The silence was a physical blow.
One moment, their world was a screaming symphony of roaring engines, screeching tires, and the deafening crack of Jinx's rifle.
The next, it was gone, replaced by the profound, tomb-like quiet of the space beneath the Williamsburg Bridge.
Jinx killed the engine, and the van's exhausted rattling died with a final, shuddering gasp.
The adrenaline, that glorious, fiery fuel that had burned away fear and pain, vanished with the silence.
It left behind a cold, gray ash of exhaustion, and in its absence, the body began to send its invoices.
The devil's toll had come due.
For Jinx, the pain arrived first.
It was a hot, sharp, insistent throbbing from her shoulder where the Phase Hound's metallic teeth had shredded her armor and torn into the flesh beneath.
The crude poultice she'd slapped on in the tunnels had long since been overwhelmed.
She peeled away the tattered, blood-soaked remains of her jacket, her face a stoic, grim mask, but Michael saw the sharp, involuntary wince she couldn't hide.
The wound was a nasty latticework of deep gashes, oozing dark blood onto the ripped fabric of her undershirt.
A trophy from a ghost.
Michael's pain was different.
It wasn't a clean, sharp wound.
It was a deeper, colder ache that settled in his bones, a phantom agony that emanated from the very core of his being.
It was the backlash from a power he had no business using, the spiritual hangover from mainlining the Void.
His HUD, a once-comforting presence, was now a harbinger of doom, its text a critical, pulsing red.
[VOID ENERGY: 2/125]
[WARNING: CRITICAL ENERGY DEPLETION DETECTED. PHYSICAL AND PSYCHIC STABILITY COMPROMISED.]
He leaned his head back against the seat, his body a dead weight, his mind a swamp of exhaustion and buzzing static.
The silver scar on his arm, the one from the Skitterer Queen's acid, was throbbing with a faint, dark light, a constant, physical reminder of the poison he had willingly welcomed into his system.
He was cold.
A deep, soul-chilling cold that had nothing to do with the damp night air.
He began to shiver, a tremor that started in his hands and spread through his entire body.
The whispers started again.
Faint, at first, like voices from a distant, badly-tuned radio, cutting through the static in his head.
They were the ghosts he had consumed, the echoes of dead monsters he now carried with him.
Inefficient, the Cable Hound's echo hissed, a cold, logical assessment of their current state.
Tactical retreat compromised by physical degradation.
Asset integrity is failing.
The package is secure, the Phase Hound's ghost added, its voice a phantom of programmed loyalty.
Primary objective complete.
Secondary objective: protect the Legacy Drive.
All other variables are expendable.
They were a low, constant hum in the back of his skull, a parasitic chorus singing a song of cold, hard logic.
Jinx rummaged in the medkit Chloe had provided—a sleek, military-grade case that was a world away from her own scavenged gear.
She pulled out a tube of antiseptic gel and a sterile bandage roll.
She worked on her own shoulder with a practiced, detached efficiency, her breath hissing out between clenched teeth as she cleaned the wound.
Her toughness wasn't an act.
It was a shield, a wall of pure grit forged in a fire he couldn't even begin to imagine.
She finished, her movements clipped and precise, then she turned to him.
Her eyes, which had been sharp and focused during the chase, were now wary.
The immediate, life-threatening danger was gone, and in its place, a different kind of fear had returned.
The fear of him.
She wasn't looking at her partner anymore.
She was looking at the strange, soul-eating weapon that sat shivering beside her.
"You good?" she asked.
The words were blunt, stripped of concern.
It was a tactical question, not a personal one.
She was checking the operational status of her most volatile asset.
"Peachy," he lied, the word a weak, pathetic puff of air.
He tried to force a sarcastic smile, but his lips felt numb.
"Just enjoying the five-star accommodations."
"The river view is to die for."
His attempt at humor fell flat, swallowed by the thick, tense silence in the van.
He was getting colder, the shivering more intense now.
The corruption was a fever in his soul, and it was making him paranoid.
He looked at Jinx, at her pale, grime-streaked face, at the way her hand rested casually on the grip of her pistol as she organized her medkit.
She is afraid of you, the whispers chorused in his mind.
Of course, she is.
This time, the voice was a perfect mimicry of Chloe's cold, analytical tone.
You are an unstable variable.
A risk to the mission's integrity.
Her emotional responses are inefficient, the Cable Hound's echo added, its logic sharp as a razor.
Her attachment to past trauma—the 'Rust Dogs'—makes her unpredictable.
A liability.
"Shut up," Michael whispered, the words a raw, desperate plea meant only for the ghosts in his head.
Jinx's head snapped up from her work, her eyes sharp and suspicious.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing," he said quickly, shaking his head as if to physically dislodge the voices.
"Just… thinking out loud."
"Long night."
She didn't believe him.
He could see it in her eyes, a new wall of suspicion rising between them, thick and cold and impenetrable.
The fragile, unspoken trust they had forged in the heat of combat was gone.
It had been devoured, along with the Phase Hound's soul.
He felt suffocated.
Trapped in the cramped van with her fear and his own internal demons.
He had to get out.
He needed air.
He fumbled with the door handle, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated.
He stumbled out of the van, his legs feeling like they were made of wet cement.
He leaned heavily against the cold, damp concrete of a massive bridge support pillar, the rough texture a grounding sensation against his back.
The rain had stopped, but the ground was a patchwork of shallow puddles, reflecting the distant, orange glow of the city lights like scattered, broken mirrors.
He looked down at his reflection in the nearest one.
He saw his own tired, pale face staring back at him.
He saw the dark circles under his eyes.
He saw the fear.
He saw the hunted, haunted look of a boy in way over his head.
Then, for a split second, just a single, horrifying, reality-bending heartbeat, his reflection changed.
His eyes.
They weren't his own.
The familiar color of his irises vanished, replaced by a cold, cybernetic, blue-white light.
They were empty.
Programmed.
Hungry.
It was the light from the Phase Hound's empty sockets.
He recoiled from the puddle as if he'd been shocked, scrambling back, his heart hammering in his chest.
He blinked, and his reflection was normal again.
But he had seen it.
The corruption wasn't just a number on a screen anymore.
It wasn't just a whisper in his head.
It was looking out through his eyes.
The monster he was fighting wasn't just in front of him anymore.
It was inside him.
And it was trying to get out.
Chloe's voice crackled to life in his comm, sharp and blessedly real, pulling him back from the edge.
"The van is compromised. You need to ditch it. Now."
"Rendezvous point is the old Fulton Ferry Terminal. End of Pier One."
"You have ten minutes."
Jinx was already out of the van, grabbing her rifle and her pack. She didn't look at him. She just nodded towards the dark, looming shape of the bridge.
"You heard the scary robot lady," she grunted. "Let's move."
The walk was a silent, tense affair.
They moved through the shadows, two ghosts haunted by their own private demons. Jinx was a coiled spring of paranoia, her head on a constant swivel, her hand never straying far from her weapon. Michael just focused on putting one foot in front of the other, fighting a desperate, internal battle against the rising tide of whispers and the chilling memory of his own reflection.
The ferry terminal was a skeletal wreck, a ghost of a bygone era.
The fog rolling in off the East River was thick and wet, muffling all sound, turning the distant lights of Manhattan into blurry, watercolor smudges.
It felt like walking into the damp, open maw of some great, sleeping beast.
"This feels like a trap," Michael muttered, his breath fogging in the air.
"Everything feels like a trap," Jinx retorted, her voice a low whisper. "That's how you stay alive."
They reached the end of the pier.
It was deserted.
The black, oily water of the river lapped softly against the rotting wooden pylons below.
The silence was absolute.
The minutes ticked by, each one stretching into an eternity.
One minute.
Two.
Five.
"I don't like this," Jinx said, her voice tight. "This is too quiet. Too exposed."
"Maybe she was lying," Michael suggested. "Maybe this was just a nice, scenic spot for the DGC to corner us and turn us into a modern art installation."
Just as the words left his mouth, a sound cut through the fog.
A single, soft footstep on the weathered wooden planks.
They both froze, spinning around, weapons half-drawn.
At the far end of the pier, a figure was emerging from the thick, gray curtain of fog.
It was just a silhouette at first.
Tall.
Sharp.
Moving with a calm, deliberate confidence that was utterly out of place in this world of frantic survival.
The figure walked closer, its form slowly resolving out of the mist.
It was a woman.
Dressed in clean, dark, functional tactical gear that looked like it had been tailored, not scavenged.
Her face was a mask of cool, professional composure, her expression unreadable.
She stopped about twenty feet away from them, her hands empty, her posture relaxed but radiating an aura of absolute, unshakable control.
It could be a DGC commander.
It could be one of Gideon's top assassins.
It could be the devil herself, come to collect her due.
Jinx's hand tightened on her pistol, her thumb finding the safety.
Michael felt his own meager reserves of Void Energy hum nervously.
The woman just stood there, watching them, her gaze sharp and analytical, like a scientist observing two particularly interesting insects.
Friend?
Or foe?