NOVEL WEB Chapter 13: Chapter 13: Sensory Decay in New York's Nuclear Vault
1967, New York Underground Nuclear Vault. Alison's cold-proof suit oozed silver serum through concrete pipes, coolant leaking from her left leg's mechanical void mixing with radiation dust to form toxic mist. Crawling down the Cold War-era missile silo, auditory nerve damage blurred surrounding sounds—agents' footsteps echoed as if across an ocean, while embryonic puppet incantation pulses thrummed in her skull as resonant pain.
A hologram flickered in her retina's visual field: "The temporal matrix incubator here parasitizes Minuteman III missile launch conduits, with its fission marrow core resonating with Manhattan's underground power grid. Mirror Erosion Stage Two activated: sensory decay feeds back to the original—each sense lost drops existence by 1% irreversibly."
She formed a microscopic serum probe, stabbing it into the missile conduit's incantation interface. U.S. agents dropped from ventilation shafts, their eyes replaced by H-bomb fission cores, neural anchors in their erupting with magnetic storm pulses: "KGB traitor! Destroying the underwater dock only accelerated the matrix's global coordinate awakening!"
Alison activated her temporal blade, but 3% existence its energy. Agents' magnetic storm bullets pierced her serum barrier, corroding spiral holes through her right arm's marrow-veined tissue—mirror erosion triggered instantly, scars spreading to her shoulder blade, existence falling to 2%. Embryonic puppets poured from missile conduits, fission cores in their skulls releasing radiation pulses that boiled seawater and toxic mist into liquid light under high pressure.
"Serum stasis!" She injected liquid gold into her right eye, residual retina areas emitting marrow resonance waves to freeze agents for 0.3 seconds—cost: right optic nerve fully crystallized, vision plunging into darkness. Existence hit zero, body collapsing into sand in the radiation field, but sensory decay feedback persisted: auditory nerves vanished with consciousness lapses, trapping Alison in soundless chaos.
Marrow feedback activated again: as sand ,the watch absorbed fission energy from puppets, existence rebounding to 1%. But the original had inherited all damage—right arm marrow-veining spread to the chest, left leg's mechanical void unregenerable, right eye blind, 60% hearing lost. She groped incantation veins with her fingertips, neural anchors burning her skin like lava.
"Incubator core countdown: 20 minutes." The watch core alarmed as the embryo's hologram materialized in radiation glow. "Alison, each sense you lose strengthens the matrix's rebirth signal by 10%. Destroying New York's coordinate will only accelerate host incubation in Moscow's archives—your revenge is mere catalyst for the temporal matrix's descent!"
She formed a sonar probe from serum, sensing the incubator's energy flow via skull resonance. Agent puppets fired magnetic storm rounds again, forcing her to activate mirror replication—two clones collapsed from rifts, existence dropping to 0.5%. Clones cut incantation veins with temporal blades, but the original suffered erosion feedback: a clone's left leg dissolved by radiation pulses her mechanical femur; a clone's skull shattered by magnetic bullets destroyed her auditory nerves entirely, existence hitting zero.
Body collapsing in silent darkness, marrow feedback failed—watch cracks expanded from erosion, energy draining exponentially. As sand ,Alison's scars reached critical: right arm fully marrow-veined, left leg mechanical struts, sight/hearing vanished, existence rising to 0.2%. She found all clone injuries accumulated, sensory decay irreversible.
In the final moment, she injected serum into the conduit's temporal anchor, triggering "Marrow Resonance Collapse". Existence instantaneously zeroed as she and the incubator core collapsed into a black hole, the fission marrow. Embryonic puppets in the collapse's gravity, hologram wailing: "New York coordinate destroyed, but Moscow's host incubation chain has activated—the temporal matrix will descend in 24 hours!"
When the black hole ,Alison's body was half-mechanical: right arm marrow-boned, left leg mechanical struts, sight/hearing gone. Existence rose to 0.8%, watch cracks oozing marrow energy for only 1 hour. New coordinates flashed: Moscow Archives, where the embryo's "Host Incubation Chain Control Hub" awakened, Charles' hologram covering global nuclear facility screens: "Alison, your sensory decay is but the first step of matrix rebirth—next stop, I'll use your body as host vessel!"