The neural dampener killed Kasper's enhancements and hopes one by one.

Synaptic relays shriveled like burnt wiring. His experimental node—the prototype that had made him top of his class—died last, its final pulse echoing Sarah's scream from the night she'd bled out in his arms.

Butcher loomed over him, surgical machete glinting. "First the tech." The dampener's hum spiked. Kasper's vision whited out as his last implant ruptured. "Then we take you apart. Like your brother at Mirage City."

Breathe. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through—

The boot hit Kasper's ribs like a freight train. Bone splintered. He retched, bile and blood spraying across the concrete as cartilage grated against lung. Through the red-black static clawing at his vision, he saw Ghost die.

The old hunter's body jerked like a marionette as cartel thugs dissected him alive. A machete sawed through his Achilles tendon—snick—then his femoral artery. Blood jetted in rhythmic spurts, painting the floor in widening arcs. Ghost's obsolete implants sparked and smoked, the stench of burning flesh mingling with copper. Someone stomped his trachea. Cartilage collapsed with a wet crunch.

Ghost's remaining eye rolled toward Kasper, pupil blown wide with agony. Blood-frothed words bubbled past shattered teeth: "R-Rookie… the dark…" A fist closed around his jaw, wrenching it sideways until tendons snapped.

"Remembers," Kasper whispered, too late.

Butcher's machete silenced Ghost mid-scream. The blade bit deep, severing vertebrae with a sound like celery stalks breaking. Ghost's head lolled, still staring at Kasper as arterial spray geysered—hot, thick, alive—across Kasper's face. It filled his mouth. His nostrils. His scream came out muffled, drowned in another man's blood.

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For a heartbeat, Kasper thought it was Sarah's blood again—hot and salt-sweet, pooling beneath her body as she choked out his name. Then the rot of Ghost's implants hit his tongue, and he remembered: this was his failure alone.

Then they came.

Four killers. Enhanced reflexes. Notched machetes. No theatrics.

Chrome Teeth lunged first, blade humming. Academy drill 9B: Disarm. Kasper twisted, sacrificing his collarbone to the edge. Bone crunched. He hooked Chrome Teeth's wrist, yanking him off-balance. A headbutt—enhanced skull versus cartilage. Pain detonated behind Kasper's eyes.

But it gave him the machete.

The others attacked in unison.

No AI. No augments. Just Ghost's voice: "High-low. Watch the knees."

Kasper pivoted, slashing a kneecap. A scream. A gap in the circle.

Butcher feinted left. Kasper dodged, the blade grazing his hip. Blood slicked the floor.

Too slow. Too human.

Chrome Teeth circled behind. Kasper feigned a stumble. The man lunged. At the last second, he dropped, driving his elbow into Chrome Teeth's solar plexus. Air exploded from the thug's lungs. Kasper's stolen machete found his gut.

Butcher's blade bit into Kasper's shoulder.

He fell, rolling through the pain. Ghost's lesson: "Make them bleed for every inch."

A rusted pipe lay near the north wall. Kasper grabbed it.

They swarmed.

Machetes rained. Kasper blocked one, took a kick to the ribs, swung the pipe. It shattered a jaw. A thug reeled.

Butcher's blade sliced his thigh.

He collapsed, vision tunneling.

Sarah's laugh echoed—warm, alive. "Still a meathead under all that chrome, Vanguard."

Rage ignited.

Kasper surged upward, pipe slamming into Butcher's throat. The man gagged. Kasper's thumbs found his eyes.

Screams.

A blade stabbed his side. Kasper ignored it, ripping Butcher's machete free. He spun, steel meeting steel.

No finesse. No tech. Just hate and a half-remembered academy kata.

When the last thug fell, Kasper stood on ruined legs, blood pooling beneath him.

Three minutes until shock.

Ghost's voice cut through the haze: "North tunnel. Two hundred paces."

He stumbled toward the maintenance hatch. Behind him, the dampener died. His experimental port stayed silent—dead wiring and scar tissue.

But something stirred in the hollow spaces.

Not tech.

Not rage.

The dark, remembering.

And Kasper, for the first time since Sarah's death, felt alive.