The first thing they gave Arden Reik was a number.
"Asset Ø7-∆-AR," a voice said, clean as a scalpel. "Stand."
He was already standing.
The transport had docked without ceremony, a dull, magnetic kiss against the Judiciary tower's underbones. Now the door irised open on a corridor that looked grown rather than built—Veil-lit veins running along the ceiling, glassy walls full of slow, pulsing code. The air smelled of antiseptic and cold metal, like a hospital that had fallen in love with a bank.
Darius rose in one fluid, heavy motion. Shackles hissed off his wrists with an obedient clink. One by one, the others' restraints disengaged. Arden felt his own loosen and drop, links pooling at his boots with the sound of a small verdict revoked.
The collar stayed.
"Move," an Enforcer snapped.
They moved.
Arden's new designation flickered in his peripheral vision, projected straight into his retinal shard: Ø7-∆-AR. The numbers nested neatly above his pulse readout, leash latency, compliance band. His old name—a soft human thing with a mother's voice stitched through it—shrunk to a side note in smaller, paler font.
The corridor opened into a chamber that belonged in a different kind of religion.
High ceiling, ringed with lumen-panels that mimicked daylight but never quite got there. An altar of brushed steel at the center, cables draped from the ceiling in slow arcs, descending into a crown-shaped apparatus. Benches arranged in a half-moon faced a raised dais, where a man stood in gunmetal vestments lined with moving text.
Arden recognized the priest from the gallows. Bureau of Repurposed Sentences. Same warm, polished smile, like sin forgiven at competitive rates.
Behind the priest: a Veil-slab showing a looped icon—a leash-collar rendered in perfect chrome, haloed in corporate gold. Below it, the slogan scrolled: REPURPOSED ENERGY / RESPONSIBLE JUSTICE.
"Welcome," the priest said, arms open, voice amplified just enough to seem effortless. "To Compulsory Asset Division orientation."
Seraphine blew out a soft, theatrical sigh and dropped onto the nearest bench as if they were starting a tedious lecture. Kai sat with neat precision, hands folded, eyes ticking as if he were reading invisible code. Lyra lowered herself down last, movements exact, gaze not quite focusing on anything Arden could see.
Darius stayed standing.
So did Arden.
The priest's eyes flicked to them. "Sit, Assets."
Arden's collar warmed.
Not pain. Not yet. Just a reminder.
He sat.
Darius sat beside him like a concession, not an obedience.
"One hour ago," the priest began, "you were condemned to deletion. Waste is anathema to The Span's creed. We do not discard viable product. We refine it."
Product.
Arden let his gaze wander so he didn't have to swallow the word. The chamber's side walls were transparent, but not to the outside world. Behind the glass: surgical bays; racks of inert collars like coiled serpents; a row of pods cradling shapes that might have been people or very optimistic mannequins.
"This division," the priest continued, "exists to convert terminal liabilities into high-yield civic instruments. You will be deployed where Enforcers cannot publicly go, where drones statistically underperform, where justice must be applied with precision and plausible deniability. You are our Chain Dogs."
On the Veil-slab, the leash icon fractured into five stylized silhouettes sprinting through smoke.
The others watched. Arden felt their attention the way he used to feel scopes on his back.
"Each of you has committed acts that justified disassembly," the priest said pleasantly. "Yet each of you has exhibited traits our algorithms flag as…redeemable assets. Adaptability. Violence. Intelligence. Stamina. Faith, of a sort." His gaze brushed Arden. "To keep you from squandering this second life, we employ a simple protocol."
He gestured.
From the ceiling, the crown of cables descended, petals unfurling—a mechanical halo suspended at throat height.
"The Leash Protocol," he said. "Neural compliance, biometric telemetry, localized deterrent, and—if ever necessary—terminal override. Think of it as…an agreement made honest."
"Honest," Arden murmured.
Darius's elbow nudged his ribs once, a warning disguised as camaraderie.
The priest smiled directly at Arden, delighted to find a line. "Asset Ø7-∆-AR. You have already accepted installation."
Arden touched the back of his neck. The ring was cool again, deceptively thin, a whisper of metal over bone.
"Consent's a flexible word in your line of work," he said.
"Clarity, then," the priest replied easily. "Clarity saves lives."
A new figure stepped onto the dais: older, taller than the Enforcers, wrapped not in vestments but in matte black operations gear traced with soft blue inlays. No helmet. Close-cropped hair salted with grey. Eyes like someone had taken regret and hammered it flat until it held a shape.
"Unit Ø7 handler," Kai murmured under his breath. "Silex."
Arden filed the name away. Handler. Leash to the leash.
"Stand down," Silex said to the priest. His voice had gravel in it. "You can quote the brochure later."
Amusement flickered, quickly suppressed, at the corner of Seraphine's mouth.
The priest dipped his head and stepped aside.
Silex faced them. Not the room, not the cameras. Them.
"You're not recruits," he said. "You're sentences with legs. I'm what stands between you and the people who only see the sentence."
That, Arden thought, is almost a kindness.
"Leash Protocol is simple," Silex went on. "Three tiers. First: Feedback. You think about breaking parameters—running, self-harm, harm to handler, harm to civilians outside mission tolerances—the collar gives you a warning. Heat. Buzz. A little reminder that your nervous system belongs to us now."
Arden felt the ring pulse once at the word us.
"Second: Correction. You act on those thoughts, or you ignore multiple warnings, or you go off-script in the field. That's pain. You will not mistake it. You can operate through it if you're stubborn enough." His gaze lingered briefly on Darius. "Some of you are."
"Third?" Arden asked, because someone had to.
Silex's mouth was a straight line. "Third is Finalization. You don't come back from that. Pieces of you might, if the Bureau files a request. Don't test it."
Lyra's fingertips hovered at her collar, her face smooth as glass.
"Any questions so far?" Silex asked.
Seraphine lifted her hand halfway, wrist cuffed, smile lazy. "If we're such precious resources, what's the acceptable loss margin?"
"Twenty percent," Kai said before Silex could answer. "Per cycle. Based on Division trendlines."
"Less, under me," Silex said. "If you listen."
"So we're sustainable cruelty," Arden said. "Recyclable sinners."
"That gallows mouth of yours is going to make you useful," Silex said. "Or dead early."
The collar heated, sudden and sharp, like someone pressing a lit wire against the base of Arden's skull. His vision flared white at the edges.
"Tier One," Silex said calmly. "You don't speak when I'm calibrating."
Arden swallowed, jaw locked against the urge to snap back. The heat receded, leaving behind an echo that felt like bitten tongue.
He marked the sensation. Pain as punctuation. Lesson received.
"Now we bind you properly," Silex said. He gestured to a panel. The crown lowered.
"Arden Reik. Front and center."
Arden could feel the eyes on him—the unit, the priest, the watchers behind the glass, the ghost of the crowd above the dome. Fine. He stepped up onto the dais.
Up close, Silex smelled of cheap coffee and gun cleaner. Human things stubborn in the antiseptic air.
"Look at me," the handler said.
Arden did.
"You run," Silex said quietly enough the amplification didn't catch it, "they blow your spine out before you hit a door. You flinch wrong, they cook you slow to make a point. But if you work, if you listen, I keep you alive. That's the only deal on the table. Understood?"
Arden thought: You're still the leash.
The collar surged—hot warning—but only for an instant. Silex's fingers brushed a control at his wrist.
"That one was me," Silex said. "Proof of concept."
"I understand," Arden said, voice rough.
"Good. Kneel."
The word hit harder than the heat.
He knelt.
The crown descended, cable-petals aligning with the faint ports ringed around his collar. Contact made with a hiss and a click, like a serpent locking its jaw. Cold shot down his spine. The world narrowed to a tunnel of numbers.
[Ø7-∆-AR : LINK?]
[AUTH : HANDLER/SILEX]
[PERMISSIONS : TOTAL]
[FAILSAFE : ARMED]
The text wasn't on a screen. It bloomed inside his skull, bright and jagged as migraine aura.
"Breathe," a voice said—Silex, he thought, though it braided with the priest's smooth cadence and Darius's rumble.
Arden inhaled. Exhaled.
The system pressed further in, sniffing through the wreckage of his head: gang sigil and oil fires, his mother's laugh swallowed by reactor hum, the Helios Purge, gallows wood, synthetic rain, the rope. Each flicker scraped raw.
"Stop," he tried to say. The word jammed; came out a ragged hiss.
"Baseline aggression markers," the priest observed cheerfully. "High but tractable."
"Back off," Silex snapped.
The pressure eased. The crown disengaged and retracted smoothly into the ceiling. Arden's collar pulsed once, then settled to a slow amber glow.
He was sweating. Knees numb. Teeth clenched.
"Stand," Silex said.
He did. His balance recalibrated a fraction too quickly, like something in the ring had decided to help.
"How do you feel, Asset Ø7-∆-AR?" the priest asked, for the record.
"Like a rented dog," Arden said.
A beat. Then, unexpectedly, a low chuckle from Darius.
Silex let it pass.
"Protocol complete," the priest announced. "The Leash has accepted his pattern."
"Next," Silex said. "Status verify. Unit, on your feet."
The others rose. For a second, Arden saw them with new clarity: not just collared strangers, but orbiting bodies in the same gravity well.
Darius, solid as reinforced concrete, a scarred planet with a dark moon behind his eyes. Seraphine, all poised indifference and sharp lines, swinging her leg like she was sitting on a barstool instead of inside the machine's throat. Kai, pale and deliberate, gaze humming with quiet calculations. Lyra, still and faintly luminous, like a glitch paused mid-frame, head canted as if listening elsewhere.
"Ø7," Silex said. "This is your new tail-gunner."
Arden blinked. "Tail-gunner."
"You watch their backs," Silex said. "They watch yours. You keep each other from doing anything that makes my reports messy. You're on remote for forty-eight hours—closed block, conditioning, loadout familiarization. After that, we see if the leash holds under real light."
"Real light," Arden repeated. "That what we're calling gunfire now?"
Silex's mouth twitched—almost a smile, almost a threat. "Dismissed. Arden, walk with Darius."
Darius fell into step beside him as the priest slid into another soft-laced sermon for the cameras about redemption through service.
They exited into a narrower hall, lined with doors stamped with asset tags. Arden's collar whispered route data without being asked: [CELL Ø7-∆-AR → LEFT]. Cooperation baked into bone.
"You like questions," Darius said.
"Occupational hazard," Arden replied. "Being conscious."
One corner of Darius's mouth lifted. "Leash reads your spikes. Push too far, it'll light you up hard. Don't go near Tier Three. They've used it. Smells like cooked copper and prayer."
"Comforting."
"I've seen worse comforts," Darius said.
They reached Arden's assigned door. It slid open on a cube: bunk, sink, locker, Veil-slab muted to a dull grey. No bars. The ring at Arden's neck made them unnecessary.
Arden didn't step in.
"What's the catch?" he asked.
Darius leaned in the doorway, bulk turning the little room into a frame.
"Catch is simple," Darius said. "You live if we do."
"We?"
"Unit Ø7," he said. "You're leashed to us as much as to them. They fry one Dog, rest of us feel it. Incentive structure." His gaze held Arden's. "You want to keep breathing, you learn to care who's at your flank."
Care. Another expensive word.
Arden thought of the Vultures, of names called over comms that no one answered. Of his trial, neat and bloodless on paper. Of rope fibers digging into his throat.
"Care's expensive," he said.
"Death's full price," Darius replied. "Pick your creditor."
It was almost philosophical. Almost kind.
Arden stepped into the cell.
The collar chimed—a tiny, pleased note—as the door slid shut behind him.
Silence.
He stood there, feeling The Span's heartbeat through the walls: the thrum of reactors, the sigh of circulatory vents, the high glass whisper of the Veil. His collar synced in tiny intervals, a metronome of ownership.
He raised his hand and let his fingers rest just below the metal.
"They call it protocol," he muttered.
The ring warmed under his touch, as if amused.
"It's just maintenance," Arden said. "But I'm still here."
Above the bunk, the Veil-slab flickered once, offering an automatic "Welcome to Compulsory Asset Division" packet he didn't open.
He lay down without undressing, boots still on, hands folded under his head, eyes fixed on the hairline seam where wall met ceiling. The collar's pulse rode his heartbeat until he couldn't tell which was leading and which was being dragged.
Beyond his door, Silex finished his report. The priest rehearsed brighter lies for the next batch of saved souls. Darius sat two doors down, humming some tuneless ghost of a song. Seraphine's footsteps traced the tight square of her room, a caged argument in motion. Kai, from the faint clink and rustle, was already peeling his welcome packet apart for hidden teeth. Lyra's shadow cut a thin line under her door, unmoving, her silhouette tipped like someone listening for a quieter storm.
Arden closed his eyes and let the machine's breath wash over him.
Leash Protocol held.
For now.