The Mech Touch Exlor Novels & Stories

Dian stilled. He knew that shape. Even like this. The thing turned. Its eyes were red. But underneath, Renn was still there. Somewhere. Dian felt it. That made it worse. “They’re inside,” Selene said behind him. Dian didn’t look back. He already knew. The thing opened its mouth. The voice that came out didn’t belong to it. “Give us the Moon-touched.” A pause. “Or we take them all.” Dian stepped forward.

But his reflexes were still forged in the Blood Pits. He ducked under a sweeping strike from a Trooper's reinforced forearm, stepping inside the mech's guard. He drove his steel Phase-Knife directly into the tiny, unarmored gap between the neck and the torso plating. He didn't rely on magic; he twisted the blade and used brute leverage to sever the primary analog power cables. The mech sparked and went limp. But as Dax ripped the knife free, a third Null-Trooper stepped up behind him, raising a heavy, hydraulic-powered fist.

Its chassis was scarred by silver-salt corrosion, and its single searchlight eye swept the room with a frantic, stuttering blue pulse. Kael had abandoned the primary server farm. He had compressed his entire consciousness into the mech’s primitive, isolated processor. He was no longer a ghost in the wires. He was a ghost in the machine. The mech’s metal feet crunched through the silver mercury on the floorboards, leaving deep, jagged gouges in the obsidian. It stopped inches from my throne. The smell of hot grease and sparking wiring filled the stagnant air, clashing with the smell of my own stone decay.