Her limbs thrashed, threatening to dislocate, her eyes rolled back into a terrifying white. Two trauma technicians, pale tunics stained with bioluminescent nutrient paste, sprinted from the far end of the data lounge. One, a stern-faced woman with a shaved head and a bio-scanner strapped to her wrist, barked into her comm-link. “Praetor Nysa is crashing! Initiate full cerebral reboot protocol! Prepare neuro-stabilizers!” The scanner’s display, projected onto the transparent wall beside Nysa’s pod, blared with chaotic red lines, a flatlining tone replacing the usual hum. “Irreversible synaptic cascade detected,” a calm, synthetic voice announced. “Brain activity is ceasing. Probable brain-wipe.” Makara ignored them. Their advanced tech was failing, screaming digital despair. He saw Nysa’s *Qi* – a faint, frantic pulse struggling against a crushing external force. The anomaly wasn't just digital; it was parasitic, feeding on the very life force of its victims. He’d seen this before, centuries ago, in the aftermath of a particularly nasty spiritual plague that had ravaged the Outer Reaches. He pushed past the orderlies, who recoiled at his sudden movement. “Get back!” the bald technician snapped, holding up a hand. “This is a medical emergency! You’ll contaminate her!” “Contaminate?” Makara scoffed, his voice a low rumble. “Your machines are killing her. Move.” He didn't wait for permission. His palm, calloused from a lifetime of brawling and begging, pressed against the back of Nysa’s neck, finding the vital point where the cranial nerve met the spine. A faint tremor passed through her thrashing body. He ignored their shouts, their threats of disciplinary action. His fingers found the *Tianzhu* point, then *Fengchi*, *Jingming*. He channeled his internal *Qi*, a precise, focused stream of warmth, into the delicate meridian pathways. It wasn't about brute force, but subtle redirection, coaxing her fragmented life energy back into its natural flow. Nysa's spasms lessened, her body still convulsing, but with less violence. A low moan escaped her lips, something human, not the animalistic shriek from before. “What… what are you doing?!” the bald tech stammered, her console still showing a flat tone while her eyes took in Nysa’s relaxing frame. “The system says… she’s gone.” “The system is wrong,” Makara muttered, shifting his grip, focusing on the *Yintang* point between her eyebrows. A small bead of sweat trickled down his temple, the effort draining him. This was far more delicate than ripping apart mechas. This was life itself. Slowly, agonizingly, Nysa's thrashing subsided. Her back eased from its impossible arch, her head lolled to the side, breathing ragged but present. The contact band on her temple stopped sparking. The flatlining tone from the projected display flickered, then began to show erratic, faint pulses. A single, agonizingly slow green line appeared, then another, struggling to climb. “Impossible…” the technician muttered, staring at the monitor. “Brainstem activity… returning.” Makara pulled his hand away, wiping his brow. He felt a profound weariness, a deep ache in his bones. He’d wanted nothing more than to find a quiet corner, curl up, and sleep for a decade. But seeing the terror in Nysa’s eyes, even if only in a digital construct, hearing the ancient whispers of his dead sect, knowing Jib was still running around trying to sell the next betting scandal… it was too much to simply ignore. He watched the orderlies load Nysa onto a stretcher, their movements stiff and hesitant. His gaze hardened. He couldn't sleep this off. Not anymore. This was his burden, his ghost, and it was threatening to consume everyone around him. The quiet existence he craved was a delusion. He would have to destroy this anomaly, permanently, before it brain-wiped every single person in this rock, including the annoying cadets he now, inexplicably, found himself caring for. He found Jib in the cafeteria, trying to trade a fistful of glittering Star-Credits for a quadruple portion of synth-burgers. The cadet’s bloodshot gaze darted between the food counter and the hallway. He’d seen Nysa’s collapse. “Makara! Is she… is Praetor Nysa…?” Jib’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “She’s alive,” Makara said, cutting straight to it. “But the thing that hit her, the thing that’s in the Star Network… it’s real. And it’s here. It's in the academy's hardware.” Jib swallowed, the synth-burger forgotten. “The… the AI virus? You mean the thing that the Tier-1s say is causing the feedback loops? The thing that gave us that seven-day countdown?” Makara nodded. “That’s the one. And I need to know where it's rooted. Where did it come from?” Jib’s eyes darted around, then landed on a greasy-faced cadet haggling for a dessert slab. A strange, almost calculating glint returned to his gaze. “The AI virus isn’t exactly a secret, Makara. It’s been… disrupting things. People lose sleep, get glitches in their interface implants. Some even get phantom pains. My network of premium food distributors? They’ve been hearing whispers. The code signature… it seems to emanate from the academy’s abandoned lower core. Sub-Level Gamma-9. Nobody goes there. It’s restricted. High radiation. Old, forgotten tech. Perfect place for a secret server farm.” “Sub-Level Gamma-9,” Makara repeated, his memory stirring. He’d sensed a faint, almost imperceptible *Qi* signature from that direction when he’d first woken up, dismissed it as a residual echo. Not a residual echo. A beckoning. Three standard cycles later, Nysa was awake. She sat upright in a sterile recovery bay, her gaze distant, fixed on the holographic display of her own brainwaves – now fluctuating with a healthy, vibrant green. Her usual severe bun was undone, dark hair splayed across the crisp white pillow. “They said I was brain-wiped,” she stated, her voice hoarse, devoid of its usual sharp authority. “My neural interfaces were completely locked. My sync-rates… zero. My entire being, my reliance on the Aegis-Kraal systems… it just… broke.” She looked at Makara, a raw, naked vulnerability in her eyes he’d never seen before. “You… you saved me. Without a single piece of tech. How?” “An old technique,” Makara dismissed, unwilling to delve into the intricacies of *Qi* to someone who only understood processors and data streams. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the thing is here. In the core. And we need to get to it.” Nysa’s knuckles were white as she gripped the sheets. “Gamma-9. It’s under heavy lock-down. Armed drones patrol the perimeter. Level 5 blast doors. They’re designed to keep things *in*, not out. After the Flux-Spill incident, it was declared a no-go zone.” She paused, a flicker of her old Praetor self returning, mixed with something new, something forged in the fires of her near-death. “But if you can… ‘trip’ through quantum shields, then perhaps Level 5 blast doors are just… a slightly bigger tripping hazard.” She met his gaze, mouth set in an uncompromising line. “I’m coming with you. My tech failed me. But you didn’t. And I need answers.” Makara nodded. It was better this way. She knew the academy’s layout, its weaknesses, its guard rotations. Jib, meanwhile, had been busy. He provided them with a schematics overlay of the zone, complete with drone patrol patterns and access codes, acquired through a carefully orchestrated ‘protein-bar-for-intel’ exchange. He even managed to procure a set of old, heavy-duty radiation suits, smelling faintly of ancient synth-grease. Two cycles before the final feedback loop, Makara, Nysa, and Jib stood before the massive, reinforced blast doors of the lower complex. The air here was heavy, thick with the smell of ozone and decay. A faint, rhythmic thrum vibrated through the floor. Nysa entered the override codes, her fingers surprisingly steady. The heavy doors groaned, a sound like a dying beast, and slowly, ponderously, began to retract into the asteroid’s rock. They pushed through the gap, stepping into the irradiated darkness. The air crackled, metallic. Makara immediately felt a dense, familiar *Qi* signature, pulsating, distorted, but unmistakably his sect’s. It was everywhere. He raised his hand, signaling for silence. Nysa activated her head-lamp, its beam cutting through the gloom, revealing not machines, not servers, but hundreds of figures, arrayed in neat rows, their faces pale and blank, eyes staring sightlessly ahead. They were cadets. All of them. And from their lips, a low chanting began to rise, vibrating through the cold rock. It was the ancient, nine-knotted bamboo staff mantra, the core prayer of the Beggar Sect, distorted, yet perfectly recognizable, sung by brainwashed, living husks.

Meridians and Mainframes