"You breathing my air, scrap-thing?" The boot slammed into my ribs before I could get my hands up.
I hit scrap metal hard. Rust and oil in my mouth. My back hit something sharp and I couldn't breathe.
"Get up," someone snarled above me. "Get up, ghost."
Three of them. All standing over me in a pit of dead ships and busted drones. One had a pipe. One had a knife that was already red. The one who kicked me had a shock-baton buzzing.
"I didn't —" My voice came out raw. "I don't know where I am."
"Bullshit." The baton guy tapped my cheek with it. It crackled. Made my teeth buzz. "You crawled out of the deep cut. That's Red Maw territory. Everything that falls there is ours. Including you."
I tried to push up. My hands slipped on grease. My head was empty. Like actually empty. No name. No street. No reason I was in a hole full of trash.
"What's your name?" I said. My throat hurt. "Do you know me?"
The one with the knife laughed. "Yeah. You're dead meat. That's your name."
"You took salvage without paying the tithe," Baton Guy said. "So now you pay with something else. Fingers. Maybe a lung. Boss needs lungs."
"I didn't take anything," I said. "I just woke up here."
"Wrong answer." He nodded to the other two. "Hold him. Let's see what he's got inside. Maybe he's got good wiring."
The knife guy grabbed my arm. His grip was sweaty. Hot. He yanked me up to my knees.
"Hold still, ghost," he said, close to my ear. "This'll be quick if you don't scream."
The blade came down toward my throat.
And my body moved before I did.
I didn't think. I didn't decide. My hand shot up and caught his wrist. Twisted. Hard.
Snap.
He screamed. The knife dropped. I caught it before it hit the ground.
"What the fuck —" Baton Guy swung.
I was already standing. I don't know how. One second on my knees, next second on my feet, knife in my hand like I'd held it a thousand times.
He swung the baton again. I ducked under it. Drove the knife up under his chin. Up. Through.
He made this wet choking sound. His eyes went wide. The baton buzzed against my shoulder and then went dead when his hand let go.
"Jace? Jace!" The third guy with the pipe backed up a step. "What the fuck are you?"
I looked at my hands. They weren't shaking. Not even a little.
The guy with the broken wrist was still screaming on the ground, holding his arm. I stepped over him without thinking and grabbed the pipe guy by the throat.
"Wait — wait, man, don't —" he choked out.
I hit him. Once. Twice. Elbow to temple. Knee to gut. He folded. I brought the pipe down on the back of his neck and he stopped moving.
Silence. Just the wind through scrap and my breathing. Which was steady. Too steady.
The wrist guy was still alive. Crawling. Whimpering.
"Please," he gasped. "Please, don't —"
I stared at him. I waited to feel sick. To feel something. Anything.
Nothing came. No guilt. No panic. Just... quiet. Like I'd done this before. Like my hands knew the work and my brain was just late to the party.
"What am I?" I said out loud. My voice sounded weird in the pit. "What the hell am I?"
I dropped the knife. It clanged on metal. I wiped my hands on my pants and they came away red and I still didn't feel anything. That was the worst part.
Three men dead. Or close enough. And I felt nothing. Like checking a box.
"No," I muttered. "No, that's not normal. That's not —"
Something beeped.
Loud. Sharp. From the baton guy's belt.
I flinched and kicked his body over. He had a scanner there, cracked screen, Empire stamp on the back. Rusty but still blinking. It was scanning me. Automatic.
Beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep.
Red light washed over my face. My hands. My chest.
Then text scrolled across the screen.
> FACIAL MATCH: 98.7% > DESIGNATION: KANE > CLASS: VOID-WEAPON // PROJECT ZERO > STATUS: DEFECTIVE. EXPIRED ASSET. > DIRECTIVE: TERMINATE OR RETRIEVE. REWARD: 500,000 CREDITS.
"Kane," I read out loud.
The name hit nothing. No memory. No flash. Just letters.
"That's me?" I said to the dead guy. "I'm Kane? I'm a weapon?"
The scanner kept beeping, louder now, pinging the bounty net. Calling it in. Shit.
I grabbed it and smashed it against a piece of hull. Once. Twice. The screen cracked more but kept beeping. Louder.
"Turn off," I hissed. "Turn off, turn off —"
A new sound cut through it.
Click.
The sound of a gun being cocked. Right behind my head.
"Don't touch that again," a woman's voice said. Cold. Close. "Hands where I can see them, Kane. Now."
I froze. My hands were still bloody. The scanner was still beeping between us, painting her boots red.
She stepped around me, never lowering the gun. And damn.
She was my age, maybe younger, dark hair tied back messy, jacket patched with tech that hummed. But her eyes — pissed and sharp — didn't leave me for a second. The pistol in her hands was steady. Military grade. Not scrap.
And she was looking at me like she knew exactly what I was.
"You gonna tell me why three Red Maw hounds are dead at your feet," she said, "or do I just collect that bounty myself?"
"I don't know," I said. My mouth was dry. "I don't know who I am. I don't —"
"Save it." She pressed the muzzle right to my forehead. It was warm. "You think you can play dumb? That scanner just screamed your name across the whole scrap-city. Every hunter in a hundred klicks heard it. Including Vargas."
"Who's Vargas?"
Her finger tightened on the trigger. Her other hand grabbed my bloody wrist and pinned it. Her skin was hot against mine. Way too close.
"The man who's gonna peel you apart to see how you tick," she whispered. "Unless I get to you first. So answer me, Kane — what are you, and why the hell didn't you feel a thing when you killed them?"
The scanner beeped faster. Behind her, up on the ridge of the pit, engines roared. Lights cut through the dust. More than one.
Her eyes flicked up. Just for half a second.
"Too late," she breathed. "He's already here. So you got two choices, weapon. Come with me and maybe live, or stay here and let him take you apart while you're still —"