Chapter 3: Machine Fever

Rain fell in sheets, cold droplets tracking down A-Jo's shoulders and seeping into his collar, sending a bone-deep chill through him. But what he actually felt was the Bone Contract burning inside him, that searing pain racing through his veins and spreading to his fingertips, as if thousands of tiny needles were digging into the deep places of his bones. The whisper from inside his skull hadn't fully faded yet—its echo still drifting outside the empty clinic—when a sharp whiff of machine oil suddenly cut through the quiet of the rain-soaked night.

The clinic's battered wooden door slammed open and Oba burst through wrapped in the damp chill of the outside. He was caked in grease, dark liquid dripping down his muscle-swollen arms and pooling on the floor in ugly black puddles. His eyes burned with something close to manic obsession as he locked onto A-Jo. "The pump you saw in your dream? It's not for pulling water. It's for resonating with the Totem Beast's energy field."

Adie pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, the dim light catching on the lenses. Her pen scratched against the notepad in short, grating bursts—the sound of reason clawing back against chaos. She cut into their exchange, cool and precise. "Oba, your logic has a fundamental flaw. Machines carry energy. They don't create it. You blindly mod that thing, and the backlash will tear your machinery apart. And you'll tear yourself apart right alongside it."

Oba wasn't having it. A stubborn fire flickered in his eyes. He grabbed a rusted-out old pump machine from the corner and started ripping it apart with two hands, metal clanging and sparking in the dimness. He moved fast, frantic, like he was performing some kind of ancient ritual. Sweat mixed with grease and dripped onto the floor.

A-Jo didn't say a word to stop him. He just stood still in the shadows, gaze fixed on the scratched-up crankshaft in Oba's hands. He closed his eyes and let the fragmented prophecy from his dream churn through his mind—gears meshing, data flowing. A beat passed. Then his eyes snapped open, voice cold as ice: "Third bearing's past its stress limit. Transmission chain's phase-shifted. Cooling lines are blocked. Three fatal flaws. The moment you fire it up, it goes up."

Oba's hand froze mid-air. The wrench in his grip seemed to forget gravity. Grease and rainwater dripped from his fingers. He looked up, disbelieving, staring into the depth in A-Jo's eyes that went beyond anything experience could explain. In that instant, the fervent fire in Oba's eyes went solid, hardening into something deeper—shock, and awe.

Nkosi swept in with two other members of the Hunter Squad. The tension that had been strung tight as a bowstring on all of them quietly eased after witnessing this collision of tech and fate. He took in the scattered parts across the floor, glanced at Oba sitting on the ground with eyes full of reverence, then let his gaze rest heavily on A-Jo. He pulled a cigarette from his coat and lit it. Smoke curled through the thick, humid air, blurring his face. "A-Jo. What you just said made me look at you differently. The Hunter Squad doesn't need another hunter. It needs a prophet. You in?"

A-Jo slowly straightened up. The Bone Contract's burn had settled into a steady, powerful pulse—like a heartbeat, calm and sure. He met Nkosi's eyes, and his was absolute. "I'm in. Not for glory. To