Zatrice's phone buzzed with an urgent message from Lenji. His chrome eyes scanned the text, the neon-blue letters floating against the dark:

"Change of plans. Mission starts 6 AM. Get to Nuwa Street now. Black car, code 787. Stash has your gear. More info inside. Move it."

"Son of a bitch" Zatrice slammed his fist against the wall. "This asshole's playing games now?"

Alistair clicked off the holo screen. " You're going to regret this, friend." He stretched, joints popping. "Mark my words."

"Yeah, yeah." Zatrice watched his friend collapse onto the bed, already half-asleep.

The hallway outside felt colder than usual. Zatrice's footsteps echoed against metal walls as he headed for the exit, his mind racing. "Two million leuros," he whispered, chrome eyes reflecting the flickering emergency lights. "Two million reasons to do this, we will be rich, we going to live happily ever after. She deserves it."

The streets at midnight were a painting made from neon and shadow, rain started falling, fat drops hitting his chrome implants with tiny pings.

Steam rose from food stalls, mixing with the acrid smoke from the factories above. Crowds pushed past him, most sporting some kind of enhancement, glowing eyes, metallic limbs, data ports gleaming at their temples.

"The chrome will be enough," he muttered, touching the implant at his head. "Took down the whole Jackal gang, didn't I?" But a nagging voice in his head reminded him how that fight had really gone down. How many times he'd nearly died. How much luck had played a part.

After thirty minutes of pushing through the crowds, he reached Nuwa Street. The rain had picked up, creating ribbons of reflected light on the wet pavement. Zatrice tried to holo-call Lenji, the connection fizzing in the air before him.

Nothing.

He tried again. And again. And again… yet no answer.

"Fuck you, Lenji," he growled, running a hand through his wet hair. "Making me stand here like one of your hoes, but I got this, I’ll show you."

Zatrice’s chrome eyes activated, scanning the parked vehicles for weapons signatures. Red outlines appeared in his vision: two guns in a red sedan, three in a corpo SUV, one in a beaten-up delivery van. But when he turned to scan a black dumpstruck, his vision glitched out completely.

"Got you," he whispered, a grin spreading across his face. He approached the vehicle carefully, keeping to the shadows. The rain provided good cover, but in this neighbourhood, you could never be too careful.

His fingers found the keypad, water running down his chrome-enhanced arms as he typed in the code. "Seven... eight... seven..."

The lock clicked.

Zatrice's heart pounded against his ribs as he reached for the handle. "Please don't be a bomb," he muttered. "Really not in the mood to get scattered across Nuwa Street tonight."

Zatrice’s chrome eyes swept over the trunk’s contents, his breath catching at the arsenal laid out before him: a shotgun with a matte-black finish, a gleaming katana, a tactical rifle, a high-caliber sniper, and more. His hand settled on a crimson handgun, its weight steadying in his grip as he slipped it into his jacket.

At the bottom of the trunk, a data shard glinted faintly. His fingers hesitated before slotting it into his neural port.

Lenji’s face appeared in his mind—not the cocky fixer he knew, but disheveled and panicked. Purple hair stuck to his forehead, and his wide eyes darted as if he expected a threat to burst in at any second.

"Zat, if you’re seeing this..." His voice cracked, raw with fear. "The corpos at Yorishika... they know. I’ve been stealing from them. If you’ve got this, they’ve already taken me." He scrubbed at his face, desperate. "There’s a tracker shard here. Activate it, and you’ll find me. Double the money if you get me out. This happened five hours ago. I knew they’d catch on, but not this fast. Your sister is also—"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The message cut out.

Zatrice stood frozen in the rain, water streaking down his chrome. Inside his head, a synthetic voice chimed, "Heart rate elevated. Stress response detected. Seek medical attention. Shall I—"

He dismissed it with a flicker of thought, his legs already propelling him forward.

"It’s a setup," he muttered, forcing himself through the bustling streets. "Lenji’s pulling another stunt—"

The words trailed off as he surged into the crowd. Augmented pedestrians blurred past, their faces were either suspicious or disinterested. He collided with a woman, her gold eyes glaring before she spat a curse and continued on. A noodle cart rattled and tipped as he vaulted it, vegetables spilling into the ground.

"Move!" he snapped, elbowing past a knot of street punks. Their jeers faded as he pressed on, his pace relentless.

The roar of the city swallowed him: low-flying drones, the hum of electric vehicles, and voices lost in the storm of urban chaos. He veered into a side alley, the air stifling and rank with decay. Steam hissed from vents, and debris crunched under his boots as he navigated the city.

Finally, he reached Lenji’s street. The alleyway was empty and dark as always, but something was wrong. The usual punks addicted to fentanyl weren't around, and the door was already half open…

His stride slowed as he approached the reinforced door, its jagged edges glinting under the sparse light. A dark pool seeped onto the cracked pavement.

Inside, the nightclub was a massacre. Headless bodies lay crumpled across the floor, the glossy surfaces smeared with blood. At the bar, Boris sat slumped against the counter, his massive frame barely recognizable. His suit hung in tatters, his chest riddled with stab wounds.

"Boris!" Zatrice dropped to his knees, the stench of blood and death pressing in. "Who did this?"

Boris coughed, shady thick blood dribbling from his lips. "Foot... clan..." His voice was a rasp. "They took... Lenj..." His breath hitched, the words a struggle. "You’re... next... you Help... him..."

Zatrice grabbed his shoulders, desperate. "Me next? Why? What did I do? I did NOTHING!"

Boris’s head lolled forward, his body going limp.

"No, no, no!" Zatrice shook him violently, delusional, hoping he could force an answer from him. His fists came down hard, one after another, on the man’s lifeless face. "TELL ME!"

Each strike echoed in the empty club, the wet sound of flesh meeting flesh mingling with Zatrice’s ragged screams. His implant buzzed another warning, but it was a faint hum beneath the storm of his own spiraling rage.

Zatrice’s fists slowed, the rage draining out of him. He looked down at Boris’s ruined face, barely recognizable under the mess. His breathing was ragged, his eyes glitching as lines of red glitched across his vision.

“Warning: Internal temperature critical,” the AI in his head buzzed. “System stability compromised. Recommend immediate cooldown.”

“Not now,” Zatrice muttered, shaking his head to clear the haze. He wiped the blood from his face with a trembling hand, smearing it more than cleaning it. The air in the nightclub was thick with the coppery tang of blood, mixing with the sour stench of spilled alcohol.

He turned away from Boris’s body, his boots crunching on glass and debris. The club was silent except for the faint hum of broken holo-screens flickering weakly on the walls. A once-glamorous chandelier now dangled crookedly, its shattered crystals scattered across the sticky floor.

Zatrice pushed through the heavy door, stepping out into the rain. It hit him like a slap, cold and relentless, quickly soaking through his jacket. He tilted his head back for a moment, letting it wash the blood from his face and arms.

His neural interface buzzed to life. "Buella." The thought command brought up the messaging system, and his words translated into a mental pulse.

"Where are you? Call me ASAP."

No response.

He tried Alistair next. "Where are you? This is urgent." But there was nothing not even an acknowledgement.

Zatrice gritted his teeth, his legs already moving. The street was dim, lit by the pale blue glow of streetlamps and the occasional sputter of a broken billboard projecting glitchy advertisements into the rain. Streams of water ran along the cracked pavement, pooling in gutters clogged with trash.

His gaze locked on the Yorishika Towers in the distance. The twin structures dominated over the city's other skyscrapers, their black exteriors reflecting streaks of light from the storm. Blue floodlights swept the area around their base, scanning for threats.

As he approached, the streets grew quieter. No one lingered here not even the usual gang runners or junkies. The only sound was the relentless rain and the low hum of drones patrolling overhead.

Zatrice stopped at the edge of the plaza, staring up at the towers. The rain poured over him, cold and heavy, but he didn’t move. His hands tightened into fists, while the crimson handgun in his coat was a small comfort.

The towers stood tall, unyielding, their lights cutting through the storm, while zatrice was facing them.

Zatrice’s jaw tightened. "No turning back."