She positioned herself behind him, which is to say she was on a space he could not directly observe. One hand found the back of his shoulder, and she worked without asking him to turn or adjust.
He held still, because stillness had been assigned to him as a task, and he chose a particular stain in the concrete wall in front of him to stare at, the way you pick a word in a sentence when the rest of the paragraph reads weirdly. He left the rest to her, which in this case meant trusting someone operating at the base of his skull.
The port housing on the cyberdeck sat flush against the base of his skull, just behind the right ear, a location both precise and inconvenient.
He had accessed it himself approximately twice in the entire duration of owning it, and both times had involved a proper toolkit, a flat surface, and considerably more patience than the current environment offered, which was to say this was not the recommended use case.
He declined to think about how she knew where it was without asking.
Her fingertips made contact with the housing and he felt the actuators through the port casing. The pressure was precise.
He heard nothing.
"Do you do this often," he said, keeping his voice flat, because inflection invites interpretation.
"What do you think," she said, which was either confirmation, dismissal, or both.
He determined it did not qualify as an answer. He also determined that pressing the issue would be strategically unsound, because she was currently interfacing directly with his nervous system using tools built into her hands, and the cost-benefit analysis of that was as clear as the day.
The RAM chip seated.
He felt it through the connection the way you feel a key turning in a lock you are leaning against, conduction through bone preceding recognition, a small, clean mechanical engagement that his neural interface acknowledged as complete before his conscious mind caught up, which felt almost unfair.
Then the expansion appeared, and he paused.
The word that surfaced was space, which is a vague word until you experience the absence of its limits. There was more of it.
The buffer that had been saturated at twenty simultaneous threads was no longer saturated at twenty, which meant the ceiling hadn't been raised incrementally but relocated entirely.
He had a brief internal check to confirm the new capacity was stable and not an installation artifact, and the result was clear, with no lag nor distortion.
He exhaled once through his nose, which was as close as he came to approval.
"It works," he said, because confirmation deserves acknowledgment, even minimal.
She had already moved to the second item. The signature suppressor module clipped to the outer interface port on the deck housing, external rather than neural, a straightforward physical mount that almost felt disappointingly simple by comparison.
He heard the catch engage, a small, definitive sound.
Then something changed in the output layer of the cyberware.
The residual signal his access left on nodes was now masked at the source. He did not detect it. More accurately, he detected the absence of detecting it.
Like a volume dial turned down one notch on something he had not known was loud.
"And that one," he said.
"How does it feel?"
"Quieter." He considered the accuracy of that word. "More precisely, something that was broadcasting stopped. I hadn't noticed it before because it was always there."
Nyx made a small sound that indicated comprehension.
She stepped around to his left side, resuming the position she occupied when she was attentive, half a step behind him, her two fingers finding the back of his sleeve with the ease of something that had never needed to think about it.
He extended the cyberware into the bunker's network, and the difference was immediate in a way that numbers alone fail to communicate.
What had previously required mapping node by node in a careful, sequential process could now be executed in a single extended pass, the entire infrastructure of the bunker assembling in his perception in one motion rather than several, which felt less like speed and more like coherence.
The main chamber. The corridor. The rear room where they were standing.
The electrical conduit running the length of that corridor, old copper line, still drawing from the emergency power cell, carrying enough residual current that the correct overload instruction would convert the corridor into a significantly less survivable environment.
He pushed the scan outward, past the bunker and into the ridge surrounding them.
The communication towers surfaced at the end of his extended range, faint and unfamiliar.
He withdrew.
"The corridor conduit," he said. "The one between the entrance and this room. It's still carrying current from the emergency power."
She tilted her head slightly.
"I can overload it. You know how that ends."
"A big ass kaboom," she exclaimed.
"And if somehow our guests survive that."
"I can rip and tear them~"
"That's... correct," he confirmed, because the plan required acknowledgment of roles.
Clippy said, from the pack strap where it was holstered, inserting itself into the conversation with confidence.
I have been analyzing the current defensive configuration and I have three additional recommendations. Would you like to hear them?
"Yes," Nyx said, granting permission with mild interest.
Proxy looked at the far wall, because looking at Clippy while it spoke tended to encourage it.
Recommendation one: the single-entrance provides a significant tactical advantage. I recommend positioning the primary combatant, which is you, in a location with clear sightlines to the corridor and a secondary exit route if the primary position becomes untenable. Does this room have a secondary exit?
"It doesn't," Nyx said, supplying the constraint without embellishment.
I see. I will adjust my recommendations. Recommendation two: in the absence of a secondary exit, I recommend maintaining a minimum distance of two meters from the entrance to the room to avoid being caught in any overpressure effects from the corridor. Would you like me to calculate optimal positioning based on your height and arm reach?
"Sure," Nyx said.
Proxy moved to the corridor entrance and checked the conduit overload, verifying each step without executing it.
The line was old but the architecture was simple, simpler than the resort's substation, which reduced variables.
He estimated less than twenty seconds from decision to detonation, assuming the emergency cell sustained the current he intended to push through it.
He confirmed the lock on the entrance door through the deck and tested it once. It was firm, which was necessary and therefore unremarkable.
Behind him, Clippy continued, completing Nyx's positioning calculation with the earnest thoroughness of something that had never once considered whether it should stop.
Based on your estimated reach and the corridor width, I recommend standing here.
"Thank you," Nyx said.
You're very welcome. Are you comfortable? I can also recommend optimal breathing patterns for sustained alertness if you would find that useful.
"That's fine," she said, declining for once.
Proxy returned to the rear room and observed where she had positioned herself. It felt strategically correct, for lack of a better term..
She had taken the spot that kept the corridor in her sightline and positioned the foam cradle of the open cache at her back as partial cover.
He did not point this out, because stating the obvious rarely improves it.
He sat down against the left wall with his back to the concrete and brought the cyberware fully into extended mode, the bunker's network active in his perception, the conduit primed but inactive, the entrance lock stable, the scan looping outward across the ridge at the edge of what the expanded buffer could now sustain.
The communication towers surfaced and receded with each pass, like a problem waiting to be selected.
The bunker was quiet.
The emergency lighting continued its job without deviation.
Nyx rested into her position, and the amber strips along the floor caught her from below in a way that made her appear like someone staged in a painting about waiting, which felt unnecessarily poetic but also accurate.
I will continue monitoring the ambient environment and alert you to any changes. The service remains complimentary.
"Mm," she said, which again refused to clarify whether she appreciated that.
He had the scan out again, because repetition confirms stability.
Everything was prepared. The trap was set. The network was active, the door was closed, and somewhere beyond the rock face of the bunker, twenty-five people had been given a grid coordinate and a reason to move toward it, which meant eventual contact was not a possibility but a certainty.
He kept watching.