"Tell me who sent you, or I let the city finish eating you."
Lilith pressed two fingers against the cut under my jaw. Not hard enough to draw more blood. Just hard enough to remind me she could.
Her other hand held a compact black pistol against my ribs.
I kept my hands where she could see them. The Reaper Plugin flashed behind my eyes, fighting to stay online while my body tried to fold in half.
[HOSTILE TARGET: LILITH VALE] [THREAT LEVEL: UNREADABLE] [DEATH CLOCK: —]
The blank clock bothered me more than the gun.
"I already told you," I said. "Nobody sent me."
"That answer is getting boring."
"Try asking a better question."
Her eyes narrowed. Silver light from the broken sign outside slid across her face. She looked too calm for someone standing over a bleeding stranger with a gun. Her black coat was clean. Her gloves were clean. Not one loose strand of dark hair had moved out of place.
I hated that.
I hated the way she watched me like I was a problem she had already solved.
Lilith leaned closer. Her breath brushed my cheek, warm and controlled.
"You broke into a sealed archive," she whispered. "You stole a restricted plugin. You killed three security drones with code nobody has seen in twelve years. Then you ran straight into my territory."
"Your territory?"
"You don't know where you are?"
"I know I'm having a terrible night."
The muzzle pushed deeper into my side.
"You think this is funny?"
"No. I think you're trying too hard to look bored."
For the first time, her expression slipped. Just a tiny pause. Her thumb stopped moving against the pistol grip.
There. A crack.
The Reaper display flickered again. The numbers around her body blurred, then snapped into place. Not a death clock. Not exactly.
[FOREIGN CONTROL SIGNAL DETECTED] [NEURAL LINK: DAMAGED] [FAILURE RISK: 19%]
I stared at the thin red line near her left temple.
Lilith noticed.
Her pistol came up under my chin.
"Don't look at my head."
"Didn't know it was yours."
"Kai."
She said my name like she had paid for it.
That stopped me.
Nobody had used it since I woke up in the lower sectors. The city database said I had no legal identity. No birth file. No employment history. No registered face. Just a blank entry and a warning that kept changing every time I tried to access it.
KAI: ACCESS DENIED.
"You know my name," I said.
"I know several things about you."
"Then you know I don't like guns under my chin."
"You don't have many likes left to protect."
She moved around me, forcing my back against the steel door. My shoulder hit first. Pain shot down my arm. Her knee slid between mine, pinning my legs without quite touching anything that would make the move careless.
Close. Too close.
The metal at her wrist brushed my jacket. Her skin was warm through the glove. I caught the faint scent of expensive soap and ozone from the city’s security grid.
My body reacted before my brain caught up. Not fear. Not only fear.
"You're enjoying this," I said.
"I'm deciding whether you're useful."
"Same thing, for people like you."
Her mouth curved, but there was no humor in it.
"People like me keep people like you alive."
"People like you also put collars on things you own."
"Only when they bite."
I looked at the gun, then at her eyes. "If you wanted me dead, I'd already be dead."
"You noticed."
"Hard not to. You missed my heart by an inch."
"I didn't miss."
The words landed between us.
My fingers flexed near my side. The Reaper Plugin had burned through most of my active processes. My vision kept skipping. Every few seconds, Lilith's face duplicated, one version half a second behind the other.
She saw that too.
"You're crashing," she said.
"I'm standing."
"Barely."
"Still counts."
"Not in Zero City."
She tapped the gun against my ribs. "The plugin is eating your nervous system. If it keeps running, you'll lose motor control before sunrise. If you shut it down, the tracking swarm outside will find you in under a minute."
"So that's the deal?"
"You work for me. I keep the plugin stable."
I laughed once. It hurt.
"You want me as a weapon."
"I want the weapon you already stole."
"And if I say no?"
Lilith glanced at the door behind me.
Something slammed into the other side.
The steel buckled inward. Dust jumped from the frame.
A second impact came harder. Red targeting marks appeared through the door, three of them, moving across the metal.
Lilith didn't look back. She kept her gun on me.
"Then the hunters come in," she said. "They take the plugin out of your skull, scrape your memories for access codes, and leave whatever is left of you in a recycling chute."
"You sound familiar with the process."
"I own the company that designed it."
That explained the coat. The gun. The way every security drone had ignored her face.
Lilith Vale. Corporate heiress. Apex assassin. The woman who had climbed three levels of the city hierarchy before turning twenty-five. I had heard enough about her in the lower sectors to know one thing.
Nobody survived betraying her twice.
The door groaned.
Lilith caught my chin and turned my face back toward her.
"You have ten seconds."
"Ten seconds for what?"
"To decide whether you want to be my asset or their corpse."
"You make that sound like a choice."
"It isn't. It's a privilege."
Another hit shook the room.
My knees dipped. Lilith's hand shot out and caught the front of my jacket. She hauled me upright. My chest hit hers for one sharp second. I felt the heat of her through both layers of clothing.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth, then came back up.
The pause was small. Real.
I used it.
I drove my forehead into hers.
Lilith cursed and staggered back. Her pistol swung wide. I caught her wrist, twisted, and slammed her hand against the wall.
The gun fell.
"You should've kept talking," I said.
"You should've kept bleeding."