The first time Shane heard the word "Spectra," it echoed in the dark like a distant prophecy.
"Spectra Neural Lattice. Version 0.9."
Dr. Elias Rhane's voice was low, reverent, almost afraid.
The lab around them was dim but alive. Walls of cobalt light flickered with lines of schematics, DNA streams, and energy surge diagnostics. A massive chamber lay ahead like a womb of machinery, cables curled like vines around an open mechanical cradle, the surgical pod that would complete Shane's reconstruction.
"This is the point of no return," Rhane said, standing beside him. "Once we integrate the lattice, you'll never be fully human again."
But I'm not human now, Shane thought, looking down at his reflection in the tempered glass floor.
His body had become a patchwork of metal and organic matter, carbon steel bones, synthetic muscle fibers that pulsed with artificial ATP, and smooth plating where skin used to be. His left eye was now a spectral sensor, multi-layered and adaptive, fed by a new cortex node in the back of his skull.
But the worst was the silence, he could no longer feel his own heartbeat. The mechanical one kept time, but not warmth.
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The Final Procedure
Rhane led Shane into the core chamber, where a dozen robotic arms waited above the surgical basin. Each arm ended in a different tool: micro-scalpels, laser cutters, neural welders, memory-thread injectors. The room smelled of ozone and antiseptic, with a faint undertone of scorched copper.
"I created the Spectra Lattice to preserve thought integrity," Rhane explained, pulling up floating schematics. "Not just reflexes or cognition. You. It's meant to protect your soul from disintegration through mechanical dominance."
Shane climbed into the basin, breathing slow, metal fingers flexing with a faint whir.
He looked at Rhane. "And if it fails?"
Rhane didn't answer immediately. The lights dimmed around them as the basin sealed shut.
"If it fails," he whispered, hand resting on the glass, "you'll still be my son."
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Into the Machine
The moment the procedure began, pain became color.
Every nerve that remained in Shane's body was touched by fire-mapped, overwritten, reborn. His spine became a lightning rod as the lattice wrapped around it like a second skeleton, invisible but unrelenting. Tendrils of nanofiber danced across his brainstem, rewriting pathways with every pulse.
Shane bit down on the scream.
This is not death. This is not life. This is the in-between.
He saw flashes: of himself as a boy, running through the sunlit plazas of old Orinthas with Liora… then collapsing in the dark chamber of Parallax, surrounded by men in white coats and gray eyes. He saw Rhane, alone in the lab night after night, drawing blueprints by candlelight.
His world fractured, then realigned.
And when the pain faded, he opened his eyes.
He could see heat signatures behind walls. He could hear the magnetic resonance of Rhane's equipment humming in five different frequencies. His left hand shifted shapes as the adaptive combat shell calibrated.
Spectra Nova had been born.
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First Steps
Shane stepped down from the cradle, his movements fluid but alien. There was no tremor, no hesitation in his limbs. Everything responded with perfect speed, too perfect. The balance of being too capable unnerved him.
Rhane stood in awe. "It worked."
Shane walked to the mirror wall. His new form stared back.
A sleek, armored frame layered in dark obsidian plating with lines of faintly glowing cobalt through the joints. His face still resembled him, but sharper, colder. One eye human. The other a gleaming blue ring surrounded by digitized pupils.
"What am I now?" he asked quietly.
Rhane approached, hesitating before answering. "You're the first of your kind. Not a weapon. Not a machine. Something… else."
Shane touched the side of his neck, where a faint pulse of energy throbbed. "It doesn't feel like me."
"It won't, not yet," Rhane replied. "But you're still here. Your choices, your pain, your will. Those are yours."
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The Code in the Veins
Late that night, alone in the observation bay, Shane sat in silence watching his own biometric readouts scroll endlessly across a floating screen. His fingers half-human, half-metal clenched unconsciously.
"Spectra Nova", he muttered.
The name had come from Rhane's earliest notes on the project "Spectra", the lattice that preserved consciousness; "Nova", the energy core implanted near Shane's heart. A star reborn.
But rebirth came at a cost.
He touched the small capsule on the back of his neck, interface port, emergency override, the key to everything.
They could control me… if they found it. If they knew how.
Shane stared into the darkness of the lab and made a vow.
I'll never be their weapon. I'll forge my own path. I'll find Liora. I'll burn down everything they built with the fire they gave me.
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