Chapter 17 · Neon Deadline: Glitch Hunt - Chapter 17: Three-Second Glitch

"Get your head down if you don't want it ventilated," Seth barked, his hand slamming into the small of my back to shove me behind a rusted coolant pillar.

Steel shrieked as a plasma bolt tore through the air where my skull had been a second ago. The smell of ozone and burnt metal hit me instantly. I scrambled to my feet, my boots sliding on the slick, oil-stained floor of the sector four warehouse.

"I had it!" I snapped, coughing as a cloud of grey dust settled around us. "I saw the shot coming!"

"You saw it and stood there like a glitching tourist," Seth countered. He didn't look at me. He was already reloading his sidearm, the metallic click of the mag-lock sounding like a death knell in the echoing space. "Three seconds isn't a miracle, Kaelen. It's a window. If you can't move through it, you're just a very precise corpse."

I glared at the back of his neck. He was too calm. Too controlled. The power dynamic was still skewed—he had the gun, the training, and the corporate clearance—