My lungs are leaking.
Every ragged gasp feels like a rusty saw dragging through my windpipe. The taste of rust, mixed with the chill of acid rain, floods down my throat and into my chest. I lie in a heap of grimy snow, my retinas shrouded in a thick, dark crimson layered with distorted static.
This isn't hell. Hell isn't this cold.
I force my eyelids open. Through broken lashes, I see a leaden sky pouring down corrosive fluid. At the edge of the sedimentation tank, waste pipes rumble low in the pre-dawn gloom, sounding like a behemoth digesting metal scraps.
I remember now. Those bastards in Iron Guard Security uniforms. The fire that razed the entire Archives Bureau. They packed me up like garbage, shredded my limbs, and dumped me in this reclamation zone where even stray dogs wouldn't go near.
[WARNING: VITAL SIGNS APPROACHING ZERO.]
[PHYSICAL DAMAGE DETECTED: 87%. FORCED OVERWRITE OF CORE PROTOCOLS IN PROGRESS...]
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION: SCRAP RECYCLER PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.]
The jagged red text brands itself onto my retinas, accompanied by a violent jolt of electricity surging straight to the back of my skull. I convulse, and a blinding agony explodes through my previously numb body.
"Not dead yet?"
A gravelly voice rasps nearby, accompanied by the squelch of boots on greasy snow.
I struggle to shift my gaze. Two figures are walking toward me through the acid mist. The man in the lead is Dale, a notorious "Hyena" in these parts who specializes in scavenging cybernetic parts from bodies that aren't even cold yet. His right arm is equipped with a rusted, low-grade hydraulic prosthetic; with every step, the hydraulic rod lets out a piercing screech."Don't waste time, Dale." Rex, following behind, cowered behind a battered gas mask, his voice muffled. "The Recovery Bureau's clearance broadcast has already gone off. We need to strip this thing before the 'fifteen-minute limit' is up. Her ports look like they're worth a bit."
Dale gave a cold snort, his filthy heavy boot slamming down onto my mangled arm.
The sound of bone shattering was sickeningly clear in the silence of the junkyard.
I should have screamed; I should have blacked out from the agony. Instead, the red text on my retinas flickered frantically:
[Pain Bus connected.]
[Pain Calibration: 98.4%... Reading conversion successful.]
[Current Status: Output stability increased.]
The pain was still there, but it was no longer torture; it had become a string of cold, quantifiable data. Looking at Dale's greasy boot, I felt no fear. Instead, an almost pathological calm surged within me.
I could even feel the wear on the tread of his boot and sense the minute vibrations caused by the dried-up lubricant in his hydraulic arm.
[Scanning Target: Dale (Human/Illegal Modification)]
[Recyclable Resources: Low-grade hydraulic arm (36% wear), Hemostatic valve, Poor-quality spinal fluid.]
[Black Market Reference Price: 420 Credits.]
[Recycling Condition: Target life termination.]
"Something's wrong with this girl's eyes..." Dale muttered. He leaned down, his cold hydraulic hand clamping around my throat.
Rough metal edges bit into my flesh as his greedy face loomed over me, the stench of rotten breath and cheap synthetic alcohol hitting my nostrils.
"Whatever you've got in that head of yours, it's mine now, Eileen," he sneered, drawing a jagged dismantling knife from his belt.
In that second, the world slowed down. The system's auxiliary scan broke his movements into countless slow-motion frames: the kick of the hydraulic pump, the contraction of his muscles, even the trajectory of the blade slicing through the air.I was no longer the timid, cowardly Irene who did nothing but cower behind archive shelves. That girl had died in the fire; what had come back to life was a monster with a price tag.
Summoning every ounce of my strength, I lunged with my left hand for a stainless steel bar in the scrap heap beside me.
It was the only thing within reach when I had first come to. One end was jagged and sharp, and a line of blurred characters was etched into its cold metal surface: [15min/Pipe].
[Pain Reading: 102% (Overload Mode)]
[Neural Conduction Rate: Increased by 300%]
*Shnk!*
Dale's dismantling knife sank into my shoulder. The sound of metal grinding against bone set my teeth on edge. But I didn't pull back; instead, I lunged forward, riding the momentum of his strike.
I drove the steel bar through my nearly severed arm, using it as a fulcrum. Leveraging Dale's downward pressure, my body coiled and snapped upward like a tensioned spring.
I didn't try to dodge the blade. I just needed to get close—close enough to smell the stench of fried circuits coming from his prosthetic interface.
"Scan complete," I whispered into his ear, my voice grating like sandpaper. "You've been re-priced, Dale."
With the last of my strength, I jammed the steel bar into the gap where his hydraulic arm met his shoulder. It was the densest point of his circuitry—and his most vulnerable physical interface.
*Zzzzt—crack!!!*
Blue sparks erupted instantly, accompanied by the sharp ozone scent of high-voltage current tearing through the air. Dale let out an inhuman scream as his rusted prosthetic began to spasm wildly. Electrolyte fluid sprayed from the interface like thick phlegm, splashing across my face, scalding and foul.
"Agh! My arm! My arm!!"He let go of my throat, staggering back as his entire right arm flailed like an out-of-control propeller under the surge of electricity. I collapsed back into the filthy snow like a heap of sludge, but I didn't stop. I stared intently at his nearly detached prosthetic; the red characters on my retinas grew violent, nearly blinding me.
[Extracting kinetic spinal fluid...]
[Reconfiguring compatibility protocols...]
[Target vital signs: Dropping rapidly.]
"Dale! Dammit, what are you doing?!" Rex was paralyzed with fear. He stood to the side, clutching his salvage bag, but didn't dare step closer, as if he'd seen a ghost.
I heaved for breath, watching Dale writhe in agony on the snow, his life force draining rapidly through the ruptured interface. Meanwhile, within my own shattered body, a searing power was awakening. It felt as if some ravenous parasite was reveling in my veins, forcibly mending my severed nerves.
From the distance, a sector broadcast pierced through the acid rain and thick fog, carrying a mechanical indifference:
"...All unregistered resource loss will be deemed a betrayal of the city. Reclamation window: fifteen minutes. Please proceed to a sorting point voluntarily to avoid additional fines..."
Interspersed within the broadcast was a brief, sharp pulse code, like a roll call in the dark. My temples throbbed violently; the pulse code felt as if it were being etched directly into my spine.
Fifteen minutes. The final shred of dignity for the dead, and the time allotted for the living to process trash.
I struggled toward the stainless steel rod, using it to lever up my mangled frame. Dale had stopped moving; his hydraulic arm twitched feebly in the snow, like a dead mechanical fish.
I looked at him without a shred of pity. In San Salvador City, there are only two things: recyclers, and the trash waiting to be recycled."This isn't murder, Dale," I whispered to the cooling corpse, my lips curling into a twisted grin. "This is just... mandatory sorting and recycling."
Dragging my nearly numb leg, I limped toward the shadows deep within the pipes. Behind me, Rex let out a terrified shriek, dropped his bag of parts, and bolted for his life toward the other end of the scrap yard.
I didn't chase him. I was too weak; my body made cracking sounds with every step, sounding as if it were about to fall apart.
Just as I entered the waste pipe venting hot steam, the red text in my vision flickered violently. The static and artifacts vanished instantly, replaced by a line of clear, cold text that carried the weight of an industrial protocol:
[Experimental Serial Number: 004]
[Status: Activated.]
[Current Objective: Exit the settling tank before the sweep.]
004.
I stared at the number, my heart thudding against my ribs. It wasn't my name, nor was it my employee ID. It was a... brand.
I didn't know where it came from or why it had chosen me. All I knew was that from this moment on, every corner of San Salvador was no longer just a collection of streets and buildings.
They were assets... waiting to be dismantled, appraised, and recovered.
A low-frequency hum echoed from deep within the pipes—the patrol drones of the recovery team were drawing closer. Leaning against the cold, rusted metal, I listened to my own ragged breathing and felt the stolen power within me begin to stabilize.
A red light overhead began to pulse—the signal that the sweep had begun.
I looked back at the trail of blood in the grimy snow. It was my blood, but it was also my rebirth.
At the end of that bloody trail, by the entrance to the scrap yard, a figure in a long black trench coat stood silently over Dale's corpse. He looked up toward the mouth of the pipe where I had vanished, his eyes glowing with a faint, icy blue light—the cold glow of high-end cybernetics.
He didn't pursue. He simply raised a hand and tapped a few times on a holographic interface.A tiny dialog box suddenly popped up in the lower-right corner of my vision, a line of text flickering:
[Subject 004 has awakened.]
[Synchronizing remote formatting permissions... Failed.]
[Warning: Interference from Subject 003's residual checksum detected.]
I felt a shiver like nothing I'd ever known explode down my spine.
Revenge had only just begun, and my first quote had already been generated.
Gritting my teeth, I crawled into the depths of the pipe. Before the darkness swallowed me completely, I saw the man in black slowly crack a cold smile in my direction.