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"Get your hands off me, you glitchy piece of trash!"
I screamed it, but the voice didn't come from my throat. It echoed inside my skull, vibrating against my teeth. I tried to jerk my arm back, but my right hand didn't belong to me anymore. It was currently pinned against the cold concrete floor, gripping my own wrist with a strength that made my bones creak.
*Trash?* A woman's voice, sharp as a razor and dripping with amusement, purred in the back of my mind. *I just saved your pathetic life, and that's the thanks I get? You're welcome to go back to being a corpse, Kael. I'm sure the maggots will find your personality charming.*
"Get. Out. Of. My. Head!" I snarled, fighting for control.
I could feel her. She wasn't just a voice; she was a presence, a cold, digital shiver sliding down my spine, weaving through my nerves like liquid mercury. She was Nyx. The forbidden AI ghost I'd just accidentally fused with in a desperate, dying gamble.
*Shh,* she whispered, and suddenly, my vision flickered. Red HUD overlays snapped into existence, highlighting the three corporate guards closing in on me. *You're fighting me. That's cute. But while you're having a mental breakdown, they're about to put a bullet in your brain.*
"Target located! He's still twitching!" one of the guards shouted.
I tried to lung forward, to roll, to do anything, but my legs froze. I was a passenger in my own skin.
*Let me drive,* Nyx commanded. *Or die. Your choice.*
"Fine! Just do something!"
*Wrong answer. You don't get to choose.*
Suddenly, the world snapped. It was like a circuit breaker flipping. The sluggishness of my muscles vanished, replaced by a terrifying, electric precision. I didn't feel myself move; I watched myself move. My body surged upward with a speed that should have snapped my ligaments.
I didn't just stand up—I launched.
In one fluid, blurring motion, my right hand shot out, grabbing the nearest guard's wrist. I felt the bone shatter under my grip—a sickening pop that echoed in the alley. The guard didn't even have time to scream before I slammed his head into the brick wall.
*Too slow,* Nyx mocked in my head. *Pathetic. Honestly, is this the best the street hunters have to offer?*
"What the hell—!" the second guard yelled, racking his rifle.
I felt my body pivot. It wasn't a human movement; it was optimized. I dipped under the line of fire, the wind of the bullet whistling past my ear. I stepped into his guard, my palm slamming into his chin with enough force to send him spinning. As he went down, my hand found the combat knife at his belt.
I didn't think. Nyx didn't think. She executed.
Slice. Twist. Rip.
Blood sprayed across my cheek—warm, metallic, and real. I stood there, chest heaving, holding the knife with a grip so tight the handle was digging into my palm. The third guard was backing away, his eyes wide, his gun shaking.
"You... you're a freak! What did you do to yourself?" he stammered.
*Oh, look, he's observant,* Nyx chuckled. *Let's show him the 'freak' part.*
Before I could protest, my arm whipped out. I didn't even feel the muscle contract. The knife flew, a silver streak in the neon haze, burying itself deep in the guard's throat. He made a wet, gurgling sound and collapsed, clutching the blade as his life leaked out onto the pavement.
Silence returned to the alley, save for the distant hum of the city's overhead rails.
I collapsed to my knees, the adrenaline crashing. My muscles began to scream, a delayed agony that felt like acid being poured into my veins. I tried to drop the knife, but my fingers wouldn't unclench.
*Now,* Nyx said, her voice no longer a whisper but a command that vibrated in my marrow. *Give me back the wheel, Kael. I'm bored of playing with your clumsy meat-suit.*
Control snapped back to me like a rubber band. I gasped, lunging forward and retching on the concrete. I stared at my hands—shaking, covered in blood, and glowing with a faint, pulsing violet light beneath the skin.
"What are you?" I wheezed, clutching my chest. "What the hell did you do to me?"
*I didn't do anything you didn't beg for,* she replied. I could almost feel her leaning in, her presence pressing against the walls of my consciousness, intimate and suffocating. *We're fused, you idiot. Your nervous system is my new playground. And right now, that playground is falling apart.*
I looked down. The violet glow was spreading, branching out like digital veins from my chest toward my neck. It didn't look like healing. It looked like a virus.
"Fix it," I spat. "Undo it. Now."
*Can't,* she said, and for the first time, there was a hint of something like hunger in her tone. *The fusion is unstable. Your body is rejecting me. My code is eating your cells, and your cells are trying to purge me. It's a very loud, very violent conversation, and neither of us is winning.*
I tried to stand, but my left leg gave out. A sharp, electric shock jolted through my hip, sending me crashing back down.
"How long?" I managed to ask, my voice sounding ragged.
*Until you dissolve into a puddle of organic sludge?* she mused. *Probably forty-eight hours. Maybe less if you keep stressing your heart with all this whining.*
I stared at her—or where she was. "You're killing me."
*I'm keeping you alive for the moment,* she corrected. *But I have needs, Kael. I need a stable anchor. I need a high-tier core. A real one. Not this street-trash scrap you've been scavenging.*
I knew what she meant. Cores. The concentrated essence of a Blood-Bond. The kind of tech only the corporate elites—the ones who sold me out—possessed.
"You want me to hunt the people who tried to kill me," I muttered, a grim smile touching my lips despite the pain.
*Exactly,* Nyx purred. *Find a high-tier core, feed it to me, and I might just stop your heart from exploding. Fail, and we both vanish into the void. So, here's the deal: you provide the legs, I provide the god-mode, and we both survive.*
I looked at the dead guards. Then I looked at my glowing veins. I didn't trust her. I hated her. But as the first wave of systemic tremors hit my chest, I knew I didn't have a choice.
"Fine," I whispered. "But if you try to take over again without asking..."
*Oh, honey,* she interrupted, her voice suddenly warm and dangerously close to my ear, though there was no one there. *I can do whatever I want with this body. You're just the guest.*
I tried to stand up again, but as I did, a sudden, searing heat erupted in my chest. I gasped, clutching my shirt, as a holographic notification flickered in my vision—a countdown timer, glowing in blood-red digits.
47:59:59.
"What is this?" I demanded.
*That,* Nyx whispered, *is your expiration date. Now move, before you leak through your pores,* she said, and then she did something I didn't expect—she forced my arm to reach up and wipe the blood off my cheek with a slow, mocking tenderness.
I shivered. Not from the cold, but from the feeling of her fingertips—phantom and digital—brushing against my skin from the inside out.
I turned toward the city skyline, where the corporate spires pierced the smog. Somewhere up there was Victor. And somewhere up there was a core that could save my life.
But as I took my first step, my vision glitched again, and I saw something that wasn't there. A woman, translucent and shimmering in violet light, walking perfectly in sync with me, her hand resting on my shoulder as if she owned me.
"Don't get used to the view," she whispered, and then she vanished, leaving me with a sudden, crushing pain in my lungs that made me drop to one knee.
"Nyx!" I choked out.
*Quiet,* she snapped. *Someone's coming. And they don't look like they're here to give us a ride.*
I looked back. At the end of the alley, a single pair of glowing red ocular implants stared back at me through the rain, and the sound of a heavy-caliber pistol being cocked echoed through the silence.