Ilya’s small body convulsed violently, a marionette with severed strings. His eyes rolled back, a thin, black-tinged foam bubbling at the corner of his lips. The guttural sound tearing from his throat was nothing like a child’s cry. It was a dying machine’s grind. “Ilya!” Vesna screamed, the apathy a burnt-out wire. She was at his side in an instant, her hands clumsy, useless. Her ribs locked tight, air refusing to reach her lungs. This wasn't a nightmare; it was the inevitable end she had tried to sleep through. Korvan dropped beside the boy on one knee, his knuckles whitening against the concrete floor. “What is this? What’s happening to him?” he demanded, his harsh rasp cutting through the boy's choking. Footsteps echoed, rapid and concerned. Dr. Kosta appeared, his composed features broken by sudden tension. “He’s overstimulated! The brain is rejecting the rapid synthetic development. This is a critical stage.” He barked into a wrist-comm: “Stretcher team, immediately to Sector Gamma-Seven, tunnel access!” Korvan scooped Ilya into his arms, the boy's head lolling against his shoulder. “Get him to the trauma wing. Now!” His command cut straight through Kosta’s babble. Vesna scrambled up behind them through the concrete turns of the Institute, the grease-thick air biting at her throat. The clinic was a vault of brushed steel and humming fixtures. Ilya was hoisted onto an examination slab, leads snapping onto his temples. Overhead monitors flickered with spiked readouts, mapping an internal short-circuit. His breathing was shallow, ragged, his skin paling to an alarming translucence. “The boy requires immediate sedation,” Kosta said, steadying his pitch while his gaze flicked from the displays to Vesna. He lifted a pre-loaded ampoule from a metal tray, its cylinder filled with dark, oily fluid. “A heavy depressant to halt synaptic failure. It goes into the carotid now.” A depressant into an overloaded circuit would ground the core permanently. Kosta wasn't treating him; he was purging the evidence. “No!” Vesna struck the doctor's wrist. The glass cylinder tumbled, shattering across the tile in a streak of tar-colored chemical. Korvan, his attention riveted on Ilya’s worsening condition, snapped his head up. “Vesna! What in the blazes do you think you’re doing? Dr. Kosta is trying to save him!” “He’s killing him!” Vesna snarled, shoving Korvan's chest. Caught off balance, the industrialist staggered back a pace, his brow furrowing in violent disbelief. Her gaze locked onto a wall-mounted resuscitation unit. Its pristine, complex interface was a challenge, a taunt. The internal clock started ticking faster than Ilya’s erratic heart rate. *Ten to twelve years.* *Six already gone.* She had six years, not ten. She didn’t have a second. Her calloused fingers tore the casing from the unit with a screech of cracked plastic and stripped copper. The sentries near the threshold hesitated. Kosta shouted, “She’s hysterical! Enforcers, pin her down!” Vesna ignored them all. Her gaze stripped the unit's logic board down to raw architecture. A standard shock would rupture his heart. She had to rewire the capacitor rhythm to short the feedback loop frying his skull. She ripped loose a primary regulator, seized a spool of conductive suture wire from a wall tray, and bound it across exposed contact pins. Her breath was coming in short, harsh gasps. Korvan watched, his face a mask of disbelief, as she worked with a speed and dexterity that defied her languid persona. She was not just fixing; she was *re-engineering*, her hands a blur, her mind an intricate dance of schematics and power flows. “What… what are you doing?” Korvan finally managed, his voice a low rumble of confusion. “Bypassing the protocol,” Vesna gritted out, her eyes never leaving the exposed circuitry. Locating the auxiliary port used for cranial scans, she bridged the leads and forced the battery into a high-frequency cycle. The paddles, once designed for cardiac arrest, were now tools of precise neuro-stimulation. She slapped the rewired paddles against Ilya’s small chest, ignoring the thin fabric of his gown. A sharp, controlled burst of blue energy arced across his skin, a soft crackle in the air. Ilya’s body arched, stiffened, then slowly, miraculously, relaxed. The frantic lines on the monitor began to smooth, his breathing evening out. The black foam receded. Kosta stared, his face a mask of furious disbelief. “Impossible! What did you do? You’ll destroy his progress!” Vesna met his stare with bare venom. “You already did that.” Kosta’s pupils contracted, backing a half-step away from the modified hardware. Kosta snatched an unmarked injector from a lower rack, lunging back toward the slab. “He’s still critical! Stand down!” Vesna slammed her forearm across his throat, deflecting the needle as it skittered into the dark beneath the frame. “Get away from him, you monster!” Korvan, witnessing the desperate struggle, saw only a panicked mother obstructing a doctor. His trust in Kosta was a deep-seated, institutional loyalty. “Restrain her! Now!” Korvan snapped, his hand dropping toward his sidearm. Two armored sentries clamped their gauntlets onto Vesna’s shoulders, dragging her backward. She kicked against their greaves, watching Kosta grovel on the floor for the dropped needle. She needed proof. She needed something to expose him, not just her words. Just as Kosta’s fingers grazed the hidden syringe, a deafening crash erupted. The clinic’s reinforced observation pane blew inward in a spray of tempered quartz. A hulking, familiar silhouette burst through the jagged opening, its metallic jaws gaping, its optical sensors glowing a fierce crimson. Slag. The scrap-metal mastiff landed with a thunderous thud, shaking the entire room. Before the guards could react, before Kosta could even scream, Slag lunged. His heavy, crushing metal jaws clamped around Kosta’s throat with sickening force, lifting the doctor clean off his feet. Kosta thrashed, his hands clawing uselessly at the mechanical vise around his neck, his face turning a mottled purple. The sentries drew their rifles, loosening their grip. Vesna dropped low, her eyes finding a vacuum phial of Ilya's blackened plasma resting on the instrument bench. Proof. Real proof. She snatched it, tucking it deep into a hidden pocket of her tattered jumpsuit. “Slag! Hold him!” she screamed, her voice hoarse, her eyes locking onto a vent hatch high above. Without hesitation, she scrambled onto a nearby equipment console, her fingers finding purchase in the grimy seam of the vent. She ripped it open, exposing the dark, narrow tunnel beyond. With a final, desperate glance at Ilya, she pulled herself into the vents, disappearing into the darkness with the tainted blood sample.

Bypass Protocol