The High Hall was designed to make a man feel like an insect.
As the massive doors sealed, the city's mechanical thrum died, replaced by a silence so heavy it felt like being submerged. The obsidian walls rose hundreds of feet toward a ceiling that was a captured, swirling nebula of violet Arcanum.
In the center sat five raised daises. The figures atop them were draped in starlight-woven robes, their faces lost in the shadows of high-backed chairs.
Fredrik walked at the tail of the group, each step a calculated risk. His thighs were twitching with involuntary electrical micro-shocks. The suit wasn't just failing; it was fighting him.
To the mages, the air was clear, but to Fredrik's sensors, it was toxic. The ambient magic acted like static, smearing his thermal overlay into jagged, phosphorus trails.
"Master Valerius," a voice rang out, vibrating in Fredrik's teeth. The speaker was the central figure, her face hidden behind a silver mask. "Your report mentioned a 'variable' in the Reach. I assume this is the creature in the cloak?"
"A hunter, Arch-Inquisitor," Valerius replied with practiced deference. "A Null who survived where our scouts could not. He has seen the heart of the Hive."
The Inquisitor's gaze shifted to Fredrik. "Step forward."
Fredrik forced his legs to move, his left knee buckling with a quiet, metallic rasp. He stopped ten paces from the daises. He could smell it now: the acrid, bitter scent of the "Leak." Black, oily coolant was seeping through the weave near his collar, staining his skin like machine-shop blood.
"He carries no resonance," a younger scholar in crimson noted. "My wards flag him as a dead-zone. How does a man without a spark survive a Weaver swarm?"
"With tools that don't rely on the weave," Valerius said. "Tools that take a heavy tax."
"Is that so?" The Arch-Inquisitor stood. "Guard. Bring the Binding-Light."
A sentinel stepped forward with a glass rod pulsing with blinding white radiance. It was a tool designed to strip away illusions—and as it approached, Fredrik's suit misfired.
The light hit his sensors, and the AI suffered a logic collapse. The obsidian floor vanished, replaced by the grey, liquid mud of a crater in the Argonne. The violet nebula became a sky choked with the smoke of a thousand shells.
Gas, his mind screamed. Where's the mask?
The scent of ozone was interpreted as chlorine. The HUD flashed a violent, strobe-light red.
[THREAT DETECTED: CHEMICAL AGENT]
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE: COMBAT REFLEX ACTIVE]
"Stay back!" Fredrik growled.
His hand moved in a blur, fingers clawing for the .45. He didn't pull the weapon, but he was coiled to snap, his hand white-knuckled on the grip beneath the wool.
"Fredrik, no!" Elara's voice broke through the haze.
The guard froze. The Arch-Inquisitor remained perfectly still, her mask reflecting Fredrik's ragged face.
"He is volatile," the crimson scholar whispered, his hand glowing with a defensive spell. "He's a weapon with a broken safety."
Fredrik blinked, the mud of 1918 receding. He was gasping, the oily sweat stinging his eyes. The suit's cooling fans were whirring at a frantic, audible speed.
"He is at his limit, Inquisitor," Valerius interjected. "The neural strain is peaking. If you force a binding now, you'll simply shatter his mind."
The Arch-Inquisitor studied Fredrik for a long, agonizing minute. He stared back through a mosaic of broken pixels and error codes.
"Very well," she said, sitting back down. The guard retracted the rod. "The Council has seen enough. Master Valerius, deliver your report to the archives. The hunter will be housed in the East Wing for medical attention."
"I don't need a doctor," Fredrik rasped.
"Our scholars wish to ensure your 'tax' doesn't kill you before we document your equipment," she replied. "It would be a waste of a rare resource."
Resource. Not a man.
Two sentinels flanked Fredrik. As he walked out, his boots dragging, he watched the brass conduits in the walls. They pulsed with raw power. He didn't need their medicine; he needed their electricity.
As the doors closed, his HUD flickered one last time.
[SYNC: 48%]
[STATUS: CRITICAL FAILURE IMMINENT]
Fredrik didn't need a screen to tell him that. He could feel his pulse racing against the city's vibration. He had to find a socket before he became a permanent resident of the morgue.