The quill felt like a lead bar in my hand.
I sat at my desk in the Tuileries, staring at the decree. Mobilization Order 44. A simple signature required.
My brain sent the command: Sign.
My hand didn't move.
It wasn't just a tremor anymore. It was paralysis. The nerves in my fingers were dead. The signals were getting lost in the static of my decaying body.
"Sign it," I whispered to myself.
I forced my will down my arm.
The quill snapped.
Ink splattered across the parchment like black blood.
I dropped the broken feather. I tried to stand up.
"Fouché," I called out.
My legs gave way.
I didn't crumple gracefully. I crashed. My knees hit the stone floor with a bone-jarring thud. I tried to catch myself, but my arms were jelly. My face slammed into the rug.
"Administrator!"
Fouché burst into the room. He froze when he saw me lying in the ink and dust.
"Get the physician!" Fouché yelled to the guard in the hall. "Now!"
"No!" I wheezed.
I clawed at Fouché's boot. I dragged myself toward him.
"No... doctors," I gasped.
I coughed. A thick, black glob of necrotic tissue landed on the Persian rug. It smelled like rot. Like death.
"Look at me, Joseph," I rasped. "My lungs are soup. My heart beats once every ten seconds. A doctor can't fix this."
"Then who?" Fouché asked, his voice trembling. He knelt down, terrified to touch me, terrified to let me die.
"Engineers," I whispered. "Get Lavoisier. Get the mechanics."
I pointed a shaking finger toward the floor.
"Take me... to the workshop."
They carried me down on a stretcher.
The workshop smelled of oil, brass, and ozone. It was my sanctuary. The place where I had built the telegraphs, the steam engines, the tools of the new century.
Now, it was an operating theater.
Lavoisier stood by the workbench. He looked pale. He was a chemist, not a surgeon.
Behind him, on a heavy iron rack, hung the suit.
Project Lazarus.
It looked like a medieval suit of armor reimagined by a madman. Heavy brass plates. Leather gaskets. Hydraulic pistons gleaming with grease.
And on the back, the massive, reinforced oxygen tank system.
"It's not ready," Lavoisier said, wiping his hands on a rag. "We haven't tested the servos. The interface is crude."
"I'm not ready either," I muttered from the stretcher. "Do it."
They lifted me onto the workbench. The metal was cold against my back.
Lavoisier leaned over me. He held a drill. A hand-cranked drill with a surgical bit.
"To support the weight of the chest plate," Lavoisier said, his voice shaking, "we have to bolt the frame directly to your clavicle. And the hip supports... they drill into the iliac crest."
He looked at me with pity.
"We don't have anesthesia strong enough for bone drilling, Alex. The laudanum won't touch it."
"I know," I said.
I looked at the ceiling. I focused on a water stain.
"Strap me down," I ordered. "And put a leather belt in my mouth."
Fouché tightened the leather straps across my chest, my legs, my forehead. He shoved a thick strip of leather between my teeth.
"Proceed," I grunted.
Lavoisier positioned the drill over my collarbone.
He started to crank.
Whirrrrr.
The bit bit into the skin. Then the muscle.
Then it hit the bone.
CRUNCH.
Pain.
It wasn't a sensation. It was a universe. It was white, blinding, absolute. It shattered my thought process. It erased my identity.
I bit down on the leather. I screamed, but the sound was choked.
My body thrashed against the straps. The table shook.
Whirrrrr. CRUNCH.
Another hole.
I tried to dissociate. I tried to count.
One. Two. Three. Five. Seven. Eleven.
Prime numbers. The building blocks of math. Logic. Order.
Thirteen. Seventeen.
The smell of burning bone filled the air.
"Upper frame secured," Lavoisier announced. His voice sounded miles away.
"Connect the hydraulics," I thought. "Just finish it."
They lowered the brass chest plate onto me. Heavy. Suffocating.
They tightened the bolts. I felt the screws bite into the new sockets in my bones. I was becoming part of the machine.
"Legs," Lavoisier said.
Drill. Bone. Scream. Darkness.
I passed out. I woke up. I passed out again.
It felt like hours. It might have been days.
Finally, the pain receded to a dull, throbbing roar.
"Helmet," Lavoisier said.
They lifted my head. They slid the heavy brass helmet over me.
It smelled of new rubber and oil.
Click.
It locked into the neck ring. The airtight seal engaged.
The world went muffled. The sounds of the workshop—the clanking tools, Fouché's nervous pacing—were cut off.
I was alone in the dark.
"Oxygen," I mumbled against the rubber mouthpiece.
Lavoisier turned a valve on my chest.
HISSSSSS.
The sound was deafening inside the helmet.
Cold, pure oxygen blasted into my mouth. It filled my rotting lungs. It forced them to expand.
The fog in my brain cleared instantly.
"System check," I thought.
I tried to move my arm.
I didn't use my muscles. I triggered the sensors in the suit.
Whine.
The hydraulic piston on my arm fired. My arm shot up. Fast. Too fast.
My metal fist punched the air with enough force to crack a skull.
"Calibration required," I thought. "Gently."
I sat up.
The servos whined in protest, lifting the three hundred pounds of brass and steel. I felt weightless. The suit carried the load.
I swung my legs off the table. My boots hit the floor. CLANG.
I stood.
I was six inches taller. The boot lifts and the helmet added height. I towered over Lavoisier.
I looked at my hands. Brass gauntlets. Articulated fingers.
I reached out. I picked up a metal cup from the workbench.
I tried to hold it gently.
CRUNCH.
The cup flattened instantly.
I stared at the crushed metal. I hadn't felt a thing. No resistance. No tactile feedback.
I was numb.
"Administrator?" Fouché whispered. He looked terrified. He was looking at a monster.
I turned my head. The servo whirred.
"I am functional," I said.
My voice boomed from the external speaker on the chest plate. It was deep, metallic, stripped of all humanity. It sounded like a god speaking from a burning bush.
The workshop door opened.
Charles walked in.
He stopped.
He looked at the machine standing in the center of the room. The brass plates gleaming under the gaslight. The thick black hoses. The glass eye-slits glowing with the reflection of the fire.
Fouché stepped back, waiting for the boy to scream.
Charles didn't scream.
He walked forward.
He stopped in front of me. He barely reached my chest plate.
He reached out a hand. He touched the cold brass.
He traced the rivets. He looked at the hydraulic pistons on my arms.
He looked up at the glass eyes. He couldn't see my face. He could only see the machine.
"You look efficient, Father," Charles said.
His voice was calm. Approving.
I looked down at him.
I wanted to touch his hair. I wanted to reassure him.
But if I touched him with these hands, I might crush his skull.
I realized then what I had done.
I had saved my life. But I had lost the ability to be a father. I couldn't hug him. I couldn't hold him.
I was a tank. A weapon.
"Efficiency is required," my speaker boomed.
Charles smiled. It was a cold, sharp smile.
"Good," Charles said. "Because the banks are failing. And we need a heavy hand."
I nodded. The helmet dipped mechanically.
"Let's go to the bank," I said.
I turned and walked toward the door.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
My footsteps shook the floor.
I was the Administrator. And the audit was just beginning.