“The whole system is faulty,” Dr.Brune huffed, pulling out the pulsing synapse from the mod spider’s spinal cord, “I need something fresh.” The thing’s legs skittered once and it dropped the load it had been carrying. None of it was useful, a load of American-made junk.

Lud nodded, grabbing the squirming mass of neural connectors from the Doc, handing it over to Yuuki, who went right over to the wall and let it be reabsorbed into a vein there.

Euro Tech was archaic compared to other countries, This place still had wooden walls, and this biograph was clearly not their own.

“Perhaps we’re going about this all wrong?”

Lud flexed his arm, looking at his own prosthesis, a newer version of Canadian tech, it was leaps ahead of the Kremlin and the Wardogs they bred.

Jumped-up wolfmen, they had nothing on what Yuuki and himself had created in secret.

“Doc? We have an idea, but it’s going to require a lot of genetic material for a new synapse relay.”

Dr.Brune was no fool, he knew them well.

“Ahh, Ludvik, my boy; what do you have in mind?”

Yuuki beamed and brought out her book of plans she had squirrelled away in her skirt when they’d all been captured and brought here.

“See, Yuuki and I have figured it out.”

“What?”

Yuuki fumbled her book, almost dropping it in her excitement, signing to Lud so he could translate for her.

“She cracked the geneblock,” she slapped him in the shoulder and re-signed, “Fine, fine; we cracked it.”

Dr.Brune looked stunned.

The geneblock was an artificial DNA code that no one in the world had managed to break. Well, till now.

“Nicola Tesla and Carl Sachs put the geneblock in place to prevent the tampering of the synapse flow.”

“But it can be done sir, if-“

“If you do that, whatever you have grown will be able to also control you. No, no this is too reckless. We will have to do something else. I just need more time to buy our freedom.”

Lud looked around at the armed guards on the catwalk above their holding area.

“Sir, it would mean full control, shared consciousness. We could get out of here ourselves.”

One of the guards ears perked up.

“He didn’t mean it like that! We are working comrades!”

The guard just smirked, a wardog no doubt from those sharp ears, they always assumed themselves superior.

Lud had thought it was over, now he saw a means to escape, and he wasn’t going to sit still.

“Please Doc, we can do this.”

Dr.Brune still looked scared, fundamental laws were that for a reason, but freedom was a temptation.

“Comrade, we need materials, specific chemicals and a new spider if you can get one?”

“Oh, Doc, thank you, you won’t regret this,” Lud whispered.

“I already do,” Doc hissed quietly as the guard came over with paper, “But, I have faith in the bond you two have.”