Mechanical Ascension

Silas shoved aside the red safety cover on the main console and slammed his palm onto the maximum-clearance energy output button.

"Activate the high-energy laser generators. Full power. Target the containment box," Silas shouted.

"Warning. Safety threshold exceeded," the system's synthesized voice echoed through the laboratory.

"Do it!" Silas punched the control panel.

Heavy mechanical arms descended from the ceiling, aiming their laser emitters at the dark silver cube.

Three thick blue beams erupted, pouring high-energy laser light straight into the metal cube.

Silas was trying to use the laboratory's immense power supply to force the alien creation to life and restart Victor's heart.

As the lasers kept pouring into it, the geometric patterns on the cube's surface began to spin wildly.

Gears meshed in reverse, and all six metal faces caved inward at once. The shriek of grinding metal drowned out the alarms.

"It's overloading! It's going to explode!" Thomas cried, covering his ears as he flattened himself against the floor.

Red light blazed.

The cube did not explode. After absorbing all that energy, it melted in an instant.

The once-solid block became a puddle of silver liquid metal glowing red.

The liquid burst through the containment box's bulletproof glass, defied gravity, and stretched into a long silver thread in midair as it shot toward the operating table.

The instant it touched Victor's mangled body, the liquid metal burrowed in through his severed carotid artery and torn-open chest.

The right half of Victor's body, all that remained of him, jerked upward. A shriek no human could have made tore from his throat.

The scream mingled with the sounds of splintering bone, tearing muscle, and grinding metal.

Silver liquid metal raced through Victor's body. It forced open the walls of his collapsed blood vessels and wrapped around his shattered spine.

The exposed, broken ribs were sliced away and consumed. New silver mechanical bones then forced their way out of the flesh, replacing what was missing.

The liquid metal hardened and reconfigured in midair.

A mechanical left arm took shape, sleek and futuristic, with cold streams of data flowing across it. A mechanical torso and legs followed.

Finally, a mass of liquid metal surged into the empty socket of Victor's left eye.

It forcibly connected to his optic nerve and formed a mechanical eye that glowed a disturbing red.

A violent wave of energy swept outward from the operating table.

Bang!

The blast-resistant glass shattered on the spot.

The wave hurled Silas and Thomas into the wall with a heavy crash.

Every light in the laboratory went out. Only the red data-light coursing over Victor remained.

Clutching his broken ribs, Silas raised his trembling head.

The broken boy on the operating table was gone.

In his place stood an iron monster over two meters tall, half human and half machine.

He stood barefoot amid the broken glass. Streamlined silver armor covered the left half of his body, and a red energy core shone in the center of his chest, emitting a low engine rumble.

Steel Bone was born.

Victor slowly raised his hands and stared at the left arm made entirely of metal. Its mechanical fingers opened and closed with a sharp metallic clack.

"V-Victor?" Silas called tentatively, bracing himself against the wall.

Victor turned his head.

The right side of his face was human, its expression bewildered; the left was a cold mechanical shell, its red electronic eye flashing wildly.

"Father." Victor's voice had become a double resonance with a metallic edge.

As soon as he spoke, the red light in his left eye flared.

The immense computing power granted by the Mother Box activated in that instant.

Victor needed no cable. The quantum receiver inside him forced its way directly onto the global network.

Countless streams of data cascaded across his retina.

The Pentagon's top-secret files, Metropolis's satellite surveillance, and Wayne Enterprises' underlying code all lay open to him.

He saw the world as it truly was.

"Energy coordinates transmitted," Victor said in a flat mechanical voice. "Themyscira. The Atlantic Ocean. Central City. Three locations established."

"Victor, what are you talking about?" Silas struggled to his feet.

Victor's mechanical eye projected a hologram.

In the image, a vast rift was forming in space beyond Earth.

Deep within it, dense ranks of Parademons and enormous interstellar warships loomed in and out of view.

"Steppenwolf," Victor said. "The Apokolips invasion fleet."

Thomas stared at the hologram and slumped to the floor in despair.

One Chu Men had already made life on Earth unbearable. Now an alien fleet was coming too.

Victor ignored Thomas's breakdown. His computing power continued spreading through the global network.

He had gained a godlike view and tried to take control of everything.

"Gotham City. Anomalous energy field." Victor had detected an energy signature that defied all reason.

He immediately devoted all his computing power to following the network nodes, hacked his way into East End's surveillance system, and finally pinpointed the Iceberg Lounge.

His gaze pierced layer after layer of firewalls and connected directly to a camera inside a suite at the Iceberg Lounge.

The feed came through.

In the luxurious suite, Chu Men reclined on a sofa.

Harleen Quinzel lay across his lap, letting his fingers play with her blue-and-gold pigtails.

"Bio-electric Field strength: incalculable. Body density: incalculable." Victor's mechanical eye worked at high speed, trying to analyze Chu Men's data.

"Warning. Data overflow. Warning. Target's energy exceeds conventional physical laws."

Victor increased his computing output.

Just then.

On the screen, Chu Men stopped stroking Harley's hair.

Chu Men slowly raised his head and looked up at the camera.

Thousands of kilometers lay between them, along with countless layers of encrypted network firewalls.

Chu Men's gaze collided head-on with Victor's red mechanical eye in S.T.A.R. Labs.

An impossible, terrifying pressure surged through the network's data streams and slammed straight into Victor's brain.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Inside S.T.A.R. Labs' underground bunker, the server motherboards of three supercomputers burst into sparks at once, belching acrid black smoke.

Victor gave a muffled groan of pain. His towering mechanical body dropped to one knee, and the red light in his left eye flickered violently. He nearly shut down altogether.

The surveillance feed warped badly and filled with static.

One second before the image went completely black.

Chu Men looked into the camera. His mouth spread into a smile of utter cruelty.

"Interesting."

"And there are alien bugs, too. This is getting fun."