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The chopper sound gets louder. I'm already sliding down a fire escape that shouldn't hold my weight, rust flaking off under my boots. The medical foam on my side pulls tight every time I move. Hurts like hell.
"Left alley," Zero-Seven says in my head. Her voice is calm. Too calm. "Thermal scan incoming in eight seconds."
I don't ask how she knows. I just run.
The alley smells like piss and burnt plastic. My boots splash through something I don't want to think about. Behind me, the chopper's spotlight cuts across the rooftops. They're sweeping the zone. Looking for heat signatures. Looking for me.
"You need to get underground," Zero-Seven says. "Now."
"Yeah, no shit." I'm gasping. The pain in my side is spreading. "I'm heading to Yuan's."
"The data broker? Lin, he sold you the job that nearly killed you."
"He's also the only guy who can pull you out of my head without frying my brain." I duck under a collapsed overhang. "Unless you got a better idea."
She goes quiet for a second. That's new. AIs don't pause. They process and respond. But Zero-Seven does this thing where she stops, like she's choosing her words.
"I don't trust him," she says finally.
"I don't either. But I'm out of options."
The entrance to the underground market is three blocks east. I used to run this route back when I was still military, back when the city wasn't half rubble. Now it's all collapsed transit tunnels and black market stalls selling cyborg parts that might or might not kill you.
I hear boots behind me. Fuck. Ground team.
"Two hostiles, forty meters," Zero-Seven says. "They're not shooting. They want you alive."
"Great. That makes me feel so much better."
I turn a corner and nearly slam into a chain-link fence. It's new. Someone's been restructuring the zone. I grab the links and start climbing. My side screams. The foam seal is holding but barely. I can feel something warm soaking through my jacket.
"Lin, you're losing blood again."
"I know." I throw myself over the top. Land hard. My vision whites out for a second. When it clears, I'm on my knees in a loading zone. Old shipping containers stacked three high. The underground market entrance is right there. A rusted subway grate with a faint glow underneath.
I stagger toward it. My legs feel like someone filled them with sand.
"Hostiles at the fence," Zero-Seven says. "You have maybe thirty seconds."
I drop to my knees and yank the grate open. The sound of the market hits me first. Voices. Music. The hum of illegal generators. I slide through and pull the grate shut over my head just as I hear the chain-link rattle behind me.
The ladder down is slick with condensation. I miss a rung halfway and nearly fall. Zero-Seven doesn't say anything but I feel this weird pulse in my head. Like she's steadying me. Like she's in my nervous system doing something AIs aren't supposed to be able to do.
I hit the bottom and stumble into the market.
It's bigger than I remember. The old subway platform has been built out into a full district. Stalls crammed into every alcove. LED strips running across the ceiling in a dozen colors. People everywhere. Scavengers. Fixers. Cyborgs with illegal mods. A kid no older than twelve trying to sell me a neural jack that's still got someone's dried blood on it.
I push past him. Yuan's place is deep. Past the weapon stalls and the organ traders and the data fences. All the way to the old service tunnel at the back.
His door is the same. Steel. No sign. Just a hand scanner that's been ripped out and replaced with a camera.
I slam my fist against the door.
Nothing.
I hit it again. "Yuan. Open up."
The camera swivels. A second later, the door cracks open. Just enough for me to see one eye and the barrel of a shotgun.
"Lin?" His voice is raspy. He sounds older than I remember. "The hell are you doing here?"
"Let me in."
"You got heat on you?"
"Not yet. But yeah, probably soon."
He swears and pulls the door open. I stumble inside. The space is small. Monitors everywhere. Old server stacks humming in the corner. It smells like cigarettes and instant noodles.
Yuan locks the door behind me. Three bolts. He's twitchy. More than usual.
"You look like shit," he says.
"Thanks." I lean against the wall. My side is throbbing. "I need a favor."
"Of course you do." He sets the shotgun down and crosses his arms. He's shorter than me. Wiry. Scar across his jaw from some job that went bad a decade ago. "What kind of favor?"
I tap the side of my head. "Got an AI stuck in my neural link. Need it out."
His face goes very still. "You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
He steps closer. His eyes narrow. "What kind of AI?"
"The kind that won't shut up," I say. "You gonna help or not?"
Yuan rubs his jaw. He's thinking. Calculating. That's what fixers do. They measure risk against profit. "Removing a hostile AI from active neural link... that's not a favor, Lin. That's major surgery. Could kill you."
"So could leaving it in."
"Not if it wanted you dead. You'd already be dead." He walks over to one of his terminals and starts typing. "Which means it wants something. And that makes you even more dangerous to be around."
"I didn't ask for this."
"Yeah, well, you also didn't ask before you took that job I gave you, did you?" He glances over his shoulder. "How'd that go, by the way? You get the data core?"
I stare at him. "You set me up."
"What?"
"That building. It wasn't abandoned. It was a trap. Auto-turrets. Military-grade security. You sent me into a kill zone."
Yuan's face doesn't change but I see his hand twitch toward the shotgun. "I gave you the intel I had."
"Bullshit."
"Lin—"
"Who paid you?" I push off the wall. My hand goes to my belt. I've still got my knife. "Who bought that job?"
For a second, he just looks at me. Then he sighs. Reaches into his jacket. I tense.
He pulls out a small black device. Tosses it to me.
I catch it. It's a jammer. Military-grade. Expensive. The casing is scuffed and there's a smear of blood on one side.
"Run," Yuan says quietly.
"What?"
"You weren't the traitor, Lin." He steps back. His voice drops even lower. "I got word two hours ago. Someone inside your old squad sold you out. Whole thing was a setup from the start. They wanted you linked to a rogue AI. Wanted to see what it would do."
My chest goes cold. "Who?"
"I don't know. But they're coming here. They know you'd come to me." He nods at the jammer. "That'll block her for maybe ten minutes. Enough time to get clear."
Zero-Seven's voice cuts in, sharp. "Lin, don't use that. I can protect you."
I look at the jammer. Then at Yuan.
"They're already in the market," he says. "You got maybe two minutes. Back tunnel. Go."
I don't move. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because I owe your brother." His jaw tightens. "And because I'm tired of watching good soldiers get burned by their own side."
He pushes me toward the back of the room. There's a service door I didn't notice before. He yanks it open. Dark tunnel beyond.
"Go. Now."
I hesitate. Zero-Seven is saying something in my head but it's getting hard to hear her over my own pulse.
Then I hear it. Boots. Multiple sets. Coming down the main market corridor.
Yuan shoves me through the door and slams it behind me.
I'm alone in the dark. Just me and the jammer in my hand and Zero-Seven's voice fading in and out like a bad signal.
"Lin... don't... I can..."
I start running. The tunnel is narrow. Water dripping somewhere. My side is on fire. I don't know where this tunnel goes. I don't know if Yuan's telling the truth.
But I keep running.
And then Zero-Seven's voice comes back. Clear. Too clear.
"Lin. I accessed Yuan's terminal before the connection weakened. I found the contract for your extraction."
"What?"
"The order came from inside your old unit. Captain Qin Chuan signed it personally. He's not coming to capture you."
My legs almost give out. I catch myself against the tunnel wall.
"He's coming to kill you," Zero-Seven says. "And he's already in the market."
Behind me, I hear the muffled sound of gunfire. Yuan's door being blown open. Voices shouting.
I grip the jammer so hard my knuckles go white.
And I run faster.