Cualli’s voice, a steady, unyielding hum, painted a picture of absolute annihilation, all for my supposed protection. My gut twisted with a sick, furious lurch. He wasn't just planning to trap me; he was planning to *erase* everyone else.
“No,” I breathed, the word a raw rasp. My fingers flew across the terminal’s control panel, searching, desperate, for any way to reverse the activation, to sever the spreading lines. The screen remained unresponsive, locked on the horrifying projection.
Matlal, his face bleached of color, stared at the map. “He’s… mad. He’s truly lost it. The entire continent?”
“He called it a dome,” I said, pointing to the Tlecuil Bazaars’ central point on the map, where the red lines originated. “The Sun-Spire. That has to be the main relay. If I can get there, maybe I can override it.”
“The Sun-Spire is kilometres away, across a dozen staging decks and four market tiers,” Matlal countered, staring hard at the readout. “Even with a sky-skimmer, you wouldn’t make it in ten minutes. And the Brass Coatl is still out there.”
My gaze darted to the colossal coils of the mechanical serpent still visible in the swirling steam below, its metallic hide catching the dim light. It was an unstoppable force, a guardian beast. But Cualli had herded me up here, to the highest point. He wanted me contained, not dead. Not yet.
My eyes scanned the dizzying expanse of the Steam-Bazaars. Below, a heavy cargo zip-line, thick as my arm, stretched taut between our perch and a distant industrial tower, its terminus directly below the base of the Sun-Spire. It was used for transporting dense ore, engineered for speed and stability. An insane idea, bright and dangerous, ignited in my mind.
“I’ve got something better than a sky-skimmer,” I declared, already pulling a small, corked vial from a hidden pouch on my belt. Inside, a viscous, shimmering crimson liquid pulsed faintly. A high-grade alchemical stimulant, designed to enhance strength and speed for a short, brutal burst. I’d ‘borrowed’ it from a cartel doctor during a particularly chaotic smuggling run. “Matlal, you ever surfed a zip-line before?”
His eyebrows shot up. “With a stimulant dose? Are you insane? That thing will shred your hands, even with grips, at that speed!”
“Details, details,” I dismissed, already fastening reinforced leather work-gloves over my hands. “I need something to bind to the cable. Something strong.”
Matlal, despite his shock, was already thinking. He tore off a section of heavy-duty winch cable from a nearby hoist, quickly fashioning a sturdy, loop-ended grip. “This will hold, but you’ll be an exposed target. Everyone’s seen Cualli’s beast. They know someone’s up to something. The Jaguar Claw will be out in force.”
“Let them come,” I grinned, teeth bared. This was it. The fight for my freedom, and everyone else’s. I secured the winch loop to the cargo zip-line, then splashed a generous amount of the alchemical wash onto the palms. The moment it soaked the hide, the treated leather began to hum, a low thrum that vibrated up my wrists, heat spreading through my forearms. My vision sharpened, sounds grew distinct, the world seemed to slow down by a fraction.
“Wish me luck, smuggler boy,” I yelled, driving the needle-tip into my forearm. The world exploded into hyper-focus. I kicked free of the iron grating, dropping into churning air while the zip-line screamed overhead.
Wind shrieked past my ears, the cityscape rushing by in a dizzying cascade of terraced scaffolds, steam-vents, and distant pyra-towers. The cargo line was a direct shot, but far from clear. Below, the murky waters of the Xitlali River churned a thousand feet down. I saw them immediately: three figures on interceptor zip-lines, sleek and silent, emerging from the steam-shrouded gantries directly in my path. Jaguar Claw mercenaries, just as Matlal predicted. Their distinctive onyx-and-jade armour glinted under the sun’s last rays.
The lead merc, a burly man with a scarred face and an impossibly wide shoulder span, locked eyes with me. Captain Xochitl, if the markings on his pauldron were accurate. He drew a razor-edged, serrated blade, its length almost a shortsword. Blood rushed hot behind my ears. Time to dance.
He aimed a grapple-hook launcher, a whirring sound preceding the metallic thunk as it impacted the zip-line just ahead of me, attempting to snag my cable. I kicked hard against empty air, squeezing the harness to milk more speed. The world blurred. I slammed into the grapple line, not breaking it, but using its sudden tension to launch myself upwards, arcing over it like a human projectile. For a split second, I was airborne, a thousand feet above the river, nothing but wind and sky around me.
“Cheeky little fly!” Xochitl roared, enraged. He pushed off his own zip-line, his body a heavy missile, aiming to tackle me mid-air. But the cocktail in my veins had dialed every tendon to maximum snap. I twisted, not away, but towards him. As he lunged, I used his own momentum, slamming my foot against his armoured chest. It wasn’t a kick for damage, but for leverage.
The impact sent him spinning, his heavy form flailing. He missed his line, his hands grabbing at empty air. His roar of fury turned into a guttural shriek as he plummeted, a dark speck against the distant, churning river. His two comrades, momentarily stunned, hesitated, giving me the precious seconds I needed. I arced back down, snatching my zip-line with a grunt, the heavy winch cable biting into my reinforced palms. The alchemical rush tore through my veins, hurtling me forward at a breakneck clip.
Another merc opened fire with a steam-pistol. The shots whizzed past, close enough to make my hair stand on end. Then, a sudden, thunderous blast echoed from behind me. A hijacked cargo steam-train, belching black smoke and sparks, hurtled along the lower tracks. Matlal, perched precariously on its roof, was wielding a heavy-calibre steam-repeater, laying down suppressive fire. His shots were precise, peppering the iron catwalk the remaining mercs were aiming from, forcing them to duck for cover.
I risked a glance back, a brief flash of surprise cutting through the adrenaline. Matlal, the mercenary who would sell his own mother for a good profit margin, was actively covering my escape. He grinned, a flash of white teeth through the smoke, and offered a thumbs-up before ducking back down as retaliatory fire erupted around him.
Maybe he wasn't entirely about the gold. Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to save the world too. Or maybe he just really hated Cualli’s idea of absolute security. Either way, his intervention was a welcome distraction.
The Sun-Spire relay, a towering obelisk of brass and polished obsidi, grew rapidly in my vision. I could see the intricate network of power conduits snaking up its sides. Almost there. The alchemical rush was beginning to flag, my muscles aching, a dull throb replacing the frenetic buzz. I needed to act fast.
Just as the spire filled my sight, a colossal shadow fell over me. A deafening roar split the air, shaking the very cable I clung to. The Brass Coatl, no longer merely observing from below, burst from the sheer rock face of the opposite side of the chasm, its segmented body of polished brass scales gleaming malevolently. Its massive head, adorned with a snarling, jaguar-like visage, lunged forward with terrifying speed, its enormous, gaping maw wide enough to swallow a sky-skimmer whole. It moved too fast, too deliberately. It wasn’t trying to catch me. It was going for the line itself.
A sickening *THWUMP* reverberated through the air as its powerful jaws clamped down. The entire cargo zip-line, the thick, heavy cable that was my only connection to survival, snapped with a violent, final shudder. The momentum ripped through my arms, threatening to dislocate them. My grip, fueled by the fading chemical charge, held, but only just. The remaining segment of the line, now severed, vanished into the serpent’s gullet. I was left dangling, suspended by one hand, over a thousand-foot drop.