The golden glow of the Core-Capacitor pulsed in the dark like the heartbeat Kaelen's own body was struggling to maintain.
He didn't move for a long time. His lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass, and his left arm—the one that had channeled the Sentry's discharge—was numb, the skin marbled with silver-blue streaks. This was "Aether-Scaring." To a High-Watt noble, it was a mark of prestige. To a scavenger, it was a death sentence. It meant the radiation was starting to rewrite his DNA.
"Move," Kaelen grunted, forcing his fingers to claw into the silt. "If the Enforcers pick up that power spike, they'll be here in minutes."
He dragged himself toward the dead machine. With trembling hands, he used the jagged rebar to pry open the Sentry's chest plates. The smell of ozone and old grease was suffocating.
There it was. A Model-7 Logic-Core and its accompanying Gold-Thread Capacitor.
In the Iron City's black market, this was more than just a filter for his respirator. This was a ticket out of the Sludge-Vents. This was leverage.
But as his fingers brushed the warm glass of the capacitor, his vision flickered. A jagged line of green code danced across his retinas, then vanished.
System Error: Neural-Link Not Found.
Warning: Bio-Electrical Feedback detected in host.
Kaelen blinked, shaking his head. "Hallucinations. Great."
He didn't have a Neural-Link. He didn't have a "System." He was just a boy with a dead battery for a heart. The "Code" he was seeing was the "Data-Bleed"—the residue of the Sentry's memory pouring into his own brain because he'd stopped his pulse. He was literally "downloading" the machine's last moments.
He tucked the capacitor into a lead-lined pouch at his belt. The weight was comforting, but the silence of the tunnels was suddenly broken by a mechanical thrumming.
Above him, in the vent, a searchlight swept across the oily walls.
"Scavenger!" a voice boomed, amplified by a Vox-grille. "By the authority of the Church of the Silicon Soul, surrender all confiscated hardware. You are in possession of Holy Circuitry."
Kaelen froze. The Inquisition.
They weren't just soldiers; they were "Augments"—men who had replaced their limbs with hydraulic steel and their eyes with thermal sensors. They could smell the Aether on him from a mile away.
"Surrender and your death will be painless," the voice continued. "Resist, and we will harvest your nervous system for the Great Server."
Kaelen looked at the exit. It was blocked. He looked at the deep, dark sludge-pit behind him. It led to the "Lower-Works," a place where the machines were even older and the Aether was thick enough to melt skin.
He gripped the hilt of his rebar-shiv. His heart was still thumping erratically, trying to find its rhythm after the flatline.
"Painless death?" Kaelen whispered, his eyes narrowing as he felt the faint blue glow in his veins hum with a strange, addictive power. "I've spent nineteen years in pain. I'm used to it."
He didn't climb up. He dove deeper into the dark.
The Inquisition began to fire. Bolts of white-hot plasma hissed through the air, boiling the mud around him. Kaelen didn't look back. He ran until his lungs burned, until his heart felt like it was going to burst, and until the light of the surface was nothing but a memory.
He was no longer just a scavenger. He was a thief of the Gods.