The darkness of the vault didn't hide the monsters; it only made their internal furnaces burn brighter.
Alex hit the solid stone floor of the subterranean vault with a bone-jarring thud. He rolled instantly, the heavy grey wool of his coat shedding a thick layer of pulverized white marble and chemical frost.
Above him, the jagged hole in the ceiling was a distant, glowing square of freezing mist.
He didn't check for broken bones. He didn't gasp for air.
Alex stood up slowly. His golden eyes spun into an immediate, hyper-accelerated rotation. Click. Whirr.
The absolute pitch black of the cavernous vault vanished. The room flooded with thermal data.
It was a massive subterranean chamber. The walls were lined with thousands of rusted iron safe-deposit boxes, stretching deep into the gloom. The air smelled of damp earth and oxidized metal.
But Alex wasn't looking at the walls.
He was looking at the twelve massive, glowing silhouettes forming a tight half-circle around where they had fallen.
They were cruder, mass-produced versions of Major Thomas. Men surgically grafted with heavy brass and iron.
Thick blue veins pulsed across their scarred chests, illuminating the darkness with a toxic, chemical light. Their massive steam boilers hissed rhythmically, strapped to their backs with heavy leather belts. Chug-chug-chug.
But they didn't have pneumatic hammers bolted to their arms.
Alex zoomed in on their right forearms.
Instead of hands, they had long, heavy pneumatic drivers bolted directly to their shattered bone structure. Protruding from the brass cylinders were thick, jagged spikes.
The spikes didn't glow with heat. They didn't reflect the blue light of the Drop.
They were dull, heavy, and perfectly spherical at the base. Pure, highly conductive silver.
Rothschild hadn't sent brawlers. He had sent walking heat sinks.
"Sire," Napoleon rasped, scrambling to his knees in the dust.
The General's uniform was torn. He found his heavy flintlock pistol in the dark and cocked the hammer. His hands shook violently.
"Form a perimeter," Alex ordered, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that shook the dust from the ceiling. "Do not let them close the distance."
Before Napoleon could stand, the machine in the center of the half-circle charged.
It didn't roar a battle cry. It just moved. A massive, lumbering wall of iron and flesh hurtling through the dark, driven by chemical rage and steam pressure.
The cyborg raised its right arm. The pneumatic cylinder hissed violently.
Alex stepped forward to intercept the charge.
He planted his heavy boots on the stone floor. He raised his bare hands, preparing to catch the silver spike and melt the brass cylinder behind it.
He visualized the furnace doors in his chest opening wide. He demanded a massive surge of thermal energy from his biology.
Nothing happened.
The furnace was empty.
Alex's core temperature was dropping dangerously fast. The agonizing, suicidal effort of holding back the freezing chemical gas in the lobby above had completely drained his caloric reserves. He had no fuel left to burn.
His core plunged to a fragile 100 degrees.
The cyborg swung its heavy arm.
The silver spike shot forward with the speed of a cannonball.
Alex didn't have the heat to melt it, and he didn't have the kinetic strength to stop it cold. He twisted his torso at the last possible millisecond.
The heavy silver spike grazed the thick wool of his coat, tearing a ragged hole across his ribs.
The physical impact was devastating.
Alex was thrown backward. His heavy boots skidded violently across the rough stone floor, sparking against the granite. He hit a row of iron safe-deposit boxes hard enough to dent the metal doors inward.
The math was brutal. Without calories, he was losing ground.
Napoleon fired his pistol.
The deafening crack echoed through the cavernous vault. A bright flash of muzzle fire illuminated the horrifying faces of the cyborgs for a split second.
The heavy lead ball hit the lead cyborg dead in the center of its chest.
CLANG.
The lead ball flattened uselessly against a thick, riveted brass chest plate hidden beneath the man's torn shirt. The machine didn't even flinch. It turned its glowing blue eyes toward Napoleon.
The machine raised its silver spike to impale the General.
Alex pushed off the dented iron boxes. He lunged across the dark space, grabbing the cyborg's thick brass wrist with both bare hands just as the pneumatic cylinder fired.
He couldn't stop the kinetic force, but he managed to wrench the arm upward.
The silver spike punched through the ceiling above Napoleon's head, showering the General in stone chips.
The silver spike scraped against the inside of Alex's forearm.
Alex gasped.
The absolute cold of the highly conductive metal instantly drained the localized heat from his skin. A sharp, agonizing line of white frost crystallized across his wrist. His muscles locked up, paralyzed by the sudden thermodynamic shock.
He couldn't brute-force twelve machines in his starved state. He needed fuel. Now.
Alex kicked the cyborg in its brass-plated chest, using all his remaining kinetic strength to shove the massive machine backward.
He spun around, his golden eyes frantically scanning the darkness.
There were no rations down here. There were no wooden chairs to splinter.
But there were boxes.
Alex dropped to one knee next to a crushed wooden shipping crate that had fallen from a higher shelf during the ceiling collapse.
It wasn't filled with gold bullion. It wasn't filled with silver coins.
It was packed tight with thousands of crisp, white paper notes.
The "Y" notes. The counterfeit Bank of England currency Rothschild had been hoarding.
Paper is fuel. Cellulose is highly combustible.
Alex didn't hesitate.
He ripped the crushed wooden lid off the crate with his bare, frostbitten hands. He grabbed two massive handfuls of the dry paper currency.
He unhinged his jaw slightly. He shoved the wadded paper notes directly into his mouth.
He didn't chew. He swallowed the dry paper in massive, agonizing gulps.
His stomach churned violently. The sound was a deep, wet rumbling that echoed over the hissing steam boilers. His hyper-accelerated metabolism seized the dry cellulose, instantly incinerating it for raw calories.
He grabbed another massive handful of paper money. Thousands of pounds sterling vanished down his throat.
Within seconds, steam began to rise from his damp collar again. The agonizing frostbite on his forearm melted into blistering red burns. His core temperature stabilized at 102 degrees and began climbing.
But he was distracted.
While Alex fueled his biological furnace, three cyborgs broke from the half-circle.
They flanked their position, moving with terrifying, silent speed.
Napoleon was cornered against a row of heavy iron safe-deposit boxes. His pistol was empty. He drew his cavalry saber. The curved steel blade scraped against the stone floor.
The three massive machines closed in on the General, their silver spikes raised high.
Napoleon didn't beg. He didn't run. He gripped his saber with both hands, preparing to die on his feet.
Then, a small shadow moved in the dark.
Charles stepped forward.
The boy didn't run. He walked calmly. His oversized grey coat dragged heavily on the dusty stone floor.
He looked incredibly small against the towering, steaming machines. A twelve-year-old child walking toward three monsters in the pitch black.
Alex looked up from the crate of paper money. His jaw was still full of half-burned currency.
"Charles, hold your position," Alex commanded. His voice was muffled by the paper, but the order was absolute.
Charles didn't stop.
The boy disobeyed a direct order.
Charles stepped directly in front of Napoleon.
The lead cyborg swung its pneumatic arm downward, aiming the heavy silver spike directly at Charles's small skull.
Charles didn't dodge. He simply reached out with his pale left hand.
He placed his small palm flat against the thick iron piston driving the cyborg's arm.
CONTACT.
Charles didn't just freeze the ambient moisture in the air. He didn't just freeze the pressurized water in the boiler strapped to the machine's back.
He went deeper.
Charles activated his thermodynamic void and targeted the biological heat of the machine. The heavy, 98-degree Blue Drop-infused blood pumping through the man's human veins.
The heat drain was instantaneous and catastrophic.
The cyborg didn't scream. It didn't have time.
A thick, solid sheet of white frost instantly exploded outward from Charles's small hand, covering the machine's entire body in a fraction of a second. The brass chest plate cracked loudly. The heavy iron gears snapped under the extreme, sudden cold.
The man's blood flash-froze in his veins. His glowing blue eyes shattered like glass marbles.
The massive cyborg froze solid mid-swing.
It stood there for exactly one second, a terrifying statue of frost and iron.
Then, the sudden expansion of the frozen blood and water inside the sealed brass components reached a critical mass.
CRUNCH.
The cyborg violently shattered.
Chunks of frozen meat, jagged brass shrapnel, and solid ice exploded outward, raining down on the stone floor.
Charles stood amidst the falling debris.
The boy wasn't shivering anymore.
He slowly turned his head. His golden eyes were no longer just a cold, analytical yellow. They were swirling with a manic, toxic neon blue glow. The sheer, overwhelming rush of the Blue Drop-tainted thermal energy had hit his brain like a sledgehammer.
Charles licked his pale lips. He let out a hollow, echoing laugh that chilled the air far worse than his physical touch.
He turned his terrifying, glowing gaze toward the remaining eleven machines.
Alex stood up slowly, swallowing the last mouthful of burning paper. Steam billowed from his coat in a thick white cloud.
He looked at his son standing over the shattered corpse.
Alex realized, with cold, mathematical horror, that he hadn't brought a child to a fight.
He had brought an apex predator. And the leash had just snapped.