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CY

S he’d laid down on Maddox’s couch like she owned the place.

Over-ear headphones on, clearly content to ignore us, already deep into working on the infiltration device.

Her stupid keyboard rested across her lap, and she waved her hand occasionally to adjust code.

I settled down next to Maddox, who was doing a check on my newest pistol.

Not that it mattered—I couldn’t bring it into the Den.

“You good to go back in?” he asked.

“Still got some friends there. Plus it sounds like they need Vector, having trouble with their usual sources. They’ll be happy to see me.”

I glanced over at Eon on the couch, and Maddox followed my gaze.

“It’ll be good to have her on the inside,” he mumbled, turning back to his tinkering.

“She’s not an asset, much as she acts like it. She’s not trained. Tex will be pissed if she gets herself killed over this.”

Maddox grunted.

I glared at him. “What? I’m not exactly excited to risk my life over this either.”

“Then don’t fuck it up.” He stood and stretched. “I’m going to bed. Don’t fuck on my couch.”

“Consummate professional!” I called after him. He didn’t turn around.

Eon was still typing away. It was well past midnight, and normally I’d crash out on Maddox’s couch—but that clearly wasn’t happening tonight. I grabbed another beer from the fridge.

I took the much less comfortable chair and watched her. She was in the zone, completely focused.

She was too damn comfortable.

Every time I thought I had her figured out, she pulled something like this—stretched out on Maddox’s couch like she belonged there, like she hadn’t just been forced into this job.

She should’ve been twitchy, resentful, making my life hell out of sheer spite.

But no. She just worked, enveloped in her stupid code, barely acknowledging me. Like I wasn’t even worth the effort.

It grated on me.

She was reckless, careless, a liability. She hadn’t earned her place in this. Hadn’t gone through the shit I had. I should’ve been dragging her kicking and screaming through this job—but here she was. Fingers dancing over her keyboard like she was untouchable.

And yet.

She didn’t hesitate. That’s what got me. I’d seen plenty of people crack when pushed—good people, tough people—but Eon? She just kept moving, kept finding angles, kept working the problem like she belonged in this world of killers and criminals.

I took a sip of beer and let my gaze linger on her.

Maybe she did.

The thought sat wrong with me, like a piece of glass under my skin.

I didn’t like the idea of her fitting into this world.

She was too sharp, too stubborn, too willing to burn herself out for people who’d just as easily toss her aside.

Maybe that’s what pissed me off the most. She was so used to being discarded, she didn’t even flinch anymore.

I exhaled through my nose and looked away. Not my problem.

A sudden breath from the couch pulled me back. Eon blinked, the glow of cyberspace still fading from her pupils as she came back to herself. She stretched, arching her back before dropping her arms over her head with a soft sigh.

“Done?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“For now.” She pulled off her headphones, letting them hang around her neck. “Just need to run a few tests. Make sure Maddox’s fancy toy doesn’t fry me in the field.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

She smirked, tilting her head toward me. “You watching me work, Cy? I should charge for that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just making sure you’re not screwing us over.”

“Please. If I wanted to screw you over, you’d never see it coming.”

“And what exactly is stopping you?”

At that, her smirk faded. “You’re blackmailing me, remember?”

“Right. Here I thought you just wanted Tex to praise you again.” That got her. She went red, and it was adorable seeing the blush underneath all those freckles.

“Guess we have a lot in common, then.” As always, she wasn’t wrong.

She shifted uncomfortably on the couch, and I knew she was about to run. But something was still nagging at me.

“When I was at Hellfire, Rook still had your digitals.” I saw it. She was damn good at hiding it, but every muscle in her body flinched just the tiniest bit at the mention of the club.

“You like what you saw?” she said with a wink. No. She wouldn’t distract me this time.

“Why does Rook still have you in virtual? You could’ve deleted that shit ages ago.”

“His security is top-notch,” she said, not meeting my eyes.

“That cheap yarou has high-end security software?”

“Of course he does. I wrote it.” That made even less fucking sense. She would’ve left herself a backdoor. Why hadn’t she purged her data? Hell, why hadn’t she taken down his entire fucking business? She saw the confusion on my face.

“Once a whore, always a whore, right? Deleting that doesn’t change what I was. What I did. Trust me, if I want to hide something, it stays hidden.” Her face was neutral, but her voice was tight. Self-inflicted punishment then. An open wound to remind herself of her weakness.

That, I could understand.

I rubbed my shoulder without thinking, and my left arm twitched erratically.

Her eyes locked onto it. “You’re having issues with your implants.” It wasn’t a question.

“Nothing I can’t handle. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

“I’ll worry whatever the fuck I want, thank you. You twitch like that when we’re down in the Den and I’m dead. Come here.”

Her hands were on me, pushing my Vysor up off my face as she tugged at the skin under my eye.

She was practically in my lap, leaning over me.

I felt her Flux pulse and my implant lit up, the soft blue glow flaring beneath my skin.

Just that ripple of her power had me almost undone, and I tried to push her away.

“Get off! What, you an expert in bioMods now too?”

She rolled her eyes. “Guess you didn’t notice that I worked in a mod shop while you were chasing me down, huh? Dev’s one of the best Modders in Neo Stellaris. I helped him enough to know what to look for.” She paused, biting her lip. “You were young enough to get the chip.” Not a question.

“Wasn’t exactly swimming in options. It was this or burn out trying to make it through puberty.”

She pulled her hand back, frowning now.

“So you damaged it and haven’t gone to your fancy doctors at POM. Why?” Finally, a question.

“Like I said, I can handle it. Don’t need a doctor poking around in me to tell me what I already know—which is that this tech is garbage and trying to remove it would probably kill me.”

“I can’t believe they put it in your face…” I didn’t like the look she was giving me. Like I was someone to be pitied. I grabbed her wrist as she reached out to touch me again.

“What, you saying I’m not pretty anymore?”

“Nah, whatever junkyard Modder you went to did decent. He might’ve helped you out, actually.” She smirked, and the sadness in her eyes washed away.

Good. I didn’t want her pity. I did like her looking at me, though.

“Doesn’t change the fact you’re glitching. And I’m not risking my life over your pride. Get that shit fixed, or the job’s off.”

“You don’t exactly have the leverage to make that call.”

“Watch me.” She walked out and flipped me off as she left.

I hadn’t been able to sleep and had wandered into HQ at an ungodly hour.

Now, I stood in the antiseptic white room, tapping my fingers against the metal table beside me.

The whole thing was designed to be comforting.

Soft white lighting, just a hint of pleasant music, everything so clean you were probably better off eating off the floor in here than at any Magenta food stall.

It set my teeth on edge, and my arm twitched harder than normal.

Why was I even here? Why was I listening to her, like she was the one who had leverage over me?

Fuck this. I pushed off the wall I’d been leaning against just as the door to the small room opened and the POM doc in his white coat walked through.

“Cyanos Hoshina, I see you’re experiencing some issues with your Flux tech.” He flicked his Vysor off, turning it transparent so he could get a good look at me. “Let’s have a look at that chip and get this figured out.”

“Sorry, Doc. No chip to speak of. You’re gonna need the heavy machinery today.” His eyes widened, running up and down my body in a way I wasn’t used to. Assessing—like I was a rat in a cage, some novel new experiment he got to tweak.

“Full-body mod tech… I’ve never—” He coughed, stopping himself. Not good to let the yarou you’re working on know you have no idea what you’re doing.

“Well, we’ll certainly figure this out. What are the symptoms?”

Full body pain. Trouble sleeping. Brain fog so bad I can’t work without Vector.

“Left arm’s been twitching, especially when I use my Flux.”

“Okay, can you walk through the Mercer Protocol for me?”

Baby stuff. I held my hands out before me, touching my thumb to each finger and lighting a spark in between.

No twitching. Then I held my arms out and sent lightning back and forth between my palms. I felt like an idiot—especially when my left arm twinged so badly the lighting missed and arced to a nearby electronics panel.

The doc flicked out a holographic keyboard and took notes. “Volatile unilateral instability, possible muscular adhesion.” He waved at me to keep going, and I did, like the good monkey I was.

After a few minutes of this, I was really starting the get agitated when he said, “All right, lay down on the table for me.”

My arm twitched again. I looked at that metal slab, and my stomach clenched in a way I never let it. It pissed me off even more. He was just some corpo doc. This was fucking POM medical. I had nothing to be worried about. Nothing.

“All right, Doc. Diagnose me.” I lay back on the cold table, the thin VegLeather pad on top doing absolutely nothing to soften the surface. The fluorescent light above blinded me, and my body seized as an unwelcome memory surfaced.

He’s awake. What the fuck?

It’s his Flux. I only work on pyroteknik kids. I can’t fucking compensate for this EM shit—it’s messing with the anesthesia.

Well, too late now. Hand me the saw.

The whirl of the blade had me snapping up off the table, grabbing the doc by the collar, lightning dancing over my skin. His face had blanched white.

“It’s just the diagnostic probe—it shouldn’t…”

I was panting, sweat clinging to my neck. The probe whirled in his hand, flashing soothing white and green lights. But as it spun, the sound was all too familiar, and I swore I could still feel the screws tearing through my bones.

“Fuck it, I’m out of here.”

I was fine. I didn’t need anyone fixing me. Eon was just going to have to deal.

I shoved the doc back until he stumbled, tripping over the backless stool behind him. I didn’t look back as the door slammed behind me.

Maddox looked me up and down as I stormed back to my desk. “You look like shit. What happened?”

It wasn’t just my left arm that was shaking now—I could feel the weakness in my legs too.

The weakness in my soul. I slammed myself down into my chair.

“It’s always, ‘You look like shit, Cy,’ never, ‘Good to see you, partner. Thanks for staying up with that annoying pain in the ass all night so we can get our bag, partner.’”

I spun away from Maddox and rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t get my brain to stop. With each flash of light, the Modder moved over me, scalpel in hand, cutting into my frozen body. I felt everything, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream.

I shoved it down. Don’t be fucking weak. Don’t be a goddamn yowamushi. Sparks snaked over my skin when Maddox’s hand landed on my shoulder.

“Hey, you been getting enough sleep? I know we’re on a timeline, but we can’t do this if you’re messed up.” I knew I’d shocked him, but he didn’t budge. His hand just squeezed tighter. “We’ve been partners a long time, Cy. I know the shit you’ve gone through.”

He didn’t know all of it—but I didn’t push his hand off, just leaned my head back so it rested against the top of my chair.

“Yeah, just a little on edge. Only got two weeks left and my girl, as you say, is being obstinate.”

“I think I know something that’ll get you back on track.” Maddox grinned, and then so did I.

“Aw shit, you got some minutes banked?” He nodded, and he was right. I felt better already.