Managunz laughed—a screech of grinding servos. The turrets opened fire.
Tonight, they met inside the derelict Sparrow’s Drydock , a decommissioned orbital elevator anchorage. Rain hissed through cracked ceramasteel panels. Managunz stood on a gantry above, twenty automated turrets swiveling below him like a metal garden.
Irisman stepped back. “Home.”
What happened next defied prediction. Irisman didn’t dodge. He walked . Each bullet curved around him—not magic, but micro-ECM bursts from his shoulders, spoofing the turrets’ targeting algorithms. The bullets punched into the deck behind him, a perfect outline of his silhouette in craters.
Order hadn’t won. A second chance had. managunz vs irisman
But before the blade fell, Irisman did something Managunz’s tactical models didn’t account for: he grabbed Managunz’s own flechette launcher barrel and pulled the trigger himself . The burst of needles shredded Managunz’s shoulder joint at point-blank range.
“…Where am I?” he asked, voice small. Managunz laughed—a screech of grinding servos
Managunz’s limbs dropped. He knelt, not in defeat, but in confusion.