“LET’S START with getting you back in one piece, mook.”

I snatch up a towel and limp back into the shower. What garments I still wear are too painful to remove, and I can’t stomach the pain of sitting down just to stand again, so I rest my forehead against the wall and suffer in the obscene heat for a few more minutes.

My entire life was dashed to pieces in hours. It doesn’t even feel real yet. Hollow shock gnaws at the frayed edges of my reality. I barely manage to gather a few fragments to cling to while I linger under the water. But those fragments are enough for now. They have to be.

It’s some ungodly hour of the morning when I finally emerge from the steamed-up washroom. Rubbing the damp towel against my eyes, I toss it on the mysteriously cleaned floor and take in the small space again, this time with some semblance of sanity. Most of the lights are off. Those that aren’t run beneath the geometric furniture in thin strips, lighting the floor in oscillating neon gradients. There’s a hard plastplush nook for sleeping. A U-bracket backless couch around a yellowed table with a small projector module. Cheap smoke from cheaper lighters taints the tiled walls. No windows; we’re deep in Nero’s fortress.

Lain sits on one leg of the couch eyeing the projector screen, which casts pale blue illumination over the center of the room. On stream, a late-night nature program with a full moon. Lonely evergreen trees swaying in a howling wind. I cough out a laugh. It’s one I keep on all the time at my apartment.

“You like that stuff?” I ask, sitting on the couch beside her.

She chuckles. “Was already on. I’m not a fan of corpo propaganda. When’s the last time you saw a tree in the Vents?”

“You’ve seen one at all?”

“Nah. Not a real one, at least.” A thin strand of something shimmering slithers between her fingers. She motions for me to turn. “You got a bullet? This is going to hurt.”

“I thought you were a Biohancer,” I say. “Can’t you, you know,” I wave my hands in a parody of an arcanist, “magic up some anesthetics?”

“Not my specialty. You’d have to go to a proper doc if you want a painless fix for some of this stuff.” She’s got a low voice, silky, easy on the ears. Her fingers work under my bra and cut it away. A cold palm flattens against my flank, just beneath the breast, right over the deep puncture from the ringknife. I flinch at the touch. “Same with the scars. I don’t do cosmetic work.”

“Just my luck.” Opening a side screen on my JOY, I deliberate over having it create a bullet to bite, and eventually shut it back down. I need this pain to sharpen me. And it’s not often I get a chance to talk with someone my age. I don’t go to a university where I’d be spending all day in classes with my peers, don’t practice in the arenas or gyms where other teenagers go to work out. Mostly, I’m either shooting at gangsters or hanging out with Sarah’s friends, who are more than twice my age.

Lain smirks at my chagrin. “Did you think all Bio’s are starry-eyed healers? Halos and cute dresses?” Slowly, a burning itch begins worming from her palm into the edges of the wound. “Sure, we can knit things back together. But we can unmake them just as easily. All it takes is a certain amount of finesse.”

I jerk in a sharp breath as she tugs at something inside of me, like she’s strumming a string of my heart. My chest instinctively twists up tightly in response. The itch redoubles as her fingers brush over the puncture again and again, smoothing the skin back together. Exothermic heat builds quickly in my body. She’s offloading most of the strain of the operation onto me. Fair enough. Still,

“A little warning would’ve been nice,” I gasp.

Once she’s done with the puncture, a quick coating from the recov-spray seals her backstreet sewing tight. Next come the burns from the bomb and the steam I ran through during my escape. Less painful, though even more uncomfortable. Lain’s hand feels like ice against my burning skin as she palms up and down my body. I’m dripping with sweat and panting for breath by the time she’s gotten the worst of the burns out of the way.

“Time for a break,” she says. Her hand and voice pull back. Small metal tools clink behind me as she fishes for something on the table. “Got that bullet ready?”

I roll my eyes, thankful for the darkness. “Why would I gag myself? You’re such a good conversationalist.”

A small pair of needle-pliers, the kind of thing you’d normally use to tune an autobike, clicks threateningly near my ear. Tip-tap. Like she’s about to toss a salad. “Your clothes melted to your skin. Some of it washed off, but I’m going to have to get the rest out manually.”

If you’re wondering what it feels like, just imagine having your skin peeled right off the muscle like pulled pork. Because that’s basically what she does. The remains of my burnt clothes stick to my skin until she forcibly rips them off, taking some of the melted tissue with. My teeth chatter uncontrollably. It’s all I can do to sit there and suffer as she leans down and goes point by point, removing charred pieces of black and white fabrics.

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“M-maybe I should have t-taken the bullet,” I stutter. My mind reels in search of a distraction. “T-talk to me.”

Another pluck. “What about?”

“Anything. Your classes. Biohancer, and Duelist too, r-right?”

“You mean the wire? I don’t use it much.” Her voice is distracted. Head low by my hip, neck-length hair shimmering with reflections of the neon striplights. “Mostly for self-defense. Took as many classes as I could handle when I was a kid, even if I didn’t know how to use them. Duelist and Bio seemed the most conducive to staying alive at the time.” Her other hand glides gently up my back, easing the pain from the operation. “You?”

“Just guns,” I bite out.

“Only one class? No shit.”

“Gunslinger was Sarah’s- was Morninghawk’s only class. I learned from her.”

“Tracks.” Lain focuses on her fingers. “If you ever want to pick up another, Matthias used to use an element. Had to stop customers from getting friskier than they paid for in the Orange.”

“The Orange? How’d he get out of his contract?”

“Why do you think we’re thieves?” The unfinished answer hangs heavily between us. She runs a hand over the picked-clean area to smooth over the burns, then sets the tweezers to the side. “Alright. Back to the fun stuff.”

We keep up an awkward back-and-forth while she works. It’s all surface level fixes for the worst injuries; scars are plentiful. There’s not much she can do for whatever I messed up in my hip besides recommend more rest and pills. I get the sense pretty quickly that she’s not much of a talker. Not bad at it by any means, just not the kind to actively seek out new topics. Especially with a complete stranger. If I sat there and just shut up, I’m pretty sure she would work in complete silence without batting an eye.

I catch her attention later, while she’s easing me down into a curled position. “You and Matthias tango with Dynasty much, now that you’re out?”

“We try to keep our distance. But yeah. A few times, recently.”

“Ever seen a special enforcer on their payroll? Thin guy, doesn’t dress like the others. Some sort of higher-up, not in the normal hierarchy.”

“Fancy helmet with horns?” Lain asks. When I nod, she pauses working for a moment, taking a quick drink from an energy can. Her throat pulses from a swallow. “They call him the Armiger. Hired muscle, good at what he does.”

“And that is?”

“Master-of-arms. Totally mundane fighter, no fancy tricks, no compunctions.”

The sight of him aiming Sarah’s Sixer at me burns in my mind’s eye. “Good to know.”

Frantic bursts of itching heat bloom wherever Lain works. I didn’t think I took nearly so many hits in my escape. Damn Shatter could probably reanimate a corpse. Now that it’s out of my bloodstream, my entire body creaks with pain like I’ve never felt before. I focus on my breathing, focus on the in and out, like I’m back on the practice targets. Slow my heartbeat. Ease the rise and fall of my chest. Watch the neon shadows playing along the tiled ceiling, head spinning. Lain’s fingers knead my skin with a heavy touch, offering me a comatose sleep as she has me lean forward to work on my lower back. But I can’t let myself sleep, knowing what I’ll see.

I’m thankful when there’s another knock at the door, minutes later. Lain keys open the door remotely with her JOY, revealing a bedraggled Matthias on the other side. Dark teal hair, half up in a ponytail, shrouds his eyes beneath moody bangs. Hands in his pockets. He’s wearing stretchmesh shorts and shower slippers, a rumpled shirt tucked in the waistband, pale torso bare. When he sees Lain with a bloody needle in hand and me hunched over on the couch, he doesn’t even blink; just heads towards the washroom.

“Mind if I borrow this shower? The heater on mine is broke. Again.”

“On one condition,” I say. “Lain said you two wanted to help pay me back- now’s your chance to make good on it.”

Lain releases me with a push on the back. Matthias rocks on his heels. “Already? It’s four in the morning.”

I manage a pained grimace as I arch back upright. “No better time. I’m not planning on sleeping,” I say, rubbing at the back of my neck. Every fresh stitchline on my body creaks at the slight stretch.

The two thieves exchange an unreadable glance. After a silent moment, Matthias finally shrugs, and I belatedly realize they’ve been talking through some kind of mental link. Matthias is a Psi- the mental class, telepathy one of its few above-the-board abilities. The rest are noticeably more unsavory. I don’t feel him prodding at my head when he glances back to me, though.

“Now is fine,” he says. “What do you have in mind?”

“Two things. First, the Eight aren’t going to be gathering until tomorrow night. I have a friend, a lieutenant on Dax’s crew, who I need to find before then. Name’s Krey.”

“I’ve seen him around before,” Matthias admits. “But Nero already told you- Dax’s gang was wiped. Dynasty are crawling over the Vector Seven block, too. If you’re planning on going in guns blazing…”

I dismiss his concerns with a wave, already pushing up to my feet. “I’ve got a back entrance they’ll never see coming. If Dynasty’s enforcers are still there, that means Krey is still putting up a fight. But he can’t hold out forever on his own. We’re gonna get him out.”

Ulysses told me to lay low, but he can’t understand the full picture of just how fast the streets are shifting around us. I won’t be sleeping until the Armiger is dead and Sarah’s gun is back where it belongs, and Krey is the only person I trust to help me pull that off. If Dynasty gets to him first, there’s no telling what damage they could wreak back on us. Not to mention that someone will have to take over in Dax’s place. And if that’s not enough to justify diving back into the fire again, then fuck it: I won’t just stand around and watch another friend die. Not while I can still do something to stop it.

Lain cocks her head to the side, slipping her needle back into a coiled hip sheath. “And what’s the second catch?”

I fan my fingers out in a quick up-down motion. “I’m gonna need to borrow some clothes.”