Chapter 7 · Iron Arena - Chapter 7: Don't Look at Me

I made her run the sync sequence twelve times before breakfast.

No mech. Just the interface glove and a dead console I'd wired to loop feedback. Every time she touched it, the neural pulse hit her bare nerves. Every time, she had to read it, parse it, stay standing.

She threw up on the ninth.

"Again," I said.

Lila wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her fingers were shaking. The glove hung loose on her wrist, too big, jury-rigged from parts I'd stripped out of a junked rig two nights ago. She didn't say anything. Just reset her stance and pressed her palm back to the interface.

The feedback hit. Her pupils blew wide. I watched her jaw lock, watched the tremor run down her spine.

"Read it," I said.

"Left actuator," she ground out. "Calibration offset, point-two degrees, compensating—"

"Faster."

"Compensating high, torque limit in three, two—"

The pulse spiked. She gasped and her knees buckled. I caught her elbow before she went down. Her skin was cold. Clammy. She yanked her arm back the second she had her balance.

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"I said I'm fine." She was breathing hard.