"Do it. Now," I spat, leaning my weight against her. "Kill me and get your precious citizenship. I'm sure Soran will give you a gold star for being a good little dog."
Vala didn't flinch. The barrel of her pulse-pistol was pressed so hard into my temple that the cold metal was starting to feel like a brand. I could smell her—something like ozone and expensive synthetic rain. She was shaking. Not from fear, but from a rage so tight it was vibrating through the neural bind connecting us.
"Shut up," she hissed. "You think this is a game? He'll blow my head off from the Cloud if I don't deliver your corpse in ten minutes."
"Then do it!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "Why are you hesitating? Is it because you actually like having a leash on me?"
She slammed me back against the rusted bulkhead of the alleyway. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and for a second, we were chest to chest. I could feel the rapid thrum of her heart through her tactical vest. Her eyes—sharp, cold, and currently flickering with a conflict she couldn't hide—searched mine.
"I don't like you, glitch," she whispered, her voice dropping to a dangerous level. "I hate everything about you. But I hate being a corporate puppet more."
Suddenly, a red laser dot danced across my chest. Then another.
"Sectors 4 and 5 are locked down," a voice boomed from the drones hovering above. "Enforcer Vala, you are out of time. Execute the target or be purged."
Vala looked up at the drones, then back at me. A smirk touched my lips, though my guts were screaming. "Wrong choice, Vala. You're too proud to die for a guy like Soran."
"Damn you," she muttered. In one fluid motion, she didn't pull the trigger. Instead, she reached for the heavy-duty magnetic cuffs on her belt and snapped one end around my wrist and the other around her own.
I blinked. "What the hell? Now I'm literally chained to the woman trying to kill me? That's a new low, even for me."
"Stop talking and move," she snapped, grabbing my collar and dragging me toward the ventilation shaft. "If we're bound, the drones can't distinguish our signatures for another sixty seconds. We move now, or we both fry."
We dove into the shaft just as a plasma bolt scorched the metal where my head had been a second ago. The tunnel was cramped, smelling of old grease and ionized air. Because of the cuffs, every movement was a struggle. When she lunged forward, I was jerked along; when I tripped, she was nearly pulled backward.
"You're clumsy," she grunted, her shoulder brushing mine as we squeezed through a narrow junction.
"I'm a hacker, not a gymnast," I shot back. "Maybe if you didn't treat me like a piece of luggage, we'd be faster."
She stopped abruptly, pinning me against the wall of the vent. The space was so tight I could feel the warmth of her breath on my neck. She leaned in close, her voice a low vibration. "Listen to me, Kai. I'm not saving you. I'm using you. You have the key to crash the regime. You give me that, and maybe I'll let you live long enough to see the city burn."
I looked at her, really looked at her. The ruthless huntress had a hairline fracture in her composure. She wasn't just fighting Soran; she was fighting herself.
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll find a way to rip that key out of your brain while you're still awake," she whispered. Her gaze dropped to my lips for a fraction of a second before she shoved me forward again. "Move. Now."
We burst out of the vent into a derelict warehouse. The silence was worse than the noise. Then, the ceiling shattered. Three 'Cleaners' dropped down—chrome-skinned assassins with mono-molecular blades that shimmered with a lethal violet light.
"Get behind me," Vala commanded, her pistol already barking.
I didn't get behind her. I couldn't. We were cuffed. I felt the Void consciousness in my mind stir, a cold, hungry pressure pushing against my skull.
"I can help," I said, my voice sounding deeper, layered with something not human.
"Stay down!"\ she yelled, firing a burst that knocked the first Cleaner back.
But the second one was already on her. It lunged with a speed that defied physics, its blade aimed straight for her throat. Vala tried to pivot, but the cuff—my wrist—jerked her off balance. She stumbled. The blade whistled through the air, inches from her jugular.
I didn't think. I just reached out.
*Glitch.*
I didn't touch the assassin. I touched the air. A ripple of static tore through the space between us, and the Cleaner's arm simply... vanished. Not cut, not broken. Just erased from existence. The creature let out a metallic screech, staring at the empty space where its limb had been.
Vala froze. She looked at the void, then at me. For the first time, the power dynamic shifted. I wasn't just the prize; I was the weapon.
"What the hell was that?" she breathed.
"That," I said, feeling the Void drain my energy, making my head swim, "is why you shouldn't let me go."
We ended up back-to-back, the cuffs straining as we fought off the remaining two Cleaners. It was a chaotic dance of fire and static. Vala provided the cover, her shots precise and rhythmic, while I unleashed bursts of the Void, tearing holes in the floor and walls to trap the assassins.
For a few minutes, we weren't hunter and prey. We were a machine. I could feel her movements through the neural bind—the way she shifted her weight, the way she breathed. It was an intimacy more intense than anything I'd ever known, a shared heartbeat in the middle of a slaughterhouse.
When the last Cleaner collapsed into a heap of sparking wires and dead meat, the silence returned.
We stayed like that for a moment, back-to-back, breathing hard. I could feel the heat radiating off her body, the scent of sweat and gunpowder. It felt... wrong. It felt like we were agreeing on something we both hated.
"Not bad, glitch," she whispered.
"You're not so bad yourself, Enforcer."
She stepped away, the tension returning instantly. She didn't unlock the cuffs. Instead, she turned around and pressed the muzzle of her pistol right back into the center of my forehead. The warmth of the fight vanished, replaced by the familiar, icy threat.
"Don't get confused," she said, her voice returning to that flat, professional kill-tone. "The deal was just to get out of the warehouse. Now we're in the clear."
I stared at her, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You wouldn't. Not after that."
"Watch me," she replied. Her finger tightened on the trigger. "The deal's over, Kai. Now, tell me where the backup drive is, or I find out if the Void can bring back a brain that's been splattered across the wall."
I opened my mouth to answer, but the sound of a thousand drones suddenly filled the air above us, and a voice—Soran's voice—echoed through the district.
"Vala, I see you've made a friend. How cute."
Vala stiffened. The gun didn't waver, but her eyes widened.
"Since you're so fond of him," Soran continued, "I've decided to make this interesting. I'm not just purging you anymore. I'm purging everyone in a three-block radius of your current location. You have thirty seconds to kill him, or you can watch the whole district die together."