The hatch slammed shut with the sound of a coffin lid sealing. The howl of the blizzard outside vanished instantly, replaced by a heavy, muffled silence. The air inside was different—dry, thick with the scent of stagnant ozone and old dust that hadn’t moved in decades.

  “Oh my god…” Ephrem exhaled. His voice shot upward, struck invisible walls, and returned in layered echoes. “What is this place, Malek?”

  I didn’t answer. I leaned back against the cold metal wall and focused on breathing. My right shoulder throbbed in time with my pulse. The strap Ephrem had used to bind my useless prosthetic to my torso dug into my ribs, stealing every deep breath.

  I stretched out my left hand and touched the wall. Smooth metal. Not a seam. Not a rivet. No forge in the Citadel could have produced a casting like this. This was pressure molding in a magnetic field—I knew it, though I had never seen the process. The knowledge simply sat in my mind, cold and precise, like everything else the Will to Live had left me.

  “It’s a support column,” I said. My voice sounded like a whisper inside a cathedral. “The heart of the First Bridge.”

  “It’s dark as the belly of a whale,” Ephrem muttered, striking flint. A tiny candle flame trembled in his hands, tearing a fragment of space out of the darkness.

  We stood in a circular chamber. Zeno lay in the center. His ocular lens was fully dark now; he looked like nothing more than a heap of black scrap abandoned in this sterile iron world.

  [Status: 1%. Warning: Golem cognitive core shutdown in 114 minutes. Irreversible data loss.]

  The red numbers pulsed in the corner of my vision. No time to rest. If Zeno wiped, I would be alone in these mountains with an old man who feared his own shadow.

  “Ephrem, don’t stand there. The candle won’t last. We need the control room.”

  “What control room?” Ephrem crossed himself, glancing around. “The walls are bare, Malek. No doors. No windows.”

  I closed my eyes and summoned the layout of precursor service structures. They built logically. Every support column required maintenance access. Always located on the leeward side, near the foundation.

  I moved along the wall, fingertips tracing the metal. The cold cut to the bone. My shoulder ached. The prosthetic dragged me off balance, but I kept walking. Somewhere here—

  “There,” my fingers found a slight protrusion.

  A recessed hatch.

  I threw my weight against it, using my shoulder. The metal shrieked—centuries-old lubricant had turned to stone. Ephrem joined me, bracing himself against the door. With a strained groan, it gave way, revealing a narrow passage.

  Beyond it was a cramped service room lined with matte plastic cabinets. The smell here was sharper—burnt insulation and something chemical.

  “Look for canisters,” I ordered. “Blue or gray. And a manual pump.”

  While Ephrem rummaged, I moved to the central console. Dead screen. Unresponsive controls. But beneath the panel was what I needed—an emergency power block. An old chemical battery based on potential difference between two liquid electrolytes.

  The problem: the fluids had long since evaporated.

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  “Found something!” Ephrem dragged out a heavy container marked with symbols he couldn’t read. “And this thing with a handle. Like the well pump.”

  A manual electrolyte pump.

  “Bring it.”

  I sat on the floor, strength draining away. “We need to refill the generator tanks.”

  “Malek… what if it explodes?”

  “If we don’t refill it, we freeze in three hours. Zeno doesn’t have three hours. His brain—his code—will just disappear.”

  The work took nearly an hour. Dirty, brutal labor. Ephrem cranked the pump, sweat pouring down his face, while I steadied the hoses with my left hand as they fought to slip free. My fingers were sliced by sharp fittings. I felt no pain. Only cold. And the ticking clock in my skull.

  When the last liter drained into the tank, I pulled the ignition lever.

  A low growl rumbled beneath the floor.

  Nothing.

  Then dim orange lines flickered to life along the walls—emergency lighting. Weak. Unsteady. But enough.

  The column was hollow. Steel cables thick as a man’s torso stretched upward into darkness. A spiral staircase wound around the core like thread on an invisible spindle.

  “It works…” Ephrem whispered. “Demon electricity. But it works.”

  I didn’t correct him.

  I grabbed an external power cable miraculously preserved in a service locker and dragged it toward Zeno. It was heavy as a dead snake, snagging on debris.

  “Ephrem—help!”

  Together we brought the plug to the port at the base of Zeno’s neck.

  Click.

  A low hum vibrated through his armor.

  [External power source detected. Initiating service mode 0.1A.]

  Seconds stretched.

  His ocular lens flared to life—not orange. Not green. Cold, sterile white. The color of an operating system without a soul.

  “Zeno?”

  “Connection established with local node ‘Pillar-9.’ Loading system protocols. Synchronizing maps.”

  No inflection. No recognition.

  “He doesn’t know us…” Ephrem stepped back.

  “Service mode,” I said. “Not enough power for personality. He’s just function.”

  “Bridge status: Critical structural damage in sectors 12, 14, and 21. Primary cables intact at 84%. Pedestrian crossing possible with safety harness.”

  I looked at Ephrem.

  “We’re going up.”

  “Up?” He stared into the darkness above. “Malek, you’ve lost your mind. That height—birds don’t reach it.”

  “If we stay, they’ll find us.”

  As if summoned, a long, mournful howl pierced the storm outside.

  Thermal Hounds.

  Alchemical constructs bred in the basements of the Citadel. They could track heat for a mile.

  “They’re here,” Ephrem whispered.

  I touched Zeno’s armor.

  “Zeno. Hostile status.”

  “Four biological signatures detected. Artificial organisms. Distance: 150 meters. Closing speed: 5 meters per second.”

  “No time. To the stairs!”

  “What about him?!”

  “I am initiating autonomous ascent mode,” Zeno replied. His manipulators locked into grooves along the central column. “Generator energy redirected to magnetic grips.”

  He climbed vertically, embedding metal fingers into steel like a colossal spider.

  We ran up the staircase. Narrow. Dust-slicked. My shoulder burned. My left hand clung to the railing.

  Below—metal shrieked. The hatch buckled.

  They didn’t need keys.

  Thirty meters up, cold air surged inward. A distorted howl echoed through the chamber.

  I looked down.

  Four massive, hairless shapes with elongated muzzles and glowing eyes burst inside.

  “Climb!” Ephrem shoved me.

  One of them leapt onto the staircase, vaulting five steps at a time.

  We wouldn’t make it.

  “Zeno!” I shouted.

  His head rotated 180 degrees.

  “Target acquired. Initiating protection protocol ‘Master.’”

  He tore a steel plate from the wall and hurled it downward.

  The slab struck the Hound mid-leap.

  Bone snapped. Wet impact. The creature collapsed, dragging another down with it.

  “Don’t stop!”

  We climbed until our lungs burned. Zeno methodically destroyed sections of the staircase behind us.

  At two hundred meters, the stairs ended.

  A technical balcony opened into the storm.

  Above—cables stretched across the abyss.

  Stars glimmered faintly through the fading blizzard.

  Zeno reached the platform and sat, legs dangling into nothingness. His white lens flickered—

  Then turned warm orange.

  “Iron,” he said, voice restored. “Trajectory calculated. Wind: 15 meters per second. Temperature: minus 24.”

  Relief hit like a physical blow.

  “We’re crossing the cables?”

  “There is no alternative.” He extended his hand. “Hold tight. Ephrem, secure yourself to my back. I will anchor you.”

  Ephrem stared into the void, then at the icy cables.

  “If we survive this, Malek, I’ll tan your hide myself. Damn engineer…”

  I stepped to the edge and looked beyond the mountains.

  Far away, barely visible, a single point of light flickered in the darkness.

  “The City of Bridges,” I whispered.

  “It awaits us,” Zeno said, rising to his full height, his shadow stretching across the clouds below.