Enver Eraly walked into a narrow alley within a slum sector. 1:10 AM WIB. Drizzling rain covered the cracked asphalt in puddles of black water. To Enver's left and right, the walls of old apartments seemed to pulsate. Enver stopped in his tracks when he saw a homeless man sitting against a concrete wall. The man's body was indistinguishable from the wall itself. A stage-four MAU parasite had consumed the man's bone calcium to build a hard, sharp calcified nest. The man's skin was completely peeled away, revealing red muscle tissue that vibrated in sync with the fluctuating numbers on the broken phone screen he gripped tightly.
"Enver, don't stop," said Z'loq, perched on his right shoulder. "These creatures are already rotten. Their essence no longer holds any pure value for the Baton to absorb. They are nothing but data trash."
Enver stared into the homeless man's eyes, which were covered by a transparent white film. The man opened a mouth that no longer had teeth. His voice sounded like sandpaper grinding on metal. "Kill me. Please... destroy this circuit," the man groaned.
Enver raised his black Baton, but Z'loq yanked the hair on Enver's ear hard. "I told you, don't! You'll only waste your kinetic energy on garbage. Focus on the primary target in the building ahead," Z'loq snapped.
Enver continued toward an illegal surgical clinic on the ground floor of the apartment. Beside him, Ibu Sumiyati walked with footsteps that made no sound. Her hand gripped the neural chain so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Suddenly, the Aethelred's Resonator in Enver's hand emitted a high-frequency hum. The sound was not a mechanical drone, but a series of intermittent mechanical vibrations.
"Z'loq, why is the Baton vibrating on its own? Do you feel it?" Enver asked.
Z'loq looked panicked. He hopped agitatedly on Enver's shoulder. "Just ignore it! It's just residual energy from the parasite you captured at the official's house. It's just the digestion process!" Z'loq replied, his voice far too loud.
Enver didn't believe him. He focused on the pattern of the humming. His hearing, now synchronized with the frequency of the Zero Abyss, was able to catch the pattern. It was Morse Code. The Baton's vibrations formed the words: WE ARE NOT PARASITES. WE ARE MEMORIES.
"Did you hear that, Z'loq? The parasite is talking," Enver said.
"Don't be stupid, Enver! Parasites don't have brains. They are just hungry code. Don't let them mess with your head. Get inside that clinic now!" Z'loq commanded.
Enver kicked the clinic's iron door. The door shattered, thrown into a sterile room that smelled of blood and alcohol. Inside the room, a surgeon named Doctor Aris stood with his back to them. The doctor wore no shirt. His back was horrifying, stitched with dozens of transparent vacuum plastic bags. Inside the bags were fresh human organs: hearts, livers, and kidneys. All the organs were still beating, connected by micro-cables that siphoned energy from small MAU parasites crawling over them.
Doctor Aris turned around. On his chest were two additional hearts, crudely stitched on. "Money has no value anymore, boy," Doctor Aris said, holding a scalpel charged with static electricity. "Organs are the most stable currency now. I am collecting true wealth."
"You're insane," Enver said. He twisted the handle of his Baton. The crystal tip opened.
"I'm not insane! I'm just following the inflation of human value! One kidney is equivalent to one apartment block in the eyes of the Council!" Doctor Aris screamed. He lunged forward with unnatural speed.
Enver swung the Baton horizontally. Doctor Aris parried with his scalpel, but the metal of the blade shattered instantly upon contact with the 210-kilogram mass of Enver's Baton. The strike continued into Doctor Aris's right arm, crushing the humerus and radius into tiny shards that pierced through the skin. Doctor Aris was sent flying into a surgical table.
Suddenly, the lights in the laboratory went out. Total darkness enveloped the room. The sound of jet thrusters echoed from the ceiling. Two entities landed in front of Enver. They were not Model-Omegas made of steel. They were Model-Sigma. Their bodies were living humans, but their heads had been replaced with cube-shaped data server boxes emitting a pale blue light. They did not speak. They only emitted a deafening modem data transmission sound.
"Enver! These are Model-Sigmas! They are the direct data processing units of the 7 Councils! They can predict your movements through algorithmic calculations!" Z'loq shouted.
One of the Model-Sigmas moved. Its movements were jittery yet incredibly fast. It fired a thin copper cable tipped with a syringe needle toward Enver's neck. Ibu Sumiyati leaped forward. She caught the cable with her bare hands and snapped it. However, black liquid leaked from the wounds on her hands.
Enver activated the Counter-Resonance mode on his Baton. He slammed the laboratory floor with full force. A kinetic shockwave rippled through the floor, shattering every glass jar and organ bag in the room. Preservative fluid and blood flooded the floor. The organic energy supply for the Model-Sigma was briefly cut off as their sensors struggled to process the destruction of biological assets around them.
Enver used the opportunity to strike the server box head of the first Model-Sigma. The server glass shattered, revealing a human brain soaked in blue coolant. The Model-Sigma fell and died instantly.
However, as Enver prepared to attack the second unit, Ibu Sumiyati suddenly stopped moving. Her body went stiff. The neural chain she held fell to the floor. Her flat face began to leak thick black liquid from the holes where eyes should have been. Ibu Sumiyati raised her trembling right hand. She wasn't pointing at the enemy, but at Enver's shadow reflected on the laboratory wall.
Within that shadow, Enver saw the figure of Mbah Gito. Mbah Gito wasn't there physically, but his astral projection was crystal clear. Mbah Gito was smiling cynically. Ibu Sumiyati's mouth suddenly opened, emitting a voice that wasn't hers. It was the heavy, hoarse voice of Mbah Gito.
"Enver, you are so obedient to that little demon," Mbah Gito's voice spoke through Ibu Sumiyati's mouth. "But ask him one thing before you continue this purification. Ask Z'loq, who is the original owner of the heart beating inside your chest right now? Do you really think you're still human after what they did to you in Sector Zero?"
Enver froze. He felt his heart thumping so hard his chest ached. The beat felt too mechanical, too powerful. Enver turned toward Z'loq on his shoulder. Z'loq looked furious. The little demon's face turned pitch black.
"Smash that mirror, Enver! Destroy that shadow now! He's trying to break your synchronization!" Z'loq screamed in a piercing voice.
Enver raised his Baton to destroy the wall, but the second Model-Sigma was already behind him. The Model-Sigma plunged its data-processing needle directly into Enver's spine. Ten thousand volts of electricity surged into Enver's nervous system. Enver's vision blurred. The last thing he saw was Ibu Sumiyati, still weeping black liquid while pointing at Enver's heart, which was glowing red beneath the skin of his chest.