Supreme Disassemble: Rebuilding the World in the Iron Wastel

Chapter 14: The Heart is a Lonely Scrapper

The massive, pulsating core of the Inner City Hive looked less like a masterpiece of engineering and more like a giant, glowing hemorrhoid made of fiber-optics and stolen dreams. It hummed with a low-frequency thrum that made Suger’s teeth ache and his eyeballs vibrate in their sockets. Every few seconds, a surge of violet fluid pumped through the transparent pipes, glowing with the kind of radioactive intensity that screamed "I will give you cancer just by looking at me."

​Oh, look. A giant, glowing heart. How poetic, the Voice drawled in Suger’s head, sounding like a bored teenager at a funeral. I’m sure if you ask it nicely, it’ll stop turning people into cyborg slaves. Or, you know, you could try using that thing in your chest called a brain, though I know it hasn't seen much use lately.

​"Shut up, you bucket of binary trash," Suger hissed, wiping a fresh smear of blood from his lip. He looked at his hands. The blue sparks were dancing between his fingers again, but this time they felt heavy, like he was trying to hold onto a pair of angry electric eels. "I’m not here for a therapy session. I’m here to see if this thing is as expensive to replace as it looks."

​Claire was already moving, her tactical boots making no sound on the obsidian floor. She was checking the perimeter, her rail-pistol raised and tracking the shadows. "The security response is delayed," she whispered, her voice tight with suspicion. "They shouldn't be this slow. Not for the heart of the city."

​"Maybe they’re on their lunch break," Suger suggested, walking toward the pulsating core. "Even soulless robots need a sandwich once in a while, right?"

​"Suger, focus. That core is shielded by a bio-organic firewall," Claire said, pointing to a series of gelatinous nodes surrounding the base of the machine. "It’s not just code. It’s neural tissue. If you try to disassemble it with your usual 'smash and grab' technique, it’ll fry your nervous system before you can say 'oops'."

​Suger stopped a few feet from the violet glow. He could feel the heat radiating off the pipes. The System in his vision was freaking out, red warning icons flashing so fast it was like being at a bad techno rave. Level 10 had unlocked a lot of power, but it had also unlocked a new level of sensory overload.

​He didn't reach out. Not yet. Instead, he sat down on the floor, crossed his legs, and stared at the giant heart.

​"What are you doing?" Claire hissed, her green eye darting between him and the darkened doorways. "We don't have time for a picnic!"

​"I'm introducing myself," Suger said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous murmur. "You can't just walk up to a lady like this and start taking her clothes off. You gotta show some respect."

​The Voice scoffed. Wow. That was the most disturbing metaphor you’ve ever used. And I’ve heard you talk to a half-eaten can of beans.

​Suger ignored the snark. He closed his eyes and let his consciousness drift. He didn't use the System as a hammer this time; he used it as a stethoscope. He felt the rhythm of the violet fluid. He felt the microscopic vibrations in the glass pipes. And then, he felt it—the 'human' part of the machine. It wasn't just a heart; it was a prison. Thousands of stolen consciousnesses were being used as processing power, their pain being converted into the very energy that ran the Inner City.

​"Okay," Suger whispered, his face going cold. The humor was gone, replaced by a dark, jagged edge of pure scavenger rage. "I’ve seen enough."

​He stood up and slammed both palms into the floor.

​The obsidian tiles cracked instantly. A wave of deep blue light surged out from his hands, racing toward the core like a pack of starving wolves. The bio-organic nodes began to shriek—a high-pitched, digital scream that made Claire drop to her knees, clutching her head.

​"Suger! Stop! It’s backlashing!" she screamed.

​"It’s not backlashing," Suger roared, his eyes turning entirely blue, the pupils disappearing into a sea of static. "It’s crying because it knows I’m the one who’s going to let everyone out!"

​The System icons in his vision turned from red to a blinding, crystalline white. Mass Disassembly: Bio-Organic Override. The violet fluid in the pipes suddenly reversed its flow. The giant heart gave a sickening, wet thud, and then the first pipe shattered. A spray of glowing liquid hit the floor, hissing like acid. Then the second pipe went. Then a third.

​The entire room began to shake. Pieces of the ceiling, heavy slabs of reinforced concrete and gold leaf, began to rain down. The beautiful, sterile cathedral of science was being unmade by a guy who usually spent his days looking for copper wire in a trash heap.

​"You’re killing the power to the whole sector!" the Voice screamed, sounding genuinely terrified for once. "The drones, the lights, the life support... Suger, you're turning off the world!"

​"Good," Suger spat, his muscles trembling under the sheer pressure of the energy flowing through him. "Let 'em see what the dark looks like. It’s where I’ve lived my whole life."

​With a final, guttural roar, Suger pushed everything he had into the core.

​The heart didn't just break. It disintegrated. A blinding flash of white light swallowed the room, turning everything to a blank slate of pure energy. For a second, there was no sound, no pain, just the feeling of a billion connections being severed at once.

​And then, the darkness came.

​A heavy, absolute silence fell over the laboratory. The glowing pods in the abyss outside flickered and died. The hum of the city above them vanished, replaced by the distant, terrified screams of a paradise that had just lost its soul.

​Suger collapsed, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. He couldn't feel his arms. He couldn't even feel the floor beneath him.

​"Claire?" he croaked.

​No answer. Only the sound of cooling metal and the dripping of violet fluid.

​Warning, the Voice whispered, its sound distorted and glitchy. System critical. Energy depleted. Also... you might want to look at the door. I don't think the 'landlords' are happy about what you did to the place.

​Suger looked up, his vision blurry. In the doorway stood a figure that wasn't a robot, and wasn't a soldier. It was something else entirely—something wrapped in white silk, holding a blade that glowed with a light that didn't come from a battery.

​"Well," Suger whispered, a bloody grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I guess this is the part where I find out if I have a health insurance plan.