The synth-paper's screen dimmed as it hit the floor. The name faded but not before he saw it again. CR-05. That wasn't just a designation. It was a memory he didn't own but wore like a scar under the skin. She knew it. She had to. No outsider called it that.
He picked up the square, folded it once, and slid it into the lining of his shorts. No questions, no answers. Just movement. He dropped from the broken viewing grate like a shadow uncoiling.
She didn't follow.
The hallway was silent this late. Most of the other fighters were either unconscious or dead. The ones who weren't kept their eyes down, nursing broken jaws and fever dreams. He walked barefoot. The floor buzzed with low-voltage tremors, some generator chewing its own wires somewhere beneath them. Kajlamas vibrated when you listened close enough. Not like a city, but like a dying thing trying to hum a memory of life.
He passed the medic's room. The door was half open, a single yellow bulb inside swinging on its chain. Blood bags hung from the ceiling on meat hooks. Some full. Some near empty. The medic a tall, bald man with tattoos under his eyes was suturing a fighter's thigh with a sharpened piece of wire and chewing kolla leaves at the same time. He looked up as Gray passed.
"Didn't kill the last one. People noticed."
Gray paused.
The medic squinted. "Don't start growing a conscience. Not here."
He kept walking. The stench of antiseptic and human rot faded by the time he reached the central ring's side corridor, where fighters were summoned and payments delivered. Two guards stood by the payout cage, laughing over a dead rat twitching with stim withdrawal. One of them kicked it into the vent. The other leaned on his rifle, scratched under his chin with the muzzle.
"Ghost coming," said the first.
The second looked over and spat sideways. "Finally. Syndicate was pissed about last match."
He stepped up to the steel counter, said nothing.
A woman sat behind the wire mesh. Hardened face. Burn scars under one eye. She didn't ask for ID. Just tapped a data slate, scanned his retinas, then shoved a chipped credstick through the slot.
"Two-point-four," she said. "Should've been four-point-zero, but you pulled punches."
He took it. She tapped again.
"Fight orders. One day rest. New match tomorrow. Prime slot. VIP eyes. Full-room broadcast."
He didn't nod. Didn't even blink. Just turned.
As he walked away, she added, "Don't screw it up. They want blood this time."
The door closed behind him with a sharp mechanical lock.
He walked until he reached the showers piss-warm water falling through rusted grates. He stripped without ceremony. His torso was a map of violence. Pale skin over taut muscle, thin but corded like cable. Scars ran from shoulder to hip, many overlapping. His right arm bore the faded trace of a brand. Circular. Almost erased. He didn't look at it long.
He stepped into the stream. Let it run.
Water stung over split knuckles and the healing cut on his lower lip. He didn't flinch. Closed his eyes. Listened to the water. Then the sound behind it. The arena above, vibrating. The city's veins humming.
Kajlamas breathed.
And somewhere in that breath, something was changing.
When he dressed again, he wrapped his hands in cloth torn from an old banner used in the upper-ring sponsor vaults. It still smelled of burnt plastic and synth-perfume. He preferred that to the sterile wrap the medics offered. The cloth was worn, but it didn't slip. He tied it in silence.
On his way back to the fighter's quarters, a man stopped him.
Big, steroid-puffed, sweat gleaming on shaved skin. Gold teeth. Old bruises. His name was Rezz. Fought three years back. Retired into muscle work.
"They upped the bounty," he said without preamble. "Heard it myself. One of the VIPs from tower floor sixteen. Called you a 'ghost that forgot to die.'"
Gray stood still.
"You know what that means?" Rezz asked.
He didn't answer.
Rezz chuckled. "Means they're bringing in someone clean. Imported. Tower-trained. One of theirs."
Still, nothing.
"You better start killing again," Rezz said. "Or next time you crawl back here, you won't have feet."
Gray turned his head. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough that Rezz felt the silence press in on him like weight.
Then he walked past.
Back in the corridor, the girl was waiting again. This time by his cot.
She hadn't sat. Just stood. Shoulders tight. Left hand tapping something invisible against her thigh. A stim twitch, or maybe just nerves.
"You didn't ask who I am," she said.
"You're not dead," he said.
Her eyebrows twitched. "Not yet."
"What do you want?"
She took a moment. Then said, "Information. You were tagged Ertelyom. Same tag my brother had. He went missing seven years ago. Expedition to CrimsonRay. I want to know what happened."
Gray said nothing.
"I have data. Logs. Deep files. Syndicate remnant folders. You help me break the code, I help you figure out who just bought your bounty."
Still nothing.
She stepped closer. "You'll be dead in two nights if you go in blind."
Silence again.
Then, finally, a shift in his stance.
"I don't do teams."
She stared.
He added, "I do survival."
She gave a dry smile. "Then we have the same religion."
She left a shard-drive on the cot. "You'll want what's in there. Fight's tomorrow. If you're still breathing after, find me in the north filtration stacks."
She walked off.
He didn't pick up the drive.
Not yet.
Instead, he sat.
Closed his eyes.
And remembered something that shouldn't have survived this long.
Cold. Red wind. A voice yelling his number. And the sound of something not human screaming in the snow.