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The sync chair smelled like burnt plastic and someone else's sweat. I should've cleaned it. Didn't.
Lila was already strapped in when I got to the observation deck, her fingers drumming against the armrest. The neural crown sat crooked on her head. She'd put it on herself. Wrong.
"Stop," I said through the comm.
She looked up at the camera. "What?"
"The crown. You put it on backwards."
Her hand went to her temple. She twisted the frame, found the calibration nodes, clicked them into place. No hesitation. Most rookies took five minutes and a manual.
"Better?" she said.
"Yeah."
She leaned back. "So are we doing this or are you gonna stall until Victor shows up with a bag and a river?"
Two weeks. That's what he'd given us. Fourteen days to prove she could pull crowd money, or he'd cut his losses. Victor didn't say what cutting losses looked like, but the underground circuit had a reputation. People went into the river. People didn't come out.
I hit the ignition sequence. The training mech hummed to life in the center of the arena floor below—older model, second-hand hydraulics, but the neural interface was clean. I'd checked it twice.
"Start slow," I said. "We're just mapping your baseline today. Don't push."
"I know."
"I'm serious, Lila. You redline on day one, you're no use to me."
She didn't answer. The sync feed lit up on my monitor: green, stable, climbing smooth. 45%. 50%. Normal range for a first-timer. Her breathing evened out. I watched her face on the camera. Eyes half-closed. Calm.
Too calm.
The mech's right arm lifted. Slow, controlled. She rotated the wrist, flexed the fingers. No stutter. No lag. The sync rate ticked up. 58%. 62%.
"Good," I said. "Now try a step."
The mech's left foot shifted forward. Smooth weight transfer. No wobble. She took another step. Another. The rate hit 70%.
I sat back. Most pilots took a month to break seventy. She'd done it in under three minutes.
"Lila, ease off."
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask if you're fine. I said ease off."
The rate kept climbing. 75%. 78%. Her hands tightened on the armrests. I could see it on the camera—knuckles white, shoulders locked.
"Lila."
The mech moved faster now. A pivot. A lunge. The hydraulics hissed. The sync rate spiked to 82%, and the monitor flashed yellow.
"Lila, stop."
Her eyes were open, but she wasn't looking at anything. Not the arena. Not the camera. Somewhere else.
Then I heard it.
A sound. Faint. Barely there. Coming through the open mic.
She was crying.
No—not crying. Worse. She was trying not to. The kind of sound you make when you've been holding it in for years and it's coming up anyway.
The sync rate hit 85%. The monitor went red.
"Lila, I'm pulling you out."
"No." Her voice cracked. "Don't."
"You're burning. I'm shutting it down."
"I said don't!"
The mech spun. Fast. Too fast. The arm swung wide and slammed into the arena wall. Metal screamed. The impact shook the observation deck.
I was already on my feet, fingers on the emergency override, but I stopped.
Because she was talking.
Not to me.
To someone else.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
The sync rate hit 90%.
Her mother. She was talking to her mother.
I'd seen this before. Neural burn. The sync tech didn't just read your brain—it opened it. Pulled out whatever you'd buried. And if you didn't know how to shut it down, it pulled until there was nothing left.
I slammed the override.
The mech died. All at once. Hydraulics vented. The frame sagged forward, caught by the safety rig. The sync crown cut power.
Lila gasped. A full-body jerk, like she'd been drowning and just broke the surface.
I was down the stairs before I thought about it. Through the side door. Into the arena. The mech's cockpit hatch was still sealed. I hit the manual release, yanked it open.
She was slumped in the chair. The crown had left red marks on her temples. Her face was wet.
"Lila."
She didn't look at me.
"Lila, look at me."
Her head turned. Slow. Her eyes were wrong. Distant. Like she was still halfway in.
"What did you see?" I said.
"Nothing."
"Bullshit. What did you see?"
She blinked. Once. Twice. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Then her gaze focused. On me. Sharp.
"I saw her," she said.
"Who?"
"My mother." Her voice was flat now. Empty. "She was screaming at me. Same as always. Said I'd never be anything. Said I should've stayed where I was. That I'm selfish. That I ruin everything I touch."
I didn't say anything. What was there to say?
"She's right, you know." Lila wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I did ruin it. I left. She had no one after that. And I didn't even call."
"Lila—"
"I didn't call her, Cole. Not once."
She looked away. Her breathing was uneven. I reached for her shoulder, then stopped. My hand hovered there. Stupid. She didn't need that.
I pulled back.
"The sync pulls memory," I said. "Old stuff. Buried stuff. It's not real. It's just noise."
"It felt real."
"It's not."
She laughed. Bitter. Short. "You don't know what real is."
Maybe she was right.
I stepped back. "We're done for today."
"No."
"Yes. You burned. You need to—"
"I need to do it again."
I stared at her. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I can handle it."
"You just hit ninety percent on your first sync and had a breakdown. You can't handle it."
She stood up. Unsteady, but she stood. "I have two weeks. You said it yourself. If I don't pull money, Victor's gonna put me in the river. So either you let me train, or you're wasting both our time."
I wanted to grab her. Shake her. Tell her she was being an idiot. That the sync tech didn't care how brave she was or how much she wanted it. That it would burn her out from the inside and leave her a shell.
But I didn't.
Because I'd said the same thing once.
She stepped past me, heading for the door. I caught her arm.
"Lila."
She stopped.
"Your gift isn't a gift," I said. "It's a loaded gun. You pull that trigger too many times, it's gonna go off in your hand."
She turned. Looked me in the eye. There was something in her face I hadn't seen before. Not anger. Not fear.
Certainty.
"Then I better make it count," she said.
She pulled free and walked out.
I stood there in the empty arena, staring at the dead mech. My hand was still warm where I'd grabbed her arm. I could feel the heat through my palm. Her pulse. Fast. Unsteady.
She was twenty-one.
Twenty-one, and she was already burning.
I turned to follow her, and that's when I heard it.
Her voice. Faint. From the hall.
"Kade."
I froze.
"She said Kade would've understood."
My blood went cold.
I ran.
She was on the floor when I reached her. Slumped against the wall, eyes half-closed. Her breathing was shallow.
"Lila—"
"She said his name," Lila whispered. "In the sync. My mother said... said Kade would've understood."
She looked up at me. Her eyes were starting to roll back.
"Who's Kade, Cole?"
Then she was out.