The factory's ribcage rattled with the death throes of ten thousand overclocked GPUs. Leo clung to a sagging catwalk, claws sunk into rust-eaten steel to avoid being shaken into the grinding machinery below. Victor's "mining operation" resembled a cybernetic leviathan – server towers built from looted parking meters, cooling fans cannibalized from industrial freezers.
"Hash rate tanking!" Victor's static-laced voice barked from the walkie. "Juice the grid again!"
Leo dropped fifteen feet into the electron stench. The bracelet throbbed in sync with brownouts, its Nordic etchings blazing brighter each time he rerouted stolen voltage through his nervous system. He gripped the makeshift switch – a subway emergency brake handle – and pulled hard.
Across the river, housing projects and bodegas plunged into darkness.
TV screens died mid-telenovela. Neon signs flatlined. The mining array roared back to unholy life, its LED constellation reflecting in Leo's fully lupine eyes.
"Poetry!" Victor crooned as blockchain confirmations scrolled across his cybernetic iris. "0.5 BTC in three seconds flat."
Leo smelled them before hearing – wet fur fused with burnt capacitors. The feral pack had been stalking closer each night, their howls harmonizing with the rigs' 60Hz hum. But tonight's stench carried new notes: synthetic adrenaline and scorched alloy.
The ambush came through air ducts.
A cyber-Rottweiler lunged, rotary saw jaws snapping where Leo's throat had been. He rolled behind server racks as titanium claws sparked against concrete. The beast's eyes mirrored the rigs' toxic glow, hydraulics hissing beneath mangy fur.
"Playdate?" Victor's voice crackled.
"Upgraded strays." Leo dodged a Doberman's electrified bite. "Nightwatch's trackers?"
The bracelet ignited. Leo's sight shifted to thermal imaging – glowing titanium skeletons beneath mangy hides, mercury injectors pulsing at carotid arteries. The alpha hybrid's jaw split open, revealing a buzzing bone saw.
"Christ on a cracker," Victor muttered via security feed. "They weaponized the pound."
Leo flipped over a conveyor belt as three more mutants dropped from ceiling panels. Claw met reinforced alloy in cobalt sparks, each metallic clang syncing with blockchain validations. The air reeked of seared meat and melting circuits.
"Hard left! Left you dumb mutt!" Victor screamed.
A hybrid's saw-teeth ripped Leo's flank. The bracelet writhed into the wound, stitching flesh with liquified motherboard gold. Copper blood flooded his tongue – part hemoglobin, part molten semiconductor.
"Kill the damn–"
"Can't!" Victor's typing sounded like popcorn explosions. "Feds caught the blackout. Mine this block or we're screwed!"
Leo bodyslammed a hybrid into overheating GPUs. The explosion of molten silicon and canine guts painted Pollock-esque carnage. His claws finally shattered a beast's titanium spine with eardrum-splitting feedback, the kill transmitting shockwaves through the bracelet:
Block 170,042 validated.
Wallet balance: 37.8 BTC.
Genetic match: 99.8%.
Surviving hybrids retreated with electromagnetic whimpers. Leo slumped against a dead loom, watching his distorted reflection in mercury pools. His fangs stayed extended.
"Victor." He spat radioactive phlegm. "What's 'genetic match' mean?"
Silence. Then ceramic shattering.
"Don't move a muscle!"
When Victor arrived reeking of energy drinks and fear, he found Leo autopsy-ing a hybrid's cyber-jaw with gore-smeared claws.
"Okay, look..." Victor's prosthetic morphed into plasma cutter. "Blockchain's encrypted with codon sequences. Your DNA? It's the private key."
Leo held up a mercury vial from the dog's spine. It shimmered like the bracelet's poison. "Made me a flesh wallet?"
"Better!" Victor's organic eye spasmed. "You're Satoshi's holy grail. These Fidos?" He kicked a sparking cyber-leg. "Blockchain bloodhounds. Nightwatch's wanted your genome since the Genesis Block."
Sirens approached. Victor tossed rancid janitor rags. "Disguise. Now."
As Leo changed, Victor bagged hybrid remains. "We need to ghost before–"
A EMP scream detonated electronics. Mining rigs died mid-hash. Only the bracelet's hellish glow remained.
Victor stared at his fried prosthetic. "Military pulse."
Through ringing ears, Leo heard tactical boots – too disciplined for cops. His enhanced vision caught rune-carved body armor, crossbows with ghostly scopes.
"Not feds," he growled.
Victor froze. "Cleaners?"
"Worse." Leo sniffed – funeral lilies and gun oil. "Witchfinders."
The first nano-bolt nicked Leo's shoulder before the crossbow clicked. Agony beyond silver – microscopic machines unspooling his genetic code.
"Nanite rounds!" Victor yanked him behind servers. "They'll recode you nucleotide by nucleotide!"
Leo's claws gouged concrete as poison spread. His vision shattered – factory, blockchain, and glacial visions overlapping. The wolf in his marrow howled against dissolution.
"Run..." Leo shoved Victor toward sewers. "Take the seed phrase under..."
He forgot what Victor needed. Nanites erased another memory – Mom's smile pixelating, her lullabies devolving into white noise.
Victor's arm snapped into grappling hook. "Still need your carcass, mutt!"
As they rappelled into filth, Leo glimpsed hunters through crumbling floors – kevlar-wolfskin hybrids, faces hidden behind engraved silver. One bore a staff with wolf heart threaded with fiber optics.
The bracelet flashed warnings. Deep in Alaskan ice, something primordial stirred.