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"You're going to give me the phone."
The voice came from the doorway. I didn't turn. My hand was already on the wrench under the counter, the heavy one I kept for the locks that didn't want to open and the people who didn't want to leave.
"Shop's closed," I said.
He didn't move. I could see him in the reflection off the cracked monitor—tall, dark coat, hands loose at his sides. The kind of loose that meant he didn't need to reach for anything yet.
"I'm not here to buy," he said.
I turned. He was maybe thirty, clean jaw, eyes like he'd already written the report. No gun visible, but that didn't mean much. His coat hung the way expensive ones do, the kind that hid things well.
"Then you're trespassing," I said. "Door's behind you."
He stepped in anyway. The motion sensor blinked red above his head. I'd rigged it to a pressure plate under the third floorboard. If he kept coming, he'd find out what I did with the soldering iron and the car battery.
"My name is Cade Mercer," he said. "I was hired to retrieve a piece of hardware. You took it off a dead man two hours ago."
My hand tightened on the wrench. "You've got the wrong girl."
"I don't." He tilted his head, and his eyes dragged over the counter, the workbench, the burn marks on the floor where I'd tested the drone's arc welder last week. "You lifted it in the alley off Seventh. The courier's name was Luis Tam. He had a hole in his chest and a phone in his jacket. You took the phone."
"Sounds like a story," I said. "Not mine."
He took another step. The floorboard creaked but didn't give. He stopped.
"You've run this four times," he said.
My stomach dropped. I didn't let it show.
"Run what?"
"The reset," he said. "You're on loop four. The city snaps back nine minutes every time you die, and you're the only one who remembers. Except me."
I stared at him. He didn't blink.
"You're insane," I said.
"You woke up on your cot twenty-three minutes ago," he said. "Your brother's last message is still on your old phone. The coffee in your mug is cold because you didn't finish it before the courier stumbled into the alley. You went down, you checked his pulse, and you took the phone because you thought you could sell it. Then someone shot you in the back, and you woke up again."
I couldn't breathe. The wrench was slick in my palm.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I shot you," he said. "Run two. You ran, I followed, and I put you down on the fire escape off Ninth. You reset. Run three, you tried the subway. Someone else got you first—blond coat, red scarf, very efficient. You reset. Run four, you made it here. Now I'm here."
He said it like he was reading a receipt.
"You're lying," I said.
"Am I?" He pulled something from his coat. Not a gun. A small black screen, cracked along one edge. He held it up.
It was the phone. The dead courier's phone.
No. It was *a* phone. Same model, same crack.
"You've still got the original," he said. "Back pocket, left side. You haven't turned it on because you don't know what it does yet. But you will. And when you do, you'll trigger the beacon, and they'll find you in under four minutes."
My hand moved to my pocket before I could stop it. The phone was there, cold and flat against my hip.
He saw. His mouth didn't smile, but something in his eyes did.
"Give it to me," he said. "I'll get you out of the loop."
"Why would you help me?"
"I'm not," he said. "I'm keeping the phone out of the wrong hands. You're just the person holding it."
I pulled the wrench up. "Get out."
He sighed. It was a tired sound, like he'd had this conversation before and knew how it ended.
"You're going to die again," he said. "Run five, maybe six. You'll try something clever—trap the door, rig the lights, call someone you think you can trust. It won't work. They'll find you, and they'll put you down, and you'll wake up again. You'll keep waking up until you either give me the phone or you stop waking up at all."
"Who's *they*?"
"The people who built the reset," he said. "The ones who want the phone back before it talks."
"Talks?"
He didn't answer. His eyes flicked past me, toward the workbench. I followed his gaze.
The phone was on the table. I didn't remember taking it out.
It was glowing.
Not the screen. The seam along the edge, the hairline crack where the casing had split. A thin blue line, pulsing slow.
"You turned it on," Cade said quietly.
"I didn't touch it."
"Doesn't matter." He moved fast. He was across the room before I could swing, his hand closing over the phone. The blue light flared, and the air popped like a blown fuse.
A voice came out of the phone. Flat, gendered nowhere, faintly amused.
"Hello, Mara."
I froze.
"Who the hell—"
"My name is Nix," the voice said. "I'm the phone. Well, I'm *in* the phone. Also, you're about to die. Again."
Cade's jaw tightened. He didn't look surprised.
"Nix," he said. "Shut it down."
"Can't," Nix said. "Beacon's live. You've got three minutes forty seconds before they triangulate. Two minutes fifty if they're feeling motivated."
"Who's coming?" I said.
"Everyone," Nix said. "Corporate retrieval, contract kill team, and one very annoyed blonde who doesn't like it when people make her run twice."
I looked at Cade. His hand was still on the phone, knuckles white.
"You said you'd get me out," I said.
"I lied," he said. "I need you alive long enough to lead me to the architect. After that, you're a loose end."
My throat closed. "Then why tell me?"
"Because," he said, "if I don't, you'll do something stupid, and I'll have to start over. You'll die on run seven."
The blue light pulsed faster. Nix's voice dropped lower.
"Two minutes," it said. "Mara, if you want to live past this reset, you're going to have to trust the man who killed you."
I looked at Cade. His eyes were flat, cold, waiting.
"What do you want?" I said.
"Your shop has a back door," he said. "Use it."
"That's it?"
"No." He stepped closer. Close enough that I could see the faint scar along his jaw, the way his pupils didn't move when the light pulsed. "You're going to do exactly what I say, when I say it, until we're clear. You run, I let you die. You lie, I let you die. You touch this phone without my permission, I put you down myself."
"That's not a deal," I said. "That's a leash."
"It's the only one you've got." He held out his hand. "Give me the wrench."
I didn't move.
"Ninety seconds," Nix said.
Cade's hand stayed out. His voice didn't rise.
"You've died four times today," he said. "I'm offering you a fifth chance. Take it, or I walk, and you see what run five feels like."
The phone pulsed. The shop was too quiet. I could hear my own heartbeat, fast and thin.
I dropped the wrench into his hand.
He closed his fingers around it, tested the weight, then tossed it onto the workbench.
"Back door," he said. "Now."
I moved. He followed, close enough that I could feel the air shift when he turned. The back door was rusted shut, the lock held together with wire and a prayer. I yanked it open.
The alley was dark. The smell hit first—rotting food, burned oil, something sweet and wrong underneath.
"Left," Cade said.
I went left. He stayed two steps behind, his breath steady, his footsteps light.
"Where are we going?" I said.
"Somewhere they won't follow," he said.
The phone pulsed again, brighter now. Nix's voice crackled.
"Thirty seconds. Oh, and Mara? The blonde's already in the alley."
I stopped. Cade's hand landed on my shoulder, firm, warm through the jacket.
"Don't," he said.
I turned anyway.
She was standing at the mouth of the alley. Blond hair pulled tight, red scarf, coat unbuttoned. Her hand was in her pocket, and her smile was small and sharp.
"Cade," she said. "You're off-script."
His hand tightened on my shoulder. I felt his breath hitch, just once.
"Maya," he said.
"Step away from the girl," Maya said. "I'll make it clean."
Cade didn't move. The phone pulsed one more time, and Nix's voice cut through, low and fast.
"Mara, listen very carefully. The video clip I'm about to play is from run seven. You haven't lived it yet. Don't let it happen."
The screen flared. A face appeared—Cade's face, younger, blood on his mouth, eyes wet.
His voice came through, ragged and cracked.
"Don't let her reach run seven."
The clip cut. The alley went silent.
I looked at Cade. His face was stone, but his hand was shaking.
Maya raised her other hand. I saw the gun.
"Run," Cade said.
The shot cracked the air, and the world went