Fshes of sparks reflected in Iron Lord’s lenses as he stood over the assembly line. His dearest kihe Merts, had finally unched their pearls and dared t their preobile factories closer to the front lines, sparing them the hassle anizing voys to supply their advahe cil agreed to this drastipreted measure after he promised his people wouldn’t be put in harm’s way and the gigantic, six-story-high trains snaked across the freshly quered nds. He further sweetehe deal with an offer of materials and a surplus of purchased qualified personnel from the ranks of the ensved Recimers. While they had takeerials, the stubborn old farts had refused the sves, stig to the outdated tradition of not offending aing nation.

  It had protected them before, so he had ighe subtle insult hidden in the refusal of his gift. They worried that his, or rather the khatun’s, leadership skills might be ie and feared reprisal. A most uandable precaution, for ordinary men had to be careful not to be swept away by the passing desires of the powerful. Iron Lord had to bance his loyalties to the Khatun and the Merts to ehe prosperity of his allies.

  Meical ed arms assembled walkers, installing geors to feed their impressive ser ons. Rows of basic exoskeletons were carried past Iron Lord, ready for distribution to even the lowest bondsmen. Furnaever rested; the overseers rotated the w crews to provide maximum output. The unskilled borers sifted through the wreckage, and the experienced craftsmen toiled, fixing the damaged equipment and building new maes of war.

  There was no pce or tolerance for illness or physical weakness in Iron Lord’s private fe-train. Any worker who fell ill was immediately repced; the faulty bondsman was theo the healers to recuperate, or his damaged body part was removed and repced with a smooth steel augment. Small celebrations and prayers to the forbiddeies were both permitted and ignored by the guards. The most obedient sves were regurly promoted to bondsmen and allowed to start families. Loyalty invited loyalty, as the khan had learned in his quests. His army was a mae in which every cog was well-oiled and ks pce.

  The seanufacturing pnt had the shape of an inplete bulge separated into ses. Overseers patrolled the catwalks, eagle-eyed for any sign of malfeasahere was no smoke; the walls were immacute, scrubbed of any soot or rust. Assembly lines carried raw materials for processing or finished units to be sent into the field, while personnel breathed bnd and safe filtered air. Bondsmen in white hazmat suits carefully prepared capsules filled with deadly gases for artillery in sealed spherical boratories. Children hurried to deliver rations to the workers, and the Mert in charge gave Iron Lord a thumbs up to firm they were on schedule.

  Mad Hatter’s reign would rewrite the world’s history forever, and he already tasted the st of ge in the air as he prepared to impose his vision on the lesser s. The worries of his people, squabbles of fame-hungry khans, irritated him. Fools, every single one of them.

  Thudding of six legs against the floor and the apanying tremor snapped him out of his thoughts, and Iron Lord tacted his personal guard, summoning them from m to stand outside the doors of the sedary manufacturing pnt.

  “I thought you were pying with your oy,” he said.

  “All iime, my friend,” Brood Lord’s barytone ughter silehe din. Drozered the room and leaned on the wall he door.

  The six-legged maniac was out of his armor, but wore a simple portable camera over his left eye. Was it because he believed his better would not dare hurt him first, or perhaps he had a misguided belief that with Dantai in the camp, the priesthood would tear Iron Lord apart if he tried? Either way, it didn’t matter; the jester was useful. For now.

  “Does she still have limbs?” Iron Lord asked, barely g.

  “Of course,” purred Brood Lord. He was rexed and in a good mood, a venomous snake ready to strike.

  “Foolish. A sve of her caliber will try to escape. If I were her, I would have tried already.”

  “And that is exactly why the guards kly what I will do to them if Janine…”

  “Sve,” Iron Lord cut him off. Sves had no names and deserved her a past nor a future. Their fate was servitude. And the soohey realized that, the better.

  “Janine,” Brood Lord tinued with a smile, “disappears. My friend, you know nothing of cruelty! Your muhods serve to create cripples, while mine are so much more delicate and long-sting. As long as Janine has her limbs, there is hope of esg me. That tiny, desperate thought will sustain her even in the darkest of times, and any torture I infli her will be much more painful because I would be tormenting a human being, not a living corpse. With persistend effort, even mountains will crack, and Janine will end up as a proper pet, eating from my hand and killing at my word.”

  “Wasteful and morbid. You spend your time obsessing over an individual rather than ag your rank,” Iron Lord replied.

  “I manage my time well enough to gain a town and a chew toy simultaneously.” Brood Lord tilted his head. “But enough of my aplishments. Let’s talk about the horror that you are obsessing over.”

  He faced the frame that was assembled behind an armss s. The Merts coveted secrets and tried their best to stay outside of the s’ politics. They supported no oright, even trading with outnders in pursuit of a prosperous existend teological adva. It wasn’t unon for them to purchase important sves and bondsmen captured in raids and then release them in exge for access to abandoned boratories.

  Mad Hatter’s reign had ged the situation to a certaient, but even now, they refused to reveal the full scope of their secrets. Self-replig, evolving viruses, mutagens, cyberic marvels, exotic ons—not even Iron Lord knew everything. What was deemed dangerous or untrolble was hidden from view, and he supported this initiative. Better to err on the side of caution and lose than to rule a kingdom of death.

  But Iron Lord’s standing among the cil had improved, and they deemed it fit to reveal some of their most preysteries and the Merts’ history to him. This partment served as an isoted cell, plete with its own geor and surgical and assembly meisms. Tendrils of steel nimbly structed a four-armed battle frame of alloys, cables, geors, and bundles of muscle fibers. There was no room for a pilot, not even a Normie. No adult torso could fit in the chest cavity.

  On a metallic sb o it y another body fused forever to his armor. Iron Lord coldly checked the boy’s vital signs and pumped him with more painkillers so he would not suffer. Mehmed was a bright sabb, but he was always eager to prove himself and often took unnecessary risks. Iron Lord hoped to use him to turn the Brood against their father. His eyes weren’t blind to the developments between his son and his new friends. Unfortunately, his child once again disobeyed his father and charged ahead.

  Acid destroyed his lungs, spine, heart, and everything around them, turning them into a mush of flesh, metal, and bone. An arm was missing, his head suffered exterauma, and impnts around his body malfuned, keeping him alive and causing further deterioration to his body. Doctors, both of the Horde and the captives, stated that there was nothing they could do for Mehmed. Perhaps if Trace was with them… But curse be fate; the agent had allied himself with the wrong khan and paid for it. Iron Lord had no iion of keeping what was essentially a vegetable alive.

  Mehmed’s loyalty deserved better. His mother deserved better. So he used his son for an experimental treatment. ing arms desded from the ceiling, their hooked appendages ripping away the helmet, sparing the pale head.

  “What a baby-sized pumpkin,” chuckled Brood Lord. “I often fet that your kids are little more than weaklings iheir coffins.”

  “Shut it.”

  “Then start talking,” the khan pouted. “I am bored.”

  Arrays of saws, needles, scalpels, pliers, and other instruments shimmered in the light and began their grisly task of first removing the skin and then sawing through the skull. Iron Lord called for another report, firming that the room was still sterile. With surgical precision, saws severed the e between the brain and spinal cord, and scalpels cut away the useless eyes.

  After carefully extrag the still-living brain, the agile appendages submerged it into the nutrient solution, log the capsule inside a reinforced jar. A dispy showed an increase ia waves and a decrease in alpha and gamma waves in Mehmed’s brain. Blinded aionless, he panicked.

  You are better than this, son. You do it. A body is nothing; a mind is everything. Embrace the cyberic strength. Iron Lord resisted the urge to put an arm against the gss. No show of weakness in front of Brood Live him nothing to exploit.

  Wires came , pierg the frontal lobe and eg the person to the single camera installed in the jaw. A faint green light glowed, and the small devices thrashed around, opping for a sed, like a vulsing patient struggling against restraints. The dispy showed a slight drop ia waves, satisfying Iron Lord. His son lived.

  Long tendrils carried the jar to the assembled frame, pushing it into the socket installed in the chest cavity. More cables ected to the sockets on the tainer, eg Mehmed to his neerfect body. Artificial fibrous muscles enveloped the object, f a protective membrane and serving as sedary nerves. A metal finger jerked, set in motion by a human thought.

  “Something the Merts bought from a group known as the Bento Tribe,” Iron Lord lied. “Supposedly, this teology allows a brain to trol the steel suit as easily as its former body. Though the sellers had warned us not to proceed directly with brain impntation, reending a gradual cyberization to ease the future process.”

  There was no trade, but Iron Lord would’ve sooner died than admitted the failure of his people. The Merts had an infallible reputation to uphold; anything less was a mark of weakness, and the s waited eagerly for any sign to domihem pletely.

  In truth, the Merts had hired a group of meraries upon hearing rumors of a nation of cybs. Aire nation sisting of humans elevated far beyond their natural limits by sheer teological knowledge. Stronger, faster, able to analyze structures or perform plex calcutions on the fly, with metal shells that would allow them to thrive in hostile enviros. The Merts rightly desired this knowledge to secure their independeo say that the meraries had failed was to say nothing. Not only had they been captured, but they had told everything, and the elders, the rulers of this mystical tribe, crossed the ti and arrived in force at the Merts’ capital, throwing the cil into disarray.

  Their arsenal had failed to stop the steel golems that ihe private chambers; steel skin absorbed energy beams; viruses had no effect; and the elders walked through rockets and gunfire unharmed and unhurried, admiring another inquisitive culture. The Merts had been preparing to detonate nuclear and antimatter munitions to escape torture when the elders sat at the table and offered a deal. The Merts had sworn o reveal the location of the Bento Tribe and gave up all the secrets and knowledge of teology they had collected. In exge, the elders gifted some of their own knowledge to Iron Lord’s people.

  This transa beed greatly both the Horde and his people. Artificial lungs, ans, and eves were produced in abundance, saving tless lives. But Iron Lord had his eye on a rger prize. Deep down, he was humae his augmentations, he knew his days were numbered. Handicapped by his own body, Iron Lord was already showing signs of itive dee. It was being difficult to remember the birthdays of his sons and daughters, every treaty he had signed, and the plots he ursuing. Sky, he was even starting tet the name of his first wife!

  To earn profit, one must always adapt and improve in body, mind, and soul. The Merts lived by this creed, and Iron Lord came to appreciate this rule after his new oversized fist had introduced an arrogant Pureblood to the ground. It was more than exhiration; at that moment, he felt divine. He, an ordinary human, had defeated a divine freak! The experienraptured him more than any drug could. He loved the beeping of his systems in the midst of a fierce battle; the scraping of bdes and bullets against his ptes sent a rush of adrenalihrough his old, wrinkled body, and there was nothing that could pare to the omnidireal vision or the intake of information flowing into his brain. It was intoxig, tantalizing.

  He wao live forever. Barring that, even a hundred more years would be nice. If his mind could be freed from the meat sack imprisoning it, it would be possible to prolong the braience using the methods described by the Bentos. But they also warned of dangers. Iron Lord inteo live as his own person, keeping his personality intact like Mad Hatter, who refused to give a millimeter to her twenty-five-year-long insomnia.

  “Gradual?” Brood Lord raised a brow. “Why?”

  “I suppose we shall find out soohe systems of his armor sounded a warning, alerting him to the presence of a spatial anomaly. Ohat threateo split him in two.