Chapter 7 · First Apex Harvest

"Don't touch that harness unless you want your nervous system boiled alive!" Vesper's ceramic blade bit straight into my collarbone, pinning me against the leaking sewer conduit.

"Get off me, Croft!" I snarled, my teeth grinding so hard my jaw popped. "If I don't bleed this brute's power cell right now, the core's gonna burn out my heart!"

"You don't know what that military mod will do to your flesh!" Her eyes flared with cold fury, but her chest was heaving, her breath ragged against my cheek. Through our neural tether, a vicious wave of nausea slammed back and forth between us. "You take in Boris's heavy cybernetics and you go psycho, I won't hesitate. I'll blow your head off where you stand."

"Fair deal," I rasped. "Now move your damn knife."

She hesitated for half a second, her fingers digging into my combat jacket, before she shoved me back and lowered the blade. "Thirty seconds, Vane. If your vitals spike past redline, I pull the plug myself."

I didn't waste breath answering. I dropped to my knees in the oily sludge beside Boris's twitching corpse.