V O L U M E . S I X : C O D E_R E S E T
Chapter 138: The Mirror
Two days later.
Reaper sat in his office working through a problem that hadn't resolved itself overnight. The security feed from Jason's cell was running on loop, specifically the gap where the footage cut and ca back with a body and no explanation. An energy blade, from the wound pattern. Clean, practiced, deliberate.
‘Infinity was with the entire ti. Shelly is managing the eastern front. 11 and 24 are preparing to fly out to the desert training camp. Which leaves the fourteen thousand E-UNITs who joined Elysium recently, any one of them could have had access. But the why matters more than the who. Jason was already contained. Soone wanted him silent before he could say sothing specific.’
Three knocks.
Reaper dismissed the screens and leaned back. "Co in."
Chro entered first, screens already trailing him like a formation. Kuantum followed, his pixelated face running at sothing close to maximum expression output, whatever he was about to show, he had been waiting to show it. He had papers tucked under one arm. Both of them bowed as they cleared the door.
"Good morning, Lord Reaper," they said, overlapping.
"And to you." Reaper looked between them. "Chro, the SSD analysis?"
"Yes. But the information is significant enough that I'd suggest letting Kuantum go first so he can get back to his work."
Kuantum straightened. "I'll be brief, I promise." He turned toward the door and gestured into the shadow of the doorway. "Lord Reaper, I'd like to introduce Esoptron. Our latest original addition to Elysium's Golden Circle. I believe you'll find him worth the introduction."
The figure stepped into the light from the window behind Reaper's desk.
A single-piece humanoid fra, pure white, the engineering so clean that no seams, hinges, or panel lines were visible anywhere on the surface. No clothing, which the body didn't require, it was featureless enough to need none.
The head, however, was sothing different: a large void where the face should have been, as though a section had been precisely removed and left open. A thin, continuous line of light blue ran the periter of that void like a fra, pulsing at a steady interval.
Esoptron lowered himself into a deep kneel in a single, fluid motion. When he spoke, the voice was calm and completely detached, the register of an automated announcent in a transit system. "Thank you for receiving , Lord Reaper. I hope to be of use to you."
"Rise, Esoptron."
He stood and lowered his head, unable quite to hold Reaper's gaze directly. "As you wish."
Kuantum moved to his side, practically vibrating. "He was trained on performance data from Elysium's best operatives, Obsidian, 11, Infinity, and then put through our simulation chambers to develop his own synthesis of those styles. Copying produces copies, so we needed sothing that would take the foundation and build past it." He reached up toward Esoptron's head. "Which is where this cos in."
He tapped the void. "A crystal chamber. Mounted directly in the fra, no brace, no external connector. The brace design has inherent limitations because the connection point is always the weakest part of the system, and we're still refining it."
His hands ca down on Reaper's desk before he could stop them, enthusiasm overriding the formality. "So we removed the connector entirely. We rebuilt a G-Bot chassis, improved, not replicated, and integrated the chamber directly into the body. The crystal doesn't sit on top of him. It's part of him."
He reached into his coat and produced an orange crystal. He placed it into the void in Esoptron's head.
The crystal rose fractionally and began to rotate, calibrating. The blue fra line pulsed once, white, sharp, and then an orange line swept from the top of the void downward, replacing the blue in a single smooth motion.
"He can swap crystals in one motion, just by reaching up." Kuantum tapped Esoptron's shoulder to demonstrate the removal. The crystal didn't move. "Lock system. Theft requires physical confrontation with Esoptron himself, which is not the comfortable position an attacker typically wants to be in."
Reaper stood. He began to clap, slow, deliberate strikes of heavy tal against tal that echoed through the quiet office. "I don't have adequate words for this, Kuantum. You keep finding ways to make yourself indispensable to Elysium without ever raising a weapon."
"This belongs to the entire tro Robotics team," Kuantum said, hands behind his back. "I contribute the ideas. They do the work. And we do it because we want to, for Elysium, for the work itself."
"Modest as well." Reaper let out a short, dry laugh. "Our energy exports are performing well, the revenue is significant. I'm doubling your budget. Show what that produces."
Kuantum bowed low. "Those words alone are more than sufficient. Thank you, Lord Reaper."
"Go back to your lab. I won't keep you from what you do best."
"As you wish." He straightened, looked at Esoptron with sothing paternal in his pixelated expression, and left in quick, purposeful steps.
Reaper looked at Esoptron. "Welco to Elysium." He extended one arm.
Esoptron regarded the offered hand for a fraction of a second, then clasped it with precise, asured pressure. "Thank you, Lord Reaper." He released the grip, moved to the wall beside the door and took a position there, still, hands folded, the posture of soone who understood their role without needing it explained.
Reaper turned to Chro. "The SSDs."
Chro spread three screens across the desk simultaneously. "Directly, they are leaving Elysium. The truck we intercepted was a decoy, positioned to draw our attention away from the main column. The cargo on board wasn't critical, and with basic route calculations, the primary group is likely crossing into the Veridian Coast at this mont." He paused. "We also received a report about a ch barrage we had stationed on an inactive highway."
His voice dropped a register. "Gone. Not destroyed in any conventional sense. No debris, no residue, no trace. Erased."
Reaper leaned forward.
"There is more." Chro's tone shifted almost imperceptibly. "They are in possession of completed research on producing new energy crystals from scratch. If that reaches the Veridian Coast and they develop production capability, one Code Red team may not be a sufficient response."
A brief pause.
"The one constructive piece of information, they will have to return. There are fourteen thousand civilian lives still inside the Hope Bubble. They won't abandon them."
Reaper was on his feet before Chro finished the sentence. "Where is the Code Red team?"
"Preparing to depart."
"Order them to hold." Reaper looked at Esoptron against the wall. "I said you arrived at the right mont. I ant it." He studied him for a second. "I have a role for you. Subtle work, which I suspect suits you."
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