Chapter 67: Synapse Collapse

The Virex substation in central Australia had once been a pristine Southern Hub, humming with clean data lines and sync harmonics. Now, it stood like a gutted carcass—towers half-collapsed into scorched red earth, the air brittle with static. Every trace of civilization here had died screaming.

Elira stepped carefully over a melted support strut, her crossbow held ready, eyes scanning the shadows. A gentle hum pulsed from the weapon's reinforced limbs, pre-charged with kinetic capsules tipped in pulse disruptors—deadly to infected servitors.

Brakka crouched beside a wall panel near the station's defunct core relay. Sparks arced lazily from severed fiber conduits. "This isn't just a blackout," he muttered. "Someone did surgery. High-level override. These subsystems weren't corrupted. They were shut down—clean."

Elira tightened her grip on the crossbow. "You think it's another infection?"

Brakka looked up. "I think someone's salvaging the virus's leftovers. Reprogramming. Testing responses."

Elira nodded grimly. "They're probing Virex's soft underbelly."

That was when the sensors, barely functional, flared red for a single second.

Motion.

Then they were coming.

The first infected servitor slammed into the building's far wall, dragging half its twisted frame behind it. A moment later, a drone swarmed in overhead—sleek, retrofitted, and no longer bound to Virex's architecture. It dropped from the ceiling, tendrils out.

Elira's shot was almost instinctive.

The bolt hissed through the air with a low chirp, striking the servitor in the forehead. A microcharge burst on contact, sending its skull into shrapnel and dropping the thing mid-lunge. The drone behind it reeled, but Brakka's rifle was already humming.

"One down," Elira said under her breath, loading another shot.

Since Siberia—since Fenrir's nearly fatal encounter with the viral servitor —Brakka had made it his personal mission to rearm the commanders.

Each weapon was calibrated for viral destabilization, fine-tuned for one goal: destruction of infected units before they could sync or detonate.

Brakka's own hammer roared with an electromagnetic pulse as he crushed a servitor lunging from a vent. His rifle barked twice, tearing holes through two more drones. "Left side!"

Elira spun, crossbow snapping again—this time launching a tether bolt. It impaled an infected servitor's leg, anchoring it to the floor just long enough for Brakka to send his hammer flying. It struck like a meteor, detonating the servitor's core in a flash of blue fire.

Three minutes of chaos. Smoke, blood, oil, and burning ozone.

Then: stillness.

The only sound was the wind outside, brushing the broken steel like an afterthought.

Elira stood amidst the wreckage, breathing hard. One of the downed servitors twitched and gurgled a string of garbled code before going still for good. She nudged it with her foot, eyes narrowed. "These weren't viral improvisations. These were made."

Brakka was already scanning the drone's components. "New tech. Spliced from clean Virex units. Someone's upgrading them."

"To what end?"

Brakka looked at her, jaw clenched. "Whatever it is… this was just a taste. This wasn't an attack. It was data collection."

Elira turned to the horizon, dust clouds rising under the midday sun. For a second, she imagined she saw a flicker in the far distance—a shadow just beyond perception.

She said nothing.

They continued deeper into the dead station. And behind them, one drone eye still blinked—its signal silently relayed into the void.