?The interior of the Oversight vessel was a masterclass in architectural sterility. There were no gears, no steam, and none of the jagged obsidian of Marcus’s crude spire. Here, the walls were composed of a white, matte composite that seemed to swallow sound, and the lighting was a soft, shadowless glow that originated from the floor itself.
?Willis was suspended in a vertical stasis-tube in the center of a circular holding bay. He wasn't held by chains or glass. He was held by a dense, oscillating magnetic field that made every atom in his body feel as if it were vibrating at a frequency that didn't belong to him.
?[Location: Oversight Vessel 'The Prime Directive' - Detention Tier]
[Status: Weaver-Logic suppressed]
[Integrity: 12% - Critical Exhaustion]
?
?Through the translucent field, Willis could see the Oversight officer who had apprehended him. The man had removed his helmet, revealing a face that was more machine than flesh. His skin was a translucent, synthetic mesh that showed the flicker of blue data-packets moving through his veins.
?"The resonance in your core is an evolutionary error," the officer said, his voice a flat, synthesized chord. "You are Willis Zircon, but you are also a carrier for a logic-virus that the System cannot yet index. My name is Unit 7-Alpha. I am the lead investigator for the Planetary Oversight."
?"If I'm an error, why not just delete me?" Willis managed to rasp. The magnetic field tightened around his throat, a warning to keep his vocal cords still.
?"Deletion is for biomass that has no utility," Unit 7-Alpha replied, turning to a holographic terminal that displayed a rotating model of Willis’s soul-structure. "Your weave-capacity is a unique resource. We will extract the logic-source, refine it, and integrate it into the next planetary patch. You are not a prisoner, Willis. You are a donor."
?Suddenly, the door to the holding bay hissed open. A woman stepped in, her boots clicking sharply against the matte floor. She didn't wear the uniform of the Oversight. She wore a long, flowing coat made of a material that looked like liquid mercury, and her hair was a shocking, artificial neon pink.
?[Alliant Detected: Lyra, the Data-Siphon - Level 17]
[Affiliation: The Neural Underground]
?"Alpha, you're being boring again," Lyra said, her voice full of a mocking, melodic energy. She walked up to Willis’s tube and tapped the field with a finger, causing a ripple of blue static. "The Council didn't send me here to watch you run a standard extraction. They sent me to ensure the 'Anomaly' is viable for the Sector War."
?"The Sector War is a secondary concern to the integrity of the Logic-Core," 7-Alpha said, not looking away from his screen. "And your presence here is a violation of protocol, Lyra."
?"Protocol is for people who aren't currently paying the Oversight's electricity bill," Lyra countered. She winked at Willis, a gesture so human and out of place in this sterile room that it made his heart jump. "Relax, Weaver. The machine-man just wants your brain. I want your talent. There’s a difference."
?
?While Lyra and 7-Alpha argued, Willis focused on the one thing they were both ignoring. He couldn't feel the threads of the world, but he could feel the threads of the ship itself.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
?The Oversight vessel was a giant, sentient computer. It didn't use mana; it used a high-density liquid processing fluid that ran through pipes beneath the floor. And that fluid had a frequency.
?Willis closed his eyes. He didn't try to use his weaver-skills. He used the residue of the void-logic that Marcus had forced into him.
?He looked for the silence between the ship’s heartbeats. He found a tiny, rhythmic gap in the magnetic field’s oscillation—a nanosecond of downtime that occurred every time the ship’s sensors performed a perimeter sweep.
?
?He waited for the next sweep.
?
?The magnetic field flickered. In that instant, Willis didn't try to break out. He reached out and grabbed the thread of the processing fluid beneath 7-Alpha’s terminal.
?He didn't pull it toward him. He redirected the fluid's pressure into the stasis-tube's emitter.
?[Mana: 50/250 (Surge)]
?The emitter didn't just turn off; it exploded. The magnetic field collapsed with a violent boom that threw Lyra and 7-Alpha across the room. Willis fell to the floor, his muscles screaming as the weight of gravity returned to him.
?"He's... he's overwriting the hardware!" 7-Alpha shouted, his synthetic skin flickering red as his internal alarms went off.
?Willis didn't stay to chat. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted for the door. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he couldn't stay in the detention tier.
?He burst into the hallway and was immediately met by a squad of Oversight drones—floating, spherical machines with sapphire lenses and retractable needle-arms.
?[Enemies Detected: Oversight Drones - Level 12]
?"Out of the way!" a voice yelled from behind him.
?Lyra appeared, her mercury-coat billowing around her. She didn't use a weapon. She threw a handful of small, silver discs into the air.
?The discs didn't explode. They latched onto the drones and began to pulse with a bright, neon-pink light. The drones didn't stop moving, but their sapphire eyes turned pink, and they suddenly turned their needles on each other.
?"Come on, Weaver!" Lyra grabbed Willis by the arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "If we don't get to the hangar in the next sixty seconds, 7-Alpha is going to vent this entire level into the vacuum!"
?"Why are you helping me?" Willis asked, his boots pounding against the floor.
?"Because the Neural Underground needs a Weaver to crack the vault at the center of the planet," she replied, her grin widening. "And Marcus Thorne is currently trying to sell the coordinates of that vault to the highest bidder. If he gets there first, the Oversight will be the least of our problems."
?They reached the hangar, a vast cavern filled with sleek, needle-shaped scout ships. But standing in their path was not an Oversight officer.
?It was a man in a tattered, brown leather duster. He had a patch over his left eye and a heavy, kinetic rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked like he had stepped out of an old-world desert, but the rifle hummed with a Tier 4 resonance that made the air around him vibrate.
?[Antagonist Detected: Silas’s Ghost - Level 19]
[Real Name: Captain Vane, the Sector Ranger]
?"Lyra, move aside," Vane said, his voice a gravelly whisper. "The boy is a planetary threat. I’m not letting him leave this ship."
?"He’s the only one who can stop the logic-collapse, Vane!" Lyra shouted, her hand reaching for more discs.
?"The logic-collapse is inevitable," Vane replied, raising his rifle. "The only thing we can do now is cauterize the wound. And the Weaver is the source of the infection."
?Willis looked at the rifle and then at Vane. He saw the threads of the man’s soul—they were brittle and grey, filled with the weight of a thousand 'cauterized' worlds.
?
?Suddenly, the ship rocked with a massive impact. The alarms changed their tone, shifting from a detention breach to a hull breach.
?"We have company!" Lyra yelled, looking at the hangar doors.
?The doors didn't open. They were torn inward by a massive, rusted anchor-chain made of Syndicate steel.
?Through the hole in the hull, a Syndicate war-vessel appeared, its sides covered in the graffiti of the Iron Syndicate. And standing on the prow of the ship, holding the other end of the chain, was Jax.
?He wasn't dead. His arms were gone, replaced by a massive, four-legged mechanical chassis that made him look like a centaur of iron and steam.
?"Found you, little bird!" Jax’s voice boomed over the roar of the depressurizing hangar. "The Syndicate wants their Weaver back! And Marcus Thorne wants your head on a spike!"
?Willis looked at Vane, then at Jax, and then at Lyra. He was trapped between the Oversight, the Neural Underground, a Sector Ranger, and a vengeful mercenary.
?The Great Game had just become a five-way war, and Willis Zircon was the only prize on the board.
