"Stop running and listen, or I let the timer hit zero and your brain turns into lukewarm oatmeal," the voice snapped in my ear.
I didn't stop. I dove behind a rusted shipping container just as a plasma bolt scorched the air where my head had been a second ago. The heat singed the stray hairs on my neck. I pressed my back against the cold, corrugated metal, my chest heaving, lungs burning with the metallic tang of ozone.
"I'm listening!" I yelled, glancing at the countdown flickering in the corner of my vision. 08:42. 08:41. The red digits pulsed like a heartbeat. "Who the hell are you?"
"The guy keeping you alive. Name's Jax. Now, look left. Third crate, black matte finish. There's a pulse-emitter. Grab it and throw it at the nearest drone, or we're both dead. Well, you're dead. I'm just out of a very interesting project."
I didn't trust him. I didn't even know what a pulse-emitter was, but my hand moved before my brain could argue. It wasn't a conscious choice; it was like my arm belonged to someone else—someone who knew exactly where the device was hidden. I lunged, fingers closing around a cold, heavy cylinder.
"Got it!"
"Great. Now toss it. Three... two... one... NOW!"
I hurled the cylinder. It soared through the smog, clicking into the chassis of the hovering drone. A blue shockwave erupted, a silent scream of electricity that fried the machine instantly. It spiraled down, crashing into a pile of scrap with a satisfying crunch.
"Not bad," Jax drawled. His voice was too casual, like he was watching a movie and not helping a fugitive survive a corporate purge. "You've got some serious muscle memory, Kaelen. Olympus didn't just build you; they tuned you. You're a goddamn Stradivarius of killing."
"Stop calling me that," I hissed, sliding out from the cover. "I don't remember any name. I don't remember anything."
"That's the point. You're a blank slate with a ticking bomb in your skull. Now move. Six o'clock. Two more drones, and they aren't as slow as the first one."
I bolted. My boots pounded the wet pavement, splashing through neon-tinted puddles that reflected the smoggy sky of the Undercity. Every turn felt familiar, yet alien. My body knew the shortcuts—the narrow alleys, the loose grating, the blind spots in the security cameras—but my mind was a void.
"Left! Hard left!"
I pivoted, nearly slipping on a patch of oil. I slammed my shoulder into a heavy steel door, forcing it open and dragging myself into a dimly lit corridor. The smell of old grease and burnt circuitry filled my nose.
"Are we safe?" I gasped, leaning against the wall. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that wouldn't slow down.
"Safe is a relative term in the Undercity," Jax replied. "But for now? Yeah. You're in a dead zone. No signals, no pings. Just you, me, and your very expensive, very illegal brain."
I looked around. The corridor was narrow, lit by a single flickering fluorescent tube that made everything look sickly green. "Why are you helping me? You don't sound like a Good Samaritan."
"I'm not. I'm a hacker with a grudge and a very specific set of skills," he said. I could hear the clicking of a keyboard in the background. "Olympus Corp thinks they deleted you. They think you're a ghost. I want to see what happens when the ghost comes back to haunt the boardroom. Plus, your neural architecture is... well, it's a masterpiece. I've never seen a lock like the one on your memories."
"A lock?"
"A fortress," he corrected. "Layers upon layers of encryption. It's not just a wipe, Kaelen. It's a prison. You're not missing your memories; they're being held hostage by a kill-switch."
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I walked further down the hall, my footsteps echoing. "How do I stop the timer?"
"You can't. Not from where you are. You need to get to my safehouse. I've got a rig that can bypass the first layer of the firewall. But fair warning: it's going to hurt. A lot."
"I've already been shot at twice today," I snapped. "I can handle a little pain."
"Feisty. I like that. Keep that energy when we get to the door. There's a security bot at the end of this hall. It's a 'Sentry-7'—meaning it doesn't take bribes and it hates people who don't have a badge."
I stopped dead. "You want me to fight a robot?"
"I want you to survive. Use that instinct. The one that told you where the pulse-emitter was. Don't think. Just hit it."