The threads would not move.
Shmuel pulled at them, his mechanical fingers tracing patterns in the air, following the weave that should have led somewhere. The handbook had been clear. The technique had been simple. But the ManequioeL in front of him resisted. The strands slipped through his grip like water, like smoke, like the memory of something he had almost understood and then lost.
He was not Kamina.
The thought arrived without invitation. It settled into his chest and stayed there. He was not Kamina. He did not have the voice that made people listen. He did not have the certainty that made impossible things seem reasonable. He did not have the fire that burned without fuel, the will that bent the world around it, the simple and terrifying belief that tomorrow could be dragged into existence by refusing to accept that it couldn't.
He was Shmuel. A simple Fixer. A mind that calculated and measured and weighed. A body that had been broken and rebuilt and broken again. A person who had learned, over years of surviving, to think in terms of what was possible. What was practical. What could be done with the resources available.
Rowbotham was outside, fighting an army. The sound of his greatsword carried through the walls, a steady rhythm of destruction. The ManequioeL kept coming. They would keep coming until someone stopped them. Until someone found the source and ended it.
Shmuel could not find the source. The threads would not move.
He was not Kamina.
But then the thought shifted. Turned. Became something else.
What would Kamina do?
The answer came immediately. Kamina would not sit here, tinkering with threads that refused to cooperate. Kamina would not accept the limits of what was possible. Kamina would kick logic to the curb and do something stupid and reckless and absolutely certain to work, because he refused to accept that it wouldn't.
Shmuel's office had a motto. He had heard Kamina say it a hundred times, in a hundred different situations, the absolute refusal to accept anything less than the impossible.
Kick logic to the curb.
He stopped pulling at the threads.
His mechanical arms had four bullets between them. He had been thinking logically about when and how to use them.
Kick logic to the curb.
He primed all four chambers. The servos in his arms whined, the internal mechanisms spinning up, preparing for the acceleration. He looked around the room. The floor. The walls. The ceiling. The marks on the ground, faint but visible, traces of something that had been opened and closed.
Bingo.
He raised both arms and brought them down.
The floor shattered.
Concrete and wood and dust exploded outward. The impact sent tremors through the building, through the street, through the air itself. Shmuel felt the shockwave travel up his arms and into his shoulders and down his spine. He felt the floor give way beneath him, felt the space open up, felt gravity take hold.
He fell.
The pit was deep. Touches lined the walls, flickering light that cast strange shadows across the descent. The bottom was visible, distant but reachable, and Shmuel angled his body as he fell, preparing to land. His mechanical arms braced for impact. His knees bent to absorb the shock.
He hit the ground and rolled. The impact jarred through him, but he was standing before the dust had settled.
He was in a chamber.
Machinery surrounded him. Fabrics draped from every surface. Threads hung from the ceiling like vines, catching the light and holding it. The space was not chaotic. It was not a spider web of desperation. It was beautiful. Orderly. Purposeful. Every piece of equipment had a place. Every thread had a reason. Every fabric had been chosen with care.
Someone had built this. Someone had worked here for years, alone, in the dark beneath the city, creating something that the world above had never seen.
Shmuel stood in the center of it and understood.
This was where Miller had worked. This was where the threads that connected everything had been woven. And somewhere in this chamber, the answer waited.
He was not Kamina. He would never be Kamina. But he could walk forward. He could take the next step. He could kick logic to the curb and see what happened.
He moved deeper into the chamber.
The chamber narrowed as he moved deeper. The machinery grew denser. The light from the wall-touches flickered, casting shifting shadows that made the space feel alive. Shmuel's footsteps echoed against the metal floor, the sound swallowed by the soft rustle of fabric that hung from every surface.
Then the chamber opened.
And he saw it.
A jar. Glass, thick and reinforced, filled with a pale fluid that hummed with a faint internal light. Inside the jar, suspended in the fluid, was a brain. Grey matter, threaded with veins of silver machinery, connected to cables and tubes that ran from the top of the jar to the ceiling above. The brain pulsed. Slowly. Rhythmically. Like a heartbeat.
Shmuel stopped.
Around the jar, ManequioeL moved. Not the white suits from outside. These were different. Smaller. More delicate. They carried tools in their fabric hands, adjusting the cables, checking the fluid levels, maintaining the machinery with a quiet efficiency that suggested long practice. They did not look at Shmuel. They did not react to his presence. They simply worked.
The speaker crackled.
"It had been quite a long time since... I have... guests."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, distorted by the speakers, broken by pauses that stretched too long. Shmuel's hands came up, his fighting stance settling into place before his mind had finished processing.
"I... am pleased to meet... you..."
Shmuel did not lower his guard. "You are Miller, right?"
A pause. The brain pulsed. The ManequioeL continued their work.
"...Yes..."
"Then I would prefer you make those ManequioeL outside stop attacking my office."
The speaker crackled again. Something that might have been laughter, or might have been static.
"It... cannot be undone. My mind has already... been corrupted. For trying to extend my... life."
Shmuel's jaw tightened. "Why would you do something like this? From what I read in your notes, your life worked. You seemed content. Why go this extreme?"
The brain pulsed faster. The ManequioeL around it adjusted their work, their fabric hands moving with urgent precision.
"Very few... humans... can suppress their fear of death. I did suppress it. For years. But then I feared... what would happen to the very thing I created. I FEAR... THAT I WILL LEFT THEM BEHIND..."
The words echoed through the chamber. Shmuel stood in the center of it, surrounded by machinery and fabric and the slow, terrible pulse of a brain in a jar.
"Such an idiotic end," he said.
The ManequioeL attacked.
They came from every direction, fabric hands reaching, white shapes moving with sudden violence. Shmuel deflected the first, his mechanical arm catching the strike and turning it aside. The second he caught with his right hand, crushing the fabric shape until it crumpled. The third he punched through, his fist driving through the empty suit and out the other side.
"You made those living around here suffer," Shmuel said, his voice cold and steady. "I couldn't give a shit for whatever reason you're about to come up with. Or whatever reason you've been thinking about for years."
He moved through the ManequioeL, his arms a blur of motion. A punch to the head crippled one. A kick to the chest sent another flying. He was not Kamina. He did not have the fire, the voice, the certainty. But he had his own way of moving forward. His own way of kicking logic to the curb.
He reached the jar.
His mechanical hands closed around the glass. The brain pulsed beneath his fingers, slow and steady. The ManequioeL around him froze, their fabric bodies locked in place, waiting for instruction that would never come.
Shmuel squeezed.
The glass shattered. The fluid spilled. The brain, exposed to the air, pulsed once, twice, and then stopped.
Every ManequioeL in the chamber went still. Every ManequioeL in the city above went still. The threads that connected them, the network that had bound them together, dissolved into nothing.
Shmuel stood in the silence, his hands dripping with pale fluid, the shattered jar at his feet.
He was not Kamina. He would never be Kamina. But he had walked forward. He had taken the next step. He had kicked logic to the curb and seen what happened.
And now it was done.
He looked at the ruined jar, at the brain that had once been Miller, at the ManequioeL that would never move again.
"Happy?" he said quietly. "Really..."
The chamber offered no answer. The City above continued its endless hum. Rowbotham was still standing, greatsword in hand, waiting for the next attack that would never come.
Shmuel turned and began the climb back to the surface.
The climb back up was far longer than the fall.
Shmuel pulled himself through the hole in the floor, dust and debris clinging to his coat, his mechanical arms aching from the effort. The shop was quiet now. The ManequioeL that had filled the streets were still, their fabric bodies slumped against walls and pavement, empty shapes that would never move again.
He stepped through the broken door and into the afternoon light.
Kamina and Imogen were already there. Kamina sat on a chunk of rubble, katana resting across his knees, looking like he'd just finished a long walk rather than a battle. Imogen stood a few paces away, her Barrett-11 slung over her shoulder. She looked tired.
Rowbotham was at the steel bench near the wall, running a cloth along the edge of his greatsword. The blade was clean. It had been clean for a while.
Kamina looked up as Shmuel approached. His eyes moved across Shmuel's face, reading something there.
"You got something on your mind," Kamina said. It wasn't a question.
Shmuel stopped a few feet away. He opened his mouth, then closed it. The thoughts were there, tangled and heavy, but they didn't want to come out.
"If you want to shout something," Kamina said, "Get it out. You'll feel better."
Shmuel looked at him. Then he smiled, just a little, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"I already sorted those thoughts out," he said. "No need to shout."
Kamina held his gaze for a moment. Then he nodded, once, and let it go.
Imogen shifted her weight, adjusting the strap of her rifle. "Can we go home now? I'm mentally exhausted. Using E.G.O. for that long takes it out of you."
"Sounds good," Kamina said. He stood up, stretching his arms overhead until his back cracked. "But first, we're going shopping."
Imogen blinked. "Shopping?"
"New clothes. For the whole office. We've been wearing the same stuff for too long."
Shmuel glanced at Kamina. The idea had clearly just occurred to him, pulled out of thin air with the same confidence he brought to everything. But he didn't argue. It had been a while since he'd bought anything new for himself.
Rowbotham sheathed his greatsword with a soft click. "I could use a new coat," he said.
Imogen sighed, but there was no real resistance in it. "Fine. But I'm not carrying anything. My arms are tired."
"You don't have to carry anything," Kamina said. "That's what Shmuel's for."
Shmuel raised an eyebrow. "I'm not carrying your shopping."
"We'll see."
They started walking, the four of them, leaving the silent ManequioeL behind. The street stretched ahead, grey and quiet, the afternoon light fading toward evening. Imogen fell into step beside Shmuel, her rifle bouncing gently against her back.
"You look weird," she said.
"Thanks."
"I mean it. Like you're thinking about something."
"I'm always thinking about something."
"Yeah…" She glanced at him. "You okay?"
Shmuel considered the question. The chamber below. The brain in the jar. The voice that had spoken through the speakers, broken and desperate and afraid.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm okay."
Imogen didn't push. She just nodded and kept walking.
Kamina led the way, his voice carrying back to them as he pointed out shops that might have good clothes, shops that definitely didn't, shops that looked interesting but were probably a trap. Rowbotham walked beside him, saying little, his presence a steady weight at Kamina's side.
They turned a corner and the shopping district opened up before them. Lights in windows. People moving through the streets. The ordinary business of ordinary lives.
Shmuel followed his office into the crowd.
A figure stepped out of the alley mouth.
He wore full plate armor, silver polished to a mirror sheen, the design unmistakable. Brithelm. The crest on his breastplate was a grey wolf against a field of black. In his hand, a longsword, its edge gleaming with oil. He stopped ten paces away and raised the blade, pointing it directly at Imogen.
"Imogen, Daughter of the King in Grey of Brithelm," he said, his voice carrying the flat authority of a man reading a decree. "You are hereby named chief suspect in the murder of your brother, Cloten."
The street went silent.
Then, from the side alleys and the rooftops and the shadows between buildings, more knights emerged. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Forming a loose ring around the four fixers. Their swords were drawn. Their visors were down.
Kamina's katana came off his shoulder and into his hand in a single motion. Rowbotham straightened, the cloth falling from his fingers, his greatsword rising. Shmuel's mechanical arms clicked, the chambers in his palms spinning once before settling into position. Imogen didn't move. Her arms stayed crossed, her rifle stayed on her shoulder, but her eyes had gone cold.
"Impossible," she said.
The lead knight tilted his head. "The evidence is…"
"I said impossible." Her voice cut through his like a blade. "I haven't been near Brithelm since I left. I haven't seen my brother in months. I didn't even know he was dead until you just told me." She paused. "The Queen cares about her son like he's the pure gem of the sky. She wouldn't let him die. She wouldn't let anyone near him who could hurt him."
Rowbotham leaned slightly toward Shmuel, his voice low. "What is she talking about? Brithelm, that sizable syndicate? Are we involved with them?"
Shmuel didn't take his eyes off the knights. "Imogen is the runaway princess of Brithelm. They've been hunting her since before I met her."
Rowbotham absorbed this. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched. "This office is more interesting than I anticipated."
Kamina stepped forward, katana raised, his voice loud enough to echo off the walls. "You're telling me she killed her brother? She's been with us. She's been fighting Distortions and Syndicates and things that would make your tin suits rust from fear. She hasn't had time to kill anyone in Brithelm because she's been too busy not dying here!"
The lead knight didn't flinch. "The accusation stands. She will return with us to answer for the crime."
"Answer for what?" Kamina's voice rose. "You don't have evidence. You have a fancy sword and a fancy crest and a lot of friends in matching armor."
Rowbotham stepped forward, his greatsword still at his side, his voice calm and measured. "Before this escalates, could we at least hear the justification for such a significant accusation? A murder charge against a person is not a small thing. There must be evidence."
The lead knight's answer was to attack.
His sword came down in a vertical slash aimed at Rowbotham's head. It was fast, precise, the strike of a man who had trained for years.
It never landed.
Kamina was there, his katana catching the descending blade with a clash that rang out across the street. Sparks burst from the point of impact. Kamina's boots slid back an inch, but he held.
"Hey," he said.
He shoved the knight's blade aside.
"Hey!"
He stepped forward, his katana swinging in a wide arc that forced the knight to retreat.
"HEY!"
He pointed his blade at the lead knight's throat, his voice carrying the full weight of his fury.
"You want to accuse her? Fine. You want to arrest her? Fine. But you don't get to attack first and ask questions later."
The knights around them shifted, their swords rising. The lead knight's visor tilted slightly, his voice cold. "You would defend a murderer?"
"I would defend my office," Kamina said. "And right now, you're threatening them. So yeah. I would."
He glanced back at the others.
"Let's run."
They ran.
Kamina took the lead, his katana still drawn, carving a path through the knights with wide sweeps that forced them back without drawing blood. Rowbotham followed, his greatsword a black blur that deflected strikes and cleared space. Shmuel brought up the rear, his mechanical arms catching swords and turning them aside, his body a wall between the knights and Imogen.
Imogen ran with them, her rifle bouncing against her back, her eyes fixed ahead.
But her mind was elsewhere.
The accusation. The murder of her brother. Cloten. She hadn't seen him in months. She hadn't even known he was dead. And now she was being blamed for it. By knights of Brithelm. By her father's own men.
She thought about the Queen. Her stepmother. The woman who had arranged her marriage to a stranger. The woman who had sent knights to drag her back to the Castle of Maidens. The woman who had smiled through the pigeon's speaker and offered her a deal.
The Queen cared about Cloten. She had always cared about Cloten. He was her son, her blood, her precious gem. She wouldn't let him die. She wouldn't let anyone hurt him.
Unless she did.
The thought arrived like a knife between the ribs. Sharp. Cold. Unwelcome.
Imogen pushed it away. There was no time for it. There was no time for anything except running.
They rounded a corner, the knights falling behind but not giving up. The sound of armored boots on pavement echoed through the streets, growing louder, spreading out. They were being herded. Pushed toward something.
"We need a plan," Shmuel shouted.
"Working on it!" Kamina shouted back.
"Work faster!"
Rowbotham's voice cut through the chaos. "There. The alley to the left. Narrow. They can't surround us there."
Kamina veered left. The others followed. The alley was dark and tight, the walls pressing in on either side. The knights behind them slowed, forced into single file. Rowbotham turned, his greatsword raised, and held the entrance.
"Go," he said. "I'll hold them."
"No," Imogen said.
Everyone stopped.
She stood in the middle of the alley, her rifle in her hands, her eyes burning. Not with E.G.O. Neither with grief.
"No more running," she said.
Kamina turned to face her. "Brat!"
"I'm done running." She looked at him, and her voice was steady. "I've been running from Brithelm since before I met you. I've been running from my father, from my stepmother, from the knights, from the marriage, from everything. And it's never worked. It's never made me safe. It's never made me free."
She stepped forward, past Kamina, past Rowbotham, toward the mouth of the alley.
"Sooner or later, I have to face my past. I have to face them. And I'd rather do it now, with all of you, than keep running forever."
The knights were closing in. Their armor gleamed in the grey afternoon light. Their swords were raised.
Imogen raised her rifle.
"Help me finish this."
CLANG.
CLICK.
"For me To live Freely With Principle"
BANG.