A squad of eighty cybernetic enforcers charged forward. Their hydraulic boots clattered against the diamond-tiled floor.
They brandished magnetic crowbars and heavy hydraulic tongs. Their red eye-visors locked onto the delicate glass coils of Elder Mo’s reactor prototype.
“Drag that tin can outside!” Drakon screamed through his emergency megaphone. Yellow flecks of saliva flew from his lips. “Dump it in the northern drainage ditch! Let the acid rain melt their scrap metal into slag!”
Elder Mo’s young apprentices gasped and threw their bodies over the machine. They held out their arms, ready to take the electric batons.
“Don’t touch it!” Mo Xing’er yelled, her silver wrench trembling. “My grandfather spent forty years calculating the harmonic pulse coils! If you crack the spirit crystal, the field collapses!”
“Scrap metal has no rights in my exhibition center!” Drakon bayed. “Clear the floor, you filthy vermin!”
Lin Mo took a sip of lukewarm tea from a paper cup Tie Niu had handed him.
Back when Lin Mo delivered takeout in Jiangcheng, he had seen this trick often. A greasy landlord would show up at a shared apartment on rent day. The landlord would claim an imaginary rule about hallway noise. Then he would threaten to throw a courier’s clothes onto the wet sidewalk to shake down extra cash.
