Chương 108: KKF Phantom

Meno kept rubbing his right thigh where they had made him inject himself. His head buzzed, and the nutrient paste sat in his stomach like a brick, combining into the sensation of six energy drinks without the helpful warning sign where his heart tried to detonate. His pulse stayed steady, but his body did not. The van stopped in an empty underground parking lot somewhere in Vernova. Meno had no idea where. The driver opened the side door and pointed toward an elevator at the far wall.

"We can't follow past there."

"Great," Meno said.

"Secret elevators. Always a good sign." He stepped out and almost jogged before he meant to. His body wanted movement. Fast movement. Any movement. The injected thing had turned stillness into boredom and he found himself sprinting toward the elevator before his brain approved the route.

"Don't do that," one guard shouted after him.

"Calm down." Meno raised one finger without looking back. There were no buttons inside the elevator. Meno stepped in, waited half a second, and the doors closed on their own. The ride lasted maybe two seconds before the doors opened onto a large lab floor with no windows. Only two people waited there: an old man and an old woman, both in lab coats. Grandpa and Teacher. They stood beside a Soma-XUltra capsule, working through AR controls in the air.

Cables ran across the floor, and open cases near the capsule held sealed tubes and medical packs. Teacher looked up first.

"Finally. Come. The more time you waste, the less time you have to practice." Meno jogged toward them, still too energized to walk normally.

"What is the rush? It's just a simulation, right? Because everything about this seems very off, and I did not sign up to be dragged out of bed like a hostage." Grandpa snorted.

"Stop crying. You are getting paid one million today whether you succeed or not. That is more than we make combined per month."

"At what cost?"

"If we had someone more reliable who knew how to feed himself without supervision, we would not bother with you." Teacher checked a monitor.

"Exactly. Sort your lifestyle immediately. Your body has to withstand the stress. If we have to fix you every time, it will cause permanent damage." Meno stopped.

"Damage? Just what did you have me inject?" Grandpa gave Teacher an ugly look, but she held it without blinking.

"Don't start freaking out," Grandpa said.

"A few times is fine. It helps your body process calories faster so you come out of the capsule in one piece."

"A few times is fine is something people say right before the side effect list doesn't even fit on the screen." Meno looked into the Soma-XUltra. The gray goo was gone, replaced by red liquid that looked darker and thicker than cooling fluid, with small ripples moving through it as the system circulated. It looked less like something meant to protect a body and more like something waiting for one to bleed into it.

"You still didn't answer my question," Meno said.

"Why is this time sensitive? I am not buying the usual test excuse. And why is the capsule juice red?" Grandpa opened his mouth, caught Teacher's look, and closed it again. Teacher spoke instead.

"We have a showcase this afternoon, and we are not ready with the AI. We need a specific proof of concept to demonstrate progress for increased funding." Meno stared at her.

"For that, we need fresh data," she continued.

"The tactical subroutine is stuck in the same loop and is not producing the behavior we want." Grandpa looked from Teacher to Meno.

"Yes. That is it. The conductive fluid is red because we are not using time compression. You will operate in real time, and red is for elevated performance over protection." Meno bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, unable to stand still.

"You think I am buying all this?"

"I don't care," Grandpa said.

"You are wasting precious minutes."

"Of course you don't. I am the one who has to climb into that thing."

"Then get in the VR jumpsuit or leave. We cannot force you to do this, and frankly, I am not interested in babysitting you." Meno looked toward the elevator.

"And how would Morlando feel about me leaving?" Teacher answered before Grandpa could.

"That is not our business. We are here to do our job, not manage you." Technically, he could leave, which made the whole thing nastier. They were pretending to hand him a choice after stacking the table with a million credits, a mystery injection, military grade security, Oxy scared in his bed, and whatever threat Morlando still held over him. Maybe he could turn down the money, but curiosity was chewing through him too hard. What test was so time sensitive? Meno knew this was greed. He knew this was stupid.

He also knew he had never been famous for picking the sane, boring option when the bad one had a reward chest behind it.

"Fine," he said.

"Tell me what I am dealing with."

"Good," Grandpa said.

"Get in first. You have twenty-seven minutes to get up to speed in a sandbox, then we switch to the main simulation."

"The more you talk, the less sense this makes."

"That problem is mutual." Meno changed quickly into one of the VR suits hanging near the capsule, all cables along the spine, thighs, ribs, wrists, and neck. Teacher fitted a breather mask over his face and guided him down into the red liquid, which stung everywhere the moment it touched his skin. Meno jerked.

"This is nasty."

"You will get used to it," Grandpa said. They plugged the suit into the capsule and closed the lid. The red sting remained for a few seconds, like being sealed inside spicy soup and slowly boiled. Then the sensation faded as darkness gave way to snow. Cold air snapped across his face, and the world loaded around him in an endless white plain. Meno shifted and looked down, expecting a fighter drone jet. Instead, he had arms and legs. Huge ones.

His hands were black metal with segmented fingers, and his long, jointed legs carried weight badly, each adjustment arriving a fraction later than he wanted. The body was bipedal, armored, and far taller than a person, giving him the distinct feeling that someone had uploaded him into a robot and then convinced the robot to resist user input.

"This thing is not flying?" Meno asked.

"I am getting more confused by the second. Start making sense, please." Grandpa's voice came through internal comms.

"That is a Hyperion KKF-Phantom. This is only a preview. Move around and get a feel for it. Once the main simulation begins, you will be dropped from the sky onto the target."

"That sounds like a mythic item. What is KKF? Never heard of Hyperion either."

"It would be strange if you had. It is classified." Meno tried moving, then jumping, and immediately disliked how much the body argued back. The machine responded to intention, but drag and correction sat under every motion, smoothing him when he wanted snap and adding weight when he wanted speed. Compared to Swing Master Infernal with doubled Action Speed, the Phantom felt clunky, constrained, and far too proud of being heavy. It was still much faster than his real body, just not clean.

"KKF stands for Kinetic Kill Frame," Grandpa said.

"Phantom is stripped down for speed. Weapon systems removed to reduce weight. It can punch, block most passive detection, and use rocket boosters in the feet, hands, and back."

"So a naked mount with fists."

"I refuse to translate that," Grandpa said.

"The Phantom is designed for rapid insertion and extraction, with AI assistance similar to the drone jet. Focus on what you want it to do and work with the AI instead of fighting it." Meno took three running steps and felt the AI try to smooth the stride beneath him. His Veyrath-trained instincts wanted kicks, bursts, False Wings, and Splitwing corrections, but the machine did not understand that language yet. It resisted, adjusted, then resisted again the moment he tried something it considered non-standard.

"This is fishy," Meno said.

"You are having me test a remote-controlled military robot. Don't you have more qualified people?"

"No."

"That was too quick."

"Move." Meno pictured False Wings and pushed the idea into the foot boosters. One leg answered first, then both, and the Phantom launched forward too hard, hit the snow badly, and nearly rolled before he caught himself on one hand with heat blasting from the palm.

"Will I have to punch things?" Meno asked.

"I mostly fight with a weapon. Can't you put a sword on this tin can?"

"No."

"And why is it so choppy? Is it the robot or your AI holding me back?" Teacher's voice joined the comm.

"We are sorry you are disappointed by a prototype that took ten years of research and development and one hundred billion credits."

"Apology accepted." Grandpa cut in.

"Probably both. The AI is still getting used to your deranged brain framing every function in non-standard operational terms. Also, the unit is fifteen feet tall. It cannot magically glide. Physics is still a thing." Meno stumbled through another boosted step.

"Stop disappointing me with your ignorance," Grandpa added.

"It is insulting enough that we have to work with someone so clueless." Meno stopped moving.

"I can exit if this is so demeaning," Meno said.

"How am I supposed to know anything about your secret projects that are definitely not legal? Maybe get a real pilot. You can't? Then shut up and answer my questions." Grandpa's breath crackled over comms.

"You—""Everyone calm down," Teacher said.

"We do not have time for this. Test the back thrusters next. Dash and burst. Airborne or on the ground, both work." Meno sprinted through the snow. The long strides punished every small mistake. He took one bad step, the Phantom's knee locked awkwardly, and the entire frame fell and rolled across the ground. Meno got up, angry at the machine, angry at the AI, angry at the fact that Grandpa was probably making a face somewhere. Stupid tin can. After ten sprint attempts, Meno finally stopped falling.

Then he tried the back thrusters, which rocketed him forward, ruined his balance, and sent the Phantom sliding through the snow on its stomach. Grandpa sighed.

"We are doomed." Meno slammed both hands into the ground and pushed himself up.

"Sorry I wasn't born with the instruction manual in my head and need more than ten minutes to learn your clunky trash can." He steadied the Phantom.

"Also, tone down the AI resistance. I do not need it screaming feedback in my head after every movement constraint. I need to feel the step, not get a lecture after it is already wrong. It is useless and annoying." Teacher answered first.

"We will take AI guidance from six to three. Lower risks structural damage if you force movements the frame cannot perform." The resistance lessened immediately. The Phantom still had mass and delay, but the constant pushback faded enough for Meno to shape the next step himself. Smaller corrections became possible, and bad ideas still had weight, but the AI stopped slapping his hand every half second.

"Better," Meno said.

"Take it to the minimum possible if you want me to actually pilot this thing. I do not need the safety filter. I need precision." Grandpa sounded personally attacked.

"Do not explain why it is a bad idea," Meno said.

"Just do what I say if you want this to work."

"You are impossible," Grandpa said.

"Fine. Set to one. Lower, and you break it after two steps. This is a simulation, but the data is useless if the real frame tears itself apart." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. The resistance dropped again, and Meno almost fell because the machine suddenly trusted him more than he deserved. He started slow, building the pattern one piece at a time: step, bend, palm thrust, foot burst.

Then he pushed faster, letting the Phantom fall forward and catching it with a small hand-thruster pulse that melted snow under his palm. Safety six had felt like moving inside a swamp. Safety one finally felt close to usable and demanded vicious focus to keep it that way.

"Okay," Meno said after a few minutes.

"Much better. Extremely draining, though. I can maybe do a few hours like this, and only because I practiced prolonged focus recently." He stood upright.

"Now tell me what I am doing. You said the main simulation starts any second. Explain properly." An image flashed in Meno's vision, showing a ginger woman in her twenties with shoulder-length hair and glasses. The overlay labeled her as Katlyn Zent.

"Extraction mission," Grandpa said.

"You will be dropped onto Antarctica from a drone jet at Mach three, and the one-time impact shield will overload to keep you safe on landing. The research facility is under the surface." Meno did not like any part of it. Everything was getting more sketchy by the second.

"Your task is to get the woman in the image out alive and deliver her to the extraction point marked on your map. Keep combat engagement minimal. The KKF-Phantom was not designed for it."

"What?" Meno said.

"Start making sense for one second." No one did.

"Everyone knows Antarctica is where world government does scary stuff," Meno said.

"Is this really a simulation, or are you simulating a raid on a government facility? Because that is not regular go-to-jail trouble. That is the kind of trouble where jail is just the tutorial zone." Grandpa made an annoyed sound.

"Is this where you pretend to know politics? Do not worry about the details. The target is not related to the government. It is Senfestra." Meno froze for half a beat.

"Wait. Senfestra?" Meno asked.

"The mega-corporation that makes basically everything?"

"Close enough," Grandpa said.

"They do not make everything, despite your impressive commitment to imprecision."

"How does that improve the situation? Why are you simulating a raid on one of their secret bases?"

"That is not something you need to know," Teacher said.

"Just great." Meno looked down at the Phantom's chest.

"How am I supposed to get this woman out with a robot?" Meno asked.

"She will have no protection. Does this thing have a passenger compartment?"

"Yes," Grandpa said.

"A small cargo hold. She will fit inside, but you must be careful with speed. Push the maneuvers too hard, and she will not handle it well." Meno laughed, thin and a little crazed.

"How the hell am I supposed to know the limit? We should practice this piece by piece. I have zero clue what counts as too fast."

"There is no time," Grandpa said.

"You have one shot. If you fail, you fail, but we must do this now."

"And why is that?" No one answered and Meno's thoughts raced. This was insane. Was Feltforge trying to kidnap someone? Senfestra was larger than Feltforge, maybe larger than most countries, and if they needed Meno to fine-tune AI so it could copy him after the fact, he would still be implicated through the data. One million credits suddenly felt too small for this much heat. Before he could speak again, Teacher cut in.

"We are out of time. Starting in five seconds."

"Hold on for one damn moment."

"Can't," Grandpa said.

"Prepare yourself." The training snow faded, replacing the sandbox with a drone jet screaming through thin air at Mach three. Meno was strapped to its underside in the folded Phantom, Antarctica spread below him in white ridges and blue shadows, and only then did he realize no one had explained the landing procedure.

"I don't like this." Launch clamps held the Phantom tight while impact shield indicators glowed around his vision. He had no steering, no practice, and no answer.

"Idiots," Meno snapped.

"How do I land this thing?"

"The AI will handle it," Grandpa said.

"That has never been comforting." The jet reached the continent's edge without slowing. Then it ejected him. The Phantom fired toward the ground like an overheated rocket, fast enough to turn his stomach even though it was nothing like the Mach nine insanity from the fighter simulation. He would rather have been flying around, because at least that had been fun. This felt like an escort quest, and every serious player hated escort quests for good reasons.

An overlay map opened on the right side of his vision, marking the extraction point with a black X and the target with a red one. The two markers were probably a hundred miles apart.

"Why the hell is it so far? Whoever designed this is an asshole." As he neared the red X, four small spheres ejected from the Phantom and shot ahead of him. They exploded into blue waves that joined into a temporary net beneath his fall. The Phantom hit the net, slowed violently, and created a fiery burst higher in the sky behind him. If anyone nearby had missed his arrival, the landing fireworks had fixed that problem. The feedback through the frame felt like landing in a pool filled with feathers and needles.

Meno hit the snow on both feet. Grandpa spoke at once.

"Stop sightseeing. Your presence is known. Go."

"You don't say?" A low building stood in the distance, half-buried in snow, with one large steel door and nothing else visible. Underground facility. Obvious dungeon entrance. Terrible level design.

"What is the point of a Phantom if you announce my arrival with fireworks?" Meno said, already sprinting.

"The dumb things keep stacking. Do you know what you are doing?" Teacher answered, "Focus. Keep chatter minimal. You only have one shot."

"But why?" No response. Meno would have complained more, but safety level one required all his focus. Each stride wanted to become a fall. Each correction had to land before the Phantom's size turned it into a fifteen-foot mistake. Four silos opened around the door as Meno neared it, releasing black drones that rose vertically in formation and tilted toward him.

"Great. Even trash mobs." Meno kept half his attention on movement and the rest on the drones. They were too small for missiles, unless Senfestra hated subtlety more than Grandpa. More likely coordinated ranged attacks. Archers, not fire mages. He preadjusted before they fired, cutting right parallel to the door and throwing both hands forward. The hand thrusters shoved him backward. Four laser beams struck the ground where he would have been, carving glassy channels through snow and ice.

"Easy bait." He snapped the Phantom into a horizontal line and engaged the foot thrusters. The drones fired again. The beams melted snow behind him as he rocketed head-first toward the steel door. Running was pointless when he could become a very expensive javelin, and he had no desire to hold a prolonged dodge pattern against four flying enemies before even entering the base. The door filled his vision. Meno cut the foot thrusters, punched both hands down for a hard corrective blast, and swung his legs forward.

A heartbeat before impact, he kicked the foot rockets to maximum. The Phantom crashed feet-first into the door, melting steel and buckling it inward before Meno rocketed through the opening. His front thrusters fired late, slowing him just enough to land on his back and skid into the facility like an uninvited guest with a billion-credit repair bill. He came to rest inside a hangar-like chamber with a circular hole in the middle. Two robots stood on either side, large weapons already aimed at him.

Meno rolled before they fired. Laser fire lit the ground where his frame had been.

"Elite guards." He kept rolling until he hit the wall, then used the hand thrusters to shove himself into a crouch. He could not skip this pack. Leaving them alive would complicate the retreat. Meno dashed along the wall to bait fire, but the two robots stayed planted and tracked him with their rifles, calm as turret mobs. He hated static ranged enemies. They punished sloppy approach paths and made players pretend patience was strategy. So he removed patience. The nearest robot fired.

Meno drove forward on his back thrusters letting himself fall, shoved off the ground with one hand to correct his angle, and kicked the foot thrusters on. The beam passed beneath his torso, missing cleanly, and then Meno crashed shoulder-first into the first robot. The AI screamed warnings into his head.

"Shut up or I will uninstall you." Teacher shouted, "Careful!"

"Silence!" The damaged robot came apart around his shoulder, and Meno let the impact spin him left instead of fighting it. He threw his right hand sideways and fired a short corrective blast, flattening the spin into a back-first skid. The second robot fired, but the beam cut through empty air above him while Meno slid directly beneath its legs. He grabbed both ankles, tucked his knees toward his chest like a bad core exercise, and kicked upward as his foot thrusters fired.

The Phantom's metal feet took the robot's head off. The guard collapsed behind him, and Meno rolled with the motion, came up at the edge of the circular hole, and jumped down before the AI could complain again. Green neon strips lined the shaft. They probably used it to move up and down with some flying platform, but Meno dropped past level after level, scanning through glass-paneled walls where people in white lab coats ran in all directions. Actual humans.

A bit much for a simulation, and enough to make his stomach tighten.

"Simulation, eh? Where is the target?" Teacher answered, "We do not know."

"Of course you don't." The bottom rushed up. Meno fired his foot thrusters to slow down and hit the floor hard enough to shake the chamber. The shaft opened into a huge assembly hall filled with half-built robots, engineers in AR glasses, and smaller machines moving around bigger frames. Everyone noticed him at once. The place erupted. People ran for side doors in every direction, more frightened than trained, while Meno scanned fast.

The doors were human-sized and useless for the Phantom, but a reinforced glass wall overlooked the hall from the far end with several suited individuals behind it. Beside them stood Katlyn Zent. Ginger hair, glasses, sleek tablet in hand. Meno found the boss room.

"Can this trash can project sound?"

"Yes," Grandpa said.

"Focus on sound projection." Meno ran to the reinforced glass, jumped, and smashed through it with one fist. The panel cracked, folded, and burst inward. He grabbed the ledge, hauled part of the Phantom through, and lifted one hand open toward the suited people backing away from him. They looked scared enough to count as crowd control.

"Do not move," Meno projected.

"Katlyn Zent, come." Katlyn looked at him, and relief crossed her face in a way that made no sense.

"They chipped me," she shouted.

"If I leave, they will overload the implant." Meno's thoughts hit a wall. He switched to internal comm.

"Grandpa? What am I supposed to do with this? She can't leave the boss room."

"It is fine," Grandpa said.

"Tell her to get inside and strap in. We will override it remotely."

"You could have mentioned the hostage mechanic."

"Move." Meno projected his voice again.

"It's fine. Come." He held the Phantom's hand flat. Katlyn looked terrified, but she crawled onto the palm with grim determination. Meno released the ledge and dropped back to the assembly floor. Katlyn screamed through the landing, and Meno opened the small passenger compartment in its chest.

"Inside." She crawled inside, and the compartment sealed shut. Meno was aware that he could no longer move however he wanted. The facility had been overwhelmed by the speed of the entrance, but that advantage would vanish when he emerged. They had likely avoided heavy weapons underground to protect their own base. Outside, they would have fewer reasons to be polite. With the passenger warning hovering in the corner of his vision, Meno smoothed every motion as much as he could and dashed back to the shaft.

He jumped, engaged the foot thrusters, and flew upward through the green-lit shaft. The top hangar was still clear, so he ran for the melted hole in the door and climbed out into the snow. Then Meno saw the sky. Ten VTOL aircraft hovered over the facility, dropping robots larger than his Phantom one after another, each carrying a ridiculous gun. The four smaller drones zipped down to meet them and snapped into back ports on the larger frames.

"That is not good." He could not dash straight for extraction. Ten laser rifles would snipe him, and he could not dodge that many beams while protecting Katlyn. No cover stood in the snow except the entrance building behind him. He needed to reduce the firing lanes before running. Grandpa shouted, "What are you doing? Extract!"

"Shut it. Let me focus." Meno charged the closest twenty-foot robot. The strategy that formed in his head was simple and dumb, which gave it a fighting chance. If the laser weapons had splash damage, Katlyn might get fried. If he ran in a straight line, she definitely would. So he body-blocked with the enemy. The nearest robot raised its gun, and the other nine began aiming with it. Meno jumped, caught the closest rifle, and shoved it aside while putting the larger robot between himself and the rest.

The surrounding units hesitated, then shifted to reposition instead of firing through their own machine. Good. They were bulkier and slower. His Phantom was built for speed. Meno yanked the gun arm down, planted one foot against the larger robot's hip, and punched into its torso. The impact shook his whole frame, and his fist tore into the casing again while AI warnings screamed in layers. The enemy began falling apart around the damage.

Meno dragged the half-broken frame sideways into the next robot, using it like a shield, then drove another punch into that one's torso. His right hand malfunctioned, warning lights flooding the arm. Katlyn's passenger status flickered yellow.

"Yeah, I know," Meno muttered.

"This sucks for everyone." He ripped the arm free. Two down. The third closest robot had learned enough to back away, so Meno dropped the dead frame and launched after it. He did not chase beside it. He cut directly in front, blasting forward at full speed to make himself the cleanest target on the ice. The other robots took the bait. Laser fire converged on him. Meno killed his forward thrust at the last second, fired one hand sideways, and slipped out of the line.

The beams punched past him and hit the retreating robot instead, cutting bright through its shoulder and sending it staggering. Meno took the opening. He burst to the fourth robot, grabbed its rifle, and forced the barrel away. This time, he did not punch the torso. He hit the weapon hand without thrusters, just hard enough to break the mechanism, then ducked when the robot reached for him. His hand clamped around one leg. A full sideways blast from his left palm tore it free.

Meno skidded across the ice holding the severed leg. Four down if the friendly-fire one counted, which was close enough. Now he had a weapon. Running would have been smarter, but Meno swung the leg once and decided smarter could wait. He launched upward as laser fire crossed his last position, raised his legs behind him, and blasted toward the next robot. A sideways hand-thruster burst adjusted the angle, and the severed leg came around like a sword. It hit the robot's head hard enough to scatter it in pieces.

Five down. Meno punched his free hand downward, lifted himself over another beam, and rocketed low toward the sixth. The broken robot leg smashed into its weapon hand and disabled the gun, but the improvised weapon snapped in half. That was enough. Meno twisted the Phantom, landed on his back, rolled backward, and started running. Five destroyed. One disarmed. Four functional. Doable. Maybe.

He skipped left, right, right, left, left with thruster-enhanced strides, trying to scramble targeting patterns while moving toward the black X. The lasers chased his path, but when the shots kept missing, two robots dropped their heavy weapons and launched into the air after him. The remaining two kept trying to snipe. They also released the attached drones. They were fast. Meno engaged the back thruster at full blast for one attempt at pure speed, but the straight rush felt wrong immediately. Too predictable.

Too easy to aim at. He adjusted into something closer to his own movement, jumping forward with both hands pointed at the ground. The hand thrusters fired downward to keep him afloat, and then he cracked the foot thrusters to maximum. The Phantom skimmed above the frozen ground at brutal speed. The chase consumed everything. The extraction point was far, and he could not fly straight without getting cut down by the drones. Left, right, dip, rise, hand burst to the side, foot burn, hand correction.

The motion reminded him of the frog pattern from the Chain of the First Dream, quick shifts like dagger stabs before each reset. The tin can made it ten times harder than Veyrath, mostly because the stupid onboard AI cared more about keeping the KKF-Phantom functional than letting Meno do anything useful. Meno finally saw the extraction vehicle. A larger drone jet waited on the ice, this one with an actual passenger cabin. Bad. The small drones could blow it apart before he got Katlyn inside.

Whoever designed this mission had ignored basic things like enemy line of sight, passenger transfer time, and the fact that escort quests were made by people who hated joy. Meno cut the foot burn and punched both hands downward, blasting himself away from the ground. The added space gave him room to flip onto his back mid-flight and fire the back thrusters at full force. The Phantom shot upward, crashing into a drone that had not expected the vertical change.

On impact, Meno killed the back thrusters and let the hit spin him through the air. Then he kicked the foot thrusters to maximum, turning the motion into something like a double False Wings burst, and rocketed into a second drone with his fist already swinging. His right arm came apart with the drone, leaving Meno with one arm and no time to care. A laser snapped toward him. Meno pulled the Phantom upright first, making the frame narrow, then fired the back thrusters at full blast.

He shot upward and forward, not away from the attack but through its edge, turning the dodge into a rush toward the third drone. The beam scraped his right leg, flooding his mind with warnings for one disorienting second. Meno gritted his teeth, cursed the stupid AI distraction, and forced the Phantom to keep moving. Meno caught the drone with his remaining left hand and carried his full momentum into one of the larger flying robots that had caught up.

The drone smashed into the bigger machine, and both of them started to fall. Meno kicked off its large dropping frame, twisted in midair, and blasted toward the last drone with a foot burn. He caught it with his left hand. The drone fought to fly away, dragging against his grip while both of them fell. Meno cushioned the landing with foot thrusters, hit the ice in a hard skid, and spun with the impact before hurling the drone into the remaining large robot.

It slammed into the robot's chest and knocked it backward, still functional but off-balance. Grandpa screamed something into his ears, but the words dissolved under the AI warnings. Meno ignored all of it and aimed for the extraction vehicle. One final burst. The Phantom slammed down on its back beside the drone jet, almost fully nonfunctional. Meno opened the passenger compartment and hoped Katlyn had survived the escort quest. The chest hatch opened, and Katlyn crawled out weakly.

Bruises marked her face and hands, and blood ran from one temple, but she still stumbled toward the drone jet when its door opened, grabbed the frame, and pulled herself inside. The door sealed, and the drone jet lifted hard, rocketing into the sky while Meno lay on the ice in a ruined Phantom. One arm was gone, systems screamed, and the thrusters flickered through red warnings.

"Well," he said.

"That could have been smoother." The last functioning robot reached him, lifted one massive foot to stomp the Phantom, and the AI triggered self-detonation before the blow landed. Meno had one instant to understand that the tin can had decided its own ending. Then the frame exploded, and his vision went black. The XUltra threw him out. The capsule lid opened. Red fluid drained from his skin in hot sheets as the real world slammed back into place, and Meno ripped the breather mask off before sitting up too fast.

His whole body shook, but anger got there first. He stared at Grandpa and Teacher.

"That wasn't a simulation, was it?" Grandpa looked at him for one long second.

"No," he said.

"It was not."