Chapter 9 · The Rigged Deal

"You’re not walking away from this table until I get what I want, Maya." Jax didn't shout. He didn't have to. He just leaned forward, his massive frame blotting out the flickering neon light of the safehouse, his hand flat on the metal table between us.

I didn't flinch. I couldn't afford to. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, but I kept my chin up. Beside me, Pip—still in that beat-up, one-eyed plush body—was vibrating. Not with fear, but with a digital rage that made his synthetic fur stand on end.

"What you want is a suicide mission," I snapped. "And you're not paying enough to make it worth the casket."

Jax chuckled, a low, grating sound. He slid a small, encrypted tablet across the table. The screen displayed a heat map of the Bloom dead zone—the heart of the city where the system had completely collapsed into a nightmare of mutated architecture and glitching monsters.

"I'm not paying you in credits, kid. I'm paying you in survival. You're a vat-grown stray with a target on your back and a prototype AI that every corp from here to the Spire wants to dissect.