Glitch's words hung in the air, colder and more terrifying than any of the Enforcer's threats. The Enforcer was a monster, but it was a predictable monster, driven by a singular, hateful logic. Glitch and his pack of hungry Exiles were something far more dangerous: desperate, intelligent people with nothing to lose and everything to gain. They were opportunists, and we were the opportunity of a lifetime.
The elevator was a cage, suspended in the darkness of the shaft. We were perfectly illuminated by their jury-rigged floodlights, helpless targets on a metal stage. Anya raised the pistol I had given her, the heavy weapon looking small and inadequate in her hands. Her aim was steady, her jaw set, but I knew it was a bluff. Fifteen rounds wouldn't be enough to stop one of them, let alone a dozen. I stood slightly in front of her, my own scavenged pistol held low, feeling like a toy against the array of modified rifles, shotguns, and heavy weapons aimed at our heads.
"Glitch, don't do this," I said, my voice low and steady. I forced the panic down, crushing it into a cold, hard knot in my stomach. Panic wouldn't work here. This wasn't a fight I could win with reflexes. This was a negotiation. I had to think. I had to be a player, not a victim. "We've had deals before. We're good customers. You know we're good for our word."
Glitch let out a dry, rasping laugh that sounded like rocks grinding together. It echoed unnervingly in the enclosed space of the elevator shaft. "Business is business, kid. And right now, the bounty on your head is the best deal in the Undercroft. My associates here," he gestured with a sparking metal hand at the grim-faced killers beside him, "they're not as patient as I am. They see a legendary crate, maybe two, sitting right there for the taking. They're not interested in long-term investments."
One of the Exiles next to him, a brute of a man with a scarred face and a heavy machine gun cradled in his arms, spat on the floor. His eyes were small and greedy. "Enough talk, Glitch. Let's just light 'em up and scrape what's left off the floor. The System can sort out the rewards."
The others murmured in agreement, their trigger fingers twitching. They were a powder keg, and the scarred man was trying to light the fuse. Glitch held up a hand, a silent command for patience, but the bloodlust was palpable.
"You kill us, you get nothing," I said, raising my voice to be heard over the nervous chatter. I had to appeal to their greed, not their mercy. "The bounty is offline. Protocol Scorch fried my HUD and half the local systems in Titan's Cross. The System can't confirm the kill if it can't track me. You'll just have two dead bodies and a lot of wasted ammo."
This gave Glitch pause. His single red optic seemed to narrow as he considered my words. He was a merchant before he was a killer. He understood profit margins and risk. A confirmed bounty was a sure thing. An unconfirmed one was a gamble.
"The bounty will come back online eventually," Glitch countered, his voice a low rasp. "The System always repairs itself. We can wait. We have food, water, and a dozen guns pointed at you. We have all the time in the world. You're the ones in the cage."
He was right. We were on a timer. But he was missing a key piece of information. He thought he was the only predator in the area.
"You think you have time?" I said, letting a small, dangerous smile touch my lips. An idea was forming, a terrible, high-risk gambit. I had one card to play. The Ghost Enforcer. "You think we were running from a few Dominion grunts up there? Did you hear that battle? Did you see what was chasing us?"
I pointed up with my pistol, into the darkness of the shaft above. "There's a System Enforcer up there. A new model. One that isn't on any public logs. Its armor is custom. Its weapon is a legendary sniper rifle. And its only mission is to kill me. It just took out an entire squad of Ouroboros Dominion elites like they were nothing."
The Exiles shifted nervously, their eyes darting up towards the darkness. Enforcers were bogeymen in the Undercroft, agents of the System they all hated and feared. They were the unstoppable monsters that were rumored to patrol the deepest, most dangerous sectors.
"He's bluffing," the scarred man, Zane, grunted. But his voice lacked conviction. He, too, glanced nervously up into the darkness.
"Am I?" I pressed, my voice gaining strength, gaining confidence. I was building a story, a story that had the benefit of being true. "It's a machine of pure vengeance, Glitch. It doesn't want a bounty. It doesn't want credits. It wants me dead. It won't care about your little ambush. It won't care about your friends. It will come down that shaft, and it will kill every single person that stands between it and me. You're not trapping us. You've trapped yourselves with us."
The silence that followed was thick with tension. The hungry looks on the Exiles' faces were being replaced by uncertainty, by fear. They looked at Glitch, their leader, waiting for his command. His red eye stared at me, unblinking, trying to dissect my bluff, trying to calculate the odds. He was a master of risk assessment, and I had just introduced a massive, unknown variable into his equation.
"Even if you're telling the truth," Glitch said slowly, his mechanical voice betraying none of his thoughts, "it's still up there. And we're down here. With you. The math still works in my favor. We take you out now, and we can prepare for whatever's coming."
He was calling my bluff. The negotiation had failed. He was still choosing the prize in his hand over the monster in the dark.
I needed to give him proof. I needed to bring the monster into the light.