"Get your head down if you don't want it ventilated!" Rook screamed, her voice barely audible over the screech of gunfire.
She didn't just tell me. She slammed her palm into the back of my neck, pinning me against the damp concrete of the alleyway. I felt the heat of her skin through my thin shirt, a sharp contrast to the freezing rain that started spitting down on us. Above us, a security drone banked hard, its red targeting laser painting a frantic line across the brickwork just inches from my ear.
"What the hell is happening?" I gasped, my voice cracking. My left arm was still humming, the chrome plating receding back into my skin but leaving behind a raw, electric itch that made me want to rip my own sleeve off.
"What's happening is you're the most expensive piece of scrap in Neon Grave," Rook snapped. She didn't let go of my neck. Instead, she shifted her weight, pressing me harder into the wall as she peered around the corner. "Five hundred thousand credits, Kade. That's the bounty. You didn't just steal a chip; you stole a corporate god-complex."
I tried to pull away, but she gripped my collar, her knuckles brushing my jaw. Her eyes were wide, scanning the perimeter with a professional intensity that terrified me. She wasn't protecting me because she liked me. She was protecting her investment.
"I didn't ask for this," I hissed.
"Too bad. The market doesn't care about your feelings." She yanked me upward, forcing me to move. "Move. Now. If we stay here, we're just target practice."
We bolted. Every step felt like my boots were made of lead. We scrambled through a narrow gap between two hab-blocks, the air thick with the smell of ozone and rotting synth-meat. As we hit the main thoroughfare, I stopped dead.
Every holographic billboard. Every flickering neon sign. Every public transit screen.
My face was there.
It wasn't a flattering shot. It was a grainy, high-contrast capture from a security feed, my eyes wide with panic, the glitch-chip's glow illuminating my iris like a demon's spark. Underneath the image, in bold, bleeding red letters: WANTED. DEAD OR ALIVE. 500,000 CR.
"Holy shit," I whispered. "That's... that's more than my neighborhood makes in a decade."
"Stop staring at yourself and run!" Rook grabbed my wrist, her grip tight enough to bruise.
We dove into a crowded market lane, weaving through the throng of salarymen and junk-dealers. People were stopping. They weren't looking at us—not yet—but they were looking at the screens. I saw a man, a low-level street thug with a rusted cyber-eye, glance from the billboard to me. His eye zoomed with a mechanical click. He recognized the jawline. He recognized the jacket.
He reached for a comms-unit on his belt.
"Don't even think about it," Rook muttered. Before the thug could even key the mic, she stepped into his space, her shoulder slamming into his chest. She didn't hit him—she just leaned in, her voice a dangerous whisper that only he could hear. "Walk away, or I'll carve that eye out of your skull and sell it for parts."
The man blanched, his bravado vanishing. He stumbled back, disappearing into the crowd.
I breathed out, a shaky sound that felt like it took a year. "How did you do that?"
"I'm a hunter, Kade. I know how to smell fear. And right now, you smell like a buffet for every scavenger in the city."
She pulled me into a shadowed alcove, the space so tight I could feel the rise and fall of her chest against mine. The air between us was electric, charged with something that wasn't just the glitch-chip. She was close—too close. I could smell the sharp scent of ozone and something like citrus on her skin. Her eyes searched mine, not with affection, but with a clinical, hungry curiosity.
"The chip," she whispered, her hand hovering just above my chest, where the implant sat beneath the skin. "It's reacting to the stress. You can feel it, can't you? The hunger?"
"I... I don't know what you mean," I lied.
But I did. My left arm was vibrating again. Not a shake, but a pull. A magnetic tug toward the chrome in the world around us. I looked at the metal railing of the alcove and felt a sudden, violent urge to touch it, to tear it apart, to make it mine.
"Liar," she breathed. She stepped even closer, her hip pressing against me, pinning me into the shadow. For a second, the chase disappeared. There was only the sound of our synchronized breathing and the terrifying realization that she was the only person in this city who didn't want to put a bullet in my brain—at least, not yet.
Then, the sirens screamed.
Three Peacekeeper cruisers roared around the corner, their spotlights cutting through the smog like white blades. The megaphone boomed, a synthetic voice that vibrated in my teeth: "SUBJECT KADE MERCER. SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY OR BE TERMINATED ON SIGHT."
"Crap," Rook cursed. She didn't panic; she pivoted. She grabbed my hand and slammed a pair of heavy-duty magnetic cuffs onto our wrists. One lock on me, one on her.
"What are you doing?" I yelled, struggling against the metal.
"Keeping you from running in the wrong direction!" she snapped. "And making sure that if they grab us, they grab both of us. I'm not letting my ticket out of this hellhole get snatched by a corporate squad."
We sprinted again, the cuffs clanking between us. It was clumsy, awkward, and completely insane. Every time I tried to veer left, she yanked me right. We were two magnets with the same polarity, fighting for control while the world tried to kill us.
"This way!" she shouted, diving toward a rusted bulkhead door marked *PRIVATE - NO ACCESS*.
She kicked the door open, and we tumbled into a dimly lit corridor that smelled of old blood and soldering flux. It was a rip-doc's den. The walls were lined with jars of pickled organs and discarded cyber-limbs that looked like they'd been ripped off with a crowbar.
"Old Smokes!" Rook yelled, her voice echoing. "Get out here! I've got a glitch-mutant and a bounty that'll buy your clinic ten times over!"
A small, wheezing man with a mechanical lung that hissed with every breath shuffled out from behind a curtain. He looked at me, then at the cuffs, then at the screen on his wall—which, of course, was still showing my face.
"You brought a supernova into my basement," Smokes wheezed, his eyes widening. "The corps will level this whole block just to get a sample of his marrow."
"That's why he's staying here," Rook said, her voice hard. She shoved me toward a heavy steel freezer door at the back of the room. "Lock him in. Now."
I stumbled back, the cold air from the freezer hitting my skin. "Wait, what? You're just going to lock me in a fridge?"
"It's a reinforced cryogenic locker, you idiot," she said, her expression softening for a fraction of a second before returning to stone. "It's the only place in this city that can mask your bio-signature from the scanners."
She pushed me inside. The interior was cramped, the walls lined with frosted glass and humming machinery. As she started to close the door, I saw her hand tremble. Just a little.
"Rook," I said, my voice small. "Why are you actually doing this?"
She paused, her fingers on the lever. The light from the hallway cast her face in half-shadow. "Because you're the only thing in this city that isn't a lie, Kade. Even if you are a walking disaster."
*CLANG.*
The door slammed shut, plunging me into freezing darkness.
I leaned against the cold metal, my heart hammering against my ribs. The silence lasted for maybe ten seconds. Then, from the other side of the door, I heard it.
Heavy, rhythmic thuds. The sound of magnetic boots.
Then came a voice—cold, amplified, and devoid of emotion.
"Search every inch of the facility. If the asset resists, break his legs. Just bring us the chip."
I froze. The freezer door rattled as someone slammed a fist against it from the outside.