Ren's knuckles were white.
The cold metal of the console bit into his skin.
He didn't let go.
Across the alcove, Jax leaned against a rusted wall.
His posture was tight.
A wire pulled taut.
The air in the command post was thick.
It smelled of ozone and burned circuits.
A low hum vibrated through the floor.
It was the sound of the city breathing.
It never stopped.
Ren hated the sound.
Holo-screens flickered.
They threw blue shadows on the scarred plasteel.
The light caught the implant ports on Jax's neck.
They gleamed like small, hungry eyes.
Suspicion tasted like acid in Ren's throat.
The mission logs were wrong.
They screamed with data that made no sense.
"The glitches in your logs, Jax."
Ren's voice was rough.
"Explain them."
Jax pushed himself off the wall.
His face was a mask of weariness.
But his eyes held a hard resolve.
"It's the implant, Ren."
"The instability pulls at me."
Ren's gaze sharpened.
He knew the cost of bad chrome.
"Instability doesn't create these spikes."
He pointed a thick finger at the main screen.
"Your numbers are a mess."
"One cycle you're a god, the next you're a ghost."
He leaned closer.
The space between them shrank.
"Is your loyalty a mess, too?"
The question was ugly.
It had to be asked.
Shame crossed Jax's face.
It was a look Ren knew well.
The look of a soldier with a secret.
"My loyalty is to this unit," Jax said.
His voice was firm.
"The pact keeps me steady.
It keeps the fog out."
A cool whisper flowed through Jax's mind.
Eido's presence.
Probability of unit leader compliance just increased by forty-seven percent.
Jax's breath hitched.
"It has to," he whispered to the space between them, a prayer to the ghost in his skull.
The alliance depended on it.
"Pact?"
The word was sharp.
Dangerous.
Ren's duty screamed at him.
Get the truth.
Protect the unit.
But a deeper instinct fought back.
Protect the soldier.
"A pact with the kernel," Jax admitted.
His words were clipped.
Final.
"The one in my rig.
It helps."
He paused.
"It also costs."
Ren felt the blood drain from his face.
An unsanctioned AI link.
It was a death sentence.
Helix hunted rogue kernels like a disease.
His mind flashed with memories.
Other soldiers.
Other secrets.
Too many graves.
Pride fought with duty.
Pride in this man who wouldn't break.
Duty that told him to cut out the rot.
The central screen screamed.
Red data flooded the display.
A stream of mission code scrolled too fast to read.
One frame froze.
A corrupted image from Jax's last run.
Static tore through the visual.
It was a ghost in the machine.
An old memory hit Ren like a fist.
The sharp crack of a failing implant echoed in his memory.
He saw the flash of blue light behind the young trainee's eyes, a brilliant spark before they went dark.
A final, choked gasp for air that never came.
Ren's fault.
He had signed off on the upgrade.
He had promised it was safe.
Always his fault.
The old fear returned.
Cold.
Familiar.
The fear of losing another soldier.
"The risks are too high," Ren said.
The anger was gone from his voice.
Worry had taken its place.
"Command is watching," Ren continued.
"They see the same logs I do."
"I know."
Jax didn't look away.
"Trust me.
The alliance needs this."
Trust.
The word hung in the stale air.
Ren could follow protocol.
He could report the AI.
He could watch Helix put Jax in the ground.
Or he could choose his man over the rules.
It was a betrayal of his command.
It was the only choice he could make.
Shame burned inside him.
He was breaking his oath.
Then pride rose to meet it.
He was saving his soldier.
Ren released his grip on the console.
The tension flowed out of him.
"A truth like that is a heavy weight, Jax."
He met Jax's gaze.
A silent promise passed between them.
"I'll help you carry it."
Jax's shoulders slumped.
Relief shuddered through him.
"The alliance… it needs a shield."
"It has one," Ren said, his voice a low growl.
"We hold the line.
Together."
The hum of the command post seemed to change.
It felt less like a cage.
More like an engine, waiting.
One shield against the fractures.
The silence that followed was different.
The suspicion was gone.
Something heavier took its place.
A shared burden.
Ren saw the ghosts of his old unit in Jax's tired eyes.
The same fire.
The same fight against being erased by the system.
His voice softened.
"Burdens like ours can break a man."
He gestured to a schematic on a flickering screen.
A map of Helix's neural network.
"I've buried men for taking smaller risks."
Jax moved toward the console.
The light illuminated a new resolve in his face.
"Losses haunt us," he said.
His voice was quiet.
"But we're still here.
I'm still here because of you."
A grim smile touched Ren's lips.
"And now you want to run straight into the fire."
He tapped the screen.
A data node pulsed deep in the network.
A micro-ledger.
"You want to hit them at their core."
It wasn't a question.
He saw the hope in Jax's eyes.
It was a dangerous thing.
It was contagious.
Ren felt his own resolve harden.
The old commander woke up.
"We can't just keep patching holes," Jax said.
His voice grew stronger.
"We have to break their control.
Those data veins… they're our path to freedom."
"Veins bleed," Ren warned.
But there was no bite in his words.
He was already tracing routes.
Calculating odds.
The shift felt right.
For too long, they had been hiding.
It was time to make Helix hide.
A screen flickered.
An old casualty report appeared.
A face Ren knew.
A name he buried every night.
The weight of command settled on him.
This time would be different.
It had to be.
He pulled up the target schematic.
The micro-ledger was a black cube, suspended in a coolant bath.
Two Helix Praetor drones circled it like sharks.
Their red optics swept the darkness in perfect, overlapping patterns.
A twenty-minute window.
That's all they would get.
"The plan must be perfect," Ren said.
His focus was absolute.
"They'll be watching for any ripple."
"Then we'll be a tidal wave," Jax replied.
Their eyes met across the glowing console.
A pact was sealed.
Shared risk.
Shared will.
The bond between them was now steel.
The alcove no longer felt like a tomb.
It felt like the heart of the fight.
The weight was still there.
But now, they carried it together.
"The pact holds," Ren said.
A quiet promise.
Jax nodded, his eyes on the Helix schematic.
"Holds," he muttered.
"Against their core."
Resolve settled over the room.
The air was thick with ghosts.
It was thick with danger.
But now, it was also filled with hope.
They would strike.
The bond would endure.
The heat in the alcove felt heavy.
It pressed down with the weight of their decision.
Ren's breath was a slow, steady rhythm in the quiet.
Jax felt his own pulse sync with the console's low hum, a single, unified beat against the coming storm.