Chapter 26 · Iron Arena - Chapter 26: Bloodline Ping

Mara's mech hit the cage wall so hard the crowd noise turned into a single scream.

Lila barely rolled clear. I saw it from ringside, saw the dent Mara's shoulder plating left in the reinforced steel. That wasn't a lunge. That was a death sentence with thrusters attached.

"Get out!" I yelled into the comm. "Lila, disengage now!"

She didn't answer. Her mech was already pivoting, lighter on its feet than anything that size should be. Mara's rig came off the wall trailing sparks and something that looked like coolant but smelled like burnt copper when the vapor hit the air vents. Wrong color. Wrong smell. I knew what that meant.

They'd pushed her sync rate past the red line.

"She's cooked," I said, but I wasn't sure if I was talking to Lila or myself. "Her neural load's already—"

"I see it." Lila's voice came through clipped, tight. She was looking at something I couldn't. That gift of hers. The one that let her read mech signals like sheet music. "Cole, her grid's collapsing. She's got maybe two minutes before the whole thing backfeeds."

Two minutes. That was optimistic.

Mara's mech lurched forward again. No footwork. No feints.