Chapter 14 · Neon Deadline: Glitch Hunt - Chapter 14: The Dead Zone

"Get your head down or lose it!" Seth’s hand slammed into my shoulder, pinning me against a rusted girder just as a plasma bolt shrieked overhead. The heat from the blast scorched the back of my neck, smelling like ozone and burnt paint.

I gasped, my lungs burning from the smog of the Dead Zone. "I can't see anything! The signal's dead!"

"That's the point of a dead zone, genius," Seth snapped. He didn't move his hand. He was too close, his chest pressing against my shoulder, his breath hot and jagged against my ear. He looked like a demon in the strobing red light of the alarms—eyes cold, jaw locked, the corporate Enforcer who had hunted me for weeks now acting as my only shield.

I struggled to bring up my HUD, but the screen flickered with static. The 'God-tier' plug-in was screaming. Three seconds. I saw a ghost image of a mech’s heavy limb swinging toward us.

"Left! Now!"

I didn't wait for him. I lunged, dragging him with me. We tumbled across the grit, the heavy metal fist of a scavenger mech smashing into the girder where we’d been standing a heartbeat ago.