Before marching upon the Grand Sovereign Relay Tower, the poisoned payload needed physical proof in a working receiver.
In the southern storage annex of the bunker lay the shattered remains of the carrier iron-puppet Tie Shan had crushed during their earlier skirmish in the plaza. The machine’s fine china limbs were fractured into powdery shards. Its internal high-pressure chambers were drained. But its main skull receiver nodule remained intact within its bronze skull casing.
Lin Tao and Tie Shan hauled the cut bronze head onto the lead-lined workbench.
The iron-puppet’s smooth, featureless faceplate stared blankly at the stone ceiling, its single upright sight slit dull and unpowered. Two braided copper channel lines trailed from the base of the neck like cut arteries, their fine gold shielding strands frayed and stained with dried violet grease.
“Is the machine alive?” Tie Shan asked, resting his hand on his pry-bar.
“It’s dormant,” Lin Tao replied, securing the bronze skull in a wooden vise. “Its motive hydraulics are gone, but its logic core is intact. It contains the matching receiver module installed in the apex spindle of the relay towers.”
Lin Tao brought out the newly carved white jade shard, its cerulean blue circuits humming softly in the lantern light.
