The medical bay of the Vance Estate, previously a theater of corporate violence, was now a sanctuary of desperate, impossible science. The unconscious bodies of Marcus’s elite private military contractors lay scattered across the pristine white tiles, a stark contrast to the sterile environment of high-tech monitors and life-support arrays. But the physical threats were no longer the priority. The true enemy was invisible, microscopic, and currently ravaging the vascular system of the man lying on the bio-bed.
I stood beside Kakek Edward, the harsh, shadowless surgical lights reflecting off the kinetic-weave of my tactical armor. Between my knuckles rested five obsidian needles, ancient instruments carved from volcanic glass, vibrating with the latent, bio-electric energy—the Qi—that I wa
