Title: Ascension from the Pit
"Why are you looking at me like you have just seen a ghost from the lower ring, Laura?" Gerald asked directly, his golden eyes blazing in the dark.
The terminal screen cast a pale emerald glow over his massive cybernetic shoulders, making the freshly applied cellular sealant shimmer like wet oil. Laura instinctively shut down the active monitor frame, her fingers catching on the mechanical edge of the physical keyboard.
"The technical layout of this terminal is simply highly unusual for someone used to upper tier architecture," Laura explained quickly, trying to steady her breathing.
"Your cardiac rhythm has accelerated by twenty-four beats per minute since I entered the stabilization state," Gerald observed coldly.
"An ambush by corporate assassins
