The siren wasn't a warning; it was a dinner bell for the vultures.
Han-wool shoved the pulsing violet Core into the waistband of his trousers. The heat seared against his hip like a branding iron, bubbling the skin. He hissed through his teeth, the sharp stench of singed fabric and sweat kicking up into the stagnant air.
"Get up," he barked, grabbing the Noble girl by the collar of her shredded silk dress.
"I... I can't walk," she wheezed. Her golden eyes were blown wide, unfocused and glazed with shock. Her left leg was bent at a sickening angle, white bone peeking through the grime and blood. "Just take the Core and go. If they find me with a... a Low-Blood..."
"Shut the fuck up," Han-wool snapped. He hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, ignoring the wet crunch of her shifting bone. She let out a strangled yelp that he muffled with a dirty, callous-hardened palm. "You stay here, you're a corpse. You come with me, you're a shield. Now hold your goddamn breath."
Behind them, the first Enforcer drone broke through the smog, its red ocular sensor sweeping the wreckage with a mechanical hum.
Target lost. Initiating biological sweep.
Han-wool dove headfirst into a rusted drainage pipe slick with black sludge. He moved with a practiced, desperate agility, navigating the "Rat Tunnels" by pure instinct. These were the veins of the Slums—cramped, dark, and smelling of ancient decay. He turned three corners, crawled through a gap in a collapsed brick wall, and finally slid into a hidden alcove behind a massive, humming power turbine.
He dumped the girl onto the cold concrete. She collapsed into a heap, shivering violently as the adrenaline began to fail her.
"Listen to me," Han-wool said, kneeling over her. The violet light of the Core in his belt cast jagged, demonic shadows across his scarred features. "The Enforcers have heat-scanners. In about five minutes, this whole sector is going to be crawled over by 'Cleaners.' If they catch us, they don't give you a trial. They just turn you into a red smudge on the wall."
"Why... why are you helping me?" she whispered.
Han-wool pulled a jagged shiv from his boot and began sharpening it on a stone. Scrape. Scrape. The sound was like a funeral bell.
"Helping you?" He let out a dry, hacking laugh. "I'm not helping you. You're my insurance policy. If I get cornered, I'm tossing you to them as a distraction. Until then, you're the only thing keeping me from being vaporized on sight. If they see a Noble, they hesitate for a microsecond. That's all the time I need to gut 'em."
The turbine above them cut out. The sudden silence was deafening.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Heavy, pressurized footsteps echoed from the tunnel entrance. The "Cleaners" had arrived. These weren't men; they were cyborgs—discarded soldiers stripped of their humanity and packed into three hundred pounds of steel plating.
"Target identified," a monotone, synthesized voice vibrated through the walls. "Two biological signatures. One High-Blood. One... Vermin."
Han-wool looked at the girl. She was hyperventilating, her chest heaving in shallow, panicked bursts.
"Hey," he hissed, grabbing her chin with a bruising grip. "You want to live?"
She nodded frantically.
"Then scream," he grinned, a terrifying, manic expression that showed every chipped tooth. "Scream like I'm killing you. Give those tin-can bastards a reason to walk into my reach."
The first Cleaner rounded the corner, its heavy Gatling-arm spinning up with a metallic whine.
"AHHHHHHHH!" The girl's scream ripped through the tunnel, genuine and piercing.
The Cleaner paused, its logic circuits processing the High-Blood's distress. "Priority: Secure Asset. Neutralize Vermin."
It stepped forward, its heavy boot landing on a loose metal plate Han-wool had rigged months ago.
Clang.
The plate flipped. The Cleaner stumbled. Han-wool leaped from the shadows, swinging a heavy iron hook attached to a fraying rope. He slammed the hook into the neck-joint of the machine—the only unarmored spot.
"Eat shit, you oversized toaster!"
He pulled with his entire body weight, jerking the cyborg's head back. Blue sparks showered the dark tunnel. The machine flailed, its Gatling-arm firing blindly into the ceiling, raining debris down on them. Han-wool drove his sharpened shiv into the glowing red eye-sensor, twisting the blade until he heard the satisfying crunch of glass and copper.
The Cleaner slumped, its cooling fans letting out a dying whine. Han-wool stood over the hunk of metal, gasping for air, his knuckles bleeding. He wiped a spray of black hydraulic fluid off his cheek.
He reached into his waistband and pulled out the Core. It was glowing brighter now, vibrating in his hand. The violet light was syncing with the rapid thud of his own heart.
"This thing isn't just a battery," he muttered. "What the fuck did you people build?"
The Core didn't just glow anymore. It throbbed. A deep, sickly amethyst pulse that felt like it was trying to punch through Han-wool's ribs from the outside.
"Ugh... goddamn it," he hissed, his fingers cramping around the cylinder. The metal was bleeding heat now, melting the grime on his skin.
The girl stared at it, her face pale. "It's... it's bonding. It's not supposed to do that with a... with a non-compatible host."
"I don't give a shit what it's supposed to do," Han-wool growled, trying to shove it back into his waistband. His hand wouldn't let go. His tendons were locked tight, turning white under the skin. "Let. Go. You piece of—"
VROOOOM.
The tunnel walls groaned. Another Cleaner was coming, and this one wasn't walking. The heavy, grinding sound of tank-treads echoed from the darkness behind them.
"Great. They sent a Hunter-Class," Han-wool spat. He grabbed the girl's arm, hauling her up with a strength that felt wrong—too fast, too jagged. "Move! If you can't walk, crawl! I'm not dying in a sewer because you want to take a nap!"
They scrambled through a low-hanging vent, the girl's dress snagging on the jagged rusted edges. Han-wool didn't stop to help. He just yanked.
Rip.
They tumbled into a sub-level chamber, a graveyard for old engine parts and rotted rubber. Han-wool hit the floor hard, but he didn't feel the impact. Instead, a sharp, electric sting shot up his arm from the Core.
"Argh!"
He slumped against a pile of tires, his eyes rolling back. The deep purple light wasn't just in the room anymore; it was under his fingernails. It was tracing the veins in his forearm like glowing ink.
"Stop it," the girl whispered, backing away on her hands and one good leg. "If the sync reaches your heart, you'll pop like a pressurized steam pipe. You're a 'Rat,' your body can't handle High-Blood energy!"
Han-wool looked at his hand. It was shaking, but not from fear. It was vibrating at a frequency that made the air around it hum.
"My body's been handling garbage for twenty years," he snarled, forcing his eyes to focus. "It can handle a little bit of shiny rocks."
He forced himself to stand. The Hunter-Class broke through the vent they had just exited, its massive, hydraulic-powered saws spinning with a scream that set his teeth on edge. It was a ten-foot-tall nightmare of blackened steel and sensors.
"Target: Vermin. Status: Immediate Termination."
The saw swung. A horizontal arc designed to bisect anything in its path.
Han-wool didn't think. He didn't have time. He just raised his hand—the one fused to the Core.
CRACK-BOOM.
A shockwave of dark plum energy erupted from his palm. It wasn't a beam; it was a physical punch of raw power. The Hunter-Class didn't just stop; it folded. The front armor buckled inward, the heavy saws shattering like glass. The massive machine was launched backward through the concrete wall, disappearing into the darkness of the lower pits.
Silence returned, save for the crackle of electricity.
Han-wool looked at his hand. The Core was gone. In its place, a jagged, glowing scar shaped like a circuit board ran from his palm all the way up to his shoulder.
"Well," he breathed, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. "That's going to be a bitch to explain to Gwak."
He turned to the girl, who was staring at him like he was a monster.
"Check's over, Princess. We're going to the safehouse. And if you mention a word about what just happened to anyone... I'll show you exactly how 'non-compatible' I can be."
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