Sasha Yakovleva
“I don’t get all this secrecy,” Sasha muttered from the backseat, stretching her legs out in a deliberate sprawl. “We’re mercs, right? Not corpo spies. What’s with all the cloak-and-dagger nonsense?”
She leaned her head back against the seat, her pink leotard catching the faint glow of Night City’s neon signs as they zipped past the windows. The city’s chaos was as vibrant as ever, and yet here they were, playing hush-hush for some shady job in Heywood. It seemed ironic to her, considering how few secrets stayed buried in NC. Everyone wanted to become a legend, so to actually keep things hidden was… something.
“Because some people are listening,” Falco replied from the driver’s seat, his hand brushing against his mustache before tapping the rearview mirror. “Caution’s free, and you of all people should know better, given who we’re meeting.”
Sasha rolled her eyes. “Relax, Falco. It’s gonna be eeeaaasy,” she drawled, her tone so dripping with sarcasm it made Falco grip the steering wheel tighter.
“You’re lucky Maine was looking for a Frontline Netrunner,” Falco muttered. “He doesn’t trust people outside of Night City as it is.”
Sasha ignored the jab, stifling a yawn as she lazily watched the cityscape. The same rundown streets and bright billboards, always trying too hard to distract from the grime beneath.
After a pause, Falco broke the silence, his tone more conversational. “How’s San Francisco these days? Feels like we never get any real updates about it—just scraps of news that are weeks old.”
The question caught Sasha off guard, her brow furrowing slightly. San Francisco. What could she even say? That it was an over-polluted warzone of corporate greed and rogue science experiments? That she’d seen horrors there that didn’t belong in a Netrunner’s usual scope?
She gave a casual shrug. “Same as it’s always been. Just a smoggy mess with an overpriced view of the bay. Oh, and they’ve got this weird green haze hanging around now, thanks to the pollution. Real charming.”
“Figures,” Falco grunted, his eyes scanning the road. “Shame, though.”
Sasha didn’t respond. Lying was simpler. Cleaner. No need to dredge up the twisted reality of what she’d seen or done in that city. Some truths, she decided, weren’t worth the trouble of sharing.
Especially when the symbiotes are the elephant in the room.
“Here we are,” Falco said as he parked the van, pulling the handbrake and adjusting the tie on his vest. He gave a quick glance around, his eyes sharp as he checked for any signs they’d been followed. “Alright, girl, time to meet the crew officially.”
“Finally,” Sasha muttered, kicking open the van's sliding door with more force than necessary. She hopped out, letting it slam shut behind her. “And by the way, this van stinks.”
“I wonder why,” Falco shot back, lighting a cigarette, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Sasha ignored him, scanning the street. The distinct presence of Valentinos caught her eye. Gang members loitered near bars and cars, their tattoos and flashy gold screaming territory pride. She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t this Tino turf? Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
Falco took a long drag, his expression flat. “Sasha, for the love of anything sacred, shut the fuck up.” Despite the bluntness of his words, he leaned casually against the van, the cigarette dangling between his fingers. “Yes, this is Valentino territory. Yes, this is the right place. And yes, I know what I’m doing. Now go to the meeting.”
“Okay, okay, jeez,” Sasha mumbled, throwing her hands up in mock surrender.
The building looked like a run-down garage, though the back rooms housed a bar. A gruff mechanic met her at the entrance, nodding toward a hallway and mumbling directions. She followed the path, weaving through a few tight corridors before entering a dimly lit lounge area.
There, sprawled across a couch like a king surveying his domain, was Maine.
Next to him was a naked woman just pulling out of a NetDive. She wore a strange mask that obscured her face, the flicker of neon tech visible beneath its surface. Backup Netrunner? Sasha wondered. Or maybe just someone Maine kept around for flair.
Her gaze shifted to another figure—another woman—towering in size and bulk. She wore a cropped half-jacket and no shirt beneath it, her heavily muscled frame enhanced with visible chrome implants. It was hard not to notice her unapologetically exposed physique, though Sasha quickly decided staring too long might result in a fist to the face.
Sasha froze for a moment. How many women does Maine have hanging around this place?
Her eyes flicked to yet another figure—this one younger. Or… was she? The girl’s skin had an unnatural, pale greenish hue that seemed almost bioluminescent.
What kind of crew is this?
Sasha thought, her skepticism mounting. Is this a merc squad or Maine’s excuse for a harem?
And why was Falco stuck as the designated driver?
What the hell had she just walked into?
"Hey, she’s staring too much. Think we scared her?" The youngest of the group giggled, her tone laced with that condescending kind of humor that made Sasha's eye twitch. "C'mon, choom, no one’s gonna bite you here. Unless we want to, that is."
“Who the fuck would be scared of you?” a guy chimed in from behind the sofa. His hands looked… wrong, almost skeletal, and his posture screamed gonk. “You don’t even use a gun.”
“Well, Pilar, I would if I fucking could!” the girl snapped back, clearly ready to throw hands. “But Maine here says I’m better off as a decoy than anything else! Oh, and by the way, when the fuck am I gonna use that Tactician we klepped from those gonk-ass Claws, huh?”
“Enough!” the towering chrome-laden woman barked, her voice cutting through the bickering like a whip. “This isn’t the time for fights, especially over some bullshit we’ve already settled.”
“How nice,” the masked woman muttered, barely moving from her spot on the couch. Her tone was smooth but dismissive, her body language relaxed as though she couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the chaos properly. “Such a professional way to start a meeting.”
“Oh, fuck off,” the youngest shot back, flipping her off with zero hesitation before pulling out her phone and scrolling through it like none of this mattered.
Sasha stood frozen in the same spot, watching what she could only loosely call a conversation.
It was the kind of dysfunctional exchange that passed as normal in Night City—loud, chaotic, and somehow, still functional.
Just as anything else, really.
Maine laughed, his imposing yet approachable presence cutting through the tension in the room. Despite his size, he had an air of camaraderie that softened the chaotic introduction. “Sorry for the mess, kid. First impressions can be a little... rough with this crew. Name’s Maine.”
“The state?” Sasha raised an eyebrow, her confusion palpable. “Damn, never thought I’d have an entire state as a crewmate.”
Maine blinked at her, then let out a deep chuckle. “That’s right. So, what about you? You a whole country or just a city?”
“Does Japan count?” Sasha tapped her lip in mock thought before cracking a sly grin. “Nah, I’m just messing with you, born in Night City. Name’s Sasha Yakovleva. PinKitty on the cyberspace.”
“Huh.” The masked woman spoke up from the couch, her voice low and calm as she finally opened her tired eyes. “I’ve seen that name in the San Francisco database. You’ve got quite the resume. Kiwi.” She finished by saying her name.
Sasha’s grin widened. “Well, nice to meet you, Kiwi. We gotta trade sometime—I’ve got some phenomenal stuff that’ll blow your mind.”
“Maybe,” Kiwi replied, already closing her eyes again, her tone indifferent but not dismissive.
“I’m Dorio,” the muscular woman said, her voice steady and commanding as she gestured to the weird guy slouched behind the sofa. “That’s Pilar.” Then, pointing toward the smaller woman near him, she added, “And Rebecca, his sister.”
“Sup,” both siblings said in unison, not bothering to look up from their devices.
“Just ignore their antics. You’ll get used to them eventually,” Dorio muttered, though her grimace said otherwise.
“Especially Pilar,” Kiwi chimed in as she casually got up and started getting dressed, completely unbothered by the lack of privacy.
Huh. So much for boundaries.
Pilar flicked his chromed fingers, making the universal “eddies” sign. “All I care about is the paycheck, choom. The sooner I can hit up some JoyToys without haggling, the better.”
“Like you’ve got any charm to haggle with,” Maine jabbed, a smug grin spreading across his face.
“Fuck off,” Pilar retorted, mirroring Rebecca’s earlier gesture without skipping a beat.
“Can we please focus? Like, maybe talk about what I’m doing here?” Sasha cut in, her tone laced with exasperation. Was this banter normal, or were they just being extra to mess with her?
“I second that,” Dorio said, arms crossed. “Let’s get down to business.”
----------------------------------------
“…which makes you our frontline, alongside Maine and me.”
“Straightforward,” Sasha mused, nodding. “But why take someone like me?”
Kiwi, now dressed, held up a tablet displaying some intel. “As our gigs have gotten riskier, so has the chance of us getting flatlined. Between that, our growing street cred, and the increasing number of gonks coming after us, we needed extra hands. I’m not a NetGunner, and I’m more effective running recon than covering our asses mid-combat.” She handed the tablet to Sasha, smirking faintly. “That’s where you come in. Your work in San Francisco got our attention—much to Maine’s initial hesitation—and surviving Corpo curfews doesn’t exactly go unnoticed.”
Sasha skimmed the data, relieved to see nothing symbiote-related. Still, she raised an eyebrow. They’d been tracking her even before she’d left Night City. It was clear they had a capable backseat Netrunner, but a field operative was definitely a gap they needed filled. Judging by the way things were structured, Maine and Dorio seemed to carry the heavy lifting while Pilar and Rebecca picked off the leftovers.
“So basically, you were overloaded with work,” Sasha observed, blinking at them. “But why? You don’t seem weak—especially with all that chrome you’re packing.”
Maine immediately turned to Dorio, glaring. “See? She gets it.”
“And I won’t argue about this again,” Dorio said, her voice dripping with finality. “Unless you want to go a month without sex.”
Maine blinked. He then thought about it. Then he made the wise decision to keep his mouth shut.
“Okay?” Sasha muttered, utterly baffled by whatever power dynamic she’d just stumbled into.
“As Dorio said earlier, you’ll get used to it,” Kiwi sighed, looking somehow even more tired than she already appeared, "Hopefully."
Rebecca stood up, waving her phone. “So, we’ve got a gig that can—”
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The crew dynamics were weird, odd, and sometimes downright brain-numbing, but Sasha had to admit—they worked. And now, she was officially part of the team. Maine had even made it clear that every member got an equal cut from the gigs, no matter how much—or how little—they contributed.
Preem.
She sat at a noodle stand, slurping her meal while waiting for the greenlight on a gig Rebecca had set up. Apparently, that fact alone was enough for the others to brace themselves. Night City buzzed around her, its familiar chaos carrying on as usual. Same streets, same people, same barely-holding-together system that somehow kept this city alive.
Sasha sighed. As messed up as it was, Night City was still the best place to stack eddies and build a rep. Maybe one day she’d make enough to leave for somewhere quieter. Somewhere that didn’t smell like burning oil and desperation. San Francisco was a nice vacation, but outside of that gig she did there, nothing really paid well—
Her agent suddenly buzzed, pulling her from her thoughts.
Yellow light flashed across her eyes. A call.
Unknown number.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The PinKitty immediately raised her ICE barriers before doing anything. In this day and age, an unknown number was practically unheard of—especially for a Netrunner. Sasha wasn’t about to let her guard down. Her Cyberdeck wasn’t top-tier, but it was nothing to scoff at either. Carefully, she managed the call, scanning for hidden programs, daemons, or any sign of an attempted hack.
Much to her surprise, the caller just… wanted to talk.
No hidden quickhacks, no lurking programs, not even a trace of Black ICE activation. Whoever they were, they had to be either bold, confident, or hopelessly naive. Maybe all three.
With a skeptical frown, Sasha decided to take the call.
“Who’s this?”
“You’re Sasha, right?”
The woman's voice on the other end was desperate—unsettlingly so. It threw Sasha off, but before she could respond, another voice interrupted.
“Hey, let me do the talking!” A male voice, sharper and more composed, took over. “But, yeah, are you Sasha Yakovleva?”
“Depends,” Sasha replied, now more cautious but sounding confident. “Who’s asking?”
“Nieme Callahan. I’m a choom of Vomi. You worked with her a while back, didn’t you?”
Sasha’s eyes narrowed. She remembered that job all too well. Still, something else about this caught her attention—enough to raise her interest fast.
“Wait—are you calling from San Francisco?”
“Y-yeah?”
“How?! Service out there’s a nightmare beyond city limits!”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” another voice cut in. This one was older, authoritative—probably a cop. “We need a favor from you. And we’ll pay well.”
“...I’m listening.”
“So, here’s the situation: our chooms in deep shit with the corpos. And to make things worse, we have no fucking clue where she is right now,” the woman started, her tone brisk as she laid out the problem.
“But we know what she’s after,” the guy from earlier, Nieme, added, clearly trying to map out a plan in his head. “If we can ping the location of our chooms and figure out where Vomi’s headed, we might have a chance to fix this.”
Sasha leaned back, connecting the dots with the limited puzzle pieces she’d been handed. “Okay… but why? What happened to your chooms? And why the obsession with tracking Vomi? Did she piss off the wrong corpos? I mean, the Corpo Kitty’s always been a loose cannon, but—”
“She turned into a fucking monster,” another voice interrupted sharply, high-pitched and jittery, like a girl in her early twenties. Energetic. Anxious.
“She what?”
“Well, I wasn’t gonna put it like that…” Nieme hesitated, his discomfort seeping through the call. “But yeah. The Vomi we knew… she might not exist anymore.”
“To be crystal clear, do you know anything about… symbiotes?” the cop asked cautiously, like the words themselves might bite him.
Sasha frowned. Her mind immediately flashed to the tendrils she’d seen sprouting from Vomi’s back—predatory, ravenous, and terrifyingly alive. That image had burned itself into her memory long after she’d left San Francisco for Night City. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was her fault, at least in part. It was her investigation that led Vomi to integrate that red goo into her body. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, Sasha had played a role. Clicking her tongue, she pushed the guilt aside. Vomi needed help, and her chooms were reaching out for it.
“I do,” Sasha replied firmly.
“A what now?” three voices chorused on the other end of the line.
“Essentially…” Sasha began with a sigh, already bracing for their reaction, “it’s a biological weapon designed to enhance physical performance without the cyberpsychosis risks that come with cyberware.”
“Well, it didn’t fucking work,” the woman muttered, likely pouting.
“Let me guess,” Sasha continued, ignoring the interruption. “She must’ve absorbed another one, right? If she’s spiraling, that’s probably why. I came across something called Project Ouroboros in my investigation back then—it hinted at another symbiote. She was already unstable when we—”
“You knew?!” the man barked, cutting her off mid-sentence.
Sasha winced at the accusation, her grip on her noodles tightening. She should’ve expected this. “Yeah, I knew,” she admitted, her voice steady. “But don’t start screaming at me like I injected her with it, alright? Vomi made her own choices. I didn’t force anything on her.”
“You could’ve warned someone!” the woman snapped.
“Warn who?” Sasha shot back, her tone sharpening. “The corpos? The same gonks who created the symbiote in the first place? Or maybe you’d prefer I ran to some mercs who’d sell her out for eddies? Get real.”
There was silence on the line for a beat, the kind of silence that stretched like a knife poised to strike.
“She’s right,” the cop finally said, his tone grave. “If the corpos knew what Vomi was before it went to the news, they’d have dragged her back in chains—or worse. It’s not like we’d have had the power to stop them.”
The woman huffed but said nothing more.
“Look,” Sasha continued, easing her voice back to neutral. “What’s done is done. Right now, we need to focus on how to handle the fallout. You said she’s completely gone, right? No trace of the old Vomi left?”
“We don’t know,” Nieme admitted, sounding almost ashamed. “It’s like she’s… two people. One moment, she’s protecting us, like she always did. The next… she’s a fucking killing machine. Doesn’t even look human anymore.”
“And you want me to track her,” Sasha said, already piecing the plan together. “Find out where she’s going, what she’s after, and maybe get her back in one piece if there’s anything left to save.”
“Exactly,” the cop replied.
Sasha leaned back in her chair, her agent muted for a few seconds. This wasn’t going to be easy, not by a long shot.
“Fine,” she said after a pause. “But this isn’t a charity. If I’m sticking my neck out for you guys, I expect to get paid. A lot.”
“Whatever you want,” the man said. “Just help us.”
Sasha sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. She didn’t like getting involved in other people’s messes—especially ones this dangerous. But Vomi wasn’t just some random choom. Even if she hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, Sasha couldn’t abandon her completely.
“Alright,” she said, opening her eyes again. “Send me all the deetes you’ve got. Last known locations, sightings, anything. I’ll see what I can do.”
“We’ll send it now,” the cop said, relief clear in his voice, “It's all over the news, so it shouldn't be hard to get data.”
“Good,” Sasha muttered. “But fair warning—if she really is gone, there might not be anything I can do to save her. You need to be ready for that.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Nieme replied grimly.
“Alright then,” Sasha said, finishing her noodles and tossing the container aside. “Time to see what the hell your monster’s been up to.”
----------------------------------------
Liu Jinxiu.
CEO and owner—but not founder—of Ascendant Innovations. Not that it mattered. The founder would undoubtedly be thrilled to know Jinxiu had struck a deal that could only backfire under the most minuscule of odds. At least, in her estimation.
Vomi Kurosaki was naive. Almost embarrassingly so. Since the Datacrash, cyberspace had been reduced to private servers filled with secured archives guarded by armies of netrunners—both physical and digital—and layers of encryption. This meant that any building, whether an office, factory, or residential block, stored surveillance footage safely within the Shallows or private devices. With just a few commands to Ascendant's skilled netrunners, Jinxiu could pinpoint the "monster" and gather enough evidence to solidify her position in the deal.
And why hadn’t any of this footage gone public? Simple. When a corporation deploys its security teams to clean up a corporate project, no sane bystander dares to meddle. Loose ends don’t last long under corporate scrutiny.
Jinxiu grinned, her dark lipstick smudging slightly as she ran her tongue across her lips. The prospect of turning Vomi’s recklessness into leverage thrilled her. The defeat Kaneda would taste when his life’s work fell squarely into Ascendant's hands? She savored it already. A toast-worthy triumph if there ever was one.
As she raised a glass of wine to her lips, her terminal pinged with an incoming message.
Hmm.
She opened it with casual curiosity. The sender? A netrunner. That alone piqued her interest, but what truly caught her attention was the sender's location.
Night City.
That stopped her mid-sip. Night City? How? The region’s fractured communication systems were infamous, especially when compared to San Francisco’s notorious stranglehold on cyber security. Outside transmissions weren’t impossible but rare enough to be noteworthy.
Her intrigue deepened. If a netrunner had reached out from Night City, it was worth hearing them out. After all, Ascendant's Black-ICE was state-of-the-art; any attempt at sabotage or a quick hack would be dead on arrival.
She read the message.
"I was hired to track the monster in San Francisco. Word is, you’ve got access to the places I need—specifically, all the city’s footage."
Jinxiu leaned back, a smirk curling her lips. “Well, isn’t that convenient,” she murmured, chuckling softly to herself.
Jinxiu's fingers hovered over the terminal, carefully crafting her response. She wasn’t about to give away any leverage or confirm her resources outright—not yet.
"And why should I assist you? Night City isn’t exactly known for its altruists. Who are you, and what’s in this for me?"
She sent the message and leaned back, swirling her wine. The next response came quickly, almost as if the netrunner had been waiting for her reply.
"I’m PinKitty. I specialize in deep dives and ghost work. Your monster's trail overlaps with some personal interests of mine, and I’m the best shot you’ve got at tracking her down efficiently. What's in it for you? Full access to my findings and clean deniability if things go sideways. I’m not in it to screw over corpos—just to finish the job and get paid."
Jinxiu arched a brow, intrigued despite herself. A netrunner with confidence and a surprisingly practical pitch. She appreciated someone who got straight to business. Still, trust wasn’t something she gave freely.
"You’re assuming I care about tracking this so-called ‘monster,’" Jinxiu typed back. "What makes you think I’d want her found at all?"
Another quick reply.
"Because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have cleaned up half the city’s surveillance archives or sent corporate squads to lock down leads. That kind of noise doesn’t go unnoticed, even from Night City."
Jinxiu’s smirk widened. Clever little rat. Sasha wasn’t just poking around—she was paying attention.
"Fine," Jinxiu typed after a moment, "but if you want my help, I’ll need proof that you can deliver. Start by decrypting this file."
She attached a heavily encrypted test file—one that only an exceptional netrunner could crack without tripping her security protocols. If Sasha was bluffing, this would expose her. If she wasn’t… well, Jinxiu could always use another useful tool in her arsenal.
Within minutes, her terminal pinged again.
"Here’s your file, clean and decrypted. Need me to read it out for you too, or is that enough proof?"
Jinxiu let out a low, impressed laugh. "Cocky," she muttered, though she couldn't help but admire the efficiency.
Typing her next response, she leaned into her calculated gamble.
"Alright, PinKitty. You’ve got my attention. Let’s talk terms."
----------------------------------------
Test subject number… well, it hardly mattered anymore. Graves had stopped keeping track of the numbers hours ago. Too many bodies had come through, and too many had died within minutes of exposure to the serum. He couldn't let himself care about the faces or names—not now.
Black Daggers, local cops, rival gangs, corporations, even desperate civilians—everybody wanted the same thing: eliminate the symbiote terrorizing the streets. And while chaos erupted outside, the serum was still painfully far from completion. When the latest batch proved to be only 46% effective, Graves didn’t even blink. He barked orders at anyone with working hands—chrome or flesh—to focus every ounce of effort on improving it. M-Tech had thrown every last resource into this single, desperate gamble.
It was all up to him to make sure the cure was ready before it was too late.
And yet, doubt gnawed at him.
Vomi was coming.
Not just for him, but for anyone even tangentially connected to this twisted conspiracy. She wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left. Graves could feel the noose tightening with each passing moment.
He cursed under his breath, wishing they’d never ventured beyond the Blackwall. Never uncovered the classified files on the first Klyntar Project. Maybe, just maybe, the Datacrash had been a blessing—a way to bury secrets that were never meant to see the light of day.
Now those secrets had teeth, claws, and a hunger that wouldn’t be sated.
What was worse? Cyberpsychosis? Or a bioweapon walking the streets? One was familiar, predictable, even manageable with enough firepower. The other was uncharted, terrifying, and unstoppable.
The serum was their only hope. The only way to put this nightmare to rest.
Graves just prayed it wasn’t already too late.
"Testing v.78.7 of the serum," the lead scientist announced, injecting the syringe with practiced precision.
The test subject lay restrained on the metal slab, a faintly breathing host to an extremely weak and underdeveloped symbiote. This one barely had enough biomass to manifest any noticeable abilities or aggression, much like the countless other failures that had preceded it. The guards stood ready, their fingers hovering near the triggers of their flamethrowers, prepared to incinerate the subject and chalk it up as yet another failure.
At first, there was nothing. The subject remained still, the serum coursing through their veins. Then, the convulsions began—violent, uncontrollable spasms that the team had come to expect with every trial. No one flinched. They had seen this too many times.
The spasms subsided, and the black, viscous symbiote began spreading over the subject's body. The guards tensed. All signs pointed to the same conclusion as before: the symbiote was adapting, resisting the serum, and soon it would overwhelm the host entirely.
But this time, something changed.
The symbiote began to deteriorate.
At first, it was subtle—a patch of the black mass receded, leaving behind raw, pale skin. Then more began to unravel, flaking away like ash caught in the wind.
The guards exchanged wary glances, their flamethrowers still primed but now held with uncertain hands.
“Wait… hold fire,” the lead scientist ordered, his voice sharp and focused as he leaned closer to observe the subject.
Piece by piece, the symbiote disintegrated, its biomass breaking down entirely under the serum’s influence. For the first time, the room was gripped by silence—not the silence of another predictable failure, but one filled with cautious hope.
“Document everything,” the scientist muttered, his hands trembling as he scribbled notes. “This… this might actually work.”
Even Graves allowed himself a moment of relief. For the first time, it seemed there might be a solution to this nightmare—an end to the chaos without catastrophic fallout. But the real challenge still loomed: how to deliver the serum to the symbiote host without getting obliterated in the process. Whoever attempted it would need to be fast, resourceful, and, frankly, expendable.
He rubbed his temples and dialed Miranda, his voice steady but laced with urgency. “We have results,” he said simply before explaining the breakthrough.
Meanwhile, the scientists wasted no time. They immediately began producing a second dose, meticulously documenting every step of the process. There would be no room for error this time. Luckily, this wasn’t intended for mass production—just a one-time solution tailored for this singular crisis. That singular focus allowed them to prioritize precision over scale, though no one dared to celebrate yet.
Graves weighed the outcomes in his mind, running through the scenarios.
Worst case? Vomi and the symbiote were both neutralized—a tragic but acceptable outcome.
Best case?
M-Tech would have a blueprint for a new kind of soldier. And that, Graves thought with grim pragmatism, could be worth all of this bloodshed.
Graves cast a glance at the lifeless body of the man who had delivered the sample—his final act of defiance in a city drowning in bloodshed. An unsung hero whose sacrifice would be forgotten as quickly as it had happened. His body had been used to test v.30.4 of the serum, and the results were unsettling. The symbiote, even attached to a corpse, began to regenerate the host's tissue. Was it possible that these things could bring someone back from the dead?
Questions for later.
"Here it is, sir," the lead scientist said, handing the latest serum dose to Graves. He took it with a mix of awe and trepidation, holding it as though it were an ancient artifact capable of reshaping the world.
"Now..." Graves muttered, his thoughts already racing, "who’s going to use this?"
The options were grim. If anyone stood even a sliver of a chance to get close enough to Vomi to administer the serum, it had to be someone she wouldn’t outright kill. That narrowed the field considerably.
Reports from the street racer who’d died delivering the sample confirmed that Heitor, one of Vomi's closest bandmates, had been killed during the extraction. From what Graves could piece together, it was likely an accident—a defensive reflex from Vomi as Heitor approached her with the syringe. A tragedy, but it left some hope that her other bandmates might still be able to reach her.
Blaze, however, was out of the question. His anger and determination to kill the symbiote outright made him more of a liability than an asset. That left three names: Raven, Nieme, and Thiago.
Graves weighed his options carefully, but this time, pragmatism alone wouldn’t suffice. Vomi’s condition demanded a personal approach. Efficiency mattered more than corporate detachment.
He settled on Raven. The fiery, rebellious sister of Cinthia might just have the resolve—and the connection—to do what needed to be done. Besides, finding her number wasn’t a challenge. Vomi’s system had long been under M-Tech’s quiet surveillance, and it didn’t seem like she had cared to stop them. Perhaps she assumed M-Tech would protect her and her friends if she ever asked. Gullible, Graves thought, but not entirely incorrect.
He tapped the call icon and waited. The line connected almost immediately.
"Who the hell is this?" Raven’s sharp, irritated voice came through, cutting like a blade.
Graves smirked. This will be interesting.