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"Hold still, gutter rat, or I take your head off." The monoblade scraped across my throat before I could crawl another inch.
I froze with one hand pressed to the metal floor. The blade was so cold it burned. A thin line of blood slid under my collar.
Boris leaned over me, breathing hard through his cracked respirator. His armored knee pinned my coat to the floor, and his free hand clamped around the back of my neck.
"You said the core was in the case," he growled.
"It was."
"You opened the case."
"Also true."
He shoved my face against the floor. My teeth clicked together.
"Then where is it?"
I glanced toward the collapsed service tunnel behind him. The case sat three yards away, split open beneath a bent pipe. Its foam lining was empty.
Not empty. The core was in my bag.
The bag was under Boris's boot.
My chest tightened. Not from fear. My lungs had started doing that thing again, locking up like somebody had cinched wire around them. My left hand shook against the floor. The fingers barely answered.
The cheap organ patch under my ribs flashed a warning across my vision.
CARDIAC SYNTHESIS: 11% RENAL FILTER: FAILURE NEURAL OXYGEN: CRITICAL
I blinked hard. The numbers stayed there.
"You look pale," Boris said. "That your heart quitting?"
"You noticed. I was worried the mask made you stupid."
He pressed the blade harder. The edge kissed skin.
"You stole from the Red Vault. Do you know what they do to thieves?"
"They send you to collect their stolen stuff. Sounds like they already made you their bitch."
Boris's fist hit my jaw.
My cheek went numb. The tunnel tilted, and the glowing numbers smeared across my sight.
He caught my hair and hauled my head back. His respirator clicked beside my ear.
"Last chance. Give me the case."
"You mean the core."
"I mean your life."
"That offer expired when you started with the knife."
His forearm crushed my throat. I clawed at the metal bracer, but my grip kept slipping. His strength came from a military frame grafted over his bones. Mine came from stealing batteries and eating whatever the city forgot to bury.
That was the difference between us.
Boris had a contract.
I had six minutes, maybe less, before my patched organs shut down.
He lifted the blade.
I drove my forehead into his nose.
The impact hurt me more than him, but his grip loosened. I twisted, kicked at his knee, and rolled toward the bag.
"You little—"
The blade punched into the floor where my neck had been.
I grabbed the bag and yanked. Boris's boot held it down. I pulled again, hard enough to tear the strap across my palm.
"Drop it," he said.
"Come take it."
He raised his boot.
I shoved a broken conduit into the joint behind his knee.
The metal rod sank between armor plates. Boris yelled and staggered. I tore the bag free, scrambled up, and slammed my shoulder into the tunnel wall.
My body did not want to stand. My knees folded. I caught myself on a rusted support and coughed until hot spit hit the floor.
"Run, Rex!" Boris shouted. "Run so I can enjoy catching you!"
"You talk too much for a man with a hole in his leg."
"I will cut your mouth off."
"Get in line."
I shoved away from the wall and ran.
The service tunnel was barely wide enough for my shoulders. Pipes scraped my coat as I pushed through. Behind me, Boris tore the conduit free with a wet metallic snap and came after me, each step rattling the floor.
My vision flashed again.
CARDIAC SYNTHESIS: 9%
"Not now," I muttered.
The warning answered with a pulse of red across my eyes.
"Did you say something?" Boris called.
"Yeah. I said you should try being faster."
A heavy object smashed into the wall beside my head. The monoblade sliced through the pipe and sent a spray of black coolant across my shoulder.
I ducked and sprinted harder.
The tunnel dropped into an old maintenance chamber. I jumped the gap, landed badly, and rolled beneath a hanging cable bundle. Boris dropped after me. The floor shook under his weight.
He was close enough that I heard his teeth grind.
"You are dying," he said. "I can hear it."
"Then enjoy the music."
"The core won't save you. It will cook your nerves before it bonds."
I stopped behind a stack of dead filtration tanks and looked down at the bag.
Inside, something pulsed against the fabric.
Once.
Twice.
The emergency lights dimmed with each beat.
Boris stepped into the chamber. His shadow stretched over the tanks.
"You know what that thing is?" he asked.
"A very expensive way to make you angry."
"It's an apex mutagen core. Military prototype. Illegal even for the companies that built it. Your body can't handle it."
"My body can't handle another five minutes of you."
"Put it down. I might let you crawl away."
I laughed, but it came out thin and ugly.
"You don't let people crawl away. You sell their implants by the gram."
"I sell what I am paid to sell."
"That's a cute way to say butcher."
Boris moved left.
I moved right.
The chamber had two exits. One had caved in. The other opened into a drainage shaft with nowhere to hide. Boris knew it. I knew it. He did not need to hurry anymore.
He lifted the monoblade and tapped its tip against his armored palm.
"Open the bag."
"No."
"You want to die stubborn?"
"I want you to die disappointed."
His jaw flexed behind the respirator.
Then he threw the blade.
I ducked. The monoblade buried itself in the tank behind me. I grabbed a loose panel and swung it into his face. Boris barely flinched. He caught the panel, ripped it away, and seized my coat.
His fist drove into my stomach.
The air left me. My back hit the tank hard enough to crack the casing. Boris dragged me up by the collar and pinned me there.
"Where is the core?"
"You keep asking that like I am going to develop manners."
"I can break every finger before your heart stops."
"Then hurry."
He punched me again.
My ribs flared with pain. The patch under my skin clicked. A bitter chemical taste filled my mouth.
CARDIAC SYNTHESIS: 7%
Boris pulled his blade from the tank and set the flat of it beneath my chin.
"You are out of time."
"I know."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"Because you finally noticed the bag isn't on me."
His eyes dropped for half a second.
That was enough.
I slammed the emergency release on the filtration tank.
A pressure valve exploded between us. A blast of freezing solvent hit Boris in the chest and threw him backward. His grip tore my coat, but I dropped free and hit the floor on my side.
The core rolled out of the bag.
It looked like a fist-sized piece of black glass wrapped around a red spark. No wires. No casing. No markings. Just a smooth surface that reflected my face in broken strips.
Boris rose through the white chemical fog.
"Don't touch it!" he shouted.
I reached for it.
"Rex! Don't!"
His voice cracked on my name.
That got my attention.
"You know my name?"
Boris yanked the monoblade free and charged.
"I know what the company knows."
"Which is?"
"That you are not supposed to be alive."
The core lay inches from my fingers. My hand shook so badly I missed it once.
Boris crossed the chamber.
"Rex! Move!"
"You first."
I grabbed the core.
It was warm.
Not warm like a battery. Warm like a living thing pressed against my palm.
The red spark inside flared.
A line of light raced from my hand to my elbow.
Boris skidded to a stop. "Put it down."
"You said my body couldn't handle it."
"It can't."
"Good. We agree on something."
The light reached my shoulder.
Pain cracked through me. I bit down and tasted blood.
The core did not cut my skin. It opened it without opening it, forcing a hot signal through every nerve in my hand. My patched heart kicked once, hard enough to bruise my chest from the inside.
CARDIAC SYNTHESIS: 8%
The number climbed.
Boris raised his blade.
"Drop it, now!"
"You are getting repetitive."
"That is a command."
"You don't have a command authority over me."
"I have a blade."
"And I have a bad idea."
I pressed the core against the injection port beneath my collarbone.
The port had been dead for three months. I had ripped it out of a corporate courier after a bad trade, then kept the socket because spare parts were expensive. The core recognized it instantly.
The port snapped open.
Boris took one step back.
"No."
"You wanted it so badly. Watch closely."
"If you inject that, the failsafe will—"
I jammed the core into the port.
Fire flooded my veins.
My back slammed into the tank. Every muscle locked. The chamber stretched into red lines, then shattered into white noise.
Boris shouted something, but his voice came from underwater.
My heart stopped.
For one brutal second, there was nothing in my chest but an empty beat.
Then the core forced it back.
Once.
Twice.
A third time, harder.
I screamed through clenched teeth. The sound bounced around the chamber and came back wrong.
Boris came at me.
I saw the motion before it happened.
Not guessed it. Saw it.
A thin blue outline traced his shoulder, wrist, hip, and blade. Tiny numbers appeared beside each joint.
BLADE PATH: 0.8 SECONDS IMPACT FORCE: 1,920 N SURVIVAL RESPONSE AVAILABLE
"What the hell did you do?" Boris demanded.
"I upgraded."
He swung for my throat.
I moved before the blade finished rising.
My hand caught his wrist.
The impact should have broken my fingers. Instead, the core dumped a burst of red heat through my arm. Boris's metal frame screamed. I twisted his wrist and drove my elbow into the gap beneath his helmet.
He staggered.
"That hurt," he said.
"Good. I was aiming for your feelings."
He charged again, using his full frame this time.
The system drew three red lines across my vision.
LEFT.
I stepped left.
LOW.
I dropped.
STRIKE.
I drove my palm into his chest plate.
The core fired.
A shockwave punched through the armor. Boris flew backward and hit the far wall with a sound that shook dust from the pipes.
He slid down, stunned.
I stared at my hand.
The veins beneath my skin glowed faintly red.
"No," Boris whispered.
I walked toward him. My legs felt too light, like the floor had stopped holding me properly.
"You keep saying that. Try a different word."
"You don't understand what you bonded with."
"Then explain it before you bleed on the floor."
Boris pushed himself up. His helmet had cracked along one side, exposing a strip of bruised cheek. He looked less like a man now and more like a machine pretending it still had a face.
"The core has an emergency failsafe," he said. "It links to the nearest active neural signature."
"Mine is the only signature here."
"No."
He glanced toward the sealed service door.
A soft click came from the other side.
My new vision caught a shape through the metal. Human outline. Stable pulse. Weapon raised.
Boris smiled behind the broken mask.
"You weren't alone."
The service door blew inward.
I rolled as a round punched through the tank where my head had been. The shot cracked across the chamber. Boris lunged for his monoblade, but a second round tore through the floor beside his hand.
"Stay down," a woman's voice said.
Her voice was low and calm. Too calm for somebody standing in a room with an armed scavenger and a damaged military killer.
I crouched behind the tank and looked through the gap.
She stood in the doorway with a compact pistol in one hand and a monoblade in the other. Black combat armor hugged her shoulders and ribs without slowing her down. A silver strip ran along her throat, catching the emergency light each time she breathed.
Her dark hair was tied back. Her face was sharp, clean, and completely unimpressed.
Boris lifted both hands.
"Vesper."
"You know me," she said.
"Everyone knows you. Corporate executioner."
"Then you know not to reach for that blade."
Boris looked at me instead. "He's bonded."
Vesper's pistol shifted toward my position.
"With what?"
"The apex core."
The chamber went silent for half a heartbeat.
Then Vesper's eyes found mine through the gap.
They were pale gray. Cold, focused, and annoyingly hard to look away from.
"Rex Vane," she said.
My grip tightened around the tank edge.
"You have me confused with a better-looking criminal."
"Stand up."
"No."
"That wasn't a request."
"Then ask better."
Her pistol rose until the red targeting dot rested on my chest.
Boris gave a rough laugh. "He always talks like that. Put him down before the core eats him."
"You sound worried," I said.
"I'm worried about my payment."
Vesper did not look away from me. "Come out, Rex. Slowly. Hands where I can see them."
"You already know my name. You know the core is inside me. You know Boris is lying about something. Why would I make this easy?"
"Because I have the gun."
"Boris has a blade. You both need new material."
Her mouth twitched. Not a smile. Almost one.
That tiny movement hit harder than it should have.
She stepped into the chamber. Her boots made no sound on the wet floor. The pistol stayed trained on me, but the monoblade hung loose beside her thigh.
"You are bleeding," she said.
"I get that a lot."
"Your pulse is unstable."
"You can read it from over there?"
"I can read everything your body is doing."
"That sounds invasive."
"I am not here to make you comfortable."
"Good. I was afraid you were going to offer tea."
Boris shifted behind her.
Vesper's pistol snapped toward him without her head moving.
"Don't."
Boris stopped.
I watched the distance between them. She controlled both of us. The gun controlled me. The blade controlled Boris. Whoever had sent her had chosen someone who did not need to shout.
That made her more dangerous.
"You are with Helix," I said.
"You say that like it is a crime."
"It is if you are standing here."
"You stole property from a Helix recovery team."
"I stole it from a corpse."
"You killed the team?"
"No. Boris did."
Boris's head snapped toward me. "You liar."
"You cut the first guy in half. I only took the case."
Vesper's gaze slid to Boris.
"How many?"
"They fired first."
"That was not my question."
He hesitated.
I said, "Four. Maybe five if the one under the elevator counts."
Boris took a step.
Vesper raised the pistol again. "Stay where you are."
"He is manipulating you," Boris said.
"You are both manipulating me. One of you is just worse at it."
Her eyes returned to mine.
"What did the core do to you?"
"It gave me a headache."
"Try again."
"It made me stronger."
"For how long?"
"Long enough to leave."
"You think you are leaving?"
"I have left worse places."
She advanced another step.
The red dot moved from my chest to my throat.
My pulse jumped. The core caught it and answered with a hot pulse beneath my collarbone.
Vesper saw the glow.
Her focus sharpened.
"Take your hand away from the port."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
"That is not a reason."
"It is the only one you need when I am holding a weapon."
"No. It is the only one you need when people are trained to obey you. I am not one of them."
Her gaze lingered on my mouth for one quick second before returning to my eyes.
I caught it.
So did she.
The corner of her jaw tightened.
"You are very brave for a man whose organs are failing."
"You are very interested in my organs for an assassin."
"I am interested in the thing that will detonate half this district if you lose control."
"Now that sounds like a reason."
Boris suddenly threw a shard of metal at her.
Vesper turned. Her pistol fired once.
The shard spun past her cheek. The round hit Boris's shoulder and knocked him sideways.
I moved at the same time.
Not toward the exit.
Toward her.
Vesper saw me coming and brought the monoblade up. The edge stopped against my windpipe.
Cold steel pressed into the soft skin beneath my jaw.
I stopped with my chest inches from hers.
Her pistol touched my ribs.
Her breath brushed my cheek. It smelled faintly of mint and metal. Mine came rough and hot, loud enough for both of us to hear.
"You move fast," she said.
"You shoot slow."
"I missed Boris on purpose."
"Sure. That must make you feel better."
The blade pushed a fraction harder.
"Give me the core."
"Can't."
"Can't or won't?"
"Little of both."
"I can cut the port open and remove it."
"You can try."
"That was not a threat."
"It sounded like one."
"It was a promise."
Her wrist brushed my chest as she adjusted the blade. The contact lasted less than a second, but the core reacted instantly.
Red light flashed under my skin.
Vesper's eyes narrowed.
"What was that?"
"Probably your winning personality."
"Rex."
She said my name differently this time. Not like a file number. Like she was testing how it felt in her mouth.
The core pulsed again.
A sharp line of heat shot from beneath my collarbone down my arm. My fingers jerked toward her wrist.
Vesper noticed and caught my hand.
Her grip was strong. Her palm was warm through my glove. She twisted my wrist until my shoulder hit the wall.
"Don't touch me," she said.
"You are the one holding a blade to my throat."
"And you are the one reaching."
"My hand moved on its own."
"Convenient."
"You think I planned this?"
"I think scavengers plan everything when they are cornered."
"Then you should know I would have planned a better exit."
Her face was close now. Close enough that I could see the tiny scar beside her left eyebrow. Close enough to feel the heat of her wrist against my fingers.
The core seemed to notice her heartbeat.
A faint red thread formed between us.
Vesper's expression changed for the first time.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"Boris," she said without looking away from me. "What did you mean when you said the failsafe links to an active signature?"
Boris groaned from the floor. "Move away from him."
"Answer me."
"Vesper, move."
"Answer me."
"The core chose the nearest neural system."
Her fingers tightened around my wrist.
"Whose system?"
Boris looked at her.
Then at me.
His smile appeared slowly through the crack in his respirator.
"Yours."
The red thread snapped out from the core.
It crossed the space between us faster than a bullet and punched into Vesper's wrist.
She gasped.
The monoblade slipped half an inch away from my throat but did not fall. Her pistol stayed pressed to my ribs.
A second pulse hammered through both of us.
My vision filled with new text.
NEURAL LINK DETECTED PARTNER SIGNATURE: VESPER CROFT LIFE-TETHER: ACTIVE FAILSAFE: SHARED
Vesper stared at the glowing wire locked beneath her skin.
"What did you do to me?"
"Nothing," I said.
"Liar."
"I touched a box. You walked into the room."
"Break it."
"I don't know how."
Her pistol shoved harder into my ribs.
"Then I will break you first."
"Try it."
The core pulsed crimson, and Vesper's grip on my wrist tightened at the exact same moment my fingers closed around hers.
Her blade began to rise toward my throat, and her finger started to pull the trigger—