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"Don't move, and maybe I'll let you keep your fingers," a voice rasped right against my ear.
Cold steel pressed into the soft skin of my neck. The blade was surgical, biting just enough to let me know it was real. I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I didn't need to turn around to know I was caught. The smell of ozone and expensive tobacco gave him away—a corporate Enforcer. Not some street thug.
"I can't hear you over the sound of your heart trying to jump out of your chest, little glitch," he whispered. His breath was warm, contrasting with the freezing metal of the knife. "Now, tell me where the plug-in is, or I start carving."
I swallowed hard, the movement grazing the blade. "I don't... I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." He pressed closer, his chest flushing against my back. The power dynamic was a joke. He had me pinned against the rusted corrugated wall of the alley, his grip on my shoulder like a vice. "You installed the Oracle sequence. The forbidden one. The one that lets you see the future."
I let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "If I could see the future, I wouldn't be pinned to a wall by a lapdog in a suit."
"Wrong answer."
Suddenly, my vision flickered. A sharp, electric gold flash tore through my retina. The world slowed down, then stuttered. I didn't see the present; I saw *three seconds from now*.
In the ghost-image of the future, I saw him shift his grip. I saw his hand move to twist my arm behind my back. I saw the exact angle of the blade as he prepared to slice my shoulder.
*Now.*
I didn't think. I reacted. I slammed my elbow back into his ribs and dropped my weight, sliding under his arm. The knife sliced through the air exactly where my neck had been a heartbeat ago. I scrambled away, my boots skidding on the wet grime of the alley floor, and grabbed a heavy metal pipe leaning against a trash bin.
"What the hell?" he snapped, his voice losing its cool edge for a fraction of a second. He lunged forward, his movements a blur of professional efficiency.
I braced myself. *Flash.*
Gold again. I saw him dive to the left. I swung the pipe to the left before he even moved.
*CLANG.*
The metal pipe connected with his forearm with a bone-jarring thud. He grunted, stepping back, his eyes narrowing. He wasn't angry; he was curious. That was worse. He was analyzing me.
"Three seconds," he said, his voice returning to that low, dangerous purr. "You've got the God-tier plug-in. I thought that piece of code was a myth."
"It's not a myth," I spat, gripping the pipe until my knuckles turned white. "It's a miracle. And it's mine."
"Nothing is yours in Neon City, Kaelen. Everything is leased from the Cloud District," he replied. He didn't rush me this time. He walked in a slow circle, his boots clicking on the pavement. "Especially not a piece of software that can crash the entire neural net if it glitches. You're a walking time bomb."
"I'm a girl who's tired of being a gutter-rat," I snapped back. "Get out of my way, or I'll see exactly how you look with a pipe through your shin."
He stopped. A small, predatory smile touched his lips. "I like the fire. Too bad it's about to be extinguished. Who gave you the code? Was it Vera?"
My blood went cold. "Vera? I don't know any Vera."
"Lying again. Your pulse is spiking. I can see it in the vein of your neck."
I tried to back away, but my heel caught on a loose piece of rebar. I stumbled. In that split second, the gold flash returned.
*Future: He leaps. He grabs my throat. He pins me to the ground. The knife finds my ribs.*
I pivoted, throwing the pipe at his face to distract him. He swiped it away with a casual flick of his wrist, but it gave me the half-second I needed to bolt toward the alley exit. I didn't look back. I sprinted, my lungs burning, the neon lights of the main strip blurring into streaks of pink and electric blue.
I dove behind a row of vending machines, gasping for air. My head was throbbing. The plug-in wasn't free; every time I used it, a needle of white-hot pain stabbed through my temples. I leaned my head against the cold plastic of a machine, closing my eyes.
"You can't run forever, little glitch," his voice echoed. He wasn't behind me. He was *above* me.
I looked up. He was perched on the edge of a fire escape, looking down at me like a hawk watching a mouse. He looked far too calm for someone who had just been hit with a metal pipe. His black coat fluttered in the wind, and his eyes—cold, calculating, and shimmering with a faint cybernetic glow—locked onto mine.
"Just give it to me," he said. "Hand over the drive, and I'll make sure your death is quick. I might even let you say goodbye to whatever pathetic family you have left."
"Go to hell," I whispered.
"I've been there," he replied, his voice dropping an octave. "It's boring. This? This is actually interesting."
He jumped.
I didn't even have time to trigger the plug-in. He hit the ground with a heavy thud and was on me in a heartbeat. His hand clamped over my mouth, cutting off my scream, and his other arm wrapped around my waist, lifting me off my feet. He slammed me back against the vending machine with enough force to rattle my teeth.
He didn't use the knife this time. He used his body. He pressed me flat against the machine, his chest crushing mine, leaving me with no room to breathe. The sheer physical dominance of him was suffocating. I could feel the heat radiating off him, the scent of expensive leather and something metallic.
"Let's be honest," he murmured, his lips almost touching my ear. "You're out of your league. You're a script-kiddie playing with a God-complex. You don't even know how to stabilize the code, do you?"
I struggled, trying to bite his hand, but he shifted his grip, pinning both my wrists above my head with one hand. The strength in his fingers was terrifying. I was completely trapped, my body arched against his, every breath a struggle.
"The plug-in is eating your brain, Kaelen," he whispered, his voice now a dangerous, intimate caress. "Every time you see those three seconds, a little bit of your neural pathway fries. You're not becoming a god. You're becoming a vegetable."
I stopped fighting. I looked into his eyes—those freezing, cybernetic eyes. "Why do you care? Just kill me and take it."
"Because," he said, his gaze dropping to my lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes, "I'm the only one who knows how to fix it. And I need a living host to test the patch."
He leaned in closer, the distance between us disappearing. I could feel his heart beating against mine—steady, slow, and utterly devoid of mercy. He shifted his hand from my wrists, his fingers grazing my jawline, the touch sending a shiver of pure terror and something else—something I refused to name—down my spine.
"You have two choices," he said, his voice barely a breath. "You come with me and become my pet project, or I carve that plug-in out of your skull right here on the sidewalk."
I opened my mouth to tell him where to shove his project, but the gold flash hit me again.
*Future: A red dot appears on his chest. A sniper. A shot. Blood. Everything exploding.*
I gasped, my eyes widening. "Wait!"
"Too late for waiting," he said.
Just as he began to pull me away, a sharp, high-pitched whistle sliced through the air. A red laser dot appeared on the center of Seth's chest, glowing like a demon's eye in the neon gloom.
He didn't even even flinch. He just looked down at the dot, then back at me.
"Wrong plug-in, little glitch," he whispered, his grip tightening one last time. "Now you die."