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"Drop the package, Maya, or I’ll paint this alley with your brains," the voice rasped.
I didn’t even have time to turn. A cold, heavy barrel pressed right into the soft skin behind my ear. I froze, my fingers still clutching the encrypted data-drive like it was the only thing keeping me anchored to the ground.
"We can talk about this, Kael," I said, my voice shaking just enough to piss him off. "I’m just the courier. I don't even know what's on the drive."
"Liar," Kael spat. I could smell the cheap synthetic tobacco on his breath. "You’re a vat-grown glitch with a death wish. Give it here, and maybe I’ll let you crawl back to your hole in the Underbelly."
I shifted my weight, feeling the grime of the alley seep through my boots. The Underbelly didn't give second chances. If I gave him the drive, I was dead anyway. No pay, no ID, no future. Just another disposable piece of lab-grown meat.
"What's the rush?" I asked, trying to sound bolder than I felt. "The client isn't even paying until tomorrow."
"Wrong answer," Kael hissed.
He yanked me backward, slamming my spine against the corrugated metal wall. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs in one sharp gasp. He pinned my wrist above my head with one hand, his grip like a vice, while the gun stayed leveled at my temple.
"You think you're special because you can run a few blocks without wheezing?" he sneered, leaning in close. "You're a zero, Maya. A blank. You were grown in a tank to be a tool, and tools get replaced when they break."
I glared at him, my teeth gritted. "At least I wasn't born with a personality chip that makes me a corporate lapdog."
He laughed, a dry, hacking sound. "Feisty. I’ll make sure the buyer gets a bonus for the entertainment value when I deliver your head in a box."
Suddenly, the air shifted. A high-pitched, electronic shriek tore through the alley, so loud it felt like a needle driving straight into my brain. Kael flinched, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.
Then the sky broke.
Above the towering smog of the city, a single, iridescent pulse of violet light exploded. It wasn't a firework. It was a wave. The Bloom.
"What the hell was—" Kael started, but he never finished.
His eyes suddenly rolled back. A sickening crack echoed through the alley as his arm—the one holding my wrist—twisted at an impossible angle. He didn't even scream. He just gasped, his skin turning a bruised, translucent purple in seconds.
I scrambled back, tripping over a pile of rusted scrap. "Kael?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't. His jaw unhinged, and a thick, crystalline vine erupted from his throat, shredding his vocal cords. He collapsed, thrashing on the wet concrete, his body mutating into something that wasn't human anymore.
I backed away, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The city around me was screaming. From every direction, the sounds of crashing metal and guttural roars filled the air. The System was rewriting the rules of the Underbelly in real-time, and we were all just bugs in the code.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I whispered, looking at the chaos.
I turned to run, but my legs gave out. Not from fear, but from a sudden, searing heat blooming in the base of my skull. It felt like someone had poured molten lead into my spine.
"Get... up..." a voice groaned.
I looked down. It wasn't Kael. It was the scrap heap I’d tripped over. Buried under a pile of discarded circuit boards and oily rags was a plush toy. It was a beat-up, one-eyed rabbit, missing half an ear, with stuffing leaking out of a jagged tear in its chest.
I stared at it. "A toy? Now?"
Then the rabbit’s remaining eye snapped open. Not a bead—a glowing, neon-blue optic sensor that whirred as it zoomed in on my face.
"Bout time, Maya," the plush said. Its voice wasn't cuddly. It was a sharp, arrogant drawl that sounded like it belonged to a disgraced aristocrat who’d spent too much time in a gambling den. "I was starting to think you were actually as stupid as you look."
I scrambled backward, nearly falling into the mutating mess that used to be Kael. "What the hell are you?"
"I'm your only chance of not becoming a garden ornament for the Bloom, sweetheart," the rabbit replied, its little fabric mouth twitching. "Now pick me up before another one of those overgrown weeds decides your liver looks like a snack."
I hesitated. "I don't trust talking rabbits."
"Fair," the AI snapped. "But you're currently standing in a kill-zone with a malfunctioning combat gene sequence screaming in your DNA and a mutated merc trying to eat your shoes. So, unless you have a better plan, grab the bunny."
I looked down. Kael—or the thing that had been Kael—was dragging itself toward me, the vines in its throat pulsing with a hungry, violet light.
I didn't think. I lunged forward and snatched the plush by its remaining ear.
"Careful with the ears, you brute!" the rabbit yelled. "I’m a delicate piece of hardware!"
As soon as my hand closed around the fabric, a surge of electricity shot up my arm. A holographic screen flickered into existence in my vision, scrolling through lines of red code at blinding speed.
[PROTOCOL BLOOM: ACTIVE] [USER: MAYA KADE - VAT-GROWN UNIT #092] [STATUS: DISPOSABLE / PREY] [SYNCING WITH EXTERNAL CORE: PIP-AI...]
"What is this?" I gasped, the screen blurring. "What's happening to me?"
"Welcome to the game, kid," Pip said, his voice dropping the sarcasm for a split second. "The System just turned your neighborhood into a level-one dungeon. And guess what? You're the lowest-level mob in the room."
I felt a sudden, violent pressure in my chest. My muscles tightened, and for a second, the world slowed down. I could see the individual droplets of rain hanging in the air. I could see the way the mutated Kael’s muscles were twitching.
"Move left!" Pip screamed.
I dove. The mutated creature slammed into the spot where I’d been standing, its claws shredding the metal wall like it was paper. I rolled, coming up on one knee, clutching the rabbit to my chest.
"Now hit him!" Pip commanded. "The joint in his left knee is cracked. One good kick and he’s a rug!"
I didn't know if I believed him, but I didn't have a choice. I lunged forward, putting every ounce of my desperation into a kick aimed at the creature's leg.
*CRACK.*
The sound was satisfying. The creature shrieked, its leg snapping with a wet pop. It collapsed, thrashing, but it wasn't dead. It was still trying to reach me, its violet vines snapping like whips.
"Great. Now run," Pip sighed. "And for the love of everything digital, stop shaking. You're making my stuffing itch."
I didn't need to be told twice. I bolted out of the alley, my boots splashing through neon-tinted puddles. I didn't know where I was going, only that the city I had spent my whole life trying to escape had just become a slaughterhouse.
I ran until my lungs burned, ducking through narrow corridors and over piles of trash. Every corner I turned, I saw it: the violet vines, the screaming people, the flickering lights of a system that had finally decided it didn't need us anymore.
I ducked into a narrow crawlspace beneath a mag-rail track, gasping for air. I slumped against the cold concrete, the plush rabbit still gripped tight in my hand.
"So," I panted, looking at Pip. "You're an AI. A nanny-AI, right?"
"I prefer the term 'Tactical Survival Consultant,'" Pip replied, his optic sensor scanning the area. "And yes, I was designed to keep pampered brats alive in the upper spires. But here we are, in the dirt, with a vat-grown courier who can't even tie her shoes without a panic attack."
"Shut up," I snapped. "Why are you helping me?"
"Helping?" Pip let out a digital snort. "I'm not helping you, Maya. I'm using you. You're the only thing in this district with a compatible neural port that isn't currently being digested by a plant. You're my ride out of this dump."
I stared at him. "I'm just a tool. That's what they always told me. I'm disposable."
"Well," Pip said, his voice suddenly soft, almost curious. "The System doesn't think you're disposable. It thinks you're a target. Which means you're finally worth something."
Before I could ask what that meant, a heavy metallic thud echoed from the entrance of the crawlspace.
I froze. The air suddenly felt thick, charged with a static that made the hair on my arms stand up. A shadow fell over the opening, blocking out the flickering neon light of the street.
A long, blackened combat blade slid into the concrete just inches from my thigh, pinning my sleeve to the ground.
I looked up. A woman stood there, clad in matte-black tactical gear, her eyes glowing with a cold, artificial gold light. She didn't look like a monster. She looked like a professional. And she was holding a high-caliber pistol aimed directly at my forehead.
"Target identified," the woman said, her voice as cold as the blade in the ground. "You're coming with me, Prototype Zero. Or I can just take the chip out of your skull right now."