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"Hands off the chrome, rat — that's corp property."
The muzzle digs into the back of my neck before I can get my hands off the dead guy's chest. Cold circle. Shaking just a little. Two corp sec in black rigs, rifles up, white lights blinding me.
"Whoa, whoa — I'm not jacking anything," I say. My hands are up now. They're covered in blood. His blood. "I'm just checking vitals, man. Guy's dead when I got here, I was —"
"You were elbow-deep in his throat," the one with the muzzle says. "Hands where I can see them. Now."
"I wasn't — look, I'm licensed salvage," I lie. "Tier-three scrap permit. You can scan it."
"Scan this." He jams the barrel harder. "On your knees."
I drop. Knees hit wet concrete. The dead guy is still warm. Mid-forties, corp courier, neat suit, neat hole in his temple. Professional. And the thing in his neck is still blinking. Red. Slow pulse. A chrome gene-chip, fresh, not even crusted over yet.
That chip is rent. That's my sister's meds for three months. That's us not getting evicted.
"Please," I say. "I got a permit, I swear, you can call it in —"
"You got ten seconds to stand up and walk away with nothing," the second guard says. He's younger, finger already tight on his trigger. "Or we log you as a ghoul and dump you with him. Your choice, rat."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm walking," I say. I start to push up. Slow. Hands visible. "No trouble. I'm gone."
I don't walk.
I dive forward. Right onto the corpse.
"Hey!" The muzzle swings — too slow.
My fingers find the chip housing at the base of the dead guy's skull. It's hot. It's slick. I rip. No tools, no finesse, just yank the whole socket free with a wet pop. Blood sprays my face, my teeth. The chip comes out trailing little chrome threads that writhe like worms.
"He's jacking it!" the younger one shouts.
A rifle cracks. The round snaps past my ear and chips concrete. I roll, I'm already scrambling behind a busted coolant tank, clutching that bloody chip like it's my heart.
"Drop it!" the older one roars. "Drop the chrome and put your hands on your head!"
"You don't want this!" I shout back. My hand's shaking so bad I can barely hold it. "This thing's glitched! It's flagged! You take it back and it fries your system!"
"Last warning, rat!"
They're coming around both sides. I got maybe three seconds before they have a clean shot. The chip is pulsing against my palm. Hotter now. Like it's awake. Like it knows I'm broke and desperate and stupid enough.
Screw it.
I slam it into my own neck.
No prep. No rip-doc. No anesthetic. I just find the old port behind my ear — the cheap one I got when I was sixteen — and I shove that bloody, glitching hunk of chrome straight in and twist.
Pain blows my spine apart.
"Ah — fuck!" I scream. It feels like someone poured molten wire down my throat. My back arches off the ground. Every vein in my arms lights up — I can actually see it, blue-white light crawling under my skin like lightning.
"What the hell is he doing?" one of them yells.
"He just — he juiced himself! Light him up!"
Another shot. It hits the tank next to my head and steam explodes everywhere. I can't move. The chip is eating me. I hear it — not with ears — inside my skull, a staticky, hungry buzz.
[GENE-EATER // HOST DETECTED]
[INTEGRATING...]
"Get off me — get off!" I claw at my neck but my fingers won't work. The light is spreading up my jaw, into my eyes. My left eye goes white, then chrome. I can see my own bloodwork scrolling across my vision like a bad holo.
[WARNING: INCOMPATIBLE BIOMASS]
[REQUIRES STABILIZER]
"You good to die, rat?" The older guard steps into the steam, rifle leveled at my forehead. He's close enough I can see the sweat on his lip. "You just bought yourself a real expensive suicide."
"Yeah?" I choke out. My voice doesn't sound like mine. It's doubled, glitched. "Check your scanner, asshole."
His eyes flick down to his wrist scanner. It’s screaming. Red.
"What — what is that reading?" the younger one says. "His vitals are — Jesus, his chrome count just spiked to —"
I don't hear the rest. Because the thing in my neck finally locks in. The pain snaps off like a switch. And for one second everything is dead quiet and perfectly clear.
Then it whispers.
Not in my ears. Inside.
"Maya..."
My sister's name. In my voice. But not my voice.
My blood goes cold. No one knows that name here. The chip shouldn't know that name.
"Who said that?" I gasp. "Who —"
"Hands where I can see them. Both of you."
New voice. Female. Flat. Cold as hell.
The two corp guards freeze. Slowly, they turn.
She's standing at the mouth of the alley in a long dark coat, hood up, rain beading on the shoulders. Can't see her face properly. Just the gun. Big, matte black, some kind of gene-hunter pistol, and it's not pointed at them.
It's pointed at me.
"You," she says to me. Her eyes catch the light from my veins. Grey, sharp, pissed off. "You just put a dead man's glitch-chip in your neck without a stabilizer. That's cute. That's real dumb."
"Hey, lady, this is corp recovery —" the older guard starts.
"Corp recovery just ended," she cuts him off without even looking at him. "Walk away or I log your chips as collateral."
They look at each other. At her gun. At my glowing neck. Then they back off, rifles still up, disappearing into the steam.
Now it's just me on the ground, lit up like a bad circuit, and her standing over me, gun steady, two feet away.
"You hear me?" she says. She steps closer. The toe of her boot nudges my knee. Her coat brushes my leg and I can smell ozone and something clean, like cold air. "I said hands where I can see them, glitch."
"I can't —" My hands are shaking. My left eye is still chrome. "You heard it too, right? It said —"
"I heard your vitals flatline and come back wrong," she says. She crouches, fast, and suddenly she's right in my face. Gun under my chin, tilting my head up. Her eyes are right there, grey and furious, and her free hand grabs my wrist — her fingers are hot, too hot, burning almost. "You stole something that doesn't belong to you, Kade Mercer."
How does she know my name?
"You got about three seconds to tell me why my scanner says you're already dead, or I —"