I BARELY MAKE IT to my borrowed room in Nero’s operations hub. Lain and Matthias leave me at the door after having guided me through the nest of interconnected dispensaries and mundane storefronts, all of which conceal a neon-smeared bunker of tight halls and grungy living spaces that house the middle management of the Mecha’s operations. My vision is swimming, entire body roiling from nausea and pain as I wave the pair’s concern away. Somehow I get the door shut. The moment I do, anything and everything spills out of me at once.

I’ve had some shit nights before, believe me. Some terrible hangovers after drinking competitions with Krey or taking hits off whatever’s circulating in the underground arenas I’ll visit to blow off steam. Shatter is an entirely different world of awful. I pay for every inch of pain that the drug helped me walk. It isn’t pretty.

Next thing I remember, I’m slumped over the plastic toilet in a nook of a washroom that bundles all of its appliances into one crammed space. Mouth open, trying not to drool, looking over at the trail of rainbow-colored vomit tracking back towards the door. My stomach lurches again and I sick up even more. And again, and again, till my throat is burned raw and it feels like my intestines are trying to shove their way out of my mouth.

I moan and curl around the plastic for support. Scalding hot water beats against my back, burning over the burns. When did I turn on the shower? Why did I? I’m still in my clothes. Hairs a fucking mess, there’s chunks of sick in it. Head pounding, mind blanked by agony. As the Shatter goes out, something has to take its place, and I do not want to see it.

Gunshots flash behind my eyelids every time they close. The Sixer’s bag-of-chains clang. A lifeless thump. Sarah’s tears as she realizes it’s over. All those good runs finally caught up, and all she wanted was for me to get away. That’s all she ever wanted.

I puke again.

Later, staring daggers at my own reflection in the foggy bathroom mirror as I peel off my ruined clothes, biting back the whimpers. Washing my mouth out with mint slosh. The shower hisses to my right, steam clouding the air. I spit out the slosh, let it slowly drizzle out, then raise my gaze to the mirror. A roadkill version of myself stares back. Evergreen eyes beneath a sloppy, soaked starburst of red-orange hair. Cuts and scrapes and bruises and hollows and pain define the girl I see. Where’s the winks now? All that sly attitude? You thought you were hot shit after yesterday’s job, Emmy.

“Fuck you,” I slur.

There’s a small pharmacy’s worth of painkilling pills under the cabinet. I swallow a handful and stagger back into the shower in my underwear, slumping against the curved plastic wall for what must be another half hour. Boiling the shellshock. Trying to pick the pieces back up, failing horribly. Raking shaking nails through handful after handful of hair, pulling back the starburst just for the water to melt it down again. Eventually I give up and settle for fiddling with a braid. The repetitive twists give me some semblance of continuity. All the while, my mind replays the fragments I can remember of my escape from the Orange.

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I didn’t even realize it when I called Ulysses earlier, but I was right to say it: Dynasty’s enforcers knew Sarah was coming. That bomb was set for her before we ever snuck onto the transport. That killer with the jackal helmet was waiting for us. How did he know? Who even was he? He wasn’t dressed like the syndicate’s usual enforcers. Some kind of independent contractor, maybe. A hired fighter, maybe an ex-leaguer from a different Section.

For the third time, someone pounds relentlessly against the suite’s only door. This time the sound finally makes it to my ears. I reach for my JOY- resting on the pile of my ruined pants- to key open the door, then remember I’m not in my apartment at all. Cursing under my breath, I psyche myself up with quick breaths and shove back to my feet. I limp over to the door, diluting the half-dried vomit on the floor with a fresh coat of oily undercity water.

Lain is waiting on the other side when I finally hit the holopad enough to make contact through my wet knuckles. Dressed down now, just a sports bra and loose fauxcotton sweatpants. She holds up a roll of antibac stretchwrap and a recov-sprayer marked with the Shimano Heavy Industries logo. Advanced nanotech for healing, able to dull pain and rapidly repair injuries when sprayed over a wound. The bottles recharge themselves, too. Even decade-old recov-sprayers are ludicrously expensive to buy, and they cost twice as much down here in the grime.

She quirks an eyebrow down when she sees me. Short, pale, soaking wet, dripping everywhere, shower hissing in the background, black underwear plastered to my skin.

“I’m trying to clean up,” I sigh.

“Doing a pretty good job of it,” Lane casually replies. “Just came by to make things even between us. Thieves’ honor.”

“Huh?”

She leans against the doorframe while a pair of chromed-up Mecha thugs wander down the hall, eyeing her ass as they pass. “Me and Matthias squabbed our job in the Orange earlier before you ran into us. If you and Morninghawk hadn’t been pulling the heat somewhere else, we would have been the ones getting shot to pieces. We pay back our debts. Figured we owe you big for keeping our heads attached to our necks.”

I eye the recov-spray suspiciously. “You also pulled me out. We’re square.”

“He didn’t think so. Neither did I. And you also lost your lady.” Lain fingers the bottle’s trigger. “She was important to you, right?”

I swallow down the lump rising in my throat. Emotion roughens my voice when I finally reply. “…Yeah. She was.”

One of her shoulders lifts in a small shrug, glancing back at the thugs as they turn another corner. “Cool.” Those calculating eyes return back to my bedraggled state. “You want to let me in before someone gets the wrong idea?”

Deliberating for a heartbeat, I step to the side and crook my head for her to follow. A faint idea rises in the back of my mind. “If you really want to pay me back, I’ve got something bigger than recov-spray that I could use help with.”