The slums of Bakasa's Main Gate Sector were a festering wound on the city's anatomy. Usually, the air here was a stagnant soup of poverty, the metallic tang of stale machine oil, and the smell of unwashed bodies. But tonight, the atmosphere had undergone a violent chemical shift.
The air felt heavy, charged with a static electricity that made the fine hairs on Dayat's arms stand at attention. A pungent, eye-stinging aroma of burnt ozone dominated the senses, bleeding out from the Railgun MK-I slung over Dayat's right shoulder. The weapon was no longer a silent hunk of metal; it was alive, emitting a low-frequency thrum—humm-vrrr-humm—that vibrated through Dayat's bones.
Dayat felt the weight of the cannon like a cross. His bandaged hand gripped the forward handle with such intensity that his knuckles had turned a ghostly white, the blood flow restricted by his own iron resolve.
"Power charge: 72%," Dola whispered.
