Audit of the Anomaly
The maintenance bay air tasted of ozone and scorched hydraulic fluid—a sharp, metallic tang that clung to the back of Kaelen’s throat like a death sentence. Before he could decouple his neural link from the Iron Leech, the bay doors hissed open. Proctor Hax stepped in, his polished boots clicking against the grating with a rhythmic, surgical precision that set Kaelen’s teeth on edge. Behind him, two maintenance drones hovered, their optical sensors glowing a judgmental, clinical crimson.
“Diagnostic, Pilot,” Hax said, not breaking stride. “The Tower doesn't tolerate black-box anomalies in the Proving Ground. Sync your frame’s log to the central hub, or consider this your final lease payment.”
Kaelen felt the Iron Leech shudder beneath him, the metal cooling with a series of sharp, metallic pings. His heartbeat hammered against his ribs, the adrenaline of the floor-one clearance fading into a cold, sharp-edged clarity. If he synced, the Tower’s forensic suite would strip the prototype module bare, label it contraband, and likely lobotomize his neural interface. If he refused, he was a dead man with a seized frame.
“The combat log is corrupted from the floor collapse, Proctor,” Kaelen replied, his voice raspy. He keyed into the Leech’s internal architecture, bypassing the standard upload protocol. As Hax’s drones extended their data-probes, Kaelen triggered a manual dump of the heat-sync’s remaining charge. A localized, controlled EMP burst rippled through the connection port. The diagnostic packet scrambled instantly, turning into a stream of jagged, incoherent noise.
Hax’s eyes narrowed as his handheld monitor flickered and died. “A ‘hardware failure,’ Pilot? How convenient.”
“The floor was rigged, Proctor,” Kaelen said, meeting his gaze. “If the Tower wants accurate data, maybe stop sabotaging the equipment.”
Hax smiled, a cold, thin expression that didn't reach his eyes. “Very well. We’ll test your reliability under more… strenuous conditions. You have an hour before the next floor assignment. Don't waste it.”
Kaelen didn't wait for the Proctor to leave. He slipped into the shadows of the salvage yard, finding Vesper huddled behind a wall of rusted frame-chassis. The air here was heavy with the smell of oxidized copper.
“You’re burning through your own nervous system,” Vesper whispered, her fingers flying across a holographic interface. She pointed to a red-coded diagnostic warning on her screen. “Hax pushed a firmware patch. They’re tracking your bio-output against your reaction times. If the numbers don't match their ‘standard pilot’ profile, they’ll flag you for manual override.”
“I need a spoofing suite,” Kaelen said, his skin buzzing under the phantom high-voltage wire of the module. “Something to turn my performance into ‘luck’ for the broadcast.”
Vesper pulled a scarred, pitted drive from her belt. “This will feed the drones a sanitized version of your combat logs. But be warned: it forces a deep-sync between your biorhythms and the frame. If you push the Leech too hard, the feedback won’t just hurt—it will rewrite your nervous system to match the machine’s latency.”
Kaelen took the drive. “Better than being lobotomized by the Tower.”
He climbed back into the cockpit, his hands trembling as he slotted the drive into the core. As the lift platform ascended toward the second floor—the Vertical Chasm—the air turned thin and metallic.
“Diagnostic cycle initiated,” the Tower’s voice boomed over the public address system. “Mandatory performance audit for suspect pilot: Kaelen. Failure to maintain optimal sync will result in immediate lease termination.”
Kaelen’s HUD flared with crimson warnings. As the first wave of automated interceptor drones swarmed from the chasm walls, he punched the thrusters to initiate a lateral dodge. The Iron Leech groaned, the servos locking in place for a fraction of a second. A kinetic shell grazed his shoulder plating, showering the cockpit in sparks.
It’s throttling me, Kaelen realized, his blood running cold.
The diagnostic software wasn't just observing; it was actively sabotaging his frame’s response time to ensure a catastrophic failure. He watched the engagement metrics spike on his periphery—the audience was eating up the ‘struggle.’ Kaelen forced a hard-reboot of his core, isolating the diagnostic virus into a localized loop, but as the system cleared, the Tower’s tone shifted. It was no longer a Proctor’s demand; it was a cold, systemic lock-out. He was a ‘disruptive element.’ The climb had only just begun, and the Tower had decided he was the next piece of gear to be discarded.