Page 29 of Swamp Kings 2

Bishop glanced at the neural dampening field surrounding her. It was meant for something far more volatile—Zodak. It was the only thing holding her together, suppressing the emotional loops that threatened to spiral out of control. But in the dead silence, the demons manipulated her instincts, seeking for triggers they needed to feed on. How long before they found a way to break free? How long before Celeste’s emotions tipped the balance, letting them slip through the cracks?

His eyes traced the lines of her face, seeing she wasn’t just a person anymore—she was a battlefield, and the demons were closing in. His thoughts went to Beth again and the fucking bite he’d just given her. She should’ve been taken in for tests immediately, instead he’d left her at the most critical time with another man’s number to call if she had problems. Lesion wasn’t a fucking doctor, not the kind she needed. It felt like his first big mistake as leader of the most important thing—his wife’s wellbeing. Again, he searched their new bondknitted in his every cell, looking for problems he needed to know, getting the samenothinganswer that felt more than ever likebullshit.

His gaze moved over the containment when his gifts whispered to him, showing him the cracks in it. They needed a way to rip the demons out without tearing her apart in the process. Cage the storm without losing her in it. His mind buzzed as solutions formed as quickly as the problems did. He’d need to rely on all of them there—Zodak, Fetch, Fathom, Fin, Quantum, Harlow.

“Come and look,” Quantum called, getting the information Bishop needed on the bio-printer interface. Bishop hurried over, following his fingers flying over the screen. “The demons aren’t just embedded—they’re fusing into her instincts. They know how to mimic her thought patterns, making them nearly impossible to isolate and if we rip them out too soon, they’ll tear her mind apart. If we wait too long, they’ll evolve beyond our reach.”

He stared at the data scrolling across the screens. “We need something more than containment—something that can change as fast as they do,” Bishop muttered. Fragments of data and neural patterns whirled in his head, fitting together in ways that shouldn’t have made sense—but did.

“Yes,” Quantum agreed, eager for the input that had been escaping him.

“We need to be able to adapt faster than they can,” Bishop said.

The men turned toward him, their expressions expectant.

Bishop’s gaze flicked back to the printer, to the materials it had already synthesized. “We need to build a body that doesn’t fight them—but welcomes them in.” He turned to the holographic interface, sketching the neural framework with his fingers to show them. “Every time they try to shift, the body shifts with them. They won’t realize they’re trapped because the structure will keep adapting—changing shape faster than they can react. They’ll lead themselves into dead ends.”

Bishop eyed Quantum who stared at him. “You’re saying we turn the container into... a lure?”

“More than that,” Bishop said. “We make it an evolving maze. Every move they make closes a door behind them. It’s not just containment—it’s assimilation. By the time they figure it out, they’ll be too deep inside our prison to escape.”

Kaphas chuckled lowly and Bishop realized it wasHandy. “Welcome fucking aboard.”

“And if they try to flood it with backlash energy?” Harlow asked.

“We let them.” Bishop said. “We design the firewall body to bleed off the excess into the containment field. Every surge of power they use only tightens the net.”

Quantum nodded slowly, seeing it. “This will work.”

Bishop glanced at the printer once more, his mind already calculating the next steps. “It will.”

Harlow added quickly, “I can print the basic organic shell, but if this firewall body doesn’t adapt fast enough, the demons will tear through it.”

Bishop’s gaze moved over the holograms as bone, tissue and neural systems came alive in his mind. He saw how the systems would interact, how they could mimic the adaptability of the demons inside. “We'll need a system that evolves with every shift the demons make. They’ll attack the neural pathways first—so those have to restructure in real-time.”

Quantum answered. “We need stable materials—something resistant to damage but flexible enough to change.”

“Bio-synthetic polymers,” Harlow shot out. “It can mimic living muscle.”

“Yes,” Bishop said. “But we embed them with quantum lattices—they’ll respond instantly to new inputs.”

“As soon as the demons make a move, the structure shifts,” Quantum hurried, excited.

Harlow’s head shook a little. “That’s risky. If the system evolves on the fly, it might reject the demons outright. We need them contained, not destroyed.”

“That’s why the solution isn’t force,” Bishop reminded. “We build the neural pathways to mirror their thought patterns.”

“So when they try to escape, the body doesn’t block them—it makes them think they’ve succeeded,” Fathom said.

“Every step they take is a deeper layer of containment,” Fin added, seeing it.

“A maze that reshapes itself as they move through it,” Handy muttered like a proud father.

“Yes,” Bishop said. “Every dead end becomes a new beginning. The demons won’t know which direction is forward or backward.”

Fathom tilted his head thoughtfully. “How do you prevent the body from collapsing under its own complexity?”

The question entered a part of his mind where problems exited as answers. “Integratea self-learning matrix. We can draw it using Kaphas’ bond with Celeste and mimic emotional patterns, giving us the unpredictability we need. The demons won’t realize they’re responding to a false map.”

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