The quantum dome of the Silver Manor burned a hexagonal grid in Leo's retina, and each energy node was playing the trading data of the day when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. His claws hooked the mechanical spine of Chicago Wolf King Victor - the guy disguised a miniature hydrogen bomb as a cigar before his death, and now it was stuck in the seam of the manor's energy barrier and sizzled.
"Thirty seconds left!" The remnants of the Canadian Icefield Regiment screamed in the encrypted channel. Their sonic weapons were countered by the vampires' infrasound waves and turned into dying wails.
Leo's suit had long been torn into quantum fiber fragments, and three high-frequency trading data needles were inserted into his chest. He could feel the Wolf King's Eye melting and reorganizing in his skull, and the alarm of Gene Lock X-13 turned into a lullaby sung by his mother.
** Flashback: September 15, 2008 **
*Mother clone X-13γ opened her eyes in the incubator and carved runes with her fingers through the bulletproof glass. The surveillance video showed that the first living thing she ate was the left lung of the CEO of Rayman.*
"Hamilton's coffin smells really strong." The blood clan elder Moriti emerged from the mercury vapor, his spine was a spiral tower made of 2008 subprime mortgage contracts, "I heard you want to redeem your gene pledge?"
Leo's molars crushed Victor's mechanical spine, and the countdown of the nano hydrogen bomb accelerated like a death drumbeat. The retinal projection showed the frequency of the manor's protective shield - exactly in sync with the refresh rate of the Nasdaq screen.
"How about we talk about your redemption price?" Moriti snapped his fingers, and three hundred culture chambers descended from the dome. Each chamber contained a clone of Leo's mother, with badge numbers ranging from X-13δ to X-13ω.
When the countdown reached zero, Leo's pupils exploded with quantum tunneling blue light. His hair faded to moonlight silver, seven vibranium bone spurs burst out of his spine, and the afterimage of his feet crushing the floor tiles spelled out a short-selling order on the giant Nasdaq screen.
**Full wolf transformation starts**
- The claw wind at 120 kilometers per hour cuts through the quantum shield
- 860 Hz wolf howl shatters infrasound generator
- The transaction data reflected by the silver hair forms an optical virus
Moriti's subprime spine suddenly disintegrated into a barbed CDS contract, but Leo's speed had surpassed the fission rate of financial derivatives. When he bit the cervical vertebra of the vampire elder, he tasted the familiar taste of genetic medicine - exactly the same as the culture medium of the mother's clone.
"Surprised?" Moriti's abdomen suddenly exploded, and an embryo soaked in Bitcoin mineral liquid rolled out. "This is the real X-13..."
The embryo's umbilical cord is connected to a blockchain infusion tube, and its face is exactly the same as Leo's.
The blue light from the Nasdaq screen suddenly intensified, dyeing Leo's silver hair into a strange blue. The moment the embryo opened its eyes, the quantum computer cluster of the Silver Manor was collectively overloaded, and brain matter with runes spurted out of the combat helmets of the remaining soldiers of the Icefield Group.
"You are just an old version of antivirus software." The embryo spoke in the voice of Leo's mother, and the umbilical cord swung and pierced three werewolf warriors, "and I am an upgraded version of the financial plague."
As Leo's wolf claws tore into Moriti's chest, they touched a cold metal box - inside it was a trading tape of Black Monday in 1987, soaked in his mother's cloned blood. When the tape was inserted into the manor host, the holographic projection suddenly played the memory of the Viking Age:
**1024 AD, Norwegian Sea**
The Viking Leo's warship was melting English silver coins, and the figurehead suddenly came alive and bit his throat. The portrait of King Edward on the silver coin turned into Moriti's face, and what leaked from the bottom of the ship was not seawater but the gold reserve number of the Federal Reserve.
The embryo's umbilical cord suddenly entangled Leo's vibranium bone spurs, and the blockchain infusion tube began to extract his genetic data in reverse. The Dow Jones Index on the Nasdaq screen turned into a countdown - the remaining time for the final activation of the X-13 protocol.
Irene's sniper bullet penetrated the quantum dome at this time. The nano warhead was not shot at Leo, but at the blockchain umbilical cord of the embryo. When the umbilical cord broke, all the clone culture chambers exploded synchronously, and the clones of the X-13 series opened their eyes collectively.
"The code... is wrong..." Irene suddenly fell to her knees, and her mechanical eye projected a picture of Leo's mother being tied up in the Federal Reserve laboratory, "My gene chain is... boiling..."
Leo smelled the smell of dual blood - Irene's nanoworms were spelling runes in her blood vessels, and his own fully wolf-like cells were resonating with them. The embryo took the opportunity to climb up his silver hair, and its fangs pierced the Bitcoin mining machine implantation point on the back of his neck.
"We should have been a perfect short-selling combination." The embryo's murmur carried the white noise of high-frequency trading, "You harvest the flesh, I harvest the soul..."
Leo tore off his vibranium bone spike and pierced the embryo, but the splashing clone blood formed a federal funds rate curve in the air. The curve suddenly materialized and strangled his throat, and Moriti's body was reorganized between the interest rate numbers.
When Leo shattered the last quantum screen with his wolf howl, the foundation of the Silver Manor began to quantum tunnel. He grabbed the dying embryo and jumped out of the dome, with the subprime spine fragments of the blood clan elders chasing behind him. Irene raised a special syringe on the rooftop of the opposite building, and the nanoworm swarm condensed into a mother's face at the muzzle.
"The final stage of the Lunar Eclipse Protocol!" Her mechanical vocal cords suddenly turned into a human cry, "Leo, my genes are..."
The embryo suddenly woke up, and the umbilical cord pierced Leo's Bitcoin mining machine interface. The global blockchain data stream exploded on his retina, and Leo saw that his gene hash value was being sold wildly on all cryptocurrency exchanges.
When Moriti's body pounced, Leo made a choice that went against all wolf instincts - stuffing the embryo into the chest of the vampire elder. The quantum explosion twisted the Silver Manor into a Klein bottle structure, and Irene's nano-worm bullet changed its trajectory at the last moment, hitting the bracelet on Leo's wrist.
Runewen **ᚠᚱᛁ (Freedom)** was burned into the sky in the explosion. When Leo fell into the Hudson River, the embryo fragments in his arms showed signs of life, and in Irene's monitoring screen, all X-13 clones were opening their eyes at the same time at the DOA headquarters.
The bronze rams of Viking longships pierce the riverbed in the mud. The sails are made of 2008 bankruptcy documents, and a newborn baby with wolf ears is tied to the steering wheel - the badge number is X-13∞.