Chapter 524

Owen didn’t look all that different from before. Here and there, some devices slightly protruded from his textured, obsidian-like body, but he didn’t have anything that looked too prominent, no visible external weapons, no additional armor plating, nothing like that.

At a glance, he appeared almost unchanged, which Jake found surprising. Considering how fond the Grafters were of cramming as much technology as possible into their creations, he had expected far more obvious modifications.

He carefully looked Owen over. He spotted some kind of bracelet around his left wrist. A few colorful lights were embedded in its dark metallic surface, glowing brightly. He also noticed something resembling a pad fused to his right shoulder. It sat flush against the armor, its edges blending so well with the surrounding material that it was difficult to tell where the device ended and Owen’s body began.

But other than these two devices, whatever they were, Owen didn’t seem to have any other visible technology fused with his body. Either the Grafters hadn’t implanted any additional tech in him, or the rest of the devices were hidden inside his body, completely concealed from sight. Jake suspected the latter. If he had learned one thing about The Grafters so far, it was that they weren’t exactly known for their restraint when it came to cybernetic augmentation.

His gaze lingered on Owen for another moment. His counterpart stood perfectly still. He looked less like a person and more like a machine waiting for instructions. If not for the fact that Jake knew his friend was still somewhere beneath that armored shell, he could have mistaken him for a bot.

He knew Owen was controlled by the Grafters, so there was no point in trying to communicate with him. At least, there was no point in expecting a response. However, in case he wasn’t a complete puppet, Jake knew he had to try. He needed to let Owen know what his plan was.

His body might be controlled by the chip Mick had said the Grafters had implanted in his head, but his mind could still belong to him. Perhaps, while he couldn’t control his body, he could still see everything, perceiving everything that was happening around him. Perhaps he was fully aware of his surroundings, trapped inside his own body and forced to watch as someone else controlled his every movement.

So if Owen was conscious, if he could still hear and understand what was going on around him, then Jake knew he needed to tell him what his and Mick’s plan was. There was also a chance, however small, that the chip’s control wasn’t absolute. Maybe Owen could resist it in subtle ways. Maybe he could hesitate at a critical moment, slow himself down, or fight against a command just enough to create an opening. Jake wasn’t counting on it, but he couldn’t afford to ignore even the slightest possibility.

So he retrieved his electrolarynx from his inventory. 

“I’m gonna try to reach the bridge, Owen. I know you’re controlled by the chip in your head. Mick told me that the Grafters installed it, so you’re no longer at the helm of your body. You’ll try to stop me. I get that.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“I don’t know how powerful the chip is or whether it’s possible for you to resist its commands, but I’d appreciate it if you could do your best. Even if all you can do is hesitate for a second or slow yourself down a little, it might make a difference.”

Jake kept his eyes fixed on Owen’s.

“I need to get to the bridge, deal with whoever is at the helm of this ship, and then crash it into the city below. After that, I’ll take you to Mick so he can extract the Grafters’ chip from your head. We’ll get you free of this thing.”

The words sounded more confident than Jake actually felt. He had no idea how difficult removing the chip would be or what condition Owen would be in afterward. But he pushed those doubts aside. One problem at a time.

“So I’d really appreciate it if you let me carry out my plan with as little resistance as possible,” he finished.

The corridor fell silent once more. The only sounds were the various organic creaks of the living vessel and the distant vibrations traveling through its walls as the battle outside continued. Owen remained perfectly still, showing no sign that he had heard a single word.

Jake put his speaking device back in his inventory and just eyed Owen for a second or two. If Owen heard him, he gave no indication. He stood as still as before, staring directly at him, unmoving and unreadable beneath that obsidian-like armor.

Alright then, Jake thought. It was time to proceed. He shifted his weight slightly, already calculating his next move. He hoped Owen would do his best to resist the chip’s commands, but whether he would succeed or not was hard to tell. It definitely depended on how powerful the Grafters’ chip was and how much of Owen was still left to fight it.

Just as he began to walk down the corridor toward Owen, the organic walls of the living vessel spasmed as the Kaiju likely launched an especially vicious attack on the bio-ship. The corridor gave a deep, guttural shudder, and Jake felt a wave of tremors rip through the floor, sharp enough this time to jolt through his legs.

He steadied himself, keeping his balance as the ship groaned around him. He wondered how much more damage the bio-ship could take before it started to fail entirely.

As he took a few more strides toward Owen, his counterpart suddenly sprang into action. The pad on his right shoulder split apart with a sharp mechanical snap, and what looked like a mini turret slid out from a concealed compartment beneath the armor. It rotated, servos whirring sharply as it locked onto Jake.

The turret zeroed in on him and immediately opened fire, bolts of energy streaking through the air in rapid succession. The shots hissed as they cut through the corridor, leaving bright, glowing trails that faded almost instantly behind them. Jake jumped out of the line of fire, and the projectiles slammed into the floor, each one bursting into a bright flash upon impact and leaving small, charred craters in the organic surface.

Jake pushed off the ground and leaped up to the ceiling. His hands and feet adhered to the slick, living surface as he scurried forward above the corridor like a hunting insect, closing the distance from an unexpected angle. The ceiling pulsed beneath his grip, reacting to his weight as he moved.

The turret quickly adjusted its aim almost instantly, tracking him. Recognizing the shift, Jake dropped back to the floor in a fluid motion and immediately broke into a sprint again, feet striking the corridor hard as he continued straight toward Owen, refusing to give the weapon a stable lock.

When he had closed the distance to just a few yards and was already preparing to strike, Owen suddenly thrust his left arm forward. The lights embedded in the bracelet fused to his wrist flared to life, pulsing with a sharp violet glow. In an instant, Jake felt an invisible force seize him like a colossal hand had clamped down around his entire frame, locking his body in place.

Before he could even react, Owen swept his arm sharply to the side, and Jake was hurled through the air in the same direction. He struck the wall with a heavy crash that sent a dull echo through the corridor. The impact stunned him for a moment, but aside from the brief disorientation and the lingering pressure of that unseen grip, he was otherwise unscathed.

Jake leaped back to his feet, scraping against the floor, and quickly glanced at the bracelet fused around Owen’s wrist. So at least now he knew what the device was meant to do.

Without wasting another moment, he extended both arms as they morphed into rotary blade launchers. With a sharp mechanical whine, he opened fire. Spinning blades tore through the air, racing toward Owen.

His counterpart darted aside, barely reacting in time as the projectiles carved through the space he had occupied a second earlier. Most went wide, embedding themselves into the wall or skimming the floor with screeching sparks, but two or three struck home. They failed to deal any real damage, though, the blades merely pinging off Owen’s armored body, deflecting harmlessly aside.

Undeterred, Jake quickly switched weapons, launching a cinch net toward his opponent. The net shot forward in a widening arc, its strands unfolding mid-air like a metallic web. Owen tried to twist out of its path, but he was a heartbeat too slow.

The cinch net wrapped tightly around his frame, binding him from shoulders to waist in a tightening lattice of reinforced cables. At Jake’s mental command, it began to constrict, the strands pulling taut and digging into Owen’s armor plating with increasing pressure, locking him in place.

But sure enough, the net couldn’t hold him for long. Owen unleashed scythe-blades from his shoulders, the curved edges unfolding in a blur before shredding through the restraining mesh with little effort. The reinforced cables snapped apart all at once. However, by the time the last fragments of the cinch net fell away, Jake was already upon him.

He seized the shoulder-mounted turret and ripped it free in a single, brutal yank. Metal tore with a grinding scream of stressed joints. Jake crushed the device in his fist, twisting until the housing buckled and cracked, then let the mangled remains drop to the floor with a dull clatter.

Before Owen could fully recover, Jake grabbed one side of his head with a firm grip. His other hand morphed into a spinning drill. The bit whirred to life with a rising whine as he aimed for the area where the Grafters’ chip was likely embedded, intent on boring deep enough to disrupt it.

But just as he was about to drive the drill into Owen’s head, his opponent suddenly vanished in a brief flash of light. Jake’s momentum carried him slightly forward, the drill biting only empty air. He immediately pivoted, senses flaring, and caught movement behind him. He saw Owen several yards away, already reorienting himself.

So the Grafters had implanted tech into Owen’s body that allowed short-range teleportation. They really hadn’t cheaped out on anything they’d installed in him.

Suddenly, from behind him, Jake heard the hiss of a door sliding open. A moment later, a familiar voice came through a control panel mounted on the wall, slightly distorted but still unmistakable.

“Jake, I opened the door for you. You can enter the bridge now. But don’t try to defeat Owen. You can’t disable the chip in his head on your own without harming him too much. So you only need to slow him down instead. Get to the bridge, Jake. Once you’re there, I’ll trap Owen in the corridor between bulkheads. From the bridge, you’ll be able to grant me full access to the ship’s systems, and once I have control, I’ll disable the chip in Owen’s head.”

The only problem with Mick’s plan was that Owen, and, by extension, whoever was controlling him, had heard every word as well. And they clearly weren’t interested in letting Jake reach the bridge without a fight.

Before he could react, Owen extended his left arm toward him again. The bracelet fused around his wrist flared with that same bright, violet-white light. Instantly, Jake felt that same invisible force snap around his body with crushing strength, like an enormous grip closing around him from every direction at once.

He was lifted clean off the ground, two or three feet into the air. He tried to twist free, to force even a fraction of movement through his arms, but whatever held him in place was too powerful. His limbs were pinned tightly to his sides, his body suspended as though gravity had simply stopped applying to him alone.

Then, with a mechanical hiss, two square sections of the ceiling slid apart above him. From within the dark recesses, twin turrets extended downward, metal housings unfolding with synchronized movements. They immediately locked onto him, targeting systems kicking in. A low hum began to build in intensity as the weapons charged, preparing to fire.