The reanimated Stalker Mech, its movements jerky and unnatural under the green glow of the officer's gauntlet, lumbered towards Alex.
Its once-red optical sensors now burned with an eerie green, a stark reflection of its new master's control. The second, fully operational Stalker advanced steadily, its cutting laser carving molten furrows in the tunnel walls, herding them.
"He's overriding its core programming!" Voss exclaimed, her face pale with horrified understanding.
"That gauntlet… it must be some kind of direct neural interface or command override for UGF cybernetics! This is beyond standard field equipment!"
This officer wasn't just skilled; he was a specialist in robotic warfare, a puppeteer pulling the strings of steel and circuits. Alex felt a chill deeper than the tunnel's stale air.
The faint Echoes from the officer, now sharpened by this new display of his capabilities, whispered of cold logic, intricate programming, and a dispassionate interest in Alex's reactive adaptations. He wasn't just trying to capture Alex; he was testing him.
"Crows, suppress the active mech!" Kai's voice crackled over the comms from a side tunnel. He and his team were still fighting, still trying to draw fire. "Ren, Voss, that puppet is yours! Find a way to cut its strings!"
Easier said than done. Alex was running on fumes. The Null-Field absorption had left him feeling psychically scoured, his connection to his absorbed powers tenuous and frayed. But the brief silence of the Echoes, though terrifying, had also been… clarifying. For a moment, he'd felt only himself.
The reanimated mech raised its damaged laser arm. Even in its compromised state, it was a significant threat.
"Its control system is external now, through that gauntlet!" Voss theorized rapidly. "If you could disrupt the signal… but his Null-Field would protect him."
Alex's mind raced. He couldn't overpower the mech. He couldn't outfight the officer. He needed a different approach. The alien glyph flashed in his mind again, that sense of energy flowing around it, being channeled. He still didn't understand it, but the feeling of focus it evoked was strong.
He looked at the downed Stalker beside him, the one he'd disabled. Its systems were fried, chaotic. Could he… use that chaos?
"Voss," he rasped, an idea taking shape, desperate and probably insane. "That first mech I took down… I pulsed chaotic energy into its systems. What if I can… project that chaos, but wider? Like a… localized EMP, but targeted at UGF frequencies?"
Voss blinked. "An electromagnetic pulse strong enough to affect shielded UGF military hardware? Alex, the energy required would be colossal! And the feedback to your system…"
"It's either that or become UGF scrap metal," Alex retorted, dodging a clumsy swing from the puppet mech. He needed to get closer to the officer, but the active Stalker and the officer's own Null-Field were major obstacles.
Then he saw it: a junction box for the tunnel's emergency lighting system, sparking erratically nearby. An external power source, however unstable.
He remembered the Enforcer's Static Core, how he'd learned to draw its energy. Could he do the same with raw electricity from the tunnel itself? His Absorber Gene was meant for Gene Cores, but Voss had said it interfaced with energy.
"Lena, can you overload that junction box on my mark?" Alex shouted into his comm. "Give me a massive power surge, just for a second!"
"Alex, that's incredibly dangerous!" Lena's worried voice came back. "It could fry everything in this section, including us!"
"Just do it!"
He took a deep breath, trying to achieve that momentary clarity he'd felt after the Null-Field absorption. He focused on the faint, residual Static Core imprint within him, using it as a lightning rod, a conduit.
The officer, perhaps sensing Alex's desperate gamble, began to advance, his active Stalker Mech laying down a terrifying wall of laser fire, forcing Alex and Voss behind a precarious outcrop of rock. The puppet mech shambled closer.
"Lena, NOW!" Alex yelled.
"Surge incoming!" Lena shouted back.
The junction box exploded in a blinding flash of white light and a deafening roar. Arcs of raw electricity danced across the tunnel walls, the air filled with the smell of ozone. For a heart-stopping moment, Alex felt that raw, untamed power course into him. It was agonizing, like being struck by lightning from the inside out, but his Absorber Gene, with a scream of protest, seemed to grapple with it, trying to contain and redirect it.
He didn't try to hold it for long. He didn't try to fuse it. He simply unleashed it, amplified by his own desperate will, channeling it outwards in a chaotic wave, infused with the same disruptive energy he'd used on the first mech, aiming it roughly towards the officer and his puppet.
VROOOOMMM!
A wave of visible distortion rippled through the air. Lights flickered and died. The active Stalker Mech seized up, its laser sputtering out, its systems crashing. The officer's Null-Field flared brightly for a second, then visibly dimmed. The green glow around his gauntlet flickered erratically, and the puppet mech slumped, its limbs going slack as the control signal stuttered and failed.
It wasn't a total shutdown, but it was a system-wide disruption. He'd hit them with a concentrated, dirty EMP.
The officer staggered, clutching his gauntlet, which was now sparking. "Impossible… civilian tech can't generate such a focused… The Chimera strain… its energy integration is far beyond projections…"
Alex was on his knees, vision blurring, blood trickling from his nose. The power surge had been brutal. He felt like every nerve ending was frayed.
Voss rushed to his side, but her eyes were on the officer. "His Null-Field is weakened! Now's our chance!"
But the officer was already recovering, his movements still precise despite the setback. He discarded the sparking gauntlet. "Adaptability," he repeated, a note of something that might have been grudging respect in his metallic voice. He drew his sidearm again. "A valuable trait indeed."
Before he could fire, Kai and two Crows burst from a side tunnel, laying down a hail of disruptor fire. The officer, forced to take cover, glanced towards the tunnel exit where Alex and Voss were.
"This engagement is… suboptimal," the officer stated calmly into his comms. "Retreating to reassess. Zane will be… most interested in this development."
With that, he activated a personal cloaking field – not as complete as Kai's Core-based stealth, but enough to make him a shimmering distortion – and retreated back the way he'd come, the still-active (though damaged) Stalker Mech covering his withdrawal.
Silence, heavy and ringing, descended upon the devastated tunnel. They were alive. Battered, exhausted, but alive.
"He's… gone?" Lena whispered, emerging from cover.
Kai nodded, his face grim. "For now. But he got what he wanted. A full combat analysis of Alex." He looked at Alex, who was struggling to his feet, supported by Voss. "You're a goddamn WMD, Ren. You know that, right?"
Alex just shook his head, too drained to speak. The raw electrical absorption had left a new, wild energy thrumming within him, different from the clean power of a Gene Core. It felt… untamed. And the officer's final words… Zane will be most interested.
Their escape from Epsilon Point had just made Alex an even bigger target, a prize Zane would hunt to the ends of the galaxy for. And the officer had seen exactly what he was capable of.
As Voss helped him towards the deeper sections of the old transit hub, Alex's alien vision flashed again. This time, the glyph was clearer, pulsing with a faint inner light. And for the first time, he heard a sound accompanying it: a single, resonant chime, like distant crystal bells, echoing from an impossible distance.
A call? Or a warning?