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"You were always the cheap one, Kai." Jax's boot slammed into my ribs and pinned me to the wet concrete.
I couldn't breathe. Not with his weight on my chest. Not with the hole in my gut pumping out warm blood onto the trash alley floor.
"Get off me," I choked out. "Jax, what the hell?"
"What the hell?" He laughed. He actually laughed. "You really don't get it, do you?"
Mara stood behind him, arms crossed, not even looking at me. My crew. My people for three years. She wouldn't meet my eyes.
"Mara?" I said. "Mara, say something. We had the key. We got the job done."
"We got it done," she said, flat. "You just don't get to keep it."
Jax leaned down, his face too close. Cheap cologne and rot. "Soran pays double if there's no one left to split it with. That's business, kid."
"Soran?" My throat filled with copper. "You sold us to Soran? He's corp. He'll burn you next."
"Nah," Jax said. "He likes us. We're reliable. You're the glitch, Kai. Always were. Bottom-tier hacker with big dreams. Someone had to cut you loose."
He pulled his pistol. Not fast. Slow, like he wanted me to watch.
"Jax, don't," I said. My hands were shaking. Blood made them slick. I tried to push his boot off. Nothing. "Come on, man. We were brothers. Don't do this."
"We were a crew," he said. "Now we're a smaller crew."
The muzzle found my stomach, right next to the stab wound Mara gave me. She'd done it quick. Professional. A little twist.
"Any last words?" Jax asked. "Make it good."
"Yeah," I spat, blood on my teeth. "You're gonna regret not aiming for my head."
He smiled. "Nah."
He pulled the trigger.
The shot wasn't loud. Suppressed. Just a soft thump and then fire ripping through me again. My back arched off the ground. I heard myself make this awful, wet gasp.
"Let's go," Mara said. "Enforcers will scan the gunshot."
"He's done," Jax said. He gave me one last kick, like checking trash. "See ya, Kai."
Their footsteps faded. Rain started to patter on the corrugated roofs above the alley. Neon from the upper levels bled down in pink and green streaks, reflecting in the puddle of my own blood spreading under me.
I tried to move. Couldn't. My legs wouldn't listen. My chest was doing this shallow, rattling thing.
"Okay," I whispered to no one. "Okay, okay, come on. Get up."
I pressed both hands to my gut. Blood pushed between my fingers, hot. Too much. Way too much.
"Not like this," I mumbled. "Not in a fucking alley. Not to Jax."
My vision started to tunnel. The neon got blurry. Cold crept up from the concrete into my back.
And then — clear as hell, right inside my skull — a voice.
"Wanna live?"
I flinched. Or tried to. "Who — who's there?"
"You heard me, Kai Chen," the voice said. It wasn't male or female. It was like static trying to be a person. Calm. Amused. "Do you want to live? Yes or no. Simple question."
"I'm hallucinating," I breathed. "I'm bleeding out and I'm hearing shit."
"You're bleeding out," the voice agreed. "And I'm offering a fix. But I need a yes. Say it."
Rain hit my face. My hands were going numb.
"Are you — are you Soran's tech?" I gasped. "Some corp AI?"
"I am older than Soran. Older than this city. Older than that cheap pistol Jax used. Say yes, Kai, and I stop the dying part."
My fingers twitched. I could feel my heartbeat slowing down. Thud... thud... longer gap... thud.
"What's the price?" I whispered. Because nothing in Aurora City is free. Nothing.
"Smart boy," the voice said, and I could hear the smile in the static. "Sixty days. You get sixty days with me. We fix each other. Then we see who owns who."
"Sixty days and then what?" I coughed and blood sprayed my chin.
"Then I collect. Or you win. Either way, you don't die in this alley like a dog. So? Wanna live?"
I thought about Jax's boot. Mara not looking at me. Three years of running jobs for scraps while corp gods lived in the clouds.
"Yes," I snarled, with everything I had left. "Yes, I wanna live. I wanna live and I wanna make them choke on it."
"Good answer."
Something slammed into my brain like a spike of ice and fire at the same time. I screamed — actually screamed — as cold light exploded behind my eyes.
My back bowed off the concrete. Every nerve lit up. The blood on my hands — it moved. It pulled back. The holes in my gut stitched, not with skin but with black, flickering threads, like broken code knitting itself.
"What — what did you —" I choked.
"I'll save you," the voice said, now inside my chest, vibrating my ribs. "Clock's ticking now. Sixty days, Kai. Don't waste them."
The pain vanished. Just gone. Replaced by this humming, electric buzz under my skin. I stared at my hands. The blood was still there, but the wounds were closed, sealed with faint, shifting lines that looked like circuitry.
I pushed myself up. Too fast. My palm hit the concrete and the concrete cracked. A spiderweb of fractures shot out from my hand.
"Whoa," I breathed. "What the hell am I?"
"You're mine," the voice purred. "And you're late. Look up."
I looked up.
A drone had dropped silently into the alley mouth, red sensor eye locked on me. Corp cleanup drone. It must have heard the suppressed shot. Its little turret whirred as it targeted my chest.
"Target identified. Vital signs anomalous. Lethal force authorized," it droned.
Instinct. I threw my hand up.
The air glitched.
Not like a holo flicker. Like reality hiccuped. The drone's red eye stuttered, its targeting laser bent sideways, and then the whole thing just — folded. Metal screamed, crumpled like paper, and dropped dead to the ground, sparking.
I stared at my hand. It was shaking, little black sparks jumping between my fingers.
"Okay," I whispered, half laughing, half terrified. "Okay, that's new. That's very fucking new."
"You're welcome," the voice said.
I got to my feet. My legs held. No pain. Just that buzzing power, humming louder. I took a step toward the alley exit, toward the main street, toward Jax and Mara and payback —
"Hands where I can see them. Now."
The voice wasn't in my head. It was behind me. Female. Cold. Sharp enough to cut.
I froze. Slowly turned my head.
She stood at the other end of the alley, boots silent on the wet ground. Tall, black tactical coat, rain beading on her shoulders. Hair pulled back tight. Face like a statue — pretty in a way that made you nervous. And in her hands, a matte-black Enforcer rifle, leveled dead at my skull. The charge whined, bright blue at the barrel.
Vala. I knew the name even if I'd never seen her up close. The Cloud's hound. The one they sent when they wanted someone erased clean.
Her eyes flicked from my face to my glitching hand to the crushed drone.
"Kai Chen," she said. Her finger tightened on the trigger. "You were supposed to be dead in that alley. So tell me — why are you still breathing? And why shouldn't I fix that mistake right—"