Cold metal bit into his back.
Straps dug into his wrists and chest.
He could not lift his arms.
The air stank of antiseptic and rust.
Flickering red numbers crawled over the cracked walls.
Debt tallies glowed like open wounds.
They pulsed every few seconds, as if breathing.
His chest seized.
A cough tore through him.
Pain ripped up his ribs.
He spat onto the floor.
Fear slid down his spine.
A door hissed open.
Cold air rolled in.
A figure in white stepped to his side.
"Jax Rivenweld."
The voice was flat.
He turned his head a little.
The strap cut his neck.
He saw only gloved hands and a Helix insignia.
His jaw clenched.
"Tell me it's a clog," he rasped.
His throat burned.
"Tell me it's gel dust."
A scanner frame dropped from the ceiling.
Blue light washed over his chest.
It painted his scars in ghostly lines.
The figure spoke again.
"Lung rot.
Advanced."
His breath hitched.
The blue light buzzed in his ears.
"Define advanced," he muttered.
Terror pressed on his ribs.
"Terminal," the medic said.
"Neural Gel scarring with structural collapse."
The scanner retracted.
The hum of machines filled the silence.
His heart pounded against his ruined lungs.
The numbers on the wall climbed with each heartbeat.
They did not care he was dying.
Rage stirred under the fear.
"I'm not some underlevel husk," he forced out.
"I fix rigs.
I keep haulers alive."
The medic tapped a wrist console.
A new hologram unfolded above Jax.
Contract lines formed like a glowing cage.
"Options," the medic said.
"Standard hospice.
Or Iron Eden lease with Helix oversight.
Surgical integration today."
Hospice.
He pictured a narrow cot in some forgotten ward.
He saw himself choking slow in the dim.
The other image hit harder.
Iron Eden.
Leased bodies marching for someone else's profit.
"Integration means what," he asked.
His voice trembled.
Shame burned in his chest.
"Neural grafts.
Combat-grade," the medic replied.
"Lease transfers body to Iron Eden.
Debt converted to service hours.
Respiratory support comes with the contract."
He swallowed.
His throat felt raw.
"Memory cost?"
"Collateral on stress."
"Mine or yours?"
A faint pause.
Numbers rippled on the contract.
"Standard overwrite thresholds," the medic said.
"High stress events may trigger partial memory collateral."
Lines of tiny script scrolled along the hologram edge.
They moved too fast to read.
Die slow and free.
Or live longer as ledger meat.
He shut his eyes.
Sora Minora's face flickered in the dark behind them.
Grease smudged on her cheek from that last visit to the yard.
"Don't you burn out for those rigs," she had snapped.
Fear had hidden under her anger.
He heard it now clearer than before.
"I promised I'd keep you safe," he whispered.
The words scratched his throat.
Sadness flooded him.
Safe from collectors.
From gangs.
From the same corps now holding his lungs like property.
A fresh line appeared on the wall tally.
SERVICEABLE ASSET REVIEW PENDING.
He stared at that phrase until it doubled.
Shame twisted his gut.
"I sign and I'm an asset," he said.
"I don't sign and I'm a corpse."
The medic did not argue.
"Decision window is limited," they said.
"Respiratory collapse risk rising."
As if on cue his lungs clenched again.
He dragged in a shallow breath.
The air tasted like chemicals and failure.
"Can you fix me without the lease?"
he asked.
Hope clung to the question.
"No," came the answer.
"Resources are tied to contract status."
Of course they were.
He stared at his hands.
Calluses from years of wrench work roughened his fingers.
The straps turned his knuckles white.
He hated how useless they looked.
"I swore I'd never sign," he said.
Anger shook his voice now.
"Not after what they did during the wars."
Images flashed through his head.
Floodlights on lines of workers.
Fear and rage crashed together inside him.
He wanted to break every scanner in the room.
Instead he could barely move his fingers.
The contract rotated to face him fully.
A stylus slid from a slot near his hand.
It hovered over his palm like a patient predator.
He stared at it.
His heart hammered.
"Sign and your lease begins," the medic said.
"Integration follows.
You will receive extended cycles."
Extended cycles.
Such clean words for a sold life.
"Is there a box for 'go to hell'?"
he asked.
A bitter smile tugged at his lip.
"Noncompliance defaults to hospice," the medic replied.
"Projected quality-of-life: low.
Duration: brief."
His smile died.
Tears burned the backs of his eyes.
He thought of Sora Minora again.
Of her in that cramped hab, doors double locked.
If he died here, the debt did not die with him.
It would crawl down the ledger to her door.
"Corps own the air we breathe," he muttered.
"Now they want the breaths after that."
Machines ticked quietly, counting down his options.
He wanted to refuse.
Pride flared, hot and sharp.
Die standing, not kneeling.
He tried to lift his head.
His lungs seized again.
Pain ripped through his chest.
He sucked in a small, broken breath.
His vision darkened at the edges.
"You will not leave this facility unaided," the medic said.
"It is a matter of hours or days."
Hours.
Days.
Sora Minora alone with that hanging over her.
He let his head drop back.
The ceiling swam above him.
Rage slowly cooled to a hard, heavy weight.
"So I sell," he said.
The words felt like rust in his mouth.
"For what?
A few more years as someone's property?"
"For continued function and debt transformation," the medic answered.
"Additional outcomes contingent on performance."
Performance.
Like he was a machine to measure.
He thought of the rigs he repaired.
Old haulers shaking apart under new loads.
He always cursed the foremen for overclocking them.
Now he was the rig.
He flexed his fingers as far as the straps allowed.
They trembled against the leather.
"If I sign," he said slowly, "I don't belong to myself anymore."
Silence weighed on the room.
Machines hummed.
The tallies on the wall glowed brighter.
He swallowed hard.
His throat hurt.
His eyes stung.
"I can't die here," he whispered.
"Not like junk on a slab."
He thought of Sora Minora's laugh.
It had always sounded like defiance.
He wanted to hear it again.
He let that want fill his chest.
It mixed with the fear and anger and shame.
It did not erase them.
It gave them direction.
He looked at the hovering stylus.
The glow steadied.
His choice narrowed to a sharp point.
"Fine," he said.
His voice came out rough but clear.
"I'll sign.
But this isn't surrender."
The medic did not respond.
He curled his fingers toward the stylus.
The strap bit deeper into his wrist.
Pain flared.
He pushed through it.
The stylus settled against his fingertips.
He closed his hand around it.
It felt too light for what it carried.
The hologram shifted to show the signature line.
JAX RIVENWELD flashed in sterile text.
His hand shook.
He dragged the stylus across the glowing line.
The movement felt slow and heavy.
When he finished, the contract flared bright.
A chime sounded from somewhere above.
ASSET STATUS: LEASED updated on the wall.
He let the stylus fall.
His chest felt hollow.
Something flickered across his vision—
not from the wall, not from the machines.
A system prompt.
Unfamiliar.
Untagged.
Not Helix.
[UNREGISTERED KERNEL: ONLINE]
[QUERY: HOST STATUS?]
He blinked hard.
The prompt vanished.
Maybe a glitch.
Maybe not.
"That body isn't mine anymore," he said quietly.
Sadness flooded him.
Shame followed close behind.
But under it all, something else moved.
A thin, stubborn thread of pride.
"I chose it," he whispered.
"I'll live.
I'll keep Sora safe.
I'll make them pay."
The medic tapped the console again.
"Prepare for kernel port embedding," they said.
"Integration sequence in progress."
He felt the slab's hum change.
Metal shapes rose against his skin.
He flinched.
Fear surged back.
He could not pull away.
He stared at the dead ceiling.
He imagined Helix towers above it, gleaming and clean.
He imagined dragging their directors down into this stink.
"You hear me?"
he muttered to the empty room.
"I'm not your puppet.
I'm your problem."
The first incision burned along his neck.
He bit down on a cry.
The pain sharpened—then something else slid through it.
Not a voice. Not a word.
A presence.
Cool. Observing.
As if something inside the port had just… breathed.
Warmth ran under the cold metal.
His breath hitched.
—Hold—
A whisper, not heard with ears.
His eyes snapped open.
"Who's there?"
Only the machines answered.
Only the pain.
Ports locked into place with soft clicks.
He felt each one like a new shackle.
Or a new tool.
The slab motors whined softly.
It began to rise at the head.
The room tilted until he could see the viewport.
Smog pressed against the glass like dirty fog.
Lights from higher levels blinked through it.
Underlevels glowed sickly beneath.
He watched it.
His new ports pulsed in time with his heart.
The debt tallies on the wall climbed.
"I'll break these chains," he said.
His voice was barely more than breath.
The door hissed open again.
Brighter light spilled in from the corridor.
Machines around him beeped in answer.
The slab's hum deepened, ready to move him out.
His lungs ached with every breath.
But he was still breathing.
He held onto that.
Onto the thin, hard pride.
He had leased his breaths.
Now every one of them would cost Helix something.
"One breath at a time," he vowed.
The slab slid toward the open doors.
His new life, and his war, began.