body through the porcelain corridors of the New Citadel.Raka winced, feeling the cold, bionic pavement of the Citadel scrape against his already shattered back. "If I’m just an antenna, you might as well pawn me off at a junk shop, Elena. My scrap value is probably worth more than my dignity right now.""Shut your mouth! You have no idea how vital your position is to this symphony!" Elena fired back, her voice hitting a high, shrill pitch, though the hand clutching Raka’s tuxedo collar trembled ever so slightly."Vital for you, or for the silver demon currently nesting in your brain?" Raka asked, his voice sounding like sandpaper because his throat was still clogged with silver vapor residue.Elena didn't answer. She kicked open the sensor-activated door of a private room at the end of the hall. She tossed Raka’s body onto a medica

"Do you eat iron or something? You are heavy as hell!" Sena complained. Sena struggled to pull the back collar of Raka's shirt. Raka crawled slowly on the cold steel floor. Fresh blood dripped from the torn wound on his stomach, leaving a long, bloody red trail from the throne room to the main hallway. "I just got beaten up by a mutant bear monster, babe," Raka said. "Don't call me babe when you are dying. It is disgusting, you know," Sena replied. "Actually, being at death's door is exactly when I need your affection so I can heal faster," Raka teased. Raka coughed softly, spitting up leftover blood. He held his stomach, which felt like it was on fire. His breathing was ragged. The energy control center that was their destination was still a few yards ahead. "Just keep quiet. The more you talk, the faster you will actually die," Sena scolded. Sena wiped the sweat off her forehead. She put her arm around Raka's shoulder and helped him stand up slowly. They limped down the dim ha

"Wake up, hey! Do you want to die soaking in this damn tank?" Elara snapped.Elara banged hard on the glass of the giant incubator tube where Elena's real body was submerged in the rebel's underground base. However, the white-haired girl inside just floated passively, her eyes shut tight with neural cables plugged into the back of her neck."The system is getting more chaotic. That red doomsday web from the exosphere peak has already started hacking into her mind server!" Elara exclaimed in panic."Then just pull the cables right now before her brain actually gets fried," Kael replied.Kael pulled the emergency lever roughly, but the monitor screen just flashed red, displaying a fatal warning. Kael cursed and kicked the steel console in front of him."Don't be crazy. If we force it out while her mind is still in the digital world, she will be in a coma for the rest of her life," Elara warned.Meanwhile, deep inside the cyber space of Elena's mind, everything felt different. Elena stoo

"Are you crazy? My brain is only filled with muscles and past memories, not computer codes!" Leo yells.Leo deflects a laser projectile with a metal chair he forcefully rips from the floor. Sparks fly across his arm. Julianna takes cover behind the main console of the Neo-Genesis room while shooting at two defense drones hovering in the air."Just sit in that neural chair and let me plug this cable into the back of your neck, babe. Otherwise, we are both going to turn into human skewers in this room," Julianna replies."I am a frontline soldier, not some nerdy hacker. How am I supposed to fight inside a digital world?" Leo asks.Julianna shoots down one drone until it explodes into pieces. She runs toward Leo and grabs the muscular man's collar to make him sit on the neural link chair."Your physical body is incredibly strong enough to handle the processor load of the Seraph Mainframe. You just need to get in there and cause chaos from the inside. Be our Trojan Horse," Julianna explai