I circled wide first, keeping to the broken rail cars and slag heaps that ringed the yard. The wind carried sound in short, ugly bursts. Engines idling. Metal scraping metal. Someone shouting over the grind of machinery. The Rats were working, moving product, doing what gangs always did when they thought they had time.

  I slid in through a gap where the outer fencing had collapsed inward, wire hanging loose like torn sinew. No alarms. No cameras sweeping the perimeter. Lazy confidence. Or deliberate bait. Either way, I kept low and slow, letting the rhythm of the place reveal itself before I touched anything.

  Inside, the air was thick with dust and oil. Forklifts crawled between stacked cargo containers, their operators half-awake and under-armed. A few cutters loitered near the loading bays, rifles slung loose, attention split between their work and whatever passed for conversation. Laborers moved under their watch, hauling crates, heads down, careful not to draw eyes.

  One cutter peeled off toward a side corridor with a datapad in hand, muttering to himself as he checked a manifest. No escort. No line of sight back to the floor. I slipped in behind him, quiet as the dust, and drove the Talon up under his jaw. The sound he made never made it past my glove. I eased him down and dragged him into the shadow between two containers, already scanning for anyone who might have noticed the absence. No reaction. Good.

  I moved again, staying high where I could, climbing a ladder bolted to the wall and easing onto the catwalk above the main floor. From there I could see more of the layout. Crates marked with half-burned serials. Power conduits thicker than the load justified, running toward the back of the building. A freight elevator recessed into the concrete, doors closed, labeled with a faded warning stripe and a single word stenciled beneath it.

  BASEMENT.

  I took note and kept moving. A lookout leaned against the railing near the far bay, helmet unlatched, cigarette glowing bright in the dim. He wasn't watching the floor so much as the empty yard beyond the open doors. I waited for him to turn his head away from me and then slipped up on him fast, blade through the throat, hand over his mouth as I dragged him behind a nearby crate. Someone shouted at the forklift operator, someone else laughed. No alarms, no lock down, I was still in the clear.

  I paused a few moments, lining up a clean path towards the back offices. This place was built to move stolen goods, not defend itself. If this was Gnaw's play, he was banking on numbers, not discipline. I didn't trust it, but it was working in my favor. For now.

  I dropped down from the catwalk near the back offices, landing light behind a stack of sealed crates. Voices drifted from the room ahead, low and bored. Two cutters, maybe three. Paperwork duty by the sound of it. I didn't draw the blade this time, I flexed my shoulder instead.

  The needle array bloomed under my skin with a firm pressure, sub-dermal ports warming as the system spun up. A faint readiness hum vibrated through my collarbone. I kept my arm low at my side, palm open, posture loose. To anyone watching, I was just another shadow shifting with the dust.

  I leaned out just enough to get eyes on them.

  Two men inside the office, boots up on a desk cluttered with datapads and half-eaten food. A third leaned in the doorway, rifle slung, attention split between the room and the floor beyond. Too far for a clean blade without noise. Too close together for bullets.

  Perfect.

  I flicked my wrist. Three needles whispered out in a tight fan, faster than a blink. They punched through fabric and skin with soft, wet clicks. One hit the doorway guard high in the neck. The others sank into exposed forearms and a thigh.

  The reactions were staggered and ugly. The guard jerked first, hands clawing at his throat as his legs gave out. He slid down the door frame, eyes wide and unfocused, breath coming in wet, useless gasps before his body went slack.

  Inside the office, one man laughed reflexively, already half-rising, until his laugh turned into a confused grunt. His knees buckled. He collapsed sideways, knocking over the desk chair as his muscles seized and then simply... stopped responding.

  The last one managed a strangled sound before the paralytic finished climbing his spine. He fell forward, face-first into the desk with a dull crack, still conscious, eyes darting wildly as his body refused to obey.

  I was on him before panic could turn into noise. My hand clamped over his mouth, blade sliding clean and quiet beneath his ribs. He shuddered once and went still. I eased him down and took a second to retrieve the needles, wiping them clean on his sleeve before the array retracted them automatically, ports sealing with a faint tick under my skin. I flexed my fingers once, feeling the familiar heat fade, then dragged the bodies just far enough out of the hallway to break the first glance.

  The warehouse floor opened up beyond the offices, wider and busier than I'd expected. Rows of shelving stacked two stories high formed uneven corridors. Pallets of sealed crates sat half-labeled, half-forgotten. Forklifts rested wherever their operators had last decided to stop caring. The air was thick with oil, dust, and the low mechanical hum of generators buried somewhere below. Too many places to miss something.

  I moved along the edge of the floor, staying close to the shadows where the overhead lights had burned out completely. A pair of cutters lingered near a cargo cage, arguing quietly about whose turn it was to run a load upstairs. I waited until one turned his back, then closed the distance fast.

  The blade took him clean through the kidney. He made a wet, confused sound as he folded, dragging his friend halfway down with him before I wrenched free and finished it. I eased both bodies against the cage and stepped away, already scanning for the next threat. That's when I felt it, movement.

  I pivoted just in time to see a third man crouched behind a forklift ten meters away, eyes wide, mouth already opening. He wasn't armed properly. Just a sidearm, hands shaking so badly I could see it even in the dim light.

  Too slow. I lunged, but he beat me to the sound.

  "Huh? HEY!"

  The shout cracked across the warehouse like a dropped plate. I threw myself sideways as a panicked shot went wide, the round sparking off metal behind me. I hit the ground hard, rolled, came up behind the forklift as footsteps thundered closer.

  "Jax?" someone called from deeper in the warehouse. "You good?"

  The man I'd missed scrambled backward, tripped over his own heel, and bolted toward the office corridor. I caught him at the doorway, slammed him into the frame hard enough to rattle teeth, and drove the blade up under his ribcage. His shout collapsed into a wet wheeze, but the damage was done.

  The silence held for half a second. Then the warehouse exploded.

  "She's here!"

  The words came from the office corridor, followed by a crash as someone barreled into a desk or a body or both. Boots pounded. A crate hit the floor and split open, spilling parts across concrete. Someone fired blindly, the report deafening in the enclosed space.

  Cutters scattered in every direction, shouting over each other, dragging half-lifted weapons free of straps. Labor crews dropped what they were carrying and ran, scrambling for side doors, for ladders, for anywhere that wasn't here. A klaxon wailed to life, harsh and uneven, wired into something old and unreliable.

  I moved with the chaos, slipping between shadows as rounds chewed into shelving where I'd been a heartbeat earlier. One Rat rounded a corner too fast and died with a surprised look on his face. Another tripped over a fallen pallet and never got back up.

  But then the noise changed. Commands cut through the panic: short, sharp, angry.

  "Lock it down! Kill the lights!"

  The firing slowed and became deliberate. Figures emerged from the far end of the warehouse wearing heavier plating, scrap armor reinforced with real composites underneath. Their movements were tight, economical. Weapons up, spacing clean. These weren't just goons, these were experienced fighters.

  They shoved the remaining goons out of their lanes without looking back, establishing firing lines, controlling angles. Someone slammed a switch and a section of overhead lights went dark, plunging half the floor into shadow. Bad move, I thought. I'm better in the dark.

  I ducked behind a stack of cargo as a round punched into the concrete where my head had been a second before. The shot was more accurate than I would have hoped, but thankfully too slow. I had to focus, a mistake now could be deadly. I smiled despite myself, Nyx was ready to play.

  The warehouse began to change shape around me. Shutters slammed down over the wide vehicle doors, cutting off open exits and forcing movement inward. Conveyor belts lurched to life, grinding loose debris across the floor and breaking up clean sight-lines. The veterans weren't just responding, they were shaping the fight, attempting to funnel me towards where they wanted.

  They spread instead of bunching, using shelving and machinery for partial cover rather than blind charges. One kicked a crate over to choke a lane. Another rolled behind a forklift and began advancing it slowly, using the bulk of the machine as a mobile wall. Their spacing tightened with purpose. Weapons up. No wasted movement. Not military, not polished, but they'd survived enough to know panic killed faster than bullets.

  A burst punched through the cargo stack inches from my shoulder. I dropped and rolled, concrete biting through denim as sparks rained from the shelving behind me. They weren't spraying anymore. They were bracketing. Forcing me inward.

  "Left side!" someone barked.

  Two shifted in sync, trying to collapse the angle and squeeze me toward the darker center of the floor where the lights had been cut. The conveyor belts jerked to life with a grinding roar, dragging loose pallets and debris across my escape routes. The shutters on the loading doors slammed down one by one, sealing daylight out and forcing the fight into the warehouse's artificial gloom. They wanted me contained, but I moved before they could finish setting the cage.

  I sprinted forward, vaulted over a toppled pallet, hit a vertical beam mid-stride and kicked off, redirecting into the adjacent aisle before their aim could adjust. Rounds chased me, chewing into metal and punching through thin plating with violent shrieks. One veteran overextended, stepping too far out to get a clean line on me. I closed the distance before he could correct.

  The Talon snapped free in a shimmer. He swung his rifle like a club instead of firing, trying to cave my skull in. I slipped inside the arc and drove my shoulder into his chest. We hit the concrete hard, the impact rattling through both of us. He was strong, scarred forearms flexing as he tried to pin my blade hand.

  He'd been in fights before. Just not with me. I twisted under him and drove the Talon up through the gap at his collar. He made a wet, surprised sound and sagged forward. I shoved him aside and came up low just as another veteran rounded the shelving corner.

  He fired from the hip. The round grazed fabric and scorched air past my ribs.

  I lunged before he could reset. My elbow cracked into his visor, spider-webbing it. The second strike shattered it completely. He stumbled back, stunned long enough for the blade to slide in under his arm plating and into soft meat. I ripped free as he collapsed.

  I turned just in time to see a forklift racing towards me. The forks were raised like spears, but they were too wide apart, which gave me a clear path. I raced towards him. I went up and over the right fork, grabbing the frame and spinning into the seat with him. His hand fumbled for a sidearm. The Talon punched down through the notch above his collarbone before he could draw.

  The forklift lurched sideways and slammed into shelving, sending crates tumbling in a metallic cascade. I rolled clear as debris thundered down around us. Some of the Rats had fled, just workers I guessed, leaving me with just two of the big guys by my count. I caught their silhouettes moving, backlit by a window as they repositioned and tried to box me in.

  "Fuck this, I can't see shit!" one shouted.

  I flexed my shoulder and let the needle array bloom under my skin. Ports parted with a subtle warmth as the system primed. The lights came back on, and I had to blink to adjust my eyes to the shift, but my optic systems worked fast. I flicked my wrist and sent three needles at the fool by the lever. Two glanced off the steel wall beside him, but one caught him in the neck. His body seized, and a burst of bullets sprayed harmlessly into the ceiling. He froze and stumbled, toppling over the railing and hit the concrete hard, body folding wrong on impact.

  The last goon was closer to me than I thought before the lights came on. He blinked behind a protective mask, but came at me fast. He holstered a pistol and produced a hooked blade from his back as anger washed what I could see of his face. He closed the distance in a blink, aggression replacing any semblance of tactics.

  We met in the aisle between two tables, a flash of sparks as I deflected a strike from his blade with mine. He forced me back two steps with brute momentum, trying to overwhelm with sheer violence. He wasn't elegant, but he was relentless, carving wide arcs meant to maim rather than finesse. I let him push, let him think he had control.

  Then I shifted inside his guard and redirected his weight forward. He stumbled into the conveyor housing, off balance as his head bounced off the steel. It was enough. My elbow drove into his spine, my heel to his knee folded him. The Talon slipped into the base of his skull and ended it clean.

  Everything was quiet. Bodies lay scattered across the floor and I took a moment to catch my breath. I had expected a trap when I arrived, something more than this for sure, and I wasn't ready to lower my guard just yet.

  "Where are you...?" I muttered, wondering where Gnaw was hiding.

  I knelt and pulled an assault rifle off one of the bodies, checking the ammo before slinging the strap over my shoulder. I scanned the room, looking for signs of life but found nothing. I wondered if there were more waiting for me in the basement. I decided to ping Vera and see if she had a layout for the lower levels, hoping for an alternate entrance.

  My HUD gave an error, unable to sync with the external network. I tried calling her instead, but got only static for a moment before a hard disconnect. Communications were being jammed, and by something on the higher end of the tech spectrum. I moved my hand to the rifle, checking the safety, and raised it to the ready as I moved slowly through the dead room.

  Something felt off, beyond the signal jam. This was different than the Rats, but I wasn't sure how. I felt like I was being watched. I scanned the room again, but still nothing.

  A metallic clink echoed suddenly from somewhere to my right, and I spun quick with my weapon readied. A small, glossy device rolled out from beneath a table and came to rest a few feet away from me. It was no bigger than a fist, clear casing. Internal circuitry lit up, glowing in a faint neon cyan. My stomach dropped.

  Before I could react, the device emitted a rising synthetic whine. It climbed in pitch like a crescendo as the mechanics activated inside. I started to fall back, knowing it was too late. Then, the warehouse detonated in color.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Light burst outward in rapid pulses of neon pink, electric blue, acid green. The flashes cycled so fast my optics couldn't keep up. My HUD scrambled to compensate, contrast and exposure slamming up and down in violent recalibration, sending me reeling. Warnings flashed, but I couldn't read them.

  The light was accompanied by a bass frequency that rolled through my ribcage and into my skull. The world seemed to tremble, and the floor felt unstable beneath me as I struggled against the barrage of light and sound. The shelving around me seemed to warp in the strobe, depth collapsing and stretching before my eyes. Shapes twitched with peripheral afterimages and my sense of space fractured into slices of color and shadow.

  Two figures suddenly appeared, silhouettes emerging through the neon storm. They moved slowly, casually, confidently. I reached for a railing to steady myself, and missed by an inch or two, falling against it heavily as I clutched my pounding head with my other hand. It took my entire force of will to keep myself standing as I tried to comprehend the forms of the people approaching.

  Their bodies blocked some of the effects, and I started to register details. The first was tall and angular, coat flaring with every step. LED seams traced the edges of his jacket in synchronized pulses that matched the device's cycling light. His face was partially masked, silver hair slicked back from a surgically flawless jaw. His optics were already adjusted, lenses dimmed to a cold reflective sheen.

  The second was broader. Heavy frame. One side of his face sheathed in chrome plating etched with geometric lines that caught the neon and fractured it into shards. Massive gauntlets encased both forearms, coil lines glowing faint orange beneath the surface.

  "Remember, we're not supposed to kill her." The first one spoke.

  "No promises." Replied the other.

  The pulses from the device began to taper off, cycling slower. The light faded from violent strobes to a rhythmic pulse, and my optic implants finally started to get a hold of balance and depth perception. I steadied myself, feet planted but primed to run. The heavy one rolled his shoulders, metal clicking softly as internal servos adjusted.

  I raised the rifle, coiled my finger, and fired a burst of rounds. The tall one moved before the second round cleared the barrel. Not impossible speed, but impeccable anticipation. The bullet tore through the edge of his coat instead, shredding fabric and sparking against something armored beneath. He laughed. Soft, genuine.

  The heavy one closed the distance in three strides. Each step cracked concrete. I dropped the rifle and rolled as his gauntlet came down where I had been standing. The impact dented the warehouse floor and sent vibration up my spine. That was no scrap augmentation, that was high grade hardware. These assholes weren't with the Rats.

  I came up low and slashed for his knee. The Talon struck reinforced plating and skidded with a spray of sparks. He did not react. His other fist connected with my ribs and lifted me off my feet.

  I hit shelving hard enough to rattle my vision, metal shrieking as it bent. Pain flared sharp and immediate. Not critical. But real.

  The tall one had drawn twin pistols by then. Custom builds, sleek frames glowing faint violet along the slide. He missed me, but not for firing blind. He tracked me, adjusting for my recovery speed, waiting for the exact half-second my body would need to stabilize, and firing to miss on purpose. They weren't just trying to overwhelm me, they were trying to exhaust me, wear me down.

  The heavy one advanced again, deliberate, forcing me to move laterally while the tall one closed off vertical escape with controlled bursts that chewed into metal inches from my hands. The heavy came again, slower this time. Studying me.

  His gauntlets hummed as he flexed his fingers. The coils beneath the plating brightened from orange to a molten red. Hydraulic tension, impact amplification. He scanned my movement, wanting another clean hit.

  The tall one shifted left, boots whispering over dust. He was angling for a triangulation. Crossfire with clean geometry. His pistols snapped in disciplined pairs, each shot forcing me to commit to a direction. Each shot herding me where they wanted me to be.

  The heavy lunged, gauntlet sweeping in a brutal horizontal arc meant to pulp my insides in one go. I dropped under it and slid across concrete, sparks biting at me as rounds from the tall one chewed the floor behind me. I activated the needle array, hoping for an advantage of some kind as I came up behind the big guy.

  Ports parted in my arm as I brought it up with a flick of my wrist. Three needles spat out fast, but two missed the mark. One slipped through, catching bare flesh as he turned for another swing. He jerked, but didn't freeze, his system holding the paralytic at bay. I expected as much, and the delay caused his punch to go high and wide, giving me a window.

  The Talon snapped free in a shimmer and drove it into the glowing coil housing at his wrist. I activated the flicker protocol and felt the heat of the plasma blade rise in an instant, blade shifting from corporeal to dark and ghostly as it passed through the solid metal. I hadn't used that feature yet, as it ran the risk of burning out the implant if it ran for too long. It worked.

  The sensation tore up my arm like dragging it through open flame. Warning signs flared in my HUD, thermal spike, stability fluctuation. Strings of strange purple code ran along the edge of the implant and my vision as the Umbra weapon showed it's true form. The blade flashed and passed through the reinforced alloy as if it were smoke before re-solidifying inside his arm. I flinched and ripped sideways.

  The gauntlet ruptured from within. Metal peeled back in a violent shower of sparks and hydraulic fluids. The coil detonated with a concussive pop that knocked both of us backward. The heavy roared, clutching the ruined arm as smoke curled from exposed wiring.

  The Talon flickered dangerously in response. Heat warnings cascaded across my HUD and the implant throttled power automatically to prevent a full burnout. I disengaged before the tall merc could capitalize. He had already adapted.

  His fire pattern shifted immediately, no wasted anger over his partner's injury, slower sharper. A round clipped my thigh as I pivoted, punching through fabric and grazing muscle. Pain flared hot and immediate. My step faltered and he closed the distance without hesitation, smashing the butt of his pistol into my temple hard enough to scatter white across my vision.

  I staggered, struggling to keep my footing. He seized my collar and drove a knee toward my abdomen. I caught it mid-strike and twisted, using his forward momentum to hurl him across a steel worktable. He rolled with the impact and came up smooth, almost amused.

  Behind him, the heavy reengaged despite the ruined gauntlet. Slower now. Off balance. But still more than capable of breaking bone. They split again but this time I moved first.

  I feinted toward the heavy, forcing the tall merc to step into a gap to maintain triangulation. As he did, I snapped my wrist and fired the remaining needle cluster directly into his chest at close range. He tried to sidestep a second too late.

  The needles punched through fabric and buried shallow beneath synthskin. His expression shifted from calculation to confusion as the toxin began its climb. His fingers spasmed. One pistol clattered to the concrete. The other discharged wildly as motor control degraded, rounds tearing useless holes through shelving above me.

  I closed the distance in three strides and drove the Talon under his sternum, angling upward through the soft seam between rib plates. Up close, his eyes flashed emotions: surprise, fear, acceptance. Then, they went empty.

  His partner hit me before I could pull free. His shoulder crashing into my side and drove me into a support column hard enough to fracture the concrete, and likely a rib or two. Pain shot through me, and I coughed up a splatter of blood. His intact gauntlet clamped around my throat and lifted me clean off the ground.

  I gagged on the pressure, my vision started to blur and vignette formed around his glaring face. Warnings flashed red through my HUD in a stream as my internal systems raced to keep me stable. I snapped the talon free and stabbed at him, blade scraping harmlessly against reinforced chest plating. His grip tightened and felt my consciousness starting to fade.

  I had to risk it again. My arm flared with heat as the blade ghosted once more, plasma expanding into the flicker phase as I slammed into him with the last of my strength. My fist hit his chest before the blade returned to a solid state. I twisted, wrenching it inside his chest. He froze.

  For a moment, neither of us moved, my senses failing. Then, his grip loosened. I dropped hard to the floor, gasping as he stumbled back. He collapsed through a table, ruined gauntlet still flashing sparks against the concrete.

  I coughed and rolled to my back as I dismissed the blade and tried to regroup. The wound in my thigh burned, my arms trembled, and my breath was ragged. The room was mostly silent again. I tried to ping Vera again but whatever was jamming my signal remained active. I tugged the scarf from my neck and wrapped the gunshot on my leg as I composed myself.

  Lights flickered and I could hear movement, heavy footsteps deeper in the building. I cursed to myself, unsure that I'd survive another scrap. The silence was broken by crackling speakers, feedback whining briefly before the signal stabilized.

  "Well done, Nyx. Better than expected." Gnaw's tone was almost conversational, almost impressed. "Diced my boys up good. Even took care of the freelancers. Wonder if they got paid upfront? Looked pricey."

  I forced myself upright, every movement measured. My ribs protested. My leg burned. My HUD was still throwing heat warnings from the Talon's phase stress. I ignored all of it and scanned the upper levels again.

  "You been watching this whole time?" I called out, keeping my voice steady despite the copper taste in my mouth.

  A low chuckle answered me.

  "Course I have. You think I'd miss my own show? Had to see what all the fuss was about. Corp pet slicing through half my sector." He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough. "You're good. I'll give you that."

  A light came on near the door marked basement I had seen earlier. Metal groaned as it opened to reveal a large freight elevator.

  "I figured you'd sniff out the first trap," Gnaw continued. "Figured you'd know it was bait. Smart girl. So, I had a friend of ours stack things in our favor."

  The elevator doors creaked open.

  "You're still standing, so I guess we need a new plan."

  I limped a few steps forward, picking up one of the merc's pistols instead of the rifle. Lighter. Faster. My fingers curled around the grip, knuckles going white.

  "Cut the theatrics," I said. "You've got something that isn't yours."

  There was a pause. Then, a low hum began. Heavy, deep vibration like a large machine coming online rattling the floor under my boots.

  "Oh, don't I know it." Gnaw replied. "Pretty thing. You seen it in action yet? This baby lobs plasma rounds, burning hotter than molten slag. Helluva toy! You want it back?"

  The hum intensified.

  "Come on down here and get it." The speakers went silent.

  I stared at the elevator shaft for a long moment. I checked the timer still ticking away in the corner of my HUD.

  41:48.12

  I could tell he was baiting me into another trap. I skimmed the maps from Vera again, flicking through blueprints hoping to find another way down. I found it, maintenance shaft for the elevator, just on the other side of the shaft. Hell if I was going to ride down to him in a steel coffin.

  I wiped blood from my mouth with the back of my hand and moved towards the elevator. I reached through the side gate and slapped the button before racing to the stairs. I hoped whatever he planned for me would hit the empty cage instead. It was a gamble, but it was the only play I had at the moment.

  I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand and moved toward the elevator, keeping my steps uneven on purpose. Let him think I was limping worse than I was. Let him think the mercs had taken more out of me than they had.

  I reached through the side gate and slapped the call button hard enough to rattle the casing. The freight cage shuddered and began its descent with a grinding roar. If he'd rigged the lift, he'd likely trigger it when it reached the bottom, and if I was lucky, he'd waste it. I pivoted and sprinted for the maintenance access on the far side of the shaft.

  The door wasn't locked. It never was in places like this. I slipped inside and pulled it shut behind me just as the elevator cage dropped past the opening, chains rattling, gears groaning. The maintenance stairwell was narrow and steep, metal steps spiraling down along the concrete wall of the shaft. It smelled like ozone and old coolant. My boots rang softly with each step despite my effort to stay light. I kept the pistol low and ready. Halfway down, the warehouse lights above flickered.

  Halfway down, the elevator hit the bottom. There was no pause. A split-second later the world cracked open.

  The blast wasn't plasma. It was industrial. A shaped charge. Something crude and violent detonated beneath the cage. The explosion ripped up the shaft in a column of force and shrapnel, not fire but pressure. Steel screamed as the freight platform tore free from its guides. Shockwave slammed up the concrete well and punched through the stairwell like a battering ram.

  I flattened against the inner wall as debris tore past the railing, metal fragments ricocheting off the steps with shrieks of impact. Heat licked through the shaft but it wasn't clean. It smelled like ruptured fuel cells and cooked wiring. Lift cables snapped somewhere below with a brutal twang. The cage had been wired to blow when it bottomed out, crude but effective.

  I took the remaining stairs two at a time, boots hammering steel. At the base, the shaft was a mangled ruin of twisted rails and collapsed cage fragments. The blast had cratered the floor beneath it, concrete fractured outward in a spiderweb of stress lines. Voices echoed down the corridor beyond.

  "Check it! Check the wreck!"

  I crouched low behind the warped frame of the lift housing and waited. Two Rats approached cautiously, weapons raised, peering into the smoke. I stepped out of it like a ghost. The first shot took one through the mouth. The second collapsed the other's eye into the back of his skull. Both dropped before their brains processed what they were seeing.

  Across the hall, Gnaw watched. He was larger in person than memory. Broad. Grease-stained skin stretched over thick muscle. Gang tattoos pulsed faint ember beneath scarred flesh. One organic eye, one dull red implant. His large metal jaw decorated with serrated teeth moved slowly as he processed the scene.. The prototype hung from an oversized holster at his hip.

  "See?" he smirked, voice rough through the metal. "Smart girl. Should've known not to waste a good elevator bomb on you."

  I trained the pistol on him and stepped fully into the corridor. Even from here I could tell he was layered in chrome beneath those burned rags. The handgun might punch through if I was lucky, but I wasn't holding my breath.

  "Enough," I said. "You called, I came. Hand it over."

  He tilted his head, studying me. Then he laughed. The sound was ugly. Wet. Metal teeth clacking as he turned and bolted. For a big man, he moved fast.

  I fired low, aiming for tendon, for knee, for anything that would slow him. The rounds sparked against concrete and chewed at the door frame but missed meat. He didn't zigzag like a coward. He charged straight down the corridor, trusting mass and speed.

  I cursed and gave chase. The basement wasn't finished space. It was industrial. Low ceilings, thick support columns, generator housings along the walls, heavy cable snaking through steel brackets. The hum I'd heard upstairs was louder here, vibrating through the soles of my boots. Gnaw glanced back once, red optic lens glinting.

  "You're gonna love what I built for you," he called.

  That wasn't his tone upstairs. This was different, he seemed... excited. I followed at pace, but cautiously, eyes scanning for signs of the trap. He was leading me somewhere, and I wasn't sure why.

  Gnaw's boots thundered against steel as he barreled through the basement corridor, knocking over a rolling tool cart without even glancing back. Wrenches and scrap skittered across the floor in my path. I vaulted the mess without slowing, pistol up, tracking the sway of his massive frame as he cut left through a pair of hanging plastic strip curtains.

  The space beyond opened into a larger industrial chamber. Generators lined one wall, old and mismatched, cables as thick as my wrist running from them into a central column of welded metal that looked less manufactured and more assembled. The air hummed with a low, oppressive vibration that settled into my teeth. Heat radiated off the machinery in uneven waves.

  Gnaw slowed there. Not tired, not cornered, deliberate. He turned just enough for me to see the serrated steel of his jaw flex as he bit down on whatever scrap he'd been chewing. His red optic flickered once.

  "Now we're somewhere interesting," he said.

  I didn't answer. I shifted my weight instead, widening my stance, pistol steady but not firing yet. The room wasn't just bigger. It was wrong. The welded column in the center wasn't structural. It was wired, conduits spiraled up its length like veins, feeding into a circular array mounted near the ceiling. The hum I'd felt in the stairwell pulsed from it in slow, rhythmic waves.

  An industrial fan spun lazily overhead, stirring hot air thick with ozone. My HUD flickered once, not a full warning, just a faint latency spike in peripheral diagnostics. Subtle, easy to miss. The kind of thing that made my skin crawl. Gnaw rolled his shoulders, something hissing softly as it primed.

  "You know, it wasn't supposed to go this way." He chimed. "You were supposed to get your ass handed to you by the mercs, tied up with a bow and handed off to be not my fucking problem anymore."

  He drew the weapon from his hip, I tried to fire first but the pistol was empty. He just smiled.

  "You been pissing me off for a while, but sabotaging the trade and killing the Ashline Arm's heir pissed off some dangerous folks. You should know better than angering a corp in Peachveil."

  "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." I called back. "Bodies drop for that daily in this city."

  "Very true. Still, men hold grudges. Men with money don't have to hold them as long."

  He kept the gun on me as he backed up to a computer terminal on the wall. Old school setup, casing, monitor, cables, none of the modern control systems. I couldn't make out what it was meant to do. He tapped a few keys on the machine, never taking his eyes off me. I felt the hum growing.

  "You going to talk me to death, or am I going to have to pull that weapon off your corpse?" I taunted, trying to stay in control.

  "Oh, Nyx... neither one of us is dying in this room. Not today anyway. You've got a meeting to attend!"

  He laughed, and I caught a glint of light in his optic implant flare as if confirming something unseen. The hum spiked.

  "The fuck is..." I started.

  I felt it before I understood it. A pressure shift in the air, a tightening along the edge of my implants. The air smelled like ozone. My HUD flickered, static crawling along the bottom edge of my vision. Gnaw's grin widened.

  The world snapped white. Not light, not heat, but a pressure wave of raw electromagnetic force tearing through the room and me with it. It hit like a fist inside my skull, every implant in my body screaming at once. My HUD exploded into cascading error codes before going dark. My optic augments shut off, reducing my vision to raw natural input before I had to close my eyes to shield them from the energy.

  I crumpled into a pile on the floor. The gun slipped from my hand as my fingers spasmed and twitched against my will. My needle array ports sparked painfully under my skin, micro-servos misfiring. The Talon tried to initialize on reflex and failed, feedback biting up my arm like razor blades.

  Every implant in my body went dark. The world flattened into raw sound and pain. No compensations, just concrete biting into my palms and the copper taste of blood in my mouth. I couldn't move, could barely breathe. It was like all my senses had backfired on me at the same time.

  Across the room, a translucent shield shimmered into place around Gnaw, hex-patterned light crawling over his bulk as the pulse washed past him. The barrier flared once, absorbed the surge, and faded back to nothing. He hadn't even flinched.

  My muscles twitched uselessly as systems tried to reboot. My vision pulsed in and out, struggling to refocus without augmentation. I forced myself onto my elbows, dragging in air that felt too thin. Gnaw walked over to me, stopping inches from my face.

  "Well," he rumbled, metal jaw grinding softly. "That's more like it."

  I tried to roll, tried to push up, but my limbs lagged behind the command. The world was still swimming when his shadow fell over me. I managed to get my eyes open just in time to see his boot swing. Impact exploded at the base of my skull.

  Everything went black.