The Prime Architect's throne room," Valerie whispered, her grip tightening on her empty hands.
"Yeah," Sebastian nodded, cracking his bloody, ruined knuckles. "Let's go knock."
—
The hallway leading to the blood-red iron doors was suffocatingly quiet. After the roaring gears, the freezing meat lockers, and the toxic yellow smog of the previous chambers, the absolute dead silence felt like a physical threat.
Sebastian dragged his right leg, his heavy combat boots leaving a smeared, sticky trail of dark human blood and black motor oil against the unpolished stone floor.
*DRAG. CLINK. DRAG.*
He leaned heavily against the cold wall, his left arm pressed firmly against his fractured ribs. Every single breath tasted like pennies and burnt dust. He was running on absolute fumes. The biological steel of his thirty-percent physical synchronization was the only thing keeping his meat-suit from completely shutting down.
