The new flesh slave’s shrieks were exquisite. A baptism in suffering, a hymn of agony set to the frantic rhythm of his heart. Too fast, and the body gives in. Too slow, and the mind fractures before the flesh does. This one was weak—over before the fun had even begun. And yet… somehow, he lived.

  I remember my own baptism. Days of it. Where his ended in hours, mine dragged into eternity. The pain blurred into something new, something worse, something more. My skin peeled in long ribbons, muscle exposed to the open air, a festival of raw nerve endings. The horror of my rescue was enough to temper the worst of it. My evolution—or so they called it.

  The air stinks of blood and myrrh, a scent that drags me backward in time. Incense is a poor disguise for atrocity. It would churn my stomach if I hadn’t seen this a hundred times before. The empty socket where my dominant eye once was throbs in sympathy with the mutilation I witness now.

  Cantor Malek, my handler, orchestrates the chant from the administration console. His hands—flesh and steel—move over the interface in a slow, deliberate rhythm. The choir sways. The light of Ammu stretches from the pedestal, licking over the sacrificial altar in radiant waves. The screams reach a crescendo. Then silence. Then cheers. A successful purification.

  I return to my cell hours later, curled in the corner, my back against the cold metal wall. Trying to make myself small. As if that could free me from any of this.

  The Scarab’s Chant hums beneath me, a vibration that never stops, that sinks into bone and marrow. It’s an ever-present thing, like the ship itself is alive. Mocking me. Supporting me. Keeping me from breaking—just barely. Change is risky. New is dangerous. The steady, pulsing power of Ammu is the only constant. Reliable. Like my faith.

  The door hisses open, and I don’t need to look to know who it is.

  Cantor Malek’s footsteps are heavy, uneven, like he’s dragging something behind him. Maybe he is. He moves like a broken machine still struggling to function, three arms—two flesh, one metal—jerking at his sides in imperfect synchronization. His voice is a low, guttural thing, the approximation of speech forced through damaged vocal cords.

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  “Up, flesh.”

  I don’t move fast enough.

  The shock-staff bites into my ribs, raw agony lancing through me, and I’m on my feet before I can even think.

  The echoes of the purification still linger in the chamber, the aftershocks of agony threading through the air like residual feedback from a machine pushed beyond its limits. The choir’s harmonics decay into static, a warbling resonance drifting between the ship’s walls—part hymn, part code.

  The new flesh slave cowers behind my tormentor. Fragment 36. The designation flickers in my HUD overlay**,** a thin white glyph hovering above his head. A gift from Ammu. A reminder from Malek. My HUD is wired to my only remaining eye—a penance and a lesson**.**

  My envy spikes.

  This wretch, this unfinished thing, has managed to keep both of his eyes. They’re pretty. Green. Not mine, but still beautiful. Maybe one day—

  Malek’s laughter rips through my waking nightmare, a sharp, modulated rasp, half static, half glee**.** His stolen eye—my eye—tracks me, glinting with mirth.

  I shudder.

  I’m becoming like him. And he knows it.

  Fragment 36 sputters, hacking out a weak, rattling breath. His grafts spasm, rejecting their placement. The machine has woven him back together, but he is incomplete—his body still doubts. The scar pattern across his ribs tells me he’s missing a lung.

  Poor bastard.

  The Choir always sings for the newly sanctified. A dissonant chord, then resolution. Their voices shift in layers—some organic, some modulated, their vocal cords infused with biomechanical tuning. The sound reverberates through the Scarab’s Chant**,** syncing with the pulse of the ship itself.

  Behold the adjudication of wetware and hardware.

  Cantor Malek steps forward, dragging the broken thing in his wake. His metallic hand twitches—an unconscious tic, like he’s toying with the idea of silencing the wretch entirely. He tilts his head slightly.

  I know what’s coming.

  His voice is a harmony of flesh and machine**,** a vocoded whisper threaded with reverb.

  “Flesh is the discord. Steel is the harmony. Be still, child of Ammu.”

  The ship hums in response. A confirmation.

  Fragment 36 lets out a wet, broken whimper. His body seizes, then stills. Acceptance or death—there is no in-between.

  I stand, silent, as Cantor Malek turns to me. His native eye glints with something close to amusement.

  His other eye—mine—stares back at me, impassive, stolen, unchanged.

  “He is yours now, Page.”

  I do not want him.

  Fragment 36 is barely breathing. The grafts across his limbs spasm—his body rejecting them as flesh fights against the hymn of metal. It is always like this. The body resists. The spirit doubts.