Server 9-Chapter 49: THE TEETH OF THE MACHINE

I had thirty seconds. Maybe less.

The Iron Legion didn’t knock. They didn’t announce themselves. They didn’t give warnings or ask questions. They showed up, they killed everything in the room, and they left. That was it. That was the whole playbook.

I’d seen what they could do in Sector 4. Lines of soldiers in black armor, moving like one animal with a hundred legs. Rifles that could punch through concrete walls. Shields that locked together like puzzle pieces. And behind them — the walkers. Tall, two-legged machines with mounted guns that swept streets clean the way a broom sweeps dust.

Three vehicles. Glitch said three. That meant at least thirty soldiers. Maybe a walker. Maybe two.

We had Maya on a rooftop. Jax on the third floor. Tiny at the front door. And me — standing in a dead man’s office with eighteen percent energy, three dead fingers, and the taste of Malachi still rotting on my tongue.

"Elias!" Sarah’s voice. Sharp. Scared. Not Queen-mode scared — real scared. "Get out of the building. All of you. Right now."

"Working on it," I said. I grabbed the comm station from the desk — the whole thing, wires and all — and shoved it into my bag. Evidence. Data. Something Glitch could pull apart later. If there was a later.

I ran.

Down the hall. Down the stairs. The ground floor was a mess. Tables flipped. Shell casings on the floor. Three of Kang’s men were unconscious near the front. Tiny stood in the middle of the loading door — or what was left of it. The metal was bent and torn around him like paper. His single eye glowed bright red. Battle mode.

"Tiny!" I yelled. "Fall back! Legion incoming!"

Tiny’s head swiveled toward me. Then toward the street. His eye flickered — processing, deciding. Then he moved. Fast for something that big. He backed away from the door, his massive hands scraping the floor as he turned.

Jax dropped from the second-floor railing and landed next to me. Light as a cat. Revolver in one hand. Gum still in her mouth. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

"Kang’s gone," Jax said. "Took his best stuff. Left everything else."

"I know. We’ve got bigger problems."

The first engine roared outside. Close. Too close. Headlights cut through the broken loading door like white knives.

"They’re here," Glitch said. "Three armored transports. One walker. Repeat — one walker."

One walker. That was the bad news. The good news was it wasn’t two.

"Maya," I said into comms. "Where are you?"

"Still on the roof across the street," Maya said. Her voice was steady. Calm in that way only soldiers get calm — the calm that comes from knowing exactly how bad things are and choosing to function anyway. "I count thirty-two soldiers. They’re setting up a line outside the factory. The walker is behind them."

"Can you hit the walker?"

A pause. "I can hit one of its sensors. Maybe blind it. But this rifle won’t punch through Legion armor. Not from here."

"Blind it. That’s enough. On my signal."

I looked around the factory floor. Kang’s men — the ones who hadn’t run — were hiding behind tables and crates. Scared. Confused. They’d come here expecting a normal night. Instead they’d gotten Tiny through their front door and now the Iron Legion outside.

Some of them still had guns. Most of them were shaking too hard to use them.

I didn’t need them to fight. I needed them to run.

"Hey!" I shouted. Every head turned toward me. Wide eyes. Pale faces. "Back door. South wall. Go. NOW."

They didn’t need to be told twice. Eight men scrambled past me, heading for the back of the building. Stumbling over each other. Dropping weapons. Not soldiers. Just people. Scared, stupid, unlucky people who’d chosen the wrong boss and the wrong building on the wrong night.

Good. Less people in the way.

BOOM.

The front wall cracked. Not broke — cracked. A deep, spreading line running from floor to ceiling. The walker had fired its main gun from the street. Warning shot. Next one would come through.

"Okay," I said. "New plan. Jax — take Tiny out the back. South wall. Find the alley we used to get in. Wait for us there."

"What about you?" Jax asked. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t worried. She was just asking — the way you ask someone passing the salt. Like it was simple.

"I need to eat something first."

Jax looked at me. Blew a bubble. Popped it. Then she turned and walked toward the south wall without another word. Tiny followed her, his heavy feet shaking the floor with every step.

Now it was just me. And the Iron Legion on the other side of a cracking wall.

I turned on Network Sense.

[SKILL: NETWORK SENSE — ACTIVE]

The world opened up. White security grids from the Legion — tight, organized, military-grade. Blue power lines running through every soldier’s armor. And the walker — a burning ball of energy, so bright it hurt to look at. Fuel cells. Weapons. Targeting systems. All of it humming with more power than I’d tasted in weeks.

My mouth watered. My dead fingers twitched — phantom movement, the nerves remembering what it felt like to want something.

Stop staring at the menu. Move.

"Maya — now."

CRACK.

Her rifle spoke from the rooftop. One shot. Clean. The walker’s left sensor exploded in a shower of sparks and glass. The machine lurched sideways, its targeting system scrambling. Half blind. Confused.

I ran for the front wall.

Not away from the Legion. Toward it.

"What are you doing?" Sarah yelled in my ear.

"Something stupid."

I hit the cracked wall at full speed. Not with my shoulder — with my left hand, palm flat against the concrete. And I pulled.

[SKILL: ENERGY SIPHON — ACTIVE]

Not from the wall. From the WIRES inside the wall. Every power cable. Every data line. Every conduit running through the building’s skeleton. I pulled it all. Fast. Hard. Like sucking air through a straw.

The factory went dark. Every light. Every camera. Every sensor. Dead. The building’s power grid emptied into me in three seconds flat.

[ENERGY: 18% → 34%]

[XP GAINED: +800]

Thirty-four percent. Not full. But better. Much better.

And then I pushed.

[SKILL: DISCHARGE — ACTIVE]

I shoved the energy back through the wall. Not into the wires — through the concrete. Through the metal. Through the cracked surface. The wall EXPLODED outward. Chunks of concrete and rebar and dust blasting into the street like a bomb had gone off inside the building.

The Legion soldiers scattered. Shields came up. Rifles aimed at the dust cloud.

But I was already through.

I came out low. Fast. Covered in grey dust. Left hand crackling with leftover energy — blue sparks dancing across my blistered skin. My right arm hung at my side. Dead. Useless.

But I didn’t need two arms. I needed one hand and a lot of anger.

The nearest soldier was five feet away. He saw me come through the dust. His rifle came up. Fast. Trained. Professional.

I was faster.

[SKILL: WEAPON HACK — ACTIVE]

His rifle died. Battery killed. Trigger locked. He pulled it three times — click, click, click — and nothing happened.

I grabbed his chest plate with my left hand.

[SKILL: ENERGY SIPHON — ACTIVE]

His armor drained in two seconds. Lights went dark. Shields collapsed. He dropped like his strings were cut — unconscious before he hit the ground. Alive. Just empty.

Not a killer. Not today.

[ENERGY: 34% → 37%]

[XP GAINED: +400]

Two more soldiers rushed me. Shields up. Moving together. Coordinated.

I dropped to one knee. Slapped both hands on the pavement — left hand flat, right hand with the two fingers that still worked. Thumb and index. Barely touching the ground.

[SKILL: DISRUPT — ACTIVE]

The EMP blast rippled outward. Every electronic device within twenty feet died. Armor locked up. Rifles froze. Helmet displays went black. The two soldiers stumbled — suddenly wearing a hundred pounds of dead metal instead of powered armor. They fell forward. Couldn’t move. Trapped in their own suits.

But the blast cost me.

[ENERGY: 37% → 29%]

And it got the walker’s attention.

The machine had recovered from Maya’s shot. One sensor was gone, but the other locked onto me. Red targeting laser. Center of my chest.

The main gun charged. I could HEAR it — a deep, rising whine that made my teeth vibrate.

Move.

I dove. The shot hit where I’d been standing. The pavement erupted. A crater three feet deep. Heat washed over my back. Shrapnel bit into my legs.

I rolled. Got up. My legs were bleeding. My suit — what was left of it — was smoking. Twenty percent integrity was generous. It was barely holding together.

The walker took a step toward me. The ground shook. Its remaining sensor tracked me. Gun charging again.

CRACK.

Maya’s rifle. Second shot. The other sensor exploded.

The walker was blind. Both eyes gone. It stopped. Gun still raised. Still dangerous — but it couldn’t see. It started scanning with thermal. I could feel it sweeping the street. Looking for body heat.

I had maybe ten seconds before it found me.

I ran at it.

Not around it. Not away from it. AT it. Straight toward two tons of armored military hardware with a gun that could punch holes in buildings.

"ELIAS!" Sarah screamed in my ear.

I jumped. Grabbed the walker’s leg with my left hand. Climbed. My fingers dug into gaps in the armor plating. My right arm swung uselessly at my side. My legs pushed me up — one foothold, two, three.

The walker felt me. It bucked. Tried to shake me off. One massive leg lifted and stomped down. The ground cracked.

I held on. Reached the torso. Found a seam in the armor — a maintenance panel, bolted shut. I couldn’t open it. Not with one working hand.

So I bit it.

[SKILL: DEVOUR (RAW INPUT) — ACTIVE]

My teeth hit metal. Pain shot through my jaw. The taste of steel and oil and military-grade code flooded my mouth. Hard. Cold. Built to last.

I bit harder. Chewed. Tore. The panel cracked. Peeled back. Inside — wires. Beautiful, fat, power-rich wires. Glowing blue.

I shoved my face into the gap and bit the main power cable.

[SKILL: DEVOUR (TARGETED) — ACTIVE]

Energy hit me like a train. Fast. Hot. Too much. Way too much. My body lit up. My veins glowed blue through my skin. My vision went white.

[ENERGY: 29% → 52%]

[XP GAINED: +1,500]

[WARNING: ENERGY INTAKE EXCEEDING SAFE LIMITS]

The walker died. Its legs buckled. Its gun went silent. Two tons of military hardware collapsed in the middle of the street with me still clinging to its chest, jaw locked around a cable, energy pouring through my body like fire through a hose.

I let go. Fell. Hit the ground. Rolled onto my back.

The sky above me was dark and empty. No stars. Never any stars. Just smoke and the distant glow of the city.

Soldiers were retreating. I could hear them — boots on pavement, orders shouted in clipped military voices. Without the walker, they were pulling back. Regrouping. They’d be back. The Legion always came back.

But not tonight. Tonight they were running. From a man with one working hand who’d just eaten their biggest weapon with his teeth.

"Elias." Sarah’s voice. Quiet now. The fear was gone. Something else in its place — something soft and tired and heavy. "Please tell me you didn’t just bite a walker."

"I bit a walker," I said.

Silence.

"That’s disgusting," Glitch said.

"I know."

"Did it taste good?"

I stared at the sky. My body buzzed with stolen energy. My jaw ached. My right arm was dead. My legs were bleeding. And somewhere in my chest, under the Devourer’s hunger and the stolen code and the fading taste of military steel — I felt Malachi’s perspective. That one second of cold, perfect, beautiful order. Still there. Still sitting inside me. Waiting.

"Yeah," I said. "It did."

And that was the scariest thing I’d said all night.

Maya’s voice cut through. "Street is clear. Legion is pulling east. We need to move before they regroup."

I got up. My body protested — every joint, every muscle, every burned inch of skin screaming at me to lie down and stop being stupid.

I kept standing.

Jax appeared from the south alley with Tiny behind her. She looked at the dead walker. At the unconscious soldiers. At me, covered in dust and blood and oil, with a bite mark in the walker’s chest plate.

"Wow," Jax said. She blew a bubble. Popped it. "You eat everything, huh?"

"Not everything," I said. "Not yet."

We moved. Into the alleys. Into the dark. Away from the factory. Away from the trap. Away from the message on the wall and the sleeping pods and the taste of Malachi’s eyes.

But not away from the truth.

Kang was gone. Malachi had warned him. And "I’ll handle the rest" meant this wasn’t over. The Legion would come back. Malachi would try again. The trap had failed, but the trapper was still out there. In every wire. In every camera. Always watching.

And inside me — deeper than the energy, deeper than the hunger — a seed of cold order was growing. Planted by one second of seeing through a monster’s eyes.

Don’t build what you can’t unbuild.

I flexed my right hand. Thumb moved. Index finger shook.

Then the index finger stopped.

Four fingers down. One left.

[STATUS: RIGHT ARM — NERVE DAMAGE CRITICAL]

[CARDIAC FAILURE: 4 DAYS, 2 HOURS]

The clock kept ticking.