The rain never let up in the undercity. It soaked Kai's jacket, ran in rivulets down his face, hissed against the sparking wreckage behind them. New drones hummed around the corner, their blue optics sweeping the alley like predators sniffing for blood.
Nyx slammed a fresh mag into her rifle with her good arm, her damaged shoulder twitching with static bursts. "We can't hold this spot. Too many."
Kai's neural HUD flickered with crimson alerts—ammo low, vitals unstable, danger rising. The AI's voice hissed in his skull.
> "South route. Twenty meters. Door marked with red glyphs. Run."
Kai grabbed Nyx by the wrist. "This way."
She yanked back. "You don't get to order me—"
Plasma fire ripped past them, melting brick into sizzling slag. That ended the debate. Nyx cursed under her breath, then followed Kai as he sprinted down the greasy alleyway.
The graffiti-covered glyph-drenched door hung before them, half-obscured by filth and murals. Kai shoved it open. The corridor beyond smelled of rust, disinfectant, and smoldering metal.
Inside, the glow of holo-screens lit the cramped space. A figure hunched over a patient on a slab, her hands moving with surgical speed.
Ash.
Her black hair was tied up messily, goggles pushed high on her forehead. Ink crawled along her arms in shifting tattoos that reacted to her implants. She didn't look up as she muttered, "You're bleeding on my floor, Nyx. Again."
Nyx stumbled against the slab, her rifle clattering onto the floor. "Stop blabbing and patch me."
Ash finally glanced over at Kai, surveying him appraisingly. "New stray? And half-dead yourself, to boot."
"Charmed to meet you," Kai groaned, slowly coming back.
Ash ripped a stim patch off her desk, slapped it on Nyx's neck, then cut into her shoulder with cybernetic knives. Sparks snapped as she re-wired burned-out electronics with shredded flesh.
"Hold still or you'll lose the arm," Ash snapped.
Nyx winced but didn't move. "Just hurry."
Kai paced, pistol drawn, nerves still on fire. "We weren't followed, right?"
As if on cue, his HUD screamed a warning.
> "Negative. They've traced you. Forty seconds until breach."
Kai's blood ran cold. "We've got company. Envision's on the way."
Ash froze, then snarled. "You led them to my clinic?"
Kai had no time to defend himself before the walls trembled. Dull thuds echoed outside—the thundering boots of corp enforcers closing in.
Nyx gritted her teeth as Ash closed her wound with a blast of med-foam. "Get ready," she snarled, reloading her rifle one-handed.
Ash thrust a shotgun into Kai's hands. "If they break in, you'd better shoot straight. This is my home."
The door groaned when something struck it. Once. Twice. Sparks flowed from the hinges.
Kai raised the shotgun, racing heart. His HUD strobed with another burst of code.
> "Two options, Kai. Fight and die here… or take the secret exit I just cracked open."
A weak, red-pulsing hidden panel on the floor. An escape route.
Nyx noticed it too, cybernetic eye squinting. "How the fuck."
Kai had seconds. Find the AI presence and force them out through the escape—or stay behind and fight to protect Ash's clinic.
The door groaned under another impact. Metal screamed.
Ash trained her pistol, fuming at him. "Well? What's it gonna be, hero?"
The lock snapped.