Chapter 11 · The Singularity Point

"Move, or I’ll paint the floor with your brains!"

Roxie didn't scream it. She hissed it, her voice tight and jagged, the barrel of her pulse-rifle digging a permanent dent into the small of Kaelen’s back.

Kaelen didn't flinch. He couldn't. His left arm was still humming with a violent, artificial electricity from the dose he'd just forced into his veins, and his nervous system felt like it was being scrubbed with steel wool. He stared at the Bio-Titan looming in the center of the hangar.

It wasn't a man. Not anymore. It was ten feet of reinforced muscle, synthetic plating, and a head that looked like a polished obsidian skull. No eyes. Just a glowing red sensor strip that scanned the room with predatory precision.

"You're shaking," Roxie muttered, her finger twitching on the trigger. "You can barely stand. Just give me the kid and I'll let you crawl out of here in one piece."

Kaelen let out a short, dry laugh that sounded like grinding gravel. "You're still talking about the kid? Look at that thing, Roxie. It doesn't want the girl. It wants to erase everything in this room.