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CY

I clawed my way back to consciousness through a haze of system warnings:

“Pain receptors overloaded. Flux regulation compromised. Skeletal integrity at seventy-three percent. Critical repair cycle needed.”

I ignored them all.

My body lay sprawled across broken debris, the jagged edges of metal and concrete digging into my back. Above me, through the hole I’d fallen through, red emergency lights pulsed in irregular patterns.

“Cy! Fuck, man—you alive?”

Maddox’s voice cut through the fog, echoing through my skull from my helmet.

“Define alive,” I croaked, pushing myself up on my elbows. My implants screamed in protest.

“Beta squads are here,” Maddox said. “Full tactical deployment.”

I managed to haul myself to my feet. The room tilted dangerously before stabilizing. “How many?”

“Two squads. Moving toward the Stellarium junction on B3. The fuck happened?”

I could still taste her on my lips, still feel the ghost of her electromagnetic field synchronizing with mine.

“Had a little chat with our cyberrunner friend,” I muttered, rolling my shoulders to assess the damage. “She’s gotten stronger.”

Maddox snorted. “No shit. You never did understand what talking to a girl meant.”

I checked my sidearm—still functional—and deployed my mask to full coverage. The internal display flickered to life, showing multiple system failures throughout the building.

“Where is she now?” Maddox asked.

“Headed down, toward the junction. Same as beta squad.”

Maddox grunted. “Don’t have much time then.”

I triggered a dose of Vector, and the pain receded to a manageable throb. I’d pay for it later, but for now, I could function.

I descended carefully, my progress hindered by the increasing instability. Through gaps in the walls, I saw Stellarium pipes pulsing with an intensity I’d never witnessed—the magenta glow almost blinding, pressure visibly building within their translucent casings.

“This place is gonna blow,” Maddox observed grimly. “Whatever they’re doing, it’s pushing the system past its limits.”

I nodded, my mind racing. Eon wouldn’t willingly participate in mass destruction.

She wasn’t like that, way too fucking soft.

The only person she ever hurt was me, and that was because she knew I could handle it.

I’d seen her face when confronted with violence—she feared her own capacity for it.

Someone was using her. Manipulating her.

I reached B2 when I heard a voice echoing from a maintenance corridor. A voice that struck a chord in my memory.

That rebel bitch.

She was arguing with someone over comms, her voice strained with panic. “—told you, it’s destabilizing too fast! We need to send out a warning now—”

She paused, listening to whoever was on the other end.

“That wasn’t the plan! We came for the data! I never agreed to level the district!”

I stepped into view, my sidearm raised. “Plans change.”

She spun, eyes widening. A small pulse pistol appeared in her hand, but I was already moving. My Flux surged, overriding her weapon’s circuits before she could fire. The gun sparked uselessly, and she dropped it with a yelp.

“Where is she?” I demanded, closing the distance between us.

“Who?” Taos backed away, hitting the wall behind her.

“Don’t play dumb. Where’s Eon?”

Recognition flickered in her eyes, followed by defiance. “Why? So you can drag her back to POM? Make her another one of your experiments?”

I pressed my forearm against her throat, just hard enough to make breathing difficult. “What experiments?”

“Like you don’t know.” She struggled against my grip, but it was weak. “The Flux labs. The vessel program. All the bioengineering POM’s been doing. I saw all the hidden data. That’s why you want her, isn’t it?”

Vessel program. The same term the Church used. But inside POM? What the fuck was going on?

“Talk.” I growled, easing the pressure on her throat just enough.

Taos’ eyes darted to the side, calculating her chances. I let my Flux rise, dancing visibly across my skin—a reminder.

“We came here to expose it. Leak the data on the experiments. I didn’t know…

the code I’ve been working on is almost exactly the same.

But they’re talking about ripping people out of their bodies, using the flesh for whatever they want.

It doesn’t work long term. Our brains break down.

Flux makes you more compatible, but it’s not enough. But Eon…”

I pressed harder. “What about Eon?”

Taos coughed, tears welling in her eyes. “They’ve been tracking her. Now she’s down there, and I can’t—”

I released her and stepped back. The implant above my eye pulsed—schematics flashing across my display, identifying the fastest route to the junction. Time was running out.

“Get the fuck out of here. I’ll get her.”

Taos stared at me. “What?”

“You heard me. Emergency exit’s down that corridor, third door on the right. Go. Now.”

She hesitated, disbelief written across her face. “Why would you—”

“It doesn’t fucking matter why,” I snapped. “Now move.”

Self-preservation didn’t take long to kick in, and she ran for the door.

Then the door ahead of her swung open. Maddox’s huge frame filled the entryway. Before I could say a word, the air pressure shifted.

Taos fell to her knees as the air was ripped from her lungs. She choked, clawing at nothing until her eyes rolled back and she passed out.

“Finally found you. You okay, man?” I barely heard Maddox as he stepped over the body toward me, his face twisted with concern at the way I was just fucking standing there like an idiot.

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ fine. Let’s go.” I pulled my gun back out and cocked it, chambering a round.

Maddox leaned down and threw Taos over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“What are you doing?”

“Orders are that all viable insurgents are to be brought to B3.” He shifted her weight, stabilizing himself.

Why the fuck would we do that? And who had been tracking Eon? I was alpha clearance, I should have known about a mission like that. Something was wrong, but all my thoughts were on getting to her.

The path to the junction was eerily quiet, the usual hum of server operations replaced by the irregular pulse of overtaxed systems. The air grew thicker as we descended, charged particles dancing visibly in the emergency lighting.

“Cy,” Maddox said as we paused at a security checkpoint, its systems long dead, “what exactly is the game plan?”

I didn’t look at him, focusing instead on bypassing the lock manually. “Getting to Eon.”

“And then what?” His tone was careful, neutral. “You bringing her in, or…”

The lock clicked open, and I finally met his gaze. “I’m not letting POM have her.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes, and Taos nearly slipped out of his grip. “That’s treason.”

“Probably.” I held my weapon close. I hoped he wouldn’t make me use it. He was a good partner.

He was silent for a long moment, weighing something in his mind. Then he checked his weapon, his expression hardening into resolve. “Then I guess we’re both fucked.”

I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I needed Maddox on my side. A partner, when everything else was crumbling.

“Just like that?”

He nodded. “Partners have each other’s backs. Even when one is a complete dumbass. Try not to get us killed. Mercedes and I have a date.”

“Women, huh?”

We moved deeper into the complex, the building’s infrastructural integrity deteriorating with each passing minute. My helmet showed heat signatures ahead—the distinctive pattern of the beta squad, and beneath that, something familiar. Something that called to me like a beacon.

Eon.

She was alive, but her signal was weak. Whatever was happening down there, I needed to reach her before it was too late.

I pushed forward, my awareness narrowing to a single purpose: find her, protect her, get her out. Everything else—my loyalty to POM, my years of service, the pain of my implants—faded to background noise.

For the first time in my life, electricity flowed through me not as a weapon or tool, but as pure intent. As I descended toward the junction where everything would converge, I finally understood what had drawn me to Eon from the beginning.

In a world of ironclad control and engineered compliance, we were the same kind of glitch—unpredictable variables in a system that couldn’t account for what happens when two opposing frequencies find their perfect resonance.