SKREAAaaaaagghhh

SPLAT

The mouther took one look at me and bolted the other way, scrambling frantically just before I crushed it with a chunk of debris I had flung across the street. I couldn't blame the thing, I'd seen my reflection. In my current shape, I looked terrifying enough to give nightmares to anything with eyes. Still, watching the mouther run like that was enough to make my skin crawl. It didn't sit right.

Because monsters weren't supposed to run.

Not ever.

Not until now.

The closest thing I'd ever seen was when smarter monsters fell back to look for a better angle, maybe regroup or circle around. Mouthers, though? They weren't smart. Not even close. Yet every single one I'd run into lately had just bolted at the first sight of me, like they suddenly knew something I didn't. If it had only happened once, I could have chalked it up to a weird fluke or a stray mutation. Fieldwork always had its oddities, and monster behavior could be unpredictable at the best of times. But this wasn't just a one-off. It was happening with every monster I crossed paths with, one after another, even the F's and a lone E. They ran or tried to hide, ducking behind trash piles or squeezing themselves into sewer grates.

Not one of them tried to stand their ground. Not a single one made a move to fight back until escape was absolutely impossible.

It left me with a knot in my gut. Maybe, somehow, this was connected to Elder Summer's attack-thing? Were the spores from those plants doing something to them, twisting their instincts or clouding their senses? I couldn't say for sure. And it wasn't like I could ask anyone for details right now. Vesper was swamped just keeping the search-and-rescue effort moving, never mind handling all the chaos that came with trying to keep the survivors alive and from breaking down into a riot.

There wasn't much I could do except grind my teeth and watch the disaster keep spreading.

Three days had passed since the "green nuke", and the situation was still getting worse by the hour. Protocol dictated that when a city got hit like this, you could at least count on emergency relief to show up: food, medicine, clean water, basic shelter. Instead, New Francisco had left the fourth district twisting in the wind.

Everything we needed had to be bought at our own expense, and the only people who had money to spend were the ones who'd already been scraping by before the disaster.

Out of the whole fourth district, the Saint's territory had taken the worst of it. Early on, Vesper had confided that they'd expected near total destruction. That we'd "only" lost a third of our people felt like a miracle, even if that word tasted bitter now.

What passed for normal was gone. Inside the gang's turf, half the residents didn't have running water anymore, and food shortages were the new rule. It was easier to count the blocks that had food left than the ones that didn't.

Vesper had managed to pool the survivor's bargaining power into a single front, effectively doubling purchase capacity for the essentials. It was a good strategy, but the inner-city corporations had wasted no time responding by ramping up premiums and blocking both outside donations and any attempt at bartering. In the margins, other fourth-district gangs scraped together what little aid they could spare, each contribution to the Saints a reminder that the district's desperation ran wider than our own block.

But it was not enough, not by a long shot.

All I could do was hunt monsters in the dead zones and save anyone I happened to stumble across. The work was constant, but with every hour it grew harder to shake the feeling that I was fighting a fire with an eyedropper. The problem only seemed to sprawl out further, no matter how much ground I covered.

If there was an upside, it was that my massive appetite and my ability to eat "any organic matter" meant the streets stayed a little cleaner. My protein-sludge supply was running dangerously low, so I had started to see the upside in choking down whatever I could scrape up from waste bins. I tried to convince myself the plastic was easier to swallow if I called it civic duty.

Not sensing any monsters in the area, I cut through back alleys on the way to the warehouse. I was careful to give Quinn's drones a wide berth, sticking to the shadows to avoid any more attention than I already attracted (Vesper had given me an earful about it, but it wasn't like she could stop me).

The plan was to get some rest.

That changed the moment I noticed a flicker of movement overhead. A familiar large rectangle drifting away, a hauler AV, one of hundreds that would fly in or out at any given hour, its lights blinking as it slipped out toward the badlands.

I stopped in my tracks.

Every instinct I'd ever relied on, every drilled-in lesson, screamed that I should ignore the idea taking shape in my head. This was the sort of thing that got people killed for nothing.

But I couldn't help it. I looked out at the ruined blocks, at the faces I'd pulled from collapsed buildings, at the bruised and starving survivors clawing for another day. I remembered stopping crooks whose only goal was to steal food. I even thought about the bodies I hadn't reached in time, curled up in the dirt and rubble.

And I had a very 'Isia' kind of thought.

Screw it.

I was going to do something very stupid, very risky, and very helpful.

If it worked.

Ajax hovered in front of the door, nerves simmering just beneath his skin. He ran his fingers through his hair for the third time, palm slick, and tried not to drop the little box of chocolates he clutched in the other hand. One last check, shirt tucked, collar sitting right, rebreather mask clipped on tight, not a single oil stain in sight. He tried to convince himself he looked halfway decent, or at least less like he'd just crawled out of an exhaust vent. For a moment, he almost laughed out loud, realizing he would have rather faced down another green nuke than stand here, paralyzed, counting the seconds.

He forced himself to knock.

Then he waited.

And waited.

Each heartbeat dragged out the silence, making him wonder if he should just turn and leave. The heavy metal door finally groaned open, revealing Emi. Her green hair was wound up in a wild tornado above her head, and her loose shirt looked like she'd grabbed it just to answer the door. Those eyes, wide and unblinking, locked onto him.

"Ajax?" she breathed.

He swallowed and started, "Listen, I-"

Before he could get another word out, she crashed into him, arms thrown around his chest so suddenly he almost dropped the chocolates. "I thought you were dead!" Her voice trembled. In an instant, she yanked him inside, the door slamming shut behind them. "Mercenary?! You had to go and become a mercenary?!"

Her grip tightened, cybernetic arms making his ribs creak under the pressure. Ajax tried to get a word in, but she wasn't having it.

"Sorry, I-"

Emi cut him off again, practically tossing him onto the battered couch that doubled as their bed. For all her height, she packed enough augmentation to toss him around like a rag doll. Her glare was pure fire. "When I said you needed a better job, I meant one where I wouldn't be planning your funeral! And then you just disappear, like you could just vanish into the fourth district and I wouldn't notice? The fourth district, Ajax! Do you even know what it's like down there? People get torn apart for sport, and they've got those gangs that snatch up anyone who so much as looks lost. There are stories about rookie Megucas getting kidnapped and never coming back. And your bright idea was to go hunt monsters there because I complained you were too reckless? You thought that would fix things?!"

Ajax could only manage a weak, sheepish smile, holding out the slightly-squashed chocolates. "I brought you something?"

"Why are you smiling?" She snatched the box from his hands and, before she could even finish scolding him, shoved a fistful of sweets into her mouth. "No, absolutely not. You get no right to smile right now. Not after everything you've put me through." She chewed, cheeks puffed, glared at him with all the force she could muster, then mumbled around the chocolate, "And god dammit, these are fucking good. Where did you get them?" Emi eyed him with mounting suspicion, snatching another sweet. "Seriously, how much did these cost?"

"Not that much," he lied, trying to sound casual. The truth was, it had been too much, but there was no way he'd admit that and lose the upper hand. He managed a weak grin. "And why did you think I was dead? I pinged you yesterday, didn't I?"

"You did?" She paused, blinking and tapping at her comm, gaze going a little distant as she scrolled through her messages. "No… there's nothing here. Are you sure?"

His frown deepened. He fished out his own device and flipped through his outgoing messages. "Huh. Guess… I… didn't?" The memory was slippery. He could have sworn he'd sent something before hitching a ride out of the fourth district on that overstuffed logistic-transport. Maybe it had been flagged. "Maybe the message got stuck? It sort of mentioned the mercenary group, so everything going in or out during work hours has to get rerouted through their servers for vetting."

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"That makes sense," she muttered, voice dropping a little as she let out a long, frustrated sigh. She flopped onto the couch beside him, her shoulder pressing up against his, the tension slowly draining from her posture. "Are you sure you're alright? What really happened down there?"

He opened his mouth. "Evr-"

"And don't you dare say 'everything went fine.' I worry, you know." She cut him off with a stern look. "If you're going to be a gonk, at least let me in on it, right?" Emi fixed him with those wide, imploring brown eyes he had never been able to say no to. He caved, letting out a long, defeated sigh. She smirked, sensing victory, and shifted her weight to straddle his lap, ignoring his grunt as she settled her full weight. She pressed a piece of chocolate to his lips, her tone softening but her intent clear. "Now. Tell me everything."

He hesitated, then gave in, his defenses all but gone. "I think it's better if I show you."

Offering the port-to-port cable, her expression took on a coy edge that almost masked the flicker of hesitation in her eyes. "Is…"

"It's ugly," he admitted before she could finish, meeting her gaze without flinching. "But if you want the abbreviated version…"

She glanced down at the cable for a moment, weighing something only she could know. "I… think I couldn't live with myself if I didn't get the full thing," she said at last. Her hand was steady as she took the cable and plugged it into her neural port, though her jaw tightened just slightly.

Their neuralinks synced up, the familiar dance of protocol handshakes flickering through both of their senses. Ajax navigated his mental menus, finding the secret compartment of his drive, the place where he stored all the things too personal or dangerous for any AI to ever see. He fished out the copy of his raw memory footage and lingered with it in his mind's grip. "Are you sure?" he asked again, the question carrying over the link, colored with the low pulse of her nerves that he could now feel directly. She answered him with a sharp nod and a quiet sort of resolve, so he started the transfer.

The file was massive. It crawled across the neural connection, raw and unedited, bit by bit. Minutes passed, each one stretching out longer as the silence grew between them.

"Here goes…" she murmured, then let her eyes drift closed. She settled into the couch, letting herself go limp as she cut off motor control. For all the world, she might have been napping, her face empty of anything except the slow rhythm of her breathing.

Knowing she would be in there for hours, Ajax rose and crossed to the kitchenette. The sight of the nearly barren mini-fridge hit him harder than expected, and he made a sour face as he counted the last of the condiments and a shriveled wedge of cheese. "Never again," he grumbled under his breath, pulling out his phone to queue up a series of fast-food orders. With the fridge situation temporarily handled, he started making notes, grocery lists, reminders, even a few half-formed meal plans. The mercenary gig had been dangerous, but the payoffs had stacked up nicely. Between hazard bonuses and what he'd put aside, they could take it easy for months. If he picked up a couple smaller jobs on the side (nothing that involved getting shot at) they wouldn't need to tighten the belt too much before year's end. There was always someone in need of a good technician, especially to fix someone else's failed work.

Time trickled by. When Emi finally surfaced, her movements were slow and deliberate, as if she were still caught somewhere between the memory and the present. She didn't say anything at first, just stared at the wall with eyes that seemed unfocused. Ajax offered her a bottle of water and a boxed meal, which she took almost on autopilot. He watched her, expecting some sign of shock or distress, but the look she gave him was something different.

There was a depth to it, a searching kind of weight, but not the kind of trouble he'd braced for.

"Ajax…" She shifted in place, her hands settling on her knees. "Do you…" She paused, fingers fidgeting nervously as she tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. The pause stretched out, heavier than before. "I need to preface this by saying I know these memories are private. Whatever you choose to do with them, I'll respect that. If you say no, I'll delete my copy right now and never mention this again. The choice is one hundred percent yours. I don't get a say in this. Okay?"

"Yes? Wait, don't you have questions or… normally you'd-"

"I think I couldn't talk about the details without getting this out of the way first," she said. "Could we do that, please?"

Her tone was so serious that Ajax felt thrown off balance for a moment. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. "What's this about?"

"Honey." She wrung her fingers together until her knuckles went white. "Did I ever actually tell you what I work on? Like, the details?"

"You work for HoneyHex. Something to do with advertising assurance, right?"

"Advertising contract insurance overview, third intern, second level. I'm an E21 HoneyHex Financing Branch rank and file, basically," she corrected softly. "It's mostly legalese and a lot of boring paperwork. But every day I end up talking to content value brokers. And this?" She gestured at him, her movement uncertain, as if unsure how much to reveal. "This memory file is valuable. Ridiculously valuable. Going face to face with a C-class and surviving by two miracles, one of them from Elder Summer herself?! There are people out there who would give up a kidney just to see even a fraction of it, even if it was the cut-down version."

Ajax's throat tightened. He swallowed again, looking for the right words. "When you say 'a lot'…"

"I mean low-middle-middle management 'lot'. Can-see-daylight-going-to-work level 'lot'." Emi tried to keep her composure, but she bounced a little where she sat, excitement peeking through her nerves. "I'm talking about the kind of 'a lot' where you stop renting and finally own an apartment. Not just any place, either. An apartment with real windows, not just neuralink ad-ridled projections of windows. If you struck the right deal, we could be looking at 'personal AV for a few hours a week, forever' type of 'a lot'." She let out a breath, almost laughing at how surreal it all sounded. "That's how much."

He didn't answer, at least not right away.

The idea did excite him, no denying that, and Emi's enthusiasm was starting to work its way under his skin. Even so, this was about as personal as it got, the kind of private territory that had taken him nearly a year to open up about, even with Emi. When they first started sharing mem-files, it had felt risky. "I don't know…" He grimaced and ran his fingers through his hair, searching for a way to make sense of it all. "It's just… what about the mercenary company? They have an NDA, and-"

"The amount of credits you could get from this would pay off a thousand NDAs and still leave you with plenty to spare." Emi declared it with a certainty that only made the offer more tempting. She paused, then lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Look, it's a big decision. I don't want you to jump in and regret it later. That could ruin things for us."

"But what about the end part? That has to matter-"

"That part, any part, can be snipped if it's a problem for you," she replied without missing a beat. "They're your memories, so you decide what gets shared. What matters is whether you want to go through with this, not the rest."

He thought about it, the weight of always wondering if they'd have to move again before the year was up, or if a cough was worth the expense of a real checkup. The chance to leave all that behind made the choice seem obvious, almost as if there was never any real choice at all.

"I… it's not like it's weird, right?" He tried to sound casual as he rubbed the back of his neck, but his voice gave him away. "People on the upper levels do it all the time. Mem-sharing, I mean."

"Oh, definitely." Emi nodded. "It's actually pretty popular. Some people even use it as a way to say hello, just for fun."

He didn't comment how weird that sounded and instead just quietly swallowed, feeling a strange sense of relief mix with the nerves. "Alright. Let's do it."

Emi looked like she might break into cheers, but she held herself back. Instead, she stepped closer, taking his hands in hers and giving him a gentle squeeze. "I'm proud of you," she whispered, her thumb moving in slow circles on the back of his hand.

Her words soothed some of his anxiety, but there was a new tension in his chest.

Even as he tried to tell himself that it was all for the best, Ajax couldn't shake the feeling that he had just volunteered for something far more dangerous than any mercenary contract.

In the badlands, not too far from New Francisco but pressed up against the first real rise of the mountains, you'd find the bio-reactor farms. These were nothing like the rolling fields or green pastures of the old world, not even close to the geometric swathes of agriculture from the 20th century. Instead, they loomed, massive metal cylinders spread out as if delineating a perimeter, each one bristling with pipes, filters, and a haze of vapor drifting off into the thin air.

Inside every tower, thousands of sealed cauldrons held a carefully controlled chaos: bioengineered bacteria, bred to devour exacting recipes of chemicals, air, and moisture, transforming them into substances with value far beyond the sum of their parts. Every single reactor was just one piece in a chain of tightly interlocked steps, converting air, CO2, water, and whatever else could be scraped up into an ever-changing menagerie of fuels, medicines, industrial feedstocks, and, most importantly, food.

These farms did not just produce; they fed the hungry engines of New Francisco, keeping the city's appetites sated while being tucked far enough away to deter anyone hoping for a free meal or a quick act of sabotage. Between the towers, automated systems buzzed and whirred with little need for human intervention. A person's sole job was to haul in raw materials at the edge of the complex, and haul away whatever finished product came out the other side.

This level of automation, combined with their distance from anything resembling oversight, gave the corporations running them every excuse to cut corners. Routine maintenance would be delayed. Replacement parts were quietly dropped from budgets, and any other such "money-saving tricks". The result, played out over the course of a few short decades, was predictable: some towers now teetered on the edge of collapse, with jury-rigged repairs barely holding together the veins and arteries of the farms that fed the city.

Of particular interest to the monster-like figure moving under the cover of darkness was the fact that the towers were largely ignored by monsters. This was no accident. It was simply because there were no humans living within their concrete walls, no enticing warmth or movement to attract hungry eyes. If the monster-like figure's guess was right, that single detail meant his target's automated defenses would be little more than an afterthought. The corporation in charge likely hadn't bothered to install any serious anti-monster countermeasures.

Why waste the budget protecting from threats that ignored them?

That theory held up the moment he drew near. The only resistance he encountered came from a lone, low-caliber flechette minigun, the kind of weapon that might threaten a stray low-class or a human.

So it was a heavy heart and a wicked delight that this unknown assailant tore through the hangar doors, wrenching out the biggest food-grade protein vats he could find. One by one, he dragged them out of their nest of pipes and loading hooks, working in silence but for the screech of metal and the heavy thuds echoing in the empty complex. Alarms blared, lights flashed, but it didn't matter.

Getting there would have normally been suicide, the rubber wall kept a constant moving perimeter of heavily armed vehicles and even more dangerous Megucas around the city. But recent events had strained their resources and stretched their capabilities far too thin. And since the monsters ignored the bio-reactors, the rubber wall had all but vanished from that region.

By the time anyone would arrive at the scene, the only thing they would find would be a carefully destroyed interior, and three massive letters carved on to the outside of the buildings.

"SHH"

And it would be a complete coincidence that New Francisco would find four such vats, filled to the brim, lying at the edge of the fourth district. And in another complete coincidence, the Sewer Saints claimed ownership of the vats under salvage rules.

In the badlands, anything left unguarded was up for "salvage".

Labelling the fourth district, with its millions of residents, as "uninhabited warzone" would have sounded absurd to anyone outside the city's bureaucracy. On paper, the whole area was still officially marked as wasteland, a relic from a time when the space had been nothing but rocks and dirt.

Changing this designation had been a fruitless effort, stalled, blocked, and nitpicked by endless corporate lawyers and the city's own well-lobbied bureaucracy. All because, were the fourth district to be recognized as a civilian space, it would force them into a litany of no-longer-ignorable responsibilities and restrictions.

The cost alone would make any mid-level executive twitch.

And the strange monster-like creature (that, if questioned, would insist was not a monster, not that anyone thought he could speak) very much intended to stress test that.

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