Chapter 38
CIPHER
Annie’s screams cut through me as I clutched her against my chest, pushing my flight abilities to their limit. Her body radiated heat that shouldn’t have been humanly possible and my HUD flashed urgent warnings as internal suit temperatures climbed past safety thresholds.
“Hold on, Annie. Just hold on.” Whatever power she had absorbed from Helios was trying to consume her, trying to take what belonged to me. I tightened my grip despite the heat searing through my armor.
Her skin glowed with an unnatural light that pulsed beneath the surface, veins illuminated like molten gold, mixing with the chaotic blue of Havoc’s own energy. Her body arched in my arms, another scream tearing from her throat.
Systems critical. Thermal protection failing, my suit’s HUD warned.
The night air whipped past us as I pushed harder. Annie’s eyes flew open. They were wrong, all wrong, glowing with the same golden light that was burning through her skin.
“It hurts,” she gasped, her voice distorted. “Cipher!”
I adjusted my grip, cradling her closer. “My lab is three minutes out. I have prototypes, power dampeners that can contain this until I modify one properly.”
Did I tell Havoc to bring Helios?
The memory felt distant, clouded by the panic flooding my system. I must have. We’d need him to understand what was happening to Annie.
Her Warden genetics were supposed to be an impenetrable shield, keeping her safe. But whatever she had absorbed was a part of her now. Her body wouldn’t fight a threat it recognized as itself. She was burning alive and her own mutated cells were simply letting it happen.
“Stay with me, Annie.” I pressed my forehead against hers, ignoring the heat that scorched my skin even through the mask.
The lab’s rooftop access point appeared ahead, and I pushed harder, Annie’s body trembling violently against mine as another wave of golden energy pulsed outward from her.
“EVACUATE! EVERYONE OUT NOW!” My voice boomed through the lab’s intercom system once inside. Annie’s skin pulsed with that terrible golden light, each wave stronger than the last.
Alarms blared as my henchmen scrambled, abandoning work stations and experiments.
I spotted Twelve among them. “Stay on standby. I’ll need you for Annie soon.” He looked at her glowing form doubtfully, but nodded.
“Sir, that kind of energy—”
“She’ll need you,” I insisted, refusing to entertain any other possibility. Annie would survive this. She had to. “Her arm will need treatment once I contain this.”
I rushed to my primary lab. The nearest workbench was covered with prototypes and half-finished work worth hundreds of thousands. I swept it all to the floor with one arm, equipment shattering where it fell.
“Hang on, Annie,” I murmured, laying her on the cleared surface. Her back arched as another wave of energy pulsed through her, the golden light now so bright I could barely look at her.
Her eyes found mine, terror and pain swimming in pools of gold. Her voice was barely recognizable. “Cipher... I can’t hold it back...”
“You won’t have to,” I promised, already moving to the secure cabinet where I kept my most experimental tech. “I’m going to help you control it.”
I frantically scanned the prototypes inside. My hands closed around a bulky cuff, an early version. It was incomplete, unstable, but it might buy us time.
“This will help.” I snapped the cuff around her uninjured wrist and the device immediately began to hum, its internal components straining against the surge of power coursing through her.
My HUD let me know that a system overload was imminent, but I’d already turned away, rushing to my workbench.
Another prototype was there in pieces. It was more advanced but unfinished. I needed to complete it, modify it on the fly. I forced my hands to stop trembling. There was no room for error now.
I activated the Tinkerer’s Hammer, feeling the familiar surge of power through my arm. The sensation of the energy flowing through my nervous system was usually exhilarating, but now it was Annie’s salvation.
My salvation.
Behind me, I heard the lab doors open. Havoc’s voice cut through the chaos. “I’ve brought Helios. He’s still unconscious.”
I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t turn around. Every second counted as the first cuff’s warning lights flashed from yellow to red. It was failing faster than I had anticipated.
The Hammer’s power flowed through my fingertips as I manipulated components that would normally take weeks of careful calibration.
“Cipher!” Annie’s voice broke through my concentration, a desperate, terrified plea that nearly shattered my focus.
The first cuff failed with a sharp crack, golden energy surging outward from Annie once more.
Just a few more seconds. Just a few more adjustments.
The world narrowed to the device in my hands and the woman I loved dying behind me.
I’d never worked so fast in my life. My hands were a blur as the Hammer’s power coursed through me, letting me reshape metal and circuitry with thought and touch alone.
But I could also feel the Hammer burning inside my arm, white-hot pain radiating through the implant as I pushed it beyond any reasonable limit. The sensation was like molten metal flowing through my veins, but I didn’t care. Pain was irrelevant. Everything was irrelevant except Annie.
Death was circling her, trying to steal the only thing in this miserable world I claimed as mine. It couldn’t have her. She belonged to me and the universe did not have permission to take her.
Behind me, Annie’s screams pierced the air, each one driving a spike of terror deeper into my chest. I couldn’t look back. Not when her life hung by a thread growing thinner with each passing second.
Then, silence.
The absence of her cries was the most terrifying thing I’d ever experienced. My heart stuttered to a stop.
“ANNIE!” I spun around, the half-finished cuff still clutched in my trembling hands.
The sight before me froze me in place. Helios, barely conscious, had his hands pressed against Annie’s temples. Golden light pulsed between them, but it was contained. Controlled. Annie’s back was no longer arching in agony; her face, though strained, was no longer contorted in unbearable pain.
For one horrifying moment, I thought—
The image was burned into my mind: Annie’s lifeless body, her eyes vacant, that golden light extinguished because I wasn’t fast enough. Because I failed her when she needed me most.
I forced myself to turn back to my work, but the vision haunted me.
If she was gone, there was no reason to hold back the monster she had so willingly accepted. If she was dead, the rest of the world was going to bleed with me.
“Hurry,” Helios gasped, his voice strained. “I can’t hold it.”
The cuff took shape under my hands as I forced the Hammer’s energy through pathways too narrow, too delicate for this kind of acceleration. A sharp crack echoed through my arm as bone splintered. I would gladly shred my own anatomy to keep her breathing.
“Hold on, Annie,” I whispered as I made the final adjustments, checking connections that would normally require hours of testing. No time for that. No time for anything but desperate hope.
I turned, the completed cuff clutched in my trembling hand. Helios was pale, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled to contain the energy flowing between him and Annie.
“Move,” I ordered, pushing past Havoc to reach her side.
I gently removed the failed cuff from her wrist, wincing as a surge of energy scorched my fingers. The new cuff clicked into place, and I immediately began calibration, my fingers dancing across its surface.
The Hammer continued to burn through my nervous system as I poured the last of its energy into the final calibration.
Muscle tissue tore inside my forearm as another bone snapped.
The physical cost meant absolutely nothing.
I was buying her life with my own flesh and the exchange rate was entirely in my favor.
The golden light finally dimmed as the cuff stabilized and Annie’s body went limp on the workbench.
“Annie?” Her breathing was shallow but steady, her skin no longer glowing with that terrible light. She was unconscious, but alive.
“Number Twelve, get in here now. Medical emergency,” I said through comms.
Havoc approached from the other side of the bench, his expression unreadable as he gently brushed Annie’s hair from her face.
I reached for her hand, wanting to feel the reassurance of her pulse beneath my fingertips, but my arm didn’t respond. I frowned, trying again. Nothing.
“Oh shit,” I muttered, looking down at my right arm.
Blood was pooling beneath me on the floor—a shocking amount of it. How long had that been happening? I looked around and saw a trail of crimson droplets leading from my workstation to where I was standing.
“Suit, disengage right arm,” I commanded, my voice sounding strangely distant.
The armor panels fell away. The Hammer had completely shredded my right arm from the inside out. Jagged metal components and white shards of my radius protruded through flayed skin. Blood pulsed steadily from the ruined arteries with each heartbeat.
But the crimson puddle spreading over the floor was simply a receipt. It was the exact currency required to keep what belonged to me.
The world tilted at an uncomfortable angle as I stared at my arm.
Something was wrong, beyond the obvious mangling of flesh, circuitry, and metal.
The wound should have already been closing, bone knitting back together.
Instead, blood continued to pour from the injury, spreading beneath me in an ever-widening circle.
“The Hammer,” I muttered, understanding dawning through the fog creeping into my thoughts. “It’s interfering with my healing.”
The lab doors slid open as Number Twelve rushed in, medical kit in hand. His eyes went to Annie on the workbench, but then he spotted me.
Or more accurately, the blood spreading across my lab floor.
“Sir!” He pivoted toward me, face paling as he took in my mangled arm.
I shook my head, gesturing toward Annie with my good hand. “Help her first. She’s the priority.”
“But sir, you’re losing too much blood.”
“Annie,” I insisted. “Her arm needs treatment. And monitor her vitals. The cuff is experimental.”
“Sir, with all due respect, you’re going into shock. The amount of blood you’ve lost—“
I couldn’t hear the rest of what he was saying.
His mouth kept moving, but the words dissolved into meaningless noise.
I looked down at my arm again, fascinated by the way the implant had torn through.
The Hammer’s components glowed faintly beneath the gore, pulses of energy still trying to complete the task I had set for it.
My legs suddenly felt weak. I reached for the edge of the workbench to steady myself, but my coordination was off. My hand missed, and I staggered sideways.
“Annie,” I mumbled, my tongue feeling thick and uncooperative. “Is she stable?”
Havoc appeared in my narrowing field of vision, his face a mask of concern. Strange to see him looking at me that way. Like he actually gave a damn.
“She’s stable,” he confirmed, his voice echoing strangely. “The cuff is working.”
Relief flooded through me, warm and overwhelming. She was alive. My Annie had survived. Halcyon didn’t take her from me. In that moment, nothing else mattered—not my arm, not the Hammer, not even the blood pooling beneath my feet.
I tried to move toward her, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. The room tilted violently, the floor rushing up to meet me. Someone caught me before I hit the ground. Havoc, I think. The ceiling spun above me, lights blurring into streaks.
“The Hammer,” I tried to explain, my words slurring. “Interfering with healing. Need to remove it.”
I forced my gaze back to Annie one last time. Her chest rising and falling steadily. The cuff glowed softly around her wrist, containing the chaos within. She was safe. She was alive.
My world hadn’t ended.
The thought brought a strange peace as darkness closed in around me.