A park. A sunbeam plays on her dark hair. He sits on a bench, and his legs—real, living legs—are planted on the ground. Anya sits nearby. She is drawing in a sketchbook, biting the tip of her pencil. He looks at her for so long that she finally looks up from the drawing, and the corners of her lips twitch into a smile. She turns the sketchbook toward him—on the page is a friendly caricature of him, with an exaggeratedly serious expression. He laughs. A real, light laugh. A small, clean pocket of peace, stolen from the front lines.

  The memory broke, collapsed, leaving behind only a bitter aftertaste.

  The shack again. The creak of wheels again. And before him, on a roughly hewn table, lay the "Iron Angel," looking like the skeleton of a prehistoric predator.

  "Are you ready, Viktor?" his grandfather's voice was strained.

  Viktor nodded. Words were unnecessary.

  There was no operating room here, no anesthesia. There was a basin of boiling water where the needles were being sterilized, a bottle of cheap vodka, and leather straps with which the grandfather bound his grandson’s torso to the table, forcing him to lie on his stomach.

  "Bite on this," the old man said, handing Viktor a piece of leather folded in four.

  The grandfather took the first needle from the boiling water with tongs. The steam burned his fingers, but he ignored it. He brought it to the base of Viktor’s neck. The metal touched the skin. Cold, alien.

  The needle entered.

  A white-hot spike plunged into the base of the skull. Nerves flared, sending a bolt of white, blinding fire down the spine. He opened his mouth, but only a silent spasm escaped his lungs. He bit down on the leather gag, feeling his back muscles turn to stone.

  They thought this would break us? the familiar voice whispered in his consciousness, now devoid of excitement, having become cold and serpentine. Fools. They are making us a god.

  The second needle. The third. The strikes followed one after another, rhythmic as a blacksmith’s hammer. The grandfather worked fast, his face an impenetrable mask. Each needle was a new wave of agony, unlike the last. Shock gave way to a flooding pain that escalated into a fit of nausea. After the tenth injection, he ceased to distinguish individual points of agony—his entire back had turned into one continuous, burning nerve. Sweat poured into his eyes; his body thrashed in the straps, helpless as an animal caught in a snare.

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  Remember this pain, Viktor, the voice whispered, becoming his only anchor in this ocean of suffering. Remember every shade of it. We will return it to them. A hundredfold.

  Finally, the last needle entered his lower back. The tension left his muscles all at once. He collapsed in the straps, his head falling limply onto his chest, the leather gag falling from his mouth. The agony departed, replaced by a strange, alien hum. He sensed not only his body but the contours of the metal forged to him. The steel had become an extension of his skin. Through his nerves ran not a pulse of blood, but a faint, barely perceptible electric current.

  He was connected.

  He reached out mentally... and a finger on his left hand, encased in a steel gauntlet, twitched. Another command. The hand slowly, with the screech of servomotors, clenched into a fist.

  The grandfather unbuckled the straps and, catching him under the arms, helped him sit up. The metallic structure weighed no less than fifty kilograms, but Viktor barely felt the weight. It was part of him.

  "Try," the old man exhaled.

  Viktor looked at his legs in heavy steel boots. He concentrated, ignoring the phantom signals from dead muscles, and sent a mental impulse directly into the machine. With a quiet whine of a servo, the exoskeleton's right leg lifted off the floor and took a step. Then the left.

  He stood. Unsteadily, swaying, leaning on his grandfather’s shoulder. But he stood.

  We walk again. The voice in his head sounded like his own now, only devoid of doubt and fear. And now... we go after them.

  Viktor raised his head. The dirty windowpane reflected not the face of a child, but a mask of scars, sweat, and frozen pain. He took another step. On his own. And another.

  He was walking again. And each step echoed with the clang of steel on wood. A funeral knell for his past life. And a lullaby for the one that was just beginning.