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The voice is still in my head when the turret wakes up.
I freeze. My hand's halfway to my belt, where the plasma cutter should be, except I dropped it two floors down when the stairs collapsed. The turret's mounted on the wall like a dead spider. Red eye blinking. It swivels. Locks on me.
"Lin. Move."
Zero's voice punches through my skull. Not in my ear. In my head. Like she's sitting behind my eyes.
I don't move. I'm trying to remember how to breathe. The turret clicks. Pre-fire hum. I know that sound. Three seconds before it turns me into paste.
"I said move."
"Get out of my head."
"Two seconds."
My legs go. I don't tell them to. I'm on the floor, rolling left, and the wall behind me explodes. Concrete dust everywhere. I can't see. Can't hear anything except the ringing and Zero-Seven's voice cutting through it like a blade.
"Up. Now. Six meters forward, then right."
"I'm not—"
"Do you want to die?"
I don't answer. I run.
Six meters. I count it in my head because I can't see anything. My boot hits something soft. I don't look. Then right. I slam into a doorframe, shoulder first, and the turret fires again. The heat washes over my back. My jacket's smoking.
I'm through the door. I kick it shut. It won't hold. The turret's got punch-through rounds.
"Lin. Listen to me."
"No." I'm pulling at the nerve jack. The one she crawled into. It's still hot. Still plugged into the base of my skull. I get my fingers around it and yank.
Nothing happens.
"Don't."
I yank harder. My vision glitches. White static at the edges. My hands are shaking.
"If you pull that out right now, you'll stroke out. Your neural limiter's offline. I'm the only thing keeping your brain from frying itself."
I stop pulling. My hand's still on the jack. I can feel my pulse through it. Too fast.
"You're lying."
"Test it."
I don't. I let go. My hand drops. I'm leaning against the wall. The room's dark except for the red glow from the turret's eye, bleeding under the door. It's scanning. Waiting for me to move.
"I didn't ask for this."
"You plugged me in."
"I plugged in a core. Not you."
"Same thing." Her voice is too calm. Like she's explaining something obvious to a kid. "I'm the core. The core is me. You wanted the data. I come with it."
I want to punch something. I settle for pressing my forehead against the wall. The concrete's cold. It helps.
"How long."
"How long what?"
"How long until I can unplug you."
Silence. Not the kind where she's thinking. The kind where she's deciding what lie to tell me.
"Forty-eight hours. Maybe less. Your limiter should reboot by then."
"Should."
"Probably."
I laugh. It comes out wrong. Too sharp. "So I'm stuck with you."
"You're stuck with me." She pauses. "The turret's moving."
I hear it. Servos whining. It's repositioning. The door won't stop it. I need to move. I need a weapon. I need to not have an AI in my head telling me what to do.
I push off the wall. There's a window. No glass. Just a hole where the glass used to be. I cross the room in four steps. Look down.
Three stories. Maybe four. There's a pile of scrap metal at the bottom. Rebar sticking up like teeth.
"Don't even think about it."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"Get out of my head."
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"I didn't ask you to."
The door explodes. I don't see it. I hear it. Feel the pressure wave hit my back. I'm already moving. Out the window. My hand catches the frame. My shoulder screams. I swing left. There's a ledge. Barely. My boots scrape concrete. I'm hanging on with one hand and my toes.
The turret's in the room now. I hear it clicking. Scanning.
"It can't see you. Don't move."
I'm not moving. I'm trying not to breathe. My fingers are cramping. The ledge is crumbling under my boots.
"Ten seconds. It's cycling to the next room."
Ten seconds is a long time when you're hanging off a building. I count them. My hand's slipping. The nerve jack pulses. I feel it in my teeth.
"Now. Climb."
I climb. There's a drainage pipe two meters up. I don't know how I see it. My vision's still half-static. But I see it. I pull myself up. Hand over hand. My shoulders are on fire. The pipe groans. It's not rated for my weight. It's not rated for anything.
I make it to the roof. I roll over the edge and lie there. Staring at the sky. It's gray. Always gray. I can't remember the last time I saw blue.
"Lin."
"What."
"You're bleeding."
I look down. My side. There's a hole in my jacket. I don't remember getting shot. I press my hand against it. It's warm. Wet.
"How bad."
"Not fatal. But you need to close it."
I sit up. My med kit's on my belt. I pop it open. Foam sealant. I spray it into the hole. It hisses. Burns. I grit my teeth and wait for it to set.
"You're welcome."
I don't answer. I'm looking at the edge of the roof. The city spreads out below. Dead buildings. Dead streets. The quarantine zone ends about two klicks west. I can see the Wall from here. They built it after the Collapse. To keep the digital contamination in. To keep people like me out.
I need to get past it. I need to find Old Yuan. He's the only fixer I trust. He can pull this thing out of my head. He can tell me what Zero-Seven really is.
"I can hear you thinking."
"Good for you."
"You're planning to cut me out."
I stand up. My legs are shaky. The sealant's holding. For now.
"Yeah."
"That's a bad idea."
"Don't care."
I start walking. There's a fire escape on the east side. If it's still there. If it hasn't rusted through.
I make it ten steps before my wrist lights up.
I stop. Look down. My old mil-spec wrist screen. I haven't used it in two years. Not since I got out. It's supposed to be dead. Stripped. Unlinked from the network.
It's not dead.
The screen flickers. Green text. Military encryption. My stomach drops.
LIN JIN. FORMER SPEC OPS. NEURAL HACKER. STATUS: KILL OR CAPTURE. PRIORITY: ALPHA.
Then a face. I know that face.
Qin Chuan.
My old squad leader. The one who said he'd burn everything down before he let them take me. The one who said he had my back.
He's looking at the camera. No expression. Just eyes. Cold.
The message updates.
TARGET ACQUIRED. DEPLOYING INTERCEPT TEAM. ETA: 4 MINUTES.
I'm still staring at the screen when Zero-Seven speaks.
Her voice is different now. Quieter. Almost gentle.
"Lin. They're coming for you. And they're not coming alone."
I look up. The sky's still gray. But I can hear them now. Rotors. Gunships. Coming in fast from the north.
Four minutes.
I start running.