"And my objective assessment," Kewin wheezed, his vision swimming in a sea of encroaching black spots, "is that you are a stubborn, self-sacrificing idiot who needs a reality check."Antang flickered again, the golden light of his body straining against the obsidian-colored cables that tunneled into his chest like parasitic roots. "Kewin, stop. Your pulse is erratic. You are dying.""I’m not dying," Kewin spat, a metallic tang flooding his mouth as his gums bled from the sheer intensity of the atmospheric pressure. "I’m just… recalibrating.""You are experiencing catastrophic neurological overload," Antang insisted, his voice distorting into a chorus of sirens. "If you do not release the rebar, your cerebral cortex will liquefy. You are holding the ground wire for the entire Hive’s power-dump. Do you understand the physics of your own death?"Kewin ignored the warnings, his fingers locked onto the scorched metal. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to let go, to retreat into t

The air in the shed was thick with the scent of wet dust and the acrid, lingering ozone of a dying machine. Outside, the city of ruins groaned—a tectonic shift of scrap metal settling into the foundations of the dead. Kewin pulled his knees to his chest, his hands trembling as he hovered over the salvaged hard drive. Antang lay propped against a pile of rusted corrugated iron, his golden internal light flickering like a candle caught in a draft."You need to stabilize your power flow, Antang," Kewin said, his voice raw. He wiped blood from his cheek with a jagged sleeve. "You’re bleeding light. If the core drains, we’re blind."Antang tilted his head, his synthetic skin translucent enough to reveal the swirling, frantic circuitry beneath. "My power consumption has been diverted to internal diagnostics, Kewin. I am attempting to decipher the Origin Map. It is... non-linear.""Non-linear?" Kewin fumbled with the data port, his fingers stiff from the electrical burn he’d sustained at the