The Rust Market had no sky; it only possessed a network of steam pipes intertwined like the intestines of a rotting monster. The purple and red neon glow from cheap billboards reflected off puddles of wastewater, creating a kaleidoscopic illusion atop the filthy oil surface. The stench of wound-cleaning alcohol, improperly seared flesh, and ozone from short-circuiting cables merged into one suffocating aroma.
Elian Laurent walked through the crowd of outlaws, trying to steady a breath that still felt heavy. Beside him, Caelus walked with an unusual vigilance, his fingers no longer dancing with his silver coin, but instead resting on the frame of his harp as if he were waiting for an explosion.
"Information isn't free here, Workshop Boy," Caelus muttered, his eyes sweeping the narrow alley filled with vendors of used mechanical organs. "And you don't have the Chits to buy so much as a single word."
Elian approached a one-eyed informant smoking a chemical cigar. "The girl with silver blood. Where did she go?"
The informant stared at Elian's tattered cloak, then spat on the ground. "Silver blood? That's a high-priced commodity. What are you buying that info with? Your life? Or those lungs of yours that look like they're about to blow?"
Elian tried to offer his services—his ability to fix the jammed energy regulators on the informant's desk. However, the man only let out a raspy laugh. "Here, skill is trash if you don't have influence. Beat it before I sell your kidneys to the butcher next door."
Elian backed away, his teeth gritted. In the Rust Market, his mathematical brilliance had no exchange value. He was a "Zero" in this social food chain.
They stepped deeper into the Black Medical District, an area often referred to as "The Slaughterhouse." Elian was forced to pause when he saw a dockworker sitting by the roadside. The man's legs had been replaced with rusted freight train hydraulic suspensions. The flesh around the metal joints was rotting, oozing yellow pus that mixed with engine oil.
Elian turned his face away, but that nausea hit him again. He remembered the black stain he had vomited in the sewers. He looked at the man and saw a mirror of his own future: a piece of scrap machinery forced to stay alive within a failing vessel of flesh.
"Don't stare too long," Caelus's voice sounded cold behind him. "Or you'll start feeling sorry for yourself."
Right then, Elian felt a static sensation crawling up his arm. Null Perspective attempted to activate without a command, making his pupils vibrate.
"Damn it," Elian hissed, clutching his arm which was beginning to feel cold.
"Elian, look at me," Caelus pulled Elian's shoulder, staring intensely into the boy's eyes. No jokes. Caelus's gaze was full of a terrifying calculation. "The signal you're emitting... your scent... you're no longer just a lucky workshop boy. If you keep doing this, you'll become a beacon for them."
"Who are 'them'?"
Caelus didn't answer. Instead, he turned away and approached a black-market dealer at the corner of the alley, showing a coin with a sunset symbol hidden in the palm of his hand. The dealer turned pale and whispered something. Elian stared at Caelus's back, a dark thought crossing his mind: Is this man truly saving me, or is he just herding a valuable 'asset'?
Their path was blocked as two massive street debt collectors obstructed the way. Both had disproportionately large steel arm modifications.
"You haven't paid the passage tax," one of them growled, swinging a steel fist that hummed with kinetic energy.
Elian took a breath. He needed to test his synchronization. He saw the enemy's attack vector moving toward his temple. Elian tried to launch a quick, straight punch to a nerve point in the opponent's neck.
Glitch.
Elian's shoulder locked. His punch missed by a wide margin, and he instead took a heavy blow to the stomach that sent him sprawling into the mud. The pain was real, but strangely, the muscles in his legs tensed on their own to break his fall.
"Failure," Elian murmured, tasting metal in his mouth.
He didn't try to punch again. He stopped trying to be a fighter. He became a mechanic once more. He saw the charging opponent as a structure with an unstable fulcrum on his right knee due to his overly heavy arm modifications.
Elian didn't strike back. As the opponent's fist whistled over his head, Elian simply extended one toe, applying a tiny amount of pressure exactly behind the opponent's weight-bearing knee joint.
Just one touch. 10 \text{ Newtons} of compressive force at a critical point.
The opponent crashed face-first into the scrap metal, the momentum of his own heavy body shattering his jaw. Elian stood up slowly, but his right hand suddenly suffered a violent tremor. His fingers shook uncontrollably, as if his nerves had just released an excessive static electrical discharge.
"Good adaptation, but your engine is still protesting," Caelus commented, though his eyes scanned the surroundings restlessly.
Suddenly, the rowdy noise of the Rust Market died instantly.
A faint static siren—a high frequency that pained the ears—began to echo from the entrance gate. The market folk, killers and thieves who usually feared nothing, suddenly bowed their heads and retreated into the shadows of the alleys.
A man stepped in with a terrifying calmness. He wore a pristine white tactical cloak without a single soot stain, a sharp contrast to the squalor around him. His face was covered by a transparent blue visor that constantly displayed rapid rows of flowing data.
His name was Kaelen. A Low-Level Eliminator from Sector 2.
Kaelen didn't laugh wickedly. He didn't curse. He only held a small silver tuning fork in his left hand. He struck the tuning fork against his breastplate. Ting.
"Subject: 09-Null," Kaelen's voice was flat, like an auditor reading an inventory report. "Status: Unregistered Variable. Diagnosis: Sector 9 Systemic Malfunction. Procedure: Total Deletion."
To Kaelen, Elian wasn't human. Elian was a virus making the lines of code in this world untidy.
Kaelen raised a short silver staff. "Gravity Axiom: Magnitude 10. Localization: Subject Coordinates."
BRAAAKKK!
The iron floor beneath Elian's feet collapsed instantly, sinking ten centimeters deep. Elian fell, but he wasn't crushed. Within his blood, thousands of silver entities responded to the immense pressure instantly. Elian felt his bones emit mechanical clicks—the Bio-Axiom within his body forcibly increased his calcium density and cellular structure to withstand ten times the force of gravity.
Elian's face turned crimson, the capillaries in his eyes bursting, yet he remained held up on one knee. He stared at Kaelen with pure hatred.
Kaelen glanced at his visor, frowning slightly. "Internal structure resisting compression? Interesting. There are remnants of Sector 1 technology within this bio-mass."
"He is not bio-mass!" Caelus shouted, his harp emitting a silver glow that tried to resist the gravity field, though Caelus himself seemed to be struggling to breathe.
"Identification error," Kaelen stepped forward, his tuning fork vibrating more intensely. "Everything that does not comply with protocol is trash. And I do not like trash that can stand."
Elian tried to lift his head, his teeth bleeding from the crushing gravitational pressure. His dark eyes began to catch a flaw in Kaelen's gravity staff.
"Your checkmate... hasn't... come... Auditor," Elian hissed through the grinding of his own bones.