Chapter 19 · Old Debts, New Blood

"Still alive, Vera? I always figured you’d be the one to actually stick the landing," the voice echoed through the hall, dripping with a nostalgia that felt like a razor blade against my skin.

I didn't answer. I slammed my shoulder into the reinforced door, the metal shrieking as it buckled. My servos were humming, the neural link with Echo still buzzing in the back of my skull like a live wire.

"Who is this?" Echo’s voice hissed in my ear, sharp and distorted. "Vera, your heart rate is spiking. Who the hell is talking?"

"Someone who should be dead," I spat.

I kicked the door open. The room was a sterile white void, illuminated by flickering neon strips. In the center stood a man leaning against a console, wearing a tailored suit that cost more than my entire first body. Jax. The same man who had watched me burn in the scrapyard three years ago without blinking.

"Look at you," Jax smirked, stepping forward. "Chrome and glitches. You look like a discarded toy, Vera. Who's the ghost in your head? A little AI friend? How cute."

I didn't give him time to finish.