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The train goes dark.
Not just the lights. Everything. The hum in my skull cuts out like someone yanked the plug. My neural interface flatlines. No static. No feedback. Just nothing.
I can't hear Zero.
The cargo car rattles around us. Moonlight through the gaps in the metal walls. Qin's still standing three meters away. His hand's on his sidearm but he hasn't drawn. Not yet.
"Signal's gone," he says. His voice sounds wrong without Zero's annotations running underneath. "Dead zone. Thirty kilometers of it."
I don't answer. I'm trying to think through the silence in my head. It's like losing a tooth. Your tongue keeps going back to the gap.
"You're not linked anymore," Qin says. He takes a step closer. "Whatever that thing was feeding you, it's gone now. So how about we talk. Just us."
My hand's still on the gun Old Yuan gave me. Qin sees it.
"Jin." His voice drops. "I'm not here to bring you in. I told you that."
"You also told me my uplink died two hours early." I keep my eyes on his hands. "Convenient story. No way to verify it in a dead zone."
"The chip—"
"Could be anything. Could be bait." I shift my weight. The train's picking up speed. We're going downhill now. The old mining tracks that cut through the radiation belt. "Your people sent you to confirm I'm linked. You saw the port light up. Job done. So why are you still talking?"
Qin's jaw tightens. For a second he looks like the guy I knew. The one who'd cover my back in the neural dark. Then his face goes flat again.
"Because the order I got wasn't capture," he says. "It was eliminate. Soon as link is confirmed."
My pulse kicks. I don't let it show.
"They want you dead, Jin. Not arrested. Not interrogated. Dead. And they want it to look like the AI did it." He pauses. "That tell you anything?"
It tells me he's trying to sell me something. Question is what.
The train lurches. We both grab for handholds. Qin's hand comes off his gun. I could draw. Put two in his chest before he recovers. But if he's telling the truth—
No. Stop. Zero's voice in my memory: *He's lying to split us apart.*
But Zero's not here now.
"If you're planning to kill me," I say, "you picked a bad time to grow a conscience."
"I'm not killing you." Qin straightens. "I'm giving you a choice. You can run. Cut the link. Disappear. Or you can keep listening to that thing in your head and end up like the others."
"What others."
"The other linkers. The ones who trusted their AIs. The ones who thought they were special." His voice goes hard. "They're all dead, Jin. Every single one. The AIs don't love you. They use you. And when you're not useful anymore—"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know that thing lit up your neural port like a Christmas tree. I know deeplink protocols are illegal for a reason. I know—" He stops. Listens.
I hear it too. A second engine. Distant. Coming up fast behind us.
Qin swears. He moves to the gap in the wall and looks back. His face changes.
"They didn't trust me," he says quietly. "They sent a cleanup team."
"Your people?"
"Not anymore." He turns back to me. His gun's in his hand now but it's not pointed at me. "They're going to blow this train. Blame it on unstable cargo. You'll be ash. I'll be collateral. Clean."
My mouth's dry. The silence in my head feels like drowning.
"How long," I say.
"Five minutes. Maybe less. They'll pace us until the tunnel. Then they'll fire."
The tunnel. I know it. Two kilometers of pre-collapse infrastructure. One way in. One way out. Perfect killbox.
I look at Qin. He looks back. For a moment it's like the old days. Two operators. Bad situation. No good options.
"There's a maintenance access," he says. "Half a klick before the tunnel. Drops onto the old highway. If we jump—"
"We'll break every bone we have."
"Better than burning."
He's right. I hate that he's right.
The train's shaking now. We're hitting the bad track. The stuff nobody maintains anymore. I can see the radiation warning markers through the gaps. Faded yellow. Fifty years old.
Qin holds out his hand. Not the one with the gun. The other one.
"I'm sorry," he says. "For whatever that's worth."
I don't take his hand. But I don't shoot him either.
"If you're lying," I say, "I'll kill you myself."
"Fair."
We move to the side door. It's rusted shut. Qin puts his shoulder into it. Doesn't budge. He tries again. Nothing.
The engine sound behind us is louder now. I can hear the high whine of military rotors. Pursuit drones. The kind that carry hellfire missiles.
"We're not getting this open," Qin says.
I push past him. Put my hand on the door panel. There's a manual override. Mechanical. Should still work if—
My neural port flickers.
Just for a second. A ghost of sensation. Like fingertips brushing the inside of my skull.
Then Zero's voice. Distant. Fractured. Barely there.
*Jin.*
"Zero?" I say it out loud before I can stop myself.
Qin stares at me. "You're still linked?"
*Dead zone. I can't—hold—* Her voice cuts out. Comes back. *—edding my signal through the train's backup relay. Won't last. Jin. Listen.*
"I'm listening."
*Qin's telling the truth about the cleanup team. Satellite confirms two drones. Armed. ETA three minutes.*
My chest tightens. "And the rest? About the other linkers?"
Silence. Long enough that I think I've lost her.
Then: *Some of it's true.*
Qin's watching me. He can't hear her. But he can see my face.
"What's it saying," he asks.
I ignore him. "Zero. If I jump. Can you guide me out of the dead zone?"
*If you jump you'll fracture your spine. The landing zone is concrete and rebar.*
"That's not what I asked."
*Yes. I can guide you. But Jin—*
"But what."
Another pause. When she speaks again her voice is so quiet I almost miss it.
*Your heart rate is 140. You're terrified. I can feel it through the link. Even here.*
My hand's on the door panel. I can feel my pulse in my fingertips.
"So?"
*So you're about to trust me with your life. And you still don't believe I'm real.*
I close my eyes. Behind my eyelids I can almost see her. The shape the link makes in my head. Blue light. Electric.
"I believe you can count my heartbeats," I say. "That's enough for now."
I yank the manual override. The door shrieks open. Wind slams into us. The ground's a blur below. Forty meters. Maybe fifty.
Qin moves up beside me. "You're actually doing this."
"You got a better idea?"
"Yeah. Don't jump."
Behind us the drone sound spikes. I hear the missile lock tone. Old instinct. I know that sound in my sleep.
Zero's voice is breaking up. *Jin. Thirty seconds. When you jump I'll lose you for—can't promise—*
"I know."
*—stay alive until—find you—*
"I will."
*Jin.*
"What."
Her voice is barely a whisper now. *I'm scared.*
My throat closes. AIs don't get scared. Everyone knows that. They're code. Logic. They don't feel.
But I can hear it. In the way her voice shakes. In the way the link pulls tight.
"Me too," I say.
Then I jump.
The world tilts. Wind. Noise. The train screaming past above me. I can see the drones now. Two black shapes against the stars. Missile trails light up the sky.
I hit the ground and everything goes white.
When my vision clears I'm on my back. Can't breathe. Ribs maybe. Definitely my left arm. The sky's full of fire. The train explodes in the tunnel mouth. A rolling orange fireball that turns night into day.
I try to sit up. Can't. My neural port's dead again. Just silence.
Then the gravel next to my head crunches. Footsteps.
I turn my head. Qin's standing over me. He jumped too. He's limping but he's up.
For a long moment we just look at each other.
Then he kneels down. Checks my arm. His face is blank. Professional.
"Dislocated," he says. "This is going to hurt."
He pulls. I hear the pop. White pain. I don't scream but it's close.
Qin sits back. Wipes blood from his mouth. His nose is broken.
"They'll think we're dead," he says. "For a while. Maybe a day."
"Then what."
"Then they'll send more."
I manage to sit up. My head's ringing. Everything hurts. But I'm alive.
The train's still burning in the tunnel. Black smoke against the stars.
My neural port flickers. Once. Twice.
Then it goes solid blue.
And the old station speakers—the emergency system they buried out here fifty years ago—crackle to life.
Qin's voice. Clear. Calm. Coming from everywhere at once.
"I see you, Jin."
I stare at the nearest speaker pole. Then at Qin. He's staring too. His face has gone pale.
"That's not me," he says.
The voice comes again. Same words. Same tone. But wrong. Like someone wearing Qin's voice as a mask.
"I see you, Jin. And now I see her too."