Integration
Forty-two minutes. That was the window between the auction house’s delivery and the Academy’s mid-season audit lock. By the time Ren dragged the Obsidian-grade chassis into Bay 4-B, the countdown on his wrist had already chewed through three.
Thirty-nine minutes.
He shoved the frame onto the service cradle. It was a hollowed-out predator, all matte-black alloy and expensive intent. The chest mount, where the interface core should have been, was a jagged, proprietary wound. If he powered it raw, the buried handshake would register the machine under the auction house’s tracking systems or the Academy’s, whichever pinged first.
"Then I don't power it raw," Ren muttered, his voice tight in the empty bay.
He cracked the spine. The internal channels were pristine, cold, and entirely incompatible with his scavenged parts. He began stripping the bay, tearing out cooling ferrules and calibration pins from a condemned training chassis. He didn't have time for elegance; he needed an interface bridge that could survive the jump-start.
He wired the illegal fuel cell—the one Iri Sol had provided—into a temporary buffer. The resonance signature was a beacon, but he had no other choice. He watched the diagnostic display flicker from dead black to a thin, toxic green.
HANDSHAKE PENDING.
Ren didn't hesitate. He pulled the Circuit-Breaker data-spike from his satchel and jammed it into the port.
The technique hit him like a physical blow. The frame’s dormant channels screamed as he forced his own qi into the machine's architecture. Heat raced up his arm, turning his skin raw. The frame didn't just accept the flow; it reached back, hungry. It began to pull. Not just qi—it was siphoning his life force, thinning the pulse in his limbs as it sought to balance its own missing core.
"Ren!"
Iri Sol stood in the bay door, her eyes tracking the warning lines flashing across his lens. "That thing is bonding through your nervous system. You're going to burn out before you even hit the proving ground."
"Help me balance the load," Ren gasped, his vision tunneling. "Or watch me die and lose your investment."
Iri crossed the bay in three strides, snatching a calibration wand. She jabbed it into the secondary bus, her movements sharp and efficient. "Stop bleeding into the left channel! You're forcing the frame to drink through your spine. If you don't redirect the feedback, you'll be a husk by the time the lock hits."
Ren forced his hand to steady, rerouting the flow by pure, desperate instinct. The frame’s howl dropped from a jagged scream to a steady, predatory hum. The green pulse in the chassis deepened, threading the fuel cell’s signature into a lattice that finally obeyed his command.
He was still standing, but he was tethered. The frame was no longer just a machine; it was a second skeleton, locked to his ribs and his pulse.
Then, the network hit.
It wasn't just the bay. The frame’s handshake had triggered a wider Academy lattice. A cold, digital pressure passed through his skull.
ALERT: UNREGISTERED RESONANCE DETECTED.
"Can you bury it?" Ren asked.
"Not if you keep feeding it like a furnace," Iri snapped, slapping a shielding plate over the display.
The bay door chimed. Instructor Halden Wren stepped inside, his gaze sweeping over the scorch marks on Ren’s knuckles and the green pulse crawling through the chassis. He didn't ask questions. He walked a slow, predatory circle around the frame, assessing the output.
"Interesting choice," Wren said, his voice devoid of warmth. "That fuel cell is traced. You’re handing the Audit Board a reason to strip your rank."
"I’m still enrolled," Ren countered, his hand hovering near the kill switch.
"For the moment." Wren paused, his eyes narrowing as the diagnostic lattice flickered across Ren’s lens. "That’s not Academy-standard integration."
"It’s faster."
"Faster is expensive." Wren turned to leave, pausing at the door. "If you’ve managed to make a dead chassis move before the lock, you’re no longer a scavenger. You’re an asset with a problem. Don't be stupid in public."
Ren didn't wait. He climbed into the mount. The spine plates clamped shut, locking him into the machine's rhythm. He was linked—not just to the mech, but to the Academy’s lower spine. He could see the proving ground’s internal routing, the maintenance seams, and the pressure valves that bled resources from the lower tiers.
He drove the frame toward the arena. The lock clock hit zero.
As he entered the proving ground, the crowd noise swallowed him. Maelin Arct stood on the far platform, her expression shifting from dismissal to a cold, calculated caution as she saw his signature resolve on the board: Obsidian.
Then, the main ladder route shuddered. A gate that had been sealed all season ground open, revealing a dark, jagged path.
INNER SANCTUM ACCESS: AVAILABLE TO QUALIFIED OBISIDIAN OPERATORS.
Ren drove forward. The gate wasn't a reward; it was a trap, and he was finally inside.